Banquet for the Damned

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

South Street is deserted. The disintegrating cathedral at the top of the street surveys all of which it once was master. And at such a quiet hour, the sight of so many blackened chimneystacks above the houses, shops and college halls, with their attic gables ominous atop worn stone fronts, makes Dante's neck tingle with excitement. He checks his watch under a streetlight and realises he is five minutes early.

From a tourist-office map he located St Mary's College, and walked from the flat on the Scores to find it tucked behind the walls of upper South Street. An arch leads to the college buildings and the court they surround. It has been burrowed into a plain stretch of stone wall, obscuring the actual court from the street outside. One of the iron gates in the arch is unlocked. Dante steps into a narrow brick annexe and the courtyard opens out before him. Dim globes light the paths, and subdued nightlights glow within the ancient buildings to create an enticing gloom in the court.

Hesitantly, he makes his way forward, until he stands before the oak tree at the head of the main lawn. Around the wings of the court, like a smaller version of the Quad, a ring of academic halls creates shade and protects the hush of the garden. There are cupolas and decorative turrets, worn plaques and coats of arms above the archways and broad windows, whose panes of glass are divided into little squares. Dante thinks of his guitar. He would like to sit down on a bench in the stillness and dark, to allow the impressions and contours of history to press in on him. He wonders what he could find on a fretboard to capture the atmosphere of the court. Blues scales were not cold enough. He'd have to brush up on classical arrangements.

'Dante.' Beth's voice startles him. It drifts from out of the shadows in a corner untouched by the orange lights that create a tarnished sheen on the black grass. Dante walks toward the belltower, its walls blanketed with ivy, from where the voice has risen. He peers into the murk around the tower but can't see Beth. 'Beth, where are you?'

He hears a giggle and stops walking. Squinting, he peers through the fountain of spiky tree branches that falls away from a skeletal thorn tree, next to the belltower. From behind the blackened tree trunk, Beth unwraps herself, smiling. Swathed in her dark coat, she approaches him, slowly, and seems to glide and pour through the gnarled branches and twigs until she reaches the edge of the lawn. Her feet never make a sound. She laughs again and wrinkles her nose with delight. 'This is my favourite tree. Mary Queen of Scots planted the little shoot in the soil.'

'It's kind of an ugly tree, though.'

'Ugly, Dante? Isn't there beauty in age?'

'I guess, but it's tilting to one side and has that calliper thing at the bottom, to hold it up.' Dante pauses when he sees Beth's expression change to disappointment. 'Sorry, Beth. I shouldn't knock your favourite tree.'

She smiles and lowers her eyes. 'It's one of my only friends here, and you should be nice to her.'

'I promise. And this place is, like, beautiful.'

'Isn't it. So little has changed. Walk with me and I will show you things.'

For balance, she removes her hands, gloved in leather, from the deep pockets of her coat and steps over the guardrail that protects the tree. Dante holds out an arm and she takes his fingers to steady herself. For a moment, as she raises a leg, her coat parts and reveals a long limb encased in patent leather to the knee. Immediately, Dante's eyes are drawn to a glimpse of slender thigh, shimmering beneath a thin gauze of nylon, before the heavy drapes of her coat sway shut to conceal it from his eyes. Beneath her coat, the rest of her body is clothed in black too: a leather skirt on her slender hips and a black woollen rollneck sweater to hide the pale skin of her throat.

'Thank you,' she says, and stands close to him on the gravel path. Dante's chest tightens when he looks into her eyes, wide and laughing beneath heavy lashes. His face reddens and he becomes glad of the dark. 'I'm so pleased you came,' she says, and slips an arm around his elbow. 'Shall we walk?'

Dante fumbles for his cigarettes with his free hand. 'Love to.'

Gently, Beth tugs him down the gravel path where the loose pebbles crunch and slide beneath their feet. But when he ignites his Zippo she pulls away. He glances at her and watches her face and how it has become wary of the flame. Disapproves of smoking, he guesses. Or maybe he is spoiling the effect of the dark. In any case, he lights his cigarette and quickly douses the Zippo's blue-yellow fire.

'See the little sundial, Dante?'

'Oh yeah.'

'And this is St John's Arch.'

'What's left of it.'

'A ruin has its own magic. Old, forgotten things do.'

'They do. I'd like to try and catch this on my guitar. We usually play blues and Tom's the wizard, but I think we could get something from this.'

'Are girls impressed by musicians?'

Dante's jaw hangs slack. Beth throws her head back and laughs. Then she squeezes his arm and Dante is hit by a cloud of perfume as the scent disperses from the fur collar of her coat. 'We were thinking of a gig somewhere. Is there like an alternative pub in St Andrews?' he asks, trying to recover lost ground. Beth stays silent. As if his babble is of no consequence, she just smiles up at the looming heights of wall and mildewed roof-tile above them.

'Does Eliot know you're here?' Dante asks, hesitantly.

'Down here, Dante.' They leave the courtyard and walk into a narrow wynd where the dark air feels heavy. Chestnut trees form an arch overhead to blot out star and moonlight, while the hedge shields the gully from the court lights. On their right, the wall is smothered with ivy and occasionally indented with an indistinct doorway. It prevents the distant town lights from intruding upon the court.

'Can't see where I'm walking,' he says.

'Let me be your eyes, Dante. I know this well.'

'You spend a lot of time here?'

'When I can. This is my favourite place. One of my family died here.'

'You're joking.'

'No. They took her from Parliament Hall and stoned her in the street.'

'When?'

Beth laughs and cuddles into Dante's shoulder. 'Long time ago. Look here, we go past the fur tree and the path takes us back to the courtyard.'

Despite the delight of having Beth's lean body pressed into his own, he misses the light, so he can look at her again.

'The night frightens you,' she whispers.

'No, I love the night. Spent most of my life in clubs. But all this would be clearer during the day. Why couldn't we have seen this earlier and then had a drink? Made a night of it.'

'Too many people. What about the solitude you can find at night? That's the best. It excites me.' Dante feels his groin immediately stiffen. In the company of this beautiful girl, he feels curiously powerless. Could he refuse her anything?

On their way back to the courtyard, they pass a mediaeval building with a little brass plaque on its door: BIOLOGICAL AND MEDICAL SCIENCES. 'This is the old library,' Beth says, and she pauses by the wooden door, which is studded with iron bolts. 'And next to it is the Lower Hall. It was once the Parliament Hall where the estates met. It's changed since,' she adds in a sad refrain.

'It's all great, Beth. I'm used to wet concrete and council estates. You know, I was amazed that there is no litter or graffiti in St Andrews. But the age of this place, it's kind of eerie. Don't you miss nightlife and stuff?'

Beth never answers. She releases Dante's arm and walks across the central lawn. She sits on the wooden bench before the monument. Sheltered beneath overhanging oak branches and huddled on the bench, her shape becomes undefined. It is thin, and blends into the black-green ivy that covers the stone and brass behind her.

After sparking up another cigarette for the fragile comfort its glow offers, Dante follows her to the bench.

'Tell me about your friend?' she asks, as he sits down, near but not against her.

'Who, Tom?' he replies, and fights to conceal his disappointment at her inquiry.

'Umm, Tom,' she murmurs, releasing the sound of his name from her lips with a little pout.

'Well, he's my best friend. More of a brother really. We go way back.'

'Does he have pretty hair like you?'

Dante chuckles. 'Yeah, right down to his bum. Hides behind it.'

'You must have so many girlfriends.'

'Hardly. The band was popular once. We were big fish in a small pond. Although, at the time it felt like we were at the centre of the universe. But things change. It was time for a new start,' he adds, sadly.

Beth crosses her legs and her coat slides off her knees. The hem of her leather skirt slips back and Dante's eyes catch the glimmer of something pale. 'I like —' the words stick until he's cleared his throat. 'I really like your style, Beth.'

'My style?'

'The way you dress. It's very chic.'

She smiles and looks down her body, distractedly. 'I wanted you to like me. I was so keen to meet you and very nervous the first time. I get so used to my own company.'

'Do you have any friends here?'

'Some.'

'Do you go out much? I mean, shopping and things in the day?'

'Not really.'

'Why?'

'I'm needed.'

'By Eliot?'

She moves against him. 'Sometimes.'

'Like as a nurse.'

'No.'

'Evasive creature, aren't you?'

'Maybe you would run away if I told you everything.'

'Try me.'

But Beth laughs: at him, he thinks. He removes his eyes from the girl it hurts to look at. It's the only way to keep his head straight.

'So where do you and Eliot live? I only had the address of the school.'

Her face turns toward him. 'Out on the west side.'

'Nice out there?' Dante asks, feeling as if he is fighting with a blindfold, desperate to peek over the top and see her again, to enjoy even a moment when her eyes are upon him. But Beth stays quiet.

'Did Eliot say when he wanted to see me next?' he asks, looking down at his boots.

'No.' The sound of her voice is closer now.

'How shall I approach things with him?'

Her breath cools on the side of his face. 'Have patience, Dante.'

'I'm not knocking your boyfriend, Beth. I just want to know what's going on.'

'Don't call him that.'

'What?'

'My boyfriend,' she replies, and it seems to have been an effort just to say the word in relation to Eliot.

'Isn't he?'

'You've been listening to gossip. Idle tongues should be cut out.'

Elation at her not being romantically connected to Eliot should be rising and warming through Dante, but that comment about cutting tongues out makes him uncomfortable. Her voice went deeper too when she said it, at odds with her beauty. 'Look Beth, I don't want to pry into your private life, but —'

She cuts him off. 'Dante, will you promise me something?'

'Sure.'

'Don't pry. I don't like questions. Once, a long time ago, I was asked painful questions. Too many questions by terrible people.'

Breaking his resolve, Dante finally looks at her face and watches a change spread like a thin and soundless ice beneath her alabaster skin, now appearing dead beneath the false colours of toner. Her gloved hands grip the bench and he hears a knuckle crack. The hard seat becomes harder beneath his buttocks. Police, he thinks. Maybe she's talking about Johnny Law. She's had a crazy youth and was busted for something. That's why she turned to Eliot's book. Wasn't he roughly the same? But the emotion suddenly drains from her, rage vanishing in the time it takes to beat one lash across a panther's eye.

'You are a loner, Dante. Like me,' she says, and her face attains a strange vacancy.

'Is that why Eliot wants me? Wants us to be close?'

'We want you to be with us. You wrote to us and we understood.

The unseen world in Banquet touched you. But a book is only words, a shadow. Why not give yourself to something that is real? I need you to. You must.'

'What? I mean, like a cult?' he answers, feeling uneasy, and silently praying she will laugh at his suggestion and then vigorously deny it.

'To be more than you will ever be alone. To be with someone powerful.' Her voice sounds older now; the bashful girl has gone again, with her prickly kisses and gentle hands. Her thoughts have wandered, unhooked themselves from the present and blown away to a place he doesn't understand. 'This is why you came to him,' she says. Her eyes widen with excitement. 'This is why I gave myself to him. I don't remember much about the time before him, and I don't want to. Everything is different now, Dante. I see and hear things I never did before.'

Dante stares at her, dazed. What has Eliot done to her, with his scarred hands and talk of sacrifice? Drugs maybe. Has the mescaline eater found an apprentice? 'I will help him, I want to,' he says, cautiously. 'I think I owe him. But how can I help? I'm a musician. You and Eliot keep dropping hints about this great adventure. But what is it? Where do I stand in all this? I mean, are you talking about drugs? I smoke dope, Beth, but the rest is shit. Did you try things with Eliot?'

Tilting her head on one side, she looks at the floor, and although her lips move he can hear no sound. It is as if she is hearing something whispered to her from an earpiece. Her face becomes dreamy, the green eyes distant, the body lifeless under the long coat, like a beautiful marionette left in a corner.

'Beth,' Dante asks. 'What's wrong?'

She turns to face him so quickly he flinches.

He swallows. 'Sorry, too many questions. But I need to know what it is you want from me.'

She moves her face closer, with her chin raised. And before he can ask another question, she closes the gap between their lips. Against his mouth her lips part. He can see the whites around her irises and smell her strange breath cooling on his face. He thinks of wet stones, dying summers and deserted beaches. 'You are special,' she whispers, stretching her arms out to hold his hands. One of her thighs presses against his own. 'I knew you would be special.'

Dante feels like he is floating before her face. Before anything real starts between them, it's like she is already hurting him, and it feels good. 'He will take you, and your friend,' she whispers. Are they about to kiss? Blood rushes in his ears and he fails to suppress a noisy gulp in his throat. 'You are right for him,' she murmurs.

Not thinking, he reaches an arm around her shoulders. Beneath the coat, where he expected softness to be, she feels brittle. Still, he draws her body closer until her perfume drowns him: a drowsy pine forest in her hair, a heavy draft of juniper berries on her throat. She angles her face against his cheek. Her lips brush against his skin until her mouth returns to his and smothers his breath. Cold kisses sprinkle ice particles down his back. Dante surrenders to her mouth.

Suddenly, she clutches his cheeks with her leather fingers and bites his lips. Streak lightning crackles through his head and blinds him. Sharp aftershocks of agony bring tears to his eyes, and there is a muted sound of something ripping inside his mouth as her teeth go to work.

But the pain is good. Good enough to overcome his instinct to pull away. Blood me, he wants to whisper. No longer does he think of her confounding wiles or her ability to leave every question unanswered. She's promising something decadent and painful that he suddenly craves, to take him somewhere where he can make pacts with writhing, binding things that will leave him paralysed and powerless. And yet still he will yearn for them. Toward her pallid, beautiful face he falls again, asking for the shock of her betrayals, shared with moments of her attention that will exhilarate and inspire. Laying his throat and heart open to the sweetest pain, he bites back at her mouth, knowing his desire for her is a trapdoor he wants to drop through — to feel his entire weight jolt at the end of her rope where it will dangle and wait for more.

But just as suddenly as it began, the kiss ends. Beth releases Dante's face and sits back to pant in the dark beside him, her lips smeared with blood or lipstick. He does not care. The smudged image of her face watches him, eagerly. It is as if she is now using extraordinary powers of will to restrain herself. A little whimper for more mewls from his throat and dies on his tongue. She looks insane, slovenly, a hysteric; the mouth gaping, the stare crude, the body slumped, thighs open. Torture pornography against a black surround.

Coppery blood mingles with the taste of the silvery lipstick she's smeared across his teeth. His limbs are heavy, his body drugged. Shaking his head, he fights the faint, only aware of his need for more of her. Slowly, he moves forward to engage the delicious, biting mouth again. Gentle hands spread wide across his chest and stop him. Baffled but pushing against her hands, Dante implores her for more with his eyes. But his head is like lead and lolls to the side, while one of his feet skitters uselessly through the grass as an unnatural warmth relaxes his body. Thoughts become vague until everything around him seems insubstantial, and even her face blurs in the soft focus of his dimming sight. Forcing one eyelid open, he can barely see her thick lips, crimsoned and spread wide across the dark teeth. There is only a suggestion of her face before him now and it peers into the gloom behind the bench. The private ecstasy on her face is no longer directed at him, but at something he cannot see that makes her lips move but produce no words.

'Be still,' she whispers, as both of his eyes close. She moves away from him.

'No,' he mumbles.

'Be patient.'

She leaves the bench, but Dante keeps his fingers entwined with hers. 'Wait,' he mumbles, just managing to squeeze and hold on to her hand, until her movements to free herself pull him groggily to his feet. She wraps her arms about his waist and whispers, 'Keep your eyes closed for him —' her stomach presses into his erection '— Promise me. It's for the best.'

'Promise,' he says, and Beth kisses him, once on his broken lips and then once on his forehead.

When his eyes open, he finds himself slumped on the bench, alone. Peering between eyelids sticky with sleep, he cannot see Beth. The court is silent, save for the distant sound of a car engine, idling somewhere beyond the walls. He tries to move, but his limbs have become numb, as if anaesthetised, and his neck is stiff with cramp and cold. All he wants to do is fall back into sleep. He is reminded of the occasions when he hears his alarm clock ring early in the morning and he can only find the energy to turn over in bed and shut it off. It is as if Beth's wonderful poison is warming through his blood. She has filled him with her delinquency and beauty until he is drunk with her. Beth is strong wine, sweetened in obsidian cellars. She is rich brown heroin shot through the groin. An acid moment before stainless steel where the angles of the world are tilted.

Falling in and out of sleep, he then experiences a curious inner vision, in black and white, as if it has been left behind by her presence. From above, he sees himself, pale and naked, curled up on the night sand, amongst dunes spiked with coarse grass, beneath an unnaturally bright moon. On this desolate strip of beach, a figure appears in the distance. At first its shape is indistinct, but it gains ground rapidly. Long thin arms become visible, and they are thrown into the air as it rushes forward. Flapping like a tattered flag around a crooked ivory pole, some kind of winding or swaddling linen hangs from the spindly figure. Like thin notes from a bone flute, Beth's whispers swirl about him and move the black sand on which he lies. As if on her command, he arches his back and exposes his throat to the hungry thing in rags.

Through the delirium he suffers on the wooden bench, the last part of his consciousness warns that he is not alone in the court. All around him a breeze rustles through the trees to become a murmur of voices, as if suddenly the place has filled with nervous courtiers who sense the approach of a ruthless king. The old halls seem to inhale and hold their breath inside bleached stone lungs, as if they too have been warned of the approach of an unwanted guest. A guest the halls and lawns want to be quiet and still for, hoping he will pass by. Something creeps through the shadows and along the stone walls. He can feel it coming.

A part of Dante wants to surrender, to relent and expire, convinced that a full comprehension of the stranger will equal a terror and panic no man would willingly face. To lie still and listen to the melody of the whispers and the rhythm of a slowly approaching tread on the brittle grass, heralded by the bony crackles of parting oak twigs, is easier and his end will be without pain.

And then the court seems to breathe out, trying to expel the foul air that has seeped in. Suddenly, there is laughter in the distance, in the street, the highway of the living. Someone calls for a taxi. Dante is distracted. He suddenly struggles against the desire to drift away and give up. A rush of impressions enters his dimming, dreamy thoughts. Brightening images of familiar faces shine like white lights through fog. He sees Tom's laughing face, which makes the silver earrings shake in his ears. He remembers the warmth of sunlight on his blinking face and how tea tastes with two sugars, and how beer smells after the little gassy pop beneath a levered bottle top. His fingers twitch for Ernie Ball strings on nickel frets. A distorted D-minor chord roars somewhere at the back of his brain, and he hears the crackle of old vinyl under a diamond stylus. Dante snaps from the trance and opens his eyes.

For a brief and fleeting moment, as if he has emerged into a new dream, the world has changed. The buildings around the court have slumped against each other and the roses have withered against the walls. Trees are petrified. Woody smells and earthy scents have been replaced with the malodour of age. A phosphorescent light contaminates the air. Somewhere in the distance, he thinks he hears a bell peal with forlorn clangs. Blinking, he moves stiff arms, so his cold fingers can rub the sickly nightmare from his eyes. He is aware of how heavy and empty his head feels, like an old iron pot swinging on the thin handle of his delicate neck. And as he tries to gather his senses, he becomes aware of a presence behind him.

This impression of company soon manifests into a rustling sound behind the bench. Despite the dark of the court, he also detects the suggestion of a great shadow, rising from leaf mould to stand amongst the tree branches. Without looking, he knows someone now stands upright and close to his back. When he hears the sigh, he runs.

And falls.

A stiffness in his limbs and muscles brings him down against the gravel path, which spits under his weight and cuts his palms. Panic and pain drain his mind of the dirty water of the vision. Sensing the presence of something old, but more than a man, waiting to satisfy a profound appetite and now so close to doing so, he is compelled to grope and clutch his way back to the distant street. This is survival. He wants to live and knows, for the first time in his young life, this desire is under threat.

As he crawls on his belly, his shirt twists against his chest and stones crunch against his face. Sharp pieces of grit spike against his skin and force him to try and find his feet. Rising from the ground to all fours, he glances back at the copse of trees that circles the bench. A peek motivated by terror and made quick by reluctance verifies that something is moving. It looks like a shadow, swaying like a giant black kite caught in a tree. Swaying when there is no wind. Stay, it seems to plead, when it reaches for him.

Another burst of laughter explodes from outside the gate, followed by the gritty sound of feet scuffling along paving stones. Someone yells 'Taxi' again, and the voice is loud and warm and living. Dante looks toward the entrance. The narrow brick arch and the iron gates are only a few feet away. Headlights swirl across the curved brickwork ahead of him and flash through the iron poles of the gate, lighting a path toward salvation. There is a squeak of brakes and a hydraulic wheeze as a car sinks down on its tyres. He does not want to die in here.

He runs. His boots slap off the paving stones. The urgent beats of a heart speeding up tell him he is running at full throttle. He is nearly free when something drops to the ground behind him, back by the bench. It makes the sound of loose bones shaken in a gourd.

Unable to look behind, he flees, off-balance as his right boot skids and then slips on a cascade of polished stones littered before the tunnel. Stumbling, he slaps a hand against the cold brick of the arch to keep himself upright, knowing that if he goes down he is finished.

Through the gate, he can now see the wide boulevard of South Street. There is an idling saloon car at the curb, resplendent with glossy white paint, and an orange light on the roof, painted with black letters that read TAXI.

Dipping his head, he leaps through the tunnel, firing himself off his front foot, like he is taking a long jump back at school, unconcerned where he will land. But something, with a long and determined reach, swipes at the back of his head. It catches a tendril of his hair and tugs, bringing tears to his eyes, making his head jerk back. His eyes are suddenly confronted with the smooth curving bricks in the ceiling of the arch. Dante grunts and twists his head. He falls sideways and then rights himself. The lock of hair snaps from his scalp, and his head shoots forward, plunging through the open half of the main gates. He emerges into an explosion of yellow street light; his lungs wheeze, his body moves too fast to control.

Behind him, a force rears up and then smashes against the closed half of the gate. A miasma, spiced with rot, belches from the stone arch of St Mary's Court and hangs like a cloud on the street. Dante slams against the taxi and plants his hands on the car bonnet with a bang. He glances up at the two tipsy pedestrians who stand by the open rear door of the car. They see something in Dante's face that kills their bleary-eyed camaraderie. 'I have to get away,' he says in the strange, matter-of-fact voice of the truly shocked.

They nod and then look at the trembling iron gate of St Mary's Court. Dante moves around the car, steering himself with his hands, tasting tar and blood in his mouth, until he finds the open door. Slumping his body across the rear seat, he whispers, 'Drive.' Uneasy, but unwilling to argue, the driver turns to stare at the long-haired youth with the ashen face who sprawls on the back seat of his car. The driver releases the handbrake.