The nurse came back at this point. She tapped Michael on the shoulder and put a cup of coffee on the table next to the bed, but he didn’t seem to notice, and carried on talking in this low, murmurous monotone. He was gripping Fiona’s hand quite hard by now. The nurse didn’t leave, she just stepped back a few paces and stood in the shadows, watching.
‘So then I started losing my temper. Then I started thumping the table and sent a couple of chopsticks flying, and I said: You went to bed with a salesman? You went to bed with a man who came to sell you a vacuum cleaner? Why did you do it? Why? And she said she didn’t know, he was so charming, and so nice to her, and he was handsome, too. He had lovely eyes. Like your eyes, she said. And I just couldn’t stand it when she said that. I shouted: I do not! I don’t have his eyes! I’ve got my father’s eyes! And she said: Yes, that’s exactly it, you’ve got your father’s eyes. And that was when I got up and walked out, only you know how close together the tables are in the Mandarin, I was so angry and I was in such a hurry, I bumped into this couple’s table and knocked their teapot over and I didn’t even stop or anything. I just walked straight out into the street and didn’t look to see if my mother was following. I walked straight out into the street and didn’t go back to the flat for hours, not till some time after midnight. And my mother was gone by then. Her car was gone and she left a note for me which I never read and a few weeks later she sent me a letter which I never opened and I’ve never heard from her since. After that night I just stayed in my flat and didn’t really go out or speak to anyone for two, maybe three years.’
He paused. Then his voice was even quieter: ‘Till you came along.’
And then, quieter stilclass="underline" ‘So now you know.’
Then the nurse stepped forward and put her hand on his shoulder. She whispered, ‘She’s gone, I’m afraid,’ and Michael nodded, and bowed his head, curling in upon himself. He might have been crying, but I think he was just very very tired.
He was like that for about five minutes. Then the nurse made him let go of Fiona’s hand, and said: ‘I think you’d better come with me.’ He stood up slowly and took her arm, and they walked off the screen together, to the left of the frame. And that was the last I ever saw of him.
As for me, I stayed right there in my seat. I wasn’t going to move until Fiona did. There seemed no point in leaving the cinema, this time.
PART TWO
∗
‘AN ORGANIZATION OF DEATHS’
CHAPTER ONE
Where There’s a Will
THE short January afternoon was fading into premature dusk. Thin, silent rain fell drearily. A dank, clinging fog had risen from the river, and was creeping furtively over the city. Through this grey pall the familiar roar of London’s traffic penetrated, persistent, yet with an eerie, muffled effect.
Michael turned away from the window and sat down in front of the silently flickering television screen. The room was dark, but he didn’t bother to turn on the lights. He picked up the remote control and switched idly from one channel to another, settling finally for a news bulletin which he watched for a few minutes with bored incomprehension, dimly aware that his eyelids were beginning to droop. The radiators were on full, the air was thick and heavy, and before long he had slipped into a light, uneasy doze.
It had already become his habit, in the two weeks since Fiona’s death, to leave the front door of his flat unlocked and slightly ajar. He had taken a resolve to stay on closer terms with the other residents, and this gesture was intended to express the character of a friendly, approachable neighbour. Today, however, it had another effect, for when an elderly stranger, clad from head to foot entirely in black, arrived at Michael’s threshold and received no answer to his inquiring knock, he was able to push the door noiselessly open and make his own way, unseen, into the darkened hallway. Proceeding into the sitting room, the stranger positioned himself next to the television set and stood a little while in impassive contemplation of Michael’s slumped, recumbent figure. When he had seen all that he wanted to see, he coughed, loudly, twice in succession.
Michael awoke with a start and brought his sleepy eyes into focus, whereupon he found himself staring at a face which would have struck terror into the heart of many a stronger man. Gaunt, misshapen and unhealthy, it expressed at once a meanness of spirit, a slowness of intelligence and, perhaps most chillingly of all, an absolute untrustworthiness. It was a face from which all marks of love, compassion, or any of those softer feelings without which no man’s character can be called complete, had been viciously erased. It had, one might have thought, a touch of madness in it. It was a face which gave out a simple, dreadful message: abandon hope, all you who look upon this face. Give up every thought of redemption, every prospect of escape. Expect nothing from me.
Shivering with disgust, Michael turned off the television, and President Bush disappeared from the screen. Then he switched on a nearby tablelamp, and looked for the first time at his visitor.
He was not a man of forbidding aspect: the austerity of his clothing and steadiness of his gaze made him more severe than sinister. He was, Michael surmised, very much on the wrong side of sixty; and he spoke flatly, with a Yorkshire accent, his voice deep, cold and expressionless.
‘You’ll forgive me for intruding, unannounced, upon your personal domesticity,’ he said. ‘But as your door had been left ajar …’
‘That’s quite all right,’ said Michael. ‘How can I help you?’
‘You are Mr Owen, I take it?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘My name is Sloane. Everett Sloane, solicitor, of the firm of Sloane, Sloane, Quigley and Sloane. My card.’
Michael struggled into an upright position and took the proffered instrument, which he examined blinkingly.
‘I’m here under instructions from my client,’ the solicitor continued, ‘the late Mr Mortimer Winshaw, of Winshaw Towers.’
‘Late?’ said Michael. ‘You mean that he’s dead?’
‘That,’ said Mr Sloane, ‘is precisely my meaning. Mr Winshaw passed away yesterday. Quite peacefully, if reports are to be believed.’
Michael received this news in silence.
‘Won’t you sit down?’ he said at last, remembering his visitor.
‘Thank you, but my business can be kept very brief. I have only to inform you that your presence is requested at Winshaw Towers tomorrow evening, for the reading of the will.’
‘My presence …?’ Michael echoed. ‘But why? I only met him once. Surely he wouldn’t have left me anything?’
‘Naturally,’ said Mr Sloane, ‘I am not at liberty to discuss the contents of this document until all the concerned parties are gathered, at the appointed time and place.’
‘Yes,’ said Michael, ‘I can see that.’
‘I can count on your attendance, then?’
‘You can.’
‘Thank you.’ Mr Sloane turned and was about to leave, when he added: ‘You will, of course, be staying the night at Winshaw Towers. I would advise you to bring plenty of warm clothing. It is a cold and desolate spot; and the weather, at this time of year, can be uncommonly fierce.’
‘Thank you. I’ll bear that in mind.’