Cal saw the wisdom of this, and re-doubled his efforts. It had become a challenge to see past the tinsel to the real treasure that lay beyond. A curious sensation attended this focusing; a restlessness in his chest and throat, as though some part of him were preparing to be gone: out of him and along the line of his gaze. Gone into the jacket.

At the back of his head, where his skull grew the tail of his spine, the warning voices muttered on. But he was too committed to resist. Whatever the lining contained, it teased him, not quite showing itself. He pared and stared, defying its decorum until the sweat ran from his temples.

Shadwell's coaxing monologue had gained, fresh confidence. It's sugar coating had cracked and fallen away. The nut beneath was bitter and dark.

‘Go on...' he said. ‘Don't be so damn weak. There's something here you want, isn't there? Very badly. Go on. Tell me. Spit it oat. No use waiting. You wait, and your chance slims away.'

Finally, the image was coming dear ‘Tell art and it's yours.'

Cal felt a wind on his face, and suddenly he was flying again, and wonderland was spread out before him. Its deeps and its heights, its rivers, its towers all were displayed there in the lining of the Salesman's jacket.

He gasped at the sight. Shadwell was lightning swift in his response.

‘What is it?'

Cal stared on, speechless.

‘What do you see?'

A confusion of feelings assailed Cal. He felt elated, seeing the land, yet fearful of what he would be asked to give (was already giving, perhaps, without quite knowing it) in return for this peep-show. Shadwell had harm in him, for all his smiles and promises.

‘Tell me...' the Salesman demanded.

Cal tried to keep an answer from coming to his lips. He didn't want to give his secret away.

‘... what do you see?'

The voice was so hard to resist. He wanted to keep his silence, but the reply rose in him unbidden. ‘I... (Don't say it, the poet warned), ‘I see...' (Fight it. There's harm here.) ‘I... see...'

‘He sees the Fugue.'

The voice that finished the sentence was that of a woman.

‘Are you sure?' said Shadwell.

‘Never more certain. Look at his eyes.'

Cal felt foolish and vulnerable, so mesmerized by the sights still unfolding in the lining he was unable to cast his eyes in the direction of those who now appraised him.

‘He knows,' the woman said. Her voice held not a trace of warmth. Even, perhaps, of humanity.

‘You were right then; said Shadwell. ‘It's been here.'

‘Of course.'

‘Goad enough,' said Shadwell, and summarily closed the jacket.

The effect on Cal was cataclysmic. With the world the Fugue she'd called it - so abruptly snatched away he felt weak as a babe. It was all he could do to stand upright. Queasily, his eyes slid in the direction of the woman.

She was beautiful: that was his first thought. She was dressed in reds and purples so dark they were almost black, the fabric wrapped tightly around her upper body so as to seem both chaste, her ripeness bound and sealed, and, in the act of sealing, eroticized. The same paradox informed her features. Her hair-line had been shaved back fully two inches, and her eye-brows totally removed, which left her face eerily innocent of expression. Yet her flesh gleamed as if oiled, and though the shaving, and the absence of any scrap of make-up to flatter her features, seemed acts in defiance of her beauty, her face could not be denied its sensuality. Her mouth was too sculpted; and her eyes umber one moment, gold the next too eloquent for the feelings there to be disguised. What feelings, Cal could only vaguely read. Impatience certainly, as though being here sickened her, and stirred some fury Cal had no desire to see unleashed. Contempt - for him most likely - and yet a great focus upon him, as though she saw through to his marrow, and was preparing to congeal it with a thought.

There were no such contradictions in her voice however. It was steel and steel.

‘How long?' she demanded of him. ‘How long since you saw the Fugue?'

He couldn't meet her eyes for more than a moment. His gaze fled to the mantelpiece, and the tripod's shoes.

‘Don't know what you're talking about,' he said.

‘You've seen it. You saw it again in the jacket. It's fruitless to deny it.'

‘It's better you answer,' Shadwell advised.

Cal looked from mantelpiece to door. They had left it open. ‘You can both go to Hell.' he said quietly.

Did Shadwell laugh? Cal wasn't certain.

‘We want the carpet; said the woman.

‘It belongs to us, you understand,' Shadwell said. ‘We have a legitimate claim to it.'

‘So, if you'd be so kind...' the woman's lip curled at this courtesy, ‘... tell me where the carpet's gone, and we can have the matter done with.

‘Such easy terms,' the Salesman said. Tell us, and we're gone.'

Claiming ignorance would be no defence, Cal thought: they knew that ht knew, and they wouldn't be persuaded otherwise. He was trapped. Yet dangerous as things hue! become, he felt inwardly elated. His tormentors had confirmed the existence of the world he'd glimpsed: the Fugue. The urge to be out of their presence as fast as possible was tempered by the desire to play them along, and hope they'd tell him more about the vision he'd witnessed.

‘Maybe I did see it,' he said.

‘No maybe' the woman replied.

‘It's hazy...'

he said. ‘I remember something, but I'm not quite sure what.'

‘You don't know what the Fugue is?' said Shadwell.

‘Why should he?' the woman replied. ‘He came on it by luck.'

‘But he saw,' said Shadwell.

‘A lot of Cuckoos have some sight, it doesn't mean they understand. He's lost, like all of them.'

Cal resented her condescension, but in essence she was right. Lost he was.

‘What you saw isn't your business,' she said to him. ‘Just tell us where you put the carpet, then forget you ever laid eyes on it.'

‘I don't have the carpet,' he said.

The woman's entire face seemed to darken, the pupils of her eyes like moons barely eclipsing some apocalyptic light.

From the landing, Cal heard again the scuttling sounds he'd previously taken to be rats. Now he wasn't so sure.

‘I won't be polite with you much longer; she said. ‘You're a thief.'

‘No,' he protested.

‘Yes. You came here to raid an old woman's house and you got a glimpse of something you shouldn't: ‘We shouldn't waste time; said Shadwell.

Cal had begun to regret his decision to play the pair along. He should have run while he had half a chance. The noise from the other side of the door was getting louder.

‘Hear that?' said the woman. Those are some of my sister's bastards. Her by-blows.'

"they're vile: said Shadwell.

He could believe her.

‘Once more.' she said. "the carpet.'

And once more he told her. ‘I don't have it.'

This time his words were more appeal than defence.

Then we must make you tell; said the woman.

‘Be careful, Immacolata,' said Shadwell.

If the woman heard him, she didn't care for his warning. Softly, she rubbed the middle and fourth fingers of her right hand against the palm of her left, and at this all but silent summons her sister's children came running.

II

THE SKIN OF THE TEETH

1

Suzanna arrived in Rue Street a little before three, and went first to tell Mrs Pumphrey of her grandmother's condition. She was invited into the house with such insistence site couldn't refuse. They drank tea, and talked for ten minutes or so: chiefly of Mimi. Violet Pumphrey spoke of the old woman without malice, but the portrait she drew was far from flattering.

They turned off the gas and electricity in the house years ago,' Violet said. ‘She hadn't paid the bills. Living in squalor, she was, and it weren't for want of me keeping a neighbourly eye. But she was rude, you know, if you enquired about her health.'