Corbenic

Chapter Twenty-two

He emerged from the forest and came upon a most wondrous land.

2nd Continuation

Bath was beautiful. He wandered around its shops in weary appreciation, looking in at the fabulous furniture, the sumptuous giftware. Swaths of expensive fabric and chandeliers hung in shop windows; there were open-topped buses with Japanese tourists and taped commentaries about the Romans, Jane Austen, John Wood. And the streets amazed him—they were so grand, so sweeping, elegant facades of golden stone. Classy. That Shadow lived here impressed him.

He had to ask a few times for Great Pulteney Street; it was over a quaint bridge with tiny shops on each side. When he’d crossed it he stared down the wide expanse of perfectly matching elegant houses. Each one was Georgian, with a big painted front door, the steps in front leading down into an area behind black railings, where the servants would once have lived.

At Shadow’s number he stopped. There were window boxes with tiny daffodils and primulas, yellow and blue. The door was a glossy red, the huge brass handle gleaming, the curtains looped back. It all screamed money.

He swallowed. He’d caught sight of his reflection briefly in a window in town and had been shocked. He looked ten years older. His hair was matted and his clothes filthy with mud and dirt; he must stink. Merlin had loaned him an old army coat that came down past his knees, tattered khaki but warmer than just his jacket. He looked down at it with a sour smile. A few weeks ago he wouldn’t have touched it with a barge pole. But that was a lifetime away. He climbed the steps and rang the bell, turning and watching the street warily.

“Yes?” The tone was distasteful. He turned back and saw a woman of about fifty, stocky, in a flower-print dress. Her sleeves were rolled up, her hands floury. It wasn’t what he’d expected.

“Hi. I’m a friend of Sh . . . Sophie. Is it possible to speak to her?”

The woman looked him up and down. “She’s at school. Who shall I say called?”

“Cal,” he began, “but . . .” The door shut in his face. “Bloody snob,” he snarled. But he wasn’t surprised.

It was two o’clock, and fairly warm. He walked back to the bridge and down some steps at the side and along the riverbank, then sat and watched the water thunder over the weir. There were two swans on the river, performing an elegant bobbing and intertwining love dance; joggers and tourists stopped to watch them.

Cal lay down on the bench and dozed in the weak sun. If she wouldn’t help him, he didn’t know what he’d do. The money was gone. He wouldn’t sit in an underpass and beg. Glastonbury, Merlin had said. On the maps he’d looked at in the bookshops it wasn’t so far. Perhaps he could walk there. But he needed food.

He must have slept. Faces and voices disturbed him, as they always did. His mother said, “Get yourself something from the chippie for your tea,” and he laughed sourly and said, “What’s new,” and then sat up, cold and strained, because she was dead.

She was dead.

He still couldn’t take that in. He knew it, understood it, couldn’t bear it, was glad of it. And yet she was here, still a weight on him. He got up quickly and went back up to the street.

After twenty minutes leaning in a doorway, he saw Shadow coming along. She looked so different. Her hair was lighter, and she wore the school uniform he’d seen in the photo on the poster, a blue blazer, a tartan skirt. And the tattoo was gone. There was another girl with her, dressed the same. They had a magazine open and were looking at it, laughing.

His heart thudded. She didn’t look unhappy. For a moment he froze. He couldn’t speak to her. He should go away and leave her. And then, with an almost desperate lunge, he made himself step out right in front of them. “Shadow,” he said.

The friend gave a small scream. Startled, Shadow looked up. Her face was a blank shock. Then she said, “Cal?”

He tried to smile. Passersby turned. In a flash he saw what they saw: a homeless good-for-nothing harassing two well-heeled girls. Until Shadow grabbed his arm. “What are you doing here? What’s happened to you?”

Stupidly, stupidly, he felt his voice choke. He shook his head. He knew if he answered he’d break down.

She moved fast. She said something to the friend, ushered Cal firmly up the steps and opened the door with a key. Then he was inside, the door closing behind him, with one last glimpse of the girl on the pavement clutching her magazine in astonished surprise.

The hall was huge, carpeted, mirrored. She led him into a big room at the back and sat him on the sofa. He felt weak, and useless.

“Shadow, I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

She crouched. “Not now, Cal. Look at the state of you! How long since you’ve eaten?”

He couldn’t remember.

She went out. In front of him the fire roared over fake coals, but the heat was real and he was glad of it. He took one quick look round. Chippendale furniture. Portraits, great gilt framed things. Real. A clock like something out of The Antiques Road Show. He felt small, shriveled up.

Shadow came back, and the woman was with her, carrying a tray, silver, with a teapot on it and small cakes. The woman stared at him with dislike.

“This is Marj,” Shadow said quickly. “She works for us. Put it down there, and go and run him a bath, will you? Are there any clothes that would fit him?”

Their low voices discussed him as if he wasn’t there. Maybe he wasn’t. He felt so light-headed and weak he wasn’t even sure.

Then Shadow was giving him tea and he was drinking it. The hot liquid shocked him into awareness; for a second it made him think of the time in Hawk’s van after the fight in the Dell; maybe Shadow thought of it too, because she said, “We’ve all been so worried about you!”

He smiled, trying to eat some cake. It tasted like ashes. He needed to explain but she wouldn’t let him talk and he was glad, because the words would have come out all jumbled and useless. While she fussed around upstairs he laid his head back on the plush sofa, and if he had closed his eyes he would have slept.

Then she was saying, “Cal. Come on.”

The bathroom was white and gold. He sat on a chair and looked at it. “Wow. Beats the van.”

Shadow grinned, preoccupied. “There are towels, and some old clothes of my father’s. They’ll be big but you’re as tall as him. Come down when you’re ready.”

As she went out he said, “I didn’t think you’d be speaking to me.”

She looked at him hard. “Why not? It seems we’re both liars.”

The hot water was such luxury he could not believe his own luck. Drowsing in it he felt the aches of his body gradually ease; there were cuts and stings and bruises he had no idea that he had, and he couldn’t remember where they had come from. The whole of the time in the Waste Land seemed far off, the green chapel like a dream. And yet Merlin’s ragged coat hung over the chair.

He soaped and rinsed and scraped himself till it hurt. Then he looked in the mirror. His face was strange to him, hollow-eyed, thin, stubbled. He had lost weight; he couldn’t understand how much. He dressed in the jeans, and shirt. They were so baggy at the waist he had to use his old belt to keep them up, but they felt crisp and clean, and expensive. Rather than pull his mucky boots on he went downstairs in just the socks.

Shadow was putting the phone down. She turned. “That’s better!”

“Who were you ringing?” His voice was tense, paranoid.

“Trevor.”

“Shadow, you . . .”

“Oh Cal, for heaven’s sake! He’s been worried sick about you! Last month he was here begging me to help him.”

“Last month?” He stared at her. At the primulas behind her, through the window. The swans, he thought. The warm weather. How long had he been in the Waste Land? He sat down unsteadily. “What date is it?”

“The third.”

“Of?”

She came over, concerned. “April, of course. Tomorrow is Good Friday.”

“APRIL! It can’t be!” Three nights. That was all. If you say so, Merlin had said.

“Well, it is. Trevor hasn’t heard from you since the beginning of January. He’s been scared witless. He thought you might have . . . done something stupid.”

Cal knew what that meant. Struggling to keep calm, he said, “What did you tell him?”

“That I’d seen you here, in Bath, that you were okay. I told him you’d be ringing him tonight. You’re going to do it, too.”

He was stunned into silence. “It was only a few days.”

She smiled, too brightly. “Maybe you lost track of time.”

He didn’t want to think about it. “We’ve changed places,” he said gravely.

She laughed. “Sort of.”

“I suppose your parents will have a fit when they come home. Like Trevor did when you came.” He smiled sadly. “Though you were better off than him all along.”

“My parents won’t be home.” She stood up and went to the door, so that he couldn’t see her face. “Mummy’s in London, as usual. Dad’s abroad.” She opened the hall door and yelled, “Anytime, Marj,” and then came back.

Cal looked up at her. “Anytime what?”

“Food.”

It came on a trolley, and they ate it at the big table in the window, looking out onto a green lawn and flowerbeds of wallflowers and bluebells. In the spring twilight a flock of blue tits pecked and fought over a full bird table.

The meal was Italian, soup and then pasta, and he was glad it wasn’t spaghetti because he couldn’t eat that properly, and then some sweet like a trifle he’d never had before. Shadow had wine and he had orange juice. He ate quickly, trying not to. The stiff white cloth and heavy knives and forks, the starched napkins and the table settings made it seem like a restaurant, with Marj as the waitress. He thought of Hawk’s microwave. “Have you seen Hawk?”

Shadow sighed. She licked her spoon. “I’d better tell you what happened. After Trevor took you off that night, we went back to the farmhouse and the police were there. My parents were with them. My mother threw her arms round me; she wept and sobbed. My father looked embarrassed. Arthur was grave. Kai laughed. I knew I’d have to go with her. She would have made trouble for them all, for Hawk especially. If she even found out I’d been traveling with him . . . So I came back. It was blackmail, pure and simple. Though I told Hawk I’d be back in the summer holidays. I won’t lose the Company, Cal. They mean too much.”

He looked down. “How can you be unhappy here, Shadow? If I lived in a house like this, I could never be unhappy. Bath, your parents, it’s . . . it’s a world away . . .”

He stopped, as always. But she said, “You don’t have to clam up anymore. I know all about your mother, Cal. Trevor told me. He and Thérèse came here, like I said.” She put the spoon down angrily. “Why didn’t you tell me they weren’t your parents? Why didn’t you tell me?” But she knew why.

He left the table and went over to the window. So she said to his back, “My mother’s not like yours, no. A world away. She’s rich, she’s ambitious, she’s on TV, a media queen. My father’s in computing. He has his own firm. They live for their work. I never see them. I had a different au pair every year till I was twelve. Really privileged!” She got up and came behind him. “I live by myself, in all this splendor. I could have a car if I wanted. I could party and stay in the London flat and get high on drugs and they wouldn’t know. I have an allowance for all the designer clothes I want. I have a trust fund and a gold credit card. They think this setup makes us a family but we’re not. Her PA sends me my birthday present, can you believe that?”

Cal turned. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t understand.”

“Not your fault. Your mother . . . she was a mess, she ruined things for you, but she was there. Mine never is. She wouldn’t have been much bothered where I’d gone, except that some journalist got hold of the story and she thought it would spoil her precious career.”

She was rigid, stepped away from him, turned her back. Suddenly he felt he had never known her, that the shadow was back between them.

“You’ve always thought, haven’t you, that if you’d had money, it would have been different.”

He nodded, bleak.

“Well, it isn’t. Your life was worse than mine, I know that. But misery is misery, Cal. Loneliness is loneliness. And there’s one thing about your mother that I’d bet on, one thing I’ve never had.”

“What?” he whispered.

Shadow turned. Her eyes were wet; she smiled at him wanly. “I’ll bet she loved you.”