The Last Revelation Of Gla'aki (12 page)

Perhaps they had recently been to the zoo or gone walking in the woods. He could just deduce that the paintings were meant to represent something like a hedgehog. Even the prostrate infants held up spiky daubs on large sheets of paper. "What do you think of that, Mr Fairman?" Phyllida Barnes cried.

"Very nice." In case this sounded insufficiently enthusiastic he said "All of them."

"There you are, children. See who thinks you're developing." Nevertheless she seemed disappointed by his reaction. "What else would you care to see?" she said.

"If you don't mind, what I came for." When she and Diane added their stares to the children's, Fairman said "The book."

"I'll bring it to you. You'll occupy him while I get it, won't you?

Fairman couldn't tell whether she was speaking to her colleague or the children. As Phyllida Barnes left the room Diane said "What would you like to show Mr Fairman now? What shall we do for him?"

After a general murmur that might have included some words a boy or else a girl piped "Walk."

"That's right, you're good at that," Diane said so instantly that he wondered if she found them daunting. "Show Mr Fairman how well you can."

The children at the desks stood up at once with a flapping of dun overalls, and he was disconcerted by how tall some of them proved to be. Did they have difficulty in walking?

Was that why the woman had made an issue of it? Or perhaps they were demonstrating as they came towards him how complicatedly they could walk. The children on the mats had raised their heads, and now they began to squirm, rustling the plastic. "Yes, go on," Diane told them. "You crawl."

They set about it as the other children shuffled and hopped and sidled to him. All of them wore slippers not unlike the beach shoes he'd seen earlier, and the room resounded with slithering. All their eyes were on him, widening with eagerness if not bulging with some effort, especially those of the infants around his feet. The children only just stopped short of touching him, instead taking elaborate steps backwards. It put him in mind of some sort of dance—even the crawlers on the floor were finding different ways to wriggle—and he heard a whisper of a song or chant that sounded nearly familiar. "Keep that up and you'll be on the stage," he said.

This didn't seem to be what they wanted to hear, since they continued to encircle him while murmuring the chant their soft loose footfalls almost drowned. Quite a few of their eyes had grown so protuberant that he was put in mind of gouts of liquid. He glanced at Diane, but she was standing well back and watching him as distantly as all the children seemed to be. He was about to appeal to her or even call a halt himself—the intricate movements were confusing him so much that he could hardly distinguish the shapes of some of the players—when they all grew still in unison, even the ones on the floor. Phyllida Barnes had come into the room. "Here's his book," she said.

Did she really need to give the pronoun so much weight? He was still more thrown by the children's response. All their mouths grew round as they stretched out their hands to the book—even the crawlers did—and almost deafened him with a cry that might have greeted a present somebody had just unwrapped on their behalf. "It isn't for you," he couldn't help blurting. "There'll be other books."

A shudder took him unawares. He felt as if he'd been assailed by a denial so concerted that its force was close to physical. As the sensation faded Phyllida Barnes gave him a blink that he could have taken for reproach. "Mr Fairman has to put it with the others," she said. "That's where it's going to live."

"Back to your places now," Diane said.

The outstretched hands sank, and the toddlers shuffled to their desks while the prone children slithered to their mats. Fairman couldn't have said whether every child resumed the same position they'd been in when he'd entered the room. He made for the door, but as he held out his hands for the book Phyllida Barnes murmured "Do you want to say something?"

She didn't let go of the volume when he took hold of it. In her grasp the cover felt clammy, even yielding. "Thank you for taking care of it," he said—presumably he was meant to set the children an example. "I'm grateful to everyone who has."

Phyllida Barnes gazed at him so distantly that he couldn't read her feelings. "I expect you'll say more when it's time," she said and relinquished the book.

She was still in the doorway, and there wasn't room to squeeze past her. As he wondered none too happily if more was expected of him, Diane said "What do we say to Mr Fairman?"

He heard an indrawn breath behind him. It was so enormous that he had to remind himself he was hearing a roomful of children. After a pause they spoke almost in chorus, some of them distinctly enough that he couldn't mistake the words. "So much more to see."

"That's right," Phyllida Barnes said. "We don't know how much."

Fairman had no idea what this was supposed to mean or whether it was addressed to him. When she stepped back, twitching her eyes even smaller and quivering her straightened lips towards some kind of smile, he dodged around her. As he lingered to package the book he said "Do you know where I'm going next?"

"Of course we do. You want Bernard Seddon at Stillwater."

"What sort of place might that be?"

"Where we all go in our time." She appeared to think this was plain, and only eventually said "The funeral parlour."

"I imagine you'll be directing me."

"Maybe you should call him first if you don't mind. We know you're not meant to be put to any more trouble, but just in case he's occupied with someone. We've had a few go lately."

Fairman supposed he should be grateful to the mayoress for making arrangements on his behalf. Phyllida Barnes recited the number for him to type on his phone. Before a bell started to ring he heard the murmur of a song or chant in the room he'd just left. A woman's voice interrupted the bell. "Stillwater. How may we be of assistance?"

"Could I speak to Bernard Seddon?"

"Is this Mr Fairman? Bernard's engaged with the departed at the present."

"When could I see him, do you know?"

"As I say, he's at the church. He'll be to and fro with the deceased till this afternoon. He asked me to tell you he'll be here for you by three."

"Three it is. If by any chance he's delayed, here's my number."

"He'll be waiting, Mr Fairman. We know better than to let you down."

Perhaps the hushed respect that had crept into her voice came with the job. As Fairman pocketed the mobile, Phyllida Barnes said "You could have asked him to put them off for you."

"I don't think I should when they can't speak for themselves."

He was trying to lighten the inexplicably oppressive mood, but he thought he'd failed even before she said "We all have a voice, Leonard."

If this was a rebuke it was beyond him. He was emerging into the yard, where the climbing frames and tiny rides were so bedewed with fog that they looked as if they'd been dredged out of water, when Phyllida Barnes murmured "It's yours now."

"It's the university's," Fairman said, but her distant look left him more confused than ever.

His route to the promenade took him past Gulshaw Face & Body, where several bald customers were exercising in the gym. They had plenty of reason, given their lumpy shapes. Some were throwing themselves backwards and forwards on bicycles to nowhere, stretching their arms and then their legs in some form of therapy unfamiliar to him. Others were running or striding on conveyor belts, and Fairman could have thought they were elongating their legs rather too vigorously at each pace. He might even have imagined that the indistinct chant that drifted down from Sprightly Sprouts was accompanying if not driving the exercises. Through another window he glimpsed a woman lying supine on a bed for some kind of facial treatment. A hulking overalled masseuse had laid a towel over the customer's face, of course, however much it looked as though she was kneading the pallid surface in order to squeeze features up from it. Fairman didn't linger over the sight but hurried downhill.

The sea had crept out of the fog. Quite a few people were ankle-deep in the water—he could have thought they hadn't moved since he'd passed that way earlier—while others clustered closer to the promenade. The greyish light looked as if it were being strained through gelatin, and lent all the flesh on display a tint unpleasantly reminiscent of jellyfish. A faint song seeped through the fog, and Fairman was near to imagining that it originated somewhere out to sea until he deduced that it came from the church beyond the murk. The congregation must be singing at one of Bernard Seddon's funerals, but could the mourners be dancing as well? Perhaps this was the activity that made the song too intermittent for Fairman to be sure how familiar it was.

As he crossed the road to the Wyleave, the denizens of the shelter raised their left hands, and one man called out. Surely he hadn't used Fairman's name, but Fairman demanded "What did you say?"

"We're saying no need to rush there, lad."

Fairman couldn't tell who had spoken first or now, and it might have been a third participant who said through his scarf "We'll all be there soon."

"The whole lot of us," another said.

Fairman had an unwelcome impression of being not just watched but addressed by a solitary senile consciousness. Presumably they had the funeral in mind. "You're right, no hurry," he said but made swiftly for the hotel.

There was nobody at Reception, and the building was quiet as fog, yet it felt no more deserted than the view from his room. As soon as he looked out of the window, the oldsters in the shelter saluted him. Waves were crawling forward on the beach as if determined to drag the fog closer to the promenade. He wasn't going to imagine that all the figures in the restless murk were facing him. He left the window and took his latest acquisition out of its papery nest. "Nearly whole," he said.

It was the fifth volume,
Of Humanity as Chrysalis.
At first glance he took the colophon for an anatomical diagram, showing a muscular skeleton next to a body parted down the middle. The stance of the bones suggested that they might have burst forth of their own volition, however, and the bony grin seemed more conscious than it ought to be. Were there eyes in the sockets? They reminded him of the distant gaze he seemed to have encountered too often in Gulshaw, and he turned to the end of the book. The flyleaf was blank.

It made the book feel oddly unfinished. He was so eager to read the text that he grudged the call he had to make. "Leonard," Nathan Brighouse said. "I hardly like to ask."

"I think I'd better plan on being done by tomorrow."

"That's Saturday." Brighouse might have been saying so in case Fairman had lost all sense of time. "Please ensure you're here on Monday," he said, "and we'll see what needs to be talked over."

"I'll do my best, of course."

"I'd expect no less." Brighouse let him interpret this for a few moments and added "I wouldn't like to think it needs assessment at this stage of your career, Leonard."

"Then don't," Fairman said, but only after ringing off. He was more aware of the book on which he and his twin were resting their hands than of still holding the phone. He should let Sandra know the situation, and as soon as she answered he said "It's me."

"I see it is, Leonard." As he grasped that she was referring to the display of his number she said "You aren't on your way, are you?"

"Who told you I'm not?"

"Nobody had to. It's in your voice."

"As it happens you're right." In a bid not to feel at the mercy of his circumstances Fairman said "I'm on my way to putting it together."

"How much do you still have to collect?"

"Just a couple of volumes. Nathan said I might as well stay the weekend."

"I shouldn't think you'll need any company when you have your books."

"I do have some reading ahead of me." Just in time he saw how she might have wanted him to interpret her remark. "You'd be most welcome if you cared to make the journey," he said hastily, "and I'm sure I wouldn't be alone in saying so."

"You can speak for the town, can you, Leonard?"

"I believe they pay someone to do that. But I think I've a pretty good sense of the place by now, yes."

"It's still the kind of place you dreamed of as a child, is it?"

"It's a lot more than whatever that was. There's so much more to see." If that was a joke, he should have known it was beyond her. "Not least the people," he said.

"What are you saying about them?"

"I started off thinking some of them were a little odd, but maybe they're no more so than I am. I'm sure you'd find them welcoming, all the ones you'll meet."

"I wonder if that's because their town is out of season."

"I'm sure they're genuine enough. They speak their mind round here. I was lectured this morning by one of them."

"Good heavens." Sandra sounded amused or ready to be. "What about, Leonard?"

"A lady told me I ought to care more about children."

"Well." Apparently this wasn't a source of amusement. "Maybe you should," Sandra said.

"I didn't know you felt that way."

"Maybe it isn't all you don't know about me."

"Then if you came here for the weekend I might have a chance to find out."

"I wasn't doing much tomorrow." She paused, perhaps to let him wonder about her decision or to attempt to persuade her, and then she said "All right, I'll take the first train in the morning."

"I'll meet you at the station. I'll make sure I'm free," Fairman said but thought it best to add "If the book should hold me up I'll let you know." That made him even keener to resume reading, and his distant gaze out of the mirror seemed to double his impatience. "Looking forward to it," he said and freed his hand to open the book.

"What need of flesh has the sorcerer? Nightly his essence springs forth and capers for glee..." He was surprised how unsatisfactory he found this and the pages that followed. Even if the content was meant only for the initiated, it felt unnecessarily withheld from him. "More curious still is the transformation which overtakes the child of sorcery, a change often too impatient to wait upon the death of the flesh..." This seemed yet more remote from his experience—as remote as the gaze that was waiting to meet his whenever he glanced up. Perhaps the whole book was symbolic, in which case he lacked the knowledge to interpret it; could that be in the volume he had yet to obtain? He was surprised how frustrated he felt by having read them out of order. "Some of the transformed owe their change to pronouncing the words of power, which shapes the body of the speaker to produce them." Might reading aloud help him understand? It seemed only to make him feel overheard inside the hotel and, if he let himself dream anything so absurd, outside too. "Most potent is the transformation which overtakes those who dwell within a territory which an Ancient One has made His own. As He occupies their minds, so the very landscape may revert to the age of primal shaping..." Fairman read to the end and shut the book at last, and as he and his counterpart each rested a hand on the cover he was put in mind of a priest who'd delivered a sermon without having grasped a word.