‘Just tell me anything you can remember,’ I pleaded. ‘Just one or two personal things about them are all I need.’
‘Well… Nicky was a teacher of religious studies. You met at a religious lecture. One of my lectures, actually. She had dark blonde hair and so did your son, Luke. You told me once that she liked walking outside when it was raining and her favourite drink was an apple martini. What else…? Well, she was Christian, of course. I think you said she could play the piano… I’m sorry, Gabriel, I can’t think of much more, I only met her a few times. As for Luke, I saw even less of him, but I remember you being very indignant when he was cast as the goat at his nativity play last year. You thought he should have been starring as Joseph. And he wouldn’t eat spaghetti unless it was Postman Pat spaghetti, as I remember. Is that enough, Gabriel?’
‘I suppose it’ll have to be. Thank you.’
‘That’s the trouble with constant travelling — you don’t always get to be in the lives of your friends as much as you’d wish.’
‘How did the car crash happen?’ I asked.
‘That I can’t tell you,’ Stephomi said. ‘You couldn’t talk to me about it at the time.’
‘But you must know something about it,’ I pressed. ‘Was it an accident?’
‘Of course it was an accident!’ Stephomi said sharply.
‘Was I driving?’ I asked.
Stephomi hesitated.
‘Oh God, I was, wasn’t I?’
‘Look, it’s not what you think. It wasn’t your fault. Someone drove straight into you. They were speeding. There was nothing anyone could have done about it. The roads were icy.’
‘Well, you seem to know a lot about it, given that I wouldn’t talk about it,’ I challenged. ‘You’re just making it up to make me feel better, aren’t you?’
‘No! I’ve told you the truth.’
‘But how do you know if I didn’t tell you?’
Stephomi sighed. ‘I was with you when the police came a few weeks later and I learned about it from them.’
‘Why were the police there? I thought you said it was an accident? ’
‘It was,’ Stephomi said. ‘But the police still have to investigate these things, Gabriel.’
‘What did I do about this other driver?’ I asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Did I kill him? Did I make him pay for it?’
‘No,’ Stephomi said patiently. ‘You’d hardly be sat here like this if you had, would you? Although I admit that for a while I was worried that you might be moved to try and do something like that. There will always be pain, Gabriel. There’s no way of avoiding it unless you become a monk or a hermit.’
‘Did you come to their funeral?’
‘Of course I came. The rest of your family were there to support you too but you, ah… weren’t well, you see, and I had to take your place with the pallbearers.’
I felt shame at that, of course, but at the same time I felt incredibly lucky to have someone like Zadkiel Stephomi in my life, and the gratitude I felt towards him in that moment was something I would never have been able to express with words.
‘Thank you,’ I said, trusting he could hear in my voice what his friendship meant to me. ‘I’m so sorry for the way I treated you before, Stephomi, when you wouldn’t tell me what had happened-’
‘Don’t apologise to me,’ Stephomi said hastily. ‘Please, Gabriel. I know you would have done the same in my place.’
Now that I know the truth, I feel worn out. Burned through. But, at the same time I feel better than I have since all this began. It’s exhausting, coming to terms with the truth like this. But now at last I know, and it is a relief to know, to hit rock bottom knowing I won’t stay there. Not with a loyal friend like Stephomi to help me up again. Nicky and Luke are gone. There’s nothing I can do to bring them back. Now that I know about them, I can move on. And I don’t need to fear myself any more. There’s nothing sinister about me. I’m a writer, an academic… that’s all. Now I know who I am, where I stand and why, I am free to continue with my life.
11th October
Oh, God, to look at what I wrote in these pages yesterday. If only it could all be as easy as that. I felt at peace when I went to bed last night. The ghosts of my wife and son saddened me but I had decided to say goodbye to them and start again. And now grim foreboding has settled upon me like a cloak that I can’t shake off.
Last night I had the most disturbing and unsettling nightmare. I dreamed that Casey was giving birth at the top of the snow-covered bell tower of St Stephen’s Basilica. She was lonely and afraid but I was with her, helping her, reassuring her, keeping her safe. When the baby was born, a tiny, perfect little boy, I reached for a white blanket to wrap him in; but when I turned back, the baby had become a writhing black demon, sticky with blood, tiny batlike wings furling and unfurling as it thrashed around, lashing out with its claws, hissing and spitting and baring its sharp, pointed teeth at me. I shrieked and suddenly there was a dagger in my hand and I knew what I must do. My teenage neighbour screamed with horror as I drove the knife into her Hell-spawn baby, staining the white blankets with thick, sticky, black blood.
I looked up, gasping for breath, and the burning man was stood there staring down, the usual orange flames blazing all around him, the shimmering red light of the condemned, his fierce blue eyes taking in the weeping mother, the murdered remains of the twisted black newborn devil on the ground, and me hunched over it with the dagger in my hand, thick, black demon blood still dripping from the blade.
‘Welcome back to the Ninth Circle, Gabriel,’ the burning man said steadily, staring down at me with quiet approval.
I woke up screaming, quite sure that the heat from the blazing man’s flames was still scorching my skin. I had leaped from the bed and was out of my apartment and in the main corridor, hand raised to start hammering on my neighbour’s door before I checked myself hastily, forcing myself to stop. It was the middle of the night. I was wearing only a t-shirt and shorts. I couldn’t knock on her door at this time of night, I’d frighten her. She might even call the police. But I had to see her. I couldn’t wait until morning to see if she was all right. I thought of a hasty excuse and then knocked on her door as loud as I dared. I didn’t want to risk waking the whole building. After a few moments, I heard movement from within the apartment. The walls were thin and I clearly heard the girl sharply telling her brother to go back to his bedroom and stay there. Another moment later, the door opened on the security chain and Casey was peering out suspiciously. She looked surprised when she saw me, and not entirely comfortable.
‘What is it?’
Her words threw me for she had spoken in English, although she quickly corrected herself and repeated the question in Hungarian. I suppose, having been woken up in the middle of the night, she had used her first language unthinkingly.
‘Aren’t you Hungarian?’ I blurted out in surprise.
‘American,’ she said, staring at me.
‘I’m English,’ I said, feeling pleased.
‘Oh… Okay, then. Well, goodnight.’
And she started to close the door.
‘Wait!’ I said quickly. ‘You remember me, don’t you? My name’s Gabriel Antaeus, I’m your neighbour, you helped me when I had a migraine attack the other day. Look, I’m really sorry to disturb you at this time of night but I just got up to go the bathroom a few minutes ago and I saw someone outside the building next door being mugged. There’s no credit on my mobile and I have no phone in my room, so I was hoping to borrow yours to call the police.’
She was still gazing at me a little suspiciously. I suppose helping a neighbour in broad daylight was something altogether different to letting him into your home alone in the middle of the night.
