The White Mercedes

by Philip Pullman

  He winked at Jenny. She smiled back. He was easy to like.

  As they sat in the living room with their tea, Sue said, ‘What are you going to do when you stop working in the café?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve got a friend who says I ought to study. Do A levels. Go to college. But I don’t know what I’d study…’

  ‘Oh, you ought to,’ said Sue. ‘Really. I never did anything like that till recently, and I’m doing an Open University degree now. It’s fantastic! I never thought, you know, a person like me…But it gives you all kinds of new perspectives.’

  ‘Yeah. I can see that. I just…’

  ‘D’you like kids?’ said Barry.

  ‘I never had much to do with them really. It was nice talking to Sean tonight. He’s a lovely boy, he really is.’

  ‘He’s the king of the world,’ said Barry proudly.

  ‘You could study to be a teacher,’ Sue told her. ‘I thought of doing that when I finish my degree. I’m a school secretary at the moment, but I’m sure I could teach.’

  Jenny had never thought of teachers as being anything but sullen, hostile failures. The thought of this pretty, pleasant, sensible woman being a teacher made her see all kinds of possibilities for a moment. The world seemed an open and friendly place.

  After they’d had their tea Barry offered to drive her home. She said no, it was only ten minutes’ walk, but he insisted. He didn’t like the idea of girls out at night alone.

  In the car he said, ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, excuse me if I’m out of order, but you just looked so unhappy when we got back.’

  ‘Oh!’ She didn’t know how to respond. ‘Well…No, I suppose it’s just my expression. I’m all right.’

  ‘You looked tragic. That’s the word. Can we get you to sit for Sean again?’

  ‘Yeah. If you want me to. Whenever I’m free.’

  ‘And look, you got any trouble or anything, anything we can help you with, don’t wait, you know what I mean? I don’t believe in hanging about, me. Nor does Sue. She’s a great girl. Talk to anyone. She can’t stand in a bus queue without some old girl pouring out her troubles to her. All the kids at school, they go to her instead of the teachers. You can come and talk to her any time.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Jenny said as they pulled up outside Gill Petrie’s house. ‘Thanks for the lift.’

  ‘Pleasure.’

  He waved through the open window as he drove away, and she remembered that she hadn’t told him about the curious phone call from the man who wouldn’t leave his name. All in all, it was a strange evening.

  Eleven

  It was becoming clear to Chris what things were good, and what things he was against because they were bad. The loss of Jenny and the fight with Piers, what Dave had told him about Barry—everything was pointing to the conclusion that deceit and betrayal were the worst evil, and truthfulness and fidelity the highest good. If you make a promise you should keep it. If you break a promise you don’t deserve to live. It made him strong to feel like that, strong but desolate, because in his mind he’d promised to be faithful to Jenny, and she was lost. Still, with the strength came the confidence that he’d find her again. What was right would win. It would have to.

  His mother, who was too wrapped in her love for Mike Fairfax to notice Chris’s split lip after the fight with Piers, did notice this new mood of his, this grim absolutism; and she commented on it one evening as they sat at supper.

  ‘What’s got into you?’ she said. ‘You used to be so tolerant.’

  ‘It’s the mood of the times,’ said Mike. He’d taken his glasses off, and his eyes looked mild and moist.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with the times, or anything else,’ said Chris. ‘What d’you mean anyway?’

  ‘It’s the zeitgeist. The spirit of the age. Fundamentalism.’

  ‘Well, he’s not as bad as that…’ began Chris’s mother.

  ‘If something’s fundamentally true, it’s just as true whatever the age is,’ said Chris. ‘It’s stupid saying people only feel something because everyone else does. You might as well say you could have a referendum about the force of gravity. If something’s true, it’s true.’

  ‘Well, that in itself is a fundamentalist position,’ Mike said. ‘A liberal would say there were more kinds of truth than that. They’d say that what’s true is what works, and if one particular belief makes you feel good, then it’s true for you. And another belief would be true for someone else.’

  ‘Well, they’d be wrong,’ said Chris. ‘That’s the same as saying nothing’s true. It’s the same as saying everything’s a lie.’

  ‘It’s the way the world is, Chris.’

  ‘It’s not! And belief’s got nothing to do with making you feel good. Some things you have to believe even if they make you feel terrible.’

  ‘Well, whatever turns you on,’ said Mike, smiling. ‘Feeling terrible but righteous is just another way of feeling good.’

  ‘You always do this!’ Chris lost his temper and slammed the table, standing up suddenly so that his chair was flung backwards. His mother said, ‘Chris—’ and put out her hand, and Mike looked apologetic, but Chris pushed away, blind with anger. ‘You always—all of you—people like you—all this mush of feeling good as if that was the most important thing in the world, as if it didn’t matter about truth or justice or honour, as if they were just words to make you feel good…So you can lie, cheat, deceive your families, none of it matters if only you feel good at the end—’

  ‘Chris!’ said his mother. ‘For God’s sake!’

  He stopped and looked at her. It was a look of blood-chilling contempt. Then he turned and left.

  ‘What’s got into him?’ said Mike. ‘Was it something I said?’

  ‘I hope you’re not right,’ said Chris’s mother. ‘About the fundamentalism. I couldn’t bear it if he got mixed up with any of that…’

  They decided that his sudden gloom and flash of temper was due to adolescence, and felt pleased that they were rational and mature and able to keep their passions under control. But in Mike’s heart there was a touch of envy, all the same; and as for Chris’s mother, it wasn’t until she was in bed with Mike that she managed to get out of her mind that expression on her son’s face, as cold and absolute as a sword.

  —

  A few days after she babysat for the Millers, Tommy Sanchez asked Jenny to come into his office.

  It was seven o’clock in the evening of another hot day. Jenny felt her heart sink; she guessed what was going to happen. She edged through the door as Tommy Sanchez, in jeans and espadrilles and striped T-shirt, opened a bottle of Mexican beer and handed it to her before opening another for himself.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said from his antique revolving captain’s chair. She took the other chair and sat down, like a secretary about to take dictation. The office walls were covered with posters and photographs; jazz records and cassettes littered the desk, a computer and a fax machine stood on a shelf behind him, and a huge Wurlitzer jukebox made it impossible to open the door fully. Feeling numb and helpless, Jenny gazed through the window that overlooked an old green graveyard, long disused, that backed on to the chapel next door.

  ‘How are you getting on?’ said Tommy.

  ‘OK, thanks.’

  ‘No problems?’

  ‘No. Fine.’

  ‘ ’Cause I worry about you, you know, Jenny.’

  She looked down and said nothing.

  ‘Drink your beer. It’ll go warm.’

  Obediently she tilted the bottle and swallowed the cold prickling liquid. Feeling that she ought to say something, she said, ‘Why do you worry about me?’

  Her voice came out much more quietly than she expected. She looked up and saw the same expression she’d seen on other faces: glazed, flushed, intent. He might have been Piers. He might have been her father. She looked away quickly.

  ‘ ’Cause you look so young,�
�� said Tommy. ‘You look as if you need protecting.’

  ‘I don’t. I don’t need anything.’

  ‘Except a job.’

  She didn’t know what he meant by that. It hung in the air for a moment, and then he leant forward across the desk.

  ‘Jenny, have a drink with me tonight before you go home. Where d’you live?’

  ‘Kidlington. But—’

  ‘How d’you get home? Bus, or something?’

  ‘The last bus. I’m just in time for it.’

  ‘I’ll take you home. I’ll give you a lift. Let me do that. Go on.’

  She felt enormously tired, weary to her soul.

  ‘Why don’t you just say what you want?’ she said.

  ‘I have done. I’d like to see you after we close, have a drink, then I’ll take you home. That’s it.’

  ‘That’s all? Nothing else?’

  ‘Word of honour.’

  ‘I can’t be bothered,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe you. I suppose I should, really. I suppose I should take your word for it. I don’t know why I don’t—’

  He held up his hand. He was strong and sure of himself, with his heavy clear-cut features and his large dark eyes, his black eyebrows. She stopped.

  ‘Enough, OK?’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I made the offer. I’m not going to give you any grounds to go whinging on about sexual harassment. I don’t harass anybody. I don’t have to. You don’t want to come and have a friendly drink, that’s fine, you just say so, I understand. The fact is, I like you, you’re a nice girl, attractive girl, intriguing, quiet, I’d like to get to know you, OK?’

  She sat looking down and said nothing.

  ‘I don’t have to pester my waitresses, Jenny. That’s not what this is about.’

  She looked up, opened her mouth to speak, and then shrugged.

  ‘You look as if you’re having a bad time,’ he said. ‘I’d like to help. That’s all.’

  ‘What d’you mean, I look as if I’m having a bad time? What’s that look like?’

  ‘Down in the mouth. Unhappy. Not on top of things…’

  ‘Not on top of the work.’

  ‘You said it, love.’

  ‘So this is a threat.’

  ‘Nothing of the sort!’

  ‘What you mean is, if I don’t…do what you want, you’ll give me the sack.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake—’

  ‘Isn’t that what you mean?’

  ‘Certainly not!’

  His face was rigid with anger. She saw him make an effort and smile.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘let’s re-run this, OK? We got off on the wrong foot. Pretend we’ve just come in. It’s quiet, nothing doing outside for half an hour or so. We sit down, have a beer. How you doing, Jenny?’

  ‘OK, thanks,’ she said.

  ‘You found somewhere to live?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Oh, good. Because you were sleeping on Dorothy’s floor, weren’t you?’

  ‘Just for a few days.’

  ‘It’s a long way out, though, isn’t it? Kidlington?’

  ‘Not long on the bus.’

  ‘How much is the bus fare?’

  ‘One fifty, return.’

  ‘That’s a lot of money, Christ, that’s nine quid a week!’

  She shrugged.

  ‘You ought to find somewhere central,’ he said.

  ‘Then it’d cost more anyway.’

  ‘I know somewhere you could have.’

  She looked at him, unsure whether he was playing a game or telling the truth, but he looked sincere.

  ‘I’ve got a flat in Gloucester Green,’ he explained. ‘The new development. You know what they call it—Yuppie Towers. I’ve got two bedrooms; you could have my spare.’

  There was a glint of a smile in his eyes now, a sort of artless cheeky smile, and she couldn’t deny his charm. She twisted her lips to stop herself smiling too.

  ‘I mean, I’m being straight up, aren’t I?’ he said. ‘I’d like to get to know you. No point in being shy about it. I’m not going to hassle you, but you can’t expect me to stop trying. You got a boyfriend?’

  She said nothing.

  ‘Course you have,’ he went on. ‘Half a dozen. Never mind them. I’m going to have you, Jenny. I want you.’

  ‘D’you always get what you want?’

  ‘No, that’s what makes it fun. You can never tell. Anyway, think about it.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About my spare room. I mean it. It’s true. You could come and see it tonight, move in at the weekend. Why don’t you? Think about it. Don’t give me an answer now. We’ll talk later.’

  He got up and opened the door for her. She went back to the front of the café and worked for an hour or so, passively, not thinking about it, just letting it sort itself out in her mind, until she knew what she had to do.

  Then at the end of the evening she found Tommy and said, ‘You know what you said earlier?’

  ‘You changed your mind?’

  They were standing in the dark hot little corridor between the office and the kitchen. There were people around, but they were busy, and it was easy to talk intimately without being overheard.

  ‘Listen,’ she said, and obediently he leant closer, and she marvelled at how easily these dangerous beings did what they were told. ‘My landlady, right. She’ll want a week’s notice for my room, you know, a week’s rent. I couldn’t just walk out without giving her that, it wouldn’t be fair, but I’ve got nothing left of this week’s wages. If you let me have what I’ve earned up to today, OK, I can pay her now and I’ll feel better about it. And then…’

  She looked up at him, and down again. It had worked. He pulled a roll of notes out of his pocket and handed over the money she’d earned, and an extra ten-pound note.

  ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘What about that drink?’

  ‘Not now. Tomorrow. I’m not feeling too well just at the moment. But thanks.’

  Acting to her fingertips, she touched his wrist briefly and smiled before turning to go. He didn’t suspect a thing.

  —

  If she’d intended to defraud him of a really large amount of money, it would have been just as easy. Of course, she wasn’t defrauding him at all, but she knew that if she’d simply said she was leaving, she wouldn’t have got the wages he owed her. As it was, she had to go without her share of the tips; but the extra ten pounds partly made up for that.

  However, she now had only enough money for a week or so. The whole dreary round of signing on and job searching lay ahead, and if she failed to find anything, she’d have to leave Gill Petrie’s house and drift back to the squalor of night shelters and vagrancy.

  She’d almost given up hope of finding Chris.

  But as she got off the bus in Kidlington one afternoon, footsore from walking from shops who didn’t want her to offices who’d filled the vacancy, to hotels who wanted someone with experience, a car drew up beside her and a voice called, ‘Hey! Jenny!’

  It was Barry Miller, Sean’s father. She said hello, and he opened the door.

  ‘Give you a lift home?’ he said.

  ‘It’s only round the corner!’

  ‘Never mind, hop in…’

  He was so different from Tommy Sanchez, so cheerful and open, and so unlike the miserable faces that had been rejecting her all afternoon, that she felt better just for being in his company.

  ‘Tired?’ he said.

  ‘It’s so hot. I’ve been looking for a job…’

  ‘No luck?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I wish I had something to offer.’

  ‘No, really, I’ll find something. Oh! I should have told you the other night! There was this phone call…’

  She told him as much as she could remember. The effect was startling. He was tanned and happy-looking, but the colour left his face and he seemed to age ten years in a moment. He pulled up beside the road and made her try to recall everything.

 
‘What’s it all about?’ she said.

  ‘You haven’t said anything to Sue?’

  ‘No. I only just remembered it. I’m sorry, I should’ve thought earlier.’

  ‘I hope to God he hasn’t been frightening her…’

  He sat drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, staring unseeing through the windscreen. Then he said: ‘Listen, have you got half an hour? I want to show you something.’

  ‘Yeah. OK. But what’s it all about?’

  ‘There’s a man who wants to kill me,’ said Barry, putting the car into gear.

  He turned round as if to drive back towards Oxford, but took a different turning at the roundabout. Jenny sat with his last words echoing in her mind. Could she believe something that melodramatic? But it was clear that he did.

  ‘Who’s this man?’ she said.

  ‘He’s called Carson. God knows how he’s found out where I am. See, I used to be mixed up with this family down south London, Carson and his two brothers. Well, I say mixed up, I didn’t have nothing to do with ’em really. They were bad, they really were. Drugs, girls, clubs…They were running the place. Protection rackets…You know, you pay us a hundred quid a week, or we’ll smash your shop up. And they did, too. And they killed…There was another gang, at least, not a proper gang, not like the Mafia or something, but they were fighting over who was going to run the rackets, you know? In the end the Carsons got the two blokes in charge of the opposition and took ’em to this garage, this little lock-up place, and tied ’em up. Then they cut their throats and hung ’em up like animals in the butcher’s. They didn’t find ’em for a week…Course, that was a warning, see. You co-operate with us, or you end up bleeding to death on a hook.’

  He stopped to concentrate on the traffic at the big roundabout by the motel. Jenny looked at him, and saw him grim-faced, pale, tense.

  The car moved out into the stream of traffic and he went on: ‘I had this business down there. Electrician. Mostly contract work but I got this little shop, I had plans, I was going to build up the retail side. I mean I knew what people wanted. I had it all planned.

  ‘And then they come to me for money. You know, pay up or get smashed. And I said no. I wasn’t being heroic or nothing, I just said no, no way, I wasn’t having it. I knew there’d be trouble, but you can’t let people like that run your life. And two or three of the other traders nearby, they heard, and they come in with me. We’d protect ourselves. We agreed that there’d always be one of us on watch, and we had CB radios, baseball bats to fight with…Funny, it never occurred to us to go to the police. You don’t do that where I come from. You settle things yourself.