Ruth Rendell - Adam And Eve And Pinch Me

The empty seat nearly opposite Minty was one of those intended for the old or disabled. Not that many took much notice of that, but it happened to be empty and Mrs. Lewis sat down in it. She was still in her dark red coat and hat. Auntie was nowhere to be seen. Evidently she’d taken to heart what Minty had said about not associating with Mrs. Lewis on account of her being Jock’s mother and never paying Jock’s debts. Minty stared fixedly at Mrs. Lewis, who refused to meet her eyes. She had settled herself carefully to avoid sitting on the knife, though it was wrapped first in plastic and then in a clean white rag, but she was very aware of it now.

“What are you staring at, my deah? You’re giving me the creeps.”

“She’s not real,” Minty said. “Don’t you worry, she’s only a ghost, but she’s got a nerve coming after me here.”

Sonovia looked at her husband, shaking her head.

Laf raised his eyebrows. “Must be the wine,” he said. “She’s not used to it. They gave you really big glasses in that pizza place.”

Mrs. Lewis got up to go at Paddington. For the first time Minty noticed she had a holdall with her. She must be catching a train to Gloucester, back to the old home she’d had when she was alive. “Can you get a train to Gloucester at this time of night?” she asked Laf.

“I shouldn’t think so. It’s gone half past midnight. What d’you want to know for?”

Minty didn’t reply. She was watching Mrs. Lewis leave the train and make her way along the platform. A bad walker, shuffling more than walking. Then she remembered some of the money Jock had borrowed had been to pay for his mother’s hip operation. “She never had it,” she said aloud. “I don’t reckon she lived long enough to have it.”

Again the Wilsons exchanged glances. As Laf said to his wife later, all the people in the train were looking uneasily at Minty. You got used to seeing some funny sights in the underground-he’d once seen a chap racing maggots across the floor-but Minty looked crazy, her face as white as chalk and her wispy hair standing on end. Besides, anyone could tell she’d been talking to the empty air. They got out at Kensal Green and walked home; it wasn’t far. The only people in the streets were groups of young men, black and white and Asian, all around twenty years old, all looking somehow like a threat.

Sonovia put her arm through Laf’s. “I wouldn’t feel all that comfortable if you weren’t with us, love.”

“Well, I am,” said Laf, gratified. “They won’t mess with me.”

On the corner of their street was a seat with a sort of flower bed behind it. The flowers had to compete with empty beer cans, fish and chip paper, and cigarette ends, and the rubbish was winning. Mrs. Lewis hadn’t gone home to Gloucester. She was sitting on the seat, the holdall open beside her. Laf and Sonovia probably thought she was the old bag lady who sometimes sat there at night, but Minty knew better. In the ten minutes since Mrs. Lewis had left the tube at Paddington she’d changed her clothes again for a black coat and headscarf, and somehow got up here. But ghosts could do anything, get through walls and floors, travel long distances at the speed of light. She was here now but before Minty could get there she’d be in her house, waiting for her.

Down here there was no one else about. The boys in gangs stuck to Harrow Road. Sonovia and Laf said goodnight and see her soon. Minty was so preoccupied with Mrs. Lewis that she forgot her manners and all the things Auntie had taught her, and didn’t say Thanks for taking me to the theater or anything. She didn’t even say goodnight.

The Wilsons went indoors and Sonovia said, “I’ve never known her so peculiar. Talking to herself and seeing things that aren’t there. D’you reckon we ought to do something?”

“What can we do? Send for the men in the white coats?”

“Don’t you be silly, Laf. It’s not funny.”

“She just had too much wine, Sonn. People can have hallucinations when they’ve had too many. If you don’t believe me you can ask Dan.”

Mrs. Lewis wasn’t waiting for her. Minty searched the house. She wasn’t anywhere and neither was Auntie. She’d still be on that seat, fumbling about in that holdall, planning something, laughing maybe because she’d managed to die before she had to pay that money.

Minty knew what she had to do. She patted the knife, opened the front door and closed it quietly behind her. The street was deserted, silent. The lamps were out. Only in the flat opposite was there a light, a gleam in one of the windows like a candle flame. It looked as if the Wilsons had gone straight to bed, for their bedroom light went out as Minty looked upward. She walked up to the corner, suddenly sure Mrs. Lewis would have gone and the seat be empty.

But she was still there. She’d decided to sleep there, Minty couldn’t think why. She’d put the battered holdall under her head for a pillow. What did a ghost want with a holdall? The flowers behind her had closed up for the night, their leaves faintly gleaming from among the crumpled cartons and polythene bags and cigarette packets. Mrs. Lewis would never give her back her money now, it was gone forever. Minty, drawing out the knife from its strapping, was suddenly consumed with righteous anger. This would show Auntie that she meant business, teach her to be more careful in future.

It was quite silent in the street now. Mrs. Lewis didn’t make a sound. If she’d been real Minty would have thought her heart had stopped the minute the point of the knife touched her.

ALONE IN THE car, Jims escaped from Fredington Crucis House, pursued for several hundred yards down the lane by reporters and photographers. Leonardo he had left behind to fend for himself. They had had a row.

Half an hour had passed before he understood why the reporters and cameramen were there. During that time, having berated Leonardo for being such a fool as to put the light on, he had showered, shaved, and dressed, and braced himself to go outside and meet them. But that had to be postponed, for first he looked out of a window. The eyes and cameras of the crowd were turned to the front door and he was able to observe them for a moment or two without being seen. “Predators,” he said to himself, “vultures,” and, rather outmodedly, the legacy of a classical education, “harpies.”

Then, as one, they turned toward the gates. Mrs. Vincey was shutting them behind her and had started up the drive. The reporters closed in upon her, but not before Jims had seen she was carrying a newspaper, the only word of which he could read from this distance in the large-lettered headline was “MP.” Since he’d asked her not to come this morning, the idea was inescapable that the newspaper and curiosity had fetched her. He could see she was quite willing to talk to them and if they weren’t all that anxious to take her photograph this wasn’t for her want of readiness to pose for them. What was she saying? And what was it all about, anyway? He soon knew.

She let herself in, and herself alone, by the front door. Jims met her in the hall and found himself in a situation comparable to that Zillah had experienced with Maureen Peacock. Mrs. Vincey held up the newspaper’s front page in both hands and told him she’d never been so disgusted in all her life. For the first time, she didn’t call him Sir or Mr. Melcombe-Smith. In the words of Cleopatra when her power was waning, he might have asked, “What, no more ceremony?” Instead, he stood in silence, reading the headline over and over: THE GAY MP, TWO WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL.

“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? A member of Parliament! I wonder what the queen thinks about you.”

“Mind your own fucking business,” said Jims, “and get out. Don’t come back.”