[MaC] An Interruption

[Margaret Dean]

Mel Mason wrote:
> 
> The party seemed to have settled down.  People were talking quietly now -
> and the sound of Anton's piano was forming a soothing background to the
> conversation.  He was playing light, popular classics, it appeared, not his
> usual style at all (as anyone who had attended his concerts would know).

Soon after the music had started, Marion Mauberly, who had been
standing near the bar but not mingling, looked around at the
assembled company and said, "I wonder what's become of Vangie? 
Perhaps I'd better go see."  She set down her drink on the bar
and headed down the stairs the way her friend had gone.
 
> And then everything was disrupted by a shrill whistling in the street.
> 
> "That's the ARP," said Oswald Skeffington-Nottle.  "We must be showing a
> light."
> 
> Marty Fitzroy swore.  "Put the lights out," he ordered Hodges.  "Perhaps
> that'll shut them up."
> 
> Oswald moved to the window.  "I'll see what they say once the lights are
> out," he said.
> 
> Soon the room was plunged into darkness - it seemed strange not to be able
> to see anyone else, and there were several nervous giggles, as though this
> were a party game.
> 
> In the next flat, Anton Barowenski could be heard continuing to play.
> 
> Oswald moved to the window and leaned out.  He could be heard shouting an
> enquiry - and a distant voice resonded.  Then he could be heard shuffling
> back into the room.
> 
> "Not good news, I'm afraid," he said.  "They've found an incendiary -
> unexploded.  They want us to stay put while it's defused.  And we were
> showing a light.  The warden's coming up to fix the blackout now."
> 
> Indeed, in the odd stillness that darkness sometimes gives, the clank of the
> lift could be heard as it started its descent.  Lucinda gave a little
> chuckle.
> 
> "You should have told him to take the stairs, Oswald!"


--Margaret Dean, catching up
  <margdean at erols.com>