by MARY HOCKING
As more posts were filled, so those who were still uncertain as to their future became more frantic and a great strain was placed on officers responsible for looking after the interests of staff. The staffing officer in the Clerk’s Department had a stroke and his opposite number in the Architect’s Department threw himself in front of a train. Phoebe, who had known the architect, said to Tom, ‘He never worried about work. Perhaps it was a protest about train delays, though it doesn’t seem the best way to ensure a better service. The driver went off sick, so that’s one more cancellation.’
As he made no reply, she went on, ‘I’ve often thought about suicide myself. But I should want to watch the effect on my kith and kin, and one can’t be sure about that. And anyway, I’d worry about the cats.’
She looked at Tom, slyly assessing the extent of her provocation.
He said, ‘Have you never grieved for anyone?’
His exasperation pleased her. It had been a long day and she took her pleasure as if it was the first drink of the evening not one drop of which must be spilt. The face changed and became more bland. The eyes seemed to dwell drowsily on some remembered mischief, a secret thing not to be shared with anyone else and a relaxing of a certain tension, in the jaw perhaps, eased the mouth into a slightly sensual fullness. For a moment it was as though Phoebe was dissolving into Beth. This was terrible. He shouted to bring her back, ‘And Miss Towton? Were you too busy with the cats to visit her before she died?’
The self-indulgence came away like a protective skin.
‘I don’t want to talk about her,’ she said sharply.
Miss Towton was more than an acquaintance and her death could not be pushed aside lightly. Had it stirred that fear of dying which lies deep in all of us? Or was it something else? Miss Towton had said that Phoebe was incarcerated in a fairy castle: had Miss Towton’s death made Phoebe aware of this? As he looked at her face he seemed to glimpse a panic-stricken creature locked away behind those slanting grey eyes, a creature who would never now be released to live in the everyday. Up to this moment he had wanted something from her, but now he was filled with a desire to do something for her.
‘Phoebe, my dear!’ he said gently. ‘Let me help you over this. We need each other, we. . . .’
‘Oh, my Gawd!’ She turned and fled into the corridor.
The little maid imprisoned in the castle did not appear again. As the days went by, her place was taken by the Phoebe of the dark house. This person was more real than the Phoebe who came to work in the Schools Section. The more he thought about her, the less resemblance did she bear to the Phoebe of the well-washed cardigans smelling of soap powder; she was, for example, swarthy of skin, slovenly in appearance, and had a sour smell of sweat and dirt. Sometimes her manner was arrogant, at other times it was servile; at all times she was dishonest. He was fascinated by her and terrified of her. She was a destroyer every bit as much as the wolf who howled on the hillside. She was a destroyer, her appetite for destruction was voracious and he fed himself to her.
Towards the end of January, when he was completely absorbed in this new Phoebe, the Board met to appoint the Area Education Officer for the South Sussex division. Mather, having completely discredited himself with Hillman, was unable to exert any influence with the Board and Tom was invited to attend for interview. The other candidates were nervous, but he was too removed from the actuality of the event to be anything but composed. At interview, he saw the questions coming as from a great distance and answered them with detached composure. The members of the Board were impressed. Tom was sorry about this, but there was nothing he could do to alert them to the danger of their position; it was all happening too far away. He was offered the job and accepted it with great sorrow for them and for himself. When he returned to the office, Mather informed him that the teachers had brought pressure to bear and that that was why he had been successful. Tom was glad of this, he did not like to think that he had done it himself.
Isobel did think he had done it himself. She spent the evening telephoning friends and writing letters to relatives as if he had achieved something quite spectacular instead of an appointment which, financially, was no improvement on his present one. ‘Yes, yes, of course . . .’ he could hear her saying delightedly. ‘I always thought . . . but you can’t be sure, can you? . . . not always rewarded, is it?’
But he did not feel that it was a reward, to him it seemed that sentence had been passed on him. ‘And you, Thomas Arnold Norris, shall serve in local government for the remainder of your working life.’ The next morning he woke with an immediate sense of desolation, as though despair had been sitting by the bed waiting to grasp him at the first tell-tale flicker of an eye-lid.
Isobel said at breakfast, ‘You’re suffering from anticlimax, Tom. Why don’t you take a holiday?’
‘I must go to the office.’
‘Why? It’s the new office you should be thinking about now. You need to feel fresh and rested before you start there.’ She saw this as a new beginning for him, an opportunity presenting itself at the time of greatest need. ‘It’s good to have something to celebrate at last,’ she said.
Lately, her face had become drawn, scored by lines of anxiety. But now, momentarily warmed in the glow of his success, the tight knot of her personality was relaxed, and Tom saw, as he looked in her eyes, another Isobel emerging, tentative, unsure, feeling her way so that withdrawal was possible without embarrassment to either of them. It was obviously unwise to look in people’s eyes, unpredictable things happened. Isobel said, ‘Why don’t you take leave? We could go to that place in the Cotswolds you like so much.’ She looked a tender enquiry; and the sun, which had not been much in evidence these last days sent a pale shaft of light into the room to fall across her shoulders. She sat there at the table in her old print working dress, a quiet, modest woman suddenly full of grace. This grace in her disturbed him. What was he to make of it? Perhaps it was just a trick of the sunlight.
He said, ‘The Cotswolds would be impenetrable now.’
She said, ‘Ah, yes,’ and turned her face from him as she began to clear the table. ‘I had forgotten that.’
It was sheer provocation to have made the suggestion at this stage, he thought angrily. He had no time to spare for her and she should have accepted this. For years her own life had been so full of activity that she had pushed him into the background and he had not complained.
Why wouldn’t people leave him alone? Explorers should be left alone; as they journey the familiar should fall away, not pluck and harry and call them back. Some people manage to lose themselves forever out beyond the human stockade. What was it about him, what flaw in him, that made him unable to give himself completely to this exploration? He was bedevilled by guilt, that was the trouble. Guilt stood guard and would not let him pass into the great uncharted freedom. He went for a long walk to try to sort out the guilt. He went for walks quite a lot lately because he found more and more that he couldn’t cope with social intercourse of any kind for long. Things kept cropping up which disturbed his meditations and he had to get away to sort them out so that he could meditate again. It wasn’t easy to get out of the office building; but as it was large and rambling he was able to go for long walks along the corridors in the Valuer’s and Health Departments where he was unlikely to meet many people whom he knew.
These walks began to figure in his nightmares and the corridors at County Hall to merge with those of the dark house. A door opened as he left his office. Was it Madge Conroy, or Spiers? Had they seen him, were they pursuing him? He ran quickly up the stairs to the Architect’s Department, his heart thudding. There was someone on the stairs. He darted along the corridor, took a left turn and hurried past a woman bending over a duplicating machine. Why did they have duplicating machines in the corridors in the Architect’s Department? Had they left them dotted about since the time when they were making all that fuss about having less floor space than other Departments? ‘We have to do our duplicating in
the corridor!’ Wandering thoughts lost him several precious minutes’ meditation. He could hear someone coming down a corridor which ran off to the right just ahead; he was trapped between the oncomer and the woman at the duplicating machine and there was nowhere to hide. It was all over. Something was about to happen for which he had been waiting all his life. Then a door opened and closed and the footsteps ceased. He ran to the end of the corridor, turned left and came to the back stairs. He raced up the stairs to the County Engineer’s Department and hurried down a corridor many miles long which led to the blessed anonymity of the County Valuer’s Department. His mouth was dry and he was sweating as he began to walk down that long, long corridor. ‘This is where the danger lies, this is where the danger lies, if I get to the end of it I’ll be all right, everything in my life will be all right if I get to the end of this corridor, but this is where the danger lies. . . .’
He had been walking down that corridor for weeks and it was very exhausting and the worst thing of all was that the guilt wouldn’t go away. It was as insistent as the Puritan voice which would not let him relax in the snow. One day, when it was particularly bad, he realised he could not continue going down that corridor much longer. It occurred to him that as he did not seem able to get rid of the guilt, perhaps he should get rid of Phoebe. It was an idea. One should always stand a problem on its head, see it from a different angle. . . .
‘You’re sure you haven’t seen him?’ It was Madge Conroy standing in front of him. This startled him, because he had thought that it was night and he was standing outside Phoebe’s house, looking up at the dark windows and wondering how he could get rid of her. ‘You look as if you might have seen his ghost,’ she said.
‘Whose ghost?’
‘Phillimore’s.’
‘Where is Phillimore?’
‘That is what I am asking you.’
‘I haven’t got him.’
‘He hasn’t turned up for his interview. He was supposed to be there at three o’clock. But obviously you don’t know anything about it.’
She went away and he closed his eyes. All that weary waste of snow and the dark house refusing to offer up its victim. The windows were iced over now.
Phoebe came in with coffee. She was very powerful, her arms enfolded him, tenacious, strangling, her breath was poison and poison leapt from her little hissing mouth. She brought all the demons to life. But did she know what she did? Or did her demon call forth his demon without her being in the least aware of it? This seemed possible. It was hard, he had to admit, now that she was actually sitting there by the window threading a green tag through a file to see her as demonic. So, it must be assumed she did not know. In which case, could the struggle be resolved without her ever knowing? Gould the demons meet and fight it out and leave them both in peace?
Mather came in with a bundle of papers. ‘I think we really must get this report on the work of the Visual Aids Centre completed.’ This was something Tom had been urging on him for over a year. ‘We’ll need a complete inventory, and I think there should be a brief history of the work of the centre over the past decade, and detailed information about the service it offers—number of films in and out, number of projectors borrowed, lectures given, etcetera—during the past year. That will give the committee which is considering its future something to get its teeth into. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to give this priority.’ He went across to the window and leant his hands on Phoebe’s desk, staring out of the window. Phoebe moved her coffee cup to one side. ‘The traffic seems to be moving quite freely; I doubt if driving conditions are all that bad anywhere in the County today.’ He turned away. ‘Funk, you know. He’s funked it.’
‘Funked it?’
‘You didn’t realise? Oh, I’ve known he was in a funk for some time. The job would have been too big for him. I wonder what excuse he will make for not going to the interview.’
Phoebe said, ‘Poor Mr. Phillimore!’ When Mather had left the room, she said, ‘Sod you!’
Tom wished he had not found out so much. He wished he could turn and go back, that he had not seen such dark things. It was better never to know the dark things; but once known they are released, and it is knowledge that is the key which lets them loose. But knowledge won’t shut them up again. Knowledge is quite irresponsible, a traitor, undoing the bolts, opening the hatches, letting her into the bloodstream to travel down the veins to the heart. He was past knowledge now, it could not help him; this had to be fought out by more primitive forces. But how to get her out now that she was in?’
She said, ‘I should like to leave early tonight, Mr. Norris. If that is all right with you.’
‘I will take you home, if you like.’
‘I’m not going straight home.’
‘Are you going shopping? I’ll take you into Squires Bay, and then take you home.’
‘No. I’ve got an appointment. I don’t want to talk about it.’
The door opened and Edwin Spiers came into the room waving something in his hand. ‘The labels have come!’ he said. ‘You are to give careful thought to which filing cabinets you are taking with you, and which will remain in the “pool”, and then, at the appointed hour of the appointed day, you will label them appropriately. The same applies to desks, chairs, bookcases, but not to equipment such as typewriters, duplicators, etcetera. I don’t know what is going to happen to exalted folk like you, Tom, who have carpets. If I were you, I’d roll it up and deliver it at your new office yourself; otherwise you’ll never see it again. Cheer up, my duck! You can’t be going anywhere worse than this.’
‘I’m going to the vet,’ Phoebe said quietly.
‘Well, don’t let him put you down. And don’t lose your labels, there’s a good girl.’ He whisked out of the room.
At half-past four, Phoebe cleared her desk.
It was nearly dark in the room and very cold. There had been no electricity for the past hour. Tom could just make out her form. She was standing by the window, looking in a small pocket mirror propped on her typewriter. ‘Excuse me,’ she said primly, ‘but the cloak room is quite black because of the frosted glass.’ She had both hands upraised to her head. The telephone rang and she left him to deal with it.
‘People in other offices are going home, Tom,’ Madge Conroy said. ‘Can our folk go? We’ve got candles in here and we’ll stay on a bit, but. . . .’
‘You can all go; I’m going myself.’
She went on to speak about a memorandum from the Department of Education and Science, keeping him on the telephone for several minutes. As he put the receiver down, the lights came on. The woman gave a startled gasp and swung round, dark hair streaming over her shoulders. He saw a stranger with a narrow white face, startled as an animal caught in a car’s headlamps.
‘You!’ he cried.
Eyes met his, wild with panic.
Then she bent forward, hair swinging down, and tried to sweep it up, while concealing her face from him; but he went to her and, taking her by the shoulders, forced her to stand upright. She tried to put her hands over her face, but he caught her wrists and cried, ‘No, no! Stay. You must stay this time!’
Her breath came and went very fast. She closed her eyes, her teeth were chattering. She was terrified as a cornered animal and made little animal noises. He pressed her against the wall and put one hand beneath her chin, tilting her head back, holding the face firm and steady so that he could inspect it. He exerted a good deal of pressure; he had, after all, waited for some time for this opportunity. She stopped struggling and became rigid. He moved strands of hair back from either side of her face; the hair was coarse and wiry and the face did not tell him as much as he had hoped, so he moved the hair forward again, down the sides of each cheekbone, and drew it together in a rope which he held between her breasts. She moaned. He had the creature here trapped, between the dark folds of hair! Yet still she eluded him. The skin of her face was dry and flaked a little; he moved one finger of the hand that held her chin and r
ubbed it experimentally down the line at the side of nostril and mouth, almost expecting the flesh to crumble away. She moaned again. Her mouth opened; her breath had a rather antiseptic smell and her lips were dry and white. A vampire’s lips? Somehow, not. The face, now that he had it in his grasp, was void as a blank sheet of paper on which he could, if only he had a third hand, draw anything he wished. While he was thinking about what it was that he wished, she slithered down the wall and he was left holding her up by the hair. This was undoubtedly painful for her, because the eyes snapped open. Now, at last, she leapt to meet him. They were all there, the woman in the vault, the woman on the landing, the peasant woman; as he gazed down into her eyes, identity seemed to be peeling away until there was only that most distant creature and the one light deep in the cavern. The terror was here, now, between them. He knew that he must kill her or she would kill him. Then she gave a little sigh and her eyes rolled up so that her upturned face in its tangle of hair resembled nothing so much as a dead fish in a net. This bizarre development gave him such a shock that he let go of her hair. Her head lolled back and hit the skirting board; she lay quite still and seemed to have stopped breathing. He thought that perhaps he should get some water, just in case he hadn’t killed her, and he went out of the room. The nearest cloakroom was on the next floor. By the time he returned, the body had disappeared.
He rushed to the lifts. One was just going down, but the porter obligingly brought it up again when he saw Tom. The only other person in the lift was Marsden.
‘Unlike Phillimore to pass up a chance like this,’ Marsden said. ‘You should have seen him. . . .’
‘Did the other lift go down a minute or two earlier?’ Tom asked the porter.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘. . . he was fussing about all the morning hunting for statistics. . . .’
‘Was there anyone in it?’
