Piranha to Scurfy by Ruth Rendell Page B

the afternoon, after the washing-machine man had come and been let into Glenys Next-door’s, Ribbon plucked up the courage to phone Kingston Marle’s publisher. After various people’s voice mail, instructions to press this button and that, and requests to leave messages, he was put through to the department that sent on authors’ letters. A rather indignant young woman assured him that all mail was sent on within a week of the publisher’s receiving it. Recovering a little of Mummy’s spirit, he said in the strongest tone he could muster that a week was far too long.What about readers who were waiting anxiously for a reply? The young woman told him she had said “within a week” and it might be much sooner. With that he had to be content. It was eleven days now since he had apologized to Marle, ten since his publisher had received the letter. He asked tentatively if they ever handed a letter to an author in person. For a while she hardly seemed to understand what he was talking about. Then she gave him a defiant “no”; such a thing could never happen.
    So Marle had not called off his dogs because he had received the apology. Perhaps it was only that the spell, or whatever it was, lasted no more than, say, twenty-four hours. It seemed, sadly, a more likely explanation. The tree fellers finished at five, leaving the wilted shrubs stacked on the flower bed, not on Mummy’s grave but on the place where The Book was buried. Ribbon took two of Mummy’s sleeping pills and passed a good night. No letter came in the morning; there was no post at all. Without any evidence as to the truth of this, he became suddenly sure that no letter would come from Marle now—it would never come.
    He had nothing to do, he had written to everyone who needed reproving, he had supplied himself with no more new books and had no inclination to go out and buy more. Perhaps he would never write to anyone again. He unplugged the link between computer and printer and closed the computer’s lid. The new shelving he had bought from Ikea to put up in the dining room would never be used now. In the middle of the morning he went into Mummy’s bedroom, tucked the nightdress under the pillow and quilt, removed the bedspread from the wardrobe door, and closed the door. He couldn’t have explained why he did these things; it simply seemed time to do them. From the window he saw a taxi draw up and Glenys Next-door get out of it. There was someone else inside the taxi she was helping out, but Ribbon didn’t stay to see who it was.
    He contemplated the back garden from the dining room. Somehow he would have to dispose of all those logs, the remains of the cypresses, the flowering currant, the holly, and the lilac bush. For a ten-pound note the men would doubtless have taken them away, but Ribbon hadn’t thought of this at the time. The place looked bleak and characterless now, an empty expanse of grass with a stark ivy-clad flower bed at the end of it. He noticed, for the first time, over the wire dividing fence, the profusion of flowers in Glenys Next-door’s, the bird table, the little fishpond (both hunting grounds for Tinks), the red-leaved Japanese maple. He would burn that wood; he would have a fire.
    Of course he wasn’t supposed to do this. In a small way it was against the law, for this was a smokeless zone and had been for nearly as long as he could remember. By the time anyone complained—and Glenys Next-door and Sandra On-the-other-side would both complain—the deed would have been done and the logs consumed. But he postponed it for a while and went back into the house. He felt reasonably well, if a little weak and dizzy. Going upstairs made him breathless in a way he never had been before, so he postponed that for a while too and had a cup of tea, sitting in the front room with his feet up. What would Marle do next? There was no knowing. Ribbon thought that when he was better he would find out where Marle lived, go to him and apologize