Nor All Your Tears by Keith McCarthy

put the phone down.
    It was not unusual for me to emerge from a conversation with my father feeling slightly winded, as if I had been exposed to a weakly hallucinogenic gas, but I had a guest to take care of and could not bother about such things. Accordingly, I strove to overcome the slight dyspnoea that was sometimes an inevitable consequence of contact with my father; conversations with him could on occasion prove to be similar to being punched in the stomach.
    Masson had abandoned his rather pained survey of my cooking and, now upright, was looking intently at the wilting hydrangea bush, wreathed in the grey, sinuous tendrils of cigarette smoke. The airless, still heat not only allowed them existence but seemed almost to animate them. His back was to the house and behind him Max had cleared the table. She looked at me and raised her eyebrows, to which I shrugged. I went back into the kitchen and brought out from the oven the dessert. Putting it on the table, I called to him, ‘Would you care for some pudding, Inspector?’
    He turned, then spotted my creation. ‘What is that?’ he asked, and sounded partly genuinely puzzled, partly wary and partly horrified.
    â€˜It’s rice pudding,’ was Max’s stout and rather touching defence. I could see his point, though; I had put all the ingredients in that the recipe promised would turn into rice pudding but, somehow, somewhere along the line, it had become something that looked as though it had been born in the slime pits of the Jurassic period and survived undisturbed in my oven until the present day. There was a dark brown, focally burned skin on the top that strange ripples and bubbles from the depths occasionally disturbed. It hinted at things from beyond the great abyss, as Lovecraft might have put it.
    Masson continued to stare at the pudding. ‘No, thanks. I have to get going.’
    He stepped on his cigarette and started forward, then paused. He resumed progress after a moment but appeared to want to keep as far away from the table as possible as he moved back into the house. As I showed him out, he said, ‘Sergeant Abelson will be in contact to take a formal statement.’
    When I returned to the garden, Max had dished up the rice pudding. Even before I started to eat it, I could see that it possessed interesting properties, possibly ones previously unknown to science. It flowed slowly, but for all its torpor, it seemed to possess a curious animus, as if it were slowly disassembling itself and exploring its environment. I hesitated before plunging my spoon in, half expecting it to react badly to such an indignity. As I put it slowly in my mouth my eyes met Max’s; she was watching me, her own spoonful poised at about chin level, her eyes filled with curiosity. The taste was interesting , being almost like rice pudding, which was good. What wasn’t so good was that it had the adhesive properties of wallpaper paste, which made speech impossible for some little time, and made swallowing an exercise in suppression of the gag reflex.
    By mutual agreement we soon abandoned any attempt at mastication and ingurgitation, and finished the wine instead. ‘What did your father want?’
    â€˜The Red Hornet’s broken down in Crawley.’
    â€˜Are they all right?’
    â€˜They’re fine. All he wanted to tell me was that he doesn’t like Crawley New Town. Apparently they’ve taken a delightful village and turned it into a blot on England’s green and pleasant face.’
    She smiled. ‘He’s on good form, then.’
    â€˜He’s calling in when they finally get back.’
    â€˜That’s nice.’
    I had to wonder about that; if I knew my father, he was up to something.

SIXTEEN
    M ourning takes many forms, and if it is not dealt with (much as if dry rot is not dealt with) it spreads without obvious movement, certainly without purpose and without outward sign. Yet this thing that does