Stories of the Strange and Sinister (Valancourt 20th Century Classics) by Frank Baker Page B

have a chat with the customers and talk of the old days and of Dr Rothway, now dead. So Harold, working with feverish energy, kept his friend fed, and at nights retired to his attic room to prune and ponder over those poems which nobody had ever seen. Then Lionel would play the piano and sometimes sing songs of Roger Quilter and Arthur Somervell; until ten-thirty, when Harold would bring him his cup of Bourn-Vita and send him to bed – in winter with a bottle.
    Apart from the tediousness of the black-out and the encouragement of many memories of an earlier conflict, the war affected them very little. They would discuss their old experiences in the army, then lapse into a long silence over the fire, where the milk simmered in the saucepan. Then, with a sigh, Lionel would turn to his book-keeping.
    ‘We’ve made a clear profit of seven hundred this year,’ he remarked, one October evening in 1940 ; and he wondered what was the use of the money. He went on: ‘I had a letter from the old man. He’s very shaky now, and they’ve had some bombs up there. I ought to go and see him; it may be the last time. What’re you looking at me like that for?’
    Harold started. ‘I didn’t know I was looking at you. Sorry. Yes, I suppose you should go. How long?’
    ‘It depends. We could close shop for a bit. Why don’t you come too?’
    ‘I don’t want to. When will you go?’
    ‘Tomorrow – or the next day – ’
    ‘Tomorrow?’ Harold got up and started to make the Bourn-Vita. He was thinking of an interview he had had that morning with a doctor, an interview Lionel knew nothing about. The doctor had given him three months of life, unless he were prepared to go into a sanatorium in the Cheddar Hills. Even then there was hope of little more. Harold did not fear death; he welcomed it as a mistress he had wooed all his life, to whom those heart-burning odes of his muse had been addressed. But he feared for the future security and happiness of his friend.
    ‘Can’t you wait a month or so?’ he asked.
    ‘Better go before the winter sets in. You know how cold it gets up there.’
    ‘Tomorrow, then?’ Harold spoke very quietly.
    ‘I think so, Harold.’
    ‘Well, go to bed now. You’ll have a long day travelling.’
    ‘I don’t want to go to bed. I’d like to talk, Harold, about you and me – and the queer mystery of our lives.’
    Harold did not answer. Lionel was possessed of a desire to tell him about Ilona, enjoyed a score of times in the women of his week-ends. But he knew that Harold could never understand. Sadly he went to the stairs. ‘I ought to be putting you to bed,’ he said. ‘You’re ill. Not me.’
    ‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’
    ‘Except – ’
    ‘Except nothing. Here, take your Bourn-Vita.’
    Lionel took the cup. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘what power it is you’ve got over me.’
    ‘Power?’
    ‘Yes. You always had. You know it.’
    ‘You imagine it. You do as you like, don’t you? You’re free?’
    ‘No. I’m not free. I never shall be. Neither will you.’
    He went to bed. For a long time Harold stared at the fire. Yes, he thought, he had power all right; and how frightful that power would be after death! Even now he began to relish the prospect of the future when, unfettered by mortal chains, he would be able, for the rest of Lionel’s life, to stay by his side – whispering in his ear, accompanying him upon his lonely walks, attendant upon him during those sordid week-ends – what limitless opportunities stretched before him! And all this – was he to throw it away at the command of some absurd altruism? At the end of the year, when January dawned, stark and cold, he would be free to haunt. ‘No! No!’ he cried. And all his genuine attachment to so old a friend rose up in him. At all costs he must be saved that fate. ‘Kinder to kill than to haunt,’ he muttered. And he remembered the decision he had made years ago.
    Long into the night he sat there. The