The Collected Short Fiction Part 32

"Out of the ordinary, I suppose you mean?"

I was merely gaining time, but the vigour of the man's affirmation shook me.

"If you like."

I was, in fact, so shaken that I hesitated.

"What happened?" asked the man. It was the tone the prefects used to learn in public schools for interrogating the juniors.

"I don't know what it was, " I replied with extreme weakness of spirit. Doubtless I should have played my part as new boy and asked what business it was of his.

"So they've arrived," said the man, much more thoughtfully. One might almost have supposed him awed, if such a man had been capable of awe.

I felt a little stronger; as if life had pa.s.sed from him to me.

"Who do you mean by they?" I asked.

"I'm not telling you that, my boy," said the man; now within distant sight of equal terms. "What I'm telling you is that you'll never see me again for dust. There's an end to all things. Thanks for the tip-off."

And he clumped off. In a moment, I heard his reverberant car explode into life and charge away as if unscorchable ent.i.ties would any moment be clutching at the exhaust-pipe.

"There's an end to all things," the man had said; and clearly this was the end for me also, and in a sense far past it: an end to setting my teeth in order to face life, putting up with injurious incidentals for the supposed sake of a higher settled purpose; an end, at almost any cost, to my Brandenburg Square tenancy.

I managed to finish my breakfast ("No breakfast, no man," my father had always said), and then went down to have a word with Maureen.

After that marvellous evening when Maureen had worn the grey dress, she had reappeared a number of times, unpredictably as before; and things had continued to be marvellous, though, naturally, not so marvellous as the first time, because things seldom are. I realized very clearly that, situated as I was, I was fortunate in Maureen, though it was a disadvantage that I had virtually no voice in our arrangements, however unavoidable that might be. Very much had Maureen been a further reason for my not moving out.

Now that I had made up my mind, I took the initiative with her, even though I realized that her husband, Gilbert, would almost certainly be there too, let alone the children. It was almost the first time I had been down there since my visit soon after my arrival.

I rang, and the husband answered the door. He was in very old clothes, I could hear the children screaming in the room behind him. I hardly knew him, and, in any case, the conversation I am about to report was the only serious one I ever had with him.

"Maureen is away," he said, as if there could be no doubt why I had called. "She's in hospital. A breakdown. I'll give you the name of the hospital, if you like. Though it'll probably be some time before you'll be able to see her."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said. "But not altogether surprised."

I realized by his look that he completely misunderstood me.

"It's this house," I elucidated. "I've decided to move."

"If you can find anywhere else."

"Quite," I said. "I suggest you should think about moving too."

"All together, in fact?" He was not hostile, I thought, but he had again misunderstood me. It would indeed have been nice to continue living in the same building as Maureen, but I had taken for granted that it was too much to hope for, with accommodation of any kind as short as it was then; and has been ever since, needless to say.

"Splendid, if we could find anywhere. But I suggest that you and Maureen should move too in any case. This house is all wrong."

He glanced at me. "Will you come in and have a coffee? I've become quite good at pigging it since Maureen left."

"Thanks very much," I said. The situation was not what I had had in mind, but I was willing to talk about recent events to anyone remotely suitable.

"Sorry I'm not togged up." He pushed back the door for me to go in first.

The din and dust inside were duly frightful, but Maureen's husband set about making the coffee as if we had been alone in the flat, and the children stared at me for only a minute or two, then started running up and down again. I picked up the Observer.

"What exactly do you mean by wrong?" asked Gilbert in due course. "Milk and sugar?"

The coffee really was good, and thoroughly welcome, even though so shortly after my own small breakfast.

"The people on the floors above don't run a normal business."

His brow creased slightly. "I agree with you."

"I don't know what they do."

"Maureen doesn't either. You know we used to have that cove, Millar, in here from time to time. He paid a small pourboire, and I admit we were d.a.m.ned glad to have it. I find life a struggle, as I don't mind telling you. But Maureen never discovered very much about him. I never met Millar myself. I take it you know him quite well?"

"Not really."

I thought I could tell him exactly how much I did know of Mr Millar, even though I had to speak more loudly than I should have wished, because of the din in the room.

Gilbert listened very carefully, and then, after a moment's thought, shouted out: "Children! Go outside and play." I was surprised by the way they instantly departed and climbed up to the street: in those days, safe and almost silent on the Sabbath. "And I take it that there've been developments since?" he continued.

"In that connection I'm rather glad the children have gone," I said.

"s.e.x or spooks?" asked Gilbert. "Have some more coffee?" he went on before I could answer. "Sorry, I forgot."

"Thank you very much. I'm the better for it."

"I'm sorry Maureen's not here."

"I hope it'll not be too long," I said.

We paused a moment, lapping coffee.

"Are you clairvoyant?" he asked.

"Not that I know of. I'm probably too young." He was perhaps six or seven years older, despite all those children. "Why? Do you think I've imagined it all?" I put it quite amiably.

"It just struck me for one moment that you might have seen into the future. All these people slavishly doing nothing. It'll be exactly like that one day, you know, if we go on as we are. For a moment it all sounded to me like a vision of 40 years on-if as much."

And indeed I had to take a moment to consider.

"But they're doing it all the time," I objected. "Now. Well, not this moment. I think not this moment. But you can go up and look tomorrow. See for yourself."

"It's not something I particularly want to see. Forty years on. Though I was at Harrow, strange as it seems."

I admit that I was surprised. I doubt whether I had then knowingly met another Harrovian, though I knew the song he had quoted.

"I was sacked, of course."

I attempted an appropriately expressive look before returning to the matter in hand.

"Maureen must have seen," I continued. "Isn't that why she's not here? Wasn't it all too much for her?"

He eyed me a little; then said nothing. I suddenly apprehended the possibility that he might attribute Maureen's breakdown simply to me.

I pressed my point about the people upstairs. "Do you know how much Maureen knows? Some of what there is to know is pretty shattering."

"I really don't doubt it. I agree with all you say. I told you so."

"There's a bit more. Something rather different."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"I think I should."

"Sorry the coffee's finished."

"It was good."

"Well?"

So I told him about the even odder events of that morning and of the night before. After all, I had to tell someone.

"So we've got the Un-Dead in too?" he commented.

I stared at him.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "Isn't that more or less what you were implying?"

I must have continued to stare at him.

"Or did you mean something quite different?"

"On the contrary," I replied, "I think you've got it. It's just that it never occurred to me."

"That you were visited by a creature from another world than this? Or supposed you were. I thought that was your point?"

"What never occurred to me was -" I couldn't quite say it. "I've told you," I went on, "that Mr Millar gave me the impression of having something very much on his mind."

"A haunted man, in fact. Yes, I got that," said Gilbert.

I cannot pretend that my voice did not sink a little foolishly.

"This house might be haunted by the ghost of his victim."

Maureen's husband looked straight at me. "Victims. Didn't your friend in green put it in the plural?"

"Mr Millar might be always on the move, always running away. And going through the hoops in the attempt to forget. Through all the hoops he can find. Even asking me down for a drink."

"Still like 40 years on," said Maureen's husband. "But you mustn't let me philosophize. It's probably only that I'm not being a wild success myself. Why do you call him Mr Millar?"

I could see that it might irritate an Harrovian. But my answer, though a mere inspiration of the moment, I rather liked. "To link him with the rest of the world. He's one who needs it."

"I see," said Maureen's husband. "I'll think about what you've told me. I've never doubted that old Millar was a dead loss. I suppose I've kept away from him for that reason. Of course we're not in a position to move just at the moment. You might say that the tangible factors outweigh the intangible. So forgive me if I don't offer to sit up with you waiting for the line of nameless horrors." His expression changed. "You will forgive me? To start with, I can't leave the kids and I can hardly bring them with me."

"I never even thought of it," I replied; which was true.

"If you come screaming down the stairs at any time, don't hesitate to knock me up. Knock hard, because I sleep hard after slogging all day at the filthy shop. Besides it might scare away the apparitions."

I should perhaps have been grateful for a slightly different att.i.tude, but one had to take the man as he obviously was. I attempted one more word.

"I see it's no business of mine, but I do sincerely advise against staying long in the same house with those people upstairs. If they were to go, of course it would be different."

"It might not, of course, from what you say. But the real trouble is that there's always something. Not just something wrong, but something badly wrong. I can see that Millar's got on your nerves and I don't blame you either. But if you'd ever lived in some of the places that Maureen and I have lived in since I was invalided out . . . Believe me, my friend, there's always something that's b.l.o.o.d.y about living among the toiling ma.s.ses. From my point of view this place is a real oasis. You may see what I mean, when you start looking for somewhere else. Mind if I get the kids down again?"

"I'll go," I said. "Thank you for listening."

"Any time," he said. "Always a friendly bosom on which to lay the troubled head. I'll tell Maureen you looked in. When she's more compos, that is.

Needless to say, Maureen's husband proved to be almost gruesomely in the right of it. I could find nowhere else to live that was even possible; and I found much on offer that was quite horrible. That was after spending almost the whole of the next week in the search; regardless of my duties to Major Valentine. A week does not sound very long, but it is surprising how many small, dark cavities six days can unearth.

In any case, the unit of a week was critical. I should have liked at least to be sure of having somewhere else to go before having to face another Sat.u.r.day and Sunday.

Messrs Stallabra.s.s, Hoskins and Cramp seemed to be carrying on as usual, though as I was out of the house for the greater part of each day, it was impossible for me to be sure. On the Thursday night, Mr Millar was beating it up with three noisy girls until the dawn was filtering through my windows, grey as Maureen's dress.

I decided that I could not face the Sat.u.r.day and Sunday nights. On the Sat.u.r.day evening, I retreated to my mother, after spending a long day visiting a list of impossible addresses (many of them stated to be accessible on a Sat.u.r.day only-often on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon only, perhaps between two and four).

"What a surprise!" exclaimed my mother. "I wasn't sure I should ever see you again."

And when, against some reluctance on my part as well as against the usual resistance on my mother's, I returned to Brandenburg Square in the later part of the Monday morning, I found a transformation.

In the first place, I had to open the street door with my key. This was unknown during "business hours": the staff of Messrs Stallabra.s.s, Hoskins and Cramp, and their sporting friends, pushed in and out so incessantly that a locked front door would have been ludicrous. It would have been entirely out of harmony with the firm's way of life and what would now be called "image".

Within all was quiet. All the room doors were shut, which was also quite unknown. This time I applied myself to several of the handles with confidence. Every door I tried was locked.

I put down my canvas bag and went outside again, the front door swinging shut behind me on its heavy spring.

The firm's unusually large bra.s.s plate had gone. Even the phantom shape of it was fainter than usual in these cases; the firm having been with us for so much less than the customary (or then customary) 40 or 80 years. I picked a bit at the screwholes, but nothing peeped out. I stood back and looked up at the windows of the house. All were shut, but there was nothing unusual about that. I had never noticed an open window on the floors occupied by Messrs Stallabra.s.s, Hoskins and Cramp. I reflected that it would be no use enquiring in the bas.e.m.e.nt, as Maureen's husband would be at the provisions shop. (I wondered for the first time who was nowadays collecting the children from school.) As people were now staring at me, I gave the front door a push and re-entered.

Maureen stood halfway up the first flight of stairs, as if awaiting me.

She wore a white blouse that some of my mother's generation would have called "skimpy", and a bright red skirt, and equally bright red shoes. Her stockings gently gleamed, her hair positively shone, and her face was nothing less than radiant.

"All silent as the tomb," she said.