Billy Rags

by Ted Lewis

  “He’s been a little sod,” Sheila said, kicking off her shoes. “Kept trying to open the dryer door.”

  “Have you been trying to open the dryer door, then?”

  “Come on, it’s time for your sleep,” Sheila said, taking Timmy from me. “It’s a wonder you’re not worn out.”

  Sheila put Timmy to bed and came back into the lounge and flopped down in an armchair.

  “Mind you,” she said, “I’m almost dead on my feet, trying to get round in no seconds flat.”

  “Fancy a cup of tea?” I said.

  “You must be joking.”

  “I’ll put the kettle on,” I said. “Or . . .”

  “Or what?”

  I knelt down on the floor by Sheila’s chair.

  “Or shall I make it after?”

  “After what?” Then she cottoned. “Here, now hang about . . .”

  “Timmy’s in bed, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah, I know, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “It’s the middle of the day.”

  “Since when did that worry us?”

  I pulled her down on to the floor.

  “I still got me coat on,” Sheila said.

  “Quiet,” I said. “It won’t get in the way.”

  A few days after I’d gone out Ronnie phoned to say he was coming over. He said he’d got a proposition.

  After I’d put the phone down Sheila said:

  “What did Ronnie want?”

  “He’s coming over. Said he’s got a proposition for me.”

  “And what sort of proposition would that be?”

  “I don’t know till he gets here, do I?”

  “Well if it’s a job . . .”

  “It won’t be a job. Ronnie knows I wouldn’t go on a job. So he won’t offer one, will he?”

  “I don’t know. But if . . .”

  “Sheil, leave off, will you? Just wait till he gets here, eh?”

  Ronnie arrived half an hour later. After we’d exchanged the usuals, Ronnie said:

  “It’s like this: there’s this little firm I’ve got an interest in, not an active one, you understand. But an interest. Now they’re doing not too badly at the moment, and things are going to get even better over the next two or three months. They’ve got several things lined up . . .”

  Sheila cut in on him.

  “Ronnie, I thought Billy told you all that was out.”

  Ronnie kept on looking at me.

  “Leave it out, Sheila, will you? Ronnie’s trying to do me a favour. He doesn’t have to come here.”

  “He’ll do you the kind of favour that’ll get you straight back into the nick.”

  “Sheila, I’m telling you . . .”

  “It’s all right, Billy,” Ronnie said, showing all over his face that it wasn’t all right. “I don’t mind.” He looked at Sheila. “Sheila, I’m not asking Billy out on a job. Honest. I wouldn’t. I know how he feels.”

  “Then what are you asking?”

  “Why don’t you shut your fucking trap and listen,” I said, standing up.

  “You going to belt me, Billy?” she said.

  I managed to stop myself. But only just.

  “Are you?”

  I sat down again.

  “You can piss off, the pair of you,” Sheila said and with that she slammed off into the kitchen.

  Ronnie was looking at me.

  “I’m sorry about that, Ronnie,” I said. “But you know how it is. She’s just scared . . .”

  “Sure she is.”

  “I mean, she feels the same as me about what you’ve done. Straight up.”

  “I’m with you, Billy. It’s all right, I’m telling you.”

  “Anyway. Carry on. She’ll be taking it out on the kitchen for a while.”

  Ronnie lit a cigarette.

  “Well, it’s like this. They’re pretty well tooled up. A shooter for every occasion. But of course they’ve all got forms and if they’re done in possession, well, I don’t have to tell you, do I?”

  “Go on.”

  “So they’re looking for a minder who’s not likely to get turned over himself. And it occurred to me that you’d be the very man. Because you’re not going to get turned over, are you? Not unless you’re very unlucky. And I’d make sure it was worth your while, because, as I said, I’ve got an interest in the firm and I know the firm can afford it. So what do you say?”

  I took a sip of my drink. It sounded good all right. It didn’t matter whether I was in possession or not if I was turned over again. No difference at all.

  “Who’d know?” I said.

  “Only me,” Ronnie said. “I’d be middleman. The stuff would have to be brought here by a couple of the boys but you and Sheila could stay in the bedroom when they came. You could lend me the key and we’d let ourselves in, dump the stuff and leave. After that it would only be a matter of me coming here and collecting what was actually needed. What do you say?”

  “It sounds good, Ronnie,” I said. “Thanks for putting me in it.”

  “So you’re on, then?”

  I nodded and stood up.

  “I’d just like to tell Sheila before you go. So you’ll see that it was just worry that made her act that way.”

  “Look, Billy, you don’t . . .”

  “You stay there. I won’t be a minute.”

  I went into the kitchen. Sheila had got the ironing board out. She didn’t look up from what she was doing.

  I leant against the kitchen door.

  “Ronnie wants to put me in a bit of minding.”

  She stopped ironing for about ten seconds, then carried on again.

  “So he didn’t come here to pull me on a job,” I said.

  She didn’t answer.

  “He came here to help me. To help us. It’ll be good money and Ronnie wanted to put it our way.”

  She still didn’t answer.

  I walked over to her and put my arm round her shoulders.

  “Look, love,” I said, “I know you were only thinking about us. I know that. But Ronnie’s done a lot for us and it looks as if you don’t appreciate it. And that makes me look bad. So why don’t you make us all a cup of coffee and bring it through and let Ronnie know you’re pleased the way he’s looked out for us.”

  Sheila put the iron down and leant against me.

  “I was just so frightened that you’d want to go if he had a job lined up,” she said. “I mean, what with being cooped up the way you are. I know you. I just thought you’d go.”

  I turned her round so that I was looking into her face.

  “Listen, love,” I said. “All I care about is us. Me, you and Timmy. Our future. If we can sit this one out and we have the breaks then we’ll be all right. Do you think I’m going to put chances on that not happening?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, then,” I said. “So you make us that cup of coffee and bring it through in a minute when I’ve arranged things with Ronnie. All right?”

  I heard the key turn in the lock. Sheila and Timmy were sitting on the bed behind me. Timmy was asleep in Sheila’s arms.

  I bent down and looked through the keyhole. Ronnie came in first, pushing the door wide open. Then he stood back and two young tearaways carried a packing case into the room.

  “Anywhere,” Ronnie said. “Just dump it anywhere.”

  The tearaways placed the packing case in the centre of the living room floor. Then they had a good look at their surroundings.

  “Nice gaff,” one of them said.

  “Yes, it is,” Ronnie said. “And now you’ve been here forget how nice it is. And the nice neighbourhood.”

  Ronnie ushered t
hem out. Before he went he placed the key on the dining table. Then he closed the door behind him.

  I opened the bedroom door and went over to the packing case. The top was open and there were some objects wrapped in newspaper packed in the straw. I unwrapped one of the objects. A cut spirit glass. I smiled. Ronnie must have noticed we weren’t very well off for glasses. I took all the glasses out of the packing case. There were a dozen altogether.

  Sheila came into the lounge. She’d laid Timmy down on our bed.

  “Ronnie’s brought us a present,” I said.

  Sheila looked at the unwrapped glass but she didn’t say anything.

  I rummaged under the straw until my fingers touched something very cold. Much colder than the glass. My fingers closed round the object and I lifted. I pulled out a sawn-off shotgun. It was a beauty. Almost brand new. Sheila watched me, her arms folded, while I broke the gun and snapped it shut again and held it the way it was meant to be held.

  The snap of the shotgun must have woken Timmy up. He came through the door, running towards me.

  “Dat, Daddy?” he said. “Dat, Daddy?”

  I looked at Sheila. She turned and went into the kitchen.

  “This?” I said. “Nothing. Nothing for little boys.”

  Sheila and Timmy were out. Rain streamed down the windows, muffling the noises from the street outside. The air in the flat felt hot and sticky. I tried to read but I couldn’t concentrate. I got up and went into the bathroom and turned the bath taps on. While I was waiting for the bath to fill I looked at my face in the cabinet mirror. My complexion was the colour of old newspapers.

  I went into the bedroom to get a bath towel from the airing cupboard. But instead of doing that I went over to the wardrobe and got my hat and coat and put them on. Then I went back into the bathroom and turned off the taps.

  This time there were people in the pub. Quite a crowd, considering where the pub was situated. And this time the woman wasn’t alone behind the bar. Two young barmen, Kilburn Irish, were scurrying up and down doing the drinks while the woman occasionally dished out shepherd’s pie. I ordered a shandy and went and sat down at a table by the window. The pub felt stale. The smell of cigarettes and damp macintoshes filled what air there was. None of the customers could be called locals. Just lunch-time trade from the offices. And there were too many of them for my liking. I wasn’t used to so many people squeezed together in one spot. They all seemed to be pressing in on me. I’d wanted company, a change of scene, but I hadn’t expected it to be like this, and this was too much to take.

  I finished my drink and got up and left the pub. The street was almost deserted. I pulled my hat down against the driving rain and began to walk back towards the flat. I turned into the street that led back to the High Street. Halfway down I was aware of a car turning in off the main road, coming towards me.

  By the time I realised that it was a police car there was nothing I could do about it.

  I couldn’t turn and run. There was nowhere I could shelter myself before the car got to me. I could do nothing.

  Except keep walking.

  I froze all thoughts about my own stupidity that had come flooding into my mind. Those could wait. I tried to blank my mind of any thoughts at all, as if by doing that it would be easier for me and the police to pass each other without me being recognised. Make myself an ostrich and everything would be all right.

  The car was nearly up to me now. The street was narrow, a one-way, and the car was sitting on the crown of the road. Four feet, five feet away from me at the most as it passed.

  Somehow my legs kept working and I kept going forward. The car kept moving at the same speed. No slowing down prompted by recognition. I sensed rather than saw that there were three rozzers in the car. Two uniforms in the front, plainclothes in the back. All eyes would be on me, however briefly: there was nothing else in the street for them to look at. I couldn’t turn my face away. That would really do it. I just kept walking into the rain as the car swished past me.

  The head of the plainclothes man turned in my direction.

  Then the car was past me.

  It didn’t stop. When I reached the end of the street I turned right and I ran.

  I lay in the bath, staring up at the ceiling. Sweat poured off my head: it hadn’t stopped since I’d seen the police car. I felt weak, both physically and mentally. I’d nearly blown everything. Just for the sake of going to that fucking pub.

  I heard the front door open and the sounds of Sheila and Timmy coining in the lounge. Then Sheila’s footsteps as she hurried from room to room, looking for me. I called out to her:

  “I’m in here.”

  The bathroom door banged against the side of the bath. Sheila burst in and stood by the bath, looking down at me to make sure there wasn’t just bathwater in the bath.

  Then she went limp and leant against the edge of the door.

  “Jesus, Billy,” she said. “Jesus.”

  “Thought they’d been and gone with me, did you?” I said.

  “Don’t joke,” she said. “I really did.”

  There was a silence. I said:

  “Why don’t you go and make a cup of tea?”

  Sheila looked at the glass of brandy at the end of the bath.

  “What, you as well?”

  “Makes me sweat,” I said. “So does tea. I’ve got to keep myself in trim somehow.”

  I looked at my watch. The luminous face told me it was quarter to five. The faint blue of dawn was beginning to lighten the oblong shape of the bedroom window. I hadn’t slept all night. My mind had been too full of the turning head in the police car. I’d seen that head turn a thousand times since I’d got into bed at eleven thirty. The minute Sheila had switched off the light, the face had been there. But it was a face without features, as impressionistic as when I’d actually seen it. And however hard I tried I couldn’t imagine what I hadn’t seen: the expression. Had it been curious, blank, full of recognition, what?

  I couldn’t have been recognised. The car would have stopped, wouldn’t it? But if the recognition had been late in coming, and by the time it had dawned on them I’d made it round the corner, then that would be different. They’d have thrown in everything they’d got. They’d check out the occupants of every house, flat and room in the area. And sooner or later they’d check who was living over that tobacconist in the High Street, and for how long, and then in no time at all they’d have it sorted. The removal van would be out and I’d be answering the door sometime shortly before eight in the morning.

  I got out of bed, pulled on my dressing gown and went into the lounge. I turned on the gas fire and lit it and lit up a cigarette at the same time. I sat for a while crouched over the fire watching the whistling gas-jets.

  When I’d finished the cigarette I got up and went into the bathroom and opened the door to the airing cupboard. I carefully took a pile of washing from one of the shelves and put the washing down on the bathroom floor. Then I slid forward the cardboard box that had been hidden behind the washing and opened the lid. I took out one of the snub-nosed revolvers and a box of ammunition and loaded the chamber. Then I put everything back the way it had been before. After I’d done that I unscrewed the top of the lavatory cistern and took some bandage tape from the bathroom cabinet and taped the gun to the underside of the cistern lid. After I’d done all that I went into Timmy’s bedroom and sat by his cot until he woke up.

  Sheila came into the kitchen at a quarter to eight. I’d already given Timmy his cornflakes and I was mashing up his boiled egg for him as Sheila came through the door. I could tell from her face that she knew I was worried but I also knew that she wouldn’t say anything until we were well into a safer part of the day. Sheila didn’t believe in tempting fate.

  “One thing about old Tim,” I said as Sheila poured herself a pot of tea, “he d
oesn’t half like his eggs. Don’t you, me old son?”

  Timmy grinned and a globule of yellow ran down his chin.

  “Funny,” I said, “because when I was a kid I couldn’t stand them. Probably something to do with not having them during the war: by the time you could get them again I’d probably got set in my likes and dislikes. You know how kids are.”

  I shot a glance at the clock as Sheila drank some tea. Ten to eight.

  “Timmy’s always liked his eggs,” Sheila said.

  Timmy dropped his spoon and I picked it up for him.

  “What are you going to have?” Sheila said.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I had some toast.”

  “Shall I do you some bacon?”

  “No thanks,” I said. “I’ll have another cup of tea, though.”

  “It’s stewed. I’ll make some more.”

  Sheila filled the kettle and lit the gas and emptied the tea-pot. Timmy finished his egg and squirmed off his chair. He ran out of the kitchen and into the lounge, got one of his comics and ran back into the kitchen again.

  “Daddy read,” he said. “Daddy read.”

  I hoisted him up on to my knee and spread the comic out on the table in front of us.

  The clock said five to eight.

  Instead of reading to Timmy I pointed to things in the comic and asked him what they were. Sheila made the tea and put my cup down on the edge of Timmy’s comic. A moment later Timmy violently turned over one of the pages and upset the cup of tea. I jolted the chair back but some of the tea went on Timmy’s legs and he began to scream.

  “You stupid bloody bitch,” I shouted. “Have you no fucking sense?”

  Sheila took Timmy from me and sat him on the edge of the table and sponged the tea from his legs with the dishcloth.

  “It’s all right, darling, never mind, you were frightened, weren’t you? Wasn’t very hot, was it? You were just frightened, that’s all.”

  “Bloody stupid thing to do,” I said.

  “If you’re so bloody clever why didn’t you see it coming and do something about it?”

  “I’d no time, had I?”

  “No, course not.”

  “Now look, don’t go trying to blame it on to me.”