Mercury Falling

by Robert Edric

‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ Devlin said.

  ‘You do that. Got a fag?’ Patrick reached into the cab and took the packet from the dash.

  ‘They’re Duggan’s.’

  ‘So? Hardly going to miss one, is he? Unless you told him.’ He took several from the packet and slid them into his pocket. ‘Anyway, best be off. Idle hands and all that. I’ll tell Maria we met, shall I?’

  ‘If you like.’ Devlin looked again at the distant buildings.

  Patrick dropped down from the door. ‘Until next time, then.’

  Devlin watched him as he ran along the edge of the runway to the other waiting lorries.

  It was midday. He and Duggan had been out until almost one the previous night and then up again at five. He closed his eyes and felt the warmth on his face.

  He was almost asleep when he was startled by a sudden banging on the cab door and someone shouting for him to open it. Expecting this to be Duggan, he opened the door and leaned out, but before he could say anything, and before he really knew what was happening, he was grabbed by his arm and half pulled from his seat.

  An older man was trying to drag him down from the cab, but was already losing his grip. Then Devlin’s shirt tore and the man fell backwards to the ground. Devlin banged the door shut, locked it and wound up the window.

  ‘Open the door, you thieving little bastard. You and me got a score to settle. Where’s my money? I’m owed. Where is it? I paid good money to the courts and to Skelton. Get out here.’ He banged on the door with both fists.

  ‘You’ve got me wrong,’ Devlin shouted. He had never previously met Harrap. He had signed the tenancy agreement at Harrap’s solicitor’s office in Lynn. ‘I don’t know who you are. I don’t owe you anything. You’ve got me mixed up with somebody else.’

  ‘You lying little bastard. You bare-faced lying little bastard. You signed one of my contracts. Just because I never saw you before … Seven months you were there. Seven months. Two months’ rent you paid. Where’s the rest? You aren’t getting away with this.’ He went on banging on the door. By then, others nearby were turning to look.

  Devlin could think of nothing more to say. He leaned away from the door.

  ‘What you even doing here?’ Harrap shouted at him. ‘This your lorry? You got a lorry now, have you? Is that what you’ve spent the money that’s rightfully mine on?’ He ran out of breath after that and stood for a moment with his hands on his knees. Then he walked a short distance away and sat on a concrete block. ‘Well, at least I’ve seen you now,’ he shouted. ‘I know you’re still in this neck of the woods. At least now I can go back to the police and the courts and tell them where I’ve seen you. Don’t worry, they’ll catch up with you soon enough. I daresay even Skelton might want a few words with you. You think all this is just going to go away, then think again.’ He took out a handkerchief and wiped his face.

  Devlin looked beyond him and saw Duggan coming back along the runway towards the lorry. Harrap being there would only spell trouble and he felt suddenly anxious.

  But then Harrap rose to his feet and walked a few paces away. He paused and turned to point an accusing finger back at Devlin, but then continued walking until he was lost among the others.

  Devlin silently urged Duggan to reach the lorry so they could leave.

  Duggan arrived at the driver’s side several minutes later, having stopped to talk to the man with the dog. Devlin tried to guess what he might or might not have seen and heard of Harrap.

  ‘Find anything?’ Devlin asked him as he finally climbed into the cab, one eye on the group of men Harrap had joined.

  ‘Nothing worth the effort. You?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Duggan leaned forward over the wheel and then brushed dirt from his palms.

  ‘I saw one of the gyppos,’ Devlin said.

  ‘So I gather. Where that pair are concerned, you say as little as possible. They put an arm around your shoulders, that pair, and then pick your pocket while you’re laughing with them. I saw Colm. He said Patrick was prowling around somewhere. He’s the one you’ve got to watch the closest. What did he want?’

  ‘Just to know if you’d found anything.’

  ‘Might as well get off home,’ Duggan said. He took out the key and turned on the engine, sitting for a moment and looking at the smoke still rising into the air. Then he turned the engine off and said, ‘You going to tell me, then, or what?’

  ‘Tell you what?’ At first, Devlin thought the remark was connected to what Patrick had said.

  Duggan sighed. ‘I’m going to give you the benefit just this once. The man trying to pull your fucking head off, that’s what. I’ll count to three.’

  ‘Same old story,’ Devlin said. ‘I owe him a bit of rent, that’s all.’

  ‘Harrap,’ Duggan said. ‘I know him. Does things by the book. Stickler. You get the chance, you pay him. Not everything, just something. Is he likely to make trouble for you?’ He looked directly ahead of them as he said all this.

  ‘I can take care—’

  ‘That’s the point, see,’ Duggan shouted at him. ‘You can’t take care of things like that. And the last thing I need is any of your old trouble following you back to me. We clear on that?’

  Devlin understood perfectly all the calculations Duggan was already starting to make.

  ‘He saw me, that’s all. He doesn’t know the first thing about you. It’s not as though your name and address are on the lorry.’

  ‘Don’t get smart.’

  ‘He saw me, lost his temper and started shouting the odds. That’s all it was. It’ll blow over. He’s hardly likely to start throwing more good money after bad. It’s not even that much money. I told him I’d pay him when I got the chance.’

  ‘You said “more” good money.’

  ‘He had me evicted.’

  Duggan laughed at this. ‘I can imagine. I never liked the man.’ He looked at Devlin. ‘That shirt’s torn.’

  ‘I’ve got another.’

  ‘Perhaps, but you just lost the better of the two.’ He turned on the ignition and drove off the runway and over the rough ground to the road.

  10

  ‘FACT IS, WE go where the work is. The Board says here, I allocate for here. The Board says there …’ Thompson held up his palms and shrugged.

  ‘Here, there, everywhere,’ a man behind Devlin said, as though he were singing a song. Most of the others shook their heads at what they had already guessed was coming.

  ‘Exactly. Here, there, everywhere. That’s how it works.’ Thompson looked hard at the man who’d said it. He took an envelope from his pocket, and from it drew a folded sheet and slowly opened this out, every small part of the drama another argument against protest. ‘I have here—’

  ‘Peace in our time,’ the comedian said.

  ‘Smeaton. I might have known,’ Thompson said. ‘The thing is, this is a serious matter. Apart from which, nobody else thinks you’re funny.’ He looked at the others gathered around him. ‘This is men’s livelihoods I’m talking about here. Do you want to hear what I’ve got to say, or don’t you?’ He shook the unfolded sheet in their faces. ‘Right. Thought so.’

  ‘Just get on with it,’ someone else shouted.

  The foreman waited. ‘We’ve had an order for the work on the Nene Channel towards Sutton. Also work on and around the bridge and up towards the old sea bank towards the so-called nature reserve.’

  A murmur of complaint rippled through the gathered men.

  Devlin tried to place the work, the distances involved.

  It would mean longer journeys, earlier starts, later finishes, and none of it on the clock. And just as the nights were starting to draw in.

  ‘Got to be done. Order of …’ Thompson looked at the sheet. ‘Got to be done.’

  ‘And I suppose you’re the one deciding who gets to stay here and who goes to the new jobs,’ Smeaton said.

  ‘You all know how it works. If anybody wants to go, then let me know. Otherwise,
it’s those not on the permanent list. Or, failing that, those last in.’

  Devlin on both counts.

  ‘And what if we refuse to go?’

  ‘Entirely up to you. I’ve got men queuing up at the office in Boston just waiting for the nod to get started.’

  ‘You know already who you’re sending off,’ Smeaton said.

  ‘Nothing’s been decided yet. That’s why I called you all together. I could just as easily have waited until the day beforehand and given it to you as a done deal. But I’m a fair man. Not my style.’

  ‘You’re a tin-pot little Hitler, that’s what you are,’ Smeaton shouted.

  ‘That’s his goose cooked,’ the man beside Devlin whispered to him.

  ‘If that’s how you feel, then you know what you can do,’ Thompson said.

  ‘He’s already done it,’ the same man whispered. ‘That’s you and me off to Sutton, then.’

  The work on the bridge was being carried out under the supervision of the Ministry of Transport and was renowned for being hard and without any opportunity for skiving.

  It occurred to Devlin that there was a Ministry for everything under the sun these days.

  ‘Anyhow, that’s all I’ve got to say,’ the foreman said. He folded up the sheet of paper – the fate of thirty men – and slid it back into its envelope and then put this back in his pocket. ‘Ten days. It’s fair warning. Like I said, you can sort it out among yourselves or I can sort it out for you. Anything you want to add, Smeaton? Thought not. You’re not getting too many laughs now, are you? And do you know why that is? I’ll tell you, shall I? Because you’re a waste of space and because you’ve got no real responsibilities. No wife or kids. Not like some.’ He looked around at the men with those responsibilities. ‘All you ever think about is what’s in it for Smeaton. It’s why you’re Jack the Lad one minute, and the next no one’s ever heard of you.’

  The men still standing close to Smeaton shuffled their feet and avoided Thompson’s gaze.

  ‘And if any of you lot want to take your chances with him, then feel free. Shout out now and I’ll cross your names off the list. Make my job a lot easier. Honestly, you don’t know you’re born, some of you.’ He folded his arms. ‘I’m waiting. What, none of you? Nobody want to pick up his cards when brother Smeaton here goes to collect his?’ He pretended to think. ‘Oh, that’s right – what cards? Most of the rest of you are on the casual list, aren’t you?’

  Devlin on three counts.

  ‘He’s sent a list of names already,’ the man beside Devlin whispered. ‘All this is just for show. We had enough of his sort in the Army. You’d think things would change, but they seldom do. People like Smeaton shouting his mouth off, that just plays into his hands.’ He walked away from Devlin towards the sluice gate they had all been working on before being called together.

  Devlin followed him. The wind off the sea, which had started to blow earlier in the day, caught both men at the lip of the earthworks and caused them to lean forward slightly to carry on walking.

  11

  DEVLIN VISITED HIS sister. Ellen. He went because that, he imagined, was what proper families did: they visited. Christmas, Easter, every other Thursday, first Monday of every month. Illness, birthdays, misfortune, good fortune. Obligation, duty, endurance. To Devlin’s mind, they were all just old and worthless rituals pointlessly playing out into the future.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the woman. Three years? Probably nearer four. She’d been married for the past six years to a man called Morris, who considered himself a cut above, and who thought he was doing Devlin’s sister the biggest favour of her life by being her husband. Devlin and Morris had almost come to blows – Devlin had raised his fists and shouted at the man the day after the wedding. No honeymoon – waste of money, better things to do, money better spent elsewhere. The world according to Morris. Night classes two nights a week. Certificates in this, that and the other. Morris was going places. First Morris told everyone this, and then it was Ellen’s turn to repeat, endorse and embellish whatever he’d said.

  At the wedding, a distant uncle – himself never seen or heard of since – had whispered in Devlin’s ear that Morris had something of the Yid about him. It was something Devlin was happy to believe, and so the more he had looked at the man, the more he had seen it.

  He hadn’t spoken to Morris since his last unhappy visit three or four years ago. His mother had always spoken very highly of her son-in-law. There were always comparisons to be made. She believed all that stuff about Morris going places. Not like the rest of them. And not just any old places, places worth going, mark her words.

  He knocked on the door and stood back.

  His sister unlocked the door, opened it a few inches and looked out at him.

  ‘Hello,’ Devlin said.

  ‘What is it this time?’ Ellen said.

  ‘Can’t a man visit his own family? You’re getting very suspicious in your old age.’ She was thirty, a year older than Devlin.

  ‘“Family”? We’re only ever that when it suits.’ She looked along the road behind him. Morris didn’t appreciate her having visitors when he wasn’t present.

  ‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’

  He’d walked from Duggan’s to Holbeach and from there he’d caught the bus, walking again from the stop to the house, another mile. Best part of two hours with all the waiting.

  ‘How long are you staying?’ she asked him as he stood with her in the narrow corridor Morris insisted they call the hallway.

  ‘Charming. You make it sound as though I’ve already outstayed my welcome.’ He wanted her to laugh at the remark. He wondered if anyone in their unravelled, evaporated family had ever held out their arms to anyone, let alone embraced them with anything close to affection, fondness even.

  ‘I was passing,’ he said, reducing his obligation to stay.

  ‘Hardly,’ she said. She lived in a terrace of houses beyond Terrington, towards the coast, not the kind of place anyone ever passed. Back of beyond as far as Devlin was concerned.

  ‘Nearby, then,’ he said. ‘I’m living over towards Sutterton. Got a good job on the drainage work. Day off, see.’

  ‘It’s Saturday.’

  It had always been the same, these tired, suspicious, zigzagging conversations.

  ‘Morris at home, is he?’ He knew the man was out, having seen him go half an hour earlier.

  ‘He’s got better things to do than lie in bed all day,’ she said.

  ‘Never doubted it. Never doubted it for a second. Haven’t we all?’ He looked around him. Embossed wallpaper, a runner along the boards of the corridor. ‘He’s done you proud,’ he said.

  ‘It’s important to make the effort, that’s what counts.’

  ‘You want me to take my shoes off?’

  She looked down at them.

  ‘I will anyway. It’s a nice house. I can see the pair of you are making a go of things.’

  ‘We’ve done our best.’ She led him past the small parlour into the smaller kitchen at the rear. There was no other building between the back of the house and the sea, three miles away.

  A year after the wedding, she’d given birth to a baby boy three months early and the child had lived less than a day. ‘Premature’ was the word she had used, as though this somehow eased her pain and her anxiety for the future. According to Morris, a family wasn’t complete without children, and then their children, chasing each other into that hopeful future. Two further miscarriages had followed.

  Devlin had visited her after the first calamity, not afterwards. He’d arrived to find her in bed, where she stayed for a month, her husband waiting on her hand and foot. Complete rest. Morris had made up a bed on the settee in the parlour. Consideration.

  ‘You’re looking well,’ he said to her now.

  ‘I’m looking older,’ she said. She was. Older than her years. She made them tea and sat at the table opposite him. ‘Formica,’ she said, lifting his
cup and saucer and wiping a cloth over the surface.

  Devlin watched to see how she held her own crockery before starting to drink.

  ‘What sort of work is it, then?’ she asked him.

  Making conversation.

  He told her about the Drainage Board and all its grand projects. He said nothing about the clinging mud and the cold water. He told her about Sullivan, and referred to himself as a supervisor.

  ‘Borstal boys?’ she said, pulling a face. ‘You don’t want that lot rubbing off on you.’

  ‘Not likely to happen,’ he said. He looked around him again. A place for everything and everything in its place.

  Before the loss of the first child, he’d taken her a cot, second-hand but good as new. A few scratches here and there, but only if you looked close. He learned later that Morris had chopped it up for firewood. But the baby was dead by then, so sleeping dogs and all that.

  ‘We’ve got sugar,’ she said. ‘Morris knows a man in Yarmouth.’ Sacks of the stuff going begging, apparently. Not that Morris himself would ever be involved in anything shady, underhand. Not like some men; most men, come to think of it.

  ‘Sweet enough as it is, thanks,’ Devlin said. He liked his tea as sweet as he could get it. Probably from his soldiering days, when most of the tea was piss.

  It was piss now, but he drank it and smiled.

  ‘You see much of anybody all this way out here?’ he asked her. He mentioned a few old names.

  ‘We have different friends now,’ she said. ‘Work colleagues, mostly, a few casual acquaintances.’

  ‘I’m still stuck with the usual oppos and mates,’ he said, hoping it was a joke, and then wishing he’d kept silent. ‘I’m surprised you’re not in Peterborough or Norwich by now,’ he said. Morris had mentioned it during his last visit.

  ‘Morris says the time’s not quite right. He needs to get a few more things under his belt and then we’ll be in a better position to consider all our options.’

  ‘Anything on the horizon?’

  ‘Morris says the world’s a changing place. Technology, finance, all that. I leave that side of things to him. You know Morris, he likes to keep himself abreast.’