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The Collected Edition
BRIGHTON ROCK
Other books by
GRAHAM GREENE
NOVELS
The Man Within
Stamboul Train
It*s a Battlefield
England Made Me
A Gun for Sale
The Confidential Agent
The Power and the Glory
The Ministry of Fear
The Heart of the Matter
The Third Man
The End of the Affair
Loser Takes All
The Quiet American
Our Man in Havana
A Burnt-Out Case
The Comedians
Travels with my Aunt
SHORT STORIES
Twenty-One Stories
A Sense of Reality
May We Borrow Your Husband ?
TRAVEL
Journey Without Maps
The Lawless Roads
In Search of a Character
ESSAYS
Collected Essays
PLAYS
The Living Room
The Potting Shed
The Complaisant Lover
Carving a Statue
Graham Greene
BRIGHTON ROCK
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
&
THE BODLEY HEAD
LONDON
First published 1938
All rights reserved
Introduction © Graham Greene 1970
SBN 434 30552 9 (Heincmann)
SBN 370 01427 8 (Bodley Head)
Printed and bound in Great Britain
by William Clowes & Sons Ltd, Beccles
Set in Monotype Plantin Light
This edition first published igyo
‘This were a fine reign
To do ill and not hear of it again.
The Witch of Edmonton
Introduction
Brighton Rock began as a detective story and continued,
I am sometimes tempted to think, as an error of judge-
ment. Until I published this novel I had like any other
novelist been sometimes praised for a success, and
sometimes condemned with good enough reason as I
fumbled at my craft, but now I was discovered to be -*
detestable term! - a Catholic writer. Catholics began to
treat my faults too kindly, as though I were a member of
a clan and could not be disowned, while some non-
Catholic critics seemed to consider that my faith gave me
an unfair advantage in some way over my contempor-
aries. I had become a Catholic in 1926, and all my books,
except for one lamentable volume of verse at Oxford, had
been written as a Catholic, but no one had noticed the
faith to which I belonged before the publication of
Brighton Rock, Even today some critics (and critics as a
class are seldom more careful of their facts than journal-
ists) refer to the novels written after my conversion,
making a distinction between the earlier and the later
books.
Many times since Brighton Rock I have been forced to
declare myself not a Catholic writer but a writer who
happens to be a Catholic. Newman wrote the last word
on ‘ Catholic literature’ in The Idea of a University :
‘I say, from the nature of the case, if Literature is to
be made a study of human nature, you cannot have a
Christian Literature. It is a contradiction in terms to
attempt a sinless Literature of sinful man. You may
gather together something very great and high, some-
thing higher than any Literature ever was; and when
vii
you have done so, you will find that it is not Literature
at all/
Nevertheless it is true to say that by 1947 the time was
ripe for me to use Catholic characters. It takes longer to
familiarize oneself with a region of the mind than with a
country, but the ideas of my Catholic charaaers, even
their Catholic ideas, were not necessarily mine.
More than ten years had passed since I was received
into the Church. At that time, as I have written else-
where, I had not been emotionally moved, but only
intellectually convinced; I was in the habit of formally
practising my religion, going to Mass every Sunday and to
Confession perhaps once a month, and in my spare time I
read a good deal of theology - sometimes with fascination,
sometimes with repulsion, nearly always with interest.
I was still not earning enough with my books to make
a living for my family (after the success of my first novel
and the spurious temporary sale of Stamboul Train each
novel added a small quota to the debt I owed my
publisher), but reviewing films regularly for The Spectator
and novels once a fortnight, I could make ends meet. I
had recently had two strokes of good fortune, and these
enabled me to see a little way ahead - I had received a
contract to write my second film script (and a terrible
one it was, based on Galsworthy’s short story The First
and the Last - Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, who
had much to forgive me, suffered together in the leading
parts), and for six months I acted as joint editor with
John Marks of a new weekly Night and Day - an episode
which came to a comic, if disagreeable end, when
Shirley Temple, aged six, sued me for libel. My pro-
fessional life and my religion were contained in quite
separate compartments, and I had no ambition to bring
viii
them together. It was ‘clumsy life again at her stupid
work’ which did that; on one side, the socialist per-
secution of religion in Mexico and on the other General
Franco’s attack on Republican Spain inextricably
involved religion in contemporary life.
I think it was under those two influences - and the
backward and forward sway of my sympathies - that I
began to examine more closely the effect of faith on
action. Catholicism was no longer primarily symbolic, a
ceremony at an altar with the correct canonical number
of candles, with the women in my Chelsea congregation
wearing their best hats, nor was it a philosophical page in
Father D’Arcy’s Nature of Belief, It was closer now to
death in the afternoon.
A restlessness set in then which has never quite been
allayed : a desire to be a spectator of history, history in
which I found I was concerned myself. I tried to fly into
Bilbao from Toulouse, for my sympathies were more
engaged by the Catholic struggle against Franco than
with the competing sectarians in Madrid. I carried a
letter of recommendation from the Basque Delegation in
London to a small cafe owner in Toulouse who had been
breaking the blockade of Bilbao with a two-seater plane.
1 found him shaving in a corner of his cafe at six in the
morning and handed him the Delegation’s dignified
letter sealed with scarlet wax, but no amount of official
sealing wax would induce him to fly his plane again into
Bilbao - Franco’s guns on his last flight had proved
themselves too accurate for his comfort. With Mexico I
was more fortunate, an advance payment for a book on
the religious persecution (published later as The Lawless
Roads) enabled me to leave for Tabasco and Chiapas
where the persecution was continuing well away from the
IX
tourist areas, and it was in Mexico that I corrected the
proofs of Brighton Rock.
It was in Mexico too that I discovered some emotional
belief in myself, among the empty and ruined churches
from which the priests had been excluded, at the secret
Masses of Las Casas celebrated without the Sanctus bell,
among the swaggering pistoleros, but probably emotion
had been astir before that, or how was it that a book
which I had intended to be a simple detective story
should have involved a discussion, far too obvious and
open for a novel, of the distinction between good-and-
evil and right-and- wrong and the mystery of ‘the
appalling strangeness of the mercy of God’ ~ a mystery
that was to be the subject of three more of my novels?
The first fifty pages of Brighton Rock are all that remain
of the deteaive story ; they would irritate me, if I dared
to look at them now, for I know I ought to have had the
strength of mind to remove them, and to start the story
again - however difficult the revisions might have
proved - with what is now called Part Two. ‘A lost thing
could I never find, nor a broken thing mend. ’
Some critics have referred to a strange violent ‘seedy’
region of the mind (why did I ever popularize that last
adjective?) which they call Greeneland, and I have
sometimes wondered whether they go round the world
blinkered. ‘This is Indo-China,’ I want to exclaim, ‘this
is Mexico, this is Sierra Leone carefully and accurately
described. I have been a newspaper correspondent as well
as a novelist. I assure you the dead child lay in the ditch
in just that attitude. In the canal of Phat Diem the bodies
stuck out of the water . . .’ But I know that argument is
useless. They won’t believe the world they haven’t
noticed is like that.
x
However the setting of this one book may in part
belong to an imaginary geographic region. Though
Nelson Place has been cleared away since the war, and
the race gangs were to all intents quashed forever as a
serious menace at Lewes Assizes a little before the date
of my novel, and even Sherry’s dance hall has vanished,
they certainly did exist; there was a real slum called
Nelson Place, and a man was kidnapped on Brighton
front in a broad daylight of the thirties, though not in the
same circumstances as Hale, and his body was found
somewhere out towards the Downs flung from a car.
Colleoni, the gang leader, had his real prototype who had
retired by 1938 and lived a gracious Catholic life in one
of the Brighton crescents, although I found his name
was still law, when I demanded entrance by virtue of it,
at a little London nightclub called The Nest behind
Regent Street. (I am sometimes reminded of him when
I watch the handsome white-haired American gangster,
one of Lucky Luciano’s men, spending the quiet evening
of his days between the piazza of Capri and the smart
piscine of the Canzone del Mare restaurant at Piccola
Marina.)
All the same I must plead guilty to manufacturing this
Brighton of mine as I never manufactured Mexico or
Indo-China. There were no living models for these
gangsters, nor for the bar-maid who so obstinately
refused to come alive. I had spent only one night in the
company of someone who could have belonged to
Pinkie’s gang -• a man from the Wandsworth dog-tracks
whose face had been carved because he was suspected of
grassing to the bogies after a killing at the stadium. (He
taught me the only professional slang I knew, but one
cannot learn a language in one night however long.)
XI
The Brighton authorities proved a little sensitive to the
picture I had drawn of their city, and it must have galled
them to see my book unwittingly advertised at every
sweet stall - ‘buy Brighton Rock’, but the popular
success of the book was much more limited than
they realized. About eight thousand copies were sold
at the time and just lifted me out of debt to my pub-
lishers.
Would they have resented the novel even more deeply
if they had known that for me to describe Brighton was
really a labour of love, not hate? No city before the war,
not London, Paris or Oxford, had such a hold on my
affections. I knew it first as a child of six when I was
sent with an aunt to convalesce after some illness -
jaundice, I think. It was then I saw my first film, a silent
one of course, and the story captured me forever:
Sophie of Kravoniay Anthony Hope’s tale of a kitchen-
maid who became a queen. When the kitchen-maid rode
with her army through the mountains to attack the rebel
general who had tried to wrest the throne from her infant
son, her march was accompanied by one old lady on a
piano, but the tock-tock-tock of the untuned wires has
stayed in my memory when other melodies have faded,
and so has the grey riding habit of the young queen. The
Balkans since then have always been Kravonia - the area
of infinite possibility, and it was through the mountains
of Kravonia that I drove a few summers ago and not
through the Carpathians of my atlas. That was the kind
of book I always wanted to write : the high romantic tale,
capturing us in youth with hopes that prove illusions, to
which we return again in age in order to escape the sad
reality. Brighton Rock was a very poor substitute for
Kravonia, like all my books, and yet perhaps it is the
xii
best I ever wrote - a sad thought after more than thirty
years.
Why did I exclude so much of the Brighton I really
knew from this imaginary Brighton? I had every inten-
tion of describing it, but it was as though my characters
had taken the Brighton I knew into their own conscious-
ness and transformed the whole picture (I have never
again felt so much the victim of my inventions). Perhaps
their Brighton did exist, but of mine only one character
remained, poor hopeless Mr Prewitt watching with sad
envy ‘the little typists go by carrying their little cases*,
(I think no one has remarked the echo of Beatrix Potter
in that phrase). It was Mr Prewitt with a difference who
spoke to me one December night more than ten years
earlier in a shelter on the front with the thin phosphor-
escent line of the surf smoothed back by a frosty wind:
‘Do you know who lam?’ the voice sadly enquired, but
I hadn’t even seen in the darkness that the shelter had
another occupant. ‘I’m Old Moore,* :t said. It added,
‘I live alone in a basement. I bake my own bread,* and
then, humbly because I hadn’t taken its meaning, ‘The
Almanac, you know, I write the Almanac. *
PART ONE
CO
Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours,
that they meant to murder him. With his inky fingers
and his bitten nails, his manner cynical and nervous,
anybody could tell he didn’t belong - belong to the early
summer sun, the cool Whitsun wind off the sea, the
holiday crowd. They came in by train from Victoria every
five minutes, rocked down Queen’s Road standing on the
tops of the little local trams, stepped off in bewildered
multitudes into fresh and glittering air: the new silver
paint sparkled on the piers, the cream houses ran away
into the west like a pale Victorian water-colour; a race in
miniature motors, a band playing, flower gardens in
bloom below the front, an aeroplane advertising some-
thing for the health in pale vanishing clouds across the sky.
It had seemed quite easy to Hale to be lost in Brighton.
Fifty thousand people besides himself were down for the
day, and for quite a while he gave himself up to the good
day, drinking gins and tonics wherever his programme
allowed. For he had to stick closely to a programme:
from ten till eleven Queen’s Road and Castle Square,
from eleven till twelve the Aquarium and Palace Pier,
twelve till one the front between the Old Ship and West
Pier, back for lunch between one and two in any res-
taurant he chose round the Castle Square, and after that
he had to make his way all down the parade to the West
Pier and then to the station by the Hove streets. These
were the limits of his absurd and widely advertised
sentry-go.
Advertised on every Messenger poster: ‘Kolley Kibber
I
in Brighton to-day.’ In his pocket he had a packet of
cards to distribute in hidden places along his route;
those who found them would receive ten shillings from
the Messenger y but the big prize was reserved for whoever
challenged Hale in the proper form of words and with a
copy of the Messenger in his hand: ‘You are Mr Kolley
Kibber. I claim the Daily Messenger prize. ’
This was Hale’s job to do sentry-go, until a challenger
released him, in every seaside town in turn: yesterday
Southend, to-day Brighton, to-morrow
He drank his gin and tonic hastily as a clock struck
eleven and moved out of Castle Square. Kolley Kibber
always played fair, always wore the same kind of hat as
in the photograph the Messenger printed, was always on
time. Yesterday in Southend he had been unchallenged :
the paper liked to save its guineas occasionally, but not
too often. It was his duty to-day to be spotted - and it
was his inclination too. There were reasons why he didn’t
feel too safe in Brighton, even in a Whitsun crowd.
He leant against the rail near the Palace Pier and
showed his face to the crowd as it uncoiled endlessly past
him, like a twisted piece of wire, two by two, each with
an air of sober and determined gaiety. They had stood
all the way from Victoria in crowded carriages, they
would have to wait in queues for lunch, at midnight half
asleep they would rock back in trains to the cramped
streets and the closed pubs and the weary walk home.
With immense labour and immense patience they
extricated from the long day the grain of pleasure : this
sun, this music, the rattle of the miniature cars, the ghost
train diving between the grinning skeletons under the
Aquarium promenade, the sticks of Brighton rock, the
paper sailors’ caps.
2
Nobody paid any attention to Hale; no one seemed to
be carrying a Messenger, He deposited one of his cards
carefully on the top of a little basket and moved on, with
his bitten nails and his inky fingers, alone. He only felt
his loneliness after his third gin ; until then he despised
the crowd, but afterwards he felt his kinship. He had
come out of the same streets, but he was condemned by
his higher pay to pretend to want other things, and all
the time the piers, the peepshows pulled at his heart. He
wanted to get back - but all he could do was to carry his
sneer along the front, the badge of loneliness. Somewhere
out of sight a woman was singing, ‘When I came up from
Brighton by the train’: a rich Guinness voice, a voice
from a public bar. Hale turned into the private saloon and
watched her big blown charms across two bars and
through a glass partition.
She wasn’t old, somewhere in the late thirties or the
early forties, and she was only a little drunk in a friendly
accommodating way. You thought of sucking babies
when you looked at her, but if she’d borne them she
hadn’t let them pull her down: she took care of herself.
Her lipstick told you that, the confidence of her big body.
She was well-covered, but she wasn’t careless ; she kept
her lines for those who cared for lines.
Hale did. He was a small man and he watched her with
covetous envy over the empty glasses tipped up in the
lead trough, over the beer handles, between the shoulders
of the two serving in the public bar. ‘ Give us another,
Lily, ’ one of them said and she began, ‘ One night - in
an alley - Lord Rothschild said to me.’ She never got
beyond a few lines. She wanted to laugh too much to
give her voice a chance, but she had an inexhaustible
memory for ballads. Hale had never heard one of them
3
before. With his glass to his lips he watched her with
nostalgia; she was off again on a song which must have
dated back to the Australian gold rush.
‘Fred/ a voice said behind him, ‘Fred.’
The gin slopped out of Hale’s glass on to the bar. A
boy of about seventeen watched him from the door - a
shabby smart suit, the cloth too thin for much wear, a
face of starved intensity, a kind of hideous and un-
natural pride.
‘Who are you Freding?’ Hale said. ‘I’m not Fred.’
‘It don’t make any difference,’ the boy said. He
turned back towards the door, keeping an eye on Hale
over his narrow shoulder.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Got to tell your friends,’ the boy said.
They were alone in the saloon bar except for an old
commissionaire, who slept over a pint glass of old and
mild. ‘Listen,’ Hale said, ‘have a drink. Come and sit
down over here and have a drink. ’
‘Got to be going,’ the boy said. ‘You know I don’t
drink, Fred. You forget a lot, don’t you?’
‘It won’t make any difference having one drink. A
soft drink. ’
‘It’ll have to be a quick one,’ the boy said. He
watched Hale all the time closely and with wonder:
you might expect a hunter searching through the jungle
for some half-fabulous beast to look like that - at the
spotted lion or the pygmy elephant - before the kill. ‘A
grape-fruit squash, ’ he said.
‘ Go on, Lily, ’ the voices implored in the public bar.
‘ Give us another, Lily, ’ and the boy took his eyes for the
first time from Hale and looked across the partition at the
big breasts and the blown charm.
4
‘ A double whisky and a grape-fruit squash, ^ Hal said.
He carried them to a table, but the boy didn’t follow. He
was watching the woman with an expression of furious
distaste. Hale felt as if hatred had been momentarily
loosened like handcuffs to be fastened round another’s
wrists. He tried to joke, ‘A cheery soul.’
‘Soul,’ the boy said. ‘You’ve no cause to talk about
souls.’ He turned his hatred back on Hale, drinking
down the grape-fruit squash in a single draught.
Hale said, ‘I’m only here for my job. Just for the day.
I’m Kolley Kibber.’
‘You’re Fred,’ the boy said.
‘All right,’ Hale said, ‘I’m Fred. But I’ve got a card
in my pocket which’ll be worth ten bob to you. ’
‘I know all about the cards,’ the boy said. He had a
fair smooth skin, the faintest down, and his grey eyes had
an effect of heartlessness like an old man’s in which
human feeling has died. ‘We were all reading about you,’
he said, ‘in the paper this morning,’ and suddenly he
sniggered as if he’d just seen the point of a dirty story.
‘You can have one,’ Hale said. ‘Look, take this
Messenger, Read w^hat it says there. You can have the
whole prize. Ten guineas,’ he said. ‘You’ll only have to
send this form to the Messenger, ’
‘Then they don’t trust you with the cash,’ the boy
said, and in the other bar Lily began to sing, ‘We met -
’twas in a crowd - and I thought he would shun me.’
‘Christ,’ the boy said, ‘won’t anybody stop that buer’s
mouth?’
‘I’ll give you a fiver,’ Hale said. ‘It’s all I’ve got on
me. That and my ticket. ’
‘You won’t want your ticket,’ the boy said.
T wore my bridal robe, and I rivall’d its whiteness.’
5
The boy rose furiously, and giving way to a liule
vicious spurt of hatred - at the song? at the man? - he
dropped his empty glass on to the floor. ‘The gentle-
man’ll pay,’ he said to the barman and swung through
the door of the private lounge. It was then Hale realised
that they meant to murder him.
‘A wreath of orange blossoms.
When next we met, she wore;
The expression of her features
Was more thoughtful than before. ’
The commissionaire slept on and Hale watched her
from the deserted elegant lounge. Her big breasts
pointed through the thin vulgar summer dress, and he
thought: I must get away from here, I must get away:
sadly and desperately watching her, as if he were gazing
at life itself in the public bar. But he couldn’t get away,
he had his job to do: they were particular on the
Messenger, It was a good paper to be on, and a little
flare of pride went up in Hale’s heart when he thought of
the long pilgrimage behind him: selling newspapers at
street corners, the reporter’s job at thirty bob a week on
the little local paper with a circulation of ten thousand,
the five years in Sheffield. He was damned, he told
himself with the temporary courage of another whisky,
if he’d let that mob frighten him into spoiling his job.
What could they do while he had people round him?
They hadn’t the nerve to kill him in broad day before
witnesses; he was safe with the fifty thousand visitors.
‘Come on over here, lonely heart.’ He didn’t realise
at first she was speaking to him, until he saw all the
faces in the public bar grinning across at him, and
suddenly he thought how easily the mob could get at
6
him with only the sleeping commissionaire to keep him
company. There was no need to go outside to reach the
other bar, he had only to make a semicircle through three
doors, by way of the saloon bar, the ‘ ladies only \ ‘ What’ll
you have?’ he said, approaching the big woman with
starved gratitude. She could save my life, he thought, if
she’d let me stick to her.
T’ll have a port,’ she said.
‘One port,’ Hale said.
‘Aren’t you having one?’
‘No,’ Hale said, ‘I’ve drunk enough. I mustn’t get
sleepy. ’
‘Why ever not - on a holiday? Have a Bass on me.’
‘I don’t like Bass.’ He looked at his watch. It was one
o’clock. His programme fretted at his mind. He had to
leave cards in every section : the paper in that way kept a
check on him; they could always tell if he scamped his
job. ‘Come and have a bite,’ he implored her.
‘Hark at him,’ she called to her friends. Her warm
port-winey laugh filled all the bars. ‘Getting fresh, eh?
I wouldn’t trust myself. ’
‘Don’t you go, Lily,’ they told her. ‘He’s not safe.’
‘I wouldn’t trust myself,’ she repeated, closing one
soft friendly cowlike eye.
There was a way. Hale knew, to make her come. He
had known the way once. On thirty bob a week he would
have been at home with her; he would have known the
right phrase, the right joke, to cut her out from among
her friends, to be friendly at a snack-bar. But he’d lost
touch. He had nothing to say; he could only repeat,
‘ Come and have a bite. ’
‘Where shall we go, Sir Horace? To the Old Ship?’
‘Yes,’ Hale said. ‘If you like. The Old Ship.’
7
‘Hear that/ she told them in all the bars, the two old
dames in black bonnets in the ladies, the commissionaire
who slept on alone in the private, her own half dozen
cronies. ‘This gentleman’s invited me to the Old Ship,’
she said in a mock-refined voice. ‘Tomorrow I shall be
delighted, but to-day I have a prior engagement at the
Dirty Dog. ’
Hale turned hopelessly to the door. The boy, he
thought, would not have had time to warn the others yet.
He would be safe at lunch ; it was the hour he had to pass
after lunch he dreaded most.
The woman said, ‘Are you sick or something?’
His eyes turned to the big breasts ; she was like dark-
ness to him, shelter, knowledge, common-sense; his
heart ached at the sight; but, in his little inky cynical
framework of bone, pride bobbed up again, taunting
him, ‘Back to the womb ... be a mother to you ... no
more standing on your own feet’.
‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m not sick. I’m all right.’
‘You look queer, ’ she said in a friendly concerned way.
‘I’m all right,’ he said. ‘Hungry. That’s all.’
‘Why not have a bite here?’ the woman said. ‘You
could do him a ham sandwich, couldn’t you, Bell, ’ and
the barman said. Yes, he could do a ham sandwich.
‘No,’ Hale said, ‘I’ve got to be getting on.’
- Getting on. Down the front, mixing as quickly as
possible with the current of the crowd, glancing to right
and left of him and over each shoulder in turn. He could
see no familiar face anywhere, but he felt no relief. He
thought he could lose himself safely in a crowd, but now
the people he was among seemed like a thick forest in
which a native could arrange his poisoned ambush. He
couldn’t see beyond the man in flannels just in front, and
8
when he turned his vision was blocked by a brilliant
scarlet blouse. Three old ladies went driving by in an
open horse-drawn carriage: the gentle clatter faded like
peace. That was how some people still lived.
Hale crossed the road away from the front. There were
fewer people there: he could walk faster and go further.
They were drinking cocktails on the terrace of the Grand,
a delicate pastiche of a Victorian sunshade twisted its
ribbons and flowers in the sun, and a man like a retired
statesman, all silver hair and powdered skin and double
old-fashioned eyeglass, let life slip naturally, with
dignity, away from him, sitting over a sherry. Down the
broad steps of the Cosmopolitan came a couple of
women with bright brass hair and ermine coats and
heads close together like parrots, exchanging metallic
confidences. “‘My dear,” I said quite coldly, “if you
haven’t learnt the Del Rey perm, all I can say - ” ’
and they flashed their pointed painted nails at each other
and cackled. For the first time for five years Kolley
Kibber was late in his programme. At the foot of the
Cosmopolitan steps, in the shadow the huge bizarre
building cast, he remembered that the mob had bought
his paper. They hadn’t needed to watch the public house
for him: they knew where to expect him.
A mounted policeman came up the road, the lovely
cared-for chestnut beast stepping delicately on the hot
macadam, like an expensive toy a millionaire buys for his
children; you admired the finish, the leather as deeply
glowing as an old mahogany table top, the bright silver
badge; it never occurred to you that the toy was for use.
It never occurred to Hale watching the policeman pass;
he couldn’t appeal to him. A man stood by the kerb
selling objects on a tray ; he had lost the whole of one side
9
of the body: leg and arm and shoulder, and the beautiful
horse as it paced by turned its head aside delicately like
a dowager. ‘Shoelaces,’ the man said hopelessly to Hale,
‘matches.’ Hale didn’t hear him. ‘Razor blades.’ Hale
went by, the words lodged securely in his brain: the
thought of the thin wound and the sharp pain. That was
how Kite was killed.
Twenty yards down the road he saw Cubitt. Cubitt
was a big man, with red hair cut en brosse and freckles.
He saw Hale, but he made no sign of recognition,
leaning carelessly against a pillar-box watching him. A
postman came to collect and Cubitt shifted. Hale could
see him exchanging a joke with the postman and the
postman laughed and filled his bag and all the time
Cubitt looked away from him down the street waiting
for Hale. Hale knew exactly what he’d do ; he knew the
whole bunch; Cubitt was slow and had a friendly way
with him. He’d simply link his arm with Hale’s and
draw him on where he wanted him to go.
But the old desperate pride persisted, a pride of
intellect. He was scared sick, but he told himself, ‘I’m
not going to die. ’ He jested hollowly, ‘ I’m not front page
stuff. ’ This was real : the two women getting into a taxi,
the band playing on the Palace Pier, ‘tablets’ fading in
white smoke on the pale pure sky: not red-haired Cubitt
waiting by the pillar-box. Hale turned again and crossed
the road, made back towards the West Pier walking fast;
he wasn’t running away, he had a plan.
He had only, he told himself, to find a girl : there must
be hundreds waiting to be picked up on a Whitsun
holiday, to be given a drink and taken to dance at Sherry’s
and presently home, drunk and affectionate, in the
corridor carriage. That was the best way: to carry a
10
witness round with him. It would be no good, even if his
pride allowed him, to go to the station now. They would
be watching it for certain, and it was always easy to kill
a lonely man at a railway station: they had only to gather
close round a carriage door or fix you in the crush at the
barrier; it was at a station that Colleoni’s mob had killed
Kite. All down the front the girls sat in the twopenny
deck-chairs, waiting to be picked, all who had not brought
their boys with them; clerks, shop-girls, hairdressers -
you could pick out the hairdressers by their new and
daring perms, by their beautifully manicured nails : they
had all waited late at their shops the night before,
preparing each other till midnight. Now they were
sleepy and sleek in the sun.
In front of the chairs the men strolled in twos and
threes, wearing their summer suits for the first time,
knife-edged silver-grey trousers and elegant shirts; they
didn’t look as if they cared a damn whether they got a
girl or not, and among them Hale went in his seedy suit
and his string tie and his striped shirt and his inkstains,
ten years older, and desperate for a girl. He offered them
cigarettes and they stared at him like duchesses with large
cold eyes and said, ‘I don’t smoke, thenk you,’ and
twenty yards behind him he knew, without turning his
head, that Cubitt strolled.
It made Hale’s manner strange. He couldn’t help
showing his desperation. He could hear the girls
laughing at him after he’d gone, at his clothes and the
way he talked. There was a deep humility in Hale; his
pride was only in his profession : he disliked himself before
the glass - the bony legs and the pigeon breast, and he
dressed shabbily and carelessly as a sign - a sign that he
didn’t expect any woman to be interested. Now he gave
II
up the pretty ones, the smart ones, and looked despair-
ingly down the chairs for someone plain enough to be
glad of even his attentions.
Surely he thought, this girl, and he smiled with hungry
hope at a fat spotty creature in pink whose feet hardly
touched the ground. He sat down in an empty chair
beside her and gazed at the remote and negleaed sea
coiling round the piles of the West Pier.
‘Cigarette?’ he asked presently.
‘I don’t mind if I do,’ the girl said. The words were
sweet like a reprieve.
‘It’s nice here,’ the fat girl said.
‘Down from town?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well,’ Hale said, ‘you aren’t going to sit here alone
all day, are you?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ the girl said.
‘I thought of going to have something to eat, and then
we might ’
‘ Wcy" the girl said, ‘you’re a fresh one.’
‘ Well, you aren’t going to sit here alone all day, are you ? ’
‘Who said I was?’ the fat girl said. ‘Doesn’t mean I’m
going with you."
‘ Come and have a drink anyway and talk about it. ’
T wouldn’t mind,’ she said, opening a compaa and
covering her spots deeper.
‘Come along then,’ Hale said.
‘Got a friend?’
‘ I’m all alone. ’
‘Oh then, I couldn’t,’ the girl said. ‘Not possibly. I
couldn’t leave my friend all alone,’ and for the first time
Hale observed in the chair beyond her a pale bloodless
creature waiting avidly for his reply.
12
‘But you’d like to come,’ Hale implored.
‘Oh, yes, but I couldn’t possibly.’
‘Your friend won’t mind. She’ll find someone.’
‘Oh, no. I couldn’t leave her alone.’ She stared pastily
and impassively at the sea.
‘You wouldn’t mind, would you?’ Hale leaned for-
ward and begged the bloodless image, and it screeched
with embarrassed laughter back at him.
‘She doesn’t know anyone,’ the fat girl said.
‘ She’ll find somebody. ’
‘ Would you, Delia? ’ The pasty girl leant her head close
to her friend’s and they consulted together: every now
and then Delia squealed.
‘That’s all right then,’ Hale said, ‘you’ll come?’
‘Couldn’t you find a friend?’
‘I don’t know anyone here,’ Hale said. ‘Come along.
I’ll take you anywhere for lunch. All I want ’ he
grinned miserably - ‘is for you to stick close.’
‘No,’ the fat girl said. ‘I couldn’t possibly - not
without my friend. ’
‘Well, both of you come along then,’ Hale said.
‘It wouldn’t be much fun for Delia,’ the fat girl
said.
A boy’s voice interrupted them. ‘So there you are,
Fred, ’ and Hale looked up at the grey inhuman seven-
teen-year-old eyes.
‘Why,’ the fat girl squealed, ‘he said he hadn’t got a
friend. ’
‘You can’t believe what Fred says,’ the voice said.
‘Now we can make a proper party,’ the fat girl said.
‘This is my friend Delia. I’m Molly.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ the boy said. ‘Where are we
going, Fred?’
13
"I’m hungry,’ the fat girl said. ‘I bet you’re hungry
too, Delia?’ and Delia wriggled and squealed.
‘I know a good place,’ the boy said.
"Do they have sundaes?’
‘The best sundaes,’ he reassured her in his serious
dead voice.
"That’s what I want, a sundae. Delia likes splits
best. ’
"We’ll be going, Fred,’ the boy said.
Hale rose. His hands were shaking. This was real now :
the boy, the razor cut, life going out with the blood in
pain : not the deck chairs and the permanent waves, the
miniature cars tearing round the curve on the Palace Pier.
The ground moved under his feet, and only the thought
of where they might take him while he was unconscious
saved him from fainting. But even then common pride,
the instinct not to make a scene, remained overpower-
ingly strong; embarrassment had more force than terror,
it prevented him crying his fear aloud, it even urged him
to go quietly. If the boy had not spoken again he might
have gone.
‘We’d beuer get moving, Fred,’ the boy said.
‘No,’ Hale said. ‘I’m not coming. I don’t know him.
My name’s not Fred. I’ve never seen him before. He’s
just getting fresh,’ and he walked rapidly away, with his
head down, hopeless now ~ there wasn’t time ~ only
anxious to keep moving, to keep out in the clear sun;
until from far down the front he heard a woman’s winey
voice singing, singing of brides and bouquets, of lilies
and mourning shrouds, a Victorian ballad, and he
moved towards it like someone who has been lost a long
while in a desert makes for the glow of a fire.
‘Why,’ she said, ‘if it isn’t lonely heart,’ and to his
14
astonishment she was all by herself in a wilderness of
chairs. ‘They’ve gone to the gents,’ she said.
‘Can I sit down?’ Hale asked. His voice broke with
relief.
‘If you’ve got twopence,’ she said. ‘I haven’t.’ She
began to laugh, the great breasts pushing at her dress.
‘Someone pinched my bag,’ she said. ‘Every penny I’ve
got.’ He watched her with astonishment. ‘Oh,’ she said,
‘that’s not the funny part. It’s the letters. He’ll have had
all Tom’s letters to read. Were they passionate? Tom’ll
be crazy when he hears. ’
‘You’ll be wanting some money,’ Hale said.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I’m not worrying. Some nice feller
will lend me ten bob - when they come out of the gents. ’
‘They your friends?’ Hale asked.
‘I met ’em in the pub,’ she said.
‘You think,’ Hale said, ‘they’ll come back from the
gents?’
‘My,’ she said, ‘you don’t think ’ She gazed up
the parade, then looked at Hale and began to laugh again.
‘You win,’ she said. ‘They’ve pulled my leg properly.
But there was only ten bob - and Tom’s letters.’
‘Will you have lunch with me now?’ Hale said.
‘I had a snack in the pub,’ she said. ‘They treated me
to that, so I got something out of my ten bob. ’
‘Have a little more.’
‘No, I don’t fancy any more,’ she said, and leaning far
back in the deck-chair with her skirt pulled up to her
knees exposing her fine legs, with an air of ribald luxury,
she added, ‘What a day,’ sparkling back at the bright
sea. ‘All the same,’ she said, ‘they’ll wish they’d never
been born. I’m a sticker where right’s concerned. ’
‘Your name’s Lily?’ Hale asked. He couldn’t see the
15
boy any more: he’d gone: Cubitt had gone. There was
nobody he could recognise as far as he could see.
‘That’s what they called me,’ she said. ‘My real
name’s Ida.’ The old and vulgarised Grecian name
recovered a little dignity. She said, ‘You look poorly.
You ought to go off and eat somewhere. ’
‘Not if you won’t come,’ Hale said. T only want to
stay here with you. ’
‘Why, that’s a nice speech,’ she said. ‘I wish Tom
could hear you - he writes passionate, but when it comes
to talking ’
‘Does he want to marry you?’ Hale asked. She smelt
of soap and wine: comfort and peace and a slow sleepy
physical enjoyment, a touch of the nursery and the
mother, stole from the big tipsy mouth, the magnificent
breasts and legs, and reached Hale’s withered and
frightened and bitter little brain.
‘He was married to me once,’ Ida said, ‘But he didn’t
know when he was lucky. Now he wants to come back.
You should see his letters. I’d show them you if they
hadn’t been stolen. He ought to be ashamed, ’ she said,
laughing with pleasure, ‘writing such things. You’d
never think. And he was such a quiet fellow too. Well, I
always say it’s fun to be alive.’
‘Will you take him back?’ Hale asked, peering out
from the valley of the shadow with sourness and envy.
‘ I should think not, ’ Ida said. ‘ I know all about him.
There’d be no thrill. If I wanted a man I could do better
than that now. ’ She wasn’t boastful : only a little drunk
and happy. ‘ I could marry money if I chose. ’
‘And how do you live now?’ Hale said.
‘ From hand to mouth, ’ she said and winked at him and
made the motion of tipping a glass. ‘What’s your name?’
i6
‘Fred.’ He said it automatically: it was the name he
always gave to chance acquaintances. From some obscure
motive of secrecy he shielded his own name, Charles.
From childhood he had loved secrecy, a hiding place, the
dark, but it was in the dark he had met Kite, the boy,
Cubitt, the whole mob.
‘And how do you live?’ she asked cheerfully. Men
always liked to tell, and she liked to hear. She had an
immense store of masculine experiences.
‘Betting,’ he said promptly, putting up his barrier of
evasion.
‘I lilce a flutter myself. Could you give me a tip, 1
wonder, for Brighton on Saturday?’
‘Black Boy,’ Hale said, ‘in the four o’clock.’
‘He’s twenty to one.’
Hale looked at her with respect. ‘Take it or leave it.’
‘Oh, I’ll take it,’ Ida said. ‘I always take a tip.’
‘Whoever gives it you?’
‘That’s my system. Will you be there?’
‘ No, ’ Hale said. ‘ I can’t make it. ’ He put his hand on
her wrist. He wasn’t going to run any more risks. He’d
tell the news-editor he was taken ill : he’d resign: he’d do
anything. Life was here beside him, he wasn’t going to
play around with death, ‘Come to the station with me,’
he said. ‘Come back to town with me.’
‘ On a day like this, ’ Ida said. ‘Not me. You’ve had too
much town. You look stuffed up. A blow along the
front’ll do you good. Besides, there’s lots of things I
want to see. I want to see the Aquarium and Black Rock
and I haven’t been on the Palace Pier yet to-day. There’s
always something new on the Palace Pier. I’m out for a
bit of fun. ’
‘We’ll do those and then ’
17
* When I make a day of it/ Ida said, ‘ I like to make a
real day of it. I told you - I’m a sticker. ’
‘I don’t mind,’ Hale said, ‘if you’ll stay with me.’
‘Well, you can’t steal my bag,’ Ida said. ‘But I warn
you - I like to spend. I’m not satisfied with a ring here
and a shot there: I want all the shows.’
‘It’s a long walk,’ Hale said, ‘to the Palace Pier in this
sun. We’d better take a taxi. ’ But he made no immediate
pass at Ida in the taxi, sitting there bonily crouched with
his eyes on the parade : no sign of the boy or Cubitt in the
bright broad day sweeping by. He turned reluctantly
back, and, with the sense of her great open friendly
breasts, fastened his mouth on hers and received the
taste of port wine on his tongue and saw in the driver’s
mirror the old 1925 Morris following behind, with its
split and flapping hood, its bent fender and cracked and
discoloured windscreen. He watched it with his mouth
on hers, shaking against her as the taxi ground slowly
along beside the parade.
‘Give me breath,’ she said at last, pushing him off and
straightening her hat. ‘You believe in hard work,’ she
said. ‘It’s you little fellows ’ she could feel his nerves
jumping under her hand, and she shouted quickly
through the tube at the driver, ‘Don’t stop. Go on back
and round again.’ He was like a man with fever.
‘You’re sick,’ she said. ‘You oughtn’t to be alone.
What’s the matter with you?’
He couldn’t keep it in. ‘ I’m going to die. I’m scared. ’
‘Have you seen a doctor?’
‘They are no good. They can’t do anything.’
‘You oughtn’t to be out alone,’ Ida said. ‘Did they
tell you that - the doctors, I mean?’
‘Yes,’ he said and put his mouth on hers again
18
because when he kissed her he could watch in the jtnirror
the old Morris vibrating after them down the parade.
She pushed him off but kept her arms round him.
‘They’re crazy. You aren’t that sick. You can’t tell me I
wouldn’t know if you were that sick,’ she said. T don’t
like to see a fellow throw up the sponge that way. It’s a
good world if you don’t weaken. ’
Tt’s all right,’ he said, ‘long as you are here.’
‘That’s better,’ she said, ‘be yourself,’ and letting
down the window with a rush for the air to come in, she
pushed her arm through his and said in a frightened
gentle way, ‘You were just kidding, weren’t you, when
you said that about the doaors? It wasn’t true, was it?’
‘No,’ Hale said wearily, ‘it wasn’t true.’
‘That’s a boy,’ Ida said. ‘You nearly had me scared
for a moment. Nice thing it would have been for me if
you’d passed out in this taxi. Something for Tom to
read about in the paper, I’d say. But men are funny with
me that way. Always trying to make out there’s some-
thing wrong, money or the wife or the heart. You aren’t
the first who said he was dying. Never anything in-
fectious though. Want to make the most of their last
hours and all the rest of it. It comes of me being so big,
I suppose. They think I’ll mother them. I’m not saying
I didn’t fall for it the first time. “The doctors only give
me a month,” he said to me - that was five years ago, I
see him regular now in Henekey’s. “Hullo, you old
ghost,” I always say to him, and he stands me oysters
and a Guinness.’
‘No, I’m not sick,’ Hale said. ‘You needn’t be scared.’
He wasn’t going to let his pride down as much as that
again, even in return for the peaceful and natural em-
brace. The Grand went by, the old statesman dozing
2 — ^B.R.
19
out the day, the Metropole. ‘Here we are,’ Hale said.
‘You’ll stay with me, won’t you, even if I’m not sick- ’
‘Of course I will,’ Ida said, hiccuping gently as she
stepped out. ‘I like you, Fred. I liked you the moment I
saw you. You’re a good sport, Fred. What’s that crowd,
there?’ she asked with joyful curiosity, pointing to the
gathering of neat and natty trousers, of bright blouses
and bare arms and bleached and perfumed hair.
‘With every watch I sell,’ a man was shouting in the
middle of it all, ‘ I give a free gift worth twenty times the
value of the watch. Only a shilling, ladies and gents, only
a shilling. With every watch I sell . . . ’
‘Get me a watch, Fred,’ Ida said, pushing him gently,
‘and give me threepence before you go. I want to get a
wash. ’ They stood on the pavement at the entrance to the
Palace Pier^ the crowd was thick around them, passing
in and out of the turnstiles, watching the pedlar: there
was no sign anywhere of the Morris car.
‘You don’t want a wash, Ida,’ Hale implored her.
‘You’re fine.’
‘I’ve got to get a wash,’ she said, ‘I’m sweating ail
over. You just wait here. I’ll only be two minutes. ’
‘You won’t get a good wash here,’ Hale said. ‘Come
to a hotel and have a drink ’
‘I can’t wait, Fred. Really I can’t. Be a isport.’
Hale said, ‘That ten shillings. You’d better have that
too while I remember it. ’
‘It’s real good of you, Fred. Can you spare it?’
‘Be quick, Ida,’ Hale said. ‘I’ll be here. Just here. By
this turnstile. You won’t be long, will you? I’ll be here,’
he repeated, putting his hand on a rail of the turnstile.
‘Why,’ Ida said, ‘anyone’d think you were in love,’
and she carried the image of him quite tenderly in her
20
mind down the steps of the ladies* lavatory: the small
rather battered man with the nails bitten dose (she
missed nothing) and the inkstains and the hand dutching
the rail. He*s a good geezer, she said to herself, I liked
the way he looked even in that bar if I did laugh at him,
and she began to sing again, softly this time, in her
warm winey voice, ‘One night - in an alley - Lord
Rothschild said to me. ... * It was a long time since
she’d hurried herself so for a man, and it wasn’t more
than four minutes before, cool and powdered and serene,
she mounted into the bright Whitsun afternoon to find
him gone. He wasn’t by the turnstile, he wasn’t in the
crowd by the pedlar; she forced herself into that to
make sure and found herself facing the fiushed, perma-
nently irritated salesman. ‘What? Not give a shilling for
a watch, and a free gift worth exactly twenty times the
watch. I’m not saying the watch is worth much more
than a shilling, though it’s worth that for the looks alone,
but with it a free gift twenty times ’ She held out
the ten-shilling note and got her small package and the
change, thinking: he’s probably gone to the gents, he’ll
be back; and taking up her place by the turnstile, she
opened the little envelope which wrapped the watch
round. ‘Black Boy,’ she read, ‘in the four o’clock at
Brighton,’ and thought tenderly and proudly, ‘That was
his tip. He’s a fellow who knows things, ’ and prepared
patiently and happily to wait for him to return. She was
a sticker. A clock away in the town struck half-past one.
[ 2 ]
The Boy paid his threepence and went through the
turnstile. He moved rigidly past the rows of deck-chairs
21
four deep where people were waiting for the orchestra to
play. From behind he looked younger than he was in his
dark thin ready-made suit a little too big for him at the
hips, but when you met him face to face he looked older,
the slatey eyes were touched with the annihilating
eternity from which he had come and to which he went.
The orchestra began to play: he felt the music as a
movement in his belly: the violins wailed in his guts. He
looked neither right nor left but went on.
In the Palace of Pleasure he made his way past the
peepshows, the slot-machines and the quoits to a
shooting-booth. The shelves of dolls stared down with
glassy innocence, like Virgins in a church repository. The
Boy looked up: chestnut ringlets, blue orbs and painted
cheeks : he thought - Hail Mary ... in the hour of our
death. ‘I’ll have six shots,’ he said.
‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ the stall-holder said, eyeing him
with uneasy distaste.
‘Yes, it’s me,’ the Boy said. ‘Have you got the time
on you. Bill?’
‘What do you mean - the time? There’s a clock up
there in the hall, isn’t there?’
‘It says nearly a quarter-to-two. I didn’t think it was
that late. ’
‘That clock’s always right,’ the man said. He came
down to the end of the booth pistol in hand. ‘ It’s always
right, see,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t stand for any phoney
alibis. A quarter-to-two, that’s the time.’
‘That’s all right, Bill, ’ the Boy said. ‘A quarter-to-two,
I just wanted to know. Give me that pistol. ’ He raised
it: the young bony hand was steady as a rock: he put
six shots inside the bull. ‘That’s worth a prize,’ he
said.
22
‘You can take your bloody prize,’ Bill said, ‘and hop
it. What do you want? Chocolates?’
‘I don’t eat chocolates,’ the Boy said.
‘ Packet of Players ? ’
‘I don’t smoke.’
‘You’ll have to have a doll then or a glass vase.’
‘The doll’ll do,’ the Boy said. ‘I’ll have that one - the
one up there with the brown hair. ’
‘You getting a family?’ the man said, but the Boy
didn’t answer, walking rigidly away past the other booths,
with the smell of gunpowder on his fingers, holding the
JMother of God by the hair. The water washed round the
piles at the end of the pier, dark poison-bottle green,
mottled with seaweed, and the salt wind smarted on his
lips. He climbed the ladder on to the tea-terrace and
looked around; nearly every table was full. He went
inside the glass shelter and round into the long narrow
tea-room which faced west, perched fifty feet above the
slow withdrawing tide. A table was free and he sat down
where he could see all the room and across the water to
the pale parade.
‘I’ll wait,’ he said to the girl who came for his order.
‘ I’ve got friends coming. ’ The window was open and he
could hear the low waves beating at the pier and the
music of the orchestra - faint and sad, borne away on the
wind towards the shore. He said, ‘They are late. What
time is it?’ His fingers pulled absentmindedly at the
doll’s hair, detaching the brown wool.
‘It’s nearly ten-to-two,’ the girl said.
‘All the clocks on this pier are fast,’ he said.
‘Oh, no,’ the girl said. ‘It’s reel London time.’
‘Take the doll, ’ the Boy said. ‘ It’s no good to me. I just
won it in one of those shooting booths. It’s no good to me. ’
23
‘Can I reely?’ the girl said.
‘Go on. Take it. Stick it up in your room and pray.’
He tossed it at her, watching the door impatiently. His
body was stiffly controlled. The only sign of nervousness
he showed was a slight tick in his cheek through the soft
chicken down, where you might have expeaed a dimple.
It beat more impatiently when Cubitt appeared, and
with him Dallow, a stout muscular man with a broken
nose and an expression of brutal simplicity.
‘Well?’ the Boy said.
‘It’s all right,’ Cubitt said.
‘Where’s Spicer?’
‘He’s coming,’ Dallow said. ‘He’s just gone into the
gents to have a wash. ’
‘ He ought to have come straight, ’ the Boy said. ‘ You’re
late. I said a quarter-to-two sharp. ’
‘Don’t take on so,’ Cubitt said. ‘All you’d got to do
was to come straight across. ’
‘I had to tidy up,’ the Boy said. He beckoned to the
waitress. ‘Four fish and chips and a pot of tea. There’s
another coming. ’
‘Spicer won’t want fish and chips,’ Dallow said. ‘He’s
got no appetite. ’
‘He’d better have an appetite,’ the Boy said, and
leaning his face on his hands, he watched Spicer’s pale-
faced progress up the tea-room and felt anger grinding
at his guts like the tide at the piles below. ‘ It’s five-to-
two,’ he said. ‘That’s right, isn’t it? It’s five-to-two?’
he called to the waitress.
‘ It took longer than we thought, ’ Spicer said, dropping
into the chair, dark and pallid and spotty. He looked with
nausea at the brown crackling slab of fish the girl set
before him. ‘I’m not hungry,’ he said. ‘I can’t eat this.
24
What do you think I am?’ and they all three left their
fish untasted as they stared at the Boy - like children
before his ageless eyes.
The Boy poured anchovy sauce out over his chips.
‘Eat,’ he said. ‘Go on. Eat.’ Dallow suddenly grinned.
‘He’s got no appetite,’ he said and stuffed his mouth
with fish. They all talked low, their words lost to those
around in the hubbub of plates and voices and the steady
surge of the sea. Cubitt followed suit, picking at his fish:
only Spicer wouldn’t eat. He sat stubbornly there, grey-
haired and sea-sick.
‘Give me a drink. Pinkie,’ he said. ‘I can’t swallow
this stuff. ’
‘You aren’t going to have a drink, not to-day,’ the
Boy said. ‘ Go on. Eat. ’
Spicer put some fish to his mouth. ‘I’ll be sick,’ he
said, ‘if I eat.’
‘Spew then,’ the Boy said. ‘Spew if you like. You
haven’t any guts to spew. ’ He said to Dallow, ‘Did it go
all right?’
‘It was beautiful,’ Dallow said. ‘Me and Cubitt
planted him. We gave the cards to Spicer. ’
‘You put ’em out all right?’ the Boy said.
‘Of course I put ’em out,’ Spicer said.
‘All along the parade?’
‘Of course I put ’em out. I don’t see why you get so
fussed about the cards. ’
‘You don’t see much,’ the Boy said. ‘They’re an alibi,
aren’t they?’ He dropped his voice and whispered it
over the fish. ‘They prove he kept to programme. They
show he died after two.’ He raised his voice again.
‘Listen. Do you hear that?’
Very faintly in the town a clock chimed and struck twice.
25
‘Suppose they found him already?’ Spicer said.
‘Then that’s just too bad for us,’ the Boy said.
‘What about that polony he was with?’
‘ She doesn’t matter, ’ the Boy said. ‘ She’s just a buer -
he gave her a half. I saw him hand it out. ’
‘You take account of most things,’ Dallow said with
admiration. He poured himself a cup of black tea and
helped himself to five lumps of sugar.
‘I take account of what I do myself,’ the Boy said.
‘Where did you put the cards?’ he said to Spicer.
‘I put one of ’em in Snow’s,’ Spicer said.
‘What do you mean? Snow’s?’
‘He had to eat, hadn’t he?’ Spicer said. ‘The paper
said so. You said I was to follow the paper. It’d look odd,
wouldn’t it, if he didn’t eat, and he always put one where
he eats.’
‘It’d look odder,’ the Boy said, ‘if the waitress spotted
your face wasn’t right and she found it soon as you left.
Where did you put it in Snow’s?’
‘Under the table-cloth,’ Spicer said. ‘That’s what he
always does. There’ll have been plenty at that table
since me. She won’t know it wasn’t him. I don’t suppose
she’ll find it before night, when she takes off the cloth.
Maybe it’ll even be another girl.’
‘You go back,’ the Boy said, ‘and bring that card here.
I’m not taking chances. ’
‘I’ll not go back.’ Spicer’s voice rose above a whisper,
and once again they all three stared at the Boy in silence.
‘You go, Cubitt,’ the Boy said. ‘Maybe it had better
not be him again. ’
‘Not me,’ Cubitt said. ‘Suppose they’d found the
card and saw me looking. Better take a chance and leave
it alone,’ he urged in a whisper.
26
‘Talk natural/ the Boy said, ‘talk natural,’ as the
waitress came back to the table.
‘Do you boys want any more?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ the Boy said, ‘we’ll have ice-cream.’
‘ Stow it. Pinkie, ’ Dallow protested when the girl had
left them, ‘we don’t want ice-cream. We ain’t a lot of
tarts. Pinkie. ’
‘If you don’t want ice-cream, Dallow,’ the Boy said,
‘you go to Snow’s and get that card. You’ve got guts,
haven’t you?’
‘I thought we was done with it all,’ Dallow said. ‘I’ve
done enough. I’ve got guts, you know that, but I was
scared stiff. . . . Why, if they’ve found him before time,
it’d be crazy to go into Snow’s. ’
‘Don’t talk so loud,’ the Boy said. ‘If nobody else’ll
go,’ he said, ‘I’ll go. I’m not scared. Only I get tired
sometimes of working with a mob like you. Sometimes I
think I’d be better alone.’ Afternoon moved across the
water. He said, ‘Kite was all right, but Kite’s dead.
Which was your table?’ he asked Spicer.
‘Just inside. On the right of the door. A table for one.
It’s got flowers on it. ’
‘What flowers?’
‘I don’t know what flowers,’ Spicer said. ‘Yellow
flowers. ’
‘Don’t go. Pinkie,’ Dallow said, ‘better leave it alone.
You can’t tell what’ll happen,’ but the Boy was already
on his feet, moving stiffly down the long narrow room
above the sea. You couldn’t tell if he was scared; his
young ancient poker-face told nothing.
In Snow’s the rush was over and the table free. The
wireless droned a programme of weary music, broadcast
by a cinema organist - a great vox humana trembled
27
across the crumby stained desert of used cloths: the
world’s wet mouth lamenting over life. The waitress
whipped the cloths off as soon as the tables were free and
laid tea things. Nobody paid any attention to the Boy;
they turned their back when he looked at them. He
slipped his hand under the cloth and found nothing
there. Suddenly the little spurt of vicious anger rose
again in the Boy’s brain and he smashed a salt sprinkler
down on the table so hard that the base cracked. A waitress
detached herself from the gossiping group and came
towards him, cold-eyed, acquisitive, ash-blonde. ‘Well?’
she said, taking in the shabby suit, the too young face.
‘ I want Service, ’ the Boy said.
‘You’re late for the Lunch.’
‘I don’t want lunch,’ the Boy said. T want a cup of
tea and a plate of biscuits. ’
‘Will you go to one of the tables laid for tea, please?’
‘No,’ the Boy said. ‘This table suits me.’
She sailed away again, superior and disapproving, and
he called after her, ‘Will you take that order?’
‘The waitress serving your table will be here in a
minute, ’ she said and moved away to the gossips by the
service door. The Boy shifted his chair, the nerve in his
cheek twitched, again he put his hand under the cloth :
it was a tiny action, but it might hang him if he was
observed. But he could feel nothing, and he thought
with fury of Spicer : he’ll muddle once too often, we’d be
better without him.
‘Was it tea you wanted, sir?’ He looked sharply up
with his hand under the cloth: one of those girls who
creep about, he thought, as if they were afraid of their
own footsteps: a pale thin girl younger than himself.
He said, ‘I gave the order once. ’
28
She apologised abjectly. ‘There’s been sudh a rush.
And it’s my first day. This was the only breathing spell.
Have you lost something?’
He withdrew his hand, watching her with dangerous
and unfeeling eyes. His cheek twitched again; it was the
little things which tripped you up, he could think of no
reason at all for having his hand under the table. She
went on helpfully, ‘I’ll have to change the cloth again
for tea, so if you’ve lost . ’ In no time she had cleared
the table of pepper and salt and mustard, the cutlery and
the O.K. sauce, the yellow flowers, had nipped together
the corners of the cloth and lifted it in one movement
from the table, crumbs and all.
‘There’s nothing there, sir,’ she said. He looked at the
bare table-top and said, ‘I hadn’t lost an5^ing.’ She
began to lay a fresh cloth for tea. She seemed to find
something agreeable about him which made her talk,
something in common perhaps - youth and shabbiness
and a kind of ignorance in the dapper cafe. Already she
had apparently forgotten his exploring hand. But would
she remember, he wondered, if later people asked her
questions? He despised her quiet, her pallor, her desire
to please: did she also observe, remember. . . ? ‘You
wouldn’t guess,’ she said, ‘what I found here only ten
minutes ago. When I changed the cloth. ’
‘Do you always change the cloth?’ the Boy asked.
‘Oh, no,’ she said, putting out the tea things, ‘but
a customer upset his drink and when I changed it, there
was one of Kolley Kibber’s cards, worth ten shillings.
It was quite a shock,’ she said, lingering gratefully with
the tray, ‘and the others don’t like it. You see it’s only
my second day here. They say I was a fool not to chal-
lenge him and get the prize. ’
29
‘Why didn’t you challenge him?’
‘Because I never thought. He wasn’t a bit like the
photograph. ’
‘Maybe the card had been there all the morning.’
‘Oh, no,’ she said, ‘it couldn’t have been. He was the
first man at this table. ’
‘Well,’ the Boy said, ‘it don’t make any odds. You’ve
got the card. ’
‘Oh yes, I’ve got it. Only it don’t seem quite fair - you
see what I mean - him being so different. I might have
got the prize. I can tell you I ran to the door when I saw
the card: I didn’t wait.’
‘And did you see him?’
She shook her head.
‘I suppose,’ the Boy said, ‘you hadn’t looked at him
close. Else you’d have known. ’
‘I always look at you close,’ the girl said, ‘the cus-
tomer, I mean. You see, I’m new. I get a bit scared. I
don’t want to do anything to offend. Oh,’ she said aghast,
‘like standing here talking when you want a cup of tea.’
‘That’s all right,’ the Boy said. He smiled at her
stiffly; he couldn’t use those muscles with any natural-
ness. ‘You’re the kind of girl I like . ’ The words were
the wrong ones ; he saw it at once and altered them. ‘ I
mean,’ he said, ‘I like a girl who’s friendly. Some of
these here - they freeze you. ’
‘They freeze me.’
‘You’re sensitive, that’s what it is,’ the Boy said, ‘like
me. ’ He said abruptly, ‘ I suppose you wouldn’t recognise
that newspaper man again? I mean, he may be still about. ’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said, ‘I’d know him. I’ve got a memory
for faces. ’
The Boy’s cheek twitched. He said, ‘ I see you and I’ve
30
got a bit in common. We ought to get together one
evening. What’s your name?’
‘Rose.’
He put a coin on the table and got up. ‘But your tea,’
she said.
‘Here we been talking, and I had an appointment at
two sharp.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ Rose said. ‘You should’ve stopped
me.’
‘That’s all right,’ the Boy said. ‘I liked it. It’s only
ten-past an3rway - by your clock. When do you get off of
an evening?*
‘We don’t close till half-past ten except on Sundays.’
‘I’ll be seeing you,’ the Boy said. ‘You an’ me have
things in common. ’
Cs]
Ida Arnold broke her way across the Strand; she
couldn’t be bothered to wait for the signals, and she
didn’t trust the Belisha beacons. She made her way
under the radiators of the buses; the drivers ground
their brakes and glared at her, and she grinned back at
them. She was always a little flushed as the clock struck
eleven and she reached Henekey’s, as if she had emerged
from some adventure which had given her a better
opinion of herself. But she wasn’t the first in Henekey’s.
‘Hullo, you old ghost,’ she said, and the sombre thin
man in black with a bowler hat sitting beside a wine
barrel said, ‘Oh, forget it, Ida. Forget it.’
‘You in mourning for yourself?’ Ida asked, cocking
her hat at a better angle in a mirror which advertised
White Horse: she didn’t look a day over forty.
31
‘My wife’s dead. Have a Guinness, Ida?’
‘Yes. I’ll have a Guinness. I didn’t even know you had
a wife. ’
‘We don’t know much about each other, that’s what
it is, Ida, ’ he said. ‘Why, I don’t even know how you live
or how many husbands you’ve had. ’
‘Oh, there’s only been one Tom,’ Ida said.
‘There’s been more than Tom in yom life.’
‘You ought to know,’ Ida said.
‘Give me a glass of Ruby,’ the sombre man said. ‘I
was just thinking when you came in, Ida, why shouldn’t
we two come together again?’
‘You and Tom always want to start again,’ Ida said.
‘Why don’t you keep tight hold when you’ve got a girl?’
‘What with my little bit of money and yours ’
‘I like to start something fresh,’ Ida said. ‘Not off
with the new and on with the old. ’
‘But you’ve a kind heart, Ida.’
‘That’s what you call it,’ Ida said, and in the dark
depth of her Guinness kindness winked up at her, a bit
sly, a bit earthy, having a good time. ‘Do you ever have
a bit on the horses?’ she asked.
‘I don’t believe in betting. It’s a mug’s game.’
‘That’s it,’ Ida said. ‘A mug’s game. You never know
whether you’ll be up or down. I like it,’ she said with
passion, looking across the wine barrel at the thin pale
man, her face more flushed than ever, more young, more
kind. ‘Black Boy,’ she said softly.
‘Eh, what’s that?’ the ghost said sharply, snatching a
glance at his face in the White Horse mirror.
‘It’s the name of a horse,’ she said, ‘that’s all. A
fellow gave it me at Brighton. I was wondering if maybe
I’d see him at the races. He got lost somehow. I liked
32
him. You didn’t know whatever he’d be saying next. I
owe him money, too. ’
‘You saw about this Kolley Kibber at Brighton the
other day?’
‘Found him dead, didn’t they? I saw a poster.’
‘They’ve had the inquest.’
‘Did he kill himself?’
‘Oh, no. Just his heart. The heat knocked him over.
But the paper’s paid the prize to the man who found him.
Ten guineas,’ the ghost said, ‘for finding a corpse.’ He
laid the paper bitterly down on the wine barrel. ‘Give
me another Ruby. ’
‘Why,’ Ida said. ‘Is that picture the man who found
him? The little rat. That’s where he went to. No wonder
he didn’t need his money back. ’
‘No, no, that’s not the ghost said. ‘That’s Kolley
Kibber.’ He took a little wooden pick out of a paper
packet and began to scrape his teeth.
‘Oh,’ Ida said. It was like a blow. ‘Then he wasn’t
trying it on,’ she said. ‘He was sick.’ She remembered
how his hand had shaken in the taxi and how he had
implored her not to leave him, just as if he had known he
was going to die before she came back. But he hadn’t
made a scene. ‘He was a gentleman,’ she said gently. He
must have fallen there by the turnstile as soon as she had
turned her back, and she had gone on down without
knowing into the ladies. A sense of tears came to her now
in Henekey’s; she measured those polished white steps
down to the wash-basins as if they were the slow stages of
a tragedy.
‘Ah well,’ the ghost said gloomily, ‘we’ve all got to
die.’
‘Yes,’ Ida said, ‘but he wouldn’t’ve wanted to die any
33
more than I want to die.’ She began to read and ex-
claimed almost at once: ‘What made him walk all that
way in that heat ? ’ For he hadn’t dropped at the turnstile :
he’d gone back all the way they’d come, sat in a shel-
ter. . . .
‘He’d got his job to do.’
‘He didn’t say anything to me about a job. He said,
“I’ll be here. I’ll stay right here by this turnstile.” He
said, “Be quick, Ida. I’ll be just here,”’ and as she
repeated what she could remember of his words she had
a feeling that later in an hour or two, when things got
straightened out, she would want to cry a bit for the
death of that scared passionate bag of bones who called
himself
‘Why,’ she said, ‘whatever do they mean? Read here.’
‘What about it?’ the man said.
‘The bitches,’ Ida said ‘what would they go and tell
a lie like that for?’
‘What lie? Have another Guinness. You don’t want
to fuss about that. ’
‘I don’t mind if I do,’ Ida said, but when she had
taken a long draught she returned to the paper. She had
instincts, and now her instincts told her there was
something odd, something which didn’t smell right.
‘These girls,’ she said, ‘he tried to pick up, they say a
man came along who called him “Fred”, and he said he
wasn’t Fred and he didn’t know the man.’
‘What about it? Listen, Ida, let’s go to the pictures.’
‘But he was Fred. He told me he was Fred.’
‘He was Charles. You can read it there. Charles Hale.’
‘That don’t signify,’ Ida said. ‘A man always has a
different name for strangers. You aren’t telling me your
real name’s Clarence. And a man don’t have a different
34
name for every girl. He’d get confused. You know you
always stick to Clarence. You can’t tell me much about
men I don’t know. ’
‘It don’t mean anything. You can read how it was.
They just happened to mention it. Nobody took any
notice of that. ’
She said sadly, ‘Nobody’s taken any notice of any-
thing. You can read it here. He hadn’t got any folks to
make a fuss. “The Coroner asked if any relation of the
deceased was present, and the police witness stated that
they could trace no relations other than a second cousin
in Middlesbrough.” It sounds sort of lonely,’ she said.
‘Nobody there to ask questions.’
‘I know what loneliness is, Ida,’ the sombre man said.
‘ I’ve been alone a month now. ’
She took no notice of him: she was back at Brighton
on Whit Monday, thinking how while she waited there,
he must have been dying, walking along the front to
Hove, dying, and the cheap drama and pathos of the
thought weakened her heart towards him. She was of the
people, she cried in cinemas at David Copperfield, when
she was drunk all the old ballads her mother had known
came easily to her lips, her homely heart was touched by
the word ‘tragedy’, ‘The second cousin in Middles-
brough - he was represented by counsel,’ she said.
‘What does that mean?’
‘I suppose if this Kolley Kibber hasn’t left a will, he
gets any money there is. He wouldn’t want any talk of
suicide because of the life assurance. ’
‘He didn’t ask any questions.’
‘There wasn’t any need. No one made out he’d killed
himself. ’
‘Perhaps he did all the same,’ Ida said. ‘There was
35
something queer about him. I’d like to ’ave asked some
questions. ’
‘What about? It’s plain enough.’
A man in plus-fours and a striped tie came to the bar.
‘Hullo, Ida,’ he called.
‘Hullo, Harry,’ she said sadly, staring at the paper.
‘Have a drink?’
‘I’ve got a drink, thank you.’
‘ Swallow it down and have another. ’
‘No, I don’t want any more, thank you,’ she said. ‘If
I’d been there ’
‘What’d have been the good?’ the sombre man said.
‘ I could’ve asked questions. ’
‘Questions, questions,’ he said irritably. ‘You keep on
saying questions. What about beats me. ’
‘Why he said he wasn’t Fred.’
‘He wasn’t Fred. He was Charles.’
‘It’s not natural.’ The more she thought about it the
more she wished she had been there : it was like a pain
in the heart, the thought that no one at the inquest was
interested, the second cousin stayed in Middlesbrough,
his counsel asked no questions, and Fred’s own paper
only gave him half a column. On the front page was
another photograph - the new Kolley Kibber; he was
going to be at Bournemouth to-morrow. They might
have waited, she thought, a week. It would have shown
respect.
‘ I’d liked to have asked them why he left me like that,
to go scampering down the front in that sun. ’
‘He had his job to do. He had to leave those cards.’
‘Why did he tell me he’d wait?’
‘Ah,’ the sombre man said, ‘you’d have to ask him
that,’ and at the words it was almost as if he was trying
36
to answer her, answer her in his own kind of hiero-
glyphics, in the obscure pain, speaking in her nerves as
a ghost would have to speak. Ida believed in ghosts.
‘There’s a lot he’d say if he could,’ she said. She took
up the paper again and read slowly. ‘He did his job to
the end,’ she said tenderly. She liked men who did their
jobs : there was a kind of vitality about it. He’d dropped
his cards all the way down the front; they’d come back
to the office : from under a boat, from a litter-basket, a
child’s pail. He had only a few left when ‘Mr Alfred
Jefferson, described as a chief clerk, of Clapham’ found
him. ‘ If he did kill himself, ’ she said (she was the only
counsel to represent the dead), ‘he did his job first.’
‘But he didn’t kill himself,’ Clarence said. ‘You’ve
only got to read. They cut him up and they say he died
natural. ’
‘That’s queer,’ Ida said. ‘He went and left one in a
restaurant. I knew he was hungry. He kept on wanting
to eat, but whatever made him slip away like that all by
himself and leave me waiting. It sounds crazy. ’
‘ I suppose he changed his mind about you, Ida. ’
‘I don’t like it,’ Ida said. ‘It sounds strange to me.
I wish I’d been there. I’d have asked ’em a few questions.’
‘What about you and me going across to the flickers,
Ida?’
‘I’m not in the mood,’ Ida said. ‘It’s not every day
you lose a friend. And you oughtn’t to be in the mood
either with your wife just dead. ’
‘She’s been gone a month now,’ Clarence said. ‘You
can’t expect anyone to go on mourning for ever. ’
‘A month’s not so long,’ Ida said sadly, brooding over
the paper. A day, she thought, that’s all he’s been gone,
and I dare say there’s not another soul but me thinking
37
about him: just someone he picked up for a drink and a
cuddle, and again the easy pathos touched her friendly
and popular heart. She wouldn’t have given it all
another thought if there had been other relations, besides
the second cousin in Middlesbrough, if he hadn’t been so
alone as well as dead. But there was something fishy to
her nose, though there was nothing she could put her
finger on except that ‘Fred’ - and everyone would say
the same: ‘He wasn’t Fred. You’ve only to read. Charles
Hale.’
‘You oughtn’t to fuss about that, Ida. It’s none of
your business. ’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s none of mine.’ But it’s none
of anybody’s, her heart repeated to her: that was the
trouble: no one but her to ask questions. She knew a
woman once who’d seen her husband after he was dead
standing by the wireless set trying to twiddle the knob :
she twiddled the way he wanted and he disappeared and
immediately she heard an announcer say on Midland
Regional: ‘Gale Warning in the Channel.’ She had been
thinking of taking one of the Sunday trips to Calais, that
was the point. It just showed: you couldn’t laugh at the
idea of ghosts. And if Fred, she thought, wanted to tell
someone something, it wouldn’t be to his second cousin
in Middlesbrough that he’d go; why shouldn’t he come
to me? He had left her waiting there; she had waited
nearly half an hour: perhaps he wanted to tell her why,
‘He was a gentleman,’ she said aloud, and with bolder
resolution she cocked her hat and smoothed her hair and
rose from the wine barrel. ‘I’ve got to be going,’ she
said. ‘ So long, Clarence. ’
‘Where to? I’ve never known you in such a hurry,
Ida,’ he complained bitterly over the Guinness.
38
Ida put her finger on the paper. ‘ Someone ought to be
there^^ she said, ‘even if second cousins aren’t.*
‘He won’t care who’s putting him in the ground.’
‘You never know,’ Ida said, remembering the ghost
by the radio set. ‘It shows respect. Besides - I like a
funeral. ’
But he wasn’t exactly being put in the ground in the
bright new flowery suburb where he had lodged. There
were no unhygienic buryings in that place. Two brick
towers like those of a Scandinavian town hall, cloisters
with little plaques along the walls like school war
memorials, a bare cold secular chapel which could be
adapted quietly and conveniently to any creed: no
cemetery, wax flowers, impoverished jam-pots of
wilting wild flowers. Ida was late. Hesitating a moment
outside the door for fear the place might be full of Fred’s
friends, she thought someone had turned on the
National Programme. She knew that cultured inexpres-
sive voice, but when she opened the door, a man, not a
machine, stood up in a black cassock saying ‘Heaven’,
There was nobody there but someone who looked like a
landlady, a servant who had parked a pram outside, two
men impatiently whispering.
‘Our belief in heaven,’ the clergyman went on, ‘is not
qualified by our disbelief in the old medieval hell. We
believe,’ he said, glancing swiftly along the smooth
polished slipway towards the New Art doors through
which the coffin would be launched into the flames, ‘we
believe that this our brother is already at one with the
One. ’ He stamped his words like little pats of buuer with
his personal mark. ‘He has auained unity. We do not
know what that One is with whom (or with which) he is
now at one. We do nor retain the old medieval beliefs in
39
glassy seas and golden crowns. Truth is beauty and there
is more beauty for us, a truth-loving generation, in the
certainty that our brother is at this moment reabsorbed
in the universal spirit. ’ He touched a little buzzer, the
New Art doors opened, the flames flapped and the coffin
slid smoothly down into the fiery sea. The doors closed,
the nurse rose and made for the door, the clergyman
smiled gently from behind the slipway, like a conjurer
who has produced his nine hundred and fortieth rabbit
without a hitch.
It was all over. Ida squeezed out with difficulty a last
tear into a handkerchief scented with Californian Poppy.
She liked a funeral - but it was with horror - as other
people like a ghost story. Death shocked her, life was so
important. She wasn’t religious. She didn’t believe in
heaven or hell, only in ghosts, ouija boards, tables which
rapped and little inept voices speaking plaintively of
flowers. Let Papists treat death with flippancy: life
wasn’t so important perhaps to them as what came after:
but to her death was the end of everything. At one with
the One - it didn’t mean a thing beside a glass of Guin-
ness on a sunny day. She believed in ghosts, but you
couldn’t call that thin transparent existence life eternal :
the squeak of a board, a piece of eaoplasm in a glass
cupboard at the psychical research headquarters, a voice
she’d heard once at a stance saying, ‘Everything is very
beautiful on the upper plane. There are flowers every-
where. ’
Flowers, Ida thought scornfully; that wasn’t life. Life
was sunlight on brass bedposts. Ruby port, the leap of the
heart when the outsider you have backed passes the post
and the colours go bobbing up. Life was poor Fred’s
mouth pressed down on hers in the taxi, vibrating with
40
the engine along the parade. What was the sense of
dying if it made you babble of flowers? Fred didn’t want
flowers, he wanted and the enjoyable distress she
had felt in Henekey’s returned. She took life with a
deadly seriousness: she was prepared to cause any
amount of unhappiness to anyone in order to defend the
only thing she believed in. To lose your lover - ‘broken
hearts,’ she would say, ‘always mend,’ to be maimed or
blinded - ‘ lucky, ’ she’d tell you, ‘ to be alive at all. ’ There
was something dangerous and remorseless in her
optimism, whether she was laughing in Henekey’s or
weeping at a funeral or a marriage.
She came out of the crematorium, and there from the
twin towers above her head fumed the very last of Fred,
a thin stream of grey smoke from the ovens. People
passing up the flowery suburban road looked up and
noted the smoke; it had been a busy day at the furnaces.
Fred dropped in indistingxiishable grey ash on the pink
blossoms: he became part of the smoke nuisance over
London, and Ida wept.
But while she wept a determination grew; it grew all
the way to the tram lines which would lead her back to
her familiar territory, to the bars and the electric signs
and the variety theatres. Man is made by the places in
which he lives, and Ida’s mind worked with the simplicity
and the regularity of a sky sign: the ever-tipping glass,
the ever-revolving wheel, the plain question flashing on
and off: ‘Do You Use Forhams for the Gums?’ I’d do
as much for Tom, she thought, for Clarence, that old
deceitful ghost in Henekey’s, for Harry. It’s the least
you can do for anyone — ask questions, questions at
inquests, questions at seances. Somebody had made Fred
unhappy, and somebody was going to be made unhappy
41
in turn. An eye for an eye. If you believed in God, you
might leave vengeance to him, but you couldn’t trust
the One, the universal spirit. Vengeance was Ida’s, just
as much as reward was Ida’s, the soft gluey mouth
affixed in taxis, the warm handclasp in cinemas, the only
reward there was. And vengeance and reward - they
both were fun.
The tram tingled and sparked down the Embankment.
If it was a woman who had made Fred unhappy, she’d
tell her what she thought. If Fred had killed himself,
she’d find it out, the papers would print the news,
someone would suffer. Ida was going to begin at the
beginning and work right on. She was a sticker.
The first stage (she had held the paper in her hand all
through the service) was Molly Pink, ‘described as a
private secretary’, employed by Messrs Carter &
Galloway.
Ida came up from Charing Cross Station, into the hot
and windy light in the Strand flickering on the carburet-
tors ; in an upper room of Stanley Gibbons a man with a
long grey Edwardian moustache sat in a window ex-
amining a postage stamp through a magnifying glass ; a
great dray laden with barrels stamped by, and the
fountains played in Trafalgar Square, a cool translucent
flower blooming and dropping into the drab sooty basins.
It’ll cost money, Ida repeated to herself, it always costs
money if you want to know the truth, and she walked
slowly up St Martin’s Lane calculating, while all the
time beneath the melancholy and the resolution, her
heart beat faster to the refrain : it’s exciting, it’s fun, it’s
living. In Seven Dials the negroes were hanging round
the public house doors in tight natty suitings and old
school ties, and Ida recognised one of them and passed
42
the time of day. ‘How’s business, Joe?’ The great white
teeth went on like a row of lights in the darkness above
the bright striped shirt. ‘Fine, Ida, fine.’
‘And the hay fever?’
‘Tur’ble, Ida, tur’ble.’
‘So long, Joe.’
‘So long, Ida.’
It was a quarter of an hour’s walk to Messrs Carter
& Galloway who lived at the very top of a tall building
on the outskirts of Grays Inn. She had to economise
now: she wouldn’t even take a bus, and when she got to
the dusty antiquated building, there wasn’t a lift. The
long flights of stone stairs wearied Ida. She’d had a long
day and nothing to eat but a bun at the station. She sat
down on a window-sill and took off her shoes. Her feet
were hot, she wiggled her toes. An old gentleman came
down. He had a long moustache and a sidelong raffish
look. He wore a check coat, a yellow waistcoat and a grey
bowler. He took off his bowler. ‘In distress, madam?’
he asked peering down at Ida with little bleary eyes. ‘Be
of assistance?’
‘I don’t allow anyone else to scratch my toes,’ Ida
said.
‘Ha, ha,’ the old gentleman said, ‘a card. After my
own heart. Up or down?’
*lJp. All the way to the top.’
‘Carter & Galloway. Good firm. Tell ’em I sent you.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Moyne. Charlie Moyne. Seen you here before.’
‘Never.’
‘ Some place else. Never forget fine figure of a woman.
Tell ’em Moyne sent you. Give you special terms.’
‘Why don’t they have a lift in this place?’
43
‘Old-fashioned people. Old-fashioned myself. Seen
you at Epsom. ’
‘You might have.’
‘Always tell a sporting woman. Ask you round the
corner to split a bottle of fizz if those beggars hadn’t
taken the last fiver I came out with. Wanted to go and
lay a couple. Have to go home first. Odds’ll go down
while I’m doing it. You’ll see. You couldn’t oblige me,
I suppose? Two quid, Charlie Moyne.’ The bloodshot
eyes watched her without hope, a little aloof and careless ;
the buttons on the yellow waistcoat stirred as the old
heart hammered.
‘Here,’ Ida said, ‘you can have a quid; now run
along. ’
‘Awfully kind of you. Give me your card. Post you a
cheque to-night. ’
‘I haven’t got a card,’ Ida said.
‘Came out without mine, too. Never mind. Charlie
Moyne. Care of Carter & Galloway. All know me
here. ’
‘That’s all right,’ Ida said. ‘I’ll see you again. I’ve got
to be going on up. ’
‘Take my arm.’ He helped her up. ‘Tell ’em Moyne
sent you. Special terms. ’ She looked back at the turn of
the stairs. He was tucking the pound note away in his
waistcoat, smoothing the moustache which was still
golden at the tips, like a cigarette smoker’s fingers,
setting his bowler at an angle. Poor old geezer, Ida
thought, he never expected to get that, watching him go
down the stairs in his jaunty and ancient despair.
There were only two doors on the top landing. She
opened one marked ‘Enquiries’, and there without a
doubt was Molly Pink, In a little room hardly larger
44
than a broom cupboard she sat beside a gas-ring sudking
a sweet. A kettle hissed at Ida as she entered. A swollen
spotty face glared back at her without a word.
‘Excuse me/ Ida said.
‘ The partners is out. ’
‘ I came to see you, ’
The mouth fell a little open, a lump of toffee stirred
on the tongue, the kettle whistled.
‘Me?’
‘Yes,’ Ida said. ‘You’d better look out. The kettle’ll
boil over. You are Molly Pink?’
‘You want a cup?’ The room was lined from floor to
ceiling with files. A little window disclosed through the
undisturbed dust of many years another block of
buildings with the same arrangement of windows staring
dustily back like a reflection. A dead fly hung in a broken
web.
‘I don’t like tea,’ Ida said,
‘That’s lucky. There’s only one cup,’ Molly said,
filling a thick brown teapot with a chipped spout.
‘A friend of mine called Moyne . . .’ Ida began.
‘Oh, him!’ Molly said. ‘We just turned him out of
house and home.’ A copy of Woman and Beauty was
propped open on her typewriter, and her eyes slid
continually back to it.
‘Out of house and home?’
‘House and home. He came to see the partners. He
tried to blarney. ’
‘Did he see them?’
‘The partners is out. Have a toffee?’
‘It’s bad for the figure,’ Ida said.
‘ I make up for it. I don’t eat breakfast. ’
Over Molly’s head Ida could see the labels on the files :
45
* Rents of i-6 Mud Lane.* ‘Rents of Wainage Estate,
Balham.* ‘Rents of . . They were surrounded by the
pride of ownership, property. . . .
‘I came here,’ Ida said, ‘because you met a friend of
mine.’
‘Sit down,’ Molly said. ‘That’s the client’s chair.
I has to entertain ’em. Mr Moyne’s not a friend. ’
‘Not Moyne. Someone called Hale.’
‘I don’t want any more to do with that business. You
ought to ’ave seen the partners. They was furious. I had
to have a day off for the inquest. They kept me hours late
next day. ’
‘I just want to hear what happened.’
‘What happened! The partners is awful when roused. ’
‘I mean about Fred ~ Hale.’
‘ I didn’t exactly know him. ’
‘That man you said at the inquest came up ’
‘He wasn’t a man. He was just a kid. He knew Mr
Hale.’
‘But in the paper it said ’
‘Oh, Mr Hale said he didn’t know him. I didn’t tell
them different. They didn’t ask me. Except was there
anything odd in his manner? Well, there wasn’t anything
you’d call odd. He was just scared, that’s all. We get lots
like that in here. ’
‘But you didn’t tell them that?’
‘That’s nothing uncommon. I knew what it was at
once. He owed the kid money. We get lots like that. Like
Charlie Moyne. ’
‘He was scared was he? Poor old Fred.’
“‘I’m not Fred,” he said, sharp as you please. But
I could tell all right. So could my friend. ’
‘What was the kid like?’
46
‘Oh, just a kid.’
‘Tall?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘Fair?’
‘I couldn’t say that.’
‘How old was he?’
‘’Bout my age, I dessay.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Eighteen,’ Molly said, staring defiantly across the
typewriter and the steaming kettle, sucking a toflFee.
‘Did he ask for money?’
‘He didn’t have time to ask for money.’
‘You didn’t notice anything else?’
‘He was awful anxious for me to go along with him.
But I couldn’t, not with my friend there. ’
‘Thanks,’ Ida said, ‘it’s something learnt.’
‘You a woman detective?’ Molly asked.
‘Oh, no, I’m just a friend of his.’
There zvas something fishy: she was convinced of it
now. She remembered again how scared he’d been in the
taxi, and going down Holbom towards her digs behind
Russell Square, in the late afternoon sun, she thought
again of the way in which he had handed her the ten
shillings before she went down into the ladies. He was
a real gentleman : perhaps it was the last few shillings he
had: and those people - that boy - dunning him for
money. Perhaps he was another one ruined like Charlie
Moyne, and now that her memory of his face was getting
a bit dim, she couldn’t help lending him a few of Charlie
Moyne’s features, the bloodshot eyes if nothing else.
Sporting gentlemen, freehanded gentlemen, real gentle-
men. The dewlaps of the commercials drooped in the
hall of the Imperial, the sun lay flat across the plane trees,
47
and a bell rang and rang for tea in a boarding-house in
Coram Street.
I’ll try the Board, Ida thought, and then I’ll know.
When she got in, there was a card on the hall table, a
card of Brighton Pier: if I was superstitious, she thought,
if I was superstitious. She turned it over. It was only
from Phil Corkery, asking her to come down. She had
the same every year from Eastbourne, Hastings and once
from Aberystwyth. But she never went. He wasn’t
someone she liked to encourage. Too quiet. Not what
she called a man.
She went to the basement stairs and called Old Crowe.
She needed two sets of fingers for the Board and she
knew it would give the old man pleasure. ‘ Old Crowe, ’
she called, peering down the stone stairs. ‘Old Crowe.’
‘What is it, Ida?’
‘ I’m going to have a turn at the Board. ’
She didn’t wait for him, but went on up to her bed-
sitting-room to make ready. The room faced east and the
sun had gone. It was cold and dusk. Ida turned on the
gas-fire and drew the old scarlet velvet curtains to shut
out the grey sky and the chimney-pots. Then she patted
the divan bed into shape and drew two chairs to the
table. In a glass-fronted cupboard her life stared back at
her - a good life: pieces of china bought at the seaside, a
photograph of Tom, an Edgar Wallace, a Netta Syrett
from a second-hand stall, some sheets of music. The
Good Companions^ her mother’s picture, more china, a
few jointed animals made of wood and elastic, trinkets
given her by this, that and the other, Sorrell and Sony
the Board.
She took the Board gently down and locked the
cupboard. A flat oval piece of polished wood on tiny
48
wheels, it looked like something which had crept out of
a cupboard in a basement kitchen. But in fact it was Old
Crowe who had done that, knocking gently on the door,
sidling in, white hair, grey face, short-sighted pit-pony
eyes, blinking at the bare globe in Ida’s reading-lamp.
Ida tossed a pink netty scarf over the light and dimmed
it for him.
‘You got something to ask it, Ida?’ Old Crowe said.
He shivered a little, frightened and fascinated, Ida
sharpened a pencil and inserted it in the prow of the
little board.
‘ Sit down. Old Crowe. What you been doing all day?’
‘They had a funeral at twenty-seven. One of those
Indian students. ’
‘I been to a funeral, too. Was yours a good one?’
‘There aren’t any good funerals these days. Not with
plumes. ’
Ida gave the little board a push. It slid sideways across
the polished table more than ever like a beetle. ‘The
pencil’s too long, ’ Old Crowe said. He sat, hugging his
hands between his knees, bent forward watching the
board. Ida screwed the pencil a little higher. ‘Past or
future?’ Old Crowe asked, panting a little.
‘ I want to get into touch to-day, ’ Ida said.
‘Dead or alive?’ Old Crowe said.
‘Dead. I seen him burnt this afternoon. Cremated.
Come on. Old Crowe, put your fingers on.’
‘Better take off your rings,’ Old Crowe said. ‘Gold
confuses it. ’
Ida unclothed her fingers, laid the tips on the board
which squeaked away from her across the sheet of
foolscap. ‘Come on. Old Crowe,’ she said.
Old Crowe giggled. He said, ‘ It’s naughty, ’ and placed
49
his bony digits on the very rim, where they throbbed
a tiny nervous tattoo. ‘What you going to ask it, Ida?’
‘Are you there, Fred?’
The board squeaked away under their fingers drawing
long lines across the paper this way and that. ‘ It’s got a
will of its own,’ Ida said.
‘Hush,’ said Old Crowe.
The board bucked a little with its hind wheel and
came to a stop. ‘We might look now,’ Ida said. She
pushed the board to one side, and they stared together
at the network of pencilling.
‘You might make out a Y there,’ Ida said.
‘Or it might be an N.’
‘Anyway something’s there. We’ll try again.’ She put
her fingers firmly on the board. ‘ What happened to you,
Fred?’ and immediately the board was off and away. All
her indomitable will worked through her fingers: she
wasn’t going to have any nonsense this time, and across
the board the grey face of Old Crowe frowned with
concentration.
‘ It’s writing- real letters, ’ Ida said with triumph, and as
her own fingers momentarily loosened their grip she could
feel the board slide firmly away as if on another’s errand.
‘Hush,’ said Old Crowe, but it bucked and stopped.
They pushed the board away, and there, unmistakably,
in large thin letters was a word, but not a word they
knew: ‘SUKILL’.
‘It looks like a name,’ Old Crowe said.
‘It must mean something,’ Ida said. ‘The Board
always means something. We’ll try again, ’ and again the
wooden beetle scampered off, drawing its tortuous
trail. The globe burnt red under the scarf, and Old
Crowe whistled between his teeth. ‘Now,’ Ida said and
50
lifted the Board. A long ragged word ran diagonally
across the paper: ‘FRESUICILLEYE’,
^Well/ Old Crowe said, ‘that’s a mouthful. You can’t
make anything of that, Ida.’
‘Can’t I though,’ Ida said. ‘Why, it’s clear as clear.
Fre is short for Fred and Suici for Suicide and Eye;
that’s what I always say - an eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth.’
‘What about those two L’s?’
‘I don’t know yet, but I’ll bear them in mind.’ She
leant back in her chair with a sense of power and
triumph. ‘I’m not superstitious,’ she said, ‘but you
can’t get over that. The Board knows. ’
‘She knows,’ Old Crowe said, sucking his teeth.
‘One more try?’ The board slid and squeaked and
abruptly stopped. Clear as clear the name stared up at
her: ‘PHIL’.
‘Well,’ Ida said, ‘well.’ She blushed a little. ‘Like a
sugar biscuit?’
‘Thank you, Ida, thank you.’
Ida took a tin out of the cupboard drawer and pushed
it over to Old Crowe. ‘They drove him to death,’ Ida
said happily. ‘I knew there was something fishy. See
that EYE. That as good as tells me what to do. ’ Her eye
lingered on Phil. ‘ I’m going to make those people sorry
they was ever born. ’ She drew in her breath luxuriously
and stretched her monumental legs. ‘Right and wrong,’
she said. ‘I believe in right and wrong,’ and delving a
little deeper, with a sigh of happy satiety, she said, ‘ It’s
going to be exciting, it’s going to be fun, it’s going to be
a bit of life. Old Crowe,’ giving the highest praise she
could give to anything, while the old man sucked his tooth
and the pink light wavered on the Warwick Deeping.
3— B.R.
51
PART TWO
CO
The Boy stood with his back to Spicer staring out across
the dark wash of sea. They had the end of the pier to
themselves; everyone else at that hour and in that
weather was in the concert hall. The lightning went on
and off above the horizon and the rain dripped.
‘Where’ve you been?’ the Boy asked.
‘Walking around,’ Spicer said.
‘You been There?’
‘I wanted to see it was all safe, that there wasn’t
an5rthing you’d forgotten. ’
The Boy said slowly, leaning out across the rail into
the doubtful rain, ‘When people do one murder, I’ve
read they sometimes have to do another - to tidy up. ’
The word murder conveyed no more to him than the
word ‘box’, ‘collar’, ‘giraffe’. He said, ‘Spicer, you
keep away from there. ’
The imagination hadn’t awoken. That was his strength.
He couldn’t see through other people’s eyes, or feel with
their nerves. Only the music made him uneasy, the catgut
vibrating in the heart; it was like nerves losing their
freshness, it was like age coming on, other people’s
experience battering on the brain. ‘Where are the rest of
the mob?’
‘In Sam’s, drinking.’
‘Why aren’t you drinking too?’
‘I’m not thirsty, Pinkie. I wanted some fresh air. This
thunder makes you feel queer.’
‘Why don’t they stop that bloody noise in there?’ the
Boy said.
52
* You not going to Sam’s?’
‘I’ve got a job of work to do,’ the Boy said.
‘It’s all right. Pinkie, ain’t it? After that verdict it’s all
right? Nobody asked questions.’
‘I just want to be sure,’ the Boy said.
‘The mob won’t stand for any more killing.’
‘Who said there was going to be any killing?’ The
lightning flared up and showed his tight shabby jacket,
the bunch of soft hair at the nape. ‘ I’ve got a date, that’s
all. You be careful what you say, Spicer. You aren’t
milky, are you?’
‘ I’m not milky. You got me wrong, Pinkie. I just don’t
want another killing. That verdict sort of shook us all.
What did they mean by it? We did kill him, Pinkie?’
‘We got to go on being careful, that’s all.’
‘What did they mean by it, though? I don’t trust the
doctors. A break like that’s too good. ’
‘We got to be careful.’
‘What’s that in your pocket. Pinkie?’
‘I don’t carry a gun,’ the Boy said. ‘You’re fancying
things. ’ In the town a clock struck eleven: three strokes
were lost in the thunder coming down across the
Channel. ‘You better be off,’ the Boy said. ‘She’s late
already. ’
‘You’ve got a razor there, Pinkie.’
‘I don’t need a razor with a polony. If you want to
know what it is, it’s a bottle.’
‘You don’t drink. Pinkie.’
‘Nobody would want to drink this.’
‘What is it. Pinkie?’
‘Vitriol,’ the Boy said. ‘It scares a polony more than
a knife. ’ He turned impatiently away from the sea and
complained again, ‘That music.’ It moaned in his head
53
in the hot electric night, it was the nearest he knew to
sorrow, just as a faint secret sensual pleasure he felt,
touching the bottle of vitriol with his fingers, as Rose
came hurrying by the concert hall, was his nearest
approach to passion. ‘Get out,’ he said to Spicer. ‘She’s
here. ’
‘Oh,’ Rose said, ‘I’m late. I’ve run all the way,’ she
said. ‘I thought you might have thought ’
‘I’d have waited,’ the Boy said.
‘It was an awful night in the cafe,’ the girl said.
‘Everything went wrong. I broke two plates. And the
cream was sour.’ It all came out in a breath. ‘Who was
your friend?’ she asked, peering into the darkness.
‘He don’t matter,’ the Boy said.
‘I thought somehow I couldn’t see properly ’
‘He don’t matter,’ the Boy repeated.
‘What are we going to do?’
‘Why, I thought we’d talk a little here first,’ the Boy
said, ‘and then go on somewhere ~ Sherry’s? I don’t
care. ’
‘ I’d love Sherry’s, ’ Rose said.
‘You got your money yet for that card?’
‘Yes. I got it this morning.’
‘Nobody came and asked you questions?’
‘Oh no. But wasn’t it dreadful, his being dead like
that?’
‘You saw his photograph?’
Rose came close to the rail and peered palely up at the
Boy. ‘ But it wasn’t him. That’s what I don’t understand. ’
‘People look different in photographs.’
‘I’ve got a memory for faces. It wasn’t him. They
must have cheated. You can’t trust the newspapers.’
‘Come here,’ the Boy said. He drew her round the
54
corner until they were a little farther from the music,
more alone with the lightning on the horizon and the
thunder coming closer. ‘I like you/ the Boy said, an
unconvincing smile forking his mouth, ‘and I want to
warn you. This fellow Hale, I’ve heard a lot about him.
He got himself mixed up with things.’
‘What sort of things?’ Rose whispered.
‘Never mind what things,’ the Boy said. ‘Only I’d
warn you for your own good - you’ve got the money - if
I was you I’d forget it, forget all about that fellow who
left the card. He’s dead, see. You’ve got the money.
That’s all that matters.’
‘Anything you say,’ Rose said.
‘You can call me Pinkie if you like. That’s what my
friends call me. ’
‘Pinkie,’ Rose repeated, trying it shyly out as the
thunder cracked overhead.
‘You read about Peggy Baron, didn’t you?’
‘No, Pinkie.’
‘ It was in all the papers. ’
‘I didn’t see any papers till I got this job. We couldn’t
afford papers at home. ’
‘She got mixed up with a mob,’ the Boy said, ‘and
people came asking her questions. It’s not safe. ’
‘I wouldn’t get mixed up with a mob like that,’ Rose
said.
‘You can’t always help it. It sort of comes that way.’
‘What happened to her?’ Rose said.
‘They spoilt her looks. She lost one eye. They splashed
vitriol on her face. ’
Rose whispered, ‘Vitriol? What’s vitriol?’ and the
lightning showed a strut of tarred wood, a wave breaking
and her pale, bony, terrified face.
55
‘You never seen vitriol?* the Boy said, grinning
through the dark. He showed her the little bottle. ‘That’s
vitriol. ’ He took the cork out and spilled a little on the
wooden plank of the pier : it hissed like steam. ‘ It burns, ’
the Boy said. ‘Smell it,’ and he thrust the bottle under
her nose.
She gasped at him ‘Pinkie, you wouldn’t ’ and
‘I was pulling your leg,’ he smoothly lied to her. ‘That’s
not vitriol, that’s just spirit. I wanted to warn you, that’s
all. You and me’s going to be friends. I don’t want a
friend with her skin burned off. You tell me if anyone
asks questions. Anyone ~ mind. Get me on the blower at
Frank’s straight off. Three sixes. You can remember
that.’ He took her arm and propelled her away from
the lonely pier-end, back by the lit concert-hall, the
music drifting landwards, grief in the guts. ‘Pinkie,’ she
said, ‘I wouldn’t want to interfere. I don’t interfere in
anyone’s business, I’ve never been nosy. Cross my
heart. ’
‘You’re a good kid,’ he said.
‘You know an awful lot about things, Pinkie,’ she said
with horror and admiration, and suddenly at the stale
romantic tune the orchestra was playing - ‘lovely to
look at, beautiful to hold, and heaven itself -’ a little
venom of anger and hatred came out on the Boy’s lips :
‘You’ve got to know a lot,’ he said, ‘if you get around.
Come on, we’ll go to Sherry’s. ’
Once off the pier they had to run for it; taxis splashed
them with water; the strings of coloured bulbs down the
Hove parade gleamed like pools of petrol through the
rain. They shook the water off on to the floor of Sherry’s
and Rose saw the queue waiting all the way upstairs for
the gallery. ‘It’s full,’ she said, with disappointment.
56
‘We’ll go on the floor,’ the Boy said, paying his three
shillings as carelessly as if he always went there, and
walked out among the little tables, the dancing partners
with bright metallic hair and little black bags, while
the coloured lights flashed green and pink and blue.
Rose said, ‘It’s lovely here. It reminds me,’ and all the
way to their table she counted over aloud all the things of
which it reminded her, the lights, the tune the band was
playing, the crowd on the floor trying to rumba. She had
an immense store of trivial memories and when she
wasn’t living in the future she was living in the past. As
for the present - she got through that as quickly as she
could, running away from things, nmning towards
things, so that her voice was always a little breathless,
her heart pounding at an escape or an expectation.
‘ I whipped the plate under the apron and she said, “ Rose,
what are you hiding there?”’ and a moment later she
was turning wide unfledged eyes back to the Boy with a
look of the deepest admiration, the most rcspeaful
hope.
‘What’ll you drink?’ the Boy said.
She didn’t even know the name of a drink. In Nelson
Place from which she had emerged like a mole into the
daylight of Snow’s restaurant and the Palace Pier, she
had never known a boy with enough money to offer her
a drink. She would have said ‘beer’, but she had had no
opportunity of discovering whether she liked beer. A
twopenny ice from an Everest tricycle was the whole
extent of her knowledge of luxury. She goggled hope-
lessly at the Boy. He asked her sharply, ‘What d’you
like? / don’t know what you like. ’
‘An ice,’ she said with disappointment, but she
couldn’t keep him waiting.
‘What kind of an ice?’
‘Just an ordinary ice,’ she said. Everest hadn’t in all
the slum years offered her a choice.
‘Vanilla?’ the waiter said. She nodded; she supposed
that that was what she had always had, and so it
proved - only a size larger; otherwise she might just as
well have been sucking it between wafers by a tricycle.
‘You’re a soft sort of kid,’ the Boy said. ‘How old are
you?*
‘I’m seventeen,’ she said defiantly; there was a law
which said a man couldn’t go with you before you were
seventeen.
‘ I’m seventeen too, ’ the Boy said, and the eyes which
had never been young stared with grey contempt into
the eyes which had only just begun to learn a thing or
two. He said, ‘Do you dance?’ and she replied humbly,
‘I haven’t danced much.’
‘It don’t matter,’ the Boy said, ‘I’m not one for
dancing,’ He eyed the slow movement of the two-
backed beasts: pleasure, he thought, they call it pleasure:
he was shaken by a sense of loneliness, an awful lack of
understanding. The floor was cleared for the last cabaret
of the evening. A spotlight picked out a patch of floor, a
crooner in a dinner jacket, a microphone on a long black
movable stand. He held it tenderly as if it were a woman,
swinging it gently this way and that, wooing it with his
lips while from the loudspeaker under the gallery his
whisper reverberated hoarsely over the hall, like a
dictator announcing victory, like the official news
following a long censorship. ‘It gets you,’ the Boy said,
‘it gets you,’ surrendering himself to the huge brazen
suggestion.
58
‘Music talks, talks of our love.
The starling on our walks, talks, talks of our love.
The taxis tooting,
The last owl hooting.
The tube train rumbling.
Busy bee bumbling.
Talk of our love.
Music talks, talks of our love,
The west wind on our walks, talks, talks of our love.
The nightingale singing.
The postmen ringing.
Electric drill groaning.
Office telephoning,
Talk of our love.’
The Boy stared at the spotlight : music, love, nightin-
gale, postmen: the words stirred in his brain like poetry:
one hand caressed the vitriol bottle in his pocket, the
other touched Rose’s wrist. The inhuman voice whistled
round the gallery and the Boy sat silent. It was he this
time who was being warned; life held the vitriol bottle
and warned him: I’ll spoil your looks. It spoke to him in
the music, and when he protested that he for one would
never get mixed up, the music had its own retort at
hand: ‘You can’t always help it. It sort of comes that way.’
‘The watchdog on our walks, talks, talks of our love.’
The crowd stood at attention six deep behind the
tables (there wasn’t enough room on the floor for so
many). They were dead quiet. It was like the anthem on
Armistice Day when the King has deposited his wreath,
the hats off, and the troops turned to stone. It was love
of a kind, music of a kind, truth of a kind they listened to.
59
‘Grade Fields funning.
The gangsters gunning,
Talk of our love.*
The music pealed on under the Chinese lanterns and
the pink spotlight featured the singer holding the micro-
phone closer to his starched shirt. ‘You been in love?’
the Boy asked sharply and uneasily.
‘Oh yes,* Rose said.
The Boy retorted with sudden venom, ‘You would
have been. You’re green. You don’t know what people
do.’ The music came to an end and in the silence he
laughed aloud. ‘You’re innocent.’ People turned in
their chairs and looked at them: a girl giggled. His
fingers pinched her wrist. ‘You’re green,’ he said again.
He was working himself into a little sensual rage, as he
had done with the soft kids at the council school. ‘You
don’t know anything,’ he said, with contempt in his
nails.
‘Oh no,* she protested. ‘I know a lot.’
The Boy grinned at her, ‘Not a thing,’ pinching the
skin of her wrist until his nails nearly met. ‘You’d like
me for your boy, eh? We’ll keep company?’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I’d love it.’ Tears of pride and pain
pricked behind her lids. ‘If you like doing that,’ she
said, ‘go on.’
The Boy let go. ‘Don’t be soft,’ he said. ‘Why should
I like it? You think you know too much,* he complained.
He sat there, anger like a live coal in his belly, as the
music came on again : all the good times he’d had in the
old days with nails and splinters : the tricks he’d learnt
later with a razor blade: what would be the fun if
people didn’t squeal? He said furiously, ‘We’ll be going.
6o
I can’t stand this place,’ and obediently Rose began to
pack her handbag, putting back her Woolworth compact
and her handkerchief. ‘What’s that?’ the Boy said when
something clinked in her bag; she showed him the end
of a string of beads.
‘You a Roman?’ the Boy asked.
‘Yes,’ Rose said.
‘I’m one too,’ the Boy said. He gripped her arm and
pushed her out into the dark dripping street. He turned
up the collar of his jacket and ran as the lightning flapped
and the thunder filled the air. They ran from doorway to
doorway until they were back on the parade in one of the
empty glass shelters. They had it to themselves in the
noisy stifling night. ‘Why, I was in a choir once,’ the Boy
confided and suddenly he began to sing softly in his
spoilt boy’s voice: ‘Agnus dei qui tollis peccata mundi,
dona nobis pacem.’ In his voice a whole lost world
moved ~ the lighted corner below the organ, the smell of
incense and laundered surplices, and the music. Music -
it didn’t matter what music - ‘Agnus dei’, ‘lovely to
look at, beautiful to hold’, ‘the starling on our walks’,
‘credo in unum Dominum’ -• any music moved him,
speaking of things he didn’t understand.
‘Do you go to Mass?’ he asked.
‘Sometimes,’ Rose said. ‘It depends on work. Most
weeks I wouldn’t get much sleep if I went to Mass.’
‘I don’t care what you do,’ the Boy said sharply.
‘I don’t go to Mass.’
‘But you believe, don’t you,’ Rose implored him,
‘you think it’s true?’
‘Of course it’s true,’ the Boy said. ‘What else could
there be?’ he went scornfully on. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘it’s
the only thing that fits. These atheists, they don’t know
6i
nothing. Of course there’s Hell. Flames and damnation,’
he said with his eyes on the dark shifting water and the
lightning and the lamps going out above the black struts
of the Palace Pier, ‘torments.’
‘And Heaven too,’ Rose said with anxiety, while the
rain fell interminably on.
‘Oh, maybe,’ the Boy said, ‘maybe.’
Wet to the skin, the trousers sticking to his thin legs
the Boy went up the long unmatted flight to his bedroom
at Frank’s. The banister shook under his hand, and
when he opened the door and found the mob there,
sitting on his brass bedstead smoking, he said furiously,
‘When’s that banister going to be mended. It’s not safe.
Someone’ll take a fall one day.’ The curtain wasn’t
drawn, the window was open, and the last lightning
flapped across the grey roofs stretching to the sea. The
Boy went to his bed and swept off the crumbs of Cubitt’s
sausage roll. ‘What’s this,’ he said, ‘a meeting?’
‘There’s trouble about the subscriptions, Pinkie,’
Cubitt said. ‘There’s two not come in. Brewer and Tate.
They say now Kite’s dead ’
‘Do we carve ’em up. Pinkie?’ Dallow asked. Spicer
stood at the window watching the storm. He said nothing,
staring out at the flames and chasms of the sky.
‘Ask Spicer,’ the Boy said. ‘He’s been doing a lot of
thinking lately.’ They all turned and watched Spicer.
Spicer said, ‘Maybe we ought to lay off a while. You
know a lot of the boys cleared out when Kite got
killed. ’
‘Go on,’ the Boy said. ‘Listen to him. He’s what they
call a philosopher. ’
‘Well,’ Spicer said angrily, ‘there’s free speech in this
62
mob, ain’t there? Those that cleared out, they didn’t
see how a kid could run this show. ’
The Boy sat on the bed watching him with his hands
in his damp pockets. He shivered once.
‘I was always against murder,’ Spicer said. T don’t
care who knows it. ’
‘Sour and milky,’ the Boy said.
Spicer came into the middle of the room. ‘Listen,
Pinkie,’ he said. ‘Be reasonable.’ He appealed to them
all, ‘ Be reasonable. ’
‘There’s things in what he says,’ Cubitt suddenly put
in. ‘We had a lucky break. We don’t want to draw
attention to ourselves. We’d better let Brewer and Tate
be for a while. ’
The Boy got up. A few crumbs stuck to his wet suit.
‘You ready, Dallow?’ he said.
‘What you say, Pinkie,’ Dallow said, grinning like a
large friendly dog.
‘Where you going, Pinkie?’ Spicer asked.
‘I’m going to see Brewer.’
Cubitt said, ‘You act as if it was last year we killed
Hale, not last week. We got to act cautious. ’
‘That’s over and done,’ the Boy said. ‘You heard the
verdict. Natural causes,’ he said, looking out at the dying
storm.
‘You forget that girl in Snow’s. She could hang us.’
‘I’m looking after the girl. She won’t talk.’
‘You’re marrying her, aren’t you?’ Cubitt said.
Dallow laughed.
The Boy’s hands came out of his pockets, the knuckles
clenched white. He said, ‘Who told you I was marrying
her?’
‘Spicer,’ Cubitt said.
63
Spicer backed away from the Boy. He said, ‘Listen,
Pinkie. I only said as it would make her safe. A wife
can’t give evidence . . . ’
‘ I don’t need to marry a squirt to make her safe. How
do we make you safe, Spicer?’ His tongue came out
between his teeth, licking the edges of his dry cracked
lips. ‘If carving’d do it . . .’
‘It was just a joke,’ Cubitt said. ‘You don’t need to
take it so solemn. You want a sense of humour. Pinkie.’
‘You think that was funny, eh?’ the Boy said. ‘Me -
marrying - that cheap polony.’ He croaked ‘Ha, ha,’ at
them, ‘ I’ll learn. Come on, Dallow. ’
‘Wait till morning,’ Cubitt said. ‘Wait till some of the
other boys come in. ’
‘You milky too?’
‘You don’t believe that. Pinkie. But we got to go
slow. ’
‘You with me, Dallow?’ the boy asked.
‘I’m with you. Pinkie.’
‘Then we’ll be going,’ the Boy said. He went across
to the w^ashstand and opened the little door where the
jerry stood. He felt at the back behind the jerry and
pulled out a tiny blade, like the blades women shave
with, but blunt along one edge and mounted with
sticking-plaster. He stuck it under his long thumb-nail,
the only nail not bitten close, and drew on his glove. He
said, ‘We’ll be back with the sub. in half an hour,’ and
led the way bang straight down Frank’s stairs. The cold
of his drenching had got under his skin: he came out on
to the front a pace ahead of Dallow, his face contorted
with ague, a shiver twisting the narrow shoulders. He
said over his shoulder to Dallow, ‘We’ll go to Brewer’s.
One lesson’ll be enough. ’
64
‘What you say, Pinkie/ Dallow said, plodding after.
The rain had stopped: it was low tide and the shallow
edge of the sea scraped far out at the rim of the shingle. A
clock struck midnight. Dallow suddenly began to laugh.
‘What’s got you, Dallow?’
‘I was just thinking,’ Dallow said. ‘You’re a grand
little geezer. Pinkie. Kite was right to take you on. You
go straight for things. Pinkie.’
‘You’re all right,’ the Boy said, staring ahead, the
ague wringing his face. They passed the Cosmopolitan,
the lights on here and there all the way up the tall front
to the turrets against the clouded moving sky. In Snow’s
when they passed a single light went out. They turned
up the Old Steyne. Brewer had a house near the tram
lines on the Lewes road almost under the railway viaduct.
‘He’s gone to bed,’ Dallow said. Pinkie rang the bell,
holding his finger on the switch. Low shuttered shops
ran off on either hand, a tram went by with nobody in it,
labelled ‘Depot Only’, ringing and swinging down the
empty road, the conductor drowsing on a seat inside, the
roof gleaming from the storm. Pinkie kept his finger on
the bell.
‘What made Spicer say that - about me marrying?’
the Boy asked.
‘He just thought it’d close her clapper,’ Dallow said.
‘She’s not what keeps me awake,’ the Boy said,
pressing on the bell. A light went on upstairs, a window
creaked up, and a voice called, ‘Who’s that?’
‘It’s me,’ the Boy said. ‘Pinkie.’
‘What do you want? Why don’t you come around in
the morning?’
‘ I want to talk to you. Brewer. ’
‘ I’ve got nothing to talk about. Pinkie, that can’t wait. ’
65
* You’d better open up. Brewer. You don’t want the
mob along here. ’
‘The old woman’s awful sick, Pinkie. I don’t want any
trouble. She’s asleep. She hasn’t slept for three nights.’
‘This’ll wake her,’ the Boy said with his finger on the
bell. A slow goods train went by across the viaduct,
shaking smoke down into the Lewes road.
‘Leave off. Pinkie, and I’ll open up.’
Pinkie shivered as he waited, his gloved hand deep in
his damp pocket. Brewer opened the door, a stout
elderly man in soiled white pyjamas. The bottom button
was missing and the coat swung from the bulging belly
and the deep navel. ‘Come in. Pinkie,’ he said, ‘and
walk quiet. The old woman’s bad. I’ve been worrying my
head off. ’
‘That why you haven’t paid your subscription,
Brewer?’ the Boy said. He looked with contempt down
the narrow hall - the shell case converted into an
umbrella-stand, the moth-eaten stag’s head bearing on
one horn a bowler hat, a steel helmet used for ferns. Kite
ought to have got them into better money than this.
Brewer had only just graduated from the street corner,
saloon-bar betting. A welsher. It was no good trying to
draw more than ten per cent of his bets.
Brewer said, ‘ Come in here and be snug. It’s warm in
here. What a cold night. ’ He had a hollow cheery manner
even in pyjamas. He was like a legend on a racing card -
The Old Firm. You can Trust Bill Brewer. Fle lit the
gas-fire, turned on a stand lamp in a red silk shade with
a bobble fringe. The light glowed on a silver-plated
biscuit-box, a framed wedding group. ‘Have a spot of
Scotch?’ Brewer invited them.
‘You know I don’t drink,’ the Boy said.
66
‘Ted will,’ Brewer said.
‘I don’t mind a spot,’ Dallow said. He grinned and
said, ‘Here’s how.’
‘We’ve called for that subscription. Brewer,’ the Boy
said.
The man in white pyjamas hissed soda into his glass.
His back turned he watched Pinkie in the glass above the
sideboard until he caught the other’s eye. He said, T
been worried, Pinkie. Ever since Kite was croaked. ’
‘Well?’ the Boy said.
‘It’s like this. I said to myself if Kite’s mob can’t even
protect ’ he stopped suddenly and listened. ‘Was
that the old woman?’ Very faintly from the room above
came the sound of coughing. Brewer said, ‘ She’s woke
up. I got to go and see her. ’
‘You stay here,’ the Boy said, ‘and talk.’
‘ She’ll want turning. ’
‘When we’ve finished you can go.’
Cough, cough, cough : it was like a machine trying to
start and failing. Brewer said desperately, ‘Be human.
She won’t know where I’ve got to. I’ll only be a minute.’
‘You don’t need to be longer than a minute here,’ the
Boy said. ‘All we want’s what’s due to us. Twenty
pounds. ’
‘I haven’t got it in the house. Honest I haven’t.’
‘That’s too bad for you.’ The Boy drew off his right
glove.
‘It’s like this. Pinkie, I paid it all out yesterday. To
Colleoni. ’
‘What in Jesus’ name,’ the Boy said, ‘has Colleoni to
do with it?’
Brewer went rapidly and desperately on, listening to
the cough, cough, cough upstairs. ‘Be reasonable. Pinkie.
67
I can’t pay both of you. I’d have been carved if I hadn’t
paid Colleoni. ’
‘Is he in Brighton?’
‘He’s stopping at the Cosmopolitan.’
‘And Tate - Tate’s paid Colleoni too?’
‘That’s right. Pinkie. He’s running the business in a
big way. ’ A big way - it was like an accusation, a reminder
of the brass bedstead at Frank’s, the crumbs on the
mattress.
‘You think I’m finished?’ the Boy said.
‘Take my advice. Pinkie, and go in with Colleoni.’
The Boy suddenly drew his hand back and slashed
with his razored nail at Brewer’s cheek. He struck blood
out along the cheek bone. ‘Don’t,’ Brewer said, ‘don’t,’
backing against the sideboard, upsetting the biscuit-box.
He said, ‘I’ve got proteaion. You be careful. I’ve got
protection. ’
The Boy laughed. Dallow refilled his glass with
Brewer’s whisky. The Boy said, ‘Look at him. He’s got
protection. ’ Dallow took a splash of soda.
‘You want any more?’ the Boy said. ‘That was just to
show you who’s protecting you. ’
‘I can’t pay you both. Pinkie. God’s sake, keep back.’
‘Twenty pounds is what we’ve come for. Brewer.’
‘Colleoni’ll have my blood. Pinkie.’
‘You needn’t worry. We’ll protect you.’
Cough, cough, cough went the woman upstairs, and
then a faint cry like a sleeping child’s. ‘ She’s calling me, ’
Brewer said.
‘Twenty pounds.’
‘ I don’t keep my money in here. Let me fetch it. ’
‘You go with him, Dallow,’ the Boy said. ‘I’ll wait
here,’ and he sat down on a straight carved dining-room
68
chair and stared out - at the mean street, the dustbins
along the pavement, the vast shadow of the viaduct. He
sat perfectly still with his grey ancient eyes giving
nothing away.
A big way - Colleoni come into it in a big way - he
knew there wasn’t a soul in the mob he could trust -
except perhaps Dallow. That didn’t matter. You
couldn’t make mistakes when you trusted nobody. A cat
coasted cautiously round a bin on the pavement, stopped
suddenly, crouched back, and in the semi-dark its agate
eyes stared up at the Boy. Boy and cat, they didn’t stir,
watching each other, until Dallow returned.
‘I’ve got the money. Pinkie,’ Dallow said. The Boy
turned his head and grinned at Dallow. Suddenly his
face was convulsed; he sneezed twice, violently. Over-
head the coughing died away. ‘He won’t forget this visit,’
Dallow said. He added anxiously, ‘You ought to have a
spot of whisky, Pinkie. You’ve caught cold. ’
‘I’m all right,’ the Boy said. He got up. ‘We won’t
stop and say good-bye. ’
The Boy led the way down the middle of the empty
road, between the tram lines. He said suddenly, ‘Do you
think I’m finished, Dallow?’
‘You?’ Dallow said. ‘Why, you haven’t even begun.’
They walked for a while in silence, the water from the
gutters dripped on the pavement. Then Dallow spoke.
‘You worrying about Colleoni?’
‘ I’m not worrying. ’
Dallow said suddenly, ‘You’re worth a dozen
Colleonis. The Cosmopolitan,’ he exclaimed and spat.
‘Kite thought he’d go in for the automatic machines.
He learned different. Now Colleoni thinks the coast’s
clear. He's branching out. ’
69
‘He ought to have learned from Hale.’
‘Hale died natural.’
Dallow laughed. ‘Tell that to Spicer.’ They turned
the comer by the Royal Albion and the sea was with
them again - the tide had turned - a movement, a
splashing, a darkness. The Boy looked suddenly side-
ways and up at Dallow - he could trust Dallow -
receiving from the ugly and broken face a sense of
triumph and companionship and superiority. He felt as
a physically weak but cunning schoolboy feels who has
attached to himself in an indiscriminating fidelity the
strongest boy in the school. ‘You mug,’ he said and
pinched Dallow’s arm. It was almost like affection.
A light still burned in Frank’s, and Spicer was waiting
in the hall, ‘Anything happened?’ he asked anxiously. His
pale face had come out in spots round the mouth and nose.
‘What do you think?’ the Boy said, going upstairs.
‘We brought the subscription.’
Spicer followed him into his bedroom. ‘There was a
call for you just after you’d gone. ’
‘Who from?’
‘A girl called Rose.’
The Boy sat on the bed undoing his shoe. ‘What did
she want?’ he asked.
‘ She said while she was out with you, somebody had
been in asking for her. ’
The Boy sat still with the shoe in his hand. ‘ Pinkie, ’
Spicer said, ‘was it the girl? The girl from Snow’s?’
‘ Of course it was. ’
‘I answered the phone. Pinkie.’
‘Did she know your voice?’
‘How do I know. Pinkie?’
‘Who was asking for her?’
70
‘She didn’t know. She said tell you because you
wanted to hear. Pinkie, suppose the bogies have got that
far?’
‘The bogies aren’t as smart as that,’ Pinkie said.
‘Maybe it’s one of Colleoni’s men, poking around after
their pal Fred.’ He took off his other shoe. ‘You don’t
need to turn milky, Spicer. ’
‘It was a woman, Pinkie.’
‘I’m not troubling. Fred died natural. That’s the
verdict. You can forget it. There’s other things to think
of now. ’ He put his shoes side by side under the bed,
took off his coat, hung it on a bed ball, took off his
trousers, lay back in his pants and shirt on top of the bed.
‘ I’m thinking, Spicer, you oughter take a holiday. You
look all in. I wouldn’t want anyone seeing you like that. *
He closed his eyes. ‘You be off, Spicer, and take things
easy. ’
‘If that girl ever knew who put the card . . .’
‘She’ll never know. Turn out the light and get.’
The light went out and the moon went on like a lamp
outside, slanting across the roofs, laying the shadow of
clouds across the downs, illuminating the white empty
stands of the racecourse above Whitehawk Bottom like
the monoliths of Stonehenge, shining across the tide
which drove up from Boulogne and washed against the
piles of the Palace Pier. It lit the washstand, the open
door where the jerry stood, the brass balls at the bed end.
[ 2 ]
The Boy lay on the bed. A cup of coffee went cold on the
washstand, and the bed was sprinkled with flakes of
pastry. The Boy licked an indelible pencil, his mouth
71
was stained purple at the corners, he wrote: ‘Refer you
to my previous letter,* and concluded it at last, ‘P.
Brown, Secretary, the Bookmakers’ Protection . . The
envelope addressed ‘Mr J. Tate’ lay on the washstand,
the comer soiled with coffee. When he had finished
writing he put his head back on the pillow and closed
his eyes. He fell asleep at once: it was like the falling of
a shutter, the pressure of the bulb which ends a time
exposure. He had no dreams. His sleep was functional.
When Dallow opened the door he woke at once. ‘Well?’
he said, lying there without moving, fully dressed among
the pastry crumbs.
‘There’s a letter for you. Pinkie. Judy brought it up.’
The Boy took the letter. Dallow said, ‘ It’s an elegant
letter. Pinkie. Smell it. ’
The Boy held the mauve envelope to his nose. It smelt
like a cachou for bad breath. He said, ‘ Can’t you keep
off that bitch? If Frank knew . . .’
‘Who’d be writing an elegant letter like that, Pinkie?’
‘Colleoni. He wants me to call in for a talk at the
Cosmopolitan. ’
‘The Cosmopolitan,’ Dallow repeated with disgust.
‘You won’t go, will you?’
‘Of course I’ll go.’
‘ It’s not the sort of place where you’d feel at home. ’
‘Elegant,’ the Boy said, ‘like his notepaper. Costs a
lot of money. He thinks he can scare me. ’
‘Perhaps we’d better lay off Tate. ’
‘Take that jacket down to Frank. Tell him to sponge it
quick and put an iron over it. Give these shoes a bmsh. ’
He kicked them out from under the bed and sat up. ‘He
thinks he’ll have the laugh on us. ’ In the tipped mirror
on the washstand he could see himself, but his eyes
72
shifted quickly from the image of smooth, never shaven
cheek, soft hair, old eyes: he wasn’t interested. He had
too much pride to worry about appearances.
So that later he was quite at ease waiting in the great
lounge under the domed lights for Colleoni : young men
kept on arriving in huge motoring coats accompanied by
small tinted creatures, who rang like expensive glass
when they were touched but who conveyed an impression
of being as sharp and tough as tin. They looked at
nobody, sweeping through the lounge as they had swept
in racing models down the Brighton Road, ending on
high stools in the American Bar. A stout woman in a
white fox fur came out of a lift and stared at the Boy,
then she got back into the lift again and moved weightily
upwards. A little bitch sniffed at him and then talked
him over with another little bitch on a settee. Mr
Colleoni came across an acre of deep carpet from the
Louis Seize writing room, walking on tiptoe in glac6 shoes.
He was small with a neat round belly; he wore a
grey double-breasted waistcoat, and his eyes gleamed
like raisins. His hair was thin and grey. The little bitches
on the settee stopped talking as he passed and concen-
trated. He clinked very gently as he moved; it was the
only sound.
‘You were asking for me?’ he said.
‘You asked for me,’ the Boy said. ‘I got your letter.’
‘ Surely, ’ Mr Colleoni said, making a little bewildered
motion with his hands, ‘you are not Mr P. Brown?’ He
explained, ‘ I expected someone a good deal older. ’
‘You asked for me,’ the Boy said.
The little raisin eyes took him in : the sponged suit and
the narrow shoulders, the cheap black shoes. ‘ I thought
Mr Kite...’
73
‘Kite’s dead,’ the Boy said. ‘You know that.’
‘I missed it,’ Mr Colleoni said. ‘Of course that makes
a difference. ’
‘You can talk to me,’ the Boy said, ‘instead of
Kite.’
Mr Colleoni smiled. ‘I don’t think it’s necessary,’ he
said.
‘You’d better,’ the Boy said. Little chimes of laughter
came from the American Bar and the chink, chink, chink
of ice. A page came out of the Louis Seize writing room,
called, ‘Sir Joseph Montagu, Sir Joseph Montagu,’ and
passed into the Pompadour Boudoir. The spot of damp,
where Frank’s iron had failed to pass, above the Boy’s
breast-pocket, was slowly fading out in the hot Cosmo-
politan air.
Mr Colleoni put out a hand and gave him a quick pat,
pat, pat on the arm. ‘ Come with me, ’ he said. He led the
way, walking on glace tiptoe past the settee, where the
bitches whispered, past a little table where a man was
saying ‘ I told him ten thousand’s my limit ’ to an old man
who sat with closed eyes above his chilling tea. Mr
Colleoni looked over his shoulder and said gently, ‘ The
service here is not what it used to be.’
He looked into the Louis Seize writing room. A
woman in mauve with an untimely tiara was writing a
letter in a vast jumble of chinoiserie. Mr Colleoni
withdrew. ‘We’ll go where we can talk in peace,’ he said
and tiptoed back across the lounge. The old man had
opened his eyes and was testing his tea with his finger.
Mr Colleoni led the way to the gilt grill of the lift.
‘Number Fifteen,’ he said. They rose angelically
towards peace. ‘Cigar?’ Mr Colleoni asked.
‘I don’t smoke,’ the Boy said. A last squeal of gaiety
74
came from below, from the American Bar, the last
syllable of the page boy returning from the Pompadour
Boudoir, ‘Gue,’ before the gates slid back and they
were in the padded sound-proof passage. Mr Colleoni
paused and lit his cigar.
‘Let’s have a look at that lighter,’ the Boy said.
Mr Colleoni’s small shrewd eyes shone blankly under
the concealed pervasive electric glow. He held it out.
The Boy turned it over and looked at the hallmark.
‘Real gold,’ he said.
‘I like things good,’ Mr Colleoni said, unlocking a
door. ‘Take a chair.’ The arm-chairs, stately red velvet
couches stamped with crowns in gold and silver thread,
faced the wide seaward windows and the wrought-iron
balconies. ‘Have a drink?’
‘I don’t drink,’ the Boy said.
‘Now,’ Mr Colleoni said, ‘who sent you?’
‘No one sent me.’
‘I mean, who’s running your mob if Kite’s dead?’
‘ I’m running it, ’ the Boy said.
Mr Colleoni politely checked a smile, tapping his
thumb-nail with the gold lighter.
‘What happened to Kite?’
‘You know that story,’ the Boy said. He gazed across
at the Napoleonic crowns, the silver thread. ^You won’t
want to hear the details. It wouldn’t have happened if
we hadn’t been crossed. A journalist thought he could
put one over on us.’
‘What journalist’s that?’
‘You oughter read the inquests,’ the Boy said, staring
out through the window at the pale arch of sky against
which a few light clouds blew up.
Mr Colleoni looked at the ash on his cigar; it was
75
half an inch long; he sat deep down in his arm-chair and
crossed his little plump thighs contentedly.
*I*m not saying anything about Kite,’ the Boy said.
‘He trespassed.’
‘You mean,’ Mr Colleoni said, ‘you aren’t interested
in automatic machines?’
‘ I mean, ’ the Boy said, ‘that trespassing’s not healthy. ’
A little wave of musk came over the room from the
handkerchief in Mr Colleoni’s breast-pocket.
‘It’d be you who’d need protection,’ the Boy said.
‘I’ve got all the protection I need,’ Mr Colleoni said.
He shut his eyes; he was snug; the huge moneyed hotel
lapped him round; he was at home. The Boy sat on the
edge of his chair because he didn’t believe in relaxing
during business hours ; it was he who looked like an alien
in this room, not Mr Colleoni.
‘You are wasting your time, my child,’ Mr Colleoni
said. ‘You can’t do me any harm. ’ He laughed gently. ‘ If
you want a job though, come to me. I like push. I dare
say I could find room for you. The World needs young
people with energy.’ The hand with the cigar moved
expansively, mapping out the World as Mr Colleoni
visualised it : lots of little electric clocks controlled by
Greenwich, buttons on a desk, a good suite on the first
floor, accounts audited, reports from agents, silver,
cutlery, glass.
‘I’ll be seeing you on the course,’ the Boy said.
‘You’ll hardly do that,’ Mr Colleoni said. ‘I haven’t
been to a racecourse, let me see, it must be twenty years. ’
There wasn’t a point, he seemed to be indicating,
fingering his gold lighter, at which their worlds touched:
the week-end at the Cosmopolitan, the portable dicta-
phone beside the desk, had not the smallest conneaion
76
with Kite slashed quickly with razors on a railway
platform, the grubby hand against the skyline signalling
to the bookie from the stand, the heat, the dust fuming
up over the half-crown enclosure, the smell of bottled
beer.
"Fm just a business man,’ Mr CoUeoni softly
explained. ‘I don’t need to see a race. And nothing you
might try to do to my men could affect me. I’ve got two
in hospital now. It doesn’t matter. They have the best
attention. Flowers, grapes ... I can afford it. I don’t
have to worry. I’m a business man,’ Mr CoUeoni went
expansively and good-humouredly on. ‘ I like you. You’re
a promising youngster. That’s why I’m talking to you
like a father. You can’t damage a business like mine. ’
‘I could damage you,’ the Boy said.
‘ It wouldn’t pay. There wouldn’t be any faked alibis
for you. It would htyour witnesses who’d be scared. I’m
a business man.’ The raisin eyes blinked as the sun
slanted in across a bowl of flowers and fell on the deep
carpet. ‘Napoleon the Third used to have this room,’
Mr CoUeoni said, ‘and Eugenie.’
‘Who was she?’
‘Oh,’ Mr CoUeoni said vaguely, ‘one of those foreign
polonies.’ He plucked a flower and stuck it in his
buttonhole, and something a little doggish peeped out of
the black buttony eyes, a hint of the seraglio.
‘ I’ll be going, ’ the Boy said. He rose and moved to the
door.
‘You do understand me, don’t you?’ Mr CoUeoni
said without moving; holding his hand very still he kept
the cigar ash, quite a long ash now, suspended. ‘Brewer’s
been complaining. You don’t do that again. And Tate . . .
you mustn’t try tricks with Tate.’ His old Italian face
77
showed few emotions but a mild amusement, a mild
friendliness; but suddenly sitting there in the rich
Victorian room, with the gold lighter in his pocket and
the cigar-case on his lap, he looked as a man might look
who owned the whole world, the whole visible world
that is, the cash registers and policemen and prostitutes.
Parliament and the laws which say ‘this is Right and this
is Wrong’.
‘I understand all right,’ the Boy said. ‘You think our
mob’s too small for you. ’
‘I employ a great many people,’ Mr Colleoni said.
The Boy closed the door; a loose shoe-lace tapped all
the way down the passage: the huge lounge was almost
empty: a man in plus-fours waited for a girl. The visible
world was all Mr Colleoni’s. The spot where the iron
hadn’t passed was still a little damp over the Boy’s breast.
A hand touched the Boy’s arm. He looked round and
recognised the man in a bowler hat. He nodded guard-
edly. ‘Morning.’
‘They told me at Frank’s,’ the man said, ‘you’d come
here. ’
The Boy’s heart missed a beat: for almost the first
time it occurred to him that the law could hang him,
take him out in a yard, drop him in a pit, bury him in
lime, put an end to the great future. . . .
‘You want me?’
‘That’s right.’
He thought: Rose, the girl, someone asking questions.
His memory flashed back: he remembered how she
caught him with his hand under the table, feeling for
something. He grinned dully and said, ‘Well, they
haven’t sent the Big Four, anyway.’
‘Mind coming round to the station?’
78
‘Got a warrant?*
‘It’s only Brewer been complaining you hit him. You
left your scar all right. ’
The Boy began to laugh. ‘Brewer? Me? I wouldn’t
touch him. ’
‘Come round and see the inspector?’
‘Of course I will.’
They came out on to the parade. A pavement pho-
tographer saw them coming and lifted the cap from his
camera. The Boy put his hands in front of his face and
went by. ‘You oughter put a stop to those things,’ he
said. ‘Fine thing it’d be to have a picture postcard
stuck up on the pier, you and me walking to the station. ’
‘They caught a murderer once in town with one of
those snaps. ’
‘I read about it,’ the Boy said and fell silent. This is
Colleoni’s doing, he thought, he’s showing off: he put
Brewer up to this.
‘Brewer’s wife’s pretty bad they say,’ the detective
remarked softly.
‘Is she?’ the Boy said. ‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Got your alibi ready, I suppose?’
‘How do I know? I don’t know when he said I hit him.
A geezer can’t have an alibi for every minute of the day. ’
‘You’re a wide kid,’ the detective said, ‘but you
needn’t get fussed about this. The inspector wants to
have a friendly chat, that’s all. ’
He led the way through the charge-room. A man with
a tired ageing face sat behind a desk. ‘ Sit down. Brown,’
he said. He opened a cigarette box and pushed it across.
‘I don’t smoke,’ the Boy said. He sat down and
watched the inspector alertly. ‘Aren’t you going to
charge me?’
79
‘There’s no charge,’ the inspector said. ‘Brewer
thought better of it. ’ He paused. He looked more tired
than ever. He said : ‘ I want to talk straight for once. We
know more about each other than we admit. I don’t
interfere with you and Brewer: I’ve got more important
things to do than prevent you and Brewer - arguing. But
you know just as well as I do that Brewer wouldn’t come
here to complain if he hadn’t been put up to it. ’
‘You’ve certainly got ideas,’ the Boy said.
‘ Put up to it by someone who’s not afraid of your mob. ’
‘There’s not much escapes the bogies,’ the Boy said,
grimacing derisively.
‘The races start next week, and I don’t want to have
any big scale mob fighting in Brighton. I don’t mind
you carving each other up in a quiet way, I don’t give a
penny for your worthless skins, but when two mobs start
scrapping people who matter may get hurt. ’
‘Meaning who?’ the Boy said.
‘Meaning decent innocent people. Poor people out to
put a shilling on the tote. Clerks, charwomen, dustmen.
People who wouldn’t be seen dead talking to you - or to
Colleoni. ’
‘What are you getting at?’ the Boy said.
‘I’m getting at this. You aren’t big enough for your
job. Brown. You can’t stand against Colleoni. If there’s
any fighting I shall come down like a ton of bricks on
both of you - but it will be Colleoni who’ll have the alibis.
No one’s going to fake you an alibi against Colleoni. You
take my advice. Clear out of Brighton. ’
‘Fine,’ the Boy said. ‘A bogy doing Colleoni’s job for
him.’
‘This is private and unofficial,’ the inspector said. ‘I’m
being human for once. I don’t care if you get carved or
8o
Colleoni gets carved, but Fm not going to have innocent
people hurt if I can help it.’
‘You think I’m finished?’ the Boy said. He grinned
uneasily, looking away, looking at the walls plastered
with notices. Dog Licences. Gun Licences. Found
Drowned. A dead face met his eye staring from the wall,
unnaturally pasty. Unbrushed hair. A scar by the mouth.
‘You think Colleoni’ll keep the peace better?’ He could
read the writing: ‘one nickel watch, waistcoat of grey
cloth, blue-striped shirt, aertex vest, aertex pants’.
‘Well?’
‘It’s valuable advice,’ the Boy said, grinning down at
the polished desk, the box of Players, a crystal paper-
weight. ‘ I’ll have to think it over. I’m young to retire. ’
‘You’re too young to run a racket if you ask me.’
‘So Brewer’s not bringing a charge?’
‘He’s not afraid to. I talked him out of it. I wanted to
have a chance to speak to you straight. ’
‘Well,’ the Boy said, standing up, ‘maybe I’ll be
seeing you: maybe not.’ He grinned again, passing
through the charge-room, but a bright spot of colour
stood out on each cheek-bone. There was poison in his
veins, though he grinned and bore it. He had been
insulted. He was going to show the world. They thought
because he was only seventeen ... he jerked his narrow
shoulders back at the memory that he’d killed his man,
and these bogies who thought they were clever weren’t
clever enough to discover that. He trailed the clouds of
his own glory after him : hell lay about him in his infancy.
He was ready for more deaths.
8i
PART THREE
CO
Ida Arnold sat up in the boarding-house bed. For a
moment she didn’t know where she was. Her head ached
with the thick night at Sherry’s. It came slowly back to
her as she stared at the thick ewer on the floor, the
basin of grey water in which she had perfunctorily
washed, the bright pink roses on the wallpaper, a
wedding group - Phil Corkery dithering outside the
front door, pecking at her lips, swaying off down the
parade as if that was all he could expect, while the tide
receded. She looked round the room; it didn’t look so
good in the morning light as when she had booked it,
but ‘it’s homely,’ she thought with satisfaction, ‘it’s
what I like. ’
The sun was shining; Brighton was at its best. The
passage outside her room was gritty with sand, she felt
it under her shoes all the way down stairs, and in the
hall there was a pail, two spades, and a long piece of
seaweed hanging by the door as a barometer. There were
a lot of sandshoes lying about, and from the dining-
room came a child’s querulous voice repeating over and
over, ‘ I don’t want to dig. I want to go to the pictures.
I don’t want to dig. ’
At one she was meeting Phil Corkery at Snow’s.
Before that there were things to do; she had to go easy
on the money, not put away too much in the way of
Guinness. It wasn’t cheap living down at Brighton, and
she wasn’t going to take cash from Corkery - she had a
conscience, she had a code, and if she took cash she gave
something in return. Black Boy was the answer: she had
82
to see about it first thing before the odds shortened:
sinews of war, and she made her way towards Kemp
Town to the only bookie she knew, old Jim Tate,
‘Honest Jim’ of the half-crown enclosure.
He bellowed at her as soon as she got inside his office,
‘Here’s Ida. Sit down, Mrs Turner,’ getting her name
wrong. He pushed a box of Gold Flake across to her.
‘ Inhale a cheroot. ’ He was a little more than life-size. His
voice, after the race meetings of twenty years, could hit
no tone which wasn’t loud and hoarse. He was a man you
needed to look at through the wrong end of a telescope if
you were to believe him the fine healthy fellow he made
himself out to be. When you were close to him, you saw
the thick blue veins on the left forehead, the red money-
spider’s web across the eyeballs. ‘Well, Mrs Turner -
Ida - what is it you fancy?’
‘Black Boy,’ Ida said.
‘Black Boy,’ Jim Tate repeated. ‘That’s ten to one.’
‘Twelve to one.’
‘The odds have shortened. There’s been quite a packet
laid on Black Boy this week. You wouldn’t get ten to one
from anyone but your old friend. ’
‘All right,’ Ida said. ‘Put me on twenty pounds. And
my name’s not Turner. It’s Arnold.’
‘Twenty nicker. That’s a fat bet for you, Mrs What-
ever-you-are. ’ He licked his thumb and began to comb
the notes. Half-way through he paused, sat still like a
large toad over his desk, listening. A lot of noise came in
through the open window, feet on stone, voices, distant
music, bells ringing, the continuous whisper of the
Channel. He sat quite still with half the notes in his hand.
He looked uneasy. The telephone rang. He let it ring for
two seconds, his veined eyes on Ida; then he lifted the
4— B.R. 83
receiver. ‘Hullo. Hullo. This is Jim Tate. * It was an old-
fashioned telephone. He screwed the receiver close into
his ear and sat still while a low voice burred like a bee.
One hand holding the receiver to his ear, Jim Tate
shuffled the notes together, wrote out a slip. He said
hoarsely, ‘That’s all right, Mr Colleoni. I’ll do that,
Mr Colleoni, ’ and planked the receiver down.
‘You’ve written Black Dog,’ Ida said.
He looked across at her. It took him a moment to
understand. ‘Black Dog,’ he said, and then laughed,
hoarse and hollow. ‘What was I thinking of? Black Dog,
indeed. ’
‘That means Care,’ Ida said.
‘Well,’ he barked with unconvincing geniality, ‘we’ve
always something to worry about. ’ The telephone rang
again. Jim Tate looked as if it might sting him.
‘You’re busy,’ Ida said. ‘I’ll be going.’
When she went out into -the street she looked this
way and that to see if she could see any cause for Jim
Tate’s uneasiness, but there was nothing visible: just
Brighton about its own business on a beautiful day.
Ida went into a pub and had a glass of Douro port. It
went down sweet and warm and heavy. She had another.
‘Who’s Mr Colleoni?’ she asked the barman.
‘You don’t know who Colleoni is?’
‘I never heard of him till just now.’
The barman said, ‘He’s taking over from Kite.’
‘Who’s Kite?’
‘Who was Kite? You saw how he got croaked at
St Pancras?’
‘No.’
‘ I don’t suppose they meant to do it, ’ the barman said.
‘They just meant to carve him up, but a razor slipped.*
84
‘Have a drink?’
‘Thanks. I’ll have a gin.’
‘Cheeryo.’
‘Cheeryo.’
‘ I hadn’t heard all this, ’ Ida said. She looked over his
shoulder at the clock: nothing to do till one: she might
as well have another and gossip awhile. ‘Give me another
port. When did all this happen?’
‘Oh, before Whitsun.’ The word Whitsun always
caught her ear now: it meant a lot of things, a grubby
ten shilling note, the white steps down to the ladies’.
Tragedy in capital letters. ‘And what about Kite’s
friends?’ she asked.
‘They don’t stand a chance now Kite’s dead. The
mob’s got no leader. Why, they tag round after a kid of
seventeen. What’s a kid like that going to do against
Colleoni?’ He bent across the bar and whispered, ‘He
cut up Brewer last night. ’
‘Who? CoUeoni?’
‘No, the kid.’
‘I dunno who Brewer is,’ Ida said, ‘but things seem
lively. ’
‘You wait till the races start,’ the man said. ‘They’ll
be lively all right then. Colleoni’s out for a monopoly.
Quick, look through the window there and you’ll see
him.’
Ida went to the window and looked out, and again she
saw only the Brighton she knew; she hadn’t seen any-
thing different even the day Fred died : two girls in beach
pyjamas arm-in-arm, the buses going by to Rottingdean,
a man selling papers, a woman with a shopping basket,
a boy in a shabby suit, an excursion steamer edging off
from the pier, which lay long, luminous and transparent,
85
like a shrimp in the sunlight. She said, ‘I don’t see
anyone.’
‘He’s gone now.’
‘Who? Colleoni?’
‘No, the kid.’
‘Oh,’ Ida said, ‘that boy,’ coming back to the bar,
drinking up her port.
‘I bet he’s worried plenty.’
‘A kid like that oughtn’t to be mixed up with things,’
Ida said. ‘ If he was mine I’d just larrup it out of him. ’
With those words she was about to dismiss him, to turn
her attention away from him, moving her mind on its
axis like a great steel dredger, when she remembered : a
face in a bar seen over Fred’s shoulder, the sound of a
glass breaking: ‘The gentleman will pay.’ She had a
royal memory. ‘You ever come across this Kolley
Kibber?’ she asked.
‘No such luck,’ the barman said.
‘It seemed odd his dying like that. Must have made a
bit of gossip. ’
‘None I heard of,’ the barman said. ‘He wasn’t a
Brighton man. No one knew him round these parts. He
was a stranger. ’
A stranger: the word meant nothing to her: there was
no place in the world where she felt a stranger. She
circulated the dregs of the cheap port in her glass and
remarked to no one in particular, ‘ It’s a good life. ’ There
was nothing with which she didn’t claim kinship: the
advertising mirror behind the barman’s back flashed her
own image at her: the beach girls went giggling across
the parade: the gong beat on the steamer for Boulogne:
it was a good life. Only the darkness in which the Boy
walked, going from Frank’s, going back to Frank’s, was
86
alien to her; she had no pity for something sht didn’t
understand. She said, ‘ I’ll be getting on. ’
It wasn’t one yet, but there were questions she wanted
to ask before Mr Corkery arrived. She said to the first
waitress she saw, ‘Are you the lucky one?’
‘Not that I know of,’ the waitress said coldly.
‘I mean the one who found the card - the Kolley
Kibber card. ’
‘Oh, that was hevy^ the waitress said, nodding a
pointed powdered contemptuous chin.
Ida changed her table. She said, ‘I’ve got a friend
coming. I’ll have to wait for him, but I’ll try to pick. Is
the shepherd’s pie good?’
‘It looks lovely.’
‘Nice and brown on top?’
‘ It’s a picture. ’
‘What’s your name, dear?’
‘Rose.’
‘Why, I do believe,’ Ida said, ‘you were the lucky one
who found a card?’
‘Did they tell you that?’ Rose said. ‘They haven’t
forgiven me. They think I didn’t ought to be lucky like
that my first day. ’
‘Your first day? That was a bit of luck. You won’t
forget that day in a hurry. ’
‘No,’ Rose said, ‘I’ll remember that always.’
‘ I mustn’t keep you here talking. ’
‘ If you only would. If you’d sort of look as if you was
ordering things. There’s no one else wants to be attended
to and I’m ready to drop with these trays. ’
‘You don’t like the job?’
‘Oh,’ Rose said quickly, ‘I didn’t say that. It’s a good
job. I wouldn’t have anything different for the world,
87
I wouldn’t be in a hotel, or in Chessman’s, not if they
paid me twice as much. It’s elegant here,’ Rose said,
gazing over the waste of green-painted tables, the
daffodils, the paper napkins, the sauce bottles.
‘Are you a local?’
‘I’ve always lived here - all my life,’ Rose said, ‘in
Nelson Place. This is a fine situation for me because they
have us sleep in. There’s only three of us in my room,
and we have two looking-glasses.’
‘How old are you?’
Rose leant gratefully across the table. ‘Sixteen,’ she
said. ‘ I don’t tell them that. I say seventeen. They’d say
I wasn’t old enough if they knew. They’d send me ’
she hesitated a long while at the grim word, ‘home.’
‘You must have been glad,’ Ida said, ‘when you found
that card. ’
‘Oh, I was.’
‘Do you think I could have a glass of stout, dear?’
‘We have to send out, ’ Rose said. ‘ If you give me the
money ’
Ida opened her purse. ‘I don’t suppose you’ll ever
forget the little fellow. ’
‘Oh, he wasn’t so . . .’ Rose began and suddenly
stopped, staring out through Snow’s window across the
parade to the pier.
‘He wasn’t what?’ Ida said. ‘What was it you were
going to say?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘I just asked if you’d ever forget the little fellow.’
‘It’s gone out of my head,’ Rose said. ‘I’ll get your
drink. Does it cost all that ~ a glass of stout?’ she asked,
picking up the two shilling pieces.
‘One of them’s for you, dear,’ Ida said. ‘I’m inquisi-
88
tive. I can’t help it. I’m made that way. Tell me how he
looked?’
T don’t know. I can’t remember. I haven’t got any
memory for faces. ’
‘You can’t have, can you, dear, or you’d have chal-
lenged him. You must have seen his picture in the papers.’
‘ I know. I’m silly that way. ’ She stood there, pale and
determined and out of breath and guilty.
‘And then it would have been ten pounds not ten
shillings. ’
‘ I’ll get your drink. ’
‘Perhaps I’ll wait after all. The gentleman who’s
giving me lunch, he can pay. ’ Ida picked up the shillings
again, and Rose’s eyes followed her hand back to her
bag. ‘Waste not, want not,’ Ida said gently, taking in the
details of the bony face, the large mouth, the eyes too
far apart, the pallor, the immature body, and then
suddenly she was loud and cheerful again, calling out,
‘Phil Corkery, Phil Corkery,’ waving her hand.
Mr Corkery wore a blazer with a badge and a stiff
collar underneath. He looked as if he needed feeding up,
as if he was wasted with passions he had never had the
courage to express.
‘Cheer up, Phil. What are you having?’
‘Steak and kidney,’ Mr Corkery said gloomily.
‘Waitress, we want a drink.’
‘We have to send out.’
‘Well, in that case, make it two large bottles of
Guinness, ’ Mr Corkery said.
When Rose came back Ida introduced her to Mr
Corkery. ‘This is the lucky girl who found a card. ’
Rose backed away, but Ida detained her, graspingfirmly
her black cotton sleeve. ‘Did he eat much?’ she asked.
89
‘ I don’t remember a thing,’ Rose said, ‘really I don’t. ’
Their faces, flushed a little with the warm summer sun,
were like posters announcing danger.
‘Did he look,’ Ida said, ‘as if he was going to die?’
‘How can I tell?’
‘I suppose you talked to him?’
‘I didn’t talk to him. I was rushed. I just fetched him
a Bass and a sausage roll, and I never saw him again.’
She snatched her sleeve from Ida’s hand and was gone.
‘You can’t get much from her,’ Mr Corkery said.
‘Oh yes I can,’ Ida said, ‘more than I bargained
for.’
‘Why, whatever ’s wrong?’
‘It’s what that girl said.’
‘She didn’t say much.’
‘ She said enough. I always had a feeling it was fishy.
You see he told me in the taxi he was dying and I
believed him for a moment: it gave me quite a turn till
he told me he was just spinning a tale. ’
‘Well, he was dying.’
‘He didn’t mean it that way. I have my instincts.’
‘Anyway,’ Mr Corkery said, ‘there’s the evidence, he
died natural. I don’t see as there’s anything to worry
about. It’s a fine day, Ida. Let’s go on the Brighton Belle
and talk it over there. No closing hours at sea. After all,
if he did kill himself, it’s his business. ’
‘If he killed himself,’ Ida said, ‘he was driven to it.
I heard what the girl said, and I know this ~ it wasn’t
him that left the ticket here. ’
‘Good God,’ Mr Corkery said. ‘What do you mean?
You oughtn’t to talk like that. It’s dangerous.’ He
swallowed nervously and the Adam’s apple bobbed up
and down under the skin of his scrawny neck.
90
*It’s dangerous all right,’ Ida said, watching the thin
sixteen-year-old body shrink by in its black cotton dress,
hearing the clink, clink, clink of a glass on a tray carried
by an unsteady hand, ‘but who to’s another matter.’
‘Let’s go out in the sun,’ Mr Corkery said. ‘It’s not
so warm here.’ He hadn’t got a vest on, or a tie; he
shivered a little in his cricket shirt and blazer.
‘I’ve got to think,’ Ida repeated.
‘ I shouldn’t get mixed up in anything, Ida. He wasn’t
anything to you. ’
‘He wasn’t anything to anyone, that’s the trouble,’
Ida said. She dug down into her deepest mind, the plane
of memories, instincts, hopes, and brought up from them
the only philosophy she lived by. ‘I like fair play,’ she
said. She felt better when she’d said that and added with
terrible lightheartedness, ‘An eye for an eye, Phil. Will
you stick by me?’
The Adam’s apple bobbed. A draught from which all
the sun had been sifted swung through the revolving
door and Mr Corkery felt it on his bony breast. He said,
‘I don’t know what’s given you the idea, Ida, but I’m
for law and order. I’ll stick by you. ’ His daring went to
his head. He put a hand on her knee. ‘ I’d do anything
for you, Ida. ’
‘There’s only one thing to do after what she told me,’
Ida said.
‘What’s that?’
‘The police.’
Ida blew into the police-station with a laugh to this
man and a wave of the hand to that. She didn’t know
them from Adam. She was cheerful and determined, and
she carried Phil along in her wake.
91
‘I want to see the inspector,’ she told the sergeant at
the desk.
‘He’s busy, ma’am. What was it you wanted to see him
about?’
‘I can wait,’ Ida said, sitting down between the police
capes. ‘Sit down, Phil.’ She grinned at them all with
brassy assurance. ‘Pubs don’t open till six,’ she said.
‘Phil and I haven’t anything to do till then.’
‘What was it you wanted to see him about, ma’am?’
‘Suicide,’ Ida said, ‘right under your noses and you
call it natural death. ’
The sergeant stared at her, and Ida stared back. Her
large clear eyes (a spot of drink now and then didn’t
affect them) told nothing, gave away no secrets. Camara-
derie, good nature, cheeriness fell like shutters before a
plate-glass window. You could only guess at the goods
behind: sound old-fashioned hallmarked goods, justice,
an eye for an eye, law and order, capital punishment, a
bit of fun now and then, nothing nasty, nothing shady,
nothing you’d be ashamed to own, nothing mysterious.
‘You aren’t pulling my leg, are you?’ the sergeant
said.
‘Not this time, sarge,’
He passed through a door and shut it behind him, and
Ida settled herself more firmly on the bench, made
herself at home. ‘Bit stuffy in here, boys,’ she said.
‘What about opening another window?’ and obediently
they opened one.
The sergeant called to her from the door. ‘You can go
in, ’ he said.
‘Come on, Phil,’ Ida said and bore him with her into
the tiny cramped official room which smelt of French
polish and fish glue.
92
*And so,* the inspector said, ‘you wanted to tdl me
about a suicide, Mrs ?* He looked tired and old and
shy. He had tried to hide a tin of fruit drops behind a
telephone and a manuscript book.
‘Arnold, Ida Arnold. I thought it might be your line,
inspector,’ she said with heavy sarcasm.
‘This your husband?’
‘Oh no, a friend. I wanted a witness, that’s all.’
‘And who is it you’re concerned about, Mrs Arnold?’
‘Hale’s the name, Fred Hale. I beg your pardon.
Charles Hale.*
‘We know all about Hale, Mrs Arnold. He died quite
naturally. ’
‘Oh no,’ Ida said, ‘you don’t know all. You don’t
know he was with me, two hours before he was found. ’
‘You weren’t at the inquest?’
‘I didn’t know it was him till I saw his picture.’
‘And why do you think there’s anything wrong?’
‘Listen,’ Ida said. ‘He was with me and he was scared
about something. We were at the Palace Pier. I had to
have a wash and brush up, but he didn’t want me to
leave him. I was only away five minutes and he’d gone.
Where’d he gone to? You say he went and had lunch at
Snow’s and then went on down the pier to the shelter
in Hove. You think he just gave me the slip, but it
wasn’t Fred - I mean Hale - who had lunch at Snow’s
and left that card. I’ve just seen the waitress. Hale didn’t
like Bass - he wouldn’t drink Bass - but the man at
Snow’s sent out for a bottle. ’
‘That’s nothing,’ the inspector said. ‘It was a hot day.
He was feeling bad, too. He got tired of doing all the
things he’d got to do. I wouldn’t be surprised if he
cheated and got someone else to go into Snow’s.’
93
‘The girl won’t say a thing about him. She knows but
she won’t say. ’
T can think of an explanation easily enough, Mrs
Arnold. The man may have left a card on condition she
didn’t say anything. ’
‘It’s not that. She’s scared. Someone’s scared her.
Maybe the same person who drove Fred. . . . And there
are other things. ’
T’m sorry, Mrs Arnold. It’s just a waste of time
getting fussed like this. You see there was a post-mortem.
The medical evidence shows without any doubt that he
died naturally. He had a bad heart. The medical name
for it is coronary thrombosis. I’d call it just heat and
crowds and exertion - and a weak heart. ’
‘Could I see the report?’
‘It wouldn’t be usual.’
‘I was a friend of his, you see,’ Ida said softly. ‘I’d
like to be satisfied. ’
‘Well, to put your mind at rest. I’ll stretch a point. It’s
here now on my desk. ’
Ida read it carefully. ‘This doctor,’ she said, ‘he
knows his stuff?’
‘He’s a first-class doctor.’
‘It seems clear, doesn’t it?’ Ida said. She began to read
it all over again. ‘They do go into details, don’t they.
Why, I wouldn’t know more about him if I’d married
him. Appendix scar, supernumerary nipples, whatever
they are, suffered from wind - 1 do that myself on a Bank
Holiday. It’s almost disrespectful, isn’t it? He wouldn’t
have liked this,’ she brooded over the report with easy
kindliness. ‘Varicose veins. Poor old Fred. What’s this
mean about the liver?’
‘Drank too much, that’s all.’
94
‘I wouldn’t be surprised. Poor Fred. So he had in-
growing toe-nails. It doesn’t seem right to know that.’
‘You were a great friend of his?’
‘Well, we only knew each other that day. But I liked
him. He was a real gentleman. If I hadn’t been a bit lit
this wouldn’t have happened.’ She blew out her bust.
‘He wouldn’t have come to any harm with me.’
‘Have you quite finished with the report, Mrs
Arnold?’
‘He does mention everything, this doctor of yours,
doesn’t he? Bruises, superficial whatever that means, on
the arms. What do you think of that, inspector?’
‘ Nothing at all. Bank Holiday crowds, that’s all. Pushed
here and there. ’
‘Oh, come off it,’ Ida said, ‘come off it.’ Her tongue
flared up. ‘Be human. Werejyow out on Bank Holiday?
Where do you find a crowd like that? Brighton’s big
enough, isn’t it? It’s not a tube lift. I was here. I know.’
The inspeaor said stubbornly, ‘You’ve got fancies,
Mrs Arnold. ’
‘So the police won’t do a thing? You won’t question
that girl in Snow’s?’
‘The case is closed, Mrs Arnold. And even if it had
been suicide, why open old wounds?’
‘ Someone drove him . . . perhaps it wasn’t suicide at
all . . . perhaps. . . . ’
‘I’ve told you, Mrs Arnold, the case is closed.’
‘That’s what you think,’ Ida said. She rose to her
feet; she summoned Phil with a jerk of the chin. ‘Not
half it isn’t,’ she said. ‘I’ll be seeing you.’ She looked
back from the door at the elderly man behind the desk
and threatened him with her ruthless vitality. ‘Or
perhaps not,’ she said. ‘I can manage this my own way.
95
I don’t need your police’ (the constables in the outer
room stirred uneasily; somebody laughed; somebody
dropped a tin of boot polish). ‘I’ve got my friends.’
Her friends ~ they were ever3where under the bright
glittering Brighton air. They followed their wives
obediently into fishmongers, they carried the children’s
buckets to the beach, they lingered round the bars
waiting for opening time, they took a penny peep on the
pier at ‘A Night of Love’. She had only to appeal to any
of them, for Ida Arnold was on the right side. She was
cheery, she was healthy, she could get a bit lit with the
best of them. She liked a good time, her big breasts bore
their carnality frankly down the Old Steyne, but you
had only to look at her to know that you could rely on
her. She wouldn’t tell tales to your wife, she wouldn’t
remind you next morning of what you wanted to forget,
she was honest, she was kindly, she belonged to the great
middle law-abiding class, her amusements were their
amusements, her superstitions their superstitions
(the planchette scratching the French polish on the
occasional table, and the salt over the shoulder), she had
no more love for anyone than they had.
‘Expenses mounting up,’ Ida said. ‘Never mind.
Everything will be all right after the races. ’
‘You got a tip?’ Mr Corkery asked.
‘ Straight from the horse’s mouth. I shouldn’t say that.
Poor Fred. ’
‘Tell a pal,’ Mr Corkery implored.
‘All in good time,’ Ida said. ‘Be a good boy and you
don’t know what mayn’t happen. ’
‘You don’t still think, do you?’ Mr Corkery sounded
her. ‘Not after what the doctor wrote?’
‘I’ve never paid any attention to doctors.’
96
‘But why?’
‘We’ve got to find out.’
‘And how?’
‘Give me time. I haven’t started yet.’
The sea stretched like a piece of gay common washing
in a tenement square across the end of the street. ‘The
colour of your eyes,’ Mr Corkery interjected thought-
fully and with a touch of nostalgia. He said, ‘Couldn’t
we now - just go for a while on the pier, Ida?’
‘Yes,’ Ida said. ‘The pier. We’ll go to the Palace Pier,
Phil, ’ but when they got there she wouldn’t go through
the turnstile, but took up her stand like a huckster facing
the Aquarium, the ladies’ lavatory. ‘This is where I start
from,’ she said. ‘He waited for me here, Phil,’ and she
stared out over the red and green lights, the heavy traffic
of her battlefield, laying her plans, marshalling her
cannon fodder, while five yards away Spicer stood too
waiting for an enemy to appear. Only a slight doubt
troubled her optimism. ‘That horse has got to win,
Phil, ’ she said. ‘ I can’t hold out else. ’
Spicer was restless these days. There was nothing for
him to do. When the races began again he wouldn’t feel
so bad, he wouldn’t think so much about Hale. It was
the medical evidence which upset him: ‘death from
natural causes’, when with his own eyes he’d seen the
Boy ... It was fishy, it wasn’t straight. He told himself
that he could face a police inquiry, but he couldn’t stand
this not knowing, the false security of the verdict. There
was a catch in it somewhere, and all through the long
summer sunlight Spicer wandered uneasily, watching
97
out for trouble: the police-station, the Place where It
had been done, even Snow’s came into his promenade.
He wanted to be satisfied that the cops were doing
nothing (he knew every plain-clothes man in the
Brighton force), that no one was asking questions or
loitering where they had no reason to loiter. He knew
it was just nerves. ‘I’ll be all right when the races start,’
he told himself, like a man with a poisoned body who
believes that all be well when a single tooth is drawn.
He came up the parade cautiously, from the Hove end,
from the glass shelter where Hale’s body had been set,
pale with bloodshot eyes and nicotined finger-ends. He
had a corn on his left foot and limped a little, dragging
after him a bright orange-brown shoe. He had come out
in spots, too, round his mouth, and that also was caused
by Hale’s death. Fear upset his bowels, and the spots
came: it was always the way.
He limped cautiously across the road when he was
close to Snow’s : that was another vulnerable place. The
sun caught the great panes of plate-glass and flashed
back at him like headlamps. He sweated a little passing
by. A voice said, ‘Well, if it isn’t Spicey?’ He had had
his eyes on Snow’s across the road, he hadn’t noticed
who was beside him on the parade, leaning on the green
railing above the shingle. He turned his damp face
sharply. ‘What are you doing here. Crab?’
‘It’s good to be back,’ Crab said, a young man in a
mauve suit, with shoulders like coat-hangers and a small
waist.
‘We ran you out once. Crab. I thought you’d stay out.
You’ve altered. ’ His hair was carroty, except at the roots,
and his nose was straightened and scarred. He had been
a Jew once, but a hairdresser and a surgeon had altered
98
that. ‘Afraid we’d lamp you if you didn’t change your
mug?’
‘Why, Spicey, me afraid of your lot? You’ll be saying
“sir” to me one of these days. I’m Colleoni’s right-hand
man.’
‘I always heard as how he was left-handed,’ Spicer
said. ‘Wait till Pinkie knows you’re back.’
Crab laughed. ‘Pinkie’s at the police-station,’ he said.
The police-station: Spicer’s chin went down, he was
off, his orange shoe sliding on the paving, his corn
shooting. He heard Crab laugh behind him, the smell
of dead fish was in his nostrils, he was a sick man. The
police-station : the police-station : it was like an abscess
jetting its poison through the nerves. When he got to
Frank’s there was no one there. He creaked his tortured
way up the stairs, past the rotten banister, to Pinkie’s
room : the door stood open, vacancy stared in the swing
mirror: no message, crumbs on the floor: it looked as a
room would look if someone had been called suddenly
away.
Spicer stood by the chest of drawers (the walnut stain
splashed unevenly) : no scrap of written reassurance in a
drawer: no warning. He looked up and down, the corn
shooting through his whole body to the brain, and sud-
denly there was his own face in the glass - the coarse black
hair greying at the roots, the small eruptions on the face,
the bloodshot eyeballs, and it occurred to him, as if he
were looking at a close-up on a screen, that that was the
kind of face a nark might have, a man who grassed to
the bogies.
He moved away: flakes of pastry ground under his
foot ; he told himself he wasn’t a man to grass : Pinkie,
Cubitt and Dallow, they were his pals. He wouldn’t let
99
them down - even though it wasn’t he who’d done the
killing. He’d been against it from the first: he’d only laid
the cards : he only knew. He stood at the head of the stairs
looking down past the shaky banister. He would rather
kill himself than squeal, he told the empty landing in a
whisper, but he knew really that he hadn’t got that
courage. Better run for it: and he thought with nostalgia
of Nottingham and a pub he knew, a pub he had once
hoped to buy when he had made his pile. It was a good
spot, Nottingham, the air was good, none of this salt smart
on the dry mouth, and the girls were kind. If he could
get away - but the others would never let him go: he
knew too much about too many things. He was in the
mob for life now, and he looked down the drop of the
staircase to the tiny hall, the strip of linoleum, the old-
fashioned telephone on a bracket by the door.
As he watched, it began to ring. He looked down at it
with fear and suspicion. He couldn’t stand any more bad
news. Where had everybody gone to? Had they run and
left him without a warning? Even Frank wasn’t in the
basement. There was a smell of scorching as if he’d left
his iron burning. The bell rang on and on. Let them ring,
he thought. They’ll tire of it in time : why should I do all
the work of this bloody gaff? On and on and on. Whoever
it was didn’t tire easily. He came to the head of the stairs
and scowled down at the vulcanite spitting noise through
the quiet house. ‘The trouble is,’ he said aloud, as if he
were rehearsing a speech to Pinkie and the others, ‘ I’m
getting too old for this game. I got to retire. Look at my
hair. I’m grey, ain’t I? I got to retire.’ But the only
answer was the regular ring, ring, ring.
‘Why can’t someone answer the bloody blower?’ he
shouted down the well of the stairs. ‘ I got to do all the
lOO
work, have I?’ and he saw himself dropping a tidcet into
the child’s bucket, slipping a ticket under an upturned
boat, tickets which could have hanged him. He suddenly
ran down the stairs in a kind of simulated fury and lifted
the receiver. ‘Well,’ he bellowed, ‘well, who the hell’s
there?’
‘ Is that Frank’s?’ a voice said. He knew the voice now.
It was the girl in Snow’s. He lowered the receiver in a
panic and waited, and a thin doll’s voice came out at him
from the orifice: ‘Please, I’ve got to speak to Pinkie.’ It
was almost as if listening betrayed him. He listened again
and the voice repeated with desperate anxiety, ‘Is that
Frank’s?’
Keeping his mouth away from the phone, curling his
tongue in an odd way, mouthing hoarsely and crookedly,
Spicer in disguise replied, ‘Pinkie’s out. What do you
want?’
‘I’ve got to speak to him.’
‘He’s out I tell you.’
‘Who’s that?’ the girl asked in a scared voice.
‘That’s what I want to know. Who are you?’
‘ I’m a friend of Pinkie’s. I got to find him. It’s urgent. ’
‘ I can’t help you. ’
‘Please. You’ve got to find Pinkie. He told me I was
to tell him - if ever ’ The voice died away.
Spicer shouted down the phone. ‘Hullo. Where you
gone? If ever what?’ There was no reply. He listened,
with the receiver pressed against his ear, to silence
buzzing up the wires. He began to jerk at the hook:
‘Exchange. Hullo. Hullo. Exchange,’ and then suddenly
the voice came on again as if somebody had dropped a
needle into place on a record. ‘Are you there? Please, are
you there?’
lOI
‘Of course I’m here. What did Pinkie tell you?’
‘You got to find Pinkie. He said he wanted to know.
It’s a woman. She was in here with a man. ’
‘What do you mean ~ a woman?’
‘Asking questions,’ the voice said. Spicer put down
the receiver; whatever else the girl had to say was
strangled on the wire. Find Pinkie? What was the good
of finding Pinkie? It was the others who had done the
finding. And Cubitt and Dallow: they’d slipped away
without even warning him. If he did squeal it would be
only returning them their own coin. But he wasn’t going
to squeal. He wasn’t a nark. They thought he was
yellow. They^d think he’d squeal. He wouldn’t even get
the credit ... a little moisture of self-pity came pricking
out of the dry ageing ducts.
I got to think, he repeated to himself. I got to think.
He opened the street door and went out. He didn’t even
wait to fetch his hat. His hair was thin on top, dry and
brittle under the dandruff. He walked rapidly, going
nowhere in particular, but every road in Brighton ended
on the front. I’m too old for the game, I got to get out,
Nottingham; he wanted to be alone, he went down the
stone steps to the level of the beach ; it was early closing
and the small shops facing the sea under the promenade
were closed. He walked on the edge of the asphalt,
scuffling in the shingle. I wouldn’t grass, he remarked
dumbly to the tide as it lifted and withdrew, but it
wasn’t my doing, I never wanted to kill Fred. He passed
into shadow under the pier, and a cheap photographer
with a box camera snapped him as the shadow fell and
pressed a paper into his hand. Spicer didn’t notice. The
iron pillars stretched down across the wet dimmed
shingle holding up above his head the motor-track, the
102
shooting booths and peep machines, mechanical models,
‘the Robot Man will tell your fortune'. A seagull flew
straight towards him between the pillars like a scared
bird caught in a cathedral, then swerved out into the
sunlight from the dark iron nave. I wouldn’t grass, Spicer
said, unless I had to. . . . He stumbled on an old boot
and put his hand on the stones to save himself : they had
all the cold of the sea and had never been warmed by sun
under these pillars.
He thought: that woman - how does she know any-
thing - what’s she doing asking questions? I didn’t want
to have Hale killed ; it wouldn’t be fair if I took the drop
with the others; I told ’em not to do it. He came out into
the sunlight and climbed back on to the parade. It’ll be
this way the bogies will come, he thought, if they know
anything; they always reconstruct the crime. He took up
his stand between the turnstile of the pier and the ladies’
lavatory. There weren’t many people about: he could
spot the bogies easily enough - if they came. Over there
was the Royal Albion; he could see all the way up the
Grand Parade to Old Steyne; the pale green domes of the
Pavilion floated above the dusty trees ; he could see anyone
in the hot empty mid-week afternoon who went down
below the Aquarium, the white deck ready for dancing,
to the little covered arcade where the cheap shops stood
between the sea and the stone wall, selling Brighton rock.
The poison twisted in the Boy’s veins. He had been
insulted. He had to show someone he was - a man. He
went scowling into Snow’s, young, shabby and untrust-
worthy, and the waitresses with one accord turned their
103
backs. He stood there looking for a tabic (the place was
full), and no one attended to him. It was as if they
doubted whether he had the money to pay for his meal.
He thought of Colleoni padding through the enormous
rooms, the embroidered crowns on the chair-backs. He
suddenly shouted aloud: ‘I want service,’ and the pulse
beat in his cheek. All the faces round him shivered into
motion, and then were still again like water. Everyone
looked away. He was ignored. Suddenly a sense of
weariness overtook him. He felt as if he had travelled a
great many miles to be ignored like this.
A voice said, ‘There isn’t a table.’ They were still
such strangers that he didn’t recognise the voice, until
it added: ‘Pinkie’. He looked round and there was Rose,
dressed to go out in a shabby black straw which made
her face look as it would look in twenty years’ time, after
the work and the child-bearing.
‘They got to serve me,’ the Boy said. ‘Who do they
think they are?’
‘There isn’t a table.’
Everyone was watching them now - with disapproval.
‘ Come outside, Pinkie. ’
‘What are you all dressed up for?’
‘ It’s my afternoon off. Come outside. ’
He followed her out and suddenly taking her wrist he
brought the poison on to his lips. ‘I could break your
arm.’
‘What have I done. Pinkie?’
‘No table. They don’t like serving me in there, I’m
no class. They’ll see - one day ’
‘What?’
But his mind staggered before the extent of his
ambitions. He said, ‘Never mind - they’ll learn ’
104
‘Did you get the message, Pinkie?’
‘What message?’
‘I phoned you at Frank’s. I told him to tell you.’
‘Told who?’
‘I don’t know.’ She added casually, ‘I think it was
the man who left the ticket. ’
He gripped her wrist again. He said, ‘The man who
left the ticket’s dead. You read it all. ’ But she showed no
sign of fear this time. He’d been too friendly. She
ignored his reminder.
‘Did he find you?’ she asked, and he thought to
himself : she’s got to be scared again.
‘No one found me,’ he said. He pushed her roughly
forward. ‘ Come on. We’ll walk. I’ll take you out. ’
‘ I was going home. ’
‘You won’t go home. You’ll come with me. I want
exercise,’ he said, looking down at his pointed shoes
which had never walked further than the length of the
parade,
‘Where’ll we go, Pinkie?’
‘Somewhere,’ Pinkie said, ‘out in the country. That’s
where you go on a day like this. ’ He tried to think for
a moment of where the country was : the racecourse, that
was country ; and then a bus came by marked Peacehaven,
and he waved his hand to it. ‘There you are,’ he said,
‘that’s country. We can talk there. There’s things we got
to get straight. ’
‘ I thought we were going to walk. ’
‘This is walking,’ he said roughly, pushing her up the
steps. ‘You’re green. You don’t know a thing. You don’t
think people really walk. Why - it’s miles. ’
‘When people say, “Come for a walk”, they mean a
bus?’
105
‘ Or a car. I’d have taken you in the car, but the mob
are out in it. ’
‘You got a car?’
‘I couldn’t get on without a car,’ the Boy said, as the
bus climbed up behind Rottingdean : red-brick buildings
behind a wall, a great stretch of parkland, one girl with
a hockey-stick staring at something in the sky, with
cropped expensive turf all round her. The poison drained
back into its proper glands: he was admired, no one
insulted him, but when he looked at the girl who admired
him, the poison oozed out again. He said, ‘Take off that
hat. You look awful.’ She obeyed him: her mousy hair
lay flat on the small scalp : he watched her with distaste.
That was what they’d joked about him marrying : that.
He watched her with his soured virginity, as one might
watch a draught of medicine offered that one would
never, never take ; one would die first - or let others die.
The chalky dust blew up round the windows.
‘You told me to ring up,’ Rose said, ‘so when . . .’
‘Not here,’ the Boy said. ‘Wait till we’re alone.’ The
driver’s head rose slowly against a waste of sky: a few
white feathers blown backward into the blue: they were
on top of the downs and turned eastwards. The boy sat
with his pointed shoes side by side, his hands in his
pockets, feeling the throb of the engine come up through
the thin soles.
‘It’s lovely,’ Rose said, ‘being out here - in the
country with you. ’ Little tarred bungalows with tin roofs
paraded backwards, gardens scratched in the chalk, dry
flower-beds like Saxon emblems carved on the downs.
Notices read : ‘ Pull in Here ’, ‘ Mazawattee tea ’, ‘ Genuine
Antiques’, and hundreds of feet below the pale green sea
washed into the scarred and shabby side of England.
io6
Peacehaven itself dwindled out against the downs: half-
made streets turned into grass tracks. They walked down
between the bungalows to the cliff-edge. There was no-
body about: one of the bungalows had broken windows,
in another the blinds were down for a death. ‘ It makes me
giddy,’ Rose said, ‘looking down.’ It was early closing
and the store was shut; closing time and no drinks
obtainable at the hotel; a vista of To Let boards running
back along the chalky ruts of unfinished roads. The Boy
could see over her shoulder the rough drop to the
shingle. ‘It makes me feel I’ll fall,’ Rose said, turning
from the sea. He let her turn ; no need to act prematurely ;
the draught might never be offered.
‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘now - who rang up who and
why?’
‘ I rang up you, but you weren’t in. He answered. ’
‘He?’ the Boy repeated.
‘The one who left the ticket that day you came in.
You remember - you were looking for something. ’ He
remembered all right - the hand imder the cloth, the
stupid innocent face he had expected would so easily
forget. ‘You remember a lot,’ he said, frowning at the
thought.
‘I wouldn’t forget that day,’ she said abruptly and
stopped.
‘You forget a lot, too. I just told you that wasn’t the
man you heard speak. That man’s dead. ’
‘It doesn’t matter an)nvay,’ she said. ‘What matters
is - someone was in asking questions. ’
‘About the ticket?’
‘Yes.’
‘A man?’
‘A woman. A big one with a laugh. You should have
107
heard the laugh. Just as if she’d never had a care.
I didn’t trust her. She wasn’t our kind. ’
‘Our kind’: he frowned again towards the shallow
wrinkled tide at the suggestion that they had something
in common and spoke sharply. ‘What did she want?’
‘ She wanted to know everything. What the man who
left the card looked like. ’
‘What did you tell her?’
‘ I didn’t tell her a thing. Pinkie. ’
The Boy dug with his pointed shoe into the thin dry
turf and sent an empty corned-beef tin rattling down the
ruts. ‘ It’s only you I’m thinking of, ’ he said. ‘ It don’t
matter to me. I’m not concerned. But I wouldn’t want
you getting mixed up in things that might be dangerous. ’
He looked quickly up at her, sideways. ‘You don’t seem
scared. It’s serious what I’m telling you. ’
‘ I wouldn’t be scared. Pinkie - not with you about. ’
He dug his nails into his hands with vexation. She
remembered everything she ought to forget, and forgot
all that she should remember - the vitriol bottle. He’d
scared her all right then: he’d been too friendly since:
she really believed that he was fond of her. Why, this,
he supposed, was ‘walking out’, and he thought again
of Spicer’s joke. He looked at the mousy skull, the bony
body and the shabby dress, and shuddered -- involun-
tarily, a goose flying across the final bed. ‘ Saturday, ’ he
thought, ‘to-day’s Saturday,’ remembering the room at
home, the frightening weekly exercise of his parents
which he watched from his single bed. That was what
they expected of you, every polony you met had her eye
on the bed: his virginity straightened in him like sex.
That was how they judged you: not by whether you had
the guts to kill a man, to run a mob, to conquer Colleoni.
io8
He said, *We don’t want to stay round here. We’ll be
getting back.’
'We’ve only just come,’ the girl said. ‘Let’s stay a bit.
Pinkie. I like the country,’ she said.
‘You’ve had a look,’ he said. ‘You can’t do anything
with the country. The pub’s closed. ’
‘We could just sit. We’ve got to wait for the bus
an3rway. You’re funny. You aren’t scared of anything,
are you?’
He laughed queerly, sitting awkwardly down in front
of the bungalow with the shattered glass. ‘Me scared?
That’s funny. ’ He lay back against the bank, his waist-
coat undone, his thin frayed tie bright and striped against
the chalk.
‘This is better than going home,’ Rose said.
‘Where’s home?’
‘Nelson Place. Do you know it?’
‘Oh, I’ve passed through,’ he said airily, but he could
have drawn its plan as accurately as a surveyor on the
turf: the barred and battlemented Salvation Army gaff
at the comer: his own home beyond in Paradise Piece:
the houses which looked as if they had passed through an
intensive bombardment, flapping gutters and glassless
windows, an iron bedstead rusting in a front garden, the
smashed and wasted ground in front where houses had
been pulled down for model flats which had never
gone up.
They lay on the chalk bank side by side with a common
geography, and a little hate mixed with his contempt. He
thought he had made his escape, and here his home was :
back beside him, making claims.
Rose said suddenly, ^ She's never lived there.’
‘Who?’
109
‘That woman asking questions. Never a care.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘we can’t all ’ave been born in Nelson
Place. ’
‘You weren’t born there - or somewhere round?’
‘Me. Of course not. What do you think?’
‘I thought - maybe you were. You’re a Roman too.
We were all Romans in Nelson Place. You believe in
things. Like Hell. But you can see she don’t believe
a thing.’ She said bitterly, ‘You can tell the world’s all
dandy with her. ’
He defended himself from any connection with
Paradise Piece: ‘I don’t take any stock in religion. Hell ~
it’s just there. You don’t need to think of it - not before
you die. ’
‘You might die sudden.’
He closed his eyes under the bright empty arch, and
a memory floated up imperfectly into speech. ‘You know
what they say - “Between the stirrup and the ground, he
something sought and something found”.’
‘Mercy.’
‘That’s right: Mercy.’
‘It would be awful, though,’ she said slowly, ‘if they
didn’t give you time.’ She turned her cheek on to the
chalk towards him and added, as if he could help her,
‘That’s what I always pray. That I won’t die sudden.
What do you pray?’
‘I don’t,’ he said, but he was praying even while he
spoke to someone or something: that he wouldn’t need
to carry on any further with her, get mixed up again with
that drab dynamited plot of ground they both called
home.
‘You angry about anything?’ Rose asked.
‘A man wants to be quiet sometimes,’ he said, lying
no
rigidly against the chalk bank, giving nothing away. In
the silence a shutter flapped, and the tide lisped: two
people walking out: that’s what they were, and the
memory of Colleoni’s luxury, the crowned chairs at the
Cosmopolitan, came back to taunt him. He said, ‘Talk,
can’t you? Say something.’
‘You wanted to be quiet,’ she retorted with a sudden
anger which took him by surprise. He hadn’t thought her
capable of that. ‘If I don’t suit you,’ she said, ‘you can
leave me alone. I didn’t ask to come out.’ She sat with
her hands round her knees and her cheeks burned on the
tip of the bone: anger was as good as rouge on her thin
face. ‘ If I’m not grand enough ~ your car and all ’
‘Who said ’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I’m not that dumb. I’ve seen you
looking at me. My hat ’
It occurred to him suddenly that she might even get
up and leave him, go back to Snow’s with her secret for
the first comer who questioned her kindly: he had to
conciliate her, they were walking out, he’d got to do the
things expeaed of him. He put out his hand with
repulsion; it lay like a cold paddock on her knee. ‘You
took me up wrong,’ he said, ‘you’re a sweet girl. I’ve
been worried, that’s all. Business worries. You and me’ -
he swallowed painfully - ‘we suit each other down to the
ground. ’ He saw the colour go, the face turn to him with
a blind willingness to be deceived, saw the lips waiting.
He drew her hand up quickly and put his mouth against
her fingers : anything was better than the lips : the fingers
were rough on his skin and tasted a little of soap. She
said, ‘Pinkie, I’m sorry. You’re sweet to me.’
He laughed nervously, ‘You and me,’ and heard the
hoot of a bus with the joy of a besieged man listening to
III
the bugles of the relieving force. ‘There,* he said, ‘the
bus. Let’s be going. I’m not much of a one for the
country. A city bird. You too.’ She got up and he saw
the skin of her thigh for a moment above the artificial
silk, and a prick of sexual desire disturbed him like a
sickness. That was what happened to a man in the end:
the stuffy room, the wakeful children, the Saturday night
movements from the other bed. Was there no escape -
an5rwhere - for anyone? It was worth murdering a world.
Tt’s beautiful here all the same,’ she said, staring up
the chalky ruts between the To Let boards, and the Boy
laughed again at the fine words people gave to a dirty
act: love, beauty . . . All his pride coiled like a watch
spring round the thought that he wasn’t deceived, that
he wasn’t going to give himself up to marriage and the
birth of children, he was going to be where Colleoni now
was and higher ... He knew everything, he had watched
every detail of the act of sex, you couldn’t deceive him
with lovely words, there was nothing to be excited about,
no gain to recompense you for what you lost ; but when
Rose turned to him again, with the expectation of a kiss,
he was aware all the same of a horrifying ignorance. His
mouth missed hers and recoiled. He’d never yet kissed
a girl.
She said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m stupid. I’ve never had ’
and suddenly broke off to watch a gull rise from one of the
little parched gardens and drop over the cliff towards
the sea.
He didn’t speak to her in the bus, sullen and ill-at-
ease, sitting with his hands in his pockets, his feet close
together, not knowing why he’d come this far out with
her, only to go back again with nothing settled, the
secret, the memory still lodged securely in her skull. The
1 12
country unwound the other way : Mazawattee tea, antique
dealers, pull-ins, the thin grass petering out on the first
asphalt.
From the pier the Brighton anglers flung their floats.
A little music ground mournfully out into the windy
sunlight. They walked on the sunny side past ‘A Night
of Love’, ‘For Men Only’, ‘The Fan Dancer’. Rose
asked, ‘Is business bad?’
‘There’s always worries,’ the Boy said.
‘I wish I could help, be of use.’ He said nothing,
walking on. She put out a hand towards the thin rigid
figure, seeing the smooth cheek, the fluff of fair hair at
the nape. ‘You’re so young. Pinkie, to get worries.’ She
put her hand through his arm. ‘We’re both young,
Pinkie, ’ and felt his body stonily withdrawn.
A photographer said, ‘ Snap you together against the
sea, ’ raising the cap from his camera, and the Boy flung
up his hands before his face and went on.
‘Don’t you like being snapped. Pinkie? We might have
had our pictures stuck up for people to see. It wouldn’t
have cost anything. ’
‘ I don’t mind what things cost, ’ the Boy said, rattling
his pockets, showing how much cash he had.
‘We might ’ave been stuck up there,’ Rose said,
halting at the photographer’s kiosk, at the pictures of the
bathing belles and the famous comedians and the
anonymous couples, ‘next ’ and exclaimed with
surprise, ‘why - there he is.’
The Boy was staring over the side where the green tide
sucked and slid like a wet mouth round the piles. He
turned unwillingly to look and there was Spicer fixed in
the photographer’s window for the world to gaze at,
striding out of the sunlight into the shadow under the
pier, worried and hunted and in haste, a comic figure at
which strangers could laugh and say, ‘He’s worried right
enough. They caught him unawares. ’
‘The one who left the card,’ Rose said. ‘The one
you said was dead. He^s not dead. Though it almost
looks ’ she laughed with amusement at the blurred
black-and-white haste - ‘that he’s afraid he will be if he
doesn’t hurry. ’
‘An old picture,’ the Boy said.
‘Oh no, it’s not. This is where to-day’s pictures go.
For you to buy. ’
‘You know a lot.’
‘You can’t miss it, can you?’ Rose said. ‘It’s comic.
Striding along. All fussed up. Not even seeing the
camera. ’
‘Stay here,’ the Boy said. Inside the kiosk it was dark
after the sun. A man with a thin moustache and steel-
rimmed spectacles sorted piles of prints.
‘I want a picture that’s up outside,’ the Boy said.
‘Slip, please,’ the man said, and put out yellow fingers
which smelt faintly of hypo.
‘I haven’t got a slip.’
‘You can’t have the picture without the slip,’ the man
said and held a negative up to the elearic globe.
‘What right have you,’ the Boy said, ‘to stick up
pictures without a by-your-leave? You let me have that
piaure, ’ but the steel rims glittered back at him, without
interest - a fraaious boy. ‘You bring that slip,’ the man
said, ‘and you can have the picture. Now run along. I’m
busy. ’ Behind his head were framed snapshots of King
Edward VIII (Prince of Wales) in a yachting cap and a
background of peep machines, going yellow from inferior
chemicals and age; Vesta Tilley signing autographs;
Henry Irving muffled against the Channel winds; a
nation’s history. Lily Langtry wore ostrich feathers,
Mrs Pankhurst hobble skirts, the English Beauty Queen
of 1923 a bathing dress. It was little comfort to know that
Spicer was among the immortals.
114 :
‘Spicer/ the Boy called, ‘Spicer.’ He climbed up from
Frank’s small dark hall towards the landing, leaving a
smear of country, of the downs, white on the linoleum.
‘ Spicer. ’ He felt the broken banister tremble under his
hand. He opened the door of Spicer’s room and there he
was upon the bed, asleep face down. The window was
closed, an insect buzzed through the stale air, and there
was a smell of whisky from the bed. Pinkie stood looking
down on the greying hair. He felt no pity at all ; he wasn’t
old enough for pity. He pulled Spicer round; the skin
round his mouth was in eruption. ‘ Spicer. ’
Spicer opened his eyes. He saw nothing for a while in
the dim room.
‘ I want a word with you, Spicer. ’
Spicer sat up. ‘My God, Pinkie, I’m glad to see you.’
‘Always glad to see a pal, eh, Spicer?’
‘ I saw Crab. He said you were at the police-station. ’
‘Crab?’
‘You weren’t at the station, then?’
‘ I was having a friendly talk - about Brewer. ’
‘Not about ?’
‘About Brewer.’ The Boy suddenly put his hand on
Spicer’s wrist. ‘Your nerves are all wrong, Spicer. You
want a holiday.’ He sniffed with contempt the tainted
air. ‘You drink too much.’ He went to the window and
115
5 — ^B.R.
threw it open on the vista of grey wall. A leather-jacket
buzzed up the pane and the Boy caught it in his hand. It
vibrated like a tiny watchspring in his palm. He began to
pull off the legs and wings one by one. ‘ She loves me, ’ he
said, ‘ she loves me not. I’ve been out with my girl, Spicer. ’
‘The one from Snow’s?’
The Boy turned the denuded body over on his palm
and puffed it away over Spicer’s bed. ‘You know who I
mean,’ he said. ‘You had a message for me, Spicer. Why
didn’t you bring it?’
‘I couldn’t find you. Pinkie. Honest I couldn’t. And
anyway it wasn’t that important. Some old busybody
asking questions. ’
‘It scared you all the same,’ the Boy said. He sat
down on the hard deal chair before the mirror, his hands
on his knees, watching Spicer. The pulse beat in his cheek.
‘Oh, it didn’t scare me,’ Spicer said.
‘You went walking blind straight to There.’
‘What do you mean - There?’
‘There’s only one There to you, Spicer. You think
about it and you dream about it. You’re too old for this
life.’
‘This life?’ Spicer said, glaring back at him from the
bed.
‘This racket, of course I mean. You get nervous and
then you get rash. First there was that card in Snow’s
and now you let your picture be stuck up on the pier for
anyone to see. For Rose to see. ’
‘Honest to God, Pinkie, I never knew that.’
‘You forget to walk on your toes.’
‘She’s safe. She’s stuck on you. Pinkie.’
‘ I don’t know an5^hing about women. I leave that to
you and Cubitt and the rest. I only know what you tell
ii6
me. You’ve told me time and again there never was a
safe polony yet. ’
‘ That’s just talk.’
‘You mean I’m a kid and you tell me good-night
stories. But I’ve got so I believe them, Spicer. It don’t
seem safe to me that you and Rose are in the same town.
Apart from this other buer asking questions. You’ll have
to disappear, Spicer. ’
‘What do you mean?’ Spicer said. ‘Disappear?’ He
fumbled inside his jacket and the Boy watched him, his
hands flat on his knees. ‘You wouldn’t do anything,’ he
said, fumbling in his pocket.
‘Why,’ the Boy said, ‘what do you think I mean? I
mean take a holiday, go away somewhere for a while. ’
Spicer’s hand came out of his pocket. He held out a
silver watch towards the Boy. ‘You can trust me. Pinkie.
Look there, what the boys gave me. Read the inscription.
“Ten Years a Pal. From the boys at the Stadium.” I
don’t let people down. That was fifteen years ago.
Pinkie. Twenty-five years on the tracks. You weren’t
born when I started. ’
‘You need a holiday,’ the Boy said. ‘That’s all I said.’
‘I’d be glad to take a holiday,’ Spicer said, ‘but I
wouldn’t want you to think I’m milky. I’ll go at once.
I’ll pack a bag and clear out to-night. Why, I’d be glad
to be gone. ’
‘ No, ’ the Boy said, staring down at his shoes. ‘ There’s
not all that hurry. ’ He lifted a foot. The sole was worn
through in a piece the size of a shilling. He thought
again of the crowns on Colleoni’s chairs at the Cosmo-
politan. ‘ I’ll need you at the races. ’ He smiled across
the room at Spicer. ‘A pal I can trust.’
‘You can trust me. Pinkie.’ Spicer’s fingers smoothed
the silver watch. ‘What are you smiling at? Have I got
a smut or something?’
‘I was just thinking of the races,’ the Boy said. ‘They
mean a lot to me. ’ He got up and stood with his back to
the greying light, the tenement wall, the smut-smeared
pane, looking down at Spicer with a kind of curiosity.
‘And where will you go, Spicer?’ he said. His mind was
quite made up, and for the second time in a few weeks
he looked at a dying man. He couldn’t help feeling
inquisitive. Why, it was even possible that old Spicer
was not set for the flames, he’d been a loyal old geezer,
he hadn’t done as much harm as the next man, he might
slip through the gates into - but the Boy couldn’t picture
any eternity except in terms of pain. He frowned a little
in the effort: a glassy sea, a golden crown, old Spicer.
‘Nottingham,’ Spicer said. ‘A pal of mine keeps the
“Blue Anchor” in Union Street. A free house. High class.
Lunches served. He’s often said to me, “Spicer, why
don’t you come into partnership? We’d make the old
place into a hotel with a few more nickers in the till. ” If it
wasn’t for you and the boys,’ Spicer said, ‘ I wouldn’t want
to come back. I wouldn’t mind staying away for keeps. ’
‘Well,’ the Boy said, ‘I’ll be off. We know where we
are now, anyway. ’ Spicer lay back on the pillow and put
up the foot with the shooting corn. There was a hole in
his woollen stocking, and a big toe showed through, hard
skin calcined with middle age. ‘Sleep well,’ the Boy said.
He went downstairs, the front door faced east, and the
hall was dark. He switched on a light by the telephone
and then switched it out again: he didn’t know why.
Then he rang up the Cosmopolitan. When the hotel
exchange answered he could hear the dance music in the
distance, all the way from the Palm House [this dansants
iiS
three shillings), behind the Louis Seize lounge. " I want
Mr Colleoni." ‘The nightingale singing, the postmen
ringing’ - the tune was abruptly cut off, and a low
voice purred up the line.
‘That Mr Colleoni?’
He could hear a glass chink and ice move in a shaker.
He said, ‘This is Mr P. Brown. I’ve been thinking
things over, Mr Colleoni.’ Outside the little dark
linoleumed hall a bus slid by, the lights faint in the grey
end of the day. The Boy put his mouth close to the
mouth of the telephone and said: ‘He won’t listen to
reason, Mr Colleoni.’ The voice purred happily back
at him. The Boy explained slowly and carefully, ‘I’ll
wish him good luck and pat him on the back. ’ He stopped
and asked sharply, ‘What’s that you say, Mr Colleoni?
No. I just thought you laughed. Hullo. Hullo.’ He
banged the receiver down and turned with a sense of
uneasiness towards the stairs. The gold cigar-lighter,
the grey double-breasted waistcoat, the feeling of a
racket luxuriously successful for a moment dominated
him; the brass bedstead upstairs, the little pot of violet
ink on the washstand, the flakes of sausage-roll. His
board school cunning wilted for awhile; then he turned
on the light, he was at home. He climbed the stairs,
humming softly: ‘the nightingale singing, the postman
ringing,’ but as his thoughts circled closer to the dark,
dangerous and deathly centre the tune changed: ‘Agnus
dei qui tollis peccata mundi . . .’ He walked stiffly, the
jacket sagging across his immature shoulders, but when
he opened the door of his room - ‘ dona novis pacem’ -
his pallid face peered dimly back at him full of pride
from the mirror over the ewer, the soap-dish, the basin
of stale water.
PART FOUR
CO
It was a line day for the races. People poured into
Brighton by the first train. It was like Bank Holiday all
over again, except that these people didn’t spend their
money; they harboured it. They stood packed deep on
the tops of the trams rocking down to the Aquarium,
they surged like some natural and irrational migration of
insects up and down the front. By eleven o’clock it was
impossible to get a seat on the buses going out to the
course. A negro wearing a bright striped tie sat on a
bench in the Pavilion garden and smoked a cigar. Some
children played touch wood from seat to seat, and he
called out to them hilariously, holding his cigar at arm’s
length with an air of pride and caution, his great teeth
gleaming like an advertisement. They stopped playing
and stared at him, backing slowly. He called out to them
again in their own tongue, the words hollow and un-
formed and childish like theirs, and they eyed him
uneasily and backed farther away. He put his cigar
patiently back between the cushiony lips and went on
smoking. A band came up the pavement through Old
Steyne, a blind band playing drums and trumpets,
walking in the gutter, feeling the kerb with the edge of
their shoes, in Indian file. You heard the music a long
way off, persisting through the rumble of the crowd, the
shots of exhaust pipes, and the grinding of the buses
starting uphill for the racecourse. It rang out with spirit,
marched like a regiment, and you raised your eyes in
expectation of the tiger skin and the twirling drumsticks
120
and saw the pale blind eyes, like those of pit ponies,
going by along the gutter.
In the public school grounds above the sea the girls
trooped solemnly out to hockey: stout goal-keepers
padded like armadillos; captains discussing tactics with
their lieutenants; junior girls running amok in the
bright day. Beyond the aristocratic turf, through the
wrought-iron main gates they could see the plebeian
procession, those whom the buses wouldn’t hold,
plodding up the Down, kicking up the dust, eating buns
out of paper bags. The buses took the long way round
through Kemp Town, but up the steep hill came the
crammed taxicabs - a seat for anyone at ninepence a
time - a Packard for the members’ enclosure, old
Morrises, strange high cars with family parties, keeping
the road after twenty years. It was as if the whole road
moved upwards like an Underground staircase in the
dusty sunlight, a creaking, shouting, jostling crowd of
cars moving with it. The junior girls took to their heels
like ponies racing on the turf, feeling the excitement
going on outside, as if this were a day on which life for
many people reached a kind of climax. The odds on
Black Boy had shortened, nothing could ever make life
quite the same after that rash bet of a fiver on Merry
Monarch. A scarlet racing model, a tiny rakish car which
carried about it the atmosphere of innumerable road-
houses, of totsies gathered round swimming pools, of
furtive encounters in by-lanes off the Great North Road,
wormed through the traffic with incredible dexterity.
The sun caught it: it winked as far as the dining-hall
windows of the girls’ school. It was crammed tight: a
woman sat on a man’s knee, and another man clung on
the running board as it swayed and hooted and cut in
I2I
and out uphill towards the Downs. The woman was
singing, her voice faint and disjointed through the horns,
something traditional about brides and bouquets, some-
thing which went with Guinness and oysters and the
old Leicester Lounge, something out of place in the
little bright racing car. Upon the top of the down the
words blew back along the dusty road to meet an ancient
Morris rocking and receding in their wake at forty miles
an hour, with flapping hood, bent fender and dis-
coloured windscreen.
The words came through the flap, flap, flap of the old
hood to the Boy’s ears. He sat beside Spicer who drove
the car. Brides and bouquets : and he thought of Rose
with sullen disgust. He couldn’t get the suggestion of
Spicer out of his mind ; it was like an invisible power
working against him : Spicer’s stupidity, the photograph
on the pier, that woman - who the hell was she? - asking
questions If he married her, of course, it wouldn’t be
for long: only as a last resort to close her mouth and give
him time. He didn’t want that relationship with anyone:
the double bed, the intimacy, it sickened him like the idea
of age. He crouched in the corner away from where the
ticking pierced the seat, vibrating up and down in bitter
virginity. To marry - it was like ordure on the hands.
‘Where’s Dallow and Cubitt?’ Spicer asked.
‘I didn’t want them here to-day,’ the Boy said. ‘We’ve
got something to do to-day the mob are better out of. ’
Like a cruel child who hides the dividers behind him,
he put his hand with spurious affection on Spicer’s arm.
‘ I don’t mind telling you. I’m going to make it up with
Colleoni. I wouldn’t trust them. They are violent. You
and I, we’ll handle it properly between us.’
122
‘ I’m all for peace, ’ Spicer said. ‘ I always have been. ’
The Boy grinned through the broken windscreen at
the long disorder of cars. ‘That’s what I’m going to
arrange,’ he said.
‘A peace that lasts,’ Spicer said.
‘No one’s going to break this peace, ’ the Boy said. The
faint singing died in the dust and the bright sun: a final
bride, a final bouquet, a word which sounded like
‘wreath’. ‘How do you set about getting married?’ the
Boy unwillingly asked. ‘If you’ve got to in a hurry?’
‘Not so easy for you,’ Spicer said. ‘There’s your age.’
He ground the old gears as they climbed a final spur
towards the white enclosure on the chalky soil, the
gipsy vans. ‘ I’d have to think about it. ’
‘Think quick,’ the Boy said. ‘You don’t forget you’re
clearing out to-night. ’
‘That’s right,’ Spicer said. Departure made him a
little sentimental. ‘The eight-ten. You ought to see that
pub. You’d be welcome. Nottingham’s a fine town. It’ll
be good to rest up there a while. The air’s fine, and you
couldn’t ask for a better bitter than you get at the “Blue
Anchor”.’ He grinned. ‘I forgot you didn’t drink.’
‘Have a good time,’ the Boy said.
‘You’ll be always welcome. Pinkie.’
They rolled the old car up into the park and got out.
The Boy passed his arm through Spicer’s. Life was good
walking outside the white sun-drenched wall, past the
loud-speaker vans, the man who believed in a second
coming, towards the finest of all sensations, the infliction
of pain. ‘You’re a fine fellow, Spicer,’ the Boy said,
squeezing his arm, and Spicer began to tell him in a low
friendly confiding way all about the ‘Blue Anchor’. ‘It’s
not a tied house,’ he said, ‘they’ve a reputation. I’ve
123
always thought when I’d made enough money I’d go in
with my friend. He still wants me to. I nearly went when
they killed Kite. ’
‘You get scared easy, don’t you?’ the Boy said. The
loud-speakers on the vans advised them whom to put
their money with, and gipsy children chased a rabbit
with cries across the trampled chalk. They went down
into the tunnel under the course and came up into the
light and the short grey grass sloping down by the
bungalow houses to the sea. Old bookies’ tickets rotted
into the chalk: ‘Barker for the Odds’, a smug smiling
nonconformist face printed in yellow: ‘Don’t Worry I
Pay’, and old tote tickets among the stunted plantains.
They went through the wire fence into the half-crown
enclosure. ‘Have a glass of beer, Spicer,’ the Boy said,
pressing him on.
‘Why, that’s good of you. Pinkie. I wouldn’t mind a
glass,’ and while Spicer drank it by the wooden trestles,
the Boy looked down the line of bookies. There was Barker
and Macpherson and George Beale (‘The Old Firm’)
and Bob Tavell of Clapton, all the familiar faces, full of
blarney and fake good humour. The first two races had
been run: there were long queues at the tote windows.
The sun lit the white Tattersall stand across the course,
and a few horses cantered by to the start. ‘There goes
General Burgoyne,’ a man said, ‘he’s restless,’ starting
off to Bob Tavell’s stand to cover his bet. The bookies
rubbed out and altered the odds as the horses went by,
their hoofs padding like boxing gloves on the turf.
‘You going to take a plunge?’ Spicer asked, finishing
his Bass, blowing a little gaseous malted breath towards
the bookies.
‘I don’t bet,’ the Boy said.
124
‘It's the last chance for me/ Spicer said, ‘in good old
Brighton. I wouldn't mind risking a couple of nicker.
Not more. I'm saving my cash for Nottingham.'
‘Go on,' the Boy said, ‘have a good time while you
can.'
They walked down the row of bookies towards
Brewer's stand: there were a lot of men about. ‘He's
doing good business,' Spicer said. ‘Did you see the
Merry Monarch? He's going up,' and while he spoke, all
down the line the bookies rubbed out the old sixteen to
one odds. ‘Ten’s,' Spicer said.
‘Have a good time while you’re here,' the Boy said.
‘Might as well patronise the old firm,’ Spicer said,
detaching his arm and walking across to Tate’s stand.
The Boy smiled. It was as easy as shelling peas.
‘Memento Mori,’ Spicer said, coming away card in
hand. ‘That’s a funny name to give a horse. Five to one,
a place. What does Memento Mori mean?'
‘It’s foreign,’ the Boy said. ‘Black Boy’s shortening.'
‘I wish I’d covered myself on Black Boy,' Spicer said.
‘There was a woman down there says she’s backed Black
Boy for a pony. It sounds crazy to me. But think if he
wins,’ Spicer said. ‘My God, what wouldn’t I do with
two hundred and fifty pounds? I’d take a share in the
“ Blue Anchor ” straight away. You wouldn’t see me back
here, ’ he added, staring round at the brilliant sky, the dust
over the course, the torn betting cards and the short grass
towards the dark sea beneath the down.
‘Black Boy won’t win,' the Boy said. ‘Who was it put
the pony on?'
‘ Some polony or other. She was over there at the bar.
Why don’t you have a fiver on Black Boy? Have a bet for
once to celebrate?’
125
‘Celebrate what?’ the Boy asked quickly.
‘I forgot,’ Spicer said. ‘This holiday’s perked me up,
so’s I think everyone’s got something to celebrate. ’
‘If I did want to celebrate,’ the Boy said, ‘it wouldn’t
be with Black Boy. Why, that used to be Fred’s favourite.
Said he’d be a Derby winner yet. I wouldn’t call that a
lucky horse, ’ but he couldn’t help watching him canter
up by the rails: a little too fresh, a little too restless. A
man on top of the half-crown stand tic-tacked to Bob
Tavell of Clapton and a tiny Jew, who was studying the
ten shilling enclosure through binoculars, suddenly
began to saw the air, to attract the attention of the Old
Firm. ‘There,’ the Boy said, ‘what did I tell you? Black
Boy’s going out again. ’
‘Hundred to eight, Black Boy, hundred to eight,’
George Beale’s representative called, and ‘They’re off,’
somebody said. People pressed out from the refreshment
booth towards the rails carrying glasses of Bass and
currant buns. Barker, Macpherson, Bob Tavell, all
wiped the odds from their boards, but the Old Firm
remained game to the last; ‘Hundred to six Black Boy’:
while the little Jew made masonic passes from the top of
the stand. The horses came by in a bunch, with a sharp
sound like splintering wood, and were gone. ‘General
Burgoyne,’ somebody said, and somebody said: ‘Merry
Monarch.’ The beer drinkers went back to the trestle
boards and had another glass, and the bookies put up the
runners in the four o’clock and began to chalk a few odds.
‘There,’ the Boy said, ‘what did I tell you? Fred never
knew a good horse from a bad one. That crazy polony’s
dropped a pony. It’s not her lucky day. Why’ - but the
silence, the inaction after a race is run and before the
results go up, had a daunting quality. The queues waited
126
outside the totes. Everything on the course was suddenly
still, waiting for a signal to begin again; in the silence
you could hear a horse whinny all the way across from
the weighing-in. A sense of uneasiness gripped the Boy
in the quiet and the brightness. The soured false age, the
concentrated and limited experience of the Brighton
slum drained out of him. He wished he had Cubitt there
and Dallow. There was too much to tackle by himself at
seventeen. It wasn’t only Spicer. He had started some-
thing on Whit Monday which had no end. Death wasn’t
an end ; the censer swung and the priest raised the Host,
and the loud-speaker intoned the winners: ‘Black Boy.
Memento Mori. General Burgoyne. ’
‘By God,’ Spicer said, ‘I’ve won. Memento Mori for
a place,’ and remembering what the Boy had said, ‘And
she’s won too. A pony. What a break. Now what about
Black Boy?’ Pinkie was silent. He told himself: Fred’s
horse. If I was one of those crazy geezers who touch
wood, throw salt, won’t go under ladders, I might be
scared to
Spicer plucked at him. ‘I’ve won, Pinkie. A tenner.
What do you know about that?’
- to go on with what he’d planned with care. Some-
where from farther down the enclosure he heard a laugh,
a female laugh, mellow and confident, perhaps the
polony who’d put a pony on Fred’s horse. He turned on
Spicer with secret venom, cruelty straightening his body
like lust.
‘Yes,’ he said, putting his arm round Spicer’s
shoulder, ‘you’d better collect now.’
They moved together towards Tate’s stand. A young
man with oiled hair stood on a wooden step paying out
money. Tate himself was away in the ten shilling
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endosiire, but they both knew Samuel, Spicer called out
to him quite jovially as he advanced, ‘Well, Sammy, now
the pay-ofF. ’
Samuel watched them, Spicer and the Boy, come
across the shallow threadbare turf, arm-in-arm like very
old friends. Half a dozen men collected and stood round,
waiting, the last creditor slipped away, they waited in
silence, a little man holding an account book put out a tip
of tongue and licked a sore lip.
‘You’re in luck, Spicer,’ the Boy said, squeezing his
arm. ‘Have a good time with your tenner.’
‘ You aren’t saying good-bye yet, are you ? ’ Spicer asked.
‘ I’m not waiting for the four-thirty. I won’t be seeing
you again. ’
‘What about Colleoni?’ Spicer said. ‘Aren’t you and
I . . . ?’ The horses cantered by for another start; the
odds were going up; the crowd moved in towards the
tote and left them a clear lane. At the end of the lane the
little group waited.
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ the Boy said. ‘I’ll see
Colleoni at his hotel. You get your money.’ A hatless
tout delayed them: ‘A tip for the next race. Only a
shilling. I’ve tipped two winners to-day.’ His toes
showed through his shoes. ‘Tip yourself off,’ the Boy
said. Spicer didn’t like good-byes : he was a sentimental
soul: he shifted on his corn-sore foot. ‘Why,’ he said,
looking down the lane to the fence, ‘Tate’s lot haven’t
written up the odds yet. ’
‘Tate always was slow. Slow in paying out, too. Better
get your money.’ He urged him nearer, his hand on
Spicer’s elbow.
‘There’s not anything wrong, is there?’ Spicer asked.
He looked at the waiting men: they stared through him.
128
‘Well, this is good-bye,’ the Boy said.
‘You remember the address,’ Spicer said. ‘The “Blue
Anchor”, you remember. Union Street. Send me any
news. I don’t suppose there’ll be any for me to send. ’
The Boy put his hand up as if to pat Spicer on the
back and let it fall again: the group of men stood in a
bunch waiting. ‘ Maybe the Boy said : he looked round :
there wasn’t any end to what he had begun. A passion of
cruelty stirred in his belly. He put up his hand again and
patted Spicer on the back. ‘ Good luck to you, ’ he said in
a high broken adolescent voice and patted him again.
The men with one accord came round them. He
heard Spicer scream, ‘Pinkie,’ and saw him fall; a boot
with heavy nails was lifted, and then he felt pain run like
blood down his own neck.
The surprise at first was far worse than the pain (a
nettle could sting as badly). ‘You fools,’ he said, ‘it’s
not me, it’s him you want,’ and turned and saw the
faces ringing him all round. They grinned back at him;
every man had his razor out; and he remembered for the
first time Colleoni laughing up the telephone wire. The
crowd had scattered at the first sign of trouble; he heard
Spicer call out, ‘Pinkie. For Christ’s sake’; an obscure
struggle reached its climax out of his sight. He had other
things to watch; the long cut-throat razors which the
sun caught slanting low down over the downs from
Shoreham. He put his hand to his pocket to get his blade,
and the man immediately facing him leant across and
slashed his knuckles. Pain happened to him, and he was
filled with horror and astonishment as if one of the
bullied brats at school had stabbed first with the dividers.
They made no attempt to come in and finish him. He
sobbed at them, ‘I’ll get Colleoni for this.’ He shouted
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‘Spicer* twice before he remembered that Spicer
couldn’t answer. The mob were enjoying themselves,
just as he had always enjoyed himself. One of them leant
forward to cut his cheek, and when he put up his hand to
shield himself they slashed his knuckles again. He began
to weep, as the four-thirty went by in a drumbeat of
hooves beyond the rail.
Then somebody from the stand shouted ‘Bogies’ and
they all moved together, coming quickly at him in a
bunch. Somebody kicked him on the thigh, he clutched
a razor in his hand and was cut to the bone. Then they
scattered as the police ran up the edge of the course,
slow in their heavy boots, and he broke through them.
A few followed him, out of the wire gate and straight
down the side of the Down towards the houses and the
sea. He wept as he ran, lame in one leg from the kick, he
even tried to pray. You could be saved between the stirrup
and the ground, but you couldn’t be saved if you didn’t
repent and he hadn’t time, scrambling down the chalk
down, to feel the least remorse. He ran awkwardly,
tripping, bleeding down his face and from both hands.
Only two men followed him now, and they followed
him for the fun of it, shooing him as they might shoo a
cat. He reached the first houses in the bottom, but there
was no one about. The races had emptied every house :
nothing but crazy paving and little lawns, stained-glass
doors and a lawn mower abandoned on a gravel path. He
didn’t dare to take refuge in a house; while he rang and
waited they would reach him. He had his razor blade out
now, but he had never yet used it on an armed enemy. He
had to hide, but he left a track of blood along the road.
The two men were out of breath; they had wasted it
on laughter, and he had young lungs. He gained on
130
them; he wrapped his hand in a handkerchief and held
his head back so that the blood ran down his clothes. He
turned a corner and was into an empty garage before they
had reached it. There he stood in the dusky interior with
his razor out, trying to repent. He thought ‘Spicer’,
‘Fred’, but his thoughts would carry him no further
than the comer where his pursuers might reappear: he
discovered that he hadn’t the energy to repent.
And when a long while later the danger seemed to be
over, and there was a long dusk on his hands, it wasn’t
eternity he thought about but his own humiliation. He
had wept, begged, run: Dallow and Cubitt would hear
of it. What would happen to Kite’s mob now? He tried
to think of Spicer, but the world held him. He couldn’t
order his thoughts. He stood with weak knees against the
concrete wall with the blade advanced and watched the
corner. A few people passed, the faintest sound of music
bit, like an abscess, into his brain from the Palace Pier,
the lights came out in the neat barren bourgeois road.
The garage had never been used for a garage; it had
become a kind of potting shed. Little green shoots crept,
like caterpillars, out of shallow boxes of earth : a spade, a
rusty lawn mower, and all the junk the owner had no
room for in the tiny house : an old rocking horse, a pram
which had been converted into a wheelbarrow, a pile of
ancient records ~ ‘Alexander’s Rag Time Band’, ‘Pack
Up Your Troubles’, ‘If You Were the Only Girl’; they
lay with the trowels, what was left of the crazy paving, a
doll with one glass eye and a dress soiled with mould. He
took it all in with quick glances, his razor blade ready,
the blood clotting on his neck, dripping from his hand,
where the handkerchief had slipped. Whatever jackdaw
owned this house would have that much added to his
possessions - the little drying stain on the concrete floor.
Whoever the owner was, he had come a long way to
land up here. The pram-wheelbarrow was covered with
labels - the marks of innumerable train journeys -
Doncaster, Lichfield, Clacton (that must have been a
summer holiday), Ipswich, Northampton - roughly torn
off for the next journey they left, in the litter which
remained, an unmistakable trail. And this, the small villa
under the racecourse, was the best finish he could
manage. You couldn’t have any doubt that this was the
end, the mortgaged home in the bottom ; like the untidy
tidemark on a beach, the junk was piled up here and
would never go farther.
And the Boy hated him. He was nameless, faceless,
but the Boy hated him, the doll, the pram, the broken
rocking horse. The small pricked-out plants irritated
him like ignorance. He felt hungry and faint and shaken.
He had known pain and fear.
Now, of course, was the time, while darkness drained
into the bottom, for him to make his peace. Between the
stirrup and the ground there wasn’t time: you couldn’t
break in a moment the habit of thought : habit held you
closely while you died, and he remembered Kite, after
they’d got him at St Pancras, passing out in the waiting-
room, while a porter poured coal-dust on the dead grate,
talking all the time about someone’s tits.
But ‘Spicer’, the Boy’s thoughts came inevitably back
with a sense of relief, ‘they’ve got Spicer.’ It was
impossible to repent of something which made him safe.
The nosy woman hadn’t got a witness now, except for
Rose, and he could deal with Rose; and then, when he
was thoroughly secure, he could begin to think of
making peace, of going home, and his heart weakened
132
with a faint nostalgia for the tiny dark confessional box,
the priest’s voice, and the people waiting under the
statue, before the bright lights burning down in the pink
glasses, to be made safe from eternal pain. Eternal pain
had not meant much to him: now it meant the slash of
razor blades infinitely prolonged.
He sidled out of the garage. The new raw street cut in
the chalk was empty except for a couple pressed against
each other out of the lamplight by a wooden fence. The
sight pricked him with nausea and cruelty. He limped
by them, his cut hand closed on the razor, with his cruel
virginity which demanded some satisfaction different
from theirs, habitual, brutish and short.
He knew where he was going. He wasn’t going to
return to Frank’s like this with the cobwebs from the
garage on his clothes, defeat cut in his face and hand.
They were dancing in the open air on the white stone
deck above the Aquarium, and he got down on to the
beach where he was more alone, the dry seaweed left by
last winter’s gales cracking under his shoes. He could
hear the music - ‘The One I Love’. Wrap it up in
cellophane, he thought, put it in silver paper. A moth
wounded against one of the lamps crawled across a piece
of driftwood and he crushed it out of existence under his
chalky shoe. One day - one day - he limped along the
sand with his bleeding hand hidden, a young dictator.
He was head of Kite’s gang, this was a temporary defeat.
One confession, when he was safe, to wipe out everything.
The yellow moon slanted up over Hove, the exact
mathematical Regency Square, and he day-dreamed,
limping in the dry unwashed sand, by the closed
bathing-huts : I’ll give a statue.
He climbed up from the sand just past the Palace Pier
133
and made his painful way across the parade. Snow’s
Restaurant was all lit up. A radio was playing. He stood
on the pavement outside until he saw Rose serve a table
close to the window, then went and pressed his face to
it. She saw him at once; his attention rang in her brain
as quickly as if he had dialled her. He took his hand
from his pocket, but his wounded face was anxiety
enough for her. She tried to tell him something through
the glass: he couldn’t understand her; it was as if he
were listening to a foreign language. She had to repeat
it three times, ‘Go to the back,’ before he could read
her lips. The pain in his leg was worse; he trailed
round the building, and as he turned, a car went by,
a Lancia, a uniformed chauffeur, and Mr Colleoni -
Mr Colleoni in a dinner jacket with a white waistcoat,
who leant back and smiled and smiled in the face of an
old lady in purple silk. Or perhaps it was not Mr Colleoni
at all, they went so smoothly and swiftly past, but any
rich middle-aged tycoon returning to the Cosmopolitan
after a concert in the Pavilion.
He bent and looked through the letter-box of the back
door: Rose came down the passage towards him with
her hands clenched and a look of anger on her face. He
lost some of his confidence; she’s noticed, he thought,
how done in . . . he’d always known a girl looked at your
shoes and coat: if she sends me away, he thought. I’ll
crack this vitriol bottle . . . but when she opened the
door she was as dumb and devoted as ever she’d been.
‘Who’s done it?’ she whispered. ‘If I could get at
them.’
‘Never mind,’ the Boy said and boasted experimen-
tally, ‘you can leave them to me.’
‘Your dear face.’ He remembered with disgust that
134
they were always said to like a scar, that they took it as a
mark of manhood, of potency.
"Is there somewhere,’ he asked, "where I can wash?’
She whispered, ‘Come quietly. Through here’s the
cellar,’ and she led the way into a little closet, where
the hot pipes ran and a few bottles lay in a small
bin.
‘Won’t they be coming here?’ he asked.
‘No one here orders wine,’ she said. ‘We haven’t got
a licence. It’s what was left when we took over. The
manageress drinks it for her health. ’ Every time she men-
tioned Snow’s she said ‘we’ with faint self-conscious-
ness. ‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘I’ll fetch some water. I’ll
have to put the light out or someone might see. ’ But the
moon lit the room enough for him to look around; he
could even read the labels on the bottles : Empire wines,
Australian hocks and harvest Burgundies.
She was gone only a little while, but immediately she
returned she began humbly to apologise, ‘Someone
wanted a bill and cook was watching. ’ She had a white
pudding basin of hot water and three handkerchiefs.
‘They’re all I’ve got,’ she said, tearing them up, ‘the
laundry’s not back, ’ and added firmly, as she dabbed the
long shallow cut, like a line drawn with a pin down his
neck: ‘If I could get at them . . .’
‘Don’t talk so much,’ he said and held out his slashed
hand. The blood was beginning to clot: she tied it
unskilfully.
‘Has anyone been around again talking, asking
questions?’
‘ That man the woman was with. ’
‘A bogy?’
‘ I don’t think so. He said his name was Phil. ’
135
^You seem to have done the asking. ’
‘They all tell you things.’
‘I don’t understand it,’ the Boy said. ‘What do they
want if they aren’t bogies?’ He put out his unwounded
hand and pinched her arm. ‘You don’t tell them a
thing?’
‘Not a thing, ’ she said and watched him with devotion
through the dark. ‘Were you afraid?’
‘They can’t put anything on me.’
‘I mean,’ she said, ‘when they did this,’ touching his
hand.
‘Afraid,’ he lied, ‘of course I wasn’t afraid.’
‘Why did they do it?’
‘ I told you not to ask questions. ’ He got up, unsteady
on his bruised leg. ‘Brush my coat. I can’t go out like
this. I’ve got to be respectable.’ He leant against the
harvest Burgundy while she brushed him down with the
flat of her hand. The moonlight shadowed the room, the
small bin, the bottles, the narrow shoulders, the smooth
scared adolescent face.
He was aware of an unwillingness to go out again into
the street, back to Frank’s and the unending calculations
with Cubitt and Dallow of the next move. Life was a
series of complicated tactical exercises, as complicated
as the alignments at Waterloo, thought out on a brass
bedstead among the crumbs of sausage roll. Your clothes
continually needed ironing, Cubitt and Dallow quarrelled
or else Dallow went after Frank’s wife, the old box
telephone under the stairs rang and rang, and the extras
were always being brought in and thrown on the bed by
Judy who smoked too much and wanted a tip ~ a tip ~ a
tip. How could you think out a larger strategy under
those conditions? He had a sudden nostalgia for the
136
small dark cupboard room, the silence, the pale light on
the harvest Burgundy. To be alone a while . . .
But he wasn’t alone. Rose put her hand on his and
asked him with fear, ‘They aren’t waiting for you, are
they, out there?’
He shrank away and boasted. ‘They aren’t waiting
anywhere. They got more than they gave. They didn’t
reckon on me, only on poor Spicer. ’
‘Poor Spicer?’
‘Poor Spicer’s dead,’ and just as he spoke a loud
laugh came down the passage from the restaurant, a
woman’s laugh, full of beer and good fellowship and no
regrets. ^ She's back,’ the Boy said.
‘It’s her all right.’ One had heard that laugh in a
hundred places: dry-eyed, uncaring, looking on the
bright side, when boats drew out and other people wept:
saluting the bawdy joke in music halls: beside sick beds
and in crowded Southern Railway compartments: when
the wrong horse won, a good sportswoman’s laugh. ‘She
scares me,’ Rose whispered. ‘I don’t know what she
wants. ’
The Boy pulled her up to him. Taaics, tactics, there
was never any time for strategy, and in the grey night
light he could see her face lifted for a kiss. He hesitated,
with repulsion, but tactics. He wanted to strike her, to
make her scream, but he kissed her inexpertly, missing
her lips. He took his crinkling mouth away, and said,
‘ Listen. ’
She said, ‘You haven’t had many girls, have you?’
‘Of course I have,’ he said, ‘but listen . . .’
‘You’re my first,’ she said. ‘I’m glad.’ When she said
that, he began again to hate her. She wouldn’t even be
something to boast of : her first : he’d robbed nobody, he
137
had no rival, no one else would look at her, Cubitt and
Dallow wouldn’t give her a glance: her indeterminate
natural hair, her simpleness, the cheap clothes he could
feel under his hand. He hated her as he had hated Spicer
and it made him circumspect; he pressed her breasts
awkwardly under his palms, with a grim opportunist
pretence of another man’s passion, and thought: it
wouldn’t be so bad if she was more dolled up, a bit of
paint and henna, but this - the cheapest, youngest, least
experienced skirt in all Brighton - to have me in her
power.
‘O God,’ she said, ‘you’re sweet to me. Pinkie. I love
you.’
‘You wouldn’t give me away - to herV
Somebody in the passage shouted ‘Rose’; a door
slammed.
‘I’ll have to go,’ she said. ‘What do you mean - give
you away?’
‘What I said. Talk. Tell her who left that ticket. That
it wasn’t you know who. ’
‘I won’t tell her.’ A bus went by in West Street. The
lights came through a little barred window straight on to
her white determined face: she was like a child who
crosses her fingers and swears her private oath. She said
gently, ‘I don’t care what you’ve done’ as she might
have denied interest in a broken window-pane or a
smutty word chalked on someone else’s door. He was
speechless ; and some knowledge of the astuteness of her
simplicity, the long experience of her sixteen years, the
possible depths of her fidelity touched him like cheap
music, as the light shifted from cheek-bone to cheek-
bone and across the wall, as the gears ground outside.
He said, ‘What do you mean? I’ve done nothing.’
138
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t care.’
‘Rose,’ a voice cried, ‘Rose.’
‘It’s her,’ she said, ‘I’m sure it’s Her. Asking ques-
tions. Soft as butter. What does she know about usV
She came closer. She said, ‘I did something once too.
A mortal sin. When I was twelve. But she - she doesn’t
know what a mortal sin is.’
‘Rose. Where are you? Rose.’
The shadow of her sixteen-year-old face shifted in the
moonlight on the wall. ‘Right and wrong. That’s what
she talks about. I’ve heard her at the table. Right and
wrong. As if she knew. ’ She whispered with contempt,
‘Oh, she won’t burn. She couldn’t bum if she tried.’
She might have been discussing a damp Catherine wheel.
‘Molly Carthew burnt. She was lovely. She killed herself.
Despair. That’s mortal sin. It’s unforgivable. Unless -
what is it you said about the stirrup?’
He told her unwillingly. ‘The stirrup and the ground.
That doesn’t work. ’
‘What you did,’ she persisted, ‘did you confess it?’
He said evasively, a dark stubborn figure resting his
bandaged hand on the Australian hock, ‘ I haven’t been
to Mass for years.’
‘I don’t care,’ she repeated. ‘I’d rather burn with you
than be like Her. ’ Her immature voice stumbled on the
word, ‘ She’s ignorant. ’
‘Rose.’ The door opened on their hiding-place. A
manageress in a sage-green uniform, glasses hanging
from a button on her breast, brought in with her the
light, the voices, the radio, the laugh, dispelled the dark
theology between them. ‘Child,’ she said, ‘what are you
doing here? And who’s the other child?’ she added
peering at the thin figure in the shadows, but when he
139
moved into the light she correaed herself: ‘This boy.’
Her eye ran along the bottles counting them. ‘You can’t
have followers here. ’
‘I’m going,’ the Boy said.
The woman watched him with suspicion and distaste:
the cobwebs had not all gone. ‘ If you weren’t so yoimg, ’
she said, ‘I’d call the police.’
He said with the only flash of humour he ever showed,
‘ I’d have an alibi. ’
‘And as for you,’ the manageress turned on Rose,
‘we’ll talk about you later.’ She watched the Boy out of
the room and said with disgust, ‘You’re both too young
for this sort of thing. ’
Too young - that was the difficulty. Spicer hadn’t
solved that difficulty before he died. Too young to close
her mouth with marriage, too young to stop the police
putting her in the witness box, if it ever came to that.
To give evidence that - why, to say that Hale had never
left the card, that Spicer had left it, that he himself had
come and felt for it under the cloth. She remembered
even that detail. Spicer’s death would add suspicion. He’d
got to close her mouth one way or another: he had to
have peace.
He slowly climbed the stairs to the bed-sitting-room
at Frank’s. He had the sense that he was losing grip, the
telephone rang and rang, and as he lost grip he began to
realise all the things he hadn’t years enough to know.
Cubitt came out of a downstairs room, his cheek was
stuffed with apple, he had a broken penknife in his hand.
‘No,’ he said, ‘Spicer’s not here. He’s not back yet.’
The Boy called down from the first landing, ‘Who
wants Spicer?’
‘She’s rung oflf.’
140
‘Who was she?*
‘I don’t know. Some skirt of his. He’s soft on a girl
he sees at the Queen of Hearts. Where is Spicer, Pinkie?’
‘He’s dead. Colleoni’s men killed him.’
‘God,’ Cubitt said. He shut the knife and spat the
apple out. ‘ I said we ought to lay off Brewer. What are
we going to do?’
‘Come up here,’ the Boy said. ‘Where’s Dallow?’
‘He’s out.’
The Boy led the way into the bed-sitting-room and
turned on the single globe. He thought of Collconi’s
room in the Cosmopolitan. But you had to begin some-
where. He said, ‘You’ve been eating on my bed again.’
‘It wasn’t me. Pinkie. It was Dallow. Why, Pinkie,
they’ve cut you up. ’
Again the Boy lied. ‘ I gave them as good. ’ But lying
was a weakness. He wasn’t used to lying. He said, ‘We
needn’t get worked up about Spicer. He was milky. It’s
a good thing he’s dead. The girl at Snow’s saw him leave
the ticket. Well, when he’s buried, no one’s going to
identify him. We might even have him cremated.’
‘You don’t think the bogies ’
‘I’m not afraid of the bogies. It’s others who are
nosing round. ’
‘They can’t get over what the doaors said.’
‘You know we killed him and the doctors knew he
died natural. Work it out for yourself. I can’t.’ He sat
down on the bed and swept off Dallow’s crumbs. ‘We’re
safer without Spicer. ’
‘ Maybe you know best. Pinkie. But what made
Colleoni ’
‘He was scared, I suppose, that we’d let Tate have it
on the course. I want Mr Prewitt fetched. I want him to
fix me something. He’s the only lawyer we can trust
round here - if we can trust him. ’
‘What’s the trouble. Pinkie? Anything serious?’
The Boy leant his head back against the brass bedpost.
‘Maybe I’ll have to get married after all.’
Cubitt suddenly bellowed with laughter, his large
mouth wide, his teeth carious. Behind his head the blind
was half-drawn down, shutting out the night sky, leaving
the chimney-pots black and phallic, smoking palely up
into the moonlit air. The Boy was silent, watching Cubiu,
listening to his laughter as if it were the world’s contempt.
When Cubitt stopped he said, ‘Go on. Ring Mr
Prewitt up. He’s got to come round here,’ staring past
Cubitt at the acorn gently tapping on the pane at the end of
the blind cord, at the chimneys and the early summer night.
‘He won’t come here.’
‘He’s got to come. I can’t go out like this. ’ He touched
the marks on his neck where the razors had cut him. ‘ I’ve
got to get things fixed. ’
‘You dog, you,’ Cubitt said. ‘You’re a young one at
the game.’ The game: and the Boy’s mind turned with
curiosity and loathing to the small cheap ready-for-
anyone face, .he botdes catching the moonlight on the
bin, and the word ‘bum’, ‘burn’ repeated. What did
people mean by ‘the game’? He knew everything in
theory, nothing in practice; he was only old with the
knowledge of other people’s lusts, those of strangers
who wrote their desires on the walls in public lavatories.
He knew the moves, he’d never played the game.
‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘it won’t come to that. But fetch Mr
Prewitt. He knows.’
Mr Prewitt knew. You were certain of that at the first
142
sight of him. He was a stranger to no wangle, twist,
contradictory clause, ambiguous word. His yellow
shaven middle-aged face was deeply lined with legal
decisions. He carried a brown leather portfolio and wore
striped trousers which seemed a little too new for the
rest of him. He came into the room with hollow joviality,
a dockside manner: he had long pointed polished shoes
which caught the light. Everything about him, from his
breeziness to his morning coat, was brand new, except
himself and that had aged in many law courts, with
many victories more damaging than defeats. He had
acquired the habit of not listening: innumerable rebukes
from the bench had taught him that. He was deprecating,
discreet, sympathetic and as tough as leather.
The Boy nodded to him without getting up, sitting on
the bed. ‘Evening, Mr Prewitt,’ and Mr Prewitt smiled
sympathetically, put his portfolio on the floor, and sat
down on the hard chair by the dressing-table. ‘It’s a
lovely night,’ he said. ‘O dear, O dear, you’ve been in
the wars.’ The sympathy didn’t belong; it could be
peeled off his eyes like an auction ticket from an ancient
flint instrument.
‘It’s not that I want to see you about,’ the Boy said.
‘You needn’t be scared. I just want information.’
‘No trouble, I hope?’ Mr Prewitt asked.
‘ I want to avoid trouble. If I wanted to get married,
what’d I do?’
‘Wait a few years,’ Mr Prewitt said promptiy, as if
he were calling a hand in cards.
‘Next week,’ the Boy said.
‘The trouble is,’ Mr Prewitt thoughtfully remarked,
‘you’re under age.’
‘That’s why I’ve called yow in.’
143
‘There are cases/ Mr Prewitt said, ‘of people who
give their ages wrong. Pm not suggesting it, mind you.
What age is the girl?’
‘Sixteen.’
‘You’re sure of that? Because if she was under sixteen
you could be married in Canterbury Cathedral by the
Archbishop himself, and it wouldn’t be legal. ’
‘That’s all right,’ the Boy said. ‘But if we give our
ages wrong, are we married all right - legally?’
‘Hard and fast. ’
‘The police wouldn’t be able to call the girl ’
‘In evidence against you? Not without her consent.
Of course you’d have committed a misdemeanour. You
could be sent to prison. And then - there are other
difficulties.’ Mr Prewitt leant back against the wash-
stand, his grey neat legal hair brushing the ewer and
eyed the Boy.
‘You know I pay,’ the Boy said.
‘First,’ Mr Prewitt said, ‘you’ve got to remember it
takes time. ’
‘ It mustn’t take long. ’
‘Do you want to be married in a church?’
‘Of course I don’t,’ the Boy said. ‘This won’t be a
real marriage. ’
‘ Real enough. ’
‘Not real like when the priest says it.’
‘Your religious feelings do you credit,’ Mr Prewitt
said. ‘This I take it then will be a civil marriage. You
could get a licence - fifteen days’ residence - you qualify
for that - and one day’s notice. As far as that’s concerned
you could be married the day after to-morrow ~ in your
own district. Then comes the next difficulty. A marriage
of a minor’s not easy. ’
144
‘ Go on. I’ll pay. ’
‘It’s no good just saying you’re twenty-one. No one
would believe you. But if you said you were eighteen you
could be married provided you had your parents’ or
your guardian’s consent. Are your parents alive?’
‘No.’
‘Who’s your guardian?’
‘ I don’t know what you mean. ’
Mr Prewitt said thoughtfully, ‘We might arrange a
guardian. It’s risky though. It might be better if you’d
lost touch. He’d gone to South Africa and left you. We
might make quite a good thing out of that,’ Mr Prewitt
added softly. ‘ Flung on the world at an early age you’ve
bravely made your own way.’ His eyes shifted from
bedball to bedball. ‘We’d ask for the discretion of the
registrar. ’
‘I never knew it was all that difficult,’ the Boy said.
‘Maybe I can manage some other way.’
‘Given time,’ Mr Prewitt said, ‘anything can be
managed.’ He showed his tartar-coated teeth in a
fatherly smile. ‘ Give the word, my boy, and I’ll see you
married. Trust me.’ He stood up, his striped trousers
were like a wedding guest’s, hired for the day at Moss’s ;
when he crossed the room, yellowly smiling, he might
have been about to kiss the bride. ‘ If you’ll let me have a
guinea now for the consultation, there are one or two
little purchases - for the spouse . . . ’
‘Are you married?’ the Boy asked with sudden
eagerness. It had never occurred to him that Prewitt . . .
He gazed at the smile, the yellow teeth, the lined and
wasted and unreliable face as if there possibly he might
learn . . .
‘ It’s my silver wedding next year, ’ Mr Prewitt said.
145
Twenty-five years at the game. Cubitt put his head in at
the door and said, ‘Tm going out for a turn.’ He
grinned. ‘How’s the marriage?’
‘Progressing,’ Mr Prewitt said, ‘progressing,’ patting
the portfolio as if it had been the plump cheek of a
promising infant. ‘We shall see our young friend spliced
yet.’
Just till it all blows over, the Boy thought, leaning
back on the grey pillow, resting one shoe on the mauve
eiderdown: not a real marriage, just something to keep
her mouth shut for a time. ‘ So long, ’ Cubitt said, giggling
at the bed end. Rose, the small devoted cockney face,
the sweet taste of human skin, emotion in the dark room
by the bin of harvest Burgundy: lying on the bed he
wanted to protest ‘not yet’ and ‘not with her’. If it had
to come some time, if he had to follow everyone else
into the brutish game, let it be when he was old, with
nothing else to gain, and with someone other men could
envy him. Not someone immature, simple, as ignorant
as himself.
‘You’ve only to give the word,’ Mr Prewitt said.
‘We’ll fix it together.’ Cubitt had gone. The Boy said,
‘You’ll find a nicker on the washstand.’
‘I don’t see one,’ Mr Prewitt said anxiously, shifting
a tooth-brush.
‘ In the soap-dish - under the cover. ’
Dallow put his head into the room. ‘Evening,’ he
said to Mr Prewitt. He said to the Boy, ‘What’s up with
Spicer?’
‘It was Colleoni. They got him on the course,’ the
Boy said. ‘They nearly got me too,’ and he raised his
bandaged hand to his scarred neck.
‘But Spicer’s in his room now. I heard him.’
146
'’HeardV the Boy said. ‘You’re imagining things.’
He was afraid for the second time that day: a dim globe
lit the passage and the stairs: the walls were unevenly
splashed with walnut paint. He felt the skin of his face
contract as if something repulsive had touched him. He
wanted to ask whether you could do more than hear this
Spicer, if he was sensible to the sight and the touch. He
stood up: it had to be faced whatever it was: passed
Dallow without another word. The door of Spicer’s
room swung in a draught to and fro. He couldn’t see
inside. It was a tiny room; they had all had tiny rooms
but Kite, and he had inherited that. That was why his
room was the common room for them all. In Spicer’s
there would be space for no one but himself ~ and Spicer.
He could hear little creaking leathery movements as the
door swung. The words ‘Dona nobis pacem’ came again
to mind ; for the second time he felt a faint nostalgia, as
if for something he had lost or forgotten or rejeaed.
He walked down the passage and into Spicer’s room.
His first feeling when he saw Spicer bent and tightening
the straps of his suitcase was relief - that it was im-
doubtedly the living Spicer, whom you could touch and
scare and command. A long stripe of sticking-plaster
lined Spicer’s cheek. The Boy watched it from the
doorway with a rising cruelty: he wanted to tear it away
and see the skin break. Spicer looked up, put down the
suitcase, shifted uneasily towards the wall. He said, ‘I
thought ~ I was afraid - Colleoni had got you. ’ His fear
gave away his knowledge. The Boy said nothing,
watching him from the door. As if he were apologising
for being alive at all Spicer explained, ‘ I got away. . . . ’
His words wilted out like a line of seaweed, along the edge
of the Boy’s silence, indiflFerence and purpose.
6 — B.R.
147
Down the passage came the voice of Mr Prewitt, ‘In
the soap-dish. He said it was in the soap-dish’, and the
clatter of china noisily moved about.
C2]
‘I’m going to work on that kid every hour of the day
until I get something. ’ She rose formidably and moved
across the restaurant, like a warship going into action, a
warship on the right side in a war to end wars, the signal
flags proclaiming that every man would do his duty. Her
big breasts, which had never suckled a child of her own,
felt a merciless compassion. Rose fled at the sight of her,
but Ida moved relentlessly towards the service door.
Everything now was in train, she had begun to ask the
questions she had wanted to ask when she had read
about the inquest in Henekey’s, and she was getting the
answers. And Fred too had done his part, had tipped the
right horse, so that now she had funds as well as friends :
an infinite capacity for corruption: two hundred pounds.
‘Good evening. Rose,’ she said, standing in the
kitchen doorway, blocking it. Rose put down a tray and
turned with all the fear, obstinacy, incomprehension of
a wild animal who will not recognise kindness.
‘You again,’ she said. ‘I’m busy. I can’t talk to you. ’
‘But the manageress, dear, has given me leave.’
‘We can’t talk here.’
‘Where can we talk?’
‘In my room if you’ll let me out.’
Rose went ahead up the stairs behind the restaurant
to the little linoleumed landing. ‘They do you well here,
don’t they?’ Ida said. ‘I once lived in at a public, that
was before I met Tom - Tom’s my husband,’ she
148
patiently, sweetly, implacably explained to Rose’s back.
‘They didn’t do you so well there. Flowers on the land-
ing,’ she exclaimed with pleasure at the withered
bunch on a deal table, pulling at the petals, when a door
slammed. Rose had shut her out, and as she gently
knocked she heard an obstinate whisper, ‘Go away. I
don’t want to talk to you. ’
‘ It’s serious. Very serious. ’ The stout which Ida had
been drinking returned a little: she put her hand up to
her mouth and said mechanically, ‘Pardon,’ belching
towards the closed door.
‘I can’t help you. I don’t know anything.’
‘Let me in, dear, and I’ll explain. I can’t shout things
on the landing. ’
‘Why should you care about meV
‘ I don’t want the Innocent to suffer. ’
‘As if you knew,’ the soft voice accused her, ‘who
was innocent. ’
‘Open the door, dear. ’ She began, but only a little, to
lose her patience : her patience was almost as deep as her
good will. She felt the handle and pushed; she knew that
waitresses were not allowed keys, but a chair had been
wedged under the handle. She said with irritation, ‘You
won’t escape me this way. ’ She put her weight against
the door and the chair creaked and shifted, the door
opened a crack.
‘ I’m going to make you listen, ’ Ida said. When you
were life-saving you must never hesitate, so they taught
you, to stun the one you rescued. She put her hand in
and detached the chair, then went in through the open
door. Three iron bedsteads, a chest of drawers, two
chairs and a couple of cheap mirrors : she took it all in
and Rose against the wall as far as she could get, watching
149
the door with terror through her innocent and experi-
enced eyes, as if there was nothing which mightn’t come
through.
‘Don’t be silly now,’ Ida said. ‘I’m your friend. I
only want to save you from that boy. You’re crazy about
him, aren’t you? But don’t you understand - he’s
wicked. ’ She sat down on the bed and went gently and
mercilessly on.
Rose whispered, ‘You don’t know a thing.’
‘ I’ve got my evidence. ’
‘I don’t mean that^^ the child said.
‘He doesn’t care for you,’ Ida said. ‘Listen, I’m
human. You can take my word I’ve loved a boy or two
in my time. Why, it’s natural. It’s like breathing. Only
you don’t want to get all worked up about it. There’s
not one who’s worth it - leave alone him. He’s wicked.
I’m not a Puritan, mind. I’ve done a thing or two in my
time - that’s natural. Why,’ she said, extending towards
the child her plump and patronising paw, ‘it’s in my
hand : the girdle of Venus. But I’ve always been on the
side of Right. You’re young. You’ll have plenty of boys
before you’ve finished. You’ll have plenty of fun - if you
don’t let them get a grip on you. It’s natural. Like
breathing. Don’t take away the notion I’m against Love.
I should say not. Me. Ida Arnold. They’d laugh. ’ The
stout came back up her throat again and she put a hand
before her mouth. ‘Pardon, dear. You see we can get
along all right when we are together. I’ve never had a
child of my own and somehow I’ve taken to you. You’re
a sweet little thing. ’ She suddenly barked, ‘ Come away
from that wall and aa sensible. He doesn’t love you. ’
‘I don’t care,’ the childish voice stubbornly mur-
mured.
150
‘What do you mean, you don’t care.’
‘I love Azm.’
‘You’re acting morbid,’ Ida said. ‘If I was your
mother I’d give you a good hiding. What’d your father
and mother say if they knew?’
‘ They wouldn’t care. ’
‘And how do you think it will all end?’
‘ I don’t know. ’
‘You’re young. That’s what it is,’ Ida said, ‘romantic.
I was like you once. You’ll grow out of it. All you need
is a bit of experience.’ The Nelson Place eyes stared
back at her without understanding. Driven to her hole
the small animal peered out at the bright and breezy
world; in the hole were murder, copulation, extreme
poverty, fidelity and the love and fear of God, but the
small animal had not the knowledge to deny that only
in the glare and open world outside was something
which people called experience.
The Boy looked down at the body, spread-eagled like
Prometheus, at the bottom of Frank’s stairs. ‘Good
God,’ Mr Prewitt said, ‘how did it happen?’
The Boy said, ‘ These stairs have needed mending a
long while. I’ve told Frank about it, but you can’t make
the bastard spend money.’ He put his bound hand on
the rail and pushed until it gave. The rotten wood lay
across Spicer’s body, a walnut-stained eagle couched
over the kidneys.
‘But that happened after he fell,’ Mr Prewitt pro-
tested; his legal voice was tremulous.
‘You’ve got it wrong,’ the Boy said. ‘You were here
in the passage and you saw him lean his suitcase against
the rail. He shouldn’t have done that. The case was too
heavy.’
‘My God, you can’t mix me up in this,’ Mr Prewitt
said. T saw nothing. I was looking in the soap-dish, I
was with Dallow. ’
‘You both saw it,’ the Boy said. ‘That’s fine. It’s a
good thing we have a respectable lawyer like you on the
spot. Your word will do the trick. ’
‘ I’ll deny it, ’ Mr Prewitt said. ‘ I’m getting out of here.
I’ll swear I was never in the house. ’
‘Stay where you are,’ the Boy said. ‘We don’t want
another accident. Dallow, go and telephone for the
police - and a doctor, it looks well.’
‘You can keep me here,’ Mr Prewitt said, ‘but you
can’t make me say ’
‘I only want you to say what you want to say. But it
wouldn’t look good, would it, if I was taken up for
killing Spicer, and you were here - looking in the soap-
dish. It would be enough to ruin some lawyers. ’
Mr Prewitt stared over the broken gap at the turn of
the stairs where the body lay. He said slowly, ‘You’d
better lift that body and put the wood under it. The
police would have a lot to ask if they found it that way. ’
He went back into the bedroom and sat down on the bed
and put his head in his hands. ‘I’ve got a headache,’ he
said, ‘I ought to be at home.’ Nobody paid him any
attention. Spicer’s door rattled in the draught. ‘ I’ve got
a splitting headache,’ Mr Prewitt said.
Dallow came lugging the suitcase down the passage:
the cord of Spicer’s pyjamas squeezed out of it like
tooth-paste. ‘Where was he going?’ Dallow asked.
‘The “Blue Anchor”, Union Street, Nottingham,’ the
152
Boy said. ‘We’d better wire them. They might want to
send flowers.’
‘Be careful about finger-prints,’ Mr Prewitt implored
them from the washstand without raising his aching
head, but the Boy’s steps on the stairs made him look up.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked sharply. The Boy
stared up at him from the turn in the stairs. ‘Out,’ he
said.
‘You can’t go now,’ Mr Prewitt said.
‘I wasn’t here,’ the Boy said. ‘It was just you and
Dallow. You were waiting for me to come in.’
‘You’ll be seen.’
‘That’s your risk,’ the Boy said. ‘I’ve got things to
do.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ Mr Prewitt cried hastily and checked
himself. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he repeated in a low voice,
‘what things, . . .’
‘We’ll have to fix that marriage,’ the Boy said
sombrely. He gazed at Mr Prewitt for a moment - the
spouse, twenty-five years at the game - with the air of
someone who wanted to ask a question, almost as if he
were prepared to accept advice from a man so much
older, as if he expeaed a little human wisdom from the
old shady legal mind.
‘It had better be soon,’ the Boy went softly and sadly
on. He still watched Mr Prewitt’s face for some reflec-
tion of the wisdom the game must have given him in
twenty-five years, but saw only a frightened face,
boarded up like a store when a riot is on. He went on
down the stairs, dropping into the dark well where
Spicer’s body had fallen. He had made his decision; he
had only to move towards his aim ; he could feel his blood
pumped from the heart and moving indifferently back
153
along the arteries like trains on the inner circle. Every
station was one nearer safety, and then one farther away,
until the bend was turned and safety again approached,
like Netting Hill, and afterwards receded. The middle-
aged whore on Hove front never troubled to look round
as he came up behind her: like electric trains moving on
the same track there was no collision. They both had the
same end in view, if you could talk of an end in connection
with that circle. Outside the Norfolk bar two smart
scarlet racing models lay along the kerb like twin beds.
The Boy was not conscious of them, but their image
passed automatically into his brain, released his secretion
of envy.
Snow’s was nearly empty. He sat down at the table
where once Spicer had sat, but he was not served by Rose.
A strange girl came to take his order. He said awkwardly,
‘Isn’t Rose here?’
‘She’s busy.’
‘Could I see her?’
‘She’s talking to someone up in her room. You can’t
go there. You’ll have to wait.’
The Boy put half a crown on the table. ‘Where is it?’
The girl hesitated. ‘The manageress would bawl Hell. ’
‘Where’s the manageress?’
‘She’s out.’
The Boy put another half-crown on the table.
‘Through the service door,’ the girl said, ‘and straight
up the stairs. There’s a woman with her though *
He heard the woman’s voice before he reached the
top of the stairs. She was saying, ‘ I only want to speak
to you for your own good,’ but he had to strain to catch
Rose’s reply.
‘Let me be, why won’t you let me be?’
154
‘It’s the business of anyone who thinks right.’
The Boy could see into the room now from the head
of the stairs, though the broad back, the large loose
dress, the square hips of the woman nearly blocked his
view of Rose who stood back against the wall in an
attitude of sullen defiance. Small and bony in the black
cotton dress and the white apron, her eyes stained but
tearless, startled and determined, she carried her courage
with a kind of comic inadequacy, like the little man in
the bowler put up by the management to challenge the
strong man at a fair. She said, ‘You’d better let me be.’
It was Nelson Place and Manor Street which stood
there in the servant’s bedroom, and for a moment he felt
no antagonism but a faint nostalgia. He was aware that
she belonged to his life, like a room or a chair: she was
something which completed him. He thought: She’s got
more guts than Spicer. What was most evil in him
needed her: it couldn’t get along without goodness. He
said softly, ‘What are you worrying my girl about?’
and the claim he made was curiously sweet to his ears,
like a refinement of cruelty. After all, though he had
aimed higher than Rose, he had this comfort: she
couldn’t have gone lower than himself. He stood there,
with a smirk on his face, when the woman turned.
‘Between the stirrup and the ground’ - he had learnt the
fallacy of that comfort: if he had attached to himself
some bright brassy skirt, like the ones he’d seen at the
Cosmopolitan, his triumph after all wouldn’t have been
so great. He smirked at the pair of them, nostalgia driven
out by a surge of sad sensuality. She was good, he’d
discovered that, and he was damned: they were made
for each other.
‘You leave her alone,’ the woman said. ‘I know all
155
about you. ’ It was as if she were in a strange country :
the typical Englishwoman abroad. She hadn’t even got
a phrase book. She was as far from either of them as she
was from Hell ~ or Heaven. Good and evil lived in the
same country, spoke the same language, came together
like old friends, feeling the same completion, touching
hands beside the iron bedstead. ‘You want to do what’s
Right, Rose?’ she implored.
Rose whispered again, ‘You let us be.’
‘You’re a Good Girl, Rose. You don’t want anything
to do with him. ’
‘You don’t know a thing.’
There was nothing she could do at the moment but
threaten from the door. ‘I haven’t finished with you yet.
I’ve got friends. ’
The Boy watched her go with amazement. He said,
‘Who the hell is she?’
T don’t know,’ Rose said.
‘I never seen her before.’ A memory pricked him
and passed: it would return. ‘What did she want?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You’re a good girl. Rose,’ the Boy said, pressing his
fingers round the sharp wrist.
She shook her head. ‘I’m bad.’ She implored him,
‘I want to be bad if she’s good and you ’
‘You’ll never be anything but good,’ the Boy said.
‘ There’s some wouldn’t like you for that, but I don’t care. ’
‘I’ll do anything for you. Tell me what to do. I don’t
want to be like her. ’
‘It’s not what you do,’ the Boy said, ‘it’s what you
think. ’ He boasted. ‘It’s in the blood. Perhaps when they
christened me, the holy water didn’t take. I never howled
the devil out. ’
156
‘Iss/i^good?*
‘She?* The Boy laughed. ‘She’s just nothing.*
‘We can’t stay here,’ Rose said. T wish we could.’
She looked round her at a badly foxed steel engraving of
Van Tromp’s victory, the three black bedsteads, the two
mirrors, the single chest of drawers, the pale mauve knots
of flowers on the wallpaper, as if she were safer here than
she could ever be in the squally summer night outside.
‘ It’s a nice room. ’ She wanted to share it with him until
it became a home for both of them.
‘How’d you like to leave this place?’
‘ Snow’s. Oh no, it’s a good place. I wouldn’t want to
be anywhere else than Snow’s. ’
‘I mean marry me?’
‘We aren’t old enough.’
‘It could be managed. There are ways.’ He dropped
her wrist and put on a careless air. ‘If you wanted. I
don’t mind. ’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I want it. But they’ll never let us.’
He explained airily, ‘ It couldn’t be in church, not at
first. There’d be difficulties. Are you afraid?’
‘I’m not afraid,’ she said. ‘But will they let us?’
‘ My lawyer’ll manage somehow. ’
‘You got a lawyer?’
‘ Of course I have. ’
‘It sounds somehow - grand - and old.’
‘A man can’t get along without a lawyer.’
She said, ‘It’s not where I always thought it would
be.’
‘Where what would be?’
‘Someone asking me to marry him. I thought ~ in the
pictures or maybe at night on the front. But this is best,’
she said, looking from Van Tromp’s victory to the two
157
looking-glasses. She came away from the wall and lifted
her face to him. He knew what was expected of him; he
regarded her unmade-up mouth with faint nausea.
Saturday night, eleven o’clock, the primeval exercise.
He pressed his hard puritanical mouth on hers and
tasted again the sweetish smell of the human skin. He
would have preferred the taste of Coty powder or
Kissproof Lipstick or any chemical compound. He shut
his eyes and when he opened them again it was to see her
waiting like a blind girl, for further alms. It shocked
him that she had been unable to detect his repulsion. She
said, ‘You know what that means?’
‘What means?’
‘ It means I’ll never let you down, never, never, never. ’
She belonged to him like a room or a chair: the Boy
fetched up a smile for the blind lost face, uneasily, with
obscure shame.
158
PART FIVE
CO
Everything went well : the inquest never even got on to
the newspaper posters: no questions asked. The Boy
walked back with Dallow, he should have felt triumphant.
He said, ‘ I wouldn’t trust Cubitt if Cubitt knew. ’
‘ Cubitt won’t know. Prewitt is scared to say a thing -
and you know I don’t talk, Pinkie. ’
T’ve got a feeling we’re being followed, Dallow.’
Dallow looked behind. ‘No one. I know every bogy
in Brighton. ’
‘No woman?’
‘No. Who are you thinking of?’
‘ I don’t know. ’
The blind band came up the kerb, scraping the sides
of their shoes along the edge, feeling their way in the
brilliant light, sweating a little. The Boy walked up the
side of the road to meet them. The music they played was
plaintive, pitying, something out of a hymn book about
burdens : it was like a voice prophesying sorrow at the
moment of victory. The Boy met the leader and pushed
him out of the way, swearing at him softly, and the whole
band hearing their leader move shifted uneasily a foot
into the roadway and stood there stranded till the Boy
was safely by, like barques becalmed on a huge and
landless Atlantic. Then they edged back feeling for the
landfall of the pavement.
‘What’s up with you. Pinkie?’ Dallow said. ‘They’re
blind. ’
‘Why should I get out of my way for a beggar?’ but he
hadn’t realised they were blind, he was shocked by his
159
own action. It was as if he were being driven too far
down a road he only wanted to travel a certain distance.
He stood and leant on the rail of the front while the mid-
week crowd passed and the hard sun flattened.
‘What’s on your mind. Pinkie?’
‘To think of all this trouble over Hale. He deserved
what he got, but if I’d known how it would go maybe
I’d have let him live. Maybe he wasn’t worth killing. A
dirty little journalist who played in with Colleoni and
got Kite killed. Why should anyone bother about him?’
He looked suddenly over his shoulder. ‘Have I seen that
geezer before?’
‘He’s only a visitor.’
‘I thought I’d seen his tie.’
‘Hundreds in the shops. If you were a drinking man
I’d say what you needed was a pick-up. Why, Pinkie,
everything’s going fine. No questions asked. ’
‘There were only two people could hang us, Spicer
and the girl. I’ve killed Spicer and I’m marrying the girl.
Seems to me I’m doing everything. ’
‘Well, we’ll be safe now.’
‘Oh yes, you'll be safe. It’s me who runs all the risk.
You know I killed Spicer. Prewitt knows. It only wants
Cubitt and I’ll need a massacre to put me right this
time.’
‘You oughtn’t to talk that way to me, Pinkie. You’ve
been all bottled up since Kite died. What you want’s a
bit of fun. ’
‘I liked Kite,’ the Boy said. He stared straight out
towards France, an unknown land. At his back beyond
the Cosmopolitan, Old Steyne, the Lewes Road,
stood the downs, villages, cattle round the dewponds,
another unknown land. This was his territory, the
i6o
populous foreshore, a few thousand acres of houses, a
narrow peninsula of electrified track running to London,
two or three railway stations with their buffets and buns.
It had been Kite’s territory, it had been good enough for
Kite, and when Kite had died in the waiting-room at
St Pancras, it had been as if a father had died, leaving
him an inheritance it was his duty never to leave for
strange acres. He had inherited even the mannerisms,
the bitten thumb nail, the soft drinks. The sun slid off
the sea and like a cuttle fish shot into the sky the stain of
agonies and endurances.
* Break out. Pinkie. Relax. Give yourself a chance.
Come out with me and Cubitt to the Queen of Hearts
and celebrate. ’
*You know I never touch a drink.’
‘You’ll have to on your wedding day. Whoever heard
of a dry wedding?’
An old man went stooping down the shore, very
slowly, turning the stones, picking among the dry
seaweed for cigarette ends, scraps of food. The gulls
which had stood like candles down the beach rose and
cried under the promenade. The old man found a boot
and stowed it in his sack and a gull dropped from the
parade and swept through the iron nave of the Palace
Pier, white and purposeful in the obscurity: half-
vulture and half-dove. In the end one always had to learn.
‘All right. I’ll come,’ the Boy said.
‘It’s the best road-house this side of London,’
Dallow encouraged him.
They drove out in the old Morris into the country.
‘I like a blow in the country,’ Dallow said. It was
between lighting-up time and the real dark when the
lamps of cars burn in the grey visibility as faintly and
i6i
unnecessarily as the night lights in nurseries. The
advertisements trailed along the arterial road : bungalows
and a broken farm, short chalky grass where a hoarding
had been pulled down, a windmill olfering tea and
lemonade, the great ruined sails gaping.
‘Poor old Spicer would have liked this ride,’ Cubitt
said. The Boy sat beside Dallow who drove and Cubitt
sat in the dicky. The Boy could see him in the driving
mirror bouncing gently up and down on the defective
springs.
The Queen of Hearts was floodlit behind the petrol
pumps: a Tudor barn converted, a vestige of a farmyard
left in the arrangement of the restaurant and bars: a
swimming pool where the paddock had been. ‘We
ought to ’ave brought some girls with us, ’ Dallow said.
‘You can’t pick ’em up in this gaff. It’s real class.’
‘Come in the bar,’ Cubitt said and led the way. He
stopped on the threshold and nodded towards the girl
who sat and drank alone at the long steel bar under the
old rafters. ‘We better say something, Pinkie. You know
the kind of thing - he was a real good old pal, we
sympathise with what you feel.’
‘What are you clapping about?’
‘That’s Spicer’s girl,’ Cubitt said.
The Boy stood in the doorway and took her reluc-
tantly in: hair fair as silver, wide vacuous brow, trim
little buttocks shaped by the high seat, alone with her
glass and her grief.
‘How’s things, Sylvie?’ Cubitt said.
‘Awful. ’
‘Terrible, wasn’t it? He was a good pal. One of the
best. ’
‘You were there, weren’t you?’ she said to Dallow.
162
‘Frank ought to ’ave mended that stair/ Dallow said.
‘ Meet Pinkie, Sylvie, the best one in our mob. ’
‘Were you there, too?*
‘He wasn’t there,’ Dallow said.
‘Have another drink?’ the Boy said.
Sylvie drained her glass. ‘I don’t mind if I do. A
Sidecar. ’
‘Two Scotch, a Sidecar, a grape-fruit squash.’
‘Why,’ Sylvie said, ‘don’t you drink?’
‘No.’
‘ I bet you don’t go with girls either. ’
‘You got him, Sylvie,’ Cubitt said, ‘first shot.’
‘I admire a man like that,’ Sylvie said. ‘I think it’s
wonderful to be fit. Spicie always said you’d break out
one day - and then - oh gosh, how wonderful. ’ She put
down her glass, miscalculated, upset the cocktail. She
said, ‘I’m not drunk. I’m upset about poor Spicie.’
‘Go on, Pinkie,’ Dallow said, ‘have a drink. It’ll jerk
you up.’ He explained to Sylvie, ‘He’s upset too.’ In the
dance hall the band was playing, ‘Love me to-night.
And forget in daylight, All our delight. . . . ’
‘Have a drink,’ Sylvie said. ‘I’ve been awful upset.
You can see I’ve been crying. Aren’t my eyes awful. . . .
Why, I hardly dared show myself. I can see why people
go into monasteries.’ The music beat on the Boy’s
resistance: he watched with a kind of horror and
curiosity Spicer's girl friend: she knew the game. He
shook his head, speechless in his scared pride. He knew
what he was good at: he was the top: there was no limit
to his ambition: nothing must lay him open to the
mockery of people more experienced than he. To be
compared with Spicer and found wanting ... his eyes
shifted miserably and the music wailed its tidings -
163
‘Forget in daylight’ - about the game of which they all
knew so much more than he did.
‘Spicie said he didn’t think you’d ever had a girl,’
Sylvie said.
‘There was plenty Spicer didn’t know.’
‘You’re awful young to be so famous.’
‘You and me had better go away,’ Cubitt said to
Dallow. ‘Seems we’re not wanted. Come an’ lamp the
bathing belles. ’ They moved heavily out of sight. ‘Dallie
just knows when I like a boy, ’ Sylvie said.
‘Who’s Dallie?’
‘Your friend, Mr Dallow, silly. Do you dance - why,
I don’t even know your proper name?’ He watched her
with scared lust. She had belonged to Spicer: her voice
had wailed up the telephone wires making assignations :
he had received letters in mauve envelopes, addressed to
him: even Spicer had had something to be proud of, to
show to friends - ‘my girl’. He remembered some
flowers which had come to Frank’s labelled ‘Broken-
hearted’. He was fascinated by her infidelity. She
belonged to nobody - unlike a table or a chair. He said
slowly, putting his arm round her to take her glass and
pressing her breast clumsily, ‘ I’m going to be married in
a day or two. ’ It was as if he were staking a claim to his
share of infidelity: he wasn’t to be beaten by experience.
He lifted her glass and drank it. The sweetness dripped
down his throat, his first alcohol touched the palate like
a bad smell : this was what people called pleasure - this
and the game. He put his hand on her thigh with a kind
of horror: Rose and he: forty-eight hours after Prewitt
had arranged things: alone in God knows what apart-
ment - what then, what then? He knew the traditional
actions as a man may know the principles of gunnery in
chalk on a blackboard, but to translate the knowledge to
action, to the smashed village and the ravaged woman,
one needed help from the nerves. His own were frozen
with repulsion: to be touched, to give oneself away, to
lay oneself open - he had held intimacy back as long as
he could at the end of a razor blade.
He said, ‘Come on. Let’s dance.’
They circulated slowly in the dance hall. To be beaten
by experience was bad enough, but to be beaten by
greenness and innocence, by a girl who carried plates at
Snow’s, by a little bitch of sixteen years . . .
‘Spicie thought a lot of you,’ Sylvie said.
‘Come out to the cars,’ the Boy said.
‘ I couldn’t, not with Spicie dead only yesterday. ’
They stood and clapped and then the dance began
again. The shaker clacked in the bar, and the leaves of
one small tree were pressed against the window beyond
the big drum and the saxophone.
‘ I like the country. It makes me feel romantic. Do you
like the country?’
‘No.’
‘This is real country. I saw a hen just now. They use
their own eggs in the gin slings. ’
‘Come out to the cars.’
‘I feel that way, too. O gosh, wouldn’t it be fine? But
I can’t, not with poor Spicie . . .’
‘You sent flowers, didn’t you, you been crying . . .’
‘My eyes are awful.’
‘What more can you do?’
‘ It broke my heart. Poor Spicie going off like that. ’
‘ I know. I saw your wreath. ’
‘It does seem awful, doesn’t it? Dancing with you
like this and him . . . ’
165
‘Come to the cars.’
‘Poor Spicie,’ but she led the way, and he noticed
with uneasiness how she ran - literally ran - across the
lit corner of what had once been a farmyard towards the
dark car-park and the game. He thought with sickness,
‘In three minutes I shall know.’
‘Which is your car?’ Sylvie asked.
‘That Morris.’
‘No good to us,’ Sylvie said. She darted down the line
of cars. ‘This Ford.’ She pulled the door open, said,
‘ Oh, pardon me, ’ and shut it, scrambled into the back of
the next car in the line and waited for him. ‘ Oh, ’ her voice
softly and passionately pronounced from the dim
interior, ‘ I love a Lancia. ’ He stood in the doorway and
the darkness peeled away between him and the fair and
vacuous face. Her skirt drawn up above her knees she
waited for him with luxurious docility.
He was conscious for a moment of his enormous
ambitions under the shadow of the hideous and common-
place aa : the suite at the Cosmopolitan, the gold cigar-
lighter, chairs stamped with crowns for a foreigner
called Eugeen. Hale dropped out of sight, like a stone
thrown over a cliff; he was at the beginning of a long
polished parquet walk, there were busts of great men
and the sound of cheering, Mr Colleoni bowed like a
shop-walker, stepping backwards, an army of razors was
at his back: a conqueror. Hooves drummed along the
straight and a loud-speaker announced the winner : music
was playing. His breast ached with the effort to enclose
the whole world.
‘You’ve got the doings, haven’t you?’ Sylvie asked.
With fear and horror he thought : next move, what is it?
‘Quick,’ Sylvie said, ‘before they find us here.’
i66
The parquet floor rolled up like a carpet. The moon-
light touched a Woolworth ring and a plump knee. He
said in a painful and bitter rage, ‘Wait there. I’ll get
Cubitt for you,’ and turned his back on the Lancia
and walked back towards the bar. Laughter from the
bathing-pool defleaed him. He stood in the doorway
with the taste of the alcohol on his tongue watching a
thin girl in a red rubber cap giggle under the flood
lighting. His mind tracked inevitably back and fonh to
Sylvie like a model engine electrically driven. Fear and
curiosity ate at the proud future, he was aware of nausea
and retched. Marry, he thought, hell, no; I’d rather
hang.
A man in a bathing-slip came running down the high-
board, jumped and somersaulted in the pearly brilliant
light, struck the dark water; the two bathers swam
together, stroke by stroke, towards the shallows, turned
and came back, side by side, smooth and unhurried,
playing a private game, happy and at ease.
The Boy stood and watched them, and as they came
down the pool a second time he saw in the floodlit water
his own image shiver at their stroke, the narrow
shoulders and the hollow breast, and he felt the brown
pointed shoes slip on the splashed and shining tiles.
C2]
Cubitt and Dallow chattered all the way back, a little lit;
the Boy stared ahead into the bright core of the darkness.
He said suddenly with fury, ‘You can laugh.’
‘Well, you didn’t do so bad,’ Cubitt said.
‘You can laugh. You think you’re safe. But I’m tired
of the lot of you. I’ve a good mind to clear out. ’
167
‘Take a long honejrmoon,’ Cubitt said and grinned,
and an owl cried with painful hunger swooping low over
a filling station, into the headlights and out again, on
furry and predatory wings.
T’m not going to marry,’ the Boy said.
‘I knew a geezer once,’ Cubitt said, ‘was so scared he
killed himself. They had to send back the wedding
presents. ’
‘I’m not going to marry.’
‘People often feel that way.’
‘Nothing’s going to make me marry.’
‘You’ve got to marry,’ Dallow said. A woman
stared from a window of Charlie’s Pull-in Cafe
waiting for someone: she didn’t look at the car going by,
waiting.
‘Have a drink,’ Cubitt said; he was more drunk than
Dallow. ‘I brought a flask away. You can’t say you don’t
drink now: we saw you, Dallow and me.’
The Boy said to Dallow, ‘ I won’t marry. Why should
I marry?’
‘ It was your doing, ’ Dallow said.
‘What was his doing?’ Cubitt said. Dallow didn’t
reply, laying his friendly and oppressive hand on the
Boy’s knee. The Boy took a squint at the stupid devoted
face and felt anger at the way another’s loyalty could
hamper and drive. Dallow was the only man he trusted,
and he hated him as if he were his mentor. He said
weakly, ‘Nothing will make me marry,’ watching the
long parade of posters going by in the submarine light :
Guinness is Good for You, Try a Worthington, Keep
that Schoolgirl Complexion: a long series of adjurations,
people telling you things: Own Your Own Home,
Bennett’s for Wedding Rings.
i68
And at Frank’s they told him, ‘Your girl’s here.’ He
went up the stairs to his room in hopeless rebellion; he
would go in and say - I’ve changed my mind. I can’t
marry you. Or perhaps - the lawyers say it can’t be
managed after all. The banisters were still broken and he
looked down the long drop to where Spicer’s body had
lain. Cubitt and Dallow were standing on the exact spot
laughing at something: the sharp edge of a broken
banister scratched his hand. He put it to his mouth and
went in. He thought: I’ve got to be calm, I’ve got to
keep my wits about me, but he felt his integrity stained
by the taste of the spirit at the bar. You could lose vice
as easily as you lost virtue, going out of you from a
touch.
He took a look at her. She was scared when he said
softly, ‘What are you doing here?’ She had on the hat he
disliked and she made a snatch at it as soon as he looked.
‘At this time of night,’ he said in a shocked way,
thinking there was a quarrel to be picked there if he
went about it in the right way.
‘You’ve seen this?’ Rose implored him. She had the
local paper; he hadn’t bothered to read it, but there on
the front page was the picture of Spicer striding in
terror under the iron arches. Rose said, ‘ It says here -
it happened ’
‘On the landing,’ the boy said. T was always telling
Frank to mend those banisters. ’
‘But you said they got him on the course. And he was
the one who ’
He faced her with spurious firmness : ‘ Gave you the
ticket? So you said. Maybe he knew Hale. He knew a lot
of geezers I didn’t. What of it?’ He repeated his question
before her dumb stare with confidence: ‘What of it?*
169
His mind, he knew, could contemplate any treachery,
but she was a good kid, she was bounded by her good-
ness; there were things she couldn’t imagine, and he
thought he saw her imagination wilting now in the vast
desert of dread.
*I thought,’ she said, ‘I thought . . looking beyond
him to the shattered banister on the landing.
‘What did you think?’
His fingers curled with passionate hatred round the
small bottle in his pocket.
‘I don’t know. I didn’t sleep last night. I had such
dreams. ’
‘What dreams?’
She looked at him with horror, ‘ I dreamed you were
dead.’
He laughed, ‘I’m young and spry,’ thinking with
nausea of the car-park and the invitation in the Lancia.
‘You aren’t going to stay here, are you?’
‘Why not?’
‘I’d have thought ’ she said, her eyes back again
in their gaze at the banisters. She said, ‘I’m scared.’
‘You’ve no cause to be,’ he said, tickling the vitriol
bottle.
‘I’m scared for you. Oh,’ she said, ‘I know I’m no
account. I know you’ve got a lawyer and a car and friends,
but this place ’she stumbled hopelessly in an attempt
to convey the sense she had of the territory in which he
moved: a place of accidents and unexplained events,
the stranger with a card, the fight on the course, the
headlong fall. A kind of boldness and brazenness came
into her face, so that he felt again the faintest stirring of
sensuality: ‘You’ve got to come away from here. You’ve
got to marry me like you said. ’
170
‘ It can’t be done after all. I’ve seen my lawyer. We’re
too young. ’
‘I don’t mind about that. It’s not a real marriage,
anyway. A registrar doesn’t make any difference.’
‘You go back where you came from,’ he said harshly.
‘ You little tart. ’
‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I’m sacked.’
‘What for?’ It was as if the handcuffs were meeting.
He suspeaed her.
‘I was rude to a customer.’
‘Why? What customer?’
‘Can’t you guess?’ she said and went passionately on.
‘Who is she, anyway? Interfering . . . pestering . . . you
must know. ’
‘I don’t know her from Adam,’ the Boy said.
She put all her fake experience - drawn from the
twopenny library - into the question: ‘Is she jealous?
Is she someone . . . you know what I mean?’ and ready
there, masked behind the ingenuous question like the
guns in a Q ship, was possessiveness. She was his like a
table or a chair, but a table owned you, too - by your
finger-prints.
He laughed uneasily. ‘What, she? She’s old enough
to be my mother. ’
‘Then what does she want?’
‘I wish I knew.’
‘Do you think,’ she said, ‘I ought to take this ’
she held out the paper to him - ‘to the police?’
The ingenuousness - or the shrewdness - of the
question shocked him. Could one ever be safe with
someone who realised so little how she had got mixed up
in things? He said, ‘You got to mind your step,’ and
thought with dull and tired distaste (it had been the hell
of a day) : I shall have to marry her after all. He managed
a smile: those muscles were beginning to work. He said,
‘Listen. You don’t need to think about those things. I’m
going to marry you. There are ways of getting round the
law.’
‘Why bother about the law?’
‘I don’t want any loose talk. Only marriage,’ he said
with feigned anger, ‘will do for me. We got to be married
properly. ’
‘We won’t be that whatever we do. The father up at
St John’s - he says ’
‘ You don’t want to listen too much to priests, ’ he said.
‘They don’t know the world like I do. Ideas change, the
world moves on . . .’ His words stumbled before her
carved devotion. That face said as clearly as words that
ideas never changed, the world never moved : it lay there
always, the ravaged and disputed territory between the
two eternities. They faced each other as it were from
opposing territories, but like troops at Christmas time
they fraternised. He said, ‘ It’s the same to you, anyway -
and I want to be married - legally. ’
‘ If you want to ... ’ she said and made a small gesture
of complete assent.
‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘we could work it this way. If your
father wrote a letter, . . . ’
‘He can’t write.’
‘Well, he could make his mark, couldn’t he, if I got a
letter written. ... I don’t know how these things work.
Maybe he could come to the magistrate’s. Mr Prewitt
could see about that. ’
‘Mr Prewitt?’ she asked quickly. ‘Wasn’t he the one -
the one at the inquest who was here. . . . ’
‘What of it?’
172
‘Nothing,* she said. ‘I just thought . . .* but he could
see the thoughts going on and on, out of the room to the
banisters and the drop, out of that day altogether. . . .
Somebody turned on the radio down below: some jest of
Cubitt’s perhaps to represent the right romantic atmos-
phere. It wailed up the stairs past the telephone and into
the room: somebody’s band from somebody’s hotel, the
end of a day’s programme. It switched her thoughts
away and he wondered for how long it would be necess-
ary for him to sidetrack her mind with the romantic
gesture or the loving act : how many weeks and months ~
his mind wouldn’t admit the possibility of years. Some
day he would be free again. He put out his hands
towards her as if she were the detective with the cuffs
and said, ‘To-morrow we’ll see about things: see your
father: why,’ the muscles of his mouth faltered at the
thought, ‘ it only takes a couple of days to get married in. ’
US]
He was scared, walking alone back towards the territory
he had left - oh, years ago. The pale sea curdled on the
shingle and the green tower of the Metropole looked like
a dug-up coin verdigrised with age-old mould. The gulls
swooped up to the top promenade, screaming and
twisting in the sunlight, and a well-known popular
author displayed his plump too famous face in the
window of the Royal Albion, staring out to sea. It was so
clear a day you looked for France.
The Boy crossed over towards Old Steyne walking
slowly. The streets narrowed uphill above the Steyne:
the shabby secret behind the bright corsage, the de-
formed breast. Every step was a retreat. He thought he
173
had escaped for ever by the whole length of the parade,
and now extreme poverty took him back: a shop where a
shingle could be had for two shillings in the same building
as a coffin-maker’s who worked in oak, elm or lead: no
window-dressing but one child’s coffin dusty with disuse
and the list of hairdressing prices. The Salvation Army
Citadel marked with its battlements the very border of
his home. He began to fear recognition and feel an
obscure shame as if it were his native streets which had
the right to forgive and not he to reproach them with the
dreary and dingy past. Past the Albert Hostel (‘Good
Accommodation for Travellers’) and there he was, on
the top of the hill, in the thick of the bombardment - a
flapping gutter, cracked windows, an iron bedstead in a
front garden the size of a tabletop. Half Paradise Piece
had been torn up as if by bomb bursts ; the children
played about the steep slope of rubble; a piece of fire-
place showed houses had once been there, and a munici-
pal notice announced new flats on a post stuck in the torn
gravel and asphalt facing the little dingy damaged row,
all that was left of Paradise Piece. His home was gone : a
flat place among the rubble may have marked its hearth;
the room at the bend of the stairs where the Saturday
night exercise had taken place was now just air. He
wondered with horror whether it all had to be built again
for him ; it looked better as air.
He had sent Rose back the night before and now
draggingly he rejoined her. It was no good rebelling any
more; he had to marry her: he had to be safe. The
children were scouting among the rubble with pistols
from Woolworth’s; a group of girls surlily watched. A
child with its leg in an iron brace limped blindly into
him; he pushed it off; someone said in a high treble,
174
‘ Stick ’em up. ’ They took his mind back and he hated
them for it; it was like the dreadful appeal of innocence,
but there was not innocence; you had to go back a long
way further before you got innocence; innocence was a
slobbering mouth, a toothless gum pulling at the teats;
perhaps not even that; innocence was theugly cry of birth.
He found the house in Nelson Place, but before he
had time to knock the door opened. Rose had spied him
through the broken glass. She said, ‘Oh, how glad I
am ... I thought perhaps . . .’ In the awful little
passage which stank like a lavatory she ran quickly and
passionately on, ‘ It was awful last night . . . you see I’ve
been sending them money — they don’t understand
everyone loses a job some time or another. ’
T’ll settle them,’ the Boy said. ‘Where arc they?’
‘You got to be careful,’ Rose said. ‘They get moods.’
‘Where are they?’
But there wasn’t really much choice of direction:
there was only one door and a staircase matted with old
newspapers. On the bottom steps between the mud
marks stared up the tawny child face of Violet Crow
violated and buried under the West Pier in 193b. He
opened the door and there beside the black kitchen
stove with cold dead charcoal on the floor sat the parents.
They had a mood on : they watched him with silent and
haughty indifference: a small thin elderly man, his face
marked deeply with the hieroglyphics of pain and
patience and suspicion : the woman middle-aged, stupid,
vindictive. The dishes hadn’t been washed and the stove
hadn’t been lit.
‘They got a mood,’ Rose said aloud to him. ‘They
wouldn’t let me do a thing. Not even light the fire. I like
a clean house, honest I do. Ours wouldn’t be like this, ’
175
‘Look here, Mr ’ the Bo^ said.
‘Wilson/ Rose said.
‘Wilson. I want to marry Rose. It seems as she’s so
young I got to get your permission. ’
They wouldn’t answer him. They treasured their
mood as if it was a bright piece of china only they
possessed: something they could show to neighbours as
‘mine’.
‘It’s no use,’ Rose said, ‘when they got a mood.’
A cat watched them from a wooden box.
‘Yes or no,’ the Boy said.
‘It’s no good,’ Rose said, ‘not when they’ve got a
mood.’
‘Answer a plain question,’ the Boy said. ‘Do I marry
Rose or don’t I?’
‘Come back to-morrow,’ Rose said. ‘They won’t have
a mood then. ’
‘I’m not going to wait on them,’ he said. ‘They
oughter be proud ’
The man suddenly got up and kicked the dead coke
furiously across the floor. ‘You get out of here,’ he said.
‘We don’t want any truck with you,’ he went on, ‘never,
never, never,’ and for a moment in the sunk lost eyes
there was a kind of fidelity which reminded the Boy
dreadfully of Rose.
‘Quiet, father,’ the woman said, ‘don’t talk to them,’
treasuring her mood.
‘I’ve come to do business,’ the Boy said. ‘If you don’t
want to do business ’ He looked round the battered
and hopeless room. ‘ I thought maybe ten pounds would
be of use to you,’ and he saw swimming up through the
blind vindictive silence incredulity, avarice, suspicion.
‘We don’t want ’ the man began again and then gave
176
out like a gramophone. He began to think: you could see
the thoughts bob up one after another.
‘We don’t want your money,’ the woman said. They
each had their own kind of fidelity.
Rose said, ‘Never mind what they say. I won’t stay
here. ’
‘Stop a moment. Stop a moment,’ the man said. ‘You
be quiet, mother.’ He said to the Boy. ‘We couldn’t let
Rose go not for ten nicker - not to a stranger. How do
we know you’d treat her right?’
‘I’ll give you twelve,’ the Boy said.
‘ It’s not a question of money,’ the man said. ‘ I like the
look of you. We wouldn’t want to stand in the way of
Rose bettering herself - but you’re too young. ’
‘Fifteen’s my limit,’ the Boy said, ‘take it or leave it.’
‘You can’t do anything without we say yes,’ the man
said.
The Boy moved a little away from Rose. ‘ I’m not all
that keen. ’
‘Make it guineas.’
‘You’ve had my offer.’ He looked with horror round
the room : nobody could say he hadn’t done right to get
away from this, to commit any crime . . . When the man
opened his mouth he heard his father speaking, that
figure in the corner v/as his mother : he bargained for his
sister and felt no desire. . . . He turned to Rose, ‘ I’m off, ’
and felt the faintest twinge of pity for goodness which
couldn’t murder to escape. They said that saints had
got - what was the phrase? - ‘heroic virtues’, heroic
patience, heroic endurance, but there was nothing he
could see that was heroic in the bony face, protuberant
eyes, pallid anxiety, while they bluffed each other and
her life was confused in the financial game. ‘Well,’ he
177
said, ‘I’ll be seeing you,’ and made for the door. At the
door he looked back: they were like a family party.
Impatiently and contemptuously he gave in to them,
‘All right. Guineas. I’ll be sending my lawyer,’ and as
he passed into the evil passage Rose was behind him
panting her gratitude.
He played the game to the last card, fetching up a grin
and a compliment, ‘ I’d do more for you. ’
‘You were wonderful,’ she said, loving him among the
lavatory smells, but her praise was poison : it marked her
possession of him: it led straight to what she expected
from him, the horrifying act of a desire he didn’t feel.
She followed him out into the fresh air of Nelson Place.
The children played among the ruins of Paradise Piece,
and a wind blew from the sea across the site of his home.
A dim desire for annihilation stretched in him : the vast
superiority of vacancy.
She said, as she had said once before, ‘I always
wondered how it’d be.’ Her mind moved obscurely
among the events of the afternoon, brought out the
unexpected discovery. ‘ I’ve never known a mood go so
quick. They must have liked you. ’
[ 4 ]
Ida Arnold bit an Eclair and the cream spurted between
the large front teeth. She laughed a little thickly in the
Pompadour Boudoir and said, ‘I haven’t had as much
money to spend since I left Tom.’ She took another bite
and a wedge of cream settled on the plump tongue. ‘ I
owe it to Fred too. If he hadn’t tipped me Black Boy ’
‘Why not give everything up,’ Mr Corkery said, ‘and
just have a bit of fun. It’s dangerous. ’
178
‘Oh, yes it’s dangerous,’ she admitted, but no real
sense of danger could lodge behind those large vivacious
eyes. Nothing could ever make her believe that one day
she too, like Fred, would be where the worms . . . Her
mind couldn’t take that track; she could go only a short
way before the points automatically shifted and set her
vibrating down the accustomed line, the season ticket
line marked by desirable residence and advertisements
of cruises and small fenced boskages for rural love. She
said, eyeing her eclair, ‘ I never give in. They didn’t know
what a packet of trouble they were stirring up. ’
‘Leave it to the police.’
‘Oh no. I know what’s right. You can’t tell me. Who’s
that, do you think?’
An elderly man in glac^ shoes, with a white slip to his
waistcoat and a jewelled pin, came padding across the
Boudoir. ‘ Distinguay, ’ Ida Arnold said.
A secretary trotted a little way behind him, reading
out from a list. ‘ Bananas, oranges, grapes, peaches, . . . ’
‘Hothouse?’
‘Hothouse.’
‘Who’s that?’ Ida Arnold repeated.
‘That was all, Mr Colleoni?’ the secretary asked.
‘What flowers?’ Mr Colleoni demanded. ‘And could
you get any nectarines?’
‘No, Mr Colleoni.’
‘My dear wife,’ Mr Colleoni said, his voice dwindling
out of their hearing. They could catch only the word
‘passion’. Ida Arnold swivelled her eyes round the
elegant furnishing of the Pompadour Boudoir. They
picked out like a searchlight a cushion, a couch, the thin
clerkly mouth of the man opposite her. She said, ‘We
could have a fine time here,’ watching his mouth.
7 — ^B.R.
179
‘Expensive,’ Mr Corkery said nervously; a too
sensitive hand stroked his thin shanks.
‘Black Boy will stand it. And we can’t have - you
know - fun at the Belvedere. Strait-laced. ’
‘You wouldn’t mind a bit of fun here?’ Mr Corkery
asked. He blinked. You couldn’t tell from his expression
whether he desired or dreaded her assent.
‘Why should I? It doesn’t do anyone any harm that
I know of. It’s human nature.’ She bit at her Eclair and
repeated the familiar password. ‘It’s only fun after all.’
Fun to be on the right side, fun to be human. . . .
‘ You go and get my bag, ’ she said, ‘ while I book a room.
After all ~ I owe you something. You’ve worked . . . ’
Mr Corkery flushed a little. ‘Half and half,’ he said.
She grinned at him. ‘ It’s on Black Boy. I pay my debts. ’
‘A man likes ’ Mr Corkery said weakly.
‘Trust me, I know what a man likes.’ The Eclair and
the deep couch and the gaudy furnishings were like an
aphrodisiac in her tea. She was shaken by a Bacchic and
a bawdy mood. In every word either of them uttered she
detected the one meaning. Mr Corkery blushed, plunged
deeper in his embarrassment. ‘A man can’t help feeling,’
and was shaken by her immense glee.
‘You’re telling me,’ she said, ‘you’re telling me.’
While Mr Corkery was gone she made her prep-
arations for carnival, the taste of the sweet cake between
her teeth. The idea of Fred Hale dodged backwards like
a figure on a platform when the train goes out. He
belonged to somewhere left behind; the waving hand
only contributes to the excitement of the new experience.
The new - and yet the immeasurably old. She gazed
round the big padded pleasure dome of a bedroom with
bloodshot and experienced eyes : the long mirror and the
i8o
wardrobe and the enormous bed. She settled frankly
down on it while the clerk waited. ‘It springs/ she said,
‘it springs/ and sat there for quite a long while after
he’d gone planning the evening’s campaign. If somebody
had said to her then ‘Fred Hale’, she would hardly have
recognised the name: there was another interest: for the
next hour let the police have him.
Then she got up slowly and began to undress. She
never believed in wearing much: it wasn’t any time at all
before she was exposed in the long mirror: a body firm
and bulky: a proper handful. She stood on a deep soft
rug, surrounded by gilt frames and red velvet hangings,
and a dozen common and popular phrases bloomed in her
mind - ‘A Night of Love’, ‘You Only Live Once’, and
the rest. She bore the same relation to passion as a
peepshow. She sucked the chocolate between her teeth
and smiled, her plump toes working in the rug, waiting
for Mr Corkery - just a great big blossoming surprise.
Outside the window the sea ebbed, scraping the
shingle, exposing a boot, a piece of rusty iron, and the
old man stooped, searching between the stones. The sun
dropped behind the Hove houses and dusk came, the
shadow of Mr Corkery lengthened, coming slowly up
from the Belvedere carrying the suitcases, saving on
taxis. A gull swooped screaming down to a dead crab
beaten and broken against the iron foundation of the
pier. It was the time of near-darkness and of the evening
mist from the Channel and of love.
Cs]
The Boy closed the door behind him and turned to face
the expectant and amused faces.
‘Well,’ Cubitt said, ‘is it all fixed up?’
‘Of course it is,’ the Boy said, ‘when I want a
thing ’ his voice wavered out unconvincingly. There
were half a dozen bottles on his washstand: his room
smelt of stale beer.
‘Want a thing,’ Cubitt said. ‘That’s good.’ He
opened another bottle and in the warm stuffy room the
froth rose quickly and splashed on the marble top.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ the Boy said.
‘Celebrating,’ Cubitt said. ‘You’re a Roman, aren’t
you? A betrothal, that’s what Romans call it.’
The Boy watched them : Cubitt a little drunk, Dallow
preoccupied, two lean hungry faces he hardly knew -
hangers-on at the fringes of the great racket who smiled
when you smiled and frowned when you frowned. But
now they smiled when Cubitt smiled, and suddenly he
saw the long way he had slipped since that afternoon on
the pier when he arranged the alibi, gave the orders, did
what they hadn’t got the nerve to do themselves.
Frank’s wife Judy put her head in at the door. She
was wearing a dressing-gown. Her Titian hair was
brown at the roots. ‘Good luck. Pinkie,’ she said,
blinking mascara’d lashes. She had been washing her
bra: the little piece of pink silk dripped on the
linoleum. Nobody offered her a drink. ‘Work, work,
work,’ she moued at them, going on down the passage
to the hot water-pipes.
A long way . . . and yet he hadn’t made a single false
step : if he hadn’t gone to Snow’s and spoken to the girl,
they’d all be in the dock by now. If he hadn’t killed
Spicer. . . . Not a single false step, but every step
conditioned by a pressure he couldn’t even place: a
woman asking questions, messages on the telephone
182
scaring Spicer. He thought: when Fve married the girl,
will it stop then? Where else can it drive me, and with a
twitch of the mouth, he wondered - what worse ?
‘When’s the happy day?’ Cubitt asked and they all
smiled obediently except Dallow.
The Boy’s brain began to work again. He moved
slowly towards the washstand. He said, ‘Haven’t you
got a glass for me? Don’t I do any celebrating?’
He saw Dallow astonished, Cubitt thrown off his
mark, the hangers-on doubtful who to follow, and he
grinned at them, the one with brains.
‘Why, Pinkie . . .’ Cubitt said.
‘ I’m not a drinking man and I’m not a marrying man,’
the Boy said. "So you think. But I’m liking one, so why
shouldn’t I like the other. Give me a glass. ’
‘Liking,’ Cubitt said and grinned uneasily, ‘you
liking, . . .’
‘Haven’t you seen her?’ the Boy said.
‘Why, me and Dallow just lamped her. On the stairs.
But it was too dark. . . . ’
‘She’s a lovely,’ the Boy said, ‘she’s wasted in a kip.
And intelligent. Don’t make any mistake. Of course I
didn’t see any cause to marry her, but as it is ’
somebody handed him a glass : he took a long draught :
the bitter and bubbly fluid revolted him - so this was
what they liked - he tightened the muscles of his mouth
to hide his revulsion: ‘as it is,’ he said, ‘I’m glad,’ and
eyed with hidden disgust the pale inch of liquid in the
glass before he drained it down.
Dallow watched in silence and the Boy felt more
anger against his friend than against his enemy. Like
Spicer he knew too much, but what he knew was far
more deadly than what Spicer had known. Spicer had
183
known only the kind of thing which brought you to the
dock, but Dallow knew what your mirror and your
bedsheets knew: the secret fear and the humiliation. He
said with hidden fury, ‘What’s getting you, Dallow?’
The stupid and broken face was hopelessly at a loss.
‘Jealous?’ the Boy began to boast. ‘You’ve cause
when you’ve seen her. She not one of your dyed totsies.
She’s got class. I’m marrying her for your sake, but I’m
laying her for my own. ’ He turned fiendishly on Dallow.
‘What’s on your mind?’
‘Well,’ Dallow said, ‘it’s the one you met on the pier,
isn’t it? I didn’t think she was all that good. ’
‘You,’ the Boy said, ‘you don’t know anything. You’re
ignorant. You don’t know class when you see it. ’
‘A duchess,’ Cubitt said and laughed.
An extraordinary indignation jerked in the Boy’s brain
and fingers. It was almost as if someone he loved had
been insulted. ‘Be careful, Cubitt,’ he said.
‘Don’t mind him,’ Dallow said. ‘We didn’t know
you’d fallen. . . .’
‘We got some presents for you. Pinkie,’ Cubitt said,
‘furniture for the home,’ and indicated two little obscene
objects beside the beer on the washstand - the Brighton
stationers were full of them - a tiny doll’s commode in
the shape of a radio set labelled ‘The smallest A.i
two-valve receiving set in the world’, and a mustard-pot
shaped like a lavatory seat with the legend, ‘For me and
my girl’. It was like a return of all the horror he had ever
felt, the hideous loneliness of his innocence. He struck at
Cubitt’s face and Cubitt dodged, laughing. The two
hangers-on slipped out of the room. They hadn’t any
taste for rough houses. The Boy heard them laugh on
the stairs. Cubitt said, ‘You’ll need ’em in the home.
184
A bed’s not the only furniture. ’ He mocked and backed
at the same time.
The Boy said, ‘By God, I’ll treat you like I treated
Spicer. ’
No meaning reached Cubitt at once. There was a
long time lag. He began to laugh and then saw DaUow’s
startled face and heard. ‘What’s that?’ he said.
‘He’s crazy,’ Dallow intervened.
‘ You think yourself smart,’ the Boy said. ‘ So did Spicer.’
‘It was the banister,’ Cubitt said. ‘You weren’t here.
What are you getting at?’
‘Of course he wasn’t here,’ Dallow said.
‘You think you know things. ’ All the Boy’s hatred was
in the word ‘know’ and his repulsion: he knew - like
Prewitt knew after twenty five years at the game. ‘You
don’t know everything. ’ He tried to inject himself with
pride, but all the time his eyes went back to the humilia-
tion. ‘The smallest A.i. . . . ’ You could know everything
there was in the world and yet if you were ignorant of
that one dirty scramble you knew nothing.
‘What’s he getting at?’ Cubitt asked.
‘You don’t need to listen to him,’ Dallow said.
‘ I mean this, ’ the Boy said. ‘ Spicer was milky and I’m
the only one in this mob knows how to act. ’
‘You act too much,’ Cubitt said. ‘Do you mean - it
wasn’t the banisters?’ The question scared himself: he
didn’t want an answer. He made uneasily for the door,
keeping his eye on the Boy.
Dallow said, ‘Of course it was the banisters. I was
there, wasn’t I?’
‘ I don’t know, ’ Cubitt said, ‘ I don’t know, ’ making for
the door, ‘ Brighton’s not big enough for him. I’m through, ’
‘ Go on,’ the Boy said. ‘ Clear out. Clear out and starve.’
185
‘I won’t starve,’ Cubitt said. ‘There’s others in this
town. . . . ’
When the door closed the Boy turned on Dallow. ‘ Go
on,’ he said, ‘you go too. You think you can get on
without me, but I’ve only got to whistle. . . . ’
‘You don’t need to talk to me like that,’ Dallow said.
‘ I’m not leaving you, I don’t fancy making friends with
Crab again so soon. ’
But the Boy paid him no attention. He said again,
‘I’ve only got to whistle. . . .’ He boasted, ‘They’ll
come tumbling back. ’ He went over to the brass bed and
lay down; he had had a long day. He said, ‘Get me
Prewitt on the blower. Tell him there’s no difficulty at
her end. Let him fix things quick. ’
‘The day after to-morrow if he can?’ Dallow asked.
‘Yes,’ the Boy said. He heard the door close and lay
with twitching cheek staring at the ceiling. He thought,
it’s not my fault they get me angry so I want to do things :
if people would leave me in peace. . . . His imagination
wilted at the word. He tried in a half-hearted way to
picture ‘peace’ - his eyes closed and behind the lids he
saw a grey darkness going on and on without end, a
country of which he hadn’t seen as much as a picture
postcard, a place far stranger than the Grand Canyon
and the Taj Mahal. He opened them again and
immediately reason moved in the veins, for there on the
washstand were Cubitt’s purchases. He was like a child
with haemophilia : every contact drew blood.
A bell rang muffled in the Cosmopolitan corridor;
through the wall against which the bed-end stood Ida
i86
Arnold could hear a voice talking on and on : somebody
reading a report, perhaps in a conference room or
dictating to a dictaphone. Phil lay asleep on the bed in
his pants, his mouth a little open showing one yellow
tooth and a gob of metal filling. Fun . . . human
nature . . . does no one any harm . . . Regular as clock-
work the old excuses came back into the alert, sad and
dissatisfied brain - nothing ever matched the deep
excitement of the regular desire. Men always failed you
when it came to the act. She might just as well have been
to the pictures.
But it did no one any harm, it was just human nature,
no one could call her really bad - a bit free-and-easy
perhaps, a bit Bohemian. It wasn’t as if she got anything
out of it, as if like some people she sucked a man dry and
cast him aside like a throw-off - threw him aside like a
cast-off glove. She knew what was right and what was
wrong. God didn’t mind a bit of human nature - what
he minded - and her brain switched away from Phil in
pants to her mission, to doing good, to seeing that the
evil suffered. . . .
She sat up in bed and put her arms round her large
naked knees and felt excitement stirring again in the
disappointed body. Poor old Fred - the name no longer
conveyed any sense of grief or pathos. She couldn’t
remember anything much about him now but a monocle
and a yellow waistcoat and that belonged to poor old
Charlie Moyne. The hunt was what mattered. It was
like life coming back after a sickness.
Phil opened an eye - yellow with the sexual effort -
and watched her apprehensively. She said, ‘Awake, Phil? ’
‘It must be nearly time for dinner,’ Phil said. He gave
a nervous smile. ‘A penny for your thoughts, Ida.’
187
*I was just thinking/ Ida said, ‘that what we really
need now is one of Pinkie’s men. Somebody scared or
angry. They must get scared some time. We’ve only got
to wait. ’
She got out of the bed, opened her suitcase and began
to lay out the clothes she thought were suitable for dinner
in the Cosmopolitan. In the pink, reading-lamp, love-
lamp light spangles glittered. She stretched her arms;
she no longer felt desire or disappointment: her brain
was clear. It was almost dark along the beach; the edge
of sea was like a line of writing in whitewash: big
sprawling letters. They meant nothing at this distance.
A shadow stooped with infinite patience and disinterred
some relic from the shingle.
PART SIX
CO
When Cubitt got outside the front door the hangers-on
had already vanished. The street was empty. He felt in a
dumb, bitter and uncomprehending way like a man who
has destroyed his home without having prepared
another. The mist was coming up from the sea, and he
hadn’t got his coat. He was as angry as a child: he
wouldn’t go back for it : it would be like admitting he was
wrong. The only thing to be done now was to drink a
strong whisky at the Crown.
At the saloon bar they made way for him with respect.
In the mirror marked Booth’s Gin he could see his own
reflection - the short flaming hair, the blunt and open
face, broad shoulders. He stared like Narcissus into his
pool and felt better; he wasn’t the sort of man to take
things lying down; he was valuable. ‘Have a whisky?’
somebody said. It was the greengrocer’s assistant from
the corner shop. Cubitt laid a heavy paw across his
shoulder, accepting, patronising : the man who had done
a thing or two in his time chummy with the pale ignorant
fellow who dreamed from his commercial distance of a
man’s life. The relationship pleased Cubitt. He had two
more whiskies at the grocer’s expense.
‘Got a tip, Mr Cubitt?’
‘I’ve got other things to think of beside tips,’ Cubitt
said darkly, adding a splash.
‘We were having an argument in here about Gay
Parrot for the two-thirty. Seemed to me. . . . ’
Gay Parrot . . . the name didn’t mean a thing to
Cubitt: the drink warmed him: the mist was in his
brain: he leant forward towards the mirror and saw
‘Booth’s Gin . . . Booth’s Gin,’ haloed above his head.
He was involved in high politics : men had been killed :
poor old Spicer. Allegiances shifted like heavy balances
in his brain: he felt as important as a Prime Minister
making treaties.
‘There’ll be more killing before we’re through,’ he
mysteriously pronounced. He had his wits about him:
he wasn’t giving anything away; but there was no harm
in letting these poor sodden creatures a little way into
the secrets of living. He pushed his glass forward and
said, ‘A drink all round,’ but when he looked to either
side they’d gone; a face took a backward look through
the pane of the saloon door, vanished; they couldn’t
stand the company of a Man.
‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘never mind,’ and drank
down his whisky and left. The next thing, of course, was
to see Colleoni. He’d say to him, ‘Here I am, Mr
Colleoni. I’m through with Kite’s mob. I won’t work
under a boy like that. Give me a Man’s job and I’ll do
it.’ The mist got at his bones: he shivered involuntarily:
a grey goose. . . . He thought : if only Dallow too . . . and
suddenly loneliness took away his confidence; all the
heat of the drink seeped out of him, and the mist like
seven devils went in. Suppose Colleoni simply wasn’t
interested. He came down on to the front and saw
through the thin fog the high lights of the Cosmopolitan :
it was cocktail time.
Cubitt sat down chilled in a glass shelter and stared
out towards the sea. The tide was low and the mist hid
it: it was just a sliding and a sibilation. He lit a cigarette:
the match warmed for a moment the cupped hands. He
offered the packet to an elderly gentleman wrapped in a
190
heavy overcoat who shared the shelter. ‘I don’t smoke,’
the old gentleman said sharply and began to cough: a
steady hack, hack, hack towards the invisible sea.
‘A cold night,’ Cubitt said. The old gentleman
swivelled his eyes on him like opera glasses and went on
coughing: hack, hack, hack: the vocal chords dry as
straw. Somewhere out at sea a violin began to play: it
was like a sea beast mourning and stretching towards the
shore. Cubitt thought of Spicer who’d liked a good tune.
Poor old Spicer. The mist blew in, heavy compact drifts
of it like ectoplasm. Cubitt had been to a stance once in
Brighton : he had wanted to get in touch with his mother,
dead twenty years ago. It had come over him quite
suddenly - the old girl might have a word for him. She
had: she was on the seventh plane where all was very
beautiful: her voice had sounded a little boozed, but
that wasn’t really unnatural. The boys had laughed at
him about it, particularly old Spicer. Well, Spicer
wouldn’t laugh now. He could be summoned himself
any time to ring a bell and shake a tambourine. It was a
lucky thing he liked music.
Cubitt got up and strolled to the turnpike of the West
Pier, which straddled into the mist and vanished to-
wards the violin. He walked up towards the Concert
Hall, passing nobody. It wasn’t a night for courting
couples to sit out. Whatever people there were upon the
pier were gathered everyone inside the Concert Hall.
Cubitt turned round it on the outside looking in : a man
in evening dress fiddling to a few rows of people in
overcoats, islanded fifty yards out to sea in the middle of
the mist. Somewhere in the Channel a boat blew its siren
and another answered, and another, like dogs at night
waking each other.
Go to Colleoni and say ... it was all quite easy; the
old man ought to be grateful . . . Cubitt looked back
towards the shore and saw above the mist the high lights
of the Cosmopolitan, and they daunted him. He wasn’t
used to that sort of company. He went down the iron
companionway to the gents and drained the whisky out
of him into the movement under the piles and came up
on to the deck lonelier than ever. He took a penny out of
his pocket and slipped it into an automatic machine: a
robot face behind which an electric bulb revolved, iron
hands for Cubitt to grip. A little blue card shot out at
him: ‘Your Character Delineated.’ Cubitt read: ‘You
are mainly influenced by your surroundings and inclined
to be capricious and changeful. Your affections are more
intense than enduring. You have a free, easy, and genial
nature. You make the best of whatever you undertake.
A share of the good things of life can always be yours.
Your lack of initiative is counter-balanced by your good
common sense, and you will succeed where others fail. ’
He dragged slowly on past the automatic machines,
delaying the moment when there would be nothing for
him to do but go to the Cosmopolitan. ‘Your lack of
initiative. . . . ’ Two leaden football teams waited behind
glass for a penny to release them : an old witch with the
stuffing coming out of her claw offered to tell his
fortune. ‘A Love Letter’ made him pause. The boards
were damp with mist, the long deck was empty, the
violin ground on. He felt the need of a deep sentimental
affection, orange blossoms and a cuddle in a corner. His
great paw yearned for a sticky hand. Somebody who
wouldn’t mind his jokes, who would laugh with him at
the two-valve receiving set. He hadn’t meant any harm.
The cold reached his stomach, and a little stale whisky
192
retiiraed into his throat. He almost felt inclined to go
back to Frank’s. But then he remembered Spicer. The
boy was mad, killing mad, it wasn’t safe. Loneliness
dragged him down the solitary boards. He took out his
last copper and thrust it in. A little pink card came out
with a printed stamp: a girl’s head, long hair, the legend
‘True Love’. It was addressed to ‘My Dear Pet,
Spooner’s Nook, With Cupid’s Love’, and there was a
picture of a young man in evening dress kneeling on the
floor, kissing the hand of a girl carrying a big fur. Up in
a comer two hearts were transfixed by an arrow just
above Reg. No. 745812. Cubitt thought: it’s clever. It’s
cheap for a penny. He looked quickly over his shoulder:
not a soul : and turned it quickly and began to read. The
letter was addressed from Cupid’s Wings, Amor Lane.
‘My dear little girl. So you have discarded me for the
Squire’s son. You little know how you have ruined my
life in breaking faith with me, you have crushed the very
soul out of me, as the butterfly on the wheel ; but with it
all I do not wish anything but your happiness. ’
Cubitt grinned uneasily. He was deeply moved. That
was what always happened if you took up with anything
but a buer; they gave you the air. Grand Renunciations,
Tragedies, Beauty moved in Cubitt’s brain. If it was a
buer of course you took a razor to her, carved her face,
but this love printed here was class. He read on: it was
literature : it was the way he’d like to write himself. ‘After
all, when I think of your wondrous, winsome beauty, and
culture, I feel what a fool I must have been to dream that
you ever really loved me.’ Unworthy. Emotion pricked
behind his eyelids and he shivered in the mist with cold
and beauty. ‘But remember, dearest, always, that I love
you, and if ever you want a friend just return the little
193
token of love I gave you and I will be your servant and
slave. Yours broken-heartedly, John.’ It was his own
name: an omen.
He moved again past the lighted concert hall and down
the deserted deck. Loved and Lost. Tragic griefs flamed
under his carrot hair. What can a man do but drink? He
got another whisky just opposite the pier head and
moved on, planting his feet rather too firmly, towards
the Cosmopolitan - plank, plank, plank along the
pavement as if he were wearing iron weights under his
shoes, like a statue might move, half-flesh, half-stone.
‘I want to speak to Mr Colleoni.’ He said it defiantly.
The plush and gilding smoothed away his confidence.
He waited uneasily beside the desk while a pageboy
searched through the lounges and boudoirs for Mr
Colleoni. The clerk turned over the leaves of a big book
and then consulted a Who^s Who, Across the deep carpet
the page returned and Crab followed him, sidling and
triumphant with his black hair smelling of pomade.
‘ I said Mr Colleoni, ’ Cubitt said to the clerk, but the
clerk took no notice, wetting his finger, skimming
through Who's Who,
‘You wanted to see Mr Colleoni,’ Crab said.
‘That’s right.’
‘You can’t. He’s occupied.’
‘Occupied,’ Cubitt said. ‘That’s a fine word to use.
Occupied. ’
‘Why, if it isn’t Cubitt,’ Crab said. ‘I suppose you
want a job. ’ He looked round in a busy preoccupied way
and said to the clerk, ‘Isn’t that Lord Feversham over
there?’
‘Yes, sir,’ the clerk said.
‘I’ve often seen him at Doncaster,’ Crab said.
194
squinting at a nail on his left hand. He swept round on
Cubitt. ‘Follow me, my man. We can’t talk here,’ and
before Cubitt could reply he was sidling off at a great
rate between the gilt chairs.
‘It’s like this,’ Cubitt said, ‘Pinkie ’
Half-way across the lounge Crab paused and bowed
and moving on became suddenly confidential. ‘A fine
woman. ’ He flickered like an early movie. He had picked
up between Doncaster and London a hundred different
manners ; travelling first-class after a successful meeting
he had learnt how Lord Feversham spoke to a porter:
he had seen old Digby scrutinise a woman.
‘Who is she?’ Cubitt asked.
But Crab took no notice of the question. ‘We can talk
here. ’ It was the Pompadour Boudoir. Through the gilt
and glass door beyond the boule tables you could see
little signboards pointing down a network of passages -
tasteful little chinoiserie signboards with a Tuileries air:
‘Ladies’. ‘Gentlemen’. ‘Ladies’ Hairdressing’. ‘Gentle-
men’s Hairdressing’.
‘ It’s Mr Colleoni I want to talk to, ’ Cubitt said. He
breathed whisky over the marquetry, but he was
daunted and despairing. He resisted with difficulty the
temptation to say ‘sir’. Crab had moved on since Kite’s
day, almost out of sight. He was part of the great racket
now - with Lord Feversham and the fine woman. He had
grown up.
‘Mr Colleoni hasn’t time to see everyone,’ Crab said.
‘He’s a busy man.’ He took one of Mr Colleoni’s cigars
out of his pocket and put it in his mouth : he didn’t offer
one to Cubitt. Cubitt with uncertain hand offered him a
match. ‘Never mind, never mind,’ Crab said, fumbling
in his double-breasted waistcoat. He fetched out a gold
195
lighter and flourished it at his cigar. ‘What do you want,
Cubitt?’ he asked.
‘I thought maybe,’ Cubitt said, but his words wilted
among the gilt chairs. ‘You know how it is,’ he said,
staring desperately around. ‘What about a drink?’
Crab took him quickly up. ‘I wouldn’t mind one -
just for old time’s sake. ’ He rang for a waiter.
‘Old times,’ Cubitt said.
‘Take a seat,’ Crab said, waving a possessive hand at
the gilt chairs. Cubitt sat gingerly down. The chairs were
small and hard. He saw a waiter watching them and
flushed. ‘What’s yours?’ he asked.
‘A sherry,’ Crab said. ‘Dry.’
‘Scotch and splash for me,’ Cubitt said. He sat
waiting for his drink, his hands between his knees,
silent, his head lowered. He took furtive glances. This
was where Pinkie had come to see Colleoni - he had
nerve all right.
‘They do you pretty well here,’ Crab said. ‘Of course
Mr Colleoni likes nothing but the best.’ He took his
drink and watched Cubitt pay. ‘He likes things smart.
Why, he’s worth fifty thousand nicker if he’s worth a
penny. If you ask me what I think,’ Crab said, leaning
back, puffing at the cigar, watching Cubitt through
remote and supercilious eyes, ‘he’ll go in for politics one
day. The Conservatives think a lot of him - he’s got
contacts. ’
‘Pinkie ’ Cubitt began and Crab laughed. ‘Take
my advice, ’ Crab said. ‘ Get out of that mob while there’s
time. There’s no future. . . . ’ He looked obliquely over
Cubitt’s head and said, ‘ See that man going to the gents.
That’s Mais. The brewer. He’s worth a hundred
thousand nicker.’
196
*I was wondering,’ Cubitt said, ‘if Mr CoUeoni. . . /
‘Not a chance,’ Crab said. ‘Why, ask yourself - what
good would you be to Mr CoUeoni?’
Cubitt’s humility gave way to a duU anger. ‘I was
good enough for Kite. ’
Crab laughed. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘but Kite. . . .’
He shook his ash out on to the carpet and said, ‘Take
my advice. Get out. Mr Colleoni’s going to clean up
this track. He likes things done properly. No violence.
The police have great confidence in Mr CoUeoni.’ He
looked at his watch. ‘Well, well, I must be going. I’ve
got a date at the Hippodrome.’ He put his hand with
patronage on Cubitt’s arm. ‘There,’ he said, ‘I’U put in
a word for you - for old times’ sake. It won’t be any
good, but I’ll do that much. Give my regards to Pinkie
and the boys.’ He passed - a whiff of pomade and
Havana, bowing slightly to a woman at the door, an old
man with a monocle on a black ribbon. ‘Who the
hell ’ the old man said.
Cubitt drained his drink and followed. An enormous
depression bowed his carrot head, a sense of ill-treatment
moved through the whisky fumes - somebody some time
had got to pay for something. All that he saw fed the
flame: he came out into the entrance hall: a pageboy
with a salver infuriated him. Everybody was watching
him, waiting for him to go, but he had as much right
there as Crab. He glanced round him, and there alone at
a little table with a glass of port was the woman Crab
knew. He watched her with covetous envy and she
smiled at him - ‘I think of your wondrous, winsome
beauty and culture.’ A sense of the immeasurable
sadness of injustice took the place of anger. He wanted
to confide, to lay down burdens ... he belched once
197
*I will be your loving slave.* The great body turned like
a door, the heavy feet altered direction and padded
towards the table where Ida Arnold sat.
‘I couldn’t help hearing,’ she said, ‘when you went
across just now that you knew Pinkie. ’
He realised with immense pleasure when she spoke
that she wasn’t class. It seemed to him like the meeting
of two fellow countrymen a long way from home. He
said, ‘You a friend of Pinkie’s?’ and felt the whisky in
his legs. He asked, ‘Mind if I sit down?’
‘Tired?’
‘That’s it,’ he said, ‘tired.’ He sat down with his eyes
on her large friendly bosom. He remembered the lines
on his character. ‘You have a free, easy and genial
nature. ’ By God, he had. He only needed to be treated
right.
‘Have a drink?’
‘No, no,’ he said with woolly gallantry, ‘it’s on me,’
but when the drinks came he realised he was out of cash.
He had meant to borrow from one of the boys - but then
the quarrel. . . . He watched Ida Arnold pay with a five-
pound note.
‘Know Mr Colleoni?’ he asked.
‘I wouldn’t call it know,'" she said.
‘Crab said you were a fine woman. He’s right.’
‘Oh - Crab,’ she said vaguely, as if she didn’t recog-
nise the name.
‘You oughter steer clear though,’ Cubitt said. ‘You’ve
no call to get mixed up in things.’ He stared into his
glass as into a deep darkness: outside innocence, win-
some beauty and culture - unworthy, a tear gathered
behind the bloodshot eyeball,
‘You a friend of Pinkie’s?’ Ida Arnold asked.
198
‘Christ, no,’ Cubitt said and took some more whisky.
A vague memory of the Bible, where it lay in the
cupboard next the Board, the Warwick Deeping, The
Good Companions y stirred in Ida Arnold’s memory. ‘ I’ve
seen you with him,’ she lied: a court-yard, a sewing
wench beside the fire, the cock crowing.
‘I’m no friend of Pinkie’s.’
‘It’s not safe being friends with Pinkie,’ Ida Arnold
said. Cubitt stared into his glass like a diviner into his
soul, reading the dooms of strangers. ‘Fred was a friend
of Pinkie’s,’ she said.
‘What you know about Fred?’
‘People talk,’ Ida Arnold said. ‘People talk all the
time.’
‘You’re right,’ Cubitt said. The stained eyeballs
lifted: they gazed at comfort, understanding. He wasn’t
good enough for Colleoni: he had broken with Pinkie.
Behind her head through the window of the lounge
darkness and the retreating sea. ‘Christ,’ he said, ‘you’re
right. ’ He had an enormous urge to confession, but the
facts were confused. He only knew that these were the
times when a man needed a woman’s understanding.
‘ I’ve never held with it, ’ he told her. ‘ Carving’s different. ’
‘Of course, carving’s different,’ Ida Arnold smoothly
and deftly agreed.
‘And Kite - that was an accident. They only meant to
carve him, Colleoni’s no fool. Somebody slipped. There
wasn’t any cause for bad feeling. ’
‘Have another drink?’
‘It oughter be on me,’ Cubitt said. ‘But I’m cleaned
out. Till I see the boys. ’
‘ It was fine of you - breaking with Pinkie like that. It
needed courage after what happened to Fred. ’
199
‘Oh, he can’t scare me. No broken banisters . . . ’
‘What do you mean - broken banisters?’
‘I wanted to be friendly,’ Cubitt said, ‘A joke’s a
joke. When a man’s getting married, he oughter take a
joke. ’
‘Married? Who married?’
‘Pinkie, of course.’
‘Not to the little girl at Snow’s?’
‘Of course.’
‘The little fool,’ Ida Arnold said with sharp anger.
‘ Oh, the little fool. ’
‘He’s not a fool,’ Cubitt said. ‘He knows what’s good
for him. If she chose to say a thing or two ’
‘You mean, say it wasn’t Fred left the ticket?’
‘Poor old Spicer,’ Cubitt said, watching the bubbles
rise in the whisky. A question floated up, ‘How did
you . . but broke in the doped brain. ‘I want air,’ he
said, ‘stufly in here. What say you and I . . . ?’
‘Just wait awhile,’ Ida Arnold said. ‘I’m expecting a
friend. I’d like you and him to be acquainted. ’
‘This central heating,’ Cubitt said, ‘it’s not healthy.
You go out and catch a chill and the next you know . . . ’
‘When’s the wedding?’
‘ Whose wedding ? ’
‘Pinkie’s.’
‘I’m no friend of Pinkie’s. ’
‘You didn’t hold with Fred’s death, did you?’ Ida
Arnold softly persisted,
‘You understand a man.’
‘Carving would have been different.’
Cubitt suddenly, furiously, broke out, ‘ I can’t see a
piece of Brighton rock without . . . ’ He belched and said
with tears in his voice, ‘ Carving’s different. ’
200
‘The doctors said it was natural causes. He had a
weak heart. ’
‘Come outside,* Cubitt said. ‘I got to get some
air.’
‘Just wait a bit. What do you mean - Brighton
rock?’
He stared inertly back at her. He said, ‘I got to get
some air. Even it it kills me. This central heating . . . ’
he complained. ‘I’m liable to colds.’
‘Just wait two minutes. ’ She put her hand on his arm,
feeling an intense excitement, the edge of discovery
above the horizon, and was aware herself for the first
time of the warm close air welling up round them from
hidden gratings, driving them into the open. She said,
‘ I’ll come out with you. We’ll take a walk . , . ’ He
watched her with nodding head, with an immense
indifference as if he had lost grip on his thought as you
loose a dog’s lead and it has disappeared, too far to be
followed, in what wood ... He was astonished when she
said, ‘ I’ll give you - twenty pounds. ’ What had he said
that was worth that money? She smiled enticingly at
him. ‘Just let me put on a bit of powder and have a
wash.’ He didn’t respond, he was scared, but she
couldn’t wait for a reply: she dived for the stairs - no
time for the lift. A wash: they were the words she had
used to Fred. She ran upstairs, people were coming
down, changed, to dinner. She hammered on her door
and Phil Corkery let her in. ‘Quick,’ she said, ‘I want a
witness.’ He was dressed, thank goodness, and she
raced him down, but immediately she got into the hall
she saw that Cubitt had gone. She ran out on to the steps
of the Cosmopolitan, but he wasn’t in sight.
‘Well,’ Mr Corkery said.
201
‘Gone. Never mind/ Ida Arnold said. ‘I know now
all right. It wasn’t suicide. They murdered him.’ She
said slowly over to herself: ‘. . . Brighton rock. . . .’
The clue would have seemed hopeless to many women,
but Ida Arnold had been trained by the Board. Queerer
things than that had spidered out under her fingers and
Old Crowe’s : with complete confidence her mind began
to work.
The night air stirred Mr Corkery’s thin yellow hair.
It may have occurred to him that on an evening like
this - after the actions of love - romance was required by
any woman. He touched her elbow timidly, ‘What a
night, ’ he said. ‘ I never dreamed - what a night, ’ but
words drained out as she switched towards him her large
thoughtful eyes, uncomprehending, full of other ideas.
She said slowly, ‘The little fool ... to marry him . . .
why, there’s no knowing what he’ll do.’ A kind of
righteous mirth moved her to add with excitement,
‘We got to save her, Phil.’
[ 2 ]
At the bottom of the steps the Boy waited. The big
municipal building lay over him like a shadow - depart-
ments for births and deaths, for motor licences, for rates
and taxes, somewhere in some long corridor the room
for marriages. He looked at his watch and said to Mr
Prewitt, ‘ God damn her. She’s late. ’
Mr Prewitt said, ‘ It’s the privilege of a bride. ’
Bride and groom: the mare and the stallion which
served her: like a file on metal or the touch of velvet to a
sore hand. The Boy said, ‘Me and Dallow ~ we’ll walk
and meet her. ’
202
Mr Prewitt called after him, ‘Suppose she comes
another way. Suppose you miss her . . . I’ll wait here. ’
They turned to the left out of the official street. ‘This
ain’t the way, ’ Dallow said.
‘There’s no call on us to wait on her,’ the Boy said.
‘You can’t get out of it now.’
‘Who wants to? I can take a bit of exercise, can’t I?’
He stopped and stared into a small newsagent’s window -
two-valve receiving sets, the grossness ever5rwhere.
‘Seen Cubitt?’ he asked, staring in.
‘No,’ Dallow said. ‘None of the boys either.’
The daily and the local papers, a poster packed with
news: Scene at Council Meeting. Woman Found
Drowned at Black Rock. Collision in Clarence Street : a
Wild West magazine, a copy of Film Fun\ behind the
inkpots and the fountain pens and the paper plates for
picnics and the little gross toys, the works of well-
known sexologists. The Boy stared in.
‘I know how you feel,’ Dallow said. ‘I was married
once myself. It kind of gets you in the stomach. Nerves.
Why,’ Dallow said, ‘I even went and got one of those
books, but it didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know.
Except about flowers. The pistils of flowers. You wouldn’t
believe the funny things that go on among flowers. *
The Boy turned and opened his mouth to speak, but
the teeth snapped to again. He watched Dallow with
pleading and horror. If Kite had been there, he thought,
he could have spoken - but if Kite had been there, he
would have had no need to speak ... he would never
have got mixed up.
‘These bees . . . ’ Dallow began to explain and stopped.
‘What is it. Pinkie? You don’t look too good.’
‘I know the rules all right,’ the Boy said.
203
‘What rules?’
‘You can’t teach me the rules,’ the Boy went on with
gusty anger. ‘I watched ’em every Saturday night,
didn’t I? Bouncing and ploughing.’ His eyes flinched as
if he were watching some horror. He said in a low voice,
‘When I was a kid, I swore I’d be a priest.’
‘A priest? You a priest? That’s good,’ Dallow said.
He laughed without conviction, imeasily shifted his
foot so that it trod in a dog’s ordure.
‘What’s wrong with being a priest?’ the Boy asked.
‘They know what’s what. They keep away ’ his
whole mouth and jaw loosened: he might have been
going to weep : he beat out wildly with his hands towards
the window: Woman Found Drowned, two-valve,
Married Passion^ the horror - ‘from this.’
‘What’s wrong with a bit of fun?’ Dallow took him
up, scraping his shoe against the pavement edge. The
word ‘fun’ shook the Boy like malaria. He said, ‘You
wouldn’t have known Annie Collins, would you?’
‘Never heard of her. ’
‘She went to the same school I did,’ the Boy said. He
took a look down the grey street and then the glass
before Married Passion reflected again his young and
hopeless face. ‘She put her head on the line,’ he said,
‘up by Hassocks. She had to wait ten minutes for the
seven-five. Fog made it late from Victoria. Cut off her
head. She was fifteen. She was going to have a baby and
she knew what it was like. She’d had one two years before,
and they could ’ave pinned it on twelve boys. ’
‘It does happen,’ Dallow said. ‘It’s the luck of the
game.’
‘I’ve read love stories,’ the Boy said. He had never
been so vocal before, staring in at the paper plates with
204
frilly edges and the two- valve receiving set : the daintiness
and the grossness. ^Frank’s wife reads them. You know
the sort. Lady Angeline turned her starry eyes towards
Sir Mark. They make me sick. Sicker than the other
kind’ - Dallow watched with astonishment this sudden
horrified gift of tongues - ‘the kind you buy under the
counter. Spicer used to get them. About girls being
beaten. Full of shame to expose herself thus before the
boys she stooped. . . . It’s all the same thing,’ he said,
turning his poisoned eyes away from the window, from
point to point of the long shabby street : a smell of fish,
the sawdusted pavement below the carcasses. ‘It’s fun.
It’s the game. ’
‘The world’s got to go on,’ Dallow said uneasily.
‘Why?’
‘You don’t need to ask me,’ Dallow said. ‘You know
best. You’re a Roman, aren’t you? You believe . . .’
‘Credo in unum Satanum,’ the Boy said.
‘I don’t know Latin. I only know . . .’
‘Come on,’ the Boy said. ‘Let’s have it. Dallow’s
creed.’
‘The world’s all right if you don’t go too far.’
‘Is that all?’
‘It’s time for you to be at the registrar’s. Hear the
clock. It’s striking two now. ’ A peal of bells stopped
their cracked chime and struck - one, two
The Boy’s whole face loosened again: he put his hand
on Dallow’s arm. ‘You’re a good sort, Dallow. You
know a lot. Tell me ’ his hand fell away. He looked
beyond Dallow down the street. He said hopelessly,
‘Here she is. What’s she doing in this street?’
‘She’s not hurrying either,’ Dallow commented,
watching the thin figure slowly approach. At that
205
distance she didn’t even look her age. He said, ‘ It was
clever of Prewitt to get the licence at all considering. ’
‘Parents’ consent,* the Boy said dully. ‘Best for
morality. ’ He watched the girl as if she were a stranger
he had got to meet. ‘And then you see there was a stroke
of luck. I wasn’t registered. Not anywhere they could
find. They added on a year or two. No parents. No
guardian. It was a touching story old Prewitt spun. ’
She had tricked herself up for the wedding, discarded
the hat he hadn’t liked: a new mackintosh, a touch of
powder and cheap lipstick. She looked like one of the
small gaudy statues in an ugly church: a paper crown
wouldn’t have looked odd on her or a painted heart: you
could pray to her but you couldn’t expect an answer.
‘Where’ve you been?’ the Boy said. ‘Don’t you know
you’re late?’
They didn’t even touch hands. An awful formality fell
between them.
‘I’m sorry, Pinkie. You see’ - she brought the fact out
with shame, as if she were admitting conversation with
his enemy - ‘ I went into the church. ’
‘What for?’ he said.
‘I don’t know. Pinkie. I got confused. I thought I’d
go to confession. ’
He grinned at her. ‘Confession? That’s rich.’
‘You see I wanted - I thought ’
‘For Christ’s sake what?’
‘ I wanted to be in a state of grace when I married you. ’
She took no notice at all of Dallow. The theological term
lay oddly and pedantically on her tongue. They were
two Romans together in the grey street. They understood
each other. She used terms common to heaven and hell.
‘And did you?’ the Boy said.
206
‘No. I went and rang the bell and asked for Father
James. But then I remembered. It wasn’t any good
confessing. I went away. * She said with a mixture of fear
and pride. ‘We’re going to do a mortal sin.’
The Boy said, with bitter and unhappy relish, ‘It’ll
be no good going to confession ever again - as long as
we’re both alive.’ He had graduated in pain: first the
school dividers had been left behind, next the razor. He
had a sense now that the murders of Hale and Spicer
were trivial acts, a boy’s game, and he had put away
childish things. Murder had only led up to this - this
corruption. He was filled with awe at his own powers.
‘We’d better be moving,’ he said and touched her arm
with next to tenderness. As once before he had a sense of
needing her.
Mr Prewitt greeted them with official mirth. All his
jokes seemed to be spoken in court, with an ulterior motive,
to catch a magistrate’s ear. In the great institutional hall
from which the corridors led off to deaths and births
there was a smell of disinfectant. The walls were tiled
like a public lavatory. Somebody had dropped a rose.
Mr Prewitt quoted promptly, inaccurately, ‘Roses,
roses all the way, and never a sprig of yew.’ A soft
hollow hand guided the Boy by the elbow: ‘No, no, not
that way. That’s taxes. That comes later. ’ He led them
up great stone stairs. A clerk passed them carrying
printed forms. ‘And what is the little lady thinking?’
Mr Prewitt said. She didn’t answer him.
Only the bride and groom were allowed to mount the
sanctuary steps, to kneel down within the sanctuary
rails with the priest and the Host.
‘Parents coming?’ Mr Prewitt asked. She shook her
head. ‘The great thing is,’ Mr Prewitt said, ‘it’s over
207
quickly. Just sign the names along the dotted line. Sit
down here. We’ve got to wait our turn, you know. ’
They sat down. A mop leant in a corner against the
tiled wall. The footsteps of a clerk squealed on the icy
paving down another passage. Presently a big brown
door opened : they saw a row of clerks inside who didn’t
look up: a man and wife came out into the corridor. A
woman followed them and took the mop. The man - he
was middle-aged - said ‘thank you’, gave her sixpence.
He said, ‘We’ll catch the three-fifteen after all.’ On the
woman’s face there was a look of faint astonishment,
bewilderment, nothing so definite as disappointment.
She wore a brown straw and carried an attache case. She
was middle-aged too. She might have been thinking, ‘ Is
that all there is to it - after all these years?’ They went
down the big stairs walking a little apart, like strangers in
a stores.
‘Our turn,’ Mr Prewitt said, rising briskly. He led
the way through the room where the clerks worked.
Nobody bothered to look up. Nibs wrote smooth
numerals and ran on. In a small inner room with green
washed walls like a clinic’s the registrar waited : a table,
three or four chairs against the wall. It wasn’t what she
thought a marriage would be like - for a moment she was
daunted by the cold poverty of a state-made ceremony.
‘Good morning,’ the registrar said. ‘If the witnesses
will just sit down - would you two’ - he beckoned them
to the table and stared at them with gold-rimmed and
glassy importance: it was as if he considered himself on
the fringe of the priestly office. The Boy’s heart beat : he
was sickened by the reality of the moment. He wore a
look of sullenness and of stupidity.
‘You’re both very young,’ the registrar said.
208
‘It’s fixed,’ the Boy said. ‘You don’t have to talk
about it. It’s fixed. ’
The registrar gave him a glance of intense dislike; he
said, ‘Repeat after me,’ and then ran too quickly on,
‘I do solemnly declare that I know not of any lawful
impediment, ’ so that the Boy couldn’t follow him. The
registrar said sharply, ‘It’s quite simple. You’ve only to
repeat after me. . . . ’
‘Go slower,’ the Boy said. He wanted to lay his hand
on speed and brake it down, but it ran on : it was no time
at all, a matter of seconds, before he was repeating the
formula ‘my lawful wedded wife.’ He tried to make it
careless, he kept his eyes off Rose, but the words were
weighted with shame.
‘No ring?’ the registrar asked sharply.
‘We don’t need any ring,’ the Boy said. ‘This isn’t a
church,’ feeling he could never now rid his memory of
the cold green room and the glassy face. He heard Rose
repeating by his side: ‘I call upon these persons here
present to witness . . .’ and then the word ‘husband’,
and he looked sharply up at her. If there had been any
complacency in her face then he would have struck it.
But there was only surprise as if she were reading a
book and had come to the last page too soon.
The registrar said, ‘You sign here. The charge is
seven and sixpence. ’ He wore an air of official unconcern
while Mr Prewitt fumbled.
‘These persons,’ the Boy said and laughed brokenly.
‘That’s you, Prewitt and Dallow.’ He took the pen and
the Government nib scratched into the page, gathering
fur; in the old days, it occurred to him, you signed
covenants like this in your blood. He stood back and
watched Rose awkwardly sign - his temporal safety in
209
return for two immortalities of pain. He had no doubt
whatever that this was mortal sin, and he was filled with
a kind of gloomy hilarity and pride. He saw himself now
as a full grown man for whom the angels wept.
‘These persons/ he repeated, ignoring the registrar
altogether. ‘ Come and have a drink. ^
‘Well,’ Mr Prewitt said, ‘that’s a surprise from you.’
‘Oh, Dallow will tell you,’ the Boy said, ‘I’m a
drinking man these days.’ He looked across at Rose.
‘There’s nothing I’m not now,’ he said. He took her by
the elbow and led the way out to the tiled passage and
the big stairs; the mop was gone and somebody had
picked up the flower. A couple rose as they came out:
the market was firm. He said, ‘That was a wedding. Can
you beat it? We’re’ - he meant to say ‘husband and
wife’, but his mind flinched from the defining phrase.
‘We got to celebrate,’ he said, and like an old relation
you can always trust for the tactless word his brain beat
on - ‘celebrate what?’ and he thought of the girl
sprawling in the Lancia and the long night coming down.
They went to the pub round the corner. It was nearly
closing time, and he stood them pints of bitter and Rose
took a port. She hadn’t spoken since the registrar had
given her the words to say. Mr Prewitt took a quick
look round and parked his portfolio. With his dark
striped trousers he might really have been at a wedding.
‘Here’s to the bride,’ he said with a jocularity which
petered unobtrusively out. It was as if he had tried to
crack a joke with a magistrate and scented a rebuff: the
old face recomposed itself quickly on serious lines. He
said reverently, ‘To your happiness, my dear.’
She didn’t answer; she was looking at her own face in
a glass marked Extra Stout: in the new setting with a
210
foreground of beer handles, it was a strange face. It
seemed to carry an enormous weight of responsibility.
‘A penny for your thoughts,’ Dallow said to her. The
Boy put the glass of bitter to his mouth and tasted for the
second time - the nausea of other people’s pleasures
stuck in his throat. He watched her sourly as she gazed
wordlessly back at his companions; and again he was
sensible of how she completed him. He knew her
thoughts: they beat unregarded in his own nerves. He
said with triumphant venom, ‘ I can tell you what she’s
thinking of. Not much of a wedding, she’s thinking. She’s
thinking - it’s not what I pictured. That’s right, isn’t it?’
She nodded, holding the glass of port as if she hadn’t
learned the way to drink.
‘With my body I thee worship,’ he began to quote at
her, ‘with all my worldly goods . . . and then,’ he said,
turning to Mr Prewitt, ‘ I give her a gold piece. ’
‘Time, gentlemen,’ the barman said, swilling not
quite empty glasses into the lead trough, mopping with
a yeasty cloth.
‘We’re up in the sanctuary, do you see, with the
priest. . . .’
‘Drink up, gentlemen.’
Mr Prewitt said uneasily, ‘One wedding’s as good as
another in the eyes of the law. ’ He nodded encouragingly
at the girl who watched them all with famished immature
eyes. ‘You’re married all right. Trust me.’
‘Married?’ the Boy said. ‘Do you call that married?’
He screwed up the beery spittle on his tongue.
‘Easy on,’ Dallow said. ‘Give the girl a chance. You
don’t need to go too far. ’
‘Come along, gentlemen, empty your glasses.’
‘Married! ’ the Boy repeated. ‘Ask her. ’ The two men
8 — ^B.R.
211
drank up in a shocked furtive way and Mr Prewitt said,
‘Well, I’ll be getting on.’ The Boy regarded them with
contempt; they didn’t understand a thing, and again
he was touched by the sense of communion between
himself and Rose - she too knew that this evening
meant nothing at all, that there hadn’t been a wedding.
He said with rough kindness, ‘Come on. We’ll be going,’
and raised a hand to put it on her arm - then saw the
double image in the mirror (Extra Stout) and let it fall :
a married couple the image winked at him.
‘Where?’ Rose asked.
Where? he hadn’t thought of that - you had to take
them somewhere - the honeymoon, the week-end at the
sea, the present from Margate on the mantelpiece his
mother’d had; from one sea to another, a change of pier.
‘ I’ll be seeing you, ’ Dallow said. He paused a moment
at the door, met the Boy’s eye, the question, the appeal,
understood nothing, and sloped away cheerily waving
after Mr Prewitt, leaving them alone.
It was as if they’d never been alone before in spite of
the barman drying the glasses: not really alone in the
room at Snow’s, nor above the sea at Peacehaven - not
alone as they were now.
‘We’d better be off,’ Rose said.
They stood on the pavement and heard the door of
the ‘Crown’ closed and locked behind them - a bolt
grind into place; they felt as if they were shut out from
an Eden of ignorance. On this side there was nothing to
look forward to but experience.
‘Are we going to Frank’s?’ the girl asked. It was one of
those moments of sudden silence that falls on the busiest
afternoon: not a tram bell, not a cry of steam from the
terminus: a flock of birds shot up together into the air
212
above Old Steyne and hovered there as if a crime
had been committed on the ground. He thought with
nostalgia of the room at Frank’s - he knew exactly where
to put his hand for money in the soap-dish; everything
was familiar; nothing strange there; it shared his bitter
virginity.
‘No,’ he said and again, as noise came back, the clang
and crash of afternoon, ‘No.’
‘Where?’
He smiled with hopeless malice - where did you bring
a swell blonde to if not to the Cosmopolitan, coming
down by Pullman at the week-end, driving over the
downs in a scarlet roadster? Expensive scent and furs,
sailing like a new-painted pinnace into the restaurant,
something to swank about in return for the nocturnal act.
He absorbed Rose’s shabbiness like a penance in a long
look. ‘We’ll take a suite,’ he said, ‘at the Cosmopolitan.’
‘No, but where - really?’
‘You heard me - the Cosmopolitan.’ He flared up.
‘Don’t you think I’m good enough?’
‘You are,’ she said, ‘but I’m not.’
‘We’re going there,’ he said. ‘I can afford it. It’s the
right place. There was a woman called -- Eugeen used to
go there. That’s why they have crowns on the chairs. ’
‘Who was she?’
‘A foreign polony.’
‘Have you been there, then?’
‘Of course I’ve been there.’
Suddenly she put her hands together in an excited
gesture. ‘I dreamed,’ she said and then looked sharply
up to see if he was only mocking after all.
He said airily, ‘The car’s being repaired. We’ll walk
and send them round for my bag. Where’s yours?’
213
‘My what?’
‘Your bag.’
‘It was so broken, dirty . .
‘Never mind,’ he said with desperate swagger, ‘we’ll
buy you another. Where’s your things?’
‘Things ’
‘Christ, how dumb you are,’ he said. ‘I mean . .
but the thought of the night ahead froze his tongue. He
drove on down the pavement, the afternoon waning on
his face.
She said, ‘There was nothing . . . nothing I could
marry you in only this. I asked them for a little money.
They wouldn’t give it me. They’d a right. It was theirs, ’
They walked a foot apart along the pavement. Her
words scratched tentatively at the barrier like a bird’s
claws on a window-pane. He could feel her all the time
trying to get at him: even her humility seemed to him a
trap. The crude quick ceremony was a claim on him.
She didn’t know the reason; she thought - God save the
mark - he wanted her. He said roughly, ‘You needn’t
think there’s going to be a honeymoon. That nonsense.
I’m busy. I’ve got things to do. I’ve got . . He stopped
and turned to her with a kind of scared appeal - let this
make no difference, ‘ I got to be away a lot. ’
‘I’ll wait,’ she said. He could already see the patience
of the poor and the long-married working up under her
skin like a second personality, a modest and shameless
figure behind a transparency.
They came out on to the front and evening stood back
a pace; the sea dazzled the eyes; she watched it with
pleasure as if it was a different sea. He said, ‘What did
your Dad say to-day?’
‘He didn’t say a thing. He’d got a mood.’
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*And the old woman?’
‘ She had a mood too. ’
*They took the money all right.’
They came to a halt on the front opposite the
Cosmopolitan and under its enormous bulk moved a few
inches closer. He remembered the pageboy calling a
name and Colleoni’s gold cigarette case. ... He said
slowly and carefully, shutting uneasiness out, ‘Well, we
oughter be comfortable there. ’ He put a hand up to his
withered tie, straightened his jacket and set uncon-
vincingly his narrow shoulders. ‘Come on. ’ She followed
a pace behind, across the road, up the wide steps. Two
old ladies sat on the terrace in wicker chairs in the sun,
wrapped round and round with veils. They had an
absolute air of security: when they spoke they didn’t look
at each other, just quietly dropped their remarks into the
understanding air. ‘Now Willie . . .’ ‘I always liked
Willie. ’ The Boy made an unnecessary noise coming up
the steps.
He walked across the deep pile to the reception desk,
Rose just behind him. There was nobody there. He
waited furiously - it was a personal insult. A page called
‘Mr Pinecoffin. Mr Pinecoffin’ across the lounge. The
Boy waited. A telephone rang. When the entrance door
swung again they could hear one of the old ladies say,
‘It was a great blow to Basil.’ Then a man in a black
coat appeared and said, ‘Can I do anything for you?’
The Boy said furiously: ‘I’ve been waiting here . . .’
‘You could have touched the bell,’ the clerk said
coldly and opened a large register.
‘I want a room,’ the Boy said. ‘A double room.’
The clerk stared past him at Rose, then turned a page.
‘We haven’t a room free,’ he said.
215
‘I don't mind what I pay,’ the Boy said. ‘I’ll take a
suite.’
‘There’s nothing vacant,’ the clerk said without
looking up.
The pageboy, returning with a salver, paused and
watched. The Boy said in a low furious voice, ‘You can’t
keep me out of here. My money’s as good as anybody
else’s. . . .’
‘No doubt,’ the clerk said, ‘but there happens to be
no room free. ’ He turned his back and picked up a jar of
Stickphast.
‘Come on,’ the Boy said to Rose, ‘this kip stinks.’
He strode back down the steps, past the old ladies ; tears
of humiliation pricked behind his eyes. He had an insane
impulse to shout out to them all that they couldn’t treat
him like that, that he was a killer, he could kill men and
not be caught. He wanted to boast. He could afford that
place as well as anyone: he had a car, a lawyer, two
himdred pounds in the bank . . .
Rose said, ‘If I’d had a ring . . . ’
He said furiously, ‘A ring . . . what sort of a ring? We
aren’t married. Don’t forget that. We aren’t married.’
But outside on the pavement he restrained himself with
immense difficulty and remembered bitterly that he still
had a part to play - they couldn’t make a wife give
evidence, but nothing could prevent a wife except - love,
lust he thought with sour horror, and turning back to her
he unconvincingly apologised. ‘They get me angry,’ he
said. ‘You see I’d promised you ’
‘I don’t care,’ she said. Suddenly with wide astonished
eyes she made the foolhardy claim, ‘Nothing can spoil
to-day. ’
‘We got to find somewhere,’ he said.
216
don’t mind where - Frank’s?’
*Not to-night,’ he said. ‘I don’t want any of the boys
around to-night. ’
‘We’ll think of a place,’ she said. ‘It’s not dark yet.’
These were the hours - when the races were not on,
when there was no one to see on business - that he spent
stretched on the bed at Frank’s. He’d eat a packet of
chocolate or a sausage roll, watch the sun shift from the
chimney-pots, fall asleep and wake and eat again and
sleep with the dark coming in through the window. Then
the boys would return with the evening papers and life
would start again. Now he was at a loss ; he didn’t know
how to spend so much time when he wasn’t alone.
‘One day,’ she said, ‘let’s go into the country like
we did that time . . .’ Staring out to sea she planned
ahead ... he could see the years advancing before her
eyes like the line of the tide.
‘Anything you say,’ he said.
‘ Let’s go on the pier, ’ she said. ‘ I haven’t been since
we went that night - you remember?’
‘Nor’ve I,’ he lied quickly and smoothly, thinking of
Spicer and the dark and the lightning on the sea - the
beginning of something of which he couldn’t see the end.
They went through the turnstile; there were a lot of
people about : a row of anglers watched their floats in the
thick green swell : the water moved under their feet.
‘Do you know that girl?’ Rose asked. The Boy turned
his head apathetically. ‘Where?’ he said. ‘I don’t know
any girls in this place. ’
‘There,’ Rose said. ‘I bet she’s talking about you.’
The fat stupid spotty face swam back into his memory,
nuzzled the glass like some monstrous fish in the
Aquarium - dangerous - a sting-ray from another ocean.
217
Fred had spoken to her and he had come up to them
upon the front: she’d given evidence ~ he couldn’t
remember what she had said - nothing important. Now
she watched him, nudged her pasty girl friend, spoke of
him, told he didn’t know what lies. Christ! he thought,
had he got to massacre a world?
‘ She knows you, ’ Rose said.
‘I’ve never seen her,’ he lied, walking on.
Rose said, ‘ It’s wonderful being with you. Everyone
knows you. I never thought I’d marry someone famous. ’
Who next, he thought, who next? An angler drew back
across their path to make his cast, whirling his line,
dropped it far out ; the float was caught in the cream of a
wave and drove a line’s length towards the shore. It was
cold on the sunless side of the pier; on one side of the
glass division it was day: on the other evening advanced.
‘Let’s cross over,’ he said. He began to think again of
Spicer’s girl: why had he left her in the car? God damn
it, after all, she knew the game.
Rose stopped him. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘won’t you give
me one of those? As a souvenir. They don’t cost much,’
she said, ‘only sixpence.’ It was a small glass box like a
telephone cabinet. ‘Make a record of your own voice,’
the legend ran.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Don’t be soft. What’s the good
of that?’
For the second time he came up against her sudden
irresponsible resentment. She was soft, she was dumb,
she was sentimental - and then suddenly she was
dangerous. About a hat, about a gramophone record.
‘All right,’ she said, ‘go away. You’ve never given me a
thing. Not even to-day you haven’t. If you don’t want me
why don’t you go away? Why don’t you leave me alone?’
218
People turned and looked at them ~ at his acid and angry
face, at her hopeless resentment. ‘What do you want me
for?’ she cried at him.
‘For Christ’s sake . . .’ he said.
‘I’d rather drown,’ she began, but he interrupted her,
‘You can have your record.’ He smiled nervously. ‘I
just thought you were crazy,’ he said. ‘What do you
want to hear me on a record for? Aren’t you going to
hear me every day?’ He squeezed her arm. ‘You’re a
good kid. I don’t grudge you things. You can have
anything you say.’ He thought: she’s got me where she
wants . . . how long? ‘You didn’t mean those things now,
did you?’ he wheedled her. His face crinkled in the
effort of amiability like an old man’s.
‘Something came over me,’ she said, avoiding his eyes
with an expression he couldn’t read, obscure and
despairing.
He felt relieved, but reluctant. He didn’t like the idea
of putting anything on a record: it reminded him of
finger-prints. ‘Do you really,’ he said, ‘want me to get
one of those things? We haven’t got a gramophone
anyway. You won’t be able to hear it. What’s the good?’
‘I don’t want a gramophone,’ she said. ‘I just want to
have it there. Perhaps one day you might be away
somewhere and I could borrow a gramophone. And you’d
speak, ’ she said with a sudden intensity that scared him.
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘Just anything,’ she said. ‘Say something to me. Say
Rose and - something. ’
He went into the box and closed the door. There was
a slot for his sixpence: a mouthpiece: an instruction,
‘Speak clearly and close to the instrument’. The
scientific paraphernalia made him nervous. He looked over
219
his shoulder and there outside she was watching him,
without a smile. He saw her as a stranger: a shabby child
from Nelson Place, and he was shaken by an appalling
resentment. He put in a sixpence, and, speaking in a low
voice for fear it might carry beyond the box, he gave his
message up to be graven on vulcanite: "God damn you,
you little bitch, why can’t you go back home for ever and
let me be?’ He heard the needle scratch and the record
whirr: then a click and silence.
Carrying the black disc he came out to her. "Here,’
he said, "take it. I put something on it - loving.’
She took it from him carefully, carried it like some-
thing to be defended from the crowd. Even on the sunny
side of the pier it was getting cold, and the cold fell
between them like an unanswerable statement - you’d
better be getting home now. He had the sense of playing
truant from his proper work - he should be at school, but
he hadn’t learned his lesson. They passed through the
turnstile, and he watched her out of the corner of an eye
to see what she expected now. If she had shown any
excitement he would have slapped her face. But she
hugged the record as chilled as he.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘we got to go somewhere.’
She pointed down the steps to the covered walk under
the pier. ‘Let’s go there,’ she said, ‘it’s sheltered there.’
The Boy looked sharply round at her; it was as if
deliberately she had offered him an ordeal. For a
moment he hesitated: then he grinned at her. ‘All right,’
he said, ‘we’ll go there,"* He was moved by a kind of
sensuality: the coupling of good and evil.
In the trees of the Old Steyne the fairy lights were
switched on - it was too early, their pale colours didn’t
show in the last of the day. The long tunnel under the
220
parade was the noisiest, lowest, cheapest section of
Brighton’s amusements. Children rushed past them in
paper sailor-caps marked *I’m no Angel’; a ghost train
rattled by carrying courting couples into a squealing and
shrieking darkness. All the way along the landward side
of the tunnel were the amusements; on the other little
shops : Magpie Ices, Photoweigh, Shellfish, Rocko. The
shelves rose to the ceiling: little doors let you in to the
obscurity behind, and on the sea side there were no doors
at all, no windows, nothing but shelf after shelf from the
pebbles to the roof : a breakwater of Brighton rock facing
the sea. The lights were always on in the tunnel; the air
was warm and thick and poisoned with human breath.
‘Well,’ the Boy said, ‘what’s it to be - winkles or
Brighton rock?’ He watched her as if something im-
portant really depended on her answer.
‘I’d like a stick of Brighton rock,’ she said.
Again he grinned: only the devil, he thought, could
have made her answer that. She was good, but he’d got
her like you got God in the Eucharist - in the guts. God
couldn’t escape the evil mouth which chose to eat its
own damnation. He padded across to a doorway and
looked in. ‘Miss,’ he said. ‘Miss. Two sticks of rock.’
He looked around the little pink barred cell as if he
owned it; his memory owned it, it was stamped with
footmarks, a particular patch of floor had eternal im-
portance: if the cash register had been moved he’d have
noticed it. ‘What’s that?’ he asked and nodded at a box,
the only unfamiliar object there.
‘It’s broken rock,’ she said, ‘going cheap.’
‘From the maker’s?’
‘No. It got broken. Some clumsy fools ’ she
complained. ‘I wish I knew who . . .’
221
He took the sticks and turned : he knew what he would
see - nothing: the promenade was shut out behind the
rows of Brighton rock. He had a momentary sense of his
own immense cleverness. 'Good-night/ he said, stooped
in the little doorway and went out. If only one could
boast of one’s cleverness, relieve the enormous pressure
of pride . . .
They stood side by side sucking their sticks of rock:
a woman bustled them to one side. ‘ Out of the way, you
children. ’ Their glances met : a married couple.
‘Where now?’ he asked uneasily.
‘Perhaps we ought to find - somewhere,’ she said.
‘There’s not all that hurry.’ His voice caught a little
with anxiety. ‘It’s early yet. Like a movie?’ He wheedled
her again. ‘ I’ve never took you to a movie. ’
But the sense of power left him. Again her passionate
assent - ‘You’re good to me’ - repelled him.
Slumped grimly in the three and sixpenny seat, in the
half-dark, he asked himself crudely and bitterly what she
was hoping for: beside the screen an illuminated clock
marked the hour. It was a romantic film: magnificent
features, thighs shot with studied care, esoteric beds
shaped like winged coracles. A man was killed, but that
didn’t matter. What mattered was the game. The two
main characters made their stately progress towards the
bed-sheets: ‘I loved you that first time in Santa
Monica. . . . ’ A song under a window, a girl in a night-
dress and the clock beside the screen moving on. He
whispered suddenly, furiously, to Rose, ‘Like cats.’ It
was the commonest game under the sun -■ why be scared
at what the dogs did in the streets? The music moaned -
‘I know in my heart you’re divine’. He whispered,
‘Maybe we’d better go to Frank’s after all,’ thinking:
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we won’t be alone there: something may happen: maybe
the boys will have drinks : maybe they’ll celebrate - there
won’t be any bed for anyone to-night. The actor with a
lick of black hair across a white waste of face said, ‘You’re
mine. All mine. ’ He sang again under the restless stars
in a wash of incredible moonshine, and suddenly,
inexplicably, the Boy began to weep. He shut his eyes to
hold in his tears, but the music went on - it was like a
vision of release to an imprisoned man. He felt con-
striction and saw - hopelessly out of reach - a limitless
freedom: no fear, no hatred, no envy. It was as if he were
dead and were remembering the effect of a good con-
fession, the words of absolution : but being dead it was a
memory only - he couldn’t experience contrition - the
ribs of his body were like steel bands which held him
down to eternal unrepentance. He said at last, ‘Let’s go.
We’d better go. ’
It was quite dark now : the coloured lights were on all
down the Hove front. They walked slowly past Snow’s,
past the Cosmopolitan. An aeroplane flying low burred
out to sea, a red light vanishing. In one of the glass
shelters an old man struck a match to light his pipe and
showed a man and girl cramped in the corner. A wail of
music came off the sea. They turned up through Norfolk
Square towards Montpellier Road: a blonde with Garbo
cheeks paused to powder on the steps up to the Norfolk
bar. A bell tolled somewhere for someone dead and a
gramophone in a basement played a hymn. ‘Maybe,’
the Boy said, ‘after to-night we’ll find some place to go.’
He had his latchkey but he rang the bell. He wanted
people, talk . . . but no one answered. He rang again. It
was one of those old bells you have to pull: it jangled on
the end of its wire: the kind of bell that knows from long
223
experience of dust and spiders and untenanted rooms
how to convey that a house is empty. ‘They can’t ’ave
all gone out,’ he said, slipped in his latchkey.
A globe had been left burning in the hall. He saw at
once the note stuck under the telephone - ‘Two’s
company,’ he recognised the drab and sprawling hand
of Frank’s wife. ‘We gone out to celebrate the wedding.
Lock your door. Have a good time.’ He crumpled the
paper up and dropped it on the linoleum. ‘Come on,’
he said, ‘upstairs. ’ At the top he put his hand on the new
banister rail and said, ‘You see. We got it mended.’
A smell of cabbages and cooking and burnt cloth hung
about the dark passage. He nodded - ‘That was old
Spicer’s room. Do you believe in ghosts?’
‘I don’t know.’
He pushed open his own door and switched on the
naked dusty light. ‘There,’ he said, ‘take it or leave it,’
and drew aside to expose the big brass bed, the wash-
stand and chipped ewer, the varnished wardrobe with its
cheap glass front.
‘It’s better than a hotel,’ she said, ‘it’s more like
home. ’
They stood in the middle of the room as if they didn’t
know what their next move should be. She said, ‘To-
morrow I’ll tidy up a bit. ’
He banged the door to. ‘You won’t touch a thing,’ he
said. ‘It’s my home, do you hear? I won’t have you
coming in, changing things. . . . ’ He watched her with
fear - to come into your own room, your cave, and find a
strange thing there. . . . ‘Why don’t you take off your
hat?’ he said. ‘You’re staying, aren’t you?’ She took off
her hat, her mackintosh - this was the ritual of mortal
sin; this, he thought, was what people damned each
224
other for . , . The bell in the hall clanged. He paid it no
attention. ‘It’s Saturday night,’ he said with a bitter
taste on his tongue, ‘it’s time for bed.’
‘Who is it?’ she asked, and the bell jangled again - its
unmistakable message to whoever was outside that the
house was no longer empty. She came across the room
to him, her face was white. ‘Is it the police?’ she said.
‘Why should it be the police? Some friend of Frank’s. ’
But the suggestion startled him. He stood and waited for
the clang. It didn’t come again. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we
can’t stand here all night. We better get to bed. ’ He felt
an appalling emptiness as if he hadn’t fed for days. He
tried to pretend, taking off his jacket and hanging it over
a chair back, that everything was as usual. When he
turned she hadn’t moved : a thin and half-grown child she
trembled between the washstand and the bed. ‘Why,’
he mocked her with a dry mouth, ‘you’re scared. ’ It was
as if he had gone back four years and was taunting a
schoolfellow into some offence.
‘Aren’t you scared?’ Rose said.
‘Me.’ He laughed at her unconvincingly and
advanced : an embryo of sensuality - he was mocked by
the memory of a gown, a back, ‘I loved you that first
time in Santa Monica. . . .’ Shaken by a kind of rage,
he took her by the shoulders. He had escaped from
Nelson Place to this : he pushed her against the bed. ‘ It’s
mortal sin, ’ he said, getting what savour there was out
of innocence, trying to taste God in the mouth : a brass
bedball, her dumb, frightened and acquiescent eyes - he
blotted everything out in a sad brutal now-or-never
embrace: a cry of pain and then the jangling of the bell
beginning all over again. ‘Christ,’ he said, ‘can’t they
let a man alone?’ He opened his eyes on the grey room
225
to see what he had done: it seemed to him more like
death than when Hale and Spicer had died.
Rose said, ‘Don’t go. Pinkie, don’t go.’
He had an odd sense of triumph : he had graduated in
the last human shame - it wasn’t so difficult after all. He
had exposed himself and nobody had laughed. He didn’t
need Mr Prewitt or Spicer, only - a faint feeling of
tenderness woke for his partner in the act. He put out a
hand and pinched the lobe of her ear. The bell clanged
in the empty hall. An enormous weight seemed to have
lifted. He could face anyone now. He said, ‘I’d better
see what the bugger wants.’
‘Don’t go. I’m scared, Pinkie.’
But he had a sense that he would never be scared
again. Running down from the track he had been afraid,
afraid of pain and more afraid of damnation - of the
sudden and unshriven death. Now it was as if he was
damned already and there was nothing more to fear
ever again. The ugly bell clattered, the long wire
humming in the hall, and the bare globe burnt above the
bed - the girl, the washstand, the sooty window, the
blank shape of a chimney, a voice whispered, ‘ I love you,
Pinkie. ’ This was hell then ; it wasn’t anything to worry
about: it was just his own familiar room. He said, ‘I’ll
be back. Don’t worry. I’ll be back. ’
At the head of the stairs he put his hand on the new
unpainted wood of the mended banister. He pushed it
gently and saw how firm it was. He wanted to crow at
his own cleverness. The bell shook below him. He looked
down: it was a long drop, but you couldn’t really be
certain that a man from that height would be killed. The
thought had never occurred to him before, but men
sometimes lived for hours with broken backs, and he
226
knew an old man who went about to this day with a
cracked skull which clicked in cold weather when he
sneezed. He had a sense of being befriended. The bell
jangled : it knew he was at home. He went on down the
stairs, his toes catching in the worn linoleum - he was
too good for this place. He felt an invincible energy - he
hadn’t lost vitality upstairs, he’d gained it. What he had
lost was a fear. He hadn’t an idea who stood outside the
door, but he was seized by a sense of wicked amusement.
He put up his hand to the old bell and held it silent: he
could feel the pull at the wire. An odd tug of war went
on with the stranger down the length of the hall, and the
Boy won. The pull ceased and a hand beat at the door.
The Boy released the bell and moved softly towards the
door, but immediately behind his back the bell began to
clap again, cracked and hollow and urgent. A ball of
paper - ‘Lock your door. Have a good time’ - scuffled
at his toes.
He swung the door boldly open, and there was Cubitt,
Cubitt hopelessly and drearily drunk. Somebody had
blacked his eye and his breath was sour: drink always
upset his digestion.
The Boy’s sense of triumph increased: he felt an
immeasurable victory. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘what do you
want?’
‘I got my things here,’ Cubitt said. ‘I want to get my
things. ’
‘Come in and get ’em then,’ the Boy said.
Cubitt sidled in. He said, ‘I didn’t think I’d see
you . . . ’
‘ Go on, ’ the Boy said. ‘ Get your things and clear out. ’
‘Where’s Dallow?’
The Boy didn’t answer.
227
‘Frank?’
Cubitt cleared his throat: his sour breath reached the
Boy. ‘Look here, Pinkie/ he said, ‘you and me - why
shouldn’t we be friends? Like we always was.’
‘ We were never friends, ’ the Boy said.
Cubitt took no notice. He got his back to the telephone
and watched the Boy with his drunken and cautious
eyes. ‘You an’ me,’ he said, the sour phlegm rising in
his throat and thickening every word, ‘you an’ me can’t
get on separate. Why,’ he said, ‘we’re kind of brothers.
We’re tied together. ’
The Boy watched him, standing against the opposite
wall.
‘You an’ me - it’s what I said. We can’t get on
separate, ’ Cubitt repeated.
‘I suppose,’ the Boy said, ‘Colleoni wouldn’t touch
you - not with a stick, but I’m not taking his leavings,
Cubitt. ’
Cubitt began to weep a little. It was a stage he always
reached : the Boy could measure his glasses by his tears :
they squeezed reluctantly out, two tears like drops of
spirits oozed out of the yellow eyeballs. ‘You’ve no
cause to take on like that,’ he said, ‘Pinkie.’
‘You better get your things.’
‘Where’s Dallow?’
‘He’s out,’ the Boy said. ‘They’re all out.’ The spirit
of cruel mischief moved again. ‘We’re quite alone,
Cubitt,’ he said. He glanced down the hall at the new
patch of linoleum over the place where Spicer had fallen.
But it didn’t work: the stage of tears was transitory -
what came after was sullenness, anger. . . .
Cubitt said, ‘You can’t treat me like dirt.’
‘That how Colleoni treated you?’
228
‘I came here to be friendly/ Cubitt said. ‘You can’t
afford not to be friendly. ’
‘I can afford more than you’d think,’ the Boy said.
Cubitt took him quickly up. ‘Lend me five nicker.’
The Boy shook his head. He was shaken by sudden
impatience and pride: he was worth more than this -
this squabble on worn linoleum under the bare and
dusty globe with Cubitt. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ he said,
‘get your things and clear out.’
‘ I’ve got things I could tell about you . . . ’
‘Nothing.’
‘Fred . . .’
‘You’d hang,’ the Boy said. He grinned. ‘But not me.
I’m too young to hang.’
‘There’s Spicer too.’
‘ Spicer fell down there. ’
‘ I heard you . . . ’
‘You heard me? Who’s going to believe that?’
‘Dallow heard.’
‘Dallow’s all right,’ the Boy said. ‘I can trust Dallow.
Why, Cubitt,’ he went quietly on, ‘if you were danger-
ous, I’d do something about you. But thank your lucky
stars you aren’t dangerous.’ He turned his back on
Cubitt and mounted the stairs. He could hear Cubitt
behind him - panting; he had no wind.
‘I didn’t come here to give hard words. Lend me a
couple of nicker, Pinkie. I’m broke. ’
The Boy didn’t answer - ‘For the sake of old times’ -
turned off at the bend of the stairs to his own room.
Cubitt said, ‘Wait a moment and I’ll tell you a thing
or two, you bloody little geezer. There’s someone’ll give
me money - twenty nicker. You - why you - I’ll tell you
what you are.’
229
The Boy stopped in front of his door. ‘ Go on, ’ he said,
‘tell me/
Cubitt struggled to speak. He hadn’t got the right
words. He flung his rage and resentment away in
phrases light as paper. ‘You’re mean,’ he said, ‘you’re
yellow. You’re so yellow you’d kill your best friend to
save your own skin. Why’ - he laughed thickly - ‘you’re
scared of a girl. Sylvie told me’ - but that accusation had
come too late. He had graduated now in knowledge of
the last human weakness. He listened with amusement,
with a kind of infernal pride. The picture Cubitt drew had
got nothing to do with him : it was like the pictures men
drew of Christ, the image of their own sentimentality.
Cubitt couldn’t know. He was like a professor describing
to a stranger some place he had only read about in books :
statistics of imports and exports, tonnage and mineral
resources and if the budget balanced, when all the time
it was a country the stranger knew from thirsting in the
desert and being shot at in the foothills. Mean . . .
yellow . . . scared: he laughed gently with derision. It
was as if he had outsoared the shadow of any night
Cubitt could be aware of. He opened his door, went in,
closed it and locked it.
Rose sat on the bed with dangling feet like a child in
a classroom waiting for a teacher in order to say her
lesson. Outside the door Cubitt swore and hacked with
his foot, rattled the handle and moved off. She said
with immense relief - she was used to drunken men,
‘Oh, then it’s not the police.’
‘Why should it be the police?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘I thought maybe ’
‘Maybe what?’
He could only just catch her answer. ‘Kolley Kibber.’
230
For a moment he was amazed. Then he laughed softly
with infinite contempt and superiority at a world which
used words like innocence. ‘Why/ he said, ‘that’s rich.
You knew all along. You guessed. And I thought you
were so green you hadn’t lost the eggshell. And there
you were’ - he built her up in the mind’s eye that day at
Peacehaven, among the harvest wines at Snow’s - ‘there
you were, knowing. ’
She didn’t deny it: sitting there with her hands locked
between her knees she accepted everything. Tt’s rich,’
he said. ‘Why, when you come to think of it - you’re as
bad as me. ’ He came across the room and added with a
kind of respect, ‘There’s not a pin to choose between
us.’
She looked up with childish devoted eyes and swore
solemnly, ‘Not a pin.’
He felt desire move again, like nausea in the belly.
‘What a wedding night,’ he said, ‘did you think a
wedding night would be like this?’ . . . the piece of gold
in the palm, the kneeling in the sanctuary, the bless-
ing . . . footsteps in the passage, Cubitt pounded on the
door, pounded and lurched away, the stairs creaked, a
door slammed. She made her vow again, holding him in
her arms, in the attitude of mortal sin, ‘Nothing to
choose. ’
The Boy lay on his back - in his shirt-sleeves -- and
dreamed. He was in an asphalt playground: one plane
tree withered: a cracked bell clanged and the children
came out to him. He was new: he knew no one: he was
sick with fear - they came towards him with a purpose.
Then he felt a cautious hand on his sleeve and in a mirror
hanging on the tree he saw the reflection of himself and
231
Kite behind - middle-aged, cheery, bleeding from the
mouth. ‘ Such tits, ’ Kite said and put a razor in his hand.
He knew then what to do : they only needed to be taught
once that he would stop at nothing, that there were no
rules.
He flung out his arm in a motion of attack, made some
indistinguishable comment and turned upon his side.
A piece of blanket fell across his mouth; he breathed
with difficulty. He was upon the pier and he could see
the piles breaking - a black cloud came racing up across
the channel and the sea rose: the whole pier lurched and
settled lower. He tried to scream: no death was so bad
as drowning. The deck of the pier lay at a steep angle
like that of a liner on the point of its deadly dive; he
scrambled up the polished slope away from the sea and
slipped again, down and down into his bed in Nelson
Place. He lay still thinking, ‘What a dream!’ and then
heard the stealthy movement of his parents in the other
bed. It was Saturday night. His father panted like a man
at the end of a race and his mother made a horrifying
sound of pleasurable pain. He was filled with hatred,
disgust, loneliness: he was completely abandoned: he
had no share in their thoughts - for the space of a few
minutes he was dead, he was like a soul in purgatory
watching the shameless act of a beloved person.
Then quite suddenly he opened his eyes, it was as if
the nightmare couldn’t go further. It was black night, he
could see nothing and for a few seconds he believed he
was back in Nelson Place. Then a clock struck three,
clashing close by like the lid of a dustbin in the backyard,
and he remembered with immense relief that he was
alone. He got out of bed in his half drowse (his mouth
was clotted and evil-tasting) and felt his way to the
232
washstand. He took up his tooth-mug, poured out a
glass of water and heard a voice say, ‘Pinkie? What is it.
Pinkie?’ He dropped the glass and as the water spilt
across his feet he bitterly remembered.
He said cautiously into the dark, ‘ It’s all right. Go to
sleep. ’ He no longer had a sense of triumph or superior-
ity. He looked back on a few hours ago as if he had been
drunk then or dreaming - he had been momentarily
exhilarated by the strangeness of his experience. Now
there would be nothing strange ever again - he was
awake. You had to treat these things with common-
sense - she knew. The darkness thinned before his wake-
ful and calculating gaze - he could see the outline of
the bedknobs and a chair. He had won a move and lost a
move: they couldn’t make her give evidence, but she
knew . . . She loved him whatever that meant, but love
was not an eternal thing like hatred and disgust. They
saw a better face, a smarter suit . . . The truth came
home to him with horror that he had got to keep her love
for a lifetime; he would never be able to discard her. If
he climbed he had to take Nelson Place with him like a
visible scar ; the registry office marriage was as irrevocable
as a sacrament. Only death could ever set him free.
He was taken by a craving for air, walked softly to the
door. In the passage he could see nothing: it was full of
the low sound of breathing - from the room he had left,
from Dallow’s room. He felt like a blind man watched
by people he couldn’t see. He felt his way to the stair-
head and on down to the hall, step by step, creakingly.
He put out his hand and touched the telephone, then
with his arm outstretched made for the door. In the
street the lamps were out, but the darkness no longer
enclosed between four walls seemed to thin out across
233
the vast expanse of a city. He could see basement
railings, a cat moving, and, reflected on the dark sky, the
phosphorescent glow of the sea. It was a strange world:
he had never been alone in it before. He had a deceptive
sense of freedom as he walked softly down towards the
Channel.
The lights were on in Montpellier Road. Nobody was
about, and an empty milk bottle stood outside a gramo-
phone shop ; far down were the illuminated clock tower
and the public lavatories. The air was fresh like country
air. He could imagine he had escaped. He put his hands for
warmth into his trouser-pockets and felt a scrap of paper
which should not have been there. He drew it out - a
scrap torn from a notebook - big, unformed, stranger’s
writing. He held it up into the grey light and read - with
difficulty. ‘ I love you. Pinkie. I don’t care what you do.
I love you for ever. You’ve been good to me. Wherever
you go. I’ll go too. ’ She must have written it while he
talked to Cubitt and slipped it into his pocket while he
slept. He crumpled it in his fist: a dustbin stood outside
a fishmonger’s - then he held his hand. An obscure
sense told him you never knew - it might prove useful
one day.
He heard a whisper, looked sharply round, and thrust
the paper back. In an alley between two shops, an old
woman sat upon the ground; he could just see the
rotting and discoloured face: it was like the sight of
damnation. Then he heard the whisper, ‘Blessed art
thou among women,’ saw the grey fingers fumbling at
the beads. This was not one of the damned : he watched
with horrified fascination: this was one of the saved.
234
PART SEVEN
CO
It did not seem in the least strange to Rose that she
should wake alone - she was a stranger in the country of
mortal sin, and she assumed that everything was
customary. He was, she supposed, about his business.
No alarm-clock dinned her to get up, but the morning
light woke her, pouring through the uncurtained glass.
Once she heard footsteps in the passage, and once a
voice called ‘Judy’ imperatively. She lay there wondering
what a wife had to do - or rather a mistress.
But she didn’t lie long - that was frightening, the
unusual passivity. It wasn’t like life at all - to have
nothing to do. Suppose they assumed she knew - about
the stove to be lit, the table to be laid, the debris to be
cleared away. A clock struck seven ; it was an unfamiliar
clock (all her life she had lived in hearing of the same one
till now), and the strikes seemed to fall more slowly and
more sweetly through the early summer air than any she
had ever heard before. She felt happy and scared: seven
o’clock was a terribly late hour. She scrambled out and
was about to mutter her quick ‘Our Fathers’ and ‘Hail
Marys’ while she dressed, when she remembered
again. . . . What was the good of praying now? She’d
finished with all that: she had chosen her side: if they
damned him they’d got to damn her, too.
In the ewer there was only an inch of water with a grey
heavy surface, and when she lifted the lid of the soap-box
she found three pound notes wrapped round two half-
crowns. She put the lid back: that was just another
custom you had to get used to. She took a look round the
235
room, opened a wardrobe and found a tin of biscuits and
a pair of boots ; some crumbs crunched under her tread.
The gramophone record caught her attention on the
chair where she’d lain it and she stowed it in the cupboard
for greater safety. Then she opened the door: not a
sound or sign of life: looked over the banisters, the new
wood squeaked under her pressure. Somewhere down
below must be the kitchen, the living room, the places
where she had to work. She went cautiously down -
seven o’clock -- what furious faces - in the hall a ball of
paper scuffled under her feet. She smoothed it out and
read a pencilled message: ‘Lock your door. Have a good
time.’ She didn’t understand it: it might as well have
been in code - she assumed it must have something to do
with this foreign world where you sinned on a bed and
people lost their lives suddenly and strange men hacked
at your door and cursed you in the night.
She found the basement stairs ; they were dark where
they dropped under the hall, but she didn’t know where
to find a switch. Once she nearly tripped and held the
wall close with beating heart, remembering the evidence
at the inquest, how Spicer had fallen. His death gave the
house a feeling of importance: she had never been on the
scene of a recent death. At the bottom of the stairs she
opened the first door she came to, cautiously, expecting
a curse: it was the kitchen all right, but it was empty. It
wasn’t like either of the kitchens she knew: the one at
Snow’s clean, polished, busy: the one at home which was
just the room where you sat, where people cooked and
ate and had moods and warmed themselves on bitter
nights and dozed in chairs. This was like the kitchen in
a house for sale: the stove was full of cold coke: on the
vidndow-sill there were two empty sardine tins: a dirty
236
saucer lay under the table for a cat which wasn^t there:
a cupboard stood open full of empties.
She went and raked at the dead coke; the stove was
cold to the touch : there hadn’t been a fire alight there for
hours or days. The thought struck her that she’d been
deserted: perhaps this was what happened in this world,
the sudden flight, leaving everything behind, your empty
bottles and your girl and the message in code on a scrap
of paper. When the door opened she expected a police-
man.
It was Dallow in pyjama trousers. He looked in, said,
‘Where’s Judy?’ then seemed to notice her. He said,
‘You’re up early.’
‘Early?’ She couldn’t understand what he meant.
‘I thought it was Judy routing around. You remember
me. I’m Dallow. ’
She said, ‘ I thought maybe I’d better light the stove. ’
‘What for?’
‘Breakfast.’
He said, ‘If that polony’s gone and forgotten ’ He
went to a dresser and pulled open a drawer. ‘Why,’ he
said, ‘what’s got you? You don’t want a stove. There’s
plenty here.’ Inside the drawer were stacks of tins:
sardines, herrings. . . . She said, ‘ But tea. ’
He looked at her oddly. ‘Anyone’d think you wanted
work. No one here wants any tea. Why take the trouble?
There’s beer in the cupboard, and Pinkie drinks the
milk out of the bottle.’ He padded back to the door.
‘Help yourself, kid, if you’re hungry. Pinkie want
anything?’
‘He’s gone out.’
‘Christ’s sake, what’s come over this house?’ He
stopped in the doorway and took another look at her as
237
she stood with helpless hands near the dead stove. He
said, ‘You don’t want to work, do you?’
‘No,’ she said doubtfully.
He was puzzled. ‘I wouldn’t want to stop you,’ he
said. ‘You’re Pinkie’s girl. You go ahead and light that
stove if you want. I’ll shut up Judy if she barks, but
Christ knows where you’ll find the coke. Why, that
stove’s not been lit since March.’
‘I don’t want to put anyone out,’ Rose said. ‘I came
down. ... I thought . . . I’d got to light it. ’
‘You don’t need to do a stroke,’ Dallow said. ‘You
take it from me, this is Liberty Hall.’ He said, ‘You’ve
not seen a bitch with red hair routing around, have you?’
‘I haven’t seen a soul.’
‘Well,’ Dallow said, ‘I’ll be seeing you.’ She was
alone again in the cold kitchen. Needn’t do a stroke . . .
Liberty Hall . . . She leant against the whitewashed wall
and saw an old flypaper dangling above the dresser;
somebody a long time ago had set a mousetrap by a hole,
but the bait had been stolen and the trap had snapped
on nothing at all. It was a lie when people said that
sleeping with a man made no difference: you emerged
from pain to this - freedom, liberty, strangeness. A
stifled exhilaration moved in her breast, a kind of pride.
She opened the kitchen door boldly and there at the
head of the basement stairs was Dallow and the red-
haired bitch, the woman he’d called Judy. They stood
with lips glued together in an attitude of angry passion :
they might have been inflicting on each other the greatest
injury of which they were either of them capable. The
woman wore a mauve dressing-gown with a dusty bunch
of paper poppies, the relic of an old November. As they
fought mouth to mouth the sweet-toned clock sounded
238
the half-hour. Rose watched them from the foot of the
stairs. She had lived years in a night. She knew all about
this now.
The woman saw her and took her mouth from
Dallow’s. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘who’s here?’
‘It’s Pinkie’s girl,’ Dallow said.
‘You’re up early. Hungry?’
‘No. I just thought - maybe I ought to light the fire.’
‘We don’t use that fire often,’ the woman said. ‘Life’s
too short. ’ She had little pimples round her mouth and
an air of ardent sociability. She stroked her carrot hair
and coming down the stairs to Rose fastened a mouth wet
and prehensile like a sea anemone upon her cheek. She
smelt faintly, stalely, of Californian Poppy. ‘Well, dear,’
she said, ‘you’re one of us now,’ and she seemed to
present to Rose in a generous gesture the half-naked man,
the bare dark stairs, the barren kitchen. She whispered
softly so that Dallow couldn’t hear, ‘You won’t tell
anyone you saw us, dear, will you? Frank gets worked
up, an’ it don’t mean anything, not anything at all. ’
Rose dumbly shook her head: this foreign land
absorbed her too quickly - no sooner were you past the
customs than the naturalisation papers were signed, you
were conscripted. . . .
‘There’s a duck,’ the woman said. ‘Any friend of
Pinkie’s is a friend of all of us. You’ll be meeting the boys
before long.’
‘I doubt it,’ said Dallow from the top of the stairs.
‘You mean ’
‘We got to talk to Pinkie serious.’
‘Did you have Cubitt here last night?’ the woman
asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Rose said. ‘I don’t know who anyone
239
is. Someone rang the bell and swore a lot and kicked the
door.’
‘That was Cubitt,’ the woman gently explained.
‘We got to talk to Pinkie serious. It’s not safe,’
Dallow said.
‘Well, dear, I’d better be getting back to Frank.’ She
paused on a step just above Rose. ‘If you ever want a
dress cleaned, dear, you couldn’t do better than give it
to Frank. Though I say it who shouldn’t. There’s no one
like Frank for getting out grease marks. An’ he hardly
charges a thing to lodgers.’ She bent down and laid a
freckled finger on Rose’s shoulder. ‘It could do with a
sponge now. ’
‘But I haven’t got anything to wear, only this.’
‘ Oh well, dear, in that case ’ She bent and whispered
confidentially, ‘Make your hubby buy you one,’ then
gathered the faded dressing-gown around her and loped
up the stairs. Rose could see a dead white leg, like
something which has lived underground, covered with
russet hairs, a dingy slipper flapped a loose heel. It
seemed to her that everyone was very kind: there seemed
to be a companionship in mortal sin.
Pride swelled in her breast as she came up from the
basement. She was accepted. She had experienced as
much as any woman. Back in the bedroom she sat on
the bed and waited and heard the clock strike eight. She
wasn’t hungry ; she was sensible of an immense freedom -
no time-table to keep, no work which had got to be done.
You suffered a little pain and then came out on the other
side to this amazing liberty. There was only one thing
she wanted now - to let others see her happiness. She
could walk into Snow’s now like any other customer, rap
the table with a spoon and demand service. She could
240
boast ... It was a fantasy, but sitting on the bed while
time drifted by it became an idea, something she was
really able to do. In less than half an hour they would be
opening for breakfast. If she had the money . . . She
brooded with her eyes on the soap-dish. She thought:
after all we are married - in a way; he^s given me nothing
but that record; he wouldn’t grudge me half a crown.
She stood up and listened, then walked softly over to the
washstand. With her fingers on the lid of the soap-dish
she waited - somebody was coming down the passage: it
wasn’t Judy and it wasn’t Dallow - perhaps it was the
man they called Frank. The footsteps passed; she lifted
the lid and unwrapped the half-crown. She had stolen
biscuits, she had never stolen money before. She
expected to feel shame, but it didn’t come - only again
the odd swell of pride. She was like a child in a new
school who finds she can pick up the esoteric games and
passwords in the cement playground, at once, by instinct.
In the world outside it was Sunday - she’d forgotten
that: the church bells reminded her, shaking over
Brighton. Freedom again in the early sun, freedom from
the silent prayers at the altar, from the awful demands
made on you at the sanctuary rail. She had joined the
other side now for ever. The half-crown was like a medal
for services rendered. People coming back from seven-
thirty Mass, people on the way to eight-thirty Matins -
she watched them in their dark clothes like a spy. She
didn’t envy them and she didn’t despise them : they had
their salvation and she had Pinkie and damnation.
At Snow’s the blinds had just gone up; a girl she knew
called Maisie was laying a few tables - the only girl she
cared about, a new girl like herself and not much older.
She watched her from the pavement - and Doris, the
241
senior waitress with her habitual sneer, doing nothing
at all except flick a duster where Maisie had already been.
Rose clutched the half-crown closer; well, she had only
got to go in, sit down, tell Doris to fetch her a cup of
coffee and a roll, tip her a couple of coppers - she could
patronise the whole lot of them. She was married. She
was a woman. She was happy. What would they feel like
when they saw her coming through the door?
And she didn’t go in. That was the trouble. How
would she feel, flaunting her freedom? Then through
the pane she caught Maisie’s eye; she stood there with
a duster staring back, bony, immature, like her own
image in a mirror. And she stood now where Pinkie
had stood - outside, looking in. This was what the
priests meant by one flesh. And just as she days ago
had motioned, Maisie motioned - a slant of the eyes, an
imperceptible nod towards the side door. There was no
reason at all why she shouldn’t go in at the front, but
she obeyed Maisie. It was like doing something you’d
done before.
The door opened and Maisie was there. ‘Rose, what’s
wrong?’ She ought to have had wounds to show: she
felt guilty at having only happiness. ‘I thought I’d
come,’ she said, ‘and see you. I’m married.’
‘Married?’
‘Kind of.’
‘Oh, Rose, what’s it like?’
‘Lovely.’
‘You got rooms?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you do all day?’
‘Nothing at all. Just lie about.’
The childish face in front of her took on the wrinkled
242
expression of grief. ^God, Rosie, you’re lucky. Where
did you meet him?’
‘Here.’
A hand bonier than her own seized her by the wrist:
‘Oh, Rosie, ain’t he got a friend?’
She said lightly, ‘He’s not got friends.’
‘Maisie,’ a voice called shrilly from the cafe, ‘Maisie.’
Tears lay ready in the eyes: in Maisie’s eyes not Rose’s:
she hadn’t meant to hurt her friend. An impulse of pity
made her say, ‘It’s not all that good, Maisie.’ She tried
to destroy the appearance of her own happiness.
‘Sometimes he’s bad to me. Oh, I can tell you,’ she
urged, ‘it’s not all roses.’
But ‘not roses,’ she thought as she turned back to the
parade, ‘ if it’s not all roses, what is it ? ’ And mechanically,
walking back towards Frank’s without her breakfast,
she began to think - what have I done to deserve to be
so happy? She’d committed a sin: that was the answer:
she was having her cake in this world, not in the next,
and she didn’t care. She was stamped with him, as his
voice was stamped on the vulcanite.
A few doors from Frank’s, from a shop where they
sold the Sunday papers, Dallow called to her. ‘Hi, kid.’
She stopped. ‘You got a visitor.’
‘Who?’
‘Your mother.’
She was stirred by a feeling of gratitude and pity: her
mother hadn’t been happy like this. She said, ‘Give me
a News of the World, Mum likes a Sunday paper. ’ In the
back room somebody was playing a gramophone. She
said to the man who kept the shop, ‘Sometime would
you let me come here - and play a record I got?’
‘O’ course he will,’ Dallow said.
9 + b . r .
243
She crossed the road and rang at Frank’s door. Judy
opened it; she was still in her dressing-gown, but
underneath she now had on her corsets. ‘You got a
visitor/ she said.
‘I know.’ Rose ran upstairs: it was the biggest
triumph you could ever expect - to greet your mother for
the first time in your own house - ask her to sit down on
your own chair: to look at one another with an equal
experience. There was nothing now, Rose felt, her
mother knew about men she didn’t know: that was the
reward for the painful ritual upon the bed. She flung the
door gladly open and there was the woman.
‘What are you ?’ she began, and said, ‘They told
me it was my mother.’
‘I had to tell them something,’ the woman gently
explained. She said, ‘ Come in, dear, and shut the door
behind you,’ as if it were her room.
‘I’ll call Pinkie.’
‘I’d like a word with your Pinkie.’ You couldn’t get
round her ; she stood there like the wall at the end of an alley
scrawled with the obscene chalk messages of an enemy.
She was the explanation - it seemed to Rose - of sudden
harshnesses, of the nails pressing her wrist. She said,
‘ You’ll not see Pinkie. I won’t have anyone worry Pinkie.’
‘He’s going to have plenty to worry him soon.’
‘Who are you?’ Rose implored her. ‘Why do you
interfere with us? You’re not the police.’
‘I’m like everyone else. I want justice,’ the woman
cheerfully remarked, as if she were ordering a pound of
tea. Her big prosperous carnal face hung itself with
smiles. She said, ‘I want to sec you're safe.’
‘I don’t want any help,’ Rose said.
‘You ought to go home.’
244
Rose clenched her hands in defence of the brass bed,
the ewer of dusty water: ‘This is home.*
Tt’s no good your getting angry, dear,* the woman
continued. ‘ I*m not going to lose my temper with you
again. It*s not your fault. You don’t understand how
things are. Why, you poor little thing, I pity you,* and
she advanced across the linoleum as if she intended to
take Rose in her arms.
Rose backed against the bed, ‘You keep your distance. ’
‘Now don’t get agitated, dear. It won’t help. You see ~
I’m determined. *
‘I don’t know what you mean. Why can’t you talk
straight?*
‘There’s things I’ve got to break - gently.’
‘Keep away from me. Or I’ll scream.*
The woman stopped. ‘Now let’s talk sensible, dear.
I’m here for your own good. You got to be saved.
Why * she seemed for a moment at a loss for words.
She said in a hushed voice, ‘Your life’s in danger.*
‘You go away if that’s all *
‘All,’ the woman was shocked. ‘What do you mean,
all?’ Then she laughed resolutely. ‘Why, dear, for a
moment you had me rattled. All, indeed. It’s enough,
isn’t it? I’m not joking now. If you don’t know it, you
got to know it. There’s nothing he wouldn’t stop at. *
‘Well?’ Rose said, giving nothing away.
The woman whispered softly across the few feet
between them, ‘He’s a murderer.’
‘Do you think I don’t know thatV Rose said.
‘God’s sake,’ the woman said, ‘do you mean ’
‘There’s nothing can tell me.’
‘You crazy little fool - to marry him knowing that.
I got a good mind to let you be. ’
245
‘I won’t complain,’ Rose said.
The woman hooked on another smile, as you hook on
a wreath. ‘ I’m not going to lose my temper, dear. Why
if I let you be, I wouldn’t sleep at nights. It wouldn’t be
Right. Listen to me; maybe you don’t know what
happened. I got it all figured out now. They took Fred
down under the parade, into one of those little shops and
strangled him ~ least they would have strangled him,
but his heart gave out first. ’ She said in an awe-struck
voice, ‘They strangled a dead man,’ then added sharply,
‘you aren’t listening.’
‘ I know it all, ’ Rose lied. She was thinking hard - she
was remembering Pinkie’s warning - ‘Don’t get mixed
up.’ She thought wildly and vaguely: he did his best for
me; I got to help him now. She watched the woman
closely; she would never forget that plump, good-
natured, ageing face: it stared out at her like an idiot’s
from the ruins of a bombed home. She said, ‘Well, if you
think that’s how it was, why don’t you go to the police?’
‘Now you’re talking sense,’ the woman said. ‘I only
want to make things clear. This is the way it is, dear.
There’s a certain person I’ve paid money to who’s told
me things. And there’s things I’ve figured out for my-
self. But that person - he won’t give evidence. For
reasons. And you need a lot of evidence - seeing how the
doctors made it natural death. Now if you ’
‘Why don’t you give it up?’ Rose said. ‘It’s over and
done, isn’t it? Why not let us all be?’
‘It wouldn’t be right. Besides - he’s dangerous. Look
what happened here the other day. You don’t tell me
that was an accident. ’
‘You haven’t thought, have you,’ Rose said, ‘why he
did it? You don’t kill a man for no reason.’
246
‘Well, why did he?’
‘ I don’t know. ’
‘Ask him.’
‘ I don’t need to know. ’
‘You think he’s in love with you,’ the woman said,
‘he’s not.’
‘He married me.’
‘And why? because they can’t make a wife give
evidence. You’re just a witness like that other man was.
My dear,’ she again tried to close the gap between them,
‘ I only want to save you. He’d kill you as soon as look at
you if he thought he wasn’t safe. ’
With her back to the bed Rose watched her approach.
She let her put her large cool pastry-making hands upon
her shoulders. ‘People change,’ she said.
‘ Oh, no they don’t. Look at me. I’ve never changed. It’s
like those sticks of rock: bite it all the way down, you’ll
still read Brighton. That’s human nature. ’ She breathed
mournfully over Rose’s face - a sweet and winey breath.
‘Confession . . . repentance,’ Rose whispered.
‘That’s just religion,’ the woman said. ‘Believe me,
it’s the world we got to deal with. ’ She went pat pat on
Rose’s shoulder, her breath whistling in her throat. ‘You
pack a bag and come away with me. I’ll look after you.
You won’t have any cause to fear.’
‘Pinkie . . .’
‘ I’ll look after Pinkie. ’
Rose said, ‘I’ll do anything - anything you want . . .’
‘That’s the way to talk, dear.’
‘ If you’ll let us alone, ’
The woman backed away. A momentary look of fury was
hung up among the wreaths discordantly. ‘ Obstinate, ’
she said. ‘If I was your mother ... a good hiding.’
247
The bony and determined face stared back at her: all the
fight there was in the world lay there - warships cleared
for action and bombing fleets took flight between the set
eyes and the stubborn mouth. It was like the map of a
campaign marked with flags.
‘Another thing,’ the woman bluffed. ‘They can send
you to gaol. Because you know. You told me so. An
accomplice, that’s what you are. After the fact. ’
‘If they took Pinkie, do you think,’ she asked with
astonishment, ‘I’d mind?’
‘Gracious,’ the woman said, ‘I only came here for
your sake. I wouldn’t have troubled to see you first, only
I don’t want to let the Innocent suffer’ - the aphorism
came clicking out like a ticket from a slot machine. ‘Why,
won’t you lift a finger to stop him killing you?’
‘He wouldn’t do me any harm.’
‘You’re young. You don’t know things like I do.’
‘There’s things don’t know.’ She brooded darkly
by the bed, while the woman argued on : a God wept in
a garden and cried out upon a cross; Molly Carthew
went to everlasting fire.
‘I know one thing you don’t. I know the difference
between Right and Wrong. They didn’t teach you that
at school. ’
Rose didn’t answer; the woman was quite right: the
two words meant nothing to her. Their taste was
extinguished by stronger foods - Good and Evil. The
woman could tell her nothing she didn’t know about
these - she knew by tests as clear as mathematics that
Pinkie was evil - what did it matter in that case whether
he was right or wrong?
‘You’re crazy, ’ the woman said. ‘ I don’t believe you’d
lift a finger if he was killing you. ’
248
Rose came slowly back to the outer world. She said,
‘Maybe I wouldn’t.’
‘ If I wasn’t a kind woman I’d give you up. But I’ve
got a sense of responsibility.’ Her smiles hung very
insecurely when she paused at the door. ‘You can warn
that young husband of yours,’ she said, ‘I’m getting
warm to him. I got my plans. ’ She went out and closed
the door, then flung it open again for a last attack. ‘You
be careful, dear,’ she said. ‘You don’t want a murderer’s
baby,’ and grinned mercilessly across the bare bedroom
floor. ‘You better take precautions.’
Precautions. . . . Rose stood at the bed-end and pressed
a hand against her body, as if under that pressure she
could discover. . . . That had never entered her mind;
and the thought of what she might have let herself in for
came like a sense of glory. A child . . . and that child
would have a child ... it was like raising an army of
friends for Pinkie. If They damned him and her. They’d
have to deal with them, too. There was no end to what
the two of them had done last night upon the bed : it was
an eternal act.
[ 2 ]
The Boy stood back in the doorway of the newspaper
shop and saw Ida Arnold come out. She looked a little
flushed, a little haughty sailing down the street; she
paused and gave a small boy a penny. He was so sur-
prised he dropped it, staring after her heavy careful
retreat.
The Boy gave a sudden laugh, rusty and half-hearted.
He thought: she’s drunk. . . . Dallow said, ‘That was
a narrow squeak. ’
249
‘What was?’
‘Your mother-in-law.’
‘Her . . . how did you know?’
‘ She asked for Rose. ’
The Boy put down the News of the World upon the
counter - a headline stood up - ‘Assault on Schoolgirl
in Epping Forest’. He walked across to Frank’s thinking
hard, and up the stairs. Half-way he stopped: she’d
dropped an artificial violet from a spray. He picked it off
the stair: it smelt of Californian Poppy. Then he went
in, holding the flower concealed in his palm, and Rose
came across to him, welcoming. He avoided her mouth.
‘Well,’ he said and tried to express in his face a kind of
rough and friendly jocularity, ‘ I hear your Mum’s been
visiting you, ’ and waited anxiously for her reply.
‘Oh, yes,’ Rose said doubtfully, ‘she did look in.’
‘Not one of her moody days?’
‘No.’
He kneaded the violet furiously in his palm. ‘Well,
did she think it suited you - being married?’
‘ Oh, yes, I think she did. . . . She didn’t say much. ’
The Boy went across to the bed and slipped on his
coat. He said, ‘You been out too I hear?’
‘I thought I’d go and see friends.’
‘What friends?’
‘Oh -at Snow’s.’
‘You call them friends?’ he asked with contempt.
‘Well, did you see them?’
‘Not really. Only one - Maisie. For a minute.’
‘And then you got back here in time to catch your
Mum. Don’t you want to know what I’ve been up to?’
She stared stupidly at him: his manner scared her. ‘If
you like. ’
250
‘What do you mean, if I like? You aren’t as dumb as
that. ’ The wire anatomy of the flower pricked his palm.
He said, ‘I got to have a word with Dallow. Wait here,’
and left her.
He called to Dallow across the street, and when
Dallow joined him, he said, ‘Where’s Judy?’
‘ Upstairs. ’
‘ Frank working? ’
‘Yes.’
‘Come down to the kitchen then.’ He led the way
down the stairs; in the basement dusk his feet crunched
on dead coke. He sat down on the edge of the kitchen
table and said, ‘Have a drink.’
‘Too early,’ Dallow said.
‘Listen,’ the Boy said. An expression of pain crossed
his face as if he were about to wring out an appalling
confession. ‘I trust you,’ he said.
‘Well,’ Dallow said, ‘what’s getting you?’
‘Things aren’t too good,’ the Boy said. ‘People are
getting wise to a lot of things. Christ,’ he said, ‘I killed
Spicer and I married the girl. Have I got to have that
massacre?’
‘Was Cubitt here last night?’
‘He was and I sent him away. He begged - he wanted
a fiver. ’
‘Did you give it him?’
‘Of course I didn’t. D’you think I’d let myself be
blackmailed by a thing like him?’
‘You oughter have given him something.’
‘It’s not him I’m worried about.’
‘You ought to be.’
‘Be quiet, can’t you,’ the Boy suddenly and shrilly
squealed at him. He jerked his thumb towards the
9 ^
251
ceiling. ‘ It’s her I’m worried about. ’ He opened his hand
and said, ‘ God damn it I dropped that flower. ’
‘Flower . . . ?’
‘Be quiet, can’t you, and listen,’ he said low and
furiously. ‘That wasn’t her Mum.’
‘Who was it?’ Dallow asked.
‘The buer who’s been asking questions . . . the one
who was with Fred in the taxi the day . . . ’ He put his
head for a moment between his hands in an attitude of
grief or desperation - but it wasn’t either : it was the rush
of memories. He said, ‘ I got a headache. I got to think
clear. Rose told me it was her Mum. What’s she after?’
‘You don’t think,’ Dallow said, ‘she’s talked?’
‘I got to find out,’ the Boy said.
‘I’d have trusted her,’ Dallow said, ‘all the way.’
‘ I wouldn’t trust anyone that far. Not you, Dallow. ’
‘But if she’s talking, why does she talk to her - why
not to the police?’
‘Why don’t any of them talk to the police?’ He stared
with troubled eyes at the cold stove. He was haunted by
his ignorance. ‘I don’t know what they’re getting at.’
Other people’s feelings bored at his brain : he had never
before felt this desire to understand. He said passion-
ately, ‘ I’d like to carve the whole bloody boiling. ’
‘After all,’ Dallow said, ‘she don’t know much. She
only knows it wasn’t Fred left the card. If you ask me she’s
a dumb little piece. Affectionate, I daresay, but dumb. ’
‘You’re the dumb one, Dallow. She knows a lot. She
knows I killed Fred. ’
‘You sure?’
‘She told me so.’
‘An’ she married you?’ Dallow said. ‘I’m damned if
I understand what they want, ’
252
‘If we don’t do something quick it looks to me as if all
Brighton’ll know we killed Fred. All England. The
whole God-damned world.’
‘What can we do?’
The Boy went over to the basement window crunching
on the coke: a tiny asphalt yard with an old dustbin
which hadn’t been used for weeks: a blocked grating,
and a sour smell. He said, ‘It’s no good stopping now.
We got to go on. ’ People passed overhead, invisible from
the waist upwards : a shabby shoe scuffled the pavement
wearing out the toecap ; a bearded face stooped suddenly
into sight looking for a cigarette-end. He said slowly, ‘ It
ought to be easy to quiet her. We quieted Fred an’
Spicer, an’ she’s only a kid. . . .’
‘Don’t be crazy,’ Dallow said. ‘You can’t go on like
that.’
‘Maybe I got to. No choice. Maybe it’s always that
way - you start and then you go on going on. ’
‘We’re making a mistake,’ Dallow said. ‘I’d stake you
a fiver she’s straight. Why - you told me yourself - she’s
stuck on you. ’
‘Why did she say it was her Mum then?’ He watched
a woman go by: young as far as the thighs: you couldn’t
see further up than that. A spasm of disgust shook him.
He’d given way : he had even been proud of that - what
he could have done with Spicer’s girl, Sylvie, in a
Lancia. Oh, it was all right, he supposed, to take every
drink once - if you could stop at that, say ‘never again’,
not go on - going on.
‘ I can tell it myself, ’ Dallow said. ‘ Clear as clear. She’s
stuck on you all right. ’
Stuck: high heels trodden over, bare legs moving out
of sight. ‘If she’s stuck,’ he said, ‘it makes it easier -
253
she’ll do what I say. ’ A piece of newspaper blew along
the street: the wind was from the sea.
Dallow said, ‘Pinkie, I won’t stand for any more killing.’
The Boy turned his back to the window and his mouth
made a bad replica of mirth. He said, ‘But suppose she
killed herself?’ An insane pride bobbed in his breast;
he felt inspired: it was like a love of life returning to the
blank heart: the empty tenement and then the seven
devils worse than the first. . . .
Dallow said, ‘For Christ’s sake, Pinkie. You’re
imagining things. ’
‘We’ll soon see,’ the Boy said.
He came up the stairs from the basement, looking this
way and that for the scented flower of cloth and wire.
He could see it nowhere. Rose’s voice said, ‘Pinkie,’
over the new banister: she was waiting there for him
anxiously on the landing. She said, ‘Pinkie, I got to tell
you. I wanted to keep you from worrying - but there’s
got to be someone I don’t have to lie to. That wasn’t
Mum, Pinkie.’
He came slowly up, watching her closely, judging.
‘Who was it?’
‘It was that woman. The one who used to come to
Snow’s asking questions. ’
‘What did she want?’
‘ She wanted me to go away from here. ’
‘Why?’
‘Pinkie, she knows.’*
‘Why did you say it was your Mum?’
‘I told you - I didn’t want you to worry.’
He was beside her, watching her. She faced him back
with a worried candour, and he found that he believed
her as much as he believed anyone: his restless cocky
254
pride subsided : he felt an odd sense of peace, as if - for
a while - he hadn’t got to plan.
‘But then,’ Rose went anxiously on, ‘I thought -
perhaps you ought to worry.*
‘That’s all right,’ he said and put his hand on her
shoulder in an awkward embrace.
‘ She said something about paying money to someone.
She said she was getting warm to you. ’
‘I don’t worry,’ he said and pressed her back. Then
he stopped, looking over her shoulder. In the doorway
of the room the flower lay. He had dropped it when he
closed the door - and then - he began at once to calcu-
late - she followed me, of course she saw the flower, she
knew I knew. That explains everything, the con-
fession. . . . All the while he was down there below with
Dallow she had been wondering what she had to do to
cover her mistake. A clean breast - the phrase made him
laugh - a clean tart’s breast, the kind of breast Sylvie
sported - cleaned up for use. He laughed again: the
horror of the world lay like infection in his throat.
‘What is it. Pinkie?’
‘That flower,’ he said.
‘What flower?’
‘The one she brought.’
‘What . . . where. . . ?’
Perhaps she hadn’t seen it then . . . maybe she was
straight after all . . . who knows? Who, he thought, will
ever know? And with a kind of sad excitement - what
did it matter an5rway ? He had been a fool to think it made
any difference; he couldn’t afford to take risks. If she
were straight and loved him it would be just so much
easier, that was all. He repeated, ‘ I don’t worry. I don’t
need to worry. I know what to do. Even if she got to
255
know everything I know what to do.’ He watched her
shrewdly. He brought his hand round and pressed her
breast. ‘It won’t hurt,’ he said.
‘What won’t hurt. Pinkie?’
‘The way I’ll manage things ’ he started agilely
away from his dark suggestion. ‘You don’t want to leave
me, do you?’
‘Never,’ Rose said.
‘That’s what I meant,’ he said. ‘You wrote it, didn’t
you. Trust me. I’ll manage things if the worst comes to the
worst - so it won’t hurt either of us. You can trust me,’
he went smoothly and rapidly on, while she watched
him with the tricked expression of someone who has
promised too much, too quickly. ‘ I knew, ’ he said, ‘ you’d
feel like that. About us never parting. What you wrote. ’
She whispered with dread. ‘ It’s a mortal . . . ’
‘Just one more,’ he said. ‘What difference does it
make? You can’t be damned twice over, and we’re
damned already - so they say. And anyway it’s only if
the worst ... if she finds out about Spicer. ’
‘ Spicer,’ Rose moaned, ‘you don’t mean Spicer too ’
‘I only mean,’ he said, ‘if she finds out that I was
here - in the house ~ but we don’t need to worry till she
does.’
‘But Spicer. . .’ Rose said.
‘I was here,’ he said, ‘when it happened, that’s all.
I didn’t even see him fall, but my solicitor . . . ’
‘He was here too?’ Rose said.
‘Oh, yes.’
‘I remember now,’ Rose said. ‘Of course I read the
paper. They couldn’t believe, could they, that he’d cover
up anything really wrong. A solicitor. ’
‘Old Prewitt,’ the Boy said, ‘why-
256
’ again the
unused laugh came into rusty play. ‘He’s the Soul of
Honour.’ He pressed her breast again and uttered his
qualified encouragement. ‘Oh no, there’s no cause to
worry till she finds out. Even then you see there’s that
escape. But perhaps she never will. And if she doesn’t,
why,’ - his fingers touched her with secret revulsion -
‘we’ll just go on, won’t we,’ and he tried to make the
horror sound like love, ‘the way we are.’
CO
But it was the Soul of Honour none the less who really
worried him. If Cubitt had given that woman the idea that
there was something wrong about Spicer’s death as well,
who could she go to now but Mr Prewitt? She wouldn’t
attempt anything with Dallow; but a man of law - when
he was as clever as Prewitt was - was always frightened of
the law. Prewitt was like a man who keeps a tame lion
cub in his house. He could never be quite certain that the
lion to whom he had taught so many tricks, to beg and
eat out of his hand, might not one day unexpeaedly
mature and turn on him. Perhaps he might cut his cheek
shaving ~ and the law would smell the blood.
In the early afternoon he couldn’t wait any longer; he
set out for Prewitt’s house. First he told Dallow to keep
an eye on the girl in case. . . . More than ever yet he had
the sense that he was being driven further and deeper
than he’d ever meant to go. A curious and cruel pleasure
touched him - he didn’t really care so very much - it
was being decided for him, and all he had to do was to
let himself easily go. He knew what the end might be -
it didn’t horrify him: it was easier than life.
Mr Prewitt’s house was in a street parallel to the
257
railway, beyond the terminus: it was shaken by shunting
engines ; the soot settled continuously on the glass and the
brass plate. From the basement window a woman with
tousled hair stared suspiciously up at him -she was always
there watching visitors from a hard and bitter face. She
was never explained: he had always thought she was the
cook, but it appeared now she was the ‘spouse’ - twenty-
five years at the game. The door was opened by a girl
with grey underground skin - an unfamiliar face.
‘Where’s Tilly?’ the Boy said.
‘She’s left.’
‘Tell Prewitt, Pinkie’s here.’
‘He’s not seeing anyone,’ the girl said. ‘This is a
Sunday, ain’t it?^
‘He’ll see me.’ The Boy walked into the hall, opened
a door, sat down in a room lined with filing boxes: he
knew the way. ‘Go on,’ he said, ‘tell him. I know he’s
asleep. You wake him up. ’
‘You seem to be at home here,’ the girl said.
‘I am.’ He knew what those filing boxes contained
marked Rex v, Innes, Rex v. T. Collins - they contained
just air. A train shunted and the empty boxes quivered
on the shelves : the window was open only a crack, but
the radio from next door came in - Radio Luxembourg.
‘Shut the window,’ he said. She shut it sullenly. It
made no difference, the walls were so thin you could
hear the neighbour move behind the shelves like a rat.
He said, ‘Does that music always play?’
‘Unless it’s a talk,’ she said.
‘What are you waiting for? Go and wake him.’
‘He told me not to. He’s got indigestion.’
Again the room vibrated and the music wailed through
the wall.
258
‘He’s always got it after lunch. Go on and wake him. ’
‘ It’s a Sunday. ’
‘You’d better go quick.’ He obscurely threatened her,
and she slammed the door on him - a little plaster
fell.
Under his feet in the basement someone was moving
the furniture about - the spouse, he thought. A train
hooted and a smother of smoke fell into the street. Over
his head Mr Prewitt began to speak - there was nothing
anywhere to keep out sound. Then footsteps across the
ceiling and on the stairs.
Mr Prewitt’s smile went on as the door opened. ‘What
brings our young cavalier?’
‘I just wanted to see you,’ the Boy said. ‘See how you
were getting along.’ A spasm of pain drove the smile
from Mr Prewitt’s face. ‘You ought to eat more
careful,’ the Boy said.
‘Nothing does it any good,’ Mr Prewitt said.
‘You drink too much.’
‘Eat, drink, for to-morrow . . .’ Mr Prewitt writhed
with his hand on his stomach.
‘You got an ulcer?’ the Boy said.
‘No, no, nothing like that.’
‘You ought to have your inside photographed.’
‘I don’t believe in the knife,’ Mr Prewitt said quickly
and nervously, as if it were a suggestion constantly made
for which he had to have the answer on the tongue.
‘Don’t that music ever stop?’
‘When I get tired of it,’ Mr Prewitt said, ‘I beat on
the wall. ’ He took a paper-weight off his desk and struck
the wall twice: the music broke into a high oscillating
wail and ceased. They could hear the neighbour move
furiously behind the shelves. ‘How now? A rat?’
259
Mr Prewitt quoted. The house shook as a heavy engine
pulled out. ‘Polonius/ Mr Prewitt explained.
‘ Polony ? What polony ? ’
‘No, no,’ Mr Prewitt said. ‘The rank intruding fool,
I mean. In Hamlet. ’
‘Listen,’ the Boy said impatiently, ‘has a woman been
round here asking questions?’
‘What sort of questions?’
‘About Spicer.’
Mr Prewitt said with sickly despair, ‘Are people
asking questions?’ He sat down quickly and bent with
indigestion. ‘ I’ve just been waiting for this. ’
‘There’s no need to get scared,’ the Boy said. ‘They
can’t prove an)^hing. You just stick to your story.’ He
sat down opposite Mr Prewitt and regarded him with
grim contempt. ‘ You don’t want to ruin yourself, ’ he said.
Mr Prewitt looked sharply up. ‘Ruin?’ he said. ‘I’m
ruined now. ’ He vibrated with the engines on his chair,
and somebody in the basement slammed the floor
beneath their feet. ‘What-ho! old mole,’ Mr Prewitt
said. ‘The spouse - you’ve never met the spouse.’
‘I’ve seen her,’ the Boy said.
‘Twenty-five years. Then this.’ The smoke came
down outside the window like a blind. ‘Has it ever
occurred to you,’ Mr Prewitt said, ‘that you’re lucky?
The worst that can happen to you is you’ll hang. But
I can rot. ’
‘What’s upsetting you?’ the Boy said. He was
confused - as if a weak man had struck him back. He
wasn’t used to this - the infringement of other people’s
lives. Confession was an act one did - or didn’t do -
oneself.
‘When I took on your work,’ Mr Prewitt said, ‘I lost
260
the only other job I had. The Bakely Trust. And now
I’ve lost you. ’
‘You got everything there is of mine.’
‘There won’t be any more soon. Colleoni’s going to
take over this place from you, and he’s got his lawyer.
A man in London. A swell.’
‘ I haven’t thrown my sponge in yet. ’ He sniffed the
air tainted with gasometers and said, ‘I know what’s
wrong with you. You’re drunk.’
‘On Empire burgundy,’ Mr Prewitt said. ‘I want to
tell you things. Pinkie, I want ’ the literary phrase
came glibly out - ‘to unburden myself.’
‘I don’t want to hear them. I’m not interested in
your troubles. ’
‘I married beneath me,’ Mr Prewitt said. ‘It was my
tragic mistake. I was young. An affair of uncontrollable
passion. I was a passionate man,’ he said wriggling with
indigestion. ‘You should see her,’ he said, ‘now. My
God. ’ He leant forward and said in a whisper - ‘ I watch
the little typists go by carrying their little cases. I’m quite
harmless. A man may watch. My God, how neat and
trim. ’ He broke off, his hand vibrating on the chair arm.
‘ Listen to the old mole down there. She’s ruined me. ’
His old lined face had taken a holiday - from bonhomie,
from cunning, from the legal jest. It was a Sunday and
it was itself. Mr Prewitt said, ‘You know what Mephis-
topheles said to Faustus when he asked where Hell was?
He said, “Why, this is Hell, nor are we out of it”.’ The
Boy watched him with fascination and fear.
‘She’s cleaning in the kitchen,’ Mr Prewitt said,
‘but she’ll be coming up later. You ought to meet her -
it’d be a treat. The old hag. What a joke it would be,
wouldn’t it, to tell her - everything. That I’m concerned
261
in a murder. That people are asking questions. To pull
down the whole damned house like Samson.’ He
stretched his arms wide and contracted them in the pain
of indigestion. ‘You’re right,’ he said, T’ve got an ulcer.
But I won’t have the knife. I’d rather die. I’m drunk,
too. On Empire burgundy. Do you see that photo there -
by the door? A school group. Lancaster College. Not
one of the great schools perhaps, but you’ll find it in the
Public Schools Year Book. You’ll see me there - cross-
legged in the bottom row. In a straw hat. ’ He said softly,
‘We had field days with Harrow. A rotten set they were.
No esprit de corps. ’
The Boy didn’t so much as turn his head to look. He
had never known Prewitt like this before: it was a
frightening and an entrancing exhibition. A man was
coming alive before his eyes : he could see the nerves set
to work in the agonised flesh, thought bloom in the
transparent brain.
‘To think,’ Mr Prewitt said, ‘an old Lancaster boy -
to be married to that mole in the cellarage down there
and to have as only client ’ he gave his mouth an
expression of fastidious disgust - ‘you. What would
old Manders say? A great Head.’
He had the bit between his teeth: he was like a man
determined to live before he died ; all the insults he had
swallowed from police witnesses, the criticisms of
magistrates, regurgitated from his tormented stomach.
There was nothing he wouldn’t tell to anybody. An
enormous self-importance was blossoming out of his
humiliation; his wife, the Empire burgundy, the empty
files and the vibration of locomotives on the line, they
were the important landscape of his great drama.
‘You talk too easily,’ the Boy said.
262
‘Talk?’ Mr Prewitt said. ‘I could shake the world.
Let them put me in the dock if they like. I’ll give them -
revelation. I’ve sunk so deep I carry ’ he was shaken
by an enormous windy self-esteem - he hiccupped
twice - ‘the secrets of the sewer.’
‘If I’d known you drank,’ the Boy said, ‘I wouldn’t
have touched you. ’
‘I drink - on Sundays. It’s the day of rest.’ He
suddenly beat his foot upon the floor and screamed
furiously, ‘ Be quiet down there. ’
‘You need a holiday,’ the Boy said.
‘ I sit here and sit here - the bell rings, but it’s only the
groceries - tinned salmon, she has a passion for tinned
salmon. Then I ring the bell - and in comes that pasty
stupid - I watch the typists going by. I could embrace
their little portable machines. ’
‘ You’d be all right, ’ the Boy said - nervous and shaken
with the conception of another life growing in the brain -
‘if you took a holiday.’
‘Sometimes,’ Mr Prewitt said, ‘I have an urge to
expose myself - shamefully - in a park. ’
‘ I’ll give you money. ’
‘No money can heal a mind diseased. This is Hell
nor are we out of it. How much could you spare?’
‘Twenty nicker.’
‘ It would go only a little way. ’
‘Boulogne - why not slip across the Channel?’ the
Boy asked with horrified disgust, ‘enjoy yourself,’
watching the grubby and bitten nails, the shaky hands
which were the instruments of pleasure.
‘ Could you spare some small sum like that, my boy?
Don’t let me rob you. Though, of course, “ I have done
the state some service”.’
263
‘You can have it to-morrow - on conditions. You got
to leave by the morning boat - stay away as long as you
can. Maybe I’ll send you more. ’ It was like fastening a
leech on to the flesh - he felt weakness and disgust. ‘ Let
me know when it’s finished and I’ll see. ’
‘I’ll go, Pinkie - when you say. And - you won’t tell
my spouse?’
‘I keep my mouth shut.’
‘ Of course. I trust you, Pinkie, and you can trust me.
Recuperated by this holiday I shall return ’
‘Take a long one.’
‘Bullying police sergeants shall recognise my renewed
astuteness. Defending the outcast. ’
‘I’ll send the money first thing. Till then you don’t
see anyone. You go back to bed. Your indigestion’s
cruel. If anyone comes round you’re not in. ’
‘As you say. Pinkie, as you say.’
It was the best he could do. He let himself out of the
house and looking down met in the basement the hard
suspicious gaze of Mr Prewitt’s spouse; she had a
duster in her hand and she watched him like a bitter
enemy from her cave, under the foundations. He crossed
the road and took one more look at the villa, and there
in an upper window half-concealed by the curtains
stood Mr Prewitt. He wasn’t watching the Boy - he was
just looking out - hopelessly, for what might turn up.
But it was a Sunday and there weren’t any typists.
He said to Dallow. ‘You got to watch the place. I don’t
trust him a yard. I can just see him looking out there,
waiting for something, and seeing her . . . . ’
264
‘He wouldn’t be such a fool.’
‘He’s drunk. He says he’s in Hell.’
Dallow laughed. ‘Hell. That’s good.’
‘You’re a fool, Dallow.’
‘ I don’t believe in what my eyes don’t see. ’
‘They don’t see much then,’ the Boy said. He left
Dallow and went upstairs. But oh, if this was Hell, he
thought, it wasn’t so bad: the old-fashioned telephone,
the narrow stairs, the snug and dusty darkness - it
wasn’t like Prewitt’s house, comfortless, shaken, with
the old bitch in the basement. He opened the door of his
room and there, he thought, was his enemy - he looked
round with angry disappointment at his changed room -
the position of everything a little altered and the whole
place swept and clean and tidied. He condemned her,
‘I told you not to.’
‘ I’ve only cleared up. Pinkie. ’
It was her room now, not his : the wardrobe and the
washstand shifted, and the bed - of course she hadn’t
forgotten the bed. It was her Hell now if it was any-
body’s ~ he disowned it. He felt driven out, but any
change must be for the worse. He watched her, dis-
guising his hatred, trying to read age into her face, how
she would look one day staring up from his basement.
He had come back wrapped in another person’s fate -
a doubled darkness.
‘Don’t you like it. Pinkie?’
He wasn’t Prewitt: he’d got guts: he hadn’t lost his
fight. He said, ‘ Oh, this - it’s fine. It was just I wasn’t
expecting it. ’
She misread his constraint. ‘Bad news?’
‘Not yet. We got to be prepared, of course. I am
prepared.’ He went to the window and stared out
265
through a forest of wireless masts towards a cloudy
peaceful Sunday sky, then back at the changed room.
This was how it might look if he had gone away and
other tenants. . . . He watched her closely while he did
his sleight of hand, passing off his idea as hers. ‘I got the
car all ready. We could go out into the country where no
one would hear. . . .’ He measured her terror carefully
and before she could pass the card back to him, he
changed his tone. ‘That’s only if the worst comes to the
worst.’ The phrase intrigued him: he repeated it: the
worst - that was the stout woman with her glassy
righteous eye coming up the smoky road - to the worst -
and that was drunken ruined Mr Prewitt watching from
behind the curtains for just one typist. ‘ It won’t happen, ’
he encouraged her.
‘No,’ she passionately agreed. ‘It won’t, it can’t.’
Her enormous certainty had a curious effect on him - it
was as if that plan of his too were being tidied, shifted,
swept until he couldn’t recognise his own. He wanted to
argue that it might happen: he discovered in himself an
odd nostalgia for the darkest act of all.
She said, ‘I’m so happy. It can’t be so bad after all.’
‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘Not bad? It’s mortal
sin. ’ He glanced with furious disgust at the made bed as
if he contemplated a repetition of the aa there and
then - to thrust the lesson home.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know, but still ’
‘There’s only one thing worse,’ he said. It was as if
she were escaping him: already she was domesticating
their black alliance.
‘ I’m happy, ’ she argued bewilderedly. ‘ You’re good to
me.’
‘That doesn’t mean a thing.’
266
‘Listen,’ she said, ‘what’s that?’ A thin wailing came
through the window.
‘The kid next door.’
‘Why doesn’t somebody quiet it?’
‘It’s a Sunday. Maybe they’re out,’ he said. ‘You
want to do an3rthing? The flickers?’
She wasn’t listening to him: the unhappy continuous
cry absorbed her : she wore a look of responsibility and
maturity. ‘ Somebody ought to see what it wants,’ she said.
‘ It’s just hungry or something. ’
‘Maybe it’s ill.’ She listened with a kind of vicarious
agony. ‘Things happen to babies suddenly. You don’t
know what it mightn’t be. ’
‘ It isn’t yours. ’
She turned bemused eyes towards him. ‘No,’ she said,
‘ but I was thinking - it might be. ’ She said with passion,
‘ I wouldn’t leave it all an afternoon. ’
He said uneasily, ‘They haven’t either. It’s stopped.
What did I tell you?’ But her words lodged in his brain -
‘ It might be. ’ He had never thought of that. He watched
her with terror and disgust as if he were watching the
ugly birth itself, the rivet of another life already pinning
him down, and she stood there listening ~ with relief and
patience, as if already she had passed through years of
this anxiety and knew that the relief never lasted long
and that the anxiety always began again.
C5]
Nine o’clock in the morning: he came furiously out into
the passage; the morning sun trickled in over the top of
the door below, staining the telephone. He called
‘Dallow, Dallow.’
267
Dallow came slowly up from the basement in his
shirt-sleeves. He said, ‘Hallo, Pinkie. You look as if you
hadn’t slept. ’
The Boy said, ‘You keeping away from me?’
‘ Of course I’m not. Pinkie. Only - you being married -
I thought you’d want to be alone. ’
‘You call it,’ the Boy said, ‘being alone?’ He came
down the stairs; he carried in his hand the mauve
scented envelope Judy had thrust under the door. He
hadn’t opened it. His eyes were bloodshot. He carried
down with him the marks of a fever - the beating pulse
and the hot forehead and the restless brain.
‘Johnnie phoned me early,’ Dallow said. ‘He’s been
watching since yesterday. No one’s been to see Prewitt.
We got scared for nothing. ’
The Boy paid him no attention. He said, ‘ I want to be
alone, Dallow. Really alone. ’
‘You been taking on too much at your age,’ Dallow
said and began to laugh. ‘Two nights . . .’
The Boy said, ‘She’s got to go before she ’ He
couldn’t express the magnitude of his fear or its nature
to anyone.
‘It’s not safe to quarrel,’ Dallow said quickly and
cautiously.
‘No,’ the Boy said, ‘it won’t ever be safe again. I
know that. No divorce. Nothing at all except dying. All
the same,’ he put his hand on the vulcanite for coolness,
‘I told you - I had a plan.’
‘It was crazy. Why should that poor kid want to die?’
He said with bitterness, ‘ She loves me. She says she
wants to be with me always. And if I don’t want to
live. . . . ’
‘Dally,’ a voice called, ‘Dally.’ The Boy looked
268
sharply and guiltily round; he hadn’t heard Judy moving
silently above in her naked feet and her corsets. He was
absorbed, trying to get the plan straight, tied up in its
complexity, uncertain who it was who had to die . . .
himself or her or both. . . .
‘What you want, Judy?’ Dallow said.
‘Frank’s finished your coat.’
‘Let it be,’ Dallow said. ‘I’ll fetch it in a shake.’
She blew him an avaricious unsatisfied kiss and padded
back to her room.
‘I started something there all right,’ Dallow said.
‘ Sometimes I wish I hadn’t. I don’t want trouble with
poor old Frank, an’ she’s so careless.’
The Boy looked at Dallow broodingly, as if perhaps
he knew from his long service what one did.
‘Suppose,’ he said, ‘you had a child?’
‘Oh,’ Dallow said, ‘I leave that to her. It’s her
funeral. ’ He said, ‘You got a letter there from Colleoni?’
‘But what does she do?’
‘The usual, I suppose.’
‘And if she doesn’t,’ the Boy persisted, ‘an’ she began
a child?’
‘There’s piUs.’
‘They don’t always work, do they?’ the Boy said. He
had thought he’d learned everything, but he was back
now in his state of appalled ignorance.
‘They never work, if you ask me,’ Dallow said.
‘Colleoni written?’
‘ If Prewitt grassed, there wouldn’t be a hope, would
there?’ the Boy brooded.
‘He won’t grass. And anyway he’ll be in Boulogne
to-night. ’
‘ But if he did ... or say I thought he had . . . there’d
269
be nothing to do then, would there, but kill myself. And
she - she wouldn’t want to live without me. If she
thought. . . . And all the time perhaps it wouldn’t be
true. They call it - don’t they? - a suicide pact. ’
‘What’s got you. Pinkie? You’re not giving in?’
‘I mightn’t die.’
‘That’s murder, too.’
‘They don’t hang you for it.’
‘You’re crazy. Pinkie. Why, I wouldn’t stand for a
thing like that. ’ He gave the Boy a shocked and friendly
blow. ‘You’re joking. Pinkie - there’s nothing wrong
with the poor kid - except for liking you. ’ The Boy said
not a thing; he had an air of removing his thoughts, like
heavy bales and stacking them inside, turning the key on
all the world. ‘You want to lie down a bit and rest,’
Dallow said uneasily.
‘I want to lie down alone,’ the Boy said. He went
slowly upstairs. When he opened the door he knew what
he would see : he looked away as if to shut out temptation
from the ascetic and the poisoned brain. He heard her
say: ‘I was just going out for a while, Pinkie. Is there
anything I can do for you?’
Anything. . . . His brain staggered with the immensity
of its demands. He said gently, ‘Nothing,’ and schooled
his voice to softness. ‘Come back soon. We got things to
talk about. ’
‘Worried?’
‘Not worried. I got things straight,’ he gestured with
deadly humour at his head, ‘in the box here.’
He was aware of her fear and tension - the sharp
breath and the silence and then the voice steeled for
despair. ‘Not bad news. Pinkie?’
He flew out at her. ‘For Christ’s sake go.’
270
He heard her coming back across the room to him,
but he wouldn’t look up: this was his room, his life.
He felt that if he could concentrate enough, it would be
possible to eliminate every sign of her . . . ever5rthing
would be just the same as before . . . before he entered
Snow’s and felt under that cloth for a ticket which wasn’t
there and began the deception and shame. The whole
origin of the thing was lost; he could hardly remember
Hale as a person or his murder as a crime - it was all now
him and her.
Tf an5^hing’s happened . . . you can tell me . . . I’m
not scared. There must be some way. Pinkie, not
to ... ’ She implored him, ‘ Let’s talk about it first. ’
He said, ‘You’re fussed about nothing. I want you to
go all right, you can go,’ he went savagely on, ‘to . . .’
But he stopped in time, raked up a smile, ‘Go and enjoy
yourself. ’
‘I won’t be gone long. Pinkie.’ He heard the door
close, but he knew she was lingering in the passage - the
whole house was hers now. He put his hand in his pocket
and pulled out the paper - ‘ I don’t care what you do . . ,
wherever you go. I’ll go too. ’ It sounded like a letter read
in court and printed in the newspapers. He heard her
feet upon the stairs going down.
Dallow looked in and said, ‘ Prewitt should be
starting now. I’ll feel better when he’s on that boat.
You don’t think, do you, she’d get the police to himt him
out?’
‘She hasn’t got the evidence,’ the Boy said. ‘You’re
safe enough when he’s out of the way. ’ He spoke dully as
if he’d lost all interest in whether Prewitt went or
stayed - it was something which concerned other people.
He’d gone beyond that.
271
‘You too,’ Dallow said. ‘You’ll be safe.’
The Boy didn’t answer.
‘ I told Johnnie to see he got on the boat safe and then
phone us. He’ll be ringing up now almost any time. We
oughter have a party to celebrate, Pinkie. My God, how
sunk she’ll feel when she turns up there and finds him
gone. ’ He went to the window and looked out. ‘ Maybe
we’ll have some peace then. We’ll have got out of it easy.
When you come to think. Hale and poor old Spicer.
I wonder where he is now. ’ He stared sentimentally out
through the thin chimney smoke and the wireless masts.
‘What about you an’ me ~ an’ the girl, of course -
shifting off to some new place? It’s not going to be so
good here now with Colleoni butting in. ’ He turned back
into the room. ‘That letter’ - and the telephone began
to ring. He said, ‘That’ll be Johnnie,’ and hurried out.
It occurred to the Boy that it wasn’t the sound of feet
on the stairs he recognised, it was the sound of the stairs
themselves - he could tell those particular stairs even
under a stranger’s weight : there was always a creak at the
third and seventh step down. This was the place he had
come to after Kite had picked him up - he had been
coughing on the Palace pier in the bitter cold, listening
to the violin wailing behind the glass. Kite had given
him a cup of hot coffee and brought him here - God
knows why - perhaps because he was out and wasn’t
down, perhaps because a man like Kite needed a little
sentiment like a tart who keeps a Pekinese. Kite had
opened the door of No. 63 and the first thing he’d seen
was Dallow embracing Judy on the stairs and the first
thing he had smelt was Frank’s iron in the basement.
Everything had been of a piece: nothing had really
changed: Kite had died, but he had prolonged Kite’s
272
existence - not touching liquor, biting his nails in the
Kite way, until she came and altered everything.
Dallow’s voice drifted up the stairs. ‘Oh, I dunno.
Send some pork sausages. Or a tin of beans. ’
He came back into the room. ‘It wasn’t Johnnie,’ he
said. ‘Just the International. We oughter be hearing from
Johnnie.’ He sat anxiously down on the bed and said,
‘That letter from Colleoni. What does it say?’
The Boy tossed it across to him. ‘Why,’ Dallow said,
‘you haven’t opened it.’ He began to read: ‘Well,’ he
said, ‘it’s bad, of course. It’s what I thought. And yet it’s
not so bad either. Not when you come to look at it. ’ He
glanced cautiously up over the mauve notepaper at the
Boy, sitting there by the washstand, thinking. ‘We’re
played out here, that’s what it comes to. He’s got most of
our boys and all the bookies. But he doesn’t want trouble.
He’s a business man - he says a fight like you had the
other day brings a track into - disrepute. Disrepute,’
Dallow repeated thoughtfully.
‘He means,’ the Boy said, ‘the suckers stay away.’
‘Well, that’s sense. He says he’ll pay you three
hundred nicker for the goodwill. Goodwill?’
‘He means not carving his geezers.’
‘It’s a good offer,’ Dallow said. ‘It’s what I was
saying just now - we could clear out right away from this
damned town and this phoney buer asking questions,
start again on a good line - or maybe retire altogether,
buy a pub, you an’ me - an’ the girl, of course. ’ He said,
‘When the hell’s Johnnie going to phone. It makes me
nervous. ’
The Boy said nothing for a while, looking at his bitten
nails. Then he said, ‘Of course - you know the world,
Dallow. You’ve travelled. ’
273
‘There’s not many places I don’t know,’ Dallow
agreed, ‘between here and Leicester.’
‘I was bom here,’ the Boy said. ‘I know Goodwood
and Hurst Park. I’ve been to Newmarket. But I’d feel a
stranger away from here.’ He claimed with dreary
pride, ‘I suppose I’m real Brighton’, as if his single
heart contained all the cheap amusements, the Pullman
cars, the unloving week-ends in gaudy hotels, and the
sadness after coition.
A bell rang. ‘Listen,’ Dallow said. ‘Is that Johnnie?’
But it was only the front door. Dallow looked at his
watch. ‘I can’t think what’s keeping him,’ he said.
‘Prewitt oughter be on board by now.’
‘Well,’ the Boy said with gloom, ‘we change, don’t
we? It’s as you say. We got to see the world. . . . After
all I took to drink, didn’t I? I can take to other things.’
‘An’ you got a girl,’ Dallow said with hollow cheeri-
ness. ‘You’re growing up, Pinkie - like your father.’
Like my father. . . . The Boy was shaken again with
his noaurnal Saturday disgust. He couldn’t blame his
father now ... it was what you came to . . . you got
mixed up, and then, he supposed, the habit grew . . .
you gave yourself away weakly. You couldn’t even blame
the girl. It was life getting at you . . . there were the blind
seconds when you thought it fine. ‘We’d be safer,’ he
said, ‘without her,’ touching the loving message in the
trouser-pocket.
‘ She’s safe enough now. She’s crazy about you. ’
‘The trouble with you is,’ the Boy said, ‘you don’t
look ahead. There’s years. . . . And any day she might
fall for a new face or get vexed or something ... if I
don’t keep her smooth . . . there’s no security,’ he said.
The door opened and there she was back again: he bit
his words short and smirked a welcome. But it wasn’t
hard - she took deception with such hopeless ease that
he could feel a sort of tenderness for her stupidity and a
companionship in her goodness - they were both
doomed in their own way. Again he got the sense that
she completed him.
She said, ‘I hadn’t got a key. I had to ring. I felt
afraid soon as I’d gone out that something might be
wrong. I wanted to be here. Pinkie. ’
‘ There’s nothing wrong, ’ he said. The telephone began
to ring. ‘There, you see, there’s Johnnie now.’ He said
to Dallow joylessly, ‘You got your wish.’
They heard his voice at the phone shrill with suspense.
‘That you, Johnnie? Yes? What was that? You don’t
mean. ... Oh yes, we’ll see you later. Of course you’ll
get your money. ’ He came back up and at the right place
the stairs creaked - his broad brutal and innocent face
bore good news like a boar’s head at a feast. ‘ That’s fine, ’
he said, ‘fine. I was getting anxious, I don’t mind telling
you. But he’s on the boat now an’ she left the pier ten
minutes ago. We got to celebrate this. By God, you’re
clever, Pinkie. You think of everything.’
[ 6 ]
Ida Arnold had had more than a couple. She sang softly
to herself over the Guinness - ‘One night in an alley
Lord Rothschild said to me ... ’ The heavy motion of
the waves under the pier was like the sound of bath
water; it set her going. She sat there massively alone -
no harm in her for anybody in the world - minus one.
The world was a good place if you didn’t weaken ; she was
like the chariot in a triumph - behind her were all the big
lO + B.R.
275
battalions - right’s right, an eye for an eye, when you
want to do a thing well, do it yourself. Phil Corkery made
his way towards her - behind him through the long glass
windows of the tea-room you could see the lights of Hove ;
green copper Metropole domes swam in the layer of last
light under the heavy nocturnal clouds slumping down.
The spray tossed up like fine rain against the windows.
Ida Arnold stopped singing and said, ‘Do you see what
I see?’
Phil Corkery sat down; it wasn’t like summer at all in
this glass breakwater: he looked cold in his grey flannel
trousers and his blazer with the old something-or-other
arms on the pocket: a little pinched, all passion spent.
‘It’s them,’ he said wearily. ‘How did you know they’d
be here?’
‘ I didn’t, ’ Ida said. ‘ It’s fate. ’
‘I’m tired of the sight of them.’
‘But think how tired,’ she said with cheery relish,
^they are.’ They looked across a waste of empty tables
towards France, towards the Boy and Rose - and a man
and woman they didn’t recognise. If the party had come
there to celebrate or something, she had spoiled their
fun. The Guinness welled warmly up into her throat.
She had an enormous sense of well-being; she belched
and said, ‘Pardon me,’ lifting a black-gloved hand. She
said, ‘I suppose he’s gone, too?’
‘He’s gone.’
‘We aren’t lucky with our witnesses,’ she said. ‘First
Spicer, then the girl, then Prewitt and now Cubitt. ’
‘He took the first morning train - with your money.’
‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘They’re alive. They’ll come
back. An’ I can wait - thanks to Black Boy. ’
Phil Corkery looked at her askance; it was astonishing
276
that he had ever had the nerve to send her, to send that
power and purpose, postcards from seaside resorts -
from Hastings a crab from whose stomach you could
wind out a series of views, from Eastbourne a baby
sitting upon a rock which lifted to disclose the High
Street and Boots’ Library and a fernery, from Bourne-
mouth (was it?) a bottle containing photographs of the
promenade, the rock garden, the new swimming
pool. ... It was like offering a bun to an elephant in
Africa. He was shaken by a sense of terrific force . . .
When she wanted a good time nothing would stop her,
and when she wanted justice. ... He said nervously,
‘Don’t you think, Ida, we’ve done enough. . . .’
She said, ‘ I haven’t finished yet, ’ with her eyes on the
little doomed party. ‘You never know. They think
they’re safe: they’ll do something crazy now.’ The Boy
sat there silent beside Rose. He had a glass of drink but
he hadn’t tasted it; only the man and the woman
chattered about this and that.
‘We’ve done our best. It’s a matter for the police or
no one,’ Phil said.
‘You heard them that first time.’ She began to sing
again, ‘One night in an alley . . .’
‘ It’s not our business now. ’
‘ Lord Rothschild said to me . . , ’ She broke off to set
him gently right. You couldn’t let a friend have wrong
ideas. ‘It’s the business of anyone who knows the
difference between right and wrong.’
‘But you’re so terribly certain about things, Ida. You
go busting in. . . . Oh, you mean well, but how do we
know the reasons he may have had. . . . And besides,’
he accused her, ‘you’re only doing it because it’s fun.
Fred wasn’t anyone you cared about. ’
277
She switched towards him her large and lit-up eyes.
*Why,’ she said, ‘I don’t say it hasn’t been - exciting.’
She felt quite sorry it was all over now. ‘What’s the
harm in that? I like doing what’s right, that’s all.’
Rebellion bobbed weakly up - ‘And what’s wrong,
too, Ida.’
She smiled at him with enormous and remote tender-
ness. ‘Oh, that. That’s not wrong. That does no one any
harm. That’s not like murder. ’
‘Priests say it is.’
‘Priests,’ she exclaimed with scorn. ‘Why, even
Romans don’t believe in that. Or that girl wouldn’t be
living with him now.’ She said, ‘You can trust me. I’ve
seen the world. I know people,’ and she turned her
attention heavily back on Rose. ‘You wouldn’t let me
leave a little girl like that - to him? She’s vexing, of
course, she’s stupid, but she don’t deserve that. ’
‘How do you know she doesn’t want to be left?’
‘You aren’t telling me, are you, that she wants to die?
Nobody wants that. Oh, no. I don’t give up until she’s
safe. Get me another Guinness.’ A long way out beyond
the West Pier you could see the lights of Worthing - a
sign of bad weather, and the tide rolled regularly in, a
gigantic white splash in the dark against the breakwaters
nearer shore. You could hear it pounding at the piles,
like a boxer’s fist against a punchball in training for the
human jaw, and softly and just a little tipsily Ida Arnold
began to recall the people she had saved : a man she had
once pulled out of the sea when she was a young woman,
the money to a blind beggar, and the kind word in season
to the despairing schoolgirl in the Strand.
278
‘Poor old Spicer too,’ Dallow said, ‘he got the same
idea - he thought he’d have a pub somewhere some day. *
He slapped Judy’s thigh and said, ‘What about me an’
you settling in with the young people.’ He said, ‘I can
see it now. Right out in the country. On one of those
arterials with the charabancs stopping; the Great North
Road: “Pull in here”. I wouldn’t be surprised if there
wasn’t more money in the long run . . . ’ He stopped and
said to the Boy, ‘What’s up? Take a drink. There’s
nothing to worry about now. ’
The Boy looked across the tea-room and the empty
tables to where the woman sat. How she hung on. Like
a ferret he’d seen on the Down, among the chalky holes,
fastened to a hare’s throat. All the same this hare
escaped. He had no cause to fear her now. He said in a
dull voice, ‘The country. I don’t know much about the
country. ’
‘It’s healthy,’ Dallow said. ‘Why, you’ll live to eighty
with your missus. ’
‘Sixty-odd years,’ the Boy said, ‘it’s a long time.’
Behind the woman’s head the Brighton lamps beaded
out towards Worthing. The last sunset light slid lower
in the sky and the heavy indigo clouds came down over
the Grand, the Metropole, the Cosmopolitan, over the
towers and domes. Sixty years : it was like a prophecy - a
certain future: a horror without end.
‘You two,’ Dallow said. ‘What’s got you both?’
This was the tea-room to which they had all come
after Fred’s death - Spicer and Dallow and Cubitt.
Dallow was right, of course: they were safe - Spicer dead
279
and Prewitt out of the way and Cubitt God knows
where. (They’d never get him into a witness box: he
knew too well he’d hang - he’d played too big a part -
and the prison record of 1923 lay behind him.) And
Rose was his wife. As safe as they could ever be. They’d
won out - finally. He had - Dallow right again - sixty
years ahead. His thoughts came to pieces in his hand:
Saturday nights : and then the birth, the child, habit and
hate. He looked across the tables ; the woman’s laughter
was like defeat.
He said, ‘This place is stuffy. I got to have some air.’
He turned slowly to Rose. ‘Come for a stroll,’ he said.
Between the table and the door he picked the right
thought out of all the pieces, and when they came out on
the windy side of the pier he shouted to her, ‘ I got to go
away from here. ’ He put his hand on her arm and guided
her with terrible tenderness into shelter. The waves
came breaking up from France, pounding under their
feet. A spirit of recklessness took him: it was like the
moment when he had seen Spicer bending by his
suitcase, Cubitt begging for money in the passage.
Through the glass panes Dallow sat with Judy by the
drinks. It was like the first week of the sixty years - the
contact and the sensual tremble and the stained sleep and
waking not alone; in the wild and noisy darkness he had
the whole future in his brain. It was like a slot machine:
you put in a penny and the light goes on and the doors
open and the figures move. He said with agile tenderness,
‘This was where we met that night. Remember?’
‘Yes,’ she said and watched him with fear.
‘We don’t want them with us,’ he said. ‘Let’s get into
the car an’ drive’ - he watched her closely - ‘into the
country. ’
280
‘It’s cold.’
‘ It won’t be in the car. ’ He dropped her arm and said,
‘ Of course - if you don’t want to come - I’ll go alone. ’
‘But where?’
He said with studied lightness, ‘I told you. In the
country. ’ He took a penny out of his pocket and slammed
it home in the nearest slot-machine. He pulled a handle,
didn’t look at what he did, and with a rattle the packets
of fruit gums came dropping out - a bonus - lemon and
grape-fruit and liquorice all-sorts. He said, ‘I’ve got a
lucky hand. ’
‘Is something wrong?’ Rose said.
He said, ‘You saw her, didn’t you? Believe me ~ she’s
never going to leave go. I saw a ferret once - out by the
track.’ As he turned one of the pier lights caught his
eyes: a gleam: an exhilaration. He said, ‘I’m going for a
ride. You stay here if you want to.’
‘ I’ll come, ’ she said.
‘You needn’t.’
‘I’ll come.’
At the shooting range he paused. He was taken with a
kind of wild humour. ‘Got the time?’ he asked the man.
‘You know what the time is. I’ve told you before how
I won’t stand . . . ’
‘You needn’t get your rag out,’ the Boy said. ‘Give
me a gun. ’ He lifted it, got the sight firmly on the bull,
then deliberately shifted it and fired. He thought:
‘Something had agitated him’, the witness said’.
‘What’s up with you to-day?’ the man exclaimed.
‘You only got an outer.’
He laid the rifle down. ‘We need a freshener. We’re
going for a ride in the country. Good night. ’ He planted
his information pedantically, as carefully as he had had
281
them lay Fred’s cards along the route - for later use. He
even turned back and said, ‘We’re going Hastings way.’
‘I don’t want to know,’ the man said, ‘where you’re
going.’
The old Morris was parked near the pier. The self-
starter wouldn’t work: he had to turn the handle. He
stood a moment looking at the old car with an expression
of disgust: as if this was all you got out of a racket. . . .
He said, ‘We’ll go the way we went that day. Remember.
In the bus.’ Again he planted his information for the
attendant to hear. ‘Peacehaven. We’ll get a drink.’
They swung out round by the Aquarium and ground
up hill in second gear. He had one hand in his pocket
feeling for the scrap of paper on which she had written
her message. The hood flapped and the split discoloured
glass of the windscreen confined his view. He said, ‘ It’s
going to rain like hell soon. ’
‘Will this hood keep it out?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said, staring ahead. ‘ We won’t
get wet. ’
She didn’t dare ask him what he meant - she wasn’t
sure, and as long as she wasn’t sure she could believe
that they were happy, that they were lovers taking a drive
in the dark with all the trouble over. She put a hand on
him and felt his instinctive withdrawal: for a moment
she was shaken by an awful doubt - if this was the
darkest nightmare of all, if he didn’t love her, as the
woman said . . . The wet windy air flapped her face
through the rent. It didn’t matter: she loved him: she
had her responsibility. The buses passed them going
downhill to the town: little bright domestic cages in
which people sat with baskets and books : a child pressed
her face to the glass and for a moment at a traflSc light
282
they were so close the face might have been held against
her breast. *A penny for your thoughts/ he said and
caught her unawares - ‘Life’s not so bad.’
‘Don’t you believe it/ he said. ‘I’ll tell you what it is.
It’s gaol, it’s not knowing where to get some money.
Worms and cataract, cancer. You hear ’em shrieking from
the upper windows - children being born. It’s dying
slowly. ’
It was coming now - she knew it: the dashboard light
lit the bony mind-made-up fingers: the face was in
darkness, but she could imagine the exhilaration, the
bitter excitement, the anarchy in the eyes. A rich man’s
private car - Daimler or Bentley she didn’t know the
makes - rolled smoothly past them. He said, ‘What’s
the hurry?’ He took his hand out of his pocket and laid
on his knee a paper she recognised. He said, ‘You mean
that - don’t you ? ’ He had to repeat it - ‘ Don’t you? ’ She
felt as if she were signing away more than her life -
heaven whatever that was, and the child in the bus, and
the baby crying in the neighbour’s house. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘We’ll go and have a drink,’ he said, ‘and then -
you’ll see. I got everything settled.’ He said with
hideous ease, ‘ It won’t take a minute. ’ He put his arm
round her waist and his face was close to hers : she could
see him now, considering and considering; his skin
smelt of petrol: everything smelt of petrol in the little
leaking out-dated car. She said, ‘Are you sure . . . can’t
we wait . . . one day?’
‘What’s the good? You saw her there to-night. She’s
hanging on. One day she’ll get her evidence. What’s the
use?’
‘Why not thenV
‘ It might be too late then, ’ He said disjointedly through
10^ + 283
the flapping hood, ‘A knock and the next thing you
know . . . the cuffs too late. . . . ’ He said with
cunning, ‘We wouldn’t be together then.’ He put down
his foot and the needle quivered up to thirty-five - the
old car wouldn’t do more than forty, but it gave an
immense impression of reckless speed : the wind battered
on the glass and tore through the rent. He began softly
to intone - ‘Dona nobis pacem. ’
‘He won’t.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Give us peace.’
He thought: there’ll be time enough in the years
ahead - sixty years - to repent of this. Go to a priest.
Say: ‘Father, I’ve committed murder twice. And there
was a girl - she killed herself.’ Even if death came
suddenly, driving home to-night, the smash on the lamp-
post - there was still ‘between the stirrup and the
groimd’. The houses on one side ceased altogether, and
the sea came back to them, beating at the undercliff
drive, a darkness and deep sound. He wasn’t really
deceiving himself - he’d learnt the other day that when
the time was short there were other things than contrition
to think about. It didn’t matter anyway ... he wasn’t
made for peace, he couldn’t believe in it. Heaven was a
word: hell was something he could trust. A brain was
only capable of what it could conceive, and it couldn’t
conceive what it had never experienced; his cells were
formed of the cement school-playgroimd, the dead fire
and the dying man in the St Pancras waiting-room, his
bed at Frank’s and his parents’ bed. An awful resentment
stirred in him - why shouldn’t he have had his chance
like all the rest, seen his glimpse of heaven if it was only
a crack between the Brighton walls ... He turned as they
284
went down to Rottingdean and took a long look at her as
if she might be it - but the brain couldn’t conceive - he
saw a mouth which wanted the sexual embrace, the
shape of breasts demanding a child. Oh, she was good
all right, he supposed, but she wasn’t good enough: he’d
got her down.
Above Rottingdean the new villas began: pipe-dream
architeaure: up on the downs the obscure skeleton of a
nursing home, winged like an aeroplane. He said, ‘They
won’t hear us in the country.’ The lights petered out
along the road to Peacehaven : the chalk of a new cutting
flapped like white sheets in the headlight: cars came
down on them blinding them. He said, ‘The battery’s
low.’
She had the sense that he was a thousand miles away -
his thoughts had gone on beyond the act she couldn’t
tell where. He was wise; he was foreseeing, she thought,
things she couldn’t conceive - eternal punishment, the
flames . . . She felt terror, the idea of pain shook her,
their purpose drove up in a flurry of rain against the old
stained windscreen. This road led nowhere else. It was
said to be the worst act of all, the act of despair, the sin
without forgiveness ; sitting there in the smell of petrol
she tried to realise despair, the mortal sin, but she
couldn’t; it didn’t feel like despair. He was going to
damn himself, but she was going to show them that they
couldn’t damn him without damning her too. There was
nothing he could do, she wouldn’t do: she felt capable
of sharing any murder. A light lit his face and left it; a
frown, a thought, a child’s face. She felt responsibility
move in her breasts; she wouldn’t let him go into that
darkness alone.
The Peacehaven streets began, running out towards
285
the cliffs and the downs : thorn-bushes grew up round the
To Let boards; streets ended in obscurity, in a pool of
water and in salty grass. It was like the last effort of
despairing pioneers to break new country. The country
had broken them. He said, ‘We’ll go to the hotel and
have a drink and then - I know the right place. ’
The rain was coming tentatively down; it beat on the
faded scarlet doors of Lureland, the poster of next
week’s Whist Drive and last week’s Dance. They ran for
it to the hotel door. In the lounge there was nobody at
all - white marble statuettes and on the green dado
above the panelled walls Tudor roses and lilies picked
out in gold. Siphons stood about on blue-topped tables,
and on the stained-glass windows medieval ships tossed
on cold curling waves. Somebody had broken the hands
off one of the statuettes - or perhaps it was made like
that, something classical in white drapery, a symbol of
victory or despair. The Boy rang a bell and a boy of his
own age came out of the public bar to take his order:
they were oddly alike and allusively different ~ narrow
shoulders, thin face, they bristled like dogs at the sight
of each other.
‘Piker,’ the Boy said.
‘What of it?’
‘ Give us service,’ the Boy said. He took a step forward
and the other backed and Pinkie grinned at him. ‘ Bring
us two double brandies,’ he said, ‘and quick.’ He said
softly, ‘Who would have thought I’d find Piker here?’
She watched him with amazement that he could find any
distraction from their purpose. She could hear the wind
on upstair windows; where the steps curved another
tombstone statuette raised its ruined limbs. He said, ‘We
were at the school together. I used to give him hell in the
286
breaks.’ The other returned with the brandies and
brought, sidelong and scared and cautious, a whole
smoky childhood with him. She felt a pang of jealousy
against him because to-night she should have had all
there was of Pinkie.
‘You a servant?’ the Boy said.
‘I’m not a servant, I’m a waiter.’
‘You want me to tip you?’
‘I don’t want your tips.’
The Boy took his brandy and drank it down; he
coughed when it took him by the throat. It was like the
stain of the world in his stomach. He said, ‘Here’s
courage.’ He said to Piker, ‘What’s the time?’
‘You can read it on the clock,’ Piker said, ‘if you can
read. ’
‘Haven’t you any music?’ the Boy said. ‘God damn
it, we want to celebrate. ’
‘There’s the piano. An’ the wireless.’
‘Turn it on.’
The wireless was hidden behind a potted plant: a
violin came wailing out, the notes shaken by atmos-
pherics. The Boy said, ‘He hates me. He hates my guts,’
and turned to mock at Piker, but he’d gone. He said to
Rose, ‘You’d better drink that brandy.’
‘I don’t need it,’ she said.
‘Have it your own way.’
He stood by the wireless and she by the empty fire-
place: three tables and three siphons and a moorish-
Tudor-God-knows-what-of-a-lamp were between them:
they were gripped by an awful unreality, the need to
make conversation, to say ‘What a night!’ or ‘It’s cold
for the time of year’. She said, ‘So he was at your
school. ’
287
‘That’s right.’ They both looked at the clock: it was
almost nine, and behind the violin the rain tapped
against the seaward windows. He said awkwardly, ‘We’d
better be moving soon.’
She began to pray to herself, ‘Holy Mary, Mother of
God,’ but then she stopped - she was in mortal sin: it
was no good praying. Her prayers stayed here below with
the siphons and the statuettes : they had no wings. She
waited by the fireplace in terrified patience. He said
uneasily, ‘We ought to write - something, so people
will know.’
‘It doesn’t matter, does it?’ she said.
‘ Oh yes, ’ he said quickly, ‘it does. We got to do things
right. This is a pact. You read about them in the
newspapers. ’
‘Do lots of people - do it?’
‘It’s always happening,’ he said; an awful and airy
confidence momentarily possessed him: the violin faded
out and the time signal pinged through the rain. A voice
behind the plant gave them the weather report - storms
coming up from the Continent, a depression in the
Atlantic, to-morrow’s forecast. She began to listen and
then remembered that to-morrow’s weather didn’t
matter at all.
He said, ‘Like another drink - or something?’ He
looked round for a Gents sign - ‘ I just got to go - an’
wash.’ She noticed the weight in his pocket - it was
going to be that way. He said, ‘Just add a piece on that
note while I’m gone. Here’s a pencil. Say you couldn’t
live without me, something like that. We got to do this
right, as it’s always done. ’ He went out into the passage
and called to Piker and got his direction, then went up
the stairs. At the statuette he turned and looked down
288
into the panelled lounge. This was the kind of moment
one kept for memory - the wind at the pier end, Sherry’s
and the men singing, lamplight on the harvest Burgundy,
the crisis as Cubitt battered at the door. He found that he
remembered it all without repulsion; he had a sense that
somewhere, like a beggar outside a shuttered house,
tenderness stirred, but he was bound in a habit of hate.
He turned his back and went on up the stairs. He told
himself that soon he would be free again - they’d see the
note. He hadn’t known she was all that unhappy, he
would say, because they’d got to part: she must have
found the gun in Dallow’s room and brought it with her.
They’d test it for finger-prints, of course, and then - he
stared out through the lavatory window: invisible rollers
beat under the cliff. Life would go on. No more human
contacts, other people’s emotions washing at the brain -
he would be free again: nothing to think about but
himself. Myself: the word echoed hygienically on
among the porcelain basins, the taps and plugs and
wastes. He took the revolver out of his pocket and
loaded it - two chambers. In the mirror above the
wash-basin he could see his hand move round the metal
death, adjusting the safety-catch. Down below the news
was over and the music had begun again - it wailed
upwards like a dog over a grave, and the huge darkness
pressed a wet mouth against the panes. He put the
revolver back and went out into the passage. That was
the next move. Another statuette pointed an obscure
moral with cemetery hands and a chaplet of marble
flowers, and again he felt the prowling presence of pity.
289
C8]
‘They’ve been gone a long while,’ Dallow said. ‘What
are they up to?’
‘Who cares?’ Judy said. ‘They want to be’ - she
pressed her plump lips against Dallow’s cheek - ‘alone’ -
her red hair caught in his mouth - a sour taste. ‘You
know what love is, ’ she said.
‘He doesn’t.’ He was uneasy - conversations came
back to him. He said, ‘He hates her guts.’ He put his
arm half-heartedly round Judy - it was no good spoiling
a party, but he wished he knew what Pinkie had in mind.
He took a long drink out of Judy’s glass, and somewhere
Worthing way a siren wailed. Through the window
he could see a couple mooning at the pier end, and
an old man got his fortune card from the witch behind
glass.
‘Why don’t he get clear of her then?’ Judy asked. Her
mouth looked for his mouth down the line of his Jaw.
She drew herself indignantly up and said, ‘Who’s that
polony over there? What does she want lamping us all
the time? This is a free country.’
Dallow turned and looked. His brain worked very
slowly, first the statement - ‘I never seen her,’ and then
the memory. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘it’s that damned buer
who’s been getting Pinkie rattled.’ He got cumbrously
to his feet and stumbled a little between the tables. ‘Who
are you?’ he asked. ‘Who are you?’
‘ Ida Arnold, ’ she said, ‘ for what it’s worth. My friends
call me Ida.’
‘I’m not your friend.’
‘You better be,’ she said gently. ‘Have a drink.
290
Where’s Pinkie gone - and Rose? You ought to ’ave
brought them along. This is Phil. Introduce the lady
friend. ’ She ran softly on, ‘ It’s time we all got together.
What’s your name?’
‘Don’t you know what people get who poke their
noses . . . ’
‘ Oh, I know, ’ she said. ‘ I know all right. I was with
Fred the day you finished him. ’
‘Talk sense,’ Dallow said. ‘Who the hell are you?’
‘You ought to know. You followed us all the way up
the front in that old Morris of yours.’ She smiled quite
amiably at him. He wasn’t her game. Tt seems an age
ago now, doesn’t it?’
It was true all right - it seemed an age.
‘ Have a drink, ’ Ida said, ‘you may as well. An’ where’s
Pinkie? He didn’t seem to like the look of me to-night.
What were you celebrating? Not what’s happened to Mr
Prewitt? You won’t have heard that.’
‘What do you mean?’ Dallow said. The wind got up
against the glass and the waitresses yawned.
‘You’ll see it in the morning papers. I don’t want to
spoil your fun. And of course you’ll know it sooner than
that if he talks. ’
‘He’s gone abroad.’
‘He’s at the police-station now,’ she said with com-
plete confidence. ‘They brought him right back,’ she
went elaborately on. ‘You ought to choose your solicitors
better, men who can afford to take a holiday. They’ve
got him for swindling. Arrested on the quay. ’
He watched her uneasily. He didn’t believe her - but
all the same . . . ‘You know an awful lot,’ he said. ‘Do
you sleep at nights?’
‘Do you?’
lO**
291
The big broken face had a kind of innocence about it.
‘Me?’ he said. ‘I don’t know a thing.’
‘ It was a waste giving him all that money. He’d have
run an5rway - and it didn’t look good. When I got hold
of Johnnie at the pier ’
He stared at her with hopeless amazement. ‘You got
hold of Johnnie? How the hell . . . ?’
She said simply, ‘People like me.’ She took a drink
and said, ‘His mother treated him shameful when he
was a kid.’
‘Whose mother?’
‘Johnnie’s.’
Dallow was impatient, puzzled, scared. ‘What the
hell,’ he said, ‘do you know about Johnnie’s mother?’
‘What he told me,’ she said. She sat there completely
at her ease, her big breasts ready for any secrets. She
carried her air of compassion and comprehension about
her like a rank cheap perfume. She said gently, ‘I got
nothing against you. I like to be friendly. Bring over
your lady friend. ’
He glanced quickly over his shoulder and back again.
‘I better not,’ he said. His voice fell. He too began
automatically to confide. ‘Truth is, she’s a jealous bitch. ’
‘You don’t say. And her old man . . .’
‘Oh, her old man,’ he said, ‘he’s all right. What Frank
doesn’t see, he doesn’t mind. ’ He dropped his voice still
lower. ‘And he can’t see much - he’s blind.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ she said.
‘You wouldn’t,’ he said. ‘Not from his pressing and
ironing. He’s got a wonderful hand with an iron.’ He
broke suddenly off. ‘What the hell,’ he said, ‘did you
mean - you didn’t know t/rar? What did you know?’
‘There isn’t much,’ she said, ‘I’ve not picked up -
292
here and there. The neighbours always talk.’ She was
barnacled with pieces of popular wisdom.
‘Who’s talking?’ It was Judy now. She’d come across
to them. ‘An’ what ’ave they got to talk about? Why, if
I chose to put my tongue round some of their doings.
But I wouldn’t like to,’ Judy said. ‘I wouldn’t like to.’
She looked vaguely round. ‘What has happened to those
two?’
‘Perhaps I scared them,’ Ida Arnold said.
"You scared them?’ Dallow said. ‘That’s rich. Pinkie’s
not scared that easy. ’
‘What I want to know is,’ Judy said, ‘what neigh-
bour’s said what?’
Somebody was shooting at the range : when the door
opened and a couple came in they could hear the shots -
one, two, three. ‘That’ll be Pinkie,’ Dallow said. ‘He
was always good with a gun. ’
‘You better go an’ see,’ Ida gently remarked, ‘that he
doesn’t do something desperate - with his gun - when
he gets to know. ’
Dallow said, ‘You jump to things. We got no cause to
be afraid of Mr Prewitt. ’
‘You gave him money, I suppose, for something.’
‘Aw,’ he said, ‘Johnnie’s been joking.’
‘Your friend Cubitt seemed to think . . .’
‘ Cubitt doesn’t know a thing. ’
‘Of course,’ she admitted, ‘he wasn’t there, was he?
That time, I mean. But you . . .’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t
twenty pounds be of use to you? After all you don’t want
to get into trouble. . . . Let Pinkie carry his own crimes. ’
‘You make me sick,’ he said. ‘You think you know a
lot and you don’t know a thing. ’ He said to Judy, ‘ I’m
goin’ to have a drain. You want to keep your mouth shut
293
or this polony . . . ’ He stretched a gesture, hopelessly -
he couldn’t express what she mightn’t put over on you.
He went uneasily out, and the wind caught him, so that
he had to grab at his old greasy hat and hold it on. Going
down the steps to the gents was like going down into a
ship’s engine-room in a storm. The whole place shook a
little under his feet as the swell came up against the piles
and drove on to break against the beach. He thought: I
oughter warn Pinkie about Prewitt if it’s true. ... He
had things on his mind, other things besides old Spicer.
He came up the ladder and looked down the deck -
Pinkie wasn’t to be seen. He went on past the peep
machines - not in sight. It was someone else shooting at
the booth.
He asked the man, ‘Seen Pinkie?’
‘What’s the game?’ the man said. ‘You know I seen
him. ArC he’s gone for a ride in the country - with his
girl - for a freshener - Hastings way. An" I suppose you
want to know the time too. Well,’ the man said, ‘I’m
swearing nothing. You can pitch on someone else for
your phoney alibis. ’
‘You’re crackers,’ Dallow said. He moved away.
Across the noisy sea the hour began to strike in Brighton
churches : he counted one, two, three, four, and stopped.
He was scared - suppose it was true, suppose Pinkie
knew, and it was that mad scheme . . . What the hell was
taking anyone for a ride in the country at this hour,
except to a roadhouse, and Pinkie didn’t go to roadhouses ?
He said softly, ‘I won’t stand for it,’ aloud. He was
confused, he wished he hadn’t drunk all that beer. She
was a good kid. He remembered her in the kitchen, going
to light the stove. And why not? he thought, staring
gloomily out to sea; he was shaken by a sudden senti-
294
mental desire which Judy couldn’t satisfy: for a paper
with your breakfast and warm fires. He began to walk
rapidly down the pier towards the turnstiles. There were
things he wouldn’t stand for.
He knew the Morris wouldn’t be on the rank, but all
the same he had to go and see for himself. Its absence
was like a voice speaking quite plainly in his ear. ‘ Sup-
pose she kills herself. ... a pact may be murder, but
they don’t hang you for it.’ He stood there hopelessly,
not knowing what to do. Beer clouded his brain: he
passed a harassed hand across his face. He said to the
attendant, ‘You see that Morris go out?’
‘Your friend and his girl took it,* the man said,
hobbling between a Talbot and an Austin. One leg was
gammy, he moved it with a mechanism worked from his
pocket, lurching with an air of enormous strain to pocket
sixpence, to say ‘It’s a fine night’; he looked worn with
the awful labour of the trivial act. He said, ‘They’re
goin’ up to Peacehaven for a drink. Don’t ask me why. ’
Hand in pocket he pulled the hidden wire and made his
unsteady and diagonal way towards a Ford. ‘The rain
won’t hold off long,’ his voice came back, and ‘Thank
you, sir,’ and then again the labour of movement as a
Morris Oxford backed in, the pulling at the wire.
Dallow stood there hopelessly at a loss. There were
buses . . . but everything would be over long before a
bus got in. Better to wash his hands of the whole
thing . . . after all he didn’t know\ in half an hour he
might see the old car coming back past the Aquarium,
Pinkie driving and the girl beside him, but he knew very
well in his heart that it would never come, not with both
of them, that way. The Boy had left too many signs
behind him - the message at the shooting-range, at the
295
car-park: he wanted to be followed in good time, in his
own time, to fit in with his story. The man came lurching
back. He said, ‘ I thought your friend seemed queer to-
night. Sort of lit up. ’ It was as if he were talking in the
witness box, giving the evidence he was meant to give.
Dallow turned hopelessly away . . . fetch Judy, go
home, wait . . . and there was the woman standing a few
feet away. She’d followed him and listened. He said,
‘God’s sakes, this is your doing. You made him marry
her, you made him . . . ’
‘Get a car,’ she said, ‘quick.’
‘I’ve not got the money for a car.’
‘I have. You better hurry.’
‘There’s no cause to hurry,’ he said weakly. ‘They’ve
just gone for a drink. ’
‘You know what they’ve gone for,’ she said. ‘I don’t.
But if you want to keep out of this, you’d better get that
car.’
The first rain began to blow up the parade as he
weakly argued. ‘ I don’t know a thing. ’
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘You’re just taking me for a
drive, that’s all.’ She burst suddenly out at him: ‘Don’t
be a fool. You better have me for a friend. . . . ’ She said,
‘You see what’s come to Pinkie.’
All the same he didn’t hurry. What was the good?
Pinkie had laid this trail. Pinkie thought of everything,
they were meant to follow in due course, and find . . He
hadn’t got the imagination to see what they’d find.
The Boy stopped at the head of the stairs and looked
down. Two men had come into the lounge; hearty and
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damp in camel-hair coats they shook out their moisture
like dogs and were noisy over their drinks. ‘Two pints/
they ordered, ‘in tankards,* and fell suddenly silent
scenting a girl in the lounge. They were upper-class,
they’d learned that tankard trick in class hotels: he
watched their gambits with hatred from the stairs.
Anything female was better than nothing, even Rose;
but he could sense their half-heartedness. She wasn’t
worth more than a little sidelong swagger. ‘ I think we
touched eighty. ’
‘I made it eighty-two.’
‘ She’s a good bus. ’
‘How much did they sting you?’
‘A couple of hundred. She’s cheap at the price.’
Then they both stopped and took an arrogant look at
the girl by the statuette. She wasn’t worth bothering
about, but if she absolutely fell, without trouble . . . One
of them said something in a low voice and the other
laughed. They took long swills of bitter from the
tankards.
Tenderness came up to the very window and looked
in. What the hell right had they got to swagger and
laugh ... if she was good enough for him. He came down
the stairs into the hall; they looked up and moued to
each other, as much as to say - ‘Oh well, she wasn’t
really worth the trouble. ’
One of them said, ‘Drink up. We better get on with
the good work. You don’t think Zoe’ll be out?’
‘Oh no. I said I might drop in.’
‘Her friend all right?’
‘She’s hot.’
‘Let’s get on then.’
They drained their beer and moved arrogantly to the
297
door, taking a passing look at Rose as they went. He
could hear them laugh outside the door. They were
laughing at him. He came a few steps into the lounge:
again they were bound in an icy constraint. He had a
sudden inclination to throw up the whole thing, to get
into the car and drive home, and let her live. It was less
a motion of pity than of weariness - there was such a hell
of a lot to do and think of, there were going to be so
many questions to be answered. He could hardly believe
in the freedom at the end of it, and even that freedom was
to be in a strange place. He said, ‘The rain’s worse. ’ She
stood there waiting; she couldn’t answer: she was
breathing hard as if she’d run a long way - and she
looked old. She was sixteen, but this was how she might
have looked after years of marriage, of the childbirth
and the daily quarrel: they had reached death and it
affected them like age.
She said, ‘ I wrote what you wanted. ’ She waited for
him to take the scrap of paper and write his own message
to the coroner, to Daily Express readers, to what one
called the world. The other boy came cautiously into the
lounge and said, ‘You haven’t paid. ’ While Pinkie found
the money, she was visited by an almost overwhelming
rebellion - she had only to go out, leave him, refuse to
play. He couldn’t make her kill herself: life wasn’t as
bad as that. It came like a revelation, as if someone had
whispered to her that she was someone, a separate
creature ~ not just one flesh with him. She could always
escape - if he didn’t change his mind. Nothing was
decided. They could go in the car wherever he wanted
them to go ; she could take the gun from his hand, and
even then - at the last moment of all - she needn’t shoot.
Nothing was decided - there was always hope.
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‘ That’s your tip, ’ the Boy said. ‘ I always tip a waiter. ’
Hate came back. He said, ‘You a good Roman, Piker?
Do you go to Mass on Sundays like they tell you?’
Piker said with weak defiance, ‘Why not, Pinkie?’
‘You’re afraid,’ the Boy said. ‘You’re afraid of
burning. ’
‘Who wouldn’t be?’
‘ I’m not. ’ He looked with loathing into the past - a
cracked bell ringing, a child weeping under the cane -
and repeated, ‘ I’m not afraid. ’ He said to Rose, ‘ We’ll
be going.’ He came tentatively across and put a nail
against her cheek - half caress, half threat ~ and said,
‘You’d love me always, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
He gave her one more chance: ‘You’d always have
stuck to me,’ and when she nodded her agreement, he
began wearily the long course of action which one day
would let him be free again.
Outside in the rain the self-starter wouldn’t work again :
he stood with his coat-collar turned up and pulled the
handle. She wanted to tell him he mustn’t stand
there, getting wet, because she’d changed her mind:
they were going to live - by hook or by crook, but she
didn’t dare. She pushed hope back - to the last possible
moment. When they drove off she said, ‘ Last night . . .
the night before . . . you didn’t hate me, did you, for
what we did?’
He said, ‘No, I didn’t hate you.’
‘Even though it was a mortal sin.’
It was quite true - he hadn’t hated her; he hadn’t
even hated the act. There had been a kind of pleasure, a
kind of pride, a kind of - something else. The car lurched
back on to the main road; he turned the bonnet to
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Brighton. An enormous emotion beat on him; it was
like something trying to get in; the pressure of gigantic
wings against the glass. Dona nobis pacem. He withstood
it, with all the bitter force of the school bench, the
cement playground, the St Pancras waiting-room,
Dallow’s and Judy’s secret lust, and the cold unhappy
moment on the pier. If the glass broke, if the beast ~
whatever it was - got in, God knows what it would do.
He had a sense of huge havoc - the confession, the
penance and the sacrament - and awful distraction, and
he drove blind into the rain. He could see nothing
through the cracked stained windscreen. A bus came
upon them and pulled out just in time - he was on the
wrong side. He said, suddenly, at random, ‘We pull in
here. ’
An ill-made street petered out towards the cliff -
bungalows of every shape and kind, a vacant plot full of
salt grass and wet thorn bushes like bedraggled fowls, no
lights except in three windows. A radio played, and in a
garage a man was doing something to his motor-bike
which roared and spluttered in the darkness. He drove a
few yards in, turned out his headlights, switched off his
engine. The rain came noisily in through the rent in the
hood and they could hear the sea battering the cliff. He
said, ‘Well, take a look. It’s the world.’ Another light
went on behind a stained-glass door (the laughing
Cavalier between Tudor roses) and looking out as if it
was he who’d got to take some sort of farewell of the bike
and the bungalows and the rainy street, he thought of
the words in the Mass - ‘He was in the world and the
world was made by Him and the world knew Him not. ’
It was about as far as hope could be stretched ; she had
to say now or never - ‘ I won’t do it. I never meant to do
300
it.’ It was like some romantic adventure - you plan to
fight in Spain, and then before you know the tickets are
taken for you, the introductions are pressed into your
hand, somebody has come to see you off, everything is
real. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the
gtm. He said, ‘ I got it out of Dallow’s room. ’ She wanted
to say she didn’t know how to use it, to make any excuse,
but he seemed to have thought of everything. He
explained, ‘ I’ve put up the safety-catch. All you need do
is pull on this. It isn’t hard. Put it in your ear - that’ll
hold it steady.’ His youth came out in the crudity of his
instruction: he was like a boy playing on an ash-heap.
‘Go on,’ he said, ‘take it.’
It was amazing how far hope could stretch. She
thought : I needn’t say anything yet. I can take the gun
and then - throw it out of the car, nm away, do something
to stop ever3rthing. But all the time she felt the steady
pressure of his will. His mind was made up. She took
the gun; it was like a treachery. What will he do, she
thought, if I don’t . . shoot. Would he shoot himself
alone, without her? Then he would be danmed, and she
wouldn’t have her chance of being damned too, of showing
Them they couldn’t pick and choose. To go on living for
years . . . you couldn’t tell what life would do to you in
making you meek, good, repentant. Belief in her mind
had the bright clarity of images, of the crib at Christmas :
here goodness ended, past the cow and the sheep, and
there evil began - Herod seeking the child’s birthplace
from his turreted keep. She wanted to be with Herod - if
he were there. You could win to the evil side suddenly, in
a moment of despair or passion, but through a long life
the guardian good drove you remorselessly towards the
crib, the ‘happy death’.
301
He said, ‘We don’t want to wait any longer. Do you
want me to do it first?’
*No,’ she said, ‘no.’
‘All right then. You take a walk - or better still I’ll
take a walk an’ you stay here. When it’s over, I’ll come
back an’ do it too. ’ Again he gave the sense that he was a
boy playing a game, a game in which you could talk in
the coldest detail of the scalping knife or the bayonet
wound and then go home to tea. He said, ‘It’ll be too
dark for me to see much. ’
He opened the door of the car. She sat motionless with
the gun on her lap. Behind them on the main road a car
went slowly past towards Peacehaven. He said awk-
wardly, ‘You know what to do?’ He seemed to think
that some motion of tenderness was expected of him. He
put out his mouth and kissed her on the cheek ; he was
afraid of the mouth - thoughts travel too easily from lip
to lip. He said, ‘ It won’t hurt, ’ and began to walk back a
little way towards the main road. Hope was stretched now
as far as it would go. The radio had stopped ; the motor-
bicycle exploded twice in the garage, feet moved on
gravel and on the main road she could hear a car
reversing.
If it was a guardian angel speaking to her now, he
spoke like a devil - he tempted her to virtue like a sin.
To throw away the gun was a betrayal; it would be an
act of cowardice: it would mean that she chose never to
see him again for ever. Moral maxims dressed in
pedantic priestly tones remembered from old sermons,
instructions, confessions - ‘you can plead for him at the
throne of Grace’ - came to her like unconvincing
insinuations. The evil act was the honest act, the bold
and the faithful - it was only lack of courage, it seemed
302
to her, that spoke so virtuously. She put the gun up to
her ear and put it down again with a feeling of sickness -
it was a poor love that was afraid to die. She hadn’t been
afraid to commit mortal sin - it was death not damnation
which was scaring her. Pinkie said it wouldn’t hurt. She
felt his will moving her hand - she could trust him. She
put up the gun again.
A voice called sharply ‘Pinkie’ and she heard some-
body splashing in the puddles. Footsteps ran . . . she
couldn’t tell where. It seemed to her that this must be
news, that this must make a difference. She couldn’t kill
herself when this might mean good news. It was as if
somewhere in the darkness the will which had governed
her hand relaxed, and all the hideous forces of self-
preservation came flooding back. It didn’t seem real -
that she had really intended to sit there and press the
trigger. ‘Pinkie,’ the voice called again, and the splashing
steps came nearer. She pulled the car door open and flung
the revolver far away from her towards the damp scrub.
In the light from the stained glass she saw Dallow and
the woman - and a policeman who looked confused as if
he didn’t quite know what was happening. Somebody
came softly round the car behind her and said, ‘Where’s
that gun? Why don’t you shoot? Give it me.’
She said, ‘ I threw it away. ’
The others approached cautiously like a deputation.
Pinkie called out suddenly in a breaking childish voice,
‘You bloody squealer, Dallow.’
‘Pinkie,’ Dallow said, ‘it’s no use. They got Prewitt.’
The policeman looked ill-at-ease like a stranger at a party.
‘Where’s that gun?’ Pinkie said again. He screamed
with hate and fear, ‘My God, have I got to have a
massacre?’
303
She said, ‘I threw it away.*
She could see his face indistinctly as it leant in over
the little dashboard light. It was like a child’s, badgered,
confused, betrayed: fake years slipped away - he was
whisked back towards the unhappy playground. He said,
‘You little . . .’he didn’t finish - the deputation apn
proached, he left her, diving into his pocket for some-
thing. ‘ Come on, Dallow, ’ he said, ‘ you bloody squealer, ’
and put his hand up. Then she couldn’t tell what
happened: glass - somewhere - broke, he screamed and
she saw his face - steam. He screamed and screamed,
with his hands up to his eyes; he turned and ran; she
saw a police baton at his feet and broken glass. He
looked half his size, doubled up in appalling agony: it
was as if the flames had literally got him and he shrank -
shrank into a schoolboy flying in panic and pain,
scrambling over a fence, running on.
‘Stop him,’ Dallow cried: it wasn’t any good: he was
at the edge, he was over: they couldn’t even hear a
splash. It was as if he’d been withdrawn suddenly by
a hand out of any existence - past or present, whipped
away into zero - nothing.
[lO]
‘It shows,’ Ida Arnold said, ‘you only have to hold on.’
She emptied her glass of stout and laid it down on
Henekey’s upturned barrel.
‘And Prewitt?’ Clarence asked.
‘How slow you are, you old ghost. I just made that
up. I couldn’t chase over France for him, and the
police - you know what police are - they always want
evidence. ’
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‘They had Cubitt?’
‘ Cubitt woiildn’t talk when he was sober. And you’d
never get him drunk enough to talk to them. Why, this
is slander what I’ve been telling you. Or it would be
slander - if he were alive. ’
‘ I wonder you don’t feel bad about that, Ida. ’
‘Somebody else would have been dead if we hadn’t
turned up. ’
‘ It was her own choice. ’
But Ida Arnold had an answer to everything. ‘She
didn’t understand. She was only a kid. She thought he
was in love with her. ’
‘An’ what does she think now?’
‘Don’t ask me. I’ve done my best. I took her home.
What a girl needs at a time like that is her mother and
dad. Anyway she’s got me to thank she isn’t dead. ’
‘How did you get the policeman to go with you?’
‘We told him they’d stolen the car. The poor man
didn’t know what it was all about, but he acted quick
when Pinkie pulled out the vitriol. ’
‘And Phil Corkery?’
‘He’s talking of Hastings,’ she said, ‘next year, but
I have a sort of feeling there won’t be any postcards for
me after this. ’
‘You’re a terrible woman, Ida,’ Clarence said. He
sighed deeply and stared into his glass. ‘Have another?’
‘No thank you, Clarence. I got to be getting home.’
‘You’re a terrible woman,’ Clarence repeated; he was
a little drunk, ‘but I got to give you credit. You act for
the best.’
‘He’s not on my conscience anyway.’
‘As you say it was him or her.’
‘There wasn’t any choice,’ Ida Arnold said. She got
305
up; she was like a figurehead of Victory. She nodded to
Harry at the bar.
‘You’ve been away, Ida?’
‘Just a week or two.’
‘It doesn’t seem so long,’ Harry said.
‘Well, good night all.’
‘Good night. Good night.’
She took the tube to Russell Square and walked,
carrying her suitcase: let herself in and looked in the
hall for letters. There was only one - from Tom. She
knew what that would be about, and her great warm
heart softened as she thought: After all, when all’s said,
Tom an’ I know what Love is. She opened the door on
to the basement stairs and called, ‘Crowe. Old Crowe.’
‘You, Ida?’
‘Come up for a chat an’ we’ll have a turn with the
Board. ’
The curtains were drawn as she had left them -
nobody had touched the china on the mantelpiece, but
Warwick Deeping wasn’t in the bookshelf and The Good
Companions was on its side. The char had been in - she
could see that - borrowing. She got out a box of choco-
late biscuits for Old Crowe; the lid had not been left
properly on and they were a little soft and stale. Then
carefully she lifted out the Board, cleared the table and
laid it in the centre. Suikilleye, she thought. I know
what that means now. The Board had foreseen it all - Sui,
its own word for the scream, the agony, the leap. She
brooded gently with her fingers on the Board. When
you came to think of it, the Board had saved Rose, and
a multitude of popular sayings began to pass together
into her mind. It was like when the points shift and the
signal goes down and the red lamp changes to green and
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the great engine takes the accustomed rails. It’s a strange
world, there’s more things in heaven and earth , . .
Old Crowe came peering in. ‘What’s it to be, Ida?’
‘ I want to ask advice, ’ Ida said. ‘ I want to ask whether
maybe I ought to go back to Tom. ’
CiO
Rose could just see the old head bent towards the grill.
The priest had a whistle in his breath. He listened ~
patiently - whistling, while she painfully brought out
her whole agony. She could hear the exasperated women
creak their chairs outside waiting for confession. She
said, ‘ It’s that I repent. Not going with him. ’ She was
defiant and tearless in the stuffy box; the old priest had
a cold and smelt of eucalyptus. He said gently and
nasally, ‘Go on, my child.’
She said, ‘I wish I’d killed myself. I ought to ’ave
killed myself.’ The old man began to say something,
but she interrupted him. ‘ I’m not asking for absolution.
I don’t want absolution. I want to be like him - damned. ’
The old man whistled as he drew in his breath. She
felt certain he understood nothing. She repeated
monotonously, ‘I wish I’d killed myself.’ She pressed
her hands against her breasts in the passion of misery.
She hadn’t come to confess, she had come to think; she
couldn’t think at home where the stove hadn’t been lit
and her father had got a mood and her mother - she
could tell it in her sidelong questions - was wondering
how much money Pinkie . . . She would have found the
courage now to kill herself if she hadn’t been afraid that
somewhere in that obscure countryside of death they
might miss each other - mercy operating somehow for
307
one and not for the other. She said with breaking voice,
‘That woman. She ought to be damned. Saying he wanted
to get rid of me. She doesn’t know about love. ’
‘Perhaps she was right,’ the old priest murmured.
‘And you don’t either,’ she said furiously, pressing
her childish face against the grill.
The old man suddenly began to talk, whistling every
now and then and blowing eucalyptus through the grill.
He said, ‘There was a man, a Frenchman, you wouldn’t
know about him, my child, who had the same idea as you.
He was a good man, a holy man, and he lived in sin all
through his life, because he couldn’t bear the idea that
any soul could suffer damnation.’ She listened with
astonishment. He said, ‘This man decided that if any
soul was going to be damned, he would be damned too.
He never took the sacraments, he never married his wife
in church. I don’t know, my child, but some people
think he was - well, a saint. I think he died in what we
are told is mortal sin - I’m not sure: it was in the war:
perhaps . . . ’ He sighed and whistled, bending his old
head. He said, ‘You can’t conceive, my child, nor can
I or anyone the . . . appalling . . . strangeness of the
mercy of God. ’
Outside the chairs creaked again and again - people
impatient to get their own repentance, absolution,
penance finished for the week. He said, ‘ It was a case of
greater love hath no man than this that he lay down his
soul for his friend. ’
He shivered and sneezed. ‘We must hope and pray,’
he said, ‘hope and pray. The Church does not demand
that we believe any soul is cut off from mercy. ’
She said with sad conviction, ‘He’s damned. He knew
what he was about. He was a Catholic too. ’
308
He said gently, ‘Corruptio optimi est pessima.’
‘Yes, father?’
‘I mean - a Catholic is more capable of evil than
anyone. I think perhaps - because we believe in Him -
we are more in touch with the devil than other people.
But we must hope,’ he said mechanically, ‘hope and
pray.’
‘I want to hope,’ she said, ‘but I don’t know how.’
‘ If he loved you, surely, ’ the old man said, ‘ that shows
there was some good . . .’
‘Even love like that?’
‘Yes.’
She brooded on the idea in the little dark box. He
said, ‘And come back soon - 1 can’t give you absolution
now - but come back - to-morrow. ’
She said weakly, ‘Yes, father. . . . And if there’s a
baby . . .’
He said, ‘With your simplicity and his force . . .
Make him a saint - to pray for his father. ’
A sudden feeling of immense gratitude broke through
the pain - it was as if she had been given the sight a
long way off of life going on again. He said, ‘Pray for
me, my child. ’
She said, ‘Yes, oh yes.’
Outside she looked up at the name on the con-
fessional box - it wasn’t any name she remembered.
Priests come and go.
She went out into the street - the pain was still there,
you couldn’t shake it off with a word; but the worst
horror she thought was over - the horror of the complete
circle - to be back at home, back at Snow’s - they’d take
her back - just as if the Boy had never existed at all. He
had existed and would always exist. She had a sudden
309
conviction that she carried life, and she thought proudly:
Let them get over that if they can; let them get over that.
She turned out on to the front opposite the Palace Pier
and began to walk firmly away from the direction of her
home towards Frank’s. There was something to be
salvaged from that house and room, something else they
wouldn’t be able to get over - his voice speaking a
message to her: if there was a child, speaking to the
child. Tf he loved you,’ the priest had said, ‘that
shows . . .’ She walked rapidly in the thin June sun-
light towards the worst horror of all.