Bad Dreams (5 page)

‘Well, Congressman Farnham, that depends…’ His voice was full of New York shrewdness. ‘That depends on who the fuck wants to know.’

There was commotion in the court. Someone – Sterling Hayden? – applauded loudly. The camera swivelled, and there was a brief shot of a director ripping off his earphones, unable to believe what he had heard. The camera calmed, and came to rest on the Congressman. Farnham did not show a flicker of emotion, but Anne could see his killer’s smile.

‘Mr Nielson,’ he said, his eyes enlarging visibly,
I
want to know.’

Farnham simply looked at her father, and Cameron Nielson began to crack. The Congressman asked the Question again, calmly, and waited…

The camera held on her father, his smile twitching. He was sweating now, his one shot spent and useless. Finally, he made another move, shakily. ‘Congressman, I believe the Constitution enshrines the right to freedom of…’

‘Freedom?’ interrupted Farnham, his teeth sharp in his grin. ‘That’s an awfully large word.’

Anne was sitting forward in her seat, sweaty hands on her knees. She had never really understood what had happened next. None of the accounts she had heard or read agreed. Her father never spoke about it, except perhaps for a few veiled hints in
The Rat Jacket
, in which the informer protagonist is grilled by a chess-playing genius policeman with a sadistic streak.

The film did not explain anything. By the end of the reel, her father had turned into the middle-aged man Anne had grown up with. Farnham kept asking questions, asking
the
Question, and then interrupting Cameron Nielson if he did not answer to the point. Evidence was produced – the membership lists of various Hollywood charitable organizations later proved to be Communist fronts, signatures on petitions in support of unionization, Sacco and Vanzetti, Soviet-American collaboration, supposedly propagandist passages in his plays. But the evidence was not important. This was a duel of character between Congressman Hugh Farnham and Nobel laureate Cameron Nielson, and, finally, her father caved in.

He did not go to prison like Hammett and the Hollywood Ten, he did not flee the country like Joseph Losey, Larry Adler or Carl Foreman, and he did not get away with it like Miller.

Cameron Nielson answered the Question. Of course, he named names. And, of course, careers were ruined, friendships broken, lives smashed…

She could not watch any more. It was the first and last time a movie made Anne cry.

A
nne’s relationship with her half-brother had always been, at best, considerably strained. They had not talked since she had described his
Orpheus to the Power of One Hundred
in print as ‘music to cut your wrists by’ and accused him of stealing most of his ideas from Karl-Heinz Stockhausen, John Cage and Spike Jones.

She knew he was in London for the premiere of his
Telemachus Symphony
, a piece he had been working on for eight years. He had not complained about the intrusion into his busy schedule of rehearsal, but Anne knew Cam well enough to realize how little he was interested in Judi’s life and death.

As Cam talked on the in-house telephone, trying to get some breakfast sent up to his suite, Anne tried to remember how he had been with Judi. Cam had been away at school when Judi was born, and he had spent very few summers at their father’s house. He was with his mother, or touring Europe with his octet.

To him, Judi was someone he saw once a year at Christmas and did not really like much in the first place. The last Christmas they were all together, seven years ago, Cam had given Judi a book about Beethoven, and she had given him three pairs of multi-coloured socks.

The only time Judi had ever affected him was when she was a news item. The reviews of his first New York concert, even in the heavy papers, gave as much space to his half-sister’s criminal record as his father’s Broadway career.

‘Success at last,’ he announced. ‘They stopped serving breakfast at ten, but they have some tea and scones left over.’

Anne looked at the smooth stranger. She understood only too well how he could think of tea and scones half an hour after looking at Judi dead on a collapsible table. She remembered her own breakfast, abandoned back in Kentish Town.

A discreet maid wheeled in the breakfast. They ate without much conversation. Anne scalded her tongue by drinking too soon the too hot, too weak tea. Cam showed her the cover design for his concert programme; a broken Greek mask, with white space for eyeholes.

They were interrupted by a telephone call. Anne was sure it would be more bad news, and felt a chill as Cam listened intently to a woman’s tiny voice.

‘Lex,’ he said, ‘precisely 7:35. Insist on it.’

It was Alexia, Cam’s assistant at the concert hall. Cam was insisting the performance commence at 7:35 to the second because he had written in two minutes of minimal music between 7:59 and 8:01, during which he hoped his background chords would interact with the scattered beeping of the digital watches spread throughout the auditorium. He liked to include random factors in his pieces.

Alexia explained something, and Cam whistled unconsciously, an old habit. The crisis dealt with, he hung up.

‘How’s Dad?’ she asked, wondering if he had heard more recently from the nurse.

‘The same,’ he said.

It cannot be much longer now, she thought.

He nodded, as if agreeing with her unspoken sentiment.

‘Should we tell him?’ she asked.

‘I’m not sure he’d understand,’ he said. ‘You can’t tell whether he hears or not. It might be best to leave him in peace.’

A pause. They were vacuum-cleaning the hallways outside. It sounded like one of Cam’s bass lines.

‘Cam, I’m not letting it go.’

‘I know. I knew as soon as I heard. Annie, I know you won’t listen but… Fuck it, you do not need to understand all this. It’s not really anything to do with you or me. Judi is gone now…’

Wasted.

‘…it was suicide really, you have to admit that…’

‘Crap, Cam. Crap. You saw her. She was a hundred years old. And Hollis says it was not just drugs. She’d been beaten up. Lots of times. And she was torn open…’

The body had been found by dustbinmen, under some rubbish bags in a Soho alley. She had been dumped. The police thought the wounds on her hips and thighs were from rats.

‘It was part of… part of the way she lived, Annie. She must have been beaten up and cut open every night. You know what kind of a whore she was. No wonder her heart gave out. Face it, she had been killing herself for a long time. This time, she finally managed to pull it off. Now, let’s just leave her alone, please…’

Give him credit, she thought, he has not said anything about publicity, about his symphony, about his career.

He has not
said
anything.

He was whistling again, nervous and atonal. It was the signature sound that always insinuated itself into his work. Now, it struck a long-forgotten chord.

‘Mr Whistle,’ Anne said, startling Cam. Her brother stopped in mid-whine and closed his lips.

‘I’m not scared of the bogeyman any more, Annie.’

Cam had been a strange kid, Anne remembered. How many other children had
scary
imaginary playmates? For a while, she had had bad dreams about Mr Whistle too. Now, she could not remember even what the nightmare child was supposed to look like.

‘There are no bogeymen,’ Cam said.

‘No, but there
are
Monsters. We all know that.’

Anne picked up her shoulderbag, and the lumpy clear plastic carrier with Judi’s personal effects.

‘Monsters,’ he shrugged. ‘You shouldn’t think like that. It’s not helpful. There are only people. Don’t people scare you enough?’

She walked to the door.

‘Annie, where are you going?’

‘Anywhere I have to.’

Five minutes after she was gone, Anne knew Cam would be on the telephone to the concert hall again, asking them to send a taxi over for him. He would be still worried about the two minutes’ beeping.

She had tickets for tonight, but she doubted she would get to use them.

T
he immortal empire fell before it was born.

Even after so many years, he could still learn. In Shanghai, Tarr, Sniezawski and Baum had taught him to beware the complacency of the Kind. Life sometimes seems to slow like a river, almost coming to a comfortable rest. But there are always dangers. There are always dragonslayers, always Fearless Vampire Killers.

Although an orphan, he had always known he was not entirely alone. He had met his cousins at the sites of great plagues and disasters, and recognized in them the same unease he felt in himself. The Kind, he learned, were as old as humanity itself. Theirs was a secret history, never written in a living language, much of it concealed even from his questions. Comparatively young, he understood that the elders of the Kind had withdrawn entirely from the affairs of men and retreated to the shrinking white spaces on the map. He was impatient with such dainty cowardice, and, as if in the grip of a feeding frenzy, felt the zeal of a crusader as he set out to become King of the Cats.

There had been Kings before, Kings of the Kind, and Kind Kings who had ruled over the nations of humanity. The title, as he understood it, had been unused in centuries. Its last holders had abdicated or been overthrown. He had only to establish his Palace of Perpetuity and throw his court open to attract the others. The old ones, his uncles and aunts, maintained their loftiness and stayed in their seclusion, but their juniors, his cousins, were as eager as he to end the centuries of wandering. He was accepted as King by those to whom such things mattered. In Shanghai, he built his Palace and waited. Soon, its fame spread among the Kind. A mating pair arrived from the Dark Continent, no longer able to retreat from the explorers and the empires of Europe. Giselle, the exquisite child, slipped out of the darkness one night, cocooned in silver furs. It was she, thinking of a fairy tale, who had invented his title, the King of the Cats. Almost as old as he, she was still capable of seeming a genuine child. With each new member of the circle, he was able to piece together more of the history.

With Giselle, he shared the Dream, an experience he had rarely been able to approach, even with the dearest of his prey. Shaping everything within their perceptions, they had fused until their personalities could no longer be distinguished. They would reign, as King and Queen of the Cats, for an eternity.

The circle grew, but not as rapidly as he had expected. He was surprised to learn how reduced the numbers of the Kind were. Every newcomer seemed to bring the story of the death of another of the ancients. With each loss, irretrievable stretches of the history sank into oblivion like water in sand. Short-lived mankind might be, but it had multiplied insanely in the last few centuries. It was learning many new things, and forgetting its old fears.

He had taken more wives, had children. His cousins followed suit. The densely populated port, with its refugees, sailors and unnoticed masses, was perfect for the Kind. The international confusion of administration and corruption left many gaps that could be exploited. With several fortunes, aggregated down through the centuries in the world’s great banking houses, at his disposal, he played by the rules of humanity for years. Officials in the service of the Dowager Empress and of the many foreign interests in the city were properly bribed. There were many willing to serve the King of the Cats, out of fear or desire. His strength, and the strength of his circle, surpassed itself.

Among so many robed orientals, he affected Western dress, importing black frock coats from England, satin-lined opera cloaks from Paris, linens from Holland. Giselle he dressed up like a doll, amusing her with each extravagant wardrobe. Always attuned to the pleasures of feeding, he took the time to appreciate other luxuries. Music, wine, art, literature, philosophy. With a dilettante’s delight, he followed the threads of human endeavour, intrigued by their irrelevant attempts to chart their world, to map their fragile Dreams. He read his Darwin with interest. He could well appreciate the mastery of that which was best fit to survive.

But there never was an Immortal Empire. After one of the court’s masques, a silky courtesan, the gift of the Empress who had provided the company with a pleasurable evening in the labyrinth beneath the Palace, was seen cast used and lifeless into the streets as her reward. The girl had had three devoted lovers, and they set about avenging her.

Philip Tarr, the British merchant skipper, Niall Baum, the Irish Jew spice trader, and Stefan Sniezawski, the much-decorated Polish mercenary. Practicality, mysticism and endeavour incarnate. The Kind had grown careless, had remained in the city long enough for their longevity to be noticed. The would-be avengers had heard all the stories about the creatures in the Palace. They consulted wise men and fools, and they framed their plans against the court.

During the celebration of the Chinese New Year, while the bulk of the company were amusing themselves with some guests in the maze, the Palace of Perpetuity was dynamited. He had been on the lowest level, feeding with Giselle. Their prey was a brother and sister who should have lasted for days. Buried alive, he had to transform himself drastically in order to get free. He burrowed upwards, insinuating himself through the loose rubble like a manta ray negotiating the complex cross-currents of the deep. He erupted into a courtyard, and found what was left of those who had escaped the initial explosion. Apart from Giselle, who followed his wormhole to the surface, none of the Kind had survived.

The three had brought a righteous mob with them, and applied the traditional remedies. Using ink-stringed cats’ cradles, each of the courtiers had been trapped. Then, hawthorn and rosewood stakes had been pounded through their chests, pinning them to the ground. Finally, their heads had been lopped off with silver-coated scythes. Afterwards, some morbid wit had jumbled up the heads, matching them to the wrong bodies. The Kind did not give up life easily. He found impaled corpses pouring out blood hours after the initial butchery. Cloves of garlic had been shoved into slack mouths, and there were religious symbols everywhere, crosses, statues of the Buddha, icons, a Star of David. His eldest daughter’s head lay in a shallow pool, its eyes still moving, a yellow prayer parchment pasted to its forehead.