The first glimmer of anger begins to smoke and then flare through him. When the bedroom window is closed and latched, the front door and patio door locks secured, Dante slips into bed. He winces as he lowers his punished body to the cool sheets. He'll pack up first thing and hit the road before ten. It is the only thought that offers any comfort.
But sleep brings no relief; there are other things that demand his attention under the cover of slumber.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
When Dante's eyes open, something lies beside him in bed. His desperate need to flinch and turn away is denied. A numbing paralysis weighs him to the mattress, damp beneath his skin. It is the extreme attack of pins and needles again, shutting everything down except for his shallow breaths and faltering heartbeat.
His eyes flick left, right, up, down. He can see the pale ceiling of his room and the simple light shade corralling a bulb he wishes were on. The bare walls appear distant and barely reflect the faint traces of yellow streetlight creeping through a tiny parting in his curtains. An attempt to clench a fist fails; it is no longer there. The hand seems to have vanished from his tingling wrist, like a blind man who has groped off the end of a pier.
Beside him in bed, a head turns on the pillow. Droplets of sweat freeze against his scalp. The pillow dips beside his right ear. There is a faint exhalation and then silence. Something rests against his cheek. A head. He can feel the outline of a large face, a flat forehead, with eye sockets and no nose beneath — just the edges of something dry and sharp.
A petrified cry escapes from his throat. Panic slaps around his skull, like a dizzy child crazed with terror in a burning house. The bedfellow stirs and the movement of its limbs creates a rustle beneath the sheets — black snakes in long grass. Suddenly, it sits up. Dante's eyes flick to the right — a frightened rabbit, trapped in a tunnel beneath a large shadow, expecting the end.
Upon narrow shoulders, an indistinct face opens its mouth and utters a rasp of delight. Something long and thin reaches across his body. Hard fingers grasp his arms and hold them tight against his body. Then the shadow rises and moves across his vision before it settles down, spider-like, covering the bed. Dante closes his eyes and stops breathing. Like a sack of sticks, he hears its creaks and rustles. Outside his clamped eyelids, a face lowers itself. The embrace becomes a crush.
Dante's naked body hits the rough texture of the carpet beside his bed and he wakes with a scream. Moments later, the door blows in and the overhead light is swatted on. Tom stands by the bed, panting, dressed in just his shorts, his hair tousled and his eyes wide with shock. 'Jesus Christ! I thought you were being murdered!' Tom slumps against the wall and tries to catch his breath.
They stare at each other — Dante pallid, his face stricken, Tom about to speak, but in shock. They stay silent. Gradually, the horror of Dante's bruised and lacerated body is comprehended by Tom. He raises his eyes and pleads with Dante for an explanation. Dante begins to sob and covers his face. 'Tried to kill me,' he gasps. 'The window. Must have come in through the window.' He stares at the locked window. The curtains are still.
'Dante, look at you.' Tom's voice is unsteady with emotion. 'You're all cut.'
Rising to his feet, Dante looks about the pastel-shaded walls of his room. He touches the furniture. Everything is solid, real, in its place, and he is alive. He wipes tears from his eyes. Twisting around, he checks the bed. Slapping his hands down on the crumpled bed linen and mattress confirms the departure of the uninvited companion. Dropping to his knees, he peers beneath the bed, half expecting something to reach out and grasp his head with long fingers.
Nothing there.
A hundred-watt bulb and the yellow of sunrise bring reason back to his mind. But his recall of whatever made him scream in sleep dims, infuriatingly. Something was beside him. But what?
Tom's hands shake; he is angry now. His tanned face whitens, his head cocks at an accusatory angle. 'Where the fuck did you go last night? I heard the War Wagon's engine. I checked your room. You went out.'
Dante sits back on the mattress, catching his breath in the early morning charm of sunlight and cool air. He glances across the broken skin on his torso. 'Jesus, look at me.'
'I want fuckin' answers, mate!' Tom shouts. 'I know what makes those marks.'
Dante closes his eyes and sighs, so thankful to be awake, so grateful to be alive, to see Tom again and hear a milk bottle swept off a neighbour's doorstep, to hear birds and the distant shutting of a car door.
'Say something,' Tom says, exasperated.
Dante reaches for his jeans. He has to get up, smoke a fag, drink some tea, shower in hot water, force the small routines of living into the sick and drunken haze he's been wading through for days. Tom moves into the room, watching his friend's poorly balanced struggles to get dressed. He stands close to Dante, his eyes warning him of a serious fracture in their relations. 'Just a smoke and a cuppa, Tom. And then I'll give you the lot. The mess that I've got us both into.' Speech is such an effort for him. His entire coating of skin now stings or aches after every movement. When he tries to walk around Tom to get to the bathroom his friend places a firm hand on Dante's shoulder and shakes his head. 'No more bullshit, Dante. I want to know what's going on with you. You're covered in fuckin' bite marks, for Christ's sake.'
Dante nods. 'Just let me wash.'
Hot water pours through every abrasion on his body and stings the tender, healing flesh. Then he increases the power of the showerhead so the blast of hot water covers the sound of him crying. Standing with his hands against the tiled wall, he sobs not just at the terrors of St Andrews but at the thought of the last five years. Every motive and aspiration as a musician germinated after reading Banquet. Every letter to Eliot was a confession. The concept album proof of an unquestioning admiration. In return, his mentor has given nightmares, sickness, a madness called Beth, and the offer of a violent death on a deserted beach.
When he finishes washing and sobbing he finds Tom waiting for him in the living room. Tom smokes a cigarette and watches Dante take the easy chair opposite the sofa. Nervous, Dante begins the confession.
Ten years of living in each other's back pockets produces frequent conflict, usually only resulting in slight confrontations. But at times something else will take over, something blood-hot, and they stop just in time, and bite back on the words at the last moment to save their bond. On this morning, however, it seems as if the very foundations of their friendship, supporting them for over a decade, are under threat. For once, Dante muses, it is because he is in the wrong.
'You kept that from me?' Tom says, incredulous, after Dante nervously recounts the fuller version of his liaisons with Beth. 'I can't believe you never told me. I've been kicking around this flat day after day, jerking off, looking after you, going insane with boredom. You know, I started to think that this whole deal in Scotland was a mistake. We don't belong here. I only kept going because of you, keeping all of my doubts to myself, because this was Dante's trip of a lifetime. He was going to meet Eliot Coldwell.'
'Tom, I know it sounds bad —'
'Damn straight it does. For Christ's sake, Dante! All this time you've been fucking about with Eliot's wife. If anyone was going to commit adultery up here I thought it would've been me, but it was you and some tart into bondage. Look at the state of yourself. You don't have a fuckin' clue! How could you do it to the guy that wrote Banquet? You've read it a hundred times and turned it into lyrics. He's an old man with a young girl, and you fuck her.'