Out of the Blackout

by Robert Barnard

  To Simon’s surprise, Connie merely giggled. The whisky was beginning to have an effect.

  ‘Golly, Len, you must sound prehistoric to Simon here. Positively out of the ark. As if I ought to be ashamed of giving a bit of warmth and comfort to a few boys who’d be out on a bombing raid in a few hours’ time, or on the Normandy beaches. Well, I can tell you, I’m not ashamed at all.’

  ‘My own daughter,’ moaned Mrs Simmeter.

  ‘Shame was never exactly your line,’ sneered Len.

  ‘It never needed to be. As to spending most of the war on my back, that’s just your sex-ridden little mind. I’d rather take pleasure from that, anyway, than from what you got your kicks from. You got more pleasure from roughing your wife up, so far as I could see, than from the other thing.’

  ‘Don’t give me that!’ roared Len.

  ‘Poor wet little sap, to take it from you.’

  ‘You hold your tongue. We was happy—deliriously happy. Till you came back home, to put a spoke in the wheel.’

  ‘Oh, very happy, provided she did every blind thing you told her to, and she agreed with every word you said.’

  ‘Mary knew what her duties were, and she did them. That’s something you’d never understand. She wasn’t one of your rackety modern women, to flop into bed with the first man who asked her.’

  ‘Too bloody scared, you saw to that,’ said Connie, her good humour unabated. She sat at ease in the chair, smiling cat-like over her whisky, obviously intent on mischief. ‘You were always first-rate at terrorizing the weak and sickly. And of course Mum did her bit as well, as per usual. If Mary hadn’t been under the thumb of the pair of you, she might have had a bit of life of her own. If I’d been her, I’d have fancied Teddy here a damned sight more than I would you. And Teddy was around—nice and available.’

  ‘Cut it out, Connie,’ said Teddy, his cheerfulness now entirely vanished, and seeming to be genuinely outraged. ‘It’s sick, that sort of talk. I was only in my teens, and Mary was well over thirty. There wasn’t anything like that, and you know it.’

  ‘I didn’t say she did, did I?’

  ‘It was quite different. I appreciated her.’ Teddy’s eyes had glazed over, and for a few moments Simon caught a touching glimpse of the young, uncertain teenager who lay buried in the flesh of the jolly proprietor of a slightly dubious business. ‘She was very understanding. Always. I think she suffered herself, so she had sympathy. I was young—younger than my years, because I’d always been leant on, kept under. And those two had me all knotted up . . . they near drove me to a breakdown. And she . . . just let me talk to her. Talk it through. I told her everything, how I wanted to join up . . . to get away . . . to do something for my country. It sounds old-fashioned now, and perhaps that was partly imagination. What I really wanted was to get out. It’s no use looking like that, Ma, because that’s how it was. It was my only chance of growing up. And she listened to me . . .’

  ‘You ought to be ashamed of making my wife listen to drivel like that,’ said Len. ‘If she’d had any sense she would have sent you away with a flea in your ear.’

  ‘But she didn’t. She understood. She knew how it was from . . . from her own situation. But she had the little boy, little David, and she couldn’t break out.’

  ‘She never wanted to break out!’ spluttered Len.

  ‘Well, have it your own way, Len. Perhaps you’re right. Certainly she never said as much, because that wasn’t her way. The main thing was I felt she sympathized. She let me talk, encouraged me to do what I wanted to do. It wasn’t that she wanted me to join up. She thought I was too young. But she saw I had to get away, and she couldn’t see any other way. In the end I was one of the first in.’

  ‘I don’t see the problem,’ drawled Connie. ‘After all, I’d got away. And it was more difficult for a girl.’

  ‘You got away. But you’d had to come back. I saw the sort of thing that could happen. I saw I not only had to make a break: I had to make a permanent break. Mary agreed it would have to be for good.’

  ‘I’m damned sure she never said anything of the kind,’ said Len. ‘She was much too loyal.’

  ‘But she did. She saw the problem. We’d been kept so close, all of us (her too, in a different way, because her father was a tartar). We hardly knew the world, hardly knew how to make a decision for ourselves. So I knew it had to be a proper break, and I had to talk about it before I made it.’

  ‘Well, you made it,’ said Mrs Simmeter grimly. ‘You made your bed, and you must lie on it. You were right down disloyal, that’s the long and the short of it.’ But the iron lines of her face crumpled. ‘Oh, if only you hadn’t! You wouldn’t have been to me like these two have been!’

  ‘I don’t know, Ma. If you’d kept me under, I’d probably have turned out pretty much like Len. Well—not quite. I don’t think I’d ever have been quite like Len. But I would have been cowed and bitter . . . The only one who wasn’t bitter was Mary.’

  ‘I think we’ve had enough of Mary—’ began Len.

  ‘I saw how things were going after Connie came back.’

  ‘Don’t blame me.’

  ‘I don’t, Connie, but there it was. As long as she’d do exactly what Len told her and not question his judgment, things jogged along pretty evenly. And they’d had the baby, to keep them together. But when Connie came back . . .’

  ‘Don’t you think,’ said Len, standing over Teddy and talking loudly, attempting to use the authority of the male of the house, ‘that we’ve treated Mr Cutheridge to quite enough of the family’s business?’

  ‘I could see then,’ said Teddy, ignoring him, ‘that things weren’t going to jog along as they had been doing. Not that things had been good, but they’d been—well—tolerable for all concerned. Oh, I don’t blame you, Connie, but you shouldn’t have come back, not in the circumstances. And when Len started—’

  ‘I told you, Teddy, I’m not having any more of this before strangers,’ bellowed Len, his face now purple with suppressed rage.

  ‘Len’s right,’ said his mother, painfully hauling herself to her feet. ‘I’ve never known you like this, Teddy. We’ve never been ones to broadcast our business to all and sundry. We’ve kept ourselves to ourselves.’

  ‘Oh yes, we’ve done that,’ said Teddy, pulling himself out of his reverie. ‘The Simmeter family motto.’

  ‘I’m off to my bed,’ said Mrs Simmeter, moving herself slowly and heavily towards the kitchen. ‘I’m disappointed in you, Teddy, going on like that. I never imagined you’d talk of your own mother like that, in front of outsiders. It’s the drink, and you can’t say I haven’t warned you against that.’

  ‘I must be going,’ said Simon hurriedly, standing up and giving Len his glass. ‘It’s been very pleasant . . .’

  Connie burst out laughing.

  ‘A real laugh-a-minute party!’

  Teddy suddenly seemed to come completely back to the present, and was terribly ashamed at what he’d let Simon in for. He took his glass back from Len.

  ‘No you don’t, young man. You’re going to have one for the road, now Ma’s off. We’ll show you we’re not quite the miseries we must have seemed. If you’re an only child you won’t really understand about families. We have a lot to get off our chests in a short time, now and again. You’ll have another, won’t you, Connie? And I know Len won’t say no . . .’

  From the kitchen came the sound of Mrs Simmeter collecting together milk bottles. Teddy was walking round the sitting-room, bottle in hand, pouring generous measures.

  ‘Come on: the night is young. Len—would you go and get a jug of water? And see if there’s any soda left. I told Cyn I wouldn’t be back till half past eleven. We’ll all have a nightcap, and then I’ll be off.’

  Standing somewhat awkwardly, holding his glass and trying to pretend that the evening still held some potential for festiveness, Simon was facing the door into the hall, and could see straight through to the kitchen. Len was by the sink, filling a ju
g. Then he turned the tap off, and collected a bottle from the kitchen table. Simon, smiling forcedly (and fatuously, he felt) as Teddy tried to make conversation, heard the milk bottles clink; and then suddenly there came a grunt, a scream, and a heavy thud.

  ‘Oh!’ he heard the voice of Mrs Simmeter cry out, in a compound of outrage and pain. ‘Oh God! Come and help me! Len! Teddy! Oh God—help me!’

  Simon and Teddy put down their glasses and raced into the kitchen. Connie remained seated in her chair. The back door was open, and a light shone on three stone steps, wet with rain. Len was standing by the table looking towards the doorway, through which could be seen a shapeless, floundering bundle of flesh and clothes at the bottom of the steps. As they ran towards the back door, Len turned on them a haggard, terrified face, and caught Simon by the arm.

  ‘I wasn’t anywhere near her!’ he shouted, bringing his face up close to Simon’s. ‘Bear witness that I was nowhere near her!’

  CHAPTER 13

  It was Simon, finally, who called the ambulance. He and Teddy had hauled Mrs Simmeter up the back steps, her bulk, and the pain she was in, adding to their difficulties. Their task was not lightened by Len, who flapped around them in a state of panic which he seemed unable to bring under control. The struggle was watched by Connie, who stood in the kitchen doorway, smoking, and looking on with interest but without concern.

  It was obvious as soon as they got the old lady on to a kitchen chair that this was no simple case of a sprained ankle. Mrs Simmeter was doubtless in many ways an unendearing character, but she was certainly not one to exaggerate her woes to gain public sympathy. When Simon said he’d ring for an ambulance Teddy nodded from a position down on his knees removing his mother’s shoes. Len looked frightened and seemed about to protest, as if the proposal went against all his instincts for concealing family matters within the confines of the burrow. But finally he too nodded. Simon, in any case, had barely waited for his consent before he ran off to the phone in the hall.

  The ambulance came very quickly indeed. When the siren was heard in Miswell Terrace the shapeless mass of woman huddled on the chair was still emitting sharp cries of pain from time to time, and breathing very hard. Her two sons were fussing round her ineffectually, in the manner of men of their generation in times of domestic crisis, but Connie was still standing by the door, a new cigarette between her fingers, and when the doorbell rang she made no attempt to go and answer it. Simon did that too, and ushered through to the kitchen the two men with the stretcher. They loaded Mrs Simmeter on to it with a brisk but tender efficiency which quietened her cries more effectively than all her sons’ ministrations had done. Connie watched them from the doorway, as if she were the inadvertent witness to a street accident, and was memorizing details for the police.

  ‘Anyone coming with her?’ asked the chief ambulance man.

  ‘Yes, we’ll all come,’ said Teddy.

  ‘Oh, come on, Teddy,’ protested his sister. ‘I’ve had a long day. I’m tired. What the hell point is there in all of us going?’

  ‘She might need something—some woman’s thing—something you could help with.’

  ‘What in heaven’s name are nurses for?’

  ‘Connie,’ said her brother. ‘You ought to come. Please. For me.’

  ‘For crying out loud,’ breathed Connie. But she marched into the living-room, fetched her handbag, and took her coat off a peg in the little hallway.

  The ambulance men had problems with the stretcher in the meagre dimensions of the house. Just turning from the kitchen into the hall was dicey, and the two steps that divided the Simmeter living quarters from the hall that was common to all the residents proved tricky to negotiate. Finally they got her through the front door and out into the road. There a little knot of casual gazers, dawdling home after closing time, had been attracted by the siren. Len glared at them angrily. ‘Push off, can’t you?’ he shouted, but they stared stonily back. The ambulance men manoeuvred the ungainly mass into the capacious back of the vehicle. Then, still watched by the little group, intent on milking the situation of its limited dramatic potential, Len marched up the steps, fuming. Teddy followed, and finally Connie walked up into the vehicle in an aggressively leisurely fashion, having stubbed out her cigarette on the road with her high-heeled shoe. The ambulance men pushed up the collapsible steps, shut the back, and within seconds the ambulance had driven away.

  Simon watched it till it turned the corner. The small knot of people dispersed, to relate the little excitement beerily to wives or loved ones. Simon turned and went back into the house. He shut the front door carefully behind him, and was about to mount the stairs when a thought struck him. He padded over to the door leading to the Simmeters’ quarters and tried the handle.

  In their haste they had forgotten to lock it.

  Simon closed it again, noiselessly, then stood for a moment in thought. It was not that he was in any doubt as to what he was going to do. But the code he had been brought up in, the code of the Cutheridges, was a simple and honourable one, and when he departed from it—as, in the life he led, more complex than the Cutheridges’, he found he often had to do—he needed time to contemplate his deviation, set it in a moral perspective. He was still not quite ready to open that door again when he heard a noise from the second floor.

  With a strong feeling that he was doing something unworthy of him, he began guiltily to mount the stairs.

  ‘What’s been going on down there?’ came the voice of Miss Cosgrove, who was looking over the banisters.

  ‘Old Mrs Simmeter. She fell down the back steps,’ called Simon, continuing up.

  ‘Hmmm. Beginning of the end, I shouldn’t wonder. She’s been looking ghastly recently.’

  Turning into the second flight, Simon was surprised to see that Miss Cosgrove was in an outdoor coat and carrying a suitcase.

  ‘I’m off on holiday. I think I told you about it—Florence. These package tours always have flights at such dreadful times. And it’s my first experience of flying. I have to keep telling myself how much extra time I’ll have there. I don’t mind telling you, I’ll be glad when we land at Pisa.’

  ‘I’ll take your case.’

  ‘That is kind. These stairs are so poky. I’m going to hail a cab at the corner, then get the bus from Victoria. I heard cries. Was the old lady in much pain?’

  ‘Yes—great pain, or so it seemed. Something more than just a sprain, anyway.’

  ‘I’ll say this for her: she’s not one to make a fuss needlessly. Did Len and Connie go with her?’

  ‘Yes—and Teddy. He was round on a visit. He’d invited me in, so I was there. Connie was pretty reluctant to go.’

  ‘She would be. No love lost there: some kind of grudge that goes back a long way, I’d guess. Not to mention that she’s a lazy cow at the best of times, pardon my language. Len will be pleased if his mother goes, that’s for sure. Len likes to rule the roost—any roost—and he’ll never get control as long as the old lady’s alive. Not to mention the money. The way they live, they could well have put a fair bit away over the years, in their hole and corner manner.’

  ‘I gather Connie gets the money.’

  ‘You have learnt a lot about them.’

  ‘They’ve been baring their souls down there tonight.’

  ‘Ugh. How very unpleasant. I shouldn’t care for that at all. No, don’t come any further. Now you’ve got it downstairs I can carry it quite easily.’

  ‘Have a good holiday. I’ll take you around the Zoo when you come back.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to it.’

  ‘Ring me at the Zoo if I’m not here when you come back.’

  In the dim light Miss Cosgrove threw him a significant glance.

  ‘I thought you wouldn’t be here for long. No reason why you should be, either. I hope you find somewhere really nice. Goodbye for now.’

  Then, as she made her way towards the cars and lights of the main road, Simon shut the front door and turned back int
o the hall.

  This time he did not hesitate. His very feelings of guilt committed him. It was almost as if he had done it already. He went straight from the front door to the Simmeters’ door, and through that into their low, dingy scrap of passageway.

  They had not only left their quarters unlocked, they had left them lighted. Len was usually lightning quick with the switches, so he must have been really disturbed. And Connie had been the last out. Connie didn’t give a damn, and Teddy had been too concerned about his mother. Simon went through into the living-room. The first thing he did was try to recreate the moment of Mrs Simmeter’s fall. He stood on the same spot, in the same attitude, holding an imaginary glass. He thought hard. He had actually, he remembered, been looking through into the kitchen, had been watching Len at the time. Len had been fetching a bottle of soda from the kitchen table. He crossed into the kitchen and stood where he remembered seeing him stand. It was six feet away from the back door. Simon went to the door, opened it, turned on the back light, and examined both doorway and steps for any signs of a booby-trap or trip-wire. There were none. Only skid marks on the slightly mossy stone steps.

  Len, then, had not pushed his mother down the steps, nor caused her to fall by any more sneaky means. There was not a scintilla of suspicion. Yet Len was obviously unaware that Simon had been watching him at the time, and he was evidently shit-scared that someone was going to accuse him of just that. He had hardly moved from where he was until the others had come into the kitchen. Why was he so panic-stricken? Because it was something he had wanted to do? Something he had mulled over in his mind, but had never summoned up the nerve to carry out?

  Or was it because he had once done something very similar? Not to his mother, but to his wife?

  Simon slowly went back into the living-room. He walked round it, examining the photos he had seen the first time he had been there, now much more resonant from his greater knowledge: the angular wedding picture, so little expressive of joy or anticipation; the young Teddy—eager, happy, slightly defiant; the mother and son, which he scanned once more in the hope that it would stir sluggish memories. Where had he gone with his mother to have this taken? Some studio in Paddington, no doubt. It was posed against a patently bogus background. He and his mother were clearly responding docilely to some professional’s direction. But it had been no red-letter day in his young life: it stirred no residue of memory in any corner of his mind.