Snowstop

by Alan Sillitoe

  ‘Coventry.’

  The fist showed a large ring with an aquamarine stone, dull in the candlelight. ‘I want an address.’

  He had photocopied the town plan in his mind. ‘Fourteen Dants Street.’ Even in the dark he would have found it.

  ‘Then where would it go?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably London.’

  Keith believed him. Whoever it was meant for were safe, but they in the hotel were not. Fourteen dead would surely satisfy them for a while. Hearing the news on the radio the terrorists would be laughing and hitting each other on the back at their bloody brew-up, then arguing for the privilege of the phone call to tell the world who had done it.

  ‘So when do we put the rope around his neck?’ Garry scooted his cigarette stub towards the fire. Fred picked it up from the mat and put it in an ashtray. ‘You must admit he deserves it.’

  ‘It’s half-past one,’ Keith said, ‘which gives us a few hours to decide how to get away, but no time to think about killing anybody. He’ll be dealt with when we’re safe.’

  ‘We’ll get into our kit and leave at five to eight,’ Wayne said, ‘just far enough to watch the explosion. Then we can come back and sit in the ruins to keep warm.’

  ‘I won’t make it with this gammy leg,’ Garry said. ‘Look how it’s swollen up. I’d like to kill him just for skimming that slate. I expect he smeared poisoned pigeon shit along the edge. He would have danced a reel and two jigs if he’d killed me.’

  ‘We’ll rip a door off and carry you on it,’ Lance said.

  ‘Not my weight you won’t. I’ve put back too much ale in my life. But I’ll be all right. Nobody gets the better of me, not even a fucking snowstorm.’ Nor will they, whatever O Levels he hadn’t got. He didn’t remember his father because he was knocked arse over backwards by a concrete mixer on the motorway and killed while doing his stuff as a chainman for the surveyors. The emptiness of infancy was normal, but when he was two his mother married again, and he knew the man couldn’t be his father because Garry got a kick every time he went close. Henry was his name, and in the beginning he waited till Garry’s mother was out of the house, but later he didn’t care, and when his mother told him to stop kicking Garry he kicked her as well. In three years the man spent what was left of his father’s insurance, and then lit off, leaving his mother with two more kids.

  She lived on National Assistance, and slutted after what men she could get while the kids ran around wild and half starved. Some nights they waited on the steps of pub or bingo hall hoping she would come out with lollipops or a bar of chocolate. A fancy man might chuck fifty p to get them out of the way. All men were bastards, so it paid to grow into a bastard yourself and keep them in their place. And all women were bitches who had anything to do with men like that. Only you yourself were left, and all you could do was find a couple of mates you could trust and have as good a time as you could. The rest was bullshit.

  He never forgot insult or injury, and twenty years after the toe-capping Henry came to see his mother but she threw him out. A few weeks later Garry saw him in a pub on Saturday night, standing at the bar over a meagre half-pint. Garry clapped him on the back in friendly fashion and talked of the good old times when Henry had been kind to him as a three-year-old, and Henry had the gall to say: ‘I’m glad you remember. I was good to you, wasn’t I? But that’s how I am. I allus was good to little kiddies.’ The man’s face was ageing and spiteful, but a few pints even got him talking again about his mother.

  Garry said goodbye but went across the road to wait, and when Henry came out swaying and swearing to himself, he followed. At the end of a dark street he pulled him from behind, and while Henry lay half stunned in the gutter Garry told him how his infancy had really been. Then he gave every kick back that he had ever got.

  And now the king-sized bastard of them all had come with his clapped-out van of explosives to do you and your mates an injury, even to kill you. If there was no justice in the world you had to make it, that’s all Garry knew.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  ‘I’m stiff all over.’ Eileen woke from her dreams so troubled she thought they were real. ‘I suppose I should go upstairs to bed. What are we doing down here, anyway?’

  ‘We’ve just got to sit,’ Parsons said, ‘until the crack of doom.’

  She yawned. ‘Believe that, and you’ll believe anything. He’s only saying the van’s full of bang-bangs to frighten us. He’s like one of them poxy hoaxers who phones an airport and says there’s a bomb on a plane. It makes him feel good. Then he puts the phone down and has a good wank. The dirty bastard’s the same as a flasher. There’s plenty of them around, as well. You see ’em all over the place.’

  She stood, and bowed to their laughter, as if she was acting in that play again at school, only this time it looked like being real, because if that beaten-up old flasher was to be believed, the whole lovely hotel would soon be on fire, which was a shame because it was one of the nicest places she’d been in. Maybe they should have kicked him in a bit more up in the attic, though they hadn’t done a bad job, to look at him wincing and twitching. No wonder Trevor had been such a numbskull, with teachers like him knocking around. Keith must have had better schooling, not to mention the mam and dad who brought him up. He knows how to talk, and I’ll bet he’s got a good job that pays lots of money – as well as being tall and strong, and standing no fucking nonsense from anybody.

  But there was a sense of violence about him that made her afraid. When he was angry, from habit it seemed more than reason, his eyes were sunken and closer together, nose almost hooked, a bit like an eagle, as if violence was mustard to his meat. Even when there was no reason for violence you could tell he was hoping for it. He had done something, or something had been done to him, or he had done something because something had been done to him, and he couldn’t get it out of his mind. He was tense in look and limbs, always ready to spring – as he had up the ladder to pull those bikers off Daniel, when, if he hadn’t got his own way, he would have killed the lot and enjoyed it.

  She felt love for him but did not know whether she ought to like him, though she did because she wanted to. She wondered who his wife was and how they managed together, hard to imagine him easily in love with anybody, but she could understand women being in love with him. He was the sort who kept too much of himself secret, a man women love till they know better or get fed up with him. On the other hand he couldn’t be so rotten, because he had brought her to this hotel, so that instead of twenty-five pounds single it had cost him forty quid double. Maybe he might think it worthwhile because she had been to bed with him, but she had enjoyed it as well, so he’d still been generous.

  He hadn’t done her such a favour if staying any longer meant getting blown to bits, but he wasn’t to know, because he had got himself into the trap as well, which didn’t seem to worry him all that much, and that was strange, as if something funny nagged at his mind, unless that was his way, and he was too proud to show he was upset like mad at what he had driven into. Not everybody screamed and swore if things went wrong, like her father and some of the men she had known, lashing out left, right and centre when they couldn’t think what to do, and only making things worse.

  Keith seemed like a clock that could take care of anything to do with time, though sooner or later the springs would break and the whole thing split apart. There were moments when she wondered who he was, and she didn’t get very far but at least it was easier than trying to find out who she herself might be, which became impossible whenever she tried to try, though maybe that was the same for everybody, and it was easier to see other people, if that was easier at all. She thought she ought to stop thinking, because if you got ravelled up you would have a hard job starting again, which must be worse than not having started at all.

  Keith liked her affectionate smile, the perfect girl friend who would never question him, because in her apparent mindlessness she thought it would be no use. And he wouldn’t ask anything of
her, even though he might want to. In any case they were far from being empty-minded, but out of love and good will towards each other (that rarest of attitudes between men and women) they could become devoted because it was no effort to be so.

  Such dreams were of little use, dangerous to you and others if you strove to make them real. Daniel had tried, and turned into one of those who blew limbs off people but had never cut their own finger. Without experience or imagination his ideals had been easy to maintain, though you had to curb your contempt for such types if you believed it was right or useful to understand them.

  He knew he must get on his feet for what he had to say. ‘I assume you can all hear? We have to think about getting out of this place, beyond range of that van, because there’s enough stuff inside to demolish the hotel. I take it that none of us wants to die?’

  Wayne pulled Daniel’s hand vertically like a railway signal. ‘Here’s one who does.’ He let it fall, which pained Daniel more than the lifting and made him cry out. ‘He ought to, anyway.’

  Sally’s flat hand swung so quickly he wasn’t able to dodge, two fierce slaps chasing each other, though he hit back with equal force before she could run from what she had done. ‘No bloody woman, or anybody else, hits me and gets away with it.’ He was breathless with surprise, and holding her wrist that was hinging out for another blow.

  ‘He’s helpless,’ she cried. ‘Haven’t you done enough?’

  ‘We thought we had.’ Garry’s leg throbbed, and he wondered if he would be able to ride his bike again, saw himself sitting when the others had gone, sucking on his last fag and waiting for a flash whiter than any snow. ‘We haven’t started yet, if you don’t behave yourself.’

  Her breasts were rising and falling, breath grinding in her throat with passionate loathing. The bones of her skull were ringing with pain, but she took both hands away, sat by Daniel and stroked his arm. ‘Don’t worry, everything will be all right.’

  She wasn’t sure about that, in her misery, heart keening at such injustice, and at the stupidity of Daniel for involving himself in a cruel and useless cause. He was a child who had been led astray by the balloon man, with no matter what justification, dazzled by the hot air filling their plastic gewgaws.

  Enid’s face was pinched with the anxiety they all felt. ‘My boy friend’s supposed to pick me up in the morning. He said so when he dropped me off in his car this afternoon, so I didn’t bring a proper coat, only this cardy and what I stand up in. I’ll freeze if I have to go outside.’

  Aaron put an arm around her. ‘You can use my coat.’

  Keith smiled. ‘We all want to live. That’s understandable. There are a few options, which I’ve been thinking over, so I suppose it’s time I shared them. The first is that we stay in here and don’t do anything. After all, the van might not explode.’

  ‘I’m not going to be a sitting duck, or play snowman’s roulette,’ Alfred said.

  Nor was anyone. Daniel’s state of half-sleep dimmed his pain. He heard, but didn’t want to show that anything concerned him in case they baited him for being the cause of their peril. Tied to a chair, he wouldn’t be able to move, the only person in the hotel. The pale and leaded sky of dawn was showing. They had abandoned him, and fled to save themselves. His evil latched on to a greater evil in them, so who would be the first to suggest the fate which he pictured? What they didn’t realize was that fuses, being what they were – if there had been clumsiness, or carelessness, or any subtle fault whatever in the connections, or the timing, or the wiring – could send the van sky-high any minute. To assume all would be well until eight o’clock was optimistic.

  ‘So we put the kaibosh on that one,’ Keith said. ‘Still, it might have worked, to get together in a room furthest from the van, and hope for the best. The trouble is that the van’s parked halfway along the hotel wall, which would reduce our chances somewhat. So that option, such as it is, would be too much of a gamble, every life being precious, mine included. Even his, who got us into it. Though he never knew a moral twinge in his life, he’s as valuable as the rest of us, and we can’t abandon him. When we’re safe he’ll have a long enough time to think about how brave and clever he’s been.’

  ‘You should have been a bloody parson,’ Garry said, ‘with all this jabber.’

  ‘You wouldn’t know what to do with a bagful of words if they was put around your neck in a stable,’ Eileen shouted.

  They were like brother and sister, Keith thought, when she laughed and sat down. Cousins, perhaps. He was amazed at how well people of that sort got on. Quarrelling was a way of them getting to know each other. They would have a set-to and then start laughing and talking about the good old times. He felt more connected to their verbal liveliness than to the glum mood of the others.

  Alfred liked the way Garry wasn’t afraid to throw in remarks against big-headed Keith. He would have said the same himself, but Garry had got there first, so why waste your breath? ‘You’re a plumber by trade, then?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  He glanced towards the fire to be sure his father slept, then knelt, not wanting anybody to know his business. ‘I bought a nice plot of land near Matlock, and I’m going to have a bungalow built for Janice my daughter. She’s the eldest. You understand?’

  ‘I’m not deaf, am I?’

  ‘I didn’t think so.’ Alfred smiled. ‘I’m sure there’s nobody less deaf. Nor less sharp, either. Are you all right, though? You look pale.’

  ‘I’ve got a bit of gyp in my leg, that’s all. Just get on with it.’

  ‘This bungalow’s going to have a lovely view over the Derwent. I want it to be a little gem.’ When the old man kicked off there’d be more than enough to pay for it. He would be in clover, though the death duties would drop it by plenty. ‘I’ve got to have a man of your trade to plumb the place up. A nice kitchen and bathroom. I know a plumber, but I don’t trust him, neither his prices nor his work. Could you give it a try? Make a good job, I mean?’

  A house was a lot to take on, even if only a bungalow, but you have to start somewhere. ‘You mean you want an estimate?’

  ‘That’s right. Can you do it?’

  ‘Don’t keep asking me if I can do it. Do you want bloody references or something?’

  ‘Oh no, just an estimate. I’ve had one already, and if yours is anywhere near, you’ve got the job. You don’t get into a situation like this and not make friends you can trust. Anyway, I like to give a hand to somebody who’s up-and-coming. I was very happy at the way you sorted that bastard out upstairs. If I had been thirty years younger I would have been with the rest of you, believe me.’

  Garry was laughing inside. A whole house to play with! ‘I’d have to take on extra help, but I’ll do it.’ He would go to the library and get an instruction manual, swot up a bit, take it little by little. He had already fathomed the basics, and you didn’t need A Levels to be a plumber, not a good one anyway. Apart from anything else, once he had made a start Alfred wouldn’t be able to get rid of him, though he’d be sure to do as good a job as he could because if it was known that he had fixed up one house it wouldn’t be hard to get a contract for another, and soon he would have his own firm. When things got hectic and he had more work than he could handle he would take on people to help him, and become one of the youngest big employers in the Midlands. He would do it all on the quiet, a deal with each chap so that they would pay no tax and he would buy no stamps, everyone in it for love and money. After a year or two he wouldn’t even need to get his hands dirty but would send his men out in little rainbow-coloured vans while he sat in a centrally heated office during the winter with his feet on a desk, winking at a gorgeous secretary in charge of the paperwork. The house he lived in would have the plumbing done by one of the best firms in London. There would be a Harley in one garage and a BMW state-of-the-art bike in the other. The picture built up in a few seconds, all pell-mell but vivid and desirable as a future, even to the extent of getting his old mother ou
t of that damp rat trap in the valley and buying her a proper set of teeth.

  ‘Shake on it, then.’

  Alfred was glad to, because though Garry was only a jobbing plumber, he had a notion that he would see better work from him than anybody else.

  ‘Another option’ – Keith had been some time thinking about the matter – ‘could be to wait till half-past seven in the morning, then make a run for it. The blizzard might have lessened, but at least it’ll be light enough to see where we’re going. Five hours will give us plenty of time to kit ourselves out for the elements.’

  ‘That might be cutting it a bit fine, because what if they put the clocks on during the night?’ Eileen joked. ‘I mean to say, it would just be our luck, wouldn’t it, not to have heard the news? All of us arsing around at half-past seven when – bang, we’re dead.’

  ‘They don’t alter the clocks in the middle of winter,’ Lance said.

  Whether they were dazzled by his expertise or stunned by his imbecility, Keith found the simple badinage hopeful in facing whatever peril came with the blast. But the more optimistic he was, the most despondent also. He would have as much talking to do to the police as Daniel when they came. I had no intention of killing her, I just wanted to give her a good shaking because her words filled me with an agony impossible to bear. Accident it was, manslaughter if you like, but not murder.

  She obsessed him more now than when she had been alive, unless he was talking. ‘To run for it would be the worst possible thing. Perhaps I do sound like a parson, but I don’t want to get you either to Heaven or Hell one minute earlier than necessary. Nor do I want to go, before my time. Even a blizzard has its charms.’

  She loved him. He was a card, a comedian no less, no tension in him while addressing them. He didn’t altogether believe in his talk, you could tell (or she could), but he was thinking and at the same time trying to entertain them so that they wouldn’t be frightened.