The Family Arsenal

by Paul Theroux

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’

  ‘I thought you knew,’ she said. ‘Anyway, it don’t matter.’

  ‘Did he ask you about the stuff upstairs?’

  ‘No. But I knew he was checking up. I could see the little fucker’s eyes.’

  ‘I should have known.’ Hood was uneasy; he didn’t want to be exposed, but there was a greater danger for Lorna, and he regretted that he had told her so little. At once he saw how he had toyed with her affection – his victim’s wife was his victim: the thought repeated, more deliberately and so more cruelly. He said, ‘If they ever ask you about that loot, say you don’t know where it is.’

  ‘I don’t, do I?’ she said lightly. She was calm, she didn’t know how unsafe she was. ‘Like I’ve never been to your house, have I?’

  ‘Right,’ said Hood. ‘So you don’t know anything.’

  ‘I don’t want to know anything.’

  Hood said nothing. For a moment he thought of telling her everything, from the murder onwards, but there was a threshold in every friendship which, once crossed, made the past a deception. Then, every explanation seemed like a suppression of a greater fact, and truth looking like a lie was an unforgivable taunt.

  Noticing his silence she said, ‘Anyway, they’re your friends, not mine.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said to stop her. Then, ‘You said you were going to show me the other clothes you bought.’

  ‘What’s the use? There’s nowhere to go. I can’t go shopping around here wearing stuff like that. The butcher’s, the newsagent. They’ll take me for a tart.’

  ‘We’ll go somewhere,’ said Hood, but he could not think where. They had only ever been to the park on Brookmill Road together and once to Greenwich to see the Cutty Sark and the Royal Observatory (he told her about Verloc; she said, ‘The fucker sounds like Ron’). ‘Where would you like to go?’

  ‘How about the flicks?’ she said. ‘I can sit in the dark wearing my new gear.’

  ‘Come on, think of a place.’

  She said, ‘What I’d really like to do is go to the dog track, like I used to – not with my girlfriends, but my father. He’d find me a seat where it was warm and tell me which dogs to back. He’d have a cup of tea with me and he’d put his arm around me and keep the teds away.’ She smiled softly. ‘Sometimes we used to win. He always gave me half.’

  ‘We’ll do it,’ said Hood. ‘Where is it – Catford? We’ll win a bundle!’

  ‘Not a chance,’ she said. ‘What about the kid?’

  ‘Get a babysitter,’ he said. ‘You’ve got the money. Remember, sister? You won the pools.’

  She sat back and sighed, then she said, ‘I’d love to go. There are races tonight. It’s Thursday.’

  ‘We’re going,’ he said.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, but she added quickly, ‘I didn’t win no pools. It’s their money. Ernie said, “We’ll take care of you, don’t worry.” And then, the next day, this thing came from the bank – fifty quid deposit. I don’t care, and maybe they ain’t such fuckers after all. But they probably stole it off Ron.’

  17

  The railway arches in the half dark – the black brick spans – were shaped like the crust of a burnt-out cloister. They ran parallel to the poorly lighted road all the way from the station at Catford Bridge to the dog track. And there were dead monks underneath – or so it seemed to Hood, who preparing himself to enjoy the dog races had smoked a joint in the train – discarded cartons, peaked like the cowls of monks’ habits, lay on the ground, holy casualties in the broken place, feet and hands and covered heads, and an odour of ruin. Ahead he saw the greyhound motif, a starved lunging dog picked out in lights, but between the stadium entrance and where they now stood was this shadowy rising brickwork mottled with football slogans, CRYSTAL PALACE, CHARLTON RULE, SPURS, barely legible, like the last messages of heathen raiders. The highlights were unexpected – rubbish that had the appearance of thick bushes and an impression of autumn foliage that was no more than the suggestion of darkness and the smells, verifying the dead cloister and giving it a further authority, the veiled aspect of a brittle engraving. And when the train rumbled on the spans and shook the yellow lamps on the line – but was itself hidden from this road – the sound raised the tattered smell again and corrected the engraved dimension the silence had imposed: the noise loosened it all and gave it brief life for the duration of the passing train.

  Lorna said, ‘I always used to be afraid of this road.’

  ‘I like it,’ said Hood.

  ‘Well, maybe because I saw a bloke nobbled here,’ she said. ‘I mean killed.’

  It had a name, this puddly two-hundred yards: Adenmore Road, London, was closely mapped. No city he had ever seen had been so examined. The darkest corner had an inaccurate caption, and even the wild place, the sudden hill of hiding trees above Peckham where he’d dumped Weech’s body – that, too, had a name.

  Hood was surprised when Lorna chose the second-class enclosure instead of the more expensive one. At the turnstile she said it was the one she had always used with her father. The stadium was gaily lit with strings of coloured bulbs, and Hood could see the smoke drifting up from the various enclosures to the floodlights on tall poles, as if the whole circus was cosily smouldering. There was no shouting, only a low roar of voices.

  ‘There’s the dogs,’ said Lorna. ‘Way over there.’

  The first race was about to begin. Across the track, on the far side of the stadium, six girls in hunting clothes marched in single file. Each held a sleek dog on a leash, and the sharp snouts and thin bodies were silhouetted in the lights like black metal cutouts in a row, shooting gallery targets. Then they turned under the lights and came towards the near grandstand, and up close Hood could see how young the girls were, how skinny the dogs – tottering on bony paws, panting in their tight wire muzzles.

  ‘Aren’t you going to bet on this race?’ asked Hood, looking down at his programme.

  ‘Too late,’ said Lorna. ‘I always watch the dogs in the paddock before I bet. Here, they all look the same, but out back you can tell which ones are fast. That’s what my father used to say.’

  They stood talking under the first-class enclosure which, glassed-in and high, was at the brow of the grandstand. The steamy windows were full of red-faced people who sat at tables, eating, holding pint glasses, watching the track. ‘Ron always went up there, so he could act big,’ said Lorna. She led Hood to the side of the grandstand, where people were marking programmes on the terraces and hurrying up and down the stairs. Hood found Lorna a seat near the bookies, at the rail. The bookies worked rapidly at blackboards, some on stools signalled the odds with gloved hands to the far side of the stadium – pointing and clapping like deaf-mutes, while the men beside them spat on their fingers and wiped numbers from the columns on the boards and added new ones. They gave a hectic motion to the race that was like the instant before panic. Each one had a satchel with his name on it, Sam & Alec, Jimmy Gent, Pollard Turf Acc’ts, and as the starting-time grew near the activity around these men became frenzied as cash was exchanged for tickets. In this excitement Hood saw the pleasure of risk; the very sight of the men gambling heightened his desire for Lorna.

  On the track, men in white smocks were heaving the metal traps into position.

  ‘You’re going to win tonight,’ said Hood.

  ‘If I won a lot of money I’d take a holiday,’ said Lorna. ‘Not to Spain, but maybe Eastbourne or Brighton. Check into one of them big white hotels on the front and look at the sea from the balcony. I always wanted to do that, live in a posh hotel and look at the sea.’

  ‘We’ll do it,’ said Hood.

  ‘First we have to win.’

  The dogs were being unleashed and helped into the traps, one by one, and Hood could hear them whimpering. They didn’t bark; because of their muzzles they gave low curiously human wails, an odd lonely sound in that festive crowd of gamblers. Then the lights went out in all the enclosures and in
the darkness there was silence, a hush that amplified the moans of the dogs. In the black stadium the only light was the yellow gleaming sand of the track. And over the moans a murmur that grew to a whine: the mechanical rabbit speeding towards the traps. As the rabbit shot past the traps sprang open and the dogs leaped out, stretching themselves after it. The race itself brought a new hush to the grandstand. The only distinct sound was the rabbit singing on the wire, a humming heightened by an occasional twang.

  ‘Five’s ahead,’ said Lorna. Hood heard her clearly. Instead of shouts there was intense concentration. It was not like a horse race where spectators screamed at the jockeys and jumped and waved their arms. This was studied enthusiasm, a kind of breathless suspense. A man behind Hood said in what was nearly a whisper, ‘Come on you two dog.’

  The dogs sprinted past, and it was still so quiet in the grandstand that Hood could hear their toiling gasps and the scrape and skid of their paws on the track. When they rounded the last bend there was a little cheer, scattered shouts of anger or glee which ended the moment the dogs crossed the finish line: relief, jostling and some laughter – and a flurry of losers scattering tickets at their feet.

  ‘Let’s go round to the paddock,’ said Lorna. ‘I want to pick a winner.’

  ‘Everyone’s looking at you,’ whispered Hood. ‘They’re saying, “Who’s that fantastic chick?” ’

  She laughed. ‘You’re dreaming.’ But she looked down at her new boots in prim admiration. He had never seen her so happy, and he imagined a life with her: a safe monotony, without incident, surrendering to Deptford, the pub, the bed, the child, the dog track, the weekend in Brighton. He wanted more, but he was tempted by less, and he sometimes felt this, passing the window of a south London parlour and envying the people inside having tea with their elbows on the table. He could save her that way; he saw in her the sad ageing of every lost soul – and it was true loss, since she had no notion of how she had been widowed. But what kept him from pushing the reverie further was not that it was a retreat from the life he had planned for himself but that underlying this obvious feeling was a smaller one: pity, the feeblest mimicry of love.

  He followed her behind the grandstand to the paddock. Here it was damp, enclosed and yet open to the sky. It was divided by a sturdy metal fence. On the other side was a small shed; a few over-bright bulbs inside the shed lighted patches of grass where they stood. The rest of the lights were aimed at the closed doors of thirty numbered stalls built against the brick embankment of the railway line. These narrow cupboards rattled with the whimpering of the dogs locked inside – their wails carried, as they had from the traps, and Hood was alarmed by their frantic pawings on the wooden doors. The paddock was empty, but the cries of the dogs, and the dampness, the spiked fence and the spotlights that showed nothing but locked doors, gave it the appearance of a tortuous jail compound. Hood wanted to go. Lorna said, ‘Wait – here they come.’

  Shivering, blinking and scratching at their numbered vests, the dogs were dragged into the shed by the kennel maids, who wore velvet riding caps and jodhpurs. Then a bowler-hatted man in brown gaiters – the starter – checked their collars and tried their vests to see they were securely fastened. Men, a dozen or more, had gathered at the fence to watch this simple ceremony, and they conferred in whispers, singling out particular dogs with cautious nods.

  ‘Number Two looks like he wants a kip,’ said Lorna. ‘But that Number Three’s a lively one. Got a strong back.’ She opened her programme. ‘Lucky Gold – nice name.’

  Hood leaned to her ear. ‘Who are these apes hanging on the fence?’

  ‘Villains,’ said Lorna, confidentially. ‘It’s a crooked sport – attracts all the villains, like Ron and them fuckers. But my father told me what to look out for. Right here, before the race, you can spot the slow ones.’

  ‘That mutt looks like he’s limping.’

  ‘The villains step on their toes – their paws, like. That one’s probably been mashed. Or they give them a drink of water. Sometimes – straight – they put chewing gum up their arses. Anything to slow them up. But Number Three, Lucky Gold, he looks a fast one, he does. He’s going to win.’

  ‘All this poncing about,’ a man clutching the fence said loudly. ‘That clot’s just wasting time – they could have been around the track by now.’

  ‘Cheap,’ said another man, ‘filthy cheap –’

  As he spoke there was a rumbling above the paddock, an approaching train. The warning was brief; the train thundered by a moment later, flashing across the arches overhead, a rapid intrusion of banging wheels drowning the voices and the dogs’ whimpers. The yellow windows blurred and lengthened to a ribbon by the speed. The paddock shook and the eyes of the dogs being led out bulged in fear over the muzzles. For seconds the paddock was darkened by the loud clatter.

  The men left as the kennel maids filed out with the dogs, and Hood went with Lorna to the front of the grandstand, to a window with the sign Win and Place.

  ‘How much are you betting?’

  She said, ‘A pound on Number Three to place.’

  ‘A pound to place? But you said he’s going to win!’

  ‘Who knows?’

  ‘Put your money where your mouth is,’ said Hood. ‘Play to win – why hedge?’

  ‘Because I might lose the lot, nitwit.’

  ‘If you’re worried about losing you shouldn’t be betting.’

  ‘It’s just a flutter,’ she said. ‘Bit of fun. Little gamble.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ he said, and she seemed amazed by how serious he had become. He growled, ‘If it ain’t risky, sweetheart, it ain’t gambling.’

  ‘The big villain,’ she said.

  He snatched her money and stepped past her to the window. ‘Five pounds on Number Three – to win.’ He took the tickets and handed them to her: ‘Now watch that bitch run.’

  He put his arm around her and kissed her. They walked arm in arm to an empty place on the grandstand steps. It was to be a long race, over five-hundred metres, so the traps were across the stadium from the finishing line. But even at that distance the dogs’ howls were loud, and they carried from the far side – long anxious wails from the barred traps. The lights went off and only the track shone, a sugary yellow; the rabbit started its circuit and the wire sang again. The traps banged open.

  It was not clear until the dogs passed them which one was ahead, but at the turn they saw the number four dog baulk and the white vest of Number Three flash to the front.

  ‘He’s in the lead!’ said Lorna.

  The pack darted after him, the lean dogs sprinting beautifully, low to the ground, almost horizontal in a silent chase, like gaunt racing wolves liquefying with the speed. Their names were absurd – Kelowna Gem, Tawny Perch, Aerial Miss, Star Beyond – but for half a minute their names mattered, and Lucky Gold jostled with the blue-vested number two dog, Act On, for first place. They had circled the stadium once and were now leaping around the last curve. Hood saw the second dog slowing and Lucky Gold’s slender head shoot across the finish line in a burst of light as the photo was taken.

  Lorna screamed delightedly. Hood said, ‘You’re rolling in it,’ and helped her collect her winnings at the pay-out window.

  After that win of nearly thirty pounds, they bet in the same way on the next two races, going behind to the paddock and choosing the liveliest dog before placing the bet. But both dogs lost; one was fast away but finished fourth, the other came in second. Lorna said, ‘I told you we should have got place tickets.’

  ‘Forget it,’ said Hood. ‘You’re still in the money. Let’s go up there and you can buy me a drink.’

  ‘We can’t go there – you need a blue programme for that enclosure. They’ll chuck us out.’

  The first-class enclosure was just above them, a lighted ledge. They were at the margin of the track, away from the men crowding the bookies.

  ‘There’s your friend,’ said Lorna.

  Hood was looking at the twinkling lig
hts on the far side. It was a pleasing circus, a fine way of playing at risk. He said, ‘Who?’

  ‘Willy Rutter.’ Seeing Hood squint she added, ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know him. He’s up there.’ She frowned and pointed to a man leaning against that high window. ‘Look at him – he thinks he’s big. He’s looking at you.’

  Hood said, ‘I see him.’

  The dark-haired man, bulked at the glass, was gesturing, motioning in a friendly way. The light behind him blackened his face and showed how his hair was fluffed at his ears. But even so, in these dim features, Hood could see how mistakenly he had characterized the man. He had imagined a thug and had given him a heavy jaw and fangs and an ape’s shoulders. This was a smaller creature than he had pictured in his mind, a man who looked like a car salesman, waving with sham geniality. The man turned aside to face the light and Hood saw a smile on his pouchy face.

  ‘He wants us to go up,’ said Lorna.

  ‘I’m not going,’ said Hood, and without looking again at Rutter he steered Lorna quickly to the bar at the top of the second-class enclosure. He ordered drinks and said, ‘Aren’t we going to bet on this race?’

  Lorna shrugged. ‘I should have known we’d see Willy here. I’ll bet he’s with the rest of them. I don’t want to talk to him.’

  ‘Then drink up and we’ll go.’

  ‘Go? What for? I’m not leaving just because that fucker’s here.’

  ‘Right.’ Hood looked for the man’s face, the stringy head in the crowd. There’s your friend: the man would expose him, and if he was exposed it was all over. The friendship he had contrived with Lorna would be proved a fraud; he would lose her. He did not worry about himself, but he feared for her. He said, ‘Let’s go around back.’