22

“Let me in, for God's sake, man,” yelled Mr Armitage to the muffled refusal from the neighbour within.

He looked through the window again. As soon as he moved through the door and past the first few boxes, he’d be all but trapped. The neighbour proved him right, there is never enough space inside. He had to speak with him, explain what had happened. Ask what he knew.

The neighbour, having retreated to the cool green light of the upstairs antechamber, began circling the bizarrely out-of-place pedestal that resided in the middle of the room.

He muttered, “Leave me, Bear, leave me. Never here when I needed you. Never here, never any time for me. Just disappointed in me, that’s all. I can see it on you now. You hate the state this house is in. Well, so do I. But it's needed, Bear, it's needed. Came to me when your girls left - no, no - haven’t seen them. You’d all disappeared from me long before then. Well, they were lost on your watch, hey, under your guardianship. What exactly do you expect from the rest of us now? All this time and here you are - here - knocking again. Another lost one for you to split yourself over, it seems, well, not me! Run off another cliff, Bear, down another ravine. Every bone - broken - that’s what you want. That’s the price you want to pay. But I shan’t join you. I can’t, and I’m not strong enough to stop you. I am not -”

He broke off when he heard a window smash. He moved out from the eastward door of the antechamber, straight to the staircase and spiralled down, padding softly but hurriedly around and over stacks of old papers and boxes of clothes. Reaching the bottom, he turned slowly, eyes creeping round the side of the wall towards the kitchen and watched as an animal was thumping the door into the boxes and piles of unopened letters blocking the entryway. Eventually, they all toppled, not to the floor, but on top of the second rank of crucial tat that lay stacked behind them. The Bear spoke.

“Good evening, neighbour.”