When the figure formed deep in the mirror she knew that all was over. She faced it, drained of feeling. It grew closer, arms stretched out, its face inflated grey by gas. Alma wept; it was horrid. She knew who it was; a shaft of truth had pierced the suffocating warmth of her delirium. The suicide had possessed the house, was the house; he had waited for someone like her. “Go on,” she sobbed at him, “take me!” The bloated cheeks moved in a swollen grin; the arms stretched out for her and vanished.
The house was empty. Alma was surrounded by a vacuum into which something must rush. She stood up shaking and fell into the vacuum; her sight was torn away. She tried to move; there was no longer any muscle to respond. She felt nothing, but utter horror closed her in. Somewhere she sensed her body, moving happily on her bedroom carpet, picking up her ruined flute, breathing a hideous note into it. She tried to scream. Impossible.
Only in dreams can houses scream for help.
Down There
“Hurry along there,” Steve called as the girls trooped down the office. “Last one tonight. Mind the doors.”
The girls smiled at Elaine as they passed her desk, but their smiles meant different things: just like you to make things more difficult for the rest of us, looks like you’ve been kept in after school, suppose you’ve nothing better to do, fancy having to put up with him by yourself. She didn’t give a damn what they thought of her. No doubt they earned enough without working overtime, since all they did with their money was squander it on makeup and new clothes.
She only wished Steve wouldn’t make a joke of everything: even the lifts, one of which had broken down entirely after sinking uncontrollably to the bottom of the shaft all day. She was glad that hadn’t happened to her, even though she gathered the sub-basement was no longer so disgusting. Still, the surviving lift had rid her of everyone now, including Mr Williams, the union representative, who’d tried the longest to persuade her not to stay. He still hadn’t forgiven the union for accepting a temporary move to this building; perhaps he was taking it out on her. Well, he’d gone now, into the November night and rain.
It had been raining all day. The warehouses outside the windows looked like melting chocolate; the river and the canals were opaque with tangled ripples. Cottages and terraces, some of them derelict, crowded up the steep hills towards the disused mines. Through the skeins of water on the glass their infrequent lights looked shaky as candle flames.
She was safe from all that, in the long office above five untenanted floors and two basements. Ranks of filing cabinets stuffed with blue Inland Revenue files divided the office down the middle; smells of dust and old paper hung in the air. Beneath a fluttering fluorescent tube protruding files drowsed, jerked awake. Through the steamy window above an unquenchable radiator, she could just make out the frame where the top section of the fire escape should be.
“Are you feeling exploited?” Steve said.
He’d heard Mr Williams’ parting shot, calling her the employers’ weapon against solidarity. “No, certainly not.” She wished he would let her be quiet for a while. “I’m feeling hot,” she said.
“Yes, it is a bit much.” He stood up, mopping his forehead theatrically. “I’ll go and sort out Mr Tuttle.”
She doubted that he would find the caretaker, who was no doubt hidden somewhere with a bottle of cheap rum. At least he tried to hide his drinking, which was more than one could say for the obese half-chewed sandwiches he left on windowsills, in the room where tea was brewed, even once on someone’s desk.
She turned idly to the window behind her chair and watched the indicator in the lobby counting down. Steve had reached the basement now. The letter B flickered, then brightened: he’d gone down to the sub-basement, which had been meant to be kept secret from the indicator and from everyone except the holder of the key. Perhaps the finding of the cache down there had encouraged Mr Tuttle to be careless with food.
She couldn’t help growing angry. If the man who had built these offices had had so much money, why hadn’t he put it to better use? The offices had been merely a disguise for the sub-basement, which was to have been his refuge. What had he feared? War, revolution, a nuclear disaster? All anyone knew was that he’d spent the months before he had been certified insane in smuggling food down there. He’d wasted all that food, left it there to rot, and he’d had no thought for the people who would have to work in the offices: no staircases, a fire escape that fell apart when someone tried to paint it—but she was beginning to sound like Mr Williams, and there was no point in brooding.
The numbers were counting upwards, slow as a child’s first sum. Eventually Steve appeared, the solution. “No sign of him,” he said. “He’s somewhere communing with alcohol, I expect. Most of the lights are off, which doesn’t help.”
That sounded like one of Mr Tuttle’s ruses. “Did you go right down?” she said. “What’s it like down there?”
“Huge. They say it’s much bigger than any of the floors. You could play two football games at once in there.” Was he exaggerating? His face was bland as a silent comedian’s except for raised eyebrows. “They left the big doors open when they cleaned it up. If there were any lights I reckon you could see for miles. I’m only surprised it didn’t cut into one of the sewers.”
“I shouldn’t think it could be any more smelly.”
“It still reeks a bit, that’s true. Do you want a look? Shall I take you down?” When he dodged towards her as though to carry her away, she sat forward rigidly and held the arms of her chair against the desk. “No thank you,” she said, though she’d felt a start of delicious apprehension.
“Did you ever hear what was supposed to have happened while they were cleaning up all the food? Tuttle told me, if you can believe him.” She didn’t want to hear; Mr Tuttle had annoyed her enough for one day. She leafed determinedly through a file, until Steve went up the office to his desk.
For a while she was able to concentrate. The sounds of the office merged into a background discreet as muzak: the rustle of papers, the rushes of the wind, the buzz of the defective fluorescent like an insect trying to bumble its way out of the tube. She manoeuvred files across her desk. This man was going to be happy, since they owed him money. This fellow wasn’t, since he owed them some.
But the thought of the food had settled on her like the heat. Only this morning, in the room where the tea urn stood, she’d found an ancient packet of Mr Tuttle’s sandwiches in the waste-bin. No doubt the packet was still there, since the cleaners were refusing to work until the building was made safe. She seemed unable to rid herself of the memory.
No, it wasn’t a memory she was smelling. As she glanced up, wrinkling her nostrils, she saw that Steve was doing so too. “Tuttle,” he said, grimacing.
As though he’d given a cue, they heard movement on the floor below. Someone was dragging a wet cloth across linoleum. Was the caretaker doing the cleaners’ job? More likely he’d spilled a bottle and was trying to wipe away the evidence. “I’ll get him this time,” Steve said, and ran towards the lobby.
Was he making too much noise? The soft moist dragging on the floor below had ceased. The air seemed thick with heat and dust and the stench of food; when she lit a cigarette, the smoke loomed reprovingly above her. She opened the thin louvers at the top of the nearest window, but that brought no relief. There was nothing else for it; she opened the window that gave onto the space where the fire escape should be.
It was almost too much for her. A gust of rain dashed in, drenching her face while she clung to the handle. The window felt capable of smashing wide, of snatching her out into the storm. She managed to anchor the bar to the sill, and leaned out into the night to let the rain wash away the smell.
Nine feet below her she could see the fifth-floor platform of the fire escape, its iron mesh slippery and streaming. The iron stairs that hung from it, poised to swing down to the next platform, seemed to dangle into a deep pit of rain whose sides were incessantly collapsing. The thought of having t
o jump to the platform made her flinch back; she could imagine herself losing her footing, slithering off into space.
She was about to close the window, for the flock of papers on her desk had begun to flap, when she glimpsed movement in the unlit warehouse opposite and just below her. She was reminded of a maggot, writhing in food. Of course, that was because she was glimpsing it through the warehouse windows, small dark holes. It was reflected from her building, which was why it looked so large and puffily vague. It must be Mr Tuttle, for as it moved, she heard a scuffling below her, retreating from the lifts.
She’d closed the window by the time Steve returned. “You didn’t find him, did you? Never mind,” she said, for he was frowning.
Did he feel she was spying on him? At once his face grew blank. Perhaps he resented her knowing, first that he’d gone down to the sub-basement, now that he’d been outwitted. When he sat at his desk at the far end of the office, the emptiness between them felt like a rebuff. “Do you fancy some tea?” she said to placate him.
“I’ll make it. A special treat.” He jumped up at once and strode to the lobby.
Why was he so eager? Five minutes later, as she leafed through someone’s private life, she wondered if he meant to creep up on her, if that was the joke he had been planning behind his mask. Her father had used to pounce on her to make her shriek when she was little—when he had still been able to. She turned sharply, but Steve had pulled open the doors of the out-of-work lift shaft and was peering down, apparently listening. Perhaps it was Mr Tuttle he meant to surprise, not her.
The tea was hot and fawn, but little else. Why did it seem to taste of the lingering stench? Of course, Steve hadn’t closed the door of the room off the lobby, where Mr Tuttle’s sandwiches must still be festering. She hurried out and slammed the door with the hand that wasn’t covering her mouth.
On impulse she went to the doors of the lift shaft where Steve had been listening. They opened easily as curtains; for a moment she was teetering on the edge. The shock blurred her vision, but she knew it wasn’t Mr Tuttle who was climbing the lift cable like a fat pale monkey on a stick. When she screwed up her eyes and peered into the dim well, of course there was nothing.
Steve was watching her when she returned to her desk. His face was absolutely noncommittal. Was he keeping something from her—a special joke, perhaps? Here it came; he was about to speak. “How’s your father?” he said.
It sounded momentarily like a comedian’s catchphrase. “Oh, he’s happier now,” she blurted. “They’ve got a new stock of large print books in the library.”
“Is there someone who can sit with him?”
“Sometimes.” The community spirit had faded once the mine owners had moved on, leaving the area honeycombed with mines, burdened with unemployment. People seemed locked into themselves, afraid of being robbed of the little they had left.
“I was wondering if he’s all right on his own.”
“He’ll have to be, won’t he.” She was growing angry; he was as bad as Mr Williams, reminding her of things it was no use remembering.
“I was just thinking that if you want to slope off home, I won’t tell anyone. You’ve already done more work than some of the rest of them would do in an evening.”
She clenched her fists beneath the desk to hold on to her temper. He must want to leave early himself and so was trying to persuade her. No doubt he had problems of his own—perhaps they were the secret behind his face—but he mustn’t try to make her act dishonestly. Or was he testing her? She knew so little about him. “He’ll be perfectly safe,” she said. “He can always knock on the wall if he needs anyone.”
Though his face stayed blank his eyes, frustrated now, gave him away. Five minutes later he was craning out of the window over the fire escape while Elaine pinned flapping files down with both hands. Did he really expect his date, if that was his problem, to come out on a night like this? It would be just like a man to expect her to wait outside.
The worst of it was that Elaine felt disappointed, which was absurd and infuriating. She knew perfectly well that the only reason he was working tonight was that one of the seniors had to do so. Good God, what had she expected to come of an evening alone with him? They were both in their forties—they knew what they wanted by now, which in his case was bound to be someone younger than Elaine. She hoped he and his girlfriend would be very happy. Her hands on the files were tight fists.
When he slammed the window she saw that his face was glistening. Of course it wasn’t sweat, only rain. He hurried away without looking at her and vanished into the lift. Perhaps the girl was waiting in the doorway, unable to rouse Mr Tuttle to let her in. Elaine hoped Steve wouldn’t bring her upstairs. She would be a distraction, that was why. Elaine was here to work.
And she wasn’t about to be distracted by Steve and his attempts at jokes. She refused to turn when she heard the soft sounds by the lift. No doubt he was peering through the lobby window at her, waiting for her to turn and jump. Or was it his girlfriend? As Elaine reached across her desk for a file she thought that the face was pale and very fat. Elaine was damned if she would give her the satisfaction of being noticed—but when she tried to work she couldn’t concentrate. She turned angrily. The lobby was deserted.
In a minute she would lose her temper. She could see where he was hiding, or they were: the door of the room off the lobby was ajar. She turned away, determined to work, but the deserted office wouldn’t let her; each alley between the filing cabinets was a hiding place, the buzz of the defective light and the fusillade of rain could hide the sound of soft footsteps. It was no longer at all funny. He was going too far.
At last he came in from the lobby, with no attempt at stealth. Perhaps he had tired of the joke. He must have been to the street door, for his forehead was wet, though it didn’t look like rain. Would he go back to work now, and pretend that the urn’s room was empty? No, he must have thought of a new ruse, for he began pacing from cabinet to cabinet, glancing at files, stuffing them back into place. Was he trying to make her as impatient as he appeared to be? His quick sharp footsteps seemed to grow louder and more nerve-racking, like the ticking of the clock when she was lying awake, afraid to doze off in case her father needed her. “Steve, for heaven’s sake what’s wrong?”
He stopped in the act of pulling a file from its cabinet. He looked abashed, at a loss for words, like a schoolboy caught stealing. She couldn’t help taking pity on him; her resentment had been presumptuous. “You didn’t go down to find Mr Tuttle just now, did you?” she said, to make it easier for him.
But he looked even less at ease. “No, I didn’t. I don’t think he’s here at all. I think he left hours ago.”
Why must he lie? They had both heard the caretaker on the floor below. Steve seemed determined to go on. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I’m beginning to suspect that he sneaks off home as soon as he can once the building’s empty.”
He was speaking low, which annoyed her: didn’t he want his girlfriend to hear? “But there’s someone else in the building,” he said.
“Oh, yes,” she retorted, “I’m sure there is.” Why did he have to dawdle instead of coming out with the truth? He was worse than her father when he groped among his memories.
He frowned, obviously not sure how much she knew. “Whoever it is, they’re up to no good. I’ll tell you the rest once we’re out of the building. We mustn’t waste any more time.”
His struggles to avoid the truth amused and irritated her. The moisture on his forehead wasn’t rain at all. “If they’re up to no good,” she said innocently, “we ought to wait until the police arrive.”
“No, we’ll call the police once we’re out.” He seemed to be saying anything that came into his head. How much longer could he keep his face blank? “Listen,” he said, his fist crumpling the file, “I’ll tell you why Tuttle doesn’t stay here at night. The cleaners too, I think he told them. When the men were cleaning out the sub-basement, some of the food
disappeared overnight. You understand what that means? Someone stole a hundredweight of rotten food. The men couldn’t have cared less, they treated it as a joke, and there was no sign how anyone could have got in. But as he says, that could mean that whatever it was was clever enough to conceal the way in. Of course I thought he was drunk or joking, but now…”
His words hung like dust in the air. She didn’t trust herself to speak. How dare he expect her to swallow such rubbish, as if she were too stupid to know what was going on? Her reaction must have shown on her face; she had never heard him speak coldly before. “We must go immediately,” he said.
Her face was blazing. “Is that an order?”
“Yes, it is. I’ll make sure you don’t lose by it.” His voice grew authoritative. “I’ll call the lift while you fetch your coat.”
Blind with anger, she marched to the cloakroom at the far end of the office from the lobby. As she grabbed her coat the hangers clashed together, a shrill violent sound which went some way towards expressing her feelings. Since Steve had no coat, he would be soaked. Though that gave her no pleasure, she couldn’t help smiling.
The windows were shaking with rain. In the deserted office her footsteps sounded high-pitched, nervous. No, she wasn’t on edge, only furious. She didn’t mind passing the alleys between the cabinets, she wouldn’t deign to look, not even at the alley where a vague shadow was lurching forward; it was only the shadow of a cabinet, jerked by the defective light. She didn’t falter until she came in sight of the lobby, where there was no sign of Steve.
Had he gone without her? Was he smuggling out his girlfriend? They weren’t in the room off the lobby, which was open and empty; the overturned waste-bin seemed to demonstrate their haste. The doors of the disused lift shaft were open too. They must have opened when Steve had called the other lift. Everything could be explained; there was no reason for her to feel that something was wrong.
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