Thieving Fear Part 17

She saw her hand jerk nervously, and tried not to think that she saw it wobble like a jellyfish stranded on the beach of the desk. She fumbled the mobile out of her pocket and poked a key with a blundering thumb as she lifted her hand almost close enough to touch her pulpy cheek. 'Ellen?' Hugh said.

'I'm afraid so.' She hoped he hadn't caught that a she didn't want to have to explain a and so she added 'Are you checking up on me?'

'Why, do I need to? What's wrong?'

'I meant are you checking to see if I've found out anything about the person you mentioned who used to live where we were talking about.'

What had happened to her language? She was sidling around the subject without understanding why. As she gazed at the screen she was close to fancying that the information below the edge was about to inch into view a that it was determined not to stay buried. Hugh didn't help by mumbling 'Have you?'

Ellen had the odd impression that he would prefer not to know, unless he hoped for a negative answer. A faint tremor rose through the lines on the monitor, as if the text were about to take on more life. As she reached to quell it with a fat hand at the end of an arm that was surely not as plump, she was suddenly afraid that her pudgy clutch would dislodge the lurking words from their den. She closed her eyes while she admitted 'I'm just starting.'

'Leave it alone for a minute, can you?'

Ellen risked slitting her eyes and saw that the upper half of the rest of the sentence had crept into view.

. . . would have the worst she couldn't avoid glimpsing before she clicked the mouse to close the page. She wanted to blame Hugh for her nervousness, and wished she didn't have to ask 'Why?'

'It wasn't what I rang about. It's Rory.'

'Has he got you acting as his secretary now? Go on then, put him on.'

She was so concerned to shut down the computer, if only since it was a distraction, that she didn't immediately notice Hugh's pause. 'I can't,' he said.

'Don't tell me he wants you to do his talking for him as well.' As the screen turned black, exhibiting her pale blob of a face, Ellen raised her voice in case she could be overheard. 'He's good enough at talking to my editors about me when I didn't ask him to. Is he sorry now he did? He ought to tell me to, well, he can't to my face, but he ought to tell me himself.'

'It isn't that,' Hugh protested in something like anguish. 'I said I'd tell you about him.'

'When did you say that?'

'When I spoke to Charlotte.'

Ellen couldn't help growing resentful, however prematurely. 'You were speaking to her about . . .'

'What've we been talking about? My brother. Why are you making this harder for me?'

'I'm sure I wasn't aware that I was.'

'Ellen, I'm sorry. It's not your fault, it's mine.' Hugh swallowed hard enough to be audible and said 'I phoned him when he was coming to see me and he was in a crash.'

Hugh couldn't feel guiltier than Ellen immediately did for having a.s.sumed the subject was her book. She stared in renewed loathing at her blurred pallid swollen face and wondered how much it was puffed up with self-absorption. She saw a hole open in it as she set about asking 'How bad?'

'Bad.'

The hole closed, and she felt her thickened lips quiver like gelatin as they rubbed together. They parted with an unpleasant sticky sound as a preamble to saying 'Just tell me, Hugh.'

'He's not dead.'

Eventually she had to ask 'What is he?'

'Unconscious. Maybe in a coma.'

Ellen unstuck her lips again, and so did the oversized blob. 'Apart from that . . .'

'I don't know. I haven't been yet. I've only just rung the hospital.'

'When will you be going?'

'Soon as I can. Charlotte's coming tomorrow.'

From his tone Ellen could have a.s.sumed the events were directly connected. 'She's staying over,' he added on the way to blurting 'You can too if you like.'

Why should a family reunion make Ellen apprehensive? She could only blame Hugh's feelings about her, but she would have to cope with those for Rory's sake. 'I'll see you then,' she said. 'I'll ring to say what time. Are you meeting people at the station?'

'I might have to stay here. Get a cab if you don't fancy walking up.'

'Which way is it? How far?'

Hugh was silent long enough that she thought he was preparing to say more than 'You're best getting a cab.'

How could he have experienced a vision of her plodding uphill to his house, the noisome sweaty ma.s.s of her quaking from head to foot with every step? As she struggled to expel it from her mind she managed to say 'Try not to blame yourself, all right? Rory needn't have answered while he was driving. He ought to have switched his phone off.'

'I shouldn't have asked him to come.'

'Don't brood, Hugh. We'll all be together again soon,' Ellen said, which ended the call, or silence did.

Staring at her undefinable reflection didn't help her take her own advice, but she wasn't anxious to return to Mumbo Jumbjoe or visit any of the other sites. She pushed her chair back and stood up, and the girl on the balcony turned her head. She'd donned sungla.s.ses, which obscured whether she was gazing at Ellen with sympathy far too close to dismay if not bordering on revulsion. All at once Ellen felt sick and headed for the bathroom.

Rory's portraits flanked her as she hurried down the hall. She could have thought her own painted eyes were foreseeing her present state and concealing their distress. She shoved the bathroom door open, and then she recoiled. One glimpse in the mirror, not even of her entire shape, was enough. She grabbed her portrait from its hook and carried it in front of her face to the mirror. It was almost exactly as wide as the protruding plastic frame, and so tall that she couldn't see her reflection over it once she slammed it into place. She hadn't glimpsed herself again, let alone anybody else. n.o.body a good deal more than sufficiently thin to hide behind her had dodged out of sight, as she confirmed by twisting her head around so hard her neck ached. Perhaps she wasn't going to be sick after all, though she felt worse than queasy as her distended hands splashed cold water on her clammy face. She might have to deal with worse than nausea. When she recalled the veiled gaze of the girl on the balcony, she wondered how she would be able to bear stepping outside the door.

NINETEEN.

'Is Charlotte in there?' Catching sight of her at the back of the lift, Glen waved a handful of papers. 'Pa.s.s these to her,' he said and called 'They're for your cousin.' Someone in the front rank that was pressing everybody else towards the walls accepted the doc.u.ments, and as the doors struggled together against the ma.s.s of bodies Glen's attention drifted left of Charlotte. His eyes widened, and he reached out as if he wished he could rescue her from the crowd. Then the doors shut, though only just, and the cage packed with bodies set about ascending, so sluggishly that she could have imagined it was being dragged down and in danger of sinking into the earth. People were relaying the papers to her over their shoulders, since there wasn't s.p.a.ce for them to turn around. Were there three pages or four? As they arrived beside her she saw they were bordered in black. She was about to take them when the person whose bones were digging into her left side did, and she noticed that his hand was covered more with soil than flesh.

She couldn't retreat even an inch. She could only watch as he transferred the papers to his other shrivelled hand so as to grasp her face and twist it towards him. When her eyes strained to look away he released her and gestured at the doors, scattering earth like black dandruff on the shoulders of the woman in front of him. The lift shuddered to a halt and the doors staggered apart. For a breath, if she had been able to draw one, Charlotte thought only darkness was waiting beyond them. Then earth piled in, flinging everyone helplessly together on the way to filling her eyes and nose and mouth. Her companion seemed quite at home in it, because his fingers wriggled wormlike through it to fasten on her hand and pull her deeper into the suffocating dark.

She fought to cry out, but her mouth was gagged with earth. She strove to free herself from the scrawny clutch, but she was pinioned by bodies that had ceased to move and the one that should have. She tried to suck in a breath, but it consisted of earth too. Was she dreaming out of utter desperation that she'd managed to produce a sound? It was feeble and flattened, m.u.f.fled by distance or worse. Nevertheless it seemed to travel past the blackness, and she put all her dwindling energy into repeating it. This time it succeeded in wakening her, and she threw out her hand to rid it of the sensation of being held. It collided with a barrier in front of her at considerably less than arm's length.

There was nothing like that so near her bed, and certainly no wall. She wasn't in her flat; she wasn't even on the roof. She'd thought spending the night on the padded sunlounger would rid her of the sense of being shut in before she had to travel to Hugh's a her four rooms had never seemed so oppressively small and dim, or even slightly until last night a but she hadn't slept much. She'd kept being wakened by a smell of earth and having to remind herself that it belonged to the plant-pots by the lounger. Each time she'd opened her eyes the night sky had looked far too close, a black lid above her face. Once it had grown lighter she'd managed to doze fitfully, and then it had been time to get ready to leave. Nothing had relieved the claustrophobia that felt as if her surroundings were smaller than her head: not showering in the gla.s.s cell of the bathroom cubicle rendered nearly opaque by steam, nor walking down the narrow street overshadowed by tenements to the main road that might have seemed wider without the traders' stalls and the crowds around them, nor the bus crammed with shoppers, nor the mult.i.tude of Sat.u.r.day commuters at Kings Cross. As for the train to Yorks.h.i.+re, it consisted of just two carriages for a journey of over two hours. Her seat and the one in front trapped her in a s.p.a.ce so restricted that she had to slant her knees towards the window in order to press them together. She was further pinned by the side of the carriage and by her neighbour in the aisle seat, who must have been startled by Charlotte's nightmare cry. Charlotte opened her aching eyes and turned to make some apology, but the seat was unoccupied.

It was the only empty one in sight. When had her skinny neighbour deserted it? As soon as she was seated Charlotte had closed her eyes in an attempt to ignore the lack of s.p.a.ce, and so she hadn't observed her seatmate, she had only felt the gaunt shape settle next to her. They must have been so eager to descend that they'd advanced into the foremost carriage as a station closed around the train. It was Leeds, where Charlotte had to change.

None of the disembarking pa.s.sengers looked particularly thin, but locating her next train was surely more important. As she hurried to the nearest monitor a faint quake rose through the display, bone-white letters on a background black as earth. A train to Huddersfield was leaving platform thirteen in three minutes. Charlotte sprinted up an escalator towards the expansively arched roof and along a wide corridor with a view across the city to the moors. Despite the s.p.a.ciousness, she felt as if her nightmare were still cramping her mind as she dashed down a second escalator to her train.

Was she the solitary pa.s.senger? The nearest carriage was deserted. Half the seats faced forwards, to be confronted across the midpoint of the carriage by their twins. Charlotte sat there to take advantage of the s.p.a.ce between the halves, although it rather made her feel as if she were facing an unseen audience instead of just her overnight bag. She was regaining her breath and wondering why her brief sprint should have made it hard to breathe when the train jerked forwards.

A guard came calling for tickets, to little if any effect elsewhere on the train, and then Charlotte was alone. Trees and hedges blotted out the sky before the train was engulfed by a tunnel a no, just a bridge no more extended than the nervous breath she took. Several bridges that felt like threats of carrying her underground preceded the first station, where the train opened its doors for n.o.body visible and emitted a string of beeps as shrill as an alarm to indicate they were closing. As fields partly overcome by suburbs spread out on both sides, Charlotte did her best to concentrate on the sky. Was she apprehensive about seeing Rory? She couldn't understand why else the journey was making her so tense. The train halted at another station, and as it shrilled she was tempted to make for the doors. Of course they were too distant, and her nervousness was unforgivably irrational. Or perhaps she was right to take the sound as a warning, because the train had barely left the station when it plunged into the dark.

The tunnel shut her in with the rows of empty yet unfriendly seats and the vista of their equivalent beyond the doorways that kept rocking out of alignment between the carriages. The further rows appeared to be squeezed together like the segments of an accordion robbed of air. Why did she need to imagine that anybody sitting there would have to be unnaturally thin? The blackened hand that twitched between the seats as if responding to her thought must be the reflection of a crack in the wall of the tunnel, just a small crack, not an indication that the place was unsafe. The wall was rus.h.i.+ng past almost as close to the side of the carriage as she was, with a m.u.f.fled roar that made her ears feel boxed in. Perhaps a wider pa.s.sage would have been unable to support the weight of the earth under which it was buried. She was far too capable of sensing all that weight, which felt poised to squeeze any possibility of breathing out of her. How long might the tunnel be? It had walled her up for over a minute, enough time for her to lose count of her nervously shallow breaths, but there was no sign of daylight, nothing ahead except seats thras.h.i.+ng back and forth like sleepers unable to escape a nightmare. Why had she let herself be taken on this helpless ride? If Rory was in a coma he wouldn't even know that Hugh and his cousins were there. The thought made her feel spied upon, grubby with guilt at having had it. She was too far into her journey to turn back from visiting the hospital. She could bear the rest of the tunnel, even if its walls seemed to be blackening the light that spilled from the carriage, absorbing it as a preamble to draining the light inside. The tunnel wasn't about to cave in, crus.h.i.+ng the train like a tin can, shattering the windows, packing the carriages with earth and debris. The notion would have been easier to shake off if it hadn't felt underlain with secret glee, as if somebody were wis.h.i.+ng it on Charlotte, antic.i.p.ating it with wicked delight. She gave in to glancing over the back of her seat, but the others were owning up to no presence. As she faced forwards again a lanky shape leaped into view beyond the lurching doors. Its scrawny outstretched limbs were branches. It was a bush at the side of the track, and it was sunlit. The train had escaped from the tunnel.

She had been underground for less than three minutes, but she felt as if they or their stifling confinement hadn't released her a felt surrounded by a darkness all the more claustrophobic for its invisibility. When fields beneath a sky piled with shades of grey began to flank the carriage, the openness seemed ready to immure her in another tunnel. Whenever the train slowed, her breath did too. It was only halting at a series of small towns as yellow as sand, some of them dominated by factories. Each time it announced its departure with the shrill alarm, she dug her fingertips into the upholstery to resist fleeing to the doors. All this appropriated most of half an hour until Huddersfield raised lofty chimneys beside the track and gathered an industrial estate around it, corrugated metal buildings that resembled the outsize houses of a gentrified shanty town. In another minute Charlotte was able to liberate herself from the train.

She didn't want to be shut in a taxi. Hugh's number rang as she came in sight of a low huddle of them outside the station, and she loitered beside them as the simulated bell continued to ring. She was wondering if he'd gone out, though surely he would have taken his mobile with him, when he gasped 'Charlotte.'

'Are you at home?'

'Where else would I be?'

The question sounded embittered or worse, not at all like Hugh, but she thought it best to pretend she hadn't noticed. 'I'm at the station. How do I get to you?'

'Aren't there any cabs?'

'More than enough, but I'd sooner walk.'

'A cab's quicker. It won't cost much.'

'Is Ellen there?'

'No.' With equal bewilderment Hugh said 'Why?'

'Then there's no rush, is there? I thought we were all going to the hospital together.' At once she felt sufficiently guilty to add 'Or has there been a change? Is Rory conscious?'

'He wasn't an hour ago. He hasn't been yet.'

'But you've seen him. How is he otherwise?'

'I don't know. I've been waiting for you two like you said.'

'Since yesterday?'

'He wouldn't care either way, would he? He wouldn't have known I was there.'

She heard dismay bordering on desperation. She oughtn't to make him feel worse about his brother. 'Let's talk about it when we're together,' she said. 'Which way are you from here?'

'Empire Street.'

'I know the address, Hugh.' She didn't understand why he'd taken several seconds to prepare to say it. 'I'm asking how I get there,' she said.

'Up the hill.'

Charlotte a.s.sumed this referred to the road that climbed past a small factory, dilapidated but not defunct. 'I see it, and then?'

'Is something up with your phone?'

'Not that I'm hearing. I go up the hill, and then . . .'

'So it's me.'

'Your phone? It'll just be a crossed a' Charlotte said, having grown aware of another voice in her ear. Before she could identify its few muddy words or distinguish more than how pleased it seemed to be with itself, the line went dead.

She was almost irritated enough to call Hugh back. Instead she went to the last taxi in the queue. How could just stooping to the vehicle make her feel shut in? Even asking for directions did, though the driver was almost maternally anxious to help. So did climbing the steep road towards a blackened sky that looked pregnant with a storm and all the lower for it, and following the road across a bridge around which the air was thick with the fumes and the rumble of four lanes of traffic beneath, and tramping along a protracted stretch walled on one side by a factory while trees above a wall overhung the other. At least the route wasn't crowded; indeed, there was never anyone behind her whenever she failed to resist the temptation to glance back. She felt especially ridiculous for doing so as a narrow side street brought her to her cousin's house.

It was the near end of the terrace that formed the right side of Empire Street. Clothes of all colours drooped on lines in front gardens as small as the sandstone houses. Hugh's had no clothesline, just an abundance of weeds bordering the cramped mossy path and raising their ragged heads from its cracks. Charlotte was hauling the unhinged gate aside when a plump woman in a sari stepped out of the next house. 'How is Mr Lucas?' she said. 'Have you seen him?'

'Not yet. We're going soon.'

'Where are you going, please?'

'To the hospital.'

'Please forgive me. I did not know this. Could you say that Mrs Devi was asking about him?'

'I will,' Charlotte said and wished she didn't have to add 'If he knows we're there.'

Mrs Devi lifted stubby hands beside her face as though to shape her mouth rounder. 'What has happened to him?'

'He was in some kind of accident on his way here.'

'He was run over? I forever tell the children a'

'No, in his van.'

Mrs Devi looked as confused as Charlotte had begun to grow. 'He is a driver? Where does he keep it?'

'Sorry,' Charlotte said and would rather not have gone on. 'Who are we talking about?'

'Mr Lucas,' Mrs Devi said, vigorously waggling her fingers at Hugh's house. 'Are you not familiar with him?'

'He's my cousin. Are you trying to tell me something's wrong with him?'

'He has not been to work for nearly three days now.'

'You get time off even if you work for Frugo. I expect he'll have taken some because of our cousin, the one who's in hospital, that's to say his brother.'

'He has not been out at all.'

Charlotte peered at Hugh's house, but the faded scaly front door remained shut, and her voice hadn't brought him to any of the windows, which were slated with reflections of clouds. She tried to conceal her unease as she said 'I'll let him know you were asking.'

'If he ever needs his neighbour he knows where I am,' Mrs Devi said and withdrew into her house.

Charlotte felt watched but could see no observer. As she advanced up the path she had the impression that the house wasn't growing as it should. Of course this was an illusion, but she could almost have imagined that the house was shrinking to shut her in, like a cottage in an unpleasant fairy tale. She spent some energy in fending off the idea as she thumbed the grimy plastic bellpush.