LITMIR.BIZ

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And the second night: “Who is it?” Nobody heard them. The third night – same thing. No one had ever heard them except me.’

      ‘The dog?’ murmured someone who’d heard the story.

      ‘I’m coming to that. Each time it happened the dog would get up and whine at the door of this room until I let him out. We’d both stand at the foot of the stairs waiting for the last creaks going up at the top. Then the dog would give one yelp, turn his back to the stairs and sit huddled up to me without moving a muscle. It happened three times. In the end the family, including the schoolfriend, had taken an intense dislike to both of us. Can you blame them? Each time they came out of their cosy, plush drawing-room they saw me gaping up the stairs and the dog hunched round the other way. They could hardly wait to get rid of us. In the end I had to carry my own suitcase to the station in the pouring rain. I can still see myself trudging past their long, cream car at the front gate. The schoolfriend hardly spoke to me again – avoided me as though I had the plague. Well – there you are. A gloomy silence in the audience. Didn’t I tell you you’d be disappointed?’

      ‘No, not a bit,’ said a girl from the other side of the room.

      ‘The fact that it lacks all drama makes it more real. Now I know it happened.’

      ‘Thanks.’

      ‘Even in spite of, or because of the dog. Because prowling, howling dogs are common in ghost stories. But yours just sits there on the mat. He’s a pet. He’s sweet. I know him.’

      ‘Thanks again. His name is Brown. I suspected it was a boring little tale.’

      ‘Surely not just Brown?’

      ‘Simply and literally Brown. Nothing more nor less.’

      ‘Well anyway, I liked the way you made nothing of your sensations. I think that’s drama, or is it anti-drama? Nothing more about your hair rising. Or your sweaty palms.’

      ‘I don’t know what it is, but whatever it is, it hasn’t got over the footlights.’

      ‘I adore ghost stories!’ exclaimed Mrs Imrie.

      ‘Mr Abson,’ the boy said, ‘did you ever do any acting when you were young?’ He was leaning against the fireside wall with his knees drawn up and he now gave his full attention to the older man. This attention was compelling as though silently, deliberately, almost while they were unaware, he had smoothly pivoted the focus of the whole room round in one direction. By the steadiness of his eyes, the absolute stillness of his thin hands – clasped together and just touching his lips as though he were preparing for an absorbing story – he silenced the rest of the group. They might have been under iron command not to move. Nobody moved or spoke.

      ‘No, I never did,’ replied Abson. Mrs Imrie gave a faint, a very faint, exasperated sigh.

      ‘Well no, I suppose that’s not absolutely correct,’ said Abson, nervously smiling. ‘I was, as a boy, I remember, once given the part of a tree in some play or other.’

      ‘Yes?’ came the boy’s voice, quick and serious. There was unusual power in this young man. By split-second timing, by the sheer force of his expression and tone of voice, he had prevented a burst of laughter from the rest of the room.

      ‘Well, I suppose you wouldn’t really call it a play – it was probably a kind of ballet,’ said Mr Abson, still smiling, though there were no answering smiles from the others. ‘It didn’t, you’ll agree, need great dramatic gifts.’

      ‘On the contrary,’ said the young man at once.

      ‘I beg your pardon?’ Abson looked surprised.

      ‘On the contrary it would need rather special dramatic gifts to express this.’

      ‘Well, hardly human ones.’

      ‘Superhuman, then. Did you enjoy it?’

      ‘I think I did, now that you remind me. I’d really absolutely forgotten the experience.’

      ‘Perhaps there were others.’

      ‘Others?’

      ‘Perhaps there were other parts?’

      ‘I don’t think so – unless you count noises off. Anything I was asked to do was strictly non-human or background.’

      ‘To do a tree you’ve got to be more human, not less. You’ve got to be so human you can reach people and even go beyond them. That way you might just hope to arrive at your trees and rocks. Isn’t that so?’

      ‘Yes, that’s an interesting point,’ said Mr Abson.

      ‘What kind of tree was it?’ asked the young man.

      ‘An apple tree,’ said Abson. There were still no smiles.

      ‘In blossom or with apples?’ asked the young man.

      ‘Just leaves,’ said Mr Abson, remembering so much now that his face was warm for once. His eyes stared from a nucleus of shadowy, scalloped green. ‘And an interesting thing I remember – it was not to be a tree in the wind. That was definitely ruled out. Yet you’d have thought they’d have insisted on wind to make absolutely sure people knew what they were looking at.’

      ‘No, too obvious. All that thrashing and swooshing about, as though all trees must be in perpetual gales to show they really are trees. What rot!’

      ‘Well, maybe you’re right. Anyway, I had to make only the smallest movements – a kind of microscopic growing.’

      ‘Oh God – that’s difficult enough!’

      ‘Not much more than a vibration – I’m not sure about this.’

      ‘Your producer was a master then?’

      ‘He was quite a talented young man, I think,’ said Abson mildly. ‘A vibration, or was it perhaps the dry bark cracking a bit in the sun?’

      ‘God knows!’ exclaimed the young man, at last permitting himself to smile. At once the rest of the group released themselves from his control. The red-haired girl put her head back on to the knee of the man behind who after simply lifting up strands of the long hair and letting them drop, began plunging his fingers up from the roots, tugging so roughly through the knots that the girl had her eyes screwed up each time his hand came down. It looked like torture but when her eyes were open the expression was blissful. Mrs Imrie put the cup she had been holding all this time down on to its saucer. Neither the ghost nor the tree had exactly electrified the atmosphere for her. She decided that at a suitable moment she would give them the roof crashing in the night with the sparks flying off, and the butcher bent double over his bloody trembling knife.

      ‘Well, I suppose I should be getting up now,’ said Mr Abson. ‘I’ve very much enjoyed … but I think I’d better …’

      ‘With your early start in the morning …’ Mrs Imrie agreed, rising briskly to accompany him to the hall. But the boy who sat at the fire was before her. It was now almost an acrobatic feat to cross the room over the outstretched legs but he was up and out at the same moment as Mr Abson started to go slowly up, one hand on the banister. Through the open door they saw the young man go round to the side of the staircase and walk down the passage, sliding his own hand up the banister as far as it would go. For the last few inches he had to stand on his toes reaching out, his long fingers stretched hard against the wood, his body, straight and tense from head to foot, leaning forward at an angle along the banister. This sight gave the one or two who were watching a strange frisson of dread or elation. They watched a contact missed by inches, an effort to reach still further, doomed. Mr Abson’s hand moved smoothly on up the banister. He disappeared round the bend of the stairs without looking back. For a few moments longer the boy remained stretched out. Then his arm dropped like a weight. Mrs Imrie’s daughter joined him in the hall.

      ‘Poor ghost,’ said the young man, turning slowly from the stairs. ‘One of you should take a look at him now

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