He poured rapturous accounts of their antics into crazed messianic letters which he stuffed stampless in the postbox in the village at dead of night, laughing in the dark at the thought of the storm and panic they would precipitate on the breakfast tables of his family and friends. No replies came, which surprised and annoyed him, until he realised that all to whom he had written were dead, save his son and daughter-in-law, who arrived in the heart of the country one burning noon and laid siege to his sanctuary.
— He must be really bad this time, said George.
— No stamp, said Lucy. Typical.
The house was silent, the windows blind, the doors barricaded against them. They hammered on it with their fists, and heard within the sound of muffled laughter. They called to him, pleaded, and were turning away when suddenly there erupted a plangent discord of piano music, followed by a shriek of castors rolling on stone. The door collapsed slowly into the hall, and there was the old man grinning at them from behind the piano, his little blue eyes glinting in the gloom. His clothes were in tatters, his feet bare and crusted with grime. He looked more than anything like a baby, the bald dome and bandy legs, the eyes, the gums, an ancient mischievous baby.
— My god, Lucy murmured, appalled.
— That’s right! that’s me! the old man cried. He executed a brief dance on the flagstones, capering and gesticulating, then stopped and glared at them.
— What do you want?
George stepped forward, stumbled over the fallen door, and blushed.
— Hello there! he yelled. How are you …?
The heartiness fell sickeningly flat, and he blanched. Although well into middle age, George had the air of a gawky, overgrown schoolboy. His long thin frame gave an impression first of all of paleness, pale eyes and hands, pale dusty hair. When he smiled, the tip of a startlingly red tongue appeared between his teeth. There was an eggstain like a bilious sunburst on his tie. The old man eyed him unenthusiastically and said with heavy sarcasm:
— Rakish as ever, eh Georgie? Well come on, get in here, get in.
Lucy did not stir, rooted by her fury to the spot. How dare this decrepit madman order her George about! A hot flush blossomed on her forehead. The old man smiled at her mockingly, and led his son away down the hall.
He conducted them on a tour of his kingdom as though they were strangers. The house was a shambles. There were pigeons in the bedrooms, rats in the kitchen. That was fine with him, he said. Life everywhere. He told them how he locked himself out one day and broke the door off its hinges to get in again, then had to jam the piano against it to hold it up. The old woman from the farms in the hills who took care of him fled after that episode. He lived in the drawing-room, in a lair of old blankets and newspapers and cobwebs, yet he felt that his presence penetrated every nook and corner of the house like a sustained note of music. Even the mice in the attic were aware of him, he knew it.
In a corridor upstairs Lucy grabbed her husband’s arm and whispered fiercely:
— How long are we going to stay fooling around here?
George ducked his head as though avoiding a blow. He glanced nervously at the old man shambling ahead of them and muttered:
— It’s all right now, don’t fuss, we’ve plenty of time.
Lucy sighed wearily, and closed her eyes. She was a plump woman, still pretty, with large expressive breasts which trembled when she was angry. There was a damp sheen on her nose and chin, and she exuded a faint whiff of sweat. Summer did not agree with her.
— Tell him we’re taking him away, she said. Tell him about the home.
— Lucy, he’s my father.
He turned his face resolutely away from her and quickened his step. Once again he noticed how odd this house was, with its turrets and towers and pink and white timbering, like an enormous birthday cake set down in the midst of the fields. Only his father had felt at home here, while the rest of the family dreamt vague fitful dreams of escape into a world free of his malevolent, insidious gaiety. George remembered, with a shudder, his childhood, the genteel penury, the mockery of the village, the friends in whose homes he sat with his hands pressed between his bony knees, inwardly wailing in envy of the simple, dull normalcy of lives where fathers in suits and ties returned at evening, scowling and tired, to newspapers and slippers and huge fried teas. A door at the end of a corridor led into one of the turrets, a tiny eyrie of glass and white wood, capped by an unexpectedly graceful little spire. Here, suspended and insulated in this bubble of light, the old man had spent his days working out with meticulous logic the details of his crazy schemes, oblivious of his wife’s slow dying, the children’s despair. George felt stirring within him the first tendrils of confused rage, and he retreated into the corridor. His father came trotting after him.
— Wait there, I want to show you my plans for the distillery.
George halted.
— Distillery …?
— Aye. With potatoes. The place is full of them out there.
Lucy, behind them, let fall a shrill gulp of laughter.
They had lunch in the ruined dining-room, raw carrots, beans, mounds of raspberries, honey. Lucy found knives and forks and three cracked plates, but the old man would have none of these niceties.
— Do animals use forks? he asked, leaning across the table, his eyes wide. He had put in his dentures. They lent his face an odd look, both comical and savage.
— Well, do they?
— We’re not animals, she said sullenly.
He grinned. That was the answer he had wanted.
— O yes we are, my girl, yes we are, poor forked animals.
Lucy’s chest began to surge, and her forehead darkened, and George, his legs twisted under the table in a knot of anxiety, searched frantically for a way to head off the argument he could see approaching.
— Well listen, why, why don’t you tell us about these fellows in the garden that you see, these acrobats?
The old man’s eyes grew shifty, and he munched on a carrot and mumbled to himself. Then he sat upright suddenly.
— They dance, you know. They have this little dance when they’re flying in that tells the ones coming out where the source is, how far, what direction, precisely. You don’t believe me? I’ll show you. O aye, they dance all right.
Lucy looked blankly from the old man to George and back again, and in her bafflement forgot herself and ate a handful of beans off the bare boards.
— Who? she asked.
The old man glared.
— Who what? Bees, of course. Haven’t I just told you? Snails too.
— Snails! George cried, trying desperately to sound astounded and intrigued, and fired off a nervous laugh like a rapid volley of hiccups.
— Yuck, Lucy grunted softly in disgust.
The old man was offended.
— What’s wrong? Snails, what’s wrong with snails? They dance. Everything dances.
He picked up the honeycomb. The thick amber syrup dripped unnoticed into his lap. His lips moved mutely for a moment, striving painfully to find the words. Grime gathered at the corners of his mouth.
— It takes six hundred bees to gather a pound of honey. Six hundred, you’ll say, that’s not bad, but do you know how much flying it takes? Twenty-five thousand miles. Did you know that, did you?