‘Not as far as I know.’
‘Did they ask you what you were doing while it was happening? For an alibi, like.’
‘They asked all of us.’
‘Imagine being next door.’
‘Did you hear him screaming?’
‘No!’
Brian, pale with queasy imaginings, struggled to retrieve the conversational reins. He almost threatened to walk out, then remembered that the last time he had done so it was they who had vanished, almost before he had finished speaking. It took him three weeks to coax them back.
‘What were you doing, then?’
Brian stared at Edie. In spite of the jumps in conversation he knew exactly what she meant. He frowned as if he genuinely could not remember. As if it was not branded on his heart. ‘Marking papers. Fast asleep. One or the other.’
‘Hope you can prove it,’ said Denzil.
‘His wife’d back him up. Wouldn’t she?’
‘They’d back each other up.’
‘Wouldn’t surprise me,’ said Tom, wetting his finger and smoothing down the silky hairs on his forearm, ‘if they weren’t in it together.’
‘Why d’you do it, Bri?’ asked Denzil. ‘Money?’
‘Love,’ said Edie, and she hugged her knees and smiled and pouted. ‘I bet he did it for love.’
‘Yeah. Having it off were they - this bloke and your missus?’
‘All right. A joke’s a joke.’ When she smiled, even unkindly, the angels sang. Brian indicated the gymnasium clock. ‘As you can see, our time is up yet again. We don’t meet Friday so that gives you three whole days to study your parts.’
Sniggers all round. They left in a bunch, but the swing doors had hardly closed before Edie re-entered. She was looking cast down and apprehensive. He couldn’t remember seeing her completely on her own before. She appeared smaller and was standing in a slightly knockkneed way, her heavy boots pointing inwards.
‘Brian - I’m dead worried.’
‘And why is that, Edie?’ His heart thundered in his breast. How incredibly sweet she looked. And so vulnerable - like a naughty little girl.
‘Can I talk to you?’
‘That’s what I’m here for.’
‘I’m in terrible trouble, Brian. You simply gotta help me. I don’t know what to do.’
Sue stood, her hand resting on the garden gate, looking anxiously at Rex’s house. All the curtains were drawn. Those on the left caused her special concern, for she knew it would take the four horsemen themselves to stop Rex working on his magnum opus at eleven a.m. and it was now nearly one. No smoke curled from the chimney and yesterday’s milk, together with today’s, was on the front step. The cream emerged from the bottles in two frozen columns topped with caps of red and silver foil.
This alone would have given a concerned neighbour pause for thought, but Rex was unlucky in this respect, being placed between a holiday home and a pair of young go-getters. They worked all hours in the city and all the weekend exuberantly entertained other young go-getters, also at all hours. They had hardly spoken to Rex since the day they moved in.
She pushed open the iron gate and walked up the path, her clogs making quite a clatter. Normally any footsteps brought an immediate response from Montcalm, but today there was only silence. She tapped the brass-cannon door knocker gently and waited.
After a couple of minutes, hesitating to knock again she made her way round to the back of the house. Rex’s garden - two narrow strips of raggedy grass, some ancient roses that had long since reverted to briar and a few fruit bushes in a broken cage - was marked in several places by Montcalm’s recent passing. She remembered again that she had not seen the dog and his master loping around the Green for two - no, three days. Her breath quickened in agitation.
She lifted the latch and stepped into the kitchen, where she was met by a powerful smell of distinctly gone-off meat. Enough light came through the thickly grimed window panes to see that there were several bowls and plates scattered around the rather sticky lino. Lots of milk bottles stood by the sink, which was full of dirty dishes. The bottles were dirty too. One of them was still half-full and had a pale, greenish-grey shape curled up inside, like a small humunculus. The draining board was invisible beneath a mountain of empty dog-food tins. As Sue advanced something scuttled out of a corner and vanished behind the stove.
She called out, ‘Hello-o-o!’
Montcalm appeared at the end of the hall. Sue braced her legs and shoulders, for she had long been familiar with his customary greeting and had no wish to find herself flat on her back on the tacky floor. But the dog seemed not at all to be picking up speed. He trotted rather, in a measured way, his claws ticking lightly on the linoleum.
He entered the kitchen and stood, frowning most urgently up at her. Then he turned and retraced his steps, pausing once to look over his shoulder to see that she was following.
There was even less light in the War Room, just a lemony strip of sunshine where the curtains did not quite join. As Sue walked further in she became aware of bumps under her feet. She bent down and picked up a cardboard tube. There seemed to be several of them, together with some empty transparent bags and torn pieces of shiny paper.
She had only been in the room a few times and couldn’t remember where the switch was. Groping around she knocked a dish of medals off a shelf. There was a cry, roughly querulous, practically in her ear. Sue jumped, crying out in her turn.
She saw then a shrouded shape, huddled in a wing chair, facing the empty grate. Two shapes actually, for Montcalm was now crouching there too.
‘Rex?’
‘Who’s that?’
‘It’s Sue.’
‘Go away. Go away.’
As Sue moved closer she became aware of a most unpleasant closeness, as if all the air had been sucked from the place, leaving it dense and foetid, like a stopped-up lair.
There was an old army lamp of metal and wood with a canvas shade. She switched it on and Rex’s never-ending limbs gave a violent jerk as if receiving an electric shock. Turning away his head he burrowed further into the chair. Even so part of his face remained visible and a sorry sight it was. Every fall and fold of the papery skin was enseamed with dirt and shone with a combination of tears and mucous. The jaw and dependent wattles were covered with white stubble.
Rex’s hair, that shining snowy floss that wafted in the air when he walked as if enjoying a lively and separate existence of its own, was plastered against his skull and glued, in flat, darkened patches, to his neck. Sue could not believe the appalling change in him. She said again, ‘Rex?’
‘Leave me alone.’
‘What is it? What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Are you ill?’
‘Go away.’
‘Oh, don’t be so silly.’ Worry made Sue speak more sharply than she intended. She added, gently, ‘How can I possibly go away and leave you in this state?’
She knelt and laid her hand tentatively on his knee, felt that this was perhaps a bit forward, got up again and, leaning awkwardly half across the chair, attempted to put an arm around his shoulder. It could have been carved from marble. She felt so frustrated. If he had been a child she could have given him a good cuddle. The dog sniffed, listened, waited.
They stayed like this for several minutes, then Sue’s arm started to ache. She became aware of a dull grating noise. It was Rex, grinding his teeth. After a moment Montcalm began to do the same, shifting his jaw clumsily from side to side as if working over one of his giant bones.
Sue stood up and began to silently lecture herself - a habit she had found helpful at times when feeling threatened or when the world started to behave in a hostile or incomprehensive manner.