Clem stepped over the dog’s haunches to sit down.
‘Here.’ Gwen pushed things aside to make space on the table and put down a plate of blackened toast, guffawing at Clem’s expression. ‘Charcoal’s tip-top for the bowels,’ she said. ‘But I can do fresh if you prefer?’
‘Thanks. Don’t trouble.’ Clem sipped milk from a chipped cup, avoiding the chip. Last night she’d claimed a headache and gone straight to bed, thus postponing the inevitable inquisition, but now she was certain to be in for it.
But, ‘I thought we might walk to the ferry this morning,’ was all Gwen said. She poured thick coffee into a tiny orange lustre cup and lit a Gitane. ‘You?’
Clem shook her head.
Gwen sat down, drew deeply on her cigarette and paused, closing her eyes to savour the taste. ‘Ferry across, picnic lunch at Bawdsey?’ she suggested on the smoky outbreath.
‘Not feeling very well, I’m afraid.’
Gwen tilted her chair back till she was balancing on its back legs. ‘So, what was it you were up to last night?’
Clem began to grope for an answer but the rich mixture of dog, Turkish coffee and French tobacco made her retch. Her hand flew to her mouth, and tears stood in her eyes. Captain hauled himself up and lumbered across to the table to scrutinise her.
‘Sit,’ Gwen said and fed him a toast crust. ‘So, number two on the way, I gather?’
Clem flinched.
‘Heard you vomiting in the night,’ Gwen said. ‘And you’re the colour of a maggot.’
‘Thanks,’ Clem smiled weakly. ‘Actually . . .’
‘Actually?’ Gwen shimmied forward on the chair and the dog laid his great head on her lap, eyes beseeching. ‘Oh, look at him! You don’t want this, do you?’ She reached for Clem’s toast and fed it to him bit by bit. Nauseously Clem watched the long pink tongue caressing Gwen’s buttery, black-flecked fingers. ‘Pleased?’ Gwen said. ‘Only you don’t look it.’
Clem closed her eyes to prevent the tears but they squeezed through her lashes.
‘Thought not.’
‘I was so ill after Edgar.’ The dog was watching her intently, brown eyes sharp beneath shaggy grey eyebrows.
‘But that was after the business in France,’ Gwen said. ‘Entirely different circs. No reason for it to happen again.’ She leaned over and patted Clem’s hand. ‘Chin up.’
‘I’m not ready.’
‘You’ll get used to it. I imagine Dennis is cock-a-hoop?’
‘Will be when I tell him.’
Gwen crowed. ‘Call himself a doctor? I knew soon as look at you!’
‘Well, I’m not hiding it from you, am I?’
Gwen pinched her cigarette between her lips and squinted against the smoke as she topped up her coffee. ‘Like that, is it?’
‘Not at all!’ Clem protested, then gave up and shrugged. ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’
‘You don’t want it?’
With her fist, Clem dashed away a tear. ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ It was in her at that moment to tell Gwen about Vincent, about her whole ridiculous predicament. But what would that achieve apart from demonstrating to Gwen, once again, what a weak-minded ninny she was?
‘Well, I do know of someone,’ Gwen said. With a fingernail she delicately picked a crumb of sleep from her eye. ‘But I’d advise against, dear. Risky business. And there’s no reason for it, is there? You’re healthy, married, not short of a bob or two.’
Clem couldn’t speak for the sickness rising in her throat. Everything smelled foul: the dog, the coffee, the smoke, even the oilcloth tablecloth. She hadn’t been so sick during her pregnancy with Edgar though she could hardly remember much of that. Returning from France so stunned she barely functioned, marrying Dennis in a blur, becoming pregnant; it seemed as if a distant shadow sister had lived through that.
Last night, lying in the narrow spare bed, it had come flooding back – the fright and joy of learning she was carrying Powell’s child, his joy, and then the unspeakable, the unbearable end. Oh, now the door had come unlocked and there she was, the furled-up fern child small enough to curl into a walnut shell, into Gwen’s tiny lustre coffee cup.
‘Why not just buck up and get on with it?’ Gwen was saying. ‘Think yourself lucky. I can fetch you a pail if you want to vom?’
Clem put her hands over her face and leant over her lap. The dog put his great head close, sniffling her hair.
‘Captain,’ Gwen said indulgently, ‘come here. Leave her be. Pail?’
Clem shook her head.
There came the wallop of the newspaper through the letter flap.
‘Why don’t you go back up?’ Gwen said. ‘Lie down for half an hour?’
Clem raised her head and looked about her. It was as if the kitchen was only lightly sketched over the interior of the hospital where Aida had left her. The chequered pattern red on white, tiles cold against her knees as she sank down, cold against her cheek as she gave herself up to the loss.
‘Either go and lie down, dear, or buck yourself up, do,’ said Gwen.
Clem swallowed hard, mustering herself back to the present.
‘What about a walk?’ Gwen said. ‘Nothing wrong with you a breath of fresh air and a dose of common sense won’t fix.’
Clem decided. ‘I shall go home,’ she said. If she went soon, there would be time to bathe and pull herself together before facing Dennis, who would be on the golf course by now. Or she might fake a headache, pretend sleep. If she could get her hands on the Veronal, she could really sleep, deeply sleep the day away.
Gwen fetched the paper. ‘I’ll drive you,’ she said. ‘Bet you’ve never been on a motorcycle?’
Clem gave a sickly smile.
‘Either on the pillion or, if you’d rather, you can squeeze in the sidecar with Captain. I can hardly put him on the back!’ She laughed and ruffled his head. ‘But first, I’m going to finish the pot.’ She poured coffee and sat down again, flapping open her newspaper.
‘I’ll go up and collect my things,’ said Clem.
‘There’s hot water if you’d like to take a jug up.’
Upstairs in the tiny, cheerless, book-stacked bedroom, Clem poured water into a cracked and dusty bowl, washed and tidied herself, trying in vain to make her hair sit neatly. Would Powell have liked her hair like this? Honey, he used to call her, honey. Gazing at her wan face in the mirror she noticed a wretched spot starting on her chin, another symptom from her first pregnancy though not, as far as she recalled, with Edgar. Edgar! The name seized at her. What a terrible mother she was, she’d hardly thought of him at all.
The smell of a fresh Gitanes floated up the stairs, bringing back the nausea. How could she think straight with this unwanted start of life inside her? Could she bear to get rid of it? And if not, could she live with the lie that it was Dennis’s?
Though, remember, Clem, it could be his.
*
Gwen looked up from her paper. ‘Another female MP elected,’ she remarked. ‘Hoorah, that makes a grand total of three.’ She snorted and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘And more strikes – Tube workers, dockers. Good luck to them, I say. Anyway’ – she stood up, yawned hugely, stretched till her vertebrae clicked – ‘I’ll get dressed. Let Captain out, will you?’
Clem opened the door onto the back garden, where a path wandered between overgrown bushes of laurel and bay, and dandelions and daisies fisted up between the paving stones. Captain ambled out to lift his leg against a bush.
Back inside, Clem idly ran her eyes over the newspaper: an advert for Bile Beans; another for Palmolive. She could not be bothered to read about strikes or politics, but her eye was caught by something at the foot of the page.
STOP PRESS
Local businessman run down outside the Wild Man Public House.
Further details in final edition.
She read it twice and sat down heavily. No. She put her thumbs between her teeth and bit hard, the pain igniting a spark inside her. It could be Mr Chamberlain. It
could. Vincent so low last night, so quiet, so furious. There could have been an accident when he drove back. After all, look at how she met him; that accident comes back now – her blundering into the road, the swerve, the crash.
If she hadn’t stepped out into the road at that precise moment, she never would have met Vincent. The thought sideswiped her and her hand flew to her abdomen; it seemed impossible that she might not have met him. It felt like destiny. Like, she snorted, fortune. But it was possible; any possibility is possible.
So – think, think. If it were Vincent and if he’d run down Mr Chamberlain then . . . what did it mean? What could it mean to her?
36
SOMEONE IN THE next cell, a drunk, sings, ‘Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow!’ – not a bad rendition; someone else yells at him to shut up. Vince sits on his bench staring at his knees. Ridges of bone stand out through the flannel; underneath the skin’s scarred and rough. The biggest scar from when, as a nipper, he fell through Dad’s cucumber frame. His own fault; they’d warned him he’d come a cropper and come a cropper he did. ‘You could have cut yourself to flaming ribbons,’ scolded Mum. Funny that coming back to him now, the way she knelt in front of him, blood on her lap, pressing back the flap of skin. The scar on his knee healed like a big sad mouth, and she’d pull her own mouth down whenever she noticed it. She died before the war, thank Christ, and she never had to see him ruined. His hand goes to his face, the plate bent so some of what’s beneath must show, but at least he managed to hang onto it.
‘On a tree by a river a little tom-tit sang, “Willow, titwillow, titwillow.” ’
‘Shut your fucking cakehole,’ comes the rough voice. ‘Some of us are trying to kip.’
‘Nuff of that now!’ shouts a copper.
The walls are painted shiny yellow. Light from the corridor falls in dim stripes through the bars and onto the tin piss bucket. It’s not cold – that’s something – but there’s a hell of a stink. The blanket, the floor, everything stinks of shit and piss and fear.
Will Doll be opening up as per usual today or will the police keep people away? Probably the body’s been moved by now, lying in a morgue. The body. Still doesn’t seem real.
After leaving Clementine in Felixstowe, he rode back fast, stopped off at a pub on the way for a few. Hadn’t drunk much earlier, needing to keep a clear head, watching her flirting away like a proper pro – never thought she had it in her – and Ted falling for it hook, line and sinker. It could have worked, it could have bloody worked. It’d been going like clockwork. Doll was hopping mad with Ted, you could tell. After he and Clementine had waltzed out the door together, she went back behind the bar, face like thunder.
‘What’s up, Doll?’ he said, all innocent, and she snapped, ‘Nothing.’
It’d been hard to keep a straight face. He’d wanted to clap, to cheer, could hardly wait for closing, when, after Doll turfed out the barflies, they’d have a cosy drink together, have a good old heart-to-heart, agree what a flighty bastard that Ted Chamberlain had turned out to be. But then it all went so bleeding wrong. He puts his face in his hands and moans. In the fight he’d happily have throttled the fucker, squeezed the life out of his fat throat, but Doll had set them to rights. He’s never seen her quite like that – blazing, magnificent, fearless. But the look she gave him afterwards, it turned his soul to dirt.
And later, when he got back from Felixstowe there stood Ted by the driver’s door like a target for his front wheel and there was no thought, no choice. He accelerated and hit him full on – the face, the eyes comical as he saw the bike heading for him, no stopping, the soft impact, the whoomph and crack of a body felled, the scrape as the bike skidded across the car park. Wouldn’t have cared if he’d killed himself and all, but he got off scot-free, hadn’t so much as torn his trousers. There were witnesses, the police said, more than one, who all told the same story: he seemed deliberately to speed up towards the victim.
The door unlocks and an old duffer in a uniform comes in with a cup of gnat’s piss and a slab of bread. ‘Your legal rep’s on his way,’ he says. ‘Get this down you first.’
He stands and watches as Vince slurps the tea. It tastes like some tea long ago, beach-hut tea brewed by Mum in a metal teapot. The bread’s stale and he dips it in the liquid, realising he’s famished, as famished as a kid just run out of the sea, cold and shivering, towards Mum holding out a towel, towards a cup of hot sweet milky tea.
‘“Is it weakness of intellect, birdie?” I cried. “Or a rather tough worm in your little inside?”’ goes the singer.
The old policeman shrugs. ‘Where’d you cop this?’ He taps his own cheek.
‘Somme, last push.’
The copper grunts in sympathy. ‘Wife’s nephew fell at Flanders.’
‘Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow!’
‘Hey, mate, can’t you shut that fucker up?’ shouts the complainer.
The copper rubs his face wearily. ‘Well, good luck to you, mate. Sounds like you’re going to need it. I’ll see if your rep’s ready.’
Vince swallows the last of his tea as the legal man is ushered in. His face is soft and dented like a kiddie’s toy, grey and furry, tiny wiry specs perched on his nose. ‘How do,’ he says, taking Vince’s hand in his massive, spongy one. ‘My name’s Barry, John. Here to offer my services. Initial fee ten bob. Pretty pickle you’ve got yourself in here.’
He huffs himself down on the bench beside Vince. ‘Hearing on Monday, just a formality you understand. You plead not guilty, of course. Anyone likely to bail you out?’
Vince shakes his head.
‘Well, for now, if you just go through the events for me . . .’ He takes a notebook from his pocket. His cuffs are frayed, grease spots on his lapels, surprising Vince. Still, he’s probably bottom of the heap as far as legal men go. What more can he expect?
‘I did it,’ Vince says.
‘Gracious me, don’t go saying that!’
‘I did it,’ Vince repeats. ‘I wanted him done for.’
Mr Barry makes a winded sound, puts a hand on Vince’s arm and gives him a shake. ‘Come on, man. Understand what’s at stake, do you? Or do you want to swing for it?’
Does he? Vince wonders, and a great fatigue sweeps over him. Why not? What’s he got to live for? Maybe he should just hang and get it over with?
‘Every chance we can avoid that,’ Mr Barry’s saying. ‘War service, NCO, I understand? That’ll go down well. And what with this . . .’ He indicates Vince’s face. ‘Unusual case too, death by motorcycle. I can possibly procure you Sir John Kingsley, someone of his ilk. Interesting case, possible question of setting a legal precedent and so on. You could go down in history – how does that strike you?’
Vincent stares at his knees.
‘Come on, man, buck up.’
An officer walks past, jangling keys. He releases not the singer but the shouter: ‘At least I’ve heard the last of that prick,’ he shouts as he goes, and in response the singer starts up again: ‘He sobbed and he sighed and a gurgle he gave, then he plunged himself into a billowy wave.’
Swing for it, Vince thinks, swing. Feels a tightening in his neck, a crack as it breaks. To go through all he went through in France then swing for an arse like Ted Chamberlain?
‘And an echo arose from the suicide’s grave, “Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow.” ’
‘Mind putting a sock in it, old chap, for a moment or two?’ calls Mr Barry and the singer is silenced.
‘So, you reckon you could get me off?’ Vince says.
‘That’s the spirit.’
‘But there were enough people there saw what happened.’
Mr Barry chuckles. ‘That’s as maybe, but within the law, you’ll find, if there’s a will there’s a way.’ He scratches his head, examines his nails. ‘It’s all a matter of how one frames things, of course. Now, take me through your version of events. Any previous knowledge of the deceased?’ He licks his pencil.
‘He was a reg
ular at the Wild Man, where I live, where I work,’ Vince says. Whatever will Doll say to him putting it like that? It was never official lodgings, never official work. But it’s the truth.
‘And what occurred yesterday evening?’
‘He waltzes into the pub, chats up some blonde—’
‘A Miss Chance, apparently.’
Vince gawps. Chance? Recovers himself. ‘Anyway, he chats her up in front of Doll, Mrs Pepper that is, the landlady.’
‘Were he and Mrs Pepper on what we might call intimate terms?’
‘No,’ Vince says, ‘never.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘Now me and Doll, we was.’ Doll’ll have his guts for garters for saying so, but it’s the truth.
Mr Barry pulls his head back in surprise. ‘You and Mrs Pepper?’
Stung by his surprise, Vince goes on. ‘Yes. We are.’
‘On intimate terms?’
Vince nods. ‘I get on well with the nipper and all. We’d talked of getting wed . . .’ Maybe that’s going too far.
‘You were engaged?’
‘No, but . . .’
‘You had an understanding?’
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘I see.’ Mr Barry writes something in his notebook. ‘Help me to understand something here, if you will. If Mrs Pepper and Mr Chamberlain were not in any way “close”, why should he, as you put it, try to make her jealous?’
‘See, I reckon he, Chamberlain, had taken a fancy to Doll – sorry, Mrs Pepper.’
‘Despite the fact that it was you with whom Mrs Pepper had an understanding?’
‘He wasn’t to know, was he?’
‘Was he not? I’m struggling to follow.’
‘I reckon he was playing up in front of her with the blonde—’
Mr Barry raises his hand. ‘Pure speculation.’
‘See, he didn’t know how close we was, me and Mrs Pepper,’ Vince says, ‘but I reckon he’d got wind of it. We had a holiday together – her, me and the kiddie – and he only goes and turns up. At Walton-on-the-bloody-Naze.’
Mr Barry frowns and sticks out a shiny bottom lip, jots something down. ‘Let’s return to events on the night in question. I believe that earlier that evening there was a fracas in front of the Wild Man. We have a witness.’
Blasted Things Page 25