28

The mist, swirling in thin clouds, was illuminated by still blue arcs of light. Leonard felt a new alertness, a breathlessness, his mouth open to a quick harsh breathing. His raincoat trailed beneath his arm. It swung loosely with the heavy weight of the hammer, its hem dragging along the pavement.

The street was now only marked by the diminishing blue intensities in the mist. Tolson held him by the shoulder, half-supporting him.

‘What’s the matter, then?’

‘I don’t want to see you.’

‘What’s the matter with you?’

‘I don’t want to see you.’

Yet he walked in rhythm to Tolson’s own pace, his body sunk within Tolson’s arm.

‘I don’t want to see you.’

Tolson loosened his grip, his head moving towards Leonard’s with a careful, perceptive affection. ‘What do you mean?’ he said. His voice, though gentle, was heavy with threat.

Leonard shook his head. He was drenched in mist, his face glistening with a fine mesh of drops, beaded on the narrow fringe of his hair and across his sharp brows. He seemed dazed.

‘Here.’

He pulled Leonard to a halt. He folded him in his arms and, his head bowed like a man consulting a watch in the dark, he kissed Leonard’s mouth.

‘Why don’t we go somewhere?’ he said after a while. He was rather breathless, looking up at the mist as he might have glanced at an opening door. Suddenly he released Leonard.

But only a large dog passed them, soundless on the wet pavement. The next moment he wrenched Leonard’s shoulders more fiercely. ‘Look, I’m not running after you all the time! What’re you trying to prove? What the hell is it?’

For a moment Leonard didn’t answer. Then he looked up at Tolson directly for the first time. He still seemed shocked and distracted.

‘Perhaps, then, I ought to make a time to see you,’ he said after a while. ‘If I make a definite time then I’ll have to keep it.’ He stood thinking about this proposal, staring up into Tolson’s face and drawing his raincoat more firmly over his arm.

‘If you’re worried about us being seen together,’ Tolson said, ‘we could go off somewhere on the bike.’

‘No. No. I don’t think so. I don’t think so. If I see you, it has to be somewhere I know.’

‘But what’s all the bloody mystery about? I’m warning you. Don’t start playing these games with me, you shit.’ He glanced wildly about him for a second. ‘Can’t we go somewhere now? You bugger, I want you.’ He was nodding his head at Leonard in a violent kind of agitation.

Leonard had backed away slightly. ‘Doesn’t Audrey go out on Wednesday nights?’ he said hurriedly. ‘To her mother’s, somewhere.’

‘Yes. She goes out Wednesdays.’

‘Oh, God. I don’t know. I don’t know what it is.’ He ran his hand across his face. The next moment he drew it away and stared at the beads of moisture that lay in his palm. He rubbed his hand across his forehead and looked again at the drops of liquid collected there. ‘I’m terrible at arranging anything,’ he said, still gazing at his palm, and even holding it towards the vaporous glow of the nearest lamp. ‘I can never plan things and see all the unexpected contingencies that might arise as you’re supposed to. And the worst thing – I suddenly lose all idea of what things mean.’ He dropped his hand and stared down at the pavement as though moodily deliberating with himself. ‘I don’t know.…’

‘Look, there’s something I want to tell you. About Elizabeth.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘But I want to tell you.’

‘I already know. She’s told me. It doesn’t matter. Now will you leave me alone!’

‘She’s told you? Has she told you?’

‘It’s all right. She’s told no one else.’

‘But I wanted you to know. It wasn’t all one-sided.’

‘It doesn’t matter!’

‘I want you to know.’

‘It doesn’t matter!’

‘I want you to know. I was wrong!’

‘It doesn’t matter! Leave me alone.’

Tolson had begun to follow Leonard down the street, one hand stretched out to his shoulder as if uncertainly trying to waylay him.

‘I’m telling you. It was wrong. I’m telling you now.’ He caught hold of Leonard more firmly, preventing him from walking any further. ‘Now don’t go cutting up like a tart! It wasn’t one-sided. I’ve said I was wrong. I’m telling you.’ Tolson was desperate.

A familiar grimace of pain had reappeared on Leonard’s face, yet he seemed completely preoccupied with searching for something in the folds of his coat. Only when he had apparently found it was he still, and he began to stare intently, not at Tolson’s eyes, but at some point at the top of his forehead.

‘Don’t go acting like a prick! I’ve told you! Don’t act! Don’t act with me! I’ve told you!’

Leonard made no reply. He scarcely showed that he’d even heard Tolson. He stood perfectly still, his right hand pressed awkwardly across his body and buried in the folds of his raincoat, his eyes turned up to the dark knots of Tolson’s hair. He looked very much like a man about to take possession of something which for a long time he had known to be his.

‘Ah, fuck you!’ Tolson said, flinging Leonard from him, yet almost in tears. ‘Fuck you! Fuck you!’ He buried his head in his hands. ‘You never let up. You never let up. You shit!’ He wiped his wrist across his eyes and suddenly glanced round at the mist as though for the first time recognising its confining obscurity. His eyes glistened. He looked massive, penned-in.

Still Leonard watched him, almost remotely.

‘Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!’ Tolson screamed. He kicked out against a lamp-post. The metal structure shivered, rasping, and something dropped into the road. ‘You stinking, shitting runt. You runt. You runt!’

Tolson seemed to reach up as though, suspended above him, were some means of hoisting himself from the ground.

Then suddenly, he dropped his face into his hands. ‘Len. Len. Give us a chance, love.’

Leonard had begun to walk away, his feet echoing, a tiny, hollow sound flung out between the houses and buildings. An extraordinary silence had descended in the mist. The next moment they were consumed in a yellow ball of fluorescence as a vehicle swept by on the road.

Leonard walked stiffly, with a strange angular movement, listening to Tolson’s feet as he began to follow him.

‘What do you want? What do you want?’

They walked like this for some distance, separated by three or four yards. Then Tolson suddenly began to laugh. For a while he appeared to be talking to himself, his eyes screwed up in a half-smile, his lips moving rapidly and soundlessly. Then suddenly he increased his pace and was soon walking alongside Leonard, stooping slightly towards him as though to look closely at his right cheek.

They walked along like this until they reached the turning which led from the main road up onto the estate, Tolson laughing to himself very quietly, his eyes never leaving Leonard’s face for a moment.

Then, as they reached the sideroad, Tolson stepped into Leonard’s path.

‘Well, you said Wednesday, then?’

‘Yes.’

‘Between eight and nine.’

‘Yes.’

Tolson was still laughing, yet watching Leonard intently. A moment later he slowly bent back his arm and, with a half-cry, smashed him across the face. The sound itself had seemed almost one of warning.

Leonard stumbled, then he regained his balance, his arms flung out as though invisibly supported.

Tolson didn’t move. He still watched him intensely. ‘Wednesday, then. You’ll be there?’

Leonard made no response.

‘If you’re not, I’ll come and find you. Wherever you are. I’ll find you.’ He waited. ‘Is that all right, then?’

Leonard nodded. Tears had sprung to his eyes.

Tolson stared at him a moment. Then he swung round and broke into a run. Leonard, standing still, listened to his feet. They seemed to move at an unbelievable pace so that, rather than a fleeing man, they suggested far more the rapid and metallic chatter of a machine.