The Dark Frontier A. Decker (i like reading TXT) 📖

despair. Although he saw the audience around him, and the orchestra on stage, the images would not release him from their obsessional grip. They pursued him into every corner of this unrelenting trial. Hunted him down in the merciless allegro of the second movement, running, dragging a net behind them that danced with the flapping wings of a thousand birds in panic, a net that was his destiny. His future a silhouette against the light that shone behind the ghostly architects of this chase and cast its shadow directly through their midst. Back and forth they darted in the remorselessly receding arm of this shadow, his destiny, approaching ever closer, until eventually they faded with the exhaustion of the music.

The landscape went flat, and the sound of a pin dropping on the floor would have echoed through the hall. But it was the faint tinkling of a bell that announced their return to the haunting quality of the opening theme and restored perspective to the bleak landscape. The movement of a solitary figure, larger than life, now grinned through the half-light with the look of a vengeance in its bloodshot eyes. Breitner had eliminated all his rivals in judgement. He dominated Frank now with an obsessional urge to shape his future. Inched steadily closer, shedding an article of clothing with every bar, until he stood over him stripped to the waist, looking awesomely muscular, with an ugly hammer in his hand. Frank was caught on the edge of a precipice and had no choice but down or have his skull fashioned to the art of Breitner’s whims. His tormentor grinned. Frank opted for down. Over the edge, forever through the briny air, to the granite rocks below, smoothly sculpted artefacts of nature’s hand, washed with salt and the blood of his poor mother, her carcass split open by the impact. He lay in the cold, bloodless embrace of her arms, weeping as the water lapped over his own battered corpse and rinsed the poison from his ravaged skull. Above him, Breitner continued to grin atop his cliff, like a towering granite sculpture, an Aryan statue of tyranny wielding a hammer for a torch. And this he tossed now into the sea, jettisoned with disinterest as if it was nothing more than a smoked-out cigarette butt. Frank watched it sink down slowly through the clarity of the water and slithered after it off his blood-drenched boulder as it assumed an immeasurable significance for him. It drew him down with an irresistible magnetism. He had to have it. But only when it was too late, when it had lodged in the sand, did he see it for what it was: a baby barely old enough to swim. He wanted to gasp for air and began to take in water. But seeing his distress, the baby cradled him in its arms and swam with him to the shore. The waves swirled over them in a contemptuous dance – frolicking, laughing, joyful at his rescue – and dragged them into their dance, pulling them this way and that. And still Breitner stood there watching, laughing from the clifftop, until the waves pushed them ragged and beaten into the pebblewash. The baby still held him tight in its arms, his saviour now become a straitjacket. Now demanding attention. It gurgled as it lay on his chest, pinning him to the ground, trying to suck at his nipple, as the sea washed over them, washed the pebbles over them, gashed a deep crevice through its back, and washed it clean of blood. Through the ebb and flow of water rushing in his ears, he caught Patricia’s voice.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “You look terrible. You’re sweating profusely.”

She was still sitting on the edge of her seat like a little girl, adding her own measure of approval to the rushing applause of the audience.

“Come on. We’d better go, before everyone else starts to move,” and she carefully guided Frank along their enraptured row of concert-goers still celebrating their enjoyment and out towards the fresh air of the foyer.

“Give me your ticket,” she said with an air of command when they reached the cloakroom. He was thankful for her presence of mind. It was not until they were out in the cool air of the street that he became aware of the unaccustomed sensation of a hat on his head and the feel of a plush new coat on his shoulders. He touched the waistband of his trousers through the coat. The gun was still in place. He surreptitiously tried to remove it and put it in his coat pocket, where it could be in his hand at all times. But she spotted it.

“What on earth do you have there?”

“My insurance policy.” He sensed her silent conflict between disapproval and understanding, but he said nothing more and waited for her to break the silence.

“Squirrel,” she said at length, “you look as dreadful as ever. Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

His assurances that he was fine, that his auberge bed was just a little inhospitable, and all he needed was a good night’s sleep carried little conviction. And they failed to forestall the sweet concern and care she showed when she took him under her wing. He was not about to complain, especially at the point where he realised she was not dutifully putting him on the tram out to limbo, but was taking him back with her into the tender confidence of her own exquisitely private world.

“Are you sure we’re not being followed?” It was a redundant question.

“Just relax and let me do the worrying,” she said.

Patricia was in control. She held him like an injured fledgling in the hollow of her hand, letting him lie back and enjoy the ride. He recalled the first time he had seen her, how impressed he had been by the strength that emanated with such paradox through her fragile vulnerability. An impression that was confirmed that evening. She smiled, almost