It was in a section of the park normally kept locked after dark, but they had been cutting down a couple of big old trees, excavating the rooots, and had removed a section of railing to get at them.
‘Could be me grandson,’ Charlie muttered to himself as he scrambled through the gap and trudged over the loose soil in the direction of the pond. ‘Bet I’ve got a grandson by now. Bound to. Tellin’ his ol’ grandad to move on!’
In the rockery near the edge of the pond the ground dipped comfortably in a hollow where he lay down in his tattered overcoat and arranged the old newspapers around him. Should have come here in the first place, he thought; no one would tell him to move on here. Like home.
He still had something left in that bottle in his pocket. Before going to sleep he took another long swig.
When he awoke it was still dark. Something was slithering over his face and he tried to brush it off. ‘Quit foolin’!’ he protested. ‘Quit muckin’ me around!’
Whatever it was — and it felt heavy, like a hand at the end of a thin, supple arm — it passed over his eyes … his mouth … explored his throat… down through the open neck of his shirt, next to his skin…
He could see it now as welclass="underline" a green, glowing tail waving in front of his eyes. ‘It’s the drink,’ he told himself, lying stiff with fear, not daring to move. ‘Must be the drink. Can’t be real, not like that.’
A caressing movement on his ribs — that felt real enough. Then another across his boots and ankles, penetrating up his trouser leg. As it bit into his calf he jerked at the sudden agony. ‘No, gerroff!’ he cried, rolling over and trying to fight back. ‘Gerroff!’
It chewed at his flesh. Under his shirt the other worm joined in, tearing at the loose skin. And a third worm caught his lower lip between its teeth. There was a rustling sound as more squirmed over the ground towards him. Shimmers of green approached in the faint light.
The scream welled up inside him, trying to break out, but the only sound he could produce was a long, shuddering moan of anguish as yet another worm gnawed through his cheek, its teeth scratching against his gums. He was sobbing with terror, panting and gasping for air, uncontrollably groaning as the intense pain racked his body and his mind gradually slipped its moorings.
No worms any longer. He was lying again on the Dunkirk sands, riddled with shrapnel, cursing his mates for leaving him behind, cursing the sergeant for getting himself shot, cursing …cursing…
Cursing.
13
Six weeks later they moved down to Westport.
Jenny was delighted. They found her a place in the local school; to get there she had to pass the little fishing harbour. She never stopped chattering about how wonderful it all was, so much nicer than her old school which had been a modern, neutral building with graffiti-scrawled walls and the motorway feeder running just beyond the playground.
Helen shared her enthusiasm. She went eagerly about the business of converting the holiday cottage into a permanent home, humming to herself as she worked, even smiling whenever she caught Matt’s eye. More than once she declared this was the best move she could possibly have made. It was her idea they should start going to the parish church on Sunday mornings to help get them accepted as part of the community.
The worms caused a problem at first.
When Matt brought the first boxes of them down to Westport and tipped them all into the large tank he’d installed, he was surprised at how sluggish they were. He’d never seen them behave quite like this in nature. But then he was only too aware that he understood nothing about their feeding habits and nothing about keeping them in captivity. The whole operation was a gamble.
One day he was late with their food, delayed at the shop by Fran with her constant questions about why he was avoiding her — her searching eyes, her worried look, biting her lip as usual. When he got home he found the worms had made their own feeding arrangements.
He realized cannibalism was not unknown in the animal kingdom. Even hens sometimes eat their own eggs. The larger feed on the smaller — that’s normal, but the worms had to do it differently. They’d picked on the oldest and biggest to be sacrificed as food for the rest.
‘I suppose there’s some horrible logic in it,’ Matt expounded to Fran when he told her about it the next day. He was still so shaken that he had to get it off his chest, and Hclen refused to listen to anything about his worms. ‘My theory is they’ve a collective will for survival. The group decided which one was to go and I don’t imagine there was any resistance even. He accepted his fate, willingly. It’s gruesome.’
‘We lost a good skin,’ she commented critically. She fingered the tattered remains he’d brought to show her. The small teeth had bitten into it in a dozen different places. ‘We mustn’t let that happen again.’
Matt was touched to the quick at her hardness. ‘Fran, I know what you must be feeling…’ he began awkwardly. ‘It’s my fault things have—’
She put her fingers over his lips to stop him. ‘I’m over it, Matt,’ she assured him. ‘Honestly. I don’t blame you for anything.’
Selfconsciously they switched the subject back to the worms. She was experimenting with mounting their skeletons on wire. Suitably framed, they might make an additional novelty for the shop. For some time he watched her dextrously arranging the vertebrae.
Outside, the wind was gusty and they could hear the halyards slapping against the masts of the yachts in the harbour.
‘I think I’ll split up the colony according to size,’ he decided before he left. ‘Reduce the risks. It’ll mean getting more tanks.’
‘Do that,’ she approved without looking up.
That morning the post had brought his compensation from Television Hall. ‘Compensation for what?’ he’d demanded when he’d first heard the details of their plan for getting rid of him. It was explained that the disciplinary inquiry had been dropped. In view of his unfortunate experience in the sewers, his contract was to be terminated on medical grounds.
There’d be a handsome hand-out to help him settle in his new life, Jimmy had informed him with the air of a man taking credit where credit was due. Later, in the corridor, Bill Roberts straightened out a few points, emphasizing that he had the union to thank. Then came the farewell handshake from Aubrey Morgan, Acting Managing Director, who’d made it quite plain that all decisions come from the top.
The Acting top.
Goodbye. Good luck. Next please.
The money paid for the timber he needed to construct a long shelf down one side of the shed. The new tanks were spaced out evenly along it, with strip lights immediately above each one.
He bred their food in the smaller of the two sheds. At the start he’d fed them on butchers’ scraps, but soon discovered that their skins lost their sheen if they were deprived of living meat. This meant ensuring a steady supply of mice, gerbils and rabbits.
To simplify the feeding process and avoid having his remaining fingers snapped off, he devised a set of boxes to fit over the tanks. The bottom section of each consisted of a sliding panel. He’d only to pull this out, and the live food dropped down to the worms below.
Breeding the worms themselves was a different matter. He watched them day after day, but they showed no interest in reproduction, no sign of young. The only way to replenish his stock was to go out hunting; even catching small ones was useful, as they could be fed up to the right size in a matter of weeks.
‘I imagine they’re waiting for spring,’ said Fran one day when they were discussing it. ‘That’s when most animals breed in this country, isn’t it? Who can we ask?’