“Right. Number three”, he went on, looking at his notes again. “Tell him to go to hell. How do you feel about that one, love?”
Stephen gazed into space, wrinkling his brow in thought. “As far as I can see, that’s the best one”, he said slowly, after a pause. “Mostly because I can’t see what else we can do.”
“Maybe”, said Graham. “Let’s have a look at the others, then. Number four was dealing with him ourselves. Well, I shouldn’t think we’re likely to be able to get much of a crack at him. Blackmailers know they’re playing a dangerous game and tend to cover their tracks pretty well.
“In any case, I’m not quite sure what I could do if I tried to tackle him myself. If it’s just Tyldesley, I can handle him, no sweat. But if he’s got himself organized, well, I might be running into a mob of thugs, or something. Besides, I’m a schoolmaster, not a gangster. I think we give that one a miss.
“Number five, simply ignoring him. The risk there, I think, is that he’d get upset and perhaps expose me out of simple malice. I’m not too worried about his going to the police, because there would always be the risk of his getting caught himself — and he’d do a damn sight longer in stir for blackmail than I would for sleeping with you, since you’re consenting, even if you are under age. No, what I think he’d do would be to expose me to the headmaster. He might not get whatever it may be that he’s planning to demand, but he’d at least have the satisfaction of knowing that he’d lost me my job. I remember I told you before, my job wouldn’t be worth a sprazi if they found out we’d slept together.
“So we come back to telling him to go to hell. But what occurs to me there is that it’s running exactly the same risk as completely ignoring him, isn’t it?”
“Mmm…yes”, said Stephen. “But at least we’d have the satisfaction of letting him know he’s not going to get away with it, wouldn’t we?”
“Maybe. But we’d also be giving him information, wouldn’t we? He’d know, for certain, what we were going to do. At least if we simply ignore him he won’t know what we’re planning.”
“Nor will we know what he’s up to”, objected Stephen.
“Hmmm. You’ve got a point”, mused Graham, dropping onto the sofa beside him. “But I’m blessed if I can see any way round it so we’d be completely safe. It’s too difficult for ordinary mortals, this. I wish there was someone I could go to for advice. Still, there isn’t, so we’ll just have to do the best we can, and hope. Have I missed anything, d’you think?”
Stephen racked his brains to think of alternatives, and drew a blank. “Well, that’s about as far as we can go for the time being”, said Graham, tossing the envelope aside. “We’ve got to wait for him to make his next move now.”
He sat back on the sofa with his hands behind his head. “There is one thing that occurs to me”, he said after a while, turning his head towards Stephen with a faint, ironical smile. “What’s that?” asked Stephen.
“Well, if we’re known about, by someone with the worst possible will, and are likely to become known about by one and all—which I must say I think is the most likely outcome of all this — there doesn’t really seem to be a lot of point in denying ourselves an occasional treat, does there?” He relaxed completely as he said it, sprawling lazily back on the sofa and switching the ironical half-smile onto full beam. His eyes shone with a deep love and compassion, mixed with a powerful sense of gratitude towards the boy for his strength and support and the generosity of his spirit. He wondered, in passing, how much of Stephen’s fast-growing maturity and strength he owed to the influence of Richard. He felt glad that he could contemplate Richard without envy or resentment, but there was no answering the speculation; besides, he had other things on his mind.
Stephen too was smiling, the same sort of broad, lazy smile, as Graham’s meaning dawned on him. He stood up and held out his arms.
* * *
Term started uneventfully. It was chaotic as usual on the first day, by lunch-time on the second it was resuming the rather less than even tenor of its way, and on Friday it was almost as if the holidays had never happened. At seven-thirty on Saturday morning Graham was woken early by the doorbell.
He went to the door in his dressing gown, still half asleep and cursing the early caller, hoping it would be something easily dealt with so he could snatch another hour or so’s sleep. He opened the door, blinking.
“Rise and shine”, said Andrew Tyldesley.
“You again?” said Graham, instantly wide awake.
“Little me. Can I come in?”
“No. You can go to hell.”
“I think you want to talk to me this time, dear. I believe your mail has been rather spectacularly interesting lately”, grinned Tyldesley.
Graham thought for a moment, wondering whether to risk providing the neighbours with a topic of conversation by laying him out on the path, regretfully rejected the idea, and stood back to allow his visitor to enter.
Tyldesley sat on the sofa without waiting to be asked, picked up Graham’s bat, which was propped against the arm, and stroked it in the middle, a red-stained, slightly concave area where most of the balls bowled at Graham made contact. “Mmmm”, he said appreciatively. “Not many marks on the edges, I perceive. Very good.”
“Put it down”, said Graham quietly, and the menace in his voice was heightened by the pleasant, conversational manner in which he said it. Tyldesley saw at once that the man he was dealing with was the formidable stranger he had seen on his previous visit.
“You’re not at all pleasant to talk to these days”, he said, with an attempt at a light laugh.
“Tyldesley, I’d like you to listen very carefully to what I’m going to say to you”, said Graham in measured tones. “Because I’m only going to say it the once. I’m sure you remember what happened last time you came here to make a nuisance of yourself. I see the bruises have faded.” Tyldesley gave him an ugly look. “You can glare as much as you like, as long as you keep your mouth shut”, went on Graham. “You can have your say when I’ve finished, not before. Is that understood?” Tyldesley considered him, decided that his mood was ugly enough to result in serious trouble, and signalled to him to continue.
“All right, then, my friend”, said Graham. “All I’ve got to say will take two minutes, not more. You can have the same time to say your piece, and then you can go. None of that’s negotiable. If you give me any trouble, I’ll serve you as I did before, with one difference: if I have to lay hands on you again, I’ll make what I did to you last time look like shadow boxing. They’ll need a sewing machine to put in the stitches. Understand?” Tyldesley nodded.
“All right, then. From what you said just now, I know it was you who sent me those photographs and that report. A private detective, I take it. All right, then. When I finish talking, you can speak to the extent of answering one question, perhaps two. First, what do you want? Second, I’m interested to know why you’re doing this. I don’t suppose you’ll be willing to gratify my curiosity, but I’d rather like to know, because I’m curious. But mainly, as I say, I want to know what you’re going to demand. When you’ve told me, I’ll either give you my answer, or I’ll tell you when I’ll give it. Then you’ll go.
“I expect you’re thinking this wasn’t in the script, and that you were going to be in control of this interview, dictating the terms on the strength of your nice little line of blackmail. Well you’re not. If I suddenly decide, at any point, that I don’t like the way this little chat’s going, I’ll close it. If I do that, I take it you’ll reveal the evidence you’re holding on me to whoever you plan to reveal it to. In that case, I shall have nothing to lose — and you know what you can expect then.
“Don’t make any mistakes this time, Tyldesley. You can’t afford to make even one, because you know how much chance you stand if we get physical, you and I. I don’t underestimate your intelligence: I know you’re no fool, so I credit you with enough perception to know whether I’m bluffing or not. Think a
bout it; and when you’ve thought, answer my question: what do you want? Then, if you care to satisfy my curiosity, tell me why the hell you’re doing this, what good you think you’re doing yourself by it. Answer that one or not, as you please, it’s all the same to me. But if you’ve got as much sense as I think you have you’ll take the rest of what I’ve said very seriously. Okay. Your turn.”
Tyldesley sat and thought in silence for some time. Then he looked up at Graham and nodded. “All right”, he said, seriously, all the affectations dropped. “I think you mean what you say, and I’ve no wish to get myself hurt. Not that you’ve done yourself any good. Quite the contrary. Last time I remember calling you insolent and arrogant. I also remember accusing you of putting on all these macho airs. Well, I underestimated you. You’ve come out in your real colours now, haven’t you, Graham? You’ve shown your real self — a common thug. You’ve also, you’ll be interested to hear, just doubled the price.
“So, what do I want? You knew what I really wanted. I told you that last time. I had to accept that I wasn’t going to get my own way. You were quite convincing. Well, I don’t like not getting my own way. I was dreadfully spoilt as a child, and got used to the idea of expecting to get what I go after. If I don’t get it, or if I’m told I can’t have it, I get very cross, and very unpleasant.
“Now you’ve balked me, Graham, and you haven’t done it just once, or even twice. You’ve made a habit of it. You not only walked out on me, you were the only lover I ever had that I planned to stay with — you were the only real love I ever had. So when you gave me the elbow you wounded me. You hurt me, Graham. And that’s something that doesn’t happen.
“But that, as if it wasn’t enough, wasn’t all. You went on to rub all this in—contemptuously, conspicuously, and often. I wonder if you ever thought how I felt when we used to see you in the bars and the clubs, with you swanning around being the life and soul of the party, and treating me as if I was just another empty-headed little bit of fluff, while all the time every other bitchy bastard in sight was nudging his affair and saying ‘See that one there? Well, she’s the one who put that supercilious, superior Andrew Tyldesley in his place. That’s the sort of thing they were saying about me, you know. I had to stay at home for a month,
I was so conscious of the whispers behind the hands. I’ll never forgive you for that.
“And then there was last time. After all that, I was actually so besotted with you, I actually came up here and grovelled to you to try and get you back, and what did you do? More humiliation, you see.
“And so, at last, at the end of my tether, I decided that a little retribution was in order. And that’s what I’m going to have. I chartered a little man that someone had recommended to me over something else, and hasn’t he got the goods on you? You and your high-and-mighty, self-righteous talk. I’d got false information, had I? And all the time you were having the almighty gall to look down your long nose at me, there you were fornicating with your little fancy piece of cricketing rump, you stinking fucking hypocritical bastard, you.”
His voice had grown progressively harder, louder and shriller as the eruption of bitter antipathy drew to its conclusion, and Tyldesley himself came closer and closer to hysteria. By the end he was literally spitting out the words in a passion of hatred and fury; Graham had to retreat a pace to get out of range of the fine spray of saliva that burst from his lips as he raged on. With the end of the tirade, though, the passion died in a moment, all its force spent, and Tyldesley sat glaring up at Graham through a sheen of tears.
Graham looked down at him, his face calm and expressionless. “You’ve answered the optional question”, he said eventually, “but not the important one. Tell me what you want. And try not to take quite as long answering this one, if you will”, he added.
Tyldesley stared at him with a baffled expression. “Haven’t you got any mercy?” he asked, seriously, and quietly as if he was talking to himself. Then he pulled himself together with a visible effort, and continued.
“Well, I decided that if I couldn’t have what I really wanted. I’d have something else. But something that would irritate you, something that I could look at like a miser and comfort myself with the thought, ‘That bastard Curtis has suffered to give me this. I want you to suffer, suffer for a long time — and pay—until you’re a hundred, and maybe you’ll one day feel sorry for what you did.”
He fell silent for a while, eyeing Graham with vast distaste, and then spat out his last few words. “I want money. Not because I need it, but for the reasons I’ve just given. Money now, and then regularly, to keep my memory fresh in your mind.”
“How much?” asked Graham unemotionally.
Tyldesley stared at him again, trying to fathom the calm, remote manner. Then he gave a small shrug. “A hundred — a
week”, he said baldly, watching Graham closely.
Graham didn’t move, or react in any way at all. His expression remained as it had been all the time Tyldesley had been speaking: neutral and impassive. “I’ll give you your answer in a day or so”, he said evenly. “You can leave now.”
“There’s another thing”, Tyldesley said. “I want it delivered by you, in person. I want you to bring the money to the pub, every week, on a day to be decided over the telephone, and hand it to me there, at a time not earlier than ten o’clock in the evening. That’s all. Those are the conditions. If you don’t like them, or rather, if you refuse to accept them, the detective’s evidence, including the photographs, goes to the police. Then we’ll see who’s the high and mighty one. I’d come to your trial — for a gloat.”
“And shortly after that”, commented Graham, “you’d go to your own, for a prison sentence for blackmail. Really, you crass ass, do you think I’d let the police charge me with illicit sex without laying charges of blackmail against you? I can tell you, incidentally, that after I got out from my three months, I certainly would not come and visit you while you finished your seven years for blackmail.”
“I may well conclude that it’s worth that”, said Tyldesley, sounding weary. “But even if that threat works, I can still expose you to your headmaster, and I wonder how long your feet would remain touching the ground then. Think it over, dear Graham. You can let me know by ringing the bar, or leave a message with one of my clubs.”
“Goodbye, Tyldesley”, said Graham. “Now get up. It’s time for you to go.”
Much to his surprise, Tyldesley did get up and indicated that he was ready to leave. Graham escorted him to the door, watching him carefully and wondering if he might make a revenge attack. When they got there, Graham put his hand on the knob and said “I don’t know whether to despise you for being a stupid, vainglorious ass, or pity you for suffering from egomania, or megalomania or galloping paranoia, or all three. What I do know is that you’ll get your answer when I said you would, in a day or two. In the meantime, don’t come here again. If I see you again before I’m ready I’ll rearrange your face so a blind man won’t even fancy you.”
* * *
“A hundred quid a week?” exclaimed Stephen, on the way to the match later that day. “That’s money. But why all this business about you having to go to this place in London to pay it personally? And why after ten at night, for Christ’s sake? I don’t get it.”
“Oh, I understand that all right. It’s quite clever, quite inventive, in a malicious sort of way. He wants to hurt me, remember. He wants that very badly. But he can’t do what he’d really like to do, because it would run his own head into a noose at the same time. So he can’t expose me to the papers, or to the police, because he knows full well that I’d immediately hit back by telling the police about the blackmail. So he’s left with a simple demand for money, which he reckons I just might pay up. Then he’ll extort it for as long as he feels like it, and when he’s had enough fun, and caused me what he reckons is a fair amount of misery, he’ll do as he let slip this morning, and send his pictures to the head. That can only end one way—I’d
have to go. So he loses me my job, which he’d regard as a reasonable compensation for his grievances, plus he’s had the satisfaction of making my life a misery giving me the run-around for a fair time before he finally strikes, and he’s quids in for several months, I’d imagine, into the bargain. Making me deliver the money after ten means that I have to trek to London every week. He’d make it a weekend, I dare say, hoping it would mess up the cricket, and, more important, he’ll be hoping that it will prevent me from seeing you. And making it after ten at night means that I’ll have to stay in London overnight. More trouble, and maybe the Sunday match fucked up as well, you see? As I said, it’s quite inventive.”
“What are you going to do? Not pay it?”
“No, no, of course not”, said Graham, nipping past two lorries. “No, I shall do what we agreed was the best plan—ignore him altogether, and do nothing. Except one thing, of course.”
“What’s that?”
“Start making preparations for a fast move.”
“Oh, God”, said Stephen. His voice was filled with pain. “You’re going away?”
“Well, it’s quite likely, isn’t it? You remember we discussed all this? If it comes out I’ll have to go, and go I shall. It will avoid a scandal, and it will protect you. I’ll get myself a job somewhere in France, if need be. Meanwhile, I shall be getting myself used to the idea, getting mentally attuned to the idea of being somewhere else, without you. You’d better start doing the same thing, I’m afraid, Steve. There’s another thing, too.”
“What’s that?”
“There is a chance that this may fizzle out. He may be bluffing, hoping we’ll be so terrified that he’ll get what he wants without a fight. I doubt it — I shouldn’t think he can have been under many illusions after the way I dealt with him this morning. But there’s always laziness. After all, he’s got a life to lead. He can’t be willing to devote his entire existence to pursuing this insane vendetta against me. I may survive here. So it means you and me keeping our heads well below the parapet for a while, Stevie, sweetheart. I’m as sorry about it as you are, but I think it’s only common sense.” Stephen nodded gloomily. But he reached across the car and ran his fingertips gently through the short hairs on the nape of Graham’s neck, offering what reassurance and comfort he could.
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