The collected stories (2 page)

'A man told me.'

WORLD S END

Robarge snorted. 'What man?'

'Mummy's friend.'

The child screamed. The kite was falling on its broken string. It crashed against the hill and came apart, blowing until it was misshapen. Robarge thought: I am blind.

Later, when the child was calm and the broken kite stuffed beneath a bush (Robarge promised to buy a new one), he confirmed what Robarge had feared: he had been there before, seen the gulls, climbed the hill, and the man - he had no name, he was 'Mummy's friend' - had taken off his necktie to make a tail for the kite.

The man had worn a tie. Robarge created a lover from this detail and saw someone middle aged, middle class, perhaps prosperous, a serious rival, out to impress - British, of course. He saw the man's hand slipped beneath one of Kathy's brilliant silk blouses. He wondered whether he knew the man; but who did they know? They had been happy and solitary in this foreign country, at World's End. He wanted to cry. He felt his face breaking to expose all his sadness.

'Want to see my hide-out?'

The child showed Robarge the fallen tree, the pine grove, the stumps.

'Did Mummy's friend play with you?'

'The first time-'

Kathy had gone there twice with her lover and Richard! Robarge wanted to leave the place, but the child ran from tree to tree, remembering the games they had played.

Robarge said, 'Were they nice picnics?'

'Not half!'

It was the man's expression, he was sure; and now he hated it.

'What are you looking at, Daddy?'

He was staring at the trampled pine needles, the seclusion of the trees, the narrow path.

'Nothing.'

Richard did not want to go home, but Robarge insisted, and walking back to the car Robarge could not prevent himself from asking questions to which he did not want to hear answers.

The man's name?

'I don't know.'

Did he have a nice car?

WORLD S END

'Blue.' The child looked away.

'What did Mummy's friend say to you?'

'I don't remember.' Now Richard ran ahead, down the hill.

He saw that the child was disturbed. If he pressed too hard he would frighten him. And so they drove back to World's End in silence.

Robarge did not tell Kathy where they had gone, and instead of confronting her with what he knew he watched her. He did not want to lose her in an argument; it was easy to imagine the terrible scene - her protests, her lies. She might not deny it, he thought; she might make it worse.

He directed his anger against the man. He wanted to kill him, to save himself. That night he made love to Kathy in a fierce testing way, as if challenging her to refuse. But she submitted to his bullying and at last, as he lay panting beside her, she said, 'Are you finished?'

A few days later, desperate to know whether his wife's love had been stolen from him, Robarge told Kathy that he had to go to Aberdeen on business.

'When will you be back?'

'I'm not sure.' He thought: Why should I make it easier on her? 'I'll call you.'

But she accepted this as she had accepted his wordless assault on her, and it seemed to him as though nothing had happened, she had no lover, she had been loyal. He had only the child's word. But the child was innocent and had never lied.

On the morning of his departure for Aberdeen he went to Richard's room. He shut the door and said, 'Do you love me?'

The child moved his head and stared.

'If you really love me, you won't tell Mummy what I'm going to ask you to do.'

'I won't tell.'

'When I'm gone, I want you to be the daddy.'

Richard's face grew solemn.

'That means you have to be very careful. You have to make sure that Mummy's all right.'

'Why won't Mummy be all right?'

Robarge said, i think her friend is a thief.'

'No - he's not!'

WORLD S END

'Don't be upset,' said Robarge. That's what we're going to find out. I want you to watch him if he comes over again.'

'But why? Don't you like him?'

'I don't know him very well - not as well as Mummy does. Will you watch him for me, like a daddy?'

'Yes.'

'If you do, I'll bring you a nice present.'

'Mummy's friend gave me a present.'

Robarge was so startled he could not speak; and he wanted to shout. The child peered at him, and Robarge saw curiosity and pity mingled in the child's squint.

'It was a little car.'

'I'll give you a big car,' Robarge managed.

'What's he stealing from you, Daddy?'

Robarge thought a moment, then said, 'Something very precious-' and his voice broke. If he forced it he would sob. He left the child's room. He had never felt sadder.

Downstairs, Kathy kissed him on his ear. The smack of it caused a ringing in a horn in his head.

He had invented the trip to Aberdeen; he invented work to justify it, and for three days he knew what madness was - a sickening and a sorrow. He was deaf, his feet and hands were stupid, and his tongue at times seemed to swell and choke him when he tried to speak. He wanted to tell his area supervisor that he was suffering, that he knew how odd he must appear. But he did not know how to begin. And strangely, though his behavior was clumsily childlike, he felt elderly, as if he were dying inside, all his organs working feebly. He returned to London feeling that a burned hole was blackened on his heart.

The house at World's End was so still that in the doorway he considered that she was gone, that she had taken Richard and deserted him with her lover. This was Sunday evening, part of his plan - a surprise: he usually returned on Monday. He was not reassured to see the kitchen light on - there was a telephone in the kitchen. But Kathy's face, when she answered the door, was blank.

She said, 'I thought you might call from the station.'

He tried to kiss her - she pulled away.

'My hands are wet.'

'Glad to see me?'

WORLD S END

'I'm doing the dishes.' She lost her look of boredom and said, 'You're so pale.'

'I haven't slept.' He could not gather the phrases of the question in his mind because he dreaded the simple answer he saw whole: yes. He felt afraid of her, and more deaf and clumsy than ever, like a helpless orphan snatched into the dark. He wanted her to say that he had imagined the lover, but he knew he would not believe words he craved so much to hear. He no longer trusted her and would not trust her until he had the child's word. He longed to see his son. He started up the stairs.

Kathy said, 'He's watching television.'

On entering the television room, Robarge saw his son stand up and take a step backward. Richard's face in the darkened room was the yellow-green hue of the television screen; his hands sprang to his ears; the blue fibers of his pajamas glowed as if sprinkled with salt. When Robarge switched on the light the child ran to him and held him - so tightly that Robarge could not hug him.

'Here it is.' Robarge disengaged himself from the child and crossed the room, turning off the television as he went. The toy was gift wrapped in bright paper and tied with a ribbon. He handed it to Richard. Richard put his face against his father's neck. 'Aren't you going to open it?'

Robarge felt the child nodding against his shoulder.

'Time for bed,' said Robarge.

The child said, 'I put myself to bed now.'

'All by yourself?' said Robarge. 'Okay, off you go then.'

Richard went to the door.

'Don't forget your present!'

Richard hesitated. Robarge brought it to him and tucked it under the child's arm. Then, pretending it was an afterthought, he said softly, 'Tell me what happened while I was away - did you see anything? 1

Richard shook his head and let his mouth gape.

'What about Mummy's friend?' Robarge was standing; the question dropped to the child like a spider lowering on its own filament

of spittle.

i didn't see him.'

The child looked so small; Robarge towered over him. He knelt and asked, 'Are vou telling the truth?'

And it occurred to Robarge that he had never asked the child

WORLD S END

that question before - had never used that intimidating tone or looked so hard into the child's eyes. Richard backed away, the gift-wrapped parcel under his arm.

At this little distance, the child seemed calmer. He shook his head as he had before, but this time his confidence was pronounced, as if in the minute that had elapsed he had learned the trick of it. With the faintest trace of a stutter - when had he ever stuttered? - he said, 'It's the truth, Daddy. I didn't.'

Robarge said, 'It's a tank. The batteries are already inside. It shoots sparks.' Then he shuffled forward on his knees and took the child's arm. 'You'll tell me if you see that man again, won't you?'

Richard stared.

'I mean, if he steals anything?'

Robarge saw corruption in the unblinking eyes.

'You'll tell me, won't you?'

When Robarge repeated the question, Richard said, 'Mummy doesn't have a friend,' and Robarge knew he had lost the child.

He said, 'Show me how you put yourself to bed.'

Robarge was unconsoled. He found Kathy had already gone to bed, and though the light was on she lay on her side, facing the dark wall, as if sleeping.

Robarge said, 'We never make love.'

'We did - on Wednesday.'

She was right; he had forgotten.

She said, 'I've locked the doors. Will you make sure the lights are out?'

So he went from room to room turning out the lights, and in the television room Robarge sat down in the darkness. There, in the house which now seemed to be made of iron, he remembered again that he was in London, in World's End; that he had taken his family there. He was saddened by the thought that he was so far from home. The darkness hid him and hid the country; he knew that if he appeared calm it was only because the darkness concealed his loss. He wished he had never come here, and worrying this way he craved his child and had a hideous reverie, of wishing to eat the child and eat his wife and keep them in that cannibal way. Burdened by this guilty thought, he went upstairs to make sure his son was safe.

Richard was in darkness, too. Robarge kissed the child's hot

WORLD S END

cheek. There was a bright cube on the floor, the present from Aberdeen. He picked it up and saw that it had not been opened.

He put it beside Richard on the bed and leaning for balance he pressed something in the bedclothes. It was long and flat and the hardness stung his hand. It was the breadknife with the serrated blade from the kitchen, tucked beneath these sheets, close to the child's body. Breathless from the shock of it Robarge took it away.

And then he went to bed. He was shaking so badly he did not think he would ever sleep. He wanted to smash his face against the wall and hit it until it was bloody and he had torn his nose away. He dropped violently to sleep. When he woke in the dark he recalled the sound that had wakened him - it was still vibrant in the air, the click of the front gate: a thief was entering his house. Robarge waited for more, and perspired. His fear left him and he was penetrated by the fake vitality of insomnia. After an hour he decided that what he had heard, if anything, was a thief leaving the house, not breaking in. Too late, too far, too dark, he thought; and he knew now they were all lost.

'4

Zombies

Miss Bristow was certain she had dreamed of a skull because on waking - gasping to the parlor and throwing open the curtains -the first face she had seen was skull-like, a man or woman looking directly in at her from the 49 bus. It verified her dream but was simpler and so more horrible, with staring eyes and bony cheeks and sharp teeth and the long strings of dirty hair they called dreadlocks. She went to the small cabinet and plucked at the doors with clumsy fingers before she remembered that Alison had the key. And then she felt abandoned in dismal terror, between the bedroom where she had dreamed the skull and the window where she had seen the face moving down Sloane Street.

She was still in her slippers and robe when Alison arrived at ten. Alison was an efficient girl with powerful shoulders, a nurse's sliding tread and humor in her whole body; the distress was confined to her eyes. She said, 'Have we had a good night?'

Miss Bristow did not reply to the question. She was tremulous with thought. Her arthritis gave her the look of someone cowering.

'You took the key.'

Alison appeared not to hear her. 'I hope you haven't forgotten that you have a lunch date today.'

She had forgotten. She saw the skull, the teeth, the cowl of hair grinning from the far side of a table in a restaurant where she was trapped. She said, 'Who is it?'

'Philippa - that nice girl from Howletts. She left a message last week.'

Miss Bristow was relieved. She said, 'The Italian.'

'Philippa is not Italian,' said Alison in the singsong she used when she repeated herself. 'Now you must put some clothes on. You haven't had your bath.' She opened the blue diary and said, 'She's coming here at twelve. She'll have news of your book.'

'In a moment you're going to say you've lost the key.'

Alison said, 'We promised we weren't going to be naughty, didn't we?'

WORLD S END

The Italian, she thought in her bath. At the party, months ago, the girl Philippa had sat at her feet and a sentence was fully framed in Miss Bristow's mind. 'I can remember,' she said, rapping the words on the arm of her chair, struggling to say them, 'I can remember when we were Romans.'

'And now we're Italians,' the girl had said quickly.

Miss Bristow peered at the girl's blank face. The girl scarcely knew how witty she had been, and so Miss Bristow felt better about appropriating the remark and making it her own: We are Romans turning into Italians.

The girl had been attentive, with a hearty dedication, saying, 'Your glass is empty again!' But the criticism in the words was not in her tone. Miss Bristow felt the need to sip; she panicked and became breathless when there was nothing to sip. But the girl had made sure there was something in the glass all evening. Miss Bristow sensed the girl's watchfulness as she sipped. How could she explain the paradox she herself did not understand? The contents of this glass worsened her fears, but made her better able to bear them.