Prospero's Children (13 page)

In the morning she was exhausted, and it was Alison’s turn to comment on the shadows beneath her eyes.

“I had bad dreams,” said Fern, wondering what her interlocutor would say, if she called her not Alison but Alys. Or Alimond.

It was a strange day. They went to the beach with Gus and Maggie Dinsdale. Alison came too. They might have been ordinary people on an ordinary day out. At low tide broken platforms of rock divided the sands, partly smothered in brown patent-leather seaweed; the mouth of the Yarrow branched into a dozen rivulets which nudged their way between boulders and tumbled over low ridges of stone, down toward the sea. The shallow waves took on the hue of sand, ebbing from the shore to leave pale threads of foam fraying in the sun. A brisk wind thinned the trippers; the North Sea was icy cold. Despite the chill, Alison swam: men stared at her wispy body and the long hair that wreathed like smoke on the breeze. It looked longer when wet, adhering in rats’ tails to her upper thighs. Her red swimsuit webbed her bones like skin.

“You look
almost
like a mermaid,” said Fern, remembering her fleeting glimpse of one on the tape.

“She certainly does,” said Gus appreciatively. “The lorelei of Teutonic folktales, a spellsinger luring hapless fishermen to their doom. You must know Heine’s poem. Have you done any luring lately, Alison?”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” she said smiling, and the sea-glitter was in her eyes.

Fern turned away, walking toward the water, feeling that bright hard gaze like a cold finger probing her back. There was something at the waves’ edge which had not been there before, a piece of tide-borne flotsam, fish-white but not fish, rolling and tumbling onto the beach. A bulbous thing like a head lolled low in the water; limb-like tentacles, knobbled with soft bones, trailed behind it. Fern knew what it was from her dream of the dead child but she would not look closer. Glancing over at Alison she felt a sudden stab of pity, a horror of the immensity of that hidden void which had swallowed both love and loss, a dread of the starved desires which struggled in vain to refill it. She found herself wondering how Alison had felt about her Gift, when she knew it could give her everything but that which she truly wanted. Revenge, triumph, conquest must all have appeared meaningless and futile, crumbs to sate the famine of a giant. And with an abrupt flash of insight or inspiration she thought:
That’s
why Alison wants to open the Gate. Not for power—whatever she may have told the Old Spirit. For Death. The kingdom of Death—if there is such a place. Even Ragginbone doesn’t know what lies across the threshold . . . She seemed to see Alison wandering through a realm of shadows, looking for a cradle where a stillborn soul slept like a curled shoot untouched with green. A rush of terror left her shuddering: megalomania was something she could comprehend, something which might be fought and contained, but a mother’s lust for the child that had died in her womb was an obsession beyond reason or measure. And watching Alison, she saw for the first time how deadly she really was.

Involuntarily she looked back at the sea, but the waves were empty: only the white rime of foam lay like spittle on the sand.

They had no means of knowing how, or if, Alison was conducting further searches for the key. “Of course, she doesn’t realize she’s got competition,” Fern concluded. “She’s sussed that we’re looking for
something
, but she thinks we don’t know what. As far as she’s aware, our minds are still running on pirates’ treasure. Under those circumstances she’s probably quite happy to let us do some of the legwork. She must reckon that if we find the key we won’t know its significance, and she can easily take it away from us.”

“I daresay,” said Will, “but you haven’t found it yet, have you?”

“At least I’ve looked,” said his sister.

It was Tuesday of the following week before Alison left for London. Robin had called twice but although Fern had managed to talk briefly with him she had abandoned any attempt to arouse his dormant common sense. Instead, she hit below the belt, infusing her voice with the wistfulness of childhood, reminding him of the things they had all planned to do together that summer—plans she had deplored at the time without reserve—and maintaining that Yorkshire wasn’t any fun without him. After all, she reasoned privately, their current problems, however else they might be described, hardly came under the heading of
fun
. Robin responded with assurances of a prompt return, whereupon Alison took over, expounding fluently on American witch-trials and well-informed friends of hers scattered all over the U.S. whom he must not fail to visit. Fern could only hope that parenthood would win over editorial research. It was on the Monday afternoon, as she was trying to visualize her father, arriving like a bemused knight errant long after the start of the battle, when it dawned on her that there was little or nothing he could do. He might ask Alison to leave, but he was more likely to invite her to stay. And if he came across any unnatural phenomena he would find any excuse, no matter how implausible, to explain them away. Slightly damped by this revelation, Fern quit the studies she had been ignoring for the past hour and walked to the village, technically to replenish their stock of orange juice.

It was on the way back that she saw Alison, deep in conversation. Alison did not see her, and Fern drew aside into the lee of a wall, preferring to remain unobserved. The biker had pulled over close to the verge and Alison appeared to be talking to him at some length. Her manner was curt and authoritative. Only afterward did it strike Fern that throughout their exchange he had never once lifted his visor. Despite the heat, black gauntlets, black leather jacket, glossy leather jeans, and heavy boots so covered him that not an inch of skin was exposed; the helmet hid both neck and hair; the tinted visor masked his face. His machine looked cumbersome but it started at a kick and resumed its balance in motion like a horse getting into its stride. He zoomed off at speed and Alison walked briskly back to Dale House. Fern followed after a prudent interval.

“I saw you talking to someone on a motorbike,” she said to Alison at supper on an impulse, scanning her face for discomfort.

“You saw—oh. Oh—yes. The motorbike. He was lost. He wanted the Whitby road. I only hope my directions were accurate.”

“She was lying,” said Fern later. “He wouldn’t ask the way. He’s local: we’ve seen him several times.”

The builders arrived the morning of Alison’s departure, Rollo and two assistants, taking over the barn. Fern and Will were discouraged from strolling in and out while work was in progress, and the premises were locked when they left in the evening. Rollo’s over-friendliness whenever he wandered into the house, particularly to Will, acted as an even greater deterrent. “Who’s paying for it?” Fern muttered. “Daddy can’t have given more than a verbal authorization.”

On the Wednesday she determined to inquire. “They’re in Alison’s employ,” she reported to Will afterward. “That means she’s responsible for payment, whatever she may have agreed with Daddy. Of course, he’d never refuse to stump up, no matter how large the bill: you know what he is. Still, she’s taking a big risk. I wonder why it’s so important to her?”

But there was no immediate answer to that.

Early the following morning a very long, very white car pulled up outside Dale House. The soft top was folded back, the coachwork was pristine, the chromium unspotted. It looked as out-of-place on the narrow Yorkshire roads as a shark in a fishpond. The driver had hair that gleamed like the chromium and wore a pale silk suit of casual cut which set off his café-crème complexion. At the sight of him, Mrs. Wicklow’s expression grew more dour than ever, and Will appeared mildly inquisitive, meticulously scornful. Fern greeted the visitor warily. “If you’re looking for Alison,” she said, “she’s supposed to be in London. She left here on Tuesday.”

“I dropped by on the off chance,” said Javier Holt. “I’ve been visiting one of our best clients—in Scotland. It was easy to return this way. I am only glad my associate is so conscientious.” His explanation struck Fern as over-elaborate, a little unnecessary. “It must have been hard for her to tear herself away,” he went on. “The countryside is beautiful, this house clearly atmospheric. I know how much that sort of thing appeals to Alison. Indeed, she has told me how she appreciates the opportunity to stay here.”

“Has she?” said Fern.

“Are you going to offer me a drink,” he murmured, “or just a cup of tea?” The mockery in his faint smile was only for her.

“Tea,” said his hostess, smiling politely in response.

Mrs. Wicklow supplied the required beverage, giving Fern a look that plainly indicated her readiness to rush to the rescue, should Javier overstep the bounds of gentlemanly behavior. Will, having decided the guest was boring, had already disappeared. Left alone with Javier, Fern was increasingly aware of the faint menace his presence exuded, the glossy exterior, the dead suavity of manner, the teasing note that pinked her careful assurance now and then even while she guarded against it.

“
Do
you drink?” he inquired. “You always seem so demure, but I’m sure it’s deceptive. You have the poise of a woman and the façade of a Victorian Miss. Most unusual nowadays.”

“You know I drink,” said Fern. “You’ve seen me with champagne, at the gallery. You weren’t paying attention.”

“I beg your pardon.” The apology was elegantly insincere. “In fact, I was concentrating on you, not your glass. You interest me. The perfect daughter, managing her helpless father with a mixture of devotion and calculation. Do you ever misbehave, I wonder? You drink, but never too much. You have friends, but not boyfriends. Is that the picture?”

“Maybe,” said Fern. “In any event, I don’t see why I should show the picture—as you call it—to you, or any other stranger.”

“Am I a stranger? Your father and I are involved in a business project together. That must elevate me to the level of an acquaintance, if nothing more.”

“You are my father’s acquaintance,” said Fern, “not mine.” She was aware that she had crossed the borderline into discourtesy, but she found it curiously exhilarating.

Javier seemed unoffended, his sleek address tinged only with amusement. “In that case,” he said, “allow me the opportunity to progress into acquaintanceship. Had Alison been here, I would have taken her out to dinner. Let me take you instead.”

“Dinner?”
gasped Fern in astonishment. “You mean, in a restaurant?” She had shared fish and chips and takeaway pizza with male contemporaries but had never dined out on her own with any man except her father. But it was not simply her shock at receiving such an invitation which occasioned her reaction.

“Why not?”

“We’re in the wilds of Yorkshire,” Fern protested. “I don’t know that there
are
any restaurants round here. Not serious ones, anyway.” As a Londoner, she found it difficult to believe that good professional cuisine could exist outside the Home Counties.

“If that’s your only objection—”

“No! I mean—why should you want to buy me dinner?”

“Find out.”

Mrs. Wicklow objected at length, on various and delicate grounds; Will was baffled (“Anyone would think you were a real girl.”). Fern, however, after her initial surprise, had made up her mind. Caution warned her to be wary, though she was not sure of what: she did not really think Javier would molest or even make a pass at her. She told Will she would use the occasion to pump him about Alison, but in fact she had succumbed to a compulsion that was only half curiosity. She found Javier Holt both repellent and intriguing: the very apprehension he aroused in her was a part of his obscure fascination. She dressed carefully for the outing, uncertain if she was a girl preparing for a date or a soldier girding herself for battle. Most of her best clothes were in London but she had a short black dress, starkly plain, brought to Yorkshire by chance when it was left in the car after collection from the cleaner’s, and she helped herself to a cream silk jacket of Alison’s that was hanging in the hall. She did not normally borrow clothing, even from friends, but she suppressed her scruples: impromptu dinners called for emergency measures.

“I don’t know why you’re making such an effort,” said Will, watching critically as she applied mascara. “He’s awfully old, and he looks pretty dull to me.”

“I told you,” said Fern, “he’s Alison’s boss. He may be involved in this business. Anyway, I’m curious.”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” said Will.

“I’m not a cat.”

Javier drove her to an old-fashioned pub in a village whose name Fern never learned. The long white car purred down the country roads while a green evening spread slowly across the sky, chasing the fragile daytime moon. The pub was a squat stone building, thick-walled against the Yorkshire winters, low eaves overhanging windows already yellow with lamplight. Inside, there was a sparsely populated bar and a wood-paneled restaurant with some half dozen occupants. Javier chose a table in the darkest corner and ordered drinks. The waitress lit a candle: the tremulous flame steadied and burned tall between them, elongated by some mysterious updraft into a slender needle of fire. Javier’s face, dimmed by its soft dazzle, resembled that of a Byzantine saint, a golden oval, unnaturally smooth, the curved nostrils and almond eyes defined by their own shadows.

“Why did you bring me here?” Fern asked, sampling the unaccustomed gin-and-tonic with would-be nonchalance.

“Why did you come?” he taunted her.

And: “Haven’t I seen Alison wearing a jacket very similar to that?”

“Possibly,” said Fern. “One cream-colored jacket looks much like another.”

“Isn’t it a little too big for you?”

“No,” Fern replied. “I am too small for the jacket.”

He laughed as if he were genuinely amused, but Fern thought she detected a wrong note in his laughter, a subtle discord, as if mirth were a convention to which he subscribed though he no longer experienced any real pleasure in it. The hidden threat that she sensed beneath his polished exterior seemed to her potentially far more deadly than all she knew of Alison Redmond, though she could not have said why. The ironic humor that stirred his mouth, the tiny glints that came and went in his eyes, were as ripples on a mask, treacherous signs of a concealed inhabitant. Her mind teetered on the verge of realization; but the menu was before her, and she must select her dishes, and sip her drink, and make conversation. Mindful of her excuses to Will, she asked him how long he had known Alison.