Lynn Brock - Nightmare

Luckily, the pen had escaped damage. Laying it on the table, he tore off the bescrawled sheet of the writing-block and, having collected the crumpled debris from the carpet, rolled the result of his afternoon’s work into a ball and dropped it dejectedly into a waste-paper basket. One more afternoon gone—one more defeat—

Thump.

Furiously his face, its pallor flushing darkly, jerked upwards towards the ceiling. He shouted ragingly, ludicrously.

‘Stop it! Stop it, blast you! Stop it, I say!’

In the top flat, as if upon an awaited signal, Bedlam had broken loose. Trampling feet were charging from room to room; doors were banging; furniture was hurtling about; a whistle was screaming; a tray was beating like a war-drum; a bucket was rolling backwards and forwards along the passage. For just an instant after he had realised in stupefaction that his own voice had uttered those three cracked, strangled cries, Whalley had hoped that the noise of the traffic might have drowned them. There had been just an instant of silence save for the traffic and the whine of the gramophone. But then exultant triumph had burst forth above him, preluded by a first long-drawn blast of the whistle. The whistle was new. The enemy had made special preparation for the celebration of victory.

As he stood at the centre of the room, dismayed by his folly, he heard the handle of the door turn and saw the portière ruck and sway inwards as the door opened a little beneath it. He made no movement to draw it aside; for the first time his eyes were unwilling to meet Elsa’s. Lest she should edge her way in, he wiped his face hurriedly with his handkerchief in a vague attempt to obliterate its disturbance. His voice essayed bored amusement.

‘Having rather a field day upstairs, aren’t they?’

‘Beasts. Did you call?’

‘Call? No.’

‘Oh, I thought I heard your voice.’

‘No.’

It was his first lie to her—curt and clumsy. He eyed the portière uneasily, glad that it hid him from her clear, steady gaze. There was no suspicion in her voice when it spoke again, but it waited just too long before it did so. She knew that he had shouted, and that he had told her a lie.

‘You can’t possibly work with that awful row going on. Let’s take Bogey for a walk before tea.’

‘It’s going to rain. It’s raining already. Besides, I must do the kitchen.’

‘But you did it not a week ago, dear. Don’t bother about it today. Let’s chance the rain and go out.’

Yes. She had heard him shouting like a lunatic. He was certain now. Well, bad enough that she should know that he had shouted, but …

He hurried to the portière, pulled it aside and saw the slight, adored figure framed in the aperture of the partially opened door. Her unfathomable, enfolding smile fell upon his ruffled spirit like morning sunlight and banished all its anger and defeat and bitter self-reproach. He caught her in his arms and kissed her passionately before he blurted out his confession.

‘Yes. I did call out. I shouted up to them to stop—like an infernal ass.’

She patted his arm, offering him just excuse.

‘It really is rather awful this afternoon. But we’re going to keep on laughing at it, aren’t we, dear? Let’s go out. The kitchen can go for days still, quite well. And it’s such a job.’

He hesitated, for a moment disposed to yield. But just then, startlingly, the offensive upstairs developed a new activity. Behind Elsa, as she stood facing him in the passage, was the little landing—corresponding to that upon which the Prossips’ gramophone rested—covering in the well of the former staircase. Two of its sides were fenced in by surviving balusters, the other two by ugly partitions of painted boarding, the handiwork of the jobbing contractor who had carried out the ‘conversion’. One of these partitions formed the back of the Prossips’ coal-cellar, the greater part of which descended into the Whalleys’ flat. This frail wall, consisting of a single thickness of match-boarding like the landing’s floor, had suddenly been assailed by a wild bombardment, alarming in its abrupt violence. There was no need to speculate as to the nature of the enemy’s ammunition; each furious blow upon the boards was followed by the unmistakable sound of broken coal falling. Already, where the tonguing of the boarding had split away in places, tricklings of black dust had begun to find their way through, to fall upon the rug covering the Whalleys’ landing.

They stood for a little while staring at this visible invasion which, trifling as it was, held an outrage infinitely more acute than the total volume of all the outrageous noises which had assailed their ears during the past weeks. Elsa laughed at length. But for the first time her sense of humour had failed her, and her laugh was, she knew, a failure.

‘Idiots. Well, they’ll have plenty of slack for the winter. I must rescue my rug.’

She stole on tiptoe to the landing and rolled back the rug out of danger, then stole back to him. ‘I shan’t be a moment getting ready.’

Her husband did not appear to have heard her. He was still staring at the trickling coal-dust with a frowning, calculating absorption that made her catch at his hands anxiously.

‘You’re not going to do anything, Si? Don’t. It will only make things worse.’

He came out of his brooding reverie and laughed harshly.

‘Do anything? Yes. I’m going to wash the kitchen floor.’

‘Let me help you to move the things out. I’ve finished all my darning.’

But he twisted away from her, freeing himself from her hands impatiently. ‘No. Don’t worry me, Elsa. Just leave me to myself.’

Incredulously her eyes followed him, hoping that he would turn back to her. His hands—Simon’s hands—the gentlest, tenderest hands in all the world, had pushed her off—pushed her off quite roughly—so roughly that one of her elbows had struck the balusters behind her sharply. Oblivious of the deafening uproar that raged within a few feet of her, she strove with that unbelievable fact, refusing to believe it, trying to find excuse for its devastating reality. An intolerable sense of separation and loneliness fell about her like a dark mist. She became conscious of a little nervous tic beating at the corner of her mouth. With a determined effort she smiled, bracing her whole body with a deep breath.

The coppery glare that announced the near approach of the storm, passing in through the kitchen windows, reached her and detached her vividly against the darkness of the little unlighted passage. When Whalley turned at the bathroom door to ask: ‘Tea at a quarter to five—will that do? I shan’t finish until then,’ he saw her so, illuminated as if by a baleful spotlight. The whistle was blowing again now—in the coal-cellar, apparently—and its shrill screaming blended with the blare of the gramophone and the thudding smash of the coal in an orchestra of almost stunning viciousness. The small, trim, beloved figure, despite its erectness, seemed to him suddenly forlorn—menaced. A little chill passed between her and his eyes and made her indistinct. His heart missed a beat.

Absurd. He turned about again. Her ‘Of course, dear. Any old time,’ had been whispered along the passage to him laughingly. Unusual lighting effects had always affected his imagination strongly … his invincible, idiotic instinct to dramatise. As for shivers and palpitations, they were familiar enough. He went on into the bathroom, which he used also as his dressing-room.