Old Filth Read Free

was attached to Veneering’s gate. It was identical to the one that had lain by Old Filth’s gate for many years. “He copied my drainpipe,” said Old Filth. “He never had an original notion.”
    â€œI’ve half a mind to call,” said Christopher.
    â€œWell, you needn’t come and see me again if you do,” said courteous Old Filth.
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    Seated in his car in the road the friend considered the mystery of what convictions survive into dotage and how wise he had been to stay on in Hong Kong.
    â€œYou don’t feel like a visit, Eddie?” he asked out of the car window. “Why not come out for Christmas? It’s not so much changed that there’ll ever be anywhere in the world like it.”
    But Filth said he never stirred at Christmas. Just a taxi to the White Hart at Salisbury, for luncheon. Good place. No paper hats. No streamers.
    â€œI remember Betty with streamers tangled up in her hair and her pearls and gold chains. In Hong Kong.”
    But Filth thanked him and declined and waved him off.
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    On Christmas morning, Filth thought again of Christopher, as he was waiting for the taxi to the White Hart, watching from a window whose panes were almost blocked with snow, snow that had been falling when he’d opened his bedroom curtains five hours ago at seven o’clock. Big, fast, determined flakes. They fell and fell. They danced. They mesmerised. After a few moments you couldn’t tell if they were going up or down. Thinking of the road at the end of his drive, the deep hollow there, he wondered if the taxi would make it. At twelve-fifteen he thought he might ring and ask, but waited until twelve-thirty as it seemed tetchy to fuss. He discovered the telephone was dead.
    â€œAh,” he said. “Ha.”
    There were mince pies and a ham shank. A good bottle somewhere. He’d be all right. A pity though. Break with tradition.
    He stood staring at the Christmas cards. Fewer again this year. As for presents, nothing except one from his cousin Claire. Always the same. Two handkerchiefs. More than he ever sent her, but she had had the pearls. He must send her some flowers. He picked up one large glossy card and read A Merry Christmas from The Ideal Tailor, Century Arcade, Star Building, Hong Kong to an old and esteemed client . Every year. Never failed. Still had his suits. Twenty years old. He wore them sometimes in summer. Snowflakes danced around a Chinese house on stilts. Red Chinese characters. A rosy Father Christmas waving from a corner. Stilts. Houses on stilts.
    Suddenly he missed Betty. Longed for her. Felt that if he turned round now, quickly, there she would be.
    But she was not.
    Outside there was a strange sound, a long, sliding noise and a thump. A heavy thump. It might well be the taxi skidding on the drive and hitting the side of the house. Filth opened the front door but saw nothing but snow. He stepped quickly out upon his doorstep to look down the drive, and behind him the front door swung to, fastening with a solid, pre-War click.
    He was in his bedroom slippers. Otherwise he was dressed in trousers, a singlet—which he always wore, being a gentleman, thank God—shirt and tie and the thin cashmere cardigan Betty had bought him years ago. Already it was sopped through.
    Filth walked delicately along the side of the house in his slippers, bent forward, screwing his old eyes against the snow, to see if by any chance . . . but he knew that the back door was locked, and the French windows. He turned off towards the tool shed over the invisible slippery grass. Locked. He thought of the car in the garage. He hadn’t driven now for some time, not since the days of terror. Mrs. Thing did the shopping now. It was scarcely used. But perhaps the garage—?
    The garage was locked.
    Nothing for it but to get down the drive somehow and wait for the taxi under Veneering’s yews.
    In his tiptoe way he passed the heap of snow