Part 14 (1/2)
Alison came to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. She nuzzled his ear. When she did that, it made him so glad he had married someone the same height as him. ”I know how much you've been aching for this for years,” she said. ”You remember that time on holiday in Cornwall... the time we think we conceived Jamie in the sauna... remember what you said to me? We'll have a big posh car, a huge house with a garden all the way around and a long gravel driveway, a study full of books; you can be my muse and I'll work We'll have a big posh car, a huge house with a garden all the way around and a long gravel driveway, a study full of books; you can be my muse and I'll work by day in the rooftop studio, and in the evenings I'll play with my children by day in the rooftop studio, and in the evenings I'll play with my children.”
”What a memory for words you have,” Adam said. He could remember. It used to be the only thing he ever thought of.
”Go,” his beautiful wife said. ”I'll be fine. Really. Go and make our fortune. Or if you don't, bring a cuddly toy for Jamie and a bottle of something strong for me.”
Good fortune, he thought. That's what I have. Good fortune That's what I have. Good fortune.
Deny them, Howards had said. But Howards was a crank. Surely he was.
”f.u.c.k it,” he whispered.
”What?”
”I'll go. And I promise I'll be back within two days. And thanks, honey.”
Later that night they tried to make love, but Alison began to cry, and then the tears worsened because she could not forget about her mother, not even for a moment. Adam held her instead, turning away so that his erection did not nudge against her, thinking she may find it horrible that he was still turned on when she was crying, talking about her injured mother, using his shoulder as a pain-sink.
When she eventually fell asleep he went to look in on Jamie. His son was snoring quietly in the corner of his bed, blankets thrown off, curled into a ball of cuteness. Adam bent over and kissed his forehead. Then he went to visit the bathroom.
Something moved back from the frosted gla.s.s window as he turned on the light. It may have been nothing-as substantial as a puff of smoke, there for less than a blink of an eye-but he closed the curtains anyway. And held his breath as he used the toilet. Listening.
In the morning Alison felt better, and Jamie performed so as to draw her attention to him. He threw his breakfast to the floor, chose a time when he was diaper-less to take a leak and caused general mayhem throughout the house. And all this before nine o'clock.
Adam took a stroll outside for a cigarette and looked up at the bathroom window. There was no way up there, very little to climb, nothing to hold on to even if someone could reach the window. But then, Amaranth did not consist of someones, but somethings somethings. He s.h.i.+vered, took a drag on the cigarette, looked at the garden through a haze of smoke.
He was being watched. Through the conifers bordering the garden and a small public park peered two faces, pale against the evergreens.
Adam caught his breath and let it out slowly from his nose in a puff of smoke. He narrowed his eyes. No, they did not seem to be watching him-seemed not to have even noticed him, in fact-but rather they were looking at the house. They were discussing something, one of them leaning sideways to whisper to the other. A man and a woman, Adam saw now, truly flesh and blood, nothing transparent about them, nothing demonic.
Maybe they were staking the place out? Wondering when and how to break in, waiting for him to leave so that they could come inside and strip the house, not realizing that Alison and Jamie- But I'm a lucky man.
Surely Amaranth would never permit that to happen to him.
Adam threw the cigarette away and sprinted across the garden. The gra.s.s was still damp with dew-he heard the hiss of the cigarette being extinguished- and it threw up fine pearls of water as he ran. Each footfall matched a heartbeat. He emerged from shadow into sunlight and realized just how hot it already was.
It may have been that their vision was obscured by the trees, but the couple did not see him until he was almost upon them. They wanted to flee, he could see that, but knowing he had noticed them rooted them to the spot. That was surely not the way of thieves.
”What do you want?” Adam shouted as he reached the screen of trees. He stood well back from the fence and spoke to them between the trunks, a hot sense of being family protector flooding his veins. He felt pumped up, ready for anything. He felt strong.
”Oh, I'm so sorry,” the woman said, hands raised to her face as if holding in her embarra.s.sment.
”Well, what are you doing? Why are you staring at my house? I should call the police, perhaps?”
”Oh Christ, no,” the man said, ”don't do that! We're sorry, it's just that... well, we love your house. We've been walking through the park on our way to work... we've moved into the new estate down the road... and we can't help having a look now and then. Just to see... well, whether you've put it on the market.”
”You love my house. It's just a two-bed semi.”
The woman nodded. ”But it's so perfect. The garden, the trees, the location. We've got a child on the way, we need a garden. We'd buy it the minute you decided to sell!”
”Not a good way to present ourselves as potential house-buyers, 1 suppose,” the man said, mock-grim faced.
Adam shook his head. ”Especially so keen. I could double the price,” he smiled. They seemed genuine. They were were genuine, he could tell that, and wherever the certainty came from he trusted it. In fact, far from being angry or suspicious, he suddenly felt sorry for them. genuine, he could tell that, and wherever the certainty came from he trusted it. In fact, far from being angry or suspicious, he suddenly felt sorry for them.
”Boy or girl?” he asked.
”I'm sorry?”
”Are you having a boy or a girl?”
”Oh,” the woman said, still holding her face, ”we haven't a clue. We want it to be a surprise. We just think ourselves lucky we can have children.”
”Yes, they're precious,” Adam said. He could hear Jamie faintly, giggling as Alison wiped breakfast from his mouth, hands and face.
”Sorry to have troubled you,” the man said. ”Really, this is very embarra.s.sing. I hope we haven't upset you, scared you? Here,” he fished in his pocket for his wallet and brought out a business card. He offered it through the fence.
Adam stepped forward and took the card. He looked at both of them-just long enough to make them avert their eyes-and thought of his looming trip to London, what it might bring if things went well. He pictured his fantasized country house with the rooftop art studio and the big car and the gym.
”It just so happens,” he said, ”your dream may come sooner than you think.”
”Really?” the woman asked. She was cute. She had big eyes and a trim, athletic figure. Adam suddenly knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she would screw him if he asked. Not because she wanted his house, or thought it may help her in the future. Just because he was who he was.
He shrugged, pocketed the card and bid them farewell. As he turned and walked across the lawn to the back door, he could sense them simmering behind him. They wanted to ask more. They wanted to find out what he had meant by his last comment.
Let them stew. That way, perhaps they would be even more eager if and when the time came.
Saying goodbye at the train station was harder than he had imagined. It was the first trip he had been on without his family since the disastrous plane journey several weeks ago, and that final hug on the platform felt laden with dread. For Adam it was a distant fear, however, as if experienced for someone else in another life, not a disquiet he could truly attribute to himself. However hard he tried, he could not worry. Things were going too well for that.
Amaranth would look after him.
On the way to the station he had seen the things three times: once, a face staring from the back of a bus several cars in front; once, a shape hurrying across the road behind them, seen briefly and fleetingly in the rearview mirror; and finally in the station itself, a misplaced shadow hiding behind the high-level TV monitors that displayed departure and arrival times. Each time he had thought to show Alison, tell her why everything would be all right, that these beings were here to watch over him and bless him- demon, angel, fairy, G.o.d -but then he thought of her mother lying in a coma. How could he tell her that now? How could he tell her that everything was fine?
So the final hug, the final sweet kiss, and he could hardly look at her face without crying.
”I'll be fine,” he said.
”Last time you told me that, ten hours later you were bobbing about in the Atlantic.”
”The train's fully equipped with life-jackets and non-flammables.”
”Fool.” She hugged him again and Jamie snickered from his stroller.
Adam bent down and gave his son a kiss on the nose. He giggled, twisting Adam's heart around his childish finger one more time.
”And you, you little rascal. When your daddy comes home, he's going to be a living, breathing, working artist.”
”Don't get too optimistic and you won't be disappointed,” Alison whispered in his ear.
”I won't be disappointed,” he whispered back. ”I know it.”
He boarded the train and waved as it drifted from the station. His wife and son waved back.