The Black Corridor

Uncle Sidney shrugged and continued to stare at the floor.

'Eh?'

'What difference does it make?' said Uncle Sidney. 'What bloody difference...?"

'You had no right to expose us to that—particularly the women,' said James Henry.

Uncle Sidney looked up and there were a few tears in his eyes.

His voice was strained. 'It happened, didn't it?'

'What's that got to do with it? We don't want to get involved.

It's not even your home. It was Josephine's window which was uncovered when—this thing—took place. She'll be the one accused!'

Uncle Sidney didn't reply. 'It happened, that's all I know. It happened—and it happened here.'

'Very horrifying to see, no doubt,' said Henry. 'But that doesn't make any difference to the fact that the Patriots have got some of the right ideas, even if they do put them into practice in a very distasteful way.' He sniffed. 'Besides—some people enjoy watching that sort of thing. Revel in it. As bad as them.'

Uncle Sidney's eyes expressed vague astonishment. 'Do what?'

'What did you want to watch it for then?'

'I didn't want to watch it...'

'So you say...'

Masterson appeared in the doorway and said: 'Tracy's gone to sleep at last. What's been happening? Patriots, was it?'

Ryan nodded. 'They just burnt a man. Outside. In the street.'

Masterson wrinkled his nose. 'Bloody lunatics. If they really want to get rid of them there's plenty of legal machinery to help them.'

'Quite,' said Henry. 'No need to take the law into their own hands. What bothers me is this odd anti-space notion of theirs.'

'Quite,' said Masterson. 'They've been reassured time and time again that there are no alien bodies in the skies. They've been given a dozen different kinds of proof and yet they continue to believe in an alien attack.'

There could be some truth in it, couldn't there?' Janet said timidly. 'No smoke without fire, eh?'

The three men looked at her.

'I suppose so,' Masterson agreed. He made a dismissive gesture.

'But it's extremely unlikely.'

Mrs Ryan directed the trolley through the door. The group sat drinking coffee and eating cake.

'Drink up while it's hot.' Mrs Ryan's voice had an edge to it.

Isabel Ryan flinched and said: 'No thank you, Josephine. It doesn't agree with me.'

Josephine's mouth turned down.

'Isabel hasn't been very well,' her husband John said defensively.

Ryan tried to smooth things over. He smiled at Isabel.

'You're quite right to be careful,' he said.

The whole group knew, from Isabel's demeanour, although no one would have stated it, that Isabel was experiencing a phase where she supposed people were trying to poison her. She would eat and drink nothing she had not prepared herself.

Most of them knew what it was like. They had gone through the same thing at one time or another. It was best to ignore it.

Anyway, it wasn't unheard of for people who believed that sort of thing to be perfectly right. They all knew men and women who had imagined that they were being poisoned who later had died inexplicably.

'One of us ought to attend the next big meeting of the Patriots,' said Ryan. 'It would be interesting to know what they're up to.'

'It's dangerous.' John Ryan's face was stern.

'I'd like to know though.' Ryan shrugged. 'It's best to investigate a thing, isn't it? We ought to find out what they're really saying.'

'We'll go in a band, then,' said James Henry. 'Safety in numbers, eh?'

His wives looked at him fearfully.

'Right,' said Masterson. 'Time to tune into the report of the Nimmoite Rally at Parliament. The Government will fall tonight.'

They watched the Nimmoite Rally on the television. They watched it while more cries and shouts sounded from the street below. They watched as a group passed playing drums and pipes.

They did not look round. They watched the Nimmoite Rally until the President appeared in the House of Commons and offered his resignation.

CHAPTER FIVE

That night there were riots and fires all over the city.

The Ryans and their friends watched the riots and fires, sitting behind their closed blinds, staring at the large, bright wall which was their television.

The city was being ripped and battered and bloodied.

They drank their coffee and they ate their cake and they watched the men fall under the police clubs, watched the girls and boys savaged by police dogs, heard the hooting and yelling of the looters, saw the fire service battling to control the fifes.

The Ryans and their friends had seen a great many riots and foes in their lives, but never so many at a single time. They watched almost critically for a while.

But as the programmes wore on, Mrs Ryan became quieter and quieter, more mechanical in her presentation of coffee, of sugar, of things to eat.

It was when she saw her favourite department store go up in flames that she finally put her head in her arms and sobbed...

Mrs Ryan had been married for fourteen years.

For fourteen years she had carried the weight of her vigorous husband's moods and ambitions. She had reared children, battled with her fear of other people, of the outside, had made almost all family decisions.

She had done her best.

Now she wept.

Ryan was startled.

He went over and patted her, tried to comfort her, but she could not be stopped. She went on crying.

Ryan looked up from his wife and stared at Uncle Sidney. In front of them, unheeded, glass was smashing into the streets, crowds were running and shouting, the top of the Monument, built to commemorate the Great Fire of 1666, was crowned with flames.

'Put her to bed,' said Uncle Sidney. 'You can't do or say anything effective. It's the situation that's getting her down. Put her to bed.'

The group watched as sensible Josephine Ryan was supported out of the room by her husband. Josephine Ryan was about to be sedated and put to bed next to the unconscious Tracy Masters.

Ida and Felicity Henry, seeing their senior woman carried off, became alarmed. Ida shuddered and Felicity said: 'Where will it end?'

'You're becoming inhuman,' said Uncle Sidney. 'Switched off.'

'In the grave unless we do something fast,' James Henry said brutally. Apparently he hadn't heard Uncle Sidney.

'In the grave,' he said again. 'What are you two going to do, eh?'

And he laughed nastily into the pale, identical faces of his two sapless wives.

Fred Masterson looked at Uncle Sidney and Uncle Sidney looked at Fred Masterson. They shrugged almost at the same time.

And there was Henry laughing as usual. As usual, leaning forward in his chair. As usual, springy, full of ideas, head crowned by that energetic mass of red hair which gave the impression of a man getting extra fuel from somewhere.

As James Henry pushed his features aggressively towards the faces of his tired twin girl-brides it seemed impossible not to think that he was somehow plugged into their vital forces, in some manner draining off energy before it could reach the women to power their thin, narrow feet, their stopped backs, their limp hair, their lacklustre eyes.

Uncle Sidney, possessed by this thought, laughed heartily into the room.

'What the hell are you laughing at, Sidney?' demanded James Henry.

Uncle Sidney shook his head and stopped.

James Henry glared at him. 'What was so funny, then?'

'Never mind,' said Uncle Sidney. 'It's enough to be able to laugh at all, the way things are.'

Then keep laughing, Sidney,' said James Henry. 'Keep at it, chum. You'll be fucking crying soon enough.'

Sidney grinned. 'So much for the good old values. Didn't you know there were ladies present?'

'What d'you mean?'

'Well, when I was a young man, we didn't use that sort of language in front of ladies.'