The Suburbs of Hell

by Randolph Stow

  ‘You’ve had too much to drink,’ he said, by the way. ‘How is Donna taking it?’

  She said, with a shrug: ‘Bravely. She blames herself, of course. She’d broken up with him, on Friday night. “Cut him adrift”—that’s how she put it to me. So she’s a tiny bit shattered, but feels that she hasn’t the right to be.’

  He got up, and took off his snowy coat. ‘You going to watch that to the end?’

  ‘I think so,’ she said, indifferent.

  ‘Well, I’m going to bed. Don’t drink all the gin.’

  When he was in the passage, hanging up his coat, she said: ‘What are they saying in the pubs? Do they say Sam was the Monster?’

  ‘Some do,’ he said. ‘Some have been saying that for a while. Which has a lot to do with what’s happened, I reckon. I think, myself, Sam’s the latest victim. The Monster has done for him in a roundabout way, but done for him proper, all the same.’

  She turned her head towards the door with a grimace of disdain, then went back to her old movie, reaching for the glass by her hand.

  I am, gay creature,

  With pardon of your deities, a mushroom

  On whom the dew of heaven drops now and then;

  The sun shines on me too, I thank his beams!

  Sometimes I feel their warmth; and eat and sleep.

  Orgilus in The Broken Heart

  She sits unmoving in front of the black and grey screen. She has switched off all other lights, and now the light from the screen, bluish, accentuates with a touch of ghastliness the pallor of her skin.

  She has had all her life, though never so much as now, this look of enervation, of being bleached. Colour and energy were left out of her. What in the most vital years of her life passed for an interesting languor can no longer disguise the weariness, the lack of appetite, at the core.

  She will not struggle any more against this pull on her, like the pull of gravity. There is more dignity, she has been made to feel, in surrender.

  Now and again her mind strays from the images in the corner of the room to the grieving friend, and the man she barely knew. She thinks of him, so dark, lying in the fields in his white room, behind windows blind with snow.

  But most of the time she lets herself be led by the hand and the eye down familiar London streets of sweating studio cardboard, through unlikely wreaths or boas of studio fog, to the recurrent meetings with a ritualized horror.

  She is soothed by the formalities of this emotionless dance. Grief and pain do not enter this world of screams and blood lettings.

  She sips from a glass and replaces it on a table. Absently, she lights a cigarette.

  On the right side of the blonde head is a white parting as straight as a ruler.

  A woman of the people, drunk, goes singing through the archetypal streets, trailing archetypal scarves of studio mist.

  She enters a dim archway like something on a dirty wedding-cake. From within its darkness she begins to scream and scream.

  In the white parting appears a dark hole, with little blood.

  After the shot, there is silence for a moment. Then, inanely meandering music, and the horrible snoring.

  7

  A SERIOUS CHANCE

  In the mist, mournful with the sound of fog-signals from lightships and stained rather than lit by streetlamps, two dark figures advanced from either end of the street. The big-boned man in a heavy coat walked slowly and like a seaman. The child, muffled in an anorak, moved erratically, as if debating with himself whether to run, or skip, or make some sudden change of course.

  ‘How do, Killer,’ said Harry, pausing as they met under a lamp. ‘That is you, innit, inside of that hood?’

  ‘How do, Harry,’ returned the boy. ‘Boony old night.’

  ‘Surprised to see you wanderin about in it,’ said Harry. ‘I believe I should have been scared at your age.’

  ‘I int got far to go,’ said Killer. ‘Hey, got a snout, mate?’

  ‘You don’t smoke,’ Harry objected; ‘do you? You didn’t ought to; you int the size of a jockey yet. Anyway, I roll ’em.’

  ‘Thass okay,’ said Killer, holding out his hand. Harry looked at it disapprovingly for a moment, then laid on it the battered tin from his pocket. The child, standing under the light, opened it and took a paper and skilfully rolled a cigarette.

  ‘Told you,’ he said, waiting to be lit.

  Their two faces made a sudden brilliance in the haze, red by the flare of Harry’s match. ‘Ta,’ said Killer, and backed towards the wall behind him, and leaned there puffing.

  ‘I ought to be ashamed of myself,’ said Harry, gazing on the scene.

  Killer was showing signs of growing more relaxed. ‘Harry,’ he said, ‘do you know where Frank De Vere is?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Harry, shortly. ‘He’s at the hospital where they took his wife. Dave’s expectin to drive him hoom tomorrow.’

  ‘Has she died?’ Killer asked.

  ‘No,’ Harry said. ‘Least, if she have, Dave int been told. She might live a long time. Well, sort of live.’

  ‘Like a vegetable,’ said Killer. ‘Int that what they say?’

  ‘What who say?’ Harry demanded. ‘You ought to give them ears of yours a rest some time, young Killer.’

  ‘Well, I just been in the Galley,’ the boy said, ‘seein my grandad, and people were talkin. I wouldn’t want to be in Frank De Vere’s shoes.’

  ‘Nor me, neither,’ said Harry. ‘They on’y been married about two year.’

  ‘That int what I meant,’ Killer said. ‘I mean, people are sayin he done it himself.’

  ‘I believe,’ said Harry, ‘that I’m goonna have to take on the dooty of givin you a clout on the earhole; and I shall, dear boy, if you ever say that again.’

  ‘I dint say it,’ said the boy. ‘I’m just repeatin.’

  ‘Don’t,’ said Harry. ‘Don’t repeat it, and don’t think it.’

  The boy’s cigarette had gone out, and as he did not care to ask for another light, he threw it away. ‘All the same,’ he said sulkily, ‘thass natural to think it. He was in the house. There weren’t nobody else there except her.’

  Harry’s voice rose. ‘The house was brook into, boy. Whoever that was, he put sticky tape all over a pane of glass in the back door. He climbed into the yard of that house whass for sale, alongside the alley, and then into Frank’s yard where they join at the corners. You ought to get your facts straight before you start accoosin men of doin in their wives—or worse than that, really. Christ, boy, if he wanted her dead, he’d have made sure, not landed himself with all this—aggravation.’

  The boy was subdued. ‘Sorry. Forgot he was a friend of yours.’

  ‘He int,’ Harry said. ‘If this hadn’t happened, he’d know that by now. But I int goonna stand for talk like that from nobody. You say it again, Killer, and I shall turn you inside-out and wear you for a muff.’

  The child scuffed his feet, then looked at the man’s hot face with an expression of mature regret. ‘Okay, Harry. I shan’t no more. But that int me you ought to be blowin up, thass the boys in the Galley.’

  ‘And the boys in the Speedwell and the Moon,’ Harry said, ‘I’ll be bound. All right, Killer, I’m not blamin you, not really. Now you know you int so safe as you thought you was, I’m goonna escort you, like, to your door.’

  ‘Thass on’y a foo yards,’ Killer pointed out, as they began to walk back the way Harry had come. ‘Thass here, look. Proper old worry-guts you are, worse than my grandad or my mam.’ He gave a knock with the shining brass dolphin, and presently there were sounds of a hand fumbling with the lock. Then a lane of light cut through the mist, at its source a small girl in jeans. ‘See you, Harry,’ said Killer, and the door closed on him and the light.

  Harry turned and continued walking towards the water. At the steamy yellow-lit window of the Galley he hesitated, making out inside the familiar shape of his cropheaded workmate, the crane-driver Charlie. For a moment he wavered, then went on t
o the quayside.

  The estuary was shrouded, a river of cloud. But the curtains had not been drawn in the Speedwell, and at the window with a view Taffy Hughes sat looking out on nothing. His pipe was in his beard and a pint of beer stood before him. As Harry, pausing, looked in, Taffy appeared to recognize him and abstractedly raised one forefinger in greeting.

  The big bar, in which several parties or reunions seemed to be going on at once, was crammed to the walls, and Harry had to wait for his beer. When he had been able to catch the eye of a harassed young barmaid, he took his pint across to the table at which Taffy sat, solitary and meditative among the standing drinkers.

  ‘Mind if I tear you away, boy?’ he asked.

  ‘What?’ asked Taffy, looking up. ‘Oh, I see. Yes, I was rather absorbed in my own company. Join me, Harry. There’s a bit of wall there for you to lean on.’

  ‘That bring things back to me to see you there,’ Harry said. ‘I see you there so often with Paul or the Commander.’

  Taffy puffed at his pipe. His torso, under a blue pullover, descended in a massive curve from beard to waist. He seemed to Harry comforting, a man of weight and calm.

  ‘Ah yes,’ he murmured. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Was you thinkin about that?’

  ‘No,’ Taffy said. ‘No, I was thinking of something that happened today. One of our lads turned up with an old pub sign which he wanted to hang over the door of our little bar. I had to put my foot down. The pub was called the Smugglers’ Arms.’

  Harry’s face looked wry. ‘Great thing in this life to have a sense of hoomor.’

  ‘Do you keep well?’ Taffy enquired. ‘I’ve not seen you for months.’

  ‘I’m about,’ Harry said, ‘but I get in the Moon mostly. That don’t have the same sort of memories for me as what this place do. Cor, thass crowded in here tonight.’ He felt oppressed by the hot bodies around him.

  ‘Surprising, really,’ Taffy said. ‘I’d have expected another collapse of the trade, like we saw in November. It almost looks as if that poor girl is still not being noticed.’

  ‘Did you know her?’ Harry asked.

  ‘No,’ Taffy said. ‘Who did? Once or twice I saw her, and knew whose wife she was. Sad—that was the impression.’

  ‘Oh Christ,’ Harry said, ‘I hope she dies. Poor girl, poor little Linda.’

  In the throng around, a couple of heads turned and looked at him. He picked up his mug and hid his face in it.

  Taffy said quietly: ‘I agree,’ and did the same.

  Outside the mist seemed to have grown thicker, white against the glass.

  ‘I think I’d better drive you home,’ Taffy said, ‘when the time comes.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Harry said, ‘but that don’t matter. Taffy, I – I was kind of hopin I should see you. I looked for you, thass why I come in when I see you in the window. I thought you could—’

  ‘You need advice?’ Taffy asked, not looking at Harry, but sucking his pipe and gazing into the middle distance.

  ‘I int sure,’ Harry said. ‘I’m confoosed, like. I do, but now I think that int the proper time.’

  ‘Well,’ said Taffy, ‘I’m never hard to find. You look worried, Harry.’

  ‘Thass awkward,’ Harry muttered. ‘Jesus, where do all these boys come from? Thass gettin hard to breathe.’

  Taffy laid his pipe in an ashtray. His massive body slowly rose. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘I’m in serious need of a slash. Hope you won’t rush away, Harry.’ He turned and eased his way into the crowd, which divided at the thrust of his woolly blue paunch, then closed up again behind him.

  Harry, swigging from his pint pot, made a sudden decision. He planked down the mug beside Taffy’s and began to manoeuvre his way through the bodies.

  The door of the Gents faced the door of the single cubicle, which was standing open when Harry went in. He passed round it to the urinals behind, where Taffy stood in thoughtful flow.

  ‘Thought it might be you,’ Taffy said, turning his head for a moment, and then went back to studying the white porcelain.

  Harry leaned against the tiled wall and began to roll a cigarette. ‘I don’t know where to start,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to be careful what I say to you.’

  ‘Adamant,’ mused Taffy. ‘Adam Ant. This is where the pop-singers get their names from.’

  ‘Could you promise me,’ Harry asked, ‘that this will be in confidence, like?’

  ‘Up to a point,’ Taffy said. ‘But think what you’re doing, Harry. I’m not in a position to promise a lot.’

  ‘It’s a question,’ Harry said. ‘It’s what they call a scenario, like. S’poose there’s this fella whass got himself mixed up in something. Something more serious than what he knoo, with people a lot brighter than what he is. S’poose he think he’s dealin in marijuana, and on’y that, and the truth is his partners are usin him to deal in heroin, or cocaine, without him knowin anything about it. I know he’d be in dead trouble, but how much trouble, Taffy?’

  ‘A junior partner?’ said Taffy to the wall. He zipped himself up, sticking out his backside to negotiate the contours of his body, and turned to face Harry. ‘As you say, he’d be in trouble. Very difficult for me to tell you anything, Harry, without more details. The chap—the junior partner—is a bit cheesed off, I imagine?’

  ‘I should imagine so,’ said Harry.

  ‘Do you think he might be in a mood to cooperate with us?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Harry said. ‘Just now, no, I know he wouldn’t cooperate. But like I said, he int a very bright lad, this one; what he need is advice. And I don’t reckon he ought to suffer too much for bein silly. Thass the others is the bad guys, thass them what ought to suffer.’

  ‘You aren’t too pleased with them,’ Taffy remarked, ‘are you?’

  ‘No, I int,’ said Harry. ‘I int always been on the beach, you know, I sin a bit of the world. I don’t like what that stuff do to young people. Thass evil, floggin that stuff to them. Thass unforgivable, to my way of thinkin. And playin that trick on a partner—thass unforgivable, too, I reckon.’

  Taffy was fingering his pepper-and-salt beard. ‘When you told me you wanted advice,’ he said, ‘I had no idea you were going to bring up anything so serious. You see how serious, don’t you? I can’t just forget about this, Harry. I can bide my time, but I can’t put it out of my head.’

  ‘Yeh, I know that,’ Harry said. ‘That just come to me in a flash, like, when you went out of the bar, that I’d goo just so far with you that I couldn’t goo back. Yeh, I know you got to hear more. But not tonight, Taffy—thass enough for one night.’

  ‘All right, then,’ said Taffy. ‘Well, let’s not neglect our beer.’

  As he moved there was a slight and sudden sound in the room. It was like the squeak of rubber soles turning on a tiled floor. Then a door banged, to be followed immediately by another.

  Taffy’s rather watery blue eyes looked gravely into Harry’s. ‘That cubicle was wide open and empty,’ he said, ‘when I passed it.’

  ‘Yeh,’ agreed Harry.

  ‘Is that all you have to say?’

  ‘Yeh. For tonight, like I said.’

  The door banged again, and went on banging as the room was invaded by half a dozen men in blue denim. ‘Gregarious lot,’ murmured Taffy, navigating around them. ‘Harry, I will give you a lift home, I insist.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ Harry said, with a shrug. ‘I don’t reckon that make any difference. But thanks, boy, yeh, thank you kindly.’

  On the winding road following the estuary the old grey van took the corners sharply, jolting the passenger. Dave, at the wheel, stole a sideways glance at him. He lolled back and stared straight ahead, looking pale, indolent.

  In the winter sunlight ploughed fields, chestnut-coloured, had a sheen of barley-green. Beyond them the water lay flat as ice, and icy blue.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Dave said, ‘I shall be standin in that up to the top of my water-boots and shovellin muck. What did I do to deserve
such a shit-job?’

  ‘It might not be for long,’ Frank said. His voice was apathetic, his eyes still on the road. ‘What will you be doing, exactly?’

  ‘Shovellin muck,’ Dave repeated, ‘like I said. Shingle and stones and such. We’ll load that on the barge, take it to Gorse Creek, unload it on trucks, build the sea-wall. Harry fink the money’s ever so good, he don’t understand why I int chuffed about it. He goo to bed early, weekdays, and get up about four. Thass the sort of job I landed myself. So, we int had any more chats, him and me. Ah,’ Dave said, slapping the steering wheel, ‘I’m sorry about that. When I hear them startin to goo out, I panicked and made too much noise. They’re proper hair-trigger jobs, them doors. So he know I heard him, and he’ll be lyin in wait, like, to give me a talkin-to about it. What am I goonna say, for fuck’s sake?’

  But Frank did not answer, seeming hypnotized by the road.

  ‘Cor, what a wally,’ Dave said, trying to entertain him. ‘He dint even realize Taffy Hughes fought it was himself he was talkin about. Taffy fink this “junior partner” Harry tell him about, he fink thass Harry. You got to laugh, really.’

  ‘Not me,’ Frank said. ‘I don’t.’

  However, Dave was determined to look on the bright side. ‘Look, mate, you could buy him off. People like him and my dad, they’re quite interested in money, and they don’t have big ideas, not at all. Yeh, I know, there’s Taffy Hughes, but Harry could get round that somehow. I mean, they don’t torture you in this country, they don’t put you on the rack no more. That don’t matter about Taffy suspectin, bein as he don’t know nofing. Anyway, I int goonna be around here much longer. One of these mornins I’m goonna just jump in this van and goo.’

  ‘It won’t be like that,’ Frank said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Dave turned his head, and at the expression in the other man’s set face became serious. ‘No, Frank, don’t keep on wiv these ideas, they’re daft. He dint do it, mate. I told you, I know that.’