LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter Four

      As G closed his door behind him, S walked round the west corner of the house, treading on the blocks of concrete that formed the path to the brown side gate and avoiding the cracks between the blocks. He reached the brown side gate, opened it, went through it, and shut it behind him.

      For a while he stood on the edge of the pavement, breathing deeply and looking to his left and to his right. A car passed him, moving slowly with a flat tyre, and disappeared down the road towards the white marble cross. S crossed the road.

      He entered the café opposite the house. Nobody was there. Inside the door to the left was a small table covered with a red-and-white squared cloth which S recognised; there was a wooden chair beside the table, on which S sat; the seat of the wooden chair was not cold. S observed the house opposite. He noticed that the red curtain in one of the upper windows had not been drawn back tidily, so that it hung crookedly. He did not see anything move in any of the windows.

      Behind the counter of the shop was a door covered by a poster advertising a circus that had once appeared locally; the circus had a Dozen Huge Untameable Lions performing in it. The door now opened. Through it came a man bearing a tray containing breakfast.

      The man brought this tray round the counter and set the contents of the tray down upon the top of the table where S sat.

      S looked down at a slice of haddock and adjusted it so that it lay in the middle of the white bone china plate. He spoke to the man who had brought the food.

      ‘No doubt it is a lovely morning in Tahiti this morning.’

      ‘How do you mean?’

      ‘I said, No doubt it is a lovely morning in Tahiti today.’

      ‘I see. Another strike at the car factory.’

      ‘Fish looks nice.’

      ‘Conditions are bad there, they tell me.’

      ‘I compliment you on the taste also.’

      ‘A fine piece of poached haddock.’

      ‘Why are they striking?’

      ‘They tell me conditions are bad there.’

      ‘Higher wages, I suppose? Does she speak of it?’

      ‘I haven’t seen her this morning; she’s afraid of men hanging about in the streets, so I hear.’

      ‘What men? I don’t see any.’

      ‘How do you mean?’

      ‘The street is empty.’

      ‘It’s early yet. Maybe about lunch time.’

      ‘Mm, I see what you mean. Still, it is nice fresh fish.’

      The man made no immediate reply to this, standing behind the folding chair on which S sat, resting his hands on the back of it, and gazing out at the road through his shop window.

      S also gazed out of the shop window as he sat eating. He gazed across the road at the house.

      Because the house was directly opposite, only the front of it could be observed from the café. It presented a symmetrical picture, with the window to the left of the front door being balanced by the window to the right of the front door. The door itself was painted with a glossy green paint and had a crescent-shaped fanlight over it; it was reached by two curved steps and sheltered by a heavy stone porch, also curved, and supported by two stone pillars.

      On the first floor there were three windows overlooking the street, the middle one being placed over the front door; and above this middle window was a small dormer window set in the roof with a small flagstaff protruding above it. The flagstaff bore no flag.

      The dormer window, S knew, belonged to an attic room. Of the three windows below, the one on the left belonged to Mr Mary’s wife’s bedroom, while the other two belonged to Mr Mary’s bedroom. On the ground floor, the window to the left of the front door belonged to Mr Mary’s study; the one on the right belonged to the sitting-room.

      In none of these windows was there any movement.

      ‘Not much doing over there this morning.’

      To the south-east of the house, facing onto the road, was a garage, separated from the house only by a couple of metres. Although obviously built at a more recent date than the house, it presented some of the aspects of shabbiness. It was constructed of slabs of asbestos and pillars of reinforced concrete, apparently of a prefabricated pattern. Two double doors of a light metal occupied all the front wall of the garage. Above these doors, set under the peak of the roof, was a small square sealed window, its area of glass divided into four by a pair of crossed bars; from one of these small squares, the glass was missing. There was no movement visible through the small sealed window. The garage was covered by a corrugated metal roof.

      ‘I hear that in a fish shortage the price of fish goes up.’

      ‘People aren’t as honest as they used to be. But I enjoyed the haddock.’

      ‘Nice piece of poached haddock, that.’

      S pushed the small table forward to that he could get up. He walked round a large case that contained brightly coloured paper books, opened the door, and walked out onto the pavement. A man was hurrying along the pavement wearing a woollen scarf about his neck and carrying a bicycle over his left shoulder; the bicycle had a green hooter and two flat tyres. He did not speak to S. S waited till he had disappeared and then crossed the road, heading for the brown side gate. He opened it and walked in.

      Shutting the gate behind him, he drew the bolt into position and commenced to walk along the concrete path, taking care not to tread on the cracks between the concrete blocks. On his left hand was the house, to which he drew nearer as the path led him towards its west corner. On his right was a wooden bungalow; he regarded it from the corner of his right eye, and observed a small movement through the window to the left of the door. As he directed his gaze straight ahead again, his vision took in the image of a black and white cat bounding away from him in a westerly direction, running past a sundial supported by an iron boy. The cat darted through a gap in a privet fence dividing grass from vegetable garden, and was hidden among cabbages. A pigeon sometimes referred to as X rose heavily from the other side of the cabbage patch, circled cumbrously twice, and flew with a clatter of wings towards the old brick building behind the house.

      S stepped over a ragged damp patch that spread over the path and continued straight until he reached the west corner of the house, turning it without pause, though at a slower rate.

      In the middle of the rear or south-west face of the house was set the back door; at this door the concrete path terminated. S pursued it to within two metres of this terminal point and then turned right, along a path that had been worn in a stretch of grass. The path was muddy from the night’s rain. A sparrow which sat upon it flew off it and perched on a privet hedge as S approached. The path led to a gravel walk heading directly away from the house, and along this S walked. He now had the back of the house directly at his back; on his right hand was a privet hedge that bordered the walk; on his left hand lay three long mounds with furrows between them; these were the asparagus beds; underfoot was the gravel walk, in which, because the gravel was sparse and much trodden in to the earth, small weeds such as

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