‘Well, not quite—there are a few equities. But equities are performing miserably at the moment, as you probably know.’
‘No, I don’t own any shares,’ I said. ‘I don’t know.’
‘The bank stands to be several hundred pounds out on this affair,’ said the manager. ‘Several hundred.’
‘We’re talking about a murder.’
‘I daresay. Even so, it’s very awkward.’
He was small and pink, and at first sight looked too young to be a bank manager. He had a harassed expression and a smile that was meant to be nice. He produced it with the practised ease of a conjuror.
‘Head office cleared the loan. But I was against it.’
‘Oh? Why?’
‘Not a very stable individual, Mr Staniland.’
‘Did he tell you what he wanted the money for?’
‘No. Or rather, he told me some story or other, but I didn’t believe it. I don’t think he did himself.’
‘Did he borrow all the money at once?’
‘No, he borrowed five hundred; then, three months later, another five. I reminded him how steep the charges would be at today’s rates, but he said he was going to be earning so that that didn’t worry him.’ He coughed. ‘It worried me.’
He opened Staniland’s file, and I looked at it over his shoulder. ‘Most of the cheques are drawn Self, you see. He drew the entire loan amount right down to this very last payment for three hundred a week ago. We let it go through, though it overdrew him, but that was when I wrote to him—’
‘Yes, I’ve seen the letter,’ I said. ‘It was with his property.’ I got out my notebook. ‘I’d just like to take the details of these cheques. I suppose you can tell me the banks they were cleared through? You know the codes.’
‘We’re not really supposed to do that, you know.’
‘No, I know you aren’t. But this man was actually murdered, Mr Bateson, and I am rather keen to catch the people responsible. I appreciate that you don’t want to get yourself into trouble with your head office, but speed is vital.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said the bank manager. ‘Oh, very well, then.’
12
Staniland’s room was one of the most putrid I ever saw. I should have been round there already, and I would have gone if Bowman’s people hadn’t covered it. Romilly Place was off the Lewisham end of the Old Kent Road near the clock-tower; the houses were three-storey tenements and filthy. It was a dangerous bloody district too, especially for someone like Staniland—what we call mixed area, a third unemployed skinhead, and two-thirds unemployed black. It was a cul-de-sac, and in the warmth of the spring evening the air was filled with screams as kids and teenagers raced round the wrecked cars that littered the pavement. There were about twenty houses, mostly with broken windows and vandalized front doors. Some idiot on the council had had the idea of putting a public callbox on the corner; it now contained no telephone, no glass and no door—a directory leaf or two skittered miserably about in the breeze. The house I had parked by had been gutted by fire; the front had been shored up with timber, and there were sheets of corrugated iron where the windows had been; the chimney toppled inwards at a ridiculous angle to the blackened masonry. A youth saw me looking at it and came up. He was only about seventeen, but he had a very old face like a concentration camp inmate. There was a faint stubble on his long whitey-green skull that a flea couldn’t have hidden in. ‘Six geezers cindered in there,’ he informed me, and added: ‘But they was all black.’
‘I’m looking for number seven,’ I said.
‘It’s the one behind you,’ he said, ‘but everyone’s fucked off. They say one of the ice creams that lodged there got topped over Acton way.’
I could have asked him how he knew that, but I would have lost him if I had. It would have made me smell of law, and I wasn’t in a district where the law gets much cooperation. So I said: ‘Oh, yeah? Well, I’m just looking around.’
‘Why?’
‘For a room.’
‘What, in there? You must be bleeding mad. The place was rotten with fuzz only day before yesterday. You on wheels? That Ford over there? The Escort?’
‘That’s right.’
‘They don’t half go, them Escorts. Got a player in it? Any good tapes? You like to take me an my mates for a ride?’
‘What’s in it for me?’
‘Well, I could get you into number seven easy, see, if you wanted to squat.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I wanted,’ I said. ‘For four of us. Looks nice and cheap.’
Some more youths had gathered round while we were talking. I let the skinhead pick his team for the ride, then ripped them round Lewisham clock-tower a few times.
‘Where you get this jam?’ the skin said enviously when we got back, walking round it. ‘It’s nice. You nick it?’
‘What the fuck’s that got to do with you?’
‘All right, all right, dad—no need to go bleedin bananas.’
One of the youths standing around said: ‘I could get you into that house if you wanted.’ He hadn’t been asked on the clock-tower trip; he was Asian, though I knew from his accent that he was South London born. ‘You want to shoot up, dad?’ he murmured. ‘Pot? A sniff?’
‘Why not a fix?’ I said. ‘But not now. Later, maybe. When it’s dark.’
‘Why when it’s dark?’ said the Asian.
‘I just prefer doing it when it’s dark,’ I said. ‘Why? Is it against the law or something?’
They laughed. Then the skinhead said: ‘Where you from anyway, dad? You ain’t from round here.’
‘I never ask questions like that,’ I said. ‘In fact, I hardly ever ask questions at all.’
Someone said: ‘Yeah. Bad habit.’
‘I reckon e’s got a job on,’ said the Asian boy. ‘That right, dad?’
‘Well, if I had,’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t go round telling people like you about it.’
‘Look at this,’ said the Asian boy suddenly. He had a knife in his hand quick as a gust of wind; then with another gust it went sluck! into the balk of timber that shored up the burned-out house. I hate knives; I’ve always hated them—I hate them worse than guns. The Asian boy looked at me to see if he’d got any reaction. But I said: ‘I’m off to the pub.’
‘Which pub?’ said the skin.
‘You will keep asking questions,’ I said. ‘You will keep doing it, won’t you?’
‘All right, dad.’ He was needling me. ‘Keep your syrup on.’
I was getting sick of being called dad. ‘And don’t call me dad,’ I said. ‘I’m not old enough to be your dad.’
‘You look old to me,’ said the skinhead.
‘Anyone would look old to you.’
‘You tryinter ave a go?’ said the skinhead incredulously. ‘You? At me? You must be bonkers, dad.’
‘Ah, drop it, Scar,’ said the Asian. I could see he wanted to make his sale.
‘What pub again?’ one of them said.
‘The Agincourt.’
‘Then you are bonkers,’ said the skinhead called Scar. ‘No one but a mad geezer’d go in there. Not at night.’
‘Well, I’m going in,’ I said.
‘Meetin’ someone?’
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Malcolm Muggeridge. He’s an old mate.’ I turned to the car.
‘That’s all right, dad,’ said the skinhead. ‘Listen, don’t bother gettin’ in, just throw us the keys. No sweat, I don’t want to have to hurt you, but it’s a nice motor.’
‘You want the keys,’ I said, ‘you’ll have to come and get them.’ The Asian boy said: ‘Ah, come on, Scar, turn it up.’
‘Why don’t you shut your black gob?’ said the skinhead, and to me: ‘Are you giving, dad, or am I coming?’
‘Looks like you’re coming,’ I said, ‘you little maniac.’
There were a lot of heads at the windows now, and the street had suddenly gone quiet. The last window was still opening when Scar came in fast with his le
ft hand out flat in front of him; there was a length of bike chain in his right, and he was flailing it. There was something about his eyes that looked wrong as he came in. I blocked the chain with my left forearm; it cut straight through my anorak and marked the skin. I stamped very hard on his right instep. Now you’re not going anywhere, I thought, and gave him my head up his nose. I caught the chain as he dropped it and slung it over a roof, feeling where he had filed the links sharp. I stamped on his other foot, cupped my hand under his chin, and threw him at somebody’s front door. He went through it. After a while he crawled back out onto the doorstep and started to feel himself all over, trying not to cry with the pain in his feet.
‘Anyone else, now?’ I said.
Nobody said anything.
‘I hate that kind of thing,’ I said, turning back to the car, ‘especially when I’ve got a lot on my mind. It gets right on my wick.’
‘E’s a bit of a nut, Scar is,’ said the Asian boy. ‘You don’t want to bother about him too much.’
‘I’m not,’ I said. The skinhead was trying not to scream now, while he struggled to get his kickers off his swollen feet.
‘Dad didn’t look like e ad it in im,’ somebody said.
‘They never do,’ said the Asian boy. He said to me: ‘Tell you what, maybe I could get you a bird if dark meat don’t bother you.’
‘Another time,’ I said, getting into the car. ‘But I’ll tell you this much, you’ve got the makings of a businessman, I reckon.’
‘Well, you gotter graft,’ he said, leaning in at the window. ‘What about the other deal, then? The smoke. The fix. You know.’
‘You could meet me outside the Agincourt around closing time if you liked.’ I started backing the car out.
‘You won’t last long in the Agincourt, you bastard!’ screamed the skinhead. ‘I’m gointer get you done over in there!’
‘Ah, shut up,’ somebody said. ‘You’re just a nut.’
He still only had one boot off, and his feet stank.
13
Staniland’s tape says:
Barbara was hatched in fury like a wasp, and she’ll die in fury. Her promiscuity is aggression; she uses sex to obliterate a man—this is her revenge on existence. She forces me to assert myself, then cuts me down by refusing to have intercourse, and enslaves me. Every time I succeed in making love to her she leaves me; she knows this is the worst punishment she can inflict. Sometimes she varies the treatment. Last night in the Agincourt, for instance, she let herself be picked up by the Laughing Cavalier; she took him back to Romilly Place with her. Everyone roared with laughter at me as they left, the two of them. She said I could come back as well and watch if I liked; the idea sickened me so much that I went outside and was sick. I spent the whole night walking round London. There was a north wind blowing; the street lights looked brilliant in a sudden frost. I was sobered by the shock of what she had done; even so, I beat my fists against a wall and cut them. Two patrolling coppers pushed me up against a fence by some waste ground at one point, down by Rotherhithe, but I had money on me and could prove I wasn’t a vagrant, so they let me go after I had talked to them for a while. They said nothing at all; their faces were just blank under their helmets. I don’t remember what I said.
I realize I can’t satisfy Barbara in bed. I don’t believe anybody can. It’s a strange form of love, to be compelled to convert the woman you love into a human being. She hates my love, she says; she says it’s servile; she just wants to kick it to pieces. About a week after what I’ve just related, we were in our room one afternoon with the curtains drawn, and I was feeling over her body. She drew away, bored, and remarked: ‘I’ve never had an orgasm in my life, not even when I wank. I don’t really know what I bother to have sex for.’
But I know. She has it out of hatred. Later in the afternoon I managed to fuck her through her knickers. She started by pushing me off, as usual; then suddenly she just shrugged and let me do it. ‘You’ll have to get me a new pair,’ was all she said when I’d finished. ‘Why do you always manage to make me feel worse afterwards than before?’ I asked her. She lay back on our mattress and lit a cigarette. ‘Look, Charlie,’ she said, ‘I mean this—why don’t you try and find somebody else?’ ‘I don’t want anybody but you,’ I said. ‘Christ,’ she said, ‘you just bring out the very worst in me. You make me really enjoy hating you.’ I rolled over on our mattress away from her and wept. She took no notice, but went over to the cooker and made herself a cup of tea, whistling ‘Vincent’.
I spent all afternoon in a state of misery and rage. ‘I know you’re going to ask me for money at some point,’ I said to her. ‘You’re not much use for anything else, are you?’ she answered.
That evening I was violent with her. It had been boiling up in me all day, but it began when she said: ‘I’m bored. I’m getting up. I’m going out.’
‘Out? Out where?’
‘Just out.’
‘To the Agincourt?’
‘I don’t know. Anyway, I shan’t need you hanging around, you’re enough to make a monkey weep. Just give me some money, a tenner’ll do.’
‘I haven’t got much money. I haven’t had a chance to cash a cheque.’
‘I’ll make some.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t say things like that. I wish you wouldn’t even talk about going with other men. I’ll tell you what, I’ll come with you.’
‘I said no.’
All at once my hands were in her hair. I don’t even remember doing it, but I picked up one of her shoes and hit her on the side of the head with it. I’ve never done such a thing to anyone in my life before. She didn’t scream or anything; she just lay back again on the mattress looking away from me, with blood running down her face.
‘Well,’ was all she said. ‘Well, well.’
I knew I had lost any ground with her that I’d ever made.
‘Now you won’t go anywhere!’ I shouted.
‘Wrong,’ she said. She put the bloody corner of the sheet to her head, got up, went over to the sink, dragging the sheet after her, and started cleaning herself up. She was naked, and her sex looked huge as she bent over the sink with her back to me. Her breasts looked awful, too; they always do when she isn’t wearing a bra.
‘I want you again,’ I groaned in spite of myself. ‘It isn’t as if I were impotent.’
‘You’re worse than impotent,’ she said into the mirror above the sink, ‘you’re a bore, Charlie. I’m fed up with you; who needs all that intellectual crap you go in for?’
‘I’m sorry I hit you. I truly am.’
‘No harm done,’ she said, ‘except to you.’ She started dressing. ‘You spend your life apologizing. You shouldn’t. Never apologize. Never explain.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Some club. Maybe an African club. I feel like some Africans, they’re uncomplicated.’
‘They’re violent, those clubs.’
‘I know what they’re like,’ she said, ‘I’ve been working them since I was fifteen. Anyway, violence and pleasure—you can’t have one without the other. You should know.’ She added: ‘You can stay in all night if you like; I shan’t bring anyone back to this shithole. I shan’t be back till tomorrow sometime anyway—maybe not till the day after, or the day after that.’
‘Well, take your ten pounds,’ I said.
‘Fuck the ten pounds,’ she said. She went out, slamming the door. It was a door you had to slam to shut it properly, but to me it sounded like an indefinite departure. It always did when she slammed it. The noise her high heels made on the staircase sounded final, too.
14
It was nine when I got to the Agincourt, and the place was full. The man with the face like a snake’s was there, talking to a mild-looking bloke in glasses, but I couldn’t see anyone who looked like the Laughing Cavalier. The governor wasn’t there, either. When I asked the barman about him, he said he’d had to be hospitalized on account of his face, which had turned septic.
> I ordered a pint of lager—it came up warm again—and leaned my back on the bar. In a corner not far off sat a lovely quartet of National Fronters. Two of them were mods and the third a rocker (normally they were mortal enemies); he had polished nails studded into his leather jacket and a Maltese cross round his neck on a silver chain. Satan sprouted cheerily up out of his collar, too, and licked at his left ear; I could visualize the patient tattooing sessions in a cell at Wandsworth. The fourth individual was studious-looking, about thirty. He wore rimless glasses, a pretty Fair Isle sweater, and longish blond hair combed neatly back like intellectual, well-brought-up boys used to have back in the sixties. He was drinking a fizzy lemonade, and it was obvious who was in charge of the meeting.
‘Himmler, Heydrich and Goering were responsible for the exterminations,’ studious was saying, ‘not the Führer. The Führer was involved with running the war. The Führer just didn’t know about them.’
‘But you just said e was God,’ objected one of the mods. ‘If e was like God, God always knows what’s going on. I know about that, we did a bit of God at school.’
‘Next question?’ said studious, ignoring him.
‘Well, what are we gointer be actually left with,’ said the other mod, ‘when the National Socialist revolution’s all over, like?’
‘Just the British,’ said studious. ‘Pure white Britons.’
‘Yeah,’ said the rocker, ‘well, talking of that, why don’t we make a start? I’m bored in here. Why don’t we go over to their club across the road and see if we c’n find a golly.’
I tapped him on the shoulder just as he was getting up. ‘Just a minute, sonny,’ I said. ‘I’m joining you for a minute, isn’t that nice of me?’
He Died with His Eyes Open (Factory 1) Page 7