Neptune Yacht Club, Steam Section, 1913
‘That was almost the last photograph they had taken. Just before the blood-letting started in France. We did a lot of work for the sailing section, too. More sense to that. They raced each other – new modifications every year, to sail faster. But the steam section was pure showing off. Couldn’t even race the things properly . . . Now that model of the Dreadnought we do have. Made a dozen of those . . .’
Two hours later, our heads spinning with technical detail, and our lungs fuzzy with fag-smoke, we took our leave and departed, with profuse thanks.
‘Come again, any time. You’ll find me here. Nowhere else to go to. World’s full of damned young women, constantly nagging me about smoking. As if it would make any difference at my age . . .’
‘Samuel Hutchinson, 39 Belvoir Road,’ said Hermione thoughtfully, as we walked back to the car.
I thought about Abbeywalk being in Belvoir Road as well: but guilty feelings kept me silent.
‘Eighty years ago,’ I said. ‘World’s full of Hutchinsons, I’ll bet.’
‘I’ll put adverts in. The Times and Telegraph personal columns. It might do some good.’
‘He was ready to do a deal with you on the spot; twelve thousand quid. He wouldn’t have asked any questions . . .’
‘Unlike you, Morgan, I happen to have a conscience.’
We had lunch at a pub I know, on the way home. Gave us time to get over Mr Makepeace; try to work out how old he was.
‘He was away at school before the First World War,’ I said to Hermione. ‘That makes him at least eighty-two.’
‘And the rest. Still got all his marbles, though.’
‘An old stag at bay. I liked that. They won’t shove him into any old people’s home . . .’
‘Probably end up running it, if they did. Didn’t like the son much . . .’
‘The son’s made of plastic and the father’s made of oak.’
‘Why, Morgan, you have got a poetic soul after all! When money’s not involved.’
We drove home in a high good humour. Innocent lambs to the slaughter.
The smell hit us, as soon as we arrived home and opened the car doors. It seemed ten times worse. Really evil.
‘Look at the stuff they’re pumping out now. They must be very near the end . . .’
The gutters were clogged with black slime. Fresh waves moved downhill like treacle, then gave up moving, leaving a fresh layer. It was more like lava from a volcano than water. Holding our noses, we walked round to the workshop. It seemed abnormally quiet.
‘Hallo?’ I called.
There was a feeble greeting from the back, and none other than Lenny emerged from behind a row of wardrobes, with a clean yellow duster and a tin of polish in his hands. How often had I told him not to put on polish with clean yellow dusters? I buy rags for that.
‘Oh, so you’ve come back, then?’
He shuffled, eyes on the ground. He didn’t look at all well, all pale and sweaty, so I didn’t nag him.
‘Where’s James? And Sam?’ Turn your back for five minutes and the idle sods are costing you wages for nothing . . .
‘Gone up to the Pond. They came and said there was something else. In the middle . . .’
‘I’ll give them “in the middle” . . .’
But Hermione said, ‘We’d better get up there, Jeff.’
Something was up indeed. Every available ladder led out to the very lip of the deep part, where the firemen were still pumping. There, a veritable island of wooden pallets had been built, and there were about fifteen people standing on it.
‘For God’s sake,’ said Hermione, ‘they’ve built it too close. If it starts to slip into the deep part . . .’ We began hurrying along the ladders.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ shouted Hermione as she arrived. ‘Rory?’
Rory emerged from the huddle, wearing only bathing-trunks, with a rope round his waist.
‘Something big down there.’ He pointed.
The edges of what I shall always think of as the pit sloped down at an angle of about forty degrees on all sides. It must have been a hundred feet across, and about thirty feet deep. The bottom was still full of black water, with the armoured hoses of the fire brigade dropping down into it, and pulsing, as the pumping went on. It all looked about as safe as a warm jelly on a plate; a nasty black jelly nobody would ever want to eat. But there was something down there on the edge of the water, and it was big; about as big as a man. Or a coffin. As we craned over to look, the island of pallets trembled.
‘Everybody off,’ said Hermione decisively. ‘Except Rory. Go on. Move!’
Reluctantly, people began retreating along the ladders, taking two coils of rope with them. It felt a lot safer, once they’d gone. But they were damned reluctant to go. Every face was avid, cheated, angry.
‘What the hell are you up to, Rory?’
‘Going down. On a rope. Tie the other rope round that thing. Haul it up.’ He could hardly get the words out; he was beside himself with the same mad avid excitement.
Hermione pondered; looked at the slope of slime. How stable was it? She picked up a long pole somebody had left, and poked at it. Again, the island of pallets trembled, and I was sure she would call the whole crazy scheme off. But, somehow, the excitement seemed to be seeping into her too, now.
Still, she took her time; consulted the leading fireman from the fire brigade; had more ropes fetched. In the end, we all had ropes round our waists: her, me, and two round Rory. And they all led back to little teams of students, safely aground on the dried-out parts of the mud. I still thought what we were doing was mad; but somehow I no longer cared. I suppose the excitement was undermining my common sense too . . .
‘Right,’ she said at last. ‘Down you go, then. And be careful.’
Careful? He stepped cautiously off the island, and immediately the slime sucked him in almost to the top of his thighs. And began to move down the slope with him.
We made frantic hand-signals, and the teams hauled on his ropes. I thanked God as he was pulled clear, as a black treacly avalanche slowly oozed to the bottom of the pit, half burying the long object.
‘That’ll do,’ said Hermione, very finally. ‘Whatever it is, it’s not worth risking your life for!’
But Rory, far from being scared, was pointing and jabbering, a comic figure, top-half pale white, bottom-half greeny black.
‘Bricks, look. Bricks!’
And he was right. Now the avalanche of ooze had fallen, a slope of old brickwork was visible. Glistening under blackness, but still solid brickwork. Some sort of sump or drainhole, put in before the Pond was first flooded.
‘It’s safe now!’ yelled Rory. ‘A good foothold all the way down.’
It was a long time before Hermione said anything. She was biting at her lips with anxiety. Impatient shouts came echoing at her from the gangs on the dried mud. I think if they hadn’t shouted at her, she might have said no, and everything would have been different. So very, very different.
But in the end she nodded and said, ‘One more try.’
He climbed down the slope of brick backwards, looking up at us from time to time, digging his toes into the cracks like a mountaineer. He reached the bottom without mishap, and waded thigh-deep into the slime again, to reach the object. It was a nasty moment. But he sank no deeper once it had reached his waist. After what seemed an eternity of fiddling about, he managed to get one of the ropes round it. I remember he shouted up at us, ‘It is a boat.’
We signalled, and they began to haul on the rope he’d got round the boat. Slowly, easing the rope as it inched across the pallets, we began to pull it up the bricks. All our eyes were on it as it boomed out metallically every time it banged on the bricks. The slime was wearing off it; soon the bricks would be doing damage to it . . .
At last, it came up over the lip of the pit; over the edge of the pallets. That was a nasty moment, because the pallets began t
o slide towards the pit. Then stopped.
I don’t know what made me glance down at Rory then; but something did.
The slime had risen up to his chest, and he hadn’t even noticed himself . . .
I yelled a warning, and watched him vanish another inch . . .
There was some misunderstanding among the gangs holding the ends of the ropes. It was the ones holding the end of Hermione’s rope who pulled; she was dragged over and back across the mud.
The raft of pallets slid down a little more. It was poised directly above poor Rory’s upturned face. Another second it would slide in and bury him.
I felt the rope tighten round my own waist. Fools, fools! I clung on to the pallets, and that stopped them sliding for a moment.
And then, thank God, they were pulling on the correct rope; I saw it tighten.
Hermione came back across the pallets; they trembled and began to slide yet again.
But, slowly, the rope round Rory was working. Four inches of his chest reappeared, black with slime . . . then another four inches. But one pallet broke loose and went tumbling down on top of him; he put up his arms to protect himself, but it hit him a nasty thud, and then he was no longer looking up at us, but lolling head-down, under the bulk of the pallet.
‘Heave! Heave!’ Hermione was screeching now.
Nothing seemed to happen for a long time, and then suddenly the pallet reared up on end and fell away from Rory, and I saw he was out of the mud as far as his thighs. But still inert, unconscious, and worse, face-down.
Another heave, and he was out of it to his knees. But the slimy bricks were scraping at his unprotected face.
‘My rope – slack off – slowly,’ shouted Hermione. And then she was clawing her way down the bricks.
It was the bravest thing I ever saw. I could not have done it in a million years.
As she went, the pallets moved uneasily a fourth time.
But she reached him in the end. I saw her pale face contort with effort, as she slowly, agonizingly, slipping herself all the time, turned him over on to his back.
Then it was me shouting, ‘Heave, heave!’
Half-way up, his rope caught between two pallets. Frantically I kicked at them to free it. And all the time the pallets slid and trembled.
Then, of their own accord, nothing to do with me, the pallets shifted again, and his rope was free.
‘Heave, heave!’ I noticed the brawny firemen were running across the dry mud to join in now.
We got them up at last, Rory’s face was a ghastly mask of slime and blood, slowly drying and cracking. But Hermione bent to him and said, ‘He’s still breathing.’
I felt the island of pallets give a last ominous shift.
‘Look out. It’s going.’
Then we were off them and wading through knee-high mud, dragging poor Rory between us.
Behind, I heard the clatter as the pallets fell to their doom.
The ambulance had gone with Rory. He was still breathing, and even had his eyes open. And they’d washed the mud and blood off his face, and said he wasn’t bleeding seriously anywhere, but perhaps there might be internal injuries. He certainly wasn’t saying anything to anybody; just giving convulsive shivers.
Of the pallets which had been on the edge of the pit, there was no sign. Gone under the mud. And the outermost of our ladders had gone with them, too.
But something still lay, large and bulky, on the edge of the pit. The model ship that Rory had nearly lost his life for. It was still on the end of the last rope; the rope had saved it. We all stared at it, with very mixed feelings. I think, left to myself, I would have left it there. But one of the students said, ‘We might as well have it. Rory will want to see it, when he comes out of hospital.’
‘C’mon, lads, one last heave-ho for good old Rory.’
Two of them approached it along the ladders, very cautiously. They guided it with their outstretched hands, while the rest of us pulled. Then, when it finally reached the dried-out mud, six of them went out, put it on their shoulders, and carried it to shore.
Was it only me that thought they looked like pallbearers with a coffin?
But of course, close-to, it was nothing like a coffin. Coffins don’t have single masts at the front, and propellers at the stern. Keep hold of your sick imagination, Morgan!
And so they carried it into my workshop and laid it on two trestles. And then discovered it was nearly six o’clock and as somebody said wryly, ‘Doesn’t time pass quickly when you’re enjoying yourself?’
So they all dispersed, longing for showers, and vowing to ring up the hospital to find out how good old Rory was. Left alone, I gave the thing one look and shivered. I locked up, saying it could wait till I’d had a good night’s sleep.
I did not have a good night’s sleep. I had nightmares, and wakened sweating a dozen times.
But, oddly, not nightmares about mud or death, or poor old Rory choking under the slime.
No: nightmares about Hermione Studdart, who I was pursuing through a dark wood.
Hermione Studdart, who I was going to rape. And kill.
Chapter 8
I was a long time getting up next morning. I went and got a mug of coffee and smoked several fags, sitting on my bed and rubbing my eyes and scratching my head and surveying parts of my body I was not very satisfied with, in the hopeless hope that they had mysteriously improved overnight. The nightmares were very hard to shake off. They shocked me, and horrified me, and yet I kept on coming back to them, like your tongue does to the gap when you’ve had a tooth out. I mean, I’d never even considered rape, in all my life. I like women. And I’ve always thought that what is not freely given by them is of no value anyway. Seducers are not usually rapists; different breed. And yet the feminists say all men are rapists at heart . . .
Finally I came to the conclusion that if I didn’t make a real effort to get moving, I’d sit there all day. Normally I find that each thing I do, washing, shaving, even putting on my wristwatch, jerks me a little nearer to coping with the day. But not that morning. The temptingly terrified fleeing ghost of Hermione was with me in the bathroom, over breakfast . . .
Oh, for God’s sake get among some real people, Morgan!
I decided to drop in to the Duke of Portland. It was always rather nice and quiet, before the pre-lunch mob dropped in. I’d buy an Observer on the way and . . .
Mossy Hughes saw me the moment I poked my head round the swing-door.
‘Mr Morgan. What you havin’? Guinness Bitter, innit?’ He smiled, pleased with himself for remembering. Fetched the two pints to a sunlit corner-table.
‘Can’t beat Sunday, can you, Mr Morgan? Day o’ rest. Good enough for Gawd, good enough for me, is what I say.’
‘Very true, Mossy,’ I said, as solemnly as if I was in church. While the ghost of Hermione Studdart shrank back in pleading terror as her blouse tore beneath my hand. Still, it was fading now, thank God. Another five minutes, I’d be rid of it. I hoped I could keep my conversation sensible until then.
‘You get that boat OK, Mr Morgan?’
‘Yes . . . thanks. He brought me two more from the same place. A tug and a lightship. They must have belonged to Tony Tanner too. I gave him a fair price . . .’
‘Oh, he did, did he? Just forgot to tell me about it! I’ll have a word wi’ that young man! He’s a bit too fond of making a bit on the side!’
‘Well . . .’ I hesitated. I did not want to make trouble, but . . .
‘Been up to something else, has he?’
I told him about the tat.
‘You didn’t take anything off him?’ Mossy’s concerned face peered into mine.
I told him about the dressing-table set. His forehead creased into its usual frowns. ‘How much you give him?’ Then he got to his feet and said, ‘I’ll have a word wi’ that young man,’ and went straight off to the phone booth in the entrance-hall. Then he came back and said, ‘He’s coming round now, tout de suite. I�
��m going to have to sort him out afore he gets into real trouble.’
Then he drew heavily on his pint and said, ‘The young’s a great problem, these days, Mr Morgan. The old rules don’t mean nothing to them. I give him a straight simple job to do, but can he do it? No, he has to have ideas of his own. If it wasn’t for his mother’s sake, I’d have kicked him out years ago. He’ll be the end of me. But his mother won’t hear a word agin him.’
I just drew on my own pint with a sage nod. Mossy’s relationships I did not wish to go into . . .
Finally, the youth came in, saw us and threw himself into a chair at our table, with a look of sullen nervousness on his face that made me want to kick him.
‘A tugboat an’ a lightship,’ said Mossy heavily. ‘Thanks for telling me, Spud.’ The youth gave me a look of frank dislike, but otherwise said nothing.
‘And I hear you’ve been bothering Mr Morgan here with some of your own rubbish.’
‘Weren’t rubbish.’
‘Let me tell you something, son. Mr Morgan here’s a friend of mine. A good friend. An’ I don’t want my friends bothered. Right? Now where’d you get that stuff? Police looking for it?’
‘Nah,’ said the youth. ‘Came from the same place, dinnit? Them old suitcases. Went back after and had a look in them. Weren’t much . . .’
Mossy relaxed. ‘That’s all right then. It’s not dodgy, Mr Morgan. It won’t cause you no trouble.’
But, on the contrary, a vague unease was niggling at the back of my mind. ‘That suitcase you got the dressing-table set from . . . what else was in it?’
‘Just some tart’s stuff. Ponged horrible. Foreign tart.’
‘Why do you say foreign?’
‘There were some letters . . . mebbe in French. Not in English, anyway. French . . . French letters!’ He grinned, as if he had made some superb joke. Nobody except him found it funny.
‘What else?’
‘Oh, bras an’ stuff. A couple of books in French. And some kid’s stuff . . .’
‘Like what?’
‘Oh, bootees, little cardigans.’
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