The Uncanny, page 20
“I—was—your—lover,” he insisted.
“If that’s what you call love,” she shot back.
He stopped at last, beside her. Just beside her. She felt his breath on her cheek. Hot, wet, rank. A panther’s breath. He went on in the same easy, ironical tone.
“You’re right,” he said. “Let’s not mince words. I was your master. Wasn’t I?”
Harper’s lips worked as she tried to swallow her distaste.
“I mastered you, Harper,” he continued softly. “I mastered you, and then you begged me to master you again. I remember the sound of your voice as you begged me.”
The words burst from her. “I was young.”
“Not that young.”
“And half insane.”
“Only half.”
“It was a long time ago, Jacob.”
“Not that long, really. You remember it too. I can see you do. You remember it in your flesh. Don’t you?”
She barely turned her head towards him. Barely lifted one corner of her mouth. She was afraid she would start to quake. “I remember. Yes.”
“And that’s why you can’t stay away from me. Even if it’s only to feel my hands on your throat.”
“You know why I’ve come after you,” she said.
He rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah. I forgot. The children. The dear, dead little children. Tell yourself that’s the reason.”
“That is the reason.”
“For this obsession? For this compulsion to irritate me?”
“To destroy you, Jacob, actually. Yes.”
He let out a breath, threw up a hand. She flinched away from it. But it was only a gesture of mild frustration, the gesture of a teacher with a dense student. “You know, dear, I really did teach you to be more honest with yourself than that. I showed you how to plumb the ugly depths, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“But you’re going to stand there looking like my maiden aunt and tell me that you gave your life, you wasted your prime, you wore away your beauty, trailing after me—all because you cared so very, very deeply for a few armloads of dead babies?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I don’t think so, sweetie.”
She couldn’t hold it down any longer: a painful shudder went through her, head to toe. She had forgotten the weakness—the limp, physical weakness—that invaded her whenever he came this close.
No, she had not forgotten. She had fought to believe it was a thing of the past.
“Look at you,” he whispered. “Harper. Trembling. Look at you.”
She made a gulping noise. Rapped her stick convulsively upon the stone. “I …” she said. She took a breath. “I am not the woman I was, Jacob.”
“Oh no? Really? Then why are you here?”
He came swinging around in front of her. She could see him in the candlelight with his head tilted to one side, his smile gleeful, his black eyes smoky and seductive. He looked so vital to her, so relaxed, that she began to feel like a fusty old crone just standing there, frowning at him like this.
But she stood there. Frowned at him. And swallowed hard. “What do you want me to say?” she asked hoarsely. “You’re the philosopher, Jacob, not me. I only know …” She shook her head.
“What?” he said, smiling. “What do you know?”
“I know my spirit opposes you.”
“Your spirit! Oh my!”
“And not just my spirit.”
“Dear, dear. What more?”
“All of it,” she barked. “All of it opposes you. The …” She groped for words. “Oh, all right. The Everlasting Thing.”
Jacob Hope guffawed at her. Threw back his head, one hand on his belly, the other—the one holding the candle—held to his brow. Laughed and laughed, staggering where he stood, his feet among the dead crusaders. Then he shook his head. He daubed the corner of his eye. He wound down to a low chuckle.
And then—suddenly—he roared at her: “For Christ’s sake, woman—look!”
The curtain of his black hair crackled and fizzed as he held the candle up to his own face. The flame seemed to rise along his skin in a caress. The murky depths of his eyes seemed to turn like slow Catherine wheels. Her own image in them seemed to turn like Catherine.
She looked. And she saw that what she feared was true. What she had suspected since Storm had described him to her. It was impossible to deny it now.
He was a man of thirty—of thirty-five at most. As he had always been. As he had been the day she met him.
In all these years, he had not aged a single hour.
“I am the Everlasting Thing,” he said. “I feed on the marrow of time. I was here before the oceans turned black with life, and when the deserts are white with death I will remain. And you’re really starting to get up my nose, Harper,” he went on in his normal tone. “So maybe you ought to reconsider your position.”
Whoosh—he blew out the candle. Harper hissed, recoiling, as the inky air clamped over her. There was only his voice again now; that harsh breath; that feral smell. The dark.
“Oh, Harper, Harper, Harper. You really can piss me off at times. I swear, after Argentina, I wanted to kill you. Oh …”
In that blackness, he made a noise, a low growly hum, a sound of such sensual hunger that she felt certain he was going to kill her right now.
But he went on: “That’s just the sort of debilitating woman you are, you know. You made me doubt my own destiny. Almost. But—but, but—I still had the Grail. The blue flower, the blue stone. I still had more than enough of it, and that’s what brought me to my senses. I mean, when a fellow just buys something like that—just picks it up wandering through a Moroccan bazaar—that’s not just chance, that can’t just be chance. Whatever you say. ‘There will arise one who will become the eternal creature.’ That was the prophecy. So, in spite of what you managed to do to me, I knew I’d been chosen. I knew that. And I lay low.” A tone of self-congratulation had entered his voice. He was bragging to her, Harper realized. “I lay low. Patience, patience. And sure enough, just five years later, in a little place off the Edgware Road—on the road to Damascus, Harper—like a flash: a spilled soda, and the next stage was given to me. The trail of stories. Oh, I know you know. Well, let me tell you, darling, it’s been twenty years. I had to wait twenty years before I could follow that trail to its end. Patience, patience, though my time ran short. And just when things were getting desperate, just at the brink of disaster, the wall came tumbling down and my destiny was all before me again. All before me. And now—again—you …!”
She was scorched by the word. He must’ve leaned within inches of her. Even in darkness so complete, she thought she could make out the glint of his stare. “I can see how far you’ve come on the same slender thread. And well, why not? I taught you everything you know, didn’t I? I’m proud of you, old girl. I admire you for it. In fact, I admire you so much that if I thought for a second one chance remained, that even one copy of the final text was still in existence, so help me, so help me, I would give myself the pleasure: I would grind your bones to make my bread.”
Again, his breath burned her. Her hand spasmed, jerked, her stick tip ticking twice on the stone. Why didn’t he? Why didn’t he just do it? In spite of everything, her curiosity almost made her ask aloud. But she mustn’t. It might tempt him. It might give him ideas. For the sake of her life, she must force herself to keep silent.
It seemed to provoke him. He snarled: “You think I can’t?”
“Why don’t you?” she blurted out. What a foolish, foolish old woman. “Why don’t you just do it? Why don’t you just kill me?”
He drew away. The heat of his breath diminished, at least. But no, he had retreated from her, she could feel it. She stood where she was, staring after him, seeing nothing. She tried to swallow, but her throat was dry as dust.
“It’s the boy, isn’t it?” she said softly. “You want the boy. Our boy. You need him somehow. Not just his life. You need him with you, you need him on your side. That’s it, isn’t it? Isn’t it, Jacob?” He made no answer. Where was he? She couldn’t tell. She took an unsteady step forward, called after him in the darkness. “If you killed me, he would know. He would know it was you. If I were hit by a car, by lightning, drowned in the Thames—if I died in my sleep—he would still know who was to blame. And it’s the one thing he would never forgive you for. It’s the one thing that would keep him away from you forever. You don’t want to make me a martyr to him. You need him on your side. Isn’t that it? Isn’t it?”
But aside from her own frightened wheezing, there was no noise in the round, in the church anywhere.
“Jacob?”
Nothing. Nothing she could hear or see. And yet … And yet, the silence had a quality of motion. The emptiness, the blackness had a life. She could feel it, in the prickpoints of her skin, in the warp of her nerves. He was still there. He was stalking, circling around her. Closing in on her. There were shuffling footfalls on the stone—she could hear them. Coming towards her. He was closer with every moment. Gripping that curved knife she had seen in the jungle. Lifting it. She could hear the swishing upswing of the blade.
“Jacob!” she cried again, in terror this time, her voice trembling. The dragon stick fell from her slack fingers. It clattered on the stones. She grabbed her satchel, yanked it open. Drove her hand in, fumbling around. What a mess. She felt her glasses case. Her compact. A lipstick. Some tissues. Some receipts. Her keys. Half a Twix bar. Then her matches—she found them—she seized the box. Drew it out, the satchel dropping free on its strap. She heard herself panting as she fumbled for a stick. She struck it on her thumb. Again, there was the blinding flame. The shadows scrambling like rats. The round of the church. The staring heads on every side. The stone bodies of the knights at her feet. The long nave. The far altar, the faint glow of stained glass above …
But empty, all of it, otherwise. The entire place. Utterly empty. Except for her.
“Crikey,” she whispered.
And she grabbed her stick and got the hell out of there.
8
Weary, weary, weary, she reached home. Hung up her hat, her cape. Climbed the stairs. She had to rest halfway, her hand upon the banister, her head against the wall. Then she climbed on.
She reached the third floor landing. Paused again. Peeked in through Bernard’s half-opened door. She watched the factotum sleeping for a moment. She allowed an unwonted expression of tenderness to cross her face.
Bernard had placed a bottle of Gilbey’s by his bed. He had filled his room with marijuana smoke and left a pile of snuffed-out roaches in the ashtray. It was childish of him; he confessed as much to himself. But it was such a rare thing for him to sleep in his own bed that he feared it would betray how worried he had been for her, how frightened he had been.
So he had set the scene. Too much alcohol, too much dope. The television on at the foot of the bed, the sound off, the images glimmering. And he positioned himself like Chatterton in the painting: lying atop the covers fully dressed, one arm dangling decadently over the side. His mouth was open, his eyes were closed, his faint snore was almost convincing. Through slightly parted lids, he watched Harper as she paused, as she watched him. He saw the uncharacteristic emotion in her expression. Saw the heaviness too, the savage work of gravity on her exhausted features. Without stirring from where he lay, but with an undeniable little thrill of terror and excitement, he thought, She’s seen him!
Then Harper passed on, out of his view.
She went up the stairs again, to her own room. An attic cell. A cupboard, stacked with books, littered with loose papers, pictures. A bed, a rocking chair. One small window on the night sky. Divested of her stick, her satchel, she stooped, grunting, to light the gas fire. Sighing, she sank into her rocker before the feeble blue flame.
She set the chair into motion. She had had some vague idea of sobbing her heart out once she’d reached the privacy of her home. Sobbing for her sins, for her weakness, for her misspent life. But she found she couldn’t be bothered. She was too tired. The grief was too deep for tears. And anyway, she had work to do before she could get to sleep.
She bent to drag her satchel to her. Brought out her pipe, her baccy. Brought out the envelope that she had transferred from the pocket of her cape. Brought out the manuscript and placed it on her skirted lap.
Well, at least he wasn’t infallible, she thought with some small satisfaction. He had reckoned every copy was destroyed. He hadn’t counted on the ghost of M. R. James.
She adjusted her glasses. She chomped her pipe. Torched the skulltop. Primed the flame. Rocked and smoked awhile, Iago’s words reverberating in her mind. I was here before the oceans turned black with life, and when the deserts are white with death I will remain. Strange words. Overwrought. Silly. And yet eerily familiar somehow.
The room was quiet but for the rhythmic shifting of the rocker’s joins: tick-tick, tick-tick.
The clockwork of history, Harper thought.
And she began to read.
VII
THE
MONK’S
CONFESSION
I am dying. There can be no mistake. The same lines of discoloration that heralded the demise of the others have now appeared on me, running from my knuckles to my wrist on my right side, from my knuckles all the way to my elbow on my left. On both sides, they are creeping slowly up my arms. Having witnessed the end of my two companions in this undertaking, I can have little doubt of what is waiting for me: the torment, the living decay, the insanity of remorse. For William and Anselm, the terrible process overtook them within five years of the beginning of our venture. Simple arithmetic killed them, as a little consideration might have told us that it would. I only am escaped alone to tell this because of a talent for deceit and a practiced way with women, and through the complicity of one who shall remain nameless lest his body be exhumed and cast out of holy ground.
It is all one now, however. What I had thought was deliverance has only been delay. It will not be long before the thing is fully upon me. There is no time left to satisfy the hunger of the stone. There would be no time, even if I had the spirit for it, which I no longer have.
Nor can I pray. I cannot unburden myself before the Lord. So great is the love of Christ that I fear He might forgive me. I could not abide that: it will take an eternity of damnation to cleanse my soul of these sins.
Instead, I make this addendum to my chronicle of Belham Abbey. I record what I cannot confess.
It is now almost forty years since the people of Belham burned the town’s Jews. It was done in the time of the first King Henry. The Jews had taken refuge in the abbey’s infirmary chapel as they had once before in past troubles. This time, however, the people were so enraged against them that even the law of sanctuary could not restrain them. Leaders of the mob bolted the chapel’s doors and hurled brands in through the windows, setting the building on fire.
Though most of the monks were at supper on the far side of the grounds, we were well aware of the disturbance. As the flames rose, I myself could hear the shouts of the men trapped within, the shrieking of the women, the children crying. It was, however, a long time before Anselm sent a novice to beat the board and summon us to help.
By then, the fire was raging so fiercely that the infirmary’s iron doors glowed red at the edges. Many of us ran to fetch water from the rain tank and even from the clock. But when the cold water hit the burning building, the very stones cracked and collapsed so that, in the end, no more was left of the structure than a single scorched and crumbling wedge of wall. The bodies within had been reduced to charred flesh and bones; skulls that seemed frozen in their death cries.
And all this occurred because I had told a story, a tale I invented in my desperation to save my own life. I had spread it among the people that it was the Jews who had murdered the infant, that it was they who were responsible for the little body that had recently been discovered near the abbey grounds. I said the Jews had sacrificed the babe. I concocted an arcane rite, invented enough details to make it sound convincing. I said the Jews had stabbed the child and used his blood to make their Paschal bread: an abominably distorted version of the mass. I made it all very believable.
And the story slowly spread until the people rose up in a mob and took their vengeance in the chapel.
By then, of course, poor Annie was too far gone in madness to convince anyone of the truth.
* * *
For weeks before the child was found, Annie had wandered the streets, babbling about the murder. She said she heard the baby tapping at the earth above his secret grave, tapping and tapping night and day. She would roam the village in her rags, her hair hanging down around her face in filthy tangles. Her eyes had a wide, white, almost mystical aspect. She would seize the arm of any passerby who would stop for her.
“Listen!” she would whisper.” Tick-tick. Tick-tick. Hear him? Hear him? He is trying to get out. He is trying to come back to me.
Anselm, William and I suffered agonies of suspense for fear that someone might actually pay heed to her.
In the end, as it will, disaster came like a thief in the night. We monks departed mass one morning shortly after Easter, to find a large crowd had gathered just beyond the cemetery garth, where the walls had been undergoing repair. I was sent to investigate—in what state of guilty tension I cannot describe—and there found many of the local farmhands clustered in a murmuring circle. I pushed my way through and what I saw brought my heart into my mouth.
There was Annie, lying on the ground half naked. She had torn her rags from her body with her clawed hands. Her long nails were black with dirt. Her fingertips were bleeding.
She had dug up the infant’s body.
Because the builders had been mixing mortar there, the earth was rich with lime. The child was thus in an advanced state of decay. And yet, Annie clutched the rotting thing to her bare bosom as if it still lived and might take nourishment.
