Moggerhanger

by Alan Sillitoe

  “What do you do? Tell me your career details, as my father the novelist Gilbert Blaskin would have one of his characters say.” Even at the second mention his name meant nothing, but I moved closer, throwing a good half of my cigar over the side to impress her.

  “I help in the surgery,” she said, “and run the house. It keeps me busy, which can’t be bad. But I always feel happy when I’m on the deck of a ship about to leave port. I find the hooting so suggestible, don’t you? It makes me wonder whether I’ll ever come back to a place. I also like to think I don’t know where we’re going. I prefer to feel lost and uncertain at moments like this, as if the ship’s going to land at an unexpected place. At the same time it might be a bit upsetting, but that’s all right, because that way I can get to know more about myself, which I think is the most important thing in the world.”

  There was more to her than I’d imagined, or wanted to hear about. I preferred women who knew very well who they were, though sensed that one who didn’t might be easier to become acquainted with in the manner I wanted. “What makes you feel that way?” I’d heard Geoffrey Harlaxton at the agency say his psychiatrist asked that question when he said something however trivial while on the couch.

  “That’s what my psychiatrist always asks,” she said.

  I recovered quickly from my surprise. “They all do. But you go to one of those?”

  “Twice a week. I need to. It helps me a lot.”

  Probably cost her a hundred quid a shot, because charlatans like that don’t come cheap. “I hope I’m not taking a man’s living away—because where would the world be without them?—but if you come to see me now and again I’d guarantee you would soon feel so much better you wouldn’t have to use one from then on.”

  Another blast of the steam whistle drowned her laugh, and I shifted close enough to lay an arm over her shoulder, at which she leaned against me as if for warmth. “It’s always chilly when a ship moves out of harbour in the middle of the night,” I said, thinking that if she was halfway loony enough to need a psychiatrist she would be willing to take up with me without too many boring preliminaries. “I didn’t notice your mother in the car.”

  “She died ten years ago. My father, being a doctor, got her the best cancer treatment, but it made no difference. He always blames himself for her death, which is why he often looks so sad.”

  I recalled talks about it with Frances. “People generally feel that way. There’s nothing you can do.”

  “She died three months after he’d noticed something wrong, then felt guilty because he hadn’t guessed she was ill earlier.”

  “People are good at hiding it. An aunt of mine came home from work on a Friday, and she was dead in three days from cancer of the throat. She must have had it at least six months, but her husband hadn’t caught on, and they were very close as a couple.”

  No response was forthcoming, or even necessary, so I kissed her lightly on the lips, and she responded as if to push my teeth into the back of my throat. Fatigue went, and I met further kisses as they deserved, because she was lovely and passionate and worth whatever I was able to give. I undid sufficient buttons of her blouse to get my fingers on the warm flesh of a breast and stroke a nipple. Luckily it was two in the morning, and the rest of the passengers had boarded now, to get what sleep was possible, so I could hardly regret the long delay in our leaving.

  “I saw you in the car at the dock gates,” I murmured, “and fell in love with you, but saw it was hopeless because there was a man with you. I can’t tell you the bleak disappointment I suffered.”

  “I saw you, as well,” she said. “But who’s your friend?”

  “Oh, him? He’s a chap I’m giving a lift to. He’s from the Athens branch of the firm. He’ll act as my general factotum on the way home. I had to take over the wheel to get us out of that traffic mix-up because he’s not aggressive enough.”

  “You were wonderful.”

  She leaned across, and my hand went cautiously up her leg. “I’d ask you to my cabin, except I’m having to share it.” I had no intention letting Bill put his spoke in. “We couldn’t get separate ones.”

  “I have my own, so we can go there. My father was so glad to have the tickets he didn’t care what they were for. And when he turned in he said that if I had an adventure on board he hoped it would be a pleasant one; though I think he was being ironic.”

  “He shouldn’t be, with a lovely daughter like you.” Things were going so well I wondered if I ought to be smelling a rat. The man in the car was her husband. Both were part of the Green Toe Gang, intending to club me in some dark corner of the ship, and tip my body overboard. But it couldn’t be. If rat there was, it was me.

  Make-up accoutrements were scattered around the sink, frocks and skirts on hangers, with a smell of sweet soap over all. The ship’s way was so smooth we seemed to be in a tent at the back end of the universe. With a proper look I saw dark hair, brown eyes, a sallow complexion, though an intelligent face, subtly expressive lips, and a delicate slightly curving nose.

  We kissed by the sink, me with such a stiff on I lowered her to the bunk, and when she pulled at me to go straight in I decided that some preliminaries were in order for such a rare woman, not only for me. Spreading her legs and drawing off her knickers with help from her when she realised my intention, I put my mouth at her bush and, a hand behind to bring her as close as necessary, made my tongue work for its living other than by speaking or taking in food.

  She cried out, and went on keening as I licked to be sure she had finished. I lifted her up to get our clothes off, an undressing so rushed on both sides that as she turned for the bunk, unable to hold myself from that long delightful nakedness, I gripped her by the waist and went in from behind, one hand reaching the front to stimulate her till she came again.

  Unexpected fucks with unmarried women were sweet, and I said how enjoyable it had been. “I haven’t done it that way for a long time. I love you, darling.”

  Almost true, it never hurt to say so, and even on those occasions when it had been a lie—though I couldn’t think of one—the woman seemed as happy to hear it as I was to say it. I also told her I hadn’t made love for months, though only to find out how long she’d had her last experience.

  “It’s two years,” she said. “I had a boyfriend, who left me because he guessed that my father didn’t like him. It was just as well, I suppose, because we found out later he’d been in prison for smuggling.”

  I didn’t want the talk to go that way. The world was full of such people. “But you haven’t made love for two years? Such a beautiful young woman? How did you manage all that time?”

  She laid her face against my shoulder, breathing warmly while speaking. “I had to look after myself, didn’t I? The psychiatrist I was seeing recommended it—not that he needed to. He tried to make love to me, but I didn’t fancy him. So I went to someone else, but he was the same. Then I went to a woman, and when she tried to seduce me I was horrified.”

  “They all try it on,” I said. “That’s why they take up the trade.”

  “Anyway, I already knew that the greatest pleasure in the world was at my fingertips.” I must have loosened her no end for such confidences, though she talked in that way, I supposed, because I was a stranger, but the idea of her doing it to herself so inflamed me that a hard-on came back, and we lay on the bed and fucked ourselves into pleasure again. “Will you see me in England?” she asked.

  “Of course, but I can’t say when. There are too many days, alas, when I’m busy at my work.”

  “I can wait, though if it’s not soon I’ll feel like Mariana of the Moated Grange.”

  “Tennyson?” I laughed. “Was that a test?”

  “Oh no. I don’t do tests of that sort. They’re too crude. But I’m glad more than ever that father brought me to Greece.” She took one of his cards from her handbag and wrote her na
me on the back. I put it into my wallet, between Sophie’s and the one I’d cajoled out of Marie the French girl. “Perhaps we’ll see each other in the morning.”

  “Yes, please. I’d like that.”

  When my hand was at the door she smiled slyly. “Do you know, Michael, when I saw you in the car letting my father into the queue I said to myself: ‘I’m going to have that man, if at all possible.’ And I did, didn’t I?”

  We laughed together. “The devil you did,” I said, giving her a last well-meant kiss.

  I made my way to the place where we’d met on deck, and backtracked to find my cabin. I was too done in to undress but I did. My bunk was so far under the water level that the rush and gurgle seemed to be on all sides, and I worried that the sea would break in at any second. When a baby began to choke beyond the plywood partition I uncharitably hoped it would get the fit over with or die, then went to oblivion floating on a twelve-inch plank towards the Zambesi Falls.

  Chapter Thirteen.

  When the steward knocked at six to say we’d be landing in an hour Bill dressed as quickly as only a soldier could. “Where were you last night?”

  “On deck,” I told him, “getting a breath of air.”

  “What, till four o’clock?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I sleep with one eye closed and one eye open. And you stank like Grimsby with the trawlers in.”

  The subject of Rachel was too precious, so I said nothing, smoothed my suit, and followed him to breakfast before we could be called to the car deck.

  A few tables away, she made a discreet move of a hand before biting into a bun. She looked tired, but happy. Her father had his back to me, but he noticed, and turned to give as much of a smile as could be mustered so early on. Was it for having let him into the car queue, or for my responsibility in sparking up his daughter’s features?

  Bill finished his roll, and lifted my bun. “So it was her you were with? I always knew you had good taste.”

  To stop Rachel’s father coming across and hearing Bill twitting me I went to their table. “I’d like to wish you a good journey back to England, sir.”

  He was dressed for travel, a pepper and salt three-piece suit, a watch in his waistcoat pocket, well polished boots, and a floral tie. His semi-tragic sensitive eyes were the same as Rachel’s, though lit by middle-aged kindness and self-assurance. He looked as if he’d been something of a seducer himself at one time, and even now must have had a charming bedside way with his patients.

  I offered a hand and told him my name, and at the flicker of his eyes thought he well knew the state between me and Rachel. “It was quite a scramble at the dock gates last night.”

  He spread butter on his roll. “Thank you for letting me into the line. I appreciated it, though I was about to battle in myself.”

  I had nothing to linger for, and didn’t want to, so wished them luck, and went back to my table. “You have all the luck,” Bill said.

  “And you know why?” I sat down. “I’m subtle and understanding in dealing with women. I don’t go at it like a bull at a gate. Hey, where’s my breakfast?”

  “You were getting on so well I didn’t think you’d be coming back.”

  “You freebooting swine.” The coffee had all gone, as well. “I’m not a founder member of Weight Watchers. I’m starving.” I waved the waiter to bring another breakfast, but he pointed to the tanoy telling everybody to go on deck and have their passports stamped.

  Heavy rain was sheeting over Brindisi, as if cleaning it for tomorrow when we wouldn’t be there. After queuing an hour in a corridor to get the inspection done we went to the car deck and waited again. I’d thought we would drive straight off, through the town and away, but there was a long trail of cars leading to the customs post.

  “I’m not looking forward to this bit,” Bill said.

  His comment made me nervous. “You haven’t got anything they shouldn’t see, have you?”

  He showed the handgun thieved from the hatchback. “Only this little toy.”

  My heart beat so fast I wanted to jump over the quayside and drown myself. “For God’s sake hide it.”

  “Don’t get so worried.” He put it under the seat. “Anyway, what do you think is in the parcels and carrierbags they filled the boot up with in Greece? Beecham’s Powders? My handgun’s a mere bagatelle compared to that. I can’t understand, letting a little thing like a gun get on your wick. Or the powder packets, come to that. Don’t you remember all the gold and drugs we shifted in the past? It never bothered me.”

  The pictures of being led away in leg irons by the carabinieri, with Rachel and her father looking on, then getting thrown into a helicopter and taken to Rome, where we’d get forty years apiece on the Island of Monte Cristo, quite frankly appalled me.

  “Don’t you remember how we had our own book of rules when it came to smuggling gold bars?” Bill said, as we waited to go through what I could only think of as a meat grinder. “Maybe tactics have changed, but in those days the weekend was a bad time. The customs men tended to rely more on intuition as the crowds came through. They were on overtime, and had to justify it. Some smugglers didn’t realise that to go through from Monday to Wednesday when it was slack was also bad because they’d spot you a mile off, out of boredom. Thursday was best, I can’t think why. Probably they were still pleasantly making up their minds about what to do at the weekend. Another rule was don’t look too much like a smuggler, and never sport binoculars around your neck in their leather case, or shoulder a tennis racket, and certainly don’t swing a butterfly net. If you must wear a pocket watch carry it in your lapel, not strung across your waistcoat. And when you go through the Nothing to Declare channel try not to have the fact of what’s in your poacher’s pockets too much on your mind. Don’t, for instance, consciously look away from the customs man, and don’t try to stare him out, either. They may be the scum of the earth but they’re only doing their jobs.”

  I moved up a few yards. “You’re scaring me sick. I’ll be a snivelling wreck by the time we get there.”

  “No you won’t. Let me remind you of that woman June. Now there was a cool one. She worked in one of Moggerhanger’s strip clubs, till he spotted her as having the potential for better things. She was his girlfriend for a time. When she was little more than a kid Ron Delphick got her pregnant. He once tried to tap me for a few quid, but my way of refusal must have given him a sore behind for a week. Anyway, me and June did twelve trips altogether, and she was a pleasure to work with. We got through the customs every time, and shall I tell you how we did it?”

  With barely a dozen cars before us, I tried to stop my legs shaking. “Don’t. I can’t take anymore.”

  “It was cocaine. She was very clever. She made us buy identical suitcases and this is how it worked. The man goes in front with the suitcase that’s got the coke inside, and if he’s stopped and they find it he looks shocked and nonplussed, and swears he had the wrong case. He turns around and sees his wife behind who has an identical one. Her clothes and fancy underwear are in it, and his as well. They’re a very swinging couple, right? So where the other suitcase came from neither of them knows. Either some bloke at the carousel was still looking for it, or he had done a runner on seeing our charming couple stopped. We never had occasion to try the ruse out, but it gave us confidence. Neither of us wanted to go on trip number thirteen, obviously, both of us being very superstitious. I once saw a bloke though who thought thirteen was lucky, and he got caught. It was terrible, and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. A gang of customs men dragged him kicking and screaming away. It fair turned my stomach over to watch. But June and I gave up while the going was good.” He hopped out of the car. “We weren’t born yesterday.”

  “Don’t leave me,” I cried.

  It was no good. “You’ll be all right,” he said. “If I don’t see you when I get through th
e cars I’ll thumb a lift back to Blighty. And if the police wonder what I’m doing walking out this way I’ll just say I got lost coming off the ship. Good lads, them Italians. They’ll understand a momentary weakness.”

  My face felt like a slab of chalk. “It won’t work.”

  “It will. And I can’t stay in this car. The boot’s spilling over with hard drugs. If I’m lucky I’ll get a lift with your girlfriend’s father. He looks a decent chap. I don’t mind motoring in a Vauxhall.”

  “So that’s your game. Get back in, you rat.”

  His usual laugh told me that self-preservation was, as always, at the top of his list, yet there was a glimmer of sense in his callousness, for he assumed I’d be more resilient, if not lucky, on my own. “You’ll be as safe as houses,” he said. “I’ll most likely see you beyond the customs sheds in a couple of minutes.”

  Because he had been coward enough to abandon me in my hour of need I would run him down rather than let him back in the car. He’d need all the pills, potions and jollop of the earth to recover his health after I’d done thumping him to death. Then I would drive to London with his blood drying on the front bumper of Moggerhanger’s smart Roller.

  On the other hand, being hooked up with the most devious man I’d known, how could I not offer to take him back, knowing that if he was given a lift in the car with Rachel he would not only defame me but do his best to pull her into bed, and succeed due to the heightened state I had brought her to the previous night.

  The customs man looked in. Everyone was being asked what goods they were bringing through, so I whistled a mindless tune as if knowing little about that sort of thing, and cared less, self-confidence coming back to bluff me through every peril. To seem worried about anything at all would encourage suspicion, so I put on the sort of slightly tired and daft expression he must have seen before on English faces.

  “Nothing, I think,” till recalling that for his sake I must admit to something, so smiled at the recollection of an ornamental plate, which I began to describe in a loud voice at two words per minute, remembering the tourist tat piled on stalls along Greek highways. I twitched a leg and both hands as if intending to get out and find it for him, but after his appreciative look at the AA and RAC badges, as if he would like one or both to flaunt on his hat, he indicated that I stay in the car and move on.