Opening the door and crossing the threshold in the dark triggers the phone in Nealon's pocket. He lowers his bag to the floor and looks at the screen; it's not a number he recognises. For the space of one airless heartbeat he has a sense of things drifting sideways, draining over an edge. The side of his head is bathed in the forensic glow of the screen light. "Yes?" "You're back." "Hello?" "Welcome home, Nealon." "Who am I talking to?" "Only a friend would call at this hour." The voice at the other end is male and downbeat, not the sort you would choose to listen to in the dark. Nealon is aware of himself in two minds--the voice on the phone drawing against his immediate instinct to orient himself in the dark hallway. He turns to stand with his back to the wall. "You know who I am?" "That's the least of what I know." "What do you want?" Two paces to his left, Nealon spots a light switch. He reaches out with his spare hand and throws it, throws it back, then throws it again. Nothing. Half his face remains shrouded in blue light. He takes five steps to open a door and passes into what he senses is an open room. A swipe of his hand over a low shadow finds a table; he draws out a chair and takes the rest of the phone call sitting in the dark. "I thought I'd give you a shout," the voice says. "You have the wrong number." "I don't think so." "I'm going to hang up." "There's no rush." "Goodbye." "We should meet up." "No." "Not tonight, you're just in the door, you need some rest." "We don't have anything to talk about." "I wouldn't be so sure." "I am." "In a day or so when you're settled." "Not then, not ever." "We'll talk again. One last thing." "What is it?" "Don't be sitting there in the dark, the mains switch is over the back door." And with that the phone goes dead in Nealon's hand. Nealon pushes aside his immediate wish to dwell on the phone call: Who is it from; what is it about? He needs to orient himself in the house so that is what he sets himself to. After a quick scan through his phone, he finds the torch app and sweeps the room with the light at arm's length. To his right is another small room barely six feet wide, with a fridge and cooker, shelves along one wall. There's also a solid door over which sits a junction box with a complex array of meters and fuses. The mains switch is at the end but it's too high to reach so he drags a chair from the table. He steps up and throws the switch; light floods from the hallway into the kitchenette and living room. The table sits beneath a large curtained window and beyond it is a sink and worktop with white cupboards overhead. Everything is flat-pack melamine, all the units date from sometime in the eighties. Against the left-hand wall sits a three-seater couch over which hangs a picture of the Sacred Heart with its orange votive light now glowing beneath. He reaches out and flicks the switch. The walls come up in a cool green glow against which the pine table seems warm and homely. There are five doors off the L-shaped hallway. The first is a bathroom with a shower cubicle tucked behind the door and a toilet beneath a small window which looks out from the back of the house. Behind each of the other doors are three bedrooms of equal size with a double bed and built-in wardrobes. Pillows and duvets are stacked on the beds, but all the wardrobes are empty. Back into the hall. There is something coercive in the flow of the house, the way it draws him through it. These are doors that have to be opened, rooms that have to be entered and stood in. He catches himself looking up and examining the ceiling. What does he expect to find there? Inside the front door is a sitting room where a laminate floor runs to a marble fireplace with a low mantelpiece. To the left and right of the chimney breast, empty bookshelves reach to the ceiling. In the middle of the floor is a single armchair, angled towards a large television. Its shape and plain covering make it an obvious partner to the couch in the living room. Empty and all as the house is, it still has the residual hum and bustle of family life. It feels clean and it has been carefully maintained. Not the raw cleanness of a last-minute blitz before visitors arrive but that ongoing effort which keeps it presentable to any sudden need. Nealon becomes aware of a low vibration throughout the room and stands listening for a moment. He lowers his hand to the radiator and finds that the heat has come on. The house is beginning to warm up. Over the front door, a globe light illumines a stretch of gravel frontage closed in by a pair of black gates. Outside lies the main road, the small village to the right, less than half a mile distant and the coast road running to the left. Lights are visible in the distance but all is quiet. No cars at this hour. An uneven grassed area flows into the night, darkening at a tall hedge that leans towards the gable of the house. A cement walk takes him around to the back door where the rear garden runs about thirty yards to a sod fence at the end of the site. He passes by the garage, locked and lightless, and moves deeper into the darkness where the shadowed outline of a small car sits hunched beneath overhanging trees. It has the shape and sheen of a giant armoured insect sheltering for the night. Beyond the trees the looming outlines of the hayshed and the cow barn are visible. Light from the living-room window reveals the central-heating pump on the far gable and he returns once more to the front door through which he re-enters the house. A glance at his Nokia confirms that he has been here twelve minutes. He punches in a ten-digit number and listens. After several moments the call goes through to voicemail. Nealon speaks. "Hello Olwyn. If you get this, I'm home. Give me a ring. Love to you and Cuan." He is tempted to sit for a while and gather his thoughts, but he knows that if he does he could be up for hours. The phone call still nags at him but he had better get some rest. He goes into the first bedroom and kicks his boots off, strips down to his T-shirt and pulls the duvet over him. He is asleep before his eyes close, drifting off like a man with a long, hard day behind him. And if the circumstances of his being here alone in this bed at this hour rest within the arc of those grand constructs that turn in the night--politics, finance, trade--it is not clear how his loneliness resolves in the indifference with which such constructs regard him across the length and breadth of his sleep. Excerpted from This Plague of Souls by Mike McCormack All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
