Dead of Winter - James Goss [12]
I paused, a loaded fork halfway to my mouth. The man was a fool. But even a fool must be encouraged. I smiled at him. ‘Go on…?’
‘Yes,’ said Dr Smith, a little lost.
I watched him, as he chewed on his steak (I found mine a little tough, the sauce a touch strong), swallowed and then sighed regretfully. I figured he needed a little prompting. Perhaps the knock on his head was still affecting him. ‘Tiens, tiens,’ I said, allowing myself the tiniest of belches, which Dr Smith did not even seem to notice. ‘It is true, there is little we can do for most of the people here. So little indeed. The diseases of the lungs, the constitution, the kidneys, the dreadful cankerous wasting… there is so little we can offer them… and yet, and yet…’ I gestured around me. ‘I have decided to try and do something. This humble place has effected some marvellous cures. Some real miracles.’ I rubbed my hands together and helped myself to more carrots while I let the words sink in. ‘Genuinely remarkable.’
‘Indeed,’ said Dr Smith, and appeared to be distracted by the willow pattern on his plate.
He coughed, and then he started to talk. The stuff he said! I shall try and write it down… it was like a summary of our time, but seen from afar. He spoke of how the Eighteenth Century was a peculiarly lethal place. Of how if you and your mother both managed to make it through childbirth alive, and you then beat the odds to make it out of childhood, you could drop dead from hundreds of nasty things… all manner of common complaints that would be cured in days to come with a handful of pills. He spoke of how few people in our wretched times died of old age. He said ours was a grimly filthy period, not helped by the fact that people had started drinking water in large amounts without learning how to purify it properly. How much happier, he said, we’d all have been a hundred years before. Or, indeed, a hundred years later. He shook his head all of a sudden, and stared at me.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, and coughed again. ‘Miles away. Years away.’
‘Not at all, not at all,’ I said, waving it away as though it was a nothing. But suddenly… suddenly I had a dreadful cold feeling. I observed him from over the potatoes and thought about his words. The icy worry wouldn’t go. I could see again what made Kosov say our strange friends down on the beach were so interested in him.
He had his back to the French windows, of course. I had arranged it most carefully. So he hadn’t an inkling of what stood out there. It was listening to his every word. It was watching him.
‘Tell me,’ he said, coughing again, ‘what really goes on down at the beach?’
I stifled a gasp. It was as though he was reading my mind, as though he knew what was outside… But how could he? I searched his face. He just stared at me. Wide-eyed and innocent as a young whelp.
‘The beach?’ My mouth was dry. I swigged down some wine, and it dribbled everywhere, going down my chin. Stop this now, Bloom, you are letting him see how rattled you are. His gaze carried on boring into me. Unblinking – I suddenly realised it was more like a snake fixing on its prey.
‘Yes,’ he repeated. ‘The beach. It’s quite remarkable. All those patients sitting out there.’
‘You’ve seen them…?’ I swallowed. The fellow’s directness alarmed me. Both he and Mr Pond had returned to the beach – this was worrying. How much did they know?
‘Yes,’ he nodded and his smile widened. ‘I wandered down there today. Really very interesting indeed.’
‘A simple fresh air cure.’
‘I would hardly call it that.’ How much had he seen?
A noise. A light tapping. Anyone else would have thought it a branch lightly brushing against the window. But I knew it wasn’t. I knew what it was. I looked up through the glass. With a signal I could end this. I could invite the creature inside. It would make short work of Dr Smith.
Should I? Is that really what I had become? I licked my lips and tried to make up my mind.
I was saved by the door opening, and my wife