What after all can he do? he thought confidently. I might even pop along and have a word with Sergeant Prince.
He glanced at his watch to see if it was good popping-along time. It was twenty-five past seven.
‘Jesus!’ he said. ‘Maggie!’
He rose a little unsteadily to his feet.
‘Are you going?’ said Cynthia, making a moue of disappointment. ‘I was just enjoying our chat.’
Flattered, Joe waved his arms in regret. The image of Maggie was very blurred in his mind and the living physical (very physical) presence of Cynthia had very real attractions. But of course an arrangement had been made, Maggie would be ready and waiting, it was impossible to make other plans now.
Cynthia took his arm and pulled him down towards her so that she could speak in his ear. His forearm was pressed within the deep canyon between her breasts.
‘I thought we’d probably end up by going back to your place,’ she whispered, ‘and …’
Flabbergasted, he sat down, one part of his mind completely incredulous of the graphically expressed suggestion she had just made, but another part sending urgent messages to the extremes of his body. She leaned across the table and even more incredibly he felt her hand come between his legs.
‘There,’ she said with a smile. Ί told you I could see you were all right.’
Without the drink, Joe told himself, without the drink, this would not be possible. I wouldn’t sit here and listen to such talk, and allow myself to be … caressed. I’d get up, and go, and Maggie will be waiting and … Without the drink …
‘Let’s have another drink,’ he said hoarsely.
‘One,’ she said. ‘One for the road.’
It sounded the most depraved thing ever said in the history of the world.
Half an hour later they came out of the pub together closely entwined. Joe did not know whether he was going to be able to hold out till they got home. He didn’t protest when she took the car key from him and climbed in the driving-seat. It left both his hands free for the assault. Suddenly he remembered his first sighting of Cess and Cyn in the old Consul stuck at the traffic lights. The memory sent him into fits of laughter, and Cynthia was able to get the car moving.
The stairs up to his flat presented him with another opportunity for falling against her and indulging in tight, exploratory embraces.
‘Christ,’ she said. ‘You’re impetuous.’
‘It’s all right,’ he said, unzipping her skirt. ‘The house is empty. I know. Let’s do it on the stairs.’
‘I’m too old for that,’ she said. ‘I like my comforts.’
Once inside the flat, there was no more resistance, just a session of hilarious confusion as they undressed each other. Either from longer practice or greater sobriety she was the more efficient and he found himself stark naked while Cynthia still had a couple of flimsy bits of silk to go.
‘Hang on a sec, love,’ she said, side-stepping his desperate lunge with ease. She burrowed into her handbag and came up with a cigarette case.
‘Here,’ she said, offering it to him. ‘Try one.’
‘Christ,’ he said. ‘Not now! Later. First things …’
He lunged and missed again. She caught his arm and held it tight in some kind of wrestler’s lock.
‘Silly,’ she said. ‘What do you think I am? They’re not bloody Players. Try one. They’ll make it even better.’
The way he felt at the moment, Joe was unable to envisage any improvement on what he proposed. But he let Cyn slip the thin tube of paper between his lips and set a match to it while he awkwardly removed the rest of her clothes.
‘Now puff,’ she said. ‘That’s it. Nice and deep. Puff. Puff. There now. There now. Isn’t that better?’
Joe wasn’t sure. It was certainly different. There seemed to have been a shift in the dimensions of the familiar room and Cynthia herself seemed blurred and distant. At the same time he felt himself possessed of a strangely heightened sensitivity to sense impressions and there seemed to have been a shift in his own personal dimensions to make him even better equipped to deal with the matter in hand.
He approached Cynthia to put this to the test. She seemed eager to co-operate; his sense of touch at least found nothing blurred or distant about her, though their activities seemed to be taking place in a kind of eggshell-blue cocoon, as though they were locked together in a slice of early summer sky.
‘Through here, through here,’ whispered Cynthia, leading him to where only a very old memory told him the bedroom was.
Normally any sense of removal from reality was extremely painful to Joe. He enjoyed getting drunk, but the actuality of being drunk, with all its unsteadiness and dizziness, was a terrible nightmare to him. Now however his present lack of orientation meant nothing to him. Every locomotory need was being very well taken care of by Cynthia, who seemed to have developed about fifteen hands, and his sense of suspension in time and space only served to intensify the delightful things which were happening to him. It was true that from time to time the sky-blue cocoon seemed to explode in a burst of white light. And once or twice memories that Cyn was Cess’s girl swam to the surface of his consciousness and he seemed to hear the man’s voice muttering menacingly in his ear. But these illusions were as nothing compared with the joy of finding extraordinary portions of himself coming into contact with extraordinary portions of Cynthia. And even when for a moment her face swam into sudden perfect focus before his eyes and his fevered imagination painted a shiny black moustache on the upper lip, even then he was amused rather than distressed and chuckled to himself as he resumed the delightful task of imprinting his initials in lovebites along her left buttock. How he had managed to see her face at all from this position was a problem he postponed for future consideration.
Finally either from exhaustion, or the effects of drink, or perhaps of the cigarette (definitely not Players), the blue cocoon darkened and contracted, finally crushing him in blackness.
When he awoke, he was alone, neatly tucked up in bed. So neatly in fact that it was with difficulty that he managed to push the sheet and single blanket down from his chest and sit up.
The room was clean and tidy, showing no signs whatever of the wild activity he dimly remembered. Indeed the memory was so dim that he began to wonder if it had not all happened in his mind, but his own physical fragility and a strong sense of general euphoria whenever he tried to pierce the mists convinced him that a great deal must have really happened.
No wonder Coleridge couldn’t manage all of Kubla Khan, he thought.
The doorbell rang.
‘A person from Porlock,’ he said, pulling his dressing-gown over his naked shoulders.
But when he opened the door the person from Porlock turned out to be two persons, unwelcome no matter from where they came.
Cess and Lord Jim.
He slammed the door shut with a force that would have crushed anyone else’s foot, but Lord Jim’s face remained a blank as he effortlessly pushed the door back with his left hand.
‘Morning, Joe,’ said Carter stepping into the room, a jovial smile arcing unconvincingly over his cunning animal face. ‘Time’s up.’
‘No,’ said Joe. ‘I mean, no. Look, I have to think.’
‘You’ve had all night,’ said Carter mildly.
‘Yes. No. I was … busy. I didn’t have time.’
What the hell time is it? he wondered. Carter answered him by drawing the curtains and letting in strong shafts of late morning sunlight.
‘Not have time?’ he echoed. ‘Don’t tell me you were busy all night, eh? Not just the drink then with you, eh Joe? By God, you’re a right dark horse. What do you say, Jim?’
Lord Jim said nothing.
‘Anyone we know?’ asked Carter.
Does he know? He knows! How can he know? Please God, don’t let him know, prayed Joe.
‘No,’ he said.
‘No?’ said Carter. ‘Someone from school, perhaps? The domestic science l
ass, Miss Coon or something? My lad says he reckons you fancy your chances there.’
‘No, no,’ said Joe, remembering for the first time since seven-twenty-five the previous evening that he had had a date with Maggie.
Sickness, he thought. A sudden bereavement. A slight car accident, perhaps?
His need to start constructing excuses despite his present predicament made him wonder just how serious he was getting about the girl. Not all that serious if you considered the speed with which she dropped completely out of his mind at Carter’s next words.
‘Someone else at school then? Oh, Joe, Joe boy,’ he said in avuncularly reproving tones, ‘you’ve not been after any of those young lasses, have you? Not that Maisie Uppadine for instance?’
Oh the bastard! that young bastard Mickey! He must have noticed the effect Maisie’s magnificent breasts had on him and reported home. Was it so obvious then? God, he’d fix him, he’d fix him good!
‘Certainly not,’ he said coldly. ‘What an absurd suggestion.’
‘Ay, probably so,’ said Carter. ‘Probably so. Only, I thought after seeing this, well, it does make you wonder.’
This which he handed to Joe now, sent his mind reeling into a state reminiscent of the night before. It was a photostat copy of the Maisie-poem.
‘How …?’ he asked, ‘how … what… this is absurd! Absurd!’
‘True,’ said Carter. ‘Very true. I know you, Joe. You wouldn’t do a thing like that. Not with the girl only fifteen. You’re an honest, above-board kind of fellow, Joe. That’s why I want you to work with us. What about it, Joe?’
Joe’s mind raced. The implied threat was obvious. Help these two with their half-baked wholly criminal schemes, or the poem would be used. How had they got it? Cynthia, the bitch! Which meant that Carter must know! Which meant … but no time now to follow up that line of thought. No, these goons thought they were being clever, but what they didn’t realize was that the straightforward threat of physical violence was potentially more frightening to him than anything they could do with the poem. His writing was not particularly distinctive; at worst they could put him in a position where he would have to lie, evade, embroider, be indignant; whereas lost teeth, broken ribs and whatever unthinkable damage might result from Lord Jim’s boot in his groin were the kind of things his peculiar talents were not suited to avoid.
‘This is outrageous,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen this filth before.’
He screwed up the paper and threw it at the fireplace where it bounced from the gas-fire on to the carpet.
‘Nor have I any intention of helping you pursue any of your criminal ventures. Good day.’
He liked the sound of that. And he had actually said it out loud, something he rarely did with his best utterances. He felt a glow of pleasure as he strode to the door and flung it open.
‘Go now,’ he said.
The two men looked at him expressionlessly but made no move.
‘Please,’ he added.
‘Now, Joe,’ said Carter, ‘we’re not trying to force your hand. We know no one in their right senses would believe anything bad of you just on the strength of something like this.’
He produced another copy of the poem. He seemed to have a thick wad of them in his inside pocket.
‘However,’ he said, ‘if people were to see things like these, they might begin to wonder. Show him, Jim.’
These, which Lord Jim handed over, were a couple of dozen postcard-sized photographs. Joe looked at the top one and closed the door violently. Unbelieving, he thumbed quickly through the rest. Carter had come up behind him and was looking with interest over his shoulder.
‘That’s my favourite,’ he said, stopping Joe’s incredulous shuffle. ‘That’s what I call ingenious.’
The photos without exception showed Joe himself, stark naked, in a series of complex sexual negotiations with a woman obviously Cynthia, though her full face never appeared. The one Carter so admired brought to mind Maggie’s query whether anyone ever did hang naked from a chandelier. There was no chandelier in the flat, but the principle involved was clearly demonstrated.
‘But you should really see the ciné-film,’ said Carter. ‘Now that is really something, isn’t it, Jim?’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Joe piteously, but already he was beginning to recall the flashes of white light which from time to time had seemed to penetrate his delirium the night before, and the sound of Carter’s voice, and something else besides …
‘What we thought we’d do,’ said Carter, ‘is spread these round a bit. A friend of ours has a little business, lots of outlets, we’re looking after them for the moment while he sorts out a spot of bother …’
‘Chubb!’ said Joe, putting a name to the black-moustached face which had hovered over him momentarily. Lining up a shot. Oh my God!
‘You know him?’ asked Carter. ‘That’s nice. Yes, little Tommy. He’s always ready to do a friend a favour and me, I’ve been a real friend to him, haven’t I, Jim? Well, he’ll have to tread carefully, of course, until things get sorted out, but he’s got a lot of pull. Meanwhile, I’m in charge and I say…’
This was different. No amount of explanation, prevarication, or indignation, could stop people seeing that the man in the photographs was Joe Askern, schoolteacher, and there weren’t any words to lessen their effect.
I was drunk, sounded bad. I was drugged, worse. I didn’t realize I was being photographed was just absurd. In any case Chubb had been so expert that frequently it seemed as if Joe was smiling with modest self-congratulation right into the camera.
‘You know,’ said Carter, pressing home his advantage, ‘the case against Tommy is getting under way. We could even arrange for some of these to come into the hands of the police as evidence.’
He brought this out as though it were a clincher. He and Lord Jim stared appraisingly at Joe as if expecting him to collapse completely under the threat.
His actual reaction completely surprised them and for the first time since their arrival they were not in full command of the situation.
Joe spread out the pictures on the floor and knelt over them, his shoulders jerking. A sound like a sob came from his mouth, was repeated, and again, increasing in volume. Cess stepped forward, worried, but now Joe flung back his head and let peal after peal of laughter come pouring out till the tears started up in his eyes.
‘What’s so bloody funny?’ asked Lord Jim, speaking for the first time. He moved forward menacingly.
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ said Joe, still laughing, but something in Jim’s demeanour made him attempt an explanation. ‘It’s Miss Onions. I was thinking of Miss Onions in the jurybox suddenly been asked to examine these.’
Once more he rocked forward on his knees and laughed long and loud. Carter smiled too. He could detect the desperate note of hysteria in the laughter now.
CHAPTER VI
Joe’s first reaction after Carter and Lord Jim had gone was to be sick. Fear may have helped, but he was realistic enough to acknowledge the strong alcoholic stimulus from the previous evening.
After that, feeling surprisingly better, he dressed, went out and bought a copy of The Times Educational Supplement.
There seemed to be very little staff turnover in the West Country. The choice seemed to lie between being housemistress in a residential comprehensive school in Cornwall and a peripatetic violin teacher in South Devon.
He had a momentarily pleasing picture of himself strolling along leafy lanes, fiddling gaily, with a charivari of happy children in his wake. It was a pity he couldn’t play. Now, if it had been a peripatetic ocarinist …
Perhaps he had better be content with something not quite so distant.
But it was all foolishness in any case, he thought, tossing the paper to one side. It wasn’t a question of distance, it was a question of time. Cess might be a big-shot locally, but he obviously wasn’t the king-pin of an international or even national criminal organization. Move thirt
y miles north to Leeds and he’d probably be safe. On second thoughts make that west to Manchester. He’d be happier over the Penines. And he doubted if Cess would risk the police interest his own counter-accusations would cause should he go ahead and publish the pictures out of spite.
So why worry?
Because I can’t move from here till the end of term, even supposing I get another job, he answered himself. Not if I want to go on being a teacher, and what else am I fit for? And if I do stay on here and don’t go along with Cess, Lord Jim’ll be paying me a visit. And those photos may start circulating. Oh, Onions, Onions! How will you triumph! How arrogantly will you parade your justified instincts about me! Have I the right to inflict that on my dear colleagues? Me, with my broken arms, cracked ribs and missing teeth?
The intrusion into his thoughts, even rhetorically, of his colleagues suddenly brought Maggie back to his mind. Maggie who must have sat in growing concern all the previous evening waiting for him to arrive.
He picked up the phone and dialled her number. Her mother answered. He had never met Mrs Cohen and the mental image created by her voice when he announced his name made him anxious to postpone an encounter. Maggie wasn’t there, said Mrs Cohen. Maggie wouldn’t be there all day. Nor tomorrow either.
‘Well, I’ll see her at school on Monday,’ said Joe hopelessly. ‘Tell her …’
But he was talking to the dialling tone which sounded, on the whole, rather friendlier than Maggie’s mother.
What the hell, thought Joe gloomily. I’m in no condition to face a round of explanation and recrimination now. I’ll think up something by Monday.
Momentarily the thought did flash across his still foggy mind like a gleam of breast behind a fan-dancer’s feathers that the only sensible thing to do was pick up the phone again and ring Sergeant Prince. But it seemed easier to sit down for a few minutes and let his fears drown beneath the liquid notes of Garland singing ‘Look for the Silver Lining’. Vardon, who had dematerialized as soon as Lord Jim had knocked at the door, now reappeared and added his comfort by purring loudly out of time with the music.
A Fairly Dangerous Thing Page 6