This Is Midnight: Stories Read online

  But how could it be? How was it possible? That was something I would never know, I was certain. I was only sure that it was so . . . I found myself holding on to the sides of the case for support. My head was so low that my breath was misting the glass. I shook myself and stood straight. I must be living in some terrible nightmare. Soon I would awaken, relieved beyond measure to have escaped such awful reality. But I knew it was no dream. Trembling slightly, I went on to read the rest of the neatly-printed information. It explained many things: the absence of Greg, the strange movements beneath her robe, her grossness, and slowness of gait.

  In the men’s lavatory a few minutes later I was violently sick. Afterwards I phoned the school again, this time to tell them I would not be in. Then, with my new-found knowledge, I drove back to Wimbledon where I sat in my kitchen for long hours over numerous cigarettes and cups of coffee. Very late in the afternoon I came to a decision. I would go back. Quickly I got into my car and drove away.

  It was quite dark when at last I parked my car and walked up the garden path. The servants would have left by now, I thought. I was glad of that. Ahead of me the large house was, as before, quite quiet. I rang the bell and waited. I rang again.

  After ten minutes of ringing and waiting it was obvious to me that there would be no answer. I tried the door, found it opened to my touch, and went in.

  Entering the lounge I found a bright fire burning in the hearth; the top log had only just caught, so it was clear that the room had very recently been vacated.

  ‘Cera . . . ?’

  I waited, listening, but there was no reply to my call. The French windows leading to the cliff-top were wide open. I crossed the room and stood, breathing in the salt, night air. Below me the sea stretched away into the distance, dark, mysterious, hiding who-knew-what unbelievable, unfathomable secrets.

  Moving quickly down the shallow steps I went out on to the hard, rocky surface and looked down. The moon had risen, its light sparking off the waves as they broke over the stones at the foot of the cliff.

  For some minutes I remained there, peering out across the water, my eyes straining in the light. And then, with a start, I saw them.

  Frantically, nervously, I searched about me till I had located the head of a narrow path leading to the beach below. Hurry­ing, and careless of my safety, I scrambled down, almost falling in my anxiety to reach the bottom.

  At the water’s lapping edge I stood, watching and waiting. Nearby on a large rock was draped her robe; I knew she would soon come to shore.

  And there she was. Suddenly. Just thirty yards away, her head breaking the waves in the path of the moon’s reflection. As yet she had not caught sight of me. I knew it would be just a matter of seconds before she did, though, and I prayed that first of all I would have a chance to see. I had to know. For certain. The next moment I did.

  As I watched, holding my breath, she found her footing in the sand and heaved her huge body out of the water. And for one brief, dazzlingly-clear instant I saw them. In the same second she saw me.

  ‘Carl!’

  My name issuing from her lips was nearly a scream. It was followed almost at once by a loud splash as she threw herself back into the sea, taking cover beneath its darkened surface. I did not move.

  ‘Carl . . . ?’

  Looking over to my right I saw her head above the waves.

  ‘Yes . . . ?’

  ‘Please,’ she said, ‘ – close your eyes. Just for a moment.’

  With my eyes tight shut I waited. Her voice came again, closer at hand now.

  ‘All right.’

  I saw that she was standing about five yards away from me. We faced each other across the sand. The robe that had lain on the rock was now clutched tightly to her body.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘I saw.’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded and turned her head away from me. ‘I didn’t want you to. I had hoped – we had hoped – that no one would ever know.’

  ‘It suddenly came to me,’ I said. ‘Quite by chance. The idea. Then I made it my business to find out. For certain. I had to.’

  ‘And what will you do – now that you know?’ She was staring at me intently.

  ‘I hated you,’ I said. ‘Both of you. I wanted so desperately to hurt you. As I had been hurt.’

  ‘That was a long time ago.’

  ‘Yes. But some injuries take longer to heal.’ I paused briefly, then, my voice even, I added:

  ‘You disgust me.’

  She flinched slightly as if I had struck her. Her body shook. Moments of silence went by, and she repeated her question:

  ‘What are you going to do, Carl?’

  Suddenly, she was crying. Tears spilled from her small, round eyes and trickled down her wide, fleshy cheeks. I wished I had never come. If only I could have been content with not knowing . . . But it was too late for that. Turning quickly I strode back in the direction of the cliff path. Behind me her voice cried out in sudden anguish.

  ‘Carl! Wait!’

  I walked on.

  ‘Carl! Please! What are you going to do?’

  I wouldn’t listen. Mentally shutting my ears to the sound I hurried over the sand. Reaching the path, I began to clamber up. Behind me the sound of her sobs punctuated her laboured breathing as she strove to catch up. Looking over my shoulder I saw her as, clutching her body, she stumbled along in my wake, her voice, hollow with fear, crying out again and again.

  I was half-way up the cliff path when I heard her pleadings turn to a scream of terror and pain. I spun. Looking down I saw her where she had fallen, lying sprawled out in the moonlight. In seconds I was at her side.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I knelt in the sand, anxiously watching the pain fleeting in spasms across her face.

  ‘I think so.’ She spoke as if with effort.

  ‘Both of you?’

  ‘I think so.’ She stiffened for a split-second, grimacing as a sudden stab of pain caught at her breath. With her hands and arms she hugged her body, protective, comforting. ‘Help me, please,’ she said.

  Steadying her enormous weight as best I could, I helped her to her feet. How we made it to the top of the cliff I shall never know. But somehow we managed it. Panting, gasping for breath I helped her up the steps and in through the French windows. There, as if every ounce of her strength had been used, she collapsed, falling on the floor in a heap.

  ‘Cera . . . Cera . . .’ I was by her again, reaching out to her, touching her cold, clammy skin. ‘I’m sorry,’ I murmured. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter now.’ She tried to smile at me but somehow the smile didn’t quite work. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she said. Her robe had fallen open when she fell, and in the flickering glow from the fire I could see clearly the small body of her mate. His arms and legs wrapped around her, he clung there, his head just above the level of her great pendulous breasts. I remembered what I had read in the museum. I knew that, if I looked more closely, I would see that his mouth had joined itself to her flesh, the skin of his large lips fusing with her skin, his blood supply coming directly from her own. No longer having any life of his own, Greg had become completely parasitic, depending upon his mate for the gift of life itself. I wondered why it is that parasites should appear so physically loathsome? Greg was no exception. Bearing absolutely no resemblance to any human form he held on to his saviour, his lover, his wife. He looked like nothing so much as some grotesque, monstrous, cancerous growth.

  ‘Carl . . .’ Cera had seen the expression in my eyes. ‘Don’t look like that,’ she said softly. ‘We are what we are.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Cover us, please . . .’

  I wrapped the robe around her, around them both. It wasn’t the warmth that she was seeking, I thought, but privacy from my shocked
, commenting gaze. After a moment she said:

  ‘I am hurt, Carl . . . The fall . . .’ She winced as a stab of agony underlined her words and a little bubble of blood formed from the corner of her mouth, became a trickle and ran down to disappear beneath the collar of her robe.

  ‘I could get a doctor,’ I suggested, knowing that the idea was ridiculous. She shook her head.

  ‘No. No doctor. There are some things that should always be secret.’

  And then she was turning, trying to lie on her side, the blood gushing out of her mouth and her nose, her small, fishlike eyes rolling in her head. Underneath the fabric of her robe I was aware of a sudden movement. It was Greg, beginning his own futile fight for survival. It wouldn’t last long, I knew.

  I knelt at Cera’s side, quite helpless in the face of her desperation. How she fought! How she struggled to cling to her unlovely existence.

  But at last it was over.

  For some moments after Cera died Greg continued with his small, jerky movements, till in the end they faded away and grew still. I rose to my feet, my knees stiff from the period of kneeling. Below me in a pool of blood lay Cera’s body, her arms still shielding the degenerate form of her mate as, clutched to her still breast, he lay upon her.

  I couldn’t leave them like that, I decided, and recalled her words that some things are best left secret. It is true. Particularly such a secret as hers. It was as I lit a cigarette with an ember from the fire that the thought came to me. I debated only for seconds before making my decision. It is final . . .

  The curtains caught so easily, the flames running straight up to lick at the low-beamed ceiling. It won’t take long at all, I thought . . .

  There is no one about. In this desolate spot it seems that more than a fire is needed to attract attention. But someone will be along sooner or later. Perhaps I won’t bother to telephone the fire brigade after all. What can they do? Nothing. It would serve no purpose. Anything that mattered was beyond all control a long, long time ago . . .

  ONE OF THE FAMILY

  Guy Allenbury ran along the path. Behind him, and coming dangerously close, came the ferocious snarling of the dog as it scrabbled from the house in angry pursuit. But there ahead was the gateway. In the nick of time Guy leapt through, slamming the gate shut in the face of his would-be attacker. Distantly from the house the shouting and cursing could still be heard. Closer, and separated only by the high gate, the dog continued to growl.

  Through a gap between the gate boards Guy peered at the dog, an ugly brute of some indeterminate breed, grossly overfed and overweight. Its angry growls punctuated by the most disgusting snuffling sounds, it threw itself at the barrier in an effort to get out. Not the most prepossessing specimen, Guy observed, noting the single ear and the large areas of bald white flesh amid the stubbly dull brown hair. ‘Certainly,’ he said aloud, ‘I’ve had more attractive pursuers.’

  As he stood there in the narrow street, panting, trying to get his breath back, he thought of his mother’s words to him before he had left:

  ‘You let me hear how you get on, darling. Tell me what kind of reception you get. I just know you’re going to have a wonderful time.’ He grinned now at the memory, shaking his head. Oh, yes, he would tell her. ‘My Uncle Joe and his wife,’ he would say when next he wrote, ‘didn’t exactly put out the welcome mat.’ And no, indeed they hadn’t, he said to himself, but they were the exception, surely – the others would be okay.

  With a last look back at the house he moved to the kerb, swung a long leg astride his hired bicycle and pushed off.

  Leaving the small town behind him, he cycled deeper into the countryside, heading in the general direction of Harkinbridge, the small village that was next on his list. He sang as he rode, the rhythm of his feet eating up the miles that sped beneath his spinning wheels. When he reached the top of the next hill, he promised himself, he would stop for a rest, have a little light refreshment, and take another look at his list.

  Five minutes later he had wheeled his bicycle onto the grass verge beside the road, and sat down. From his backpack he took a flask of hot coffee and a packet of ham sandwiches. And he relaxed, leaning back and stretching his legs. Leisurely he ate and drank, enjoying the taste, enjoying the warmth and the freshness of his first English summer.

  Twenty-four years old, Guy was on vacation from his home in New York City and was spending this particular week on a cycling tour of the West Country. His sojourn, though, was not merely for the purpose of seeing the homeland of his father and mother; he was also intent on contacting any of his relatives who might live in the area. From the information gathered from his parents, he had made up a list.

  Brushing the crumbs from his shirt front, he took the list from his pocket. Pursing his lips, he read the names.

  So far, he hadn’t met with much success. Of the fourteen people named on the paper three had moved to addresses that were unknown to the present house-occupiers, and where they were now was anybody’s guess. A further six had been traced to spots from which they would never move, spots marked by gravestones that were fast disappearing beneath the encroachment of unchecked cemetery weeds.

  With four of the others he had got some measure of satisfaction – if satisfaction was the right word. At least, he comforted himself, he had been able to make some kind of contact with them. Though now, looking back, he wasn’t at all sure that he wouldn’t rather have missed the pleasure of those meetings.

  The first one had been with Beryl – his cousin on his father’s side – and her husband Bill. It was the latter who had answered Guy’s knock. Bill had stood there in the open doorway, grinning widely, showing numerous gaps in a row of buck teeth. When Guy explained who he was, and why he was there, the stranger had gaped at him for a second then, turning, had called loudly up the narrow stairs.

  ‘Beryl . . . Beryl . . .’ he yelled, ‘there’s somebody ’ere to see you.’ He winked conspiratorially at Guy, and added, yelling, ‘Says he’s your cousin. And a foreigner by the sound of ’im.’

  A moment later Beryl had appeared.

  Guy saw first her legs as she came clumping down the stairs; big, heavy legs clad in thick dark stockings, her feet encased in an enormous pair of carpet slippers that at once brought to mind memories of ferry boats on the Hudson River. Then at the door she stopped, facing him, a tall, solid-looking young woman with a smile as dazzling as her husband’s, her piercing blue eyes permanently at odds with each other in the most unbelievable squint.

  ‘My cousin,’ Beryl cried when once more Guy had stated his business. ‘Our uncle Arthur’s son! Fancy that now!’ Her words came in a thick, almost unintelligible accent. ‘And all the way from America, too.’

  Throwing her arms around him, she gave him a loud, wet, smacking kiss full on the mouth. The next second she was dragging him inside the house and thrusting him into a large, lumpy armchair by the fireplace.

  ‘Oh, what a surprise!’ she said. ‘What a nice surprise! Ain’t this a nice surprise, Bill!’

  ‘Oh, ah!’ Bill nodded emphatically, winking at Guy with his gap-toothed smile. ‘Oh, ah – it certainly is!’

  ‘Well, now . . .’ Beryl sat in the chair opposite Guy, her hands clasped before her in rapturous delight. ‘Tell me. I want to hear all about you! Everything! And all about what you’re doin’ over ’ere in this part of the world. Put the kettle on, will you, lovie?’

  Guy was rather taken by surprise by the last request, then realised that it was directed at her husband. Since Beryl was able to look at both men at the same time – even though they sat some distance apart – it tended to become rather confusing. With some relief Guy watched as Bill got up from his seat in the window and hurried out to the kitchen. ‘Yes, we’ll ’ave a nice cup o’ tea, Guy,’ Beryl said. ‘That’ll be nice. Won’t that be nice, eh?’

  Guy nodded dumbly. He had heard legends of English hospitali
ty, but, somehow, about to experience it first-hand, he quailed slightly. A little moment of silence went by, and then Beryl said,

  ‘Well, come on, then. Tell us what you’re doin’ round ’ere, then.’

  Guy took a breath and began, but no sooner did he mention the main object of his tour when, without a second’s hesitation, Beryl launched into a full account of the comings and goings of the Allenbury family. Once started, it was as if she would never stop.

  An hour later she was still going strong with no sign whatever of flagging.

  ‘. . . And then, of course, there was Aunt Emily.’ Her voice droned on. ‘She’s the one what married Bob Chandler. Didn’t last, though – the marriage. Well, we knew it wouldn’t. Went off with the milkman in the end . . .’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Guy was bored to distraction.

  ‘Yes, quite a shock, I can tell you. But to Emily most of all. I mean, fancy Bob going and doing a thing like that. It wouldn’t have been so bad but the milkman didn’t have no class. No class at all. But there,’ she sighed, ‘there’s no accounting for taste.’

  ‘No, I guess not.’ Guy shifted uncomfortably in his chair; his buttocks were numb. Very slightly he raised himself up, hoping the blood would flow back unimpeded, bringing the return of feeling, a little life. His efforts were in vain.

  ‘. . . And then of course there was Bert,’ Beryl went on, ‘ – the one what married Cousin Lucy, the one what had the twins, who we don’t talk about. One of ’em went off to the Arctic, or one of them places, while the other got mixed up with some slut of a barmaid who was married to this climber who invited Ronnie out one day and shot ’im up the mountain. Terrible business . . .’

  And so it went on. And on. Through tea, through scones with butter and honey. Through more tea. Eyes glazed, pupils dilated, Guy sat there, trying unobserved to massage feeling back into his cramped limbs. At last he could bear it no longer and, fixing Beryl’s squint with his most determined expression, he got shakily to his feet.