Prelude To A Certain Midnight

seldom went out without his wife, Oonagh, who was somewhat youngei than himself.

He always wore glasses, never wore a hat, was getting bald, and had a noticeably delicate way of politely insinuating himself into your company. There seemed to be no harm in the little man.

But Oonagh was a good deal taller than her husband; she went in for conspicuous hats, and spoke in an affected way. Winter and summer she wore some sort of fur — in the winter a mink-marmot coat somewhat the worse for wear — in the summer the pieced-together bits of some sliced-up mink, real mink in a strip about three inches wide and two feet long. Oonagh publicly despised her husband. She laughed at the things he said. When he wanted to tell a story, her great glottal laugh sucked it away like a rusty pump, leaving the poor little man high and dry. It was easy to see that she dominated him — hated him, yet had no idea of how to live without him. As for her husband, a schoolgirl might perceive that she was a burden to him but that he needed her, as a buzzer needs a battery. Or he was afraid of her.

Such a man, it might be argued, would look for some way to make the most of his manhood. He might do evil in order to keep it locked up in his heart — to be able to smile to himself occasionally, between midnight and dawn.

‘You think I’m nobody,’ he would say, inside himself. ‘I am not nobody. I’m dangerous, but you’ll never know.’

Asta remembered that a little man not unlike Mr Scripture had been convicted of firing ricks not far from where she had lived thirty years before. He was a tailor with a club-foot, appropriately nicknamed ‘Rabbits’; he really did look remarkably like a rabbit escaped from a snare, hopping and lamely bobbing, twitching its poor little nose. A convicted poacher had been suspected, but at the last moment Rabbits came forward with the pride of hell in his eyes and the terror of the magistrate in his quavering voice, and confessed, oflering incontrovertible evidence against himself. Asked why he had put a match to three haystacks, Rabbits had replied: ‘Because I wanted to.’

Rabbits had been married to a big, noisy wife — like Crippen, or like Scripture. Mr Scripture might easily have killed Sonia Sabbatani. Asta could see the little man, prim and respectable, coming home an hour or two late on a foggy afternoon. Out comes Oonagh, sloppy in a sweaty old rayon dressinggown, stuffing back into place a pale, pear-shaped breast, tightening her girdle, at the same time screaming: ‘Where have you been?’ Delayed by the fog, Oonagh dear. ‘— And I suppose you expect me to sit and wait for you? Open yourself a tin of salmon, my Lord- and-Master, and bring me up a cup of tea when you’ve finished. And mind you wash the plate. I’ve got a pain. I’m lying down. You and your Fog! Ach, you shrimp!’

And Mr Scripture with a couple of words of cringing acquiescence goes to the kitchen and puts on the kettle … and smiles at the dirty dishes. The kettle sings and bubbles; and so does his heart… .

Why not?

Or why not Graham Strindberg? He was a plunger into strange depths. He believed that there was a God, and that there was a Devil. But not knowing exactly how things stood he did not like to commit himself. Graham Strindberg saw everything from every viewpoint, all at the same time; and he saw himself as a self-supporting state, beautifully mountainous, elegantly painted with sunsets, traditionally neutral. He was a little Switzerland in an embattled universe. Equally protected, the agents of heaven and of hell sunned themselves by the placid lakes of his retirement. He was neutral territory, where the saints and the demons were all one, as long as they did not assert themselves by daylight.

Yet what queer contracts might be mace under the blanket of the dark?

Good is a gentleman; Evil is a cad — a gentleman gone wrong. Good is a dog; Evil is a fox. Good, as a gentleman, tries to think well of the watchful enemy; but Evil knows all the tricks.

Given a certain midnight (thought Asta), such neutral territory might find itself possessed by the Powers of Evil. Shame and remorse might come with the daylight… but a scrangled child would still be lying with a blackened face in a rotting house… .

Impossible, impossible! cried the daytime mind of Asta Thundersley. Why impossible? asked the scavenging intelligence of the dark. What has lie done that is good? What has he done that is evil? He can fly into a rage. To which Side Of The Fron tier does his anger belong?

Asta shook her head. Rain was falling: dawn was far away. She made herself some tea. The kitchen was warm: the stove was a good one — it never went out, and one dirty little shovelful of coke kept its fire alive for a day and a night. This was a comforting thought. So much kindly warmth out of a handful of slaggy cinders! Putting her elbows on the table she fitted her resolute chin into the cup of her joined hands. She was calmer now, and drowsy; almost at peace.

If Asta had closed her eyes then she might have fallen asleep; but she opened them and saw, on the lowest rack of the dresser, a large oval dish, biscuit-coloured and patterned in high relief. This dish had not been used upstairs for many years. The pattern crept in and out around a lobster.

Mothmar! said Asta, starting up. The body of the lobster resembled Mothmar’s nose, and the extended claws his eyebrows. Mothmar Acord had a baked, glazed, pitted face — a dish-shaped face, discoloured by oriental suns and high fevers, and distorted by unholy passions. The oval dish might have been Mothmar’s head on a pillow — only the mouth was not there. His mouth was difficult to describe and impossible to forget. The upper lip was a Cupid’s bow: the lower was sucked away so that it radiated wrinkles like the ribs of a fan. Under heavy brows like frayed packing-string, his murderous little blue eyes stared you out of countenance and then withdrew into spider webs of wrinkles while the mouth smiled downwards. He had lived most of his life in the tropics; drank soberly for hours, and then suddenly got drunk and pinched you viciously, always smiling. Mothmar had the air of a man gone rotten without ripening, in too much sunshine — the kind of sunshine from which a man tries to hide, and so goes yellow and decays.

Why not Mothmar Acord? Why not?

But if it comes to the matter of that, why not Sinclair Wensday? There was a pleasant fellow, tall and popular, well-spoken, well-mannered, generous, and good-looking in that tired, dissipated way which makes women interested. Sometimes he was gloomy: sometimes he was hilarious — it was whispered that Sinclair Wensday took drugs — he had what they call a ‘cocaine personality’. Nothing was proved. It was known that he had had love affairs with two or three girls of the neighbourhood. Men wondered how Sinclair Wensday could have anything to do with anyone but his wife, Avril, who was extremely beautiful. Women wondered how Avril could have anything to do with any man but Sinclair, who, they were agreed, was terribly attractive. He looked like Galahad gone to the devil. When she was sullen and quiet Avril might have sat to a painter of biblical pictures: she was a martyr with dull red hair and half-closed eyes, seeing Paradise between the bars of black lashes. Then, when she smiled — which was seldom — she looked like a whore. Everybody knew that Avril and her husband loved each other. Yet they could not live together — they separated for ever about four times a year. Sinclair Wensday would come into the Bar Bacchus with wild eyes, his collar unbuttoned, and a drying scratch on his cheek. He would look left and right with desperate