not, after all, the whole world which was before them, but a small hotel nearby, from where they would carry on the long-drawn-out negotiations over the head of the house. California and the decks of the ocean liners were as far off as they had ever been, and it was too late to group themselves, as their relations had done many times before them, for an exuberant send-off photo on the front steps of the house. The men required every scrap of jauntiness still left in them simply to carry the luggage down to the gates, and the women, worn out with their own displays of excitement and enthusiasm, had let their faces fall again, and now longed only to settle as soon as possible under some other roof.
They did not look back when they came to the gates, and when they were beyond them they did not immediately shake the dust of the place from their feet, for nothing as soft as dust had been under them. But the three men put down their cases and sat down outside to remove, for the last time, the cruel pieces of gravel which had lodged in the heels of their shoes. This done, and walking with greater confidence and dignity, they passed out of sight of the house forever.
‘I FIND IT strange, Mr Abson, that your face doesn’t change much at the things I’ve been telling you. But you do listen, don’t you?’
‘I listen, Mrs Imrie. I find what you say very interesting.’
‘“Interesting”! But you do feel what I’m saying to you? About the little puffs of smoke between the tiles … the dog howling at the back?’
Abson was thoughtful for a few minutes, his round, black eyebrows raised, melancholy eyes fixed on the floor.
‘Later, Mrs Imrie. Things come over me later. When I’ve had time.’
‘When you’ve had time? But you have lots of time, Mr Abson. Who’s disturbing us? You’re a person of feeling, aren’t you? A person would need to be inhuman not to respond to what I’ve just told you.’
‘That’s how I’m made, Mrs Imrie.’
‘How? Not inhuman, I hope?’
‘I mean I go over things later.’
‘Later? How late?’
‘Indeed I am not!’ exclaimed a girl who had just opened the door. ‘It’s all your crazy clocks running on again!’
‘I’m not referring to you, Brenda,’ said her mother. ‘I’m talking to Mr Abson here who feels everything later than other people.’
The girl shrugged herself through the room and over to a corner where she hung up her coat and stared close and long at a small mirror. As she watched her daughter combing out her hair the woman at the table seemed at ease, as though her own nerves were being combed out strand by strand from the knotted frizzle they had got into while sitting too long with the passive Mr Abson. But after a while she turned to him again, speaking, however, in a more patient and relaxed tone.
‘How late do you mean, Mr Abson?’
The man gave his peculiar half-sigh. That is to say, he drew in his breath, held it for a while, and expelled it almost without a sound. But, halved like this, it was also irritating, as though he had no wish to give generously of his feelings – even feelings of desperation – like other people.
‘How late, then?’ Mrs Imrie repeated.
‘At night. When I go to my own room. In bed probably. I go over things when I’m in bed. I suppose that’s what I usually do.’
It was quieter in the room. The girl had stopped combing her hair, or she was combing it very lightly. The woman took up some sewing again. ‘You mean things don’t strike you right off? Even funny things you see or hear?’ Mr Abson turned his eyes towards the window, but said nothing.
‘I suppose that means you don’t sleep well.’
‘Not always.’
‘I’m glad I’m not troubled like that. With me it’s when my head touches the pillow. Or when would I ever get my work done next day? I’ve no time to think day or night, it seems!’ She sewed steadily for a bit, and once she whispered: ‘The whole roof caving in ..!’
After a while Mr Abson gathered up some papers from the table into a brief-case and prepared to go into the other room which was officially his for the evenings if the family were not entertaining visitors in there. They had only a very hazy idea of his job for he had not talked much about this. But they knew his firm made tiles and pots and mugs, and they associated him with a peculiar foreign jar they had once seen there – long, black and white, narrowing at the top to show that nothing was to be got out of it and nothing put in except perhaps a bare twig or two. And yet with a mournful, drooping lip to it.
‘Don’t go unless you must,’ said Mrs Imrie. ‘It’ll probably take a bit to heat up in there. Jim and May will be back soon and we’ll have a cup then.’
‘I’ll come back later then, if I may,’ said Abson. He went out and they heard the door of the other room close behind him.
‘Always later!’ exclaimed Mrs Imrie. ‘I’m afraid later’s not much use to me. I’ve got to have the laughs on the dot, and the crying too. And I like a gasp when it’s tragedy – even a blink would be enough. Something. When I told the butcher about them throwing the twin babies out of the window and the fireman nearly gone himself with the smoke, he doubled over as though he’d a pain here – doubled over his knife. Mrs Liddel did more. She wailed out loud.’
‘There was a safety-net, wasn’t there?’
‘Has the world gone quite heartless? Yes, there was a safety-net. And lots of people down below, including that mother – watching her two babies being thrown, one after the other, out of a fourth-storey window!’
‘Anyway, they’re safe. No damage done.’
‘Talk about sleeping! Imagine that poor woman’s dreams when she does close her eyes. Will she ever get it out of her head? No she will not. Some people have reason to lie awake at night.’
‘We don’t know what’s in Mr Abson’s head.’
‘No, we don’t. Whatever it is, it doesn’t show on the face. The strangest thing about buildings when they collapse is the slowness. It’s like a slow-motion picture. A sag here and a bulging there, and a slow, slow puff of dust.’
‘I’ve seen something like it on TV.’
‘The sparks are dangerous. I believe they can travel miles.’
‘And still keep alive?’
‘Seemingly. In a wind.’
‘Surely not miles?’
‘A long distance. You think they’re dead, and the next thing you know there’s a fire blazing away miles from the first place.’
‘A single spark,’ said the girl.
‘But if it’s alive, after all – and travelling fast.’
‘A
