“That’s why they don’t,” she said. “But where would we be if they did?”
“If I was you,” Bill put in for Ken’s benefit, “I’d have a shave, tie a tie on, and shut up. You ought to do some work while you’re at it.”
I thought Ken was about to explode into blood and guts, all over the lace-curtained windows. “Work?” he shouted. “Work, you say? Fuck me, I’m at it from six in the morning till late at night. Lil is, anyway, cleaning the place up, setting the tables, baking cakes, and doing funny things to the books. What man wants to see his wife working such long hours as that? I’m always working, though. I’ve been to the bank already with yesterday’s takings, haven’t I? Don’t talk to me about work. I’m up to here in it. And what do we have to show for it at the end of the week? I’d like to say it’s peanuts, but it ain’t even that.”
He seemed on the point of crying, but I can only suppose that pride stopped him or, being generous for once, he let Lil do it. “I got into this trade to make money,” he went on, “but all I do is earn a living.” He looked into the distance. “A posh restaurant near here charges fifty quid a meal, if you can call it that, and the bloke who runs it told me the other day that he’s getting out as soon as he’s made his pile. That clever bleeder’s not in it to make a paltry living. I ask you, what sort of a world is it when you can’t get in, make a mint, and then get out quick? It’s every Englishman’s right, ain’t it?”
Lil had used too much sawdust in the cakes, and the coffee was so weak it hadn’t even seen an acorn. “Surely,” I said, “working in this place is better than digging holes in the motorway?”
“Is it? Is it, then? What do you know about it? Them blokes earn five hundred a week just for leaning on a drill, or driving a dumper truck in circles. And they don’t have the worry. It’s the worry as kills me. Worry, worry, worry, all day long and in the night as well. It makes me sick at the stomach. Sometimes I can’t even eat my dinner.”
“I do all the worrying,” Lil said, “and a lot of it I have to do, living with somebody like you.”
I thought he was going to hit her for showing him up in public, but he didn’t even have the energy for that. “If I was you, missis,” Bill said, “I’d kick the bone idle no-good out. In the meantime perhaps his wrist’s not too limp to bring the reckoning for this gentleman here.”
I was going to remind him that, with our recent acquisition, it would be easy for him to pay, but because old Bill did things in too cavalier a fashion for me to lay myself open to a charge of meanness by mentioning his fifty thousand smackers, I didn’t, partly because the revelation might have sent Ken mad with envy, or made him double the bill. So I paid with as open a smile as I could muster, knowing that while such habits must have had something to do with Bill’s upbringing, he also could be generous at times—in his way.
“A bloke like that deserves a good talking to,” he said when we were back on the road. “And I’ll do it if ever I go in there again.”
“Best leave him alone, and only feel sorry for his wife.”
“I suppose so. But I can’t understand people who aren’t conscious of themselves and what they do. Whatever I’m doing I’m looking down at myself doing it. And whenever I talk I hear myself saying it.”
“That’s news to me.”
“You’re lucky if something can still be news to you. I hope you’re suitably obliged to me for sharing my thoughts. As long as you think, that’s all that matters.”
He turned anti-clockwise onto the North Circular, occasionally held back by various knots of traffic. As usual I had underestimated him, because he had indeed been thinking, and I was even more glad he’d come on the jaunt to keep me company. I took up his advice that I carry the loaded handgun. “I’m bringing mine,” he said, “not with any intention of using it, of course. Certainly not, Michael, but it’s as well to have it, to show we’re not a couple of fools should Moggerhanger or any of his layabouts get a bit stroppy. In spite of what you told me about his accommodating attitude at the station yesterday it’s impossible to imagine him not holding a grudge. I would, in his place. It isn’t a matter of not trusting him, but think about it: how can you trust anybody you’ve just done down? So when we go in, make sure the safety catch is off, and keep your eyes open. What’s more, do everything I tell you to do, such as keeping me covered every second. I’ll do the same for you.”
Descending on Moggerhanger’s fastness put us on full red alert, though I couldn’t resist looking forward to the delight of a quick return to Upper Mayhem. Bill played the horn in front of the house, and such was the peculiar note personal to Moggerhanger’s Roller that it was a signal for whoever was on gate duty to press the button and open sesame. The huge and solid sides swung inwards, and Bill stopped the car in the middle of the courtyard.
Jock banged the gate shut as if never to open it again. “The boss told me to expect you. He wants you to go in right away, before you unload the contents.”
I couldn’t understand why Bill at this moment chose to antagonise Jock, who had always been friendly to me. He pulled him aside. “Keep your distance. We’ll get the stuff off, and see Moggerhanger at our convenience.” He opened the boot and began stacking the packets by the wheel, as it came on to rain, Jock therefore deciding to take the goods up into the garage flat to keep them dry.
Bill winked at me. “That’ll be one out of the way.”
“Not for long, I expect.”
“Long enough.” When Jock came down for the final packet Bill said: “Now go back up. Don’t show yourself for half an hour. You’ll be better off that way. And I know there’s a phone up there, but if I hear it chime in his Lordship’s sanctum I’ll be sure to blast you on the way out.”
Jock gave an understanding look, and smiled, and did as he was told. Bill was already holding the kitchen door flat against the wall in the expectation, it seemed, that I would charge through and begin shooting at whatever moved. “Jildi! ” he snapped. “Quick! Move!”
Mrs Blemish pulled a tray of currant cakes from the stove. “This is a pleasure, Mr Straw. You’re just in time. You as well, Michael. Sit down while I make a pot of coffee.”
She was as neat and tidy a cook as any out of Mrs Beeton, but the Victorian aspect of severity forced on her by the behaviour of her daft husband was lessened by a real smile at seeing us. Caught in the midst of action, which he had delighted in all his life as an alternative to hard drugs, Bill fixed the cakes with a gaze that must have gone back to childhood. “It’ll be such a shame not to eat one,” Mrs Blemish said. “They’ll be ready soon.”
“Sorry,” Bill told her, “we’ve got some business on with Lord Moggerhanger first.”
She set half a sugared cherry on each. “I don’t suppose he’ll want to see you for a while. He has three other gentlemen with him.”
Bill’s spinaround brought him back in reach of the inviting cakes. “Gentlemen?”
“Well, not exactly. It’s only my figure of speech. I can’t think why Lord Moggerhanger has anything to do with rough-looking people like that, though I know it’s nothing to do with me.”
“Let’s clear out,” I said. “There’s no pushing our luck.” The cake I put into my mouth was so hot I barely got it down, while Bill didn’t flinch. He would have preferred for them to cool further, but beckoned me into the central part of the house: “The sooner we’re in, the sooner we’re out.”
The prospect of violence was too much for him to resist. Any attempt to stop him would be hopeless. He could never have enough. “The arrangement was that we would say goodbye,” he said, “and it’s a point of politeness that we do. We also want our payment for getting the stuff out of Doggerel Bank.” At which barefaced statement I was too astounded not to follow.
I thought him misguided when he kicked open the door of Moggerhanger’s study with such force, for I assumed, fool that I was, that the boss had n
o intention of laying an ambush, because what could be in it for him? At the scent of battle Bill couldn’t think straight. The orientation of his mind was as far from mine as it was possible to get, which led me to wonder for a moment why we had worked so long together, but I was pulled in the wake of his excitement, even if only to see whether or not his behaviour was justified.
Mrs Blemish’s ‘three gentlemen’ would hardly describe the bruisers who faced us. I’d half expected to see Kenny Dukes, as well as Cottapilly and Pindary, a trio of Moggerhanger’s oldest trusties. Surely those three would have been enough, but he’d imported something special, giving me little time to question why his own lads were away. Nevertheless the present hirelings looked highly competent for the job, a well suited trio yet a little too beefy to be anywhere near as manoeuvrable as Bill, or me.
They had expected us to come in like lambs, and the crashing in of the door surprised them as much as it did His Lordship who, however, recovered before his thugs, who looked more ready to kill us for that than the money Moggerhanger would pay them after they’d all but done us in.
“I didn’t think I’d have the pleasure of Mr Straw as well.” Moggerhanger stood to hold out a hand. “Two for the price of one. Now that’s what I call good business. I’m glad you delivered the stores, Michael, and called for a farewell chat. You promised you would and, I must say, I’ve always had a soft spot for a chap who keeps his word, though it’s an ill wind that blows everybody some good.” His mug turned to an ugliness I’d never seen before: “Give them a good hiding, lads.”
Each of the three had a whisky in hand from the giant bottle by the desk, and as one made a move to put his glass down—he must have been slow not to slew it in one of our faces—Bill, knowing well enough how to gain tactical momentum, as he might have said, but not finding the time, since he seemed to act outside it he was so quick, sent a lightning kick at his bollocks that promised some difficulty in inspecting the area for a fortnight.
Moggerhanger reached for the telephone. My hand crashed down. “Drop it.”
He took a swipe at me, but his old force wasn’t there. In any case he missed. Unable to avoid the strongest push I could give, he went arse backwards onto the floor. Everything happening in atomic time seconds, I turned to the two who had set onto Bill.
I found it unbelievable that Moggerhanger had been so barmy as to lay such a trap, till realising that his punishment battalion had been meant for me alone, which thought drove me into such anger that my geyser of inherited Irish fury helped me to pull one of the men from Bill, and I damaged my knuckles so much against his face that his collision with the glass whisky container shook its base.
I had felt resentment against that monumental bowser of fiery piss-coloured booze since first seeing it, a rage that even now I can’t explain. The pet adornment of Moggerhanger’s inner sanctum, it was his precious memento placed there to cow all callers, perhaps installed after some great and crooked job in his blustering days of middle life, or maybe taken from his worst enemy who had at the time looked on Moggerhanger as his best friend. Perhaps he had won it in a game with marked cards, and liked to be reminded of the occasion.
The quantity of alcohol would have kept a party going for the best part of a month, since the glass was nearly full, Moggerhanger always sparing of its contents, and only allowing special guests a sample of its aroma. From anywhere in the room it was hard not to keep it in view, which was its main value for him, because in that case you were not staring at him, which gave the advantage of weighing you up while you were so enthralled. I assumed it to be his most precious artefact, a weapon of sorts, since that brew, however fiery, was as mellow as he could ever get, as well as self-contained and large bodied, a sign of hospitality so false that you would certainly be in trouble if he allowed you too much of it.
While Moggerhanger was behind his desk regretting, I hoped, what a fracas he’d set off, Bill and I were doing our best not to get into bear hugs with our well-bodied antagonists, which involved not unduly caring for the furniture and fittings round about. As the fight went on, from the corner of my half-swollen eyes, I noted the Ming vase in more pieces than I had been able to count in school at five. The reproductions of the Nightwatch and the Mona Lisa slid and ripped under our feet, while a bust of Julius Caesar proved more hollow than Moggerhanger had thought.
He had been careful at least to give Alice Whipplegate a day off, while Lady Moggerhanger was probably shopping at Harrod’s, and daughter Polly had gone only too willingly on another adulterous fling in Nice, otherwise they would have been screaming in the doorway at the wrecking of Moggerhanger’s study, which work even his three hired numbskulls seemed to be tackling with malicious gusto.
Bill, though capable, didn’t relish too long a bout of fisticuffs. “The give and take of blows was never one of my pleasures.” I recalled his axion in the flash of a second, while fighting for my life against a skilful and indefatigable opponent—“It’s wasteful of blood and energy, and too slow for coming to a decision.”
He saw his chance, on glimpsing Moggerhanger behind the desk take a revolver from the drawer, meaning I suppose to end a scene which he saw as becoming more distressful by the minute, as well as less certain of outcome.
The gun flew into the air, an explosion that startled the rest of us into statuary, though not for long. The bullet must have gone as close to Moggerhanger as would scorch the hair on the back of his beefy hand, at which crackshot Bill, unable to put the gun away now that it was out, levelled it at our assailants. He was gasping, as we all were. “One move, and you’re very seriously injured.” I was encouraged by this to wield my shooter, and give the expected back up.
“Tactical retreat, Michael,” Bill shouted. “Now move!”
Firing so rapidly I thought he had a machine gun, but it was his idea of covering fire. The men fell to the floor, Moggerhanger clutching his wrist. “Don’t be a fool, Michael!”
I had always hated to hear my first name from his lips, and now he used it once too often. What followed came of the one vicious thought I’d never so far had the opportunity to act on. Why I did what I did was still hard to say, but I had no regrets. One of Bill’s rounds hit the giant whisky flask, hair cracks around the wall of a dam, a curve of pure spirit arching from the hole into the mouth of a gentleman of the Nightwatch on the carpet. It’s hard to know what anyone would have expected me to do, apart from what I did. If ever a course of action was irresistible that was, and doubly so when Moggerhanger’s face turned demented on guessing what was in my mind. “No, don’t. Not that!”
I fired once, twice, three times for fair measure, and then some more at different points of the glass, till the holes joined up and the whole container opened from top to bottom, sending innumerable gallons of whisky in a tidal wave to the four walls.
Bill guarded the door till both of us were through, along the corridor and into the kitchen where, with his usual presence of mind in even the most perilous situation, he snatched a now cool and fully decorated bun, and with a full mouth, gave Mrs Blemish a kiss on the way out. Jock, walking aimlessly about the courtyard, ran to open the gate on seeing our armaments.
Bloody-faced Moggerhanger raved from the kitchen door, his Bermondsey hard cases pushing by to get at us. Bill slipped in another clip, and with a few more shots stopped them coming into the open, though I noticed he aimed carefully in case Mrs Blemish was anywhere in the line of fire.
My gun went click on pressing the trigger to join in, but the elation at having spent the best part of a magazine on Moggerhanger’s prize piss bottle stopped any regret, since back up at the moment was hardly necessary, given Bill’s amazing know-how and aggression. My only thought was: “He’ll be throwing a hand grenade next, like in the movies.”
Moggerhanger must have picked up his large heavy-duty revolver, for the racket of ricocheting shots echoed like fireworks on Bonfire Night, sizzling so close I
swayed left and right like a metronome, as if that would stop one from hitting me.
Then I was amazed and stupefied when Bill did take a hand grenade from his pocket, pulled out the pin so that everyone in the doorway could see, and professionally hurled it, as the gate fully opened behind us.
That the missile didn’t explode was no accident. As he told me later, it was a replica taken from the component parts of a Johnny-Seven toy out of Hamley’s window. “But how would anybody know?”
Moggerhanger and his pals ran so fast that no pursuit was considered, because by the time they realised it wasn’t going to blow their feet off they could hardly be sure that the next one wouldn’t.
When we were outside Bill insisted that running down the street was futile. “We’re doing a hundred and twenty paces to the minute, so needn’t hurry, unless it’s a matter of life and death.”
We were so adept at jinking it would have taken more than one pursuer to find us. Bill followed his rule of choosing the second turn off instead of the first. “Another thing, never take the first left when you are on foot, and always the second to the right. Let’s cross.”
“Why is that?” I gasped.
“Whoever’s chasing us will go to the left because it’s on the side of the heart. People don’t think when they’re in such a hurry. They followed the body and not their brain.”
“What if there’s more than one bod after us, and they can take both directions?”
“Then they’ve divided their forces. Just what we want. We’d give the poor bastard who chooses our way such a hammering when we jump on him from a doorway: fist at the throat, boot at the goolies, and a couple to the phizzog to remember us by when he comes back to life.”
“You think of everything.”
He even had the breath to laugh. “Michael, I learned to fight in Slaughterhouse Lane when I was five. The army only refined my style.”
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