The Grin of the Dark (25 page)

I don't fling the phone at either of my wildly grinning reflections.
I read the details from my card and tell the bank that it has turned my
balance negative. I add my email address and Natalie's phone number
before exhorting the bank to put the problem right and let me know.
'The name's Lester,' I say in case I omitted it. 'Simon Lester. That's
Simon Lester.'

My reflections mouth it, which feels less like support than a threeway
dissipation. I hang up the phone and wish I had a laptop to work
on my book. The thought fills my brain with undefined ideas about
Tubby and his collaborator, but for some reason I prefer not to
examine them just now. I fetch the remote control and sit against the
headboard of the bed and switch on the television that's squatting on
a corner of the dressing-table. It hasn't many channels, and not a
single one in English.

Although people are laughing on all of them, the jokes aren't
visible to me. What's comical about footage of riots, for instance? I
can only take the programme as some kind of satire. When a
presenter starts to laugh directly into camera as if at my confusion,
I've had enough. I switch off the set and wish I could switch off my
equally electric skull. Perhaps I can doze if I lie in the dark.

I shouldn't have brought Tubby to mind earlier. Each time I
attempt to follow a chain of pleasant memories – working with
Natalie, befriending Mark, moving in with them – in the hope that it
leads to sleep, I end up with Tubby's pallid luminous face swelling
close to mine. Too often it jerks me awake, such as now. What time
is it? Still dark. I raise my wrist towards my eyes, which feel shrunken
with exhaustion. At first I take the roundish object that's hovering
above me for my watch.

It's on the ceiling. Before I can focus, it slides down the wall and
under the bed. It must have been light from the road, but how is that
possible? Headlight beams beside the canal wouldn't reach up here. I
must have overlooked a side road or an alley opposite the hotel.
While I resent having to confirm this, if I don't I'm even less likely to
sleep. I throw off the quilt and stumble across the narrow strip of
carpet to yank at the cord of the blind.

There's no opening across the canal. The buildings stick together
without a gap as far as I can see in both directions. Staring at them
only gives me the impression that the ripples on the water are
invading my skull. Did somebody in one of the houses train a
spotlight on my room? The notion makes me feel watched, all the
more relentlessly since I can't identify from where – and then I realise
that a boat must have cast the light. I close the slats of the blind and
turn away with a laugh, and step on the object that has emerged from
under the bed.

My mind struggles to present me with the idea that I'm on a beach
and have trodden on a jellyfish. The intruder is cold and rubbery
enough, but the similarity doesn't work even before I look down. In
some ways it does indeed resemble a jellyfish; it's flattish and as good
as round, and pale, and glistening. It widens its eyes and its grin at me
before slithering under the bed.

I know where I am now. I'm really on my way home. If the Frugojet
staff at the departure gate are wearing red pointed floppy hats, that
simply proves it's real. The drug is losing its hold on my mind; in fact,
it must have worn off hours ago. I didn't actually see Tubby's
flattened face crawl across the floor of my room, even if I can't forget
how the cold puffy substance felt under my bare foot. I seemed to feel
the cheek quivering with gelatinous mirth, but it has to have been the
drug.

I couldn't convince myself then. I almost fell headlong in my
haste to switch on the light and to avoid anything that shouldn't be
on the floor. I grabbed my toiletries and threw them in my suitcase
before realising I'd left it open while I was in the cupboard that did
duty as a bathroom. I pawed fearfully through the contents and
shook my clothes to establish that they weren't harbouring an
intruder. As soon as I was dressed I hauled the case out of the room
and barely prevented it from tumbling me head first down the
precipice of the stairs.

The receptionist or night porter or whatever occupation had been
compressed into his spindly form was at the desk. 'I have not called
you yet,' he said, no doubt thinking that I didn't trust his promise or
possibly his English. I mumbled to the effect that I preferred not to
risk hurrying down those stairs, and slumped in a chair, jamming my
wrist through the extended plastic handle to keep my luggage safe. He
looked affronted by the gesture, and I could only pray that he
wouldn't leave me on my own.

At some stage he did. I kept nodding off even though it took me
back to the hotel room, where I crouched on the bed in an attempt to
stay clear of the faces that swarmed from beneath it. They glided
snail-like up and down the walls or poised themselves on the ceiling
as if they were preparing to drop on me, a prospect that made them
grin more widely still. When I lurched awake and found the counter
unattended, I grew afraid of seeing the replacement's face. The next
time I regained consciousness, however, the squeezed man was back.
'They are coming for you now,' he said with no expression at all.

The van had barely enough space for my luggage and me. The
seven passengers stared hard at me as I clambered in, and the woman
beside me edged away, waving one wrinkled hand like a farewell she
wished she could make. As the burly driver slid the door shut he gave
me a grin so secret I couldn't tell whether I was expected to share it.
All the way to the airport I clung to a handhold on the door. I was
ensuring that I didn't loll against my neighbour, but I felt as if I was
clutching at the moment so that the room infested with Tubby's face
didn't recapture my mind.

It can't now. The departure hall is loud with announcements, and
every row of seats around the departure gate features children squabbling
or wailing or both. To help keep me awake I have the twinges
of my wrist, which I must have scraped on the handle of my suitcase.
Nobody appears to understand the new delay, including the Frugojet
staff, but one of them is reaching for a microphone. She lets go of it
to do up the top button of her blouse, on which FRUGO is emblazoned
in increasingly large capitals apparently emitted by the rear of
a toy jet, and then she picks up the microphone, producing a
magnified clunk and an electronic squeal. 'Thank you for your
patience,' she says. 'Flight FRU 2012 to London Heathrow is now
ready to board.'

This receives a standing ovation not far short of hysteria. She halts
the stampede to the gate by inviting the disabled and anyone burdened
with small children to board first. Families with larger children take
advantage of this as well. Her invitation to all remaining passengers to
board is as good as redundant, since everyone stays crowded around
the gate. The protracted seconds her colleague takes to check my
boarding card and passport make me feel as if time is congealing
around me again. As I tramp down the temporary corridor it shivers
in the wind. I grin at the pilot, since a pointed red hat trimmed with
white is drooping on his head. Once the crowd lets me reach the first
empty aisle seat I sit next to a woman who sneezes in greeting. Neither
this nor her girth augurs well for the journey, but passengers are
pushing by me, and changing my seat would be impolite.

At last everyone's seated, having crammed the magically capacious
lockers with items bigger than the cabin is supposed to accept. By this
time I've examined the contents of the pocket on the seat a child has
tilted within inches of my face. I ask him if he really needs so much
space, but either he and his mother are deaf or they're ignorant of
English. I feel as if I'm in the cheap seats. The pocket contains a vomit
bag stuffed with sweet papers, a dog-eared copy of the airline's
magazine
Flies
in which the margins are full of incomprehensible
scribbles, and an extensively chewed safety instruction card. The
tooth marks look unappealingly fresh, but a steward gestures me to
hold onto it. It's time for the safety demonstration.

I want to believe he's serious, but the wagging of his red hat that
would barely fit a pixie doesn't help. Nor does his grin, which is too
close to fixed. I could imagine that he's using it to communicate with
his colleague behind me. He enacts the action of the seat belt with a
relish that suggests he's binding a captive and only reluctantly letting
them go. He stretches his arms so wide to indicate the emergency exits
that he might be parodying a crucifixion, especially when his fingers
wriggle in the air. He drops into such a sudden crouch to point at the
emergency lighting concealed in the floor that the boy in front of me
flinches, jolting the seat nearly into my face. Of course the steward
doesn't actually fancy that he's using an oxygen mask to hang a
victim, but there's no mistaking his imperfectly suppressed mirth
when the recorded voice to which he's miming warns passengers not
to inflate their life-jackets inside the aircraft. Is he tempted to yank
the toggle on his jacket and block the aisle with his ballooning self?

During the performance the plane has crawled backwards and
then forwards while my neighbour sneezes into a succession of tissues
pulled out of a box. At first the tarry darkness outside the dwarfish
windows seems to retard the wings, and then they slice through it as
they gather speed. I feel the ground vanish, and the windows turn
blank as dead screens. 'They've gone,' the boy cries in front of me.
'The wings have fallen off.'

'It's just the clouds, Tim,' his mother assures him.

'We're up above them now,' says the man beside her. 'See, we've
got wings again.'

'I thought you didn't speak English.'

Though I only mutter this, my neighbour retorts 'Who says? No
fools in this family.'

Her voice is alarmingly low and hoarse. It must be a symptom of
her cold, but I could imagine she's a fat man in a flowered dress, even
when the man in front calls 'What's up, grandmother?'

'Feller here making out we're immigrants.'

'He wants to be careful.'

'Must be one himself if he can't tell where we're from,' says the
mother.

'You don't know what they do to their brains when they're
abroad,' the grandmother remarks.

I feel as if I'm trapped in a witless comedy routine that makes the
cabin feel cramped and airless. I glance at her neighbour, but he's
facing the window as fully as he can. 'I didn't mean you were
foreigners,' I tell the troupe.

'Then you want to say what you mean,' the father advises.

'I was going to say, while we're talking – '

'We aren't,' says the mother.

If the oldster contradicts her, it's only by asking me 'You're not
from our country, are you? Don't sound like it.'

'Of course I am,' I protest and am suddenly aware that I've no idea
how my voice sounds to anyone else – perhaps nothing like the one I
hear inside my head. 'Is Lester English enough for you?'

'That's never a Leicester accent.'

'Lester. My name. Ell ee ess tee ee ar. Simon Lester.'

I must have spoken louder than I thought, because a steward with
a drinks trolley stares at me. 'Don't let it bother you,' the father says.

'You watch that instead,' says the mother. 'It'll take your mind off.'

I sit forward to see that the boy is intent on a miniature screen.
He's holding a mobile phone, but what is it showing? I have to release
my seat belt and crane over his seat to distinguish the monochrome
image. My guess is that it's a muted pop video, intercutting riot
footage with glimpses of a vintage comedy, so brief that they border
on the subliminal. Then the steward leaves his trolley and marches at
me, his hat waving like a limp windsock. 'Can you fasten your seat
belt, sir,' he exhorts. 'The captain hasn't switched the sign off.'

I sit and grope for the metal tongue of the belt. Somehow it has
strayed beneath my neighbour's spongy thigh. When I tug it free, the
woman unleashes a squeal that turns into a convulsive sneeze.
'What's he doing to you, mother?' her daughter cries.

'I'm just doing as I'm told,' I protest.

As the steward frowns at me while maintaining his smile, Tim's
father says 'He's been talking like we're refugees, like we've got no
business here.'

'And he keeps going on about Leicester,' the grandmother
complains. 'Seems to forget it's full of immigrants. Wouldn't surprise
me if he was one, the way he talks.'

I've had extravagantly more than enough. 'Speaking of the
captain, didn't he say mobiles had to be switched off?'

'He's only watching,' the boy's mother objects.

'He's on the Internet if I'm not mistaken.'

The steward peers at the mobile with rather less enthusiasm than he
showed for reproving me. 'You need to keep that off on the plane, son.'

The boy jerks his entire body to signify his displeasure, almost
thumping me in the face with the back of the seat as he pokes a
button before folding the phone in half. He's quiet for a very few
seconds, and then he says 'Isn't it going too slow to stay up?'

'Now look what you've done,' his grandmother accuses me.

Tim's father twists around. 'What's he up to now, mother?'

'Nothing. Not another thing. I'm not even here,' I say and shut my
eyes tight.

I'm determined not to open them or move in any other way until
we're on the ground. I only have to hold my mind alert so that I don't
dream of being elsewhere. I wish I hadn't added my last remark. When
the drinks trolley arrives beside me I'm tempted to accept a coffee, but
I suspect the nurse may have drugged it. I try to remain absolutely still
as he hands brimming plastic cups across me to my fellow patients in
S Ward, because I'm afraid of being scalded if anyone distracts him or
unbalances him. The cups pass so close I can feel the heat on my
eyeballs. By the time he moves on I know perfectly well that I'm not
an inmate or surrounded by them, but I'm much less certain that my
neighbour is a woman. Isn't the way Tim's parents address her one
attempt too many to convince me? If I looked closely, might I see that
the person whose puffy arm is pressed against mine is wearing a wig?
I have to clench my fists so as not to grab the mop of grey hair and
attempt to remove it. I'm nervously grateful when the captain
announces that we've begun our descent to Heathrow until the boy in
charge of my cell declares 'They've gone again. We won't stay up.'

The wings are indeed flickering in and out of existence like an
imperfect transmission on the screens of the windows. Of course
clouds keep engulfing them, but each time they reappear they look
almost imperceptibly fatter. Is ice gathering on them? I dread hearing
an emergency announced – I can visualise the chaos in which the
family would involve me – and I grow yet more apprehensive as I see
lights sailing up towards the wings. I wanted to be home for Mark's
school play, but suppose they've reopened the airport prematurely?
Suppose the plane skids out of control? I close my eyes as the lights
surge upward and the cabin shudders with a thud. The plane slows so
abruptly that I'm certain it will flip upside down – I don't need the
boy's wail to tell me. Then the violent roar of the engine subsides, and
the captain has to appeal to the passengers to resume their seats while
the plane crawls towards the terminal.

As it halts at last, nearly everyone competes to be the winner at
standing up. Rather than wait for minutes on my feet I remain seated,
though I'm at least as anxious to be inside the terminal. Mark's play
isn't for hours, but I need to phone my bank. When a steward
wrestles the door open I struggle to my feet. Well after she notices my
efforts the mother says 'Let him out, Tim.'

The boy raises the seat a very few inches. 'That should have been
upright on our way down,' I realise too late. I grab the seat and lever
myself up, only for it to give way and dump me where I came from.
'Do it properly,' the woman says, and I have the infuriating notion
that she's talking to me. The boy jerks the seat erect with a violence
that might be expressing my rage, and I'm sidling to join the sluggish
parade to the exit when my arm is seized in a soft but tenacious grip.
'Lend us a hand, son,' the grandmother growls.

Apparently she wants help in standing up. Her other neighbour is so
intent on the window that he might almost be a bulky dummy. I suffer her
to cling to my arm as she labours to rise, but it isn't enough. Her grin
stretches wide with her exertions, and a trickle that looks thick enough for
glue runs down her forehead. I contort myself in the trap between the seats
and take hold of her free arm. I'm afraid to grasp it too firmly, because my
fingers seem to sink deeper than I like. Nevertheless I lift her in order to
make my escape, and her face wobbles up towards mine, grinning wider
still. I lurch into the aisle and let go of her arm. It's too easy to imagine
that the rubbery flesh is about to pop like the sagging balloon it resembles.