English food weren’t good enough for them. On the road that encircled the park, lamps lit trees from beneath. Was that the blonde girl ahead, or a man? Horridge plunged his hands deep among his documents, to try to warm his fingers. Before he could overtake the figure, it disappeared.
He knew when he reached the house where he’d seen the two men, for he’d observed the number; nobody could say his vision wasn’t sharp. Besides, the van which he had vaguely noticed was outside: a battered vehicle painted with large cartoonish flowers. Whoever was responsible had no idea what real flowers looked like. No doubt that was the fault of all their drugs.
He was staring at the parody of a flower when light reached out from the house towards him, and displayed a face.
The light came from curtains parting: no reason for his fists to clench. But the face which the window displayed as though it was something to admire was the face of the hefty effeminate man. It looked even more mask-like now. It turned as if searching the dark road, then faced Horridge.
Suddenly he realised how he looked, standing beneath the lamp as though waiting to be seen, while the sly corrupt mask hunted eagerly. Shivering, his face frozen by rage and the night into an expression which he could not read, he limped violently away.
The lights of Sefton Park Road dazzled him, but could not clear his mind. The face at the window clung to his memory; it lay on his thoughts, close and heavy. His skin felt prickly, nervous. He had seen that face earlier, outside the house. But where – his thoughts struggled vainly, as though in a dream – had he seen it before?
Chapter II
Before Cathy was halfway upstairs she was running. Somewhere in her pocket, amid the clumsy bundle of iced sticks that were her fingers, was the key. She poked the time-switch outside the flat and aimed the key; it was like trying to thread a needle while wearing gloves. The god of frozen fingers was on her side, for she managed to turn the key before the light clicked off.
She nudged the door shut with her shoulder, which felt like a huge lump, as though she were Quasimodo made of ice. A tiny Charles Laughton went swinging away in her mind, shouting “Sanctuary, sanctuary.” She ran to light the fire and squatted before it on the floorboards. Sanctuary much. God, her puns were getting worse.
The flames rose in their cage. As the bars turned orange, her body thawed and grew familiar; she wasn’t Quasimodo with fat unwieldy fingers after all. Christmas cards had fallen from the kite’s-tail display on the dangling tapes over the mantelpiece; she stuck them into place. She drew the curtains and began to tidy the room.
She picked up Peter’s sweater, which was lolling on the bed. He must have come home and gone out again. She collected the sprawl of his comic books from the round Scandinavian table and stacked them on top of the storage units. Books and a Tangerine Dream record occupied the chairs, as though keeping all his places. She put them away, sighing. It would be nice if he occasionally did more than empty ashtrays.
Today was macrobiotic day. This week she was going to make a vegetable curry. She hoped it would work. She cooked, adding more or less what the recipe indicated, tasting constantly.
Somewhere beyond the kitchen window a man was croaking. At last she made out that the word was “Rags, rags.” He sounded like a throaty old night-bird. But wasn’t it late for a rag-and-bone man to be calling? Perhaps he was searching for a lost dog.
Footsteps clumped upstairs. She heard Peter opening the door. “What’s for dinner?” he called.
“ Vegetable curry.”
Silence. A little encouragement would do her no harm. “Are you home?” she called.
More silence. Redundant questions made him irritable. But he might have been going out again, for all she knew.
“ The old arse-bandit was after me today,” he said loudly as he closed the door.
“ Peter!” Why must he be so eager to shock? Mr Craig might have heard him. Perhaps Peter had wanted him to hear, or perhaps he didn’t care.
“ He can’t get enough, that guy. He’ll end up leaving boys tied up in cupboards.”
“ You shouldn’t joke about that sort of thing.”
“ Who’s joking?” He strolled into the kitchen, pulling off his black wool cap. Dark straggly hair flopped over his shoulders. She must trim it soon, despite his protests. “He’ll be keeping them in his wardrobe soon,” he said. “Maybe he already is.”
He often trapped himself in his own jokes – carried on until they ceased to be funny, if they ever had been. It was as though he couldn’t find his way out, and it annoyed both of them. “Were you really speaking to Mr Craig?” she said, to help.
“ You mean the arse-bandit? Right on. We had a really intimate conversation.”
“ What about?”
“ What do you think? Can I please turn down that nasty rock and roll? I play it so late, and it’s so noisy. Not nice music like Beethoven.”
“ He didn’t really say all that,” Cathy said, half-convinced by the gist if not the wording.
“ He wanted me to turn the fucking records down.”
For a moment she felt as though his unexpected violence were directed at her. “You ought to buy some headphones,” she suggested.
“ Save up for them instead of buying comics.”
“ No way. Comics are an investment. I just got a new Swamp Thing and a whole stack of Fantastic Fours by Jack Kirby.” Perhaps he was fleeing that subject when he added “I’ll tell you what was weird – there was some weirdo watching me and Craig.”
That was all he seemed interested in telling her. “There was a man watching me in the library,” she said, mocking the hint of mystery in her words.
“ Yeah?” He sounded indifferent, restless.
“ The man with the limp. He came in the week you were working there. The one who limps. You know.”
“ No, I don’t. That’s why you’re telling me.”
He knew she couldn’t describe people, the pig. “There was a rag-and-bone man out there before,” she said: that seemed a better anecdote. “This little voice calling ‘Rags, rags.’ Or maybe he was calling his dog.” But Peter looked bored. She was glad when someone knocked at the door.
“ Ben and Celia have split up,” Peter said.
But they’d been married less than a year. News like that disturbed her, yet he’d announced it as though it were the weather forecast. Before she could begin the struggle of questioning him, he’d let in Anne and Sue.
“ Can we borrow your phone?” Anne said. “There’s supposed to be some good dope around.”
They must have heard him coming home: they wouldn’t have asked Cathy. Of course it was silly to be nervous – the phone wasn’t tapped.
Sue wandered into the kitchen, smoking a joint. “Oh, hello,” she said as if she couldn’t quite place Cathy. Eventually she doled out a question. “Been to the library today?”
No, she’d been pouring boiling oil on people’s heads. “Yes,” she said curtly. She disliked intruders in her kitchen. She refused the joint and said “Will you ask Peter to empty the bin?”
When Peter appeared, he plainly resented being asked in front of the girls. But he grabbed the bin, and shouted to Anne “Ask if there’s any acid.”
Cathy hoped there wasn’t. Grass she didn’t mind so much, but LSD dismayed her. In the park Peter had cried “For Christ’s sake don’t leave me” gazing at a crippled decayed branch; his pupils had been swollen and flickering. She wouldn’t take acid; the idea of losing control frightened her. Besides, she’d never seen anyone made more pleasant by a trip, nor any couple grow closer.
Peter returned. “I emptied it in Harty’s bin,” he told the girls. “Old bugger thinks he owns the place.” He
