Pieces
an excerpt

We were just about finishing up our exercises for the evening in Elsa’s flat. Elsa had been concerned that we had missed something in the earlier stages, so we had returned to the first three. Whilst she and I stared at each other the buzzer sounded. No-one ever called on either of us.
“Ignore it.” I said. “They’ll probably go away.” But Elsa was already getting to her feet. As she crossed the floor to the handset used to communicate to those outside, the buzzer sounded again, and longer. Elsa lifted the received, and stared at me as she spoke.
“Hello?... yes... of course...” She pressed the buzzer, and then began to worry at her dress.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“Some men from the Programme.”
“The Programme? What do they want here?”
Elsa merely shrugged, and wandered out into the hallway. I followed her and we listened together to the slow progress that our visitors made as they climbed the stairs. Our breath came in shallow and slow, and even though the footsteps stopped to forewarn us, when the knock came it was enough to make both of us jump. I stepped back and allowed Elsa to open the door.
“Mrs D______?”
“Yes?”
“Mrs Elsa D_____?”
“Yes?”
“We are from the Programme and were wondering if we couldn’t come inside and discuss certain issues with you about your progress.”
The door blocked my view of the men, but I watched just the same as Elsa took a small piece of card from one of them, a photo ID card. She examined it before returning it and stepping back to allow the men access. I quickly took a step back too, attempting to look nonchalant. The two men were identical yet different. One was slightly overweight, but big rather than fat. He mopped his brow with a handkerchief that he then buried into the folds of his coat. His colleague was shorter but similarly dressed, his most striking feature was his dark brown eyes, in which his pupils were quite lost.
“Ah” the little one said, “you have a visitor!”
I extended a hand, “I’d say she had three.” I was keen to remind him of his status. “George Frame.” I said.
“I am Henderson, and this moist fellow answers to Hatch.” I shook Hatch's hand and Elsa led them through into the livingroom. I followed, hanging back from the three of them.
“Ah!” the little fellow said. “Cushions! Cushions on the floor, Hatch. I do apologise, Mrs D, we have clearly interrupted your exercises.”
“George Frame?” Hatch said, his voice bass and dopey.
“I take the apartment at the top of the house.” I said, by way of explanation. At this Hatch frowned, and began fishing about in his pockets.
“We would,” Henderson said, “be more than happy to wait while you finish up, isn’t that right, Hatch?”
Hatch looked up from searching himself. “Yes, Henderson, more than.”
“Oh no-“ Elsa began but I interrupted.
“If you don’t mind. We were close to finishing.”
Elsa glanced at me. I suspected she was keen to get whatever business they had over and done with so we could be shot of them, but these men claimed to be from the Programme, and if that was the case then I wanted to frustrate them a little first. I nodded briefly back at her, and walked back towards the cushions.
“Another ten minutes?” I said to Elsa. We had all of three left before the interruption, but I didn’t want to make things too easy for them.
Elsa frowned but said “Ten minutes.” And we adopted our position, palms touching, sustaining eye contact. Some three minutes in our unwelcome guests had clearly had enough. I heard a ruffle of cards and then, almost too quiet to be heard, came the following:
“Um.... red?”
“Nope.”
“Um... black?”
“Nope.”
“Um... black?”
“No.
“Um... red?
“Uh-uh.”
“Uh-uh yes?
“Uh-uh no.”
“Oh... uh... red?
“Nope”
“Erm... black?”
“No.”
“Red?”
“No.”
“Black?”
“No.”

And so on. Elsa, too, was not oblivious to this game that they were playing. We exchanged half-smiles and finally broke off. We turned to our visitors, and as we had suspected, Henderson was sat with a deck of cards, and was holding card after card up to Hatch for him to guess at the colour. Henderson looked up at us.
“All done?”
“Yes.” Elsa said.
“I’m glad. I do hope you forgive Hatch and myself playing our little game. It’s a quiet diversion but it passes the time.”
“I found it most intriguing.” I said. “Does he ever get it right?” I was genuinely interested in his reply.
“Never.” He said, with what seemed like a genuine sadness. I filed this away in my head to ponder later, and in so doing let in a silence.
“Frame?” Hatch said again.
“Frame.” I said.
“No no no no.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Horowitz.”
“Horowitz?”
“Horowitz!”
Hatch began once more patting down the pockets of his coat. Henderson raised his eyebrows at his colleague.
“Do not allow my colleague’s demeanour to disarm or deceive you. His mind is a well oiled gintrap, always primed, always ready.”
“Well, while he finds whatever it is he is seeking...”
“Ah yes! The matter at hand! Perhaps Mrs D and ourselves could be left alone for a moment?”
Elsa stepped back then. “No no. George can stay.”
“As you wish madam.” Henderson said, and effected a bow. “I understand that your husband...”
“Jason D_____” Hatch said. He had begun taking an assortment of objects from his pockets – tissues, pen tops, paperclips.
“Mr Jason D_____ went uncontained some months ago.”
“Yes.”
“And he was removed from this abode to an uncontainment facility where he is being guided through the final stages of his transcendence.”
“Yes.” Elsa said. She had not been given much of a script.
“You must be very proud.” Henderson said, and his eyes seemed to do an odd little sideways flicker, as though he was trying to measure as exactly as possible Elsa’s reaction.
“I suppose so.” Elsa said, and began to wring her hands.
“You seem uncertain.”
“Oh,” she said, as though realising the nature of the game he was playing. “I am pleased, really pleased, that he is making his transcendence. It is just that my life has been a little empty without him around.”
“I see. Have you felt his presence?”
Elsa stared back down at her hands again.
“No.” She said, defeated.
“Look what is this about?” I asked, not happy at the way in which Henderson’s questions were riding roughshod over Elsa’s feelings. I was always so delicate with the subject of her husband; for this weasel of a man to bluster his way into her life and hurt her in this way was too much.
Henderson took a step away from me, “this is just a standard visit to establish the extent of the, ah, budding of Jason’s transcendence.” Again he made that curious flickering with his eyes.
“Well it’s patently obvious that, whatever wonderful thing has happened to her husband, she misses him, and your questions are causing her distress.”
“George,” Elsa said, “it is okay.”
I clenched my jaw and stepped back.
“Sometimes,” Henderson began again, facing Elsa but not taking his eyes from me, “we can expect too much from our transcendent loved ones. Whereas there have been, in the past, full blown apparitions of the uncontained, more often than not they make themselves known through, perhaps, a half-said name, or a sudden fluctuation in temperature; a familiar object moved from where it is usually to be found.”
Throughout all this Elsa shook her head, tears welling in her eyes.
“Got it!” Hatch said. He held in his hand a little black bound notebook, which he began thumbing through. He seemed to take slightly too long to read each page in turn.
“I haven’t any sign of him at all. He is uncontained?”
“He is that alright,” Henderson said.
“Then why have I not... why hasn’t he...”
“Oh please! Please!” Henderson said, “Don’t distress yourself, Mrs D! Don’t despair! As we so often say in the Programme, we all make our way through to transcendence at different speeds. I’m sure it is only a matter of time before your husband makes himself known to you, perhaps in a warm and comforting sense of being embraced in unseen arms.”
I wandered over to Elsa, placed my arm around her, rested my hand on her shoulder.
“I think perhaps you’d better leave.” I said.
“The person who lives in the top floor apartment is Gordon Horowitz.” Henderson said, tapping a page in his notebook.
“Ah!” Henderson said. “What did I tell you? A gintrap!”
“How,” Hatch said, “can you account for this discrepancy?”
“Discrepancy? What discrepancy?”
“Between the name we have on file as resident to the top floor flat, and the name that you have given me.”
“Simple.” I said, not offering my inquisitor the slightest view through my shield. “You’re supposition is based on false data.”
“Oh, no no no!” Hatch said, and began to shake the notebook at me.
“You don’t make mistakes?”
“I copied it down from the database. This is right.”
“Oh dear, Mr Frame,” Henderson said, “May I remind you that it is a serious offence to supply false information to the registry.”
“I wouldn’t dream of supplying false data to the registry. The registry must be at fault.”
Hatch began clenching and unclenching his fists, including, unfortunately, that which held his notebook.
“It is also, Mr Frame, your duty to ensure that the information held on the registry is accurate.”
“Well, I can hardly afford to monitor my own data constantly, can I? And might I remind you that you are not allowed to take data from the registry unless you have a valid use for it. Why did you feel it necessary to hold information for every resident of this building, if your only intention was to visit Mrs D______?”
“Mr Hatch!” Henderson said, “we have a data protection enthusiast in our midst! That’s verging on anti-social, you know!”
“Anti-social!” Hatch said with a grin.
“Well,” I said, standing firm, “if you’ve no more troubling questions for Mrs D_____ I think you might perhaps wish to take your leave of her.”
“Frame, wasn’t it?” Henderson asked, as he made his way to the door.
“George Frame.”
Hatch passed me next. His notebook’s binding was broken, and the pages curved in, but nevertheless he scrawled what I presumed was my name into it, his tiny pencil held in his sausage-fingers.
“Oh!” Henderson said at the front door. “Allow me to leave you a card, Mrs D_____. Should you have anything you wish to discuss about your husband’s progress, do let me know.” He offered her a wink, and then disappeared through the door.
“Good luck with the playing cards,” I called after them, just as the door was closing. The hall sounded with their slowly retreating footsteps.