"Not if-"

"We can all be saved. We just have to admit we need to be," Sonny rea.s.sured Sam, who agreed so readily that Sonny wondered if he"d missed the point somehow. Houses white as virgins breathed their stony breaths and expanded their bellies until every polished name-plaque turned to the sun and shone. For a moment he thought it was G.o.d who was filling the virgin bellies, and then he recoiled from himself. How could he let the world think for him? Where had he gone wrong? "Quick," he gasped, and tottered round, almost touching Sam"s bare downy arm.

The world twisted and tried to throw him. The fat houses between him and the market began to dance, wobbling their whited bellies. He mustn"t think of leaning on Sam, but a distant edge of him wished he could. He held the spectacles to his eyes as he came abreast of the dangling newspapers, but the darkness of the lenses seemed a pit into which he was close to falling. As he stepped off the pavement to cross the side street, he felt as if he were stepping off a cliff.

He faltered in the middle of the side street, though cars snarled beside him. He thought a voice had spoken to him, saying "King G.o.d." He s.n.a.t.c.hed off the spectacles so eagerly that one lens shattered between his finger and thumb. Black shards crunched under his feet, the sun went for his eyes, but none of this mattered. He hadn"t heard a voice, he"d seen a sign. It hadn"t just said King G.o.d; only the lens had made it seem to. It said Kingdom of G.o.d, and it was in a window.

He ran across the side street, scrambled onto the pavement. How could he have missed the sign before? Surely he needn"t blame Sam for distracting him. The Kingdom was here now, that was all that mattered-here beyond the window that blazed like a golden door, like a fire in which only the name of the Kingdom was visible, never to be consumed. He took another pace towards it, and the sunlight drained out of the window, leaving a surface grey with dust and old rain, which he was nevertheless able to see through. Beyond it was ruined emptiness.

He stumbled forward so as not to fall. The sign he"d seen was a faded placard in the window, beside a door whose lock had been gouged out. A rail dragged down by stained curtains leaned diagonally across the window. Several chairs lay on the bare floorboards, their legs broken, their entrails sprung. On a table against the ragged wall, a dead cat glistened restlessly.

Sam pressed his forehead against the window. "This can"t be it, can it? n.o.body"s been here for months."

Sonny"s father had been, only days ago: wasn"t that what he"d said? He must have meant it as a parable, or meant that he"d met some of the brethren. What could Sonny do now, as the world throbbed with m.u.f.fled mocking laughter? Go back home in case the Kingdom had come there and if not, stay nearby until they found him? Then Sam said "Don"t worry, I"ll help you. Shall we see to your father first?"

The window had blackened his forehead as if he"d been branded, and Sonny seemed to perceive him all at once more clearly. "See to him how?"

"Have him taken care of, however he needs to be."

"Who by?"

"I won"t know that until I"ve seen him. I promise I"ll do whatever"s best for both of you."

Sonny swallowed, though it felt like swallowing chunks of the world. "Who are you?"

"n.o.body special, but you might say I help save people too. I"m a social worker."

Sonny felt as if he"d been punched in the stomach, the way his father had punched him sometimes to make him remember. He doubled up, but he had nothing to vomit. People who said they were social were socialists, communists, architects of the devil"s kingdom, and he"d let one of them entice him, hadn"t even realised he was being led. Perhaps the ruined shop had been set up for him to see, to turn him aside from searching further.

Sam had stepped back. He was afraid Sonny would be sick on him, Sonny realised, and flew at him, retching. When Sam retreated, Sonny turned with the whirlpool of sky and bloated buildings and staggered to the corner of the street, almost toppling into the parade of cars. He jammed the one-eyed spectacles onto his face and fled.

His legs were wavering so much that a kind of dance was the only way he could keep on his feet. The houses joined in, sluggishly flirting their bellies at him, growing blacker as he jigged onward. The giantess lazily raised her uppermost leg, the stench of charred rotten vegetables surged at him down the uneven street. Compared with Sam and the virginal buildings, the smell seemed at least honestly corrupt. It made him feel he was going home.

He was appalled by how familiar the world already seemed to him. The children jeering "Pirate" at him, the pinched faces eager for a bargain, a trader kicking a van that wouldn"t start, Sonny thought for a moment which felt like the rim of a bottomless pit that he could have been any one of them. As he stumbled past the discount church and down the disused street he wept to realise that he liked the feel of the open sky more than he expected to like the low dimness of the house. Then he wondered if he might have left his father alone for too long, and fell twice in his haste to get home.

He dug his key into the lock, reeled into the house as the door yielded, shouldered it closed behind him. A smell of disinfectant that seemed holier than incense closed around him. He mustn"t let it comfort him until he had taken care of his father. Anyone who"d seen his father sitting in the Bible chair might wonder where he was now, might even try to find him.

His father lay as Sonny had left him, straining to touch his clasped hands with his knees. Sonny gathered him up and wavered downstairs, thumping the staircase wall with his father"s shrivelled ankles and once with his uncombed head. Would it look more natural to have his father kneeling in the front room? As soon as he tried, his father keeled over. Sonny sat him on the Bibles and stood back. His father looked at peace now, ready for anything. The sight was making Sonny feel that the Kingdom of G.o.d was near when he heard the key turn in the front door.

He"d been so anxious to reach his father that he"d left the key in the lock. He knew instinctively that it wasn"t the Kingdom of G.o.d at the door. He felt the house stiffen against the world that was reaching in for his father and him. He scrabbled the hall door open. Sam was in the hall.

All Sonny could think of was his father, powerless to defend himself or even to dodge the grasp of the world. "Get out," he screamed, and when his voice only made Sam flinch, he forgot the warning his father had given him, the warning that was so important Sonny"s stomach had been bruised for a week. He put his hands on Sam to cast the intruder out of the house.

And then he realised how thoroughly the world had tricked him, for Sam"s chest was the memory Sonny had driven so deep in his mind it had been like forgetting: his mother"s chest, soft and warm and thrusting. He cried out as loudly and shrilly as Sam did, and flung her backwards onto the broken road. He staggered after her, for he wasn"t fit to stay in a house that had been dedicated to G.o.d. He hadn"t been ready to venture into the world after all, and it had possessed him. In the moment when he"d flung Sam"s b.r.e.a.s.t.s away from him he"d felt his body reach secretly for her.

He slammed the door and s.n.a.t.c.hed the key and flew at her, driving her towards the waste where the lost souls swarmed under the dead sky. He tore the spectacles off and shied them at her, narrowly missing her face. The lost souls might tear him to pieces when they saw he was routing one of them, but perhaps he could destroy her first-anything to prevent the world from reaching his father ahead of the Kingdom of G.o.d. Then he threw up his hands and wailed and gnashed his teeth, for the world had already touched his father. He had been so anxious to take his father to the safety of the Bibles that he"d forgotten to disinfect himself. He"d held his father with hands the world had tainted.

A smell that made him think of disinfectant drifted along the street to mock him. It was of petrol, in a jug that the trader who had kicked the van was carrying. The trader glanced at the spectacle of Sonny lurching at Sam, trying to knock her down as she retreated towards the market with her hands held out to calm him, and then the trader turned away as if he"d seen nothing unusual. He put down the jug in order to unscrew the cap on the side of the van, and at once Sonny knew exactly what to do.

He ran past Sam and grabbed a stick with a peeling red-hot tip from the nearest fire, and darted to the jug of petrol. He had just seized the handle when the trader turned and lunged at him. Sonny would have splashed petrol over him to drive him back, but how could he waste his father"s only salvation? He tipped the jug over himself, and the world shrank back from him, unable to stop him. He poured the last inch of petrol into his mouth.

"Don"t," Sam cried, and Sonny knew he was doing right at last. The taste like disinfectant stronger than he"d ever drunk confirmed it too. He ran at Sam, and she sprawled backwards, afraid he meant to spew petrol at her or brand her with the stick. Smiling for the first time since he could remember, Sonny strode back to the house.

He was turning the key when Sam and more of the devil"s horde came running. Sonny made a red-hot sign of the cross in the air and stepped into the house, and threw the key contemptuously at them. The stick had burned short as he strode, the mouthful of petrol was searing his nostrils, but he had time, he mustn"t swallow. The stick scorched his fingers as he took the three strides across the room to his father. Carefully opening his mouth, he anointed his father and the chair, and then he sat on his father"s lap for the first time in his life. It was unyielding as iron, yet he had never felt so peaceful. Perhaps this was the Kingdom of G.o.d, or was about to be. As he touched the fire to his chest, he knew he had reached the end of the parable. He prayed he was about to learn its meaning.

Where The Heart Is (1987).

I"ve just walked through your house. I lay on your bed and tried to see my wife"s face looming over me, the way I used to. I spent longest in your baby"s room, because that was where I began to die. Before I do, I want to tell you who I am and why I"m here, and so I"m writing this.

I"m at your dining-table now, but I won"t be when you find me. You"ll have found me, or you couldn"t be reading this. There may not be much of me for you to recognise, so let me introduce myself again. I"m the man whose house you bought. This is my house, and you"ll never get rid of me now.

I"ve nothing against you personally. It wasn"t your fault that the two of you nearly destroyed my wife and me-you weren"t to know what you were doing. I can"t let that stop me, but at least I can tell you my reasons. The truth is, I never should have let you or anyone else into my house.

Maybe you remember coming to view it, in the rain. I was sitting in the front room, hearing the rain shake the windows and knowing it couldn"t touch me. I was feeling peaceful and secure at last. As a matter of fact, I was wondering if the rain might be the last thing I ever heard, if I could sink into that peace where my wife must be, when your car drew up outside the house.

By the time you got out of your car and ran up the path, you were drenched. I may as well be honest: I took my time about answering the doorbell. Only I heard you saying you"d seen someone in the front room, and that made me feel discovered. So I took pity on you out there in the storm.

I don"t suppose you noticed how I drew back as you came in $ As you trod on the step I had the feeling that you meant the house to be yours. Did you realise you hung your wet coats as if it already was? Maybe you were too drenched to wait for me to tell you, but you made me feel redundant, out of place.

That"s one reason why I didn"t say much as I showed you over the house. I didn"t think you would have listened anyway-you were too busy noticing cracks in the plaster and where damp had lifted the wallpaper and how some of the doors weren"t quite straight in their frames. I really thought when we came downstairs that you"d decided against the house. Perhaps you saw how relieved I was. I wondered why you asked if you could be alone for a few minutes. I let you go upstairs by yourselves, though I must say I resented hearing you murmuring up there. And all I could do when you came down and said you were interested in the house was make my face go blank, to hide my shock.

You must have thought I was trying to get you to raise your offer, but it wasn"t that at all. I was simply feeling less and less sure that I ought to leave the house where my wife and I had spent our marriage. I told you to get in touch with the estate agent, but that was really just a way of saving myself from having to refuse you outright. I should have told you about my wife. You knew I was selling because she"d died, and you"d made sympathetic noises and faces, but I should have told you that she"d died here in the house.

When you"d left I went upstairs and lay on the bed where she"d died. Sometimes when I lay there and closed my eyes to see her face, I could almost hear her speaking to me. I asked her what I ought to do about you, and I thought I heard her telling me not to let my feelings get the better of me, to think more and feel less, as she often used to say. I thought she was saying that I shouldn"t let the house trap me, that so long as I took the bed with me we"d still be together. So I accepted your offer and signed the contract to sell you the house, and the moment I"d finished signing I felt as if I"d signed away my soul.

It was too late by then, or at least I thought it was. I"d already agreed to move out so that you could start the repairs and get your mortgage. When the removal van was loaded I walked through the house to make sure I hadn"t left anything. The stripped rooms made me feel empty, homeless, as if my wife and I had never been there. Even the removal van felt more like home, and I sat on our couch in there as the van drove to my new flat.

I"d bought it with the insurance my wife had on herself, you remember. We"d always been equally insured. What with our bed and the rest of the furniture we"d chosen together being moved to the flat and her insurance money buying it, she should been been there with me, shouldn"t she? I thought so that first night when I turned off the lamp and lay in the bed and waited to feel that she was near me.

But there was nothing, just me and the dark. The heating was on, yet the bed seemed to get colder and colder. All I wanted was to feel that I wasn"t totally alone. But nights went buy, and the bed grew colder, until I felt I"d die of the chill in a place I"d let myself be evicted to, that was nothing like home.

You must be wondering why, if I wanted to be with my wife so much, I didn"t consult a medium. My wife was a very private person, that"s why-I couldn"t have asked her to communicate with me in front of a stranger. Besides, I didn"t trust that sort of thing much anymore. I hadn"t since I"d thought we"d been given a sign that we were going to have a child.

We"d started a child when it was really too late. That was one time my wife let her feelings get the better of her. We"d been trying for years, and then, when she"d given up expecting to be able, she got pregnant. I was afraid for her all those months, but she said I mustn"t be: whatever was going to happen would happen, and we"d be prepared for it, whatever it was. She didn"t even make the guest-room into a nursery, not that we ever had guests.

She went into hospital a month before we thought she would. The first I knew of it was when the hospital phoned me at the bank. I visited her every evening, but I couldn"t see her on weekdays-too many of my colleagues were on their summer holidays. I became afraid I wouldn"t be with her at the birth.

Then one evening I saw something that made me think I"d no reason to be anxious for her. I was going upstairs to bed in the dark when I saw that I"d left the light on in the guest-room. I opened the door and switched off the light, and just as I did so I saw that it wasn"t a guest-room any longer, it was a nursery with a cot in it and wallpaper printed with teddy bears dancing in a ring. When I switched on the light again it was just a guest-room, but I didn"t care-I knew what I"d seen. I didn"t know then what I know now.

So when they called me to the hospital urgently from work I felt sure the birth would be a success, and when I learned that the baby had been born dead I felt as if the house had cheated me, or my feelings had. I felt as if I"d killed the baby by taking too much for granted. I almost couldn"t go in to see my wife.

She tried to persuade me that it didn"t matter. We still had each other, which was pretty well all that we"d had in the way of friendship for years. But she must have thought it was dangerous to leave me on my own, because she came home before she was supposed to, to be with me. That night in bed we held each other more gently than we ever had, and it seemed as if that was all we needed, all we would ever need.

But in the middle of the night I woke and found her in agony, in so much pain she couldn"t move or speak. I ran out half-naked to phone for an ambulance, but it was too late. I got back to her just in time to see the blood burst out of her face-I wasn"t even there to hold her hand at the end. I just stood there as if I didn"t have the right to touch her, because it was my feelings that had killed her, or her concern for them had. You see now why I didn"t tell you where she died. It would have been like admitting I hoped she was still in the house. Sometimes I thought I sensed her near me when I was falling asleep. But once I"d moved to the flat I couldn"t sleep, I just lay growing colder as the nights got longer. I thought she might have left me because she"d had enough of me. She still had to be alive somewhere, I knew that much.

By then you"d started work on the house, and I felt as if it didn"t belong to me, even though it still did. Sometimes I walked the two miles to it late at night, when I couldn"t sleep. I told myself I was making sure n.o.body had broken in. I remember one night I looked in the front window. The streetlamp showed me you"d torn off the wallpaper and hacked away the plaster. The orange light from outside blackened everything, made it seem even more ruined, made the room look as if it hadn"t been lived in for years. It made me feel I hardly existed myself, and I walked away fast, walked all night without knowing where, until the dawn came up like an icy fog and I had to huddle in my flat to keep warm.

After that I tried to stay away from the house. The doctor gave me pills to help me sleep, the old kind that aren"t addictive. I didn"t like the sleep they brought, though. It came too quickly and took away all my memories, didn"t even leave me dreams. Only I knew I had to sleep or I"d be out of a job for making too many mistakes at the bank. So I slept away the nights until you got your mortgage and were able to buy the house.

I expected that to be a relief to me. I shouldn"t have felt drawn to the house, since it wasn"t mine any longer. But the day I had to hand over my last key I felt worse than I had when I"d signed the contract, and so I made a copy of the key to keep.

I couldn"t have said why I did it. Every time I thought of using the key I imagined being caught in the house, taken away by the police, locked up in a cell. Whenever I felt drawn back to the house I tried to lose myself in my work, or if I was in the flat I tried to be content with memories of the time my wife and I had in the house. Only staying in the flat so as not to be tempted to go to the house made me feel as if I"d already been locked up. I went on like that for weeks, telling myself I had to get used to the flat, the house was nothing to do with me now. I took more of the pills before going to bed, and the doctor renewed the prescription. And then one morning I woke up feeling cold and empty, hardly knowing who I was or where, feeling as if part of me had been stolen while I was asleep.

At first I thought the pills were doing that to me. It was snowing as I walked to work, it looked as if the world was flaking away around me, and I felt as if I was. Even when I leaned against the radiator in the bank I couldn"t stop shivering. I made myself sit at the counter when it was time for the manager to open the doors, but he saw how I was and insisted I go home, told me to stay there till I got better. He ordered me a taxi, but I sent it away as soon as I was out of sight of the bank. I knew by then I had to come to the house.

You see, I"d realised what was missing. There was part of the house I couldn"t remember. I could still recall making love to my wife, and the way we used to prepare alternate courses of a meal, but I couldn"t call to mind how we"d spent our evenings at home. I fought my way to the house, the snow sc.r.a.ping my face and trickling under my clothes, and then I saw why. You"d torn down a wall and made two rooms into one.

We must have had a front room and a dining-room. Presumably we moved from one room to the other when we"d finished dinner, but I couldn"t recall any of that, not even what the rooms had looked like. Years of my life, of all I had left of my marriage, had been stolen overnight. I stood there with the snow weighing me down until I felt like stone, staring at the wound you"d made in the house, the bricks gaping and the bare floor covered with plaster dust, and I saw that I had to get into the house.

I"d left the key under my pillow. I might have broken in-the street was deserted, and the snow was blinding the houses-if you hadn"t already made the house burglar-proof. I struggled back to the flat for the key. I fell a few times on the way, and the last time I almost couldn"t get up for shivering. It took me five minutes or more to open the front door of my new building; I kept dropping the key and not being able to pick it up. By the time I reached my flat I felt I would never stop shivering. I was barely able to clench my fist around the key to the house before I crawled into bed.

For days I thought I was dying. When I lay under the covers I felt hot enough to melt, but if I threw them off, the shivering came back. Whenever I awoke, which must have been hundreds of times, I was afraid to find you"d destroyed more of my memories, that I"d be nothing by the time I died. The fever pa.s.sed, but by then I was so weak that it was all I could do to stumble to the kitchen or the toilet. Sometimes I had to crawl. And I was only just beginning to regain my strength when I felt you change another room.

I thought I knew which one. It didn"t gouge my memories the way the other had, but I had to stop you before you did worse. I knew now that if my wife was anywhere on this earth, she must be at the house. I had to protect her from you, and so I put on as many clothes as I could bear and made myself go out. I felt so incomplete that I kept looking behind me, expecting not to see my footprints in the snow.

I was nearly at the house when I met one of my old neighbours. I didn"t want to be seen near the house, I felt like a burglar now. I was trying desperately to think what to say to her when I realised that she hadn"t recognised me after all-she was staring at me because she wondered what someone who looked like I looked now was doing in her street. I walked straight past and round the corner, and once the street was deserted I came back to the house.

I was sure you were out at work. There was such a confusion of footprints in the snow on the path that I couldn"t see whether more led out than in, but I had to trust my feelings. I let myself into the house and closed the door, then I stood there feeling I"d come home.

You hadn"t changed the hall. It still had the striped Regency wallpaper, and the dark brown carpet my wife had chosen still looked as if n.o.body had ever left footprints on it, though you must have trodden marks all over it while you were altering the house. I could almost believe that the hall led to the rooms my wife and I had lived in, that the wall you"d knocked down was still there, except that I could feel my mind gaping where the memories should be. So I held my breath until I could hear that I was alone in the house, then I went up to the guest-room.

Before I reached it I knew what I"d see. I"d already seen it once. I opened the door and there it was, the nursery you"d made for the child you were expecting, the cot and the wallpaper with teddy bears dancing in a ring. My feelings when my wife was in hospital hadn"t lied to me after all, I"d just misinterpreted them. As soon as I realised that, I felt as if what was left of my mind had grown clearer, and I was sure I could sense my wife in the house. I was about to search for her when I heard your car draw up outside.

I"d lost track of time while I was ill. I thought you"d be at work, but this was Sat.u.r.day, and you"d been out shopping. I felt like smashing the cot and tearing off the wallpaper and waiting for you to find me in the nursery, ready to fight for the house. But I ran down as I heard you slam the car doors, and I hid under the stairs, in the cupboard full of mops and brushes.

I heard you come in, talking about how much better the house looked now you"d knocked the wall down and put in sliding doors so that you could have two rooms there or one as the mood took you. I heard you walk along the hall twice, laden with shopping, and then close the kitchen door. I inched the door under the stairs open, and as I did so I noticed what you"d done while you were putting in the central heating. You"d made a trapdoor in the floor of the cupboard so that you could crawl under the house. I left the cupboard door open and tiptoed along the hall. I was almost blind with anger at being made to feel like an intruder in the house, but I managed to control myself, because I knew I"d be coming back. I closed the front door by turning my key in the lock, and almost fell headlong on the icy path. My legs felt as if they"d half melted, but I held on to garden walls all the way to the flat and lay down on my bed to wait for Monday morning.

On Sunday afternoon I felt the need to go to church, where I hadn"t been since I was a child. I wanted to be rea.s.sured that my wife was still alive in spirit and to know if I was right in what I meant to do. I struggled to church and hid at the back, behind a pillar, while they were saying ma.s.s. The church felt as if it was telling me yes, but I wasn"t sure which question it was answering. I have to believe it was both.

So this morning I came back to the house. The only thing I was afraid of was that one of the neighbours might see me, see this man who"d been loitering nearby last week, and call the police. But the thaw had set in and was keeping people off the streets. I had to take off my shoes as soon as I"d let myself in, so as not to leave footprints along the hall. I don"t want you to know I"m here as soon as you come home. You"ll know soon enough.

You must be coming home now, and I want to finish this. I thought of bolting the front door so that you"d think the lock had stuck and perhaps go for a locksmith, but I don"t think I"ll need to. I haven"t much more to tell you. You"ll know I"m here long before you find me and read this.

It"s getting dark here now in the dining-room with the gla.s.s doors shut so that I can"t be seen from the street. It makes me feel the wall you knocked down has come back, and my memories are beginning to. I remember now, my wife grew houseplants in here, and I let them all die after she died. I remember the scents that used to fill the room-I can smell them now. She must be here, waiting for me.

And now I"m going to join her in our house. During the last few minutes I"ve swallowed all the pills. Perhaps that"s why I can smell her flowers. As soon as I"ve finished this I"m going through the trapdoor in the cupboard. There isn"t enough s.p.a.ce under the house to stretch your arms above your head when you"re lying on your back, but I don"t think I"ll know I"m there for very long. Soon my wife and I will just be in the house. I hope you won"t mind if we make it more like ours again. I can"t help thinking that one day you may come into this room and find no sliding doors any longer, just a wall. Try and think of it as our present to you and the house.

Playing The Game (1988).

When Marie called to say that someone wanted a reporter, Hill went out at once. He"d been staring at the blank page in his typewriter and wondering where he could find the enthusiasm to write. The winner of this week"s singing contest at the Ferryman was Barbra Silver, fat as Santa Claus, all tinsel and shiny flesh done medium rare in a solarium-but he couldn"t write that, and there wasn"t another word in his head, any more than there were still ferries on the river. He headed for the lobby, glad of something else to do.

The man looked as if he hoped not to be noticed. His hands were trying to hide the torn pockets of his raincoat; fallen trouser-cuffs trailed over his shoes. Nevertheless Marie was pointing at him, unless she was still drying her green nails, and as Hill approached he turned quickly, determined to speak. "Do you investigate black magic?" he said.

"That depends." The man had the look of a pest in the street, eyes that expected disbelief and challenged the listener to escape before he was convinced. But the blank page was waiting like the worst question in an examination, and here at last might be a story worth writing. "Come and tell me about it," Hill said.

The man was visibly disappointed by the newsroom. No doubt he wanted the Hollywood version-miles of chattering typewriters beneath fluorescent tubes- rather than the cramped room full of half a dozen"desks, desks and wastebins overflowing with paper and plastic cups and ragged blackened stubs of cheap cigars, the smells of after-shave and cheap tobacco, the window that buzzed like a dying fly whenever a lorry sped through town. Hill dragged two chairs to face each other and sat forward confidentially over his notebook. "Shoot," he said.

"There"s a man down by the docks who claims he can cure illness without medicine. He"s got everyone around him believing he can. They say he cures their aches and pains and saves them having to go to the doctor about their depressions. Sounds all right, doesn"t it? But I happen to know," the ragged man said, lowering his voice still further until it was almost inaudible, "that he puts up his price once they need him. They have to go back to him, you see-it isn"t a total cure. Maybe he doesn"t mean it to be, or maybe it"s all in their minds, until it wears off. Either way, you can see it"s an addiction that costs them more than the doctor would."

He was plucking unconsciously at his torn pockets. "I"ll tell you something else-every single one of his neighbors believes he should be left alone because he"s doing so much good. That can"t be right, can it? People don"t take to things like that so easily unless they"re afraid not to. Why won"t they use the short cut through the docks any longer, if they think there"s nothing to be afraid of?"

"You"re suggesting that there is."

"I"ve got to be careful what I say." He looked afraid of being overheard, even in the empty room. "I don"t live far from him," he said eventually. "Not far enough. I haven"t had any trouble with him personally, but my next-door neighbor has. I can"t tell you her name, she doesn"t even know I"m here. You mustn"t try to find her. In fact, to make sure you don"t, I"m not going to tell you my name either."

Hill"s interest was waning; his editor would never take a story with so few names. "Anyway," the man whispered, "she antagonized Mr. Matta, though she didn"t mean to. She caught him up to no good in one of the old docks. So he said that if she was so fond of water, he"d make sure she got plenty. And the very next day her house started getting damp. She"s had people in, but they can"t find any reason for it, and it"s just getting worse. Mold all over the walls-you wouldn"t believe it unless you saw it for yourself. Only you"ll have to take my word for it, I"m afraid."

He was faltering, having realized at last how unsatisfactory his information was. Yet Hill was suddenly a great deal more interested. Could it really be the same man? If so, Hill had reasons of his own to investigate him-and by G.o.d, there was nothing he"d like better. "This Mr. Matta," he said. "What can you tell me about him?"

His informant seemed to decide that he couldn"t avoid telling. "He came every year with the carnival. Only the last time he was too ill to be moved, I think, so they found him a house. Or maybe they were glad to get rid of him."

It was the same man. All at once Hill"s memories came flooding back: the carnival festooned with lights on the far bank of the river, in which blurred skeins of light wavered like waterweed as you crossed the bridge; the sounds of the shooting gallery ringing flat and thin across the water, the Ghost Train in which you heard the moaning of ships on the bay-and above all M. 0. Matta, with his unchanging child"s face and his stall full of games. "So he"s still fond of playing games to frighten people, is he?" Hill said.

"He still sells them." That wasn"t quite what Hill had meant, but perhaps the man was afraid to think otherwise. Of course Matta had sold games from his stall, though Hill had never understood why people bought them: the monkeys on sticks looked skeletal and desperate, and always fell back with a dying twitch just before they would have reached their goal; the faces of the chessmen were positively dismaying, as Hill had all too strong a reason to remember. In fact, when he recalled the sideshow-the bald bruised heads you tried to knock down with wooden b.a.l.l.s but which sprang up at once, grinning like corpses-he couldn"t understand why anyone would have lingered there voluntarily at all.

Once he"d seen Matta by the river at low tide, stooping to a fat whitish shape-but he was losing himself in his memories, and there were things he needed to know. "You say your friend antagonized Matta. In what way?"

"I told you, she was taking the short cut home." The man was digging his hands into his pockets, apparently unaware that they were tearing. "She saw the man he lives with taking him into the dock where the crane"s fallen in. It was nearly dark, but he just sat there waiting. She thought she heard something in the water, and then he saw her. That"s all."

It seemed suggestive enough. "Then unless there"s anything else you can tell me," Hill said, "I just need Matta"s address."

As soon as he"d given it, the ragged man sidled out, trying to hide behind his shapeless collar. Hill lit his first cigar of the afternoon and thought how popular his investigation should be. They"d used to say that if Matta took a dislike to you when you bought from him, the games would always go wrong somehow-and how many children other than Hill must he have set out to terrify? As for the business with the docks, if that wasn"t a case of drug smuggling, Hill was no investigative reporter. He went in to see the editor at once.

"Not enough," the editor said, too busy searching his waistcoat for pipe-cleaners even to look at Hill. "Someone who won"t give his name tells you about someone who won"t give her name. Smells like a hoax to me, or a grudge. Either way, it isn"t for us. Just don"t try to run before you can walk. You shouldn"t need me to tell you you aren"t ready for investigative work."

No, Hill thought bitterly: after two years he was still only good for the stuff n.o.body else would touch-Our Trivia Correspondent, Our Paltry Reporter. The others were rolling back from the pub as he returned to his desk, like a schoolboy who"d been kept in for being bored. By G.o.d, he"d get his own back, with or without the editor"s approval. He"d had nightmares for years after the night he had tried to see what Matta was doing in the caravan behind his stall.

All he"d glimpsed through the window was Matta playing solitaire of some kind, so why had the man taken such delight in terrifying him? All at once there had been n.o.body beyond the window, and the smooth childish face on its wrinkled neck had stooped out of the door, paralyzing the boy as he"d tried to run. "You like games, do you?" the thin soft voice had said. "Then we"ll find you one.

The interior of the caravan had been crowded with half-carved shapes. Some looked more like bone than wood, including the one that had been protruding from the humped tangled sheets of the bunk. Eleven-year-old Hill hadn"t seen much more, nor had he wanted to. Matta was setting out a chess game, and Hill hadn"t known which was worse: the black pieces with their wide fanged grins, or the white, their pale shiny faces so bland he could almost see them drooling. "And there you are," Matta had whispered, carving the head of a limbless figure so deftly that Hill had imagined his face had already been there.

As soon as Matta placed the figure midway on the chessboard, the shadowy corners of the caravan had seemed full of faces, grinning voraciously, lolling expres-sionlessly. It had taken Hill a very long time to flee, for his legs had felt glued together, and all the time the child"s face on the aging body had watched him as if he were a dying insect. But when at last he had managed to run it was even worse: not so much the teeth that had glinted in the dark all the way home as the swollen white faces he"d sensed at his back, ready to nod down to him if he stumbled or even slackened his pace.

He emerged from his memories and found he"d torn the blank page out of the typewriter, so violently that the others were staring at him. Something had to be done about Matta, and soon-not only because of the way he"d exploited Hill"s young imagination, but because it sounded as if his power over people had grown, with the same childish malevolence at its core. If this editor wouldn"t print the story, Hill would find someone who would-and glancing at the red-veined faces of his colleagues, all of them drunk enough to be content with the worn-out town, he thought that might be the best move of all.

All at once he was eager to finish his ch.o.r.es, in order to be ready for what he had to do. By the time his shift was over he"d dealt with Barbra Silver-"a robust performance" he called it, which seemed satisfyingly ambiguous-and the rest of the trivia that was expected of him. As soon as he left the newspaper office he made for Matta"s house.