retreated behind her desk. She passed a hand over her moist forehead and wiped it on her old baggy trousers before closing her fingers over the mouse.
The story goes Pendemon thought Grace was calling up too
many spirits and devils and the rest of that lot when he
wanted to use them himself. Seems like even demons get tired
and want a night off now and then. You'd think these two
masters of the occult might have learned to share and be
good little boys, but Grace told Pendemon if he wanted any of
the powers Grace was supposed to have made slaves out of he
could fight him for them. He must have thought his were
bigger and nastier, but Pendemon had a trick under his pointy
hat if it wasn't up his robe. 'All flesh incubates the dark,' he's
meant to have said, and 'At the core of every soul horror waits
to gnaw forth' and 'The mass of men are vessels of dread for
the thaumaturge to draw upon.' In English that means he
thought he could use anybody handy to send Grace something
as horrible as horrible gets. Anyone who wandered near
Pendemon's house . . .
What use was this to Ellen's book? She let go of the glistening plastic lump and raised her ponderous hand to dab her infirm forehead. She was lowering her hand to wipe it when it faltered in front of her nose, that pallid excrescence that appeared to have split in half to trouble both inner edges of her vision. With a good deal of reluctance she brought the hand closer. Was it the source of the underlying smell? She wasn't sure, though her hand was certainly as moist as an imperfectly squeezed sponge. She let the flabby appendage flop on the desk, only to wonder which she found less appealing – the hand or the prospect of reading the rest of the text. Couldn't she look at Pendemon's house instead? Even that would involve wielding her fat etiolated sweaty hand. It and the insidious smell, which she was increasingly unable to believe had any source besides her own dank self, had begun to sicken her. She was staring at the hand as if this might render it no longer part of her, except that the rest was at least as bad, when her mobile wriggled against her padded hip before emitting its protracted note.
She saw her hand jerk nervously, and tried not to think that she saw it wobble like a jellyfish stranded on the beach of the desk. She fumbled the mobile out of her pocket and poked a key with a blundering thumb as she lifted her hand almost close enough to touch her pulpy cheek. 'Ellen?' Hugh said.
'I'm afraid so.' She hoped he hadn't caught that – she didn't want to have to explain – and so she added 'Are you checking up on me?'
'Why, do I need to? What's wrong?'
'I meant are you checking to see if I've found out anything about the person you mentioned who used to live where we were talking about.'
What had happened to her language? She was sidling around the subject without understanding why. As she gazed at the screen she was close to fancying that the information below the edge was about to inch into view – that it was determined not to stay buried. Hugh didn't help by mumbling 'Have you?'
Ellen had the odd impression that he would prefer not to know, unless he hoped for a negative answer. A faint tremor rose through the lines on the monitor, as if the text were about to take on more life. As she reached to quell it with a fat hand at the end of an arm that was surely not as plump, she was suddenly afraid that her pudgy clutch would dislodge the lurking words from their den. She closed her eyes while she admitted 'I'm just starting.'
'Leave it alone for a minute, can you?'
Ellen risked slitting her eyes and saw that the upper half of the rest of the sentence had crept into view.
. . . would have the worst
she couldn't avoid glimpsing before she clicked the mouse to close the page. She wanted to blame Hugh for her nervousness, and wished she didn't have to ask 'Why?'
'It wasn't what I rang about. It's Rory.'
'Has he got you acting as his secretary now? Go on then, put him on.'
She was so concerned to shut down the computer, if only since it was a distraction, that she didn't immediately notice Hugh's pause. 'I can't,' he said.
'Don't tell me he wants you to do his talking for him as well.' As the screen turned black, exhibiting her pale blob of a face, Ellen raised her voice in case she could be overheard. 'He's good enough at talking to my editors about me when I didn't ask him to. Is he sorry now he did? He ought to tell me to, well, he can't to my face, but he ought to tell me himself.'
'It isn't that,' Hugh protested in something like anguish. 'I said I'd tell you about him.'
'When did you say that?'
'When I spoke to Charlotte.'
Ellen couldn't help growing resentful, however prematurely. 'You were speaking to her about . . .'
'What've we been talking about? My brother. Why are you making this harder for me?'
'I'm sure I wasn't aware that I was.'
'Ellen, I'm sorry. It's not your fault, it's mine.' Hugh swallowed hard enough to be audible and said 'I phoned him when he was coming to see me and he was in a crash.'
Hugh couldn't feel guiltier than Ellen immediately did for having assumed the subject was her book. She stared in renewed loathing at her blurred pallid swollen face and wondered how much it was puffed up with self- absorption. She saw a hole open in it as she set about asking 'How bad?'
'Bad.'
The hole closed, and she felt her thickened lips quiver like gelatin as they rubbed together. They parted with an unpleasant sticky sound as a preamble to saying 'Just tell me, Hugh.'
'He's not dead.'
Eventually she had to ask 'What is he?'
'Unconscious. Maybe in a coma.'
Ellen unstuck her lips again, and so did the oversized blob. 'Apart from that . . .'
'I don't know. I haven't been yet. I've only just rung the hospital.'
'When will you be going?'
'Soon as I can. Charlotte's coming tomorrow.'
From his tone Ellen could have assumed the events were directly connected. 'She's staying over,' he added on the way to blurting 'You can too if you like.'
Why should a family reunion make Ellen apprehensive? She could only blame Hugh's feelings about her, but she would have to cope with those for Rory's sake. 'I'll see you then,' she said. 'I'll ring to say what time. Are you meeting people at the station?'
'I might have to stay here. Get a cab if you don't fancy walking up.'
