Incarnate (60 page)

Or rather, something that was pretending to be Susan. Whatever was behind it, in the porch and beyond, was very large and dim, but Helen saw only the child. “Oh, Susan, thank God,” she cried. “I thought you’d—! don’t know. Thank God you’re all right.”

Molly realized Helen had never been able to accept she’d been tricked. “It isn’t Susan,” she said and, irrationally, felt cruel. “Look at her eyes.”

Then both women faltered, for Susan ignored Helen and walked up to Molly. “Yes, look at them,” she said. “You look.”

“Get out of here and leave us alone,” Joyce shouted. “You can’t frighten us.”

Molly stared at Sage’s eyes in the child’s face. “You can’t hypnotize me,” she muttered. “There’s nothing you can do to us now.”

“We never did,” Susan said.

“What do you mean, we?” Molly demanded. “There’s only one of you.”

“Yes, only one.” It was Sage’s voice now. “But you must see who it is.” The child reached into a handbag she was carrying. Her hand emerged, and something flashed toward Molly’s face. The flash was so bright that she recoiled, squeezing her eyes shut in case they were in danger. She opened them, expecting to see a knife. “Look at the eyes,” the child said in Sage’s calm voice.

It was a mirror. She looked into it, looked away quickly and glared at the sight of the child with Sage’s eyes, glanced reluctantly back at the mirror, at herself with— “It’s a trick,” she said flatly.

“No.” Sage’s voice was almost sad. “At last you are seeing the truth.”

How could a mirror in a dream tell the truth? How could it be? She stared at the sight of herself with Sage’s eyes, and then she saw the truth, remembered it. The dream couldn’t have changed her memory. The reflection was not a trick. At last she saw that Sage’s eyes, and the eyes of the others from the dream, had always been her own.

“Yes.” Sage’s voice, and the eyes in the child’s face, were gentle now, encouraging. “You made us. You are us. You must not deny all this any longer.” The child’s hands gestured gracefully at the church and implied everything that was outside the walls. “You are only harming your friends,” the child said in Susan’s voice.

“You leave us out of this,” Joyce shouted. “Just get out, whatever you are. Nobody here wants you.”

But Helen was sidling toward the child. She looked bewildered and hurt by being ignored. “Don’t try to use Helen,” Molly whispered furiously. “Haven’t you harmed her enough?”

“Haven’t you?” Momentarily the child’s voice was sharp. “You will not be able to bear this forever,” she said more gently, glancing at the walls of the church as if she could see through them. “There will come the moment when you cannot stop yourself.”

“You wait and see,” Molly cried, but her words sounded as empty as the church. She didn’t need the child with her eyes to tell her that sooner or later she would have to give in, for the sake of the others if not for herself; she couldn’t condemn them to eternity in the dead place on the hill, with only the interminable dilapidated streets and whatever lived there to go out to. If she even wished they could change, they would. That would feed the dream, but she knew she couldn’t stop herself wishing, not for long, not for ever. Why couldn’t she have suppressed the power in herself once and for all years ago, while she still had the chance? That was one wish she couldn’t grant herself, to go back all those years to a point where she could have been stopped.

Then she had a thought that sent a shudder through her from her feet to her head. At last she saw how she could limit the dream. It must be true, for the child’s eyes flickered. The thing that looked like Susan was suddenly afraid. If any change that Molly imagined would come to pass, couldn’t she imagine herself incapable of ever changing anything again?

Again the child’s eyes, her eyes, flickered. The thing with Susan’s face knew she could do it. What would happen then? Would Susan and the restlessness beyond the doors vanish, or would the women be trapped here forever, since it would never change? Molly didn’t care; the secret fear in the eyes was giving her strength. She closed her eyes, she reached deep into her mind and pushed the power away from her.

She opened her eyes, and Susan was smiling. It couldn’t be done that way, there was something undermining Molly’s wish. Molly thought of the real world, of how much she and the others might already have infected as they wandered, how many people might be in danger of waking and finding themselves still in the dream. She thought of what she’d done to Martin, and cast off the power violently, glaring into the eyes in Susan’s face. Saving the world must give her the strength.

Susan smiled more widely, sympathetically. “You cannot do it. You know what would happen. Nobody has that strength.”

Molly did know, deep in herself. Before she was conscious of what she feared it had saved her from her wish. If she gave up her power, she and the others would be trapped in the dead place forever. She would never see Martin again, or her parents, or any human being except Joyce and Helen and Freda. She had to do it, if she didn’t condemn herself and the others she would be condemning the world, but the fear of eternity had paralyzed her will. They would never die, but one by one they would certainly go mad.

How could she condemn the others to that. without consulting them first ? But how could she consult the world? Her choice was clear again, clear and so simple that she grew absolutely calm. She glimpsed the flicker of fear in Susan’s eyes, her own eyes in Susan’s face. Her own fear was there outside her, unable to daunt her. The next moment she had made her choice, let go of the dream and her power over it, and her choice could never be taken back.

The child stared at her, a terrified accusation, then fled out of the church. She dodged whatever was outside, but Molly heard it start after her, a huge purposeful movement that left the concrete path and rushed down the hill. Molly stood there like a cardboard figure, listening helplessly to the receding sounds, until she was hurled to the stone floor. Helen had knocked her down, and gave her a look of pure hatred as she ran out, crying “Susan!”

“It isn’t Susan! Helen, for God’s sake come back!” But Helen had slammed the doors before Joyce helped Molly to her feet, and by the time Molly reached the gate Helen’s cries and the other sounds were far down the hill, lost in the maze of streets that led toward the lights. There was nothing to be seen up here, but perhaps soon there would be. The few belated stars in the eastern sky looked faded, not only because of the lights of London. Dawn was near.

Joyce came out, supporting Freda. “We don’t want to stay in there,” Joyce said with a hint of her old fierceness. She glared toward the lights, challenging anyone to stop her from heading for them.

“We can’t go down there,” Molly said wearily. She wasn’t even sure they weren’t still carriers of the dream.

Freda shushed them, until they all heard the massive sounds ranging about the streets above the lights. “No, we can’t,” Freda said, drawing a shaky breath. “We’ll have to go back.”

None of them looked at one another as Molly and Joyce helped Freda down the hill. Ahead their shadows under the few streetlamps seemed more distorted than they ought to be.

The lamps at the foot of the hill were still dark, and so were all the windows. Freda strained forward as if she, knew where to go, and there seemed no reason to doubt that her route was as good as any.

Once they thought they heard someone, perhaps a great many people, pacing them in the next street over. They stood and tried not even to breathe until Freda said it was an echo, but Molly wasn’t sure it had been. Once they heard what sounded like a distant car, and Molly glimpsed a face at an upper window, round, with too much mouth. Dawn was growing, seeping into all the streets.

The roofs were lightening, as the upper stories were. Night wasn’t endless here after all, but Molly was beginning to wish that it were. The colorless light showed her glimpses of herself and her companions, distorted glimpses that looked worse and worse. It was showing her the revenge of the dream.

The streets ahead were quite visible now, interminable colorless terraces. Freda urged them forward, though at times she almost fell, and Molly let her lead, though the urgency seemed pitiful: they could never outrun the dawn.

Then she realized that Freda wasn’t trying to. The streets in the distance weren’t only brighter, they were different. As well as the dawn, there were lights, and now Molly saw .that some of them were moving. They weren’t streetlamps, they were car headlights. It was a main road.

She wanted to hang back in case it was another trick, but Freda was running or falling forward, and she had to follow. Now they could hear the sounds of the main road, the roar of traffic, people hurrying past the junction, many people. They must be on their way to work.

She and Joyce were stumbling almost as much as Freda by now—was that a hint of how much the dream had crippled them? She mustn’t look, mustn’t think, only hope. The dead streets coursed by, their silence giving way to the sounds of traffic ahead, and she was suddenly afraid that the main road would prove to be a mirage, the first of an eternity of cruel tricks. When at last they reached the main road, Molly was too afraid to set foot on it, in case it vanished instantly, but Joyce and Freda dragged her forward.

She stepped on the pavement, and nothing happened. Traffic roared by, two workmen in overalls sidled around the three women. She found herself reading all the names of shops, devouring them: Fig Leaf of Covent Garden, Kebab Machine, Burger Delight, Model Railways, Bureau de Change, Tattoo Studio, Sure Square Deal & Co… . She made herself turn and look back. The interminable streets had gone: the road from which they’d emerged led between a tobacconist’s and a newsagent’s, and people were walking on its uneven pavements, past its motley houses. All the same, it wasn’t until several passersby had glanced at her and the others with no more than mild curiosity that she was able to look down at herself.

There was nothing wrong with her, nor with Freda or Joyce. Her wish had come true after all: the world out here had overcome the dream. The dream had closed in on itself. It must still be somewhere, wherever Helen was. She wished she had destroyed it while she’d had the chance, and then she thought she must have had the power to dream that nobody would ever dream again, which seemed unspeakably terrifying. “Oh, my God,” she said, shaking with relief, and was all at once so dizzy that she had to grab the’ nearest lamppost to stop herself falling in front of the traffic.

When she was steady she found that the others were staring up the road, toward an intersection where traffic was converging along several roads. “It’s Kings Cross,” she said with a delight that felt close to hysteria.

“I want to see how Doreen is,” Freda said as firmly as she could.

“Yes, we should.” It was rather Doreen’s house that Molly wanted to make sure of. They headed along Caledonian Road, the three of them staggering like all-night alcoholics, and didn’t mind the laughter and comments that followed them. The sight of the shops beyond the canal made Molly want to cry with relief.

She was first up the steps to the yellow front door, to prove she could. She felt a lingering nervousness as she hammered the knocker on its silver plate, but that was why she had to be sure. Doreen came almost at once, and looked ready to weep when she saw Freda. “Did the police find you?”

“No,” Freda said, and looked at her two companions. The next moment all three of them began to laugh, so hysterically that it seemed they would never stop.

When at last they did, gulping air and dabbing at their eyes, Doreen said reprovingly, “The doctor’s here, Freda. You come in and sit down.”

She led them into the parlor, where Molly glanced quickly at the carpet to make sure it was unmarked. Doreen’s friend Rosie was sitting in an armchair. Her eyes were red, and both she and Doreen looked as if they had been up all night talking, weeping, helping each other back to reality. “I’ll have to tell the police you’re here,” Doreen said, fussing around Freda. “I had them looking for all of you and they found hardly anyone.” She turned suddenly to Molly. “Can you go up and tell the doctor Freda’s here? First door on the right on the first floor.” 

Molly couldn’t believe how small the house felt as she made her way up. She wasn’t even sure how that made her feel, because she thought she knew what Doreen had been telling her, why she had sent her upstairs. She knew it before she opened the bedroom door and saw Martin lying on the bed.

The doctor was closing his bag. “Doreen asked me to tell you Freda’s downstairs,” Molly said. Even when the doctor had gone down she wasn’t sure what to say to Martin or whether to go to him. He was buttoning his shirt after the examination, and all at once the meaning of his unmarked shoulders overwhelmed her. “Thank God you’re safe,” she said.

He was gazing sadly at her. “You know it wasn’t me that night.”

“Yes.” Still she couldn’t quite go to him. “Oh. Martin, I’m so sorry. I don’t know how I could ever have thought it was.”

“I’m nothing special. I should have been out looking for you right now.” He reached out to her, then let his hands fall as if he didn’t have the right. “I must have been wandering all night. I didn’t know where I was going until the police found me and mentioned Doreen. I’ve been lying here waiting for the doctor when I should have been looking for you. I’m not much of anything, I can tell you.”

That made her run to him, cling fiercely to him, squeezing the breath out of him. “What happened last night? Where did you go?” he gasped, but she was almost speechless with the feel of him that she had nearly forgotten, the most real thing in the world. “Don’t ask me now, just hold me,” she said, and settled herself in his arms. “It’s all over,” she said, knowing that the dream had less power over them now than over anyone else in the world.

67

S
HE
never quite got used to being called Molly Wallace, and she didn’t think she would want to. If people smiled at it, that made her smile too. Two years and two codirected films later, she and Martin were already being referred to in film journals as the Wallaces, and she thought she liked that most of all. Their Chapel Hill film was to be shown at Cannes. Martin often said that it was her delight at living in America that gave their films the human warmth his work had always needed. Sometimes they argued over that all evening.