‘— They call them murderers, barbarians, assassins, terrorists!’ Lady Arrow threw out her chest and the bracelets jangled on her gesturing arm when, conspiratorially she hissed, ‘Don’t you see? We are the terrorists!’
That ‘we’, so easily given, did not appear to include Brodie and Murf. They watched the woman, waiting for her to erupt again.
But Lady Arrow, beaming with triumph, did not see how she had silenced them. She took the beetle-shaped box and tapped it lightly on the back of her hand, then said, ‘Snuff?’
Brodie said no. Murf still stared.
Lady Arrow lifted her hand and drew the snuff into her nostrils with an energetic snort, working the back of her hand and her fingers against her nose. She gave a slight sob but did not sneeze. She saw how the two were watching her; she said, ‘When are you going to invite me to Deptford?’
‘You wouldn’t want to go there,’ said Brodie.
‘But I would!’
‘Maybe when it’s fixed up,’ said Murf.
‘Don’t do that. Don’t do a thing to it. You’ll just fuck it up —’
Murf’s eyes widened, his mouth fell open. His face then tightened into seriousness. He heard but he did not understand.
‘— I want to see it the way it is.’
‘It wants to be toshed up,’ said Murf. ‘But the trouble is with toshers — they’re all villains.’
‘Viwuns,’ said Brodie, and made a face. ‘Yeah, he’s right. There’s nothing in it. In the house.’
‘But there’s nothing here either,’ said Lady Arrow.
Brodie frowned. Murf said, ‘This is quite a nice set-up.’
‘Everything — it’s nothing! They’re the same. This room is desperately commonplace. It might be absolutely bare.’ She dismissed it all with a sweep of her arm: the marble fireplace, the bust wearing a crushed felt hat, the paintings stacked against the wall, the piano, the glass case of Chinese jars, the desk with its clutter of papers, the tall drapes, the shelves and shelves of books, and the room itself with its high delicate coping of plaster, the moulding of roses and trailing leaves. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I know because I have everything. It doesn’t amount to a row of pins — all this is nothing. Take it, take anything you like.’
‘That’s what I was wondering,’ said Brodie.
But Lady Arrow was on her feet. ‘Can I interest you in a genuine Jacobean inkstand — notice the engraving?’ She flourished it. ‘Or this splendid bust — he’s supposed to be an uncle of mine. Take it if you can carry it. And the paintings — there’s a Turner watercolour somewhere in the middle of that stack. Come now, Murf, haven’t you always wanted a piece of Wedgwood?’ She handed a blue pillbox to Murf and looked at Brodie for approval.
Murf held the pillbox up to the light, studied it and then carried it to Brodie. She took it and touched it with disappointment.
‘In that amusement arcade, um, I won five p.’ Brodie juggled the pillbox nervously. ‘But then I lost the lot.’
‘Not a sausage,’ said Murf.
‘Do you think we could have a few quid?’
‘A loan, sort of,’ said Murf.
Lady Arrow put her hands on her hips and said, ‘Would you believe it? I haven’t got a penny. I never have cash. It’s so awkward to carry around.’
Murf said, ‘What we do is we usually spend it.’
‘Maybe just the trainfare,’ said Brodie. ‘That’s forty p for both of us.’
Lady Arrow went to the desk and slapped the papers. ‘Not a penny.’
‘That really freaks me out,’ said Brodie.
‘Funny,’ said Murf showing the stained pegs of his teeth.
‘I know what we can do,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘Let’s ask Mrs Pount. She’s always got money. She won’t mind.’
Mrs Pount was buzzed. She entered the room timidly, in her white cap, twisting the buttons on her cardigan in expectation.
‘I say, Mrs Pount, do you have a quid or two you could give my friends here? Of course, I’ll pay you back.’
Mrs Pount took a purse from the stretched pocket of her cardigan and opened it slowly. She poked in it with her fingers, saying nothing.
Lady Arrow said, ‘And I can give you back that other loan at the same time. We’ll settle up. Now don’t leave yourself short.’
‘Here,’ said the old woman. She unfolded a pound note and gave it to Lady Arrow. As she did so the front doorbell rang. She said, ‘I’ll get that,’ and left the room, snapping her purse shut.
Lady Arrow held the pound in Brodie’s face. ‘When are you going to invite me down?’
Brodie said, ‘You’ll hate it. It’s not like this.’
‘If it’s not then I’ll adore it.’
Brodie reached for the pound, but Lady Arrow moved it away, and waving it and smiling wickedly she said, ‘When?’
‘Anytime you want,’ said Brodie. She pinched the pound.
‘You didn’t have to say that,’ said Lady Arrow, letting go.
At the door Mrs Pount said, ‘It’s for you, ma’am. Mister Gawber.’
‘That means you must go, my dears,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘But please leave your telephone number.’
Brodie scrawled the number on a pad and left, giggling to Murf.
Mr Gawber paused on the staircase to let them pass. He said cheerfully, ‘Good afternoon!’
The door slammed on their laughter, ending it with a thud.
‘You got my message,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘I was up to my neck in financial statements.’
Mr Gawber took a chair and when Lady Arrow seated herself behind the desk he said, ‘I chased up those claims forms. It seems they’ll have to conduct an investigation of their own as well as get a police report.’
‘Let them,’ said Lady Arrow crisply. ‘But frankly I am in no mood to put in a claim.’
Opening his briefcase, Mr Gawber said, ‘Here they are. You sign at the bottom. I’ll do the rest.’ But he did not hand them over. He held the papers away from her and said, ‘It would be ill-advised for you not to put in a claim. It was a valuable item, and I’m worried about your cash-flow.’
‘Mister Gawber,’ said Lady Arrow flinging out her long arm and seizing the papers, ‘I have told you before, I have no wish to die solvent.’
‘I’m so glad you said that,’ said Mr Gawber.
9
‘Why do you take this stuff?’ she asked the first time, watching Hood roll a pill of sticky opium in his fingers.
‘Because I don’t dream.’ But here in this brown bead he held up the colours of love, a prism of bravery, a bath of warm feathers, an erotic beak, long cinnamon-scented wings, and a flight under diamonds to Guatemala.
‘Ron never did either.’ She pouted sadly and a frightened tearful look came into her eyes. He thought she was going to say more — she opened her mouth but expelled only a sigh. Now she was cautious when she mentioned her murdered husband.
Hood understood that she had disliked and feared Weech and had wanted him dead. But now that he was dead she felt obligated — accused — by that dislike, as if she was responsible for his death. There was no grief in her, only a tremble of resentment, half sadness, half anger, because she had her wish. She was left alone with the guilt, as empty and resourceless as if she had been cursed. She had no friends; she had a house furnished with stolen objects and two rooms of loot she had never seen; a child with blotchy legs whom she seemed at times to look upon as an enemy, and a dread that made her wakeful — that she was being punished for the way she had felt about her husband.