Mark Haddon - The Pier Falls - And Other Stories

The bedroom is one of seven rooms off a first-floor balcony which runs around three sides of a boxy, light-filled atrium. Below him, over the rail, is the focal point of the house, three low sofas and an open hearth where several logs are burning. In front of him is another wall of glass, two storeys high, divided into big squares so that the view of the long lawn and the small lake and the surrounding trees seems like a video projection. It is, by some distance, the most beautiful house he has ever seen, the kind of house he dreamed of living in as a teenager, the polar opposite of the Rookery, with its low ceilings and thick walls and dark corners, every surface patterned and every cranny occupied by some antique thing.

He descends very slowly to the ground floor on a staircase of open risers and wooden treads which are warm beneath his unslippered feet. The atrium, he can see now, leads to open-plan dining and kitchen areas of smaller proportions but equally filled with light. The woman is standing at the stove. She spoons porridge from a small black pan into an earthenware bowl. “Have a seat.” The same familiarity, the same unnerving possibility that this is a ritual they have gone through before, because while he would never previously think of eating porridge, as soon as she says the word he knows that it is what he wants. He sits at the table and she places the bowl in front of him. “Coffee?”

He nods. He does not want to speak out loud. There is a game being played, the rules of which he does not understand and whose stakes, he thinks, could be very high indeed.

The kettle whistles as it comes to the boil. She turns the hot plate down and pours the bustling water into a cafetière. A column of steam rises above her head as she fits the plunger into the glass jug and places it on the table. Before taking her own seat across the table she gently folds back the sleeve of his pyjamas with two fingers to examine the rash on his wrist. She nods to herself then dips her hand into her pocket and retrieves a little blue-and-white tube of permethrin cream and hands it to him. “I’ve already put some on. You’ll need to use it a couple more times.”

“Thank you.” His voice is croaky and he has to clear his throat and repeat himself. “Thank you.”

“Eat.”

The porridge is good, more milk than water. The coffee is good, too. He works his way slowly through both. There is a long painting on the wall to his right, a semi-abstract landscape from the forties or fifties, a patchwork of green, blue and grey planes, rough black lines in the foreground which could be trees or people. Just as he was with the woman he is convinced that he has seen the picture somewhere before but he cannot say precisely where. The woman is reading a book. The cover is not visible and the text seems to be in a foreign language, though having only one good eye he cannot see it clearly.

He finishes the porridge and the coffee. The tabletop is a single piece of oak. He runs his hand across its surface and feels the soft burr of the sanded grain under his fingers. He looks around. He has never lived in a house where it is a pleasure simply to sit and enjoy the geometry of the internal space. If he stayed here would it fade? Would he become blind to this room just as one becomes blind to any room one sees every day?

The woman is looking at him. He has the sense that something is about to happen and, indeed, at that very moment the light changes, a spooky dimming. Eclipse light. He turns and sees, through the window, that it has begun to snow. It is so warm in the house and he has been so comfortable in his pyjamas that he has forgotten what time of year it is.

The woman seems to know what he is thinking. Or perhaps she’s simply remarking upon the serendipity. “Christmas Eve.”

And this is when the stranger enters.

Gavin does not recognise him at first. He no longer has a beard and his head is shaved. He is wearing a tailored charcoal suit with tan brogues, an open white shirt and no tie. Padding quietly by his side is the black retriever Gavin remembers only now from their last meeting on the railway line. Gavin is struck at first only by how out of place he looks, in this building, in this landscape. At school there was one Indian boy, Rajneesh. Everyone else was white. Everyone in his parents’ village is white.

The stranger sits and pours himself a cup of coffee. “You are a very lucky man.”

It is only when he speaks that Gavin remembers the accent he could not place first time round. Lucky is the very last thing he feels. Not once in the last twelve months has he thought about the stranger’s parting promise, and only now does he begin to wonder if the detail which seemed least important has in fact been the crux upon which the whole year has turned. “Are you going to shoot me?” He hears his own voice. It sounds like the voice of a child.

The stranger considers this, or perhaps just pretends to consider it, before smiling and saying, “I think you’ve probably suffered enough.” The snow is thickening now, big white flakes against the deep green of the trees, the flakes falling nearest the house catching the peach-pink glow of the fire and the house lights. “But it is easy to forget the lessons we have learnt unless we have some permanent reminder.” His hand idly scratches behind the ears of the dog sitting at his side.

Gavin shot this man in the chest. He wants to say sorry but it seems an insultingly small word. Perhaps this is what the stranger means.

“Let’s not waste what you have gone through.” The stranger leans across the table and takes hold of Gavin’s wrists. He does not grip tightly but Gavin can feel how strong he is. His expression is calm and kind, the expression of a father holding a child who must undergo some painful medical procedure for their own good.

The woman gets to her feet, walks round the breakfast bar and opens a drawer which is too small to contain the sawn-off shotgun. Gavin thinks she is going to take out a knife but when she returns to the table he sees that she is carrying a bolt cutter in one hand and a white hand towel and a first-aid kit in the other. Gavin struggles. The stranger does not tighten his grip, neither does he let go. He looks into Gavin’s eyes and says, “This is going to happen. And you will thank me for it.”

The woman lays the towel on the table, puts the first-aid kit to one side and takes up the bolt cutter. It is an old and dirty object, wholly at variance with everything else in the house, the metal surface scratched and dented from years of use, black oil in its joints and crevices.

“The index finger on your right hand,” says the stranger.

There is nothing he can do. He curls his three other fingers into his palm and points upwards like John the Baptist in a Renaissance painting. He closes his eyes. He feels the cold weight of the metal as the woman fits the jaws around his finger between the knuckle and the first joint. There is no blade as such. It is sheer pressure which will do the work, the two plates sliding across one another.

She says, “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

He feels her adjust her position, a little rock from side to side as if preparing for a golf swing. She takes a quick, deep breath and squeezes hard. The big teeth slice through the skin but come to a halt at the bone. It is a harder job than she expected. She changes the position of her feet and shifts her hands a little farther down the handles so as to get more leverage then puts all her effort into a second squeeze. This time there is a cracking crunch as the metal shears through the bone. It is surprisingly loud. It sounds more like a thigh bone breaking. He opens his eyes.

The finger end falls onto the hand towel and blood pours from the stump. For a couple of seconds there is no pain. Then there is more pain than he has felt in his life. He feels sick with it. The stranger lets go of his uninjured hand, picks up the severed finger and throws it to the dog who catches it and trots away to chew it in the corner of the room by the snowy window.