Read Online Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall by Kazuo Ishiguro - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Kazuo Ishiguro
Ads: Link
anything this evening.”
“Good! So that’s settled. Now, let’s move to your little problem. You’ll be glad to hear I’ve been giving it some thought. And I’ve come up with a solution. Are you listening?”
“Yes, I’m listening.”
“There’s this couple who keep coming round. Angela and Solly. They’re okay, but if they weren’t neighbours we wouldn’t have much to do with them. Anyway they often come round. You know, dropping in without warning, expecting a cup of tea. Now here’s the point. They turn up at various times in the day when they’ve been taking Hendrix out.”
“Hendrix?”
“Hendrix is a smelly, uncontrollable, possibly homicidal Labrador. For Angela and Solly, of course, the foul creature’s the child they never had. Or the one they haven’t had yet, they’re probably still young enough for real children. But no, they prefer darling, darling Hendrix. And when they call round, darling Hendrix routinely goes about demolishing the place as determinedly as any disaffected burglar. Down goes the standard lamp. Oh dear, never mind, darling, did you have a fright? You get the picture. Now listen. About a year ago, we had this coffee-table book, cost a fortune, full of arty pictures of young gay men posing in North African casbahs. Emily liked to keep it open at this particular page, she thought it went with the sofa. She’d go mad if you turned over the page. Anyway, about a year ago, Hendrix came in and chewed it all up. That’s right, sank his teeth into all that glossy photography, went on to chew up about twenty pages in all before Mummy could persuade him to desist. You see why I’m telling you this, don’t you?”
“Yes. That is, I see a hint of an escape route, but …”
“All right, I’ll spell it out. This is what you tell Emily. The door went, you answered it, this couple are there with Hendrix tugging at the leash. They tell you they’re Angela and Solly, good friends needing their cup of tea. You let them in, Hendrix runs wild, chews up the diary. It’s utterly plausible. What’s the matter? Why aren’t you thanking me? Won’t quite do for you, sir?”
“I’m very grateful, Charlie. I’m just thinking it through, that’s all. Look, for one thing, what if these people really turn up? After Emily’s home, I mean.”
“That’s possible, I suppose. All I can say is you’d be very, very unlucky if such a thing happened. When I said they came round a lot, I meant maybe once a month at most. So stop picking holes and be grateful.”
“But Charlie, isn’t it a little far-fetched that this dog would chew just the diary, and exactly those pages?”
I heard him sigh. “I assumed you didn’t need the rest of it spelt out. Naturally, you have to do the place over a bit. Knock over the standard lamp, spill sugar over the kitchen floor. You have to make it like Hendrix did this whirlwind job on the place. Look, they’re calling the flight. I’ve got to go. I’ll check in with you once I’m in Germany.”
While listening to Charlie, I’d had a feeling come over me similar to the one I get when someone starts on about a dream they had, or the circumstances that led to the little bump on their car door. His plan was all very well—ingenious, even—but I couldn’t see how it had to do with anything I was really likely to say or do when Emily got home, and I’d found myself getting more and more impatient. But once Charlie had gone, I found his call had had a kind of hypnotic effect on me. Even as my head was dismissing his idea as idiotic, my arms and legs were setting out to put his “solution” into action.
I began by putting the standard lamp down on its side. I was careful not to bump anything with it, and I removed the shade first, putting it back on at a cocked angle only once the whole thing was arranged on the floor. Then I took down a vase from a bookshelf and laid it down on the rug, spreading around it the dried grasses that had been
“Good! So that’s settled. Now, let’s move to your little problem. You’ll be glad to hear I’ve been giving it some thought. And I’ve come up with a solution. Are you listening?”
“Yes, I’m listening.”
“There’s this couple who keep coming round. Angela and Solly. They’re okay, but if they weren’t neighbours we wouldn’t have much to do with them. Anyway they often come round. You know, dropping in without warning, expecting a cup of tea. Now here’s the point. They turn up at various times in the day when they’ve been taking Hendrix out.”
“Hendrix?”
“Hendrix is a smelly, uncontrollable, possibly homicidal Labrador. For Angela and Solly, of course, the foul creature’s the child they never had. Or the one they haven’t had yet, they’re probably still young enough for real children. But no, they prefer darling, darling Hendrix. And when they call round, darling Hendrix routinely goes about demolishing the place as determinedly as any disaffected burglar. Down goes the standard lamp. Oh dear, never mind, darling, did you have a fright? You get the picture. Now listen. About a year ago, we had this coffee-table book, cost a fortune, full of arty pictures of young gay men posing in North African casbahs. Emily liked to keep it open at this particular page, she thought it went with the sofa. She’d go mad if you turned over the page. Anyway, about a year ago, Hendrix came in and chewed it all up. That’s right, sank his teeth into all that glossy photography, went on to chew up about twenty pages in all before Mummy could persuade him to desist. You see why I’m telling you this, don’t you?”
“Yes. That is, I see a hint of an escape route, but …”
“All right, I’ll spell it out. This is what you tell Emily. The door went, you answered it, this couple are there with Hendrix tugging at the leash. They tell you they’re Angela and Solly, good friends needing their cup of tea. You let them in, Hendrix runs wild, chews up the diary. It’s utterly plausible. What’s the matter? Why aren’t you thanking me? Won’t quite do for you, sir?”
“I’m very grateful, Charlie. I’m just thinking it through, that’s all. Look, for one thing, what if these people really turn up? After Emily’s home, I mean.”
“That’s possible, I suppose. All I can say is you’d be very, very unlucky if such a thing happened. When I said they came round a lot, I meant maybe once a month at most. So stop picking holes and be grateful.”
“But Charlie, isn’t it a little far-fetched that this dog would chew just the diary, and exactly those pages?”
I heard him sigh. “I assumed you didn’t need the rest of it spelt out. Naturally, you have to do the place over a bit. Knock over the standard lamp, spill sugar over the kitchen floor. You have to make it like Hendrix did this whirlwind job on the place. Look, they’re calling the flight. I’ve got to go. I’ll check in with you once I’m in Germany.”
While listening to Charlie, I’d had a feeling come over me similar to the one I get when someone starts on about a dream they had, or the circumstances that led to the little bump on their car door. His plan was all very well—ingenious, even—but I couldn’t see how it had to do with anything I was really likely to say or do when Emily got home, and I’d found myself getting more and more impatient. But once Charlie had gone, I found his call had had a kind of hypnotic effect on me. Even as my head was dismissing his idea as idiotic, my arms and legs were setting out to put his “solution” into action.
I began by putting the standard lamp down on its side. I was careful not to bump anything with it, and I removed the shade first, putting it back on at a cocked angle only once the whole thing was arranged on the floor. Then I took down a vase from a bookshelf and laid it down on the rug, spreading around it the dried grasses that had been
Similar Books
