Magnus Mills: Three to See the King

I also feared she might get bored after a while. She changed her clothes several times a day, and told me it was so that she’d have suitable attire for whatever she happened to be doing. Privately, though, I suspected she was attempting to break each day into shorter spans.

Another sign of boredom was when she amused herself by teasing me. Usually I wouldn’t have minded this, as I can take a joke same as the next man. Unfortunately, she often chose to raise the subject of my failed plan for living in a canyon. She seemed to have grasped that this was quite a sensitive matter with me, but instead of avoiding it she brought it up in conversations all the time.

One day, for example, she said, ‘You know that canyon you wanted to live in?’

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘What about it?’

‘Would there be a river in the bottom?’

‘Could be.’

‘Cos if there was you’d need a canoe, wouldn’t you?’

‘Suppose so, yes.’

‘But you haven’t got a paddle.’

‘No.’

‘So you’d be up a creek without a paddle!’

She then dissolved into a fit of giggling, while I was supposed to sit there and smile politely. As I said before, I can take a joke the same as the next man, but I didn’t really like it when she kept reminding me about that canyon. To avoid the situation I tried to think of ways to stop her from getting bored, and the solution I came up with was to offer to accompany her on her walks. We tried this once, only to discover that we both went at completely different speeds. I ended up arriving home about half an hour before her, so we decided not to bother again.

‘Besides,’ she pointed out. The whole idea of the walks is for me to get away from you for a bit.’

Early one morning I became aware of a gentle drumming noise. I was lying in bed, half asleep, listening to the gale outside and wondering how much sand had accumulated overnight. At first I didn’t notice the noise at all, as it almost blended in with the more familiar renderings produced by the house.

Almost, that is, but not quite.

The difference about this drumming was its highly rhythmical quality, so unlike the normal desultory attacks made by the elements. As if to demonstrate the point, a particularly severe blast of wind struck against the walls and brought me fully awake. When it faded away I realized that the drumming had changed. Now, all of a sudden, the rhythm had sped up. Then it stopped altogether.

At this moment Mary Petrie stirred a little, so that the sheets and blankets rustled. By the time she’d settled down again the drumming had resumed. It was coming, as far as I could tell, from downstairs. I began to suspect that maybe an empty kettle or pan had been left on top of the stove, and was expanding as it heated up. But, surely, if it had been there all night the bottom would have melted by now, wouldn’t it? Anyway, this noise wasn’t really sharp enough for that. It was altogether softer and duller. I listened for another full minute and during that time the rhythm changed twice again.

Then Mary Petrie awoke and said, ‘Is it raining?’

‘No,’ I replied.

‘What’s that drumming noise then?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘Well, aren’t you going to go and find out?’

‘Could do I suppose, but I’m quite comfortable here.’

A few more seconds passed. The drumming persisted.

‘Go on,’ she urged. ‘After all, it could be a serious matter.’

Reluctantly, I rolled out of bed and put some clothes on, then headed for the stairs. It wasn’t until I was halfway down that a thought occurred to me. Hadn’t I heard this sound somewhere before? I stopped and listened again. It had now become much more emphatic than it was earlier, and my suspicion increased. Moving more quietly I continued to make my way downstairs. With utmost stealth I slid aside the bolts at the top and bottom of the door. Then, very slowly, I opened it by about two inches. Through the crack I saw Steve Treacle, crouched down at the corner of the house, drumming on the wall with his knuckles. He was concentrating very hard on this activity, with his face close down by his hand, and didn’t notice me. I opened the door a little further. Standing about fifteen feet away, his collar turned against the wind, was Philip Sibling. He was watching Steve’s antics with a tired expression on his face. I managed to catch his eye, and he shook his head in a resigned manner. I put my finger to my lips. He nodded. I closed the door. Treading very lightly, I went to the point on the inside wall that corresponded with Steve’s position.

I allowed him a few more seconds of drumming, then suddenly banged hard on the wall with a hammer.

There was a startled cry.

Pulling my boots on, I went outside to greet my guests formally. Steve was now standing about six feet from the house with a surprised look on his face.

‘Made you jump, did I?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he replied.

‘Well, why can’t you just knock on the door like normal people?’

‘I was trying to wake you gradually, by degrees.’

‘It’s a tried and tested technique,’ added Philip.

Each of them was wearing an identical heavy coat, but all the same I could see they were both quite chilly.

‘I’ve got a good mind not to invite you in,’ I remarked. ‘Now don’t forget to wipe your feet.’

‘Is that the latest rule then?’ asked Steve.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘There’s a whole new regime here.’

I hadn’t seen either Steve or Philip for quite a while, and it was good to renew the acquaintanceship. What seemed surprising, though, was the fact of their turning up together. I vaguely recalled Simon Painter mentioning that they’d become friends, but to tell the truth I’d thought this was just wishful thinking, as it fitted perfectly into his scheme for everybody to be friendly with everyone else. The thing I least expected was a joint visit from two individuals I regarded very much as ‘loners’.

Besides, it had always struck me that Steve was the sort of person who’d tax anyone’s patience after a while. He had his own way of doing everything, even down to announcing his arrival at my house. Frankly, I was quite astonished that Philip could tolerate being with him. Yet here they were going about together like a couple of lifelong pals. Even their coats were identical.

The reason the drumming sound had seemed familiar, of course, was because I’d previously heard it at Steve’s house. He found it almost impossible to sit still, so he would pass the minutes by drumming with his fingers on the table, or whatever other surface happened to be nearby. The last time I’d been to see him was to collect some sugar he’d borrowed some months earlier and hadn’t returned. He insisted that I stayed for a while, then subsequently drove me half-mad with this incessant drumming.

When he wasn’t doing that he was rushing round making so-called improvements to his house. It was similar to mine in many respects, built entirely from tin, yet for some reason he was never quite satisfied with it. As a consequence, there was always some half-finished job under way: shutters on and off their hinges; the chimney lengthened or shortened; the stairs rebuilt. On the occasion of that last visit he’d been engaged in fixing a weathercock on the roof, a task with which I somehow became involved. I lost count of how many times I had to hold his ladder while he went up to make adjustments, but at the end of the day he still wasn’t happy with the result.

Another thing I remembered about Steve was that he tended to leave his door open for long periods, which allowed masses of sand to be blown inside his house. He didn’t seem the slightest bit bothered by this and traipsed it all around the place. I knew very well that Mary Petrie would frown on such carelessness, so as soon as he arrived I made a mental note to keep an eye on him.