“Bastion?” She looks around. He is in her bedroom, of course, at the foot of the bed: does not stir from it except at two-ish to go out onto the balcony and pee on passing truants. Edie smiles at Mr. Biglandry, who is busy preparing to insert himself between her and the kettle. James and George are still in the living room. Edie feints for the kettle, and Biglandry jumps a bit. His eyes narrow. She grins at him, a little wolfish, pro-on-pro. He looks back, hard-faced. Edie rests her hand on the Russell Hobbs. “Would you mind?” You think this is endgame. It is barely begun. You want this? This kettle? Shall I throw it at you? But then there are the boys, no doubt eager to help out in doing me in. You may have this round. Except Edie knows fine well, and Mr. Biglandry almost realises, she never intended to use the kettle for anything other than this. She brushes past as he takes possession of the boiling water. She opens the door to the bedroom, and Bastion barges out, bristling. He sees George first, and immediately charges over, yowling, and starts nipping at his ankles. Who is this man, that comes to disturb my time of slumber? Woe unto you, that are rash enough to let your ankles within my scope. Behold! You shall not leave but that you are shorter by one foot, this much I promise you…
“Oh, Bastion, darling, no!” Edie Banister says with manifest insincerity. She smiles broadly at George, who scowls at her and glances at his boss. But Edie is in motion. Too slow, boys, far and away. Bastion, unwelcome playmate, apparently decides that James has better legs. He lunges for them, and his single solid tooth makes an ugly hole in James’s calf. I should think that’s jolly painful, Edie reflects, as James swears. He lashes out with his foot, but Bastion knows this game well, and has latched onto the other leg. James would have to kick himself, and few people… no. No, James actually is that stupid. There’s a thud, and James goes a bit white. It’s amazing how much you can hurt yourself with your own toecap. Bastion, sensing victory, spins around several times and scents Mr. Biglandry. No, darling. He’s out of your league. But Bastion is game, and more than game. His performance so far has made Biglandry Père nervous enough that he backs up, glancing at Edie with the outrage of non-dog owners: ’Ere, lady, control this dog or I’ll ’ave the law on you!
Like Hell you will.
Edie ducks into the bedroom, and lunges for her knicker drawer and Secret Weapon No. 2, amid the frills and bunting. Yes, knickers! That’s what I shall need. And it bloody would have been, too, in fifty-nine. I could have changed into something more comfortable and they’d have carried me to the nick and handed themselves in… but honesty compels her to admit that even in fifty-nine it might not have been so. Corset. Bloomers. Tights. Popsocks, how I loathe you. Woollen leggings—the shame. Edie Banister, toast of the Fighting 16th, swathed in bloody sheep’s fur and with all the allure of a toast rack. Hard times. Suspender belt, that’s more like it; garters, and stockings, and lace, oh my! And now I’ve thrown my memories on the floor, where the bloody hell is the item we came for? Because if I’ve put it in another drawer then we may assume I am about to die. But the other belt is in her hands, cool and thick, brown leather and a strange, ancient smell. She cleans it once a month, checks it, the way most people do their accounts. And once—Edie Banister grins—once, she did actually wear this outfit as lingerie, to the absolute abandonment and lust of her lover and, she is forced to admit, herself.
Mr. Biglandry shoves the door to Edie’s boudoir open with a very impatient hand. He has his hammer raised to crack her skull into as many pieces as he can. Why a hammer? Edie wonders. Maybe because it’s so unprofessional, so thuggish. Everyone will look for a lunatic—and you can always find one, if you try hard enough. “It’s fucking time, you crazy old bag,” Mr. Biglandry says, angry now at the delay. Perhaps he has somewhere to be. “It is fucking time.”
“Yes,” Edie Banister says. “I believe it is.” And she turns around, holding the gun in the Weaver stance.
Mr. Biglandry says “Fuck” again, but in a more impressed, appalled way. He drops the hammer and goes for his own gun (Edie guesses it will prove to be an automatic, unlike her own, which is a revolver). Edie shoots him in the head. The revolver makes an absolutely huge noise. To her relief, the back of Mr. Biglandry’s head stays on, although it’s clearly a close-run thing. She hears, in the other room, the sound of George saying “Fuck” as well, percussively, and trying to pull something from his waistband. Idiot. If George does not shoot himself in the penis in the next two seconds, he will get the gun out and start firing it, but anyone who sticks a gun in his jeans is probably not someone with surgical weapon skills. He will fire randomly. Edie’s neighbours might get hurt. Or Bastion. She turns, and fires three more times directly through the plasterboard wall, angling so that any misses will hit the bricks of the fireplace in the room beyond. The third shot makes a splunch noise, and George goes down. Edie moves, in case James is about to try the same thing, and sees him exactly where he was, next to the door, a look of absolute confusion on his young, sallow face. She points the gun near him rather than at him. Bastion, emerging from the kitchen in pursuit of Mr. Biglandry, finds his foe already fallen and clambers up on top of him to indicate his conquest. Died of fright. I am mighty. You may now applaud.
Edie looks sharply at James. “Get rid of it.”
James has a gun, but it’s in his pocket and, when it comes to it, not loaded. Sheepish, he puts the ammunition down on the floor next to the weapon. Edie shakes her head. He shrugs at her, surrendered.
“Who sent you?”
“Don’t know. Honestly!”
“Ever see them?”
“No! They had hats on. Or sheets. Like in Iran!”
Like in Iran. Yes, she might know someone matching that description. She sighs.
“Have you got a mum?”
“Yes. In Doncaster.”
“Best piss off back there, ey?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She nods, then peers at him.
“This your first?”
“Oh, God, yeah. Christ.”
“Don’t hang about. Don’t go and tell anyone what happened. Best to vanish, all right? Go stay with your mum. No one cares if you didn’t die, so long as you aren’t seen again.”
“Right.”
“Ever. And James? Get a proper job,” Edie says.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Now, I’m going to pick up two bags and I’m going to walk out of here and we won’t see one another ever again. You’re going to sit in that chair, facing the window, and you’re going to ignore me for the five minutes I’ll still be here, and then you’re going to contemplate your soul in silence for another ten minutes in the company of these dead men you once called friends. And then…?”
“Doncaster.”
“Good boy.”
Edie Banister waits until he sits in the chair and turns it round, and then she goes back into her bedroom and collects her flight bag (like the gun, maintained once a month to be sure it’s all ready to go at any time) and Bastion’s travel kit. She collects the dog, steps over Mr. Biglandry and George, and closes the door on James. In the hallway she wrestles briefly with her collapsible umbrella. Edie considers the name to be strictly truthfuclass="underline" the umbrella collapses well, but has issues with opening. Normally she wouldn’t bother, but today it looks like rain, and having sent two men to their graves to preserve her own life, she has no intention of dying of pneumonia before seeing this business through. Death is a reality for Edie Banister, and has been since she was young. All the same, no reason to invite it. Bastion would be devastated.