Текст книги "What a cave up!"

Автор книги: Джонатан Коу

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

‘Do you think it looks suitable?’

‘Sid James and Kenneth Connor. Should be funny.’

Grandpa said this but his real attention, I noticed, was on a picture of a beautiful blonde actress called Shirley Eaton, who was the third star of the film.

‘Certificate U,’ my father pointed out.

Then I shouted, ‘Mum! Mum!’

Her eyes followed my pointing finger. I had found a notice which announced that the supporting film told the story of the Russian space programme, and was called With Gagarin to the Stars. Furthermore, the notice boasted, it was ‘in colour’, although I for one didn’t need this extra inducement. I launched into a routine of wide-eyed supplication, sensing even as I began that it wasn’t really necessary, because my parents had already made up their minds. We joined the queue to buy tickets. When the woman at the ticket desk took a dubious look at me from her lofty enclosure, my hand gripping anxiously on to my father’s, she said, ‘Are you sure he’s old enough?’, and suddenly I experienced the same plummeting misery, the same emotional nausea that I had felt the second I jumped into the unheated swimming-pool. But Grandpa wasn’t having any of this. ‘Just sell us the tickets, woman,’ he said, ‘and mind your own business.’ Someone in the queue behind us giggled. Then we were filing into the dark, musky auditorium and I was sinking deeper and deeper into my seat in a heaven of contentment, Grandma to the left of me, my father to the right.

Six years later, Yuri would be dead, his MiG-15 diving inexplicably out of low cloud and crashing to the ground during an approach to landing. I was old enough by then to have imbibed some of the prevailing distrust of all things Russian, to take notice of the dark mutterings about the KGB and the displeasure my hero may have incurred in his own country for having so charmed the cheering Westerners. Perhaps Yuri really had condemned himself the day he shook hands with all those children at Earl’s Court; and yet it had been them that I wished dead at the time. Whatever the explanation, I can no longer recapture or even imagine the state of innocence in which I must have sat through that afternoon’s artless, stentorian celebration of his achievement. I wish that I could. I wish that he had remained an object of unthinking adoration, instead of becoming another of adulthood’s ubiquitous, insoluble mysteries: a story without a proper ending. I was soon to find out about those.

∗

Just as the lights were going down for the second time, and the censor’s certificate appeared on the screen to announce the beginning of the main feature, my mother leaned over and started whispering across the top of my head.

‘Ted, it’s nearly six o’clock.’

‘What about it?’

‘Well, how long’s this film going to go on?’

‘I don’t know. About ninety minutes, I suppose.’

‘Well then we’ve got to drive all the way back. It’ll be hours past his bedtime.’

‘It won’t matter just this once. It is his birthday, after all.’

The credits had started and my eyes were fixed on the screen. The film was in black and white and the music, although it was not without a certain jokiness, somehow filled me with foreboding.

‘And then there’s dinner,’ my mother whispered. ‘What are we going to do about dinner?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Stop somewhere on the way back.’

‘But then we’ll be even later.’

‘Just sit back and enjoy it, can’t you?’

But I noticed that for the next few minutes, my mother kept leaning towards the light in order to sneak regular glances at her watch. After that I don’t know what she was doing, because I was too busy concentrating on the film.

It told the story of a nervous, mild-mannered man (played by Kenneth Connor) who was startled in his flat late one night by the arrival of a sinister solicitor. The solicitor had come to tell him that his rich uncle had recently died, and that he was required to travel immediately up to Yorkshire, where the reading of the will was to take place at the family home, Blackshaw Towers. Kenneth went up to Yorkshire by train in the company of his friend, a worldly bookmaker (played by Sidney James), and found that Blackshaw Towers was situated on a remote edge of the moors far from the nearest village. Failing to find a taxi, they accepted a lift in a hearse, which left them stranded on the moors in the middle of a dense fog.

When they finally arrived at the house, they could hear the distant howling of dogs.

Sidney said: ‘Not exactly a holiday camp, is it?’

Kenneth said: ‘There’s something creepy about this place.’

The rest of the audience seemed to be finding it funny, but by now I was thoroughly scared. I had never been taken to see anything like this before: although it wasn’t strictly a horror film, the detail was very convincing, and the gloomy atmosphere, dramatic music and perpetual sense that something terrible was about to happen all combined to torment me with a strange mixture of fear and exhilaration. Part of me wanted nothing more than to run out of the cinema into what was left of the daylight; but another part of me was determined to stay until I found out where it was all leading.

Kenneth and Sidney crept into the hallway of Blackshaw Towers, and found that the house was just as eerie as it had looked from the outside. They were met by a gaunt and forbidding butler called Fisk, who led them upstairs and showed them to their rooms. Much to his dismay, Kenneth found himself not only being taken to the East Wing, far away from his friend, but being required to sleep in the very room where his late uncle had died. Soft, unsettling organ music could be heard in the corridor. They went downstairs again and were introduced to the other members of Kenneth’s family: his cousins Guy, Janet and Malcolm, his Uncle Edward, and his mad Aunt Emily, for whom time seemed to have stood still ever since the First World War. Just before the solicitor began reading the will, another woman appeared: a young, blonde and beautiful woman played by the actress Shirley Eaton. She was there because she had nursed Kenneth’s uncle during his final illness. There weren’t enough chairs for everybody to sit around the table, so Kenneth had to balance on Shirley’s knee. He seemed quite pleased about this.

The will was read and it transpired that none of the relatives had been left anything at all: they had been made the victims of a practical joke. They argued with each other bitterly as they began getting ready for bed. Then, suddenly, all the lights in the house went off. By now there was a terrible storm raging outside and Fisk suggested that the generator must have broken down. Kenneth and Sidney volunteered to go with him and investigate. When they reached the shed which housed the generator they found that the machinery had been smashed to pieces. They started going back towards the house, but were amazed to find Uncle Edward sitting on a deck-chair in the middle of the lawn, drenched by the pouring rain.

Sidney said: ‘What’s he sitting out there for?’

Kenneth laughed and said: ‘It’s unbelievable. He’ll catch his death of – death of–’

He gave a violent sneeze, and Uncle Edward fell stiffly off the deck-chair. He was dead.

Kenneth said: ‘Sid … is he?’

Sidney said: ‘Well if he ain’t, he’s a very heavy sleeper.’

There was a terrific thunderclap, and my mother leaned across to my father. She whispered: ‘Ted, come on, let’s go.’

My father was laughing. He said: ‘What for?’

My mother said: ‘It’s not suitable.’

Kenneth said: ‘Well I mean, we can’t leave him round here, can we? Look, let’s put him in the potting shed – it’s over there somewhere.’

There was more audience laughter as Kenneth, Sid and the butler attempted to pick up Uncle Edward’s corpulent body.

Sidney said: ‘Look, it’d be easier to bring the potting shed over to him.’

Even Grandma laughed at that. But my mother just looked at her watch again and my father, perhaps imagining that I might be frightened, ruffled my hair and laid his arm close by, so that I could take hold of it and lean against him.

Kenneth and Sid went back inside and told the rest of the family that Uncle Edward had been killed. Sid tried to telephone the police, only to discover that the line had been cut off. Kenneth said that he was going home, but the solicitor pointed out that the moors were impassable in this weather, and that if he were to leave now, he would be the first to come under suspicion for Edward’s murder. He recommended that everyone should go to bed at once and lock their doors.

Fisk said: ‘It’s only the start of it. There’ll be another one yet, mark my words.’

Sidney said: ‘Good-night, laughing boy.’

Kenneth and Sidney went back upstairs, but then, left to his own devices, Kenneth found it easy to get lost in the rambling old house. He opened the door to what he thought was his bedroom and discovered that it was already occupied by Shirley, wearing only her slip and about to put on a nightgown.

Kenneth said: ‘I say, what are you doing in my room?’

Shirley said: ‘This isn’t your room. I mean, that isn’t your luggage, is it?’

She clutched the nightgown modestly to her bosom.

Kenneth said: ‘Oh, blimey. No. Wait a minute, that’s not my bed, either. I must have got lost. I’m sorry. I’ll – I’ll push off.’

He started to leave, but paused after only a few steps. He turned and saw that Shirley was still holding on to her nightgown, unsure of his intentions.

My mother stirred uneasily in her chair.

Kenneth said: ‘Miss, you don’t happen to know where my bedroom is, do you?’

Shirley shook her head sadly and said: ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t.’

Kenneth said: ‘Oh,’ and paused. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll go now.’

Shirley hesitated, a resolve forming within her: ‘No. Hang on.’ She gestured with her hand, urgently. ‘Turn your back a minute.’

Kenneth turned, and found himself staring into a mirror in which he could see his own reflection, and beyond that, Shirley’s. Her back was to him, and she was wriggling out of her slip, pulling it over her head.

He said: ‘J– just a minute, miss.’

My mother tried to get my father’s attention.

Kenneth hastily lowered the mirror, which was on a hinge.

Shirley turned to him and said: ‘You’re sweet.’ She finished pulling her slip over her head, and started to unfasten her bra.

My mother said: ‘Come on. We’re going. It’s far too late already.’

But Grandpa and my father were both staring goggle-eyed at the screen as the beautiful Shirley Eaton took her bra off with her back to the camera, while Kenneth heroically tried to stop himself from peeping into the mirror which would have yielded a precious glimpse of her body. I was staring at her too, I suppose, and thinking that I had never seen anyone so lovely, and from that moment it was no longer Kenneth she spoke to but me, my own nine-year-old self, because I was now the person who had lost his way in the corridor, and, yes, it was me that I saw on the screen, sharing a room with the most beautiful woman in the world, trapped in that old dark house in that terrible storm in that shabby little cinema in my bedroom that night and in my dreams forever afterwards. It was me.

Shirley emerged from behind my head, her body swathed in the knee-length gown, and said: ‘You can turn round now.’

My mother stood up, and the woman behind her said: ‘For Heaven’s sake sit down, can’t you.’

On the screen, I turned and looked at her. I said: ‘Cor. Very provoking.’

Shirley brushed back her hair, embarrassed.

My mother grabbed my hand and pulled me out of my seat. I let out a little howl of protest.

The woman behind us said: ‘Sssh!’

Grandpa said: ‘What are you doing?’

My mother said: ‘We’re leaving is what we’re doing. And you’re coming too, unless you want to walk all the way back to Birmingham.’

‘But the film hasn’t finished yet.’

Shirley and I were sitting on the double bed together. She said: ‘I’ve a proposal to make.’

Grandma said: ‘Come on then, if we’re going. We’ve got to stop somewhere for dinner, I suppose.’

On the screen, I said: ‘Oh?’

Off the screen, I said: ‘Mum, I want to stay and see the end.’

‘Well you can’t.’

My father said: ‘Oh well. Looks like we’ve been given our marching orders.’

Grandpa said: ‘I’m staying put. I’m enjoying this.’

The woman behind us said: ‘Look, I’m going to call the management in a minute.’

Shirley moved closer towards me. She said: ‘Why don’t you stay here tonight? I don’t fancy spending the night alone, and we’d be company for each other.’

My mother grabbed me underneath the armpits and lifted me out of my seat, and for the second time that day I burst into tears: partly out of real distress and partly, no doubt, because of the sheer indignity of it. I hadn’t been picked up like that since I was tiny. She pushed past the other people in the row and started carrying me down the steps towards the exit.

On the screen I seemed to be uncertain how to respond to Shirley’s offer. I mumbled something but in the confusion I couldn’t hear what it was. I could see Grandma and my father following us into the aisle and Grandpa rising reluctantly from his seat. As my mother pushed open the door which led to the chill concrete stairs and the salty air, I turned and caught a last glimpse of the screen. I was leaving the room but Shirley didn’t know this because she had her back to me and was fiddling with the bed.

Shirley said: ‘I’ll be quite all right on the –’ She turned, and stopped. She saw that I had gone.

‘– chair.’

The door closed and my family were clattering down the stairway. I shouted, ‘Let me down. Let me down!’, and when my mother put me down I immediately tried to run back up the stairs into the cinema, but my father caught me and said, ‘Where do you think you’re going?’, and then I knew that it was all over. I pummelled him with my fists and even tried to scratch his cheek with my fingernails. For the first and only time in his life my father swore and smacked me, hard, across the face. After that, we were all very quiet.

∗

In the car going home, I pretend to be asleep, but in reality my eyelids are not properly closed and I can see the light from the amber roadlamps flashing across my mother’s face. Light, shadow. Light, shadow.

Grandpa says, ‘Now we’ll never know what happened,’ and from the back of the car Grandma says, ‘Oh do shut up,’ and she pokes him in the shoulder.

I am no longer crying, no longer even sulking. As for Yuri, he has been quite forgotten and I can barely even call to mind the film which so excited me a couple of hours ago. All I can think of is the fearsome atmosphere of Blackshaw Towers, and the inexplicable scene in the bedroom where this beautiful, beautiful woman asks Kenneth to spend the night with her, and he runs away when she isn’t looking.

But why did he run away? Out of fear?

I look at my mother and I’m on the point of asking her if she understands why Kenneth ran away instead of spending the night with a woman who would have made him feel safe and happy. But I know that she wouldn’t really answer. She would just say that it was a silly film and it’s been a long day and I should go to sleep and forget about it. She doesn’t realize that I can never forget about it. And it’s in this private knowledge that I lie back and pretend to be asleep, with my head on her lap and my eyelids half-closed so that I can just make out the light from the amber roadlamps flashing across her face. Light, shadow. Light, shadow. Light, shadow.

August 1990

Kenneth said: ‘Miss, you don’t happen to know where my bedroom is, do you?’

Shirley shook her head sadly and said: ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t.’

Kenneth said: ‘Oh,’ and paused. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll go now.’

Shirley hesitated, a resolve forming within her: ‘No. Hang on.’ She gestured with her hand, urgently. ‘Turn your back a minute.’

Kenneth turned, and found himself staring into a mirror in which he could see his own reflection, and beyond that, Shirley’s. Her back was to him, and she was wriggling out of her slip, pulling it over her head.

He said: ‘J– just a minute, miss.’

My hand, resting between my legs, stirred.

Kenneth hastily lowered the mirror, which was on a hinge.

Shirley turned to him and said: ‘You’re sweet.’ She finished pulling her slip over her head, and started to unfasten her bra.

My hand began to move, lazily stroking the coarse denim.

Shirley disappeared behind Kenneth’s head.

Kenneth said: ‘Well, a – a handsome face isn’t everything, you know.’

Continuing to hold down the mirror, he tried not to look in it but couldn’t resist taking occasional glimpses. With every glimpse, his face registered physical pain. Shirley put on her nightgown.

Kenneth said: ‘All that glitters is not gold.’

She emerged from behind his head, her body swathed in the knee-length gown, and said: ‘You can turn round now.’

He turned and looked at her. He seemed pleased.

‘Cor. Very provoking.’

Shirley brushed back her hair, embarrassed.

My hand came to rest. I reached for the pause button, but thought better of it.

Kenneth began to pace the room, and said, with a show of bravado: ‘Well, I suppose you must be rather scared, with all the things that have been going on here tonight.’

Shirley said: ‘Oh, not really.’ She sat down on the double bed, with its heavy oak frame.

Kenneth moved rapidly towards her. He said: ‘Well, I am.’

Shirley said: ‘I’ve an idea.’ She leaned forward.

Kenneth turned and began pacing again. As if to himself, he said: ‘Yes, I’ve got one or two myself.’

Shirley said: ‘Come and sit here.’ She patted the space next to her on the bed. ‘Come on.’ An orchestra started playing, but neither of them took any notice. Kenneth sat down beside her. She said: ‘I’ve a proposal to make.’

Kenneth said: ‘Oh?’

Shirley moved closer towards him. She said: ‘Why don’t you stay here tonight? I don’t fancy spending the night alone, and we’d be company for each other.’

As Shirley said this, Kenneth turned towards her and leaned closer. For a moment they seemed on the point of kissing.

I watched.

Kenneth turned away. He said: ‘Yes, it’s – quite a good plan, miss, but, well …’ He got up and began pacing again. ‘… I – we don’t know each other really very well …’

He made for the door. Shirley seemed to say something, but it couldn’t be heard, and then she started turning down the sheets on the bed and fluffing up the pillows. As she did this, she was seen in reflection again, this time in a full-length mirror opposite the bed. She didn’t notice that Kenneth had reached the door. He turned to take a final look at her and then quickly sneaked out.

Still fussing over the bed, Shirley said: ‘I’ll be quite all right on the –’ She turned, and stopped. She saw that Kenneth had gone.

‘– chair.’

I pressed the rewind button.

For a moment Shirley froze: her mouth was open and her whole body shuddered. Then she turned, smoothed down the bed, Kenneth walked backwards into the room, Shirley seemed to say something, sat down on the bed, Kenneth seemed to say something, sat down beside her, they seemed to talk, he got up and paced backwards, moved rapidly away from her, she got up, Kenneth paced and talked, she fiddled with her hair, he looked away from her, she hid behind his head, began to take off her nightgown, Kenneth’s face contorted repeatedly and he lifted the mirror up and down, Shirley put her bra back on, emerged from behind his head, started to pull her slip back over her head, said something, Kenneth hastily lifted the mirror, said something, glanced in the mirror, and Shirley began to wriggle back into her slip.

I pressed the pause button.

Kenneth’s face and the back of Shirley’s body were reflected in the mirror. They shuddered. I pressed the pause button again. They moved slightly. I pressed it again and again. They began to move in jerky stages. Shirley moved her arms. And again. And again. She was wriggling. She was taking off her slip. She was pulling it over her head. Kenneth was watching. He knew he shouldn’t watch. The slip was nearly off. Shirley’s arms were above her head.

My hand, resting between my legs, stirred.

Kenneth mouthed something, very slowly. He lowered the mirror, out of his range of vision. He continued to hold it down so that he couldn’t look into it.

Shirley turned to him, and mouthed something. There were only two words but it seemed to take a long time. Then she continued to pull her slip over her head. She finished pulling it off in seven jerky stages. She put her hands behind her back. Her fingers worked at the clasp of her bra.

My hand began to move, stroking the coarse denim.

Shirley turned. She took the beginnings of a step. She disappeared behind Kenneth’s head.

Kenneth began to mouth something.

Somebody knocked at the door.

I said, ‘Oh shit!’, and leapt out of my chair. I turned off the tape. The screen changed from monochrome to colour and the volume came back: a male voice, very deep and loud. There was a man on the screen. He had his arms around a child. Some documentary. I turned the volume down on the television and checked that my trousers were buttoned up. I looked around at my flat. It was very untidy. I decided that it was too late to do anything about that, and went to answer the knock. Who could it be, at nine-fifteen on a Thursday evening?

I opened the door a few inches. It was a woman.

∗

She had piercing and very intelligent blue eyes, eyes which would certainly have held mine in a strong and steady gaze had I not deliberately avoided them, preferring instead to take in the details of her pale, slightly mottled complexion and rich coppery hair. She smiled at me, not fulsomely, just enough to offer a hint of nice even teeth, and to make me feel that I had to smile back however difficult this might prove to be. I managed to produce what I think must have looked like a sort of sinister half-grin. It was exciting and unusual to find this person standing on my doorstep, but my pleasure was tempered not only by the awkward timing of the interruption but by an uneasy, insistent sense that I had seen the woman somewhere before: that I might, in fact, have been expected to recognize her and even remember her name. In her left hand she was holding a sheet of A4 paper, folded down the middle; her right hand dangled restlessly at her side, as if she was trying to find a pocket in which to hide it.

‘Hello,’ she said.

‘Hello.’

‘I’m not disturbing you, am I?’

‘Not at all. I was just watching the television.’

‘It’s just that – Well, I know we don’t know each other very well or anything, but I thought I might ask you a favour. If that’s all right.’

‘Sounds fine. Would you like to come in?’

‘Thanks.’

As she crossed the threshold to my flat I tried to remember how long it had been since I last had a visitor of any description. Probably not since my mother came down: two, maybe three years. That would also have been the last time I had dusted or vacuumed. What on earth did she mean, anyway, ‘We don’t know each other very well’? It seemed an eccentric thing to say.

‘Can I take your coat?’ I asked.

She stared at me: then I noticed that she wasn’t wearing a coat, just jeans and a cotton blouse. I found this a little puzzling, but managed to hide the fact by joining in her nervous laughter. It was hot outside, after all, and still fairly light.

‘So,’ I said, once we had both sat down. ‘How can I help?’

‘Well, it’s like this.’ And then just as she started to explain, my attention was caught by the liver spots on the back of her hand, and I found myself trying to guess how old she was, because her face, and especially her eyes, still had this questioning, fresh, youthful quality, and going by that alone I would have said that she was in her early thirties at the most, and yet now I was beginning to wonder if she wasn’t nearer my age, or even older, early to mid forties perhaps, and as I was trying to reach a decision on this I realized that she had finished talking and was waiting for me to answer and I hadn’t been listening to a word she’d said.

There was a long and difficult pause. I got up, put my hands in my pockets and walked over to the window. There was nothing for it but to turn round after a few seconds and say, as politely as I could: ‘Do you think you could run that by me again?’

She was taken aback but did her best to hide it. ‘Sure,’ she said, and then started explaining the whole thing again, only this time, now that I had come over to the window, I found that I was facing the television and couldn’t help staring at the swarthy, dark-haired, smiling gentleman on the screen, who had his arm around this little boy, and seemed to be trying so hard to be liked by this kid who was standing rigidly to attention and staring into space and almost pulling away from the avuncular figure next to him, with the permanent smile and the thick black moustache. And there was something so compelling about this scene, something so charged and unnatural, that it made me forget I was supposed to be listening to the woman until she had almost finished, and then I realized that I still didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.

There was another pause, longer and more difficult than the first. I thought out my next move carefully before making it: a pensive, nonchalant stroll across to the other side of the room, and then a casual lowering of my buttocks on to the edge of the dining table, so that I was leaning back slightly as I faced her. At which point I said: ‘Do you think you could see your way clear to repeating that, by any chance?’

She regarded me intently for a few seconds. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking this, Michael,’ she said, ‘but are you feeling all right?’

It was a fair question, by anybody’s standards: but I didn’t have it in me to give an honest answer.

‘It’s my powers of concentration,’ I said. ‘They’re not what they used to be. Too much television, I expect. If you could just … one more time … I’m listening this time. Really, I am.’

It was touch and go for a while. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if she had simply got up and left the room. She looked at her sheet of A4 paper and seemed to be wondering whether to drop the subject altogether, to jack in the clearly thankless task of trying to get me to listen to a few simple words of English. But then, after taking a deep breath, she started speaking again: slow, loud, deliberate. It was obvious that this was my last chance.

And I would have listened at this point, I really would, for my curiosity was aroused, apart from anything else, but my brain was spinning, all my senses were in a whirl, because she had used my name, she had actually called me by my first name, Michael, she had said, ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking this, Michael,’ and I can’t tell you how long it was since anybody had called me by my name, it can’t have happened since my mother came down – two, maybe three years – and the funny thing about it was that if she knew my name, then in all probability I knew hers, or I had known it once, or I was expected to know it, we must have been introduced at one time or another, and I was so busy trying to put a name to her face, and to put her face into a context where I may have seen it before, that I completely forgot to pay any attention to her slow, loud, deliberate speech, so that as soon as she finished I knew we were in for something more, something much more and something much much worse than just another long and difficult pause.

‘You haven’t been listening to a word of this, have you?’

I shook my head.

‘I get the sense,’ she said, rising quickly to her feet, ‘that I’m wasting my time here.’

She stared at me accusingly; and not having much to lose any more, I stared back.

‘Can I ask you something?’

She shrugged. ‘Why not?’

‘Who are you?’

Her eyes widened, and it felt as though she had taken a step away from me, although as far as I could see she didn’t actually move.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I don’t know who you are.’

She gave a mirthless, incredulous smile.

‘I’m Fiona.’

‘Fiona.’ The name dropped into my mind with a heavy thud: there were no echoes. ‘Should I know you?’

‘I’m your neighbour,’ said Fiona. ‘I live just across the hall from you. I introduced myself to you just a few weeks ago. We pass on the stairs … three or four times a week. You say hello.’

I blinked, and came a little closer, gazing rudely into her face. I steeled myself to make an enormous effort of memory. Fiona … I still couldn’t remember having heard the name, not recently, and if it seemed that something about her was starting to take on a distant familiarity, the origins of this feeling were obscure, and tasted less of day-to-day encounters on the staircase than the sensation, perhaps, of being presented with a photograph of a long-dead ancestor, in whose sepia features it might just be possible to detect the ghost of a family resemblance. Fiona …

‘When you introduced yourself to me,’ I asked, ‘did I say anything?’

‘Not much, no. I thought you were rather unfriendly. But then I don’t tend to give up very easily: so I’ve kept trying.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, and sat down in an armchair. ‘Thank you.’

Fiona was left standing by the door. ‘I’ll go then, shall I?’

‘No – please – if you could just bear with me a little longer. We might get somewhere. Please, sit down.’

Fiona hesitated, and before coming to sit down on the sofa opposite me, she opened the door to the landing outside and left it ajar. I pretended not to have noticed this. She perched on the edge of the sofa, her back arched and her hands folded unhappily in her lap.

‘What were you saying just now?’ I asked.

‘You want me to go through all that again?’

‘Just briefly. In a couple of words.’

‘I was asking you to sponsor me. I’m doing a sponsored bike ride, for the hospital.’ She passed me the sheet of A4 paper, roughly half of which was covered with signatures.

A few lines at the top of the paper explained the nature of the event, and what the money was being raised for. I read them quickly and said, ‘Forty miles sounds an awful long way. You must be very fit.’

‘Well, I’ve never done anything quite like this before. I thought it would get me out and about.’