To Indigo, Tanith Lee [best ereader for comics .TXT] 📗

The first moment I ever truly wanted that.

I averted my eyes, in case he could read them.

Outside a pigeon had perched again on the black dustbin. It seemed to be inspecting the earlier pigeon dropping. Was it the same pigeon, come back to evaluate its own previous artistry?

I felt tired. I sat in the chair.

He’d finished the tea. He put the mug down on the table and said, “Did you figure it out?”

“What?”

“Any of it. What you were asking me over the phone.”

“No.”

“But you realise what happened next door?”

“You said you were my son and I was your father, and I had moods during which I drew the curtains in the daytime and – I assume – might be likely to attempt suicide.”

“Close enough. I thought a son-father relationship would be more compelling than the uncle-nephew scenario you foisted on me in the pub.”

“That was true. You do look a bit like him. Less and less the more I see of you. He wouldn’t behave as you have, either.” I had decided to keep my army of invented relatives about me.

But he only said, “You don’t have a nephew, or if you have you never see him. You don’t have a wife.”

“I have a wife.”

“But she’s still away.”

“Her mother has been taken to hospital. I’m supposed to go over too.”

“But you won’t be, will you.”

“Won’t I? I’m your prisoner, am I?”

I thought he would laugh this off in his inappropriately urbane way, but to my dismay he didn’t. As with the pans, he seemed to be considering what I had said. “Are you?” he asked me eventually. “My prisoner? I wonder if you are.”

I found I held my breath. I was irrationally relieved when he seemed to gloss it over.

“But we still haven’t established how I found you. Shall I let you in on it, Roy?”

“Yes.”

“Tell you what. I will spill all the beans in exchange for another mug of tea. By the way, can I use your toilet?”

“It’s upstairs, to the right.”

Did he glimpse the spurt of possibility in my face?

If he had, it had died even as it arrived. I had nothing to hand. Though I had carried the smallest and sharpest knife upstairs and placed it in my pocket, I had not thought on my return downstairs to bring any tablets. Demonstrably, in spite, of my planning, I could never really have reacted to the notion of his being here in the house with me.

He swung gracefully off the table and almost loped from the room. I heard him go up.

One frantic moment I rummaged in my mind for anything in drawers or cupboards. But there was nothing. A mostly dried-up bottle of Peptobismal, the remains of some Cabman’s Cough Mixture from January, the cod liver oil tablets I occasionally took – I did think of the bleach under the sink. But I shrank from that. It wasn’t only cowardice, but the memory of the disbelieving policeman. I could picture the scene, having described it in various books, the body, the mess and bloody vomit. The police would see the evidence of an unfriendly tea-party, and conclude I had now poisoned my former lover, malice aforethought.

I therefore simply made him another tea and left it on the table.

Upstairs the cistern sounded.

He came back into the room.

“Impressive,” he said. “A bathroom with a loo and a separate loo with a wash-basin. Very sensible, if you have more than two people living together. Which you do, of course, Roy. You and Lynda.”

“You were going to explain about finding this house.”

“I was, wasn’t I. Thanks for the tea. Odd,” he hesitated a second, looking down into the mug, “has a bit of a funny taste.”

He looked right at me, into my eyes. Although I had done nothing, been able to do nothing, my gaze quivered. I said firmly, “The milk’s probably going off.”

“Or you added something to it. Did you, Roy?”

“No.”

“Well, I’ll soon find out, shan’t I?” He drained the mug and slapped it down again.

It seemed to me this too could only be play. He knew I had done nothing at all. He would never have drunk it all if he thought otherwise.

He sat again on the table, swung one leg.

“I followed you from the pub in The Strand. Then I gave you my piano tuner card. Then I walked off. Did you look back to make sure I kept going?”

“Yes.”

“How many times?”

I couldn’t recall. I began to see and saw also, obviously, I hadn’t looked back a sufficient number. “Not enough it seems.”

“Not enough. There were lots of people about to hide me. I just retraced my steps and then went after you again, only more slowly than you, lost in the crowd. You were perfectly followable. When you turned round we actually passed each other, you never saw it. Then I turned round too. You got to Charing Cross and went in, and soon after onto a platform. Still lots of crowds. The train wasn’t in but the time and destination were on the board. I dutifully purchased a ticket from a very pretty Asian woman, then hung about until the train appeared and you got on. Then I went through the barrier and got on the train too. I had a real fight to do it, I can tell you. The carriage was jam-packed.”

“What would you have done if the train had been due to leave and I’d run for it? You couldn’t get through the barrier without a ticket.”

“Well, I might still have found a way to do that. But it’s immaterial. I didn’t have to. It was meant to be.”

“Then what? You weren’t in my carriage.”

He looked faintly offended. “Of course not, Roy. I just simply pushed my way to the door and checked you weren’t yet getting out. I’m tall, six three, I can see over people. And it became easier as the crowd thinned. I don’t lie when I say I guessed the kind of station where you would alight.