King Dido

by Alexander Baron

  She looked away from him and the faintest private smile came into her eyes; a scarcely-discernible flicker of reminiscence but enough to encourage him. He said, “I’ve seen it time and again. Sweet nice girl meets a chap tells her a tale. Before you know where you are she’s married to a bad lot. Don’t know sometimes. Don’t know right up to the last. When the truth comes out they won’t believe a word of it. Did you know?”

  He waited and she looked at him again, interest now in her eyes. He said, “I wonder what he told you when he went off every day? He was out all day, wasn’t he? I know. I know all about him. Did you know he was taking money off people by threats? I wonder. Did you know he was planning a burglary when I stopped his game a little while ago? What did you think he was up to? Where did the money come from? Did you ask? Or did you think he was getting it on the Stock Exchange? All right, I’m not making fun of you, Grace. Many a woman I’ve known thought her husband was running a respectable business somewhere when he was up to every kind of villainy. That was it. Wasn’t it? You couldn’t have known. I can see the kind of person you are. I’m willing to let the whole world know you’re a decent respectable girl and you had nothing to do with all this. Nothing. Only you must let me help you.” He paused a little. “You must help me. You don’t have to get feverish or frightened or anything. Just tell me quietly. Tell me the truth. Look, he wasn’t with you that night. You were up feeding the baby. You told me so. But he wasn’t there, was he? You don’t have to say anything. Just nod. I’ll write it down, that’s all. You just put your name. Nothing else. You won’t be bothered after.”

  She licked her lips and opened them and he thought he saw the effort to speak in her face. He leaned forward and said, “Yes?”

  She only sighed and closed her eyes. He said, “I’ll look after you. He won’t hurt you, I’ll see to that. I’ll give you money. How much do you want? Eh? How much do you think you’ll need for a fresh start?”

  She turned her head. Her eyes roamed about the room as if she were seeking something. He said, “It’s the disgrace, isn’t it? That’s what you’re frightened of. Do you think I don’t understand — the wife of a hanged man? I can get you away from that, too. You can go away. I’ll get the money for you. Make a fresh start. Change your name. You’ll be free to marry again. Think what it’ll mean — for your baby.”

  She lay with her eyes closed, and in her harsh quick breathing, the woebegone fall of her lashes he saw the breaking-point he sought. He waited. He took out a pad and scribbled in it. He put his mouth close to her ear and murmured, “I’ve written it down, Grace. Be a good girl. Give me your hand. I’ll help you write your name. A few seconds, it’ll be over. Nothing to fear. Nothing to fear.”

  Her mouth opened in an extremity of distress as if about to cry in pain. Then she shook her head, her eyes still closed. “Grace. D’you hear me?”

  She shook her head violently in a tumble of hair. He lost all restraint. He seized her shoulder and shook her cruelly. “Don’t come that lark.” His voice was low and harsh. “Don’t come the old faint on me. Wake up you bitch. Come on you little cow. You murderer’s whore. I know you. Two of a kind, you and him. I’ll fix the pair of you. Listen. You didn’t know. You didn’t know, did you? —” He tried his final lie. “He talked. Keogh talked this morning. We’re going to break Dido’s neck and by God if you don’t —”

  She opened her eyes. “He didn’t,” she whispered. “He didn’t talk. Someone showed mother the midday paper.”

  She shut her eyes again and Merry let his hand fall to his side.

  Dido was released an hour later. He walked out of the police station with an expressionless face and his head up. He did not look round and he did not see Merry and Weldon in the doorway of a back room.

  Weldon said, “He’s still laughing.”

  “The Chief says watch him.” Merry’s voice was calm. “I’ll watch him. If I can’t get him by the book I’ll do it my own way.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Dido walked down the street as steadily as if he had just been out for five minutes to buy a box of matches. He ignored the bystanders who turned to look and the faces that suddenly crowded in doors and windows, so many carnival masks gaping with black apertures.

  The family had been given no warning of his release. He looked into the kitchen. It was empty. He went upstairs, heard voices from the sitting-room and went in. As he opened the door his mother and Grace froze into a tableau, his mother standing behind the table with hands upflung and no sound but a gasp in her throat; Grace lying on the couch in her dressing-gown, the baby in her arms.

  His mother pressed a hand on the flat top of her chest and murmured, on a long, shaky breath, “Dido!”

  She was on him in two unsteady paces, her hands out groping, relief melting her face, and he let her stand slumped against his chest, her arms tight round him while he looked at Grace on the couch, who looked back at him vaguely as she rocked the baby.

  He ventured a signal to Grace, the glint of a smile in his eyes as he nodded towards the baby while his mother pressed her head on his chest and moaned, “Oh, Dido, thank God. Oh, I prayed, I prayed all the time!”

  He patted his mother’s back. “It’s all right, mother,” and to Grace, “Baby asleep?”

  His mother’s voice wept, “I knew you’d come home. All those wicked things they said.” She lifted up her face. He was still looking at Grace. His mother’s voice rose. “You asleep in your bed that night. Wicked, it was wicked.”

  He freed himself gently. “All over now, mother.” To Grace. “Glad to see you up again.”

  His mother said, “I thought it would cheer her up. Sit in here with a nice fire. After that man upset her.”

  “What man?”

  “The detective. You know the one. He was here this morning. He kept coming every day. Made life a misery. You must be hungry. I’ll make you something.”

  He said, “After,” and to Grace, who had risen quietly with the child, “Where you goin’?”

  Walking to the door, “Put baby down.”

  “I’ll take her.” He was at her side and she let him take the baby.

  “You must eat,” his mother said. “Oh, I’m that glad to set eyes on you.”

  He said, “After.”

  Grace passed out of the room while he paused to speak. He followed her into the bedroom. He put the baby down into the cradle. To Grace, “Sorry I surprised you.”

  She lowered herself on to the bed and put her feet up. She turned her head towards him but her expression denoted no more than attention. He came to the foot of the bed, leaning upon the rail. “I give you a surprise, didn’ I? Comin’ in all of a sudden.”

  She had the air of a wife listening vaguely while she reckoned what she needed from the shops. He said, “Did ’e bother you a lot?” She did not appear to comprehend. He added, “Merry?”

  A little grimace of her lower lip was his answer. He said, “’E’s ’ard man. You’re a good girl.”

  He paused, a little nonplussed. He did not want to forfeit any of the closer relation they had attained before his arrest; but he did not know what effect his crime had had on her. For him, what was done was done. Nothing laid on his conscience. He looked to the cot and smiled. “She knows me.” He moved. “I’ll take her up.”

  Grace put her feet to the floor, stooped before he could and lifted the baby. There was nothing hasty or ostentatious in the action. Her attention was only for the baby now, her fingers busy. She murmured, “It’s time for her feed.”

  Dido eyed the tableau of mother and child. He had made himself hard and insentient as a block of corned beef for the last three days. It had brought him through. What he saw now touched him with the first softening warmth. He said, “You’ve ’ad it bad. I bet ’e shook you, that swine. You take it easy. Soon be all right.”

  Her head was bent over the child. He said, “She cry at night?”

  “No. She’s good as gold.”

  Her tone
was neutral, her eyes vague, not noticeably averted yet always restlessly taking stock about the room. She talked, but each conversation came to a dead end. Silences lay between them which did not bother her but which stirred uneasiness in Dido. He put it down to shock. There grew in him the notion of how great a blow the events of the past days must have been to a girl like her and he decided that he must give her time. He took off his boots and jacket and stretched out on the bed, “Ah! Nothin’ like your own bed. Precious little sleep they give me.”

  Grace said, “Have a sleep.”

  He shut his eyes and lay for an hour; not sleeping but dazed, far away, relaxed. He heard her return to the sitting-room at some time during the hour. When he opened his eyes he was alone in the bedroom with the sleeping child. He went to the washstand, sluiced, and went downstairs to the kitchen.

  There was no vagueness or puzzling quiet about his mother. During his walk home he had felt more forebodings about her than about Grace. She had already turned on him in bitterness. He had disappointed her, he had betrayed her years of toil and Christian teaching, he had broken his final promise to her; and she had cried out that he was no better than his father. His arrest must have been the final shock to bring down her life’s hopes in ruins.

  On the contrary. She was in a transport of love. Somehow the whole dreadful train of events had not only convinced her of Dido’s innocence; but that she herself had been unduly harsh to him and must make up for it. Her reasoning was simple. She had been fast asleep in her bed that night. All her household had been fast asleep in their beds. This was an unshakeable conviction. Therefore Dido was innocent, cruelly treated, misjudged — as she herself had misjudged him. She flamed with eagerness to show once more her faith in him, and with indignation against those who, as she cried, had it in for him.

  Nor was she deeply affected by the crime. It was terrible. But to her it was one more tale in that dreadful slum world in which she and her family had been compelled to live although they were people apart. Such things went on. Every day there were accounts in the newspapers — the father of five who cut the throats of his wife and children and hanged himself, the old woman discovered in a garret five weeks dead, the baby bitten to death by rats, the prostitute found strangled, the jealous wife who threw acid in the face of her rival, the rough who trod his enemy to death. Such things happened all round them. All her life she had shut them out; her house a little Christian fort among the hosts of misery and vice. These things had nothing to do with her or her family. And now that something had happened quite near, they were trying to involve her family, they had picked on her boy. For he was her boy again; and her joy that he was restored to her heart only added to her ardour. When he entered the kitchen she cried, “I’ve made your favourite. From when you were a little boy.”

  She drew from the oven a heaped, steaming plate. “Toad in the hole. With bubble and squeak.”

  He looked at the four fat sausages that peeped from a mass of batter, surrounded by a greasy mess of cabbage and sliced potatoes. He was suddenly sickened; not at the food but at the gush of affection. She said, “You used to beg me for it when you were little. Eat it up. Be a good boy.”

  He put his head down and attacked it doggedly, forcing himself to chew and swallow each mouthful, to cut and stack his fork deliberately. She hovered by him, hands clasped, eyes bright with happy tears. He ate through it, feeling a prisoner, and when he finished she clapped her hands together. “Oh, good boy! You haven’t left a mouthful. And now look what I’ve made for afters. A treacle pudding.”

  He went up to bed early. He undressed and turned off the gaslight. Grace was a silent mound under the covers. He eased himself into bed next to her. “You asleep?”

  “No.”

  “Glad to be in me own bed at last.”

  “You must be,” She turned on to her back and he saw the glimmer of her open eyes gazing at the ceiling.

  He said, “You’ll get over it.” She closed her eyes. He said, “I’ll make it up to you.” He lay for a few moments, then, “Lot to think about. Arrangements to make for the christenin’. Then there’s Christmas soon. It’ll be all right. You’ll see.” Her face was relaxed for sleep. He said, “Good night.”

  Her mutter was sleepy, “Good night.”

  He would have liked to get close to her warmth for a little while. There was comfort in the thought on this first night back. Not to do anything to her. He wouldn’t think of it only a couple of weeks after her time; and he didn’t feel like it himself. Just for the warmth of it. He listened to her steady breathing, turned his back on her and made the effort to sleep.

  Troubles had never before kept him from sleep but tonight he slept badly. In the darkness he could see farther than in daylight. Something in Grace’s vague, sleepy remoteness disquieted him. He had to hold himself back from waking the girl who lay next to him in a sleep so profound that he could no longer hear her breathing. Once he was awakened by candlelight from snatches of disturbing dream to see her sitting on the far edge of the bed. She was feeding the baby. He could not come out of the cavern of sleep enough to speak to her. She seemed unaware of him; he accepted this for she had the ability to rise like a somnambulist, attend to the baby without herself really waking up and sink back into sleep almost as she blew out the candle.

  He was awake when the late gloomy daylight of winter infused the room. He crept downstairs without waking her, washed and made his own breakfast. He did not take any tea up to her; he thought it better to let her sleep.

  In the bedroom once more he cautiously opened the bottom drawer of the wardrobe, took out the brown paper parcel, opened it and slipped into his working trousers.

  Grace opened her eyes and muttered fretfully, “It’s cold. You haven’t lit the fire.” He sat still and she said, “I want to change baby.”

  He busied himself with sticks and paper at the fireplace. When the flames sprang up he squatted in front of them, warming his hands. She got up and put on her dressing-gown. As she stooped over the cot he said, “’Ave a good night’s sleep? Feel better?”

  “I feel all right.”

  “Get over it. Soon be all right.”

  She was busy with safety-pins, turned away from him.

  He said, “You needn’t worry.”

  Not looking round, one word scarcely audible, “No?”

  “I’ll do what I said.”

  Still low, “What was that?”

  “Get you out of here.”

  “Good.” She bit the word off like an end of cotton.

  Her brief, low words increased his unease. “Don’t you believe me?”

  “Why not?”

  “Something to look forward to, ain’ it?”

  No answer.

  “Grace, I’m talkin’ to you.”

  “I’m changing baby.”

  “I’m talkin’ to you.”

  “I can hear you.”

  He rose and went to stand over her. “What’s up?”

  She did not look at him. “What do you mean?”

  “What’s got into you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Look at me, will you?” — She turned an expression up to him that gave nothing away. He stopped himself from shouting. “You can talk, can’t you? — It’s no use broodin’ on things. Get you nowhere. What’s done is done.”

  “Oh, yes?” The slight, distinct, derisive change of note between the words was a statement.

  “It’s over and done.”

  “Oh, yes?” She might almost have thought him funny.

  “Look! —”

  He grasped her arm and she muttered irritably, “Mind baby.”

  He brought it out at last. “I done it for you.”

  “What?”

  “It was for you. For you two.”

  “What was?”

  He could not think what to say next. She said, “There’s a fresh tin of powder on the washstand,” and he went to get it for her.

  She powdered, folded the n
apkin, pinned it. She lifted the baby and put its face gently against hers. He said, “You can talk to me. I am your husband.”

  She held the baby at arm’s length and her eyes bathed it in fondness.

  He said, “She’s mine as well.”

  Lightly, turning away from him, putting the baby down, she said, “Oh, yes?”

  Doggedly, “Grace, we got to talk. We got to make plans.”

  “Plans?”

  “We ’ad plans, didn’t we?”

  “Did we?”

  “Well then —”

  She turned quickly, and cried, “Well then?”

  She was trembling, staring at him with an incredulity he could not fathom. He shouted, “They would ’a’ done for you an’ the baby. I ’ad to do it!”

  “Did you?”

  “It was them or me.”

  “And what about me?”

  “I’m tellin’ you —”

  “What about me? There’s something to be proud of. My husband taken away by the police. For everyone to see.”

  “They let me go.”

  “Hooray.”

  “Grace, you got to put it out of your mind. People get killed in fires every day.”

  “Fires! A fat lot I’m bothered about that. Good riddance to bad rubbish I say.”

  He was dumbfounded. He was still stunned by the intensity with which she had lashed out; but shocked even more, truly shocked, as the truth dawned on him. He had dreaded that she would loathe him for the crime; but she hadn’t given it a thought. “Lot of savages,” she cried. “I’ve no tears for that sort. You never thought of me, did you? The disgrace you’ve brought. You had to? Thank you very much.”

  “All right,” he said. “I tell you I’ll get you out of here.”

  “You’ll tell me. You’ll tell me anything. You told me a few old stories, didn’t you? You and that old cow downstairs. You and your business in Dalston.”

  “That’s what I’m gonna do,” he shouted. “I’ll have that business. Just wait.”