‘’Aven’t ’ad enough, ’ave you? Want to ’ear about it as well?’
‘As well as what?’
The tramp laughed. ‘You know. Though you pretend that you don’t, you know all right. You know.’ He wiped one watering, red-rimmed eye. ‘I ’spect you’ll please ’im a might bit better ’n’ me. For a while, at least. I wasn’t much for ’im, even at the first. Too old. Too sick. Even then I was too sick. Sicker now, though, o’ course. But that’s ’ow it is. That’s ’ow it’s got to be, I s’ppose. ’E wears you out. That ’e does. Wears you out. But you, now, you, you’re as young as ’e could ask for. An’ fit. Should last a while. A long, long while, I think, before ’e wears you out. Careful! Wouldn’t want to drop ’im now, would you?’
It seemed as if something cold and clammy was clenching itself like some tumorous hand inside him. With a shudder of revulsion, Lamson looked down at the stone in his hand. Was he mistaken or was there a look of satisfaction on its damnable face? He stared at it hard, feeling himself give way to a nauseating fear that drained his limbs of their strength.
‘I thought you were o’ the right sort for ’im when I saw you on that lane,’ the tramp said. ‘I’m ne’er wrong ’bout things like that.’
As if from a great distance Lamson heard himself ask what he meant.
‘Right sort? What the fucking hell do you mean: the right sort?’
‘Should ha’ thought you’d know,’ he replied, touching him on the hand with his withered fingers.
Lamson jerked his hand away.
‘You dirty old sod!’ he snapped, fear and disgust adding tension to his voice. ‘You — you…’ He did not want to face the things hinted at. He didn’t! They were lies, all lies, nothing but lies! With a sudden cry of half hearted annoyance, both at the tramp and at himself for his weakness, he pushed past and ran back along the towpath. He ran as the rain began to fall with more force and the sky darkened overhead. He ran as the city began to come to life and church bells tolled their beckoning chimes for the first services of the day.
‘I can’t understand you,’ Sutcliffe said as he collected a couple of pints from the bar and brought them back to their table by the door. ‘Excuse me,’ he added, as he pushed his chair between a pair of outstretched legs from the next table. ‘Right. Thanks.’
Loosening his scarf, he sat down with a shake of his tousled head.
‘Like the Black Hole of Calcutta in here,’ he said. He took a sip of his pint, watching Lamson as he did so. His friend’s face looked so pale and lifeless these days, its unhealthiness emphasized by the dark sores that had erupted about his mouth.
‘In what way can’t you understand me?’ Lamson asked.
There was a dispirited tiredness to his voice which Sutcliffe could tell didn’t spring from boredom or disinterest.
Folding his arms, Sutcliffe leant over the table towards him.
‘It’s two weeks now since you last went out with Joan. And that was the night we all went to the Tavern. Since then nothing. No word or anything. From you… But Joan has called round to your flat four times this week, though you weren’t apparently in. Unless you’ve found someone else you’d better know that she won’t keep on waiting for you to see her. She has her pride, and she can tell when she’s being snubbed. Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t like you to think I’m interfering, but it was Joan who asked me to mention this to you if I should bump into you. So, if you have some reason for avoiding her, I’d be glad if you’d let me know.’ He shrugged, slightly embarrassed by what he’d had to say. ‘If you’d prefer to tell me to mind my own bloody business I’d understand, of course. But, even if only for Joan’s sake, I’d rather you’d say something.’
Suppressing a cough, Lamson wiped his mouth with a handkerchief, held ready in his hand. He wished he could tell Sutcliffe the reason why he was avoiding Joan, for a deliberate avoidance it was.
‘I haven’t been feeling too good recently,’ he replied evasively.
‘Is it anything serious?’
Lamson shook his head. ‘No, it’s nothing serious. I’ll be better in a while. A bad dose of flu, that’s all. But it’s been lingering on.’
Sutcliffe frowned. He did not like the way in which his friend was acting these days, so unlike the open and friendly manner in which he had always behaved before, at least with him. Even allowing for flu, this neither explained the change in his character nor the peculiar swellings about his mouth. If it was flu, it was a flu of a far more serious nature than any he’d ever had himself. And how, for Christ’s sake, could that explain the way in which his skin seemed to have become coarse and dry, especially about the knuckles on his hands?
‘Have you been eating the right kinds of foods?’ Sutcliffe asked. ‘I know what it can be like living in a flat. Tried it once for a while. Never again! Give me a boarding house anytime. Too much like hard work for me to cook my own meals, I can tell you. I dare say you find it much like that yourself.’
‘A little,’ Lamson admitted, staring at his beer without interest or appetite as three men wearing election rosettes pressed by towards the bar. One of them said:
‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it wasn’t something all these Asians have been bringing into the country. There’s been an increase in TB already, and that was almost unheard of a few years ago.’
‘It’s certainly like nothing I’ve ever heard of, that’s for sure,’ one of the other two said.
As the men waited for their drinks, one of them turned round, smiling in recognition when he saw Lamson.
‘Hello there. I didn’t notice you were here when we came in.’
‘Still working hard, I see,’ Lamson said, nodding at the red, white and blue National Front rosette on the man’s jacket.
‘No rest for the wicked. Someone’s got to do the Devil’s work,’ the man joked as the other two smiled in appreciation of his joke. ‘It’s the local elections in another fortnight,’ he added.
Collecting their drinks, the men sat down at the table beside Lamson and Sutcliffe.
‘I overheard you talking about TB. Has there been a sudden outbreak or something?’ Lamson asked.
‘Not TB,’ the man said. ‘We’ve just been talking to an old woman who told us that a tramp was found dead in an alleyway near her house earlier this week. From what we were able to gather from her, even the ambulance men themselves, who you’d think would be pretty well-hardened to that kind of thing, were shaken by what they saw.’
‘What was it’’ Sutcliffe asked. ‘A mugging?’
‘No,’ Reynolds — the man who had spoken — said with a dull satisfaction. ‘Apparently he died from some kind of disease. They’re obviously trying to keep news about it down, though we’re going to try to find out what we can about it. So far there’s been no mention in the press, though the local rag—Billy’s Weekly Liar—isn’t acting out of character there, especially with the elections coming up. So, just what it is we don’t know, though it must be serious. Sickening, is how the old woman described him, though how she got a look at him is anybody’s guess. But you know what these old woman are like. Somehow or other she managed to get a bloody good look — too good a look, I think, for her own peace of mind in the end! According to what she told us there were swellings and sores and discolourations all over his body. And blood dripping out of his mouth, as if his insides had been eaten away.’
Lamson shuddered.
‘What’s the matter?’ Sutcliffe asked as he lit a cigarette.
Lamson smiled weakly.
‘Just someone stepping over my grave, that’s all,’ he said. He took a long drink of his beer as the three men drained theirs. Putting his glass down, empty, Reynolds stood up. ‘We’d better be off back to our canvassing or someone’ll be doing a clog dance on our graves. And we’ll be in them!’