The Family Arsenal

by Paul Theroux

  Brodie shrugged. ‘I’d feel funny.’

  ‘We could go to bed and have all our secrets there.’

  Brodie squinted, as if she had just then forgotten something she had always known.

  ‘I’ve shocked you,’ said Lady Arrow.

  ‘No,’ said Brodie. ‘A chick fancied me once. In the nick it was. I done it with her.’

  ‘So you know how beautiful it is.’

  Brodie screwed up her face, pretending a look of comic disgust, seeming to swallow something foul.

  ‘Don’t you?’ said Lady Arrow.

  Brodie was shaking her head. She said, ‘Yuck!’

  Then she was running across the humpy top of the hill, her hair flying like a pennant as she ducked around trees, growing smaller. Lady Arrow watched: she was out of reach, running away as children always did, making no allowance for the very slow. The afternoon mist and low sky made a great brown canvas of the park on which Brodie was an elusive flag of paint among the trees, a brushstroke. Lady Arrow leaned into the steep path and trudged towards the darting figure. She stopped several times to get her breath and felt almost defeated knowing she was chasing her in the most hopeless way and could only catch her if the girl allowed it.

  In the living room of Mortimer Lodge, Araba was saying, ‘But she’s not one of your prisoners, is she?’

  ‘I thought you’d like her.’

  ‘She’s spoiled and she’s too young.’ Araba sipped her mug of coffee. The mug was chipped, her jeans were stained with paint and bleach, and she sat on the arm of the sofa with a kind of awkward arrogance, like a workman in a large strange house. ‘I’ve had it up here with these rich girls playing at politics.’

  ‘You must be joking,’ said Lady Arrow, and she laughed at the thought of Brodie being considered rich. But she was vindicated in her belief: Araba had taken the girl’s carelessness – poverty’s legacy – for freedom. She saw that Araba was annoyed and said, ‘She’s the real thing.’

  ‘I can’t stand her affectations. That blazer is a dead giveaway.’

  ‘She liberated it from a second-hand shop.’

  ‘Really, Susannah, you shouldn’t waste your time with girls like that. There are so many people who need attention – why pick on one of your own?’

  ‘So that’s why you’re being rude to her.’

  ‘She’s not my type.’

  ‘She’d be interested in your work.’

  ‘My work would scare the daylights out of her.’

  Brodie entered the room holding McGravy’s dog. She said, ‘He thought he could get away from me, but I was too fast for him.’

  ‘Poldy’s got high blood pressure,’ said Araba. ‘Do be careful with him.’

  ‘How do you like Araba’s new house?’ said Lady Arrow.

  ‘Far out,’ said Brodie. ‘But ours is bigger, ain’t it? You can play hide and seek in ours.’

  Lady Arrow saw Araba’s ears move in satisfaction. She said, ‘Brodie lives in a marvellous old house in Deptford with her friends.’

  ‘I imagine that must make your parents absolutely furious.’

  ‘My father run off when I was a baby,’ said Brodie. ‘And my mother, she don’t have a clue.’

  Lady Arrow said, ‘I think Brodie would get on terribly well with your friend Anna, that pretty little Trot.’

  ‘We expelled her,’ said Araba.

  ‘They’re always expelling people,’ said Lady Arrow to Brodie. ‘They’re famous for it. It sounds such fun. I once thought of expelling Mrs Pount, but she’d be ever so sad if I did.’

  ‘It’s not funny,’ said Araba. ‘I was expelled myself not long ago.’

  ‘Who would do a thing like that?’ said Lady Arrow.

  ‘I can’t go into it – not in present company.’

  The women were on chairs, facing each other across twenty feet of carpet, in the centre of which Brodie sat crosslegged, playing with the dog. She was like a bored child forced indoors by her aunts, who made an effort from time to time to include her in the conversation and who spoke with self-conscious care, knowing they had a young listener.

  ‘And how is Peter Pan?’ said Lady Arrow. ‘They haven’t expelled you from that I hope.’

  ‘Rehearsals start in a few weeks,’ said Araba. ‘It’s a headache – I’ve got so many other things to do. I have to take lessons on the wire. It’s a complete bore, learning to fly.’

  ‘It sounds super,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘Did you hear that, my love – she’s learning to fly!’

  ‘When I was at the home,’ said Brodie, ‘they took us to see Peter Pan one Christmas.’

  ‘And did you like it?’ asked Lady Arrow.

  ‘The part with the pirates was pretty freaky,’ said Brodie. ‘I can’t remember the rest. I think it was too long.’

  ‘Your political affairs must take up a great deal of your time, Araba,’ said Lady Arrow turning away from Brodie.

  ‘The League? It’s the only thing that keeps me sane.’

  ‘How many members do you have?’

  ‘That’s a reporter’s question, Susannah. You know better than to ask that.’

  ‘I love secrets,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘I only wish I had some myself. Perhaps I do!’

  ‘How did you get into it?’ asked Brodie, holding the dog on her lap and letting him gnaw her wrist.

  ‘Historical necessity,’ said Araba. ‘It had to happen. You can’t ignore what’s going on around you. You take it for just so long and then something snaps.’

  ‘I never thought of it that way,’ said Brodie.

  ‘It can be a very humbling thing to know how much power you really have. I’m not talking about playing around with it, the political protest wank that only makes you feel good – that doesn’t change anything. No, I mean, when you realize that there are thousands, just like you –’

  Brodie was shaking her head, laughing softly and stroking the dog.

  ‘I can see you’re not very impressed,’ said Araba. ‘But I’ll lend you a book if you like.’

  ‘I read one.’

  ‘And what did you think of it?’

  ‘Too long,’ said Brodie.

  ‘There speaks the voice of innocence – innocence is a form of laziness, isn’t it? The young and their all-purpose comments. I must remember that – it was too long!’

  ‘It’s probably a fair comment,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘I don’t know. I’m hopelessly out of my depth with political theory.’

  Araba said, ‘I’m so sick of the young, I’m so tired of hearing about them and seeing them courted.’ She turned to Brodie and said crossly, ‘You don’t know anything, but if you listen you’ll see you have a part to play.’

  ‘No,’ said Brodie.

  ‘You might be surprised,’ said Araba.

  Brodie said, ‘I could never play Peter Pan.’

  ‘Oh, Lord,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘Didn’t I tell you?’

  ‘It’s not that the book was boring,’ Brodie explained. ‘I liked the pirates. But the flying! I’d freak out on that wire. I’m afraid of heights.’

  ‘Tell her about the League,’ said Lady Arrow.

  ‘I don’t want to alarm her,’ said Araba.

  ‘She won’t be alarmed.’

  ‘Then she won’t understand.’

  ‘I’m stupid,’ said Brodie. ‘Right? That’s what you’re saying. I’m stupid – I don’t know nothing.’

  Araba blushed slightly and said, ‘We’re mainly Trots, but some are outright anarchists or anarchosyndicalists. Are you with me?’

  The dog barked. Brodie giggled and patted him.

  ‘It’s a grass-roots movement of workers, the only viable alternative to the existing power structure of hacks and exploiters.’ Araba got to her feet. ‘It’s a party committed to action on all fronts.’

  ‘I like parties,’ said Brodie.

  ‘She’s really quite passionate,’ said Lady Arrow.

  ‘Stuff your praise,’ said Araba. ‘We’re not part-timers. And I warn you we�
��re not joking. Any corrupt government is bound to fail – this one will, and when it does we’ll be there to take over.’

  ‘Then you’ll be the big shits,’ said Brodie.

  ‘No,’ said Araba, ‘because then we’ll hand it over to the people.’

  ‘The word “people” is so bald,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘ “People” – that’s what politicians say. Who are they, the people?’

  ‘They’re, like, mainly the straights, aren’t they?’ said Brodie. ‘It’s everyone except the freaks.’

  ‘What a jolly good definition,’ said Lady Arrow.

  ‘I don’t think you want to hear anymore,’ said Araba.

  ‘I think Brodie would like you to be specific,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘You’ve been awfully abstract with your people and your grass-roots.’

  ‘I could scare you with specifics.’

  ‘Go on, try,’ said Lady Arrow, and she sat forward and took a pinch of snuff.

  ‘Well, for one thing we haven’t ruled out the possibility of confrontation.’

  Brodie said, ‘Hey, what’s this dog’s name again?’

  ‘I mean direct action,’ said Araba, ignoring Brodie. ‘In a word, Susannah – violence.’

  ‘Bombs,’ said Lady Arrow.

  ‘Oh, bombs,’ said Brodie, chucking Poldy under the jaw, making him growl.

  ‘It frightens you, doesn’t it?’ said Araba.

  ‘Only if I think about it a little,’ said Brodie. ‘Like these clocks they use are so poky, all done up with sticking-plaster and that, they can blow up when you’re legging them.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ said Araba, but her green eyes were electric and she looked closely at Brodie.

  ‘I’m telling you straight,’ said Brodie. ‘Sometimes they go wrong. Say the hands get muddled up and they’re touching the screw and you can’t see them. They’re so feeble you can hardly tell when it’s legged anyway. Then you twist the wires over and as soon as they, like, touch, it’s the last act, ain’t it?’

  ‘What does that mean?’ said Araba.

  ‘You’ve had it. You’re snuffed. You’re wiped out.’

  Lady Arrow stared at her. She had been on the point of taking some more snuff, but she stopped her hand halfway to her nose and held it there, at shoulder level and a little forward, as if resting her hand on an invisible shelf. She said, ‘Have you some experience of these things, my darling?’

  ‘A little bit,’ said Brodie, and hung her head.

  ‘It’s considered very fashionable to know a bomber,’ said Araba. ‘A few years ago it was Yorkshiremen. Then it was Africans. Now it’s bombers. Your girlfriends must envy you.’

  ‘I don’t have no girlfriends.’

  ‘Well, your gang.’

  ‘It’s not a gang,’ said Brodie. ‘It’s more a bunch of people. A family, like.’

  Lady Arrow said, ‘I’ve met a number of them. They’re quite impressive.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Araba. ‘It sounds a great hoot. After that, our League would strike you as rather dull.’

  ‘If you’re into bovver,’ said Brodie, ‘it might not be so bad.’

  ‘I take it you are into bother, as you say?’ said Araba.

  ‘It’s the only way, ain’t it? You said so yourself – everything’s rotten. It’s a rip-off.’

  ‘But what’s your programme?’

  ‘Bovver,’ said Brodie. ‘Just bovver.’

  ‘She’s a Trot way down,’ said Lady Arrow proudly. ‘A true anarchist.’

  ‘I doubt very much whether she knows the word.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Brodie. ‘It sounds like some creepy church.’

  ‘You see?’ said Lady Arrow. ‘No theories. It’s as simple as football. I love her directness. You should listen to her, Araba.’

  ‘You’re welcome to stay,’ said Araba. ‘We’ve got plenty of room.’

  ‘She can‘t.’

  ‘If Hood don’t find out, it’s all right,’ said Brodie.

  ‘No, you’re coming with me,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘We can come back tomorrow. Or better still, Araba might like to visit Hill Street.’

  ‘Did you say Hood?’ Araba knelt in front of Brodie, who still held the dog on her lap.

  ‘It’s this bloke,’ said Brodie.

  ‘You’re going to miss your lesson,’ said Lady Arrow standing up.

  Araba looked at her watch and frowned in impatience. ‘Damn,’ she said, ‘I’ve got to go. But tell me something, Brodie –’

  Lady Arrow went to the door and called Brodie: she was insistent, demanding in the tone a tired mother might use that Brodie follow her, but the fucking girl wouldn’t move. She said, ‘I’m going,’ but didn’t go. She watched the small girl on the floor answering the actress’s questions. ‘Don’t keep her, my darling,’ said Lady Arrow sharply. ‘She’s learning to fly!’

  19

  They arrived late at Paddington Cemetery in Kilburn, and walking down the central path between the close rows of tombstones – following Mayo’s instructions – Murf was apologizing to Hood for having caused the delay. At Queen’s Park Station Murf had said, ‘Wait,’ and when the other passengers had gone he took a felt-tipped pen from his pocket and wrote ARSENAL RULE on the wall. He did it purposefully, clinging to the tiles with one hand and making the letters line by line like a child copying his name. He inked them in heavily. Then he walked away and turned to squint at it. He was not satisfied; he wrote it again on the wall next to the door, while Hood watched him with puzzled amusement.

  ‘I’m really sorry about that,’ Murf was saying in a low voice. His feet scuffed the gravel regretfully. The long black raincoat he had bought to match Hood’s flapped about him, beating like a cape in the wind. ‘I think I made us late.’

  Ah fink. He slouched ahead, his coat rising, and he kicked at the path as if blaming himself by punishing his feet. The cemetery was in darkness; the lights shining just above the wall put the whole place in shadow, whitening only the tops of the tombstones so that they were like the peaks of ice chunks frozen in a still black pool. Outside the cemetery the air was soaked pale yellow, like a low cloud of poison, the effect of the sodium street lamps. The sound of their footsteps was deadened by the baffles of the tombs and they could hear their words ring once at the edge of the path and die as the echoes were stifled against the dark marble blocks. A black pool of ice; but when they had crossed it several times Hood saw the cemetery as a walled-in ruin, the sturdy cellar of an ancient toppled building, with the rows of its foundation stones exposed – these broken steeples and cracked posts, and their chains and scabs of moss, pushed up to the path. The ones that caught the light were chalky and pitted like old bones, and the wind groaned through them making the cluttered place seem mournfully empty. This was how the whole of London might look if it was devastated by bombs: miles and miles of shallow moaning cellars.

  Hood said – and he was careful not to laugh – ‘Do you always write that?’

  The previous night, at the dog track, Murf had stopped running to make the same slogan on the exit gate – a rash afterthought, since they had no way of knowing whether they were being chased by Rutter’s men. Even fleeing, Murf had paused to use his felt-tip! On the platform at Catford Bridge he had explained, ‘If you do it right, it sort of jumps out at you.’

  ‘Habit,’ Murf said. He gathered his coat against the wind. ‘Couple of years ago I lived up in Penge. Arfa and me. And we had these mates. We called ourselves “the Penge Boys” – boot-boys, like. I was a kid, about fifteen at the time, I was. Yeah, I was had up – threatnen behaviour, utterin menaces – but I got off easy. We just hung out and we used to write stuff on the walls, “Penge Rule”, “Wankers Support Palace”, that kind of shit. Then, you started calling the house a flipping arsenal – remember? When you saw me clocks? “Don’t let no one in this arsenal without permission,” you said. So I got this idea. Let’s start advertising. Arsenal Rule, and that. It’s like I say – it’s a habit.’

&nb
sp; In the whole time Hood had known him he had never said so much about himself. Murf was silent for a minute, as if wondering about his own candour, discovering embarrassment.

  Finally, Hood said, ‘But won’t people think it’s the football team?’

  ‘Right,’ said Murf. ‘That’s the funny part.’

  ‘I get it,’ said Hood, but he was glad it was too dark for Murf to see his face.

  ‘Like no one knows. You write down Arsenal and everyone thinks it’s the team. Right? Only it ain’t. Right? It’s our secret family, like, and no one has a fucking clue.’ He chuckled. “ ‘Right on,” they’re saying, “Up Arsenal” and they don’t even know they’re supporting us. That’s the best part.’ He showed Hood his shadowy face, his lighted ears, the glint of his ear-ring, then he burped. ‘They don’t know nothing, the wankers.’

  Hood said, ‘Some advertising.’

  They walked to the upper end of the path and paused for a moment. Nothing moved, and in that enormous tract of shadows there was no sound but the wind tearing at the half-hidden stones and grass. Startled by the silence they turned and headed down the path, as if seeking to be calmed by the muffled crunching of their own footsteps.

  Murf said, ‘I hate this boneyard.’

  He tramped against the wind, with his small head down and his black coat wrapped around him. He tottered forward, hunched like a deaf bat. And Hood could hear his murmured singing, ‘Boom widdy-widdy, Boom widdy-widdy, boom-boom.’

  Hood had not said anything about the night before, but he could see that Murf was glad to have been able to do him the favour. They were friends; now there was no question of it. Before, he had shown his loyalty in unlikely ways. Hood had stuck by him, defended him against Mayo’s sneers, and to show his thanks Murf had redecorated the bathroom. The little deception over the painting – Lady Arrow’s intrusion – had secured their friendship. Murf had tagged along behind him for that; and the fight at the dog track had lifted Murf’s mood and made him candid. Yet Hood wondered how he had gone from being a boot-boy in Penge to a bomber for the Provos. He had no particular belief; he had a crude skill. Hood was amazed that Murf had been able to follow him for an entire day without once showing himself. He was small, but not that small. Tonight Murf was especially grateful. Before they left the house Mayo said that Murf was to stay behind, but Hood insisted he come and said, ‘He’s my secret weapon.’