Happiness

Laurence Price had had a long, depressing day. Since half eight he’d been standing outside British Home Stores with his clipboard, his anorak shielding him from the intermittent drizzle, asking passers by what made them happy.

Laurence had been in the market research business for many years, and he was used to the nature of the work. For every person who genuinely wanted to answer his questions about which cereal they ate, or which adverts they remembered from last night’s TV, there were around a hundred who did not. But give them a question about themselves, how much time they spent with their families for example, or what made them happy, and even the one-in-a-hundred put up their defences.

“Piss off,” said one.

“No thanks,” said another. In fact, most said “no thanks”. No, actually, most did that thing where they suddenly pretend to be fascinated by the contents of the windows on the other side of the street just to avoid eye contact. But most of the ones who answered said “no thanks”.

One middle aged man in a suit and tie at least put a bit of effort into it: “Getting from one end of the street to the other without someone asking me fucking stupid questions, that’s what makes me happy,” he said. Laurence had to concede that he could see where the man in the suit was coming from.

By midday, it had become obvious to Laurence that he wasn’t getting anywhere, and after taking a break for a sandwich and coffee in a cheap café he knew off the high street, he’d returned to his spot outside BHS more determined to simply see the day through than to get any meaningful survey responses. It was a stupid question anyway, being asked on behalf of a political think tank from London. Laurence reckoned the whole exercise was merely an attempt to confirm a suspicion that nothing made people in towns north of Luton happy, a suspicion that the blank sheet on his clipboard mockingly confirmed.

By four, Laurence was wet through, the cumulative effect of seven hours of drizzle. He was tired and fed up, and he was past caring whether or not people cared to answer his question. The pedestrian traffic had slowed to a trickle, some of the shops were already hoovering, the place was dead. Laurence was asking his question once every ten minutes if he was lucky, and even then he’d occasionally had to cross the line that separates the persistent canvasser from the amateur stalker. When he saw the guy in the black overcoat walking briskly along the street towards him, he thought: “what the hell”.

“Excuse me sir, I wonder if you’d care to answer a survey?” Laurence didn’t pause for an answer. “We’re asking people: what makes you happy?”

The man slowed almost to a halt, swinging his legs in wide strides as he circled Laurence before coming to a stop beneath a shop canopy.

“What makes me happy?” he said, reflectively, then harrumphed a quiet laugh. “Well, I don’t think you’d want to know that.”

He smiled benevolently at Laurence. He was late fifties, well groomed and well dressed, the fat knot of a good quality silk tie visible under his overcoat, shiny black leather shoes gleaming below it.

“Try me,” said Laurence.

“Try me,” echoed the man. “Hmm. I tell you what, why don’t I show you?”

“Show me?” asked Laurence.

“I’m two minutes away, and it’s a little hard to put into words,” said the man. He looked around himself at the empty street. “You don’t look busy. Come on.”

The man turned and took a couple of steps, then turned his head to watch Laurence sideways on as he continued down the street. “Two minutes, max,” he called back. Laurence followed.

At the north end of the high street, the road opens out into a wide avenue with Victorian terraces on either side. Most of the buildings are business premises, offices for solicitors, accountants, actuaries. A handful are privately owned. Half way down the terrace the man stopped, pausing as he fished in his pocket for keys before climbing the steps of an imposing town house and opening the door.

“Please,” he said to Laurence. “Come in.”

The hallway was dark and cool. On the left, an antique umbrella stand with two umbrellas, both men’s. On the right, a bureaux with post tossed across it. At the back of the bureaux, a raised section with pigeon holes containing envelopes, a pair of leather gloves, a book of stamps. From one pigeon hole a flash of light winked off something metallic as Laurence passed.

“Cup of tea?” came a voice from the kitchen ahead of him. As Laurence looked up, the man’s face appeared around the corner of the kitchen door.

“Or would you prefer coffee?”

“Neither thanks,” said Laurence. “I can’t stay long.” In truth he’d welcomed the thought of spending some time indoors out of the cold and the drizzle, but now he was here his eagerness to get warm and dry and his curiosity had given way to a niggling discomfort that Laurence had couldn’t put his finger on. It was probably just a natural reaction to doing something atypical and rash, and ending up in a stranger’s house as a result, but Laurence found himself eager to get going, and not half as interested in seeing whatever it was that made this man happy as he had been back outside BHS. He definitely didn’t want to stay for coffee.

“OK,” said the man. “I’d better show you what makes me happy then.”

Laurence smiled politely.

“But first, tell me something: are you afraid of heights?”

“Not at all,” answered Laurence, his curiosity piqued. He’d imagined a collection of some sort; art, stamps, Victorian girly pictures. None of those had anything to do with heights.

“Oh good,” said the man. “In which case, this way please.” He stood in the kitchen doorway, gesturing up the stairs. “After you,” he added.

Laurence started up the stairs, his damp trousers chaffing, his sodden shoes squeaking on the wooden stairs. He considered whether he ought to have taken his shoes off when he arrived, then decided that the man didn’t seem like the sort to care about such things, and kept climbing. At the top of the staircase was a wide landing with doors leading off to – a quick count – five rooms; four bedrooms and a bathroom, Laurence guessed. These Victorian houses were deceptively roomy. The house was cold. The landing light was a bare bulb and the carpet was threadbare in places. Laurence wondered if anyone else lived here; it didn’t appear so. And if not, how one man could keep on top of such a large house. No wonder it was looking run down.

To his left, around the landing, another set of stairs.

“Keep going,” said the man; his voice was a few steps behind Laurence. “Up the next flight. Right to the top.”

On the next landing, three more doors, and at the opposite end of the landing, a further stairwell, shorter and with smaller steps, looking very much like an afterthought. At the top of the final flight of steps was a single door.

“Right to the top,” the man repeated.

“These old houses are much taller than they look, aren’t they?” said Laurence. The man didn’t answer, and Laurence felt an urge to fill the silence.

“I’m intrigued,” he admitted. “What is it you keep up here?”

“Well now, if I just wanted to tell you I could have done so back on the high street,” said the man. “Much better for you to see for yourself. Please.”

At the top of the stairs Laurence waited on the top step. Trying the door in front of him, he found it locked.

“Allow me,” said the man’s voice, so close to him that he could feel the warm breath on the back of his neck. The man produced a shiny brass key, and unlocked the door. Laurence didn’t notice the leather gloves.

“I call them my bells,” said the man.

The door swung open, and for a moment Laurence couldn’t see anything. The room was dark, a single small, square window let in a little of the dusk light, but not enough to illuminate the room. Then Laurence noticed light below him, and looking down he saw that the room’s floor had been removed, and a larger window in the bedroom below was letting in a little more of the fading daylight, and the bedroom window from the floor below a little more, and beneath both bedrooms, a standard lamp in the living room cast light over an armchair and a small table with a newspaper on it, giving the bottom of the bell tower a homely glow. And swinging in the darkness, on ropes hanging from the exposed roof joists above, somewhere around where the second floor bedroom would have been, three bodies, their heads bowed forwards as if in prayer.

“This is what makes me happy,” said the man. “My lovely bells.” And Laurence, paralysed with horror, stood and gazed at the bells, and before his flight reaction came to bear he felt a noose drop over his head and he was falling.