‘They’re quite right to raise the roof,’ said Chick. ‘This really is a terrific meeting! …’
Heartre had stood up and was showing the audience some samples of petrified vomit. The prettiest, containing sweetbreads, sauerkraut and cider, was an outstanding success.
People could hardly hear anything any more, even from behind the curtains where Isis, Alyssum and Chick were hiding.
‘Well,’ said Isis, ‘when will they be back?’
‘Tomorrow – or the day after,’ said Alyssum.
‘We haven’t seen them for ages! …’ said Isis.
‘Not since they got married …’ said Alyssum.
‘It was such a lovely wedding,’ concluded Isis.
‘Yes,’ said Chick. That was the night Nicholas took you home …’
Luckily the whole ceiling collapsed into the hall at that moment, so that Isis did not have to go into any further explanations. A thick dust rose. Amongst the rubbish, whitish creatures were staggering about, reeling and stumbling over each other, asphyxiated by the heavy cloud of powdered plaster which was floating over the debris. Heartre had stopped and was laughing heartily, slapping his sides, delighted to see so many people committed to this activity. He took a great swig of dust and started coughing like mad.
Chick frantically turned the knobs on his recorder. He produced a vivid green flash which took a dive into the floor like lightning and disappeared through a crack in the parquet. A second flash followed, then a third, and he switched off the current just as a horrible insect, covered all over in legs, crept out of the motor.
‘No wonder!’ he said. ‘It’s been choked by all the dust in the mike.’
The pandemonium in the hall had reached its peak. Heartre, parched dry, had even swallowed the carafe itself and, having just read his last page, was getting ready to go. Chick had a flash of inspiration.
‘I’ll show him out this way,’ he said. ‘You go first, and I’ll follow.’
29
Nicholas stopped on his way through the corridor. The suns were definitely coming through very badly indeed. The yellow ceramic tiles seemed to be tarnished and hidden behind a veil of mist, and the rays, instead of bouncing back like bright buckshot, slurped on to the floor and oozed themselves out into thin dull puddles. The walls, dappled with sunshine, no longer shone evenly all over as they did before.
The mice did not seem to be particularly put out by the change – all except the grey one with the black whiskers whose deeply worried expression was immediately noticeable. Nicholas supposed that it must have been upset by the sudden and unexpected termination of the honeymoon and was missing the fun and games it was hoping to have had on the trip.
‘You don’t look very happy,’ he said.
The mouse pulled a long face and nodded its whiskers towards the walls.
‘Yes,’ said Nicholas, ‘it’s not right. Things used to be better than this. I don’t know what the matter can be …’
The mouse appeared to be thinking for a moment, then shook its head and threw up its arms in a gesture of hopeless helplessness.
‘No, neither do I,’ said Nicholas. ‘I just don’t understand. Even when you use polish, nothing happens. It must be something in the air …’
He stopped, thought, shook his head too, and then went on his way. The mouse folded its arms and absent-mindedly started chewing, then spat the gum out immediately because it was flavoured with cat-mint. The errand-boy had delivered the wrong sort.
In the dining-room Chloe was having lunch with Colin.
‘Hallo!’ said Nicholas. ‘Feeling better?’
‘Oho!’ said Colin, ‘so you’ve decided to talk like everyone else once again?’
‘I haven’t got my shoes on yet,’ explained Nicholas.
‘I don’t feel so bad today,’ said Chloe.
Her eyes were shining, her cheeks were rosy, and she seemed happy to be back home again.
‘She’s eaten half the chicken pie,’ said Colin.
‘Wonderful!’ said Nicholas. ‘And I didn’t get that recipe from ffroydde.’
‘What would you like to do today, Chloe?’ asked Colin.
‘Yes,’ said Nicholas, ‘will you be eating early or late?’
‘What I’d like to do is go out with both of you, and Isis and Chick and Alyssum, and go skating and round the shops and end up at a party somewhere,’ said Chloe, ‘and on the way I want to buy myself an ephemerald amethystle clockwork ring.’
‘Good,’ said Nicholas, ‘then I’ll get cracking in the kitchen straight away.’
‘Do your work barefooted, Nicholas,’ said Chloe. ‘It’s so much less tiring for us. And besides, you won’t have to change out of your uniform to get ready then!’
‘I’ll go and get some pieces of eighty-eight from my doublezoon-box,’ said Colin, ‘while you telephone the clan, Chloe. We’ll have a great day out.’
‘I’ll do the ringing straight away,’ said Chloe.
She sprang up and went to the phone. She lifted the receiver and hooted like an owl to show that she wanted to be put through to Chick.
Nicholas cleared the table by pulling a little lever. The dirty crockery skidded down into the sink along a flat pneumatic tube hidden under the carpet. He went out of the room and back along the corridor.
The mouse, standing on its back legs, was scratching at one of the tarnished tiles with its tiny fingers. Where it had been scratching it was shining again like new.
‘Well, well, well!’ said Nicholas. ‘So you’ve managed it! … that’s marvellous!’
The mouse stopped, completely out of breath, and showed Nicholas its raw bleeding knuckles.
‘Oh!’ said Nicholas. ‘You’ve hurt yourself! … Come on, don’t do any more. After all, there’s still plenty of sunshine left. Come along with me and I’ll bandage you up …’
He put the exhausted mouse, with its half-closed eyelids, into his breast pocket, letting its poor little wounded paws hang out over the edge.
Humming a tune, Colin swiftly swivelled the knobs on his chest of doublezoons. The worry of the last few days had disappeared and he felt as light-hearted as a mandarin orange. The chest was made of white marble inlaid with ivory, and the knobs were of seaweed-green sapphire. The pointer showed he had sixty thousand doublezoons left.
The lid swung open with a slick click, and the smile swept itself from Colin’s face. The indicator, which for some reason had been jammed, after swivelling round two or three times, stayed fixed at thirty-five thousand doublezoons. Doing some quick mental arithmetic, he worked out a rough trial balance. Out of a hundred thousand, he had given twenty-five thousand to Chick to marry Alyssum, spent fifteen thousand on the car, five thousand on the wedding … and the rest had frittered itself away naturally. That cheered him a little. ‘It’s only normal,’ he said out loud – and his voice sounded strangely unconvincing, even to himself …
He took as much as he needed, thought a moment, and then put half of it back with a sorrowful shrug, and locked the lid. The knobs rapidly swivelled round making a gay little noise like a chorus of castanets. He tapped the glass of the gold-barometer and checked that it showed correctly how much was inside.
Then he stood up. He stood still for a few moments, pondering. He was shocked by the large amounts he was having to spend to give Chloe the things he thought she deserved – but smiled when he thought of Chloe with her hair long and flowing first thing in the morning, and of the curves and contours of her body – in bed – under the sheet, and of the golden colour of her skin when he took the sheet away … and he sharply forced himself to think of his phynances again because it was far from being the right moment to be thinking of those other kinds of things …
Chloe was getting ready.
‘Tell Nicholas to make some Satchmo sandwiches,’ she said, ‘so that we can go out straight away … I said we’d all meet at Isis’s place.’
On the spur of the moment, Colin kissed her on the shoulder, and then ran
to tell Nicholas. Nicholas had just finished bandaging the mouse and was making it a little pair of crutches out of twigs of bamboo.
‘There we are,’ he said, putting it down. ‘Try walking on those till this evening, and then everything should be all right again.’
‘What happened?’ asked Colin, tickling the mouse behind the ear.
‘It wanted to get the tiles in the corridor sparkling again,’ said Nicholas. ‘It managed it, but it hurt itself in the process.’
‘You shouldn’t worry about them,’ said Colin. ‘They’ll get their shine back by themselves one day.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Nicholas. ‘It’s very odd. It’s as if they couldn’t breathe properly.’
‘They’ll soon be back to normal,’ said Colin … ‘At least, I’m almost certain they will … Haven’t they ever gone like it before?’
‘No,’ said Nicholas.
Colin stood for a few moments beside the kitchen window.
‘Perhaps it’s just wear and tear,’ he said. ‘We could try putting new ones down …’
‘That would be very expensive,’ said Nicholas.
‘Yes,’ said Colin. ‘We might as well wait and see.’
‘What did you want?’ asked Nicholas.
‘Don’t do any cooking,’ said Colin. ‘Just make some Satchmo sandwiches … We’re going out straight away.’
‘OK then. I’ll get dressed,’ said Nicholas.
He put the mouse on the floor and it hobbled off towards the door, tottering between its little crutches, its black whiskers sticking out on either side.
30
The appearance of the street had completely altered since Colin and Chloe had been away. The leaves on the trees were enormous now, and the pale complexions of the houses had been lost under a gentle green shade prior to taking on the soft beige of summer. The pavement was growing soft and springy underfoot, and the air smelt of pomegranates and strawberries.
It was still fresh, but you could tell that fine weather was on the way by the blueness of the window-panes. Green and blue flowers – and some flowers that were between blue and blue – were growing all along the kerbs of the pavement, and the sap trickled round their slim stems with a light damp sound like a kiss between a pair of amorous snails.
Nicholas was the first one out. He was wearing a sports suit of warm mustard tweed over a roll-neck sweater with a Fair-Isle pattern based on the wood-engraving of a Salmon à la Glamis taken from page 607 of the Colour Supplement to ffroydde’s Household Management. His crepe-soled canteloupe leather shoes hardly bent the tops of the vegetation. He was careful to walk in the double tracks that had been cleared to let the traffic through.
Colin and Chloe followed him, Chloe holding Colin’s hand, breathing deeply the scented air. She was in a little white woollen dress, with a short jacket of leopard-skin which had been treated to elongate the spots and make them spread out in echoing overlapping ovals and curious optical patterns. Her spun hair flowed freely, exhaling a heady perfume of pink jasmine.
Colin, his eyes half-closed, let himself be guided by this perfume, and his lips trembled like the wings of a butterfly every time he breathed in. The fronts of the houses abandoned their severe rectitude to join with him and, as a result, the relaxed features of the street occasionally misled Nicholas, forcing him to stop and check up on their names at the corners.
‘What shall we do first?’ asked Colin.
‘Go round the shops,’ said Chloe. ‘I’ve only got one dress left.’
‘Don’t you want to get one from Miss Hart and Miss Nell as usual?’ said Colin.
‘No,’ said Chloe. ‘I want to go round the shops and buy some ready-made dresses – and things and things and things!’
‘Isis will be thrilled to see you again, Nicholas,’ said Colin.
‘Oh, will she? Why?’ asked Nicholas.
‘I’ve no idea …’
They swerved into Sidney Bechet Street – and they were there. The housekeeper was sitting at the door in a mechanical rocking-chair whose engine popped to the rhythm of a polka. It was all rather old-fashioned and charming.
Isis greeted them. Chick and Alyssum were there already. Isis was wearing a red dress and smiled at Nicholas. She kissed Chloe and they all permutated their interkissings for a few moments.
‘You look so well, Chloe darling,’ said Isis. ‘I thought you were ill. But I can see you aren’t.’
‘I’m much better,’ said Chloe. ‘Nicholas and Colin looked after me marvellously.’
‘How are your little cousins?’ asked Nicholas.
Isis blushed to her eyebrows.
‘They take turns to ask me about you every other day,’ she said.
‘They’re lovely girls,’ said Nicholas, half-turning away, ‘but you are firmer.’
‘Yes …’ said Isis.
‘And the honeymoon?’ said Chick.
‘Went off very well,’ said Colin. ‘The road was terrible to start with, but we managed to get over it.’
‘It was all lovely,’ said Chloe, ‘except for the snow …’
She put her hand on her heart.
‘What are we going to do?’ asked Alyssum.
‘I could tell you about Heartre’s lecture, if you like,’ said Chick.
‘Have you bought many books of his while we’ve been away?’ asked Colin.
‘Oh, no! Not many …’ said Chick.
‘And how’s work?’ asked Colin.
‘Oh! … All right …’ said Chick. ‘I’ve got a pal who takes over when I have to go out.’
‘For nothing?’ asked Colin.
‘Well … Almost,’ said Chick. ‘Do you want to go to the Rinkspot straight away?’
‘No, we’re going to the shops first,’ said Chloe ‘But if the boys want to go skating …’
‘That’s a good idea,’ said Colin.
‘I’ll go round the shops with the girls,’ said Nicholas. ‘I’ve got some shopping to do too.’
‘That’s fine then,’ said Isis. ‘But let’s hurry so we’ll have time for a moment or two on the rink afterwards.’
31
Colin and Chick had been skating for an hour and the ice was beginning to get crowded. The same girls and the same boys were constantly going round and round, forever falling over in the same way and being swept away by the sweeper-serfs and their squeegees. The risk-jockey had just lifted from the turntable a chorus that the regulars had been learning by heart for weeks. He replaced it by the flip-side – an action that was thoroughly expected as his habits were beginning to become well-known. But the record suddenly stopped and a stentorian voice could be heard over all the loud-speakers but one, which stubbornly went on with the music. The voice asked Mr Colin if he would go to the Manager’s Office as he was wanted on the telephone.
‘Whatever can that be for?’ said Colin.
He flew to the edge of the rink, followed by Chick, and landed on the rubber matting. He grabbed the rail and rushed into the control cabin where the microphone was.
The risk-jockey was scrubbing the surface of a well-worn record from the top of the charts with a wire-brush to get rid of the scratches.
‘Hello!’ said Colin, picking up the phone.
He listened.
Chick watched him. Firstly he looked shocked, and then turned the same colour as the ice.
‘Is it something serious?’ he asked.
Colin made a sign asking him to keep quiet.
‘I’ll be straight there,’ he said, and hung up.
The sides of the cabin closed in and he just managed to squeeze out, followed closely by Chick, before he was crushed. He twisted his ankles with every step. He called to one of the attendants.
‘Open my cubicle for me quickly. No. 309.’
‘Mine too. No. 311,’ said Chick.
The attendant dawdled along. Colin looked round, saw him ten yards behind and waited till he had caught him up. Taking brutal aim with his skate, he gave him a savage karate chop u
nder the chin and the attendant’s head flew off and landed on the top of one of the ventilation shafts while Colin took the key which the body was still absent-mindedly clutching in its hand. Colin opened a cubicle, kicked the trunk inside, spat on it and dashed off to No. 309. Chick slammed the door.
‘Whatever’s the matter?’ he asked breathlessly when he got there.
Colin had already taken off his skates and put on his shoes.
‘It’s Chloe,’ said Colin. ‘She’s been taken ill.’
‘Seriously?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Colin. ‘She’s fainted.’
He was ready and rushed out.
‘Where are you going?’ cried Chick.
‘Home! …’ shouted Colin, and he disappeared, followed by the reinforced echoes of the concrete stairs.
At the other end of the rinkunabula the half-suffocated maintenance men from the ventilation plant were crawling out because the air-conditioning had collapsed. They fell down, exhausted, all round the rink.
Chick, stupefied, one skate in his hand, looked in bewilderment at the spot where Colin had disappeared.
Under the door of Cubicle No. 128, a thin bubbly trickle of blood was stickily oozing out, and the red liquid began to drip on to the ice in fat heavy steaming drops.
32
He ran like mad, seeing the people slowly toppling over to right and left like ninepins, making soft plopping noises on the pavements like a bombardment of empty cardboard boxes.
Colin ran on and on and on. The steep horizon, squeezed into a narrow space between the houses, was whizzing towards him. It was growing dark underfoot. A night of amorphous and inorganic black cotton-wool. And a sky without colour; a ceiling. Another sharp angle – arid he ran to the peak of the pyramid, his heart held by less gloomy visions of the night. But there were still two or three more streets to cross before he would be home.