The Throwback

'So I can hear,' said the doctor as Mr Dodd tried to change the cassette and Mr Taglioni, revivified by his lunch, burst into a foul imitation of Caruso. 'Quite remarkably better by the sound of it.'

From her bedroom Mrs Flawse demanded to know if that damned doctor was back again.

'If he tells Dr Magrew to get out of the house just one more time,' she wailed, 'I think I'll go off my head.'

Dr Magrew hesitated between so many injunctions. From the bedroom Mr Flawse had switched to politics and was berating the Baldwin government of 1935 for its pusillanimity while at the same time someone in the cellar was bawling about Bella bella carissima. Lockhart shook his head.

'Come down and have a drink,' he said. 'Grandfather's in an odd frame of mind.'

Certainly Dr Magrew was. In the course of separating Mr Dodd from the taxidermist Lockhart had, to put it mildly, been bloodied and the presence in a coffee cup on the tray of what from Dr Magrew's experience he could have sworn to be a human appendix dropped there absent-mindedly by Mr Tag-lioni, left him badly in need of a drink. He staggered down the staircase eagerly and presently was gulping down Mr Dodd's special distilled Northumbrian whisky by the tumbler.

'You know,' he said when he felt a little better, 'I had no idea your grandfather had such a low opinion of Mr Bullstrode.'

'You don't think that could just be the result of his concussion? The fall affected his mind as you said yourself.'

Down below Mr Taglioni, left to himself, had hit the crusted port again and with it Verdi. Dr Magrew stared at the floor.

'Am I imagining things,' he asked, 'but is there someone singing in your cellar?'

Lockhart shook his head. 'I can't hear anything,' he said

firmly. 'Christ,' said the doctor looking wildly round, 'you really

can't?'

'Only grandfather shouting upstairs.'

'I can hear that too,' said Dr Magrew. 'But…" He stared demoniacally at the floor. 'Well, if you say so. By the way, do you always wear a scarf over your face in the house?'

Lockhart took it off with a sanguine hand. From the cellar came a fresh burst of Neapolitan.

'I think I had better be gone,' said the doctor, staggering to his feet, 'I'm delighted your grandfather is making such good progress. I'll call again when I feel a little better myself.'

Lockhart escorted him to the door and was seeing him out when the taxidermist struck again.

'The eyes,' he shouted, 'my God I forgot to bring his eyes. Now what are we going to do?'

There was no doubting what Dr Magrew was going to do. He took one last demented look at the house and trundled off at a run down the drive to his car. Houses in which he saw human appendixes in otherwise empty coffee cups and people a

Behind him Lockhart turned blandly back into the Hall and calmed the distraught Mr Taglioni. 'I'll bring some,' he said, 'don't worry. I'll fetch a pair.'

'Where am I?' wailed the taxidermist. 'What is happening to me?'

Upstairs Mrs Flawse knew exactly where she was but had no idea what was happening to her. She peered out of the window in time to see the persistent Dr Magrew ru

Chapter seventeen

All that day and the next and the one following Mr Taglioni continued his gruesome task while Lockhart cooked and Mr Dodd sat in his shed and stared resentfully at the cucumber frames. In her bedroom Mrs Flawse had stood all she could of her blasted husband's voice echoing from across the landing about Heaven and Hell and guilt, sin and damnation. If the old fool would either die or stop repeating himself she wouldn't have minded but he went on and on and on, and by the third night Mrs Flawse was prepared to brave snow, sleet and storm and even heights to escape. She tied her sheets together and then tore her blankets into strips and knotted them to the sheets and the sheets to the bed and finally, do

She turned from the gate and ran or rather stumbled alongside The Cut in a desperate attempt to reach the hillside by the tu

'Get back, ye scum,' shouted Lockhart, 'back to your ke

ye scavengers of hell.'

His voice drifting with the wind reached Mrs Flawse and for once she felt grateful to her son-in-law. A moment later she knew better. Addressing Mr Dodd as he had addressed the hounds, Lockhart cursed the man for his stupidity.

'Have you forgotten the will, you damned old fool?' he demanded. 'Let the old bitch but go one mile beyond the radius of the Hall and she will forfeit the estate. So let her run and be damned.'

'I hadna thought of that,' said Mr Dodd contritely and turned his horse to follow the pack back to Flawse Hall while Lockhart rode behind. Mrs Flawse no longer hesitated. She too had forgotten the clause in the will. She would not run and be damned. With a desperate effort she scrambled from The Cut and stumbled back to the Hall. Once there she had not the strength to climb the sheets to her bedroom but tried the door. It was unlocked. She went inside and stood shivering in the darkness. A door was open to the kitchen and a light shone beneath the cellar door. Mrs Flawse needed a drink, a strong drink to warm her blood. She stepped quietly to the cellar door and opened it. A moment later her screams echoed and re-echoed through the house for there before her very eyes, naked and with an enormous scar from groin to gullet, sat old Mr Flawse on a bare wood table stained with blood and his eyes were the eyes of a tiger. Behind him stood Mr Taglioni with a piece of cotton waste which he appeared to be stuffing into her husband's skull and while he worked he hummed a tune from The Barber of Seville. Mrs Flawse took one look and having screamed passed out. It was Lockhart who carried her gibbering dementedly back to her room and dropped her on the bed. Then he hauled up the sheets and blankets and knotted her to the bedstead.