Personal Darkness (42 page)

First there was a sauna, and then a Jacuzzi. Then the sunbed, the massage, the facial. Then they came upon her hair, her face, her hands. They were like flocks of pretty birds settling on a worm to make it into an angel with their beaks. But they were tactful too. Trying her to see if she wanted chatter, and when they found she did not, silent and soothing as nurses at a deathbed.

It was a deathbed. The old Stella had been killed, and now the new Stella was fashioned on her bones.

She saw it coming, bit by bit. She was not amazed.

In the end, they pulled a sort of diaphanous analogous dustsheet off her, and there she was.

Not beautiful, for Stella could not be made into a beauty even by such clever birds. But no longer a worm of the earth. Winged, now.

Her jaw-cut hair they had slashed shorter, and raised upon her head a sort of low comb, like thick fur. All hint of premature gray was gone, and the hair had the sheen of a crow. Her face was a cameo, pale as cream, lit with a tint of blusher, and with two huge black eyes in fans of charcoal and faint silver. Her lips were more full, colored like sweets the world would want to nibble. Her body was soft, taut, scented, closed against all assault and given to light. Her hands were exact as gloves. Even the nails, which for the duration of her grief—how curious—she had not bitten, were formed to ovals and painted a somber terra-cotta two shades darker than her mouth.

Stella went to the cubicle and put on the white silk underclothes, and then the dress and coat she had bought.

They were of the same fine woollen material, and a purple almost black, the tone of sharks, serpents, night-things.

She clad herself. She drew on the boots of black-purple leather.

In the long mirror she saw this other woman, the second Stella, no longer Star.

Dressed now head to toe. Dressed to kill.

The chauffeur-driven car was light gray, the color of the day itself. It glided through the streets and thoroughfares. There were crowds upon the pavements even in the thin rain. Girls with canary hair and boys like Renaissance minstrels, beggars with broken smiles.

They passed Buckingham Palace. Such an ugly building, she thought, as if it had just been built.

The parks were liquid green beneath their empty trees.

The driver of the car did not speak, of course.

Then the byways came again, the squadrons of shops, furniture and clothes, food and drink, chemists for the sick and florists for birth, marriage, love and death.

Stella saw it all as if from high above. The panoply of this city. Its grandeur and its sleaze.

The rain stopped.

They coasted along a road below a wood, the common? And all at once, she saw the house, that peculiar house Nobbi had told her of.

It too was real.

"Go back to the end of the road," Stella said. "Wait there, please."

She thought,
Will it matter
?

She got out and walked up to the house. Not thinking,
He did this
. Not thinking now at all.

When she reached the door, the slabs of the house above her with their blind, inky windows, she found a man there in the mud, standing by an unusual machine, a sort of motorbike with a carriage fixed on its back.

"Here I am," said the man.

He looked about fifty, but very slim and hard, and when he smiled his teeth were good and probably not false.

Into white hair, woven in dreadlocks like a black man's, were studded beads like brilliant ants.

"Are you one of the family?" Stella asked. The word
Family
had evolved, and stuck firmly in her head. That, and one other word. The fox word, Vixen.

"Am I?"

"I'm here to see someone."

"Are you?" said the man. He wore the leathers of a biker. He touched the bike at the front where a horse head was attached. It reminded her in an odd way of the lion.

"The young girl," said Stella.

"Which one?"

There was nothing else to say.

"The one with a knife."

"Ah!" he exclaimed. And then he capered.

Puck, from
A Midsummer Night's Dream
. Or a devil from
Faust
.

"You've come," he said, "for Ruth. Nasty Ruth, but they've locked her up, my lady."

"I've come a long way," said Stella.

"Why?"

"Why," she said, "do you think?"

Camillo looked at Stella.

"The rocking horse burned," he said. "They always do. The things you love. They die and burn and fall apart.
He
knows that. Why did he try again? Broke his back. Black dog, but no black-haired girl." Camillo laughed. "We ran over the snow."

He's mad. Will that help?

"You'll bring her to me," said Stella. "Ruth."

"Nasty," Camillo said. "Take her away. She'll cause trouble, up in the attic."

"Take her away—" said Stella. She had not thought of that.

"Yes, you must. That's my condition." Camillo moved over to the door, and pushed it. It had been open, and behind it was another door, open too.

Beyond was a hall from a country mansion, the kind the public paid to see.

Stella had not paid and barely saw. She saw a staircase.

"Up there," said Camillo. "I'll show you. But you must take her away."

"All right." Stella closed her eyes and then widened them. "I'd like that. To take her away."

"Good. Then here's the key."

He held out to her something which had the name of
key
, and the being of
key
.

"The key to the attic?"

"One of them. I stole it."

"Yes."

"Take her away," he said. He went into the hall., and then turned back and flourished to her a courtly bow.

Stella entered the pillared space.

"This time," Camillo said. He made a gesture of cutting and chopping.

Then he scampered up the stairs.

Someone will come.

No one did.

Stella had a sense of things which hid, as if from her. Of things in chrysalis. Moths, spiders, beetles. Things in catacombs, waiting for some night or morning which might never come.

They had climbed the stairs and she had not noticed. There were everywhere colored windows, like a church.

A corridor. Another corridor. Closed doors. More stained glass.

I'm lost.

But she was not.

Through a door another staircase, narrow and un-carpeted.

"Up there," said the old man. She could see he was old, now, nearer seventy than fifty. "Just put the key in the lock."

"I can't remember the way we came."

"Tough," said Camillo, like a youth.

He turned and went away, and Stella looked up the narrow stairs.

I could do it here.

But why not take her, take her away? Would she come? Yes, she too was waiting, waiting as the beetles did. No one to assist her. And her name was Ruth.

Whither thou goest, I will go.

Stella smiled.

She went up the stairs.

Among the oaks and pines, Red was brushing her hair.

Lou sat with Cardiff, sulky in her black rubber like a creased balloon. Cardiff kept tweaking Lou's nipples. She did not like this, evidently.

Rose and Pig were dozing and Tina had been cooking beans and sausages over the fire, despite the wondrous meals that infallibly issued from the house.

Whisper was rubbing his bike, sensuously.

Connor crouched, throwing a stick for Viv. Viv retrieved urgently, trying to distract him, for he was tense.

Camillo arrived abruptly.

God, but he looked old. Up from out of the mound, and his death clothes on him.

"It's time!" he cried. He laughed as if with glee but it might have been a squawk of pain. "Come on! Get up, you cunts."

"Here!" howled Whisper.

"Stow it," said Connor. "Viv—bag!" Viv galloped to the Shovelhead and leapt into the saddlebag, the twig still in her jaws. "Camillo," said Connor.

"No. We go. We go. Red girl, Scarlet O'Hara. You come around and get on my horse."

"J'entends, monsieur."

And Red ran, away to the front of the house where the trike was.

Pig and Rose and Tina were already kicking out the fire, Pig trying to eat the boiling-hot food from the saucepan as they did so.

"Three minutes," said Connor.

"No. No minutes. Now."

"Okay, Camillo. Up, you bastards!" Connor roared.

But Camillo was gone, after Red, toward the trike on the front path in the mud.

"Con," Lou whined, "all my stuffs upstairs-—"

"Leave it, you dopey cow," said Connor. "Don't you know he'll take care of that? He says go, we go."

"But
Con—
"

"Or stay here. Stay behind."

Lou huddled onto Cardiff's bike and he came and swung up before her, bumping her askew.

The others were mounting up. The fire was out.

The scene was suddenly desolate and ruined, the path of an army which had moved on to victory or wreck.

As they revved the bikes, they heard the trike awake.

Red was on the damson velvet, her hair bloodied by the window.

"Now we ride," said Camillo, "now we run."

"I'm here."

"Giddy-up," Camillo said.

The sound of the trike altered. It had the noise now of a rocket.

"Christ," Connor said. "He's done it. The methane—"

They heard the trike take off—a missile—gone.

Connor slipped on Viv's goggles. The Shovelhead rose up on its rear wheel, a wheelie. He plunged forward and away after Camillo up the slope. Viv yipped.

He's killed it
, Connor thought. The fuel injection that would take the trike to a hundred and twenty miles an hour in two seconds, would burn out the guts of the machine. They would find it dead, but miles off.

The Shovelhead slammed down and Connor tore up and over, along the slope toward the road, the others streaming after, and the black mud flying.

The door opened.

It was not a dream attic from a storybook. Somehow, Stella had supposed it would be. There was nothing in it but for a sofa and a chair, a bed. This was only a room, with another door that might lead to a bathroom. Papers and books were stacked about. On a rail hung some expensive, beautiful clothes.

And by the window, which was of blank white glass, stood a girl, beautiful and expensive, like a final garment.

Nobbi's murderess.

The Vixen. Black fox. Death.

"I don't want any argument," said Stella, "I want you to come with me."

The girl moved from the window.

She was pale, she did not look dangerous, or mad. Under her eyes were patches of darkness. Her mouth was almost white, and very dry.

"All right."

"But I must warn you," said Stella, "if you resist, I'll hurt you."

"Will you?" asked the girl. She seemed almost interested.

Her eyes were full of wonder. It was like a black screen parting to reveal a darker, deeper black.

"Don't bring anything," said Stella.

"No."

The girl wore a white dress with a tight darted waist and a longish skirt, and pale suede boots.

"But take that coat," Stella said.

"This one?"

The girl took up the black coat from the chair back. She touched it, as if it were some dead animal which once she had loved.

"Do you know me?" Stella said. The girl was so compliant, surely Stella had been mistaken for someone expected.

"Oh, yes."

"Come along then."

They went outside, and Stella was ready for the girl

—Ruth—to make a dash for it. Stella would have broken her arms and her neck. She knew she could.

But the girl did not attempt escape. She stood quietly, attending, for Stella to lead her away.

"We'll go down now, and out of the house. Then along the road. There's a car waiting."

"Shall I go first?" asked Ruth.

"Just remember. Don't try to get away from me."

"Oh, I won't."

Where does she think I'm taking her? To safety? Out of confinement. Or does she think I'm a policewoman?

Stella and Ruth descended the silent house, and, as they did so, the noise came of the bikes flying across the slopes. But then that faded.

"That's right, Ruth."

Ruth walked before her. Her hair was like a silken mantle. Was this what he had seen, before—

They were on the staircase now. There, she had recalled the way without problems.

Below was the hall, and the two doors. And then the outside, the road and the car.

"So you know me," said Stella. "Who am I?"

"You're going to kill me," said Ruth.

"Yes. You're right. But don't try to get away. Do you know why?"

"No. I don't care why."

"You wicked little bitch. You fucking little bitch."

They were in the hall.

Ruth turned and looked at Stella. Ruth smiled.

The smile was marvelous. It was like music or a sunrise.

"Stop that," said Stella. "You have an hour or so of life. But it'll get shorter. Make the most of it."

Ruth's smile left her and she lowered her eyes.

Stella ushered her through the doors and out and under the gray sky.

"Can't you…" said Ruth, "couldn't you do it now?"

Stella frowned.

"You'll have to wait."

She took Ruth's arm, and together they stepped down toward the road and the car.