Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [391]
Muntras’s wife, Eivi, greeted them on their return and fussed round her husband, as now she fussed about Billy. He was glad when she left him alone in the bare wooden room, to stare out at the bare outlines of the trees. His eyesight became fixed. The slow madness crept on him, moving his limbs, twisting his arms outward until they stretched above his head as rigidly as the wooden branches outside.
Div entered the room. The lad came in cautiously, pushing the door shut behind him and moving quickly to Billy’s side. He stared down wide-eyed at Billy in his locked posture. The hand of Billy’s left arm was bent back on itself, so that the knuckles almost touched the forearm and his watch cut into his skin.
‘I’ll take your watch off for you,’ Div said. He unstrapped it clumsily and laid it on a table out of Billy’s line of sight.
‘The trees,’ Billy said, through gritted teeth.
‘I want a word with you,’ said Div threateningly, clenching his fists. ‘You remember on the Lordryardry Lady, that girl Abath-Vasidol? The Matrassyl girl?’ he asked of Billy, sitting near him, speaking low, looking at the door as he did so. ‘That really beautiful girl with beautiful chestnut hair and big breasts?’
‘The trees.’
‘Yes, the trees – they’re apricot trees. Father distils his Exaggerator from the fruit of those trees. Billish, that girl Abathy, you remember her, Abathy?’
‘They’re dying.’
‘Billish, you’re dying. That’s why I want to talk to you. You remember how Father humiliated me with that girl? He gave her to you, Billish, rot you. That was his way of humiliating me, as he always tries to humiliate me. You understand? Where did my father take Abathy, Billish? If you know, tell me. Tell me, Billish. I never did you any harm.’
His elbow joints creaked. ‘Abathy. Summer ripeness.’
‘I won’t hold it against you because you’re foreign rubbish. Now listen. I want to know where Abathy is. I love her. I shouldn’t have come back here, should I? Being humiliated by my father and that sister of mine. She’ll never let me take over the company. Billish, listen, I’m leaving. I can make it on my own – I’m no fool. Find Abathy, start my own trade. I’m asking you, Billish – where did Father take her? Quick, man, before they come.’
‘Yes.’ The stark gesturing trees at the window were trying to spell out a name. ‘Deuteroscopist.’
Div leant forward, grasping Billy’s knotted shoulders. ‘CaraBansity? He took Abathy to CaraBansity?’
From the dying man came a whispered affirmative. Div let him fall back as if he were a plank of wood. He stood flicking his fingers, muttering to himself. Hearing a sound in the passage, he ran to the window. He balanced his bulk momentarily on the sill. Then he jumped out and was gone.
Eivi Muntras returned. She fed Billy with fragments of a delicate white meat from a bowl. She forced and coaxed; he ate ravenously. In the world of the sick, Eivi was perfectly in command. She bathed his face and brow with a sponge. She drew a gauze curtain over the window to cut down the light. Through the gauze, the trees became ghost trees.
‘I’m hungry,’ he said, when all the food was gone.
‘I’ll bring you some more iguana soon, dear. You liked it, didn’t you? I cooked it in milk especially.’
‘I’m hungry,’ he screamed.
She left, looking distressed. He heard her talking to other people. His neck contorted, cords standing out on it as his hearing paid out like a harpoon to fix on what was said. The words made no sense to him. He was lying upside down, so that the sentences entered his ear the wrong way up. When he flipped himself over, everything was perfectly audible.
Immya’s voice said, in impartial tones,