Changeling Read online

  They talked about the Dwarf Spinner and about the new venture. Miller was cagey about that; he was still working on it, he said, and it did not do to discuss things too early. Sometimes that was the way to abort a promising idea. Gerald did not really understand this, but he nodded slowly several times as if he did.

  Mia had some very good ideas to offer. Gerald was proud to listen to her, and Tod Miller listened as well, refilling his wine glass several times, doing so absently as if he was so absorbed in the conversation that he was not really noticing what he was doing. Once or twice he said, ‘Now that is a very interesting idea, Mrs Makepiece,’ and Mia said at once that he must call her Mia, they were going to be friends. This was characteristic of her and one of her most endearing traits; she wanted always to be on terms of friendship with people. No one ever took advantage of it.

  They parted on the steps of the Royal, Miller making a joke about how he had drunk so much he would have to be decanted onto his train, and Mia laughing with him and saying that as far as she was concerned, the afternoon had better be spent in bed. From another lady this might have sounded a bit suggestive, but Mia was as innocent as a kitten.

  Tod Miller would be telephoning from London as soon as he had begun to put things in hand. There was a great deal to do. A small office in central London would have to be found, although their registered company address would be Gerald’s own, of course. Miller had been glad to accept this suggestion, explaining that he knew very little about business. Every man to his own trade, he said, and then changed it quickly to profession. ‘But really, Mr Makepiece, it’s more usual to call in an established production company fairly early on.’

  Gerald said, ‘Oh, I don’t think we want that, Mr Miller. I think we want to keep control of everything.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘And I believe I could very easily create a new, properly registered company within Makepiece Enterprises.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Tod again. And, ‘Could you now?’

  ‘We might even,’ said little Makepiece with a nauseatingly uxorious glance at his lady, ‘even call it Mia Productions, what do you say to that now?’

  Tod thought that what he would like to say would not be very well received, so he murmured that it was certainly a thought. He betook himself to his train amidst a general air of approval and optimism.

  Gerald Makepiece, waving their guest off, remarked happily to Mia that the day had gone remarkably well.

  Apart from little Makepiece’s ideas of finance, which were generous, the day had been alarming.

  Tod stumbled into a carriage, and fell into the grubby railway seat. Makepiece was a gullible old fool – although he was a very rich gullible old fool – and his lady was the worst kind of greedy has-been. Tod resisted the thought that it took one to know one, because he was not a has-been and no one had ever thought it; he was going to make the most terrific comeback ever known in the West End, although he would prefer not to do it with Mia Makepiece hanging on to his coat-tails. He would postpone telling little Gerald this, however, until he saw what roles were available in the show. They might be able to palm her off with something minor.

  He would begin writing the show as soon as he got back. He would probably get an idea quite quickly once he put his mind to it. He would come up with something that would knock the Dwarf Spinner into obscurity. Well, he would have to, because he had told Makepiece and his lady that he would, making one of his impromptu speeches at the railway station and punctuating it with the huge expansive gestures that the public had always loved from him. Ah, the old, grandiloquent Hot Toddy was still alive! He did not think it had mattered that he had stumbled over a porter’s trolley while speaking: you could not be looking out for such mundane things when you were in full and eloquent rhetorical flight. He did not think that little Makepiece or Mia had noticed that the burgundy had given him wind in the gut, either.

  He closed his eyes and fell into not-quite-silent sleep which lasted most of the way to Euston, when he woke with a sour taste in his mouth and a bilious headache.

  He took a taxi to Pimlico, only to find that Fael was still out at her stupid children’s hospital concert, there was no supper left out for him, and there were two letters propped up on his desk. He opened them to discover that one was from the agency handling the Spreadi-Cracker account, saying they were very sorry, but it had been decided to discontinue national TV advertising for the present, due to a down-trend in sales.

  The other was from Barclays Bank, reminding him with thinly-veiled impatience that the house mortgage was now five months in arrears.

  Chapter Two

  Peter and the Wolf was a riot. The children were serious and absorbed, their faces intent on the story and on remembering what Fael had told them. Fael, who had thought she had successfully quenched all maternal instincts since the car crash, suddenly found that she wanted to scoop them all up and hug them for doing so well.

  They used the small hall which served as a lecture theatre and Christmas-disco venue. There was a good-sized stage, and two of the male nurses helped with curtains and some quite professional spot-lighting. After it was over several of the parents stayed on to meet her and thank her, and the consultant in charge of the adult paraplegic wing wanted to talk about the possibility of a more ambitious show, with the adults as well as the children taking part. This was a very intriguing suggestion, and by the time they had finished discussing it, it was half-past seven, so the consultant suggested he took her out to dinner in a nearby Greek restaurant. He was rather intriguing himself, so Fael was glad she was wearing the silk jacket and the silver and black boots.

  It was as she was spinning her wheelchair down the ramp to meet the consultant, who was fetching his car from the staff car park, that she was suddenly and uneasily aware of being watched. She halted the chair at once, and looked about her. The clinic was a modern symmetrical building, with polished corridors and plate glass everywhere, but adjoining it was a large Victorian house, standing in dark, rather tanglewood gardens. The house had been annexed for offices and sleeping quarters for night staff, and the old gloomy garden with its tall old trees and a thick gloomy shrubbery was still there. To reach the staff car park it was necessary to go through this garden, and Fael usually rather liked doing so because the nodding trees and the shiny-leaved laurel cast a smeary, green twilight, which made you think about all the old tales of dark romance. But at half-past seven on a November evening there was nothing romantic about the place at all, in fact there was an unmistakable aura of menace.

  Fael had just framed this thought and she was thinking it might be better to spin her chair fairly rapidly towards people and lights, when there was a soft footfall on the gravel path somewhere behind her. She spun the chair around at once, and the footfall came again. Fael’s heart began to beat faster. There was someone here. It was almost certainly someone who had every right to be here, but—

  But there was something extraordinarily furtive about the sounds. Fael received the impression of someone standing in the shadows, using the trees as a screen.

  And then the shadows seemed almost to part as if a hand had thrust them arrogantly aside like a curtain, and the figure of a man wearing a long, dark coat, with a deep-brimmed hat shadowing his face, stepped out. Fael only just managed not to gasp. A soft voice said at once, ‘I’m sorry – did I startle you?’

  ‘Well it – yes, you did a bit.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to.’

  He stayed where he was, and Fael, who had been about to turn her chair again and go haring off in the direction of the car park, hesitated and looked at him again, trying to penetrate the shadows. This, surely, was someone she had met. ‘Do I know you?’ she said, at last.

  He appeared to consider this, and then after a moment, he said, ‘We’ve never actually been introduced.’

  Fael had the impression that he had chosen these words carefully. And he speaks as if he can’t quite pronounce some of the letters – as if his mouth wasn
’t quite designed for human speech. Still, this is a medical place, after all. But I wish that doctor would hurry up with the car.

  But the feeling of familiarity remained, and she said, ‘Were you at the show this afternoon? Is that where I recognise you from?’ Because if he was a parent or someone attached to the clinic it would be silly and even a bit rude to scuttle off without just exchanging a few words.

  ‘You recognise me, do you?’ he said.

  ‘Not exactly, but I have the feeling that we’ve met,’ said Fael guardedly and thought if it had not been for this sensation of recognition, she might have been quite frightened.

  ‘I didn’t come to see the show,’ said the dark-clad figure. ‘I came to see you, Fael.’

  He knows my name, thought Fael. Oh lord, I’m not sure if I like this. I’m not sure if this mightn’t be a potentially dangerous situation. If I could see his face I’d feel better. Aloud she said, ‘Why? I mean, why did you come to see me?’

  ‘I was curious,’ he said, and then, as a light went on at a window somewhere above them he stepped back. He’s flinching from the light, thought Fael, in horror. He’s dodging it. But she could see now that he was a slenderly built, quite youngish man. But wasn’t he somehow deformed? No, not exactly deformed, perhaps, but there was something wrong, there was something just very slightly out of kilter somewhere. And I still can’t see his face at all, thought Fael, and with the framing of this thought, another coil of fear spiralled up. She glanced over her shoulder to see if there was any sign of the doctor.

  And then the stranger said, ‘I wanted to see if you were like your mother, Fael,’ and Fael turned back at once, because this was instantly interesting. Her mother had died so long ago that Fael had only the dimmest of memories of her and Tod did not like her mentioned. (‘Too painful,’ he always said with a sigh, when Fael asked questions. ‘Don’t ask me to talk about her.’)

  But if this unknown young man (was he unknown?) had really met her mother, it might be good to talk to him, even though it was still not a reason for trusting him. Fael said, ‘Where did you know her? How?’

  ‘From my home in Ireland. Aine visited it once or twice when I was very small.’

  He pronounced the name correctly – Aw-ne – which not many people did. Fael registered this, and then said, ‘Yes, she was Irish.’ Something prompted her to add, ‘A lot of people know that.’ And thought: yes, and it wouldn’t be hard to find out the correct pronunciation of her name, either.

  ‘Your father based the heroine of the Dwarf Spinner on her.’

  ‘A lot of people know that as well.’

  ‘You’re very defensive,’ he said, and there was a blurred note of amusement now. ‘But truly I don’t mean any harm.’ He appeared to study her. His face was still in shadow, which Fael was beginning to find very disquieting indeed. If he moves forward I’ll yell for help, she thought. And then – or will I? There’s a darkness where his face ought to be. Oh God, I wish I hadn’t thought that.

  ‘You’re very like Aine,’ he said, unexpectedly.

  ‘So I’ve been told.’

  ‘You have her hair – like liquid moonlight. And you have her eyes. Like melted aquamarines.’

  He was deliberately referring to the Dwarf Spinner again, of course. ‘Melting the Moonlight’ was one of the high points of the show, where the heroine was imprisoned in the drug baron’s house, and the baron’s hippie followers, high on marijuana, sang and danced mockingly around her, conjuring up their drug-induced rainbows and pouring them into the great melting-pot centre stage, and then spinning up the glittering living lengths of gold that she is unable to produce, until the dark, evil dwarf-magician finally appears. Anyone who had ever seen the show, or one of its amateur revivals, could have made that remark.

  As if he had picked this up, he said at once, ‘Tod Miller’s work is well known to me, Fael. That’s one of the reasons I was curious to see you.’

  ‘Oh. Well, now you’ve seen me and you know what I look like, and—’ It would be the height of bad manners to tell him to sod off, and he had not actually done anything to warrant it, so Fael said, ‘And now I must be going – someone is collecting me.’

  There was a moment when she thought he was going to step out of the twisting shadows, and she drew in a deep breath, although she had no idea whether it was to yell for help or simply to prepare for some kind of an attack. And then car headlights sliced through the darkness, and Fael turned her head and saw with thankfulness the consultant’s car coming towards them. The stranger made a gesture that might have meant anything at all, and stepped back into the trees.

  Like a thick black curtain coming down, the shadows fell silently into place again.

  It was almost midnight when Fael got back to Pimlico, and it looked as if Tod had returned from wherever he had been, cooked himself a meal and gone out again. He had left the cooker switched on, which was going to send that quarter’s electricity bill sky-high, and there were plates with the dried messy remains of what looked like spaghetti bolognese. Fael cursed him, and switched off the cooker but left the plates in the sink for him to wash in the morning because she was damned if she was going to be Tod’s skivvy. The heat of the cooker had left a faint, burnt-food odour everywhere. Fael boiled the kettle for a mug of tea, and then wheeled through to her room which was next to the music room.

  The burnt-food smell had not penetrated in here. At this time of year there were the wet-earth smells of chrysanthemums and the sweet-scented tobacco plant beneath her window. It was nice to lie in bed like this and sip a mug of tea, and think back over the evening. Her bed faced the window which looked over the garden. It was a large garden by most London standards because of the house being mid-Victorian, and Fael always left the window open and the curtains drawn back when she went to bed. She had spent hours lying here in the first weeks after the car crash that had injured her legs and part of her spine, when the fear that she might never walk again had blotted out almost everything else. But they had pretty much put her together again, the doctors had said, kindly. She was almost as good as new. The main problem was that nerves and their casings in the spine had been quite severely damaged – rather in the way that protective conduit tubes around electrical wires could be damaged – but the prognosis was good, and they were fairly confident of an almost-complete recovery. There was already a degree of sensory response and motor control in her legs.

  ‘I’ll walk again?’

  Yes, certainly, said the surgeon, who had a thin, intelligent face. He added, carefully, that it would be a long haul and a lot of work. It might be as much as two or even three years, and she would probably never be able to run marathons, but if she was diligent about exercises and physiotherapy, in time she would walk again.

  It had not been until after they explained all this that they told her about that other, invisible injury: the loss of the child she had not even realised had been conceived. But there was no irreparable damage done, they had said quickly. There was nothing to suggest that further children could not be conceived and born with absolute normality.

  That bastard Simon, Fael had thought, hazily, lying back in the narrow hospital bed. Simon and the failure rate of the condom. Two per cent, was it? Well, Simon could sod off and take his two per cent failure with him. It looked as if he had done that anyway. She did not care. She only cared about walking again.

  It had been a long time before she had dared believe she would walk again; and there had been a great many nights when she had lain here, with sleep as far away as the moon. She knew the garden by moonlight and sunlight and she knew it under leaden, rain-swollen skies, and under rose and gold dawns when the birdsong trickled through the garden like quicksilver. She knew its every mood, and it knew hers, and it had helped her through some very bad hours indeed.

  She had managed to put the strange, shadowy young man to the back of her mind, and she had nearly managed to forget the oddly compelling voice as well. She was not going to think about
it any more. A chance encounter with an off-beat, that was all it had been.

  The Greek dinner had been enjoyable, and the young consultant had been good company. You tended to miss out a bit on men when you were tied to a wheelchair; most of them ran a mile.

  Over dinner, they had talked about the consultant’s plan to put on a show with the adult patients, but they had talked about other things as well. Fael rather hoped he might ask her out again. Even if he did not, it was a good feeling to know she had achieved something solid and worthwhile with the disabled children. Adults might be harder to cope with, or they might be easier. She switched off the bedside light and leaned back on the pillows, turning over suitable themes.

  It would have to be something fairly simple, but not so simple that it would be patronising. Disabled limbs did not automatically mean a disabled mind. Look at Stephen Hawking. Look at yourself as well, Fael, only don’t look too hard or too long because you might start to get bitter and self-pitying – you might start counting up how many months or years are still ahead before you can walk down a street without sticks.

  Several of the consultant’s group were apparently studying for Open University degrees: English Literature and History courses, which made Fael wonder if it would be possible to do a scaled-down version of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. You could have a lot of fun with all the characters telling their different stories and it might be possible to use actual medieval music and soup it up. Professor Roscius had always shown mock-horror at her habit of syncopating Bach and Handel, but actually he had enjoyed it. Fael could remember terrific jam sessions when she and his other pupils had virtually taken over the ground floor of the narrow, friendly Chelsea house, and improvised to their hearts’ content, switching from rock to jazz to baroque and back again. Roscius had loved it; he had encouraged them and helped them, and produced cider and lager when their creative flow finally gave out and they flopped down on cushions on the floor. Sometimes he would send out for pizzas or fish and chips, and they would all eat and talk a great deal, and then start up again. Fael missed those evenings. She still missed the professor.