by Pat Barker
I should have spoken to him, Prior thought, though he couldn’t imagine what he would have said. But somehow the not speaking seemed in retrospect to give the encounter a hallucinatory quality. He looked down again, and now he would have been relieved to see Spragge’s square head moving below.
He felt Sarah watching him and made an effort to behave more normally, rubbing condensation from the glass, trying to see out. ‘You know, I think we might just as well make a dash for it.’
He had begun to feel exposed, here above the leaves, with the white light flooding over everything. Down there in the crowd, Spragge had only to look up through a gap in the foliage and there he was, floodlit under the white light of the dome.
‘Yes, all right,’ Sarah said.
She sounded puzzled, but ready to go along with whatever he suggested. But she was no fool, his Sarah. He was going to have to tell her something.
Others had also decided to make a dash for it. A group of women with heavy drenched skirts were running stiff-legged towards the main gate.
‘Can you run?’ he asked.
A glint of amusement. ‘Can you?’
Good question. By the time they reached the underground station, he was more out of breath than her. He remembered, as he pressed his hand to his side, Spragge saying, ‘I was behind you on the platform.’ Suddenly he didn’t want the underground. He didn’t want to be shut in. ‘Look, I’ve got a better idea,’ he said. ‘Why don’t we go on the river? If we get off at Westminster Bridge we could see the Abbey.’
The boat was already moored when they reached the landing stage, and beginning to be crowded. At the last moment, as the engine began to throb, a crowd of people swept on board, including what looked like a girls’ school party. Prior stood up and gave one of the teachers his seat. ‘I’ll get you a cup of tea,’ he whispered to Sarah and went to the bar.
As he stood waiting his turn, the roar increased, the river churned, and they began moving out into midstream. He got the tea, took it back to Sarah, and tried to drink his own, but found it too difficult to keep his feet on the tilting deck, so he moved away from her and went to stand in the doorway that connected the covered deck with the open benches in the stern. Even these were full, and in fact the rain had almost stopped. A white sun could be glimpsed now and then through a hazy veil of cloud.
On the front bench a group of elderly cockney men were making the best of a bad job, laughing and joking at everything. A little way behind, on the end of the third bench, sat a man with unusually broad shoulders. He looked like Spragge, but it was difficult to tell because he was wearing a hat and facing away from Prior. Prior craned to see the side of his face. It was Spragge. Had to be. And yet he wasn’t sure. There was something odd about the way the man didn’t turn, didn’t move. Edging along the railing towards him, Prior became aware of a slowness in his movements, as if he were wading through glue. He saw himself, in his mind’s eye, go up to the man, tap him on the shoulder, wait for him to turn, and the face that turned towards him… was his own. He sat down, his eyes level with the railings from which a row of glittering raindrops hung. He reached out his hand and, with the tip of his forefinger, destroyed them one by one. The wet, running uncomfortably under his shirt cuff, brought him back to himself. He looked again. It might or might not be Spragge, but it certainly looked nothing like him. The whole powerful, brutal bulk of the head and shoulders was as different from his own slight build as any two physiques could be, and yet again, as he got up and began to move forward, he felt he was looking at the back of his own head. He breathed deeply, gazing through the rails at the brown, swollen, sinuous river, making himself follow individual twigs and leaves as they were borne along, noticing how the different currents of water, as they met and parted, rippled like muscles under skin. They were approaching another bridge. He steadied himself, walked up to the man and tapped him on the shoulder.
Spragge’s face was a relief. So much so that it took several seconds for the anger to surface. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Going back to London. What are you doing?’
He sounded genuinely surprised, but Prior had caught the hiccup of laughter in his voice. Spragge had spoken more loudly than he needed, playing to the small audience of cockneys, and to the larger audience on the benches behind.
Prior lowered his voice. ‘Are you following me?’
‘Following you?’ Again very loud. ‘Now why should I do that?’
He sounded like a bottom-of-the-bill music-hall actor conveying injured innocence. The impression was not of somebody who’d decided to act as one possible response to a situation, but of somebody who couldn’t not act. You had the feeling he would act in front of the bathroom mirror. That if ever you succeeded in ripping the mask off there would be no face behind it. Prior felt a wave of revulsion. ‘If you’re following me,’ he said, ‘I’ll–’
‘Yes, what will you do?’ Spragge waited, as if the question genuinely interested him. ‘Call the police? Have me arrested? It’s not against the law to go to Kew.’ He smiled. ‘Nice girl,’ he said, nodding towards the prow. And then he cupped his hands against his chest.
‘If you go anywhere near her, I’ll break your fucking neck.’
Spragge laughed, jowls shaking. He put his hand on Prior’s chest and slapped it, genially. ‘That’s all right,’ he said. Then he sat down again and looked out over the river, with no more than a sideways glance at the cockneys, and a faint smile.
In something not moving, something too steady for a boat. Hands, mottled purple and green, moved along polished wood. Then he was back, staring up at a window made of chips of purple and green light. He looked for Sarah and couldn’t see her. In a panic he leapt up and began searching the Abbey, thrusting tourists aside, trailing hostile stares.
He found her at last, standing by the effigy of an eighteenth-century bishop, running her hand over the smooth marble. A shaft of sunlight had found the auburn lights in her hair.
She looked up as he arrived, breathless. ‘You back now?’
The question was so apposite it silenced him. For a moment he thought, she knows. And immediately rejected the idea. Of course she didn’t know.
They went home by taxi. Prior thought about Spragge, because he was afraid of thinking about anything else. What angered him was the thought that Spragge might have seen that little act of intimacy in the Palm House when Sarah had moved closer and rubbed his cock through the hard cloth of his breeches. A good moment. In all that press of wet, sweating, steamy-skinned people, they’d been alone, and then Spragge’s face peering through the leaves. Had he seen? He must have. Prior was aware of feeling an almost excessive sense of exposure, of violation even, as if he’d been seen, arse upwards, in the act itself.
The taxi jolted and swayed. A memory started to surface that seemed to have nothing to do with the afternoon’s events. He was ill with asthma, walking with his father’s hand. Where could they have been going? His father had never taken him anywhere, he’d been too ashamed of the little runt that had mysteriously sprung from his loins. Perhaps his mother had been ill. Yes, that was it.
They’d sat on a bench somewhere, and a woman brought him lemonade. Real lemonade, his father had said proudly – but why proudly? – not that gassy bottled stuff. There had been lime jelly too, with jelly babies suspended in it. While he was picking at it, his father and the woman went upstairs. He could hear voices from the open window above his head. The boy, Harry. Then his father’s voice, thick and hurried. He’s all right. Wraps himself round that lot he won’t have much to grumble about.
‘Wrapping himself round that lot’ had not been easy. He loved jelly, but hated jelly babies, mainly because of the way people ate them, nibbling at their feet, then at their faces, then boldly biting off the head and turning the headless body round to display the shiny open wound. He contemplated eating his way round them, freeing them from their quivering prison, but he knew he couldn’t do that. The jelly had been
specially made – it wasn’t grownup food – and his father would be angry. So, one by one, he had forced them down, swallowing them whole, his eyes fixed on the trees so he wouldn’t have to think about what he was doing. Even so, he’d gagged once or twice, his eyes had watered, while upstairs the thick whispers came and went and the bed springs creaked.
On the way home his father had said, casually, ‘Better not tell your mam.’ And then he’d sat him astride his shoulders and carried him all the whole way home, all the way up the street with everybody looking, his meaty hands clasped round his son’s thin white thighs. For once he’d ridden home in triumph. And he hadn’t told his mam, though he’d stood by her sick bed and listened to his father describe a visit to the park. He’d been invited to join the great conspiracy and even at the age of five he knew the value of it. He wasn’t going to jeopardize future outings by telling her anything.
That night he’d woken up, hot and sticky, knowing he was going to be sick. He started to cry and after a long time his father came in, blundering round and stubbing his toes before he found the light. He looked up at him, the huge man, looming over the bed. Then, slowly, erupting from his mouth, the jelly babies returned – intact, or very nearly so – while his father stood and gaped.
It must have been quite a sight, Prior thought, helping Sarah out of the cab and turning to pay the driver. Like watching a sea-horse give birth.
Once inside the flat he lit the gas fire and made two mugs of strong sweet tea, while Sarah went to take off her wet clothes. She came back wearing his dressing-gown, shivering from the cold. He sat her down between his knees and towelled her hair.
‘You know you were saying about the bit you liked best? For me it’s your hair,’ he said, feeling his tongue thick and unwieldy, getting in the way of his teeth. ‘It was the first thing I noticed. The different colours.’
‘You told me,’ she said, twisting round. ‘And you needn’t make it sound so romantic. You were wondering which colour was down there. Weren’t you?’
He smiled. ‘Yes.’
They sat sipping their tea. She said, ‘Well, are you going to tell me?’
‘Yes.’ He picked up two handfuls of hair and tugged on them. ‘But it’s worse than you think. I need you to tell me what happened.’
‘When?’
‘On the boat.’
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t argue. ‘You gave your seat to that woman and got a cup of tea and then you went and stood over by the bar. I didn’t see what happened then, I was looking at the bank. Then the sun came out and some of the girls went out on deck and this woman thought she ought to go and keep an eye on them. So next time you came back there was a seat next to me. I asked you which bridge we were going under and you didn’t answer. I could see you were in one of your moods. So I left you to it. Then when we got out, that man in the Palm House was waiting at the top of the steps. He said something about me – I honestly didn’t hear what it was – and you hit him. He came back at you, and you lifted your cane and you were obviously going to brain him, so he backed off. He went across the bridge, and you got hold of me and dragged me into the Abbey. I kept saying, “What’s the matter?” I couldn’t get an answer, so I thought, sod it. And I went off and looked at things on me own.’ She waited. ‘Are you telling me you don’t remember all that?’
‘I remember the first bit.’
‘You don’t remember hitting him?’
‘No.’
‘Who is he?’
‘Doesn’t matter.’
‘It does bloody matter.’
‘It’s got nothing to do with you.’
Her face froze.
As she pulled away, he said, ‘No, look, I didn’t mean it like that.’ He buried his head in his hands. ‘I’ll tell you all about him if you like, but that’s not the bit that matters. What matters is that I can’t remember.’
‘It’s happened before?’
‘It’s been happening for oh… two months.’
He could see her mind busily at work, trying to minimize the significance. ‘But you lost your memory once before, didn’t you? I mean, when you came back from France you said you couldn’t remember anything.’ She switched to a tone of condemnation. ‘You’ve let yourself get run down, that’s what you’ve done.’
‘Look, I need you to tell me about it.’ He tried to sound light-hearted. ‘You’re the first person who’s met him.’
‘Don’t you mean “me”? Well, it is you, isn’t it?’
Prior shook his head. ‘You don’t understand.’ He leapt up and took a piece of paper out of the top drawer of the sideboard. ‘Look.’
Sarah looked down and read: Why don’t you leave my fucking cigars alone?
‘I found some cigars in my pocket. I threw them away.’
‘But it’s your writing.’
‘YES. How can I say “I” about that?’
Sarah was thinking. ‘When I said it was you, I didn’t just mean… the obvious. I meant I… I meant I recognized you in that mood. Do you remember the first time we went out together? That day on the beach.’
‘Yes, of–’
‘Well, you were like that then. Hating everybody. You were all right on the train, but once we were on the beach, I don’t know what happened, you just went right away from me and I couldn’t reach you. I could feel the hatred coming off you. It was like anybody who hadn’t been to France was rubbish. Well, you were like that on the boat. And there’s no talking to you when you’re in that mood. You just despise everybody.’ She hesitated. ‘Including me.’
‘It’s not a mood, Sarah. People remember moods.’
In bed that night, coiled round her, he kissed all along her spine, gently, so as not to wake her, his lips moving from one vertebra to the next.
Stepping stones to sanity.
But the day after tomorrow, she would be gone.
FIFTEEN
Sarah left early on the Monday morning. They clung together by the barrier at King’s Cross, breathing in coke fumes, and did not say goodbye.
He worked late, putting off the moment when he’d have to face the empty flat. On his way home he kept telling himself it wouldn’t be too bad, or at least it wouldn’t be as bad as he expected.
It was worse.
He wandered from room to room, searching for traces of her, trying to convince himself a dent in the sofa cushion was where her head had rested. He sat down and put his own head there, but this simply provided a more painful vantage point from which to survey the emptiness of the room.
It’ll get better, he told himself.
It didn’t.
He took to walking the streets at night in an effort to get tired enough to sleep. London by night fascinated him. He walked along the pavements, looking at place-names: Marble Arch, Piccadilly, Charing Cross, Tottenham Court Road. All these places had trenches named after them. And, gradually, as he walked through the streets of the night city, that other city, the unimaginable labyrinth, grew around him, its sandbag walls bleached pale in the light of a flare, until some chance happening, a piece of paper blown across the pavement, a girl’s laugh, brought him back to a knowledge of where he was.
He got a letter from Sarah and put it on the mantelpiece, under a small china figure of a windblown girl walking a dog, where he would see it as soon as he came through the door.
Often, on his night-time walks, he thought about Spragge, and the more he thought the more puzzled he became. The man’s whole sweaty, rumpled, drink-sodden appearance suggested a down-and-out, a man blundering through life, and yet the effort required to watch the flat and follow him all the way to Kew revealed a considerable degree of persistence. It didn’t make sense.
One obvious explanation was that he was working for Lode, but Prior distrusted the idea. The atmosphere in the Intelligence Unit was such that baseless suspicions were mistaken for reality at every turn. It was like a trick picture he’d seen once, in which staircases appeared to lead between the various floors of
a building. Only very gradually did he realize that the perspective made no sense, that the elaborate staircases connected nothing with nothing.
His landlady, Mrs Rollaston, turned up on the doorstep, cradling her bosom in her arms as women do when they feel threatened. ‘I thought you’d like to know there’s somebody coming to do the bins. I know I said Monday, but I just couldn’t get anybody.’
She was obviously continuing a conversation.
Prior nodded, and smiled.
He could recall no occasion on which he’d spoken to Mrs Rollaston about the bins.
He needed to see Spragge, but the address on the file, as he discovered standing on a gritty, windswept pavement in Whitechapel, was out of date. The bloodless girl who peered up at him from the basement, a grizzling baby in her arms, said she’d lived there a year and no, she didn’t know where the previous tenant had gone. The landlady might, though.
The landlady, traced to the snug bar of the local pub, confirmed the name had been Spragge. She didn’t know where he was now. Did he know this was the very pub Mary Kelly had been drinking in the night the Ripper killed her? She’d known Mary Kelly as well as she knew her own sister, heart in one place, liver in another, intestines draped all over the floor, in that very chair –
He bought her a port and lemon and left her to her memories. Odd, he thought, that the fascination with the Ripper and his miserable five victims should persist, when half of Europe was at it.
He was losing more time. Not in huge chunks, but frequently, perhaps four or five times a day. In the evenings, unless he was seeing Rivers, he stayed at home. He knew the flat was bad for him, both physically and mentally, but he was afraid to venture out because it seemed to give him more scope. Nonsense, of course. He could and did go out, though sometimes the only sign was the smell of fresh air on Prior’s skin.