The Game by A. S. Byatt

Author:A. S. Byatt [Byatt, A. S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780679742562
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 1969-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

WHEN Julia came into the hall of the flat, the telephone was ringing. She had heard it all the way up the stairs. She put down her suitcase and lifted the receiver. The voice began at once.

‘Mr Eskelund. Mr Eskelund.’ It was a shrill voice, on the edge of tears.

‘This is Mrs Eskelund,’ said Julia. She added ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Well, is he there, then? Can you get him for me? Can you look, please, I’ve got to speak to him.’

‘I’ll look,’ said Julia. ‘I’ve just got in. I think he must be out.’

This was not answered. Julia rested the receiver on the shelf, and went into the flat. She could feel that no one was there. In the living-room was a pile of four large sacks, roped round with twine, and a baby’s bath. In the bedroom the bed had not been made. Deborah’s room had a notice fixed to the door with drawing-pins. ‘Keep Out. At Work. This Means You’. Julia knocked and went in. She ruffled through a pile of papers on Deborah’s desk, and turned over a Letts’ Desk Diary; flicking the pages, she saw they were filled with close tiny writing. She stopped to read the first entry. ‘I have decided to keep a diary to make myself think out what I really feel: I am not going to bother to record events for their own sake, daily happenings that are just as well forgotten. If I did that this diary might be interesting in 50 years, details for historians and novelists. As it is it will certainly appear banal in the extreme. But I am doing it for myself. Myself, now, and since I shan’t re-read it I shan’t bother if it’s embarrassing.’

Good stuff, Julia thought, and remembered the telephone.

‘Are you there? He doesn’t seem to be here.’

‘Where is he then? Can you get hold of him?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve just got in.’

‘I need to speak to him. When will he come home?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Soon or late?’

‘I —’

‘It’s very urgent.’

‘Can I take a message?’

‘No, no. I’ll just ring later, that’s best.’

‘Or can I do anything to help?’

‘I’ll just ring later, thank you.’

‘I’ll tell him you called.’

‘No, don’t do that, I’ll ring later, that’s best.’

‘Can’t you —’ Julia began, but the caller had rung off. Julia, slightly unnerved, went back into the living-room and surveyed the alien sacks. The baby’s bath was well worn, the plastic scratched and scored, the whole slightly grey. She kicked the sacks gently with one pointed foot. They yielded: cloth, of some kind.

She took off her coat and hat, feeling let down by her family’s absence, and was heading for Deborah’s room again when the front door bell rang. At the same time the telephone pealed again. Julia opened the door, beckoned vaguely to the man on the doorstep to come in and ran to the telephone.

‘Hullo, Julia Eskelund speaking.’

‘Is Mr Eskelund there?’

Julia could not tell whether this was the same voice.

‘No. I don’t know where he is.’

‘Oh, God,’ wildly. And then, more belligerently ‘I can’t understand it.

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