The Grin of the Dark

FORTY-FIVE - IN LEMON STREET

This time it's Mark's voice that wakens me. 'I've got him for you, Simon. Here he is.'

For an unfocused moment I think he means Lane, whose notes recommence their random clamour in my head. All rites are play... gods and demons alike don masks to address us, and who can say for certain which they are?... is the cosmos not itself a makeshift mask?... the clown takes his face from the devil of the mummers' plays... The last one jars me more awake, and as I struggle free of the quilt Mark plants my mobile in my hand. 'Who is it?' I ask the phone or him.

'Is this Simon? You sound a bit removed.'

'It is, yes. Who are you?'

'Your publisher.'

'Rufus? Forgive me, I've just this moment woken up. I've been trying to reach you or Colin for days.'

'So your secretary was saying, if that's who she is. Can you afford one of those now?'

'That was Mark. He's seven, and as for – '

'I'd have guessed a lot older. Someone must be bringing him up right.'

'I hope so, but what I was saying, I'll be begging in the street if my finances aren't sorted out.'

As I'm assailed by a memory of miming in Amsterdam, Rufus says 'Well, tut. What's spoiling your festivities?'

'They've paid you money they should be paying me. The bank's paid the university, I mean,' I say and strive to take hold of my words. 'Haven't you been picking up all the messages I left?'

'Maybe Colin has. The finance people are gone until the New Year. I imagine you're better off speaking to them.'

'Can't you? You're my editor.'

'Technically Colin is. Anyway, we'll see what can be done when we come back to the office.'

This feels like a flare in my brain. 'You're there now?'

'Not officially. We'll be shutting down shortly for the year.'

'Have I time to bring in my new chapters? I'd like someone else to have them besides me, but you know why I won't be emailing them. I've written up all of Tubby's films except the last one.'

'Depends how long you'll be.'

'No longer than I have to. I'm on my way now, all right? I'm on my way,' I gabble, heading for the bathroom. 'Thanks, Mark,' I say and pass him the mobile, but a thought halts me in the corridor. 'How did you manage to call them?'

'I just tried the last number, the one you kept calling.'

'Could you do me one more favour? Could you find the way to Lemon Street on the net?'

'Is that where your publishers are? Can I come?'

'I think you should,' I say, since Natalie's at work despite the time of year.

I rush my bathroom performance, grinning through foam as I brush my teeth, and compete with myself at dressing. I thought I might feel empty, having devoted several days to describing all the films, but it's as if Tubby has been stored at some deeper level of my mind. Mark is waiting as I sprint to grab the chapters from my desk. He's wearing a fat jacket and holding a printout of the route. 'That's the ticket,' I tell him and race him downstairs.

The white sky is a mass of padding. Everything looks faded – the Tower, the bridge, even the river. It's frost or the muffled light, but I have the impression that more than my foggy breath is intervening between me and the world. If I could define what has settled on my mind, I might be able to dislodge it. I dash across the roads whenever they're safe for Mark and at last down the steps into the Underground. The queues at the booking windows are even longer than those for the ticket machines, and I join one of the latter kind, only to find that it makes up for its brevity with slowness. I'm having to restrain myself from trying to beg my way to the front of the adjacent queue by the time I reach the machine. I specify the tickets and slot my credit card. The machine considers a response for quite a few seconds before displaying PAYMENT NOT AUTHORISED.

I don't know what escapes my mouth: words, perhaps, but none I recognise. The machine sticks out a mocking tongue – my card. I snatch it and am about to thrust it back in the slot, once I've regained enough control not to snap it in half in the process, when Mark says 'I can do it. I've got lots.'

'Go on, then. I'll pay you back.'

I won't deny feeling relieved to see him take out not cards but cash. The machine gives him tickets and change, our cue to run for the barrier and down an arrested escalator as a chill wind rises to meet us. How can so many commuters be using mobile phones down here? They must be playing games, however fixed their grins look. All the way to Euston the carriage resounds with electronic chirping, so that I could imagine I was in an aviary if I didn't feel surrounded by a giant subterranean computer.

The sky has grown fatter and whiter. I wonder if the poster fluttering on a lamppost along Euston Road could have been left by the Comical Companions, but I'd rather not be reminded of them. As I turn down Gower Street, past a turreted cruciform university building like a red-brick maze, Mark runs ahead in search of the side road. 'Careful, Mark,' I shout as I labour to keep up. Surely I'm moving faster than Tubby could. Mark isn't far short of the British Museum when he vanishes towards Soho. As I arrive panting at the junction, which is indeed with Lemon Street, he reappears around the six-storey corner, grinning almost too widely to say 'Quick, it's here.'

He's making it sound as if our destination is about to vanish. When I follow him along the Bloomsbury street I can't see where he's leading. His eyes must be sharper than mine. The apartments outside which he halts seem indistinguishable from the neighbouring blocks, five storeys rising to attics that protrude from the steep roofs. It takes me some seconds to notice that among the cloudy nameplates beside the massive oaken door is one for LUP, since the typeface isn't in the style of the colophon. Despite the number of businesses, there's just one doorbell. I clutch the envelope stuffed with chapters under my arm and thumb the marble button within the brass disc.

Is it connected to a servant's bell? The clangour sounds more like a handbell. Whichever I've rung, it brings no answer beyond a momentary echo. When my publisher's nameplate has grown white several times with my breath I give the button twice the push. The bell rings in a frenzy, but there's no other result. Is Rufus too distant to hear? Mark takes hold of the scalloped brass doorknob, which dwarfs his hand. He's only starting to twist the knob when the door swings silently inwards.

The lobby is half the size I was expecting. Plain white corridors lead out of both sides. A chair with a leather seat attends an imposing reception desk that bears a brass inkstand next to a blotter strewn with spidery handwriting, all of which might suggest that the past isn't so easily modernised. Tipsy plastic letters on a board beside a lift name tenants: doctors or psychiatrists, information technologists and my publishers, who are up in 6-120. The silence makes my ears feel plugged, and the lift isn't shifting from the top floor. 'Anybody here?' I shout.

Mark giggles, possibly with surprise. 'You are.'

I jab the button beside the lift. The indicator counts backwards so slowly it looks close to innumerate. The grey doors open to reveal Mark's gleeful face and mine. The side walls are mirrors too. I stare at the doors as the lift crawls upwards, but I'm aware of skeins of our faces at the edge of my vision. We aren't halfway when a movement to my left, away from Mark, catches my attention. He's grinning at my reflection, and I can't help responding. As I turn to the closest of his reflected faces I see myself grinning behind my own back. The sight must amuse him, because his mouth widens, compelling me to reciprocate. How much longer are we going to be caged with all this? If we continue to infect each other with painfully silent mirth I may not be able to speak to anyone. Are our faces growing more wildly hilarious the further they retreat into the mirrors? There can't be any other faces among them or behind them, but my vision has begun to flicker with the strain of trying to make certain by the time the doors creep apart. The laugh so faint it sounds secretive must be Mark's, because they open onto an empty corridor.

Mark looks both ways as though he's parodying kerbside safety and then runs left towards the 6-140s. The numbers to the right are higher still. How far does the building extend? As I step into the low narrow corridor, which is lit only by infrequent grimy skylights, Mark reaches the end. In an instant he's nowhere to be seen.

The cramped passage makes me feel clumsy and obese as I start after him. Overhead the sky is advancing like a glacier, but surely I'm faster, though I seem to have made little progress when Mark's flattened image slips out of the wall. That's how it looks until I see the corridor bends left. As he raises his hands I have the notion that he means to tug, however uselessly, at the grinning mask of his face. Instead he cups his hands around his mouth to shout 'They're here.'

He disappears at once. When I reach the corner he's standing outside a door as white as its neighbours and featureless apart from the hyphenated brass digits above the metal grimace of a letterbox. Given his eagerness, I'm surprised he hasn't gone in. 'Special delivery,' I call and press the handle down, but the door is locked.

'Rufus,' I shout and knock beside the 6. The sounds seem muffled by the dimness, too sapped of energy to travel far. When I knock harder the digits appear to quiver, but that's all. Could Mark and I have mistaken the number on the board downstairs? 'Let's make sure where we are,' I say and take out my mobile to poke the redial button.

A phone rings in my ear and beyond the door. I'm wishing I could enter as readily as that by the time the answering machine does its job. 'Happy New Year from Rufus Wall and Colin Vernon at London University Press,' says Rufus. 'Leave us your details and we'll be in touch when we've rung out the old.'

'Rufus? Colin? You aren't there, are you? Have you gone?' I scarcely know what I'm saying as I force myself to speak despite the mocking imitation of my voice on the far side of the door. It's on the answering machine, of course, however much it amuses Mark – so much that he covers his mouth. 'I'm leaving you my chapters,' I say, although my editors will find the manuscript before they hear the tape. I end the call and pocket the mobile and shove the envelope into the letterbox.

I have to use my free hand to open the reluctant flap, which yields barely enough to admit the envelope. I jam my finger and thumb under the flap while I lean on the package. Suddenly it flies out of sight as if it has been snatched from my hand. Did I glimpse some kind of whitish object through the slot? If I did, it looked plump. I crouch to peer through the letterbox as I should have in the first place. It frames the opposite corners of two sketchy white desks, beyond which a dormer window exhibits a virtually stagnant lump of sky. I must have glimpsed that, even if I don't understand how. I'm attempting to distinguish the titles inked on the spines of an untidy pile of DVDs on the left-hand desk when I unbend, and the flap clanks shut. 'Did you hear that?' I gasp.

Mark almost can't answer for giggling. 'It was you.'

'Not the door,' I say and hear the sound again. Someone is laughing in the corridor.

It's deserted except for us, and every door is shut. I'm about to conclude that the surreptitious mirth is in the depths of my skull when I realise that the door farthest from the lift is slyly ajar. The secretive chortling may be muffled by a hand, but it sounds indefinably familiar. 'Who is that?' I don't quite yell.

'I'll see,' Mark says and sprints along the corridor.

'Better wait in case – ' I waste time and breath in saying.

I'm not even halfway to the door when Mark pushes it open and darts out of sight. 'What's so funny?' he calls. 'Me and Simon want to know.'

His voice has grown hollow. Before he finishes, it's almost blotted out by footsteps flopping downstairs. 'You can't get away,' Mark shouts and joins in the laughter. 'We want to know who you are.'

As I reach the door I hear him on the stairs. This isn't the end of the corridor, it's just another corner. More doors and grubby skylights are the features of a passage at least as long and dim. 'Mark, wait for me,' I shout and elbow the door aside as it swings shut. 'Mark.'

He isn't on the only visible flight of stairs, which leads to a landing between floors. The close white walls cut off any further view. His footsteps don't hesitate. Like the much larger and looser ones, they're gathering speed. 'Let them go, Mark,' I call and blunder after him.

I'm running out of breath. My voice is so enfeebled it's as bad as silent. I'd be able to race downstairs if there were a banister, but I daren't risk more than two steps at a time with my palms pressed against the chilly walls. The stairs are dimly lit by a greyish glow that puts me in mind of an old film, and suppose it flickers out like one? I feel the dimness gathering like grime on me as I dodge across the landing and plunge down the next flight. 'Mark,' I plead just about aloud.

I've abandoned calling to him by the time I stumble to a halt. Surely this is the ground floor, though the exits are unnumbered, but the stairs continue downwards. Has the humorous fellow led Mark to the basement? Their distant headlong footsteps sound softened – by carpet, of course. They're on this floor. I drag the door open and lurch into the corridor.

They're already past the corner and gaining speed. 'Don't go outside, Mark,' I wheeze as I stagger in pursuit. Though the corridor is wider and the ceiling higher than they were among the attics, they don't let me feel any less hampered. 'Mark, stay – ' I find the breath to shout just as the outer door cuts off the sounds of the chase.

As I dash to the end of the corridor my lungs feel like balloons about to pop. Nobody is in the lobby until the lift opens to release a man in a capacious black and white uniform barely large enough for him. His small displeased face looks clamped by the grey expanses of his jaw and scalp. 'Where do you think you're off to?' he's eager to learn.

I point at the door and summon up a spare breath. 'After him,' I gasp.

'No you're not. You won't be going anywhere,' the guard says with morose triumph. Moving far faster than his weight would lead me to expect, he steps between me and the door.