"So am I." Amanda drew him through the sitting-room door, then pushed him unceremoniously onto the sofa. "How did you get here?"
"I walked." He curled up on the sofa and laid his head on the arm.
"Why didn't you go home?"
"I wanted to come here."
"Well, you can't stay. I'll call a cab." She reached for the telephone. "Where do you live?"
"I don't live anywhere," he said into the cream leather. "I exist."
"You can't exist in my house."
But he could and he did, because he was already unconscious, and nothing on earth was going to wake him.
He opened his eyes on grey morning light and stared about him. He was so cold that he thought he was dying, but lethargy meant he did nothing about it. There was pleasure in passivity, none at all in action. A clock on a glass shelf gave the time as seven-thirty. He recognized the room as somewhere he knew, but couldn't remember whose it was or why he was there. He thought he could hear voices-in his head?-but the cold numbed his curiosity, and he slept again.
He dreamt he was drowning in a ferocious sea.
"Wake up! WAKE UP, YOU BASTARD!"
A hand slapped his cheek and he opened his eyes. He was lying on the floor, curled like a fetus, and his nose was filled with the putrid smell of decay. Bile rose in his throat. "Devourer of thy parents," he muttered. "Now thy unutterable torment renews."
"I thought you were dead," said Amanda.
For a moment, before memory returned, Deacon wondered who she was. "I'm wet," he said, touching the saturated neck of his shirt.
"I threw water over you." He saw the empty jug in her hand. "I've been rocking you and pushing you for ten minutes and you didn't stir." She looked very pale. "I thought you were dead," she said again.
"Dead men aren't frightening," he said in an odd tone of voice, "they're just messy." He struggled into a sitting position and buried his face in his hands. "What time is it?"
"Nine o'clock."
His stomach heaved. "I need a lavatory."
"Turn right and it's at the end of the hall." She stood aside to let him pass. "If you're going to be sick, could you make sure you wipe the bowl round afterwards with the brush? I tend to draw the line at cleaning up after uninvited guests."
As Deacon weaved along the corridor, he sought for explanations. Dear God, what the hell was he doing here?
She had opened the windows and sprayed the room with air freshener by the time he returned. He looked slightly more presentable, having dried his face and straightened his clothes, but he had the shakes and his skin was the queasy grey of nausea. "There's nothing I can say to you," he managed from the doorway, "except sorry."
"What for?" She was sitting in the chair she'd sat in before, and Deacon was dazzled by how vibrant and colorful she was. Her hair and skin seemed to glow, and her dress fell in bright yellow folds about her calves, tumbling like a lemon pool onto the autumn leaves of the russet carpet.
Too much color. It hurt his eyes, and he pressed on his lids with his fingertips. "I've embarrassed you."
"You may have embarrassed yourself, but you certainly haven't embarrassed me."
So cool, he thought. Or so cruel? He longed for kindness. "That's all right, then," he said weakly. "I'll say goodbye."
"You might as well drink your coffee before you go."
He longed for escape as well. The room smelt of roses again and he couldn't bring himself to intrude his rancid breath and rancid sweat into the scented air. What had he said to her last night? "To be honest, I'd rather leave now."
"I expect you would," she said with emphasis, "but at least show me the courtesy of drinking the coffee I made for you. It will be the politest thing you've done since you entered my house."
He came into the room but didn't sit down. "I'm sorry." He reached for the cup.
"Please-" she gestured towards the sofa-"make yourself comfortable. Or perhaps you'd prefer to have another go at breaking the antique chair in the hall?''
Had he been violent? He gave a tentative smile. "I'm sorry."
"I wish you wouldn't keep saying that."
"What else can I say? I don't know what I'm doing here or why I came."
"And you think I do?"
He shook his head gently in order not to incite the nausea that was churning in his stomach. "This must seem very odd to you," he murmured lamely.
"Good lord, no," she said with leaden irony. "What on earth gives you that idea? It's quite the norm for me these days to find middle-aged drunks slumped in heaps on my floors. Billy chose the garage, you chose the drawing room. Same difference, except that you had the decency not to die on me." Her eyes narrowed, but whether in anger or puzzlement he couldn't tell. "Is there something about me and my house that encourages this sort of behavior, Mr. Deacon? And will you sit down, for Christ's sake," she snapped in sudden impatience. "It's very uncomfortable having you towering over me like this."
He lowered himself onto the arm of the sofa and tried to reknit the fabric of his tattered memory, but the effort was too much for him and his lips spread in a ghastly smile. "I think I'm going to be sick again."
She took a towel from behind her back and passed it over. "I find it's better to try and hang on, but you know where to go if you can't." She waited in silence for several seconds while he brought his nausea under control. "Why did you say you'd devoured your parents and that your unutterable torment was renewing? It seems an odd comment to make."
He looked at her blankly as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. "I don't know." He read irritation in her face. "I don't KNOW!" he said with a surge of anger. "I was confused. I didn't know where I was. Okay? Is that allowed in this house? Or does everyone have to be in control of himself at all bloody times?'' He bent his head and pressed the towel over his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said after a moment. "I didn't mean to be rude. The truth is, I'm struggling a bit here. I can't remember anything about last night."
"You arrived about twelve."
"Was I on my own?"
"Yes."
"Why did you let me in?"
"Because you wouldn't take your finger off the doorbell."
Sweet Jesus! What had he been thinking of? "What else did I say?"
"That I reminded you of your mother."
He lowered the towel to his lap and set about folding it carefully. "Is that the reason I gave for being here?''
"No."
"What reason did I give?''
"You didn't." He looked at her with so much relief in his strained, sweaty face that she smiled briefly. "Instead you called me Mrs. Streeter, talked about my husband, my brother-in-law, and my father-in-law, and implied that this house and its contents came from the proceeds of theft."
Hell! "Did I frighten you?"
"No," she said evenly, "I'm long past being frightened by anything."
He wondered why. Life itself frightened him. "Someone at the magazine recognized your face from when you were questioned at the time of James's disappearance," he said by way of explanation. "I was interested enough to follow it up."
The tic above her lip started working again, but she didn't say anything.
"John Streeter seemed an obvious person to talk to, so I telephoned him and heard his side of the story. He has-er-reservations about you."
"I wouldn't describe calling your sister-in-law a whore, a murderer, and a thief as 'having reservations,' but perhaps you're more worried about being sued than he is."
Deacon put the towel to his mouth again. He was in no condition for this conversation, he thought. He felt like something half-alive on a dissecting bench, waiting for the scalpel to slice through its gut. "You'd win huge damages if you took him to court," he told her. "He has no evidence for his accusations."