The Betrayals(44)

‘You could have come to his funeral, if you cared so much.’

He looks up. The flush deepens into blotches of crimson against red, like a rash. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I could have done.’

‘Why didn’t you?’ She has imagined, more than once, what it would have been like if he’d been there. How at least then she wouldn’t have been the only person under the age of thirty. How he might have looked at her and seen her, made her feel more real, or less guilty, or – she doesn’t know. It might have meant catastrophe, or redemption, or both. It would have been different, anyway: and nothing could have made it worse.

‘I couldn’t.’

‘Oh yes,’ she says, ‘you were invited to the Midsummer Game. As a Gold Medallist. You couldn’t miss that.’

‘I didn’t go to that.’ He picks at his cuff as though there’s a thread loose, although there isn’t. ‘I went home. I couldn’t face it. Look, it doesn’t matter, does it? He was dead.’

She nods. She recognises the pain in his voice. She wants to berate him – to see if she can make him crack, admit what he did – but that treacherous note of pity is still ringing in her ears. Whatever he’s done, then and since … ‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘Why should it matter? He’s dead.’

He meets her eyes. Her pity is reflected on his face, and for a strange dislocated moment it’s as if they recognise each other.

She wrenches herself into the present. She looks away and he draws himself up, both of them shaking off whatever has just happened. ‘I’ll dig out some old exam papers for you, if you want,’ she says, determinedly brisk. ‘Stop you mouldering over old games. It’ll be more rewarding than trying to match the glory of your past attempts.’

‘No need to be sarcastic,’ he says, with a faint gleam of amusement.

She gives him a narrow smile, but she doesn’t reply. She goes out into the corridor. But she doesn’t close the door behind her; and some unfamiliar demon makes her hum the main theme of the Danse Macabre, pushing against the sharp knot in her throat, barely loud enough for him to hear.





13


Three weeks to go till we hand it in

Two o’clock in the morning. Woke up, then didn’t want to go back to sleep. A dream about a net that was also the grand jeu. Thread getting tied round my fingers. Not a net, a web. Ugh.

It’s snowing outside. Lamplight from my window catching on the sweep of it. Another window further along, too. Could be Carfax’s. Not sure. Wide darkness, darks of sky and trees, white-in-dark of snow and slope. And against it all two patches of gold, mid-air, flickering as the flakes thicken. Uncanny. Nothing here is the same as in my dream and yet it is, whatever story my brain was telling me, it’s this. Not making any sense, am I? I’m afraid of what’s waiting at the heart, lurking spider, something that wants to suck my insides out. But worse than that, afraid of getting stuck. Afraid of the sticky filaments, afraid of a cocoon. Safety and death.

What am I talking about? Shut up. Waste of paper. Rambling.

So tired. Tired but not sleepy. Wasn’t like this last year, this is new. My appetite’s gone to pot, too, most of the time I’m not hungry and then late at night I’m famished. Tonight – last night – I came back to my room after working with Carfax until nearly midnight, and devoured all the chocolate Mim sent yesterday. Maybe that’s why I had a nightmare.

Danse Macabre. Everything’s the Danse Macabre. I look at snow and see bone. Trees and skeletons. Beds and tombs. Saw Carfax asleep the other day, when I knocked and he didn’t answer. On his side, face half in his pillow, unguarded. Thought of Juliet. Asleep only she’s dead only she’s not. Worms as chambermaids. How sweet that is, like a kid’s story, like the footmen-rats in Cinderella. Sweet and disgusting. Chambermaids that burrow into you. Consumed by your underlings. Supper not where you eat but where you’re eaten. Stood there staring at him thinking all that, and then went back to the door and knocked again until he woke up. Strange feeling of not wanting to leave him at a disadvantage. Unfair to look when he can’t look back. (Death, I suppose, being the biggest disadvantage of all. But he wasn’t. Luckily.)

His tune. Found myself picking it out on the piano the other day when I was trying to practise a prelude. Death waltzing with the lovely young girl. It’s suggestive. Does he mean it to be? Later I wanted to ask but I couldn’t. Your little melody, Carfax – it gives me a metaphorical hard-on, and I wondered whether you meant it to? No? Oh well, it’s probably only me. Perverse, as usual.

Glad no one can see inside my head. Especially glad Carfax can’t.

At least I hope he can’t. Argh, what if he can?

He’s so inscrutable. No, not inscrutable. Most of the time I know how he’s feeling, or at least I can guess. But underneath it all, there’s that constant unknowability. Keeping everyone at a distance. Superiority. Looking down at us, refusing to be on the same level. Always holding something back. It’s why it feels like such a triumph when I make him laugh or swear at me. Breaking through. Showing him he’s human, after all. His lamp’s still burning. Wonder what he’s doing now? With any luck he’ll turn up in the library tomorrow with something clever. Oddly pleasant to know he’s there, awake.