* * *
"You didn't have to come back to work so soon, you know."
"I know," Nash said, "but I think I'll feel better here," and he crossed to his desk. The post had mounted up, he noted disgustedly, though there were few enough pieces to suggest that someone had tried to help him out—Gloria, probably. He began to sort the bits of paper into order; Ambrose Dickens, F. M. Donnelly, H. Dyck, Ernest Earl—and having married the post with the relevant files, he sat down again. The first one only required issue of a form, but one of which he had no stock.
"Baal," he remarked to some perverse deity, and immediately afterward discovered that Gloria also lacked the form. A search around the office gained him five or six, but these would not last long.
"I think this calls for a trip downstairs," he remarked to Gloria.
"Not today," she informed him.
"Since you've been away, they've brought in a new arrangement— everybody makes out a list of what they want, and on Wednesdays one person goes down and gets the lot. The rest of the time the storeroom is locked."
"Great," said Nash resignedly, "so we have to hang on for three days... What else has happened?"
"Well, you've noticed the new arrival over there—her name's Jackie—and there's someone new on the third floor too. Don't know his name, but he likes foreign films, so John got talking to him at once of course...."
"Jackie—" he mused. "... Oh hell, that reminds me! I'm supposed to be calling on Jack Purvis today where he works in Camside, to collect some money he owes me!"
"Well, what are you going to do?"
"Take the afternoon off, maybe—" and he began to fill in his leave sheet. He passed the new girl's desk where John was unsuccessfully attempting to discover any interest in Continental films ("No, Ingmar.") and continued to a slight argument with Mr. Faber over his projected leave, finally granted because of his recent bereavement.
That afternoon he collected the debt in Camside and caught the bus home. It was dark by the time the vehicle drew up at the bottom of Mercy Hill, and the streets were almost deserted. As he climbed the hill his footsteps clattered back from the three-story walls, and he slipped on the frost which was beginning to glisten in the pavement's pores. Lunar sickles echoed from Gladstone Place's window and slid from the panes of the front door as he opened it. He hung up his coat, gathered the envelopes from the doormat and, peeling one open, entered the living-room and switched on the light.
He saw immediately the face watching him between the curtains.
For a minute Nash considered the courses open to him. He could turn and run from the house, but the intruder would be free in the building—and besides he did not like to turn his back. The telephone was in the study, and hence inaccessible. He saw the one remaining course in detail, came out of his trance and, grabbing a poker from the fireplace, slowly approached the curtains, staring into the other's eyes.
"Come out," he said, "or I'll split your head with this. I mean that."
The eyes watched him unmoving, and there was no motion under the curtain.
"If you don't come out now—" Nash warned again.
He waited for some movement, then he swung the poker at the point behind the curtain where he judged the man's stomach to be. There was no response from the face, but a tinkle of glass sounded. Confused, Nash poised the poker again and, with his other hand, wrenched the curtains apart.
Then he screamed.
The face hung there for a moment then fluttered out through the broken pane.
Next morning, after a sleepless and hermetic night, Nash decided to go to the office.
On the bus, after a jolt of memory caused by the conductor's pale reflection, he could not avoid thoughts of last night's events. That they were connected with the island beyond Severn ford he did not doubt; he had acted unwisely there, but now he knew to be wary. He must take every precaution, and that was why he was working today; to barricade his sanity against the interloper. He carried a five-pointed star in his pocket, and clutched it as he left the bus.
The lift caught him up and raised him to the fourth floor. He returned greetings automatically as he passed desks, but his face stiffened any attempted smile, and he was sure that everybody wondered "What's wrong with Mike this morning?" Hanging up his coat, he glanced at the teapot, and remembered that he and Gloria were to make it that week.
Many of the files on his desk, he saw bitterly, related to cases needing that elusive form. He wandered down to the third floor, borrowed a few copies, and on the way out noticed someone's back view which seemed unfamiliar—the new arrival, he realized, and headed for the lift.
"Well," Gloria broke in some time later, "I'd better collect the cups."
Nash collected the teapot and followed her out. In a room at the end of the passage water bubbled in a header, and the room's doorway gaped lightlessly. His thoughts turned to his pocket as he switched on the light. They filled up the pot and transferred the tea to the cups.
"I'll take our end of the office," he remarked, and balanced the tray into the office.
Two faces were pressed against the window, staring in at him.
He managed to save the tray, but one cup toppled and inundated Mr. Faber's desk. "Sorry—I'm sorry—here, let me mop it up, quick," he said hurriedly, and the faces rippled horribly in a stray breeze. Thinking in a muddled way of the things outside the window, the pentacle in his pocket, and the disgust of Mr. Faber's client on receiving teastained correspondence, he splashed the tray to the remaining desks and positioned his and Gloria's cups atop their beermats.
He glared for a minute into the bizarrely-set eyes beyond the pane, noticed a pigeon perched on the opposite roof, and turned to Gloria. "What's wrong with that pigeon?" he inquired, pointing with an unsteady finger. The faces must block any view of the bird from her desk.
"What, that one over there? I don't see anything wrong with it," she replied, looking straight through the faces.
"Oh, I ... thought it was injured " answered Nash, unable to frame any further remark (Am I going mad or what?)—and the telephone rang. Gloria glanced at him questioningly, then lifted the receiver. "Good morning, can I help you?" she asked and scribbled on a scrap of paper. "And your initials? Yes, hold on a minute, please ... G. F. E. Dickman's one of yours, isn't it, Mike?"
"What... Oh, yes," and he extracted the file and, one eye on the silent watchers outside, returned to his desk. (For God's sake, they're only looking... not doing anything!) "Hello—Mr. Dickman?"
"... My ... married recently ..." filtered through office murmur and client's mumble.
"Would you like to speak up, please? I'm afraid I can't hear you." The faces wavered toward the point where his gaze was resolutely fixed.
"My son Da—"
"Could you repeat your son's name, please?" The faces followed his furtive glance.
"What'd you say?"
"Could you repeat that please!" (Leave me alone you bastards!)
"My son David I said! If I'd known this was all I'd get, I'd of come round meself!"
"Well, I might suggest that the next time you call, you take a few elocution lessons first!—Hello?"... He let the receiver click back listlessly, and the faces were caught by the wind and flapped away over the rooftops.
Gloria said: "Oh, Mike, what did you do?"
The rest of the morning passed quickly and unpleasantly. Mr. Faber became emphatic over the correct way to treat clients, and several people stopped in passing to remark that they wished they had the courage to answer calls that way. ("Everyone seems to have forgotten about your father," said Gloria.) But one o'clock arrived at last, and Nash left for the canteen. He still looked around sharply at every reflection in a plateglass window, but managed to forget temporarily in a search around the bookshops for a new Lawrence Durrell, with the awareness of his pocket's contents comforting him.