The Suburbs of Hell (7 page)

‘So would I,’ said the young man. ‘I would be—atrocious.’

The Commander, whose political discussions, or tantrums, often turned on the point of law and order, thought to insert a word there, but put away the idea because the boy was not really with him, but back in the two violated rooms. So instead he reached forward with the poker, and made a bigger blaze for the lad to gaze at.

‘We’re doing,’ Greg said, ‘what must be being done in nearly every other place in these streets where two or more people are together. Rummaging. Getting together rags to clothe the shadow. That’s what they’ll be doing. Like in that Wells story: bandaging the Invisible Man. In somebody’s life there are the rags that will make the shadow take shape when it is dressed with them.’

‘Not someone we know,’ objected the Commander. ‘Oh no, dear chap. Some stranger, some prowler from outside, that is quite obvious. With a motive or without one—if you insist—but a stranger. Don’t you agree?’

The young man shrugged, and sank back into his chair away from the fire’s new blaze. ‘Funny enough, as Harry would say, I don’t think very much about it. One doesn’t. One thinks of the one who’s gone. I keep thinking of Paul and all he did for me, and wondering if he thought I took too much for granted. I did at one time, I know. I had rather the feeling in those days that he was too old to have a life of his own.’

The Commander leaned his head back and looked at the painted face of his wife with its reserved smile. ‘
Tu n’as rien à te reprocher
,’ he said. ‘My wife used to quote that. She had a poor sad French woman-friend with a bedridden old mother, and that was her guiding principle: that the most important thing in life was to have nothing to reproach oneself for, with respect to the dead.’

‘Are there such people?’ Greg asked. ‘If so, they’re thick, I’d guess.’

The Commander said nothing, but went on staring at the portrait, in a rapt lethargy, just as his visitor stared at the fire.

Harry was showing Dave Stutton his new quarters, in the room at the top of Harry’s tall thin house. ‘Thass a bit Spartan, like,’ said Harry, ‘but thass got what you need, I s’ppoose. Bed, cupboard, drawers. There’s a foo bits of gear of mine stowed away up here, but I shan’t be botherin you, I never come up this far.’

Dave, at the window, peering down, remarked: ‘Thass a bit like a lighthouse here,’ and then looked awkward.

But Harry seemed not to have heard, and only said, after a moment: ‘Well, you get yourself settled, boy, and I’ll give you a drink when you come down. No supper, though; I didn’t buy no food today, what with the coppers and that. I thought I’d goo to the Galley, myself. You?’

‘Yeh,’ Dave said, ‘sure. Fanks for everyfing, Harry.’

‘You’re welcome, boy,’ said Harry, at the door, with a genial smile, which faded, however, even before he turned.

When Dave, later, followed him down two flights of stairs he found him sitting in his chair with the little dog in his lap. From the corner of the fireplace the cat was looking on balefully. ‘Problems,’ Harry said to Dave. ‘I got problems. Oh you bad boy, you greeneyed monster, Rover.’

Dave pointed a finger at the toy dog. ‘You call that fing Rover?’

‘Rover’s the cat,’ Harry explained. ‘I don’t think I ever heard the name of the dog. Ena just useta call her silly names, like Tiddles and that.’

‘Thass a good name for a dog,’ Dave said. ‘A good name for
that
dog. Tiddles—kill!’

‘Cut that out, boy,’ Harry said, as the dog started. ‘She’s in a state. Her nerves are shot to pieces, and my jealous old cat int helpin. Poor little old dog.’ He brought his forehead down to rest for a moment against the spaniel’s.

‘You goonna keep ’er?’ Dave asked.

‘I reckon,’ said Harry, gazing into the dog’s face. ‘Oh, if you could on’y talk. Just think of it, Dave: these bright little eyes have sin it, sin the man with the gun. This is the on’y witness there is.’

‘Everyone,’ Dave said, ‘say: “The man”, but that don’t have to be a man. I mean, thass not as if there was any sex in it.’

‘Thass what makes it all the more pecooliar,’ said Harry, musing. ‘I mean, this sort of thing, thass nearly always about sex. And then half the commoonity can say: “Well, thass me safe.” But nobody’s safe here: not you or me, not the vicar’s wife or the harbour master’s little daughter, not even the dogs and cats, seein he seem to be doin it just for a giggle.’

‘They say thass some foreign seaman,’ Dave said. ‘Yugoslav, that’d be my guess.’

‘Oh, what shit,’ Harry muttered. ‘
They
say.
They
int got a clue, boy, and well you know it. And why Yugoslav, anyway?’

‘I don’t like ’em,’ Dave admitted.

‘There, you see? Thass ezzackly what I mean.’

He got up from his chair, the dog in his arms. ‘Talkin of Yugoslav seamen and such,’ he said, ‘thass time we went to the Galley. I int eaten today, not a soddin crumb. I’m just beginnin to notice. I shall have to shut the dog in the kitchen where the cat can’t eat her, then we’re off.’

Outside the air was biting, and above the streetlamps a clear sky made the roofs gleam with icy moonlight. At the end of the narrow street which they were following a great white ship, blazing with yellow light, slid by. Harry looked at his watch. ‘Late,’ he said. ‘Must be rough weather over there.’

Among the façades of secretive dwelling-houses the Galley’s glowing windows made a festive interruption. The door, opening on steamy heat, rang a bell, and at the sound groups of men at the scattered tables looked up to see who had arrived. The strip-lighting was harsh, and the Galley gleamed, in a dull fashion, because everything in it had to be washable. Some of its patrons had the trick of duelling by firing off, as it were, sauce-bottles at one another.

At a table towards the back of the large room sat a cluster of dark sailorly men. Harry murmured to Dave: ‘Your Yugoslavs,’ and Dave nodded.

‘Off that Spanish ship,’ he whispered, ‘at King’s Wharf—you know? They been around for a week or more. She’s arrested for debt.’

‘I know who they are,’ said Harry, seating himself at an empty table. ‘They’re pretty famous among the gossips, such as you. From the way they look around ’em, I think they know it.’

‘I fink the fuzz,’ Dave said, as he sat down, ‘might have been askin ’em about their movements, like.’

A man at another table, who had been looking at them over a plate of fish and chips, caught Harry’s eye and said, economically: ‘Harry,’ with a nod of his cropped grey head. Harry slightly raised one hand, and returned: ‘Charlie.’ To Dave he explained: ‘Charlie’s our crane-driver, on the job.’

‘What is it you’re doin?’ Dave asked. ‘I fought you was on a dredger.’

‘Not for a long time,’ Harry said. ‘No, Charlie and me are on this sea-defence job. You know, in St Felix Bay, where that work’s bein done, buildin up the cliff? Well, thass us. We got a pontoon with a crane on it, upriver at Birkness, and we scoop up stones and shingle and that and bring it back here on our barge. Thass good money, boy;
you
need a job like that.’

‘No experience,’ Dave said sadly.

‘You don’t need it. Well, Charlie does, but me, I’m on’y a labourer now. I’ll keep my eye open for you, if you like.’

‘Yeh, well, fanks, Harry,’ Dave said, without enthusiasm, stroking his black beard. ‘Yeah, that sound like that’d suit me.’

‘Where the hell’s Billy?’ Harry demanded of the air, and banging the table yelled: ‘Bill-ee!’

The cropheaded crane-driver got up, carrying his cup of tea, and came over to take the chair beside him. He said: ‘Billy’s hitting the cooking sherry, I suspicion.’ As he spoke, a tall fat man, with a long apron over blue-and-white cook’s trousers, emerged from a rear door and bore down on them with a light but stately tread.

‘Billy,’ Harry said, ‘where was you, boy? I’m starvin.’

Billy explained: ‘Family reunion going on out the back. My daughter, with her kids. Her husband’s at sea, and she’s scared to stay at home alone.’

‘She’s one of several,’ said the crane-driver. ‘There’ll be a few bolts and chains sold tomorrow.’

‘So I didn’t hear you come in,’ Billy told Harry. ‘Sorry. What’s it to be?’

‘Steak and chips,’ Harry said, ‘and bread and butter and a cuppa tea.’

‘Twice,’ said Dave.

‘Quick as I can,’ Billy promised, and went off, pausing for a moment in answer to some gesture from a Yugoslav seaman. His companions seemed to hold aloof from the exchange that followed, sitting hunched in their coats, and silent, like commuters.

‘I see ’em looking a bit happier,’ Charlie remarked, ‘a week ago. They got old Arthur, in the Moon, to teach ’em to play darts.’

‘Do they speak English?’ Dave asked.

‘One does, but not a lot. The oldest one, a bit bald in front, he’s the pack-leader.’

‘Charlie,’ said Harry, ‘would you reckon we could get young Dave here a job on our rig?’

The grizzled crane-driver looked the young man over. He had a long thin face, longitudinally grooved like driftwood. ‘Possible,’ he decided after a moment. ‘Not soon, but people drop out and move on. What are you doing now?’

‘Nuffin,’ said Dave.

‘Got to do what I can for him,’ Harry said. ‘His father was an old mate.’

‘Yeah,’ Dave said, morosely. ‘Thass right.’

Fat Billy came back, silent-footed, and laid the table, reaching bare tattooed forearms around Harry’s back. ‘Those boys asked me,’ he said, ‘if I knew someone who’d change some pesetas for them. I don’t know who would, and
I
can’t. Feel sorry for them. Lousy position to be in.’

‘Well, then,’ Dave said, ‘that lets
them
out. They int been doin no burglin.’

‘What do you mean?’ Harry demanded, shortly. ‘There weren’t no burglin done. I mean, no theft.’

‘You know that?’ Charlie asked, turning his wooden face.

‘Yeh,’ Harry said, ‘I know it.’ And he looked so grim that Charlie tactfully returned to his teacup.

Billy was looking out through the steamy window traced with runnels of clearness. ‘Hullo,’ he said, ‘here’s trouble,’ and padded away to his kitchen.

The bell tinkled, and Frank De Vere came in, drunk, and stood for a moment holding the door open, letting in frosty air, until Black Sam, following, gently moved him on and closed it. But still Frank stood, blue eyes blazing in his saturnine face, staring at Harry.

‘Evenin, Frank,’ said Harry, with a quizzical expression. ‘Sam.’

Frank gave his muzzy head a slight shake, and muttered: ‘Harry.’

‘Come to join us? One of these days we’re goonna eat.’

‘No,’ said Frank, with a wandering voice but eyes transfixed. ‘No, I just—I was looking for Dave.’

‘I’m here,’ Dave said, twisting his chair about.

‘No—ah—not Dave,’ Frank said, ‘I meant—it’s Ken Heath I was looking for. He been in?’

‘Not since he was a teenager,’ Harry said, ‘I should imagine. Not ezzackly Ken’s class of caff, the Galley.’

‘Yeah, well, erm—’ Frank said. ‘Right, Harry.’ He wavered, then said to Black Sam: ‘Let’s try the Speedwell,’ and as soon as the door was opened for him disappeared.

Sam said, grinning: ‘You see ’em in all conditions in my trade.’ He followed his fare out, and soon afterwards the glow of his tail-lights lit up the sweating window.

‘Jesus wept,’ said Charlie, ‘what have you been doing to that man De Vere, Harry? You in the habit of beating him up, or something?’

‘Search me,’ Harry said. ‘Made me think of my old cat when she get the idea she see ghosts. Well, he weren’t quite as sober as what we are.’

‘He often like that?’ Charlie asked Dave. ‘You know him?’

Dave, from under his black forelock, was watching Harry, who was fiddling with a fork. Dave’s black eyes were brightly inquisitive but not intelligent. From the far end of the room the Yugoslavs were watching Harry too.

‘No,’ Dave said, ‘I int never sin him so nervy, like, before. Harry—’

‘What?’ said Harry, looking up from the fork.

‘Frank fink he know somefing, I reckon.’

‘Or else,’ Harry said, coolly, ‘he think I might have a foo theories of my own, and he don’t like the idea.’

‘That was an act?’ Charlie asked.

‘I don’t know, boy,’ Harry said. ‘Don’t know what he thinks, don’t properly know what I think, neither. All I know is, once you start suspectin, you might not be able to stop in time before you goo mad. Thass the mischief of it.’ He lost interest in the fork which dropped from the tattooed fingers with a clang, and glanced impatiently towards the kitchen door. ‘Ah, thank Christ, here come our chow at last.’

At his usual table by the window in the Speedwell Commander Pryke was improving his acquaintance with Taffy Hughes, who was something quite high up in the Customs, though the Commander had never gathered exactly what. He had known Taffy, after a fashion, for years, but it was only now, when he was bereaved of his usual companion, that the broad and portly Welshman sought him out. The Commander took that very kindly. There was a reminder of Paul Ramsey in the way bearded Taffy sucked at his pipe and sat meditating over a pint; but he was an older man by a generation, and the Commander, who was older still, had quickly fallen into a sort of younger-brotherly relation with him which Taffy’s great solidity and a certain unwitherable boyishness in the Commander himself made natural. After testing him with certain political observations, about equally offensive to trendy Lefties and Visigoths, which only had the effect of making Taffy smoke with greater enjoyment, the Commander had come off it—that seemed to be Taffy’s silent message—and subsided into the decent bewilderment about everything which was his normal state. He felt sorrow that this reassuring person meant to leave him as soon as his pipe was out.

The pipe was even then laid to cool in an ashtray, and Taffy showed signs of gathering his large body to rise.

‘Nice to see,’ said the Commander, ‘that fellow—Black Sam, don’t they call him?—wandering in here so naturally. I’d heard that some of the rumour-mongers had been trying to make him the scapegoat in this awful business.’

‘I don’t think,’ said Taffy, ‘that he wants to be here; or not in that company. He’s been standing for twenty minutes saying nothing at all, holding a glass of fruit-juice for comfort.’