of satisfaction and disgruntlement.
‘Ssshh!’ the priest cautions her.
‘Where am I?’ Ransom croaks, trying to lift his head.
‘You’re in my bedroom,’ the girl promptly answers.
‘I left you to lie in for as long as I could,’ the priest tells him (rather brusquely, Ransom feels). ‘Gene left for work several hours ago. But Mallory needs to go to school and I’m scheduled to meet the bishop in Northampton at ten …’ She checks the time. ‘I don’t have the slightest clue where Stan is right now, so …’
She shrugs.
‘Oh.’
Ransom feels overwhelmed by an excess of information.
‘I like your feet.’ The girl chuckles, pointing.
After a short period of deciphering, Ransom peers down at his feet. He can see nothing particularly remarkable or amusing about them.
‘Thanks,’ he says, just the same, and then slips a hand under the duvet to check he’s still decent (he is – just about).
‘Your clothes are folded up on the stool,’ the priest says, pointing to a pile of clothes folded up on a pink stool.
‘I folded them,’ the girl says.
Ransom lightly touches his head. He suddenly feels a little dizzy. And he feels huge. It’s a strange feeling. Because it’s not just his actual, physical size, it’s also his … it’s … it’s …
‘I suddenly feel a bit …’
‘Nauseous?’ the priest fills in, anxiously. ‘There’s a bucket next to the bed if you’re …’
‘If he’s sick in my bed I’ll just die!’ the girl exclaims.
‘… big,’ Ransom finally concludes. ‘I suddenly feel very … very big. Very large.’
He pauses. ‘And conspicuous,’ he adds, ‘and vulnerable.’ He shudders (impressing himself inordinately with how frank and brave and articulate he’s being).
Nobody says anything. They just stare down at him again, silently.
‘I’ve brought you some coffee,’ the woman eventually mutters. She proffers him a cup.
‘If he’s sick in my bed I’ll just die!’ the girl repeats, still more emphatically.
‘I feel like I’m trapped inside this weird, fish-eye lens,’ Ransom continues, holding out his hands in front of his face and wiggling his fingers, ‘like I’m –’
‘There should be a little water left in the boiler,’ the priest interrupts him, ‘enough for a quick shower. You can use the pink towel. It’s clean. And you can help yourself to some cereal, but I’m afraid we’re all out of –’
‘Not the pink towel, Mum!’ Mallory whispers, imploringly. ‘Not my towel!’
‘It’s the only clean towel we’ve got,’ the priest explains. ‘I haven’t had time to do the –’
‘But it’s –’
‘Enough, Mallory!’ the priest reprimands her, pushing the coffee cup into Ransom’s outstretched hands. ‘You’re already late for school. Did you pack up your lunch yet?’
The girl slowly shakes her head.
‘Well hadn’t you better go and do it, then?’
They turn for the door.
‘I won’t use the pink towel,’ Ransom pipes up.
The priest glances over her shoulder at him, irritably.
‘I won’t have a shower,’ Ransom says, intimidated (she is intimidating). ‘I can always have one when I get back to the hotel.’
‘Fine.’ She shrugs. ‘But if you do decide to …’
‘I won’t,’ he insists. ‘So don’t fret,’ he yells after the girl. ‘Your towel is safe.’
He carefully props himself up on to his elbow and takes a quick sip of his coffee, then winces (it’s instant – bad instant).
‘Where am I, exactly?’ he asks, but nobody’s listening. They’ve already left him.
‘Where am I, exactly?’ he asks again, more ruminatively this time, pretending – as a matter of pride – that he was only ever really posing this question – and in a purely metaphysical sense, of course – to himself.
* * *
Gene knocks on the door and then waits. After a few seconds he inspects his watch, grimaces, knocks again, then stares, blankly, at the decorative panes of stained glass inside the door’s three, main panels. In his hands he holds the essential tools of his trade: a small mirror (hidden within a slightly dented metal powder compact, long denuded of its powder), a miniature torch (bottle green in colour, the type a film critic might use) and a clipboard (with his plastic, identification badge pinned on to the front of it).
No answer.
He studies his watch again, frowning. He knocks at the door for a third time, slightly harder, and realizes, as he does so, that the door isn’t actually shut, just loosely pulled to.
He scowls, cocks his head and listens. He thinks he can hear the buzz of an electric razor emerging from inside. He pushes the door ajar and pops his head through the gap.
‘Hello?’ he calls.
No answer. Still the hum of the razor.
‘HELLO?’ Gene repeats, even louder. ‘Is anybody home?’
The razor is turned off for a moment.
‘Upstairs!’ a voice yells back (a female voice, an emphatic voice). ‘In the bathroom!’
Gene frowns. He pushes the door wider. The razor starts up again.
‘HELLO?’
The razor is turned off again (with a sharp tut).
‘The bathroom!’ the voice repeats, even more emphatically. ‘Upstairs!’
The razor is turned on again.
Gene gingerly steps into the hallway. He closes the door behind him. The hallway is long and thin with the original – heavily cracked – blue and brown ceramic tiles on the floor. There are two doors leading off from it (one directly to his left and one at the far end of the corridor, beyond the stairway. Both are currently closed, although the buzz of the razor appears to be emerging from the door that’s further off).
The stairs lie directly ahead of him. Gene hesitates for a moment and then moves towards them. At the foot of the stairs is a small cupboard. He has already visited seven similar properties on this particular road and he knows for a fact that in all seven of the aforementioned properties the electricity meter is comfortably stored inside this neat, custom-made aperture. Gene pauses, stares at the cupboard, then reaches out a tentative hand towards it.
His fingers are just about to grip the handle when –
‘UPSTAIRS!’
The woman yells.
Gene quickly withdraws his hand. He sighs. He shakes his head. He gazes up the stairs, with a measure of foreboding.
‘THE BATHROOM!’ the voice re-emphasizes, quite urgently. ‘QUICK!’
Gene starts climbing the stairs. Sitting on the landing at the top of the stairs is a large, long-haired tabby cat which coolly appraises his grudging ascent. When he reaches the landing it turns and darts off, ears pricked, tail high, jinking a sharp left into an adjacent room which – from the particular quality of the light flowing from it –