Moggerhanger

by Alan Sillitoe

  “He soon saw what a mistake he’d made. As the years went on he got to hate me, and couldn’t hide it. He’d kick me about as soon as I’d done something wrong, which I didn’t know I’d done, so after a while I just had to give as good as I got. When I crumbled up fifty of his best cigars I got a good kicking, but it only made me do something else to get my own back. It was ding-dong all the way.

  “He turned into a savage, so I got fed up with defying him. You can’t win with somebody like that, so after I was thrown out of school I tried to be as he wanted me to be. It was never good enough, though. He went on criticising, and I couldn’t stand being criticised. If I’m criticised I get worse.”

  His eyes were enflamed, lank hair flailing as he shook his head, but he kept the gun at a proper angle. I hoped that whatever drug he’d taken wasn’t the sort that would send him completely off his trolley. “Nobody can take criticism,” I said, as much to myself as to him, wondering whether it was after all better to be shot to death rather than bored to death. Because the silence went on longer than I thought good for me I added: “Life is never easy.”

  “You see?” he shouted. “That’s just what my so-called father’s always coming out with. ‘Life is never easy, Malcolm,’ he always says.” He waved the gun, and I thought my time had come. “He says it all the fucking time. It’s the same tune over and over.”

  He put out his tongue to wet the tip of his finger, and drew it across his throat. “I’ve had it up to here with him.” I only wished there’d been a superfine Gillette attached.

  He went on with a perfect mimicking of Moggerhanger, but it would have been stupid to applaud. “‘I pushed my mother’s mangle when I was three.’ That’s the least I got out of him. But he did no such thing. I went through his secret papers one day and found that his father worked on the railway and earned fair money, till he was caught slitting open registered mail and got sent down for five years. He’d kept the newspaper clippings, and I read them. It left him with a grudge against society that turned him into the crookedest bastard on earth. He never turned his mother’s mangle at any age, not him, though he would have done if shillings had dropped out every time the wheel went round.”

  A laugh from me would mean a bullet, and I felt too young to die. Moggerhanger groaned from his armchair, and shouted: “You’re a liar, Malcolm. None of it’s true. I come from a good family!”

  Malcolm—I’ll use his real name—told Jericho Jim to keep me in line, then walked calmly to his would-be father and bashed the side of his face with the handle of the gun. I was enraged at him hitting a man—even Moggerhanger—while he was down, but I stayed cool. At least he didn’t empty half the magazine into him—or me—but it was the sort of family party I couldn’t bear being a guest at. It was hard to think what Malcolm in his paranoid state expected to gain by murder, except the rest of his life in Broadmoor, and therefore a new nickname.

  Satisfaction at the vicious attack on his helpless father put a terrifying expression on his already demented clock, his mood for further violence suggesting that the next person he’d have a go at would be me, because however many he murdered wouldn’t mean a longer sentence than staying inside for the rest of his life. “You’re shitting yourself, aren’t you, Cullen?”

  I wasn’t, though felt too near it for either comfort or pride.

  “Yes you are. I can tell. You won’t be Lord-fucking-Moggerhanger’s golden boy much longer.”

  I heard a barking which Malcolm, if he registered it, must have thought came from a sheep dog on a nearby farm. “It’s up to you,” I said. “Do what you like.”

  “A hero, are you? Moggerhanger’s sort to the end? You’re scum, that’s all I know. And I should know, because I’ve met a lot like you in my life.” He pressed the trigger, an enormous crack, the shell passing almost close enough to sizzle the top of my head. I ducked a couple of feet, at least, which pleased him.

  “Nervous, aren’t you?” I was probably white faced as well, and certainly having trouble keeping my legs steady. He might go on playing for hours, hoping to get me on my knees crying for mercy. The time had come to rush him, hoping for a wound rather than death. My idea was to push him across the line of fire from Jericho Jim, who had looked all the time as if not seeing the point of Malcolm’s self-indulgence.

  Luckily the noise of the shot brought deliverance, and none too soon, because the remains of the window flew to even smaller pieces, and Dismal’s dark muscular bloodhound length came straight at the maniac’s back, throwing him and his shooter towards me with such force I had to leap clear, though I didn’t stay there long, because while Dismal chewed at Malcolm’s arm like the Hound of the Baskervilles who had been on short commons for a month, I picked the gun up, and Bill got Jericho Jim in such a half-nelson that from the petrification of his simple features I thought he was being choked to death.

  “A spot of the old unarmed combat doesn’t come amiss,” Bill said. “I’d have had the shooters off them in two seconds, if I had been you. You were slow, Michael. I think you’d benefit from a refresher course.”

  At Malcolm’s screams I pulled Dismal away, rags of jacket in his teeth. “You took your time. What the hell kept you?”

  Bill kicked Jericho Jim down, to let him know his place. “Michael, I never expected you to fall into a trap like this. What were you thinking of? I saw you from the bushes through my binoculars, and couldn’t believe my eyes. And you ask what took me so long? Just take that shade of disapproval off your face, and I’ll tell you.”

  He gave Jericho Jim another penalty kick and, as if to equalise, a heavy-duty one to Malcolm. “On the way up the hill Dismal caught a pheasant, and I was good-natured enough to let him finish it for his tea. You know how particular he is regarding his messing arrangements. Then I demobilised the intruders’ car parked by the front door. The best mechanic in the world won’t get that going again—but it took time.”

  Moggerhanger’s tone when he called me over confirmed sixty years of distress suffered in the last couple of hours. I went to him with some sympathy at his ordeal, while Bill finished searching Malcolm and Jericho Jim, who because of the sudden blitzkreig, allowed him to do so without bother. He gave them a further taste of fist and boot, not that they didn’t deserve it, but mostly to make sure they’d be incapable of harming anyone for a few days. “It’s a case for taking no prisoners,” he winked at me. “I could shoot them while trying to escape, but it’s their luck we’re in a civilised country, and have to abide by the Geneva Convention.”

  “The one Dismal’s eyeing so hungrily is our employer’s, son,” I told him, “so don’t give him too much stick.”

  “Michael, I can’t abide spite. But what he’s done to Lord Moggerhanger is all the more reason to make the tike fear for his life.” He gave Malcolm another good buffet. “I’ve come across him a time or two in the past, and never liked him. He’s a total scumbag.”

  Blood was running down Moggerhanger’s face from a mess of cuts and bruises, and I pulled Dismal away from trying to lick it better. “Get the first aid kit from the kitchen,” he said, “and take that damned dog with you.”

  I got back with the medical box and a bowl of water, and told Bill to patch the gaffer up. “You’ve had plenty of experience doctoring walking wounded in the War. Maybe there’s some morphine in it.”

  Moggerhanger overheard. “I don’t want any of that. You should know by now I don’t take drugs.”

  Malcolm cried on the floor, hands attempting to reach every sore point at once. He’d probably never had such a pasting, not even from Moggerhanger, in spite of all he’d said.

  Bill swabbed gently at the boss’s face, dabbed with iodine and plied with plasters. “You’ll be as right as rain soon, sir. They’re not Blighty one’s.”

  “That may be so, you fake bloody soldier, but it’s giving me gyp.” He flinched at the treatment, but called me over. “I need
a cigar, Michael, from the bureau over there. It used to be locked, but you can get in now.”

  “What shall we do with the prisoners, sir?” Bill asked. “Or maybe I should do a bit of debriefing first.”

  “Leave that to me. I’ll make them wish they’d never been born. But I owe you. I won’t forget.”

  “Thank you, sir. Luckily we had our dog for shock troops.”

  “Go easy on that iodine. I don’t want a bath in it.” After he’d lit his cigar, with a shaking hand that needed steadying by me, I went to Alice Whipplegate as she opened her lovely eyes. I leaned over, wondering whether to kickstart her with an orgasm, or give a few easy slaps for recovery. “I can feel myself coming out of it,” she said, “but I feel horribly sick. That vile sadist made me drink a bottle of whisky, or near enough.”

  Bill, hearing this, put his medicaments down and strolled to give Malcolm another kick as he was halfway to his feet, so that he fell down again. “I’ll learn you, you tramp, treating a woman like that.”

  Nature or nurture, I wouldn’t know, but Malcolm, who had some guts due to a long association with Moggerhanger, shouted: “I’ll get you for that. I’ll find you, wherever you are, you fucking pimp.”

  “Fair enough,” Bill said, “but you just try. I’ll tell you where to look, before you start the long walk to London.” He gave him another. “You deserve to do every mile on your hands and knees.”

  “Give the weasel some stick, by all means, but leave a bit of him for me.” I marvelled at Moggerhanger’s strength, as he managed the short walk, and shook a big fist with two rings on it at Malcolm’s face: “You ungrateful animal. After all I’ve done for you.” He landed a couple of heavy blows. “I’m in pain, and nobody gets away with that. I haven’t started on you yet.” I shivered to think what would happen when he became nasty—though he turned out to be more merciful than if Malcolm had been his real son.

  Alice, weak on her feet, took my arm to stay upright as I walked her onto the terrace, leaving Bill to sort out the debris in the sitting room. “Thank God you came when you did,” she said, “or my liver would have gone bang. And God knows what Parkhurst would have got up to. He and Jericho were waiting when we got here. While Jericho pointed the gun at Lord Moggerhanger, Parkhurst knocked him about terribly. Then he threatened to kill me. I screamed, which was a mistake, because it only made him behave worse. He put on a fiendish look, and made me finish a bottle of whisky. I was so drunk I didn’t care what he did, as long as he didn’t rape me. And he might have done that if you hadn’t come. I owe you as well, as the boss said.”

  Concealed by the bushes, a smell of damp soil and wet grass which I hoped might help to clear her faculties, she fell into my arms for a rewarding kiss, until breaking free to retch her guts up. I laid a hand at the small of her back, bending her well over for more throwings. “Get rid of it, then I’ll take you inside for some strong black coffee, like they do in the movies.” The sun, on its way down, showed through clouds drifting over the hills, and at her shivering I put my jacket across her shoulders.

  I made coffee for everyone, and took a cup to the dining room, where Moggerhanger was sorting papers from his briefcase. Bill, having set Dismal to guard the prisoners, had done a tolerable job at clearing up. The Chippendales, one on three legs, were out of the fireplace, and the Staffordshire pot dogs (minus heads) languished on the shelf. The cabinet of precious china stood upright, cups back on hooks but every second one missing. A bookcase without its glass housed the racing almanacks, and the Landseer, neatly patched with sellotape, hung on the wall. Everything else had been swept up and placed in two large buckets on the terrace. “All ready,” Bill grinned, putting his jacket back on, “for the CO’s inspection.”

  The coffee treatment worked so well that Alice foraged in the kitchen cupboards and the deepfreeze to get something going for supper. Spleen Manor, like all of Moggerhanger’s properties (except Peppercorn Cottage, which was for the lower orders) was well provisioned, perhaps for the day when he had to withstand a siege.

  I helped to take plates and cutlery into the dining room. Moggerhanger lifted off his horn-rimmed glasses: “I’m glad to see everybody’s mucking in, and that there aren’t any demarcation disputes.”

  Bill, as if not waiting for it to be said that beer was good enough for the other ranks, set out wine glasses for everybody. “Beg to report, sir, the drawing room is in as good a condition as can be expected. You can come and look at it now, but what am I to do about the POWs?”

  He got up. “I’d better give them a talking to. I haven’t had a backache like this for a long time.”

  “It’s my duty to inform you, sir, that we must respect the Geneva Convention.”

  “Get out of my way, you bloody fool,” but his laugh was encouraging, as far as a flake of loving kindness went for his son: “I won’t kill the swine. It would be too good for them.”

  “Prisoner, stand up, or you’ll get my boot,” Bill shouted. “Commanding officer present! Stand against the wall. What a bloody shower. Come on, chin in, chest out, stomach in, hands by the seams of your trousers, or your mother won’t know you when you come out of the glasshouse!” He turned to Moggerhanger. “That’s the best I can do with them, sir.”

  Dismal tried to push his prisoners back to the floor. “Call that dog off.” Moggerhanger stood before them, not speaking for a while. Poor little Jericho Jim had a hand at his face, waiting for a meaty mauler to start thumping away: “It wasn’t my fault, sir. He made me do it.”

  “Shut up, you whining prat,” Malcolm said, looking at Moggerhanger as if he’d never give up wanting to kill him.

  “Nobody knows more than me that vengeance is mine,” Moggerhanger told them, “but I hate violence. Violence never did any good, and more often than not it only led to more violence. Now, you two overstepped the mark, and in normal circumstances I would put you where you couldn’t cause any more mischief, but seeing that one of you is my only son—adopted or not—I’m going to let you off with a caution. At the same time I never want to see either of you again. You’ve already got enough bruises from the sergeant-major here, who’s saved me a bit of energy. Get off the premises, before I change my mind and bury you in concrete.”

  “I’ve put paid to their transport,” Bill said. “I should have destabilised it in such a way that they’d have had the sort of accident on the motorway from which no man can recover with limbs intact, but at least they’ll have a long walk as far as Ripon.”

  Malcolm was testing the waters a bit too bravely on saying: “Can we call a taxi, dad? My shoes aren’t made for walking.”

  “So it’s ‘dad’ again, is it?” Moggerhanger, tall and solidly built, looked like a raddled pirate, plasters on both cheeks and the rest of his flesh bruised, waistcoat button less and jacket torn, and as if about to march both of them outside, to walk a specially prepared plank into a sea of acid.

  Instead he gave each a weighty smash in the stomach which bent them double: “Out, the pair of you, before I get angry. Straw, see them off the grounds. When you come back use your Desert Rat expertise and peg a tarpaulin over the French windows, in case it rains, which it’s bound to do in this area. Michael, make a cheerful fire in the dining room. There’s central heating, but we’ve got plenty of coal, and it burns well enough, even though it was probably dug out of the earth by children in South America because all our mines are closing down.”

  “Just the ticket,” Bill said. “A blaze in the hearth’s good for morale.”

  Moggerhanger ignored his remark. “I’m going upstairs to get these rags off my back, and to phone my lovely wife about what happened. I won’t forget to mention all of you in despatches. Alice, put a few bottles of the best champagne in the refrigerator.”

  Bill marched his prisoners into a cloud of leaves blowing across the terrace as if scores of butterflies had been let loose. I went back to do my boy scout stuf
f, chips of the best Chippendales for kindling under coal and logs. By the time Moggerhanger came downstairs, looking a lot more presentable than when he went up, flames were clap-handing so high I hoped the chimney had been recently swept.

  Bill sat on a high stool in the kitchen, a whisky in one hand and a ham sandwich in the other, watching Alice at the Aga, while Dismal worried a leg of half-frozen lamb around the floor. Bill picked it up and washed it at the sink to get the saliva off, then put it in a pan for Alice to baste. “I marched them to the road,” he said, “which isn’t very far, but they were limping before they got there. Even a bayonet at the behind wouldn’t have made them go any faster. It’s a shame nobody does National Service anymore. You used to see lots of smart youngsters about, but not these days. Everybody’s as soft as you know what. I can’t think what the country would do in an emergency.”

  “People would come up to scratch just as they always have,” Alice said, laying out platters of prawns, anchovies, smoked salmon, and strips of avocado for a first course. “Do you think Lord Moggerhanger will approve of this, and then roast lamb with potatoes, and a green salad? There’ll be tinned fruit and yoghurt for dessert.”

  “It’s more than any of us expected,” I said.

  “If anybody, with regard to Alice’s magnificent effort, had made such a remark in my platoon,” Bill said, “I would have put them on a charge for defeatism. She’s producing a meal fit for the gods—which is what we deserve.”

  Moggerhanger was already at the head of the dining room table when we filed in, gold cufflinks glistening, his solid proprietorial presence weighing us up, a half smile on his complacent juff at having come through the worst experience of his life. He squeezed the top of the champagne bottle, and let the cork smack the ceiling.

  Alice, who faced him along the table, wore a navy blue skirt and white blouse, with a frilly bit of muslin at the throat. Her features softened with relief as if only now realising her close-run escape from a serious mishandling by Malcolm. Her unmistakably amorous glance at me led to the hope that I would be able to get into bed with her later.