Free The Printer's Devil by Chico Kidd Page B

Alan’s own.
    Feeling at once vaguely guilty and vaguely offended, Alan put his papers away and extracted a book from his briefcase just as the train marked its arrival at the perimeter of the metropolis by plunging abruptly into a tunnel. Its lights flickered on and off briefly as it changed tracks, then steadied, like Alan’s thoughts.
    There was a lot of work to do, and a return trip to Fenstanton began to look increasingly unlikely; to cap it all, Kim came home that evening with an odd expression (half-scowl, half-grin) on her face and the news that she had to fly to Rome at the end of the week. Ruins flipped into Alan’s mind, and October sun mellow on them, the Castell Sant’Angelo, Tosca, the heights of St Peter’s; and the crowds, the traffic and the fumes.
    ‘I’m sorry it’s happened now, but it could lead to more work for this client. I wish it was anywhere but Rome, I hate Rome.’     36
    Alan looked at the nastily produced Italian literature which Kim’s client had given her. ‘It’s like pseudoRoman stuff, isn’t it? You might be able to get to Tivoli, or Hadrian’s villa, or somewhere nicer than the middle of Rome.’
    ‘D’you want to come?’
    Alan’s heart yearned for Italy: like many Englishmen he felt it was his spiritual home; but he had to say, ‘I don’t think I can. I want to, but just look at all this stuff Stephen’s given me.’
    If Kim had any qualms about leaving Alan in the claws of a dawning obsession, she said nothing about it before flying out of Heathrow on Thursday evening. Alan had kitchenware copy coming out of his ears and by the time he said goodbye to Kim the two of them had been reduced to a state of weak giggling helplessness by a series of puns which had begun at awful and deteriorated from there.
    At something of a loose end, Alan decided to go and call on the Westerbridge ringers, in the course of whose outing he had visited Fenstanton: Thursday was their practice night, and it was one which Alan usually enjoyed, and made more effort to attend than some others he could have mentioned, because he liked the people.
    St Michael’s, Westerbridge, had ten bells and more than its share of jokes about underwear, though it was rare now that all ten got going as they had only a few years before. The jokes continued, however.
    The whole day had been incipient with thunder, airless and lion-coloured. Lightning split the heavens as Alan parked his car; he eyed the sky suspiciously, his vision fragmented by the brightness of the fork, and decided to play safe.
    There was an umbrella on the back seat, half-submerged beneath old road atlases, photostatted details of ringing outings from the past five years or so, and other debris. He retrieved the brolly, muttering ‘You can’t fool me’ to whoever controlled the weather. Thunder grumbled in reply. Then he headed for the church’s tall white tower. It was a short walk and the skies retained their burden, bulging yellowly above.
    Various voices greeted him as he opened the ringing-chamber door, and asked him how he was and whether it had started raining yet. He shook his head to the latter enquiry and waved to the Griffiths family, his passengers on the outing: Alec, Josie, and Debbie. Looking at Debbie, whom he’d probably known for eight years or so since she was a gangly Brownie in a peculiar knitted hat with badges all down her arms, it struck him very forcibly then that she’d suddenly grown up quite a lot. It had struck him before, of course, but not in quite such a way. He felt an ambivalent attraction which he hastily shoved away, recalling his strange thoughts in the train.
    All in an instant the air released its held breath and a sudden chill blew in through the ringing-chamber window. The rains came with a sound which was almost a crash, and the smell of long-dry dust absorbing it rose strongly. Debbie leaned up and closed the window, Alan noticing how tall she was, and slim.
    Very swiftly the storm came