Banquet for the Damned

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

'Well, it's done. I feel better for it,' Arthur says. He buttons his coat right up to his chin and folds the lapels over to further protect his fleshy neck. Behind him, Dante closes the front door of that flat, Ben Carter's flat. There was no need to have told him that. He is right on that account; the lad has enough to deal with.

'You do?' Harry says over his shoulder, his body taut with irritation, as he strides to the car: the older brother defied by the younger for the first time. 'We'll see, Arthur. I can't see any good coming from it. He's ready for the police.' Impatiently, Harry swings his long body into the Rover, sweeping his overcoat under his buttocks.

'It'll be fine. Tomorrow. It'll be fine,' Arthur says, at the curb. The door of Harry's car slams and shakes raindrops onto his shoes. Harry removes the steering lock and, from a guilty afterthought, winds the window down. 'Lift?'

'No. I'll make my own way from here.'

'Sure?' Harry asks, half-heartedly, pleased they will not have to be awkward in the car together.

'Yes, thanks. I'm going back to the office. Something to finish off.'

Harry nods. 'Right you are. Until tomorrow.' His voice has turned sarcastic.

Let him stew, Arthur thinks. Even if it means going back out there to Eliot's cottage, they must take their share of the burden. The missing students and Dante's friend have to be found. No, there won't be a connection between the missing people and the cottage; he cannot allow thoughts like that. Think positively, a tired little voice says inside his head. A voice that once made a good suggestion or two, but now only irritates him, but he can't switch it off. But stepping out of Harry's shadow tonight makes him feel good. Not even the rain can dull that feeling, churlish as it is. The engine of Harry's car starts — a squeak, a rumble, a purr. There is a final glance from Harry's hard eyes, and then he is gone to the end of the Scores, fast and sliding past a black car idling at the curb, its lights on half-beam. Same model as Marcia's, Arthur thinks, distractedly. It too reverses away from his sight.

Rain is sweeping across the town again, like an intolerant authority trying to clear the streets. At the open mouth of the Scores, before it narrows to a long funnel under the overhanging limbs of ancient trees, a group of excited students darts in and out of cars and doorways, glancing at the bitter sky, their faces and voices begging for a ceasefire, to be without a care for the weather.

A sense of what tomorrow will bring makes him clench his fists inside his pockets. His fingers crush around coins and Polo mints. How he can assist Dante has yet to be established, and what exactly they are facing is still a mystery. Can their opponent be something not of this world? 'Not again,' he mutters: the endless circling and questioning, the doubts and then the belief, beginning again inside his head, and stomach, where he can feel it writhe. He's performed his part, and he was right to have done so; he's spoken his lines after a good whisky, but now the rain seems too cold, and the pavement too wet and dull, for that kind of thing, for apparitions. The town reassembles around him in real and hard shapes. Cars fill the road, late dinners are being eaten, there is a smell of cooling chip fat from Salvator's dormitory, and against the horizon a ship is seen to be still, although it moves slowly to the west.

He thinks of Marcia, which raises his spirits. He holds a memory of her, lets it grow, and allows it to pull his big body through the night air to his office, and to the bottle he keeps inside his drawer. No more thoughts of tomorrow. There will be time enough for that.

Passing the School of Divinity, Arthur wonders if Janice is really ill, or if Dante has given her a fright. And has Eliot cleared his office yet? Where will he take his books? He checks his watch. Nearly eight-thirty. There isn't time to check on Janice and, if he is quick, he can be in front of the fire at Marcia's by nine. No more delays. The very idea warms his big body. From the Scores, he takes a short cut beside the goods entrance at the rear of the Quad, and hears two girls, on the other side of Butts Wynd, running and laughing up the lane, heading toward the library to seek shelter. The weather has emptied the Quad.

The rain splashes off the top of his uncovered head, and has begun soaking through his woollen overcoat to chill his skin underneath. He follows the path circling the central lawn, past the now dripping halls of Anthropology and International Relations, to reach the cloisters of the church. Nearly there. He'll skip through the arch beside the offices in the western corner of the court to get to North Street.

But Arthur stops walking when someone calls his name from nearby. From right behind him. A softly spoken word, just audible over the splash of rain and the torrent of distant traffic. He turns, jerky, a hand leaving his pockets, his eyes screwing up against the beat of falling water. 'Hello.'

No one there. Not between him and Salvator's stark and glassy front, where the rain seems to pause as it passes the gigantic window panes — the droplets made orange by the light they fall across. Arthur switches direction, cursing himself. His heels crunch on the loose stones underfoot. He faces the church, before its yawning cloisters, dull with shadow. A pale face looks out and catches his eye. There is a laugh; the face vanishes.

His other hand is out of its pocket, wielding a handkerchief. Wiping his gingery eyebrows, he squints into the dark. He walks forward. Was someone trying to get his attention? A door closes nearby, out of sight. A car skids on the other side of the church, on North Street. He walks to the steps which foot the arches, and is just about to lean in and see who has been peering out when there is a sudden flicker of motion above him. Something moving up there, on the clock tower. Beneath the red clock face, so far up the square tower walls, there are giant slits cut into the tower stone. Is there a flag up there, caught by the wind and made to snap against the parapets? He cannot see one. No, there is never a flag up there. Has an arm waved? No, that would be too dangerous, and no one is permitted to go up there anyway. The darkness hangs over the tower, and the illumination from the ground lights never makes roof level. A pigeon, then, home to roost, to escape the rain.

He carries on, eager to leave the empty Quad, and never takes his eyes from the church. He is aware that his heart is thumping. And he is even tempted to jog the short distance to his office. Now he is seeing things. Talking about the night in May must have stirred his imagination up, producing sparks as if he'd jabbed a stick into the base of an open fire. A drink. He needs a drink to put the sparks out before going to Marcia. He can't go to her like this, wet through with shaking hands.

Back in his office, with the door locked, he searches his desk. Third drawer down holds a green bottle amongst the paperclips, an orange hole punch, and a photo of Marcia at a staff fancy-dress party that he never dared take home. The bottle is half full of whisky, which splashes about inside the green glass as he raises it from the drawer and places it on his desk. It has been saved for the good and the bad. When his wife's shooting stomach pains — which she just knew were cancer because of the way her father died so suddenly — turned out to be a case of gallstones, that was the last occasion the bottle of Laphroaig saw the light.

After splashing a generous measure into a clean coffee mug, he turns the heater on full and pulls the blinds down against the rain, to dull its rapping on the glass. He drops his sopping jacket on the back of his chair and strips his shirt off, hurriedly, wanting to rid his body of its clammy tug and squelch. Pink and bulbous, his freckled belly flops over his thin belt and hangs in his lap when he takes a seat and reaches for the mug.

Panting and coughing at the liquid fire he's gulped, Arthur pushes the mug away as if he can't bear to look at it anymore, and slumps against his desk, head down, arms forward, elbows bent. In a moment he will get dressed into the fresh shirt he keeps for meetings. Over that he can wear his waterproof, hanging from the coat stand. But in a minute. For the moment, he has to get things straight inside his head, and let the whisky's warmth crawl through his gut. There it is, a hot coal glowing and spreading through his empty stomach, with rising vapours that leave a fruity taste in his mouth. His head spins.

He reaches for the mug and downs the second half. Some of it escapes from the side of his wet mouth and splashes onto his mouse mat. Now there is a peaty smell of Scotch in the office, mixed with an odour of sour sweat, and the cloying fumes of the rainwater evaporating off his clothes and skin. Arthur reaches for the phone and tries Marcia's home number. It rings four times, and then he hears Jeff's voice. It gives him a start. His head is cleared by a sudden anxiety, until he realises it is only the answering machine. He exhales and replaces the receiver. A clicking sound begins from inside the little heater beside his desk and his eyelids feel heavy. He swallows another draught of whisky, deciding it will be the last, and then turns his desk lamp off. He closes his eyes to rest them, just for a minute.

At the sound of a knock, Arthur opens bleary eyes and stands up quickly. The floor seems to rise like a wave to tip him backward, over his chair. He thrusts his hands out and seizes the top of his desk. He swallows but still can't find his voice.

'Arthur. Arthur, are you all right? The door's locked.' It is Marcia. What is she doing here so late?

The office is dark now, and insufferably hot. The only light creeps from beneath the pale-green square of the blinds covering the windows that look down upon North Street. From the heater comes a whirring sound, that will soon become the whine of a machine trying to cool down. He checks his watch; the numbers and hands are luminous in the dark. He's slept for no more than ten minutes.

'Are you in there?' Marcia calls, from beyond the door.

'Jussa minute,' he says, and then struggles around the desk, knocking his fumey coffee cup to the floor as he scrabbles for the light switch. 'Jesus Christ,' he whispers, rubbing his forehead and squinting his eyes against the lightning that crackles in his head when the desk light snaps on. She can't see him like this, drunk, sleepy, stinking of rain and an anxious sweat. He stumbles across to the door. A pale-blue shirt hangs from a hook on the top of the door. 'Hang on,' he calls out, his voice sounding deep and unnatural as he fights to control the slur.

With the shirt draped around his shoulders, standing in his damp socks, he unlocks the door and opens it a fraction. 'Marcia. I'm not feeling too great. I phoned you just now.'

The lights are off outside, and from the dark comes the glint of her spectacles. 'You're drunk,' she whispers.

'Been a terrible day,' he says, slurring his words, and blinking his eyes in a feeble attempt to stop the suggestion of Marcia jolting before his eyes.

'Let me in.' Marcia pushes at the door handle. Arthur presses his shoulder against the edge of the door. 'Ummm. I'm not… Oh, I'm not decent right now. Let me put a shirt on.'

'Don't be a silly. Let me in. What on earth are you doing?' she says, her voice softening with amusement. He moves away from the door, back toward his desk, frantically trying to button his shirt over his belly. Marcia turns the main lights on with a quick downward sweep of one hand. She blinks once in the light, spots the whisky bottle, looks at his red face, and then closes the door behind her.

'Got caught in the rain like a fool after my appointment,' he says, his voice stronger, his composure returning. 'Just drying out before popping over to you, and I fell asleep.'

'Not surprised after drinking that,' she says, smiling, beside him now. 'Bet you haven't eaten. Come on, let's get you sorted out.'

'But your celebration. The collection,' he says.

'Still early. I did a little shopping first. Bought some wine and a dessert. And I had an inkling you'd end up back here.' She looks upset now. 'I want to help, Arthur. Don't you think I've noticed how strange you've been behaving? If you need help, you know I'm always here. Is it Elaine?' Arthur shakes his head at the mention of his wife.

He tries to smile but it dies on his mouth. 'Is it your heart?' she whispers.

'No. Nothing like that. Something else. A professional matter. It's difficult.'

'That young man, isn't it? With all the hair. He's been making a nuisance of himself. Has he been bothering you too?'

'No, no. Look, it's hard to say.'

'He's been threatening you, hasn't he?'

Arthur licks his lips. 'It's not that straightforward.'

'Well, hiding in the dark won't solve a thing. Let's go home.'

'It's better you don't know. It really is.'

'Eliot, then. We all know about him.' She raises her eyebrow. 'You'd be surprised how much we all know.'

'We?' he says, straightening a cuff.

'Oh, you know. People talk.'

The thought of Eliot makes him want to sink back into the warmth and dark where he's been sleeping. 'In a manner of speaking, yes. Yes, he has something to do with it.'

She smiles, knowingly, pleased with her deduction. 'Come on, let's go and eat. You'll feel better. We'll get you dry. We'll get you ready. And no more of this,' she says, capping the Laphroaig. By the time his shirt is buttoned to the top, the mug has been replaced on the tray above his filing cabinet, his drawer shut, the heater switched off, and his damp jacket has been assessed, swatted, pulled back into shape and draped over her arm; he wants to kiss her. She walks to the blinds and raises them. Tilting her head downward, she stares into the street.

'What is it?' he says.

For a moment she stays quiet, as if distracted by something. And then she speaks, quickly. 'Maybe I should air the office now? No. Better not. In the morning, then, when the rain stops.' She turns and walks to the door of his office, the sound of her heels loud and decisive in his ears. They both try to open the door at the same time. Their hands touch. A moment of silence falls between them. Arthur has no idea what to say.

'It's all right, Arthur. When you're sober, you can go home. So don't look so worried.' She giggles. 'I won't pounce. Not my style. I leave that to others. But you need a bath and a hot meal.'

'Are you sure you don't mind?'

'Not at all. But do tuck your shirt in, or people really will have something to talk about.'

He laughs, and slithers into his waterproof. 'You're a treasure.'