The White Room

by Martyn Waites

  She thought of the man again. Brian Mooney. Remembered his accent. London-born.

  Ben Marshall.

  Brian Mooney.

  Same initials.

  Another rollercoaster stomach lurch.

  She had to do something; she didn’t know what.

  Two full days she thought about it. Two full days of dwindling clients, drying-up money supplies. She came to a decision.

  She knocked on Bert’s door that evening. It was a long time since she had seen the rag-and-bone man, even longer since she had slept with him. She felt he had been avoiding her. But she didn’t care. She needed an ally. And he was the best she could do.

  The door opened. She heard a TV going inside, smelled the remains of cooked food. Normal life. Bert, standing in his customary vest, trousers and braces, didn’t hide his surprise at seeing her there. Or the fact that he wasn’t pleased.

  ‘Monica …’

  ‘Hello, Bert. Can I come in?’

  She had one leg raised, mounting the step. Bert didn’t move.

  ‘What d’you want?’

  Monica sighed in exasperation.

  ‘Let us in an’ I’ll tell you.’

  Bert reluctantly moved aside and she entered. He closed the door behind her after looking up and down the street, checking no one had witnessed her entry.

  Monica made her way to the front room, stood beside the fireplace and unfolded the copy of the Evening Chronicle she had been carrying around for the last few days. She thrust it at Bert, already open at the relevant article.

  ‘Here. Read that.’

  He looked at it, wrinkled his nose. ‘This been wrappin’ fish an’ chips?’

  ‘Never mind about that. Just read it.’

  ‘What for?’

  She sighed in exasperation. She felt like hitting him. ‘Just read it.’

  Taking the paper, he wearily began to read. He finished, handed it back to her.

  ‘So?’ he said. ‘I can’t see what—’

  ‘Ralph Bell! Ralph Bell!’ Monica was almost shouting. ‘I saw him. Just before he disappeared.’

  Bert nodded. ‘Right. So what d’you want me to do about it?’

  Monica shook her head in exasperation.

  ‘He was there. At my house. I was with ’im. An’ then someone called for ’im. Drove ’im away. An’ ’e was never seen again.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Bert. He sat down, didn’t invite Monica to. ‘So why don’t you go to the police? Tell them?’

  ‘Oh, don’t be stupid, Bert. How can I go to the police? They wouldn’t listen to me. An’, anyway, I want nothin’ to do with them. Especially when I tell them who he was with.’

  ‘Who?’

  Monica sat on the settee next to Bert, her face all stupid fox cunning. She looked right into his eyes.

  ‘Brian Mooney.’

  Bert looked blankly at her. ‘Who?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Monica jumped up, paced the room in exasperation. ‘Brian Mooney! Mae’s father. The bloke I used to live with.’

  Bert frowned. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure! It was him! Except now ’e’s callin’ ’imself Ben Marshall. An’ talkin’ with a London accent.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s ’im?’

  ‘Yes! The initials! BM! It has to be ’im!’

  ‘Oh.’ Bert sat back thoughtfully. ‘So why are you tellin’ me all this?’

  Monica sighed.

  ‘Because I want to ask you a favour.’

  ‘No, Monica.’ Bert shook his head wearily. ‘No. Whatever it is, no. I want nothin’ more to do with you. You know that.’

  ‘There’ll be a lot of money in it. A lot. We can share it.’

  ‘I’m not interested. No.’

  ‘Just listen. Let me tell you.’

  That night in her bed, gin and tonic on the bedside, Monica felt more relaxed than she had in ages. Relaxed and quite excited.

  She had talked and Bert had listened. If Brian Mooney was now calling himself Ben Marshall, and he was a well-known businessman, then he would be worth a bob or two. And the last thing he would want would be for someone to expose his past. His illegitimate daughter. He would pay good money not to have that happen.

  But they had to be sure it was him.

  Her plan: because he would recognize Monica, Bert would ride his rag-and-bone wagon around some of Northern Star’s construction sites. See if there was anything he could take. Then get talking to people. Find out more about Ben Marshall. And when they had enough on him, confront him with it. And get paid.

  And Bert had seen the pound signs, given in, agreed. They were talking about a lot of money. She wasn’t surprised at the speed with which he had said yes.

  Monica took a sip of gin that turned into a mouthful that continued until she had drained the glass.

  She settled down to sleep, smiling.

  Brian had never given her a penny for Mae. Nothing. Well, she’d get more than a penny out of him now.

  She closed her eyes, still smiling.

  The Red House, the Quayside, Newcastle.

  Low ceilings, dark oak beams, white walls. Uneven, wooden floors. The whole building warped and wefted by time, not a straight, vertical line in the whole place. An old shipman’s tavern turned bar and restaurant.

  Another Dan Smith initiative: business meetings disguised as dinner parties. Conversation flowed with the wine. Food was as plentiful as ideas. Deals were sealed in a select, convivial atmosphere. The waiters had been briefed by Dan beforehand. Food and drink weren’t the important things. Conversation was. Told them to read the table: hold off on the entrées if the talk was flowing. Marinate it with Mateus if it wasn’t.

  Ben Marshall sat back in his seat, glass of rosé in hand. His stomach was full, his waistline expanding. He didn’t mind. Wore it as a measure of success.

  Nineteen sixty-six was working up to being a good year for Ben. Business was booming, development and redevelopment in full swing thanks to Dan. Ben was now one of the favoured knights in Dan’s castle.

  Dan was holding court at the far end of the table. Lecturing: regionalism versus nationalism. No takers for a fight, Dan elaborating: regionalism is its own nationalism.

  Discuss.

  No takers. Only listeners.

  Sharon had picked at her food, drank listlessly, hardly spoken all evening. Ben hadn’t asked what was wrong with her; assumed she would elaborate in the fullness of time.

  He had spent most of the evening talking to the man on his left. Balding, with deep-set eyes that darted the length of the table as he spoke.

  ‘John Poulson,’ he had introduced himself as. ‘Architect. Poulson Associates.’

  ‘Ben Marshal.’ He smiled. ‘I run Northern Star.’

  ‘Heard a lot about you, Mr Marshall.’

  ‘Nothing good, I hope.’

  The two men laughed, talked. Sharon pushed her food around her plate, sighed. Ben heard the constant, disconsolate scrapings of her knife. Ignored them.

  ‘So what d’you think of—’ John Poulson poked his fork at the head of the table ‘—our friend up there?’

  ‘Great man,’ said Ben, ‘a visionary.’

  John Poulson nodded.

  ‘Yes. I know he puts a lot of people’s backs up. About as many as admire him. But he’s a good businessman. I can work with him.’

  ‘What are you doing for him at the moment?’

  ‘Designing. Couldn’t get Le Corbusier. Got me instead.’

  Ben laughed politely.

  Sharon scraped her knife.

  The two men talked. Business.

  ‘You’re right, though, Ben,’ said John Poulson, gesturing with his wine glass. ‘Complete packages. That’s the thing. Course, you should take things one step further.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Them that give you the green light, put them on the payroll. You want clearance? Politically?’ John Poulson’s voice was hushed, conspiratorial. ‘Get your MP on boa
rd. Put him on the payroll. Call him a Parliamentary Consultant. You want it to sound like a good scheme? Get the head of the council. Or whoever’s a big noise in the region—’ he waved his fork towards the head of the table again ‘—put him on the payroll. Make him your PR man. Charge what you want for the job. And then undercut yourself. Pocket the difference, no questions asked. Know what I mean?’

  Ben nodded, smiled.

  ‘So are you a Socialist,’ asked Ben, ‘like Dan?’

  John Poulson laughed. ‘A Socialist? Like Dan? I might be like Dan, but I’m not a Socialist. No. Doesn’t matter if you’re red or blue or even orange. There’s only one colour brings politicians together.’ He rubbed his thumb and αforefinger together. ‘And that’s green.’ He smiled.

  They talked some more. Then Ben excused himself to go to the toilet. Inside, he looked in the mirror, fixed his tie, hair and cufflinks in place. Coming out, he found Sharon standing in the narrow corridor away from the dining room, back against the wall, smoking a cigarette.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ he said, fixing his smile in place. ‘Enjoying yourself?’

  ‘No, I’m bloody not,’ she spat at him. ‘You’ve ignored me all night. Talked to that shifty-looking architect instead.’

  ‘It’s a business dinner, you know that.’

  ‘Business.’ She gave a harsh laugh. ‘D’you know, I must know every person in that room. And d’you know what they’ll be thinking? There’s Jack Smeaton’s wife. What’s she doing here?’

  ‘Ex-wife.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. They’ll all be thinking the same thing. Whore.’

  They both fell silent as a town planner squeezed past them on the way to the gents.

  ‘Should I call a cab? Take you home?’

  ‘A cab? I want more than a cab, Ben. I want you to marry me. Make it legal.’

  Ben swallowed back anger, sighed.

  ‘This conversation can wait until later.’

  Sharon pushed her face in Ben’s. ‘No, it can’t. No, it can’t bloody wait. I don’t want to walk back in there and have them think the same about me. Now I’ve been loyal to you. I think it’s about time I got something back. It’s about time I got some commitment.’

  Ben looked at her long and hard, unsmiling, then spoke.

  His eyes were like flint.

  ‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘It seems I’ve got two choices. I can either throw you over or marry you.’

  Sharon’s eyes lit up slightly, grasping the words.

  ‘Now, if I dump you, that’s that. Finito. End of story. If I marry you, then you’ve got to know why. D’you want to marry me?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Ben, yes, of course I do.’

  She smiled at him. His eyes remained like flint.

  ‘Then you’d better know why. You’d better listen to the rules. Just so you can’t say later that you weren’t told. Now, if I marry you, it’s because I want a good-looking woman to take to parties, be a good hostess, lend me a bit of respectability. Stability. Someone my own age, so it doesn’t look embarrassing either way. In return I’ll give you money, buy you clothes, get you a car, a Mini or something, even pay for your kid to get good schooling. But don’t think I’m in love with you. Because it’s not about love. Or anything approaching that. We might still have occasional sex together. But that’s all.’

  She stared at him, unmoving, unblinking, cigarette down to her fingers, burned down to ash.

  ‘And that’s another thing,’ he said. ‘Sex. I’ll be fucking other women. Other girls. It’s expected of me. But you can’t fuck other men. That’ll make me look weak. So if I so much as suspect you of playing around, you’re out on your ear. And I’ll make you hurt before that.’

  He stood back, regarded her coolly.

  ‘That’s the deal. Call it a … pre-nuptial agreement.’ He smiled at the good phrase he had just made up. ‘What’s your answer?’

  The town planner chose that moment to emerge from the gents. With mumbled apologies he squeezed past them, rubbing his body against Sharon as he went.

  Sharon didn’t notice, didn’t move, just stared at Ben.

  ‘What’s your answer?’

  She remained still, staring. Ben gave a harsh laugh.

  ‘If you didn’t want to hear the answer, you shouldn’t have asked the question. Don’t throw some stroppy, hissy fit with me and expect me to back down. You’re not with Jack fucking Smeaton now.’

  Sharon remained staring. Ben sighed in exasperation.

  ‘You going to fucking answer, or are we going to stand here all fucking night?’

  Sharon looked him in the eye. She looked like she had been physically punched. Numbly, she nodded.

  ‘Good,’ said Ben. ‘Now get back in that room and start smiling. That’s what I expect from a wife.’

  Sharon somnambulated back into the dining room.

  Ben followed, shaking his head, hoping John Poulson was still there, hoping they could put a bit of business together.

  The glass pane was small, square. The putty holding it in old, shrunken, hard. One tap from the half-brick and it smashed.

  Mae put her hand in, felt for the snub on the inside lock. Carefully, so as not to cut herself, she found it, turned it. The door swung open.

  Mae giggled, felt a powerful elation run through her body. She hadn’t expected breaking into a school to be so easy.

  ‘Howay,’ she said, ‘we’re in.’

  Behind her, Eileen gave one of her hoarse guffaws and quickly followed Mae inside.

  Eileen. Mae’s new best friend.

  Mae’s only real friend.

  Eileen was twelve to Mae’s ten years, but inside much younger. She was large-framed, always wearing the same washed-out flower print dress or one of its twins, her large workboots and an old overcoat. Her hair was hacked and bobbed; a hair grip bearing a small, porcelain flower kept it out of her eyes, was her only concession to outright femininity. She was always smiling, as if finding savant-like wonderment in the world or uncomprehending bafflement at life.

  Mae had found her one day when she had been aimlessly wandering around the area, trying to do anything rather than go to school. She had stood and watched the wrecking ball smash into the side of a row of old terraced houses, saw the walls collapse with a force that rocked the pavement she stood on. Laughed at the amount of rats that had come running out of the rubble, disappearing into cracks and crevices of houses opposite. Making new homes for themselves.

  She looked around. A girl sat on the wall watching the workmen, laughing at the rats also. Mae sat down next to her. The girl looked at her, stopped laughing, kept smiling.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m Eileen. What’s your name?’

  ‘Mae.’

  ‘Will you be my friend, Mae?’

  Mae looked at the girl, suspicion in her eyes. Why was this older girl wanting to be friends with her? Did she want the same from her that the men did?

  ‘Why?’ said Mae, stone-faced.

  ‘Cos I like havin’ friends an’ I haven’t got one. So will you?’

  Eileen smiled. Her face open and unthreatening.

  ‘All right, then.’

  And Mae had found her first friend.

  Mae had the time of her life. The first time she could remember being happy. Eileen never judged: Mae could say anything, do anything, tell her anything and Eileen just smiled and nodded.

  Mae loved it. She could clown and fool and Eileen smiled and laughed. She could shout and scream and Eileen smiled and laughed.

  Eileen knew all the younger children too. The little kids, the pre-schoolers. And Mae became friends with them. They would follow the two girls around, laughing, like rats to the Pied Piper. Mae loved it, played up to it.

  Her first friends: the feebs and the babies.

  Mae Blacklock, the Outsider Queen.

  Sometimes Mae did things just to get a reaction, just to see Eileen’s face change. Mae felt she had within her a vast, deep, black reservoir of rag
e. Unfathomed. Untapped. Sometimes a great geyser of it would belch and bubble to the surface. And Mae would direct it at Eileen. She would swear, scream, call her names; she would pinch her, poke her, hit her. Eileen would look confused, ask her what was wrong, but still offer her uncritical friendship.

  The rages were becoming more frequent.

  And Mae couldn’t control them.

  Eileen gave Mae licence to voice ideas, to do things she would never have had the nerve to do on her own.

  Like break into the school.

  Mae hated school, felt hated within it. Wanted to take her rage out on it. So she did. And took Eileen, smiling and giggling, along with her.

  They were in. Mae looked around.

  ‘Come on.’

  Mae ran down the hall, Eileen following. She pulled over bookcases as she went, knocked objects from shelves, pulled corners of displays, ripped them down as she ran. Eileen followed her lead, echoing the mayhem.

  Mae found her own classroom. Where she was supposed to be when she wasn’t playing truant.

  ‘In here.’

  Eileen followed Mae.

  The room was neatly ordered, everything put away, ready for the next day.

  ‘Let’s wreck it.’

  Desks were upturned, contents spilled over the floor. Chairs kicked over, projects torn down from walls, objects of interest smashed on the floor, books pulled from shelves, covers and spines ripped off. Mae found the paint cupboard. She pulled the paints out, threw them at the walls. She felt a slight twang of guilt – she had always enjoyed painting – but not enough to stop what she was doing.

  She stopped, admired her work. She smiled. The room was wrecked.

  She smiled at the devastation. Her chest was heaving with exertion. She felt something else building within her.

  ‘I need to do a shit,’ she said out loud.

  She looked around; the teacher’s desk. Her teacher: always sneering at Mae, belittling her. Making her low opinion of her known.

  She climbed on the desk, hitched up her skirt, dropped her knickers.

  And shat in the middle of the desk.

  Eileen giggled.

  Mae finished, wiped herself off with a piece of paper from the desk, redressed herself.

  She was still panting hard, but the fight had gone out of her, the adrenalin high fading.