1

Eric

I got this room through a man in the Territorial Army. His name was Bayonet. One night he came up to me in the drill hall and said, ‘What-ho, me old soldier, I hear you’re looking for a billet.’

That was right, I said. The room I was in at the time didn’t suit me. I’m not a fussy person; but the woman downstairs cooked cabbage soup every night and someone was always flushing the cistern, through the wall.

Bayonet had this little stick he kept tapping against his leg. ‘Tell you what. My sister’s got a room she’ll let for seventy bob a week and no questions arsked.’

I was earning twelve pounds a week clear at the factory in Park Royal; so seventy shillings wasn’t really a lot to pay.

When can I see it, I asked.

‘Right now, me old cock,’ said Bayonet.

We took a bus to Cricklewood and sat upstairs because Bayonet wanted to smoke, although I don’t smoke myself. He liked to tell stories of the time when he’d been a regular soldier. One of his mates was peeling potatoes in Cyprus, just outside their hut, when a sniper shot off his balls. I didn’t think that was very funny, but Bayonet began to shake with laughter. I imagined that would have been very painful.

I liked the room at once. It has this large window that lets in a lot of light, which is good, because I can’t stand dark places. I looked around carefully. You have to be very sure. I once had a room that looked nice, it had this clean, shining appearance, but there were woodlice under the sink. So I examined the skirting for dry rot and looked under the bed.

There was a chair, a sofa, a wardrobe and a bed. Bayonet sat down on the bed and sighed. He seemed nervous. There was a sink and a little gas stove behind a curtain. The only thing I didn’t like was the colour of the walls. Pink’s a woman’s colour. It makes you think of women.

I wanted to test the bed, but Bayonet was lying on top of it.

‘Well now, what d’yer think?’ he asked.

I looked under the sink but it was dark and I couldn’t make anything out. But at least I couldn’t see anything that moved. I can’t stand things that just move.

‘What are yer looking under there for, me old cock, a bit of fluff?’

It looked quite clean, I said. I went to the window. You can see down into a little concrete yard and over the wall you can see part of the yard next door. A lane runs along the backs of the houses and there’s a street lamp with a blue light. On top of the wall little pieces of broken glass were shining.

‘Will yer take it then?’

Yes, I said. I liked it very much.

Bayonet got up and put his arm round my shoulder. He was smelling of sweat and aftershave. I’m sensitive to smells. And to noises.

‘You can have a bit of skirt up here any time you like – and no questions arsked. Eh? Eh?’

He began to nudge me with his elbow.

I wondered if I’d have to see his sister first. Perhaps she wouldn’t want me as a tenant. But I couldn’t see any trouble there. I’ve got good references. They say I’m a model tenant, clean, fastidious, quiet, considerate. She couldn’t quarrel with my references.

‘I’ll fix up that end,’ said Bayonet. ‘Don’t worry about her.’

I had another look round. I’ve had fourteen rooms in the last two years. This time I wanted to be sure.

‘There’s a month’s rent to pay in advance,’ he said.

He gave me his address and I wrote it down on a slip of paper. I had money in a post office savings account, more than enough to cover a month’s rent. We shook hands on the deal, I promised to send him the money next day, and then we left.

Yes, I liked the place. I looked forward to living there.

A week later I moved in. I rang the front doorbell and a woman came out. She looked at my two suitcases and she said, ‘Sorry, love, I’m not buying anything today.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m not selling.’ I could see that the suitcases had confused her. I stepped inside and put the cases down.

She put her hands on her hips. ‘Look, let’s get one thing straight. This is number fourteen Ponsonby Gardens –’

‘That’s right,’ I said, and I began to climb the stairs up to my room. I’ve got a good memory. I’d only been in the house once and I knew where to go. She came chasing up behind me.

‘Where the hell are you going?’ she asked.

‘To my room,’ I said.

‘Your room? Your room?’

By then I had pushed the door open. I began to unpack. There’s no sense in wasting time over these things. Well, the sooner you get it done the sooner you can get settled in properly. I opened the wardrobe and saw mothballs there. That was considerate of her, I thought.

‘Moths can eat clothes so quickly,’ I said.

‘Wait a minute,’ she said. She sat upon the bed and stared at me. She was a little woman with long red hair and a black dress that was covered with bits and pieces of thread, as if she’d been lying on a carpet or on a quilt.

‘How did you know about this room?’ she asked.

‘Bayonet brought me here. I sent him a month’s rent.’

‘Bayonet?’

‘Your brother.’

‘My brother!’

Her mouth was open. She had lots of fillings in her teeth and her tongue was yellow. She simply stared at me and then said,

‘The bastard. He’s got a bleeding nerve.’

I emptied one suitcase and began on the other. I could see that I wasn’t going to have enough space to pack everything away and I wondered if I could ask about getting a little chest of drawers or something like that.

‘Told you he was my brother, did he?’

I looked at her. ‘Why, yes,’ I said.

‘What a bleeding nerve.’

And she went out of the room, closing the door.

I finished the second suitcase and felt thirsty. I hadn’t brought any groceries with me and so I went downstairs to see if I could borrow some tea and milk. I don’t take sugar, you see, because it can affect the heart.

She was in her kitchen, just standing there staring, and the kettle was boiling away on the cooker.

‘Can I borrow some tea?’ I asked.

She looked at me absent-mindedly and then threw a hand up in the air. ‘Go on, have anything you like. You might as well.’

I thought that was generous. But I only wanted tea and milk and that was all I took, although I liked the look of the biscuits on the table. But it’s wrong to take too many liberties with someone who’s being kind.

I went back up to my room. Yes, I liked the place. I filled up my kettle and lit the gas and looked out of the window. In the yard next door I saw a black mongrel move about. It was chained to the wall, although the chain was a long one. I’ve never cared for dogs much, but I don’t dislike them either. I mean, I wouldn’t go out of my way to hurt one. Well, not really.

The woman came into the room without so much as a knock on the door. I might have been changing my clothes for all she cared.

‘Bayonet, that’s who you said?’

‘He’s in the Territorials,’ I said.

She began to shake her head back and forward.

‘Well, Jesus, that’s just about the limit. What a cool bastard he is.’

And then she went out again.

I made my tea and sat down to drink it.

When I finished my drink I explored the room carefully. The gas stove had two rings and they were small, but that suited me all right. Living alone, you don’t really need anything large. It would be difficult if you were entertaining somebody, cooking them a meal, but I don’t ever entertain. It’s not that I’ve got anything against it, but whenever I’ve asked anyone from the factory to visit me – either Charlie or Nigel – they’ve always been too busy to come. I don’t mind. Charlie’s engaged for a start and Nigel, well, he’s keen on sport and spends his evenings at a badminton club.

The wardrobe has a design carved on the wood round the door. Not figures or animals but flowers, thick-petalled flowers. Inside the door there’s a full-length mirror. I stood and looked at myself. Not out of vanity, you understand, more from curiosity. I’m five feet nine inches tall and round-shouldered. I don’t know why. Perhaps I slouched a lot when I was a boy. I’ve got fair hair that I always keep cut short. It’s healthier and tidier. My face is large and round and my eyes bulge a bit. There might be a medical reason for this, I don’t know. It doesn’t worry me.

I closed the door and examined the rest of the room. There are four blankets on the bed. And the sheets aren’t cold linen but warm flannel. I like that. You don’t shiver when you get in at night. The mattress is soft. I remembered Bayonet talking about having a bit of skirt up in the room. But I’ve never really had much luck with women. The reason, the real reason, is that I haven’t tried very hard. I took Gladys Millar to the pictures once, but that was only because I wanted to see My Fair Lady and I knew that she was going anyway. We held hands. Hers were damp and sticky from ice-cream and mine began to sweat. When we came out they were soaked in perspiration. Gladys tried to kiss me in a dark lane but she smelled so much of cigarettes that I was almost sick. Why don’t you feel my breasts, she was asking. Feel how soft they are. Lay your head against them. Why don’t you. Come on, come on. But I didn’t like that very much. Anyway, she left the factory not long after and went off to have a baby.

What I like most about the room is the window. The view isn’t much, but the window is nice. It takes up most of the wall, and it’s not just one big pane of glass but lots of little ones. It has a sort of old-fashioned look. I’ve seen windows like that in old pictures.

I sat on the bed and looked at the window. Other rooms I’ve had didn’t have decent windows at all. Some of them were small, some were bolted tight shut, and some would open easily but were difficult to close again. You can get very annoyed with things like windows – when they don’t do what you want them to. I suppose they’re mostly meant for seeing through. But they should open and shut just the same.

I don’t get angry very easily, I want to make that clear. I’m really mild-tempered and I don’t have a ruthless streak. But when something irritates me over a period of time, then I can really get angry.

That might explain everything that follows a bit better.

I washed up my empty cup and cleaned the teapot in the sink. And then she came to the door again.

She was smiling this time. She said,

‘I suppose now you are here, love, we might as well make the best of it.’

I didn’t really follow that. But I’ve found that it’s best to keep quiet when you don’t understand anything.

‘My name’s Agnes,’ she said and we shook hands. ‘What’s yours?’

‘Eric Billings,’ I said.

‘Well, Eric, how do you like your room?’

I said that I liked it very much indeed. It suited me. I told her what I thought about the window. And then I mentioned the dog, the big black mongrel, that I’d seen.

‘That’s Rex,’ she said. ‘He belongs to Mrs Peluzzi next door. Poor dear. Her old man dropped dead last month.’

‘Dropped dead?’ I asked.

‘Well, the dog’s the only company she’s got left now.’ Agnes shook her head gravely. ‘Mind you, she could do herself up a treat and get another man. But she’s Italian, you know, and you know what they’re like.’

I said that I hadn’t been to Italy, although there was an Italian, Benito, at the factory.

‘Factory? D’you work in a factory, dear?’

She was on the bed again. I thought this a bit of a liberty. She had crossed her legs. The tops of her stockings were full of holes.

‘Over at Park Royal,’ I said.

‘That’s handy for the buses,’ she said. ‘What do you do there?’

I told her how the big cardboard boxes come down a conveyor belt and how I have to fill them with smaller pieces of corrugated cardboard. I explained that there was a knack in it. You have to fold the corrugated paper with a one-inch overlap, otherwise it won’t fit the box properly. I’d found this out for myself. But I could see that she wasn’t taking it in properly. I tried to make it more simple for her but she said,

‘Now isn’t that interesting? Well, I never.’

And then she smiled and went out of the room and back downstairs, saying she had left potatoes on the gas. I walked up and down the room, feeling a real sense of ownership. It was very pleasant. The window was red from the afternoon sun.

What a pity that everything went wrong so soon.

2

I said that I wasn’t the kind of man who gets angry very easily. And that’s true. You can’t do much in this life if you go around losing your temper. I’ve always said that. But there’s a limit to everything.

I’ll come to that later.

After I’d tidied the place up, I went out to walk round Cricklewood. I’ve always lived in Harlesden or Neasden, so Cricklewood was a new district to me. I could see that it was grey and a bit drab, just like anywhere else. I saw a lot of Irish going into the public houses. They looked red, as if they’d just come from a steaming bath, and they were wearing black suits with wide shoulders.

I don’t drink much myself, just the occasional lemonade shandy at the factory social club. Once I’d taken three pints of beer at a wedding and was sick down the front of a lady’s dress. It was embarrassing.

Out of curiosity I went into one of the bars. It was noisy and cramped inside and there was this odd smell, a sort of mixture of carbolic tobacco and drink. I just stood there a minute looking round, and then I left again. But I didn’t walk home straight away. You have to explore new districts. I walked around the streets and went into the railway station to watch the trains. There’s something fascinating about trains, I think it must be the fact that they’re so noisy and yet it’s a noise you get used to after a time. You listen for a bit and then, though the sound is still there, you stop hearing it. Unconscious, that’s the word.

When it started to rain I went back to my room.

Agnes was talking on the telephone in the hallway. It’s in a gloomy little alcove. She had a drink in one hand and a cigarette was burning on her lips and ash spilled down the front of her black dress. Her feet were bare and dirty. I stopped and looked at her. I didn’t mean to, it’s bad manners to stare, I know that, but I couldn’t help it somehow.

She covered the telephone with her hand and looked at me.

‘Well, Eric?’ she asked.

‘Oh nothing,’ I said.

‘Did you want to ask me something?’ And she grinned at me slyly, crossing her legs one over the other.

‘Actually, I was going up to my room,’ I said.

She took a drink from her glass and coughed. Well, she rattled more than she coughed, and I wondered what was inside her chest that sounded so loose.

And then she began to speak into the telephone again.

I went up to my room and sat on the bed. It was really very odd, but meeting her in the hallway seemed to have upset me. I couldn’t get the picture of her legs and that sly grin out of my mind. I shut my eyes to make it go away, but it only became sharper. I wouldn’t say it was unpleasant, no, but I didn’t want to go around with it in my mind. You’ve got to have some control over what you think about, after all. I boiled water for tea.

As I sat in the chair drinking my tea, I could hear her speak from the bottom of the stairs. You’ve got a right bloody nerve, she was saying. When do I see some of the money?

I wondered if she owned the house, or if she was just the caretaker. She didn’t look like a landlady to me, and I’ve got some experience in the matter. You develop a nose for landladies. They seem to be shifty, always watching you, always asking questions and seeing that you don’t do anything wrong in their house. Agnes seemed like a caretaker, except that she didn’t seem to take much care. You only had to look at her to see that. Though you shouldn’t judge from appearances. Sometimes you can make the most awful mistakes. King, for instance, the man who owns the factory, wears a boiler suit and looks like any ordinary workman. But he isn’t of course. He likes to think he is.

It began to get dark and the house became silent. I hadn’t seen or heard any of the other tenants. But that’s how I like it to be. I undressed and got into bed and lay with my eyes open, just gazing up at the window. I liked the room. It was warm and cosy, although I hadn’t needed to put on the electric fire so far.

Then I fell asleep.

Off and on I get this dream. I’ve had it since I was a young boy and it’s never really changed much. I’m lying on a bed in a room I don’t know and when I look up I see that the ceiling’s covered with slugs. They’re moving, but only slowly the way they do. If you didn’t look closely you’d think they were still. And then, one by one, they start to drop off and land on my bed, all over my body and face. You’d think that after so many years the dream wouldn’t be horrible any more, because it’s so familiar. But it is. It’s still horrible.

I had it on my first night in the room. I woke up with my face and body damp. Only a dream, I always say to myself. You’ve got to be reasonable about such things. It isn’t as if they’re real slugs in the real world. Only a dream.

I tried to get back to sleep, but I couldn’t. Because it was just then that I heard it for the first time. That dreadful noise, that whine, which has been the source of all the trouble.

The black mongrel in the next yard was whining. It barked sometimes. Sometimes it growled. It even scratched the wall and rattled its chain. Mostly it just whined, a low whine that rose to a howl and then dropped back to a whine again. I was sure that it couldn’t keep it up. But it did. It did. All night long. I was still staring at the sky, fully awake, and darkness was becoming light in those tiny grey streaks, before the noise stopped and there was silence. Silence at last. I rubbed my eyes, turned over, and slept.

3

I’m not the sort of person who goes looking for trouble. Well, it isn’t wise to do that. But when I woke up on the Sunday morning I put on my dressing-gown and went down to speak to Agnes about the dog. I mean, you can’t have that sort of noise at all hours. It isn’t reasonable.

I knocked on her door and waited. After a bit she came out. She was smoking a cigarette and wearing only a nightdress. It was silky and short and I could see right through it to her body. I could see everything, but she didn’t seem to care. She rubbed her eyes and smiled at me. I looked behind her into the room and I could see a man sitting up in the bed. He was wearing a vest and had his hands tucked behind his head. Was it her husband?

‘I don’t want to complain,’ I said. ‘I’m not the type who goes round complaining. But that dog barked all night and I couldn’t sleep.’

Because she was looking at me in this funny way, I pulled my dressing-gown tight. After a minute she laughed as if she thought me stupid.

‘Well?’ she asked. ‘The poor bleeder’s got to have his bark, hasn’t he? How would you like it if somebody told you you had to stop talking?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘That isn’t really the point.’

‘Of course that’s the point,’ she said. She was running her fingers through her red hair, stroking it up and then letting it fall down again. ‘Look, I’ll tell you what it is. Old Rex misses his master, that’s all. He’s only a dog. He can’t be expected to know that old Peluzzi’s dead, can he? Well? Can he?’

I shook my head. She didn’t really see my meaning.

‘But your room looks out to the front,’ I said. ‘Mine looks out on the back yard and I can hear the dog better than you. I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t hear it at all.’

‘He’s got to have his bark. Now, that’s only fair, isn’t it?’

She crossed her legs and smiled at me. Her right knee was moving back and forward, back and forward, and she was pushing her hand through her hair.

The man in the bed shouted something. Agnes winked at me and closed the door. I waited for a bit and then I went up to my room and made tea. I looked out of the window. Standing on tiptoes I could see the dog’s head pressed flat against the concrete of the yard. He was sleeping. Small wonder, I thought. He ought to be sleeping after all that racketing.

I didn’t feel quite right. I had this empty feeling in my stomach. I get that sometimes when I haven’t had eight hours of continual sleep. It’s a bit like indigestion, only worse. It’s worse because there isn’t any pain. I drank the tea and then I felt better. As I dressed I thought about Agnes. Her attitude seemed unreasonable. I mean, she was all right because she didn’t sleep at the back of the house. Because she was all right, she wasn’t worried about me.

I wondered if any of the other tenants had heard it. When you’ve got a genuine complaint you like to share it with somebody else. So I went across the landing and knocked on the door facing mine. Almost at once it was pulled open and a young man in a black sweater was looking at me. He had one of those Chinese moustaches, the kind that droop down over the lips. He had long hair.

I told him my name and explained my business. He was very patient and didn’t interrupt me once. And then when I had finished talking he kept looking at me. He didn’t seem quite all right to me, because he looked as if part of him was absent. Perhaps he was sick. But I don’t know much about illnesses, since I’ve never really had a day’s illness in my life.

After a time he said,

‘You’re quite sure that a dog does exist, are you? The fact is, I’ve got a strange feeling that I’ve heard this all before, do you know the feeling? I don’t really like it much.’

‘But it barked all night long,’ I said. ‘You must have heard it.’

He blinked his large black eyes.

‘The problem really is one of consciousness. One oughtn’t to allow sensory phenomena to impinge upon one’s consciousness to the exclusion of reason. But this is all a bit of a drag, don’t you think?’

He was terribly intelligent. You could see that straight off. I didn’t understand him altogether. I’m not stupid, no, far from it, but my mind works in a different way. He stood there in the door for about a minute and then he added,

‘What I’m trying to say is that you ought to be able to get on top of it all.’

‘But the barking,’ I said. ‘Well, it’s more whining and howling than barking. You must hear it just as clearly as me.’

‘I don’t hear a thing, man,’ he answered.

I went back to my room. I sat on the bed for a time. When I looked out of the window the dog was slopping over a bowl of water. I know that I’m sensitive to noise, very sensitive indeed, but the dog must surely have annoyed somebody as well as me. I watched it for a bit. It drank the water, licked its mouth, and then began to sniff the ground.

I felt sleepy again, but the sun was shining outside. So I decided to go for a stroll. That usually clears the head. I walk quite briskly, which is good for the circulation. I went round the block twice, walked down to the railway station and looked at the trains, and then went to a café in Cricklewood Lane for breakfast.

I ate bacon and eggs and thought about the dog. I’ve never really been fond of dogs. Somehow they make me nervous, the way they sniff round your feet and then stare at you. But I’d never wished any dog harm. Once I’d even had a puppy when I was a boy. It was a little white mongrel with brown markings. I liked it, especially when it came to lick the palm of your hand. But it ran out of the house one morning straight into the path of a truck and was crushed. My mother cleaned up the remains with a brush. She just swept it into the side of the gutter. I didn’t really miss it, except at first, but after a time I forgot. Now I can’t even remember what I called it. It wasn’t Rex anyway, I know that much.

I finished my breakfast and looked up to catch the waitress’s eye so that I could order a pot of tea. I saw then that some of the other people in the café were looking at me. I knew why. Sometimes I think aloud, if you see what I mean. It’s not like talking to yourself, because that means you’re a bit funny, it’s more a sort of saying the things that are running through your head. I must have been doing it then. I smiled at the people who were looking but none of them smiled back. When the waitress brought me a pot of tea I drank it quickly and then left.

I went back to my room with a copy of the Sunday Mirror. I sat in the chair reading it. After a time the young man from the room next door came in. He had combed his long hair back and had tied it with a white ribbon in an old-fashioned style.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. He sat down on my bed and crossed his legs. For a moment I thought he had fallen asleep but he was only thinking about something. He blinked quickly and said, ‘If the dog really bugs you – now this is an entirely practical suggestion – you could get yourself some earplugs. A certain friend of mine has a pair that I know he’s trying to get rid of, so you could have them dirt cheap.’

This sounded like a good offer to me. But I didn’t want to rush into anything. I might buy the plugs and the dog might not whine any more. Then I’d be left with a pair of useless earplugs. So I said that I’d like a day or two to think about it.

‘I don’t want to push you into anything, man,’ he said. ‘But they might get snapped up.’

I shrugged my shoulders and picked up my Mirror. This was a bit of bluff on my part, because I wanted to look disinterested. That way, you can make it seem as if you don’t care. The young man got up from the bed and stood in the middle of the room for a time. We stared at each other. There was a long silence. He looked away first. I knew then that I’d get the plugs really cheap and that they wouldn’t go to anyone else.

‘Let me know,’ he said, and then went out of the room.

I lay down on the bed and finished reading the Mirror. There were some photographs of girls in it. One of them was wearing a swimsuit, but she was nearly naked. I held the picture up before my eyes and gazed at it. I imagined it to be Gladys Millar and she was saying, feel my breasts. Come on, come on. I imagined putting my hands down on the girl’s breasts and then I could almost feel her hands on my neck. But I put the paper away after that. Sometimes your imagination can be a bad thing, when it isn’t properly controlled and gets out of hand. I lay back and looked up at the ceiling.

I liked the room. In daylight the pink walls and the white ceiling were pleasant and comfortable. I fell asleep for a bit.

When I woke it was late afternoon. I heard Rex bark loudly and I went to the window.

He was jumping up and down at the end of his chain. A woman was putting a bowl of meat in front of him. She was a small woman with short black hair and thick, powerful arms. They were a man’s arms. She was wearing black clothes. I knew it was Mrs Peluzzi straight off. She watched the dog eat and then she turned and went indoors.

After that, there was silence.

4

Cats of course are different altogether. They’re proud and independent and only half-civilised. A dog will come sniffing round when you call its name but a cat will only look at you with disgust. A cat will come to you only when it wants something, but a dog will come almost anytime. Mind you, I don’t like cats all that much either. But if I had to choose between the two, I know which I’d pick.

As I watched Rex finish his dinner I thought about cats. But not for very long, because as soon as the dog had licked his bowl clean he did a disgusting thing. He lifted his leg, wet the ground, and then smelled what he had done. He seemed to take great pleasure in doing this. His pink tongue was flicking out and in and his eyes were fixed to the pool of urine. And then he opened his mouth very wide and shook his head back and flattened himself out on the concrete.

I sat on the bed and picked up my Sunday Mirror again. I was reading the sports pages when there was a knock on the door and Agnes came into the room. She was still wearing her see-through nightdress but on top of this she had a dressing-gown that hung open. She was really a slovenly creature. She had a cigarette stuck in her mouth.

She sat beside me on the bed and said,

‘I hope you’re settling in nicely.’

I then explained to her about the noise of the dog and she smiled sympathetically and dripped her ash on the carpet.

‘Like I said,’ she said, ‘Rex is pining away for his master. Now, I don’t think you want to take too much notice of any noise he might make, because that’s bound to pass. Have you met any of the other tenants yet?’

I told her about the young man.

She said, ‘Oh, Roderick’s a dear. You wouldn’t think so to look at him, but he comes from a wealthy family.’

‘He’s very intelligent,’ I said. I didn’t want to talk about Roderick, I wanted to talk about the dog. But she wasn’t interested.

‘Highly intelligent,’ she said. She looked about for an ashtray and then threw her cigarette into the hearth. I picked it up and stamped it out and then went to the window. Sitting close to her on the bed, I had discovered that she smelled a bit. It wasn’t a strong smell, but because I’m sensitive to smells of all kinds, I had to move away.

She said, ‘I hope you pay your rent on time, Eric.’

‘I’ll pay you once a month, regularly,’ I said.

She nodded her head. Strands of her hair kept slipping about her face. She got up from the bed and stretched her arms. Her nightdress rose up her legs. She wasn’t wearing stockings and I could see dark blue veins around her thighs.

‘I have to go to work tomorrow,’ I said. I knew that wasn’t really relevant, but sometimes I say things that just come into my head. It’s bad habit, because it makes you lose the thread of conversation. It’s one of my few faults really, and I keep saying that I’m going to be more careful in future.

‘Do you like to get up early?’ she asked.

‘I’m usually dressed by seven,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘an early bird.’

I laughed. She looked at me strangely and then laughed herself, although she didn’t seem to be laughing at the same thing as me. But while we were laughing together I felt that I liked her. You can never be sure with people, though. You never quite know what you’re getting. With rooms it’s different, because you can always look under the sink and tap the skirting, but you can’t do anything like that with people.

She sat down again and took another cigarette from her dressing-gown. I had to open the window. Rex barked from the yard and for a second I was afraid that he was starting up again. But he only barked once.

‘It’s cold in here,’ she said.

I did some of my breathing exercises at the open window.

‘It’s a funny thing,’ she said, ‘but I feel that you’re not quite at ease with me, are you, Eric?’

‘At ease?’

‘You seem all sort of nervy.’

‘Ah, well,’ I said.

She puffed at her cigarette.

‘Do you know what I mean, love?’

I didn’t like the way she seemed to be getting personal. Gladys Millar had been a bit like that before she went off to have her baby. She kept coming up to me in the canteen and sitting at my table and I saw how she was getting fatter all the time. I thought that she was just putting on weight, I didn’t dream it was because of a baby. But she said things to me that put me off my dinner. This annoyed me, because the canteen food is of a high quality. Besides, it was a waste of money. She kept saying personal kinds of things. She asked what colour was my underwear and did I ever stain it. She asked if I’d like to put my hand up her knickers. She asked if I wanted to have her and did I ever wank thinking about her. In the end I had to avoid her by going to a café near the factory where the food was inferior and more expensive, but it was worth it just for the peace of mind I got.

‘Do you know what I mean, love?’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said.

‘You’re not a poove, are you? I’ve got nothing against pansies, you know. Some of my best friends are that way inclined, so you needn’t be ashamed.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘No, no.’

‘Just so long as we get that straight,’ she said. ‘I mean, you could entertain your boyfriends up here, it wouldn’t bother me one bit.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I said I wasn’t.’

‘We’ve had queers here before,’ she said. ‘I draw the line at sadists, though.’

I sat down on the chair and stared at her. She was leaning back across the bed with her knees raised up and her arms by her sides.

I said something about the dog and how it had disturbed my rest.

She said, ‘You must pop down for a cup of tea sometime.’

I gazed up at the ceiling for a bit. Then she straightened herself and walked over to the door.

‘I could speak to Mrs Peluzzi herself,’ I said.

‘You don’t want to do that, darling. Mrs Peluzzi’s still in mourning and she wouldn’t thank you for complaining about Rex. Just forget all about it. It’ll pass.’

After she had gone I felt exhausted. I didn’t care for the way she had become personal all of a sudden. It was a bit too much for me. I believe that you’ve got to keep yourself to yourself. If you go around probing into other people’s business, you can get a bad reputation. The Italian at the factory, Benito, asks questions all the time. He doesn’t ask others, just me. How many women you raped this week, eh? How many fall down at your feet begging you for it, eh? That kind of thing goes over the limit. Now I just don’t answer him any more. If he hasn’t got a personal life of his own, he’s not going to share any of mine.

I boiled two eggs and had some buttered toast with them. And then, at eight-thirty, I went to bed.

Rex woke me just before midnight. I sat up. I could hear him whining, his chain rattling, his claws scraping the wall. I knew he missed his master, but I couldn’t feel any real sympathy for him. I just sat there in the dark and listened to this awful whine. It was impossible to get any sleep. I got out of bed and turned on the light and made a pot of tea. But I didn’t enjoy that either. I sat down in the chair and tried to think of other things, so that I could take my mind off the din. But the noise fixed itself on to me. After a time it seemed to be coming from inside my head. I opened my door and went on to the landing. The house was dark and utterly quiet. I went downstairs and stood in the corridor.

A clock began to chime midnight.

I heard voices coming from Agnes’s room. One of them was hers, the other a man’s. I just stood there listening to the hum of their conversation without really hearing what they were saying.

And then a door was opened and the hall was suddenly alight.

‘On a midnight prowl, Eric?’ Agnes asked.

I closed my eyes. This time she didn’t have any clothes on at all.

Still with my eyes closed I said,

‘It’s Rex, I can’t sleep.’

And then I turned away and went quickly back upstairs. When I reached the landing I could hear her laugh. I closed the door of my room. The room was filled with the noise of Rex.

I lay down on the bed and pulled the pillow over my head. But that wasn’t any good. I couldn’t get rid of the sound. I couldn’t get rid of it.

5

I fell asleep on the bus to Park Royal with the result that I went past my stop. I woke up, realised what had happened, and rang the bell. The conductor became very annoyed.

‘Thass my job, mister, thass not your job,’ he said.

When the bus stopped I jumped off and ran all the way to the factory. I’d never been late before. I was proud of my timecard, because I always clocked on with at least eight minutes to spare. I knew, you see, that King himself looked at all the cards every week, and he had only to glance at mine to see how keen I was. Then, if there was any promotion going, I’d stand a good chance. Not that I was discontented with what I was doing, far from it, but you’ve got to be shrewd enough to look for opportunities. So I clocked on with eight minutes to spare with good reason.

The gatekeeper asked me if I couldn’t get out of the nest that morning. I punched my time. It was eight-twenty. I was twenty minutes late. I didn’t stop to ask him what he meant by ‘nest’. I hurried into my overalls and went to the belt. I stand at Number Three in Section Ten. Section Ten is packing, corrugated packing, and Number Three is the square in which I stand.

I worked extra hard until the tea break at ten and when I went into the canteen Benito came up to me and said,

‘The gay life, it is killing you, Eric.’

I stirred my tea and didn’t answer. He laughed and punched me on the spine but I didn’t want him to see that he’d hurt me. And then Nigel and Charlie came over. They were giggling together.

‘King’s looking for you,’ Charlie said. Charlie’s a big broad man with fair hair and freckles. ‘He wants to see you on the double.’

‘You’re for the high jump,’ Nigel said.

My hand began to shake. I didn’t really believe them, because they’d been giggling. Sometimes I think they take me for a fool. But I couldn’t stop my hand shaking.

‘You’re trembling,’ Charlie said. ‘You’ve been abusing yourself again, haven’t you?’

‘You haven’t been reading your Baden-Powell, have you?’ Nigel asked.

‘That’s very naughty,’ Charlie said. ‘You should read two chapters every night, Eric, you naughty boy.’

‘What does King want me for?’ I asked. I didn’t believe a word of it.

‘He gets thirsty,’ said Nigel. ‘He wants some of your blood.’

‘You’re having me on,’ I said.

‘Cross my heart,’ Charlie said. ‘He was looking for you only a moment ago. You’ve got to go upstairs at once.’

‘No,’ I said. I began to tell them that I’d fallen asleep on the bus, but Nigel said that I could pull the other leg. I finished my tea. Now they were looking serious. I got up from the table.

‘You’d better hurry, mate,’ Charlie said.

‘You don’t want to keep King waiting,’ Nigel said.

I went upstairs to King’s office. I still didn’t really believe them, but they seemed serious. King has a little office with a window that looks into the factory floor. Sometimes you can see his face there, staring down at his workers. Sometimes you can see him bent over his desk.

He had a new secretary that morning. His secretaries seem to come and go very quickly. They never stay longer than a month.

‘Mr King,’ I said.

She was chewing a pencil. She didn’t even look at me. She just nodded her head towards King’s door. I went straight through.

King was sitting behind his desk. He was wearing his boiler suit and looking at some large sheets of blue paper that were spread out in front of him. They looked like maps or diagrams.

‘You wanted me to see you, Mr King,’ I said.

He’s a very big man with a huge stomach that comes out from the rest of his body, as if he’s got a pillow stuffed up there. It doesn’t look genuine. He has great hands that are grimy and his face is covered with spots and pocks. He looked up at me after a minute and narrowed his eyes.

‘Who the hell are you?’ he asked.

‘I stand at Number Three in Section Ten, Mr King,’ I said.

‘What the hell does that mean?’ he asked.

‘Corrugated packing.’

‘Why should I want to see you?’

‘I was twenty minutes late this morning,’ I said. ‘I know you’ll see that for yourself when you look at the timecards, but I’d like to explain.’

He brought his two large hands together with a thump. I started to tell him about Rex and about how he barked, keeping me from sleeping, and how he was just pining for his dead master, Mr Peluzzi, who had dropped dead not long ago. I told him that the situation would change in the near future when Rex got over his loss. I was going to tell him about Agnes and how she went around without clothes on, but I stopped myself in time. I managed to explain how I was sensitive to noise. I got the impression all this time that he wasn’t really listening, because while I was speaking he picked up his telephone and dialled a number and started to talk to the person at the other end of the line. However, I kept talking until I’d finished.

He put his telephone down and stared at his papers. I could see that he was really concentrating on them, his forehead was damp and his face was tight, and I could feel something of his tremendous energy and dedication. For a moment I wished that he would give me the chance to show him that I could concentrate just as hard, that I could be a great asset to the firm. But just then the hooter sounded and the machines started to work again.

He looked up.

‘Jesus Christ, are you still here?’ he asked.

I didn’t know what to say to him. I thought he had been aware of me in the office. I started to move towards the door.

‘Leave,’ he said.

His secretary was slurping coffee and staring at her fingers. She glanced at me, twisted her mouth, and then blew her nose on a piece of tissue. I went downstairs to the lavatory.

Seeing King at work had impressed me. He was so single-minded. It was the same kind of approach that I gave to putting the pieces of corrugated, folded with a one-inch overlap, into the cardboard boxes.

While I was doing up the tin buttons of my overalls, I saw that my name had been written on the lavatory wall. The writing said: Who has the biggest cock in the factory? ERIC BILLINGS HAS.

Benito could have written it. Or Nigel, or Charlie. I tried to rub it off with my sleeve but it only looked worse afterwards. I couldn’t imagine any of them writing the same thing about Mr King.

I went back to my place and worked hard for the rest of the day.

Sometimes you can find some kind of escape in your work.

6

I fried three sausages that night for my supper. After I’d eaten and washed up, Roderick came into my room. He was carrying a brown paper bag.

‘I’ve got the earplugs you wanted,’ he said.

He opened the bag and brought out a piece of wire that had corks at each end.

‘My friend’s prepared to let them go for five bob,’ he said.

‘How do I know if they’re any good,’ I said. I had the measure of Roderick. He might be an intellectual, but he didn’t have my shrewdness. ‘They might be hopeless.’

He stood in the centre of the floor looking up and down the walls.

‘They should be very effective,’ he said. He began to play with his moustache. ‘My friend recommends them highly.’

I gave him two half-crowns. ‘If they don’t work, I want my money back,’ I said. I examined the earplugs closely. The thin wire was twisted in places and the corks were crumbling. They didn’t look too promising. But I would have tried anything.

‘Fine,’ he said, and went over to the window and looked out. He began to tap his fingers against the glass. After a bit I asked him to stop doing this. I explained that I was sensitive to noises.

He said that he was sorry but he didn’t stop his tapping. He then explained that he was a compulsive tapper and that he’d tap any kind of surface just so long as it was smooth to touch.

‘I’m neurotic, actually,’ he said.

Of course, I’d known all along, from the very first, that there was something wrong with him. And now he had come out with it. After a time he moved away from the window and looked at one or two things that were on the mantelpiece.

‘I’m also a nosy bastard,’ he said.

‘These plugs don’t look up to much,’ I said.

Roderick sighed. It was a deep sort of sound, as if it had come from his belly and travelled a long way upwards.

‘My neurosis manifests itself in (a) an unwillingness to work, (b) in an intense curiosity about the trivia of other lives and (c) in window-tapping.’ He sat down on the bed and sagged. His head fell forward between his shoulders. He reminded me of a stuffed vulture I’d seen in a museum.

‘Can I get you a glass of water?’ I asked.

‘You can get me one, certainly, but a fat lot of good it would do,’ he said.

I stared at the earplugs. Had I been too harsh on him? I straightened the wire out and said, ‘Well, you never know, these might just do the trick. I could put some sticking plaster on the corks, though.’

Roderick said, ‘I can’t see what life is all about. And because I can’t find a purpose, I’m inclined to suppose that everything is absurd. Your earplugs, for instance.’ He started to laugh. His head shook up and down. ‘Originally they were part of a mobile that my friend was transporting to a festival of avant-garde sculpture. But they fell off and he used them as earplugs. That’s absurd, don’t you think?’

‘Ah, well,’ I said. ‘This is really a fine piece of wire.’

He tapped his fingers on his knees and then got to his feet. He was clever, but I felt quite sorry for him. He stood in the doorway a moment just looking at me.

‘If the earplugs don’t work, you might try strangling the animal,’ he said.

After he’d gone, I thought about his last remark. It shocked me. It really did. All right, I didn’t like Rex. But I didn’t wish him any harm. He didn’t realise that his noises disturbed me. He was only a dog, after all, a dumb animal.

I walked to the window and looked down. He was slurping water from his bowl. Sometimes he stopped and his ears would prick up and he would listen to something. I read somewhere that dogs can hear very high sounds that humans can’t and that you can buy special whistles that only dogs can hear. Perhaps Rex heard things that I couldn’t. When he pricked his ears I couldn’t hear a thing. There was only silence. What was he listening to? I wondered.

Then Mrs Peluzzi came into the yard. And she did something very odd.

She got down on her knees and held her arms out and let Rex jump up against her breasts. He was licking her face and moaning a bit and she was burying her hair into his neck. It didn’t look quite right to me. There was something strange in the whole business. Rex might have been a man, not a dog, the way she was behaving. Then she took out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes. She got to her feet and pushed the dog away. Rex whimpered a bit and then went back to slurping his water and Mrs Peluzzi went indoors.

After that I put on my coat for my evening stroll.

It started to rain when I left the house. I walked to the café in Cricklewood Lane and went inside to have a cup of tea.

I saw Bayonet sitting at a table in the far corner. When I went over to him he didn’t seem very pleased to see me at first.

He asked, ‘Well, me old son, how’s yer new billet?’

I told him about the dog. He shook his head.

‘That’s too bad, too bad,’ he said. ‘Still, it can’t go on forever, can it? Eh? Eh?’

He began to nudge me with his elbow. It’s an irritating habit, especially when you’re trying to drink tea.

He took a little flask from his pocket and poured some liquid into his coffee.

‘That’s the way the Irish drink it,’ he said. He lit a cigarette and blew his smoke into my face.

‘Otherwise,’ I said, ‘the room suits me. You see, I’ve had fourteen rooms in the last two years and I’m determined to settle down in this one. It gets very tiresome changing all the time.’

‘Of course it does,’ he said.

‘Everything would be fine, except for that dog.’

‘The dog, yes.’ He was fidgeting with his cup. Then he looked at his watch. ‘Well, I must be off.’ He got up and put his hand on my shoulder. ‘By the way, I’d be obliged if you didn’t mention to my little sister that you’d seen me.’

And then he went out into the street. As I finished my tea, I thought it a bit odd that he didn’t want me to speak to Agnes. It’s customary, after all, to pass messages on to your relatives when you meet somebody in a position to do so. Still, it was no skin off my nose, as they say.

I left the café and walked home.

I was feeling very tired so I undressed and got into bed. I must have fallen asleep straight off. The next thing I remember is waking up at midnight and hearing Rex. His noise isn’t like the sound a train makes. With trains, you can forget the noise, because somehow it just seems to melt into the background and after a bit you don’t really hear it. But with Rex it was totally different. The noise he made was as irritating as a rash on the skin that you have to keep scratching all the time. You can’t just ignore it.

I put on the earplugs. I had to stretch the wire a bit first. Roderick’s friend must have had a tiny head. I pushed the corks into my ears, but this was painful when I tried to lie on my side. And I can’t sleep on my back. Whenever I do I seem to get bad dreams. Anyway, pieces of the corks were breaking off and going down inside my ears, tickling me.

I pulled the blankets over my head, but I found it hard to breathe. So I turned on the light and sat on the edge of the bed. I was beginning to feel desperate by this time. In spite of the plugs I could still hear Rex clearly. I went over to the window and pushed it open.

‘Be quiet! Be quiet!’ I shouted down.

There was silence for a split second. In the reflection of the lamp in the lane, I could make out the dog’s dark shape moving around below. He wasn’t silent for very long. He started up again, worse than before.

‘Hush! Hush!’ I said, thinking he might understand that a bit better.

But he didn’t. He was leaping up at the wall, whining, and his chain was clanking and his paws were scraping the stone. I felt like killing him for the first time. I felt like going down there with a hammer and striking him again and again. I ripped the earplugs off my head and threw them down. They hit the wall and dropped down on Rex’s side. There was silence while he sniffed the corks and I could hear him chew them and then spit out the pieces. He stared up at my window. His eyes were shining green and blue in the light.

I pulled the window shut, turned off the light and went back to bed. But it was no good. It was hopeless, hopeless. I tried to think of something I could do. I thought of throwing down a piece of drugged meat, but I knew nothing about drugs, and anyway he might be suspicious and not eat it. I was desperate. What could I do? What could I do? This was worse than cabbage soup or flushing cisterns.

I didn’t fall asleep until it was dawn.

7

When you’re used to sleeping eight hours at a time it comes as a bit of a shock to your system when your sleep is interrupted all the time. You start to get nervy and jumpy and you wake with a sore head. The next morning I didn’t open my eyes until half-past nine. I’d slept right through the alarm. I started to get out of bed quickly. With some luck I could get into the factory at ten. But somehow all my energy had deserted me. I lay down again and stared up at the ceiling, my eyes wide open. I could telephone the personnel manager and say that I was sick. I couldn’t go to the factory in this condition, and I couldn’t go late two mornings running.

It was best, I thought, not to go at all.

I dressed slowly and boiled water for tea. I was just sitting down to drink it when Agnes came to the door. She was wearing her black dress and had her red hair tied up on the top of her head with a pink clasp.

‘Eric, you’re late,’ she said.

‘I’m taking the day off,’ I said. I explained that I’d had a bad night.

‘Oh dear,’ she said and sat down on the unmade bed.

‘And there’s no point in going at this hour,’ I said.

‘Do you want me to phone your work, love? I’m a good liar. I’ll say you’ve got diarrhoea if you like.’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ I said.

‘I’ve been making excuses all my life,’ she answered.

She smoked a cigarette and watched me drink my tea. I would have offered her a cup, except I didn’t really want her to stay. I wanted to be on my own. I still felt dead tired.

I said, ‘I think I must speak to Mrs Peluzzi.’

‘Will that do you any good?’ she said. ‘You’ve got to remember that she’s in mourning and that she’s Italian. She might get annoyed and that wouldn’t get you anywhere, would it?’ She paused a moment and looked round for an ashtray. ‘Are you sure you’re not exaggerating all this a little?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m telling you the truth.’

‘Oh, well, I suppose you must have a word with her then. But I’ve got a feeling she won’t listen to you. She’s a funny sort of bird.’

I yawned. I’d been yawning ever since she came in. And my eyelids felt like lead. I could feel them begin to droop.

She asked for the telephone number of the factory and I told her. Then she went downstairs and I could hear her speak. I was beginning to doze off when she came back.

‘I told them you’ve got a bad attack of the runs,’ she said. ‘I suggest you go back to bed and catch up on your sleep.’

I said that I might just do that. But I was beginning to feel a little guilty. I kept thinking about the boxes. I’d never stayed away before. I could see the conveyor belt and the cardboard boxes coming down it and I wondered if anyone would be standing at Number Three in my place.

When Agnes had gone out of the room I lay down on top of the bed and closed my eyes. Funnily enough, I felt as if I really did have diarrhoea. There was this floating sensation in my stomach and my muscles were aching.

Lying there with my eyes shut tight I began to think about my life. All sorts of thoughts drifted into my head for no particular reason. I was born in Chelmsford and my father was a carpenter there. He kept his tools in a cupboard under the stairs. He died of pneumonia after getting soaked at a football match. My mother lived for ten years after that, but she didn’t go into mourning or anything, no, she went out with as many men as she could. Mind you, she was very discreet about bringing them home. I can’t remember hearing her with a man, so she must have made them keep quiet when she brought them home. But she drank a lot. She died of some liver trouble in great pain.

After she died I got turned out of the house because the council wanted it for a family of immigrants. Then I came up to London and got the job at King’s in Park Royal. I’ve been there for twelve years. Twelve years. That means I started there when I was twenty-five. It all seems a long time ago now, a lot of water under the bridge. At first I lived in Ladbroke Grove with a widow. I don’t mean I lived with her in that sense. No, I had this room in her house, and I was quite happy there for ten years or so. It was quiet and peaceful and then she started to push her daughter on to me. Daphne was ugly to look at, really hideous, so I had to clear out in the end. I felt sorry for the girl, but I didn’t like to look at her too closely. She had one of those wrinkled faces with deep eyes. I mean, she might have been nineteen or ninety. You just couldn’t tell. I didn’t like her even to touch me, even accidentally, when she was passing a plate or something. But there you are. Ten years, most of them happy ones.

I even went to night classes for a bit. I learned some French words, but I’ve forgotten them all except merde, and that isn’t much good to me any more. I had this teacher there, a Mr Sprockmorton, and he read out Shakespeare to us every Wednesday night. Sometimes he didn’t feel like reading and he’d just sit at his desk with his book closed in front of him and he’d say nothing for hours, absolutely hours. The real reason I went to the classes was because I hadn’t got much out of school. Well, school’s different in a way. I was a very slow reader and the teachers used to knock my knuckles with their rulers and send home horrible letters to my father and he’d hit me with his belt and then sit down and weep. I couldn’t do sums either. In the end, the teachers never even bothered to write anything in my report card.

The truth is, I was a slow learner. I knew I had it in me to do well and be smart, but it just wouldn’t come out properly. I got confused easily. I couldn’t take things in, and even when I did I forgot them pretty quickly. But they wouldn’t think me so stupid if they saw me now.

Lying there, all this sort of flashed through my mind. I don’t know why. Looking at my life I felt quite satisfied. I wasn’t smug with it. I was holding down a good job at King’s, I had my eye on promotion, and I was doing well financially. You can’t really afford to be smug, even when things are going well. Everything can get turned upside down so quickly.

When I was a boy I used to imagine that one day I’d get married and have a house and a family. Well, it isn’t too late for that even now, but the chances are getting thinner all the time. Not that it worries me at all. No, if it doesn’t happen it doesn’t happen, and that’s all. Besides, I’ve never had much energy for women. I think they find me attractive, I’m sure they do, but I can’t work up much enthusiasm really. When I think about Gladys Millar I count my blessings that I didn’t land up with her. But that’s the thing about women, and about people in general, you can never really tell what you’re going to get, can you? Everything goes all right for a time and then you start to find out things that you don’t care much for. Still, you can’t do much to change that.

I opened my eyes. It was nearly eleven o’clock.

It was strange not having to go to work. I washed my face and combed my hair and decided to take a walk. At the bottom of the stairs I met Agnes, who was speaking on the telephone.

She said, ‘Are you going to speak to Mrs Peluzzi?’

I’d almost forgotten about that. ‘Why, yes, I think I will. That sounds like a good idea.’

I went down the front steps and along to the next house. I saw Mrs Peluzzi’s name on a little white card with a bell above it. I pressed the bell and waited.

After a time the door opened and it was dark in the hallway so I couldn’t see a thing except this black shape. When my eyes became used to the light, I could make out her face. She was wearing a kind of black shawl that covered her whole body as well as her head and part of it was drawn up across her lips.

‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘I live in the house next door.’

Her eyebrows moved upwards and she made a gesture with her hands.

‘Please don’t think I’m complaining,’ I said. ‘But the fact is, I can’t get to sleep at night on account of your dog Rex. He makes such an awful noise …’

She took the shawl from her lips. She had this little moustache, it wasn’t too bad but it was plain enough. Tears were running down her face.

‘Are you police?’ she asked.

‘Police?’ I said, wondering what she was talking about.

She buried her face into the shawl and kept sobbing as if she expected me to arrest her all of a sudden.

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s about your dog.’

‘Don’t take him away from me,’ she said. ‘Don’t take him, please! please!’

I waved my hands around, not knowing what to say.

‘He’s all I have! All!’

She fell on her knees against the door and clutched the door-handle with her hands. All this time she was weeping. I thought, She’s just like her dog. All that wailing and moaning.

I wasn’t sure what to do. So I just stood there and waited until she recovered.

She said, ‘You’re a wicked man, an evil man.’

‘Please, I didn’t mean any harm,’ I said.

‘Don’t make me laugh, this isn’t a laughing matter,’ she said. She had changed by this time. She was up on her feet and there were no more tears. ‘You come to take my Rex away, this is no laughing matter.’

‘Take him away? Now, that’s really a bit silly.’

She began to dodge around like somebody in a boxing match. She was throwing her arms back and forward, but she didn’t really mean to hit me.

‘I’m only asking you to make him keep quiet at night.’

‘Hah!’ She stepped back and then stepped forward again.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her. The shawl was coming away from her body now. Then suddenly there was this bang inside my head.

She said, ‘Hah!’

I put my fingers to my nose and saw that it was bleeding handeing. For a minute I felt like hitting her back, but I just kept my temper. I only wanted to speak to her quietly and reasonably, I didn’t want a brawl.

‘My God,’ I said. ‘My nose is bleeding.’

‘You deserve that,’ she said.

I had to dodge her next punch. I took out my hankerchief wagderchief and wiped my face. It was covered in blood.

She was shouting out loudly although people passing in the street weren’t really taking much notice.

‘He comes to steal my dog! Dog thief! Thief! He comes to my door, the door of a poor widow, and he wants to steal my dog!’

‘No, there’s been a misunderstanding,’ I said.

‘Hah!’ She looked at a group of children who were standing over by the railings. I felt sick. I can’t stand blood. ‘Look at this man, this thief,’ she was saying. ‘He comes here, to my door, to steal my dog. Heh? I punched him. I make his nose bleed!’

I turned away. I was sick on the pavement. I went down on my knees and stuck my finger in my throat to get it all up. I could hear her going on behind my back. I covered my face with my handkerchief.

‘Look at him,’ she said. ‘Sick as a dog.’

And then she was laughing like a maniac. I went in-doors and up to my room. I washed my face clean. I was shaking from the effort of being sick.

I made some tea and drank it black and after that I felt a bit better.

I don’t know when I decided to kill Rex. It must have been that same afternoon. I looked out of the window and he was staring up at me in this funny way. He was gloating. That’s what he was doing. Then I saw Mrs Peluzzi come out and get down on her knees and hug the beast. They were gloating together. The woman was insane. I knew that then. She was quite mad.

But what was the best way to kill him?

I thought of putting a bag over his head and suffocating him. But that wasn’t any good. He’d probably bite his way out of the bag. And I couldn’t use a gun, even if I’d had one, because of the noise. Poison would have been all right, if I could have laid my hands on some. Arsenic. But I didn’t know how to go about getting any. Even if I managed to get it, I couldn’t just ram it down Rex’s throat. I’d have to poison his meat and that left traces and I’d be tracked down by the RSPCA or somebody. No, I had to rule all those things out. I found that I was getting worked up about the thought. My hands were trembling violently. I just had to kill him. Then we’d all get some peace.

Of course I could have moved out of the room. But that meant packing all my stuff again and I was really determined to stay put. Determination is one of my good qualities. I didn’t intend to leave. So Rex had to go instead.

When it was beginning to get dark I thought about the string. I found a long piece in my suitcase. I wound it round my fingers. It would fit all right over the dog’s neck and all I had to do was pull it tight and hold it for a couple of minutes. It was really simple. It was better than guns and poisons and bags over his head. It was even quite cunning.

Yes, the string would be the perfect thing.

I waited at the window until it was finally dark except for the streetlamp.

And then Roderick came into the room.

‘Did the plugs work?’ he asked.

I was holding the string in my hand. I felt a bit guilty.

‘No,’ I said. ‘They weren’t much good.’

‘Oh.’ He looked at me fingering the string. ‘Are you going to strangle the dog?’

‘It’s the cleanest way,’ I said.

Roderick sat on the bed. ‘Are you sure, man? What I would do is stab it with a knife or something. That’s even cleaner.’

I told him that I couldn’t stand the sight of blood.

‘What a pity,’ he said. ‘Then you’ll just have to strangle him.’

‘Yes,’ I said. I wound the string round my hand. I never thought it would come to this, I really didn’t. Normally, I wouldn’t harm a fly. It’s wrong to take life, any kind of life. But this was really necessary. I’d had three sleepless nights. My nerves were all shot to pieces. I was losing my grip at the factory. It couldn’t go on. It had to end sometime.

‘You’ll have to climb the wall,’ Roderick said. ‘That’s a purely practical consideration, and it’s got nothing to do with the metaphysics of the situation. But if you don’t climb it you won’t get near the dog.’

‘I hadn’t thought about that,’ I said. And I hadn’t. I just hadn’t considered any obstacles.

‘The wall is about eight feet high. But you should be able to scramble over. And scramble back again, when the deed is done.’

I began to tell him about the puppy with the brown and white markings I’d had as a boy, but he interrupted me by saying,

‘A ladder might be helpful, man. Have you got one?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Too bad. You’ll just have to climb.’

I uncurled the string and stretched it tight.

‘Have you thought about the broken glass?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said. I could see it shining along the top of the wall. It looked sharp and nasty.

‘You’ll have to be careful or you’ll cut yourself,’ he said. He began to laugh and tap his fingers on the mantelpiece. ‘The whole thing’s absurd, absurd.’

My fingers were trembling. I thought for a bit. The whole thing was really quite risky. I looked at Roderick.

‘Would you like to do it?’ I asked.

‘Can’t climb,’ he said.

And then he went out, leaving me on my own.

About eleven I went downstairs and along the passage that leads to the back yard. I couldn’t get the big door open at first and I twisted and turned the rusty handle and was about to give up and go back upstairs when all of a sudden it just sprung open. Outside, the yard was dark. There isn’t much light from the streetlamp because there’s a tree in the way. I realised I should have left my own light on so that I could see, but I might have exposed myself doing that.

I went to the wall. It seemed very high in the dark. I tried to get up. But I couldn’t grip the top because of the glass. I cut the palms of my hands and feeling the sticky blood felt sick again. But I knew I had to see the whole thing through. I tried to get up at another part of the wall. I felt the glass digging into me and I cursed it. But by pushing my feet hard I got halfway over. I could see Rex down below, chained to the wall. He was looking up at me. His black ears were pricked and he was panting. Working himself up for his nightly performance, I thought. I felt stupid hanging there, my body slung across the glass.

I dropped down. I tore my trousers against the glass. But at least I was on the other side.

I took out the piece of string.

In the darkness, the dog and I stared at each other.

‘Good dog,’ I said. ‘There’s a good dog.’

I got down on my knees and circled the string round his neck. He didn’t seem to mind. He thought it was a collar and that he was going for a walk. But it was going to be a long walk for him.

I began to pull the ends. I did this slowly at first. I was sweating.

I had only to pull it tightly and quick, and hold it there for a couple of minutes and everything would be all over.

He licked my hand.

He licked my hand and I couldn’t do it.

I dropped the string and stared at him. His rough tongue was splashing against my face. I couldn’t do it.

I cut my hands going back over the wall.

When I was in my room again I saw that my skin was bleeding badly. It was terrible. I went to the window and looked down. I could see him down there. He was wagging his tail.

I felt foolish. I bandaged my hands with an old towel and then went to bed.

At midnight he began to moan and howl. I lay in the dark and just listened. I was a coward. I hadn’t known it before, but I was. I might have been sleeping now, if I’d had the courage to do the job. Strangle him. But no. I was a coward.

Or was I just tender-hearted?

I was too soft to kill him. That’s always been my weakness. I should have known better.

Even so, I thought, as I lay listening to the noise, he would have to be disposed of. He would have to go.

He was ruining my life. I’d been conscientious and diligent, I’d been healthy, I’d been the perfect tenant. But I couldn’t go on being those things if I didn’t get my sleep.

Rex would have to be killed.

But I couldn’t do it. And if I couldn’t do it, I wondered who could.

Who?