Part 16 (1/2)

He opened his eyes and knew that she was thinking the same thing. Her foot began to work faster. He stared out the window and saw a plane trail being born high above.

Realized how tentative the other pa.s.sengers' grips on life were.

Saw just how fortunate he was to still be here.

He reached down, grasped the woman's ankle and forced her foot away from him. This isn't luck This isn't luck, he thought, not for my family, not even for me. It's fantasy, maybe, but not luck. What's lucky about betraying my wife when she needs me the most not for my family, not even for me. It's fantasy, maybe, but not luck. What's lucky about betraying my wife when she needs me the most?

They're desperate. Amaranth is desperate to keep me as they want me.

No, he thought.

”No.”

”What?” the woman said, frowning, looking around, staring back at him. Her eyes went wide. ”Oh Jesus... oh, I'm...” She stood quickly, hurried along the carriage and disappeared from sight.

Amaranth returned. ”Do not deny us,” the voice said, deeper than he had ever heard it, stronger.

He closed his eyes. The vision he had was so powerful, quick and sharp that he almost felt as if he were physically experiencing it then and there. He smelled the vol-au-vents and the caviar and the champagne at the exhibition, he saw Maggie's cheerful face and the gallery owners nodding to him that he had just sold another painting, he tasted the tang of nerves as one of the viewers raved about the painting of his they had just bought, minutes ago, for six thousand pounds.

He forced his eyes open against a stinging tiredness, rubbed his face and pinched his skin to wake himself up. ”No,” he said. ”My wife needs me.”

”You will regret it!” Amaranth screeched, and Adam thought he was hearing it for the first time as it really was. The hairs stood on the back of his neck, his b.a.l.l.s tingled, his stomach dropped. The things came from out of the table and the seats and reached for him, swiping out with clear, sharp nails, driving their hands into his flesh and grabbing his bones, plucking at him, swirling and screaming and cursing in ways he could never know.

None of them touched him.

They could not not.

They could not touch touch him. him.

Adam smiled. ”There's a bit of luck,” he whispered.

And with one final roar, they disappeared.

Half an hour from the station he called Alison and arranged for her to come and collect him. He knew it was false, but she sounded virtually back to normal, more in control. She said she had already ordered some Chinese takeaway and bought a bottle of wine. He could barely imagine sitting at home, eating and drinking and chatting-one of their favorite times together-with Molly lying dead less than two miles away. He would see her pa.s.sing in every movement of Alison's head, every twitch of her eyelids. She would be there with them more than ever. He was heading for strange times.

As the train pulled into the station, his mobile phone rang. It was Maggie.

”Adam, when are you coming back? Come on, artistic tempers are well and good when you're not getting anywhere, but that was plain rude. These guys really have no time for prima donnas, you know. Are you at your hotel?”

”I'm back home,” Adam said, hardly believing her tone of voice. ”Didn't you hear what I said, Mags? Alison's mum is dead.”

”Yes, yes...” she said, trailing off. ”Adam. The guys at the gallery have made another offer. They'll commission the artwork for the same amount, but they'll also-”

”Mags, I'm not interested. This is not... me. It'll change me too much.”

”One hundred thousand.”

Adam did not reply. He could not. His imagination, kicked into some sort of overdrive for the past few weeks, was picturing what that sort of money could do for his family.

He stood from his seat and followed the other pa.s.sengers toward the exit. ”No, Mags,” he said, shaking his head. He saw the woman who had sat opposite him, it was obvious that she had already spotted him because her head was down, frantically searching for some unknown item in her handbag. ”No. That's not me. 1 didn't do any of it.”

”You didn't do those paintings?”

Adam thought about it for a moment as he shuffled along the aisle: the midnight awakenings when he knew he had to work; the smell of oils and coffee as time went away, and it was just him and the painting; his burning finger and hand and arm muscles after several hours work, the feeling that he truly was creating in fire.

”No, Mags,” he said, ”I didn't.” He turned the phone off and stepped onto the platform.

Alison and Jamie were there to meet him. Alison was the one who had lost her mother, but on seeing them it was Adam who burst into tears. He hugged his wife and son, she crying into his neck in great wracking sobs, Jamie mumbling, ”Daddy, Daddy,” as he struggled to work his way back into his parents' world.

Adam picked Jamie up, kissing his forehead and unable to stop crying. You'll lose them You'll lose them, Howards had said. How dare he? How dare he talk about someone else's family like that?

”I'm so sorry,” he said to Alison.

She smiled grimly, a strange sight in combination with her tears and puffy eyes and gray complexion. ”Such a b.l.o.o.d.y stupid way to go,” she managed to gasp before her own tears came again.

Adam touched her cheek. ”I'll drive us home.”

As they walked along the platform toward the bridge to the car park, Adam looked around. Faces stared at him from the train-one of them familiar, the woman who had been rubbing him with her foot-but none of them were Amaranth. Some were pale and distant, others almost transparent in their dissatisfaction with their lot, but all were human.

The open girders of the roof above were lined only with pigeons.

The waste-ground behind the station was home to wild cats and rooks and rusted shopping carts. Nothing else.

Around them, humanity went about its toils. Businessmen and travelers and students dodged each other across the platform. None of them looked at Adam and his family, or if they did they glanced quickly away. Everyone knew grief when they saw it, and most people respected its fierce privacy.

In the car park Alison sat in the pa.s.senger seat and Adam strapped Jamie into his seat in the back. ”You a good boy?” he asked. ”You been a good boy for your mummy?”

”Tiger, tiger!” Jamie hissed. ”Daddy, Daddy, tiger.” He smiled, showing the gap-toothed grin that never failed to melt Adam's heart. Then he giggled.

He was not looking directly at Adam. His gaze was directed slightly to the left, over Adam's shoulder.

Adam spun around.

Nothing.

He scanned the car park. A hundred cars, and Amaranth could be hiding inside any one of them, watching, waiting, until they could touch him once more.

He climbed into the car and locked the doors.

”Why did you do that?” Alison asked.

”Don't know.” He shook his head. She was right. Locked doors would be no protection.

They headed away from the station and into town. They lived on the outskirts on the other side. A couple of streets away lay the small restaurant where Adam had talked with Howards. He wondered where the old man was now. Whether he was still here. Whether he remained concerned for Adam's safety, his life, his luck, since Adam had stormed out and told him to mind his own business.

Approaching the traffic lights at the foot of the river bridge, Adam began to slow down.

A hand reached out of the seat between his legs and clasped the wheel. He could feel it, icy-cool where it touched his b.a.l.l.s, a burning cold where it actually pa.s.sed through the meat of his inner thighs.

”No!” he screamed. Jamie screeched and began to cry. Alison looked up in shock.