Then he stood by like an anxious estate agent showing a house, waiting for her reaction, hoping for approval. With his arms extended, he could almost touch both walls, his head nearly touching the ceiling. The den in Helen's eyes was cluttered but reasonably clean, equipped with all the necessities of life, like a fallout shelter prepared for a siege: a few tins of food, two piled-up mattresses, a cupboard on which was pinned, quite incongruously, a bunch of tinsel pinched from the gaudy supply of The Crown, William's latest homemaking attempt, glittering foolishly in the dark.
Helen had a fleeting picture of submarine life, men living in restricted airspace that smelled like this, of bodies and dust and perspiration, a threatened prison bedecked with pathetic tributes to ordinary humanity in an ordinary world.
William regarded her hopefully, his face a question mark, his mind working out why he liked her. Oh, yes, she had not told on him about being in London. Was that it? Something of the kind registered, and, oh, yes, she had a coat she had shown him, pretty. She was old, of course, teacher-old, one of them, but nice. He had longed for adult approval, longed to show this place to someone other than Evie, who visited with intermittent grace and who was frequently critical, rarely admiring. His longing was a version of domestic pride. 'I made all this,' said William, the excitement of the achievement clear in his voice, 'and no one else comes here, except – '
Except Evelyn,' said Helen neutrally. 'Of course she does. William, it's wonderful, really it is. Where did you find all these things? Oh, look at that, you've even got cutlery. You could live here for ever and no one would know.'
The thrill of approbation seemed endless: he shook with it, mumbling in shy embarrassment, remembering again his strange and erratic code of manners. 'Sit, sit. You want tea? Only I got no milk. Plenty sugar but no milk.'
`Black tea, plenty sugar, will do fine.'
He was busy, flustered beyond efficiency, managing nevertheless to heat water on the other arm of the gas camping stove that held the light. He put tea-bags in mugs surprisingly clean, and finally, after providing a running commentary on each of his own movements, brought forth tea of a kind. It tasted as it looked, lukewarm, flavoured in her mind with the smell of butane and the heat of the camping stove, the taste at odds with the last of the red wine. The place had ambience, she decided, suppressing hysteria by concentrating on the tastes in her mouth.
The scents of the room were both domestic and animal. Her wandering imagination, which had lit first on the image of a submarine, dwelt next on the notion of a fox in its lair: William must not be made to feel at bay. With the image of a fox prancing through her mind, her hands curled around the mug and she remembered Mrs Blundell's fingers, thought of her predators, human and animal. She looked at the hulk of William sitting beside her on the makeshift bed, talking as if there were no tomorrow, benign, amiable, dangerous.
I keep my tools in here,' he was saying, eager to display anything and everything there was.
`Do you, now? And did you make the cupboard?'
`Yes, of course.'
`Why do you need so many tools?'
`For making things, of course.' He threw her a look of condescension reserved by males for silly females.
`What things? Can I see them?'
A sigh of exaggerated, completely hypocritical impatience, 'Oh, all right, then, I'spose you can… You won't tell?'
`Why on earth would I tell?'
`Don't know, but you might. They'd laugh.'
I promise I won't tell. And I shan't laugh, either.'
OK.' It had been enough to stroke William's burning impatience to show off his handiwork. He opened the crooked homemade compartments of the cupboard, showing his collection of polystyrene figures, recognizably human but odd. 'I don't do these any more,'
William remarked in passing. Then he revealed things carved in wood; then rings, bangles, and strings of strange glass beads spilled into Helen's hands. 'I like these things best,' he said simply in explanation for their existence. The shelf below this treasure chest held a hand drill, hammer, pliers, mallet, and the dull gleam of a blade.
Helen dragged her gaze to the glitter he held out for her inspection, and even while murmuring in genuine amazement, Oh, William, what's that?' or 'How on earth did you make this?' let her eyes go back to the knife on that shelf, an old horn handle and the pristine blade of a single-edge working knife, settled as comfortably as a carving knife in a kitchen. She admired William's possessions, silently remembering courtroom descriptions of wounds to the throat made by a single-edge knife that was never found. Oh, don't be silly, the world is full of knives. And throats cut within a half-mile of this shed?
William's sharper instincts caught her second glance at the weapon. He reached into the cupboard with the swiftness of a snake and pushed the thing to the back, looked at her in doubtful trust, withdrew it again. 'I saw you looking,' he remarked. 'You may as well see.
Nice, isn't it?'
`Lovely,' said Helen. 'Only I don't like knives much. They frighten me.'
`They don't frighten me,' said William. 'I know what to do with them.'
`What do you do with them?'
Oh, carve things most of the time. And kill people.' This was a boastful shout.
I don't see why anyone would want to do that,' said Helen. I did,' said William, puffing out his chest.
Oh, put the knife away, William. I like the jewels better. Show me some more.' He did as he was asked, anxious again to please, his memory as short as the moment.
Against her will she was impressed and frightened. 'Perhaps you could make things for a living, William. I mean, you could learn how to do all sorts of work… oh, I don't know, carpentry, making pretty things like these. You'd be earning your own money. Wouldn't that be nice? Would you like that?'
Oh, I would, I would.' He looked so vulnerable, like a bull terrier puppy, all pale snout and clumsy power, musclebound brain, confused reactions of confused strength.
`Perhaps you could talk to your dad about that.'
`Perhaps,' he said gruffly. 'But I don't talk to Dad much.' `Why not?'
Evie said not to. She says when I talk I always talk too much, and if I talk too much she won't come here any more, not even on Sundays. Besides, I don't like talking to Dad. I'm no good at it.'
`You need more practice. Then you'd make more sense. You get better at everything if you practise.'
He was not insulted. 'Practice? You mean like I got better at making things by doing it all the time? That's funny. Talking to Dad's not like that.' He laughed, a yelping, snorting sound, unnaturally loud, and she laughed with him.
`No,' she said, 'talking isn't quite like that. But the idea's the same.' Dear God, Bailey, where are you?
But the laughter had stopped, William fallen into a dreadful stillness as sudden and complete as a paralysis. He grabbed her arm, fingers digging into her wrist, face paler than a ghost.
`What is it, William? What is it?'
`Shhh.'
From above their heads there was a whisper of movement, then a silence unnervingly complete. Into the silence crept the sounds of the gathering night, the faint and distant noise of wind in the trees, the tiny whisper of an aeroplane overhead, nothing suggesting an intruder. William loosened his grip on Helen's arm, the puzzled look still stuck to his features, mouth open, eyes wide and clownish, softening into repose. 'S'all right,' he said in a whisper.
`Mices, I think. Keep quiet, though.'
She sat silent and obedient, relaxing slowly, recognizing in him antennae that she did not have and a wariness she could not share. Then, as William opened his slack mouth to speak, there was a flurry of steps, a grunt of effort, the expulsion of breath in one great gasp.
Over their heads the trapdoor slammed into place, knocking aside the ladder and filling the cellar with choking dust and debris. Both of them gasped, retreating to the farthest corner of the room, she upsetting and extinguishing the lamp in the process, he turning off the hiss of the gas in one swoop, actions felt rather than seen
