The Forgotten Story (12 page)

Todt swore and dragged his pork away from a tweed elbow and thrust Harris to his feet again. Harris stood up and drew breath. There was a look in his eye which Pat had never seen before. He took off his coat and dropped it on the floor. Then he went out to Pawlyn with a will.

It is possible at this stage that had Perry stepped forward with an air of authority and thrust himself between the two the clash would have ended there, or at least been transferred to a more suitable venue out of doors. But Perry was a man concerned in avoiding his own troubles, not one to interfere in other people's. And Patricia, who should have run upstairs for her father, found she could not move. She was like a witch who had been playing with forbidden potions and was now aghast at the spectre she had conjured up.

The next table to suffer was that of the six in the window, and this time it was Pawlyn who was retreating with Tom closely following him. The table went with them and the girl at the end screamed shrilly as she was nearly pushed through the window. The men at this table were all youngsters; one of them put his hands on Pawlyn's shoulder but he was shaken off and brushed aside. The table continued to slide back, and the red-haired Scotsman found himself suddenly hemmed in by strange people who seemed to want to push him off his chair. He got to his feet and shouted and began to push back.

At this moment pressure was relieved by a turn in the nature of the fight. The two men grappled and went reeling back into their own table. David the waiter appeared on the stairs, gazed open-mouthed and fled.

Neither of the two men now seemed to have any advantage. They were both far too angry to remember any boxing they had ever been taught. What Tom Harris lacked in hardness of hand he made up in determination and staying power. There was something about the shape of his neck when his collar came off which suggested he would be a hard man to have done with, for all his respectability.

One of Ned Pawlyn's eyebrows had begun to bleed, and to clear his sight he tried to break away. But Tom was still holding, and in the next scuffle he succeeded in getting two more punches to the same eye. Then Pawlyn butted Tom and sent him staggering. He arrived back once more on top of Todt, and the chair beneath them, which Smoky Joe should have discarded nine months ago, gave way and collapsed on the floor.

A jeer of satisfaction went up this time not only from the drunken Swede but from all his less intoxicated companions.

Todt cursed and rolled over and kicked Tom Harris furiously in the back. He was about to kick him again as he got to his feet, but at that moment a bottle sailed through the air and smashed against the wall above Todt's head. He was showered with beer and broken glass.

His attention diverted from Harris, he rose to his feet and looked where the bottle had come from. As he did this the red-haired Scotsman, irritated by the press about him, cuffed one of the inoffensive youngsters on the ear and in so doing upset his own table.

David the waiter had been up to summon Smoky Joe. Joe, his hands wavering and clumsy, rose from his seat, locked the till, gave a key to the youth to lock the shop door and directed Anthony to run for the police. Then Joe picked up his carving knife and proceeded, supported by David, to the scene of battle.

But before they reached the head of the stairs they were met by a stream of people anxious to get out. With an irritated angry wave of his carving knife Joe directed them towards the kitchen, then went on. Half-way down the stairs he halted.

This was worse than the uproar of six months ago. Stopping it was obviously beyond even his moral powers. Certainly it was beyond the physical power of a single carving knife. Not two were fighting now but eighteen or twenty. In a bedlam of overturned tables and broken crockery men were fighting desperately with each other as if the mortal enmity of a lifetime had bubbled over and was blistering their souls with hatred.

There were four Swedes and five Finns and two Germans and two Cornish sailors and a red-haired Scotsman from Ayr and two young shop assistants who had never been to Smoky Joe's before and would never come again, and a Cornish mate and a Cornish solicitor and three or four odds and ends who had been unwittingly embroiled. The one-legged musician had retired into the most isolated corner of the room. Perry Veal stood by the fireplace shouting horrible curses and threats and eating a piece of cake.

Even now the thing might have ended as suddenly as it had begun. While light persisted reason was not far away. There would be a point when the first impulse to violence had exhausted itself and most of the men would be glad to draw breath.

Unfortunately at this point the three mates of the windjammer, having heard the noise, came hurrying down from the upstairs room. Joe greeted their arrival thankfully; he waved his carving knife towards the struggling figures and shouted quaveringly. A tall young Finn heard the shout and glanced up; he saw the mates and knew well the feel of their hard fists. So as they came down the stairs he reached up and turned off the three gas-taps of the chandelier.

Darkness fell on the room.

Patricia found herself deprived of sight. She wanted to scream; the sound choked in the back of her throat. She stared into a darkness which had not yet even assumed shape; outside there were the winking lights of the harbour shipping; these grew brighter in the corner of her retina; but ahead and around was nothing at all. Only her ears told her that the darkness, far from putting a stop to what she had last seen, had added its own secretive encouragement. The scuffling and grunting of men, the shouts and threats, the crack of dishes and the thud of furniture ebbed and flowed about her. She could press no closer to the wall, could shrink no further into the corner. Once a man thumped into the wall beside her. Then a chair fell against her legs and a bottle rolled off it.

Suddenly a man rose beside her, touched her hand and arm, following it to the shoulder. She drew in her breath.

‘That you, Pat?' said the voice. It was Tom.

‘Yes,' she said, feeling sick.

‘Is there any way out of this place but by the stairs?'

Anger and hostility followed relief. He had begun everything; but for him there would have been no trouble at all.

‘Well?' he said, his voice rough and low.

‘Ned!' she called. ‘ Ned! He's over here, by me.'

‘He won't answer you just yet,' Harris said grimly. ‘What sort of a drop is it from this window?'

She would not answer. Someone, she thought it was one of the shop assistants, had got into a panic and was shouting in a shrill voice: ‘Bring a light! There's somebody dead! Bring a light!'

By now shapes and different degrees of darkness were coming to the room. Dim light reached down the stairs from the shop above.

‘You little fool,' said Tom. ‘ Haven't you the sense to come out of your sulks at a time like this?'

He had never spoken to her in that tone before. It made her desperately determined not to help him.

‘It's like you to run away,' she said, ‘now that you've caused all the trouble.'

He had opened the window and was peering out. He withdrew his head. ‘There are knives about,' he said. ‘ You're just as likely to get one as I am. Come on.'

‘Where's Ned?' she demanded.

‘Under the table. Safe enough, but he banged his head.' He put his hand on her arm.

She shook herself free. ‘ Let me alone!'

He gripped her elbows with hands which had no time to be respectful. He pulled her to the window.

‘Will you jump or shall I drop you?'

‘Let me go! Ned! Ned!' she shouted.

Someone struck a match in the room behind her, and immediately it was knocked out. ‘Bring a light!' screamed the voice. ‘Bring a light!'

She found herself sitting on the window-sill. Fear of falling made her cling to it. Then he was beside her and before she had time to say any more they had fallen together.

The ground came up so quickly that it seemed to hurt more than if they had had some way to fall. She bruised her hand and twisted her ankle on the hard cobblestones.

As she sat up the first impression was of peace and coolness and that great emptiness of the open air which, after leaving a room full of people, seems to echo with the faint sounds of a thousand miles of space. The whisper of water came to her ears, reminding her that the tide was in.

He was already up and bent to help her to her feet.

‘I can't get up,' she said. ‘ I've hurt my ankle.'

Only the second of these statements was strictly true.

‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘If you'll put your arms round my neck I'll lift you.'

‘Leave me alone,' she said. ‘ I can get back to the house myself.'

‘You're better out of it at present. The police will be here any minute.'

‘Well, I want to go back. Dad will need me.'

He bent and with a big effort picked her up – for it is no easy task to lift a woman from the ground level when she offers you no help at all.

Once up, the carrying was quite simple.

‘Where are you going?' she said. ‘I tell you Dad needs me! He'll want my help. He's been ill!'

‘I know that well enough.' He walked on, to the edge of the wall and began to go down the stone steps to the water. She was afraid to struggle lest they should both fall. She could not imagine where he was going. Did he intend to take her out in a rowing-boat at this time of night and argue with her in the middle of the harbour?

At the bottom she found that the tide was not as far in as she had imagined; there was room to walk along the base of the wall among the flotsam of this morning's tide, which was what he now did.

‘I don't know what you think you're doing,' she said, finding it hard to think of the dignified protest.

He did not reply, and she stared at his profile in the darkness. His hair was over his forehead like a new Uncle Perry.

‘Dad's been seriously ill,' she said. ‘If he has a relapse you'll be to blame; it was his first time out of bed; I didn't think you'd ever do what you've done tonight, Tom.'

‘It's time we all started thinking afresh,' he said.

About a hundred yards from where they had descended a big square shape loomed up. It was a large boathouse belonging to the Royal Cornwall Yacht Club. Harris was a member of this club and as he reached it, stumbling once or twice over the seaweed and the loose stones, he turned towards the back of the house and found a small door.

‘Can you stand a minute?' He put her on her feet, keeping one arm round her waist while he found the key. Then he unlocked the door and carried her inside.

They bumped against a boat, and he set her down upon some sort of a seat against the wall while he stood by the door and lit an oil lamp which stood there. Then he shut the door and the light from the oil lamp spread itself slowly.

Patricia found she was sitting on an old couch which had evidently begun its days in the club room and was ending them here. The house was full of the usual paraphernalia of its kind: oars slung from the ceiling, rowlocks hung on nails, pots of paint and fishing tackle on shelves. There was only one small boat in residence, for the sailing season was not yet over.

He came across to her carrying the lamp. He was still in his shirt sleeves, and one sleeve was torn and his waistcoat had lost all but one button. There was blood drying on his forehead and a big black bruise on the left cheek-bone.

‘I'll go to the police and make a statement in the morning,' he said; ‘but you're keeping out of this, Pat. I'm not having you in the courts again. We can stay here for an hour and then I'll take you back.'

She stared at him again curiously, trying to fathom the change which had come over him tonight.

‘I don't care about the courts,' she said. ‘It's not fair to keep me here when Dad needs me.'

‘He's got a wife. There's nothing you can do except become involved with the police.'

She sat there in mutinous silence.

‘Is your ankle painful?'

‘Yes,' she said.

‘There's a tap somewhere. Perhaps I could bathe it.'

She did not reply. He sat looking at her for a moment, then rose and picked up a bucket and walked over to the double doors, seeking the tap.

She watched him carefully until he was the furthest distance away, then sprang up and ran to the little door.

She reached it before he even heard her. She would have been through it before he could move but the door stuck. She pulled at it madly; there was a catch on it somewhere which she could not see; there it was; her fingers fumbled; that was it; the door opened; she was out; but on the very threshold of freedom his hands closed round her waist and pulled her struggling back again.

Patricia was the reverse of an ill-tempered girl, but she was hot-blooded, and tonight's experiences had jagged her nerves. In his arms she was suddenly beside herself with frustration and anger. She twisted and hit him in the face and kicked him with her pointed shoes. It was a bad policy. With a display of faintness she would have disarmed him and taken control of the situation. But such a reaction reawakened the devil in him which had been roused for the first time that night.

He pinned her arms to her sides and began to kiss her. The sting of her kicks were a bitter flavour added to the sweetness of her face.

She wriggled like an eel and fought herself half free. He laughed and exerted all his strength to hold her. She tried to bite him, and he avoided the mouth while it was open and kissed it as soon as it was closed.

‘You beast! You beast!'

‘This,' he said, ‘… possession – ten points of the law.'

She tried to scream, but every time he squeezed the breath out of her; and presently it began to dawn on her that she was fighting a losing battle. Now she went suddenly limp and helpless. But the trick was played late. He only seemed to take her limpness for deliberate acquiescence.