What Was Promised (10 page)

‘Mr Swan,’ Michael says. ‘Mr Noakes speaks highly of you.’

Alan Swan cocks his head, like the dog who hears His Master’s Voice.

‘Brum,’ he says. ‘Birmingham born, but a bit of something else at home. I wouldn’t be at all surprised,’ he says, raising his tumbler to half-mast, ‘if you had a touch of Scotch in you.’

‘A good trick,’ Michael says; but Alan doesn’t like the answer, any more than Michael likes the acuity. The old man lowers his glass.

‘Oh, it’s not a trick, Michael. It’s a skill. It never does harm to know who you’re dealing with. Michael what?’

‘Lockhart, sir.’

‘Lockhart, of Birmingham,’ Alan says. He nods, twice – as if the act unlocks and locks a file in his pale skull – then smiles benignly. ‘Well, sit down, sit down. We’re not at war now, there’s no need for formalities. What will you have, Cyril?’

‘Just a mild for me, Alan, and the same for Oscar.’

‘Michael?’

‘I’ll have what you’re having.’

‘Ah,’ Alan says, and smiles his brand new false Health Service smile.

There are three other men at the table. Alan introduces them. Michael listens to their names and shakes their hands in turn. None of them matter.

As they settle there’s a lull in the talk. Michael props his stick between his knees. One of the girls brings the drinks. She smiles at Michael as she sets them down, meets his eye and lets hers linger. What was her name? Noakes told him once, Fay or Faith or the like. A clean girl, a picker and a chooser, with a room of her own upstairs. Michael lays aside the thought for later.

‘That stick,’ Alan says, ‘that’s a shame to see, a young fellow needing that. A war souvenir, is it?’

‘An illness,’ Michael says.

‘I hope you don’t mind me asking.’

‘Not at all, Mr Swan.’

‘I find it never hurts to ask. Did you see much action, Michael?’

‘As much as I wished for,’ Michael says, but Alan won’t let it go as easily as that.

‘Norman, here, he was in Malaya. Won himself some decorations. Only got back last year. A long time gone, weren’t you, Norman?’

Norman shifts in his seat, as if he might escape attention. ‘It’s done with now,’ he says.

‘So it is,’ Alan says. ‘And you, Michael? How was it for you?’

Michael tries his drink. He wants another bland reply – truth and lies both being risks – but it won’t do to stall too long, and nothing comes to mind except passing thoughts of the girl and the more nagging recollection of Wolfowitz, up in the dark.

Something’s come up, he thinks. Well, it looks like I need to have words with him. If it’s now then it’s none too soon . . .

The men are waiting for him. Too late, now, to play it safe.

‘The war was inconvenient,’ Michael says, ‘most of the time. Some of the time it was an opportunity.’

Two of Swan’s men go still, he sees, but the third wipes at a smirk. Alan widens his pale eyes.

‘Home Front for you, was it? Not much call, I suppose, for the lame to go marching off to war.’

‘I was never much for marching.’

‘I take it,’ Alan says, ‘that you’re not much for King or Country, either?’

‘I’ve done as much for them as they’ve done for me.’

Alan waves away his neighbour’s fit of smoke.

‘An opportunity, you call it. Well, it was. A lot of people hungry. A lot of them going short. Desperate, some of them. And you took your chances where you could. What did you get your hands on, I wonder? Nothing too steady, I suppose, or you wouldn’t be shifting Cyril’s goods now. Salvage off the bombings, was it? There were tidy pickings there. You wouldn’t be the only one.’

‘A bit of that,’ Michael says, ‘now and then.’

‘And selling underhand. Not that I’m saying you were a spiv,’ Alan says. ‘Not that I’d call you a horrible name like that.’

‘I don’t mind what you call me, Mr Swan,’ Michael says, and the old man’s steady gaze flickers in . . . something. Interest or amusement.

‘Norman here, he learned all kinds of things in the war. A handy man in a tight spot, that’s what we know we’ve got in Norman. What do we have in you, Michael? An education, a trade?’

Michael shrugs. ‘Silversmith’s apprentice.’

‘Not much call for that, these days. Takes too much money to make money. Not a lot of good to us. Still, Cyril tells me you’ve been useful, down the markets.’

‘He knows what he’s about,’ Cyril says, like a salesman. ‘He’s a hard worker and all. Come rain come shine, isn’t it, Mickey?’

‘I was asking Michael,’ Alan says. ‘Michael, how are you finding things?’

‘I can’t complain,’ Michael says.

But Cyril won’t shut up. ‘Just bought himself a nice little car. A family number.’

‘Earning more than your missus can spend, eh?’ the smirker puts in, and the cougher rises and gets in another round.

Michael says, ‘It’s not as busy as I’d like. There are the wrong kind of crowds.’

‘Wrong kind?’ Alan says. ‘I thought barrowboys liked crowds. The markets would get a bit gloomy without them. Cyril’s lads would get gloomy, too, if everyone stayed tucked up at home. What kind’s the wrong kind, then?’

‘Too many selling, not enough buying. Not enough brass. Too many foreigners,’ Michael says, ‘shoving in.’

‘Ah,’ Alan says again. ‘That kind of crowd.’

The drinks are set down. Alan pours his dregs into a fresh tumbler of malt: his hand is unsteady. The chat around the table is breaking up into small talk – the Hammers game against Argyle, the blacks causing trouble up west, the boys from down Ratcliff way, who pulled a job on Alan’s patch and won’t be trying that again, not in a hurry, all of them looking three years in the face –

When Alan speaks again his mildness cuts through the voices.

‘Ever been on the sea, Michael?’

‘Why?’

‘Jetsam and flotsam. If you’d been at sea you’d know the difference.’

Michael swirls his whisky. Cyril laughs tightly. ‘You’re on a hiding to nothing, Alan,’ he says. ‘I don’t reckon Michael takes well to lessons.’

‘Well,’ Alan says, ‘do you know?’

‘I couldn’t give a tinker’s shit,’ Michael says (choosing his words, like stepping stones), and some of those at the table smile, and some raise an eyebrow and lean back, but Alan stays just where he is, and his face hardly moves at all.

‘I don’t suppose you could,’ he says, ‘but I’m going to tell you anyway. Jetsam’s what gets cast away when there’s no place left for it. Flotsam’s what comes off the wrecks.’

Michael swallows his drink. He can feel its fire in his gut. He says, ‘I’m the flotsam, am I?’

‘That’s right,’ Alan says. ‘And they’re the jetsam, all of them. All the spicks and yids and nignogs. But it all ends up the same. It’s all shit on the beach at the end of the day. From where I’m sitting, up on the prom, I can’t hardly tell the difference. The only thing I care about is whether any of it’s still alive. I want to see it crawling, up out of the muck. If it crawls then I can use it. Are you still crawling, Michael?’

Michael looks away first. The horse-head stick rests by his hand. He draws his eyes away from it and lets his gaze rest on the table, where it can do no harm. Where Alan mixed his drinks a spill has darkened the baize. Elsewhere there are older stains, dim isles and continents.

Like a map, Michael thinks. Like the atlas of a greater world.

‘Mr Swan,’ he says, ‘I’ll seem young to you, but I’m past the age of crawling. I learned to stand on my own two feet a good long time ago.’

Cyril coughs into his hand. Alan smiles a third time. His false teeth gleam like wet ivory.

‘Did you?’ he says. ‘Well, standing will do. Standing will do just as well.’

*

Afterwards, in the street, Cyril slaps him on the back.

‘You play it fine, don’t you?’

‘Here’s your change,’ Michael says, and he takes out the note.

‘What? Keep it,’ Cyril says. ‘Keep it, Mickey, you earned it. You’re a plucky fucker, I’ll give you that. You sail too close to the wind with Alan, you’ll end up like those Ratcliff boys, or worse . . . Christ, but his face. I’d pay guineas to see it again. I’d put it up and frame it. Who’s got a smoke left?’

Oscar does. Cyril’s eyes are bright, like a man whose dog has come in first.

Cyril gets out his flask. He offers it to Michael, then shrugs, sucks, bares his teeth, and tips a toast to the street. ‘Long life,’ he murmurs. ‘Here’s to a long life with plenty of trimmings. Oscar?’

Oscar takes his drink.

‘There, well,’ Cyril says, when his smoke is done, ‘may as well call it a night.’

‘I’ll walk,’ Michael says, ‘if it’s the same to you.’

‘Good idea. Work off some steam, your missus will thank you. It’s chilly, though.’

‘Not to me,’ Michael says, and Cyril chuckles in the dark.

‘You’re like my boys,’ he says. ‘You don’t feel it yet. I envy you. You’ve got your life ahead of you, Mickey, and look at you! You’re on the up. Well, mind how you go – I don’t want you getting into trouble.’

Michael watches the car pull off. When it’s out of sight he starts eastwards. He has a fair stride, stick or no, and it won’t do to wait on his man; still, it’s asking too much to expect Wolfowitz to match him, and he tempers his pace.

He’s left Clerkenwell behind before the old man draws level. ‘Wait,’ Wolfowitz hisses, ‘wait!’

They stop for him to catch his breath. Michael looks east and west. The street is dark enough.

‘Well?’ he says, and Wolfowitz spits thick matter and stares at him, hands on knees.

‘What are you doing, running away like that? I’m sixty-three years old. I stand out in the street like a nag while you drink whisky inside and then you make me chase you home. You should be thanking me.’

‘How do you know it was whisky?’ Michael asks, and Wolfowitz grins painfully.

‘I can smell it. It smells nice.’

‘It’s Alan Swan’s whisky,’ Michael says, but Wolfowitz waves away his caution.

‘They didn’t see me.’

Michael finds a step. The flag is cold under him. ‘Best keep it that way,’ he says. ‘I hope this is worth it.’

‘What else was I supposed to do? Don’t show yourself round mine, you say.  Wait for me to come round yours. Stay off Columbia Road and the Roman. If something comes up, what can I do?’

Back in the day, before the war, Wolfowitz worked for Swan. It didn’t work out for the best. Still, Alan Swan’s enmity is Michael’s opportunity. The old man makes them both good money.

‘You can use your head,’ Michael says. ‘If Swan hears you’re still working his turf he’ll see to it you’re back inside before you know it. If he hears you’re working for me I’ll break your hands myself.’

‘Michael,’ Wolfowitz says, ‘don’t talk like that.’

But Michael says nothing more. A chill silence falls in the street, and it is Wolfowitz who ends it.

‘Dick Wise stopped by. He’s a sergeant at Leman Street, used to live round your way –’

‘I know who he is. I didn’t know you were chums.’

‘So that shows what little you know, eh? Dick Wise is a good friend of mine. A good friend, not like some.’

‘Let you off, did he?’

‘He’s a soft spot for me. Sometimes we help each other out.’

‘What help did he want this time?’

‘Nothing,’ Wolfowitz says, sullenly. He straightens and brushes down his coat. ‘Just something for his girl. I chose him out a bracelet, nothing special, you wouldn’t have got much for it.’

‘And what do we get for our bracelet?’

‘Dick says to take things slow. His men are all stirred up. A day or two, they’ll be crawling all over the place. They found a man, done like that one in Bacon Street, back in the spring. Cuts.’

‘Dead?’ Michael asks, and Wolfowitz clicks his tongue.

‘Of course dead! The police don’t budge if not, do they? It’s no news being alive, is it?’

His voice has risen. Michael gets up. ‘I’ll walk you home,’ he says.

‘Don’t do me any favours.’

They come onto Old Street. Wolfowitz walks along in silence. Now and then he tugs his coat like a bird ruffling its feathers. Michael is glad to see it. The old man needed ruffling.

‘Alright,’ he says. ‘We keep our heads down. You’ll lay off the streets, keep your hands to yourself. How long for?’

Wolfowitz shrugs. ‘Might be a week. Dick can’t say more than that.’

Michael gets out the pound note. He can see the old man watching, his eyes hungry in the gloom. He takes it quick when Michael offers it.

‘Obliged,’ he says, and then nothing else until they reach his lodgings.

Michael looks up at the building. The windows are thick with grime, or broken or boarded up. Here and there, light comes through rakes in old blackout paint.

‘There’s a young fellow in your room now,’ Wolfowitz says. ‘He was a tank gunner in Africa. He’s that kind who seems to miss it. Fighting drunk all hours. A nasty piece of work.’