‘There was one rod sticking straight up, she was staring at it so hard you’d have thought her eyes would have rolled out on the pavement. She didn’t even blink, she just stared and stared at this rod of light.’
Timothy said, ‘You can hypnotize chickens with a chalk line. You put the chicken’s head on the ground and draw a chalk line from its nose, leading into the distance. The chicken just stands there, head down, with its beak touching the chalk line. It will stand there for ever, they say. Perhaps the Amazer-Laser had her hypnotized.’
Mac said, ‘Yes, it was like that. She was the chicken and the Amazer-Laser was the chalk line. It was spooky.’
‘What happened next?’
Mac said, ‘I kept trying to get through to her, but she took no notice. I shook her arm, things like that. I felt a fool. Still, hardly anyone shops in Water Lane so I don’t suppose anyone was watching us. I said things to her. Things like: “Don’t you want to get back to the High Street to do some shopping?” But nothing worked. Not until I said, “Look, Bunny, please, look at me! I’m Mac! You know, Tim’s and Beth’s friend! You remember me!”’
‘And that did it?’ Timothy asked.
‘Oh, yes!’ Mac replied, heavily sarcastic. ‘That did it just fine! As soon as I said, “You remember me,” she snapped out of it. She certainly did!’
‘What did she do?’
‘She slapped my face! Wham!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She just swung her mighty hand in a wide, graceful curve and slammed me one in the chops. She hit me so hard my teeth rattled like dice!’
‘Look, Mac, come off it!’
‘All right, you say she didn’t slap my face. I say she did. A real cracker. And while I was still getting over it, she lurched off, pushing her bike, getting her feet tangled with the wheels and that sort of thing. One minute she’d been standing there like a paralysed chicken, the next thing she shoved off …’
Mac went on talking. Timothy stopped listening. He thought over the story Mac had just told him.
Bunny outside Lectronic. Bunny stares at a rod of laser-like light. She’s hypnotized, she says the same things she said on that day she fainted – things about not believing what she is seeing. But when Mac says a certain thing to her, she suddenly comes out of her trance – and gives Mac a slap in the face.
She does that because Mac spoke certain words. Certain words. Certain words. What words?
He couldn’t remember. Yet Mac had only just finished speaking those words.
Then why not ask Mac to repeat them?
Because, somehow, he didn’t want to. Mac was still talking. It would be rude to interrupt him. And besides …
A fog curled and spread in the corners of Timothy’s brain. Now Mac was saying, ‘Hey! I must go! See you later, then?’ And Timothy heard himself reply, ‘Fine. Later.’
Mac was gone and the fog rolled in and on and over.
But that evening, Timothy pushed the fog away and sat in front of his typewriter, determined to get everything down on paper. What mattered, he knew, was to write the words – the three short words – that Mac had spoken to Bunny. He believed Mac’s story. He wrote it down. Just when he was reaching the important part – the part where Mac said the three words – there was a banging on his door. Beth was outside his bedroom. She was in a temper.
‘You’ve pinched my mask and snorkel!’ she shouted. ‘Oh yes you have! I know you’ve got it and I want it back now, it’s mine!’
‘Oh belt up!’ Timothy shouted back. ‘I’m busy, go away!’
‘You’re just pretending to be busy, dabbing away at your typewriter! – you’re not really busy! Where’s my mask and snorkel?’
‘Where you left them,’ Timothy said. ‘On the bird-bath in the garden. I can see them from here. Really, Beth …’
‘Oh,’ Beth said, in a very different voice. ‘Well, we all make mistakes …’
‘And I really am working,’ Timothy said. ‘So go away.’
‘You’re not working, you’re just pretending to work, I know you!’ Beth said, working herself up. She hated to be proved wrong about anything.
‘I am busy,’ Timothy said. ‘Tomorrow is a big day, understand? Please go away.’
‘Why is tomorrow a big day?’ Beth demanded. ‘Where are you going? To Lisa Treadgold? Is it Lisa? Is it?’
‘It so happens,’ Timothy said grandly, ‘that the Gazette has been invited to Miss Treadgold’s home. And I will assist at the interview.’
‘Oh, super, so will I!’ Beth said. ‘I hate that woman! So I’m going to be there too!’
‘Oh no you’re not,’ Timothy said. Now he was alarmed.
‘Oh yes I am!’ Beth replied. Just you try and stop me!’
Timothy cursed himself for being an idiot: and forgot all about the three words Mac had spoken to Bunny.
THE DRUNKEN BANJO-PLAYER
Next morning, they set out in Fanny’s car for Lisa’s house. Fanny’s car no longer smelled of cigarettes. She had given up smoking. Lisa Treadgold did not approve of smoking. Fanny wore a tweedy sort of shooting hat with a Roller hatband pinned round its crown. Lisa Treadgold approved of people who ‘showed the world they were Rollers and proud of it’. So Fanny wore her hatband and Timothy wore his R.J.L. forage cap, with the big, bold R.O.L. R.O.L. cap-band.
Fanny was too excited to say much as she drove. Twice, she said, ‘I wonder what she wants us for?’ Each time, Timothy replied, ‘As long as she wants us, that’s good enough for me!’ He smiled. Fanny smiled.
Their contentment did not last long. A quarter of a mile from the house, they overtook Beth. She was pedalling her bike towards Lisa Treadgold’s house. Fanny beeped the car’s horn and Timothy, his heart sinking, wound down the near-side window. ‘Hey!’ he shouted to Beth. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘Same place as you!’ she shouted back, without bothering to look at her brother. ‘Lisa Treadgold’s! Try and stop me!’ She pedalled on without turning her head.
Fanny muttered. In the old days, she would have sworn. ‘How did that awful kid sister of yours know where we’re going?’ she demanded of Timothy.
‘Well …’ he replied feebly.
‘You didn’t tell your sister, did you? Well, did you?’
‘Well … yes, I may have done,’ Timothy said.
‘You blabbermouthed oaf!’ Fanny said, and drove through the gates and into the drive of Lisa’s house with her face set in an expression of disgust.
They rang the bell. Nobody came.
They rang the bell again and heard it jingling a long way away. But again, nobody came. Nobody but Beth, that is, who pedalled up the drive, leaned her bike against a tree, close to a big, battered van, already parked; and gave Fanny and Timothy a bright smile and a calm ‘Good morning’.
‘Get out!’ Timothy replied in a ferocious whisper.
‘Go home!’ Fanny Bishop said, whispering also. For now they could hear approaching footsteps. Footsteps running, heavily.
The front door jerked open a few inches and Bunny’s face filled the gap.
She looked worse than ever – more heated, more spotty, more anxious. ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Oh, gosh! It’s you! Oh, gosh, I’d quite forgotten, she’ll be furious, oh Lord, it can’t be quarter to eleven already! – you’d better come in, she’s got someone with her, everything’s gone wrong this morning –’
Fanny and Timothy found themselves once again in the conservatory. Too late, they discovered that Beth, too, had slid herself in. They stared at her coldly. She stared back, poker-faced, then flipped the brim of her old hat with a cheeky finger and said, ‘I know: two’s company, three’s a crowd. Too bad.’ Then, coolly, she asked Bunny, ‘How long will Lisa Treadgold be before she gets round to us?’
‘Oh dear, I suppose I ought to – everything’s running late this morning, it’s all my fault –’
‘Who’s with her now?’ Beth said.
‘Oh, it’s awful, she’s furiou
s, people are always letting her down, this time it’s the Band, I mean one of the Dixieland Band, the sort of leader – well, anyhow, the one that makes all the arrangements –’
Timothy looked up, interested. ‘Banjo?’ he said. ‘Banjo Heatherington?’
‘Yes, that’s the one and I think he’s half drunk or terribly hungover, he shows no respect!’
‘No respect for Miss Treadgold?’ Beth asked innocently. ‘But that’s impossible, isn’t it, Timothy? Isn’t it, Fanny?’ Timothy and Fanny looked at her blankly and nodded.
Bunny twisted her hands and kept looking at the ceiling. ‘They’re up there!’ she said dramatically. ‘He’s a dreadful man …!’
Timothy looked puzzled when Bunny said this. Banjo Heatherington had never struck Timothy as a dreadful man. He had met Banjo twice. Both times, Timothy had been helping prepare stories about the Rollers Dixieland Band. Both times, he had sought out Banjo because the man was a frets player, a banjoist, and Timothy was trying to learn guitar. It had turned out that Banjo’s great interest was the guitar, not the banjo; and he had shown Timothy some runs of chords. He had even written them down. Banjo had been loud and beery; he had also been patient, encouraging and kind.
‘He says he wants more money,’ Bunny said. ‘More money or he’ll leave. And he says the band will go with him, but I can’t believe they would. They couldn’t desert Miss Treadgold, she would never allow it …’
Now, above their heads, they could hear the sound of pacing footsteps; and Banjo’s voice. He was shouting and laughing. The laughter was a sort of weapon, to drown argument. There were quicker, lighter footsteps; a door opened; and Banjo and Lisa were coming down the stairs. He was still shouting and laughing. ‘You’ve got to be out of your tiny mind!’ he bellowed. ‘A hundred and eighty? We’d want twice that – and proper accommodation! Listen, lady –’
‘I am Lisa Treadgold,’ said Lisa. ‘You remember me. You remember me!’
Beth saw Timothy’s jaw drop: saw Fanny’s face lose its colour: saw their eyes widen. She could almost see the fog rolling over their minds.
Yet outside the room, Banjo’s voice was strident and unchanged.
‘Oh, that!’ Banjo jeered. ‘The magic phrase! Listen, Madam Treadgold, you can fool most of the people most of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time! “You remember me” … Yeah, it’s terrific, it’s hypnotic. But it doesn’t work on me! You’re playing in the wrong key! I’ve got a key of my own, I can block you out! I am blocking you out!’
‘Oh dear, oh Lord!’ Bunny whispered. Her face was shining with shock and terror. ‘He can’t talk to her like that, he doesn’t understand …! What shall I do?’ She looked desperately from Timothy to Fanny, from Fanny to Beth. Lisa Treadgold and Banjo Heatherington were right outside the closed door of the conservatory now. ‘She’ll do something …!’ Bunny whispered. ‘She’ll hurt …!’
Beth, her face pinched with excitement and tension, said, ‘I want to see! Open the door!’ Bunny could not summon the courage to obey. Beth had to open the door herself.
The opened door revealed a frozen set-piece. Banjo had one foot on the lowest step of the flight of carpeted stairs. Lisa was above him. He was staring, with fixed intensity, into Lisa Treadgold’s eyes: challenging her. ‘I’m blocking you out!’ he said, in a low, steady voice. ‘What are you going to do about it?’
She said, ‘You remember me!’ Her voice was quiet and controlled and steadier than his. She was smiling her small, controlled and beautiful smile. She descended a single step, seeming to glide towards him. ‘You remember me!’ she said.
Banjo flinched and moved backwards perhaps three inches. Sweat seemed to squeeze itself from the pores of his red face. ‘You’re wasting your time,’ he grunted. ‘I told you: you’re off-key! I’ve got a key of my own!’
Lisa’s face moved another inch closer to his. ‘Ah, you’re a strong man,’ she smiled. ‘A most unusual man. You have strength. Strength. Such strength.’
Very slowly, she extended her right hand as if to touch him. ‘Don’t!’ Bunny said, in a sort of choking gasp. No one heard her. Everyone watched the pretty arm and hand weave forward. Tim had a sudden picture of a cobra.
Banjo began to shake. The droplets of sweat on his face ran together and poured down. ‘I’m taking the band to Amsterdam,’ he almost groaned. ‘You’re not going to stop me …’
Lisa nodded her smiling head. ‘To Amsterdam,’ she agreed. ‘Such a shame. But we part friends, Mr Heatherington. You remember me – as your friend. Shake hands.’
Automatically, Banjo put out his right hand. Again, Bunny gasped, ‘Don’t!’
Lisa took his big hand in her own ivory fingers. The fingers closed. Her fingers gripped.
‘Strength, you have a good, strong hand, Mr Heatherington!’
Her fingers tightened on red flesh. The red flesh whitened where the ivory fingers clasped it.
‘Oh, I admire strength!’ she said. She gave a little laugh. Her fingers tightened. Banjo screamed hoarsely and fell to his knees. His eyes bulged.
‘Strength and discipline!’ Lisa said, the words clear and sweet – and tightened her grip.
Banjo raised his head and howled like a dog. The sound was so strange that it broke the spell that froze the watchers. Bunny screamed, ‘No, no, NO!’ and ran forward, blindly and uselessly snatching at the space surrounding Lisa, never touching her, never affecting her. It was as if she was plucking at a ghost.
Timothy said, ‘I think we ought to be going soon, Fanny. What do you think?’ He looked at her earnestly. His voice was quiet and normal, yet the pulses in his temple beat wildly, as if to burst through the skin.
Fanny said, ‘Yes, if Miss Treadgold is satisfied that we’ve got everything necessary.’ Her voice was normal. Her face was chalk-white.
Only Beth truly saw what there was to see: the man, gasping, sometimes shouting his agony as he twisted and writhed on the floor; the woman calmly smiling, her hand clamped like a vice on the crushed, white and scarlet hand of the man. The cool, gracious little smile of the welcoming hostess; the twisted, sweating agony of the face of her guest. Yet he spoke no words of protest: and his eyes were accepting, obedient, dog-like.
Bunny still battered with clumsy hands at the space surrounding Lisa – still shouted, ‘No, no, no!’ – but Bunny did not matter, Bunny was somehow not real. She did not belong in the picture that only Beth could see.
Beth jerked herself forward, small fists raised, as if to join Bunny in beating against the non-existent and invisible wall surrounding Lisa Treadgold. But then Beth’s courage failed. She backed away: gave a great, despairing howl; and ran.
She ran from the house, ran through the grounds, ran through the gates and into the road. She ran until her muscles failed her, then tripped and fell, slamming her head against a thick branch lying in the grassy verge.
Now she lay silent and still. The long grass that had grown all summer waved over her, whispering mildly in the warm breezes. Little insects investigated her, found her uninteresting and went on their busy ways.
Eventually, Fanny and Timothy drove along the road in Fanny’s car. Fanny saw the sprawled body of Beth. She did not even slow the car. A soothing sponge, a wraith of fog, wiped her mind clean of what she saw.
Timothy saw nothing. He stared ahead of himself, frowned, gnawed his lip and tried to think. But his thoughts were wisps of the same fog, scurrying fragments of obscurity. His mind was as blank as his eyes.
BUSTER
Lying in the grass, the unconscious Beth had a strange dream. She was being eaten alive, from the head down, by a rather pleasant dog.
The dog’s tongue was sometimes cool, sometimes warm, but always wet. Beth did not mind the tongue – indeed, she quite enjoyed it. But she wished the dog would not bite her so savagely. Each time its teeth sank into her scalp, there was a burning pain. Not agony: pain. And the pain interrupted the soothing feeling of the cool, warm, wet tongue.
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br /> She woke up to find that her dream was about eighty per cent true. There was the pleasant dog – she even knew its name, Buster, and its owner, Lisa Treadgold. And the dog, a small Dalmatian, was methodically licking the top of her head. It was not biting her, however. The pain came when Buster’s tongue touched the big bruise and cut she had suffered when she fell forward and hit the log. She remembered all this and sat up.
‘Do you mind?’ she said to Buster. ‘That happens to be my blood you’re licking.’
The dog looked apologetic and licked her hand instead of her cut head. Beth gently explored the cut with her fingers and offered a fingertip slightly smeared with blood to Buster, who gratefully licked it clean. ‘I suppose I’ll get a terrific headache,’ she told Buster. ‘Amazing I haven’t got one now.’
The dog looked sympathetic and began scratching itself. Beth got to her feet and tried to remember further back. She succeeded and her expression changed. ‘Oh!’ she gasped. But before she had time to be horrified by her memories, she heard the voice of Bunny calling, ‘Buster! Buster!’, and saw the girl running heavily towards her along the little road.
‘He’s with you,’ Bunny gasped, clutching Buster’s collar. ‘Thank heavens! She’s furious with me, she’s always furious when any of the dogs get on the road. But what am I supposed to do? I can’t control – gosh, what’s happened to you? How did you bang your head?’
Beth explained, realizing that Bunny was incapable of listening to her words. She kept talking to give herself the chance to study Bunny’s face. It was a frantic face. It was falling apart. It shook as if chilled, sweated as if roasted. And Bunny’s eyes continually darted back along the road, towards the gates of the big house.
‘So I sort of knocked myself out,’ Beth was saying when Bunny interrupted.
‘There’ll be murder,’ Bunny said. ‘I’ll murder her or she’ll murder everyone … Poor Banjo, how’s he going to drive his car away with one hand? Oh, I wish I knew what to do!’ She collapsed into the grass beside Beth and began to cry, wetly and noisily.
Beth waited until Bunny ran out of sobs, wiped herself with a crumpled handkerchief and sat knees apart, head hanging down. ‘It’s hopeless!’ she said. ‘I just don’t know what to do! Ever since that day –’
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