The Family Arsenal

by Paul Theroux

  They remained on the fringe of the party, watching what could have been another act of the improvised Peter Pan, a cheerier one, noisy and uncomplicated, like a spirited mob scene, all the actors talking at once. Lorna spotted several famous faces – an actor from a film she’d seen; a comedian looking oddly tense; a child star; then a girl who appeared regularly on a children’s programme, and she said without irony, ‘Jason should be here – he’d be dead pleased.’

  ‘Maybe we should go,’ said Hood. ‘I don’t see the bitch.’

  ‘That one – he does the Angel Snow advert,’ said Lorna. ‘I seen him on telly.’

  It was the young man who had played John. His mask was off but he still wore his top hat and striped pyjamas. He was not tall. He passed by as Lorna spoke and hearing her he stopped, did a humorous double take, and greeted them.

  ‘Brother. Sister.’

  Hood said, ‘How’s the family?’

  ‘I know you,’ said the man. ‘What company are you with?’

  ‘General Motors.’

  ‘He’s funny,’ said the man to Lorna. ‘Does he make you laugh?’

  She flinched. ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Don’t knock it,’ said Hood. ‘You’re pretty funny yourself. What’s your name?’

  ‘McGravy,’ he said. ‘You probably know my sister, the so-called Irish playwright. Everyone does, mainly because her plays are banned in Ireland. Censorship made her a household word. She’s not even funny, but’ – he tilted his head and clicked his heels – ‘vee haff vays of making you laugh.’

  ‘I can do a German accent better than that,’ said Hood.

  ‘Yeah, well, I guess that’s cause you’re Amurrikan,’ said McGravy in an accurate imitation of Hood’s own way of speaking.

  ‘Try something hard. Can you do a Japanese?’

  ‘Hai!’ said McGravy, sneezing the word, Japanese-fashion. Then he said in a halting monotone, ‘I can do bettah than many lidicurous men in crabs. You know crabs? Night-crabs?’

  Lorna laughed. ‘He’s like Benny Hill!’

  ‘Bud Benny Hill is daking doo much of rupees and pinching backsides of vooman, my goodness,’ said McGravy, waggling his head like an Indian. ‘In my country is not bermitted on estage, oh no!’

  ‘He really sounds like a Paki,’ said Lorna. She was amused; she stared at McGravy’s comic face.

  Hood said, ‘West Indian.’

  ‘What, mun? Trinnydad or Jameeka? It’s a flamin big place, mun. So many i-lands.’

  ‘Cuban.’

  ‘Hasta la vista,’ said McGravy, and started to go.

  ‘Wait,’ said Hood. ‘Don’t go yet. I’ve got a tough one for you.’

  ‘I’ll bet you do,’ said McGravy, again in Hood’s voice. ‘A real ball-breaker, right?’

  ‘He’s taking the mickey,’ said Lorna.

  ‘Ulster,’ said Hood.

  ‘Catholic or Protestant?’

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘Fussically,’ said McGravy, putting his jaw out and speaking in a heavy Northern Ireland accent, ‘there’s no dufference. But the mumbers of the Pro’estant Uni’y Parly tund ta talk like thus. Ya go’ ta swalla some sullables.’

  ‘Catholic,’ said Hood.

  McGravy closed his eyes. ‘Give me something to say.’

  ‘Say, “Mary had a little lamb.” ’

  ‘Murry had a luttle lamb.’

  ‘Say, “Look, I know where it is now.” ’

  ‘Luck, ah know whirr ut uz nigh.’

  ‘ “It’s in an upstairs room at number twenty-two.” ’

  ‘Ut’s un an opstairs rum at number twenty-tow.’

  Hood muttered the phrases to himself, then said, ‘I wish I could do that.’

  ‘If you could, I’d be out of a job,’ said McGravy. ‘Though there’s not a hell of a lot of work around. I do juves – boy parts. It’s my face. I’m thirty-one, but I’m cast as a teenager. If I’ve got this face at fifty I’ll still be doing juves and foreigners with funny accents. I’m not tall enough to play a real man. Who wouldn’t be a revolutionary?’

  Hood smiled. ‘That sounds like your real voice.’

  McGravy bent close to Hood and said, ‘Kill the bastards.’

  ‘Why are you whispering? Scared someone will hear you?’

  McGravy sized him up, as if trying to decide whether the taunting question deserved a serious reply. After a moment he said, ‘There’s too much shouting.’

  ‘Are you afraid of that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the actor. ‘Sometimes these people scare me more than the police.’

  ‘They’re safe,’ said Hood. ‘They know what they’re doing.’

  ‘Sure they do.’

  ‘Then why are you afraid?’

  McGravy said, ‘Because they aren’t.’

  ‘When you said, “Kill the bastards” I thought you meant the police, the army, the politicians.’ He smiled at McGravy, ‘Now it turns out you want to snuff your friends.’

  ‘No,’ said McGravy. ‘I know who the enemy is.’

  ‘What happens if you fail?’

  ‘We fail.’ He spoke with equivocal emphasis, doubt and certainty subtly balanced, then he added, ‘You see, I’ve played in Macbeth. Fleance, naturally.’

  ‘It’s your funeral.’

  McGravy shook his head. ‘It’s everyone’s fight.’

  ‘Not mine,’ said Hood. ‘I used to think that, but it’s pride that makes you think you can fight someone else’s battles – in Africa, Southeast Asia, here, wherever.’

  ‘Pride,’ said McGravy with a touch of sarcasm.

  ‘Yes, pride, because it’s their weakness that involves you. The illusion that you’re strong is pride. But when they discover how weak they are the only dignified thing they can do is kill you. Notice how often it happens – the Third World is a graveyard of idealists.’ Hood smiled. ‘I’m sympathetic – sympathy is a cowardly substitute for belief. No one dies for it, but if you believe –’

  ‘What do we have here?’ It was Araba. She had changed into faded tight, blue jeans and a jacket covered with patches. She posed next to McGravy and ruffled his hair. ‘I love his head – it reminds me of Lenin’s.’

  McGravy ignored her. He turned to Hood and said, ‘I may see you again – maybe at the barricades.’

  ‘There aren’t any,’ said Hood. ‘So don’t wait for me.’ But he felt tender towards the man, and it was as if the actor was bearing the most fiery part of himself away: he believed; he might survive his belief.

  Araba said, ‘I’m glad you came.’

  ‘Lorna,’ said Hood. ‘Score me another drink.’

  Lorna hesitated.

  ‘Don’t do it, darling,’ said Araba, touching her on the arm.

  Lorna went for the drink.

  ‘I knew you were the domineering type,’ said Araba.

  ‘Skip it. I’ve got a question for you. And I know all about you, so don’t waste my time denying anything. I know you used to work for the Provos – running guns on the Continent with an American passport, until you put the burn on them.’

  ‘That’s a lie.’

  ‘You didn’t deliver the last batch, did you?’

  ‘I don’t expect you to believe me.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ said Hood. ‘I just want to know the name of your contact.’

  ‘Isn’t it odd, Mister Hood? I invited you here to find out about you, and now you’re asking all the questions!’

  ‘His name,’ said Hood. He stepped close to her and snatched her wrist. He gripped her tightly, twisting it.

  ‘That hurts,’ she said. Her eyes were bright with pain, but she made no move to resist. Hood said, ‘If you don’t tell me I’ll slash your face so bad you’ll have to give up acting.’

  ‘You’re a pig,’ she said. ‘You hate women.’

  ‘I’m liberated,’ he said. ‘I treat women the same as men. And I’ll cut your nose off if you don’t tell me.’ He realized that he was on the point of hittin
g her. He checked his fury and growled, ‘Wise up, sister.’

  ‘Let go of my arm,’ she said.

  He threw her arm down hard.

  She said, ‘Don’t think I’m telling you because you threatened me. I don’t have to protect anyone. They’re bastards. They let me down. They’ll do the same to you.’

  ‘Spit it out!’

  ‘Greenstain – from Libya or somewhere. An Arab. He’s in Rotterdam and he’s a pouf. He might fall for you, but he won’t give you anything.’

  ‘What about your contact in London?’

  ‘He was just the delivery boy,’ she said. ‘And I don’t remember his name.’

  ‘Was it Weech?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it,’ she said. ‘I thought he was the one who burned me.’

  ‘How do you know he wasn’t?’

  She laughed. ‘Because they killed him.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘Some fink,’ she said lazily.

  ‘What about Rutter?’

  ‘Rutter! I don’t have to tell you anything, do I? You know all the punks. That proves you’re either a clever cop or the biggest crook of them all. And I’ve found,’ she went on, smiling now, ‘that they’re usually the same thing.’

  ‘So Rutter supplies the Provos,’ said Hood. ‘But he stays put and lets guys like Weech take the rap. And you keep them all in business. You were taking a chance going to the Continent. You must have liked that.’

  ‘How did you know my passport number?’ she said.

  ‘I provided it. Without me you couldn’t have left the country for the Provos. Only it didn’t work.’

  ‘It worked,’ she said. ‘But they hated me. They wanted to expel me all along – they were just looking for an excuse.’

  Hood said, ‘Then where’s the arsenal?’

  ‘The arsenal,’ she said. ‘Is that what you call it? Shit, if I knew the answer to that question I’d be Queen of England. Ask your friends the Provos.’

  ‘They don’t know.’

  ‘Of course they don’t or they would have started their offensive. And Rutter doesn’t know either, or he would have flogged it long ago – he must be dying to get his hands on it. I’ll tell you something, Mister Hood. I may be wrong but I don’t think anyone knows what happened to the arsenal.’ She tasted the word again and grinned. ‘I saw it, I paid for it, and then it vanished. Maybe it sank in the Channel. It would serve them right if it did.’ She paused a moment, patted her hair, then said, ‘Haven’t you got a theory?’

  ‘It’s just a theory,’ said Hood.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I have to prove it first,’ he said. He saw Lorna returning with the drinks.

  ‘Shampoo,’ said Lorna, handing Hood a glass of champagne.

  ‘It’s a little celebration,’ said Araba. ‘I’m opening tomorrow in Peter Pan.’

  ‘Break a leg,’ said Hood, and he drained his glass in one gulp. Then he said, ‘That’s funny – I’m not thirsty anymore. Let’s go.’

  Araba turned to Lorna. ‘Don’t pay any attention to him, darling. Stick with us. You’re the sort of person we’re trying to reach.’ She made a move to take Lorna’s hand.

  Lorna stepped aside. She glared at the actress and said, ‘You fucker.’

  Murf was asleep on the sofa when they entered. He lay flat, his face up, his mouth open; he was being steamrolled by a narcotic dream; he was flattened, in a posture of surrender. Hearing the door slam he sat up straight, opened his mouth to shout, then said, ‘What’s the time?’ He yawned, flopped down and turned over without waiting for a reply. There was an ashtray on the floor, and a pipe; and in the air the stale perfume of burnt opium.

  Hood and Lorna went upstairs. Lorna undressed first, and Hood helped her off with her boots. She got into bed. He crept in beside her. He made a tender appeal with his hands and kissed her eyes. She stiffened, as if resisting, and then began to cry softly, her tears wetting his mouth. He felt the convulsive pressure under his hand and turned her gently.

  She said, ‘I can’t help it. I always cry.’ She lifted her breast to his mouth and parted her legs. He slid between, touching her; she was open, hot with liquid, straining to receive him. She reached down, took him urgently in her fingers and helped him enter, but as he did – seeming to move into fathoms of darkness – she cried out.

  ‘What is it?’ He paused.

  ‘No,’ she wept, ‘don’t stop. But don’t hold me so tight.’

  She still ached from that beating, and the thought of it filled him with rage. But his anger was displaced. He knelt over her, and she lay back, drowning there under him, her skin as luminous as if under water; she was alone, then he embraced her, joined her, and followed her down to a brief death.

  In the morning he awoke before she did and went downstairs, where Murf lay asleep, his mouth open, his yellow feet sticking from the blanket.

  Hood carried the telephone into the kitchen. He dialled a number and waited, watching the still dawn-green garden whitened in patches with a dew as thick as frost. Clouds were bulked above the nearby roofs.

  The ringing ceased.

  ‘Sweeney,’ he said. ‘It’s Hood.’

  ‘It’s seven o’clock in the morning. What do you want now?’

  Nigh. ‘Just making sure you’re home.’

  ‘That’s not funny.’

  ‘And I wanted to hear your voice,’ said Hood. ‘How’s your wife?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably with her family. She lost the painting. It’s the only card we have to play at the moment – I told her not to come back without it.’

  ‘I want to see you.’

  ‘You know where I am. I don’t make appointments by telephone.’

  ‘Oh, and something else,’ said Hood. ‘Do you know a guy named Rutter?’

  There was a pause; for a moment Hood thought he had hung up. Then Sweeney asked him to repeat the name. Hood said it carefully.

  Sweeney said, ‘No. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I heard he’d been rumbled. The Yard’s on to him.’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘I’ll see you,’ said Hood. He hung up.

  He listened, but the house was as still as the garden, and as cold. He dialled again, referring to a number in Lorna’s schoolgirl handwriting, holding the wrinkled scrap of paper to the window, the first light of day. The phone range and stopped.

  ‘Rutter,’ he said. ‘Sweeney.’ And before the man could reply he said, ‘Luck, Ah know whirr ut uz nigh –’

  25

  The line spluttered and seemed to heat as if it had caught fire. There was a scatter of clicks, no ring, then the sudden honk of a human voice, ‘– don’t really know what to do.’

  Mr Gawber moved the receiver away from his ear and hid his face, shielding himself from the thing’s eye-like holes.

  Another voice, younger, said, ‘But it can’t get any worse.’

  ‘I feel sure it will.’

  ‘Depend on it,’ said Mr Gawber, from his stomach, woefully.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘That wasn’t me.’

  ‘The market’s firming up.’

  ‘No, it is not,’ said Mr Gawber. ‘There is a great deal of concern. The market is extremely shaky, and I assure you’ – now he was speaking over squawks of protest – ‘I assure you we’ll have to tighten our belts.’ He put the phone down, silencing the squawks.

  That was at nine-thirty, and it stirred him. It triggered compassion: he wondered if he had been too harsh. He buzzed Miss French and said, ‘No visitors, no phone-calls. I’m in purdah. But Monty can bring my tea as usual.’

  ‘I’ll see that you’re not disturbed,’ said Miss French.

  ‘You’re so kind.’

  He spent the rest of the morning rubbing his eyes, anxiously rehearsing his visit to Albacore Crescent. The ride to Deptford on the Number One bus; the walk up the rising street to the red brick terrace; his arrival; his explanation. His instinct was towards the making of plans,
the whole of his life a simple mapping to avoid embarrassment. To be anonymous was to be independent: he had no craving to be singled out by fame or wealth. He did not want surprises to fuel his distraction.

  He was anxious because he had been thwarted once before. The last time, unprepared, he had met Araba wearing that drab, unbecoming costume; and the further surprise, Lady Arrow playing hostess. How small London was in these days of distress! He had taken himself away, feeling lamed and foolish. No one had spoken of the very person who belonged there; but where was Mister Hood, and why had he cancelled his standing order with the bank? The young man had left no instructions, his affairs were already in a muddle; the lump sum, which should have been on fixed deposit was dwindling in a current account. Americans were so careless with their money, and the shrinkage alarmed Mr Gawber who from the first had felt almost fatherly towards him. The thought occurred to Mr Gawber that he might meet Araba or Lady Arrow at the house once more. There again, some preparation was required. The one’s income tax was still unpaid, a further demand from Inland Revenue in the pending tray; the other’s insurance claim for the stolen painting wanted an underwriter’s verification. Loose ends, loose ends; and the storm cone approaching as a December shadow hung over the city – a stillness, like the sacking of cloud, warning of a winter that might never end. England tossed; adrift, dismasted.

  The calamity was news. The crossed-lines had picked it up. And the previous week a television programme he had watched with Norah foretold a new ice-age. Changes in the sea-currents, freak weather, desert where there had been flowers: the planet was gripped. There had been pictures of Africans – perhaps relatives of the very Mr Wangoosa who lived in style at number thirty – starving and watching with incomprehension as the sand beat their tents to shreds; skinny livestock with sad sick eyes; children with stick-like limbs and swollen bellies. He wanted to cry. The programme had shown a model globe wearing a thickness of ice like a cricketer’s cap. Predictably, there were the historical snippets: snow on the dome of St Paul’s, steel engravings of the Thames frozen over – a fairground in mid-stream, children skimming, a coach-and-four crossing the ice to Westminster. And this morning a Times leader about the coming ice-age, matching in gloom the Financial Times Share Index which had dropped again to its lowest level ever (each day that precise phrase), plunging like a barometer. ‘It’s like the Thirties,’ Monty said. And the office chorus, ‘Terrifying.’ But Thornquist and Miss French were comfortable for the moment, and they didn’t know that terrifying, a humbug word for the pickle they imagined, would not describe the unspeakable hunger and confusion, the nakedness of the event that he had already witnessed beginning.