Weaveworld

2

Perhaps it was the thought he’d been in the process of shaping when sleep came (that the snow-light was bright enough to read by) which prompted the dream he had.

He imagined that he woke, and reaching into the pocket of his jacket – which was unaccountably deep – took out the book which he’d saved from destruction back at Chariot Street. He tried to open it, but his fingers were numb and he fumbled like a fool. When eventually he got the trick, there was a shock waiting, for the pages were blank, every one of them, blank as the world outside the window. The stories and the illustrations had gone.

And the snow kept falling on the seas of Viking and Dogger Bank, and on the land too. It fell on Healey Bridge and Blackpool, on Bath and Devizes, burying the houses and streets, the factories and the cathedrals, filling the valleys until they were indistinguishable from the hills, blinding the rivers, smothering the trees, until at last the Speared Isle was as blank as the pages of Suzanna’s book.

All this made perfect sense to his dreaming self: for were they not part of the same story, the book and the world outside it? Warp and weft. One world, indivisible.

The sights made him afraid. Emptiness was inside and out; and he had no cure for it.

‘Suzanna …’ he murmured in his sleep, longing to put his arms around her, to hug her close to him.

But she wasn’t near. Even in dreams he could not pretend she was near, couldn’t bring her to his side. All he could do was hope she was safe; hope she knew more than he did about keeping nullity at bay.

‘I don’t remember being happy,’ a voice out from the past whispered in his ear. He couldn’t put a name to it, but he knew its owner was long gone. He pressed his dream into reverse, in pursuit of its identity. The words came again, more strongly.

‘I don’t remember being happy.’

Memory gave him the name this time, and a face too. It was Lilia Pellicia; and she was standing at the bottom of the bed, only it wasn’t the bed he’d gone to sleep in. It wasn’t even the same room.

He looked round. There were others here too, conjured from the past. Freddy Cammell was peering at his reflection; Apolline was straddling a chair, a bottle to her lips. At her side stood Jerichau, nursing a golden-eyed child. He knew now where he was, and when. This was his room in Chariot Street, the night the fragment of the carpet had come unwoven.

Without prompting, Lilia spoke again; the same line that had brought him here.

‘I don’t remember being happy.’

Why, of all the extraordinary sights he’d seen and conversations he’d heard since that night had his memory chosen to replay this moment?

Lilia looked at him. Her distress was all too apparent; it was as though her second-sight had predicted the night of snow he was dreaming through; had known, even then, that all was lost. He wanted to comfort her, wanted to tell her that happiness was possible, but he had neither the conviction nor the will to misrepresent the truth.

Apolline was speaking now.

‘What about the hill?’ she said.

What about the hill?, he thought. If he’d once known what she’d been talking about, he’d forgotten since.

‘What was it called?’ she asked. ‘… where we stayed – ’

Her words began to slide away.

Go on, he willed her. But the remembered warmth of the room was already fading. A chill from the present had crept over him, driving that balmy August night into retreat. He listened still, his heart beginning to thump in his head. His brain hadn’t re-run this conversation arbitrarily: there was method in it. Some secret was about to be divulged, if he could only hold on long enough.

‘What was it called?’ Apolline’s faltering voice repeated, ‘… where we stayed, that last summer? I remember that as if it were yesterday …’

She looked across at Lilia for a reply. Cal looked too.

Answer her, he thought.

But the chill was getting worse, summoning him back from the past into the bleak present. He desperately wanted to take with him the clue that was hovering on Lilia’s lips.

‘I remember that …’ Apolline said again, her stridency growing thinner with every syllable, ‘… as if it were yesterday.’

He stared at Lilia, willing her to speak. She was already as transparent as cigarette smoke.

Please God answer her, he said.

As her image began to flicker out entirely, she opened her mouth to speak. For a moment, it seemed he’d lost her, but her reply came, so softly it hurt to listen for it.

‘Rayment’s Hill…’ she said.

Then she’d gone.

‘Rayment’s Hill!’

He woke with the words on his lips. The blankets had slid off him as he slept, and he was so cold his fingers were numb. But he’d claimed the place from the past. That was all he needed.

He sat up. There was daylight at the window. The snow was still coming down.

‘Gluck!’ he called. ‘Where are you?’

Kicking a box of notes downstairs in his haste, he went in search of the man, and found him slumped in the armchair where he’d sat to hear Cal tell his tale.

He shook Gluck’s arm, telling him to wake up, but he was swimming in deep waters, and didn’t surface until Cal said:

‘Virgil.’

at which his eyes opened as though he’d been slapped.

‘What?’ he said. He squinted up at Cal. ‘Oh, it’s you. I thought I heard … my father…’

He ran his palm over his bleary features.

‘What time is it?’

‘I don’t know. Morning sometime.’

‘Want some tea?’

‘Gluck, I think I know where they are.’

The words brought him round. He stood up.

‘Mooney! You mean it? Where?’

‘What do you know about a place called Rayment’s Hill?’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘Then that’s where they are.’