Death Lives Next Door

“Oh, there! They have a vested interest in mediocrity there.”

“That’s unfair.” He wanted to say, “Hold back your blows, Marion,” but he could see she was deeply hurt.

“Go if you like.” She shrugged.

That was the trouble, Ezra did not know if he did like. He was happy here. He loved the rhythm of his life, the autumn and winter for quiet work, his acting in the spring and summer, the cheap trips abroad; in some moods he even loved his pupils. He knew all the little side streets of Oxford. Blue Boar Lane which lets on to the back premises of Christ Church and the houses, so like country mansions, of the Canons of the Cathedral. He knew and loved Magpie Lane and New College Lane and the tiny stretch of Catte Street. As a ghost, thought Ezra, this would be the world he would haunt, these loved little streets. He had walked them in the autumn when they smelt of wood smoke, and when they were frosty with snow, but he thought he liked them best in the summer. If condemned ever to be a revenant it would be to this summer world he would come back, walking the streets on warm moonlit evenings, dreaming of long-dead Commemoration Balls and evenings on the river. (In real life Ezra was a poor hand with a punt and hardly ever went near the water, but a ghost, of course, would be able to do everything.) Or perhaps the ghosts of the dancers and the musicians would be there, too, and he would hear music floating across the wall from Merton or over from the New Buildings at Magdalen which were new when Dr. Johnson was a young man. He loved all this and didn’t really want to be uprooted, but Rachel, with her acid clear judgements, had changed everything. His indecision was mirrored in his face and Marion saw it.

“And who’s been suggesting all this to you?”

“No one,” said Ezra, deeply troubled; he was doing this so badly.

But Marion knew the answer to her own question. “Rachel, I suppose. John Farmer knows her father, of course.”

She sat down at her desk and drew a thin brown hand across it for a cigarette. “Dusty,” she observed. “I don’t keep this house the way I should.” On the top of her desk was a picture of a young man wearing an open-neck shirt and nursing Sammy.

Ezra walked over and picked up his photograph. “I was quite chubby then, wasn’t I?”

Marion nodded.

“You were good to me then, Marion. I wonder why? I must have been a boring boy.”

“Not so bad as some,” said Marion philosophically. “And very attractive. I couldn’t help noticing that.” She smiled, and the bright brown eyes were set in a lace of little crinkles.

“I do depend on you, Marion.”

“Not in all things,” she said sharply.

“No. But to keep me on a straight level.” Did Marion depend on him? And in a moment he knew she did.

It came to Ezra sharply then that Marion was one of the people he most loved in the world. Until six months ago he would have said the person.

And she had aged. Grown thinner, tenser, more strained.

“What’s done this to you, Marion?” he heard himself say, to his embarrassment.

He saw great tears fill the brown eyes and it was like seeing the Pyramids weep.

“Marion!” he cried.

She mumbled something he could not hear. Then she repeated it.

“I’m being watched.”

The words struck him unpleasantly.

“I saw a man killed once. I saw his eyes crossed in death. I felt he was watching me. Since then I’ve hated people watching me.”

Ezra knew she referred to the death so many years ago of the man on the expedition. It came as a shock to him that Marion should refer in tones which so clearly showed that the wound was still there, raw and unhealed, to an incident he had thought long buried, far back in her past.

“No need to be so upset,” he said, startled into unsympathy.

“You try it some time.” Marion dried her eyes. “It’s unnerving. I don’t know this man from Adam. Or I didn’t.”

“Oh, it’s a man?”

“Yes,” said Marion shortly.

“Is he always there?”

“No.” In spite of herself Marion laughed. “Only human. Not all the time.”

“Are you sure? I mean, supposing he really is watching, are you sure it is you?”

“Quite, quite certain. He follows. Last week I went to London for the day. I saw his taxi follow mine to the station. Thursday I went to Stoke-on-Trent to give that lecture. He came, too. Don’t say I should tell the police.”

“No, I wasn’t going to.”

“There’s been no threat, you see, no nuisance. He never tries to talk to me. Never comes even very close. But he’s always there. Why?” She said slowly, “And yet I don’t feel any malice in him. He’s just interested. In me.”

“Well, so are a lot of people, Marion.” Ezra was thinking hard. So this was the basis behind all the rumours. Somehow it had got out. “Who have you told, Marion?”

There was silence.

“I have told no one. I swear. I have told no one at all.”

But this rumour was all over the town. Marion must have let it out. Or perhaps the neighbours had noticed.

“What about the neighbours?” he asked. “Do you think they’ve noticed? Or have you told them?”

Marion looked surprised. “I don’t know them.”

Ezra was half irritated, half amused. “You must know them, Marion.”

“Why? I’ve never even seen them.”

“Oh, you must have seen them. In the garden, digging or something.”

“Oh, but I never go in the garden,” said Marion, looking placidly at the jungle beneath her window. “Can’t stand it. No, I tell you the neighbours are out. I haven’t told them, and I don’t believe they’ve noticed.”

“People do know, though.”

Marion had walked to the window. “Look out there.”

Ezra pulled back the curtains and looked across the road to the junction of Chancellor Hyde Street and Little Clarendon Street. The wind that nipped that corner was usually chill and he was not surprised to see the figure standing there put its collar up. It was a small dark man with spectacles; he was wearing a mackintosh and underneath it a neat blue suit.

“He doesn’t look like a detective,” murmured Ezra.

“I’m sure he’s not that.” Marion spoke with decision.