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Look, the fact is I hardly remember that evening at Charlie French's. I mean, I remember the evening, but not the people, not with any clarity. I see far more vividly the lights on the water outside, and the last streak of sunset and the dark bank of cloud, than I do the faces of those hearty boy-men. Even Max Molyneaux is not much more, in my recollection, than an expensive suit and a certain sleek brutishness. What do I care for him and his ilk, for God's sake? Let them keep their reputations, it's nothing to me, one way or the other, I have no interest in stirring up scandal. The occasion passed before me in a glassy blur, like so much else over those ten days. Why, even poor Foxy was hardly more substantial to me in my frantic condition than a prop in a wet dream. No, wait, I take that back. However much they may hoot in ribald laughter, I must declare that I remember her clearly, with tenderness and compassion. She is, and will most likely remain, the last woman I made love to. Love? Can I call it that? What else can I call it. She trusted me. She smelled the blood and the horror and did not recoil, but opened herself like a flower and let me rest in her for a moment, my heart shaking, as we exchanged our wordless secret. Yes, I remember her. I was falling, and she caught me, my Gretchen.
In fact, her name was Marian. Not that it matters.
They stayed very late, all except Mrs Max, who left directly di
Next day the weather broke. At mid-morning, when my hangover and I got up, the sun was shining as gaily and as heartlessly as it had all week, and the houses along the coast shimmered in a pale-blue haze, as if the sky had crumbled into airy geometry there. I stood at the window in my drawers, scratching and yawning. It struck me that I had become almost accustomed to this strange way of life. It was as if I were adapting to an illness, after the initial phase of frights and fevers. A churchbell was ringing. Sunday. The strollers were out already, with their dogs and children. Across the road, at the harbour wall, a man in a raincoat stood with his hands clasped behind his back, gazing out to sea. I could hear voices downstairs. Madge was in the kitchen doing last night's washing-up. She gave me a peculiar glance. I was wearing Charlie's dressing-gown. How is it, I wonder, that I did not catch it then, that new, speculative note in her voice, which should have alerted me? She had a helper with her this morning, her niece, a dim-looking child of twelve or so with – with what, what does it matter what she had, what she was like. All these minor witnesses, none of whom will ever be called now. I sat at the table drinking tea and watched them as they worked. The child I could see was frightened of me. Fe fi fo fum. He's gone out, you know, Madge said, her arms plunged in suds, Mr French, he went out as I was coming in. Her, tone was unaccountably accusing, as if Charlie had fled the house because of me. But then, he had.
In the afternoon a huge cloud grew up on the horizon, grey and grainy, like a deposit of silt, and the sea swarmed, a blackish blue flecked with white. I watched an undulant curtain of rain sweep in slowly from the east. The man at the harbour wall buttoned his raincoat. The Sunday morning crowd was long gone, but he, he was still there.
Strange how it felt, now that it was here at last. I had expected terror, panic, cold sweat, the shakes, but there was none of that. Instead, a kind of wild-eyed euphoria took hold of me. I strode about the house like the drunken captain of a storm-tossed ship. All sorts of mad ideas came into my head. I would barricade the doors and windows. I would take Madge and her niece hostage, and barter them for a helicopter to freedom. I would wait until Charlie came back, and use him as a human shield, marching him out ahead of me with a knife at his throat – I even went down to the kitchen to find a blade for the purpose. Madge had finished the washing-up, and was sitting at the table with a pot of tea and a Sunday tabloid. She watched me apprehensively as I rummaged in the cutlery drawer. She asked if I would be wanting my lunch, or would I wait for Mr French. I laughed wildly. Lunch! The niece laughed too, a little parrot squawk, her top lip curling up to reveal a half-inch of whitish, glistening gum. When I looked at her she shut her mouth abruptly, it was like a blind coming down. Jacintha, Madge said to her sharply, you go home. Stay where you are! I cried. They both flinched, and Jacintha's chin trembled and her eyes filled up with tears. I abandoned the search for a knife, and plunged off upstairs again. The man in the mackintosh was gone. I gave a great gasp of relief, as if I had been holding my breath all this time, and slumped against the window-frame. The rain teemed, big drops dancing on the road and making the surface of the water in the harbour seethe. I heard the front door open and bang shut, and Madge and the girl appeared below me and scampered away up the street with their coats over their heads. I laughed to see them go, the child leaping the puddles and Madge wallowing in her wake. Then I spotted the car, parked a little way up the road, on the other side, with two dim, large, motionless figures seated in the front, their faces blurred behind the streaming windscreen.
I sat in a chair in the drawing-room, gazing before me, my hands gripping the armrests and my feet placed squarely side by side on the floor. I do not know how long I stayed like that, in that glimmering, grey space. I have an impression of hours passing, but surely that ca