“I did, actually,” said Julian. “But then I have a bath most mornings.”
“Good for you. I find it almost impossible to persuade Cyril to wash.”
“That’s not true,” I said, insulted, in part because I was meticulous about my personal hygiene but also because even at that age I hated when people attributed characteristics to me that had no basis in truth.
“I would, however, ask you not to sit in it again if you don’t mind,” continued Maude, ignoring my interruption.
“You have my word, Mrs. Avery,” said Julian, performing a little bow at the waist that made her smile, an event almost as rare as a solar eclipse. “You write novels, don’t you?” he asked then.
“That’s right,” she said. “How did you know that?”
“My father told me. He said he hasn’t read any himself because you mostly write about women.”
“I do,” she admitted.
“Might I ask why?”
“Because the male writers never do. They don’t have the talent, you see. Or the wisdom.”
“Julian’s father is here to see Charles,” I said, keen to turn the conversation away from chairs and books. “When I discovered him downstairs, I thought he might like to come up to see my room.”
“And did you?” asked Maude, sounding astonished by the concept. “Did you want to see Cyril’s room?”
“Yes, very much so. He has a lot of space up here, doesn’t he? I envy him that. And that skylight is wonderful. Imagine being able to lie in bed at night and look up at the stars!”
“Someone died up here once, you know,” said Maude, sniffing the air, which was already filled with carcinogens from her cigarettes, as if hoping for the last olfactory vestiges of death.
“What?” I asked, appalled. “Who?” This was the first time I had heard this.
“Oh I can’t remember. Some…man, I think. Or possibly a woman. A person, shall we say. It was all such a long time ago.”
“Was it natural causes, Mrs. Avery?” asked Julian.
“No, I don’t think so. If memory serves, he, she or it was murdered. I’m not sure if the killer was ever caught. It was in all the papers at the time.” She waved her hand in the air and some ash fell on my head. “I can’t remember the details very well,” she said. “Was there a knife involved? For some reason, I have the word knife in my head.”
“A stabbing!” said Julian, rubbing his hands together in glee.
“Do you mind if I sit down, Cyril?” asked Maude, pointing at the bed.
“If you must.”
She sat and smoothed down her skirt, fishing another cigarette from her silver case. Her fingers were long and bony, the skin almost translucent. I would have only needed to look a little closer to make out the joints between the phalanges.
“Do you have a light?” she asked me, holding a fresh cigarette in my direction.
“No, of course not,” I said.
“I bet you do,” she said, turning to Julian and allowing her tongue to move slowly across her upper lip. Had I been a little older I would have realized that she was flirting with him and he was flirting right back. Which, of course, is a little disturbing in retrospect considering the fact that he was just a child and she was thirty-four by then.
“I might have some matches,” he replied, turning out the contents of his pockets onto my bedspread: a piece of string, a yo-yo, a florin, the Ace of Spades and, indeed, a match. “I knew it,” he said, smiling at her.
“Aren’t you a useful little thing?” she replied. “I should lock you up and never let you go.”
Julian struck the match off the sole of his shoe and when it lit first time I found it hard to conceal my admiration. He held it out to Maude, who leaned forward, keeping her eyes locked on his as the cigarette began to spark, and then she sat back again, her left hand poised on the mattress behind her. She continued to stare at him before turning her face toward the ceiling and blowing a great cloud of white smoke in the air, as if she was preparing to announce the election of a new Pope.
“I was writing, you see,” she declared after a moment, apropos of nothing. “I was writing my new novel and I could hear voices up here. It was simply too distracting. My train of thought derailed. And so I thought I would come up to see what all the fuss was about.”
I raised an eyebrow skeptically. It seemed unlikely to me that Maude had heard us talking from the floor below, particularly when we had scarcely been making any noise at all, but perhaps her hearing was more finely attuned than I realized, despite her now-resolved cancer of the ear canal.
“Do you enjoy being a writer, Mrs. Avery?” asked Julian.
“No, of course not,” she said. “It’s a hideous profession. Entered into by narcissists who think their pathetic little imaginations will be of interest to people they’ve never met.”
“But are you successful?”
“It depends on how you define the word success.”
“Well, do you have a lot of readers?”
“Oh no. Heaven forefend. There’s something terribly crude about a popular book, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know,” said Julian. “I’m afraid I don’t read very much.”
“Neither do I,” said Maude. “I can’t remember the last time I read a novel. They’re all so tedious and writers do go on at such length. Brevity is the key, if you ask me. What was the last book you read?”
“Five Have a Wonderful Time,” said Julian.
“Who wrote that?”
“Enid Blyton.”
She shook her head as if the name meant nothing to her.
“Why don’t you want people to read your books, Maude?” I asked, a question that I had never put to her before.
“For the same reason that I don’t walk into strangers’ houses and tell them how many bowel movements I’ve enjoyed since breakfast,” she said. “It’s none of their business.”
“Then why do you publish them?”
“One has to do something with them, Cyril, doesn’t one?” she said with a shrug. “Otherwise what’s the point of writing them at all?”
I frowned. This didn’t make sense to me but I didn’t want to pursue the subject. I wanted her to go back downstairs and leave Julian and me to our incipient friendship. Perhaps he’d ask to see my thing again and take his out for a second viewing.
“Your father is here to save the day, isn’t he?” asked Maude, turning to Julian again and patting the space on the bed beside her.
“I’m not sure,” said Julian, taking the hint and sitting down. I was surprised and annoyed to see him staring at her legs. Everyone has legs, I thought. What was so special about Maude’s? “Does it need saving?”
“The Man from the Revenue is after us,” she replied, her tone suggesting that she was confiding in one of her closest friends. “My husband, Cyril’s adoptive father, has not always been as diligent with his finances as he might have been and it seems that his misdemeanors have finally caught up with him. I keep a separate accountant myself, of course, to look after the tax issues with my books. Fortunately, as I sell so few I don’t have to pay anything. It’s a blessing in some ways. As it happens, I give my accountant more than I give The Man from the Revenue. Has he been to your house at all?”