Ten

It was a dark and stormy nightmare - Neil Gaiman

He was standing in a patch of light. To his right, he could see a wall made of thick, grey bricks. In front and behind him he could see only a thick blackness beyond the small halo of light that surrounded him. Above him there hung a small, bare bulb that hummed lightly.

He didn't know how long he had been here, but he thought that it must be some time. He didn't recognise this place, nor could he remember where he was or how he had arrived here. His stomach jittered unpleasantly, and a feeling of trepidation rose up from his toes and spread out over his whole body. His knees screamed with tension and he realised that his whole body was on edge.

He had no idea how to get out of here, but the longer he stood there, under the bare bulb, the more he realised he would have to make a move in some direction. He looked longingly up at the bulb, wishing he could stay in its glow. He felt safe here, and he had the strange feeling that there was something in the dark, something that he couldn't see, but it could see him.

Fear bloomed, fresh and full and oddly satisfying. His heart began to beat a little faster and when he tried to take a step forward his feet refused. His brain was telling him that moving was a Bad Idea.

He closed his eyes and stepped forward. When he opened them, he was on the very edge of the light. Ahead of him was a solid-feeling wall of dark. He tentatively raised his hand and pushed it into the dark, almost expecting to feel it as the dark gave way. Instead, the air felt cold, and that was all. With a loud inhalation, he took another step forward into the dark.

Immediately behind him, the light winked off and the space he was standing in lit up as another winked on. Surprised, he looked up and saw another bare bulb overhead. The whole… Corridor? Must be lined with them, he thought. Well, it was a welcome thought, and he took another few steps forward. Again, the light winked off and was replaced almost instantly wherever he walked. Screwing up his courage, he set off.

He wandered for a while – time seemed to act strange here: it couldn't have been more than a few minutes, but it seemed like hours – but the corridor was straight and still as dark as it ever had been. The only light seemed to be following him around, illuminating him but leaving the rest of the place in the dark. He passed no doors and saw no evidence of anyone else.

He stopped walking and looked around, his fear steadily being replaced with confusion and annoyance. He still couldn't shake the unsettled feeling in his stomach.

He stiffened. Was that a noise behind him? Turning quickly he peered into the dark, but he couldn't see anything. He wasn't even sure he'd heard anything: just a whisper, the promise of a silent foot-fall.

He tried to make his breathing as quiet as possible while he scanned the dark. The fear was coming back, and his stomach started to churn unpleasantly. After a few tense moments he took another careful step in the direction he had been headed, careful to keep one eye over his shoulder. Again, the light winked off and then back on, moving to keep up with him, and he realised that anything hidden in the dark around him could see him perfectly. He reached up and slapped it with a closed fist. The glass shattered and a small jolt of power surged blue before the light was plunged out. Silently, Tintin moved forward and pressed his back to the wall. As soon as he reached a new position, the light overhead winked back on. He cursed quietly and moved back to his old position, where the bulb was broken.

The first thing he noticed was the small fact that the light came back on; the bulb was whole and unbroken.

The second was the figure.

He froze and stared at her. She was, he realised, one of the girls from the Captain's horrible sculpture. She was the one on the left, he thought. The one with the weary face and the look of abysmal acceptance in her eyes. She stood, forlorn and completely still, with one hand reaching out. When his breathing started again, Tintin moved slightly to examine her. She looked like a statue. He reached out and brushed his fingertips against her stiff hand, and she felt as cold and hard as granite.

When he took a step backwards, he noticed something else. Or rather, he remembered a very important fact: the sculpture had included a second girl.

Something cold and clammy took hold of his shoulder. He turned and screamed -

- and sat up in bed, the scream dying on his lips. Snowy was barking and the room was spinning. He reached out a shaky hand and snapped on his lamp. The sudden, jerky movement made his hip cry out in pain and he ruthlessly swallowed the wave of nausea that washed over him.

Too late!

Shooing Snowy, who was still making a nervous clamour, Tintin dashed to his en-suite bathroom and dropped to his knees in front of the toilet. The next few minutes were noisy and contained the ghosts of a meal he didn't remember eating. As he sat back blearily and flushed the toilet he heard his bedroom door fly open and hit his dresser.

"What is it?" the Captain shouted. "What's going on?"

Tintin leaned back and looked into his room. The Captain, dressed in his pyjamas, was standing in the middle of the room looking confused and sleepy. "What?" Tintin asked weakly.

"You screamed," the Captain said urgently. "What's wrong?"

"Oh. A nightmare." Tintin stood up, his legs still shaking, and swallowed a glass of water. "Then I got sick. I feel terrible."

"I'm not surprised: you were very drunk last night," the Captain replied ruefully.

"I was?" Tintin was surprised. He didn't remember getting drunk. It happened so rarely that he was usually able to remember the events leading up to it.

Ramó Nash handed him a glass of wine. "One glass can't hurt, can it?"

"Huh," said Tintin. He remembered having that glass of wine, but no more than that.

xxx

Against all odds, it had been a nice evening. The gallery was bright and welcoming, Miss Martine had been on-hand all evening, arranging sales and talking to buyers and generally taking over from Monsieur Fourcart, and the guests weren't nearly as pretentious as Tintin had feared. Yes, there was the occasional thirty-odd year old man with a floppy woollen hat and a v-neck t-shirt that showed off most of their sunken chest, and some of the women had been wearing luminous bows in their hair as ironic statements of something-or-other, but for the most part it was well-to-do, pleasant people looking to unwind after a hard week, or avid collectors sizing up the Next Big Thing.

The Captain had looked snazzy and proper in a black suit and tie, while Tintin had worn a casual-looking grey suit with no tie, and managed to pull off shabby-chic with aplomb. Snowy had been left at home, per the gallery's rules.

Everything was orderly and nice, and the champagne had flowed from an extravagant fountain on a white-covered table bedecked with flowers that had been cleverly arranged to make a tableau of little women going about their daily lives.

"Champagne, sir?" a waiter had asked.

"No thanks," Tintin had replied politely.

"Not having a tipple?" the Captain asked, staring longingly after the waiter, who was walking away with his silver platter of goblets. He really, really wished that Calculus would come up with a cure to his enforced sobriety soon…

"Not a good idea," Tintin murmured.

"In case someone tries to take another shot at you?" the Captain scoffed.

"No. You should never drink while on medication." Tintin shot him a superior smirk and drifted away. "I'm going to mingle. Try not to destroy anything."

"Try not to get killed."

Tintin skirted the groups of people that had formed around a few of the sculptures, noticing that the Captain had gotten sucked into the small knot around the letter H.

The sculptures had been arranged, unsurprisingly, in alphabetical order. They were all similar: the clear casing of the letter with a girl, or two girls, twisting to form the inner letter. All the girls had been modelled with injuries, from hair-line fractures to missing teeth bared in a fearful snarl; from broken fingers and toes that marred the flow of their bodies to gaping cuts in their throats that appeared like a second smile.

Rising above the soft music that was being piped over the loudspeakers was the gentle hum of the room around him. He heard snatches of conversations: points about the individual pieces and the sculpting technique used to create the girls, to general news about family and shared friends. He drifted through it, watching and listening, discarding people and information as useless, until he reached the back of the gallery. Miss Martine had seen him a few minutes after his arrival. She'd managed a grimace of a smile and to hiss at him to behave and not cause any trouble.

He could see her now. She was over by the desk, her head bent as she quickly wrote something down. A woman in an elegant black dress was talking to her, probably buying one of the pieces. Tintin stood nonchalantly beside the wooden door. Nobody was looking at him, too absorbed in the gallery and its work while the waiters concentrated on topping up wine and champagne glasses. Quickly, Tintin opened the door and slid into the back room.

The room was mostly in darkness. A strong, chemical scent stung his nostrils. Plunging his hands into his pants pockets, he strolled in and looked around. The walls were lined with metal shelving. Pictures and other, smaller works of art were stored there, waiting for the exhibition to finish before going back into the main gallery. He ran his finger over one of the shelves, careful not to knock against the vase that sat there, and saw that there was no dust. Someone, probably Miss Martine, had cleaned here recently. He supposed that it was one of her jobs.

At the very back of the room stood one of Ramó Nash's works. It was the one the Captain had described to him; the glacial 'Mother'. Tintin paused underneath it and looked up. There was no hiding the fact that the subject was very beautiful. Her face was serene and youthful; a young woman in the bloom of her life, and she was dressed less provocatively than the other works in a long white summer dress decorated with tiny red flowers along the hem. Her hair was blonde with a tinge of reddish highlights.

"She is beautiful, no?" a quiet voice behind him said.

Tintin jumped, and came back to reality. With a start, he realised he had brought his hand up and was reaching out to touch the sculpture. He blushed like a small child caught red-handed, and shoved his hand back into his pocket. Turning, he saw a short man with light hair leaning against the door. He wore a plain black t-shirt and dark trousers with black-and-white Converse training shoes.

"She is beautiful, your mother," the man said. He gestured to the sculpture.

"The artist is to be congratulated," Tintin said carefully. In the face.With a chair, he added silently.

"Then I thank you," said the man with a small smile. "I am the artist."

"Ah, Monsieur Nash," said Tintin. He looked again; the man was as the Captain described him: short – barely taller than Tintin himself, who wasn't exactly over-burdened in the height department – slightly scruffy and in possession of a pair of sardonic eyebrows.

"And you are Tintin," said Nash. He held out his hand, and Tintin shook it. "It is a pleasure."

"Really? You told Ms Vandezande that you didn't want to talk to me."

Nash cocked his head. "When was this?" he asked.

"When Monsieur Fourcart died."

"Ah." The artist shook his head. "Don't take that personally: I didn't wish to speak with anyone. He was one of my dearest friends. Certainly my oldest, and certainly my partner in crime." He gave a twisted smile at that thought, his eyes distant. "I always thought he'd be around," he said softly. "*Au besoin on connaït l'ami, as they say. Although I think he was a better friend to me than I realised."

Tintin raised an eyebrow. "I'm sure that's not true," he said.

"Hm. You'd be surprised." Nash shook himself from his melancholy and looked closely at Tintin. "I heard you got shot yesterday. You look well."

"Oh. I didn't know it was so widely known."

"Why not? It was in the papers this morning."

"I didn't see the papers," Tintin replied. "You can't trust them, anyway."

"Of course," Nash said with a laugh. "Who likes reporters, anyway?"

"Nobody," Tintin said soberly. "We're terrible people."

"I must admit, I'm surprised to see you here." Nash moved passed Tintin and used his hand to swipe at a smudge on Mother's clear casing. "I didn't think you wrote about such things as art or galleries."

"I don't," Tintin admitted. "I'm here for pleasure. You know my guardian, Captain Haddock, bought one of your pieces?"

Nash stiffened. "Yes," he said in a low voice. "I liberated them yesterday from that… that room he had stashed them in."

"Them?" Tintin asked curiously.

"Yes: Hele and Halka. The two girls inside the case," Nash explained.

"Ah. Halka? That's a Polish name, isn't it? I don't recognise the other."

"Hele. It's Estonian. Well, Greek by way of Estonia." Nash shrugged. "I name them. I can't help it. I love them all, in my own way." He rested his hand against Mother and sighed. "And here is the one I love the most. She was my first, and my favourite."

"When did you make her?" Tintin stepped back and looked up at the sculpture. "It's strange," he said suddenly, before Nash could answer, "but I almost feel as though I know her. Isn't that odd?" He laughed nervously.

Nash eyed him speculatively. "I hear that a lot," he replied. "Someone will see her and tell me of their sister, or their cousin, or their friend… someone they haven't seen for a while, and how she looks like Mother. I hear their tale of how this girl fell from grace, or simply disappeared. I tell them to pick up the phone and get in touch. Too much is lost when relationships die. I know what I'm talking about: I lost my wife and child many years ago. I drove them out of my life, and now I am alone. Truly alone, now that Fourcart is dead. So tell me," he added, making his voice lighter, "why you are here, in this storeroom, instead of at my grand opus? This is, after all, the pinnacle of my career. Or so I am told."

"Then why aren't you out there?" Tintin asked.

"These things bore me. Modern art is mostly wank, and the people that like it mostly wankers. And I say this as a modern artist."

"You're right," Tintin agreed. "I say this as a fan of art."

"But not modern art."

"No, not modern art."

"I've seen some of your photographs. You have a good eye."

"Thank you!" Tintin said, pleased. "That means a lot, coming from someone who… er…"

"Creates modern wank?" Nash supplied.

"Exactly! Oh, no, hang on, that's not what I" –

"Think nothing of it," Nash said with a wave of his hand. "And in return, I shall continue to hate reporters."

Behind them, the door opened and Martine Vandezande came in. "There you are," she said, sounding relieved. "Monsieur, someone wants to talk to you about one of the pieces..." Her eyes fell on Tintin, and she scowled. "What are you doing back here?" she demanded.

"He's here at my request," Nash said quickly. "I'll be back in a moment, Mr Tintin." Tintin nodded and waited until the artist and Martine had left before turning back to Mother.

It was jarring. He didn't know if she really was a scathing indictment of modern attitudes towards women, but he knew that she made him feel odd. There was something about her: she looked as though she were real; she really did. She could have simply been resting; standing against a counter and taking a breather before starting on the cleaning perhaps, or simply having a quiet think. Her only visible wounds were the handprints around her neck and the small amount of blood on her temple, staining her blonde hair. In fact, in the darkened and empty room, among the forgotten paintings and old vases, it seemed as though she would come to life at any second. He could almost see it. First, her eyes would blink then come back into focus. Then, she would look at him…

The door reopened and Nash came back. He was carrying a glass of wine and a bottle of beer. He held the wine out to Tintin. "For you," he said. "Enjoy your night of pleasure."

"Ah, I don't drink wine," Tintin said regretfully.

"You don't?" Nash looked genuinely shocked.

"Well, sometimes. But I'm taking painkillers and they're very strong," Tintin explained.

"Of course," Nash said. He held out the glass of wine. "One glass can't hurt, can it?"

"I don't suppose so," Tintin said. He took the glass.

"You said the Captain was your guardian. You are an orphan?"

xxx

"It was about ten o'clock when I found you," the Captain said, once Tintin had finished talking. They were both in the bathroom. Tintin was still stationed at the toilet, looking pitiful and hung-over, while the Captain was sitting on the side of the bath, his chin resting on one fist. "Poor Nash was trying to get you outside. You were twisted."

"Twisted?" Tintin said weakly.

"Uh-huh. Completely pissed and staggering. It was almost funny, except he tried to get you to the front door by walking you past a bunch of journalists."

"Oh no." Tintin straightened up and looked at the Captain in horror. "Don't say that."

The Captain shrugged. "Well, all of Belgium – and most of Europe – knows how you feel about modern art."

"Oh no. Nooooo."

"Yup. The word 'wank' was mentioned several times."

Tintin hid his face in his hands. "Oh, no, no, no! What time is it?"

"Too late to stop it from being printed, I'd say. Although, with luck, it'll appear in the Sunday arts supplements and nobody else will notice it." He stopped and thought for a second. "Wait. Tintin drunk and raving and calling people rude names? Never mind: it'll be all over the news tomorrow."

"Oh god!" Tintin leaned over the toilet and started to retch again. As if on cue, his mobile phone began to ring and vibrate over his dresser. "I can't speak to anyone," he said pleadingly.

The Captain rolled his eyes. Some days, he felt more like an unpaid personal assistant or chauffeur. He went into the bedroom and answered the phone, returning to lean on the bathroom floor and glare at Tintin.

"Ah, Flipke," he said. Tintin looked marginally relieved: Flipke had been his agent for the last two years, and was a damned good one. "He's alive, and I've just told him… No, he's taking it all right. I mean, he's getting sick but that could be the drink… Yes, I'll tell him that… Oh? I see… When?... How much?... Huh. I'll tell him that, too." He hung up the phone and tossed it behind him, where it landed on the bed. "You're being sued," he said.

"Oh," said Tintin.

"The Daily Reporter is suing you. For fraud. They want the full rights to the articles you wrote while you were working for them, and 80% of the profits from your new book."

Is it too late to crawl back in to bed? Tintin thought. It was an appealing thought: to pull the covers back over his head and pretend that the world had gone away. Just for a day.

"What's the name of that editor?" the Captain asked. "The one at The Daily Reporter."

"Henri De Villars?"

"That's the one. He and I need to have a little conversation. Cheer up, Tintin. So you're hung-over, humiliated and being sued? Worse things have happened than that!"

Tintin groaned and ducked back into the toilet. Sure, worse things had happened, but he was having a hard time remembering them at the moment.

*Used as "A friend in need is a friend indeed" in English