‘I regret the inconvenience,’ she said. ‘I’ll pay for the damage.’
‘Damage?’ cried Mrs Runca, moving forward and pushing the chair further away from the burnt area of carpet. ‘Damage?’ she said again, looking at the flowers in the vase.
‘So a dog had a fit in here,’ said Mr Runca.
The woman from the magazine looked from Mr Morgan to Bianca and then to Miss Winton. She surveyed the faces of Mr and Mrs Runca and glanced last of all at the passive countenances of her photographers. It seemed, she reflected, that an incident had occurred; it seemed that a dog had gone berserk. ‘Well now,’ she said briskly. ‘Surely it’s not as bad as all that? If we put that chair back who’ll notice the carpet? And the flowers look most becoming.’
‘The flowers are a total mess,’ said Mrs Runca. ‘An animal might have arranged them.’
Mr Morgan was discreetly silent, and Miss Winton’s face turned scarlet.
‘We had better put the whole thing off,’ said Mr Runca meditatively. ‘It’ll take a day or two to put everything back to rights. We are sorry,’ he said, addressing himself to the woman from the magazine. ‘But no doubt you see that no pictures can be taken?’
The woman, swearing most violently within her mind, smiled at Mr Runca and said it was obvious, of course. Mr Morgan said:
‘I’m sorry, sir, about this.’ He stood there, serious and unemotional, as though he had never suggested that Mrs Neck might be invited up to the Runcas’ penthouse apartment, as though hatred and drink had not rendered him insane. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Mr Morgan. ‘I should not have permitted a dog to enter your quarters, sir. I was unaware of the dog until it was too late.’
Listening to Mr Morgan laboriously telling his lies, Miss Winton was visited by the thought that there was something else she could do. For fifteen years she had lived lonesomely in the building, her shyness causing her to keep herself to herself. She possessed enough money to exist quite comfortably; she didn’t do much as the days went by.
‘Excuse me,’ said Miss Winton, not at all knowing how she was going to proceed. She felt her face becoming red again, and she felt the eyes of everyone on her. She wanted to explain at length, to go on talking in a manner that was quite unusual for her, weaving together the threads of an argument. It seemed to Miss Winton that she would have to remind the Runcas of the life of Mr Morgan, how he daily climbed from his deep basement, attired invariably in his long brown overall. ‘He has a right to his resentment,’ was what she might say; ‘he has a right to demand more of the tenants of these flats. His palm is greased, he is handed a cup of tea in exchange for a racing tip; the tenants keep him sweet.’ He had come to consider that some of the tenants were absurd, or stupid, and that others were hypocritical. For Miss Winton he had reserved his scorn, for the Runcas a share of his hatred. Miss Winton had accepted the scorn, and understood why it was there; they must seek to understand the other. ‘The ball is in your court,’ said Miss Winton in her imagination, addressing the Runcas and pleased that she had thought of a breezy expression that they would at once appreciate.
‘What about Wednesday next?’ said Mr Runca to the woman from the magazine. ‘All this should be sorted out by then, I imagine.’
‘Wednesday would be lovely,’ said the woman.
Miss Winton wanted to let Mr Morgan see that he was wrong about these people. She wanted to have it proved here and now that the Runcas were human and would understand an accident, that they, like anyone else, were capable of respecting a touchy caretaker. She wished to speak the truth, to lead the truth into the open and let it act for itself between Mr Morgan and the Runcas.
‘We’ll make a note of everything,’ Mrs Runca said to her, ‘and let you have the list of the damage and the cost of it.’
‘I’d like to talk to you,’ said Miss Winton. ‘I’d like to explain if I may.’
‘Explain?’ said Mrs Runca. ‘Explain?’
‘Could we perhaps sit down? I’d like you to understand. I’ve been in these flats for fifteen years. Mr Morgan came a year later. Perhaps I can help. It’s difficult for me to explain to you.’ Miss Winton paused, in some confusion.
‘Is she ill?’ inquired the steely voice of Mrs Runca, and Miss Winton was aware of the woman’s metallic hair, and fingernails that matched it, and the four shrewd eyes of a man and a woman who were successful in all their transactions. ‘I might hit them with a hammer,’ said the voice of Mr Morgan in Miss Winton’s memory. ‘I might strike them dead.’
‘We must try to understand,’ cried Miss Winton, her face burning with embarrassment. ‘A man like Mr Morgan and people like you and an old spinster like myself. We must relax and attempt to understand.’ Miss Winton wondered if the words that she forced from her were making sense; she was aware that she was not being eloquent. ‘Don’t you see?’ cried Miss Winton with the businesslike stare of the Runcas fixed harshly upon her.
‘What’s this?’ demanded Mrs Runca. ‘What’s all this about understanding? Understanding what?’
‘Yes,’ said her husband.
‘Mr Morgan comes up from his basement every day of his life. The tenants grease his palm. He sees the tenants in his own way. He has a right to do that; he has a right to his touchiness –’
Mr Morgan coughed explosively, interrupting the flow of words. ‘What are you talking about?’ cried Mrs Runca. ‘It’s enough that damage has been done without all this.’
‘I’m trying to begin at the beginning.’ Ahead of her Miss Winton sensed a great mound of words and complication before she could lay bare the final truth: that Mr Morgan regarded the Runcas as people who had been in some way devoured. She knew that she would have to progress slowly, until they began to guess what she was trying to put to them. Accepting that they had failed the caretaker, as she had failed him too, they would understand the reason for his small revenge. They would nod their heads guiltily while she related how Mr Morgan, unhinged by alcohol, had spat at their furniture and had afterwards pretended to be drowned.
‘We belong to different worlds,’ said Miss Winton, wishing the ground would open beneath her, ‘you and I and Mr Morgan. Mr Morgan sees your penthouse flat in a different way. What I am trying to say is that you are not just people to whom only lies can be told.’
‘We have a lot to do,’ said Mrs Runca, lighting a cigarette. She was smiling slightly, seeming amused.
‘The bill for damage must be paid,’ added Mr Runca firmly. ‘You understand, Miss Winter? There can be no shelving of that responsibility.’
‘I don’t do much,’ cried Miss Winton, moving beyond embarrassment now. ‘I sit with my dog. I go to the shops. I watch the television. I don’t do much, but I am trying to do something now. I am trying to promote understanding.’
The photographers began to dismantle their apparatus. Mr Runca spoke in a whisper to the woman from the magazine, making some final arrangement for the following Wednesday. He turned to Miss Winton and said more loudly: ‘Perhaps you had better return to your apartment, Miss Winter. Who knows, that little dog may have another fit.’
‘He didn’t have a fit,’ cried Miss Winton. ‘He never had a fit in the whole of his life.’
There was a silence in the room then, before Mr Runca said:
‘You’ve forgotten, Miss Winter, that your little dog had a bout of
hysteria and caused a lot of trouble. Come now, Miss Winter.’
‘My name is not Miss Winter. Why do you call me a name that isn’t correct?’
Mr Runca threw his eyes upwards, implying that Miss Winton was getting completely out of hand and would next be denying her very existence. ‘She’s the Queen Mother,’ whispered Mrs Runca to one of the photographers, and the photographer sniggered lightly. Miss Winton said: