Read The Parasite Person for Free Online Page B

worst would be over. In the afternoons, for some reason, he usually felt better—so much better, sometimes, that he would even force himself out for a short walk to clear his head. Occasionally, it actually worked, and his head was cleared. When this happened, he would find himself stepping out quite briskly on the homeward journey, and with any luck would be sitting at his desk and actually getting something written before the brief spurt of energy began to die. It was a sort of race against time: to walk just far enough to get the mental vigour flowing, but not so far that it was all gone again by the time he reached home.
    It was a hit-and-miss business at best; and more and more these days he found himself reluctant to expose himself to these drearyperambulations with so uncertain a prospect of reward. It wasn’t even as if there was anywhere pleasant to walk. Helen’s flat, pretty and elegant enough inside, was nevertheless situated in a peculiarly dreary neighbourhood of tall converted houses and ill-kept front-gardens. There was no park or recreation-ground for miles: from this point of view he’d been much better off at home—at 16, Hadley Gardens, that is to say—and so now, when Martin took himself out at all it was as a prisoner in the exercise-yard, grim and joyless, the sole purpose being to prevent himself sinking into irreversible apathy, physical and mental.
    *
    While he ate his lunch—a double-decker cheese and bacon sandwich —Martin kept a close watch on the square of grey slanting rain framed by the window, fearful lest it should begin to lighten, or the cosy patter of raindrops ease against the glass. Provided it kept on like this, as the barometer had promised it would, then there would be no question of the bloody walk. He might have a little sleep instead, and really get down to work after tea. Yes, that would be the best plan. After tea was always a good time, with Helen home, pottering companionably in the kitchen and tiptoeing in every now and then to see if he wanted anything.
    A little flurry of rain against the window sounded like a tiny burst of applause: his decision seemed to be meeting approval even from the elements. Settling himself on the sofa, with his feet up, he closed his eyes.
    And then the telephone rang.

CHAPTER IV
    H E TOOK FOR granted it would be Helen. This was her hour—the school dinner-hour—for ringing him up to say she’d be home late. It was very unsettling, and it seemed to happen constantly: some wretched teacher being away with flu, or having to go to the dentist, the osteopath, the oculist—it sounded more like a nursing-home than a school, Martin would sometimes comment sourly. Or maybe the driver of the coach to and from the playing-fields hadn’t turned up; or the headmistress was entertaining an important visitor; whatever it was, however unconnected with her actual duties, it always somehow seemed to involve Helen; to involve her, furthermore, in some task so inane that it was impossible to conceive why they wanted it done at all, let alone why they needed a First Class history graduate to accomplish it. Waiting behind for some child’s father to turn up and take her to ballet class: sitting with someone else’s form while they did their French homework: attending an emergency staff meeting to decide what to do about girls who came to school in slit skirts. Such trivia! Such drivelling, pettifogging nonsense! Sometimes Martin was furious on Helen’s behalf, that they should so exploit her and misuse her talents; and sometimes, more disturbingly, he was ashamed of her for allowing it.
    Anyway, what with one thing and another, Martin was relieved rather than disappointed when the voice down the phone turned out not to be Helen’s at all. It was a male voice, vaguely familiar, and though he couldn’t at first place it, he recognised immediately that it was the voice of somebody annoying. Somebody who had annoyed him before, who would continue