Free Through Dead Eyes by Chris Priestley Page B

ear, over her shoulder, he found himself straining to look at the paintings.
    As his eyes moved down the page, so his mind would wander back to the Rijksmuseum and the paintings. He realised that he wasn’t taking anything in, so he replaced the bookmark and set it down on the table next to his bed.
    He looked across at the chest of drawers where he kept the mask. He looked at the clock and once again returned to the Rijksmuseum and the strange moonlit painting of the girl and the children in the street. The image of it had infested his mind. It was more than a memory of a painting; it had become more like a thought or a memory of something he had actually experienced himself.
    Alex got out of bed and padded quietly across to the chest of drawers. He could hear the soft rasp of the clock and the distant murmur of the traffic in the city centre.
    He picked the mask up and turned it over in his hands. The inside was smooth and probably made smoother still by years of being worn. Alex ran his fingers along the wood and thought of Hanna and her ruined face and the fire-scarred flesh of it touching the surface as his fingertips now did.
    Again he had the sudden, disturbing sensation that he wasn’t alone in the room. He knew if he turned he would see nothing there. It was worse somehow – knowing there was nothing there and yet knowing, just as certainly, that there was.
    ‘Why did you want me to buy this?’ said Alex. ‘What am I supposed to do with it?’
    Alex’s voice sounded loud in the silence, even though he spoke in little more than a whisper. He had a horrible feeling that he would hear a reply, but none came. He breathed a long sigh of relief.
    He held the mask up to his face and peered through the eyeholes. The view was unexpectedly dark, as if the holes were somehow blocking out the light. He could barely see a thing except the faint glimmer of light catching the clock on the chest of drawers.
    Alex lowered the mask and the light flooded back in. He heard a noise outside and wandered over to the window.
    Looking out, Alex could see a man and a woman walking beside the canal. The woman was walking away quickly. The man called after her and she turned, her face catching the light from the lamp nearby. She stopped, putting her hand to her face.
    The man approached slowly. Alex could hear his voice, though he couldn’t understand the language. But he could hear the apologetic, pleading tone.
    The woman let him approach and he reached out to touch her arm. But she pulled away, turning on him fiercely and shouting, her voice breaking as she began to sob.
    The man stood, head bowed for a little while, but then he reached out again. This time the woman didn’t pull away and the man moved closer. They embraced and kissed and held each other for a few long moments before moving off again, hand in hand. The patter of their footfalls became steadily more distant and quiet.
    Once again Alex felt a little self-conscious at spying on such an intimate moment and, looking away, became aware once more of the mask in his hand. He put the mask to his face and looked through the window again.
    As before, the view was darker but he found that his eyes did get used to it after a few moments. But as they did adjust to the gloom, Alex saw that the view was not simply darker, it was different. The effect was unsettling, disorientating: he felt himself leaning as though the floor had moved, as though the room was now a shipboard cabin, and the ship was riding a large swell.
    He reached out and placed his hand on the wall for support. How cold it felt. He looked out of the window. There was a cold blue sheen to the whole scene.
    The canal-side was devoid of cars and the parking places that would have been crowded with them were not there. The view was recognisably the same and yet utterly different.
    The shops on the opposite side of the canal were not there. Their warm yellow lights no longer twinkled in the ripples and eddies of the