Brian’s tormentors need have no fear of that. At the very thought of an official interrogation his viscera, already jelly-soft, started sliding and slopping uncontrollably about. He felt sick and cold and also very angry. Schooled though he was in the repression of all emotion, but especially any of an anti-social nature, Brian wept with frustration.
Eventually he dried his face and beard. It was then nearly six o’clock. There was no way he could sit there and sit there then go down and have his supper and watch the television and go to bed and lie there and lie there. He would go mad. He had to do something. To take, however briefly and spuriously, the reins of his wretched existence back into his own hands. He dragged on an old jacket, the one he used to clean the car, and his hat with the let-down fleecy ear flaps, then ran downstairs, shouted something incomprehensible to Mandy through the sitting-room door and left the house.
Outside it was dark and foggy. Footsteps rang out on the hard ground some time before the walkers themselves loomed and melted away almost in the same instant. Commuters edged their cars homeward, searching in the foglamps’ glare for a familiar landmark or driveway. The lights around the Green were visible only as pale little smudges hovering in midair. The moon was a disc of dirty ice.
Brian was surprised afterwards with what a quick certainty his feet made their way to Quarry Cottages. Only once had he stumbled, falling into the gutter. A move which struck him as so symbolic of the whole sorry situation that he almost started to cry again.
When he could dimly see the outlines of the cottages Brian slowed up and approached the area where he guessed the paling fence to be. He walked on tiptoe. Every room in the Carters’ house had the lights on. The windows, honeycombed by many little panes, glowed. Four square yellow eyes watched him out of the fog. Next door was dark.
Brian recalled standing there twenty-four hours ago - no, tell a lie, twenty-one. The emotions he had felt then faded to nothing beside the despairing lack of fortitude and terrible giddiness that engulfed him now. His mouth filled up with a sour liquid and he spat into his handkerchief. Quietly, so as not to disturb the dog.
Having arrived he had no idea what to do. Edie would be in there if, as was usual, she had travelled home on the school bus. And perhaps Tom. But what of the muscularly advantaged Mrs Carter? Conine the Barbarian.
How little, Brian now realised, he knew of the family’s domestic arrangements. Did Edie’s mother go out to work? Maybe she was a victim of the recession and had lost her job. Could such a misfortune conceivably be behind what Brian was now forced to view as a mere twisted parody of romantic dalliance? If so, what could the reason be but to make money?
Momentarily this understanding made Brian feel better. Self-preservation he could understand. It was certainly a kinder motive than wanton sport. And he could see how the idea that his interest in Mrs Carter’s daughter was perhaps a little more personal than was strictly proper could have arisen.
For instance, it was possible that, in spite of constant vigilance, he had let the mask of professional director slip at some time. Anyone as perceptive and intelligent as Edie would certainly have noticed and Brian could just hear her, quite understandably, boasting a little about it afterwards.
Mrs C might well have put two and two together, creatively accounted the result as five and spotted an opportunity of sticking a nought, or even two, on the end. It certainly wouldn’t be much more. They were small-time, sad people - low achievers, without vision.
Even so, assuming the worse (i.e. five hundred), it would not be easy to raise. Brian ran over his options. He could abandon his car and claim the insurance. But that meant notifying the police and they would probably find it and let him know, then he’d be committing fraud if he persisted. Perhaps he could damage it. Or leave it on a railway line.
Startled at the speed at which he seemed to be desecrating the Claptons’ twin icons of law and order, Brian turned to the less dodgy notion of borrowing against the house. He had a thirty-year mortgage with twenty still to go, had never been behind with his payments and, as far as the Abbey National were concerned, must surely seem like a good bet for a top-up.
Option three: his parents. Brian, instantly a small boy again, rehearsed his mother’s opening lines.
‘You’re not in any trouble are you, dear?’
And Brian, standing roughly in relation to trouble as might a pebble to the Boulder Dam, would reply, ‘Of course not, Mummy.’
He knew nothing about his parents’ financial affairs. His father had never discussed such matters. But surely Mr Clapton senior must have some sort of nest-egg? A small emolument to show for the years of drudgery at his boring little clerical job in the city. Or maybe there was an insurance policy that could be realised. Of course Brian would pay them back.
But there would be endless questions. And what reason could he give? Not improvements on the house, for that could be checked-up on, and would be too. Brian’s parents, though timidly hesitant where the wide world was concerned, could be doggedly persistent when it came to the business of their close relations. Still, he could sound them out, perhaps under the guise of concern for their future financial wellbeing.
If all three sources failed he would be left with the bank, who would quite possibly cough up but would demand outrageous interest. But - wait a minute ...
How about Sue? She was a proper author now. Going to be in print. Didn’t they get given money even before publication? The writers’ group were always going on about it. Jeffrey Archer’s advance. Julie Burchill’s advance. Telephone numbers. Noughts so numerous they ran off the front of the cheque and had to go swanking round the back.
Brian’s breathing quickened. Nerve ends danced and jangled beneath his skin. He told himself not to get carried away. This was, after all, his wife’s first book. She couldn’t expect VIP treatment before they’d seen how successful Hector would turn out to be. Even so, there would be something. And, Christ knew, she owed it to him. Not only had he been keeping her for years but it was entirely her fault he had ended up in Quarry Cottage in the first place.
Brian screwed up his eyes and peered intensely into the fog, trying to discern signs of movement behind the windows. He removed his misted-up glasses and rubbed them on his jacket cuff. His teeth started to chatter and his beard to drip moisture. Then he sneezed.
Immediately the night was rent with the sound of ferocious barking. In an uncannily precise replay of the previous Thursday evening the cottage door swung open and a figure stood in the opening. On this occasion the spillage of light was almost non-existent, for the looming shape filled every inch of vacant space as if it had been inflated. History was repeating itself and, sure enough, the second time as farce. It was the giantess herself. She let out a coarse animal cry:
‘Whaahferkoodoonaer?’
Brian immediately retreated quite a long way, covering the distance in a single backward leap of admirably fluid grace. Then he turned and ran blindly up the muddy track, stumbling over stones, slithering over iced-up puddles and occasionally being slashed across the face by whippy twigs.
Now a loudly clamouring bell returned him to a wretched present. It was time to abandon the safety of the staff cloakroom for the terrors of the gymnasium. About to leave, Brian caught sight of himself in the mirror and stared, aghast. Hair sticking out everywhere, eyes bolting, teeth chomping and nibbling at his lower lip. He looked like some weird variety of marsupial in the final stages of delirium tremens.
He bathed his face, patted it dry with a paper towel, smoothed his damp hands over his head and toyed briefly with the idea of not turning up. He could send a message that he was ill, which was no more than the truth. But he simply had to know what was going on, to find out what their plans were.