Magnus Mills - Three to See the King

I had no objection to this as it gave me plenty to do. More importantly, it kept Mary Petrie happy as she continued her improvements to the interior. There were now vases and pictures everywhere, downstairs and up, as well as the further comforts she had produced from her trunk. We drank our coffee, for example, not from enamelled mugs as had long been my custom, but from china cups and saucers. At night we slept beneath a feather eiderdown.

With the shutters open the house was pleasant, bright and airy, yet after a while there appeared an unforeseen side effect. For some reason the increased ventilation caused the stove to emit more smoke than it had previously. Soon there were deposits of soot appearing on the walls, and Mary Petrie demanded that something should be done about it.

‘We can’t do anything,’ I said. ‘It’s unavoidable.’

‘Don’t give me that,’ she answered, opening the door and going outside. A moment later she was back. ‘The chimney’s too short. We’ll have to have a longer one.’

‘Wouldn’t it be easier just to close the shutters again?’ I suggested. ‘That’s obviously what’s causing it.’

‘I don’t want them closed!’ she exclaimed. ‘They’re much better open at this time of year. What it needs is a longer chimney!’

‘How do you know?’

‘I just do!!’

The look on her face confirmed that she was certain of this, so I immediately gave up arguing.

‘That must have been why Steve Treacle lengthened his chimney,’ I remarked. ‘I wondered what he did that for.’

‘So he could show you how to do it, could he?’ asked Mary Petrie.

‘Oh yes, he’s got all the stuff over there.’

‘Well, you’ll have to go and see him then.’

‘I can’t really, can I?’ I protested. ‘Not the way things are at present.’

‘I don’t care about that!’ she said. ‘I’m not putting up with all this soot when there’s a perfectly simple solution! It’s only pride that’s keeping you away from Steve, and Philip for that matter, so you can get yourself over there tomorrow!’

The following day I set forth in the sunshine bearing gifts. I’d decided overnight that there would have to be one for each of my remaining neighbours, and that the best thing to take would be some cakes.

‘Won’t they have had their fill of cakes by now?’ asked Mary Petrie. ‘That’s what you took every day when they were moving Simon. Maybe you should give them something else instead.’

‘No, no,’ I replied. ‘Cakes’ll be fine.’

‘Alright,’ she said. ‘Well, give them both my regards, won’t you?’

‘OK then. Bye.’

A good while had passed since I’d last been to Steve’s, but I was quite sure of the way and hardly even thought about it as I walked. After a couple of hours, however, I began to wonder if maybe I’d strayed off course a little. There was no other landmark in the vicinity apart from Steve’s house, and I’d expected it to appear ahead of me at any minute. Instead I saw nothing, so I decided to stop and have a good look around me. The view, I thought, seemed familiar. In all directions a vast red plain stretched away into the distance, crossed occasionally by eddies of drifting sand. Yes, this was definitely the right place.

Where, then, was the house? As I glanced about me my eyes fell on a large rectangular shape marked on the ground, and suddenly I knew the answer. With ease I traced the perimeter of Steve’s former abode, recognizing the places where the door, the stove and the stairway used to be. Now it was all gone, and so was the collection of spare parts he kept stacked round the back. These, I recalled, included some lengths of chimney pipe. The whole lot had disappeared, and I could only assume that he’d decided to move nearer to Philip. I wondered if he’d used the same system to notate the pieces of tin from his own house as he had with Simon Painter’s. If so, it would be interesting to see the result, which was why I decided to press on in the direction of Philip’s. This was only another hour’s journey away, and as long as I got a move on I’d have plenty of time to get home again before dark.

After taking what I assumed was my last ever look at Steve Treacle’s old residence, I started off. My inhibitions about seeing the two of them again had now disappeared, and I found myself eagerly anticipating the prospect of a pair of tin houses standing side by side. I could just imagine the carry-on when Steve, impetuous as ever, had rushed about reassembling his components right next door to Philip. Meanwhile, his companion would have lent a hand in a staid sort of way, saying little apart from passing the odd droll remark. I speculated that Steve might well have found a method for coupling the two structures together. What a sight that would be, and maybe they’d even have a chimney to spare! Surely, I told myself, when I arrived and presented them both with cakes, the three of us would be able to forget recent events altogether.

During the past hour I’d become aware that the wind had swung back towards west-south-west and was increasing slightly. I felt quite pleased that I’d detected this change without the aid of a weathercock, but something else gratified me as well. To tell the truth, I found the mild, gentle conditions of summer rather irritating, much as I imagined a sailor might feel when stuck in the doldrums. Warm, hazy days were alright for a short period, but after a while I found them frankly tiresome and longed for a return to ‘proper weather’. By this I meant louring grey skies, a cool temperature and a bracing wind. A glance at the horizon told me that my wish was about to be granted, although I knew there would be a price to pay. Some regions are simply not suited to summer, and this plain of ours was a perfect example. I’d learnt from experience that we would have to undergo a violent storm before the climate reverted to normal. With this in mind I put my head down and hurried on towards Philip Sibling’s house.

It was even longer since I’d been there than it had been for Steve Treacle’s, but if I remembered rightly the last occasion was in the aftermath of just such a storm. The previous evening had seen a gathering of clouds in the distance, and sometime around midnight the rain had come. This was a fairly rare occurrence in these parts and quite welcome as the tank could always do with a top-up. It had been falling heavily for an hour or so when I put on some waterproofs and went outside to check that the downpipe was clear. A minute later the sky was lit by the brightest bolt of lightning I’d ever seen. The fork struck the ground somewhere in the vicinity of Philip’s house, so the following morning when things were drying up I went over to make sure he was alright.

I should have known he would be, of course. Philip Sibling wasn’t the sort of person to go out in a deluge like that, and I found him sitting in his kitchen staring at the ceiling.

‘I’m trying to work out if any rain came in last night,’ he explained.

‘Have you got a leak then?’ I asked.

‘Oh no. It’s tight as a ship.’

‘So how could rain get in?’

‘Capillary action,’ he said, giving me a significant look. ‘You can’t trust it.’

That was just about the longest talk I ever had with Philip. He was a man of few words, and didn’t like to waste them in conversation. This suited me fine, and for the remainder of my visit we sat quietly at his table, sharing a pot of coffee and not exchanging more than the most necessary remarks. Just before I departed, Steve Treacle had arrived, apparently for the same reason as me. Philip invited him in, then all three of us sat together for a while, saying very little, until I decided it was time to leave. Something like a year must have passed since that visit, and now, as I walked once more towards Philip’s, I recalled Steve drumming frantically on the table. I could still hear him after I’d said goodbye and gone outside, but I could also hear the pair of them beginning to chat away quite freely. That must have been the day when their friendship first started to flourish, and I had no doubt that they discussed more interesting things than capillary action.