The Ballad of Peckham Rye

by Muriel Spark

  Dougal whistled in Beauty’s direction.

  ‘I shouldn’t do that,’ Humphrey said.

  ‘My God, he’s supposed to be a professional man,’ Dixie said, ‘and he opens his mouth and whistles at a girl.’

  Dougal whistled again.

  Beauty raised her eyebrows.

  ‘You’ll have Trevor Lomas in after us,’ Humphrey said. The waiter and Costa himself came and hovered round their table.

  ‘Come on up to the Harbinger,’ Dougal said, ‘and we’ll take Beauty with us.’

  ‘Now look. I quite like Trevor,’ Humphrey said. ‘He’s to be best man at our wedding,’ Dixie said. ‘He’s got a good job with prospects and sticks in to it.’

  Dougal whistled. Then he called across two tables to Beauty, ‘Waiting for somebody?’

  Beauty dropped her lashes. ‘Not in particular,’ she said.

  ‘Coming up to the Harbinger?’

  ‘Don’t mind.’

  Dixie said, ‘Well, I do. I’m fussy about my company.’

  ‘What she say?’ Beauty said, jerking herself upright in support of the question.

  ‘I said,’ said Dixie, ‘that I’ve got another appointment.’

  ‘Beauty and I will be getting along then,’ Dougal said. He went across to Beauty who was preparing to comb her hair.

  Humphrey said. ‘After all, Dixie, we’ve got nothing else to do. It might look funny if we don’t go with Dougal. If Trevor finds out he’s been to a pub with his girl —‘

  ‘You’re bored with me — I know,’ Dixie said. ‘My company isn’t good enough for you as soon as Dougal comes on the scene.’

  ‘Such compliments as you pay me!’ Dougal said across to her.

  ‘I was not aware I was addressing you,’ Dixie said. ‘All right, Dixie, we’ll stop here,’ Humphrey said. Dougal was holding up a small mirror while the girl combed her long copper-coloured hair over the table.

  Dixie’s eyes then switched over to Dougal. She gave a long sigh. ‘I suppose we’d better go to the pub with them,’ she said, ‘or you’ll say I spoiled your evening.’

  ‘No necessity,’ Beauty said as she put away her comb and patted her handbag.

  ‘We might enjoy ourselves,’ Humphrey said.

  Dixie got her things together rather excitedly. But she said, ‘Oh, it isn’t my idea of a night out.’

  And so they followed Dougal and Beauty up Rye Lane to the Harbinger. Beauty was half-way through the door of the saloon bar, but Dougal had stopped to look into the darkness of the Rye beyond the swimming baths, from which came the sound of a drunken woman approaching; and yet as it came nearer, it turned out not to be a drunken woman, but Nelly proclaiming.

  Humphrey and Dixie had reached the pub door. ‘It’s only Nelly,’ Humphrey said, and he pushed Dougal towards the doorway in which Beauty was waiting.

  ‘I like listening to Nelly,’ Dougal said, ‘for my human research.’

  ‘Oh, get inside for goodness’ sake,’ Dixie said as Nelly appeared in the street light.

  ‘Six things,’ Nelly declaimed, ‘there are which the Lord hateth, and the seventh his soul detesteth. Haughty eyes. a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood. See me in the morning. A heart that deviseth wicked plots, feet that are swift to run into mischief. Ten at Paley’s yard. A deceitful witness that uttereth lies. Meeting-house Lane. And him that soweth discord among brethren.’

  ‘Nelly’s had a few,’ Humphrey said as they pushed into the bar. ‘She’s a bit shaky on the pins tonight.’

  A bright spiky chandelier and a row of glittering crystal lamps set against a mirror behind the bar — though in fact these had been installed since the war — were designed to preserve in theory the pub’s vintage fame in the old Camberwell Palace days. The chief barmaid had a tiny nose and a big chin; she was a middle-aged woman of twenty-five. The barman was small and lithe. He kept swinging to and fro on the balls of his feet.

  Beauty wanted a Martini. Dixie, at first under the impression that Humphrey was buying the round, asked for a ginger ale, but when she perceived that Dougal was to pay for the drinks, she said, ‘Gin and ginger ale.’ Humphrey and Dougal carried to a table the girls’ drinks and their own half-pints of mild which glittered in knobbly-moulded glass mugs like versions of the chandelier. Round the wall were hung signed photographs of old-time variety actors with such names, meaningless to most but oddly suggestive, as Flora Finch and Ford Sterling, who were generally assumed to be Edwardian stars. An upright piano placed flat against a wall caused Tony the pianist to see little of the life of the house, except when he turned round for a rest between numbers. Tony’s face was not merely pale, but quite bloodless. He wore a navy-blue coat over a very white shirt, the shirt buttoned up to the neck with no tie. His half-pint mug, constantly replenished by the customers, stood on an invariable spot on the right-hand side of the piano-top. As he played, he swung his shoulders from side to side and bent over the piano occasionally to stress his notes. He might, from this back view, have been in an enthusiastic mood, but when he turned round it was obvious he was not. It was Tony’s lot to play tunes of the nineteen-tens and -twenties, to the accompaniment of slightly jeering comments from the customers, and as he stooped over to execute ‘Charmain’, Beauty said to him, ‘Groove in, Tony.’ He ignored this as he had ignored all remarks for the past nineteen months. ‘Go, man, go,’ someone suggested. ‘Leave him alone,’ the barmaid said. ‘You just show up your ignorance. He’s a beautiful player. It’s period stuff. He got to play it like that.’ Tony finished his number, took down his beer and turned his melancholy front to the company.

  ‘Got any rock and cha-cha on your list, Tony?’

  ‘Rev up to it, son. Groove in.’

  Tony turned, replaced his beer on the top of the piano, and rippled his hands over ‘Ramona’.

  ‘Go, man, go.’

  ‘Any more of that,’ said the barmaid, ‘and you go man go outside.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I say. Tony’s the pops.’

  ‘Here’s a pint, Tony. Cheer up, son, it may never happen.’

  At ten past nine Trevor Lomas entered the pub followed by Collie Gould. Trevor edged in to the bar and stood with his back to it, leaning on an elbow and surveying as it were the passing scene.

  ‘Hallo, Trevor,’ Dixie said.

  ‘Hi, Dixie,’ Trevor replied severely.

  ‘Hi,’ Collie Gould said.

  Beauty, who was on her fourth Martini, bowed graciously, and had some difficulty in regaining her upright posture.

  The barmaid said, ‘Are you ordering, sir?’

  Trevor said over his shoulder, ‘Two pints bitter.’ He lit a cigarette and blew out the smoke very very slowly.

  ‘Trev,’ Collie said in a low voice, ‘Trev, don’t muck it up.

  ‘I’m being patient,’ Trevor said through half-dosed lips. ‘I’m being very very patient. But if —‘

  ‘Trev,’ Collie said, ‘Trev, think of the lolly. Them notebooks.’

  Trevor threw half a crown backwards on to the counter.

  ‘Manners,’ the barmaid said as she rang the till. She banged his change on the counter, where Trevor let it lie.

  Dougal and Humphrey approached the bar with four empty glasses. ‘Ginger ale only,’ Dixie called after them, since it was Humphrey’s turn.

  ‘One Martini. Two half milds. One gin and ginger ale,’ Humphrey said to the barman. And he invited Trevor to join them by pointing to their table with his ear.

  Trevor did not move. Collie was watching Trevor.

  Dougal got out some money.

  ‘My turn,’ Humphrey said, fishing out his money.

  Dougal picked half a crown from his money and, leaning his back against the bar, tossed it over his shoulder to the counter. He then lit a cigarette and blew out the smoke very slowly, pulling his face to a grave length and batting his eyelashes.

  Beauty shouted, ‘Doug, you’re a boy! Dig Doug! He’s got you. Trev. He does Trevor to a T.’ Tony w
as playing the ‘St Louis Blues’.

  ‘Trev,’ Collie said, ‘don’t, Trev, don’t.’

  Trevor raised his sparkling pint glass and smashed the top on the edge of the counter. In his hand remained the bottom half with six spikes of glass sticking up from it. He lunged it forward at Dougal’s face. At the same swift moment Dougal leaned back, back, until the crown of his head touched the bar. The spikes of glass went full into one side of Humphrey’s face which had been turned in profile. Dougal bent and caught Trevor’s legs while another man pulled Trevor’s collar until presently he lay pinned by a number of hands to the floor. Humphrey was being attended by another number of hands, and was taken to the back premises, the barmaid holding to his face a large thick towel which was becoming redder and redder.

  The barman shouted above the din, ‘Outside, all.’

  Most of the people were leaving in any case lest they should be questioned. To those who lingered the barman shouted, ‘Outside, all, or I’ll call the police.’

  Trevor found himself free to get to his feet and he left, followed by Collie and Beauty, who was seen to spit at Trevor before she clicked her way up Rye Lane.

  Dixie remained behind with Dougal. She was saying to him, ‘It was meant for you. Dirty swine you were to duck.’

  ‘Outside or I call the police,’ the barman said, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet.

  ‘We were with the chap that’s hurt,’ Dougal said, ‘and if we can’t collect him I’ll call the police.’

  ‘Follow me,’ said the barman.

  Humphrey was holding his head over a bowl while cold water was being poured over his wounds by Tony, who seemed to take this as one of his boring evening duties.

  ‘Goodness, you look terrible,’ Dougal said. ‘It must be my fatal flaw, but I doubt if I can bear to look.’

  ‘Dirty swine, he is.’ Dixie said, ‘letting another fellow have it instead of himself.’

  ‘Shut up, will you?’ Humphrey seemed to say.

  They got into Humphrey’s car, speedily assisted by the barman. Dougal drove, first taking Dixie home. She said to him, ‘I could spit at you,’ and slammed the car door.

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ Humphrey said, as well as he could.

  Dougal next drove Humphrey to the outpatient department of St George’s Hospital. ‘Though it pains me to cross the river,’ Dougal said, ‘I think we’d better avoid the southern region for tonight.’

  He told a story about Humphrey having tripped over a milk-bottle as he got out of his car, the milk-bottle having splintered and Humphrey fallen on his face among the splinters. Humphrey nodded agreement as the nurse dressed and plastered his wounds. Dougal gave Humphrey’s name as Mr Dougal-Douglas, care of Miss Cheeseman, 14 Chelsea Rise, SW3. Humphrey was told to return within a week. They then went home to Miss Frierne’s.

  ‘And I won’t even see her again till next Saturday night on account of her doing week-nights as an usherette at the Regal,’ Humphrey said to Dougal at a quarter to twelve that night. He sat up in bed in striped pyjamas, talking as much as possible; but the strips of plaster on his cheek caused him to speak rather out of the opposite side of his mouth. ‘And she won’t think of taking one day off of her holidays this year on account of the honeymoon in September. It’s nothing but save, save, save. You’d think I wasn’t earning good money the way she goes on. And result, she’s losing her sex.’

  Dougal crouched over the gas-ring with a fork, pushing the bacon about in the frying-pan. He removed the bacon on to a plate, then broke two eggs into the pan.

  ‘I wouldn’t marry her,’ Dougal said, ‘if you paid me.’

  ‘My sister Elsie doesn’t like her,’ Humphrey said out of the side of his mouth.

  Dougal stood up and took the plate of bacon in his hand. He held this at some way from his body and looked at it, moving it slightly back and forth towards him, as if it were a book he was reading, and he short-sighted.

  Dougal read from the book: ‘Wilt thou take this woman,’ he said with a deep ecclesiastical throb, ‘to be thai wedded waif?’

  Then he put the plate aside and knelt; he was a sinister goggling bridegroom. ‘No,’ he declared to the ceiling, ‘I won’t, quite frankly.’

  ‘Christ, don’t make me laugh, it pulls the plaster.’

  Dougal dished out the eggs and bacon. He cut up the bacon small for Humphrey.

  ‘You shouldn’t have any scars if you’re careful and get your face regularly dressed, they said.’

  Humphrey stroked his wounded cheek.

  ‘Scars wouldn’t worry me. Might worry Dixie.’

  ‘As a qualified refrigerator engineer and a union man you could have your pick of the girls.’

  ‘I know, but I want Dixie.’ He put the eggs and bacon slowly away into the side of his mouth.

  The rain of a cold summer morning fell on Nelly Mahone as she sat on a heap of disused lorry tyres in the yard of Paley’s, scrap merchants of Meeting-house Lane. She had been waiting since ten past nine although she did not expect Dougal to arrive until ten o’clock. He came at five past ten, bobbing up and down under an umbrella.

  ‘They come to see me Saturday,’ she said at once. ‘Trevor Lomas, Collie Gould, Leslie Crewe. They treated me bad.’

  ‘You’ve got wet,’ Dougal said. ‘Why didn’t you take shelter?’

  She looked round the yard. ‘Got to be careful where you go, son. Stand up in the open, they can only tell you to move on. But go inside a place. they can call the cops. Her nose thrust forward towards the police station at the corner of the lane.

  Dougal looked round the yard for possible shelter. The bodies of two lorries, bashed in from bad accidents, stood lopsided in a corner. On a low wooden cradle stood a house-boat. ‘We’ll go into the boat.’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t get up there.’

  Dougal kicked a wooden crate over and over till it stood beneath the door of the boat. He pulled the door-handle. Eventually it gave way. He climbed in, then out again, and took Nelly by the arm.

  ‘Up you go, Nelly.’

  ‘What if the cops come?’

  ‘I’m in with them,’ Dougal said.

  ‘Jesus, that’s not your game?’

  ‘Up you go.

  He heaved her up and settled in the boat beside her on a torn upholstered seat. Some sad cretonne curtains still drooped in the windows. Dougal drew them across the windows as far as was possible.

  ‘I feel that ill,’ Nelly said.

  ‘I’m not too keen on illness,’ Dougal said.

  ‘Nor me. They come to ask after you,’ Nelly said. ‘They found out you was seeing me. They got your code. They want to know what’s cheese. They want to know what’s your code key, they offer me ten quid. They want to know who’s your gang.’

  ‘I’m in with the cops, tell them.’

  ‘That I would never believe. They want to know who’s Rose Hathaway. They’ll be back again. I got to tell them something.’

  ‘Tell them I’m paid by the police to investigate certain irregularities in the industrial life of Peckham in the first place. See, Nelly? I mean crime at the top in the wee factories. And secondly—’

  Her yellowish eyes and wet grey hair turned towards him in a startled way.

  ‘If I thought you was a nark —‘

  ‘Investigator,’ Dougal said. ‘It all comes under human research. And secondly my job covers various departments of youthful terrorism. So you can just tell me, Nelly, what they did to you on Saturday afternoon.’

  ‘Ah, they didn’t do nothing out of the way.’

  ‘You said they treated you roughly.’

  ‘No, not so to get them in trouble.’

  Dougal took out an envelope. ‘Your ten pounds,’ he said.

  ‘You can keep it,’ Nelly said. ‘I’m going on my way.’

  ‘Feel my head, Nelly.’ He guided her hand to the two small bumps among his curls.

  ‘Cancer of the brain a-coming on,’ she said.

  ‘Nelly, I had a
pair of horns like a goat when I was born. I lost them in a fight at a later date.’

  ‘Holy Mary, let me out of here. I don’t know whether I’m coming or going with you.’

  Dougal stood up and found that by standing astride in the middle of the boat he could make it rock. So he rocked it for a while and sang a sailor’s song to Nelly.

  Then he helped her to climb down from the boat, put up his umbrella, and tried to catch up with her as she hurried out of the scrap yard. A policeman, coming out of the station, at the corner, nodded to Dougal.

  ‘I’ll be going into the station, then, Nelly,’ Dougal said. ‘To see my chums.’

  She stared at him, then spat on the rainy pavement. ‘And I don’t mind,’ Dougal said, ‘if you tell Trevor Lomas what I’m doing. You can tell him if he returns my notebooks to me there will be nothing further said. We policemen have got to keep our records and our secret codes, you realize.’

  She moved sideways away from him, watching the traffic so that she could cross at the earliest moment.

  ‘You and I,’ Dougal said, ‘won’t be molested from that quarter for a week or two if you give them the tip-off.’

  He went into the station yard to see how the excavations were getting on. He discovered that the tunnel itself was now visible from the top of the shaft.

  Dougal pointed out to his policemen friends the evidence of the Thames silt in the under-soil. ‘One time,’ he said, ‘the Thames was five miles wide, and it covered all Peckham.’

  So they understood, they said, from other archaeologists who were interested in the excavation.

  ‘Hope I’m not troubling you if I pop in like this from time to time?’ Dougal said.

  ‘No, sir, you’re welcome. We get people from the papers sometimes as well as students. Did you read of the finds?’

  Towards evening a parcel was delivered at Miss Frierne’s addressed to Dougal. It contained his notebooks.

  ‘I hope to remain with you,’ Dougal said to Miss Frierne, ‘for at least two months. For I see no call upon me to remove from Peckham as yet.’

  ‘If I’m still alive …‘ Miss Frierne said. ‘I saw that man again this morning. I could swear it was my brother.’

  ‘You didn’t speak to him?’