Report on Probability A (9 page)

“A plurality of worlds …” Joe muttered. As a radio communications engineer, he felt he should come up with some bright suggestions; but at the moment only vague poetic associations filtered through his head.

Unaware of his multiple watchers, Domoladossa was showing the Governor the next part of the report.

3

Some while later, a movement distracted S's gaze from the house, causing it to flick over to the left. There, only slightly obscured by the outermost twigs of an apple tree that blossomed late, and the branches of a sumac tree, a wooden bungalow attracted his attention; from the door of the wooden bungalow, a figure was emerging. The figure bore a mat that appeared to have dull-coloured stripes on it. The figure began to shake the mat.

Even from this distance, it could be seen that the head of this figure was turned to look over its left shoulder as if regarding a brown side gate that would be visible to its view while remaining concealed from the watcher behind the west corner of the house. A plump figure appeared from this direction and stopped a couple of metres away from the figure holding the mat. Round the body of the plump figure was wrapped a large coat of a liver colour; the person thus enveloped carried an umbrella, while stockinged legs appeared below the coat to disappear into ankle boots. From this distance it could be discerned that the person had a large head, the hair of which was grey and swept back into a bun behind the head, while on the crown of the head rested a small hat that carried some sort of coloured ornament.

When the two figures had stood within easy talking distance of each other for some while, the figure bearing the mat turned and walked off, heading for the wooden bungalow, which he entered, closing the door behind him. This event set the plump person into motion again. She made for the east corner of the house, gained the concrete path there, and continued on without pausing in her progress until she reached the back door; there she paused only long enough to knock on one of the long green panels before she pulled the door open and entered it, afterwards closing it behind her.

S remained where he was, waiting and watching. His gaze moved from the closed back door to the open kitchen window. The plump person became visible at this opening. She engaged in a complicated manœuvre or series of gestures which removed the liver-coloured coat from her body. Even from a distance, it could be seen that she wore some sort of a white apron below the coat.

She was now periodically visible about the kitchen. Twice she came out of the back door. On the first occasion, she carried a coal scuttle which she took to the bunker on the right of the long windows of the dining-room; setting the scuttle on the ground, she took a shovel from it and with this shovel scooped coal from the bottom of the bunker, throwing it into the scuttle until the scuttle was filled with coal. The sound of this operation could be heard inside the old brick building that was separated from the house by asparagus beds. On the second occasion, the plump figure emerged with a metal can that she carried by a handle on its side. With this article she passed along the back of the house and beyond the coal bunker, altered direction until she walked in a north-easterly direction, so that a pattern of four white ribbons meeting in the middle of her back could be certainly discerned, crossed a stretch of lawn, and reached a door set in the back wall of a garage constructed mainly of asbestos, reinforced by pillars of concrete. The plump person entered this door, closing it behind her when she was inside the garage, and remaining there for some while before re-emerging with her can. By comparing the way she walked back over the grass, past the coal bunker, and back to the back door, with her left arm stretching down towards the can it carried and her right arm stiff and extended at an angle of about thirty degrees from her body, it could be deduced that she had transported the can empty to the garage, had filled it inside the garage, and now bore it back full into the house.

S turned his head away from the window. By his feet lay a copy of a boys' magazine printed some years ago when S himself had been a boy. The pages were yellow with age. They lay open at a picture of a big bearded man with glaring eyeballs wielding an oar above his head; he stood in the threshold of a doorway beyond which, lying in a corner of a bare room, was a schoolboy with his hands and feet tied together with rope. The boy still wore his school cap. Above this picture were the words The Secret of the Grey Mill.

Picking the magazine up, S started to read the story. When he had read several sentences, his eye wandered across the page to the next page. Finally it alighted upon a sentence which said, Thirsty though he was, he watched the brackish water drain away without regret. Continuing to read from there, S turned the page. He read to the bottom of the page. There, a passage in black type said, Who is trapped down the old well? Do not miss next week's gripping episode. S closed the magazine and placed it on the log that lay near at hand. He looked out of the round window, saw no movement in the garden or through the windows of the house, and so brought his gaze back inside the old brick building, letting it rest on the floor.

The planks were uneven and tawny in colour. The raised parts of the planks, particularly where a knot lay exposed in the wood, were a lighter colour than the rest. In the bottom of the small indentations in the planks, the wood was often darkened by a collection of dirt.

S glanced up occasionally from the floor to look out of the window. If nothing attracted his attention, he looked down at the floor again. Sometimes he traced an imaginary pattern among the knots and grooves.

He glanced out of the round window and saw that someone was coming towards the old brick building in which he sat.

Rising to his knees, S concealed his body behind the brickwork before allowing his head to move forward so that he could again look through the round window that was divided into nine sections. The plump person in the white apron was carrying a bucket in which some sort of green substance could be glimpsed. She had crossed over the stretch of lawn before the back door, and was progressing down a narrow dirt path that ran parallel with the asparagus bed, fringing the bed to its south-east side just as the gravel walk did on its north-west side. This path led under screening fruit trees adjacent to the south-east wall of the old brick building before terminating at a rubbish tip lying almost against a privet hedge that bounded Mr. Mary's property on the south-west side. To get to this rubbish tip, it was necessary for anyone walking along the dirt path to come near to the front of the old brick building, and to pass in fact within touching distance of its east corner.

When the plump person got to within three metres of this corner, she stopped and looked up at the round window set in the upper part of the front of the old coach house, above the two doors with their worn grey timber.

“Are you up there? Hoy, wake up, it's only me. Are you up there?”

“Where is he?”

“Oh, there you are! Why don't you come down? I bet you were asleep.”

“Is he in?”

“He's in his study with the door shut and a pen in his hand and Lord knows what mighty thoughts in his head.”

“I wasn't asleep, Vi. Are you sure?”

“You know as well as I do.… Why don't you come down? I bet you were asleep.”

“She?”

“I've got work to do. She's gone out shopping with her basket and umbrella and new coat.”

“Smart, eh?”

“Very smart this morning, we are. All dolled up this morning. Are you coming down or aren't you?”

“I'm just coming.”

Going to the other end of the room, S bent down and lifted up a trapdoor that he rested back against the rear wall of the building in which was a small window set close to the floor. A solid wooden structure of steps was revealed. S went down them, turning the corner and descending over a further seven treads until his feet touched the cobbles that formed the floor of the old coach house. Here the light was dim; gleams of light filtered through vertical and horizontal cracks in the two timber doors at the front of the building, and through the windows set in the timber doors.

In one of these two doors, the left one as S faced them, a small door no higher than one and a half metres had been fitted. Cracks of light appeared round it also.

“Come on, then, let's be having you. I haven't got all day.”

“You'll work yourself into an early grave.”

Into the ancient timbers of the left-hand door, a nail had been knocked close to the small inserted door. A loop of cord hung round this nail; the other end of this cord was tied round the end of a nut securing the handle of the little door, which was on the outside of the little door. S took the loop off the nail and pushed the door open.

He blinked and stuck his head out. He looked up at the house, and then at the plump woman.

“Are you coming then? I haven't got all day. I wouldn't mind betting you were asleep.”

S emerged from the small door, straightened, and took a pace nearer to the plump woman.

Her large figure consisted of a series of interdependent curves. S's figure was composed mainly of straight lines. An uninformed viewer seeing these two figures would have been surprised to learn that both figures were supported internally by two skeletons not at all unlike.

The plump woman was dressed in a grey dress; over it was a large white apron that had two ribbons to secure it round the waist and two more ribbons that sprouted from the top of the apron, above the swell of the breast, to secure it over the shoulders. The plump woman's hair was also secured by a piece of velvet ribbon. The hair was a yellowy grey, drawn back to the back of the head, where it was dressed into a bun. The woman's face was pale, with only an irregular patch of colour in either cheek. Her eyes, of a washed blue, were bolstered on noticeably large underlids that swelled into folds of flesh with pasty shadows beneath them.

“Are you sure he's working?”

“At this time of morning? It's write, write, write, even when you take his coffee in.”

“Is he advertising for a new secretary?”

“What, after you? How are you? You don't look too good. You're a fool, you are, really, nice young chap like you. You're wasting your time.”

“Don't get on at me, Vi.”

“I'm not getting on at you, but really—I mean, suppose everyone in the world went round getting funny ideas, I mean, where'd we all be, eh?”

“They say there's been a strike at the fish factory.”

“Do they, now? And who told you that? You really don't look too good, you know. Look at your eyes!”

“Watt told me.”

“Which fish factory was this?”

“You'd better ask him. He told me.”

“You don't want to trust all Watt tells you. He can't tell you the time correctly.”

“The place where they can the fish, I suppose.”

“Don't be so daft. There's no such place. Not round here, anyway.”

S looked down at his shoes; they were covered with grey dust. Gravel was trodden into dark brown earth, lying under his shoes.

“Did you bring me anything?”

“I shouldn't do it. Really I shouldn't. I'm daft to do it.”

From the top of the pail she carried, the plump woman brushed aside some outer leaves of cabbage and produced a bundle of newspaper. She held it out to S. He stepped forward and took it, remaining there awkwardly looking at her.

“It's half a pork pie. I shouldn't do it, Lord knows, but they'll never miss it.”

“You're terribly kind.”

“Let's not go into all that again. You know me by now. What I do I do. Why don't you come in and have a bath?”

“What, in the house? With him just in his study? He'd shoot me.”

“Don't talk so bloody daft. He won't stir till lunch time. You need a bath. You know you need a bath.”

“I don't need a bath. Imagine me creeping into that house! Besides, suppose she came back and caught me in the bath!”

The plump woman laughed.

“Go on with you, you men are all the same, you know you'd love it.”

“He'd shoot me if he saw me!”

“Well, I can't stay here all day. Some of us have got work to do if others haven't.”

“Could you bring me a drop of paraffin for my lamp, please, Vi?”

“I tell you, you men are all the same, nothing but a nuisance. Fetch us your lamp, then. Why you can't go and fill it yourself.…”

“You know why.”

The plump woman stood where she was until S disappeared through the small door set in the large doors of the old brick building. Then she moved forward again along the dirt path, ducked her head as she went under the bare bough of an apple tree, and shot the contents of her white enamelled bucket out onto the top of the rubbish tip. When she returned to the spot where she had been standing before, she waited there until S returned to her. In his hand he carried a rusty storm lantern; he raised it and gave it to her.

“I'll bring it back when I can. I've got a lot to do this morning. She wants me to do them scallops of veal for lunch. She's gone out to get some anchovy now.”

“Goodbye. Thank you for the pork pie.”

“I'm a fool, that's what I am.”

S stood and watched the four ribbons involved in a bow where they met in the centre of the back. The white pail, now empty, which the plump woman carried in her right hand, was brighter than the colour of the apron; the ends of the ribbons were creased, and somewhat yellowed. In a brief while, the woman reached the back door, which she had left ajar; she climbed the step and went through the door; as it closed behind her, S turned and climbed back through the small door into the old brick building.

4

When S regained the room above the coach house, he let down the trapdoor and advanced into the middle of the room. The newspaper parcel which he had been clutching he placed on one of the shelves that ran along the south-east side of the room, next to a small brass crocodile.