‘Still,’ I said, taking her hand, ‘you had your dream.’
She drew it away, as if I were Blaskin: ‘You can say that, I suppose.’
‘You should see him now. He don’t look up to much.’
‘Neither do I,’ she said.
‘You do,’ I told her.
She got angry: ‘Pack it in. When are you going back?’
‘Tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I’d go tonight, but the last train’s gone.
‘When are you marrying Albert?’
‘In six weeks,’ she said, as if I’d changed the subject.
‘Don’t you think you ought to marry Gilbert Blaskin instead?’ I asked, and she laughed so long and loud that people in the pub began looking at her and wondering what was going on between us, as if we’d cracked some dirty joke about them all.
I took a lunchtime train that punched its way south through the steel fallopian tube of Trent Bridge. Cows stood in fields under the sousing rain, stock-still as if they were actually made of rain and wanted to grow bigger from it. I’d had no breakfast so went to the dining-car for a meal, shaken so much to bits on the way that I was almost not hungry by the time I got there.
I thought of the worry and trouble waiting for me when I got to London, but when food started to slide in, no worry seemed too difficult to sort out, and my chopfallen state soon left me. The train was so fast it seemed to gallop, swaying soup over the lip of the plate, so that it was difficult holding a newspaper at the same time. I looked to see if anyone of my name had died or got married, or was to be remembered in gratitude for having given their glorious lives in any of the world wars, or whether any he or she was getting engaged or had had a nice new legitimate baby between them. But there was no sign, so I stared at the houses or motorcars for sale, and saw nothing to suit my exigent tastes.
When I smoked a cigar no one stared at me and thought I shouldn’t be smoking it, as they might a couple of years ago, and when I paid my bill the cashier wasn’t surprised at the five-bob tip I left for the waiter. Then I looked at the news part of the paper to see if Ron Cottapilly or Paul Pindarry, those ganglions of Jack Leningrad Limited, had been nabbed at the customs in the last twenty-four hours. They had not, though if I had my way it wouldn’t be long now, because as soon as I got to St Pancras I went into a box and got through to Moggerhanger.
‘Who is it?’ he said. I told him I’d thought over his proposition. He laughed: ‘I knew you wouldn’t come up in a hurry, Michael, for which I always admire a man, but when you left it so late I thought you’d had an accident, like getting caught or something. It struck me as unlikely, but you never know in your sort of game. I hear they did have rather a nasty jolt in your firm, didn’t they? Man called Ramage. Fate strikes pretty hefty blows from time to time, I must say. It was all I could do not to send a message of condolence to the Iron Lung. But I never do anything in bad taste. I’m not that sort of person. What have you decided, then?’
I’d worked myself to a sweat of rage while listening to his two-faced banter: ‘I’m joining you,’ I said, ‘and that’s straight. I’ll go on working for Leningrad, and I’ll phone you any time I’ve got information. Or I’ll phone Polly, it’s just the same, I realize. In any case I’m only doing it for our future happiness. Do you understand?’
His voice sounded right in my ear, as if he was no farther than the next telephone box. I looked nervously that way, but it was empty. ‘If you’re to work for me,’ he said, ‘you’ll have to alter that tone of voice. I’m old-fashioned, I am. If you talk in that voice it’s obvious who you’re working for, and since we don’t want anybody to know, you’ll have to moderate it a bit, won’t you, Michael? I expect you to understand that, just as I’m to understand that you’re doing it for Polly’s future happiness — as well as your own. Are we on the same wavelength, or not? Tell me that, and the deal’s on.’
‘It’s on,’ I said, trying not to breathe hard or curse. ‘I phone you. You don’t phone me. It’ll work best that way.’
‘I’ll tell you how we’ll do it, Michael,’ he said, as if I hadn’t spoken, ‘phone me whenever you know anything. I’ll never try to contact you — unless you find a note under your plate at that Italian restaurant where you eat. Old Tonio’s in my good books there, and I sometimes let him help me.’
‘That sounds all right.’ I was going to say goodbye, but the line went dead, meaning he’d hung up on me. Moggerhanger never said goodbye in case it brought him bad luck. He looked upon it as an unnecessary waste of breath.
My next move was to call on Blaskin with the idea of getting him to marry my mother before she could throw herself away on that worthless Albert. I didn’t care whether I stayed a bastard or not — I’d be one of those till my left foot was tipped into a soily grave — but I wanted Blaskin to make an honest woman of my mother. He’d had his own runner-bean way too long, and it was time one of his sins came home to roost, namely me, because I was beginning to see how serious it was that he’d rampaged through the world, and God knows how many innocent women, without anybody having lifted a finger against him. I took the Underground to Sloane Square, then walked a couple of corners to the block of flats where he lived. It was his divine luck that he wasn’t in, so after ten minutes’ ruminative smoke outside his door, I walked over the river and home.
I saw William sitting on the settee when I went into the living-room, listlessly thumbing through the Evening Standard. Beside him were two suitcases. ‘Get away from me, you treacherous bleeder,’ he said, when I went up with a big smile of welcome to shake his hand.
‘What?’ I yelled back.
He stood up, half a grin. ‘Don’t take it so bad. It’ll happen to you some day. Not by me, though. Never by me.’
‘What sort of a swamp am I in?’ I said, pouring two drinks. ‘I’ve never betrayed anyone. You were hooked by working for Moggerhanger. The Leningrad group of British Industries found out, and you got pulled in.’
He took the whisky: ‘I’ve been all this time with the corsairs, boy, in a Moslem slave-hole, and I’m out of the habit of taking raw booze.’ But he drank it as if it were Jaffa Juice: ‘If what you say is true, and you may be right, then they’ll be on to you next, because I recruited you.’
I was sweating again. ‘You got pulled in because the Beirut cops wanted Moggerhanger’s ransom,’ I said, fishing for any old explanation.
He laughed bitterly. ‘You can take your pick, that’s all I’m saying. But I’m back now, thanks to Claud. I’ve called for my things. I’m off, Michael, on the run again. The Leningrad lot don’t know I’m back. When they do they’ll nail me. I know they will. To tell you the truth I don’t know where to go. They’ll get Cottapilly and Pindarry on to me, and they’re like Dobermann Pinschers. They’ll tear me to pieces. Moggerhanger won’t hide me. He laughed on the phone just now when I reported in, and told me to steer clear. I’ve got a taxi coming in twenty minutes to get me to a railway station. Don’t even know which one yet.’
‘Make it King’s Cross,’ I said, ‘and stop worrying. I’ve got just the place for you.’ I told him how I’d bought the railway station: ‘It’s in the middle of nowhere. Nobody’ll trace you. You’ll have to buy a bed and table, that’s all, but you’ll be safe as houses and as right as rain. Stay as long as you like. I hope to be up myself in a month. Are you all right for money?’