The collected stories (83 page)

She did not sleep that night. The room was no longer hers. Brenhouse had robbed and ruined her. Her life had depended on a delicate balance. Brenhouse had stumbled into her little room and betrayed her, all the while looking down his nose at her. She had never once asked anything of him. He was a pig; he deserved worse than death. She cried, feeling trapped in a ditch where he had thrown her and tried to smother her. Why are men thieves?

Each night after that she cried again. But she was crying because

FURY

it was dark and she could not travel in the dark. Her tears were fury.

She had sold everything that she could sell and bought an Army sleeping bag, arctic model. She had then dressed herself in her warmest clothes (bleak-brown February had turned the snowfields to dampness and mud) and set off on her bike for Whitby. In this small country of four directions she had taken the longest one.

She was fighting the wind as soon as she left London. Her head was down and her body bent double and braced over her bike frame. She had rejected the train, the bus, or hitchhiking. She needed this effort so that she could use her fury. Each day on her bike her anger gave her strength. It was food, it refreshed her, it kept her warm. She did not sleep easily beside the stone walls of villages and farms, but her fury enlivened her when she was awake. And sleep that was too deep was dangerous on cold nights: you could freeze and not know it.

The roads were clear; the thaw was general and filthy. And even with the rain pelting against her, she flew. Some days in high winds she screamed curses at him. She hated the thought of his beaky face.

She had become possessed. Fury made her a demon, but it also made her efficient. She saw nothing unusual in this speeding along back roads on her bike, but her throat burned with shrieks as she beat uphill toward Yorkshire. Men stood in muddy fields or against high brambly hedges and watched her. They were curious, but after they had had a good look at her they were afraid. She went fast; the effort strengthened her; she felt she was being flung toward Whitby by black winds.

From Ely and the Fens, she skirted the Wash and made for the Lincolnshire Wolds, then across the Humber to York and the long hills of that dark county to Scarborough. She was in Whitby the next day; she knew it by the ruined abbey - her gaze continually traveled up to it.

She did not stop. She had by now memorized Brenhouse's address and the roads to it. Hunger had increased her fury: she had not eaten since morning. It was now a cold windy midafternoon, muffled by cloud.

She had imagined him alone in an empty room and defenseless. Her mind had simplified the imagining and made it helpful, and had tricked her. The truth was a tiny brick house in a bottled-up lane, with no view of either the moor or the sea. There was no

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS (il): THE LONDON EMBASSY

answer to her knock. She drank a cup of tea at a cafe. She had four pounds and sixty-seven pence left, but once this was done nothing mattered.

Her dirty face and red hands frightened the woman at the tea urn.

Leaving the cafe, she saw him - she was sure it was Brenhouse - walking down the road. And he saw her. But he smiled and looked away, probably guessing that he had imagined her in this distant place, and smirking at his mistake. How could she have got here so fast in the winter with no money?

Furiously, she followed him. She was impatient. Now, hearing her rapid steps, he looked again. This made her eager. She held her weapon up her sleeve. No: he had not recognized her.

He had pushed through the door of a pub, but when Mary entered she could not see him. There was smoke and chatter; nearly all were men, some staring at her. She saw her own scarf around someone's neck! It was one she had bought in London. The person's head was turned, but she knew whose it was. Two strides took her to the chair and then she had his long hair in her hand and was yanking his head back so that he faced the ceiling.

Brenhouse tried to stand up. He shouted. His look of horror filled her unexpectedly with pity, and it frightened her, too. No one made a move to help him, or to restrain her in her swift movement. The cloudy light came through the painted pub window with gulls' nagging squawks. Brenhouse was clutching his face; blood streamed from his hands. Then Mary was seized from behind.

'His throat's cut,' she heard.

And 'She never cut his throat.'

She hadn't touched his throat, but she had cut him with the scissors she surrendered to the men.

All this she told me on the train south from York, after her two weeks in the hospital. She was treated for exhaustion and dehydration, and Brenhouse was there, too, in another ward -severe laceration of the face, as the newspapers said. She had scissored a little more than half an inch from the end of his nose.

But there were no charges laid against Mary Snowfire. The London Embassy was involved because she had no money - and I was sent to escort her back to London and arrange her repatriation. We flew her to Florida. She said she would repay every cent. I felt sure she would keep her word.

Neighbors

I had two neighbors at Overstrand Mansions - we shared the same landing. In America 'neighbor' has a friendly connotation; in England it is a chilly word, nearly always a stranger, a map reference more than anything else. One of my neighbors was called R. Wigley; the other had no nameplate.

It did not surprise me at all that Corner Door had no nameplate. He owned a motorcycle and kept late nights. He wore leather - I heard it squeak; and boots - they hit the stairs like hammers on an anvil. His motorcycle was a Kawasaki - Japanese of course. The British are patriotic only in the abstract, and they can be traitorously frugal - tax havens are full of Brits. They want value for money, even when they are grease monkeys, bikers with skinny faces and sideburns and teeth missing, wearing jackboots and swastikas. That was how I imagined Corner Door, the man in 4 C.

I had never seen his face, though I had heard him often enough. His hours were odd; he was always rushing off at night and returning in the early morning - waking me when he left and waking me again when he came back. He was selfish and unfriendly, scatterbrained, thoughtless - no conversation but plenty of bike noise. I pictured him wearing one of those German helmets that look like kettles, and I took him to be a coward at heart, who sneaked around whining until he had his leather suit and his boots on, until he mounted his too-big Japanese motorcycle, which he kept in the entryway of Overstrand Mansions, practically blocking it. When he was suited up and mounted on his bike he was a Storm Trooper with blood in his eye.

It also struck me that this awful man might be a woman, an awful woman. But even after several months there I never saw the person from 4C face to face. I saw him - or her - riding away, his back, the chrome studs patterned on his jacket. But women didn't behave like this. It was a man.

R. Wigley was quite different - he was a civil servant: Post

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS (il): THE LONDON EMBASSY

Office, Welsh I think, very methodical. He wrote leaflets. The Post Office issued all sorts of leaflets - explaining pensions, television licenses, road tax, driving permits, their savings bank, and everything else, including of course stamps. The leaflets were full of directions and advice. In this complicated literate country you were expected to read your way out of difficulty.

When I told Wigley I wouldn't be in London much longer than a couple of years, he became hospitable. No risk, you see. If I had been staying for a long time he wouldn't have been friendly -wouldn't have dared. Neighbors are a worry: they stare, they presume, they borrow things, they ask you to forgive them their trespasses. In the most privacy-conscious country in the world neighbors are a problem. But I was leaving in a year or so, and I was an American diplomat - maybe I was a spy! He suggested I call him Reg.

We met at the Prince Albert for a drink. A month later, I had him over with the Scadutos, Vic and Marietta, and it was then that talk turned to our neighbors. Wigley said there was an actor on the ground floor and that several country Members of Parliament lived in Overstrand Mansions when the Commons was in session. Scaduto asked him blunt questions I would not have dared to ask, but I was glad to hear his answers. Rent? Thirty-seven pounds a week. Married? Had been - no longer. University? Bristol. And when he asked Wigley about his job, Scaduto listened with fascination and then said, 'It's funny, but I never actually imagined anyone writing those things. It doesn't seem like real writing.'

Good old Skiddoo.

Wigley said, 'I assure you, it's quite real.'

Scaduto went on interrogating him - Americans are tremendous questioners - but Wigley's discomfort made me reticent. The British confined conversation to neutral impersonal subjects, resisting any effort to be trapped into friendship. They got to know each other by allowing details to slip out, little mentions that, gathered together, became revelations. The British liked having secrets - they had lost so much else - and that was one of their secrets.

Scaduto asked, 'What are your other neighbors like?'

I looked at Wigley. I wondered what he would say. I would not have dared to put the question to him.

He said, 'Some of them are incredibly noisy and others downright frightening.'

NEIGHBORS

This encouraged me. I said, 'Our Nazi friend with the motorcycle, for one.'

Had I gone too far?

'I was thinking of that prig, Hurst,' Wigley said, 'who has the senile Labrador that drools and squitters all over the stairs.'

Tve never seen our motorcyclist,' I said. 'But I've heard him. The bike. The squeaky leather shoulders. The boots.' I caught Wigley's eye. 'It's just the three of us on this floor, I guess.'

I had lived there just over two months without seeing anyone else.

Wigley looked uncertain, but said, 'I suppose so.'

'My kids would love to have a motorcycle,' Marietta Scaduto said. 'I've got three hulking boys, Mr Wigley.'

I said, 'Don't let them bully you into buying one.'

'Don't you worry,' Marietta said. 'I think those things are a menace.'

'Some of them aren't so bad,' Wigley said. 'Very economical.' He glanced at me. 'So I've heard.'

'It's kind of an image-thing, really. Your psychologists will tell you all about it.' Skiddoo was pleased with himself: he liked analyzing human behavior - 'deviants' were his favorites, he said. 'It's classic textbook-case stuff. The simp plays big tough guy on his motorcycle. Walter Mitty turns into Marlon Brando. It's an aggression thing. Castration complex. What do you do for laughs, Reg?'

Wigley said, 'I'm not certain what you mean by laughs.'

'Fun,' Scaduto said. 'For example, we've got one of these home computers. About six thousand bucks, including some accessories - hardware, software. Christ, we've had hours of fun with it. The kids love it.'

'I used to be pretty keen on aircraft,' Wigley said, and looked very embarrassed saying so, as if he were revealing an aberration in his boyhood.

Scaduto said, 'Keen in what way?'

'Taking snaps of them,' Wigley said.

'Snaps?' Marietta Scaduto said. She was smiling.

'Yes,' Wigley said. 'I had one of those huge Japanese cameras that can do anything. They're absolutely idiot-proof and fiendishly expensive.'

'I never thought anyone taking dinky little pictures of planes

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS (il): THE LONDON EMBASSY

could be described as "keen."' Scaduto said the word like a brand name for ladies' underwear.

'Some of them were big pictures,' Wigley said coldly.

'Even big pictures,' Scaduto said. 'I could understand flying in the planes, though. Getting inside, being airborne, and doing the loop-the-loop.'

Wigley said, 'They were bombers.'

'Now you're talking, Reg!' Scaduto's sudden enthusiasm warmed the atmosphere a bit, and they continued to talk about airplanes.

'My father had an encyclopedia,' Wigley said. 'You looked up "aeroplane." It said, "Aeroplane: See Flying-Machine.'"

Later, Marietta said, 'These guys on their motorcycles, I was just thinking. They really have a problem. Women never do stupid things like that.'

Vic Scaduto said, 'Women put on long gowns, high heels, padded bras. They pile their hair up, they pretend they're princesses. That's worse, fantasy-wise. Or they get into really tight provocative clothes, all tits and ass, swinging and bouncing, lipstick, the whole bit, cleavage hanging down. And then - I'm not exaggerating -and then they say, "Don't touch me or I'll scream."'

Good old Skiddoo.

'You've got a big problem if you think that,' Marietta said. She spoke then to Wigley. 'Sometimes the things he says are sick.'

Wigley smiled and said nothing.

'And he works for the government,' Marietta said. 'You wouldn't think so, would you?'

That was it. The Scadutos went out arguing, and Wigley left. A highly successful evening, I thought.

Thanks to Scaduto's pesterings I knew much more about Wigley. He was decent, he was reticent, and I respected him for the way he handled Good Old Skiddoo. And we were no more friendly than before. That was all right with me: I didn't want to be burdened with his friendship any more than he wanted to be lumbered with mine. I only wished that the third tenant on the floor was as gracious a neighbor as Wigley.

Would Wigley join me in making a complaint? He said he'd rather not. That was the British way - don't make a fuss, Reggie.

He said, 'To be perfectly frank, he doesn't actually bother me.'

This was the first indication I'd had that it was definitely a man, not a woman.

NEIGHBORS

'He drives me up the wall sometimes. He keeps the craziest hours. I've never laid eyes on him, but I know he's weird.'

Wigley smiled at me and I immediately regretted saying He's weird, because, saying so, I had revealed something of myself.

I said, 'I can't make a complaint unless you back me up.'

'I know.'

I could tell that he thought I was being unfair. It created a little distance, this annoyance of mine, which looked to him like intolerance. I knew this because Wigley had a girl friend and didn't introduce me. A dozen times I heard them on the stairs. People who live alone are authorities on noises. I knew their laughs. I got to recognize the music, the bed-springs, the bath water. He did not invite me over.