They listened. No sound. Licht shrugged and started to speak, but suddenly Alice turned to him and said:
‘I’m afraid!’
And as soon as it was said it ceased to be true. Licht stepped back, staring, cradling in his startled palms the invisible vessel she had handed him.
When Alice had run off down the stairs and Licht came stooping through the little doorway Professor Kreutznaer was there at the landing window with his fists sunk in the sagging pockets of his old black jacket. Licht flushed angrily.
‘What are you doing?’ the Professor said.
‘Nothing!’ Licht cried. It came out as a squeak. He cleared his throat and tried again. ‘Nothing. What do you mean? Are you spying on me?’
From below came the abrupt thud of the front door slamming; the house quivered and after a second a ghostly draught came wafting up the stairs.
‘I told you you shouldn’t let them stay,’ the Professor said. ‘Why did you let them in?’
Licht strode past him to the window and stood looking out. Tears of anger and resentment welled up in his eyes.
‘Why do you blame me?’ he cried. ‘You blame me for everything, and spy on me, creeping around and listening at doors. It’s you they’re after, it’s you that fellow came to find!’ How gay and carefree everything outside seemed, the sun on the dunes and the grass waving and the unreal blue of the sea in the distance. At moments such as this he felt the world was rocking with laughter, jeering at him. He beat his fists softly on the window-sill and wept, his shoulders shaking. ‘I have to get away from here,’ he said as if to himself and heaved a juicy sob, shaking his head slowly from side to side, and a big bubble of spit formed on his blubby lips and burst with a tiny plop. ‘I have to get away!’
The Professor regarded him in silence, frowning. Licht, pawing at his eyes and muttering something, pushed past him and blundered away down the stairs.
The front door banged again and the Professor felt the tiny tremor under his feet. He waited and presently he heard another sound, closer at hand, and when he looked over the banisters he saw Felix on the landing below, leaning at the door of the bedroom there with one hand in the pocket of his jacket and his head inclined, smiling to himself, listening for a sound from within. The Professor drew back quickly, his heart joggling, but too late. For a moment there was silence and then from below he heard Felix laugh softly and softly sing up the stairwelclass="underline"
‘Helloo-oo!’ Pause. ‘Professor?’ Pause; again a laugh. ‘Are you there, Truepenny?’
The Professor closed his eyes briefly and sighed. There were things he did not wish to recall. Black nights by the river, the lamps on the quayside shivering in the wind and the gulls wheeling in the darkness overhead like big, blown sheets of paper, and the boys standing in the shadows, all silk and sheathed steel, shuffling their feet in the cold, the tips of their cigarettes flaring and their soft cat-voices calling to him as he walked past them on the pavement for the third or fourth time, trying to appear distracted, trying to look like what at other times he thought himself to be. How are you, hard? Are you looking for it, are you? They all had the same, quick eyes, like the eyes of half-tamed animals. He was frightened of them. And yet behind all the toughness and the insolent talk how tentative they were; alone with him at last in a dark doorway or down a back lane they laughed self-consciously and ducked their heads, avoiding his furtive, beseeching eyes, pretending not to be there, just like him. It was that mixture of menace and vulnerability he found irresistible. And then stumbling away through the rain-slimed streets, light-headed, shaking with a sort of sated glee. Never again! he would cry out in his heart, never, I swear it! addressing a phantom version of himself that stood over him with arms folded and lips shut tight in terrible accusal. And Felix there always, lord of the streets, popping up out of nowhere, horribly knowing, making little jokes and smiling his malign, insinuating smile. They all knew Felix, with his cartons of contraband cigarettes off the boats and his little packets of precious powder. The Pied Piper, Professor, that’s me. And that laugh.
‘Coo-ee!’ he called now, in soft singsong. He was leaning out over the bannisters, his face upturned, with a wide, lipless grin. ‘There you are. Don’t be shy, Professor, it’s only me.’
Professor Kreutznaer slowly descended the stairs; Felix, still grinning, stood and watched him approach, beating out a little rhythm on the banister rail with his fingertips. How silent the house seemed suddenly.
‘What —’ the Professor said, and had to clear his throat and start again. ‘What are you doing here?’
Felix expelled a gasp of laughter and pressed spread fingers to his breast and assumed an expression of startled innocence.
‘You mean here?’ he said, pointing to the floor under his feet. ‘Why, nothing. Loitering without intent.’
‘I mean on the island,’ the Professor said.
Felix merely smiled at that and moved to the window and leaned there looking out brightly at the sunlit scene: the sloped lawn and the bridge over the stream and the grassed-over dunes in the distance and the far strip of sea. He sighed. ‘What a pleasant place you have here,’ he said. ‘So peaceful.’ He glanced over his shoulder and winked. ‘Not like the old days, eh? Although I suppose there is the odd fisher-lad to bring you up your kippers.’ He took out his dented gold case and lit a cheroot and placed the spent match carefully on the window-sill. He nodded thoughtfully, smoking. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘a spot like this would do me very nicely, I must say.’
The Professor stood and listened to the unsteady beating of his heart, thinking how fear always holds at its throbbing centre that little, thin, unquenchable flame of pleasure.
‘Why have you come here,’ he said.
Felix blew a big stream of smoke and shook his head in rueful amusement.
‘I told you,’ he said. ‘The captain was drunk, our boat ran aground. We are castaways!’ And lightly laughed. ‘It’s true, really. A happy chance. Are you not pleased to see me?’
The Professor continued to fix him with a dull glare.
‘How did you know where to find me?’ he said.
Felix clicked his tongue in mock annoyance.
‘Really,’ he said, ‘I don’t know why you won’t believe me!’ He chuckled. ‘Have I ever lied to you?’
At that the Professor produced a brief bark of what in him passed for laughter. They eyed each other through a swirl of lead-blue smoke. The Professor raised his eyes and Felix touched a hand shyly to his dyed hair.
‘I thought you’d never notice,’ he said and put on a coy look and batted his eyelashes. ‘You know me, Professor, mutability is my middle name.’
‘What do you want from me?’ the Professor said.
‘Want? Why, nothing. What did I ever want? Amusement. Diversion. The company of a great man.’
Felix turned away smilingly and put his face close against the window and peered down at the garden. The wind swooped outside, the sunlight flickered.
‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘how is the art market behaving these days? Volatile, is it?’
There was the sense of something beating in the air, as if after the tolling of a bell.
‘I think I’m dying,’ the Professor said.
He heard himself say it and took a step backwards in surprise and a sort of gulped dismay, as if from the windy edge of a high place. Felix at the window glanced at him absently over his shoulder.
‘What?’ he said. ‘Dying? Yes, well.’ He turned to the window again and smoked in silence for a long moment. ‘This truly is a grand spot,’ he said. ‘I really do like it. In fact, I like it so much I think I’ll stay for a while.’