‘A costume party?’
‘Nineteenth century servant clothing, with breeks and shirt. Some kind of pastoral theme. I’d say he’s just about to put on a mask, and mingle with his betters.’
He paused as the television showed a coral reef, darting yellow fish.
‘Oh, you know who he looks like? Our other houseguest.’
‘Daniel?’
‘Is that his name? I can’t keep track you know. They come and go, ebb and flow. Like tidal creatures. I love them all, even the naughty ones who don’t pay their bills and do a flit into the night. There’s always some reason for that,’ he said, looking at the space to my left. ‘We should never judge someone’s actions too severely, if it does no real harm to anybody.’
‘Minto,’ I asked, ‘I hope you don’t mind if I call you Minto?’
He folded his hands and nodded, smiling again. ‘Nobody calls me anything else these days.’
‘How,’ I asked, ‘how can I make this other guest more comfortable? It’s just – he’s always with me, I think. But I don’t really know what he wants.’
‘Och, I think he should tell you himself what he wants,’ Minto said.
‘I’m so tired,’ I said to myself.
‘Then that’s a sign you should be resting more than you are,’ he replied. ‘You’re wasting your good looks, and it’s a national tragedy.’
Presentation
When I didn’t say anything, he went on. ‘Now, the thing about your guest is, he’s the sort who got me into trouble back in my younger days. Just after my wife – you know, at the university, in the hall when I took tours, I was a fair public speaker then and the stories amused until, well – admin changes, a brisk new air comes in and the faculty start to talk – I made too many of the others alarmed, and they needn’t have been. I told them who and what, the old desks and the furled beasts sitting on them, the room with the cold always in it was from the ladies, you see – but nobody wanted to be told that. I had to get the train up every day for the commute, and the bus. And trains are full of that sort. Buses less so – but you see them, sometimes, from the windows – standing mournfully in the fields, resting on old ploughs, pipe smoke, staring at me as I rushed past, since they always seem to sense it – too long without the human kindnesses, I think . . .’ He trailed off. ‘I used to scream and shout and get all red in the face. I used to write to people, ‘What’s this all about, please help me, I will kill myself if I can’t find the solution.’ Well, that all falls away, eventually. Madness, they said. Lots of small pills and time on the West Sands walking Bonxie. By the time I’d settled in for the hard weather and grown to like it, you know, I would even wish I could have made a decent career out of it, become an expert, but there’s no legitimacy in that area of study. I’ve read an inordinate number of books and I can tell you, there are too many cranks. Their own worst enemies, some folk. Too little rigour of testing and analysis. I was always for hard science where it needed to be, with a coat of softness for palatability, not the other way around . . .’
He trailed off again. In the silence I got up and made us tea. He held the mug in his red hands, wincing a little.
‘It’s not for me to go and change an entire discipline, or create some kind of hybrid new one. I see that now. And early retirement, and tea on the train up there for the last time, I spilled all over my nice white shirt. Piteous looks at my final address to students – ah well, all behind me now. You see I have no bitterness, not at all. I just need to be quieter, more than I am, cautious towards anyone who might not understand. That’s why there are always ones like you in the house, sort of a reassurance. Very kind of Badr to go and get you for me. Ah, but I’m off on a tangent now. I go on a bit. Sorry. Not so used to talking and it all comes out in a dramatic monologue. What did you ask me again?
‘About the other one.’
‘Mm,’ he said. ‘He wants to tell you something terribly important. But he looks like the kind of man who struggled to speak all his days. I had lots of students like that. If only there was such a thing as patience in this day and age. But while we have made many advances, that has become quite old fashioned.’
He sipped his tea. ‘It doesn’t tell you a thing about his character, mind you, the shyness. Did I ever tell you about the time I threw a desk out the window? Only a small one. It killed a man walking below in the street.’
Finding
I went to my room and got ready to go out. I was going to take the diary to Mark, I fully intended it. But first I needed to go somewhere where no one else was and clear my brain and work out – the right thing to say. The thing that would not make Mark believe I was insane – it could get back to Cloudberry, easily. It could do any number of things to harm my career. I would not like to find myself turning into a Minto before the age of thirty.
I would ask him about his cologne another time. It was really very nice.
Tears in my eyes again as I put fresh gym gear in the bag. Why? I yelled
