The Lake of Darkness by Ruth Rendell Read Free Book Online Page B

headmaster taking end-of-term farewell of a pupil whose conduct has been idle, slovenly, violent, and rude.
    It was rare for Mr. Cochrane to leave him messages but if he did, his notes were in the same disapproving and admonitory style as his conversation. Martin found one waiting for him when he came home just before six.
Dear Martin, A Mr. Sage phoned 2 mins after you left. I said I was only the cleaner and could not account for you going off so early like that. W. Cochrane.
Martin screwed the note up and threw it into the emptied, and apparently actually polished, wastepaper bin. As it struck with a faint clang the side of this, in fact, metal container, the phone began to ring. Martin answered it cautiously.
    “How elusive you are,” said Tim’s voice. “You have quite an army of retainers to protect you from the press.”
    “Not really,” said Martin rather nervously. “And what can I—er, do for the press now it’s found me?”
    Tim didn’t answer that directly. There was a silence in which Martin guessed he must be lighting a cigarette. He braced himself for the question and was very taken aback when Tim said,
    “Just to remind you you’re coming over here tomorrow night, love.”
    Martin had forgotten all about the party. It had gone so far out of his head that he had accepted Gordon’s invitation to the theatre. Suddenly he realised how much he hated, and had always hated, Tim calling him “love.” It was muchworse than “my dear.” “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m afraid I can’t. I’ve arranged to do something else.”
    “You might have let me know,” said Tim.
    Martin said it again. “I’m sorry,” and then, rather defensively, “I didn’t think it was necessary for that sort of party.”
    If it were possible to hear someone’s eyebrows go up, Martin felt he would have heard Tim’s then. “But what sort of party, Martin?” the drawly, now censorious, voice said. “This is going to be a dinner party. Surely you understood that when I said to come at seven? Just eight of us for dinner.” There was a long, and to Martin awful, pause. “It was to be rather a special celebration.”
    “I’m sure my not being there won’t spoil the evening.”
    “On the contrary,” said Tim, now very cold. “We shall be desolate.”
    The receiver went down. No one had ever hung up on Martin before. He felt unfairly persecuted. Of course he had always refused in the past to go to Tim’s, but this time, if it had been made plain to him from the first that this wasn’t going to be a noisy drunken get-together in uncomfortable darkened rooms, he wouldn’t have forgotten about it and he would have gone. If Tim had something to celebrate, why hadn’t he told him so when he had invited him last Friday? Martin felt a sudden, almost fierce, dislike of Tim. When he heard from the tax inspector he would write him a formal letter, not phone this time. He had had quite enough of Tim for the time being. Let a few weeks go by, then maybe at Christmas he’d, give him a ring.
    But that night he dreamed of Tim for the first time for many weeks. They were in the house in Stroud Green which Martin, in waking reality, had never visited. Tim had spoken of it as unsavoury, and in the dream it was more than that, Dickensian in its grotesque squalor, a series of junk-crowded rat-holes that smelt of rot. He and Tim were arguing about something, he hardly knew what, and each was provoking the other to anger, he by a kind of contrivedpomposity, Tim by being outrageously camp. At last Martin could stand it no longer and he lunged out at Tim, but Tim parried the blow and together, clutching each other, they fell on to a deep, red, dusty, velvet settee that filled half the room. There, though still locked together, elbows hooked round each other’s necks, it was impossible to continue struggling, for the red velvet which had become damp and somehow soggy, exerted an effect of sucking and seemed to draw them into its