Catherine Fisher - Corbenic

Cal nodded and thought with a sigh of Thérèse’s French cuisine. It reminded him. But when Hawk had gone, Shadow said, “Will your parents mind?”

“Mind what?”

“You being with the Company. It’ll be at night, Christmas Eve, late. At Caerleon.”

“I’m not a kid,” he said crossly. Then, “Will you be there?”

“Of course.” She tied her slick hair back in a sliver of dark lace. “I get to join up too.”

“Girls? At the Round Table?”

She grinned, smug. “Maybe they’ve changed with the times.” As she turned, her long skirt brushed the table and toppled it; knives and forks slid off, a scatter of pens, a whole pack of cards. Cal bent instantly, but her black, gloved fingers caught his arm. “Leave them.”

“But . . .” He stared. “Why?”

“Because I say.” She sat opposite, watching him. “I just want you to leave them there. If it doesn’t bother you.”

“No.” He sat back, his feet among the cards. “Of course it doesn’t.”

But it did. The cat jumped up on his lap; he pushed it down and said, “Shadow . . .”

“Just leave the stuff on the floor, Cal.” She leaned forward. “It’s just untidy. It’s not hurting.”

It hurt him. He couldn’t breathe; he knew she was trying him, that it was some sort of test and he couldn’t stand it so he said, “There are posters about you. All over the town.”

“Posters?” Her look was suddenly alert, her skin white under the cobweb.

“Missing from home. Sophie Lewis.”

“Oh, God!” she said, jumping up. “Will Hawk see them?”

“There was one in the chippie. But I took it.” He held out the crumpled ball; it had dried hard and broke as she pulled it open. She read it, then flung the scraps in the tiny stove, turning on him in rage. “Why didn’t you tell me!”

“I’m telling you now. Doesn’t Hawk know?”

“Of course not!” She was standing now, restless in the cramped space. “I mean, he doesn’t know they’re looking for me. He thinks it’s okay.”

Cal nodded. Carefully he said, “Maybe . . . you should phone. Just tell them you’re well.”

“I’ve done that. My mother just goes on. I can’t stand it.”

He looked down.

“You wouldn’t understand!” she burst out. “Sure, I had everything I wanted. Good home, school, clothes. But I hated it, Cal, because no one gave a damn about me. The real me, not what they wanted me to be. A family, that’s what I was searching for. And I found one. Hawk—he’s great, but my parents would detest him. I mean, come on, no money, no old school tie, nothing. Just some pathetic person who lives in the past!”

He wanted to interrupt, to say something but she swept on, grabbing a handful of the tablecloth and twisting it in her fingers. “They just want me to do it all their way. Go to university. Get a high-powered job. Become a barrister or a stockbroker. There’s this boy, Marcus, he’s cracked about me. His father plays golf with mine. He’s all right but I know what they’re thinking. His father’s money, their company. Get married. Have kids. I wanted to break out, smash out, right out of that life. The stink of their money.”

“What’s wrong with money?” he said, sullen.

“Plenty. These people, Hawk, Arthur, they don’t care about money. It’s like a new world for me.” She looked down at him. “Listen. Don’t tell Hawk. Or any of them. They’d never let me join them, they’d just send me home. No one knows but you. And Merlin, though I certainly never told him.”

“It’s not fair on Hawk.”

She shrugged, stubborn. “That’s my business.”

“And look, Shadow, it’s not fair on your parents.” Suddenly it mattered to him that she went, that one of them went back, and he couldn’t, he couldn’t, so it had to be her. “Think what sort of a Christmas they’re going to have!” He stood up, and to her shock she saw his eyes were wet. “Think of them alone in that house, and how they’ll be thinking of you, only about you! How can you do that to them! How she’ll be crying, all by herself. Drinking. Thinking you hate her. Knowing you hate her.”

“I don’t hate them!”

“They won’t know that!”

He caught her wrist; amazed, she shook him off. “Get lost, Cal! Get off my back! This is my problem! It’s got nothing to do with you!”

For a second he stared at her as if there was something huge he had to say, something so massive it would destroy him to speak it. Then he had turned and gone, brushing past Hawk so that a packet of chips fell on the frozen soil.

“Hey!” Hawk yelled. “What’s the rush?”

Cal glanced back at Shadow’s stricken face. “I’ll see you on Christmas Eve,” he whispered.

On the twenty-third he packed.

When his mother rang he said bleakly, “I’ll be home tomorrow. The train gets in about six.”

“Oh God, Cal, it’ll be so good to see you.”

Her voice was husky; he had to loosen his grip on the phone, and say, “I haven’t been away that long.”

“It seems like forever!”

He knew she had been drinking. Years of interpreting her mood, the nuances of her voice, told him that. Not much, but enough.

“Mam,” he said quietly, “are the voices still gone?”

She was silent. Then her whisper came, secret and confiding. “Last night, I heard them. At first I thought it was him and her next door, arguing, but it wasn’t. It was a lot of people, Cal, like a great crowd, somewhere far off, laughing and talking, and a clatter like plates and dishes. A banquet. And music, faint, like harps. And you were there, Cal.”

“Me?”

“I heard you. As if you were close to me. ‘I didn’t see a thing,’ you were saying, loud, like you do when you’re getting all het up.”

He stared across the room at the mirror, at himself. “You can’t have,” he whispered.

But her mood had changed; she was scared now. “I haven’t heard them for so long. When they’d gone, I got up and went in all the rooms, and sat on your bed—it’s so tidy, Cal, spotless, just like you keep it—and I listened. All night I listened. But they didn’t come back. Will they come back, Cal? Like they used to do?”

“I don’t know,” he said desperately. Then, “No. Not if you remember to take your pills. You are taking them, aren’t you?”

“The dustbin worries me.” Her voice was thin now, full of dread. “It keeps overflowing. I can’t remember when they come for it.”

“Thursdays.” He was sweating; he said, “Ask Sally. She knows. Look, I’ve got to go now. I’ll see you tomorrow. Tell this woman Rhian about the voices. Ring her now. Don’t forget. And Mam . . .”

“You are coming? If you don’t . . .”

“I’ve SAID! I’ve said I’ll come.” He calmed his voice, with an effort. “okay?”

“okay,” she whispered.

“Mam . . .”

“What, sweetheart?”

Don’t drink anything. Stay out of the pub. Walk the long way round, away from the off-license. Stop blackmailing me. Stop ruining my life.

But all he said was, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I love you, Cal,” she whispered.

He put the phone down and sat with his head in his hands. He sat there for an hour, then went up to his bedroom and closed the door and pulled the duvet off the bed and wrapped it around himself, huddled against the radiator, trying to get warm, to let the darkness cover him, to make the whole sickening mess go away.

He had to go. He had to go. But if he did he had to tell Hawk he wouldn’t be at Caerleon, and he wanted so much to be with them, all of them, in the cheerful, messy farmhouse. All his life all he had ever wanted was to be normal, have a family, real friends.