Working Wonders (39 page)

Neither of them heard. Arthur was staring at Gwyneth, with absolute sadness in his eyes, as if he couldn’t tear his gaze away.

And before either of the others could turn round, Sven strode across the room, and gently, passionately and firmly, kissed Fay’s still body on the mouth.

It happened so quickly and so slowly at the same time, Arthur could never put it together again in his memory, not in any coherent order. But when it came, he had not hesitated, and he was not afraid.

In fact, his face was already turning towards Fay; already moving away from Gwyneth, just as Sven started to move. Then, the face at the octagonal window – that was first. Then, the gentle fluttering of Fay’s eyelids as she woke up. Then, the huge noise, ricocheting in the heavy walled room, louder than he could believe. Then – was it then? – he was flying, flying straight without a doubt in his mind towards Fay, pushing her out of the way, down onto the floor. Then the enormous burst of yellow, such a garish colour at such close range. Then the red, and Arthur wondering why they would have red paintballs as well as yellow. And then, infinitely slowly, a white flower dropping from Gwyneth’s grip, and Sven slowly sliding off the stone table and onto the floor and not moving.

Later, Arthur would remember odd fragments, like Howard. Everything else, this huge shadow, this whole wall of oblivion and grief, was tempered by a niggling annoyance with this man beside him, who had been following Ross’s party to make a victory record. And that terrible ladder of course; the dreadful rickety construction the opposing team had managed to put together and push up the tower in an attempt at a final confrontation. It had collapsed immediately after the accidental discharge of Ross’s gun, just as he had grabbed the inside of the window sill in triumph. Ross had dropped straight to the ground and had been lucky to get away with a broken leg and a sprained wrist.

The balloon had arrived in moments of course, and within minutes a helicopter was over the horizon, reminding Arthur that however far he might have felt from civilization, it had never gone away at all. But the minutes had seemed like hours, and worthless, worthless hours when the mountain ambulance man simply shook his head, confirmed that a paintball had entered Sven’s left eye – they had all of course taken off their masks once they were inside – with enough force to puncture a hole in his brain. He may as well have been shot by a real bullet. It would have been very quick.

Gwyneth went outside and promptly threw up by a wall. Arthur was dimly aware of Fay awake, there, standing with her, finding this confusing but unable to make sense of it. There were many people here now – time had passed without his being aware of it somehow; police in bright yellow raincoats, who were talking deeply and intently to Mr d’Aragon and the sergeant, neither of whom, now, in the light of day, looked in the least bit intimidating. Vaguely, Arthur was aware that they were loading something onto the helicopter, and in his head he supposed it used to be Sven. He stumbled around the castle, alarmingly unaware of his surroundings.

Ross was lying on the ground, yelping in pain as the police and ambulance crew competed to take information from him.

‘I didn’t mean it, Arthur!’ he screamed, as Arthur floated past him. ‘I didn’t mean it!’

The noise, with people shouting and the flap flap flap of the helicopter’s rotors, was immense.

But Arthur was looking for something, and he couldn’t think what. He was aware of his body moving, but couldn’t possibly have said why. It did a tour of the area outside the castle, then headed back in again.

‘I’m afraid you can’t go up there, sir,’ said the policeman. ‘We’ve sealed it off for now. Might be a crime scene.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Arthur, again aware of his voice speaking the words, but not knowing how they were coming out of his mouth. ‘I must. It is my will.’

And the policeman stood aside.

He was back in the octagonal room again, empty now except for the ghastly, livid red and yellow cascading down the walls.

He walked round the room three times, quite unable to articulate what he was doing there. Finally, on his fourth repetition, he saw it.

If you hadn’t looked very closely, you wouldn’t have seen it at all. There was simply a snip; a smidgeon of black peeping out from the corner, underneath the slab table where Fay had lain.

Arthur knelt down on his hands and knees and pushed out his hand.

‘Sshhhh,’ he whispered. ‘Sssshhhh.’

Although, of course, Sandwiches wasn’t making any noise at all.

Arthur gently touched the dog on the neck, not entirely sure he wouldn’t get bitten. On one level he would have welcomed that; something to break through the terrible numbness that seemed to have taken hold of his body.

But Sandwiches didn’t bite him. Instead, he nuzzled his nose forward and looked straight into Arthur’s eyes, as if trusting him to help him understand exactly what had just happened.

‘Oh,’ said Arthur. ‘Oh, Sandwiches. Oh, Sandwiches.’

And he began to weep, big tearing sobs that ripped through his whole body and caused his upper half to shake and convulse.

Sandwiches shuffled himself forward just enough, and put his head in Arthur’s lap.

Arthur couldn’t go home. The others had, Cathy and Rafe as shocked and disbelieving – almost more so, for they had seen the helicopters but had no idea what had taken place – as they were. Ross had been taken to hospital; there would of course be no charges. This was undoubtedly an accident, not even, Arthur was stunned to find out, a massively uncommon one. And if he hadn’t got Fay out of the way, it could have been worse.

It wasn’t easy to track down Sven’s parents. The Danish embassy were on to it, but in the meantime Arthur had to identify the body, sign the paperwork and liaise with Mountain Rescue to take the body to London, where it would be shipped on to Copenhagen.

It didn’t help that he was getting no sleep; partly from the horror, and partly from having Sandwiches in the room at the local inn. The little dog was refusing to sleep at all, and paced in front of the door the entire night, waiting for his master to come home, his nails click-clacking on the cheap linoleum. At every car’s headlights which passed through on the road he would immediately stiffen and hold himself to attention; every door closing, every toilet flushing. It was driving them both crazy.

He wouldn’t eat either, although Arthur couldn’t blame him for that; nor was Arthur. He could barely think; get up, move around. His concentration was shot and he completely ignored the messages that were piling up around him.

The kind landlady tried to go out of her way to make palatable meals, to look after this heartbroken-looking man. She also gave him the newspapers which had been sent from Coventry, and he glanced at them. On the cover of the Coventry
Herald
was Howard’s exclusive, with an exceptionally flattering picture of Sven and Sandwiches taken at least five years ago – Sven’s beer gut was less than the size of a space hopper, and Sandwiches was only a pup. Looking closely, Arthur realized it was his graduation photograph. Sven hadn’t even been thirty when he died.

‘
Brave Coventry Man Dies in Tragic Accident Trying to Save Town
’ ran the all-new headline.

A member of the planning committee for the European City of Culture bid for Coventry has been killed in a tragic accident on an outward bound course.

There were details, then the leader column, right on the next page.

Sven Gunterson loved this city. A foreign national, he came from far away, but settled here and proceeded to dedicate his life to improving it for all its residents. We owe him our deepest debt of gratitude, from his wonderful plans for an ice festival imported from his native Denmark, to his support of the maze currently in the planning stages for Chapel Fields.

His loss is a tragic one for Coventry, but must not deter us from our aim. This paper has always supported the application. But now we go one further; we at the
Herald
say we WILL be the European City of Culture. And we will do it for Sven.

Arthur read this and almost smiled to himself. Of course, the paper wouldn’t realize it was over. All was lost, surely. They couldn’t possibly consider continuing to put themselves forward. It had all been for nothing. Less than nothing; much, much worse than nothing.

He walked out onto the tiny airstrip, which was barely more than some concrete plonked in a field. In the helicopter was the coffin containing Sven’s body, which Arthur was accompanying to London, where Sven’s parents were now waiting to take their son home for the last time. He couldn’t bear to think what he would say to them. After all, he was Sven’s boss and this had happened on his watch. He had been in charge; he had told Sven not to touch Fay, but he obviously hadn’t told him strictly enough … The guilt bit deeply. He stepped up into the side of the helicopter, carrying Sandwiches, who was noticably thinner and quiet as a lamb. He probably thought they were going where Sven was.

Arthur prayed that no canine intuition was going to come into it, but he was thwarted – Sandwiches immediately climbed onto the coffin, lay down and started moaning. Arthur had never heard a dog moan, and this low crooning disturbed him immensely.

The nice man from the police liaison unit looked enquiringly at them both, but Arthur shook his head, and put his arm over the dog in lieu of a seat belt.

‘It’ll be about an hour into Heathrow,’ said the pilot; there was no separating curtain in the tiny aircraft. Arthur nodded numbly. Normally he would have been thrilled to be taking his first trip in a helicopter, but under these circumstances …

He sat as the bird lifted, the noise immense, rumbling right through him, and kept a close eye on Sandwiches, who seemed immune to the noise, mourning his dead master on a ride through the night sky.

Arthur watched the stars coming out, thinking of the horse he had once seen riding across the constellations, leaving destruction in its wake. He wondered if this was the horse.

Suddenly there was an exclamation from the pilot. ‘Fucking hell!’

Even in his state of shock, Arthur still registered that the one thing you never want to hear a pilot exclaim is ‘fucking hell’.

‘What is it?’ said the policeman.

‘Look at that!’ said the pilot, pointing downwards.

Below, beneath the clouds, was darkness, punctuated by motorway lights and the occasional fairy-tale cluster which marked a town or village.

This wasn’t a town, or a village, however. At first glance it might have been an airport.

‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ said the pilot.

Arthur craned his eyes. They were flying over what looked like, but couldn’t be – the scale was such it was extremely difficult to get his head around it – an enormous star.

The rows of lights went on for miles, tiny house lights and large streetlamps all turned on together by the people of the town below, spontaneously spelling out a great, shining star on the ground, a reproachful reflection of those above.

‘What the hell are they doing down there?’ said the policeman. ‘That’s amazing. It’s great. People are going to love it, flying over that at night.’

The pilot nodded. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ he repeated.

They were moving away from it now, and it was twinkling, huge and beautiful, in the distance.

‘Where are we, anyway?’ asked the policeman. The pilot briefly checked his co-ordinates.

‘That was Coventry,’ he said, although of course Arthur already knew.

It was such a beautiful morning, and there was a lot to do. Arthur couldn’t stay in bed another second. It was too warm to wear a suit and tie – the weather was fantastic, even for July – but he did anyway, and headed outside.

There was so much to look at. Every day all year the town had been a hive of activity, after they’d won. Builders were everywhere, driving people crazy by digging up the main street to put the tramline back down that they’d only pulled up thirty years before. Every week different lighting schemes came in and were turned around, so that one night there might be a flower on the insurance building, or an arrow by the railway station; or all the lights down one street would be red. People’s desire to join in never ceased to amaze him, and he never failed to smile at their ingenuity. Flowers raged everywhere that could be seen. All the leftover monies – sponsorship and donations – that came flooding in once they had officially won the competition – they’d used to carpet the town. It had been Cathy’s idea to cover the roofs of the many, many low-level industrial buildings, warehouses and discount carpet stores in flowers. They looked like they were huddling under a huge colourful canopy, which could be seen from the bypass and motorways, poppies, dahlias, daisies and daffodils sailing away as far as the eye could see. That, and they’d made a hefty donation to the local renal unit.

He turned into Station Road, heading towards Chapel Fields.

Weeks he’d spent indoors, wondering over and over again what he had done to cause, or at least be there for a death; whether his absolute desire to take over this quest hadn’t … Part of him knew it was an accident, part of him couldn’t square it, not yet.

But the application had gone ahead. They had got the official confirmation from Brussels soon after Sven’s funeral. Arthur was amazed they had done it, but it seemed there had been little discussion; this would certainly be the last time it would be decided this way, but decided it had to be, and it would be Coventry. Arthur hadn’t known how he would take this news, but when it came he was very pleased. It felt in some way as though everything wasn’t a complete waste of time.