I thought of a lot of boring old things. What to do from now on? Go to the US for a bit, as I’d thought of doing once before? Try Vienna and look up Trudi Baumgarten? Go and be a navvy somewhere, working on a building site, sweat the evil humours out of my system? Return to Scotland and Alison?
The one thing I disliked most of all was my own company, yet there was no one else’s company I could see myself keeping. I lifted the telephone up and found it was still gently purring. In the old days you were cut off even without asking. I rang Derek and suggested we should meet somewhere. He sounded hesitant and a bit startled.
‘Shall I come round?’ he said.
‘God, no. Anything to get out of this place. What about the pub we went to once near your flat?’
‘The Lamb and Flag? Yes, if you must.’
‘What d’you mean, if I must?’
‘Well it’s – er – it’s a trifle noisy, isn’t it, dear?’
‘Suggest somewhere else.’
There was a longish pause. ‘No,’ he said, ‘that’ll do, I suppose. The food is fairish, I remember.’
‘OK. See you at eight.’
I picked up the Ferrari at five, its splendid throttle roar completely restored, parked near the flats until seven thirty and then drove across London to the Lamb and Flag.
Derek was waiting for me at the door of the saloon bar. He looked seedy and shifty, and I wondered why I’d come. No one went more quickly up and down in his circumstances than Derek. When he had money it went through his fingers like sand. I wondered what his love life was at present and hoped I’d not have to hear.
We went in and ordered steaks and talked about Erica. And then I realized why I’d come; it was for just that reason. There was no one else. I couldn’t discuss her with Shona in the same way; and with her parents not at all. Derek was my oldest friend; we’d kept in a sort of contact for fifteen years.
I’m usually tight about the mouth, but I suppose it had to open sometime. You don’t realize till you start talking that you are just going to go on and on. Often over the same ground, asking myself questions as well as asking him, half answering them before he did. I got near to bringing Alison into it, but just held my tongue on that. Otherwise it was the history of my life for the last twelve months in seven reels with barely a commercial break. I suppose it did me good like nothing else since Erica’s death. Now and again the old headshrinker and his couch are useful. Or Aunt Helen’s Catholic priest. Or even a tall thin elegant ramshackle pansy with his bookmaker’s smile and his sham-innocent faded blue eyes that have become shifty over the years.
When for the second time we got to the inquest I suddenly remembered I’d never asked Edmond Gale where he’d dreamed up those peculiar questions about the dinner party: he seemed to know as much about it as if he’d been there himself.
‘I rang him, dear,’ said Derek. ‘Told him all I could. I couldn’t come. Scared out of my pants about the whole thing. Still am, if the truth be told. I wouldn’t take the stand and say things against you. But I didn’t dare be my noble self – they wouldn’t have liked that! – so I thought, give Mr Whatsit all the info I could.’
‘Did you make some of it up? Erica would never have consulted me about backing Palmer’s play.’
‘It was the cold truth, matey. She said to me she couldn’t bear this latest offering that Palmer was foisting on the public so she’d made the excuse to him that you wouldn’t let her.’
‘Ah … well … thanks for the help.’
Derek lifted his empty beer glass. ‘I’ve a further little item of news to tell you … But first let me tot you another one out.’
‘Thanks.’ I pushed my glass towards him and saw him hesitate. He half got up and then sat down again. His colour changed. I said: ‘ Something wrong?’
He looked at me. ‘Sorry, old matey, I think there may be. I’ll get the two wets.’
He was gone a couple of minutes, came back with heavy pint glasses, spilled the beer as well as the froth putting them down. Then he said: ‘I think you’ve been rumbled.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Don’t look round. There’s a couple of blokes at the bar. I think they know you’re here.’
I took a long draught. ‘ So if they do?’
‘It won’t be nice … Oh, Christ, I think it may be my fault! …’
‘Stop wailing. What’s it all about?’
‘I’m living with a little boy called Leonard. He knew you’d rung, he knew where I was going. He’s as jealous as jaundice. If he’s given you away I’ll wring his sleasy little neck.’
I glanced around, not knowing what I might be looking for. The pub was not more than half full. A fair scattering of women. In spite of everything your heart begins to beat a bit quicker.
‘I was going to tell you,’ Derek said desperately, ‘this item of news. But I held it up as a surprise till later … I was going to tell you, knowing you d be pleased. Now I’ve got to spit it out like a deathbed confession … Roger’s scarpered.’
I stared at him. ‘What? Roger Manpole?’
‘Yes.’
‘What d’you mean, scarpered?’
‘What I say. Done a bunk. Flown the coop. Got the hell out of it. And from what I hear, with the police not far behind. The result of those raids in Dagenham and Hackney. One of the blokes is turning Queen’s Evidence. I guess he’s just made it in time. He dropped everything: wife, family, luxury home, racing stables, the lot.’
‘For the first time something is reaching me,’ I said. ‘And making me feel good.’
‘It would maybe if you were not in the birdlime yourself now. I expect they’re acting on Roger’s say-so.’
‘Nobody can disrupt a pub,’ I said. ‘ Not unless you’re IRA with a hand grenade.’
‘No, but they can wait outside. It’s only half an hour to closing time.’
‘Then we’ve got half an hour,’ I said, ‘to gloat on Roger’s fall.’
Derek rubbed his knees angrily. ‘I don’t know if you realize, old dear, that these men are nasty. And – and as for me, I’d never rat on you in a court of law or an inquest, never; but I’m not the stuff heroes are made of. If it comes to a rough house I tend to be among the missing persons.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said angrily. ‘ It’s my party.’
We sat there sipping the beer. My mouth was dry and the beer didn’t go to the spot.
‘Where’s your car?’ Derek said.
‘About five cars down on this side of the road.’
‘They’re bound to have seen that. You can’t mistake it, can you. Look, old chum, I’ve an idea. Why don’t you leave your beer half drunk and go as if you were going to the loo and never come back.’
‘The way Donald did?’
‘All right, all right. Joke over. If I remember rightly there’s a side door leading directly out from the Gents. If you can make that, then beat it like hell and pick up a taxi. There’s a rank actually just beyond the cinema on the next corner.’
‘And my car?’
‘Forget it, for the time being. Even if you’re on a yellow line it won’t cost you the earth. Come back tomorrow in a taxi, keep the taxi ticking, pick up your car and drive it home.’
‘Thanks, I’ll consider it.’
‘Consider it fast. They’ll be calling last orders soon.’
‘These gorillas might mash up the car.’
‘Well, so what? You’re insured, aren’t you? Some things you can’t insure for.’
I brooded a few moments rancorously, watching him dab at the sweat on his forehead. It seemed to me that if Roger really went I would at least have done something in my life I wouldn’t ever regret. You can’t put psychological things on scales, but this news, if it was true, brought some weight off the debit side in my mind. Maybe it just shows the total lack of proportion in everything I do – how to equate the calamity of Knightsbridge with putting the skids under a big but essentially petty criminal? – but I can only say it
was like a spark of light in a black room.
‘Tell me about him,’ I said.
‘Who?’
‘Roger, of course. Is it really the end of him?’
‘Seems so. He was only tipped off half an hour before the police called.’
‘Why didn’t he bluff it out? With expert criminal lawyers he could surely have got out of anything. He’s usually been so clever at covering his tracks.’
‘Don’t ask me. I suppose he knew Laval had grassed on him. He and Laval have been pretty close these last two years. He must have weighed the odds and thought himself safer on the Costa Blanca.’
‘Is that where he’s gone?’
‘Christ, how do I know? I only know he’s gone and left it all, and no doubt he blames it on you.’
‘I’d like to think so.’ I took a long drink. ‘ Well, here’s to Roger. Of course Laval is the man he should beat up.’
‘Laval’s in Brixton, chum, and you’re not.’
‘Who are these heavies? Point them out to me.’
‘Be your age. I’d no more lift a finger in their direction than I would in yours.’
‘Sure you’re not mistaken? They could be here for a casual chink.’
Derek blew his nose expressively. ‘Darling, if you’re mad enough not to do a bunk while you can, I’m in no position to help you. Only I warn you, I’m going soon and leaving you here on your teeny-weeny own.’
I thought it over again. Maybe I wasn’t so brave as I thought. Brave? No, that wasn’t the word. Angry. Viciously angry. And not caring what happened to me. But I’d only recently been contemplating and rejecting suicide. The old Abden ego. So why accept, if you could avoid it, a nasty encounter with bully boys?
‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll go. Thanks for the supper, Derek. And the warning. See you sometime.’
‘So long, pal. And good luck.’
I got up, hitched my trousers, left the half-glass of beer, nodded at Derek and made for the lavatory.
It was a poor light in there and there was one man relieving himself. I didn’t, but turned back and saw the door Derek had spoken of. By the door were some beer bottles, so I picked one up and weighed it in my hand. Better than nothing: if not so good as an Aga handle or an épée sword.
Push open the door, into the street, flatten yourself against the wall. The pub was on a side street; the main road a hundred yards away. Parked cars; a few people walking. All quiet on the Western Front.
At the double now for a taxi? Hundred yards’ sprint. What was the record? Somebody in Moscow this year had done it in about ten seconds. Or was that the hundred metres? Yards, metres, what the hell. When I got to the main road there’d be far too many people about for any rough stuff, assuming they were not the shooting sort.
I put my hand in my pocket and felt the keys of the car. If I got away they’d probably vent their irritation on the Ferrari. Kick the headlamps in, slash the tyres, smash the windows, break the instrument panel. Unfortunately the car was just past the entrance to the pub and facing this way. But if two of the gorillas were inside the pub, there probably wouldn’t be more than one more outside – I wasn’t that important. Coming from an unexpected quarter, I could be off in the ten seconds it would take me to reach the main road. And once in the car, a fat hope they had of catching me then.
Shoulders hunched, one hand in pocket, the other clutching the beer bottle under my jacket, I turned and slouched past the entrance to the pub. As I got to the door four people came out, but they were ordinary lads laughing and larking.
The car. The bright red Ferrari. This was the moment when any watcher would recognize me. Out with the keys, got the right one in the keyhole like a dream. Open the door, swinging wide, slamming after me. Key in ignition. Whom, the engine, newly tuned, started like a giant bird and we were away. Back a foot to give myself room. Then whom into the street.
As I was coming out a van drew out of a parking space three cars in front of me. It was racing my way, and I had to brake. But the van came on. It hit the Ferrari on its offside wing and crunched me against the steering-wheel. The crash seemed as loud as a grenade.
Two seconds’ silence. A man getting out of the van. Two more from the pub. Pains in my chest. So this was it. Sense of guilt mingled with the blazing, killing anger. Deserts. Somebody would get his deserts.
Pick up the bottle from the seat and get out. Wondered if any of my ancestors had been in the Charge of the Light Brigade.
First man incautious, came at me on his own, stick raised. I got in first and he yelled, dropped his truncheon. I hit him again as he fell; great joy. This was all that life was for now. Something hit me on the side of the jaw, almost knocking my head off, fell against the car, clutching, still clutching the bottle; up with it, crash in a man’s face; something kicked me in the stomach; no air, no air, I’m going to die. I hit the third man as I fell; broke his wrist, I think, hope. Down, crash into the road, rolling over, trying to get up. Still no air, no air.
Then it was just a question of boots.
Chapter Thirty-one
I
Ever your David
Four weeks in hospital doesn’t take long to say. It’s a lot of time if you’re in there, even if the first week you’re mainly on pethidine.
The hoodlums had done a good job, but the car crash had attracted too much attention for them to finish it off – or finish me off, if that had been their aim in life. But I think it would probably satisfy Roger in far off Costa Blanca. Fractured jaw, three broken ribs, a ruptured spleen. They’d get their pay.
And I’d got mine. It was quits. Bloodletting all round. No, it wasn’t suicide but it was as if I had been fighting myself, injuring myself, trying to kill myself. As I’d been doing all my life. Roger had provided the instrument.
At times in that first week I must have raved a lot. Someone had put some fruit by my bed and I thought it was Erica staring at me out of the orange; and my father peering over her shoulder, laughing, sneering. Teeth were everywhere. And bodies and raw butchered flesh and cosmic froth. And God knows what else that I prefer to forget. There’d never been a time when humanity seemed so obscene.
Yet when Shona came I behaved like a tame sheep; and she came regularly. The company of Shona Ltd had been floated on the Stock Exchange and the shares had been six times oversubscribed. And then my mother came, and I carried on the politest conversation. Mother thought it was all the results of a car crash, and lectured me on driving too fast. I knew there were all sorts of things I wanted to say to her, lots and lots of interesting things but I was too tired and weak to begin. So she went away unmolested, promising to return, as I knew she never would. I wondered sometimes if she was the not-quite-innocent cause of it all. And then Alison was there and sat by my bed and held my hand and whispered things to me, and paid me three visits before she returned to Kirkcudbright.
And none of it meant anything – yet. Shell-shock, delayed concussion, battle fatigue, accident trauma.
I only wished the nights were as easy. Then the skin peeled off and everything was monstrous and visceral and bleeding and tumorous and unbearable.
Derek never came. Perhaps you could hardly blame him. Perhaps he jumped at shadows when he went home at night. My one real contact with what you could call normality was Van Morris. He came twice a week, and towards the end of my time brought Essie with him. He’d arranged with the insurers for the car to be repaired. The damage was not as bad as I’d thought, and he said it would be ready for me as soon as I was allowed out. He told me his pay had been doubled, and when Shona came next I thanked her for it.
She said: ‘It is nothing. But I am concerned about you when you are discharged. They say you must be convalescent for at least another month. I do not think you should drive that fast car.’
‘I shan’t. I’m going to fly off somewhere, sit in the sun for a bit.’
‘Barbados?’
‘Ah, no. Just somewhere local for the time being. Greece or Italy. I migh
t try Spain to see how Roger is going on.’
She said soberly: ‘I trust you are joking.’
‘Reckon so. I shall leave that part to Chalmers. He was in here to see me yesterday.’
‘Will they catch him?’
‘He doubts it. We’ve no extradition order with Spain, and it’s only fraud Roger is wanted for. If it was murder they would stand a better chance.’
‘It nearly was,’ she said.
II
In the end I went no farther than Taormina. The autumn lingers on in Sicily, and although it was painful to swim I swam. I also sat for ages on the raft in the middle of the bay and thought. Looking back, what I thought is a blank, but it certainly filled the time.
One or two girls tried to get to know me at the hotel but it didn’t work. I was still a walking zombie. Yet towards the end of the fourth week a few things had become clearer and a shade – believe it or not – more peaceful. Somebody quite recently said that experience is what used to be called the soul. At this stage I differed from this view, because I could stand back and look at my experience, my faults, my inept dumb actions, my misdeeds, if you like, and see them as detached entities. So who was looking at them in this way? Merely something that was the sum of those deeds? Not so.
I flew back on a Friday but never left Heathrow. I put up at one of those deadly hotels which surround the airport like toadstools, and the next morning flew to Inverness. There I hired a little Ford Cortina and drove to Wester Craig.
‘By now the late November mists had come down, and every other day a gale stalked the hills. At least the roofs didn’t leak this time. The long darknesses were a change from the temperate autumnal suns of Sicily, and I walked a fair bit and got wet a fair bit and read a fair bit, and, once again, thought. I made no attempt to get in contact with Lochfiern House, but after I’d been in residence a week Alison turned up.
Coppell was out with McVitie so I opened the door myself. She stood on the bottom step smiling quietly up at me. I took her hand and drew her in.