King Rat (21 page)

He saw small tales about Egyptian tomb-robbers, giant trees in New Zealand, the growth of the Internet.

Saul began to pull back clumps of pages now, going back years at a time. There was more writing in the earlier years.

7/7/88: Trade Unions. Must read old arguments! Had a long argument with David at work about Union today. He going on and on about ineffectual and
etc.
etc.
and I rather letting myself down, just seemed to sit there saying Yes but solidarity vital! He wasn’t having any of it. Must reread Engels on Trade Unions.

Have vague memories of being rather impressed but could be fooling myself. Saul still very sulky. Don’t know what’s going on there at all. Remember seeing book about Teenagers and Problems, though can’t remember where. Must track it down.

Saul felt awash with the same hopeless love he had felt when he had shown Fabian the book his father had bought him. He was going about it all wrong, the old man, but all he wanted to do was understand.

Maybe there was no right way to do it. I was wrong too., he thought.

Back, back, he moved through the years. Deborah cuddled into him for warmth.

He read about the time his father had had an argument with one of his history teachers over the best way to present Cromwell.

No, fair enough, maybe can’t be talking about Bourgeoisie to group of ten-year-olds but shouldn’t be glossing over him! Terrible man, yes (Ireland, and
etc.
etc.) but must make clear nature of Revolution!

He read a reference to one of his father’s girlfriends - ‘M.’ He could not remember her at all. He knew his father had kept such affairs out of the house. He did not think his father had had any romantic involvement at all in the last six or seven years of his life.

He read about his own fifth birthday party. He remembered it: he had been given two Indian head-dresses, and in retrospect a thrill of worry had passed around the adults, concerned at his reaction, but he
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had been elated. To have not one but two of the beautiful feathered things ... He remembered the joy. Saul was seeking the first reference to himself, maybe a mention of his dead mother, who had been carefully excised from his father’s ruminations. A date caught his eye: 8/2/72, the only entry from the year of his birth, the birth itself apparently not recorded. There was no cutting attached to the entry.

Saul’s brow furrowed as he read the first few words.

We are a few weeks on now from the attack, which I don’t really want to talk about. E. is very strong, Thank God. Many fears, of course, alleys and
etc.
etc., but overall she is getting better daily. Kept asking her was she sure, I thought we should go to the Police. Don’t you want him caught? I asked her and she said No I just don’t want to see him again. Can’t help thinking this is a mistake but it must be her decision of course. Am trying to be what she needs but God Knows it is hard. Worst at night, of course. Don’t know whether better to comfort/cuddle or not touch and she doesn’t seem to know either. Definitely the worst times, tears
etc.
Am beating about the bush. Fact is, E. had test and is pregnant. Can’t be sure of course but have looked at timing carefully and looks very likely that it is his. Discussed abortion but E.

can’t face it. So after long hard talks have decided to go ahead. No record, so no one need know. Hope everything turns out alright. I’ll admit, I’m afraid for child. Haven’t yet worked out my own reaction.

Must be strong for E.’s sake.

Saul’s chest had gone quite hollow.

Somewhere Deborah was saying something to him.

Oh, he felt stupid.

He saw what he had lost.

Stupid, stupid boy, he thought, and at the same time he was thinking: You needn’t have worried, Dad.

You were strong as fuck.

Tears came cold to his eyes and he heard Deborah again.

Look at what you lost, he thought. She died! he thought suddenly. She died, and still he did right by me.

How could he? I killed her, I killed his wife! Every time he looked at me, wasn’t he looking at the rape?

Wasn’t he looking at the thing that killed his wife?

Stupid boy, he thought. Uncle Rat? When were you going to think that one through? he thought.

But more than anything he could not stop wondering at the man who had raised him, had tried to understand him, and had given him books to help him understand the world. Because when he had looked at Saul, somehow he did not see murder, or his lost wife, or the brutality in the alley (and Saul knew just how that attacker had appeared, as if from nowhere, out of the bricks, as he himself moved).

Somehow, when he looked at Saul he looked at his son, and even when the air between them had poisoned and Saul had exercised all his studied teenage insouciance not to care, the fat man had still looked at him and seen his son, and had tried to understand what was wrong between them. He had had no truck with the awful, bloody vulgarity of genes. He had built fatherhood with his actions.

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Saul did not sob, but his cheeks were wet. Wasn’t it odd and sad, he thought a little hysterically, that it was only on learning that his father was not his father, that he realized how completely his father he had been?

There’s a dialectic for you, Dad, he thought, and grinned fleetingly.

It was only in losing him that he regained him, finally, after so many dry years.

He remembered being carried on those broad shoulders to see his mother’s stone. He had killed her, he had killed his father’s wife, and his father had set him down gently and given him flowers to put on her grave. He wept for his father, who had been given his wife’s murderer, the child of her rapist, and who had decided to love him dearly, and had set out to do it, and had succeeded.

And somewhere he kept telling himself how stupid a boy he was. A new thought was occurring to him. If King Rat lied about this, he reflected, and the thought trailed off like a sequence of dots

...

If he lied about this, the thought said, what eke did he lie about?

Who killed Dad?

He remembered something King Rat had said, a long time ago, at the end of Saul’s first life. ‘I’m the intruder,’ he had said. ‘I killed the usurper.’

In the succession of words the sense had been drowned, had been another surreal boast, a crowing, bullish aggrandizement without meaning. But Saul could see differently now. A cold stone of fury settled in his gut and he realized how much he hated King Rat.

His father, King Rat.

The door to the flat opened.

Saul and Deborah had been huddled together on the floor, she murmuring nervous words of support.

They looked up at the same moment, at the gentle creak of hinges.

Saul scrambled silently to his feet. He was still clutching the book. Deborah rocked herself, tried to rise.

A face peered around the rim of the door.

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Deborah clung to Saul and gave a tiny whimper of fear. Saul was primed like an explosive, but as his eyes made light of the darkness his tension ebbed a little, and he stood confused.

The face in the doorway was beaming delightedly, long blond hair falling in untidy clumps around a mouth stretched wide in childish joy. The man stepped forward into the room. He looked like a buffoon.

The thought I heard someone, I thought so!’ he exclaimed. Saul straightened a little more, his brow furrowed. ‘I’ve been waiting here night after night, saying no, go home, it’s ridiculous, he won’t come here, of all places, and now here you are!’ He glanced at the book in Saul’s hand. ‘You found my reading material, then. I wanted to know all about you. I thought that might tell me a bit.’

He looked a little closer at Saul’s red eyes and his own face widened.

‘You didn’t know, did you?’ His smile of pleasure was broader than ever. ‘Well. That does explain a few things. I thought you were rather quick to join your so-called father’s murderer.’ Saul’s eyes flickered. Of course, he thought, giddy with grief, of course. The man was eyeing him. ‘I thought blood must have been thicker than water but, of course, why on Earth should he have told you?’ He rocked back on his heels, stuck his hands in his pockets.

‘I’ve needed to talk to you for a long time. The rumours have been flying about you, you know! You’ve been famous for years! So many places, so many leads, so many possibilities ... I’ve been all over, chasing impossible crime ... You know, any time I heard about some weird breakin, some murder, something that doesn’t fit the bill, something people couldn’t have done, I’d run to investigate. The police can be very helpful with information.’ He grinned. ‘So many dead ends! And then I came here ...’ The man grinned again. ‘I could just smell him, and I knew I’d found you, Saul.’

‘Who are you?’ Saul finally breathed.

The man smiled pleasantly at him but did not answer. He seemed to see Deborah for the first time.

‘Hi! My God, what a night you must be having!’ He strolled forward as he laughed. Deborah clung still to Saul. She gazed at the man with guarded eyes. ‘Anyway,’ he continued easily, reaching out his hand towards her, ‘I’m afraid I’m not interested in you.’

He snatched her wrist and wrenched her out of Saul’s grasp. Too late, Saul realized that the urbane man had taken her, his head moved slowly down to look where she had been even as his mind screamed at him to look up, to move.

He dragged his head up through the thick air.

He saw the man close his left hand in Deborah’s hair, Saul reached out in horror, determined to intervene, but the man who was still smiling broadly glanced down at her briefly and sent his other fist slamming into the underside of her chin just as she opened her mouth to scream, and the impact split the skin and bone of her jaw and snapped her mouth closed so fast that blood spurted out from between her lips where she bit deep into her tongue. The scream died before it appeared, mutating into a wet exhalation. Even as Saul’s slow, slow feet took him towards her the man swivelled on his toes and pulled her body around from the nape of the neck where he held her, built up momentum, spun fast and buried her face in the side of the door-frame.

He released her and turned back to Saul.

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Saul shrieked in anguish and disbelief, stared past the man at Deborah’s carcass, which slid down the door-frame and tumbled back into the room. It was twitching as nerve endings died. Her flattened and distorted face stared blindly up at Saul as she danced in a posthumous fit, her heels pattering on the floor like a monsoon, blood and air bubbling out of her exploded mouth.

Saul bellowed and flung himself at the man with all his rat-strength.

‘_I’ll_ eat your fucking heart!’ he screamed.

The tall man sidestepped the flurry of blows easily, still grinning broadly. He pulled his fist back leisurely and sent it into Saul’s face.

Saul saw the blow coming and moved away from it, but he was not fast enough and it snapped into the side of his skull, sending him reeling. He spun round, hit the floor hard. A shrill sound hurt his head. He turned to look at the man, who stood with his lips pursed, whistling a jaunty, repetitive air. He glared at Saul and his eyes flickered dangerously. Without pause, the tune he was whistling changed, became less organized, more insidious. Saul ignored him, tried to crawl away. The whistling stopped short.

‘So it’s true,’ the Piper hissed, and his urbane voice had metamorphosed into something unstable. He looked as if he was about to be sick, and he looked enraged. ‘Dammit, neither man nor rat, can’t shift you. How dare you how dare you ...’ His eyes were wild and sick-looking.

‘I can’t believe how stupid you are coming here, rat-boy,’ said the Piper as he approached him. He shook with effort and his voice righted itself. ‘Now I’m going to kill you and string your body up in the sewers for your father to find, and then I’m going to play for him and make him dance and dance, and eventually when he’s really tired I’m going to kill him.’

Saul pulled himself up, stumbled out of his way, sent a lumbering kick at the Piper’s balls. The Piper grabbed his foot, pulled up very fast, sending him thumping onto his back and pushing the wind out of him. All the while he kept talking, amiable and animated.

‘I’m the Lord of the Dance, I’m the Voice, and when I say jump, people jump. Except you. And I have you here about to die. You’re a fucking abortion. If you don’t dance to my tune, you don’t belong in this world. Twenty-five years in the planning, and here’s the rat’s secret weapon, the supergun, the half and-half.’ He shook his head and wrinkled his nose sympathetically. He kneeled next to Saul who struggled for breath, tried to hold his head up.

‘I’m going to kill you now.’

A high-pitched screech made them both look up. Something burst the plastic sheet shrouding the window with an improbable pop, shot through the tattered window of the flat, a figure, careering through the air towards the Piper, shoving into his body with an impact that took him flying away from Saul’s supine body. Saul struggled up, saw an immaculately suited man trying to strangle the Piper, who convulsed, sending his adversary flying back across the room.

It was Loplop, with terror in his eyes, screaming at Saul to come on, grabbing him and running for the window, until a short clear sound stopped him cold. Saul turned and saw the Piper’s puckered lips as he rose, whistling. A liquid tune, repetitive and simple. Loplop was stiff. Saul saw a look of wonder cross his face as he turned to face the Piper, his eyes alive and ecstatic.

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Saul backed away, felt the wall behind him. He could see Deborah’s corpse behind Loplop, see the stain of blood oozing liberally onto the floor. To his left was the Piper, moving forward now, still whistling. Before him was Loplop, stepping towards him, his eyes not seeing, his arms outstretched, his feet moving in rhythm to the Piper’s bird song.

Saul tried to get past Loplop, could not, felt his throat underneath those fingers. The Bird Superior fell on him and began to squeeze the air out of him, all the while holding his own entranced face up to catch the music. He was not heavy but his body was as stiff as metal. Saul beat at him, twisted, tugged at his fingers. Loplop was impervious, unaware. As blackness began to creep in at the edges of his vision, Saul saw the Piper in the corner of the room, rubbing his throat, and the rage pushed blood back into Saul’s face, even past Loplop’s cruel talons, and he spread his arms wide, cupped his hands exactly as his father had warned him not to in the swimming pool, even if you’re just playing, Saul, and he slammed his hands down, clapping with all his strength, around Loplop’s ears.