The world went dark, and a low roar filled Richard's head, like the maddened growling1 of a thousand enraged2 beasts. He blinked at the darkness, held tight to his bag. He wondered if he had been foolish, putting the knife away. Some people brushed past him in the dark. Richard started away from them. There were steps in front of him; Richard began to ascend3, and, as he did so, the world began to resolve, to take shape and to re-form.
The growling was the roar of traffic, and he was coming out of an underpass in Trafalgar Square. The sky was the perfect untroubled blue of a television screen, tuned4 to a dead channel.
It was midmorning, on a warm October day, and he stood in the square holding his bag and blinking at the sunlight. Black taxis and red buses and multicolored cars roared and careered about the square, while tourists threw handfuls of pigeon feed down for the legions of tubby pigeons and took their snapshots of Nelson's Column and the huge Landseer lions that flanked it. He walked through the square, wondering if he was real or not. The Japanese tourists ignored him. He tried talking to a pretty fairhaired girl, who laughed, and shook her head, and said something in a language Richard thought might have been Italian, but was actually Finnish.
There was a small child of indeterminate sex, staring at some pigeons while orally demolishing5 a chocolate bar. He crouched6 down next to it. "Ur Hello, kiddie," said Richard. The child sucked its chocolate bar intently and gave no indication of recognizing Richard as another human being. "Hello, repeated Richard, a slight note of desperation creeping into his voice. "Can you see me? Kiddie? Hello? Two small eyes glared at him from a chocolate covered face. And then its lower lip began to tremble, and the child fled, throwing its arms around the legs of the nearest adult female, and wailing7 "Mommy? This man's bothering me. He's bothering me."
The child's mother turned on Richard with a formidable scowl8. "What are you doing," she demanded, "bothering our Leslie? There are places for people like you."
Richard began to smile. It was a huge and happy smile. "I really am most frightfully sorry," he said, grinning like a Cheshire cat. And then, clutching his bag, he ran through Trafalgar Square, accompanied by bursts of sudden pigeons, who took to the air in astonishment9.
He took his cashcard out of his wallet, and he put it into the cash machine. It recognized his four-digit pin number, advised him to keep it a secret and not disclose it to anyone, and asked what kind of service he would like. He asked for cash, and it gave him cash in abundance. He punched the air in delight, and then, embarrassed, pretended that he had been hailing a cab.
A cab stopped for him--it stopped!--for him!--and he climbed in, and sat in the back, and beamed. He asked the driver to take him to his office. And when the cab driver pointed10 out that it would almost be quicker to walk, Richard grinned even wider, and said he did not care. And as soon as they were underway he asked--practically begged--the cab driver to regale11 him, Richard, with his opinions on Inner-City Traffic Problems, How Best to Deal with Crime, and Thorny12 Political Issues of the Day. The cab driver accused Richard of "taking the Mickey," and sulked for all of the five-minute journey up the Strand13. Richard did not care. He tipped the man ridiculously anyway. And then he walked into his office.
As he entered the building, he felt the smile begin to leave his face. Each step he took left him more anxious, more uneasy. What if he still had no job? What did it matter if small, chocolate-covered children and cab drivers could see him, if it turned out that, by some appalling14 mischance, he remained invisible to his colleagues?
Mr. Figgis, the security guard, looked up from a copy of _Naughty Teenage Nymphets,_ which he had hidden inside his copy of the _Sun,_ and he sniffed15. "Morning Mister Mayhew," he said. It was not a welcoming "morning." It was the kind of "morning" that implied that the speaker really did not care if the recipient16 lived or died--nor indeed, for that matter, if it was even morning.
"Figgis!" exclaimed Richard, in delight. "And hello to you too, Mister Figgis, you exceptional security guard!"
Nobody had ever said anything remotely like that to Mr. Figgis before, not even naked ladies in his imagination; Figgis stared suspiciously at Richard until he got into the elevator and vanished from sight, then he returned his attention to the naughty teenage nymphets, none of whom, he was beginning to suspect, was ever likely to see twenty-nine again, lollipops17 or no lollipops.
Richard got out of the elevator and walked, slightly hesitantly, down the corridor. _Everything will be all right,_ he told himself, _if only my desk is there. If my desk is there, everything will be fine._ He walked into the large room full of cubicles18 he had worked in for three years. People were working at desks, talking on telephones, rummaging19 through filing cabinets, drinking bad tea and worse coffee. It was his office. And there was the place by the window, where his desk had once been, which was now occupied by a gray cluster of filing cabinets and a yucca plant. He was about to turn and run when someone handed him a cup of tea in a Styrofoam cup.
"The return of the prodigal20, eh?" said Gary. "Here you go."
"Hello Gary," said Richard. "Where's my desk?"
"This way," said Gary. "How was Majorca?"
"Majorca?"
"Don't you always go to Majorca?" asked Gary. They were walking up the back stairs that led to the fourth floor.
"Not this time," said Richard.
"I was going to say," said Gary. "Not much of a tan."
"No," agreed Richard. "Well. You know. I needed a change."
Gary nodded. He pointed to a door that had, for as long as Richard had been there, been the door to the executive files and supplies room. "A change? Well, you've certainly got one now. And may I be the first to congratulate you?" The plaque21 on the door said:
R. B. MAYHEW
JUNIOR PARTNER
"Lucky bastard," said Gary, affectionately.
He wandered off, and Richard went through the door, utterly22 bemused. The room was no longer an executive supplies and file room: it had been emptied of files and supplies, and painted in gray and black and white, and recarpeted. In the center of the office was a large desk. He examined it: it was, unmistakably, his very own desk. His trolls had all been neatly23 put away in one of the desk drawers, and he took them all out, and arranged them around the office. He had his own window, with a nice view of the sludge-brown river and the South Bank of the Thames, beyond. There was even a large green plant, with huge waxy24 leaves, of the kind that looks artificial but isn't. His old, dusty, cream-colored computer terminal had been replaced with a much sleeker25, cleaner black computer terminal, which took up less desk space.
He walked over to the window and sipped26 his tea, staring out at the dirty brown river.
"You've found everything all right, then?" He looked up. Crisp, and efficient, Sylvia, the MD's PA, was standing27 in the doorway28. She smiled when she saw him.
"Um. Yes. Look, there are things I have to take care of at home . . . d'you think it'd be all right if 1 took the rest of the day off and--"
"Suit yourself. You aren't meant to be back in till tomorrow anyway."
"I'm not?" he asked. "Right."
Sylvia frowned. "What happened to your finger?"
"I broke it," he told her.
She looked at his hand with concern. "You weren't in a fight, were you?"
"Me?"
She grinned. "Just teasing. I suppose you shut it in a door. That's what my sister did."
"No," Richard began to admit, "I _was_ in a fi . . . " Sylvia raised an eyebrow29. "A door," he finished lamely30.
He went to the building he had once lived in by taxi. He was not sure that he trusted himself to travel by the Underground. Not yet. Having no door key, he knocked at the door of his flat and was more than disappointed when it was opened by the woman Richard last remembered meeting, or rather, failing to meet, in his bathroom. He introduced himself as the previous tenant31, and quickly established that a) he, Richard, no longer lived there, and b) she, Mrs. Buchanan, had no idea what had happened to any of his personal possessions. Richard took some notes, and then he said good-bye very nicely, and took another black taxi to go and see a man in a camel-hair coat.
The smooth man in the camel-hair coat was not wearing his camel-hair coat, and was, in fact, a good deal less smooth than the last time Richard had encountered him. They were sitting in his office, and he had listened to Richard's list of complaints with the expression of someone who has recently and accidentally swallowed whole a live spider and has just begun to feel it squirm.
"Well, yes," he admitted, after looking at the files. "There does seem to have been some kind of problem, now you mention it. I can't quite see how it could have happened."
"I don't think it matters how it happened," said Richard, reasonably. "The fact of the matter is that while I was away for a few weeks, you rented my apartment to," he consulted his notes, "George and Adele Buchanan. Who have no intention of leaving."
The man closed the file. "Well," he said. "Mistakes do happen. Human error. I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about it."
The old Richard, the one who had lived in what was now the Buchanans' home, would have crumbled32 at this point, apologized for being a nuisance, and gone away. Instead, Richard said, "Really? Nothing you can do about it? You rented a property I was legally renting from your company to someone else, and in the process lost all my personal possessions, and there's nothing you can do about it? Now, I happen to think, and I'm sure my lawyer will also think, that there is a great deal you can do about it."
The man without the camel-hair coat looked as if the spider was beginning to crawl back up his throat. "But we don't have any other vacant apartments like yours in the building," he said. "There's only the penthouse suite33."
"That," Richard told the man, coldly, "would be fine . . . " The man relaxed. " . . . for living accommodation. Now," said Richard, "let's talk about compensation for my lost possessions."
The new apartment was much nicer than the one he had left behind. It had more windows, and a balcony, a spacious34 lounge, and a proper spare bedroom. Richard prowled it, dissatisfied. The man-without-a-camel-hair-coat had, extremely grudgingly35, had the apartment furnished with a bed, a sofa, several chairs, and a television set. Richard put Hunter's knife on the mantelpiece. He bought a take-away curry36 from the Indian restaurant across the road, sat on the carpeted floor of his new apartment, and ate it, wondering if he had ever really eaten curry late at night in a street-market held on the deck of a gunship moored37 by Tower Bridge. It did not seem very likely, now that he thought about it.
The doorbell rang. He got up and answered the door. "We found a lot of your stuff, Mr. Mayhew," said the man who was once more wearing his camel-hair coat. "Turned out It'd been put into storage. Right, bring the stuff in, lads."
A couple of burly men hauled in several large wooden packing cases, filled with Richard's stuff, and deposited them on the carpet in the middle of the living room.
"Thanks," said Richard. He reached into the first box, unwrapped the first paper-covered object, which turned out to be a framed photograph of Jessica. He stared at it for some moments, and then he put it down again in the case. He found the box with his clothes in it, removed them, and put them away in his bedroom, but the other boxes sat, untouched, in the middle of the living room floor. As the days went on, he felt increasingly guilty about not unpacking38 them. But he did not unpack39 them.
He was in his office, sitting at his desk, staring out of the window, when the intercom buzzed. "Richard?" said Sylvia. "The MD wants a meeting in his office in twenty minutes to discuss the Wandsworth report."
"I'll be there," he said. Then, because he had nothing else to do for the next ten minutes, he picked up an orange troll and menaced a slightly smaller green-haired troll with it. "I am the greatest warrior40 of London Below. Prepare to die," he said, in a dangerous trollish voice, waggling the orange troll. Then he picked up the green-haired troll, and said, in a smaller trollish voice, "Aha! But first you shall drink the nice cup of tea . . . "
Someone knocked on the door, and, guiltily, he put down the trolls. "Come in." The door opened, and Jessica came in, and stood in the doorway. She looked nervous. He had forgotten quite how beautiful she was. "Hello Richard," she said.
"Hello Jess," said Richard, and then he corrected himself. "Sorry--Jessica."
She smiled, and tossed her hair. "Oh, Jess is fine," she said, and looked as if she almost meant it. "Jessica--Jess. Nobody's called me Jess for ages. I rather miss it."
"So," said Richard, "what brings, do I have the honor, you, um."
"Just wanted to see you, really."
He was not sure what he ought to say. "That's nice," he said.
She closed the door to his office and took a few steps toward him. "Richard. You know something strange? I remember calling the engagement off. But I hardly remember what we were arguing about."
"No?"
"It's not important, though. Is it?" She looked around the office. "You got a promotion41?"
"Yes."
"I'm happy for you." She put a hand into the pocket of her coat and pulled out a small brown box. She put it down on Richard's desk. He opened the box, although he knew what was inside it. "It's our engagement ring. I thought that, well, maybe, I'd give it back to you, and then, well, if things worked out, well, perhaps one day you'd give it back to me." It glittered in the sunlight: the most money he had ever spent on anything. He closed the box, and gave it back to her. "You keep it, Jessica," he said. And then, "I'm sorry."
She bit her lower lip. "Did you meet someone?" He hesitated. He thought of Lamia, and Hunter, and Anaesthesia, and even Door, but none of them were someones in the way that she meant. "No. No one else," he said. And then, realizing it was true as he said it, "I've just changed, that's all."
His intercom buzzed. "Richard? We're waiting for you." He pressed the button. "Be right down, Sylvia."
He looked at Jessica. She said nothing. Perhaps there was nothing she could trust herself to say. She walked away, and she closed the door quietly behind her.
Richard picked up the papers he would need, with one hand. He ran the other hand across his face, as if he were wiping something away: sorrow, perhaps, or tears, or Jessica.
He started taking the Tube again, to and from work, although he soon found that he had stopped buying newspapers to read on his journey in the morning and the evening, and instead of reading he would scan the faces of the other people on the train, faces of every kind and color, and wonder if they were all from London Above, wonder what went on behind their eyes.
During the evening rush hour, a few days after his encounter with Jessica, he thought he saw Lamia across the carriage, with her back to him, her dark hair piled high on her head and her dress long and black. His heart began to pound in his chest. He pushed his way toward her through the crowded compartment42. As he got closer, the train pulled into a station, the doors hissed43 open, and she stepped off. But it was not Lamia. Just another young London goth-girl, he realized, disappointed, off for a night on the town.
One Saturday afternoon he saw a large brown rat, sitting on top of the plastic garbage cans at the back of Newton Mansions44, cleaning its whiskers and looking as if it owned the world. At Richard's approach it leapt down onto the pavement and waited in the shadow of the garbage cans, staring up at him with wary45 bead-black eyes.
Richard crouched down. "Hello," he said, gently. "Do we know each other?" The rat made no kind of response that Richard was able to perceive, but it did not run away. "My name is Richard Mayhew," he continued, in a low voice. "I'm not actually a rat-speaker, but I, um, know a few rats, well, I've met some, and I wondered if you were familiar with the Lady Door"
He heard a shoe scrape behind him, and he turned to see the Buchanans looking at him curiously46. "Have you . . . lost something?" asked Mrs. Buchanan. Richard heard, but ignored, her husband's gruff whisper of "Just his marbles."
"No," said Richard, honestly, "I was, um, saying hello to a . . . " The rat scurried47 off and away.
"Was that a rat?" barked George Buchanan. "I'll complain to the council. It's a disgrace. But that's London for you, isn't it?"
Yes, agreed Richard. It was. It really was.
Richard's possessions continued to sit untouched in the wooden packing cases in the middle of the living room floor.
He had not yet turned on the television. He would come home at night, and eat, then he would stand at the window, looking out over London, at the cars and the rooftops and the lights, as the late autumn twilight48 turned into night, and the lights came on all over the city. He would watch, standing alone in his darkened flat, until the city's lights began to be turned off. Eventually, reluctantly, he would undress, and climb into bed, and go to sleep.
Sylvia came into his office one Friday afternoon. He was opening envelopes, using his knife--Hunter's knife--as a letter-opener. "Richard?" she said. "I was wondering. Are you getting out much, these days?" He shook his head. "Well, a bunch of us are going out this evening. Do you fancy coming along?"
"Um. Sure," he said. "Yes. I'd love it."
He hated it.
There were eight of them: Sylvia and her young man, who had something to do with vintage cars, Gary from Corporate49 Accounts, who had recently broken up with his girlfriend, due to what Gary persisted in describing as a slight misunderstanding (he had thought she would be rather more understanding about his sleeping with her best friend than she had in fact turned out to be), several perfectly50 nice people and friends of nice people, and the new girl from Computer Services.
First they saw a film on the huge screen of the Odeon, Leicester Square. The good guy won in the end, and there were plenty of explosions and flying objects on the way. Sylvia decided51 that Richard should sit next to the girl from Computer Services, as, she explained, she was new to the company and did not know many people.
They walked down to Old Compton Street, on the edge of Soho, where the tawdry and the chic52 sit side by side to the benefit of both, and they ate at La Reache, filling up on couscous and dozens of marvelous plates of exotic food, which covered their table and spilled over onto an unused table nearby, and they walked from there to a small pub Sylvia liked in nearby Berwick Street, and they had a few drinks, and they chatted.
The new girl from Computer Services smiled at Richard a lot, as the evening went on, and he had nothing at all to say to her. He bought a round of drinks for the party, and the girl from Computer Services helped him carry them from the bar back to their table. Gary went off to the men's room, and the girl from Computer Services came and sat next to Richard, taking his place. Richard's head was filled with the clink of glasses, and the blare of the jukebox, and the sharp smell of beer and spilt Bacardi and cigarette smoke. He tried to listen to the conversations going on at the table, and he found that he could no longer concentrate on what anyone was saying, and, which was worse, that he was not interested in any of what he was able to hear.
And it came to him then, as clearly and as certainly as if he had been watching it on the big screen at the Odeon, Leicester Square: the rest of his life. He would go home tonight with the girl from Computer Services, and they would make gentle love, and tomorrow, it being Saturday, they would spend the morning in bed. And then they would get up, and together they would remove his possessions from the packing cases, and put them away. In a year, or a little less, he would marry the girl from Computer Services, and get another promotion, and they would have two children, a boy and a girl, and they would move out to the suburbs, to Harrow or Croydon or Hampstead or even as far away as distant Reading.
And it would not be a bad life. He knew that, too. Sometimes there is nothing you can do.
When Gary came back from the toilet, he looked around in puzzlement. Everyone was there except . . . "Dick?" he asked "Has anyone seen Richard?"
The girl from Computer Services shrugged53.
Gary went outside, to Berwick Street. The cold of the night air was like a splash of water to his face. He could taste winter in the air. He called, "Dick? Hey? Richard?"
"Over here."
Richard was leaning against a wall, in the shadows. "Just getting a breath of fresh air."
"Are you all right?" asked Gary.
"Yes," said Richard. "No. I don't know."
"Well," said Gary, "that covers your options. Do you want to talk about it?"
Richard looked at him seriously. "You'll laugh at me."
"I'll do that anyway."
Richard looked at Gary. Then Gary was relieved to see him smile, and he knew that they were still friends. Gary looked back at the pub. Then he put his hands into his coat pockets. "Come on," he said. "Let's walk. You can get it off your chest. _Then_ I'll laugh at you."
"Bastard," said Richard, sounding a lot more like Richard than he had in recent weeks.
"It's what friends are for."
They began to amble54 off, under the streetlights. "Look, Gary," Richard began. "Do you ever wonder if this is all there is?"
"What?"
Richard gestured vaguely55, taking in everything. "Work. Home. The pub. Meeting girls. Living in the city. Life. Is that all there is?"
"I think that sums it up, yes," said Gary.
Richard sighed. "Well," he said, "for a start, I didn't go to Majorca. I mean, I _really_ didn't go to Majorca."
Richard talked as they walked up and down the warren of tiny Soho back streets between Regent Street and the Charing56 Cross Road. He talked, and talked, beginning with finding a girl bleeding on the pavement, and trying to help, because he couldn't just leave her there, and what happened next. And when they got too cold to walk they went into an all-night greasy57 spoon cafe. It was a proper one, the kind that cooked everything in lard, and served cups of serious tea in large chipped white mugs shiny with bacon grease. Richard and Gary sat and Richard talked while Gary listened, and then they ordered fried eggs and baked beans and toast and sat and ate them, while Richard continued to talk, and Gary continued to listen. They mopped up the last of their egg yolks with the toast. They drank more tea, until eventually Richard said, " . . . and then Door did something with the key, and I was back again. In London Above. Well, the real London. And, well, you know the rest."
There was a silence. "That's all," said Richard. He finished his tea.
Gary scratched his head. "Look," he said, at length. "Is this real? Not some kind of horrible joke? I mean, somebody with a camera isn't about to leap out from behind a screen or something and tell me I'm on _Candid Camera_?"
"I sincerely hope not," said Richard. "You . . . do you believe me?"
Gary looked at the bill on their table, counted out pound coins, and dropped them onto the Formica, where they sat beside a plastic tomato ketchup58 container in the shape of an oversized tomato, old ketchup caked black about its nozzle. "I believe that, well, _something_ happened to you, obviously . . . Look, more to the point, do _you_ believe it?"
Richard stared up at him. There were dark circles beneath Richard's eyes. "Do I believe it? I don't know anymore. I did. I was there. There was a part in there when you turned up, you know."
"You didn't mention that before."
"It was a pretty horrid59 part. You told me that I'd gone mad and I was just wandering around London hallucinating."
They walked out of the cafe and walked south, toward Piccadilly. "Well," said Gary, "you must admit, it sounds more likely than your magical London underneath60, where the people who fall through the cracks go. I've passed the people who fall through the cracks, Richard: they sleep in shop doorways61 all down the Strand. They don't go to a special London. They freeze to death in the winter."
Richard said nothing.
Gary continued. "I think maybe you got some kind of blow on the head. Or maybe some kind of shock when Jessica chucked you. For a while you went a little crazy. Then you got better."
Richard shivered. "You know what scares me? I think you could be right."
"So life isn't exciting?" continued Gary. "Great. Give me boredom62. At least I know where I'm going to eat and sleep tonight. I'll still have a job on Monday. Yeah?" He turned and looked at Richard.
Richard nodded, hesitantly. "Yeah."
Gary looked at his watch. "Bloody63 hell," he exclaimed. "It's after two o'clock. Let's hope there are still a few taxis about." They walked into Brewer64 Street, at the Piccadilly end of Soho, wandering past the lights of the peep shows and the strip clubs. Gary was talking about taxis. He was not saying anything original, or even interesting. He was simply fulfilling his obligation as a Londoner to grumble65 about taxis. " . . . Had his light on and everything," he was saying, "I told him where I wanted to go, he said, sorry, I'm on my way home, I said, where do all you taxi drivers live anyway? And why don't any of you live near me? The trick is to get in first, then tell them you live south of the river, I mean, what was he trying to tell me? The way he was carrying on, Battersea might as well have been in bloody Katmandu . . . "
Richard had tuned him out. When they reached Windmill Street, Richard crossed the road and stared into the window of the Vintage Magazine Shop, examining the cartoonish models of forgotten film stars and the old posters and comics and magazines on display. It had been a glimpse into a world of adventure and imagination. And it was not true. He told himself that.
"So, what do you think?" Gary asked.
Richard jerked back to the present. "Of what?"
Gary realized Richard had not heard a word he had said. He said it again. "If there aren't any taxis we could get night buses."
"Yeah," said Richard. "Great. Fine."
Gary grimaced66. "You worry me."
"Sorry."
They walked down Windmill Street, toward Piccadilly. Richard thrust his hands deep into his pockets. He looked puzzled for a moment, and pulled out a rather crumpled67 black crow's feather, with red thread tied around the quill68.
"What's that?" asked Gary.
"It's a--" He stopped. "It's just a feather. You're right. It's only rubbish." He dropped the feather in the gutter69 at the curb70, and did not look back.
Gary hesitated. Then he said, picking his words with care, "Have you thought about seeing somebody?"
"See somebody? Look, I'm not crazy, Gary."
"Are you sure about that?" A taxi came toward them, yellow for-hire light burning.
"No," said Richard, honestly. "Here's a taxi. You take it. I'll take the next one."
"Thanks." Gary waved down the taxi and climbed into the back before telling the driver that he wished to go to Battersea. He pulled down the window, and, as the taxi pulled out, he said, "Richard--this is reality. Get used to it. It's all there is. See you on Monday."
Richard waved at him and watched the taxi drive away. Then he turned around and walked slowly away from the lights of Piccadilly, back up toward Brewer Street. There was no longer a feather by the curb. Richard paused beside an old woman, fast asleep in a shop doorway. She was covered with a ripped old blanket, and her few possessions--two small junk-filled cardboard boxes and a dirty, once-white umbrella--were tied together with string beside her, and the string was tied around her wrist, to keep anyone from stealing them while she slept. She wore a wool hat, of no particular color.
He pulled out his wallet, found a ten-pound note, and bent71 down to slide the folded note into the woman's hand. Her eyes opened, and she jerked awake. She blinked at the money with old eyes. "What's this?" she said, sleepily, displeased72 at having been woken. "Keep it," said Richard.
She unfolded the money, then pushed it up her sleeve. "Whatchyouwant?" she asked Richard, suspiciously.
"Nothing," said Richard. "I really don't want anything. Nothing at all." And then he realized how true that was; and how dreadful a thing it had become. "Have you ever got everything you ever wanted? And then realized it wasn't what you wanted at all?"
"Can't say that I have," she said, picking the sleep from the corner of her eyes.
"I thought I wanted this," said Richard. "I thought I wanted a nice, normal life. I mean, maybe I am crazy. I mean, maybe. But if this is all there is, then I don't want to be sane73. You know?" She shook her head. He reached into his inside pocket. "You see this?" he said. He held up the knife. "Hunter gave this to me as she died," he told her.
"Don't hurt me," said the old lady. "I ain't done nuffing."
He heard a strange intensity74 in his own voice. "I wiped her blood from the blade. A hunter looks after her weapons. The earl knighted me with it. He gave me the freedom of the Underside."
"I don't know anything about that," she said. "Please. Put it away. That's a good lad."
Richard hefted the knife. Then he lunged toward the brick wall, next to the doorway in which the woman had been sleeping. He slashed75 three rimes, once horizontally, twice vertically76. "What you doin'?" asked the woman, warily77.
"Making a door," he told her.
She sniffed. "You ought to put that thing away. If the police see you they'll run you in for offensive weapons."
Richard looked at the outline of a doorway he had scratched on the wall. He put his knife back into his pocket, and he began to hammer on the wall with his fists. "Hey! Is there anyone there? Can you hear me? It's me--Richard. Door? Someone?" He hurt his hands, but he kept banging and flailing78 at the brickwork.
And then the madness left him, and he stopped.
"Sorry," he said to the old lady.
She did not answer. She had either gone back to sleep or, more probably, pretended to go back to sleep. Elderly snores, real or feigned79, came from the doorway. Richard sat down on the pavement, and wondered how someone could make such a mess of their life as he had made of his. Then he looked back at the doorway he had scratched on the wall.
There was a door-shaped hole in the wall, where he had scratched his outline. There was a man standing in the doorway, with his arms folded theatrically80. He stood there until he was certain that Richard had seen him. And then he yawned hugely, covering his mouth with a dark hand.
The marquis de Carabas raised an eyebrow. "Well?" he said, irritably81. "Are you coming?"
Richard stared at him for a heartbeat.
Then Richard nodded, without trusting himself to speak, and stood up. And they walked away together through the hole in the wall, back into the darkness, leaving nothing behind them; not even the doorway.
收听单词发音 |
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growling
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| n.吠声, 咆哮声 v.怒吠, 咆哮, 吼 | |
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enraged
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| 使暴怒( enrage的过去式和过去分词 )； 歜； 激愤 | |
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ascend
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| vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上 | |
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tuned
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| adj.调谐的，已调谐的v.调音( tune的过去式和过去分词 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
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5
demolishing
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| v.摧毁( demolish的现在分词 )；推翻；拆毁（尤指大建筑物）；吃光 | |
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crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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scowl
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| vi.(at)生气地皱眉，沉下脸，怒视；n.怒容 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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regale
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| v.取悦，款待 | |
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thorny
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| adj.多刺的，棘手的 | |
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strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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recipient
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| a.接受的,感受性强的 n.接受者,感受者,容器 | |
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lollipops
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| n.棒糖，棒棒糖( lollipop的名词复数 )；（用交通指挥牌让车辆暂停以便儿童安全通过马路的）交通纠察 | |
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cubicles
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| n.小卧室，斗室( cubicle的名词复数 ) | |
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rummaging
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| 翻找，搜寻( rummage的现在分词 )； 海关检查 | |
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prodigal
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| adj.浪费的，挥霍的，放荡的 | |
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plaque
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| n.饰板，匾，(医)血小板 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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waxy
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| adj.苍白的；光滑的 | |
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sleeker
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| 磨光器，异型墁刀 | |
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sipped
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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eyebrow
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| n.眉毛，眉 | |
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lamely
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| 一瘸一拐地，不完全地 | |
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tenant
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| n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用 | |
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crumbled
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| （把…）弄碎， （使）碎成细屑( crumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 衰落； 坍塌； 损坏 | |
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suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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grudgingly
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curry
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| n.咖哩粉，咖哩饭菜；v.用咖哩粉调味，用马栉梳，制革 | |
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moored
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| adj. 系泊的 动词moor的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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unpacking
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| n.取出货物，拆包[箱]v.从（包裹等）中取出（所装的东西），打开行李取出( unpack的现在分词 )；拆包；解除…的负担；吐露（心事等） | |
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unpack
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| vt.打开包裹（或行李），卸货 | |
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warrior
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| n.勇士，武士，斗士 | |
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promotion
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| n.提升，晋级；促销，宣传 | |
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compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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hissed
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| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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mansions
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| n.宅第，公馆，大厦( mansion的名词复数 ) | |
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wary
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| adj.谨慎的，机警的，小心的 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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scurried
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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corporate
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| adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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chic
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| n./adj.别致(的)，时髦(的)，讲究的 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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amble
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| vi.缓行，漫步 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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charing
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| n.炭化v.把…烧成炭，把…烧焦( char的现在分词 )；烧成炭，烧焦；做杂役女佣 | |
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greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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58
ketchup
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| n.蕃茄酱，蕃茄沙司 | |
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horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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doorways
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| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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boredom
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| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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brewer
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| n. 啤酒制造者 | |
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65
grumble
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| vi.抱怨；咕哝；n.抱怨，牢骚；咕哝，隆隆声 | |
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grimaced
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| v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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68
quill
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| n.羽毛管；v.给（织物或衣服）作皱褶 | |
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69
gutter
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| n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟 | |
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curb
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| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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displeased
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| a.不快的 | |
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sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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75
slashed
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| v.挥砍( slash的过去式和过去分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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76
vertically
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| adv.垂直地 | |
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77
warily
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| adv.留心地 | |
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78
flailing
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| v.鞭打( flail的现在分词 )；用连枷脱粒；（臂或腿）无法控制地乱动；扫雷坦克 | |
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79
feigned
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| a.假装的，不真诚的 | |
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theatrically
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| adv.戏剧化地 | |
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81
irritably
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| ad.易生气地 | |
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