Moggerhanger

Chapter Twenty-Three

The train left on time. It sometimes did. It often didn’t, and I waited on the platform half a day. When it did it might come to a halt for three hours somewhere down the line. Now and again some big-headed fare-paying respectable-looking passenger in first-class stopped us after gleefully pulling the cord, looking as smug as if LSD wouldn’t melt in his mouth as a member of the railway Gestapo pushed by on his way to beat to a pulp whoever in steerage he decided had done it.

You could never tell what the delay was about. There was always something. It might be a fault in the heating system, and if so everybody in one carriage would be sweltering, eyes bulging as they undressed nearly to the buff, a few of them hacking at the sealed windows with the metal corners of their briefcases, hoping to get out to fresh air.

In the adjoining carriage there would be people freezing to death, frantically buttoning their overcoats, or fastening newspapers around themselves with their ties if they were properly dressed. A few would begin ripping the seats apart intending to make a fire, survival of the fittest being in full spate.

Those in the connecting space between a hot carriage and a cold carriage, appreciating the golden mean, had to decide between broiling their arses and freezing their faces, or freezing their arse and boiling their face. Under the circumstances the decision came to nothing, because the ticket inspector got there first and, immune to any drastic variations of temperature, charged ten quid to those passengers who wanted to take his place, the amount collected being no inconsiderable addition to the tax-free part of his income.

Sometimes he packed twenty or thirty into the space, till they hardly knew whether they were in the Black Hole of Calcutta or Captain Scott’s tent at the South Pole. One ticket inspector made enough money to retire in five years, after selling the concession to his mate, who made twenty thousand before going off to Tahiti. The company owning the line set the railway police on to find out why such well trained men were leaving their jobs so prematurely. When the reason was explained to the managing director he said he would only allow the transactions to continue if the ticket inspector split the difference in their takings with him — for the benefit of the shareholders of course whom, he felt it was his proud duty to state, he was duty bound to look after.

These by no means unrealistic reflections served merely to illustrate that, since privatisation, anything can happen on a train in England, not necessarily causing injury or death, though cases of that were not unknown.

However, relaxed and easy, I settled back to read The Times and smoke a cigar, but even then we were delayed half an hour because a cow had got onto the line, only removed after an announcement over the tannoy (though barely understandable due to so much static from faulty installation that it sounded as if coming from the middle of Arabia in a sandstorm) asking for someone — anyone, please! — to get out and milk it, which a young woman did with such charming expertise that every passenger applauded when the train grumbled on its way.

A sixty-year-old chap wearing a tweed suit, tie and shining brogues, boarded at the first stop down the line. I had seen him before, though hoped he wouldn’t remember having set eyes on me. He was so close shaven that a line of blood like a thread of red string ran a few inches down one of his cheeks, indicating either an alcoholic, someone who might at any second go off his head, or a chap who’d just come out of the jungle and hadn’t yet had time to burn the leech off his face with the hot end of a cigarette.

He sat opposite, as I’d known he was bound to, and I was halfway through an editorial about Mrs Thatcher before he spoke, in a croaky, manic, accusatory tone which I recalled from when I had given him a lift in Moggerhanger’s Rolls a few years ago on the A1. “What are you looking at me like that for?” he said.

I continued reading, while he played with the silver watch chain across his waistcoat. He was Percy Blemish, the husband of Mrs Blemish who was happily working as the housekeeper at Moggerhanger’s, and who should never have married the bloke whose baleful grey blue eyes wouldn’t stop staring at me. When he wasn’t tormenting his wife with some self-indulgent mental turmoil or other he would talk an unwitting motorist at a service station or transport café on the Great North Road into giving him a lift towards Tinder Box Cottage outside Goole. He always looked respectable, but what I wanted to know was how he came to be on the train instead of joying along in a car and sending the driver mad.

“I’m not looking at you.” I laid my paper down. “But if I am it’s because I’ve seen you before. If you keep on looking as closely at me as you are already you’ll know you’ve seen me before as well.”

His lips wiggled about: “That’s as may be. You were staring at me, though. I would know, wouldn’t I?”

“Normally,” I said, “you go up and down the country cadging lifts from car drivers, so why are you on a train?”

“What business is it of yours?”

“A week ago I saw your wife at Lord Moggerhanger’s, and she was getting on very well, except for worrying about you, which is more than you deserve. She told me she had no idea where you were.”

“That’s because I try never to tell her. She says she’s worried, but it’s only so she can keep her claws on me. I want to be free. I don’t want people worrying about me. It’s painful to be incessantly worried about. It’s nothing short of vengeful persecution.”

“In that case why are you going back to her, as you are now? Or so I assume.”

“It’s not my fault. She brings it on herself. She never stops trying to drag me back to Moggerhanger’s. I stayed in a bed and breakfast last night, and couldn’t sleep because she kept floating in my dreams, worrying me, telling me to come back to her as soon as possible. I had no intention of doing so, but after hurrying through my breakfast, I knew I had to, without knowing why. I stood by the roadside signalling for a lift, but no one would stop, and because she was still calling me urgently I walked to the station and caught the train.”

“Very sensible,” I said.

“It might well be,” he conceded. “But I noticed a full moon last night. Is that why you’re looking at me?”

His assumptions wearied me. The journey had started off well, and now I was lumbered with him. “If you say I’m looking at you again I’ll get the window open and do my level best to boot you out of the train.”

He looked alarmed. “Did my wife tell you to do that?”

“Mrs Blemish? Why should she? I haven’t seen her lately.”

I didn’t like his smile: “I suppose she persuaded you to commit an act of violence against me, because she knows I’m going to murder her as soon as I see her.”

I was intrigued. “How can she know that?”

“Not telling,” he said childishly.

“Is it because of the full moon?”

“You see, you were looking at me.”

“If I was I was only trying to decide which of your eyes to black. I rather fancy the left one.” Being so fundamentally barmy he drove everyone else in that direction. “But if you touch a hair of Mrs Blemish’s head not only will I give you a good hiding but so will Lord Moggerhanger. And when he’s finished he’ll hand whatever’s left of you to Kenny Dukes so that he can have a bit of fun as well. Just leave Mrs Blemish alone. Is that clear?”

He wiped an eye, as if hoping a tear would come out, and soon. “Life is so unjust.”

“It always is,” I agreed, “but I’m going to telephone Alice Whipplegate from Liverpool Street, and tell her that if she hears one sharp word between you and Mrs Blemish she’s to inform Lord Moggerhanger. Not only that, but I’ll fly to Ealing like Batman, take out my twelve-inch jackknife on the way, and deliberately do you in when I get there.”

“But my wife’s always getting at me.” A tear did come to his eye, but he seemed unaware. “It’s victimisation.”

“When a woman gets at a man,” I said sternly, “he always deserves it. Nobody knows that better than me. You have to be a man and put up with it, and if you can’t, then it’s time you grew up.”

“You’re being exceptionally harsh with me. I only want to take her to task.”

“Don’t. She’s the most noble and long suffering woman I know, while you, whether you’re off your bonce or not, are the most aggravating, callous, pig ignorant and self-centred person I’ve ever met, except Dismal.”

He was more interested in knowing about a possible rival than putting up with a further demolition of his character. “And who might Dismal be?”

“A dog, so I excuse him, because he can’t know any different. In any case, he’s also loyal, which makes up for everything. He’s also affectionate, at times, and that’s worth even more. He’s very proud, and never violent unless threatened, or unless he sees I’m in trouble. In other words, he’s a gentleman in canine form, which is why we’re two of a kind. There’s no side to either of us, so you’d do well to take a leaf out of his book.”

He gave a halfway normal smile, and I didn’t know whether to be pleased at the spectacle or jump off the train and run for my life, though the tragically boyish twist to his lips suggested he wanted in spite of everything to make the great leap forward into a state of tolerance for his wife. Perhaps he was trying to discard tormenting memories of Hell’s boarding school he’d been to as a boy. I’d heard anecdotes about such places from the blokes at the advertising agency, which made accounts of Approved Schools and Borstals from my pals in childhood and youth sound like trips to Pleasure Island in Pinocchio.

“I won’t hit her, then.” His mouth went back to its ordinary forlorn state. “I’ll just have a few words.”

“Don’t do that, either. One thing can lead to another. And then to somewhere else. And the next thing you know the judge is putting on his black cap before sending you off to be hanged by the neck until you’re dead. Just say hello to her, and keep quiet afterwards, then things will go well, and she’ll make a fuss of you, and feed you cakes straight out of the oven, and stroke your hair, and tell you she loves you and can’t live without you, and that you’re never to go away from her again.”

He stood abruptly, mouth wide open with horror. “I’d kill myself if that was the case. You’re tormenting me. I must get out of your sight. I have to go to you know where.”

I drew in my knees to let him by, his unblinking eyes looking straight ahead, so I knew he wouldn’t come back. When he didn’t I assumed he’d found a way of jumping off the train, babies and loonies made of rubber and always landing harmlessly on the hardest gravel. He was nowhere visible on the building site of Liverpool Street station, so I wasn’t able to give him the final caution with regard to his wife.

Since Blaskin disliked receiving visitors unannounced I phoned from the Underground. “Are you at home today?”

“Michael, my boy, I’m a lot more than here.” He sounded so maniacally cheerful I hoped something was wrong. “Your sister is here, as well, and we’re having a cup of coffee together.”

“Sister?” Was everyone I knew going insane? Blaskin didn’t often realise whether he was or not, being locked in the dense forest of some novel or other. “I haven’t got a sister.”

He rattled on. “I’m glad you got in touch first, because if you had stumbled in here without doing so you might have died from shock, and no father, not even me, would want to go to the funeral of his only begotten son. It gives me the greatest pleasure to inform you that your lovely and most delightful sister has come to pay her old roué of a father a more than acceptable social call, so if you’re in the way of wanting to be introduced, do come and join us. Perhaps you’ll cheer up Mabel Drudge, who is crying her socks off in the kitchen at this unexpected development in my personal life.”

“You’re trying to fuck me up again.”

“Michael, I wish you wouldn’t swear like one of the other ranks. Your sister wouldn’t be much impressed on hearing it. So curb your guttersnipe language when you meet her.”

My instinct was to get straight back to Upper Mayhem, where at least Clegg and Dismal weren’t off their trollies. But my sister? Blaskin rattled on about a sister I couldn’t possibly have, as if feminism had penetrated to his spinal cord at last — which I knew to be impossible. If his rigmarole had to do with the plot of his novel it was a swamp I didn’t care to slop across. It must be another twist in his personal devilry, which led him to string people up and watch them dance.

But my sister? He’d never sprung anything like that before, though the fertility of his invention was as rich as Nile mud, in which snakes and crocodiles thrashed about. If there was a sister in the offing, and it wasn’t merely the workings of his malicious mind, I had little to worry about, and in any case my curiosity would soon be satisfied.

I somnambulated down the escalator wondering whether I’d stay in the real world long enough to change at Holborn for Knightsbridge, and not inadvertently end up at London Heathrow, buying a ticket on a Jumbo to New Zealand, like Doris who I’d met when she was fleeing to Stansted, and never come back. Sister, my arse!

I stayed on the Central Line, and got off at Marble Arch, wanting the enjoyment of a walk down Park Lane. A drizzle began, but my mac and trilby kept it off. On crossing the lights at Mount Street I spotted the familiar contraption of Delphick’s panda wagon being trundled along in the bus lane.

A flat-capped copper marched by Delphick’s side, shaking his head at what daft tale he was hearing. A couple of foreign tourists snapped the apparition for their album, and Delphick called pettishly that they owed him ten quid for the privilege of the photograph which, though they might own it, shouldn’t forget that the copyright belonged to him.

“Now you just turn round this corner,” the policeman said, not unkindly, I thought, “and leave the tourists alone. And don’t give me any more lip, either. If I see you in a bus lane again you’ll be in trouble.”

“I’m only trying to advertise my poems, officer. I’m a poet, and it’s my living.” I was unlucky in his spotting me at that moment, because if there’s one thing I dislike, for obvious reasons, it was being brought to the attention of the law. “He’ll vouch for me, officer,” he cried. “Hey, Michael! Michael Cullen!”

The policeman ignored him, and when he’d gone I said to Delphick: “If you shout my name in the street like that again I’ll pull the straw from your panda, throw it in the gutter, piss on it, and make you eat every bit. I thought you were in Cambridge, anyway?”

He lit a cigarette. “I was, until last night. Today I’m pulling my pet panda around the West End, to let everybody know I’m giving a reading in Covent Garden tonight. Why don’t you come and hear me? It’s only five quid entrance. Four, if you pay me now.”

I ignored the human extortion machine. “Your panda looks fatter than a couple of days ago. What do you feed it on? Looks like it’s been to the cleaners as well.”

He puffed smoke at my face. “Not everybody notices that.”

Wasn’t it Einstein who said that imagination was worth more than intelligence? Being so brilliant, he must have been right, but mine was equal, because I had enough intelligence at times to make my imagination work, and it laboured now to come up with a startling deduction concerning Ronald Delphick. “I don’t suppose they do,” I said. “But what I think is that you emptied your panda in Cambridge of all those little packets of drugs, and took delivery of another load to hawk in London. In fact, correct me if I’m wrong, whoever your contact was had a new panda costume waiting for you.”

All through this startling accusation his features under their mask of hair turned every colour from purple to back again. “Fucking wrong, mate. Do you think I’d get myself escorted down Park Lane by the fuzz if I was carrying stuff like that?”

“Frankly, yes I do. It’s just what a cunning fuckface like you would revel in. Another thing is that a further cover for your one-man drugs transport service is to convince people you haven’t got two ha’pennies for a penny, while all the time spending pots of cash extending and beautifying your property at Doggerel Bank. I’ve had my eyes on you for some time, my lad, and if I was Inspector Knacker-of-the-Yard I’d have sent you down for life five years ago, but I was never one to shop anybody, so you’re safe with me. On the other hand, if ever you try to cadge anything from me again, or come to Upper Mayhem expecting a free doss down, I’ll get you run in.”

A laugh proved him fully incorrigible. “Oh what a story! Me a drug-running millionaire! I’ll do a poem about that.”

“And dedicate it to Oscar Cross of the Green Toe Gang while you’re at it,” I said. “That’s who you’re working for, isn’t it?”

He put on a very nasty look. “You can bollocks, you can.”

For years he had been pushing his poxed-up panda up and down the Great North Road, and sooner or later Oscar Cross had got the idea of using him as a way of shifting consignments of dope from one place to another. The method was slow, of course, but it got there in the end, and was no less welcome. I hoped that in not too long the police would smell a panda-rat and pull Delphick in, though at the same time I couldn’t begrudge the rogue his earnings, since I had taken advantage of the same trade often enough, which luckily he didn’t know about, otherwise he would certainly have shopped me.

He spat on his palms like a workman about to start building a block of flats on the Isle of Dogs, and adjusted the panda into a straight-backed position, and put himself between the shafts. “I don’t like you, Cullen.”

“Not after all the kindnesses I’ve done for you? But you can stop worrying. I don’t come from the sort of close knit family that tips off the coppers. You must be popular in Cambridge though. I’ll bet every student there is so high after your delivery they’re tripping across the glittering spires like bats on their birthday. They might not even be able to come down in time for their exams. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

My jibe went into his heavily fleshed ribs like the nail file of a Swiss Army knife. He came to me at the edge of the pavement. I’d really rattled him, which gave me a certain amount of satisfaction. “Ashamed of hopping up those wankers? Those spoiled pampered three-year skivers from privileged homes? They’re all idle nonces from public schools who’ll be earning a million a year on the stock exchange as soon as they’ve graduated.”

“Steady on,” I said, at the froth on his lips. “A lot are from ordinary homes. They’ll have a struggle to get their degrees. A few weeks ago I gave a lift to a youth who was working in the carrot fields earning a bob or two to make ends meet. He told me he was your cousin, and said you’d taken his last twelve quid and never given it back, when he was a kid and saving to buy an electronic calculator. Now that you’re making a fortune on drug running why don’t you send him a cheque? He could do with it. The poor sod was on his uppers.”

A man carrying a rolled umbrella dropped a pound in a tin below the panda’s chin. “Thank you, sir,” Delphick called. “That’s another one for poetry!” He put the coin in his pocket and came back to me. “I don’t have a cousin. I never did have, and if I did I don’t have one now. So many dropouts go around saying they’re my cousin, or son, or brother, or daughter, but it’s just because they’ve read about me in the press and want to claim kinship. So tell me no more about all the stray Delphicks in the world.” Back at his panda pram, he was about to push it away. “I come from an ancient and noble family, and don’t you forget it. I’m the last of the Delphicks. No more Delphicks left but me.”

I watched his progress towards Grosvenor Square, and then, having been so engrossed in our altercation that I hadn’t noticed the drizzle soaking into my blotting paper Burberry, I walked quickly to the underpass and across to Knightsbridge.