Bright Air Part 7

'You're wondering-what if they didn't stop, if they were lovers when they went to Lord Howe, and Luce threatened to spoil things?'

'She was very concerned about Suzi, and she didn't believe Owen's story that it was a one-off thing. Look, it needn't have been a deliberate plan to kill her; maybe just that she got into trouble and they ... hesitated to help, because of this problem. A second would do it, a look exchanged between the two of them, a moment holding back, and then it would be too late.'

I felt sick talking like this. It seemed all wrong, not the actions of the people I'd known. Surely Luce wouldn't have pushed them into a corner, and surely they would never have reacted like that if she had. But could I be sure?

'And then I started to wonder about the accident in New Zealand. What do we know about what happened there?'

Anna frowned. 'They were roped together, just the two of them, crossing a steep ice slope. The rest of their party could see them, but they were some distance behind. They said Owen, following Curtis, fell and pulled Curtis down with him.'

I pictured it. 'Oh, h.e.l.l,' I whispered.

We sat in silence for a long while, then I said, 'I think we should talk to Marcus.'

8.

I borrowed Mary's car, and we drove across the bridge into North Sydney and through the suburbs beyond until we reached the strip of shops at Castlecrag, where I pulled over to consult the map. Outside, people were walking their dogs and sipping lattes at pavement tables, enjoying the sunny Sat.u.r.day afternoon. But I had a hollow feeling of foreboding in my gut at the thought of meeting Marcus again.

The area we wanted lay to one side of the main road, on the rocky bushland hillside dropping down to the bays of Middle Harbour. It's a place unlike any other in Sydney, laid out in the 1920s by the two American architects, Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin, who had previously won the compet.i.tion to design the new Australian capital city at Canberra. They were inspired by the dramatic site at Castlecrag, and must have seen some poetic metaphor in medieval castles, for they gave its narrow lanes, winding along the contour lines between rocky outcrops, names like The Rampart, The Bastion and The Bulwark. The Griffins designed a number of the houses in their subdivision, too, and if you think of the quintessential Australian house as being lightweight, open to the landscape, with sunny decks and a tin roof, then these were exactly the opposite-solid cubic bunkers embedded into the hillside like refuges for trolls in a strange land. Marcus's house was one of these, located at the end of a cul-de-sac in The Citadel, its rough stone blocks almost invisibly hunkered down among large boulders and overgrown by gnarled banksias and angophoras. Its walls ended abruptly at a flat roof, like a castle keep, the source of dramatic views down into the ravine leading into Middle Harbour. Seeing it again, rugged and dour, I felt an odd sense of time shifting, as if the front door might open and we'd find the others still inside, laughing and arguing and drinking as before.

We parked and walked down the narrow sloping drive, flanked by rock green with mould, to the heavy front door. I rapped the bra.s.s knocker and we waited, and waited, and then there came the scuffle of a bolt being slid, and the door opened.

It was as if all his most distinctive features had become exaggerated, eliminating the rest. His leanness had become skeletal, the lines on his face gaunt cleavages, and the long black hair s.h.a.ggier and greyer. Most of all, the crippled leg had dragged the rest of his frame down around it, making him stoop awkwardly, like a damaged stick insect.

He frowned at us for a moment, then his mouth split in a wide smile. 'Anna! Hi! And ...' He clicked his fingers.

'Josh,' I said.

'Josh, yes, of course, sorry. Great to see you.' A dank sour smell wafted past him from the depths of the house. 'Come in, come in.' I caught a strong gust of whisky on his breath.

It was dark inside the hall, the s.p.a.ce smaller and more cave-like than I remembered it. We came to a living room, whose view out through stone-mullioned windows was obscured by dense foliage. The room was a jumble of ancient leather furniture surrounded and covered by piles of books and other debris. Judging by the stains in the ceiling the damp problem from the flat roof hadn't been fixed.

He continued through to a brighter room, with French windows opening onto a small terrace. This room was his den, as untidy as the one before but more lived in, with an empty wine bottle and a tray with the remains of yesterday's pizza on the floor, and more books. He cleared a couple of chairs and went off to find another bottle, leaving Anna and me eyeing each other doubtfully. There was an old chintz-covered armchair in the corner by the window and I had a sudden vivid memory of another Sat.u.r.day in this room, music playing, laughter from the garden, and Suzi sitting in that chair, flapping a handkerchief to try to keep the smoke from a joint in Curtis's hand away from the face of the baby on her knee.

I picked up a book lying among the remnants of Marcus's meal and checked the t.i.tle-Occult Science by Rudolf Steiner. Anna had opened the doors onto the terrace and I followed her out. Further down the steep slope we could see a kind of amphitheatre formed in a hollow in the hillside, accessible from Marcus's house by rock steps winding down between the boulders. To one side of the terrace a shade-cloth conservatory had been built beneath the overhang of a sandstone outcrop, with ferns and other plants dimly visible inside. by Rudolf Steiner. Anna had opened the doors onto the terrace and I followed her out. Further down the steep slope we could see a kind of amphitheatre formed in a hollow in the hillside, accessible from Marcus's house by rock steps winding down between the boulders. To one side of the terrace a shade-cloth conservatory had been built beneath the overhang of a sandstone outcrop, with ferns and other plants dimly visible inside.

We turned and saw Marcus limping into the room, and went back inside. He almost stumbled on a book on the floor, and I caught his arm and steadied him, startled by how light he felt. I took the bottle from his free hand and found three empty gla.s.ses.

He eased himself with a sigh down into another piece of furniture I remembered, a heavy dark wooden chair he called his throne. 'So how are you guys?' he said, examining us in turn. In that more haggard face his gaze seemed brighter, more intense, but his manner was less certain, almost as if he'd become withdrawn, unused to being with people, reclusive, or maybe just drunk.

'We're fine,' Anna said. 'I work over in Blacktown, and Josh has been in London.'

'Ah, the merchant banker, yes. London?'

'Right, I've just got back.'

'Four years,' he said. 'Of course, of course.' As if that was terribly significant.

I smiled. 'How's the uni these days?'

He lowered his eyelids, raised his wine cautiously to his mouth and drank. 'I don't work there any more, Josh. They decided they could do without me-very wisely no doubt.' Some wine spilled onto his knee.

Anna said, 'But you were a great teacher, Marcus. And your research ...'

He gave a dry laugh that turned into a cough. 'After the accident, well, someone had to pay. Inquiries, suspended from teaching, research grants withheld. They made life impossible for me, drove me out.' He shrugged, wiped his knee absently.

I was shocked, by both his story and how he looked, and said, 'I'm sorry. Where are you now?'

'Um? Oh, I'm working on my own private research program.'

'No more students?'

He gazed at his feet sombrely, then shook his head.

I raised an eyebrow at Anna, who took over.

'We wondered if you'd heard about Curtis and Owen, Marcus?'

'Curtis and Owen? No, I haven't heard from them for a while. What about them?'

I hadn't noticed a newspaper or a TV in the house.

'They were killed in a climbing accident in New Zealand last month.'

He c.o.c.ked his head forward, peering at her. 'No ...' He looked confused, and I wondered if he might be on medication as well as booze. 'A climbing accident?' He shook his head, not upset but more as if this just couldn't be right. 'Another climbing accident? Are you sure?' climbing accident? Are you sure?'

'Yes. I went over there as soon as I heard. I was with Owen when he died in hospital.' Anna was leaning forward, speaking slowly, watching his reactions. 'Just before he died he told me something very disturbing. He said that Luce didn't die the way the inquest had heard. He said her death wasn't accidental.'

'What do you mean?'

'He said, We killed her We killed her.'

Marcus looked startled, opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. Finally he said, 'No, that's ... that's ... crazy.'

'Is it? You weren't actually there when it happened, were you?'

'You're not serious.' He began tapping a finger on the arm of the chair. 'There was an inquest, a full investigation.'

'Which relied on what Curtis and Owen said.'

He hauled himself abruptly upright in his seat, glaring at her. 'This is crazy, Anna. Tell me again, the whole thing.'

While Anna did so I looked at the books lying around my feet. There was one called Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment, which I thought might have been about climbing until I saw that the author again was Steiner. There were others by him-The Being of Man and His Future Evolution and and Cosmic Memory Cosmic Memory-and a thick tome called A Guide to Anthroposophy A Guide to Anthroposophy. The books had Dewey cla.s.sification numbers on their spines from the university library, and I wondered if he still had access, or if he'd stolen them.

'Thank you for telling me this, Anna. I had no idea.' Marcus drained his gla.s.s and I got up to refill it for him. 'Have you told anyone else about it?'

'Not yet.'

Marcus seemed agitated, preoccupied. 'The fall,' he said.

'Sorry?'

'Owen's mind ... He was obviously deranged by his fall.'

'You don't think it's possible he could have been telling the truth?'

'What? No! Of course not.'

I said, 'How about Luce's state of mind, in those last days before the accident?'

'Luce? State of mind?' He focused his eyes on me in that intense way he'd had before, as if he wanted to burrow right into your brain and find out what you were hiding in there.

'Yes, I mean, was she depressed? At the inquest several people said they thought she was. The police investigator even asked you all if she might have killed herself. I just wondered what you really thought.'

'No, Luce would never do that ... Ah, I think I can see where you're coming from, Josh. She still had a photo of you inside her wallet, and you're wondering ... Am I right?'

I felt the colour rise in my face, but didn't say anything.

'No, it wasn't like that. A bit subdued maybe, towards the end of the trip, but not suicidal, no, no.'

Anna said, 'One of the witnesses said there was a disagreement between Luce and other members of the team.'

He turned to her, then slowly shook his head. 'No, Anna-no disagreements.'

I said, 'What about Curtis and Owen, how were they getting on?'

'Fine, we were all getting on fine.' He shook his head, impatient with these questions.

'Were they lovers?'

He glanced at me, eyebrow raised, as if rea.s.sessing me. 'You know about that, do you? No, that was over long before, as far as I know. And even if they were-what difference would it have made?'

'Luce felt protective towards Suzi and the baby. I think she felt that Curtis should have left Owen alone.'

'Was that how it went, Josh? I don't know. It was none of my business. And Luce never mentioned it. Look ...' he waved a hand at us, pale and bony as a turkey's claw, 'this has stirred up old memories, but nothing sinister happened. I promise you that. It was just a terrible accident, terrible, terrible. If there had been any hint of anything else ... I miss her too, you know.' He nodded towards a bookshelf on which we saw a small framed photograph of Luce. 'Every day I think of her and blame myself.'

He took a deep breath, a glint of moisture in his eyes, and then added with a kind of choked sob, 'I saw her, you know ...' He waved his hand at the French windows onto the terrace.

'How do you mean?'

'About a year ago, out there ... Beautiful as ever.'

Anna and I exchanged a glance of alarm.

'A year ago?' I said.

He turned his face back from the window to me and said quietly, 'Have you wondered why you've come back now, Josh?'

I looked at him in astonishment. 'Well, it was just the way things turned out, with my job and so on ...'

He shook his head and smiled as if I was being incredibly naive. 'You were looking at my books,' he said, pointing to the pile beside my feet. 'Rudolf Steiner, a great man, a great scientist, who realised the limitations of conventional science and moved on further-much, much further. The man and woman who designed this house were great followers of his. They studied his books, his philosophy, his discoveries. It took me a long time to realise ... The people they designed it for were my grandparents, who left it to me when they died twenty years ago, but it's only in the last year that I've begun to realise that they were all into it, the people who came to live here, including my grandparents. There was art and dance, and everyone joined in; anthroposophical festivals in the open-air amphitheatre down below us here in The Scarp ...' he pointed to the French windows, 'by the light of flares. Tell me, how many rooms are there in this house, Josh?'

His rambling was becoming more and more confused. I shrugged. 'No idea, Marcus.'

'Seven, arranged in three overlapping suites. Now, look at the carving of the stone window surrounds, the patterns of gla.s.s in the French windows, the design of the fireplace-all repet.i.tions of seven elements in three overlapping groups, at many different scales. You see?'

'Oh yes, right.' I looked at Anna again, eyebrows raised.

'One of the things, the fundamental things, that Steiner discovered was that we have seven parts, seven kinds of self. The house, you see, is the philosophy made flesh, Josh. It is a template, a model, an embodiment of the human spirit itself, as revealed by Steiner. He was the Darwin, the Einstein of the spiritual world, and this was one of his great discoveries. When we die, Josh, only the first member, the physical body, is destroyed. For a few days its companions, the astral and etheric bodies, cling together, after which the astral body separates itself and goes on its way without the etheric, which also dies. Now the person goes through a painful process of purification, retracing his or her life experiences and purging them in what Steiner calls "the consuming fire of the spirit", until at last the whole of their earthly life is distilled to an extract, a quintessence, which the Ego carries forward into the spiritual world, the Spirit-land.'

He was becoming more and more excited, eyes wild, and he suddenly reached out to grab my arm. 'Josh, Steiner tells us that the process of purification takes about one-sixth of the time the person spent on earth. Don't you see? For Lucy that would be four years. Four years! That's why you're disturbed, why you've come back to this house now. You were close to her, you sense her being at the time when she must move on into the land of Spirits!

'That's why she returned here. It was a dark night. I came into this room, and switched on the light, and there she was, out there on the terrace, a pale figure, but absolutely clear, unmistakable, illuminated by the light from the room. I cried out her name and went towards her. I wanted to speak to her, ask her forgiveness, but she disappeared. She'd come back to this house, Josh, to seek out the blueprint of her future life, to find her way forward into the Spirit-land.'

'Forgiveness?' I said sharply. 'Forgiveness for what?'

'What?'

'You said you wanted to ask her forgiveness. What for?'

'Oh ...' He became a ma.s.s of confusion. 'I felt responsible. She was my student ...' Then he turned on me. His frown might have been puzzlement, or concern, or perhaps no more than a struggle to concentrate. He repeated my name a couple of times, 'Josh ... Josh,' then his face cleared and he said, 'I understand-you're suffering, right? s.h.i.t, you feel guilt ... despair, right?'

'Yes, but-'

'I felt exactly the same, until I discovered the truth.'

'The truth? You know the truth, about how she died?'

'Ha!' Now a beatific smile lit his face. 'But that's the point, Josh, that is the point.'

'What is?'

'She isn't dead.'

We left soon after, exchanging promises to catch up again another time. As we made for the front door Marcus, returned now to a more prosaic spiritual plane, said to Anna, 'On morphine, was he?'

'What?'

'Owen, when you saw him.'

'I suppose so, something like that.'

Marcus nodded, as if he knew all about morphine. 'Messes with your brain, Anna. People believe all kinds of stuff.'