Janus (13 page)

Elinda went round one of the tables and approached her, to see what she was working on.

“Don’t stare, please. When this is ready for viewing, I’ll put it on show. If you’ve something to say, why don’t you go where I can see you?”

Elinda frowned, then walked back around the room until she was facing Jessamyn across one of the tables and could not see the canvas.

“I thought you’d be at the hospital,” Jessamyn said.

“I was, yesterday.”

“She’s going to need someone now. Someone who understands.” Jessamyn’s voice shook a little.

“I’m not going to be pushed into a tug-of-war over her.” Elinda could hear the edge in her own voice. “But I want to help her, I want to find out what happened.”

Jessamyn looked her in the eye for the first time. “You want to find out how much of her life you were shut out of.”

“I think I can help her, if I find out what she was trying to do. You work in Henry’s office some of the time, don’t you?”

“Some of the time, yes.”

“I’m trying to track down those leaflets that appeared a couple of days ago, claiming we were a dumping ground for mental cases. I think Barbara may have had something to do with them, and the paper they were printed on might have come from Henry’s office.”

“Oh, aren’t you the clever little girl. You’re trying hard, but you don’t get two chances. She’s beyond your help.”

“Did you put out those leaflets for her?”

“I still know more about her than you do, even if you were with her for nearly two years. You failed her and now you want to make up for everything you didn’t do for her.”

“That’s not an answer,” Elinda said stiffly. “You think hiding the truth is going to help her now?”

Jessamyn eyed her coldly, then glared at the canvas. She drew a breath and held it for a few seconds. “Yes she asked me to put the leaflets out. If she hadn’t contacted me by breakfast, I was to add them to the pile to be put out on the tables.”

“If she hadn’t contacted you? Where was she going, then?”

“She was onto something big. But she wasn’t ready to tell me. Maybe she thought it would be disloyal to you. So that’s all the help you can get from me.”

“God damn it, what was she doing with those leaflets? Were you helping her with that? Did you get her into that racket? Because if you did, you’re the one—”

“You think she could be pushed where she didn’t want to go? Jesus, she was probably trying to protect you. Protect the pure and simple-minded. And they weren’t going to let me
see
her . . . ?” Jessamyn’s voice had risen; now she choked and went on in a whisper. “Girl, she was digging up something—someone—big. If you go snuffling your pert little nose around that burrow, you’re going to need more help than you can imagine.”

“So you do know what she found, but you’re just going to let it go.”

“I didn’t say that. You weren’t listening. I’ve got to finish this painting. It’s for the celebrations. I’d like some peace and quiet to work on it, if you don’t mind.”

Outside, above the streetlights, one of the moons sailed through icy streamers of cloud. The kids had vanished and the tree seemed a cowled figure that silently brooded over the curious creatures that had come to scurry in its shadows.

Elinda took several deep breaths, then squared her shoulders and went over to the clinic, where she was allowed to see Barbara.

“We have to keep her in restraints,” the nurse told her. “She’s always moving, squirming, trying to crawl or get up, as though there’s somewhere she has to go. She mutters to herself, too—has to get in, further in. Sometimes she seems to be talking about a cave.”

But when Elinda saw her, Barbara seemed almost asleep, muttering occasionally, unaware of her presence. After a couple of minutes, Elinda gave up and left the room.

Grebbel was not in Schneider’s lab. At the dam then, or perhaps in therapy again. Elinda suddenly remembered the previous night. “Tell me,” he had said. “Trust my memory.”

He had made her laugh.

Other thoughts occurred to her then, and she found a guilty enjoyment in contemplating sensations she could not recall experiencing. Barbara was the only lover she could remember. A further thought struck her, and on impulse she went to the desk in the clinic entrance.

“Birth control?” said the technician. “I could give you an appointment almost any time with a week’s notice.”

“That’s fine. I was just curious, there’s no real . . . No. Could I make an appointment for next week?”

“Of course. Your name and chart number, please.”

But when her appointment was entered into the computer, the technician looked up at her. “Didn’t you know? You’re down here as having chosen . . .”

“What? Tell me. No I don’t want a private whisper in the back. What did I choose?”

The technician turned the screen around and pointed to a code, and its definition. Tubal Ligation.

Elinda felt her cheeks burning. She stammered something and left.

In the clinic, Grebbel sat in the familiar, complicated chair, and the blue light strobed away his surroundings.

He came back slowly, aware of a dull pounding in his head. When he opened his eyes, Carlo’s face interposed itself between him and the white ceiling.

“Sit and rest for five minutes,” Carlo said. “We took you pretty deep that time. Wait until you feel completely comfortable before you try to get up. I’ll be back in a moment.”

The face went away, and Grebbel closed his eyes again. There were vague impressions of warmth, dappled shade, the scents of varnish and wood smoke. After a while, there were voices too, and at first he did not realise they were outside his mind, in the corridor beside the treatment room.

“. . . no real change since they brought her in,” Carlo’s voice said.

“She doesn’t remember anything—what happened just before she was found?” Grebbel thought he should recognise the other man’s voice, but he could not pin it down.

“We don’t think so,” Carlo said. “But it’s impossible to be certain. Most of the time, she isn’t aware of us or what’s around her. If anything, she’s slipping. She may never regain any more normal brain function than she has now.”

The two voices moved out of earshot. They had been talking about Elinda’s friend, he was sure. Grebbel pushed himself to his feet and went to the door. The corridor was empty. Opening onto it were three other doors. He tried to recall how close the voices had sounded, to guess which room she was in.

He crossed to the door opposite and tried the handle. It would not turn. As he hesitated, something moved in the room. There was the rustle of bedding, and then a thick, slobbering, inarticulate whisper.

He did not move. He had a sudden clear vision of what he would see if he entered the room—the shell of something that had been human. For a moment, the corridor seemed dark and huge, the door towering, so that he would have to reach up with both hands to turn its handle. He backed away. His shoulder brushed the wall behind him, and the moment of disorientation passed. But something had tightened in his guts. His breathing was fast and urgent and he wanted to retch.

Voices sounded at the entrance to the corridor. He returned to the treatment room and sat down. Outside, the talkers stopped and began discussing something in lowered tones. Grebbel crouched forward with his fists on his knees. A memory. That glimpse in the corridor had to be a childhood memory. He tried to place it among the lawn and driveway he had seen earlier, the gold hatchback and two-storey house with its low hedge that he had come to understand as his home. It did not belong, he felt sure; that glimpse of childhood terror came from another world.

Outside, Grebbel looked along the valley, where the night was coming from, and waited for his head to clear. Clouds like columns of smoke shimmered in the light of a single moon. The air was cold and clean.

As he walked to the worksite, the elongated bubble of a dirigible lifted from the landing field and moved over the river; its landing lights briefly flashed on the metal bridge that linked the coffer dam to the far bank. Then it moved upstream and hovered by the steel cylinders of the cryoplant. By the time Grebbel reached his truck, the dirigible was lifting off again, with a tank of liquid hydrogen slung beneath it, its surface already grey with frost. As it rose over the valley, still in the halo of light from the settlement, what seemed to be a pair of insects darted around it. Suddenly Grebbel recognised the two leather-winged raptors he had seen the day before. They dived at the gasbag, circled and swooped again, and then again, each time swerving away at the last moment before impact. Grebbel could imagine the furious beaks and claws, the screams of fury at the invader.

Menzies appeared by his side as Grebbel swung himself into the cab. “Watching the eagles? They’ve got the right idea from their point of view. We’re flooding half their land.”

Nodding, Grebbel said, “I was wondering if they’d know what to do with the blimp if they caught it.”

“They may be just too smart for that. There were two pairs here originally. When the first blimp annoyed them, one pair started playing for keeps—managed to hole the bag a couple of times, then they got pulled into the airscrews.”

“At least there wasn’t a fire.”

“Not so much danger of that actually. Hydrogen’s not as bad as it’s painted. It flies off into the sky before it can catch fire, given half a chance. Take precautions and don’t cover your blimp with flammable paints, and it’s manageable. But the ship was on the ground for two weeks that time—we couldn’t get spares in a hurry then. Not much consolation for the two birds that got sliced, either. . . . I hear you’re trying to get work at the clinic.”

Grebbel looked at him, surprised.

“Word travels here,” Menzies said. “It sounds as though it might be best for you, if it’s something you’re good with, but we’ve got deadlines on this job, so I’d like all the time you can give us.”

“I’m wondering about splitting my time here between the two.”

“Fair enough. One way and another, split lives are pretty common around here.” Menzies was watching him intently.

Grebbel remembered their last conversation. “But, in the end,” he said, “you have to make a choice.”

“Yes,” said Menzies, “if we’re given the opportunity.” He reached up into the cab to slap Grebbel’s shoulder and turned away.