Life Goes On (38 page)

He gave his infectious maniac laugh.

‘I'm serious. There's a lot of talent in this country, and it's nice to realise Moggerhanger doesn't have it all, although he and the criminal fraternity – the gold smugglers, dope peddlers, pickpockets, money printers, as well as tax dodgers, moonlighters, con-men (and con-women), muggers and cat burglars – cream off reams of intelligence. In the brain power and talent they employ it must be second only to the arms industry. Makes you think, don't it?'

I lit our cigarettes. ‘It's the way we live now.'

He rubbed his hands together. ‘It certainly is, old cock.'

‘So you got to Goole?'

‘Ever been there? Of course you have. It's a funny sort of place – ships right in the middle of the town. You only need one of them medieval catapults to swing half a ton of heroin into the square. At night it'd be the easiest thing in the world: just roll your car roof back and the stuff pops in. Then you drive away and nobody's the wiser. All I wanted was to go into a few pubs and see what I could find out. You never know what information you can pick up, or who you can see in pubs, especially when you tap your way in with a white stick, led by a dog. Now, Michael, I don't know where you got that dog, but he has been trained to do some very funny things, because no sooner did we get in a pub than he went sniffing around, and he wasn't just after Woodbines. There were five people in, and when Dismal passed by one and didn't sniff him – a chap with a grey beard, straggly hair, and a Russian-type fur hat – the others who
had
been sniffed turned on him. I didn't know what I was getting into. I'd been hoping for something, but not this. I just stood by. I had to, because I was supposed to be blind. But the others got hold of the chap Dismal had passed over, and held him against the wall. One of them was a big bald-headed specimen with a strawberry mark down one side of his face, a sailor from one of the boats, with the biggest set of fists I'd ever seen. “Who are you?” he asked the chap. “Wayland Smith,” he squeaked. That was a made-up name, if ever I heard one. I noticed a pansy-looking chap nearby who seemed to be the ringleader, a nasty bit of work who did nothing but file his nails. “What's your job?” he asked. Wayland Smith shook and trembled, and called to the pub landlord that he should get the police, but the landlord only laughed and said “Get 'em yourself.” The sailor asked the same question, and Wayland Smith must have thought it was all up: “I'm a journalist,” he sobbed. Well, I ask you – a journalist! That was the worst thing he could have said. “I know him,” Nail File said. “He works for the television. BBC, I think.” That made it even worse. If it was ITV they might just have thrown him out and that was that. But the BBC! “You'd better put him in the van,” Nail File said. The sailor hit Wayland Smith in the stomach, and they dragged him outside. “It's terrible,” the landlord said, “the way people can't hold their drink. How was I to know he's had thirty-five whiskies?” He looked at me. “If I was you I'd make myself scarce. And take that dog with you.” “I only came in for half a pint of mild,” I whined. “Bugger off,” he said, “or you'll need a deaf aid as well, if that lot set on to you.” His advice was well meant, so I stepped outside. It was too late. Somebody hit me on the back of the head with the town hall.

‘I woke up in the cop shop on a charge of being drunk and disorderly. Dismal was put into the cell with me, in case I wanted to go to the lavatory pan in the corner. Whoever struck the blow outside the pub must have dragged me to a street on the outskirts and poured a bottle of brandy over me. Fortunately he wasn't smoking at the time. The beak next morning said I should be ashamed of myself. “A blind man to get into such a state.” I was belligerent and nasty, he said, and took advantage of my disability to bamboozle the general public into protecting me. What's more, I didn't deserve the service of that faithful dog “whining so hard because it can't get into the dock with you. However, in view of your condition, I will be lenient. Ten pounds fine, and fifteen costs.”

‘As you know, Michael, I hadn't got a bean, so they sent me to Lincoln Prison. Why they packed me off there I'll never know: it should have been Leeds, where I know the governor. I'd have been treated much better. They'd have given me a packed lunch as well, when they sent me off. Anyhow, they were glad to get rid of me, though they weren't bad chaps. They let Dismal share my cell and always had a vat of slops for him to eat. When your letter came with the money I was off like a shot and got here an hour ago. I still don't know what it all means, except that those smuggling lads don't fuck about when you cross them. That smack across the skull seems to have damaged my appetite. The only good thing I can say about them is that they were English enough not to push a needle into Dismal and hurl him into the river.'

‘What did they do with Wayland Smith?'

‘Do you know him?'

‘Only what I heard at Blaskin's. Seems he's researching for a TV documentary on smuggling.'

He took a silver toothpick out of his pocket and began to ply it. ‘He's probably on his way to Hamburg by now. I expect he'll wake up in the middle of a donkey show, and he won't be playing the donkey.'

‘Can they get away with a thing like that?'

He leaned back and laughed. ‘Michael, your sarcasm is more than made up for by your sense of humour. Them lads can do whatever they like. That's why I think the sooner you're back in the Moggerhanger compound the better. If you could spend your life never more than twenty feet away from the great chief himself you would live forever.'

I called for Maria to bring another pot of tea. ‘That's not my idea of life. I want to finish him off. I want to get him put behind bars.'

He came forward so that I would hear every word. ‘Shall I tell you something? Life's too short. And however bad life is, it's very good. Why do you want to get him sent down? Because he's done you a bad turn? If that's the case, your motives are revenge, and that's selfish, Michael. Don't stoop to selfishness. In any case, “vengeance is mine, saith the Lord”. And it's right. Why ruin yourself? Let the Lord take care of a lord. He will. And if he don't, somebody else will. And if nobody else does, you and me's got nowt to lose – by and large. But maybe you want to get rid of him because he's ruining the economy? Or because he's drugging the whole country silly? Very good motives, Michael. Far better than revenge. But shall I tell you something? Don't bother. He's drugging the whole country silly? It was drugged before, only the drugs was different. And what do you want to do with the country, anyway? Wake it up? Pardon me while I swim to France.'

‘I don't suppose it's much different there.'

‘No, but the grub's better. Where's that lovely young wench with the tea?'

I felt as if I was swimming in treacle. I could neither sink nor get out. It was necessary to go back to the centre before I could decide what to do, but where was the centre? ‘I'll report to headquarters tomorrow.'

‘That's what I'd do in your place. Do you mind if me and Dismal hang on for another day or two?'

‘Ask Bridgitte.'

We were sitting around the fire that evening, and she announced that she was missing the children. They'd had enough of a holiday without her. She was going back to Holland. ‘Besides, I have a boyfriend, and I'm missing him as well.'

There was silence for five minutes, then I said, packing as much threat into my voice as I could: ‘What did you say?'

She flushed her usual high colour when she was inwardly disturbed. ‘I've got a boyfriend in Holland.'

I was ready to choke. ‘So it's the end?'

‘Yes.'

‘Really?'

‘Really.'

I stroked Dismal's wide head. ‘And what about my kids? I'm missing them as well. I haven't seen 'em for weeks, and it's breaking my heart.'

There was a big tear in her left eye. ‘You can see them whenever you like.'

‘It comes to all of us,' said Bill.

‘You keep out of this.' I had been expecting it for a long time, hoping for it, in many ways wanting to be free of her for good, but now that the words had come out, and in front of other people, I felt sick. At the same time I wasn't certain that she meant it, and this made me angry, so in order to make sure, no matter how much more miserable I was going to be, I asked: ‘When are you going to take your things from the house?'

‘It's my place as much as yours. I'll take them when I like.'

‘Make it soon,' I said. ‘My girlfriend wants to move in.'

‘Do you play this game often?' Bill said.

‘Girlfriend?'

It was getting too complicated. ‘I'm only kidding. But what about Maria?'

Maria, who sensed things were not as they should be, sat idly with the knitting on her lap. ‘She's your responsibility,' Bridgitte said. ‘You brought her.'

‘That's nice of you. I need a caretaker.'

‘I'll stay on for a day or two,' Bill said. ‘She'll be all right with me.'

‘Yes, and I'll thank you to keep your hands off her if you do.'

‘I'll go back to London,' Maria said. ‘To get a job.'

‘You stay here,' I told her. ‘I need you. Look after Dismal and Bill. London's no good for a nice person like you. The police will send you back to Portugal if you haven't got a job. In fact they're probably hunting high and low for you at this minute.'

She began to cry.

‘It's all right,' I told her. ‘You've got nothing to worry about. I'm going to London tomorrow to kill the man you used to work for. Then I'm going to Holland to kill Bridgitte's boyfriend. Then I'm going to kill myself. Clear the air a bit.'

‘A holocaust,' said Bill. ‘Take a Bob Martin's and calm down.'

I fetched a bottle of whisky out of the cupboard and poured everyone a glass. ‘Here's some medicine, Maria. It'll make you feel better.'

‘It's whisky.' Her eyes moistened. ‘I like whisky.'

So that's how it happened, I thought. No wonder she didn't know.

‘Give me another.' Bill drained his glass before I set the bottle back on the table.

‘You won't kill Jan,' said Bridgitte. ‘He'll kill you, you coward. You won't frighten me, or him.'

‘Of course I won't kill him,' I laughed. ‘I'll be too busy with Agnes.'

She swallowed. ‘Agnes?'

‘The girlfriend I mentioned. I really have got one. She went to America with me. Her name's Agnes. And she's pregnant. This house won't be big enough to hold us soon. It's just as well you're leaving.'

‘You're rotten,' she screamed. ‘Rotten, rotten, rotten.'

‘I don't know about that,' I said.

She stood up.

‘You throw that glass,' I told her in no uncertain terms, ‘and it'll be the last thing you do.'

She set it on the mantelpiece. ‘Maria, let's go to bed.'

Sweating with misery and rage, though I knew I was getting off lightly, I poured more whisky for Bill and myself. Maria had a look which I can only describe as ecstatic when Bridgitte picked up her glass, and the bottle, and they went out of the room holding hands.

‘This place has a funny effect on people,' Bill said, ‘but I find it restful enough. Jack Daniel's has a lovely taste. I wish you hadn't let them take the bottle.'

‘I've got some more,' I said, going to the cupboard.

Twenty

When everything is settled, torment slops away beyond recall. It is arguable, of course, whether anything is ever settled, but I thought it was as I dressed in my two-hundred-guinea bespoke three-piece suit, donned my tailor-made shirt, laced up my handmade boots, put a handkerchief in my lapel pocket and took a brace of duty-free Romeo and Juliet cigars from the box in the spare room. I filled a holdall with shirts, underwear, shaving gear, my hip flask and the air pistol. Last of all, I threaded the gold half-hunter watch across my waistcoat. No one was awake. I said goodbye only to Dismal. Maybe I would be back in the morning. Perhaps I would never be back. The outcasts of Upper Mayhem could look after themselves.

Streaks of pink cloud crossed the sky, blue on the ground and hazy above. It felt good to be alive, the sort of morning that was kind to a hangover as I strode along with my umbrella towards the bus that would take me to the station. I bought a
Times
, and a train came within five minutes. Judging by my state of mind, my middle name was Havoc, no matter how many decisions had been made. To know what to do, and come out of chaos with advantage, seemed impossible. Whatever I did would be wrong, so I was bound to do the worst. My mother would say, not without pride, that it was the Irish in me, but I didn't think so. When your back is to the wall you at least turn round and give it a push in case it magically falls and you are free. All in all, I felt reckless, certainly in no mood for taking the safest option.

Wearing what I was wearing, I could not go into the maelstrom on anything less than a first class ticket. Bridgitte's announcement that she had a boyfriend and was leaving me for good, made the knives inside turn even more quickly than when I recalled Moggerhanger's dirty trick in sending me to Canada with a load of printed matter which, whatever else was stamped on them, contained my death warrant. Whereas he had wanted to wipe me out physically, Bridgitte, from motives of self-preservation which nobody but me could understand better, was out to destroy me in spirit.

I had always prided myself on never giving in. In leaps of optimism, I was spring-heeled Jack, though today I thought that if I got with alacrity out of the dumps I might land somewhere even worse. People in second class, when I went for a stroll, glanced at me from behind the fortifications of their faces. I looked back from mine. They saw a berk from the first class going through for a walk, and I saw people with expressions put there by too much looking at television, that I had fought to wipe off my own face since birth.