Ancient Images (38 page)

    "I'm afraid I have."

    "You have? You must have had sharp eyes while you were here. I wish you had tried to convince me of what I should have known. Once when I was very young and my grandfather was very old he told me the story his grandfather told him, but even he thought he was too modern to believe in that sort of thing. God help him, he must now. I quite see that was really just a way of letting ourselves take it for granted. The man you mentioned didn't die on our land, you say?"

    Sandy felt Redfield was only intermittently remembering that he was talking to her rather than to himself. "That's right."

    "Ah well," he said in what might have been regret or resignation, and then his voice strengthened briefly. "I'm glad to have had another chance to speak to you. If you should find your film, please show it. There will be nobody here to object."

    "I don't-was Sandy began, and was talking to the dial tone. The last of her change clattered into the slot to be retrieved. She was suddenly anxious for him, all the more so when she realized she had insufficient change to place another call. She ran to the hospital shop, bought a
Daily
Friend
and left it on the counter, dashed back to the phone, praying that it wouldn't be in use. Nobody had ousted her. As soon as the receptionist said "Staff-was Sandy interrupted her. "I was talking to Lord Redfield. Sandy Allan. We were cutoff."

    "Lord Redfield asks me to apologize, Miss Allan, but I'm not to accept any further calls from you."

    "Wait, don't cut me off, just listen," Sandy cried, but the phone was buzzing emptily. She grabbed her change as it came rattling back, and ran to find Roger. He was hobbling across a lawn beside the car park, wearing someone else's old trousers and trying out his rediscovered leg. "Is that your top speed?" Sandy panted.

    "Let's say you shouldn't enter me in any marathons this month." 308

    "Head for the car. I'll meet you." She sprinted to it, grimaced at how low the fuel level was, drove around two ranks of cars and pulled up beside him, narrowly missing him with the door as she opened it. "Be as quick as you can that isn't painful."

    He snapped his seat belt into place and stretched his legs luxuriously. "Want to tell me what the hurry is? I've missed you too, a whole lot."

    "We'll celebrate, but not just yet. Roger, I hope you won't give me a hard time about this, but I've got to go back toRedfield."

    He stared at her and gripped her knee. "I don't know what happened there today, I don't know what I saw, but I really don't think you should do this. You've already done more than many people would."

    "Not people I'd want to know. Roger, I've just spoken to Lord Redfield. I think he's planning to harm himself when there may be no need. He's made sure my calls won't get through."

    He held on to her and then patted her knee as if to indicate he'd done all he could to dissuade her. "Looks like you need to find a filling station fast," he said.

    She'd passed one as she drove the van to the hospital. She willed it to appear on the horizon ahead as the car raced back across the flat land under the declining sun. It came in sight just as the engine ran dry and died, leaving her feeling for an unpleasant moment that control of the vehicle had been snatched away from her. She ran the car onto the verge and tugged the boot release, and Roger swung himself out of the car and lifted the plastic canteen from the boot. "This what you need?"

    "It's all I've got. I never thought I'd have to use it."

    As she locked the car, he was already running. Before long he began to limp, and she caught up with him. "Maybe-was he said apologetically, and she stopped his mouth with a quick kiss and grabbed the canteen as if they were running a relay race. She ran to the pumps-twenty minutes of the canteen thumping her on one side, her handbag on the other-and had to pay before the slow proprietor would let her fill the canteen. Running back to the car, through the flat landscape which seemed designed expressly to display how far she had still to go, took her almost half an hour. She fell into the driver's seat, a stitch nagging at her side, and managed to catch her breath while Roger emptied the canteen into the tank, and then she drove to the pumps to fill the tank.

    The car sped away from the forecourt, and Roger let out a sigh so loud it sounded as if he were emitting it on her behalf, to save her breath. After that he was silent for a while, but she sensed that he wanted to speak. At last he said, "Did you pick up the movie?"

    "Yes, but I haven't got it now."

    "I noticed. It's safe, though," he said, not so much a query as a plea.

    "It isn't, Roger. It no longer exists."

    He seemed to have half expected her answer. "I guess you had to let that happen," he said.

    "It was either me or the film."

    "In that case there's no contest." Some time later he said, so gently and casually that she wanted to hug him, "Did you watch the movie? Was it any good?"

    "In parts."

    "Maybe you can describe it to me sometime so I can write it up for my book."

    "I will," she promised. There seemed to be no need to say anything further, now that they'd agreed they had a future. The car raced across the flatness, and they were in sight of Toonderfield before Roger spoke again. "What's that?"

    He might mean the distant wail of sirens or the smudge of black smoke on the horizon toward Redfield. Sandy braked as the car reached the edge of the copse, and tried to analyze her sensations. She didn't feel threatened or seized by her guts. All the same, she closed her window tight and told Roger to close his before she drove beneath the trees.

    She could see nothing between the trunks except green dimness and shadows. The drive through the wood seemed considerably briefer than last time. The car sped toward the Ear of Wheat, and before she reached the pub she could see that the smoke came from a building on fire. From the direction of the smoke she judged that the building was beyond the town.

    The woman from the Ear of Wheat stood outside the porch of the pub, staring toward the smoke and wiping her hands nervously on her apron. Sandy veered onto the concrete and got out of the car. "What's happening, do you know?"

    The woman gazed at her as if it didn't matter who knew. "It's Lord Redfield's chapel. They heard him smashing stones down there while the son wasn't at the house to stop him, and then he set fire to it and wouldn't come up out of it, God save him."

    She was talking about the family vault, whether or not she realized. He must have smashed all the plaques to make sure the fire reached in. "Couldn't anyone reach him?" Sandy said, though she thought she already knew more than the woman could tell.

    "His father went down after him, then the son tried to rescue the both of them. Nobody else could get near for the fire, and Lord Redfield wouldn't let them. The whole family were in there, and nobody could save them."

  And that was the end of Redfield, Sandy thought, and found a tear creeping down her cheek. Had he planned that his father and son should die too? Remembering his last words to her, she wasn't sure that she wanted to know. She felt almost as stunned as the woman looked, but the woman seemed also to feel robbed of meaning. Sandy wondered how the townsfolk must feel-how they would fare now that the spell of the land had been broken. "Don't despair," she said awkwardly, and was glad of Roger's hand on her arm as they turned back to the car.

    She thought of driving to Redfield to make certain it was all over, but she would be even more unwelcome in the town now. As she swung the car toward Toonderfield she saw the smoke drift across the tower, which looked abandoned, a symbol rendered meaningless. It always had been, she thought, and it had taken her so long to realize.

    She drove over the humpbacked bridge, and the tower seemed to collapse into the smoke. As the car passed under the trees, a leaf fluttered across the windscreen, and then another. When she ducked her head to look up through the foliage, she was sure she could see more of the sky than she had been able to see that morning. Autumn was already here, she thought, but would spring come to Redfield? Her throat grew unexpectedly dry, and she steered with one hand while she held Roger's with the other. He smiled at her, but she didn't think he was sharing her awareness. All the way to the edge of Toonderfield, until the car sped up into daylight that felt like a return to life, she sensed the land dying.