"Sometimes."
"Still take aspirins?"
"Yes." Syd looked puzzled, but didn't ask a question.
"Just goes on the same way, eh? This guy she's got living with her, you like him?"
"I—I don't know who you mean."
"This Small, Art Small." Benson was impatient.
"Oh, him," said Syd disparagingly. "He don't live at home, but he comes round most nights, so he might just as well. If he don't come home, she goes out with him to the pictures or somewhere."
"Like him?"
Syd answered slowly, as if he hadn't given the matter any thought at all: "Well, no, not exactly."
"Okay, forget him. What about your sister? She okay?"
"Oh, yeh, she's fine."
"Get on all right with you, does she?"
"She's okay," Syd said; "she's like anyone else's sister; you know what sisters are like."
Benson grinned.
"That's where you're wrong, son, I never had a sister. Never had a ma or a pa, either. Orphan brat, that's what I was. Had to fend for myself from the time I was nine, and don't you forget it. That's how I came to know the best way to look after Number One. Now, listen to me, boyo. You're going back home, see. You're not to tell your ma or anyone else you've seen me. Just say you've been holding out in Charlie Mulliver's place, the police won't worry much about Charlie. Just go home and be yourself, see. Don't talk about me to anyone, just be yourself, just look as if you knew you was going to stay there for the rest of your life. You've gone back because you didn't see the pay-off for you if you stayed away. Got all that, Syd?"
The boy was eager.
"Yeh!"
"That's fine. And listen. You say your ma still gets those headaches and takes aspirins?"
"Like I told you."
"That's fine. Well, I'm going to give you some special aspirin tablets, boyo, and you're going to look after them until you get back. First time your ma says she wants an aspirin, you go and get them for her, see, and you give her one of the tablets I'm going to give you. Got that? One or two, makes no odds, but she's to have them instead of the aspirins."
Syd, his eagerness slightly dulled by a kind of bewilderment, asked slowly, "I can do that, okay, but why? Are they better than ordinary aspirins?"
"I'll say they are, son," said Benson; and now his expression was wholly evil, hard, vicious, in spite of the fact that his lips were twisted into a smile. "They're tons better. She'll go right off to sleep, see, and then you can sneak out of the house and come right back here to me. She just won't hear you, that's a fact. We'll get off on that ship for South America right away, then. You understand?"
The boy's eyes held a light which they had never shown before. He could not speak, could only nod. When his father held out a little bottle in which were two white tablets which looked like aspirins, he took the bottle and put it in his pocket without saying a word. He was swamped by emotion again, but not so helplessly as before, and this time he forced it back by his own efforts.
Benson gripped his shoulder with that same painful tightness.
"Okay, boyo?"
"Sure."
"That's fine," said Benson, but he didn't relax his grip. "Now listen, son. The police will ask you a lot of questions, you know what these perishing dicks are like. So they ask you questions. You don't tell them a thing. You didn't see me, you haven't heard from home, you just stayed at Charlie's place, until you realized there was no future in it. Understand?" Now his grip was really painful, and the boy drew in his breath but made no attempt to get clear. "Listen to me, boyo, if you so much as whisper that you've seen me, that trip's off, see. I won't wait for you, I'll go on my own. Understand?"
"I wouldn't tell them if they killed me," young Syd said.
18. Benson Talks
Benson stayed at Charlie Mulliver's place for an hour after his son had gone, and then slipped along an alley and over some roofs to the warehouse, using a window which appeared to be locked from the outside, but had been rigged so that it could open easily. He had a bag with a packet of food, four bottles of beer, cigarettes, matches, chocolates, and a pack of playing cards. He was through the window in a moment, and stood by it, listening intently for several seconds; he heard no sound of anyone approaching.
He turned round.
There was a strong smell of petrol in the warehouse; thousands of gallons of petrol in forty-gallon metal drums were stored here. There were other fuel oils, too; the place would become a ready-made incinerator if a naked flame got near any of the oils. It was dark and gloomy except near the window, yet Benson did not use his flashlight. He picked his way over the metal drums, kicking against one now and again so that it gave off a deep booming note, but the window was closed and the warehouse was almost soundproof.
He reached a doorway which led to a pair of wooden steps, a big, square freight lift with open ironwork gates, which led to the floors above. He used the stairs and, as he neared the first landing, heard a whisper of sound. He tapped three times on the wooden handrail, and immediately the handrail quivered from Freddy Tisdale's responding taps. Then Freddy called softly:
"Everything okay?"
"Everything's fine."
"Got some grub?"
"Plenty."
Freddy said, "And can I use it!" He was at the first landing, and now he turned away, in the gloom, toward a little room which had once been used as an office but had not been needed for that purpose for a long time. On the floor along two sides of the walls were bundles of rags, making rough mattresses, and there were blankets for the men to throw over themselves at night. There was a small table, two packing cases to sit on, a candle in the neck of a beer bottle, and a safety lamp. The only light came from a small, frosted glass window set very high in the wall, and they lived here in a state of almost perpetual gloom.
Benson put the food on the table. Freddy tore at it, then opened a bottle of beer and tossed it down his throat; the gurgling seemed very loud. Looking at him, Benson saw the line of his neck, almost straight from his breastbones to the tip of his chin. A funny thought occurred to Benson, then: that a knife laid against that throat would make the flesh twang like tightly stretched wire being cut.
Freddy gasped as he put the bottle down.
"That's better," he said thickly; "plenty more where it came from?"
"Enough," said Benson.
They ate; they lit cigarettes; and they sat against the walls, facing each other. Freddy started several different subjects of conversation, but they all fell flat. Then he asked if Benson had seen the kid.
"Sure," Benson said.
"He okay?"
"He's fine," said Benson, "he's the way I like him." There was a new, vibrant note in his voice, a depth of feeling different from anything which Freddy Tisdale had heard before. In spite of the gloom, he could see the way Benson's eyes glistened, and he sensed something of what was going on in the other man's mind.
Then Benson began to talk.
He had never talked so freely as this about any subject; just uttered a word or the clipped sentences, and lapsed into long periods of silence. Now he talked as if whisky had loosened his tongue, but there was no whisky on his breath, there was just the spirit of that boy. He talked, not knowing it, with all the pent-up love that he felt for his son, and all he had ever dreamed for him, all that had lain buried so long in his subconscious mind now came out and took possession of him.
And Freddy Tisdale listened, fascinated at first.
At last, Benson stopped. He picked up a bottle of beer, smacked it sharply against the table and knocked the neck off, and then put it to his lips, as if it did not occur to him that the broken glass would cut him.
He drank deeply.
"That's the way it goes," he said clearly. "That boy's a chip off the old block, and no mistake. Give him ten years and he'll be as good as his father. That boy's got a future, Freddy, you can take it from me. Wouldn't I like to have seen him growing up, instead of letting that—"
He broke off.
He gave the twisted, hateful smile.
"Well, she's got hers," he said.
He stopped speaking, put a cigarette to his lips and then lit it. He watched the match burn out, unwinking. He did not appear to notice that Freddy had gone very still and quiet. Freddy was staring at him; and after a while Benson looked round, saw that, and asked in a harsh voice,
"Seen enough?"
"Syd," said Freddy, and gulped and broke off. Now Benson sat there, with the empty beer bottle in his hand, and the broken neck with its jagged edges pointing toward Freddy; it had once been his favorite form of weapon.
"What's biting you?"
Freddy said, "Syd, you—you haven't been there and killed her?"
Benson stared in turn, and then let his arm fall; he banged the thick end of the bottle on the table and began to laugh. The fact that he laughed aloud the first time since they had broken out of prison told Freddy a great deal about the state of his nerves: how tense they were and how easy it might be to break them.
"Strike me," he said at last, "what do you think I am? Go and see the old So-and-so? Me? With Gideon and half the flippin' police on the doorstep? Have some sense, Freddy boy, have some sense!"
"But you said—"
"I said she's got hers, and that's what I meant," Benson told him, "and I gave it to her. But not the way you think, son, not the way anyone thinks. Like to know how I fixed it?" He laughed again, but this time there was an edge to the laughter, and it came out slowly, as if he were not quite sure that it was wise to laugh or to talk. Abruptly: "The kid'll fix it."
Freddy caught his breath.
"Young Syd?"
"Any complaint?"
"You can't trust a kid like that to croak his own mother; even if he was pleased to see you, he—"
Benson said, "Stow it. He was pleased to see me all right; and if I'd asked him, he'd have fixed her. But he's only a kid, ain't he? Think I'd want a kid to know he was going to do a thing like that? Not bloody likely! He's going to give her some aspirins, that's all, just a coupla aspirins. He won't know what's happened to her. Why, the way these doctors and psychologists work these days they won't even tell him what happened, they'll just ask him where he got the aspirins from, that's all—even if they get round to that. Let me tell you something, Freddy. They're soft about kids, these days. The worst that can happen to him is a few years in Borstal, and that won't hurt him. It could do him a hell of a lot of good, the same way as it did me. Syd'll be okay. But Ruby'll know what it's like to be all twisted up inside before those aspirins have finished doing their job. What with her boy friend's face all burned off him, and—"
He broke off again.
Freddy said, in a strangely weak voice, "You know what you want, Syd, don't you?"
"And I get it."
Silence followed, and lasted for a long time. It was uneasy; sullen. The broken bottle stood on the table between them, the right way up; in Benson's pocket was the poultry knife. About them was the gloom of the dingy office, and below-stairs the barrels of petrol and other oils, the bare walls with the great hanging cobwebs, the spiders, the rats, the bats. Outside, just across the alley, was the little window of Charlie Mulliver's doss-house, and beyond that the East End and Muskett Street—where Ruby Benson stood talking, not knowing, then, what was going to happen to Art Small that lunchtime.
Then, Freddy said, "Syd, you got everything laid on for that ship?"
"I told you, didn't I? Can't go wrong. The captain's drunk half the time, and he's brought so much snow into the country he daren't refuse me a passage—the five hundred each wasn't for him, it was to grease a lot of palms. Didn't anyone tell you that palms want greasing sometimes?"
Freddy forced a smile. "As if I didn't know."
"You know. I'll tell you what," went on Benson. He became expansive again, sitting back with his shoulders and his head against the wall, and a dreamy smile on his face; it touched him with the gentleness of what might have been. "We'll have a two-berth cabin on board, see? We'll ship as crew, but as soon as we're out at sea we'll be treated like favored passengers—the only two, in the bargain. The ship's carrying machine parts, and couldn't be cleaner. We'll live like fighting cocks, that's what we'll do, deck chairs and sunshine all day long, just a couple of bucks out on the sea voyage for the sake of their health. And when we get to Buenos Aires, o-kay! We find ourselves something to do. We find ourselves a couple of señoritas, too. You remember that skirt we used to know, back along? Spanish, she was, and—oh, boy!"
He stopped.
He didn't go on again, this time, but stayed there with the half-smile on his lips, his eyes nearly closed, just able to see Freddy between his lashes. Soon, with his eyes closed firmly, he looked as if he were asleep, breathing smoothly and without the slightest hint of a snore—a compact, handsome man with that black stubble and the deep lines of suffering and hardship at his mouth.
Freddy closed his eyes, too, but kept opening them again. Every now and again his lips tightened, and he seemed to be looking at Benson for something that he wasn't very sure about, something he couldn't be sure was there. He could not settle to a book, although there were several old paper-backed Westerns here.
Ruby Benson was back at Muskett Street.
A relief manager had been sent to the dress shop in the Mile End Road as soon as the news of the attack on Arthur Small had been reported. He had sent Ruby home at once, full of reassurance and understanding; she wasn't to worry, she was to stay away from business until this period of anxiety was over; she needn't have a care in the world. There was no need for him to provide an escort, for four policemen were now outside the shop; and wherever one looked, on the way from the Mile End Road to Muskett Street, it seemed as if there was a policeman. In fact there were three in Muskett Street, and two of them went into the little house and looked in every room before Ruby was allowed to go in. That was in spite of the fact that the house had been under surveillance day and night for nearly five days.
That had been at two o'clock.
Liz had been on her way back to school, and Ruby hadn't tried to get her back.
At a quarter past two, a policeman came hurrying across the road, and she saw him through the front-room window. She was in there, hardly knowing what she was doing, wishing that she was with Art Small, knowing it would be no use waiting at the hospital. He might lose his sight, and he might die. She did not think consciously of her husband; she was obsessed by anxiety for the man who had brought so much brightness into her life.
Then the policeman outside knocked sharply.
Ruby got up, hesitated, and moved slowly toward the passage, then toward the front door. She knew that this could mean trouble, and it could also mean good news. She felt a sharp pain at her side as she thought of that, and pressed a hand against her aching head.
She had never had a worse headache.
It showed in her glassy eyes and in the twitching nerves at the corners of her eyes. The bang at the front door seemed to go right through her, making the pain much worse. Then she managed to make herself step forward, and opened the door.
The middle-aged policeman standing on the doorstep looked really excited.
Had the police caught him? Hope flared.
"Your boy's okay, Mrs. Benson," the policeman said quickly. "He's on his way here now, just turned the corner." His eagerness faded when he saw Ruby's expression and guessed at the pain she felt, but he went on: "Hope I'm not talking out of turn, but mind if I suggest something?"
"Syd's coming back? Young Syd?" Ruby felt a sudden relief, a kind of gladness. So her son could ease the pressure of her despair.
"Nearly here now, Mrs. Benson," the policeman said, "and if you'll take a tip from me you won't go for him too much for running away. Treat him gently now, and it might make all the difference."
She looked as if she hadn't heard a word.
"And he isn't hurt?"
"No," said the policeman,
"he's all right, and—" He broke off, giving up his well-intentioned effort, and he watched her as she pushed past him, into the street. Her expression was very different from anything he had expected. Her eyes didn't glow, but there was no anger in them, and for the first time he realized what a good-looking girl Mrs. Benson must have been when she was young.
She stared along the street.
Young Syd was coming toward her, at the side of a plain-clothes man. His head was held high, and he walked defiantly. Ruby caught her breath, for he looked so like big Syd when she had first met him; as if he were prepared to look the world in the face, and nothing could keep him down.
She found herself hurrying.
"Syd, oh, Syd . . ."
He didn't break into a run. He did nothing to suggest that he was pleased to see her. When she bent down and took him in her arms, he didn't yield, as once he had, but kept his body stiff and aloof. She realized that, and it marred the relief of his return. She realized—or told herself that she did—that it would be a long time before she won his confidence again, that she would have to be very, very careful about the way she treated him.
She took him in.
"What's the matter, Mum?" he asked. "You got a headache?"
She wondered if he cared whether she had a headache or not, and couldn't quite understand the sharpness in his voice.
"A bit of one," she said.
"I'll get you an aspirin, I know where . . ."
"I took two just before you came in," Ruby said; "I won't take any more yet, Syd. Syd, where—" She checked herself; questions could come later, just now she had to try to win him over. For although she did not know where he had been, she realized that he had really gone chasing after his dream—that if he could have found him, he would have run off to see his father. "Are you hungry, Syd?" she asked quietly. "What would you like to eat?"
At half past four, Liz arrived, bursting into the house and hugging Syd. At twenty to five, Gideon arrived.
19. The Truth?
Gideon at work; three complete novels: Gideon's day, Gideon's week, Gideon's night Page 16
