Her body had reared over mine, and her face was descending towards me. I could have thought it was starting to extend itself from the head. My hands jerked up to stave her off, but they hadn’t made contact when I felt I was about to be fooled into touching her more intimately than I would be able to explain, not least to myself. I seized her by the shoulders while I scrambled out of bed, and my fingers sank deep into a pair of hollows in the flesh. As I gave a cry of dismay she writhed out of my grasp, and I thought she grew thinner and supple as muscle untrammelled by bones in order to make her escape. Before I could take a breath I was alone in the room, but I floundered to the door and switched on the light, feeling as though I might never dare venture back to the bed. When at last I did I left the light on, but I still didn’t sleep until well after dawn.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Six

Separations

I awoke knowing what I had to do and immediately dismayed by what it would entail. It mustn’t matter how Julia and our son would think of me; only keeping Roy safe did. I was eager to phone at once, but I shouldn’t risk letting Bella anticipate my plan. I oughtn’t to alert her in any way, which meant avoiding any thoughts of her. I did my best to concentrate on work, rereading all my preparations for next term, and managed to come up with additional ideas, though the preoccupation with the magical threatened to bring Bella to mind. At the edge of my vision the restless windmills might have been trying to snag my attention, to undermine my focus. Every train that waited at the station warned the public about safety in the same unalterable female voice, reminding me of other elements that apparently couldn’t change – the eyes my mother had recognised. I stared at the computer screen and stuck my thumbs in my ears, shading my eyes with my fingers to shut myself in with my work. I imagined I could still hear the insistent voice, so faint it sounded as if it were speaking from beneath the earth. Every repetition meant another quarter of an hour had passed. At long – unbearably protracted – last it was late afternoon, and I made the call.

“It’s Roy. Don’t know who you are or what you want, so.”

I waited for his recorded voice to finish its brusque invitation, but that was all. The truncated message sounded like a dismissal, which I was about to ignore when Roy spoke in a voice that was thinner and harsher. “What?”

“It’s your father, Roy. It’s dad.”

“I saw that. What do you want?”