With a brisk nod. Miss Rosalie walked off through a door at the side of the stage, dearly upset. Guy was about to say something but Lise shook her head wamingly and indicated that they should, leave; as if to make sure that they did, some of the lights began to go out as they walked through the hail towards the exit. Once outside, Lise whispered that Miss Rosalie was probably crying and hadn’t wanted them to know; she could burst into tears at the slightest setback — ‘bom in a waterfall’ was the phrase Lise used — but in a few minutes she’d be over it.
‘Shell come up with some brilliant solution, if I know her.. And we’ll all rally round, of course. Parents too. She’s a genius as a dance teacher, d’you realise?
‘Kath loves her.’
‘They all do, and she really puts them through it.’
After all that had happened, talking to Lise was like a step out into the fresh air, and for the first time that day he began to relax. Reluctant to return to the empty house — or to face Dorothea's wrath at the havoc he had wrought in her newly decorated front room — he suggested a drink. She accepted — ‘just one, then I must go’ — and they found a dreary little comer pub, where they were almost the only customers.
The Windsor chairs had uneven legs and the little round table for their glasses was sticky with spilled beer, but that didn’t bother either of them. She chatted about some of the theatres she’d worked in, retailing a few scandalous titbits; he had his Army anecdotes. It was, as one of those First World War poets might have put it, a ‘time out of war’: a moment of quiet before — what?
He felt quite convinced that the worst of the beetle attacks still lay ahead of them. All they had seen so far was the slow build-up, isolated incidents as their numbers increased. Even in that shabby pub he could not help eyeing the woodwork. Wondering.
The doors of Worth Hall were closed and locked, although in many of the offices the lights were still burning. One more cup of tea, George Dakers thought, and then he would do his rounds. This was always the best time of the evening, he felt, once the last of the cleaners had left and he could have a quiet brew-up on his own, or with Bob Tatham, the fireman. They were often on night-duty together, he and Bob, and they had their settled routines.
He poured his tea, then added some hot water to the pot in case Bob wanted another when he got back from the boiler room. It was a cosy number, this job, George reflected as he spooned in the sugar: indoors, dry, not all that much to do. Of course the money was nothing to write home about, but he had his Royal Navy pension as well, so they were really quite cosy. His wife Enid didn’t mind him working nights either; kept him out of the pub, she always said.
It was to please her they’d moved to London, so she could be close to her two sisters. He hadn’t been keen; if he’d had his way they’d have stayed down in Pompey. The trouble with women, he decided, was that they could never understand how the Navy could become a man’s whole life however much they might curse it at times. In Pompey there were plenty of old matelots to drink a jar and talk about the old days with; here in London there was practically no one. Bob was a good sort, no denying that, but he didn’t know a rope’s end from a grummet; it wasn’t the same.
‘Wasn’t sure you was coming back for another or not,’ he grunted when Bob at last appeared in the doorway. He was a lanky man whose dark growth made him look permanently unshaved; his uniform jacket fitted him too loosely and that didn’t help, nor did the slow, deliberate way he moved. ‘Be cold by now.’
‘You put water on it?’
‘Ten minutes ago. Thought you’d be back.’
‘Woulda been, only—’ Fie sloshed milk into his cup from the packet. ‘I dunno. Maybe I’m imaginin’ things.’ ‘What things?’
‘I dunno,’ Bob repeated. He poured out the tea, then supped it, pulling a face. ‘ Tis a bit cold.’
‘You want fresh, you make it.’
‘Yeah.’ He sat down, holding the cup between his hands. ‘Noises. Like scratchin’, Then more than that. Like — groanin’.’
‘In the boiler room?’
Bob shook his head. ‘First-floor corridor. Flad to check the extinguishers. By the stairs I heard it first.’
George laughed. ‘Not seeing ghosts, are you? Must be ghosts in an old place like this.’
‘Fd know if it was a ghost, wouldn’t I?’
George shifted his bulk on the old fireside chair they had supplied for the commissionaire’s room. Half its springs were broken and there was an art in sitting on it.
‘How d’you know?’ he asked. Without waiting for an answer he went on: ‘Did I ever tell you about that killick who went missing on the Malvern? In a storm one day out o’ Gib, it was. Must have gone overboard, they thought. Anyway, come the third night, there he was — in his hammock! Everybody saw him. Only when they tried to ask where he’d been, he just—’
‘George, it was no ghost,’ Bob interrupted him. ‘You go that way on your rounds. See what you think. That scratchin sounded iike mice. Like lots o’ mice.’
‘You didn’t hear it in the boiler room, then?’
‘Down there? No.’
‘Up on the first floor — that was the only place?’
‘Next to the stairs, Thought it was mice at first, rill I heard the groanin’ as well.’
‘Could be the wind.’
‘Need to be a gale to make a noise like that,’ Bob objected. ‘I had a good look round, like. Couldn’t see anything, though. Nothing that’d make that noise.’ George got up reluctantly, picking up his heavy rubber-protected torch and his keys from the table. Time to do the rounds, anyhow. If it is a ghost, I’ll ask him down for a cup o’ tea.’
Bob grinned. ‘Lady ghost, maybe. Head under her arm.’
‘Ah, now you’re talking!’
People had often asked George if he didn’t find it a bit spooky walking round an empty building after dark, particularly as it was part of his job to switch off the Sights, but he could honestly say he had never felt a moment’s uneasiness. One of his sisters-in-law had suggested — trying to annoy him — that he lacked imagination; but what did she know about anything, let alone some of his experiences at sea during the long night watches? Things that could make your hair curl if you didn’t keep your wits about you, such as the times when the entire surface of the water had seemed to shine with an ethereal green light and everything else around pitch black. Weird.
Those were the nights for seeing things, he thought as he climbed the back stairs, taking his time. Not that either of his sisters-in-law would have listened even if he’d tried to tell them; neither had ever travelled farther than Margate, and it showed.
He started on the top floor and worked his way along the offices, opening each door to make sure the windows were closed and any electrical equipment turned off, before extinguishing the lights and moving on to the next room.
In the small attic used by Miss Armstrong as a private office he stooped under the sloping ceiling to spend a few moments gazing out at the night sky. Hardly any stars were visible through the amber haze from the street-lamps, unlike the rich, living skies he’d known at sea. He turned away, disappointed as always, but then paused again by her desk to examine the beetles which she kept preserved in liquid in little perspex boxes. Vicious-looking creatures, he always thought; yet she seemed to use them as paperweights. She was so prim and correct about most things, but perhaps they gave her some sort of thrill — it wouldn’t surprise him.
Locking the door behind him, Geoorge continued on his rounds. He had finished the attic floor and was checking the larger offices in the main building when he heard a sudden crack from the direction of the staircase. The sound was almost immediately followed by a low groaning, as of some structure under considerable stress, reminding him of the shell-crippled frigate on which he’d served — his very first ship — and the terrifying experience of nursing her across the rough China Sea to the Singapore naval dockyard. That’s just how she’d groaned as she threatened to break up.