She seems so unaffected by the recent panic that I wonder if her memory has lapsed. 'I suppose I should be thinking of heading back to London.'
'No sooner thought than done,' my father declares.
As the car puts on speed, the forsaken theatre surges after us, or at least its reflection in the mirror flares up with renewed moonlight. The building seems to brighten in proportion with the distance before it vanishes like an image expunged from a screen. We've simply turned where the road forks, but my mother says 'Where are you taking us, Bob?'
'Where I was asked.'
Is he proposing to drive to London? 'I didn't mean you should take me literally,' I say, attempting to laugh.
The narrow street is pulsing with the buds of trees in front rooms. When I was little my father used to drive us on a tour of the Christmas suburbs, but if I feel like a child again it's from helplessness. My mother gazes at me in the mirror and says 'He's like this now.' At least, I think that's what she mouths, and I'm about to voice another protest when my father claps his hands like a magician or the solitary enthusiastic member of an audience. 'There, I was right,' he tells anyone who doubted it, and grabs the wheel again. 'Here we are.'
An unlit building brings the street to an end. Trees flicker on either side of the car as if they're close to giving up their existence, and I'm afraid we've returned to the Harlequin. Are we approaching it from the back? No, we've arrived at a junction, the far side of which is occupied by a railway station. 'The line to London comes through here,' says my father.
'Aren't we driving Simon to the proper station?'
'He's in a rush and I want to get you home.'
His stare in the mirror is warning me not to interfere. At least I can say 'I'm glad I dropped in.'
'We are,' my mother assures me. 'Hurry up Christmas with everyone we're thinking of.'
I mumble amiably rather than commit Natalie and Mark. My father delivers a handshake so terse it's little more than the memory of one, but my mother clutches the back of my neck and pulls my head between the front seats to receive a fierce kiss. I'm turning away from the car when my father shoves his door open and rears up like a Jack-in- the-box to crane over the roof. 'If you're thinking of coming again,' he says so quietly that I barely hear him, 'next time don't get your mother in a state.'
The brake lights give a Christmas wink as the Mini vanishes around a bend, and I venture into the station. It's unstaffed. The ticket office in the token hall is so thoroughly shut that I have to peer at it to establish that it isn't just a patch on the dim wall. I can't see the name of the station anywhere on the lightless platform. Wires shiver alongside the glimmering railway lines in a wind that lends unnecessary animation to a solitary poster in the booking hall. The text has been scratched out, and the vandal has also erased more than the face of the figure prancing in the foreground. The damage has lent the performer a disproportionately swollen white head above the baggy costume, and someone has inked a black grin as wide as the otherwise featureless expanse. The ragged outline works as though the eyeless substitute for a face is struggling to emerge from the poster. All this gives me yet more reason to want to speak to Natalie. I dig out my phone and bring up her home number.
However late in the day it feels to me, it may not be Mark's bedtime yet. The bell rings twice and falls silent, but nobody speaks. It's partly the desertion all around me, not to mention the restless poster, that makes me blurt 'Mark?'
'He's on his computer. Why, do you want him?'
'You were so fast I thought it must be him. I'll have you instead any time, Natty.'
Her wordless sound reminds me of Bebe even before she adds 'You might want to be a bit careful with saying things like that.'
'Even to you?' When she doesn't respond I say 'Sorry, have I done something I should know about?'
'Nothing we need to discuss over the phone,' she says, and I tell myself that it's only the wind that chills my neck.
TWENTY-ONE - SOON I'LL REST
When I let myself into the apartment the only sound is my own breath. Mark will be in bed by now, but I'm hoping Natalie has stayed up. 'Hello?' I call not much above a whisper. 'Hello?'
I might as well be speaking to a dead mobile phone, since there's as little response. The muffled childish giggle in the apartment opposite can't be one, and I don't waste too much time staring across the corridor in case anyone emerges. I bolt the door and tiptoe to Natalie's room. 'Are you awake?' I murmur.
She isn't, unless she's pretending, which she has no reason to do. She doesn't stir under the quilt in the dark. I want to believe this proves whatever she withheld on the phone is unimportant, but I feel worse than frustrated. I restrain myself from shaking her and trudge out of the room. I ease the door shut and head for my computer. If I have to wait until tomorrow to hear from her, I'll see whether I need to deal with something else.
I close the door of the main room and mute the speakers. The icons gather and regain their colours with a collective shiver. I hope the chirpy dialling of the modem won't rouse Natalie or Mark. I listen to the silence until I'm sure of it and then check my email. I've had dozens of communications on nonsensical subjects from people with meaningless names. I delete them all unread and open the page for Tubby Thackeray's film.
Now Mr Questionabble's pretending that he's going to be published. Everyboddy shout if they bellieve him when he can't even spell it. Wow, it's quiet round here. And on top of prettending he's got the gaul to tell us we've got to be pubblished before he'll allow us to say annything on here. Well, he can look and see how much I've pubblished now. I'll stake all the monney in the bank he won't like it, though.
If Smilemime has signed his real name to anything, how am I supposed to find it? Or perhaps I know what he means. I bring up the page for Tubby's Twentieth-Century Tincture, and the one for Tubby the Troll, and the rest of them. Long before the end I've run out of gasps of disbelief. Smilemime has posted a synopsis for every film, including Tubby Tells the Truth, which he summarises as 'Tubby dresses up as a proffessor and shows us how he turned into a commic'.
He must be especially well informed to be able to describe a film that was never released. I'm about to begin my response with that comment when I wonder where else he may be posting. He seems the kind of person who would frequent newsgroups, and what might they tell me about him? I open the page for the Google groups and enter Smilemime in the search box. There are hundreds of postings, and I've read no more than the title of the most recent when I have to grip my face to keep in the noise I would otherwise make. Whatever it would be, it's no laugh.
TWENTY-TWO - NO STILLNESS
I barely sleep. Whenever I manage to doze, my mind lights on Smilemime – on how his messages may be multiplying like a virus designed just to harm me – and I jerk awake. I wouldn't be in bed if Natalie hadn't gone to the bathroom and then wandered somnolently to find me. As soon as she began to fumble with the doorknob I logged off and shut down the computer, and was in time to meet her at the door. I was ashamed of what I'd been looking at, which added to my rage. She was nearly asleep, and wholly so before I joined her in bed, where she nevertheless slipped an arm around my waist. Its comfort is oppressively unhelpful in its lack of awareness. I try to sink into the peace of her breathing, but Smilemime is there, and Tubby's face shining like ice. I feel like an armature composed of nerves that unite in the dark lump of my brain. Perhaps my nerves are making my wrist tingle reminiscently, which is why I give up lying still.