The Perils and Dangers of this Night (7 page)

As Sophie returned to her seat, dabbing her eyes and
mouth and throwing a snarly sidelong look at Pryce, I
said, 'I left him outside, Mrs Kemp, inside the stable. The
gentleman doesn't like him.'

It was the first time I'd really seen the visitors, although
I'd watched their arrival in the shadows of the stable-yard
and escorted them through twilight to the front door.
They'd taken off their big coats. Pryce was wearing a
black round-neck pullover, black brushed-denim jeans
and black elastic-sided boots. He was lean and angular,
with bony wrists and a pronounced Adam's apple, long
black hair and strong, beaky features; so that, as I met
the mocking, sardonic look in the young man's eye, I
thought of the cormorant I'd seen on the lake, far off in
a part of the woods that only I explored. Like the
cormorant – sleek in the water, and then, drying its wings
in the sunlight, a sinister, croaking sea-crow – he seemed
like a visitor from another world. The girl was a pretty
little urchin in a black pullover like the man's, jeans and
high boots; she had an electric-blue silk scarf knotted
loosely around her throat. And the flash of blue, her
startled eyes and the tuft of hair like a crest on her head,
reminded me of a fledgling jay I'd found last spring: Roly
had shot down the nest and hung both the parents on his
gibbet, alongside the corpses of stoats and weasels. The
fledgling, peppered with pellets, had died in my hands.

Again it came to me: a jolting flash of the dream I'd
had, and their presence in it.

Dr Kemp snapped at me, 'The dog lives here, in this
house, not in the stable. Go and get him.'

I'd placed a couple of the logs onto the fire and coaxed
the flames alive again with holly twigs, but then I stood
up and dusted my hands over the hearth. Glad to get
away again, I stepped gingerly past the young man's
outstretched legs and boots and away towards the
darkness and security of the corridor.

I heard the voices of the grown-ups behind me. It was
Sophie, the gawky, flustered girl who was probably
eighteen years old but looked like a child, who was
covering her embarrassment by broaching a different line
of conversation. I hesitated, eavesdropping, as she said,
'W-w-where are all the boys, M-m-mrs Kemp? The
school seems very q-q-quiet . . .'

'It's the Christmas holiday, Sophie,' Pryce explained
with mock weariness. 'That's one of the reasons we
thought it would be a good time to call by, remember?'
He said to Mrs Kemp, 'We were passing, not far away,
driving down to my parents for Christmas, and I couldn't
resist a little detour to drop in and say hello.'

'So who's the b-b-boy?' Sophie persisted. I'd turned out
of the hall and was hidden from the adults. Peeking
round the corner, I paused to catch Mrs Kemp's reply.

She said, 'His name's Alan Scott. Sometimes it happens
at the beginning of a holiday, or at half-term. For some
reason or other the parents can't come – maybe they're
overseas, in the services, or, unfortunately, wrangling
through a divorce or something – and then, once in a
while, we're left with a little waif or stray for a few days.'

'Well, here's wishing him a very happy Christmas,'
Pryce said, draining his glass and replacing it expectantly
on the table in front of Mrs Kemp.

'In Alan's case,' she went on, ignoring the glass, 'there
was a tragedy. It happened this summer. His father was
an army officer serving in Northern Ireland. He came
home on leave to England and . . .'

At that point, I bolted. I turned and ran into the
blackness of the corridor. I just wanted to be swallowed
in the darkness, to blot out the words I was hearing, to
hear nothing and see nothing and feel nothing. To
remember nothing. To be nothing.

But as I ran, I could feel the nightmare coming back to
me, as it had so many times in the months of that summer
and autumn. I tried to run from it, as though it were a
terrifying black shadow pursuing me through the tunnel.
I skidded and swerved down the corridor, so fast I
seemed to fly, my fingertips brushing the familiar reference
points of doors and door handles, my feet swift on
the smooth lino and polished ramps. As I turned and saw
the deeper darkness of a door in front of my face, I
skidded to a halt and saw my own hand, a glimmer of
white, reach out and push. I pushed the door open and
went through.

There, in the changing-room, my own coat was the
only coat. It looked like the figure of a man in black,
looming in the shadows and waiting for me.

The room altered. For a dazzling moment the nightmare
was real.

My living-room at home. A man was standing in
front of me, in black trousers, a black vest and black
balaclava. His eyes were cold and hard as they swivelled
towards me. He was holding a short, stubby, double-barrelled
shotgun. My father was kneeling on the floor,
and the muzzles of the gun were pressed to the back of
his head.

His face angled up and the words came out in hoarse,
horrid slow-motion. 'Get away, Alan! Get away! Your
mother . . .!'

An explosion like the end of the world. Such a noise
that I felt my head might have burst with it. But it wasn't
my head that burst. When the man in black pulled the
triggers, my father exploded. His head burst open, in a
welter of blood and smoke.

I ran. Past my coat, which had become a coat again.
Through the room which had become a changing-room
again. I stumbled out of the door at the back of the
school and into the stable-yard.

The air was delicious. Cold and clean, it woke me
instantly from the nightmare and returned me to the
present moment. So I pattered across the cobbles, hardly
glancing at the long red car which was parked there, and
I fumbled with the latch of the stable door where I'd left
the dog.

I fell inside. I could hear the stirring of the bird and feel
the soft, warm nuzzling of the dog as I scrabbled for the
matches on the shelf. I struck and struck a match and at
last it flared into life. Applying it to the wick of a paraffin
lamp, I saw how the flame threw a flickering light and
fluttering shadows around the familiar room.

The jackdaw blinked at me and stared. But this time it
was the dog I'd come for. I sank to the floor and hugged
him with all my strength. In all my lonely, empty world,
the big old dog was everything I wanted.

The nightmare had faded and gone, although I knew
that the reality from which it had spawned would never
change. Right now, in the safe, secret place I'd found for
myself, with only a cranky crippled bird and a slobbery
labrador for company, I buried my face into the animal's
neck.

'Wagner,' I remember whispering, overcome with relief, 'good
boy, good boy . . .'

I held tightly to the dog's collar and Wagner tugged me
like a chuffing locomotive, back through the changing-room
and along the corridors. At the further end I could
see the light of the hall, and as we came closer I could
hear the grown-ups' voices grow louder and louder.
Reluctant to rejoin them, I paused at the entrance to the
hall, peeked and listened.

Pryce was by the Christmas tree, leaning towards the
rows of old school photographs. Dr Kemp had settled at
the fireside with his sherry and his wife. Pryce was saying,
as though the conversation had continued seamlessly
since I'd fled from the room, 'But usually the damage is
done over a period of time, over months and years, rather
than by a single traumatic incident. I mean, just look at
these sad little faces. I wonder what's become of all of
them . . .'

He glanced back to the Kemps and shrugged when
neither of them rose to his bait. He peered at another
photograph, rubbing at the dust with his fingers, and said
excitedly, 'This one, for example, take a look at this,
Sophie.' And as she got up and joined him, he smudged
at the photo and said, 'Do you recognise this darling little
angel, Sophie? I must have been eight or nine years old
at the time.'

The girl peered so close she almost touched the glass
with her nose. After a moment she said, 'I recognise him
b-b-better than you do, Martin. It isn't you, it's Jeremy.'

Wagner had been peering short-sightedly into the hall,
leaning with all his weight on his collar, and when he
spotted the tall figure of the young man against the lights
of the Christmas tree, he lunged forwards with a horrid,
strangulated growl. I tried to restrain him, but the dog
gained a few yards with the suddenness of his movement
and dragged me almost to the hearth before I could check
him. Pryce and Sophie turned in alarm. Dr Kemp reached
for the dog's head and grabbed the collar.

'Well,
you
recognise me, don't you, Wagner?' Pryce
said. 'Remember this?' And as the dog made another
futile, gurgling lunge forwards, Pryce held his right hand
towards the brightness of the fire, to show a neat white
scar in the fleshy part of his palm. 'Yes, Wagner, that was
you, remember? I'm scarred for life. If you aren't
damaged when you come to Foxwood Manor, you are by
the time you leave . . .'

The words hung in the air. Mrs Kemp shifted in her
wheelchair, flushed and lowered her head, so that her
face was covered by the soft swing of her hair. Pryce had
the grace, at least, to say, 'I'm sorry, Mrs Kemp, I didn't
mean . . .' before she gestured at him with an odd
flapping of her hands, as though his words were no more
annoying than midges on a summer's evening. On
impulse, Sophie sat down beside the woman and took
one of her hands in her own.

'It's all right, dear, thank you,' Mrs Kemp said to the
girl. 'I came to Foxwood as the riding mistress, many
years ago, when Dr Kemp was a young music teacher
here. Not long after we were married, I had an accident,
so that . . .'

The headmaster tried to stop her with the lift of his
eyebrow. But she continued, with a nod towards a
photograph on the mantelpiece, a fading picture of a
smiling, beautiful young woman on a big grey horse. 'My
lovely Dapple, the love of my life, so handsome and fine.
And a miracle, the shades, the subtlety of his marking.
'
Glory be to God for dappled things
. . .'

Sophie took up the line – '
for skies of couple-colour as
a brinded cow, for something-something on trout that
swim
. . .' so that Mrs Kemp laughed brightly, like the
girl she'd been when the photograph was taken.

'He was an ill-tempered brute,' the headmaster put in.

'He didn't like you,' she said, 'because he could tell you
were frightened of him. With me, he was sometimes a bit
awkward, a challenge maybe, but marvellous . . .'

'He was downright dangerous.' Dr Kemp made a tiny
off-hand gesture at her wheelchair, like a lawyer resting
his case.

She pursed her lips, then said softly to the girl, 'We fell
in the woods, me and Dapple. I gave him his head and he
wouldn't stop. We fell and we were both hurt, me like
this, and Dapple too – sadly, there was nothing to be
done for him.'

A gust of wood smoke blew down the chimney and roiled
from the mouth of the fireplace. There was a long silence.

At last the headmaster said to me, 'Well, Scott, it's
your bedtime. Thank you for bringing the logs, and for
taking care of Wagner. I know you're very fond of him.
Go up now, and I'll be there in a few minutes.'

Sophie seized the moment, or tried to. She let go of Mrs
Kemp's hand and leaned towards Pryce, taking his hand
instead. She made a cute play of finding the scar and
kissing it better. 'Poor little b-b-boy. It's t-t-time for us to
go, isn't it? Come on now . . .'

He prised her fingers off him. He smiled too, but it was
a cold smile he made with his fine white teeth. His eyes
were not smiling as he leaned to the fireside table, picked
up Sophie's glass and drained the sherry in a single gulp.

'I've been drinking,' he said. 'Better not drive.' He flashed
a look at Dr Kemp. 'All right if we stay?'

In the boys' bathroom at the top of the house, I was
brushing my teeth. I stood at the sink, in just my stripy
pyjama-bottoms, and I shivered, barefoot, reflected in the
mirrors of a big cold room. When I heard the footsteps
and voices along the corridor, I had a bewildering
mixture of feelings which I tried, in a second or two, to
sort out before the grown-ups came tromping past.
Without turning, I watched in the mirror as the young
man and his girlfriend went past the bathroom door,
followed by Dr Kemp. Of the three of them, only Dr
Kemp glanced in and saw me, and I caught a glimmer of
hopelessness in the headmaster's eye which added another,
even stranger ingredient to my stew of feelings.
Because I, who'd been so resentful of my abandonment
with the Kemps for the Christmas holiday, who'd been so
thrilled and unnerved by the sudden, swaggering arrival
of the strangers, now felt a twinge of resentment that they
were marching along my corridor and peering into every
empty dorm. More than that, I felt the tiniest creeping of
fear in my neck and down my spine, and in the prickling
of my palms.

I spat into the sink. My mouthful of water and
toothpaste swirled in the brown-stained enamel and
slithered down the plug hole. I frowned at myself in the
mirror. Confusing – I couldn't work out if I was glad or
annoyed that the young people had come.

I put my head out of the bathroom door and watched
them. I heard Sophie protesting that
she
could drive, that
she'd had only one glass of sherry and
she
could drive. I
heard Pryce replying that there were dozens of empty
beds and surely they could stay one night and they'd be
gone first thing in the morning – and I heard Dr Kemp
say, with all the civility he could muster at being
steam-rollered so thoroughly in his own house, 'Of
course, of course, there's plenty of room. It isn't a hotel,
but there are clean sheets and plenty of blankets and . . .'