John Brown's Body (15 page)

He spread his knees along the wall and took out his pipe. He was not bothered tonight. Tonight he believed that these questions had answers which would be entirey acceptable when he knew them. After tomorrow, perhaps: he would know much more after tomorrow.

As he lit his pipe he saw the lilac bush on the grass verge opposite wag in the wind. Just enough wind for that one bush, not enough, on his side of the street, to bend the flame of his match.

Perhaps he should be prepared never to know the actual answers. He might have to be content with the feeling of content, he might have to hold on to that long after tonight. There must have been faith for the miracle to happen and there would certainly have to be faith for it to continue. Before he asked questions, he told himself, he should be sure that he had the right to. He should also be sure that he had the wit to understand the answers.

He held the matchbox over the bowl of his pipe. When he let the smoke out of his mouth there was enough light from the street lamp to see it slowly shred away. He found a loose stone on the top of the wall and threw it at the lilac bush.

What happened next was confused by the headlights of a car which swung round the corner. Something came out of the bush and went away down the shadowy street. It was brown in colour and big enough to be a man. The car stopped in front of Ralph and he got off the wall and walked away too.

He was sorry about throwing the stone and startling some poor devil probably trying to attend to the wants of nature. The thought made him smile, it
amused
him. Wasn’t it unkindly fun – and the difference between her amusement and his only in the degree?

Life, now that he was coming to think of it, supplied the answers. They were all ready, the whys and wherefores – no ball without a socket, no put without take – the only need being to recognise them, as he had this little demonstration of what made people laugh. If he kept his eyes open he ought to be able to pick out the truth, bit by bit, in all its shapes and forms. He wasn’t worried about the shapes and forms, nor about the truth itself, the truth of a miracle had to be good.

Pausing to attend to his pipe which was burning too hotly, he had the feeling that he had suddenly been challenged. He looked up. The street stood empty, the lilacs and Scotch pines were still as paint and if he heard anything it was the gritting of someone else’s shoe – that poor devil, perhaps, still trying to meet the needs of nature. Ralph gently knocked out his pipe and walked on.

He was strolling along the Causeway, a locality lively with people and traffic, when he knew without doubt that he had company and was being accompanied as well. This time, when he turned, there were people behind him, and one of them wore a brown raincoat. Ralph saw long loose moustaches
and recognised the fishmonger whom Ginsberg had said was a policeman, the brown shape which ran out of the bush, the scrape of the shoe, the poor devil not attending to the wants of nature in Trehearne Park. He was following Ralph.

Thereafter the evening progressed to its logical inconclusion and later Ralph realised that there had been another little demonstration, another answer supplied. He had not recognised it at the time. Indeed he chose not to recognise it, and the moment he started to run from the man in the raincoat he had chosen to play games.

At first there was nowhere for them to hide and seek. The Causeway was a well-lit thoroughfare, and wide. They dodged among the passers-by, at least Ralph dodged. He infiltrated into a group leaving a bar and crossed the road in their midst. When he looked back from behind a stationary car the fishmonger was barely two yards away.

Ralph walked on, catching reflections in the glass of the shopfronts. He was able to watch the fishmonger’s tactics: they were not subtle, they were dogged. The fishmonger was determined to keep an eye on Ralph, irrespective of what that eye might not see.

Ralph was unnerved, prepared to dodge and duck and ignominiously hide to get the fishmonger’s eye off himself. At a road junction he darted across as the lights changed from amber to green. The roar of burked engines warned him that the eye had not waited for the red and he ran into an Underground station.

It was easy buying a ticket, but he couldn’t decide whether to go east or west. It seemed important, but finally he ran down the stairs towards the rumble of an incoming train. The fishmonger ran too and they got into the same coach.

They looked at each other, Ralph to see what he was running away from, the man for reasons known to himself, strong ones seemingly. He put his hands on his knees and blew out his moustaches like some outdated animal working up to a charge.

Ralph thought that he wouldn’t be able to appreciate the joke much longer. He considered asking the fellow why he was following. But he might not be following, it might be coincidence that he had left the same bar and run for the same train and got into the same coach. The thing to do was put him to a test.

Ralph sat back and closed his eyes and after the train had stopped four times, he got out. The station was Drayton Park. He walked in the direction of Holloway Road. He was as certain as he could be without actually turning to look that the fishmonger was behind him.

Traffic was heavy, he had a lively time – and so, no doubt, did the fishmonger – dodging back and forth. Ralph’s idea was not to shake off pursuit but to establish it and he waited occasionally to give the follower a chance. He was following all right, as surely as if Ralph had him on a string.

Ralph found an alleyway running between the shops. It skirted a builder’s yard and he stepped into the shadow of a stack of timber.

Someone came stamping along the alley and it annoyed Ralph that he made no attempt to muffle his footsteps. As he drew level, Ralph came out and barred his way. They stood chest to chest, the other man’s breath gusting out, smelling of beer.

“Why are you following me?”

The man wiped his face with his hands, snorted into them as if they held water.

“You must think I’m a fool not to see what you’re up to.”

He was in his late fifties, with no claim to distinction save inverted oxbrow moustaches which gave him an embattled look.

“I don’t like people following me – especially fishmongers.”

He stared at Ralph, still breathless and pushed from the chase and not yet adjusted to the end of it.

“If you wanted to speak to me why didn’t you stop me?
I’ve been having you along for the sole purpose of finding out what you’re up to.”

Was he up to anything? Anything acceptable or translatable? He might be a poor devil with a fixed idea that had chanced to fix on Ralph. He looked as if the idea had got lost and only the fixity remained.

“Do you want to speak to me?”

He opened his shoulders and made a violent sound, a kind of explosion of breath. His moustaches shot out with the force of it. Ralph got a clear impression of complete repudiation.

“And I don’t want to speak to you, so there’s an end of it. If you keep tailing me I’ll turn you over to the police.”

Ralph walked away, the man watching him. Could he be a deaf-mute? It would be a funny thing, but funnier things were happening. Ralph swung round, shouting, “Look out behind you!” and the man immediately looked behind him.

At the other end of the alley was a street of small houses. As he passed under a railway arch Ralph heard the rails whine with the vibration of a train. Beyond the arch was a football field. It was very quiet, the few sodium lights planted in the dark showed him that he was no longer being followed. He didn’t know where he was nor why he should have come. The incident with the fishmonger rankled. It had no relevance, he had tried to give it some by running like a rabbit at the pop of a paper-bag.

He found his way back to the Causeway and traced a smell of coffee to an espresso machine in an Italianate restaurant. At least nine hours had passed since he had eaten anything. Bertha would worry – and why not? What else had she to worry about?

People were still eating at the red and white check tables. Ralph asked for steak and a cup of coffee.

“There’s no steak,” said the waitress. “Not this time of night. There’s cold beef and pork pie and fishcake.”

“I don’t want fishcake. I’ll have poached eggs and I’d like coffee right away.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now.”

A man and a girl were sitting at the next table, the girl was younger than Marise – she had puppy creases in her neck – and the man was older than Ralph. He took her hand and she took it away to draw salt rings on the tablecloth.

Ralph reflected that he and Marise were not like that, he and Marise would never be like anyone. Marise was unprecedented and she had made him exceptional. Like it or not, John Brown was exceptional. Bertha was not, neither was Emmy. Bertha was Ralph Shilling’s wife. There was the sameness, there was his sense of guilt. That was why he had run away, like a guilty man. He looked up in anger and at the table on his other hand sat the fishmonger.

It was the last straw. Ralph got to his feet and stood over him. “I told you not to follow me.”

“I’ve as much right here as you.”

He was going to talk, but that changed nothing. Ralph picked up the lapel of his raincoat. “I’m going to give you in charge.”

People were watching them, the fishmonger looked round to make sure of that before he said, “Why shouldn’t I come in for a cup of tea and a sit down?”

“Who are you?”

“It’s who you are that matters.” He nodded round at them all. “By God.”

Ralph was aware of some eyes and mouths open and an appetite for trouble. He released the man’s coat. “You don’t know me and I don’t wish to know you,” and sat down at his table.

“I know you,” said the fishmonger. He looked round again, took off his hat as if acknowledging applause and then placed it under his chair.

The waitress brought Ralph’s coffee. “We don’t want any trouble.”

“I shan’t make any. I’m waiting for my supper.”

“I’ve only got one pair of hands.” She asked the fishmonger, “What’s for you?”

“Tea.”

Without his hat he looked more like a butcher. Or a bricklayer, or a plumber. Or just a character part, a cue for a titter from an audience. Hair grew boisterously out of his ears and nostrils, the few strands left on top of his head were combed across and stuck down.

Or was Tony Ginsberg right? Ralph turned his shoulder and sipped his coffee. If this man was a policeman in disguise there was still no cause to be uneasy. He had done nothing, proposed nothing against the law.

“I’ve got a message for you.” The man was staring at Ralph with lowered head and moustaches like tusks. “Leave my niece alone.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“End of message.”

It would make a humorous story, but who could Ralph tell it to? Bertha would be alarmed and Emmy suspicious.

“The message is – leave her alone!”

The girl and her elderly escort listened openly, so did the waitress. They weren’t smiling, it wasn’t funny to them.

“And next time I’ll give it you another way.”

Ralph supposed that the steak-eaters would appreciate the story, but it would have to have a snappy ending.

“I don’t even know your niece.”

“She told me all about you.”

“Told you what?”

“You didn’t know she had me, did you? And I’ve got something too.” He sat back in his chair and told the room, “I’ve got something you won’t like.”

“Look, just who do you suppose I am?”

“She hasn’t only got that teddy bear, you know.”

Even as it was explained, Ralph understood why it had not been genuinely funny. He had been afraid of something like this, he had been afraid of exactly this.

“She’s got her Uncle Fred Macey,” said the man.

The waitress brought him his tea. She had spilled it into the saucer and he took up the cup and poured the tea back and briskly stirred in sugar, so briskly that the tea slopped out again.

Ralph’s eggs arrived. He prodded them with his fork. What was ‘all’ to Marise? What had she told?

“You thought there was no-one to stop you. Thought you were going to have your way.”

Ralph got up and went to his table again. “Did she tell you who I am – who she thinks I am?”

“I know who you are.”

“But you see, I’m not who she says, it’s just a joke between us.”

“Ho, ho, some joke.”

“It is rather macabre,” agreed Ralph, “and I’m never sure how far she’ll carry it. People might think she meant it. I suppose if you saw a likeness to someone you knew years ago you might be inclined to believe her.”

“I never forget a face.”

It was to have been private, for just the two of them to laugh at. If she had spread it to Fred Macey it wouldn’t be the same joke.

“I was trained to use my eyes.” Fred Macey’s eyes were cut-away sections of foggy blue. “The Government paid for that.”

“I’d expect a Government department – yes, even a Government department,” Ralph said bitterly, “to require more than a chance resemblance to identify a man.”

“I can identify you.”

“My name is Shilling. It would be ridiculous if a private joke were taken seriously.”

“I was a Special, they trained the Specials better than they did the Regulars. I know what you’re after.” There was a hint of collusion in his leer and Ralph’s skin prickled. “You can’t fool me.”

“I tell you I’m not John Brown. Ask Tomelty if you don’t believe me.”

“Ask Jack Tomelty?” The foggy blue focussed on Ralph’s face, yet Ralph had the impression that Fred Macey was looking furiously somewhere else.

“He knew John Brown, if anyone could identify him, Tomelty could.”

“Ask
him
?” Ralph had shown the red rag to the bull, Macey saw only the red rag of Tomelty. “Ask that counter-jumper to tell me what to think?”

“His mother too. She knew John Brown, she’ll confirm what I say.”

“That to Tomelty!” Macey pushed up his first two fingers. “And his mother!” He reached for his hat and beat his way through chairs and tables.

From the door he shouted “Murderer!” and left Ralph to pay for his tea.