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Authors: Ruth Rendell
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down. Diarmit understood how it would be. There was no one in the house but himself and he was as invisible as an insect, so they would pull the house down around him, now knowing he was there or not caring. They would care no more for him than they would for the woodlice and mites and spiders and silverfish that also lived in the house. He would be crushed in the rubble, overwhelmed by a cloud of yellow dust. He sat in the window and trembled.
By night it was safe. The workmen did nothing after five, he had observed that. He could come back to the house at night and hide there all night but by day he must be gone, taking whatever he valued with him. He might come back and find that the house had disappeared but that was a risk he must take.
Next day, after they had all pounded out of the house, banging doors, laughing, crashing down the stairs, they made enough noise for devils in hell, he crept out with his knives in the Harrods bag. He carried them as a wasp carries its sting or a security guard his gun. There was no doubt in his mind where he was going; he had it all worked out. Down the steps in Mount Pleasant Gardens and on to the old railway line where it spread out wide in a grassy valley, on to where it narrowed at the old Mount Pleasant Green station, and thence to the Mistley tunnel.
The tunnel was as dry as it ever got inside. It had an earthy oily smell and there were feathers everywhere. That mattress must have contained a million little white and gray feathers, for thousands had come out and blown away, had embedded themselves in the clay or adhered to the curved roof or lay in quivering heaps, yet the old torn mattress was still cushiony, still padded with down. Diarmit sat down on it and took his knives out of the bag.
From where he sat, well back under the curve of the roof, he could command a view of both the tunnel’s openings. He could assess what kind of a threat presented itself. As for himself, no one could see him, so there was no need to be hidden. But after a while he raised the mattress up on its side edge, making it into a curving wall which he propped in place with a roll of rusty wire netting and an oil drum. It was not for concealment but protection. He squatted behind it, as in a dugout or behind a windbreak, and it did protect him. Three or four people came through the tunnel, one walking towards Highgate, the others to Mount Pleasant, and although they were giant, lumbering, hostile creatures, their bodies nearly filling the tunnel space, none of them even brushed against the mattress and he was safe.
Diarmit understood then that he had found a way to live. Each night he could sleep in the room but by day he must come here, wary and armed, and station himself behind his barricade.
7
T he doll, Mrs. Collins said, was exactly what Wendy wanted. No, she didn’t think ten pounds too much, ten pounds was very reasonable. Wendy wanted it as a birthday present for the little girl whose godmother she was. The doll was very obviously a little girl itself with a pink smiling face and yellow plaits and scarlet shirt and blue checked pinafore dress. Dolly had made several, all different, since the Myra doll and had had no difficulty in selling them.
Mrs. Collins gave Dolly a ten-pound note which Dolly, crossing the road from Mrs. Collins’s little terraced cottage in Orchard Lane, spent on stocking up with wine at the off-license. Five bottles, wrapped in tissue in two carriers.
It was a dull warm, white-skied summer day. Dolly climbed up the steps and got on to the old railway line by the bridge in Northwood Road. A woman was walking along with a white Pyrenean mountain dog on a lead. Dolly was wearing a pink and yellow and brown plaid cotton dress with a wide brown belt, tights, and low-heeled sandals. The tights were new, on for the first time, and to protect them she decided not to climb up the embankment but to go through the Mistley tunnel to the station and up the steps.
It was
By night it was safe. The workmen did nothing after five, he had observed that. He could come back to the house at night and hide there all night but by day he must be gone, taking whatever he valued with him. He might come back and find that the house had disappeared but that was a risk he must take.
Next day, after they had all pounded out of the house, banging doors, laughing, crashing down the stairs, they made enough noise for devils in hell, he crept out with his knives in the Harrods bag. He carried them as a wasp carries its sting or a security guard his gun. There was no doubt in his mind where he was going; he had it all worked out. Down the steps in Mount Pleasant Gardens and on to the old railway line where it spread out wide in a grassy valley, on to where it narrowed at the old Mount Pleasant Green station, and thence to the Mistley tunnel.
The tunnel was as dry as it ever got inside. It had an earthy oily smell and there were feathers everywhere. That mattress must have contained a million little white and gray feathers, for thousands had come out and blown away, had embedded themselves in the clay or adhered to the curved roof or lay in quivering heaps, yet the old torn mattress was still cushiony, still padded with down. Diarmit sat down on it and took his knives out of the bag.
From where he sat, well back under the curve of the roof, he could command a view of both the tunnel’s openings. He could assess what kind of a threat presented itself. As for himself, no one could see him, so there was no need to be hidden. But after a while he raised the mattress up on its side edge, making it into a curving wall which he propped in place with a roll of rusty wire netting and an oil drum. It was not for concealment but protection. He squatted behind it, as in a dugout or behind a windbreak, and it did protect him. Three or four people came through the tunnel, one walking towards Highgate, the others to Mount Pleasant, and although they were giant, lumbering, hostile creatures, their bodies nearly filling the tunnel space, none of them even brushed against the mattress and he was safe.
Diarmit understood then that he had found a way to live. Each night he could sleep in the room but by day he must come here, wary and armed, and station himself behind his barricade.
7
T he doll, Mrs. Collins said, was exactly what Wendy wanted. No, she didn’t think ten pounds too much, ten pounds was very reasonable. Wendy wanted it as a birthday present for the little girl whose godmother she was. The doll was very obviously a little girl itself with a pink smiling face and yellow plaits and scarlet shirt and blue checked pinafore dress. Dolly had made several, all different, since the Myra doll and had had no difficulty in selling them.
Mrs. Collins gave Dolly a ten-pound note which Dolly, crossing the road from Mrs. Collins’s little terraced cottage in Orchard Lane, spent on stocking up with wine at the off-license. Five bottles, wrapped in tissue in two carriers.
It was a dull warm, white-skied summer day. Dolly climbed up the steps and got on to the old railway line by the bridge in Northwood Road. A woman was walking along with a white Pyrenean mountain dog on a lead. Dolly was wearing a pink and yellow and brown plaid cotton dress with a wide brown belt, tights, and low-heeled sandals. The tights were new, on for the first time, and to protect them she decided not to climb up the embankment but to go through the Mistley tunnel to the station and up the steps.
It was
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