White Knight/Black Swan

by David Gemmell

  ‘And there are bent policemen around here?’

  ‘We was talkin’ general, wasn’t we?’ he said, sharply.

  ‘Sorry. Reporter’s habit. Suppose someone refused to pay, no matter what? And he didn’t go broke.’

  ‘Don’t happen much.’

  ‘But if it did?’ she persisted.

  ‘He’d get a spankin’, I suppose. Broken arm or somethin’.’

  ‘How do you justify that?’

  ‘I don’t even try. It’s his own fault. He coulda paid.’

  ‘Suppose it’s got nothing to do with money?’

  ‘I don’t get ya.’

  ‘Suppose the boss just didn’t like someone.’

  ‘He’d get a spankin’. That’s what power is, innit? Where’s all this going?’

  ‘I’m still wondering about the morality of it all. Could a man fight back?’

  ‘He could get his own group together. It’s happened before. He could knock out the other firm.’

  ‘But if a man was on his own? Could he fight back? Is there a way?’

  ‘No. You ever tried standing in front of a moving truck? Aint no point. It’ll roll over ya. Some things you can’t fight back against. You just take your knocks and put it down to experience.’

  ‘Then why are you?’ she asked, hoping her timing was right.

  ‘I thought that’s what this was about,’ he said. ‘Time to go.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not this time. I wasn’t lying to you, Bimbo. I am working on a project. And I’m not looking for a story. I just wanted some answers. I spoke to Don Dodds. He’s worried about you. I don’t know why, but so am I. Do you have any food in the house?’

  It was a delicate moment and she kept her face calm, her eyes fixed on his. She watched his sudden anger fade and he grinned.

  ‘I got some eggs and cheese. And some bread, but it’s a coupla days old.’

  ‘You like omelettes?’

  ‘Sure. You mind if I take a bath first? I bin runnin’.’

  ‘Not at all.’ He stood and left her, crossing the room to the bathroom opposite. She wandered towards the kitchen. The bedroom door was open and she saw that the bed was unmade. Above it, on the wall, was a western poster showing Alan Ladd and Jean Arthur. The kitchen was tiny, the cupboards almost inaccessible. Designed by a man, no doubt! She found the eggs and cracked four into a plastic jug. Then she recalled the size of her host and added three more. The cheese grater was at the back of a drawer and showed faint traces of mildew. She scrubbed it clean and idly wondered whether the detergent would prove a greater health hazard than the mould. With all the ingredients prepared she moved silently back into the living room and listened. She could hear Bimbo splashing in the bath and took the opportunity to enter his bedroom. It was small and cosy and, more importantly, the sheets were clean.

  She was in the kitchen when Bimbo emerged from the bathroom. She had made up her mind that if he came out dressed only in a towel she would leave. She’d known enough tacky men in her life. If not … well, she’d play it by ear. Bimbo was fully dressed in a dark blue sleeveless top and clean jeans. And his close cropped, curly hair was still damp. He wasn’t handsome by any stretch of the imagination, she thought, but there was something about him; a quietness within the strength, a softness in the eyes that couldn’t be weakness. It was odd really. Huge men were almost always repellent. All that deep, manly-chest bullshit. But Bimbo was not repellent. Not by a long shot. But then he didn’t look like Sylvester Stallone, or any of those looks-obsessed types. His body was not clean lined, merely colossal.

  She carried in the omelette on two plates and sat beside Bimbo on the floor before the fire, her knee only a couple of inches from his own. During the meal she allowed her leg to droop so that they touched. He did not recoil, or move, or indicate in any way that he had noticed the contact.

  ‘Tell me about the swan,’ she said, as he put his plate aside.

  ‘How’d you know about the princess?’

  ‘Liz Owlett told me. I was interviewing her about the refuge.’

  ‘Short of cash, aint they?’

  ‘Yes. The council aren’t interested in battered wives.’

  ‘A lot of it goes on.’

  ‘Isn’t it the same as your protection racket theory? The husband is stronger and so he can do what he likes?’

  ‘I guess so. Aint right though. If I caught a man doin’ it I’d break his bleedin’ fingers.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What sorta question is that?’

  ‘Where’s the difference between the battered wife and the publican?’

  ‘He’s a man. A man is supposed to look after himself.’

  ‘Aren’t there women publicans?’

  ‘Probably. Look, I aint no Einstein, right? I don’t know all the ins and outs. And I aint got all the answers. All right?’

  ‘Tell me about the swan. The Princess?’ He relaxed instantly.

  ‘That’s what I call her. I feed her most weekdays. You know, granary bread. Good stuff, that. Get it down the Indian deli. Anyway, her mate got killed a coupla years back. She’s lonely. Builds a nest every year. Lays eggs what can’t hatch.’

  ‘But swans mate for life. Even if they found a black she might not take to him.’

  ‘Be nice for her to have a choice though, eh?’

  ‘You’re a romantic, Bimbo,’ she said, leaning forward and letting her hand fall to his thigh. He smiled and covered her hand with his.

  ‘Yeah,’ he agreed, ‘but it don’t make me an easy lay, if you know what I mean?’

  Sue was stunned, and felt herself reddening. ‘I don’t think I do.’

  ‘I never go to bed on a first date. Not even for an omelette.’

  ‘You think I’m trying to seduce you?’ she said, forcing a smile.

  ‘Susan innit? Listen Susan, no one ever said I was over-bright, but I aint stupid neither. You’re a lovely girl, no question, but I aint much for screwin’. I need to like somebody. Know ’em. Be close to ’em. I probably didn’t put that right, and I ’ope you aint offended or nothin’.’

  She leaned back and moved her knee. ‘I’m not offended, though I don’t know why. I don’t normally come on that strong. In fact I rarely have to come on at all. You don’t think you’re being a little old fashioned?’

  ‘That’s the way I am. You want a coffee before you go? I noticed you didn’t like me tea.’

  ‘How are you going to get to know me if you throw me out?’

  ‘I aint throwin’ you out. Do you wanna coffee?’

  ‘Black and strong, please.’

  As he walked away she remembered Don Dodds’ remark about Bimbo. Something your Yuppie generation wouldn’t understand, young Sue. And here she was sitting below a Winnie the Pooh poster, making up to an old fashioned leg breaker, and being turned down. She felt like the female equivalent of a medallion man at a disco. She giggled suddenly, just as Bimbo returned with two cups of coffee.

  ‘You sound ’appy.’

  ‘I am. Nothing wrong with that, is there?’

  ‘No. Where you from?’ he asked, sitting beside her.

  She told him about her family in Leeds. Her father was an accountant. Her mother had died nine years ago when Sue was eleven. She had two brothers, one of whom was blind. He was trying to become a writer of fantasy stories. She was one week from her twentieth birthday. She liked reading, writing, horse riding and archaeology. She had no boyfriends currently, having just split from Robin, a solicitor. She was left wing, but not loony, against wars, and pro-abortion.

  And she talked for two hours.

  She was running out of things to say when Bimbo took her hand and kissed the palm.

  ‘You wanna go ’ome?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘l don’t want you to either.’
/>   ‘What made you change your mind?’

  ‘I never changed me mind. I just decided I liked ya.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You make a nice omelette. Will that do?’

  ‘For now,’ she said.

  Sue Cater lay awake for a long time after Bimbo fell asleep. She snuggled into his warm body and watched the moon shining beyond the gap in the curtains. That she had enjoyed the hour of lovemaking was beyond question, but the reasons for that were many and varied, spiralling inside her mind like windswept snowflakes. She half wished she were home with her typewriter, so that all these snowflakes could be captured. Outside, the wind howled against the windows, rattling them in their frames. Somehow the sound was deeply comforting.

  The sex had been fine, the lovemaking wonderful. Why was it that so many men failed to understand the difference? And how did this man come to know the truth? What was there in his past that had led him to the knowledge all women carried?

  She compared him to Robin – ex-lover, ex-friend. Bimbo certainly couldn’t match Robin’s technique, or the variety of his skills with hand and tongue. But Bimbo’s strength was just that, she realised. His lack of technique. All he had done was hold her, before and after, drawn her to him and loved her simply, becoming part of her in a very real, almost Biblical sense. Biblical? What are you thinking of, Cater?

  ‘God! I wish I had my typewriter!’

  She slid from the covers and donned Bimbo’s old dressing gown. Slipping from the room she quietly shut the door and switched on the gas fire, settling down with her thoughts. Rummaging in her bag she found her pack of Bensons and her lighter. The smoke felt good in her lungs. Here, away from Bimbo, there was more perspective. Could she ever love a man like him? Now there was a thought! And it saddened her. Bimbo was a man who would adore children, and home, and little wife. He’d pop out Sundays for his pint before the roast dinner, and grow old and contented without ever noticing the passing of life.

  She shivered. Better to stick with the Robins of this world, the laughing, mocking, subtle, carefree Robins, whose cunning quips and rapier wit allowed no morbidity. The ash on her cigarette toppled to the rug. Guiltily she rubbed it into the pile and wandered to the kitchen, dousing the stub under the tap and throwing the remains into a bin.

  Returning to the warmth of the bed, she turned her back on Bimbo and stared at the moonlit poster on the wall, trying to remember if she’d seen the film. Wasn’t it the one about an evil rancher trying to terrorise farmers? And didn’t Alan Ladd fall in love with Jean Arthur? She couldn’t recall much about it, except a scene where Alan Ladd and Van Heflin struggled to remove a huge tree root from the ground before the cabin.

  Idly she recalled her previous lovers, counting them. Fifteen, beginning with the disco man when she was just fourteen years old. He had seduced her in the back of an old Ford Transit, on a rug that smelt of jasmine. God, that had been good! Her thoughts flicked back to Bimbo. He hadn’t even asked her the normal, boring question. How was it for you? Most men seemed to need their prowess re-affirmed. Or the other old perennial: Did you come? The truly fragile partner would also seek comparisons between his performance and previous lovers’. But not Bimbo.

  And Sue found herself regretting that the questions were not asked.

  Silly cow, she told herself.

  Bimbo groaned and rolled over, facing her now and breathing deeply. Sue could smell his breath. It was sweet. Lifting her arm she gently stroked the flesh of his flank. His breathing became more shallow and his eyes opened. In the moonlight she saw him smile. ‘Can’t sleep, eh?’

  ‘No.’ His left arm circled her shoulder, drawing her in, then his hand moved down her body over the outside of her thigh. She tilted her hips, and the hand slid obediently down between her legs.

  The strength and suddenness of the orgasm took her by surprise, and even before the last quivering bursts of pleasure had subsided he reared above her. Her legs felt stretched as she tried to circle his hips, and then he was inside her, moving, moving. Sue found herself floating in a sea of warmth and pleasure, and in one strange and special moment she experienced, for the first time, a feeling of total oneness with a lover. His strength was hers, his body was hers, his life was hers. Christ! she thought. I hope I can write this! And in that moment feeling fled, and she was Sue Cater, the reporter, once more.

  7

  Bimbo awoke at six. Raising himself on one elbow he looked down on the sleeping girl. Her left arm was outside the covers and he gently stroked the cold skin. He lifted the blankets over her and rose. It was bitingly cold in the room and he padded to the window, staring down over the rain-polished street. The sky was still dark. Closing the bedroom door softly he switched on the fire in the living room. His body felt loose and relaxed as he pulled on his track suit and trainers. Leaving the front door on its latch he set out on his route, past the tower blocks to New Street, left at the baker’s, across the Common, back along the lane, down the High Street, left into the estate and then a figure eight to the right, past the station and over the bridge. It was a good run and, for the first time in days, his mind was empty of fears.

  Back in the flat he took the weights from the rear cupboard and worked out for forty-five minutes, finishing with a hundred sit-ups. He bathed and dressed in jeans and a grey sweatshirt, dropping his track suit in a holdall by the door, ready for the launderette. Then he made two mugs of tea, and carried them into the bedroom.

  Susan was awake.

  ‘You sleep all right?’ he asked.

  ‘Like a log. I had a lovely dream, but I can’t remember it.’

  ‘Water should be hot again in about twenty minutes. Once you’ve had a bath you’d better go.’

  ‘Used, abused, and thrown aside,’ she said, grinning.

  ‘It aint that.’ Bimbo was genuinely aggrieved.

  ‘I know, you’re just frightened the neighbours will see me and give you a bad reputation?’

  ‘Nah! Well, it’s just … things aint bin goin’ too well lately, what with dead cats and that.’

  ‘You’re talking about Reardon?’ His expression changed, his eyes growing cold and distant. ‘Don’t misunderstand me, Bimbo. I’m not talking about a story. But it’s all over the pubs that you’re in deep trouble.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, mocking his accent. He grinned.

  ‘It’ll blow over.’

  ‘That’s not what you said last night.’

  ‘I didn’t talk about it last night.’

  ‘No? Wasn’t it you who was talking about people who get a spankin’, whether they deserve it or not? Wasn’t it you who said that’s what power is? Ordering someone to beat up someone else?’

  ‘Maybe. But I never done nothin’ wrong.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, does it?’ she said. ‘Right and wrong? What the fuck does Reardon care about right and wrong?’

  ‘You didn’t oughta swear. Don’t sound right.’

  ‘I’m not getting through to you, am I? You said there was no sense fighting back. You said that, didn’t you? Or is there one rule for the rest of the world and another for Bimbo Jardine?’

  ‘I said you take the knocks and get on with it. I aint lookin’ for no trouble. I never asked for it. I just wanna get on with me life. I don’t need no aggravation. Not from Reardon. Not from Dodds. And not from you.’ He stood, his face red and angry.

  But Sue was also losing hold of her temper. ‘Dodds said if you had any sense you’d take the knocks. But you’re not going to are you? You’re going to make them kill you.’

  ‘It aint none of your business!’

  ‘You’re not bloody Shane!’ she shouted. ‘And this isn’t some stupid western.’

  ‘What do you know about it? What do you know about anythin’? Your dad’s an accountant. You went to a private school and lived in a posh area.
Had a gardener, didn’t ya? Well, I never ’ad none a that. I never ’ad nothin’. Probably never will have. All I got is in here,’ he said, thumping his chest with his fist. ‘Aint no bastard ever taking that away. A western? I know Shane’s a film, darlin’. But somebody wrote it, didn’t they? And whoever he was, he knew. He bloody knew!’

  ‘What did he know?’ asked Sue. ‘Answer that!’

  ‘He knew broken bones wasn’t so special. Somebody gives that to ya. But they’ll mend. But when they make you eat shit, they’re taking somethin’ away. And you don’t never get it back.’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ she screamed, kicking the blankets from the bed and standing to face him. ‘Not the old “A man’s gotta do” crap?’

  ‘Yeah. But I don’t s’pose reporters have a lot to do with that, do they? I mean, there’s not a lotta time, is there? What with yer face stuck in somebody’s dustbin looking for juicy bits a rubbish. Buncha bleedin’ vultures, the lot of ya. I don’t know why you come here. But you know where the bloody door is. Use it!’

  Without another word Bimbo left the room and Sue Cater heard the front door close. She sank to the bed, all anger flowing from her.

  ‘Congratulations, Cater, you handled that ever so well.’

  She wandered to the bathroom and filled the tub. Lying back in the hot water she began to relax.

  ‘Just what did you expect of him, you dimwit?’ she asked herself. ‘He’s a leg breaker, for God’s sake. Violence is his trade. Stupid, stupid woman. Just because of one night’s gentle lovemaking, did you see him as some sort of poet?

  ‘All I got is in here!’

  And that was the key to everything. Heart. In the Attic Greek sense. Soul. His lovemaking had been slow and gentle, full of soft touches and warmth, a seemingly inexhaustible well of giving. How could she have been so naive as to try to ram home her middle-class reasoning? She felt like a missionary trying to explain to a tribal chieftain why he suddenly needed trousers and a Bible. Climbing from the bath she dried herself and dressed. She stopped in the bedroom on the way out and stared at the rumpled linen.

  ‘Good luck, Shane!’ she whispered.