‘More sparks,’ she said, drawing out a strand and letting it float free from her head.
‘Look, leave your hair alone,’ said her mother, ‘and get that comb away from the table.’
Later on, twenty minutes or so before her brother was due back, the girl knocked on the door opposite and opened it. Mr Abson was sitting there with his papers at a small table. The room had not heated up and as she spoke she could see the little white puffs of breath before her in the air.
‘You haven’t put on the light yet. Shall I come in?’
‘Yes, come in,’ said Abson. ‘Have your brother and his fiancée arrived?’
‘Not yet. “Fiancée” is idiotic. Why do you keep using that word?’
‘I took it for granted.’
‘Well don’t. You haven’t been here long or you’d know the number of girls he’s brought home already. We keep off the word.’
‘What is the play they’re rehearsing?’
‘I’m not very interested to talk about them. I don’t know what it is. All I know is he’s a sailor and she’s a school-mistress. Have you noticed how nearly all the women in these plays turn out to be teachers? Last year he was a painter and she taught Algebra. In the end they show they can take off their glasses and everything else the same as other women. But of course only for sailors, painters or murderers. Is that fair? Never for anyone else – never a male teacher, for instance.’
‘Is your brother a good actor, then?’
‘I’m not interested in that. But there’s one thing. I’ve been behind the scenes when they’re taking the paint off.’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s strange, frightening maybe. They take a blob of grease and wipe off a pair of round, black eyebrows, or a frown or a luscious pair of lips. They can clear patches of white fright from their cheeks in one stroke – grease off a blush as quickly as you’d wipe round a dinner-plate, and underneath, when they’ve wiped off every mark, their faces are dull … dull!’
‘It’s not that. But undramatic perhaps. Unexaggerated.’
‘No. Dull. When you take off eyebrows, for instance, the surprise goes out of the face. Yours is the opposite.’
‘Mine. My what?’
‘Your face, Mr Abson. When you wipe it off, yours must be exciting.’
There was silence in the room. The man turned his eyes slowly, still keeping his head stiff.
‘When I say “wipe off” I’m not referring to paint, with you, of course.’
‘No? What, then, could I wipe off?’
‘I’ve no idea what it could be.’
‘I take it you find the surface dull –no dramatic eyes or lips?’
‘But underneath – exciting.’
‘Where exactly does it break through?’
‘It doesn’t. But I can infer it, from what you say. At night, for instance, in your own room.’
‘Miss Imrie, if you’re trying to make up for anything your mother said – don’t bother. She’s been good to me. She likes me well enough even if I do get on her nerves. And I’m not to be here long. Why bother yourself?’
‘Miss Imrie! Part of your trouble’s politeness. Like fiancée. Politeness dulls the face. It’s nothing to do with my mother, though naturally she likes excitement. She imagined that being abroad so long you’d have lots to talk about. But it hasn’t worked like that and she doesn’t hold it against you. It’s a dull street, that’s all. A dull street, a dull town, a dull country. We’re pretty dull here compared with lots of them, aren’t we?’
‘And she has a feeling for drama like your brother?’
‘She likes the applause and the gasps when she has something good to tell.’
‘Something good?’
‘Ah, you know what I mean. Don’t fold up. Don’t start moralising. I mean good and bad at the same time. Everyone likes sparks and fire-bells. Why else would they come running?’
‘And the screams?’
‘There were no screams. And no one was hurt.’
‘There would be bigger crowds for screams, I can tell you that.’
The girl sat still and watched him. After a while she sighed, took the comb from the pocket of her jacket and drew it smoothly down one side of her head from the middle parting, bending her head right over so that the hair swung out away from her neck and ear. Her upturned eyes showed a rim of white round the lower lid and gave her a look of fixed surprise.
‘It’s not quite dark enough yet,’ she said, ‘and maybe not the right sort of day – but often, when I do this, I can get not just crackling, but actual sparks as well. Frost and darkness are the best. I know,’ she smiled, ‘that it can’t happen often with men. There’s got to be plenty of hair for it – something you haven’t got. But more spectacular still …’ she paused and smiled again into the dim room, ‘is the last thing I take off at night. It’s not just sparks but flashes. The quicker it’s done, the brighter. If I rip off the vest and toss it away I can get great, blue flashes that sting my arms and back. And if the room is absolutely black it’s like lightning – crackling, stinging lightning. But the stuff’s got to be silky, nylon and that sort of thing. Nothing dull or thick. Not everyone believes this. People can get very stuffy about electricity too, you know, as though it ought to be confined solely to lamp-bulbs.’
‘There’s your brother now,’ said the man, unstiffening to the sound of the key in the front door.
‘Is it? There’s another thing. Some people think you’re getting sexy if you say “sparks in the hair”. “Electricity” is as good as an invitation, and if it’s electricity and underwear they’re waiting to be eaten up.’
‘Yes, it is them,’ said the man. ‘I can hear the girl too.’
‘… Waiting to be eaten alive or ready to pounce themselves. It comes to the same thing,’ said the girl. ‘No, that’s my mother’s cousin. She’s got a key and comes in on Tuesday nights if there’s anything she wants to watch. No, it’s early for them yet. The sad thing about those ones – whether they’re waiting or pouncing – is they’re still dull, terribly dull and sad.’
‘You’ve little idea at your age how tired people can become,’ said the man.
‘At my age! Some of my friends are as tired right now as they’ll ever be. Tireder, for instance, than my mother ever was or ever will be. Tired wasn’t what I was talking about. It was dullness. A mean, suspicious, greedy, beady-eyed dullness, if you can imagine that!’
The man gave a laugh. He put his hands to his face and rubbed it hard for a moment, first his forehead, then his cheeks. He was breathing quickly.
