The Queen of Sinister (4 page)

Within a day, incidences of the disease cropped up rapidly throughout the village. Caitlin had attempted to track the spread, but it was soon apparent that it was striking down people who had had no contact. The only explanation was that it was airborne - a worst-case scenario that was devastating in its implications. With no national communication system available since the Fall, outside information was thin, but by that time she was knee-deep in the dead and the dying and she had no time for anything but disposal. 'What are you doing?'

She started. Grant was at the door, holding his glass of beer. She couldn't see his face in the shadows. 'Just some research. If I could pin down the genotype of the plague it might point—'

'We haven't seen you in days. Can't you give it a rest just for tonight?'

She recognised the tone in his voice and knew what was to come. 'Grant—'

'No. Don't give me all the excuses again. You're barely a part of this family—'

'I've got responsibilities!' Her voice snapped and tears of frustration sprang to her eyes. She'd told herself she'd remain calm and she'd barely lasted a few seconds; the unbearable stress she was under forced everything up against her skin, trying to break out of her.

'You've got responsibilities to us.' Grant was cold and distant, but anger bubbled just beneath the surface.

Caitlin stared at the textbook illustration of a virus, something so deadly stripped down to a cartoon. She'd heard the argument so many times recently in so many different tones, from despairing to furious, that she really didn't have the energy for such a futile exercise.

'Yes, people need their doctor,' Grant continued. 'But we need you, too. You're never here any more. You never even think about us when you're out—'

'How do you know what I think?' She winced; too combative - it would only notch the argument up to another level.

'I know. I can see it in every part of you ... in everything you do. We're just here in the background. You don't give us any time, you don't give us any thought. We're not important. Why can't you forget about your job for a while?'

'Because people are dying out there!'

'People are dying in here ... getting older ... time running away...' Resentment rose up in him, old arguments running round and round in a Moebius strip, never answered or explained.

'You know what I mean,' she replied sullenly.

'We never even have sex any more—'

'Oh, God, if I hear that one more time—'

'I'm not just talking about the sex! It's symptomatic of everything else. It's about intimacy, being close to someone you love ...' He slammed the glass down on a table, slopping beer everywhere.

'I'm too tired to have sex!' The emotion burst out in a tidal wave. 'I'm worn out by everything ... too frightened ... too ... oh, it doesn't matter!'

The brief silence that followed her outburst was filled with her guilt, and then anger that she'd given in to her emotions.

'What's happened to us, Caitlin?' Grant's voice was like glass. 'We never celebrate what we've got... we just exist. Before, we used to celebrate all the time—'

'Before, before, before, that's all you ever talk about!'

'Listen to me!' he snapped. 'We've got to do something to put this right, or—'

'Or what?' She slammed out of her chair and stormed across the room. 'Or what? You'll leave me? Go on, then!'

She pushed past him, snatched up her coat and marched out into the night.

Distant flashes of lightning burst intermittently across the sky. There was no rain, but the wild wind still made the trees around the barns sway and moan as if they were alive. Caitlin threw herself into the gale, lost to emotions that felt as if they were tearing her apart. She didn't even think about what she had glimpsed in the lane earlier, or the plague and the suffering.

Ten minutes later she realised where her subconscious was driving her. The windows of Mary Holden's house were aglow with the ruddy light of a fire. The white cottage stood on the edge of the village, camouflaged by several years' growth of clematis and surrounded by a garden so wild it clamoured on every side as if it was trying to break into the warmth.

Caitlin felt bad about calling at so late an hour, but Mary had proved a good friend throughout the difficult months since the Fall and would understand.

Mary answered Caitlin's knock quickly and ushered her in. 'What are you doing out in weather like this?' she said. Mary was in her early sixties but looked much younger: her long grey hair had a lustre and was tied into a ponytail with a black ribbon; she wore faded blue jeans and a too- large white T-shirt that looked as if it had been in the wash with the colours. 'Have you run out of supplies?' she continued. 'I've got a new batch of herbs in. Haven't had a chance to dry them yet, though.'

'No, it's just...' Caitlin suddenly couldn't stop the tears from streaming down her cheeks.

'What is it, love?' Mary put an arm round Caitlin's shoulders and led her towards the pleasant heat of the wood-fire. The house had an exotic spicy aroma from the herbs and wild plants Mary collected to turn into potpourri or incense, her dining room packed to the brim with jars of the dried produce. Mary knew everything there was to know about their medicinal uses and regularly supplied Caitlin with mysterious bunches of crispy vegetation to boost the surgery's dwindling medicinal stocks. The remarkable success rate of remedies made up from her scrawled notes had led Caitlin to come to trust her judgment.

At first Caitlin couldn't get her words out - the tears wouldn't stop, her throat appeared to have closed up - so she sat on the old, comfy sofa in front of the hearth while Mary went into the kitchen to make her a herbal tea.

'Here you are.' Mary offered a cracked mug. 'Probably tastes like shit, but you won't get much better anywhere else these days.'

'Sometimes I wonder why I carry on,' Caitlin said. 'There's no point. To anything.'

'Now you know that's not true.' Mary stretched out next to her like a cat. 'There's a point to everything, even if you can't see it. But that's not what you want to hear, is it? What's wrong?'

Mary radiated an atmosphere of peace that Caitlin found eminently comforting. In a way, Mary was her equal in the eyes of the community. Most of the villagers had found their way to Mary's door at some time or other, and with increasing regularity, seeking wisdom or herbal remedies that they couldn't get from Caitlin. Finally, it was Caitlin's turn; and so she spoke about the plague, and her fears that it could wipe out the population, and her guilt that she couldn't do anything about it. And against her better judgment, she talked of Grant and the growing gulf between them, and how their relationship appeared to be sliding away, though neither of them wanted that to happen.

Mary listened intently, nodding at the right points. When Caitlin had finished, Mary smiled a little sadly and said, 'You've got it all on your plate, haven't you? Stronger women than you would buckle under that kind of pressure. You mustn't feel bad about taking a few knocks.'

'Well, I do. People are relying on me.'

'You're not Supergirl, you know.' Mary's black cat startled them both, leaping on to her lap from the shadows beside the sofa. Mary had named him Arthur Lee after some sixties singer she admired.

'What am I going to do?' Caitlin asked.

'I hate to say this, but I agree with Grant.'

Caitlin eyed her suspiciously.

'This life is all about maintaining a balance. You're completely out of whack at the moment. Too much yin, not enough yang. You're not going to do anybody any good by running yourself into the ground.'

'I feel too worn out—'

'Then you'd better un-wear yourself. These are hard times, Caitlin, but they've been worse ... not for us, but in the past. It's easy to give in to all the misery, when what we really should be doing is enjoying life. Because we still can.' Mary chewed her lip in thought for a moment before adding, 'And if you don't mind me sticking my nose in, you should start sleeping with Grant again.'

Caitlin looked up sharply; she hadn't mentioned that aspect to Mary.

'Come on. It's obvious.' She cracked her knuckles like a docker. 'Sometimes it's hard to find the energy, but it rewards you if you can. Sex is the glue of relationships, Caitlin, and it's what life is all about. It's the opposite of death, of giving up, of getting swamped by...' She waved a hand towards the window.'... what's out there. See it as symbolic.'

'That's one line the boys never used.'

They laughed together, wrapped in the firelight and the warmth, the wind bucking with irritation at the panes.

'I appreciate this, Mary. At this time of night—'

'You know you're the daughter I never had,' Mary said sardonically.

'No, really.'

'I'm a sucker for waifs and strays.' Arthur Lee settled in her lap so Mary could scratch behind its ears. 'We have to pull together, in a way we never did before.'

Mary was serious and thoughtful, and Caitlin felt calmer simply being around her. Mary was one of those people who felt so much bigger than the actual space they filled. 'You really think it's worth it?'

'The clock's been set back. We've got a big opportunity to put things right this time.'

'You're saying all the death and the suffering are worthwhile?'

'That's the wrong word. But we can't see the big picture - we're too close to it. I know this: the world we had before wasn't all it was cracked up to be. People just ... existed. They weren't really happy. They worked, and got more possessions than their parents had, and lived a few years longer, but they weren't really happy. Everything in society was just geared towards maintaining that system ... keeping the status quo ... because there were a lot of people who really benefited from it. Everybody else just drifted along. Is that living?'

'Tell that to the bodies stacked up in the village hall. I bet they'd prefer a touch of the old life, however dull it was.'

Mary smiled, but not in agreement. She pushed Arthur Lee off her lap and went to a cupboard containing a row of dog-eared vinyl records. 'They're all useless now,' she said, 'but I keep them for what they mean ... good mojo.' She laughed as she flicked through the rack and selected one, which she handed to Caitlin. It was called Forever Changes by some band called Love and the cover featured a collection of psychedelically coloured heads against a white background.

'Never heard of them,' Caitlin said, not quite understanding the point. 'The last music I remember hearing was doves'

'They were around in the mid-sixties,' Mary said. 'They had an underground following but never really broke through into the big time because they refused to get involved in all the corporate bullshit. They were quite brilliant. Anyway, there was a quote about them that's always stuck in my mind. It said something like, "Love perfectly captured the combination of beauty and dread that was around in the sixties." That's what we've got now, beauty and dread.'

'Not so much of the beauty.'

'It's there, if you can see past the mud and the shit and the dying. In a way, this time is a lot like the sixties.' Caitlin's disbelieving expression made Mary laugh. 'It was a crucial time ... when everything was poised. Young people, for once, were on the brink of shaping society. Not old farts like me. Young people - younger than you. There was a move away from repression towards freedom ... hope and optimism. The occult - magic, if you like - was back in the mainstream, and a real honest-to-goodness spirituality came with it. For a moment it seemed as if that was the way things were going to go ... towards a new Golden Age.'

'Then human nature kicked in.'

'Oh, you are a cynic,' Mary chided. 'No, it wasn't that. Human nature is basically what I've just told you - good stuff... hope ... freedom ... people looking for magic in their lives. But there's a tiny group who always manage to worm their way to the top. You wouldn't look twice at them in the street - they're boring, fade into the background. But they're cursed with having no imagination, and that's a terrible thing. If you've got imagination, you worry about people's feelings because you can put yourself in their shoes, you worry about your place in the world ... in history. These people somehow know they're lacking because they've got no imagination, so they try to fill in what's missing with power - and because they've got no imagination, they'll do anything to get to the top. No scruples.'

'Is this your conspiracy theory?' Caitlin said with a wry smile.

'No conspiracy. They stand there in plain sight, but you never think badly of them because they're so boring. They were the ones who killed Kennedy - both of them - Martin Luther King, John Lennon, gave Charlie Manson the wrong direction, blew apart all the protests against the Vietnam War, ruined the hippie movement. They're the ones who killed the sixties.'

Caitlin waved her away with a chuckle.

'You can laugh, my girl, but it's true. Those people don't like all the positive things, all that light and freedom and hope, because in that sort of atmosphere they can't exist. They're shown up for what they really are. With the country upside down ... the Government nowhere to be seen ... we're at a point where we can go in that right direction again, if a few good people lead the way. But those shadow-people are only lying low, and I'm betting you they'll soon rear up their ugly, boring heads and try to stop us getting some good out of all this shit.'