The China Governess (31 page)

The face which emerged was not reassuring. It was blunt and grey, the nose springing thick and flat from high on the frontal bone of the forehead, whilst his eyes were narrow slits of dark in a tight bandage of tissue. He was not a mongol but there was deficiency of a sort there, and it was not made more pretty by a latter-day hair cut which involved eccentrically long elf-locks and oiled black curls.

Experimentally, his right hand still behind him, he edged forward until he reached the well-stone again and presently he touched it with a long shoe; it appeared to fascinate him.

‘There could be thousands of pounds down there. Treasure and stuff like that.' The soft little voice was still off-hand. He was boasting, but in an uncertain way which made the statement half a question.

‘What makes you think that?' Tim spoke cautiously, aware of Julia behind him. He could feel her shaking and guessed that the narrowness of the bars across the window above the intruder was causing most of her horror. The fact that the visitor must have squeezed between them was obtrusive and unnerving since it underlined his reptilian quality, which was deliberately accentuated anyway, to a degree which was unbearable.

‘It's old, you see?' The lisping, toothsucking accent was very
slight but the arrogance was there. ‘The house is called after it. I mean to say, that's the ad-dress, isn't it? The Well House. That means it's old, and old wells in the City have been used for more things than water and not only for what you'd think. There's been plagues, you know, and people have been put down quickly with no time to go over them properly. Everything rots but metal. I see you don't read, yourself.'

Elementary academic snobbery was the last thing his listeners expected and it almost touched off hysteria.

‘Do you?' Tim asked. He had not smiled but the newcomer took offence. His sensitivity was psychopathetically acute and was almost telepathy.

‘Do you mind?' he inquired, rearing backwards but without moving his feet. ‘I do as a matter of fact and I've had access to some very remarkable books. You'd be surprised what you can find out in a library. If you've got all the time in the world.' There was no mistaking his meaning or his pride in it and again they were silent and out of their depth. He looked them over consideringly.

‘You two work here I suppose, waiting on them upstairs. I should have thought in a house like this they'd make you wear uniforms but that's old-fashioned, isn't it? “Au pair”, that's what you are now. That's what they call you. Well, shut up and you won't come to any harm I think. I want to see Basil and I want to see him alone.'

‘Who?'

‘Basil. You know who I mean. I know he's here. I saw him come in. He's drunk but that won't matter. He'll understand what I've got to say to him if he's paralysed. The girl can slip me up to his room and I shan't touch either of you two. Basil Kinnit. That's who I want.'

‘But there's no such person!' The words escaped Julia for the second time that day and the superstitious element surrounding them flared suddenly in her mind, and she put her hand over her mouth because she was afraid of screaming.

Her alarm seemed to reach the newcomer physically as if he had heard or smelled it, for he retreated a yard or so and stood swaying again, not quite weaving but horribly near it. He was also angry.

‘You're lying, you're in love with him, you're hiding him.'

He was spitting and whispering and the short syllables were like grit in the fluff of sound.

‘Nonsense.' Tim took over. He was puzzled, curious rather than frightened, and his tone was soothing. ‘Who is it exactly that you want? Let's get it quite clear. There is no Basil Kinnit. Are you sure you have the name right?'

‘Well, yes. As a matter of fact I am.' The newcomer relaxed again and the confidential lisp, soft and ingratiating, returned to his voice. ‘I've known his name was Kinnit for a long time, see? But I only got the Basil today. I had to wait for a telephone call.' He conveyed that he considered the use of the instrument to be important and romantic. ‘I put a friend of mine on to find out and she telephoned from outside the cemetery and left a message for me at a shop we use for that sort of thing. “His name is Mr. Basil and the address is The Well House.” That was the message I got. When I heard that, well, I mean to say it was waiting for me, wasn't it? There was no point in me messing about any longer. So I came round right away.'

‘But you must have been here some time. When did you take the glass out of the window?'

He seemed to have no objection to answering questions. His answers were glib and at least partially truthful.

‘This afternoon. I've been round here all the time. There's a lot of perching places round here, see. It's made for it and you don't see a bogie. I smoked twenty sitting in a ventilator next door. Twenty. It was a boast. 'Twenty in an afternoon.'

‘Why did you wait so long?'

‘I always wait. I like to look round. I like to know who comes in and out. It's my business. I'm interested, see? Mr. Basil Kinnit, that's who I want to talk to.'

‘What do you want to say to him?'

‘I want to warn him to lay off me. I want to teach him not to interfere, see? I don't like private dicks making inquiries into my birth, see? I'm not having no prying, see? And nor is Ag. I've given his bloodhounds a warning and now I'm going to warn him. And you two can keep your mouth shut or you'll learn the same
song. . . . Words
and
music.' The final phrase had no meaning but was a threatening series of sounds only, and he repeated them with satisfaction. ‘Words
and
music!'

‘Why should he want to know about your birth?' Tim's quiet question was yet so forceful that it captured his wayward intelligence and held it on course.

‘Because he wants to stop Ag getting the money, see? My Dad slips her a bit, see? As soon as Ag heard about this Kinnit lark it came to her what it was about, see? Ag's not a great intelligence. She's got no mind. She's not with it, really, but she's bright enough over money. She knew what he was after and so she came to me and told me and of course I took it up. Tonight will put a stop to his mucking about round us.'

‘Is Ag your mother?'

‘No, she's not. She's not. She's not. She never said so and she isn't. She's a friend; she's interested. She does what I say. Like today. She went to the graveyard, see? I told her she'd find the address on a wreath when we couldn't find it in the paper but she went right away. Then she used the telephone.'

‘All right. I understand.'

‘You don't. You don't understand. You've got no idea. I'm not ordinary, see? Ag rescued me when I was born. I wasn't born normally, see? A lot of famous people aren't as a matter of fact, if you read history and all that. I wasn't quite in the world when a bomb hit the hospital I was in. On the first day of war this was, and my Mum was killed and Ag rushed in and picked me up like a kitten and carried me off all bloody to the rescue buses. Then she had to look after me, she was months going round the camps, until she found my papers and the nuns took over for her and found my Dad.'

‘But there were no bombs on the first day of the war. There were no bombs for a year.' Julia made the protest and got the full repercussion.

‘That's a lie!'

It was an objection which he appeared to have heard before.

‘People say anything but they're wrong and I'm here to prove it anyway, aren't I? I'm not ordinary. I've got certificates. I'm legal.
I've got rights. My Dad and Mum were legally married. In a mucking church. It was a white wedding. Five hundred guests, I believe. Fancy spending all that on a do. It's amazing!'

‘What is your name?' Tim was trying to distract his attention from Julia.

‘You've got a nerve! What's my name? I'm not sure I shan't pay you for that. That's cheek, that is. That's what they call it in the posh schools. Cheek. What's my name. Do me a favour! You must think I'm bonkers.'

‘Is it Cornish?' Julia spoke as Timothy thrust her behind him.

He was just in time. The figure made a dart at her and for the first time brought out his right hand. The sight of it sent them both back on their heels and their reaction satisfied him. He paused to enjoy the sensation he was making. Up to the elbow his arm was a paw furnished with mighty bloodstained talons, a fantastic and improbable horror familiar to connoiseurs of certain comic strips and films.

Its realism as far as construction and fit were concerned was quite remarkable and as convincing as moulded and painted rubber, inset with a certain amount of genuine monkey fur, could make it. Only the distinctive convention in which the original designer had worked lent it a merciful artificiality.

Timothy began to laugh. ‘We had some of those last term,' he said. ‘Did you get it from the joke shop in Tugwell Street?'

The newcomer forgot his anger and smirked himself. He sat back in the air again, but intentionally this time, and let his forearms swing upwards from the elbows, his hands flapping.

‘Child of the Fall-out', he said and laughed.

The offbeat joke which to any other generation must be indescribably shocking amused them all, albeit a little guiltily, but it was very shortlived. Flushed with his triumph over them, he turned his right hand in its ridiculous glove palm uppermost. The five razor-blades appearing through the rubber caught the hard light.

Tim leapt straight for him, caught his upper arm and jerked it backwards. It was a purely instinctive movement so prompt and thorough that it came as a complete surprise. The stranger's reaction,
which was equally spontaneous, almost over-balanced them both. He began to scream in a terrifying, hoarse, but not very loud voice and every joint in his body sagged limply to the ground, so that Tim was left holding his full weight. He let him drop and put his foot on his shoulder while he stripped off the glove. The razor-blades were stitched into a webbing bandage inside it and its removal was a major operation with the quivering, yelping creature writhing round his feet on the stones. When he stopped screaming be began to swear and the stream of filth, in the soft lisping voice, had a quality of nastiness which was out of their experience. Tim turned a furious face on Julia.

‘Take these damn things out of the way and put them somewhere safe. Don't cut yourself, for God's sake. You'll get tetanus, they're dirty enough.'

She obeyed him silently, taking both glove and bandage, and disappeared into the dark kitchen.

Left to himself Tim stood back and wiped his hands.

‘Shut up and get up,' he said.

The speed with which the creature on the floor leapt to the window high in the wall was as sudden as Tim's own leap at his arm had been, and had the same instinctive precision. Only the bars prevented him from getting away. Their close spacing, which had required a certain amount of negotiation even from one so slender, effectively prevented him from bolting through and he fell back and lay against the wall, hanging limply, a black streak against the grey.

‘Get down and turn round.'

The newcomer obeyed. His subservience was more distasteful than his arrogance. He shuffled into a corner and stood in it, letting it support him. His dirty hands hung limp in front of him. His face was wet with sweat and blubber and he smelled like a sewer.

‘What is your name?'

‘Barry Leach, sixty-three Cremorne Street, The Viaduct, E.'

He gave the information in a stream, clearly the result of long experience, and then paused. A new idea passed over his face as visibly as if he were an infant. ‘That's the name I arrange with Ag to give. It's her name. She's Mrs. Leach. We don't give my Dad's
name until we have to. It's part of Ag's arrangement, see? We keep him quiet and he pays up. It's Ag's address too. I live with her when I live anywhere, but you know my real name that's on my papers so it's no use hiding it from you. Ag's got my papers. She doesn't show them but she's got them and I read them when I feel like it.'

‘Do you ever see your father?'

Timothy was concentrating and much of the youthfulness had left his face so that he looked tired and absorbed. He made a good looking but worried young man, very much a product of the age. ‘Does he talk to you?'

‘Sometimes.'

‘How often?'

‘Not as often as he wants. Can't take him, see?'

‘Why's that?'

‘Well, he's old – we're not the same generation, see. We don't see things the same way. He's got no sense of humour. You've got more humour than he has. It's age, see?'

‘But he gives you money?'

‘He gives Ag money for me.'

‘Why?'

‘Well, I don't keep it a day, see. I spend it. I take taxis when I have any money.'

‘Taxis? Where to?'

‘Oh, I don't know. Anywhere. I like taxis, they make me feel I'm who I am. . . . educated and legitimate and that.'

‘I see. Have you ever lived with your father?'

‘No. I never wanted to. Ag's right when she's against that. Your soul wouldn't be your own, not with him. He's very rich but he doesn't spend it. He's a do-gooder. It's because he thinks I ought to be living with him, and he doesn't want it because he's got a new wife, that he keeps giving Ag money for me. If you read you keep learning about men like that. Guilty, that's what he is. It suits me.'

‘Where do you do your reading?'

‘Inside. I get a job in the library, see, because I'm educated. The screws can't read at all. They don't know half the books they've
got in those libraries. It makes me laugh and it would you too. You're about my age, aren't you? The old generation is responsible for the next. That's what they think. But it's not true. It's your own generation that lives with you, isn't it? Blaming the bloody old fools doesn't help. I didn't read that, you know. I thought it. I think sometimes. What are you going to do with me?'