Clive Barker - Weave World

‘You've seen something nobody else has.'

‘Is that what I talk about?'

‘In a sort of way. But that's not what makes me think you've seen things. It's the way you are, Cal. The way you look sometimes...'

That said, she seemed to reach an impasse, and returned her attention to the pages of the magazine, flipping the pages without really looking at them.

Cal sighed. She'd been so good with him, so protective: he owed her an explanation, however difficult it was.

‘You want me to tell you?' he said.

‘Yes. Yes, I do.'

‘You won't believe it,' he warned.

Tell me anyway.'

He nodded, and took up the story that he'd come so near to spilling the previous year, after his first visit to Rue Street.

‘I saw Wonderland ...' he began.

4

It took him three quarters of an hour to give her the outline of all that had happened since the bird had first flown from the loft; and another hour to try and fine-tune his account. Once begun, he found himself reluctant to leave anything out: he wanted to tell it all as best he could, as much for his own benefit as for Geraldine's.

She listened attentively, looking up at him sometimes, more often staring out of the window. Not once did she interrupt.

When he was finally finished, the wounds of bereavement reopened by the telling, she said nothing, not for a long time.

Finally he said: ‘You don't believe me. I said you wouldn't.'

Again, there was silence. Then she said: ‘Does it matter to you if I do or I don't?'

‘Yes. Of course it matters.'

‘Why, Cal?'

‘Because then I'm not alone.'

She smiled at him, got up, and crossed to where he sat.

‘You're not alone,' she said, and said no more.

Later, as they slipped into sleep together, she said: ‘Do you love her? ... Suzanna, I mean?' He'd expected the question, sooner or later.

‘YesI he said softly. ‘In a way I can't explain; but yes.'

‘I'm glad' she murmured in the darkness. Cal wished he could read her features, and know from them if she was telling the truth, but he left any further questions unasked.

They didn't speak of it at all thereafter. She was no different with him than she'd been before he told her: it was almost as if she'd put the whole account out of her mind. She came and went on the same ad hoc basis. Sometimes they'd make love, sometimes not. And sometimes they'd be happy; or almost so.

The summer came and went without much disturbing the thermometer, and before the freckles had a chance to bloom on Geraldine's cheeks, it was September.

5

Autumn suits England; and that autumn, preceding as it would the worst winter since the late forties, came in glory. The winds were high, bringing passages of warm rain interspersed with stabs of liquid brightness. The city found a lost glamour. Clouds the colour of slate piled up behind its sunstruck houses; the wind brought the smell of the sea; brought gulls too, on its back, dipping and weaving over the roofs.

That month Cal felt his spirits rise again - seeing the Kingdom of the Cuckoo shine, while above it the skies seemed charged with secret signs. He began to see faces in the shreds of clouds; heard codes tapped out by rain-drops on the sill. Something was surely imminent.

He remembered Gluck too, that month. Anthony Virgil Gluck, collector of anomalous phenomena. He even thought of contacting the man again, and went so far as to dig Gluck's card out from the pocket of his old trousers. He didn't make the call however, perhaps because he knew he was ripe to believe any pretty superstition if it promised miracles, and that wouldn't be wise.

Instead he kept his eye on the sky, day and night. He even bought himself a small telescope, and began to teach himself the whereabouts of the constellations. He found the process reassuring. It was good to look up during the day and know that the stars were still above his head, even though he couldn't see them. It was doubtless the same for countless other mysteries. That they shone, but the world shone more brightly, and blinded him to them.

And then, in the middle of October (the eighteenth, in fact; or rather, the early morning of the nineteenth) he had the first of the nightmares.

II

REPRESENTATIONS

1

Eight days after the destruction of the Fugue and all it had contained, the remnants of the Four Families - in all, maybe a hundred individuals - assembled to debate their future. Though they were survivors, they had little reason to celebrate the fact. With the Weaveworld's passing they'd lost their homes, their possessions, and in many cases their loved ones too. All they had, as reminders of their former happiness, was a handful of raptures, much weakened with the Fugue's defeat. These were small comfort. Raptures could not wake the dead, nor keep the corruptions of the Kingdom at bay.

So; what were they to do? There was a voluble faction -led by Balm de Bono - that argued to make their story public; to become, in essence, a cause. There was merit in the idea. Perhaps the safest place to be was in plain sight of the human world. But there was substantial opposition to the scheme, fuelled by the one possession circumstance could not take from these people: pride. Many of them stated bluntly that they'd rather die than throw themselves on the mercy of Cuckoos.

Suzanna had a further problem with the idea. Though her fellow humans might be persuaded to believe the Kind's tale, and sympathize, how long would their compassion last? Months?; a year, at most. Then they'd turn their attention to some new tragedy. The Seerkind would be yesterday's victims, tainted by celebrity but scarcely saved by it.

The combination of her argument and the widespread horror at humbling themselves to the Cuckoos was sufficient to outweigh the opposition. Determined to be civilized in defeat, de Bono conceded.

It was the last time the etiquette of debate shaped the night's proceedings, as the meeting grew steadily more heated. The escalation began with a call from a harried, grey-faced man that they put aside all pretence to bettering their lot and concentrate on revenging themselves on Shadwell.

‘We've lost everything,' he said. The only satisfaction we've got left is seeing that bastard dead.'

There were voices raised in protest against this defeatism, but the man demanded the right to be heard.

‘We're going to die out here,' he said, his face knotted up. ‘All we've got left are a few moments ... to destroy the ones who did this to us.'

‘Seems to me this is no time for a vendetta,' Nimrod said. ‘We have to think constructively. Plan for the future.'

There was some ironic laughter amongst the gathering, above which the voice of the would-be avenger rose:

‘What future?' he said, almost triumphant in his despair. ‘Look at us!' There were many downcast eyes at this; they knew all too well what a forlorn sight they made. ‘We're the last of the few. There won't be any coming after us, and we all know it.' He turned on Nimrod. ‘I don't want to talk about the future,' he said. ‘That's just asking for more grief.'

‘That's not true - ‘ Suzanna said.

"Easy for you to say,' he retorted.

‘Shut your mouth, Hamel,' Nimrod shouted.

‘I won't!'

‘She came here to help us.'

‘We've had enough help from her to kill us!' Hamel yelled back.

His pessimism had found a good number of supporters.

‘She's a Cuckoo,' one of them now piped up. ‘Why doesn't she go back where she belongs?'

Part of Suzanna was ready to do just that: she had no desire to be the target for so much bitterness. Their words stung.

More than that, they stirred another fear: that somehow she could have done more than she had; or at least done it differently. But she had to stay, for de Bono, and Nimrod, and all the others who looked to her for guidance in the Kingdom. The fact was that all Hamel had argued made a sad sense to her. She could see how easy it would be to take strength from hating Shadwell, and so be diverted from the losses they'd sustained. They more than she, of course; and that thought she had to keep uppermost in her mind. She'd lost a dream she'd had a few precious moments to indulge. They'd lost their world.