Falling Into Heaven Page 6

  ‘Twenty one! God, that’s six years away. I’ll be in the mad house by then.’ She laughed at her own dramatics and kissed my cheek. ‘See you Monday?’

  ‘Bright and early. My last week,’ I said. ‘You’ll soon be rid of me.’

  A shadow seemed to pass across her face, or perhaps it was just wishful thinking on my part.

  Then there was an indistinct noise from behind her, but fear kept her attention focused firmly upon the dresser. More noise caused her to turn her head, and as she did so she caught sight of a mass of inhuman shapes, huddled together, tentacles breaking free from the mass to wave sightless in the air, lolling heads barely able to stay upright on molten bodies that seemed to merge into the darkness and be carried by it.

  The Squire grabbed her arms and pulled her towards the pot dresser. The wood seemed to hold her as if it was alive, and she felt tiny cuts tear into her back.

  The music stopped and she was sure she could hear her father praying but the words contained more syllables than sense to her, and were not the words she had learned so devotedly at Sunday lessons.

  The swaying mass of shadow separated into a crowd of individual creatures that had bodies such as she had never witnessed before. Above her head the wood was pulsating, liquid sap dripping onto her forehead in a parody of her baptism, her body held tight so that she was powerless.

  She had seen cheap engravings of Satan, it was part of her upbringing within the Church, but nothing she had ever witnessed was as indescribably monstrous as the beasts she saw crawling towards her. She screamed, but her screams were ignored. She heard rather than felt the wood behind her rip and splinter, and then two bands of extraordinary strength tightened around her chest.

  She was unconscious before the creatures were upon her.

  Unlike a lot of interior designers I favour a ‘hands-on’ approach to my work. It isn’t enough for me to draw my ideas on paper and present them to the client and then to hire experts to transform the ideas into reality. I still hire experts in certain fields, but much of the work I do myself; and as in the case of Sally’s kitchen, I remain on site for the duration of the contract.

  The final week was to be a ‘rounding up’ operation, as I liked to call it. It would give me a chance to test all the appliances, correct any design faults, and make sure the kitchen was working the way I had designed it.

  I arrived on the Monday morning full of optimism that the week would be a breeze, and encountered the first of what would prove to be many problems.

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ I said as I examined the patch of mould just above the granite worktop. ‘This is an internal wall. It’s the original plaster, and I don’t remember there being any mould there before.’

  ‘There wasn’t,’ Sally said glumly.

  I dealt with the mould on the wall, but it puzzled me because it was unlike any mould or mildew I had encountered before. It didn’t seem to be fungal; more like a moss than a mould. Still, I cleaned it off, bleached and repainted the area of wall, and when I left the house that evening there was no trace of it.

  Returning the next morning, I was horrified to see that the mould had not only come back, but spread to the size of a dinner plate.

  Martina met me at the door. Sally, she informed me, was still in bed with a headache. To me the girl was perfectly charming, making me a cup of tea and toasting some bread which she served with a choice of honey or marmalade. We sat at the kitchen table drinking our tea. ‘Have you noticed how it smells in here?’ she asked between mouthfuls.

  I sniffed the air but could smell nothing but fresh paint and toasted bread. ‘Can’t say that I have.’

  ‘Oh, yes, it’s quite a definite smell,’ she said. ‘Earthy. Like the forest floor after a shower of rain.’

  ‘It’s your imagination,’ Sally said from the doorway. ‘We went through all this nonsense last night. And why didn’t you wake me when Colin arrived?’ She was clearly furious with the girl.

  Martina shrugged. ‘I thought you could do with the rest,’ she said.

  Sally grabbed at the girl’s shoulder and spun her around in the chair. ‘Don’t you dare patronise me!’ she said.

  ‘Sally…’ I said ineffectually.

  ‘Keep out of this, Colin. I’ve taken just about all I’m going to take from this little…’ Her words were cut off by of Gielgud and Richardson who had bounded into the kitchen at the sound of Sally’s raised voice, and were now barking furiously at her. ‘And you two…out of here!’ she said, but the dogs did not move. Their barking quietened, but they continued growling threateningly at Sally. She reached for Martina again and the growls became more menacing; both dogs baring their teeth at her. Sally froze, hand outstretched.

  ‘Martina,’ I said quietly, trying to restore some order to the chaos into which the morning had erupted. ‘Take Gielgud and Richardson out to the garden, there’s a good girl.’

  She did as she was told without argument. I watched from the kitchen window as she picked up a ball from the lawn and threw it to the end of the garden. The dogs chased after it, tails wagging. I looked round at Sally. She was crying, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  ‘Do you want me to phone Milos, get him home?’ I said.

  She gave a short, brittle laugh. ‘He’s why I’m upset. He always sides with Martina, never backs me up. Now he wants the dresser moved to his study.’

  I was astonished. ‘What on earth for? Surely it belongs in the kitchen. Doesn’t he like it?’

  ‘Oh, he loves it. Says it reminds him of ‘dark European nights, of moonless seas, and the bottomless abyss that surrounds us.’ You know what nonsense he can talk when he gets creative. He’s researching the origins of the carvings on it.’

  I was horrified that the dresser might be moved from the kitchen. Apart from my design being meddled with, and the need to replace it, I felt an indefinite unease about the interest Milos was taking in it. When I watched Sally busying herself in the kitchen I only hoped my feelings weren’t turning to jealousy.

  The mould or moss on the kitchen wall refused to go away. Despite several scrubbings and liberal doses of bleach, and even a mould killer, the mark remained. I mentioned the difficulty with it to Sally, but she just looked at the mark with tired eyes and said. ‘I shouldn’t worry about it, Colin. It hardly matters now, does it?’

  But worry about it I did. With the mould there I couldn’t finish the job, and until I finished the job I could not submit my bill; and my bank manager was breathing down my neck about an overdraft that was pushing its limits. I used my ‘cel phone’ and contacted a builder friend who specialised in damp and rot problems, and he agreed to meet me at the house later that day.

  Dave, the builder, scraped some of the greenish-black growth from the wall with a penknife and rubbed it between his fingers, sniffed his stained fingertips and said, ‘It’s not mildew, or any kind of mould I’ve ever encountered.’

  ‘Great,’ I said. ‘Which leaves us precisely nowhere.’ I shook my head in despair. ‘Well, what ever it is, it’s spreading.’ The patch had grown since the morning, not so much in diameter, but thread-like filaments were reaching out from the edge of the mark, some of them over a foot long. I rubbed at them with my finger.

  ‘I don’t want to worry you…’ Dave said. He had walked to the other end of the kitchen and was crouching down beside the dresser. ‘But there’s more here.’

  It was a spot the size of a penny, greenish-black, exactly the same as the larger mass. Then we pulled the dresser away from the wall, and the back of it was covered in the green, pungent smelling stuff. It took an age to clean and it still looked like a temporary job to me.

  Later that day Milos came back to the house to see Martina. Sally had gone into town to the hairdresser and beautician, feeling that she needed to be pampered; and she probably did. Milos came into the kitchen, looking unutterably sad. He looked around at the new cooker, the dresser, and the granite worktops. ‘A dream kitchen,’ he said. ‘Sally’s p
resent to me. So sad, such a shame she cannot feel the passion for this...’

  His open arms indicated the dresser, looking forlorn in its current state.

  I said nothing, concentrating on painting over the latest stain. I had decided to give it one more try before calling in a structural engineer. Milos brightened when Martina entered the room, hugging her and holding her close.

  ‘Colin,’ she said to me, completely ignoring her father, ‘Would you come and have a look at Richardson. He’s got something on his back.’

  The dog didn’t seem to be in any pain, but something was irritating him. He was sitting, head twisted back over his shoulder, nibbling at something. I got down beside him. He looked at me with his lugubrious brown eyes. Gielgud pushed his snout against my hand and Martina took him by the collar and pulled him away.

  Just above Richardson’s shoulder blades, coating the fur, was a greenish-black patch, the touch and smell of it terribly familiar. I pulled aside the fur and was horrified to see that the stuff not only covered the hair, but was also spreading out across the skin. Like an iceberg, the part that was visible was just the tip. A patch of skin about six inches square was covered by the stuff, and where the dog had been worrying it with his teeth he had drawn blood. It didn’t look good.

  ‘I think we ought to let the vet check him out,’ I said calmly, not wanting to alarm Martina.

  ‘I’ll take him.’ Milos said. ‘Martina, you can come with us. It will give us a chance to talk, yes? We need to talk.’

  Martina shrugged and went across to Gielgud, who was lying on the grass chewing a large cow bone. I saw she was going over his fur carefully, looking for any sign of the mould or whatever it was.

  Milos went to fetch Richardson’s lead while I ruffled the dog’s neck and spoke softly to him. ‘Soon have you right, old fellow,’ I said, but didn’t believe it for a moment.

  Milos and Martina arrived back from the vet’s without Richardson.

  They kept him in for tests,’ Martina said. ‘The vet seemed completely baffled by it. He’s bringing in a skin specialist from the Veterinary Hospital at Brookman’s Park.’

  ‘It will be expensive,’ Milos added. ‘But I told them I’d pay any amount of money to ensure Richardson’s recovery.’

  When Sally returned she invited me to stay for dinner. I accepted, but reluctantly – I had a ton of work to be getting on with at home, but I felt that to refuse would seem churlish. I also noticed that Martina’s attitude toward Sally had softened considerably. Over dinner I learned that surprisingly Martina agreed with Sally about the dresser, and Milos’s new obsession with it. That development, at least, was welcome. Milos didn’t join us for the meal, engaged as he was in what he called his ‘new research’.

  What wasn’t so welcome was a telephone call from the vet to tell us that Richardson had passed away. The details were sketchy, but it seemed that they were performing a small exploratory operation to take samples of the growth on his skin, when the dog went into shock. A cardiac arrest followed. They failed to save him.

  At the news Martina burst into tears and ran upstairs to her room. Sally cradled the receiver and stared blankly out through the window to where Gielgud, Richardson’s brother, was asleep on the grass, enjoying the rays of the early evening sun. She looked round at me. ‘It’s all falling apart, Colin,’ she said, a tear slipping down her cheek. ‘All falling apart.’

  I touched her shoulder, and without hesitation, too quickly in fact, she melted into my arms and we were kissing guiltily, but with vigour.

  When I arrived home later that night the answer-phone light was blinking frantically. Six messages. I swore. I needed some time to think about what had happened. Although it had been some years since my divorce I realised that an involvement with Sally would be life changing, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that.

  Of the six messages, three were from prospective clients, so I noted those; one was from the bank, giving me the personal touch; and two were from Billy McQueen – the last of which sounded desperate, ‘if you can’t ring back then check your bloody e-mails!’

  I switched on my laptop and logged on. There were a few messages but only one of importance, only one from McQueen. ‘It’s Tommy, my boy. The cut got worse so I took him to hospital. They kept him in because the wound seemed to be infected, they said. They’ve just rung me. He’s in a coma. They don’t think he’s going to come round. Ring me, Colin. It’s about the dresser.’

  I swallowed some brandy, and dialled McQueen’s number.

  Fear skulked in the rector’s face but he fashioned a mask of eager devotion to hide his true feelings. It was no more than he had spent a lifetime doing. The refuse of their feasting was now littered about the floor. Martha was a good girl, a daughter to be proud of, but what was pride beside the quest he had set himself, for an immortal place amongst the banished ones of his desires. The chance meeting he had witnessed between the Squire and the brittle monstrosity on that moonless night, had led him here to this Nirvana. Tonight he had glimpsed the promised land of his dreams, and it was not the Holy Land enshrined within his Scriptures, nor any Heaven promised to those who led a blameless or repented life. It was a dark fantasy of vibrant colours, filled with oddly shaped beasts that crawled, and slithered, that murmured incoherently yet with a language that he knew would have meaning if only he could be given access to the secrets he craved.

  The Squire stood from the floor and adjusted his clothing, dishevelled from the enjoyment he had taken from the rector’s daughter. He had known she would make an excellent sacrifice, and if his own base pleasure could be whetted at the same time, then so much the better. The human form he had adopted might be impossible now to discard after so many centuries, but there were a few human vices that dulled the constant ache to return to his natural existence.

  The creatures around him were still basking in the youthful enjoyment they had partaken. If only they knew how few of them would survive to join their ancestors in the perpetual struggle against infinite banishment. Let them seek a few moments of carnality before they were lured back to their cellar and their darkness.

  It was the beast that had come to be celebrated as the Green Man that needed his attention now. It was too soon, even after so many years, for it to seek escape, and so he had to bind it once more to the earth. With wood ripped from the pews of the now desecrated church he had arranged for one of his men to fashion the pot dresser. When completed the Squire had slit the man’s throat, allowing the blood to act as a binding agent to the images carved into the wood. Now that same agent was required to lure the inhuman creatures back. In a fluid movement the Squire pierced the artery of the hapless rector, pushing him onto the dresser so that the rich blood adorned the wood as though anointing a new believer.

  The pillow was damp from her tears. She rolled from the bed, went across to the dressing table, and blew her nose on a tissue from a box decorated with teddy bears. The bedroom was the same uncertain mix of child and young woman. Lacy underwear, lying next to a nightgown with cartoon rabbits on the front. Soft toys on a shelf, above which a pop star poster boasted bare chest and hard eyes.

  She had cried when her mother had died, but she had been so young it was difficult to know whether the tears came from a deep knowledge or a raw emotion. She had cried today when she heard about the death of her dog. Then she had seen Sally kissing Colin, and she didn’t know what to think. Her first instinct had been to tell her father, but his study door was shut and - she found - locked. Shut out, she was confused.

  Martina went across to the window and looked out at the darkened garden. After a short while her eyes grew accustomed to the blackness and she could make out familiar shapes. Then a movement caught her attention. It was a large garden, divided into almost separate sections by clumps of bushes and trees. A small stand of fruit trees sat at the end of the garden, and hanging from the bough of an old Bramley apple tree was a swing, an old wooden one that had been there when they had bough
t the house. They all liked it.

  Sitting on the swing was a girl about her age, long brown hair swishing in the night air, and her loose cotton smock well past the summer’s fashion trends. She was swinging gently, almost in slow motion, but all the time staring up at Martina’s window.

  Martina ran across the room and switched out the light so that she could get a better look at the girl. When she returned to the window the swing was still in motion, but it was empty. The girl had gone.

  At the far corner of the garden Martina thought she could see a flash of white cotton, perhaps the girl’s smock dress, but there was insufficient light to be sure. Then she thought she could see other shapes in the garden, different from those she could remember from the daylight. It was as if the garden at night had become a playground for things that hid during the day. Almost as if the girl on the swing had drawn Martina’s attention to her so that the night time creatures could slip into the garden unseen.

  There was something attractive about the unrestrained jerking of the creatures, something that seemed to draw Martina down to them, to want to join them. She pulled on a fleece for warmth and ran down the stairs. She reached the kitchen, then the back door, and turned the key in the lock.

  McQueen answered the telephone on the second ring.

  ‘Colin. Thank God.’ He sounded desperate.

  I began to mumble an apology for not calling sooner but he cut me off with – ‘Tommy’s dead. He never regained consciousness and they switched off the monitors about an hour ago.’

  ‘Are they saying what he died of?’

  There was a mirthless laugh from his end. ‘Heart failure. Cause unknown. Christ I laid into that doctor, not his fault, but a strapping lad like that. It isn’t right a small cut should lead to this.’