The Yeare's Midnight (30 page)

It
would
be
easy.

Julia was in the house, warm and unaware. Julia Cooper, the little girl who made him cry. Julia Underwood, the woman who no longer loved him, reborn as Julia Heyer. She was shedding the unwanted skin in her sleep. How would she react to her lover’s reduction, Underwood wondered. How would she regard his dissolution? Would she tingle at his cold touch whenever she swam in the sea? Would she howl her pain at the godless sky when she tried to hold her martyred lover and he ran uselessly through her fingers? Would she drink the rainwater with relish and draw the man inside her for ever? Would he swim in her saliva and linger in her tears?

Would the memory of the man be more potent than the reality? Underwood’s heart burned in his chest and he sank to his knees on the yielding earth, close to exhaustion and uncertain of how to proceed.

He had become a stranger to his own mind, uncertain of its capabilities. His rational mind was like a frightened bird, floating on an ocean of anger and despair; unable to fly, too scared to dive. Memories flared at him, made acute by his pain, merging and folding until he came to confuse them with imagination. A marriage without love; a marriage without sex; a marriage without children. He was existing without living. Maybe he had died the night he and Julia had first met and had existed since then only in a terrible purgatory; scrambling blindly in circles unable to climb to the light.

So
where
was
he
now?
On
top
of
the
mountain,
perhaps,
one
short
step,
one
killer
blow
from
paradise.
Would
his
guilt
and
despair
die
with
Paul
Heyer?
The
question
surprised
him:
emerg
ing
without
warning
from
a
primitive
part
of
his
brain
that
hadn’t
yet
learned
to
deceive
itself.
Why
should
he
be
stricken
with
guilt?
Julia
had
betrayed
him.
She
had
disavowed
their
marriage;
the
holy
fucking
union.
He
had
done
nothing
wrong.

He almost believed himself: the burden of half-invented evidence was almost compelling. Then, as the truth gradually broke through his inventions and contortions, somewhere far out on the surface of the churning water the bird broke free and started to fly. For a split second Underwood saw the terrible virulence of the lie and realized it had infected everything. The truth was that he had failed her; he had fallen short of her expectations. He had failed to return the love she had so willingly offered. The guilt didn’t come from his failure. It came from his denial of responsibility. He was a horror to himself.

Paul Heyer could suddenly taste metal. Rusty metal. There was noise and he was cold, very cold. There was pressure on his chest. He had trouble breathing. His head pounded as he struggled to understand where he was. Something warm tickled at the corner his mouth. Blood. He remembered Underwood, standing right behind him – inside the cottage. He tried unsuccessfully to move his hands and then snapped open his eyes.

For an instant he thought he was dead and staring through the gates of Hell itself. Water smashed and snarled onto the rocks below, far below. Was he falling? Panic seized him. He clamped his eyes shut as the stones and foaming water suddenly seemed to rush up at him. He braced for the terrible impact: the crushing of his ribcage and rupturing of his organs, the dashing of his brains against the rocks. The Spartans threw their weakest children off mountain tops. Unnatural selection. Perish the thoughtful.

The pain never came.

The kitchen door crashed shut with an impact that shook the entire cottage and Julia Underwood sat up bolt upright in shock. Paul wasn’t there. The bed was cold. Had he gone outside? She swung her legs out of the bed, her naked skin pimpling in the chill air, and pulled on Paul’s dressing gown.

‘Paul?’ she called out from the top of the stairs, suddenly afraid. The old house rattled in reply as another gust threatened to tear it from its foundations. Julia cursed and hurried downstairs. The wooden floor felt freezing against her bare feet. She turned on the kitchen light. There was no sign of Paul.

Outside, Underwood saw the light and brushed away his tears as if embarrassed by the glare. He noticed Heyer was moving. He was alive, straining at the rope. This was the pathetic offspring his life of failure had produced. Throwing the child from the mountain top wouldn’t lighten his guilt. It would be a further act of denial.

Underwood looked out across the black water into the very eye of time. He thought of a second of compressing time; of imagining every emotion, action, decision of his life crushed into a nanosecond. That would have been ideal. There would have been no time to become bored, no time to make mistakes, no time to become isolated. However, time passes slowly and agonizingly, lingering on failure and disappointment the way traffic slows to study a road accident. Life itself is a purgatory; a common bath of pain in which we struggle to purge the consequences of our mistakes. Guilt is the torture of the piteous.

Underwood
could
see
Julia
looking
out
through
the
kitchen
window,
straining
her
eyes
to
decipher
the
darkness.
He
remem
bered
they
had
bought
their
first
home
together
in
the
summer
of
1983.
The
previous
owner
had
been
a
widower.
He
had
been
in
his
late
sixties,
worn
down
by
life
and
loneliness
and
with
deep
lines
of
sadness
cutting
across
his
face.
He
lacked
the
energy
to
maintain
the
house.
John
Underwood
had
pitied
the
old
man,
sensing
his
pain
and
resignation.
He
had
been
struck
by
the
contrast
with
his
own
situation,
then
so
full
of
promise.
The
old
man
had
seen
it
as
well.
Eighteen
years
later
and
Underwood
knew
that
he
too
now
faced
the
void
alone.
There
was
always
time
enough
to
make
mistakes,
and
to
dwell
on
them.

‘What the fuck’s going on?’ shouted Heyer above the screaming wind. ‘Get me away from the edge.’

The only real sin is to sharpen the agony of others. Life is an agony, but a shared agony; a shared bath of pain.
For
in
a
common
bath
of
teares
it
bled.
Which
drew
the
strongest
vitall
spirits
out.
Perhaps the agonies of fury and failure had drawn out the ‘vitall spirits’ of his brutality. He had been reborn in a bath of tears: now he was reaching for the light, gasping for air.

Underwood thought suddenly of Elizabeth Drury, suspended in a solution of blood and water: returned to a prenatal state in death. He hadn’t thought of that before. Drury and Harrington had entered death as they had entered life. Except, he remembered, their eyes had been torn out. Two left eyes. Was the placement of the bodies in water intended to signify that they too had been reborn? Was the removal of the eyes some kind of rite that occasioned the transformation? Why would you need two left eyes?

‘Listen to me,’ Heyer gasped. ‘This is crazy. Look at yourself. Look at what you’re doing. Don’t throw your life away.’

Underwood looked down at Heyer and then beyond him to the black hissing mass of shale and rock. The pain in his chest was growing ever more acute. An uncomfortable sense of his own fragility twisted at his guts. He felt a cold stab of panic. Walking into the night alone suddenly terrified him. Heyer tried to shift his weight away from the cliff edge. Underwood knelt on the man’s back and entwined his fingers in Heyer’s hair.

‘My life?’ Underwood shouted. ‘What do you mean, my life? You have walked into my life and taken what you wanted. This is all that’s left, my friend.’

‘This won’t help you,’ Heyer gasped as Underwood’s weight bore into him. ‘She’ll hate you.’

‘Do you read the papers?’

‘What?’

‘Do you read the fucking papers?’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘I’ve spent the week chasing some maniac who hacks women’s eyes out.’

‘Bully for … y – you.’ Heyer spat the words defiantly as the air was squeezed from his lungs.

‘And you, you’ve been screwing my wife – buying her clothes, buying her dinner, buying her a fucking holiday.’

‘Fuck you.’

‘Maybe I should hack
your
eye out.’ Underwood squeezed the sides of Heyer’s left eyeball with his thumb and index finger. ‘You couldn’t buy another one of those, could you? I could open you up so we can all see all the nasty conniving shit that goes on in the back of your head.’

‘You’re pathetic. If you were going to kill me you’d have done it by now. You’re just a bully. Julia was right about you.’ Heyer’s head was throbbing, he was nauseous, the night was whirling disturbingly around him. ‘You’re just a coward.’

But Underwood wasn’t listening. A terrible realization had sliced across the surface of his brain like a razor across skin. He struggled to follow its insane logic.
Why
do
you
need
two
left
eyes?
What
do
you
gain
from
having
them
–
unless
…

Underwood stood and Heyer’s chest heaved as the pressure on him was finally released. He dragged oxygen back into his desperate lungs.
Why
do
we
have
two
of
everything?
Two
kidneys,
two
lungs,
two
eyes.
Underwood watched the flickering lights of a passenger plane crawling towards him across the night. By some curious and terrible osmosis the idea was creeping into his consciousness.

What
do
we
gain
from
having
two
of
everything?

He dragged Heyer away from the cliff edge and hauled him to the beach path that uncoiled steeply downwards about ten yards away.

Insurance.
If
one
kidney
stops
working,
you
still
have
another.
Does
the
killer
have
one
eye?
Jesus
–
is
he
walking
around
with
a
ravaged
eye
rammed
into
an
empty
socket?
How
would
you
lose
an
eye?
Maybe
he’s
been
in
a
car
accident.
Maybe
he
was
a
soldier.
Underwood tried to concentrate his madness away.
The
eyes
were
dead
and
useless:
they
were
most
likely
terribly
damaged.
What
use
would
they
be?
The
killer
is
almost
certainly
male.
If
replacement
is
his
motive,
wouldn’t
he
have
chosen
male
targets?
Were
the
eyes
intended
for
someone
else?

He steadied himself against the wind.
Julia
has
two
men.
Why?
Because
one
stopped
functioning
so
she
got
herself
another.
The simplicity of the equation made him feel desperately sad. Half of the double helix sloughed away in that moment: only despair remained. Maybe he could purge the guilt after all: progress through pain. Maybe she deserved the chance.

‘Do you love her?’ Underwood asked suddenly.

‘Of course I do,’ Heyer growled.

‘Say it.’

‘I love her.’

‘Say it like you mean it.’

‘I do mean it. She knows it. Now so do you.’

The weight had lifted slightly. Slowly, as though waking from a terrible dream, Underwood turned his back on Heyer and walked unsteadily towards the light.