Enchantment by Monica Dickens

ahead.’
    â€˜That’s right.’ They were having a conversation, even though Tim was not sure what it was about.
    â€˜If they mess me about’ – Harold took a great drag on his cigarette and swallowed the smoke, apparently for good, because it didn’t come out – ‘they know what to expect.’
    â€˜What will that be?’ Tim asked politely, eating all round the edges of a doughnut to delay the glorious moment when the jam burst into his mouth.
    â€˜Well, there’s a lot of things I’d like to do,’ Harold said, not menacing, but in quite a chatty way. ‘The royal family, for one thing. I’d take them out, for a start.’
    â€˜Why?’ Tim was quite keen on the royal family, but he did not like to say so.
    â€˜Cost too much.’ The smoke finally came out through the snouty nostrils of Harold’s short wide nose that had not only a fuzz of hair inside, but two longer hairs sprouting from the middle of it, the same colour as the tufts of gingery hair on his cheeks. ‘Could be done at the Tower. Quite historical.’ He drew a finger across the sinews of his throat.
    Tim cleared his own throat, but no words came out.
    â€˜Set a fire in the Lords, that would be quite nice. Westminster Hall, all those old beams. It would go up like a crematorium. Beautiful. You got to express your feelings, see. You get cancer else.’ He put a whole doughnut into his mouth and chewed on it, musing. The red jam oozed out of the sides of his mouth like blood.
    â€˜Do you –’ Tim cleared his throat again. ‘Do you often think about that sort of stuff?’
    â€˜Yes. Don’t you?’
    â€˜Well, I …’ If this was to be a friendship, Tim could not say no, and sound like a wimp.
    â€˜That’s right, of course you do. You don’t think about my wife, though, because you don’t know her.’ He wagged a thick finger, explaining. ‘My ex, that is, a real beauty, she is. And her family. If I had a gun, I’d blast the whole lot. You’d be the same.’
    Struggling to keep up his end of the conversation, Tim was tempted to tell him about the imaginary night sniper who crouched on the window-sill. ‘I sometimes I think – I think –’
    â€˜That’s right, so do I.’ Harold saved Tim from the mistake. He brooded for a while, with his arms weightily on the table. His reddish eyebrows lowered. He might be asleep.
    Tim looked at his watch. He did not want Brian and Jack to come home and find Harold’s car blocking the door of the garage.
    Harold’s eyes were open. ‘Want me to go, or suthink?’ he asked.
    â€˜No, I – no, of course not. I was just wondering …’
    â€˜Wondering what, old son?’
    â€˜Nothing. It’s all right.’
    â€˜Wondering what?’ One of Harold’s bloodshot eyes was closed against the smoke from the cigarette clenched in his mouth. The other was fixed on Tim. There was a yellow ropey bit in the inside corner.
    â€˜I was just wondering if – well, since you like to think about – you know, those – er, things – is that why you chose to be the Black Monk? I mean, hack and slay, and that?’ Harold’s eye was a bulging stare. ‘I mean.’ Tim had seen role-playing games denounced in the papers. ‘Does playing the games and that, does it make you feel, you know, vio – aggress – violent?’
    Harold grinned. ‘You missed the whole point. Keeps me out of trouble. Sublimates the urges, see. Keeps me from going out and chopping up babies.’
    There was a banging on the door. Tim jumped up. ‘Who is it?’
    â€˜Brian. Could you –’ Mumble mumble.
    Tim went to the door. Brian looked over Tim’s shoulder to get a sight of Harold.
    â€˜Could you ask your friend to move his car? Sorry and all that.’
    â€˜No, it’s – sorry,