Gently Sinking

by Alan Hunter

  ‘I’ll try some of that.’

  ‘Oh yes, yes, sir. If you sit down at a table, sir, I bring it to you.’

  ‘What do you drink with it?’

  ‘ ’Most anything, sir.’

  ‘Fix me a lime drink with a dash of rum.’

  Sarah scuttled, almost ran into the kitchen, and Sharkey reached for a tall glass.

  ‘You ain’t a member, man,’ he said, not looking at Gently. ‘How you think you going to get rum?’

  ‘Put me down as a friend,’ Gently said. ‘I’ll pay a surcharge on the salad.’

  ‘A friend,’ Sharkey said. ‘A friend. When you’s a friend, man, I’ll eat my guitar.’

  Gently got his drink. He picked it up and slid lazily off his stool. A number of eyes turned towards the bar unitedly sought a fresh direction. Gently looked over the tables. Except one next the juke-box all the tables were filled. At the one next the juke-box sat a single customer. He was Aaron Taylor. Gently carried his drink there.

  ‘All right if I share with you?’

  Aaron Taylor ducked his head but didn’t say anything.

  Gently pushed back a chair and sat so he could see both bar and stage. Eyes from the other tables were switching back to him, but switched away again as quickly. From across the bar Sharkey was staring. Aaron Taylor stared at nothing.

  Gently drank.

  ‘You still waiting for Sadie to turn up?’ he asked.

  Aaron Taylor jerked his head slightly, his thick lips in a twist.

  ‘You know she ain’t going to turn up, sir,’ he said.

  ‘One day, perhaps,’ Gently said.

  Aaron Taylor drooped his head. On the table by him stood an empty glass. He sat slouched, his long legs splayed.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But that don’t matter.’

  ‘I think it matters,’ Gently said.

  ‘No, sir, no, sir,’ Aaron Taylor said. ‘It’s like Mr Tallent says. She don’t look at me.’

  ‘Perhaps she will,’ Gently said.

  ‘No, sir, no,’ Aaron Taylor said. ‘She got altogether too much class. I’m just a poor man, ain’t got nothing.’

  He picked up the empty glass, set it down again with an irritable bang. Gently sipped. The band was playing a rumba. Aaron Taylor wasn’t noticing the music.

  ‘Where do you think she is?’ Gently said.

  Aaron Taylor scrubbed with the glass.

  ‘I tell you something, sir,’ he said. ‘You better run me in for killing that white man.’

  ‘Is this a confession?’ Gently said.

  ‘You just run me in,’ Aaron Taylor said. ‘You don’t have to worry ’bout these folk here, they won’t raise a finger to save this fellow.’

  ‘But did you do it?’ Gently said.

  Aaron Taylor swirled the glass.

  ‘I was there, sir,’ he said. ‘That was surely my knife. Maybe I did go inside that flat, maybe I stuck that knife in Tommy.’

  His eyes met Gently’s. Gently said nothing.

  ‘It don’t matter about me,’ Aaron Taylor said. ‘I go to jail for a whole lot of years and that don’t signify. I ain’t nothing.’

  ‘Only we can’t play it that way,’ Gently said.

  ‘That’s the best, best way,’ Aaron Taylor said. ‘You take my word, sir. You just take it.’

  Gently shook his head.

  Aaron Taylor was silent.

  * * *

  The rumba finished, left the drums filling in.

  Sarah Sunshine came out with a tray.

  She crossed from the bar with a nervous, flitting step, got around somehow behind Gently, tumbled cutlery on the table before him.

  Aaron Taylor kept his eyes from her, still shunted the empty glass.

  She set down a green plate loaded with hot fried chicken, chopped banana, pineapple, rice and watercress; then a curved green side-dish containing mango chutney, olives and small white pickled onions. She stood aside.

  ‘How much?’ Gently said.

  ‘That sure is on the house, sir,’ Sarah Sunshine said.

  ‘Oh no,’ Gently said. ‘How much?’

  ‘Oh gosh, sir, that’s ten and six,’ Sarah Sunshine said. Gently pulled out a pound.

  ‘And the drink?’ he said.

  ‘We cain’t charge for no drink,’ Sarah Sunshine said.

  ‘And the coffee and the tip,’ Gently said. ‘And another drink for Mr Taylor.’

  He shoved the note in her shaking hand.

  ‘Where did Sadie go?’ he asked.

  Above the soft drumming he could hear her teeth nicking and the tray she was holding had begun to flutter.

  ‘All right,’ Gently said. ‘Never mind. Fetch Mr Taylor his drink.’

  ‘Oh, sir, I just don’t know,’ Sarah Sunshine quavered. ‘I really don’t know where that girl go to.’

  ‘So fetch the drink,’ Gently said.

  ‘If I know that, sir, I tell you.’

  ‘Your husband is getting restive,’ Gently said. ‘Do as I say. Fetch the drink.’

  He began to eat. Sarah Sunshine hesitated, then flitted back to the bar. Sharkey had watched every move. He snapped something at Sarah as she went into the bar.

  ‘She never going to tell you,’ Aaron Taylor said to his glass. ‘You keep asking, but she ain’t going to tell you.’

  ‘She knows,’ Gently said.

  ‘Yeh, sir, she knows.’

  ‘And Sharkey too.’

  Aaron Taylor said nothing.

  Sarah Sunshine came back with a glass of rum, set it slopping on the table before Taylor. Taylor quietly moved the glass a few inches, didn’t look up at Sarah Sunshine.

  ‘Sir,’ Sarah Sunshine stammered. ‘You got the wrong idea, sir. You don’t need Sadie. That woman is innocent.’

  ‘So where is she?’ Gently said.

  ‘She just gone away, sir. But you don’t need her. She ain’t the right one.’

  ‘I still need to talk to her,’ Gently said.

  ‘Oh gosh, no,’ Sarah Sunshine said. ‘You forget about her, sir.’

  Gently went on eating his chicken.

  Sarah Sunshine grabbed Taylor’s empty glass and scurried away.

  The steel drums throbbed. Gently helped himself to chutney.

  ‘Perhaps Sadie isn’t anywhere,’ he said through a mouthful.

  ‘How you mean, sir?’ Aaron Taylor said.

  ‘She knows too much,’ Gently said. ‘And we haven’t found her.’

  Aaron Taylor’s eyes went to him, jumping large.

  ‘Could even be Blackburn’s death was cover,’ Gently said. ‘Somebody wanting to put Sadie away, killing Blackburn first to put us on a wrong scent.’

  He paused to drink.

  ‘It’s odd,’ he said, ‘we don’t find Sadie.’

  Aaron Taylor’s eyes were staring, his breath coming quick. He crammed his glass to his mouth with clumsy fingers, gulped about half of it, set the glass down hard.

  ‘Nobody wouldn’t do that thing,’ he said.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Gently said. ‘I can think of a couple of prospects.’

  ‘That’s too wicked – they wouldn’t do it!’

  Gently shrugged, loaded his fork, ate.

  ‘No, sir,’ Aaron Taylor said. ‘Sadie ain’t dead. Nobody going to make me believe she dead. That’s a bad, bad business, but it ain’t like you say. Sadie’s all right. She turn up again one day.’

  ‘Then where is she now?’ Gently said.

  ‘You find her, you find her,’ Aaron Taylor said.

  ‘Not without help, it seems,’ Gently said. ‘We’ve got a big hunt on, but we haven’t found Sadie.’

  He paused over a mouthful, watching Taylor. Taylor’s broad-boned face was dragging. His thick lips hung apart, his pupils had gone small and sightless. He spoke again without focusing his eyes.

  ‘Take me in, sir,’ he said quickly. ‘That’s the bestest.’

  ‘You,’ Gently said. ‘You’re in the clear, Taylor.’

  ‘Oh lor
dy, don’t push it,’ Aaron Taylor said. ‘You cain’t understand, sir. Just take me.’

  Gently finished the chicken salad. The air in the hall was growing too warm. Following the fashion around him, he stripped off raincoat and jacket and hung them over the back of his chair. Somebody cheered and there was laughter. Sharkey glared over the bar and the laughter died. Then he turned to argue with Sarah Sunshine, who, after a moment, slunk out of the bar.

  Aaron Taylor sipped a little rum and slid a look towards Gently.

  ‘Is this your usual table?’ Gently asked.

  Aaron Taylor nodded, sipped.

  ‘On Tuesday night?’

  Aaron Taylor nodded.

  ‘And you didn’t see Sadie?’

  Aaron Taylor shook his head.

  ‘But you do see the bar,’ Gently said. ‘And you’d be watching it. Watching for Sadie. You’d see Sharkey and Sarah Sunshine. All the time till you left.’

  ‘Yeh, sir,’ Aaron Taylor said.

  ‘You did see them?’

  Aaron Taylor nodded.

  ‘All the time?’

  Aaron Taylor’s head drooped.

  ‘ ’Most all the time, sir. They’re both of them there.’

  ‘Till you left,’ Gently said.

  Aaron Taylor nodded and hunched low over his rum.

  Over in the bar, Sharkey, alone, stood leaning with his back to Gently, drinking.

  Suddenly the coloured spots above them cut and a single white spot beamed down on the stage.

  Aaron Taylor straightened up with a gasp, but slowly sank again into his hunch.

  ‘Sadie’s spot,’ Gently said.

  Aaron Taylor groaned, hugged his glass.

  The band rippled into slow calypso time and a slim figure crept into the spot. Taylor jerked round again, staring. But the woman in the spot was Sarah Sunshine. She picked up the microphone reluctantly, giving the cable a weak pluck, then she swayed a little with the music, and her soft, quavering voice began to come.

  Oh coconut grove—

  You sigh where the trade-winds play,

  Coconut grove—

  You calling to me all day;

  I’m so far from you,

  Don’t know what I’ll do—

  This old smokey town

  Won’t let me settle down—

  Man I long to be

  By that sunny sea—

  Near my coconut grove.

  Her voice broke slightly on the last line and she pulled the microphone close to her. The steel drums and xylophone took up the air again and played it through with variations. Then she came back with a verse.

  Long time ago I was a little girl

  Watching those breakers roll by—

  Now I ain’t no more that little girl,

  I hear the sea and I want to cry.

  Over this her voice broke several times.

  ‘Oh lord, oh lord,’ Aaron Taylor groaned.

  ‘This’ll be Sadie’s song, too,’ Gently said.

  ‘But why she singing it?’ Aaron Taylor said. ‘Why she going up there and singing it?’

  The tables were quiet. The dancers were standing back in the shadows.

  Sarah Sunshine sang the chorus again. The band extemporized. She sang a second verse.

  Once I was dreaming of silver and gold,

  Dressed me in clothes that were fine—

  You take the silver, you take the gold,

  Leave me the seashells, they’s all that’s mine.

  Now she could barely control her voice, and tears were glinting on her cheeks. In the final chorus she choked down some of the words and couldn’t manage the last line. Applause was emotional. Most of the customers were on their feet and the dancers pushed up to the stage, cheering and clapping. Sarah Sunshine covered her face. Even the band was forgetting to fill in. Only Sharkey had eyes for Gently, only Aaron Taylor had eyes for nobody. The applause went on for over a minute, when Sarah Sunshine ran off and the drums swung into a solo.

  Now quite a few eyes were turned towards Gently, accompanied by a buzzing surge of conversation.

  Aaron Taylor scrubbed tears from his eyes, took a deep sob of breath, sipped his rum.

  Gently drank too.

  In a little while he saw Sarah Sunshine reappear in the bar. Sharkey spoke to her. She shook her head wordlessly, went quietly to the counter to take an order.

  ‘Quite a demonstration,’ Gently said to Aaron Taylor.

  ‘Oh man,’ Aaron Taylor said. ‘She hurt.’

  ‘Just because she was singing Sadie’s song?’ Gently said.

  Aaron Taylor’s brown eyes stared fixedly at him for a moment.

  The drums played ‘Peanut Vendor’, then the rest of the band came in with a cha-cha. Sarah Sunshine moved about the tables, bringing orders, fetching glasses. Gently signalled to her when she passed near them. She obeyed the signal, came slowly to their table.

  ‘I enjoyed your song,’ Gently said. ‘It was very effective.’

  ‘That really is Sadie’s song, sir,’ Sarah Sunshine said quickly. ‘I make the words, Sharkey make the music. But that really is Sadie’s song.’

  ‘But you sang it with great feeling,’ Gently said.

  About them he could hear the conversation slacken.

  ‘I guess it says things we all feel about, sir,’ Sarah Sunshine said. ‘We all get the blues sometimes, want to catch the next boat home.’

  ‘But you seemed very moved tonight,’ Gently said. ‘And your audience too. Unusually moved.’

  ‘Maybe that’s because I try to sing it for them, sir,’ Sarah Sunshine said. ‘They know I ain’t any sort of singer. They just like it ’cause I try.’

  She reached a shaking hand for Gently’s plate.

  ‘It sounded more personal,’ Gently said.

  ‘Oh no, no, sir,’ Sarah Sunshine said. ‘That ain’t nothing personal. You don’t take it that way.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re homesick yourself,’ Gently said. ‘You must miss the sunshine, your own family.’

  ‘No, sir, no, sir,’ Sarah Sunshine said. ‘I’s happy. I’s quite happy.’

  ‘You don’t want to go home?’

  Sarah Sunshine’s mouth crumpled.

  ‘She ain’t got no home, sir,’ Aaron Taylor said. ‘She ain’t got no people, they’re all gone. She ain’t got nobody but Sharkey.’

  ‘I see. I’m sorry,’ Gently said.

  ‘She got nobody at all,’ Aaron Taylor said.

  Sarah Sunshine held her head away from Gently as though staring at something to her side.

  ‘Please, you don’t treat her rough, sir,’ Aaron Taylor said.

  Sharkey came striding over from the bar. Sarah Sunshine grabbed Gently’s side-dish and glass. Her face was working. She ran.

  At 10 the band had a break and clustered round the bar for drinks. They took the chance to look Gently over but they didn’t make any jokes about him. He wasn’t noticing them. He sat smoking his pipe. Aaron Taylor still sat opposite him. Aaron Taylor had an inch of rum. Gently hadn’t drunk again. Aaron Taylor sat with elbows on the table, forehead in his hands, shoulders big.

  Six or seven minutes later the musicians strolled back to the stage and began a fresh, slow number. Nobody danced. There were big clusters round the tables, though the two next to Gently had been quietly vacated.

  ‘How many breaks do the band get?’ Gently asked Aaron Taylor.

  Aaron Taylor slowly lifted his head.

  ‘Just this one, sir,’ he said.

  Sharkey, rinsing glasses, caught Taylor’s movement and turned to stare.

  ‘Where did Blackburn sit?’

  ‘That table near the bar, sir. He ’most always used that table.’

  ‘Did he on Tuesday?’

  Aaron Taylor hesitated.

  ‘I ain’t ab’slutely sure, sir.’

  ‘He didn’t,’ Gently said.

  Aaron Taylor lifted his glass and gulped.

  ‘He’d sit over this way,’ Gently said. ‘Perh
aps not far from you. Am I right? At a guess I’d say that table by the wall, the last one, farthest from the others.’

  Aaron Taylor kept the glass near his face.

  ‘That’s where he ate, watched the band,’ Gently said. ‘Where he maybe expected to hear Sadie sing, only Sadie didn’t show. There was only the band singer.’

  Aaron Taylor moaned.

  ‘Not much more to fill in, is there?’ Gently said. ‘And Sadie could fill it in for us. If we had her. Had her alive.’

  ‘Sir, don’t you say that . . .!’

  Gently shrugged and took short puffs at his pipe.

  ‘Oh, you find her,’ Aaron Taylor moaned. ‘You find her, sir. You just must.’

  ‘So where do I look?’

  ‘I cain’t say, sir . . .’

  Gently gave Taylor a hard look. Taylor’s knuckles whitened over the rum-glass. He screwed his eyes shut. He said nothing.

  The band changed its tempo, brought in a trumpet.

  Gently stood up, walked over to the bar. Both the Sunshines were behind the bar. Both went still, watched him coming. Sharkey came forward a step to the counter. Sarah Sunshine edged behind him. Sharkey’s face was hard-lined, his eyes glaring, over-large.

  He breathed hard through his nostrils.

  ‘So when you make your move, man?’ he said.

  Gently looked from him to Sarah Sunshine. Sarah Sunshine snatched her face aside.

  ‘When we find Sadie,’ Gently said.

  ‘Suppose you don’t find her?’ Sharkey said.

  ‘Oh, we’ll find her,’ Gently said. ‘Even under fresh-turned earth, we’ll find her.’

  Sharkey sucked in breath.

  ‘You don’t want her,’ he said. ‘You just torturing us here, man. Sadie ain’t dead.’

  ‘Aaron thinks she may be,’ Gently said. ‘And Grey is certain he can’t be implicated.’

  ‘You never mind about that man Grey!’

  ‘I mind about everyone,’ Gently said, ‘in this case.’

  Sharkey hung on, glaring, rough-breathed, his hands gripping the edge of the counter.

  ‘I’ll go now,’ Gently said. ‘Before the riot. I think perhaps your wife’s song was not very wise.’

  ‘Yeh man, you go, you devilman,’ Sharkey said. ‘You done enough trouble. You just go.’

  Gently turned for the door. He paused briefly. In spite of the band there was a silence in the hall. In knots at the tables the customers were staring at him, shadowy in the soft lights, eye-whites gleaming. He walked slowly towards the vestibule. The silence filled in behind him. A foot shod in patent-leather was thrust into his path. He walked carefully round it. He reached the vestibule.