by Paul Theroux
‘The geezer’s offering drinks and all,’ said the man to Hood. ‘If he don’t want to pay he don’t have to, but he’s waving that fiver like he don’t know what to do with it. Now get off my tits.’
‘I think he’s upset,’ said Hood to Mr Gawber.
Mr Gawber had listened to the exchange with a kind of horror, and he considered leaving. But he lifted the five-pound note again and said, ‘You don’t have change for this, do you?’
‘No,’ said Hood.
‘I’ll mind it for you if you like,’ said the man, grinning. ‘Stick him with his mates and all.’ He reached into his pocket, took out a wad of five-pound notes the thickness of a sandwich and riffled the edges with his thumb, flashing their blueness. Then he tucked them away and laughed, pushing out his jaw and snorting negligently.
Hood sensed tension in his voice when he said, ‘I think I had you wrong.’
‘I seen you looking at me dush. Listen, I don’t have to touch you. I could have you rompered for a fiver and get change.’
‘No harm done,’ said Hood.
‘Very good then,’ said Mr Gawber.
The man held his finger in Hood’s face. ‘You better watch your gob.’
Mr Gawber ordered drinks: a whisky for the man, a half of bitter for Hood, a bottle of light ale for himself. The barmaid told him the price of each as she set the glasses down. ‘Forty-six pence,’ said Mr Gawber, then he apologized for his speedy addition. ‘You must forgive me – I’m an accountant.’ He handed over his money and raised his glass. ‘It’s a lovely summer evening. I’ve never been here before, and I doubt that I’ll ever be this way again. A long life to you both.’
‘This is to the dogs,’ said the man. ‘First race in half an hour.’
Hood said, ‘Don’t lose your shirt.’
‘That’s nothing.’ The man slapped his pocket. ‘I could lose all that and laugh. But I won’t. Them dogs see me and start running. You don’t know me.’
‘I saw you two come in together,’ said Mr Gawber. ‘I thought you were chums.’
‘This is my dancing partner,’ said Hood.
‘Never seen him before in my life.’
‘There you go, boasting again.’
‘Piss off.’ The man dipped his head and put his mouth to his glass.
‘You forgot to say something, sweetheart,’ Hood said, tapping the man on the shoulder.
‘Get your hands off me.’
‘Say thank you.’
‘Thanks, dad,’ said the man. He turned to Hood. ‘You’re pleading for it. Remember, I can pay someone to have your gob fixed. I could get Bill to do it. Or maybe I’ll do it myself.’ He brushed his lapels.
‘Sorry,’ said Hood. ‘I forgot who I was talking to.’
‘You’re entirely welcome,’ said Mr Gawber to the man. ‘To tell the truth, I came here quite by accident. Normally, I do the crossword on the train and that keeps me awake. But today a most unusual thing happened.’
He told the story of the crossed-line, but he improved on it. The callers, whom he imagined in a dark cellar room muttering blind uncertainties, he made precise and dignified; and he made himself comic, a muddled old man, fussing with the phone, who didn’t have the sense to slam down the receiver. Telling the story he saw how the whole day, from the morning amnesia of fog and the intrusions at Rackstraw’s, to the arrival at the wrong station, had made this chance encounter at the pub possible: it was all preparation to bring his story here. He was pleased to have these listeners and he delivered his last line with solemn comedy: ‘ “macaroon,” I said, “macaroon.” ’
‘I got a crossed-line meself once. I’m always doing things like that. Some bird nattering to her old man. “Never want to see you no more,” she says. “Selfish bitch,” I says. “Hello,” she says, “did you say that, John?” “You leave John out of this,” I says and hangs up the earphone. I’m laughing like a drain.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Gawber, who had winced at the word bitch. ‘One feels as if one has been admitted to a secret. But really the most worrying thing is that afterwards, when you make another phone call you sense that someone is listening. Most of my business is highly confidential, so you can imagine my state of mind.’ It had distressed him at the time to hear Araba say There’s a war on! and he still wondered if anyone else had heard her.
‘Don’t worry about that, dad. The coppers’ll be on to you before long and have you in the nick. Bill hears everything. Just a matter of time.’
‘Oh, I know what they say about accountants. But don’t you believe any of it. We’re much maligned.’
‘Full of angles,’ said the man. ‘You get a good screw.’
‘Less than you might think,’ said Mr Gawber. ‘Though it’s interesting work. We’ve always had theatre people on our books. Sid Hope, Derek James, Max Morris, Araba Nightwing.’ He saw he was making no impression; actors believed in their names, no one else did. He said, ‘Araba’s going to be Peter Pan.’
‘I don’t care how much dush you snatch,’ said the man. ‘I get mine.’
Mr Gawber was picking through the leather slots of his wallet. He found what he wanted, two old business cards, and handed one to Hood and one to the man. ‘Bit tatty, I’m afraid. I don’t get much chance to use them. But there’s my name at the bottom, R. C. Gawber. Do ring me if you’ve got a financial problem you’d like sorted out. Or just to say hello!’
‘I don’t have cards anymore,’ said Hood. ‘But very nice to meet you. Valentine Hood.’
‘Not English, I think.’
‘American.’
‘Ron Weech,’ said the man. He finished his whisky. ‘I don’t have any financial problems, thanks all the same.’
‘Then you’re a very lucky man,’ said Mr Gawber.
‘Weech is loaded,’ said Hood.
‘I get mine. See this watch? Fifty quid anywhere you name. Probably a hundred in the West End. I got it for ten in Deptford. Fell off the back of a lorry. See this shirt, see this suit? Lord John – I could show you the labels. I got more at home, all colours. You wouldn’t believe what I paid for them. Fell off the back of a lorry. These shoes, this here belt, cuff-links, the lot. I’ve got cases of fags at me house.’ He smirked. ‘And that ain’t all. I know all the other fences. I’ll see them tonight at the track. Mates, we are. “Hi Ron” – that kind of thing. I get mine.’
‘You sound like a pretty clever operator,’ said Hood.
‘I get mine – dush, birds. I wouldn’t even tell you. What I want I get. Feller up in Millwall tries to sell me this Cortina. A hundred he wants for it, the geezer’s a mate of mine. Fell off the back of a lorry. I got the hundred – you seen it, right? I could show you the motor. Tape-deck, radio, the lot. All I have to do is paint it and get new plates. But I don’t buy it. Why? I just don’t want it.’
‘I wouldn’t own a car,’ said Mr Gawber.
‘You would if you seen this one. Beautiful she is. All the accessories.’
‘Well, I mean it’s silly to run one. My good lady doesn’t drive, and I work in Kingsway. Where would I park the bally thing?’
‘I know what you mean. What you’re saying, dad, it’s a fucking nuisance, right?’
The obscenity stopped Mr Gawber for a moment, like a spurt of flame in his face. He straightened his head and touched at his nose and mouth; the word had singed the hairs in his nostrils: he could smell it.
‘I get it,’ said Hood to Weech. ‘You do what you like, go your own way.’
‘Straight.’
‘Quite right,’ said Mr Gawber without conviction. ‘Good for you.’
‘I’m me own man,’ said Weech.
‘He’s got guts,’ said Hood.
‘I should say so. Admirable.’ Mr Gawber made a cautioning noise in his throat.
‘I look after meself.’
‘I’ll bet when you go up to the dog track they say, “Look out, here comes Ron Weech.” ’
‘They respect me, why not? They know me there. Thi
s ain’t my regular boozer – no one knows me here. I don’t care.’ Weech glanced at an elderly man on his left who had been listening to the conversation and smiling with shy gratitude when Weech grunted his remarks. Weech snarled. ‘What are you grinning at?’ The man swallowed and became sad.
‘Look at that – Weech is a tough cookie,’ said Hood, as the old man carried his pint of beer and his cigarettes to the opposite end of the bar.
‘It’s a funny thing,’ said Weech. ‘Most people are suckers. I go by these building sites and I see the silly bastards breaking their backs. I just look at them and say, “Suckers.” Sometimes they hear me – I don’t care. It’s incredible. Ever see them? These blokes, all about ninety years old, heartstruck and half caved in, and they’re trying to get some dirty great fridge off the pavement and not moving it an inch. Suckers. Lorry drivers, postmen, shop-girls, that hairy over there pulling pints – twenty quid a week, they think it’s a bloody fortune. They’re all suckers –’
As Weech ranted, Mr Gawber crept back. He was disappointed, and a little fearful – he had expected something else. He saw clumsy violence in the way Weech swung his big hands and spoke, and a disregard on Weech’s face, a sightless rudeness he did not want to call stupidity. He was angry with himself for having stayed and listened, and sorry his day had ended like this. He plucked his watch from the front of his waistcoat and said, ‘Has it really gone half-past? I must be off – my wife will think I’ve left the country.’
‘Don’t be so bloody silly,’ said Weech. ‘Have another one on me.’
‘That’s very generous of you, but perhaps some other time,’ said Mr Gawber. ‘It’s been awfully good talking to you. You want to be careful carrying all that money about.’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ said Weech.
‘He can take care of himself,’ said Hood.
Mr Gawber gathered up his briefcase and umbrella and hurried out. He had always hated public houses; they were dirty and uncongenial, the haunts of resignation, attracting men whose loneliness was not improved by their meeting one another. They talked inaccurately about the world, swapping cheerless opinions. England itself was turning into an enormous Darby and Joan Club in which deaf, nearsighted wrecks played skittles, ignoring the thunder and the shadow of the approaching rain. The ranting man had alarmed him more than the voices on the crossed line. Sometimes he could believe such people did not exist; this evening, toiling in his heavy suit past insolent youths of dangerous size, he felt there were no others. A world of them. He was concerned for that well-spoken one, that American. Had breeding.
‘There he goes,’ said Weech, seeing at the window Mr Gawber making his way down Southend Lane, ‘the old brolly-man.’
‘He seems nice enough.’
‘A sucker,’ said Weech. ‘Thinks he’s got dush. I could buy and sell him.’
‘How about another drink?’
‘Put your pennies away.’ Weech pulled out his sandwich of notes again, worked one loose with his thumb and slapped it on the bar. ‘Two large whiskies.’
‘You’re going to miss the first race,’ said Hood.
‘Don’t rush me. I’ll get a taxi.’ He looked at Hood closely. ‘What’s a Yank doing here, anyway? Tourist?’
Hood said, ‘I’m hiding.’
Weech made a face, as if he didn’t know the word. He said, ‘Working?’
‘Nope. I got fired.’
‘You look like a sucker.’
‘Listen, Weech,’ said Hood, lowering his voice. ‘I’ll tell you. I was an American Consul in Vietnam – a little town, you’ve never heard of it. I was there for about eight months. Then one day the Minister of Defence showed up for a reception. But before that – in the morning – he gave me some shit. So I let him have it. I don’t know what got into me – I just poked him in the snoot. The first time in the history of the foreign service any officer of my grade did that.’ Hood looked for a reaction. Weech stared. It meant nothing to him. ‘They suspended me, but that was pretty feeble, because I knew a quick way out of the country. I made myself a new passport – that’s what consuls do, you know – and I split. They’re still looking for me, but they’re looking in the wrong place.’
‘You hit the bloke, eh? Coloured bloke?’
‘Vietnamese.’
Weech grinned. ‘Me, I’m colour prejudiced as well.’
‘I’m not,’ said Hood. ‘It was something he said. He talked like you.’
‘I could turn you in, probably get a reward. What did you say your name was?’
‘Valentine Hood.’
‘I could go up to Grosvenor Square – it’s there, ain’t it? – and cough it all. No problem. I go up there now and then and play the wheel at the Clermont. You’re really thick – you shouldn’t have told me that. I might do it.’
‘You won’t,’ said Hood.
‘Don’t be so sure. I don’t like geezers who slag me.’
‘Do you read the newspapers?’
‘You think I’m a dummy, don’t you?’
‘I was just wondering if you knew about the painting that was stolen the other day.’
‘Yeah, the old-fashioned one.’ Weech sighed. ‘No fence would touch it. It’s too big. It’s worthless. There’s a reward for it, ain’t there?’
‘Right, right,’ said Hood. ‘But the interesting thing is –I know who’s got it. Yes, Weech, she’s delivering it to me tonight. She might be there now. How about that?’
Weech peered at Hood, then picked up his whisky and drank it. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He belched and said, ‘You’re full of crap.’
‘You don’t believe me?’ Hood took the strip of wrinkled canvas from his wallet. It was brown, with a close weave on one side and on the other flakes of dark cracked paint, like old flattened nail parings. He showed it, holding it against the lamp on the bar. He said, ‘That’s part of it. It’s being sent to the papers, an inch at a time.’
‘That’s a piece of rubbish,’ said Weech. ‘What is it, an old sticking plaster or what?’
‘It’s from the edge of the painting.’
‘I don’t see no picture. I think you’re slagging me again. Anyway, why tell me?’
‘I want you to know everything, Weech,’ said Hood. ‘Oh, yes. Remember the Euston bomb? Well, the girl that did it lives at my house – she’s hiding, too. Albacore Crescent, Deptford.’
‘Hey,’ said Weech, showing an interest in the address that he had not shown in anything else Hood had said, ‘I live just behind it!’
‘What else do you want to know?’ Hood searched his mind for more: he wanted to startle the man, to rouse him with a secret. ‘The girl’s name is Brodie. She planted the bomb, but she didn’t make it. That was another kid, Murf. He’s supposed to be tough, like you. But he hasn’t got your money, so he’s more dangerous.’
‘You’re making this up. I think you’re a nutter.’
‘You levelled with me, Weech – about all those stolen goods – so I’m levelling with you.’
‘Stolen goods,’ Weech sneered. ‘I’m into the big stuff, Arab exports – get it? I wouldn’t even tell you. But that picture – they say it’s worth about a million quid.’
‘Not a million,’ said Hood. ‘But you could get ten grand as a reward.’
‘So I just say, look at Valentine’s place on Albacore Crescent.’
‘Number twenty-two.’
‘Yeah, and it’s all mine,’ said Weech. He gave a shallow laugh. ‘But if this was really true you wouldn’t be telling me.’
‘It’s true.’
‘Then I’ll tell the coppers, I’ll tell the American Embassy, I’ll cough it to the News of the World.’
‘No, you won’t.’
‘I fucking will.’
‘You don’t need the money. You’re loaded.’
‘I’ll do it for laughs. I’ll do it because you slagged me. I’ll get me picture in the papers.’
‘I almost forgot,’ said Hood. ‘I’ve got
two kilos of opium at my house –that should interest the police. Here, it looks like this.’ Hood took out the cigarette he had made earlier in the evening and put it in Weech’s hand.
‘You’re joking. It’s just an ordinary cigarette. Look, it even says Silk Cut on the paper.’
‘Watch,’ said Hood. Taking it from Weech and holding it in his cupped hand he broke it open, spilling it into his palm. ‘That’s tobacco,’ he said, prodding the brown strands, ‘but see that powder, those yellow grains? Opium – all the way from the Golden Triangle.’
Weech’s face creased with interest. He said, ‘You’re as bad as me.’
‘No.’
‘Maybe worse,’ said Weech. ‘But I could tell you stories. I deal on the continent. Arab hardware. Get it?’ He grinned. ‘Bang-bang. You in the picture?’
Hood said, ‘You’re a fucking punk.’
‘You’re pleading for it,’ said Weech in a whisper, pushing at the bar with his large hands.
‘You’re a gutless son of a bitch.’
‘I’ll nail you, straight I will.’
‘You couldn’t nail a daisy.’
Weech was trembling, working his fingers, nodding his head and gasping as if he had been deprived of air. He hissed, ‘You bastard.’
Hood straightened up and smiled. ‘Well, I really must be going now. Nice talking to you, Weech. Keep your thumb on it.’
And he was out of the door, stepping into the half-dark of the summer evening. The iron railway bridge and the derelict houses and the high weeds bled into a dim motionless shadow that, in this faltering sunset, was like a memory of light, incomplete and simplifying and without warmth. There was a moon, and traces of stars, but the day remained, proceeding slowly to the edge of night with the season’s lengthened hesitation. Hood started towards the street, then turned back to the path that led through the tall cow parsley to the station. At the opening of this dishevelled glade, where some of the pub’s customers had parked their cars, he waited until the door banged and he saw Weech appear, swinging his arms.
‘Over here,’ Hood called, keeping his voice low.
Weech blundered towards him, chewing on rage and paddling with his fists. Angry, he seemed too large for his plum-coloured suit. When he was about ten feet away, Hood took a paper bag from his pocket and threw it to the path. It startled Weech: he jerked his face sideways, twisting his shoulders, as if he thought it might explode.
