One thing I was pleased about: since the fight, the child’s attitude towards Tommy had changed. It seemed that he was pleased Tommy had hit his father, when it should have been the other way round. Perhaps I felt that Tommy too was seeing the boy in a different light for he had smiled as he said, ‘He’s a taking little imp, isn’t he? And there’s no doubt that he’s been brought up among a bunch of men.’
It was on the Friday evening when Tommy was almost ready to go—Mr Brown had brought his car round from the garage—when the lift bell rang, and, bracing myself once again to meet the Captain, I went into the outer hall. But it was the Mohican who appeared. He was looking slightly different for the marks on his cheeks were vertical now and there was a sort of star on his brow.
‘Good evening, Mrs Leviston.’
‘Good evening … John.’
His gaze left me and looked towards Tommy who was standing at the inner door. ‘Good evening, Mr Balfour.’
‘Hello there,’ said Tommy quietly.
I still could not associate the Mohican’s voice with his get-up and I had no doubt he could change it to fit the company.
‘Feeling better?’ he asked Tommy as he passed him, and to this Tommy answered, ‘Somewhat.’
‘It must have been a good fight. How many rounds did you last?’
I saw that Tommy wasn’t amused and so I broke in, saying, ‘Have you any news?’
‘Yes. Yes, I have news, unless I find it isn’t news to you that your neighbours have flitted.’
‘Flitted? Gone?’
‘Flitted, gone, yes.’
‘When?’
‘Oh, as far back as Tuesday. They must have seen the red light.’
I let out a long irritated breath as I said, ‘I should have got the police straight away; they couldn’t have implicated the child.’ And as Tommy, looking at the Mohican, said, ‘That’s that then; we’ve seen the last of them and their hoard.’
‘Not necessarily; I know where they are and are likely to stay put for a time. As for the hoard, well, it’s likely been spread around and, as often is the case unless it’s sold abroad right away, it will be kept dark for a time and brought out later. They even have the nerve to bring the stuff back into the country and sell it. And it’s legal. Funny business.’
‘You know where they are, I mean those two?’
‘Yes, Mrs Leviston; they’ve returned to the bedsit that they lived in before they got the chance to take up residence here.’
His use of words somehow indicated the educated man behind that dreadful gear. Why? Why? There were dropouts of all kinds, but the Mohican’s kind was particularly sad to me.
‘How did you find out?’
‘Oh, I get about. And I’m not alone.’ He grinned at me now. ‘We’re a kind of club, you know, we Cowboys and Indians. Oh yes, we have a lot of Cowboys among us; in fact, there’s a place down in Kent where they play at riding the range.’
‘You’re referring to a different set of men.’ Tommy’s tone was cold, but the Mohican’s was even more icy as he retorted, ‘Don’t you believe it! Because they come back on a Monday and take up a job they’re deemed respectable, but they’re the same as us under the skin.’
‘At least, as you say, they take up a job, but how do your kind exist? Where do you get the money from for your’—he paused and flapped his hand up and down—‘rig-outs and pot and … ?’
‘Tommy! Please.’
‘Oh, it’s all right, Mrs Leviston, don’t you worry.’ The Mohican was wagging his finger at me. ‘It was a natural follow-up question. Well, sir’—he had turned to Tommy again—‘some of us exist on the dole alone, and that is the word, exist; others amongst us get a little extra aid from the establishment; and further there are those like myself who run messages.’
Tommy’s eyes narrowed, and I gaped a little at the Mohican while he inclined his head from one to the other of us as he smiled and said, ‘Yes, run messages. It’s amazing what you learn running messages and who you run messages for. It’s amazing how some people are interested in what other people are up to.’
‘Private detective?’
His head went back and he laughed. ‘Oh, Mrs Leviston, don’t get romantic. Me a private detective?’ Then still smiling he said, ‘No, I’m not a private detective, I’m a real Indian: I’m always on the alert; the only thing I don’t use is smoke signals.’ He turned now and looked at Tommy, saying, ‘There’s other work in the world besides sitting on a stool, and although those like me dress a bit way-out, we’re not all thugs and druggers. Well’—he shrugged now—‘not on the hard stuff anyway.’
Oh, Mohican, why? Why? Not on the hard stuff. I felt so sad for him.
‘Anyway’—he was addressing me again—‘I thought I’d better let you know in case you hadn’t already found out. Another thing is, it’s a good job that the single gentleman in the bottom flat has been away in Barbados these last few months or he might have been rifled too. But they wouldn’t break in; that isn’t their style.’
Not a little surprised, I said, ‘You seem to know more about the goings on in this house than I do myself, John.’
‘Oh, I only had that information a few minutes ago. Mr Brown spoke to me in the hall … and civilly. Fancy that.’ He grimaced, which made the lines on his face seemingly become alive, like worms wriggling up to his eyebrows. ‘Now I must away to run some more messages.’ He glanced at Tommy, and to my surprise Tommy said, ‘Can I drive you anywhere?’
The Mohican stared at him for a full thirty seconds before he said quietly, ‘Thank you very much for the offer; there’s nothing better I would enjoy than to get into your car. I’ve always liked Jags. But it would be slightly incongruous, don’t you think, me in this gear and you looking the city gent, at least by your rig at the moment. Why, we would get our name up.’
Tommy was forced to smile, then said, ‘Well, I made the offer.’
‘And it was very kind of you and I’m grateful, but if any of the gang saw me spinning along in that I’d be under suspicion of leading a double life.’
‘Well, aren’t you?’
Again the Mohican paused before he answered, ‘Yes, I suppose so, in a way. Yes; none of us are what we seem, there’s always the inner man trying to get out. And—’ Turning to me and smiling widely, he said, ‘And mine has certainly got out, hasn’t it, Mrs Leviston?’
‘Oh, John.’
‘Mrs Leviston, when you say, Oh, John, like that, I could dash downstairs—in the lift of course—rush to the nearest second-hand shop and swap this lot for a suit.’
‘Go along with you!’
‘That’s a point: one of us has got to go first; we can’t both go out in that street together, can we? Can we, Mr Balfour?’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘I do, so I won’t embarrass you. Goodbye. But by the way, where’s Harold?’
‘In his room. He can’t have heard you, or else he’d have been out.’
‘Well, goodbye,’ he said and turned away.
We stood watching him cross the hall and enter the lift, and as this disappeared from view Tommy said, ‘Waste, utter waste of a life.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘Well now, here I go.’
When the green light appeared he pressed the button; then turning to me, he said, ‘Except for the pain in my eye, my lip and my ribs, this has been the happiest four days of my life.’
‘Oh Tommy.’ My voice was small.
Seeming to bend over me now, he said, and in just as low a voice as mine, ‘I never thought I could love you more than I did, but having lived with you for four days … not nights’—he pulled a little face—‘you’re even more dear to me.’
When he kissed me hard on the mouth I did not draw back.
‘Take care,’ he said. ‘See you tomorrow.’ And as he stepped into the lift he said softly, ‘You’ll have some explaining to do; we’re being watched.’
‘What! Oh, dear!’
When a mome
nt later I turned towards the hall door, there he was, his face tight, and before I had a chance to close the door he had reached up, his handkerchief in his hand, and rubbed it across my lips.
I stood back from him, saying, ‘What was that for?’
‘’Cos you always do that after Sandy kisses you.’
‘Yes, but Sandy is a dog and, as I’ve told you, you shouldn’t let him kiss you on the mouth.’
‘You let him kiss you on the mouth.’
‘I let you kiss me.’
‘That’s ’cos you love me.’
I evaded taking up the inference and said wearily, ‘I thought we’d been over all this and that you liked Mr Tommy.’
He shrugged his shoulders and half turned away, saying, ‘He’s all right, but he shouldn’t kiss you like that. Anyway, he’s too big, he fills up the house. I like the Indian. He’s been. I like him.’
My expression must have shown my surprise. ‘If you knew the Mohican was here why didn’t you come and see him?’ I said.
‘’Cos I was makin’ something with gum and it was sticky. It’s for a present.’ He glanced sideways at me. ‘It’s a secret.’
‘Oh.’
‘One day I’m gonna have a rig like the Indian ’cos I like him.’
He now ran from me making war-cry noises with his hand across his mouth, and as I stood for a moment watching him I thought, Over my dead body you will. And yet I liked the Indian too. There was something about him, something beneath that weird rig-out that got to you. It had got to me anyway.
But why should the fact disturb me?
Nine
I waited with impatience for the sight of Mike on Monday morning and when I eventually saw him I fell unrestrainedly into his arms and cried before I said a word.
‘Well!, well! This is a welcome, isn’t it, being drowned before I get to the door.’
‘Oh, Mike, I’m so pleased to see you.’
He held me from him, then said, ‘Well, I’m not so pleased to see you, not by the look of you. You hadn’t much flesh on you a while ago but you’re just skin and bone. Where’s it gone to?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Hello there, Janet.’ He turned from me as Janet came out of the kitchen carrying the coffee tray. ‘Hello, Doctor,’ she replied. ‘You’re just in time; you must have smelt it.’
‘Not as it is, Janet; it’s got to have a stiffener in it before it gets up my nose.’
A moment or so later I said to Janet, ‘Fetch the brandy, will you, please, and a glass? I’m going to measure it.’
‘Don’t you bother with the glass, Janet.’
And so the chaffing went on until, left alone, we sat looking at each other on the couch before, leaning back, he spread his arms along it saying, ‘Well, come on now, start at the beginning, at least of that pain.’
Strangely, when I tried to trace the pain back to when I first had it I couldn’t actually pinpoint the time, except to say, ‘I think I had a twinge when Nardy was still in hospital back home’—I still referred to Fellburn as home—‘but whenever I had such a pain we put it down to Gran’s cooking, all fries and plenty of fat. I think I first felt it as a real pain when Nardy was home here and I saw him fading away. I thought then it was the result of worry, and I didn’t take much notice of it. Then after he died and it seemed to increase I naturally put it down to my missing him, and at that time if it hadn’t been for Harold I would certainly, I feel sure, have snapped. But lately it seems to have intensified.’
‘Describe it,’ he said.
‘I can’t really, except to say it starts like a sharp stab, then turns into a grinding cramp.’
‘Whereabouts?’
‘That’s another thing, it’s nearly always in my middle, first to one side then the other.’
When he sighed I felt apprehensive and said quickly, ‘I’m not imagining this, Mike. Don’t do a Doctor Bell on me, please.’
‘I’m not doing a Doctor Bell or anybody else on you, girl. You have a pain and there’s evidence of it in that the flesh is dropping off you, because even after Nardy went you weren’t like this. You say it’s always at night that you feel it?’
‘Yes, yes; but I seem to have a reaction to it during the day, more so of late, I feel so tired. Oh, Mike’—I caught at his hand and, my voice breaking now, I whimpered something that I had promised myself not to say, ‘There are times in the night when I feel I’m going to die.’
He made no reply to this but sat looking at me; then he rubbed his hand round the thick grey bush of his face before he said, ‘You’re not my patient now, but who’s to know? Get your things off and I’ll give you the once over.’
It was like being back in the surgery again on a Monday morning, but I didn’t smile as I rose from the couch. I went quickly down the room and into the bedroom.
I was lying waiting when he came in …
What did I expect from his examination? I don’t know, but I thought, He’s doing the same things as Doctor Bell did. But then he examined my throat and ears, and when he had finished he sat on the side of the bed and said, ‘From the outside, as far as I can see, there’s nothing wrong; and you’ve had barium tests and the inside examined; and quite candidly, Maisie, apart from splitting you open I can’t see what more can be done, at least to your body.’
‘Oh, Mike! Oh, Mike, don’t tell me I’m going barmy.’
‘I’m not telling you you’re going barmy, dear, but what I will tell you is, there may be something deep in your mind that is worrying you, and I think Doctor Bell was right when he suggested you might do worse than see a psychiatrist.’
I turned my head away from him and covered my eyes, saying, ‘Mike, there’s nothing in my mind that hasn’t been cleared out.’
‘That’s what you think. Remember Hamilton. Where is he, by the way?’
‘Gone.’
‘Ah! Ah!’
I pulled myself up in the bed now, hugging the sheet around me. ‘Mike, for God’s sake don’t suggest that because I’ve lost Hamilton and Nardy I’ve replaced them with one hell of a pain.’
His laughter shook the bed. ‘You know who you sounded like there? Your charge. You only needed to add, What the bloody hell do you mean by suggesting … et cetera, et cetera! Learning goes both ways. But listen to me.’ He reached and gripped my wrists and shook them. ‘Something’s causing this pain, something’s causing you to look all skin and bone and eyes. Even at your worst, on your weekly visits I never remember you with great dark shadows under your eyes. Whatever’s troubling you, and I fear’—he nodded at me now—‘yes, I fear, there’s something in your mind that is troubling you, I say now, and firmly, do as Doctor Bell advised, go and see a brain char and have it swept out. He’ll be the best one to advise you on that point. And don’t be afraid; these fellows are just ordinary blokes who get paid for keeping their mouths shut and listening.’ He smiled now as he punched my cheek gently, adding, ‘Come on, come on. I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with you that can’t be sorted out. But that’s the thing, it’s got to be sorted out. Come on, get dressed, and I’ll take you out to lunch in one of your fancy restaurants. That’s if I can rise to it.’
‘Expensive weekend?’
‘No, no, that was all free, compliments of a drug company. My, my! The liquor that some people get through. I’m not averse to moistening my gums, but at these do’s I can see the reason for some doctors’ early demise. Still, we have one life and we can do what we like with it, and who am I to criticise? I was so sozzled myself last night, my last thought when I was in bed was, I hope I’m not on call … Go on, jump to it!’
I didn’t exactly jump to it, but a half an hour later we left the house. We took a taxi into the centre of London and to Brown’s Hotel, because Nardy used to like Brown’s. He had been not an infrequent visitor there because certain American publishers made it their headquarters while in London.
It was over lunch that I regaled Mike with the story of my neighbours and the descrip
tion of the Mohican. But it was when I came to describe Harold’s progress at school and in a quiet voice recited: ‘Give me the moonlight, give me the girl, and leave the rest to me, and I’ll put a bun in your oven straight after tea,’ that he choked. His mouth was full of ice-cream sundae one minute, the next, this was sprayed across the table, to the indignant looks of our near neighbour. And when I wiped a narrow streak of ice-cream from my coat he muttered, ‘Oh, Maisie, Maisie, I’m sorry, but—’ The tears were running out of his eyes now, and he dabbed at them with his handkerchief. Then taking his napkin he also dabbed at his glass and the tablecloth and the condiment set, and as he was doing so a waiter came up to us and, smiling broadly, he said, ‘Don’t worry, sir, don’t worry. As I always say, a good laugh saves a visit to a doctor.’
At this Mike’s head went back again and there issued from his beard a deep rumbling sound, while I, in my turn, almost spluttered now, as looking up at the waiter, I said, ‘He is a doctor.’
‘Oh my! Oh my!’ The waiter too was laughing now.
Altogether it was a most enjoyable lunch and we lingered over it with coffee and liqueurs and the hovering attention of the nice waiter.
Mike’s train was due out at six o’clock, and since he had expressed a wish to meet up again with my ‘stick for her own back’, Gran’s description of Harold apparently, we took a taxi back home, and it was as I led the way to the house door that it opened and out stepped the Mohican.
Although I had already and fairly fully described him to Mike, his reactions were nevertheless similar to those of Tommy on first viewing the young fellow. His make-up was slightly different today: the white streaks were running from his cheekbones to his ears; there were strange marks on his brow, and his lower lip looked scarlet.
‘Hello, Mrs Leviston. I’m glad I caught you.’
Harold Page 11