The Grin of the Dark

FIVE - LOST

Mardi Gras Massacre is a 1981 film set in New Orleans, though reportedly you mightn't know until the final reel fills up with carnival footage. Earlier a maniac removes the hearts from three naked women, or rather from the same rubber body double thrice. The film was banned in Britain the year it was made, otherwise even fewer people would have heard of it. Perhaps the management at Choice Cuts should explain the names of dishes to the staff.

While I'm consulting the Internet Movie Database I revisit Tubby Thackeray's page. All the titles are dead and black, with no links to further information, and he doesn't have a message board. I move to abebooks, an assemblage of booksellers, and enter Surréalistes Malgré Eux in the search box. Three shops have the book. The cheapest copy, described as annotated in pencil, is at Le Maître des Livres in Quebec. I send the details of my credit card and pay for express delivery. Now I just need to be as lucky with Those Golden Years of Fun.

A site called Silents Entire reveals that besides famous names, the compilation includes less-remembered stars – Charley Chase, Tubby Thackeray, Max Linder, Hector Mann, Max Davidson. The trouble is that Amazon shows it's deleted, and nobody is offering it secondhand on the site. There's always eBay, where a seller called Moviemad has listed a copy. The auction ends in three days, and two people are bidding. The top bid is £2.50, but I can buy the item now for a penny under fifteen pounds. I click on the option, only to be told I have to register and choose a screen name and password. The name can be Restorer, the password Esteem. As soon as an email confirms this I put in the winning bid, and my sigh of relief mists the screen. I reach out to wipe it with my handkerchief, and it turns blank as slate.

My room and the view of squat twin houses weighed down by a grey sky disappear in sympathy. I've gone as good as blind with panic. Then I can see, though it restores nothing to the screen. I send the mouse skating all over my desk and hit enough keys to spell at least one nonsensical word, but the screen remains featureless. I thumb the power button and hold it until I hear the computer shut down, then I release it and switch on. The initial test appears and vanishes, followed by the usual flurry of system details. They've never meant much to me, but the word that terminates each line does. Lost, it says they are. Lost. Lost.

I let out a sound too furious to contain syllables and bruise my elbows on the desk while I blot out the sight of the relentless word so that I can think. I've copied all my work onto discs, and I have a printout of my thesis. The crash is surely no worse than inconvenient. I'm trying to find the phone number of the computer shop among the bills and invoices in my desk drawer when the door rattles with a knock and then with several. 'Simon?' my neighbour Joe calls. 'Was that you?'

'Nobody else here that I know of.'

'I'll come in then, shall I?'

I don't want to be distracted, but apparently I have no choice. I kick myself away from the desk and snatch the drawer off my lap, leaving two dusty Ls on my trousers. I slam the drawer into its niche on my way to yanking the doorknob out of Joe's hand as he starts to open the door. 'What do you want, Joe?'

He takes a step backwards, wriggling his fingers. I half expect to see him trip over the cuffs of his extravagantly baggy jeans and tumble downstairs. Apart from those he's wearing a T-shirt that says LET'S BOTH LAUGH over a chunky sweater. His blond hair looks as though he's pulled the T-shirt off and on again. His doughy face is patched with red and well on the way to growing oval. He blinks and holds out a bag of humbugs striped like monochrome wasps. 'Care for one?' he says.

'Not just now, thanks.'

He more or less unwraps a mint before inserting it in his mouth, then withdraws the cellophane wet with saliva. By now he's gazing past me at the computer. 'Was that why you were crying?' he wonders.

'I wasn't crying about anything. I don't.'

'Nothing wrong with letting yourself go now and then,' Joe says, crumpling the cellophane in his fist. 'Get in touch with your other self. Let me help.'

I gather that he means with the computer when he tries to sidle past me into the room. 'Better leave it to the experts.'

'You're one, are you?'

'On cinema I believe I am.'

'Play it again, Sam, eh?' he says and narrows his pale eyes. 'What film's that from?'

'No film at all. He never says that in Casablanca.'

'Good try but no prize. It's Woody Allen.'

'He doesn't say it either.'

'Good grief, they're only films. Chums don't fall out over silly films.' Joe holds out his rustling fist as if he's handing me his litter to bin. 'Anyway, there's an expert here. I'm your computer man.'

'I'm sure you'll understand if I let the shop that built the system deal with it.'

His eyes grow moist, and he's parting his lips when the front door begins to shake. A large dog is scrabbling at it, I gather once the barking starts. 'Heel, girl. Heel,' Warren shouts outside.

He and Bebe are beginning to remind me of uninvited pop-ups, liable to appear wherever I am. Joe drops the humbug wrapper and leaps downstairs, landing with a thud on every other step. 'Hang on, Mr Halloran,' he yells. 'I'll let you in.'

I haven't reached my desk when I hear a scuffle in the hall. 'Sit, goddamn it,' Warren says. 'Hello, Joe. Whaddya know?'

'Hello, Mr Halloran. Would the dog like a sweet?'

'That's the way to make friends. Sure, I'll take one as well. What's happening in my house?'

'I was just trying to help Simon, but he doesn't seem to want me.'

Warren's reply is blotted out by an outburst of barking. 'Hey, Simon,' he calls once it subsides. 'Come meet Sniffer.'

Is the name a joke? If it isn't, have I any reason to panic? My pipe is somewhere in the room, but it hasn't been used for weeks, since I ran out of the last of the grass Colin gave me as some kind of consolation. Staying in my room might suggest an admission of guilt, and so I tramp to the stairs. I've taken one step down when an inordinately large black dog on an apparently endless lead charges at me, and I can't help retracting my step. 'Don't let her think you're frightened,' Warren advises as he reels in the lead. 'No reason you should be, right?'

'Not if you're in control.'

The dog's head and shoulders strain above the top stair, and Warren appears behind her. Does he want to observe how she reacts to me? As he pays out the lead, she lunges to thrust her glistening black nose against my trouser pocket. My keys grind against my hip, and I'm about to protest when I remember that the keys are on my desk. 'Looks like you've got a new buddy,' Warren says.

How ironic is that meant to be? His default smile isn't telling, but his eyes are watchful. 'You'll have to forgive me,' I say, which sounds altogether too defensive, and try lying. 'I'm not too fond of dogs.'

'I thought you told Natalie you were. Did my hearing screw up, do you think? Or my memory?'

'I couldn't say.' My trouser leg is growing wet as the dog's nose tries to burrow through the fabric. 'If you could just –'

'You're allowed to move, Simon. Not too fast, though.'

As I back towards my room I wonder if he'll let the dog pursue me. He holds it where it is, perhaps because he hears the jingling of the contents of my pocket – only coins. As Joe's head pokes up behind him, cellophane crackles under my foot. 'You haven't picked your rubbish up,' I point out.

'Which is that?' says Warren.

I lift my foot to show him, but the wrapping adheres to the sole of my shoe. I'm reduced to hopping about to display the evidence, a routine that starts the dog barking so loud that the confined gloomy space feels shrunken. Warren watches me scrape the cellophane off my shoe with the other, and then he says 'Couldn't you have dealt with it, Simon?'

I'm robbed of any words it would be advisable for me to utter even before Joe says 'You could have while I was letting Mr Halloran in.'

'Right, I'll see to it now. Here it goes. Off to the bin with you. Get in. Get in.' By the time I've shaken the sticky contents of Joe's mouth off my fingertip I'm sounding as wild as I feel. 'Anything else anyone needs me to do?'

'You could let me look at your computer.' Joe has followed me into my room. 'I can fix this,' he says with barely a glance at the onscreen messages. 'It's simps.'

'You still under guarantee, Simon?'

'No, but –'

'Quiet, girl. Simon doesn't want to sound hostile. What were you planning to charge, Joe?'

'Chums don't charge.'

'Sounds like a good deal.'

If the computer fails after Joe has tinkered with it, won't Warren have to take responsibility? He and Bebe replaced Mark's, and they can do the same for me. 'Fair enough, if you say so,' I tell him.

Joe dumps his bag of humbugs next to the computer and plants his baggy buttocks on my chair. 'Can I have your system discs?'

I'm hauling open the lower drawer of the desk when I remember where my pipe is. I try to reveal just enough of the drawer to fumble out the plastic wallet full of discs. Joe grimaces as he examines them. 'No wonder you've lost it,' he says. 'I'll give you the latest versions.'

Once Joe has fetched them from his room, Warren shuts the dog on the landing and perches on the edge of my bed. 'So have we found out anything today?' He's gazing straight at me and presumably addressing me.

'Tell Bebe Mardi Gras Massacre,' I say.

'Lie down, girl. Lie.' Once the onslaught at the door trails off with a piteous whine he says 'Why should my wife want to hear that?'

'It's where her dish came from yesterday. Where the name did, I mean. I realise it's a rotten pun. Enough to put you off your lunch.'

The sound of clawing at the door has given way to the scurry of the keyboard. I can't grasp any of the formulas Joe is entering on the computer. 'How about your research?' Warren persists.

'I've tracked down some footage I don't think has ever been written about. It's on its way.'

'I guess you can't work any faster than that. So long as you won't be too slow for your publisher.'

'You never told me you were going to be published,' Joe complains and springs a disc out of the computer. 'How do you find the time to study as well?'

'Because I'm not a student any longer.'

'Lie. Lie.'

I didn't think the dog was making enough of a commotion to deserve Warren's latest shout. More conversationally he says 'We figure Simon will be moving on soon.'

The breath snags in my throat on the way to speech. 'You're asking me to, you mean.'

'I have to agree with my wife, it isn't fair to the rest of our tenants. We don't need them thinking anyone is getting special treatment when he could afford to live someplace else.'

'I won't tell so long as we're chums,' says Joe.

'When are you looking to get rid of me?'

I thought Warren might at least deny this aim, but he says 'We can give you till the end of the year.'

'It'll be a kind of birthday present, then.'

'Is it your birthday?' Joe cries as he feeds the computer yet another disc. 'Many happy returns. Fixing this is my gift and I didn't even know.'

Does he really not recognise sarcasm? Warren's smile is claiming that he didn't either. 'No, it's not my birthday,' I tell them. 'New Year, me.'

'That should hold you,' Joe says as he gathers his discs, 'and if it doesn't you know how close I am.'

'Thanks.'

'Lie,' Warren says. 'Time we were on our way if she's going to hinder your work, Simon.'

Joe leaves the discs by the computer while he unwraps a humbug and follows Warren onto the landing. The dog disposes of the sweet in two splintering crunches as she lopes downstairs ahead of Warren. As the front door shuts, Joe ambles back into my room, crumpling the humbug wrapper. He lobs it into the bin and reclaims his discs. 'Now you've got what you want,' he says from the doorway.

Does he mean his technical help or his attempt at tidiness? As I peer at the new icons, his reflection on the window beyond the monitor grins at me so widely it ought to be painful. Indeed, at the upper edge of my vision his face is bobbing towards me on the glass, tilting from side to side with such abandon that I wonder how he's walking. I spin around in my chair. 'What – '

I'm alone in the room. The door is barely ajar, and I hear him shutting his. I swivel my chair away from the bewildering sight and come face to face with the window. Though I'm on the upper floor, the roundish sagging pallid wide-mouthed head is bumping against the glass.

Its substance quivers like a jellyfish as the head observes me with its unblinking perfectly circular eyes. It blunders against the pane with a faint rubbery squeal and then sails out of sight over the roof. It was a less than wholly inflated balloon; I assume its face was supposed to be a clown's. I'm reminded of the poster Joe has removed from his door since I bought tickets for Clwons Unlimited online. I do my best to dismiss the balloon from my mind as I slip the Frugonet disc into the computer to regain my access. The spectacle was almost enough to put me off taking Natalie and Mark to the circus.