Prelude To A Certain Midnight

away from mankind and feared a defiant reply. A bus conductor, a taxi-driver, a shop walker, or a beggar in the street could abash him with a nonchalant rejoinder. He dreaded the rough, rude answer. For this reason, as he was well aware, he was invariably kind and gentle with people; full of understanding. He had almost persuaded himself that there was a good deal of the saint in him. All the same, he knew that if he could have had his way some insolent man or woman would have gone crashing down with splintered teeth more often than he could remember.

No, he could not actually lead men. But he could, he was convinced, have been a power behind a leader … if he could have cultivated a certain courage of the subtle Machiavellian sort. But all his courage, Machiavellian or animal, was a dream dreamed in a furnished room in front of a gas lire. Black armour? He would not have the strength to walk in armour, black or white, to the end of the street. As for the high-stepping white horse, he would be afraid to lay his hand on the pommel of its saddle. If he could have brought himself to sit astride the humblest old hack of a horse, he would have patted its neck with an uncertain hand and said: ‘There, there, poor old fellow,’ like Mr Winkle. He did not even have a pale set face — except when he saw himself in a glass in the privacy of his bedsitting-room.

Yet he felt that he could have been a Leader, a Liberator; given luck.

30

He was constantly thinking of everything, and of nothing. There was such a woolly hood of preoccupation over the eyes and ears of this man that occasionally he seemed to be blind and deaf — the absent-minded uncle with his ‘_Ha! Where was I?_’ and ‘_Uh? What was that again?_’ Once, visiting a newlymarried friend who had set up house on the fifth floor of a block of flats, he fell into a typical state of abstraction… .

He saw himself as married to his friend’s wife and installed in this apartment. His wife found him somehow unsatisfactory: she took a lover. He knew that she had her lover, but said nothing. He was the quiet man, the Watcher by Night — he could wait. Oh, he knew all about the agonized embraces, the desperate meetings and anguished partings! He knew. But he could wait. He was the Schemer, the Patient One. At last the moment was his. There came a fragrant night in late spring. The sittingroom window faced westward. Clouds like Spanish knives had shaved red slices out of the grey-blue sky. Nana was in the bathroom. ‘Ah, dear, dear!’ he murmured, ‘look at the grey of the pavement below! Look.’ (There was little time to lose.) ‘Look at the people like ants below — down there, just look!’

And then a quick stoop — hands to the ankles, heave up, thrust out hard; and back to the easy chair, flipping over the pages of an album as the cistern went Ha-hoosh and the lady came back with an air of abstraction… .

Calm, brother, calm, in anticipation of the buzz and twitter from below! ‘Where’s Tom?’ The Murderer is bewildered: ‘Here, surely?’

Then the scream; the stampede in the passage, and the thumb squeezing the life out of the battery of the electric bell.

‘He fell, sir — fell down, smack at my feet!’

‘Now take it easy. He fell at your feet. Then what? You looked where? Upwards? You did. And you saw what? What did you say? You “sort of saw the gentleman take a jump”? Think again, my friend. The gentleman was looking out of the window while I was in the room. Come, now — “take a jump”, you say. Let’s get this clear. Are you telling us the gentleman jumped out of the window?’

‘Yes, sir: that’s how it looked to me.’

‘I ran scarcely credit this, my friend…. No, no, Nana — please don’t look! One thing only — one very little thing — how long were you in the bathroom?’

‘A few minutes; not more than four or five: probably less than five minutes.’

‘Pray be calm, my dear — relax and be calm, my dear!’

He, the deceived husband, was wet with anguish. Nana was looking at him: she knew! He gave her a look out of the lefthand oorners of his eyes, indicating that he knew she knew. Then her eyes changed: she worshipped him… .

‘A penny for your thoughts,’ said his host.

The Murderer stared. ‘_Hah?_’ Then he laughed, and the company laughed with him — that dreamer, that man of dreams. Nana was rubbing her cheek against her husband’s shoulder.

‘Oh-oh, please, please excuse me,’ the Murderer said. ‘I seem to go into a trance these days. Do please forgive me…’

A roar of laughter, a replenishment of glasses, a slapping of shoulders, an offering of sandwiches. But the Murderer wanted ti go home and dream some dreams. … He was still blinking in his dazed way.

‘What a dreamy fellow you are!’ said his host.

Soon he excused himself, saying that he had some work to do, and walked slowly homewards. He resented a spatter of rain that forced him to run for a bus. How can a man dream dreams while he is running? Still, it would never do to get his suit wet. His grey suit was the only presentable one he possessed.

When he had gone the others talked about him. The newlymarried wife said: ‘I suppose he’s all right, but I’m not sure that I like him.’

‘Why, what’s the matter with him?’

‘I don’t know. Nothing, I suppose. I don’t know what it is, but somehow there’s just something… I don’t know what… something creepy about him.’

‘Creepy? What, him? Oh come, come, darling! He wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

‘I didn’t say he would. I only said that he gave me the creeps — why, goodness knows. It’s just a feeling.’

‘You know what it is? It’s that dreamy look of his,’ said a girl named Muriel, ‘like a zombie.’

‘And what’s a zombie?’

‘Isn’t it a sort of walking corpse?’