Chapter 23

He had begun to walk home, but when he was passing a bus stop and a bus came, he got on it. It was too wild a day for a walk to be enjoyable. A few yellow leaves were already fallingfrom the plane trees, whirling past the windows of the bus. Something seemed to be pinching his spine with iron fingers and whatever it was stabbed his lumbar region as he was getting off on the corner of St. Mark's Road. The rest of the way he had to go on foot, the pain subsiding a little with enforced movement.

Cars were as usual parked nose to tail all along the residents' parking in St. Blaise Avenue, and he noticed what he had had no need to notice before. One of them, an ancient Volvo, had a For Sale sign in its windscreen and underneath, the price: £ 300. Volvos were good cars, supposed to last for years, and this one appeared quite well cared for. He was walking roundi t, looking in the windows, when a woman emerged from one of the houses on the St. Blaise House side and came up to him.

" Are you interested? "

Mix said he didn't know, he might be. Though no longer young, she was quite good‑ looking with the kind of hourglass figure he liked.

" It's my husband's. We're called Brunswick‑ Brian and Sue Brunswick. Brian's away but he'll be back on Wednesday. He'd go with you on a trial run if you'd like. ”

" You're not a driver yourself? " He wouldn't have minded going on any sort of trial run with her.

" I'm afraid it's years since I was at the wheel of a car. "

" Shame, " said Mix. " I'll think about it. "

Padding across the hallway in St. Blaise House, his hand pressed to the small of his back, he noticed that the drawin groom door was ajar and he peered in. Old Chawcer was lyingo n the sofa fast asleep. He began to climb the stairs. Though cold in comparison to what it had been, the weather was brighter and the sun had come out. Sunbeams striking the walls of the stairwell showed up every crack, hairline as well as wide, the flyspots on the crookedly hung pictures and the flies that had got in between the print and the glass and died there, the cobwebs that clung to frames and cords and light fittings. He wondered where Reggie's ghost went in the daytime and told himself no tto think about it unless he had to. The pain in his lumba rregion sharpened. If it didn't improve he'd have to go to the doctor.

The first thing Gwendolen thought of when she woke up was Mr. Singh's revelation. Mr. Singh htmself was not for her and she knew it, while Stephen Reeves was. Momentarily she had been carried away by his looks and his charm but, anyway, she didn't approve of cross‑ cultural marriages‑ miscegenation, they had called it when she was young‑ and the wife was a considerable stumbling block. The unknown and unseen Mrs. Singh she dismissed as a " tottering native woman in a veil. " What Mr. Singh had told her now excluded almost everything else from her mind.

While she was absent, and not only absent but ill in the hospital, that man, that lodger, had been in her garden, twice been there, and dug holes in the flowerbeds. Once upon a time, in the days of Chawcer prosperity, a real gardener had attended to horticultural matters, the beds had blossomed with lupins and delphiniums, zinnias and dahlias, the shrubs had been trimmedand the lawn mown to a velvet carpetlike texture. To some extentGwendolen saw it like that still, or she saw it as allowed togrow a little shabby, but nothing that a handyman and a lawnmower wouldn't set to rights in an hour or so. And into this small paradise the lodger had ventured with a spade‑ almost certainly her spade‑ and dug holes. He had gone into the garden and dug holes without her permission, without even attemptingto get her permission, and in order to do so musthave passed though her kitchen, her washhouse, probably depositing the thing in the copper on his way. Why had he? To bury something, of course. Possibly, no, probably, he had stolen something of hers, something valuable, and buried it out there until he could find a receiver of stolen goods. She would have to go all over the house, finding out what was missing. Rage returned, banging in her blood vessels. It was no wonder that, now she was wide awake, she felt distinctly strange, her head swimming and her body very weak.

For all that, she would very likely have attempted the stairs, taking them slowly and with rests at every landing, but for Queenie " Winthrop arriving as she was making up her mind. She heard the door open, hoped it might be the lodger to save her climbing fifty‑ two stairs, and had her hopes dashed by Queenie's voice calling, " Yoo‑ hoo, it's only me. "

Gwendolen wondered how long they were going to keepthis up, she and Olive, calling on her with presents every day. For weeks perhaps, for months. Forever? She didn't want anymore chocolates, cereal bars, pears, or grapes. The bottle of port Queenie took out of her shopping trolley was far more acceptable and Gwendolen, cheering up, actually thanked her friend.

" I hope I'm not becoming an alcoholic, " she said. " I'm sure I would if you and Olive had your way. Of course it's my lodger who has driven me to it. I never used to drink anything stronger than orange juice. "

She had been going to tell Queenie about the encounter with Mr. Singh and what he had unwittingly revealed to her. But somehow she didn't want to discuss her neighbor withQueenie or anyone else and she couldn't describe the lodger'scrimes without involving Mr. Singh. Instead she said, " I really don't like to ask. It's something of an imposition. But could youbring yourself to go upstairs and knock on his door and tell himI would like to see him this evening at six? Please, " she said, though it went against the grain. " I have several matters I mus tbring up with him. "

" Well, dear, I will if you don't mind waiting a bit. I've still got to catch my breath after walking all the way here. I waited and waited for a bus but it never came. I'll go up before I go. I promise. Now shall I get you something to eat? " Queenie looked longingly at the bottle. " Or a drink? "

" Ye could both have a small glass of port. "

" We could, couldn't we? After all, it's Sunday. "

" Surely it's communion wine one drinks on a Sunday, not port. "

" Possibly, dear, but not being a churchgoer I wouldn't know. Shall I be mother? "

Gwendolen shuddered. " It's fortified wine, Queenie, not tea. "

She thought this habit of bringing a present to a sick friend and then expecting to share it, deplorable. But even a lifetime of rudeness hadn't taught her to drink exclusively in front of someone else. She watched Queenie pouring measures she considered too liberal into the wrong sort of glasses, raised hers and said what the professor used to say in like circumstances, " Your health! "

A snack of cheese and biscuits, fruit, and a slice each of the carrot cake, an offering from Queenie's elder daughter, was eaten off trays laid with ancient yellowing lace‑ trimmed cloths found in a sideboard drawer. " You look as if you might drop off to sleep at any moment, " Queenie said.

" The thing isn't the only matter I have to complain to the lodger about, " said Gwendolen as if she hadn't spoken. " I was expecting a very important letter while I was in hospital. It should have come here and apparently it didn't. " She had nointention of disclosing much about the nature of this letter orits sender to Queenie. " I suspect Cellini of tampering with it. " She had long dropped the " Mr. " " Unless you or Olive havebeen interfering with my post, which, " she added in a moreconciliatory tone, " seems unlikely. "

" Of course we didn't, dear. Where would this letter have come from? "

" The postmark would probably be Oxford. And now I really do want to sleep so perhaps you'd go upstairs to the lodger. Sixo'clock he's to present himself. "

Queenie lumbered up the stairs, looking longingly at the telephone as she passed it. But she would only have had to lift the receiver for Gwendolen to hear it and be down upon her like a ton of bricks. For all her seniority, Gwendolen had bette rhearing than she had. On the first landing she removed her punishing high‑ heeled shoes and, taking deep breaths, struggledon, shoes in hand. If he wasn't in she'd have something tosay to Gwendolen. Her friend needn't think she had a prerogativein rudeness. Two could play at that game.

He was in. He came to the door with a cardigan tied roundhis shoulders and his feet bare. " Oh, hi. What is it? "

Ever since she was fifteen Queenie had believed, and acted according to her belief, that if you want anything out of a man, if you simply want to exist in his presence, you must be extravagantly polite, sweet, winning, and even flirtatious. It hadn't contributed to her comfort, but to the happiness of her marriage it had. " Oh, Mr. Cellini, I'm so sorry to bother you and on a Sunday too, but Miss Chawcer says will you be an angel and give her just five minutes of your time at about six o'clock this evening. If you'd just pop down and have a word with her. I'm sure she won't keep you, so if you could… "

" What's it about? " "

" She didn't say. " Queenie flashed him an enormous toothy smile of the kind some man had once told her lit up her whole face, and proceeded to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. " You know what she is, Mr. Cellini, " she said, betraying Gwendolen without knowing she was doing so, " awfully fussy about every little thing. Not that you'd think so, would you, from the state of this house? "

" Too right. " Mix wanted to get back to the video he'd made. a couple of weeks back of Man U playing some Central European team. " Tell her I'll be there around six. Cheers, then. "

When she got back to the drawing room Gwendolen was asleep. She wrote on a scrap of paper. Mr. Cellini will come at six. Love, Queenie.

Up in the top flat the football remained unwatched. Taking the message without much thought; Mix had gone back inside and become an immediate prey to misgivings. She must have found the thong, he thought. Someone had and who morelikely than old Chawcer? He must think up some reason for its being in the copper and the only one he could think of, that he had been doing a girlfriend's washing because her machine had broken down, was obviously not feasible. Who washed in antiquated holeslike that anymore? What was wrong with the launderette? Anyway, it wouldn't account for the fact that he shouldn't have been in her washhouse.

Perhaps he could deny all knowledge of it. That might bebest. Even better, if he could manage it, would be to suggest Ma Fordyce or Ma " Winthrop had something to do with it. Hecould even say he'd seen one of them with the thong in he rhand. Don't worry about it, he said to himself, don't even think about it. Think about something else. Like what? That Frankfrom the Sun in Splendour might be with the police at this moment? That Nerissa was out with another bloke? No, think about the possibility of offering Brian Brunswick two‑ fifty for the Volvo. Why shouldn't he go back to the house tomorrow and ask Sue Brunswick to come out in the car with him? She didn't have to be a driver, she only had to sit beside him. That would be brilliant. He could drive her down to Holland Parkor, better still, to Richmond and suggest they had lunch in oneof those trendy pubs. She couldn't refuse, not if she wanted to sell her car. Then, afterward, with the old man, this Brian, out of the way, when they got back to her place…

It would probably be a one‑ off and just as well. Once he'd got inside Nerissa's house and talked to her over coffee he wouldn't need second‑ rate women like Sue Brunswick or secondhand cars, he'd have the Jaguar and, above all, he'd have Nerissa. By next Sunday his whole circumstances could have changed. He wouldn't even be here in this flat, attractive as itwas, he'd be moving into Campden Hill Square, he wouldn't need a job or a car or care about what a bunch of old women thought of him. There'd be no murderer's ghost in her house. He'd tell her about the thong and they'd have a good laugh over it together, especially the bit about when he'd told old Chawcer the thong belonged to Ma " Winthrop. As if she couldeven begin to get it round her fat arse!

He took three 400 milligram strength ibuprofen, put socks and shoes on and his arms into the cardigan sleeves and went down at ten past six. Gwendolen wasn't lying down, she wasn't even sitting down, but pacing the room because the lodger wasover ten minutes late. When he appeared, she was so angry she couldn't control herself.

" You're late. Doesn't time mean anything to people anymore? "

" What was it you wanted? "

" You'd better sit down, " said Gwendolen.

Was it a fact that anger made your blood pressure rise and that you could feel it rise, pounding in your head? Sometimes she thought about her arteries, lined as they must be by now with stuff like the plaque you got on your teeth. Her head swam. She had to sit down, though she would have preferred to stand and tower over him. But she was afraid of falling and thus making herself vulnerable in his presence.

" A very charming neighbor of mine called on me this morning, " she said, taking a deep breath. " These immigrants to ourshores could teach some people around here what good manners are. However, be that as it may, he had something to tell me. Possibly you can guess what it was. "

Mix could. Though he had been turning over in his mind possible reasons for old Chawcer wanting to see him, this wasn't one of them. He had no explanation to offer. " With increasing disma, he listened to her long account of Mr. Singh's visit, his misapprehension as to Mix's presence in the garden and her own indignation.

" Now perhaps you'll tell me what you thought you were doing. "

" Digging the garden, " said Mix. " You can't say it doesn'tneed it. "

" That's no business of yours. The garden has nothing to do with you. " Gwendolen had decided not to mention the thing. The letter was another matter. " And I've reason to believe you've been tampering with my post. "

" That's a lie, for a start. "

" Don't speak to me like that, Mr. Cellini. How dare you suggest I might be untruthful? You still haven't given me any reason for digging up my garden, not to mention going into my kitchen and my washhouse. "

There had been a teacher like her at his comprehensive school. He even remembered her name: Miss Forester. She'd taught his mum before him and his grandma too, for all he knew. But his generation of kids gave her a hard time and she'd had to leave before she had a nervous breakdown. He'd been one of them but in those days he'd had nothing to lose. This was different. He'd like to have said what he remembered sayingto Miss Forester but somehow the words, " Piss off, you oldcow, " died on his lips.

" Either I get a satisfactory explanation of your conduct or I shall serve you notice to quit the premises. "

" You can't do that, " he said. " It's an unfurnished flat. I've got a protected tenancy. "

Gwendolen knew that very well, iniquitous though it was, but she had still tried it on. " What did you bury? Some piece of property of mine, I suppose. A valuable piece of jewelry? Or perhaps the silver? I shall check, have no fear, I shall make an inventory of missing things. Or maybe you murdered someone and buried the body. Is that it? "

The stain on the base of the Psyche notwithstanding, Gwendolen didn't for a moment believe this was what had happened. It was the stuff of fiction and as such something she had readof many times over the years. She said it, not because she gave it credence or even saw it as remotely likely, but to insult him. She even failed to notice that Mix had gone white, his expressionless face no longer blank. But he said nothing, only lowering the eyes that had been fixed on hers.

Triumphantly, she saw that she had utterly vanquished himand now she would finish the job. " Tomorrow morning, with‑ out fail, I shall inform the police. When you come out of prison I doubt if you will wish to return‑ here even if that be allowed. "

" Have you finished? " Mix asked.

" Almost, " said Gwendolen. " I simply repeat that I shall inform the police of your activities tomorrow morning. "

When he had gone she had to lie down. Once she heard his door close‑ he slammed it and the whole house seemed to shake‑ she hauled herself off the sofa and began to crawlt oward the stairs. Later on, she might lack the strength to managethem as she lacked it now to begin the climb. For about tenminutes she remained sitting on the floor and then she startedto crawl up the stairs on hands and knees. It seemed like hours later that she reached her bedroom and got inside.

Heaven forbid that she should have her bed moved downstairs. Neither Queenie nor Olive had yet suggested it, but they would, they would. She would never submit to that, shethought, as she struggled, and failed, to remove her clothes andget into her nightgown. She did manage to take off the ruby ring and put it in the jewel box, thought of washing her hands but only thought of it. Reaching the bathroom seemed as impossible as, say, walking to Ladbroke Grove and back. She laydown and closed her eyes. Weakness enfeebled her wholebody, but sleep, which had come so easily and irresistibly during the past week, come when she didn't want it and even tried to fight against it, now backed away from her, banished by anger.

It wasn't only the wrath aroused by the lodger's behavior, though that was bad enough, but the rage of a lifetime welling up and bubbling, churning through her veins. Rage at Mama, who had taught her to be ladylike at the expense of freedom of speech, cultivation of the mind, liberty of movement, love, passion, adventure, and the pursuit of happiness; rage at Papa who hid his denial to her of a real education under a cloak of protecting her from the wicked world and who kept her at hometo be his nurse and amanuensis; rage at Stephen Reeves, whohad deceived her and married someone else and failed to answer her letters; rage at this enormous decaying house that had become her prison.

For a long while, she didn't know how long, she felt she had no physical existence and was only a mind that swirled with rage and thoughts of revenge. Then, at one moment she was in a fury of anger, at the next blank and still. It was like sleep andyet it was not. Her first thought when she emerged from it was that at least she could punish the lodger with the police. She struggled, and failed, to sit up. This wouldn't do for, tonight certainly, she must check on the rest of the jewelry in the box, see what, if anything, was missing and lying in a muddy hole in the garden. She must go down and look in the cabinet where the silver, untouched for many years, lay wrapped in green baize.

It seemed as if, for a few moments, she had lost consciousness. She doubted if she could stand up. This time it wasn't a fear of dizziness that might cause her to fall but an apparent inability to move her left side. Cramp, of course. She occasionally suffered from cramp and usually in the night. She rubbed her left leg and then her left arm and though she fancied a littlefeeling returned she could only put her foot to the floor by a huge effort. Her arm hung useless. As she thought she must try to get to the light switch and the door, it opened slowly and Otto strolled in. His sleek chocolate form became black in the faint light from those street lamps still in working order, while his eyes glowed the color of the limes for sale in the cornershop. She found herself thinking, incongruously, as she had never thought before, that his eyes were beautiful and that he, young and lithe, was the only perfect thing she ever saw. He took no notice of her but sat down in front of the empty grate and began picking pieces of twig and tiny stones out of his pads with sharp white teeth.

Gwendolen dragged her left leg back onto the bed, tugging it there with her right hand. The effort exhausted her. His manicure complete, Otto leapt gracefully onto the bed and curled up beside her feet.