environment other than by normal channels. I’m sure somebody’s interacting in this house.”
“It’s true,” Sylvia said. “We keep getting these electrical faults, but we’ve had the wiring checked. The milk keeps turning sour. Things go missing.”
“I’m disappointed in you,” the vicar said.
“Have you thought of trying Unigate?” Hermione put in. “You can get low-fat yoghurt as well.”
“We read a book about it,” Sylvia said. “We thought it might be Suzanne. Her amassed discontent finding expression.”
“I’m surprised you don’t want an exorcism.”
“That might not be a bad idea.”
“What about this woman Blank? If objects are missing, you probably need look no further. Have you checked her credentials?”
“She doesn’t have credentials,” Sylvia said sulkily. “She’s a cleaning woman.”
“I think it’s our unhappiness that does it,” Colin said. “It’s the accumulated misery, bouncing off the walls.”
“Are you unhappy, Colin?” the vicar asked. “I didn’t know.”
Florence arrived just as Francis and his wife were leaving; reporting in as usual for Christmas dinner. “I’ve given her double pills,” she said. “It should keep her quiet for an hour or two.”
“You have to watch dosages, with the elderly,” Francis warned. Florence scowled at him.
“I didn’t like your sermon. People want the ox and the ass, not the National Coal Board. I agree with that man who stands outside with the placard.”
Suzanne, swaying around in the kitchen, upset a pan of sprouts and scalded her feet. Alistair lay on his bed, the door locked and his eyes closed, breathing raggedly with the breathing of the room. Karen locked herself into the bathroom and squeezed her spots till her face flared with scarlet patches. Claire put on her Brownie uniform. “Enjoy your day,” Sylvia said at the door. “Christmas is no holiday for me,” the vicar replied.
The Ryans had begun the day late. Jim had long ago given up taking Isabel to see his family, and this year there was no need to go to the hospital. Christmas dinner was a silent affair. Jim watched Isabel’s face, waiting for the wine to enter her bloodstream and make her voluble. First, she would fling accusations at him; second, she would cry into the bread sauce. After a while she would talk about concentration camps. Later still she would collapse. He would drag her onto the sofa and throw a rug over her, and go for a walk round the park.
At Mr. K.’s house, Mrs. Wilmot and Miss Anaemia sat with their landlord at the kitchen table. Although it was now some time since Mr. K. had been beaten up by the woman in the street, he still bore traces of his injuries; patches of greenish discoloration showed on his face where his bruises were fading. As for the dismay, fright, and humiliation, it might be years before he recovered from those.
“That was no woman,” he said, for the third time that morning. Gloomily he adjusted the yellow paper hat that Miss Anaemia had insisted that he wear. “That was a man in disguise.”
“A Transylvanian,” said Miss Anaemia. “Leave it out, Mr. K. Your dinner’s getting cold.”
They had decided to incorporate the traditional Christmas trimmings—crackers, a game of pass the parcel— with the kind of food each of them liked best. “After all,” Miss Anaemia said, “we’re three loners, we’ve only ourselves to please.” Pickled cucumbers were put on the table, and dumplings with caraway seeds, and All-Bran; tinned ravioli, and chocolate digestive biscuits. Wheezing as he moved across the room, Mr. Kowalski produced from the cool pantry some bottled beer. He squeezed out a few tears, thinking of carp on Christmas Eve, of his little sister with new hair ribbons, of candles burning in the windows to light them home from midnight Mass. He did not know whether it was his own past he was grieving for, or other people’s; the images flickered and ticked behind his retina like shots from silent films. Miss Anaemia thought of growing up in Burton-on-Trent. Poor Mrs. Wilmot thought of nothing at all, for she had no past to remember; but she shook with silent mirth when she read the mottoes in the crackers. After dinner had been cleared away, the presents were exchanged. Mrs. Wilmot and Mr. K. each gave the other mufflers and miniature bottles of whisky; they both gave bath salts to Miss Anaemia. They knew that she would never take a bath, because the rusty trickle of warm water that ran from the antiquated pipes would not bathe a flea; but she agreed with them about the air of ease and luxury the bottles would lend to her dressing table. Then the cards were taken out, and they played Happy Families, and ate chocolates. Mr. Kowalski grew excitable, and insisted on getting them to their feet for a lively traditional dance that involved clapping rhythmically and standing on one leg. Mrs. Wilmot fell over a good deal. Mr. K. threw an extra scuttle of coal on the kitchen range, and soon they were enveloped in a pleasant warm fug, doors tightly shut against the elements, the windows sealed. Mr. K. seized his young lodger’s hand. The bottled beer had gone to his head. He put his hands around her waist and whirled her off her feet, rumbling out the refrain in his rib-heaving bass and stamping his left foot. “My dear young thing,” he said, breaking off his chorus, “won’t you join me in holy matrimony?”
“Then I’d never get my giro back,” Miss Anaemia said. “You’d have to keep me. ‘He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune,’ or words to that effect.”
“No need for children,” Mr. K. said. “Rubber goods can be obtained.”
But Miss Anaemia shook her head. Two spots of scarlet flamed on her cheeks. The kettle sang merrily on the range. Mr. K. roared and stomped, and held his arms in a tree shape above his head. Poor Mrs. Wilmot staggered exhausted to the kitchen table. She hugged her belly, and swayed, and gave a mute bellow of laughter; she licked her pale lips, and the steam from the kettle misted up her glasses.
The smell of the roasting turkey woke Alistair from his lassitude. He got up, groaning, and ventured out onto the landing. “There’s sumfin growing on my wall,” he said. “Fungus or sumfin.” Next door Mrs. Sidney stirred in her sleep, and mumbled; she had caught the note of the festivities, and thought she was at Balmoral.
Evening came. Lizzie Blank had arranged to take Sholto and Emmanuel to Gino’s Club for the Christmas Nite Special. I want to be a special fantasia, she thought, with gold paint on my nails and a tinsel crown; she was buggered if she was going to do that in a WC. Miss Anaemia and Mr. K. were sleeping off the afternoon’s excitement; what did it matter if the click-click of her stilettos on the stairs entered their dreams? It was 8:30 P.M.; she gave her lipstick a final coat of gloss, patted her curls, and departed.
But as she reached the foot of the stairs, the kitchen door opened; there stood Mr. K. in his vest and braces. He rubbed his eyes, itching from the smoke of the kitchen; there was a poker in his fist. His jaw dropped. “In my own house,” he cried. She sprang for the door.
