The Odd Flamingo

by Nina Bawden

  She put her head down on the table and burst into violent, shaking sobs.

  The woman had listened eagerly; the girl’s beauty and her rôle of victim excited her. She comforted her a little and then she capped the girl’s story with confidences of her own. She didn’t say how much she had said but I guessed, from her half-ashamed admissions that she had, in fact, produced a hard-luck story about the maddening old uncle who clung so persistently and so meanly to a life that was no longer of any use to him. And clung, which was more important, to his money too. She admitted reluctantly that she had told the girl about the money. She was not willing to be too precise about what she had said; she was aware, it seemed, of her own stupidity. She said that the girl had been sympathetic; they had talked a little longer and then she had offered her a temporary lodging until she could find somewhere else.

  “It was the least I could do, wasn’t it? I mean she seemed so genuine and I didn’t like to turn her away. She seemed very grateful and then she said she would go down to the station and get her bag.”

  She reddened, slowly and hideously, “She didn’t come back,” she said.

  “What was she like?” I asked.

  She wrinkled her forehead. “The police wanted to know that, too. She was very pretty and nicely dressed. Good taste, you know, nothing cheap or showy. She had glasses on and her hair was tied back with a ribbon.” She looked at me suspiciously. “You’re very interested in her, aren’t you?”

  I said quickly, “Yes. I’ve not told you the truth, I’m afraid. I don’t want the house. I wanted to know about the girl.”

  She took that quite calmly. “If she did have something to do with it, shall I get the money back?”

  She leaned forward and moistened her lips with her tongue and suddenly I was very conscious of the hot, musty smell in the room and of a deep, almost physical distaste.

  I said, “I don’t know. I’m not from the police. But I shall tell them about this. And I dare say they’ll get in touch with you.”

  She nodded and smiled suddenly in a coy, unattractive way. “Well, you’re a funny one, aren’t you? I never guessed. Oh, you’re a deep one, all right.”

  I left the house with relief and a feeling of tiredness that was of the mind as well as of the body. I was most of the way through the wood and it gave me no feeling of achievement or exaltation whatever.

  Menhennet had died by accident, but it was an accident that had led to another death. Jasmine could be trusted to keep her mouth shut about a robbery in which she had herself been concerned but murder was another matter. I wondered how often she had been used for this sort of thing and whether she had inherited her histrionic ability from her mother.

  And Rose had an excellent reason to be afraid; an excellent reason to lie. Jasmine had told her about the old man, Menhennet, and Jasmine had been murdered. They had not killed Rose, because Callaghan loved her enough to hide her in his boat. But she was not hidden in his boat now. She was in the hands of the police and sooner or later she would tell them what she knew. Unless she were prevented from telling them. And there was only one way of preventing her.

  I stopped the car and went into the telephone box outside. The door would not shut properly and the noise of the traffic dulled the ringing tone.

  When the hospital answered I had difficulty, at first, in making out what they said. It was not entirely because of the traffic. I did not want to hear that Rose had been taken away by her mother.

  I rang the hotel and Mrs. Blacker came to the telephone after some delay. She sounded peevish. Yes, she said, Rose was in her room. And in bed. Yes, she was quite all right, only a little tired and in need of sleep. The people in the hotel were being very kind; they had sent up her lunch on a tray. And a man had been in and left some flowers. He had asked to see Rose but she had sent a message and said it was impossible. No, she had not seen the man, she did not know his name. There had been no name on the card that came with the flowers, only the words, “With sympathy.” She supposed the man had gone away.

  I said, “Go back to Rose. Stay with her. Don’t leave her.”

  She said, crossly, that of course she would stay with Rose, that she would not have left her now if I had not telephoned.

  I put the receiver down and stood in the box wondering whether I should ring the police. Whether by the time I had made somebody understand it might not be too late.

  Now that it was entirely my decision I felt inadequate and weak, afraid that behind my hesitation lay a fear of ridicule. I left the box and went back to the car.

  I drove as fast as I could to the hotel. It was in a back street, a street so quiet that it might have been a street in a provincial town. The grey dust blew along it and there were torn papers in the gutters. A ginger torn slept on the hotel steps and the sleazy windows looked dead and still.

  There was a long grey car parked almost opposite the hotel entrance on the far side of the road. It was a narrow road and it led into a T-junction that ran from a cul-de-sac in a yard behind an office block into the main street. I managed to get past the grey car, putting my wheels up on to the kerb in front of the hotel and swinging in front of the bonnet of the other car. I switched off the ignition and got out of my seat.

  Through the windscreen of the other car I saw Piers’s face. It was white and blubbery and shocked. I went up to the car and put my hand on the open window. Piers struck at my knuckles with a sudden and violent gesture and the sharp edge of the window jarred into my finger joints. I drew back in anger and alarm and said his name aloud.

  Piers blew a long, loud blast on the horn.

  After that it all seemed to happen at once. The shot from the hotel and the loud, high scream and the sudden filling of the little, quiet street with people.

  The hotel door swung open and crashed back into the face of the porter who was glimpsed, momentarily, through the glass, his surprised and bloodied face sinking backwards out of sight.

  The young man who came out wore a handkerchief covering the lower part of his face like a boy’s conception of an American gangster. He had silken bleached hair that caught the summer sun. He looked at the car and at me and then he ran towards the T-junction and several uniformed police scuttled out of doorways and gave chase.

  Piers swore, he slammed the car into gear and tried to swing the wheel but there wasn’t enough room. He flung himself out of the car on the far side and ran, away from the hotel towards the busy shopping street. I dodged round the car and caught my foot in a drain-cover and fell. It only stopped me for a moment but it was long enough to give Piers, old and fat as he was, a start of almost the length of the street.

  I am not sure why I ran after him; it would have been more sensible, in the end, to leave him to the police.

  At the end of the quiet street the traffic streamed past; there was a lull as Piers reached the kerb and he ran across to the island in the centre of the road. Once there he was marooned; it was the city’s lunch hour, the traffic was thick and there was no chance to cross.

  I stood on the pavement watching him; the buses passed in an unbroken line and all the time Piers stood on the island, looking back at me.

  When, finally, there was a gap and I slipped across the road in front of the bonnet of a lorry, we looked into each other’s faces for perhaps thirty seconds and in that time I had my entire revenge for Humphrey and for Kate and for Rose.

  His face was a mask of animal terror. He was sweating and the sweat ran into his eyes and trickled down his chin from the corners of the twisted mouth. His face was the colour of lard.

  Then he lunged at me with his flabby fists raised above his head and his mouth open and shouting something that I could not hear. I side-stepped and he fell, forward into the road. I could not have saved him; I am quite sure that I could not have saved him.

  As he went under the bus he screamed. He went on screaming long after it seemed incredible that he should not be dead, long after I had begun to pray that he would die soon.


  Chapter Fourteen

  At the time and afterwards it seemed as if the whole horrible business had lasted for hours; but in fact it could not have been more than a few minutes before the bus had stopped and the screaming had ended and the gasping, gawping crowd was so thick on the road and round the island that I had trouble getting out of it. I felt winded and sick. As I reached the pavement a man caught me by the arm and then, after a look at my face, let me go again. I think he shouted after me as I ran back along the street to the hotel.

  The foyer was noisy and full of people. The porter was sitting on the floor with his back against the reception desk. Blood streamed down his face and he wore an expression of aggrieved astonishment. No one seemed to be taking any notice of him.

  I ran up the stairs to the first floor. There were people in Mrs. Blacker’s room and a bitter smell of smoke. Rose was half out of bed, crouching on her knees, her face empty and staring. Mrs. Blacker lay in a wicker chair and gasped like a fish. Her feet drummed faintly on the carpeted floor.

  I went to Rose and said, “It’s all right, my sweet, my dear. Lie down. You’re all right now.”

  She looked at me as if she didn’t know who I was. I took her by the shoulders and pushed her down under the bedclothes and she lay still, like an obedient child, her eyes fixed on my face.

  The manager was by the bed, his poky, cockney face grey as ashes. I said, “Call the police. And get these people out of here.”

  He looked at mie with relief, not questioning my authority. He said, “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

  They were gone in a few minutes and the door was closed and there was no sound in the room except Mrs. Blacker’s shuddering sobs. Then she stopped crying and her voice was harsh with shock, and trembly.

  She said, “There was a man. He came in with a gun. He didn’t say anything at all. I was at the window and when I looked round he was there. Then someone blew a horn and the gun went off. He ran away.”

  Rose said nothing. She turned her head on the pillow and looked at me with eyes that were enormous with terror. I sat beside her on the bed and took her cold hand in mine. I said, “Rose dear, it’s all over. You won’t have to be frightened again. I know about the old man. Will you tell me about him?”

  She shook her head in a quick, convulsed gesture; she did not take her eyes from my face.

  I said, “Jasmine knew all about it, didn’t she? She went to Ealing?”

  The door of the room opened and Jennings came in. He closed the door with the smallest sound and leant against it. He was breathing heavily as if he had been running.

  I said, to Rose, “Was Jasmine there when the old man died.”

  There was a look of surprise on her face. Her eyes went past me, to Jennings. He walked to the end of the bed and his eyes were full of contempt and bitter anger.

  “No,” he said. “It wasn’t Jasmine who was there. It was you, wasn’t it?”

  She nodded, or rather her head jerked forward as if she were a puppet and someone had pulled a string. She licked her lips with the tip of her pink tongue. Her eyes had a dulled, flat look.

  For a moment I didn’t know what was happening and then, when I did know, I wanted to get out of the room quickly before she was destroyed before my eyes. But it was too late; I had to stay and see it happen.

  Jennings said, “Don’t lie to me.”

  And she didn’t lie. At least, not about what had happened. I had the feeling that although she twisted everything very slightly she was being, in her fashion, quite honest. She saw herself, genuinely, as wronged and essentially innocent. The distortion was deeply buried in her pitiable little mind and not deliberate. In the end I felt no anger with her, nor indignation, only pity.

  She said, “Yes, I went there. I didn’t know what they were going to do. Honestly I didn’t. I just did what Jimmie wanted to do. Mr. Piers—he knew all about the old man and his money and he told Jimmie. I went down first to find out where he kept it. Then I went with Jimmie one morning and he broke into the house. I waited outside and Jimmie told me to tell him if anyone came. Then it all went wrong. The old man was in—he shouldn’t have been in. The lady said he went out to work in the mornings. Jimmie came to the door and called me and told me to hurry. I went in and he’d got the old man on the floor and he held him while I tied his hands behind him. I didn’t want to do it—he was such an old man and he looked all funny and blue round the mouth and he wasn’t breathing properly. I said couldn’t we just shut him up in a room, but Jimmie said no. He said he was a nark and that he knew who we were and that it wasn’t safe. So we put him on a sofa and put a handkerchief in his mouth so he couldn’t call out. Then Jimmie told me to go out and wait for him and I did and when he came out he was sick in the bushes. I didn’t think he would die, truly I didn’t. I didn’t know he was dead until I read about it afterwards in the papers and then I was so afraid.”

  Jennings said, “And when you read about it in the papers, what did you do then?”

  She did not take her eyes from his face. She said, “I was so frightened. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to get away—I didn’t want to have anything to do with Jimmie any more. I’d not meant to do anything wrong, at first it had been just fun. Mr. Piers said you’d like some nice clothes, wouldn’t you? And pretty things—I’d never had many pretty things, we’d always been too poor. And he said there was no harm in it if you were careful.”

  Jennings said, “What had Mr. Piers Stone to do with it all?”

  She looked puzzled. “I’m not sure. Jimmie said he was a good sort, that he’d always say you were at the Flamingo if you didn’t want people to know you’d been somewhere else. And he gave Jimmie some stuff in a little packet. I don’t know what it was but it was something awfully special and Jimmie said he’d let me have some of it one day if I was a good girl and did what I was told. Jimmie was terribly angry with Mr. Piers after Mr. Menhennet had died. He said he didn’t see why he should do Mr. Stone’s dirty work for him and that he didn’t like people making a monkey out of him. I think Mr. Menhennet knew something about Mr. Stone that would have got him into trouble with the police.”

  Jennings said, each word a calculated drop of ice, “And when you found out that it wasn’t just fun, that it was more dangerous than you thought, that you’d done something terrible, what did you do?”

  Her mouth trembled and she said nothing.

  He went on, “You were going to have Jimmie’s baby, weren’t you? And you thought that if you pretended it was someone else’s baby Jimmie would have nothing more to do with you and you could break with him and the rest of the gang. The baby wasn’t Mr. Stone’s, was it?”

  She shook her head dumbly.

  “And then you found that it wasn’t so easy. That they wouldn’t let you go. You had a row with Callaghan and he threatened to kill you. That frightened you, didn’t it? So you decided to go and see Mrs. Stone and tell her all about her husband and yourself. But it didn’t work, did it?”

  She said, in a small, still voice, “It was dreadfully wrong. But I didn’t know what to do. Jimmie wanted me to marry him. Then, when I read in the papers that the old man was dead, I didn’t want to have anything more to do with Jimmie. I hadn’t wanted the old man to die—I hadn’t wanted to tie him up. So it wasn’t really my fault, was it?

  “So I told Jimmie that I wouldn’t marry him because I was going to have a baby and it wasn’t his. He didn’t believe me. So I had to make him believe me. I had all the letters Mr. Stone had written to me and I thought everyone would believe the baby was his. If I went to court, you see, it would all be public and Jimmie would have to believe me and leave me alone. And it wasn’t just that I wanted him to leave me alone. It made me safer too. Because if I’d had the baby and hadn’t said whose it was, people might have suspected about me and Jimmie. But if I said it was Mr. Stone’s, then they wouldn’t look for anyone else. I was so afraid, really I was. I didn’t know what to do.”

  I felt ill with h
orror and disgust. I tried to hide it because I could see Jennings looking at me and I knew that he was sorry about it all.

  Then he said, “And what happened on the night that Jasmine was killed?”

  She looked round the room wildly, as if for help. She looked at Jennings and at me and at her mother. And then a change came over her face. It lost the crumpled lines of fear and became smoothly and almost horribly innocent. She looked quite astonishingly beautiful and curiously unreal. She lifted her head and smiled carefully at us all. It was a slow, sweet smile. She had escaped from her brief moment of reality; she was Joan of Arc at the stake.

  She said, “I suppose it was all dreadfully wrong. But at first it seemed just exciting and not wrong at all. And you see”—wistfully—”life hasn’t been very exciting for me. It’s not much fun being shut up in a dull little town where no one wants you to enjoy yourself and everyone is jealous of you.”

  Then she spoke again of her fear when the old man had died. That it had been genuine fear, I did not doubt; that she had felt the smallest remorse was impossible to believe. I think the fact of the man’s murder was still not quite real to her; once she spoke, almost petulantly, of their “bad luck” as if it had, in fact, seemed no more to her than that.