‘Oh, yes, but just where is that?’ asked the woman, her voice squeaking with what sounded, unbelievably, like genuine interest. How was it possible? Michael wondered. Really, how was it done? And most of all, why, why this curiosity, this caring about details in the lives of strangers? Then the thrill that had been missing from the day stole over him. Beyond its being in Norfolk, Michael had not a clue where Burnham Norton was. And it would be such an exquisite disaster if, by one of those coincidences that were so common, he was about to be found out. He waited, perhaps half wanting it, to hear the ‘because my sister lives there, you must know her!’ or the ‘but the curate of St Margaret’s is my goddaughter’s nephew. You’re not the curate of St Margaret’s!’ One day it was bound to happen. Was it to be today? The more little trips he made the more he risked it, and with every time he got away with it, the closer came the day when he would not.
‘Is it on the coast?’
The question seemed to ring off the walls of the church and eddy round the display case where the pair of effigies stood smug behind the glass. Michael moved casually towards the door.
‘Well, if you know where Norwich is it’s not so far from there, I suppose. Look, I think I’d better-’
‘But in what direction? How many miles? Is it anywhere near oh, what’s it called… I can picture the place, I went there as a girl- twice in fact-’
‘Oh, is this your leaflet?’ Michael blurted. ‘May I take one?’
‘Oh, do! Here, take a few and you can hand some on,’ she said, pushing a wad of pale green leaflets at him. ‘There’s quite a bit there about our effigies, we are rather proud of them! And we do like our visitors!’
‘Oh, may I? Thank you.’
‘Take plenty, do. Well, remember where we are, won’t you? The vicar’ll be back by the end of this week. Have you signed our visitors’ book? There should be a pen but they do walk!
‘Oh, not to worry! It’s been lovely just to see the church. Yes, I’ve signed the book,’ Michael gushed back. ‘As soon as I arrived, before you came in. Thanks so much!’
‘And do, do come back at the end of the week when the vicar’s here!’
‘If I possibly can, I will! Thank you!’
‘Give my regards to Norfolk!’
‘I will!’ And if you say one more word, he thought, beaming at the woman before he turned to go, I shall club you to death.
Michael parked in a lay-by on the edge of Sherston, swiped up the pile of pale green leaflets from the dashboard, wound down the window and pushed them out. He stared at them as they settled and shifted on the ground. The twitch in his face had travelled down to his throat, and he began to cry. The van needed work, the electric bill was overdue and even supposing he could shift the six kneelers straightaway, once he counted in his petrol he would be no better off. He sank his head onto the steering wheel and gulped. He was due back in court tomorrow for falling behind with his fines again, and he had nothing for the arrears. But even that was not the worst of it. The unbearable part was that, despite the practical clothes and the shiny clean hair for today’s little performance, he was not Jeff Stevenson. Once again, inescapably, he was only himself.
On Tuesday, the day after the teapot and Shelley’s telephone call, Jean filled her cardigan pockets with keys and set off round the house. The largest key opened the locked room at the front, which turned out to be a study, not of the proper working kind but with a battered, easy-going air, as if any studying ever done in it had been allowed to evolve in its own fashion. The furniture was comfortably mis-matched, apparently brought in piece by piece and then allowed to stay, however useless it became. One solid mahogany desk had been joined by an oak one, smaller and less attractive, on which stood an ancient IBM golfball typewriter. A four drawer filing cabinet stood next to one of another colour, half its size. There was a computer and printer, and a disconnected fax and answering machine. Next to the computer squatted an old adding machine, and behind the cordless telephone sat a white plastic one with a round dial.
Jean was not especially curious about what business might have been conducted here, but it seemed to her, peering at the shelves of Cricketers’ Almanac, the stacked software boxes with titles such as Mensa Ultimate Challenge and British Plant Guide, that it was less than all-absorbing, and perhaps indistinguishable from recreation. Quite possibly no business at all, in the commercial sense, but only household matters were run from here. She looked round blandly. All offices and businesses were, in the end, the same to her. She had worked in several, the last in 1984, when she had left just in time to avoid having to grapple with word processing. Work in offices bored her and always had: all it ever came to was the talking, typing, sending, filing of what were in the end just words and numbers. The people around her had seemed unaware of the futility of what they did all day, so she had learned to keep her mouth shut, do what was expected of her and look as if she gave a damn. But it amazed her. The wonder of offices, she felt, was that so many people could waste so much of their lives in them and think their time well spent.
Two of the newest and smallest keys opened the filing cabinets. Jean flicked through the folders in the top drawer, marked with names such as Current Account 1, 2 and 3, Telephone, Insurance (Buildings), Insurance (Contents), Appliances, Oil, Electricity, Pool, Suppliers: Various. In the lower drawers the first few files were labelled Bonds, Deeds and Inland Revenue. Jean could not be bothered to look further. It was all financial or legal stuff, statements and accountants’ letters about trusts, investments and so on, and a lot of correspondence with some firm called Sadler Byng & Waterman who called themselves Independent Financial Advisers. Jean closed the drawer. It was sure to be disappointingly mundane in the detail, even if she were ready to make the effort to understand it. If she found herself at a very loose end some wet afternoon she might come up here and take a proper look. Before she left the room she checked that the computer and fax were indeed unplugged, but noted reproachfully that the old electric typewriter on the oak desk by the window was not. She left it as it was.
She tried another of the large keys in the carved door at the end of the main landing. It turned. The door opened with a sigh of its hinges, and showed to Jean- as if a curtain had been raised on a scene from a glamorous play- a room so light, pristine and pale that she felt immediately dirty and unworthy. She hesitated, finding it necessary to gaze from the doorway as if to check that the room was indeed empty; for something inside, something surely alive though not human, was beckoning to her. She stepped out of her shoes and walked in, where the perfection of the room expanded and grew inclusive. As she moved, she stirred the trapped smells of dry grass, clean cotton and lemon oil, which now began to animate and scent the air she breathed. With every step across the white carpet she summoned magic; she was rousing spells long asleep in the stillness. Moving from window to window she looked out at the dank gardens and then back, trying to accustom herself to the changed picture that she must make, framed by the room. Slowly she grew used to the thought that now she was in the room she was also of it, transformed from the sneaking outsider on the threshold into the perfect room’s perfect occupant. She looked round at the pattern of faded flowers on the thick curtains, the soft carpet and green rugs, the bleached stone fireplace and the silver candlesticks on the mantelpiece. They seemed to be congratulating her on her safe arrival; they breathed their acceptance and conferred their brightness upon her. Jean sat down on the edge of the large bed, then slid into the centre of it and stretched out. The room was cold, and at once the goose-down quilt beneath her grew warm and nest-like. She lay and allowed something that felt very like happiness to lap through her, wondering if this feeling might be the live thing that she had sensed in the room as she had stood on the threshold. But then, had she not herself brought the feeling with her into the room? She lay smiling, pleasantly unsure whether she were the giver or recipient.