The Damnation Game Part 8

"Really?"

"And rather lacking in social graces."

"Marty."

"Strauss," Pearl said, with a note of triumph. "Martin Strauss; that's it.

There: he was named, Carys thought. There was a primitive power in naming someone. It gave you a handle on a person. Martin Strauss.

"Thank you," she said, genuinely pleased.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Just wondered who he was. People come and go."

"Well I think he's staying," Pearl said, and left the room. As she closed the door Carys said: "Does he have a middle name?"

But Pearl didn't hear.

It was strange, to think the runner had been a prisoner; still was a prisoner in a way, racing around and around the grounds, breathing in clear air, breathing out clouds, frowning as he ran. Perhaps he'd understand, more than the old man or Toy or Pearl, what it felt like to be on the suns.h.i.+ne island, and not know how to get off. Or worse, to know how, but never to dare it, for fear of never getting back to safety.

Now that she knew his name and his crimes, the romance of his morning run wasn't spoiled by the information. He still trailed glory; but now she saw the weight in his body when previously she'd seen only the lightness of his step.

She decided, after an age of indecision, that watching was not going to be enough.

As Marty became fitter, so he demanded more of himself during his morning run. The circuit he made grew bigger, though by now he was covering the larger distance in the same time as he had the shorter. Sometimes, to add spice to the exercise, he'd plunge into the woods, careless of the undergrowth and the low branches, his even stride degenerating into an ad hoc collection of leaps and dashes. On the other side of the wood was the weir, and here, if he was in the mood, he might halt for a few minutes. There were herons here; three that he'd seen. It would soon be nesting time and they would presumably pair off. He wondered what would happen to the third bird then? Would it fly off in search of its own mate, or linger, thinking adulterous thoughts? The weeks ahead would tell.

Some days, fascinated by the way Whitehead watched him from the top of the house, he'd slow as he pa.s.sed by, hoping to catch his face. But the watcher was too careful to be caught.

And then one morning she was waiting at the dovecote for him as he made the long curve back toward the house, and he knew at once that he'd been wrong about it being the old man who'd been spying. This was the cautious observer at the upper window. It was barely a quarter to seven in the morning, and still chilly. She'd been waiting a while to judge by the flush on her cheeks and nose. Her eyes were s.h.i.+ning with cold.

He stopped, puffing out steam like a traction engine.

"h.e.l.lo, Marty," she said.

"h.e.l.lo."

"You don't know me."

"No."

She hugged her duffle coat more tightly around her. She was skinny, and looked twenty at the most. Her eyes, so dark a brown they looked black at three paces, were in him like claws. The ruddy face was wide, and without makeup. She looked, he thought, hungry. He looked, she thought, ravenous.

"You're the one from upstairs," he ventured.

"Yes. You didn't mind me spying, did you?" she inquired, guilelessly "Why should I?"

She extended a slim, gloveless hand to the stone of the dovecote.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she said.

The building had never struck Marty as even interesting before, simply as a landmark by which to pace his run.

"It's one of the biggest dovecotes in England," she said. "Did you know that?"

"No."

"Ever been in?"

He shook his head.

"It's a bizarre place," she said, and led the way around the barrel-shaped building to the door. She had some difficulty pus.h.i.+ng it open; the damp weather had swelled the wood. Marty had to double up to follow her inside. It was even chillier there than out, and he s.h.i.+vered, the sweat on his brow and sternum cooling now he'd stopped running. But it was, as she had promised, bizarre: just a single round room with a hole in the roof to allow the birds access and egress. The walls were lined with square holes, nesting niches presumably, set in perfect rows-like tenement windows-from floor to roof. All were empty. Judging by the absence of excrement or feathers on the floor, the building had not been used in many years. Its forsakenness gave it a melancholy air; its unique architecture rendered it useless for any function but that for which it had been built. The girl had crossed the impacted earth floor and was counting the nesting niches around from the door.

"Seventeen, eighteen-"

He watched her back. Her hair was unevenly cropped at the nape of her neck. The coat she wore was too big for her: it wasn't even hers, he guessed. Who was she? Pearl's daughter?

She'd stopped counting. Now she put her hand into one of the holes, making a little noise of discovery as her fingers located something. It was a hiding place, he realized. She was about to trust him with a secret. She turned, and showed him her treasure.

"I'd forgotten till I came back in," she said, "what I used to hide here."

It was a fossil, or rather the fragment of one, a spiral sh.e.l.l that had lain at the bottom of some pre-Cambrian sea, before the world was green. In its flutes, which she was stroking, motes of dust gathered. It crossed Marty's mind, watching the intensity of her involvement with this piece of stone, that the girl was not entirely sane. But the thought vanished when she looked up at him; her eyes were too clear and too willful. If she had any insanity in her it was invited, a streak of lunacy she was pleased to entertain. She grinned at him as if she'd known what he was thinking: cunning and charm were mixed in her face in equal parts.

"Are there no doves, then?" he said.

"No, there haven't been, as long as I've been here."

"Not even a few?"

"If you just have a few they die in winter. If you keep a full dovecote they all keep each other warm. But when there's only a handful they don't generate enough heat, and they freeze to death."

He nodded. It seemed regrettable to leave the building empty.

"They should fill it up again."

"I don't know," she said. "I like it like this."

She slipped the fossil back into her hidey-hole.

"Now you know my special place," she said, and the cunning had gone; it was all charm. He was entranced.

"I don't know your name."

"Carys," she said, then after a moment, added: "It's Welsh."

"Oh."

He couldn't help staring at her. She suddenly seemed embarra.s.sed, and she went back to the door quickly, ducking out into the open air. It had begun to rain, a soft, mid-March drizzle. She put up the hood of her duffle coat; he put up his track-suit hood.

"Maybe you'll show me the rest of the grounds?" he said, not certain that this was the appropriate question, but more certain that he didn't want this conversation to end here without some possibility of them meeting again. She made a noncommittal noise by way of reply. The corners of her mouth were tucked down.

"Tomorrow?" he said.

This time she didn't answer at all. Instead, she started to walk toward the house. He tagged along, knowing their exchange would falter entirely if he didn't find some way to keep it alive.

"It's strange being in the house with no one to talk to," he said.

That seemed to strike a chord.

"It's Papa's house," she said simply. "We just live in it."

Papa. So, she was his daughter. Now he recognized the old man's mouth on her, those pinched-down corners that on him seemed so stoical, and on her, simply sad.

"Don't tell anyone," she said.

He presumed she meant about their meeting, but he didn't press her. There were more important questions to ask, if she didn't race away. He wanted to signal his interest in her. But he could think of nothing to say. The sudden change in her tempo, from gentle, elliptical conversation to this staccato, confounded him.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

She looked around at him, and beneath her hood she seemed almost to be in mourning.

"I have to hurry," she said. "I'm wanted."

She picked up the pace of her step, signaling only in the hunch of her shoulders a desire to leave him behind. He obliged and slowed, leaving her to go back to the house without a glance or a wave.

Rather than return to the kitchen, where he'd have to endure Pearl's banter while he breakfasted, he started back across the field, giving the dovecote a wide berth, until he reached the perimeter fence, and punished himself with another complete circuit. When he ran into the woods he found himself involuntarily scanning the ground underfoot, looking for fossils.

17

Two days later, about eleven-thirty at night, he got a summons from Whitehead.

"I'm in the study," he said on the phone. "I'd like a word with you."

The study, though it boasted half a dozen lamps, was almost in darkness. Only the crane-necked lamp on the desk burned, and that threw its light onto a heap of papers rather than into the room. Whitehead was sitting in the leather chair beside the window. On the table beside him was a bottle of vodka and an almost empty gla.s.s. He didn't turn when Marty knocked and entered, but simply addressed Marty from his vantage point in front of the floodlit lawn.

"I think it's time I gave you more leash, Strauss," he said. "You've done a fine job so far. I'm pleased."

"Thank you, sir."

"Bill Toy will be up here overnight tomorrow, and so will Luther, so this might be an opportunity for you to go down to London."

It was eight weeks, almost to the day, since he'd arrived at the estate: and here, at last, was a tentative signal that his place was secure.

"I've had Luther sort out a vehicle for you. Speak to him about it when he arrives. And there's some money on the desk for you-"

Marty glanced across at the desk-top; there was indeed a pile of notes there.

"Go on, take it."

Marty's fingers fairly itched, but he kept control of his enthusiasm.

"It'll cover petrol and a night in the city."

Marty didn't count the notes; simply folded them and pocketed them.

"Thank you, sir."

"There's an address there too."

"Yes, sir."

"Take it. The shop belongs to a man called Halifax. He supplies me with strawberries, out of season. Will you pick up my order, please?"

"Of course."

"That's the only errand I want you to run. As long as you're back by midmorning Sat.u.r.day, the rest of the time's your own."

"Thank you."

Whitehead's hand reached out for the gla.s.s of vodka, and Marty thought he was going to turn and look at him; he didn't. This interview was apparently over.

"Is that all, sir?"

"All? Yes, I think so. Don't you?"It was many months since Whitehead had gone to bed sober. He'd started to use vodka as a soporific when the night terrors began; at first just a gla.s.s or two to dull the edge of his fear, then gradually increasing the dosage as, with time, his body became immune to it. He took no pleasure in drunkenness. He loathed putting his spinning head down on the pillow and hearing his thoughts whine in his ears. But he feared the fear more.

Now, as he sat watching the lawn, a fox stepped across the threshold of the floodlights, blanched by the brilliant illumination, and stared at the house. Its stillness lent it perfection; its eyes, catching the light, gleamed in its p.r.i.c.ked head. It waited a moment only. Suddenly it seemed to sense danger-the dogs perhaps-and it turned tail and was gone. Whitehead still watched the spot it had disappeared from long after it had loped away, hoping against hope that it would come back and share his solitude for a s.p.a.ce. But it had other business in the night.

There was a time when he'd been a fox: thin and sharp; a night wanderer. But things had changed. Providence had been bountiful, dreams had come true; and the fox, always a shape-changer, had grown fat and easy. The world had changed too: it had become a geography of profit and loss. Distances had shrunk to the length of his command. He had forgotten, with time, his previous life.

But of late he remembered it more and more. It came back in brilliant but reproachful detail, when the events of the day before were a fog. But he knew in his heart of hearts there was no way back to that blessed state.

And forward from here? That was a journey into a hopeless place, where no signpost would point him right or left-all directions being equal there-nor would there be hill or tree or habitation to mark the way. Such a place. Such a terrible place.

But he wouldn't be alone there. In that nowhere he would have a companion.

And when, in the fullness of time, he set his eyes on that land and its tenant he would wish, oh Christ how he would wish, that he had stayed a fox.

III