The Grin of the Dark

I might express surprise if not disbelief, but I'm busy examining the cardboard slipcase of Those Golden Years of Fun. The distributors were based in Oldham. 'Have you got the job, then?'

'I'll obviously have to go for an interview, but it sounds as if I might have it if I want it.'

'And do you?'

'It pays a lot more than the magazine I'm with now, and I think there'd be more satisfaction in it too.'

I hunch up my left shoulder to hold the mobile to my ear while I type Charley Tracy and Oldham on the Directory Enquiries page of British Telecom. 'Then I don't know what you're waiting for.'

I mean to be encouraging, but Natalie says 'Would you rather I hadn't rung? I'm getting the impression you want to be left by yourself.'

'Not by you. You mustn't ever think that. I may have found a good lead, that's all,' I say, because I appear to be looking at the phone number for the compiler of the film.

'I'd better leave you to it, then.'

'Hold on,' I say, having caught a hint of tentativeness in her voice. 'Is there any reason you shouldn't go after this job?'

'I can't think of any right now.'

'Then go for it. When shall I see you?'

'Whenever you can tear yourself away from your computer.'

That seems unfair, but I say 'Shall we do something tonight?'

'I may want to draft some ideas to show them at the interview.'

'I expect that's a good plan. Let me know how it goes if we don't speak before.'

I don't mean this to sound as final as perhaps it does, or have we been cut off? I can't think of enough to add that would justify ringing her back. Instead I key the number on the screen. The distant phone rings and then issues an invitation to commence to dancing, just like Laurel and Hardy. After a good few bars of the song Charley Tracy says 'Films for fun. Don't go away till you leave us a message or call my mobile if there's a panic.'

'Mr Tracy? My name's Simon Lester. I'm researching Tubby Thackeray for the University of London. I was wondering if I could discuss him with you as an expert. Could you give me a buzz so we can arrange some kind of interview? That's very kind of you,' I say and add my number.

I hope none of that is too awkwardly phrased, but I was realising there may be more useful footage on Those Golden Years of Fun. Suppose the footage Smilemime described is there too? I switch off the computer and take the film downstairs. Having cleared another pizza box or entirely possibly the same one as yesterday off the armchair, I sit down as the tape races to the thirty-minute mark.

As Oliver Hardy sets about his scene once more, I speed him onwards. Everyone else on the remainder of the tape is as familiar as he is. I gaze out at the underside of the sky, which the window may be tinting even greyer, while I wait for the tape to rewind. Once it halts with a plastic clatter I restart it. Before I speak to Charley Tracy I should listen to his comments on the whole film.

The white bars of static last longer than I thought they did. The tape mustn't have been fully rewound when I watched it with Mark. I accelerate it with the sticky remote control, and then I wrench a distressed creak from the frame of the armchair by crouching forward. The screen crawls with a white mass like a nest of eggs that have just hatched as the digits on the counter race on. When they count to half an hour, Oliver Hardy bobs up from the blankness and the image stabilises. I rewind several minutes' worth and play the tape while I attempt to tune it in, but it's useless. The first half-hour, including the Thackeray extract, is blank except for static that hisses in a rhythm I could imagine is actively gleeful.

NINE - SOME SENSE

A voice is rising from beneath the sound of waves or forming out of them. 'Simon. Simon.'

It's my impression that the waves lulled me to sleep, and I resent the interruption until I wonder where the sound has been coming from. I wobble into a sitting position under the clammy quilt and see that the computer screen is as dark as the underside of a stone. I must have been listening to my own blood or dreaming the experience; what other kind of waves would have been inside me? The voice has driven them away now, helped by a knocking that keeps pace with its syllables. 'Simon. Simon Lester.'

'I know who I am,' I mutter and then shout 'What do you want, Joe?'

'Are you by yourself? I've got something here for you.'

I wrap the quilt around me as I stumble to open the door. The landing is even dimmer than my room, which is steeped in twilight that seems designed to obscure the time of day. Joe is wearing baggy denim overalls and puffy white trainers and a T-shirt that says STUFF THIS TSHIRT. He's holding a padded envelope, but steps forward to peer past me. 'Everything working all right? Doing whatever you want it to do?'

I'm just sufficiently awake to grasp that he's referring not to the bed but to the computer. 'It's a lot healthier, thanks. Is that mine?'

He appears to consider the question before handing me the package. 'It came for you before.'

'Why did they give it to you?'

His unmanageable blond hair is already bristling, and several reddish patches on his pallid oval face grow inflamed. 'I thought that's what chums are for.'

'I don't mean you particularly. I damn well near had to knock the postman down the other day to get my own parcel.'

'That's a bit violent, isn't it? Maybe you've been watching the wrong kind of films.'

'Instead of spending half the night zapping people on your computer, you mean.'

Joe looks wronged, which seems all the more unreasonable when he says 'I'd better get back to it.'

'Thanks for being the postman,' I feel bound to say as I close my door.

I slough the quilt onto the bed and take the package to my desk. As I search for the end of the parcel tape I notice that the tape is rucked up, exposing a crooked line of staples, all of which are loose. Has somebody opened the parcel? Perhaps Customs examined it on its way from Quebec. I wrench the envelope wide, and the padding begins to shed grey matter. I drag the sash up and shake the pulp out of the window rather than attempt to catch it with my bin. The envelope contains a small book wrapped in a French-language newspaper. ANARCHIE! a headline declares, approvingly or otherwise. I stuff paper and envelope into the bin on the way to taking my prize to bed.

It doesn't look like much, even for an old paperback. While the plain cover may once have been pink or brown, it's so scuffed that it's hardly coloured. I could imagine that someone has tried to erase the author's name, which I almost misread as Monster. The title page makes it clearer that I'm holding Surrealistes Malgre Eux by Estelle Montre, published by Editions Nouvelle Annee of Paris. I was hoping it might be illustrated, but it contains neither pictures nor an index. I'm leafing through it in search of Tubby Thackeray when I realise all the margins are blank.

Though it wasn't a selling point, the copy was supposed to have been annotated. When I tilt the book towards the window I can just distinguish traces of words pencilled on the first page of a chapter, in a script so tiny it suggests furtiveness. Who would have rubbed them out? The remains of a word are almost legible at the foot of the page: fate, perhaps, or fete. The rest of the column of erased words is indecipherable, which is all the more frustrating when the page mentions Thackeray – in fact, it may be all about him.

The chapter is entitled The Far Side of Comedy, but that's as much as I'm able to translate. I need help from the computer. I step into yesterday's underpants and grab a towel from the rickety wardrobe and dodge into the communal bathroom as a preamble to work. A misshapen whitish cake of soap, which bears an indentation like the mark of a large printless thumb, blocks the plughole of the bath. An elongated sock lies beside the piebald toilet, and a sodden towel that looks discoloured with some kind of makeup is huddled behind the door. The mirror above the sink is so variously grubby that I can't focus on my reflection. The unchained solitary plug is nesting in the sink, and I stop up the bath with it for the duration of a shower. I stay no longer than I absolutely have to, and hear Joe's computer chirruping like an electronic caged bird as I sprint back to my room. I lock the door and am still dressing when I switch on my computer.

The search engine brings me a free site called Frenglish. I type the opening of the chapter in the window,