Ritual in the Dark (20 page)

Almost immediately the sense of reconciliation disappeared. He had remembered the pink cheeks and the wispy blond moustache of the Scottish clerk, and the memory stirred shame and anger. The Scotsman had professed a violent anti-Semitism: he referred to Hampstead and Golder’s Green as Abrahamstead and Goldstein’s Green. His arguments with Sorme had always finished with mutual declarations of contempt, leaving behind a taste of futility. These arguments, and an abortive affair with the office girl, were all that stood out in Sorme’s memory of the year in the office. The girl’s name was Marilyn; she was plump, not particularly attractive, and came from Stepney Green. But she was given to wearing semi-transparent dresses, with very little underneath them. When she bent over the filing cabinet, the outline of her pants showed clearly through the fabric, and the three clerks stared surreptitiously until she straightened up. Finally, he invited her out to the theatre and took her drinking afterwards. Later the same evening, in the Victoria Park, he knew with certainty that he did not want to possess her, that his desire had been an illusion born of boredom and the sexy innuendo of office conversation. She had probably assumed it was chivalry that had made him gently pull down her skirt after she had raised it. He was glad, three days later, to leave the office without seeing her, and contemptuous of himself for being glad.

The recollection left him feeling uncomfortable and ashamed. He finished the toasted buns and went out.

He walked the bicycle along the pavement as far as Middlesex Street, then mounted and rode slowly towards Bishopsgate. He dismissed the memories, and thought deliberately of Caroline and Gertrude; immediately he began to feel better. In Widegate Street he stared with interest at a pregnant woman who pushed a battered pram loaded with washing, and felt the release of some inner tension of smell and colour, a renewal of the excitement. He turned into Spitalfields Market and dismounted; it was impossible to ride among the people who crowded the narrow space between parked lorries and the market building. Almost immediately a man in shirtsleeves swung a net-bag of cabbage off a lorry, missing Sorme’s head by a fraction. The man grinned, saying: Watch yer loaf! Sorme grinned back, halting for a moment to avoid a trolley loaded with potato sacks. The inner warmth was like being drunk, but without the sense of limitation.

On the corner of Brushfield Street, he stopped to consult the London atlas he carried in his saddlebag. The traffic in Commercial Street was an unbroken stream, filling the air with vibrations and the smell of diesel exhausts.

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The pavement of Durward Street was barely two feet wide; the roofs, windowsills and kerbstones formed a perspective of unbroken parallel lines from one end of the road to the other. The street was deserted.

He stopped before number twelve. The brown paint on the front door had been weathered into scales.

He stood there, in front of the window, hoping to hear some movement from inside the house that would relieve his hesitation. Now he was on the point of knocking, he remembered Nunne’s comments about Glasp, and the warning of the Hungarian priest. He tried to think of the words with which he would introduce himself. Finally, he rapped loudly, and waited.

A window opened above his head. He stood back to look, hoping it would be Glasp. It was the window of the house next door. A woman asked him:

Did you want Mrs Greenberg, or the lodger?

A man called Glasp, Sorme said. He felt embarrassed, as if some guilty secret was being exposed to the whole street.

The lodger. He won’t be long, the woman said. He usually goes out about this time for breakfast. I don’t know which caff he goes to.

It doesn’t matter. I’ll call back later.

The window slammed again. He noticed the curtains of the house opposite stir as someone looked out at him. He cycled back along the street, irritated with himself, and with the woman next door for not minding her own business. Her effect had been to make him feel an intruder.

At the end of the street, he dismounted, and leaned the bicycle against the wall, under the No Entry sign. The idea of looking for Glasp in the local cafés did not appeal to him. He looked at his watch, and decided to take a walk round the neighbourhood. It had been a long time since he walked round Whitechapel, thinking of the Jack the Ripper murders. Now, while the mood of receptivity was still on him, the prospect pleased him. He locked the bicycle, binding the chain twice around the wheel.

Opposite the end of Durward Street was the shell of a theatre, with broken rafters and fire-blackened walls exposed. He stood, staring across at it, experiencing a desire to climb the wooden fence that hid the lower story, to pick his way across the rotten floorboards, and smell the odour of damp and decay that came from heaps of rubble. It was almost a physical craving. It puzzled him. Things were happening inside him that he found difficult to understand. It felt as if his nerves had been disconnected, then reconnected in a different order, generating new appetites and a new sensibility. He turned and walked along Vallance Road, away from the main road. He picked his way carefully across the bomb site, taking care to avoid treading on rusty barrel-hoops. Across the street, an empty school building looked as desolate as the ruined theatre; on its walls, whitewashed letters two feet high stated: Union will get rid of the Reds. At both ends of the inscription was a symbol of a lightning bolt in a circle. He crossed the road past the school, on to another strip of waste ground bordered by empty houses and stumps of broken walls, and paused for a moment to look in the windowless aperture of a disintegrating building. The floor was covered with rubble, old newspapers nibbled by mice, a torn pink brassiere. A narrow stairway, still intact, curved around the opposite wall. As he looked, a mouse ran out from among the newspapers, and disappeared into a hole in the skirting board. Someone had pointed out this house to him before; in 1943, the body of a Finnish sailor had been found on the upper floor by some children playing hide-and-seek; he had been robbed and left to die, battered by a brick swung in a silk stocking.

The house next door was still occupied; the front door stood open, and the smell of frying sausages came from it. Outside the door, a baby lay asleep in a pram.

He wandered, without aim, through the littered streets. In Hanbury Street, the new blocks of flats and the children’s playground looked incongruous. He stopped again outside the barber’s shop at number 29. In the yard behind the shop, the third of the Ripper’s killings had taken place. He had once seen a photograph of it, taken immediately after the murders; it looked completely unchanged by the intervening seventy years. The barber looked up from shaving a customer as Sorme paused by the door. He said:

Hello. Long time no see.

Sorme said: How are you?

Fine. Never see you in here for haircuts these days.

I don’t live around here now.

At the end of Hanbury Street he found himself facing Spitalfields Market again. As he passed the Wren church, an old man came out of the public lavatory, muttering:

Tanner for a cup o’ tea?

Sorme fumbled in his pocket, turning his eyes away from the dewdrop that hung on the end of the man’s nose. The clawed, dry-skinned hand took the two threepenny pieces; the man glanced around quickly to see if any policeman had observed him. His hand rested on Sorme’s sleeve. Uncertain of what was being demanded of him, Sorme looked into the watery blue eyes. The man’s voice was an indistinguishable mumble; he pointed to his feet, on which he wore grubby plimsolls. Sorme assumed he was asking for more money, and started to grope for loose change. He stopped when he caught the words:

. . . lived here for close on seventy years.

Seventy years?

That’s right. Near seventy years. . . I been ‘ere.

He brushed at his nose with the cuff of his overcoat, and dislodged the transparent drop. Another formed immediately. Sorme averted his eyes. The overcoat was so long that its hem dragged on the pavement. He said politely:

You don’t look that old.

Oh yers. Seventy-three, and worked every day of my life till I ‘ad the trouble.

Sorme realised that the man was not drunk; he was talking to dispel loneliness, or perhaps out of gratitude for the sixpence. His words were scarcely distinguishable. Sorme said:

You must have been alive at the time of the Jack the Ripper murders.

Eh? Jack the Ripper? Yers. I can tell you something about that. He done his last murder over there. . .

The bent hand gestured in the direction of the market building. Sorme said:

Miller’s Court?

That’s right. Over there, it used to be. Before they built the market. Used to be Dorset Street. I know, ‘cause I used to do a paper round at the time.

Sorme said with surprise:

How old were you?

‘Ow old? Lemme see. . .

The watery eyes concentrated. The transparent drop fell on to the pavement. He said finally:

Why, I was ten at the time, just ten.

Sorme calculated quickly. Eighteen eighty-eight to nineteen fifty-six—sixty-eight years. He said:

And you say you’re seventy-three?

That’s right. Seventy-three. Seventy-four next April. And I used to take the mornin’ papers to Miller’s Court. Then one mornin’ I goes there, and there’s a crowd round the door. And a copper says: She won’t want no more papers ‘ere, sonny. Don’t you go bringin’ any more papers ‘ere. An that’s ‘ow I know she’d been murdered. That was Jack the Ripper.

Sorme looked at his watch, saying:

Amazing! Well, I must go now. Goodbye. . .

The old man raised a hand in salute as he turned away. Sorme turned into Fournier Street, thinking: Either he’s five years older than he thinks, or he’s lying. He walked hurriedly now, taking the shortest route back to the place where he had left the bicycle.

He unlocked the wheel, unwinding the chain from around it, swearing when he got grease from the spokes on his fingers. He wiped them clean on his handkerchief, then walked the bicycle back along Durward Street. Up to the point where the street divided it was a one-way street, and a policeman stood on the opposite corner.

Before he had advanced more than a few yards into Durward Street, he noticed the old woman who came towards him from the other end of the street. She was carrying a half loaf of bread under her arm, clutched against a baggy cardigan of purple wool. She stopped, and inserted a key in a door. He rested his right foot on the pedal of the bicycle and scooted the dozen or so yards between them, arriving behind her as she pushed open the door. He said: Excuse me. . .

She went on into the house, without looking round. He guessed her to be deaf, and reached out to touch her shoulder. She turned, looking startled. He said loudly:

Does Mr Glasp live here, please?

The tired, red-rimmed eyes looked blankly at him. He repeated the question. She turned and waved her hand towards the stairs, with a gesture of complete indifference. She said:

Yes. ‘E’s in. Go on up.

He felt doubtful, looking into the dark room that smelt of age and Victorian furniture. He shouted: Upstairs?

But she had turned away, and was already halfway across the room, leaving him to close the door behind him. At the other side of the room, she said over her shoulder:

‘E might be asleep.

Sorme went cautiously up the stairs, leaning forward and groping, feeling bare wooden boards, partly covered with worn linoleum. He stumbled near the top, and swore softly. The landing was in complete darkness. There was a strong smell of paraffin. As he stood there, peering into the dark, a door on his right opened. A man’s voice said:

Hello. Who is it?

He said: Mr Glasp?

That’s right. The voice had a faint Yorkshire accent.

My name is Gerard Sorme. I saw some of your work yesterday, and wanted to meet you.

You a painter?

No, a writer.

You’d better come on in, the voice said ungraciously. I haven’t much time.

I won’t keep you long. . .

He felt slightly bewildered; he was unprepared for coming face to face with Glasp so suddenly. He would have liked to be allowed a few minutes to decide what to say. Glasp’s tone led him to feel that the meeting would be short.

Glasp said: Take a seat.

The room was large. It seemed to have been made by knocking down a wall, and running two rooms into one. It had an irregular L-shape, and could be entered by two doors, one in each arm of the L. The only furniture was an old-fashioned single bed with brass rails, a stool and a small table. There were many canvases leaning around the walls. In front of the window stood an easel of the type used in schoolrooms, with another canvas on it. Sorme sat on the stool, near the window, in a position from which he could see the whole room. A black paraffin stove was burning at the side of the stool; automatically he warmed his hands over it.

Glasp said: Well, what can I do for you?

His tone was blunt and irritable. He stood, leaning against the end of the bed, a tall, bony man with a mop of shaggy red hair and an unshaven chin. His blue polo-necked sweater was stiff with paint-stains.

Sorme said apologetically: Look here, I know it’s rather an imposition just to come and introduce myself to you like this. But if you feel I’m wasting your time just say so, and I’ll go.

Glasp looked surprised, but in no way disarmed; he said ponderously:

How do I know whether you’re wasting my time until I know what you want?

Feeling at a disadvantage, Sorme said:

I don’t want anything—except to meet you. I saw two of your canvases yesterday and liked them.

Glasp said, with a touch of sarcasm:

I expect you have a busy time. If you go and call on every painter when you take a fancy to one of his pictures.

Sorme declined to be offended by his tone. He said:

In this case, ‘like’ is the wrong word. I thought the pictures completely extraordinary.

Still Glasp’s face registered no pleasure; if anything, a shade of mistrust passed over it. He said:

May I ask where you saw them?

In a basement flat belonging to Austin Nunne. . .

Oh, you’re a friend of Austin’s, are you?

There was no mistaking the tone of sarcasm now.

Yes.

A patron of the arts, so to speak?

No, Sorme said steadily, controlling the irritation. I don’t buy pictures. I can’t afford to. I just thought I’d like to meet you.

He made his voice level, preparing to stand up and walk out of the room. He was beginning to resent Glasp’s tone, and was annoyed with himself for placing himself in a position where Glasp could regard him as an intruder.

Glasp picked up a blue-and-white-striped mug from the floor, and began to sip from it. He sat on the edge of the bed, saying:

Well, I’ll be candid with you. I live here because I don’t like meeting people. Also, of course, because it’s cheap. But mainly because I don’t like people much. . .

Why?

Why don’t I like people? For the same reason I don’t like the smell of rum or China tea, I expect.

Sorme was trying hard to sum him up. The masked resentment in Glasp’s tone inclined him to regard him as a paranoiac. His inclination to walk out was curbed only by a dislike of feeling completely defeated. He decided to make another effort. Smiling with deliberate amiability, he said:

As a matter of fact, both Austin and Father Rakosi advised me not to call on you.

Why?

They seemed to have the idea you’d be rude.

Glasp grunted, and took another swallow from the mug. Sorme stood up. He said:

Well, you’ve a perfect right to be left to yourself. I’ll leave you.

Glasp was staring into the mug, which he held between both hands in his lap. He did not move. He said:

What did you want to see me about?

Sorme felt again the inadequacy of his reasons. He said:

I thought you might be able to tell me something about Austin.

Glasp looked up at him; he said grinning:

Why, do you want to blackmail him?

No.

You queer?

No.

Then why?

His manner was no longer pointedly hostile; it was detached and noncommittal. Sorme sensed that his curiosity was aroused. He said reasonably:

Look here, you’re making things rather deliberately awkward for me, aren’t you? I liked your canvases. I wanted to meet you. I also knew you’d been a friend of Austin’s and Austin also interests me. But if you hate meeting people, and you don’t feel like discussing Austin, just say so. I can go.

Glasp looked at him; his expression was speculative and cool, like that of a man about to buy something which he wishes to devalue.

He reached out and took a palette from the table and began to clean it with a table knife. Without raising his face from it, he said:

I can’t tell you much about Austin. I never knew him well, and never liked him much. Why does he interest you. . . if you’re not queer?

For the same reason that you do, I suppose.

What have I got in common with Austin?

Sorme felt the need to say something convincing, and could think of nothing to say. He plunged with the first words that came into his head:

From your canvases, I should say. . . a certain quality of fanaticism.

He saw at once that he had said the right thing. Glasp said:

And you think Austin is a fanatic? He never struck me that way, I must say.

It’s difficult to explain. I don’t know him well enough yet. But I suspect it’s there.

And why does it interest you?

That’s also difficult to explain. I always liked the idea of living alone. I used to think about entering a monastery. . .

Glasp interrupted him: You’re not a Catholic?

No.

And why didn’t you’go through with the monastery idea?

I saw no point. Besides I wasn’t sure that I’d enjoy being a monk. I doubt whether the aims of a community of monks would be the same as mine.

And what were yours?

Sorme looked at him, and felt himself relaxing under the unconcealed interest that Glasp showed. He said:

I don’t know. . . I suppose I wanted to see visions.

Glasp stood up. He said: And what happened?

Nothing much. For a year I read Plotinus and St Francis de Sales and the rest. . . but I felt something was missing. I began to feel my imagination had gone dead. I began to think I needed sex and human intercourse. So I made a few friends, and got involved with a couple of girls for a very short time. It didn’t help much. I didn’t want that either. I began to think I’d simply lost all desire to stay alive. I felt sick of books, and sick of people. . .

I know the feeling, Glasp said.

He had begun to squeeze tubes of paint on to the palette. He took a brush from the jam jar that stood on the windowsill, and began to paint. He said quietly:

I’ve been through all this myself. There’s only one remedy. . . Work.

He waved the brush at Sorme. Sorme said:

That’s OK if you know what you want to do. I didn’t.

You say didn’t. Do you feel different now?

Well. . . yes. I met Austin a week ago—barely that. In many ways, I feel sorry for him. He’s like me too. But. . . I can’t explain. But suddenly, I begin to feel that something important’s happening to me. A sort of daylight’s coming through.

Glasp said:

But why Austin? I think that’s what you literary gents call an anticlimax!

Sorme said: I don’t know. He strikes me as being oddly like me. . .

Glasp said: Does he? There was disbelief in his voice.

Yes. Did you ever go to that flat of his in Queen’s Gate?

I didn’t know he had a flat in Queen’s Gate.

I went yesterday. It surprised me. It looked like something out of Edgar Allan Poe. Black velvet curtains. A cabinet of liqueurs. The work of de Sade and Masoch. And your pictures. . .

Glasp said with surprise: So that’s where you saw them? Well. . .

He was smiling as he went on painting. He said:

This is a new side to Austin’s character. Glasp and de Sade, eh? The two paintings he bought from me. . .

He had some Japanese prints signed OG as well.

They’re Korean. I copied them from a set in the British Museum.

He painted silently for a moment, then stood back to look at the effect. He said, without looking at Sorme:

All the same, I don’t see much in common in your tastes. . .

No. But. . . there’s a similarity of aim. Except. . .

Except what?

I sometimes wonder if it’s just a matter of enterprise. I don’t share his tastes, but I admire the wish to experiment. It seems a good thing in itself. . .

You mean chasing little boys?

No, I wasn’t thinking of that. I was thinking of the sadism.

Glasp stopped painting to stare at him.

Is he? I didn’t know that.

Didn’t you? I thought you knew him very well.

No. Glasp went on painting. Not well at all, apparently. How did you find out?

He told me so. Father Carruthers knows about it too.

What sort of practices?

Glasp’s Yorkshire accent suddenly became more noticeable. His attention seemed to be focused on the canvas. Sorme said:

I don’t know. Nothing spectacular, I suppose. Probably wallops his boy friends.

In the other room, a kettle that stood on a gas ring began to send up a jet of steam; the water bubbled out on to the bare floorboards. Sorme went over to it and lifted it off the gas ring. Glasp said:

Cup o’ tea?

Please.

Glasp laid the palette on the table, and replaced the brushes in the jam jar.

What I don’t understand is this idea of yours that you’re like Austin. From what you tell me, you don’t seem to have anything in common.

No? I think there’s a lot in common. We’re both dissatisfied. We’re both experimenters. Only he seems to have carried his experiments rather further than I’ve ever dreamed of.

Glasp was washing out an aluminium teapot at the sink in the other room. He said:

No? You mean you’d like to wallop your girl friends?

Sorme said, laughing: No. I’m sure I wouldn’t. All the same. . .

And why did you want to meet me? Did you think I might be another?

Another what?

Bloke that goes in for experiments?

I thought you might be.

Glasp said, smiling: I suppose you’re right. Where do we go from there?

Nowhere, probably, Sorme said. He took the mug of tea and spooned sugar into it. He noticed that when Glasp smiled his forehead twitched and contracted; it seemed to be an involuntary nervous spasm. Glasp saw him noticing it. To distract his attention, Sorme said:

You have big hands. Like Austin.

Glasp sugared his tea and stirred it. His hands were large and ugly, with big knuckles; they looked faintly grimy, networked with lines of paint dust that had sunk into the pores. He said: Les mains de Troppmann.

Who?

Troppmann. Don’t you know about him? Jean Baptiste Troppmann, the multiple killer.

No. Who did he kill?

A whole family. About eight people.

What on earth for?

Money. He made a few hundred francs out of it. He had enormous hands. They still call big hands ‘mains de Troppmann’ in some parts of France. I expect it ran in his family, and the surname came from it. Too much hand.

Was he a sadist?

I don’t think so. Just homosexual, with an obsession about making money.

The tea was hot and strong. Glasp stood his on the window-sill, and went on painting. Sorme asked him:

Are you interested in murder?

Sometimes.

When?

Glasp said, with an odd smile: Crime runs in our family. . . in a sense.

Sorme said, grinning:

You come from a famous line of burglars?

Not quite. He grinned back at Sorme over the teamug; his forehead twitched again. As far as I know, our connection with it was always indirect. I had a great aunt who was the last victim of Jack the Ripper. My mother once had a meal with Landru in Paris. And my great-grandfather knew Charley Peace.

Did your mother know it was Landru?

No. She knew nothing about him. He said he was an engineer named Cuchet, and tried to get her to come away with him for the weekend. She recognised his photograph a few months later when he was arrested. She said he’d behaved like a perfect gentleman. . .

Amazing!

Some people are attracted by crime. Others seem to attract it. My family attract it. You notice that, as soon as I settle in Whitechapel, a crime wave begins? That’s in the family tradition.

Sorme looked at him closely. He sensed an underlying seriousness. For the first time, he was aware of an element of strain in Glasp; it came out also in the twitching forehead. He asked:

Are you serious about the aunt who was a victim of Jack the Ripper?

Quite serious. The last victim.

The woman who was killed in the room in Miller’s Court?

No. There was another one. She was killed under a lamppost in Castle Alley. That was Great-aunt Sally McKenzie. I don’t know much about her except she seems to have been the black sheep of the family.

I’ve never heard of that one. . .

He began to wonder whether Glasp was inventing the whole story. He said, smiling:

You seem to come from a family of victims.

That’s right. All victims. Unconscious masochists. Except me. I’m a conscious masochist.

Are you?

Glasp smiled at his look of surprise. He said:

Not in Austin’s sense. I don’t go in for that.

Sorme moved the stool closer to the wall, so that he could lean back on it as he watched Glasp. There was something jerky and emphatic in the way Glasp painted, an intentness in his concentration on the canvas, that made Sorme think of a fencer. He said:

I won’t stay here talking any longer. It’s probably just putting you off your work.

That’s all right, Glasp said.

Sorme watched him, unspeaking for about five minutes. He said:

Would you mind if I had a look at some of the paintings in there?

Again he sensed Glasp’s hesitation. He was on the point of saying: It doesn’t matter. . . when Glasp said:

Go ahead. But don’t talk about them.

All right.

He went into the other room and looked at the canvases leaning against the walls. The first thing that struck him was that their colours were harsher than in the canvases he had seen in Nunne’s flat. The greens and blues, the dream-technique that showed the influence of Chagall, had disappeared. Here the drawing was crude and violent; it accentuated the discordance of the primary colours that seemed to have been applied straight from the tube. Most of them were nature studies: trees, a clump of irises, a wall overgrown with lichens; there was a painting of iron railings, with a street lamp that was painted without romanticism, or even an attempt at atmosphere. The canvases occupied the whole of one wall of the room.

On the far side of the fireplace, in a wide recess, hung an enormous, half finished canvas. It was at least four times as big as anything else in the room, being about six feet deep by four broad. At first glance he took it to be a Crucifixion. It showed a man nailed to a cross, and suspended from an open window. The cross appeared to be supported by several chains, and a pulley was visible through the window. One of the man’s hands, pierced by a nail, hung by his side.