Life Goes On (37 page)

I staggered back. I really did, hitting my head against the closed door. ‘Pregnant?'

‘I suppose you didn't know,' she jeered. ‘You fuck women as if babies still come from under bushes. And you pick them when they aren't on the pill. It's the only way you can do it. You walk along the street playing a game called “Is She On The Pill, Or Isn't She?” – and all those who aren't, you fancy. Oh, what a rat you are. Why did I ever meet you? – me, who comes from a good family and had a very religious upbringing?'

‘You didn't tell me that when I first met you.'

She was crying again. ‘You didn't ask me.'

I laughed. It wasn't hysteria. It really was funny. ‘I had no idea Maria was pregnant.'

‘Well, she is.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘She slept with me after you left because she was in terror of the man she'd worked for. She kept thinking he'd come and get her. Then one morning she was sick all over the bed.'

I sat down. ‘Maybe it was a tin of salmon.'

‘It wasn't.'

‘Put the kettle on, and let's have a cup of tea,' I said.

‘This isn't the Blitz. Put it on yourself.'

I tried to kiss her. ‘Are you sure
you
didn't make her pregnant?'

She was a big woman, and the fist at my shoulder almost spun me off my feet. I put myself in a state of defence: ‘If you believe I made her pregnant you'll believe anything. Did she tell you I did?'

‘She doesn't say anything. But she's in love with you. Whenever your name's mentioned she looks ecstatic. You think I'm an idiot? It's just one of your tricks.'

I put the kettle on and spread a slice of bread with good Dutch butter. ‘It's my fault she's here, that's true. Trust a fool like me to bring somebody home like that. But how was I to know she was up the spout?'

‘If you didn't know, who could?'

I spoke with my mouth full. ‘We've got to ask her direct.' I took her by the arm. ‘Come on.'

In the living-room Maria was leaning close to her knitting, as if short sighted, black hair covering the side of her face. Her luscious figure was so visible I almost wished I had made her pregnant. If I went to bed with her I'd never want to get up again. The way I looked at her did nothing to convince Bridgitte that I was not responsible for her condition, and the smile Maria gave when she realised I was in the room only doubled the proof of my responsibility. ‘Maria, Bridgitte tells me you are going to have a child.'

She stood up, and put her half finished baby shawl on a chair. ‘Yes.'

‘Whose is it?'

She smiled, and pointed to both of us. ‘
Your
baby.'

I regretted there wasn't a snowstorm outside that I could turn her into, thick wet flakes piling up beautifully all over the inhospitable soil. ‘Maria, you know it's not mine. It can't be, now, can it?'

Bridgitte actually stamped. ‘You'll do anything to make her deny it.'

Maria's dark and doll-like face screwed up as if to have a good cry. ‘You take baby. A gift.'

I'm sure she was an intelligent young woman, and we weren't too far behind in our powers of perception, but her lack of English, and our turning against each other when in a crisis tended to confuse the issue. ‘I'll take her to my father's place.' I didn't know what else to say.

‘Not to that monster,' Bridgitte cried.

She was right. It was an unreasonable suggestion, pregnant – oh God! – with disaster. He would make her write a Portuguese novel, then find a translator and pass it off as his own. ‘He wouldn't molest a pregnant woman, though.' I wanted to defend him against such outright rottenness though didn't really see how I could. Bridgitte still did not get the drift of what Maria meant, so I decided to be a little more forthright, even if only to clear my good name, and asked as tactfully as I could:

‘Maria, who fucked you?'

She stopped crying, and looked at me so intently with her shining brown eyes that I knew she was staring into space. ‘Who fucked you, then?' I shouted.

Bridgitte, both hands to her ears, looked at me with contempt and horror.

‘Mr Jeffrey,' Maria said.

‘Jeffrey who?'

‘Har-lacks-stone' – or Horlickstone, something like that.

‘The man you worked for?'

She nodded, and fell onto the carpet in a dead faint. We struggled upstairs with her and, on the landing, I edged her towards the spare room. ‘She sleeps in my bed,' Bridgitte said.

‘Our bed, you mean. What for?'

She switched on the overhead light to tell me. ‘Because I don't want to sleep with you. Because I like to sleep with her. Because Maria likes it as well. Isn't that enough?'

‘Have it your way.' I was appalled that she didn't trust me even now. She saw me sloping into Maria's room in the middle of the night to have it off with her. I'd never felt so offended. I pushed them into what had been described in the estate agent's information sheet as the master bedroom, and went back to the kitchen to find it filled with steam from the boiling kettle. Enough water was left for a pot of tea. I poured Bridgitte a cup when she came down. ‘How is she?'

‘All right.'

‘Do you believe me now?' I tried to kiss her, but she still wouldn't have it.

‘You'll have to go and see this Mr Horlickstone.'

‘What good will that do?' I asked. ‘He's married. He's got four kids. And nobody would be able to prove anything.'

‘Then I'll go and see him. I'll take the shotgun.'

I trembled, knowing she would do it. Man shot dead in the prime of life by Calamity Jane. The newspapers would love it. Any number of photographers would descend on Upper Mayhem. My face would get on the front pages. The lads in Canada would know where I lived. Most of all, I couldn't stand the thought of Bridgitte getting six months for murder.

‘I'll do it,' I promised.

‘Tomorrow?'

‘I'll go now. I'll take the car and be there by dawn. I'll pull him from the new
au pair
's bed and execute him against the ivy-clad garden wall. He'll love it.'

She thought I was being serious. ‘You look tired. Do it tomorrow.'

I had no intention of moving anywhere for a few days. After more bread and butter I went into the damp bed in the spare room and slept till three the next afternoon, a big white whale chasing me eternally through hanging fronds of seaweed. Bridgitte tried to trawl me out about eight, and came up with tea at ten, but even her imagination must have told her I had to sleep myself out.

A gritty floorcloth was being pulled across my face, and I opened my eyes to see Dismal on the bed. Then I heard Bill Straw downstairs shouting that he wouldn't mind a cup of tea and six fried eggs after hitch-hiking all the way from Lincoln.

His demanding voice brought me back to life. I dressed and shaved, and found him sitting by an empty plate in the kitchen, trying to cajole Bridgitte into grilling some beef sausages. ‘Thanks, Michael. That's one more life I owe you. You took long enough about it, though.'

‘I didn't get back till yesterday, and I posted the money within ten minutes of reading your letter.'

He wiped the fat off his plate with a piece of bread and it was halfway to his mouth when Dismal took it. He looked at Maria: ‘Get me some more to eat, duck, will you?'

‘Didn't they feed you in prison?' I asked.

‘Prison?' Bridgitte looked away with shock. ‘I suppose all your friends are jailbirds?'

‘I was only in two days,' Bill said, ‘so don't get like that, duck. It was a case of mistaken identity and false arrest. A graver miscarriage of justice I've never been involved in. They gave me a good breakfast, though, before I left this morning. It was so big I thought they were going to hang me.'

‘Tell me about it later,' I said.

Bridgitte went out, and Bill nodded towards Maria, who put more sausages and bacon under the grill. ‘Who's
she
, then?' I introduced them. ‘She's lovely,' he said.

Maria smiled as she plied the spatula.

‘She's here to help out.' I'd intended to say she was pregnant, but didn't – I can't think why.

He couldn't stop looking at her. ‘A gem, a real bloody gem. Is she foreign?'

‘She's from Portugal.'

‘Do you know, Michael, I never use long words, but if anybody was to ask me, I'd say she was exquisite.'

‘I serve you in dining room.' The Gem went before us with a tray. Rain beaded down the windows, and it seemed a good day to be indoors eating breakfast at three in the afternoon. ‘Tell me what went wrong in your great venture to the outside world,' I said when we made a start on the big black teapot.

He put two pieces of bread and butter together and began to eat. ‘Michael, forgive me if I chide you, but your sarcasm worries me. You didn't used to be like that. Sarcastic people aren't usually successful in life, and I wouldn't like that to happen to you.'

‘I'm a bit on edge,' I said, ‘what with one thing and another. I'll tell you what happened to me since I last saw you, and then you'll know why.' Maria came in with our full-house English breakfast, and I marvelled at how much Bridgitte had taught her in such a short time. Bill was about to pat her on the arse, but a look warned him off, smitten though he was. While we wolfed our commons I recounted my trip, though managed to leave out my meeting with Agnes and my homecoming at which I'd been informed that Maria was pregnant.

‘That puts us in the same mess,' he said. ‘If I was you, though, I'd go and see Moggerhanger and find out what the score is. In this kind of business you don't know who was at fault. All you know is that you did your duty, and now that you've survived you're worth twice as much to Moggerhanger than if you had failed.'

‘My mind boggles,' I said.

‘Don't you see? If he sent you there to make a genuine delivery, you've nothing to worry about. You did deliver it, after all, whatever it was. Didn't you?'

‘For God's sake,' I said.

‘Granted. What's more, you don't know what arrangements he had for the stuff when it left your hands. That's not your business to speculate about. If he sent you over to get you killed – and I think only your hyper-active imagination could suggest such a thing – now that you've beat 'em he'll have to welcome you back into the fold. Once there, you'll be too big to be knocked off. Or too useful. He's got the others to think about, but if you stay on the run your life won't be worth a light.'

He didn't realise that Moggerhanger already knew I was home again. ‘I wonder whose side
you're
on?'

He put his knife and fork down, so I knew things were serious. ‘Michael, listen to reason. I realise your instinct is to kill Moggerhanger. It may be understandable, but – bide your time. You may be cunning, but you're not cunning enough. Nobody is. You don't have a tactical brain quick enough, nor the sort of cool thought pattern that stops you just this side of ruthlessness. Cunning without tactical appreciation always leads to unthinking cruelty, which is no good to man nor beast. If you're ruthless without due consideration your opponent may become your victim, but you might also put yourself in the way of becoming his. Savvy?'

‘I'll think about it.'

He finished his breakfast in one great swipe across the plate. ‘I would, if I was you.'

‘How can you be so thin,' I asked, ‘when you eat so much?'

He gave me his wide Worksop grin. ‘I burn it off. It's thought that does it, Michael. I never stop thinking.'

‘You could have fooled me.' I was careful to smile. ‘But tell me
your
story.'

‘Pass the marmalade, and I'll start.'

‘Go on, then.'

‘I went to Somers Town, and there was Toffeebottle standing as large as life by the corner of the street. I knew that if I went to my room, even in my disguise, I was a goner, and so was my cash. I backtracked it, hoping he hadn't seen me, and got up to Goole as easy as pie. Taking Dismal was the best idea I had. I just stood by the road, held up my white stick and touched my dark glasses like Maurice Chevalier his hat, and had them bumper to bumper fighting to pick me up. “I'm going up north to see my brother,” I said, “I'm almost blind, and if it wasn't for my faithful dog I wouldn't be able to get around at all.” While Dismal jumped in the back, the man (or sometimes woman, because a blind man with a guide dog like Dismal couldn't possibly get up to any dirty business) got out and opened the door for me in case I missed my target and walked out into the road and got killed. I must say, though, that with my new rig on, which included one of Major Blaskin's hats – I hope he hasn't missed it yet – I knew I couldn't be recognised when I went snooping around Goole.

‘My journey up was a treat – only three lifts, as a matter of fact. One chap who took me straight up the Al to the Doncaster cut-off even stopped and bought me a meal, and I tell you, when I'd finished I could hardly move. Even Dismal was so full he scraped along on his belly to the door. Everybody seemed to love him all the more for it, though he's a terrible farter, by the way. I can't understand when people talk about a dog's life. And the man paid up without a murmur, though I offered my share. He owned a few shops in Barkdale and drove a nice big Ford Granada, but he was just an ordinary chap like you and me, about fifty-five, I'd say. I told him about my adventures in the Merchant Navy, when I'd had my sight damaged in a fire.'

‘I didn't know you'd ever been in the Merchant Navy.'

As Maria cleared the table he looked at her with a mixture of longing and sheer lechery. ‘Michael, when somebody out of the goodness of his heart has given you a lift, it behoves you to entertain him if he's half in the mind to hear it. Anyway, he then told me about his three sons, who all won scholarships at eleven and went up through the system till they got to the best universities. The eldest is one of the wonder boys at Marconi, another's in computers in America and the third's just got his master's degree in modern languages at Oxford. I suppose there are thousands of families like that, Michael, and they keep the country running. It gives me faith, honest it does. Merit triumphs. There's hope for us yet.'