John Banville - Nightspawn

Aye, and in the darkness of that sleep I saw the fanged black creatures creep into the room and surround the bed, their tiny red eyes flashing. They snapped at me, and snarled, and tried to tear my face, until at length they trapped one of their own in a corner and devoured it alive.

My shabby room, the dry flat smell of heat, the air empty, useless, sucked dry by the countless creatures who had haunted it before me. I moved with a torpid slowness from wall to wall, from the chair to the window, smoking, eating crumbs of biscuits, trying not to think. At last I lay down on the bed. Through the long hours of the afternoon I watched the window, the curtains stirring. The sun travelled its journey, a finger of light which moved across the floor to climb the shutters and retreat. The sounds of the village faded. Strange twilight came and trembled on the glass. I covered my eyes. I could bear no more, of the silence, the screams which made no sounds, of the endless days with their wild lights and moods, no more of this island, its timeless savage sadness.

Get out, that was all she had said, lying with her face turned away from me in disgust. When I bent to kiss the pink flower of a nipple, she had not even bothered to push me away. A scene of satyrs and woodland nymphs by a river was painted on the bed-head. I put on my clothes and left her. The music, that intolerable music, followed me from the house and down the hill.

There was a knock upon the door. I sprang off the bed, leaving the springs of the mattress jangling like violated nerves. She stood outside, with her arms folded, leaning against the wall. Her face seemed expressionless. Without a word, she pushed past me, stood a moment surveying my kingdom, then walked across and sat down on the bed. The little room was instantly changed, was diminished for me. Her entrance alone was enough to rob it of the tenuous links I had worked so hard to create there. I saw her shadow fall across the floor, and her critical gaze fall on my books, the sad view through the window of roof and hill, a patch of sky absurdly blue, and I no longer belonged there. Soon each part would have its separate memory of her. The room would be truly hers then, and I would be usurped. It would be she who lived there, even when she was gone.

‘“These fragments I have shored against my ruins”,’ I murmured, and sat down in my armchair.

‘What shall we talk about?’ she asked coldly.

‘Your mother, perhaps?’

‘Ha.’

‘What then?’

She shrugged, and joined her hands together in her lap, saying,

‘I wonder if there is anything to talk about.’

‘But of course not. Still, we will talk, and when we stop, then we shall make a journey, perhaps. Now, ask me about my book.’

She laughed. It was a humourless kind of sound. A rage, well caged, seethed in her eyes.

‘Tell me about your book,’ she said.

‘I’ve given it up.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I wanted to do it.’

‘Why did you want to —’

‘No no, you misunderstand. I wanted to write it.’

‘Then why did you stop?’

‘I’ve told you.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Of course not. We’re doing very nicely here.’

‘What are you talking about?’ she cried, and her hair shook with the vehemence of her cry. I considered her through half-closed eyes.

‘Mrs Kyd, I’ll make a bargain. First, what have we? You want to know why I stopped writing while wanting to continue, and I want to know why you came here when you said you never wanted to see me again. Are you with me?’

She stood up suddenly from the bed and started to the door.

‘I’m going now.’

‘Listen, wait,’ I cried, bouncing after her.

She halted, and whirled about to meet me. Her eyes really could flash.

‘I came here,’ she said quietly, ‘I came here with the intention of … I don’t know, tearing out your eyes. You raped me, and now you play word games. Before, I thought you were very evil. Now, I think you are just a fool. So I shall waste no more of my time. But I shall say one thing. Some day you will suffer for what you have —’

‘Ah god,’ said I wearily. ‘Will you go away and leave me alone. I’m tired. I’ve had enough for one day.’

Then I turned my back to her. Had I planned it like that, I could not have found a better way to hold her there. The door closed again, but when I looked, I found that she was still on my side of it, standing with her back pressed against the panels, her eyes lowered. I took a book and sank down into the armchair, my shoulders hunched. She did not move. Her presence was unsettling, if that is the word. At length I said,

‘If you’re preparing another speech, I don’t want to hear it.’

She shook her head, still not looking at me. She returned to the bed, sat down, and began to pick at the blanket with her fingernails. I laid down the book with a weary sigh.

‘Mrs Kyd,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. You don’t know all the circumstances of what happened today. I —’

She held up a hand to silence me, and then began to speak softly herself, her head still hanging.

‘I lied to you, Mr White. I came here because … well, you have met my husband. He’s a good man, I would not deny that, and I love him. But today you touched something in me, something which I did not know was there. It was as if …’

Oh Jesus, I can reproduce no more of this twaddle. Did she really say all that, and expect me to take her seriously? It seems incredible. And yet, what am I saying? I took her seriously, indeed I did. I was looking through the window, laughing to myself and wondering how in the world I could imagine that I loved such a melodramatic, boring, hysterical, stupid, utterly humourless woman as this one, and all the while, with both big ears, I was agog to catch even the most banal of the clichés spilling from her mouth, and was enraptured with it, every syllable. At last she came to an end of sorts, and heaved a great sigh. I cleared my throat, and shifted my feet, and said,

‘Yes. I see. Well.’

She looked at me then.

‘Now I must go,’ she murmured, a deep throb of grief in her voice, Anna K. preparing to dive under that train. Oh, she was magnificent, I cannot deny it, she had me teetering on the edge of tears. She pinned up her hair (an encore) and the light through the window set a fire in the down on her uplifted arms.

‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked, and had she said, drop dead, I would have commanded my heart to be still. But she said nothing, and shook her head hopelessly. She stood up. On the table something which gleamed among the litter of books and papers caught her eye. She picked it up and examined it curiously. It was a small oblong silver box, perfectly smooth, without a catch or clasp on the closely-fitting lid. I sat sprawled deep in the armchair, my chin on my breast, watching her. I wonder if my tongue was hanging out.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

I held out my hand.

‘Here, let me show you.’

I took the box and pressed a thumb and middle finger against both sides. With a tiny click, the lid sprang open. I closed it again and gave it back to her. She pressed it with the heels of her hands, but it would not open for her.

‘It’s just a small thing,’ I said. ‘There’s a knack to it.’

‘Teach me.’

I shook my head.

‘I’d be thrown out of the magicians’ union.’

We stood together and looked through the window. The sun trembled on the brink of the hills, shaking the sky with a last fury of light. It went down, the gold become crimson, the dry hills aflame. I was weary; each of my bones seemed to have its own private ache. Something flashed in the corner of my eye. Helena had drawn her hand above her head. I made a grab at her, but too late. With a little grunt for the effort, she flung the box through the window. It tore a neat hole in the centre of the pane, and disappeared. The glass shivered around its wound, and the pieces came slowly apart in long wicked spikes. I caught her by the shoulder.