words were meant to go over your head. They’re nothing to do with you. Not one of them landed on you – so you can stop scrubbing.’
Abson’s hands were suddenly still, his fists clenched at the sides of his head. He turned on her angrily exclaiming: ‘And you! Look – you can stop nagging! Stop lecturing me!’
‘That’s better,’ said the girl, leaning her elbow on the table so that now the other wing of hair hung down to touch his papers. ‘I don’t mean to nag. I think a lot of you, and a lot about you. And do you know how I think of you? I think of you as a sort of dark spark.’
There was a tremendous crash from the outer door on the word ‘spark’ and a sound of voices filled the hall. The wall behind them rattled with the buttons of overcoats being flung at the pegs on the other side, and there was a thumping on the wainscoting where heavy shoes were kicked off.
‘That can’t be just the two of them,’ said the girl, straightening up and folding her hair back behind her ears. ‘Maybe they’ve brought the whole group back. There’s five there at least. Do you hear five?’
‘But have they got to have the wind through the whole scene?’ a voice was calling out plaintively in the hall. ‘And has it got to be a gale? Two pages! Tenderly! Have you ever tried speaking tenderly with a howling gale at your ear?’
‘A dark what?’ said Abson.
‘It’s the last scene,’ said the girl. ‘They’re talking about the bit where the two of them – I told you about the sailor and this woman – they’re waiting for news of his son in the storm. There’s a bridge been blown down or something.’
‘A dark what did you say I was?’ said the man.
‘Just a minute,’ said the girl. ‘Listen! How many actually are there? I’m not going out there till I know. If it’s five then it means Ben’s around. I’m not going out there if that Ben has attached himself again. Well, it can’t be helped. I’ll never know if I don’t look, will I? Are you coming out?’
‘Not yet,’ said Abson.
‘Later then,’ said the girl. When she opened the door a brilliant shaft of light and noise cut through the dark room. The man inside had a glimpse of a boy sitting on the bottom stair taking his boots off and a young woman leaning against the wall unknotting a headscarf. The girl’s sudden appearance in the hall caused a moment’s silence then a burst of acclaim from at least five voices. She passed through them, leading the way into the other room and they went after, dropping the boots and waterproofs, shaking the rain from their hair. They followed her and the door closed beyond. Suddenly the hall was silent. It was quite silent and empty.
A long time later the group in the sitting-room heard steps going upstairs – or rather the boy who had sat taking his boots off on the stairs heard them. He was now leaning with his elbow on the hearthrug eating toast and he held up his knife with the butter on it for silence.
‘Who is it?’ he asked.
‘I’ll get him,’ said Mrs Imrie, and she went out to find him already round the corner of the stairs. ‘Why, you can’t go up yet. It’s early. Aren’t you taking a cup with us before you disappear?’
‘For a few minutes – with pleasure,’ said Abson, coming down slowly.
Like her daughter, Mrs Imrie felt that politeness at this moment was a mistake. Why ‘pleasure’ with his face? With his reluctant steps? She had once had someone who, called down like this, had stuck his head in the door, made hideous faces at a group of old ladies and withdrawn. And been loved for it.
‘Creaks on the stairs,’ remarked the boy at the fireplace, watching Mr Abson who was now sitting with a cup of tea in his hand. ‘That reminds me.’
‘Go on!’ voices encouraged him. ‘Give us the story!’
‘No, it’s not a story. There’s nothing to it.’
‘Go on!’ they shouted.
‘Not a story – not an experience even. A sensation. A stirring of the hairs of the head. It was this perfectly ordinary suburban villa belonging to a schoolfriend’s family – an ordinary red and yellow brick affair.’
‘All right. Don’t worry,’ said someone. ‘It was ordinary. We got that.’
‘I was staying the weekend. I had my dog with me. Well, each evening at the same time – eight o’clock – footsteps going upstairs. The first time I said “Who is it?” – nobody’d heard them. And the second night: “Who is it?” Nobody heard them. The third night – same thing. No one had ever heard them except me.’
‘The dog?’ murmured someone who’d heard the story.
‘I’m coming to that. Each time it happened the dog would get up and whine at the door of this room until I let him out. We’d both stand at the foot of the stairs waiting for the last creaks going up at the top. Then the dog would give one yelp, turn his back to the stairs and sit huddled up to me without moving a muscle. It happened three times. In the end the family, including the schoolfriend, had taken an intense dislike to both of us. Can you blame them? Each time they came out of their cosy, plush drawing-room they saw me gaping up the stairs and the dog hunched round the other way. They could hardly wait to get rid of us. In the end I had to carry my own suitcase to the station in the pouring rain. I can still see myself trudging past their long, cream car at the front gate. The schoolfriend hardly spoke to me again – avoided me as though I had the plague. Well – there you are. A gloomy silence in the audience. Didn’t I tell you you’d be disappointed?’
‘No, not a bit,’ said a girl from the other side of the room.
‘The fact that it lacks all drama makes it more real. Now I know it happened.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Even in spite of, or because of the dog. Because prowling, howling dogs are common in ghost stories. But yours just sits there on the mat. He’s a pet. He’s sweet. I know him.’
‘Thanks again. His name is Brown. I suspected it was a boring little tale.’
‘Surely not just Brown?’
‘Simply and literally Brown. Nothing more nor less.’
‘Well anyway, I liked the way you made nothing of your sensations. I think that’s drama, or is it anti-drama? Nothing more about your hair rising. Or your sweaty palms.’
‘I don’t know what it is, but whatever it is, it hasn’t got over the footlights.’
‘I adore ghost stories!’ exclaimed Mrs Imrie.
‘Mr Abson,’ the boy said, ‘did you ever do any acting when you were young?’ He was leaning against the fireside wall with his knees drawn up and he now gave his full attention to the older man. This attention was compelling as though silently, deliberately, almost while they were unaware, he had smoothly pivoted the focus of the whole room round in one direction. By the steadiness of his eyes, the absolute stillness of his thin hands – clasped together and just touching his lips as though he were preparing for an absorbing story – he silenced the rest of the group. They might have been under iron command
