'Don't worry, I had fun all day. I hope you will for the rest of it. It's our first New Year's Eve, remember.'
I was wondering if she has been celebrating and with whom. Perhaps that's unfair, since she has to drive soon. I'm about to tell her at least some of this when she says 'Where's Mark?'
'Deep in his labyrinth last time I checked.'
'Which in everyday language is...'
'Playing his game,' I translate as he opens his bedroom door.
I make myself face him. His smile outdoes mine, but I'm not sure what that means. 'All right, Mark?' I risk asking.
'What wasn't?' Natalie says at once.
'There was a bit of a row, wasn't there, Mark? That's to say I made one. Some kind of virus has got onto my computer and turned my work into rubbish.'
'Oh, Simon, no. I'm so sorry.'
If I were still confused I could imagine she's apologising for infecting the computer. 'It doesn't matter,' I assure her. 'I told you, Colin and Rufus will have it all. They can copy it back to me.'
'Did you scan for the virus?'
'It's gone.' Though the programme Joe installed didn't identify it, the downturned mouth of the token face on the circular icon was transformed into a broad smile to the sound of a peal of electronic bells. 'I only wish I could have sent it back where it came from.'
'Have you any idea where?'
'Someone who's been trying to undermime my reputation ever since I started writing about Tubby. Undermine, I mean.'
I follow this with a laugh, but perhaps Natalie doesn't notice. 'Who?' she says.
'I don't know yet. I'm hoping the university can track them down. The kind of monster the Internet lets loose, or maybe it creates them. See, Mark, I've been fighting monsters too.'
'I've been watching Tubby.'
Since I apologised for blaming him for the gibberish on my computer I've been hearing gleeful laughter from his room. It sounded so maniacal and mechanical I ascribed it to some kind of monster. It can only have been in his game, which he must have replaced with the disc containing Tubby's stage performance. Nevertheless I'm glad when Natalie interrupts my thoughts by saying 'If you men will excuse me, I'm going to have a shower and get changed.'
Mark hurries back into his room and I return to my desk. There's no email from my publishers. When I phone the office yet again I'm answered by the same routine about the turn of the year. Nobody could have diverted my chapters, but I'm still trying to gain some objective assurance – however unlikely, given the date and the lateness of the hour – when Natalie reappears in an elegant black dress and matching stole. As she brings herself up to date with an overcoat she says 'Everyone ready for the occasion?'
As much as I'm likely to be, I am. Mark is a good deal more eager. He emerges from his room as silent as he's been in there, but with a smile he may not have let down since he went in. He's hurrying to call the lift when Natalie says 'Our neighbours send their best, Simon.'
'Which are those?'
'The ones you were wondering about,' she says and points at the door opposite.
For a grotesque moment I think she's including the baby I saw jerking like a spider on a fattened thread. 'The parents, you mean.'
'Hardly.' She looks as if I've made a tasteless joke and says no more until we're at the lift. 'Not unless they adopt, and they didn't give me the impression they wanted to,' she murmurs. 'They're a couple, but they're men.'
'They can't have any babies,' Mark giggles as the metal door slides back.
Amid my bewilderment I can find only one question, however inadequate. 'What are they called?'
'Mr Stilton,' Mark says as if he's struggling to contain an explosion of mirth.
I manage not to comment until we're all in the grey box. 'A big cheese, is he? How does he smell?'
'Simon.'
I ignore Natalie's rebuke, not least because she appears secretly amused. 'What's his boyfriend's name?'
'Mr Meese,' Natalie says like a challenge.
I'm trying to decode whatever joke is hidden in the name when the lift opens on the basement car park. One of the pallid lights – I can't locate which – is flickering like a bloodless pulse. Shadows twitch the Punto as if it's no less anxious to be off than Mark. Even Natalie seems to be losing patience with me as she turns to enquire 'Aren't you with us?'
As I venture out of the lift I grasp an explanation. 'Are you sure they weren't just visitors?'
'Very. They've been here for years before we moved in.'
'Then they must have had some recently. Of course, for Christmas.'
'Nothing odd about that, is there? Who?'
'A woman with her baby.'
'That would be odd.'
'Don't get in yet,' I urge, because I don't want her delaying the answer to 'Why would it?'
'I told you,' she says and further frustrates me by adding 'In you go, Mark.'
'Can I sit in front?'
'Go ahead,' I exhort, but I'm speaking as much to his mother. 'I don't know what you told me. Why? Tell me why.'
'For heaven's sake, Simon.' She says nothing else until Mark shuts his door. 'They don't like children, especially not where they live,' she murmurs. 'They said Mark is an exception because he's so quiet, ha ha.'
Some kind of response tugs at my lips as Natalie ducks into her seat. When she calls to me I give up staring at a wall that flickers like a screen awaiting an image and take my place in the back of the car. She must be wrong or misinformed, but what does that mean our neighbours are up to? It will need investigating in the New Year. Just now my mind can't accommodate any further confusion – it's clenched around the need to preserve what I wrote about Tubby, an account that nobody else may ever be able to write. 'Wake me when we get there,' I say, because I don't want to spend the journey in anticipation of passing the night at her parents' house. They must be why I dread what's in store, and they're quite enough. As the Punto coasts up the ramp into the glittering monochrome night I do my best to take refuge in my own dark.
FORTY-EIGHT - RENTNOMORE
'Are you awake? Are you awake, Simon? We're there.'
Tubbysfilms, Tub is fill ms, Tub if ill ms, Tubby Thatstheway, Tub it hack a way?This and more of the same is all I've been able to think since we left home. I prise my eyelids open to see that we're in the park. How many tents have risen behind all the foliage? No, they're varieties of houses on a private road. Squat shapes and much taller ones throw their shadows on a broad white housefront. By the time I've established that the shadows belong to shrubbery and evergreens, the Punto has turned along the devious drive towards the house, which a sign names Rentnomore. 'Do you like it, Simon?' Mark persists.
I might find it more appealing if it weren't his grandparents' property. To the left of the door decorated with a festive wreath are two large curtained rooms. Two further sets of rooms and two smaller windows above the door mount to a rakish grey slate roof. The drive winds around the side of the house, but Natalie parks between her parents' vehicles in front. 'Most imposing,' I tell Mark and step onto prickly gravel.
As Bebe opens the door the thorns of the wreath click like eager fingernails against the oak. 'Now everyone's here,' she cries.
'So long as Mr L is,' Warren shouts.
Are they determined to welcome me or just to convince Natalie that they're trying their hardest? Did Warren call me Mr Hell? Bebe gestures us in with no lessening of enthusiasm when it comes to me. 'Don't be shy,' she
