The Rye Man (23 page)

He placed it on the cleared desk, went and closed the study door, then hesitated a second before opening the pages, unsure, not of what he would see, but of what he would feel. He paused at the photograph of himself, the one taken at school which his mother had chided him for, and touched it lightly with his fingers. He turned the pages slowly, scanning the creased cuttings, their headlines playing in his head like half-remembered tunes. He sat for a long time and then gradually a calmness spread through him, stilling the flux and
helping
him understand what it was he had to do, what to believe.

He closed the scrapbook and held it tightly in his hands. There was something now at his core that he understood, this thing that he clutched to quell the rising fear. He saw everything clearly now, grasped it for the first time and pulled it close. Everything began to fall into shape, to assume an order where before had been only chaos. He suddenly felt a sense of his own goodness – of course he was capable of doing things that had no goodness in them, things that were mean and self-serving – but none of these could alter that awareness. It was rooted in the love he felt for the children he was given to care for – it didn't matter what Emma thought, there was something in that love which encompassed its own holiness, something which would always endure.

That moment in childhood, when he had stretched out his hand and touched another, was to be the given key to open everything that was now secret and shut away from the light of love. He had always believed in the past, preserved it pure and intact in his memory and now that very past would repeat itself, lead him to the same moment. The past and present had always to be linked, marked by the sure print of a pattern. If he didn't believe that then there was nothing to believe, for a man was chaff to be blown here and there by every wind that blew. Without a pattern he was only some straw-filled image of a man, lurching in a field, the random wind disfiguring his face and dispersing bits of him to the elements. His hand touched the bruise on his cheek, fingered the broken corner of his mouth and he knew that nothing could hurt him now.

Placing the scrapbook in the top drawer of the desk he left a scribbled note and opened the study door. He could hear voices on the television. Going to the kitchen he took a torch
from
one of the drawers then quietly went to the cloakroom and lifted his coat. Outside the coldness of the night stung his face and he pulled the coat tightly about himself. There was a pitted, smoking moon, fragile against the sharp-edged frieze of stars. He thought of the children's displays in the foyer of the school, spangles of light against the black sugar paper, and wondered again if anything there had been made by Jacqueline, if anything her hand had made nestled among the other children's creations. It was something he could ask her very soon.

He moved the car slowly down the driveway and out into the country roads. It didn't take him very long to reach the McQuarrie place. He parked in the same spot he had parked that morning, but instead of walking down the road to the lane he clambered over the fence into the field bordering the road and began a slow angled approach to the house. A tremulous, milky light filtered through the clouds and he used the torch to pick his way forward, stumbling occasionally when he encountered hollows and rises in the ground. As he got closer he used the torch less frequently and fixed his eyes on the yellow square of an upstairs window which quivered behind the swaying fingers of a black-boned tree. There was a ditch and more fences to be crossed. Once he had to push himself through a gap at the base of a hedgerow but he kept going, moving steadily closer.

He could see the outline of the house now, the curtained windows edged with yellow, the square of light that was the porch. Two outside lights arced into the yard and exposed the vague shapes of shed and outbuildings. He switched off the torch and dropped it into his pocket, then, standing at the edge of the yard in a pool of darkness, peered at the house, alert for any sound of the dog, but there was no sign of it or any other life. Gradually his eyes began to distinguish the
disembodied
contours of the junk which layered the yard like some moonscape. He half remembered, half saw some of the things he had seen on his two other visits; saw too in his memory the huddle of men who had stood round the edges waiting for their orders, the gold band on McQuarrie's fist as it swung towards him. Above him the moon looked like a reflection of itself on water. Skirting the edges of the yard and avoiding the arcs of light, he walked parallel to the house front, stopping when he was level with the porch. Suddenly from behind the hanging plants he saw a face coming forward to the window. It was Lisa McQuarrie and as she rubbed the condensation from the glass it looked like she was waving to him. She stood with her palms pressed above her head, her eyes scanning the darkness. He knew she couldn't see him and for a second thought of walking towards her, but instead held himself still and watched her.

Her breath steamed the glass and she wiped it clear. He wanted to speak to her. From watching her he knew that she didn't know where Jacqueline was. He remembered the way she had spoken to her daughter, touched her hair, and knew too that she couldn't hurt her. But there were other things that she might know, secrets that she might be able to tell if he could only reach her. He stepped towards the arc of light but as he did so she turned away and disappeared through the doorway that led to the kitchen. Only the prints of her hands clung to the glass. He hesitated, then stepped back into the darkness. An upstairs light went out, a moment later another was switched on.

Taking the torch from his pocket he made his way towards the metal shed, walking slowly and trying not to trip over the littered parts of machinery. The sliding door of the shed was half open and when he was inside he switched on the torch, letting the beam play over the stacked polythene bales of silage.
They
shone in the light like black glass, the stretched surfaces taut like the skin of plums. From behind a row of metal milk churns slinked a cat, its eyes spots of amber. He directed the torch upwards into the metal beams of the roof where bits of machinery dangled from hooks. Something moved in the back of the shed. He spun the torch round on it and sparked a pair of eyes, the white of teeth, heard the deep growl rolling in the dog's throat. The torch lit up the stiffened back and the growl rattled like some engine as it edged towards him, low to the ground, its legs ready to thrust it forward in a charge. He took slow steps backwards staring the beam into its eyes, glancing around him for some weapon, but in the darkness there was nothing to be seen, and he didn't dare take his eyes from the animal for more than a second. He forced himself to keep his steps slow, his movements controlled, as he held his arm out stiffly like a stick, but as the dog hunched its back and tensed itself he half turned and in his panic stumbled over something. Falling backwards he heard the dog charging, the growl in its throat breaking into a barking that ripped the silence of the night, and he closed his eyes and swung the torch wildly, sending shadows skittering across the darkness. It was almost on him, so close he could smell its damp heat, its barking breaking close to his face, and then the swinging beam of light caught the rope which tethered it to some place back in the darkness.

As he stumbled to his feet the dog pulled against the rope and raised itself up on its back legs. Its unbroken barking seemed to crack the night open and, rushing to the shed entrance, he switched off the torch and ran across the arcs of light to slither into the shadows beyond. His breathing roared in his ears and there was a tightness in his chest. The bruise on the side of his face seemed suddenly alive, smarting with a new surge of pain that stung in the coldness of the night
air.
McQuarrie was in the porch – over his shoulder his wife's face and that of their son. He was bending over, putting on boots, his blond hair almost invisible in the yellow square of light. Taking a gulp of air he started to move away across the fields as quickly as he could, stooping and crouching as he went. As he ran he could hear McQuarrie's voice calling her name, over and over, and then two higher voices like echoes joined in the slowly fading wail.

He sat in the car, hunched over the wheel and tried to force his breathing into a calmer rhythm. In his head he could still hear the angry barking of the dog, McQuarrie's voice calling out, the two other echoing voices rising like a descant in the background. Over and over until they fused in a pulse of pain. He put his hands to his ears and tried to still his being. And as a calm slowly spread through him he began to think of secret places, of the secret places of childhood, his mind alert and listening, like the willow rod in the hands of the diviner passing over the hidden parts of his memory. He jerked upright. Maguire's place. He would find her in Maguire's place. He should have seen it. The pattern had its own power, its own inevitability, and he felt it now flooding over the years, carrying him towards what he should have always known.

He started the car and drove down the narrow lanes that carried him to that place. They seemed to funnel him towards it as if he had yielded control over his own volition. He drove slowly, trying to prepare himself, but in a matter of minutes had arrived at the laneway. It was too quick – he wasn't ready – and he drove by, went to the end of the road and then returned. He felt safe in the car, outside was the thick tide of night: cold, fathomless. He saw her holding the reading book, her pale face mouthing the words, heard himself telling her everything would be all right, and he parked the car and started up the laneway.

The
leafless line of hedge jutted out at him, stark in the moonlight like coral, the slimy squelch of mud under his feet increasing his feeling of uncertainty. He shone the torch ahead, lighting up the greasy slope of the lane, and told himself that the slowness of his steps was caused by the uneven and sodden surface. He knew he would find her here, here in this place which stored its secrets like grass yellowing and rotting under a giant stone. As a boy he had watched it from the hidden folds of the tree, seen it always at a distance until that final day. He felt its hatred now, its implacable hatred for this person who had approached it like a thief and stolen what it had chosen to hide. He knew it would do him harm if it could.

He wondered what had brought her here and searched for a reason but knew it didn't matter. She had come, oblivious to the danger, and been trapped in some webbed world which held her fast and smothered all her cries for help. It was its way of hurting him after all these years, holding her now in some shuttered place where she curled, small and tight, and waited for him to come. He had told her everything would be all right, stretched out his hand towards her and she had believed him.

He was at the top of the lane now and in view of the house, the barn beyond. He had never approached it from this direction before, always having come across the fields. He went to the house first, the light of the torch making no reflection in the glassless windows, and shone it on the door that slouched in on itself like a drunken man. He called her name, heard it swallowed almost immediately by the silence and vanish echoless into some void. He called again and again but his words plummeted like stones into the well of night. He kicked at the door with the sole of his foot until it flopped free from its rusted hinge, then stepped into the tiny space that served as a hallway. Patterned shards of paper peeled
from
the wall. There was a cold dampness and the smell of piss.

He followed his light through the tiny rooms, his feet shuffling through the tinkling brightness of broken glass. On one wall was sprayed a scribbled babble of names and there was a blackened blotch in a corner where a fire had been lit. Into the front room, his splintered, shadowy reflection moving across the mirror. He called her name again, his voice ricochetting round the walls, growing louder and louder, until he spun away and hurried to the openness of the night. Outside he gulped the air greedily and flashed the torch across the yard. The sudden thwack of a sheet snapped by the wind. The axe buried in the yellow, rotten trunk of the tree. Almost tripping as he ran with it, his knee banging against the head. The shoes. The shoes bought in Dawson's with their clean white soles.

He turned towards the barn and with each step the whimpering grew louder. Louder and louder as he got closer to the darkness of the open doorway. But it wasn't like her voice, it wasn't like any human voice as it collapsed into a strangled, choking breathing. He hesitated at the entrance and called her name, called it again and again, urging her to come to him, to step out of the darkness, but at the sound of his voice the whimpering faded, replaced only by the wind rattling under the slate roof. He wanted the beam of the torch to be broader, its light brighter, as he played it into the shadows. She wasn't there – he tried to tell himself there was no need to go any further, but the need to be certain was greater than his fear and, dipping his head, he edged inside. He stayed close to the doorway and shone the light into the corners, and in his memory saw again the white frosted face, the tangle of smirched hair, the scab-covered spindle legs, and as he did so he felt the taste of his own sickness. He was conscious of some
thing
scurrying along the wall beyond his light but he pulled the beam away, not wanting to see it. He held the torch tightly, suddenly frightened that he might drop it and plunge himself into darkness. His hand was shaking and he supported it with his other one as he started to take careful steps backwards to the entrance.

He sat in the car, comforted by its familiar confines. Outside the night seemed to stretch edgeless and infinite. He felt some of his new-found conviction beginning to weaken. She hadn't been there when he had been so sure that was where he would find her, and once again he felt the fear of being part of something that was outside his control, of being carried along on something which he couldn't steer or stop. It left him feeling rootless, weightless, swept on by an uncharted current. He tried to reassert his will, to anchor himself again to the self-conviction which had seemed so strong a short time before. The full beam of the headlamps cut a swathe through the darkness of the high-hedged roads as he drove slowly, unsure of where he was going, the mechanical control of the car soothing and lulling him into a calmer train of thought.