Blood Fugue Read online

  He walked out to their bedroom. In the old days they’d slept upstairs just as he had, but when Burt’s legs began to let him down, they made a new bedroom in the old living room and converted part of the hallway into a downstairs bathroom. They didn’t alter the room much. The only major change was moving their bed in there. It looked strange and out of place with a sofa stuck at the end of it and an ancient TV beyond that. Everywhere the shelves were stacked with old books and papers and the walls were decorated with paintings by unknown artists from who knew when.

  There was no one in there.

  The darkness was almost total by then. Kerrigan began to panic, his heart so loud in his ears he was afraid he wouldn’t hear an intruder until it was too late to act. He had to find some light.

  He prayed the fuse for the upstairs circuit hadn’t blown too. The staircase was wooden just like everything else inside the house and it creaked worse than the floorboards. Every step he took telegraphed that he was on his way up and he cursed the place for giving him away so easily.

  The stairs bent back on themselves at a small square landing and there was a set of switches there. When they worked, flooding the upstairs with an unhealthy yellow light from low wattage bulbs covered by thick light shades, Kerrigan was delighted. He sighed and felt his heart rate settle down a little. He could wait upstairs until they got back. Or he could probably see well enough to call Maggie on the hallway phone downstairs to see if she knew where they were.

  It was as he placed his foot on the final step that he heard the rumbling growl. It was up there with him. He froze, his right hand gripping the stair rail. His left hand instinctively went to his chest and held onto the binder. He waited, unable to move.

  Eventually, he edged forward. The sound was coming from his old bedroom. It was dark in there and the door was half open. He had no weapon on him and even if he had he wouldn’t have entered the bedroom. He was stuck there listening to that sound; the last sound Burt and Kath would have heard. The idea made him want to weep.

  The growling stopped and he heard movement; a scratching, sliding sound. Something dragging itself across the floor. Whining. He saw a black nose poke out from the darkness and into the upstairs hallway.

  ‘Dingbat?’

  The crazy mongrel scampered out of the bedroom when he heard Kerrigan’s voice and started to jump up at him, whining with fear and relief all the same time.

  ‘Shit, Dingbat, you had me scared half to death, you stupid mutt.’

  He ruffled the shaggy fur on Dingbat’s head.

  ‘Is anyone up here, you hairy son of a bitch?’

  They checked the rest of the rooms, Dingbat sticking with him until he was satisfied the place was completely uninhabited.

  ‘Where’d they go, boy? Where’s Burt, huh? Where’s Kath?’

  At the mention of their names Dingbat tilted his head to one side.

  ‘Come on, let’s make a phone call.’

  Down in the hallway not much light penetrated from upstairs but he could make out the buttons on the phone well enough and was able to read Kath’s neat schoolmarm handwriting. Maggie’s phone rang for a long time but she didn’t answer.

  As he replaced the phone onto its base, the snarling began again. Dingbat was backed away from the front door, the hair along his spine rising into spikes. His lips drew back from his teeth and he shrunk into a tight crouch, ready to launch himself. Kerrigan could see the outline of the door only faintly but he had a feeling there was someone there.

  In the semi darkness he watched the door swing open and saw a vague silhouette framed there.

  ‘Is that you, Jimmy?’ It was the voice of Maggie Fredericks. ‘They took Burt to the hospital. Kath’s with him. I think he had a heart attack.’

  After twenty-five miles of winding mountain roads Kerrigan was close to vomiting. He kept quiet about it though. Maggie’s kindness was the only thing that would reunite him with Burt and Kath, assuming Burt hadn’t already passed on. Maggie asked him questions from time to time but he didn’t feel much like talking; he knew whatever he told her would be common knowledge to all in Hobson’s Valley by the next morning. He kept his replies as short and unspecific as he could without coming over as unfriendly.

  The sense of emptiness that always stalked him pressed close as they drove down the far side of the mountains and finally onto a straight road in the next valley. His nausea eased but his dread increased.

  By the time they arrived at Maiden County hospital, Kerrigan felt weak and old. He walked to the coronary unit as if his legs had forgotten how and asked for Burt. The nurses shared a few hushed words and asked him to wait for a moment.

  It was Kath who returned, red eyed and shrunken with shock and grief. He could still see the love in her eyes, but there was anger there too. She hugged Kerrigan with the fierceness of chains, as if she’d never let go.

  Maggie hung back while they embraced.

  After a long time, Kath released him.

  ‘Burt’s not going to make it.’

  Kerrigan shook his head.

  ‘They said that?’

  ‘No. But I know him. He’s had enough. He’s been giving up for quite a while.’

  Kerrigan pushed his hand back through his hair.

  ‘Jesus, Kath. What happened?’

  ‘Oh, he was helping me in the kitchen. He never does that, you know. But he was excited. I haven’t known him to act that way for a long time. It made me happy just to see it.’

  She smiled at the memory of it.

  ‘He went out to call you and tell you to come a little earlier. He wanted to have a beer with you on the porch. When you didn’t answer, he figured you were already on your way. He went to get changed and he was laughing. ‘That boy sure is a sissy’ he said. He knew you were trying to make it down to us before it got dark. And then —’

  — Burt pushed his walker ahead of him, grinning and shaking his head. His boy had finally bitten the bullet. Tonight Jimmy would walk home alone, in the dark, and conquer his fear once and for all.

  Burt reached for the light switch in the bedroom, flicking it on and off a couple of times.

  ‘Darn it,’ he muttered. ‘Need a goddamned electrician now.’

  There was just about enough light from the hallway for him to see his clean shirt laid out on the counterpane. He shuffled into the bedroom and parked his walker beside the bed. The scent of the pot roast wafted in from the kitchen and Burt’s stomach growled. He slipped off his old shirt and reached for the clean one. There was a tap at the bedroom window and Burt froze, mid-stretch.

  ‘Lord above,’ he whispered.

  His eyes swivelled towards the sound. Framed like a living portrait was the face he’d seen twice in the last few days. The face of an impossibly old man. Except the face was worse tonight, swimming forward from a sea of blackness and melting. The ancient eyes widened, livid purple veins rising in the whites. The mouth tore open and the tongue spilled free, splitting into three snakelike fronds, each of which now licked the dirty windowpane—

  — he called out to me. He sounded frightened, Jimmy, like you used to when you were a kid and woke up in the night. His voice was tiny. I heard his knees crack against the floorboards and I ran to him. He was holding his chest and staring at the window. I held him before I called for help. He was so cold and so tiny, Jimmy. My man for all these years. Cold and broken.’

  She collapsed against Kerrigan. This time there was no iron in her embrace. She was barely able to support herself. He looked over at the nurse.

  ‘Can we go in and sit with him together?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He held Kath and she guided him back to the room where Burt was. The old man looked frail but he looked peaceful too. There was no tension in his face, no anger. A monitor tracked his heart, betraying its erratic rhythm and hesitant beats. They took a seat on either side of him and each held one of his hands.

  It wasn’t a long vigil. Sometime in that next hour Burt’s heart
stopped. They’d already resuscitated him once and the doctor on duty and Kath had quietly agreed that he should not be resuscitated again, considering how destructive the first infarction had been. They held his hands as the monitor sounded an alarm signalling no heartbeat. A nurse came in, switched the monitor off and left them alone. Kerrigan whispered goodbye and kissed Burt’s cooling hand but for a long time he couldn’t let go of it.

  Chapter 10

  Kerrigan spent the night in his old room with Dingbat sleeping at the end of the bed.

  He rose early but Kath was already up and dressed, busying herself in the kitchen. When he hugged her she pulled away. He reached for the cereal cupboard but she steered him to a chair at the kitchen table. Despite his protests, she made pancakes and fried eggs with vegetarian sausages for him. He wasn’t hungry, but he ate as much as he could.

  That time in the kitchen was hard to bear. He watched Kath begin several little routines that were meant for Burt before stopping and tidying away whatever it was she’d started on. He saw how little of what she did was for herself. After a while she stood at the kitchen sink, lowered her head and wept, shaking silently. This time she let him hug her.

  When the tears had passed, a squall that signalled a whole season of storms, Kath sat down at the table and withdrew an envelope from her apron pouch. The envelope was ivory with age and fat, as if it was stuffed with money. She laid it on the table in front of her.

  ‘Oh, Jimmy. We shouldn’t have waited so long to do this.’ She sniffed and blew her nose. ‘We just never wanted to face up to it, I guess.’

  Was she talking about his adoption? They’d been through all this when he was a little boy. He understood perfectly well that they weren’t his real parents. It had never spoiled anything for him. He’d always been certain that if his own parents had kept him, he’d have had a worse life; a life with less love, one in which all opportunity was closed to him. Burt and Kath had been the best thing that ever happened to Kerrigan. They pointed the way, let him make his mistakes and respected his aspirations. Even when he left for New York they didn’t complain or make him feel he was making the wrong decision.

  Kerrigan stared at the envelope.

  ‘What more is there to know, Kath?’

  She pressed a tissue to her mouth to stifle a sob and pushed the envelope towards him.

  He reached out, froze for a moment, and then picked up the envelope with care, not wanting to damage its pristine smoothness and perfect lines. ‘For James Kerrigan’ was all that was written on it. Its touch filled his mind with images — a hundred stills passing in an instant — he tried to hold on to them and couldn’t, except for one. It was a vision of a tall figure dressed in fraying clothes. The figure was gaunt like a starving hermit and he — Kerrigan felt it was a man, an old man — stood beside a huge tree. The trunk was so thick, its branches so vast; Kerrigan could only imagine its size. The image stayed with him.

  ‘You have to open it,’ said Kath.

  He took his knife, cleaned it on his napkin and placed the blade in the space between the flap and the body of the envelope. He hesitated for a moment longer then slit it open in one sharp movement.

  He took out the carefully folded, handwritten sheaves and began to read.

  The first page was written in Burt’s chunky hand — the neatest thing he’d ever written, Kerrigan realised — and probably the only letter he’d ever written with an ink pen. The date was August 1975, just after Kerrigan’s birthday.

  Dear James,

  You have come to us like a blessing or an answered prayer. You will know by the time you read this that we are not your real parents, I plan to tell you that as soon as you«re old enough to understand, but I hope that by the time you do read this you’ll see us as your true family.

  The circumstances of your birth are unusual, a real mystery to all of us. I think this letter will explain some of it — you’ll understand it in a way that we can’t.

  The truth of the matter is that we did not seek you out from the orphanage as we said we did. We found you in the forest. You were wrapped in an animal skin, laying in a basket of reeds. Whoever left you, placed you in the middle of the Eastern Path that runs across the lower part of Bear Mountain. They left this letter too.

  We took you into Hobson’s Valley to the doctor who talked to the sheriff. They both knew us and our situation. We’ve always made our own law in this part of the country and once they were sure the parents weren’t coming back, they let us keep you. Of course, we never showed them the letter.

  You have a purpose in this world, James. Something many of us never find. You may not be aware of your purpose until you read this. You may find it is not what you had planned for yourself. Either way, we know you can live up to it. Remember that no matter where you go, we’ll always be with you. We’re here to give you strength, whatever you decide to do.

  With all our love always,

  Albert and Kathleen Kerrigan

  He looked up at Kath and saw that she was crying. He put the letter back on the table and cried with her.

  He was never going to see his father again.

  When he could continue he picked up the letter and removed Burt’s top sheet. What followed didn’t make any sense to him at all. He flipped over one sheet after another and saw nothing but neatly spaced characters and symbols. On the last page was a map similar to the one the Jimenez family had shown him.

  ‘I don’t get it, Kath. I can’t read this.’

  ‘Yes. You can.’

  ‘It’s in another language. I don’t even recognise the letters or punctuation.’

  ‘You can read that letter, James. I know you can because I’ve heard you speak the language it’s written in.’

  Kerrigan stared.

  ‘I never learned another language, Kath. How could I speak anything other than English?’

  ‘I’m telling you, James, I’ve heard you speak it. In the right moment you’ll be able to read it. I guess it doesn’t have to be now.’

  ‘When did I speak it?’

  ‘All your life.’

  ‘But when exactly? Was I watching TV? Throwing a baseball? What?’

  ‘You did it in your sleep.’

  He had to laugh then.

  ‘I mumbled gobbledygook in my sleep a few times and you think I can read this? Come on, Kath.’

  Her eyes were wide and defiant.

  ‘You spoke that language every night of your life. Me and Burt would listen sometimes. It was beautiful, but it was scary too. If we hadn’t had the letter as a sign of how special you were, we probably would have taken you to see some kind of doctor.’

  He knew what kind of doctor she meant.

  ‘And I can prove that it was this language you were speaking too.’

  ‘You can?’

  ‘Sure.’

  She pushed her chair back and walked to their bedroom. When she came back she had a folder in her hands. She passed it to him.

  Opening it, he saw drawings and language in the hand of a growing child. The first few sheets were just scribble and meaningless shapes but later in the file the scribble became the language he had just seen in the letter and the shapes became maps and drawings of people and symbols. The one symbol that repeated itself from the very beginning was that of the binder — an equal-armed cross within a circle.

  There were other familiar things, a drawing of a staff like the one he used for long hikes. There was also a drawing of a primitive axe and, though he thought he recognised it, he didn’t know from where. He’d drawn pictures of himself in what appeared to be mortal combat with other people. Sometimes they surrounded him. In other drawings, he seemed to be battling mythical creatures. It was all a little too much like the fantasy of a gifted child.

  ‘It’s no good sitting there and shaking your head, James. Burt’s gone now and you have to face all this stuff. You’ve been ignoring it all your life. It’s like your fear of the dark. You have to grow up and get over it. You’re mean
t to be doing something special, something important. You better get on and do it.’

  He’d rarely seen Kath so stern or determined. He felt like he was sixteen again, getting a lecture over his behaviour at school.

  ‘You take all this stuff with you and study it. Don’t you give up until you know what it means.’

  ‘All right, Kath,’ he said. ‘I hear you.’

  He folded the letter away and replaced the drawings in their file.

  After speaking to the undertaker and making Kath promise to call him if she needed anything at all, Kerrigan hurried back to the cabin. Buster greeted him with a barrage of affronted meows and tangled himself around Kerrigan’s ankles until he got fed.

  Kerrigan glanced at the Reminders stuck on the fridge and slammed his fist against the door.

  ‘Jesus fuck.’

  Bottles and cartons tumbled and fell inside. He made no attempt to right them. He tore up the pointless list. Too late to help Burt and no worm pills for Buster. He couldn’t even remember to bring a flashlight to counteract his worst fear. And Amy was gone. Was it too late for the Jimenez family too? Trying to calm himself, he stepped outside and sat in his rocker but ended up pacing the porch and staring into the trees.

  He couldn’t have left Kath alone at a worse time but what choice was there? The Jimenez family were somewhere out on the trails. He was certain they were in danger, even though he couldn’t say why. It was Carla he feared for the most. The letter, his childhood drawings, whatever Burt had seen at the window; it was all connected somehow. There was only one course of action to take but travelling into the woods meant he’d be out after nightfall.

  Can I really do this?

  He stopped pacing, faced the trees and closed his eyes. He let his breathing settle. Something drew on him, on his blood. The lure of nature, promising something: resolution, perhaps. He could feel the pull now. The call of the wilderness, a siren song of duty and desire. And his urgency to find the Jimenez’s was akin to panic.