Nocturne (10 page)

‘
Six hundred and fifty,
’
he said instead.
‘
A week.
’

I blinked. Currently, I was on
£350.
An extra three hundred quid
was a lot of shopping.

‘
You
’
re serious?
’

‘
Yes.
’
He nodded.
‘
And we
’
ll get another researcher, sooner or later.
’

The last bit could have meant anything but to my shame I didn
’
t give
it a thought. Every girl has her price and Brendan had just named mine.

He was standing up now, one hand extended.

‘
Shake on it?
’

‘
Deal.
’

He held my hand a moment longer than necessary.

‘
One other thing.
’
No smile now.
‘
Can anyone ask you out to
dinner, or do you have to be a Tory MP?
’

I celebrated my promotion wit
h a bottle of gin. I telephoned
my
mother,
who was
clueless
about
the small
print
but
impressed
by
the
money, and several friends, who reacted pretty
much
the same way. It
was nearly ten o
’
clock before I
’
d finished boasting and I was looking at
the bottle, wondering how I
’
d sunk so much Gordons, when I heard
the ring at the street door.

It was Gilbert. His hair was matted from the rain and his thin coat
hung wetly on his gaunt frame. He was carrying a grey, oblong box
with a handle. The box looked about the right size for his flute.

‘
You
’
ve been playing,
’
I said brightly.
‘
Come in.
’

He stared at me for a moment. His other hand was in his jeans
pocket, still rummaging for something.

‘
I can
’
t find them,
’
he said at last. I
definitely had them earlier.
’

‘
Keys?
’

‘
Yes.
’

I stood back, holding the front door open, letting him in. On
impulse, as he headed for the stairs, I called him back. I was having a
little celebration. Would he like a gin and tonic? He stopped at once,
curiously obedient, and when he turned round and I saw the expression on his face it was suddenly clear to me what I should do. This man
was a child. He needed direction. He needed reassurance. I should
have known all along.

‘
Come on,
’
I said,
‘
it won
’
t do you any harm.
’

In the kitchen, I made him take his coat off. I hung it on the back of
the door, spreading yesterday
’
s copy of the
Guardian
to catch the
drips. Gilbert had sunk onto one of the kitchen chairs. His hands were
blue with cold but he looked cheerful enough and when I asked him
again about the flute he said yes, he
’
d been playing in a little restaurant
down in Stoke Newington, a newly opened place called Colcannon
’
s
that specialised in Irish cuisine.

‘
Your idea,
’
he said.

‘
Mine?
’

‘
Yes, you told me I should do it professionally. In fact you insisted.
You said it was really important. So I thought, why not?
’

He told me how nervous he
’
d been. He
’
d read about the restaurant
in the paper but it had taken him days to muster the courage even to lift
the phone. The woman at the other end had been nice enough though,
and he
’
d played for free that first night, a kind of voluntary audition.

‘
And you
’
re going back?
’

‘
Maybe.
’

‘
Why only maybe?
’

‘
I
don
’
t know. I
’
ll see how I feel.
’

‘
Does she want you back?
’

‘
Yes,
’
he nodded vigorously.
‘
Oh, yes.
’

He seemed pleased, knotting his hands together, and watching him I
was glad I
’
d let the conversation develop, determined not to interpret
what he
’
d said as any kind of threat. Of course I hadn
’
t insisted he get a
job. Why should I? But perhaps this pretence of his that I had was his
way of saying sorry. He
’
d intruded. He
’
d overstepped the mark. And
now he was trying to make amends.

I fetched him a glass, splashing in more gin than I
’
d intended, and he
pre-empted my next question by opening his instrument case and
taking out the flute. The jig he played me was unusual, a ja
u
ntiness
suffused with something altogether more plaintive, and the end result
was one of those long silences it
’
s difficult to break. At length, he asked
me about the cassette. Had I listened to it? Did I understand?

I studied him a moment, remembering the face on the stairs, the
glimpse I thought I
’
d had of the real Gilbert. Children, above all, prefer
the truth.

‘
It puzzled me,
’
I said.
‘
And it disturbed me as well.
’

‘
You didn
’
t follow it?
’

‘
It
’
s not that. It
’
s the fact that you left it in the first place. That you
stayed here. While I was away.
’

I watched my hand reaching for the gin bottle. I couldn
’
t remember
finishing my last glass. Gilbert was looking shamefaced. For a moment
or two I thought he was going to apologise but he didn
’
t. He still had
the flute, in his lap and he lifted it to his lips and blew a long,
melancholic note.

‘
What does that mean?
’

He shook his head, putting the flute down. Then, abruptly, he
changed the subject. He was looking down at Pinot, sprawled at my
feet.

‘
It
’
s clever,
’
he said,
‘
how cats find their way to the fridge. It must be
something to do with the frequency of the motor. They must sense it.
Like bats, really.
’

‘
That
’
s another thing,
’
I said gently.

‘
What
’
s another thing?

‘
Taking my cats like that.
’

‘
I
didn
’
t take them. They came.
’

‘
But you must have let them out, opened the door for them.
’

‘
Of course.
’

‘
Then you must have the keys.
’

‘
Yes.
’
He was frowning now, still studying Pinot.

‘
You took copies of the keys?
’

‘
Yes, I thought I mentioned it. I thought we talked about it.
’

‘
Never.
’
I shook my head.
‘
Why should we? Why should I want you
to have a copy of my keys?
’

At this point, as if I
’
d touched a nerve, he suddenly looked up.
‘
The dark,
’
he said.

He left an
hour
and a half later, his gin and tonic barely touched, and
as I shepherded him into our shared hall, I felt flooded with relief. It
wouldn
’
t, after all, be necessary to change the locks or bar the
windows or supplement Pinor and Noir with a Rottweiler. Gilbert was
a little simple, certainly, and a little mixed up about one or two things,
but at heart he was still the man I thought I
’
d befriended, the gentle,
considerate, neighbourly soul upstairs.

If he had a fault, I thought, then it was the instinct to be over-
protective. He was concerned about the world. In fact he was terrified
at the direction events were taking. Not just on planet Earth but way
out in what I suspect he meant by
‘
The Dark
’
. The signs weren
’
t good,
he kept telling me. He read all the latest scientific magazines, and it was
perfectly obvious that we were facing an impending catastrophe.
Quite what he could do to protect me from this kind of disaster wasn
’
t
at all clear but listening to him trying to explain it, I had absolutely no
doubt about his sincerity.

This man, poor soul, had suffered some kind of ghastly trauma. It
had demolished more or less all the personal defences we take so much
for granted and as a direct result he was convinced he was in tune with
the future, a helpless savant cursed with a knowledge of the horrors to
come. These horrors were numberless and beyond description but
they were also in some strange way avoidable, and the fact that he
counted me amongst those worth saving I took as a compliment.

I watched Gilbert until he disappeared into his flat upstairs and
later, lying in bed, I could hear him walking up and down again,
mumbling to himself, patrolling the battlements he
’
d thrown up
around our little house. At worst, I told myself, Gilbert was simply
harmless. At best, once I
’
d learned to cope with his funny little ways,
he
’
d be the perfect antidote to the infinitely less benign lunatics with
whom I worked.

A couple of days later, Brendan cornered me on the stairs at
Doubleact. He was more determined than ever to drag me out to
dinner and my new promotion had given him fresh leverage.

‘
We need to discuss things,
’
he said.
‘
Away from the office.
’

He left the choice of restaurant to me and out of curiosity I booked a
table at Colcannon
’
s, the place in Stoke Newington where Gilbert had
performed. It was a Wednesday evening. Incoming fire at Doubleact
had been light to non-existent all day and offhand I couldn
’
t think of
anything really pressing that Brendan and I could possibly have to talk
about. The last thing I expected was an in-depth ana
lysis of my
documentary ideas.

‘
Are you serious?
’