The place is a broom-cupboard. In fact, I have left the door ajar to permit a little air to return. I am consigned to such a stuffy cubby-hole to write my masterpiece because, in the main, nobody believes I have a masterpiece in me. They have no faith in me at all.

"Hasn't got ANYTHING inside," my two aunts say, as they huddle in the chimney corner upon close-ordered stools. Strange that they are cramped between the intersection of two walls in that particular way ... as if to make their own territory seem smaller, despite the roomy expanse of the rest of the high-ceilinged parlour. Their minds are small. And I nearly agree with them that there is nothing to speak of inside me, either, but only because my mind's void is merely waiting for the input of some mighty inspiration. I yearn to be a vessel for a God ... or Goddess.

As my aunts venture from the inglenook for a spot of defluffing, I make a big show of withdrawing to my "study", pen and paper clasped to my bosom. They pretend not to notice my pointed departure. They simply wield their tickle-dusters with greater determination, even to the extent of scrabbling in the open doorway of my retreat. They do not venture inside, of course, in spite of the hazy spiders' webs draped around my head.

Eventually, as is their custom, they decide to give up all half-baked attempts at irritating me and, leaving me to brood over their last few cutting comments, they hustle each other towards the kitchen. There, they can echo to their hearts' content. The likes of my aunts can spend a whole day with just one oven stick and a half-used tin of duraglit. Rubber gloves on mug-stands seem to be potted plants, just ripe for the picking.

Surely "masterpieces" are to be founded upon greater subjects than a pair of crazy cack-handed mother siblings. Unaccountably, I simply look up from my fevered scribbling to see a human figure darkening the newly freshened "study" threshold.

Merely a glance up, nothing more. I dare not look again, in case it is still there. I say "it", since I am not sure of its sex ... nor, for that matter, whether it is simply one of my aunts returned for an extra helping of silent taunting.

I look up again. More than just a glance this time. It is definitely a man. I gather that much. I merely see his eyes ... staring. And other than staring, he is doing little else. Legs wide apart in flared slacks. I dare not look up again, in case he is still staring. I will not be able to bear it.

Sweat drips upon the paper, blotting some of the words. It is pretty certain to be my own sweat. Surely rain cannot leak this far into the house. I consider the integrity of the attic with the slates having been dislodged by the recent storms, soaking all the icons of my ancient childhood, such as the dog-eared teddy-bear, the rocking-horse nodding back, the doll's house with the only real entrance being the whole hinged frontage, the wooden hoop leaning in the corner and framing my disused top and whip (so still-life, it is almost a painting) and, indeed, my box of old colours mixing in broken skylight with the spidered lattice of the fine pick-a-stix brushes crouching close.

I cannot write properly, for the shaking of my hand. The man, for surely it IS a man, I have just seen POINTING at me. His arm raised like a shotgun, his finger a bayonet blade, rigid, fixed, unwavering, pointing, endlessly pointing. The blood rushes to my face. The shame. But I cannot really imagine why the shame is there. It is the simple act of being pointed at, I suppose. As if I am the cause. I AM THE REASON FOR THAT MAN POINTING AT ME. If I dare, I shall take a closer look at his face. I know for a fact his hair is ginger. Unlike my grey locks. The fear is the worst I can remember. They say "Terror has no diary" - but it is only by writing that I can hope to shake off such unadulterated self-consciousness. This activity gives me the excuse for not looking up again. By the time I reach the end of the next page, he may have gone ... hopefully. Does he know, though, that I am writing about him?

Perhaps he is only there when I look up. Gone, when I don't. God! He IS still there. I have taken a sneaking look without noticeably raising my head. Not enough time to scrutinise his features, of course. Only to establish his presence as a reality independent of my seeing him.

I hear the scatterbrained aunts in the kitchen. Apparently, if I can decipher the undergrunts, the oven stick has worn to a stub. I feel like shouting out ... not for help, so much ... something inconsequential ... like "the oven's too small for roasting the chickens you breed" ... or "your casseroles have things in that need simmering for weeks to kill 'em, let alone make 'em tender" ... or "make sure you scrape the grease from the grill-pan, for some of it's older than you." But I can't work my mouth. My chest feel caved in. Only my writing hand seems pliable. The pen begins to have a life of its own. Maybe HE is the inspiration I've been seeking for the "masterpiece". Somehow, I've always thought Muses to be kind hovering angels with wide enveloping wings and wondrous words just for settling down on paper. The figure in the doorway, if indeed a Muse, is, at best, tantalising and, at worst, evil. I surprise myself with the words I write.

The damn creature is still pointing! How can anything point so straight, so long, without shaking or shuddering ... the arm just an extension of unbearable toothache of the bones? No, he is indeed a perfect pointer.

In desperation, I have decided to take my eyes from the writing but, this time, not towards the creature. The small ceiling of my broom cupboard is an archipelago of bloodstains or what I assume to be such. But a teddy-bear doesn't bleed, does it? It must be the box of colours running. The stains are not exactly red, but more a rusty brown, darkening towards the middle of each one.



It's now been literally hours. I've not dared look up, just staring at the paper, as if I've got a pretty virulent form of writer's block. I'm sure he's still there. The presence is tangible, its shadow cast over the tiny desk like grey ink.

My aunts have long since retired, slowly creaking up the steep stairs to the landing. They have not even said night night.

"Nothing inside that head!" They now obviously believe their own myth about me.

Things move about the house. I'm not sure they're alive.

In the attic, amongst the other bric-a-brac, I have forgotten there is an ancient photo album. In one small oval window, a face, yellowed with age, the hair with a pink ribbon bow on top.

It is me as an innocent child ... before the murder.

Am I really writing this? I don't believe in tarramadiddles about things that can never happen. I want to write a masterpiece, a biography or history or a tract on some philosophical matter, or even scientific. That man, if man it really is, has made me write, of all things, a story ... and a story of the worst kind. Ghost stories are one more ratchet along the spectrum of deceit than even those of spies and intrigues and wars and love affairs. In my heyday, sex and violence were not given the time of day.

I begin to wonder if he really enjoyed my innocent guilt, all those years ago. But, I'm so very tired. I shall look up for the last time, in a moment, to see if the way is clear for a Victim Accused to scale those steep stairs.



(published 'Not At Night' 1991)