‘Steady up, gal,’ I said. He was getting me a bit needled. ‘You are the bloke,’ I said, ‘the gentleman I spoke to on the telephone on Thursday night, aren’t you?’
He doesn’t say a single dickybird one way or another, and Lily turns to me: ‘Alfie, be careful – or we’ll get into trouble.’
This geezer takes a good look at Lily, and he doesn’t need telling that she’s not acting. He seems to relax a bit then and he speaks to Lily in a very nice way.
‘Don’t worry, my dear,’ he tells her. ‘Just sit down on the chair there and calm yourself.’ Then he turns to me: ‘Sit down,’ he says.
Once he’s got us both sitting down he puts his hands behind his back. ‘Now I must have a serious talk with you both,’ he says. ‘Are you two married?’
‘Us two married!’ I said. ‘No, definitely not. She’s a married woman but I’m a single man.’
He begins to pace about, stopping now and again to take a sharp look at us.
‘Is there any chance of you two marrying in the future?’ he said.
‘I very much doubt it,’ I said. ‘What do you say, Lily?’
Lily didn’t speak. Some things are not even worth an answer.
‘But you are the putative father?’ he said to me. He seemed to have it in for me.
‘The what!’ I said. ‘Who – me, I’m nothing. I’m just obliging a friend. Isn’t that so, Lily?’
Lily nodded. For a minute it seemed that her mind was far away.
‘I find that very hard to imagine,’ he said, looking hard at me. His eyes had this way of boring into you. It was worse than being in the dock. I can see he’s as good as calling me a liar, but I don’t feel it’s worth arguing about.
Lily suddenly turned to him: ‘You are the man who is going to help me?’ she said.
‘Her old man is in a sanatorium,’ I said, ‘and she’s had a moral lapse if you see what I mean. Now she’s turned to me because she had no one else to turn to. I knew her husband, see. Isn’t that so, Lily? It won’t never happen again – I can promise you that.’ Why the hell I should be promising him anything I do not know – after all he’d come to do a job and earn himself thirty nicker. ‘Now the reason she needs helping out is because her marriage would look very dodgy if her husband was to come out at this stage of the game,’ I said. ‘Or to stay in for that matter. He’d know, see, And she’s got three other kids as well. Now you’ve got it all in a nutshell.’
‘Where do you come into it?’ he said.
‘I’m just obliging her as a friend,’ I said. ‘She’d no place to go.’
I could see there was nothing under the sun would ever make him believe me. And it made me mad to feel how unfair he was to me, because I could have been helping her out. He’s not to know of our swift session on the grass that Sunday afternoon. It might give you a lot of pleasure, but it certainly causes you some pain. This geezer was enjoying the cross-examination, I felt.
‘I hope you both realise the seriousness of this case,’ he began. He was talking to us both but he was eyeing me. ‘To terminate a pregnancy after more than twenty-eight days is a criminal offence – punishable in a court of law by seven years’ imprisonment. Do you both understand?’
This was the last thing I was expecting – to be talked at like this. I’d done my best. I felt like calling the whole thing off there and then.
‘I see what you mean,’ I said. I found I was moving over to his side. It felt to me like Lily was causing a lot of trouble. Not that she could help it.
He began pacing up and down again: ‘Not only that,’ he said, ‘but it’s a crime against the unborn child. It’s a sin against Nature. It’s a course never to be embarked upon lightly.’ He knew how to preach, I’ll say that for him. He left you with nothing to say.
‘Therefore,’ he went on, ‘I must ask you to consider all the circumstances thoroughly before you go through with it. Since afterwards it will be too late to change your minds.’
All I wanted at that moment was to get them both out of my place. I can see I’ve made a big mistake getting myself involved at all. I’ve always found that if you leave people alone in this life they’ll always work their own way out. It doesn’t do to interfere at all.
He looked at Lily after a great long pause: ‘Have you given the matter your fullest consideration?’ he said.
Lily looked at him: ‘I’ve no way out,’ she said. She hadn’t either.
‘And you wish to go through with it?’ he said.
I thought I noticed a touch of relief in his voice, as though he had been afraid for a moment that he might have overplayed his hand.
‘Yes, I must,’ said Lily, ‘I must find someone to do it – if you won’t.’
I think he enjoyed that little stroke. His face stayed solemn, but not as severe.
‘Then I might be able to help you,’ he said.
‘Oh, thank you, thank you very much,’ said Lily.
Take it easy, gal, I thought – after all, you are paying him.
He began to take his big coat off. As he do I spot a poacher’s pocket inside. Sticking out the top of it was a brown instrument-case. His entire manner changed, and he looked like a parson who has come down out of the pulpit, and is going to get on with the service without any further messing about. He turned to me. ‘Now have you got the money?’ he said.
‘Eh! Oh the money?’ I said. ‘The young lady has it.’
‘It’ll be forty pounds,’ he said.
‘Forty!’ cried Lily.
‘Just a minute,’ I said. ‘Thirty pounds is what I understood. That’s what you always charge.’
He hesitated for a second and then said: ‘Very well, give me thirty. But it should really be forty.’
Lily opened her bag and made to hand me the money. I quickly slipped five pounds of it back into the bag and began to count the rest. I thought to myself: if he can go down ten, he can go down another five.
‘Lily,’ I said. ‘You’ve only twenty-five pounds here. Is that all you’ve got gal?’ I turned to him: ‘I could let you have the other five tomorrow.’
‘Out of the question,’ he said. And I can see he meant it.
He stands there and waits, and Lily tries to dip into her bag to salvage the other five notes, but I stop her. I take my last fiver out of my pocket and put it with the twenty-five and hand it over to him. He gets hold of the roll like a bank clerk and counts it quickly but very carefully. It’s not the first time he’s counted a bundle of notes. Then he puts it into his back pocket and carefully fastens the flap button down. Short of slicing the pocket right out with a razor blade, the whizz mob would have had a hard job getting it.
Once he’d got hold of that money his manner got very brisk, and all sign of the preaching parson vanished. ‘I’ll use the bed in that other room,’ he said. ‘Have you got the brown paper?’
‘Yes,’ I said ‘four sheets.’
‘I shall need some boiling water and a clean bowl,’ he said.
‘Right,’ I said, ‘I’ll get it for you out of the kitchen. I won’t be long.’
Now that the time has come Lily turns a bit nervous, she goes silent and pale. This geezer seems to spot it and for a moment he looks quite human.
‘Don’t worry, my dear,’ he tells her. ‘Come along with me.’
Lily picks up this little canvas bag in which she has her things and lets him lead her across the room and into the other room. He gave one look at me and then closed the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I felt choked to see old Lily going into the room with that bloke. I didn’t even know his name. I’d been told to ask for Mr Smith, but that wasn’t his real name. It was only when he went out of the room and I was able to think in cold blood, that I tumbled him for the taker-on he was. His preachifying had struck clean home, whilst he was doing it, but once he’d turned his back I realised what it was all put there for. ‘It’s a crime against the unborn child – it’s a course never to be embarked upon l
ightly – examine your consciences—’ It was an act, but the sort of act he could salve his own conscience with, if you see what I mean. He’d begun to believe himself. Then at the same time he was preparing his defence in advance in case he made a slip. All that he’d said to us would sound very good in a court of law – all except the money bit. I could see him telling the judge: ‘Not my fault that she died, my Lord – I begged them not to do it. I appealed to their consciences. I only helped them in case the woman attempted anything herself, and worse should happen. The woman said she would have to find someone.’
I’ll bet he gives them that spiel at every house he goes to – he was word perfect. It was all a load of cobblers. His true self came out when he said: ‘Have you got the money?’ You should have seen the look that came into his eyes then. I wonder what it is about money that seems to get into people’s blood. We all like it, but it has got some people really in its clutches. ‘Twenty-five! out of the question – I must have thirty.’ And to think I never tumbled him at the start.
The kettle began to boil and I went to the door and whispered: ‘Your water’s boiling.’ He came in with his sleeves rolled up, carrying his instrument-case. ‘A saucepan,’ he said.
As luck would have it Annie had bought a new saucepan and I’d never used it since she went, so it was spotless clean. He rinsed it out and then took out a big syringe, put it in the saucepan, poured the boiling water over it and put it back on the gas-ring and let it boil away. Then he got my plastic bowl, rinsed it out with hot water, poured more hot water in, added some Dettol, and began to scrub, scour and wash it clean. Actually, it was quite clean when he started. But not clean enough for him. When he had finally got it to his satisfaction he put a new lot of hot water into it, some more Dettol, then got a piece of his own soap, his own nail brush, and began to scrub up his hands. And the way he went at them you wouldn’t think they were his own.
He was in no hurry, by the looks of things, and he went on scrubbing and scrubbing his nails and his hands until I felt he’d scrub the skin off. When at last he’d finished he got his own little towel out and he wiped his hands scrupulously clean. I mean he went round the nails and the finger-tips and one thing and another until I’ll bet there wasn’t a cleaner pair of hands in London. I don’t think he cared for me watching him. Then he finished off by waving them about in the air to dry them. Then he emptied the bowl, rinsed it out, poured some more hot water in, added some cold, and some Dettol in, and blow me down if he don’t start washing his maulers all over again.
Know what, he only repeated the operation three times. Talk about a nut case. I was that ashamed for him that after the second time I pretended I didn’t even notice. What the hell can he be washing away? I thought. On top of which you could hear this syringe bobbing up and down in the saucepan like he was boiling lobsters for lunch. And whilst this was going on I began to wonder why a bachelor man like myself ever has anything to do with a woman, because you’ve got to admit it’s a messy business from start to finish. I’d always thought what sorry sods queers are, how they’re missing out on the love stakes, never to know the lovely soft feel of a woman’s body, but as I watched this bloke scrubbing and wiping away, and I thought of little Lily lying on the bed, I could at least understand there were certain troubles they were saved.
When he’d finally finished he fishes the syringe out with a pair of tongs, and he asks me to put some more hot water in the handbowl in case he wants to wash his hands again, and some Dettol and the rest of it, and bring it into the other room. So I do all this and I go in. I was quite surprised to see how he’d got his stall decked out. On a chair was a paper with a white cloth over it, and his syringe and things. On the bed there’s a rubber sheet and a white cloth partly over it. Lily, wearing a little thin dressing-gown, is lying on the bed. I put the bowl of hot water and Dettol on a low chest of drawers. ‘You have locked the door?’ he said.
‘What door?’ I said.
‘The door,’ he said, ‘lock and bolt it so that nobody can come in.’
Then he went to the window and spied out making sure nobody could look in. There was a great big empty derelict bombed area never been rebuilt, so he was quite safe, but even that didn’t satisfy him. He went and half pulled the curtains across.
‘Lock the door at once,’ he said, ‘and bolt it. Don’t let anybody in.’ He wasn’t a bloke to argue with so I went out of the room, closed the door and then locked and bolted the other door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
What was I doing there? To be frank, I didn’t know. I’m the same as any other man where women are concerned, I’m only interested in the pleasure. When it comes to the pain I just don’t want to know. You can’t blame me – you can only blame human nature. Well, they are mysterious things are women. I mean the closer you come to look at them. I mean if the thing that happens to them every month were to happen to me only once in my lifetime, I’d feel like drowning myself. But they don’t seem to mind, they take it all in their stride. Then take when they’re pregnant, what a horrible idea that is, some little thing inside you, kicking about for months on end, then popping out head first, could be nine or ten pound weight, and he’s no sooner born than he sticks his mouth on a nipple and sucks the life out of you. And yet they seem to actually enjoy it. So you’ve got to admit there’s a gulf between man and woman.
And some of the things a poor woman has to let a man do to her. Just to keep in his good books, you could say. I mean I could go on endless. But as for a man, he’s simple, all he’s got is pretty much on the surface, or at least ninety per cent of it. In a way I suppose that’s why we’re nothing compared with a woman, I mean for things going on inside us. And I’ll stay nothing, I will for sure. Who’d be a woman? Course, I suppose if you’re born that way you know no better. They’re more to be pitied than blamed. It makes you understand how most of them are just that bit bonkers.
I suddenly heard this cry of pain in the next room. It wasn’t a loud one, but it frightened me. It was a sudden sharp cry. I heard him whisper something to her in his deep voice. I will say this for him, he certainly had the manner. He gave you the impression he knew what he was doing of. Mind you, I hate any instruments touching me. It used to take all my discipline at the start to let old Daphne, trim my corns. I heard another cry, and then I heard him talking to her again. Poor Lily – they can say what they want, but life is definitely loaded against the woman.
It all hadn’t taken three minutes, and she’d spent as many months worrying, and twenty-five pound in the bargain to wipe out the memory. No, not the memory, I mean the consequences. I’d have to do something about that money perhaps. And now she had to undergo this lot on top of it. A bloke like that messing about with syringes and things. I never got used to that game even when I was in the sanatorium. And they always tried to tell you it won’t hurt. I went and filled the kettle and put it on the stove and at the same time I caught a glimpse of my face in the little mirror by the sink: You’re a right cow-son, Alfie, I said to myself. When you say a thing like that to yourself it means you’ve forgiven yourself for being one.
It went quiet for a bit in the next room, and the door opened and this geezer came in. I was surprised to see he’d been sweating. It was there on his forehead, this little film of sweat. He was in a bit of a hurry this time, wiping his hands with the little towel, and letting down his shirt-sleeves. I heard a very faint moan come from inside. I was going to ask him how it was all getting on when he said: ‘I say, could you make some tea?’
‘Tea,’ I said, ‘yeh, I’ll make some tea.’ I thought to myself – he wants tea on the job now, why, with what he’s earning he could afford champagne. No income tax, see. ‘It won’t be long,’ I said, ‘the kettle’s almost boiling.’
‘Oh I shan’t be staying for it,’ he said. ‘It’s for the young lady. She’ll need it rather strong with plenty of sugar in.’
He wouldn’t be staying – what did he mean? Was he going out for a pint or s
omething.
‘Why aren’t you staying,’ I said. ‘Have you done?’
‘Almost all I can do,’ he said, and he began putting his gear away. In spite of his official manner I could see he was in a dead hurry to get away.
‘That didn’t take you very long,’ I said. ‘Can she go home when she’s had her cup of tea?’ Blimey, they do earn their money easy, I thought.
He looked up at me as he was putting his case carefully away inside the poacher’s pocket in his big overcoat, which he hadn’t yet put on.
‘Good gracious no!’ he said. ‘On no account must she go off.’ He came up to me and looked at me as though I were a nut: ‘Don’t you understand? – it’s only been induced. It hasn’t happened, all that’s to come.’ He looked at me again and I thought the idea crossed his mind that somebody so dim as that couldn’t be so bad. I thought he softened a bit. A mistake on his part, see, because you only put yourself in the wrong when you do that. He dipped his fingers into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a tiny bottle. ‘By the way, should her temperature rise give her two of these tablets. I’ll leave you six. But two should be enough.’
I looked at the tablets. ‘How will I know if it rises?’ I said. He now looked at me as if I was real dumb, but after all, how are you to know. I didn’t have one of those thermometer things to stick in the mouth, and anyway I can never read one of them things.
‘If she sweats a great deal, or feels flushed and hot,’ he said very slowly, ‘give her two tablets with some cold water.’
‘I see,’ I said. But I wasn’t letting him off that easy. ‘Suppose something goes wrong?’ I said.
‘Nothing should go wrong,’ he said.
‘But suppose it do,’ I said. ‘Can I get in touch with you?’
‘No, you can’t,’ he said. I thought he was quite emphatic about that. He looked at me and said: ‘In a case of emergency there’s only one thing – get a cab and get her to the nearest hospital.’ He was already standing at the door, unbolting and unlocking it. ‘You simply say she’s had a haemorrhage. They’re very understanding. But of course, I’m not expecting you’ll have any trouble.’
Alfie Page 16
