Trick or Treat (19 page)

‘Yes I will … Mum?'

‘What?'

‘They're all right, the people next door, aren't they?' he points to Nell's house.

‘Of course they are. Whatever do you mean?'

‘You said they were funny. And Rodney seems a bit funny, he talks in a cupeliar way.'

‘Peculiar,' corrects Petra, smiling. ‘Well it takes all sorts,' she adds, climbing the steps. ‘I shouldn't worry.'

‘Mum?'

‘What?'

‘Oh nothing. See you later.'

‘'Bye love.' The back door closes and Wolfe sighs and turns back to the cat. He scoops it up. It feels sharp and fragile through its thin skin. He carries it carefully round the front and down the passage to Arthur's front door. The skin on its back is cold, but underneath, in the folds where its legs meet its body, it is warm. He can feel the speedy beating of its heart against his hands and see the blue and red squiggles of its veins. Its tail is like a bone snake, tiny bones getting tinier and tinier as they reach the minute lashing tip. He holds it tightly under one arm as he knocks on the door.

He has to wait a long time before the frosted glass darkens and the door is fumbled open, and then the cat struggles free and leaps into the house. Olive peers round the door at him.

‘Is it yours?' Wolfe asks.

‘Oh yes, he's mine.'

‘He was in our garden.'

Olive looks closer. ‘Oh it's little lad from next door is it? He's a daft bugger isn't he? In your garden, you say? Well, come in then, don't stand there letting the cold in.' She stands back and Wolfe squeezes round the edge of the door. It is dim inside, gloomier than it is outside. The lights are on but the bulbs are weak and everything is brown and cluttered.

‘Come in and have a sweet,' Olive says. ‘Little lads like sweets, don't they? Don't they?'

Wolfe nods. ‘I do anyway,' he says. Olive leads him into the front room. She is huge in her sagging cardigan and her socks, and her hair stands up round her head in a yellowish frizz. She opens a cupboard and pulls out a tin. ‘It's a long time since we had a little lad in the house,' she says, straining with the effort of taking the lid off the tin. ‘Here we are … see what you can find in there.' She hands the tin to Wolfe. Inside is a half a bar of chocolate, some nutty toffee and some chocolate limes. Wolfe's eyes widen. ‘Sit down then,' commands Olive, and he perches on the arm of a huge leather chair.

‘Can I take bit of chocolate?'

‘Whatever you like.'

‘
And
a chocolate lime?'

Olive nods. Her mouth is full of toffee now, and she strokes Mao who has jumped on the chair and stretches up his head to her, purring loudly. For a moment Olive and Wolfe chew companionably, concentrating, passing the tin between them, listening to Mao's content and the occasional ping of the old gas fire. Olive screws her face up with the effort of swallowing a lump. ‘And you found my Mao. In your garden you say?'

‘Sitting in the bonfire ash.'

‘He will have been scared.'

‘Of the fireworks.'

‘That's right, lad. A good lad. We had a lad once … but we never talk …' she drifts off. Wolfe helps himself to another chocolate lime.

‘Is Arthur in?' he asks. ‘Only I'd like to see Arthur.'

‘He's out searching for Mao.'

‘Oh dear,' says Wolfe. ‘Shall I go out and find him? Shall I tell him that we've found him?'

‘No, lad, you stay put. He'll be back in a bit. Have another sweet. Try a bit of toffee. He'll be back in a bit. It'll be a nice surprise.'

‘All right.' Wolfe swallows his half-chewed chocolate lime and takes a piece of the toffee. ‘Why is he a bald cat?' he asks.

‘Don't you think he's nice?'

‘Yes,' Wolfe says. ‘Only I like them better with fur.'

Olive laughs and when she opens her mouth wide Wolfe can see a gap between her teeth and her gums. ‘It's nice to have a lad in the house,' she says. ‘Come here, help me get down.' She grasps Wolfe's arm but he can't hold her weight and she overbalances on the floor with him on top of her. He jumps up, terrified.

‘Are you all right?'

‘Oooh,' she groans. ‘It's just my back, my blessed back.'

‘Shall I go and get my mum?'

‘No, no … it'll pass. Artie will be home in a bit.' The cat jumps onto her chest and nestles itself down. ‘There we are, Mao,' Olive murmurs.

‘That's an unusual name for a cat,' says Wolfe politely. ‘Miaow.'

‘Chairman Mao.'

‘Chairman Miaow.'

‘And what's your name again?'

‘Wolfe.'

Olive begins to laugh, but it turns into a groan. ‘Oh my blessed back. Fetch a cushion, Wolfe, and put it under my shoulder.' Wolfe looks around and finds a lumpy flowered cushion. He bends over Olive to ease it underneath her and is enveloped in a choking smell of toffee and something powdery and old. He straightens up and stands awkwardly, shifting from one leg to the other. He would like to go now, but doesn't feel that he can leave her like this. He will wait for Arthur. Besides, he wants to see Arthur.

‘I've got my cat back then,' Olive says, ‘but there's still my hat. I lost my hat, a grand hat it was, black straw, with cherries. Oh yes, a grand hat all right.' Wolfe frowns. ‘A grand hat and they've stolen it, the thieving buggers. I'll never see that hat again.'

Wolfe is confused. He opens and then closes his mouth. He thinks of the hat in Petra's wardrobe.
That
is a black straw hat with cherries on it. But that came from Nell and not from Olive. Perhaps all old women have hats like that. Olive looks as if she is going to cry. It is very odd to be in a room with a fat old woman flat on her back and a bald cat curled on her chest. He wonders what he should do if she does cry, but it is all right. She suddenly lets out a long sigh like a lilo going down and smiles at him. All the little hairs around her mouth glisten with toffee juice, and her chin trembles.

‘Our little lad was a lovely lad,' she says. Wolfe is grateful that the subject has been changed. He will have to think about the hat. Olive stares up at him until he feels uncomfortable, but her eyes are not focused on him. ‘Not like that lad up road,' she says, ‘Nell's son. Not like him. Do you know about him?'

‘Rodney?'

‘That's the one, you want to keep out of the way of him … yes, keep right out of the road of him …'

‘But …' Wolfe begins, but the door bangs and Arthur comes in. Olive's voice drops to a whisper: ‘They had to put him away for years and years.'

‘Ollie!' says Arthur sharply, coming into the room. ‘What are you saying? Don't go frightening lad.'

‘I'm not,' Olive's voice is plaintive now. ‘He's fetched our Mao back to us.'

‘Oh … that's a right relief! I've been everywhere. Where was he?'

‘In our garden, just sitting in our garden,' Wolfe says.

‘Daft bugger,' Olive says. ‘But he's home now.'

‘Language,' says Arthur.

‘It's all right,' Wolfe says, ‘everyone swears in our house too, except Mum. She fell down,' he explains, indicating Olive, ‘but she says she's all right and we've eaten loads of sweets.'

Arthur laughs. ‘Just as well I've got more supplies in then.' He puts his hand in his pocket and brings out some wine gums and some peanut brittle. ‘You take a few home with you, here …' He opens the packet and fills Wolfe's hands with them. ‘And here, a reward,' he puts a fifty-pence piece in Wolfe's coat-pocket.

‘Thanks a lot,' says Wolfe. ‘But it was nothing, he was only in the garden.'

‘All same, lad, you brought him back safe and sound, and I'm right grateful.'

‘Well, I'd better be going,' Wolfe says, awkward again. ‘Bye-bye Olive, bye-bye Miaow.' Arthur follows him to the door and opens it for him.

‘Er … you know what Olive was saying about Rodney …' Wolfe begins.

‘Oh you don't want to go taking any notice of her,' Arthur says cheerfully. ‘You take it with a pinch of salt, lad.'

‘All right, then,' says Wolfe. He is relieved, because Arthur must know.

He waits in the passage between his front door and Rodney's. He supposes that is where Rodney will look for him. It is cold and he has peanut brittle stuck between his teeth. He will wait for a little while, just a little while, for the afternoon is creeping past and it gets dark early these days, since the clocks went back. He can smell the sweet warmth of Petra's cake drifting down the passage. He wants to be in the house with Petra and Tom and all the happiness and all the excitement, eating cake and keeping warm, waiting for Petra's news. If he dares, when Rodney comes, he will say, ‘No, not today.' If Rodney comes soon, for he won't wait long. It is cold in the passage and the wind blows leaves and a crackly crisp bag about his feet.

The shouting has stopped so maybe Rodney will be out in a minute. The shouting was terrible. It is terrible to hear grownup voices raised like that. Petra never shouts like that, nor does Tom. Nell's voice was like a wild screeching, rising and rising, though he could not make out the words; and he could hear Rodney too, shouting and bellowing, and even sobbing. And there were thumping and crashing sounds, as if furniture was being moved about, knocked over, and the sound of breaking glass. Wolfe listened to that and he was frightened. At least they are quiet now. He will not wait much longer for Rodney. Surely Rodney will understand that he could not wait now that it is getting cold and dusky? But then he might be angry with Wolfe and Wolfe could not bear it if Rodney shouted at him like that, in that bellowing voice, loud enough to rattle the glass in the door.

It is very quiet now that the shouting has stopped. It is very quiet but for the scratching sound of the leaves and the crisp bag blowing about, and the faint murmur of the radio from his own house. They are listening to
Afternoon Theatre
, and the cosy smell of the cake is seeping out, calling to him. He keeps his eyes on the door, but there is no movement. He can't wait much longer. He will not. He shivers.

Bobby and Buffy arrive suddenly, their voices loud and familiar and quarrelsome, their school-bags slung over their shoulders.

‘What are you hanging about there for?' Bobby asks.

‘No reason,' says Wolfe.

‘Come on in then,' Buffy says and opens the door. ‘It's freezing.' Wolfe follows them into the warmth and the light, glad to have his mind made up for him, glad not to be walking with Rodney through the blowing leaves and into the nearly dark. Rodney might not be a proper stranger, but he is strange for a grown-up. Not like a proper grown-up at all in some ways. And his eyes without glasses are pale and frightened eyes, curled-up eyes, like woodlice when you lift a stone.

Petra smiles at Wolfe. ‘There you are at last,' she says. ‘I was wondering where you'd got to. We were just about to send a search party out, weren't we, Tom?'

‘Were you?' Wolfe asks, comforted.

The cake sits on a plate in the middle of the table, a round cake dappled with fruit and nuts and sprinkled with brown sugar.

‘Now that we're all here, I've got some news,' Petra says. Her eyes are sparkly and excited. ‘Sit down, and I'll cut the cake.'

Tom is sitting at the table with a cigarette dangling from his smile. He winks at Wolfe, and Wolfe sits down beside him.

Petra begins to slice the cake, and a sweet steam rises from it into the air. Petra gives the first slice to Wolfe, and as he sinks his teeth into the warm and spicy sweetness, all the cold and worrisome thoughts of Rodney float right out of his head.

Nell sits bolt-upright on the edge of the sofa. The room is cold. She will switch the gas fire on soon. It is nearly six o'clock. She can switch the gas fire on when it is six o'clock. Her eyes are on the clock. Her vision bores a tunnel through the room, outside which all is blurred. She keeps the tunnel focused on the clock. Jim used to wind that clock before he went upstairs to bed every night, and Nell has kept up the tradition. It is a reliable clock and when it says six o'clock she will switch on the fire. In order to switch on the fire she will have to step over Rodney.

In the corner is the telephone. It has hardly been used since Jim passed over. Some bills have only the rental charge on them. She means to have it disconnected. It is only another thing to dust. But now she could use it to ring for an ambulance. She could dial 999 – but that seems an awful fuss to make. It is best to keep this sort of thing within the walls of the house, no call to go making a performance of it. And the carpet will be a devil to clean. But no, she will not look down, not until six o'clock. Her own head is numb where Rodney grabbed her hair, and her face throbs where he struck her. And Rodney lies sprawled on the floor. It's a mercy Jim is upstairs. It would have upset him to see Rodney go for Nell like that. Insane. Like a wild beast, not her son, not a cherub of a baby with eyelashes long enough to make women sigh. A wild beast. And what was his reason? That she had cleaned his room! That she had taken the trouble to clear out all that old rubbish, all that old rubbish that meant nothing any more.

Now Rodney groans. ‘Mum …' he says. But Nell will not look at him, not yet, great big baby, making such a fuss. Rodney groans again and is quiet. There is his breathing; there is the ticking of the clock; sometimes a car goes past; sometimes there is a voice or footsteps outside. Otherwise it is quiet.

She should scrub the carpet now, while the blood is still wet. Then she might get away without a stain. That is the only solution, otherwise it will be ruined and she'll never afford another of this quality. Jim always insisted on the best – one hundred per cent pure virgin wool, none of your poly-propelene for them. She must do it. It would be plain wicked to sit there and let the blood dry and ruin her carpet for ever, a wicked waste. And anyway it is six o'clock, time to move.