Paul smiles, despite the bear trap he’s in. He needs the fear to fuel him. And he needs to look beyond it to be able to race. From almost flat on the straits to the steeper turns, the long and shallow bowl at Herne Hill fills him with dread and happy delirium. Harry gestures for water and Paul passes him a glass from a sideboard, then he continues, ‘A finishing line, a place in the group, a rung on the scoreboard, that’s your goal. On a round track you never get there. The oval has becomes your life’s perimeter Paul.’
Paul laughs, then asks, ‘When are you getting out of here?’
‘Who says I want out? Three square meals and a horde of pretty nurses. If I had a couple of beers, I’d be in heaven.’ Then Harry turns serious and asks, ‘Are you really doing this race Paul?’
Paul nods.
‘If you want me to be there, I’ll be there,’ Harry says. ‘Even if it kills me. I’d rather die at the track than in this hellhole full of carnations and disinfectant. To be honest, most of the nurses have moustaches and are not very pretty at all.’
They both laugh. Harry falls back against the pillows. In a husky voice he asks Paul something. It’s hard to hear what he says, but eventually, when he understands what Harry says, Paul runs for a nurse. He promises to come and see Harry over the next few days but he’s not sure Harry can hear him. He’s not even sure he’s awake.
Cycling back across town he thinks of the birdlike creature on the bed. He thinks about his own father who must have died all alone. Someone found him, put him in a coffin and buried him. It wasn’t Paul. Despite everything, despite the money, the hardship, the love that was lost a long time ago, Paul can’t stop himself feeling sorry. Not sorry that he left the farm, but sorry that he never knew his mother. Sorry his father is now dead and that Paul will never be able to forgive him.
He winds his way to the home he’s been allowed to share with Miriam. Back through Camden and Kentish Town, back to the green expanses and dark ponds. When he turns the last corner, he almost falls off the bike. There’s a big white Packard idling outside the front door of the Baths.
Chapter 39
I’ve had a horrible day of hanging around Mr Morton. Pleasing him. Agreeing with him. Being watched by him and his despicable henchman, Drago. I suspect they follow me after I leave the Carousel, but I can’t be sure. Either way I don’t want them to see me in my house, and I can’t betray Paul and Miriam by going to Hampstead. So I remain in my dusty office at Copenhagen Street.
I’ve tried to explain the situation to Rupert. He’s not the sharpest tool in the box, but he’s trustworthy. I’ve arranged for him to run a couple of errands, some important, some more emotional than important. I came here to see how much cash there was on the premises and there was more than I thought there would be. A rare occurrence that all tenants have paid on time.
I’m just about to leave when I hear the familiar purr of a chain and wheels outside the office door. I jump up and stick my head out.
‘Paul? What are you doing here?’
The boy looks shattered. A hull of a man. The promise I made my mother about feeding him properly still stands, I remind myself.
‘Come inside the office,’ I say, looking up and down the street.
Paul looks over his shoulder furtively, then awkwardly rolls the bike into the small office space.
‘What’s this?’
‘I thought I’d come and stay here.’
‘You can’t. It’s too obvious, and besides I’ve got tenants in your old room.’
‘I just came back and Mr Morton was outside the Baths. I didn’t know where to go.’
I need to think about this, so I tell him to sit. Then I notice the bike. Despite everything, I’m quite pleased that I appear to have soaked up something about cycling. ‘This is not the one I got you,’ I say, to cheer him up, to make him think about something else.
This is as much for me as it is for him.
‘That one was bent beyond repair in the crash, looked like a dried-up daddy longlegs,’ Paul says. ‘Miriam got me this one.’
I try to laugh at this image, but I can’t. I let out a strained, horselike guffaw.
‘Sit down Paul. We need to talk. We’re in grave danger, you and I.’
‘I know. And I’m sorry.’
‘You can’t be here. I thought you were in Sheerness.’
‘I was, then I got a message saying Harry was in a bad way, dying.’
‘So you came to see him.’
‘I just couldn’t let down a friend on his deathbed.’
‘It might be you the next time.’
Now he starts to cry. It’s an awful sound and an awful sight.
‘Not to worry, we’ll fix this,’ I say with false confidence. A lot of it.
‘How?’
‘You’ve been injured. You were seen falling badly. That’s good for us. But you’re recovering quickly and you’ve been training by the looks of it. How are you feeling?’
‘I’m fine. I’ve been in better shape, but I’m getting there.’
‘We’ve only got about a week. I trust you got my note?’
Paul nods.
‘That’s when she’s being sent out to Dublin, and when the bear claws will close on us.’ I look at his legs. His shins look like a map of a mountain range. A thousand different shades. Painful foothills and sharp crevasses. His hair, roan.
‘Are you hungry?’ I ask as he dries his eyes with the back of his hands.
Again he nods. Again I look at his legs. We are both dead men. I might as well enjoy my last week alive. I go upstairs and ask Madame Dubois if she can send out a couple of the girls to cause a bit of a racket outside, and see if they can flush any men watching the entrance. I watch out of the window and after a couple of minutes of the girls shouting there have not been any men watching them with professional interest. Plenty other interest though.
‘Should we talk about this over something to eat?’ I say and gesture for Paul to go outside.
‘Sure. Fine.’
‘Eel?’
‘For old time’s sake?’
He runs upstairs to get something he’s left behind in his room. I hear him talk briefly to the new tenants, an Irish family of five, and then he comes bounding down the stairs like the Great Dane he is.
We’re back where we started. In the smoke and noise of Belinda’s. We ask to sit in the back room. Keep our hats on. As we wait for the food to arrive, I look at him. The youth I tried to capitalise on, and did for a while. The boy who backfired on me.
‘Shame it never worked out between you and Belinda,’ I joke.
‘Look at her left hand,’ he says quietly.
‘There’s no ring, I know that.’
‘But there’s a faint trace of white. As if she wore a ring when she wasn’t here.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘She’s a happily married woman,’ is his throwaway comment.
Before I have time to laugh, Belinda arrives with two hot plates full of mash, eel and parsley sauce, as well as my second beer and his second sarsaparilla, and I see that he’s right.
‘So, there’s a brain on top of those legs?’ I say once Belinda has retreated. He just nods, his mouth full. ‘Maybe it just needed a good shake to come alive.’
‘Eat your food Silas,’ he says, and smiles.
***
Two hours and three beers later I find myself in the bowels of the Carousel. Paul’s gone to a small hotel, and he’s asked me to send a message to Miriam, which I’ve sent through Rupert, he’s the only one I can trust now. The three of us are not to meet until Good Friday. Not until after the race. And probably not even then. It’s best if he doesn’t know where I’m staying, and it’s best if I don’t know what he does. As long as he trains properly. I also told him it’s best if he forgets all about Miriam and he nodded as if he was listening.
The inside of the entertainment palace is dark but not deserted. Cleaners, dancing girls and bartenders loiter, either about to begin w
ork or just finished.
I nod to everyone I see, as if I don’t have anything to hide. If I lost my momentum now, I would never find it again. I would be fish food before the night was over.
I make my way upstairs and knock on the door. If Mr Morton answers I’ll tell him something dull about the odds for an upcoming derby. If not, I’ll try my luck.
With hands shaking so much it looks, and feels, like I’m having a seizure I get my skeleton keys out of my pocket. It’s a worn set, a present from my father. I’ve had them in my pocket long enough that they are warm between my bloodless fingers. In my other pocket a little box that used to hold cough drops. Now there’s only one capsule, resting on a bed of cotton wool. It is not a cough drop. It is the cyanide pill from Paul’s plaster. The other, I keep on my bedside table, next to a gold snuffbox and a tortoiseshell comb. Memories of my mother and father.
There’s no one in London who would think of breaking into Mr Morton’s little temple. And even if they did there would be nothing apart from a chair and a little table to steal, apart from the crucifix.
I knock but there is no reply so I get to work. The lock is easy to pick, and gives way with a click. I push the door. It swings open with a creak and I rush over the threshold to end the sound. Once inside my heart stops. The chair is turned away from the door; its high back shielding the occupant. I see a pair of white wing-tipped shoes peeking out on the left hand of the chair, and on the table is an ashtray with a cigar. Its tip is still faintly red and there’s a tendril of smoke rising from it. I say my line about the odds for the derby to the room, in case Mr Morton’s not heard the click of the door. I reach into my pocket and fish out the metal box. I take a step forward, into his line of sight.
I almost vomit with relief when I realise the chair is empty. Knowing how sore his feet always get and how he often walks around in just his socks, the shoes standing to one side make sense. But he won’t be far away. I run over to the cross, unhook it from the wall and thread the key off the coarse bit of string. I was right, but now I am a dead man. I place the key next to the pill on the cotton wool. My hands are now shaking so much I have trouble hanging the cross back up.
Then I hear steps approaching, and I realise I’ve left the door ajar. Not much, just an inch, but still visible. The slow, shuffling thread of what sounds like a heavy man comes closer and closer. I look around the room for somewhere to hide but there’s nowhere. The steps are coming nearer and nearer, and the person walking towards me is whistling. The melody is atonal, seems to go wherever it wants to. Sounds old and religious in its minor nature. Maybe a catholic hymn, something for Lent.
The footsteps stop by the door. The whistling ends, and the door moves. I jump into the chair and pull my legs up. I hunker down so that the back of the chair shields me from the view of the door and grab the cigar. It’s a beautiful Princeps, and I give myself to the smell of it, and to my fate.
The hinges creak, a bow pulled over a slack cello string. Then I hear the voice which always sends shivers down my spine, ‘You want this closed?’
I don’t say anything.
‘You want this closed Mr Morton?’ Drago repeats.
I pull hard on the cigar and blow out a big cloud of smoke. I grunt, trying to sound as much as I can like the albino elephant. At first nothing happens. Then I hear the hinges again. I can’t tell whether Drago is coming in or out. I take another puff, but my heart is beating too fast for the smoke to go anywhere.
I hear the click of the door and his steps retreating. Light-headed, both from the smoke and from the relief I stagger up out of the chair and over to the door. I put my ear to it, and silently count to sixty. I open the door and quickly step out into the corridor. Close the door and raise my hand, so that it looks like I was just about to knock in case someone spots me. No one does and I start for the stairs.
Water flushes in pipes and someone lets out a loud burp. The lock of the bathroom at the end of the corridor starts to rattle. I look down at my hand and realise I’m still holding the cigar, so I open the door and throw it in the direction of the chair. I quietly run down the stairs, and manage to duck into the floor below just as I catch a glimpse of white trouser legs and argyle patterned socks. I stand still with him right above me, trying not to breathe. Then he opens the door of his white office and walks inside. I tiptoe slowly towards the next set of stairs, and then I hear the shriek. His voice as high as a girl’s, ‘Help! Fire!’
He comes out onto the landing again, screaming hysterically.
The cigar hit the chair, I think as I rush downstairs. Doors are opening and people are running. The braver ones upstairs to save the building, save Mr Morton and make a name for themselves. The smarter ones, doing what I am doing, dodging downstairs and outside.
After the maze of stairs and landings, I come to the room with the octagon and the red lines on the floorboards. I walk over to the wall and slide in behind a curtain. I pull out the box and look at the key. Listen to the shouts from upstairs about organising a chain of buckets. About axes and wet handkerchiefs over peoples’ mouths. There’s no way of telling whether the fire is spreading or if it is being stopped.
The key is gleaming dully like a fish in a strong current. I peek out from behind the curtain. It’s suddenly gone quiet. The ones upstairs are upstairs, the ones outside are outside. I’m the only one who has stuck myself firmly in this limbo.
I take out the key and put the box in my pocket, then I make a mad dash for it. Just ten minutes ago someone running would have looked out of place. Now, not so much. I run out to the bigger room, sprint up the stairs and into the second office above the stairs.
The safe is a squat cube in the corner of the room behind Mr Morton’s desk. I try the key. It doesn’t work. I try it again. Still not. Now I’m really panicking, and I’m angry with myself for being such an idiot, for taking such a risk. For all I know this key is for Mr Morton’s diary, or a shed where he keeps doves or tackle.
I notice that the lock of the box has been forced and gutted. Not recently. There’s a coat of paint over where there should have been scratch marks. In place of the cylinder is just a dark slit, and as I put my eye to the hole I see a bill. I realise the safe is so full that bills are pushing up against the lid.
I look at the back of the box. There’s a new padlock. I try my key and the shackle slides out of the body. It’s the most beautiful, and most terrifying, sound in the world. I open the lid and look at the sheer amount of paper bills. I realise I have nothing to carry the money in. I walk over to a sofa and take all three cushions off. I peel off the covers and stuff bills inside. The filling from the cushions I put in the bottom of the strongbox, then I scatter notes in an inch-thick layer on top, so that if anyone looks through the hole where there used to be a cylinder, the safe looks as full as before.
With the cushions tucked under my coat, I run down the stairs and out into the street. Fortunately it’s raining and there’s a big crowd of people, both staff and onlookers, I weave my way through, hat pulled low, as people are looking at the Carousel, partly blinded by the floodlights that illuminate it. Some hoping, some fearing the place will catch fire.
Although there’s always a line of taxis waiting outside the club I avoid them, can’t be sure the drivers don’t keep a tally on comings, goings and addresses. Instead I hurry across the street and jump on a bus. It’s been a long time since I did that. I take a seat and watch the rain turn to sleet as Elephant and Castle disappears behind me. Halfway across Southwark Bridge the conductor comes around and asks to see my ticket. I laugh out loud, quickly realising the man must think I’m drunk. I tell him I have no money, which is true. I don’t have any coins on me. I made sure to empty my pockets before I walked into the Carousel, didn’t want any jangling change to give me away. So despite having enough money to buy a townhouse in Chelsea in my armpits and on my lap, encased in silk cushion covers, I can’t pay the bus fare.
The man takes a look at me, peers out throug
h the window at the weather, then he puts a hand on my shoulder and says, ‘You’re alright.’
I almost cry. I don’t know why. It’s the conductor’s kind words, it’s the sensation of being alive.
The bus makes a stop not far from Liverpool Street station. I disembark, thanking the conductor, even shaking his hand. I’m not travelling anywhere, I just want to make sure that I’ve not been picked up and followed since I came out of the Carousel. I enter the busy station. I walk to a track with a waiting train and get on, then I run through the carriage and come out of the door further to the front, looking for people either following or keeping an eye on me. I do this three times with different trains. On the last one, which isn’t leaving for another twenty minutes I duck into a toilet and opening a pillow I get a couple of notes out and cram them in my pockets.
Satisfied I’m not being followed I buy a suitcase from one of the many stalls on the station concourse. It’s nothing fancy, just a blue cardboard frame with reinforced metal corners. I fling the cushions into the suitcase and walk outside for a taxi.
I ask the man to take me to a mid-budget hotel in Bayswater. The choice is his. I’m trying to make myself invisible, and one way to do that is to not go to the kind of hotels in the parts of town I would choose, or indeed anywhere diametrically opposed. So I’ll settle for something bland and boring. It’s only for a couple of nights anyway. The first or last few nights of my life.
Tomorrow I’ll try to go to Chinatown to have the razor sharpened. Other than that I will be in the hotel room. The money is not enough for freedom – but enough for a good bet. I fall asleep quickly, for the first time in three weeks. Silk cushions under my head.
Chapter 40
It’s Good Friday 1929 and a record crowd has paid to see the cyclists. Down on the oval I watch Paul focus on his hands. Hands that used to handle white-eyed horses, deliver lambs, right fence posts blown over in Campsie gales and put his drunk father to bed. Hands that have killed by proxy, thrown bodies down a shaft to decompose. Hands that have caressed a body belonging to Mr Morton. Hands that have shaped my future like an amateur potter. I’ve not seen Mr Morton yet, but I’m sure he’ll come. Once he finds out that Paul is racing he’ll come. I’ve still got a few days to repay my debt, and so far I’ve been free to come and go as I please, but that won’t last. He knows I know better than to try and escape.
Devil Take the Hindmost Page 28
