The Wilt Alternative

'Irmgard,' he whispered. Miss Schautz went on with her work of demolishing the bathroom floor. Wilt took another deep breath and whispered more loudly. Inside work ceased and there was silence.

'Irmgard,' said Wilt, 'is that you?'

There was a movement and then a quiet voice spoke. 'Who is there?'

'It's me,' said Wilt, sticking to the obvious and wishing to hell it wasn't, 'Henry Wilt.'

'Henry Wilt?'

'Yes. They've gone.'

'Who have gone?'

'I don't know. Whoever they were. You can come out now.'

'Come out?' asked Gudrun Schautz in a tone of voice that suggested the total bewilderment Wilt wanted.

'I'll undo the door.'

Wilt began to remove the flex from the doorhandle. It was difficult in the growing darkness but after several minutes he had undone the wire and removed the chair.

'It's OK now,' he said. 'You can come out.'

But Gudrun Schautz made no move. 'How do I know it's you?' she asked.

'I don't know,' said Wilt, glad of this opportunity to delay matters, 'it just is.'

'Who is with you?'

'No one. They've gone downstairs.'

'You keep saying "They". Who are these "They"?'

'I've no idea. Men with guns. The whole house is filled with men with guns.'

'So why are you here?' asked Miss Schautz.

'Because I can't be somewhere else,' said Wilt truthfully. 'You don't think I want to be here? They've been shooting at one another. I could have been killed. I don't know what the hell's going on.'

There was a silence from the bathroom. Gudrun Schautz was having difficulty working out what was going on too. In the darkness of the kitchen Wilt smiled to himself. Keep this up and he'd have the bitch bombed out of her mind.

'And no one is with you?' she asked.

'Of course not.'

'Then how did you know I was in the bathroom?'

'I heard you having a bath,' said Wilt, 'and then all these people started shouting and shooting and...'

'Where were you?'

'Look,' said Wilt deciding to change his tactics, 'I don't see why you keep asking me these questions. I mean I've taken the trouble to come up here and undo the door and you won't come out and you keep on about who they are and where I was and all that as if I knew. As a matter of fact I was having a nap in the bedroom and...'

'A nap? What is a nap?'

'A nap? Oh, a nap. Well it's a sort of after-lunch snooze. Sleep, you know. Anyway when all the hullabaloo started, the shooting and so on, and I heard you shout "Get the children," and I thought how jolly kind of you that was...'

'Kind of me? You thought that kind of me?" asked Miss Schautz with a distinctly strangulated disbelief.

'I mean putting the children first instead of your own safety. Most people wouldn't have thought of saving the children, would they?'

A gurgling noise from the bathroom indicated that Gudrun Schautz hadn't thought of this interpretation of her orders and was having to make readjustments in her attitude to Wilt's intelligence.

'No, that is so,' she said finally.

'Well naturally after that I couldn't leave you locked up here, could I?' continued Wilt, realizing that talking like some idiotic chinless wonder had its advantages. 'Noblesse oblige and all that, what!'

'Noblesse oblige?'

'You know, one good turn deserves another and whatnot,' said Wilt. 'So as soon as the coast was clear I sort of came out from under the bed and hopped up here.'

'What coast?' demanded Miss Schautz suspiciously.

'When the blighters up here decided to go downstairs,' said Wilt. 'Seemed the safest place to be. Anyway, why don't you come out and have a chair. It must be jolly uncomfortable in there.'

Miss Schautz considered this proposition and the fact that Wilt sounded like a congenital idiot and took the risk.

'I haven't any clothes on,' she said opening the door an inch.

'Gosh,' said Wilt, 'I'm awfully sorry. Hadn't thought of that. I'll go and get you something.'

He went into the bedroom and rummaged in a cupboard and having found what felt like a raincoat in the darkness took it back.

'Here's a coat,' he said handing it through the doorway 'Don't like to turn the bedroom light on in case those blokes downstairs see it and start pooping off again with their guns. Mind you I've locked the door and barricaded it so they'd have a job getting in.'

In the bathroom Miss Schautz put on the raincoat and cautiously came out to find Wilt pouring boiling water from the electric kettle into a teapot.

'Thought you'd like a nice cup of tea,' he said. 'Know I would.'

Behind him Gudrun Schautz tried to comprehend what had happened. From the moment she had been locked in the bathroom she had been convinced that the flat was occupied by policemen. Now it seemed whoever had been there had gone and this weak and stupid Englishman was making tea as if nothing was wrong. Wilt's admission that he had spent the afternoon cowering under the bed in the room below had been convincingly ignominious and had helped to confirm the impression she had gathered from his previous nocturnal exchanges with Frau Wilt that he was no sort of threat. On the other hand she had to find out how much he knew.

'These men with guns,' she said, 'what sort of men are they?'

'Well I wasn't really in a very good position to see them,' said Wilt, 'being under the bed and so on. Some of them were wearing boots and some weren't, if you see what I mean.'

Gudrun Schautz didn't. 'Boots?'

'Not shoes. Do you take sugar, by the way?'

'No.'

'Very wise,' said Wilt, 'awfully bad for the teeth. Anyway here's your cup. Oh I am sorry. Here, let me get a cloth and wipe you down.'

And in the close confines of the little kitchen Wilt groped for a cloth and presently was mopping Gudrun Schautz's coat down where he had deliberately spilt the tea.

'You can stop now,' she said as Wilt transferred the attentions of the towel from her breasts to lower areas.

'Righto, and I'll pour another cup.'

She squeezed past him into the bedroom while Wilt considered what other domestic accidents he could provoke to distract her attention. There was always sex, of course, but in the circumstances it hardly seemed likely that the bitch would be particularly interested in it and, even if she were, the notion of making love with a professional murderess would make arousal extremely difficult. Whisky droop was bad enough, terror droop was infinitely worse. Still, flattery might help, and she certainly had nice boobs. Wilt took another cup of tea through to the bedroom and found her looking out of the balcony window into the garden.

'I shouldn't go over there,' he said, 'there are more maniacs outside with Donald Duck shirts on.'

'Donald Duck shirts?'

'And guns,' said Wilt. 'If you ask me the whole bloody place has gone loony.'

'And you have no idea what is happening?'

'Well I heard somebody shouting about Israelis, but it doesn't seem likely somehow, does it? I mean what on earth would Israelis want to come swarming all over Willington Road for?'

'Oh my God,' said Gudrun Schautz. 'So what do we do?'

'Do?' said Wilt. 'I don't see there is much we can do really. Except drink tea and make ourselves inconspicuous. It's all probably some ghastly mistake or other. I can't think what else it can be, can you?'

Gudrun Schautz could, and did, but to admit it to this idiot before she had the power to terrify him into doing what she wanted didn't seem a good idea. She headed for the kitchen and began to climb into the attic space. Wilt followed, sipping his tea. 'Of course I did try phoning the police,' he said, dropping his chin even more gormlessly.