‘Or a question mark?’ said Titus.
‘No. All questions will be over. There will be only the facts. The mean, sharp, brittle facts, like the wild bits of bone, and us, the two of us, riding the human storm. I know you cannot stand it any longer. This house of my father’s. This way of living. But let me have one last night with you, Titus; not in some dusky arbour where all the ritual of love drags out for hours, and there is nothing new; but in the bright invention of the night, our egos naked and our wits on fire.’
Titus, who had never heard her say so much in so short a time, turned to her.
‘Our star has been unlucky,’ she said. ‘We were doomed from the beginning. We were born in different worlds. You with your dreams …’
‘My dreams?’ cried Titus. ‘I have no dreams! O God! I have no dreams! It is you who are unreal. You and your father and your factory.’
‘I will be real for you, Titus. I will be real on that night, when the world pours through the halls. Let us drain it dry at a gulp and then turn our backs on one another, forever. Titus, oh Titus, come to the barbecue.
Titus pulled her towards him gently, and she became like a doll in his arms, tiny, exquisite, fragrant, infinitely rare.
‘I will be there,’ he whispered, ‘never fear.’
The great dreaming trees of the ride stretched away into the distance, sighing; and as he held her to him a spasm passed across her perfect features.
EIGHTY- FIVE
When at last they parted, Cheeta making her way down the aisle of oak trees, and Titus slanting obliquely through the body of the forest, the three vagrants, Crack-Bell, Slingshott, and Crabcalf got to their feet, and followed at once, and were now no more than forty feet from their quarry.
It was no easy task for them to keep track of him, for Crabcalf’s books weighed heavily.
As they stole through the shadows they were halted by a sound. At first the three vagrants were unable to locate it; they stared all about them. Sometimes the noise came from here, sometimes from there. It was not the kind of noise they understood, although the three of them were quick in the ways of the woods, and could decipher a hundred sounds, from the rubbing together of branches to the voice of a shrew.
And then, all at once, the three heads turned simultaneously in the same direction, the direction of Titus, and they realized that he was muttering to himself.
Crouching down together, they saw him, ringed by leaves. He was wandering listlessly in the half-darkness and, as they watched, they saw him press his head against the hard bole of a tree. As he pressed his head he whispered passionately to himself, and then he raised his voice and cried out to the whole forest …
‘O traitor! Traitor! What is it all about? Where can I find me? Where is the road home? Who are these people? What are these happenings? Who is this Cheeta, this Muzzlehatch? I don’t belong. All I want is the smell of home, and the breath of the castle in my lungs. Give me some proof of me! Give me the death of Steerpike; the nettles; give me the corridors. Give me my mother! Give me my sister’s grave. Give me the nest; give me my secrets back … for this is foreign soil. O give me back the kingdom in my head.’
EIGHTY-SIX
Juno has left her house by the river. She has left the town once haunted by Muzzlehatch. She is driving in a fast car along the rim of a valley. Her quiet companion sits beside her. He looks like a brigand. A hank of dark red hair blows to and fro across his forehead.
‘It is an odd thing,’ says Juno, ‘that I still don’t know your name. And somehow or other I don’t want to. So I must call you something of my own invention.’
‘You do that,’ says Juno’s companion, in a gentle growl of such depth and cultivation that it is hard to believe that it could ever issue from so piratical a head.
‘What shall it be?’
‘Ah, there I can’t help you.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘Then I must help myself. I think I will call you my “Anchor”,’ says Juno. ‘You give me so deep a sense of safety.’
Turning to look at him she takes a corner at unnecessary speed, all but overturning the car.
‘Your driving is unique,’ says Anchor. ‘But I cannot say it gives me confidence. We will change places.’
Juno draws in to the side of the road. The car is like a swordfish. Beyond it the long erratic line of the amethyst-coloured mountains. The sky overhanging everything is cloudless save for a wisp way down in the far south.
‘How glad I am that you waited for me,’ says Juno. ‘All those long years in the cedar grove.’
‘Ah,’ says the Anchor.
‘You saved me from being a sentimental old bore. I can just see myself with my tear-stained face pressed against the window-panes … weeping for the days long gone. Thank you, Mr Anchor, for showing me the way. The past is over. My home is a memory. I will never see it again. For look, I have these sunbeams and these colours. A new life lies ahead.’
‘Do not expect too much,’ says the Anchor. ‘The sun can be snuffed without warning.’
‘I know, I know. Perhaps I am being too simple.’
‘No,’ says the Anchor. ‘That is hardly the word for an uprooting. Shall we go on?’
‘Let us stay a little longer. It is so lovely here. Then drive. Drive like the wind … into another country.’
There is a long silence. They are completely relaxed; their heads thrown back. Around them lies the coloured
