Ten minutes to midnight, on Saturday the fifth of August, 1967. Or, as the voice in his ear puts it,
About bloody time.
Despite himself (he knew he wasn’t going to be late), Mr F picked up his pace slightly as he stepped out onto London Bridge, putting that tell-tale military swing he sometimes used into his stride. The moon was picking out the musculature of the black river-water, and he could see the currents heaving under its oily skin. High tide. One late bus passed him, travelling north, its yellow light spilling briefly onto the pavement, but even that was almost empty.
As he approached the City, looming up ahead of him, he found himself wondering if he’d ever really seen it before. Of course, in a way, he hadn’t; not like this. All those closed stone faces of all those sleeping buildings, stacked one against the other, lit only by the moon. All those great respectable facades of banks and head offices, with their rows of blind windows; all forty-seven, locked-for-the-night churches of the City of London. All that power. As he walked towards it, Money, he thought; it must need silence to sleep in.
As he reached the north end of the bridge, the emptiness of the streets began to seem uncanny. Somewhere under his feet, he knew, the tube must still be running through its hot tunnels, and up on Cannon Street he could see one of the late buses still making its dutiful way from the West End to the East — but no one gets on or off in the City, not from St Paul’s to Aldgate, not at this time of night; the pavements were all his. The illuminated clock-faces still pronounced the time, and the gilded flames on top of the Monument still preached their warning sermon — but to no audience except Mr F, and he had other things on his mind.
Because the streets were so empty, there was no reason for him to follow his morning route, avoiding the crowds; but he did, of course. He turned left on Arthur Street, then sharp left down the dark steps of Miles Lane; passed briefly along the stinking waterside, up All Hallows Lane and then left again under Cannon Street. At night, the underpass here is lit with a thick, yellow light, and in high summer, each of the lamps wears a slight halo of mist, softening the shadow-less sodium glare. Half-way through the tunnel — exactly half-way — Mr F stopped. He remembered (it was his right shoulder that remembered it first) the sensation of that stranger bumping into him — and the memory made him clench his hands. Stretching them out in front of him, he could see that they too were stained yellow, as if they belonged to somebody else.
It was the strangest feeling, to be walking alone in his workday suit along this particular pavement and to have no one in his way — almost a blasphemous one. If he were to make the tunnel ring with a sudden scream, he realised, no one would hear him; if he felt like it, he could step off the pavement and walk down the middle of the road. He had always felt solitary as he walked through this tunnel, even in the thickest rush-hour crowd, and now its very emptiness was making him remember all those mornings when he had fought his way through the crowd with gritted teeth, aching to be left alone, to be untouched.
Well, his wish has been granted. Despite the warmth of the night (it is clammy in that tunnel), he shivers.
He emerges from the tunnel, waits for a solitary taxi to pass, and crosses the road up to College Street. There are no streetlamps here, and the moonlight comes into its own. He passes St Michael’s; the haughty stone cherubs are as sightless as ever. The trees of the church garden cast ink-black shadows.
Skin Lane.
The sound of his heels striking the cobbles. The sound of his breath.
The point of St James’s tower, bone-white in the moonlight above the great black wall. The gold cross, silvered.
The black front door, almost hidden in the dark.
Going up the steps, he has the key all ready in his hand. He quietly unlocks the door and then, as he had agreed he would, leaves it unlatched behind him. Even though he knows the building is empty, he goes up the six flights of stairs in careful silence, and without turning on any of the lights; once he gets into his workroom, however, he does flick the switch. He hangs up his jacket, and even catches himself reaching for his white coat. No, he decides, that won’t be necessary. Not for this.
Ten minutes to eleven.
Looking out of the window, he can see the lights of the workroom spilling onto the slates of St James’s roof, and so he turns them off again. There’s no need to advertise. And he’s sure the moonlight will be bright enough. Not wanting to give himself too much time to think, he finds two last things that need doing to fill in the final few minutes. He lays all his tools out in a row on the cutting-bench, just as he did on their first morning together, and then he drags the big mirror out to where it was when they did the final fitting of the coat.
He checks.
Everything is ready. There is nowhere else to go.
As he stands there beside his bench with the windows behind him and the lights all off, his eyes and ears complete their adjustment to the darkness and silence all around him. He is sure he will hear the boy the moment he pushes the front door open; sure, because tonight, he can sense everything. He can even feel the night air touching the soft skin on the backs of his big white hands. He slowly flexes them, then curls them into fists.
nineteen
It had never crossed Mr F’s mind that Beauty wouldn’t come; but in fact, he almost didn’t.
It hadn’t been easy to get out of the house, for one thing; his mother had seemed to know (in that annoying way of hers) that something was wrong. All week, noticing that her one and only was somewhat more subdued than usual, she’d been asking him if he was alright (that question again) and then, on the Saturday afternoon, when he’d evasively answered her that he was feeling fine but just felt like “going out”, she’d suddenly wanted to know exactly where he was going, who he was meeting, and exactly what time he thought he’d be back home. After the week he’d had, Beauty just couldn’t help himself, and flew off the handle at her — which was never a good idea, not with his mother. She was never one to let a man have the last word — not even her pride and joy. Fortunately, his father had weighed into the scene with a shouted No, but the boy should be out — he should be meeting people. When I was his age, never I was at home — and under cover of this paternal approval, Beauty had coughed up a hastily improvised story about some school friends and the cinema and a coffee bar, and that had seemed to satisfy them both. The irony was that he’d then had to get himself done up to the nines before he went out — the suit, the shirt, the hair, the works — so that he really did look like he was going on a date. He got the tube in as far as Tottenham Court Road; since it was still ridiculously early for his appointment with Mr F (he wished he’d kicked up more of a fuss now, and made him arrange the rendezvous for a more reasonable time), he planned to sit out the couple of spare hours in the Astoria, and then get the number twenty-two across to the City. Outside the cinema, there were two girls who giggled and gave him the eye. His first instinct was to saunter over and talk to them, ask them if they were meeting someone or would they care to join him — but just as he was preparing to make his move, the blonde one of the pair leant over and whispered something in her companion’s ear, eliciting a shriek of laughter. The look on their faces gave Beauty a sickening thought, which was that they were laughing at him because they thought he was one of them— one of those over-dressed boys who loiter, so conspicuously single, on West End street-corners late at night: dismayed (except, of course, they were so wrong it was funny) he was just about to stride right over and disabuse them of their mistake when two boys of his own age got off a bus outside the Dominion, and noisily hailed the pair from across the street. It was bloody odd, he thought, to be watching the four of them set off down Oxford Street for their Saturday night together, laughing and carrying on, while he was
Well, while he was what, exactly?
Telling himself to just get on with it, Beauty moved round the corner and had a smoke, and then (now that the coast was clear) went back and bought himself a one and six to watch
something called The Pleasure Girls, which was all they had on at the Astoria that he fancied. If two stupid bitches got the wrong idea about him just because he was wearing a smarter cut of suit than either of their boyfriends could evidently afford, he told himself, that wasn’t his problem. The picture was dull (it had been playing for over a year, and the sexy poster was really a con; so far as he could see, it was really all about some upper-class girl giggling a lot while various boys in cars tried to get her out on a date); kicking himself for having wasted his money, he left before the end. Having nearly a whole hour still left to kill, he decided the only thing to do with the spare time was to walk.
The walk, of course, gave him more time to think about those two girls, and the way they’d stared at him, and laughed. Bloody hell, he thought, you’d’ve thought they could tell I was hardly the type. That was really the only reason why he’d come out tonight, you see — he knew he could have just not shown up if he’d felt like it — because he wanted to clear the air. He knew about men like Mr F — obviously he did — and quite honestly, it didn’t bother him that much, so long as they kept themselves to themselves; Mr F hadn’t, obviously (in Beauty’s book, staring was as bad as touching ) — but you could hardly say that that was because he’d been encouraged. Now that the situation with Christine was all sorted out, no one owed anyone anything, and if anyone thought they did, then they’d got another think coming, frankly.
He was sorry, but that was all there was to it. Whatever happened, nobody was touching anybody. Alright?
The streets were getting emptier now. There was still a bit of traffic on the main roads, but cutting across Holborn Circus and down Shoe Lane, for instance, he didn’t pass a soul.
As he headed up Ludgate, the illuminated clock-face on the right-hand tower of St Pauls told him, disappointingly, that it was still only just gone half past ten. He slowed himself down. Obviously, he didn’t want to be the first one to get there — he couldn’t think of anything worse than having to hang around waiting for the sound of footsteps, looking as if he was the one who’d asked for the date. No; he wanted to walk in, say what he had to say, and then get straight off to Mansion House tube and back home again — there was going to be enough trouble explaining to his mother why he was out so late as it was.
When he came down Garlick Hill, the clock on St James’s said ten to eleven, so he was still early. Even though it had been a good twenty minutes since he had passed a single pedestrian, he still stopped and looked up and down in both directions before turning the corner into the Lane; once round, he ducked straight up onto the front steps of Number Four, grateful to have their well of shadow to hide in while he got himself together before going inside. He pulled his comb out of his back pocket, and ran it through his hair a couple of times; he thought about having one last cigarette, but decided against it. Eventually, judging it was now time to go up, he cleared his throat, and tried the black front door. It gave silently under his hand; one firm push, and it would yawn open. Beauty wasn’t quite ready for that, however. He shook his hair, took a deep breath and ran through his patter in his head one last time. I’m sorry, Mr F, but I just needed someone to help me. I don’t know why I said that about, you know, about you wanting me — and I know it wasn’t fair, but really I didn’t know what else to do, you see. That girl tricked me, and I just panicked — all that. Keep playing the sympathy card, that was the trick with this one. After all, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t had plenty of practice getting round him over the last three months — and if push came to shove, and the old boy got shirty, he’d just have to tell him where to get off, and that was all there was to it. After all, what was the old goat going to do about it? Come bundling into the office on Monday morning and start shouting the odds and telling his Uncle Maurice all about it? He didn’t think so. He just had to lay on the charm, and remember what his main problem was; keeping all of this from his parents. If they ever heard about any of this… You just have to get yourself through the next quarter of an hour, and this problem really is all sorted out. No one got hurt, no one is any the wiser, and Monday morning is another day.
Somewhere behind him, one of the city churches began to ring eleven o’clock.
Right. Deep breath, and —
Beauty pushed at the black front door again, more firmly this time, and it swung silently open. One last moment of hesitation, and he walked straight into the waiting rectangle of darkness. Then, trying to make as little noise as possible, he began to feel his way up the turning flights of stairs.
Beauty’s caution was to no avail; Mr F knew exactly when he was coming. He counted the footsteps on the last flight of stairs.
Three. Four.
The boy was moving very slowly. Was it the dark, or was he scared?
Seven.
Eight.
He must have stopped. Mr F held his breath. He could already see it, the moment when he would appear, framed in the doorway.
Thirteen.
Fourteen.
With a kick to his stomach, Mr F realised that the slight, dark figure was dressed exactly the same way as he had been the first time he’d ever laid eyes on him. High-waisted four-button jacket, neatly tight-cut trousers; white shirt, dark tie. He’d even combed his hair (Mr F can see all of this, even though the doorway is in almost total shadow; he has a beast’s eyes. He can even see how black the boy’s eyes are tonight, and how his skin seems to collect the light, even in this near-complete darkness). Except that now, it is summer. Now, it is a dark, high-summer night, not a cold February morning, and there is nothing in the way. In fact, there are only twenty-odd feet and the cutting-room benches keeping them apart.
No wonder there is a slight tremor in Mr F’s voice when, after a short silence, he says
“So you came then.”
Beauty could see Mr F silhouetted against the window, but he couldn’t see his face. Deciding that it was best to take the initiative, he set out across the room, starting straight into his spiel as he went.
“Look, I’m sorry, Mr F; I know you must think I’m — ” but Mr F cut him off in a voice that sounded like a dropping axe:
“Thank you.”
Straightaway, there was something in the room that the boy hadn’t prepared himself for: feeling. He stopped, and waited — warily, not knowing what was coming next.
“And is that supposed to make me feel better?”
Now the voice was almost a snarl. And it was thick with anger — that was it; anger, coming off Mr F in black, turgid waves, like a smell. The room was suddenly much too dark for Beauty’s liking, and the door too far behind him. This wasn’t the same man he was used to dealing with at all. With the light from the window behind him like that, he looked taller — heavier, even — than usual; bull-necked. The usual tricks weren’t going to work with this one.
Neither of them moved.
Because whatever light there was in the room was behind him, Mr F’s face was in darkness. It was only when he turned away to look for something on the bench behind him that it was briefly caught by the moonlight coming in through the window. For a moment, Beauty thought that Mr F must have decided to wear some sort of strange white carnival mask for the occasion; the man’s face looked almost like one of those plaster ones you see up over the arch at the theatre. Dead. It was something like that time when he’d cut himself — except that now his mouth was gaping, a black hole, with the lips pulled right back, and his forehead looked as if it had been raked by someone’s nails. In which case, why wasn’t he making any noise? And what was he doing scrabbling around on the bench like that? Had he lost something?
As if he didn’t want anyone to see him like this, Mr F stayed with his back half-turned to Beauty for what seemed like a full minute, hunched over, fighting to get his breath back. Still, the boy didn’t dare make a move for the door.
Mr F had spread both his hands palm-down on the bench, and Beauty could see that they were half-clenching into fists. Then the right one moved, and fou
nd what it was looking for.
When he saw his fingers close around the brass handle, Beauty’s first, ridiculous thought was that Mr F was going to suggest they started working on something together. But there was no piece of work laid out on the nailing-board that he could see, nor anything on any of the stands; everything was as neat and tidy as they’d left it on Friday night — and anyway, how could they possibly get any work done with the lights off like this? So the knife must be for something else, he thought.
Well, for what, exactly?
It was only when Mr F turned back to face him, and started to swing his arm back in preparation, that Beauty realised what was about to happen. Even though the man’s face was in darkness again as he started to come slowly round the benches and towards him, he knew exactly what that movement of the arm meant — knew that he ought to start backing away towards the door, right now — but for some reason, his feet wouldn’t move. It seemed that all he could do was stare, stare fascinated at the way the moonlight was catching just the point and edge of the blade — at the way the small brass handle of the knife sat so lightly and so neatly on the palm of Mr F’s outstretched right hand as he worked his way towards him, holding it out now as if offering it for his inspection, coming round the benches towards him and saying Well then; recognise our old friend here? There was still one last cutting bench between them, and Mr F must have realised that the boy was about to make a dash for it, because he came over that bench so quickly and so lightly that Beauty didn’t even have time to think about which way to run…
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