The Grin of the Dark

other peoples to help if they don't want to, but I would have thought that anyone who cares for Tubby's films might like to see them more widely appreciated. As for stupid tricks, let's hope we hear no more of them. If anybody takes them further it should be the victim.

I'm about to post the message when I delete the final line. It isn't worth preserving if it might bring Charley Tracy more harassment; indeed, I should have asked him whether the call he received in the churchyard proved to be a trick. I send the revised version and take the chance while I'm online to make sure no fresh information about Tubby has shown up on the net. His first name does take me to an unfamiliar site, but a glimpse of that is enough. It offers the spectacle of corpulent performers in a variety of positions, their naked bodies glistening with greyish light as they flop over one another. I close the window hastily, to be confronted by the underlying one – the message board for Tubby's film. I stare at it as if to conjure up a response to my posting, and seem to be rewarded by an unexpected but welcome interruption: the sound of a key in the lock.

'Well, that's the best kind of surprise,' I call as the door shuts. 'Do you want to get naughty while there's nobody around?' Presumably Natalie hasn't much to do at work before she starts next week at Arts About, a name I would have expected her mother to question if not worse. 'Come along, little girl. I've got a little present here for you. Actually, it's not so little any more,' I say and, having risen to my feet with some pleasurable difficulty, shuffle from behind the desk as she advances down the hall. But she isn't Natalie, she's Bebe Halloran.

FIFTEEN - MOM IS RELENTLESS

She's the next best thing to a cold shower, but I retreat to my chair in case the remains of my state are apparent. It's my top half Bebe gazes at across the desk. Her chubby face has turned paler, inflaming her freckles and even seeming to intensify the redness of her bobbed hair. As she plants her hands on her hips I blurt 'Sorry, didn't realise it was you.'

'I should hope not.'

Should I have leavened the remark with a laugh? I try one with 'I thought I was talking to Natalie.'

'I should hope so.'

She doesn't look remotely as approving as her words might seem. She holds me with her gaze as she sinks onto the flaccid leather couch, and I'm compelled to add 'It's just our joke.'

Her face relaxes for a second, but only to frown afresh. 'What are you doing here, Simon?'

'Working.'

'I should hope so.'

She's beginning to sound like a tape until she stares at my desk. 'I'm asking you why you're here and that is.'

'You've got one of your investments back. There's room for a student in Egham.'

'And when were you planning to let us know?'

'I've only just moved out. My rent's paid up to the end of the month. I wasn't going to ask for any back.'

'I should hope not. We need a month's notice.'

I'm close to enquiring whether that applies to members of the family, but I say 'You gave me that.'

'Excuse me, I said no such thing.'

'Your husband did last time he was in my room. Where's Sniffer today? At home having a sniff?'

Bebe stiffens with a leathery creak I'm tempted to attribute to her rather than the couch. 'What are you saying about my husband?'

'He said you wanted to get rid of me by the end of the year.'

'That's a flaky way to put it,' Bebe says and stares harder. 'Not that. What did you call him?'

'I was talking about Sniffer. That's your bitch, isn't it?'

'If you mean our dog she's called Morsel.'

'Warren must have been having a joke.' At whose expense, I wonder, which provokes me to demand 'What kind of a name is that?'

'It's the opposite of what she eats. That's the joke,' Bebe says as she stands up. 'Where do you need driving to? I can fit those in the Shogun.'

'That won't be necessary, thanks,' I'm to some extent amused to tell her.

'I was only looking in to check if Natalie needs anything from the supermarket. I can wait if you have work to finish,' Bebe says. 'May I see?'

I'm making to cover up my response to Smilemime when I realise that I would be doing so with the site for obese sex. By now Bebe and her aggressively sweet perfume are at my shoulder. 'That doesn't look much like work,' she says.

'You don't think my reputation is worth defending.'

'I guess that might take some work. Is this how you spend your day?' Bebe says as she reads further up the thread. 'I see, you're advertising for information. Will you be doing research of your own?'

'Obviously. Here's just the latest,' I say with perhaps the last of my restraint and click the mouse.

Have I called up the wrong page in my haste? For a moment I'm sure Bebe is about to see fat naked bodies tumbling in slow motion over one another. No, I've brought up Willie Hart's email, at which Bebe peers for quite some time. Eventually she says 'So you'll be travelling. Where are you going to be till then?'

'Here.' I don't believe she was in any doubt of it, and I immediately regret adding 'I thought Natalie might have said.'

Bebe turns her back and marches into the kitchen to open the refrigerator. 'Looks like I had a wasted journey,' she says as she returns, but her pace suggests that isn't all she's thinking. She halts halfway across the room as if she wants to keep the sight of me at a distance. 'If she didn't tell us she'd taken you in,' she says, 'maybe you should wonder what she may not have told you.'

'I think she'd tell me anything I want to know.'

'And has there been much of that recently?'

'Nothing I haven't been told,' I say with all the conviction I can muster.

'You're being very modern, I must say. I wouldn't expect it of her father.'

I want to ignore the cue, but I have to ask 'What wouldn't you?'

'Have you really not made the connection? I thought a researcher would.'

'If it was important I don't believe you'd be playing games.' 'If it were, Simon. Good grief, you're supposed to be a writer.' Bebe presses her lips together, webbing them in extra wrinkles, before she says 'What do you feel you're providing for my daughter and my grandson?'

'Would love do?'

'Would it do what? We love them more than anything else we've got, and that's why we've supported them whenever they need it. Can you?'

'There are more kinds of support than just financial, and besides – '

'You bet there are, and you won't find us lacking in any of them. But it didn't seem like you had many to offer when she lost her job because of stuff she didn't write.'

'We're past that now. We've survived it together. I've had my advance from my publisher and she's got her new job.'

'That doesn't bother you.'

'Tell me why on earth it should.'

'I don't know if I'd like Warren to be so laid back. I guess some men don't dare to be too masculine these days.'

My skull is buzzing with impulses, one of which threatens to bare my teeth in a mirthless grin. It feels as if the expression is trying to fasten on my face as I say 'I can't imagine why you think I ought to be upset if an old friend has helped her find a better job. I'm happy for her and I'm grateful to him.'

Bebe takes a breath like a sigh in reverse. 'If I have to be crude for once to make my point, that's how it works. Do you really think that's all he's given her?'

'You're right, that's pretty damned crude. I didn't realise you imagined things like that about your own