“Yes,” Cushing said, gazing back at the figure on the bed and readjusting the white cravat to its former position. “I think he does.”
He didn’t know if it was the effect of chemicals used by the pathologist or the fluorescent lighting, but the man seemed years younger, as if, absurdly, all the sins had been lifted off him. His skin unblemished, his hair neatly combed as if by an insistent mother. He wondered what was strange and then realised that, for some mysterious reason, his beard had been shaved off. He seemed, in fact, for all the world, strangely like a child.
Cushing looked at the crucifix on the wall opposite—the room’s only concession to decoration—and found himself, in an almost imperceptible gesture, making the sign of the cross over his own heart as he turned away.
As he reached the door he heard Wake’s voice behind him.
“Have you got what you want?”
“Mm?”
He turned back. The assistant was covering Gledhill’s face with the sheet, and Wake was standing beside him, ash gathering on his cigarette as he sucked it.
“For your research? I presume that’s why you wanted to see the body.”
“Yes.” Cushing tweaked the front of his trilby between thumb and forefinger before placing it on his head. “Yes, I have.”
On the way home many thoughts went through his mind, but the one he was left with as he opened the front door was that, earlier, that morning, as his hand had picked up the receiver, he had wanted it to be Joycie at the other end of the line. Much as he feared talking to her, it was a fear he had to face—no, wanted to face, and that evening after a supper of Heinz tomato soup he decided to take matters into his own hands, and ring her himself. He was absolutely sure it was what Helen would want him to do. No, what she would expect of him. Because it was right.
No sooner had he said her name, “Joycie”, than they both wept.
Without hesitation he asked her to come back. Equally without hesitation, she agreed.
“I’m so sorry if I’ve been rude or inconsiderate…”
“No, sir. You’ve never been that. Never.” He could hear her blowing her nose in a tissue. Soon he found himself doing the same.
“What a pair we are,” he said. “Dear oh dear. I shall have to get more Kleenex tomorrow, shan’t I? I think I need to order a truck-load.”
She laughed, but it was tinged with the same kind of enfeebled anguish as his own. He wondered, as he often did, if he would hear his own laughter, proper laughter, that is, ever again.
“You see, Joycie, everywhere I see reminders of her. I can’t help it. This room. Every room. Every street I walk. Every person I meet. It’s simply unbearable, you see…”
“I know, sir.”
“Do you forgive me?” he said.
And, before she could form an answer, they wept again, till the tissues ran out.
Facing the sea he heard the tick-tick-tick of the wheels of a pushbike approaching. His was an old black Triumph from Herbert’s Cycles tending towards rust, with a shopping basket at the front, tethered to a bollard like an old and recalcitrant mare. The other, soon leaning against it, was one of these Raleigh ‘Chopper’ things (not hard to deduce as the word was emblazoned loudly on the frame) in virulent orange, with handlebars that swept up and back and an L-shaped reclining saddle like something out of Easy Rider.
The boy, sitting next to him and finishing a sherbet fountain through a glistening shoot of liquorice, said nothing for a while in the accompaniment of sea birds, then, when seemed remotely fitting, pronounced that the vehicle on display was a Mark 1 and had ten speeds. Cushing pointed with a crooked finger and said there was no attachment for a lamp, and the boy said he knew, and they were made like that. He said it was called a Chopper, which Cushing already knew but pretended he didn’t and repeated the word, for all the world as if the emblazonment had been invisible. But the object was new and gleaming and admirable, and dispensing some wisdom since he could, he advised the boy to look after it. Possibly the boy looked at the scuffed, worn, weary Triumph and thought that was like an elephant telling a gazelle to lose weight. But he’d been brought up by his mother not to cheek his elders, not that that worried him a great deal when it was called for, but on this occasion he chose to hold his tongue and nodded, meaning he would look after it. Of course he would. He wanted it to look new and gleaming forever.
When the sherbet was finished the boy walked to the rubbish bin and dropped it in. When he sat back down he chewed the remains of the liquorice the way a yokel might chew a straw, moving it from one side of his mouth to the other along slightly-blackened lips.
“You look younger.”
Cushing had almost forgotten he’d shaved for the first time in weeks. He rubbed his chin. Dr Terror’s salt and pepper was gone.
“I have a painting in the attic.”
“What does that mean?”
“Never mind. You’ll find out when you’re a bit older.”
The boy frowned. “I hate it when grown-ups say that.”
“So do I. Very much so. I’m sorry.”
He looked at the boy and beckoned him closer. He took out a handkerchief and rolled it round his index finger. “Spit on it.” Without considering the consequence, the boy did, trustingly, and Cushing used it to rub the liquorice stains from his lips while the boy’s face scrunched up, an echo, the old man thought, of the infant he once was.
“How’s your mum?” He folded the handkerchief away.
The reply was a shrug. “She cried a bit. She cried a lot, actually. I didn’t.” A show of resilience, sometimes stronger in the young. The show of it, anyway. “But I felt sorry for her. She’s my mum.”
“Naturally.”
Cushing did not enquire further. Out at sea beyond the Isle of Sheppey, a cloud of gannets hovered halo-like over a fishing vessel.
“They say it was an accident,” the boy said presently, with a secretive excitement in his voice. “But it wasn’t an accident, was it? It was you.”
“It doesn’t matter. It happened. He’s gone now. It’s over.”
“I know you can’t say because it’s secret, but it was you, wasn’t it? Acting on my instructions as a Vampire Hunter? I knew you would. I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”
Cushing tugged on his white cotton glove and pulled down each finger in turn, then lit a cigarette and smoked it, eyes slitting.
“How do you feel now? That’s the important thing.”
The boy wondered about that as if he hadn’t wondered about it until that very moment.
“You know what? It’s funny. It’s really weird. I feel a bit sad. I feel a bit like it’s my fault because I asked you to. I know he was evil and that. I know that, and I know he deserved it and everything. I don’t know…”
“It wasn’t your fault, Carl.” Would he ever truly believe that? “Look at me, Carl. Please.” The boy faced the old man’s pale blue, unblinking eyes and the old man took his hand. “When they choose people as a victim, it’s not the victim’s fault. It’s their fault. You’ve got to remember that.” Peter Cushing knew that now more than ever he needed to keep a steady gaze. “I’m the world expert, remember?”
The boy nodded and took his hand back.
“I know. No need to show off.”
Cushing trembled a smile and looked back to sea.
Periodically flicking his ash to be taken by the breeze, he gazed down between the groynes and saw a man in his twenties wearing a cheesecloth shirt and canvas loons rolled up to just under the knee and curly hair bobbing as he ran in and out of the icy surf. A dollishly small girl with a bucket and spade was laughing at him and he chased her and scooped her up in his arms, turning her upside down.