Dark Companions (15 page)

Pounding woke him. He rose carefully and took two aspirins. After a while some of the pounding went away; the rest stayed outside, in the road. He gazed from the window, palms over his ears. A pneumatic drill was inching the hole along the roadway towards him.

He squinted painfully at the decanter. Something had lodged in it, but what? The cut glass confused his view. As he turned the decanter in his hands the object seemed to swell, to move of its own accord; there was a suggestion of long feelers or legs. Yet when he peered down the glass throat the decanter looked empty, and when he shook it upside down nothing rattled or fell out. Perhaps when he’d knocked over the decanter it had cracked, perhaps he was seeing a flaw. He hoped not; he’d found the decanter black with grime in a junk shop nearby, he had been proud of his find once he’d cleaned it. Maybe one day, he thought, I’ll have something to decant. That woman upstairs will make me into a wino.

He hurried to class and blinked at the film. Monochrome figures posed, reading their lines. He might just as well have his eyes closed. He listened to the heroine’s description of the plot so far. She’d missed out a scene—no, his mind had; he’d blacked out for a moment. He blinked at a talking tableau, then his eyes sank closed again; just let him rest them a moment longer. Music woke him: THE END. Afterwards, fellow students applauded his honest response.

At least he managed to contact Ken, who had retrieved his tent and sleeping bags from a borrower. He would call for Ted in his van. Ted relaxed. Now nothing could disturb him in his flat, not even Mrs Dame.

When he heard her as he neared the house he smiled wryly. She didn’t bother him so much now. She had a friend to tea; he heard spoons rattling demurely in china. The evening grew cold, and he closed the window. Voices penetrated the ceiling; occasionally he heard Mrs Dame’s friend chattering shrilly in an attempt to outdistance Mrs Dame, who headed her off easily and began another anecdote. Rather her than me, Ted thought, laughing. He turned to his essay and quickly wrote several pages.

Later he became less tolerant. He couldn’t be expected to endure her waking him up. When he went to bed the night seemed oppressively tense, as though clouds were hanging low and electric, although the sky was clear. He felt restless and irritable, but eventually slept—only to be awakened by Mrs Dame. He could tell by the cadence of her voice that she was talking, almost shouting, in her sleep. Perhaps the tension of the night was affecting her. Can’t she even shut up when she’s asleep? he thought, glaring at the dark.

As he lay on his side he could see a faint distorted ghost of the decanter, projected by the streetlamps onto the fitted wardrobe. It was moving. No, a darker shadow was squeezing out of the watery outline of the neck. He turned his head sharply. Some kind of insect, or a spider, was emerging; he saw long legs twitching on the glass lip. He hoped it would go out through the gap he’d left beneath the sash. If only it were a genie emerging from the bottle it could go and silence Mrs Dame. He closed his eyes, reaching for slumber before he woke entirely, and tried to lull the crick in his neck to sleep.

A cry woke him. Was it one of the ground-floor cats? He lay in his own warmth and tried not to care, but his heart kept him awake. A bell tolled two o’clock. The next cry was louder. His heart leapt, racing, though he realised now that it was Mrs Dame crying out in her sleep. Couldn’t she even have a nightmare quietly? He might just as well be in bed with her, God forbid. She was moaning now; muffled as it was, it sounded rather like a singer’s doodling. After a while it soothed him to sleep.

Good God, what now? He kept his eyes determinedly shut. It must be dawn, for light was filtering through his eyelids. Soon he heard the sound again: a faint squeaking of claws on glass. It would be one of the cats—they often appeared on the sill, furry ghosts mopping at the window. He sighed. All we need now is a brass band, to play me a lullaby. He dragged more of the blanket over his ear.

The decanter was rocking. Something was struggling to squeeze back into the glass mouth. The legs scrabbled, squeaking on the glass, trying to force the swollen body down. But the body was larger than the mouth of the decanter. The decanter tipped over, fell, smashed. Ted woke gasping and leapt out of bed.

The decanter lay in fragments. His head felt as if it had been cracked open too. He sat on the bed and made himself calm down. The glimpse of the insect, the sound of the cat’s claws, the fall of the decanter: these were the sources of his dream, which must have lasted only the second before he woke. Yesterday he must have replaced the decanter unstably. His head throbbed jaggedly, his heart jerked. Glaring upwards made him feel a little better. It was all that woman’s fault.

The day’s lectures examined the theme of misunderstanding in Butcher’s films. Ted’s eyes burned. The lecturer swam forward, hot and bright, droning. Misunderstanding. Here again we see the theme. Once more the theme of misunderstanding. When Ted walked home at last his mind was dull, featureless. Tonight he’d have an early night.

If that woman let him sleep. Well, tonight he’d wake her if he had to. She had no right to keep other people awake with her restlessness. He couldn’t hear her as he approached the house; that was encouraging. An old woman was hobbling up the front path, stopping to rest her shopping bag. “I’ll carry that for you,” he said, and she turned. It was Mrs Dame.

He managed to disguise his gasp as a cough. Once before he’d seen her ill, white- faced, when she had tripped on the stairs. But now, for the first time, she looked old. She was stooped, her skin hung slumped on her; she massaged her ankles, which were clearly painful. “Thank you,” she said when he picked up the shopping bag. She seemed hardly to recognise him.

“Can I get you anything?” he said, dismayed.

She smiled weakly at him. Her face looked like wax, a little melted. “No, thank you. I’m all right now.”

He could hardly believe that he wished she were more talkative. “Have you been to the doctor?”

“I don’t need him,” she said with a hint of her old vitality. “He’s got enough old crocks to see to without me wasting his time. I’ll be all right when my legs have had a bit of a rest.”

He left the bag outside her door. He felt vaguely guilty: now he’d have some peace—but good God, it wasn’t he who’d made her ill, was it? Nevertheless he felt embarrassed when, going down, he met her on his landing. “Thank you,” she said as she began to clamber up the last flight of stairs. He smiled nervously, blushing for no reason he understood, and fled into his flat.

Later he brought home his dinner. As he ate the curry from its plastic container, he felt uneasy. The city wound down quietly into evening; a few boys shouted around a football, occasional cars swished past, but they weren’t what he was straining to hear. He was waiting irritably, anxiously, for Mrs Dame’s voice.

She would be all right. She had been when she’d fallen on the stairs. Or perhaps she wouldn’t be; after all, she was getting old. In any case, there was nothing he could do. He washed up his fork and turned to his essay. His eyes felt as though they were smouldering.

The interchangeable personalities of many British B-feature performers, he wrote. The white page glared; his eyes twitched. Around him the room wavered in sympathy, and something scuttled across the wardrobe. When he glanced round, there was only the noise of a car emerging from the side street opposite. It must have been that: the car’s headlights hurrying the shadow of branches over the wardrobe, like a bunch of long rapid legs.

He finished his sentence somehow. Some performances actually imitate the performances of stars, he went on, which sometimes has the effect The silence distracted him, as if someone was watching, mutely reproving; his eyes felt hot and huge. What effect? Reproving him for what? He sighed, and capped his pen. At least he was going away tomorrow. There was no point in forcing himself to write now, when he was so aware of waiting to hear Mrs Dame’s voice.

Later he heard her, when he went upstairs to the toilet; there was none on his floor. Beneath the unshaded bulb the bare dusty stairs looked old and cheerless. As he climbed them he heard a sound like the song of a wind in a cranny. Not until he reached the top landing did he realise that the sound was composed of words—that it was her voice.

“Leave my legs,” she was pleading feebly. “Leave them now.” Her voice sounded slurred, as if she was drunk. She was only talking in her sleep, that was why she sounded so odd. He heard a violent snore, then silence. After a while her voice recommenced. What was she saying now? He tiptoed across the landing and stooped carefully towards her door.

As his ear touched the panel he heard a sound beyond. Had she fallen out of bed? Certainly something large and soft had fallen, and it seemed to be surrounded by a pattering on the carpet. The time switch clicked out, blinding him with darkness. In a moment he heard her voice. “Leave them now,” she moaned, “leave them.” She was all right, she must have pushed something off the bed: probably the bedspread. If he knocked he would only wake her. He fumbled in the dark for the time switch. Behind him her voice slurred, moaning.

When he returned to his flat he found that now he’d heard her voice, he could still hear it: an almost inaudible blurred sound, rising and falling. It reminded him unpleasantly of the sound a fly’s wings make, struggling as a spider feasts. The night seemed very cold. He closed the window and filled a hot water bottle. Her voice buzzed, trapped.

It must have been that unpleasant resemblance that led, when sleep overtook him at last, to the dream. Something was tapping on the window, softly, insistently. He turned his head reluctantly. Dawn coated everything like smoke, but he could see a large dark shape dangling beyond the pane, spinning slowly, swaying lightly towards the glass, bumping against it. It was a package with a withered face: Mrs Dame’s face, which had grown a thick grey beard. No, the beard was web, filling her slack mouth as though it were a yawning crevice. Her face bobbed up in the window frame; she was being reeled in from above. He tried to wake, but sleep dragged him down, grey and vague as the dawn.

Eventually the pneumatic drill woke him. He lay sweating, tangled in the blankets. Sunlight filled the room, which was very hot. Gradually, too gradually, the dream faded. He lay welcoming the light. At last he fished out the hot water bottle, which flopped under the bed. He was enormously glad to get up—and about time; he had overslept. Ken would be here soon.

He opened the windows and ate breakfast hastily. The flat overhead was silent, so far as he could hear over the chattering of the drill. Should he go up and knock? But then he mightn’t be able to escape her conversation when he ought to be getting ready for the weekend. Her friends would look after her if she needed help. He might go up, if he had time before Ken arrived.

He hurried about, checking that plugs were unplugged, sockets switched off. The space between the fitted wardrobe and the ceiling distracted him. The gap was dim, but at the back, against the wall, he could see a large dark mass. He must clean up the flat. A horn was shouting a tune below, in the road. It was Ken’s van.

He closed the window and grabbed his bulging rucksack. The road repairers were directly outside now; as he slammed the door of the flat and shoved it to make sure, it sounded as though the drill was in his room. The sound like scuttling on the floorboards must be a vibration from the drill.

Ken drove through the Saturday morning traffic. The van plunged into the Mersey Tunnel and out to North Wales. Neither Ken nor Ted had any lectures until Tuesday. They walked and climbed in the sharp air; they drank, and drove singing back to their tent. Above them mountains and stars glittered, distant and cold.

When they returned to Liverpool on Monday night they were famished. They ate at the Kebab House. O’Connor’s was just down the block; friends cheered as they entered. Several hours later the barman got rid of them at last. “If you’re driving I’m walking,” Ted told Ken, trying to hold a shop-front still.

He walked home, from side to side of the back streets. Moonlight glinted on the smooth red sandstone of the Anglican cathedral, at the top of its tremendous steps; nearby he heard a smash of glass, shouts, screams. Fragments of streets led down towards the river. Along Princes Road, trees and lamp standards stood unmoving; Ted tried to compete with them, but couldn’t manage it. His leaning pushed him forward, almost at a run, to the house. He couldn’t remember when he’d been so drunk; he ought to have had more than one meal today. Mrs Dame’s window was dark and silent. She must be asleep.

His flat was full of a block of silence. The silence seemed lifeless, his flat unwelcoming—bare floorboards, the previous tenant’s paint on the walls. Surely he wasn’t yearning to hear that woman’s voice. Something rustled as he entered the main room: a page among the books on the table. Some performances actually imitate the performances of stars, it said, which sometimes has the effect What effect? Never mind. He’d finish that tomorrow.

He gazed at the tousled bed. What a mess to come home to. But the way he felt at the moment, he could sleep on anything. The tangled tunnel of blankets looked warmer than the chill flat. Some performances actually imitate The sentence nagged him like a tune whose conclusion he couldn’t remember. Forget it. Brush teeth, wash face, fall into bed.

He pushed the kitchen door farther open, and heard something move away from it, rustling faintly. They were still rustling when he found the light switch: a couple of moths, several large flies, all withered. Well, it was the spider season, but he wished the spiders would clear up after themselves.

He stooped to pick up the dustpan, and frowned. Beneath the window lay a scattering of small bones, of a mouse or a bird. Of course, he’d forgotten to close the kitchen window before leaving. One of the cats from downstairs must have slipped in; it was probably responsible for the insects too.

Water clanked and squeaked in the pipes. The tap choked on knots as he splashed icy water on his face, gasping. As he dabbed water from his eyes, a shadow scuttled over the fitted wardrobe. The wardrobe door rattled, and then the floorboards in the main room. Only headlights through branches, only vibrations from the road. Some performances actually