I heard the sound of a key in the lock.  I grabbed the candle stub off the top of the typewriter; the flame flickered and nearly went out.  Hot wax spilled over my fingers.  I almost cried out.

The door handle squeaked.  I moved in two long strides to the nearest bay window and slipped behind the curtains, blowing out the candle as the door creaked open.

I put out my hand to stop the curtains waving from side to side and realised - as I saw light come into the office - that I'd left a small gap between the curtains as I'd moved between them.  I stared in horror, not daring to close them properly for fear the movement would be seen by whoever was coming to investigate (Why had they come?  Had I made a noise?  Was there some silent alarm system I'd never heard about?).  I held on to the curtain, the wax cooled and hardened on my fingers while my poor bowels felt they were doing exactly the opposite, as if in recompense.

Through the finger-wide gap between the curtains, I saw Allan come into the room, holding a small paraffin lamp.  He wore the same simple robe he had on earlier, and carpet slippers.  He locked the door behind him and went towards the desk, yawning.  I relaxed a little; he didn't seem to be here because he'd heard something.  I carefully let go of the curtain and stepped back, so that my face was further away from the lamp-light coming through the gap in the curtains.  I felt the cool glass of the window behind me.  I could still see Allan; he felt for the small chain round his neck, bringing it out and slipping it over his head, then held something small on the end of it and bent to the top drawer of his big desk in front of the fireplace.  It must have been a key.  He opened the drawer and brought out something that looked, I thought, like an electronic calculator or a remote control unit for a television set.  He yawned again and moved towards the door to the storeroom I'd made my entrance through.  Then he stopped, turned round and looked almost straight at me, a frown on his face.  I thought I was going to faint.  He sniffed the air.

The match!  I thought.  The match I'd used to light the candle; he could detect its treacherous, sulphurous smell!  Ice water seemed to run in my veins.  Allan sniffed the air again, glancing down at the fire, then the frown disappeared and he shook his head.  He went into the storeroom, closing the door after him.  I breathed out, half delirious with relief.  And I'd even thought to close the window in the storeroom, too, though I hadn't locked it after me.  I waited, wiping sweat off my brow. My heart seemed to shake my whole torso. It felt like it was trying to escape from my chest. I wondered if nineteen was too young to die from a heart attack.

Several minutes passed; my heart slowed. I picked the solidified wax off my hand and put the bits in my pocket. I licked the smarting skin underneath, waving my hand about to cool the moistened area. Then I thought I heard a voice coming from the storeroom. Allan's voice. As though he was talking to somebody.

I hesitated. It would be madness to go and listen; I could never get back here in time when he returned to the study. It was obviously insane, and it would be tempting fate; I had only just managed to set the desk by the door back in order before Allan came into the room; I'd already used up all my luck. I ought to stay here, keep quiet, let Allan do whatever he was doing, let him leave and then continue with my search. I turned and looked away from the room, out into the darkness where the courtyard and the farm buildings were, invisible in the night. Of course it would be stupid - idiotic - to go over to the storeroom door.

I don't know what made me do just that, but I did; I left the comparative safety of the curtains and - with a clear image in my mind of how the room had looked while illuminated with the glow from Allan's paraffin lamp - stepped smartly across the floor and through the darkness to listen at the door to the storeroom.

'… told you, she's obsessed,' I heard Allan say. Then, 'I know, I know … Why, have you had any more letters? … No, no, she doesn't, ah… didn't find out. No, you're all right there… Well, I don't know how, but she, ah, she didn't… well, she didn't say anything. No, wouldn't be like her… I don't know… You did? Yes, so did that old bat Yolanda… Yes, she brought her back.'

He was talking on a telephone! It took me that long to work it out; it was such an unthinkable thing, to have a telephone in the Community, and here, right at its heart! He had one of those portable wireless telephones; that was what he had taken out of the drawer in the desk! He was talking to somebody on it! The deception of the man! And to think I had felt bad, felt like a sinner, dammit, for making a couple of calls from a telephone box in Gittering! For shame, brother! I had half a mind to burst in on him and denounce him to his face, but luckily that particular rush of blood to the head didn't last very long.

'… Well, not for long,' Allan said. 'I asked Uncle Mo to come up here; looks like we've persuaded her to take a holiday with him.'

So Mo had been calling Allan.  My uncle must have dialled the wrong number in his cups, having the vague idea that he was ringing the Community but getting the Woodbeans' number, not Allan's.  So, did wireless phones have answering machines too?  I supposed they must have, or could link into one somewhere else.  Perhaps that accounted for the few minutes of silence when Allan had first entered the storeroom; he had been taking his messages.  Well, of course; he couldn't be seen with the phone, couldn't carry it around and have it ringing while he was amongst us.

'… Spayedthwaite; oop north,' Allan said, putting on a funny accent. '… Tomorrow, with any luck.  Why, what were you…?… Really?… Flumes?… Well, it's not Spain, I suppose, but…'

Spain?  Hadn't Morag been due to go there with Mr Leopold, her agent/manager?  Good grief!  Was he talking to Morag?  Then why -?  I abandoned speculation to continue listening.

'… Oh, I see.  Really.  Well, everybody should have a hobby, they say….  So we might see you yet for the Festival?… It was a joke.  I dare say she will, too….  Oh, getting crazier; latest thing was she had a private audience with the old man and offered herself to him; tried to get him to screw her.  Can you believe that?'

What?  I felt my mouth fall open as I stared at the door, black in front of my face, unable to believe what I was hearing.  What was I being accused of now?  Attempting to seduce my Grandfather when in fact he had practically tried to rape me?  If I had felt there was ice in my veins a few minutes earlier, I could believe it was superheated steam now.  The treachery of it!  The calumny!  The mendacity!  This was… this was evil.

'… I know, I know,' Allan said. '… Well, of course nobody else was there, Morag, but I believe Grandfather, don't you?… Well, quite….  Yes….  I don't…… No.  No idea….  Yes, me too.  Sorry about the lateness of the hour….  What?… No, I don't suppose it is, really, not for you, but it is for us.  Well, I'll say…'

I'd heard enough.  I wasn't quite so sure of my route back to the curtains as I had been from them to the door but I got there without bumping into anything.  I slipped back behind them again and adjusted the gap until it was the same as it had been before.

The storeroom door opened and Allan reappeared with the paraffin lamp and the little portable telephone; different centuries in each hand.  He put the phone back in the drawer of the main desk, locked it and - apart from one sniff at the air, which seemed to satisfy him - left the office without further ado.  I heard the key turn in the lock and listened to his footsteps fade as he climbed the stairs back to his room.

I stood for a while, trembling as though cold.