She was rigid, stepped away from him, turned her back. Suddenly he felt he had never known her, that the shadow was back between them.
“You’ve always thought, haven’t you, that if you’d had money, it would have been different.”
He nodded, bleak.
“Well, it isn’t. Your life was worse than mine, I know that. But misery is misery, Cal. Loneliness is loneliness. And there’s one thing about your mother that I’d bet on, one thing I’ve never had.”
“What?” he whispered.
Shadow turned. Her eyes were wet; she smiled at him wanly. “I’ll bet she loved you.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Am I on the right road for the house of the Fisher King?
2nd Continuation
There were crystals hanging in the window. They swung softly in the drafts, and Cal watched the tiny brilliant rainbows they made on the walls, all moving together. He lay on the soft pillows, wonderfully comfortable.
Shadow’s spare room was twice the size of his old room in the flat, larger even than the bedroom at Trevor’s. The furniture was old and graceful, and the windows immensely tall, with white painted shutters that could close the night out. Now, late in the morning, he watched the sun, and thought of the Waste Land.
He had been wandering there three months. At least, out here it had been that long. For him, he didn’t know how long it had been. He could only remember fragments, the burning tree, the chapel. You couldn’t forget a whole quarter of a year. Unless your mind was breaking up.
In the comfort after his deep sleep he was oddly unworried. And that wasn’t like him. Maybe he should see a doctor. He examined the idea idly, mulled it over, saw himself in waiting rooms, and then explaining, trying to explain, to a man behind a large wooden desk. “It’s as if time went differently there. But Merlin said . . .”
The doctor would lean forward, interested. “Merlin?” he would say.
“Yes. One of Arthur’s men.”
The doctor would make notes rapidly.
Despite himself, Cal grinned and stretched. If he was going crazy, at least this morning he didn’t care. Until he thought of his mother.
He got up instantly, dressed in his borrowed clothes, and went downstairs, looking through the tall, sunny rooms of the house. Finally he found Shadow sitting out in a sort of conservatory, reading, a fat white cat on her lap. She looked up. “God, you can sleep!”
“I was tired.”
She was wearing the other clothes this morning, the ones she’d worn in Chepstow, the filmy black, the boots. It made her look more familiar, despite her clean face. She pushed the cat off. “Let’s go out for something to eat.”
It was holiday time and Bath was busy. Down in the town they found a small café full of American tourists and squeezed into a table at the back. Shadow ordered pizza and chips and Cokes and Cal said bleakly, “I haven’t got any money.”
She put a credit card on the table. “Daddy can pay.”
“Shadow . . .”
“Forget it. What did Trevor have to say?”
Cal sighed. The conversation had not been pleasant. “He was furious. Where had I been? Didn’t I know Thérèse was worried stiff? Didn’t I know the police in three counties were out looking for me?”
She nodded. “Sounds familiar. And when he’d calmed down?”
Cal drank the Coke. “Said the job was still there if I wanted it.”
“Do you?”
He gazed out at the packed streets. Then he said, “I used to dream, at home. All I ever wanted was somewhere clean, quiet. Everywhere I went I’d look at the big houses and be sick with envy of the kids who came out of them. I still am. I can’t just turn that off. And that takes money.”
Shadow waited till the waitress had put the plates down and gone. Then she said, “So that’s a no, then.”
He looked up at her, a sudden grin. “I suppose it is.”
“Sophie?”
She looked up, alert. Then said, “Hi, Marcus. Cal, this is Marcus. I told you about him.”
He was big, blond, expensive. Public school, by the voice. His sunglasses would have cost a few days’ salary. Cal stood up, found he was taller and enjoyed that. “Hi,” he said quietly.
Marcus looked at him, then at Shadow. “Thought we might go out somewhere tonight, if you’re interested. But. . .” he shrugged, “no bother.”
She smiled sweetly. “Maybe another time.”
“Fine.” He went, looking back once. Cal sat back down and glanced at Shadow. She laughed softly. “Perfect,” she said.
Afterward they went shopping, Shadow buying a strange hand-painted T-shirt for herself, and a sweater for him, even though he told her not to. Such casual spending appalled and thrilled him. It was like another world.
In the Body Shop he lounged while she picked over various shampoos, leaning against the green-painted counter idly. Then his gaze froze.
Leo was looking in through the window. The big man was watching Cal; as soon as he saw Cal notice him he turned and was gone in the flood of pedestrians. Cal yelled, “Shadow!” and raced out.
People buffeted him. He pushed through them, turned right up Milsom Street and ran, jumping impatiently out into the road where cars hooted. Up ahead Leo’s huge back was clear. He crossed into an alley. Just behind, Cal sprinted between vans, dodged a stroller, threw himself around the corner. “Hey! WAIT!”
The man turned. He was a total stranger.
Cal’s breath almost choked him.
Behind him, Shadow turned the corner, breathing hard. “Cal! Who was it?”
He looked around at the totally ordinary town, then at her face, the hidden concern. He rubbed his hair with a shaky hand. “I think it’s me, isn’t it?” he whispered.
You had to pay for deckchairs in the park. It was like you had to pay for everything in the world. Devastated, he sat there and knew he had imagined it all. Unless he could find Corbenic again. Unless he could find the Grail.
They both sat silent in the sun until she said, “Look, Cal . . .”
He sat up, interrupting. “I’m going to Glastonbury. Will you come with me?”
“Why there?”
“Merlin said in all the stories the Grail is there.”
“Merlin’s mad. I mean,” she said hastily, “he may be right about that, but this place you found . . . this hotel, was up north. Right?”
Suspicious, he looked at her. The truth came to him, blinding and brilliant as the flashing rainbows in the bedroom. “You don’t believe any of it. The bleeding spear, the Grail . . .”
“I think you stayed the night at some hotel. That you saw some . . . people carrying things. It must have been a bit odd.”
“A bit odd!” Aghast, he stood up and stared down at her. “I thought you at least would understand.”
Shadow bit a nail. “It’s like Hawk. He thought he was someone from the past. They all had this game, that they were immortals. I never knew if they were winding me up. Then I thought, they believe this. So I believed it. If you believe something hard enough, it comes true. In a way. What he said to you about the Grail is just another old story.”
He came and sat down. “You think I’m going the way my mother did.”
“I think you’re looking for something that’s not here. Maybe you’re looking for her. You won’t find her in Glastonbury.” It was cruel, he thought bitterly, and maybe Shadow thought so too, because she said quietly, “I never knew her, remember.”
Out of his anger he shrugged. “I often thought I’d like to tell you. Have someone to moan about it to.”
“Tell me now,” she said gently.
He didn’t know where to start. There was too much. The dirt, the drink, the time she’d come at him with the broken bottle. So he said, “Once, she cut herself.”