Gaslight (3 page)

They were standing next to the door to the Private Bar. Harry became aware of it, and of the two men standing guard outside. A man approached and Harry watched as one of the guards stepped forwards to search him, running his hands along his arms and down his torso, reaching around and smoothing the back of his overcoat from belt to collar. Words were exchanged, curt words, but the guard appeared to be satisfied and the man was admitted inside. The ebb and flow of the thronged room moved the brothers a little to the left and afforded him a glimpse into the room. Harry saw a small group of men and, at the bar, he recognised one of them: Antonio Scarpello, the man that they had watched shaking down the tobacconist, earlier.

“What’s that all about?” he shouted above the din to George.

“That’s where he does his business. I told you––he’s Sabini’s man over here. He runs Little Italy and Soho.”

“And father pays him?”

“Everyone pays him.”

“You haven’t tried to stop him?”

George frowned, his face adopting a serious cast to it. “Are you paying attention, you clot? You don’t argue with men like that, not if you don’t want to get your throat cut. That’s how it’s always been.”

“But he’s Italian? And he bothers other Italians?”

“Sabini knows they have no-one to protect them. Why wouldn’t he take advantage?”

THE PUB GRADUALLY EMPTIED. Harry went back to the barmaid and charmed her into pouring another two pints while the landlord was in the Saloon Bar. The noisy din abated, the crowd started to thin and, eventually, the breeze through the open doors started to dissipate the cloying stench of sweat, flatulence and booze. Harry watched with wary curiosity as Antonio Scarpello and his friends came out of the Private Bar and made their way to the bar. Scarpello had changed clothes since they saw him that afternoon but he still looked like a strutting peacock: he was wearing a three piece navy and orange plaid suit, Edwardian cut, three high buttons and short peaked lapels, and a natté silk waistcoat with cloth covered buttons. He finished a conversation with one of the others, shrugged his overcoat over his shoulders and left, stepping out into the smoggy night beyond the doors.

The others stayed, arraying themselves around the bar. They did not show any inclination towards leaving. One of the men started to talk to the barmaid who had served Harry.

She looked uncomfortable.

“You know him?” Harry asked.

“Don’t get any stupid ideas,” George warned. “They’re all connected.”

“Who is he?”

“Monkey Benneworth. They call him Trimmer.”

“Look at him,” Harry said. “He thinks he’s the cock of the walk.”

“That’s because he is. Are you listening to me at all? He’s with Scarpello. And Scarpello is with Sabini.”

“Bollocks.”

It was obvious that Benneworth was trying to seduce Bella. She smiled at his jokes but her laughter was awkward, cramped and effortful. He laughed, a barking sound that accompanied his mouth curving upwards at the corners and his large nose seemingly about to disappear into it. He tried to charm her again, was politely rebuffed again, and then reached out and took the girl around the wrist.

Harry put his pint down.

George grasped him around the shoulder. “Harry,” he warned.

With his other hand, Benneworth threw open the hatch and went behind the bar. Bella turned to face him, anger blackening her face and, as he leeringly said something else to her, she struck him across the face. The other men at the bar erupted into surprised laughter; Benneworth dropped her wrist and put his hand to his reddened cheek.

Harry paused.

Benneworth took a sudden step towards her and, before she could react, he flung out a hand, grabbed her dress around the neckline and yanked it clean off her body. She shrank away but there was nowhere for her to go. The men whooped in drunken approval.

“That’s it,” Harry said.

“Jesus Christ, Harry––”

He collected the tin pint pot and strode purposefully towards the bar. One of the other men turned as he approached and, without breaking stride, Harry whipped the pint pot in a vicious hook that terminated just above the man’s right eyebrow. He dropped to the floor, a sudden rivulet of blood running down his forehead and soaking into the sawdust. The others started towards him but paused as they noticed George, as big as Harry and with the same murderous expression across his face. One of the men stepped into his path and George thumped him, a clubbing swipe that knocked him to his knees. Benneworth came to the hatch but Harry intercepted him before he could get clear and, impeded by the bar on either side, he could only raise one hand to fend off the blow from the pint pot. Harry jabbed it into his face, flattening his nose, and then, his hands fluttering impotently to staunch the flow of blood, he backhanded him with it across the temple. He grabbed Benneworth by the lapels, dragged him out, spun him around and then flung him against the bar so that he jacknifed over the counter.

He reached into his pocket for his switchblade; he had taken the knife from the body of the bayoneted German infantryman who had stumbled into his trench late one night. He pressed the button and the spring-loaded blade clicked open.

“Harry,” George warned in a low voice. “That’s enough.”

No, it wasn’t.

Not yet.

Benneworth was dazed from the blows to the head; his torso was draped across the bar with his backside in the air. Harry slashed quickly and accurately, twice horizontally and then twice vertically. He kept the blade whetted and razor sharp and it sliced easily through the fabric of Benneworth’s trousers and undergarments. The cloth––and the flesh beneath––were marked like the grid. He had seen it done to a drunken squaddie after a brawl in a bar in Picardy. Noughts and crosses, they called it. The poor chap hadn’t been able to sit down for a week. It was humiliating. Benneworth would be the same, no doubt. Harry was happy enough with that. The brute had deserved it.

“Harry,” George urged. “Let’s go.”

He turned to the other men, the bloody switchblade held out before him. None of them dared hold his gaze. The only noise was the sound of a horse passing across the cobbles outside and, inside, the pitiful moaning of Benneworth. As Harry stepped away, facing the others as he did so, he risked a quick look across the room to Bella. She had clasped the remains of her dress to her bosom. Her glare was fiery with angry pride and, as she noticed Harry looking her way, she nodded, almost imperceptibly, twice.

Harry winked at her and allowed George to drag him into the street outside.

HARRY WAS outside The Griffin when it opened the next day. It was eleven and Clerkenwell was busy: the brewery’s dray was parked alongside the pub, the big horse stamping its front feet to keep warm in the cold, the drayman rolling fresh barrels across the pavement to the hatch that opened into the basement. The pavement was smeared with dog’s excrement. A couple of cars bumped across the cobbles and a lamplighter that Harry recognised was servicing the mantles of a nearby lamp. A taxi pulled up down the street and a horde of ragged shock-haired beggar-boys appeared around the door it from nowhere, imploring the disembarking passenger for pennies.

Harry pulled on his cigarette as he heard the key turn in the lock to the pub’s main door. The girl, Isabella, unlocked it. She was wearing a plain black dress with a white apron over the top of it. He leant against the wall, smiling through the cloud of smoke that he had just exhaled, and she unsuccessfully fought a moment of surprise that quickly became fright.

“Hello,” he said.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said with quiet urgency.

“Just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“What you did to Trimmer––”

“Yes,” he said, nodding. He drew down the last of the cigarette, dropped it to the floor and ground it beneath his foot. “He deserved it.”

“They had to take him to hospital. Stitches––in his, in his––you know.”

“In his arse?” Harry grinned. “Good.”

“If he sees you. If the others––”

“Don’t worry, darling, I can look after myself.”

“You don’t know what he’s like.”

“It’s Isabella, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said, flustered. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Harry Costello.” He extended a hand. “Nice to meet you, Isabella––properly, in any event.”

“Likewise,” she said, taking his hand. “It’s Bella, though. Call me Bella.”

Her hand was slender and cool and it felt nice. “Really,” he said. “You mustn’t worry about me. I’m more than a match for a bully like him.”

She looked fretful. “He’s an awful man. I’ve seen him set about a fellow who looked at him the wrong way. Took out his razor and slashed him across the face.”

Harry tilted his face and stroked his fingers down his cheek. “You think I’d let him do something like that to something like
this
,” he said, grinning.

She smiled at his impudence; it lit up her face. “That would be a shame.”

“You are alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine. What you did”––she frowned as she recalled it––“you shouldn’t have, but, well, thank you, anyway.”

“I was wondering,” he said, sliding away from the wall, “whether I could take you out for a drink?”

“Really?”

Her surprise was charming. “I thought tonight, maybe? If you can get the time off, of course?”

“I don’t work Thursday nights,” she said, more to herself than to him. “I usually go to the pictures.”

“Well, then,” he said. “That’s fortunate, isn’t it? But only if you’d like to, of course.”

“No, no––I’d like that very much. I’m sure it would be very nice.”

“That’s grand. Shall I come and get you?”

“No,” she said, the worry returning. “Not here. You shouldn’t be here, really, you shouldn’t. I’ll meet you in town.”

THEY ENDED up on Wardour Street. The fog that hung motionless in the air turned the passers-by into ghosts at twenty yards’ distance; but in the little pools of light about the lamp posts he saw faces, darting eyes, suspicion and wariness. She led the way into a narrow alley that led off the street and into a narrow pub halfway down it. There was a small room on the first floor with a bar, tables, chairs and sofas. There were a few other punters, although not many, and an automatic piano which was activated by the insertion of a penny. Isabella sat down on one of the sofas, crossing her ankles demurely, and Harry asked what she would like to drink. She asked for a gin and peppermint and he went to the bar to get it. When he returned she had fed a penny into the piano and it responded with a brisk rendition of a waltz that he didn’t recognise. He smiled at her between sips of his beer. She was extremely pretty. She was wearing a simple black dress, the hemline daringly short––just below the knee––and a tubular bodice that draped straight down to a dropped waist. He especially liked the hat she was wearing; one of those flat felt hats which seemed to be in vogue.

They paused, a little awkwardly.

She took off her hat and smoothed her hair.

“What do you do?” she asked him finally.

“For a living?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sort of between jobs. I’ve just got back.”

“You’ve been fighting?”

“Yes. The Somme.”

“France?”

“That’s right.”

“What was it like?”

He paused, his thoughts jerking against the restraint that usually kept the nightmares hidden in the dark recesses of his mind. He got glimpses: muddy trenches, brackish water and blood; shells detonating, dirt and debris scattered overhead; bayonet charges across no man’s land; machine guns roaring through belts of bullets; the smell of cordite and of death. The first Hun he had killed, the man’s hands pressed against the wound in his abdomen but his guts still spreading out through his fingers anyway, looking unaccountably like gore-streaked strings of sausages, and––just as his memory threatened to paint on the clearer detail––he wrenched himself back into the present: the warmth of the pub, the taste of the beer, the pretty girl in front of him. He put the memories away again, forced himself to focus his unfocused eyes and put a smile on his face. “It was war,” he said. “That’s all there is to say about it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s fine. Really.”

There was another pause.

“So,” she said. “What do you like to do for fun?”

“I’m a normal kind of chap,” he said. “The normal things.”

“Do you like music?”

“I do. You?”

“Oh yes. I like dancing especially.”

“And I expect you’re excellent at it, too.”

She blushed. “I don’t know about that. I reckon I’m alright.”

“Where do you go?”

“The Top Hat, in Ham Yard––it’s the best place in London. Do you know it?”

“I don’t think I do. I was young when I went away. I never really went out doing any of this before.” He indicated the glasses on the table and shrugged at the awful mechanical piano.

“You haven’t been dancing?” She sounded incredulous.

“Can’t say I have.”

“It’s not far from here. You can get drinks till twelve.”

“Then I can see a benefit already.”

There was another silence as they both wondered whether he was going to deliver the conversation to its natural conclusion. She self-consciously sipped her drink. He watched her. She was awfully pretty. He saw a man, at a nearby table, looking at her. Jealous eyes. Covetous, pretending not to look but unable to resist. The man turned his face back to his own companion as he noticed Harry looking at him. It was all that Harry needed to see.

“How do you fancy it?” he said.

“What––the Top Hat? Now?”

“Why not?”

“We could go,” she said, pretending uncertainty for the sake of her modesty. “They don’t start with the dancing till eleven, though.”

“Time for another drink here then. What do you say?”

“I’d say that sounds wonderful,” she said.

He went up to get them another drink. When he returned she had fed the piano for a second time and another song––as bad as before––was playing out in a riot of badly tuned notes. She grinned sheepishly at him. “Sorry. I couldn’t help myself.”