The first friend shrugged and admitted that his was a very inconclusive sort of ghost tale, but insisted that it was true nonetheless. He sucked on his pipe and poured three mugs of tea. Far below, the last avalanche of the day rumbled through the twilight. The second friend, who had survived the second crevasse, accepted a mug and nodded solemnly to himself. He seemed completely wrapped up in his own thoughts. Finally, he said:
"I too have a ghost story, and mine is true as well. It happened when I was a student in London. I lived in a house where another student had bled to death after cutting off his fingers in his heroic attempt to make his very first cucumber sandwich. I kept finding the fingers in the most unlikely places. They turned up in the fridge, in the bed, even in the pockets of my trousers. One evening, my girlfriend started giggling. We were sitting on the sofa listening to music and I asked her what was wrong. She replied that I ought to stop tickling her. Needless to say, my hands were on my lap.
"I consulted all sorts of people to help me with the problem. One kindly old priest came to exorcise the house. I set up mousetraps in the kitchen. But nothing seemed to work. The fingers kept appearing on the carpet, behind books on the bookshelf, in my soup. I grew more and more despondent and reluctantly considered moving. Suddenly, in a dream, the solution came to me. It was a neat solution, and it worked. It was very simple, actually. I bought a cat…"
The second friend smiled and sipped his tea. Both he and the first friend gazed across at the third friend. The third friend seemed remote and abstracted. He stared out into the limitless dark. In the light from the stove, he appeared pale and unhealthy. He refused the mug that the first friend offered him.
The first two friends urged him to tell a tale, but he shook his head. "Come on," they said, "you must have at least one ghost story to tell. Everybody has at least one." With a deep, heavy sigh, the third friend finally confessed that he did. The first two friends rubbed their hands in delight. They insisted, however, that it had to be true.
"Oh, it's true all right," replied the third friend, "and it's easily told. But you might regret hearing it. Especially when you consider that we are stuck on this ledge together for the rest of the night." When the first two friends laughed at this, he raised a hand for silence and began to speak. His words should have been as cold as a glacier and as ponderous, but instead they were casual and tinged with a trace of irony. He said simply:
"I didn't survive the third crevasse."
THE BIG LICK
After all, it was a magnificent house. They could feel no regrets as they received the key from the plump fingers of the estate agent. A large detached modern dwelling; the house of the future.One kind of future, at any rate. As a light breeze ruffled the fur on the walls, Tony smiled and opened the door. The house purred. They had been accepted.
Inside, they saw that everything was waiting for them exactly as they had arranged. The old battered sofa was there; the one they had bought for their first flat. And the little ornaments from their many travels to exotic lands. And the books and musical instruments scattered over the floor. What more could they ask for? What doubts could they have now? They would be happy here, they would be safe.
Tony turned to Claire and embraced her. "Our new home," he said simply. And then, as if determined to wax lyrical before the wax melted, he added, "Debt where is thy sting? Ground Rent where is thy victory?"
It was essential to satisfy a few outmoded traditions. Tony attempted to carry Claire over the threshold; he grunted but could not obtain sufficient leverage. So it was Claire who carried Tony over, dumping him in a contented heap before the inglenook of the authentic hearth, on an indigo rug all knotted with abstract designs in colours that should have clashed but did not.
They spent the rest of that evening watching the television, snug beyond good taste in each other's company, nibbling shortbread or lobes or upper lips, while some cartoon rodent raced across a landscape as harsh and surreal as any by Dali. The house began to chatter and crouched low, as if ready to spring. With a sudden flash of terrible insight, Tony reached for the remote control and switched channels. Almost at once, the house lost interest.
"It's the mouse," Tony explained, referring to the cartoon. "The house was getting excited. We'll have to be more careful."
Claire nodded vaguely, her mind too frantic with serenity to pay much attention to his words. She had already hung her needlework above the mantelpiece over the grate, and was already planning a sequel. HOME NUTRASWEET HOME would be a project worthy of a six-month energy package, made up of lots of little delicate motions and more thought. The votive lights in her eyes were at once bright and distant.
They had first chanced upon the house while gliding on a picnic quest down the road that led out of the city and into the hills. There it had napped, curled up tight, tail wrapped round the trunk of an old tree that lurched out of mossy ground. They had fallen in love with it immediately; the glistening black fur with the white ruff, the delightful expression and endearing sundries. They had stopped, noticed that it was for sale and had made enquiries.
The estate agent was a large oily man with an absurd hairstyle. ArnieTroppmann had been selling state-of-the-art houses for more than a decade. His experience revealed itself every time he smiled; a gold tooth encrusted with diamonds. He mopped his forehead with a contract, shook rancid buttery hands and showed them around the building, pointing out features with an enthusiasm that was not only infectious but positively septic.
"These latest models are self-regulating. They have a nervous system based on that of the domesticated cat. As you can see, the fur covers the inside walls as well as the whole exterior, minimizing heat loss. The house is extremely sensitive to outside changes and will warn you of the approach of intruders or rain. It has a superb sense of balance guaranteed to withstand the most violent earthquakes. Also it is self-cleaning. Every Monday night."
And now as Claire and Tony blinked in surprise, two enormous eyes appeared on the ceiling from nowhere, flooding the room with soft yellow light. This was another fixture designed for the conservation of energy: reflected starlight amplified and focused wherever it was needed most. The house, they also quickly discovered, had a wonderful sense of smell and hearing. The rose garden seemed constantly within, rather than without, the enclosed lounge, and the music of the wind playing the kazoo on separate blades of grass charmed them to sleep with Aeolian lullabies.
The following evening, at roughly the same time, the fur on the walls pricked up alarmingly and the house arched its roof. Tony and Claire were instantly aware that trouble was afoot. Bounding into the kitchen, Tony snatched a garlic crusher and bore it to the front door, which he threw open with a flourish, at the same instant daring any intruder to approach closer. He was startled by a mangy hound that — though no clove — was sufficiently impressed by the unlikely weapon to beat a hasty retreat.
"Scat!" cried Tony, which was both completely unnecessary and unnecessarily complete. He pumped the garlic crusher handle a few times in sullen victory. "A stray," he explained to Claire. "An unkempt mutt. Reminded me a little of Toasted Muffin." And he fell into a redundant fugue, a nostalgic slice from the melon of his youth: his dog, his air rifle, the heel of a loaf, the nettle-itch and the doc leaf wrap. Toasted Muffin, he recalled, had been run over by a tractor.
On Monday night, they decided to stay indoors yet again. It was cleaning night, after all. The estate agent had warned them to absent themselves at this time, but they were too curious to see what would happen. Besides, Troppmann had also suggested that if any problems arose they should come to see him and he would put matters right. So there was nothing to worry about. They waited for the show to begin. They waited and watched.