The Master Of Misrule Part 6

The secret society had worked out even better than Toby had hoped. As the Chameleons' dares increased in frequency and boldness, he waited for his membership invitation to arrive.

Two weeks pa.s.sed. Very well, thought Toby. If the Chameleons wouldn't come to him, then he would go to the Chameleons. He would start with their leader, Seth. Seth was swarthy and sulky-looking, claimed to write poetry and was known to do drugs. But Toby told himself he wasn't frightened of him.

So he tracked Seth down to the clock tower, late one Sunday evening. The place had been off-limits for years, and the school caretaker spent much of his time chasing people out of it. However, successive generations of students always found new ways in. In the candlelit gloom of the ground-floor room, various demiG.o.ds of the upper school were lounging and smoking.

"It's a squirt," Seth drawled, glancing up from the joint he was rolling. Squirts was upper-school slang for the junior years. "Come to eavesdrop again. What do you want, squirt?"

Toby gulped. "I, uh, wanted to talk to you. About the Chameleons."

Seth widened his eyes theatrically. "n.o.body talks about the Chameleons. It's the rules."

"And what would you know about them anyway?" asked one of the demiG.o.ds, to widespread sn.i.g.g.e.rs.

"Look," said Toby, trying to shut out the others and focus on Seth, "I don't mind that the dares and stuff were my idea; in fact, I think it's great you're making such a success of it. I'm not here to ask for credit. I just wanted to, well, you know ... help out. Partic.i.p.ate."

More laughter, and louder this time. Seth waved a hand for quiet.

"How could someone like you possibly help someone like me?" he asked. He sounded genuinely perplexed.

"Erm, I think that's already been demonstrated, hasn't it? Because my idea-"

"Listen, squirt," Seth said in the patient tones used to address children or imbeciles. "It doesn't matter how many ideas you had or have, or even how good they are. The fact is, you're not the kind of person who will ever be able to make anything of them. Because other people won't be interested, so long as the ideas come from you."

"But I can-"

"No, squirt, you can't. Now p.i.s.s off." Seth threw a beer bottle top at his head. Toby yelped, more from surprise than discomfort. Soon everyone in the room was throwing things and jeering, their grinning faces luridly distorted in the shadows. He fled.

Then came the second conversation that Toby shouldn't have heard but acted on anyway: Mia's whispered argument with Mr. Marlow-those tantalizing hints about midnight duels, and the Game, and playing fair.... Yet whenever Toby looked back to the moment he decided to follow Mia to the clock tower, he found he couldn't remember what he'd actually planned to do. Was it simply to spy on the Chameleons' secrets? Or was it a last-ditch attempt to redeem himself, this time appealing to Mia for support? It made little difference, of course, for in the tower his whole life was divided into before and after the Game, and everything beforehand became vague and insubstantial.

Yet the memory of Seth's words still stung. It wasn't so much the humiliation that hurt, but the injustice. His powerlessness still astonished him.

Former powerlessness, that is. Thanks to the Game of Triumphs, Toby reminded himself, he had a quest now. A quest and a destiny.

A NOISY PACK OF TOURISTS got between Flora and Blaine during the bus ride home, so both were free to sit in their separate silences. Silently, she indicated their stop; silently, the two of them made their way alongside the park and turned into the row of mansions, with their ranks of pillars and porticoes.

Flora led the way into the house with a nonchalance she did not feel. The interior was adorned in "pearl," "chiffon," "jasmine" and "mist"-all subtle variations on white, and chosen to provide a restful backdrop for Mr. Seaton's collection of Chinese porcelain and Mrs. Seaton's inherited antiques. None of the lights could be turned to anything stronger than a flattering glow, which gave the impression that everyone who entered the house had been discreetly airbrushed.

"Nice place," said Blaine, and Flora-braced for something awkward or snide-found herself smiling at him in relief.

She took him to the smallest of the three guest bedrooms. The decor was a little chintzy, perhaps, with its lace curtains and embroidered bedspread, but it felt less like a hotel room than the others, and was slightly out of the way at the top of the house.

"Here we are! Whew-sorry about all the stairs. Now then, your bathroom is through that door. There should be towels and so on already laid out. My room's back on the first landing, second from the left, if you, um, you know, need anything. I'll be in the kitchen for now. It's in the bas.e.m.e.nt. So whenever you're ready to eat, come down and we can fix something up. Otherwise, I'll leave you to get settled. Unless there's anything else you ...?"

Blaine bounced his grubby duffel bag against a leg. He looked too big, too dark, altogether too male for that dainty room.

"Actually, I could do with using a washing machine."

"Of course. I mean, yes, that's no problem. I'll show you the utility room. Do you need a change of clothes? Because I'm sure my dad's-"

His mouth twisted in amus.e.m.e.nt. "No, I think I can manage." Then he noticed her discomfited expression. "Thanks, though."

He came down to the kitchen about twenty minutes later, in a clean if fraying T-shirt, and still damp from the shower. Flora heard the cough before she heard his footsteps on the stairs.

Mina had prepared a ca.s.serole, more than enough for two, and Flora put it on the Aga cooker to warm. The rich, soothing smell filled the kitchen. Flora had turned the radio on low and begun to chop vegetables while she waited. There had also been time to change her rumpled top, wash her face and put up her hair. She felt much better after doing this.

"Oh, h.e.l.lo, there you are. Is that the washing? Good. The utility room's just through here. Let me show you."

In theory, Flora did know how to use the washer and dryer, but since Mina was in charge of the laundry, she had no practical experience in getting them to work. Talking a little too much, a little too quickly, she showed him where the array of detergents was kept, and what she hoped was the right sequence of b.u.t.tons. She was careful not to look as he put his shabby bundle into the machine.

Things went more easily after this. The kitchen, with its old oak table and cream walls, was cozier than the rest of the house, and the rhythmic gurgles of the washing machine were friendly sounds, mingling with the quiet chatter of the radio. Flora heaped two bowls with ca.s.serole and brought the vegetables, bread and cheese to the table. Salt and pepper, b.u.t.ter, a water jug. Plus a bottle of cough syrup she'd found in the medicine cabinet.

Blaine accepted his bowl without comment and they pa.s.sed the dishes between them silently. Oddly, this didn't feel awkward. As soon as Flora began to eat, she realized she was ravenous. She hadn't eaten anything since a few canapes at the Avoncourts' party.

"My mum's always wanted one of those," Blaine said out of nowhere. He nodded toward the glossy cream Aga.

"Really? Well, they are lovely, even if they are old-fashioned. And ours can be tricky to cook on; we usually end up using the electric stove."

She spoke to cover her surprise. It was the first personal information he'd ever volunteered. "Where's your mother now?" she heard herself asking.

"She's ill."

"Oh." She looked down into her water gla.s.s. "Mine drinks."

She watched Blaine b.u.t.ter another piece of bread. Newly washed, his skin still had a worn, grayish look, especially around the eyes. Not that he looked frail, of course-with his light brown hair cropped, the bones of his face seemed harder, and he had bulk as well as height. Or rather, he had the frame for st.u.r.diness; it stopped him from appearing too obviously thin.

Normal small talk wasn't an option, which left the Arcanum and its attendant traumas the only topic they had in common. But Flora discovered she wanted them to keep talking anyway.

She leaned forward a little. "Blaine, what was it really like when you played your Knight of Wands?"

Blaine didn't look up from his food. "It took me to a place full of tombs. There were statues of knights on them, but the man I was looking for wasn't there. Not in a grave, nor out of one."

"So ... what do you want from him?"

He took a slow sip of water. Carefully, he put his fork down on the table. His jaw had tightened. Still, he didn't seem properly angry. More like he was bracing himself for something.

He was just about to speak when the doorbell rang.

Flora went to answer the door feeling exasperated and apprehensive in equal measure. It was nine-thirty at night, for goodness' sake. She hoped it wasn't some busybody neighbor, coming to check up on her because her parents were away.

"h.e.l.lo, honeybun."

Charlie was standing on one of the lower steps, grinning up at her from under his mop of fair hair.

"Well, um, h.e.l.lo to you, too. This is a ... surprise."

"A nice one, I hope."

"Of course. It's just that I ..."

"I've been over at Rory's. Bit of an impromptu party going on."

Yes, she thought. His cheeks were a telltale pink, and he was speaking more loudly than usual.

"Anyhow, I wasn't really up for it, so I thought I'd swing by on the way home to see how you're doing, since you're all on your lonesome. Did your folks get off all right?"

"Absolutely. Daddy left a voice mail to say everything was fine. Listen, it's awfully sweet of you to come round, but-"

Somehow, he was swinging confidently past her into the hall. "I hope Mina's stocked up on the munchies. I'm absolutely starving."

Flora hastened after him. "Wait, Charlie. The thing is, it's not really a good time-"

Too late: he was already thumping down the stairs to the kitchen. "h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo," she could hear Charlie saying genially. "Who's this?"

Flora counted to ten, squared her shoulders and went down to join the fray. Charlie was lounging against the Aga, looking exaggeratedly relaxed, as he a.s.sessed Blaine-his tattered clothes and bare feet. The dirty duffel bag propped against the door to the utility room.

"Blaine-this is a friend of mine, Charlie. Charlie, this is Blaine."

Blaine gave a brief nod of acknowledgment. Then he went back to his food.

"Blaine's visiting London for a few days. On, erm, work experience," Flora said overbrightly. She began to twirl her hair. "Anyway, he's had an absolute nightmare with the organization he's with. There was the most frightful mix-up with the accommodation-you wouldn't believe! So he's staying here for a night or two while they sort everything out."

"I see. And you two know each other from ...?"

"St. Bernadine's," Flora said before the silence went on for too long. "It's a church outreach program. The work experience, I mean. They, um, help coordinate it."

Charlie was still smiling. "So you're going to be a priest, Blaine? Or a choirboy?"

Blaine made a hacking, hawking noise in his throat, as if he was about to spit, and reached for the water jug.

"Mmm. That'll be 'no comment,' then.... And how do your parents-" But as Charlie turned to Flora, he did a double take. "G.o.d, Flo, what on earth have you done to your face?"

"Oh." Her hands flew defensively to her cheek. In the dimness of the hall and stairs, her scratches had been hardly noticeable. But she had just moved under one of the spotlights and the marks were now obvious. "Nothing. Just this stray cat I tried to make friends with, till it went all psycho-kitty on me."

"That's the thing about you, Flo: you're a soft touch for any old stray." He looked more closely at her. "Hey, your hands are all cut up, too."

"No, they're fine, honestly. It looks worse than it is."

"Let me have a look. Don't be shy-I've got the healing touch, you know. Magic fingers!"

"Charlie, don't, no-"

Charlie reached for her wrists and she backed away, laughing nervously. They had a breathless little mock tussle by the dresser, and she found she was looking over at Blaine, as if in appeal.

He got to his feet with a noisy sc.r.a.ping of the chair.

"I'm beat. If it's OK with you, I think I'll head for bed." Blaine took his plates to the sink and ran some water over them. Then he looked sidelong at Charlie. "Got a lot of praying to do."

In silence, the other two listened to his feet going up the stairs.

"Well," said Charlie, "I hope you're not going to wake up tomorrow and find all the silver's missing."

"Don't be silly." Flora set about stacking the dishwasher to cover her confusion.

"C'mon-a church outreach program?"

"That's right."

"He doesn't look like a good Catholic schoolboy to me. But I'm not sure how much of a good Catholic schoolgirl you are, either."

She whirled round on her heel. "Exactly what do you mean by that?"

"Nothing. Sorry. b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l." Charlie rubbed his hands over his face and through his hair, frowning. "It's just that ... OK, sometimes, Flo, I get the feeling there's all this deep stuff going on with you that no one knows about. Maybe it's to do with the way you just ... disappear ... every so often. It's as if you completely drop off the planet. And then when I see you afterward, it seems you're, I don't know, going through the motions. Like there's a part of you that's not really there, and that maybe it's the most important part. The part none of us ever gets to see."

Flora realized she was holding her breath. Charlie was more observant-unnervingly so-than she had given him credit for. "Perhaps you're right," she said carefully, despising herself. "The truth is, there are days when I need to disappear for my own sanity. Because there are some things you can't share with other people, however much you want to. Deeply personal, painful things-things that belong in families."

Charlie looked abashed, as she had meant him to. There was a pact among Flora's friends never to mention Grace, or Mrs. Seaton's little weakness. n.o.body was quite certain how this agreement had come about, but all were sure it was with Flora's approval.

"Of course," he said. "Of course you're right. I'm being insensitive, and I'm sorry. Will you forgive me?"

"Always." She smiled up at him in guilt and relief.

"Just remember," he told her as she walked him to the door, "if you ever have anything you want to share, anything at all, I'm here for you. I know how lame this sounds, but ... honestly, Flo, there's no part of you I wouldn't like."

After Charlie had gone and she had cleared away the rest of the supper things, Flora went to sit in Grace's bedroom. Most of Grace's things had long since been packed away, but a representative selection of books and posters stayed. To a casual visitor, it looked as if the Seatons' eldest daughter had gone away to university. Flora sat on the bed and looked from the bookcase-where Little House on the Prairie rested against The Bell Jar-to a Man Ray print on the wall. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, trying to bring back the image of Grace working at her desk-the warm halo of light around her bent head, how her frown of concentration lifted into a welcoming smile when she saw her little sister at the door. But the picture wouldn't come. Instead, Grace's face was obscured by a tangle of black wool and briar-swords.

Flora's whole body ached with exhaustion. Now that she was alone in the silence, the creeping coldness had returned. She went and ran a bath, as scalding hot as she could bear, but even when her flinching pink flesh was totally submerged, she couldn't stop shivering. She lay in the steaming water and sobbed, and sobbed.

BLAINE HEARD FLORA CRYING as he went downstairs to collect his laundry. The sound was m.u.f.fled and rhythmic, an almost mechanical keening, and was as familiar to him as other household noises, like a vacuum cleaner or radio.

He was tired but not sleepy. The house was too silent, the bed too soft; his limbs sank into it without relaxing, as if they didn't quite trust that the cushioning wasn't about to give way. How many weeks since he had last slept in a proper bed? Over a month, he thought-not since that emergency shelter in Holloway. There had been a couple of hostels before that, interspersed with night buses and train stations, a park bench on one or two fraught occasions.

Mostly, though, Blaine had been lucky. He looked older than he was: big enough and tough enough to more or less be left alone.

As he moved his clean clothes to the tumble dryer and watched them slump round and round in the hot air, he felt some of the tension leave his shoulders. You couldn't cadge for money or get odd jobs-packing up market stalls, washing dishes-if you stank or turned up in rags. Thinking of this, he decided that he'd probably been too quick to turn down Flora's offer of clothes.

He sat down against the wall and reached for his bag. There was a leather notebook concealed inside the lining. Its cover was stained and worn. Though he had first read it with confusion and loathing, its pages had become so well known to him that their familiarity was almost comforting.

The first page was a rough sketch of the card known to Blaine as the Triumph of Eternity. It was this card that gave a knight admittance to the Game. A dancing figure hovered above the earth, encircled by a serpent biting its own tail. The four corners of the drawing each contained a little wheel with a smudgy face in its center. Underneath the picture, someone had written in a neat, cramped hand, Dancer = hermaphrodite. Is this significant? NB Vision of the Wheels. Ezekiel 10. At the bottom of the page, written larger for emphasis, was TEMPLE HSE. MERCURY SQ.

The rest of the book was filled with more jottings and diagrams. Images of Death, the Devil and the Tower featured heavily, interspersed with notes on the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead and the black magic practices of an occult society called the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

Blaine traced one of the bloodstains on the book's cover. He looked without really seeing at the tight, neat script inside, and thought of the first time he'd seen this handwriting.

My dear Helen, the card on the mantelpiece had read, I hope you don't mind me writing to thank you for such a delightful evening.... Even as a small boy, Blaine had known that Helen wasn't like other mothers. She laughed louder than most people and cried more, too. As for other people's fathers, that was something Blaine didn't really think about. His own had left when he was a baby, or perhaps even before he was born. Blaine's grandmother looked after them both. Helen, she said, was too easily hurt by the world.

The trouble came when Blaine turned twelve, and his grandmother died. After the funeral, Helen shut herself in her bedroom for weeks. She didn't dress or wash and barely seemed to eat. Meanwhile, Blaine did his best to look after the house and do the shopping and cleaning, as his grandmother had taught him to.

After a while, Helen got better. She went back to giving piano lessons in their tiny sitting room and seemed to enjoy it. She started seeing friends again, too. Then one of their neighbors, Liz the nurse, invited Helen to a party. It was there that Helen met Arthur White.