Dangerous Things

by Claire Rayner

  ‘That’s why she’s leaving,’ Harry said with a sudden note of savagery in his voice, and he turned his head to look at her. ‘She’s leaving you as well as him, because you did nothing. All those years he’s treated her as he treated me and the other boys he got hold of at the Foundation, the way I think he probably treated your other children, your sons. They never come to see you now, do they? You never hear from then, do you? Jenny told me that. Why’s that, Mrs Barratt? Because you know he was fucking them the same way he did me? That he was fucking your daughter? And did nothing about it.’

  Stella sat and stared at him, her eyes so widely open that a rim of white could be seen above the blue-black darkness at the centre, and she said hoarsely, ‘No, that isn’t true. He didn’t. I never knew. He couldn’t, he didn’t —’

  ‘He could and he did, and you knew.’ Harry’s voice was hard and loud in the small room. ‘She tried to talk to you, but you didn’t want to know. Not ever. Well, now you do know. Your husband, the man you sleep with, that man there — your husband had sex with all your children. Now what are you going to do about that? Keep him here? Or throw him out where he ought to be, in the gutter? You can, you know.’

  Stella was staring at him like some mesmerized creature, and he said softly, ‘You can throw him out. Right now. Make him go. He can’t stop you, can’t force you to keep him here —’

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re talking about?’ Barratt roared. ‘You can’t come here and say things like that, you —’

  ‘Is it true?’ Stella was looking at him now, and her eyes had the same wild look from the visible band of white just below the upper lids. ‘Did you — did you do what he said?’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ he said. ‘Who gives a shit about you? Shut up, you stupid cow. You’ — he whirled on Harry — ‘get out, or I —’

  ‘Or you what?’ Harry said sweetly and Barratt closed his mouth and looked at him, the old blankness of expression returning. ‘You call the police to have me put out? Do that and I tell them all you’d rather I didn’t. I show them pictures.’ And he reached into his breast pocket, pulling his windcheater aside, and threw the little pile of snapshots down on to the coffee table. And Hattie saw them and made herself close her eyes. She didn’t want to see.

  There was silence as Gordon stood staring down at the photographs. He didn’t pick them up. He didn’t need to. They were face up and clearly visible.

  ‘So there you have it,’ Harry said in tones of great satisfaction, and he scooped up the pictures. ‘I’ll take these — No, I won’t. You can have them as a memento. A reminder of what happens if you don’t do as I say. I’ve got the negatives, you see. Those are easily reproduced, so you take them when you go. Go on.’ And he jerked his head at the door.

  ‘What?’ Barratt said stupidly. ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me,’ Harry said, and smiled benignly. ‘Go away. Get out. Take yourself off. You can have — oh, a dozen minutes or so. Just enough to pack a few bits and pieces. We wouldn’t want you quite down and out. You’ll suffer more if you’ve got a little something to live on in that foul flat of yours in Limehouse. Then you can sit and remember what you’ve lost.’ He looked at Stella then. ‘This house, I suppose it’s in his name?’

  She looked dully at him, saying nothing, and Genevieve said, ‘No,’ suddenly and unexpectedly. ‘No.’

  ‘Really? You mean she owns it?’

  ‘There was a tax thing, years ago. She told me. It’s in her name, because he said it had to be, but she wasn’t to get any ideas. She told me that, years ago.’ Genevieve giggled suddenly. ‘It’s your own house, Mum. You’ve got something of your own for once.’

  Stella shifted her head marginally and looked at her. The wildness had gone from her eyes and she looked vague and confused, as though she’d only just woken out of a deep sleep.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said, this is your house and he’s got to get out. He’s got to get out of everything, Harry says. The committees and all the things he does, all that. If he doesn’t — and his job too, Harry says — if he doesn’t leave them all we’re going to the police, aren’t we, Harry?’

  ‘Yes,’ Harry said cheerfully, and smiled widely at Gordon Barratt. ‘You’re wasting time, old friend. Now you’ve only got eight minutes left to pack a few bits. Anything left behind gets thrown out or sold, right, Mrs Barratt?’

  Stella shifted her eyes and looked at him. ‘Right,’ she said and her voice was husky. But there was some expression in it now. ‘Right.’

  ‘You can get out, you see,’ Harry said gently and leaned forward and reached for her hand. ‘It’s possible if you try.’

  She nodded and looked up at her husband and then, suddenly, smiled, and Hattie felt the crawling sensation that had been in the nape of her neck redouble. She’d never seen anyone look at someone else like that with so much naked loathing.

  ‘Get out,’ she said. ‘You heard what he said. Get out!’

  ‘But I’m not —’ he began but Harry shook his head.

  ‘No time for that, Barratt,’ he said. ‘Believe me, I’ll take you and chuck you out in the street with my own hands. Go and do it. Get your things. You’re going. If you don’t, we get the police and Genevieve tells them what you’ve done.’

  ‘You lousy stinking nigger!’ Barratt shrieked and lunged across the room, but Harry was too quick for him. As though he’d been watching for the move from the start, he was on his feet and fending off the older man, twisting him, pinning one arm behind his back, holding him as easily as an adult holds a noisy child.

  ‘Don’t be such an arsehole, Barratt,’ he said. ‘You’ve lost. You’re out. It could be worse. We’re just making sure your world’s ruined. You could have had to go to court and then to prison. You still might if you don’t get a move on.’

  Barratt pulled himself away and went, running to the door, lurching up the stairs, thudding across the landing, and they listened in silence as the sounds came down to them; scrapes and bangs as drawers were pulled out and doors slammed. And then he was overhead, on the landing, and coming down the stairs as Harry shot to his feet and went to the living-room door to wait for him.

  Barratt went across the hall, dragging a case with him. He didn’t look at Harry, but as he passed, Harry took his elbow and pulled him round to look him in the face.

  ‘One last thing, Barratt,’ he said. ‘Just to send you on your way. My Jenny’s pregnant. She’s going to have another stinking little nigger, just like me. Your grandchild. Isn’t that lovely?’ And then he dragged him by the elbow and pulled the front door open and pushed him out.

  And Hattie sat and listened as Genevieve and Stella jumped up and ran after Harry to stand on the step and watch the man half walking, half running down the quiet mock-Tudor street with its snowdrops and crocuses, his case dragging awkwardly behind him. She began to laugh, softly at first and then more and more loudly. She hadn’t needed to be here at all. She hadn’t had to say more than a few words to the man. Harry had done it all as he’d said he would, and he’d done it alone. She hadn’t needed to be here at all. It was the funniest thing she had ever heard of.

  Sam was waiting where he said he would be, in the saloon bar of the pub on the corner opposite the end of the road, and she walked there, her hands thrust deep into her pockets, her collar up against the chill. But she didn’t feel cold now. There was a warm centre somewhere deep inside, and it sent a glow all through her. She could even smell the promise of future summer in the air, the faint scent of trees trying to burst into leaf, and the even more delicate fragrance of the snowdrops. It was over. She’d been a great deal more alarmed at the prospect of meeting the Barratts on their own territory than she had realized and now it was all over she was almost giddy with the exhilaration of it all.

  I ought not to feel this way, she told herself. I ought to be angry still with that man. I ought to be more worried about how things will be for those children, for Arse and Dilly, Harry
and Genevieve. I ought to be more concerned about Tully and even Collop …

  But she was none of those things. She was warm and happy, and she pushed open the door of the saloon bar of the Orange Tree and went blinking into the brightly lit fug and its heavy smell of beer and ham sandwiches and cigarette smoke, looking for Sam; and saw him waiting, leaning against the bar at the far end, and his face lit up as he saw her. And she let the door swing behind her, and pushed her way through the crowd to meet him.