Through Dead Eyes (14 page)

Alex opened the door, pinging a bell. The woman serving in the shop seemed surprised to see a teenage boy when she looked up but she smiled and said hello.

Alex smiled back and headed to the back of the shop. He seemed to know exactly why he was there and what it was he needed.

In front of him were spools of ribbons in dozens of different colours.

‘English?’ said the woman stepping up beside him.

‘Yes,’ said Alex.

‘Can I help you?’

‘Yes,’ said Alex. ‘Can I have some of that ribbon – the dark-blue one?’

Chapter 14

Back in his hotel room, Alex picked up the mask and threaded the ribbon through the holes at the sides, knotting them.

He did these actions mechanically. The bitterness he had felt about Angelien and Dirk had turned to numbness. He felt nothing. He just knew that he had to do this and do it now.

Alex put the mask up to his face and, with some difficulty, tied the ribbon in a bow at the back of his head. It felt cool against his skin, like plunging his face in cold water.

He was startled by what a difference this made to the feel of the mask. Holding it in front of his face had been strange enough, given the weird effect it had on whatever was viewed through it.

But actually tying the mask on made it seem as though it belonged there, as though it was made for him. It fitted his face perfectly, almost as if it was adapting itself to Alex’s features. The shape hugged his face and settled coolly across his nose and cheeks and forehead until he could hardly tell where his flesh ended and the mask began.

The view through the eyeholes was as dark as ever, although the time it took to adjust to the difference seemed less somehow and he was definitely seeing more now.

The room was no longer his hotel room, but the room that Hanna had spent her life in. It was sparsely furnished and Alex had the impression that the darkness was not wholly down to the mask. A single lamp provided all the light and its glow barely reached the far side of the room.

Alex walked across to the window and pulled aside the curtain – not the bland curtain of his hotel room, but a heavy damask curtain. Again he heard the echo of his own short breathing. Was it Hanna? Was it her breath that echoed with his own?

Alex looked out through the window and saw the children standing in a group below, all staring up at him as though they had been waiting for him to come to the window.

He let the curtain fall back across the window, blocking them out. But the memory of their faces lingered in his mind.

Alex walked backwards away from the window, the heavy curtain still swaying slightly, pulling the mask off as he did so. Light flooded back into his sight, dazzling him and making him blink.

He put the mask down on the top of the chest of drawers and stared at it. The face seemed to look back at him, with its inscrutable smile. It seemed to mock him. Alex sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands.

Alex heard his father come into the room next door and got unsteadily to his feet. He opened a drawer and slid the mask inside and then went over to the adjoining door.

‘Hi,’ he said as he opened it.

‘Alex,’ said his father, looking up from the papers in his lap. ‘I thought you were still out with Angelien.’

‘Nah,’ said Alex. ‘She had to be somewhere so I came back.’

‘Hope you haven’t had to hang around for too long,’ said his father. ‘Saskia had a meeting, so it looks like we are both at a loose end. How about we go and eat, just the two of us?’

Alex smiled.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘That’d be good.’

They went to a restaurant on the banks of a small, straight stretch of canal, lined with trees with a humpback bridge nearby, crowned with a tiara of bicycles chained to its railing. A garland of lights echoed the curve of the bridge and they reflected in the water, forming a near circle.

‘Everything’s going to be fine you know,’ said his father as they waited for the waiter to bring their food. ‘It all seems like it’s overwhelming now, but it will pass.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Alex.

‘I’m so sorry that we did this to you,’ he said. ‘Your mother and me. It was the last thing I wanted, you know that – but I couldn’t make your mother stay.’

‘I just wish . . .’

But Alex was not really sure what he wished for any more, except for everything to be back to normal.

‘I like it being just us two,’ said Alex. ‘I like Saskia and everything. It’s not that.’

His father smiled.

‘I’m glad you like her,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty fond of her myself. We just met at the wrong time. We were too young.’

‘Will you marry Saskia, Dad?’ asked Alex.

‘Marry?’ said his father, pouring himself some wine. ‘Where did that come from? I think we are a long way off making that kind of decision.’

‘It’s just that she lives here in Amsterdam,’ said Alex. ‘Her job’s here. Her whole life is here.’

‘Alex, Alex,’ said his father. ‘I don’t want you worrying yourself about all this. Who knows what might happen in the future? Let’s talk about something else. What did you do today?’

‘Nothing much,’ said Alex, remembering Dirk’s grip on his shoulder.

‘Everything OK?’ said his father. ‘I shouldn’t have gone on at you about Angelien.’

‘No,’ said Alex. ‘You were right. I was being stupid. Of course she wouldn’t be interested in me.’

‘Well,’ said his father. ‘Never mind, eh? No harm done. How about pudding?’

Alex felt in no hurry to return to his room and was happy when his father suggested that they walk off their meal by wandering along the canals in a meandering stroll back to their hotel.

The tick-tock of his father’s brogues echoed along the dark streets and canals and Alex felt lulled and calmed. Perhaps his father was right: perhaps everything would be fine in time.

This attempt at optimism lasted right up until he said goodnight to his father and found himself alone in his room once more. Within seconds of closing the door, Alex felt the chill eating into the pit of his stomach.

He turned back to open the door and return to his father, but the darkness already had a hold of him. Instead he reached for the chest of drawers.

He knew that the mask was calling to him again. He knew he was not going to be able to resist; he didn’t want to resist.

Alex couldn’t stop now, he knew it. He had to find out more. He was hooked now and could no more resist the mask than stop breathing. This was not about proving anything to Angelien; this was a raw compulsion. Alex just needed to look into that world. As frightening as it was, he needed to see more.

Alex picked up the mask and tied it quickly round his head, knotting it at the back. It felt tight at first but within seconds he barely noticed it was there. Darkness descended once more, and all the modern trappings of the room fled at its arrival.

He walked across to the window. Resisting all impulses to look down at those pale blue children, he looked straight ahead into the darkness of the houses on the opposite side of the street.

He let those houses shift out of focus and he focused instead on his reflection in the window. It was a dull and vague reflection but he found that, with concentration, he could make the image clearer and sharper.

The mask stood out pale against the blackness behind, but the eyes that twinkled in the shadows of the eye holes were not hazel like his own, but pale and limpid. The flaxen hair that tumbled down on either side was likewise not his own, but Hanna’s.

And as he realised that he could see her, he could feel that she made the same realisation. Across the centuries they made contact.

Alex’s hands moved up behind his head, but it was Hanna who moved them. It was her fingers that now worked at the knot he had tied in the ribbon.

Alex’s heartbeat quickened as he realised what was happening. She was taking the mask from her face; a face that Angelien had said was horribly disfigured in the fire. He braced himself.

Then suddenly, he saw a black shape loom up behind Hanna’s face. It was Van Kampen appearing like a huge crow. He stopped Hanna’s fingers as she tried to untie the bow, looking out into the street, clearly concerned at who might be watching.

Hanna pulled away from his touch and walked away from the window. Alex could feel her temper rising. Van Kampen turned and began to walk away but Hanna called after him. Alex couldn’t understand what she said but he could see through her eyes the effect it had on her father. He staggered backwards as though shot and put his hands over his ears.

She shouted again, louder this time. Hanna’s father turned and walked back to his room and though Alex was relieved, the relief was short lived, because Van Kampen strode back, his cane high over his head.

Without pause or warning the cane cracked across Hanna’s back. Hanna curled up to shield herself against the next blow, but it came too quickly. Alex felt the pain that Hanna felt and it was almost too much to bear.

Hanna screamed as the next blow came down and Alex cried out too. He turned to see a look of wild fury on Van Kampen’s ashen face: fury, tinged with a kind of terror. He was lashing out at them as someone might strike out at a snake or a rat.

The cane came down again and cracked, the handle breaking off and skittering across the floor. Van Kampen raised the broken cane above his head and Alex cried out again. Another blow from the cane knocked the mask from Hanna’s face and sent it bouncing across the floor.

As soon as the mask came off, the modern world flooded back in. He heard his father’s footsteps approaching the door and he leaped back into bed, shoving the mask under the covers.

‘Alex!’ said his father walking in and turning on the light. ‘I heard you scream. What’s the matter?!’

Alex was still disorientated. The past world of Hanna still clung to him. He tried to speak but a wordless sound emerged. His father’s voice sounded distant and faint.

‘Alex!’ repeated his father.

This time the voice rushed in through the haze, like a wave crashing on to a fog-bound shingle beach. The world of the mask fled from the light, reality reappearing, crisp and sharp. Alex felt as though he had been slapped awake from a deep sleep.

‘Alex,’ said his father, more quietly this time, putting his arm round his son’s shoulders. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘The mask,’ said Alex. ‘I had a nightmare. A bad one.’

‘That bloody mask,’ said his father. ‘It’s an ugly thing if you ask me. There’s something unpleasant about it. If Angelien thinks it’s worth so much, then why not give the thing to her.’

‘No!’ said Alex, more aggressively than he intended. ‘I want to keep it, Dad.’

His father sighed. ‘What was the nightmare about?’ he asked. ‘It sometimes helps to talk about these things, you know.’

‘It was about this house,’ said Alex. ‘About the way it was in the Golden Age, you know, when Van Kampen lived here with his daughter.’

‘He had a daughter, did he?’ said Alex’s father. ‘I suppose Angelien has been telling you all this.’

‘Yes,’ said Alex. ‘The girl used to wear a mask like the one I bought. I suppose it must have creeped me out a bit.’

His father stroked Alex’s hair and stood up.

‘I’m OK, Dad,’ said Alex.

‘Sure?’ he said, standing up.

Alex nodded.

‘OK then,’ said his father. ‘If you’re sure. Stop thinking about the seventeenth century. It’s a gloomy age. Try and concentrate on something cheerful.’

‘Like World War Two?’ said Alex.

‘Ha!’ said his father. ‘Fair point. Just try and get some sleep, son. Goodnight.’

Alex’s father walked through the connecting doors, closing them behind him. As soon as he had gone, Alex kicked the mask out from under the duvet and, without looking at it, turned over and closed his eyes.

Chapter 15

Alex sat on his bed watching the BBC news on his television, without really taking any of it in. He was still in a daze from the night before. He was dimly aware of the sounds of the street drifting in through the window and now and then he heard the tread of other guests. His father knocked and opened the door.

‘You’re sure you don’t want any breakfast?’

Alex shook his head.

‘I feel bad leaving you here,’ said his father. ‘Maybe it’s better if you come with me.’

Alex could hear that his father didn’t really believe that. Alex was sure that his father dreaded the idea. What if Alex caused some sort of scene at the publishers?

‘It’s all right, Dad,’ he said. ‘Go. I’m OK.’

‘If you need anything,’ said his dad, ‘just call.’

His father had made him promise to stay in his room. He said he probably wouldn’t be back by lunchtime and if Alex got hungry he could ring room service.

Alex lay on his bed. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Van Kampen lurching forward with his cane. No one was going to believe him, least of all his dad.

He could have told everything to Angelien but he was scared that she would think he was just a stupid kid. He could bear his dad thinking he was crazy, but he couldn’t bear that.