The Grin of the Dark

'I knee too. I need oo.' With even more of an effort I spit 'Yes.'

She shrugs and turns her shoulder towards me, and doesn't wholly come back even when I try to wish her a belated happy New Year with a kiss. 'Hap in your ear,' I tell everyone else, much to Mark's amusement, and I'm not sure whether I said it to Natalie as well. As I hurry after my publishers Mark calls 'See you later, Simon. It's only the start of your day.'

'Where did he learn to talk like that?' says Nicholas.

I swing around to confront him. He asked Natalie, too proprietorially in my view. Before I can utter a retort, let alone ensure that it's coherent, he gives me a smile I'd like to tear off his face. 'Don't fret,' he says. 'They're in the best possible hands.'

I see Natalie's parents agreeing. I might argue if that wouldn't worsen the situation. With a slowness that only parts my syllables I warn 'They bet a had.'

Rufus has opened the front door. The icy night seizes the back of my neck to the sound of explosions and bells. 'Blow up the old,' I seem to hear Colin say, and Rufus responds 'Ring in the new.'

I don't immediately follow them outside, because I sense that Natalie's parents and, worse, Nicholas are waiting for me to leave. Joe gives me an uninvited chummy look, while Natalie's is resigned and not overly affectionate. Then, unnoticed by anyone but me, Mark displays his Tubby face, and a version of it seems to shimmer on the faces of all his companions. Surely that's not real, but there's no doubt that his was. I can't help hoping Nicholas will be the butt of any joke. 'Don't do anything I wouldn't do,' I say and step into the dark.

FIFTY-ONE - TIME TO TELL

We've travelled just a few miles when I'm tempted to ask Rufus to drive me back to Windsor. Our route to London is taking us into Egham, past the park. As I glimpse the totem pole in the distance, I could imagine that the pile of wide-eyed masks is stalking over the frozen grass to match our speed. I could almost think it's craning to keep me in sight, unless one or more pallid grimacing heads have added to its stature. It's yet another of the distractions that are massing in my skull, but the thought of Mark is most insistent. What kind of fun is he having? If he's out of control I'm certain to be held responsible by his grandparents and very probably Nicholas too, but do I blame myself? Returning to Windsor isn't a solution; my presence might well aggravate any problem. Calling Natalie is unlikely to help, and I can't think of a reason to give her. I do my best to concentrate on the journey, which my overloaded brain must be rendering unreal.

I can't see the student house in Egham, but several people are dancing up the road that leads to it. They're so plump I'm amazed that they're able to dance. Of course their baggy costumes are flapping, not their flesh. The Frugoil station looks deserted, or is a grinning face flattened against the inside of the window? We're past before I can determine whether it's a poster. Beyond Staines the sky is full of lights that put me in mind of sluggish fireworks, and as the Volvo speeds alongside the airport our progress snags a take-off and does its best to drag the airliner to earth. I open my eyes to find we're miles away along the Great West Road. I don't relish this kind of instant travel, and so I try to make conversation. 'You didn't say what you thought of the film.'

Rufus and Colin keep the backs of their heads turned to me. 'Maybe we thought we couldn't improve on your performance,' says Colin.

'Give it a shot,' I urge and am immediately afraid that they'll take this the wrong way. 'I mean, give me your critical opinions.'

'I'd say he has a future,' says Colin.

'I don't see how I can disagree,' Rufus says.

I would say there's too little to disagree with. Are their comments so rudimentary because they feel I've withheld mine? I'm loath to risk trying to share them; I don't think I could cope with another helpless struggle to speak. Streetlamps make my companions' eyes gleam at me in the mirror, a glassy artificial glitter that reminds me of dolls' eyes. I find it so irrationally threatening that I squeeze my eyelids shut. When I look again we're miles ahead in the West End.

Revellers of an unsettling variety of shapes and sizes are dancing in Piccadilly Circus. A glare of light on a street sign blots out most of the letters, leaving only I ILL US. As we turn along Shaftesbury Avenue figures seem to lurch at my back in the mirror, prancing and jigging and hopping over or even onto one another. Do I glimpse an impossibly tall shape composed of dwarfish acrobats bowing towards me like a worm? Surely it's a shadow, and a shadow can't bear even a single grin. It falls behind – it doesn't spring apart and scurry in fragments along the pavement – as the Volvo inches through the crowd. If stunted figures appear to be skipping in the side streets, they must be shadows too.

I lose sight of them as we reach Charing Cross Road. As the car takes its pace from the crowds all the way to Tottenham Court Road I feel as if we're part of a procession, but in whose honour? I'm glad when the last of the merry faces stop clustering close to the windows, turning the glass and themselves pale, as the car veers across the road. A dizzy bout of swerving through the side streets brings us to the office.

The dark sky lends the brows of the attics an extra frown. Their windows glint as my publishers' eyes did in the mirror. I can still hear distant explosions and rejoicing, but the bells seem to have pealed their last. As Rufus slips his key, a plastic card from a different era than the door, into a slot I hadn't noticed beneath the brass doorknob, I say 'Watch out for the guard.'

'There's no guard here,' says Rufus.

He must mean the watchman is off duty. The door opens without a sound to reveal that the lobby is lit and deserted. Although the handwriting on the blotter that occupies much of the top of the reception desk is reversed, it looks familiar. Before I can examine it, if indeed I want to, Colin pokes the button to open the lift and reveal my face. It's decidedly too plump, though I might say the same of my companions. The mirrors on the walls insist on it while the lift quivers upwards. However hard I stare at the doors, I'm still aware of faces multiplying on both sides of me. I have to fend off the impression that a grin is spreading through them out of the dark.

As soon as the doors part I step into the low narrow corridor, which is illuminated so dimly that the source is unidentifiable. At least it doesn't seem to be relying on the skylights. I hurry down the corridor and around the corner, only to have to wait for Rufus to open 6-120 with a card, presumably not the one he used downstairs. He shoves an obstruction aside with the door and switches the light on.

There's very little in the room apart from two basic white desks, each bearing a computer and attended by a scrawny chair. Beyond the dormer window the night sky flickers with fireworks, which look oddly colourless. Rufus gestures me to precede him and Colin, then indicates the flattish object behind the door. 'That'll be you, will it?'

I grab the envelope and refrain from hugging it protectively. 'Where's the copier?'

'We use the one next door,' he says and glances at the computers. 'Everything settled at the bank?'

Is it too early for the mistake to have been fixed? In any case I can show him and Colin what I've had to suffer. 'Can I find out?'

'See your fortune,' Rufus says and turns on the left-hand computer.

I don't care for his joke, which suggests he isn't taking my situation seriously enough. As I sit behind the desk, his and Colin's faces seem to quiver. Perhaps it's a symptom of whatever condition I'm in, or the effect of the fireworks behind me. I type the address of the site for the bank and then my various secret codes. At last the page for my account reveals that I'm as much in debt as ever. 'No change,' I complain.