Out of the Blackout by Robert Barnard Page A

Northerners are inferior: if I think so, it’s common sense, and everybody thinks so. ‘You’d better come in. Though really, I don’t know . . . Mr Blore’s said nothing to me about leaving, not immediately. Nor to Len either, because I asked him at dinner-time.’
    â€˜If I could just leave you my address and telephone number in Leeds, so that if he does leave you could contact me. It would save you the expense of advertising.’
    â€˜It would do that, I suppose,’ she said, with that same grudging tone she had used throughout, but with a tiny sparkle in her eye. ‘Well, you’d better see the room.’
    That was more than Simon had dared to hope. She switched on a light—a dim bulb behind a basic shade, that gave a dubious illumination to hall and stairway. Both had been redecorated in the last year or two, with a miserable cheap wallpaper with a tiny pattern of brown leaves. It had left it indescribably cheerless. The old woman cared nothing about his impressions of the place. She turned and began labouring up the stairs.
    â€˜It’s a nice room, very nice,’ she said, as she paused for breath on the first landing. ‘There’s everything there, all nice and convenient. And a gas ring . . .’
    She began again, heaving her bulk towards the top floor, jangling her keys as if she were a wardress. Simon made a mental note not to leave anything of a personal nature in his room, if it ever became his. At the top landing the woman turned on another dim light—this time a bare bulb. There were two rooms on this floor, both of them with Yale locks fitted. The woman pondered over her keys, selected one, then opened the door of the room straight ahead.
    The bedsitter thus revealed was small, and predictably depressing. There was a sofa-bed against one wall, and an old, recovered armchair drawn up to a gas fire. On a laminated shelf by the mantelpiece was the gas ring that was apparently one of the attractions of the place. Under the window, curtained with dirty lace, was an infirm wooden table with an aluminium and plastic chair pulled up to it. The only signs of life and individuality were the mug and dirty plate on the table, the assorted paperbacks scattered around, a copy of Playboy, and the pictures which had been pinned to the walls—a large Lowry, a Labour Party poster, and a girlie calendar.
    â€˜Yes, well it looks very . . . nice,’ said Simon.
    The woman sniffed, and looked venomously around the walls.
    â€˜He put those up.’
    â€˜It’s just what I need—really. I’m grateful to you for showing it to me.’
    â€˜Don’t mention it,’ muttered the woman, in her tight-lipped way.
    â€˜If I could perhaps pay some kind of deposit . . .’
    â€˜Well, I don’t know about that. Seeing as how we aren’t sure as Mr Blore is leaving. I don’t know what would be right . . . Oh, that’s Len now. He’ll know. You’d better talk to him about it.’
    From two flights down Simon had heard the sound of a key in the door, and the door opening. He mentally noted that the old woman’s hearing was unimpaired. She ushered him out, closed up the room, and began labouring down the stairs, clutching hard at the banisters and breathing heavily. Simon followed her down, his heart beating. When she had regained the hall, she turned to a door which divided the family’s living quarters from the rest of the house. She called:
    â€˜Len!’
    The man who came to the door and faced them across the little hallway was fairly tall—perhaps close on six feet—with square shoulders. But his chest was hollow, his frame bony, his face sunken, and he gave an impression of meagreness, of having aged prematurely. He wore a fawn cardigan, buttoned around his stomach, and he was clutching an evening paper. What struck Simon was his manner: under a hearty