Read Online Out of the Blackout by Robert Barnard - Free Book Online Page A

chattiness that showed it did not come naturally, ‘I believe it’s not a bad service to the North these days. Not that I’ve ever taken it. Been on the railways all my life, and never been north of Watford. You know us Londoners—we think we’ve got everything here.’ He came to a stop like a deflated balloon. ‘Well, I expect you’ll be wanting to go up.’
    He led the way up the narrow staircase, not offering to help with the suitcases. Simon blundered up after him. Lights were switched on, briefly and grudgingly.
    â€˜That’s the bathroom and toilet,’ said Simmeter, opening a door and briefly illuminating a room on the first floor. ‘You share that with Miss Cosgrove on a “first come” basis. There’s a meter there—that prevents arguments, doesn’t it? . . . Right, here we are.’
    They had reached the top of the house. Simmeter put the key in the door, swung it open, and they walked into the dingy little room. All traces of the previous occupant had been carefully removed, so the room presented itself to Simon in all its dismal basicness.
    â€˜I think you’ll be very cosy here,’ said Leonard Simmeter, apparently quite sincerely, seemingly unconscious that rooms could be, should be, otherwise.
    â€˜I’m sure I shall,’ said Simon heartily.
    â€˜How would you like to pay the rent, then?’
    Simon had thought about that. He suspected that Simmeter, knowing he had a respectable and well-paid job, would like him to pay by cheque once a month. It looked better. But he needed to take all the meagre opportunities that offered of contact with the family.
    â€˜I’ll pay weekly,’ he said, drawing out his wallet. ‘I can pay you for the first week now.’
    â€˜That’s very nice,’ said Simmeter, kneading his palms. It was the stimulus of money, Simon decided, that most often sent him into that routine. The notes were tucked away lovingly in a warm and greasy little notecase. ‘It’s nice to do business with a real gentleman. And are they hard to find these days! Mr Blore was not what I’d call reliable—but then, I’m old-fashioned. Standards aren’t what they were, I know that. Now, here’s the key to the room, and here are the keys to the front door. Hope you settle in all right.’
    And before Simon had a chance to think up further conversational gambits to detain him, Len Simmeter was off down the stairs, leaving Simon to unpack his possessions and gaze at the muddy green wallpaper, peeling at the corners, at the depressing armchair with the shape of the springs visible through the seat, at the sofa-bed which seemed unlikely to be satisfactory in either of its functions. It was an odd sort of homecoming.
    Over the next few days Simon’s personality and preoccupations seemed to develop along two diverging lines. He had a daytime self at the Zoo, where the plunge into his new job was hectic and stimulating, his colleagues welcoming and forthcoming. It was a job that absorbed him entirely, but only while he was doing it. He found himself fending off or postponing offers of hospitality, suggestions of drinks after work.
    Because there was, slumbering uneasily, that early morning and evening self. This self sat in the damp and constricting little room, waiting and watching for wisps of information, possibilities of contact, with the Simmeter family two floors below. The evenings were spent reading, making coffee, having a whisky—and listening, always listening; treasuring up a scrap of a sentence, identifying footsteps, classifying ingrained habits and wondering how to make use of them. Up there at the top of the house, cut off by doors and staircases and the deep-rooted secrecy of the people themselves, he felt like a far from omniscientGod, reduced to judging his creations by overheard whispers, by occasional glimpses, by fragments of behaviour that