Ritual. Part 20

'You don't think it scares me too?'

Robyn took over the wheel just past Harrisburg, and drove into the night while Charlie lay on the back seat of the station wagon and tried to sleep. It took him until two o'clock in the morning to close his eyes. The smell of the vehicle was unfamiliar, so was the way it jolted over every b.u.mp and join in the highway, and the songs that Robyn was playing on the car radio all seemed to be songs of regret. He thought of Martin, lying naked on that plain bed at Le Reposoir, and he tried to touch him with his mind. / love you, Martin, don't despair. Don't let them take you away.

They stopped for an early breakfast at Buchanan, VA, a few miles short of Roanoke. They sat in a small drugstore drinking black coffee in silence and staring at themselves in the mirror behind the counter. They both looked exhausted.

'Are you sure we're doing the right thing?' Robyn asked, as they stepped out into the chilly morning air, and climbed back into Mrs Kemp's old Buick.

Charlie said, 'We could use some more gas. There's only quarter of a tankful left.'

Robyn leaned across and kissed Charlie's unshaven cheek. 'Don't worry,' she said. 'I'm with you.'

They drove into New Orleans on a humid, thundery morning, with the clouds hanging low over the city, and lightning flickering out over Lake Borgne and the Gulf beyond. Charlie had taken the wheel at Meridian, and Robyn was lying asleep in the back. For the past hour, the radio had been turned to a Louisiana station playing plangent Cajun and Zydeco music - high, shrill voices and accordions and fiddles double-bowed. Charlie had called from Atlanta the previous evening to 208.

r make a reservation at the St Victoir Hotel, which was quoted in MARIA as being 'inexpensive, discreet, and authentic'. He knew that after more than thirty-eight hours of driving, the first priority for both of them was going to be sleep. It was no good regretting the time that they would lose. Their exhaustion had reached the point where they could see the highways unravelling in front of them even when they closed their eyes.

The St Victoir was a narrow-fronted nineteenth-century building between Bourbon and Royal, but it lacked the distinctive cast-iron balconies that characterized the finest architecture in the French Quarter. It was wedged between an over-expensive art gallery and a Creole restaurant called Jim's Au Courant. Inside, there was a cool air-conditioned lobby with potted palms and a marble floor and old sofas upholstered in damp green velvet that could almost have been moss. A fat lady in a floral frock sat behind a curved mahogany counter and smiled at Charlie and Robyn like Jabba the Hutt.

'Mr and Mrs McLean,' said Charlie. 'I made a reservation yesterday from Atlanta.'

The fat lady opened up her file drawer and picked her way through the reservation cards with tiny hands. 'That's right,' she said. 'Double room, looking to the back, for three nights provisional. May I take an impression of your card?'

Their bags were taken up by a black porter in a peaked cap who said almost nothing but hummed all the time. Robyn had brought a change of clothes from her parents' house; Charlie, of course, had taken his travelling-kit out of his Oldsmobile, before parking it right at the back of the Harris house and covering the licence plate with a plastic shopping bag so that it couldn't be identified by any pa.s.sing police patrol.

Charlie had told Mr Harris that he and Robyn were taking a few days' vacation together in Canada. He had winked at Mrs Harris and Mrs Harris had obviously been pleased that Robyn had found somebody so quickly. Especially somebody so nice.

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Charlie tipped the black porter and then closed and chained the door. The room was high-ceilinged and cool, with a huge mahogany bed and two ma.s.sive mahogany chairs. There was a view from the back over the St Victoir's courtyard, shaded by layers of foliage. It had already begun to rain, heavy warm drops, and the palm leaves nodded in acknowledgement of the coming storm.

Robyn lay back on the bed and kicked off her shoes. 'I don't think I ever felt so tired in my whole life.'

'Do you want anything to eat?' Charlie asked her. 'How about some beignets and a pot of coffee?' 'I think I just want to sleep,' said Robyn. Charlie went into the large tiled bathroom and slowly undressed. He took a long shower, standing for almost five minutes with his eyes closed, letting the hot water spray into his face. He shaved, but he took care not to shave the bristling beginnings of his moustache. Then he wrapped himself in a towel and went back into the bedroom. Robyn was already asleep, lying on her side with one hand against her cheek as if she were thinking. Charlie sat on the bed beside her and dried himself. She was a pretty girl. Even though she was wearing a crumpled checkered shirt and faded jeans and her hair needed washing, she had a femininity about her which Marjorie had always lacked. He rested his hand on her sleeping hip for a little while, and then returned to the bathroom to find himself a robe.

He lay on the bed and tried to sleep, but he couldn't. His mind was still crowded with thoughts of Martin, and M. Musette, and that grotesque living gargoyle they called David. He closed his eyes and heard the thunder booming over the delta, and the rain whispering through the leaves, and somebody playing the piano through an open window.

For a moment, he didn't know whether he was wakening or dreaming; but then he heard a door slam and footsteps in the corridor outside, and someone saying, 'Take those drapes 210.

down with you, don't forget.' He sat up, and looked at Robyn, She was still sleeping. He opened up his brown leather travelling bag and found himself a clean blue shirt and a pair of fawn non-crease slacks. He dressed, and then he wrote a quick note for Robyn on a damp sheet of Saint Victoir notepaper: Gone to locate Elegance St, back soon, don't worry. He signed the note, Affctly, Charlie.

By the time he reached the street, the worst of the rain had pa.s.sed over, although the sidewalks still reflected the white-painted lacework balconies and the red and yellow horse-drawn carriages taking tourists around the Vieux Carre, and the sky was the colour of dynamite smoke. He approached a wizened-faced black man on the corner of Royal Street and asked him the way to Elegance Street. The man said, 'Elegance aint so much of a street as an alleh. But you don't want to go theuh. It's all churches and cat-houses.'

All the same, he directed Charlie westward on Royal, telling him to pa.s.s nine alleyways and courtyards on the left before he took the tenth, and that would be Elegance Street. Charlie thanked him and offered him a dollar. The black man took the money, but told him, 'Druthah a cigarette,' his eyes elderly, bloodshot, either drugged or drunk or too old to care about either.

Charlie walked along Royal Street, smelling rain and damp and gasoline and cooking, and jazz was playing on the wet morning wind, that pompous, stilted highly traditional jazz that the tourists come to hear but never really like, 'Didn't He Ramble' and 'St James' Infirmary' and 'Mahogany Hall Blues Stomp', musical relics of a day long past. He came at last to the narrow courtyard called Elegance Street, a shaded alleyway of old-fashioned brick that was overlaid with dripping palm leaves and overlooked by green-painted cast-iron balconies. Charlie pa.s.sed the Crescent City Antiques Gallery and the Beau-monde Tearoom featuring clairvoyant readings by Madame Prudhomme. There, at the very end of the alleyway, 211.

stood a pair of black iron gates, with a plaque announcing L'figlise des Anges. Charlie approached it with trepidation, and stood for a long time staring through the railings into the inner courtyard. There was a stone fountain, and a stone bench, and some wrought-iron garden chairs that somebody had knocked over sideways. But there was no sign of life, pas ame qui vive as the French would say. Not a soul alive.

Charlie dragged at the wet cast-iron bell pull. He didn't hear the bell ring, but after a very long time, a stocky man in a black monk's habit appeared. His hair was white as transparent noodles and his eyes were as blank as two mirrors. He approached the gates and stood staring at Charlie with the expression of a man of very little patience. Charlie said, 'Is this the church of the Celestines?'

'This is the Church of the Angels. Some call us Celestines.'

'A friend of mine used to belong. I've come to the conclusion that it's my turn.'

'Did your friend attend this church?'

'No. He went to the church in Acadia, L'Eglise des Pauv-res.'

'That is our sister church,' said the man. 'Can you tell me what your friend's name was?'

There was a faraway protestation of thunder. Charlie said, 'I only knew him as Michel or maybe Michael.'

The man said, 'You can't do better that that?'

'He never told me his surname.'

'What did he tell you about his beliefs?'

Charlie glanced around, pretending to be furtive. Then he leaned closer to the gates, and said, 'He told me all about the self-sacrificial communion. He told me all about the body and blood.'

'I see,' said the man, his expression unchanging. 'And what was your response to that?'

'My response was that it sounded pretty extreme. You know, the idea of actually -' Charlie leaned closer forward and whispered, 'eatingyour own body.'

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The man eyed him coldly. 'Much of what we teach is metaphorical, you know. Not to be taken too literally.'

'But the whole core of your religion is this communion, right? The Last Supper, with real body and real blood.'

'You'd better give me your name,' the man told him. Rain began to sprinkle the courtyard again, and whisper through the leaves.

'Dan Fielding. I'm a chef.'

The man suddenly looked interested. 'A chef? Of what description?'

'I used to work for the South Western Hotel chain, mainly in their prestige restaurants. I could cook anything.'

'Did you ever cook .... meat?'

'Are you pulling my leg? I was taught high-grade butchery as well as cooking. I can cut and trim a prime beef carca.s.s in less than twenty minutes. And when I cook it, let me tell you this, n.o.body holds a candle to Daniel DuBois Fielding, believe me.'

The man said, 'You're not an Acadian.'

Charlie managed a smile. 'Of course not, I'm a Hoosier. Does it make any difference where I come from?'

'Strictly, no,' said the man. 'Although we do have a church near Lafayette, Indiana.'

'Really? I have cousins in Lafayette. I have cousins in Kokomo, too.' Charlie was deliberately acting naif. The man listened to him patiently and the rain began to patter down heavier, until there were droplets shining on his soft black hood.

'Listen,' he said, 'why don't you come back here this evening? Maybe you'd like to talk to our chief Guide. Do you know about Guides? Did your friend from L'Eglise des Pauv-res tell you anything about them?'

'I know about Guides,' Charlie said. He paused, and then added, 'I know about Devotees, too.'

'Well, you could be useful to us,' the man told him. 'Come back at nine. Where are you staying?'

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'With friends, on Philip Street. Have you heard of the Courvilles?'

'There must be five thousand Courvilles in New Orleans. But you come back at nine. Come alone, mind, just like you are now.'

'I understand. So long for now.'

'Au revoir, monsieur.'

Charlie walked out of Elegance Street not at all sure if he had deceived the black-hooded man into believing that he was a genuine recruit for the Celestines or not. He had learned from his encounters with the Musettes that the Celestines were remarkably open and unafraid. This was not only because what they were doing was technically legal, or at least not technically ('/legal - but because like those who dealt in narcotics and heavy duty p.o.r.nography and extortion, they had many influential friends.

He returned to the St Victoir Hotel to find that Robyn was still asleep. He was,beginning to have swimmy sensations, like jet-lag, but he was too agitated to sleep. He sat by the window in an upright chair looking out over the misty courtyard and listening to the sounds of New Orleans. Robyn murmured something, and turned over, but still didn't wake up.

Charlie's eyes began to close or maybe he was only dreaming that they were closing. His head nodded, and jerked. He could hear the rain trickling along the gutters. That piano was playing again, some high-stepping piece of music that sounded like Mussorgsky if Mussorgsky had ever written jazz. Some feeling made Charlie open his eyes again, a scarf of fear being laid gently over his shoulders. He looked down into the courtyard and he was sure that he glimpsed a small hooded figure disappearing amongst the palm fronds.

He was suddenly awake. Involuntarily, he said, 'Unnhh!' out loud, and Robyn lifted her head off the bed and stared at him.

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'Charlie? What's the matter?'

'I was dozing. I frightened myself, that's all. It was only a dream.'

Robyn looked around the room with the glazed eyes of someone who has fallen deeply asleep in unfamiliar surroundings. 'I've been dreaming, too. I thought we were still driving. All those cotton fields. All those girder bridges. I thought I saw you standing in a field by the side of the road, calling me. But when you turned round, it wasn't you at all. It had a face like the Devil.'

Charlie eased himself up from the chair and walked over to the bed. The light in the room was the colour of pewter. 'It's so dark,' said Robyn. 'What time is it?'

'A little after twelve. It's been raining most of the morning.'

'Did you go out?'

'I found the Church of the Angels on Elegance Street. It's only three or four blocks from here. I'm supposed to be going back there at nine to meet the head honcho.'

'You should have woken me.'

Charlie sat down on the bed beside her and took hold of her hand. 'You needed your sleep.'

'And what about you? Aren't you tired?'

'In my job, fatigue is a way of life.'

Robyn combed through her hair with her fingers to loosen the sleep tangles 'Didn't you ever think about doing anything else? I mean - you didn't want to be a restaurant inspector when you were a little boy, did you?'

Charlie smiled. 'When I was a little boy, I wanted to be a zoo keeper.'

'That's a pretty smelly job, zoo keeping.'

Charlie laughed. Then he stopped laughing, and sat there silently with a smile on his face thinking about wanting to be a zoo keeper. He could remember all of those model animals, the tigers and the monkeys and the elephant with the broken ear. Robyn touched his shoulder and looked closely into his eyes, and he thought, you can always tell whether you're going to fall for somebody or not by their eyes. Love is retinal.

He kissed Robyn's forehead. It was still warm from sleeping. She closed her eyes and he kissed her lips. It was a long lingering kiss that was more romantic than pa.s.sionate. Charlie hadn't kissed a woman like that in years. Not since Milwaukee.

In the midday twilight of a thunderstorm, Charlie unb.u.t.toned Robyn's checkered shirt and bared her b.r.e.a.s.t.s to the touch of his fingertips. They were soft and heavy, and they fell to each side of her chest in full, pale curves. Her areolas were the palest pink, and as wide as pink-frosted cookies. Charlie bent forward and kissed her nipples and they stiffened between his lips. Robyn whispered something that could have been words of love; or maybe the words of a song.

He unfastened her jeans. That high-stepping piano music slowed down now, and Robyn's breathing was as soft as the rain. Underneath her jeans she wore French lace panties, peach-coloured, transparent, so that the dark delta of her pubic hair showed through. Charlie slipped his hand into the leg of her panties and felt a thin slippery line of wetness that almost made him feel as if all his emotions were going to self-destruct.

They made love for over an hour. He kissed her neck, kissed her shoulders and watched as the shining shaft of his erection slid in and out of that perfect dark delta. Feelings washed over him like bayou water, muddy, warm, and blinding, but always moving with a slow, strong current. Robyn sang that little song again, softly as a memory. At the very last she opened her thighs as wide as she could and he touched and tasted her, and then put his fingers to his lips and anointed her nipples so that they glistened for a moment like diamonds.

Robyn showered, then they ventured out of the St Victoir to the Cafe du Monde on Decatur Street, where they indulged themselves in a late lunch of beignets dusted with powdered sugar and piping hot cafe au lait.

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Charlie could afford to relax, because he had done all that he could possibly do; and all that was left was to wait until nine o'clock. He didn't forget about Martin. He couldn't, because Martin was the reason he was here. But he allowed himself to walk hand in hand with Robyn through the French Quarter, around Jackson Square, where the twin Pontalba Buildings shone oddly orange in the afternoon light, and along Pirates Alley, where they stopped to look at paintings of nudes and bayous and old black men with wrinkled faces and straw hats, art for the tourist trade.

They reached the end of Pirates Alley, and emerged into an unexpected slice of sunshine, when Charlie caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of something white and small, fluttering like a flag. He stepped back to see what it was, and trod on the foot of an old lady who had been walking close behind him.

'You watch where you're treading!' she squawked, and lifted her stick as if she were going to strike out at him.

Charlie said, 'Please - I'm sorry. I thought I saw somebody I knew.'

Robyn took hold of Charlie's hand. 'What is it?' she asked him. She could see that he was upset.

'I'm not sure. I glimpsed it before, in the courtyard at the back of the hotel. At least, I thought I glimpsed it. I thought I was dozing off that time, but maybe I wasn't.'

'What?' asked Robyn. 'What was it?'

'The dwarf, the one who killed Mrs Kemp. The one who cut my leg.'

'But n.o.body could have followed us here. n.o.body knew where we were going.'

Charlie shaded his eyes from the misty sunlight and tried to peer between the constantly changing patterns of pa.s.sers-by. 'No,' he said. 'He's gone; if he was ever there.'

'You're over-tired, said Robyn. 'You've started hallucinating.'

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Charlie nodded. 'Maybe you're right. Let's go back to the hotel.'

They walked back to the St Victoir. The fat woman like Jabba the Hutt beamed at them as they pa.s.sed the reception desk.

'Everything va bien? she asked them.

'Fine, thank you,' said Charlie. 'We're very comfortable.'