The Hollowing Read online

  “Yes,” Alex whispered.

  “Oh dear,” the man said, then slumped a little. “Oh dear…”

  And then he was silent. Within moments he had slipped away again.

  He came back two weeks later, raving and angry, screaming as he stared inwards through the eyes of the mask. He had to be sedated. Thereafter, every three or four days he would emerge from his catatonic state and address an aspect of the reality he could experience through his daughter’s childish creation.

  As often as possible, Richard took Alex to see him, aware that the two of them shared a rapport that was quite exclusive. Keeton described wild visions, of journeys across marshlands, of great snows, of thudding and frightening skirmishes, fought out in bloodstained mud, of fires on hills and mad dancing at fire-lit dusk. And as he described these visions he seemed at peace, as if he knew that his daughter would return to him.

  The periods of lucidity were short-lived, however, the longest being only five hours. And the longer the lucid phase, the longer the time in silence, empty of dreams, empty of life. Quite often, at weekends, Alex would beg to visit the hospital, only to be frustrated and saddened by a day of sitting with a dead man. Not even the touching of the precious mask could draw a flicker of response from James Keeton.

  Alex must have heard the rows between his parents, but said nothing, just became more withdrawn himself. Alice had become increasingly angry and concerned at the time Alex was spending at the hospital. She wanted to end the relationship. Richard argued that there was a special trust between the two, and that Alex might be the channel through which the man would return to full sanity.

  “What the hell is the attraction? They hardly know each other—”

  “I know. I don’t know what the attraction is. Perhaps it’s Tallis, a link with her. All I know is, Alex seems to comfort the man, and he’s happiest when they’re talking, sharing visions.”

  “Visions!” Alice’s frustration made her face contort, anguish and anger ageing her. “We’ve got to put a stop to it, Richard. He’s not himself any more. I don’t recognise him.”

  “Give him time, Alice. If he can help Jim…”

  Alice, exasperated, closed her mind to the argument. “You’re a fool.”

  Alex, certainly, heard it all, and sometimes he would try to reassure both parents, but only by touch, never with words.

  * * *

  One night, in the early spring, he crawled on all fours into his parents’ bedroom, reached up, and tugged his father awake. Richard peered over the side of the bed and groaned. Alex silenced him with a finger to lips and beckoned him to come downstairs. Blearily, Richard followed, as Alice slept restlessly and full of her own unexpressed—perhaps inexpressible—pain.

  At the back door Alex pointed into the March night. “There’s a fire by the wood, people dancing. They’ve got drums. It’s very weird.”

  Now that he looked carefully, Richard could see the faint, flickering glow of light from near Hunter’s Brook, at the edge of Ryhope Wood. When he investigated his tall son with his fingers he could tell that Alex was wet with rain, and cold with night air. He was also dressed in jeans and windcheater.

  “Have you been out?”

  “Come and see! Bring a stick. They’re all dancing with sticks around the fire.”

  “Have you been out?” he whispered again. “At three in the morning?”

  From the far distance the sound of drums swelled on the night breeze. It was an odd rhythm, faintly audible, a fluctuating murmur in the cold night.

  “Come and dance! Please, Daddy. Get a stick. Do it for Tallis.”

  Richard stared at the pale features of his son. “For Tallis? What do you mean by that?”

  “I was dreaming of her. And the fire. Then I woke up. It might help Mr. Keeton to find her again.”

  Confused, very cold, aware that he was operating in a game that he didn’t understand, Richard nodded. “What sort of stick?”

  “Anything. Anything wooden. Tallis’s call was always wood.”

  Richard went upstairs and dressed quietly, then explored the playroom, searching behind cartons, trunks, and camping equipment until he found his old school cricket bat. “Willow,” he said as he closed the door, walking down the path with Alex. “Will that do? It’s signed by Fred Trueman.”

  Alex had no idea what his father was talking about. Impatiently he said, “Let’s go!”

  Six months before, Richard had watched a rain-saturated woman in army fatigues run along this bridleway. Now he used a heavy torch to illuminate the way to the small fire that burned by Hunter’s Brook.

  The air pulsed dramatically with the fierce drum sound. As he drew closer he could see dark shapes twisting wildly in front of the flames. He was reminded of Indian dancing from Western films, but there was no chanting or singing, just the rapid, turning dance of eight or nine cloaked human figures, whose death-white faces caught the firelight as they spun.

  The land dropped slightly to a muddy brook, then rose again. Alex scrambled up the slope in the darkness, an eager shape picked out in the beam from Richard’s torch. As Richard struggled through the freezing brook, gasping as cold water soaked his feet, he became aware of the sudden ceasing of the drumbeat. At the top of the rise he stared at the fire close by, but the figures had gone now, and the March night was still and silent, save for the murmur of wind.

  Alex ran to the fire, crying out and running around the flames waving his stick. As Richard flashed the torch around, he picked out the tall, feathered pole that had been pushed into the ground. An odd twig-doll dangled from the top, clattering against the wood as the wind whipped up. A light but steady rain began to fall, driving in gusts at Richard as he stood and watched the fire. The glowing embers sizzled as they were quenched.

  “They’ve gone!” Alex cried again, staring towards the woods.

  “Let’s go home,” Richard said.

  Alex turned back to him. “We should dance. Dance round the fire.”

  Richard raised his cricket bat and looked, by flamelight, at the faded scrawl that was the signature of his cricketing hero. The face of the bat was dented and discoloured from years of use at school. Where the handle joined the willow blade there was a deep split, making use of the bat dangerous.

  “Alex—”

  “Daddy! Dance with me! It’ll bring them back…”

  “I’m afraid I’d feel rather foolish.”

  “That’s what you always say! That’s why you never do anything!”

  Alex ran to the feathered pole and knocked the twig-doll down, turning it in his hands, examining it minutely. He was shuddering, and Richard realised the boy was crying.

  The rain suddenly started to fall more heavily, and the fire hissed and spluttered, burning more brightly before dimming. Disappointed and distressed, but unwilling to take his father’s hand, Alex followed back through the pitch-dark of the night, back along the mudtrack, to the dark house where Alice slept.

  Richard crawled gratefully back to bed, but slept badly, his dreams centring around dancing and fire. He was not a man given to intuition or premonition, but he felt nevertheless an eerie sense that something was about to happen.

  The phone woke him at six in the morning. He stumbled out onto the landing and snatched the receiver from its cradle, groggily acknowledging the caller. It was Margaret Keeton. Her husband was awake and raving. He kept asking for Alex. The specialist in charge of his case felt that this might be a last moment of lucidity before a total collapse; so could the family and friends come at once?

  James Keeton was standing at the mantelpiece. He was fully dressed and stooping slightly to peer in through the moondream eyes of the ragged mask. He was calling softly for his daughter. He was hardly raving, but Alice took one look at him and turned, walking stiffly away down the corridor. “I’ll go and keep Margaret company at reception. She’s had a night of this. She must be exhausted.”

  Alex went up to the man and touched his arm. Keeton looked round
, glanced over at Richard and smiled.

  “Where’s Margaret?”

  “Downstairs. Shall I get her?”

  Keeton shook his head. “Poor Margaret. She’s aged … This must have been a hard few days.” He stroked the mask gently, then seemed to change his mood, a glow entering his eyes. “I think she’s coming home,” he said to Richard, then repeated the words to Alex and squeezed the boy’s shoulders.

  “Tallis?”

  “Yes. Tallis. Coming home—but I’m afraid—I’m afraid she’s coming the hardest way of all.” A moment’s shadow, then a vigorous voice again. “There has been such a battle, Richard. Crows on the field, feeding on the dead, and ragged folk dismembering and carrying off the corpses. Through these eyes I can see her, but she’s so old now. Such a full life led. I wish I could have been with her. I don’t know if she even hears me.”

  He turned to the mask and called again. “Tallis?” And after a moment, the name again, and again, before a sad yet smiling resolution. “She can’t hear me.”

  Aware of Alex, Keeton rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder, then took down the mask and placed it against Alex’s eyes. “What do you see? Do you see anything? Perhaps she’ll speak to you.”

  “I can’t see anything,” Alex confessed.

  Again, Keeton placed the mask on the mantelpiece, then went to the armchair and sat down heavily, letting his breath out slowly, his eyes half-closed as if with effort.

  He watched Richard for a moment, then asked, “How long was I away?”

  “Away?”

  “Before I was brought to this place.”

  “A year, Jim. We thought you were dead. We thought—suicide.”

  Keeton laughed dully, shaking his head. “Why not? There’s no life left, now. I’ve lost her, Richard, just as I lost my son before her. There’s nothing, now. I didn’t believe her when she told me stories of the wood, what a strange place it is—but she’s gone there, and she’s gone for good. Four days ago she went away. She won’t come back. And I’m a dead man, as good as. I’ve seen what’s happened to her—”

  “She’s been gone for a year and a half, Jim. She was gone a year when you turned up again.” Richard felt awkward. “You were gone for a year yourself…”

  “Four days,” James Keeton repeated. “And a lifetime.” But now he frowned, watching Richard curiously. “A year?”

  “A year. Not that you’d have known it from looking at you. You’ve been in hospital for six months.”

  “A year,” Keeton said, savouring the words, his eyes closed. “Dear God, it was a strange place. The stream into the wood. Ryhope Wood. I saw her riding. There were four men with her. I tried to follow, but they were too fast, and I was so cold—and then the strange place, and the gentle ghosts, and they took me by boat across the sea to a lovely island, but I was so unhappy and they brought me back. A moon-faced girl showed me the way from the wood. And when she left me, a demon started to laugh and tear at me, and then the rain…”

  “What strange place? Can you tell me, Jim? Can you remember?”

  Keeton’s eyes opened, looking wild for an instant, then with a long sigh he said, “It comes over me and traps me. It’s as if everything is sucked from me, all energy, all thought, all hope, all intensity. I become empty, clinging by a thread. I am aware of you, but can’t respond. I don’t even have the energy to scream inside.”

  Richard realised that the subject had changed. Keeton was talking about his existence now, how it felt to be home.

  “Time means nothing,” he went on. “Alex’s voice is soothing, but even that is just like water, lapping over me. There is no pain. Richard, no anguish. And then suddenly there is a flow of energy and Tallis is back. She’s on the other side of the mask, do you know that? The mask is her, and the eyes can see her. When she’s close I can hear her, see her, almost touch her. I’ve watched her in glimpses, growing old, fighting, loving. She bore three children. Three. But they all died. She’s nearly gone now. When she goes, I go too. I have nothing left.”

  “You’ve got us,” Alex said. “Especially me.”

  Keeton laughed and hugged the boy.

  “We don’t want you to go, Jim,” Richard said. “We want you to come home. Come with us. Keep yourself well.”

  “If I could I would,” Keeton said. “But I have no control over the ebb and flow of my life. Margaret means nothing to me any more, and she knows it, and I feel it is the same with her. When Tallis went away, part of me went with her. First Harry, now her … Whatever is beyond that mask controls me.”

  Nonsense, Richard thought, looking at the scrap of wood. But he couldn’t bring himself to articulate the dismissive word aloud.

  A male nurse came into the room and spoke briefly with Keeton, then Richard, and left. Richard, weary of the other man’s sentimental ramblings, aware that he was really addressing everything to Alex, excused himself for a while and went down to sit with Alice and Margaret. But he had been downstairs for only a few minutes when he began to feel uncomfortable, even alarmed. The two women talked quietly together.

  “I’m going back up,” Richard said, and hastened away from reception, taking the stairs three steps at a time, breaking into a run along the stark, grey-carpeted corridor.

  Breathless, he arrived at Keeton’s room, and saw the man again standing at the mask, stooping to peer through the eyes. Behind him, Alex was a hunched, crying shape. Tearful eyes turned on Richard, and the boy shook his head, mouth quivering.

  What was happening?

  Richard stepped into the room.

  Keeton said, “Tallis?”

  Then more loudly, “Tallis!”

  A look of relief touched his face. “We were worried about you,” he said through the eyes of the mask. “We thought we’d lost you.”

  And a moment later, smiling, Keeton added, to no one in particular, “Well, thank God for that.”

  He turned from the mask and went to the window, looking out across the grounds of the hospital. Then, with a small laugh and a sigh, he came to his chair, sat down, closed his eyes …

  Richard went over to him … “Jim?”

  “He’s dead,” Alex said.

  Richard felt quickly for Keeton’s pulse. “He can’t be.”

  “She came home,” the boy said, trembling as he spoke, looking very frightened. “That’s the end of it. Mr. Keeton found what he wanted. Tallis came home.”

  Alex had crossed the room and was peering through the eyes of the mask. Richard felt for the pulse in Keeton’s warm wrist, found none. He listened at the man’s mouth, stretched open an eyelid, then dragged the body down onto the floor, stretching it out.

  “Get a nurse!” he said, but Alex kept staring through the mask. “Alex! Go and fetch help. I don’t know how to do this. Alex!”

  Thump.

  A fist to the dead man’s chest, then a more controlled, careful placing of one hand over the sternum, and a thump with the other. Dear God, how should it be done? Press, then hit. Press, that was right …

  “Alex!”

  He pushed down on Keeton’s chest, four times hard, then opened the man’s jaws and pressed his own mouth against the cooling lips. He inflated Keeton’s lungs, then watched the air drain away.

  “I don’t know what to do. I never trained … Alex, for Christ’s sake get some help!”

  As he shouted his son’s name, as he turned in desperation, aware that footsteps were pounding along the corridor outside and that a cacophony of screaming and shouting had erupted from the other rooms, as he looked desperately to Alex for help, so the boy screamed “Mr. Keeton!” A second later he was blown across the room. The air stank suddenly of wet earth and wood and for a moment the space between mask and boy writhed and rippled, like the distorted reflection in disturbed water. There was a distant sound, like harsh laughter, then all air was drawn from the room and the windows rattled, the door slammed back on its hinges.

  Frozen with shock, Richard watched Alex hit the wall and slump.
In the instant before he collapsed his eyes were wide, his face a mask of terror. Then he fell forward, folding into himself, curling up like a leaf, and Richard was on him in moments, unrolling him, cradling him.

  Laughter—echoing, then dying—mocking laughter …

  “Alex! Alex!”

  The boy was still conscious, but his whole body was shuddering uncontrollably. Wet, empty eyes stared up at his father. His mouth worked, his tongue licked his lips.

  “Alex … what happened? What happened?”

  Alex stared at his father blankly, his gaze unfocused. Then, like a small child, he reached up and put his arms round Richard’s neck, drawing himself closer, curling into the heavy frame of the man, nestling there.

  A male nurse was at work on James Keeton.

  “What happened? What’s that smell? Oh Christ! Adrenalin! I need adrenalin—”

  “He suddenly collapsed,” Richard said, as he crouched, cradling Alex in his arms.

  “He’s gone,” the man said anxiously, shaking his head. “He was so fit. This isn’t right. I’ll keep trying. Where the hell’s the adrenalin?”

  Two female nurses ran into the room, one to look after Alex. Richard stood up and bit back his own tears, watching the black eyes of the boy, the wet lips moving silently. The nurse whispered to the lad, then looked up.

  “You’d better go to your wife. She and Mrs. Keeton are walking out in the grounds.”

  Richard nodded dumbly. But instead of going downstairs, he felt impelled to go over to the mask, to pick it up—

  (“He’s dead. I can’t get him back. Damn! Get Doctor Warren up here.”)

  It was an odd and eerie sensation, but where before when he had handled the mask it had tickled his senses, making the hair on his neck prickle, now he saw just a childishly-daubed piece of bark. It was quite lifeless, rotting; dead-eyed and meaningless.

  * * *

  Later, when he went over the events of that morning in his mind, Richard could no longer be sure that Alex had been blown across the room. He had run back and struck the wall in his excitement or panic; he had stunned himself. Everything had been happening so fast, with such urgency, that the boy’s movements had taken on a surreal quality.