She was alone anyway. There was a decent fire alight and she had a chair pulled up to it, a sagging armchair that looked comfortable. Her back was to the window, but he could see her head was bent over something. A book maybe or some sewing, he thought, stretching his imagination to the utmost. He had very little idea what an elderly woman might do on a winter’s evening to entertain herself. No TV that he could see. No music playing. She wasn’t asleep; he could see her head turning as she concentrated on whatever it was. A movement by the door set his heart thumping but it was nothing, it was just a dog walking over to her, a black yoke that looked like four bits of different dogs stuck together. The great lantern jaw belonged on a mastiff; the body was fat and barrel-shaped, like a Labrador succumbing to middle-age spread. Short little legs and a flailing tail that threatened to knock over the table beside her completed the picture. At a word from her it collapsed to the ground as if shot, the two stumpy legs that were uppermost paddling the air beseechingly until she leaned over and rubbed its stomach.
It wasn’t much of a dog, he thought, but a dog nonetheless. It might hear him, or smell him. Better to knock on the door before he was discovered lurking outside. Peering in through the window would be hard to explain. He moved away. Trust was the key, he’d often thought. Establish that and they’re yours. And they want to like you. He pressed the bell by the front door, hearing it jangle deep in the house. They want you to be nice and honest and decent. They want you to be like they are themselves. He took a couple of paces back so as not to crowd her when she opened the door. It had the effect of taking him out of the shelter of the portico, exposing him to the rain, flattening his hair to his head. The light went on in the hall. He assumed a doubtful expression, a wistful look that had worked like a charm many times before. The door opened – not wide, but enough.
“You’ll have to forgive me for knocking on your door at this late hour,” he began. Word perfect. Practised. All the consonants where they should be. A little too mannered to be credible, did he but know it, but a fair attempt at sounding well spoken. “My car broke down, I’m afraid. Just down the road. There isn’t anywhere else around here – I was hoping I might get some shelter for the night.”
“How unfortunate.” Her voice was unexpectedly deep for such an elderly lady, such a slight frame. She had her back to the light and he couldn’t see the expression on her face. “Have you no mobile telephone?”
“Out of battery,” he improvised. “I would have asked to use your phone, but I don’t know who to call at this time of night.”
“A garage would seem to be the obvious choice.”
He tried a laugh, spluttering a little on the rain running down his face. Jesus, he was getting drenched. “You’re right there. But there’s none of them at work at this hour.”
‘There is always the Automobile Association.”
It took him a second. “Oh – the AA. I’m not a member. I should be, but I’m not.” He sniffed. Time to turn it up a notch. “I don’t want to put you to any trouble. If there is a barn, or an outbuilding of some kind…”
“This isn’t Bethlehem, young man.” A gravelly note of amusement in the throaty voice. “You may come in. But you must take the place as you find it. I can’t promise you comfort.”
“A roof over my head is all I ask.”
“Well, I have one of those. Of a sort.”
She stepped back, holding the door open, and he ducked his head as he passed her in an awkward kind of bow. He took up a position a few paces away from her on the stone-flagged floor, trying to appear unthreatening, but his mind was working at top speed. The air in the hall was freezing and damp, a damp that had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with a couple of centuries of decline. Overhead, a brass hall lantern was blazing, shining brightly enough that he could see the wavering cracks in the floor, the worn treads of the carpet on the stairs, his breath misting in front of his face. Indoors. Jesus.
He was able to see his hostess properly too, and she him. She was old – of course, he had known that, but so old now that he looked at her skin, folded in hundreds of tiny wrinkles that looked powdery soft and delicate. She had high, slender eyebrows that she had drawn herself in an unlikely brown-pencil arc, and the remains of bright pink lipstick feathered the edges of her mouth. So she still cared about her appearance. You wouldn’t have known it from the dress she wore – a shocking thing it was, black but you could still see the stains of food and God knows what down the front. A few inches of hem hung down at the side. She had a shawl around her shoulders pinned carelessly with a crescent brooch that had the yellowish, muted dazzle of filthy diamonds. No rings on the hands that still looked strong despite the veins that wormed across their backs, the loose skin dappled with age spots. That made sense. She hadn’t ever married. He could smell cigarettes off her from where he stood. The front of her hair was yellow-grey with nicotine staining, and her teeth were as brown as if they’d been carved out of wood.
Unconsciously he ran his tongue over his own set: capped as soon as he could afford it, Persil-white and even. He was twenty-seven – almost thirty, which he couldn’t believe personally, but at least he looked younger. Baby-faced was what they’d always said. He played up to it, with the big blue eyes and a smile he practised every time he was alone with a mirror. The smile said, trust me. The smile said, I’m only a young fella. The smile said, I’m harmless. He kept his hair short and his clothes neutral, dark, unmemorable.
He had a story prepared about being a pharmaceutical salesman but there was no need for it; she went past him to the door of the room where he’d seen her sitting.
“You’ll be warmer in here.” The handle was loose and rattled as she turned it – a bad noise, distinctive and hard to muffle. The dog had its nose up against the door, desperate to get out. He hadn’t heard it bark but it was on to him all right. It pushed out past her, lunging towards him, wheezing aggressively. Without meaning to, he stepped back, away.
“Don’t be frightened. He won’t harm you.”
“Good boy,” Anthony said feebly.
“He’s deaf. Getting old.” She stood holding the door, too polite to tap her foot but impatience in every angle of her body. “You’re letting the heat out.”
“Sorry, I-” He gestured helplessly. The dog was standing between him and the door. He itched to kick it. A good punt in the ribcage. If she wasn’t looking, maybe.
“Oscar.” There was a whipcrack of command in her voice and the dog squinted back at her, reluctant to obey. She tapped her thigh and it moved at last, stomping past her on its short little legs, heading for the rug in front of the fire. He slunk after it, looking around with frank admiration once he had gone through the door.
“Beautiful room.”
“It was once.” She sat down in her chair and picked up the book that she had left on the floor. She was going to start reading again, he realized, wondering with a flare of panic what she expected him to do with himself.
“I suppose I should introduce myself. Graham Field.” A nice Proddy name.
She looked up briefly. “My name is Hardington. Clementine Hardington.”