The Grin of the Dark

THIRTY-ONE - IT SMILES

My guts seem to shrink like an image on a television that has had its plug pulled. As I stare at the screen in the desperate hope that it will reveal I'm somehow mistaken, the men behind me start to murmur and then laugh. I stare until I'm unable to judge whether the flickering is on the screen or in my eyes or both. I stare until the nearest man enquires 'Are you just going to look at it, mate? It's like he said, it's not a telly.'

He's a Londoner. By the sound of their supportive mutters, so are his friends. I feel pathetically reassured, but less so once I turn to them. They might be undertakers and triplets too: heavy black overcoats, white faces almost round enough to be artificial, oily black hair with partings – left side for the foremost man, middle for the middle, right for the rear guard – that expose their pallid scalps. Nevertheless I appeal to them. 'I've been robbed.'

'There's a lot of it about, they told us.'

'You want to keep an eye out.'

'Don't let us stop you getting your dosh.'

I haven't time to be disconcerted by their speaking in the order that they're queuing. 'I mean I've been robbed on here,' I protest, whirling around to confront the screen, but I haven't taken it unawares. It still wonders if I need another service, which gives me an idea I have to hope isn't hopeless. I jab the button to call up my balance again in case there was an error in transmission and do my best to ignore the murmurs at my back. Are they really saying 'Mean old bean' and 'Must have been' and 'Not a bean'? I struggle against fancying that the last comment has affected the onscreen display, where the minus sign looks blacker than ever, a monochrome film's rendering of red. 'They could do it again, whoever did,' I realise wildly. 'I need to contact the bank.'

'Can he do it on here?'

The speaker is the man with the central parting. As he leans his palms on either side of the screen, auras of moisture swell around his plump hands on the metal. 'He can't,' he announces, straightening up.

'I didn't think he could.'

'I knew he couldn't.'

I could imagine that a single actor is dubbing their voices. The onscreen digits seem to stir as if they're eager to multiply, and I haven't convinced myself that it's merely my vision when the nearest man says 'So let's have a turn.'

He's now the character with hair parted on the right. Do they keep switching places or wigs while I'm not looking? I can't be sure whether his coiffure is slightly askew. I peer at it until the man behind him, his mirror image in terms of hair, says 'You were wanting to phone your bank.'

'Or email them,' says the fellow at the rear.

They're reminding me that I can't pay to do either. I left my mobile at Natalie's because it wouldn't have worked in America. I stand aside to let the leader of the queue use the machine, and then I take a deep breath. 'This is horribly embarrassing, but could you lend me a little money? You've got my word I'll pay you back. Give me your address and I'll give you mine.'

He orders a hundred euros and covers the delivery slot with a hand as he turns to his companions. 'Too much like home, this, don't you reckon?'

All at once I'm surrounded. 'We've got beggars hanging round cashpoints too,' one of them informs me.

'So you Dutchmen hadn't better try it on with us,' says the man with a parting that resembles a glistening slit on top of his head.

A wild grin tugs my lips wide. 'I'm not Dutch. I'm one of you.'

'Smells Dutch to me,' says the man at the screen.

'Fuggy,' says his opposite, waving away the air between us.

'Druggy,' their companion expounds. 'Double Dutch.'

I feel as if the place into which I've strayed is trying to claim me for its own. 'I'm not bloody Dutch,' I insist. 'You saw my balance. It's in pounds.'

The man at the wall snatches his cash and stuffs it in an inside pocket. As he makes way for the man crowned with a slit he says 'You mean you've got some money after all.'

'Unless it was someone else's he was thieving,' says the man who has taken his place.

His friends bring their pugnacious faces close to mine as if they're challenging me to spot the difference, and then they find some cue to step back. 'If you're going to beg, do it proper,' says the man with the left-hand split.

'Have a bit of dignity,' his reversal says.

I don't know whether that's a contradiction or an additional direction. Are they urging me to put on some kind of performance for them? I should be searching for a way to contact the bank. I dodge between the men and tramp alongside the canal.

I'd forgotten the street was so busy. For the last few minutes, which felt as prolonged as a dream, I was aware only of my interrogators. When I glance back they aren't at the machine, and I can't locate them in the crowd. Where am I dashing to? How can I get some money? I feel as if my panic has seized control of my body, driving it helplessly onwards with no goal beyond escape – and then I stagger to a halt and laugh out loud. I mustn't take the men's words as a joke. They've told me the solution.

I'm nearly at a bridge across the jittery water. Several bicycles are chained to the railings that border the canal. How would Tubby play the scene? I don a wide fixed big-eyed grin and prance back and forth in front of the bicycle closest to the bridge. As soon as a few people stop to watch I mime trying to ride. I make several attempts to mount the bicycle, only to tumble each time on the flagstones. I pedal away on the air instead and look back, wondering why I'm not on the machine. I pretend to sit on an inventively rickety seat until I impale myself on it. By now my face is aching with my frozen grin, which I maintain as I strive to pump up a pair of invisible tyres that keep growing unequal and finally burst like Tubby's balloon head. That's my finale, or at any rate all I can invent. I go for a bow without rising to my feet and sprawl face down in front of my audience.

I've been hearing laughter, however muted, and now it's followed by a ripple of applause, unless that's the canal. Were my efforts useless? I haven't provided a container for donations. I seem unable to stop grinning at my idiocy as I turn my left hand over on its back and stretch it out. In a moment a cold object lands in my palm, followed by another. Others clink on the pavement, and one trundles against the edge of my hand.

I don't dare look until my benefactors have moved on, leaving me to count my bruises and my takings. I've earned eleven euros, no, twelve – more. 'Thank you,' I call, which only attracts stares from passers-by who seem to think I have no reason. I drop the coins into my trousers pocket as I wobble to my feet. I have more than enough money to pay my bill at the Pot of Gold, and I mean to retrieve my card. For all I know, the man behind the counter can deduce my number from the way I typed it in.

Once through the alley was enough. I take the cross-street that leads from the bridge. People give me an unexpected amount of room until I realise that it's time to finish grinning. I find it hard to suppress my laughter at that, even when I think of the hole that's my account – a hole in more than the wall. I pinch my cheeks to force my mouth shut, and succeed in achieving silence as I turn left alongside the first canal.

Glittering ripples snag my concentration as I head for the nearest bridge. I didn't realise I had strayed so far from the hotel. I can't see it or the Pot of Gold ahead for the nagging of the ripples, but my destination certainly isn't behind me; it's on this side of the street and past the bridge. I wish there weren't so many people; their toothy silhouettes interfere with my vision whenever I peer ahead. When I reach the bridge I hurry to the middle, and the railing seems to grow soft and clammy in my grasp. Though I can see both ways for at least half a mile, there's no sign of the Pot of Gold or the Dwaas Hotel.

It isn't possible. I didn't cross water to reach the other street. The thick lurid ripples pester my vision, and I'm irresistibly reminded of the optical effect that used to signal a shift of time and space in films. The buildings appear to pinch thinner as if they're about to change before my eyes. How many of them contain sex shops? Are the naked figures on the covers of the videos in the windows really so fat or so young or both? 'You're there,' I assure my destination, and an Oriental couple veers across the bridge to keep out of my way. 'Excuse me,' I blurt, though they're chattering in Cantonese or some other Chinese language. 'Can you help?'

Both of them smile or at least show their teeth. 'Dutch,' the man says. 'Speak Dutch.'

Perhaps I can sufficiently to make myself understood. 'Dwaas,' I say, gesturing around me. 'Dwaas Hotel.'

I haven't finished when the man scowls and ushers his partner away. Have I committed some offence against Chinese etiquette? Three young women talking Dutch step onto the bridge, and I hurry to meet them. 'Dwaas,' I plead, holding out my upturned hands. 'Dwaas.'

How wrong can my pronunciation be? They seem uncertain whether to laugh or to react in some quite different way, but settle for dodging around me. The next person I accost merely grins and nods, and a woman widens her eyes and jerks her head back. I'm beginning to feel trapped in the cell of my solitary Dutch word when I have what I fervently hope is an inspiration. 'Pot of Gold,' I beg a businessman.

He frowns, and I'm wondering if he disapproves of such establishments too much to direct me when he points behind me. 'It is there.'

'No it – ' But it is, on the far side of the next bridge. Could I have overlooked it because I misread the name of the hotel? What kind of name is Sward? I have the unsettling notion that if I get any name wrong I'll be unable to perceive whatever it belongs to. 'Thanks,' I say and sprint alongside the canal before my goal can vanish.

The giant leaf etched on the window of the Pot of Gold unfurls to greet me. It's enlivened by a reflection from the canal. I shoulder the door open and fumble in my pocket as I stride to the counter. 'Here's your money,' I say and plant my fist next to my open hand on the counter. 'Where's my card? I need it to phone.'

The stump of a man shakes his large head, so that my fingers are twitching to grab him by the time he says 'You cannot phone from here.'

'In my room.' I open my fist to let him glimpse the coins. 'My card. I'm buying it back.'

He stares at the fist and reaches under the counter – for a weapon? The old Three Stooges trick will disable him. The first two fingers of my free hand stretch out like a snail's horns, and I'm raising my arm for a poke at his eyes when he produces my credit card. Knowing I nearly attacked him, I'm overwhelmed by panic. I open my hands, and the coins spill across the counter. My hot prickly head feels permeated with all the cannabis I can smell. I snatch the card from him and turn away from the room, which appears to be growing smaller and dimmer. A question stops me, and I turn back to him. 'What does dwaas mean?'

'Fool.'

His stare suggests he's calling me this, and perhaps he is as well. I begin giggling as I step into the night. Is the hotel called Sward or Sword? Is there a gap between the first two letters? I haven't time to check any of this when I need to phone the bank. I fall silent and lurch into the hotel.

The receptionist seems more elongated than ever. I'm reminded so intensely of an image of a fat man projected in the wrong ratio that I can scarcely bear to look at him as I say 'Any word from the airport?'

'There has been no change. We will let you know when they are coming for you.'

I needn't imagine that sounds ominous. I thank him and clamber up the stairs, which can't really have grown even closer to vertical. The enlarged two-dimensional flower borders that are the walls of the corridor aren't stirring in a surreptitious breeze. The slabs in the walls are classified by number, and mine is 14. I pass 12 and slide the card into the slot on the next one and twist the handle, or try to. The key doesn't work.

The number is unquestionably 14, and I sense 13 looming at my back. Who's in my room? Are they holding the door shut? More than one of them is laughing. Perhaps they're amused by my error, because I snatch the card out to discover that I've been trying to open the door with my credit card. I drag the key out of my pocket and shove it in the slot so hard it bends. I withdraw it before it snaps and lean on the handle, which yields at once.

I hold the door open with one foot while I grope into the dark for the slot that activates the lights. The room is as silent as a Tubby Thackeray film, and I can't tell whether the smell of cannabis is waiting for me or clinging to me or following me in. As I take another pace to reach the slot, a silhouette steps out of a concealed dwarfish entrance to meet me. I stagger backwards and laugh, having identified my reflection in the dressing-table mirror. I jam the card into the slot so viciously the plastic almost cracks.

The room is deserted except for the two of me. No, there's another in the mirror on the door of the narrow wardrobe. The laughter must have been in an adjacent room. I chain the door and sit on the bed while I find my bank card with the details of my account, and then I see that circumstances are on my side for a change. The number for reporting problems can be called free from anywhere in Europe.

A recorded female voice asks me to listen carefully and invites me to select one of half a dozen options with the keypad. Though my extremities, not least my skull, are prickling with frustration, I won't be fooled – I know that any option only leads to another list of more. The voice informs me that it hasn't recognised my response and performs its entire routine again before undertaking to connect me with an actual live human being. The voice that eventually answers the bell may be the same one; certainly it's recorded. It tells me that all lines are closed until tomorrow morning and offers to take a message.

I don't fling the phone at either of my wildly grinning reflections. I read the details from my card and tell the bank that it has turned my balance negative. I add my email address and Natalie's phone number before exhorting the bank to put the problem right and let me know. 'The name's Lester,' I say in case I omitted it. 'Simon Lester. That's Simon Lester.'

My reflections mouth it, which feels less like support than a threeway dissipation. I hang up the phone and wish I had a laptop to work on my book. The thought fills my brain with undefined ideas about Tubby and his collaborator, but for some reason I prefer not to examine them just now. I fetch the remote control and sit against the headboard of the bed and switch on the television that's squatting on a corner of the dressing-table. It hasn't many channels, and not a single one in English.

Although people are laughing on all of them, the jokes aren't visible to me. What's comical about footage of riots, for instance? I can only take the programme as some kind of satire. When a presenter starts to laugh directly into camera as if at my confusion, I've had enough. I switch off the set and wish I could switch off my equally electric skull. Perhaps I can doze if I lie in the dark.

I shouldn't have brought Tubby to mind earlier. Each time I attempt to follow a chain of pleasant memories – working with Natalie, befriending Mark, moving in with them – in the hope that it leads to sleep, I end up with Tubby's pallid luminous face swelling close to mine. Too often it jerks me awake, such as now. What time is it? Still dark. I raise my wrist towards my eyes, which feel shrunken with exhaustion. At first I take the roundish object that's hovering above me for my watch.

It's on the ceiling. Before I can focus, it slides down the wall and under the bed. It must have been light from the road, but how is that possible? Headlight beams beside the canal wouldn't reach up here. I must have overlooked a side road or an alley opposite the hotel. While I resent having to confirm this, if I don't I'm even less likely to sleep. I throw off the quilt and stumble across the narrow strip of carpet to yank at the cord of the blind.

There's no opening across the canal. The buildings stick together without a gap as far as I can see in both directions. Staring at them only gives me the impression that the ripples on the water are invading my skull. Did somebody in one of the houses train a spotlight on my room? The notion makes me feel watched, all the more relentlessly since I can't identify from where – and then I realise that a boat must have cast the light. I close the slats of the blind and turn away with a laugh, and step on the object that has emerged from under the bed.

My mind struggles to present me with the idea that I'm on a beach and have trodden on a jellyfish. The intruder is cold and rubbery enough, but the similarity doesn't work even before I look down. In some ways it does indeed resemble a jellyfish; it's flattish and as good as round, and pale, and glistening. It widens its eyes and its grin at me before slithering under the bed.