Only Darkness

The children’s home where he’d spent most of his childhood had been run by people with very traditional views – no political correctness there. Boys were encouraged to boys’ activities and girls to girls’. He hadn’t minded this, except for the book with the pictures in. ‘What are you reading that for?’ Marlisse used to say. ‘You don’t want to read that. You’re a boy,’ and she’d substitute a sports book or an adventure book that she considered more suitable.

But the book with the pictures fascinated him and he went back to it again and again. All the pictures were mysterious, with watery, twisting colours that suggested unseen things lurking in the shadows on the page. The pictures were all supposed to be of fairies and elves – which is why Marlisse thought it wasn’t a boy’s book – but these weren’t pretty little children with big eyes and gauzy wings. Some of them were twisted, ugly and strange, and some of them were wild and dangerous. There was one picture that he couldn’t get out of his mind. In the background of this picture, a figure was half concealed behind some flowers. She had red-gold hair and an expression of glee on a face that had a wild, pinched beauty. He had been in love with her – whatever she was. They had had adventures together where he’d saved her from dungeons, and enemy soldiers, and high mountains and dark caves. She had been a companion in some of the loneliest times. He hadn’t thought about the picture for years, and had certainly never expected to see it again, until she’d run lightly down the stairs in that dressing gown and looked at him with surprise.

He could see Berryman watching her as she knelt in front of the fire. He’d watched her as well. She’d known, and had casually moved the towel that she was using to dry her hair to obscure Berryman’s view. But she had known he could still see her from his position by the mantelpiece, and had sparkled her eyes briefly in his direction. She was playing a dangerous game, and he liked that.

He waited until the end of that shift. It was nearly seven before he left the station. He turned down Berryman’s suggestion of a drink. He had two days free now, and he and Berryman had plans for them, involving a couple of women they’d met the week before and invited over to his flat Saturday night; but first he decided to go back. He wasn’t quite sure what he was going to say – More questions? Forgot to ask …? He’d wing it when the time came. He parked outside the shabby terrace. It was getting dark now. He tried out one or two phrases – Sorry to disturb you again, could you just go over … but it wasn’t how he expected.

He knocked at the door. He could hear music coming from the downstairs room, which stopped as he knocked the second time. She opened the door and looked at him, then she smiled and invited him in. She took him into the room they’d been in earlier and she made some kind of gesture, of welcome, he wasn’t sure. She was dressed now, wearing something that seemed to consist of scarves and swirls, a confusion of shadow colours. Her hair, now it was dry, curled on to her shoulders a vivid red-gold. He couldn’t stop looking at her.

The violin was out of its case, propped up next to the music stand. ‘I was just practising,’ she said. ‘I’ve nearly finished. You don’t mind waiting?’ She picked up the instrument again, smiled briefly at him, and then became intent as she played. He watched the way her body bent and danced with the music, as though she was part of it. She was unselfconscious. He had given himself the right to watch her last time, this time she had given him the right. When she finished the piece she was playing, he asked her about the music. He’d never heard anything like it before. She picked up the violin again and played him pieces as she was talking about them. Then she showed him how to draw the bow across the strings and after a couple of tortured cat sounds, he produced a high, clear note.

His interest aroused her enthusiasm. She pulled out some books of songs that he had forgotten he knew, and made him sing, harmonizing her clear soprano with his tenor, but he didn’t have the technique to do that for long, and they ended up laughing and breathless. Then they talked, sitting in front of the fire. He was good at getting information out of people, he could question them gently, expertly until they told him far more than they intended, but this time he let her draw him out, talked about things he’d rarely talked about before, until she knew as much about him as he knew about her. There was no rush, no hurry.

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