The Reckoning

Patrick Hall

A Mayflower Paperback

THE RECKONING
Patrick Hall
Originally titled The Harp That Once
Copyright ~ Patrick Hall 1967

First published in Great Britain by William Heinemann Ltd. 1967

Published as a Mayflower Paperback 1969

This book is sold subject the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or
otherwise, be lent, re sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the
publisher's prior consent i any form of binding or cover other than in which
it is published and without a similar condition ~ncludlng this condition
being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. This book is published at a net
price and is supplied subject to the Publishers Association Standard
Conditions of Salo registered under the Restrictive Trado Practices Act,
1956.

Mayflower Paperbacks are published by Mayflower Books, 3 Upper James Street,
London, W.1. Made and printed in Great Britain by Richard Clay (The Chaucer
Press), Ltd., Bungay, Suflolk

THE RECKONING

PART ONE

ONE

Only last Monday I was telling anti-Catholic jokes and thinking about joining
the Masons then Elizabeth telephoned and pulled me back. She asked, 'Is that
you, Michael?'

'It is.'

     'An odd man telephoned. A most odd man. Said his name was Donnelly.'

'I know him.'

'Says your father is ill and likely to die.'

     Now, exactly a week later, I sit in the gloom at the back of the Pugin
Cathedral, and try to make an Examination of Conscience.

     Over at Marne Road, Da is in his elm coffin up the narrow stairs, and
within the hour the professional sacs, with their pocked, pastry faces, will
carry him, bumping in his box, out to the hearse.

     As I left Grenfell House last Monday, I remember trying to picture
Donnelly, but I failed miserably. I recalled his wedding though, with the
cold tongue and red cabbage, jugs of stout, and the clear amber in the
glasses of the clergy.

     I came back to Brummagem in under three hours, and I only stopped when I
reached the top of Globe Hill at the back of Ribsmore. Through the window of
the Jag, I watched the grey washing flap in the watery gardens, and knew I
had made a mistake in coming back. Through the fine drizzle, I put the car
down the long twist of road; the roughcast maze at the foot was exactly the
same as when I last came up the motorway. In Marne Road I found the old tip
unchanged the same plum curtaining draped the bay window, and as I locked the
car, the old wet privet scent filled my nose.

     In the kitchen, Ma thanked me for coming, and reached for the tea-pot:

In the parlour, I see-sawed gently in the fireside rocker and

7

waited for my tea. The fire-coal was temperamental, one minute nasturtium
red, the next as black as Old Nick. It was barely two, but the parlour was
full of shadows, and the heavy curtaining and the banked clouds outside
produced an artificial dusk. The two strongest impressions I have of that
house impressions that have never died on me over the years, are of firelight
shadows and lavender polish. Last Monday, they were as strong as ever.

     I heard the brown pot being noisily stirred, and the old lady tried
being conversational: 'Keeping well, Son?'

'Well enough, Ma.'

'How's business?'

'I'm doing well. Got another new car.'

'Thanks for the few bob you send, Mick.'

     'I'm a postal-order Johnny I've been one for years, and I'm only half a
Mick. Without the Remittance trick and the Pools to keep it going the postal
order would be stone dead.

     She came through from the kitchen with the tea, she had brought out the
fine bone china, and set the cups and saucers on a starched cloth. My sisters
would have choked at the sight. Years ago, peacock flourishes of talk used to
sweep that house but last Monday, they would not come. I sipped the scalding
tea, and wondered when she would ask about Elizabeth. It was as though she
read my mind: 'How's your wife?'

     She might have been asking about an Eskimo penfriend. I answered. 'Fine,
Ma, fine.'

'Any children yet?'

'No children.'

     I had to get away. The next question would be about going to Mass. I put
down my empty tea-cup. 'I'll go up to see the old feller than. What's wrong?'

     'He was in a skirmish at the pub. You know his ticker is rough. Kath
called the coppers in.'

'She would. She ought to join the Specials.'

     I buttoned my jacket. 'I'll go up and have a word in his shelllike, Ma.'

     Crossing the room, my head almost brushed the ceiling. I climbed the
high stairs to the narrow landing. The Sacred Heart statue, with its centre
parting and absurdly pink cheeks made me feel uncomfortable. Aunt Tess had
smuggled it in with a thousand cigarettes and five Japanese lighters, all
wrapped in silk bloomers and folded in the bottom of her suitcase~but it was
still a Sacred Heart statue. I was glad to

8

get off that landing.

     I couldn't see a blind thing in the bedroom the curtains were drawn and
the gloom was oppressive. Gradually my eyes became accustomed to the half-
dark. I heard the tick of the bedside alarm thumping away at the silence. The
figure on the bed was quite still, and the head of white-streaked hair was
turned away. I tried the old bright and breezy chat: 'Hello there. You must
have had a fair old night to get in this state.'

     No reply. On the bedspread a hand, small and broad based with finely
moulded fingers, curled like a leaf in October. Hesitantly, and half
anticipating what I would find, I touched the hand. It was cooling and a
stiffness had set in. I pulled open the rep curtains and moved round the bed.
I was three years too late. The face was empty, and all the pub singing was
over. Across the bridge of the nose, the skin had tautened, and created a
predatory hook. Black triangles of eyebrow contrasted vividly with the white
of the hair. More to the point was a great blotching along a cheekbone umber
and yellow bruising. He'd been cuffed.

     I thought my chest would burst. My emotions rolled themselves into a
ball of parcel twine. The ball became larger with every turned-up thought of
the Old Feller, and pressed against the cage arch of my ribs. The pain was
bloody awful. I wanted to cry with the pain of it, but I'd been too long dead
inside, to make a show. I kissed the cold face and left the bedroom.

     Downstairs, Ma looked up from her newspaper. She put aside the
magnifying glass that had once belonged to my grandmother and asked, 'Does he
want his tea, Son?'

     What could I say? I shook my head the way I've learned to do at
L'Estrange's conferences. I heard my own voice, all the Brummie whine ironed
out of it, say: 'He won't be having his tea any more, Ma. He's gone over.'

     It was as though her face was a sheet of wet fireclay, and her eyes two
fingered out holes. Tears moved slowly down the contours of her saggy cheeks.

- She went upstairs, and I escaped outside.

     The clouds had broken, the rain had stopped, and the streets were
puddled and deserted. From the entry opposite a woman emerged, blinking
rodent-like in a sudden uncertain flash of October sun. She looked perplexed.
She did not remember me, and was worried because there was something about
the Marlers she did not know. I remembered Old Lady Fletcher

9

well enough. She had all the gear; chrome rollers, floral apron and calf
boots of scuffed suedette.

     It took me ten years to battle clear of that Brummagem Council Estate
and yet I'd come back. Too late to see him admittedly but I had come back. I
must have been round the twist.

     I drove the Jaguar away, and let my mind enjoy itself. Immediately, it
became a film projector, whirring out an old but vibrant newsreel. An
industrial dusk began to settle on the quiet streets. I switched on the
sidelights and pulled into the kerb. I lit a cigarette and inhaled
gratefully. A meter collector cycled past, and the bicycles became a swarm as
the factories spewed out their day-prisoners. Three- and four-year-old
bangers, bright with chequered tape and badges, began to dominate the escape
column.

     I lit a second fag and thought of my father. So real was the picture
that I tasted the mild beer under my tongue, and heard 'Kevin Barry', sad
slow Kevin, the last song of Saturday night.

     I drove to the doctor's house, stumped miserably up the laurelled drive
and halted below the fungus bulb of yellow light protruding from the wall.
Inside, the hall was as antiseptic as ever; the walls smelled of emulsion
paint and the brown line shone. From the waiting room came wisps of muted
conversation, livened by the occasional bronchial hack. I went to look for
the receptionist.

     A hatch slid noisily back. The voice was shrill and shot through with a
coarse impatience: 'Can't keep this open all night, you know.'

'I am very sorry.'

     The metropolitan voice had an immediate effect. Stiff mascara-dipped
lashes lifted from floury cheeks. 'That's all right lov. Only I have to be
sharp with the joes we get here. Keep me hanging about all night given half a
chance.'

'I've something on my mind.'

'Is she nice?'

     In spite of being speared with grief, I had to smile. The receptionist
had a ripe sexuality, the sort that blooms riotously if briefly, before the
rot of the forties sets in. Her curly hair was bobbed, and gentian eyes took
my stare from the ugly swell of her chin. Touch of the wild geese, I decided.
My scouting left her undisturbed. The first embarrassment was mine.

     'I'd like to see Doctor Carolan about my father ... Mr Marler of Marne
Road ... it's an emergency ... Doctor was

10

in to see him last night.'

'Mr Marler?'

'Yes.'

'Is he all right?'

     I couldn't be bothered to answer She added: 'Saw him only the other week
... Jack, that's my hubby, and I heard him in the Mixed Smoke at the White
Lion . . . proper Cavan O'Connor he is.' Her round eyes took in the hand
stitching on my lapels, and the even shoulder line. 'Fancy you being his
son.'

     I wanted to spit in her face. She disappeared in the direction of the
consulting room. Returning, she said, 'Doctor has someone in at the moment,
but he'll only be a couple of minutes. You'll hear the buzzer. . .'

     Half turning away she began to thumb through the record cards; she did
not close the hatch.

     An acute sense of loss spread chilly fingers inside me, but my mind
regained its clarity and I wondered about Ma.

     It was breezy in the passage and gusts of cold air swirled around my
legs. The receptionist still made no move to close the hatch and she shivered
as a draught lifted her close-cut curls. She's after it I thought. Pretending
to look through that lot and worrying how she can get the message across
without appearing a tart. I looked again, more closely she was rough wood,
but bonny and bursting with an unplaced vitality. Mechanically she selected
the medical records, her heavy breasts resting on the card box. Lucky old
card box, thought I.

     The bell sounded and she offered to take me to Carolan, I declined, and
I hated my stirring lust. The old feller was just over, and I was after
filly.

     The predominant colour in Carolan's room was brown; every object seemed
to be a shade of the colour. Against a Sackcloth of oak and leather.
Carolan's Irish face was sharp in pink relief. He waved me into a hide chair.

'How are you, young man? Marler's boy, isn't it?'

     I thought, you know very well it is. In deference to ritual, I smiled,
and I nodded.

'How is your father then?'

'He's dead.'

     'I'm sorry to hear that . . . I'll come right away. When did it happen?'

     'Earlier this afternoon, I found him ... died in his sleep I think.' '

     11   -

'Why didn't you ring me right away?'

     'Not much point, this place is closer than the nearest telephone box. I
could have come straight here but it was a couple of hours before I thought
about it What could you have done anyway?'

     Carolan fancied a truculence in my voice and for the first time refined
Dublin came into his own: 'You realizethere may be a post-mortem?'

My reaction was immediate.

'Are you off your rocker?'

     Carolan explained: a scuffle at the Bricklayers Arms, police had been
called but the old man left before they reached the pub Called in by Kath,
Carolan had arrived to find the old man pulling out of a bad heart attack. He
had treated certain facial injuries, and after administering tablets had
tried to arrange for a hospital bed, but the old man would have none of it.
Kath had also been to the police, although the old man had objected. Carolan
concluded with: 'I understood you were in London.' He made the last sentence
sound like a prosecutor's accusation.

     Once more he began to talk. He had a reedy voice, rich in usual phrases,
and he clipped out words like a hedge-cutter. As I listened, I bit back an
urge to throw fists into the air and scream at the ceiling. Words, purple
words, longjumped wide across my mind. Carolan was watching carefully. He
said: 'Don't get excited, Michael . . . the police will check.'

     I had a blood rush of bitter stupidity. 'The jacks can make their own
arrangements I'll make mine.' On the point of elaborating, I stopped.
Retribution, lunatic retribution, became an immediate running sore. Rising, I
thanked the doctor for his time.

     Carolan rang Ben Greenfield and arranged for his partner to suffer the
surgery regulars. I held the door open and the Irishman bullocked through,
shouting to the receptionist that he was away to the Marler home. I followed;
in the gap of the hatchway, the fleshy face, crusted with cheap powder, was
full of concern.

'He's not good then?'

'He's dead, lov.'

'Oh, I'm sorry he was different, you know.'

'I know.'

     Outside, I pulled up my jacket collar and watched Carolan's blue
Volkswagen disappear through the gateway. I took my

12

time getting home; I bought an evening paper and a box of fifty from the
corner shop. Sitting in the car I methodically filled my cigarette case and
waited for Carolan to leave the house; when the beetle car moved off, I
hurried up the passage.

     The claustrophobic kitchen was rich with the twin pungencies of airing
clothes and bacon fat. Kath was at the stove her domineering plainness bared
by the naked light bulb. She nodded impersonally. We hadn't met for three
years for all the feeling between us, it might have been thirty. I creased my
face into the old salesman's smile, but it wouldn't wash. She was impervious.

'Hello, Kath,' says I, all bright and cheerful.

'I see you finally got around to fetching Doctor Carolan?'

     I didn't answer. She continued: 'Ma is upstairs, she's taken Father
Madden up. What an afternoon she's had. Mrs Snell helped her lay him out.'

     She began the old religious war again: 'Father Madden won't want to see
the likes of you. It's a wonder you can look a priest in the face! '

     I took a cup of tea from her and wished she'd wrap up. Her face was as
bleak as a Liverpool backstreet in December. I reflected that she was getting
dried up inside. She hadn't a laugh in her. Her sort cause wars. I knew then,
she'd get a revenge complex. Bloody harp woman.

     She gave me up and walked back to the stove. She was full of a fine
temper. I watched rose colour spread up the strong pillar of her neck, fill
her heavy cheeks and mottle her forehead I felt sorry for Phil. At least I
wasn't married to her. She cracked eggs into the big iron pan, and I watched
the whites spit in hot fat. Her face was full of happy martyrdom.

     She placed a plate of bacon and eggs on the white boards of the scrubbed
table. I ate slowly. It was my first food for many hours but my appetite had
no edge.

     She said, 'As you found him, you are to call at Bunhill Road Station as
soon as you can. Doctor Carolan thinks there will be an inquest.'

     Twenty minutes later, I sat in the parlour, sucked at a cigarette, and
volleyed smoke at the coals. The priest in his shiny black suit came through
from the stairs. I did not get up from my chair and I tried to sound neutral.
'Good evening, Father.'

'Hello, Michael.'

     He sat down, and from his face I knew I was in for a session. I played
for time by using a Grenfell negotiation tech

13

nique, conversational Sicilian Defence, waiting, giving out a little but
indicating that something was expected. The opposition probed, and in
manoeuvering, revealed a position. The home move, a cast-iron proposition was
then put, backed by a refusal to bargain. The strong said go to hell, but
more usual, since the proposition offered advantages, negotiators accepted 
on Grenfell terms. Madden played a fair game.

     I've known him for as long as I can remember. He's an ageless wonder.
Perhaps the stiff mane of dull-red hair becomes more grey streaked each rare
time we meet, but the face and the body never change. Not tall and not short,
he has the figure of a middleweight in decline; shoulders wide set and
muscular, and a tree-thrust of corded red neck that always seems to be the
same circumference as the face.

     Pugilistic similarity ends abruptly at the point where the muscular neck
grafts into facial flesh; here, the essential paradox of the man begins to
show, for the face is bony, almost ascetic, and crosshatched by deep lines,
as if the grey Brummagem rains have cut furrows into the red Irish skin.

     He has always been a phoney rebel, always pretended to be outrageous,
but I have never been convinced. Under the tight black barathea, under the
held-in paunch, is the soul of conforming man. Madden might talk of Doctor
Rock, but when the froth is off the rim of the long glass, he always clears
his throat and declares that more Faith is the only answer, and what is more,
that God punishes people for lack of it.

     He knows the Marlers too well. Ma and Da had been in the first slum
clearance trickle out to the New Estate. ,,

     Our war of silence went on. He pulled out pouch and pipe, filled the
bowl of the cut-briar, and worked in the tobacco with a stained felt-like tip
of forefinger. Across the match flame, he looked at me critically. Come to
think of it, he always has.

     Suddenly, I sensed something moving through the man, a feeling that for
a black moment he would like to forget his calling, and thump me. His neck
looked turkey red above the white band of collar. Then, gradually, his face
began to relax, as if he was weaving some elastic thread into his sense of
charity, as though he was explaining to himself that my contrariness was
inherent and incurable. His blue eyes continued to study my face; it
interested him the hair that was too black, and the eyes that were two bits
of bog oak. His light eyes told me plainly that he thought me a shoneen. A
mimic man. A man moved from his own kind, his own class, his own God.

14

A man with a manufactured manner.

     Madden didn't know where to begin, he rubbed the fine sandy hairs on the
back of his left hand, and I ignored him. He began with, 'It's a sad
homecoming.' I'd won. Madden added 'Who is seeing to the funeral
arrangements?'

I told him: 'Katie I'm away to London tomorrow.'

'You will be at Mass?'

'Of course.'

     Madden asserted himself, cleared his throat with an impressive rumble,
and said, 'I'll see her about the arrangements, then?'

'Aye.'

'Your father had a long talk with me yesterday.,

     That should have been good, I reflected, the old road has taken an odd
twist. I waited for the mission sermon, but uncharacteristically he said,
'The loss has brought you grief?'

'Grief is hardly the word.'

'Oh?'

     I felt I had to explain, although I really wanted to pick up my
newspaper. 'There was a ball inside my chest, stringy and getting bigger,
until I thought my ribs would burst.'

     The bony head nodded encouragingly and I continued, 'The loss sticks
across my gullet like a fishbone.'

     Madden's long flat lips drooped at the corners and his voice took on a
professional resonance. 'The sense of parting won't go in five minutes,
Michael.'

     I felt embarrassed. He added, 'It's a taste of hell.' Madden explained:
'The modernists knock Christianity they are fond of using terms like
medieval. It is not only fashionable to deny the existence of God, but of
Satan as well. If one is doing away with Heaven, why not parcel up the
argument nicely, and deny the state of Hell as well. If they only knew it, we
do get a glimpse of Hell right here it is the feeling you have now an agony
of loss. In Hell, however, the loss is permanent, a lasting parting from our
Creator, our Heavenly Father. Hell, Michael, is eternal separation. Do you
take my point?'

'I see what you're getting at.'

     Madden seemed to feel he was getting somewhere. He began again: 'Now
take Purgatory . ..'

     I could not afford to let him get started a second time. 'This sort of
talk is over my head, Father. When it comes to the issues of this place I'm
reasonably on the ball, but the grades of a possible hereafter don't interest
me.'

15

     He switched back from the general to the personal: 'Your father was
talking about you.'

     I didn't say anything, but stood upright, stretched my arms high, and
walked across to the fire where I took up a position facing the priest.
Clasping my hands behind me, I waited.

     'He was concerned with your obsession about succeeding in business. My
impression was that he felt that you lacked ideals, that you had become an
opportunist. If your own father thought you a particularly facile liar, then
you must be. He was more observant and concerned than you think. He had his
own picturesque turn of phrase he was more earthy than ever I could be, but
in essence I gather that according to your philosophy, the human race are a
herd of dumb beings to be preyed upon, that there are those who are with it
and those who are not. A sort of predators and victims arrangement.'

     The tension went out of me, and I told him I didn't want a debate. He
kept gently nagging away. I shut off most of it and then he said: 'Your
father remarked that there were no songs left in you.'

     I blew up my cheeks and felt the air slide wearily out. I told him, 'You
haven't told me a thing that is new, Father the old man was always the same,
all principles and no sense. 1 Ie never held a job longer than months but
they loved him in the Labour Exchange queues and Union Committee Rooms. No
songs, God save us, I'll stop the financial papers and read Yeats over
breakfast. With the right sort of breaks I'll end up being as flat bust as he
did.'

     The man was gently persistent: 'Aren't you being a little extreme,
Michael?'

'I might ask the same of you, Pather.'

'The position seems clear enough to me.'

     We didn't even talk the same language. We were back to square nought,
like when I was sixteen years old and I listened very carefully to the
Epistle one Sunday~Saint Paul I think was advising slaves. Be good and
obedient, the man said, even to an unjust and unkind master. It didn't make
sense. I wandered out and I've been to Mass once since. I wished the priest
would go away.

Finally he said dryly: 'I'll pray for you, Michael.'

     After he had left, Ma came down the stairs. The dialogue went:

'Have you been arguing the toss, Michael?'

'Not really, Ma. He told me what a bad lad I am, but he's

16

done that as long as I can remember.'

     'I know he was talking to your Da about you. He asked me about your
church-going down in London.'

'What did you tell him?'

'I said I didn't think so . . . and . . .'

'And what?'

     'I told him that Elizabeth wasn't a Catholic and perhaps it was
difficult for you.'

'I bet he snorted at that one.'

     She smiled uncertainly: I didn't know whether to keep quiet or be
honest. She waited, so I said: 'I know the Church is a comfort, Ma, and I
don't want to hurt you, and I appreciate the whitewashing, but Elizabeth has
nothing to do with it.... I lapsed before meeting Elizabeth ... years
before....'

     I should have elaborated, but sensing the futility of such an action, I
changed the subject. 'Are you all right for cash, Ma?'

     'There are a few policies . . . I haven't looked through them yet.'

     'Don't worry about the funeral . . . I'll see to that. We'll give him a
good send-off. Kath can lay it on she's a good organizer and as it's my loot
she won't stint.'

     His mother's forehead crinkled: 'After I'm gone, with our Maggie in
America, there'll only be the two of you left ... it worries me sometimes. I
do wish you and Kath got on better.'

     Oh, hell, London why did I leave you? What could I say? 'we'll try
again, Ma, tolerance is supposed to come with age.'

     She went through to Kath in the kitchen. The village-idiot face of my
brother-in-law, perspiring even on a chill October evening, came round the
doorway. It was a face too full of conscious good nature.

'Good evening, Michael.'

     'Hello, wacker.' For Philip, I always coarsened my language in protest.
His diction was such that the end of each word was emphasized to such an
extent that if he said 'drinking', the first syllable was barely intelligible
but the second landed a red carpet. The Brummagem sing-song inlaid with
suburban gentility scraped my nerves.

     Philip said, 'Such a terrible business, Michael . . . terrible . . .
terrible.' I'd hate to hear this feller tackle the Hallelujah Chorus, I
thought. He was a great talker, so I gave him a chance: 'Tell me do you know
who started the donnybrook in the Bricklayers on Saturday?'

17

     The marshmallow cheeks wobbled, and I felt as if I'd told a dirty story
at a sewing circle. Philip's voice lifted a key: 'You remember the fierce
little man father was friendly with?'

     I resented the use of the word 'father', but I prompted gently: 'You
mean Cocky Burke?'

'Yes, that's the fellow.'

'I'm all ears, Phil.'

     'Burke won some money on the horses ... twenty-five pounds or so ...
quite a considerable sum to a man like that.'

'Don't kid yourself.'

     Philip continued: 'Katie and I were here Saturday; we called on the way
back from shopping in town and stayed for tea and a chat.'

     I interrupted: 'Look Philip, I'm not interested in the high spots of
your week-end hell-raising tell me what happened at the Bricklayers?'

     Distaste scudded across the prim face. 'I was explaining, Michael . ..
Kath and I were here, and this Burke man, and a Mr Mooney called, said they
were taking father out on the strength of the winning.'

     I have to laugh to myself. Liam Mooney and Cocky Burke.... Old Man Perks
next door used to call them 'Burke and Hare the Body Snatchers'. What a
combination.

     Philip carried on: 'We all tried to dissuade him from going  he's looked
awful for weeks, but he insisted. He put on his blue suit and they left in
Mooney's old car. Said they had to meet a big George Stokes in the
Bricklayers Arms. We left about nine and they brought him home just turned
half-past. We called as usual after Mass yesterday morning to find Doctor
Carolan leaving. I phoned for Father Madden right away.'

'Da would thank you for that.'

'He came over after lunch.'

     'I know all about that bit, I heard it from the great MonSignor himself
. .. shake the hand that shook the hand and all that jazz.'

     From the expression on Philip's face, I knew I was beyond the pale.
However, I persisted: 'The fight, man? What happened in the fight? Who
clobbered him?' I don't know why I asked, but I did.

'I don't know, Michael I didn't ask.'

'You wouldn't of tucking course.'

'No two wrongs ever made a right, Michael.'

18

     It was after nine when I walked into Bunhill Road Police Station. The
constable at the shiny light-oak desk said: 'Good evening, sir.'

     On the walls behind were reward notices and maps of the city. I said:
'My father died today, John Joseph Marler of fiftyseven Marne Road. Doctor
Carolan said there may be an inquest.'

     The constable nodded solemnly: 'Doctor Carolan has reported the matter,
sir. I believe you found your father's body?'

'Yes,' I murmured.

'Detective Sergeant Glass would like a word with you, sir.'

     He raised a section of oak desk top, slipped a brass bolt and stepped
out beside me. He disappeared for two minutes and returned with a fresh-faced
man of about thirty-four or five. With his dry fair hair and herringbone
suiting, he might have been a school teacher or a laboratory technician, but
hardly a policeman. He took me through to a spartan room with more light oak
and rivers of cream paint. His accent suggested the North-East, County Durham
perhaps. He pulled across a chair, smiled pleasantly, and said: 'Sorry to
hear about your father, Mr Marler. I believe you found him?'

'Yes.'

'What time would this be?'

'Difficult to tel], early afternoon l suppose.'

'Say three o'clock?'

'About that.'

'This trouble in the Bricklayers, know anything about it?'

     I shook my head: 'Not a thing, other than what the doctor told me. I
only arrived just after lunch, I live and work in the South. I got a
telephone message at the omce.'

     'Doctor Carolan tells me that your father's heart had been bad for some
time.'

     'I don't know a lot about that we last met three years ago. I haven't
seen much of my family in recent times.'

     Glass looked unblinkingly at my dark suit and silk tie. I seethed.
Cheeky bastard, what does he know!

     'Looks as if there will be an inquest, Mr Marler, and we have certain
enquiries to make. Will you be staying up here for a few days?'

     Not if I can help it I thought. 'No, I'm away to London tomorrow, I'll
be back for the funeral.'

'You may be needed at the inquest.'

'Is that absolutely necessary?'

19

'Could be you found him.'

     I tried to sound assertive: 'Well if you really think it necessary, then
I'll make the time.'

     'I can take a statement from you and ask the Inspector Leave me your
telephone number, sir.'

     Half an hour later I left the station and walked back through empty
streets to Marne Road.

20

TWO

I could not sleep. I was a fool to come back, and it was too much to expect a
thirty-year-old squab to cope. The flurry of fire in the grate didn't even
dent the raw cold; I pulled the coarse blankets closer, and through the dark
quiet, the green hands of my watch told two-twenty. Kathleen Mavourneen and
Phil had taken the old lady with them, and I had forgotten to ring that
snobby bitch Elizabeth.

     The pains of parting came back again. My mind was a spider, ejaculating
gossamers of memories and uncertainties. I asked, who knows me? The only one
who had held a clue was laid out duck's arse chill on the kip upstairs.

     The half-understanding between father and son came from a commonalty of
difference. That surely is an Irishism? Difference not from each other, but
*tom the neighbours and their kids. The old man had been a druid in a panel-
beater's world, and we were both lumbered with a compound of two
inheritances, manic depressive temperament, and a sense of history as
sensitive as a fingernail quick.

     My time as a kid had been full of the Fenians, Davitt and the Land-
League, and Wolfe Tone. To hell with Alfred's Anglo-Saxon cakes. My bedtime
shadows had been Pearse and Tom Clarke, Connolly, and Collins.

     And now? I tell jokes about the Pope in the Executive Diner at Grenfell
House, but when I was a kid, the old man and I were aliens We didn't belong
to Brummagem. There was belonging for the lard-heads in their blue overalls,
but not for us. I've tried to belong in the Smoke, but it's the same down
there. As for over the Water, that is worse.

     I did the Mecca trip thirteen years ago. I asked the old man to come,
but he wouldn't. 'Who wants to go to a Dublin full of bloody Americans with
names like Ginsberg, all trying to find their Da's home village?' Who was I
to argue?

     The caravan had been the night-boat from Holyhead, and Westland Row
Station the gateway to the Prophet's stone. The following Sunday morning, for
the first time in years, I walked to Mass. The sun-yellow Georgian streets
filled with hundreds either entering or leaving the good scatter of churches
made

21

me sing inside for the pure joy of belonging. Twenty minutes on, the
exhortations from a microphoned pulpit threw a pail of Guinness on the fire.
It went out with a rich sizzle. Outside I'd been relieved to hear Sunday
morning chat, undaunted and unaffected, still rippling among the faces moving
away down the street. I decided: if you live with something long enough you
get used to its unpalatables perhaps you even suck out the good, and the cant
doesn't matter. The following Sunday, I had a late breakfast, read the
papers, and took a walk near St Stephen's Green.

     I did some religious wrestling at that time. English Catholicism,
disestablished, missionary, and more charitable than people would ever admit,
I could appreciate. Irish Catholicism  monolithic, sex-is-dirty, Matt Talbot
is a saint gave me the screamers. Looking back, the worst had been the
ordinariness and the absence of the outrageousness I had gone to find; that
was the ultimate depressant. In England I'd left a social conformity. In
Ireland I found a thought conformity that was worse. Acceptance was yet
another thing. One wet night, late leaving from a party in Drumcondra, I
found the top of a bus full of singing. A tousled woman swollen with stout,
led a turning-out chorus through 'The Manchester Martyrs'. With the booze
lapping happily inside me, I began to sing. At the sound of the English
voice, heads turned, and the singing changed. I stumbled down the stairs to
the rainswept platform; I alighted at the next stop.

     The return crossing had been choppy, and in the saloon a tobacco veil
pushed me up to the cold of the decks. By the time I lugged my case along the
jetty at Holyhead, footsteps clinking hollowly on the stone, my mind was made
up I would leave Marne Road.

     In my~mother's house again, I smoked a succession of cigarettes and
reflected that it had taken a death to remind me of what I was.

     Morning split the slag of sky, and stiff and cold I went through to the
kitchen. I boiled water on the ancient stove and shaved with an open razor.
After dressing, I made my way upstairs and tentatively opened the bedroom
door. A white sheet covered the body; gently, I turned the linen back and
peered at the face. Already the skin had the parchment quality of an old
lampshade grainy and brittle. The hands had been placed together, and twisted
into the rigid fingers was an old rosary. I took up the slack of the beads in
my palm and

22

examined them curiously; they had been worn smooth and the silver figurine on
the black cross was unrecognisable. When I dropped awkwardly to my knees
beside the bed, the cold linoleum sent a shiver coursing up through me. I had
a job with the Hail Mary but found the Our Father easier. The kneeling made
me stiff again, and my whole existence seemed a part of the low ebb of early
morning. A round egg of cramp rippled along the back of a thigh and I
scrambled to my feet, crossed myself, and after replacing the sheeting I went
downstairs.

     I was trying to relight the temperamental gas jets, when my mother
opened the kitchen door. I tried to sound cheerful. 'You're an early bird,
Ma.'

     'I couldn't sleep over there, Son pills or no pills. Out of the way, you
big looby and I'll get you some breakfast.'

     I heard a car door slam and then the sound of Kath and Philip in the
entry. She's giving him some stick, I remember thinking. When I faced her
across the parlour table I said: 'I'm for the Smoke today. Carolan says a
post-mortem, so you can bet your bottom dollar the peemen will be here to
cart the old one down to that bloody lab. I don't want to see them do that,
so I'm clearing after breakfast.'

     I took out my cheque book; useless at so many things, I have a talent
for making money: 'I'm giving you a signed cheque made out to Hanlon in the
town, the amount is left blank put the figure in when you get a price and
don't stint a thing.' '

     As an afterthought, I said, 'Get Mass-cards printed, and after this
inquest thing and you have a funeral date give me a buzz.' '

     I left her and in the kitchen I fished a low stool from under the table
and sat down. Breakfast was a frontal assault, thick rashers of gammon,
sausages splitting piggy sides, potatobread, and much swilling of sweet tea.

     Before leaving I slid three five-pound notes into Ma's hand; 'You'll
need clothes and such, Ma.'

     I curtly dismissed her protests and left. Philip's Morris Minor was
tidily parked behind the racing green Jaguar; the array of badges above the
front bumper caused me to grin. I remembered the night when Kath had first
presented her intended. Philip had been in a full-dress uniform: red-and-
white striped tie and maroon blazer with outsize badge and heraldic scrolling
framing the letters 'P.G.W.'. I had begun by asking why he had left the
Holiday Camp, and Da had followed up 23

with, 'What do them letters stand for?' The prim reply of  'Philip Gerald
Waters, of course,' creased the pair of us.

     A winter nip livened the sooty air, and pickpocket fingers of fog crept
up Globe Hill. On the treeless summit, I parked outside a rundown villa with
yellowing muslin at the windows and flaking paintwork. At least three bolts
were slipped before the door opened six grudging inches in response to the
knock. Minnie Burke clutched at the neck of her woolly dressing gown with a
bony fist; her cocked head with its regal nose and bitter mouth, suggesting a
starling measuring an earthworm. 'Want something?'

     'I would like...' I began. She interrupted: 'He knows nothin' about
it.'The door began to close and swiftly I rammed a black Oxford into the
aperture, and talked fast: 'Don't you know me, Mrs Burke? It's Michael . . .
Michael Marler.'

     'I didn't know yer, all dolled up in glad rags an' talking lace
curtains.' Beckoning me in she swung abruptly away, and I followed down the
hall. Pius the Twelfth stared haughtily down at me from his place of honour
on the buff-and-orange washed walls.

     In the kitchen, Minnie Burke poured boiling water on the black leaves in
the tea-pot, and without looking at me began to talk rapidly: 'I heard about
your Dad last night . . . he was a good 'un but we all come to it. My old
father used to say that the only bleedin' certainty in life was death, and I
was only saying as much to Jeremiah this morning.'

     Jeremiah? I realized that she meant Cocky; he was Cocky to so many that
people happily forgot about the Jeremiah Dominic stuff, that is all except
Minnie who brought out the names the way Ma set out the bone china for Sunday
tea.

     Mrs Burke tidied the kitchen in her sparrow-quick way kicking slippers
beneath a monumental Welsh dresser, and shoving stark head-lined tabloids out
of sight. I attempted a cross-examination between sips of strong tea. 'What
happened on Saturday night, Mrs Burke?'

     Minnie was cautious: 'Jeremiah had a windfall ... he slips me a couple
of quid an' he an' Liam picked up your old feller ... to take him for a few
jars an' cheer him up a bit. Co ... that is Jeremiah I mean, says John Joe
has had a few real bad turns lately. Another cup, Mick?'

'No, thanks . . . tell me what happened.'

     'I wasn't there, Mick, I can only tell you what that crow of a husband
told me on Sunday morning. He talked about getting

24

our young Frank over from Coventry to help him fasten on the hat of this sod
who hit your old feller. Over my dead body, I said; our Frank has two kids
now, buying his own house and making good money. He hasn't been in trouble
since afore he went into the army. Anyway, I said it's up to John Joe's own
that son of his used to be big and black enough to fix a dozen of these
coffee-bar cowboys.'

     She paused for breath, and head aslant, eyed me shrewdly; when she spoke
her voice carried a provocative note, 'Have the soft job and good living
knocked the edge off?'

     I drained my cup and the stewed grouts soured my mouth. She added: 'Now
you're all kippers and curtains, will you leave it to the peelers?'

     I felt uncomfortable. I refused to react to the goading. She continued:
'There was a lot of booze about and by nine or so they were all full ... and
you know what a singing man your old feller was. Fatty Stokes was on the old
joe-anna, and your old feller was doing his turn; they got him singing rebel
stuff.... "The Felons of our Land" and that trouble-making nonsense, when the
Smoke Room door opens and some young 'uns come in with a painted bit in a
leather coat. She says something to the lads and one them shouts to your old
man to shut up, called him a bleedin' old Paddy. Cocky says your old feller
looked at the toughs as though he was staring down into a country cess-pit,
an' carries on singing. A glass got thrown and Cocky says they fought the
Boyne all over again ... only them teds had knuckle-dusters. Cocky says he
knocked the head off a stout bottle, and big Stokes went in with his working
boots. There was a proper riot before these boyos made off.'

     I felt agitated. Things were getting out of hand. I heard myself ask,
'But who hit him, Mrs Burke. . . who hit him?'

     'Can't be absolutely sure, I mean everybody was hitting everybody ...
though Cocky says him as started it all gave your old one the knee and then
flat-handed him so he hit the wall. He was laying in when Frankie Mason comes
running out of the Back Bar en' chops him one.'

     My big hands were bunching convulsively: I asked again: 'But who hit
him, Mrs Burke?' Intricate patterns formed on her forehead: 'Must be
somethin' Jones, because his mates called him Jonah ... and Cocky thinks he's
off the Billbrook Estate. Why don't you talk to Cocky, Son? He's only working
a mile off, on them new flats at Slee Corner . . . he'll be in the Feathers
at one, for sure.'

25

     I thanked her, and she favoured me with a rare smile and placed a lined
hand on my sleeve: 'Do for him, Mick, make him think twice before he belts
another old one....'

     I let myself out. I felt depressed and half-committed. I wished I was a
hundred miles away.

     The streets were full of children and a plastic football slapped hard
against the closing car door; I decided that it must be half-term; Donnelly
would be home. He lives now on Golden Hill, on the respectable edge of Globe.
I did not drive directly there. Instead, I took the car at a crawling fifteen
through Billbrook Estate and scanned the peaky passing faces. The blind
search took me to the South Circular, and I then accelerated away to the neat
privet hedges of Golden Hill. The house is a box at the top of a red shale
drive. It has velvet curtains and a jonquil door. The door has a Brassoed
letter slit and above, a bell button. For a brief moment, I wondered why I
stood, finger on door-bell. Did I know the people here? Eileen Donnelly
opened the door.

     Falhug in step behind her as she swung a hippy path down the wax
polished hall, I thought her body was as exciting as ever. I thought, I still
fancy her. She's improved with age. No grey in the bobbed hair. What was the
rann of Da's?

'The pride of Irish girls is the dear brown head of curls....'

She'd lost the milky purity that used to drive me daft.

     Donnelly sat smoking a curved Peterson. He was overweight. Making no
effort to rise, he looked up at me with narrowed eyes. 'I wondered when you'd
show up, Michael Marler.'

     I controlled a flaring of temper. 'Thanks for ringing, Tommy.'

     'That's all right. Why you have to live so far away from the tribe beats
me.'

     Eileen interjected nervously: 'Sorry to hear about your Da, Mick.'

'You heard then?'

     'I met Kath in the High Road this marrying. You found him then ?'

'Aye, I found him. I found him too late to talk to him.'

     Donnelly reached for his newspaper: 'What do you expect when you cut
yourself off from your own sort?'

     In the silence that followed, I wondered whether to get up and leave.
Donnelly was as mad as Minnie Burke. I looked round the room. It was
Donnelly's idea of a shrine. Only

26

Eileen's touch, the flowers in the hearth, the modern prints, redeemed the
place. Books everywhere. On a room divider, in light oak cases, on the coffee
table. An open book on the settee. I glanced at the titles. Two biographies
of Michael Collins. Collected Irish verse. Yeats, Mangan, Moore. Mary Bromage
on De Valera. The Great Hunger. Bennett on the Black and Tans. Even the
wallpaper was green.

     The door closed; Eileen had gone. 'She's getting us a cup of tea,'
Donnelly said flatly. I winced at the 'she'. Names were not meant to be used.
Everyone was he or she, him or her. As crude as ever up here, I thought.

     Donnelly's eyes were large, well-shaped, and-spaniel-brown. They watched
me carefully.

     'I saw Liam Mooney at Mass yesterday. He told me about it. Yobs from.
Billbrook, I understand.'

     'I've just been talking to Minnie Burke. That's what she says.'

'Seen the police?'

'Last night. I shouldn't think they have a prayer.'

     Donnelly put back his head and considered me along fleshy wedges of
cheek; 'You'll sort them out yourself, won't you, Kiddo?'

     Christ, I thought, this is a man who teaches fourteen-yearolds. A
thinking man. 'I'll leave it to the police, Tommy,' I tried to convey
finality in my tone. ~~

     Donnelly was contemptuous; 'That's a waste of time. They'll never get
anywhere. In families like ours we make our own arrangements. Still, if
you've no loyalties left . .. Iost your edge and that ... that's your
business. Your old feller did all right for you when you were a snapper.'

     I reasoned: 'I think it was just one of those things. My old feller had
been in more pub barneys than we've had hot dinners. With his heart in the
state it was, he might have gone over picking a weed out of his garden path.'

I changed the subject: 'How's the teaching game?'

     'Fair. Got a deputy headship now. Probably pays the figure of your tax-
free expense claim.'

'You sound like a bloody socialist! '

'You used to be one.'

'What about you?'

     'Not any more. A benevolent autocracy a Catholic one, of course that's
the answer. I m not mad on Franco, but at least he's improved things in
Spain.'

27

     I was getting lost. I nodded towards the open book: 'What are you
reading?'

     'A history of the Celts. You know, from Hallstatt and La Teneon. Arthur
Mooney lent it to me. I'll buy it when I can afford it. Has some marvellous
stuff in about the Ari-Ri, the High King at Tara, seven-hundred-foot Royal
Hall and booze unlimited . . .'

'The Chief Druid and the King's Champion?'

'Aye, that sort of stuff.'

     Donnelly began picking his nose, stabbing quickly at his itching
nostrils with a large forefinger. Eileen brought tea on a gunmetal tray. As
she handed me my cup and saucer, I watched her hands. They were small and
capable and full of a scrubbed elasticity. Very different from those of
Elizabeth, I thought: Hell, I haven't phoned.

     Donnelly was stuffing cream biscuits into his mouth, mashing noisily,
and reading his book out of the corner of an eye. I looked at Eileen's eyes.
They were the colour of blue flax, and speckled with a darker shade. I stared
at her small high breasts. She coloured. I thought: She's connected to the
current, but I'll not ask her again.

     On my last trip we had met in Ribsmore outside Hagan's shop. We had
talked for much longer than was necessary  neither wanted to walk away.

I had said: 'Meet me for lunch tomorrow.'

'We are married . . . to other people,' she had replied.

     It hadn't been a stern reprimand, I thought. Still, she's too bloody
holy for anything to have come out of it. Why did she marry big Tommy? She
knew he'd never leave Globe Hill and the world of her Mam? She knew I wanted
to.

     The old feller had said, 'Marry Eileen Farrell. She'd be good for yeh.'
But it wouldn't have worked. She'd have killed my pluck even quicker than
Elizabeth. Now, the Old One is very dead and Eileen Farrell has been Eileen
Donnelly for six whole years.

     Eating and drinking over, Donnelly lit his pipe, puffed and grimaced
through the fragrant smoke. 'If I were you, I'd talk to Burke. He'll give you
a line on who did the thumping.'

I nodded half-heartedly.

     Eileen was saying: 'It's hard to think of Mr Marler as dead. Do you
remember our wedding reception, Tommy? Those lovely songs he sang. "She's far
from the land", "Let Erin remember" and the rest?'

28

     Donnelly cleared his throat: 'A great singing man was Mr Marler.I've
always wished I could sing. It's a great thing to be able to sing.'

     I thought: There's no bloody music in you, Tommy. Not a note.

     Donnelly wanted the visit over. 'Now you'll see Burke won't you?'

'I suppose so.'

     'I know your old feller had a weak heart, but that's no reason for you
to get a faint heart, Mick.'

Eileen looked puzzled and began collecting in the tea-cups.

     Donnelly began to talk again. After a few moments, he put a hand on my
arm and said: 'You're not listening, Mick....'

'I was thinking about something my Da said once.'

     Eileen let me out. In the hall, she whispered: 'You do look well. I've
never seen such a change in a man. Dead smooth, I think you're getting. Wh'd
a' thought you come from round here? I'm surprised you came back. You hate
Brummagem. I can see it in your eyes. You've got a thing about this town.'
She pressed my hand: 'Good luck, Mick.'

     I was glad to be outside the house. I sat in the car and lit a
cigarette. I had known the Donnellys for almost thirty years and yet I found
myself suddenly indifferent: if I never saw them again, I felt it would be no
loss. Being born in the same street was no longer important.

     Indulging in a flush of sensual possession, I rubbed my palm across the
polished facie, enjoying briefly the dark woods and leather. I rolled the
machine down Golden Hill, and through the rear mirror saw the Donnelly's
curtains move. At the foot, I parked and entered a telephone kiosk. Dialling
100, I conjured out a genteel Brummagem voice, laying it on thick.

'Number please?'

'Reverse call charge Briarfield 759.'

'Briarfield, sir?'

'Yes, Briarfield, Berks....'

More puzzled silence, then: 'A reverse charge call?'

'For Christ's sake, yes.'

'Name, sir?'

'Marler.'

'Thank you, sir.'

Elizabeth's rounded voice filled my ear: 'Hello, Michael.'

'Hello, love.'

'Nice of you to finally get around to ringing.'

29

     I sucked at my cigarette before answering. 'My father died yesterday.'

'Oh, I'm sorry, Michael.'

     She might have been reading aloud from the Telegraph about a plane crash
in Mongolia, for all the feeling that was there. 'Are you still there,
Michael?' she asked

'Aye.'

     'When will you be back?' She wasn't enthusiastic. I said: 'It's raining
again here, it never bastard-well stops. The wet will slow me up a bit, but I
should be home for seven. I'm coming back up here for the funeral.'

'Goodbye, then.'

'See you.'

     After a slow drive across the weedy suburbs, I ran the Jaguar on to the
asphalt of the Feathers car-park. The pub was architectural lunacy, mock-
Tudor with minarets. The main bar was vast and draughty, and the long serving
counter of veneered maple, an altar of ugliness.

     The knot of building workers in sand-brown overalls and flat caps,
playing dominoes, watched me walk across. The round table was studded with
goblets of bread and strong yellow cheese; each player had a pint of mild,
nut-brown and flat, in a straight thin glass. Bird-bright eyes flickered over
me and returned to the table. I opened with 'Good morning to you, have you
seen Cocky Burke?'

     A rosy lad, sixteen, and open of face, moved his lips to reply his wrist
was clamped in a bone-crusher and a weathered brickie answered for him:
'Don't know him, mate. Never heard of him.'

     The face staring up at me was coarse, the cheek veins blue and split:
the projection of dislike acute. I recoiled, and walked away to the bar.

The barmaid was a bag, crooked-mouthed and raddled

'A large Scotch.'

     She grasped an anonymous bottle on the shelf behind her swiftly I said:
'Any proprietary brands?'

'Particular, ain't we?'

     I gave as good as I got: 'Extremely, and the Weights and Measures
Inspector and I went to different schools together, so you can push that
elbow well up.'

'Will Johnny Walker do his Lordship?'

'I expect he'll have to . . . give me a ginger ale as well.'

The drink was slopped down ungraciously and islanded in a

30

bar-counter pool. I thrust a hand into a waistcoat pocket and pulled clear a
handful of coppers and silver. Ignoring the outstretched hand, I counted out
the coins into the ale slops, picked up my drink, and sauntered away,
stopping briefly to thieve the publican's Express from the end of the
counter.

     Over the paper I watched the door. It opened six inches, and glancing
down the long room I caught the end of a signal before Blue Veins returned to
his dominoes. I ran to the door and out on to the car-park. A stocky figure
strode unhurriedly towards the road. I yelled: 'Cocky, Cocky it's Joh. n
Joe's boy....'

     Burke swivelled like a spurred bantam, and his mad eyes, round, and
clear of the whites, regarded me. He said, 'I can see the likeness now. Them
black peepers gave the game away.'

'Will you have a glass, Cocky?'

'I will indeed.'

'The bar?'

     'No, in the snug, lad. The gaffer don't like overalls in there, but
he'll have to bloody lump it.'

     In the snug we made an odd pair. My worsted suiting was well cut, and my
shirt horizontally striped in pale blue had a crisp white collar; the shoes,
naturally, were handmades. Burke's clothes had the fifty-bob-touch, but few
could resist a second or even third glance. I felt as dowdy as a sparrow. He
was five-four, certainly no more, with heavy shoulders and a bird-cage chest;
he did not walk, he preened and strutted. The head dominating the body and
short ridiculous legs was overlarge and football-shaped; it sprouted a claret
beak, and pale blue eyes glinted in a wind-burned face. I rang the brass bell
on the bar, and as I waited I looked down at my companion. Dangerous little
sod, I remembered thinking. He's a walking insurrection. Old Madden once
described him as a man born into the wrong century; he was right. What a
Rapparee he'd 'a' made, riding a wet Irish road with O'Hanlon

     The landlord's wife skirted her jet earrings and smiled ingratiatingly
at me.

'Good morning, sir.'

I asked: 'Cocky, what's yours?'

'Large whiskey.'

     She swung her cantilever breasts and reached for a bottle Burke snapped,
'Irish.' Ignoring Burke she turned to me: 'I'd have to fetch some from out
the back . . . and open a new bottle at that. You see, sir, we don't get much
call for that here.' Her

31

powdered cheeks took on a gun-dog droop: 'If you really want me to . . .'

     She waited, confident that I would side with her in a common front of
class, clean collars, and pub order, against a racially inferior ruffian

     I salved her dignity 'Mr Burke and I are very partial to a drop of
Jameson's "Twelve Year Old" I'm sure you could find us some. It would be so
appreciated.'

     She was away for a long time. Burke lifted his furry brows and growled.
'Smooth bastard.'

'Why not, Cocky?'

     'That's the gaffer's missus, Son, and that's the quickest I've seen her
move.'

I felt conceited: 'My indefinable charm, Mr Burke.'

     Burke wiped his nose on the back of a horny hand, and shuffled his feet.
Before she reappeared with a bottle of John Jameson, I felt embarrassed.

     I gave her a conspiratorial smile of thanks. 'Two large ones and I'm
sure you'd like to join us?'

'Gin and pep, thanks.'

     She took my liver and counted the change into my hand. I retreated from
the comic pornography of her strapped-up bosom, and settled into an alcove
seat; the whiskey relaxed my throat. Burke began: 'What's your caper?'

'I'm with the Grenfell Organization.'

'What's your job, exactly?'

'I'm an executive.'

'Looks as if it pays all right.'

'It does.'

     We sat in awkward silence, and the glasses emptied. I said: 'Will you
have another?'

Burke nodded.

     I returned from the bar with the whiskies and a plate of crumbling
sandwiches. Cocky has an unlovely way of eating, he masticates thoroughly a
huge mouthful and adds a gulp of spirits before swallowing. I raised the
question, the question of the night out: 'I hear you were out with my old
feller on Saturday?'

'I was, God rest his soul '

     'I've heard most of it already. About your win on the geegees and the
outing to the Bricklayers in Liam's car ... but I'd like to get it straight
from the horse's mouth.'

Cocky lifted his glass in a freckled hand and considered the

32

liquid: 'We'd had a few. Your Ma told me afore we went that John Joe's ticker
had been missing a few lately and that we wasn't to fill him up too much.
Still, that silly sod Stokes got on the old joe-anna and the snug-bar crowd
shouted for a song from John Joe. There'll never be another voice like that
one Mick ... clear and fresh as mountain water, and soft as a plover's
breast. He hadn't had a lot of booze, just enough to loosen the vocals, he
hadn't the power of the old days an' he was singing low and sweet,
"Mavourneen", "Teddy O'Neill" en' all that sobby stuff.'

     Burke swallowed noisily and fixed his pale eyes on me; as he developed
his story they became as grey as the dart-board slate. He said, 'There was a
crowd of yobs in the passage way ... winkle pickers, hair perms, and the
bloody lot. Every time the snug door opened, I could see them larking about
with a bit in a black leather coat. They had one of them transistors on full
blast; Freddy Handy, the pub gaffer, should have had them out by rights, but
you know what landlords are like these days not a bloody character among them
just brewery yes-men an' anything for a quiet fife. Anyway I got another
round in, an' I felt like one of the old to-hell-with-them songs, so I says
"Give us 'Kevin Barry'.' You know Mick, your old man always thought too much
about other people. Instead of the line "British soldiers tortured Barry", he
la-la'd that bit. He didn't get the same consideration. We clapped and he had
just started "Tipperary Far Away" when the yobos come in with the transistor
on Lux and going like the clappers. Liam shouts for them to turn it down a
bit ... you know Mick, nothing loud, just the usual ... one singer one song
stuff. Your Da carried on singing as though nothing was happening, and the
little painted bit says something to the big geezer in charge  only a lad,
white-faced and spotty ... he shouts something at your Da. Your old feller
looks at this young bleeder as if he wasn't there, and carries on singing.
One of the whizz boys threw a glass an' there was a proper donnybrook. Your
old man wasn't up to it, and spotty-face nutted him and stuck the boot in
before Frankie Mayling clobbered him. Handy rang for the bogies. Liam en' me
got John Joe on to a long seat; he was a funny colour, dead white with two
purple places on the cheek bones. We gave him a sip of brandy and he looks at
us with them brown deer's eyes of his and says "Take me home". We lifted him,
Liam and me, and folded him up on the back seat of Tobin's rattle-can. The
bogies came as we drove off the

33

park. We left him with your Ma. I heard that Monsignormucking Madden was sent
for, an' Carolan was told. The bogies came early this morning, and told me
he'd gone over. I couldn't face me breakfast, and I ain't done a stroke this
morning. He was a good 'un, Mick....'

I asked: 'Did you give them a description, Cocky?'

     The mad eyes blinked furiously; he replied, 'No ... not much point
anyway . . . there was such a mix-up that the Chief Constable couldn't make
this one stick. Anyway I knew you and your brother-in-law would be making
your own arrangements.'

     My first reaction was a belly-laugh; 'My brother-in-law, old Phainting
Phil?' My second reaction hit me like an assegai in the chest; Jesus and
Mary, he means I must get after them Me. Michael Marler. But I'm not like
that any more. I'm civilised. I m educated. I make five thousand a year. I am
not a savage.

     Cocky smiled encouragingly: 'We didn't know if you'd be up from the
Smoke . .. so we made a few enquiries. We know who the lad is, where he
works, where he lives, who his mates are, and where he does his jugging-up.'

     Abruptly I got up, walked to the bar, and rang the brass bell. I needed
to think. I returned with two more drinks.

'What time do you have to be back on site, Cocky?'

     'Don't worry about that, Dempsey is caddy on this one, and your old man
took him raw, early in the war. If I tell him I been with John Joe's kid,
he'll moniker my time sheets without a second thought....'

     I drained my glass and rolled the whiskey round my mouth. I hated the
abrasive tingle along my gums. I asked 'Name?'

'Lennie Jones.'

'Kip?'

'toy Road, Billbrook.'

'How old?'

'Nineteen or so.'

'A big kid?'

     'Tall but narrow; greasy hair, long at the back and spiky at front. Dead
white mush and pimply.'

'Use anything in the fight?'

     'Didn't see any chive, but he wears a fistful of rings ... the signet
sort ... there was one on the little finger that was big ... black enamel
stuff with El cut-class stone. He ripped the back of Frank Mayling's hand, he
got it up just in time....'

34

'His mates?'

     'Usually has at least two or three with him, so be careful. One is
thick-set, early twenties, black wool and a moon face. Always looks as if he
needs a shave.'

'And the others?'

     'Can't remember them clearly, Mick, 'cept they was very ordinary, straw-
coloured hair in a fancy cut and dirty faces, nothing special about them. I
won't forget the biddy though ... if she was mine, I'd leather the arse off
her.'

'What did she look like, Cocky?'

     'Only a titch, brazen eyes, all make-up, and chest. Wore a leather coat,
and she had too much finger-nail.'

'Where do they frequent?'

'Do what?'

'Where do they hang out in the evenings?'

     'Two or three nights a week they are in the Billbrook, always on Sunday
and usually for an hour on Saturday before the dance. They always use the
same room, the Back Bar there's a juke-box in there. They got thrown out of
the hop last Saturday, or they wouldn't use a place like the Bricklayers, it
was just that they happened to be in Globe. You'll find them in the Billbrook
at seven on Sunday.'

     I lit a cigarette, leaned back in my seat and laughed. Not the
astringent snicker that does for Grenfell, but a mad laugh I put an arm
across his shoulders: 'An excellent report, Mr Burke, all the facts and not a
word wasted. Where did you dig it up?'

     Cocky adjusted the angle of his headgear, a rough cap of Donegal tweed
worn like a highland war-bonnet. He said, 'It was dead easy Stokes knew him.
Fatty has left the building trick, he got a bad chest and fiddled an insider
... factory maintenance he calls it what a bleedin' laugh.... He spent last
summer out at Redwood putting Dutch walling round the works director's
gardens. Firm's name is Chisholm Engineering. Jones works a milling machine
and Fatty knew him 'cause he shoots off his big mouth in the canteen. After
we took your old one home, Liam and me went back to my house for a bottle of
ale before climbing the wooden hills Fatty was waiting for us. He wanted to
know how your old man was. He told us that the loud-mouthed used the
Billbrook, so for me and Liam it was straightforward, Jones lives at hundred
and nine Leys . . . a proper bleedin' drum.'

I felt nervous. 'I'll be pushing along now, Cocky do you
35

want another before I go?'

     'Not for me, I must get back to the job.' Burke paused and studied my
face: 'Do you want any help?'

'Eh ?'

     'You are going to see to it, aren't you?' Burke's eyes were fierce.

I nodded and didn't know why I was nodding.

     We walked out to the car-park, leaving behind a puzzled publican's
spouse.

     After Burke had gone, I sat in the Jaguar and smoked another cigarette;
my stomach nerves bubbled like a bad asphalt paving on a hot day. I thought:
I should leave the whole primitive business to the police. One of my
miscalculations might cost the Group thousands, and yet, I'm thinking
assassination. I ought to be locked away.

     Grenfell has its own terminology, the intensive selling of specific
mass-produced goods; fundamental customer relationship; the co-ordinating
executive authority; geared quotas, sales forecasts. Brunzy once called the
special language Grenfell-ese cheque-book poetry, cold and brittle. He's dead
right. Yet I, the arch-druid of the scientific management religion, began
reverting to old and lunatic ways. I can't escape. The old feller has laid
the hands on me and I'm the new High Kin& The People's Champion with the
long-spear of self-destruction raised and ready. Whose chariot will carry my
severed head?

     What a set-up. The old feller is knocking in his coffin, quietly tapping
out 'The Bold O'Donohue' on the elm. The undertaker will come for him, but
the rest are drunk on telly and old Madden's next life ga-ga. To hell with
inheritances. I'm no Brummagem BQY, any more than I'm one with L'Estrange and
Mitchell and Jackson Moyle. Have they kipped down with a head full of the
tales of Maeve of Connacht and Grania of the Red Hair, or been angered as the
young are angered by father-to-son history? Not likely! To me the Famine had
seemed as real as the rag-stuffed football I once dribbed down Globe Hill.

     How odd, Jones is at Chisholm, and Chisholm is part of the Group. The
engineering concern had teetered on the brink of liquidation for years, we
bought them out and put them on a profit-making basis.

     I'd never visited the factory, but after the take-over, I interviewed
the sales personnel. The result had been savage prun

36

ing, and the scrapping of some strange marketing concepts. I'm sure my name
still sends Chisholm salesmen reaching for the Telegraph.

     A mile and a half along the factory-lined Ringway, a huge hoarding
reared upwards. The sign read 'Chisholm Engineering', and under, in smaller
distinctive lettering: 'A member of the Grenfell Group of Companies'. I
followed the sign, ignored the car space reserved for visitors, and headed
for the employees' car-park. As a salesman I always maintained that I could
judge a company's character and relative prosperity by the vehicles on the
employees' park. I stepped from the Jaguar and felt the rain again. The cold
drops trapped in the wind, stung my face; I turned up the collar of my
raincoat and looked about me; there were Cortinas and Victors, Minors and
Minxes, and a spate of shiny Minis. In the 'Executives-Reserved' space were
four larger models; the last in the row was a highly polished Rover.
Bottomley's job for a pound, I thought. Bottomley was one of my more
spectacular promotions. Bottomley, from a terraced house in Bradford. He was
a great success; a cash-register with humanity who could produce sales
forecasts with a slide-rule accuracy. It seems years ago now, but I had once
been summoned to the green place on the top floor, ripples breaking on the
pool of my new confidence. The lift had purred up to the Empire floor and an
expressionless secretary had ushered me into Moyle's room. The vast floor had
been close-carpeted in moss green. In contrast, the single desk was small,
and was exquisitely made in polished hardwoods with a working top of green
leather, elegantly tooled in gold. I've never forgotten the desk, and three
years later it is still vivid in the mind's eye; it made more of an impact
than the man; it was a power symbol. Vigorously Moyle had made his point.
Since I knew the Business Machines Division intimately, and yet no longer
retained a direct connection, I could be accurately objective when it came to
the Division's problems. There were problems training costs were prohibitive
and the turnover of men was too high results were poor. Moyle suggested
analysis of the statistics he had handed to me. Examine the theoretical
position, something we have all done at the top level, and then get to grips
with the actual position. Go to a district office, insinuate yourself into
the real state of affairs. I want a concise report plus a recommended course
of action, on my desk within fourteen days. Good morning.

37

Ita missa est. I murmured as I was ushered rapidly out.

     On the staircase I met Brunzy. He observed, 'Been up to see God then?'

     The subsequent report gave chapter and verse on idiocies  sales
territories too small to give a long-term living, rotten field management,
poor product design, and low morale.

     The rump of my recommendations were actioned, and my diagnosis proved
sound. Bottomley had been unearthed as a byproduct of the operation.

     After my first field visit I knew there was more wrong than was
admitted, but lacking the vital definitive of fact, my images were blurred.
The third visit was to Bottomley's district, where I found no surly
resignation, but a pace as bright and quick as a sabre hack.

     There were fourteen salesman, all with the buoyancy of insurrection. I
went out on selling calls with most; they sold with directness and spirit,
with no gentle touting or pleading for business. The demonstrations were
superb and the talking crisp. The going was tough. They didn't go much on
Grenfell, but they thought Bottomley was marvellous.

     Bottomley was provoked into roaring out the facts. 'When you and I were
reps, Mr Bloody Marler, we had a couple of thousand customers and prospects
these poor bastards have a fifth of that number and are selling in a more
competitive market, aye, and a shrinking one at that for our old Edwardian
gear. I'm for out. My notice will be on Denison's desk by Monday. I've a job
with Deacon Calculators, but how about doing something for this lot they've
kids an' mortgages too.'

     Skipping dinner, I talked sugar to Bottomley late into an August
evening. From the backwater of Luton Office, I returned to Park Lane and sold
L'Estrange on the idea of management training for Bottomley. Looking at the
bright paintwork and bustle about me, Bottomley had cleaned out the Chisholm
stables, very thoroughly.

     Through the windows I saw new machinery, fluorescent lighting, and white
walls, and I liked what I saw. This was the world I knew, a knock-out mixture
of pastel shades, works committees and electric typewriters. It was a fair
cocktail shake: carbolic floor wash, pale socialism, a dash of the space'
age, and the unremitting pursuit of profit.

     At the carpeted entrance a Corps of Commissionaires man stared
impassively at the rain. The receptionist said, 'Yes ... can I help you at
ally'

38

     She fingered her imitation pearl choker and added, 'Whom did you wish to
see?' I fished a card from a waistcoat pocket, and placed the oblong paste-
board on the desk. 'Mr Bottomley please.'

Ignoring the card she said: 'Have you an appointment?'

     She nettled me; I said bitchily, 'If you care to read the card you will
see that I'm from Grenfell House.'

     The arch face became confused and the pancake make-up cracked. 'I, I'll
get Mr Bottomley right away, sir, Mr . . . er... Marler, sir . . take a
seat.'

     Like a general reviewing his troops, I inspected the contents of a
showcase. The swing door opened with a sucking of air, Bottomley stalked
through, his red nawy hand outstretched. His sandy hair curled into an
elaborate quiff, and pebbly hazel eyes projected a dervish energy; I said,
'You're putting on weight, Harold.'

Bottomley slapped his considerable girth. 'Good living! '

     The Yorkshireman waved a hand at the doors, 'Come on Squire, come on
through to the office.... I'll lay on tea an' biscuits. Can't do anything
stronger though, you know the pious lot we work for.'

     I followed Bottomley's tweedy bulk along the white corridors. The floors
shone and the familiar antiseptic smell filled my nose. It was an odour
peculiar to Grenfell companies. Like incense in a Catholic church, the town
doesn't matter, the scent is the same.

     In Bottomley's office, I sipped tea and watched Bottomley noisily
dispose of chocolate biscuits. Between mouthfuls he questioned me on the
rumours slithering along the grapevine. I was evasive and steered the
conversation on to the position at Chisholm. Bottomley became expansive,
sales charts appeared and a miscellany of punched card tabulations were
spread across the desk in front of me. I grasped the situation quickly and
passed on guarded congratulations.

     Bottomley tried again to prise information from me. I had to freeze him
right out. 'I)on't pump me, Harold. You do a good job here, but this is your
limit ... now lay off and gas about something else.'

     Bottomley became hearty; 'You'll come to dinner tonight, of course? Myra
is dying to meet you an incurable romantic my Old Dutch ... pictures you as a
budding Henry Ford with a touch of James Bond.'

The flannel was too much, or had I grown older? I declined

39

politely. 'Sorry, Harold, I'm away back this afternoon.' A thought, part of a
plan insinuating itself into my mind, prompted a question. 'Any spare rep
cars here?'

'Aye, a couple.'

'I want to have the use of one next week-end.'

     Bottomley looked surprised ; I explained: 'It's for a lady friend of
mine she'll look after the petrol.'

My left eyelid fluttered and Bottomley laughed admiringly.

'Can you help?'

     'Certainly a new Anglia with only five thou. on the clock do?'

'Yes,' I replied.

     'What a lad ... you make me feel old. Why can't she hire one though?'

     My voice was smooth: 'It's a delicate business. We don't want any calls
on Car Hire Firms; they ask for names and addresses to say nothing of driving
licences.'

'Will you pick it up here?'

     'No. We'll be staying in Walton-on-Avon; there is a car-park at the far
end of the village. Your transport manager is bound to have a couple of keys.
I'll take one now, your driver can use the other and leave the car locked on
the car-park. Have it delivered sometime on Saturday. Your chap can collect
it on Monday morning, after ten.'

     Bottomley frowned, and second thoughts were born: 'Against the Rule Book
isn't it, Mr Marler?'

     After what I'd done for Bottomley, his sudden reluctance annoyed.
'Harold, I bloody well made you. I'm asking for a bit of Nelson's eye. If you
don't come across, then I'll know just where you and I stand.'

'You wouldn't be threatening me, Mr Marler?'

'I wouldn't be surprised, Mr Bottomley.'

     The fat man caved in; he laughed heartily; 'I thought you might be. Tell
you what; to keep it really in the dark, I'll deliver and collect myself . .
. outside of us no one will know a thing. Don't you worry, sir.'

     Bottomley went out to fetch the car key and I remember that I felt sad.
Once I'd hopes of Bottomley, but he was just as big a bastard as the rest.

     On the way out, as my fingers felt for the outline of the car key in my
waistcoat pocket, Bottomley said: 'Do you want to meet Barnes the Accountant
or Fenton the Works Director?'

'No. I expect they are cut to pattern. A tip for you, though

40

 if ever Fenton gets uppity,just ask him how he got that Dutch walling of his
done out at Redwood.'

Before Bottomley could comment, I had cleared.

     On the way to my car, I peered again into the factory. Under the lights
were whirring gear wheels and a swinging of power-press handles. I thought:
The moron who belted the old feller is swinging one of those levers, and next
week-end I'll have to settle the score. If only I wasn't me. If only there
were no Burkes, no Donnellys and no Maddens.

     I nosed the green car South, through the downpour and across the city
boundary; and drove through Binley-in-Arden with its surfeit of pubs, with
scant regard for the thirty-mile-anhour discs. I crossed the narrow Avon
bridge and left Stratford and its gift shops behind, and five miles on,
turned right and drove into Walton village. Parking behind the Dun Cow, I
locked the car and pushed through the mullioned doors into the hall. Logs,
red and silver, flaked in a brick fireplace and threw winter shadows on the
brassware. After three rings on the desk bell, a heavy woman with a shining
Christmas-apple face, came out to me. 'Good afternoon, sir.'

     'Good afternoon to you I'd like to book a room for next week-end.
Saturday and Sunday definitely Friday only probably. Charge me up anyway.'

     'I wouldn't dream of it, sir, we are very quiet this time of year, we'd
have it empty anyway.'

     She opened the tab ledger expectantly: I said: 'Marler .. M. J. Marler,
"Lyndon", Dingle Lane, Briarfield, Berks....'

'Thank you.'

     I hesitated. Dare I? I didn't look anything like a policeman so I asked:
'It looks as if it will be a wicked night. I know it's not opening time yet,
but is there any chance of a drink?'

     'Go through to the lounge, sir, there is a fire in there, you're almost
a resident anyway, I'll see what I can do. Would you like something off the
cheeseboard with it?'

'I would indeed.'

'What is the drink to be?

'Scotch, a large one please with some water.'

     In a room, I flung down my hat and raincoat, and settled into a deep
armchair fronting the fire. As the warmth climbed my legs, I relaxed and
thought how Elizabeth would have hated the room.

     I enjoyed for the moment, the heavy furniture and tapestry patternings,
the plaster, and the painted beams. The whiskey

41

warmed, and after cutting a wedge of cheese, I coated a salt biscuit with
butter and ate slowly. Thirty miles from Brummagem and I felt better, or at
least my gut did. Father, O my Father, an ale, a song, a fist, and a heart
pain in an ugly room. No more words for a muddled son. Brown eyes and white
hair, elm coffin and wet clay. Sand-martin thoughts ceased to dip and climb,
and refreshments paid for, I shoved on the soft felt and went out into the
pewter Warwickshire dusk. There was rain in the night breeze and it freshened
my face. I drove hard away from the hedgerows of the Midlands.

     A first white icing of hoar frost accentuated the sweep of the lawn, and
shale-particles rocketed spitefully away from under the wheels of the car as
I drove up to the house. As the vehicle broke the beam controlling the
electronically operate) door the double garage doors slid back and I slid the
Jaguar smoothly in beside the lavender Herald coupe.

     Before leaving the garage, my eyes blinking in the fluorescent light, I
walked to the workbench. On the long shelves above the array of tools in the
wall racks, were rows of stencilled boxes, the lettering ranged from 'Screws
2 inch No. 8'to 'Spanners etc. Motor Mower'. The layout reflected Grenfell
training. I stopped finally at a chest labelled 'Junk with possibilities',
seized the rope handles and lifted the box down to the workbench. My search
ended when my fingers closed on a cold rod; I lifted out the fifteen-inch
length of round steel and balanced it in my palm. It was a broken-off gear
stick from the old Ford Elizabeth had owned before the Herald had arrived as
a gift from her doting Mum. The round plastic knob was still screwed firmly
on the end of the rod, and although the shaft was too long for a comfortable
grip, it had possibilities. It was part of the half-formed plan. I remember
thinking, add a length of half-inch rubber hosing and plenty of insulating
tape and the result could be interesting. I placed the object carefully on
the top shelf and noted its position. My watch read seventhirty, and I
hurried towards the bungalow.

     I am proud of the place. I don't quite own it, but the money in it is my
own. It is in my name and it is a comforting thought to me that it will fetch
the right side of twelve thousand.

     The kitchen floor shone coldly and gadgets and appliances, kitchen
units, and cabinets, all slotted away in a pattern of impersonal good-order.
I knew I was home. I dropped off hat and coat in the cloakroom, and waiting
for the washbasin to

42

fill, I remember examining my face in the mirror. The strain of the two days
showed, for the skin was pale and had lost its normal springiness. My black
eyes were bloodshot and dull. I dropped a facecloth into the steaming bowl
and after wringing out the excess water, placed the fabric over my face and
let the moist warmth seep into the pores. I rubbed cologne into my scalp and
nape of neck, and felt I could tell the tale and face the questions.

     When I opened the sitting-room door, Elizabeth twisted in her chair and
put aside her book.

'Michael.' She tried to sound keen, but I wasn't convinced.

'Hello '

     'You look tired.' I felt tired, and hungry too. I asked about dinner.

Elizabeth frowned: 'Mother and I have had dinner.'

'No chance of waiting for me?'

     'Darling, you know Mother. She always has dinner at seven. I couldn't
let her eat on her own, could I? After all she is our guest.'

     I thought about the element of choice, but then, I'm only married to
her. My irritability suddenly swelled to a flooding and I had to raise stubby
dykes of control. As usual she dismissed me by reaching for her book. I
watched the slide of the muscles in her round arm. Her movements give birth
to a precise beauty. I am always fascinated by the machine-fine tracery of
sinew sliding under her skin. Watching her turn the pages, my irritation
ebbed away. Without lifting her eyes from her book, she said: 'I gather the
return of the prodigal wasn't exactly a success....'

'No.'

     What else could I say? That I'd been elected Chief of the Clan?

     She began to pinch at my spirit again: 'Perhaps you'll now give up
trying to keep a hook in the world that doesn't want you because you've
become independent of it.'

'What do you mean?'

     'You don't belong there any more. You even have two dialects, one for
your hordes of disreputable relatives flat, Midland and ugly. The other
standard and carefully correct, manufactured for L'fstrange and his clique
and, of course, the neighbours.'

'You are a snob,' I said sadly.

'It is a good thing one of us is.' There was no feeling in her

43

voice.

     Her smooth face was a January evening, quiet and cold, and only in the
ash-bole eyes, grey and smooth, did emotion glow briefly. My sickness began
again, with a cold and greasy sliding of feelings. Stupidly, I asked her:
'Don't you want to hear about Da?'

     'Oh . . . yes, Michael, do tell me. It must have been awful for You.'

     The forced solicitude dispensed more unhappiness through my nerve ends.
I took down the black box from the Swedish unit, extracted a cigarette and
lit up.

Elizabeth lowered her book. 'Don't I smoke any more?'

     I reopened the box. 'I'm sorry.' I felt like the little tame dog I am.

     She took a cigarette and my lighter snapped. She said: Aren't you going
to tell me about it?'

     When we were first married, the light dry voice had fascinated me. Like
the Jaguar, the hand-made shoes and the gin and tonics, it reflected my new
niche. An old rang from schooldays drummed through my head: The farmer wants
a wife, the farmer wants a wife ... only my new song had been, the executive
wants a wife, the executive wants a wife. Now it was all as bitter as stewed
tea grouts.

I tried to communicate: 'I'm full of odd thoughts....'

     'I found him dead, Elizabeth, up in that bloody awful bedroom.'

'Did you?'

     'He had a funny look that might have been carved. I didn't even talk to
him.'

     She wasn't really listening, she wanted to get back to her book. I knew
why I'd married her. I was always asking myself why she married me. The only
answer with any ring of truth in it was Sex, with a capital S. I thought
about it again last Tuesday night.

     I knew her past; there had been the smooth-ridded Semite David Levene,
with his slow take-them-off eyes. I'd liked Levene. He told me their affair
began in an October and was over by February. At least she'd been a realist
in that episode. Then in the middle of a comfortable engagement to Peter
Garner, she had taken off with me. Could one call it running away, at twenty-
five years old? An orgiastic week-end in the Branstock cottage in that hot
summer of fifty-eight, with

44

leaded windows opened to the evening and rising scents from the phlox patch
softening my excited thrustings. Always at the end, her hair had spread silk
fingers on the lumpy striped pillow and the flail of the sea on the pebble
bank had been the last sound before sleep.

     Romance dissolved in the Fulham Road Registry on a dusty August Tuesday,
and it seems a long four years ago.

     The flat at Herne Hill had been the first disaster. First came her
mother's repulsion, and following on, my stupid contempt for the Home
Countiest rule book. Yet I had enjoyed magnetic moments, as with head cocked
like a glossy blackbird, I beamed compulsive Celtic charm at her guests. The
worst was after the leavings when I pushed aside the cocktail nosh and cooked
up bacon and tomato sandwiches at two in the morning.

     She thought my old lady a tough old char; she'd said so a few times. She
asked, 'How is your mother taking it, Michael?'

     'Well, you can't expect her to be overjoyed after thirty-seven years.'

'I suppose not.'

     'She was in a bad way last night. I sent her off with Kath and Philip.
She was back this morning, gave me breakfast, and took herself to eight-
o'clock Mass. She looks old and worn out.'

'When is the funeral, Michael?'

     'Not fixed yet ... be either Monday or Tuesday next week, depends on the
Coroner.'

'The Coroner?'

     My insides snickered and I debated, shall I play it down or give her the
facts? Six months past I would have dressed it up; last Tuesday, past caring,
I thought, if she doesn't like it she can lump it. I said: 'Yes, the
Coroner.'

'How? Why?'

     Exasperation came into her voice: 'Michael tell me, please tell me.'

     'He was in a donnybrook in the Bricklayers Arms, a pub up on Globe Hill,
bit on the rough side. On Saturday night.'

'A donnybrook?'

'A Barney, a punch-up.'

     Thoughts, disturbed thoughts, crept across her face, like shadows across
a spring sea. I explained: 'A boy gave him a going-over. Nut, boot . . .
every dish in the book.'

'Are the police involved?'

'They are out asking questions. The Coroner is to look at

45

the old feller.'

'Might even be murder?'

     I'd alarmed her enough: 'Not a chance, not with his ticker in the state
it was. Anyway proof is a very different thing, and at least according to the
book, he died the following day from a heart attack. I know that area and I
wish the coppers joy. I'm told there was such a free-for-all that it will be
difficult for the police to make any sort of case. Mind, they are taking it
all very seriously. Not quite as seriously as the sermonising bastard who
knocked me off for doing forty-five on the North Circular last week, but
seriously enough.'

'Who is arranging the funeral?'

'Kath....'

     I was about to add that I'd provided a covering cheque, but decided
against it. Elizabeth said, 'How is the Virgin Mary?'

     Hypocritically I laughed, but my heart flinched at the blasphemy. I
replied: 'Militant as ever. Last year she dragged Philip off to Lourdes, this
year it is a shrine in the arse-end of Ireland somewhere. She'll have him in
and out of churches for a solid fortnight, they've enough of them over there
to keep even her going.'

'Philip? I don't think I've met him, have I?'

'No, he's not your type.'

'Tell me?'

     'A bank-teller, plump and well-intentioned. When he can escape the old
clerical grey, he likes to pad around in a tweedy jacket with those leather
patches at the elbows. At the rate of progress Kathleen Mavourneen is making
with him, he'll end up with leather patches on the knees of his flannel
bags.'

'How long are you home?'

     'I plan to travel up to the Midlands on Saturday morning. I've one or
two things to settle before the funeral. Kath will phone as soon as she knows
the day and the time. The Requiem Mass won't start until twelve, with the
burial about an hour on. I thought you could leave the Herald at Paddington,
and I could meet you on the platform up there.'

     Instead of replying, Elizabeth picked up her book. She had changed the
colour of her nail varnish again. I said, 'Elizabeth, I'm talking to you, is
it on? My meeting you I mean?'

     Under the wall lights her hair was old-gold. A muscle flickered in a
cheek-bone hollow. She replied, softly: 'You are incredible.'

'Why ?'

46

     'After what your family said about me! Your father was the only human
being among them, he at least tried to be reasonable, but the rest! You may
forget, but I remember only too well, that I've never been to the house, that
when your sainted mother discovered we had been married in a register office,
she sent the famous letter blots, spelling errors and the lot, telling me
that in God's eyes, to say nothing of her own, we weren't even married. The
sensible thing might have been to write a few home truths of my own. For
instance, that I wanted to get married in Church, in the Parish Church at
Beechley as Mummy had wanted, but that you ... you great hulk of superstition
refused to marry in any church except a Catholic Church. This from a
character who says his Catholicism is as dead as the dodo! No, Michael, I am
not going to any Marler wake.'

     My dander drooped, and I moved away, but once under the setting pin,
there is no getting clear, and Elizabeth picked mercilessly at me: 'You
remember what happened when after three years we finally managed to get your
parents down here? I couldn't understand a word your father said, but at
least he tried. Your mother was the absolute end she spent most of her time
chatting to the daily. When Nancy Burford came in for coffee, your mother
deliberately spoke so broadly that I was embarrassed. God, how glad I was to
get that week over! '

     'Not half as bloody glad as they were. As far as they were concerned
they might have been on a trip to Mars! '

     The anger ran out of me, and my mood changed. I took the book from her
and carefully retaining her place, laid it down on the low walnut table. I
grasped Elizabeth's wrists and hauled her to her feet; she was slender but
bulrush round, and I enjoyed the feel of her muscularity under my palms. She
tried to twist away but I held her in an arm-trap until she was still, and
then smoothed my hands down the arch of her spine until her hips were
circled, and then I jerked her forward. Our faces were close. She grimaced. I
felt like a 'before' advert for a deodorant. Her light voice was shot through
with distaste. 'Don't you ever think of anything else?'

'Is there anything else?'

     'I'm worn out, Michael. I have spent the last two nights recovering from
Sunday.'

     'Well, spend tomorrow recovering from tonight ... come to bed?'

'No, you haven't eaten yet anyway.'

47

'I'll skip that sort of nourishment.'

     My right hand moved and frantically she twisted free. She pushed past me
and her high heels picked their way at speed among the white rugs. My desire
for her died as quickly as it had awaken.

The clack of Maria's cuban heels echoed on the hardwoods.

'Yes, Maria?' I asked.

     'Do you want to eat in the dining-room or the kitchen, Mr Marler?'

'I couldn't care less.' I couldn't either!

'Mrs Reynolds is still in the dining-room.'

'In that case make it the kitchen, Maria.'

     After a swift check-glance, Maria giggled; she left, and I poured myself
a sherry. With the heat of the fire taking the stiffness from my calves, I
surveyed the room. I disliked the white rugs, pallid blocks against the rich
floor; the Swedish furniture too, lacked in my eyes, an essential solidity.
The carefully positioned antique chair did nothing for me, though I liked the
Piper print Mrs Reynolds thought it garish, only she could manage an
observation like that. As I poured a second sherry, I heard the rustle of
fabric. Barn-shouldered and lemontitted, Grace Reynolds contrives to be
athletic and succeeds only in appearing antiseptic, but she retains the deer-
legged grace that is Elizabeth's most striking physical attribute.

She said: 'I was sorry to hear, Michael.'

'Eh?'

'Elizabeth told me.'

     I fumed; she always makes me feel coarse and awkward; a stuttering idiot
with two left hands. And that smile it would have put a crocodile off. 'Your
father, Michael," she said.

'Yeh, a bit of a shaker.'

     'It comes to us all, Michael. He wasn't exactly young, was he?'

     'Not exactly old either. The bottom fell out of him. Years of hard graft
caught up with him in months.... Oh, you might say I'm head of the tribe
now.'

     A smile flickered under the long nose; I took my eyes away and said:
'Can I get you a drink?'

     'Bacardi, please.' Mechanically I slid the crushed ice down the glass,
tilted the bottle, dropped in a list of lemon peel, and watched it eddy and
settle. She took the drink from me in a curiously regal manner she built into
the most ordinary of actions, and raised her glass in half salute.

48

     Halfway through the drink, she said: 'I hear you are getting on famously
at Grenfell.'

     'Oh?' She'd beaten the Early Warning System, but I put myself on guard
for the rest.

     'I lunched yesterday with Peter Ollerton, my late husband's partner. The
Bishtons are near neighbours of his at Sunningdale. I understand they are
very friendly. You know Miles Bishton, of course?'

     'Worked for him once. He is MD of Plastics, a very big bug.'

'What a revolting expression.'

'Sorry, milady.'

     She searched my face for the give-away smirk, but I kept it quietly
giggling inside me.

     'Miles told Peter how highly you were regarded. Said you have an
analytical brain and a fearless approach, whatever that means.'

     'It means I'm L'Estrange's hatchet man. He points the finger and I
organize the resulting "re-organization"....'

'Anyway, you are on the move.'

     I didn't know what to say. After some seconds, I muttered: 'I'm
surprised at Miles Bishton. I would have said he was altogether too close-
mouthed and preoccupied with his own affairs to chat about his one-time bum-
boy. It is out of character.'

     The patrician face pinkened: 'Elizabeth and I wondered how you were
progressing ... I mean you never talk about your job...'

     She prattled fluently on: 'I asked Peter, such a dear, dear man he has
been since Herbert died, to ask Miles Bishton next he saw him....'

     I thought: You interfering old cow. I felt angry. Silkswathed,
expensive, and oblivious of my resentment, she took a cigarette from the box.

     'A light, Michael.' Fighting to keep the tremor out of my hands, I
snapped on the flame. Our faces were close and under the carefully applied
cosmetics I observed the wrinkle-net and the eye corners, and the fine
scorings across the high forehead. A thought cut across my mind: Elizabeth
would age in the same way with no dwindling of power, and although the roses
would fade, there would come instead a fining down, an accumulating hardness
that would snap me. Her pale eyes watched in the manner of the museum people,
intrigued but

49

apart. The bird was rock-face, sheer, and set and one can't break her. Must
be forty-five, but what a diamond shafting even now; only one would end up
ripped and exhausted, knowing one had lost.

     It was the same with Elizabeth. Unless I got clear of them they'd make
me a castrated idiot. On Tuesday, for the first time, I realised they were
on. Some people don't love  they own. Power is the thing they crave, not the
giving and receiving of affection.

     She started up again: 'Miles is a most useful contact, and they count in
business.'

I felt like arguing, so I did. What the hell!

     'They count only a fraction and not as much as applying basic
principles. Have a plan, test its effectiveness, if it works call it policy.
Then apply it with as much energy and resource as possible. Grenfel] is a
huge profit-producing corporation, with diverse interests. If you don't get
results all the contacts n creation don't save your neck....'

'I was trying to help.'

'Thanks very much. I am going to eat.'

     She shrugged her shoulders and another rustle of fabric scraped the
silence. The open-prison smile despatched me to the kitchen. On parole, of
course.

     I helped myself to a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and filled a
glass. Maria produced a heaped plate and I devoured the food with noisy
enjoyment. In the short intervals between the listings of my piled fork, I
read the city page of the morning paper. I rooted out a second bottle and as
I unscrewed the stopper, Elizabeth pushed open the door.

'Beer and steak just about sums you up.'

     I thought, leave me alone. I said: 'If a man can't be himself in his own
kitchen, it's a bloody poor show.'

'Are you going to the office tomorrow, Michael?'

'I am.'

     'Can't L'Estrange and the other morons do without you for another day?'

     'I hate being away from the job. Too much can go sour in too short a
time.'

'I see.'

     'Anyway it will take my mind off the old feller. It is strange to think
I'll not hear that laugh again. He was a good geezer.'

     I thought I'd confirm my thoughts: 'You think my lot are the dregs,
don't you?'

50

     'No, it is just that there is no understanding on their part or mine.'

     I finished my beer and said, 'They are the narrow people. Life's a rule-
book, and the game is very strict. Anyone without rules, or even a different
set, is hell-fire fuel. Your mother is that way only with her the game is
social rather than religious. Instead of Protestants there are the Great
Unwashed. My sister, she says, I'll go to heaven but you won't. Your mother
says, we need a little unemployment to bring some of these terrible people to
their senses.'

     After I'd said my piece, I wished l hadn't. I was getting pretentious.
Elizabeth's reaction was: 'You, you respect nothing. You have no rules.'

     I shoved back my empty plate, lit a cigarette and inhaled. I told her:
'You couldn't be more wrong. Of course, I play to rules. I play the
organization game to a most complex set, and I'm good too. Shall I quote you
chapter and verse from Hooper and Copeman? Relationships with subordinates,
relationships with equals, the function of management, the executive as an
interpreter of policy. I know the game and how to play the cards. I'll be a
managing director before I'm forty that is unless I'm found out. I'm still
myself though. I don't live Grenfell like L'Estrange, you see I know it's all
a bloody stupid game. I mean I'm not part of the balance sheet yet.'

     After I'd said it, I felt better. It didn't seem to matter that she'd
cleared off half-way through.

     I felt I had to escape from them, and so, in sweater and tweed bags, I
walked and thought of Da. I should have been a Japanese I have an aptitude
for ancestor worship. Everyone has been an outsider except Da, but now the
stag eyes are ridded and the April laughter has dried out; Cuchulain and
Finn, Niall of the Nine Hostages, and Owen Roe O'Neill, they are all dead,
stretched out old and yellow on the Coroner's slab in a Brummagem mortuary.

     The birch-sentried lane twisted down the hill and the dark leaves,
turning under my step, were crisp with frost. I walked for a full three miles
and only turned back when the lights of the village pierced the black shawl
of hedgerow. I ran back; jogging on the balls of the feet at first, and then
pounding flat out in fifty-yard bursts. My crepe-soles thumped the asphalt,
and my face became sweat-filmed and my lungs sore. With the house in sight, I
slowed to a walk; the hall light was out they had gone to bed.

51

THREE

I was holding my father's broad hands in my own; the alarm screamed and I
grew confused: I was a ten-year boyo again, I'd Da's bully-and-tomato
doorsteps in the little linoleum bag, that site hooter was blowin' dinner-
break and where could Da have got to? Should I take them to the shanty where
they play cards for Gold Flake and drink dark sweet tea? Come on Da, I can't
see you any more, or Martin Dempsey, or fiat Hughie. Why doesn't the hooter
stop? The shrilling was louder, the faces faded, and I was wide awake. I
slammed off the alarm clock and noticed that Elizabeth still slept.

     I shaved carefully; Elizabeth once bought me an expensive electric job
all speed gadgets and cutting heads. I hate it, I prefer shaving soap and an
old cut-throat.

     Leaving the bungalow I noticed that the curtains in the main bedroom
were still drawn; irritably I rapped the curly brim more firmly on my napper.

     I had a great time travelling in; the green Jaguar dipped and swerved in
and out of the fast lane on the A4, overtaking on the inside when the outside
lane was temporarily blocked. Only once did we slacken, in deference to a
black smudge of police motor-cyclist in the inside wing mirror. The white-
gloved beetle turned away down the A30 in search of less suspecting game, and
I accelerated again. Clear of the flyovers, the under-passes, and the chariot
race round the Hyde Park Corner island, I turned into a quite street off Park
Lane and drove through the arch into the courtyard. On three sides, glass and
concrete, scored with the platinum scratches of a thousand fluorescent
ceiling tubes, climbed upwards.

A commissionaire opened the car door: 'Morning, sir.'

'Good morning to you.'

     The man had an out-of-doors face with black-lashed eyes; in his fifties,
the khaki years had left a straight-backed dignity. His deference always
makes me uncomfortable.

     In the glass doors, I caught a glimpse of my reflection an Irishman in a
bowler how incongruous can you get? Waiting for the lift, I made my morning
study of the murals, and on leaving the lift at the fifth, listened to my
footsteps echoing on

52

the mosaic flooring As usual I was the first to arrive. My office is large
and enjoys a view across the rooftops to the wide sweep of the Lane and the
grey park and leafless trees. It looked cold out there, and I remember
thinking that soon they'll drop him into the winter ground.

     I lit the first cigarette of the day and thumbed through the accumulated
correspondence. L'Estrange writing to Moyle complaining about production
hold-ups in Plastics Division with copies to every executive except Bishton.
A memorandum from Bishton to me expressing the hope that this year's sales
forecasts would be more accurate than those of last, compiled by L'Estrange.
The bastards were trying to drag me into their private war. Bishton, I knew,
would be after my scalp if this year's forecasts go sour.

     Outside, a new day came down the pastel corridors, a typewriter
stuttered and soon the click of high heels ate away the quiet. I switched on
the dictating machine and worked through the mound of correspondence. The
deciding and the delegating over, I pressed a desk button and Joan
Blackstaffe came through, her dry bony hands clutching a shorthand book.

'Nice to have you back, Mr Marler.'

     She gave me the screamers. Gulf, and at that time in the morning it was
a bit off!

'Joan, be your age. I've been missing for two whole days.'

     Unabashed, she bounced down on to the vacant chair, crossed her angular
legs and swirled straight fair hair. 'Ready and willing to take dictation.'

     'I haven't any. I used the Grundig. I suggest you cart it away, plug the
earpiece into that beautiful shell-like of yours and type away like mad.
There's enough there to keep you tiptapping for a spell.'

     'Oh.' Disappointment registered plainly on the birdy little face. Why, I
often ask myself, do frigid la-de-da Mummy girls letch after a big, coarse
sod like me? Not that I'd touch her with . . .

     Joan broke in, before I could mentally marry her off. 'Mr L'Estrange
rang me yesterday, rang twice in fact. When would you be back? Why didn't I
know? Had I a forwarding address? I rang Mrs Marler five times but there was
no reply.'

'Anything startling happened?'

     'Not really; there is talk of our marketing a new German photo-copier.
Oh, sales of the larger accounting machines are down again.'

53

     I had ideas on that score, but offered no comment. Secretaries in
Grenfell, other than the professionally discreet variety on the top floor,
are gossipers. The nipple-tilted boast: my boss says . .. has brought down
many a strong runner in the promotion stakes. I said, 'Fetch my coffee in,
Joan, and bring your own through. Let's have my desk diary in here as well,
these two days will have thrown my work schedule all to cock.'

     She rose enthusiastically and as she bustled out, I reflected that it
was a pity she had had so little exercise as a child her calves were badly
underdeveloped. With better legs she'd be a fair bit of filly.

     I was intrigued by L'Estrange's efforts to contact me. It was so
unusual. L'Estrange paid me only to implement policy, yet the implication was
that he wished to discuss something hot. Ours is a finely balanced
relationship. I take no major decisions and am rarely asked for an opinion.
What I do is to administer L'Estrange's policies dispassionately, but with an
occasional flaring of temper to remove the stigma of predictability.

     I flicked down a switch on the desk instrument and told Joan not to come
through until I rang back; I lifted the direct line receiver to L'Estrange's
offices. L'Estrange s secretary, Hilda Greening, answered. She is lean,
brittle, and maturely attractive. A fashionably dressed greyhound of a woman,
ferociously efficient beneath all the lacquers. Year s ago she had filed her
marriage to queen it down the Grenfell House corridors. Rumour even made her
the profane side of L'Estrange's love-life. I didn't believe a word
L'Estrange is a professional. Mrs Greening's voice has a tuning-fork quality:
'Mr L'Estrange's secretary, good morning.'

     'Morning, Hilda, Marler here, I got back last night. I hear Caesar wants
me; is he in yet?'

     'He was at his desk before eight this morning, as he usually is.' There
was reproof in her voice. I thought: She's getting old and off it.

     I smacked the ball straight back: 'Steady on Hilda, I mean has he
finished his morning session with the Guv'nor upstairs ?'

     'No, he is still up there Mr Marler, but I expect the meeting to break
up before nine-thirty. Can I ring you when he is free?'

'Yes, please, though I'm tempted to come over right away.'

'Why?'

'I might catch a darlin'of a secretary all alone.'

54

She laughed gently and put the receiver down.

     I asked Joan to come through, and between coffee sips we discussed the
diary items. I asked: 'The recommendations from the District Managers for
that Grimsby vacancy, did Mitchell sort them through?

     'Yes, though there were only three, plus some direct applications from
men in the iieid. Alastair arranged interviews for the three with yourself,
Personnel Selection and Brinn, the Eastern District boss. Jameson of
Personnel has seen them and I've fixed sessions with you for tomorrow. I've
allowed forty minutes an interview.'

'What did Mitchell do with the direct applications?'

     'He sent them to Personnel for filing, and he is sending out suitable
admonishments pointing out to the applicants that there are such things as
the proper channels.'

'Get him on the blower,' l told her.

     She lifted the internal telephone receiver and dialled. 'Alastair? Joan
here, MJM for you.'

     She offered me the telephone. I waved it away. 'Tell him to get over
here.' Two seconds on, I grunted: 'Is he coming?'

'He'll be here directly.'

     I said, 'Get on to Personnel and get those direct applications back,
with the appropriate Personnel files. Get on to Jameson and tell him I'd like
his reports as quickly as possible, together with the papers of the people
with recommendations. Is that Mitchell outside?'

     She opened the main door and beckoned Mitchell through: they exchanged
hushed greetings. I waved at a chair: 'G'morning sit down.'

'Good morning, MJM.'

     Before I could make a start the green telephone chirruped; I snatched
the receiver before Joan could move,'Yes?'

'Mr Marler, Mrs Greening here; Mr L'Estrange for you.'

There was a click and then, 'Marler?'

'Morning, JBL.'

     'Morning, how were the Midlands? As sodden and unkind as usual?'

'Yes JBL, civilization ends at Watford Junction!'

     'Marler, there is a special meeting at two-fifteen today; the MD is in
the chair. We are being sniped at by Coughtrie and his Planners. The target-
fixers are out for heads . . . the interim Profit and Loss Accounts show
that, barring miracles, the profits in some of our Divisional Companies will
be well down.

55

The accounting machine companies are a particular problem, one of them shows
a turnover drop of close on forty per cent. I have certain views, but
Coughtrie, Davison and the planned expansion boys are determined to lay this
one at our door.'

'Surely we've had our successes, JBL?'

     'Yes, I suppose we have. Printing and Packaging are both twenty per cent
up on the half yearly profit figures. The other office equipment interests
have shown progress too take Electric Typewriters for instance.... Look you
black-eyed bastard, this is getting us nowhere, come over.' An afterthought
touched L'Estrange's mind: 'Incidentally, how was your father?'

'He's dead, sir.'

     . After an appropriate pause, he said to me, 'Comes to us all, had to
come one day. Getting on, wasn't he?'

'Yes.'

'Get over here then.'

     I realizedthatMitchell was still sitting there, and I said: 'Can't see
you now Alastair, JBL wants me. Come back at eleven....'

     'That will be difficult.'.' It was typical of Mitchell to find
difficulty..

'Why?'

     'I'm seeing Croucher in Financial Accounts at fifteen minutes past.'

'Important?'

     'I need some more information for this report on our selling costs in
Industrial Plastics.'

     Mitchell really is an awful Charlie, he sets himself up for me to knock
him down, and I always do. 'When does Mason need this information?'

'Before his report is prepared at the month end.'

     'Good, your date with friend Croucher can conveniently wait.'

     I terminated the interview by reaching for a file. With a scraping of
fits chair, Mitchell left. I told Joan Blackstaffe, 'I'm off to see JBL.
Remind me to talk to Mitchell at eleven, if I'm back.'

'Shall I tellhim what you want to see him about?'

'No. Let him sweat.'

     Ignoring the lift, I bounded up the stairs. On the landing I met Hilda
Greening; she smiled a careful smile and said: 'Came up the hard way did
you?'

56

'Aye, in more than one way, Hilda.'

     'How was your father? JBL mentioned him earlier this week.'

'Died on Monday.'

     She touched my sleeve. 'I'm sorry.' Then briskly, 'Please go straight
in.'

     Apart, from the beige carpeting and black leather furniture L'Estrange
stared out across the slates. After I had been standing there for some
seconds, he turned theatrically, and pointed to a chair. Eventually, still
mentally rehearsing, he sat down himself.

     'What I have to say to you Michael, is in the strictest confidence Mr
Moyle is likely to have a re-shuffle this year Bailly-Lynnes is likely to go.
Certain individuals one might call them my protagonists, are anxious to have
me, as they scurrilously put it found out! The discrediting is to take place
before the Board meet to discuss the new alignments of responsibility. These
people have an opening. Now, I have directed the marketing operation of this
Group well its two largest Divisions anyway -for eleven years. During that
time, I . . . I . . . I . . .'

     The 'I' procession went singing through my brain. Truly, L'Estrange was
an egomaniac. I turned down the sound and watched the performance.

     L'Estrange has the face of an actor, a very obvious actor. A face,
dramatic, pink, and overfed. Ropes of fatted muscle move beneath malt skin.
His large well-shaped eyes are one minute bare and grey, like empty broom-
cupboards; the next projecting contempt, humour, admiration, or any emotion
required for the moment's ploy. His yellow hair, only just beginning to
whiten, is worn long.

     As was his habit, he began to talk to the ceiling, his full lips
champing on the words. I tried hard not to listen as he ranted on. It was
like watching yellow waters churn at a lock-gate.

     Suddenly L'Estrange was saying . . . 'Mrs Greening is bringing in coffee
and the latest sales figures.'

     The Marketing Directors long fingers drummed on the leather desk top as
he waited impatiently for his coffee. Mrs Greening left and he began again. I
decided to listen and concentrate. The rhetoric was about over and I knew
we'd be down to the problem soon. L'Estrange was saying: 'Coughtrie Davison,
and Donald Smyth are all unhappy about the possibility of my becoming the new
MD....'

57

     They have a point, I thought. L'Estrange had his second wind: '....
there is a management meeting this afternoon. From ibe agenda that has been
circulated I can expect trouble.'

     He handed me it neat foolscap sheet. l wo items were ringed in red biro,
the first: 'Larger Accounting Machines falling sales', the second, 'Remedial
Action Business Machines Division'.

     L'Estrange said anxiously: 'Michael, why is there such an alarming drop
in sales of our large accounting machines?'

     I played for time. 'That is a big one for an off-the-cuff answer, JBL.'

     'I know, but you once sold in that very field. And weren't you Sales
Manager of Calcus Machines for a time?'

     'Yes, but I'm not given to expressing opinions without supporting
facts.' L'Estrange ignored the comment, and asked: 'Are our salesmen below
standard? Are our pay rates right?'

     I told him the truth: 'I think they are the pick of the market, well
paid, well trained and hard selling.'

     'Field Management then? Do we need a good shaking up there ?'

     'There are odd weaknesses, but on the whole they do a good job anyway
they've proved themselves in the past.'

L'Estrange fingered his bow-tie. 'Advertising?'

'Top class puts our competitors in the shade.'

'Price ?'

'Highly competitive.'

     L'Estrange was a terrier at a bone, worrying his subject until it
splintered. He jabbed a manicured finger at me. 'Circularizing, are we doing
enough ?'

     'We have an Addressograph Bank, covering every major outlet in the
country and a lot of smaller fry as well. All accountants, commercial and
professional, are reguarly mailed.'

'What is the yield in terms of replies?'

'About seven per cent.'

'Hmmmmm.'

     I scotched the Hmmmmm: 'Compared with others in the same field, sir,
that is a pretty good return. Brunzy does a marvellous job.'

     L'Estrange became waspish: 'If so many clever bastards are right on top
of their jobs, why are we down the dilly?'

     I stayed quiet and waited for the hectoring to begin; it did. 'I hope
you realize that they'll tear your alibi to bits ... there is

58

always an escape in personalities, they will call it a hundred names,
indifferent administration ... Iow sales ... failure to take corrective
action earlier in the slide. Whatever the label, heads will drop. We are in
business not just to make profits but to expand profits.'

     L'Estrange paused, and I fancied a contempt in his grey eyes. Only when
the cards were flat on the table and showing wrong does the man beneath,
briefly, show. Not that a little contempt worries me, but 'Tear your alibi to
bits' made it necessary to fight; if I didn't I knew the white-headed kestrel
would drop the buttered spuds right into my lap. I said, 'Basically there is
a simple answer to all this. It is all a question of a lack of appreciation
of where our market lies.'

'Go on.'

     'Well, the really big rr,achine installations aren't sold any more ...
the computer boys have snatched that end of the market. We can sell machines
to companies with a few thousand accounts, or a few hundred items of stock,
and say a pay roll of a thousand or so, but the big boys, the industrial
giants, the building societies, the banks, and all the rest they used to
order three and four thousand quid accounting machines by the fifty these are
the merchants who have gone over to computers. Computers are not only a
bloody sight quicker  they can handle more systems applications and in the
long term are much more economic. Why a mob of our size never went into the
computer business five or six years ago beats me. It was a logical step we
have missed the boat now. This place is a giggle; we put our own production
control on to a computer nine months ago. . .'

     L'Estrange interrupted: 'It wasn't my decision not to go into the
computer field, not my decision .. .'

     I said blandly, 'I can well believe that, JBL.' I continued, 'I'm sorry
JBL, we are getting away from the main issue, falling machine sales.'

     'Yes, machine sales. Just because there are a few computers about we
can't withdraw our machines from the market and jettison many thousands of
stock value.'

'I didn't suggest that for a moment, sir.'

'Well, what do you suggest, genius?'

     I remember thinking: it is such a simple answer, and if you weren't so
bloody complicated, it would be obvious. My answer was: 'My suggestions are
these JBL. You appreciate, I'm sure, that I am talking in broad principles.
Firstly, we prune our

59

Sales Force on the accounting machine side, keeping the old hands who are set
in their ways, but re-directing them to the fringes of the market. Bombard
the borderline firms, who have between two hundred and two thousand
employees, with advertising and circulars. Build up the accounting machine as
a status symbol to the small business man. It's been done Stateside, we can
do it here. Give away easy terms, or even rental let's not be dignified. Stop
this bloody stupid business of too many men chasing too little business.'

     L'Estrange stared out over the slates again: it had begun to rain, and
the slates were pearly.

     I thought: He has begun to realize that if he'd only kept tabs on the
results of the Business Machines Division instead of playing company
politics, he wouldn't be in this mess. That stuff is elementary. No wonder he
keeps me at arm's length.

     He asked: 'What do we do with the reps we'll have spare? The whole thing
smells of contraction, the Board won't like that.'

'We could go into the computer market.'

'We don't make computers, Marler.'

     'Maybe we don't but we have three bloody great printing factories
equipped with rubber-stereo gear. Computers eat paper, JBL. There's a market
we have the sales force and with modifications we could have the production
facilities: let's sell the continuous print stuff and all the gadgets that go
with it, electronic guillotines, splitters, bursters, and all the gear.... Go
into the meeting with a policy, tell them we are almost ready to start some
pilot selling to see if there is anything in the idea. Whatever you do, don't
let them know that you, that is we, have been caught with our trousers
down....'

     L'Estrange stared at my eyebrows the old gag. Stare in that way and it
gives your eyes a flat look. The uninitiated imagine their heads are being
stared right into. I thought, daft bleeder trying to pull that one on me.

     L'Estrange tried to crack my argument, 'It can't be that simple, Marler.
Surely there is sufficient foresight in a corporation of this size to
appreciate and plan for such an obvious market trend. We are not idiots.'

'No, sir.'

     L'Estrange looked up sharply, but I kept expression out of my eyes. He
said: 'I remarked, how can anything as apparently obvious as this be missed?'

60

'May I be very frank, sir?'

'Certainly.'

'You may not like what I have to say.'

'Let's hear it anyway.'

     'In a company, or should I say, group of companies of this size,
everyday operations become more and more complex. I don't mean the basic
economic principles, governing the business, I mean the actual running. For
instance, we need disciplines, so we have defined stratas of management and
labour. We have rule books, and the bigger the business the bigger the rule
book. Another feature of growth is the pre-occupation of people within a
group with internal job movement inside the organisation they forget that
there is an external life. Some of these characters are like people who live
in a house without windows it is only when they feel a draught that they
realize that there is something going on outside. Anyone of our thinking
salesmen could tell you this. I was talking to young Gill in Plastics only
last week. He had an enquiry for thousands of pounds' worth of new plastic
fabric we have been producing experimentally it was from one of the big car
firms he asked for a quote for this huge quantity, needed the prices within
three days. He got them five weeks later. By the time he went back the
proposition was stone dead.'

L'Estrange grimaced; 'You are never serious, Michael?'

     I explained: 'I wish I was joking. I tried to find out why. Gill's quote
took its turn with ninety odd others going through Works Costs; the fact that
it was ten times the size of a normal 'large enquiry' had nothing to do with
it in Anderson's eyes. The pious sod told Gill that Company policy was that
every enquiry had to be dealt with in strict chronological sequence. We had
to give exactly the same service to each of our wouldbe customers. Volume and
profitability had nothing to do with it. Have you ever heard such crap?'

'Did you raise this with Bishton?'

     'I told him in my usual tactful manner that Anderson needed the biggest
rocket up his arse this side of Woomera that if I had a Departmental Head
with half his stupidity, I'd butcher him....'

'And Bishton?'

     'I told him in my usual tactful manner that Anderson had to have rules
and that Gill dug up too many wildcat propositions.'

61

'Anything for a quiet life.'

     'That is about it. Oh, and the man said I was a bloody anarchist.'

He smiled archly: 'He's quite right, of course.'

     L'Estrange's confidence, having momentarily slipped, was back and he
launched into more cheer-leader stuff; 'You could be right, Marler, I'll have
Mrs Greening get me out facts and figures. Maybe we have missed a market
change. I'll get the balance sheets of other companies who are likely to be
feeling the draught because of computer sales. I'll also get the old minutes
of that meeting in fifty-seven, when the computer-field sally was turned
down. Davison was a prominent member; now that is an angle, that really is an
angle.'

     L'Estrange suddenly swept up his papers and stamped out of the room.

     I lit a cigarette and leaned back, put my heels up on the elegant walnut
table, and blew smoke at the lead-hued London skyline for a full five
minutes. I thought about what nut-cases they all are; I was the only one who
was not fully infected. L'Estrange, Davison Coughtrie, they work like
lunatics, and for what? What will L'Estrange leave behind him? A Bentley,
registration plate F{J 2. He hasn't even got any kids. It's a jungle. I'm as
daft~arning and then spending wears me thin. When was the last time I was
happy? When I was a kid? When I had that funny singing happiness after the
first Communion. When I had God inside me, and hadn't started to get marked-
up and tanked about. The fishing was good too, with willow smell and brown
water. I can see the reflection, grey hand-me-downs, big boots, shaggy hair,
and a quill float bobbing just clear of the reeds.

     Back in my own office, I shook the negative thoughts from my mind; I had
to. If you don't, you don't survive. I rang for the interview files and
decided to go through the recommended applications first. Joan switched on
the desk light and placed the manilla folders on the blotter. I opened the
first the applicant's story was all there from the cradle forward. If
Grenfell could get further back than the womb, they would, I thought.

     The top document was the IBM Personal card; it was all there rating,
classification, and the rest. I read the results of Jameson's head shrinking:

62

Degree of extroversion
Intelligence
Human Relations
Marital Status
Motivational Pattern
Job Task Record

     Impatiently I flicked through the pages of jargon. I commented irritably
to Joan, 'I wonder if Jameson really understands all this balls? This is job-
selection gone raving mad. It seems simple enough to me the guy had got to
look right know how to handle reps, have a quick brain and a lot of energy.
Most of all he has got to be able to take it from those hard-cases up on the
fish docks without getting worn down.'

     I asked for the applicant's sales figures over the last three years the
man's name was Jackson, P. R. Jackson. He'd been selling in Liverpool poor
sod.

     My temper got the better of me eventually. I snatched the telephone and
dialled impatiently: 'Jameson?'

'Yes, good morning.'

     'Marler this end. I've got your reports on the Grimsby District; they
are much too long, thoroughness is a great virtue but I'm far too busy to
plough through lengthy expositions.'

     'I merely submitted our normal length report.' Jameson's tone was tart.

     I smashed on: 'In future, Jameson, I want a synopsis of each applicant,
a hundred words a man at the outside, right?' I slammed down the receiver.

     Joan lit a cigarette and said: 'Touchy this morning, aren't we?'

I shut her up: 'Who the bloody hell is talking to you?'

     The fifth floor sophistry melted. I followed up with, 'Send Mitchell
in.'

     As I waited for Mitchell, I read through all the applications and
scribbled brief notes in the margins. When I looked up Mitchell was sitting
in the chair beside my desk.

He said, fatuously, 'What do you think, MJM?'

     'Not much all three conform to a familiar pattern. I'll see them.'

'I've done that.'

'Who would you suggest then?'

'Hammond.'

I reached for the second file. 'What has he got then?' I

63

asked.

     'Nice fellow, well adjusted and all that. Began with us as a trainee.
Good education, Public School, National Service Commission. Personnel say
that he's ready to be moved into field management.'

'And where is this man of all the talents going?'

'Grimsby Office, of course.'

'What area win he be controlling?'

     'You know as well as I do Cleethorpes, Hull, Scunthorpe, through
Doncaster and up well into the East Riding.'

     God give me strength, I thought. I asked Mitchell, 'Ever worked there?'

'No.'

'Know the reps he'll be trying to control?'

'No.'

     'Well, I know the area, and I know the blokes. They will break his
little Southern heart....'

     The pink jowls grew pinker; he pushed out a fleshy bottom lip and said:
'I can't agree; aren't you being just a tiny bit arbitrary?'

     I spread my hands in a flamboyant gesture; 'Come on bright boy, you tell
me why?'

     Mitchell lifted his tight chin and regarded me along a stub of a nose,
nostrils slightly flared. For a man of twenty-eight, his voice was
exceedingly pompous. 'Hammond might be described as a product of Grenfell he
has been well trained in our techniques, a good company man. That sort can
succeed anywhere.'As an afterthought, he added, 'Surely?'

     I checked an impulse to hurl obscenities at the well-fed face. Instead I
said, 'Horses for courses, Mitchell. If the vacancy were in Oxford or
Bristol, perhaps I might take your point, but unless Hammond comes across at
the personal interview more forcibly than he does here ...' I tapped the file
... 'Then we may have to look elsewhere.'

Mitchell refused to be deterred. 'I'm afraid I can't agree.'

     I remember thinking this bone-head is a glutton for punishment. I cocked
my head: 'To put it crudely, Mitch, those hardnuts up there would eat Mr
Bloody-Hammond for breakfast. Two inches of forehead and a vocabulary that
will defeat friend Hammond if he sticks it to retirement. You realize, of
course, that some of the salesmen up there are almost as neolithic as the
customers?' I concluded, 'Any one of these three applicants would find life
difficult up there, and I am damned

64

if I'm going to appoint a man who will be in for a transfer inside a couple
of years.'

     Mitchell refused to back down. 'How about Crirnmond? He is a
Northerner?'

'Poor sales figures.'

     'John Greaves put hhn up for it. He stresses particularly how good
administratively the man is.'

     'I want turnover figures building up, not a filing system reorganized.
Anyway, that's another way of saying that he's kissing old Greaves' well-
talcumed backside. I expect his returns are always in apple-pie, and full of
things that Greaves wants them to be full of. In the end, it's results that
count, nothing else.'

     'Sounds as though you don't have much of an opinion of John Greaves.'

     'I haven't he's a pompous old woman. When I can find time to deal with
his Sales set-up, he'll find himself carrying a bag! Now, what about the
cheeky ones who applied direct?'

     'I sent their papers for filing, and wrote to them all warning them to
apply through the proper channels in future.'

'They'll love you.'

     Alastair Mitchell pulled a wry face. I said: 'It occurs to me that one
of these hard-cases with enough neck to by-pass his Area Manager, might weld
be the sort of blunt instrument to push our accounting machines up there near
Hadrian's Wall.'

     His face was expressionless. I closed the interview with, 'I'm going
through the direct applications. If there are any likely lads I'll see them.
Don't fancy Hull yourself, do you Mitch?'

     Before I had put down the files, Mitchell had closed the door. With a
conscious discipline, I read the applications; most were from strongly
motivated dead-heads, but there were two from ten-year bag men who appeared
to have the required essentials, courage, experience, and a . native cunning
that might be mistaken for intelligence.

     I rang for Joan; she gathered the files and I watched her thin legs move
away. For the next hour I concentrated on the sales forecasts for Plastics,
and shredded pages of foolscap before an acceptable draft emerged.

     I lunched in the executive dining-room, where there were lace-aproned
waitresses anti Waterford glass, and people sat six to a red mahogany table.
The Grenfell managers tackled with aggression, or picked at, the chicken
lunch, the state of pressure resistance governing the pace of the knife and
fork. I

65

sipped my Carlsberg and studied the faces. The overall impression was one of
sameness. All exuded a cheerful extroversion, they were mostly of an age,
they expressed themselves vehemently on the dangers of 'negative thought'.
With hardly an exception they were frantically implementing policy. The
commonality was not surprising, for apart from Brunzy and myself, they had
entered as trainees under the aegis of Personnel Division. They had joined in
the company of others who lacking the ability to conform utterly, had drifted
away, leaving the harvest field the superbly mediocre. None of the diners
would ever be a creative genius, but then, I reflected, it was unlikely that
they would ever sleep with another man's wife. In the mystique of Personnel,
adjustment was rated far higher than talent. For one thing it was easier to
find. I got in up the backstairs. If I'd arrived in the foyer with the rest,
I would never have made the lifts.

     The chat was of central heating, oil or gas? Last night's television,
Portofino or the Costa del Sol? The Calcutta Cup result this year? I was
relieved when the soup arrived. I leered at the over-powdered waitress, a
green eyelid flickered and we enjoyed a brief proletarian conspiracy.

     After lunch I left the building and walked briskly along the West End
pavements. London still excites me seven years after my first transfer to
Head Office; there is a brittle smartness about the women, and no nasal
whines or belted gabardines.

     Back at my office desk, I was about to pick up the threads again when
Hilda's coiffured head appeared round the door. I beckoned her in and she
perched on the corner of my desk. She always reminded me of my mother-in-
law's Siamese cat; her eyes were a sharp cornflower blue and she wore severe
grey tailored suits. She swung her feet off the floor and sat primly upright
on the end of the desk; the movement sent the smart tube of her skirt riding
up above her knees, and she smoothed it down. She has the bosom of a fifteen-
year-old and her slender legs are slightly bowed, but her feline spareness is
attractive. I felt the old Adam rise and thought, Hilda you may be forty-one,
but I could do things for you. I said, 'This is an unexpected pleasure.'

     She smiled a private smile and said, 'I had fifteen minutes to spare
before the madness began again, so I thought I'd drop down here for a chat.
The atmosphere upstairs is so political, it is getting on my nerves.'

'If it is affecting you, Hilda, it must be pretty supercharged.'

66

     She inclined her head in mock acknowledgement and I said: 'What shall we
talk about then? What is the usual lunchtime topic in JBL's kingdom when His
Holiness is indulging in the spartan atmosphere of the Directors' Luncheon
Club?'

'Shall I tell you honestly?'

'Of course.'

'Company politics and sex.'

'Never.'

     'Of course. A woman either talks about her work or her hobby.'

     I laughed uncomfortably and I wondered where the conversation would end.

Hilda asked, 'How's your love-life these days?'

'Why do you ask?'

     'For the past year those black eyes have been leching everywhere.'

'Nice of you to notice.'

     'I haven't been the only one. Even uncorseted juvenile bottoms in the
typing pool haven't been exempt from the Marler leer.'

     'I'll call you Aunty Mary, if you call me Worried Blue Eyes.' We laughed
together and Hilda said, 'I saw you watching that skinny bitch next door, you
must be desperate.'

     The conversation was now past the bantering stage. I reached across and
took a file from my correspondence tray.

     The blue cat-eyes watched, sharp and unblinking. She asked: 'What has
happened between you and Elizabeth?'

'Why?'

     'When you were first married she wouldn't leave you alone At parties it
was embarrassing, she was like a cat who has just found out what cream is.
Even JBL noticed. Now you show up on your own.'

     I debated silently whether or not to discuss Elizabeth with her, and
finally decided there was nothing to lose by getting a second opinion. 'Well,
things in the garden are far from lovely! If it wasn't for the scandal at
this place, we'd go our own ways I feel sure.'

'Someone else?'

'No.'

'What is it then?'

     Reluctantly, I elaborated. 'There seem to be many things; her mother
hates my guts for one. Sometimes I think that 1, perversely, like what she
loathes. Hilda, I am what I am, but

67

Elizabeth can't accept that, she wants to change me. Look, I know I like stew
and drink Guinness, but I'm me, not the man she'd like me to be. She doesn't
want a man to love, she wants a man to control. Affection is less important
than having power. I'm an appendage, a hat or an umbrella.'

Hilda asked: 'Hate you tried to change?'

     'Of course I have, but I always end up reverting to type. I'm sick of
phoney refinement and the eternal bloody class battle. I can pull the stunt
at work, but when I get home I have to be myself I can't act a whole life.
What is the answer? Marry a factory girl? That would be a bigger hell at
least Elizabeth can think.'

'What are you going to do?'

     'Drift, and pick up a bit of loose on the side. I'm the sort who has to
have a woman or go mad! Mind you, the political battle here is a sublimation
in itself.'

     'There are plenty of women for the likes of you, Michael. Intelligence
is not a natural running mate with snobbery, you've been unfortunate.'

     She was right of course, but I told her, 'I don't believe in love
anyway. I did once, but now I know it just dulls down to habit.'

     I looked at my watch. It was after two I should have shuffled her out,
but I'd become interested. 'You have always puzzled me, Hilda.'

'Why?'

     'Well, you aren't exactly typecast at the whalebone-and-bun career lark.
You often strike me as having too much blood. With those hips you should have
had a stack of kids. What is he like, Hilda? Nobody here has ever met the
man, you keep him nicely out of the way.'

     'He's an engineer, fifty-five now and addicted to falling asleep in
front of the telly. He has a new car you can't see the radiator grill for
badges. I have my job, and we haven't much else. We eat too much and talk too
little. It is all a bit pathetic.'

'Flow did you come to marry him?'

     'I was an office junior, he was an apprentice, we lived in the same
street and my old lady pushed the business....'

I prompted, 'Go on.'

     'He finished his apprenticeship. Three months later we married; neither
of us earned much, so we both worked. I developed, he didn't, and now we are
just polite to one another.'

68

'Don't you ever feel like breaking out, Hilda?'

'I've thought of it.'

'Have you ever?'

     'Not really. Eric has lost my interest, but I've never gone right off
the rails. I've felt like it, but I stop myself before I reach the stage when
I'd do the really stupid thing.'

I hit below the belt: '3' umour links you and JBL.'

'Then rumour has a dirty mind.'

     She picked up my paper-knife and beat a slow light tattoo on the desk
top. Her face was in shadow and I stared down at the crown of her copper
head, and I could sense the tension in her. She waited, tapping with the
paper-knife. I broke the powdery silence: 'We are in the same boat, Hilda.
Perhaps we need the same thing?'

'Perhaps.'

'When then?'

'If we did you might be disappointed.'

'How do you mean?'

     Her large hands were shapely, with prominent veins below the knuckles
and an excess of nervous energy in the fingers. She placed them below the jut
of her breasts. She said: 'I've gone soft here.'

     If you don't ask you don't get, so I said, 'Looks marvellous to me.'

     'No, they are soft and they hang. Once I was firm, I wished we could
have been lovers then.'

Roughly I pressed on: 'Come out tonight?'

'No '

'Why not, that's what you came down to arrange, isn't it?'

     'Don't be cruel. It is just that I am not clutching and grappling on the
back seat of a motor-car, I'm not the type.'

     I reached across and placed a large hand above her knee: she did not
move and I said, 'What is your suggestion?'

     She examined her nail varnish and answered without looking at me: 'Ann
Milner in Export is off to the Munich Trade Fair at the week-end. She leaves
me the key to her flat.' She giggled. 'I feed the goldfish. Can you imagine
Ann keeping goldfish ?'

     She scribbled the address on my desk pad, tore away the sheet, and
pushed it into my top pocket. She said, 'Next Tuesday night about eight. I'll
get you a meal ready.'

     She lifted my hand from her leg and said, 'JBL wants to see you at two-
thirty for a few minutes, before he goes into this

69

meeting. Benham trom Finance will be there.'

     Hilda smiled provocatively and was suddenly young, she said, 'I could
have telephoned but I wanted to see you, you big ram!'

     Her guard was down, so I asked her again, 'Talking of JBL Hilda, surely
he has tried?'

     Her eyes said, you bastard. I waited, confident she would answer. 'We
have dinner alone about once a month.' She added, 'He is practically sexless!
On occasions he has kissed me; once he tried to go further It was hopeless,
and I drove him home. He sat there like a small boy with his arms wrapped
about his knees. All his sex drives go into his job.'

'What about you?'

'You'll find out for yourself....'

     I smiled in spite of myself, and she said, 'It is such a pity  you are
as rotten as the rest of them.'

     The door closed, I picked up the latest Sales Bulletins and began to
read.

     L'Estrange was a man for colours; at two-twenty-nine I rapped on the
scarlet door. The wags called the suite of offices behind the door the Fire
Station; Hilda Greening beckoned me through. I glanced about me in half
amusement at the startling decor. Moyle's taste might run to green leathers
and polished hardwoods, but L'Estrange had his own ideas on the expression of
personality. The carpet was a rich autumnal shade, three walls were primrose
and the fourth a solid block of cornish blue. On the walls were framed
lithographs of Old London; the oversize desk was free of the usual clutter of
correspondence. I sat down and L'Estrange said: 'You do know Stanley Benham,
of course?'

I nodded: 'Yes, we have met.'

     I dislike the accountant; the mild manner and lay-preacher voice sets my
nerve ends jumping. L'Estrange opened. 'Michael, Stanley here has been
getting some figures out for me, grand chap that he is. You know, your views
could well be correct on this Machine Division business.'

     L'Estrange paused and waited but I made no comment, so he beamed at us
and continued, 'Some of our machine competitors have been badly hit, and
while we are still very much in the swim, our results or lack of them, do
follow a similar pattern. It seems to me that our Marketing and Economic
Growth Units were sadly out in their predictions....'

70

     The precise voice droned on and as usual boredom infected my mind;
L'Estrange was now reading from a prepared report and the figures rolled
impressively out: '. . . turnover of Coltronic subsidiary is 22 per cent down
after four months of the trading year . . . selling costs are 1 3 per cent up
. . . profit margin on Class R split-platen Descriptive Keyboard Machines is
. . ,'

     While L'Estrange, now intoxicated by his mastery of the complexities of
the accountant's report, orated on, I took a good look at Benham. Like he's
well over six feet tall, but of slighter build. His hairless, clefted face
and light eyes peering from behind whirled lenses, reminded me then of a
ghastly fledgling pushed from a summer nest, and horrifically and
miraculously resuscitated; he is under forty but his hair is prematurely
thin. He smoothed his temples with a long fingered hand, and his finger-nails
needed cutting.

     L'Estrange came to the end of his trial run: 'Well what do you think?'

     Benham pursed pale, spongy lips. 'I've been examining Davison's original
report. You know, his reasons for not getting involved in the computer market
were sound. An enormous capital outlay would have been necessary, and anyway
our competitors had a head start. In my view the real error was to have no
conception of the commercial possibilities of computers. Davison sincerely
considered that the enormous costs were not worth the risks....'

     'Whose side are you on, Mr Benham?' My voice was so gentle that the
undertone of sarcasm must have been barely noticeable. Benham peered
suspiciously for a second, and continued: 'Davison, unfortunately one might
say regrettably  misjudged the speed at which computers have become
commercial propositions. I mean he talked blithely of ten years passing
before serious inroads were made into the orthodox accounting machine market.
As our good friend Marler has observed, it has only taken three to seriously
rock the boat. In essence, JBL, I don't think Davison can be faulted on
logic; it is his prophecy that is embarrassing.'

I muttered, 'Forecasts are what we pay the sod for.'

     L'Estrange ignored me, and waved at the accountant to continue; the
nasal voice juggled with turnover figures ... overheads ... selling costs ...
and all the rest. Halfway through the exposition, I realized that Benham was
a Brummagem boy the flat voice was well disguised, but to my sensitive ear,
odd

71

pronunciations gave the game away; 'Anythink', 'Somethink' 'Naow',and 'Foive'
it was dialect poetry. He was yet another ragged-arced provincial out to tame
the metropolis. I considered Benham with new interest. Benham's monologue
ended, and he looked mournfully at us with his washed-out February eyes.
L'Estrange turned to me. 'Anything to add Michael?'

     'Not really, sir. In a nutshell Davison's boys say it is our management,
we say it is their judgement. Goodnight Shirley Temple! '

L'Estrange snapped, 'Don t be flippant, Michael.'

     'I couldn't be more serious. We are in a fight.' Benham said quickly: 'I
would emphasise that I am here in a purely advisory capacity....'

     I rounded on the accountant: 'You mean you are sitting on the fence, Mr
Benham. It is an attitude your profession are noted for....'

     I ignored Benham's apparent shock and L'Estrange's hard stare, and
continued: 'If we lose out on this one, the opposition will say that we are
not tackling the marketing job with sufficient vigour, say our supervision
isn't tight enough. They will trot out all that gulf about not enough
pressure and all the rest of the stock screw-downs. In my book you mean we
carry the cans.'

     Benham managed a look of dignified horror. I said, 'Don't look so hurt,
Mr Benhan-t, there is a chance we might lose. The Sales Division might get
another hatchet man. Oh, and JBL might not, after all, become Managing
Director, but then if that happens, you, Mr Benham won't want to know us.'

     The accountant said, 'I find your comments offensive and juvenile.' I
finished him off. 'I couldn't give a penny-worth of cold tea for what you
feel, Mr Benham. When JBL argues his case around the table, he will need your
support. I should imagine that is why he flattered your ego by inviting your
advice this afternoon. Now, you enjoy a reputation as the best financial
brain in the Gl-oup. When you talk Budgetary (:ontrol, bomb-proof managers
blanch. We would like your support.'

     'I have to be impartial. Fhis is a Sales and Economic Planning quarrel;
my only interest is hi the accounting aspect.' Benham's voice dropped to a
wheedle, and we heard the plain Brummagem sing-song. I tightened the screw:
'Mr Benham let us look at the possibilities. We do not propose to allow you

72

to sit on the fence, so you are either for us or against us. There is of
course an excellent chance that our arguments will be accepted without the
support of your department. Mr Moyle is a wily one, and he has a nose for the
rights and wrongs of a situation. If you stand off, we know exactly where we
stand with you, and when JBL here comes into his kingdom, he might remember
your lack of loyalty.'

     I sucked my teeth noisily and grinned at the accountant, but there was
no humour in my eyes, and my voice sounded flat and unpleasant, even to me,
and I love myself. 'You might end up where you started with us, running a
cost office in a Black Country factory....'

     Benham was on the hop, and I moved in to close the sale: 'Of course, we
might lose, still JBL would still be the Senior Director of the Holding
Company. He could make life difficult if he chose. Not that he would need to
I'm sure, Stanley our interests are common, aren't they?'

     Benham smiled and I felt relieved. I was very near to closing the deal.
L'Estrange stepped in to secure the order: 'Thank you for your support,
Stanley.'

     Benham nodded; his face was expressionless. L'Estrange said: 'We are due
at the meeting in fifteen minutes. I suggest you hang on here for a few
minutes, Stanley, and then follow me down the corridor. It wouldn't look good
if we went in as a lobby.'

     Benham agreed, and L'Estrange and I went through into Hilda's office. I
closed the door and said, 'Hilda, we have left Benham in there, he must not
use the telephone.' I pointed to the receiver on Hilda's desk: 'Is that a
party line?'

'Yes.'

     'Right, lift it up and listen in. If Benham tries to dial anyone in
Planning or in Mr Moyle's office, cut him off.'

     Mrs Greening looked first at L'Estrange, who nodded his agreement.
L'Estrange looked thoughtfully at me: 'You go a bit far sometimes, young man.
Did you have to be quite so blunt?'

     'If I hadn't been, our friend would have scored off both sides, and then
gone to Mr Moyle with his own solution; Benham would have another chalk-mark
up. I agree we could have been more delicate, if we had had the time, but an
emergency meeting like this catches everyone on the hop.'

     Hilda put the telephone down. I barked, 'Pick that thing up.'

73

     Annoyance showed on L'Estrange's face, and I had to explain: 'Benham has
a third choice, sir. He could contact Moyle before the meeting and blow the
gaff tell him everything he knew, being a good company man and all that jazz.
He would get a few kudos that way. Mind, I don't think he has the nerve. If
he found enough to do it, we could always say he has a vivid imagination! '

     L'Estrange spoke his thoughts aloud; 'As I make my points, I'll call on
Benham for clarification, just as though he had all the impartiality he
pretends to have. He'll win the day, Michael, he is a master of the profit
and loss account'

     'Aye, he has a hard Brummagem nose for what pays and what doesn't.'

     L'Estrange left for his meeting, and shortly afterwards, we heard Benham
leave the office next door. I flopped into a chair and Hilda said, 'I gather
you don't like Stanley Benham either?'

'I don't.'

     'I went to a party at his house once he treats his wife abominably.'
Hilda smiled at a thought. I asked, 'What's the joke?'

     'You'll never believe this, but old Benham has a telephone with a pukka
coin~box in the cloakroom of his house. It's for the use of the guests, of
course.'

'Naturally.'

     Hilda tilted her chair back and looked up at the ceiling. She said:
'Michael, I wonder if all big companies are the same. I mean do they have all
the crazy politics of this sort of place with everybody doing the next man
down?'

     I gave her my philosophy. There was a chance she might tell L'Estrange,
but I didn't care. 'I would think so. Mind they'd be pretty far gone to get
as mad as the mad dogs here. The real power boys frighten me; Moyle is a bit
remote but people like him, so he must have some sort of humanity. It's the
Benhams and the Davisons who get on my wick; you know, love, at the top, but
sufficiently short of real executive power to feel insecure. They are the
boys who start the pruning scares and those dear four-yearly purges, when
everybody feels comfortable. I sometimes wonder when L'Estrange is going to
turn on me.'

     The skin about her eyes looked tight and dry. She cracked back, 'You
aren't exactly a saint.'

'I know. I'm the arch-druid of the company double-crossers,

74

but that doesn't mean I don't think it's a rotten way to live. We're all mad
you know, stone bloody bankers. many topnotchers are there in this firm other
than Moyle and perhaps Bishton, who are over fifty-five? I'll tell you, there
aren't any  the rat-race kills them. I haven't a go-getting sales manager in
my set-up over forty. The place is a lunatic asylum.'

     Hilda's face was careful. She said: 'What an outburst I can see there
are hidden depths in dear old blood-on-the-wall Michael. You'll be reading
books next.'

     'No danger of me getting cultural, my dear. Lady Chatterley's lucky old
lover is about my limit.' I added thoughtfully, 'My old feller was a great
reading man when he couldn't get booze. He used to drive my old lady daft, he
always had to be off out. If he had a shilling in his pocket, it would be the
pub. If he was bust, it would be the public library. He was a proper nut-
case, but he hated people like Stanley Benham. Occasionally he'd find himself
working for the Benham sort, and hate it. He'd come home, take off his
overalls and unlace his big boots. Getting those boots off was a ritual.'

     'Charming! I didn't realize our Michael had such a romantic past. Mr
L'Estrange would have a fit if he knew. A workingclass Trojan Horse in a
capitalist fortress.'

     She giggled, and I felt irritated. I burst out with, 'This place is
inhuman. It is full of uncommitted people. They don't see men and women in a
situation, only the company interest, which usually happens to be theirs. If
it is a speck of dandruff on their collar, or a manes wife and kids, after
ten seconds of phoney remorse, the dandruff gets the vote.'

     'Oh, Michael, it isn't that bad. Anyway you are as inhuman as any of
us.'

     I stubbed out my cigarette and stood up. I told her: 'I'd better get
back, I'm in a war with Personnel.'

     For the first time in months, I finished work at the appointed time,
shouted a good night to Joan Blackstaffe and walked towards the lifts. The
corridors were full and I was carried along in the lemming rush to the exits.
Inside the lift, a voice behind me said, 'Another day, another dollar.' I was
too tightly packed to turn, but I recognized Brunzy's throaty tones and
replied, 'How goes the image making?'

     As we were disgorged at ground level, Brunzy answered 'With the right
advertising treatment you can sell anything and I am the greatest, but the
greatest creative ad-man.'

'Good old Brunzy, modest as ever.'

75

     'I'm a genius, underpaid, prostituted, and unappreciated. However, I can
manage the price of a pint of beer.'

     I was tempted, but decided to decline the invitation. 'Sorry Jerry, not
tonight, I've been away in the Midlands, and I think I ought to see the
misses. I seem to use the home as a hotel these days.'

'Just as you wish. Everything all right with you, Mick?'

     'Not really, Jerry. My old man died on Monday, and I don't know whether
I'm on my arse or my elbow.'

     I sensed concern in the advertising executive. It was the only such
concern I had searched out in anyone, and it served to accentuate my
loneliness. We crossed the car-park, in silence, and stopped beside the Mark
Ten. Brunzy tapped the bonnet. 'A beautiful motor, Michael. There is no
justice in Grenfell, the executioners get so much and the creators so
little.'

     The short man punched me on the upper arm and walked across to his Ford.
His voice floated back across the dark of the car-park: 'Some other time
then, Mick.'

     I settled in the car seat, snapped the fasteners of the safety belt, and
drove home through the rush-hour traffic.

     Elizabeth's Herald was missing from the garage; in the kitchen, the
working tops of the units were full of an overflow of liquor and food from
the packed refrigerator. I glanced at the bottle labels and then examined the
food. Maria came in with a bustle. I asked, 'What five thousand are we
feeding then?'

She looked puzzled. I said, 'What is all this lot for?'

'The party.'

'What party?'

     'Mrs Marler arranged it some weeks ago. It is for some Golf Club people.
She said we weren't social enough.'

'Social! She lives at the bloody Golf Club.'

'I don't know about that, Mr Marler.'

'I'm sorry, Maria.'

     The girl looked embarrassed, and said, 'Mrs Marler has gone over to
Chesham to have tea with Mr Bridgewood.'

     I strode through to the bedroom and changed into soft shirt and tweeds.
I settled in an armchair and steadily smoked my irritation away. Much later
Elizabeth came home. She remarked, 'You must have been early for once. Have
Grenfell gone out of business?'

'No. I had a tough day another political storm blew up

76

while I was away. You know, the usual stuff. Nine million profit isn't
enough.'

     She was unsympathetic. 'How touching. Wounded predator runs for bolt
hole to find contrary mate out on the prowl.'

     I checked an impulse to smash a big hand into her face, and cracked my
finger knuckles instead; it always irritated her. She said, 'Dinner is on the
table; are you coming through ?'

     I enjoyed the soup, but could only pick at the pilaf; the black raisin
eyes stared dully through the mess of rice, and the chicken was white and
tasteless. I hungered for the old proletarian stew; barley and lentils,
potatoes and onions, and neck of lamb with its distinctive flavour and mass
of small bones that were sharp edged and had to be searched for. There was a
memory too, of father's brown hands slicing thick wedges of crusty loaf.

     As we sipped our coffee, I put my question: 'I hear there is a party
tomorrow.'

'It's been arranged for weeks, you must have forgotten.'

     'I thought you might have called it off after our telephone conversation
yesterday.'

     'Don't be absurd, Michael. One can't call off something that has been
arranged for weeks at that short a notice. One can't inconvenience one's
friends like that, can one?'

I thought: Even when one's father dies.

     She saw the expression on my face and said, 'Don't be bloody silly, it
isn't as if an orgy has been arranged. He was an old man, you know, and old
men die.'

     Anger dissolved into a gritty bitterness. She and her lot gave me the
willies. Arrangements, obligations, inconvenience ... stone me. My voice
acquired ugly Midland undertones: 'What do you think life is? A coffee
party?'

'You are an extremis",' she carped.

'So you've said before, Elizabeth.'

     I retreated to the garage- it was quiet in there with only the shiny
impersonal cars, and the stink of petrol. Taking the broken gear lever from
the shelf, I balanced the rod in my palm, and with a spool of insulating
tape, set to work, binding, taping and cutting. I began with the plastic knob
and worked down the stem. With a second spool I shaped the hand-grip. When
the job was over, I rapped the deal shelving with the cosh; I enjoyed the
thud. The home-made weapon was placed carefully in the glove compartment of
the Jaguar before I returned to the bungalow. In the kitchen, Elizabeth was
instruct

77

ing Maria; they were preparing for the gathering. I knew with certainty that
the last gossamer holding me to her was floating silkily in air. I went to
bed. From that moment on I have owed her nothing and felt nothing for her.
She is grey inside and she is nothing to do with me, nothing at all.

78

,

FOUR

The brass coachman clock on the window table read seventhirty; I had slept
for ten hours, and Elizabeth still slept. In the kitchen I ate my usual
lonely breakfast.

     The Jaguar, after the initial spirited charge along the Ad, settled into
the Cromwell Road ant column, and I wondered how L'Estrange had got on. When
I had left Grenfell House at five-fifteen, the meeting had still been in
session.

     As the lift gate doors closed, I examined the faces of the middle-
management set. One of the masks split, and brown eyes, small and round,
twinkled above a wide mouth. The mouth said, 'Pensive this morning, aren't
we?'

     I smiled at the habit breaker; it was Morton of Finance. Working for
Benham; the lift trip was probably Morton's only chance to laugh.

     As I crossed the office to my desk, the telephone rang. It was Hilda.
'Good morning. Got over your attack of philosophy yet?'

'Blimey, what a way to start a day.'

'His Holiness wants a word with you.'

'Did he win?'

'Come and ask him.'

     On the way, I lit my first cigarette of the day, and climbing the
stairs, I thought of Elizabeth. Things were getting to be past a joke, it was
all dead and best ended. I wondered who would find the courage to do it.

     Hilda looked angular and elegant; also, at nine in the morning, she was
sexless; I began to regret the Tuesday appointment. She looked up from the
electric typewriter, nodded, and resumed her brittle pecking, her long nails
curling as they struck the keys.

     In L'Estrange's room. one glance told me we were off the hook. Under the
startling hair, the face was full of smiles; plump fingers spread into a
mock-courtier gesture, and the man said: 'It was a piece of duff. The MD
raved after I put our case; he rounded on Davison and the Marketing gang. At
that piece about computers not being a commercial proposition for ten years
he went berserk. I ended up being congratulated

79

on my efforts to hold the business we have, and when I put in my solution,
you know, all that stuff about re-directing our attack to the fringes of the
market, and developing the Computer Stationery side, that clinched it.
Naturally, Mathieson of Printing and Packaging was enthusiastic and our
friend Stanley Benham was the perfect confirmation man. Such a nice fellow
Stanley Benham?'

     The question hung, but I can't get down to that level of sycophancy.
L'Estrange concluded, 'I think those falling sales might well have been all
to the good, another month and the slide could well have been difficult to
stop.'

     L'Estrange took a cigarette from the black box on his desk; he did not
offer me one. After lighting, he said: 'Got your diary on you?'

I produced my pocket diary.

     'Good. Make a note of these dates; October twenty-fifth and sixth. You
are meeting Mathieson, Brunzy, and Drury, the Print Sales Manager.

     L'Estrange scratched the blunt tip of his nose. 'Drury could turn out to
be a dead wood, I've a hunch about him. Look him over. If he is not our man,
chop him. Offer him a district manager's job in another division.... If he
gets proud and ups and leaves us, that's another problem solved. Wrap it up
well though, we don't want to get sued for wrongful dismissal or any of that
caper. As long as you offer him something we are in the clear. You know, an
Irishman's rise a bigger title perhaps and less money. Get someone in who can
really produce the business, a real sales professional.'

'Right, sir.'

     Personalized instructions were the nearest L'Estrange ever got to being
complimentary: the praise done with, there followed the take-down: 'I hear
you are rubbing Personnel up the wrong way.'

     I felt rebellious. He was hardly being grateful. I didn't reply. He
tried again. 'Well?'

     I thought: You old bastard I do your thinking for you, get you out of a
tight spot, and you get starchy on a minor issue. Without thinking further I
replied, 'Well, what?' There was a truculence in my voice that I could not
erase.

     The big chin lifted. 'This stupid warring has got to stop the feeling
has even extended to John Ritchie and myself. I gather you start most of the
controversies, always bucking policy and acting independently. I want no more
of it; for the next three

80

months we play it softly. If Personnel want to send an idiot to Grimsby or
some other bloody hole let them.'

     I looked out through the window, the older man added, 'Do you understand
me?' 'Of course.' I choked back the JBL. Jameson had shopped me and Mitchell
must have fed Jameson my comments. I'll fix that heap when the opportunity
comes. Every dog has his day, only some have two.

     L'Estrange was saying: 'There are limes,' Mr Marler, when your natural
pugnacity exceeds your self-preservation instinct. I might, as you put it,
turn on you.'

     L'Estrange switched on his recording machine, pulled across a
correspondence tray and began to dictate; the audience was over. I passed
Hilda without a word. Hilda who had shopped me. L'Estrange has probably had
the lot, word for word. The bit about the dandruff us well. She's a typical
Grenfell bird

she'll sleep with you, but one word against the hierarchy and she'll shop
you, and for what? A subsidiary company directorship when she's fifty? No,
it's simply a question of training she's been there too long L'Estrange is a
king of the dandruff men.

     I was glad to get back to my own office. I opened a window and enjoyed
the rush of cold air. Across the rooftops and down, were the grey greens of
the Park. My cigarette burned down to the forefinger knuckle. I dropped it
with an oath and sucked the reddened patch. The world was going quietly mad.

     Joan announced the first applicant and T reached for the file. The first
document was the Berureuther Personality Inventory. By twelve the interviews
were over and I'd made up my mind about the candidates.

     After lunch I went looking for Jameson. Personnel, with its rows of
mist-glass interviewing rooms was on the third. Jameson is young and
gangling, his roseate face is almost hairless and the brown hair brushed
forward on a slant is as smooth as a shop-dummy wig. His manner was cool.
'What did you think of them, Mr Marler?'

'Not much?'

'I thought Crimmond our man.'

'Really ?'

'He did well on the Klein Test.'

'Bully for him. Pity he hasn't sold a bit more stuff.'

     'Is that important? I mean there is a different job specification for
manager and salesman.'

'How can he hold the respect of salesmen working for him

81

without a first-class sales record?'

     'In my view that is not an essential. Crimmond's personal qualities
outweigh....' I thought: Jameson is a bloody maniac. He's obsessed by his own
methodology.

     He expounded and I sniped. Compromise became impossible. Jameson's
exasperation flowered into temper, and I revelled in a newly found spirit of
anarchy. In desperation, Jameson suddenly discovered another appointment, and
with the matter still unresolved, I wandered slowly back up the stairs to my
own office. I placed my feet on the edge of the desk, tilted the swivel chair
and slept. I must have adjusted my position, because when I awoke, the THINK
plaque had toppled off my desk.

     I was still asleep when Joan brought in the afternoon tea; I stirred to
find her staring in disbelief. She placed the tray on the window table and
closed the door behind her. I felt I ought to follow Joan and offer an
explanation. She must have thought me either sick or mad. Sipping the over-
sweet tea, I thought of the evening ahead, all gin and tonics and fatuous
chat. I was tempted not to go home, but could not find the courage to rebel.
I could miss Mass for years but not one of Elizabeth's snob round-ups! I
decided to sit quietly in a corner and have a bloody good laugh at the
fashion show. Have a jar or two first. I gave old Brunzy a buzz.

     I went into the mole corridors under Hyde Park Corner, and was swept out
into Knightsbridge with the night scurriers: bowler hats and powdered faces,
paper sellers, brief-case swingers jostled past until a side road led me
clear of the crowds. It was a quiet street with a crescent sweep of
flatfronted houses; I walked on until the streets narrowed and the houses
changed from the dignified to the picturesque. At the end of the mews stood
Brunzy's white Ford, outside the yellow door of a pub.

     Inside, Brunzy with his back to the fire, swirled the whiskey in his
glass and conducted a long-range conversation with the barman. Medlicott and
Scott conversed earnestly at the far end of the bar; it was Scott's round and
he ordered me a drink. The barman and I were old friends, and he placed the
drink in front of me as though he was in attendance on a bishop.

'Nights is drawing in now, Mr Marler.'

'They are indeed, Fonsie, they are.'

     Fonsie fingered his sandy sideboards, 'Soon be up to our ears in another
bleedin' winter, Mr Marler.'

82

'We will indeed.'

     Fonsie moved away to polish glasses, and Brunzy left the fire and came
over: the other two also joined them, and Brunzy tapped my shoulder and said
to Scott out of the corner of his mouth: 'I don't know how old Marler does
it, Scotty, he's been in here every bit of twice and the barman treats him
like royalty!'

     I didn't feel like banter. When I emptied my glass, Brunzy bought
another round. After a third large Scotch, my melancholy left me, and I
hammered the bar. 'Set them up again and one for yourself, Fonsie.'

     The talk turned to Grenfell, as it always does on such occasions;
Medlicott has Churchillian jowls and alert eyes that are one minute grey, the
next light blue. He monopolized the conversation, and I was content to
listen.

     'The profits are down, first time since the war we haven't upped them.'
Medlicott's tone was grumbling, as if he'd arrived home to find his wife had
gone to the pictures without telling him. He elaborated: 'It is part of this
take-over pattern. We should stick to fields we have experience of.
Television Rental, Constructional Buildings how ruddy diverse can you get?
You know, blokes, I'm convinced if a cut-throat, competitioncrazy market
exists, Grenfell will find it.'

     Scott stared hard at the speaker and nodded imperceptibly in my
direction. Medlicott soft-pedalled; 'I'm not being critical, it's just that
I'm concerned, I mean, this is our life, isn't it?'

Brunzy remarked. 'It's a bloody religion.'

     At one time my favourite pastime was to talk Grenfell, but now I
couldn't care less. 1 was slipping.

     Somebody bought another round and I asked for a bottle of Guinness; it
mixed horribly with the whiskey, but I took a deep pull at the dark stuff.
Scott took up the running where Medlicott had left off. 'I think you are
wrong, Frank. Where there is competition there is also ~ profitable market,
profitable that is for the efficient. Diversification of products for a small
mob wouldn't be very clever, but for people of our size and manufacturing
capacity, it must be good.'

     Scott inclined his sallow rubbery face towards me: 'Don't you agree,
Michael?' 'In some respects, yes.' I made no attempt to explain the
conditional answer. They would get no pearls from me at this session. Frank
Medlicott emptied his glass and Scott looked at his watch. He said, 'My
missus will be getting shifty we eat at seven and it's that now and I've a

83

forty-minute drive.' He picked up his bowler, made a ribald aside to Brunzy,
and then put a hand on my arm, 'Cheerio, old son.'

     Med]icott said: 'Wait for me, Frank.' They left together, and Brunzy and
I moved across and sat on high stools at the bar. Brunzy ordered two more
drinks; I picked up mine I was back on whiskey. 'Wonderful stuff this, Jerry
very relaxing for the throat. All this talk about singing beer is so much
rubbish. My old feller never had two pennies to rub together so whiskey was
never his regular drink. Mind if there was a party or a wedding, as a singing
man, he'd always manage at least a small one. Very relaxing he'd say, and
then sing like a bird.'

Brunzy smiled. 'Solmds a character.'

'He was a rum one, all right.'

     'Pity people don't have that sort of Saturday-night party these days.
Increased sophistication has its disadvantages, MicL.'

     I felt sad again, and I stared at the low ceiling. Brunzy watched me
curiously, and after a long silence said: 'You enjoy a reputation as a
mystery in the Group, the inscrutable Marler, ruthless and unpredictable.
People ask daft questions about you; how he has climbed so fast? Who does he
know? What motivates him? Does he have to go at such a killing pace? I've
always scoffed at the questions, but I think you might well turn out to be a
bloody oddity after all! You aren't even a Freemason.'

     I didn't feel like that sort of talk, so I said, 'I feel full of anarchy
tonight, lay off.'

     Brunzy was curious enough to dig: 'You know, Mick, I can't tab you with
any of them Medlicott, Scotty, Benham, and the rest. I even have the feeling
you got into the Group by mistake and that you only exchange confidences with
me because I'm a rough Aussie.'

'I've never called you that.'

     'No, but Miles Davison does, and I think you do your boozing with me for
that reason.'

     'I booze with you short-arse, because I like you. If I didn't, I
wouldn't.' I got two more drinks, I was beginning to feel warm inside. I
asked him, 'Why did you come here, Brunzy?'

     'I wanted London Agency experience. After a couple of years I was going
back to Sydney that was ten years ago. Now, I have a lush flat some fancy
furniture, and a company Zeph. Booze is easy and I've one or two birds who
don't find

84

me entirely repulsive. One might say I am pleasantly decaying away.'

'Jerry, I feel half-cut.'

     'You're all right, mate. The old class war here is a bit much at times,
Mick. I sometimes think we get on because you aren't classified.'

     'I'm accepted, and that is the main thing. If old L'Estrange knew where
I started, he'd have a fit. If he knew how I hate the master-racers in the
place, stupid gets they are, he wouldn't employ me as a van driver.'

     The glasses were full again; I felt half-cut and wondered if I could
work my way down to the bottom of the glass. I picked it bravely up and said,
'Slainte.'

     Brunzy raised his glass in salute, and said, 'You're a bit of a Mick,
aren't you?'

     'My old feller was a Paddy. I was born here. He left Ireland years ago
and never went back. Used to say the Church ran the place. He was a funny
bloke, you know the sort, Jerry, sober about twice a week. The breweries will
feel the draught now he's gone over, especially that one with the harp
trademark. He just couldn't win. The only thing he could do well was sing
that was something he could escape into. He knew more songs than any man I've
ever heard of. All the same sort mind dead square. When I was a kid, I used
to watch him shaving in the kitchen sink, lather all over his mush and a
shaving stick with a little bit of silver paper wrapped round the end,
sticking out of a chipped cup. He'd swing me a backhander and I'd hate him
then he'd sing something like "Maire my Girl" in a way that made the eyes
wet. That was a thing about him Jerry, there were times when you hated the
old sod, and other times when you loved him You just couldn't feel ordinary
about him.'

'How do you feel now he's dead?'

     'When I can put him out of mind I'm me, but when I get to thinking about
him, I find myself doing crazy things like having a dig at L'Estrange or
bawling Elizabeth out. It is as though I've been bequeathed a turn of mind. I
want to fight everything. Take no notice, Jerry, I've had too much, I'm
getting maudlin.' The birds of life were on my shoulders and pecking at my
eyes. I hadn't told an Irish joke for a week.

     Brunzy called the barman over. I said, 'No more for me, mate, I'm
rocking on my heels.' Brunzy ordered one for himself. As he waited for the
drink, he said to me, 'Let's change

85

the subject how is Elizabeth?'

     'We're heading for a bust-up; she's my biggest mistake yet. I must have
been mad to get tangled up there.'

'I thought you two got on.'

'Not any more. I could happily break her head off.'

     Brunzy picked up a folded newspaper off the bar, opened it, and began to
read the sports page. He has an unusual face, it is lopsided, like a lumpy
freak potato and only the eyes save it from absolute ugliness they are a mad
exuberant blue, and framed by black spiky lashes. I thought: I'll ask him to
the party. Elizabeth will throw a blue fit but he'll liven up the evening. I
put a hand on Brunzy's shoulder. 'Are you doing anything exciting tonight,
Jerry?'

     The small man raised his glance from the paper. 'I'm eating on my own,
then I'm going to bed early with a dirty book.'

'How about coming to a party instead?'

'You've got yourself a guest.'

     'Right, run that bus of yours into the Company garage and come for a
ride in a r eel car.'

     The Jaguar turned into the drive, and the bungalow looked all warmth and
yellow lights. The beat from the stereo player bounced across the lawns; the
automatic change operated and in the short silence a bird protested in the
beech hedging Leaving the warmth of the car, we shivered, there were rows of
moisture-coated cars along the drive. Brunzy hesitated. 'Mick,I'm not sure
this is such a good idea.'

I ushered him quickly into the kitchen.

     Maria was clearly uncomfortable in a tight black dress, and beads of
perspiration were trapped along a downy upper lip. She smelled the whiskey on
us and looked apprehensive. I waved at Brunzy. 'Maria, meet Jeremiah Brunzy.'

     Brunzy bowed, and took off has raincoat. I explained to him 'Maria is a
Pole, one of the Irish of Europe. She's the only human being in this museum.'

     I tripped over my own feet and was on my knees barking like Mrs
Reynolds' dachshund; Maria fled.

     I got up reluctantly. and brushed the dust from my trouser knees. I was
shattered. A few more and the lid, I knew, would fly clean off.

     Brunzy put a hand on my sleeve, 'Get a grip, Mick, you'll be in dead
trouble with your missus.'

We went through together; in the sitting-room were shuff

86

linggroups of people. Elizabeth had been arranging dishes on the buffet
tables set up in the dining-room; as we came in, she turned. I saw her then,
not as a husband, but as a marketing man. She has a complicated beauty; above
the unusual facial hollows the flesh is as smooth as river pebbles; the eyes
are very grey and widely set. Under the wall lights, her hair was a fine net
of that dark November sunlight. The velvet Alice-band matched exactly the
flax blue of her dress. I wondered how the face would look on one of our
half-page adverts. She'd wow the Express readers. The ram side of me looked
down at her legs; their finely muscled calves always drew my glance. Looking
up at her face I saw that she was furious with me. She began by ignoring me,
and extended a manicured hand to my companion: 'Jerry, how wonderful to see
you.'

Like hell, said the expression on Brunzy's face.

'Where has Michael been hiding you all these months?'

     She placed a glass in his hand, and took me out of earshot. I tried hard
to look unconcerned as she said: 'Where the devil have you been? I've been
telling people you had been delayed at the office until Miles Bishton came in
and said he'd seen you leaving at five.'

'Fat bastard.'

'Michael!'

'Well, he is. That is the sort of thing he would say.'

     The anger in her face was replaced by indifference and she sauntered
away towards the Hortons. Normally I would have followed; on this occasion I
took a glass of whiskey from the passing Maria, and turned away. I wasn't
hiding my feelings from the likes of the Hortons any more. Sue Horton is
plump and snobbishly amiable, and her husband Graham is lighthearted and
ineffectual with a cutaway chin and no capacity for conversation.

     When Brunzy moved to my side, I said: 'Steer clear of the pair Elizabeth
is currently lumbered with they are deadly.' I nodded to an animated group at
the record player 'They are a good lot.'

     Brunzy led the way across and after the formalities were over, he lost
his stiffness and regaled the group with anecdotes of the advertising world.

     I'd heard it all many times before and I detached myself from Brunzy's
audience and got myself another drink. From a low chair near the stereo unit,
I looked at the setting; the faces were flat and well fed, the suits were
hand-stitched and the 87

glasses were Stuart crystal. The chat floated over to me: Bishton on sailing-
-his was a detailed sermon to a captive circle of polite faces: Spencer on
cars his irritable reddish moustache waving menacingly as he expounded: drop-
head coupes, Motor Show, Oulton Park, parking-meters in the West End, his
rallying experiences. I had a quiet giggle, I'd tailed Spencer on the by-
pass, but never for long.

     Jerry came across with a plate of food. 'Eat this, Mike, you can't drink
all night on an empty stomach.'

     I helped myself to an open sandwich. 'Thanks, Jerry! How are you making
out?'

'I'm doing all right.'

     'I thought you might. Old Hammond speaks his mind, doesn't he?'

'That's putting it mildly. I appreciate plain speaking though.'

'I saw you appreciating Maisie Hammond.'

Jerry grinned, 'She's a right darling.'

     A movement at the door caught my eye. I said, 'This will be an
experience for you, Jerry.'

     Elizabeth was walking towards us, followed by a patently affluent pair
of new arrivals. The woman was the dominant partner; she was tall with good
legs and small, sharp breasts. False, for a pound she's the salt-cellar sort.
Immediately she seemed to assume control of all the females in the room

assumption of command was in the arrogant jut of her roman nose. Her wide
mouth carried that resolution that knocks us males back on our heels. Inside
the frame of black straight hair, the face was expressive of a rich charm
without a shred of charity. She obviously made Brunzy feel nervous, and he
looked quickly at me. The woman's companion spoke first 'Good evening
Michael.'

I inclined my head slightly, 'Edmund.'

     I gave a half bow, 'Joanna.' I placed a hand on Brunzy's arm; 'Jerry
Brunzy, a close friend of mine. Jerry is the mad genius behind our highly
effective advertising campaigns,'

     Edmund Garnham forced a brief waxy smile, and seemed not to see Brunzy's
outstretched hand. The little man thrust his hand into his jacket pocket and
I realized that it was the only occasion I'd seen the fire-proof marketing
man embarrassed. Joanna talked amusingly, but Brunzy, now acutely sensitive,
seemed to tune immediately to the patronage inherent in her friendliness. For
my part, I controlled a sudden lunatic impulse to snatch at Garnham's well-
cut lapels and pull 88

his pink face on to the point of my own black bullet head. Garnham looked
heavy eyed he was going to fat. With relish, I imagined the resulting mess.

     Joanna, with Elizabeth a fawning junior partner at her shoulder, moved
across to an animated group of ladies. I saw her reach for a drink; her
forearm was beautifully white and rounded. I pulled my eyes away, and
listened silently to the talk of Garnham. Garnham pushed out his second-stage
paunch, and hooked a thumb in his waistcoat pocket; it was a characteristic
stance.

     'How's business, Michael? See your profits are slightly down on the
half-yearly.' I had a go back. 'What do you expect? We are in a phase of
expansion. When we finish modernizing some of the deadbeat set-ups we have
bought out recently, when we get some method and organization into them, and
put them on a profit-making footing, our idea of a profit, then you will find
we have only paused for breath. We are still on the move. You can't spend the
sort of money we have on new capital equipment and slam up profits hard, all
in the same trading period.'

     Edmund Garnham moved his lips and emitted a marriage of sigh and hiss;
he padded away and came back with another whiskey. Brunzy enquired
innocently, 'Who are you with, Mr Garnham?'

     Garnham lifted a silky eyebrow, 'Garnham Industries.' He turned slightly
away from Brunzy, dismissing him with a slight body movement that put Brunzy
outside the conversation.

     I emptied my glass; [ felt drunk, and I saw the hurt on Brunzy's red
face. I put my head back and laughed; there was a rip-saw edge of coarseness
in the sound; slapping Brunzy's shoulder, I said, 'Don't let old Garnham
upset you boy, he's like that, the most pompous bastard I've ever met. There
is nothing particularly special about you, he insults everyone. He can't get
over the fact that he has got some loot. Just because his missus tells him
he's superman, he thinks he is. Jerry, all you have to do with people like
Edmund is to imagine that they haven't any clothes on. When you stop
laughing, you realize there was nothing to be impressed by in the first
place.'

     My voice carried across the room, and I realized that it was not as
noisy as it had been. Somebody tactfully turned up the stereo. Garnham was
walking away, his chin in the air; he stumbled as his foot caught a rug
fringe; I jeered. Gradually, the talk built up again, swirling through the
bungalow, slow at first, and then reaching a forgetting.

89

     A sun-tanned girl smiled apprehensively at me, and brushed past. She
knelt before the record cabinet and examined the stacked L.P.s; her choice
made, she slid the doors back and a few moments later a beat rhythm sorboed
across the long room The steady alcoholic consumption was affecting Brunzy;
he said loudly, 'What a little darlin', what a tan.'

     I gave him another drink to shut him up and I said, 'Take this you old
slobberer, and take your leching eyes off, she's old Bishton's daughter.'

'Oh.'

'That was my reaction, it baffles me too.'

     A car door slammed, loud on the night air; with forefinger and thumb, I
prised a gap between the slatted blinds and watched the Garnhams' black
Lancia disappear down the frosted drive. 'What's on?'asked Brunzy.

     'The Garnhams are leaving. I expect that man-eater Joanna has shopped me
to Liz.'

     'I feel responsible; I'm losing my touch, when I rise to the bait of the
Garnhams of this life, it's a bad sign. It was all daft and unnecessary.'

     'Don't worry about it, Jerry. That pot-bellied master-racer has been
asking to have the rise taken out of him for years. I've never been sloshed
enough to do it before....' We subsided into rollicking laughter.

     'What's the joke?' The voice came from behind my shoulder. I turned to
find Graham Horton looking up at me. I was tipsy, 'Aha, Graham, yes, the
joke. I was rude to friend Garnham.'

     Horton said courageously, 'I don't find it funny.' I grew avuncular;
'You, of course, wouldn't. Your sort really don't know what time of day it
is. You've never been short of a shilling in your dull miserable little Home
Counties life. You think it is wonderful of Mr Garnham to belong to the same
golf club as you. Go away and get stuffed!' I was having to concentrate hard
to keep my head clear, and my limbs moved jerkily. I realized I'd not seen
Elizabeth for hours.

     A staggering Brunzy came back with two more drinks; there was no fire in
the whiskey, and Brunzy, too tired to stand, collapsed into an armchair.

     I looked at my watch--it was twenty minutes past twelve but there were
no signs of an impending exodus; the endless chatter spun, and the cigarette
smoke hung; the music stopped temporarily as the records changed. I listened
to the words; 'I

90

mean, Mary, who ever would have thought so ... she came to coffee regularly
for months, and the boys were so friendly. You've met her husband, of course?
Tall chap, green Zodiac.... What an escape, I was on the point of asking them
to dinner, of all things. I just found out in time.'

     I was intrigued; I looked hard at the speaker; she was brownhaired and
maturely attractive; she held herself as though she knew she was good. Her
companion was saying, 'I knew, of course.'

     The brown-haired one pouted; 'Thank you, thank you very much! You might
have told me.'

     From the angle I was sitting, I could not see the face of the other
talker and I had the feeling that if I twisted round in my chair, the
discussion might be prematurely ended, so I curbed my curiosity, and listened
to the hidden one explaining: 'She drives all the way to Prescott in that red
Mini, simply to take the boy to that Catholic school there. When I discovered
that, I dropped her completely. I mean, Bruce and I haven't many biases but
Catholics really are the end. I am scrupulously polite, of course, but I
haven't asked her into the house since the boy told Jeremy where he went to
school.'

Mercifully, the music came again and shut it all out.

     An urge to urinate came, and I hopscotched madly out into the hall, and
pushed gratefully at the cloakroom door. On the way back, I saw the red
telephone on the long hall table, and I pulled back the leather cover of the
message book Elizabeth insisted on keeping. In her neat round script was the
news: 'Funeral. 12 noon Monday. Must see you before then. Friday if possible
Kath. Ring SUGden 5094 before 10 p.m.' I looked at my watch; it was twelve-
thirty; Kath would have left the Donnelly house. There was no point in
ringing. I decided to go the following morning. Why hadn't she told me there
had been a call? I know I should have looked in the book it was part of her
house-training course, like shutting off the radiators, and putting out the
garage lights. A message about Da's funeral, and she still stuck to her
rules. The whiskey rose in my throat; I choked back an urge to vomit, and
shuffled uncertainly out into the hall, my outstretched fingers steadying me
by reaching out for the wall. They seemed to belong to someone else. I began
to sing. My voice lacks Da's high sweetness, but it is not unpleasing.
Alcohol slurred the words, but they were still recognizablc, and I held my
own with the record player.

91

'It hung above the kitchen fire, its barrel long and brown,

And I with all a 60y's desire climbed up to take it down,

Me Father's eyes with anger Hashed, he said what have you done,

You should have left it where it was, that's my old Fenian Gun....'

     The song faltered as I struggled to remember the verse; my fingers
slipped and [ pitched forward on to the carpet.

     I crawled into the sitting-room on all fours, heads turned and a woman
giggled. My searching fingers closed on a tankard pushed half under a sofa,
and I skimmed the pewter wristily at shin-height in the direction of the
giggle. A woman began to shout hysterically; feet danced in front of my eyes,
jerking like marionettes. One of them stamped heavily on my outstretched
supporting hand, but I felt no pain; a splinter of glass nicked my cheek, and
Brunzy's short legs began to spin away into mist; I retched, and wondered if
the vomiting would ever stop.

     Later, I sat on my bed and watched Brunzy unlace my shoes; the battered
face receded and advanced alternately. Worse was to follow, for the end of
the bed began to rise and fall; the movement was slow at first but gathered
momentum; again, I wanted to be sick.

- 1

92

FIVE

The sunbeam was pocked with dust, and yellow grey; it caught my waking eye.
Heaving myself into a sitting position, I discovered that with the exception
of collar and trousers, I was still fully clothed. My ribs and stomach ached
and my mouth saliva tasted foul; beige stains patterned my waistcoat and the
room stank of stomach bile. I looked about me; the place was chaotic, the
carpet was rocked and soiled, there were bottles stewed into a crazy tableau,
and my discarded collar hung crazily on the door handle. An island of order
in the flood was Elizabeth's bed; it had not been slept in the lavender
bedspread was smooth and the sheeting fresh and crisp. I began to wonder, was
she in the spare room? Where was Brunzy? Where was Mrs Reynolds? I laughed
loudly as a coarse and absurd possibility struck me.

     Progress to the bathroom was funereal, and I felt as if a roadmender's
drill had been at work on my shoulders; my eyes burned with hot grits. After
filling the bath with cold water, I pulled off my stinking clothes and slid
in. The icy shock affected my breathing and for seconds I coughed
uncontrollably; it took considerable will power to stay in for a matter of
minutes. Finally I plunged my head, open-eyed, under the water, and then
stepped out; I sat on the linen chest until my breathing became normal,
shaved and dressed, headache gone and body glowing. I went in search of
Elizabeth.

     The kitchen clock showed five minutes to ten, deciding it must be wrong,
I switched on the radio: the five-to-ten hymn, succeeded by an unearthly
voice, told me no error had been made. I wandered from room to room; the
bungalow was as quiet as a church in the middle afternoon.

Brunzy came in from the garage; 'Rip van Winkle wakes.'

I didn't feel very humorous: 'Get stuffed.'

     'After you, said the Duchess, stirring her tea with her left hand.'

     'Cut out the clever stuff, Brunzy. Where is Elizabeth or Maria for that
matter?'

     Brunzy looked down the lawns and into the birch copse. 'Elizabeth has
left you, mated.'

93

     I felt like a man who has been walking in a tunnel, a warns and dry
tunnel, but still a tunnel, who finds himself, without warning, outside and
in the sunlight. Brunzy continued, 'Maria is with Mrs Campbell in the
village. Elizabeth paid her up, she clears on Friday. Any advance on Maria?'

'My Ma-in-law?'

     'Well, last night you proved to her dear daughter that you were
everything she made you out to be. Mrs Reynolds doesn't like you much.'

     I slumped down heavily on the kitchen stool and lit a cigarette. I
looked at Brunzy, he was grinning. He said solemnly, 'You can consider the
Briarfield Branch of the I.R.A. to be disbanded. If you get desperate, there
is a spare kip in Maida Vale.'

     I felt hungry, and said so. Brunzy's eyebrows lifted: 'How basic can you
get? Your missus left you a few hours ago and you shout for grub.'

     'Well, life goes on. It was inevitable anyway.' I thought about
inevitability. We'd married in a rush. On the face of it we had certain
things to offer. I needed an executive's teapourer, the ideal company wife, a
touch of class and all that jazz. She was a massive part of my personal
smoke-screen. She, well, she's strongly sexed, and she'd never been in bed
with the likes of me before. I did things to her, that her sort wouldn't
think of if they lived for a thousand years. But it wasn't enough. I was glad
it was ended. No, not glad, relieved.

     Brunzy helped himself to a cigarette from my packet. I took no notice, I
was still considering the inevitability, like a brass Buddha watching his
navel. For two months the marriage had functioned. It took her that time to
get me placed, then after that I couldn't win.

     There are grades of sneer. The southern working classes she felt nothing
about, but she enjoys a good giggle at the efforts to Join up; 'Chez Nous or
'Case Mia', Brixton to Bromley in a generation. Provincial townies? They're
worth a laugh. Scots are tolerable, Welsh--socially they don't even start.
For a good superior feeling, though, the Jew and the Irish Catholic. Be born
one of those and you've had it. I'd married a contempt that was ingrained and
centuries old. Mention Ireland to my mother-in-law and she smiles a secret
smile and talks about lavatories at the bottom of the garden.

     Brunzy cooked the breakfast, and I began to clear up the mess in the
bedroom--the remainder of the bungalow had been

94

cleaned. As we ate, Brunzy revealed that Joan Blackstaffe had
been ringing regularly since eight-thirty; L'Estrange wanted
me. When we finished breakfast, I told Brunzy, 'Leave the
plates and let's get out of here.'

	In the car, Brunzy remarked, 'That was quite a performance
last night.'

	I didn't remember much. 'Tell me about it. I know I got
pretty bloody minded towards the end.'

'Amen to that.'

	'I remember chucking a tankard. Some silly cow was having
a good laugh at me.'

	Brunzy's tone was admonitory. 'Dead clever stuff that was!
Do you remember what happened after that?'

	'Not much except that you unlaced my shoes, and the end of
the bed moved up and down.' The Jaguar touched eighty.
Brunzy asked: 'You don't remember bawling Elizabeth out?'

'No.'

'Or belting that chap Horton?'

'No.'

	Brunzy looked at me in disbelief. But I was being honest, I
didn't.

	He had another try: 'Remember telling your ma-in-law she
was a rock-hard snob with the sort of sex-pull that rubs the
genitals off a man?'

'Blimey, I bet Bishton choked at that one! '

	'He did, and you lashed him one over the headpiece with a
framed Piper print. Youll get yourself sued for assault, my
bully boy.'

	'Not a chance, old Bishton is much too publicity conscious
for that. Mind, he will have given chapter and verse to
L'Estrange by now.'

'That must be why Joan keeps ringing,' observed Brunzy.

	I said thoughtfully, 'It's a wonder I didn't get filled in by one
of those athletic golfing types.'

	Brunzy was full of grudging admiration: 'When a scab your
size starts throwing glasses and quoting Mangan, you can soon
clear a room.'

	'It's a wonder they didn't send for the coppers; I haven't
been on a bender like that for years.'

'That's all too obvious, you'd still be inside.'

'How'd it all end?'

	'I talked you into the bedroom, and then smartly locked the
door. When you finished shouting your head off, I went in and

95


pulled your boots off. You had your head down in no time at
all.'

	I rubbed my chin. I hadn't had a very good shave. I thought
I ought to thank Brunzy: 'You must have been a great help,
Brunzy....'

	'I was good, boy, really good. I calmed old Bishton down,
talked about the Company's image, the press, and that cods-
wallop. I gave out to the assembled mob about your father
dying and you being emotionally unbalanced and all that
malarky. I had 'em practically weeping. Mind you, Mick,
socially you are stone dead; that was it, finis!'

	We didn't speak again until the car reached the foot of the
Chiswick Flyover, then Brunzy told me: 'If you want to get in
touch with Elizabeth, she will be at her mother's place. Mrs
Reynolds told me to tell you.'

'You saw her then ?'

	'Briefly-she was pecking about in the debris with a face like
a prison inspector. Wack, you were a one-man demolition
gang.'

'An inherited aptitude, Jerry.'

	I parked the car facing the teak plaque that carried my
initials: afterwards we walked briskly across the patio of
coloured cement slabs, and into the building. As I stepped out
of the lift, Joan was waiting, her lean face tight and anxious.

	'JBL has been after you for hours and hours. Mrs Greening
has been ringing down every few minutes.'

'Pity she's nothing better to do.'

'People are saying things, Mr Marler.'

	'Make two cups of coffee, bring them into my office, and tell
me all about it.' Her heels clicked away ahead of him, by the
time I turned into the corridor, she had disappeared. When I
finally sat down at my desk, I pushed aside the morning mail,
and opened the sports page of the Telegraph. Joan came
through with the coffee and the telephone shrilled again. 'Let
the bloody thing ring'' says I.

	She smiled nervously. 'Now gal, what do you know?' I
asked.

The news gurgled out. It was dike tipping up a sauce bottle.

	'Mary Paget told me Mr Bishton went to see Mr L'Estrange
early ... very early, I mean. Mr Bishton has sticking plaster
on his face. ..'

I could not resist the snigger. 'Has he been to see the MD?'

'Of course not-Mr Moyle is in Chicago.'

96

'That's a bit of jam, anyway.'

'There's something else....'


'Tell me.'

	She lowered her head and became confidential. 'Judy Mc-
Lean, on the switchboard, told me that Mr Bishton was on to
his solicitors this morning-for over half an hour. She says I
was to tell you and that you'd guess what it was about.'

	I sat back and stretched my arms upwards-I felt satanic. It
was a great comfort to know I'd so many spies about.

	I finished the coffee and told Joan to ring through to Mrs
Greening; I took the receiver from her: 'Morning Hilda, my
darling, shopped anybody lately?'

	There was silence at the other end. I added, 'It's all right
love, I don't hold it against you, it's an occupational disease.'

	She said, as if I'd not spoken, 'JBL wants to see you right
away.'

	There was a click. As I replaced the receiver, I noticed that
Joan had returned to her own office. Five minutes later when I
walked into Hilda Greening's room, she looked finely drawn
and there was a burn of colour, high on each cheekbone. I
thought her hatchet-faced. She nodded in the direction of
L'Estrange's door. 'Go straight in.'

The mad mood was still on me. 'Give us a kiss, first.'

'Don't be daft.'

	I knocked and went in at the call; L'Estrange was wearing a
blue polka-dot bow: there was no expression in his face and
the only movement was in the eyes-they blinked rapidly
under the strain of keeping the rest of his face absolutely still.
The sod looked battery-operated. He said regally, 'Sit down,
Michael.'

	I sat, and crossed my long legs; the other man stared
pointedly at the suede boot revealed by the action. I watched
L'Estrange pull across a desk pad and study it; when I volun-
teered nothing, he said: 'Miles Bishton has been to see me.'

'Oh?'

	L'Estrange's voice was gentle. 'Michael, have I ever inter-
fered before in your private life?'

'No.'

	I thought: You don't allow me to have much of one, Mr
Push-Hard. L'Estrange was talking on.... 'Have you gone
quite mad. You assault a director of this group of companies.
You behave like an ill-bred lout. You get yourself disgustingly

97

drunk. Bishton is contemplating legal action.'

	I wondered what L'Estrange was contemplating. He ranted
on: 'Michael, you obviously don't realize this, but an executive
needs to be more than just-good at his job. He is also an
example setter. He must say to himself, to quote a phrase, "I
am not as other men-'.'


	Inwardly I cringecl: L'Estrange as a homespun philosopher
was too much. I flung tact aside: 'What you mean JBL is that
the great crime is to be found out, in showing the other
merchants that you are just as bad or good as they are. So I got
drunk, I quarrelled with my wife, I thumped somebody, per-
haps I cuffed up the Plastics King, what the hell has this to do
with Grenfell? Bishton was at my place last night, not as a
member of the Group, but as a private individual at the invita-
tion of my social climbing mother-in-law. If I were you, JBL, I
would not bring the Group into this-it might be a dangerous
precedent.'

	The eyes of the dear Executive Sales Director seemed,
momentarily, to go out of focus. I thought he was for clobber-
ing me. His tone was hysterical: 'You wouldn't be telling me
what to do, would you, Marler?'

	I shrugged. I didn't care any more about anything; all I
wanted was out. 'I was only pointing out the facts, JBL.'

	He said softly: 'I'll break you, young Marler. I'll finish you.
I don't care how bloody good you are, no man is indispens-
able.'

	I felt sarcastic, so I let him have it hard. 'Suit yourself. Only
remember I know the business backwards. I've propped you for
some years-I've forgotten more about the selling game than
the likes of Bishton are ever likely to know, and there is some-
thing else, there are at least three major combines in direct
competition. They've tried to buy me before. I'll do all right for
my little self-yours will be the loss....'

	I listened to myself and felt as if I were floating outside my
physical presence. I was amazed at my own audacity.
L'Estrange was saying '.. . we won't be blackmailed, Marler,
consider yourself under suspension until Tuesday. Mr Moyle
will deal with you, when he comes back from Stateside.'

	As I walked out, ]'Estrange was starting up again: 'An
executive is a man with obligations, a man who sets certain
standards . . .'

	He was rehearsing it for Tuesday, he knew he had to be
good, and he knew I could pull it off with Moyle. If he had

98

~ -: .

been certain of the way Moyle would jump, he would have
done a lot more than suspend me. On reflection, I liked my
angle that Bishton came as a private individual It was a good
angle.

	As I left the lift, a man in ailing middle-age blocked the
path.

'Good morning, MJM.'

	My smile was no more than perfunctory, and I moved into a
sidestep.

	'Thank you for arranging that job in Public Relations for
me.'

I placed the man. 'Hello, Mr Keresley; settled in yet?'


	'Not really, sir. I've been over at Willesden clearing up.
Rotten job that after thirty years in a place. You go into bare
offices and there are ghosts inside. Only this morning, I found
in a desk drawer a photo of our sales office staff, taken in
thirty-seven; I looked a lot younger then. It's all sad, but then
it's a changing world and amalgamations bring casualties as
well as the. . .'

	I was embarrassed; I interjected swiftly: 'Sorry, Keresley, I
must dash. I'll be away for a couple of days-when I get back,
come up for a brief chat.'

	As Keresley stepped into the lift, I shouted at the closing
doors, 'Hope you enjoy the new job.'

	As I hurried down to the car, I thought again of Keresley;
the ex-Sales Manager of Abell's. One of the old school, extro-
verted and lay preaching. The sort who calls his reps
'travellers'. To him the marketing concept is still a friendly
discussion between two business gentlemen. Personality and no
methodology. Grenfell have tarted the products up but still sell
them under the old quality name in ten times the quantity. Abell
Garden Works, proudly opened in nineteen-o-dot by a long
dead and long forgotten nob, is now a raw material stores. The
production crew got laid off, to a man-ten weeks screw and
back-pension. I sent the Sales Force to the breakers. Only a
scraping were employable--my men, Keresley had called them
the rest, compensation-pocketed, had taken their meagre
talents elsewhere. Keresley had been a thorny one-too senior
for peremptory departure, and too old to take the current pres-
sure. The solution was the creation of a niche in Public Rela-
tions, laying on the booze at exhibitions, taking customers on
factory tours; a smaller screw, a smaller motor-car, but a living

99

of sorts. Anyway I d my own problems. I put Keresley out of
mind. In another twenty years some bright young man who, in
the opinion of the directors, fartsperfume, might be trying to
retire me off.

	As the Jaguar flashed down the Cromwell Road extension, I
weighed up the morning's events. I could, I decided, have been
much more tactful than I'd been; L'Estrange made a bad
enemy. There was no pang for Elizabeth, and I felt only a
curious detachment about the impending meeting with Moyle;
I'd get away with it, of course, but I asked myself, did I par-
ticularly want to?

	Turning off the by-pass into Briarfield, I saw Elizabeth's
lavender coupe waiting to filter out. Mrs Reynolds sat at the
wheel; the wife looked pale. Without a second glance, I
accelerated down the lane. It was quiet inside the bungalow;
wardrobe doors were open and Elizabeth's clothes had gone;
also missing, were books and records. I noted the missing per-
sonal items; a lacquered cigarette box, a Russell Flint, the
coachman clock; there were only dust-free patches to signpost
each looting. As I packed an overnight bag, I felt depressed; it
was an uneven fracture. At the end of the drive, I wound down
a side window and looked back. Should fetch a few thousand
quid, I reflected.

	It was good to be away on the open road, travelling fast; it
began to rain again, a gentle rain that painted fresh and
mysterious greens into the roadside landscapes. Henley came

and went in a scald of wet slates and Thames water; the traffic
lights blinked redly through the steady downpour and then I
was away, chasing hard for Oxford and the by-pass. I did not
stop until the old house was reached. I had to park halfway
across the pavement since Marne Road was too narrow to
give vehicles a clear passage beside a parked car. I thought the
Jaguar looked incongruous in the run-down street. As I left
the car, small boys, jersied, booted, and lumber-jacketed
gathered about it, dabbing sticky fingers on the chrome. The
entry smelled of fish and chips. It was Friday, of course.

	The kitchen was packed; mother, Kath, Aunt Dorothy,
Aunt Tess, and Mabel Stokes-they hung like cardiganed
locusts about the stove. As the food came up they moved to
the stools and the little kitchen table. Mother worked the chip
pan and Kath dished out. When T opened the door, all the
faces swung and everyone spoke at once Aunt Tess-what

100

was it Da used to say? A gob like a loud hailer and a frame
like a brick carsey, she beat down the rest. 'Mick, you do look
well.'

'Thanks, Aunt.'

	She turned to Ma, 'Doesn't he look grand, Elsie, doesn't he
just? I always said to Dad, your young Mick would do well
for himself.'

	The broad tabby-cat head swung back to me with all the slow
menace of a gun turret: 'And how's that classy wife that is so
pretty, but who we've been kept away from, young Mick?'

	Uncomfortably, I adjusted the set of my tie and pretended
not to hear. Ma played Grace Darling, and pushed me into the
parlour, with: 'You look tired, son. I'll bring you a cup of tea
through.'

At the door, she cocked her head. 'Had your dinner yet?'

'No, Ma.'

	When she disappeared I thought Anything in this house that
is hot is 'dinner'. Anything cold is 'tea'. It's a simple system
anyway.

	The chips were sharp-edged and golden, and the halibut was
a white cutlet in thick batter. If old Bishton had seen me
shovelling that lot, he'd a been out in boils. Before I finished,
Aunt Tess came through from the kitchen and sat down
heavily. I heard the sough of protest from the old settee.
Her manner was inquisitorial; she began: 'Pity about your
Da.'

'Yes.'

'Up for the funeral?'

'Obviously.'

'Heard you wasn't coming until Monday.'

'Heard dead wrong then, didn't you?'

'Same old Mick.'


	I ignored her and took the empty plate through to the
kitchen. When I got back, she was sucking noisily at her teeth
and fishing inside a voluminous handbag; all black plastic and
brass-gold clips. Her fat hand appeared clutching a packet of
Park Drive. 'Fag?'

	'Have one of these,' I replied, taking out my case. She was
insistent and I took a slim tube from the crumpled packet of
ten. When I snapped on the flame of the gas lighter, I saw the
hairs along her top lip shine briefly before the light was killed. I
lit my own, I wasn't used to the taste.

Aunt Dorothy, with her gentle horsey face and tired hands,

101

came through from the kitchen; her dress was a series of
brocade swathes, and she was as hop-pole as the last time. She
has the face seen at its best in English Sunday Schools, sad and
worn, but eminently respectable in the nicest sense of the word.
She had always been a soft touch when I was a kid, she'd
always listen and then would shell out. She said, 'I'm sorry
about your father, Michael-we'll all miss him. Uncle Perc is
having a day off on Monday, said he couldn't miss John Joe's
funeral.'

	She always calls me Michael, never Mick like the rest. Aunt
Tess enquired: 'How is Perc keeping, then?'

	'Quiet, quiet you know, Tess, looking forward to drawing his
pension in a couple of years. Talking of buying a bungalow in
the country when he packs it up at the depot....'

	As the women talked, I thought of Uncle Perc; a little geezer
with a centre parting and a Sacred Heart button-hole. Chief
Clerk at the bus depot, who had begun as a conductor on the
Gloucester Road trams in the 'twenties. Da hadn't liked him
much. Perc was a convert, and was now an authority on
things Catholic; he had even exasperated Madden, who was
heard to remark in the Men's Club one Sunday lunchtime-
'That Percy Williams, good man that he is, is more Catholic
than the Pope.' Aunt Dorothy is my mother's sister and this
means that Perc is tolerated, if not entirely accepted. There are
more CTS pamphlets in his back parlour than in the Cathedral
bookstall, and that evangelical smile empties whole tables in
the depot canteen. Quite a card, our Perc.

	When Ma came through from the kitchen, she looked pale
and pinched-up about the mouth, Kath had an arm across her
shoulders, and they chatted aimlessly. Kath nodded in the
direction of the now empty kitchen and I followed her out. She
leaned against the stove and asked: 'Do you want to hear
about the inquest?'

'Of course.'

	'That Coroner's Court gave me the creeps-stone corridors
and bobbies all over the strop.' She pulled a face, 'Were a bit of
a let down really. They didn't want to know. It were all over
their faces, a pub punch-up, that's how they expect a man like
Da to die. The verdict was Death from Natural Causes.'

'Impossible! '

	'Read it for yourself.' She handed me a late edition of the

previous evening's local paper. An obscure column had been
marked at the corners with lipstick. It read:

102

GLOBE HILL MAN DIED OF HEART FAILURE
CORONER SLATES TEENAGE GANGS

	The City Coroner, Mr R. J. Bingham-Nutt, today re-
corded a verdict of Death from Natural Causes on John
Joseph Parnell Marler, a sixty-seven-year-old Irishman of
Marne Road, Globe Hill. Francis Handy, Licensee of 'The
Bricklayers Arms' told the Coroner's Court that Mr Marler
was drinking at his premises on the evening of October 26th.
Mr Handy estimated that the deceased had consumed per-
haps five or six bottles of stout, and appeared to be normal.
Shortly after nine there was a disturbance in a passage-way
leading to the back bar where Mr Marler was drinking with
a party of friends. The disturbance spread into the back bar,
and a melee ensued. The police were called and a further
fight followed on the car-park between police and rioting
teenagers. Mr Handy went on to say that he saw Mr Marler
apparently coming round after a heart attack. Dr Denis
Carolan, in evidence, said, 'I was called to the Marler home
by Mrs Marler later that night. In addition to the heart
condihon, I discovered extensive bruising on the left side of

	Dr Carolan agreed with the Coroner's report that the
bruising could have been caused by the fall following the
cardiac attack. He further agreed with the findings that the
deceased man's heart was in a very poor condition, and
added that he had been treating Marler for the past three
years.

	In his summing up, the Coroner said: 'A gang of youths
were undoubtedly behaving in a disgraceful and disorderly
fashion, without the slightest regard for anyone else. The
excitement and Mr Marler's heart condition, resulted in the
attack, the effects culminating in Mr Marler's death some
forty hours later.'

	The Coroner added that the police had received little in
the way of help when pursuing their enquiries into the dis-
turbances, but on the medical evidence, death would not
seem to have been caused by a maliciously intentional act.

	l felt disgusted and I threw down the paper. 'How bloody
comic can you get? They talk as if he'd dropped dead watch-
ing a football match.'

	The corners of Kath's lips turned down towards her heavy
chin. She said: 'They might have been talking about a pecking

103

in a hen run. Only it was our Da.'

	Right then I felt appreciative of my sister. I can never bring
myself to like her, but she's as tough as I am and burned by the
same bitterness. The good thing about when we were kids, was
that we were the Marlers against everyone else. Maire, Kath
Mick, and Ma, and the sharp end of the wedge, Da, always Da.
My sister was talking and it broke my line of thought....
'Father Madden said he would like a word with you before the
Requiem Mass on Monday.'


'He's wasting his breath.'

'Are you going to confession?'

'Why?'

'You must take Communion on Monday.'

'I'm not going up to the altar rails.'

'You must.'

'Why?'

	Kath's heavy face was contorted by an agony of worry, and
when she spoke again, her voice had an hysterical quality. 'If
you don't, you great baby, you'll break your mother's heart.
The whole damn pack of relations will turn hard against you-
they will hate you. You need never come back to this town.
They don't care much for you now-you and all your educa-
tion. Aunt Tess was saying only the other day that me church
school had been good enough for her lot. Arthur was the only
one they sent to College and look at him!'

	Church schools, ugh! February gardens, tearful and melan-
choly, and flowering three, the ability to say prayers front-
wards and back, limited literature appreciation and a recogni-
tion that we are inferior kids to the Prods-this makes us
better street fighters because of our complexes. Kath started at
me again.

	'...Michael, you must go to confession.' She spread her
freckled hands in pleading and a nerve jumped in her cheeks;
she came again : 'You must go to confession.'

	What could I say? That I can't, you nut. That I don't believe
a bloody word of it. Suppose I went? Suppose I kept the truth
out of my voice, and told them I was sorry for nothing? I'd be
committing sacrilege I said to her, simply: 'I'm not going.'

'What will you do then?'

'Shove off back to London.'

	'I'll help by saying that you were called back by your firm for
an emergency meeting . . . or perhaps that Elizabeth is ill.'

I was suddenly emphatic. 'NO, I'm browed if I'll run. I am

104

going to the old feller's funeral.'

'You can't.'

'Stop me and see how you get on ~ '

'Are you going down to collect Elizabeth on Sunday?'

'No. I've things to do up here.'

	She slanted her head and looked at me quizzically: 'You are
going to do something, aren't you, Mick?'

'Like what?'


	'Oh, never mind. Doctor Carolan was the star of the inquest
show-he wants a word with you-doesn't feel entirely happy
about the way things have panned out.'

	I began thinking about her question; was I going to do any-
thing-she was as bad as Donnelly and the Burkes. I stood up
and looked at my watch; 'Carolan opens up shop early on
Fridays if I remember correctly-it's a big day in the panel
note business.'

	Kath still had a perplexed crease over her broad-bridged
nose; she tried to smooth it away by putting the question
another way round: 'Elizabeth is coming up by train then?'

'She isn't coming up.'

'Oh?'

	'She chucked her hand in last night. Gone home to
Mummy.'

'Poor Mick.'

'Don't be bloody soft.'

'What did you do?'

'I got slosheroo, and was abusive.'

'Like father, like son.'

	I nodded towards the parlour: 'I'll say ta-ta to the camp
wenches of the Fiann next door, and then push off. This place
will sprout more beds than a Salvation Army kip by tomorrow
night, I'm staying out at an hotel.'

	The lavatory was a roughcast and whitewash cell quarried
into the outside wall; the seat was whitewood, grainy and
scrubbed. Behind the ancient pedestal was Da's canvas tool-
bag: from under its crude flap the weathered shaft of a brick
hammer stood proud, and bending down I saw dusty trowel
handles, plumb-lines, and a smooth plank with an oval hand-
hole. Beneath a net of cobwebs in the other corner were rolled
overalls, sand-brown and mortar dusted. I pulled the iron
chain and as the water flushed away, I turned and sat on the
cold stone step and stared down the weedy garden. Father had
sat in the same place on summer evenings, drawing on a thin
105

spare pipe and blowing aromatic smoke at the settling dusk. I
remembered too, the talk-mad talk, as far removed from
Marne Road as the Savoy Hotel; the Chartists, the Luddites,
the Tolpuddle Martyrs, Transportation, Davitt, and O'Dono-
van Rossa. A very well read man, the old feller-but always
the same sort of stuff; it was odd, how the idealist had
spawned the opportunist. I stood up and walked stiffly down
the entry, glad to be clear of the house. I took the car and
parked outside the doctor's house. After locking the car, I
wandered slowly up the drive between the dusty laurels, and
studied the tortuous cracks in the tired concrete.

	Ahead moved a woman; she had a shambling walk, slow and
with head hanging forward. I looked at her legs; they were
dray heavy, but above the tight black courts, her ankles were
finely turned, and the feet carrying the ample blowsy spread of
body, were ridiculously small and neat. I watched her turn into

the curve of the drive and I saw her face. It was my friend the
receptionist, and I recognised immediately the blue eyes and
black hair, the touch of the wild geese. Her cheeks still looked
as if they had been dipped in self-raising flour, and the mouth
corners were hooked sadly down. She looked as depressed as I

	She heard my heel strike stone behind her but did not turn,
and when I stepped into the square hall she had disappeared.

	I pressed the bell but nothing happened and I pressed again
until the hatch slid open.

	There was recognition in her smile and I noticed the even
spaces between her prominent teeth. Her lower lip, tight, dark,
and ripe, made me think of Victoria plums; she said in her
phoney receptionist voice, 'Mr Marler, isn't it?'

'Aye.'

'Gettin' over it now, 1 suppose?'

'It's not an easy process.'

	Her face screwed into sympathetic ugliness, 'I guessed you
was close.'

'We were.'

	She considered me objectively, her blue eyes black-ringed
and glassy: 'You pair aren't like the sort round here-though
these days we get all sorts, darkies and the lot, your hair is too
black and there's a fineness in the face that says you don't
belong.'

I grinned: 'I'm flattered.'

She had slipped the receptionist miaonw and talked easily

106

with a strong Midland accent; there was an affinity between us
that was instinctive and strong. I glanced down at her hand on
the aperture ledge; it was white and plump and ugly; there was
a wedding ring, ornate engagement ring, and an eternity ring. I
said nervously; 'Doctor Carolan wants a word with me.'

	She shook her bobbed curls; 'Not here yet.' Unbuttoning my
overcoat, I searched for my cigarette case. Before I found it
she said, 'You don't live around here any more?'

	The woman talked in questions. I replied, 'No, I'm up for
Monday's funeral.'

'London?'

'Too true, I've been there ten years.'

'You've a good job?'

'I have.'

	Unexpectedly, she said: 'You're the lucky one. I'm sick to
the eye-teeth of this place.'

I sympathised. 'I think I know what you mean.'


	'It's always the same, dreary same Regulars, prescriptions
and panel notes, I hate it.'

'Why stick it then?'

'Stay at home you mean, Mr Marler?'

'If you like.'

'That would be worse.

	I found the cigarette case; she declined a cigarette and as I
lit up, she remarked, 'My husband knows you.'

'Good for him.'

	'Name of Jack Bradley. Used to live round the corner from
your lot. In Verdun Croft. I told him about your dad, and it
was then that he said he knew the family.'

	It was twelve years since I'd seen Jack Bradley. Small fea-
tures, good looks, pink mouth, and too much hair cream. I
enquired, 'How is Jack?'

	'Well enough. He's on the track at the motor works Makes
forty quid a week when there's plenty of work about. We've a
new semi out at Wimpole on that big estate there. Jack's mum
is with us now, his dad died last year-she looks after the boy
while I'm doing this job. I don't really need to, it's not so much
the folly, though that makes me feel a bit independent-it's
just that I'd go barmy stuck in that house every night with the
old woman on about when Jack was a boy, and when she's
quiet-the sodding telly and its screaming-fit adverts....'

	She looked at me slyly and pressed her shoulders back, when
she spoke her words echoed in the deserted hallway like the

107

powdery crunch of fresh snow: 'I don't see much of Jack. He
works nights.'

	I felt the old spring-tightness curl up inside me. She had me
twigged for a ram when she first opened the daft bloody hatch
on Monday. She'd got me going. Don't be stupid all your life, I
said to myself. She was married, had a kid, and was downright
common into the bargain. She was a bit of rough, the sort of
thing I'd moved away from years before. I'll frighten her off, I
decided.

	Brutally, I stared at the massive globes strapped and im-
prisoned behind the lace front of her blouse; I lifted my head
very slowly and leered into her face; there could have been no
mistaking my expression. She avoided my eyes after the first
exchange of stares and said in a matter of fact voice: 'I leave
here about a quarter past eight and catch the bus to Wimpole
Green. I've often thought of getting off and going into the Oak
or one of those pubs on the Wittington Road-just to break the
monotony. Mind, if ever I did, I'd get crucified. Very respect-
able my neighbours. Frustrated, but respectable....'

	She coughed nervously, and on each cheek burned a round
spot of colour the size of a shilling piece.

	I knew I was committed-the boat was launched and the
tide was inside me. I heard myself say, 'Can I give you a lift in

my car tonight?'

	Her acceptance whipped back at a speed I thought indecent.
'Yes. I'll be in the doorway of the Rogers' shop just after eight.
What car do I look for?'

'A green Jag, Mark Ten.'

Inside the house a door banged. She said, 'Doctor is here.'

	She lifted the telephone and began to talk rapidly in the
professional voice I disliked. After an awkward silence, the
surgery bell sounded, and she said, 'I'll show you through.'

	On this occasion, I did not decline the offer, and the hatch
closed and she came round into the hall. I glanced raffishly at
her legs-they were muscular but well shaped; she saw the
look and smiled, and as she turned away down the corridor
she swung her hips provocatively; they were wide hips and her
buttocks were large and firm. A yard from the doctor's door
she stopped abruptly, and I cannoned clumsily into her. As she
passed me in the narrow corridor on the way back to her desk,
she leaned her lower body towards me and her elm-bole thighs
bumped firmly against me. As I tapped the consulting room
door, I felt buds of sweat rising in my hairline.

108

	Carolan was wearing his guarded face. I remembered it from
days past. If anything was seriously wrong, like before Gran
Farrell went into the Infirmary and I never saw her again, or
when Ma had the bronchial pneumonia-Carolan wore a
special face. After the formalities, he said, 'Did your sister tell
you about the inquest?'

'She gave me the drift.'

	'You know he could have died at any time? Bending to pick
a flower in his own garden could have done it....'

	Funny, thought Marler, Donnelly used an almost identical
expression. Carolan went on: 'The excitement of the brawl
undoubtedly contributed to his death, but there is not a shred
of proof that he was actually in the scuffle I agree with the
Coroner-the bruising was consistent with his having fallen.'

	I must have looked sceptical; the Doctor took another tack.
'Not a soul saw your father struck. Mind you, Detective Ser-
geant Glass is still asking questions, unofficially of course,
since the inquest.'

	I pushed out my lips in a reflective pout. Carolan said, 'You
were about to say?'

	'I wasn't about to say anything, I was thinking, thinking
what a strange nut-house of life we lead. An old man gets
thumped to hell and reasonable people talk about injuries from
a fall, excitement, and picking flowers.'

	The evening traffic was building up to a part paralysis, but I
struggled clear and in forty-five minutes was in Walton village.
At the country hotel, I soaked in a hot bath and changed into
fine tweeds and a soft shirt. By seven-ten I was eating dinner,
and by seven-forty driving back towards the city. As I parked
outside Rogers' shop, the street lights came on. She was not
there.


	I was glad On the drive in, I'd asked myself exactly what
sort of expedition I was on. She was five years my senior, she
had little refinement, and she was physically massive. She was
a fantastic step back. I did not, however, drive away.

	Soon she came round the corner of Wenman Street-she
was half running and half walking and her face beneath the
powder was rosy with high colour. She was buckled tight into a
black two-piece and a scrap of orange chiffon flamed at the base
of her round white neck. I leaned across and opened the car
door; she collapsed with a thankful gasp on to the seat beside
me and noisily sucked in lungfuls of air. I said awkwardly,

109

'Thought you'd decided against it.'

	She answered breathlessly, 'I thought the place would never
empty. It were twenty past eight before I got clear, I ran most
of the way.'

	I started the car and she reached forward and smoothed her
hand across the polished facie; she said, 'This is what I call a
car.'

	I switched on the heater; with the warm air blowing about
her big legs, she settled herself into a comfortable position.
From the corner of my eye, I saw the satiny skirt work up over
plump knees. She saw my glance but made no move to pull the
skirt down; instead she stared fixedly ahead. The green car
crossed the boundary and the street lights became less and less
frequent; soon the speedometer flickered up and steadied on
seventy-five, and the ribbon developments were left. The head-
lights picked out the cat's-eyes on the wet road, and I glanced
quickly at the immobile face of my companion; a weird mix-
ture of the coarse and the delicate, fine nostrils and heavy
mouth, great wide eyes and shapeless chin. The lights of a
roadside pub burned yellow gold ahead. I began to break gently
and I said hesitantly, 'Would you like a drink?'

In a loud matter-of-fact voice she replied. 'We haven't time.'

	My insides jumped. She added brashly, 'Jack finishes at half-
past ten on Friday, it's gettin'on for nine now.'

	The pub was left and the sweep of the headlights picked out
a lane ahead; I saw only blackness in the mirror and began to
break again. The green car swung off the main road and
travelled the lane at a slower pace; the main beam probing the
winds and curves ahead. I turned the car down a second lane,
a winder with high hawthorn hedging; I parked finally in a
patch of blackness on a packed shoulder of shale With the
engine stilled, neither of us spoke and an arthritic oak dripped
desolately on the car roof. It was a hunter's night, a fox's par-
adise, every star white metal in a pig-iron sky. She watched me
with round black-ringed eyes and turned to face me squarely m
'You think I'm brazen, don't you?'

	'No, I don't,' I said, 'You're like me, half dead with
boredom. I know I shouldn't have suggested giving you a car
ride-I know we shouldn't be sitting here, all sexed up and
miles from anywhere, but I can't help myself-I fancy you.'

	She smiled confidently, and as she did at the doctor's house
she pulled her shoulders hard back and forced her bosom

forward. There were clouds scudding across the sky and a

110

brilliant flash of moonlight emptied the shadows from their
dark escape beneath the oak. She unbuttoned her tight jacket
and unknotted the chiffon neckband, I stared down at the
barmaid breasts straining the smooth lawn of linen blouse. As I
moved forward to kiss her, she snatched at me greedily. At the
beginning the kissing was slow and searching and tongues and
lips slid gluttonously across one another. She pulled her wet
rubbery mouth clear for a second and said, 'I've fancied you
since the first afternoon in Carolan's place and I've lain in bed
every morning since, imagining you and me.'

	Our kissing was resumed and soon sparked into further
demand; her dark hair had a freshly washed, soapy smell, and
I felt a smooth skein of it swing across my face. It was the
most earthy sex I'd ever experienced, a pattern of saliva, wet
tongues, of pendulous breasts, of hard brown nipples and fierce
movement. It was all mindless with no attempts at understand-
ing, and seemed to all happen because it had to. Finally she
said, 'Quick, let's get outside.'

	I heard her skirt zipper slide and then she pulled me down
She was indifferent to the wet couch grass and the round
pebbles that bit into her bare shoulders. When the surging
sighing bulk under me was finally still, I lifted my head and
saw white mist groping along the wet black hedgerow. After-
wards, I walked alone down the tall-hedged lane, grateful of
the fine rain in the wind, and wanting to sleep a thousand
years.

	When I returned to the car, she had painted her face
combed her hair, and all that over, was dressing. The interior
light was on and a round arm lifted and a large thumb took the
twist from her straps; I caught a glimpse of armpit hair, very
black and very curly and even in the subdued light, shining
Seated beside her, as she buttoned, I searched my pockets for
cigarettes. When the lighting was over, she said, 'Your name is
Michael, isn't it?'

'How do you know?'

'Jack told me.'

'Bully for Jack.'

'When you two were kids he didn't like you much.'

'It was mutual.'

	'Said you were a mad Irish basket, all Church and bad
temper.'

	I laughed softly, and she added ingratiatingly, 'I think
Michael is a lovely name.'

111

	'Thanks for that anyway. Me old feller was a right reb.
Given half a chance he'd a burned down Buck Palace. When
he had me baptised Michael James, there was a motive there
all right-the Michael after Collins and the James after Con-
nolly '


	She screwed up her nose and said, 'I don't understand that
one.'

I asked her, 'What s your name love?'

'Joyce.' '

	'Think of what we've just been at, and now we get to the
introductions! '

	She did not appreciate the joke, and I looked at my watch,
'We'd better move, it s close on eleven.'

'I couldn't give a toss.'

'Do what?'

'You heard me, you haven't got doll's ears.'

'But I thought your old man left early tonight?'

	She snuggled into the seat, tilted back her head and closed
her eyes. She said slowly, 'I'm past all caring.'

	I felt irritable. 'You'll have some explaining to do.' She
opened her eyes, 'Know how I feel?'I hadn't a clue and I told
her so.

	'When I were a kid-over the other side of Brummagem at
Riddington-we were always short of the ready. You know,
some weeks me Dad was in a job and some weeks he wasn't, but
working or not, we always had steam duff on Fridays. It was
the white and heavy sort with currants and raisins and jam on
top if the money was about. Ma knew it were my favourite, I
always got two dollops. After, I'd sit in a corner out of the way
and enjoy feeling warm and heavy inside. I've had many a
spotted-dog pud since, but never that feeling....'

	She turned her head and looked at me out of tired and
narrowed eyes, she added, 'Until now.'

	She slid across the seat and leaned heavily against me, her
breasts huge and her face suddenly large and wide, shutting
out the starlight until I felt that her massive femininity was an
oppressive thing, blocking off the sky and holding me trapped
and sweating in the leather car seat. I wriggled uncomfortably
and she said intensely, 'I enjoyed that. I wish I could have you
regular, in a proper bed I mean, where we could go to sleep
afterwards.'

	She dropped a plump hand into my lap and I felt the
warmth of her through the worsted. I remember thinking:

112

She's insatiable, she wants it again. She was saying, '. . . a
nancy like Jack is no good to me, two minutes and he's had it.
Not that I've really fancied him for years, he's kind an' he's
cheerful, but he's cooked-mussel softl All he wants to do is
watch telly and fit gadgets to his car. He thinks a woman is
somebody he pushes the shopping trolley for in the super-
market. You don't say much do you?'

	I lit two more cigarettes and gave her one, after thoughtfully
inhaling, I told her: 'I'm too shagged out to gas; must be years
since I used that much energy with a woman.'


'You're married aren't you?'

'Aye.'

'Educated woman and that?'

'Aye.'

'Thought as much.'

	I straightened up in my seat and made as if to start the car
skill pressing hard against me, she added: 'Needed that as
much as me, didn't you?'

'Perhaps I did.'

'Enjoy it?'

'Of course.'

'You're good, you know.'

'So saith the voice of experience.'

	'Don't be rotten cruel. That's not true, I don't make a habit
of breaking my marriage vows.'

	'You just come out in a rash occasionally?' Her lips set in a
sulky pout, and she pulled away from me.

	I felt contrite and said, 'Don't take any notice of me, love
I've a peculiar sense of humour.'

	She forgave me instantly; 'All I meant was that you are
good for me, I'm warm in every muscle. Do you know, I'd like
to sleep with you, not to do anything, just to sleep in a real bed
and wake in the morning ~md touch your foot with mine, and
know that it was us, us against the rest.'

'You're getting sloppy.'

	Her voice took on an iron edge; 'I'm serious. That's what
makes a man and a woman, the lovin', the peace-after, and the
leaning.'

'The leaning?'

	'I'll explain. No matter how sharp a man or strong a
woman, there comes a time to lean. The time when the smart-
aleck cracks begin to sting, when a cold wind in December
blows through instead of round, when the money is tight and

113

routine becomes more unbearable by the hour-that is the
leaning time. Even you with your big jalopy and House and
Garden missus-the time'll come when you need a straight
back to rest your shoulder against, aye, and a round breast to
coddle in the dark places of the bed. You might not think so
now, but you'll come to it, before you're much older.'

'Is that an offer?'

	She did not reply, and there was more black than blue in her
large eyes; she jabbed a fat white finger in my face: 'I'm not

kidding. If we could prop each other-we'd have the lot.'

	She turned away from me and stared out at the darkness, I
thought then the swell of her chin ugly. She had a grossness
that made me feel uncomfortable; I heard her say, 'We never
will and that's for bleeding certain! I've a kid who hasn't a
chance without me, and you, well you've got your stinking flog
to the top.'

	I stubbed out my cigarette and switched on the ignition
irritably, I said, 'It's past eleven--your old man will skin you
alive.'

	'He wouldn't dare. He knows I'd chuck it tomorrow if it
wasn't for young Dale. Anyway, he needs me pay packet.'

	My energy began to return; I asked, 'Can you get out over
the weekend?' There was regret in her voice when she replied
'I daren't, I've got the lad to worry over, he comes before
anything I want.'

	'I'm for London after the funeral but J'll come back a week
today I'll see you at the same place and time.'

'O.K. Do you really want to though.'

'Want to? You're the best I've ever had.'

	She said thoughtfully, 'You don't give a cuss about your
misses, do you?'

'Not any more.'

'What do you think of me?'

	I chose the words carefully, 'You're a good sort, Joyce-a
warm one.'

'Is that all?'

	'Well, what do you expect me to say, this was our first time
tonight-and what a first time! '

	'I don't mean that. There is something else, I can see it in
your eyes: it's all there. I'm thirty-eight and I'm common, I
don't think I am, but you do, it's all over your face. You'd curl
up and die if you had to introduce me to your fancy friends.
Mind, I'd be good for you, Mister Marler. We'd put our

114

thumbs up to our noses and tell the world to shove off. Tonight
was good, but in a real bed just think of it.'

	I said, 'You've got a one-track mind,' and reached forward
and started the car. She said angrily, 'I haven't finished what I
had to say.'

I let the engine run and said: 'I'm listening, gal.'

	'Money isn't everything, you know, or big cars and big jobs.
You need enough to get by, and the rest of life is in the living.'

	'Just enough isn't any good to me. I'm in business for the
loot-as much as I can squeeze, with all the power that goes
with it. Now let's clear, we had a good session but I find all this

moralising bloody depressing.'

	She hugged her knees and sulked for several minutes
finally, I said: 'Don't get surly, come on, cheer up or I'll be at
you again.'

She smiled reluctantly and I added, 'Did you hear me?'

	'I heard you. If I was you I'd be careful. I might say yes
please.'

	I accelerated away down the main drag. She's a bloody man-
eater that one. As we turned into the Wimpole Estate, she
whispered, 'Drop me on the corner of the road-oh, and
watch all the bedroom curtains move.'

	She leaned across and kissed me; the lipstick came off on
my lips, it was waxy and spread like strawberry jam. She
clambered out and walked quickly away without a glance back.
Her heels tapped rhythmically on the pavement, and the
Labour Exchange clock read a quarter to twelve.

115

SIX

The oak bed-head was the colour of a whiskey blending and
traced with curving fishbone grains; I lay on my stomach,
propped my head on my hands, and studied the patterning.
Under my rib arch, the guilt feeling lay like a lead pancake
and every thought of Mrs Bradley increased the weight. The
Mrs part, that was a new trick. Conscience is a funny thing. If
you've got one, it's like getting a chop-bone sliver laid in the
gullet folds-every time you swallow it gets worse, and wife
stealing was a new accomplishment; Hilda Greening was only
a petty theft, and anyway I don't open the parcel until next
Tuesday night, but what a night Friday had been. An ice-age
coupling, all grapple and thrash, and the energy-feeding flesh
of Mrs Cro-Magnon Bradley. Worse, I enjoyed it.

	The dining-room was empty; Mrs Countryface brought in
the breakfast. It was excellent, but I had no appetite and soon
pushed my plate aside. I unhooked my garage key from behind
the corner bar, and reversed the Jaguar out on to the cobbled
yard. I drove South-West towards the slopes of Bredon, in the
morning air, the hill was a soft commingling of rain-gentle
colours; engraver's copper gold. Connemara blue, and a dozen
river-deep greens. After parking near Eckington Bridge, I
walked along a muddy path by the river; the sun went in and a
cold wind blew across the meadows; the Vale was as rough as
anywhere else when October was ending.

	When I strolled into the Dun Cow an hour later, Bottomley
was at the bar, redjowled and expansive. His tweedy bulk and
belling laugh forced local characters into shady corners where,
outcoloured and outshouted, they sipped their mild ale and
eyed the usurper. Bottomley called across the room, 'What'll
you be having, Guvnor?'

	I walked across to him. 'Scotch and ginger ale, Harold.'
Bottomley told the landlord to make it two, and handing me a
glass, said: 'The car is parked down in the village.'

	I took the key from him, 'Harold, I'll leave the key in a
sealed envelope with the landlord. You pick it up on Monday,
and not a bloody word breathed.'


'Trust me. But for you I'd still be bawling out salesmen in

116

some crummy branch office.'

	'Modesty hardly becomes you,' I told him. 'If I hadn't pulled
you out, you'd ha' got yourself out. The really leathery weeds
like you and I, always burst through the asphalt.'

Bottomley changed the subject: 'Up here long?'

'Only until I've seen me father buried on Monday.'

'Have another?'

'My shout.'

	After the third Scotch, Bottomley said, 'Come back with me
and have lunch at my place.'

	I gently declined, and Bottomley left. I bought myself another
drink and the landlord a bottle of Worthington, then strolled
down the village to the car parked at the far end. At the
bottom of the slope was the grey Anglia; it was parked near
the war memorial. The Cotswold stone had weathered like the
memories, and before examining the car I studied the buff
figure, round-helmeted and bandoliered, with a tragically noble
farm-livestock stance. I drove the Anglia out of the village,
and turned off on to the common; after bumping across cart
tracks, I parked the little car out of sight behind a clump of
straggling alder and dead bramble.

	Back at the hotel, I asked Countryface for aspirin; she
looked concerned, and so gave me my chance; I explained, 'I
get migraine, y'know.'

	Upstairs, I washed the tablets down the bedroom wash-basin
and slept the afternoon through.

	After dinner, I began rehearsals. I had convinced myself it
was all a game. I really wouldn't be pressured by the tribe when
it came to the push. I asked the landlord for the key to the
garage and explained, 'I'm putting the car away for the night.
I'll bring the key back, pick up my room key from you, and get
my head down. I feel like death.'

	The little jockey-faced man nodded sympathetically. I fol-
lowed a carefully-planned routine when I arrived back at my
room. I locked the door and changed into a dusty double-
breasted blue suit of uncertain vintage; it had very wide lapels,
and fleet-in-port bottoms; it was my bungalow oddjob suit, and
carried sandstains at the knees and a smear of plaster on the
jacket. I laced up ox-blood shoes, cracked across the polished
uppers, but metal-tipped and studded. The final piece of fancy
dress was a flat cap filched from behind the coalhouse door in
Marne Road. The headgear was of rough tweed with a large
unfashionable peak. The man staring at me from the dressing-

117

table mirror bore no resemblance to Marler the executive; he
was another Mick off the scaffolding, out for a Saturday night
wet to clear the brickdust from the back of the throat.


	I opened the bedroom window, dropped like a cat on to an
outhouse roof, and from there made the final drop into the
cobbled yard; I vaulted the low back gate and loped down the
lane to the Common. The Anglia was where I had left it
behind the clump and I drove across to Billbrook where I
parked the vehicle two streets away from the pub.

	The Billbrook Hotel was an ugly building, hardly improved
by the brewery's attempts to 'go contemporary'. The place had
an odd design, for there were four large drinking rooms, each
shaped like a celtic-cross segment, and all projecting from a
central serving area where the counters were veneered in shiny
maple and from which the landlord could exercise maximum
control. One room was partitioned by roof-to-ceiling bamboo
tubing garlanded with plastic clematis. The house of bamboo
also boasted a juke-box and two fruit machines; its plastic
seats, silver stars on black, and the pottery motif on the
wallpaper, were true Wolverhampton surrealist. I discovered
Cocky Burke sitting in the Gents Only room, and craftily
placed so that he could see across the barmaid's blue taffeta
camouflage into the bamboo room. I sat beside him, and he
bought me a Guinness. After the second sip, Burke growled,
'They ain't here yet.'

	It was seven-forty, the pick of the pops reverberated across
the serving counters and there were only five people in the
place. A group entered the bamboo room and Burke nodded. I
examined the faces--I did not wish to forget a single one.
Burke nodded again; 'The tall thin kid is Jones.'

	I saw Jones as the moron born; the face was so uninterest-
ing, there was not a hint of redemption in it. A pale herring-
belly skin, long and lumpy facial bones, and a slack mouth; a
face to pass unnoticed on the terraces at the City ground. I
pride myself on being able to read the eyes of a man; Jones
defeated me for his were undistinguished, the colour of the
slag on a wet morning in the Black Country. Jones had
attempted to command some attention by wearing his tallowy
hair in lank and ragged strands that flopped almost to his
shoulders as he made his way across to the duke-box. I said to
Burke out of the corner of my mouths 'He's a nice beauty.'

'Scum, Mick, scum ! ~

'No, Cocky-the sadly ignorant.'

118

'He did for your old feller.'

'Or did my old feller do for himself?'

	I looked again at Jones, the lad was tall and tubercular, yet
neatly dressed in a narrow trousered suit and lace-fronted
shirt. The only extraordinary features were his hands and
wrists; the former were huge and shapeless, and the fingers
and thumbs carried heavy gobs of callouses. There were two
rings, each inset with skin cutting cameos; the broad finger-
nails were well-bitten and factory dirty, and for a second, 1
fancied I could smell the machine-shop suds.

	My first reaction on seeing the thin bicycle frame body, was
that the task was easy; a glance at the massive wrists and their
ugly bone promontories changed my mind. Jones was staring
pugnaciously across; meekly I lowered my gaze and thought
'He'll be an easy one to upset before setting him up.' Burke

spoke: 'Not much of him is there?'

	I was looking at the others; the girl was twisting expertly in
the centre of the floor, her coloured beads swinging with the
beat; when I took my eyes from the jerking pointed breasts, I
looked at the dark muddy eyes and sallow diddicoy skin. I
remarked to Burke, 'Pro material if ever I saw it! '

The little man growled, 'Glad she's no daughter of mine.'

	'The sort of face you see in the sleazier clubs in the Smoke
or Manchester, the sort who are born to it.'

	She was staring impudently across at us. I switched my
examination to the others. Unlike Jones, they were all well
under twenty, and not as carefully dressed, or as clean, yet
they had the same monotonous industrial faces, tow-haired
and pale-eyed. With one exception, they seemed innocuous as
they guzzled their mild ale and laughed mindlessly. The excep-
tion was a thick-bodied youth with a five-o'clock shadow and a
broad, badger head. He wore a leather jerkin and black calf
boots; quieter than the rest, his hazel eyes were never still and
his stubby fingers drummed on the bar. A garage skiwy, I
judged.

	At the bar, I bought two small whiskies; Burke's glass
emptied at a swallow. He put it down and said, 'That's that
then?'

	I sipped my drink, 'Aye, that is that-I've got them weighed
up.'

'Tonight?'

'No.'

'Tomorrow?'

119

'Perhaps.'

'Don't want to go through with it do you, Mick?'

	'It is a lunatic idea; I mean, they didn't know my old man
had a dicky ticker.'

'You don't really think it would have made any difference?'
'It might.'

	'I tell you I was there-if Frankie Mayling hadn't caught
hold of Jonah before he put the boot into John Joe's head, and
he'd a died of a fractured skull-those sods would have had
the coppers after them, on a murder knock.'

	I sat in silence and glared moodily across into the far bar;
Burke added, 'As it was, that copper, Glass, had a right go at
them, but he only talked to Jonah and the tart-an' they're too
bloody tough to cough. I reckon this is their first night out for
a week. Are you listening, Mick? Glass might still be watching
out for them so be careful how you belt 'em. Don't
want your name in the papers do you?'

'Hardly.'

'Have another?'


'No, thanks.'

'S' long then.'

'Good luck.'

'Good luck.'

120

SEVEN

As I walked across to the garage, the dead leaves from the
yard laburnum rustled under my feet. I had not slept; the 'lean-
ing' theory of Mrs Bradley had been a factor. I had kept
hearing the ridiculous receptionist voice, and seeing the high-
topped blouse and the taut straps under, bolstering and barring.
As I climbed into the car, I thought of L'Estrange and Moyle;
if they'd known about the projected operation, I'd be seeing a
psychiatrist the minute J got back. Still, I thought, tonight I
ride with O'Hanlon.

	It was just after ten-thirty when I arrived at Marne Road; I
found Ma in front of the sitting-room glass, adjusting the set
of a black straw hat. She smiled into the mirror, 'Hello, Son.'

'Hello, Ma.'

'Had your breakfast?'

'Aye.'

'Can't get this hat to look right.'

'You look all dressed up with nowhere to go.'

'I'm away to eleven-o'clock.'

'I'll run you down.'

In the car I was complimentary; 'I like your coat, Ma.'

	'I bought it with the money you gave me. Kath came with
me to get it I've never had a coat like this before.'

'Suits you well.'

	She was silent for a short time and then said timidly, 'This is
a very grand car you've got, Michael.'

'It isn't mine, Ma-it belongs to the Company.'

'Oh, you must be very well thought of.'

	The church was modern, built in red Londons with a Stone-
wold tile roof. I recalled the wooden hut Madden had started
with. Adjacent to the church was a school, built earlier.
Through the windows I could see the familiar statuary; I
remembered the day the school was opened. It had a little
chapel at the top of the Assembly Hall where Mass was said
before the church was built. Da, I remembered, always
grumbled about kneeling on the hard wood-block floors. I re-
membered asking him why the school came before the church
and recalled the pithy reply-Minds before comfort, our Mick.


121

	That the parish had prospered was obvious. There were lines
of shiny cars in the playground. I opened the car door for Ma.
'I'm away for a paper, Ma, I'll be here when you come out.'

	Her eyes were pleading and I followed her nervous glance;
Father Madden was watching from the shelter of the church
porch. I followed my mother inside. She dipped her fingers in
the holy water and crossed herself; instinctively I did the same.
The water was icy and the wet dab stung my forehead. Ahead
of me down the centre aisle, I saw my mother genuflect and
move into a pew; I did the same and sat down beside her. The
priest handed his biretta to the altar boy and the Mass began;
the once familiar Latin phrases came back, slow at first, then
fizzing away until I was ahead of the priest. The Epistle was
read in a strong voice, very English, bell-clear, and far re-
moved from the familiar Sunday roar of Father Madden. The
assistant had an interesting face-spare and full of burning in-
telligence; when he raised his eyes he seemed to stare into my
skull; I suppose the feller had to look somewhere. I stood with
the rest for the Gospel, and found my right thumb tracing a
cross on forehead, lips, and heart; what a hypocrite! I don't
believe a word.

	Madden filled the pulpit, his gravelly voice churning out the
notices, banns, football-pool winners and Bingo times. The
thick Irish voice then dealt with Prayers for the Sick, and
Anniversaries occurring about this time. Lastly he asked for
prayers for John Joseph Marler, of this parish and lately dead.
I went to my knees with the rest; 'Hail Mary, full of grace, the

	Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou. . .'	.--

	I listened to my own voice as though it belonged to someone .
else. Madden had left the pulpit and the young priest was
there; the sermon began and after the first few reasoned
phrases, my attention wandered and I began to look about me
beginning at the High Altar. The glow there brought back
Cousin Arthur and one of his endless quotes: 'When daffodils
were altar gold . . .'; for the first time, I appreciated the line.

	I sat when the rest were standing, and I struggled to my feet
halfway through the Creed; about me people mouthed the
ancient words~'... Et unam Sanctam Catholicam et Apos-
tolicam Ecclesiam....' I thought it would never end. My
mother led the drift to the altar rails. There was nothing
ostentatious in her action, and when she returned she wore a
secret face, smooth and untroubled. I watched the others
follow her back, Aunt Dorothy, Uncle Perc, Aunt Tess, and

122

Uncle Pat, and behind came the Donnellys. Only Cousin
Arthur stayed in the pew.

	Aunt Tess was off her knees and sitting back before the
others. She glanced accusingly across at me. To escape I
opened the Missal again. 'Ihe answer to my problems was set
out in black old fashioned type on a pink-edged ricy page:

Da propitius pacem in GRACIOUSLY give peace

diebus nostril; ut ope in our days: that, aided

misericordiae tuae adjuti. by the help of Thy mercy,


et a peccato simus semper we may be always free

liberi, et ab omni from sin, and secure from

perturbatione securi; ... all disturbance; ...

	I heard the porch kneelers begin the getaway Sunday
shume; the priest had turned and was staring into my head
again; 'Ita missa est'. The plate came round for the second
time, and I looked up to find Philip doing the passing.

	Madden was in the porch and as I made my slow way.out,
jammed in the tight column of faithful, I watched the many
faces of the priest; they ranged from cordiality to a where-
were-you-last-Sunday displeasure. I brushed past him and
waited in the playground while Mother bought a Universe and
Uncle Perc acquired a Catholic Herald as well. Near the cars
so well polished the day before, gossiping clusters formed the
private pressure groups of the parish. I stood discreetly at the
back and listened in embarrassed silence at the nonsense being
talked; there were liberal doses of black mourning cloth, and
the wearers were inventing an outrageous saintliness of Da.

	'If it isn't the success story of the family.' The voice was a
tubercular rasp, I turned to find Arthur Mooney standing at
my elbow. He is as tall as me but has none of my vitality;
Arthur is my cousin, the same age and unmarried. In certain
respects there is a marked resemblance; we are fair-com-
plexioned, and we both have the blue-black hair. There are also
marked differences; Arthur droops and I tend to tire people; I
am thicker in the neck, but Arthur is higher in the forehead;
Arthur is introverted and full of bitter objective humour, I am
extroverted, or I think I am, and exude an unshakeable self-
confidence I don't always feel.

	I like Arthur. Arthur is a card, and anyway, I thought,
Arthur didn't go up to the altar rails either. I said with a smile,
'Your manners don't improve, Arthur!'

123

	Arthur smoothed his floppy bow-tie with a large hand.
'Michael Marler, as a man of letters, I'm allowed a degree of
licence not granted to sniffers on the trail of Mammon.'

I let that one go and enquired, 'Still at home then?'

'I am dear cousin, I am.'

'Got yourself a woman yet?'

	Arthur blushed and glanced anxiously about him. 'What a
sensitive question.'

'Well, have you?'

	'Just out of Mass and you are on the age-old subject of
crumpet. I'm disgusted.'

	'Well, why not? A few hundred years ago we'd a burned
together.'

	Arthur laughed, a vulgar laugh, and heads turned across the
stretch of playground; Uncle Perc frowned and Uncle Pat
looked away. Arthur resumed the conversation: 'As you are

obviously curious about my sex life, cousin, I'll enlighten you,
though I don't know why I should. I have a philosophy and I
work to a plan I'll never leave home, I like the food there. I
like going to the Villa with the Old Man. I have a room out of
bounds to everyone but me; it has a stereo set-up, stacks of
records and stacks of books. I bar the door and downstairs they
think I'm loony. I have my bolt-hole and they have their
television.'

	I had to laugh. 'Same old Arthur, nutty as a fruit-cake!
What about the sex, though?'

	Arthur explained, his face expressionless; 'I am a celibate for
months on end, dear boy, then the cork jumps out and I'm,
fornicating like mad. I specialize in widows, and I work to a

plan.'

	'What sort of plan? How can you plan where women are
concerned?'

	'Easy. As I said, I specialize in widows, although I wouldn t
say no to an an attractive spinster providing the age factor is
right.'

I was bewildered. 'The age factor?'

	'Quite. Nothing under thirty-seven and nothing over forty-
three. I find some gorgeous specimens in that grouping and
anyway, cousin, they have two great advantages.'

'So have most women.'

	Arthur looked pained. 'Michael, you really are the bloody
end. However, I'll persevere; firstly they don't go all matri-
monial on you, secondly, and best of all, they are grateful....'

124

	Arthur smiled to himself and I said, 'Stop gloating, don't
stand there thinking about it, tell me!'

	'I was just thinking about my last. Lovely she was. A
schoolmistress from Laburnum Drive, off Golden Hill, forty at
Christmas and hot as hell. The Donnellys saw me leaving her
place early one Sunday morning, on the way to seven-o'clock
they were. I'm sure they shopped me to old Madden; he kept
buttonholing me for weeks-had I ever thought of marriage
and all that jazz. Quoted Paul at me, "It is not good for a man
to be alone."'

I nodded, 'He's a great one for Paul.'

Arthur was charitable; 'He's a good sort really.'

'Bet he got you back on the track?'

'Oh, he did, I've been pure for four months.'

'Due for a prison-break then?'

	In the ensuing laughter, I moved away towards my car;
Arthur asked, 'Is that yours?'

'Let's say the Company own it and I use it.'


'You must be a clever sod, Mick-and light on scruples.'

	The chatters were breaking up and driving away to Sunday
lunch; at the other side of the car Ma shuffled her feet. I said,
'I must go, Arthur; we'll have a jar before I go back south.'

	Arthur was putting on his bicycle clips, he straightened up;
'Let us do that, Mick, I'll be at the funeral, of course-after-
wards we will drink to all the good things about your old
feller-the sort that Uncle Perc and the boys will want to hush
up.'

'Can you get time off?'

	'I can always get time off, I work at the Council House,
remember? If I left my desk for ten bloody years, nobody
would notice.'

'Goodbye, Arthur.'

'Farewell, Owen Roe.'

	I drove the car back to Marne Road; as we walked into the
kitchen, Kath was taking the joint from the oven for first in-
spection. 'You went to Mass then?'

'News travels fast.'

	'Philip was back ten minutes ago, he said you were talking to
Idle Arthur, must have been like old.times.'

'It was.'

	Mrs Marler changed the subject by asking: 'Which Mass did
you go to, Kath?'

'Philip and I went to ten, and as usual he stayed on to do the

125

collection at eleven.'

I said, 'Yes, I noticed him.'

My sister asked maliciously, 'How did you get on?'

	I gave her a hard look and replied sarcastically, 'I've been
before, you know.'

'But not as often as you should.'

	'Oh, wrap up. Incidentally, I like the assistant, pity there
aren't more like him.'

	'Which one took the Mass? I mean, there are two, Father
Foxley and Father Halloran. Father Foxley is old for an
assistant, a late vocation I believe. I wouldn't be surprised if he
was a convert. Now Father Halloran is very boyish, auburn
hair, and he blushes if taken out of his stride.'

	'This would be Foxley I saw, a keen face and a good mind.
Even I could take religion from his sort. It's the Irish farm
boys drunk with power that I can't stand. A Penal Days
mentality, sex is sin, and Judas Iscariot was an Englishman.'

	Kath was scandalised: 'How dare you talk like that about

priests!'

'They are human beings like the rest of us.'

'There is no hope for you, Michael Marler, none at all....'

	She turned to the hot stove again, muttering about 'wicked
generalisations'.

	I went outside to the lavatory in the back yard, when I came
back again, Kath had had time to think; 'Fine one you are
you and your biases. Where did your own father come from I
Or Father Madden? Or Uncle Pat?'

	'I know all about that too, Kath-particularly what Da was
and where he came from-it's a thing I live with....'

	A thought struck me. 'Katie, how do you regard yourself? I
mean, as English, Irish, British, or what?'

	'I think all that sort of thing is stupid. I've never even
considered it; it isn't as if it is important.'

	I shook my head and walked through into the parlour; the
place was packed-they sat round the fire like stuffed apples
on a Christmas bob-fleshy with raisiny eyes, and hissing and
spitting talk. I looked along the rinds, decided the tall man
must be Uncle Jamie, down from Glasgow for the funeral. I
hadn't seen him for twenty years. Jamie had the long Marler
head, with black triangles of eyebrow and wild Goya eyes; he
rose from his fireside seat and came across to meet me. 'It's
young Michael, isn't it?'

'Aye, you must be Uncle Jamie?`

126

	'I am. You're the spit image of John Joe when he was
younger, there aren't many about that are our colourin'; black
hair an' the blue eyes are common enough, but black eyes an'
all, well, that's a different kettle of fish.'

	I liked him; I asked, 'Did you have a good journey down,
Uncle ?'

'No' bad. We got a sleeper.'

	He turned his head back to the fire and nodded towards the
woman who sat beside his empty chair. 'D'ye know yer Auntie
Annie, Michael?'

	A heavily built woman saved my embarrassment by rising
trout-like from the fireside swarm; she had a round Scots face
and an easy smile. She shook hands awkwardly, and sat down
again. Uncle Jamie said, 'Is there anywhere we can get a
drink?'

	As we passed through the kitchen, Kath called, 'Only half
an hour, mind.'

	I decided that Uncle Jamie might have thought I was swank-
ing if we used the Jaguar; instead we walked through Ribs-
more to the Country Girls. The Bricklayers was much nearer
but that was asking for trouble. The Gents Smoke was de-
serted; it was dead on opening time; they sipped bottled Guin-
ness and Uncle Jamie said awkwardly: 'I was cut up to hear

about your Da. We should ha' seen each other a bit more often,
but I were such a way away in Glasgow, and we both had kids
to rear and money never stays long wi' the Marlers . . . still, he
was a good 'un, y'know.'

	I got up and brought two more drinks; as I carried them
back to the table, I called, 'What time did you get in?'

	'Train pulled in at seven and the buses didna' start till eight
II asked a taximan what he'd charge us for a drive in his auld
hearse as far as Marne Road. When he said sixteen bob, I told
him we'd wait for the bus. He shouted abuse at me and Annie
laughed her head off.'

'Why ?'

'He called me a bleedin' Scotsman I '

	I grinned and Uncle Jamie continued: 'I ask a copper where
the nearest Catholic Church was and we ended up in the
Cathedral at the half-past seven turn.'

	'Where did you get to from eight-thirty till we went out at a
quarter to eleven?'

	'I'm silly in me old age--we gets on the wrong bus, that is, it
was the right bus but it was in the wrong direction-one of

127

them cross-city things that confuses people. When we'd walked
in ye'd taken your Ma to church. I was pleased to find that,
that you'd gone to Church I mean, not like most of the young
'uns these days-no respect for God or man.'

I asked quickly, 'Another drink, Uncle?'

'It's my turn.'

'I insist-a whiskey this time?'

'I wouldna' mind.'

'Irish?'

	'Mother of God, no! It's like drinking metal polish! If I've
learned nothing else in twenty years in Calvinistic Scotia, it's
what whiskey is and also what it isn't. George the Fourth if
they have it, if not Bells will do fine.'

	I handed him his Scotch and he said, 'Maggie is in America
then?'

'Yes, she went nursing in Boston.'

'I know, and she married a Boston Irishman.'

'Not exactly, Uncle, he's a Hungarian.'

	Uncle Jamie mellowed, 'Ah well, I married a Scot and yer
Da an Englishwoman with an Irish name. We Marlers are
spreading the strain round a bit. Are you married, young
Michael?'

	Fortuitously, Fatty Stokes came in through the passage door
and unscrambled my eggs. 'Hello, Mr Stokes,' I shouted.

Stokes wore a black tie; he waved a red fist at me, 'I'm in a
school, young Mick, I'll be in to see you in a bit.'

I said, 'I believe you have four daughters, Uncle?'

	'Aye, the eldest is Maire, and she's twenty-three-married
now of course. Elsie, she's named after you Ma, is twenty-one
and just married; Eileen is nineteen and engaged, and the last,
bairn, young Ann, is sixteen and at the High School. Pity,

sometimes think, not a boyo among them.' ~
He waved a hand at me. 'Mind, John Joe managed only one,
only one. Have you ever thought, young Michael, you're the
last of the Marler menfolk?' Makes me sad and I realize what
a bastard thing time is. Y'see, I'm the last of the Marler
brothers. Once there were three and now there's me.'

	I kept the shock out of my voice: 'Did I hear you right,
Uncle? You did say three?'

'Did your father never tell you about Charlie?'

	Uncle Jamie considered the liquid in his glass; 'He wouldn't,
of course-that's typical. He'd keep the hurt close to himself.'

'Was this Charlie older than Da?'

128

	'I suppose he was. Yes, John Joe was born in ninety-seven,
me in ninety-nine; there was one in between born dead, but
Charlie, he was born in ninety-o. He'd be into the seventies if
he was living, only he went over touching thirty.'

My interest was aroused; 'Tell me about him.'

	'I suppose I can, son; for no harm can come from any tell-
ing.'

	Uncle Jamie cleared his throat and told the tale. 'Dead
excitable was our Charlie, a good lad but dead excitable. I
remember he was in the Volunteers; Ma said I was too young
and your Da said the flag-waving stuff was a lot of nonsense.
Charlie though, Charlie was keen. He had a green uniform and
a bandolierwithout bullets and we used to sing "Ninety
Eight"; it was all a big game, a game that was, until Easter
sixteen. Ma and your Da were away down near Wicklow.
Working on a big house we'd been, that was on the road out to
Glendalough.

	'A wonderful brickie your Father was, and I was appren-
ticed to the plastering game. You Da never went much on the
Volunteers; most of them was middle-class anyway. He was
keener on Larkin and Connolly, he always said that Jim
Larkins was worth a thousand flag wavers. He and Charlie and
your Grandad, together with drunken Uncle Malachy, used to
argue like mad in that little terraced house off the Drum-
condra Road. As I said, we was away that Easter but Charlie
was there, he wasn't at the Post Oflfice where the real heroics
were, but in a warehouse by the river, firing away like mad. He
couldn't hit a pub front from twenty yards. He ended up in
Lincoln, and came home in eighteen, a stone and a half lighter
with a cough that woke up the street. Now your Da, he was
different, a proper bloody bolshevik. His war cry was down
with the notes. But Charlie, Charlie was head and fire-fanati-
c;tl, clever and underweight. The sort of bloke who always has

a book with him but is useless with his hands. I remember he
had a Mauser pistol that took him an hour to load and if he
fired it, he hadn't a hope of hitting anything. Poor Charlie, he
had a nut-house gleam in his eye and enough purpose for a
nation. Our Ma used to say he was the arrow-head of the
family, but I know he used to give John Joe the willies with
that Die-for-Ireland voice and his daily Communions. When
he came back from England, he got really mixed up with the
Brotherhood, he claimed he knew Collins and the blasted
Squad. He did time in Kilmainham....'

129

	Uncle lamie reached for his cap; 'Come on young Mick,
your sister said half an hour.'

	I persisted. 'But you never said what happened to Charlie,
Uncle ?'

	Uncle Jamie sniffed; as we walked to the door he said: 'He
was found in a ditch out on the Baldoyle Road in twenty-one.
Half of his head was blown away. It broke our mother's
heart-she went to her bed in the flu epidemic later that year,
and she never got up again. Your Grandad went to live wim
your Aunt Ria in Drogheda, and the little house was sold up.
Your father stuck it out till twenty-four, and then came over
here. I went to stay with relations in Glasgow in twenty-
seven-I was saving to get to Canada, but I met Annie and
never went further west again than Greenock.'

	At the door, Uncle Jamie adjusted the set of his tweed cap
and belted his raincoat. As we walked back to Marne Road
there was a Sunday quiet on the streets, and we met no one,
there was only the last-card October sunshine and me chimney
smoke smudging up from the slates; occasionally the breeze
wafted the gravy smells of Sunday lunches to our nostrils. We
didn't talk again until we reached me house.

	Inside, the drop-leaf table had been opened right out. The
puffy faces had left the fire and on a motley collection of
seating, the visitors waited for Heir food. Ma asked Uncle
Jamie to say Grace and he obliged in a solemn voice. I listened
in a state of bewilderment. It was another world. I watched
Uncle Jamie tackle the meal, not speaking or lifting his head
from his plate. Looking at the iron covenanting face, I re-
flected that whiskey wasn't me only thing Uncle Jamue had
learned about from his Glasgow neighbours.

	The table would have been a rare sight to a hungry man, but
I didn't feel quite mat hungry. There was roast lamb in rich
terra-cotta slices, boiled potatoes served with butter, and
springy fighting sprouts that needed to be trapped wim a fork
and sliced quick. The cut-glass of mint-sauce was soon
emptied and the clan got down to clearing their plates; there was
no talk, for Sunday dinner, the most important feed of me
week, was not to be chilled by chatter. I attracted Kam's dis-
pleasure by talking to Aunt Annie as we waited for the apple
tart; I soon gave up, beaten by her Clydeside twang, her every
sentence lilting up at the end into a question, requiring no
answer!

Once the food had been disposed of, there was a rapid break-
130

up of the group. The women crowded into the kitchen to wash
the dishes and make tea. The men took out tobacco and

gathered again at the fire; Philip and I lit cigarettes, Uncle
Jamie went through his pockets and dredged out an undis-
tinguished briar and a tin of Bruno. Uncle Edmund, a bachelor
T.T., retired across the room to a safe coughing distance; if
there was anything he disliked more than alcohol, it was
tobacco. In his far armchair, his eyes were full of self-con-
gratulatory thoughts on the messiness of death by cancer.

	I watched him until he picked up a Sunday paper and read
the sports news. He lived with his sister, my widowed Aunt
Josie, in a similar house some three streets away. His only
interest was the Villa; and his only friend, Josie's son John, an
accountant with an engineering firm in Bromwich. I remember
John as the man with the ordered mind, the lad who placed
every shirt, every collar stud, ever necktie, in the correct place
in the correct drawer. Arthur and I had broken up his well-
ordered pattern once or twice and poor Johnny had gone to
pieces; still he has the same gravestone strength as his uncle
and mentor. When he and I meet, I hit cousin John like a sea
wave, washing away a little but never moving. John won't be at
the funeral, I decided.

	When John and Pamela married and moved away, Uncle
Edmund battened on to my parents. Every time I travelled up
from London to see my parents, I found Uncle Edmund sitting
in front of the television set, looking for all the world like a
stone-bust of Gladstone. He sat there then, just across the room
from me, his sideburns needing a trim and his Victorian
eatures grim, turning the pages of the People as if it was
H.oly Writ. He put down his newspaper and asked Uncle
Jamie about Glasgow Celtic, and they were soon conversing
earnestly.

	The Saturday evening paper caught my eye; a block in the
deaths column had been marked:

MARLER. John Joseph. Passed away in his sleep on Mon-
day, October 26, aged sixty-seven years. Fortified by the
Rites of the Holy Church. Sadly missed by wife Elsie, son
Michael, daughters Kathleen and Margaret Maire (Boston,
Mass.), brother James, sister-in-law, son and daughters-in-
law. Requiem Mass 12 Monday, November 2 at Our Lady
of Fatima, Ribsmore, followed by interment at Belwood.
Friends welcome. Flowers to Church. R.I.P.

131

	It was the Requiem Mass part that had me bothered. I re-
membered the snide looks when Ma went to the altar rails
alone; there were variations; Aunt Tess was uncomplicated as
usual, she was just downright accusing, the Donnellys were
'I'm-better-than-you'; Arthur, gently mocking, and the rest
expectant. They'd be watching again tomorrow. On a sudden
impulse, I put down my tea-cup and slipped out of the front
door; the football talkers did not even hear me leave.

	I drove at sixty, oblivious of the radar traps, to Golden Hill.
When Tommy opened the door he had a tea towel in his
hands, 'Believe in giving people plenty of notice, don't you
mate?'

	I was apologetic; 'Sorry, Thomas, I needed to talk some-
thing over.'

	Donnelly made no move to ask me in. 'There is no psychia-
trist's couch here, Mick. We're in the middle of washing up.'


	Eileen called from the kitchen, 'Give him a cloth, he can
give us a hand if he likes.'

	Donnelly turned on his heel, and I followed him sheepishly
down the hall. Donnelly pushed open the sitting-room door,
'Go in the lounge, we'll be through in a second.'

	I heard Eileen running up the stairs to put a new face on
and Tommy calling to his wife from the kitchen. A pink face
appeared round the door, and large blue eyes regarded me
from cover; the small girl had the grave looks of her mother. I
produced my best smile. 'Who are you then?'

'I'm Jane.'

'How old are you, Jane?'

	'I'm seven.'	i

'Are you, now. I think you are very pretty.'

	The compliment was ignored and beneath brown curls, the
little face screwed up with sharp intelligence. The child saicY,
'You must be Uncle Michael what's come from London.'

	I smiled encouragingly and she continued, 'My Mummy and
Daddy often talk about you. Daddy says you have too much
money and are just cunning.'

	Eileen appeared at the door, her face red with embarrass-
ment. She said sharply, 'Into the garden, Jane, with the others.
Joanna is looking for you.'

	The brown curls bobbed away and Eileen sat down and
smoothed her skirt over her knees.

	'What is so important that Tommy misses his Sunday after-
noon nap?'

132

	I'd had enough; the thought raced through my mind: Who
are these merchants pushing about? Bloody Donnelly has
always been the same, he's obsessed by his own intelligence-
his missus is as bad.

	I stood up. 'I've had second thoughts-tell Tommy to go
and have his nap.'

	'Don't be so sensitive. 'lithe kettle is on-stay for a cup of tea
at least.' She was rattled.

	I shook my head; I ran down the steep drive like a twelve-
year-old.

	I hammered on the Mooneys' front door. The Mooneys
boasted a corner council house with a large triangle of garden
replete with lily pond and plaster of Paris leprechauns. There
was no reply to the first hefty knock, so I tried again and as I
waited I examined a battered rose bush near the front door.
Three faded blooms competed for the song title. I gave up and
walked round the back; 1 let myself in through the kitchen
door. In the parlour Aunt Tess lolled in a fireside rocker; her
mouth was wide open and she was gently snoring; the telly
was on full blast and Uncle Pat, his square fighting face

registering every gunshot, watched a Western. He nodded
absently at me, and went back to the thunder of hooves. There
was a brief silence during the inevitable saloon scene, and I
heard the crash of Wagnerian chords from the floor above. I
climbed the stairs-the noise was deafening as the full stereo-
phonic treatment of the 'Venusberg' echoed through the house.

	I opened the bedroom door to find Arthur pacing up and
down, histrionically conducting an imaginary orchestra. His
dark face was tight with pleasure and only when the last note
died did he acknowledge my presence.

'AID, our kid.'

	'Hello, Arthur-you'll burst an eardrum with that lot. It
must have cost a fortune.'

	'Ain't paid for yet, matey. Another fifteen months on the
never.'

	Arthur handed me a cigarette. 'Didn't take you long to get
cheesed off with all that exhilarating conversation round at
Marne Road then?'

'It isn't exactly stimulating, but I wanted a chat with you.'

'I thought you might.'

'Oh?'

'Well Mick, you are the sort of bloke who never does

133

anything without a good reason.'

I lit my cigarette; 'Art, I've a problem.'

	'You've got problems? Blimey, you don't know you're born.
You ought to be like me stuck here, getting older every day
and my only escape is over there.'

	Arthur nodded across to the record cabinet. I looked about
me and was surprised to find that the room was lined with
books; most of them were paperbacks, but there was a good
sprinkling of expensive hard covers. I found the titles surpris-
ing-the authors ranging from D. H. Lawrence, George
Moore, Joyce, to the writers of current best-sellers. I said, 'I
didn't realize you were much a literary soul, Arthur.'

	Arthur spread out his long arms like a scarecrow and
paddled his huge hands. 'Meet a man who is drunk on words.'

	The thought occurred to me that this call might be a bigger
mistake than that on the Donnellys. Arthur reassured me,
'Don't look so worried, Mick. If you want to talk, I've the
biggest ears in the family.... Mind, I'm surprised you want to
talk to me, you see you aren't one of us any more.'

	Arthur flung out his arms again.... 'For a handful of silver
he left us....'

	I said in an exasperated tone, 'Arthur, do you want to listen,
or don't you?'

'Don't get touchy, it is out of character, Michael.'


'Well, what are you getting at?'

	'Simply that you have moved away from the family, moved
away completely. You live in a different world, Mick. I'm sure
that you make a marvellous marketing executive or whatever
you are-as kids you had us all so organized that every game
was a working party. I remembered this morning when we
were on the playground, how it was that I always ended up
carrying your fishing rods.'

'Really?'

'Really up your jumper, I know you, Mick Marler.'

	'All right, Arthur, so I've changed but I haven't really
changed. So have you, only you have changed here and 1, 1
have done my changing well away and under very different
influences But Arthur, though there isn't a business problem
that worries me, I've got one right here in Brummagem that I
don't even know how to start on, for the simple reason that
I've grown so far away from root ... so I've come to see you,
because you are part of the bloody root.'

Arthur sat with his head in his hands. Without looking up,

134

he said, 'I'm flattered but I think I know what your problems
are now-and I don't want to know about them.'

'But Arthur '

	Arthur said, 'Did you like the Wagner? Laugh, I brought a
bird up here once-a typist from the Treasurer's-she had a
father complex, only eighteen she was, chased me for months.
I thought I'd go all class on her and played me a bit of
orgiastic Venusberg. I went to get her a cup of coffee and the
front door slammed, she was going up the road like a Derby
winner.'

	I laughed and pushed back my chair. Arthur said, 'I've
changed my mind, we'll talk if you like. It's religion, isn't it. I
mean you've lapsed but if you don't act the dutiful son in
church tomorrow, it's going to pull the family, such as it is,
wide apart?'

	I replied, 'Well, you're on to the one issue, Arthur. I have
lapsed and I do hate the family, they are a barbaric lot....'

'I'd agree with you there.' Arthur interrupted.

	"Still, I either run or face them, or of course, be a hypocrite. I
nearly said, commit sacrilege, but then I've just remembered I
don't believe in any part of it.'

	Arthur's forehead wrinkled with concentration, 'Mick, let's
go back to root, to use your term-why have you lapsed? No,
don't tell me, let me guess. A naice county girl, fair and lissom,
talks to go to Sung Eucharist about once a month, especially if
it's one of those sunny Sunday mornings, just after Easter.
Mummy is in the W.I., and Daddy is a clean-limbed Englisher.
I bet when their dear Jemima espoused a Rouman Carthlick
they sold up and moved out of the district-or did you put out
the white flags and suddenly discovering a perception and
intelligence not even suspected, go Prod?'


'I did not.'

'Don't tell me you were married in a Catholic Church?'

'No.'

'At sea then-by the skipper of the Daffodil?'

'No.'

'I give up.'

'Fulham Road Register Office.'

'Madden would say you weren't married.'

I smiled, 'And what would you say, Arthur?'

'I'd agree with him.'

'You are a fat lot of help.

'I can't see any problem, you ain't married, you've just in-
135

dulged in a long-winded piece of fornication. Say fourteen
thousand five hundred and ninety decades and I'll ask the
committee to take you back in the club.'

'Blasphemer.'

	Arthur sat on the ancient studio couch, tucked his knees
under his chin, and locked his legs with a hairy hand clasping
bony wrists. His eyes appeared too big for his face, and he said
'You've come to see me because you think we have the same
problem.'

'Well, haven't we?'

'I don't think so, but try me.'

	I sat forward on my chair, and wagged a forefinger in
Arthur's face, 'Do you believe in God?'

'Yes.'

	'Do you fully accept all the so-called fundamentals, such as
the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Virgin Birth, the Ascen-
sion, and so on?'

'Of course.'

'But Arthur, you are a born cynic.'

	'I am not, I should have been a poet, but I'm a local govern-
ment officer, clerical grade, of course.'

'Arthur, I'm serious! '

'I know you are, and you bloody well terrify me.'

I pulled out my cigarette case, 'Here, have another fag.'

'Thanks.'


	I said wearily, 'I'm agnostic. I can't stand the church, it's
full of rules and full of crazy inconsistencies....'

Arthur's interest stirred for the first time, 'Like what, Mick?'

'Franco and Kennedy, Uncle Perc and my old feller....'

	Arthur pounced. 'Are all the people in Grenfell exactly the
same?'

'Of course not, but then we haven't such diversity.'

	'By comparison with the mob you're complaining about,
Grenfell is microscopic-this widens the range somewhat.'

I felt irritated. 'Whose side are you on, Arthur?'

'Not yours for a start.'

	'I thought as much. I must be mad, sitting here muddling it
out with you. The older you get the less coherent you become.'

	With a surge of nervous energy, I jumped to my feet. Arthur
pushed me back into the chair. 'I think I should explain, I was
once a secret free-thinker, not blase about it like you-I hadn't
the guts. I went through the motions here, but I couldn't
escape what was inside my own head, all the questions and all

136

the dislikes.... The Books' Index, Birth Control in savage
cases ... you know Mick, lots of miscarriages, lots of
Caesareans . . . and most of all the feeling that I tried too hard
to stop but that kept growing by the hour, that we lived in a
thinking age and that the Rules strangled thought at birth ...
that the whole boiling issue was ... well ... medieval....'

I said, 'Go on, I know exactly what you mean.'

	Arthur sucked at the nub end in his fingers, using a trick I
remembered from when we were boys together-it was a novel
way of extracting the last dying drag. Arthur killed the nub
with his big ugly fingers and continued: 'I couldn't find any
happiness in the church, only what seemed killjoy rules.'

	'You talk as though you've changed your mind yet again,
Arthur.' Arthur's large eyes had lost their bird brightness and
were cloudy with thoughts. 'In the end, I thought my way past
thinking. Don't look at me as though I ought to be locked
away, I'll try and explain. You see my thoughts were really
original, I could have set up in business on my own.'

	Arthur smirked, 'I can see it now. Arthur Mooney, the Way
and the Truth. My slogan could have been-"Only the Palat-
able"; I'd a filled the Town Hall, half Globe and Ribsmore
would have gone for the laugh.'

	Arthur paused and gnawed viciously at his thumb knuckle.
When he spoke again his voice carried firm conviction. 'Private
judgement in religion is nutty-and that's what I was on and
what you're on now! The way things are going, there'll be nine
hundred and ninety nine thousand motorways to Damascus,
with even more contractors and road-mending hangers-on to
come. I thought it right through and could see no end. Oh, I
know there's Archbishop Cranmer's way and John Wesley's
way, and General floppin' Booth's way, but they are all private

judgements. I'm too modest to think there could possibly be an
Arthur Mooney way. So, what did I do? I'll tell you-I de-
cided to be a microscopic speck on the six hundred million dot
members' list. I'm racked by private doubts, and the only time
I'm happy is after I've just had Communion, but I am what I
am and thank God there is charity in the Confessional as well
as the burn-you-inside stuff '

	I blew the air out of my cheeks. 'Phew, Arthur, you are a
turn-up for the book.' Arthur looked at me along a long nose;
'Can I give you some advice?'

'That is what I came for.'

'Well, don't think too much. You and I are instinct men.

137

The Paith for our sort isn't logic, we aren't clever enough, and
anyway, if we were, we wouldn't have either the temperament
or the time to think it out. No, it's a feeling in the chest. You
can try Mick, but you'll never get really clear. It's a club that
when you're in you're in and there's no resigning.'

	I stood up once more and looked down at Arthur. 'You
shatter me! ' Arthur looked up solemnly at me. 'As I see it you
can either cut and run-that is clear off to the Smoke tonight
and get boozed, get yourself a tart and forget this lot up here if
you can, or get inside a church, say your prayers, and sit back.
Will yourself over to God, stop fighting, and say take me over.
You might end up making a good confession. Knowing you all
these years, it won't be long before you are back to your old
tricks, but at least you can do as I do and have another go. It's
less difficult as you go on and the intervals get longer.'

	As I let myself out on to the landing, I said, 'You should
have been a bloody bishop! Arthur, my other problem, how do
you feel about vendettas?'

He walked away and selected a record.

	Before I had reached the bottom stair, the Wagner began
again. In the parlour, Uncle Pat had joined Aunt Tess in the
sleep-world. On the set, the advertisements flickered away
madly, unaware of the closed lids. Only the highland cattle
stared mutinously down at the screen from their mahogany-
framed landscapes above the fireplace. I let myself quietly out
into the street.

	When I reached the Dun Cow it was after five, and Mrs
Countryface was carefully placing logs on the hall fire. I took
my garage key, went outside and put away the Jaguar for the
night. Before locking the vehicle I took the converted gear
stick from the glovebox, and slipped it out of sight under my
Jacket. I made a point of handing the key to Mrs Countryface.
I placed it in her pink Lifebuoy palm, with the comment: 'I'm
glad to see the back of that car for the rest of the day. I feel
half dead-I'm away for an early night.'

	She was sympathetic; 'You don't look at all well, Mr
Marler.' Her eyes held a dog-like appreciation and I said
conspiratorially, 'It's the migraine, love-terrible thing, really
knocks me about.'

	Upstairs in my room I half undressed, pulled back the sheet
covers and hoped I would sleep right through the evening and

not have to go to Billbrook. But I awoke on time, put on my

138

old suit and the rest of the outfit that had made me so anony-
mous in the Billbrook on my last visit. I took a final look at
myself in the mirror, adjusted the set of the tweed cap, and
was surprised at my own calmness. I was a man in a dream.
For a night I was Owen Roe and Hugh Maguire, I was Patrick
Sarsfield and I was Kelly from Killan. And I was half mad. It
was a starless night, and the wipers on the Anglia had diffi-
culty in coping with the downpour; I turned up the collar of
my jacket and peered out at the dark and the rain slanting
across the headlight beams. I was careful to park in the same
place as the previous night-two streets away and facing the
right way for a quick escape; it was a quiet street so I left the
vehicle unlocked It was chancy but a desperate fumbling in an
unlit street might be disastrous. I wasn't in that much of a
dream. In spite of the rain I had resisted the temptation to
bring a raincoat; instead [ ran for it, dodging the puddles with
a series of fast sidesteps; the home-made cash hooked under
the leather belt, bumped against my leg. I had contemplated
luring Jones outside and working him over in the dark-it was
the safe way, but I had decided finally against it. My mind
argued that since Da's drubbing had been public, I should make
a spectacle of the deflation of Jones. After all, I was Ned
Kelly-I had no armour but I had my home-made cosh.

	My luck was in from the beginning. As I crossed the flooded
asphalt to the Gents Only entrance, Badger-head roared up on
his motor-cycle. From the shelter of the outdoor porch, I
watched Badger-head swagger inside. One quick check and I
was away. I turned and went through into the outdoor de-
partment; inside I bought twenty Players and glanced quickly
across into the bamboo alcove. The look was well worth the
price of a packet of cigarettes, all the team were on court.
Jonah bought Badger-head a drink; the latter unbuckled his
crash-helmet. I closed the door firmly behind me and strode
across to Badger-head's motor-cycle. I felt light-headed. With
furious energy I tore at the cable leads, unscrewed the petrol
tank cap and heaved the machine over. The liquid gurgled
out. Finally, I felt for the valve caps on the tyres; I unscrewed
them and pressed with a matchstick on the valve ends. The air
soughed gently out. Noting the number, I walked briskly into
the bar. In a corner sat Mad Cocky and Fatty Stokes; I hadn't
wanted to see them but Burke was the sort to hunt down a
fight. I put a finger to my lips, sat down beside the little
man, and said: 'In a couple of minutes, wander up to the

139

counter and tell the gaffer that a new motor-cycle, number
ACB 798 has been knocked over outside by a lorry trying to
park. The bike belongs to the dark fellow over there with
Jonah, I must get him out of the way before I go into there....'

	Fatty Stokes leaned across confidentially. 'Watch Gipsy
Lena over there, she's worse than any bloke.'

	Walking round to Jonah's den, I felt no apprehension, only
a primitive certainty. There was nothing of Grenfell in my
mind, and nothing of Elizabeth. The long room was empty
apart from a pensioner sipping his vinegary half-pint just in-
side the door. I walked past him towards the bamboo and
plastic clematis; Jones appeared to regard the juke-box as his
tribal reserve and he looked angrily up as I advanced down the

room. The girl whispered behind her hand and the rest snig-
gered; I bought a glass of stout and as I took the change from
the wizened barmaid, the record ended and behind me began a
nasal sing-song; 'Bleeder, buying a Mick drink in our pub! '

	The whine went on provokingly; I kept my eyes down-the
O'Hanlon inside me wasn't ready to move. I heard an ob-
iectionable remark and the room resounded with coarse
laughter. The rotund publican sullenly called Badger-head to
the bar; I listened attentively. The youth stumped down the
room, his heavy calf boots clanking on the wood blocks. A tow-
head called out: 'Wur yu guing, Les?'

	Badger-head ignored him and stumped stolidly on; when the
door closed, I knew I had to move. My arms felt like steel
bands. Lifting my head I stared insolently at Jones, then
turned my attention to the girl Fatty had called Gipsy Lena.
My stare began at the sling-back sandals and worked slowly
upward. When our eyes met, I sneered contemptuously. Her
muddy eyes flashed light; she spat out, 'You cheeky bleeder.'

	Jones growled menacingly, 'Gerrorf out of 'ere before I do
yer! '

	Like a man intoxicated, I sneered again; 'I thought old
Paddies were your mark . . . rat-face! '

	The pale eyes of the tow-heads filled with alarm, one began
to edge away. Jones said sharply: 'Come back'ere, Ron.'

	Tow-head stepped hurriedly back. I had to get started.
Badger-head was likely to return and I couldn't take him as
well. To Jones, enjoying every word, I said, 'Come on,
Pimples, try your boot on me.'

	Jones didn't want any part of me, at least not without
Badger to hold me for hitting. I'm big and I must have looked

140

vicious. Jones became reasonable, 'Look mate, we don't want
any trouble.' He moved across to the record player and put a
coin in the slot. The girl said scornfully, 'Yer fritter, Jonah,
yer fritter.'

	When she came up from behind the table she carried an
empty pint glass in her hand; she jabbed it towards me, 'Get out
of 'ere you big black bleeder.'

	My own glass was halfway up to my lips; it stopped abruptly
and with a wristy action I sent three parts of the glass of stout
into her heavily powdered face. She screamed, 'You get l '

Jones said, 'You've 'ad it now, mate.'

	He turned the volume up to the limit and leapt at me, glass
in hand. I put out a long leg and met the charge with a heel
smash into the groin. My heavy golf shoes carried steel tips.
Jones slithered sideways and I felt a tow-head trying to hook
an arm about my throat from behind. I was too tall for that
game, I drove an elbow back and followed with a bone-shear-
ing donkey kick. As the heavy steel tip struck home, the arm at
my neck fell away; before I regained my balance, Gipsy Lena
was jabbing in with a tall, thin lager glass. I swung an arm into
a curving back bander above the weaving glass and my
knuckles caught the peaky olive face with the impetus of a golf

swing; I felt the facial skin rub away and my knuckles were
suddenly moist. The tow-head behind was not finished, he
drove sharp punches into my kidneys, and his pale-eyed com-
panion hung his weight on my free arm.

	I felt sick with weakness and my lungs gulped in smoky air;
there was no respite, however, for Jones, seeing me weakening
came at me from the front.

	The night before I'd noticed only two rings, tonight Jones
wore a fistful. He struck me with both hands, breaking open
flesh and cutting into a cheekbone.

	I might have succumbed, but Gipsy Lena returned and
snatched viciously at my crutch; I heard her scream, 'I'll have
his cobblers off.'

	That sent me berserk. First I flung the tow-headed limpet
from my forearm, the youth careered across the room, splin-
tered the canes, and toppled the clematis. My next move was to
swing a heavy shoe in a blurred crescent of movement and
scythe away Lena's legs.

	All reason left me and hearing her fall, I stamped brutally in
the direction of her cry. Meanwhile, Jones was still hitting-
only light blows but cutters and sappers; I threw my full weight

141

to my right and managed to dislodge the tow-head hanging on
my arm; I pushed the youth between myself and the fists of
Jonah and turned to deal with the other, who was again
thumping blows into the small of my back. I had the blood
behind my eyes and a berserker's energy. Avoiding the flying
knuckles, I gripped a forearm, held the youth for a brief
moment and then caught a glimpse of Jones coming back
again. I twisted the forearm and flung, and saw the youth slam
into the long bar and heard the landlord shout. With time
running out, I dealt hurriedly with Jones. Sliding inside the
blinding cuffing hands, I overlapped my palms behind the ugly
head; the knobby face jerked forward to meet my black, bullet
head as it rammed hard in. The face burst like a plum.

	Jonah's face was a mess of tears and blood and he moaned
at me in disbelief. Cruelly and without knowing why, I
chopped him across the face again with the sharp edge of my
hand; Jones tumbled face downwards into the drink glasses on
the plastic-topped table.

	By this time there was an uproar in the Billbrook; skirmishes
were commonplace, but that lot was carnage. Stamping feet
converged on the room-I hooked an arm under Jonah's
shoulders and dragged him down the room. At the other side
of the door, I met the rush of white-coated infantry; authority
came magically into my voice; 'For heaven's sake get in there
and sort it out-I'm holding this laddie for the police.'

	Before they realized exactly what was happening, I was past
them and had turned the corner. Jones, by this time, was a
dead weight. I hauled him on and through a side door and into
the grounds. As we crossed the bowling green and went into
the shrubbery on the other side, Jones sobbed like a small boy.

	I murmured to him like a crooning mother, 'So you've feel-
ings then after all, you bastard!'


	The shrubbery was full of black shadows and the wind
moaned. Wet laurels slapped my face. I held Jones out at the
full stretch of my arm, and heard him whimper through the
darkness 'Mister, mister, I've had enough, no more, mister!'

	I drove a fist deep into the soft flesh above the hips. I heard
myself jeering. 'How about a bit of fight then? Or only old
timers your particular hammer?'

	Jones tried to push me off but he had neither strength or
spirit left, and was rewarded by two slapping open-handers
that must have first stung, then numbed, his face. I watched
him stagger and pitch forward; as he fell I clubbed him hard

142

behind the ear.

	The breeze dried the sweat on my face, and exhaustion crept
along my limbs. I heard my breath whistling strangely in my
throat, and suddenly I wanted to lie down beside Jones and
sleep. I willed myself to remain upright, and listened to the
clamour in the Billbrook; the cry of 'Coppers, coppers' rose
like an aboriginal chant. Jones was sobbing. The wheezing sub-
sided and the constriction in my chest eased.

	Before I staggered clear, I booted the prostrate Jones. A
couple of yards away, I remembered stopping and calling back,
'English scum, that was fi'r an old singing man.'

	It was a night of bloody madness. Reeling towards the
bowling green, I tripped over a concrete ledge and fell head-
long in the mud. I lay and heard the din closing round me. A
police dog barked sharply and I dragged myself to my feet and
fled away from the flickering torch-beams. The grounds backed
on to a council housing estate, and were screened by a chestnut
fence; I jumped wearily for the top, managed to rest my
elbows on the wooden ridges and inched myself up. I lay along
the fence top; the dog~barked again and I flopped over to land
face down in a sodden cabbage patch.

	After some seconds I edged down the concrete strip of path,
bumped my face on the line post and was through the gate and
into the street. I resisted the urge to run and walked into the
face of the fine rain that ran into the drying sweat on my face
and in my scalp. Voices carried from down the street, strident
and nearing; I slipped into a front garden, lay down behind the
privet hedge and waited for the voices to go. Finally I reached
the Anglia and drove away with the handbrake on, the car
jerked and rocked for thirty yards before I realized what was
wrong. It took a full hour to reach Walton and after parking
the car near the war memorial, I stumbled down the High
Street. My mind let go and the madness of my actions became
clear. As the sense of perspective returned, so the sickness rose
in my throat and I leaned against a lichened wall and vomited
uncontrollably.

	After dragging my aching body into the Dun Cow yard, I
couldn't make it back into the room by the straight pull-up to
the outbuilding roof and the second arm lift to the open
window; I tried but the attempt ended in bruising failure as my
weary body fell to the cobbles. I finally succeeded by leaning
across from the fire escape cmd squeezing foot and fingers into
the window frame; a smaller man would have failed. At one

143


stage in the operation the metal studs on my golf shoes caught
the inside of the ledge and again I nearly pitched back into the
yard.

	I undressed with unsteady fingers and filled the washbasin
Wi h hot water; after washing away the dirt and dried blood, I
examined my face in the mirror. One cheek was like a piece of
pork belly-draft and a cries-cross grazing blemished my chin. I
remembered a bottle of Dettol in the bathroom and slipped on
my dressing gown and let myself out into the corridor. I had
just returned with a towel wrapped boxer-fashion about my
head, when there was a tap on the door

	I ignored the knock but there was a second and feigning
sleepiness, I called drowsily, 'Can't it wait 'till morning?'

	The voice of Mrs Countryface answered: 'Telephone, Mr
Marler . . . the second for you tonight.'

'I'll be down.'

	Her voice had an edge of nervousness; 'I'm sorry about this
but the gentleman was so insistent ... you can take it in the

ask in reception, sfr.'

'Thanks . . . tell him to hang on.'

	Her footsteps faded down the corridor and I rucked the
bedclothes into an untidy heap. I pulled up the roll-collar of
my dressing gown and kept the towel about my head. I lifted

e telephone to discover it was Philip. 'What do you want,

Philip was piqued: 'I didn't have to ring y'know.'

'Well, why did you then?'

'Because Kath said I had to.'

	I laughed and winced afterwards as my facial muscles
burned at the slight movement. Philip went on '. . . Uncle Jamie
told me to as well ... you see, Mick ... the police have been

	I tried to sound unconcerned, 'What do those merchants
want with us, Phil?'

	'One of those young roughs who started that business in the
Bricklayers last week-end was beaten up at Billbrook tonight.
Sergeant Glass had seen him about that affair, but didn't get
anywhere ... this young chap seems to have the neighbour-
hood scared. Anyway, he got the treatment himself tonight
Glass came round looking for a motive, I was furious. I told
him we'd been in watching the television all night. He says .. .
an where iS the son then? The big chap. I got your number
from mother and said you were out of town at a hotel and he

144

could ring you himself. I said you were a Grenfell executive
and hardly the sort to get involved in a brawl.'

	I remember being amused and asked, 'What did the pious
Sergeant say to that?'


'He said he'd still like to check.'

'Cheeky bastard!'

	'I told him they had a damn cheek even talking to people like
us about it! '

	I felt better at the thought of Philip adding his leavening of
respectability to the bread. I said, 'Sounds to me like a gang
job.'

	'No, I gather there was only one man. A Paddy off the King
Road site, they think. Glass, he uses the bank, you know,
mellowed after a bit. I gather the woman in the outdoor
department remembers a fellow in a tweed cap, big and Irish
looking, who bought some cigarettes just before it all started. I
gather it was over within minutes and nobody else got a look
except the lot who got hurt and they aren't talking. Mr Glass
said it looked as if a bomb had hit the place.'

	The cap, my old cap, if it's traced I'm butchered. I panicked
for a moment. I remembered distinctly the rain on my bare
head as I walked to the car.

Philip was shouting, 'Are you still there, Mick?'

	I asked anxiously, 'Do you know if the yobos who were hurt
talked at all?'

'Ask Glass yourself.'

	I put down the receiver and met Mrs Countryface in the
hall. She said: 'How is the migraine?'

I indicated the towelling. 'Murder.'

'You were in a deep one earlier.'

I said gratefully, 'I took some sleeping pills.'

'Yes, you told my Jack that you had some....'

	I remembered the unexplained first telephone call, 'You tried
to rouse me earlier then?'

	She was looking curiously at the towel. I explained hastily:
'Keeps the light away, light is bad for migraine ... you were
saying?'

'Oh yes, the police rang.'

	Authority came into the farmer's daughter's voice. 'I told
them you weren't at all well. How long had you been ill, they
asked. Most of the week-end, I says. Had you been out
tonight? Most certainly not, I says, he's been in his room since
early on, and to get out he'd have to pass this very table and I

145

told them, he'd have to take shanks's pony, 'cause his car is
locked up in the garages and the key is sitting on its hook
staring right at me. Could they have a word with you, they
says. I'll see if you're awake, I says. I knocked on your door a
couple of times and you was fast asleep, so I went back and
told them you was sleepin'like a babby. They was very sorry to
have called but they may ring through in the morning....'


	She lowered her head over the call-book. 'What time do we
call you tomorrow?'

	In the bedroom I made my check, the cap was neatly folded
and stuffed inside a side pocket on my jacket. In the struggle
I'd lost my home-made cosh and the old suit was muddy and
bloodstained. I rolled the ancient gardening clothes into a ball
regretfully adding the heavy shoes, and with a still unread
Sunday paper made an untidy parcel. In the cellar downstairs,
I flung the bundle into the central heating boiler; the anthracite
glowed redly, and before I slammed the furnace door, there
was a hissing and a pungent smell.

	In my room, I removed the towel and examined my face
again; it had begun to swell-I looked like a badly beaten
prize fighter. The Dettol solution helped but I lay in the dark
and felt my face throbbing.

	I fell asleep and into a vivid nightmare, and in the flickering
hell faces shrank to pigmy-size only to explode into huge and
shadowy ghosts a moment later.

	I sat in the firelit parlour, it was a childhood winter and
Elizabeth and Grenfell had never been. Tommy Donnelly's
nose was running again and as we waited for our bread and
jam, Da rested Maggie on a corduroyed knee and sang her to
sleep; the fire was warm and I felt contented, but Tommy grew
large and fat and wore a bishop's mitre; he asked me why I
had been late for Mass. Before I could reply, the procession
began; Mrs Reynolds, cold eyed beneath a legal wig, and
wearing bloodied rooster's spurs on her neat black courts
Arthur, a ragged Ossian, blind and harping ancient songs.
Tubercular Jones, a General of the Commonwealth, his Crom-
wellian trooping helmet dented and askew, and his Puritan
collar clasped with a bootlace tie; I looked for his eyes, but he
had none; only cold pennies. Moyle and L'Estrange were
horrific Morris Dancers, the flesh of their faces woven into the
mummers' masks; across the parlour a diamond-marked snake
swayed with the rhythm of their clumsy antics. I yelled-the

146

reptile carried Hilda Greening's hard head; I rushed out into
the bedraggled garden, only to meet swaggering down the path,
Mrs Bradley, naked, protuberant and pendulous, a gaudy
Amazonian Eve with a bright green apple in each hand and
hairy legs. She said, 'Michael, after Collins, and James, after
Connolly, you are dead.'

147

EIGHT

At the back of the Cathedral, there is a gloom that makes me
anonymous. It is dark and quiet, and my pew seat has a deep
red cushion. I can smell the incense drifting down from the
dome.

	All those jokes I told at sales conventions about pregnant
girls in the Confessional. What is that one now? If I don't get
half of what's in the box I'll take me custom to another parish.
You've grown blasphemous, Marler, but you are back in the
club again. I am back, I've rejoined, and I'm glad. I feel sorry
for the Agnostics-they die like a dog, without a single prayer
said over them. And most Prods too.


	A week now, since the old man went over. A full week.
Monday again. God, my face hurts ~ I hope Jonah is a hospital
case Do I mean that? No. I must not mean it. I am out of the
self-induced trance. I am Michael Marler not O'Hanlon. I
work for Grenfell Industries as a Sales Executive. Will I have
to become a Mason to get any further? Why did Da hate De

	Concentrate, Michael. Make a thorough Examination of
Conscience, and a good Act of Contrition. Sort out the jumble
Take your time. Sift the sex and the sin. Go, mind-scraped and
white inside to the Requiem Mass.

148

PART TWO

ONE

Marler read the eye-catcher again; beneath the crossed keys
and mitre of the Papacy, in gold lettering, was 'Diocesan
Cathedral of St Matthew', and below, the times of Mass and
Confession. Behind the notice board the Pugin edifice pushed
red brick towers up into the sooty a*; Marler hesitated and
took off the sun glasses bought specially that morning at the all-
night chemist's in Market Square to hide his bruises; he read
for the tenth time the footnote: 'For confessions at tomes
other than those stated, or to see a Priest urgently, rung the bell
situated in the left transept facing the Chapel of St Joseph'.
Again Marler walked up the steps and turned and walked back
to the street; the second Mass was over and the eight-o'clock-
God-see-me-through-the-day faces had gone, but he could not
find the courage. As the Council House clock struck nine, he
strolled away and bought a third cup of coffee and read his
Midlands Post. There was a pert young thing sitting in the
corner who fluttered her eyelids at hum, but Marler buried his
face in the newspaper and tried to think.

	His walk back to the Cathedral was a mindless one and he
climbed the steps *n a daze; at the top a double door ... oaken
and ponderous, was bolted back. Inside the light was poor and
the stone flags held exactly the shade of the industrial grey
outside. Marler stopped; right or left? He went through the
left door and passed a turbaned scrubber with a masculine
jersey and a sparrowy face; she knelt beside a suds bucket and
circled with her spiny wood-backed brush; Marler stepped over
the bar of yellow soap that stood proud in a dull water spilling
and went on. Ahead there was a brightness-candles, buttercup
gold above white stalks, patched into the darkness that
stretched away to the High Altar. The smells were varied, dis-
infectant, spluttering wax, furniture polish and high in the
main dome, the fragrant drift of incense.

	Marler had been certain of himself outside *n the world of
talkative cafe owners, little girls desperate for sex and sludge-

149

blue bricks; inside, he was bewildered. He thought: this is a
mechanical function, like getting the order in a sale. You
get the prospect's interest, you motivate him, show him the
gear, and then at last you close him. You might not feel very
proud about the operation, but as long as you get the bit of
paper with the order on, what are the odds? If I go through
with this mummery I make the old lady happy, they can't
come that gulf about me insulting Da's memory and I go to the

burying with an easy mind. I suppose I could just take the
Communion in church and just tell them I'd been to Confes-
sion, but I couldn't do that, the Host would choke in my
mouth, so I've got to go through the hoop. A bad confession is
better than no confession. Liz was right, I stink with supersti-
bon . . .

	The place was empty and his footsteps rang hollowly on the
mosaic; he studied the pamphlet rack:

WHY NO DIVORCE?
SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN
WHAT CATHOLICS BELIEVE
INFALLIBILITY
CATHOLIC MARRIAGE
BIRTH CONTROL

the btles sbretched up and across, bright and needle-pointed.
He knew if he reached up a hand and took down one of the
militant jobs, he would turn and not start walking until the car-
park was reached. On a table, dark and elegiac, was the after-
Sunday harvest of mislaid missals and beads. Marler picked up
a shiny black book, flicked back the press-stud flap, and turned
the thin gold-edged pages to 'Prayers before Confession'.
Marler read through the Examination of Conscience.

'Have I...'

	The list was so extensive that he was forced to grin as the
thought came: I'll be in the box for a week. The prayers of St
Bonaventure defeated him utterly and once again he got back
to Sunday's discovery in the main vertebrae of the Mass....

'Graciously give peace in our days . . .'

	Marler knelt in a back pew and clasped his hands, he was
there a long time, tossing thoughts like pitch and toss pennies.
He rang the bell gently and a figure walked briskly through the
shadows; the priest had grey hair and a thin, kind face and
there was humour in the eyes.

150

'Can I help you?'

'Will you hear a confession, Father?'

	The elderly cleric looked into Marler's black eyes and re-
plied, 'Certainly.' He went into a box and the light came on
above the entrance. Marler thought; Thank God I've landed an
old feller and not one of the young burning sort who only
want to give you stick to make themselves feel good.

	He knelt beside the grill and saw the faint outline of the
priest's profile. He began and the old words came easily back-
'Bless me Father for I have sinned. I last went to confes-
sion...' He faltered, he had an aptitude for mathematics but
this required abnormal powers of recollection and calculation.
'Yes,' prompted the other.

	Marler supplied a very approximate date and then the words
came out in a rush, alternately spouting in crimson gouts and
dying to a spotting before pumping out again. He found all
kinds of things he had buried in his mind and he told them.

	The women, the stunts, the fast deals, Mrs Bradley, Jonah

... finally, remembering became difficult and he ended uncer-
tainly .. . 'For these and other sins I cannot now remember, I
ask your forgiveness. ..'

	When the priest spoke, his voice was dry and unsentimental;
Marler, waiting for the lecture, the nod and wink about sin-
ning grievously, the finger wag you-naughty-boy, and the final
extraction of promises impossible to keep, was surprised. The
tepid voice said; 'You lost God and you lost your peace of
mind ... your wounds are self inflicted...' Funny, thought
Marler, I've never thought of myself as wounded! The voice
droned on: '. . . don't become separated again . . . go to Mass
-take the Sacraments . . . say your prayers . . .'

	Marler thought, Blimey, what a relief! This mild stuff, all
very different from burn-at-the-stake Madden.

	Tension ebbed out of him and he felt strangely exhilarated;
he thought: What a turn-up, I'm neutered, I don't want to fight
anybody. The voice behind the grill asked dispassionately,
'Have you rosary beads?'

'Yes, Father, not with me, but I have them.'

	'For your penance say two decades and reflect on the
Poverty of Our Blessed Lord.'

'Yes, Father.'

'Now, a good Act of Contrition.'

	Marler began uncertainly: 'Oh, my God, I am sorry and beg
pardon . . .'

151

The priest gave Absolution in runaway Latin.

	Marler walked down the aisle to the pew-findings table and
borrowed a rosary, and in a dark pew he said his Hail Marys.

	What a day for a funeral, thought Marler, as he left the
empty Cathedral Oblivious of the rain, he leaned against his
car, watched the mid-morning walkers and mused on the
difference in two cities only a hundred miles apart, and getting
closer every year. There was none of the brittle smartness of
the City Harriers, and the faces reflected a distinctive provincial
cunning instead of the short-cut southern mind. The women
too, appeared to Marler to be louder, worse groomed, and less
emancipated. Yet, in their hippy way they contrived to be
more accessible. He found himself thinking of Mrs Bradley
again and censored his thoughts; her ample flesh was Mortal
Sin with a vengeance and he had to last out until after the
Mass. It was a rotten confession, he decided; there were a
thousand things he had not told, and the doubts still flitted like
bats through his mind.

	Driving back through the unbroken boredom of the suburbs
Marler put fingers to his face and the slightest of pressures
made him wince. Marne Road was full of cars-little shiny
saloons with sprays of plastic flowers sprouting from the dash-
boards, and dancing dolls grinning from rear windows. All
down the street, the lace curtains were drawn, and on the five
by five lawn was a mound of sickly wreaths and sprays; rain
drops slid wearily over the cellophane. He bent to read
the tags; Mr and Mrs Perks and family, Daisy and Cliff; All at

43 Marne Road, Arthur Smyth, to a good mate; The Back Bar
of the Bricklayers; Billbrook Working Men's Club.... There
were too many, and Marler gave up and thought: They won't
be at the funeral, their belief is Three-Time C. of E., Birth
Marriage, and Death. Anyway, Catholics are foreigners who
worship statues-still send a flower spray because Old Man
Marler sang a good song. There is a thing about a tombstone
of a street like this-it breeds tolerance. The air would kill off
anything else.

	Gingerly, Marler opened the kitchen door; the table was
laden with red cabbage, plates of ham and saucers of vinegary
mussels; in the deep sink was a small barrel of mild ale. Arthur
poked his head round the parlour door and waved a hand at
the food: 'With ham and sherry they meet to bury the lordliest

152

lad of earth.'

'Eh?'

'Brooke and Arthur Mooney, but never mind.'

	The parlour was full of people and flowers, and Marler
jostled with black suits and chrysanthemum sprays. Conversa-
tion was a series of muffled drum beatings and the faces were
pastry stiff; his mother pushed through the clusters indulging
in their misery, and he lowered his head to hear her whisper.

'I wondered where you'd got to, our Michael.'

'I've been to Confession.'

'I'm glad.'

	She patted his hand and moved away; Kath elbowed her
way across: 'Da's upstairs.'

	Marler climbed the linoed stairs and met Burke on the
landing; the little man reached up and jerked off Marler's dark
glasses. He nodded his approval and said: 'Fixed him, didn't
ye?'

	Marler nodded brusquely and pushed past. As he went into
the bedroom, Burke called after him 'He looks very peaceful in
there.'

	The coffin was a grand affair, brass-gold handles, grainy
wood, and copper lining. The lid carried a carved crucifix and
had been pulled down sufficiently to expose the dead man's
head. After the Coroner's probings, John Joe had been em-
balmed; there was a vellum quality to the skin, and it was
drawn tightly across the jut of the nose and cheekbones. The
thumbed-down lids and eye-slits beneath gave the shrunken
face the aggression of a Norman death-mask. As he looked
down at the coffin, Arthur walked in behind him and put a
bony hand on his shoulder.

	'Funny how fierce he looks, Mick. Ironic, I think ... the
fight stays behind in the shell and the love goes on with the
man.'

	Marler looked sharply at his cousin. 'All I know is that the
face doesn't look like that of my old feller.'


	They clumped down the stairs together; Arthur talked and
Marler did not listen. He was thinking that he was glad that he
had accepted the idea of Heaven again. The old man was
surely there?

	In the parlour they stood by Philip, his starched collar was a
dazzling white and his curls were brushed along his forehead.
Marler said out of the corner of his mouth, 'Thanks for the
phone call.'

153

'Damn hooligans! '

'I wonder who did it, Phil9'

'Some Irish navvy.'

	Uncle Perc appeared at Philip's shoulder. 'Serves them right.
Pity there isn't more of this dog-eat-dog. They should bring the
cat back. Last week's effort in the Billbrook was a disgrace .. .
four of these kids arrested and the rest got clean away. The
fines were laughable. Bring back the cat I say. . .'

	Marler nodded with the rest and Uncle Perc said: 'Seen
your father yet, Michael?'

	Marler nodded miserably and Uncle Perc talked to Philip.
He liked Philip. 'Hanlons did a good job with the embalming
Phil.'

'Best funeral people in South Brummagem!'

	Marler pushed past them and out into the garden; Arthur
followed and sat on the dustbin. A cigarette with a curving and
precarious ash-end drooped from his slack lips, he spoke out
of the corner of his mouth and miraculously retained the ash
intact. 'It's a bleedin' madhouse, our kid.'

Marler agreed: 'Aye, they are a bit much at times.'

	'I had to co.'ne out, Ad Perc gives me the screaming hab-
dabs, he always has ... an' that brother-in-law of yours is
almost as bad.'

Marler said sleepily. 'They aren't bad at all ... just ruddy

	Arthur was carping: 'That's the worst of introducing Anglo-
Saxons into a Celtic family.'

'Arthur, what a lot of rowlocks.'

'No sense of humour, Mick, that's your trouble.'

	The ash finally fell from Arthur's cigarette and turned the
dark-blue lapels to grey. With a handkerchief of the same
colour he spat to moisten, and rubbed away industriously.
Marler said exasperatedly: 'You are a scruffy sod! '

	Arthur protested: 'This is my best gear, I'm glad there aren't
funerals every day of the week.'

	They sat and smoked in silence until Marler looked at his
wrist watch and said, 'We'd better get inside.'

	'That lot in there get on my wick, let's stay here until we

hear the cars.'

'You are intolerant today, Arthur.'

	Arthur stubbed out his cigarette on the flagstones, 'Well
they make me want to throw up, they're in there talking as if
your old feller wore a hair shirt and gave his Fixed Odds

154

winnings to the African Missions. Ugh!'

	They heard a car draw up outside, and then another and
another. 'Chocks away,' said Arthur and they edged their way
back inside the house, where the professional sad-faces were
carrying the coffin down the high stairs; there was much
scraping and bumping hut no expression lit the eyes of the
black sad ravens.

	In the front mourning-car, Marler sat beside his mother and
stared reflectively at the car ahead, the hearse was a white and
yellow chysanthemum bower.

	Six bearers carried the draped coffin into the red brick
church, six boozing companions who had propped the bar of
the Men's Club next door for twenty-odd years. Marler had
never thought of his father as as a man with friends who had
aged with him. He looked curiously at the half-remembered
figures; some limped, there were Kitchener moustaches and
balding heads, and the faces were sincerely respectful.

	Uncle Pat shuffled his feet, and wished Arthur would stop
whispering. The small building was full of dark mourning garb
and the Mass was well attended. Father Madden intoned the
opening words and to Marler, he seemed suddenly old and
tired. The Latin poetry came down from the altar, every word
distinct; Marler stood in the front row and did not listen. He
stared at the draped coffin on the trolley and the thought
occurred that Madden had a point; Hell and Separation were
the same thing. When the bell rang, he went to his knees with
the rest, and knelt, and numbly waited until his mother stirred,
moved out into the gangway and up to the altar rails. He
followed mechanically and Maggie and the rest moved out
behind him.

	At the rails, Marler watched the white disc that was God
appear in Madden's fingers and move to his mother's mouth.
She passed the silver dish and Marler held it steady beneath his
chin, closed his eyes, and opening his mouth felt the wafer
drop lightly on his tongue. Madden's thick voice intoned
briefly over him and moved along.

	Back in his pew, he watched the black-coated line edge for-
ward and studied the faces of the God-receivers as they turned
to come back to their seats; Aunt Tess, swelled and solemn;
Uncle Perc with a pious pleated mouth; the Burkes, stiff with
ancient tribal ferocity; Arthur, a curious happiness etched into
his melancholy face, as if sunlight and rain were fusing, there
were many others, all singularly different.

155

	When the Mass was over, Madden stood on the chancel
step, the coffin trolley immediately below him, and began his
address. Marler switched off.


	The funeral cars threaded through the roughcast maze, and
drove through the high and ugly gates of the cemetery, where
the rain began again and turned the sodden ground to grassy
mire. The final act did not take long; in white surplice and
black cassock, Madden read his book; Elsie Marler wept
noisily, and Michael Marler showed no emotion until the
coffin went down the ghastly hole, and the first watery shovel-
ling of red clay and white pebbles struck the wood, then he
shook like a man with the ague. He'll have some company
down there, thought Kath. It is a family grave after all, and
young Dermot, six and frail is already down; twenty years
down.

	The drive back to the house gave the misery a chance to
settle, and by the time the last mourner had crowded in, the
Marlers were dry-eyed and busy. The visitors ate in relays,
crowding in at the drop-]eaf table and attacking plates of ham,
and beetroot, tomatoes, and tongue, red cabbage, and mussels.
The pre-burial murmurs were done with and they chatted in
loud voices.

	Marler went outside to look again at the cabbage patch
where the watery sun fought hopelessly against the haze.
Arthur brought out a glass of beer, they drank in silence and
he went back in for two more. When he came back he said
'Beer's nearly finished, let's go to the pub.'

Marler replied, 'We'll tell the others.'

	The women clucked tongues and wagged fingers, but it was a
waste of breath, and eight males jammed into Marler's car;
Phulip and Perc were notable absentees.

	Marler drove to the Feathers where he had talked with
Cocky, and called for nine pints. One was left untouched in
the centre of the table.

	For an hour, they drank and talked; Cocky was a Cork man
with a light high voice, and he told outrageous stories,
romanticising a hard boyhood. Arthur interrupted a highly
coloured tale of ambush and burnings, to say how delighted he
was to have been born in Ribsmore, and be a Clerk in the
Council House. Everyone laughed except Cocky who took
himself and his stories seriously.

	Uncle Jamie bought a round, and Uncle Pat another, and
Arthur whispered to Marler, 'Come on out to the Gents.'

156

	Marler left the Back Bar to discover Arthur had bought two
whiskies. As they sipped their drinks, Arthur explained: 'I've
only a quid on me, and I can't keep swilling ale like those
guzzlers! Mild ale blows me up and gives me the runs. I
thought we'd have a quick one out here and then I've enough
left to buy a round in there.' He jerked his thumb at the Bar
door. Marler asked, 'Would you like a liver?'

	'Thanks Mick, but no. I get the monthly pittance on Friday
and I'll scrounge a quid off the old lady to see me through the
week.'

	They finished their drinks and went back to find Cocky
Burke unloading a round of drinks from a slopping tray. The
little man disliked Arthur, and fixing him with a leery eye,
said, 'You were long enough.'


	Arthur sniffed, 'We've been to Birmingham via Beachy
Head.'

	Burke saw the tail end of Marler's grin and frowned menac-
ingly. Uncle Pat said easily, 'Don't mind our Arthur, he really
don't mean anything.'

	Burke puffed out his chest and hooked a thumb in a ragged
waistcoat pocket. He lifted his glass, 'To a bloody great charac-
ter, God bless him.'

	They all lifted their straight glasses in response, and Marler
felt the mild ale swelling out his stomach; he wanted to be sick
but fought down the urge. Frankie Burke said tonelessly, 'Pity
he's not here-we'd have had a song.'

	Uncle Jamie rose to defend the family reputation; 'I'll gie ya
one.' Alf Stokes bustled across to the corner piano and ran his
fat fingers noisily across the keys. 'What'll it be then?'

	Uncle Jamie scratched his nose and thought; and the wait-
ing pianist played his own appreciation to Jamie's brother, and
went through the full Saturday night repertoire, 'Three-o'clock
in the Morning', 'The Sunshine of your Smile', 'I'll take you
home again Kathleen', 'Terry', and all the rest, concluding
with the 'Red Flag'.

	Frankie Burke jeered, 'Why play that, Fatty? There's no-
thing of the Paddy about it! '

	Jamie Marler said nastily, 'Ignorant bastard! James Connell,
an Irishman mind, wrote that in nineteen-o-seven. A fat lot
you know about it-and not so much of the "Paddy" either!
Fellers I drink with would rip your liver out for calling them
"Jock"-an' "Paddy" is a bloody sight worse! '

Uncle Pat interrupted diplomatically, 'How about a song

157

then, Jamie?' Marler listened to the cool head tenor effort-
lessly hold the high note, and thought the voice similar to that
of his father, but without the sickly crucifying sweetness.
When it was over, he remarked, 'A sad old song, Uncle.'

	Arthur clipped in: 'Called "Will you remember me"
"Bohemian Girl" . . . "Balfe"!'

Cocky asked belligerently: 'What's he on about again?'

	Marler said hastily: 'How about "The Parting Glass" from
you, Mr Burke?' Cocky did his stuff, bolstering his talent with
excessive panache and as he sat down amid polite clapping, he
suggested Arthur as the next act. Arthur could not sing a note
and they all knew it; he stared venomously at Burke for a
second, and then got awkwardly to his feet.

	'I'm full of beer and fancied sagacity. I know my limitations
as a singing man and I wouldn't dream of murdering a good
song ... however, a verse I find appropriate to this sad occa-
sion.'

	Frankie Burke shouted tipsily, 'What's bloody sad about
it?'


	Marler looked at him sharply, but Frankie was guzzling his
beer again. Arthur continued as if the interruption had never
occurred.

	'Gentlemen ... the departed Mr Marler was the only one
who ever looked at [die Arthur with even a spark of under-
standing in his eyes. This verse was written by Higgins....'

	Uncle Pat whispered to Marler. 'Higgins, Higgins? Who was
Higgins?'

	Marler clucked him into silence and they listened to
Arthur's pulpit voice, as he recited and rocked uncertainly on
his heels.

	Arthur recited the first verse of 'Padraic O'Conaire', the old
storyteller. It was a sad verse, a sad eight-line verse. There was
a splutter of embarrassed applause and Arthur lurched towards
the door. When he came back, two drinks later, his face was
pale and his jacket stained. He came briefly tolife again when
the towel went on the beer pumps, and the party broke up.
Marler slipped a supporting arm about Arthur's shoulders and
they followed the others out. Marler stopped at the passage
hatch to buy cigarettes and saw remembrance bright in the eyes
of the big-breasted landlady, she came back with his change
made a meal of putting it into his palm and strove to retain
him in friendly conversation.

'Did you see the coppers in here?'

158

	Marler's interest was in the low neckline and the part ex-
posure of white and powdered globules; he was only half
listening, and was concerned with the edge of lace visible along
the top of her bra as she leaned confidentially forward; 'Fight
in the Billbrook last night y know. Feller is in the hospital-on
the danger-list.'

	Marler's lust turned to cold water, and the words were lit
like a neon sign across his mind. In hospital. In hospital.

	She took her chance and patted his hand, 'You all right,
love?'

'Aye . . . ltm all right. Know who he is? 1 mean the feller?'

'Oh, a tearaway off Billbrook, name of Lennie Jones.'

	Marler walked out and left his change behind. He had nearly
reached the car when he realized that Arthur was in step with
him. Arthur said laconically: 'You did him, didn't you Mick?'

	Marler nodded, and a black lock of hair slanted across his
forehead. He said bitterly: 'What stinking luck! l only cuffed
him.'

'What will you do, Mick?'

	Marler grimaced; 'Stay away from the rowers while I've all
this booze inside me, then when l sober up, I'll go to a good
legal gent.'

'Can they trace you?'

	'[ones getting damaged changes the lot. The bobbies don't

like hospital jobs. They'll be looking for the geezer who
knocked him about.'

'But can they trace you. Mick?'

	Marler halted and his forehead furrowed with thought,
'They'll have a job, and I've a good alibi and wore a reasonable
disguise.'

'Blimey, you were thorough!'

'One of my qualities, Art. Seems l overdid it.'

	They drove back to Marne Road in silence. Marler and
Arthur were worried and the rest too drunk to notice. The
Jaguar disembarked the troop and as Marler locked the car,
Arthur came back; he did not speak but nodded down the
street. A police car was parked in front of Philip's Morris.

Arthur's face was tight, 'Quicker than we guessed, Mick.'

	'I'm off, l need to think, and with this amount of booze
inside me, Art, I'd be cross questioned into hell....'

Marler unlocked the car again and Arthur called back 'I'll

	tell your old lady.'
	'Thanks Art.'	159

'Farewell Owen Roe.'

	Marler drove South, ignoring the 'forty' discs on the dual
carriageway, and enjoying the hiss of the wheels as they sped
over the wet surface. He made two reckless overtakes and put
his foot hard down on the accelerator, on a bend he saw the
white gloved motor-cyclist travelling the blind spot between
driving mirror and kerb,he thought; I'll lose you mister! The
Jaguar gathered more speed until it aquaplaned over the
sodden asphalt; it was at the Fladthorpe crossroads that
Marler almost came to grief. An ancient van detached itself
from the stream of approaching traffic and without a warning
signal and with a complete misjudgement of the Jaguar's
speed, attempted to turn right.

	For a split-second, Marler glimpsed a petrified country face,
and braking hard, he pulled the wheel over. He corrected the
vicious swerve out towards the oncoming vehicles, skidded
back to the grass verge, and felt the nearside wheels sheer
through muddy turf; the sensation was one of elation and
Marler thought: Michael, you are a winner. You can get away
with the Jones business, after all, Jones might have killed you.
-Anyway Michael, it was accidental, boxing ring stuff. Who will
feel sorry for Jones ? Only his fellow-pigs and then, only
briefly . . .

	Marler looked in the car mirror, the motor-cycle policeman
had been left behind.

	Until the revelation in the Feathers, Marler had felt scraped
out inside, all the black scales sloughed away; and the space
inside him, smooth and geometric, was full of a cold wind.
After the conversation with the landlady, thoughts of Jones
had rustled in his mind like sugary jellybabies in a paper
carton, and sin had begun to form inside him, black, wet
trickles of sin, crystallising on the metal curve of his saucepan
of soul. He drove down the Oxford by-pass and said aloud, 'It's

all right for God to fix the rules. It's all right for Him. I'm not
equipped to keep them.'

	The Fladthorpe crossroads incident had made up Marler's
mind. There were no rules for him now, Brummagem, Marne
Road, Donnelly, Kath, even his mother were all dead; hived
off, and redundant. His father was dead and must now be
forgotten.

	He began to plan the future. He would, he decided, stay at
Grenfell. He would strike out for himself. An idea grew
rapidly in his brain, like a fairy-ring mushroom, yellow-

160

capped, thin, white-gilled, and unpleasant. L'Estrange had
undoubtedly prepared a brief; Marler decided to prepare a
more damaging indictment of his own.

	He stopped the Jaguar on the drive of his Briarfield house.
The windows were bolted shut, Venetian kept out the
light, and the impression of loneliness and emptiness came
across strongly to Marler as he sat in the car. The house was
an attractive shell. He could not stay there for long.

	He let himself in through the front door; the electric clock
in the kitchen showed ten past five. Marler went back to the
hall, picked up the telephone and dialled.

'The Grenfell Group, good afternoon.'

'Mr Brunzy, please.'

	The operator hesitated, 'He may have already left, sir. We
close at five-fifteen. Hold on, sir, I'll try for you.'

	Marler waited. All incoming calls to the executive floor were
recorded, he could not afford to ring Hilda Greening direct.

'Brunzy.'

'Marler here-how's my old mate?'

'You've got a bloody nerve!'

'Why?'

'Ringing up here when you are under suspension.'

'Do me a favour will you, Brunzy?'

'If I can.'

	'Spread the word that I've had an approach from Russell of
Nash-Thomson. Oh, and don't disclose your information
source. I want the word spread thoroughly-right through
Grenfell House by Wednesday morning. Especially on the top
floor. Use all the incurable gossips, particularly secretaries. I
want Moyle's girl to feed the information back.'

Brunzy laughed admiringly. 'Decided to fight, have you?'

'Sure. I hope this line isn't being tapped.'

'When do you expect to see Moyle?'


	'He's due back from Chicago on Wednesday. I expect to go
on trial on Thursday.'

'Will I see you before then?' - -~

	'No, but you could ask Joan Blackstaffe to fiddle Wednesday
afternoon off and drive out to my house. Tell her to bring
carbons and plenty of foolscap. I've got a portable typewriter.
And tell her not to tell a soul! '

'Will she come?'

'Of course. She would come out of hope, if nothing else.'

Brunzy snorted like an angry horse; before he could com-
161

meet, Marler asked, 'Transfer me to Hilda Greening, and
don't give my name.'

	Marler heard Brunzy expel air through the wide ugly
mouth. Brunzy said, 'What a nerve! What do you think you're
doing?'

'I know exactly what I'm doing. Just transfer me.'

'She'll shop you.'

'Transfer me.'

	Brunzy pressed the cradle switch on the telephone several
times. The operator came back. Brunzy said, 'Put this gentle-
man on to Mrs Greening, please. She should still be in her
offlce.'

	The operator said. 'Hold on, sir,' then Marler heard Mrs
Greening's voice. 'Mr L'Estrange's secretary.'

'Hello, Hilda.'

The crisp starch binding left her voice: 'Who's that?'

'Guess.'

'Stop playing the fool! '

'I'm the Suspended Man! '

	Agitation came to Mrs Greening. She looked nervously at
the connecting door. 'Get off the line you fool. JBL could
come in at any moment.'

	'I'm not worried. Tell him you're talking to that neutered
husband of yours! I'm leaving anyway, you've nothing to fear,
Hilda. I've made out my resignation already. I'll hand it to
Moyle on Thursday.'

'Where will you go?'

	'Nash-Thomson or the Forge Group. Haven't made up my
mind yet.'

	Panic replaced the agitation in Mrs Greening's voice: 'But
you know all our Sales Promotion plans for the coming year,
Michael. You know our Product Development plans, our
launching dates. You could take half the junior execs with

you. They hero-worship you.'

	Carefully, Marler said, 'That's JBL's problem. I rang you on
a personal matter.'

'A personal matter?'

'Our date tomorrow night. At Anne Milner's flat.'

'That's off. I have some loyalty to JBL.'

	'Loyalty doesn't come into it. This is a matter that has no-
thing to do with Grenfell. Look, what have you to worry
about? I leave on Thursday-'

His voice dropped in key to a conspiratorial murmur: 'This

162

is our last opportunity, Hilda.'

	Marler knew her resolution had been replaced by vulner-
ability. Crudely, Marler asked, 'Don't you want to sleep with
me?'

	Mrs Greening gasped her reply. The words came out with a
rush of warm moist air, ordered out by a part of her mind not
under control. 'Come at eight. You have the address.'

	She dropped the receiver into its cradle and did not hear the
clatter. As the chauffeured company car took her home to the
Croydon semi-detached, she sat on the back seat in the dark-
ness, her face pale as dry winter stalks, her body emptied of
feeling, and her mind numbed and swollen like an upper lip
after cocaine.

163

TWO

On Tuesday morning, Marler drove to the village and bought
ham and eggs. At twelve he cooked his meal-a pound of
gammon and four eggs. He drank two bottles of his screw-
topped beer and then sat at his desk in the poky study. For
some minutes Marler sat and thought; then, his plan formed,
he put quarto sheets into the typewriter and began to list
mistakes made by L'Estrange over the previous four years.
Aloud, Marler muttered, 'I've got to prove that the old swine is
losing his grip! Nothing emotional will do-facts are what I
must put down!' At the top of the list went the computer-
market error.

	Marler's plan was simple, he needed to firstly discredit the
myth of L'Estrange's acumen and intellectual capacity,
secondly to prove that for years L'Estrange had been carried
by Marler, and thirdly to put to Moyle that L'Estrange and
Bishton were magnifying the assault incident to get rid of a
younger man whose successful methods were endangering
their positions.

	Through the afternoon, Marler typed, until the grey gauzes
of the evening dulled the whiteness of the papers and the typed
characters lost their sharpness. He pushed back his chair; the
clinching information he would get from Mrs Greening.

	Marler stood up and stared out into the dying garden; the

lawns were ragged and the flower beds were pocked with
muddy indentations. Thoughts of his father sidled into his
mind, slipped between the bars of the gate, and tried to soften
him. I've come a long way, Marler said to himself; Marne
Road to a twenty thousand tip like this. I can't afford to have a
God. I have no father, I am not a Catholic, Brummagem was
another life.

	Marler ran his bath, tilted a bottle of eau-de-cologne over the
water, and began to undress. He noticed, for the first time, the
bruises on his body; the initial watery blackcurrant had given
way to yellow and burnt-umber. Like the bruise on Da's cheek-
bone, Marler reflected. Suddenly, Marler was not sorry for
Jones, he was glad he had done what he had done. He looked

at his long black-topped face in the wash-basin mirror; the cuts
164

were healing. No word yet from Brummagem. Marler tensed
his shoulders and flexed his muscular arms, convinced he was
a winner. He'd oust L'Estrange, and Moyle retired at sixty; he
could well be the new fifty thousand a year Chairman of Gren-
fell's. Get rid of L'Estrange and the place was wide-open.

	Marler dressed carefully in soft shirt and lightweight suit;
went to the drinks cupboard, and lifted out two straw-bound
bottles of Moet and Chandon.

	At ten past eight, Marler drove on to the forecourt of the
apartment block. In the lift, Marler checked the number
scribbled on the crinkled piece of note-paper pushed into his
pocket by Mrs Greening the week before.

	He pressed an illuminated buzzer. The label beneath, read,
'Milner, A.' Mrs Greening opened the door. She pointed at the
straw-bound bottles, 'What are you hatching?'

'It's booze. Hope there is a fridge here?'

'There is.'

	Mrs Greening took the bottles from Marler and he noticed
the prominent veins in the backs of her large hands. She turned
and walked to the kitchen and Marler followed her inside. Her
high, black patent courts clicked on the wood blocks and
Marler looked down at the slender, slightly bowed legs. She
turned at the kitchen door, 'Go into the sitting-room, Michael.'

	Marler did not care for the flat. The drawn curtains were
patterned in blending squares of orange, bracken, nut-brown,
and moss. He sat on the window settee and examined their
coarse texture. The chairs were upholstered in Wedgwood and
the latex cushions were tangerine. It was essentially a woman's
home. Mrs Greening came back. 'I've cooked us a snack. I
don't expect you've eaten?'

'No.'

	'I came straight from the office. The meal was cooking while
I bathed and changed.'

'Smells good.'

'It is good l Be ready in about ten minutes.'

	Marler offered her a cigarette. She declined, and sat staring

at the blue-pink warmth of the gas-fire; the lines at her mouth
and eye-corners were sharp-etched and permanently set. The
blue Siamese eyes were empty of expression. Marler looked at
the copper-brown hair and the slender shape under the high-
necked mustard dress. 'Like your cress,' he said, 'Silk?'

'Yes.'

'Oh come on, Hilda-cheer up.'

165

She did not look at him. 'Are you really going to resign?'

	'Yes, I've no option. You know JBL. I've crossed him, and
he bears grudges.'

'What about the restrictions in your contract?'

	Marler was unperturbed. 'I've been to a solicitor,' he lied.
'My contract is as full of holes as a colander. All that stuff
about not going to a competitor within twenty-four months of
leaving. Just wouldn't stand up in a Court of Law. An
employer just cannot prevent an ex-employee from obtaining
gainful employment.'

	Her thin lips tightened. 'Well, I hope you know what you
are doing.'

	Throughout the meal, there was no conversation, only a dry
embarrassed silence. Marler finished first, and watched Mrs
Greening eat. She mouthed the food delicately, and again
Marler was reminded of Mrs Reynolds' cat. When she moved
her plate aside, Marler said, 'This is like a wake! You put the
plates in the kitchen and I'll open a bottle.'

	They drank the first bottle and Mrs Greening became more
cheerful. Marler found her brittle lacquered appearance, so
attractive in the luxurious office-settings of Grenfell House
unappealing. He looked at his watch, he had been there a full
hour and they had not even kissed. He opened the second
bottle and began to drink deeply. She found Miss Milner's
drink cupboard and switched to large gins Soon, they were
slightly drunk. Marler kissed her; her ardour surprised him
she clawed at his back with her painted finger-nails and Marler
felt their sharp pressure through his shirt. She kissed his eyes
his hair, his neck, his hands; it was a totally unexpected ex-
plosion of affection.

	When his hand moved to the zip of her dress, a white fore-
arm barred his way. A forearm freckled with golden-brown
motes of pigment. A faint weave of reddish hair lay under the
curve of the forearm muscle and accentuated the sinewy
power of the woman.

	Marler's sloe eyes looked into the sharp hard blueness of
Mrs Greening's eyes. She said, 'The light's too bright, my
breasts are wrinkled.'

	They made love in the darkened room next door, and Marler
was full of drink-roused power. His muscularity and brutal
dominance broke Mrs Greening's brittle independence and
cracked the slippery pearly shell she had built for years about

166


/

herself. Afterwards she lay exhausted, soft, and completely
submissive She said, 'I feel dead.'

	Marler looked at his watch, the time fingers were green in
the darkness. He said, 'It's late. After eleven.'

	She turned and pushed her face into his shoulder. 'I don't
want to go,' she said.

	They lay in silence for a long time and Marler began to
think about the interview with Moyle. He would have to be
careful with Moyle. Moyle was too shrewd to be conned. He
thought carefully about Moyle: The Chairman called himself
Jackson Moyle, but the inside crowd knew he had been born
Jacob Mintz. An accountant, soft-voiced, charming, and tough-
minded. A bumpy blackbird of a man with a shuck cap of
cropped black hair, hair like a scissored diamond of curly
synthetic carpet sprinkled with snippets of white cotton. His
face was the face of an abacus owner. A man interested in
costs, in facts, and in profit expectations. Marler felt happier
Moyle would not be interested in emotion. He might even be
already irritated by L'Estrange's pointless flamboyance.

	Mrs Greening said gently and uncharacteristically, 'What
are you thinking about?'

	'I was wishing I did not have to resign.' He patted her thin
shoulder, 'Especially row.'

'Do you have to?'

	'It's either L'Estrange or me. Pity he hasn't made the odd
mistake.' Marler waited; in the dark silence Mrs Greening
began to stir restlessly; the starched sheets rustled.

At last she said, 'He's made plenty.'

'Oh ?' Marler tried hard to sound disinterested.

	'Why do you think the casualty rates for product managers
are so high?'

	'Because good product managers are rare birds. The medio-
crities take on promotions that are too big for them, and when
the product flops-out they go.'

'You're wrong, Michael, dead wrong! '

	Marler raised himself on an elbow. He was very interested
She said, 'Surely you know JBL? He's got a God complex. He
never consults Market Research, he's a pure hunch-man. He
decides to launch a product clean out of the back of his head.
The product managers are only whipping boys. When things
go sour, he has someone to hang the blame on, and finally,
fire.'

'Good Lord!'

167

	'I should have thought you realizedthat, darling.' The
'darling' was very proprietary, but Marler did not notice the
inflechon in her voice. She continued, 'Look at Devereaux.
JBL fired him. Where is he now?'


'Sales Director of the Forge Group.'

And another victim, Tighe?'

'Managing Director of Rowleys.'

'Do I need to go one'

'Yes, I'd like to hear more.'

	She talked for another hour; her naked arm a warm bar
across his chest. As they dressed, she said, 'You are black and
hairy. Black curls and white skin.' She buttoned his shirt and
asked, 'Will you take a flat now Elizabeth has left you?'

'How do you know Elizabeth has gone?'

	'Miles Bishton spread it through the Group. You know the
linc~even Marler's wife can't stand him.'

'Rotten swine!'

'Well, will you get a flat?'

'I expect so.'

'Can I come and see you there9'

'Sure.'

	Marler drove her home through South-East London. He
stopped in the tree-lined road. 'Where's the house) Hilda9'

'That one there.' ~

	The lights were out. It took Marler a long hour to get
home.

168

THREE

The following morning, Marler rang a Mr Devereaux at the
Forge Group; the conversation was long and interesting.

	He rang a Mr Tighe at Rowleys-again a long conversation.
After that he rang a succession of such people. In the morning
post was a letter from Bishton's solicitors referring to a pro-
posed action for assault.

	Miss Blackstaffe drove out to Briarfield after lunch. She
took out her shorthand book, Marler picked up his accumu-
lated notes and dictation began. It was after seven when she
finished typing. Marler took her into Windsor and bought her
a meal. At nine they parted on the car-park and she drove
away in her surf-blue Mini.

169

FOUR

Marler walked warily up the steps of Grenfell House. At least,
he reflected, my initials plaque is still above my parking
place.


The Commissionaire saluted respectfully: 'Morning, sir.'

'Morning.'

	No, Marler decided, I don't want to leave Grenfell's. In the
lift he met Mitchell. A suggestion of a smile, an unpleasant
superior smile, broke the line of compressed lip. Marler
nodded brusquely and thought: That is the last time you'll
laugh at me, Mr Mitchell.

	Joan was waiting in his office. 'Mr Moyle wants to see you
at eleven.' She added as an afterthought, 'JBL spent most of
yesterday afternoon with him, I'm told.'

	Marler unfastened his brief-case and took out his notes. He
said, 'Bring through the tape-recorder, I want to rehearse my
speech.'

	. At eleven precisely, Marler was shown into Moyle's offlce.
The brown eyes of the little Chairman were flat and careful.
He shook Marler's hand, but did not smile. He indicated a
chair, and Marler sat down. Gently, as if he were scolding a
favourite small son, Moyle said, 'I hear you've been a naughty
boy, Mr Marler.'

	Marler shrugged expressively. Softly, Moyle said, 'I'd like an
explanation.'

	Marler grimaced as if the subject were unworthy and dis-
tasteful. 'Look, sir, there was some wild horse-play at a private
party, a party entirely unconnected with Grenfell's, and Mr
L'Estrange and Mr Bishton have magnified this incident out of
all proportion. Bishton has even gone to the ridiculous lengths
of taking legal advice. Fat lot of good that sort of action will
do our Group image! '

	Marler paused, and looked up. Moyle's expression had not
changed-the brown eyes were still flat and careful, and the
mouth below the soft curve of nose, still sadly resolute.

	Marler moved to stage two of his plan. 'Quite frankly, sir, I
think that my suspension was inevitable, any incident or any

170

mistake would have provided Mr L'Estrange with an oppor-
tunity. I don't make mistakes in my work, so it had to be
something outside the job. Mr L'Estrange sees me as a danger
to his own position. As for Mr Bishton, well, I'm rather too
earthy for his tastes.'

	Moyle still sat, sadly staring, the brown eyes wise and un-
blinking.

	Marler said almost desperately, 'Look, sir, I'm sick of cover-
ing up for JBL. Sick of doing his thinking.'

	At last Moyle spoke, 'So you are thinking of going to Nash-
Thomson or Forge?'

	'I don't want to go. But it seems to be either L'Estrange or
me, and he's the senior man.'

'What about your contract?'

	'Wouldn't stand up in a Court of Law, sir. I'm sure you

must realize this.'

	Moyle nodded mournfully. A long silence and then, 'Mr
L'Estrange says you make errors. Says you are impulsive.'

	Marler's head went back and the black eyes caught the light
and became silver centred. 'I've made mistakes,' he said in-
credulously. 'That's rich ~ '

Moyle's eyes widened slightly; he said, 'Oh?'

	Marler took his chance. For half-an-hour he gave out chap-
ter and verse; the money lost on new products, the expensive
turnover in executives, the political knifings. Before Marler
had finished, Moyle lifted a plump white hand, 'I'm not un-
aware of what goes on, Mr Marler. Though, I must admit, I
find your degree of knowledge quite remarkable. Who briefed
you, Mrs Greening?'

	Marler's mouth opened; he swallowed largely and noisily.
Moyle talked smoothly on: 'I'm not a fool, Marler. I've
known John L'Estrange for the best part of seventeen years. I
know his faults and I know his strengths. His greatest fault is
that as a businessman he's out of date. A battleship in an age
of hovercraft I have changed with the years. I have had to
change. John has always refused to change. How old are you,
Marler?'

'Thirty-four.'

	Moyle nodded sleepily and said in his dry Whitechapel
voice. 'A very old thirty-four, Mr Marler.'

	Moyle put on his black-framed glasses and consulted a pad
on his desk. 'Nash-Thomson have made no offer to you, and

171

neither has Herbert Brook the Chairman of Forge. Though
you did ring a Mr Devereaux there yesterday morning.'

	Marler sat transfixed. For the first time in years he felt both
foolish and frightened. Again, Moyle lifted a plump hand, and
the gentle sad mouth twisted into a faint smile. 'However, it
does indicate a certain resourcefulness, Mr Marler, and re-
sourcefulness is a quality we seem light on in this Group.'

	Marler felt relieved by the sight of the smile. A new respect
for the Chairman grew inside him. Moyle said quietly, 'This
incident enables me to make an unpleasant decision. A de-
cision I have deferred for nearly three years, since Devereaux
went to Forge in fact, because the decision was so personally
distasteful to me.'

	Moyle paused, his face melancholic, and he removed his
glasses. 'Marler, John L'Estrange has outlived his usefulness to
this Group. It makes me personally sad, but I am going to
retire him earlier than he would have wished. He will not lose
financially, he's been a good servant to this Group. His pension
will be a good one. I think you can do his job-I am going to
give you a chance to prove me right.' The plump hand lifted.
'A word of warning, Mr Marler, don't ever attempt to go to
our competitors. The chairmen of those companies, George
Nash and Herbert Brook, are personal friends of mine. Com-
petition is good-people don't realize this, particularly the
salesmen who sell the goods-but we make quite a number of

their accounting machines. In the case of Forge-they do
much of our metalwork. If you had approached either com-
pany for a job, I would have known within ten minutes.'

	Moyle left his desk and walked across to an exquisite maho-
gany cabinet; his shoes gleamed, and the dark suit was cut
beautifully to hide the imperfections of the plump little figure.
He took out glasses. 'We'll have a drink on this, Mr Marler, a
drink to the future.'

	He looked at Marler shrewdly, 'Now I think you'd be a
Scotch man?'

	Marler nodded. Moyle poured out a large measure from the
decanter, and then poured a tomato juice for himself. 'I don't
drink,' he said apologetically.

As Marler was leaving, Moyle said, 'Are you Jewish?'

'No, sir.'

'Oh, I only wondered. Your hair is very dark, Mr Marler.'

'Black Irish.'

172

	Moyle smiled sadly. 'Ah, that's it, is it? Not that it matters.
A good brain is the only standard. Good morning, Mr Marler.'

	Walking down to the lift, Marler felt impossibly strong. In-
vincible, independent, with a dead past and a green-bill future.
He would never go back.

173

FIVE

Two clear weeks after John Joe's death, Mrs Marler received
two thoughtful and consoling visitors. First Father Madden,
and then Arthur Mooney. Father Madden sat in the shadows,
relaxed, and let his worries twist the smoothness from his face.
When Arthur Mooney came through, the priest scratched an
eyebrow with a grubby finger-nail, and wondered what to say;
Arthur always confused him. In part, Arthur solved the prob-
lem; 'The pubs won't be the same without Uncle John Joe, but
then, we are a dying race, Father.'

'I don't follow you, Arthur.'

'Cells.'

'What about the Celts?'

	'Been dying out for centuries, and now in a state of gallop-
ing consumption.'

	Father Madden smiled as though comforting an idiot child,
'Every race is dying, every man is dying in an earthly sense. I
am, you are....'

	'Gerraway.' The thick eyebrows reared irritably; Arthur's
tone became placatory, 'Can I explain my point, Father?'

	I'll humour the lunatic, thought Madden; he nodded en-
couragingly.


	'Of John Joe's songs, his best was the "Bard of Armagh",
best because it's the anthem of our mob. It's what we are,
Father, dying warblers.'

'I can't see what you are getting at, Arthur.'

	Arthur explained; 'We are the aborigines of Europe, we're as
old as time, and those Aryan waggoners, blond and horifically
thorough, did for us from the beginning. We couldn't compete,
and we can't now. I like to think Arthur and his Romano-
Celtic armoured lads had a bloody good try, but they went
under hooves like all our heroes. Our courage has always been
futile, and our Messiahs always tragic. Think of a few, Cuchu-
lain and that awful bird on his shoulder, Ned Kelly and his
armour, Parnell and his fancy bit of stuff, Collins, ending up
with a hole in the back of his head....'

	The priest gazed at Arthur and pretended that he under-
stood, Arthur wandered moodily out to the kitchen, came back

174

and sat down.

	Feeling he ought to be interested, Father Madden
prompted: 'You were developing a theme, Arthur?'

	Arthur put down his cigarette, 'Ar, I was. My point is this-
the Goidelics all word magic and evening-coloured thoughts,
have been, and are being, slaughtered by the Practicals. Let's
forget Strongbow and Cromwell, it's not just whining Ireland
I'm on about. The emptying of the Highlands, the retreat of
the Welsh into Chapels, Cornwall full of hotel keepers from
Brummagem, it's all the sad story. We are as dead as the
Chaldees! '

'What about sixteen?'

'The last thrash.'

'Nonsense, utter nonsense! '

	'A dying kick, Father, in twenty years the new Gaeltacht will
be part of a Federal Europe, if it's clergy have left any juice in
the bone by then and it will be ruled by the Sensibles, Schmidt
or Smith-amounts to the same thing. We are a self-destruc-
tive race.'

	Elsie Marler slipped quietly into me parlour and listened
respectfully. That young Arthur, she thought, he's a penny
short of a shilling. Father Madden waited for Arthur to pause,
and then remarked to Elsie Marler, 'Your Michael has done
well for himself. A most impressive young man. Whoever
would have thought he'd develop into such a businessman....'

	Arthur said testily; 'Businessman! He's a reb, a Rapparee, a
Ned Kelly; when he comes out on top in a business intrigue
he's ambushed another Saxon. I expect he is comically feared,
and comically misunderstood! '

Madden nodded sadly and Arthur said, 'You agree thenI'

	The priest's smooth face broke, 'No, Arthur, I was just
thinking that you really are quite mad.'


	Arthur coloured; a quick anger ran through him, 'You don't
know what I am, you don't know me any more than you know
Mick, or knew John Joe. Me, I'm part of the pattern. I'm a
Raftery, a rhymer, blind and dying. I die every day on a
Number Nine bus, and I die again as I shuffle papers on a
corporation desk. Surely there is a different way? Drinking-
horns, and singing, fighting laddos and women as warm and
yellow as an August harvest, and no prospect of Hell hung
over me either! '

	Madden said wearily, 'Arthur, you really are an impractical
romantic. Why can't you take a more realistic view?'

175

'Like yours you mean?'

'Mine is not a view-I have a vocation.'

'Like Michael's view, then?'

	The priest hesitated and then remembered Michael's face at
the altar-rails. 'Yes . . . in a sense.'

	Arthur groaned, 'I'll stick to my escapist viewpoint if you
don't mind. I can't think of anything worse than to have
Michael's mental attitudes. He's likeable, but he's also feral!
He always has been. A frightening geezer-even Aunt here,
must admit that! He shows up here about every three years
and pads around like a damn great cat....'

	Father Madden, his face twisted with effort, lifted his great
bulk from the settee. He peered through the window: Yhe
police are back.'

	Mrs Marler went to the door; when she returned, her pale
eyes were wide with fear.

Arthur asked, 'What's wrong, Aunt?'

	'It was the police. A detective-something-Glass. Wanted to
know if our Michael was still here. They think he could help
them with their enquiries.'

	Arthur looked at Father Madden's alarmed face. Mrs
Marler's lips began to tremble. Arthur laughed cynically.
'Don't make such a fuss. Michael will con his way out of it.
Disguise, alibi, denial ... they won't be able to prove a thing.
His sort always con their way out.'

	Arthur's tubercular cough rasped through the parlour.
Father Madden said sternly, 'You smoke too much.'

'I know,' replied Arthur.

176