The Grin of the Dark

The instant the door buzzes I try to leave my rage behind. Surely my attitude to this character can't have harmed Natalie's career, but as I step into the hall I turn to him. 'Did she get her interview?'

'She's had it, yes. As far as I'm concerned she's hired.'

I might pursue this if she didn't send a whisper down the stairs. 'Simon, is that where you're going to spend the night?'

'I'm sure I'll be seeing you at work, Nalatie.' Nicholas lifts a hand in either an understated wave or a warning. 'You have my number, so don't hesitate to use it.'

I refrain from retorting that I've got it as well. The leathery creaks of his coat accompany him like a soundtrack recorded too closely as he heads towards Tower Bridge. Natalie is waiting in her doorway, but her first words aren't too welcoming. 'What did you think you were doing, Simon?'

'Sorry if I disturbed Black Leather Man. I wasn't expecting him.'

'Just come in before you start,' she murmurs and steps back. Once the door is shut she says no louder 'He took me and Mark for dinner and then we came back here for a drink. Is there anything else you'd like to know?'

I have to believe there isn't except 'Did I really hear him call you Nalatie?'

'He used to send me valentines at school. He was dyslexic, so I always knew who'd sent them. It's our joke.'

I thought that was my line to share with her. Is she deliberately repeating it, or didn't she hear me earlier? I try to dismiss the issue by saying 'I take it your day was successful.'

'They seemed to like what they saw.'

'They would if they have any sense.'

She touches tongues, leaving me a taste of alcohol, and leads me by the hand into the main room. 'How was yours?'

'Long, and otherwise I honestly don't know.'

'Would you like a drink, or straight to bed?'

'Option number two would make up for a lot.'

'Try not to make too much noise.'

I take it she means on my way to her room. As I sit on the sofa while she uses the bathroom, I'm reminded by a faint smell of leather that Nicholas was here first. That's absurd, and I switch on the television, muting the sound so as not to waken Mark. I've just identified 'Once A Year Day' from The Pajama Game when Natalie emerges, and I extinguish the sight of performers tumbling soundlessly over one another in a park. I use the electric toothbrush I've lodged in the bathroom cupboard, and am tiptoeing across the corridor when a voice blurred by drowsiness says 'Who's at?'

'Go to sleep, Mark,' Natalie calls. 'You should have been asleep hours ago.'

'But who is it?'

'It's me. It's Simon.'

'I want to show you something on my computer.'

'It's far too late,' Natalie intervenes. 'Go back to sleep now.'

'I'll see tomorrow,' I promise Mark and dodge into her room.

She has dimmed the light. In the dusk the stylised roses of the quilt and the wallpaper seem to glow like her invitingly heavy-eyed face, but I'm so tired that I could imagine my vision is being drained of energy. I undress and lay my clothes on top of Natalie's on the chair at the end of the bed. I slip under the quilt, but when I make to prop myself up on the mattress she puts a finger to my lips. 'Let's wait to be sure everything's quiet,' she whispers.

I lower my head to the pillow and drape an arm around her bare shoulder. As we gaze at each other I feel that the day has finally come to rest. Then she says not much louder than her minty breath 'Was your trip worth it?'

'I feel as if I've been changing all day. I got some background. No more film, though. I hope Mark won't be disappointed.'

Natalie's eyes glimmer with some emotion. 'Why should he be?'

'The tape I told him he could watch again got damaged somehow. There's no Tubby on it any more.'

'Oh dear, but maybe that'll mean he'll forget about it. He keeps trying to show me what your find looked like. It stops being funny after a while.'

'Perhaps you should have taken him to your parents.' That's unfair, I know, but it's also my cue to add 'By the way, you know they want me out.'

'They don't know you're here, and even if they did...'

I wouldn't mind hearing the end of that, but I have to explain 'Out of their house by my birthday.'

'Well, this isn't their house.'

'They bought it, didn't they?'

'They gave it to me. It's up to me who comes in it.'

I can't help wishing this didn't also cover Nicholas, which incites me to say 'I thought you didn't like arguments.'

'Not if they're unnecessary. Is this going to be one?' She draws back from me, which is discouraging until I realise that she means to see or be seen more clearly. 'If something's mine it's mine,' she says.

'There isn't going to be an argument.'

She raises her head further, listening for Mark, and then her soft cool fingers take hold of my response to her vow. 'Time you stopped commuting and time I stood up to my parents a bit more.'

'Meanwhile I'm standing up for you.'

'Oh, Simon,' she murmurs, but not too reprovingly, because the joke is more feeble than its subject. She lies back, and I set about kissing her freckles one by one, a process that leads beneath the quilt and makes her clutch at me. I force us both to wait for as long as we can bear, and I'm kneeling over her when I freeze. 'Is that Mark's computer?'

Natalie lifts her head from the twilit bank of flowers that is the pillow. After quite a few seconds she says 'I can't hear anything.'

'I must be tired. Not too tired,' I add hastily and slip into the waves of her. I'm rediscovering our rhythm when I seem to hear the noise again, and I strive to be aware only of Natalie – her smooth limbs holding me tight and tighter, her blue eyes renewing their claim on mine and all that lives within them, her surges summoning mine. Afterwards she falls asleep in my arms, and I could easily follow her into oblivion if it weren't for the noise. Perhaps it's on television; it sounds artificial enough. It must be in another apartment, even though I could imagine that the breathlessly protracted bursts of monotonous laughter are part of the fabric of the walls.

THIRTEEN - IT'S ONLINE

Once the van has halted in the basement, Mark runs to the rear doors and shows me his face through the left-hand window. He hauls his lips back in a grin while he wobbles his head up and down in silent mirth. After quite a few seconds I say 'You can let me out now.'

He ought to be at school, but the staff are being trained to use a new computer system. He carries on mimicking Tubby until his mother calls 'Go on, Mark. Let the hermit out of his cell.'

He twists the key and throws the doors wide before sprinting to the lift. I've been hugging my computer all the way from Egham. I cradle it and follow him between two hulking pillars as he darts into the lift to rest his modest weight on the door hold. I lower my burden into a corner, and then I hurry to help Natalie lift out a suitcase obese with clothes. As its wheels hit the concrete she glances past me and cries 'Mark.'

I'm kneeling on the edge of the metal floor. I straighten up so hastily that I bang my head on the roof. The ache in my scalp seems to pierce my brain, almost extinguishing the sight of the lift. It's shut, and there's no sign of Mark. My skull throbs in time with my footsteps as I run to pummel the metal doors. 'Mark, where are you?' the pain makes me shout, though he can't have gone far.

'Come down, Mark,' Natalie calls beside me. 'Come down now.'

We can hear his muffled giggles. I'm wondering if I should run upstairs, however painful that may be, when a faint metallic rattle indicates that the lift is moving. I can't judge whether it's descending or the reverse until the doors inch open. Mark is at the controls, and the computer looks undisturbed. 'What did you think you were doing?' Natalie demands.