What I Tell You In the Dark (6 page)

Help!

It's such a violent shock that I think I may have actually shouted this word – its echo is still rattling in the corners of the room. The barmaid, unnoticed by me, had snuck to the table next to mine and snapped down her can of polish with a resounding crack.

‘You can't sleep here, babe,' she announces, then squirts the table a couple of times, wipes it and moves on.

My heart is beating up in my throat, like it's some creature I'm trying to swallow. I lever myself up on the back of a nearby chair and teeter away to the dimly lit bathroom.

It takes a while before I'm ready to come out again. When I do, there is a man standing next to the dust-thick curtains on the far side of the bar, staring up at the sky. When he sees me emerge, he stares at me instead. He is in his mid-fifties, I would say, about a head smaller than me – he would appear to be another local. The barmaid seems to know him.

I nod in greeting, trying not to look like I've just been resting my head against the greasy tiles in the toilets. I go to smooth my hair with my hand then I remember that Will's hair is clippered down to a stubble. I give it a pensive rub instead.

He is still staring at me. Partly as a way of turning my back on him and partly because, hey, this is my chance to live a little, I go to the bar and order another a drink. A brandy this time. But when I hand over the money, the barmaid doesn't see it. She's looking over my shoulder.

‘Simon,' she says, ‘you're not going to start getting all arsey, are you? You know we don't put up with that nonsense in here.'

I follow the direction of her gaze. I see what she means. The starey one – Simon, apparently – is standing at my table and is now eyeballing us with what can only be described as a murderous expression. His whole body is trembling with rage. Eyes as lamps of fire, is how we might have phrased it way back when. Countenance like thunder.

He barks something at me, which at first I don't understand, and which is so sudden and guttural it actually elicits a small grunt of surprise from one of the morning drinkers (both of whom, by the way, have now bothered to look at me, and at Simon – they're not fans). The barmaid hops back a half step. He does it again, a little louder, and this time she squeaks in alarm.

‘What the shit is that?' asks one of the alcoholics.

‘Don't worry,' I tell them. ‘It's okay.' I knock back my brandy in one swill. ‘It's okay,' I say again.

I see what's happened here. It took me a couple of seconds but I'm there now. Those noises he's making are in fact words, just not ones you'd expect to hear in this day and age.

I reply to him in kind as I walk towards him. The Aramaic feels alien, unwrought, like pebbles grinding together in my mouth.
Calm down
, is what I'm saying to him.
Sit down and calm down
.

He needs a little more persuading. His entire body has gone rigid. His eyes look like they are being forced out of his head.

‘She,' I nod my head in the direction of the cowering barmaid, ‘is going to call the police if you carry on like this.' But there isn't a word for police, as such, so I have to say
dayan
– judge. This threatens to make him even angrier (he thinks I'm referring to Him) so I just say it in English: ‘Police.'

‘Do you want her to call the police?' I tack on, partly for emphasis, partly for the others' sake – it's important they see I'm getting things in hand.

He fixes them with another of his radioactive stares, then slowly, stiffly, he sits down. His hands are unnaturally planted on his knees, his head completely still. When he looks back at me I have to force myself to hold his gaze, the sheer tonnage of his disdain is so immense.

‘Wherefore art thou here?' He demands to know, albeit not as quietly as I'd like. But at least he's speaking English now, kind of. ‘Dost thou forget He forbad it?'

Listen to him: wherefore; forbad. Fusty old fool. I can't stand this lot, with their superior ways. It's perfectly obvious he hasn't the slightest interest in your world – he hasn't been watching you, sucking it all up like I have. He's just pushed in now because I'm here, and everyone knows I shouldn't be. That's all it is. He doesn't care why I'm here, or what troubles could be in store for you. He just cares that I've broken The Rules. And he's exactly the type I'd expect to come and speak to me about it – from the upper reaches, one of His inner circle – a starchy bureaucrat with all the trimmings. As far as he's concerned, our Lord and Master could not have been clearer: no more jumping in for me, ever. And I've chosen to flout that direct order – it's little wonder he's in such a state. He's virtually oscillating in his seat.

‘Yeah well, sorry, but it had to be done.'

He cocks his ear towards me. Not sarcastically – I genuinely believe he thinks might have misheard me.

‘I
had
to do it,' I tell him again. ‘I've discovered something – something important.'

What little composure he had burns off in another flash of righteous anger. He's standing again, the chair upturned beside him.

‘Only He shall determine consequence!' he bellows at me.

The barmaid disappears out the back. Now the police really will be on their way. Or worse, some guy with a bat. I need to make this quick.

‘Listen – you
have
to listen to me. I need you to explain this to Him: you tell Him –'

He holds up a silencing hand. It's a jerky movement, sudden but mechanical – the body control is virtually nil in these situations (this is not a jump-in, you understand: these types don't do that, far too grubby for them, they just push through to say their piece, then they're gone again).

‘Mankind hast paid for thy foolishness once before,' he thunders. ‘It shall not be repeated.' Simon's face is contorting under the pressure. It's like the bones are moving around in there.

‘Look,' I hiss at him, ‘I don't need you to lecture me about the past. Okay? I'm well aware of what's happened. What I'm trying to tell you is I've seen a chance to change things – to make good on all that. It's different this time. I can see what needs to be done.'

He's looking at the glass on the table like it's a potential weapon. He's thinking about smashing it and thrusting its jagged edge into my throat.

‘I will not,' I tell him, ‘be forced to live under the shadow of that mistake forevermore. You understand? I
am
worth something. I don't care what you people …'

I choke the last few words. I'm getting a bit upset.

His expression has changed to one of sneering contempt.

‘Thou art weak and wretched,' he whispers.

Then slowly, intimately, he begins to smile, which feels far more threatening than the shouting.

Still whispering, but reverting to Aramaic, keeping it between us, he asks, ‘You do know what will happen, don't you?'

I wipe my nose and cheeks with the back of my hand. I do my best to appear unconcerned.

‘He will do it. You know He will.' That hating smile, sharpening the words like a lathe. ‘You will be cast out.'

Cast out,
garash
, that phrase in particular, he works into me like a stiletto.

In as calm a voice as I can muster, I say to him, ‘You just tell Him what you have heard. You tell Him I'm making amends.'

One last look, then he releases a wordless sound and Simon is left to collapse down into his seat, a puppet whose strings have been cut.

Slowly the bewildered Simon begins to stir. ‘I feel … I don't …' His pale face is shining with sweat.

I have a quick check to see what the others are doing. The two drunks are still watching us in appalled fascination. No sign of the barmaid, though.

‘I need to get out of here,' I tell him, not giving him a chance to process what's just happened. Not, of course, that he'd be able to – in a few seconds he'll have no recollection of it. He has more chance of holding on to the gravity that transfixes him to the earth.

‘I must have eaten something …' he says weakly as I head for the door.

See what I mean?

I go stomping off in the general direction of Natalie's office. I'm trying hard not to think about that vicious old prig and all his threats and his bluster. But the truth is it's rattled me – the way I started blubbing, more than anything, as if deep down I agree with him, that I've lost my right to an opinion, that I'm never again to be trusted with anything.

I swing my foot at a can and send it whizzing into the road. A man on a bike looks up to say something to me, sees my face, then decides against it.

‘Woe betide you if you ever make a mistake,' I tell a gaggle of school kids. ‘It'll never be forgotten.'

When I'm about ten paces past them they erupt into fits of laughter. Mockery wherever I go.

By the time I'm coming down on to York Way, I've calmed down enough to think about making a phone call. Near the overpass, I stop and find a step to sit on, with a view of the weed-sprouted railway sidings. I get out Will's phone and give
NS Mob
another try.

This time it's picked up on the second ring.

‘Will?'

I'm silent for a second. It seems an odd thing to ask. Then I remember that that's my name now.

‘Hi, sorry – yes, it's Will,' I confirm. ‘I tried you earlier.'

‘Yes, I know, I got your message – I'm on my way to you now. I should be there in a couple of minutes.'

‘No, don't go there!' It comes out crazy and loud. She goes all quiet on the other end. ‘Sorry, Natalie – didn't mean to shout there. I'm having a very stressful day,' I put some of that smiling at my own silliness type of sound into my voice (like a half-sigh but with a wider mouth and a slightly higher register). ‘What I
meant
to say was I'm not at The Lamb anymore, I'm right near your office. I was actually on my way to you.'

‘Okay sure, no problem.' Clearly I'm free to sound as loud and crazy as I want – Will is a once in a lifetime source and she'll take him however he comes. ‘So where are you?'

I look up from the patch of ground I've been studying, where a hairline fault in the tarmac is running at a seventy-eight degree angle to the kerb. (I've been having to focus pretty hard to block out some of the taunts that have been jostling for my attention. One, in particular – two slowly dispersing vapour trails crossed high up in the sky – is still determinedly hanging there.)

‘I'm right next to where the road crosses the railway lines, down the side of King's Cross Station.'

Ha! I hadn't noticed that part before I just said it – not only is it the King's cross but it also manages to get station in there too. A station of the cross. Oh bravo!

‘I think I see you – sitting on the pavement.'

I get up and peer into the distance. There she is, holding up a hand.

‘Hang on,' she says, ‘I'll be with you in two secs.'

I spend that time smoothing down Will's suit jacket and brushing the dirt off the knees of his trousers, or trying to brush it off anyway – whatever it is, it's not budging. Must have knelt in something.

When she arrives we shake hands. There is a tiny, almost imperceptible scar on her left wrist.

‘Sorry about all the drama. As I said, it's been a strange morning. Things at work are …' I shrug –
what can I say?

‘I can imagine.' When she smiles her whole face smiles with her, if you know what I mean.

She is completely different in the flesh. Her eyes, for example, are the colour of honey – I hadn't noticed that when I was watching. Not the honey you get in a jar, but the kind that Ovid described to you, oozing from the black oak. The luminous kind.

‘So …' I go rummaging in my pocket and produce the memory stick between thumb and forefinger ‘… I have something for you.'

‘Thanks.' She takes it and immediately pops it into her bag. ‘What's on it? More about InviraCorp?'

‘Is there somewhere we can talk?'

‘Yes, of course – we can go to my office. There's a café there, we can grab a –'

‘Actually, no.' I suddenly feel very uncomfortable at the thought of being cooped up inside again. I think I'd rather stay
out here in the open. ‘Do you mind if we just walk? We can walk and talk.'

‘No problem – whatever you feel most comfortable with.'

I wonder how often she finds herself in these kinds of situations. She seems very relaxed.

‘Let's head up that way,' she tosses her head back slightly, meaning
behind us
. ‘We can get down to the canal. The towpath goes all the way to Camden.'

Walking next to her I find myself thinking about my darling Maryam. I don't know why – they look nothing alike, there's none of that dusk in Natalie's skin. Maybe it's just the sense of having an ally, a soft womanly companion who will bear witness to my suffering.

‘It must be difficult for you,' she says, right on cue. She is looking past me, at the slow trains approaching and cautiously departing the station. ‘But you're doing the right thing.'

Actually, I think it's the way she
sounds
– or the way she's saying what she's saying, if that makes sense. It carries the tiniest echo of my little Magpie.
You are my lamp
. How I remember the way she pronounced that word,
noohra
, lamp. And now this woman's words are running into me the same way, that same cool stream into the darkness of me. It really does show, though, just how much you miss when you're only watching. I'd never have been able to pick up on something like this just by looking on – things have an antiseptic quality to them when you're off site, as it were. It's like looking at a photograph. No, actually, not like a photograph – it's like the world's coming at you through an old television set or a … You know what? It's not really like anything. I guess that's the point.