Next day the sky was flat as ice, and drained of colour. Everything looked frail, and made him nervous. At least the buses seemed to be on his side: one came at once to take him out of Cantril Farm; his connection arrived at the Shiel Road bus stop just as he limped up. They gave him no time to doubt. He would be fine so long as he didn’t start brooding. The police wouldn’t be watching the house – they had no reason.
Nevertheless he couldn’t walk straight past the house. He had to detour through the park to reach the telephone box. Now that he didn’t intend to speak, the threat of hearing Craig’s voice unnerved him. But there was no answer. As he’d hoped, Craig was not at home.
He’d taken only a few steps towards the house when he averted his face and crossed the road to dodge behind a tree. Suppose his calls had disturbed Craig so much that he was refusing to answer the phone? Peering round the tree, he saw that the front door was ajar within the porch. Couldn’t he put the photographs in an open envelope and drop it in the hall? Perhaps he could write Craig’s name on the envelope.
That was idiotic. The photographs must be placed outside Craig’s door, and one ought to be protruding from beneath the door, as though Craig had dropped them. If a neighbour found them, that would give him something to explain. If Craig himself found them, he might well blame someone in the building; that would prey on his mind.
Horridge stared across the road. Craig’s curtains were parted; they looked luxuriously thick. Wasn’t there a glint beyond them, as of eyes watching? Wasn’t there a dark bulk that contained the glint, like a large head? Perhaps Craig was sitting in the dim room, afraid to show his face.
Horridge stared until his eyes felt parched, willing Craig to emerge. Beneath his gaze the house seemed to twitch, unnerving him. The glary sky made the trees look thin and brittle. He felt drained of purpose.
A postman poked letters through the front door. Why didn’t the man go in and leave them in the hall? Later a woman slipped a handful of pamphlets through the door. Neither arrival moved the dark shape with the glinting eyes, if they were eyes. By now Horridge was watching aimlessly, emptily. He’d wasted hours. What if those visitors had been detectives, disguised in order to guard the house? He turned dully and went to look at the reflections by the bandstand.
A crisp-bag swollen by bubbles floated in the water. Nothing was clean: perhaps nothing had been since the quarry. He had stepped down through the roughly carved gap and had halted, gazing at the massive cliff, shining grey in the sunlight. He’d felt alone with the bright surfaces of rock, and free. Even the rubble underfoot had been spotless. The strength of the quarry had seemed to fill him. Each day he’d played for hours, a bandit in his lair, a soldier manoeuvring, until his grandfather called him to dinner. Why had that week ever had to end?
Because he’d grown up, that was why. He had more important things to do than stand moping by the water. And by God, he knew how he could succeed. He could stand in the porch and ring Craig’s doorbell. If Craig were at home he would hear the window opening, but Craig wouldn’t be able to see him. He hurried down the avenue towards the obelisk, disregarding the twinges in his leg.
A figure was idling along Aigburth Drive. Horridge slowed to let him trudge out of sight. He turned, hair trailing over his shoulders, and stared at Horridge. It was the student with the shifty eyes, whom he’d seen talking to Craig.
His eyes were blank, preoccupied; he seemed hardly able to see across the road. No doubt he was plodding home to his drugs. Horridge heard the door slam, though it didn’t look as though the youth had closed it properly. Had he noticed Horridge? Probably not – but he’d certainly prevented him from carrying out his plan. Weighed down by rage, he limped away.
When he reached his flat, the morose boy who lived overhead was kicking a football against the twilit fence. Often he did nothing else all day: thud, thud, thud. “Haven’t you anything better to do?” Horridge snarled. The boy gaped after him. With his gangling limbs and small head the boy looked insect-like, performing some instinctive ritual with the ball.
Horridge was struggling with his attacker in a cramped dark place. When he woke, his arms were tied. The indifferent ticking of the clock made him feel more alone and helpless as he writhed convulsively in the dark. Before he was free he realised he was only tangled in the blankets, but that lessened his fear not at all.
Sleep had deserted him. He lay trying to conquer his fears. He was going to do Craig’s work for him, was he? Was he going to terrify himself into waiting to be trapped by the police? Not bloody likely. He wasn’t an invalid, to lie awaiting the worst. For once he had the chance to achieve something. He’d see it through, whatever the consequences.
Wind hissed through the maze of concrete wastes of Cantril Farm. Again the sky resembled ice; it looked thin, treacherous. The bus took its time in arriving. Alighting at the corner of Shiel Road and West Derby Road, he called Craig’s number. There was no reply.
The second bus left him on Lodge Lane. Mightn’t Craig have come home by now? At last he found an undamaged phone. Still no reply. But by the time he reached the house – Suppose he went in and Craig returned while – He forced himself towards the park. His doubts dragged at him.
He was dawdling in the hope that something would hinder him. Nothing would, except himself – and he wouldn’t allow that. He walked past the house without detouring. That would show he meant business. He called a last time. No reply.
He walked between the stone gateposts, slowly in order to conceal his limp. There was no gate; grass sprouted above the hinge on the post, like unkempt hair behind a rusty ear. The short drive curved up to the front door, then down to another pair of empty posts. Within that semicircle, the lumpy ground was ragged with grass. The uneven hedge drooped over it, and leaned over the wall towards the pavement. The place seemed as neglected as Horridge’s old home.
He eased open the door to the porch, which was almost as roomy as his bathroom. Hiding within was a large empty cracked vase. The porch seemed dusty, desolate, which made him feel all the more an intruder. He wasn’t to be cowed. He crept in, and stood with a clang on the shoe-scraper. Wind slammed the porch door at once.
His heart’s jerk seized him. Never mind. No more distractions. He stared at the list beside the doorbells: Harty, a blank, Adamson, Craig – He thrust at the bell-push hastily, though his finger was shaking so much he feared he would miss. He heard the faint ringing. Good: if Craig were home, he would be able to hear the window without opening the porch door.
There was silence, except for the shuddering of the glass of the porch in the wind. Should he ring again, to make sure? Suppose that brought Craig out of hiding – to the door instead of to the window?
He was trying to distract himself. He must go straight in, up to the landing. Craig’s door would be on the right. To drop the photographs and push one partly beneath the door would take him only seconds. No more dawdling and cowardice! He thrust at the front door. He thrust harder, then he stared at it. It took him moments to see, and longer to accept, that the door was locked. Only the shadow of the porch made it seem ajar.
He managed not to pound on the door. “God. Oh dear God, please, no,” he moaned. He clamped his hands over his ears, digging his fingers into his scalp, trapping himself with the thumps of his blood – so that he failed to hear the porch door opening behind him.
“ If you want Roy Craig,” a voice said, “he’s out.”
It wasn’t Craig. It was a woman’s voice, though husky. She had trapped him in the porch, in the dim grubby box. His skin felt as though swarming with dust. All at once he glimpsed his dream vividly. He had been struggling in a wardrobe with an unseen enemy who was too strong for him. He found the razor in his pocket, and clutched it.
He couldn’t turn, for he would be unable to speak. His face was beyond his control. It had grown stiff as a mask, and he had no idea how it looked. His lips felt like thick bars, imprisoning his tongue. His hand trembled in his pocket. It at least c
ould move.
“ Are you a friend of Roy Craig’s?” the voice said.
***
Chapter IX
It was the first week of Fanny’s exhibition. She’d managed to bear the first days. Apart from interviews with the media, from which she’d emerged edited and contradicting herself, she had felt ignored. She’d stood like a wallflower, overhearing comments on her work. “Isn’t that sweet?”
“ Very Lowryish, aren’t they?”
“ Don’t you feel these naives are a bit limited?”
“ Aren’t primitives a little out of date?”
Two days had been enough. She’d felt pent up, unemployed. She ought to work instead of mooching in the hope of overhearing compliments.
A new painting grew in her mind: visitors to an art gallery. She would rather paint them than watch them. How many had visited the exhibition because they felt that they ought to be seen doing so?
It distressed her to dislike people. All the more reason to stay home and paint: she could feel more affection and sympathy for her subjects that way – these subjects, anyway. The third day she began sketching; by the fourth, her ideas were too urgent to wait for more sketches. Figures gazed at paintings and tried to imitate their poses. Some of the gallery visitors had white sticks, and were being escorted. One long-haired man scratched his head and poked his fingers in his eyes.
Just as she was painting most intensely, Roy Craig came to unburden himself to her. What he had to say disturbed her – but she couldn’t stay depressed for long while she was painting. When he left, she painted on. Some of the faces gazing at the pictures were rapt, wistful or absolutely calm, with great wide eyes.
Then, buttocksbumanarse, she ran out of some of the colours – just because she was painting so well! She sketched for the rest of the evening, to make sure her ideas didn’t vanish and to prevent herself from brooding over Roy’s tale.
Next day she went downtown early, to the artists’ suppliers in Bold Street. Shops displayed hats like pale blue wicker baskets. A delicatessen boasted caviar. A woman gazed at an overfed leather suite and said to her husband “Looks terribly cheap, don’t you think?”
Fanny was glad not to be trying to appeal to them. They must be locked into their opinions, their conviction of what was Art and Good and Tasteful. Perhaps they might even spare time for Art which had Something to Say. She giggled at herself: she sounded like Winnie-the-Pooh with a headache.
The bus home dropped her by the tower block. She glanced along Lodge Lane, towards the terraced houses huddled together, their only front step the pavement. There was the audience she wanted to reach – the poorer people. They would criticise her work honestly. She could seldom distinguish the genuine opinions of the gallery visitors, if they had any.
She’d displayed her work in some of the community centres, in a fish and chip shop, in the Upper Parly Arts Centre. But nobody had ever asked the price, though she’d hoped people would be pleasantly surprised: she had wanted them to be able to buy. Were they content with their garish lustre pottery, their 3-D religious plaques that performed a little dance when you moved, their portrait of a woman with a blue-green face that sold at Boots the Chemists in its thousands? Wasn’t there any way she could reach them?
There was only one way to try, and that was to keep painting. Figures came alive in her mind. They grew closer, more economically depicted. She knew exactly what she would paint as soon as she reached home. She strode eagerly into the drive.
A man was poking at Roy’s bell. He stood, head cocked – like what sort of bird? Now he was vainly shoving the front door. Of course Roy was at work; the civil service’s Christmas holiday was over.
Why was the man so impatient? She remembered what Roy had said about the police visit. Did this man have something to do with the persecution? “If you want Roy Craig,” she said, “he’s out.”
He didn’t turn, though his shoulder blades drew together beneath the grey dilapidated coat, making her think again of a bird. She must have startled him. Had she mistaken the bell he was ringing? “Are you a friend of Roy Craig’s?” she said.
Was he deaf? Had it been the intrusive breeze rather than her voice that had made his shoulders move? He seemed unaware of her. He stood motionless, his right hand bulging his coat pocket. Ought she to touch his shoulder? Somehow she must make her presence known.
Then he began to turn. He looked stiff as a dummy on a turntable. She was fascinated, and at the same time rather unnerved. Here came his face on his pivoting body: fortyish, bland and scrubbed, with protruding ears. Here came his eyes to stare fixedly at her. They were an astonishing baby blue.
His stare abashed her. It and his face were secret as a baby’s. Why didn’t she advance to the front door, or stand aside to let him out of the porch? The grip of his stare was forcing her to speak, yet she didn’t know what to say. She had never in her life felt so uncomfortable.
“ I’m sorry,” she managed to stammer. “I didn’t mean to pry. I’m sure you’ve a good reason to be here.”
A faint smile crept over his face, but left his eyes untouched; if anything, their scrutiny grew sharper. An insight seized her. She blurted “You’re a policeman, aren’t you?”
His face stiffened. His hand moved in his pocket like a Hollywood detective’s. He looked to be struggling to control his face. What could be trying to emerge? All at once a grin tugged his mouth wide. His eyes twinkled as though she were a favourite child. “Not quite,” he said.
She remembered what she’d meant to suggest to Roy, that he ought to hire – “You’re a private detective,” she said.
“ That’s it. You’ve got me.” His voice was light; the constant nimble changes of its tone made her think of a ballerina’s footwork. She heard how she had delighted him. “What a perceptive woman you are,” he said.
“ I have to be. I’m an artist.” For a moment, without any definable reason, she was uncomfortably suspicious of him. She’d told him what he was, instead of making him tell her. “Roy has told me all about the reason he’s hired you,” she said carefully. “We often talk. He lives just across the landing.”
“ Of course, the artist. Miss Frances Adamson, I believe.”
She was enormously relieved: she could trust him. “Most of my friends call me Fanny,” she said, “but Roy thinks it’s rude.”
He raised his eyebrows and smiled to himself. She noticed that his visible hand was trembling. And his shoulders had tried to shrug off the draught. “Sorry,” she said, closing them both into the porch. “It must be a cold job sometimes.”
“ I suppose so.” He was staring at the door as though she might have locked him in. “But the suffering’s worthwhile.”
“ I’m just going to make a cup of tea. Would you like one?”
Roy believed that it had been someone in the house who had called the police, because they didn’t like his living there. She found herself growing suspicious of people she’d taken for granted, and that distressed her. Perhaps the detective could prove their suspicions wrong, and rid her of her paranoia.
He was staring at the door. His hand stirred in his pocket. Remembering bad films, she had to suppress a giggle. Suddenly he smiled at her, eyes wide. “Thank you,” he said. “That would be very useful.”
In the hall she noticed he was limping slightly. His glance seemed to challenge her. “Is that real?” she blurted.
“ What do you think?”
When he walked upstairs ahead of her, slowly as a mannequin, the limp had vanished. “No,” she said admiringly. It was a subtle way for him to look less like a detective.
She unlocked her flat. God, this was what you called an exhibition. Still, no doubt van Gogh hadn’t been the tidiest person in the world, dropping ears everywhere. The floor was scattered with magazines and newspapers from which she’d clipped images. Lumps of modelling clay with which she’d been experimenting occupied a sheet of plastic on the table. She threw her keys beside them.
The postcard on the mantelpiece nagged at her. “See you on Jan 15.” Perhaps they would; she hadn’t yet decided. Her exhibition wouldn’t be over by then – but people came to look at her paintings, not at her. Why should she deny herself a week in Wales just to oblige people who didn’t really like her work?
No time for reflection now. She had a visitor. “Take your coat off,” she suggested.
“ No, thank you.” He was glancing everywhere in the room – his was a full-time job, like hers. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing.
“ Oh, nothing. Just clay for shaping. Sometimes I feel I’d like to work in clay, but I’m not very good.”
“ Aren’t you?” His tone sounded satirical.
“ Well, I don’t mean as an artist,” she said. Was she defending herself unnecessarily? “I have an exhibition running at the moment. Though I’m not sure what that proves.” Her intermittent self-deprecation and his wide-eyed gaze were making her chatter. “I want to appeal to the underprivileged, you see. But all I seem to get is the usual gallery crowd.”
“ And what kind of people are they?”
She’d said too much; she didn’t want to sound completely ungrateful for her audience. “Oh, just the sort of people who visit galleries.”
He grinned faintly. Of course, as a detective he must be amused by her apparent inability to describe people. Did he really think that as an artist she wouldn’t have an eye for people? She couldn’t be bothered to start an argument. “I’ll put the kettle on,” she said.
When she returned, he was handling a lump of clay. No wonder he was a detective – he had to use his curiosity somehow! “Did you do that?” he said over his shoulder as soon as she came in.
He jerked his head towards the metal bird. He sounded almost accusing. “No,” she said wistfully. “A friend.” Tony had sculpted it especially for her, and she treasured it – but at the same time it helped remind her that two artists couldn’t live comfortably together, not in her experience.
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