by J F Straker
‘Tell ‘em what White said — that business isn’t too good,’ Forthright suggested. ‘Say it’s only temporary, that he’s promised to make it up to us later. With interest. That’ll give ‘em something to look forward to.’
‘I suppose we couldn’t quit?’ asked Wells. ‘Get another job?’
‘You think White would let us go? Be your age, Pop. He’s on to a good thing and he knows it.’
‘What would he be up to, parking in that rain?’
‘A woman, of course. What else?’
‘Blast Dave!’ said Wickery. ‘If it hadn’t been for him we wouldn’t be in this mess.’
‘You can’t blame a chap for something he does when he’s drunk,’ said Wells. Bewildered and unhappy, he still felt it his duty to defend Chitty. And Dave had a nasty temper. If he thought the others had their knife into him there was no knowing what he might not do.
They reached the cottage in which Harry Forthright lived with his invalid mother. It stood by itself, away from the village and about two hundred yards from the garage. Fruit-trees shielded it from the road, and behind it was the forest.
‘We’ve got to stick together,’ said Forthright, as he pushed open the garden gate. ‘Don’t you chaps try anything on your own. And don’t forget that we’re still free, even if we are going to be short of cash. That’s worth a ruddy sight more than a quid a week, isn’t it?’
2 The Months Between
Chaim village lay south of the road which led eastward to Tanbury and westward to Rowgate. North of the road was the forest, much depleted by frequent inroads on its timber, but still possessed of some grandeur. It was thickest to the east, where, about half a mile from the village, stood White’s garage; a solid, red-brick structure with showroom and offices to one side, and over these a four-roomed flat in which the proprietor lived. On a concrete base in front of the building stood a row of petrol-pumps; to the left was the yard, with scrap-heaps of empty tins and drums, piles of worn-out tyres, a derelict chassis or two. But the clearing had been cut from the forest, and the forest still hemmed it in. It was a damp and gloomy spot in winter.
To Doris Wickery it had seemed gloomy even in summer. ‘You’ll never know how thankful I am to be away from that dreadful place,’ she had told her husband on their first evening of married life. ‘This cottage may be small, but at least it’s a home.’
‘Sounds as though you married me just to be quit of the garage,’ said Bert. ‘Or could there be another reason?’
‘There could and there is,’ she reassured him, demonstrating it. After a while she said, ‘I suppose it wasn’t the garage, really. Just Uncle Andrew. It’s queer, isn’t it, that one can hate one’s own flesh and blood?’
‘He’s not your flesh and blood,’ he pointed out. ‘Only your uncle by marriage. And everyone else hates him, so why not you?’
‘I think it’s his eyes,’ she said. ‘The way he looks at you. It’s —it’s possessive, somehow, and rather disgusting.’
‘It’s his damned bad temper that gets my goat,’ replied her husband. ‘That and his meanness. Grudges every farthing he spends. And fancy keeping all that money under his bed, just because he can’t bear to pay bank charges on it! One of these days somebody’ll pinch the lot —and serve him ruddy well right!’
Doris nodded. ‘That’s why he didn’t want us to get married,’ she said. ‘Because of his meanness, I mean. It wasn’t that he objected to you; he’d have been the same about any man. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing a free cook-cum-housekeeper- cum- secretary-cum-clerk.’
Wickery grinned. ‘He was on about that this morning. Said maybe, after you’d settled down to married life, you might care to work for him again. He hinted he might even be prepared to pay you a small wage.’
‘And what did you say to that?’
‘Nothing doing, I said. Having got myself a wife, I aim to keep her.’ He squeezed her slim waist. ‘I don’t believe in married women going out to work. Makes them a darned sight too independent.’
Doris returned the squeeze. ‘I haven’t been married long enough to know about that, darling. But if I do have to help out financially —and Uncle Andrew doesn’t pay you a lot, does he? — it won’t be at the garage. Nothing on earth could make me go back there.’
*
Bert Wickery recalled this conversation as he let himself in at the cottage door. But he dare not weaken now. Doris would have to do it —she’d just have to. And because he knew that with every minute that passed he was weakening, he went straight upstairs to where she lay awaiting him in the big double bed.
Doris thought he was joking when he told her. Only when he came nearer and she saw his expression did she realize that this was no joke. And even then she could not believe that he had actually agreed to White’s demand.
‘But you said yourself I’d never have to go back there,’ she pleaded unhappily. ‘I don’t mind going out to work if we’re all that hard up, darling. But not with Uncle Andrew. I just couldn’t.’
He sat down wearily on the bed, not looking at her. ‘We haven’t any choice,’ he said miserably.
Despite her bewilderment, her hatred of what he was asking her to do, her heart ached for him. She leaned across and touched his hand softly. ‘What is it, darling? What’s wrong? Tell me.’
He shook his head.
‘I can’t. It isn’t only me — the others are in it as well. We’re in a jam, Doris — a hell of a jam.’ He gripped her hand and squeezed it. ‘Maybe, when we’ve had time to think, we’ll find a way out. But until then — well, we’ll have to do as White says, blast him!’
‘And that includes me?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Is it — are the police after you?’ she asked anxiously.
‘No. At least — well, they could be. But it’s White we have to worry about.’ He turned to face her. ‘It wasn’t my fault, Doris. I’ve done nothing wrong, really. I was just unlucky enough to get mixed up in it.’
Doris started work at the garage the next morning. Her uncle was affable, too affable at times; but he did not spare her. He dismissed the daily woman who had looked after him for the past year, and in addition to her office work Doris cooked his meals and cleaned the flat and made his bed. She found the atmosphere in the garage even more depressing than it had been before her marriage. The men worked silently and without enthusiasm. Although she had been a favourite with them, they showed no pleasure at her return. Almost, it seemed to Doris, they resented her presence there; and after a few days, when she had had time to appreciate her uncle’s attitude towards them — just as though they were slaves, she thought — she sensed the reason for their resentment. They were ashamed that she should be a witness to their degradation.
Even George Loften seemed to have caught some of the gloom that now pervaded the garage. Loften had not joined her uncle in partnership until about six months after her marriage, but she had met him once or twice on her infrequent visits to the garage to see her husband. He had seemed quite a pleasant man, she thought, and most courteous. Bert didn’t trust him, said he was the ‘smarmy’ type; but then Bert mistrusted any man who took pains with his appearance. Doris sometimes wished he were a bit more of the ‘smarmy’ type himself.
Loften did not ignore her as did the others; but whereas hitherto he had always made her aware of her youth and prettiness, now he hardly seemed to notice either. Doris guessed he was having trouble with his wife again, and felt sorry for him. He couldn’t have much of a home life, poor man, with a wife like Elsie Loften.
It was not until the county police called at the garage on her second day there that she heard about Mrs Gooch. They did not stay long, and their inquiries were of a routine nature. But after they had gone Doris sensed her husband’s relief, and guessed something of what had happened. The knowledge terrified her, the more so because when she tried to voice her suspicions to Bert he lost his temper and told her not to meddle. It was the first time he had ever spo
ken roughly to her; and although he apologized later he offered no explanation, and his guilty secret lay like a barrier between them. If it did not break their love, it made them awkward and uneasy in each other’s presence. They shared no confidences. At home the radio blared unceasingly in the evening, obviating the necessity for conversation. It was a relief to go to bed, even though sleep did not come easily to either of them. Night brought an escape from reality.
*
Dave Chitty pushed the bacon aside and reached for the teapot. ‘I’m not hungry,’ he said. ‘Cup of tea’s all I want.’
His sister eyed him, noting the symptoms. But she removed the unwanted plate in silence. Dave had a nasty temper. He could be particularly unpleasant after a thick night.
He gulped the tea down noisily. It was hot and sweet, and eased the dryness in his throat. But it could not still the throbbing in his head or quell the rumbling of his stomach. ‘You’d better eat something, even if it’s only dry toast,’ Susan advised him, after a reverberating belch. ‘You can’t do a day’s work on an empty stomach.’
‘I know what I can do. I don’t need you to tell me.’ But he took the toast and buttered it, and began to eat. He felt slightly better, and recalled uneasily what he could of the events of the previous night. It wasn’t much. All that had happened after leaving the Boar’s Head was a complete blank. His knowledge of it depended on what Pop had told him, and even that was blurred in his memory. Something about having knocked down an old woman on the way back — killed her, Pop had said...
Sweating, he took another draught of tea. That was a nasty business. Still, he wasn’t driving, he was just a passenger in the car. No one could blame him, thank the Lord! And, from what Pop had told him, it seemed that they had come out of it all right. They had got away...no one had seen them. He remembered walking home across the fields, feeling like nothing on earth...stumbling up to bed...
He turned to his sister. ‘Where the hell did you get to last night?’ he asked.
Susan flushed. ‘I was out.’
‘You’re telling me you were out! It had gone half-past eleven by the time I got back, and you weren’t home then. Where were you?’
It never occurred to her to question his right to ask. He had always bullied her, tried to run her life. ‘I was sitting with old Mrs Quayles while Annie was at the pictures,’ she said.
‘What? Until gone twelve?’ He scowled at her. ‘You can’t come that lark with me. You were out with Loften, weren’t you?’
‘For a while, yes. He picked me up in his car and we went for a spin. But I didn’t realize it was so late.’
‘I bet you didn’t! Too ruddy well occupied, eh? You want to watch your step, my girl, or you’ll find yourself in trouble.’
‘There’s no need to be insulting, Dave,’ she said, goaded into defending herself. ‘George Loften knows how to behave himself, and so do I. There was nothing like that. We just talked.’
‘What about?’
‘His wife, mostly. You know they don’t get on.’
That’s his fault, thought Chitty, recalling the glamour of Elsie Loften. I bet I could get on with a smasher like that, given half a chance. The knowledge that he would never have that chance made him irritable, and he said, ‘That’s just a line. You ought to know better than to fall for it.’ But he had lost interest in his sister, and the venom had gone out of his voice.
‘You’ll be late,’ said Susan.
As he walked over the fields to the garage his thoughts were more concerned with the future than with the past. The accident to Mrs Gooch was an unreality, but the new job in London offered vast possibilities. For one thing, he and Molly could get married. He wasn’t madly in love with Molly, but she was a good-looker and had what it takes, and it wasn’t a bad thing to have a wife to come home to of an evening.
I’ll tackle White this morning, he decided. Maybe he’ll let me go at the week-end, so’s I can start at the new place Monday. But the sight of Doris Wickery seated at the typewriter in the outer office made him pause. He looked at her in astonishment.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked. ‘Working,’ she said listlessly. ‘Uncle needed some help.’
‘Did he, though. Well, he’s going to need some more very shortly. I’m giving notice — got a job in Town.’ He jerked his thumb towards the inner office. ‘Old man in?’
His cheerfulness puzzled her. Bert had said they were all involved. ‘Have you seen the others?’ she asked.
‘Not yet. Why?’
‘I think you’d better speak to them first,’ she said. She did not know why.
Chitty frowned. Had there been trouble about that business of last night? Doris wouldn’t know, of course, but...
‘Did they say they wanted to see me?’
‘No. But I think you’d better.’
He went through to the workshop at the back. The other three were there, and misgiving deepened as he looked at them. Their gloomy faces foretold trouble.
It was Forthright who told him.
Chitty was filled with anger. ‘You mean the swine saw the accident, and now he’s blackmailing us?’
‘Yes.’
‘He hasn’t told the police?’
‘Of course not. As long as he keeps his trap shut he’s four quid a week to the good. And he’s got Doris back —for nothing.’
‘But what about my new job?’
Forthright shrugged his shoulders. ‘You’ve had that, chum. Forget it.’
Chitty tried to think calmly, to control his anger. He had to have that job — he just had to. To spend years — perhaps the rest of his life — in that God-forsaken hole...and at even less money than the little he had been getting before...
‘I didn’t get out of the car,’ he said slowly. ‘White can’t have seen me — he couldn’t even know I was there.’
‘He saw you leave the garage,’ said Forthright. ‘And he saw the state you were in.’
‘That doesn’t prove anything.’
‘It doesn’t have to prove anything. If you don’t pay your whack White’ll get tough. We’re taking no risks, my lad.’
‘But it’s damned unfair,’ he cried angrily. ‘I wasn’t driving; I wasn’t even in the front of the car. Why the hell should I suffer because Bert didn’t look where he was going? If you ask me —’
‘Shut up!’ Wickery stepped forward, his fists clenched. ‘You’ve got a nerve to complain, damn you! Don’t you understand that if it hadn’t been for your drunken fooling in the back of the car the accident would never have happened? It’s you and Harry that’s responsible, not me. And yet you stand there bleating —’
Forthright caught him by the shoulders and swung him sharply round.
‘Cut that out.’ There was an ugly look on his face as he confronted the angry Wickery. ‘I wasn’t that drunk, and you know it. I’m getting a little tired of you and Pop trying to put all the blame on me. Dave’s right — if you’d driven at a reasonable speed there might never have been an accident. You were taking a risk you had no right to take.’
‘I was driving fast because we were late. And whose fault was that, damn you? Yours and Dave’s. A couple of ruddy drunks who don’t know when they’ve had enough — that’s what you two are. If Pop and I —’
‘Thieves falling out?’ White stood in the doorway, eyeing them with some amusement. Not a very edifying spectacle. And if you don’t want your — er — misfortune to become too widely known I suggest you confine your quarrelling to a more private place.’ His tone sharpened. ‘I won’t have it here, anyway. I pay you to work, not to talk.’
‘Pay us, do you?’ Chitty snapped. ‘I thought it was us had to pay you.’
White stared at him coldly. ‘You don’t approve of the arrangement?’
‘Like hell I don’t!’
‘Perhaps you would prefer the alternative?’
‘I’d prefer anything that doesn’t mean paying good money to a damned rat like you,’ said Chitty, beside himself
with rage.
Without a word White turned and walked out of the workshop. As the crisp sound of footsteps on concrete ceased and they realized he had gone into the office, Forthright said urgently, ‘Go after him, you fool. Do you want to land us all in the can?’
Chitty stood irresolute. Fear was eating into his anger, but pride forbade an apology. ‘I’m not grovelling to a swine like White,’ he declared. ‘I’ll see him in hell first.’
‘He’ll see you in gaol, you mean,’ said Wickery. ‘You and the rest of us. Go on, blast you, stop him!’
‘You don’t have to grovel, Dave.’ Wells tried to speak calmly. He was as worried as the others, but he knew from experience how stubborn Chitty could be. You couldn’t drive him, he had to be led. ‘He won’t expect you to apologize just tell him you’re willing to pay what he asks. It won’t be for long — we’ll think of something. But we daren’t let him go to the police. They’d give us a heavy sentence —White would make it sound as bad as he could, you know that. And us not reporting it makes it worse, see?’
Sullenly, Chitty said that he did see. With an angry look at the others he stalked off to the office, Wells’s gently urging hand at his back. ‘Damned young fool!’ said Forthright. ‘Who does he think he is, trying to ditch us like that? Another bleat out of him and I’d have knocked his block off.’
‘You got to make allowances,’ said Wells, returning from seeing Chitty safely into the office. ‘All he knows about the accident is what we told him. It’s not as real to him as it is to us.’
When Chitty came back they asked him what White had said. He glared at them and went out to the yard without answering. Forthright would have followed, but Wells stopped him. ‘Leave him alone, Harry. Give him time. He’s pretty sore.’
‘We’re all sore,’ growled the other. ‘It’s no worse for him.’
In that he was wrong. Whereas he and Wells and Wickery had settled homes and a fixed way of life, Dave Chitty had always been restless. He wasn’t content to continue as he had begun; he had ambitions. He wanted to marry Molly Wells, but she was all he wanted from Chaim. For the rest, he wanted a more exciting life in a big town, a better job, more money. To the other three White’s blackmail meant the loss of all luxuries, a tightening of the belt; but it did not affect the manner of their lives. To Chitty it was the end of everything he had envisaged.