Michael Dibdin - The Dying of the Light

Rosemary had found it hard to repress a disdainful scowl at this. Under the circumstances Dorothy could of course say what she liked without fear of contradiction, but she was stretching her privilege to the limit in suggesting that this crew of decrepit geriatrics might conceivably be of any help to Rosemary Travis. She would come to terms with Dorothy’s absence in her own way and in her own time. All she asked of the others was that they should leave her alone.

To her dismay, however, the effect of Dorothy’s words was exactly the opposite. The other residents all turned to Rosemary as though seeing her for the first time, and smiled or nodded, murmured something, said her name. It wasn’t what they did or said that mattered, it was what came with it, a wave of emotion that engulfed them all, filling the room, bringing them together.

Rosemary managed to stand her ground, but she felt cruelly betrayed. She and Dorothy had spent their whole time taking their distance from these people, turning them into cardboard characters whom they manipulated to suit their whims and the twists and turns of the story. Now Dorothy had made them real, given them depth and feeling, turned them into human beings united in this mindless warmth like a litter of animals in a burrow. It wasn’t fair, Rosemary reflected bitterly. Dorothy had broken the unwritten rules of their friendship.

She kept her thoughts to herself, of course, even once the visitors eventually trooped out, leaving them alone together again. Dorothy was putting a brave face on it, but Rosemary knew how she must dread the ordeals and indignities which awaited her at the hospital. If her chosen way of coping was by patronising Rosemary, that was something she was just going to have to accept in silence. In the event, neither of them spoke until the fire-alarm clattered briefly and, thirty seconds after this warning, all the lights went out. It had been this imposed curfew which had first given rise to the stories. They flourished in the dark, running riot, proliferating wildly, unrestrained by anything but the absolute and eternal rules of the genre.

‘Have they told you what time you’re leaving?’ Rosemary asked.

The figure in bed stirred slightly.

‘They don’t know themselves.’

Rosemary pondered this for a moment.

‘Surely they have to organise transport?’

‘It’s all taken care of.’

There was a disjointed quality to this exchange which Rosemary found irritating, as though they weren’t talking about quite the same thing.

‘Well, if and when you find out, perhaps you would be kind enough to let me know,’ she replied a trifle waspishly. ‘I have my own arrangements to make, you know.’

The darkness secreted something which sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

‘You lead such a busy life, Rose.’

Rosemary pointedly said nothing.

‘I expect you’ll be wanting to get some sleep,’ Dorothy added quietly.

At once, the reality of the situation came home to Rosemary with redoubled impact, and she felt dreadfully ashamed of her petulance.

‘Do you want me to go?’ she asked tremulously.

Again there was a hint of laughter.

‘Go? You’re not the one who’s going, Rose.’

Rosemary felt her irritation flare up once more, but this time she managed to keep it under control.

‘Precisely,’ she replied. ‘I remain here, to try and solve the mystery of these murders as best I can alone.’

‘Oh Rose.’

Rosemary was glad to note that Dorothy sounded suitably contrite.

‘I don’t ask for sympathy,’ Rosemary went on, ‘but any help you might feel able to offer would be most gratefully received.’

There was a brief detonation of bedsprings.

‘Do you want me to send in the police?’ whispered Dorothy.

Now it was Rosemary’s turn to laugh.

‘Good heavens no! What earthly use would the police be in a case like this? They would simply go clomping about, obscuring all the clues and falling for every red herring in sight. What I was hoping was that I might continue to be able to count on your own invaluable assistance, Dot.’

There was a long silence.

‘How… how do you mean?’ Dorothy inquired guardedly.

‘Well, we might write to each other.’

After a moment, Dorothy laughed again, openly this time.

‘I don’t know if that will be possible,’ she exclaimed.

‘It would mean a great deal to me if you could manage even a few lines occasionally, setting out your ideas,’ Rosemary went on. ‘There’s no one here that I can possibly confide in.’

Rosemary congratulated herself on her tone, which contained just the right amount of self-pity to suggest that she was asking Dorothy a favour rather than throwing her a lifeline. She was therefore the more surprised to find the response so grudging and constrained.

‘Well, I don’t know,’ Dorothy repeated. ‘I mean, I’ll do what I can, of course, but we can’t be sure that it’s going to be possible for me to remain in touch on any sort of regular basis. All the evidence, indeed, seems to suggest the opposite.’

The residual glimmer from the window had now completely faded. To her dismay, Rosemary found that she was suffering from the delusion that the darkness had started to swirl slowly around the room like a nascent whirlpool. The motion was as yet almost imperceptible, but the sense of what it might become was almost as disturbing as the fact that she could not seem to shake off the idea. If she could have switched on the light, the power of the illusion would instantly have been broken, but that was no longer possible.

‘Don’t be silly, Dot!’ she snapped irritably. They’re bound to let you send and receive letters. The problem is going to be this end, but I have a few ideas about that which I’ll tell you in the morning.’

She rose to her feet.

‘I’d better be going. I feel a bit…’

She broke off, ashamed of speaking of her own feelings at such a moment.

‘I’m so sorry, Dot.’

Dorothy’s voice was calm and steady.

‘There’s nothing whatever to be sorry for.’

She sighed.

‘I just wish I could tell you, Rose.’

Tell me what?’

The winding darkness was drawing her across the room, towards the bed where her friend lay. Dorothy’s arms encircled her neck, pulling her down. Their embrace was longer and harder than Rosemary quite cared for, putting a tremendous strain on her detachment and self-control, for she was determined not to blubber.

At last she managed to free herself, and stand up.

‘See you in the morning, then!’ she said briskly.

As she was about to turn away, her wrist was seized in a grip so intense it was painful.

“The poppies,’ she heard Dorothy utter. ‘Where do they come from?’

‘Poppies?’ she echoed lamely.

The fingers clamped about her wrist tightened.

“They used to be everywhere in spring. The fields were full of them. All the soft shades, red and blue and violet. You never see them now, do you? They killed them off with sprays and chemicals…’

‘You’re hurting me!’ Rosemary complained.

What she found most disturbing about her friend’s incoherent ramblings was that it sounded as though Dorothy thought she was making perfect sense. She was relieved to feel the grip on her wrist slacken.

‘Sleep well, Dot,’ she murmured soothingly I’ll come and wake you in the morning as usual.’

She tried to withdraw her hand, only to find that the tenacious grip was suddenly renewed.

‘Yet whenever they break the ground to build a road or a housing estate, there they are again, in their hundreds, as though they’d never ever been away! And at other times you never see them. So where do they come from, Rose? Where do they come from?’