‘Better not,’ said Binny. ‘He’ll only be obscene.’
Muriel picked up the newspaper parcel and took it into the front garden. As she approached the bins she thought she heard voices behind the hedge. Curious, she stepped out on to the pavement. She saw a woman pushing a pram and a taxi coming along the street in the same direction. The woman looked over her shoulder at the taxi, and at that moment the police car on the corner edged into the road. The taxi swerved, scraped the side of Simpson’s Fiat parked at the kerb and, accelerating, drove left, past the block of flats. The police car reversed, mounted the pavement, rammed a plane tree in a circle of earth and with siren hideously wailing sped round the corner in pursuit. The woman, trundling the pram ahead of her, ran straight at Muriel.
In the front room Edward was standing worriedly at the hearth. What excuse was he going to make to Helen when he arrived home without the Rover? It was getting far too late to collect it from the car park near the office. This wasn’t the sort of neighbourhood, he knew, much frequented by taxis, and he’d been relying on Simpson, if not to take him back to the City, at least to deposit him at a convenient cab rank. He could hardly come right out with it and ask Simpson to drive him to the car park. He’d always given the impression, he hoped, of being a reckless sort of cove. And Simpson apparently left his own vehicle quite openly in the street when he went to visit his woman in Kilburn. For hours.
How he hated telling too many lies; it brought his face out in blotches. He could have strangled Simpson, dithering there at the sink with a dish towel in his hand and his naked toes exposed. The man was a sissy messing about with dirty plates. He seemed to have forgotten entirely the lateness of the hour. Of course, his wife wasn’t sitting at home, waiting to hear his excuses.
Edward looked in the mirror and saw, reflected behind his uncombed head, Jesus on the wall, surrounded by his disciples. It was all right for some, he thought – those who knew the precise moment of their martyrdom. For himself, life stretched ahead, unplanned, full of accidental alarms. The pallor of his face in the glass dismayed him. He recalled the verse of a poem he’d memorised as a boy: ‘And there lay the rider distorted and pale, With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail; And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, The lances uplifted, the trumpets unblown . . .’
From somewhere beyond the window he heard the distant clamour of an ambulance. Alma, slumbering within the stifling folds of her khaki duffle coat, whimpered and kicked a cushion to the floor.
Outside the house, still clutching her newspaper package, Muriel stood motionless. The taxi appeared again at the top of the street. The woman stopped running and swivelled the pram sickeningly in a half circle on the wet pavement. The hedge shook. Rain drops slid through the glittering leaves. Dragging the pram behind her, the woman began to mount the steps of Binny’s house. The taxi skidded to a halt; men leapt desperately into the road. Muriel moved then and in a dream bent and caught hold of the rubber tyres and helped to lift the pram over the top step and into the hall. She was flung bodily toward the stairs. A bicycle rode ahead of her along the carpet and crashed against the bannisters. Hands tore at the hood of the pram; something white, intricate as a paper doily and patterned with light, drifted through the air. She clawed her way back down the hall to where the creeper swayed in the wind. In slow motion, it seemed, she saw an infant, entangled in a crocheted shawl, bounce upon the railings. She screamed. A dimpled knee shone for an instant as a beam of light hurtled across the step. Scooping the limp bundle to her breast, she was seized by the hair and dragged brutally backwards. Falling with arched spine over the hood of the pram, she lost her balance and rolled to the floor; she lay with her cheek pressed to the dark skirting board and the silent baby stuffed within her arms. The front door slammed shut.
To those inside the kitchen, discounting the sleeping woman on the sofa, the sounds from the hall were so sudden and so violent that for several seconds they stood frozen in their tracks. Binny stared at Edward. Her raised hand, arrested between sink and dish rack, gripped a saucer bubbling with soap suds. I love you, she thought. Help me.
Then the door burst inwards.
9
Two men, one dark, one red-headed, held shot guns. A third man, unarmed, was gripping a thin woman by the throat and throttling her.
‘The window, Harry,’ shouted the man with red hair.
Harry ran to the shutters and punched the metal bar with his fist. Turning, he swung his gun in the air like a cricket bat and clouted the yellow lampshade that hung above the table. The parchment split, the shade pitched wildly; shadows went bouncing up and down the floor. Edward, seeing the man’s arm rise, ducked instinctively. For one solitary moment he clung to the illusion that the pandemonium about him was an elaborate and outrageous joke, perpetrated by Binny to annoy him. Scuttling under the table, he crouched on all fours, watching the man’s feet prance upon the carpet.
The third man, having flung his woman victim to the floor, leapt with bent knees on to her chest. She grunted. ‘Fucking bastard,’ he screamed.
Chasing the lampshade and jabbing upwards with the sawn-off barrel of his gun, the man called Harry smashed the light bulb. Someone jerked open the shutters. Cautiously Edward crawled backwards towards the wall and stood upright. In the kitchen he saw Simpson and Binny standing motionless, cheek to cheek, as though waiting for a dance orchestra to play.
A tremendous pounding began on the front door. Savagely Edward was gripped by the front of his shirt and thrust against the windows. Bewildered by a curious blue light that flashed across the panes of glass, he stared foolishly into the garden. Black figures milled about the crazy paving. All at once, sighting the pale blur of his face, they swarmed to the railings. Jostling for space on the daffodil border, they shouted words he couldn’t understand. Binny and Simpson were hustled to stand beside him. The three of them, aware of guns pointed at their backs, grimaced into the darkness. Binny, trembling with shock, thought only of Edward. Liberated by the fact that her children were not involved, she concentrated entirely on her lover. Knees pressed to the radiator beneath the window ledge, she forgot his failings and his attitudes. The body of Simpson, interposed between them, was an intrusion; her place was at Edward’s side. All through dinner she had missed her chance to touch his hand, press his knee. When it came to it, she had given the best chop to Muriel.
She saw Mrs Montague under the lamplight, holding a bottle of stout in her arms. She was talking to a policeman.
Edward, afraid and alert, visualised Helen in the garden and his son slouching through a gate. He had mistaken familiarity for boredom. Like a landslide, the truths of his childhood, his schooldays, rushed upon him. Play the game, own up, be a man, soldier on. For the second time in his life he had let down the side. God had struck.
In front of the hedge, men held little black boxes to their mouths and communicated with a higher authority.
‘What do we do, Ginger?’ asked Harry.
By way of answer the red-haired man clubbed the window with the butt of his gun. There was a small stampede as the pane ruptured and pieces of glass spilled into the room.
‘Back off,’ he roared. ‘Back off.’
Outside nobody moved. Mrs Montague stood with her fist to her cheek. Across the street, crowding the rails of the balconies as though putting out to sea, people waved.
‘We’ve got four of them here,’ shouted Ginger. ‘Bloody well back off.’ Squeezing Binny by the neck, he ordered, ‘Tell them your name. Say you live here. Tell them to move, or else.’
‘My name is Mrs Mills,’ cried Binny. ‘I live here. Please go away.’ Fearing they might not have heard, she put her mouth to the shattered glass and repeated her request.
Slowly the uniformed men ebbed from the garden and regrouped on the pavement. A whistle blew. Binny’s neighbour, the one who was looking after Alison for the night, came to the fence and demanded information. An alsatian dog on a leather strap leapt round the hedge an
d nosed the bins.
Ginger closed the shutters.
The room, lit only by a dim bulb hanging above the refrigerator at the kitchen end, seemed touched by moonlight; the edge of a chair shone, a fold of white tablecloth, the bevelled corner of a cardboard invitation stuck in the frame of the mirror. On the wall beneath the electric clock, a red indicator on a power point burned like the butt of a cigarette.
Binny could see Alma sitting bolt upright on the sofa, eyes staring. The men took no notice of her.
‘You,’ said Ginger, looking at Binny. ‘Is there anyone living upstairs?’
‘No one,’ she said. ‘Honestly. I promise you.’
‘Have you got shutters on the first floor windows?’
‘Not any more,’ she said apologetically. ‘They had woodworm.’
‘Right,’ said Ginger. He spoke to Harry. ‘We don’t have to worry about the front door, or the roof. We’d hear the bastards. It’s the back and the first floor that needs watching.’
The woman lying on the carpet, knees buckled against the lower half of the food cupboard, began to moan. Her assailant stood over her with his hands in his pockets.
‘You shouldn’t have done that, Widnes,’ said Harry. He nudged the woman’s arm with the toe of his boot.
‘Lay off,’ groaned the woman.
‘I want out,’ the man said. ‘What in God’s name do we do with them?’ He indicated the group huddled together in the gloaming of the front room.
‘First,’ Ginger said. ‘We got to watch the back and upstairs. There’s balconies up there. They could climb along from the house next door. Widnes, have a look round the back.’
‘I want bloody out,’ repeated Widnes angrily, but already he was going through the door. There was a clatter as he fell over some obstruction in the hall.
The woman sat upright and clutched her ribs. ‘Crazy bastard,’ she whined. ‘He damn near killed me.’
‘Sod you,’ said Ginger. He and Harry stood at the back window and peered out at the pink city sky.
‘My wife,’ said Simpson. ‘Where’s my wife?’ He went, without interference, to the door. He was ashamed of himself, but he hoped Muriel was still in the house; he didn’t want to be left alone.
Muriel was sitting on the stairs holding a doll on her knee. She was playing with its celluloid toes and frowning.
‘Where have you been?’ asked Simpson. He became terribly angry at the thought of her hiding in the hall when he had been exposed to such violence. The skirt of her dress, he noticed, was streaked with dirt and torn at the hem.
‘I was out at the bins,’ she said. ‘Seeing to Alma.’
‘I told you not to bother with that woman,’ he scolded. ‘You made a ridiculous fuss of her.’
‘I was glad of something to do,’ Muriel said. ‘I’m used to doing things for you and the children. It’s what I’m for. I don’t know what to do with my hands when I’m not busy. After the children were walking and we gave the pram away, I used to cross my arms over my chest when I went out.’
‘Look at the state of your dress,’ shouted Simpson. ‘And your stockings. You realise your fur is ruined. It’s in the most disgusting mess, absolutely disgusting.’
‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘I’m frightened.’
He sat on the stairs beside her and put his arms round her shoulders. There were smashed picture frames on the carpet and pieces of broken glass. Where the bicycle had leaned there was now a dark blue pram; the handlebars of the bicycle were twisted and caught in the bannisters.
‘I’ve seen one of them before,’ said Simpson. ‘The one called Widnes.’
‘Why are they here?’ Muriel asked. She looked down at the doll and let it fall on the stair. ‘I thought it was real,’ she said.
‘They won’t harm us,’ said Simpson. ‘There’s too many of us. What would be the point? Whatever they’ve done, it couldn’t be worth shooting the lot of us.’ He thought of the woman on the floor, battered by the man he’d met at the telephone kiosk. It was a mercy he hadn’t argued with the fellow over who should first use the phone.
Ginger came into the hall. ‘Inside,’ he shouted, pointing his gun at Simpson’s knees. He dragged the pram backwards into the kitchen and felt underneath the storm cover. Taking out a revolver, he gave it to Harry. The two of them left the room.
The woman was now sitting on a chair by the sink, holding a shot gun on her lap. The pram stood beside her. Gripping the handle in one hand and staring sullenly ahead, she began idly to push it back and forth.
10
Alma was the first to speak. She whispered into the half darkness. ‘What’s it all mean, darlings? I thought you were playing silly games. All that banging about. Why don’t you sit down?’
Nobody answered her.
She crawled along the sofa and poked her head round the cupboard. ‘You don’t mind if they sit down, do you, dear? They’ve had a shock.’
‘Sit at the table,’ ordered the woman. ‘But don’t go near the sodding door.’
Binny sat on Edward’s knee and clung tightly to his neck. He felt comforted by her warm body on his lap and her breath fanning his cheek. In the circumstances it didn’t matter any more about keeping up appearances for Muriel’s sake. He tried to think when and how Helen would know where he was. There wasn’t a phone number in his diary, or any little pieces of incriminating paper in the pockets of his other suits. She’d look up Simpson’s number in the directory, he supposed, but that wouldn’t help. He didn’t imagine Simpson would have told his daughters where he was going; they were both over eighteen and possibly out themselves. Helen would ring the hospitals first and later the police. It would take hours to get through to the casualty wards – it was practically impossible to find anyone on duty even in an emergency. By the time she’d finished her enquiries, they might be released and free to go home. He’d have to make a statement of course, but these days the police were very understanding. He could even say he’d been passing the house and decided to give chase. The police were always inciting the public to have a go. Or maybe he was on the premises at Simpson’s invitation. He could mention he’d been taken ill – something like a heart attack. He’d lie merely to Helen, not to the police – that would be irresponsible and wrong. God knows, he wouldn’t have to fake it – he felt like death.
‘Can I sit with them, dear?’ said Alma. ‘I feel a bit out of it over here.’
The woman didn’t reply. Keeping a wary eye on the shot gun, Alma moved from the sofa to sit at the table. She was still wearing the duffle coat with its hood pulled over her head. She looked like an under-sized monk, the tip of her nose showing and her hands lost in a welter of sleeves.
Overhead footsteps sounded on the wooden floor. Furniture was being dragged across the room.
‘I don’t suppose this will go on for very long,’ said Edward. ‘They’ve got procedures worked out for this sort of situation. There’s been so much of it lately.’
Alma was anxious to know what sort of situation it was. Having been asleep at the time, somewhat under the weather as she freely admitted, she wasn’t absolutely sure what had occurred. Like a bird, eyes bright, beaked nose dipping above the tablecloth, she peeped from the hood of the duffle coat.
‘Hostages,’ explained Edward. ‘It’s obvious. They’ve escaped from somewhere. Some jail. It happens all the time.
‘But how can they be hostages, darling?’
‘Lower your voice,’ snapped Simpson. ‘Not them. Us.’
Alma looked at him. ‘You were horrid to me before,’ she said. ‘Yes you were, pet, don’t deny it.’ She waggled her sleeve at him flirtatiously.
Edward spoke in low undertones of a decaying society, the gradual breaking down of law and order, overcrowded prisons, lack of money. There was no doubt about it, they were living in decadent times. He was conscious that no one followed his train of thought. ‘Why, only last week,’ he confessed, ‘I was undercharged at the chemists. Helen had a twinge of neuralgia an
d I went to buy aspirins. I don’t hold with aspirins myself. Do you know, I pocketed the surplus change without a word. I’m not proud of my action, but I did.’
‘Why couldn’t she buy her own aspirins?’ asked Binny. She would have liked to move from Edward’s knee, but there was nowhere else to sit.
‘They can’t have been in much of a hurry to get away,’ said Simpson. ‘I’ve seen one of them before. Hours ago when I went to fetch the wine from the car.’
They sat hunched over the table, talking softly, pushing knives and forks across the cloth and playing with small crumbs of bread. Those initial minutes of violence receding into the past, they were like travellers previously lost in a blizzard who found themselves safe for the moment beside the fire. Muriel alone crouched silent in her chair; now and then her eyes strayed to the blue pram in the kitchen. Alma was incensed, on Binny’s behalf, at the broken window and the mutilated lampshade. In her view such vandalism was quite unnecessary. She had run away from her own home earlier in the evening because her husband, unable to find any clean socks for the morning, had called her a slut and thrown the milk jug at her. She was willing to admit she’d been remiss – though they weren’t her socks and he hadn’t as far as she knew an allergy to soap – but he’d given her no time before taking aim.
‘I’ve a good mind to have a word with that Harry man,’ she said. ‘It was very naughty of him. Men never think of the mess they make.’
‘Good Lord, don’t,’ warned Edward, full of misgivings. ‘It’s quite the wrong attitude to take. We have to strike up a rapport . . . It’s a question of psychology . . . We’re all in it together. At the same time we must strive to achieve a certain delicate balance between abject cooperation and some degree of firmness. There must be no aggravation, but on the other hand we shouldn’t crawl . . . if you follow me. We should endeavour to show them what’s what—’
Alma smiled.
‘I’ve read about it,’ he said defensively. ‘It’s vital not to seem hostile.’
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