“I don’t hate them!”
“They won’t know that!”
He caught her wrist; amazed, she shook him off. “Get lost, Cal! Get off my back! This is my problem! It’s got nothing to do with you!”
For a second he stared at her as if there was something huge he had to say, something so massive it would destroy him to speak it. Then he had turned and gone, brushing past Hawk so that a packet of chips fell on the frozen soil.
“Hey!” Hawk yelled. “What’s the rush?”
Cal glanced back at Shadow’s stricken face. “I’ll see you on Christmas Eve,” he whispered.
On the twenty-third he packed.
When his mother rang he said bleakly, “I’ll be home tomorrow. The train gets in about six.”
“Oh God, Cal, it’ll be so good to see you.”
Her voice was husky; he had to loosen his grip on the phone, and say, “I haven’t been away that long.”
“It seems like forever!”
He knew she had been drinking. Years of interpreting her mood, the nuances of her voice, told him that. Not much, but enough.
“Mam,” he said quietly, “are the voices still gone?”
She was silent. Then her whisper came, secret and confiding. “Last night, I heard them. At first I thought it was him and her next door, arguing, but it wasn’t. It was a lot of people, Cal, like a great crowd, somewhere far off, laughing and talking, and a clatter like plates and dishes. A banquet. And music, faint, like harps. And you were there, Cal.”
“Me?”
“I heard you. As if you were close to me. ‘I didn’t see a thing,’ you were saying, loud, like you do when you’re getting all het up.”
He stared across the room at the mirror, at himself. “You can’t have,” he whispered.
But her mood had changed; she was scared now. “I haven’t heard them for so long. When they’d gone, I got up and went in all the rooms, and sat on your bed—it’s so tidy, Cal, spotless, just like you keep it—and I listened. All night I listened. But they didn’t come back. Will they come back, Cal? Like they used to do?”
“I don’t know,” he said desperately. Then, “No. Not if you remember to take your pills. You are taking them, aren’t you?”
“The dustbin worries me.” Her voice was thin now, full of dread. “It keeps overflowing. I can’t remember when they come for it.”
“Thursdays.” He was sweating; he said, “Ask Sally. She knows. Look, I’ve got to go now. I’ll see you tomorrow. Tell this woman Rhian about the voices. Ring her now. Don’t forget. And Mam . . .”
“You are coming? If you don’t . . .”
“I’ve SAID! I’ve said I’ll come.” He calmed his voice, with an effort. “okay?”
“okay,” she whispered.
“Mam . . .”
“What, sweetheart?”
Don’t drink anything. Stay out of the pub. Walk the long way round, away from the off-license. Stop blackmailing me. Stop ruining my life.
But all he said was, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I love you, Cal,” she whispered.
He put the phone down and sat with his head in his hands. He sat there for an hour, then went up to his bedroom and closed the door and pulled the duvet off the bed and wrapped it around himself, huddled against the radiator, trying to get warm, to let the darkness cover him, to make the whole sickening mess go away.
He had to go. He had to go. But if he did he had to tell Hawk he wouldn’t be at Caerleon, and he wanted so much to be with them, all of them, in the cheerful, messy farmhouse. All his life all he had ever wanted was to be normal, have a family, real friends.
Through the night in the silent house his thoughts tormented him, trapped in the endless agony of his selfishness, of his dread. He must have slept, because at some point the whole mess liquefied, became a whirlpool sweeping him down, into the golden hollow of a great cup, and he was scrambling hopelessly to climb out, but the sides were slippery and sheer and he fell back with a splash.
And there were all sorts of things with him in the red flood; Shadow was there with her face paint washed off, and Hawk, clinging to the wreckage of his shield, and Phyllis, swimming firmly with strong strokes.
“Little apple tree!” A voice hissed above him, and he looked up and saw Merlin. The madman was balanced, feet wide, on the lip of the cup; now he squatted and held out a long, shining lance and said, “Catch hold, knight. For the quest begins here. Here the marvels begin; here begin the terrors!”
With a great effort Cal flung his arm up and grabbed the lance, but his clutching fingers slid on it, and he saw that it was bleeding, great drops of blood, and it was the blood that filled the cup, the blood that was drowning him.
He let go, and fell, down and down, and the darkness came up around him, and it was sleep.
“Have a good time.” Cal leaned into the car.
“Thanks,” Thérèse said happily. “And give your mother my love.”
Trevor was fishing in his pocket. He brought out a small package. “This is for her,” he said. “Tell her . . . tell her Happy Christmas from me.”
Cal took it silently. Behind him the station announcements echoed. He turned. “I’d better go.”
For a second all he wanted to do was get back in the car. Thérèse put her hand on his arm. “It will be all right,” she said quietly. “As soon as you get there you will enjoy it. And it’s only for a few days. Think what it means to her, Cal.”
He nodded.
As the car turned in the forecourt and drove away he waved, seeing Thérèse’s hand waving back until they turned the corner and were gone. Then he picked up his bag and went into the station.
He got into the queue for the tickets but when he was two from the front he turned abruptly and went on to the station and sat on a bench, cold to his bones.
The station clock said nine twenty. At ten twenty he was still there. Trains came in and went out. Announcements echoed, reverberating lists of names and places he’d never been. People got on and off, kissed good-bye, bought newspapers, ran. Ordinary people. People going home for Christmas.
He was frozen; he couldn’t move. He watched them without curiosity, as if all feeling had drained out of him. As if he was invisible among them.
When the third train for Newport had left, the platform was empty. He stood up, numb with exhaustion.
Then he went home. To Otter’s Brook.
Chapter Sixteen
She greeted Arthur and all his household save Peredur.
And to Peredur she spoke wrathful, ugly words.
Peredur
He slept all day.
At six o’clock, bleary and rigidly careful, he dressed in crisp clean jeans, a pale shirt, a warm pullover, his dark jacket. He ate some cold meat and pickles that were in the fridge, washed up, tidied every object in every room, hoovered, rearranged Trevor’s Christmas cards in fanatical order of height and left a note for him on the dustless windowsill.
Hawk and Shadow were meeting him at seven. But first, he had to make that call. It took him five minutes to summon the strength to pick up the phone. Then, cold with fear, he grabbed it and rang his mother. “I can’t get there,” he said quickly, hurriedly. As if saying it fast would help, would make it easier for her. “The trains were all running late, and I got as far as Newport, but then the next two were canceled. Christmas, I suppose. Too many people.”