The Bone Clocks Read online

“Even if Thatcher doesn’t trigger the revolution this year,” Heidi turns to say, strands of her raspberry-red hair blowing in the wind, “it’s coming. In our lifetimes. You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. By the time we’re old, society’ll be run like this: ‘From each according to his or her abilities, to each according to his or her needs.’ Sure, the bosses, the liberals, the Fascists, they’ll all squeal, but you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. And speaking of eggs,” she looks at Ian, who nods, “fancy breakfast at our place? Ian cooks a five-star full English.”

  • • •

  HEIDI’S BUNGALOW’S SURROUNDED by fields and isn’t what I’d imagine as Kent’s HQ for a socialist revolution, with its net curtains, cushion covers, porcelain figurines, and Flower Fairies. There’s even carpet on the bathroom floor. Heidi told me it was her gran’s house before she died, but her mum and stepfather live in France somewhere so Ian and she come here most weekends to make sure squatters haven’t moved in and to distribute the magazine. Heidi shows me how to lock the bathroom from the inside and makes a joke about the Norman Bates Motel, which I pretend to get. I’ve never used a shower before—we only have a bath at the Captain Marlow—so I freeze myself and boil myself before I get the water right. Heidi has a whole shelf of shampoos, conditioners, and soaps with labels written all in foreign, but I try a bit of everything till I smell like the ground floor of a department store. When I get out, I see the ghost of letters written in last time’s steam: WHO’S A PRETTY BOY THEN? Did Heidi write it for Ian? Wish I hadn’t lied ’bout my name, now; I’d really like to be friends with Heidi. I smear a bit of Woods of Windsor moisturizer on my suntanned skin, thinking how easily Heidi might have been born in a grotty Gravesend pub, and me the one who’s clever and confident and studying politics in London, and who has French shampoo, and a kind, funny, caring, and loyal boyfriend who leaves messages on the mirror and cooks a five-star English breakfast. Being born’s a hell of a lottery.

  “THEY’VE GOT THIS bridge in Turkey,” I harpoon a sausage and juice dribbles from the prong holes, “with Europe on one side and Asia on the other. I’m going there. The Leaning Tower of Pisa. And I love Switzerland. Well, I love the idea of Switzerland, though the closest I’ve ever been is eating a bar of Toblerone …”

  “You’ll adore it.” Heidi swallows her toast and dabs her lips with a tissue. “La Fontaine Saint-Agnès is one of my favorite places on Earth, nestled up near Mont Blanc. My mother’s second husband had a lodge there so we’d go skiing most Christmases. Switzerland’s pricey, that’s the only thing.”

  “Then I’ll drink snow and eat Ritz biscuits. And thanks again for breakfast, Ian. These sausages are incredible.”

  He shrugs modestly. “I’m from three generations of Lincolnshire butchers, so I ought to know my stuff. Will your Grand Tour be a solo expedition, Tracy, or will you take a traveling companion?”

  “The poor lass’s love life is none of your business,” Heidi tells him, “Captain Snoop. Ignore him, Tracy.”

  “It’s okay,” I say, swallowing. “Actually I don’t have a boyfriend right now. I—I—I did up till recently, but …” My throat sort of closes.

  “Any brothers and sisters?” As Heidi changes the subject I can tell she’s kicked Ian under the table.

  “One sister, Sharon, and my brother Jacko.” I slurp some tea and leave Brendan out of it. “But they’re both a few years younger so, yeah, it’ll be a solo expedition. How ’bout you two? Any holidays planned?”

  “Well, between the Party conference and helping the miners,” says Heidi, “we’ll try to get to Bordeaux in August. Visit my mother.”

  “Can’t wait,” Ian mimes being hanged, “I don’t think. I’ve used my wicked wiles to seduce Heidi into an evil cult of lefty loonies, you see.”

  “The joke is that Ian’s parents are sure I’ve done the same to him,” says Heidi. “We should have an anti-wedding and split up.” She dabs her lips. “Is Corcoran an Irish name, Tracy?”

  I nod and fork a tomato. “Mum’s from West Cork.”

  “Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Troubles,” Ian reaches for the ketchup, “every post-1920 revolution owes a debt to the Irish. The English reckon they handed Ireland over out of magnanimity, but no; the Irish won it back, by inventing modern guerrilla warfare.”

  “My aunt Roisín,” I reply, “says the English never remember and the Irish never forget.”

  Ian’s still slapping the bottom of the ketchup bottle, but nothing’s coming out. “I despair of humanity. We can put a man on the moon but can’t invent a way of getting tomato sauce out of a bottle without—” A huge dollop glollops out, smothering his bacon.

  I’M DOING THE washing-up. Ian and Heidi were all “No no no, you’re our guest,” but I insisted. Secretly I’m hoping they’ll offer to give me a lift over to Black Elm Farm later, or maybe invite me again next Sunday, if I don’t go back to Gravesend. Heidi might share her hair dye with me. I rinse the glasses first and wipe them with a dry cloth, like we do at the pub so you don’t get streaks. Suds drip off the marble chopping board, and I let it drain next to a lethal carving knife. A song called “As I Went Out One Morning” by Bob Dylan’s on the cassette player; Ian told me to choose anything so I chose this John Wesley Harding tape. The mouth organ would normally put me off, but this song’s great; his voice is like the wind swerving through a weird day. “Cool choice,” says Heidi, passing through the kitchen barefoot. “I haven’t heard this for eons.” Inside I glow. She goes outside with a book called Inside the Whale by George Orwell; we did his Animal Farm in English, so maybe I can impress her later. Heidi leaves the patio door open so the smell of grass drifts in. Then Ian comes in and puts a Pyrex jug of milk into the microwave. I’ve never seen one close up. Turn the dial, push a button, and forty seconds later, ping, the milk’s steaming. I tell Ian, “That’s like Star Trek.”

  “The Future,” says Ian, in a film-trailer voice. “Coming soon, to a Present near you.” He puts the jug on a tray with three mugs and posh coffee made in a plunger-thing. “When you’re done, join us outside for café au lait.”

  “Okay,” I say, wondering what one of them is.

  Ian takes the tray out to the patio. I check the time: ten-thirty. Mam’ll be going to church now, maybe with Jacko, who sort of goes to keep her company. Dad’ll take Newky along the river for a run in the Ebbsfleet direction, towards London. Or are they walking up to Peacock Street now? Here am I, doing fine, carrying on with the washing-up, and Dylan moves on to a song called “I Dreamed I Saw Saint Augustine.” It’s a ploddier, howl-at-the-moon sort of song, but finally I get why everyone raves ’bout Dylan. Through the window, down the long garden, foxgloves and red-hot pokers sway a bit. The lawns and flower beds are pretty as a picture on a tin of shortbread, and earlier I asked Ian and Heidi if they’re gardeners as well as postgrads. Heidi says a man from Faversham comes a few hours a fortnight “To breathe order into chaos.” That didn’t sound very socialist to me either, but I kept my mouth shut ’cause I don’t want to come over smart-arsy.

  THE WASHING-UP WATER glurps down the plug-hole, a teaspoon clatters in the sink, and Bob Dylan has a cardiac arrest halfway through “All Along the Watchtower.” Oh, no! The tape’s being eaten: When I press eject, a tangle of brown spaghetti spills out. I’m a dab hand at fixing tapes with a little rectangle of Sellotape, though, so I go onto the patio to ask Ian and Heidi where they keep it. They’re both lying on these wooden lounger things, behind a wall of Ali Baba pots with herbs. Heidi’s book’s dropped to the ground, with her thumb still sandwiched in it; she’s out for the count. Ian’s snoozing, too, his head tilted to one side and his sunglasses skewed. The tray of coffee things is on a low wall. They must’ve been exhausted. Cautiously I call Heidi’s name but she doesn’t stir. Bees graze the herby hedge, sheep baaa, a tractor drones away. That low bump half a mile away is the Isle of Sheppey, and that sticky-up thing’s the bridge. Then I notice three, four, more busy
black dots zigzagging up Heidi’s arm.

  I take a proper look ’cause they can’t be ants …

  They are. “Heidi! You’ve got ants crawling up you!”

  But she doesn’t react. I sort of brush the ants off her, but I smear a couple by mistake. What’s wrong with them? “Heidi!” I shake her arm harder, and she slides over onto the side arm of the lounger, like a comedy drunk, but this isn’t funny. Her head slumps over and her sunglasses slide off and then I see her eyes—they’re all iris and no black bit in the middle. I sort of leap back with a scared gaaa! noise and almost fall over. Ian hasn’t stirred so, frantic now, I call his name—and see a furry fly crawling along his plump lips. My hand’s unsteady as I lift the baseball cap off his face. The fly buzzes off. His eyes are the same as Heidi’s—like he’s just died of some new plague—and I drop the hat and that same shaky gasp judders out of me. A bird in the pink roses threads sharp and shiny notes together, and my mind’s throbbing and woozy and only half here, but it serves up one explanation regardless: Heidi and Ian have food poisoning from breakfast. Food poisoning from breakfast. But after only twenty minutes? Possibly, but I don’t have the same symptoms. We all ate the same stuff. Next I think, Heart attack, but that’s not much of a theory. Drug overdose? Then I think, Stop thinking, Sykes—call for an ambulance now …

  … the phone’s on a stand thing in the lounge, through the kitchen. Dash through, dial 999, and wait for the operator. Answer, hurry hurry hurry, now now now! The line’s silent. Then I notice a man in the mirror, watching from the armchair in the corner. The gears of what’s real slip. I turn round and there he is, in the archway between the kitchen and lounge. I know him. The piranha eyes, the curly black locks, the busted nose—the man from my daymare in the underpass, in the kite-shaped room. His chest’s heaving like he’s run uphill. He barks at me, “Which one are you?”

  “I—I—I—I’m—I’m a friend of Ian and Heidi, I—I—”

  “Esther Little or Yu Leon Marinus?” His voice is all hate and ice.

  There’s a small sort of flickering on his brow, like, well, nothing like I’ve ever seen. Did he say, “Marinus”? Who cares? He’s a man from a nightmare, ’cept when you’re this afraid you usually wake up. I step back and fall onto the sofa. “My friends need an ambulance.”

  “Tell me your name, and I’ll give you a clean death.”

  This isn’t an empty threat. Whoever he is, he killed Heidi and Ian and he’ll kill you too, like snapping a matchstick. “I—I—I—don’t understand, sir,” I curl up into a terrified ball, “I—”

  He takes another step my way. “Name yourself!”

  “I’m Holly Sykes, and I just want to go—please, can I just—”

  “Holly Sykes …” He re-angles his head. “Yes, I know the name. One of those who got away. Using the brother as bait was clever, but look what you’re reduced to now, Horologist. Trying to hide in this slut-gashed bone clock. Xi Lo would shudder! Holokai would puke! If, of course, they were alive, which,” he sneers, “they are not, after your midnight raid went horribly, horribly awry. Did you think the Shaded Way has never heard of burglar alarms? Did you not know the Chapel is the Cathar and the Cathar is the Chapel? Holokai’s soul is ash. Xi Lo’s soul is nothing. And you, whichever you are, you fled. As per your sacred Script, no doubt. We love your Script. Thanks to your Script, Horology is finished. This is a great day for Carnivores everywhere. Without Xi Lo and Holokai, what are you? A troupe of conjurers, mind readers, and spoon benders. So tell me before you die: Are you Marinus or Esther Little?”

  I’m shaking: “Swear to God, I—I’m not who you think I am.”

  He reads me, suspiciously. “Tell you what. Those two sunbathers outside, they’re not quite dead yet. Use your Deep Stream voodoo now, you might save one. Go on. It’s what Horologists do.”

  Far, far away, a dog’s barking, a tractor’s grundling …

  … the man’s so close now I can smell him. Burnt ovens. My voice has gone all anorexic. “So can I call a doctor, then?”

  “You can’t heal them yourself?”

  I manage to shake my head.

  “Then they’ll need a coffin, not an ambulance. But I need proof you’re not Horology. Marinus is a coward, but he’s a devious coward. Run away. Go on. Run. Let’s see how far you can get.”

  I don’t trust him or my ears. “What?”

  “There’s the door—go. Run, little mouse.” He steps aside to open up an escape route. I’m expecting a trick, or a knife, I don’t know what, but he leans in so close, I see grazes and tiny cuts on his face, and his big black eyes, with a halo of gray, and he shouts at the top of his lungs: “RUN BEFORE I CHANGE MY MIND!”

  THROUGH THE THORNY roses, between swaying bushes, down the dusty lawn, I run. I run like I’ve never run. The sun’s in my face and the wall’s not far. Halfway there, when I get to the trellis thing, I look back; he’s not running after me, like I dreaded, just standing there, a few steps from Ian and Heidi, who’re still lying dead so he’s letting me go—why who cares why he’s a mental psycho so run run run run run run, but, run, but, but, run, but … But I’m slowing, slowing, how, why, what, my heart’s straining like crazy, but it’s like the brake and accelerator are being pressed at the same time but whatever’s slowing down isn’t inside me, it’s not poison, it’s outside me, it’s time slowing up or gravity pulling harder, or air changing to water, or sand, or treacle … I have dreams like this—but I’m awake, it’s daytime, I know I’m awake … But, impossibly, I’ve stopped, like a statue of a runner, one foot raised for the next stride that’ll never come. This is mad. Infeckingsane. It occurs to me I ought to try to scream for help, it’s what people do, but all that comes out is this grunty spasm noise …

  … and the world starts shrinking back towards the bungalow, hauling me along with it, helplessly. There’s ivy on the arch thing, I grab it, and my feet lift off the ground, like I’m a cartoon character in a hurricane hanging on for dear life, but the pain in my wrists makes me let go, and I fall to earth with a bruising whack and I’m dragged along the ground, scraping my elbows and bumping my tailbone, and I swivel onto my back and try to dig my heels in but the lawn’s too hard, I can’t get a grip, I sort of trip myself upright, onto my feet, and a pair of butterflies flutter by, up-current, like this unfightable force only works on me. Now I’m back at the rose beds, and the pale man’s still framed in the patio doorway, his hands and fingers threading away, like sign language for aliens, with a sort of hooked smile on his lips, and he’s doing this, he’s fishing me in, over the patio, past Heidi and Ian, who’re still as corpses, corpses this man killed somehow, this man stepping back into the kitchen to make room, and once I’m in this bungalow I’ll never ever leave it, so I desperately clutch at the door frame and the handle, but then it’s like twenty thousand volts shoot through me and I’m tossed like a doll across the living room and bounce off the sofa, onto the carpet, and flashbulbs go kapow kapow kapow in my eye sockets …

  … the daymare ends with the scratchy carpet digging into my cheek. It’s over. It was like epilepsy or something. A photo of Heidi as a schoolgirl and a white-haired gran draws into focus, an inch away, must’ve fallen—maybe I knocked it off the dresser when I fell. I should go home and go to hospital. I need a brain scan. Heidi’ll give me a lift to Gravesend. I’ll call Mam from the hospital. Everything’ll be forgotten, all the Vinny stuff. It felt so real. One moment I was about to repair Bob Dylan with scissors and sticky-tape, the next … ants up Heidi’s arm, that daymare man with the busted nose, and the elasticky shoving air. What nutso part of my mind dreams up shit as weird as that, f’Chrissakes? I heave myself up, ’cause if Heidi or Ian finds me lying here they’ll think I’ve died in their living room.

  “I believe you, dear heart.” He’s sitting on the leather armchair, one foot resting on one knee. “You’re an artless, vapid nothing in our War. But why would two dying, fleeing incorporeals blunder their way to you, Holly Sykes? That’s the
question. What are you for?”

  I’ve frozen. What’s he talking about? “Nothing, I swear, I just want to—to—to go away and—”

  “Shut up. I’m thinking.” He takes a Granny Smith apple from a bowl on the sideboard, bites and chews. In the dull quiet, the sound of his munching is the loudest thing. “When did you last see Marinus?”

  “My old doctor? At—at—at Gravesend General Hospital. Years ago, I—”

  He holds up his hand for silence, like my voice hurts his ears. “And Xi Lo never told you that Jacko wasn’t Jacko?”

  Till now the horror’s been high-pitched; with Jacko’s name, there’s a bass of dread. “What’s Jacko got to do with anything?”

  He peers at his Granny Smith with disgust. “The sourest, blandest apples. People buy them for ornamental value.” He tosses it away. “There’s no Deep Stream field here, so we aren’t in a safe house. Where are we?”

  I daren’t repeat my Jacko question, in case it brings this evil, ’cause evil’s the right word, to my brother. “Heidi’s gran’s bungalow. She’s in France, but she lets Heidi and …” They’re dead, I remember.

  “The location, girl! County, town, village. Act like you have a brain. If you’re the same Holly Sykes whom Marinus fouled, we must be in England, presumably.”

  I don’t think he’s joking. “Kent. Near the Isle of Sheppey. I—I don’t think where we are actually has a … has a name.”

  He drums the leather armchair. His fingernails are too long. “Esther Little. You know her?”

  “Yes. Not really. Sort of.”

  The drumming stops. “Do you want me to tell you what I’ll do to you if I think you’re lying, Holly Sykes?”

  “Esther Little was by the river yesterday, but I never met her before. She gave me some tea. Green tea. Then she asked …”

  The pale man’s stare drills into my forehead, like the answer’s written there. “What did she ask?”

  “For asylum. If her …” I hunt for her exact words, “… plans went up in flames.”