by Paul Theroux
‘Ron never did either.’ She pouted sadly and a frightened tearful look came into her eyes. He thought she was going to say more – she opened her mouth but expelled only a sigh. Now she was cautious when she mentioned her murdered husband.
Hood understood that she had disliked and feared Weech and had wanted him dead. But now that he was dead she felt obligated – accused – by that dislike, as if she was responsible for his death. There was no grief in her, only a tremble of resentment, half sadness, half anger, because she had her wish. She was left alone with the guilt, as empty and resourceless as if she had been cursed. She had no friends; she had a house furnished with stolen objects and two rooms of loot she had never seen; a child with blotchy legs whom she seemed at times to look upon as an enemy, and a dread that made her wakeful – that she was being punished for the way she had felt about her husband.
She trusted Hood in a hopeless way, asking nothing, offering nothing, resigned to his attentions, like an orphan taken up by a strange parent. Hood had waited for her to reveal some aspect of support – a mother somewhere she might return to, an old boyfriend she could live with. But she was alone, her family was dead, she had no plans. Having come to her with promises he could not leave her, for though she did not react to him – ‘You again,’ she said flatly, when he dropped in – he knew that to stop seeing her would be to deprive her of opium, withdraw her sleep. That desertion would ruin her.
He had succeeded with her so far because he had shown her how to sleep: a pellet of opium while the child napped upstairs. She was no smoker – she couldn’t handle a cigarette lightly enough; she fellated it with her lips and missed the smoke. But the brown beads brought dreams to her trance of exhaustion. Hood sat and saw the liveliness on her mouth, the relaxation of the drug, a chromatic slumber that induced in her a sense of well-being, even cheerfulness, as if in her sleep she was complimented. That was opium, the imagination flattered. The drug was all praise. Hood said, ‘It’s the only way to fly.’
‘You could do me while I’m asleep,’ she said the third time, lying on the sofa and tugging down the hem of her skirt and smoothing her knees with a kind of absent-minded innocence.
‘I’d rather look at you.’
‘I’m not much to look at. My tits don’t stick out. That’s what Ron used to say.’
‘They’re not supposed to stick out.’ Hood licked the pellet and put it in her mouth. He lingered at it, making it a sexual suggestion, this transfer from his mouth to hers.
She held the pellet against her cheek like a gum-ball. ‘Hey, when I’m asleep, don’t touch me, okay? Just don’t touch me.’
‘All right, Mrs Weech,’ he said.
‘And don’t call me that.’ Her name was Lorna, but Hood never said it. It sounded too much like forlorn, alone.
She slept, and he was aroused. He lay his head on her stomach and waited until she woke.
The drug restored her, gave her rest, removed suspicion from her mind, and yet she said she still never slept at night. She told Hood how she lay awake on her bed, sometimes going downstairs in the dark and washing all the floors in the hope of tiring herself so she could sleep: and he imagined her pounding her mop in the hall or standing alone in her small kitchen before the black window. He wondered if by killing her husband he had inflicted a fatal wound on her memory. But it was not that at all, not the guilty feeling of bewildered resentment that kept her awake. The two locked rooms worried her. She speculated on what they contained – burglars’ loot, forbidden things, a whole cupboard of snatched purses, parcels she’d seen her husband sneak in with, boxes he’d dragged upstairs, danger. Weech had been secretive: his thievery was a mystery to her, but all the more sinister for that. She was afraid it would be discovered by the police and she would be thrown into prison and the child taken away from her. She knew nothing of trials; arrest meant years of solitary confinement in a cage, helping police with their inquiries. She pleaded with Hood to help her.
He told her not to worry. He said, ‘I know where we can stash it.’
‘But the rooms are locked.’
‘So we’ll unlock them.’
‘There’s no keys. Ron was robbed!’
‘We’ll unlock them with a crowbar.’
He did not dare use the keys he’d taken from Weech’s pocket. The wallet, the money: he had been too ashamed to think of a lie, a pretext for giving them back to her. He unscrewed the plates from the locks and burst the mechanisms with a hammer. The bolts flew. He kicked open the door to the first room.
‘Oh, God, what do we do with all this clobber?’ The sight of the stack of new televisions, the radios, the crates of cigarettes and whisky alarmed her. She saw a reason for her worry. She stomped the floor and swore and belched with fear. She was less frightened by the two steel trunks in the second room: Hood didn’t open them. She said, ‘It’s probably clothes.’
‘This is going to take some doing,’ said Hood. ‘It’s a lot to shift. But where did it all come from?’
‘You know – you’re one of them.’
‘I almost forgot,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to get a truck. I’ll need help.’
The ice-cream van with its faded signs SUPERTONY and MIND THAT CHILD had been parked in Albacore Crescent since the night Mayo had come back with the painting. Every day – it was one of his family chores – Murf started it up to charge the battery, because it was so seldom driven. Hood went to the house.
He found Murf with a small nervous man he had never seen before. Seeing Hood the man shuffled his feet and coughed. He wore buckled sandals and torn socks and a greasy necktie; his breast pocket bulged with pens. He had been smoking with Murf, and Hood saw the man drop a marijuana roach behind him and find it with his heel and crush it into the floor.
‘Who’s your friend?’
‘This here’s Arfa,’ said Murf. ‘Arfa Muncie.’
‘Start talking, Muncie.’
‘Go ahead.’ Murf sniggered. ‘The great Arfa.’
Muncie started, then coughed and cleared his throat. He looked terrified. ‘Me? I run the second-hand shop down the road. Victoriana. You must have seen the sign.’
‘The only sign I see is “Palace Are Wankers”,’ said Hood.
‘I’m a Chelsea supporter,’ said Muncie. ‘Him, he’s for Arsenal.’
‘Arsenal rule,’ said Murf, and winked at Hood.
‘Cut the shit,’ said Hood. ‘What do you want?’
‘Arfa wants to buy that picture,’ said Murf.
‘What picture?’
‘The, um, poxy one upstairs.’
‘I’ll give you a tenner for it,’ said Muncie eagerly. ‘Too bad it don’t have a frame. Ones with them gold frames fetch up to twenty-five. More sometimes. Depends if they’re chipped.’
‘It’s not for sale,’ said Hood.
‘Give you another ten bob,’ said Muncie. ‘Okay, fifteen.’
‘You’re going to give me a case of worms if you keep that up.’
‘He was just asking,’ said Murf, seeing Hood’s face darken.
‘Get out,’ said Hood to Muncie. Muncie backed to the door and left. Hood turned to Murf. ‘You really have your head up your ass.’
‘Leave me alone.’
‘Sorry, I’ve got a job for you, sport.’
Hood explained what he wanted Murf to do. Murf refused. But Hood had a threat: he would tell Mayo that Murf was planning to sell her painting to his friend Muncie for ten pounds. Murf agreed and sulked until nightfall. In darkness they went to Lorna’s house and loaded the ice-cream van. Five trips were necessary, but Murf was interested, panting, the weight of the cases making him bow-legged as he tramped back and forth. ‘There’s more and all,’ he kept saying. ‘It’s fucking diabolical.’ Diabowicoo: he meant it; it was the first hint he’d had that Hood was mixed up in something unlawful. Until then, he had been antagonized by Hood’s mocking abuse; he suspected him of being an intruder. Hood jeered at him and he never had a reply. But he was impressed by t
he amount of loot and looked upon Hood with a new respect, an admiration for what this secret transfer of goods meant. Hood had talked tough, and now Murf believed he was tough. He grinned at all the television sets and strained and swore as he helped heave the metal trunks. ‘Diabolical. I wish Arfa could see this stuff. He’d shit.’
They carried it to the top of the house on Albacore Crescent and filled one of the unused middle rooms. The harvest of another impulse; Hood thought: I’m in it up to my neck.
‘I know where it come from,’ said Murf. ‘Fell off the back of a lorry, right?’
Weech’s phrase. Hood said, ‘Never mind.’
‘Who’s the bird?’
‘Which one?’
‘At the house, where we got all this stuff. I seen her mooching around upstairs.’ Murf licked his lips. ‘She’s got your nose open?’
Hood grabbed the front of Murf’s shirt and marched him backward against the wall. ‘There’s no bird,’ he said. ‘You didn’t see one, did you?’
‘Yes, no,’ said Murf. He gagged. ‘Hey, leave off!’
‘You didn’t see a house.’ He twisted Murf’s collar, choking him.
‘I can’t breeve!’ Murf’s eyes bugged out, his ear-ring danced.
‘Did you?’ said Hood softly.
‘Okay, okay,’ said Murf, and Hood let go.
‘You’re murder,’ said Hood. Murf rubbed his throat and looked uneasily at Hood, who said, ‘You’ve got a lot to learn.’
‘I won’t say nothing.’
‘Keep your friend Muncie out of here and your trap shut. You’ll be all right, but if I see you’ – he snatched at Murfs ear, but the boy ducked – ‘if I see you messing around again and shooting your mouth off, I’ll go ape-shit. And if I go ape-shit, pal, you’re in trouble.’
‘I’m knackered,’ said Murf. ‘Hey, want to turn on with me? Here, I’ll make you one.’ He fumbled with his cigarette papers and took out his stash.
‘Produce it.’
They squatted in the dimly lit hallway. Murf nudged him and said, ‘Muncie’s a fence, but nothing like this. Credible. Hey, I meet all these geezers and I think they’re posh, and they’re really villains. This old girl the other day and now you.’ He laughed at the thought of it and showed Hood the cigarette; he smiled in friendship moving his lips apart to reveal his stained tooth-pegs. ‘This all right?’
Hood said, ‘Make it a fat one, squire.’
The next day, Mayo said, ‘You found it?’
‘Right,’ said Hood. ‘Ask Murf.’
‘I don’t know nothing,’ said Murf.
‘But you know we found it, don’t you, squire?’
‘Oh, yeah, I know that,’ said Murf. ‘But I don’t know nothing else.’
‘So that’s why you wanted the van. I leave the house for six hours and I come back to a muddle. Give me the keys.’
Hood handed her the keys and said, ‘There’s no muddle, sweetheart. Everything’s fine. We found the stuff, now stop shouting.’
‘I think you’re lying,’ said Mayo.
‘You think I’m lying? Are you a screamer or what? Of course I’m lying.’
‘Then where did it come from?’
Hood said, ‘When I get a few answers from you, sweetie, you’ll get some from me.’
‘I’ve been straight with you.’
‘Sure you have. You haven’t told me a thing.’
‘It’s too soon. But I’ll tell you this. There’s something big, a Provo offensive in England. We don’t want to blow it.’
‘Hear that, Murf?’ said Hood.
‘Yeah.’
‘Something big. An offensive.’
‘Yeah.’
‘But she doesn’t want to blow it.’
Murf sniggered.
‘He thinks you’re full of crap,’ said Hood to Mayo. ‘He’s a bright boy.’
‘Hop it, Murf,’ said Mayo. ‘I want to talk to Hood alone.’
‘See you later, squire,’ said Hood. Murf winked and hunched out of the room.’
‘I’m glad you two are finally getting on.’
‘We’re pals, Murf and me. He doesn’t know whether to scratch his watch or wind his ass, but we’re pals.’
‘Those televisions upstairs, all those boxes,’ said Mayo. ‘I don’t like secrets.’
‘You’re not telling me anything, so I’m not telling you anything. I thought I could help. I can shoot and I can move faster than those drunks in Kilburn. But who do they trust? Teenagers – these tenth-rate screamers and tip-toes. It’s a joke, and so far I haven’t done a goddamned thing.’
‘You did that passport.’
‘It takes ten minutes to make a passport. They don’t even realize that it’s harder to forge a visa than a passport – ask any consul. Look, I didn’t join up to make passports. I joined to take scalps.’ Hood glared at Mayo. ‘Well, I get the message. I’m on my own.’
‘That’s not true,’ said Mayo. ‘We need you.’
‘Prove it,’ said Hood. ‘Tell me something I don’t know. Tell me why they’re stalling.’
‘They’re not stalling,’ said Mayo, but she turned away as she said it and Hood read evasion on her back.
‘Yes, they are,’ he said. ‘You’re trying to protect them. They’re supposed to be so efficient, but as soon as I saw Brodie I knew they were a bunch of amateurs. Professionals don’t risk a whole campaign by sending a kid like that to do the dirty work – and Murf has the political judgement of a tunafish. No, they’re beginners – like you with your painting. Sure, it’s a nice painting, but you’re the only one who thinks so. You’re wasting your time. All these secrets, all this waiting – tomorrow, next week, next year. It means one thing: they don’t know what they’re doing. They’ve got no skill, so they’ve got no nerve. And you want me to believe there’s some big secret! Honey, I know their secret – they’re incompetent. They’re stupid. They’re stalling. Admit it.’
‘They have got a plan, Val,’ said Mayo. ‘There’s going to be an English offensive. In terms of headlines, one bomb in Oxford Street is worth ten in Belfast.’
‘They’ve got a plan,’ he said. Their opiates were plans, plots, counterplots, circular stratagems, this drugged sentry-duty to which they attached importance. Threat and plot replaced action, the motions of militant bureaucracy blinded them to the fact that they had no power. But they were satisfied with the self-flattery of their secrets, like addicts sucking a pipe of smoking promises. ‘Well, they haven’t got me.’
‘Don’t say that. If you leave I’ll be blamed. I told them we could trust you.’
‘Did they need you to say that?’
‘You’re an American. You were in the State Department. How were they supposed to know you weren’t a spy or –’
‘They thought I was a spook?’ he said sharply.
‘At first.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’
‘Because I knew you weren’t.’
‘How do they know I’m not one now?’
‘The passport you made. It worked. He wasn’t picked up, whoever used it.’
‘I still think it’s a pretty sloppy outfit. You can tell them I said so.’
‘Maybe I will.’
‘And another thing,’ said Hood. ‘Tell them I know they’re stalling. They’ve got a plan. Big deal – a plan is just a piece of paper, or in their case one Guinness too many. Any drunk can have a plan. There’s only one thing to do and that’s act. What are they waiting for?’
‘All right,’ said Mayo, fatigued by the argument. ‘Something’s gone wrong. There, are you happy now?’
‘What is it?’
‘I can’t tell you. I don’t know.’
‘They’re drunk.’
‘It’s serious. Something to do with supplies. All the contacts were made – that’s why they needed the passport. They think they’ve been burned.’
‘Supplies,’ said Hood. ‘You’re talking about hardware. What about their supply-lines? Wha
t kind of mob is this?’
‘This isn’t America, Val. We don’t buy machine-guns at the local iron-mongers. We have to get them on the continent – from Arabs, thugs, anyone. Then they have to get them into the country. It’s bloody hard.’
‘You’re wrong, sister. It’s easy,’ said Hood. ‘Just send one of those creeps around here and I’ll tell him how.’
‘You’re so belligerent all of a sudden,’ said Mayo. ‘You’ve got all the answers, haven’t you? Well, I saw that room full of stuff upstairs. What do you propose to do with your twenty television sets?’
Hood said, ‘Get twenty people and watch them.’
Mayo shrugged, but the talk had rattled her; she started out of the room.
Hood said, ‘And what do you propose to do with your painting?’
‘I don’t want to think about it,’ she said.
‘I’ll be sorry if they pay your ransom,’ he said, ‘I’m beginning to like it.’
The painting’s secret had been revealed slowly. It had changed from day to day, from week to week, and now nearly a month since he first saw it the image had set. It was definite. He had seen Rogier as confused, furious, hesitant, holy, insane; one day the thin smile was mocking, the next day it was benign, then it was not a smile at all but a mouth mastering pain. It was the portrait of a villain in black. It was a patrician gentleman gleaming with wealth. It was an anxious bridegroom pausing at the window of experience. It was an ikon with saintly hands and small feet, a man suffering an obscure martyrdom, his soul shining in his face. Hood gave it titles: ‘The Expelled Consul’. ‘The Jailer Lord’, ‘The Hangman’, ‘Death Eating a Cracker’. One time it was not a man at all; he’d had an opium dream in which it was revealed as a woman, slender, like a heron in black, with small breasts, a dainty griffin standing in a high attic – the onset of loneliness, the moment of widowhood. All these, then none of these. The legs were apart, the boots planted almost athletically on the square of carpet; the arms were rising on the handle of a silver dagger, the eyes were awakened with fury and pricked by the red light of imagination. The neck was tensed to turn, the hands to fight. It was the instant between decision and movement, a split-second of calm. It was, passionately, a man of action.
