Forty

N’Taal. The name burned through the fabric of Victor Brodman’s being. Here he was on the doomed ship. The rending of metal as it disintegrated told him that he’d arrived in its death throes. Lightning cast rivers of blue light in the sky. With brutal incandescence it revealed the deck of the N’Taal in every detail. Victor saw that streaks of rust had corrupted its paintwork. Corrosion-rendered holes in the steel deck. Jay gazed on the scene of imminent tragedy in his customary unfathomable way. Did he sense the panic of his own people? Dozens of men, women and children were struggling through hatches up on to the deck. They called to one another. Mothers passed infants to fathers from the dark pits formed by open hatchways. So this was the ship-full of refugees reviled by the world. After Jay’s people had been driven from their homes, robbed, beaten, abused, they’d been herded on to a ship condemned by its owners as unseaworthy. Nevertheless, the freighter had been towed out of national waters with its cargo of desperate refugees, then it had begun its grim odyssey. Sailing from port to port around the Atlantic, the refugees had pleaded for asylum only to be turned away by warships before they could even reach dry land.

Laura had told Victor enough of the story for him to know what the grim outcome would be. He watched as desperate crew members and passengers worked together to deploy the lifeboats. The winch mechanisms that would lower the boats to the sea had become so rusted that they’d jammed solid. These lifeboats were clearly decades old. When they were freed from canvas covers the hulls were decayed to the point where the boats simply fell to pieces.

On the deck the men and women were shouting to each other as they tried to launch the lifeboats. This whirlwind of activity turned to weeping and terror when they realized their means of escape was useless. Parents knew that they had no way to save their children. Families sat down on the deck to cling to each other.

Victor adjusted his balance as the ship tilted. ‘Jay!’ he yelled above the scream of rending metal. ‘Jay. I know you can bring me into their world. Do it! Let me help them!’ A lightning flash lit up many frightened eyes. ‘Fight what’s inside of you, Jay. Don’t let me stand here doing nothing. You must allow me to fully enter this reality. You’ve got to give me a chance to help save them!’

At that moment, the mood of the refugees changed. He’d sensed their sorrow at knowing that they and their children would soon be dead. Now, faces became angry. Everywhere men and women clenched their fists. As they sat to await the inevitable they beat their fists against metal decking. Soon the rhythmic pounding rivalled the thunder. One by one they took up a chant. It was in a language Victor didn’t understand. Without a shadow of doubt he knew its meaning.

‘Feel this pain . . . everyone who rejected us, feel this pain. Send us the child that can make the world feel this torture. Send us a child that can hurt them . . . like they brought hurt to us.’ The chant grew louder. Filled with rage it drowned out the thunder. The angry pounding of their fists hurt Victor’s head; it grew louder and louder until he thought his skull would crack. The faces of the soon-to-be-dead were no longer masks of despair. They were alive again . . . energized . . . a power flowed there. It was hate, it was rage, it was a passionate lust for revenge.

Jay stood amid all those seated people on deck. His face wore the same expression as theirs. His lips moved as if he’d joined the chant.

Victor tried again. ‘Jay, let me through into this world. I can save some of the children. See the rafts? Let me through. I know how to inflate them, Jay. I can help!’

The voices grew louder. That pulse of sound was electric with fury. The eyes of the people blazed. The rhythm of the chant and the pounding of the deck grew faster. Blood flowed from torn skin. Nobody felt it. Nobody deviated from the intensity of the chant.

Metalwork in the ship screamed. The flanks collapsed under the weight of seawater. Seconds later waves washed over the deck. Smoothly, the ship began sliding under the surface. Slabs of dark green brine closed over it.

A deluge of water smashed a young mother against a rail, breaking her spine. As the baby she held fell from her lifeless arms Victor dived in the foam after it. Down he swam into the cold body of the Atlantic. Beneath him, the N’Taal drifted to its undersea tomb. Heart thundering, pent up breath burning in his lungs, he grabbed the baby. A moment later he was back on the surface. He’d hold on tight to the tiny infant. Whatever happened he’d never let go. It was either survive together, or die together. Victor roared to the universe his defiance at death.

He must keep treading water. With one arm he held the baby tight to him. He wouldn’t abandon it . . . he wouldn’t.

Victor opened his eyes. For a moment he smelt brine. The rush of surf filled his ears. Then he realized he stood in a bedroom. There wasn’t so much as a drop of water on his clothes. Thank God, the baby . . . He felt its body pressed against his chest. Breathing deeply, he looked down. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. What he took to be the shape of the child against his chest was only his arm. At some point he’d gripped his left forearm with his right hand, then pressed it against his breastbone. For a while he’d been convinced that he’d held an infant from the N’Taal there.

He gave a grim laugh. It sounded disturbingly maniacal to his ears. Jay stood beside him. ‘What are you going to show me next, O Ghost of Christmas Past? But you’re no Dickensian ghost, are you? You’re a demon . . . OK, you resemble a boy, but you are all monster. You traipse me through a sorry parade of grim events. Ones that I can’t change. You can’t change them, either, so that’s probably what frustrates you. You are a monster with a couple of fancy little tricks: inflicting curses, showing people the past. But, Jay, you don’t have the power to do anything else. You’re just a neurosis in the shape of a human being. All you’re capable of is repeating the same two tricks over and over.’ Victor trembled with anger as he added, ‘I’ve worked out what you resemble . . . what you’re so dumbly aping. Being with you is like watching television. Does that sound strange? It does, but then I’m in second stage. I’m allowed. The virus is eating my brain. But seriously, do you know why I compare you to a television?’ Jay’s face was expressionless. No doubt that vengeance-fuelled mind worked behind the mask though. It would be choosing other venues to visit. Victor smiled as the revelation surged through him. ‘Being with you is like watching television because, like you, television can show terrible things. Every day we watch murder on our screens, all those endless crimes committed against good people, and all those terrorist atrocities. We watch grim tragedies on television, while we sip our coffees, and we bear witness to all that human suffering, but, we the viewers, can do nothing about it. The news media inflicts scenes of human misery on us, just as you can take me on your “little walk”. We are spectators, but we can’t do one thing to stop the suffering. And in a way the television curses us. We watch the aftermath of a hurricane on television, say, see dead people in the ditches, think how dreadful it is, then shrug as we hop channels and laugh at some trite comedy show. But deep down all those horrible things we’ve seen feed our anxieties. We become pessimistic about the world; we worry about how our children are going to cope in the future. Jay, you are redundant. We’ve all become our own Vengeance Child. And we’re doing it so much better than you.’

A door opened to the gloomy bedroom, light spilled in from the hallway.

‘So what’s this place, Jay? You want to torture me again with the sight of something awful? I can see all man’s inhumanity to man simply by switching on my TV.’

A figure stepped through the doorway, then moved silently toward a child in bed. Victor recognized the night visitor.

‘Laura?’

Jay said, ‘I’ve told you before. She can’t hear you.’

Victor went to block her way, but she bypassed him without any sign she noticed he was there. Laura wore casual clothes; she seemed to carry an object in her hands but Victor couldn’t identify it. Stealthily, she crouched beside the bed so she could see its occupant’s face.

‘Still awake, Tess?’ Her voice was gentle.

In bed a girl of around thirteen nodded. The face framed by wispy blonde hair wore the haggard appearance of someone who’d suffered. When she pushed back her fringe Victor noticed the girl’s wrists were bandaged.

He turned to Jay. ‘This is Badsworth Lodge, isn’t it? You’re showing me a girl who’s tried to commit suicide by cutting her wrists. And here is Laura at work. Is this what you want me to see?’

‘If you marry Laura, then she’ll go away. She won’t look after us any more.’

‘Then you really do love her.’ Victor watched as Jay gazed with such pure affection at the woman. ‘I only said I was going to marry Laura to stop you from crashing those planes. Jay, I’ve no intention of marrying Laura. Do you hear me? We will not marry.’

Jay didn’t respond. He listened in on Laura’s conversation with the girl.

‘Tess, I know you didn’t really want to hurt yourself.’ Laura spoke in a soft whisper. ‘Now . . . I’m going to try very hard to make life happier here. To do that I’ve broken an important rule. My bosses will be mad if they find out. But I’ve bought this.’ She moved the object that she’d carried into the bedroom so Tess could see it. ‘His name is Scraps. He’d been put into a rescue home because nobody wanted him. Lovely, isn’t he?’ Laura held the puppy so Tess could see it.

The girl’s haggard face brightened instantly as she saw the bright eyes of the puppy look into hers. When she stroked a floppy ear his pink tongue darted out to lick the girl’s fingers. If the wrist wound had bothered her before it didn’t now, for the girl chuckled. ‘It’s a tickly lick!’

‘Pets make people happy,’ Laura told the girl. ‘It might be against the rules to keep a dog here but he’s ours.’ Although she laughed there was steel in Laura’s voice when she added, ‘They will have to prise this dog from my cold, dead hands.’

Victor breathed deeply. ‘I thought Laura was special. Now you’ve shown me why.’ The room grew blurred. Laura, the girl and the puppy receded to a speck of light. Victor grunted wryly, ‘Where now, O Shade? Or can I go home now?’

The world around him snapped into focus again. To his surprise he realized he was in the familiar surroundings of his living room. The television, however, was an older model. The evening sun shone through the window to reveal the same red sofa and a coffee table bearing neatly stacked wildlife magazines. Beside the magazines was a crisply folded newspaper.

Victor smiled. ‘That room hasn’t been that tidy since . . .’ The smile died.

A second later a woman came through the doorway into the room. Her thick black hair fell down over the shoulders of the green ranger fleece that she wore. Clearly she was in a hurry . . . a desperate hurry.

Victor glanced at the date on the newspaper. His blood ran cold. ‘I know what you’re doing. You’re showing me Ghorlan on the day she disappeared.’ He shuddered to the roots of his bones. ‘Jay, there’s no need to do this.’

Without turning to Victor, Jay said, ‘You’ve got to see what really happened.’