Giles raised his hands, palm upwards. ‘What the hell is going on here?’
Characters: yes, that’s what Wendy and Natalie were becoming in Giles’s mind too. And as he reinterpreted the two women in that room, I knew that his scalp had receded beneath his hair. Right then, he must have thought of Yellow Teeth – the story of a writer whose life had been taken over by a sinister organization of astral projectors.
Joyce and Veronica. The two women in the story . . . The women of the SPR. And SPR was very similar to the API?
Giles began to smile. A joke. Yes, he thought it was all a joke. I must have set him up! This was an elaborate practical joke because what he had in his lap was a sequel. And for half a second he was convinced by his own theory.
But the garden . . . the bins . . . and Seb’s appearance . . .
Giles and I held each other’s eyes and Giles knew in a heartbeat that there wasn’t a trace of humour or mischievousness in his client’s thoughts.
Natalie and Wendy each acknowledged the moment too, in which the penny had dropped for my literary agent.
Briefly, and judging by his pallor, I think Giles may then have entertained an image lingering from his reading of Yellow Teeth. I believe he might have imagined a long form, with its head covered by a dirty sack, crawling along the wall of the very building in which he sat.
He dropped his eyes and read the opening line of the first story, entitled, ‘We Are Unshrouded. We Have Enlarged’.
I know the opening line off by heart, because it was the first thing that M. L. Hazzard ever communicated to me, during my third morning as the writer-in-residence at the Tor.
‘And out of the trees they come, the thin people. They cry with joy because one of them says she has seen the light. They all vanish into the tunnel and fall silent.’
31
River of Darkness
‘They betrayed you . . . See how they live now. See! They have deserted you. Enriched themselves. They embezzle the organization. They have grown rich while you waste away here. Where are they now? Tell me? Where are Eunice and Ida? Where are Wendy and Natalie? Where? Where are they? Where are those who have changed their names to throw you off their scent, and who try to live without your guidance in another place entirely? Do you sense them here, ever? No, because they have gone. Flown. They have left you all alone. They have chosen comfort over the mission! They have no interest in your plight. They have forsaken your greatness.’
I have lain upon Diane’s bed, night after night. With my eyes shut tight I have spoken aloud to the darkness when the house is at its most populous. I have said these things and many other things too.
Did you think that when you speak alone that no one hears you? Have you no idea of what glides beside you, briefly, but intent, unsure of itself or its whereabouts, but snatching, with much transformed hands, at the fading echoes of your words that appear in another place, like over there?
Trust me, eventually, something will hear you, if you choose the right place and the right time.
By day, after so many exhausting nights, I have crept inside the rooms that were once occupied by the living M. L. Hazzard and his female persona, Diane. And upon this insecure ground I have planted my seeds, and I have nurtured them with narratives.
I have laid out the pictures of Wendy and Natalie, all about the rooms. Upon the dresser and the side table, upon the floor and the pillow cases, I have placed their images.
I have fitted their likenesses within the mirror frames from which he looks out, and I have placed their faces in the pockets of the empty garments. I have redecorated the walls of Hazzard’s rooms with the pictures that I took of these women in my old home. There are no cards left on the card table, only their faces, upturned: Natalie and Wendy.
At the end of each week, when the women collected me from the Tor and took me home from my residency, for a few hours so that I could administer and maintain their deception, I took the pictures and I printed them.
If Wendy went out to shop, or to sun herself on my balcony, and while Natalie was charged with the task of watching me closely, I took pictures of Natalie instead of taking care of the tasks that they had set for me: paying the household bills, corresponding with my agent and publishers, or making purchases with my credit cards to supply each of them with the luxuries with which they have become so fond, since taking up residence in my life and home.