‘I think it’d be better if you go wait somewhere else,’ Charlie said. ‘You’re upsetting me mother and she has a right to her own living room.’
‘I couldn’t give a fuck Charlie boy. Newman told me to wait here and waiting here is what I’m doing. You’re just a driver. Remember that.’ Jack began to move freely about the room, wafting his cigarette. ‘That’s your problem Charlie. You think of yourself as some lord of the manor or something but I know what you are and it makes me laugh. All you old men play it tough and silent but you don’t do nothing. I’ve hurt people just for the hell of it. You understand? I cut some sixteen year old barrow boy’s ear off cos’ he was trading in the wrong street. I’ve put a few of those bastards from the Barking mob in hospital too. You’re just a fucking driver and that’s all you ever gonna be. You think one of Newman’s tarts, someone like Phyllis, is ever gonna be interested in someone...’
Neither Jean nor Arthur could understand why Jack stopped speaking. It happened so quickly that it simply looked as though Charlie had patted Jack on the back of the head, but Jack was on the floor. The boy turned and went to remove his knife but after being hit on the head with a glass he miscalculated how long it would take and Charlie booted Jack hard in the back of the ribs and the boy arched his back and reeled in pain, a look of fear appearing for the first time in his face. Charlie kicked a second time into the boy’s face and then they were all screaming, Jean and Arthur pulling at Charlie’s limbs.
‘Charlie, for God’s sake.’
Charlie grabbed hold of Jack’s flaying left arm and held it behind the boy’s neck. He pulled it back sharply almost to the point of dislocation and then pulled the knife free from the boy’s pocket. Only then did he stop. Jack rolled over and Jean looked in disgust at the boy’s shattered jaw and his nose which had burst and sent blood pooling around his eyes and down his cheeks. He was gasping for breath, the blood and saliva bubbling around his lips. Jean saw that there was a deep bruise along his hair-line, where the base of the glass had made contact. Charlie resisted the urge to kick him again. Instead they stood staring at the boy, who was now unconscious and as Jean’s senses began to readjust so that she could hear the sound of the fire once more, she could only see the boy as a dark smudge. He no longer seemed human and his body felt unrelated to the boy who had been raging at Charlie only a few minutes previously. There was a sound of wheezing, but it did not come from Jack; it came from Charlie’s mother. Jean turned to see her looking down wide-eyed at the body with what almost looked like a smile on her face.
NINE
‘If you don’t help me Michael, I will tell on you. I will tell your family, your business partners, the police and your bank. I’ll make it impossible for you and Joe if you don’t help me find her. I don’t care about your loyalty to her. I need my wife back.’
Harry’s father had taught Harry how to be cruel. He had seen how his father had deceived his mother and Jean by simply believing in the quality of his own suffering and the desperate need which sprung from it. He also knew that his father had not cared for him greatly. Harry had understood this from an early age without any words ever being exchanged on the subject. There were times when it made him feel intensely angry but mostly he felt nothing at all. He would go about his life like a hollowed out statue, which had, by some unknown force, been animated and left to imitate the role of being a man.
The consequence of this unfeeling attitude was that Harry did not even flinch as he threatened Michael, knowing full well that he too could be accused of the same crimes. On some level Harry still held firm in the belief that he was different from men like Michael. He thought now not of George or Freddie but of the women with whom he had shared a bed. Before Phyllis, there had been four women with whom he had physical relationships, all of them younger than Harry and one of them had fallen quite seriously for him.
‘You really don’t care about anyone other than yourself, do you Harry?’
‘I care about finding Phyllis.’
‘And saying what to her exactly? What do you hope to achieve?’
‘I want her back.’
Harry was still in Michael’s living room and he had no intention of leaving. Michael glanced at a carriage clock which sat on the mantle above the fireplace. It was a little after one in the afternoon. He had the urge to drink but wondered, even for him, whether it was too early, but after a moment’s consideration he went to his drinks cabinet, lifted out a bottle of scotch and taking a glass from a shelf above the bottles he poured himself a glass. He glanced at Harry and without asking he poured a second glass.
‘Don’t you think it’s time you grew up and accepted that this little cat and mouse game you play with yourself is no good for you or your friends?’ Michael said, handing him the drink.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Phyllis understands now that you are incapable of loving a woman.’
‘That’s not true.’
Michael drained his glass.
‘Aren’t you even going to apologise?’
‘To whom?’
‘Bloody hell, Harry. Me. Joe. Phyllis. Frankly, you owe pretty much everyone you’ve ever met an apology.’
‘What happened was a once off. Do you know that was the first time I have been truly unfaithful.’
‘Now look here you little shit, don’t you play anymore with the truth.’
Harry tried to maintain an even temper but he knew Michael had been working up a storm since the night before Phyllis had gone missing.
*
Harry had been feeling wound up all week. It was the beginning of December and a cold wind had been working its way through his coat. As he traipsed through the streets he felt depressed at the thought that spring was still three months away. He’d had a stinking argument with a colleague at the office over some unfinished paper work and now he was on his way home and had a party to attend. It was a friend of Michael and Joe’s. Phyllis was intent on going but all Harry wanted to do was curl up and listen to some music. The party was to celebrate the fortieth of a brash and effeminate American called Clarence, who had moved to England during the war to work as a newspaper correspondent. Harry and Phyllis had only met him once and Harry decided he did not like the fellow because he always tried to hold eye contact for an unsettling amount of time and disregarded most women as either whores or so dull that they did not deserve the time of day.
There was, however, something else that was upsetting Harry and that was the knowledge of Phyllis’s pregnancy. He had a desire to stop time and hibernate whenever he thought about it. A month had passed since she’d broken the news and he still hadn’t told his mother, his sister or anyone at the office. It had come as a surprise because they’d rarely been sleeping together. For the last couple of months she’d hardly been living at home and had moved most of her things out but now with a baby on the way he knew they had to discuss what they were going to do. There was suddenly a great feeling of weight on him, but it was something intangible, as though he were on the seabed and being crushed by the pressure of the water around him.
She was in the living room when he came in, slumped in an armchair, looking ill. The sight pleased him because it looked as though they might stay in after all.
‘Have you eaten anything today?’ he asked, kissing her lightly on the head but he drew away quickly because her head was clammy.
‘A little toast and some tea. I’ll eat something when we meet Michael and Joe.’
‘You don’t look well enough to be gallivanting round the city,’ Harry said, dead set on not going out.
‘We have to go. We said yes. You know how Joe gets about invitations.’
‘But if you’re unwell we should stay in. And when are you going to tell them about the baby?’
‘I don’t want them to know yet. Besides, I feel much better than I did and I’ve no intention of being cooped up all evening. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. I’m sure
you can find ways to entertain yourself.’
He did go. He went because he had to prove to her that he was capable of being there for her, but he also did it with a sense that he was martyring himself. The party began at a bar in Fitzrovia owned by Clarence. It was hard to tell who was with the party and who was a hapless punter. Clarence didn’t seem to know half the people and greeted everyone with the same brainless smile. In public Phyllis became an unstoppable force. She was particularly good at talking to people she’d never met before, even seemed to relish the opportunity to present herself anew. It astonished Harry because he was so often silenced by a new introduction. He hated the way he would be looked at and measured up, especially by a group of rather cheap and loud people. Thankfully Michael was there, pressed up on a high stool near a window.
‘This is all very extravagant,’ Michael said, seeing that Harry was not enjoying himself.
‘Yes, well I suppose people only have a birthday once a year. When I was a child I was lucky to get one present,’ Harry said, taking a sip of stout. ‘Where is Joe?’
‘Somewhere around. I gave up being his keeper years ago. How are you anyway? We haven’t seen much of you and Phyllis these last few weeks.’
‘No, she’s not been feeling that well, so we’ve been having a few nights at home.’
‘I’ve missed you both,’ Michael said.
Harry found himself glancing at Michael’s thin black tie. He always tied the knot as tight as it would go.
‘I’m fed up with this winter. If only we could get away. I think it might help Phyllis. She seems to be sick of everything.’
‘Joe and I were thinking of a little excursion round the continent in early summer. You could join us.’
Harry thought how lovely that would be but then remembered that by then Phyllis would be heavily pregnant. While he had been secretive about it, he had no idea why Phyllis hadn’t told anyone yet. It wasn’t a secret either of them would be able to keep for much longer. He wondered if Michael would be upset.
‘I would love to if work would give me the time off,’ Harry said, his eyes meeting Michael’s for a moment.
The party went on until closing at which point two dozen people shifted to Clarence’s apartments which were around the corner. A few of Clarence’s east end chums turned up with three cases of black market scotch and gin. Clarence was good friends with a number of ‘general traders’ and always managed to have a supply of whatever goods had been impossible to purchase in the shops that week. That is why his bar did such good business. Phyllis only had a single drink but Harry found that he was drunk. Whenever they were out socialising with Michael, copious amounts of drink seemed to be a natural part of the course. It made their interaction less stilted and made Harry less conscious of his earnestness. Phyllis took charge of Joe and seemed insistent that Harry look after Michael. They danced a little and he and Michael smoked and drank. At some point they ended up on the top floor looking out of a window over the city. It was an oddly pleasant feeling to be up in a room alone with Michael, with the sound of laughing and chatter muffled a couple of floors beneath them. Harry became a little unsteady on his feet and Michael put his arm around his waist to support him and Harry had caught his gaze and saw the troubled look in Michael’s eyes. He wondered what an effort it was for Michael to go to bed with a man twenty years his senior, making love to someone who could offer only a vision of the future as something of a decline.
When they returned downstairs the party had all but dispersed. Phyllis and Joe were gone. They found a few semi-comatose youths sprawled over sofas in the living room, their brilliantine hair pulled out of place in a nightmarish baroque tableau. They coaxed one of them into consciousness long enough to find out that a crowd had gone on to another party down the street. It seemed odd that they should take off without coming to fetch them. Harry and Michael set off to follow but the address the boy had drawled at them was entirely wrong and there was no party to be found. In the end they went back to Michael’s to wait. From then on it had become a blur of more drinks. The moment came as Michael aimed another drink into Harry’s glass and not only missed the glass but knocked it off the table.
‘Damn it, sorry,’ he cursed, reaching down to pick it up but in doing so stumbled down.
‘Here,’ Harry said, lifting him up and taking him by the arm.
Before he knew it, they were tussling with one another and pulling loose each other’s clothes. Harry had no idea who had begun it. The party had unlocked something childish and at the same time furious in each of their spirits. The element of choice seemed elusive, lost to an urge which had been suppressed since their first meeting and which was given freedom now by Harry’s decision that he could no longer feel responsible for Phyllis. She had treated him with such disregard and punished him too much, and now he wanted to hurt her. He wanted her to feel betrayal. He was not confused about his feelings.
They were awakened a few hours later by Joe’s voice.
‘Dirty fucking tarts.’
Harry opened his eyes to see Phyllis and Joe in the doorway. Michael fell out of bed and reached for some clothes. Harry’s first instinct too had been to dress but now that he saw Phyllis he remained motionless, staring at her, because she was looking at him with a satisfied look on her face. He had hoped that she would fly into a rage but it was Joe who began to bluster.
‘Get out of here,’ Joe said, pulling away the sheets like a magician revealing his trick.
The old man surveyed Harry’s naked body and felt his anger double in the acknowledgement that he had been left out of an experience which aroused him. He turned, mumbling something incomprehensible under his breath and went out of the room. A moment later they heard the front door slam.
Harry turned his gaze from Phyllis and reached for his underwear and only when he had his trousers on did he dare look at her again.
‘Well it’s not a surprise,’ Phyllis said, slowly. ‘I knew you wouldn’t be able to stop.’
‘It’s not like that,’ Harry said.
‘I don’t care.’
‘Where were you last night?’
‘We thought you’d gone to the party. It took us a while to work out you weren’t there,’ Phyllis answered calmly, handing Harry his shirt. ‘You should have known better, Michael.’
Michael scratched his face and looked to the floor pathetically.
A few minutes later Harry and Phyllis were on the street. It was perhaps six in the morning, Harry thought. His head was thundering from the drink. For a long time they said nothing.
‘What’s the point in going on Harry?’
Harry was unnerved by how distant she sounded. He desperately wanted her to be angry with him.
‘Is that all you can say?’
‘I think this makes things very clear. I knew what you were when we met. I have tried so hard to understand you but you seem nothing but weak to me.’
‘You haven’t made any effort at all to understand me. You spend your time chastising me for things I haven’t done. The last time I was with anyone was before we were even dating.’
‘And that makes last night acceptable?’
‘It seems to me you think this is one of just a long line of indiscretions and I am afraid I have to disappoint you. The way you reacted, I can’t help but think you wanted this to happen,’ he said.
‘Yes, Harry. I wanted to catch my husband in bed with another fellow,’ she answered, shaking her head.
‘But you did. You almost bullied me into it. You hadn’t been drinking last night and yet you ignored me and deliberately flirted with the other men. You make me feel as if I always have my eye on someone else. Michael actually spent the evening with me. And frankly I got fed up with being disregarded and I wanted to upset you. And now the way your behaving makes it even more obvious that you’re the one who has no desire for me.’
Phyllis said nothing.
‘I love you Phyllis and you simply won’t acc
ept that.’
‘You are a deluded fool. You may think you do, but it’s not possible for men like you.’
‘Whatever you think, I am not the same as Michael and Joe. I am sick to death of being compared to men like them. I am sick of having to feel shameful when I have, until now, behaved with as much honesty and care as any husband could be expected to show. You are the one who insists on denying the truth of that and God knows what you get up to half the time, but I am beginning to wonder what good it is to keep trying to prove something to you which you simply won’t believe. But you need to face the fact that we are having a baby together.’
Phyllis stopped and looked around.
‘What’s wrong?’
A man walked along the path behind them. Phyllis waited for the man to pass them. Harry noticed she had a wild look in her eyes.
‘I need to sleep,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to talk about this now.’
‘When will we talk about it? When Phyllis?’
*
Harry stumbled out from the memory. Michael was seated in a chair watching him.
‘Are you and Phyllis going to end it?’ Michael asked.
Harry looked down at his glass and remembered the promise he’d made about not touching another drop. He placed it down on the table in front of him.
‘Are you and Joe ending it?’
‘I love Joe. This may be hard for you to imagine Harry, but there are some of us who do know what it’s like to make a life together. You should be kind to Phyllis. Let her go. Just because you’re uncertain about everything doesn’t mean that everyone else should have to put up with it. I feel terrible about what happened the other night.’
‘She’s expecting,’ Harry said, bluntly.
‘What?’
‘She’s three months pregnant and it’s my child.’
Michael looked blank with surprise.
The Smog (A Jean Clarke Mystery Book 1) Page 16
