Three to See the King

across anyone who talked so much! He could keep going for hours on end without a break! Worse, he seemed to think that a conversation consisted of asking a question, listening to the answer, adding his own comment and then asking another. I would have been quite content to sit peacefully at the table and talk about subjects as and when they cropped up. Every time there was the slightest period of silence, though, Simon felt obliged to interrupt it.
    ‘Heard anything of Steve Treacle lately?’ he would begin.
    ‘No, I haven’t,’ I’d reply.
    ‘Nor me. I went over to his place about a month ago, but he wasn’t at home. Well there was no answer when I knocked on the door, anyway. I never seem to be able to catch him these days. Last time was when I was making preliminary enquiries about my captive balloon. Incidentally, I take it you’ve still no objections to that?’
    ‘No, of course not.’
    ‘That’s good. I gather Steve’s recently become great friends with Philip Sibling.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Yes. Have you seen anything of him?’
    ‘Philip?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Nor me.’
    And so it would go on. At some point in the exchange Mary Petrie would rise from the table, glance at the two of us, and proceed to the upper floor. I was sure she was enjoying all this in her own way because there always seemed to be a slight smile on her lips as she disappeared from view. Her graceful departure would cause Simon to cease talking for a moment while his gaze followed her movement up the stairs. Then the quietness would get the better of him and he’d be off again.
    ‘Apparently there’s someone living even further out than Steve and Philip,’ he announced one evening. ‘His name’s Michael Hawkins. Do you know him?’
    ‘No, sorry,’ I replied.
    ‘I’ll have to wander out there and see him sometime. Make contact, sort of thing, so he doesn’t feel too cut off. Would you be interested in coming along?’
    ‘Probably not, actually.’
    ‘Oh … er … alright,’ said Simon, momentarily silenced.
    The suggestion that this Michael Hawkins was ‘further out’ than the rest of us I found quite irritating. I mean to say, it wasn’t as if we were all strung along some wild frontier beyond which no one could live. I had no doubts that Michael Hawkins deliberately chose to be ‘cut off as Simon put it, and that was precisely why he dwelt in such a place. This didn’t mean, however, that he was somehow different or more interesting than anybody else. Besides which, who was to say who was further out than the next fellow? I’d have thought it depended on the starting point really. I was tempted to take Simon to task on the matter, but I realized that with his point of view it would be a complete waste of time. Instead, I had a question of my own, just for a change.
    ‘Do you know if this Michael Hawkins lives in a house made entirely from tin?’ I asked.
    ‘Yes, so I understand.’
    ‘And how long has he been there?’
    ‘Quite long.’
    ‘Longer than I’ve been here?’
    ‘I believe so, yes.’
    ‘Well,’ I remarked. ‘If he thinks he’s established some kind of outpost then he’s a fool.’
    At these words Simon gave me a very puzzled look before quickly changing the subject.
    That night I did not sleep well. There was a gale blowing outside, and I kept having this tangled up dream involving me, Mary Petrie and Michael Hawkins, in which he was in my bed and she wasn’t. Several times I woke up wondering where she’d gone, and not until the morning did it occur to me that she hadn’t been there in the first place. Furthermore, the person I’d thought was Michael Hawkins turned out to be Simon, fast asleep in the spare bed a few feet away. Considering I’d never even met Michael Hawkins I found this dream quite disturbing. It was almost as if I was suddenly in a competition against him, yet why this should be so I couldn’t imagine. I decided to forget all about it, so at first light I got up and went out to clear away the overnight sand. A large pile had accumulated on the windward side of the house, but after an hour’s work with the shovel I had it reduced to manageable proportions. The gale had subsided into a strong breeze. It was coming from the west, and now and again I heard the faint notes of Simon’s bell clanging in the distance. All across the plain I could see red sand on the move, drifting in tiny particles. This was the roughest time of year to be in a place