by John Lawton
“Yep,” said Troy.
“And you and he played it four-handed?”
“Dozens of times.”
“Me, too.”
She put her glass carefully on top of the piano. Framed the first chord with her hand. Something felt wrong but he followed suit and as the first crashing chord was sounded, he knew exactly what was wrong and she burst into giggles. Giggles that grew and grew until she was crying with laughter. Troy had never heard her laugh. It was like that moment in Ninotchka when Garbo laughs on-screen for the first time—it is not merely that she laughs but that she laughs so long and so loud.
As the laughter subsided she was grasping at words and not managing to get a sentence out.
“Oh, Troy . . . oh, Troy . . . this is . . . this is a farce. Don’t you see? Viktor taught us each the same part.”
“We’re two left-handed women trying to dance backward. Neither of us knows the man’s part.”
She reached up her sleeve for a handkerchief to dab her tears and found none. Troy gave her his, a huge square of Irish linen with an overfancy ƒ in one corner.
“We know the same part. We know Viktor. We both know Viktor. But we do not know one another, do we, Mr. Troy?”
§146
Being drunk did not make her loquacious. In that she was far too like Troy. If he’d primed Rod in this way, at two in the morning he’d just about be embarking on How to Put the World or Most of It to Rights: Drunken Thesis #7. At two in this morning, Voytek was deeply asleep in front of the fire. Troy picked her up, astonished at how little she weighed, carried her upstairs, and slid her into the spare bed. She did not wake. He went to his own bed, slept fitfully, woke, and read more about Mr. Scobie topping himself in Sierra Leone, with a voice in his head saying “for fuck’s sake get on with it, man!” Of Viktor’s suicide he knew far too little and of Scobie’s far too much.
He slept late.
§147
Late in November and into December, London was wrapped in smog that did not lift or disperse for days. Occasionally, sunlight broke through, but often only for minutes at a time, like a searchlight beamed down from Heaven, and just as briefly a breeze might blow a hole in the fog, appearing like a shapeless window only to close up and vanish like will-o’-the-wisp. The usual metaphor struck Troy as startlingly accurate—it blanketed the city. It had the weight and texture of wool. It would creep in through an open doorway like an uninvited guest. It made public transport utterly unreliable—buses plied their routes with no real idea of where they were; trams and trolleys, being held to rails and wires, fared the better but confusion reigned and cries of, “where the bleedin’ ’ell are we?” filled the air. It made going out at night a hazard. It made pub conversation a nostalgic bore as every git with a couple of drinks inside him compared it to the blackout of the war years, and the complaint soon transmogrified into relish as they realized they were back with an old certainty. Few things in postwar Britain were quite as reliable as the war itself. Troy could have sworn, passing a glow he thought was a pub in a district he thought might be Seven Dials, that he had heard a robust rendition waft out along the curling smog of “We’re gonna hang out our washing on the Siegfried Line.” He did not pretend to understand the English but without doubt nostalgia was essential to them. It was like oxygen.
Why, given the weather, did Angus choose this moment to resurface?
It was six-ish when he phoned; dark and miserable. Another of those nights when the street lamps glowed like glimpsed angels.
“Meet me in the Fitzroy as soon as you can, old man.”
The Fitzroy was not on Angus’s usual beat or he’d have renamed it by now.
“If I can find it.”
“Ha bloody ha. Just be there. Ten minutes. Okay?”
It was more than a ten-minute walk, and closer to seven when Troy arrived. Walking up Charlotte Street put him in mind of André Skolnik. He supposed it always would.
Being one of the most popular pubs in London, home from home to a Bohemian bunch of writers, artists, and layabouts, the Fitzroy Tavern was full if it was open. It was odd, given how far it was from the docks, that the pub attracted as many sailors as it did, but Annie and Charles Allchild, who had run the pub since before the war, seemed to Troy to have a high tolerance of London’s oddities—including its homosexuals. And perhaps there was “always something about a sailor” if you happened to be queer. Troy found Angus in deep natter with one of the oddest Fitzrovia queers, Quentin Crisp. Crisp had long since given up any pretence that he might be other than he was and, as long as Troy had known him, had dressed like a fop, dyed his hair red with henna, and worn enough makeup for Troy to have no real idea how old he was, although he’d guess that they were much the same age. During the war Crisp had been arrested for soliciting and had asked Troy to be a character witness. Fortunately for Troy the dozens of others he’d also asked took the witness box first and the case was thrown out without Troy being called. He’d have hated having to explain that one to Onions. Tonight Crisp had his hair coiffured into something resembling the prow of a sailing ship and wore a royal blue velvet jacket with a purple scarf at his throat. He seemed delighted, happy in the company of an oddity like Angus.
“Mr. Troy. How pleasant to see you again.”
Crisp always called him “mister”—never a first name. It was one way of treading carefully. Always be polite, you never know when you might get thumped.
Troy reciprocated.
“Mr. Crisp. Mr. Pakenham. Can I get anyone a drink?”
Angus looked up from his very large scotch. Red-faced and miserable.
“Oh. You two know each other?”
“We do.”
“Large scotch. And while you’re at it I’ll find us a corner table.”
Angus got up awkwardly, pushing hard on the arms of the chair, but once up and balanced, standing at his full six-foot-plus, he towered over Troy and any man around. He turned to Crisp.
“’Scuse us old man. Young Troy and I have things to talk about. Wouldn’t want to bore you with them.”
A quick jerk on the tin leg, the necessary foward thrust, and Angus was in motion again.
“Big, isn’t he?” Crisp said, managing to tint matter-of-factness with the merest touch of desire. “But so unhappy.”
“Big,” said Troy. “And married. And I fear that may be part, if not all, of the problem.”
Troy asked the barman to send a pint of bitter over to Crisp and carried a scotch and a half of ginger beer to the privacy, if such it was, of the table to which Angus had moved.
“No Ernest tonight?” Troy asked, breaking ice, noticing the absence of Angus’s spare leg.
“I have yarumworrrworra,” Angus muttered.
“You’ve what?”
Angus leaned in close.
“I don’t want the whole bloody world to hear do I? I’ve lodged Ernest somewhere safe for a night or two. He’s tucked up nicely.”
“Tucked up nicely where?”
“Victoria Station. In a bag. Left luggage office, Brighton Line.”
There was something vaguely familiar about this.
“Ernest? Victoria Station? On the Brighton Line? In a left luggage office? In a bag?”
“Yes. Now . . .”
“A handbag?”
“A haaaandbaaaaaag??? Of course, he’s not in a fucking handbag! He’s in a cricket bag. What on earth makes you think he’d fit in a fucking handbag?”
“Nothing,” said Troy, “I just wondered.”
“Wonder ye not. Now,” Angus relaunched the conversation on his own terms, “ever tried to kill yourself ?”
“No” would have been truthful and easy, but Troy said, “Why do you ask?”
“Because I keep failing at it.”
Already Troy was beginning to wish he’d asked for scotch instead of ginger beer, his resolution that there would be no repeat of their summer booze-up waning fast. The last time . . . the last time had been the day Skolnik was murder
ed. Odd how today kept dragging him back to Skolnik.
Of what should Troy enquire now? Method or motive?
“Tell me more,” he said, confident he’d hit a catchall phrase.
“I was in Scunthorpe . . .”
“Where’s that?”
“Dunno. But I was there. Seemed as good a place as any to kill meself. So I took a room. Paid my five bob in advance. Wrote a letter to the wife. Had a stiff one just to steady the nerves. Turned on the gas fire and stretched out on the bed ready to meet my maker and be reunited with my dad, most of my squadron from nineteen forty, and the fox terrier who was my best friend from age three to age twelve.”
“What happened?”
“The dog died.”
“I meant, what happened in Scunthorpe?”
Angus pushed his drinks aside, rested his head on folded arms, and moaned.
“Tragedy. That’s what happened. Forgot to put a shilling in the fucking meter, didn’t I? Woke up half an hour later to a stink of gas and the fat old biddy who ran the place giving me my marching orders.”
He prised himself off the table. Knocked back the remnant of his first scotch, pushed the glass aside, and gripped the one Troy had bought fiercely in his giant’s paw.
“And?” said Troy.
“Well . . . I found it took a day or two to work up the nerve to try again. Killing yourself isn’t like killing anyone else. Nobody rings a bell, yells scramble, and lifts you onto another plane. All puns intended, by the bye, in case you thought I was so addled I’d lost all wit. So I drifted. Nottingham, Loughborough—have you ever noticed that written down in huge letters as you come into a railway station the word Loughborough resembles the manifestation of a trail of phlegm? Just try saying it, string it out as long as you can. Loooouuuuuughbooooooroooouuuuugh! Anyway, this led me to Burton-on-Trent. And the coward’s way out hit me in the face like a stale pork pie. What is Burton famous for?”
“Beer,” said Troy, meekly, in the face of such colossal nonsense, fearing that Angus might say “porridge” or anything but “beer.”
“Yep. Beer. Beer by the millions of barrels. So I got pissed as a fart and decided to do the music-hall classic of walking the white line down the middle of the road as though it were a tightrope. Dead cert I’d get run over in ten minutes I thought. No such luck. Half a dozen cars swerve round me, blokes leaning out saying stuff like, ‘Are you trying to get yourself killed?’ and me yelling back, ‘Yes, you dim fucker!’ And then along comes Old Bill, and I get arrested for drunk and disorderly and bunged in the cells overnight. And what’s the last thing they do before they bang you up?”
“They take away your belt and shoe laces.”
“Indeed they do. So you can’t hang yourself. So happens I was wearing braces, but they took them, too, as though I’d be dumb enough to try and hang meself with elastic and die like a yo-yo. No charge, doors open next morning. Usual crap I’ve heard all over the country about no one wanting to prosecute a one-legged war hero. Stuck me on a train to St Pancras. Even gave me half a crown for lunch. I suppose I could have thrown meself from the train, but as I said, it takes a day or two to rev up to meeting your maker and your fox terrier.”
“And?”
“And so you find me here. Maudlin pissed, very much alive, chatting to a bloke on his way to a fancy-dress do. Once he gets the fruit hat on he’ll be a dead ringer for Carmen Miranda.”
Troy thought better of explaining that Mr. Crisp was in his everyday garb and said instead, “And you called me why, exactly?”
“Two things. First. The missis. I want news of the old girl.”
“You mean you haven’t been home?”
“Haven’t been home since the end of August. Called her once or twice. In fact, I called her only yesterday. She tells me she’s leaving the National Health Service for Harley Street.”
“When?”
“Right now. She’s taking a week or so off to get herself sorted.”
“I see. Then I can’t imagine what news you think I’ve got.”
“She also tells me you went on the walking holiday in the West Country with her.”
“Yes. Well . . . I went for some of it. Work dragged me back a day or two early.”
“But you spent a couple of nights there?”
“Yes.”
“Then I ask the obvious. Are you shagging my wife?”
“Angus, what does this have to do with wanting to kill yourself ?”
“Just answer the fucking question.”
“No. I’m not shagging Anna.”
“Why not? She’s a looker. You’d have to be blind not to fancy her.”
“Angus . . . the . . . the circumstances did not arise.”
“Ah . . . so you’d have shagged her if the timing was right?”
“Have you finished? Because I’m not answering anymore half-arsed accusations.”
“There’s one other thing. I gather you’re a bit of a crack shot.”
“I’m trained, Angus. That’s all.”
“No . . . no . . . no. I spent a night at her cousin Jimmy’s on me way north. He says you’re the dog’s bollocks with a pistol.”
“Angus . . . has this got any point? Is it leading anywhere?”
“Loosely. Loosely.”
The hand waved in the air a moment or two, then his head came down, closer to the table, closer to Troy, and his voice dropped just above a whisper.
“Can you get me a gun?”
Troy hadn’t seen this coming. His only thought was, “Oh, bloody hell.”
“Go home to Anna, Angus.”
Angus ignored this.
“It would solve my problem rather neatly, you know.”
“I don’t even know what your problem is.”
Angus downed his scotch, got to his feet, muttered, “My round, don’t go anywhere,” and lurched off in the direction of the bar.
If the coward’s way out is suicide, the coward’s way out for the poor bugger stuck with listening to the frustrated self-slaughterer is to nip out the side door while he’s not looking. Troy found to his dismay that he could not do this.
He watched Angus clump from the bar to Crisp’s table, release a pint of bitter from his grip with a cry of, “Cheers, old man, where’s the party?” and then do his one-legged charge back to Troy with two inordinately large scotches in hand.
“I’m not a roaring success, y’know. It’s not the business. I’m quite good at that. Though God knows why I ever became an accountant.”
Troy had wondered this, too. Gun runner, white hunter, proprietor of illegal distilleries on remote Hebridean islands . . . any one of those would make more sense than Angus being an accountant.
“It’s me . . . I wish I had been born a simple man, shielded in a carapace of ignorance. It may be I am bollocks at living in the twentieth century, but I am bollocks at being me. To be precise, I am bollocks at being the me of the postwar world.”
Troy ignored the Hardyesque self-pity of a soul too sensitive for our times. Angus could kid himself, but he wasn’t that. There was too much paradox in the idea of a delicate bull in a cruel, unfeeling china shop. Yet it all depends, he thought, on what you think you are. Angus left an indelible impression. Once met, never forgotten . . . but to be remembered for what he himself perceived as an illusion, a brave front to the world . . . or as he would have it a coward’s front?
“It’s simple really. I miss the war. I felt safe. Not physically. Only a reckless idiot—and I knew quite a few—would ever think that. But it had psychological and emotional certainties that our present age, our less-than-brave new world, does not.”
So the smog had conjured Angus this night, a golem wrought not from clay but from the foul mixture of swirling Thames mist and a couple of million belching coal fires. An Angus in a blackout.
“I thought you were a believer. I saw you bollock that old moaner in the Leper’s Loincloth last summer for even daring to be unhappy with ‘this England.’”
“I know, but this is the coward talking. This is the man who misses his dog.”
“Go home. And in the morning, get Anna to take you to Battersea Dogs’ Home.”
“It’s a symbolic dog, Troy. A real one won’t do.”
“I can’t sit here all night while you decide whether or not to buy a dog or top yourself. And I don’t have a gun to give you, and if I did, I wouldn’t.”
Troy’s refusal froze Angus into a contemplative stillness. An island of solitary thought in a sea of beer-fueled pub natter. Fist tight around the glass. Eyes fixed on the wall somewhere behind Troy’s head. He wasn’t finished—Troy could see that. Half a dozen times his lips parted as though about to speak but he didn’t. Whatever the madman said next might be more considered than his previous rubbish. Either way, Troy had heard enough.
Angus surfaced, a softer tone in his voice, an earnest desire to get through to Troy.
“I don’t want the war back. In fact, I dread hearing the phrase ‘Dunkirk spirit’—it’s getting to be the most jaded two words in the English language. But I want a good and noble cause. The war was that. ‘This England’ isn’t.”
“I’m not the man to give you a run for your money on that one. My brother is. He’ll defend the good and noble cause of ‘this England’ till your ears turn blue.”
Troy didn’t think this was news—surely Angus knew Rod was in Labour’s first eleven, batting for socialism and country? A patriot for our times?
“He would?” Angus asked.
“Yes.”
“I don’t suppose you could jot down his phone number?”
It was the kind of request that required a lot of thought. Setting a loony like Angus onto a political zealot like Rod. As if Rod would provide the ginger nutcase with reason enough to live. Troy gave it none, scribbled Rod’s number on the back of a beer mat, and said, “If Rod can’t convince you, no one can. And with that, good night.”
He left Angus to crash down next to Crisp with a bump and a nasty creak from the chair legs. The last thing he heard him say was, “Going on somewhere are we, old man?” And the distant crunch of all that china in all those shops being trampled underhoof drifted to him through black night and yellow smog like the sound of things to come.