“Do you see any other way?”
“No, but—”
“Phone me tomorrow.”
He heard a click. The line was dead. She didn’t even say thank you, he thought. And she hadn’t told him what the file looked like, or whose name was on it. Presumably he would know it when he saw it. Gently he replaced the receiver. Someone was calling him.
“Sidney! Sidney!” That was Frank. Now Frank thought it was a big joke to call him Sidney. “Sidney, come for your chocolate mousse.”
At least, Evelyn thought, the turn of events had not taken her by surprise. She had dreaded being roused from sleep, pulled up from her musty undersea dreams to find the girl and her half-born child scraping at the bedroom door. What if there were difficulties? Of course, it had to be considered, she had run over the question in her mind. If Muriel looked like dying, she would fetch the doctor. If it came to that…she could not stomach being haunted by that composite creature that would be Muriel and the half-emerged child; no, she could not stomach it. They would want a room to themselves, to hiss and cavort and bang on the walls; ah, the gay young dead. Soon she would be forced to live in the kitchen.
She left the lights burning all over the house. She hoped that it would not attract attention from the outside, but she had enough to do without being hampered by things following her down the hall. She made Muriel a cup of tea and let her have it lying on the bed. She was the soul of kindness. Then she took out the first-aid books and her reading glasses. She boiled the scissors for ten minutes. She did not think they would be much use, but you cannot get scissors sharpened nowadays. In her drawer in the kitchen cabinet she found some lengths of string, which would do for tying off the cord; they were rolled up with the remains of her paper bags, from her tenants’ tearing days. She could not see her pile of farthings, and spent a minute or two rooting around for them. She sighed. She would have to ask Muriel about it, when Muriel was more in command of herself. “I do like everything in its place,” she said to herself. She got ready a blanket for the baby, a bit worn and musty but the correct size; it must have been one of Muriel’s. She took up some aspirin and a glass of tonic wine; but when around midnight Muriel screamed out in pain, she lost her nerve and slapped her repeatedly until she lay quiet, with two tears rolling down her grey cheeks.
When Colin re-entered the dining-room, he saw at once that the situation had deteriorated. Several more bottles of wine had been opened, and Charmian had returned to gin; the bottle stood by her elbow. Charmian’s precise tones had become even sharper, as if her tongue were edged with glass. Sylvia looked up at him anxiously. He attempted a smile, a reassuring smile; his face felt stiff. Edmund Toye was explaining how after a hard week at the Teacher Training College he liked to support his local football team and stand on the terraces, wearing a cap and bellowing. He described it as a most valuable emotional release.
“A. J. Ayer does it,” he said. “Logical Positivism.”
“Go on,” Frostick said.
“He’s Arsenal.”
Colin took his seat. He pushed his plate away. He certainly wasn’t going to eat chocolate mousse. He picked up his brimming glass and took a gulp of dessert wine. He did not notice the taste; it could have been water, or vodka. His throat was dry. Stewart Colman pushed the bottle down to him.
“Refill, Colin. Might as well. When in Rome et cetera.”
Colin noticed that Colman seemed relatively sober still. And Sylvia too; she sat with an expression both hunted and mutinous, which she had assumed as soon as she saw Frank’s white shoes and which the meal and the drinks had done nothing to alter. But then, he thought, for what I have to do next it would be as well if they were all drunk. He shifted his attention from his glass to find Charmian’s eyes fixed upon him. He lifted his head.
“Do you know,” she said distinctly, “he hasn’t
“I suspected as much,” Colin said.
“He said it because he thought it sounded clever. In fact it’s not an intellectual’s disease at all. I should think you might get it from carrying heavy weights.”
“I should think you might,” Colin said.
“In that case it surprises me that half the population of Africa hasn’t got it, from carrying things on their heads. It may be that they have. We do not comprehend,” she said, shaking her head, “we seldom take the time to try to comprehend, the sufferings of the Third World.”
At that moment there was a loud clatter just outside the room, and Elvie stood in the doorway holding by the hand a bald sandy-coloured man of about sixty, with moles and bristles on his shining scalp. He wore sagging twill trousers and a leather-patched jacket. The man’s mouth hung open, but it was difficult to tell whether he was inebriated, or meant to utter a greeting, given time. It was possible that this was the only member of the party for which the excuse could be made that, when sober, he appeared drunk. Locked together, he and Elvie staggered across the room towards the table.
Now Charmian displayed the first real sign of animation since her discomfiture over the squid. She sat bolt upright, her hands clasped.
“I say, Yarker. How clever of you, Yarker, to know that we wouldn’t get to pudding till midnight.”
“Pudding?” said Yarker. “No pudding, whisky for me.”
“Oh, you are tiresome, Yarker, we’ve finished all the whisky.”
“Eh?” said Yarker.
“S’right,” Frank said. “Colman here’s been mixing cocktails.”
“You say cocktails,” Toye put in, “but does anyone, I wonder, really know the derivation of the term, ‘cocktail’?”
His glass halfway to his lips, Colin glared at Colman. If Colman had been sampling his own product, his last hope of sane assistance had gone. Elvie had now resumed her seat, and as if in early confirmation of his fears, Colman rose from the table, lurched across to her, and pressed his mouth into her stout shoulder. Brian Frostick watched from under lowered eyelids. Gail Colman stared at her husband’s strange parti-coloured beard moving across the girl’s flesh like some small browsing animal; she pursed her mouth, and sat isolated in a moody silence,
