‘You mean, when you were leaving Russia?’
‘That and other times.’
‘How did you eat on that journey across Europe? How did you even stay alive?’
Her eyes reflected the wintry sunlight outside. ‘It is surprising when you are young how far you can go on nothing, or next to nothing, with what little you can make do. Wild nuts, earth nuts, stray sheaves of unground wheat; and foods far less savoury than these. I should dislike to upset your tender stomach.’
‘It must have upset yours.’
‘Ah, but then it is surprising how one becomes accustomed. In Moscow for three years before it had been black bread and cabbage soup … Tea – yes, there was usually tea. Though often it was hard to find the fuel to heat the water.’
‘How did you escape?’
‘It was not so much a question of escape. My father was in prison for ‘‘lack of revolutionary vigilance’’, my mother had been dead a year; I had lost my place at the Bolshoi because of my father’s disgrace. I simply stuffed a few things in a holdall and left. Walked out. At that time all Europe was in the pot – the melting pot. I simply directed myself west. There were no frontiers left.’
‘I’ve heard about your arrival in the West.’
‘Oh, stories. Whatever drips from the journalist’s pen.’
‘You eat precious little now,’ I said. ‘If I had been like that I should have turned into a glutton.’
She smiled. ‘Oh, I did. For a while I did. I grew so fat they thought I was with child.’
‘But you never were?’
‘Were what?’
‘With child.’
‘No. Ah no. Ah no … Now tell me your thoughts about America …’
This had been in our sights for some time. It was the biggest and richest market open to us but also the one most saturated with home products. But the top layers of the American market are peculiarly susceptible to European influence. Half it’s a snob appeal, half’s an atavistic tendency to look for what is best in the continent from which most Americans sprang. We’d talked a good lot about it, and there were plenty of people to warn us of the pitfalls. Without the right outlets you could fall flat on your face and lose a million.
Oddly enough, John Carreros was a bit more formcoming about this. He had a number of relatives there who might be willing to help and advise. He thought in another twelve months the time would be ripe. Till then we could begin to prepare the way. Perhaps he would go over first, make his presence felt.
‘You know,’ Shona said. ‘It may be that you are good for John. He has shown more initiative since you came than for years past.’
‘Perhaps he’s a little jealous,’ I said.
‘Jealous?’
‘Of my influence in the firm.’
‘Ah.’ She breathed through her nose. It could be. Perhaps you have been a – spur to us all.’
‘I believe,’ I said, ‘that’s the first compliment you’ve ever paid me.’
‘Do not allow it to go to your head.’
II
The following day unexpectedly we had to go back to Birmingham, and as we were in Stevenage at the time I drove her up in the car I had just bought, a 1965 Austin Healey 3000. It had been in a garage most of its life and there were only five thousand miles on the clock, so it was a snip at £600. After we had been on the motorway for a few miles she said: ‘Why do you drive at ninety miles an hour when the speed limit is seventy?’
‘A family habit. But it’s not excessive in so stable a car.’
She said: ‘As usual, you do not answer my question.’
‘Why ninety in a seventy?’
‘Yes. If the limit were eighty would you go a hundred?’
‘I don’t think I know the answer. Probably it depends how I feel.’
‘And whom you have as your passenger?’
I grinned. ‘That could be.’
‘Attempting to frighten? Or impress?’
‘Aren’t they both rather the same thing? Sorry.’ I slowed a bit.
‘Oh, do not mind me,’ she said, ‘if it gives you a thrill.’
By a coincidence on the way home we came on an accident. It was actually the first I’d ever seen and was a lousy one. The ambulance hadn’t yet come and there was gore everywhere and vomit and a man unconscious and a woman dying. I had been all for being the bad Samaritan and gliding past, but Shona commanded me to stop and was out of the car before I put the handbrake on. She seemed to know more what to do than any of the other few people there, even for the woman who kept gasping for someone to take the weight off her chest when there was no weight there.
When it was over we were an hour late for our appointment and Shona had bloodstains on her skirt and a torn sleeve where the dying woman had been grasping at it, and her shoes and stockings were caked in pinkish mud. As soon as we were in the car again she sat back, lit a cigarette and began to talk about the forthcoming meeting as if we’d just come away from a garden party.
Feeling a bit sick myself, I said peevishly: ‘I suppose after your war experiences you take that sort of thing in your stride.’
She sat there for a while like feminine whipcord, then she just said: ‘No.’
We batted on a few miles, and she actually smoked the cigarette she had lit, which was unusual. As she put it out she said: ‘When the Germans were only twenty-five kilometres from Moscow I hitch-hiked out to see my brother. He was one of the two who died in the end. It was not hard to get there, for there was such confusion, such chaos. It seemed nothing could save the city. In the end I think the cold did, that and our ski-troops. Their armour froze – the Germans, I mean. What I saw then – well, yes – and since of course, and since, when I was less of a child, yes I suppose in a way you are right. That accident we have just left – it is not very important.’
This was so often the same between us: much of it the evenly balanced to and fro between a man and a woman accepting each other as equals; then the little stone in the jam grating on the teeth; her superiority in talent, in judgement, in experience. Little boy, little boy …
III
I moved houses again – to a top-floor flat in Red Place. It was vastly more expensive than I could afford, being in the heart of Mayfair, but it was convenient for work, and I had a feeling for a fashionable address.
The sticks of furniture that came from Fulham looked out of place in this new luxury, so it meant buying more and getting it on the never-never. I had changed my account to Shona’s bank, though the overdraft on the flat soaked up all my goodwill with them. But I was earning a fair salary now and she worked me so hard I didn’t have much time for squandering it in wild living.
Then one night, after I’d been there only three weeks and some bits and pieces of furniture still needed, who should be there but Derek Jones. I let myself in and the lights were on, and there he was in the sitting-room in my pyjamas, smoking one of my cheroots and playing one of my tapes.
‘How the hell did you get in?’
‘Picked the lock, old dear. Hope you didn’t mind, but really you should have something better on the door than that old mortice. Simply not safe.’
He looked up at me with his bright baby-blue eyes, so deceptively innocent. I laughed.
‘Well, do make yourself at home. After all, it’s late.’
‘Yes, I was wondering. Been on the tiles? I suspect so. Is that a smear on your lip? Or doesn’t he use lipstick?’
‘I use it myself now. Gives one a better look in artificial light.’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘how is the stench factory? Still pouring out the old viscous fluids?’
‘Some, yes.’
‘I’ll bet.’ He looked round speculatively. ‘Doing all right for yourself anyway. Bit better than the sty we shared. Seriously, David, I’m not here just for the thrill of sharing a bed with you …’
‘I hope not, because you’ll end up on the floor.’
‘Courteous, I must say.’
I wen
t to the cupboard he had already found, and gave myself a drink. The whisky tasted bitter. In fact I’d been out playing bridge at the Hanover Club with John Carreros, who was a member there. It had been a waste of time. They played for a shilling a hundred, and more by good luck than good play I’d been the winner of a whole £1. Some of them barely understood the game, and their bidding was hairy.
‘I’m here,’ said Derek, ‘ because of an attractive little proposition that’s cropped up. Wondered if you’d like to have a piece of it.’
‘You and who else?’
‘Brad. Connie. Peter. Just the four of us. Cosy.’
Bradley, O’Connor and Peter Jones had been in with me on the Tom Martin fiasco, but had been able to slide out from under the benevolence of the law. Only muggins had copped it.
I looked at the clock. ‘It’s late.’
‘Well, you were, dear. I think this little propo is rather up your alley. Know a chap called Vincent McArthur?’
‘I knew him at one time.’
‘Can you listen without yawning?’
I listened. It was soon clear why they needed me. Without my name and connections McArthur would skip away from the speculation he was being invited, to invest in. I remembered him from school. He’d been two terms junior to me but was big for his age and good at games. A natural bully. He’d been in London at some of the early dances, but I hadn’t seen him for two or three years.
‘He’s a tough nut,’ I said. ‘And he’ll be slow to part with his siller.’
‘Not if it’s put to him the right way, dear. The meaner they are, the keener they become to have a little flutter, if it’s a flutter on a cert. After all, it’s not the racecourse, it’s the Stock Exchange. What could be more respectable?’
I didn’t like McArthur. A clumsy, overconfident oaf. But no fool. His family were wealthy ironmongers in Glasgow. It would be the connection with the Highland clan of Abden that would tease him into taking the risk if anything did.
Afterwards? Afterwards, if the plan went to order, there would be nothing to complain of. On the face of it we should all have lost the same amount. It was not an ambitious plan either. They expected to relieve him of about £15,000. Divided among four, it was not exactly El Dorado, but it was quite a lot for those days, and it would certainly solve the problem of furnishing the flat.
Worth the risk? If anything went wrong I’d be out of Shona and Co. on my backside without a penny. Worth the risk?
‘No,’ I said.
‘Why not?’
‘God wouldn’t like it.’
‘Seriously. It’s money for old rope.’
‘Wake up,’ I said. ‘We’re living in another world. It’s only a couple of years since I went inside for pulling a con trick that went wrong. The name of Abden won’t commend the scheme to McArthur. He’ll double back and run for cover at the very sound of it.’
Derek got up, lanky, loose-jointed, ambled to the cupboard and poured himself another two fingers of Grant’s, shot an inch of soda in it.
‘McArthur’s been in Johannesburg for two years. He’ll have heard nothing of it. Cheers, mate.’
‘Maybe not. Somebody’s likely to tell him.’
‘You’d be surprised. Scarcely anyone knows. You were lucky because your trial coincided with that Welsh mine disaster. What was it? Aberfan. Amid all the commotion and the weep-stories, you hardly rated a mention.’
‘My pyjamas don’t fit you,’ I said.
He came back, gazing into his glass. ‘Mind if I stay the night anyhow?’
‘Not if you sleep on the couch.’
He grinned. ‘Anyway, after your orgy I expect you wouldn’t be much use to me … Can we talk it over again in the morning?’
‘What?’
‘The Proposition McArthur.’
‘Is Roger Manpole involved in it?’
Derek shrugged. ‘ There’s not much wrong with Roger except what you imagine. By most standards he’s the height of respectability.’
‘Tell him to stuff it,’ I said.
There was silence. Then Derek said: ‘Anyway, as you know, he’s deep into your sort of business. If you really want to avoid him, you ought to go into aeronautics or something.’
‘Or emigrate.’
‘Or emigrate, darling. In the meantime it might be worth figuring the angles on this old scent business.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know. Not off the cuff I don’t know. It was just a thought. Might there not be profit for us both one way of another? Don’t you think?’
‘Actually I don’t think much.’
He watched me. ‘Who knows? Something might be worked up. Strictly entre nous. Keeping Roger out.’
I stared back at him. ‘Maybe. I’ll have to see.’
‘You’re certainly on the inside now. And well in with a bird that’s ripe for plucking … What time d’you like your coffee?’
‘Seven thirty.’
He winced. ‘Oh, well. Derek will set his wrist alarm and do his best. And,dear …’
‘Yes?’
‘Do change that mortice. Someone might come in and rape you.’
IV
I usually sleep well, but there are times, have always been times, when something gets on my wick and I’m restless and pumped full of nightmare. Usually there’s this sort of no-man’s-land between the barbed-wires of sleeping and waking, when all sorts of things back up round my bed like mourners at a funeral. People I’ve never seen and never want to see, pointing, glowering, staring; and even when I open my eyes they stick around, seem to be sitting on the bed, shaking the bed, gibbering – dead themselves and wanting me dead. It takes a real effort to force my eyes really open, and then the things dissolve into the arms and legs of windows and the bulbous noses of furniture.
This night, though – actually it was early morning – I had this old dream I’d had before. It always begins the same, with me staring at a chink of light coming through the curtains and knowing it is the split in the cupboard door where he’s locked me in.
It’s odd how drink takes different people. There’s a legal definition of the four stages of drunkenness, isn’t there: jocose, bellicose, lachrymose, comatose. He never got beyond the second stage.
I used to know as soon as he came in that I was for it. I used to know that whatever I said or did or didn’t say or didn’t do it would be wrong. For instance, he might come in and see that I was having my supper and hadn’t changed my shoes. So I had to rush out quickly and change them. Then he’d swear that I’d banged the door in a temper, then that I didn’t know how to eat because I was chewing too loudly. If I said anything in reply he’d say it was time he taught me a lesson for answering him back; if I said nothing he’d say it was time he taught me a lesson for being sulky. It was always the same lesson. In the cupboard for an hour or two; then, when he felt like it, the door would open and he’d be standing there with the strap.
A tall chap, my father, with aggravated eyebrows and a hot complexion. He’d the blue eyes of the Abdens that I didn’t have, and they soon became bloodshot, especially when he was stoking up. He always dressed well, often wore his old school tie with a red carnation in his buttonhole. Tremendously good company, especially among strangers who didn’t know the other side. The life and soul. But God help you if in the middle his mood should change, and he should suspect you were laughing at him instead of with. It could happen in ninety seconds flat – the time it took to drain a glass and dab his mouth with an Irish linen handkerchief. Wow. The laughter in his eyes would go suddenly sour. You couldn’t have a worse example of the way the old hooch ran into a man’s nature like poison.
Yet there was this terrific charm that worked part of the time even for his son. When I was nine he bought a marvellous new 3-litre drop-head Alvis in dove grey. It was a great car, very hard sprung – like a bed of nails – and if you tried to do more than ninety-five in it it would begin to smell of oil. But it was about the fastest thing up to ninety
that I’ve ever known. Or it seemed so; you slipped up to eighty without knowing you were moving. My mother would usually be beside him and I would be in the back seat, my nose pushed forward almost touching their shoulders as we beat it up. Those were good days.
But gradually the old bottle tipping grew more frequent. Once a month became once a week, then oftener. In the early days I used to be scared out of my wits, not only at being locked in the dark but knowing what came next, waiting for the sound of the footstep. But later I toughened up to it. I used to put on a deadpan look that would infuriate him; and I’d not open my mouth for anything; after all, I’d get the same lamming anyhow. He used to try to beat me harder, I suppose to see if I’d blub; but fortunately he was usually so far gassed by then that his strength was half spent when he began.
Half the time my mother was hypnotized by him, as I was, totally under his influence, under his thumb. If he said the sun shone, it shone; if he said not, not. Yet other times she really let go about him. When he wasn’t there, when he was away for the night, she would whistle, and I’d slide out of my bed, cross the landing, and crawl in beside her. Then she’d say frightful things about him in the dark, whispering as if he might hear, though we both knew he was miles away. She’d stroke my face and arms, and I’d push against her nightdress, feeling the softness of her and the warmth. And we’d spend all night together in rich, comfortable sleep.
After he died it all changed. There was a sort of resentment even before she remarried – as if I’d done her an injury by being so loving to her. A lot changed after my father died.
Then we all went to live in Quemby and her belly swelled, and soon there were these two daughters, Edna and Marjorie; and when I went home from school I used to find four strangers waiting for me and living a life I was no part of.
As I say, this night that Derek came I had the old familiar dream, but somehow, as happened nowadays, it was all mixed up with the time I spent in jug and the slamming of the cell door. Anyway I woke up eventually in a muck sweat and sat up and groped around as usual looking for reassurance; the table top, the telephone, the bedside light. When this came on I felt certain at last that this wasn’t the cupboard, this wasn’t the cell, this was the new bedroom in the new flat in Red Place; and the curtains were shabby and didn’t match the furniture, and there were a couple of magazines on the floor where I’d dropped them last night, and a glass of water I’d nearly tipped over in my fumblings, and the clock said half past six.
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