He paused, and then said, very softly, ‘Alraune.’
‘Yes.’ Fran determinedly avoided looking towards the curtained windows which hid the dark whispering night. ‘Alraune seems to overshadow everything.’
‘That,’ said Michael, looking at her very intently, ‘is exactly what Alice said to me on the night before my seventeenth birthday. The night when she finally told me the truth about Alraune.’
One of the things Michael had loved about growing up in the Lincolnshire house had been listening to Alice’s stories about her past.
She had unfolded the stories bit by bit, as if she understood that he wanted to absorb the details gradually, and she told a story as his mother used to; making it vivid and exciting and real. Most of the time she had talked to him as if he were already grown-up, although he had always known there were parts of her life she had not told, and that she might never tell.
But on the night before his seventeenth birthday – the night she talked to him about Alraune – she did not make a story of it; she talked plainly and rather flatly, and several times Michael thought she was going to stop partway through and not go on. And if she does that, I’ll never know.
‘Alraune’s birth seemed to overshadow everything else that had ever happened to me,’ she had said in the firelit room that night, seated in her usual chair, Michael in his familiar inglenook seat.
Alraune…The name whispered around the warm safe room like a cold sighing voice. Like something sobbing inside a bitter night-wind, or like brittle goblin-fingers scratching out childish letters on a window-pane in the dark…
‘Alraune was bad,’ Alice said. ‘I don’t just mean dishonest or selfish or bad-tempered. I mean truly bad. Cruel. It’s as if – oh, as if Nature occasionally gets things a bit twisted and lets loose something wicked on the world.’
Something wicked…Michael shivered, and edged nearer to the fire.
At once Alice said, ‘You should remember, though, that it’s nearly always possible to spot the world’s bad people very easily. And once you have spotted them you’re perfectly safe, because you can give them a wide berth.’
‘It’s as simple as that, is it?’
‘Most of the time. Don’t be cynical, Michael, you’re still too young to be cynical.’
‘Sorry. Tell me about Alraune. You never have done, not properly. Tonight tell me properly.’
She studied him for a moment. ‘What a heart-breaker you’re turning into,’ she said unexpectedly. ‘I pity the girls you meet. And don’t grin at me like that, I’m quite well aware of what goes on in the world of teenagers. But I don’t know how much I can tell you about Alraune. Alraune never seemed quite real to me.’
Her eyes had the sad look that Michael hated, and her face, with the framing of white hair, suddenly looked older. Once upon a time her hair had been a deep shiny black, and once upon a time her skin had been smooth and pale, like cream velvet. When she was younger. When she was Lucretia. One day I’ll see if I can find a photo of her as Lucretia, thought Michael. And one day I might be able to find one of the films she made and watch it. Would that be possible? Would she mind?
He said, carefully, ‘Alraune was part of a nightmare – that’s right, isn’t it? You lived inside a nightmare.’
‘That’s sharp of you. Yes, I did.’
‘I know about living nightmares – well, a bit about them.’
‘I know you do. And you shouldn’t have to, not at your age.’
‘It’s all right. I’ve forgotten most of that. So listen, start with the beginning – that was Buchenwald, wasn’t it? – and go on from there. That’s what you always tell me to do with difficult things.’
‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is…’ began Alice.
‘…to have a thankless child. Yes, I know. But I’m not thankless.’
‘You’re disgustingly precocious. I’m starting to wonder if I’ve brought you up all wrong.’