A red glow came from behind thin veils or curtains suspended from the roof. She heard the distant creak of someone shifting his weight in a chair. The room was unexpectedly long and narrow, more like a tunnel than a room.
‘Amy?’ he called. ‘Come closer. Is it really you?’
She walked under the veil; it slid slowly over her head, seeming to linger in her hair, like a hand or the trail of a bird, or like a known dress with its intimate pink.
‘Does this take you back?’ he said.
Amy stared. The man was a long way away. She could see that he wore some kind of hood or cowl. He began to move towards her. There was time for her to run but she did not run. Perhaps there was no time, either, not really. She knew who the man was now.
‘Do you remember?’
‘Yes, I remember,’ she said.
‘Look what you’ve done to me. Look what I’ve done to you…’
‘Are you—will you kill me now?
‘Again? How can I? You’re already dead—can’t you see? Life is hell, life is murder, but then death is very lifelike. Death is terribly easy to believe.’
He had been coming forward for some time now and still had quite a way to go. She started to move towards him, to make the next thing happen sooner, to save time.
‘You know who I am?’
‘Yes.’
‘And now you know I can never leave you. I am the policeman, I am the murderer. Try again, take care, be good. Your life was too poor not to last for ever. Get it right this time. Come, I’ll be very quick.’
His arms enfolded her. She felt a sensation of speed so intense that her nose caught the tang of smouldering air. She saw a red beach bubbled with sandpools under a furious and unstable sun. She felt she was streaming, she felt she was undoing everywhere. Oh, father, she thought, my mouth is full of stars. Please put them out and take me home to bed.
The sensation of speed returned for a moment, then nothing did.
• • •
Her first feeling, as she smelled the air, was one of intense and helpless gratitude. I’m all right, she thought with a gasp. Time—it’s starting again. She tried to blink away all the water in her eyes, but there was too much to deal with and she soon shut them tight.
‘Are you all right now, Amy?’ her mother asked.
‘Yes.’
‘You’re yourself again? Are you sure?’
Amy opened her eyes. She was lying on her bed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘I don’t know what comes over you sometimes. You just have to have your own way, don’t you. Oh well. Off you go then, this time.’
‘Thank you. I’m sorry.’
‘Be good now.’
Her mother left the room. Amy sat up. She must have been crying for a long time. It was a relief to be able to stop, and to rejoin things again. She wiped her tears away in front of the mirror and hurriedly brushed her hair.
She ran down the stairs. Her father stood with his back turned in the hall. He was winding the grandfather clock. She walked up to him and put her hand on his shoulder, her face full of gentle insistence.
‘Amy,’ he said, and turned slowly. ‘Back in the land of the living, are you?’
‘Forgiven?’
He took her hand and kissed it. ‘Forgiven. Now take care.’
Amy opened the door and stepped out into the afternoon.
• • •
Epilogue
This is a promise. I won’t do anything to her if she doesn’t want me to. I won’t do anything to her unless she asks for it. And that’s not very likely, is it, at her age? That’s not very realistic? Still, at least she’s legal—just about, I’m pretty sure.
Here she comes, shutting the front door behind her and walking quickly down the path. I’m standing in the deep shade on the other side of the street. Even at this distance I can tell by the brightness in her eyes that she’s been crying. Poor baby … Oh man, what is that girl doing to me? She’s doing something. I’ll find out in time. Time … I feel as though I’ve done these things before, and am glazedly compelled to do them again. But perhaps all things like this feel like that. I’m—I’m tired. I’m not in control any more, not this time. Oh hell. Let’s get it over with.
Any moment now I’ll step out into the street. I can see her coming to the end of the path and hesitating as she reaches the road, looking this way and that, wondering which way to go.
• • •