Free The Fetch by Robert Holdstock Page A

If Michael was aware that his father was watching him he didn’t show it. Richard stooped and rolled one of the chalk balls towards the child. It came to a stop in front of the boy, and at last Michael looked up.
    The plaster on his forehead made him look lopsided, and the tint of iodine at its edges gave him a bruised appearance.
    ‘A little present for you,’ Richard said and rolled the second ball towards his son. Michael watched it strike the first ball and come to a stop by his foot. He reached out and picked up the chalk, then put it straight to his mouth, licking it.
    ‘That’s not quite what I had in mind,’ Richard said, and walked quickly over to stop the tasting.
    Michael returned to his scribbling. When Richard tried to turn the paper round to see the marks, the boy became agitated.
    ‘Circles and smudges. Circles and smudges.’
    Round and round the black crayonwent, but Richard noticed that Michael was aware of the chalk balls, his gaze lifting from the paper to stare at the artefacts from the pit.
    ‘If I clean the dirt and dog from the chalk so you can lick it, I might be tampering with archaeology.’
    Michael used a white crayon to smudge in two round objects in the middle of a swirl of black lines.
    ‘What about a dog? You should put a dog in there. A large dog. Brown and grey.’
    The next smudge may have been an attempt at such an animal, but it was hard to be sure.
    Susan moved about noisily upstairs, and water began to drain from the bath, rushing down the pipe at the side of the house. At once Michael stood and walked to the back door, peering round to see the water flood into the drain. It was one of his favourite things.
    When he came back to his corner Richard picked him up and held the stiff, reluctant lad in his arms.
    He said, ‘It’s not your mother. It never was. It’s you. Isn’t it? It’s you. There’s something funny in that brain of yours. Something terrifying and strange. You’re haunting yourself.’
    Michael became agitated again, struggling, and Richard placed him down, down into his corner, down to his dark circles. Like an automaton, the boy’s hand reached for a crayon, and without pause or consideration the circles began to flow again. A machine, producing machine art.
    ‘You’re a living poltergeist. You throw stones at yourself, not at others. You drown yourself in earth, drawing it down on to yourself through that strange and frightening grey matter between your ears. There must be such a rage in you …’
    Swirling, circling.
    ‘But if that’s true, where did it comefrom? That rage. I wish you could talk to me, Michael. I wish I could pick beyond that ginger hair, right down to the grey stuff. Where did it come from? Who
was
your mother?’
    And he added as an afterthought, frowning slightly, ‘Or father. Who was your father, I wonder?’
    Susan came down, dressed in a bathrobe, her hair soaking. She looked suspiciously at Richard as she entered the kitchen. ‘What’s all the talking?’
    ‘Talking to my son. Having a chat about dogs and temples.’
    ‘Dogs and temples?’
    ‘Sue, I think you’re right. It’s time we both went to London and got some co-operation from your Dr Wilson.’
    Unexpectedly, Susan was uncomfortable. She shook her head, towelling her hair quickly to start drying it. ‘No. No, I don’t think so. I’ll go alone. He won’t want us both.’
    ‘We need to talk to Michael’s mother. We need to know something more about her. Maybe she was on drugs. Maybe she …’
    ‘Maybe she what?’
    He looked up, not happy with the thought. ‘Maybe she tampered with black magic. Maybe she did something to herself, something that damaged her during an experiment, something like that. A psychic experiment …’
    Susan’s uneasiness increased. Again she disagreed. ‘I’ll talk to Wilson on my own. I’ll call him. But he’s still very discreet. He won’t give me the address. I know he won’t. He won’t tell me a damn