into her ear:
‘Struck down by our friend Poison-Prick.’
Sophie let her lids droop briefly and she faintly smiled.
Suddenly, as if he had been rehearsing it in his head, Felix jumped up and leaned across the table and thrust out his hand to the Professor.
‘So good of you to take us in,’ he said with a breathy laugh, avoiding the Professor’s eye, ‘so good, yes, thank you.’ The old man looked without expression at the hand that was offered him and after a second Felix snapped it shut like a jack-knife and withdrew it. ‘May I introduce – ? This is Mr Croke, and Sophie here, and little Alice, and Patch –’
‘Hatch,’ said Hatch.
‘Hatch I mean. Ha ha! And Pound – Pound? Yes.’ A mumbling, a shuffling of feet. He sat down. ‘Ouf! what a business,’ he said. ‘I believe that captain was drunk. I said to him, I did, I said to him, You will be responsible, remember! A tour of the islands, we were told; a pleasure cruise. What pleasure, I ask, what cruise? Look at us: we are like the Swiss family Robertson!’ He laughed excessively, his shoulders shaking, and paused for a moment, licking his lips with a glistening tongue-tip. ‘This house, sir,’ he said softly, in an almost confidential voice, ‘the garden, those trees up there,’ pointing, ‘I have to tell you, it is all very handsome, very handsome and agreeable. I hope we do not inconvenience you. We shall be here only for a very little time. A day. Less than a day. An afternoon. Perhaps an evening, no more. Dusk, I always think, is so lovely in these latitudes: that greying light, those trembling shadows. I am reminded of my favourite painter, do you know the one I mean?’ He mused a moment, smiling upwards, displaying his profile, then looked at the Professor again and smiled. ‘You will hardly know we are here at all, I think. Our wings –’ he made an undulant movement with his hands ‘– our wings will scarcely stir the air.’
Another silence settled and all sat very still again, waitingfor the Professor to speak. But the Professor said nothing, and Felix shrugged and winked at Sophie and made a face of comic helplessness. Licht turned to the stove with a wincing look, his shoulders hunched, as if something had fallen and he were waiting for the crash. A little leftover breathy sob took Alice by surprise and she gulped, and glanced at Hatch quickly and blushed. Felix drummed his fingertips on the table and softly sang:
Din din!
Don don!
The sun shone in the window, the wind rattled the back door on its latch.
‘This milk is sour,’ Pound said. ‘Jesus!’
The lounge, as it is called, is a long, narrow, low-ceilinged, cluttered room with windows looking out to sea. It smells like the railway carriages of my youth. Here, in the unmoving, brownish air, big, indistinct lumps of furniture live their secret lives, sprawled armchairs and an enormous, lumpy couch, a high, square table with knobbled legs, a roll-top desk sprouting dog-eared papers so that it looks as if it is sticking out a score of tongues. Everything is stalled, as though one day long ago something had happened and the people living here had all at once dropped what they were doing and rushed outside, never to return. Still the room waits, poised to start up again, like a stopped clock. I have my place to sit by the window while I drink my morning tea, wedged in comfortably between a high bookcase and a little table bearing a desiccated fern in a brass pot; behind me, above my head, on a bureau under a glass dome, a stuffed owl is perched, holding negligently in one mildewed claw a curiously unconcerned, moth-eaten mouse. From where I sitI can see a bit of crooked lawn and a rose bush already in bloom and an old rain barrel at the corner of the house.
I think to myself, My life is a ruin, an abandoned house, a derelict place. The same thought, in one form or another, has come to me at least once a day, every day, for years; why then am I surprised anew by it
‘Struck down by our friend Poison-Prick.’
Sophie let her lids droop briefly and she faintly smiled.
Suddenly, as if he had been rehearsing it in his head, Felix jumped up and leaned across the table and thrust out his hand to the Professor.
‘So good of you to take us in,’ he said with a breathy laugh, avoiding the Professor’s eye, ‘so good, yes, thank you.’ The old man looked without expression at the hand that was offered him and after a second Felix snapped it shut like a jack-knife and withdrew it. ‘May I introduce – ? This is Mr Croke, and Sophie here, and little Alice, and Patch –’
‘Hatch,’ said Hatch.
‘Hatch I mean. Ha ha! And Pound – Pound? Yes.’ A mumbling, a shuffling of feet. He sat down. ‘Ouf! what a business,’ he said. ‘I believe that captain was drunk. I said to him, I did, I said to him, You will be responsible, remember! A tour of the islands, we were told; a pleasure cruise. What pleasure, I ask, what cruise? Look at us: we are like the Swiss family Robertson!’ He laughed excessively, his shoulders shaking, and paused for a moment, licking his lips with a glistening tongue-tip. ‘This house, sir,’ he said softly, in an almost confidential voice, ‘the garden, those trees up there,’ pointing, ‘I have to tell you, it is all very handsome, very handsome and agreeable. I hope we do not inconvenience you. We shall be here only for a very little time. A day. Less than a day. An afternoon. Perhaps an evening, no more. Dusk, I always think, is so lovely in these latitudes: that greying light, those trembling shadows. I am reminded of my favourite painter, do you know the one I mean?’ He mused a moment, smiling upwards, displaying his profile, then looked at the Professor again and smiled. ‘You will hardly know we are here at all, I think. Our wings –’ he made an undulant movement with his hands ‘– our wings will scarcely stir the air.’
Another silence settled and all sat very still again, waitingfor the Professor to speak. But the Professor said nothing, and Felix shrugged and winked at Sophie and made a face of comic helplessness. Licht turned to the stove with a wincing look, his shoulders hunched, as if something had fallen and he were waiting for the crash. A little leftover breathy sob took Alice by surprise and she gulped, and glanced at Hatch quickly and blushed. Felix drummed his fingertips on the table and softly sang:
Din din!
Don don!
The sun shone in the window, the wind rattled the back door on its latch.
‘This milk is sour,’ Pound said. ‘Jesus!’
The lounge, as it is called, is a long, narrow, low-ceilinged, cluttered room with windows looking out to sea. It smells like the railway carriages of my youth. Here, in the unmoving, brownish air, big, indistinct lumps of furniture live their secret lives, sprawled armchairs and an enormous, lumpy couch, a high, square table with knobbled legs, a roll-top desk sprouting dog-eared papers so that it looks as if it is sticking out a score of tongues. Everything is stalled, as though one day long ago something had happened and the people living here had all at once dropped what they were doing and rushed outside, never to return. Still the room waits, poised to start up again, like a stopped clock. I have my place to sit by the window while I drink my morning tea, wedged in comfortably between a high bookcase and a little table bearing a desiccated fern in a brass pot; behind me, above my head, on a bureau under a glass dome, a stuffed owl is perched, holding negligently in one mildewed claw a curiously unconcerned, moth-eaten mouse. From where I sitI can see a bit of crooked lawn and a rose bush already in bloom and an old rain barrel at the corner of the house.
I think to myself, My life is a ruin, an abandoned house, a derelict place. The same thought, in one form or another, has come to me at least once a day, every day, for years; why then am I surprised anew by it
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