Moggerhanger

by Alan Sillitoe

  He was a big man, fit and fierce enough to do as he said, which I could only applaud. “He did hit me,” she said. “It was before I knew you. He gave me a black eye once. I didn’t know where to show my face when I went to the supermarket.”

  “But why should he hit you, I’d like to know.”

  “I never knew, honest I didn’t. He just got up from his chair, after finishing his supper one night, and crack—right in the eye.”

  “You must know why he did it.”

  She wiped away tears with the curry stained paper napkin. “I don’t know, George. I swear I don’t.”

  “I’ll bloody hit him, if he comes near me again. In fact I hope he does. I’ll give the bugger what for.” After a two-minute silence he went on. “In any case, you can’t go back to him now, can you?”

  Fascination with their problem made me call for two more pints of lager, one for me and one for Dismal, who thought it was his birthday. I could only surmise that half the women in England must be in the process of leaving their husbands, and half the men running away from their wives, probably both, a real two-way flow, which at least put some energy into the country.

  “I’ll never want to go back, either,” she said. “He’d murder me if I did.”

  “You’d better put all notion of it behind you, then.”

  I was beginning to think of them as distant relations, and George, as if encouraged by me, called for two as well, and when they came Edna said she didn’t like lager, at which he gave a reckless laugh: “I’ll have them both, then.”

  “You’ve had a lot already,” she said. “Shall you be able to drive?”

  “I’ve driven on a lot more than this.”

  “It’s dark, though. You told me you didn’t like driving after lighting up time.”

  He held her wrist. “Don’t you worry, my darling. With you on board we’ll be as safe as houses. If it was only me I might take a few risks, but not with you beside me. You’re the most precious thing in the world to me. Anyway, we’ve not far to go now, less than a hundred miles, I think.”

  “It’s a lot, though,” she said. “Even an hour ago when it was daylight you nearly had an accident with that little black hatchback.”

  I nearly choked on my drink.

  “You mean on the M6? I can’t think why he was in such a hurry. He must be in Manchester by now. A real bastard he was. He could have killed us. I wish I’d caught up with him. I’d have wrapped that little Oxo tin around his neck. I’d have stamped the breath of life out of him on the hard shoulder. Road rage wouldn’t have been in it.”

  “You’d never have caught him, because I saw him turn off for Wolverhampton. Anyway, there’s a dual carriageway after Chester, and I don’t like the idea of you driving on that in the dark with six pints of lager inside you.”

  If the hatchback had peeled off, as she had said, it must have been going to try its luck at Peppercorn Cottage. I took the map from my pocket, to wonder which way I’d be steering in the morning.

  “Six pints isn’t so much,” George said. “I’m a big man, don’t forget.”

  I considered it time to pass a hand across and introduce myself. “Michael Cullen. I’m going to my farm in Shropshire,” I bragged, “to see how the manager’s getting on with the livestock. I hope you don’t mind me interposing into your conversation, but why don’t you stay the night at the hotel? It’s just across the road, and very comfortable. That’s where I’m spending the night, and it’s only fourteen pounds a head. There are plenty of rooms vacant.”

  George finished the first pint. “I’m the sort who likes to push on, through thick and thin.”

  “He’s only trying to be kind, darling,” Edna said. “I wouldn’t mind staying there overnight.”

  It was late, and the waiters were starting to re-set the tables, as if they did a huge trade with curried breakfasts. “Nor would I,” George said, “but I think we should put as many miles between us and Willy as we can.”

  “You think so? Well, I suppose you know as much what he’s like as I do. He’s been your best friend for the last three years.”

  He grunted. “I don’t bloody know about that. He wasn’t very pleasant when we went on that walking tour and he couldn’t keep up with me.”

  “You never mentioned that before.”

  He laughed, and not too lovingly, either. “There are lots of things about him and me you don’t know.”

  “I hope you’ll tell me sometime what they are, then. You ought to have done so before.”

  “It’ll all come out, dearest, never you fear. We’ll have lots of cosy evenings by the fire talking to each other.”

  I paid my reasonable reckoning, and left five quid for the waiters. “Come on, Dismal, and when we go to bed don’t pull the sheets off me, like you did last night.” I offered my hand to George and then Edna. “I hope you get to where you’re going safely but, as I said, there’s plenty of room at the inn if you want to stay overnight.”

  They were bickering as to whether or not they should when I left, Dismal hardly able to walk after cleaning up every plate within range.

  While scrubbing my teeth I heard George and Edna being shown into the room next to mine, and when the landlady left they were still arguing, though I couldn’t make out the words. I fell into bed, Dismal already snoring and having bad dreams. Served him right. With good ones his tail wagged like a metronome. The man shouted: “I love you, Edna, you know I do. I always have.”

  She all but screamed: “I know you do, George. Oh, I know you do. And I love you to bits.”

  “It’ll never change,” he bawled. “Never!” Then the banging and balling and shrieking began as they went at it like two parrots, and I thought what a daft prick I had been to suggest they stay here, but how could I have known that with so many empty rooms they would be put in the one next door? The landlady must have had a good laugh on her way down the creaking stairs.

  The fact that I’d gathered something about the pursuing hatchback wasn’t much consolation at the noise of explicit fuckery that went on all night. While realising that a man and woman don’t run away together for nothing, it was hard to believe they hadn’t had it in a bed before embarking on the great escape. Or perhaps they’d only managed the occasional knee-trembler in George’s garden shed, and having it off between sheets at last had gone to their heads. I could only curse them on hearing a noise like that of a wardrobe falling down.

  Chapter Eighteen.

  Dismal’s big anxious eyes told me at five o’clock what he wanted, so I helped him into the bath and ordered him to do it there, me showering the flow down as it came out. I slept on till he licked my face with his curried tongue at half past seven, indicating he wanted to do something the bath hadn’t been designed to take away so easily, so I hurriedly dressed and led him downstairs, thinking him more trouble than in the days when I had a car full of kids.

  As I sat down for breakfast my neighbours from hell came in, fresh faced and looking years younger, eager for life on the road. I’d never seen anyone eat such big breakfasts with one hand, each holding that of the other. Dismal reconnoitered his plate on the floor, and began with a slice of fried bread.

  “It was so kind of you,” Edna said to me between mouthfuls, “to suggest we stay the night here.”

  “It was.” George stuffed his mouth with shavings of black pudding. “I slept like a top. And so did you, didn’t you, dearest?”

  I waited for blushes, but none came. “I’m so glad we decided to go away together, George.”

  “It was the only thing we could do, darling. It was destiny, And we finally did it, after all our talking about it. I’m proud of you.”

  She almost cried with gratitude at his romantic praise. “And I’m proud of you as well, my love. We’ve come through, haven’t we?”

  “We have. It’s been hell for both of us, the
se last few weeks”—which I could well believe, after last night.

  “Never mind, George, it’s over now, and our life together is just beginning.”

  “I know it is, my own sweet pet.” He stopped her hand lifting a piece of bacon. “Things will never be the same for us again.”

  “You’re right, George. I couldn’t bear going back to my previous life with Willy.”

  “You won’t have to, darling. We’ll finish our breakfast, and then be off. It’ll be so good in Wales. The two of us can be really alone at last.”

  I was facing the door, so noticed him first, and wondered how much he had heard of their sloppy badinage. He was short and stout, with thin black hair, glittery blue eyes, and lips that trembled slightly. The waistcoat of his navy blue suit had two top buttons undone, as if he had dressed in a hurry. Even someone as occasionally obtuse as me didn’t have to wonder who he was.

  Edna was so shocked on spotting him that the scream wouldn’t come out of her open mouth. I didn’t think Willy (for it was none but he) had planned to find them here. At home he’d looked up clues as to where they might have scarpered and, deciding it must be to Wales (though from what evidence I knew not), he set out after them. No doubt he had been up all night, until certain vindictive shades of his intuition came clear. He then left, without breakfast, and on reaching Blackchapel thought food might be useful before any fatal encounter along the road. All I knew was that motoring atlases have a lot to answer for.

  George stood, even more amazed than Edna, and the rubbery fried egg halfway out of his mouth was snapped neatly in two by an uppercut from Willy the human canonball.

  It was the only blow he landed, because George, riled at losing half the egg from the jolt to his jaw, kicked Willy so decisively in the shins that he crumpled, and before reaching the floor George got him by the scruff, and dragged him into the backyard. The landlady came in to ask, perhaps, what it was about the breakfast that her guests didn’t like, and I gloated at her being in some way paid out for having billetted the pair next to me all night.

  I left the rest of my breakfast to Dismal, and went outside, though didn’t suppose there would be much more fun before Willy was sent packing.

  He was leaning against what had been a stable door, lip bleeding from where George had given him another, with his fist, for the loosening of a tooth from that first bang. He held him by the shoulder, and a smarter bit of barefaced lying I had never heard: “Stop being a bloody fool. I look on Edna as my sister. We had separate rooms last night, and it’ll go on like that. I’m taking her for a little holiday, and paying for it from five hundred I won on the lottery. I thought she’d earned it, working all day at that supermarket checkout. She’ll be back with you in a fortnight, so let’s have no more fuss.”

  I admired his patter, but Willy cried: “I can’t believe that.”

  “You’ve got no option. I can only promise she’ll be back soon enough.”

  Having a fist as big as George’s in front of his nose, Willy would have to believe all that was said, but I detected something strange about his tone: “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure I’m sure.”

  “That’s all right, then. I’ll just go home and wait.”

  “Do, there’s a good lad.”

  Willy walked out of the yard, while George went back to console Edna for the interruption, telling her they could now continue their travels without further interference.

  I sensed, by the look on Willy’s smug phizzog, that he could be as sly as the next man, and could dissimulate as vividly as George who, like all first rate liars, was unable to imagine others could pull better ones, which fact I’d been aware of from early enough in my life.

  When Willy didn’t return to the bar for breakfast, which seemed strange, I followed him onto the street, where George’s car was primed and ready to take off. From the doorway I saw Willy lift a stubby little black handled ex-army clasp knife from his coat pocket and, with a murderous grin, slowly pull out the spike, which was not on this occasion intended to winkle a stone from the shoe of a lame cavalry horse. Seeing him about to ram it into one of the tyres, I went across the pavement and knocked him aside. “If you do that I’ll call the cops.”

  I moved back, out of fear that he would come for me, because his eyes said he would very much like to, in which case he wouldn’t have got off so lightly as he had with George. He stood a moment wondering what to do and then, closing the knife so that it took on the weight and bluntness of a knuckleduster, hit both headlamps so hard that plexiglass went showering over the tarmac. George won’t be doing any night driving for a while, I thought, which will please Edna at least.

  He drove fast towards Wales in his Ford Escort, to lay I supposed so many ambushes as to drive George and Edna spinning off their trollies, at the last one making sure to off road their car and kill them. The mischief he must have had in mind didn’t bear thinking about.

  George came out of the gateway with a suitcase. “Which way did the crazy bastard go?” The drama was too good to end, so I pointed the way, in the opposite direction. “Thank God for that. He’s a real bloody pest. Just because I’ve run off with his wife. Some men don’t know how lucky they are.”

  “Do you do this sort of thing often?” I genuinely wanted to know.

  He weighed the question. “Let’s say I don’t make a habit of it.”

  “I’m a happily married man,” I said, “so I can’t entirely approve of such behaviour.”

  He stowed his suitcase into the boot, moving a plastic bucket and spade for a better fit. “I’m married as well. Or I was until last night. The wife thinks I’ve gone to London to see a pal I knew in the army.”

  “What foreigners can’t realise,” I said, “is that we English are the most romantic people in the world. All the same, your situation sounds a real how-do-you-do.”

  He clapped the boot shut. “Oh, it is, in more ways than you might think. You wouldn’t believe half if I told you. But where would we be without that sort of thing?”

  Going to the front of his car, he saw the smashed headlamps, his scream of distress even waking the Indian waiters across the road. “Look at what the spiteful fucker’s done to my lights!”

  “At least I stopped him slashing the tyres. He’d have done the spare one as well if I hadn’t.”

  “I’ll murder the short-arsed bastard.” He jumped up and down. “Which way did you say he went?”

  “I’m not too sure. My sight isn’t at its best in the morning.”

  His eyes began to spin, and I thought such uncertainty served him right. “I’ll kick him to death at least when I get hold of him, wherever he is.” Edna came onto the pavement, features distorted from crying. “I’ve settled the bill, George.”

  He opened the car door. “Thank you, my darling. You can be sure I’ll pay you back to the last penny, as soon as my ship comes in.”

  I could hardly stop my cheeks twitching every time one of them opened their mouth.

  “I know you will, George. But I only hope they don’t find the money’s gone before you do.”

  I’d had enough. She had robbed the till. I didn’t want to know anymore, and luckily didn’t have to as they ripped away north in their brand new Rover. If the purloined money had paid for that as well did they have sufficient cash left to get the headlamps mended?

  Willy was bound to be waiting for them on a lonely and curving stretch of the road, where they wouldn’t expect him to be, so I thought of phoning Independent Television and putting them onto the best programme ever. They could send a van and crew after George and Edna, with a microphone and photography crow’s-nest to record their doings in sound and picture, in bed and out, intercut with sensational background material from their past, not to mention profiles of their families. Ratings would clock a hundred, all other companies swept off the air.

  Dismal had fin
ished everything on the plates and whatever was on the floor, which included the half egg uppercutted from George’s jaws. He now stood on hind legs at the table, more from principle than hunger, unrolling his large flexible tongue to have a go at the sugar.

  I turned south from Oswestry, the green hills of Wales lit by the sun as on a land of paradise. With Dismal again riding shotgun, I kept the speed down, to observe and enjoy. The fields were speckled with sheep, and their spritely offspring put me in mind of a meal.

  At a hotel in the middle of a market town I was served with a platter of roast lamb, and a pint of superb Welsh bitter. All but a spoonful of my sickly trifle went to Dismal. Half a dozen youngish men, heads shaved and with moustaches, gathered near the bar after their lunch at a long table. Perhaps they were salesmen, though Dismal sniffed around their turn ups as if they peddled drugs. A slightly older man, taking cigar smoke deeply in as he talked to the others, looked happier when I called Dismal away, as if he thought we might be coppers’ narks.

  My last trip to Peppercorn Cottage had been in rain and darkness, piloting Moggerhanger’s Rolls, and only sustained navigational know-how had got me on target. Now it was daylight and good weather, yet the place still wasn’t easy to find, since I was approaching from a different direction.

  Nevertheless, instinct took over, and on a narrow road south of the town I picked up recognisable landmarks, a grey stone farmhouse, a wood, a phone box, and a steep dip over a stream. At the top of a hill I forked onto a bridleway, two strips of concrete, tall fresh grass in between brushing the bottom of the car. Space by an uninhabited house was large enough for me to point the snout back to the paved road, necessary because driving to the door of Peppercorn Cottage could get me stuck in a muddy patch by the stream.