The Family Arsenal

by Paul Theroux

  ‘Leave off!’

  ‘Straight. Tight as anything.’

  ‘Five flaming belts.’

  ‘And nothing else. But there was another one – she was a groupie, too – she had this plastic mac, the transparent kind. She’d put it on and they’d tie her up like a parcel. And then, you know, they’d do stuff to her.’

  From the doorway Hood could see Murf ’s head, inclined forward, listening to Brodie. He looked like a bat; he had the ears and snout and the grey pinched mouse-face, the hunched bony shoulders that were like folded wings. There was a solemnity in the smallness of his head, and the gold ring and cross in his earlobe only called attention to the size of his ears, which stuck out enough for the sun to light them pinkly from behind and show the tracery of their veins.

  Murf said, ‘Deal the cards.’

  Hood entered the room, rapping on the door as he did so and noticing, above the two children sitting naked and crosslegged on their mattress – their sheets twisted about them – the Magic Roundabout poster tacked to the wall with felt pennants nearby (Souvenir of Brighton, Chelsea). On the dresser there was a clothed doll – a stiff-armed Spanish dancer in a mantilla – some cigarette papers, a toy mouse, Murf’s hunting knife, a Chianti bottle with a red candle in the top, a record player and on the turntable a bag of toffees.

  ‘Rise and shine.’

  Brodie turned, smacked a toffee in her mouth and said, ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’ve got a surprise for you. Today, you’re going to leg a bomb in Trafalgar Square. This is the big stuff, right? Get Lord Nelson flat on his back and fry those lions. All you do is stick some jelly on the column and you’re laughing. What do you say?’

  Murf said, ‘He’s garrity.’

  ‘Shut up, bat-face and get your clocks out.’

  ‘Leave him alone,’ said Brodie, glowering at Hood.

  ‘It’s your big day, sweetheart. Better than Euston – and this is only the beginning.’

  ‘Don’t pay no attention to him,’ said Brodie. She shuffled the cards, hit the pack on her knee, and flapping her elbows let the sheet fall from her breasts. They were small and very white behind the russet discs of her childish nipples. She scratched lazily at one with her thumb and said, ‘He’s crazy.’

  Hood stayed in the doorway, watching Brodie cut the cards again. ‘If you think blowing up Nelson’s column is crazy why did you put the bomb in Euston?’

  ‘Maybe they wanted me to. Ever think of that?’

  ‘Deal them bitches,’ said Murf impatiently.

  ‘But you had a reason, right?’

  ‘Yeah. These rich people – they’re messing the other ones about, and like the other ones don’t have anything. I don’t know. It’s all politics and shit.’

  ‘It’s aggro,’ said Murf. ‘The rich ones don’t want to know.’

  ‘What if you were rich?’

  Brodie laughed and cupped her breasts and squeezed them. ‘Heavy!’

  But Murf lowered his head and spoke seriously, muffling his words by jerking his mouth to the side. ‘Well, I wouldn’t be rich like that, for one thing,’ he said. ‘They didn’t earn the money, did they? I mean, someone gave it to them. Their fathers or uncles like.’

  Fing, favvers, unkoos; the boy nodded, putting his ears in shadow. Hood said, ‘But what if someone gave it to you?’

  ‘I never thought of it. Maybe buy myself a boat – one of these cabin cruisers. Or a car. Maybe a stereo. Shit like that.’ He grinned. ‘Maybe start meself a army.’

  ‘Stop hassling him,’ said Brodie, who was both severe and defensive. She was quicker than Murf and seemed to sense he was being mocked. ‘What do you want him to say?’

  ‘Keep your shirt on, sister,’ said Hood. ‘I was just wondering what I’m doing here, so I thought I’d ask you two.’

  ‘I like it here,’ said Murf.

  ‘We don’t get hassled, except by you,’ said Brodie, still sucking the toffee.

  ‘Okay, let’s be friends,’ said Hood, touching her shoulders.

  ‘I think he wants to raise you,’ said Murf.

  ‘Watch it, sonny, or I’ll kick you through that window, ears and all.’

  In a low voice, Murf said, ‘Deal them cards.’

  ‘This is for you.’ Hood handed Brodie the envelope and told her what Mayo had said, making her repeat the instructions. Murf took the cards from Brodie’s lap and dealt them. Once, Hood had seen the boy play solitaire, shuffling and cutting the pack carefully, and arranging the cards on the table; and he had noticed how, muttering his tuneless chant, boom widdy-widdy, he had paused, wet his thumb and cheated.

  ‘We’ll need fares,’ said Brodie.

  ‘You’ve got money.’

  ‘Spent it.’ She sucked the toffee, held it in her teeth and opened her mouth for Hood to see, making a face.

  ‘Here.’ Hood gave her a pound.

  ‘It ain’t enough.’

  ‘It’s plenty.’

  ‘A quid and all,’ said Murf, still dealing the cards. ‘Maybe buy meself a boat with that.’

  Before they went out they dressed themselves in Indian shirts, long muslim smocks with flowers embroidered on them – Brodie’s was sleeveless and showed her tattoo. They wore wristlets, strings of amber blobs and dungarees that had been patched and sewn with badges and army insignia; they carried shoulder-bags they had bought at a jumble sale in Deptford. These flapping costumes made Hood think not of gypsies but of children dressed up as gypsies, amateur players slouching down Albacore Crescent and past the pillar box to some trivial farce. Their costumes revealed more of what was childish in them than their nakedness had. Play-actors –but they could not be blamed: they did what they were told. They disappeared at the end of the road, near the melancholy sight of a man in blue overalls brushing up a circus poster.

  Hood had known what to do – the thought had been with him all week – but his certainty made him delay. Certitude unmarked by doubt was suspect, a trap, and he had been proved wrong too recently not to pause. He had been so sure of the dark flaws in the Rogier self-portrait, and then beneath the caked varnish and all the dusty black he had seen the pinpricks of swallowing light, the change in the man’s expression, the riot at the window. And Weech: he had obeyed that impulse without a single doubt. Now he wondered if he had made a mistake. He hadn’t counted on the wife and child: he owed that family something.

  Mayo was certain, but Mayo’s movements were brisk with evasion. Hood had always visualized the business of plotting as something which went on all day and late into the night – the poring over plans, the scenarios of assault and siege, the meetings, gaining a controlling advantage by stealth. The exercise of secret crafts. But where was the craft? Mayo watched television when she was in the house, and though she spent some afternoons away from Deptford, when Hood asked her where she had been, she’d say ‘Shopping’ and prove it with a bag of groceries. She never had visitors; he had seen no-one at the house but her and the two children, marriage’s parody enacted in a Deptford hideout that had become a family home. So he was kept at the edge of action, captive in the kind of solitude that can madden. He had come so far for that, and the inaction worked on him, it roused him, lit his imagination – he was made furious by the continual stalling.

  He put Weech’s wallet, the money and the bunch of keys in the pocket of his black raincoat. He had given the widow time to leave, but he would be quick – get inside and leave the stuff, then split; he wouldn’t snoop. Already what he knew of the woman depressed him: he didn’t want to know any more. He went to the house, slid the key in the lock and eased the door open.

  The house was unusually cold, holding a chill on its walls that muted the sounds of his entering. His face tightened in the morgue-like air, as if the whole place was made of stone slabs that were masked by the arsenic-coloured wallpaper. He waited in the damp passage and listened before proceeding further into the closed clammy rooms, noticing the toys, the telephone directories heaped by the ph
one. The rooms were neat, bare, anonymous: a sitting room, a dining room – a few pieces of new furniture, a table, a television, a shelf of china figures. A plastic clock filled the tiny kitchen with its ticking. He would leave the money there, weight it with the wallet and keys, and go; but he paused and looked again in the sitting room and began to prowl.

  On the upstairs landing there was a twisted slipper, and further on a throttled cloth animal. He tried the doors: a toilet, a bedroom with a white wardrobe and a mirror reflecting a counter of jars and bottles; then a child’s room with an unmade cot and a clutter of toys and torn comics. The frail claim of habitation in the layer of cheap objects. But there were two more rooms. They were locked, and Hood fished out Weech’s bunch of keys and opened the first room. It was filled. Light filtering through the drawn net curtains fell on a great heap of merchandise, a solid wall of brown cartons, a row of new televisions – some still padded in bars of plastic foam; and among these were small objects, radios, record-players, hair-dryers shaped like pistols, and hubcaps, automobile chrome, sink fittings, cameras. He read the cartons: they were cases of cigarettes, tobacco, whisky, perfume, and the boxes lent to the stale air of the room a cardboard aroma of newness. The floor was so littered with goods there was no room for Hood to walk.

  In the last room, also locked, there were old newspapers tied into bales, and a broken bed, a lampshade, a sofa with a burst seat and two large tin trunks, padlocked. There were markings on the trunks, numerals, the word Maatschappij and a Dutch name. Hood found the right keys and released the hasps, opened the padlock on the biggest one and lifted the lid. And he whistled. Inside, piled on top, were Sten guns which had been broken down, barrels lying beside stocks; digging down he found boxes and clips of ammunition. The second trunk held more ammunition, low-calibre pistols and fist-sized grenades, and what he recognized as Armalite rifles. The sight of this small arsenal made him self-conscious. Without examining it further, he shut the trunks and securing that room, went back to the first room to make sure it was locked.

  He was trying the door when he heard a bang and the rattle of a glass pane downstairs; then a thud, a child hitting the floor. Finally, a woman’s voice: ‘– because I said so, that’s why!’ He heard footsteps downstairs, the woman crossing the house, the sound of the radio being switched on, the child yelling. He locked the door and pocketed the keys.

  He did not sneak. He coughed and came down the stairs hard to alert the woman, and before he had gone ten steps he heard the radio switched off and the sound of her running to the foot of the staircase. She drew back when she saw him and tried to speak, but before she could utter a word Hood said with easy familiarity, ‘Can’t seem to find your gas meter anywhere, lady. Where do you hide it?’

  ‘Who are you?’ The woman was breathless with fear, and she did not seem to notice the child kneeling behind her, holding her legs. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ said Hood, continuing down the stairs. ‘Say, he’s a big fella. Hello, tiger.’

  ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘The door was open a mile,’ said Hood, still grinning. ‘I was upstairs waiting for you to come back.’

  ‘You’re from Rutter,’ said the woman.

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Bastard. Well, you can tell him it’s all locked – you’ve seen for yourself. I don’t have the key.’

  ‘I’ll tell him that.’

  ‘Send you around, did he?’

  ‘Nope. I don’t work for him,’ said Hood. ‘He works for me.’

  ‘I’ve seen you somewhere,’ said the woman. ‘But you ain’t English.’

  ‘Maybe you haven’t heard about the American branch.’

  ‘Ron never mentioned it. But he never told me anything. Look,’ she said impatiently, ‘I want that stuff out of here and fast. The coppers’ll be asking – Oh, Christ!’ She pushed the child aside.

  Hood said, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘So you just walk into people’s houses? You’ve got some nerve!’ The woman had become calmer, and calm she regained her indignation. She glared at Hood. ‘Okay, you’ve had your look, now get out.’

  ‘Who’s that man, Mummy?’ The boy whined, thumping her leg.

  ‘Big kid,’ said Hood. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Jason. He’s a villain. Just like his dad.’

  Hood said nothing. He looked at the boy’s large head and saw the man’s malice.

  ‘Were you a mate of Ron’s?’

  Hood hesitated, then said, ‘I knew him.’

  ‘Some layabout done him.’

  ‘So I heard.’ He stared, trying to perceive a reaction on the woman’s face.

  She shrugged. ‘He was asking for it. He thought he was so flash, with all his big talk about his connections, Rutter and all. And look what he leaves me with – two rooms full of stolen junk.’

  ‘Do you know what’s in there?’

  ‘I don’t want to know, but if the coppers get wind of it they’ll break the bloody door down.’

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ said Hood.

  ‘That’s what Ron used to say. You’re just like him – all talk, and underneath you’re nothing.’

  ‘Maybe I’d better go,’ he said. He wanted to be away; he wished he hadn’t seen the arsenal, the strewn toys, the woman in the cold house. For the first time he felt his anger turning against him, souring into guilt, endlessly repeating. It was physical self-loathing, as if his skin had gone scaly and trapped the sour feeling in him. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  ‘What are you afraid of?’ said the woman. ‘Me?’

  Jason began to slam a toy car on the floor and make the grunting sounds of a motor.

  ‘I’ll be all right,’ said the woman, mocking. ‘Eighteen quid a week, widow’s pension. And all his big talk about Rutter.’ She walked down the passage to the kitchen, and Hood followed, stepping over the child. The kitchen was a narrow cubicle: a tiny table, a shelf of cups, a worn biscuit tin, the plastic clock and a sink with a scrubbed wooden drainboard. Having seen that he could not leave her, she put a kettle on the stove and when she turned to him again her face was creased.

  ‘It must be tough,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not what you think. Not Ron. He was a real bastard – he nearly killed me once. Used to throw things. Always walking out on me and then coming back. He had to come back – for the kid, for the stuff upstairs.’ She sighed, and now Hood saw a slight scar, a half-inch of whiteness on one of her eyebrows. ‘It’s locked. I’ll bet there’s tons of it. I can’t sleep thinking about it – it’s stolen, you know, every bit of it.’

  ‘I can help you get rid of it.’

  ‘It’s all locked.’

  ‘I’ll pick the lock.’

  ‘I still won’t get to sleep.’

  ‘Maybe I can take care of that, too.’

  ‘I’ve tried sleeping pills. They don’t work.’

  ‘Not sleeping pills.’

  ‘Bit of the other, eh?’ The woman set out two cups. ‘Just like Ron.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Hood. ‘I’ve got what you need.’

  The woman eyed him suspiciously. ‘You weren’t waiting. You sneaked in here. What do you want from me?’

  ‘I was waiting for you,’ Hood said, and he sat down.

  7

  In the train, Brodie licked the cigarette, set its twisted end on fire, puffed it hard and passed it to Murf, who crooked his skinny fingers like tongs on a coal and sucked a lungful of smoke from it. He gave it back wheezing a gust of air the colour of steam: ‘Fanks.’

  They rode with their feet braced on cushions in an empty eight-seat compartment, rocking away from Deptford. The great brown warehouses flew at them, knocking the train’s own clatter through the window with an odour of rope and fried bricks. Smoking pot usually flung them into hilarity: they tasted marvels. The sun glanced on the river between buildings and shone in the mirror on the wall opposite, spangling the ceiling with swimming reflections like discs
of light from water. The mirror flashed a window of blue sky at them, caught more of the river’s dazzle, a boat dissolving into a prism, a jumping council estate. Murf crept over to it and drew out a broken crayon. He wrinkled his nose, set his bat’s face against it, and scrawled on the glass ARSENAL RULE.

  ‘Freaks me out, that does,’ said Brodie.

  ‘You got a buzz on,’ said Murf.

  ‘No,’ she said, pointing to what Murf had written on the mirror. ‘That. They’ll think it’s football villains.’

  ‘Forget it.’ He took the cigarette, puffed it and passed it back. ‘Football villains don’t do that.’

  ‘They do and all,’ said Brodie. ‘Write stuff all over the shop.’

  ‘Get off. I’ll show you.’ He took his hunting knife from its sheath and kneeling on the seat swung at the mirror, landing the knob of the handle on its centre. There was a crunch; the mirror at once deepened and glittered and a web of hairline cracks shot from the bevelled edge and met at a crusty dent. But the spikes of glass, held together by a tight chrome frame, did not fall. Seeing that the train was drawing into London Bridge station Murf scrambled to a sitting position and grinned at the shattered mirror. ‘That’s what them football villains do. Make holes.’

  ‘The viwuns mike owls,’ mocked Brodie, screwing up her face. ‘Here, hold this roach. Give me your blade.’

  She looked to the side. The train had drawn out of the station. Now the shimmering river was close and she could see across the water to the Monument, its bright gold head ablaze on the tall column and behind it the lid and spires of St Paul’s on a hill of low silver-blue towers. She stood unsteadily, hesitating at every intrusion of the city passing beside the train. She raised the knife to strike the cushion. They pulled into Waterloo.

  ‘I hate these stopping trains,’ she said, and put the knife down.

  The compartment door opened, and a woman with a shopping basket got in. Murf snatched the knife and slipped it beneath his shirt.

  ‘It’s the last hit.’ Brodie gave him the cigarette.

  ‘This is a non-smoker,’ said the woman. She sniffed, muttered and threw down the window.