The Clocks

She spoke with a certain satisfaction and I perceived that to a child, if her motheris dead, it reflects a certain kudos if she has been killed in a complete and devastating accident.

‘I see,’ I said. ‘So you have-’ I looked towards the door.

‘That’s Ingrid. She comes from Norway. She’s only been here a fortnight. She doesn’t know any English to speak of yet. I’m teaching her English.’

‘And she is teaching you Norwegian?’

‘Not very much,’ said Geraldine.

‘Do you like her?’

‘Yes. She’s all right. The things she cooks are rather odd sometimes. Do you know, she likes eating raw fish.’

‘I’ve eaten raw fish in Norway,’ I said. ‘It’s very good sometimes.’

Geraldine looked extremely doubtful about that.

‘She is trying to make a treacle tart today,’ she said.

‘That sounds good.’

‘Umm-yes, I like treacle tart.’ She added politely, ‘Have you come to lunch?’

‘Not exactly. As a matter of fact I was passing down below out there, and I think you dropped something out of the window.’ 

‘Me?’

‘Yes.’ I advanced the silver fruit knife.

Geraldine looked at it, at first suspiciously and then with signs of approval.

‘It’s rather nice,’ she said. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s a fruit knife.’

I opened it.

‘Oh, I see. You mean you can peel apples with it and things like that.’

‘Yes.’

Geraldine sighed.

‘It’s not mine. I didn’t drop it. What made you think I did?’

‘Well, you were looking out of the window, and…’

‘I look out of the window most of the time,’ said Geraldine. ‘I fell down and broke my leg, you see.’

‘Hard luck.’

‘Yes, wasn’t it. I didn’t break it in a very interesting way, though. I was getting out of a bus and it went on suddenly. It hurt rather at first and it ached a bit, but it doesn’t now.’

‘Must be rather dull for you,’ I said.

‘Yes, it is. But Daddy brings me things. Plasticine, you know, and books and crayons and jigsaw puzzles and things like that, but you get tired ofdoing things, so I spend a lot of time looking out of the window with these.’ 

She produced with enormous pride a small pair of opera glasses.

‘May I look?’ I said.

I took them from her, adjusted them to my eyes and looked out of the window.

‘They’re jolly good,’ I said appreciatively.

They were indeed, excellent. Geraldine’s daddy, if it had been he who supplied them, had not spared expense. It was astonishing how clearly you could see No. 19, Wilbraham Crescent and its neighbouring houses. I handed them back to her.

‘They’re excellent,’ I said. ‘First-class.’

‘They’re proper ones,’ said Geraldine, with pride. ‘Not just for babies and pretending.’

‘No…I can see that.’

‘I keep a little book,’ said Geraldine.

She showed me.

‘I write down things in it and the times. It’s like train spotting,’ she added. ‘I’ve got a cousin called Dick and he does train spotting. We do motor-car numbers too. You know, you start at one and see how far you can get.’

‘It’s rather a good sport,’ I said.

‘Yes, it is. Unfortunately there aren’t many cars come down this road so I’ve rather given that up for the time being.’

‘I suppose you must know all about those houses down there, who lives in them and all that sort of thing.’

I threw it out casually enough but Geraldine was quick to respond.

‘Oh, yes. Of course I don’t know their real names, so I have to give them names of my own.’

‘That must be rather fun,’ I said.

‘That’s the Marchioness of Carrabas down there,’ said Geraldine, pointing. ‘That one with all the untidy trees. You know, like Puss In Boots. She has masses and masses of cats.’

‘I was talking to one just now,’ I said, ‘an orange one.’

‘Yes, I saw you,’ said Geraldine.

‘You must be very sharp,’ I said. ‘I don’t expect you miss much, do you?’

Geraldine smiled in a pleased way. Ingrid opened the door and came in breathless.

‘You are all right, yes?’

‘We’re quite all right,’ said Geraldine firmly. ‘You needn’t worry, Ingrid.’

She nodded violently and pantomimed with her hands.

‘You go back, you cook.’

‘Very well, I go. It is nice that you have a visitor.’

‘She gets nervous when she cooks,’ explained Geraldine, ‘when she’s trying anything new, I mean. And sometimes we have meals very late because of that. I’m glad you’ve come. It’s nice to have someone to distract you, then you don’t think about being hungry.’

‘Tell me more about the people in the houses there,’ I said, ‘and what you see. Who lives in the next house-the neat one?’

‘Oh, there’s a blind woman there. She’s quite blind and yet she walks just as well as though she could see. The porter told me that. Harry. He’s very nice, Harry is. He tells me a lot of things. He told me about the murder.’

‘The murder?’ I said, sounding suitably astonished.

Geraldine nodded. Her eyes shone with importance at the information she was about to convey.

‘There was a murder in that house. I practicallysaw it.’

‘How very interesting.’

‘Yes, isn’t it? I’ve never seen a murder before. I mean I’ve never seen a place where a murder happened.’

‘What did you-er-see?’