Part 4 (2/2)

London Zoo's trying to breed from a couple at the moment.

They've flown the male over from Peking.' He paused. 'I'm babbling on, aren't I?' He grasped her hand and shook it firmly. 'Charles Bryce. Pleased to meet you.'

'Victoria Waterfield,' she said. 'You're the travel writer, aren't you? I thought I recognized you.'

He grunted. 'That means I look like my dust-jacket photo.

How appalling.'

'Thank you for rescuing me, Mr Bryce. I'd been sitting here trying not to look too English.'

'Always a dead giveaway. And call me Charles, please.' He stood and yelled at the teahouse door. 'Eric? Two more teas when you're ready.' He sat down again and added confidentially, 'Stay off the yakburgers. It's the thin end of the greasy slope that leads to the Big Mac. Nothing is sacred.'

'Are you writing a book now... Charles?'

'Maybe. I dabble in zoology and botany too. At the moment I'm looking for rare plants. Gentiana Gentiana and and Meconopsis Meconopsis. The Khumbu Himal Khumbu Himal is full of unknown species. is full of unknown species.

I've been here several times now. But what about you? Where are you headed?'

'I'm travelling up into Tibet. I want to visit one of the monasteries not far across the border. Det-sen. Do you know it?'

Eric clumped their mugs of tea down next to them.

Globules of yak-b.u.t.ter floated on the surface.

'It's bad news, that place,' he muttered.

'Why do you say that?' Victoria asked.

'There's only bad vibes about it.'

'But it is still open?'

'Oh, yeah. Open for business.' Eric scowled and disappeared back inside leaving the bead curtain clattering to and fro.

Charles smiled sheepishly. 'Take no notice. Eric's a leftover from the hippy trail. He came here in Sixty-seven and didn't have the money to get back.'

'Ah,' said Victoria, suddenly sympathetic.

'Never really got over the Beatles splitting up.'

'Oh yes, I've read about them.' She would normally have reprimanded herself for such an awkward remark, but here, so far from what pa.s.sed for civilization, she found she didn't really care.

Charles studied her for a moment with raised eyebrows over the edge of his mug, plainly trying to fathom her out.

Then he scrutinized his tea carefully. 'Eric knows a fair bit about plants though, judging from some of the stranger substances growing in his garden.'

Victoria watched him, finding that she had started to like his excitable manner and boyish grin. In her head, she heard the words 'nice young man, nice young professor' repeating in an all-too-familiar Polish accent.

The voice, her father's voice, had been growing in impatience.

' Why don't you come? You have deserted me! Why don't you come? You have deserted me! ' '

'You know that's not true.' Victoria pa.s.sed down through the roof of the deserted monastery, and back along the now familiar halls deep in shadow. The solid oak doors that guarded the entrance to the Inner Sanctum were barred across with ma.s.sive planks.

'Where are you?' she heard herself ask. For the first time, she was aware of the dress she was wearing. The rich purple satin fabric was hooped out wide on a stiff crinoline. Over it and covering her head, she wore a black cloak with a voluminous hood. The dress rustled gently as she floated. She was sure her mother had worn it.

' Here! I'm here! Here! I'm here! ' '

She had never heard him so angry. She was searching, yet the voice was always close at her ear.

' Here in the darkness. Here in the darkness. ' '

'I shall reach you, dear father.' She had pushed at the doors before, but unlike other walls, through which she pa.s.sed like light through gla.s.s, they resisted. Where everything else was intangible, the doors had substance. They had a force that repelled her as if they contained a heart of darkness that must not be disturbed. She wanted to turn away, but the certainty of what she sought drove her. Steeling herself, she set her hands to them again and, this time slowly, she began to push through.

It was like forcing herself inch by inch into a wall of molten toffee. Then suddenly her arms were free in the cold air on the other side of the door. She had never felt the chill before in this dream state and she longed to return to her sleeping body far away in a lodge in the mountains of Nepal.

But even in waking, she was being drawn closer.

' Victoria. Victoria. ' '

How could she turn back now? His voice was close to despair. Her face pressed into the treacly substance of the door. She was being crushed against it. With a lurch, she was finally through into the baleful light of the Inner Sanctum of Det-sen. The moon was s.h.i.+ning through a hole in the ceiling.

There was rubble on the floor and a broken chair beyond a torn curtain.

But the chamber was empty.

'Good morning.'

She had opened her rickety window, hoping that there might be a sign of him. The sunlight made her blink, it was so fierce, but there was Charles in the street below, infuriatingly enthusiastic for the time of morning and grinning up at her.

She groaned. 'Is it?'

'Bad night?'

'Queasy.'

'You've drunk too much yak-b.u.t.ter tea. It takes getting used to.'

'Probably. I'll be down in a minute.'

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