Dark Sister Page 12

  But this feeling! Moonbathing, that's what she was doing. She was asking to be moonburned as she stalked round the circle. The moonbright droplets glittered on the east-facing shoulders of the stones.

  Maggie retraced her steps to the car and returned with a plastic film canister she'd found in the glove compartment. She went from stone to stone, collecting tiny droplets of moisture from each one in the plastic container. The act was entirely whimsical, inspired by the moment. The droplets no more than covered the bottom of the canister, but it was nonetheless precious. Moon-blessed. Holy water.

  She left the circle and paced out the distance to the solitary standing stone. Already she'd resolved to replace the collection of herbs and plants and oils destroyed by Alex. Everything could be restored. The diary was a great loss; that much was irreplaceable. But now she had Liz to help her, to see her through.

  Everything was going to be all right, Maggie decided, as she approached the solitary standing stone, the eponymous Wigstone. Ash had explained to her the origin of the name. Wikke was the Anglo-Saxon word for the craft of the wise: witchcraft. It derived from the word for the willow tree, wither, still used to describe basket and other woodcraft. The subtlety and pliability of the wicker branch paralleled the mental prowess and agility of the true witch: the ability to manipulate not by strength but by the subtle stroking and weaving of existing force. And here was the power stone, the Witch's Stone.

  It was almost twice the height of the Nine Ladies, mysteriously connected, but distant, withdrawn and watchful. Maggie collected more moisture from the rough-hewn block, squeezing the beads of water into her canister. She was intimidated by a sense in which she was intruding, pillaging; but somehow felt it was all sanctioned. As if this theft was permitted.

  Sanctioned? Permitted? By whom?

  No sooner was the question considered than she began to feel the presence. The presence. It was unmistakable, a richness of moment, exactly like the time in Osier's Wood.

  But stronger.

  The voice inside the silence. The slender, teasing fingernail extending out of the darkness to touch her spine below the neck. The prickling of the skin which was her due. Maggie gasped. She slipped and reached to steady herself on the stone, accidentally scything her finger on a sharp flake of granite. The blood trickled into her canister.

  There was a new stirring.

  No accident.

  Once again, words. Where did they come from? Was it her heart speaking?

  As she turned away from the stone, the mist on the ground flapped like the hem of a long skirt, then settled. It formed in a circle round the Dancing Ladies. It rolled, slowly, like a living thing. A breeze picked up and brought in a smell of spice, a hint of incense.

  Yes, stronger than the encounter in the woods. Maggie knew she had raised it with rage, with tears, and finally with resolution. It was terrifying to be able so to do. It was chilling. It was momentous.

  "You are everywhere," said Maggie.

  Again words came back to her: Just to look at you.

  Words. Speaking from the back of her brain. Words soft and indistinct like the mist, but undeniably real, and insinuating. Maggie froze. Her flesh crawled. It was stronger than ever and she wasn't ready. Something was going to happen, and it was too soon. She was unprepared. Not ready, she thought. I'm not ready to see your face. Not yet.

  The encircling mist wavered. Maggie moved away from the stone and ran across the brooding heath. She raced along the unlit path, careening into stunted shrubs, bouncing off boulders along the way. Her hair streamed out behind her. The muscles in her thighs seemed to lock, heavy as tree roots. She struggled to lift her legs. She ran in the direction of her car through the mist, panting with exhaustion and delirium.

  She ran in terror, an involuntary strangled murmur emitting from her vocal chords. But through it all was a strange delight. When she reached the car she was almost giggling hysterically, the way a small child might if pursued by a grownup in some game.

  The living-room light was still on when she got back to the house. She sat in the car for a moment, composing herself.

  Letting herself in she went through to the lounge. Alex was seated with his back to her. He gazed into the dying red embers of the fire and was nursing a tumbler of whisky. An empty bottle stood on the mantelpiece. .

  Alex got up slowly, clutching his glass. He turned to face her and took a step toward her, swaying slightly. He tilted his head and smiled, almost genially, but Maggie recognized a warning in it. "Been with your lover?"

  "Don't be silly, Alex."

  "You look a bit flushed. Whyzat?" His head fell forward. "A good evening's fucking?"

  "Alex, I—"

  "You've got some nerve. Accusing me." He drained his tumbler and let it fall on the floor. It bounced harmlessly on the deep-pile carpet.

  "Stupid thing to do."

  "Stupid," Alex mimicked heavily. A high, mincing voice.

  "Alex, I want to tell ..."

  But she wasn't allowed to finish. Alex drew back his fist and his first blow broke Maggie's nose. She reeled back into the wall. Next he crashed his fist into her eye and Maggie saw stars, not like in the cartoons, but white hot needles of light at the back of her vision. He had to pick her up off the floor to strike a third blow, and by the time he split her lip, her eye had already swollen shut.

  Alex left her sprawled on the floor snuffling snot and blood, and went upstairs to bed.

  TWENTY-TWO

  "I wish you'd come to me first. If you'd been here the morning after he hit you I'd have had an injunction slapped on him that day, to keep away from both you and the house."

  Alison Montague didn't look like Maggie's idea of a solicitor. She was pretty, under thirty, and she dressed in a suit so sharp you could have sliced your finger on it. She wore silver battle-axe earrings and she worked for Sedge and Sedge. Her room didn't look like Maggie's idea of a solicitor's office, either. It had floral curtains and a play area in the corner complete with toys, to amuse clients' children.

  "As it is," Ms Montague arched her eyebrows, "you walked out on them, and that sets you at a disadvantage."

  "I wasn't thinking about the consequences. I just wanted to get away."

  Maggie's broken nose didn't look too bad, though the bruises round her eyes had changed hue from lavender to a dirty yellow. It was a matter of some relief that her loosened canines hadn't shown any sign of falling out, and the swelling had gone from her lips.

  "I understand that. No woman should have to put up with domestic violence. How's this bed-sit working out?"

  Maggie shrugged. “It’s not the house I want. It’s the children.”

  “And you say he’s asked you to go back?”

  “Practically on his knees.”

  The morning following the violence, Maggie had slipped out of the house before Alex got up. She’d had no intention of facing him. She knew exactly what she was going to do.

  After all, Alex had hit her. Struck her! The man who had never previously so much as raised his fist in anger. It had shocked her to the white root. She thought she knew the man she’d been living with for seven years. Where had he suddenly found this depth of violence? It was as if she’d slipped into a parallel universe, where the man she was living with was like Alex in every detail except this.

  She was not so naïve about the world as to be surprised by the notion of marital violence. A kick, a slap, and a punch was as common a feature of many a marriage as the Sunday roast. But not theirs. That wasn’t how they lived their lives. But now he’d placed the argument beyond her. When Alex had struck her, he’d punched a hole in the fabric of her idea of who she was in the world.

  He’d hit her, but she knew how to punish him. Even if it meant suffering herself. She had to make a stand. Not for her new way of life-that was suddenly all secondary, mere detail at the periphery of the violent event-but for her integrity. For her sense of wholeness.

  She would suffer over the children. But, she
resolved Alex wouldn’t hit her again.

  She had spent the morning in the casualty ward at the hospital, before returning to study postcard adverts in the post office and local newsagents’ windows. Alex had indeed broken her nose, but the small fracture on the upper septum didn’t require her nose to be reset. In any event, keeping her good looks was the last thing on her mind. She’d looked and felt terrible, shivering and wiping her painful nose with the back of her hand and squinting through a closing eye. But by afternoon she'd found a bed-sit in the New Markets area of town, two miles from home. It wasn't particularly cheap, the room smelled damp, and the heating was coin-regulated by a ferociously hungry gas meter. The kitchen and toilet were shared with two other bed-sits on the same floor, and the shared bathroom came complete with a toadstool growing in the corner.

  But it was better than getting smashed in the face.

  After telephoning to check no one was home, Maggie went back to collect a few essential belongings and then installed herself in her bed-sit like someone preparing for a siege. She spent two nights there before calling Alex.

  He begged her to come home. She refused. For one thing her face still looked like a Halloween pumpkin, and she didn't want the children to see her that way. Of course she could lie, but she had an idea they'd know. It wasn't possible they could have slept through the crashing violence. She also refused to tell him where she was living.

  She spent a long time on the phone talking to Amy and Sam, and promised to phone again the following evening.

  Alex had woken from one nightmare into another. That morning he didn't open his eyes to some slow realization of what he'd done; he woke up to an instant self-loathing, and a taste like wet sand in his mouth. He crept downstairs to look for Maggie, searching the house in vain.

  He desperately wanted to cry, but he couldn't.

  The implications of her absence hit him as soon as the children got out of bed. He readied Amy for school and dropped her off outside the gates. Then he returned to the house with Sam, stupidly hoping Maggie might have appeared. He was already late for work when he decided to take Sam with him. It would be a nuisance, but he could keep Sam close by while supervising the dig.

  So he believed. Initially Sam thought it wonderful to be at Daddy's place of work. Alex carried him on his shoulders, and Sam regarded this a wonderful game. For five minutes. Then he wanted to get down. Some of the diggers made a fuss of him for a while, incurring Alex's pleasure; then, realizing what a brat Sam could be, their interest cooled and they got on with their work. Sam demanded total attention from his father: the more complex and sophisticated Alex's instructions to or discussions with individuals on his team needed to be, the more desperately Sam wanted to disrupt them; the closer the supervision Alex needed to offer, the more Sam screamed to be included.

  He yelled. He kicked. He cried. He spat.

  After a fraught half-hour, Sam started pulling up carefully laid depth markers, and wailed when they were snatched from his hands. Later, while Alex was showing someone how to shore up a wall, Sam tumbled into a ditch containing a foot of clay-coloured water.

  Alex felt his anger swelling, that Maggie could leave him with these problems. Then he remembered what he'd done to create this situation. Sam, wet and howling, now had to be taken home for a drying out. Tania offered to help, and Alex was pathetically grateful.

  On the fourth night Maggie agreed to have dinner with Alex. He wanted to book a table at the Grey Gables, but Maggie didn't want sweet wine and cut-glass. She stipulated the Pizza Palace and opted for mineral water. He was late because his babysitter was late. Maggie had covered her bruises with makeup, to spare his feelings.

  "Come back. I'm desperately sorry."

  "No. I'm not ready."

  "Please, Maggie."

  "I said no and I meant it. If you ask me again, I'll get up and walk out."

  "But what do you want?"

  "I just want to see the children."

  "Who's stopping you? See them any time!"

  "I mean without you. When you're not there."

  "Anything. I'll make it easy for you."

  A girl in a baseball cap and with a hole in her tights came to take their order, pencil poised. "Sharing or separate?" "Separate," said Maggie.

  Alex muddled through the first few days. He was able to make arrangements here and there. Anita Suzman helped out, and Tania took an afternoon off from the site to look after Sam at home. One session with Sam, however, proved more than enough for most, and Alex had to revise his arrangements with the child-minder.

  "How long is it going to go on for?" Tania asked him at the site.

  "No idea. We're like a weather house couple. She comes to the house in the evening and I have to go out to the pub. She's very civil and all that, but as soon as I get back, she has to leave."

  "Seems like she's having it all her way at the moment." Alex looked at her. "Well, she doesn't have to take any responsibility for the kids, but she hasn't lost the emotional contact."

  "I hadn't thought of it like that. Maybe I should start making some conditions."

  "No," said Tania. "That'd just be using the children for barter."

  "Hey! Alex!" It was Richard calling him. He'd been working solidly on the Maggie dig. "Come over here!"

  Alex let it run for a few nights before putting his foot down. He told Maggie that the present arrangement was causing too much distress. He told her the only way he would allow her to see the children was if she'd move back in with them

  .Maggie went away furious. She felt tricked. She was supposed to be the one laying down the conditions, not Alex. Now that he'dseen how desperately she wanted to be with Sam and Amy, he'd called her bluff.

  She wasn't frightened for her children, she knew they were in no danger, Alex's outburst notwithstanding; but the idea of not seeing them drove her to distraction. She found herself running through the events of the past weeks, wondering if she was asking too much, wanting to capitulate, talking herself out of it, then changing her mind over and over again in gymnastic flips.

  She cried a lot. She felt she was disintegrating. But she refused to return on Alex's terms, and sought legal advice, looking for custody of the children.

  "What I'll aim for," said Ms. Montague, eyes lustrous and earrings a-dangle, "and I'm not saying we'll get it automatically, is an injunction to get him out of the house and a residence order so that you have the children." She had a habit of inclining her head to one side as she spoke.

  "It suddenly seems a bit unfair to Alex," said Maggie.

  "Unfair?"

  "I mean, I'm the one who started messing him around. I can see how it might have looked to him, me slipping off at night... I feel like I'm the one who started the trouble, and he'll end up without the house and without the kids."

  "Sod that! He shouldn't be so ready with his fists!"

  Maggie was startled. Ms. Montague's earrings were waggling a mite enthusiastically. "He's never done it before, you know."

  "I'm more concerned he doesn't do it again. If you want me to make an application for a residence order, be ready to go to court some time in the next two weeks. Meanwhile I'll prepare an affidavit as to his behaviour, which you'll have to swear is true."

  "What happens to that?"

  "You sign it and I have it filed at court."

  Affidavits. Injunctions. Sworn truths filed at court. It all seemed so ritualistic and incantatory; so grave, and so monumental. Maggie nodded agreement.

  She walked home from the offices of Sedge and Sedge to her depressing bed-sit in New Markets. It was the last day in November, it was cold and damp, and it was already dark at five in the afternoon.

  The house she'd found was three storeys high and her room was on the middle floor. Someone kept a motorbike, leaking oil from its crankcase, in the downstairs hallway. Another resident on the ground floor played solid thrash at volume from two P.M., presumably when they got out of bed, to two A.M., presumably when they went to bed.
It was playing when Maggie turned the key to the front door.

  In her room she switched on the gas fire and pushed coins into her meter. It was like having a pet; it needed feeding often. Unable to visit Amy and Sam, she faced another barren evening.

  Making coffee in the shared kitchen facility was Kate, who occupied the next room. Kate looked like a figure from an Aubrey Beardsley drawing and wore the kind of makeup other people would only use for a pageant. She described herself as "late gothic," but she was really a friendly, chatty domestic Cleopatra in black denim, and though there were ten years between them, Maggie felt as if Kate was the elder of the two.

  "Is he always like this?" asked Maggie, referring to the noise from downstairs.

  "Never stops. I'm gonna firebomb his room one of these days."

  "Don't. I'm directly above it."

  "Perhaps I won't. Doing anything this evening?"

  "No one to do anything with." Maggie smiled at her.

  "Me neither," said Kate. "Fancy going somewhere?"

  TWENTY-THREE

  Richard had discovered a fourth dagger at the Maggie dig, ceremonial, bronze, identical to the others but snapped at the hilt. It was rather obvious from its position where a fifth might appear.

  "It's not a triangle at all," said Tania. "Another dagger over there would make a circle. They've been placed in a ring."

  Alex called in another couple of volunteers. They all worked through their lunch break, and within a couple of hours the fifth blade came to light. They marked out the exact location of the blades with wooden stakes.