The Messengers Page 6

  When I was eighteen, I met Rowenna Davies, a singer and guitarist in a blues band called the Lifeguards. They played the pubs around Hartsleigh. I’d just moved there. The first time I saw her play, she was magical. She had to flick back her long dark hair to see the guitar. Voice like a glass of cold water on a hot day.

  I saw her look at me. I looked better back then. Smarter.

  I thought he looked pretty good now, in his rugged way.

  After the gig, she drank a beer outside. It was summer and warm. I waited until she finished. I felt nervous, because of all the men in her band. But I pulled myself together. “Can I buy you another drink?” I asked.

  She looked up with her dark brown eyes and she said, “Sure. You don’t look so bad.”

  She didn’t know how bad I was. How could she?

  Of course, I knew the story would not end well.

  Being a messenger, I’d come to hate myself, so at first, I couldn’t believe Rowenna liked me. Then, a little bit later, I couldn’t believe she loved me. But something changed. I changed. Instead of living off my inheritance, I became a plasterer’s apprentice. I worked for a man in Helmstown, far enough away that she wouldn’t see my curse affecting people she knew in Hartsleigh. I was proud of myself. When I looked in the mirror, or spoke to a customer on the phone, or told her a story or joke, suddenly I could believe that she loved me.

  We would play guitar together, long into the night, until the neighbors banged on the wall.

  She moved into my flat. I was being reckless and irresponsible, ignoring everything Tabby had taught me. The more I fell in love with Rowenna, the less I was able to leave her, and the more likely I was to paint her. Every day we were together, she was more at risk. If I was painting people I barely even knew, then how long would it be, I wondered, before she turned up in my visions?

  For a while, we made it work, but the pressure of being a messenger — and of hiding it — began to get to me. I was moody and nervous. I blacked out at home, and when she asked me what was wrong, I snapped at her. I had to spend days tracking down recipients, and she became suspicious of my secrecy. She found the names and addresses of strangers — some of them women — in my notebooks. She accused me of having an affair, and when I blacked out, she thought it was because I was drinking. I suppose she just wanted to know what I was hiding, but how could I tell her? How could she believe me? Now we were fighting constantly.

  After a while, Rowenna got pregnant. We were so young and I couldn’t cope. I imagined how it would be, to black out and wake up with a painting of my own child in my hands. The stakes were too high: I had created a family and — as a messenger — I was sure to destroy it.

  One night, Rowenna and I fought, and said things to each other that we shouldn’t have. I left. At the time, I thought I was angry with her, but looking back, I knew that I loved her. That was the unbearable thing. I had to ruin it so that I could leave.

  I try to be grateful. I had six months of sublime love with Rowenna, and I have a son, even though I don’t dare to see him. Every day I try to accept the reality of my situation. Most days I fail. The bitterness seeps in, and I end up behaving like I did when you last came to the beach hut. But the next day, I try again.

  All these things are my fault. Your life doesn’t have to be as miserable as mine. I didn’t listen when Tabby told me to make a life alone. I hoped I would be able to help you avoid the same mistakes, but I’ve probably driven you away as well.

  Maybe you’re better off without me — most people are! A messenger’s life can be tough, but I wish you well.

  Regards,

  Peter Kennedy

  I lay back on the bed and put the letter over my face. It smelled of the sea and of the warm wood of the cabin. It smelled of Peter Kennedy. My breath made the paper damp. I was sad for him, but I was angry, too. Why did he just accept things?

  The way I felt about Peter was complicated. Half the time I wanted to kill him, and the other half I wanted to kiss him. There’s only two letters’ difference, and I felt like I could go either way.

  On the floor, a dead man stared out at me from my sketch pad, and I could hear the beginnings of a nasty cough from Auntie Lizzie’s bedroom. The clock was ticking, and I needed Peter’s help. Looking at the letter, I could see that maybe he needed my help, too.

  I felt pretty wrecked the next day, so I stopped off at the Coffee Shack before going on to Peter’s hut. The sketch of the old man was in my bag. The dark-haired guy with the whippet was in front of me in the queue again, and his dog licked my hand. I could feel the nerves coming off the man as he stepped up to order.

  “Hello, boy,” Helen said, peering over the counter at the dog.

  The man stopped himself from answering.

  “The usual?”

  “Oh. Erm. Yes. Yes, please. Black coffee with —”

  “One sugar,” said Helen.

  I could tell the bloke was flattered that Helen had remembered his order. The whippet tried to put his paws up on the counter. He panted at Helen, who threw him a biscuit, then picked up a foam cup and a black marker.

  “What’s the name?” she said to the man.

  “Hercules,” the man said.

  “Your name is Hercules?” Helen said, frowning.

  “No. God, no. I thought you meant the dog. The dog’s name is Hercules. My name is Greg.”

  “Greg, right,” Helen said. She wrote on the foam cup with the marker. “It’s a new system we’re using. It cuts down on confusion at the counter.”

  “Great,” said Greg, scratching his ear. “That’s, erm . . . that’s great.”

  Greg wasn’t a smooth talker. I noticed that Helen had added Hercules under Greg on the cup, and drawn a cartoon face of the dog. Greg laughed. “Thank you,” he said.

  “Bye,” said Helen, beaming.

  Greg and Hercules went on their way, and I stepped up. “Two teas, please,” I said. “My name is Frances.”

  “What?”

  “Frances. So you can write it on the cup?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” Helen said.

  I grinned and so did she.

  When Peter opened the door, the relief on his face was huge. It made me feel good. He took the teas and my rucksack and offered me his chair. He lit a cigarette.

  “You ought to watch that,” I said, nodding at the smoke. “It’s bad for you.”

  “Least of my worries.”

  “No plastering today?” I said.

  “Day off. I didn’t believe you’d come back after what a terrible waste of space I was yesterday,” he said.

  “Well, I wanted to say thank you for the painting you sent. It’s a cracker.”

  He smiled.

  “And I wanted to say thank you for the letter, too.”

  “I hope it makes me easier to understand.”

  “Some bits of you,” I said. I looked around and noticed that he’d swept the floor and organized his research into piles. He’d shaved, too, and although I liked him with stubble, he seemed rejuvenated.

  “You scrub up nice,” I said.

  “Leave it out,” he said, smiling.

  “In the spirit of beautifying, I bought you a present from the market.” I took the T-shirt out of my rucksack and gave it to him. It was one of those cheap novelty ones. On the front were the words:

  WHAT IF THE HOKEY POKEY REALLY IS WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT?

  He held it up and laughed. “I like that. I like that a lot. Thank you.”

  “I mean, don’t get me wrong, the tracksuit top looks great on its own, but it’s always nice to have more than one look.”

  “I get the picture,” he said.

  He took off his tracksuit top, turning away from me. I watched the muscles in his back as he put on the T-shirt. His forearms were like rope.

  “Looks good,” I said.

  We drank our tea. “You look shattered,” he said.

  “A lovely thing to say to a girl.”

  “You kno
w what I mean.”

  I nodded and took the drawing out of my bag. “Your second present. Not so nice,” I said.

  He looked at the drawing for a moment and nodded slowly, with sad acceptance. “When did you do it?” he said.

  “Day before yesterday. Afternoon.”

  He looked at his watch. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “I was too busy calling you a prick,” I said.

  Peter sighed and studied the page, his face suddenly blank, as if he’d practiced numbing himself to such images — which, I suppose, he had. “Can you remember where you’ve seen this man?” he said.

  “I’ve never seen him before in my life,” I said.

  “He lives at Windmill View Retirement Home in Crowdean. His daughter drives him down to the seafront every week. She sits outside the Coffee Shack, and he walks along the path. He likes the sea air.”

  “You know him?”

  “Not really. I see him at Windmill View or when he’s walking by. I say walking — he has two sticks.”

  I remembered. I’d nearly knocked him over when I ran away from Peter’s hut after that first argument. “How did he get into my head so fast?” I said.

  “That’s the way it works sometimes,” Peter said. “At least we know where he lives.”

  I looked away, not wanting to think about what was coming. Peter studied the drawing some more. “You’re good,” he said. “The drawings don’t have absolute clarity yet, but that will come. You’ll learn to make the images clearer.”

  “Dead is dead,” I said. “What does it matter if the picture looks pretty? Most people only see the shapes anyway.”

  Peter shrugged. “A sharper image gives you clues as to who the person is. Makes them easier to find. Remember, I tracked Samuel Newman from his number plate.”

  I thought about that for a while, and then something occurred to me. Something Max had said. Death is a place. Remove all hazards and obstacles. I stored that thought for later.

  “Shall we go to the retirement home?” Peter said.

  “Can’t we wait awhile? Why don’t we do something else for a bit, to pass the time?”

  “Like what?” Peter said.

  “Like something that hasn’t got to do with anyone dying. You know Helmstown pretty well. What can you do here to relax?”

  “You can go mackerel fishing. They take you out into the middle of the sea, and you get to keep what you catch.” He sounded excited.

  “Peter.”

  “Yes?”

  “That’s killing fish.”

  “Oh. You’re right. Well, I know where we can see some living fish.”

  “Better,” I said. “Better.”

  The Ocean Life Centre was a hundred years old and built under street level. It was like a cave, and they played soft music, which was probably from a CD called Whale Heaven, but it got to me. There were eels as long your arm, with skin like a leopard’s. Rocks in the tank suddenly opened their eyes; sea horses fell, seemingly helpless, through the water; and tiny neon fish flashed by like sparks from a bad plug. It was like another world. Just what I needed right then.

  Peter had wandered off. I found his silhouette against the bright-green light of a tank. “Look,” he said.

  There was an ugly brown fish lying flat on a rock, with fins on either side that looked like basic arms. “Oh, yeah,” I said. “This is the kind of fish they always show in prehistoric books.”

  Peter nodded. “The ones that crawl out of the sea and become humans, or whatever. I wonder how long you have to leave them in here before they change.”

  We laughed.

  “The beginnings of life,” Peter said.

  He disappeared through a curtain and I followed him. It was the jellyfish room. The tanks were glass columns, the darkness broken by a square of light that changed from green to purple to red to blue, making the jellyfish appear to change color, too, as they rose with the slow swish of their skirts. It was magical.

  Peter’s face went from red to blue, and I admit that I wanted to kiss him. It was as though I could feel the water all around us — in the tanks and in the sea outside — lifting us upward. I closed my eyes and tried to pull myself together, tried to imagine the conversation I might have with Keisha back home:

  He’s quite soulful, you know. He’s had a difficult life, but he’s caring underneath it all.

  He sounds nice, Fran. How old is he?

  He’s in his late twenties.

  Bit old. What does he do?

  Oh, you know. He’s a messenger of death.

  Ridiculous. I could feel the light changing through my eyelids.

  “You OK, Frances?” he asked.

  “Yeah, fine,” I said, opening my eyes. “Fine. I bet your boy would like this place.”

  Peter turned away. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Aren’t you curious about him?”

  “Of course I am. But it’s too dangerous.”

  “But what if you could — ?”

  “I think we’ve had this conversation.”

  “Yes, but you had your fingers in your ears,” I said.

  Peter ignored me, and I decided not to push too hard. We looked at the swaying tentacles of the jellyfish. “They’re making me want noodles,” I said.

  Peter laughed. “Yes, chicken ramen. Let’s eat!”

  We emerged, squinting, into the sun. We took a shortcut through the museum on our way to the noodle place. There was an exhibition, Cubism to Futurism. That was all I needed. But Peter wanted to go in, and I followed him through the door of the cubist room. Straight in front of us was a painting called Female Nude, all blocks and shapes.

  “So this is the kind of thing that a recipient sees when we show them the message?” I said.

  “Apparently. Maybe even more coded and scrambled.”

  Peter read from the information board on the wall. “‘Instead of showing objects from one viewpoint, the cubist artist depicts the subject from many viewpoints to represent it in greater context.’”

  “Blah, blah, blah,” I said.

  The futurism room was scarier, angrier. Crooked cities, melting bodies. There was a sculpture of a man who looked as if he were in the process of exploding.

  Again, Peter studied the board. “These futurist guys were mixed up in some nasty stuff,” he said. He read aloud: “‘The love of danger, violence, patriotism, and war.’”

  I spun around, taking in all the distorted shapes and drooping faces. I was becoming dizzy. I kept thinking some violent scene was suddenly going to emerge from the paint. “What’s wrong?” Peter said.

  “Nothing. Let’s go.”

  As we walked away, I caught sight of a single quote from Pablo Picasso, stenciled onto the wall:

  We bought noodles and sat on the bench, watching seagulls peel out of the clouds and perch on the big letters of HELMSTOWN PIER. They looked proud and full of vitality, and they gave me a bit of hope. I looked down at our hands. They had stamped us: OCEAN LIFE. It was an almost perfect afternoon. Or, at least it would have been, had it ended there.

  Peter went back to the beach hut and put on a checked shirt. He collected his guitar and an art gallery brochure, and we walked to the bus stop on the grass above the cliffs. He smoked and we talked. I told him about my father and about Johnny being on the run, and he listened. It was the first time I’d really talked to anyone about Johnny’s situation.

  He told me that when he was nine, his father had gone into hospital for major surgery. There had been complications and a second operation. He’d spent six weeks in intensive care, and it seemed that he wouldn’t make it, but somehow he fought back from the brink. The family couldn’t believe it — they’d started to accept his death. The doctors had told Peter that his daddy was a miracle man. A week after he came out of hospital, Peter’s father slipped and fell down the cellar steps. Peter found the body. He had his first blackout the day after the funeral. “It taught me that there’s no meaning in life,” he said. “And
there is nothing you can do to stop death. It’s inevitable. People think they’re in control of their lives, but they’re not. Better get used to it.”

  It occurred to me that we’d both had these God-awful traumatic experiences before our first blackouts — Peter had found his dead father, and I’d watched my brother being beaten to within an inch of his life in front of a crowd of lunatics. I wondered if that was a coincidence.

  All I knew was this: the feeling I got, waiting to get on the bus and go to the Windmill View Retirement Home, was not one I planned to get used to. It was sickening.

  Peter rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. The bus came and we went up to the top deck. There was nothing but green fields out one window, nothing but blue sea out the other. His leg was next to mine. I could feel the heat of it and wondered if he could feel the heat of mine too. I gripped the seat in front of us.

  We got off outside a big old white building that looked like a hospital. “You know where we are?” he said.

  I could see the windmill behind the retirement home. “Yes,” I said.

  “Are you OK?”

  I looked at him. “No,” I said.

  “You will be.”

  I looked at the windows of the retirement home and saw a shadow pass. “I don’t think so,” I said. I turned away, but Peter took me by the arm. He was strong. I felt my foot lift off the ground.

  “This has to be done. For your sake and for the sake of your family.”

  “Isn’t there some other way?” I said.

  “No,” Peter said.

  “There must be. Don’t you understand? This isn’t like giving someone a parking ticket. We’re talking about death. Doesn’t it make you feel . . . desperate?”

  Peter sighed. “Yes,” he said. He hoisted the strap of his guitar case over his shoulder and carried on walking up the long gravel path.

  “They’re not going to let us in here anyway,” I said. “You have to get permission to visit someone in an old folks’ home.”

  “I can come and go as I please,” Peter said.

  “How come?”