The Family Arsenal

by Paul Theroux

  He pushed the bell and set a dog yapping inside. The gnome-faced woman with freckles answered the door, the puppy under her arm yelping and choking like a child in tears. He had been told this woman’s name; he could not remember it. Tomorrow, seismic, was at the front of his mind. He removed his bowler hat and said, ‘I believe we’ve met.’

  ‘Araba’s waiting for you,’ said the little woman.

  ‘I’m in here,’ called Araba, and when Mr Gawber found her in her loose blue dressing gown in the sunny room he was ashamed for having seen the house so furiously destroyed. He had confounded himself with exaggeration – surely that was insanity, not magic? Araba said, ‘I’m sorry you had to come here like this, but honestly there’s no one else who can help me.’

  ‘It’s no trouble,’ said Mr Gawber. ‘It gives me a chance to see your lovely house.’

  ‘You don’t think it’s corny? I always wanted to live in the country – I had to get out of Chelsea. It was so stifling. We’re going to grow our own vegetables here.’

  Mr Gawber joined her at the window as she indicated the half-dug garden, a vertical spade in a small rectangle of hacked earth, like the beginnings of a cemetery plot, her own grave. He saw frailty on the actress’s face, lines of indecision he had never noticed before, deepened by shadow. It was more than the shaken guarded look that women habitually had, vulnerable in dressing gowns in their own homes; it was a threatened wincing expression, as if she had, shortly before he entered, heard a very loud noise. And dramatizing this with tragic pats on his arm she passed the unease to him, made him apprehensive, so that staring through the window to what looked to be a family graveyard he could only say, ‘No, I couldn’t agree more.’

  She peered abstractly over the hedge as if into the past, and the abstraction in her eyes entered her voice as a drawl when she said, ‘Wat Tyler marched over there, on that road. He was a fantastic person. He was into revolt before people knew the word. God, why aren’t there people like that anymore?’

  ‘Good question.’ Wat Tyler, the lunatic with the pitch-fork, leading his mob of gaffers? ‘I wish I knew the answer.’

  Suddenly Araba said, ‘You know, I’ve never been honest with you.’

  He didn’t know how to reply. He said, ‘I never knew Wat Tyler had been here. I’m so glad you said that. Puts it all in a new light.’

  ‘But you’ve always been honest with me,’ she said, ignoring Mr Gawber, who was nodding studiously at the heath. ‘You’ve always told me the truth.’

  ‘I suppose I have,’ he said. ‘But there it is.’

  ‘I was really touched that you came to the play. It meant something.’

  ‘A very great pleasure,’ he said, and pretending to look at his shoes he glanced at his watch. Nearly ten. What did the woman want?

  ‘When I saw you there I knew you believed in me. You’ll stand by me and help me no matter what.’

  He said, ‘It’s the least I can do.’

  ‘I admire your frankness – it’s something I never learned.’

  My frankness? What have I ever exposed? But her statement gave him courage and he said, ‘I think I should tell you the tax people have been onto me again.’ He reached for his briefcase. ‘I have the correspondence somewhere here.’

  ‘Don’t show me!’ She walked to the far end of the room, fleeing the letters he held. ‘I couldn’t bear that. No, put them away.’

  He stuffed them into the briefcase. ‘They think we’re dragging our feet.’

  ‘What have you told them?’

  ‘The standard thing. Thank you for yours of the et cetera. We are awaiting instruction from our client et cetera. Yours faithfully.’ He frowned. ‘They think we’re being a bit bolshie.’

  ‘Perhaps we are.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more.’

  ‘But that’s not what I wanted to discuss,’ she said.

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Mister Gawber, that fellow you brought to the play –’

  ‘Mister Hood,’ he said. ‘Very interesting chap.’

  ‘Is he a friend of yours?’

  ‘I suppose he is. I must say he was quite taken with you.’

  ‘Really,’ she said, and her tone softened. ‘I was hoping you could tell me something about him.’

  ‘There’s not an awful lot I can tell you,’ he said. ‘I met him purely by accident some time ago. He’s become a client.’ He thought of Hood. A friendly sort. He had enjoyed his company, but Miss Nightwing was causing him distress. He wondered if at a certain age one turned to other men for consolation. Women didn’t turn to other women; they never lost their appetite for men – they still hungered at sixty. But he had only been at ease with men, and he was glad to be acting for Hood – that weekly cheque. Odd request; but it was an odd business.

  ‘American, isn’t he?’

  ‘What’s that? Oh, yes. But one of your better sort.’

  ‘The thing is,’ said Araba, and as she moved towards him companionably her dressing gown fell open. Mr Gawber saw her nakedness and the shock blinded him. He went shy. She said, ‘The thing is, I was counting on you to tell me where he lives. McGravy and I are giving a little party and we wanted to invite him. I said to McGravy, “I know. I’ll ask Mister Gawber. He’ll be glad to tell me.” ’

  Mr Gawber laughed and said, ‘I’d love to help you out.’

  ‘Good,’ said Araba.

  ‘But I’m afraid I can’t,’ he went on. ‘Business. Silly rule, really. I don’t divulge clients’ addresses. I’ve been asked enough times for yours, my dear. I always say, “My lips are sealed,” and hope the person won’t press me too hard.’

  She said, ‘But you have always been so frank with me.’

  ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘I am being frank with you now. I can’t tell you a thing.’

  ‘All I want to know is his address. So I can contact him for this party. Surely you understand?’

  He couldn’t look. The question was pardonable; but the nakedness? The dressing gown flapped. Did she know she was naked? The whiteness at the edge of his eye chilled him like snow, and he felt fear, like frost, in his own joints. He had been frozen in just that way, faced by a strange drooling dog on a footpath.

  ‘I understand perfectly,’ he said almost sorrowfully to the window, which held in its glaze segments of her body. Why was she putting him through this? ‘But I can’t help you. I must be going. I’m late for work as it is.’

  ‘Mister Gawber, I won’t let you go unless you tell me.’ She closed in on him carelessly. He folded his arms to block the view, but saw on her face an unreasonable wrath: his refusal had upset her – more than that, unhinged her. She took it personally. If she touches me I’ll scream. He wanted to be out of the house, and he thought: I will never come here again for any purpose whatsoever. He said, ‘You’re going to catch your death like that.’

  ‘I don’t care.’ She pushed at her dressing gown, but the white fabric was her own flesh.

  ‘It’s parky.’ His eyes hurt.

  ‘Tell me – I must know!’

  ‘This is very awkward,’ he said.

  Araba raised one leg and put her foot on the seat of a chair. Her thigh shook. She said, ‘Don’t you have any feelings?’

  ‘A compromise, then.’ He straightened himself. He had seen under her flat belly a clinging mouse. ‘I’ll meet you halfway. Give me a note and I’ll see that he gets it. That’s simple enough.’

  Araba said, ‘You’ve never let me down before this. Why are you protecting him? Has he something to hide?’

  ‘I respect privacy – yours, anyone’s.’

  ‘I have nothing to hide!’ said Araba and opened her dressing gown, showing her body: a narrow column of ice, the coldest candle he had ever seen. Once, she had told him she was a bitch. He had denied it, but now he saw the accuracy of it. How was it possible for the actress to play a bitch and not have malice in her? The bitch, the whore, the nag, the shrew: they lived in the actress, she gave them voice. She co
uld not be forgiven her roles.

  ‘Try to understand,’ he pleaded, memorizing the carpet’s blooms.

  ‘All right, have it your own way,’ she said, and wrapped herself again in blue. ‘I’ll send you a letter. But if he doesn’t reply I’m bound to be a bit suspicious.’

  ‘I quite agree,’ said Mr Gawber. ‘But I’m sure he’ll be in touch with you. He seems a most dependable sort of chap.’

  Araba said, ‘I never realized until now you hated me so much.’

  He tried to reassure her, but he saw how he was failing at it and he left. Outside, his confusion hardened into anger: he raged, he swore, and again in the grassy cemetery of the heath he saw the shadow of a seam preparing to part for the canyon of a mass grave, to swallow it all. The calamity – but no, it was only a cloud passing overhead. Not yet, not yet.

  16

  ‘You like them?’ She was wearing white thigh-length boots; the short black skirt was new as well, and standing before him she reminded him of a tropical bird with slender legs, a small-bodied heron raising her head and flicking her tail before taking flight. She walked up and down for him – the boots made her taller: not the slouching flat-footed girl anymore but a preening woman. Perhaps sensing the novelty of her height, she stood straighter and danced towards him, laughing. Then she sat down beside him and smoothed the boots. ‘I’ve always wanted ones like these. Real leather.’

  ‘Classy,’ said Hood. He knew they were out of fashion elsewhere, but they were still considered chic in Deptford.

  ‘You don’t think they make me look like a tart?’ She narrowed her eyes and peered sideways at him.

  ‘A little bit,’ he said. ‘Maybe that’s why I like them.’

  ‘I’ll go up the Broadway looking for pick-ups.’

  ‘You could make a fortune as a hooker,’ he said. ‘I’d take a cut.’

  ‘Funny,’ she said. ‘First time I seen you I took you for a ponce. Ron knew a lot of them. They’d come sniffing around for him. Something about the eyes. You’ve got mean eyes.’

  ‘And you’ve got a nice ass,’ he said.

  ‘You think so?’ She wriggled on the sofa. She laughed. ‘Me, I’m a raver – you don’t know!’

  ‘A new skirt, too,’ he said. ‘Nice.’

  ‘Got a blouse upstairs. I’m saving that for later. You can almost see through it.’

  ‘The hooker,’ he said.

  She wrinkled her nose. ‘It don’t matter.’

  The new clothes flattered her, and he knew they were for him. Lately, Lorna had begun to dress up for his afternoon visits. Suspicious at first, she had worn old dresses and slippers in the house as if to challenge his interest. She said, ‘Don’t mind me – I usually pig it around the house.’ But he noticed that she always made up her face and wore a white raincoat and silk scarf when she took Jason to the playgroup – for the other mothers. With time she relaxed; she sat in her dressing gown and drank coffee with him, talking with trusting familiarity, as if they had spent the night together. Hood had not responded to her clothes; he imagined her in other clothes, a riding outfit, a leather suit, a great robe; he played with the idea that there was no difference between her and a princess but jewels. But now she dressed for him as she did for the mothers at Jason’s playgroup, and today the clothes were new. The money had arrived.

  He visited her regularly. He asked nothing of her. If there was time they smoked the pipe. She saw nothing unusual in his visits. At one time she might have been able to ask, ‘What do you want?’ and demanded he be explicit. But (and like the crescent of scar over her eye he had always meant to ask about – Weech’s work?) it was too late for that. He liked her too much to risk embarrassing her. He believed they were as close as friends could be, for the friendship had grown out of a cautious study of each other’s weaknesses. Once she had said, ‘I thought you wanted to fuck me,’ and when he laughed she added, ‘It’s better this way – for now.’ He had wanted to, but he was shamed by his advantage – his victim’s wife was also his victim – then he decided that sex made a couple unequal with doubting tension: if sex was tried it became the only reassurance, and there was power for the one who withheld it. That part had been set aside, though for Hood it was accidental – he had only desired her the first instant he’d seen her rushing out of the house. He hadn’t known who she was and then, when he remembered, the feeling died in him; afterwards, he did not think of making love to her. His remoteness made her curious and inspired trust in her, and though he saw how she was uncertain of him in the early weeks when she had expected sexual sparring, that awkward hinting dance, after a month it was plain he had no further intentions and she stopped being defensive. She was perfectly naked, but he did not want another victim.

  The afternoons they spent together were happy. They touched more than lovers because they were not lovers; they kissed easily, they hugged and she lay with her head in his lap. It meant friendship. No further bargain was being struck: the kisses led to nothing. With the sexual element removed they were equal, mutually protective, like brother and sister, as if they had shared a parent they both hated, now dead and unmourned. And it was partly true: Weech was in a cemetery in the blackest part of Ladywell. Hood saw her new boots and skirt as an expression of her freedom, and he admired them as a brother might, congratulating his sister’s taste.

  She said, ‘Ron never let me buy new clothes – at least not like these ones. Men are such fuckers. They like to see dolly-girls, all tarted up, false eyelashes, miniskirts and that. But not their wives.’

  ‘You think every man is like Ron?’

  ‘I didn’t know any others, did I?’

  ‘You know me.’

  ‘I used to think you were the same,’ she said, ‘only you ain’t.’

  ‘I sure ain’t.’

  ‘You’re the quiet type, you are. You bottle it up. I used to think, “What’s he waiting for?” ’

  ‘You don’t think that anymore?’

  ‘Now I know what you’re waiting for – nothing.’ She pursed her lips and kissed him, holding his head, then she stamped her boots and said, ‘These things are killing my feet. Here, help me get the buggers off.’ She zipped them down to her ankles, showing the pink roulettes of the zipper on her inner thigh and then she raised her legs playfully for Hood to get a grip. She was unembarrassed with her legs in the air, her skirt to her waist; but even holding her this way and pulling her boots off he felt no twinge of arousal.

  She said, ‘Stop looking at me knickers, you dirty devil.’

  Only then he looked and saw the wrinkle fitting the parrot beak of hair where she was narrowest. ‘Black ones. Very sexy.’

  ‘I bought a dozen. All colours.’

  ‘You’re a new woman, sweetheart,’ he said, tugging her boot, tipping her backwards. ‘All these new clothes – you must have won the pools.’

  She looked away. ‘I don’t know.’ He worked the second boot off, then she smiled and said, ‘Right. I won the pools. But it’s a secret.’

  ‘I hope it was a bundle.’

  ‘A packet – well, enough anyway.’ In a resentful monotone she said, ‘He knew I wanted boots like these. But he always said no. Or a skirt – I used to wear skirts like these but when we got married he said I was just trying to get other men to look at me. As if he didn’t look at other women! It was the same as the dog track. That’s where I met the fucker – at the dogs. My father took me there a few times, and then when he died I went with my girlfriends from work. Nothing serious – just for fun, like, a little flutter on a Thursday night. Made a change from going home to the telly. It was at the track one Thursday. Ron come over and chatted me up. He’s wearing this expensive suit, he tells me he’s something in insurance, full of talk. How am I supposed to know he’s a villain? He was a heavy punter – always showing off with his money and talking about his connections. He knows this bloke on the Continent, he’s got business with the Arabs. Then we got married and after that he wouldn’t take me to the track.
He went with his mates – Willy, Fred and them. “That’s no place for no married woman,” he says.’

  Hood said, ‘But you’re not married anymore.’

  ‘No,’ she said, and she looked so sad he thought she was going to cry. She surprised him by saying, ‘He was a right bastard, he was. Sometimes I think, “Poor bugger, he’s dead,” then I remember how he used to treat me and I think, “Good – the fucker deserved it.” ’

  ‘Maybe he had it coming to him.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe!’ she mocked. ‘Are you trying it on? You always sound as if you’re defending him.’

  ‘Do I?’ She was quick; he wondered if it was so.

  ‘Yes, you do. I tell you what an absolute fucker he was and all you do is nod your head and say, “Oh, yeah, maybe you’re right.” Jesus, whose side are you on?’

  He said coldly, ‘It’s unlucky to badmouth the dead. Even if they are fuckers.’

  ‘No, that’s not the reason,’ she said. ‘I keep forgetting you’re one of them. You’re different, but you’re one of them. Why aren’t you like the rest of them?’

  He almost objected. He so easily forgot how he had come into her life; then he remembered that he had introduced himself as one of the family. Had he said he was Weech’s friend? He no longer knew. Lorna had told him all the other names, and he had given them faces and cruel teeth. He could not ask for any more, he could not reveal himself. It was too late for that: assumptions had to be taken for truth.

  He said, ‘Maybe I am like them.’

  ‘If you was,’ she said fiercely, ‘if you really was, I wouldn’t want to know you.’

  ‘Take it easy, sister,’ he said. ‘How do you know them so well?’

  ‘I know they’re filth,’ she said, tightening her mouth, pronouncing it, as Murf did, filf. ‘They’ve been over here. The other night – Monday, it was. Ernie – you know him, the little one, eyes like a rat, hair way down to here – Ernie come round. I thought it was you, so I let him in. Asking questions, but I knew he wasn’t listening to me. The fucker’s just going sniff, sniff.’