The Grin of the Dark (13 page)

None of this brings a smile to my lips. The language feels weighed
down by age and facetiousness, and the drawings are more disconcerting
than amusing. Though the nephews wear rompers and are
smaller than their uncle, the three faces are identical. The figures look
stiffened by their heavy outlines, not so much drawn as cut out and
pasted to the page. All the same, I'm delighted with the find. 'Well
done, Mark. You can be my junior researcher,' I say and ask the stallholder
'Are there any more?'

'That was it. Only ever the one.'

'I don't suppose it was the best time to bring out a new comic, just
after Christmas.'

'There wasn't any good time. Lots of places wouldn't stock it
because your friend's story in there was giving children nightmares.
He'd have given me them at this little boy's age.'

'I never have any,' Mark protests.

'They aren't scared of anything these days, are they? The world
wants shaking up,' she says, which rather seems to contradict her
aversion to the comic.

'Will you have Tubby in anything else?' When she shakes her head
without taking her dissatisfied gaze from me I say 'I can't see a price.'

She parts her lips at least a second earlier than saying 'Fifty will
do.'

That doesn't seem unreasonable for the solitary issue of a publication
almost a century old. I file the Visa slip with the rest of the
evidence of my expenses and entrust Mark with the comic. None of
the other stalls has anything to offer my search. Some stallholders are
bewildered when I ask for Lane; others seem resentful, presumably
because I've exposed their ignorance. On our way out the shawled
woman holds up one hand, and I imagine her inviting somebody to
shy another bracelet onto her arm, but she wants to hand me a carrier
bag for my purchases. 'Keep laughing,' she says.

Whoever's in the box closest to the left side of the stage might be
demonstrating the principle. Though it's hard to be sure at that
distance, the large figure in the shadows at the back of the box
appears to be convulsed with mirth. He may have a companion in the
opposite box, where the gloom contains an equally indistinct
occupant who is likewise holding his swollen sides and throwing back
his pale head. The clearest detail about either of them is a display of
prominent teeth. So far away, and with all the hubbub, I can't hear
their laughter. I find the spectacle disconcerting, but I'm not about to
struggle through the crowd to investigate it. Instead I push Mark out
of the auditorium. As the doors thump shut he says 'We could have
got in for nothing.'

There is indeed no sign of the doorman – not even of his table and
chair. My wrist tingles as the chilly sunlight settles on the clownish
imprint. A man with a rolled poster in each hand emerges from the
theatre, and without quite knowing my reason I ask 'Have you got a
stamp?'

'There's a post office up the road, mate.'

I can see no ink on his wrist. Perhaps he's involved in running the
fair. I don't recall noticing anyone else with a stamp, but why would
I have? As the man strides into the crowd Mark says 'You can't have
mine.'

He looks ready to run away for a laugh, possibly across the road
that's loaded with traffic. I should be taking care of him, not
indulging in meaningless fancies. 'You keep it, Mark,' I say and show
him the DVD. 'Let's go home and see where Tubby came from.'

Natalie drains her glass of the Merlot that we had with dinner
and sinks back on the couch, but as I slip an arm around her
shoulders we hear footsteps in the corridor. The sound spurs me to
tell her 'Your parents can get in.'

'Gosh, you're paranoid. That isn't them.' She leans her head away
from me to scrutinise my face. 'Aren't you joking? They have a key
for emergencies, but they wouldn't just let themselves in without
asking.'

'Maybe we should bolt the door in future when we're in,' I have to
be content with saying, because I don't want to bring up Bebe's
comments about Nicholas while Mark is out of bed. I'm hoping that
my smile will reassure Natalie I'm not paranoid when Mark knocks
at the door of the room.

His mother sighs. 'I thought you were supposed to be asleep.'

'I nearly was. Can I come in?'

'If you must. If it'll send you back where you should be, asleep.'

He's wearing pyjamas swarming with jovial full moons. 'Looks
like we've invited a lunatic in,' I remark.

Natalie doesn't seem to care for this. 'So why aren't you in bed,
Mark?'

'What about my computer?'

'You aren't making sense. I think you'd better – '

'Why don't you try your DVD on it, Simon? It can play them.'

The disc I bought at the memorabilia fair doesn't work on the
player or on Natalie's computer, and mine has no facility for playing
DVDs. 'If it helps him sleep, do you think?' I murmur.

'If you're sure it will.'

I can't tell which of us she's addressing: perhaps both. Mark is
already running to his bedroom. Several books, including a large
pictorial history of films, have escaped from the bookcase under the
small high window. The clothes he wore today are sprawled like a
sketch of a contortionist on the Mexican blanket that covers his bed.
In general the room could belong to someone twice his age, especially
given the absence of toys other than computer games. Natalie takes
the clothes to the wicker basket in the bathroom as I slip the disc into
the computer.

An icon of a disc appears, and then the monitor turns blank as
ignorance. As Mark rocks in his desk chair like a driver attempting to
start a car with his own energy, the screen grows chaotic with pixels.
Natalie sits next to me on the end of the bed as the pixels disappear
into a black and white image. Mark bounces in his chair and claps his
hands at the sight of Tubby on a stage.

I'm glad he seems to have forgotten about the erased tape. When I
told him I no longer had the footage, his mouth looked in danger of
writhing out of control. Tubby has his back to a prop that resembles
an old fairground attraction – a long board taller than he is, with
cartoonish figures painted on it and holes where their faces should be.
They represent a mayor in his regalia, a queen with her crown, a
judge wearing a black cap, a cowled monk hiding his hands in his
sleeves, a mitred bishop or archbishop and a long-haired saint with a
rakish halo. Tubby is dressed in an outsize dinner suit, which flaps
blackly as he paces to the board. He dodges behind it so nimbly that
I could imagine the film has been edited to lend him the power, but
he's being filmed in a single uninterrupted take. He pokes his face
through each hole in turn, and his grin stretches wider with every
appearance. By the time he wags his head on the saint's behalf his
teeth could be described as his most prominent feature. Could the
long hair suggest that the white-robed figure is more than a saint?
Tubby's face shrinks into the dark within the outline and then swells
out again, and it takes me a moment to grasp that we're seeing a
balloon with his hilarious face. Another bulges out beneath the mitre,
and a third from the monk's cowl, and so on down the line until all
six figures have a face. Where's Tubby? He's playing the mayor;
that's the face whose eyes and lips are widening. I see the lips start to
draw back from the gums, and then, with a pop that's all the more
shocking for its soundlessness, the face bursts.

Natalie gasps, but not with delight. Mark giggles, to some extent at
her reaction, I think. Tubby flaps out from behind the board and
advances to the footlights, which lend his pallid face a waxy glow. His
shadow reaches back to the faceless figure as if to question which of
them is casting it. He twists his head around so far that I wince on his
behalf. Having admired the spectacle behind him, where the faces have
begun to sag and simper, he clutches his stomach and bares his teeth
in an expanding laugh. His body shakes until its outline is a quivering
mass of blackness. His mouth stretches so wide that I hear his
chortling, if only in my head. He's still laughing as he flutters to the
steps that lead down to the auditorium. He means to entice somebody
onto the stage, to frame their face alongside five of his. As he advances
towards us like a gleeful storm, however, the screen turns black.

Of course the blackness of his suit hasn't overwhelmed it; the film
has cut off. In a few seconds it recommences, but in a different
theatre, where identical-twin young women are performing a song
and dance with ukuleles. 'I think that's all of Tubby,' I tell Mark.

'Maybe that's enough,' Natalie says. 'I don't know if I like him.'

Mark is using the miniature onscreen control panel to run the disc
backwards. The blackness above the mayor's collar reconstitutes a
face that retreats like a worm into earth, and then the other faces
withdraw into their burrows one by one. 'I know I didn't like that,'
says Natalie.

'Watch him again.'

I'm not sure whether that's an exhortation or an untypically
childish plea. Tubby has retrieved his face from each member of the
parade. As he repeats his performance I'm still unable to determine
how he manages to dodge behind the board so instantaneously, and
the emergence of his face above neck after neck puts me in mind of
worms before the balloons do. When the mayor's head bursts,
Natalie releases a sharp breath that sounds determined not to be a
gasp. 'Show's over for tonight,' she says. 'Bed.'

'Thanks for sorting it out for me, Mark. We're a good team.'

He freezes the image as Tubby comes for the audience. 'Can I keep
it in my room?'

'Better let Simon have it for safety. I expect you'll be able to watch
it again if you must.'

Mark springs the disc and plants it in its case. 'Can I have the
comic to read in the morning?'

'Simon will want to look after it if it's going in his
book.'

'I may want another glance at it,' I say, feeling feeble. 'You can see
it tomorrow if you're good.'

'You're only saying that because of her. I never spoil things.
Grandma and grandad trust me all over their house.'

'You're spoiling things now, Mark. Give that to Simon and switch
that off and into bed.'

'I should do as your mother says or you'll have her blaming me.' I
keep my voice steady, although he has jabbed my palm with the
corner of the plastic case – unintentionally, I hope. 'Thank you,
Mark,' I say and walk quickly out of the room.

I lay the DVD on my desk and rub my bruised palm while I listen
to Natalie's maternal murmur. As soon as she shuts his door and the
one to the corridor I say 'I'm not a bad influence, am I?'

'Only on me.'

'Good job your parents can't hear you say that.'

Her inviting smile winces and grows straight. 'Seriously, I
wouldn't mind if you backed me up a little more.'

'With your parents?'

'I don't need that. With Mark,' she says, and I feel as if I've been
diverted from the link I was trying to make. 'I realise he's still getting
used to having you here all the time, but I don't want him losing his
sleep even at the weekend.'

'I'm getting used too. I haven't had all that much experience of
being part of a whole family.'

'Don't undersell yourself, Simon. He was very proud to be seen
with you at school.'

'Is that what he said?'

'He didn't have to. I can tell. I'm his mother.'

Is that my cue to mention Nicholas? I attempt to begin, but it's
more of a struggle than I was anticipating: it feels as if my face has
turned into an unmanageable mask. Before I can speak Natalie says
'So when are you off on your travels again? I may need to book him
into the after-school club.'

'I'll see, shall I?'

'You could let me know tomorrow,' Natalie says, but I've already
switched on the computer. Any action might be a relief from my
inability to raise the subject of Mark's father. As Natalie stretches out
on the couch, the Frugonet screen takes shape.

hi agn move buf!

fli 2 lax + wel pic u up. i havnt lookd @ the old gis films 4
yers. u can sort them out + c whats ther. im sur theres sum tub
thacera. sta as long as u lik. i ma b filmng but no problem. mab
i can giv u a standup rol if yor up 4 it. lookng 4wad 2 it! let me
no whn soon as u can.

wille

'Maybe I should leave this until I'm more awake.'

Natalie swings her legs off the couch and rests her fingertips on my
shoulders. 'Hi again movie buff,' she says at once. 'Fly to Los Angeles
and we'll pick you up. I haven't looked at the old guy's films for
years...'

When she reads to the end without hesitation I say 'Maybe I
should take you along as my interpreter.'

'It sounds as if I ought to be there.' She moves to face me as she
says 'What kind of film is he inviting you into?'

'The kind you think. I'm sure he's joking. I'll see that he is.'

'You'd better. You're still planning to go up to Preston as well,
yes?'

'If the library has anything I can't find on the net.'

'Will you look in on your parents while you're there?'

'Possibly.'

'I should give them a call at least.'

'I'll see if I've time.' When she looks wistful I point out 'They've
had plenty.'

'Not so much recently, I suppose. Perhaps you needn't blame them
when you've come out the way you have.'

'So long as you're satisfied.'

'They were a bit vintage when they got married, weren't they? We
don't know how much of a shock you turned out to be.'

'Enough to split them up when I was little.'

'You know I don't mean it was your fault. Didn't they both do
their best for you?'

'I expect they tried.'

'And they did invite you – '

'Don't bring the wedding up.' It shrinks my mind into a hard spiky
lump of emotions I'd rather not identify. 'Can't we just go to bed?'

'Let me say one more thing. Maybe they really did marry again
because you were out of the way, but don't you think that could have
been because they were lonely without you?'

'All right, if it makes you happy.'

Apparently this doesn't. 'Anyway,' she says, 'I thought you were
busy on your computer.'

'Never too busy for you, Natty. Shall I hang on here while you get
ready for bed?'

Surely she's looking resigned only to the end of our discussion. She
eases the door open and listens for a few seconds. 'Just don't waken
Mark,' she whispers.

As she closes the door I find the Frugojet site. I could bill the
university for a more expensive pair of flights, but my Frugo Visa gives
me several hundred air miles, and I don't want to take too much
advantage when they've yet to publish me. The earliest available flight
to Los Angeles is next week, and there's a return three days later. I buy
the tickets with my card and email my arrival time to Willie Hart, and
set about searching the web.

The Harris Library in Preston does indeed have the entire run of
the
Preston Chronicle
on microfilm, but it isn't available for consultation
on the Internet. It's surely worth the journey to discover what
else was said about Lane in the paper. This isn't why I slap my
forehead so hard that for a moment I'm afraid the sound may rouse
Mark. How could I have missed the chance to question the stallholders
about Lane?

I won't blame Mark or his fuss about the comic. Can't I email the
Comical Companions? Apparently not now, since they have no
website. It's too late to call Charley Tracy tonight, even assuming that
he has the information. I ought to switch off – I heard Natalie go into
the bedroom – but before I join her I wouldn't mind leaving some of
my frustration behind. Just seeing that I've made my point on the
movie database should be enough. I bring up the message board for
the Tubby film, and then I let go of the mouse for fear that it will
splinter in my fist.

Wow, we've all got to aplaud. Mr Questionabble's written
abbout a film. Or maybe he means he wrote on one because he
couldn't aford any paper. Maybe he hasn't noticed we all write
about them on this site. Everyboddy shout if they've heard of
Simon Letser. Why am I not hearing annything? If writing on a
film is so important to him, I'll tell him what. He should go
away and get something pubblished somewhere and then
maybe we'll all be impressed, except I don't think annyone will
want to pubblish him when he doesn't even know the difference
between people and peoples. He must think they're the ones
that are getting up to stupid tricks, or maybe that's him,
because I'm sure noboddy here knows what he's raving on
about. He wants people or even peoples to apprecciate Tubby,
does he? Then he'd better stop making up stories abbout him.

I'm about to respond when I have an idea that shouldn't have been
so belated. As I search for London University Press my mouth works
on a grin. The opening page displays an enlarged colophon. The
initial letters of the three stacked words are in a modern typescript,
the rest of each word is more old-fashioned. The top link in the
sidebar is STUDIES IN FILM. There isn't much on that page, but
certainly enough. The series editor is Dr Rufus Wall, and he's
announcing the first book – 'a major rediscovery of forgotten legends
of the cinema by the premier young British film critic Simon Lester'.