The Grin of the Dark

Mary and Joseph leap to catch it. Neither wins, and Mary drops her burden. The jar and baby Jesus hit the boards with an impact that sounds somehow dubbed until I realise it's augmented by the slap the teacher deals his cranium. At least the jar doesn't break. Mary scrambles to rescue her baby, but her mouth begins to struggle for a shape as she picks up the doll. The top of the wrappings droops emptily, and as she opens her mouth I know what she's going to ask. 'Where's his head?'

A woman on the front row jumps up as though she has seen a rodent. She gropes beneath her seat and holds up the errant item. The teacher lurches out of the wings, but Mark is closer and faster. Darting to the edge of the stage, he holds out his cupped hands. Perhaps his confident stance persuades the woman, or perhaps she's won over by his wide grin. Whatever makes her thoughtless, she throws him the baby's head.

Shocked gasps greet this, but so does uneasy laughter. More of both accompany Mark's spirited attempts to mend the baby, at last uniting the portions with a snap that fills the hall and sounds more like bone than plastic. Mary's reaction doesn't help. In a stage whisper she complains 'It's back to front.'

'Twist it round, then,' Joseph advises and immediately loses the rest of his patience. Grabbing their first-born, he scrags baby Jesus and thrusts the infant at his mother.

By now the teacher is reduced to retreating as many paces as he takes from the wings while he clutches his scalp with both hands. 'Can't anybody stop this?' Bebe demands in a voice loud enough for an actress.

To some extent Miss Moss does. She begins to sing 'O Come All Ye Faithful' as she marches to the front of the hall, gesturing the audience to rise to its feet and join in. None of this is quite enough of a distraction from Mary's struggles to reassemble baby Jesus, whose neck keeps popping out of the socket as if the head is eager to regain its freedom. Throughout this Mark retains rather too blameless an expression, and I can't help recalling the grin he sent me earlier – a version of his Tubby face? His gaze keeps flickering sideways to observe the antics of the mother of God, who abandons her attempts to repair her offspring and wraps up the head along with the decapitated remains, rocking them in her arms as the carol ends. The headmistress has her back to Mary's performance. 'Thank you all for coming,' Miss Moss says. 'Thank you to Mr Steel and all his cast for such a memorable production.'

She leads the applause as the teacher takes a quick nervous bow and then flaps his hands to hurry the cast offstage. The adults in the hall chat while they wait for their children to reappear, but Natalie and her parents are silent, and I don't know what it might be safe to say. Some protracted minutes pass before Mark steps forth, cradling Natalie's jar. 'It's okay,' he assures her.

'Unlike that performance,' Bebe says.

'Nothing like we came to see,' says Warren.

Natalie takes the jar. 'Thanks for saving it,' she says.

Before Mark speaks I know he's going to appeal to me. 'Didn't you like it, Simon? You like laughing.'

I feel surrounded by unspoken warnings. 'It was an experience for certain.'

I'm afraid he may find this insufficiently supportive, but he rewards me with a grin that looks reminiscent. 'Wait till you see what I've got you at home,' he says.

THIRTY-FIVE - TORMENTORS

As the Shogun halts outside the apartments, Bebe breaks the heavy silence. 'Would you like us to come up with you, Natalie?' 'You head off home. You've done enough.'

Mark wriggles to face me across his mother. 'Can I show you now?'

'Maybe you should catch up on your sleep,' says Warren. 'Your mom and Mr Lester have some issues to discuss.'

'Remember we're as close as your phone,' Bebe assures her daughter. 'Chances are you won't be waking us.'

As the car swerves away up the alley, icy flakes like seeds of Bebe's gaze settle on my forehead. It occurs to me to read the nameplate of the apartment opposite ours, but when I try to clear it of half-melted snowflakes I rub the name illegible. Mark is racing upstairs while Natalie follows him at half the speed. I use both hands to hold my case above the stairs so as not to chip them, and then I blunder with it into Natalie's bedroom. 'You've come back the worse for wear,' she says.

'Better handle me gently, then.'

I'm not sure if she's preparing even the slightest of smiles when Mark calls 'Here it is, Simon.'

'Go on, get it over with,' Natalie tells him or me or both, and steps well aside to let me out of her room.

Mark is sitting at my desk. Has he been using my computer in my absence? He can't have logged online without my password, and in any case I don't know why I should be apprehensive. Perhaps it's simply that the notion that anyone else has used the computer makes my work seem vulnerable – and then I notice the book in front of him. It's Surréalistes Malgré Eux. 'Look what someone did,' he says as he hands it to me.

I can see no difference when I open the book. Did I fancy that the text might have changed somehow? I'm about to give up leafing through it and ask Mark what he's so impatient for me to find when I reach the pages that deal with Tubby Thackeray. The margins of both have been pencilled solid black.

While this may be a suitably funereal tribute, I don't like having a book defaced. 'You did this, did you, Mark?'

'I saw it in a film,' he says with a wide smile that I find wholly inappropriate. I'm about to start by telling him so when I realise that the blackness of the borders isn't total after all. Both side margins contain words so faint they're scarcely legible. Before I've finished straining my eyes I'm unconvinced the additions are worth deciphering.

grate

mind

mined

pourtal

vorpal

portle

trope

troop

troupe

let

it

owt

ownly

con

necked

links

recht

lynx

wrecked

sub

con

shush

first

foot

your

Bill

of

men

tall

health

all

fools!

yer

round

first

for

noll

edge

first

be

last

carol

carroll

itty

bitty

god

I'm opening my mouth when I wonder if the annotations are even more meaningless than they appear. 'Mind out, Mark,' I say and pull the desk drawer open. On top of the small stack of posters is the one signed by Thackeray Lane. The wispy script of the first name, before the signature degenerates into an elongated capital, is indeed the same as the handwriting in the book. This seems capable of scrambling my thoughts until I see the explanation. 'Why did you do this, Mark?'

He looks inexplicably confused. 'I told you – '

'You said you got it from a film. About a forger, was it? Full marks for learning fast but not for what you learned. You'll have me thinking films can turn people into criminals. Maybe you can tell me what all this is supposed to mean.'

Before I've finished speaking, Natalie is in the room. 'What has he done now?'

'All I did was highlight the writing for him,' Mark protests as his eyes grow wider and moister. 'That's how they sent secret messages in a film.'

It doesn't sound like a terribly secure method. Rather than criticise the film I wait for him to meet my gaze. 'Are you telling me you didn't write this?'