by Tobias Hill
Later, Mary tells herself that she did the right thing, after all. How Annie would have hated shouting! Everyone hearing her name. Everyone at their washing lines, looking down at her, there in the snow with her battered case. Mary knows she’s right about that. She tries to find comfort in it, but all she feels is shame.
*
‘I’m going to get a watch. Not a market one, a real one. It’s got Roman numbers.’
‘Wizard.’
‘What are you getting?’
‘I don’t know, really,’ Jem says; and really he doesn’t want to know. What Jem likes best is the not knowing. The best bit is the waiting, the potential of mystery; the perfection of the gift unopened.
‘I shan’t wear it to school,’ Floss says, her voice and torchlight coming back to Jem dimmed by the attics’ clutter. ‘It’s a ladies’ watch. I’ll only wear it on occasion. I should think it’ll last me years and years,’ she says, and sneezes. ‘Gosh, it’s filthy up here! Why didn’t you show me before?’
Jem shrugs, not that Floss can see him: they’ve only his torch between them, and she’s crawled away with it. Its dusty light dithers between beams and tarp-clad heaps of tiles and slates and other, obscurer things.
Why didn’t he show her the attics before? Because they’re his secret place. Only today she’s been so down. That’s why Jem brought her now, but he doesn’t tell her that. It’ll only remind her to be glum again.
Her dad yelled at her at breakfast. Floss told him coming home from school. Jem didn’t tell her he was surprised; not that Floss’s dad would yell at her, but that she should mind so much, because her dad looks like a man who would yell at people all the time.
Except he doesn’t, Jem thinks now. Mr Lockhart looks like a man who never needs to raise his voice to anyone. He cows people just by looking. And Floss is his favourite. She always says so.
I didn’t even do nothing, Floss told him. I was just talking. I wasn’t even talking to him! I was telling Iris my dream. It had apples in it, and horses.
‘You should have shown me this ages ago. We could have made up games for it. It’s a bit late now,’ Floss mutters, and Jem squints up into the gloom, jarred out of his contemplation.
‘Why is it late?’
‘Well,’ Floss says, ‘we’ll have new schools soon. We might end up at different ones.’
‘So what? We’ll still be friends,’ Jem says. ‘Won’t we? We’ll still live together.’
‘I suppose. My mum says the Buildings are falling down. We might all have to move away.’
Her voice is some way off now, and moving farther. Jem shivers. He only really likes it up here when there’s daylight coming in. Now it’s dark outside, and he recalls how big the attics are, with crawlspaces and crooked corners he’s never explored.
‘Don’t go too far,’ he calls. ‘The torch might go. Floss?’
‘I’m here,’ she says, though the light is obstructed, or else Floss is saving it. She’s brave if she is, Jem thinks, but then he knew she was. Or maybe she can see in the dark. Maybe Floss eats all her carrots.
‘Jem, how long do you think it’ll last?’
‘Not long. It’s hard getting batteries, it only takes number eights –’
‘No, dopey, I meant my watch.’
‘Oh,’ Jem says, ‘well, you could ask Pond’s dad.’
‘Don’t you know?’
‘No. They last a long time, watches.’
‘What will you be when you’re old?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know anything today. You should think about it. You’ll have to decide in a year or two, else someone decides it for you. What do you like doing?’
Being with you, Jem thinks, but he daren’t say that. ‘Mum says I’ll grow up tall, like Dad. I could be like him.’
‘What, a Banana King?’
‘Why not?’
Pfft, is all Floss replies.
‘What’s wrong with that?’ Jem asks. ‘I like the markets. You do, too.’
‘They’re alright. I’m going to do better. People will talk about me on the wireless and in the papers. You’ll read all about it. Oh!’
‘Floss?’
Stillness. Scuffling. Jem stands up, arms outstretched.
‘Floss?’
‘It’s alright,’ she whispers, close again. ‘I’m here. Look, I found something.’
‘I can’t look, can I? You’ve got the torch,’ Jem grumbles, but Floss is already crawling up beside him, he can perceive her greater darkness, can sense her as she kneels.
‘I was saving it. Here,’ she says, and bathes them in light.
She has a package in her hands, a bundle of yellowed newspaper. As soon as she has handed Jem the torch she sets to unwrapping, impatient as a child at Christmas.
Don’t, Jem wants to say, wait, Floss, it might be dangerous. But it’s too late, she’s already opened it.
‘It’s just rags,’ Floss says. ‘Spit! It’s just a load of old rags.’
She sits, kicks the soiled clothes away, and out of them falls the knife.
It’s a straight razor, the bone handle stained yellow. It looks ancient and fine, like so many things from before the war.
The blade comes cleanly from its fold. There are flowers of rust along its spine, but someone has left it oiled and its troughed flanks are unblemished. It has kept its edge. It nicks and nibbles at the whorled ridges of their fingertips.
Floss hisses. Jem’s eyes go wide.
‘You cut yourself!’
She sucks her finger, peers at it. ‘Look, it’s just a bit of blood,’ she says, and offers Jem the knife. ‘Now you.’
Her face is spectral, uplit. He knows what she wants him to do. ‘I don’t want to,’ he says.
‘Go on. It’s like one of your stories. We found it, so it’s a sign: we’re meant to do it. It’ll be our secret, even if we have to move somewhere else. Go on! It doesn’t hurt.’
Floss takes the torch, Jem the knife. He squeezes his eyes tight. Presses. Blood wells around the blade.
‘Ow!’ he whispers. ‘You liar!’
‘Don’t fuss,’ Floss says, and takes his hand. She presses her finger to his, like a seal to wax. ‘There. That’s a promise.’
Afterwards, when the knife is hidden, after they have climbed out of the attics’ dark, into the cold blue steel of the evening, Floss talks and talks. Jem is glad about the knife, then, seeing how happy it has made her.
‘Making things up,’ she says. ‘That’s what you like doing. You should make up things for people.’
‘Like games.’
‘Or stories, you’re good at those too. I could be a famous writer and you could write my books. Or lies! You could lie for stupid people.’
‘No, I wouldn’t want to do that,’ Jem says.
‘Why? You’d be doing them a favour.’
Only days later, too late, does he think to ask what the promise was.
*
‘Mrs Lockhart,’ says the well-fed man, his hat already in his hands. ‘Sorry to call late. You’re looking well. Is your husband – ?’
‘He might be,’ Mary says.
She has never liked Cyril Noakes. Now – as he runs his eyes over her – she likes him less than ever. She could do without Cyril tonight.
‘Well, if he is, may I – ?’ Cyril asks, and Mary takes the bar of her arm from the door.
Michael is in the kitchen, but she gets him up and puts them in the front room: Cyril is company, and besides, Mary is glad to have space to herself. These last two days Michael has been hard to bear, too grim and so bleak: so grim that the girls have become wide-eyed around him; so bleak that Mary is almost afraid for him.
She can get nothing out of him. It isn’t the business with Annie, that’s all done with now. This is more than that, and there’s less anger in it. Is she to blame herself? And if not her, then who?
She makes tea for Cyril Noakes.
‘Very nice,’ Cyril says, pee
ring around when he and Michael are settled. ‘I do like a nice front room. Some of the lot who move in now, they just don’t make the effort. Not like you, Mickey, you’ve never been short on endeavour. You’ve made your own luck. Is that a new stick?’
Michael sits uncomfortably in the unsoftened parlour chair. The new stick leans between his thighs. The other is out of sight, out of mind.
‘If it’s about the old man,’ he begins, but Cyril tuts.
‘Don’t worry about that. You slipped that one by me, eh? You had me going. But Alan told me all about it. That’s nothing to worry about.’
Cyril ducks at his tea. Somewhere upstairs, a wireless or record player sings too brightly.
‘Chilly, isn’t it?’ Cyril says, rubbing his hands. ‘We could do with a little fire in here.’
‘What is?’ Michael asks, and Cyril stares at him.
‘You what?’
‘What is there to worry about?’
Cyril puts down his cup and saucer. They give an awkward clatter. ‘It’s Norman,’ he says. ‘It’s, well. Mickey, it’s Norman and his missus. Not that she’s his missus, she’s not that soft . . . still, it’s her and Norman, that’s why I’m here. That and the man, McEachan. You’ll have seen about him, in the papers.’
Michael says nothing. He has seen the newspapers; has seen, too, the policemen on the streets. The Millwall man is in a bad way.
‘He wasn’t meant to be there,’ Cyril says. ‘Alan told me to tell you that, and he’s sorry for it. There wasn’t meant to be no trouble. McEachan’s alright, mind you, don’t believe everything you read – he’s got a sweet bump on the head, he’s not up to much talking, but he’s not as bad as they’re making out. It’s Nancy who’s the worry. That’s Norman’s missus. They used to be sweet, but not so much since he came home. It’s worse when he’s on edge, and the things he does for Alan, that puts an edge on things, I’d imagine. Six of one and half a dozen, it always sounds like with them, but six of one from Norman, I wouldn’t want to be on the end of that. I don’t suppose she does, either. She ended up in hospital this time. They took her in last night, up Bethnal Green Infirmary. She almost lost an eye. She’s two boys with him from before. It’s always been a nasty business.’
‘What’s it to me?’ Michael asks, and Cyril meets his look and flinches.
‘The police have been in with her. I don’t know if she asked for them, but they was called. Nancy’s been talking, that’s what Alan hears. He cares, and you should and all, because this time it sounds like she might have had enough. And Norman talks to her. He tells her things he shouldn’t, then he tries to beat it back out of her. And even if he didn’t this time, she’ll know he was working Tuesday. She’ll have read all about it, and she knows the things Norman does. You, well. You know what he does.’
Michael gazes down at the table between them. It’s an occasional table, finely inlaid. Mary laughed when he got it. He picked it up for a song in the summer, knowing she would like it, knowing it would tickle her. It was a good deal any way you judged it.
An occasional table! she said. It sounds a bit high-born for us. What does it do the rest of the time?
By God, he’s tired.
Cyril is reaching into his jacket. He brings out an envelope and puts it down on the table.
‘This is from Alan. Something for the job, a bit more to tide you over, and there’ll be a cut for you later. Alan means to see you right, you and yours, whatever happens. Meantime, he says to keep your nose down. Go about your business, same as normal, but only the market trade. The boys come to me for now. Your man too. You and me, you and him, we all steer clear of each other.’
‘Have they talked to Norman?’
‘Not yet.’
‘But they will.’
‘They might,’ Cyril says, ‘And Norman Varney’s a funny fellow, isn’t he? A fucking bunch of giggles. He might keep his mouth shut, he might behave, or he might own up. Christ knows, he might try and pin it all on you, Mickey. Whatever he does, you don’t know me, I don’t know you, and God help us if we ever did business with Alan. If anyone wants to know where you get your flowers and blades, it’s Oscar, and he’ll say the same. Oscar’s clean. You, me and Alan, we’re there for each other afterwards, but for now it’s each man for himself. That’s how it works. It’s for the best. Alright?’
Michael nods. Cyril sighs.
‘It’s a different way of business, Alan’s. He’s a harder take on things. I never liked it. I never meant you for that.’
‘I knew what we were about.’
‘I never said you didn’t. I ain’t saying you went in blind. I almost wish you had, but I don’t take you for an innocent. You might think yourself a hard man, Mickey, but I’m sorry you got mixed up in it.’
Michael nods again, accepting the rebuke, ever so gentle as it is.
‘Was it just for the profit?’
‘How’s that?’
‘The fellow, McEachan. Was he something, to Alan?’
Cyril shakes his head. ‘If he wasn’t before, he is now. Get some rest,’ he says, then stands, his voice rising. ‘Thank your lovely wife for the tea. It was good to see you, Mickey. Look out for yourself, won’t you? Onwards and upwards, that’s the way. Never mind the downs, and we’ll all meet up at the top.’
*
£1,200 GOLD ROBBERY
MAN GRAVELY INJURED
A man who entered the premises of J. G. McEachan and Brothers, metalworkers and brokers, in Marshfield Way, Millwall, late on Tuesday, attacked the owner, Mr. McEachan, with a stick, and having forced Mr. McEachan to open a safe, stole silver bars and gold wire valued at £1,200.
Mr. McEachan, 64, a widower, was asleep on his premises when he was woken by a noise. He confronted an intruder who struck him with the stick and demanded the safe box be opened. Having complied, Mr. McEachan was struck several more times and lost consciousness, not being discovered until the following afternoon, when he was taken to hospital with grave head injuries. On Thursday Mr. McEachan was able to speak briefly, and the police were called, but his condition has worsened since.
Police are pursuing other lines of investigation. A van has been impounded by police officers at an auction mart in the East End where second-hand cars are sold. In addition to the attacker of Mr. McEachan, a second man, the driver of the van, is being sought for questioning.
*
‘Found your name yet, have you?’
‘My dad wants to call me Henry.’
‘I thought you’d lost him and all, your dad.’
‘I’ve a new one now.’
‘That’s right, the watchmaker. Good news gets around, you see? And we keep our ears to the ground. Bible name, isn’t it?’
‘Lazarus.’
‘Lazarus, raised from the dead. Funny, the names people end up with. Funny old thing to lose at that, a name. Still, all kinds of things get mislaid, when there’s a war on. People, too.’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve scrubbed up well, at any rate.’
‘I have to wash all the time.’
‘I should think so. Don’t forget behind your ears. Where you living now, then, Henry?’
‘I’m not Henry yet. I’m up there.’
‘The Columbia Buildings, is it? I always liked them, handsome things. It’s a shame the bombing got into them. Come back here in ten years, this’ll all be gone, lock, stock. That’s what the depot yard’s for – knocking it down, building it up. It’ll all be concrete a mile high, and all of us buried in it. How are your neighbours? Making friends, are we?’
‘Yes. Iris, Floss and Jem.’
‘Floss Lockhart, that would be. You’ll know her father, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘And how is he?’
Silence. Almost silence. Far away, someone is out playing. It’s hard to tell the game from here. It could be almost anything, Bulldog or Grandmother’s Footsteps, Robbers or Kiss Chase or It.
‘He’s not my friend.’
‘Well, no. He’s a bit big for the likes of you.’
‘He’s nobody’s friend. He shouted at Floss.’
‘I’m sure he did. She takes keeping in line, I hear.’
‘He’s got a new stick.’
‘Has he?’
‘I liked the old one better.’
‘What was wrong with the old one?’
‘I don’t know. It had a horse on it. It was a good stick.’
*
Sunday, they come for him.
It’s Alfred Shrew who sees them first. Business is good, the best in weeks – even those who should know better forget their thriftiness for Christmas – and the police make slow headway through the throng: big men muffled in heavy cloth, four of them, six of them, with Dick Wise in the vanguard, shepherding through the crowd.
‘Heads up,’ Alfred says, and Michael follows his gaze, lays down the holly in his hands, collects his stick and steps back through his firs like an actor into the wings.
At the arch of the Buildings he looks back. The police are out of sight. By the Birdcage he glimpses their van – a Black Maria, as if he’s as good as a prisoner already – and playing by it, his younger one and the orphan boy, in amongst their friends. There is snow in Iris’s mittens, snow in her hair. She is pretty as the mother she has always taken after.
He turns, loses his footing as the bad leg takes his weight, rights himself. Useless body! Already he is panting. Where is he going? He wants Mary, but she’s no good to him now, nor is he any good to anyone. Go anywhere, he thinks, but not to those you care for most.
He makes it to the car. The handle is ice, snow has climbed the wheels, but there’s petrol in the tank and a can in the boot. I’ll start north, he thinks: Start now and think about stopping later. His hands are clammy, they work slipshod at the starter, but luck’s on his side, the engine fires . . . and there, now, are the police, coming on in ones and twos, shadows in the arch.
‘Oh no, you don’t,’ Michael whispers. ‘You can’t have the likes of me, you bastards.’
The wheels slip. They grip. The car brushes a man – strikes him a glancing blow; there is a yell, the thump of a greatcoated shoulder – then he is through, and the market all around him.
