The Grin of the Dark (2 page)

for Pete and Nicky Crowther
who got me out of the wods

I've hardly lifted my finger from the bellpush when the intercom
emits its boxy cough and says 'Hello?'

'Hi, Mark.'

'It's Simon,' Natalie's seven-year-old calls into the apartment and
then asks me even more eagerly 'Did you get your job?'

As I tell him, a boat hoots behind me on the Thames. An unsympathetic
November wind brings the sound closer. A barge outlined by
coloured lights is passing under Tower Bridge. Ripples flicker on the
underside of the roadway, which appears to stir as if the bridge is
about to raise its halves. The barge with its cargo of elegant drinkers
cruises past me, and a moon-faced man in evening dress eyes me
through a window as he lifts his champagne glass. He's grinning so
widely that I could almost take him to have been the source of the
hoot, but of course he isn't mocking me. The boat moves on, trailing
colours until they're doused by the water as black as the seven o'clock
sky.

I hear quick footsteps on the pine floor of the entrance hall and
arrange an expression for Mark's benefit, but Natalie's father opens
the door. 'Here he is,' he announces. His plump but squarish face is
more jovial than his tone. Perhaps his face is stiff with all the tanning
he's applied to make up for leaving California. It seems to bleach his
eyebrows, which are as silver as his short bristling hair, and his pale
blue eyes. He scrutinises me while he delivers a leathery handshake
that would be still more painful if it weren't so brief. 'Christ up a
chimney, you're cold,' he says and immediately turns his back. 'Mark
told us your good news.'

By the time I close the heavy door in the thick wall of the converted
warehouse he's tramping up the pale pine stairs. 'Warren,' I protest.

'Save it for the family.' As he turns left into the apartment he
shouts 'Here's Mr Success.'

His wife, Bebe, dodges out of the main bedroom, and I wonder if
she has been searching for signs of how recently I shared the bed.
Perhaps the freckles that pepper her chubby face in its expensive
frame of bobbed red hair are growing inflamed merely with enthusiasm.
'Let's hear it,' she urges, following her husband past Natalie's
magazine cover designs that decorate the inner hall.

Mark darts out of his room next to the bathroom with a cry of
'Yay, Simon' as Natalie appears in the living-room. She sends me a
smile understated enough for its pride and relief to be meant just for
us. Before I can react her parents are beside her, and all I can see is
the family resemblance. Her and Mark's features are as delicate as
Bebe's must be underneath the padding, and they have half of Bebe's
freckles each, as well as hair that's quite as red, if shorter. I feel
excluded, not least by saying 'Listen, everyone, I –'

'Hold the speech,' Warren says and strides into the kitchen.

Why are the Hallorans here? What have they bought their daughter
or their grandson this time? They've already paid for the plasma screen
and the DVD recorder, and the extravagantly tiny hi-fi system, and the
oversized floppy suite that resembles chocolate in rolls and melted
slabs. I hope they didn't buy the bottle of champagne Warren brings
in surrounded by four glasses on a silver tray. I clear my throat,
because more than the central heating has dried up my mouth. 'That's
not on my account, is it?' I croak. 'I didn't get the job.'

Warren's face changes swiftest. As he rests the tray on a low table
his eyebrows twitch high, and his smile is left looking ironic. Bebe
thins her lips at Natalie and Mark in case they need to borrow any
bravery. Natalie tilts her head as if the wryness of her smile has
tugged it sideways. Only Mark appears confused. 'But you sounded
happy,' he accuses me. 'The noise you made.'

'I think you were hearing a boat on the river,' I tell him.

Natalie's parents share an unimpressed glance as Natalie asks
Mark 'Don't you know the difference between Simon and a boat?'

'Tell us,' says Warren.

I feel bound to. 'One sails on the waves...'

Before Mark can respond, Bebe does with a frown that's meant to
seem petite. 'We didn't know you were into saving whales. Can you
spare the time when you're hunting for a job?'

'I'm not. An activist, I mean. I don't make a fuss about much. One
sails on the waves, Mark, and the other one saves on the wails.'

I wouldn't call that bad for the spur of the moment, but his grandparents
clearly feel I should. Mark has a different objection. 'Why
didn't you get the job at the magazine? You said it was just what you
wanted.'

'We can't always have what we want, son,' Warren says. 'Maybe
we should get what we deserve.'

Natalie gazes at me, perhaps to prompt me to reply, and says 'We
have.'

Bebe drapes an arm around her daughter's shoulders. 'You two
know you've always got us.'

'You haven't said why yet,' Mark prompts me.

Through the window behind the editor's desk I could see to the
hills beyond London, but when the editor conveyed her decision this
afternoon I felt as if I'd been put back in my box. 'I'd be writing for
them if I hadn't mentioned one word.'

Bebe plants her hands over his ears. 'If it's the one I'm thinking of
I don't believe this little guy needs to hear.'

Perhaps Mark still can, because he says 'I bet it's
Cineassed
.'

She snatches her hands away as if his ears have grown too hot to
hold. 'Well, really, Natalie. I'm surprised you let him hear that kind
of language, whoever said it to him.'

'He saw me reading the magazine,' Natalie retorts, and I wonder
whether she's reflecting that Bebe persuaded her not to display the
covers in the hall as she adds 'I did work for it too, you might want
to remember. Otherwise I wouldn't have met Simon.'

Everyone looks at me, and Warren says 'I don't get how just
mentioning it could lose you a job when Natalie landed a better one.'

'She was only on design.'

'I wouldn't call that so very inferior.'

'Nor would I, not even slightly. The look was all hers, and it sold
the magazine, but I'm saying my name was on half the pages.'

'Maybe you should try not telling anyone that's offering you a
job.'

'You don't want people thinking you're trying to avoid work,'
Bebe says.

'Simon is working. He's working extremely hard.' Rather than
turn on either of her parents, Natalie gazes above my head. 'A day job
and another one at night, I'd call that hard.'

'Just not too profitable,' says her father. 'Okay, let's run you to
work, Simon. We need to stop by our houses.'

'Don't wait for me. I'll have time for the train.'

'Better not risk it. Imagine showing up late for work after you
already lost one job.'

As Natalie gives me a tiny resigned smile Mark says 'You haven't
seen my new computer, Simon. The old one crashed.'

'Nothing but the best for our young brain,' Bebe cries.

'It's an investment in everyone's future,' Warren says. 'Save the
demonstration, Mark. We need to hit the road.'

The elder Hallorans present their family with kisses, and I give
Natalie one of the kind that least embarrasses Mark. 'Bye,' he calls as
he makes for his room, where he rouses his computer. I leave
Natalie's cool slender hand a squeeze that feels like a frustrating
sample of an embrace and trail after her parents to the basement car
park.

The stone floor is blackened by the shadows of brick pillars,
around which security cameras peer. Bebe's Shogun honks and
flashes its headlamps from one of the bays for Flat 3 to greet
Warren's key-ring. I climb in the back and am hauling the twisted
safety belt to its socket when the car veers backwards, narrowly
missing a dormant Jaguar. At the top of the ramp the Shogun barely
gives the automatic door time to slope out of the way. 'Warren,' Bebe
squeals, perhaps with delight more than fear.

The alley between the warehouses amplifies the roar of the engine
as he speeds to the main road. He barely glances down from his
height before swerving into the traffic. 'Hey, that's what brakes are
for,' he responds to the fanfare of horns, and switches on the compact
disc player.

The first notes of the
1812
surround me as the lit turrets of the
Tower dwindle in the mirror. Whenever the car slews around a corner
I'm flung against the window or as far across the seat as the belt
allows. Is Warren too busy fiddling with the sound balance to notice?
In Kensington he increases the volume to compete with the disco
rhythm of a Toyota next to us at traffic lights, and Bebe waves her
hands beside her ears. The overture reaches its climax on the
Hammersmith flyover, beyond which the sky above a bend in the
Thames explodes while cannon-shots shake the car. Rockets are
shooting up from Castelnau and simultaneously plunging into the
blackness of a reservoir. They're almost as late for the fifth of
November as they're early for the New Year. The Great West Road
brings the music to its triumphant end, which leaves the distant
detonations sounding thin and artificial to my tinny ears. 'How did
you rate that, Simon?' Warren shouts.

'Spectacular,' I just about hear myself respond.

'Pretty damn fine, I'd say. The guy knew what people liked and
socked it to them. You don't make many enemies that way.'

'Never do that if you can't afford to,' Bebe says.

'All I did was look into the background of the films that were
topping the charts. Colin wrote the piece about testing Oscar winners
for drugs. He named too many people who should have owned up,
that's why we were sued.'

The Hallorans stare at me in the mirror as if they weren't thinking
of
Cineassed
. After a pause Warren says 'Shows you should be careful
who your friends are. You could end up with their reputation.'

I'm not sure if he's talking to me or about me. Planes rise from
Heathrow like inextinguishable fireworks. A reservoir is staked out
by illuminated fishermen beside the old Roman road into Staines.
Warren brakes in sight of the video library that's my daytime
workplace, and then the car screeches off a roundabout to Egham. As
we leave the main road near the outpost of London University, Bebe
tuts at a student who's wearing a traffic cone on his head like a
reminiscence of Halloween. The Shogun halts at the top of the sloping
side street, between two ranks of disreputable parked cars. 'Open up
while I find a space, Simon,' Warren directs.

I hurry to the slouching metal gate of the middle house they own
and manoeuvre the gate over the humped path. A large striped spider
has netted the stunted rhododendron that's the only vegetation in the
token garden apart from tufts of grass. The spider is transmitting its
glow through its equally orange web to discolour the leaves, except
that the glare belongs to a streetlamp. I sprint to the scabby front
door and twist my key in the unobliging lock. 'Hello?' I shout as the
door stumbles inwards. 'Here's your landlords.'

Though the hall light is on beneath its cheap mosaic shade, nobody
responds. Wole's door is shut – a ski-masked cliché on a poster bars
the way with a machete – and so is Tony's, on which Gollum holds
the fort. Besides a stagnant smell of pizza, do I distinguish a faint tang
of cannabis? I try to look innocent enough for all the tenants as I
swivel to meet Bebe. 'Just letting the men know you're here in case
they aren't decent,' I improvise.

She turns to Warren, who has parked across the driveway of their
house on the right. 'He's alerted the students we're here.'

'Showing solidarity, were you, Simon?'

'It isn't so long since I was one. Thanks again for letting me rent
the room.'

I watch the Hallorans advance in unison along the hall, which is
papered with a leafy pattern designed for a larger interior. Bebe
knocks on Wole's door and immediately tries it while Warren does the
same to Tony's, but both rooms are locked. Bebe switches on the light
in the sitting-room and frowns at me, although I've left none of the
items strewn about the brownish carpet that's piebald with fading
stains. In any case the debris – disembowelled newspapers, unwashed
plates, two foil containers with plastic forks lounging amid their not
yet mouldy contents, a sandal with a broken strap – hardly detracts
from the doddering chairs of various species in front of the elderly
television and dusty video recorder. Bebe stacks the containers on top
of the plates and takes them to the kitchen, only to find no space in
the pedal bin, any more than there's room for additional plates in the
sink. 'Simon, you're supposed to be the mature one,' she complains
and dumps her burden among the bowls scaly with breakfast cereal on
the formica table top. 'How long have you been letting this pile up?'

I'd tell her where I spent last night, but Natalie prefers to leave
them in some doubt of our relationship until I have a job we can be
proud of. I try remaining silent while Warren takes the rubbish out to
the dustbin, but Bebe performs such a monodrama of tuts and sighs
as she sets about clearing the sink that I'm provoked to interrupt. 'I
can't play the caretaker when I'm out at work so much.'

'Students are investments like these houses,' Warren says, grinding
home the bolts on the back door. 'Investments the rest of us make.'

Bebe thrusts a plate at me to dry. 'How much of one do you think
you are, Simon?'

I lay it in a drawer rather than smash it on the linoleum. 'If Natalie
values me, that's what matters.'

'How romantic. I expect she'd be pleased.' Bebe hands me another
plate before adding 'I believe we matter as well. We've invested a
whole lot in her.'

'I meant to tell her we met somebody she used to know,' Warren
says. 'He's done real well for himself and anyone involved with him.'

Am I supposed to say she can have him or perhaps yield more
gracefully? I know they're waiting for her to lose faith in me. Even
renting me the accommodation makes it harder for us to meet and
characterises me as a parasite. Arguing won't help, but I have to hold
my lips shut with my teeth while I stow the dishes.