The Grin of the Dark

FORTY-EIGHT - RENTNOMORE

'Are you awake? Are you awake, Simon? We're there.'

Tubbysfilms, Tub is fill ms, Tub if ill ms, Tubby Thatstheway, Tub it hack a way?This and more of the same is all I've been able to think since we left home. I prise my eyelids open to see that we're in the park. How many tents have risen behind all the foliage? No, they're varieties of houses on a private road. Squat shapes and much taller ones throw their shadows on a broad white housefront. By the time I've established that the shadows belong to shrubbery and evergreens, the Punto has turned along the devious drive towards the house, which a sign names Rentnomore. 'Do you like it, Simon?' Mark persists.

I might find it more appealing if it weren't his grandparents' property. To the left of the door decorated with a festive wreath are two large curtained rooms. Two further sets of rooms and two smaller windows above the door mount to a rakish grey slate roof. The drive winds around the side of the house, but Natalie parks between her parents' vehicles in front. 'Most imposing,' I tell Mark and step onto prickly gravel.

As Bebe opens the door the thorns of the wreath click like eager fingernails against the oak. 'Now everyone's here,' she cries.

'So long as Mr L is,' Warren shouts.

Are they determined to welcome me or just to convince Natalie that they're trying their hardest? Did Warren call me Mr Hell? Bebe gestures us in with no lessening of enthusiasm when it comes to me. 'Don't be shy,' she urges. 'No ceremony here.'

There should be one at midnight, and why would she deny it? I'm too hyperconscious of words. I need to drink myself into some kind of good time for Natalie's sake and Mark's. Bebe takes my coat in the wide pale hall, where the secretive pattern of the silvery wallpaper appears to vanish before it reaches the top of the blond pine stairs. As she hangs the coat on a stand composed of bony branches, Warren emerges from the kitchen. 'Gee, that's a sorry spectacle,' he says of me.

'What's that?' says Natalie.

'This guy with no drink in his hand at this time of year.'

I suppose he isn't necessarily implying that I drink too much, especially once he adds 'What can I get all of you? Come and see.'

I'm dutifully impressed by the kitchen, which features a great deal of gleaming metal and expensive wood. I accept a capacious glass of Californian Merlot and amble into the hall. As I savour a mouthful from the Sinise vineyard Bebe cries 'Not yet. Don't go in there.'

I assume she's addressing Mark, who is close to the left-hand front room. I don't see how she could use that tone to a sensible adult. In the spirit of proving I'm one I say 'It'll be the dog, will it? What do you call it, Morsel.'

Mark giggles immoderately. 'That's not a dog.'

Presumably he means the name, since I can hear the animal barking, if more distantly than I would have imagined the house could accommodate. I'm surprised he hasn't encountered or at least heard of the dog, but before I can raise the point Bebe says 'You go in, Simon.'

She and Warren are watching me. So is Natalie, but I can't tell whether she's better at hiding some kind of amusement than they presently are. 'What's going on?' I blurt.

Nobody speaks, and I'm not sure if I hear stifled laughter. Surely the Hallorans can't have planned anything harmful when Natalie and Mark will see it happen. I grasp the cold silvery doorknob. 'Am I supposed to go in here?'

'You're the nearest,' Bebe says. 'You'll need to put the light on.'

I'm almost certain that her answer covered up a surreptitious noise beyond the door. Was it a whisper, less than a word, enjoining silence? I feel as though more people than I'm able to identify are holding their breaths. It's mostly to bring the impression to an end that I throw the door open.

The light from the hall doesn't reach all the way across the room to the figures standing in the dimness. More than one of them has a hand over its face. Is this to hold in some sound or to conceal their identities? 'I can see you,' I call as if I'm joining in a game and turn the light on.

As the room reveals that it's a home cinema, in which speakers surround a suite of slouching leather that faces an expansive plasma screen on the left-hand side wall, Colin uncovers his face. 'Happy occasion, you old bastard,' he wishes me. 'It isn't quite your birthday, so I can't say that yet.'

Beside him Rufus lowers his hand. 'Happy end, of the year, I mean.'

Their companions are student Joe in a T-shirt that says SAVE IT and Nicholas, Mark's father. I can't help directing some of the anger his presence provokes at Rufus. 'I thought you were going to wait till I brought my chapter in.'

'Did anyone say that?'

'I did,' I say just ahead of realising that I may have been alone in doing so, and confront Natalie. 'Did you know this was coming?'

'I knew your publishers were.'

'You're saying you invited them.' When she lifts her upturned hands I say 'Why didn't you tell me not to bother going to the office? I could have given them my chapters here.'

'And spoil the surprise?' Bebe objects.

'We figured you'd like to have some of your friends around you,' says Warren.

'How about the rest of them?' I refuse to feel guilty for asking.

'I expect that refers to me,' Nicholas says, though it doesn't exclusively. 'I just looked in for a drink and then I had to take cover with your friends.'

I suppose it would be churlish of me to say Joe isn't one, however much of a chum he insists on being. I'm trying to think of a neutral remark and feeling in danger of uttering rubbish when Mark says 'Can Simon open some of his presents?'

'He wasn't born yet,' says Natalie. 'You don't want him premature.'

Bebe emits a small dry sound, less a tut than a tick reminiscent of a scratch on an old record. 'Don't worry,' I'm prompted to reassure her. 'I never am.'

Her face seems to shrink away from my remark. 'Perhaps we should get on with the party so someone doesn't lose too much sleep.'

'Can't I stay up after midnight?' Mark pleads. 'My other grandma and granddad let me.'

The frozen silence is broken by a brittle jittery clicking. The ice has shattered into fragments – into the cubes in Nicholas's glass of orange juice, which he's agitating like a cupful of dice. He's either considering a response or expecting one, and goads Bebe to say 'They aren't real, Mark.'

'They're as real as anybody here,' I say. 'That's right, isn't it, you two?'

I would welcome more of a nod from Natalie and a less intense smile from Mark. 'Your grandmother means you aren't descended from them, Mark,' says Warren.

'I am,' I tell him.

'Like Jesus was descended from heaven,' Mark says, grinning more widely than ever.

'I don't believe we need smart talk round here,' Bebe says, 'especially at Christmas.'

Perhaps she heard more blasphemy than I did. I feel as though I've been accused of it. The silence is growing uncomfortably protracted when Joe says 'Did somebody mention a party?'

'Thank you for reminding me, Mr Kerr,' Bebe says. 'You're entitled.'

I won't ask or even wonder if the name is a joke. As his mouth settles into an abashed grin I protest 'It's never your birthday as well, is it?'

'Mrs Halloran didn't say that. We're making it your day.'

'Will you all join us in the next room?' As Mark takes a pace towards the hall Bebe adds 'Except you, Simon.'

Perhaps her smile means to be reassuring. The four partygoers give me a variety of grins as they sidle past me out of the room. Nicholas contrives to be last, and turns to say into my face 'Let's all try to do what's best for the family, shall we?'

He's close enough for me to smell a hint of leather, although he's wearing none. Just as low and with as much of a smile as I can muster I say 'Who's this all? I can't see that many right now.'

He doesn't move, perhaps in the hope that I'll be daunted by how much taller and broader he is. I've learned a new trick since we last met, from the guard in Lemon Street. I'm about to make Nicholas the stooge of my stomach – surely I'm allowed the odd joke when it's almost my birthday – until Bebe calls 'What are you boys doing in there? Nicholas, you're holding up the show.'

As he steps back he mutters 'You aren't as good with words as you think you are. No wonder you lost your job.'

'Whereas you lost – ' I have to take a breath to speak after my gasp of disbelief, by which time he's beyond earshot unless I raise my voice. What would Tubby do with such a pompous victim? Amusement hooks the corners of my mouth, but I suspect the audience would be less appreciative than I would like. Perhaps I can arrange to be alone with Nicholas later, and I continue to grin as Mark calls 'We're ready, Simon.'

I'm advancing into the hall when I hear a hurried whisper and a click. They've switched off the light in the next room. I have a wholly inexplicable urge to walk out of the house or run, it doesn't matter where. When Mark giggles beyond the door, a chill travels up my arm from the metal doorknob and shakes me from head to foot. I must be recovering from all my journeys, and how can I disappoint a seven-year- old and my lover, his mother? As I ease the door open I'm not hesitating out of dread but ensuring I don't knock anyone down, though the notion of people toppling like ninepins in the dark fails to bring a smile back to my lips.

The room isn't entirely dark. It's flickering like an image from a primitive film, and so are the faces beyond a long table. When I shove the door fully open the dim light grows still more uncertain. It robs red hair of colour and turns freckles black as pockmarks. It plucks at Natalie's features and her son's as if it's determined to puff up their flesh until they're as plump as her mother. It performs a similar illusion – using the treacherous shadows to reshape them close to identical – with Warren's squarish face and Nicholas's longer one. Then everyone sets about chanting 'Happy birthday to you' so enthusiastically that I could believe there are extra guests in the dark, and the candles on the cake in the middle of the table flare up. All the grinning faces appear to swell towards me, and another one does in my mind. Nobody present resembles it – not schoolboyish Colin or doughy Joe or Rufus behind his beard, and certainly nobody else – even if the instability of all the faces suggests they're about to transform. When I shut my eyes to put an end to the idea I see Tubby's face lying like a fat replete parasite on the surface of my mind. None too soon everyone choruses 'You' at length and Mark cries 'Now you've got to blow them all out or we won't have good luck.'

I suppose I should be touched that he's including himself and presumably his mother in my fortunes. I fumble for the light switch before opening my eyes to see that a dark shape has reached it ahead of me – only my shadow. 'I'll just put the light on so we won't be in the dark.'

'It won't be as special,' Mark complains, but I've already slapped the switch down. I keep my eyes open as I turn to the room. Everyone is smiling, and Bebe is coming at me with a knife – for me to use on the cake, of course. She lays it on the table when I wave it away, and it shimmers like a magic blade with flame. I suck in a breath that tastes of hot wax to extinguish the candles, but the breath emerges as a faltering gasp. Beneath the bristling candles is a clown's wide-eyed gleeful face.

I'm hardly aware of nervously scratching my wrist. I stop when I notice that Mark is imitating me. As I lean towards the black and white face of the cake I feel as if I'm confronting some unspecified dread. I can't tell how much of the heat is in the flames and how much in my face, though of course that isn't melting. I expel a breath like a long resigned sigh. The flames point at my audience and give way to scribbles of smoke. I expect the candles to relight themselves at once, but they don't play that trick. 'Well done,' Bebe says, more in the manner of praising a child than I like. 'You must have the first slice, Simon.'

I poise the knife while I consider how to mutilate the face. I cut through the button nose and as much of the right side of the grin and the downturned mouth as I can encompass without seeming greedy. I transfer the slice to the topmost of a stack of plates beside an array of parcels and envelopes addressed to me. I'm about to cut the rest of the cake when Bebe says 'Eat up, Simon. It's for you.'

'What's it like?' Mark asks before the slice divested of its candle has reached my mouth.

Perhaps a trace of wax has strayed into the icing, because it tastes indefinably odd. Everybody smiles more intensely than I welcome as I take the bite. They must be encouraging me to display pleasure, however amused they look. I do my best, although I feel as if the confected grin I've swallowed is returning to the surface of my face, dragging my lips into its shape. 'Good,' I'm compelled to assure Mark, but the word emerges as such a nonsensical mumble that Bebe frowns. Two further mouthfuls, which I mime enthusiastically so as not to seem ungrateful, finish off my portion. I let the aching corners of my mouth subside as I wonder 'Why a clown face, Mark?'

'It wasn't his idea,' Bebe says. 'The party was.'

'Whose was the cake?'

'Chums know what chums like,' says Joe.

Did I ever mention the circus to him? Another possibility occurs to me, one so disconcerting that I blurt 'Have you put something in it?'

His face may be about to own up to an expression when Bebe interrupts. 'I should very much doubt it.'

'You aren't in Amsterdam now,' Warren says and fixes his wide eyes on me. 'I heard someone ate one of those cakes there and went completely mad.'

'Well, thank you for the cake and all it's brought me, Joe. You must have the next piece.'

'I don't think I want it if it's offered in that spirit.'

'Who'll be next, then? Someone who can vouch for its innocence. We don't want anybody thinking Joe provided something questionable.'

I don't know why I chose that word. It makes my speech feel dangerously close to straying out of control, as if the ingredients of the cake may not be as trustworthy as I've been led to believe. I could almost fancy that the word has disturbed someone else in the room. Of course Colin and Rufus are aware of its significance. 'I think I'll take a rain check,' Bebe says.

'Me too,' says Warren.

Nicholas merely shrugs, and even Natalie looks disinclined to respond. I'm struggling not to imagine that she's being influenced by her employer, Mark's father, when Mark says 'I'd like some.'

I have an unhappy sense that his gesture on my behalf – even if it isn't one, that's how it's bound to be interpreted – will cause more problems than it solves. Nevertheless I cut him a slice that spans the middle of the clown's mouth. As he raises it to his own he says 'Can Simon open one of his presents now?'

I'm not sure how much urgency I sense. 'Any in particular?'

'The one mummy and her friend got.'

There's no mistaking the tension this brings into the room. I avoid glancing at Nicholas to discover how much of it is his, and pick up the flat rectangular package that wishes me happy birthday and love2 in Natalie's handwriting. 'This one?'

'That's right, isn't it, mummy?' Mark chortles, spluttering crumbs. He wipes his mouth as I untie the bow. Before I peel back the silvery wrapping I can tell that the item is a DVD. I uncover the back of the case, which is blank. Is emptiness the joke that's provoking Mark's caked mirth? I turn the case over and strip it of wrapping, and have to laugh as Mark does harder. The rudimentary cover tells me that it contains Tubby's lost and final film, Tubby Tells the Truth.