The Complete Dangerous Davies

by Leslie Thomas

  Kitty, at once hearing her voice, looked up with something near a smile of pleasure. The huge dog trundled from his basket and stood wagging his long ragged tail like a banner. ‘Good Kitty,’ murmured Jemma while Davies looked at both animal and woman with admiration and envy. ‘Back to bed now,’ she suggested ruffling Kitty’s forehead. He obeyed gratefully. She turned to Davies: ‘You also.’

  Obediently he climbed into his bed. The curtains remained open and the unchecked moonlight fell into the room. ‘Romantic,’ Jemma smiled. ‘But a bit blatant, don’t you think.’

  ‘Nothing worse than blatancy,’ he agreed. Watching her standing so beautifully he would have agreed to anything. He opened the bedclothes for her. She, however, went to the window and with a brief kiss blown at the moon pulled across the curtains, transforming herself into a silhouette.

  ‘Can you see?’ Davies inquired anxiously from the bed. ‘I’m over here.’

  ‘I know where you are, Dangerous. I’m coming in.’

  She slid off the robe and it fell silently around her feet. She was wearing a light nightdress of the same silk, the straps luminous across her brown shoulders. She climbed easily into the bed and sat across his stomach. Then she leaned forward and kissed his worn face. ‘I’ll have to go back,’ she said. ‘Afterwards.’

  ‘As long as it’s not before,’ he said. ‘Is Valentine fasto?’

  ‘Deeply fasto,’ she told him. ‘It’s air and sandcastles.’

  ‘I’ve got to build another in the morning,’ he said. ‘I’ve been planning it. It’s going to have a …’ Ignoring him she pulled the counterpane up around her shoulders like a cloak.

  ‘I hope you’re going to take those pyjamas off,’ she said. ‘I never realised you could buy cardboard pyjamas.’

  ‘Take them off?’ he grumbled. ‘I’ll get cold.’

  ‘Not with me, you won’t.’ She regarded him wryly. ‘But it’s all right. Keep them on. It’s homely.’

  ‘Will you undo my trouser cord?’ he asked. ‘You’re sitting on it.’

  She laughed lightly but he could see her face was now becoming set as it always became at these times. She sat above him like an Egyptian cat. ‘I’ll handle the cord,’ she whispered. She undid the bow and the knot, pulled the thick trousers around his hips and said: ‘There it is.’

  ‘I thought it was,’ he whispered back.

  She remained above him while they made love, sometimes sitting on him, sometimes leaning right over him like a hard, slim rider on a horse. When they came to the end, she moved as close and clutching as she could before raising herself upright with a cry and then falling on top of him again. They lay in friendship and quietness against each other. Then Jemma said: ‘I think it’s time for some moon.’ Carefully she eased herself from him and in two steps went to the window. The dog glanced up briefly but saw who it was and returned reassured to sleep. Jemma threw open the curtains. ‘Enter la lune,’ she smiled. The silver light obediently filled the room. He could clearly see her smile now and her fine eyes in the dark face.

  ‘Don’t clear off yet,’ he said from the bed.

  ‘I wasn’t intending to,’ she said. She climbed in beside him. His big arms and her slender arms entangled around their bodies. They kissed fondly. Then she leaned up and studied his face in the bed. ‘Dangerous by Moonlight,’ she whispered. ‘How wonderful.’

  At four thirty in the morning it began to howl and rain. Davies and the dog turned simultaneously in their sleep, each emitting a selfish, satisfied groan.

  Wind was still hammering at the windows when the panes were eventually filled with leaden daylight. Over breakfast they watched rain streaming on the glass and the waves churning on the shore.

  ‘No need to damp the sand today,’ said Valentine looking at Davies.

  Jemma and Davies exchanged glances. ‘You tell him,’ suggested Davies.

  Jemma grimaced but said confidingly to the boy: ‘I don’t think it’s going to be a morning for sandcastles.’

  Valentine paused half-way down a sausage. ‘Swimming then?’ he suggested. His eyes came up hopefully to look at each in turn. ‘We could go swimming.’

  Davies returned his doubtful eyes to the window. The rain was lashing so furiously that the breakers were reduced to dull white smudges. A seagull tried to keep its balance in the wind. ‘We mustn’t get out of our depth,’ he said.

  To his consternation Jemma said: ‘Why not?’

  ‘I didn’t bring my bathers,’ said Davies hurriedly.

  ‘I did,’ said Valentine.

  ‘So did I,’ put in Jemma. ‘I told you to bring them, Dangerous.’

  ‘But … it’s January …’

  ‘There’s a swimming baths,’ she told him. ‘Olympic-sized.’

  Davies surveyed her glumly. ‘Oh good,’ he said. ‘I’m glad it’s Olympic. It takes me twenty lengths just to get into my stride. But I still haven’t got any trunks.’

  The waitress was bringing a second pot of tea. ‘Bertie will help,’ she said to Davies. ‘If you want swimming trunks, he’ll find you some. He’s the porter. People leave them in the summer.’

  They found Bertie in an octagonal glass cubicle in the lobby which had been unoccupied when they had first arrived, a wispy man with creased eyes peering through the glass like an ugly and unsold puppy in a pet-shop window.

  ‘Swimming gear,’ he said heavily. ‘We do have some available.’ He gazed with a fragment of forlorn hope at Jemma but being a hall porter and a realist, he transferred his look to Davies. ‘It’s for you, is it, sir?’

  ‘Nothing fancy,’ said Davies. ‘None of these Speedos or anything. Just something plain.’

  Bertie sniffed. He had a tuft of fair hair on his otherwise thinly thatched head and the light of the lobby shone through it like a light bulb. ‘Something plain is all you’ll get, sir, I’m afraid. The stuff people forget is not so much forgotten as abandoned. They don’t think it’s worth taking home.’ He sized up Davies once more. ‘Just come down to the basement.’

  They walked towards a polished wooden door at the distant end of the lobby. Davies heard Valentine ask Jemma if she thought he would be all right down there. He followed Bertie down some rough stairs. ‘It’s not very nice underneath,’ the porter called over his shoulder. ‘The gloss, such as it is in this place, is above stairs.’

  They arrived in a long, grim corridor with lagged pipes running its length. One pipe was hung with garments, like stiff pieces of drying fish. Bertie took one of them and shook it. There was a discernible crack as he did so and dust came out in clouds. ‘The place where old swimming costumes come to die,’ he confided. He held up the grey and sagging garment. ‘How about that?’

  Davies reached out and put his finger through a hole in the material. Bertie nodded stoically and replaced the trunks on the pipe. ‘A bit brittle some of them,’ he said. He brightened a little and reached for another pair of bathers. ‘How about a nice stripe?’ he said.

  He handed the trunks to Davies. The stripes were wide and red, white and blue. ‘Very patriotic,’ he observed. ‘These will do.’ He held them across his middle. ‘And they’ll fit.’

  Bertie looked genuinely pleased. They began climbing the stairs again. ‘The lady and the lad are all fixed are they?’ he said.

  ‘They are. They knew about the swimming baths. I didn’t. What’s it like, Bertie?’

  ‘The swimming baths. Oh, I’ve not been there, sir. I’m not what you would call aquatic. Horses are more my line.’

  ‘You ride, do you.’

  ‘No sir. I bet.’

  The municipal swimming pool was like a great greenhouse except that it had none of a greenhouse’s silence. It was filled with shouts that bounced in the steamy air. The water was green and warm. Outside the rain persisted.

  In the dressing-room Davies timidly drew on the red, white and blue striped trunks, gazing down at them with a dropping heart. They gave him the appearance of an old-fashioned pantalooned acrobat. He cou
ld not remember when he had last taken off his clothes to appear in public; several years at least, the Lido at Ruislip he eventually recalled, during an investigation into an indecent exposure. Certainly the sun had not beamed upon his body for a long time; it was putty pale to the neck. He peered down at his navel as if it might be blinking.

  Someone with a sadistic sense of humour had placed a full-length mirror in the dressing-room and he surveyed his exposed appearance with the doubt, less the laughter, of someone confronting a distorting looking glass on the pier. He was glad that his bruises were subsiding.

  ‘Here goes,’ he muttered giving the trunks a hopeful hitch. Nervously he sidled into the swimming-pool area. To his relief there was no crowd waiting to howl derision; everyone was occupied with the excitement and activity of the huge bath. Valentine was already in the water. His dark head bobbed up like a fisherman’s float almost at Davies’ feet. ‘You don’t arf look white, Dangerous,’ he shouted.

  ‘Never take my vest off if I can help it, son,’ Davies replied evenly. He saw Jemma then, swimming gracefully towards them. She held onto the side and smiled up at him. ‘Come on in,’ she said.

  ‘I know, I know,’ he grumbled, ‘the water’s lovely.’ He examined it like someone trying to detect loveliness. ‘I will in time. It’s not something I like to do in a hurry. Even Channel swimmers need preparation.’

  Athletically she slid from the bath, her lean black figure slotted into a dark blue one-piece swimsuit. Like a gymnast she curled herself around, using her hands as pivots and sat poised on the side, still looking up at him. He was surveying the busy bath. People of all ages were ploughing up and down, children were shouting, and, at the centre of it all, a big man trawled through the water like a tugboat.

  Valentine shouted: ‘It’s warm as anything, Dangerous.’

  Jemma rolled her eyes gently. ‘Come on, in you get,’ she encouraged.

  ‘Oh God,’ muttered Davies. He eased himself down onto the side of the bath and then with a soft push from Jemma, tipped himself into the water. He came up spluttering. His arms swished sideways.

  ‘You can swim, can’t you?’ asked Jemma suddenly anxious.

  Valentine shouted: ‘I’ll save you, Dangerous!’

  With as much grace as possible, Davies caught hold of the rail. ‘Swim? of course I can swim. All police officers can swim. We have to rescue people from canals and whatnot. It’s just that I’m not used to the water, that’s all. I don’t … I don’t like the way it engulfs you. Let me do it in my own good time.’

  Ponderously splashing and spluttering, he set off swimming along the edge of the bath, each crawl stroke awkwardly studied. He changed to a heavy breaststroke up and down the pool and then pulled in to the side like a vessel coming gratefully to a quay.

  ‘You reckoned you was going to do twenty lengths,’ pointed out Valentine treading water. Jemma was floating easily beside him. The big man who had been trudging up the centre of the bath came to the side also.

  ‘I said twenty lengths,’ Davies told the boy in the water. ‘But I didn’t say all at once, did I.’

  ‘All the same, they are,’ agreed the big man who had now moored himself alongside the pool. ‘Think we can do anything they can.’ He studied Davies for some time. ‘And you’re a bit younger than me.’

  He was elderly but powerful. Even his bald head looked powerful. His heavyweight shoulders, emerging from the water, were those of a wrestler, pale and muscled. He blinked the water from the wrinkles of his eyes and with a great exhibition heave, he levered himself from the water. Davies saw that his left leg had been amputated at the knee.

  The man saw him looking. ‘War wound?’ asked Davies a little embarrassed.

  ‘Horse and cart,’ replied the man in a way which indicated he had given the response often. ‘Ran over it when I was a kid. Five.’

  He lowered the truncated leg into the water so that its endlessness was hidden. ‘That was bad luck,’ said Davies.

  ‘S’pose it was,’ replied the man. ‘Don’t actually remember much about it. Only the horse making a terrible row. My mother said it made more fuss than I did.’ He gazed down at the leg in the water. ‘Pity, I wanted to be a policeman.’

  ‘I’m a copper,’ admitted Davies. ‘London.’

  ‘Never been there,’ said the man. ‘Too far for me, London.’

  With a surprisingly gentle entry he went into the water again. Davies watched him swim powerfully but, it seemed, thoughtfully and then he turned and with a green bow wave came towards the side again. ‘I know everything there is to know about this town,’ he said. He blinked the water from his eyes. ‘That’s if you need to know anything.’

  Davies shook his head. ‘No, no. Off duty, I am. On leave. I’m just down here to get my health and strength back.’

  As if reassured the man once more levered himself out of the bath and sat on the side, the water running from his huge shoulders. Jemma and Valentine were beckoning from the far side of the pool. Two elderly women suddenly, and with synchronised whoops, launched themselves from one end.

  ‘They’re not supposed to do that,’ muttered the man. ‘No diving or jumping allowed.’

  ‘At their age I would have thought they’re taking a bit of a risk,’ said Davies.

  ‘When you’re old you take risks,’ shrugged the big man. ‘It don’t seem to matter so much.’

  They had Sunday lunch in the hotel at a table in the window overlooking the desolate January beach. Valentine kept glancing from his roast potatoes in that direction but even he could see it was unlikely that any sandcastles would be constructed that afternoon. Jemma was taking him back to London in the evening. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right, Dangerous?’ she asked. Her anxiety was sincere, her eyes grave.

  ‘I’ll be careful of the women and the roads,’ he promised.

  She laughed. ‘You’ll get bored,’ she forecast. ‘You’ll be back by Wednesday, Tuesday even. You’ll miss Mod and the Babe In Arms.’

  ‘I have a planned programme,’ he replied confidently. ‘A regime to get me fit and well. And it doesn’t include swimming.’

  ‘Swimming’s good,’ said the boy. He made the motions of the crawl.

  ‘All right for some,’ admitted Davies. ‘But my schedule is long bracing walks on the beach with Kitty. A few pints at lunchtime in the Moonlighters Club, a siesta, a little reading in the lounge, bath, drink, dinner and bed.’

  Jemma regarded him quizzically. ‘Well, that’s fine for the first day. What’s the Moonlighters Club?’

  ‘Where Bournemouth’s élite meet, the beer is apparently drinkable and the prices reasonable. My friend Phineas – him with the missing leg – told me about it. He knows everything about this place.’ A parsnip on his fork, he half turned towards the glass dining-room door. Mrs Dulciman was leading in a straggle of middle-aged and elderly women, all chattery and well dressed. A waft of perfume moved with them as they came into the room. ‘What a niff,’ complained Valentine.

  ‘Bournemouth and Boscombe Widows’ Luncheon Club,’ intoned Davies. ‘They come here every month.’

  Jemma glanced at him again. ‘My, my, you do get to know things, Dangerous.’

  ‘Copper’s instinct,’ he said, raising his glass of red wine.

  ‘A widows’ luncheon club,’ repeated Jemma. ‘What do they do? Apart from talk about being widows.’

  ‘Live in the past,’ he suggested. ‘Chat about old times, old husbands and that sort of thing.’

  The ladies were sprightly and of varying shapes, sizes and hair colours, laughing and arranging their pearls and their coiffures as they found their seats and sat around a big oval table. Mrs Dulciman placed herself at the head, near the door, and remained standing while the others fidgeted with their chairs. There were twenty women around the table, Davies counted them. He thought that the youngest was about fifty. Mrs Dulciman lightly tapped her fork on the tablecloth and said quietly: ‘Ladies, Absent Friends.’

  Oblivi
ous of the people at the other tables, the women bowed their heads for one minute. When they raised them again there were some apparent furtive dabs at eyes with lace handkerchiefs, but the wine waiter busily appeared and private grief was suspended.

  ‘You don’t have to travel far to find a strange country,’ observed Davies as he walked with Jemma along the promenade. The afternoon sun was in the middle of a fleeting and wan appearance. Valentine had opted to stay in the hotel with Kitty and watch football on television.

  Jemma pushed her slim arm into his overcoated elbow and said: ‘That’s a very profound statement, Dangerous.’

  ‘Which one was that?’

  ‘About the strange country.’

  ‘Given the opportunity I can be quite literary,’ he replied airily. ‘And this is a literary town, you know. Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, all that crowd. Probably regulars at the Moonlighters Club.’

  Her heels sounded on the paving of the promenade. There was a shuttered fortune-teller’s booth and a closed shed that in summer sold ice-cream. People, taking advantage of the patently brief sunshine, were walking, some with their dogs, and a few glanced at the slim black girl and the heavy white man. ‘You’ve been reading the guide book,’ said Jemma.

  ‘Robert Louis Stevenson,’ he corrected. ‘Nicked by Mod from the library.’

  ‘Wasn’t it odd, the widows meeting for lunch like that,’ she continued. ‘They couldn’t wait to pass the photographs around, could they. Grandchildren, nieces and nephews, I expect. They love all that.’

  ‘Deceased husbands too,’ Davies told her.

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Oh yes. There were a few ghosts doing the rounds at that table. “That’s my Harry and that’s Marmaduke just before he went. And remember this day down at the Yacht Club.”’

  ‘Sad really,’ she said. ‘That’s the trouble with happy marriages, somebody’s got to go and somebody’s got to be left behind in the end. A penalty for doing something well.’

  The sun vanished as though it had somewhere better to go. They turned away from the breeze and began to walk back in the direction of the hotel. ‘Most of the widows did not seem too mournful,’ he pointed out. ‘There was a good deal of giggling and hands over the mouth stuff, and one or two guilty blushes.’