Assassins and Victims

by Campbell Armstrong

  ‘Silence,’ I said.

  I could hear the dog clearly. But it wasn’t a particularly objectionable noise. It was recognisably the moan of a frustrated and lonely dog, but it wasn’t anything to get worked up over.

  ‘Listen,’ Eric cried. ‘Can you hear him? Can you hear that?’

  ‘We’ll start making plans tomorrow,’ I said.

  I closed my eyes and the cries grew fainter the nearer I got to sleep. My beauties, my glorious summer creatures, paraded themselves in their burned splendour along the sand. I was judging a contest, but it was no ordinary beauty contest. The winner would have the pleasure of my bed.

  I fell asleep. Rex didn’t disturb me at all. I did wake once when it was light though, on account of Eric’s terrible snore.

  3

  When I woke in the morning, Eric was standing over the bed.

  ‘I have to go to the factory now,’ he said. ‘But if you feel hungry there’s some bacon in the cupboard and a box of eggs.’

  He was dressed in his long gaberdine coat, which was still damp and stiff and smelling of rubber, and there was a cloth cap pulled down tight on his head.

  ‘How’s your back?’ he asked.

  I groaned a little for his benefit and he stood there making sympathetic noises. When he was gone I closed my eyes and pulled the blankets up to my chin. Rain was hammering on the window and panes of glass were rattling in the wind; a foul morning. On such mornings I have a tendency to think of my life in terms of what might have been, in terms of nostalgia for objects and persons past and lost – an uncharacteristic luxury for a selfish bugger like me. But such thoughts, interesting though they may be in themselves, reveal perhaps a basic weakness in my psychology – to wit, the need to find some saving grace in a personality almost totally self-centred. Unfortunately I can never find the saving grace, and even the most tender memories are somehow blighted by my own actions. There was Rose, for instance, dear Rose, a Swansea girl who came up to London on a day-trip and who never went back because she had the misfortune to collide with me on the pavement outside Selfridges. I had been acting as a guide at that time and had just managed to lose a party of Americans somewhere between the second and third floors, when Rose came my way. She ended up that night in the narrow bed of my dingy Kensington bedsitter, her knickers strewn across the floor, her virginity taken. It may have been because I was the first to have her, or it may have been something clean she saw in my personality – God knows what – but the fact is, she attached herself to me like a snivelling dog to its master.

  My mode of life, reckless and uncertain, wasn’t suited to the demands of a woman like Rose, however pleasant and sweet she may have been. I returned home at all hours, I was irregular, I didn’t conform to the patterns of the man-woman relationship that the Baptist Church had indoctrinated into her. She wanted marriage, and possibly what was left of my soul, and I wanted out. It was a confining relationship that became alarming when she started talking about taking me down to Swansea to meet Mum and Dad. Swansea was bad enough without having her parents thrown in – so what did I do? Like the bastard I am, I arranged to meet her at Paddington Station but instead caught a bus that took me in the opposite direction. I never saw her again. I was thankful, but it proved a chastening kind of experience: I realised that I was committed to one kind of life and that the semi-detached ideal, the kids and the prams and the mortgages and the lawns to mow, left me unmoved. Poor Rose, you might say. But she was better out of it. I hope that she went to Swansea and that she married a coalminer or somebody who keeps regular hours and doesn’t bash her too much.

  I was thinking about all this, unfeelingly as ever, when the redhead came into the room. With my head partially covered by the blankets she obviously mistook me for Eric, for she started to shake me gently back and forward. I pushed the blankets away and looked at her.

  ‘You aren’t Eric,’ she said.

  She moved away from the bed and sat in the chair facing me.

  ‘You’re observant,’ I said. ‘I like that quality in a woman.’

  ‘Where’s Eric?’

  ‘Gone to his factory or to his salt-mines or wherever.’

  She was small and neat and although she was worn she wasn’t too bad to look at. Her long red hair fell about her shoulders. She was wearing a nightdress that was short and transparent and through which I could make out plainly her nipples and the folds in her belly. A dressing-gown was thrown around her shoulders, but she hadn’t done up the buttons. Her face carried the smears of yesterday’s make-up, streaks of eye-shadow, pale lipstick.

  ‘I didn’t expect to find somebody else here,’ she said.

  ‘Matthew Churchill’s the name,’ I said. ‘But I use a nom de plume, so you might not have heard of me.’

  ‘A nom-de-what?’

  ‘Plume,’ I answered. ‘An implement of some six inches in length, which is sometimes dipped into a narrow-necked bottle.’

  She looked at me blankly, although I think she understood the allusion. I pushed back the blankets and sat on the edge of the bed. I was wearing only my underpants.

  ‘Well, who are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Churchill, Matthew,’ I said. ‘To save you asking the question, no, I’m not a relation of the famous family –’

  ‘I mean, what are you doing here?’

  My powers of invention are at their peak in the early morning. At any other time of the day I have to fall back on a stock of stale lies or sweat over something new. But in the morning I am fresh.

  ‘Allow me to explain,’ I said. ‘I’m working on a book about the suicide rate among those who live lonely lives in bedsits. You might say that I’m here to get the feel of the subject.’

  She sniggered.

  ‘When I’ve written the book I’ll submit it to the London School of Economics for my Ph.D. thesis.’

  ‘What’s it got to do with economics?’ she asked.

  Awkward woman. ‘Academic life has its peculiarities.’ I said.

  She let it go at that. She said, ‘Well, it seems a bit morbid. You don’t think that Eric’s going to do himself in, do you?’

  ‘You never know,’ I replied.

  She went to the cooker and put on the kettle and then she returned to her chair. The nightdress had risen to a careless height on her thighs.

  ‘We’ll have a cup of tea,’ she said.

  There was silence for a time. I have this ability of being able to smell when a woman’s available, when she’s bedable, as it were. And it seemed a safe bet that the redhead would have come across in a flash. But although my powers of invention may be at their peak, my stamina is at its lowest ebb in the mornings and sex is beyond my capacity. So I contented myself simply with staring at her body. The breasts were flabby and hung a little, and there was too much spare flesh on the belly. But for all that she was acceptable: I wouldn’t have refused it.

  I could also see that she was interested in me. Now and again her eyes wandered down my chest as far as my crutch and remained there, fixed for a moment, before they’d start to move back up again. She performed this visual movement several times. For my part, I stared at the shadowy region just under her belly.

  The kettle began to whistle and she rose to make tea.

  She brought me a cup and stood in front of me as I sipped it.

  ‘Tastes nice,’ I said.

  ‘By the way, my name’s Agnes.’

  ‘Married?’

  She made a face and laughed with contempt.

  ‘I haven’t seen the bastard for six years, darling,’ she said. ‘Are you married?’

  ‘It hasn’t happened to me yet,’ I said. ‘I don’t think that marriage and the academic life go together.’

  She drank some of her tea and lit a cigarette.

  ‘It must be frustrating for you,’ I said.

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘I’m not a nun, if that’s what you mean.’

  She began to scratch her thigh. I watched her fingers move across t
he flesh, scrabbling like a crab rushing to get under a stone.

  ‘Filthy old morning,’ she said.

  Looking at her, I had the distinct impression that I was seeing a woman who was at her prime. She had been knocked about a bit, obviously, but she had resisted some of the deterioration that goes along with it. I reckoned that in six months, or a year, she wouldn’t be worth having. She had transferred her scratching hand to her armpits. First she attacked the one, next the other.

  ‘That’s hard work,’ I remarked.

  ‘I’m always itchy when I get up,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe you’re on heat,’ I said.

  ‘Who knows?’ she asked, and she looked at me coolly.

  I got up from the bed and stretched myself. While I was doing this, I was conscious of her watching me.

  Suddenly she said, ‘Did the dog disturb you last night?’

  ‘I didn’t lose any sleep over it,’ I answered.

  ‘I think Eric exaggerates a bit,’ she said, and sat down. She began to tell me about how Mr Peluzzi had been standing on the front steps one night, smoking his pipe and watching people go back and forward in the street. His wife called out that his supper was ready, at which point he pitched forward on his face. Dead. Just like that. Failure of the heart.

  It had been a great shock to everybody. Mr Peluzzi, with tattoos on his broad arms, had been the picture of health. Never a day’s illness and all that.

  ‘What a sad story,’ I said, beginning to fidget.

  ‘Isn’t it? That’s how it goes, I suppose. But you can see why Rex plays up a bit at night, can’t you? He misses his master. I’ve told Eric that. But it’s a funny thing; I don’t think he takes things in very quickly, does he?’

  ‘Oh, he’s slow,’ I said.

  ‘Have you known him long?’ She took a battered cigarette from her dressing-gown and lit it.

  ‘All my life,’ I said. ‘He’s a distant cousin, in fact. But we come from different branches of the family. On his side they’re all manual workers in low social categories. On my side we’re scholars and industrialists.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, as if a penny had suddenly dropped.

  The way she was sitting seemed an invitation to me. The hem of the nightdress lay dangerously around the top of her hip and the nipples, visible through the flimsy garment, were pointed and firm. I reproached myself for my lack of stamina: but what can you do if you’re strictly a night athlete? if you can perform only under the secrecy of dark? Does that indicate a sense of guilt in the sexual act? God. Had my parents, drunk or sober, taught me anything? I knew I’d only have to approach her – and bang. But I felt limp, used, devoid of any real urge.

  She had tilted her head to one side and was examining me. Her eyes, tight from sleep, flicked up and down my naked chest, lingered around the area of my crutch, swept downwards along my legs. Another time, I thought: but soon.

  ‘Is Eric a queer?’ she asked.

  ‘Queer? Funny you should say that, because I’ve often wondered myself –’

  ‘You’d better look out,’ she said.

  She finished her tea and then placed the cup neatly in the sink. She made no attempt to wash it.

  ‘Mind you, I’ve nothing against queers. You’ve got to live and let live in this world, don’t you think?’

  ‘Too true,’ I said, wondering if other profundities were locked away in her head. I reached for my shirt and pulled it over my head. Through the thin fabric I took a good look at her. Because she supposed that I couldn’t see her, her gaze was fastened unashamedly to my crutch and her tongue appeared, a tiny yellow thing, that swept once quickly across her lips – as if she were working up an appetite. I pushed my head through the collar and winked at her, but she turned her face away.

  ‘Filthy old morning,’ she said, looking at the rain against the window.

  She threw her cigarette into the hearth and watched it burn on the tiles.

  ‘Eric’s funny about tidiness,’ she said. ‘He gives me the creeps the way he goes around keeping everything in place. And look at that lot on the mantelpiece. I mean, he’s a grown man, it’s not right. Christ, what does he want with a bloody golliwog?’

  ‘He’ll grow out of it,’ I said. I noticed that she was sitting on my trousers. That meant I’d have to approach her if I wanted to retrieve them and I didn’t fancy getting too close to her. She seemed the sort who might possibly just reach out and grab herself a handful if she felt like it. So I said, ‘You’re sitting on my trousers.’

  ‘Am I? Why don’t you come and get them then?’

  ‘I would do – except that my leg is a bit painful this morning. Would you throw them here?’

  ‘Leg,’ she said, with a certain amount of disbelief. She picked up the trousers and brought them over to the bed. ‘That was just an excuse to get me to come to you, wasn’t it?’

  She sat beside me and placed her hand on my thigh. I smiled at her. The trousers slipped on to the carpet and I looked at them.

  ‘I don’t need excuses,’ I said.

  ‘Oooh, this bed’s nice and soft,’ she said, bouncing herself up and down. ‘And it’s springy, I like springy beds.’

  ‘It’s comfortable,’ I said.

  Her hand worked up to the elastic of my underpants and she was breathing heavily against the side of my face. There was the odour of last week’s tobacco and tomorrow’s dental decay.

  ‘You wanted me as soon as you saw me, didn’t you, darling? As soon as I came in the room …’

  I thought of myself, stupidly, like an owl, a thing that comes out only after dark, that stirs into life only after the sun has vanished. Rose used to say that I was only fit to make tea in the mornings. Poor bloody Rose.

  The tips of her fingers moved towards my testicles.

  I had the sensation of being raped. Somehow it’s a feeling that reduces your masculinity to a pulpy nothingness, as if castrated, chewed, broken.

  She pressed her dry lips to my neck, fastened her teeth to a sensitive area just below my ear.

  I stared at the rain on the window. I knew, from a hundred absurd experiences, that I couldn’t have raised a whisper, let alone what Agnes expected me to raise, at that particular moment.

  ‘Oh, oh,’ she said.

  And then the door of the room was pushed open suddenly and a young man dressed in a paint-stained jacket was standing there. Agnes sprung to a position of propriety and said.

  ‘Hello, Roderick.’

  Roderick said, ‘I was looking for Eric, actually.’

  I said, ‘He’s gone to work.’

  ‘Isn’t it Sunday?’ Roderick asked.

  ‘It’s Thursday,’ Agnes said, getting up from the bed.

  Hastily I pulled on my trousers and fumbled for a cigarette.

  ‘I could have sworn,’ Roderick said. ‘When I woke up the morning had this draggy, dead religious thing about it, and I thought, God, it’s Sunday. How could I have been mistaken?’

  ‘It’s an easy mistake to make,’ I said. ‘Especially if you’re walking across the Sahara without water.’

  Agnes, deflated, went to the door.

  ‘Come down for a drink sometime,’ she said to me.

  ‘Thank you,’ I answered. ‘I will.’

  When she had gone, Roderick lingered a moment in the open doorway.

  ‘Eric’s been having this awful trouble with a dog. He was trying to hire a man –’

  ‘To kill the beast?’ I said.

  Roderick stroked his chin and looked pensive.

  ‘Are you going to do it?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s hard to say at this point,’ I answered. ‘Various contractual difficulties have arisen that will have to be straightened out before any further moves are possible.’

  He leaned against the wall and drummed his fingers against the side of his leg. There was something arrogant and casual in his stance that suggested he was used to far better surroundings than those he now found himself in. That accent – Eto
n and Cambridge? That mien – hunt balls and the enclosure at Royal Ascot? There was a smell of money somewhere in the background that I responded to at once. But I had to resist any urge to ask questions and plan a strategy, if only because I had enough on my plate at that time. Some of the best opportunities offer themselves at impossible moments. But it’s a sick, contrary world we live in. Roderick looked simple and rich, a combination I’d dreamed and drooled over every time I’d counted the odd halfpennies of some old spinster’s life savings: bottom drawers that remained always at the bottom, unfingered by man. Now I would have to shrug and pass the matter over.

  Besides, I felt indebted to him for having extricated me, however unwittingly, from a nasty spot. Agnes had been a millimetre away, a gasp away, from discovering my morning impotency. That was a chink in my armour that I preferred to keep to myself. Being in the business of exploiting weaknesses, it’s suicide to expose one’s own.

  ‘He’s offered you twenty quid, has he?’ Roderick asked.

  ‘I prefer not to say,’ I said.

  ‘As you wish, man.’ He pushed himself off the wall and ran one hand through his long, girlish hair. And then he turned and went out of the room, closing the door.

  I heated up what remained of the tea in the pot and fried two eggs. And then I put the dirty dishes in the sink for Eric to clean.

  After that I stood at the window and looked out on the miserable morning.

  That was when I had my first sight of the dreaded Rex.

  He was lying flat on the concrete yard next door, his paws stretched, his snout somewhere between his legs. From time to time he looked up, blinked at the rain, and then covered his head again. His black fur glistened from the rain and – if dogs can have attributed to them human qualities – his expression was one of the utmost misery and despair. I thought it odd that Mrs Peluzzi had not provided a kennel, or some form of shelter at least, or failing that why did she not take the creature indoors in such weather? But that wasn’t my problem.