Clive Barker - The Damnation Game

Was that what Whitehead meant? Was there respect for a Maker, thanks for Creation, or even some anticipation of Judgment in Heseltine's prayer?

"No," was Marty's reply. "Not really God-fearing. I mean, what's the use...?"

There was more where that thought came from, and Whitehead waited for it with a vulture's patience. But the words sat on Marty's tongue, refusing to be spoken. The old man prompted them.

"Why no use, Marty?"

"Because it's all down to accident, isn't it? I mean, everything's chance."

Whitehead nodded, almost imperceptibly. There was a long silence between them, until the old man said: "Do you know why I chose you, Martin?"

"Not really."

"Toy never said anything to you?"

"He told me he thought I could do the job."

"Well, a lot of people advised against me taking you. They thought you were unsuitable, for a number of reasons we needn't go into. Even Toy wasn't certain. He liked you, but he wasn't certain."

"But you employed me anyway?"

"Indeed we did."

Marty was beginning to find the cat-and-mouse game insufferable. He said: "Now you're going to tell me why, right?"

"You're a gambler," Whitehead replied. Marty felt he'd known the answer long before it was spoken. "You wouldn't have been in trouble at all, if you hadn't been obliged to pay off large gaming debts. Am I right?"

"More or less."

"You spent every penny you earned. Or so your friends testified at the trial. Frittered it away."

"Not always. I had some big wins. Really big wins."

The look Whitehead gave Marty was scalpel-sharp.

"After all you've been through-all your disease has made you suffer-you still talk about your big wins."

"I remember the best times, like anyone would," Marty replied defensively.

"Flukes. "

"No! I was good, damn it."

"Flukes, Martin. You said so yourself a moment ago. You said it was all chance. How can you be good at anything that's accidental? That doesn't make sense, does it?"

The man was right, at least superficially. But it wasn't as simple as he made it out to be, was it? It was all chance; he couldn't argue with that basic condition. But a sliver of Marty believed something else. What it was he believed, he couldn't describe.

"Isn't that what you said?" Whitehead pressed. "That it was accident."

"It's not always like that."

"Some of us have chance on our side. Is that what you're saying? Some of us have our fingers"-Whitehead's forefinger described a spinning circle"-on the wheel." The circling finger stopped. In his mind's eye, Marty completed the image: the ball jumped from hole to hole and found a niche, a number. Some winner yelped his triumph.

"Not always," he said. "Just sometimes."

"Describe it. Describe how it feels."

Why not? Where was the harm?

"Sometimes it was just easy, you know, like taking sweets from a baby. I'd go to a club and the chips would tingle, and I'd know, Jesus I'd know, I couldn't fail to win."

Whitehead smiled.

"But you did fail," he reminded Marty, with courteous brutality. "You often failed. You failed till you owed everything you had, and more besides."

"I was stupid. I played even when the chips didn't tingle, when I knew I was on a losing streak."

"Why?"

Marty glowered.

"What do you want, a signed confession?" he snapped. "I was greedy, what do you think? And I loved playing, even when I didn't have a chance of winning. I still wanted to play."

"For the game's sake."

"I suppose so. Yes. For the game."

A look, impossibly complex, crossed Whitehead's face. There was regret in it, and a terrible, aching loss; and more: incomprehension. Whitehead the master, Whitehead the lord of all he surveyed, suddenly showed-all too briefly-another, more accessible, face: that of a man confused to the point of despair.

"I wanted someone with your weaknesses," he explained now, and suddenly he was the one doing the confessing. "Because sooner or later I believed a day like today would come; and I'd have to ask you to take a risk with me."

"What sort of risk?"

"Nothing so simple as a wheel, or a game of cards. I wish it were. Then maybe I could explain to you, instead of asking for an act of faith. But it's so complicated. And I'm tired."

"Bill said something-"

Whitehead broke in.

"Toy's left the estate. You won't be seeing him again."

"When did he go?"

"Earlier in the week. Relations between us have been deteriorating for a while." He caught Marty's dismay. "Don't fret about it. Your position here is as secure as it ever was. But you must trust me absolutely."

"Sir-"

"No affirmations of loyalty; they're wasted on me. Not because I don't believe you're sincere. But I'm surrounded by people who tell me whatever they think I want to hear. That's how they keep their wives in furs and their sons in cocaine." His gloved fingers clawed at his bearded cheek as he spoke. "So few honest people. Toy was one. Evangeline, my wife, was another. But so very few. I just have to trust to instinct; I have to blot out all the talk and follow what my head tells me. And it trusts you, Martin."

Marty said nothing; just listened as Whitehead's voice became quieter, his eyes so intense now a glance from them might have ignited tinder.

"If you stay with me-if you keep me safe-there's nothing you can't be or have. Understand me? Nothing."

This was not the first time the old man had offered this seduction; but circumstances had clearly changed since Marty first arrived at the Sanctuary. There was more at risk now. "What's the worst that can happen?" he asked.

The mazed face had slackened: only the incendiary eyes still showed life.

"The worst?" Whitehead said. "Who knows the worst?" The burning eyes seemed about to be extinguished by tears; he fought them. "I have seen such things. And passed by them on the other side. Never thought... not once..."

A pattering announced rain; its soft percussion accompanied Whitehead as he stumbled to speak. All his verbal skills had deserted him suddenly; he was bereft. But something-a vast something-demanded to be said.

"Never thought... it would ever happen to me."

He bit back more words, and shook his head at his own absurdity.

"Will you help me?" he asked, in place of further explanation.

"Of course."

"Well," he replied. "We'll see, eh?"

Without warning he suddenly stepped past Marty and returned the way they'd come. The jaunt was apparently over. For several minutes they walked as they had, Whitehead taking the lead, with Marty trailing a discreet two yards behind. Just before they came in sight of the house Whitehead spoke again. This time he didn't break the rhythm of his step, but threw the inquiry over his shoulder. Just four words.

"And the Devil, Marty?"

"What, sir?"

"The Devil. Did you ever pray to him?"

It was a joke. A little leaden maybe, but the old man's way of making light of his confessional.

"Well, did you?"

"Once or twice," Marty answered, skirting a smile. As the words left his lips Whitehead froze dead in his tracks, a hand outstretched behind him to check Marty.

"Ssh."

Twenty yards ahead, arrested as it crossed their path, was a fox. It hadn't seen its observers yet, but it could only be a matter of moments before their scent reached its nostrils.

"Which way?" Whitehead hissed.

"What?"

"Which way will it run? A thousand pounds. Straight bet."

"I haven't got-" Marty began.

"Against a week's pay."

Marty began to smile. What was a week's pay? He couldn't spend it anyway.

"A thousand pounds says it runs to the right," said Whitehead.

Marty hesitated.

"Quickly, man-"

"Done."

Even on the word, the animal caught their scent. Its ears pricked, its head turned, and it saw them. For an instant it was too stupefied by surprise to move; then it ran. For several yards it took off away from them along the path, not veering to one side or the other, its heels kicking up dead leaves as it went. Then, without warning, it sliced away into the cover of the trees, to the left. There was no ambiguity about the victory.