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By Root 6037 0

together, nice boy, high class boy. I left him hanging from his seat, a splash of red, white and blue tie coming out of his coat and I went up to Yorktown and danced with a girl in a flower print dress who said there was no fun and nobody around. Named Jean with remarkable breasts and I was dreaming of Marion's, my own tall thin blond with teeth fashionably bucked. On my way after the war to marry her. Ready to take the big plane across the sea. I first met her wearing a sky blue sweater and I knew they were pears. What better than ripe pears. In London in the Antelope, sitting in the back with a fine pot of gin enjoying these indubitable people. She sat only inches away, a long cigarette in her white fingers. While the bombs were landing in London. I heard her ask for cigarettes and they had none. And leaning forward in my naval uniform, handsome and strong, please, do have some of mine. O I couldn't, really, thank you, no. But please do, I insist. It's very good of you. Not at all. And she dropped one and I reached down and touched her ankle with my finger. My, what rich, lovely big feet.

"What's the matter, Kenneth? You're as white as a sheet."

O'Keefe staring at the ceiling with a half chewed chicken leg hanging in his fist.

"Didn't you hear that? Whatever that scrabbling in the ceiling is, it's alive."

"My dear Kenneth, you're welcome to search the premises. It moves all over the house. Even wails and has a rather disconcerting way of following one from room to room."

"Jesus, stop it That scares me. Why don't you look up there?"

"Rather not."

"That noise is real."

"Perhaps you'd like to look, Kenneth. Trap door in the hall. I'll give you an axe and flashlight."

"Wait till I digest my meal. I was just beginning to enjoy all this. I thought you were kidding."

O'Keefe at one end, carrying the ladder to the hall.

With axe cocked, O'Keefe advancing slowly towards the trap door. Dangerfield encouraging him on. O'Keefe pushing up the door, peering along the beam of light No noise. Not a sound. Bravery becoming general again.

"You look frightened to death. Dangerfield. Think you were the one up here. Probably just some loose papers blowing across the floor."

"Suit yourself, Kenneth. Just give me a whistle when it gets you around the neck. Go in."

O'Keefe disappeared. Dangerfield looking up into the descending dust. O'Keefe's footfalls going towards the drawing room. A wail. A scream from O'Keefe.

"Christ, hold the ladder, I'm coming down"

Trap door down with a slam.

"For God's sake, what is it, Kenneth ?"

"A cat With one eye. The other a great gaping hole. What a sight How the hell did it get up there ? "

"No idea. Must have been up there all the time. Might have belonged to a Mr. Gilhooley who lived here only he fell off the cliff out there one night and was washed up three months later on the Isle of Man. Would you say, Kenneth, that maybe this house has a history of death?"

"Where are you putting me to sleep ?"

"Cheer up, Kenneth. You look terrified. No need to let a little thing like a cat get you down. You can sleep wherever you like."

"This house gives me the creeps. Let's build a fire or something."

"Come into the drawing room and play a little tune on the piano for me."

They walked along the red tiled hall to the drawing room. Set on a tripod before the baywindows, a large brass telescope pointing out to sea. In the corner an ancient upright piano, its top covered with opened tins and rinds of cheese. Three fat armchairs distorted with lumps of stuffing and poking springs. Dangerfield fell back in one and O'Keefe bounded to the piano, struck a chord and began to sing.

In this sad room

In this dark gloom

We live like beasts.

The windows rattling on the rotten sills. O'Keefe's twisted notes. There you are, Kenneth, sitting on that stool, all the way from Cambridge, Massachusetts, freckled and fed on spaghetti. And me, from St. Louis, Missouri, because that night in the Antelope I took Marion to dinner and she paid. And a weekend after to a hotel. And I pulled down her green pajamas and she