They waited patiently, watching the door with speculative anticipation, until an open hand appeared abruptly through the large, napless letter box. A big, none-too-clean hand with long, strong square-tipped fingers. Palm up, it bore an ancient key.
The message was obvious. Strope accepted the key, the hand withdrew, and they let themselves in.
It was extremely gloomy inside the house. Sylvia, carefully venturing forth, was expecting this, as she had noticed heavy, drawn curtains at every window as she had approached the huge red-brick Victorian building minutes earlier. No lights were on. Darkness hung everywhere like some solid substance.
A person in a wheelchair, backing steadily away from them down the hallway, was receding into invisibility. They had no alternative but to follow. Somewhere near the back of the house the vehicle turned off into a large room partly illuminated by a single flickering oil lamp. There were a few items of heavy furniture parked round the sides of the room, including a broken and unmade bed, an oak table with candelabra, a quartet of throne-like chairs, a long, low blanket-box, lidded, and resting on six elegant claw and ball legs, and what appeared to be some kind of iron stove, from which a thick pipe or chimney curved up through the ceiling. All these articles except the stove were partly concealed by black muslin drapes that drooped from them at various points, looking for all the world like the snares of some alarmingly overgrown arachnids.
The occupant of the mobile chair, similarly wrapped in a cocoon of peculiarly tailored fustian, whose face had so far not been visible, came to a halt alongside the box, and firmly applied the brake. A masculine voice, plangent, but a little unsteady, like a poorly maintained church harmonium, apologized for not answering the door sooner.
“I was resting. It takes me some time to—to come to myself, when my sleep is disturbed.”
“Asleep at eleven-thirty in the morning!” Sylvia thought. “How demoralized the poor man must be.” She resolved to do something about that.
“It’s all right, mate,” said Mr Strope. “Don’t worry. We’re in no hurry. We’ve got time on our hands just the same as you have.”
The man in the chair turned towards him and, in doing so, revealed his features. He had hard, round, owlish eyes, a thin, hooked nose, and an apparently lipless, discontented, drooping mouth, more sharply down turned on the left side than the right. His long silver hair was patchy, as though his scalp was diseased, and his face shone like polished ivory in the lamplight. His manner was poised, his expression detached. He held out his hand again towards Mr Strope. It obviously wasn’t there to be shaken. It took Strope a few seconds to understand the significance of the gesture, before he hurried forward and replaced the key.
O’Cooler solemnly asked them to take chairs and be seated.
Once her great bulk was comfortably enthroned, Sylvia explained who they were and why they had come. “We’ll have to ask a few questions about your circumstances first. You’ve no objections?”
O’Cooler shook his head grandly and turned his full attention on his interlocutor. He reached discreetly into one of the pockets of the rather theatrical garments he was wearing. Sylvia thought he was going to light a cigarette but instead he pulled out a length of dark material and held it across the lower portion of his face as though he expected to sneeze. No sneeze came, and the cloth remained in place. Bad teeth, Sylvia speculated. Pyorrhoea?
“Now,” she said: “Name and title? Have I got it right—Mr—O’Cooler?” She spelt it out. “Yes?”
The man in the chair appeared to have some brief doubts about the veracity or accuracy of this most basic information about himself for a surprising number of seconds, but at last he dropped his head vigorously in confirmation.
“And it is Mr—not Dr?”
Again a pause, during which Sylvia thought the man might be smiling to himself behind his hand, then:
“Correct,” he said.
Sylvia rattled off a dozen questions that were all more swiftly answered. She wondered, as he spoke, which part of Ireland the man originated from. He certainly had a slight accent, she decided. Or should that have been brogue? She found herself becoming fascinated by his almost musical voice. He’s attractive, in an unusual sort of way, she decided, in spite of his age.
She tried to get through the questionnaire as quickly as she could, but it was a long rigmarole. She felt the gaze of both men fixed upon her. O’Cooler looked her frankly and calmly in the eye from behind his half-masked face, but Strope, she knew, was covertly surveying the curves of her over-ample body. My very fat body, she thought, and squirmed slightly in her chair under the intensity of his wanton gaze. As she did so her huge breasts rippled, and Mr Strope’s eyes glowed afresh. She thought she saw moisture emerge on his lips. She had long ago learned that a certain type of man was attracted to and easily became obsessive about extremely overweight women. Little Strope, with his wiry but muscular body, thinning hair, sad but cunningly hopeful expression, and restless hands, was a perfect example of the type. Also, under the surface, there was something fierce and primitive about him that alarmed her. She’d known as soon as she’d set eyes on him he could be trouble, and now here she was teamed up with him, perhaps in extended partnership. No. Not that! She didn’t want to be unkind, but she would have to do something very positive to discourage him.
“And how did your accident happen?” she asked the owner of the house. “Just the details.”
O’Cooler, without reflection, said, “I slipped and fell when I was emerging from my ...” He seemed to cough then, or so it sounded, and faltered in some confusion for a moment: “From my bath” he said at last, pronouncing the final word with particular clarity.
“The most dangerous place in the home for an old person, the bath,” Sylvia observed ominously. “Thought of installing a shower?”
“No.” His response was startling: almost a yap, as though the idea was somehow repellent and alarming. He wiped his mouth vigorously, returned the cloth to his pocket, then put his hand up guardedly over his lips. “Certainly not,” he added more composedly. “Running water doesn’t suit me,” he explained.
Which confirmed Sylvia’s nasal suspicions that it was a considerable time since he had been anywhere near that element with a bar of soap. Since his accident, perhaps? How long ago was that? She asked him.
“Almost seven weeks,” O’Cooler admitted, sounding, for the first time, slightly sorry for himself.
“Since when, of course, you have not been able to get about. Do the doctors give you any hope of recovery soon?”
O’Cooler shuddered. “I am reluctant to submit myself to the investigative considerations of the medical profession,” he said.
“You’ve not seen a doctor?”
“No.” O’Cooler shook his head grandly, with dignity.
“So you’ve had no help at all. How have you been coping?”
“Poorly, I’m afraid. My—” he searched for a word, “—my sister, Carmilla, has been kind enough to drop in with a little food from time to time, whatever she had surplus to her own requirements, but she is ailing herself. The hole in the ozone layer is affecting all our family. We’re very sensitive to that sort of thing, I’m afraid. The implications are serious. It’s sapping our strength. Our bones are becoming brittle ...” He seemed in danger of losing the thread of his thoughts, but recovered his drift quickly. “Also,” he continued, “as an alternative source of nourishment, I’ve got an arrangement with one of the local butchers, who is a very understanding man, with peculiar tastes himself, and who will deliver in emergencies. But it’s not the same thing at all. I’m rather fussy about what I take inside me, if the truth be known,” he admitted, sounding somewhat insincerely apologetic.
Sylvia caught her breath and interrupted, “Do you, by any chance, have special dietary needs?” she asked, failing to keep an edge of excitement from her voice. “Or an eating disorder, perhaps?”
“You are astute,” O’Cooler acknowledged. “I have suffered fr
om something of the kind for a very long time. I have a problem with solid food. I only take—(he pronounced the next word as though it had five syllables)—liquids.” His tone as he made this statement somehow made it obvious he was not prepared to go into further detail about the nature of his problem.
Sylvia wondered what on earth O’Cooler got from the butcher, but decided not to ask. Bet he has just got bad teeth-, she thought, feeling somewhat let-down. Well, that could soon be fixed by a visit to the dentist. He’s not really, deeply sick like I am. For a moment, she had hoped she might have found a fellow sufferer. Her disappointment made her symptoms tingle painfully through every part of her body. She stood up suddenly, clutching the huge canvas shoulder bag she took with her everywhere, and asked the way to the bathroom.
O’Cooler seemed put out by this question at first, as though he were unsure if he possessed such a facility. Then, with palpable reluctance, he directed her up the stairs, first left, first right, first door on the right, and handed her a torch. “The battery is very low,” he warned,” so don’t waste it.”
Does he think I’m going to go prying about up there? Sylvia wondered, feeling that perhaps her client had something to hide.
As she left the room she heard Mr Strope say, “Big house you’ve got here mate. You live alone, don’t you?”
O’Cooler confirmed this fact.
“Funny,” Strope went on, “because I thought I saw someone leave as we turned the corner to get here.”
“An estate agent called earlier, to look the place over: I’m thinking of selling up and moving back to the old country.”
“He seemed to be in a hell of a hurry to get away. In fact, I thought he’d jumped out of one of the first floor windows. I think he might have cut himself. Could swear I saw blood on his shoulders.”
“Ummm,” said O’Cooler, apparently unconcerned. “Well, it’s possible, I suppose. He was a clumsy fellow.” Sylvia, ascending the steep stairs, heard no more.
~ * ~
She located the bathroom just as the torch flickered out. Inside, she was relieved to find there was a bulb in the ceiling lamp that responded halfheartedly with possibly thirty watts-worth of illumination when she flicked the switch. She sat down on the toilet without lifting the lid, opened her bag, pulled out a number of plastic bags and lunch-boxes, and began to open them at random. They contained a wide selection of cakes, biscuits, pies, chocolate, meat, and—other things. All sorts of other things. Any spare money she had (which was little enough, but she spent it wisely) went on food.
A fast eater, Sylvia dug into various containers and stuffed her mouth again and again. She’d been a binge eater for five years, since she was twenty-two. Severe, insoluble problems with men were the cause, she believed. After a number of disastrously painful affairs she had swiftly gone from being a person who ate too much of what she fancied to someone who obsessively consumed unpleasant food she didn’t like, to punish herself for her greed. She had expanded accordingly. Later still, she went on to eating other things that were not good for her at all. She had developed most unusual appetites.
Today she was in such a hurry to indulge herself that she did not, at first, realize exactly what sort of place she had walked into. Gradually, as the first overwhelming gratification brought on by her abandoned self-indulgence began to wane, and self-loathing to wax, she started to take in her surroundings.
The bathroom’s ornate fittings were huge, ancient, and covered with filth. She could just see into the bath from where she was sitting. Presumably, it was the one O’Cooler claimed to have fallen out of, but she had her doubts about that. It was quarter full of brown sludge from which protruded dozens of small bones; of birds and other animals, by the look of it. There were feathers, and bits of skin too. They’d been there a long time. Parts of the otherwise bare wooden floor were similarly smeared with pools of this muck, that looked like someone’s unsuccessful and discarded attempts at making stew. Sylvia got up and began to prowl around. She wanted to wash her food-besmirched hands, but the sink was almost overflowing with something similar to the substance in the bath, but without the bones. Fungus of some kind, green in colour, floated upon its surface in patches. She turned on one of the taps. Nothing emerged until a trickle of black, shiny insects, who must have been nesting there, fell out onto the gunge below and began to struggle and drown.
Sylvia cleaned herself up as best she could with a tissue, grabbed her bag, and got out of there. The torch glimmered briefly to life again just long enough for her to find her way along the forlorn corridors to the top of the stairs. She descended blindly and ultra-cautiously, edging her way down each level, aware that if she lost her footing and fell her own weight would probably kill her.
The door to the room in which she had interviewed the resident of the house was shut. She knew she had left it wide open, otherwise she would not have overheard the fragment of conversation between O’Cooler and Mr. Strope when she had set out for the bathroom. Still in the dark, she thought perhaps she ought to knock, though she was not sure why she had gained that impression. She tapped lightly, paused, tapped loudly, waited again, then grabbed the handle firmly, wrenched it round, and entered.
She felt at once that the atmosphere in the room had changed. O’Cooler was standing some distance away from his wheelchair now, with his back towards her. He was leaning almost casually on a thick brass-topped stick. His tight-shut, downcast mouth straightened into what may have been intended as a demonstration of chilly welcome as he slowly turned to acknowledge her re-entry.
He’s really is a very striking man, Sylvia realized: fanciable, even. He hadn’t made her feel welcome, however. Something was up. She detected a new complicity between the two men, from which she felt herself excluded.
Strope’s face no longer bore its usual crafty, somewhat craven look: he appeared thoughtful now, and self-satisfied, as though he had recently achieved something very much to his advantage.
“I couldn’t help noticing your domestic circumstances leave a lot to be desired, Mr O’Cooler,” Sylvia said firmly, attempting to reassert herself. When O’Cooler made no response, she added, “If you don’t mind me saying so, your bathroom contains a number of health hazards and possible sources of infection. Animals are getting in somewhere, and dying there. The air throughout the building will be full of invisible pollutants. Any food you bring in will quickly become contaminated. All kinds of morbid conditions will nourish. Also, the whole building is dark and dangerous. The electrical wiring is a fire risk. The plumbing doesn’t work ...”
O’Cooler stabbed the floor in front of him with his cane and abruptly made his way back towards his chair with a peculiar jerking motion. (Some limited mobility, Sylvia noted. He’s not completely helpless.) His stick and stiff lower limbs formed a tripod that swung from side to side ungracefully. He scuttled along like a spider robbed by a cruel child of some of its legs. When he regained his seat he masked his mouth with his hand again and said, “The animals you saw were used by me in a little experiment, when I first came by my injury. Sadly, only partially successful, I’m afraid. The other things you mention are the least of my problems, my dear. None of that troubles me at all. I have long been used to living in a state of advanced dilapidation. I prefer it. It suits me. I have no use for mechanical conveniences and my lifestyle transcends your modern standards of hygiene.”
Sylvia was gratified and encouraged. He had called her, “my dear”. She said, “I’d like to be able to offer you a home-help: someone to come in to tidy up for a few hours a week, and maybe meals-on-wheels—”
In spite of his previous statements, O’Cooler showed considerable interest in this proposal.
“—but there’s a waiting list and, believe it or not, there are a lot of senior citizens even worse off than you. There’s just not enough money to go round, you see. Unless—I don’t suppose you are able to afford private assistance ... ?”
“Unfortunately not. I invested unwisely.” O’Co
oler said something else angrily behind his hand that Sylvia didn’t catch. She thought he mentioned Lloyd’s.
“Never mind,” she said. “I’m sure we’ll be able to help in some way: we can do something to assist you.”
Strope spoke up then. “Mr O’Cooler and I had a chat while you were away,” he said, “and we’ve come up with a little plan.”
“Oh?” How very unprofessional! Mr Strope had no right to do anything of the sort. She was the experienced caring person. It was up to her to decide, with the assistance of the Volunteer Coordinator, what could and would be done to alleviate her client’s suffering. Strope knew nothing about such things. He was totally inexperienced. It was unfair to the client to make promises that could not be met. She was sorry, but she had been right to assume he was unfit for the task he had set himself. He’d have to be put in his place. She would, as gently as possible, point out the faults in whatever scheme he had cooked up.
The Mammoth Book of Dracula - [Anthology] Page 46
