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‘It’s worth a try.’
‘Fran?’
‘Go for it,’ Fran said.
They came to Rollestone Crossroads and went tearing north again. The road rose up, and let them see for miles; then dipped again. Darkness stretched away in all directions, but strange red lights were glowing here and there. The fringes of the firing range were coming up ahead.
Fran hung on, and braced herself. The Bustard vedette showed up in the headlamps as Paul swerved onto the narrow westbound road. No one was there to see them pass. The lonely sentry hut was locked and dark.
The unlit military road led up towards West Down. It might have been a country lane; Paul took it at exhilarating speed. The murk out here was dense and overwhelming: trapped beneath the starlight like a layer of London smog. Fran straightened up, and peered through her window, still searching for the string of phantom lights.
Then Paul yelled: ‘Jesus, SHIT!’
She swung around, and saw it in the headlights: a figure in the middle of the road. A featureless, inhuman face, with gaping holes for eyes.
Paul wrenched the wheel, and lost control.
The car went slewing off the road and plunged into a ditch. The bonnet crumpled up, the windscreen shattered. Fran was thrown against her belt: the impact mashed the breath from her lungs. Her head struck something hard and bounded off. Stunned, she felt herself flop back.
The world had just stopped dead.
She lolled there for a moment, sick and winded. Her whole head had gone numb – as if a piece of it was missing. Cold night air blew softly on her face.
Something started fizzing by her knees. Sparks, she thought, oh Jesus, we’ll catch fire. Galvanized, she struggled with her belt – and glanced at Paul. He was slumped against the wheel, head down. ‘Paul … ?’ she quavered, reaching out to take hold of his shoulder. She shook him, hard. He made no sound.
The muffled sizzling came again. She cringed away – then realized it was just the CB set: skew-whiff on its rack, but still lit up. She peered at it stupidly. Someone whimpered softly from behind her.
‘… convoy coming into Tilshead now …’
Help, she thought, and groped round for the handset. She found it dangling; scooped it up.
The radio hissed at her.
Fran recoiled again, as if she’d just picked up a snake. The hiss broke into eerie gibberish: almost like another voice, but mangled and tormented. Fear lanced through her. She dropped the handset, fought against her door and felt it give. She slithered out, and rolled onto the grass.
The headlamps were still on: staring and blind, like a dead thing’s eyes. The tail-lights left a bloody trail that almost reached the road.
They tinged the silhouette that waited there.
Someone in the car was weeping quietly. Ignoring them, she peered towards the road. Her mind flashed up the face she’d glimpsed. She thought its horrid gauntness had been muffled by a hood.
A soldier. In a gas mask?
But then the figure started coming forward. Something about its shambling gait made her struggle to her feet. Then the scarlet glow lit up the face beneath the cowl.
Oh Jesus Christ.
A metal mask stared back at her: brow and cheekbones setting off the tar-pits of the eyes. The lower face remained scarfed up in shadow. The sight was almost toad-like – and revolting. She stumbled back – then swung around and fled. Clear of the car, and out into the darkness of the range.
The shadow thing came striding in pursuit.
I (#ulink_30cc4f5a-a30d-5be7-ac6d-964fac4cb453)
WATCHERS (#ulink_30cc4f5a-a30d-5be7-ac6d-964fac4cb453)
(1993) (#ulink_30cc4f5a-a30d-5be7-ac6d-964fac4cb453)
Beautiful city! … Whispering from its towers the last enchantments of the Middle Age … Home of lost causes and forsaken beliefs.
MATTHEW ARNOLD, ON OXFORD
CHAPTER I (#ulink_47a80fc5-aa54-50f3-809f-3137a2baebd2)
Spire Dreams (#ulink_47a80fc5-aa54-50f3-809f-3137a2baebd2)
1
Lynette caught sight of her from over the road, and gave a little wave. The gesture, like her smile, was almost shy; but her pretty face was bright with expectation.
Fran almost turned and walked away right then.
It had taken her so long to get this far. She hadn’t even answered that first letter. But Lynette had patiently persisted: so gentle, so committed, that all at once, one afternoon, Fran’s brittle shell had cracked. She’d wept a year’s worth of tears that day; her mum had told her later what a blessed sound it was – drifting downstairs from the bedroom through the silent, sunlit hall. After all those months of torpor and withdrawal, her daughter sobbing like a little girl.
More letters; then a phone call. We have to meet, Lynette had said. And Fran was feeling better, but still delicate and drained – as if she’d just brought up the poison of the world’s worst tummy ache. She’d hesitated; hummed and hawed. The soft voice on the phone was a voice from the past. And the past was forbidden ground.
Yet here she was, right now, in sunny Oxford, nervously waiting while Lynette crossed the street. As ever, Lyn looked gorgeous – a picture of elegance in her smart black trouser suit and snowy blouse. Fran suddenly felt dowdy in her cardigan and leggings.
Lyn hesitated for a moment, then gently touched her shoulders – kissed her cheek. When she drew back, her smile looked stretched; her eyes were bright and wet.
Fran felt her own eyes prickling behind the shades she wore. Her throat had tightened up, she couldn’t speak. That smile was from the Old Days: from Before. She’d almost forgotten what the sunshine looked like – the nuclear winter in her head had blotted it all out. But now, at last, the cold, black smoke was lifting. A glimpse of light again. A breath of spring.
And more than that: her friend was here, and beaming her delight. It made Fran warm inside, to see her pleasure. It made her feel so happy she could cry.
Lyn had worked so hard for this. She’d earned it. Fran wanted just to hug her, and hold tight.
‘Oh, God … Sorry …’ Lyn blinked and sniffed, still smiling. People kept on passing, heedless of the reunion in their midst. ‘I’ve missed you,’ she said simply.
Fran swallowed. ‘Thanks for waiting.’ An even bigger under-statement, but she couldn’t find a better way to say it. And had it only been four years? She felt like Rip van Winkle (Sleeping Beauty was too flattering a parallel): waking up to find the world had changed, and all her friends were dust …
Except for one. And who’d have guessed it, back when they were freshers?
‘Come on,’ Lyn said, and took her elbow. ‘Remember Heroes? It’s still there. Let’s have coffee.’
2
She’d been down for her interview, and seen its winter colours; but it had taken that golden first weekend to really bring her under Oxford’s spell.
Michaelmas Term: even the name was strange and rich somehow. The city in the autumn sunlight had seemed part of a whole new world. After the rugged countryside of home, it might have been a magical realm. She could feel the age of things down here: the buildings, and the books. And though she’d grown up close to ancient places, they’d never had a hold on her like this.
The place was beautiful enough; she had watched the stone-work glowing in the amber setting sun. But for her, the fascination was its treasury of thought. That was why she’d worked to come to Oxford: to study there, and somehow soak it up. Those hoards of books; those centuries of learning. It wasn’t the prestige: that didn’t matter.
Well, not much.
She’d signed herself in at Christ Church, unable to stop smiling. The college had entranced her from the start: a citadel of honey-coloured stone. Exploring, she’d found shady cloisters, quiet little nooks. A maze of spires and ivy. It was like an old-world castle in some fantasy she’d read. But this time it was real, and she was here. Little Frannie Bennett, from Up North. Her accent was soft, but she’d broadened it when posher ones cropped up. I went to a comprehensive, but I’m just as good as you.
Her spacious study bedroom overlooked an inner quad. Halfway through unpacking, she’d sat on the bed, and started taking stock. Still high on her excitement, she felt a little awed as well: belittled by the splendour of the place. She was suddenly grown up, and on her own. In Oxford – hours from home. No turning back now. The thought upset her buoyancy somewhat.
The first thing you should unpack is your kettle, Mum had said. Fran did so – and her mug and coffee too.
Lynette, meanwhile, was moving in next door.
Fran’s mum and dad had seen her off at the station, but Lyn’s had driven down here. There was lots of to-ing and fro-ing; the mother sounding anxious, the father more laid-back. Fran had the impression they were pretty well-to-do.
‘Oh Mummy, please don’t fuss,’ was Lyn’s first plaintive contribution.
She was hovering in the corridor when Fran peered out: awkwardly aloof, as if watching someone else’s room being furnished. She looked tired and rather miserable already. Someone else whose heady day might yet end in tears.
‘Can I offer you a coffee?’ Fran asked.
The girl’s smile was so grateful that it forged a bond at once. Posh though she was, her face was naturally friendly; her toffee-coloured eyes were warm and soft. Fran beckoned her in, and made another mug.
They swapped details like the schoolgirls they’d so recently been: Fran sitting cross-legged on her strange new bed; her first guest perched politely on the chair. Lyn was from Coventry, and had come here to read History; her father was a professor in the subject. Fran, who lived in Derbyshire, was doing French and German. Listening to Lyn talk – each consonant impeccably pronounced – she couldn’t help but feel a little distanced. Yet the other’s well-bred poise offset a shyness that she warmed to; a niceness that she couldn’t help but like.
‘You’re sure you’ll be all right, Lyn, darling?’ her mother asked from the doorway. The smile she offered Fran was gracious enough, but Fran had felt herself assessed, the woman clearly wondering who her daughter would fall in with, once free of the parental gaze.
‘Quite sure, Mummy. Thanks ever so much for everything …’ On which sweet note she saw them firmly to the car.
‘Fancy a wander?’ Fran asked, when she came back; and out they’d gone together, looking round the mellow college buildings, before meandering down onto Christ Church Meadow. Back to the Hall for a welcoming communal dinner; then coffee in Lyn’s room, the window open wide on the Oxfordshire dusk. Their friendship put its roots into that balmy autumn evening, and blossomed through the busy weeks ahead. By the end of that first short term, they might have known each other years: sharing secrets, clothes and sound advice. Fran and Lyn, inseparable as sisters.
3
‘Remember that time we hired a punt?’ Lyn asked her, smiling: drawing her gently back towards the past.
‘God, yes. Frannie and Lyn Go Boating. And wasn’t that a bloody disaster … ?’ But she was smiling herself, recalling how that afternoon had gone: a piece of farce so perfect that they’d ended up quite helpless with the giggles (though without a pole). And underpinning it, the river’s calm, the spires that gleamed with sunlight on the skyline; a clocktower chiming three …
‘Why don’t you take those sunglasses off?’ Lyn said, making a mischievous face, in case Fran took it the wrong way. ‘People will think you’re a spy or something …’
Fran stared at her for a moment; sensed a flicker of unease behind her friend’s determined smile. Then, slowly, she reached up and took her shades off. They were the pair she’d always used to wear: cheap wraparound black plastic. Her mocking, mock defence against being photographed and filmed. No laughing matter now, though; she hardly ventured out without them. They filtered the day – made it colourless and safe. Their lenses were anonymous, a mask.
The coffee bar grew brighter; Lyn watched her, looking anxious. And how must I look? Fran thought. She knew how she felt: as if she’d pulled her knickers down in public. That helpless; that exposed.
But she placed them on the tabletop, beside her sipped-at cup, and clasped her hands upon them. She didn’t need a mirror to see the paleness of her face, the vulnerable depths of her wide green eyes. She could read all that from Lyn’s concerned expression.
Go on, she thought, just tell me I’ve lost weight. She’d always been a slender girl – a real Slim Susan, Mum said – but now she felt uncomfortable and scrawny. And while Lyn still wore her dark hair in a stylish, silky bob, she’d let her own grow shaggy: a malty mane that brushed against her shoulders.
But Lyn said nothing; just placed her hand on Fran’s, and gently squeezed.
‘You’re sure you want to do this today?’ she asked after a pause.
Fran nodded quickly: shaking off temptation before it really got a grip. ‘Have to start somewhere.’ Especially there … where it had all begun.
‘There’s no hurry. Plenty of time …’ From the look on Lyn’s face, she wasn’t sure if it was a good idea at all.
Fran drank some more cool coffee, and changed the subject. ‘How’s the thesis coming on?’
Lyn wavered, then went with the flow. Smiled modestly. ‘Oh … it’s coming.’
‘So, when’s it going to be Doctor Simmons, then?’
‘God, don’t ask …’ But she was beaming at the prospect, and Fran felt a little warmer, deep inside. It eased the guilt she felt for having missed Lyn’s graduation; she wouldn’t lose this coming second chance. Even as they chatted on, she searched Lyn’s smiley face. It sounded like her future was as clear as her complexion. No storms on her horizon; not a cloud in her blue sky …
‘You’re working, then?’ she asked her.
‘Mm,’ said Lyn, ‘but not this afternoon. It’s temping – just to pay the bills. I’m a bit of a church mouse at the moment …’ She flicked at the sleeve of her well-cut suit. Fran couldn’t help but smile to herself.
Lyn hadn’t noticed; her own gaze lingered on her cup. Carefully she set it down, and bit her lip; then took the plunge.
‘Craig’s been in touch,’ she said.
Fran’s chest grew hot and heavy in the silence that followed. She fiddled with her rings; then swallowed. ‘Is he here?’
Lyn nodded. ‘Staying with friends in London.’ Her eyes were down again, embarrassed. ‘He … never forgot you, Fran. All the time you were …’ Tailing off, she twisted round to unfasten her bag, and took an envelope out. After the briefest hesitation, she laid it on the tabletop between them.
Fran rested her mouth against her hands, staring at the neat white rectangle. No stamp on it, and no address; it had gone from hand to hand. Just one word, written with a flourish. Her own name.
‘He gave me that for you,’ Lyn said, unnecessarily. ‘He wants to see you.’
Oh, Jesus, Fran thought numbly. She felt empty inside: unable to react.
Lyn leaned forward. ‘Fran, we’re here,’ she whispered. ‘You don’t have to face anything alone. He really cares for you – believe me. Just … let us hold your hands; go through it with you.’
Fran felt a tear trickle down her cheek; like the first drop heralding a downpour. She fought to keep herself in check. Lyn took her hands and held them. The threatened cloudburst faded back to grumble gloomily on the horizon.
Fran took a shaky breath. ‘… Thanks.’ She sniffed, her eyes still shining wet; then managed a damp smile. ‘You’re an angel, Lyn. Friend in a million …’
‘Let’s leave it for today,’ suggested Lyn. ‘Come on: let’s just go and sit in the Meadow …’
‘I can’t,’ Fran said, and shook her head. ‘We’ll take it slowly … but I have to go back. I can’t go any further till I’ve laid the past to rest.’
CHAPTER II (#ulink_5c5bf8c7-812e-587d-ba51-1e73aed39113)
Grey Ravens (#ulink_5c5bf8c7-812e-587d-ba51-1e73aed39113)
1
Lyn drove out of Oxford and northward through the countryside. The world through Fran’s shades had a monochrome look, but she could smell the breadth and texture of the fields: new-cut grass, and fresh manure, and fleeting wild flowers. Her heart throbbed hard, constricted. She felt a little sick.
Lunch was a welcome hiatus. Past a picturesque village, they found a shady spot above the road, and stopped to eat. Lyn had prepared a modest picnic: French bread sandwiches, fresh fruit, and cans of sparkling wine. Two glasses and a tablecloth as well: she’d always been an organized young lady.
