Mr. Chartwell (2 page)

Opening the door was as violently traumatic as anything could conceivably be, the shock of it blasting out like a klaxon. Esther mashed herself against the wall. She watched with billboard eyes and didn’t move.

Mr. Chartwell’s black lips carved a cordial smile. “Mrs. Esther Hammerhans?” He extended a paw the size of a turnip. “Hello, I’ve come about the room.”

9.00 a.m
.

H
is fur brushing against her arm as he moved past, Mr. Chartwell went down the hall into the kitchen and stood with his ears pricked attentively. He waited there alone. Esther had stayed uselessly by the front door. This was a textbook response, expected. He listened. The noise of a small footstep. Good, she was edging towards the kitchen after him. Here she came, but taking forever. A headache of adrenaline would blossom as she crept nearer, and, yes, now he could smell it.

Esther stared from the doorway with a blank face as Mr. Chartwell poured a cup of stewed black tea. His tongue fell into it and made quiet and industrious progress. He placed the empty cup back on the table and gazed out the window, mild and horselike, pretending to admire the view. It was his polite way of giving Esther time to come to terms with the situation.
He knew it wasn’t easy. Then he turned to face the landlady with an expression that said,
I know what you’re thinking, but what do you say we just ignore it?
The expression also said,
Hi there!

Seeing his head move, Esther made a jerk, hands raised over her face.

“Nice garden,” said Mr. Chartwell. “Do you grow vegetables?”

Esther looked at him over a network of fingers. Then the fingers slowly lowered. Terrified, she spoke with all the pepper of lettuce. “I’m sorry … I’m sorry, but you—”

Mr. Chartwell nodded with disappointment; it disappointed him that they couldn’t ignore the situation as he had hoped.

“You’re …”

More disappointed nodding.

“… a dog.…”

Mr. Chartwell’s answer didn’t sound unfriendly. “Yes.”

There was a long, silent period where nothing happened. “You’re really enormous for a Labrador,” Esther said finally.

“I’m not a Labrador.” Mr. Chartwell leant back against the kitchen counter and folded his arms. He seemed fairly relaxed.

“Are you a ghost?” Esther found a chair at the table and blindly fell into it. “… Some sort of ghost?”

Mr. Chartwell said, “It’s pretty obvious I’m a dog. We established that two seconds ago.”

Esther didn’t know what to say; she didn’t think to say anything. Her eyes moved in steady repeating laps from his head to his feet. Reaching his feet, her eyes leapt to his head, and began their journey again.

Mr. Chartwell was unmistakably a dog, a mammoth muscular dog about six foot seven high. He would have been shorter standing on all fours, but was balanced comfortably on hind legs, his inverted knees jutting backwards. He did look similar
to a Labrador, with the vast barrelled chest and stocky limbs built to move over rough and difficult terrain, but a heavier-set and strikingly hideous Labrador. There was nothing decorative about him: His short black fur was dense and water-resistant, his broad face split by a vulgar mouth. The monstrous grey tongue dangled, droplets of saliva spilling onto the floor.

Esther took this all in slowly, the horror of him mesmerising. Her fear began to ebb at the sides. The more she looked the more it ebbed. It melted into a passive state of alarm. Mr. Chartwell let her look, although it made him uncomfortable. He wiped a white rope of drool from one crêped lip. There was no way of doing this with any decorum.

Eventually Esther could trust herself to speak to the animal again. “Are you going to attack me?”

“Not much.” Mr. Chartwell said this with disdain.

A pause.

Esther whispered at him, “You’ve come about the room?”

“I have,” said Mr. Chartwell, pleased they were finally on the right subject.

If she didn’t cling to the chair with straining knuckles, Esther felt she would drop and explode over the floor like a collapsing pipe of ash. “You want to rent my
room
?”

Mr. Chartwell nodded. “I’m keen to move into this area.”

“For how long?” Esther said, and then added immediately, “Why?”

“Not sure, a few days,” answered Mr. Chartwell, not telling her why.

Esther said truthfully, “I’m really looking to rent out the room for longer than that. A few days is a bit inconvenient.”

“It might be longer, maybe a couple of weeks, perhaps a week.” He broke off. He went over her with his eyes. “We’ll see
how it goes,” he said quietly. “But regardless”—his voice was loud and persuasive now—“I am able to offer you a unique short-term deal which will make it very convenient.”

There was another pause. Esther looked at him. This was a ridiculous thing to say: Nothing could make it convenient.

Mr. Chartwell continued. “For the duration of my residence, Mrs. Hammerhans, as recognition of the inconvenience of such a short rental, I can offer you a bulk payment.”

She asked how much. She had to. He was waiting for it.

Mr. Chartwell picked from a jackpot. The charismatic chat-show host, he said, “One thousand pounds.” Was it too high? But too late now.

The shock crawled over her face. One thousand pounds was a massive sum, a staggering amount. Esther’s annual salary as a library clerk at Westminster Palace was only five hundred pounds. The beast knew the power of his deal, nodding with half-closed confident eyes, watching her wrestle through the financial possibilities.

But then came a spike of doubt. Where was this money?

“Have you got it with you?” Esther asked. It seemed unlikely. It seemed suspicious.

He repeated quickly, a paw directed at her, directing her to be ambitious,
“One thousand pounds!”

Esther’s eyes pinned him, wanting to ask how a dog could come by that much money. She said nothing for fear of menacing their fragile peace. “Sorry, are you sure? It’s just that it—”

He interrupted. “I’m sure. One thousand pounds, yes.” He canted forwards. Another few inches forwards. Esther didn’t argue.

He spoke again. “Well, that’s the offer. So could we see the room?”

Esther frowned, thinking about this. He wanted to see the room? Let him. What could she actually do to stop him? If he came at her she would be powerless to fight him back. Pitched against him in a struggle, she would be like a sponge thrown against the teeth of a chain saw. She gestured for him to follow her up the stairs.

Esther opened the door to the boxroom. Her head jolted and met the wall as he went past her, assaulted by the stench of cave soil. Mr. Chartwell threw back the crocheted blanket and sheets, testing the mattress underneath with firm jabs. It was found to be satisfactory. The wardrobe door was pumped open and shut several times to check the action. His head disappeared inside to assess the storage space.

Esther said, “Well, this is it. This is the room.”

Mr. Chartwell’s eyes were busy. They rested on the rosewood desk against one wall, the wooden chair placed beneath it. The chair held a ruined cushion lined with creases, the filling worn thin. Efforts to whack it into a regular shape were hopeless but it would never be thrown away. The desk carried a regiment of pots full of pencils, pens, and trivial antiques. In one pot an ancient stick of rock, in another a plastic toy cow and a drumstick painted with a face. There was a peeled twig among the pencils, a compass and a little ivory carving next to it. Stained rings on the wood showed a history of hot drinks. The desk was a museum. Mr. Chartwell’s paws went to a drawer and twisted the handle. The handle was loose and he rattled it fondly. He stopped himself.

On the wall above the desk was the small pale square of a removed photograph. Mr. Chartwell continued to stare at this pale patch as Esther spoke.

“This room used to be a study. That’s why the desk is here.”

Mr. Chartwell turned from the absent photograph, fidgeting
with his dewlap while he considered everything. He said after a time, “What about use of the car? Would I have occasional access?”

“No,” Esther lied firmly. “The lodger would have absolutely no use of the car.”

He looked at her, knowing she was lying. The dewlap was pulled this way and that. His eyes roved across the ceiling. “And the neighbours, what are they like?”

“Okay, I guess,” said Esther. “I don’t really see them much.” Then, as an afterthought, “They do have a cat though, so I don’t know if that would be a problem—”

Mr. Chartwell gave her a sarcastic look. “Is the cat a problem for you?”

“No,” said Esther. “I just thought that—” She didn’t bother to tell him what she’d thought.

“And there are other lodgers staying here?” said Mr. Chartwell.

“No, you’d be the only one,” said Esther.

“I’d be the only one?” Mr. Chartwell said, full of hope, assuming this was an invitation.

Esther quickly corrected herself. “There’d only be one lodger, I mean.”

“And that would be me?” said Mr. Chartwell.

“Umm …”

A nauseating silent period passed.

Esther said, with exaggerated diplomacy, “Mr. Chartwell, I don’t mean to imply that I’m not interested in your offer, or that I think you wouldn’t make a very considerate tenant, but I’m not convinced this is going to work out. I was really looking for someone who was more—well, a bit more—”

“You don’t like dogs, Mrs. Hammerhans?” asked Mr. Chartwell.

“No,” Esther answered, “I do like dogs. Dogs are fine. I’m just not used to them as lodgers. I’m more familiar with them”—and it came out before she could stop it—“on a pet basis.”

“I’m not a pet,” Mr. Chartwell told her.

“I can see that.”

Mr. Chartwell’s vacant expression suggested he still didn’t follow, so she tried to explain. “I’m thinking primarily about our relationship, about the aspects of that relationship. Say for example you were going to take the room …” The delivery of the next line wasn’t easy. “What about if someone gets hurt?”

“Wait, who’s getting hurt?” said Mr. Chartwell.

Nearly impossible to say: “Someone who has been mauled.”

Mr. Chartwell’s voice hit an unpleasant note. “And why do you suppose anyone would get mauled?”

“… Because perhaps—”

Mr. Chartwell sighed like an old man, sick of the game. “Our relationship would be the same as any other landlady and tenant, insofar as I rent the room which you provide. Our responsibilities to each other are strictly limited to this professional understanding. Other than this we won’t have anything to do with each other’s lives.”

“Right,” Esther said, ashamed, “right, of course.” She changed the subject. “Have you lodged anywhere before?”

“Lots of times,” replied Mr. Chartwell. “I have to for work.”

“You work?” said Esther, overwhelmed at the thought. “What do you do?”

Mr. Chartwell ignored her question. “I do have to reside in this area sporadically, otherwise the commute is a bitch.” He started a comradely conversation about the horrors of a long commute. Esther was still hypnotised by the notion of his working. She asked, “Your job is here?”

“Sometimes … sometimes it is. But it varies. I’m freelance, so I have to travel around to visit my clients.”

“Your clients?” Esther said, curiosity growing in flames.

Mr. Chartwell breezed over this. “So what’s your decision about the room?”

Esther pressed her lips together as if rubbing in balm. She didn’t have a decision. The morning sun was already strong enough for sunglasses. The trees in the garden grouped against a holiday-blue sky. The calling of birds rang out. It was going to be a nice afternoon to sit with a gin and tonic. Esther thought about gin, the bottle in the cupboard singing like a mermaid.

Mr. Chartwell saw she was deliberating. He wasn’t the deliberating type, preferring action. “Okay, Mrs. Hammerhans, listen, what about if you think it through? You probably want to talk it over with your husband.” The sentence was gas, hanging in the air and poisonous.

Esther felt a wave of emotion and recovered herself. “My husband isn’t here at the moment. It’ll be my decision.”

“When will he be back?”

Never
, Esther thought. “Later,” she said.

“Right,” Mr. Chartwell said. A spark in his face caught her.

“He’ll be back later,” Esther said again, watching to see if he believed it.

Mr. Chartwell studied her in the same way he had when she had told him about the car, his ugly eyes unrelenting and deliberate. There was a sharp desire to ask what he knew about the situation; he seemed to know something. But what could he know? Instead she said, “I have to go to work now, so … We’ve got a lot on. A large deadline is approaching and everyone is …” She stopped talking about her job; it wouldn’t matter to a dog.

“Ah well,” Mr. Chartwell said, “I’ve got to go to work too.”

What do you do?
Esther thought, blazing with curiosity.

Mr. Chartwell spoke: “Do you have any plans tonight?”

“Why?”

“Because I could pop round this evening. We can talk about it again.”

“I’ve got plans.” She didn’t.

He said callously, “You’ve actually got plans?”

“No.” Esther said it stiffly. “But I might organise—”

Mr. Chartwell didn’t wait to hear the rest. “Fine then. See you this evening.”

“Oh. Umm …” She was defeated, unable to find the courage to argue. “Okay, but this is not a promise of any kind.” She said in a pathetic voice, “Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Definitely won’t,” said Mr. Chartwell.

Back at the front door there was an uncomfortable pause. Mr. Chartwell put out a paw. Esther’s reluctant hand held the paw as if clasping a grenade. They engaged in a weird handshake.

“So—” she said, Mr. Chartwell speaking at the same time. They did the dance of halting awkwardness, the normal chemistry of conversation wildly absent. “Right,” said Mr. Chartwell, and Esther said, “Oka—”

“Right,” he said again.

Then Mr. Chartwell shook his head vigorously, the ruff round his neck slinging about, a good wet noise coming from his loose cheeks as they slapped against his gums. “Well, good-bye,” he said, and closed the door behind him. Esther listened to him thump down onto four feet, the sound of claws on concrete, and then the heavy, meaty sound of a powerful animal tanking forward with determination.