He cycled to the Four in the Morning. His knees protruded on either side of him, jerking up and down. Hedges sailed by slowly; their colours faded and dimmed into twilight. The whirr of his dynamo caught among the leaves. He struggled uphill, standing on the pedals. Dim countryside opened below him, the sea glinted dully. As he poised on the edge of the downhill rush he knew how he could unburden himself, or begin to. Tonight he would tell June everything.
But she didn't come to the club. People crowded in; the lights painted them carelessly monochrome. Discotheque records snarled and thumped, swirls of tobacco smoke glared red, pink, purple. Michael hurried about, serving. Dim wet discoloured faces jostled to reach him, shouting,
'Mike! Mike!' Faces rose obsessively to the surface of the jostling: June's, who wasn't there; his mother's, her eyes trying to dodge fear. He was suffocating. His frustration gathered within him; he felt swollen, encumbered. He stared at luridly pink smoke while voices called. 'I've got to go home,'
he told the barman.
'Had enough, have you?'
'My parents aren't well. I'm worried.'
'Strange you didn't say so when you came in. Well, I've managed by myself before.' He turned away, dismissing Michael. 'You'll have to make do with me tonight,' he told the shouting.
The last of the lit streets faded behind Michael. The moon was full, but blurred by unkempt fields of cloud; it showed him only a faint windy swaying that surrounded him for miles. When he confronted his father, what would his mother do? Would she break down? If she admitted to witchcraft and said it was time Michael knew, the scene would be easier - if she did. The moon struggled among plump clouds, and was engulfed.
He cycled fast up the Pine Dunes road. Get there, don't delay to reconsider. Gravel ground together squeaking beneath his wheels; his yellow light wobbled, plucking at trees. The depths of the forest creaked; distant tree trunks were pushed apart to let a huge unstable face peer through. He was overtired - of course there was nothing among the far trees but dark. He sped into the Caravanserai; random patches of unlit trailers bobbed up and faded by. His trailer was unlit too.
Perhaps his parents weren't there. He realized furiously that he felt relieved. They were in there all right, they'd be asleep. He would wake his father, the man might betray himself while still half-asleep. He'd dazzle his father awake, like an interrogator. But his parents' bed was empty.
He punched the wall, which rang flatly. His father had outwitted him again. He stared around the room, enraged. His father's huge suits dangled emptily, like sloughed skin; his mother's clothes hid in drawers. His father's metal box of books sat on top of the wardrobe. Michael glanced resentfully at it, then stared. It was unlocked.
He lifted it down and made to sit on his parents' bed. But that made him feel uneasy; he carried the box into the main room. Let his father come in and find him reading. Michael hoped he would.
He tugged at the lid, which resisted then sprang open with a loud clang.
He remembered that sound. He'd heard it when he was quite young, and his mother's voice, pleading: 'Let him at least have a normal childhood.' After a moment he'd heard the box closed again. 'All right. He'll find out when it's time,' he'd heard his father say.
The box contained no printed books, but several notebooks. They had been written in by numerous people; the inks in the oldest notebook, whose spine had given way, were brown as old bloodstains. Some of the writing in the latest book was his mother's. Odd pages showed rough maps: The Old Horns, Exham, Whitminster, though none of Pine Dunes. These he recognized; but he couldn't understand a word of the text.
Most of it was in English, but might as well not have been. It consisted largely of quotations copied from books; sometimes the source was indicated - Necro, Revelations Glaaki, Garimiaz, Verrnis, Theobald, whatever they were. The whole thing reminded him of pamphlets issued by cranky cults - like the people who gave all their worldly goods to a man in America, or the others who'd once lured Michael into a seedy hotel for a personality profile, which they'd lied would be fun. He read, baffled.
After a while he gave up. Even the entries his mother had written made no sense. Some of the words he couldn't even pronounce. Kuthullhoo? Kuthoolhew? And what was supposed to be so Great about it, whatever it was?
He shrugged, sniggering a little. He didn't feel so worried now. If this was all his parents were involved in, it seemed silly but harmless. The fact that they'd concealed it from him so successfully for so long seemed to prove as much. They were so convincingly normal, it couldn't be anything very bad. After all, many businessmen belonged to secret societies with jargon nobody else could understand. Maybe his father had been initiated into this society as part of one of the jobs he'd taken in his wanderings!
One thing still troubled Michaeclass="underline" his mother's fear. He couldn't see what there was to fear in the blurred language of the notebooks. He made a last effort, and let the books fall open where they would - at the pages that had been read most frequently.
What a waste of time! He strained his mind, but the pages became more bewildering still; he began to laugh. What on earth was 'the millennial gestation? Something to do with 'the fosterling of the Great Old Ones'? ',The hereditary rebirth'? 'Each of Its rebirths comes closer to incarnation'?
'when the mind opens to all the dimensions will come the incarnation. Upon the incarnation all minds will become one.' Ah, that explains it! Michael sniggered wildly. But there was more: 'the ingestion,' 'the mating beyond marriage,' 'the melting and merging' -
He threw the book angrily into the box. The skin of his eyes crawled hotly; he could hardly keep them open, yet he was wasting his time reading this. The trailer rocked as something huge tugged at it: the wind. The oldest, spineless, notebook began to disintegrate. As he knocked it square, an envelope slipped out.
It was addressed in his father's large handwriting; the last word had had to be cramped. TO
MICHAEL: NOT TO BE OPENED UNTIL AFTER I AM GONE. He turned it over and began to tear, but his hand faltered. He'd been unreasonable enough to his father for one day. After a moment he put the envelope unopened in his pocket, feeling sly and ashamed. He replaced the box, then he prepared to sleep. In the dark he tried to arrange his limbs on the sagging couch. Rocking, the trailer sounded like a rusty cradle.
He slept. He wasn't sure whether he was asleep when he heard his mother's low voice. He must be awake, for he could feel her breath on his face. 'Don't stay here.' Her voice trembled. 'Your girl friend's got the right idea. Go away with her if that's what you want. Just get away from here.'
His father's voice reached for her out of the dark. 'That's enough. He's asleep. You come to bed.'
Silence and darkness settled down for the night. But in the night, or in Michael's dream, there were noises: the stealthy departure of a car from the park; heavy footsteps trying not to disturb the trailer; the gingerly closing of his parents' door. Sleep seemed more important.
His father's voice woke him, shouting into the bedroom. 'Wake up. The car's gone. It's been stolen.'
Daylight blazed through Michael's eyelids. He was sure at once what had happened. His father had hidden the car, so that nobody could get away. Michael lay paralysed, waiting for his mother's cry of panic. Her silence held time immobile. He squeezed his eyelids tighter, filling his eyes with red.
'Oh,' his mother said at last, dully. 'Oh, dear.'
There was more in her voice than resignation: she sounded lethargic, indifferent. Suddenly Michael remembered what he'd read in June's book. Witches used drugs. His eyes sprang wide. He was sure that his father was drugging his mother.
It didn't take the police long to find the car, abandoned and burnt out, near the windmill. 'Kids, probably,' one of the policemen said. 'We may be in touch with you again.' Michael's father shook his head sadly, and they le~.