‘A bill came. From a doctor in London.’
‘Yes, he’s a friend, actually. We were lucky to get his services.’
‘How long had he been seeing her?’
There was a pause. ‘Quite some time. Actually.’
Something in that last word sent Charlie cold. ‘I’m going to come and see you.’
‘There’s no need—’
‘Yes. I’m coming. And after what I’ve done to you, the only use you’ll be to anybody is if one of them fancy models of yours wants to wear you up on the catwalk.’ There was a silence, and he put the phone down.
After his hands had stopped trembling, he took the bill and wrote on it ‘To be paid by the Pippa Hamilton Modelling Agency’, addressed an envelope and took it out for posting. Charlie knew that Pippa Hamilton had sensed this was no idle threat. He never heard anything about the bill again.
It slowly emerged that the high life and the low life made bedfellows in Linda’s celebrity world. After an unhappy love affair, she’d started using slimming pills with an amphetamine base, and someone had taught her how to pop barbiturates to offset the sleep disruption caused by the uppers. More significantly, Linda had been carrying a huge burden of unexpressed guilt over the death of Derek. The champagne-and-pills parties were an effective way of blotting out her desperate unhappiness. Most of her pills were
obtained from the very Harley Street doctor who had telephoned her home when the crisis occurred.
These were the explanations offered concerning Linda’s ‘exhaustion’. But Sam recalled the day Linda had won her first beauty-queen title, and he remembered the Tooth Fairy reaching out to touch her with a fetid hand.
He wanted to see the Tooth Fairy. He wanted to interrogate her, to ask what putrid influence she might have exercised over Linda’s life in London. He was still convinced that his ‘affliction’ was always capable of leaking into the lives of those people he cared about most. But he didn’t have – had never had – the ability to summon the Tooth Fairy at will. She came when she wanted to, and these days she came more erratically than ever. He remained terrified of the malign influence she might have over the hitherto unblemished life of his sister Linda Alice. On bad nights the voice still came, darkly offering him a solution.
‘So, then, it’s goodbye Sam.’ Skelton thrust out a bear-like paw that wanted shaking. His other arm was in a sling. He still had a large plaster on the side of his head.
Signs were that the psychiatrist had already started packing. Files were stacked on chairs; journals had been lifted down from the oak bookcase and dumped in cardboard boxes. He had opted for an early retirement. ‘I’ve been letting one or two people down lately,’ he said. ‘Particularly that last time you came in. I had a bit of a fall. Don’t remember a deal about it, to be honest.’
‘You can’t remember anything?’
‘You know what they say: when the drink’s in, the wits are out.’
‘Perhaps you don’t want to remember?’
‘Well, you’ve a learned a bit of psychology from me, if nothing else. Eh, laddie? Anyway I thought I’d better get out.
Let someone in who knows what they’re talking about. I’m no use.’
‘You were a lifeline,’ said Sam.
‘I really did enjoy our wee sessions. Though I don’t say I’ve been the slightest help to you in your plight.’
‘You have.’
‘I’m rather sorry I never found a use for that Nightmare Interceptor contraption of yours. Do you still have the thing?’
‘It’s around.’
Skelton scratched his head with his good arm. ‘It has a certain potential, one feels. Hang on to the thing. I wouldn’t want you to throw it away. Still, dreams have been a wee bit out of fashion lately. There’s a younger chap coming in here. Different ideas. Neuro-physiology – know what that is? Me neither, and I don’t care to. I’ve passed on your case notes, and I’ve indicated that it may be necessary for you to see him. He’ll look at the file and decide.’
‘I don’t much fancy seeing someone else.’
‘I know what you mean. Gets to be a cosy habit, doesn’t it, these little meetings? I sometimes wonder if that’s part of the problem. Yes, I wonder if we keep our demons in orbit for each other.’
Glumly Sam thought of his own demon. ‘Paranoia?’ he asked brightly.
‘Aye, we support each other’s paranoia. Listen, there’s not a lot wrong with you, son. Deep down, I mean. Let’s just say you’re different.’
‘I almost forgot.’ Sam reached inside his sports bag and produced a boxed gift for Skelton. It had been Connie’s idea.
Skelton opened the box and withdrew a bottle of Johnny Walker. He examined the red label as if it was a work of art, then held the bottle up to the window. ‘Look at the light in that, Sam. Look at the amber light. See what I mean?’ he said, spinning the top off the bottle and pouring them both a small
measure. ‘About keeping each other’s demons in orbit? Only yesterday I decided to go teetotal.’
It was Clive who managed to obtain the stuff, through his music-collecting contacts.
‘Oh, it’s you three. I shouldn’t let you in because she’s studying for some exam or other.’ Alice’s mother, still in her dressing-gown and smelling of sleep, pushed a straying grey curl out of her eye. Leaving the door open, she turned her back on them, calling over her shoulder. ‘She’s in her bedroom.’
Alice sat cross-legged on the bed. Her hair was tied back in a pony-tail. School books were strewn over the bed. ‘I’m so fed up. Just look what a beautiful day it is outside, and I’ve got to do this.’
‘Leave it. Come with us.’
‘I’ve got an exam next week.’
‘You don’t want to do too much,’ said Terry.
‘Can’t pour a quart into a pint pot,’ said Sam.
‘What you need is a break,’ said Clive. ‘Something to take you out of yourself.’ He opened his fist and presented, on the flat of his palm, four sugar cubes.
Alice peered closely at the sugar cubes. They looked entirely harmless. ‘I’ve heard it’s a long trip,’ she said doubtfully.
‘Only eight hours,’ Clive said brightly.
Terry was first to snatch up one of the cubes. ‘Down the hatch,’ he said, and popped it in his mouth.
‘I keep trying to count us,’ said Alice. ‘And every time I count us I get five.’
Clive tried. He got the same result. ‘Wait a minute!’ he giggled, counting again. Again he got the same result. ‘Wait! Wait! This is ridiculous!’
Terry tried. He also came up with five. He shook his head
and started over. ‘But there’s me and Sam and you two, and that’s four.’
‘Obviously.’
‘Obviously.’
‘So how come I keep counting five? Ha! Ha, ha! Wait, I’m going to do it again . . . Four . . . five! It can’t be! Ha, ha, ha!’
The knot of anxiety in Sam’s stomach was swelling. He knew that the Tooth Fairy had appeared in their company about half an hour after they’d all swallowed the sugar cubes at Alice’s house, and that was three hours ago. He’d sensed her presence, though he hadn’t actually seen her. Somehow the others were seeing the Tooth Fairy now, but they were only seeing her in the form of one of the others. Perhaps Terry saw her as Alice, Clive as Terry, Alice as Sam.
They’d made their way to the football field, and they were sitting beside the pond. It was a warm day, but the sky was broken by a warning of herring-bone clouds. It had taken them some time to recover from the shock of colour. Everywhere colour leaked, oozing like a substance not yet dry on the canvas. Light pulsed. They’d passed through a period of uncontrollable hilarity and elation, followed by a long period when no one spoke. The warm air breathed sensually on the backs of their necks. The earth streamed rich perfumes, and the grass and soil were an impossible tangle of runes and spirographic designs, as if the universe had been put together by a crazed geometrist.
Sam had himself tried to count, and he too arrived at the figure of five. There were five in the company. Five. He counted again. It was maddening. Yet the only others apart from himself were Terry, Alice and Clive.
‘I’ve got the answer,’ Terry offered. ‘Stop counting.’
Alice waved a dismissive hand through the air, and her arm fanned out like the exotic feathers of a great bird’s wing, a staggered image arching through the air. The birds in the
bushes and trees around them flitted from branch to branch, sketching intersecting parabolic trails in the air behind them.
‘Know thyself,’ Alice said for the third time.
‘Why do you keep saying that?’
‘Clive said it, ages ago. It was written on the sugar cubes at Dolphin.’
‘Delphi,’ Clive corrected.
‘Delfever . . . Delve free . . . Deal fee.’
‘?’
‘The oracle.’
‘Horror-kill,’ said Alice. ‘Horror-cull . . . Whore-call . . .’
‘If you were a fruit,’ the Tooth Fairy said to Alice, ‘what fruit would you be?’
Sam blinked. He’d distinctly seen the Tooth Fairy sitting upright, grinning at Alice. But now it was Clive asking the question and not the Tooth Fairy at all.
‘Huh?’
‘It’s a game. What fruit? You?’
Words were slipping away from them, unravelling on the tongue, becoming redundant. Paradoxically, communication seemed easier, richly telepathic. Sam suddenly felt hot. His anxiety was mounting. Then he saw the Tooth Fairy putting the same question. ‘If Sam was a fruit, what . . . ?’ But before the question was completed, the Tooth Fairy had become Terry. ‘. . . what fruit would you be?’
Sam counted his companions again. Still five in total.
‘Sam would be a lime.’ Someone chortled.
Sam’s skin greened over. His body inflated to roughly spherical form. A thick, protective rind formed over his skin, and he sensed the rich, pulpy effervescence of his internal mass. He inhaled deeply, enjoying the bitter-sweet tang of his own citrus. He pressed his skin, and a fine zest burst forth, falling in a light, fragrant shower around them.
Laughter from the others brought Sam back. He extended his body and returned to normal.
‘Getting strange, isn’t it?’ said the Tooth Fairy.
‘You’re not helping,’ said Sam.
‘Who’s not helping?’ Alice wanted to know.
‘Alice would be an orange,’ said the Clive Fairy.
Or the Tooth Terry.
Sam shook his head vigorously. His grasp of events was falling apart. He seemed unable to hang on to a thought for more than a moment. One second Terry and Clive seemed to be only inches away, the next moment they were blasted a hundred yards across the field. He desperately wanted to hug Alice, to find infant comfort at her breast. But every time he crept towards her, he seemed accidentally to telegraph his intentions, and Terry would inch closer in competition. Then it occurred to him that Alice was manipulating them all so that they would fight over her. A dirty wave of hatred washed over him, and yet he simultaneously found himself wincing at the corrupt depth of this emotion.
‘Don’t panic,’ said the Tooth Terry.
Sam pointed his finger. ‘Paranoia.’
The Tooth Fairy smiled but didn’t disappear.
‘Paranoia,’ Sam tried again.
The Tooth Fairy shook its head. It was mutating now from its female to its male aspect. Its face had a poisoned, blue sheen. ‘ ’Fraid I tricked you on that little paranoia number. Won’t work here.’
Sam felt a hot flush rising, and then a hand stroked the scruff of his neck, grabbing his hair and tugging it. It was naked fear. ‘Leave us alone. Just leave us.’
‘Sam,’ said Alice. She too was having problems with her words. It was all she could say. ‘Sam.’
‘Good idea of yours,’ said the Tooth Fairy, ‘to name your kid sister after Linda and Alice. Fair trade.’
‘Don’t be jealous. There’s no need for you to be jealous.’
‘I told you the kid was for me, didn’t I? Well, you win
some and you lose some. I’ve already had some payback from Linda. Now it’s time to give Alice a taste.’
The Tooth Fairy sprang over to Alice, put its mouth close to hers and breathed hard in her face. She leapt back.
Sam’s words were gone. He found he could use telepathy to talk to her.
‘It’s the Tooth Fairy I told you about.’
Clive and Terry still seemed to be deeply engaged in conversation a hundred yards away. Alice spoke back telepathically. Her lips shaped different words to the ones he was hearing, like a film soundtrack out of synch.
‘My God. Is this what you see? I never realized.’
‘Now you know.’
‘You see this all the time? But it’s so ugly! It’s ugly!’
‘You’ll pay for that.’ The Tooth Fairy grimaced. ‘I owe you one.’
‘Paranoia,’ Sam tried again.
‘I told you already I only let you think that would work on me. Just remember. This is my dream, not yours.’
‘
So ugly
,’ Alice repeated.
‘If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be?’
Alice recovered her ability to speak normally. ‘I’m an orange,’ she said. ‘I’m an orange.’
The Tooth Fairy reached for a rusting razor blade embedded in a tree. ‘Know thyself. Peel thyself.’
Sam gasped, feeling himself zoomed hundreds of yards away from where Alice sat. Then the clouds aligned in a menacing pattern of wicked chevrons, and the sky was filled with screaming, like the shrieking of a thousand strange birds, their wings interlocked to comprise the sky itself. And Sam realized that the screaming was coming from his own throat.