The Grin of the Dark

THIRTY-SIX - LISTENERS

We should never think history is fixed. That's as untrue of the cinema as it is of any other area of study, especially now that so much we thought was lost is being rediscovered. Sometimes we might feel as if the collective unconscious has repressed a memory. We can see why Stepin Fetchit became an embarrassment, though not in the French sense, but how long will anyone even remember him? By now the world has forgotten both how hilarious audiences once found Max Davidson and how his brand of Jewish humour was declared unacceptable. Of course some groups might prefer to pretend that Jewish comics never parodied their race, but the awkward truth is that he did for one. Now that he's safely embalmed in the form of extras on Laurel and Hardy DVDs, perhaps history can come to terms with him. Some resurrections may be harder to keep quiet, however. The films of Tubby Thackeray caused ructions during the First World War, and they're still difficult to contain within their genre. Comedies they may be, but his uniquely anarchic brand of slapstick seems to have tempted contemporary viewers to throw off too many conventions. Some resisted, some gave in, but nobody was comfortable with him. It's time to find out whether today's audiences will be more in sympathy with the films he made with director Orville Hart...

It reads as if I'm trying to delay discussing Tubby. I'm attempting to place him in a context, even if it's reluctant to accept him. The rest of the chapter sketches his and Hart's careers and speculates about Tubby's influence on the director's later work. It's as much as I can manage until I'm free of jet lag and able to do justice to the notes I made in California. I change several phrases and several details before emailing it to Colin. For a moment I have a sense of achievement, and then it's crowded out of my head.

By the time I went to bed last night, Natalie was asleep. When I awoke, having very eventually managed to doze, she and Mark had gone. I keep feeling prompted to ring her about Smilemime's latest, but for any number of reasons this seems inadvisable. At least my bank balance has been restored, though I've yet to receive an explanation. Just now I'm more anxious to understand how Smilemime could have made the allegation.

I want to believe it's just another deranged fantasy. Is it a coincidence too outrageous for any fiction to risk, or could there be a reference somewhere online to my stay at Limestones? I've emailed Willie Hart a link to Smilemime's message and asked whether she has any idea where he might have gained the notion, but she has yet to respond. I find references to several Simon Lesters like alternative versions of me on the net, but none of them owns up to any mischief. Even when I expand my search to include adults-only links, my name brings up no sex sites, and so how can Smilemime have tracked me down to one? I won't let him go unchallenged any longer.

Don't bother trying to threaten me with nonsense. And stop making allegations everyone can see are lies. I hereby invite you to post a link to the site. In fact I insist. If it isn't in your reply, be aware what that tells everyone about you, that's if anyone is even reading this.

Of course I mean if anyone is reading Smilemime's messages. The instant mine is sent I realise my mistake. I sit up so abruptly that the chair backs away from the desk. I'm not just frustrated. As the message was set loose on the Internet, someone burst out laughing beyond the apartment door.

It's my chance to learn who lives opposite. I leave the chair twisting like a dervish as I sprint along the hall. I'm not sure how derisive the receding laughter sounds. I grab the latch and fling the door open. At once there's silence in the empty corridor. The stairs are deserted too. I dodge to the door that faces Natalie's. As I peer through the spyhole, an eye swells to meet mine.

It's my reflection, which is why it seems closer than the far side of the door. I'm raising my fist to knock when I hear a voice inside the apartment. 'He's a silly, isn't he?' it exults. 'What a goose. A Christmas goose.'

I can't judge how near it is. I'm not even certain of its gender. Its words sound like an extension or translation of its laughter, especially when it adds 'Did he see himself on the screen? Was he doing all those funny things? What a funny face.'

I mustn't fancy that any of this refers to me. I simply want to know who's speaking. I'm brandishing my fist only because I'm about to knock, but the monologue beyond the door arrests it. 'Who had nothing on, then? Were they laughing at his dangly bits? He can laugh as well. They had nothing on and no danglies.'

What disturbs me most is the lack of any audible response. Is anybody there except the speaker? When the voice enquires 'He didn't mind everyone seeing him, did he?' I've had enough. I knock so hard my knuckles feel skinned raw.

For the second time there's instant silence. It might be pretending that I never heard a voice. I give it a few moments, more than I think it deserves. 'Hello?' I call and make to knock again. The door is snatched open, and as I lose my balance I almost punch a woman on her pointed chin.

She's inches taller than me. She's wearing a chunky white robe that barely covers the tops of her stiltish pallid shins. She thrusts a mobile phone into her pocket before I can determine whether she was speaking to it or about to do so. Her long face ducks towards me as if it's gaining too much weight to hold upright. 'He was nearly off,' she mutters.

Am I hearing the same voice? At least I may be seeing the explanation of the monologue. In the room at the end of the hall decorated with framed posters, a kind of sling hangs from the ceiling. The sling is stuffed with a large toddler in a white towelling one-piece suit that covers its hands and feet and most of its head. Beyond the doorway to the room the edge of a television screen is displaying some activity. 'You were talking to him,' I blurt.

I'm not sure this explains much, especially if she wanted the child to sleep. Perhaps my tone betrays my doubts, because she jerks her head high and sweeps her long black hair away from her face. 'Why shouldn't I? What's he got to do with you? What did you hear?'

I won't be overwhelmed by the choice of questions. 'Enough,' I murmur.

Why is she speaking so quietly when she wasn't before? Except for the sight of her I could imagine that a man is whispering. 'I expect it's how people talk to their children when they think nobody else is around,' I concede.

Her stare grows keener. Her eyes are very black and white. 'Have you got any?' she says low.

'Why, are you after some more?' I keep that to myself and say 'A little boy.'

'You don't look the type. Still, you can never tell.'

'Tell what?' I'm provoked to demand.

'I'd have said you were on your own.'

'I'm nothing of the kind.'

I attempt not to be distracted by the toddler as it bounces up and down in the sling as if to demonstrate how much it's entertained. The scrap I can distinguish of the image on the screen suggests a web site rather than a television show. 'So how old is your son?' says the woman.

'He's not my son. That is, I didn't have him.' To judge by her expression, I might as well not have added that. 'No good as a playmate, I'm afraid,' I say. 'Too old.'

Her lips part unevenly, revealing large teeth. 'Who for?'

'For whatever his name is.' When pointing at the toddler, whose bouncing seems unusually silent, gains me no information I say 'I'm surprised you haven't met Mark or his mother.'

'Why should we have?'

'Maybe it's me, but where I come from we like to know our neighbours.'

'We're enough,' she says more toothily still. 'You seem to want to know a lot when you haven't said who you are.'

'You can see,' I tell her, but she only widens her eyes. 'I mean you can see where I came from.' Her gaze doesn't waver, and I turn to indicate. As I wobble to a halt I feel as if my head or my surroundings are continuing to spin, because while I've been in conversation, if it can be called that, the door to Natalie's apartment has shut without a sound.

I have to glance down to confirm I'm dressed, which might make this less of a nightmare if I had keys in my pockets. I tramp across the corridor to give the door a manful shove. It resists as if some rubbery obstruction has lodged against the far side, and then it yields. I could imagine it has flattened the impediment, but there's nothing on the floor. I reach around the door to latch it open, only to find I already have. It seems easier to confront the neighbour than my own bemusement. 'There you are,' I say. 'I'm here.'

Her voice scarcely carries across the corridor, but I can't be imagining the sounds her mouth forms, having concealed the widest grin at my predicament – I'm almost sure it did. 'I'm still no nearer knowing what you want,' she at least mouths.

'Just to say hello as neighbours do. I heard you in the corridor.'

'What did you hear?'

I feel as if the conversation has reverted to its opening. I'm distracted by the toddler, which is bouncing so vigorously I can't focus on it to disprove that its gleeful face is swelling out of the white hood like a balloon. Of course the hood is simply being shaken off, and the screen isn't really displaying naked babies crawling over one another. I veer across the corridor, but I'd have to go all the way into the apartment to identify the greyish images. 'You were laughing at something,' I tell the woman. 'Can I ask what?'

'When?'

The question is little more than a baring of her teeth. 'Just before we met,' I say.

'I wasn't there. Whatever you heard, it wasn't me.'

I'm tempted to retort that she isn't audible now, but the view behind her has grown even more distracting. How can the toddler's antics be reflected in the glass within the frames of all the posters? Certainly there's pallid movement inside every frame, and I'm even less able to distinguish the posters themselves. As for the toddler, he has twirled like the contents of a spider's web to face me. With the distance or the movement of the sling or both, I'm unable to determine how widely he has begun to grin. The hood has fallen back, which lends it an unpleasant resemblance to a ruff of whitish fat. The toddler's plump unhealthily pale face quivers at each bounce, and I can do without the notion that it looks ready to slither off his bald head. I'm trying to find some element of normality as well as showing concern as I say 'Is that safe?'

'That has a name.'

Her lips haven't finished moving when she turns away. Perhaps she has decided that the toddler is indeed in peril, since she slams the door. I didn't notice her footwear, but she must be wearing strapless sandals for her tread to sound so large and floppy. 'Did he want to talk, then? Is that why he did such a dance?' she asks louder than seems to makes sense, and if I let myself I could imagine she's talking to me. I shut my door harder than she closed hers. I haven't time for any more meaningless diversions. I need to see what Thackeray left behind.