The Family Arsenal

18

Once the boat was out of sight of Tower Bridge, travelling downriver on this bleak backwater lined with ghostly rotting warehouses, there were no more landmarks to distract Lady Arrow, and her memory was buoyed by the river’s surge. Her mind began to move with the current. So much better than the bounce and stink of a taxi, though at first on the excursion boat she had felt only nausea. She had been struck by the discomfort, the choppy water under the grey sky, and up close she could see that what she had taken for turbulence were chunks of rocking flotsam, the arm of a chair, a cupboard door, a greasy eel of rope, a bar of yellow factory froth, all simulating the dance of waves. Like the boat itself: a deception. She had seen it gliding towards the quay at Westminster and had a foretaste of pleasure; but on board, the engine droned against her feet and set her teeth on edge, and then she worried that the flimsy craft might go under, slip beneath the water’s garish tincture of chemicals and sink before she gained the Embankment walls. She was sickened by the motion and noise and bad air, and she decided that she had been so far from the boat and water she had mistaken clumsiness for grace. She had reached for something tranquil and seized disorder; her snaring hands had put the peaceful bird to flight. The boat was frantic; it tipped and rattled; the smell of gas made her dizzy. The four other passengers huddled at the edges of the cabin like stowaways. The windows were splashed, but there was nothing to see except a zone of water distorting her landmarks and suddenly the rusty hull of a looming tug — she heard its hoot — and behind it, on a cable, its ark of sewage.

That was at the beginning of the trip. The wind had wrinkled the river’s surface, she had been cold. The late-October chill had settled, an afternoon in the afternoon of the year, reminding her — as foul weather invariably did — of her age. But now the landmarks were gone and the river carried the boat and her thoughts; she remembered her errand. Her discomfort helped her to reflect: she knew she was playing a role that required moments of furtiveness, an anonymity she sometimes craved. She had asked for this accidental hour on the river to keep her appointment on Greenwich pier for the meeting later; she needed all the props of secrecy for her mood. So after the first shock of the boat, the feeling she wanted to shout, the dread she was going to vomit, the window’s dampness prickling her face and that icicle jammed in her spine — after all that, she saw how right it was and she enjoyed its appropriateness to her stealth. It could not be different. The pretence warmed her. And, as always, enjoyment was a prelude to greed: she wanted to buy a boat, think of a name for it, hire an ex-convict to pilot it, moor it beside Cheyne Walk and give a party on the deck.

Downriver, down its grey throat, seawards, the boat was borne: she could think here.

Instinct, no more, had brought her this far. She had always struggled to find among the choices within her the truest expression of her will. She had groped to show herself the way through her wealth. Like the painting. That theft. It had been so embarrassing at the time she had only felt exposed and had not seen the simplest thing — that she might have managed it all herself, upstaged the thieves and been the triumphant victim of her own plot. She wished she had been involved from the very beginning. But she had discovered it soon enough — a vindication of her curiosity that made her more curious. She had once thought of selling everything and giving away the proceeds, pouring it all into the river of common hope — like this river beneath her, murky and slow — to speed the current and cause a flooding so great they’d be knee-deep in it in places like Cricklewood and Brixton. But there were other stratagems (anyway, charity was the century’s most deliberate fraud — what were her do-gooding parents but pious cheats?), and of them theft was the greatest. The stolen painting taught her to see her role in a different way. She thought: perhaps I have spent my whole life encouraging people to steal from me, because I have been too timid to give. The most outrageous reply to money was the only one. She had improved on Bakunin — using privilege to rid herself of privilege. She wished for others to do violence to her wealth and yet to have her own say in their acts. She deserved to be the victim and yet she could not be deprived of that other role she had set for herself. She wished to be both the terrorist and the terrorized. Her own painting hung as hostage in the upstairs room of the Deptford house showed her how central she was to the drama of disorder, how her importance confounded simplicity and made all the layers of travesty political. It was like Twelfth Night in Holloway Women’s Prison: the woman chosen to play the man’s part was disguised as a woman, who was revealed as a man who was offstage a woman. And how far she’d come! Until she had discovered the complications of the theft her most revolutionary idea had been to sack Mrs Pount.

She could feel the boat’s progress, the splashings at her elbow, the window’s mist on her cheek. The painting had redeemed her and, most of all, that theft was one in the eye for Araba. She had stopped visiting Hill Street. She said she was too busy. But Lady Arrow knew the reason. It was not that over-praised farce and had nothing to do with the Peter Pan business — those rehearsals wouldn’t start for weeks. No, a needless sense of rivalry had sharpened in Araba. She too had money; she had prominence; she had her group, the militant actors who had done little but give themselves a name — the Purple League — and disrupt Equity meetings. Play-acting with costumes and aliases, their substitute for action. A mob of howling fairies, frenzied because the best part went to younger stars who didn’t lisp — amazing how many actors in the League had speech impediments or were too short. They got noisier until they landed a place in some safe repertory company and then they fell silent: politics was a way to fame, Marxism to wealth; the furious little Trots wanted to be film stars! Araba believed in them, or said she did; she staged their pageants, led the attacks on the Punch and Judy shows, chaired their meetings, loaned them money. If they disappointed her she expelled them.

‘You must come to a meeting one day,’ Araba had said. It was not an invitation. Only an actress celebrated as Lady Macbeth could exclude you by seeming to invite you.

But she believed, in spite of her mockery. Of all the people Lady Arrow had ever known only actors had been able to combine power with glamour; and the best were gods, moving easily from world to world. They made you believe in that pretence. More than their friendship Lady Arrow wanted their loyalty. It would be like owning the priests who officiated at the public ceremonies of a popular religion. It was, she knew, an irrational trust that she had, but she could not help it. Actors lived in a way she would have chosen for herself; they could be anyone and they could persuade others to believe in their masks. She guessed they were weak, but she seldom saw their weakness and for them to make weakness seem like power filled her with approval. More than that, she saw how in organizing plays in prisons and assigning roles for herself she was secretly imitating them — and what prisoner would criticize her acting ability? This was her unspoken answer to Araba, and a way of proving to herself that she could act well. The more Araba avoided her, the more she tried to divine how she might make the actress dependent, and then they could conspire together. She wanted to be included, but Araba kept her away, as if encouraging the rivalry. Money did not enter into it — so much the better. But Lady Arrow had gathered that Araba did not trust her, did not quite believe the principles Lady Arrow claimed for herself. She seemed to imply in her disbelief that Lady Arrow had a fictitious ambition. Or was she demanding proof — a tactic for ignoring her — because she was not interested in her? Araba might even be on the verge of expelling her in some casual way. Today, Lady Arrow had invited herself and Araba had allowed it with reluctance, showing interest only when Lady Arrow had said, ‘I’m not coming alone. There’s someone I want you to meet.’

‘Who?’

‘One of my prisoners.’

The river stopped, then her thoughts; the boat was turning, hooting. The spattered windows revealed nothing but the water’s cold light. The engine was still. The boat bumped. Lady Arrow guessed they’d arrived at Greenwich. She walked unsteadily to the ladder and climbed to the deck.

Brodie was at the top of the ramp, waving. Seeing her, Lady Arrow felt a helpless exalted hunger for the girl, something physical tightening in her that made her strength clumsy. Desire seldom activated her mind — it pulsed at her throat and made her flesh burr as with the onset of fever. It was always like this: it broke her in two and one half hid from the other, like shame from pride. She rushed up to Brodie and kissed her, feeling huge, hoping she did not look foolish and yet not caring. She saw she had startled the young girl with her tongue and teeth, and she said, ‘Are you going to be warm enough in that jacket?’

‘I’m all right. I liberated it from a second-hand shop.’ It was a school blazer, with a badge and a Latin motto on the breast pocket. Under it Brodie wore a thin jersey. The wind whipped at her lapels and pushed her long dress against her small thighs.

‘We’ve got a stiffish walk,’ said Lady Arrow, feeling guilty to be so warmly dressed in a heavy coat and long scarf. ‘Why don’t we have a drink at the Trafalgar before we set off?’

‘I don’t drink,’ said Brodie, ‘but I’ll keep you company.’

They walked on the riverside path in front of the Naval College to the Trafalgar, where Lady Arrow ordered a double whisky. Brodie excused herself and by the time she returned Lady Arrow had finished her drink. Brodie was brighter, laughing to herself and staring with glazed hilarity at Lady Arrow.

‘Have you taken a pill or something?’

‘I turned on in the loo,’ said Brodie. ‘You mean you can smell it on me?’

‘Rather,’ said Lady Arrow; then she sniffed.

‘You said we were meeting this heavy actress. I always turn on before I meet people.’

Outside, Lady Arrow said, ‘In my favourite novel there’s a lovely scene here in Greenwich — an outing, like this. Do you know Henry James?’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘That’s much better than knowing his name and not reading him.’ She looked at the young girl’s white face and thought: she knows nothing — she is free.

They cut across the park and climbed the path that led around the front of the Observatory to a road and a little hill. Although it was only mid-afternoon the light was failing and the ground darkening with an imitation of shadows; and the air had thickened, so that the trees that led to the far end of the hill, where some tennis courts were just visible, were dimmed by a mist so fine it was like cigarette smoke. And now the Observatory looked distant, like an old Dutch mansion on a promontory of a grey-green sea.

‘How is my friend Mister Hood?’

‘He’s not around much. I think he’s got a chick.’

‘Has he?’ Lady Arrow was momentarily jealous, then she was calm: she was with Brodie. This was what she had wanted most. ‘He seems quite a remarkable man.’

‘He’s pretty heavy.’

‘You must bring him over to Hill Street.’

Brodie laughed. ‘He won’t come. He don’t like you.’

Lady Arrow stopped walking. She said, ‘Why not?’

Brodie went a few more paces, then turned and said, ‘He’d go crazy if he knew I was meeting you. He told Murf and me not to see you. He says it’s not our scene. You’ll fuck us up.’

‘Do you think I will?’

‘I’m fucked up already. Anyway he’s not my father. He can’t tell me what to do.’

‘Good girl,’ said Lady Arrow, and seeing that they were alone and surrounded by trees she stooped and put her arm around the girl’s small shoulders. Crushing the blazer she pulled her close — even in those thin clothes Brodie was warm. Lady Arrow said, ‘I’d like to adopt you — legally. Then we could be together all the time.’

Brodie looked up and smiled. ‘You’d be my mother. Really strange.’

‘I’d be a nice mother,’ said Lady Arrow, then urgently she said, ‘Let me.’

Brodie shrugged. ‘I’d feel funny.’

‘We could go to bed and have all our secrets there.’

Brodie squinted, as if she had just then forgotten something she had always known.

‘I’ve shocked you,’ said Lady Arrow.

‘No,’ said Brodie. ‘A chick fancied me once. In the nick it was. I done it with her.’

‘So you know how beautiful it is.’

Brodie screwed up her face, pretending a look of comic disgust, seeming to swallow something foul.

‘Don’t you?’ said Lady Arrow.

Brodie was shaking her head. She said, ‘Yuck!’

Then she was running across the humpy top of the hill, her hair flying like a pennant as she ducked around trees, growing smaller. Lady Arrow watched: she was out of reach, running away as children always did, making no allowance for the very slow. The afternoon mist and low sky made a great brown canvas of the park on which Brodie was an elusive flag of paint among the trees, a brushstroke. Lady Arrow leaned into the steep path and trudged towards the darting figure. She stopped several times to get her breath and felt almost defeated knowing she was chasing her in the most hopeless way and could only catch her if the girl allowed it.

In the living room of Mortimer Lodge, Araba was saying, ‘But she’s not one of your prisoners, is she?’

‘I thought you’d like her.’

‘She’s spoiled and she’s too young.’ Araba sipped her mug of coffee. The mug was chipped, her jeans were stained with paint and bleach, and she sat on the arm of the sofa with a kind of awkward arrogance, like a workman in a large strange house. ‘I’ve had it up here with these rich girls playing at politics.’

‘You must be joking,’ said Lady Arrow, and she laughed at the thought of Brodie being considered rich. But she was vindicated in her belief: Araba had taken the girl’s carelessness — poverty’s legacy — for freedom. She saw that Araba was annoyed and said, ‘She’s the real thing.’

‘I can’t stand her affectations. That blazer is a dead giveaway.’

‘She liberated it from a second-hand shop.’

‘Really, Susannah, you shouldn’t waste your time with girls like that. There are so many people who need attention — why pick on one of your own?’

‘So that’s why you’re being rude to her.’

‘She’s not my type.’

‘She’d be interested in your work.’

‘My work would scare the daylights out of her.’

Brodie entered the room holding McGravy’s dog. She said, ‘He thought he could get away from me, but I was too fast for him.’

‘Poldy’s got high blood pressure,’ said Araba. ‘Do be careful with him.’

‘How do you like Araba’s new house?’ said Lady Arrow.

‘Far out,’ said Brodie. ‘But ours is bigger, ain’t it? You can play hide and seek in ours.’

Lady Arrow saw Araba’s ears move in satisfaction. She said, ‘Brodie lives in a marvellous old house in Deptford with her friends.’

‘I imagine that must make your parents absolutely furious.’

‘My father run off when I was a baby,’ said Brodie. ‘And my mother, she don’t have a clue.’

Lady Arrow said, ‘I think Brodie would get on terribly well with your friend Anna, that pretty little Trot.’

‘We expelled her,’ said Araba.

‘They’re always expelling people,’ said Lady Arrow to Brodie. ‘They’re famous for it. It sounds such fun. I once thought of expelling Mrs Pount, but she’d be ever so sad if I did.’

‘It’s not funny,’ said Araba. ‘I was expelled myself not long ago.’

‘Who would do a thing like that?’ said Lady Arrow.

‘I can’t go into it — not in present company.’

The women were on chairs, facing each other across twenty feet of carpet, in the centre of which Brodie sat crosslegged, playing with the dog. She was like a bored child forced indoors by her aunts, who made an effort from time to time to include her in the conversation and who spoke with self-conscious care, knowing they had a young listener.

‘And how is Peter Pan?’ said Lady Arrow. ‘They haven’t expelled you from that I hope.’

‘Rehearsals start in a few weeks,’ said Araba. ‘It’s a headache — I’ve got so many other things to do. I have to take lessons on the wire. It’s a complete bore, learning to fly.’

‘It sounds super,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘Did you hear that, my love — she’s learning to fly!’

‘When I was at the home,’ said Brodie, ‘they took us to see Peter Pan one Christmas.’

‘And did you like it?’ asked Lady Arrow.

‘The part with the pirates was pretty freaky,’ said Brodie. ‘I can’t remember the rest. I think it was too long.’

‘Your political affairs must take up a great deal of your time, Araba,’ said Lady Arrow turning away from Brodie.

‘The League? It’s the only thing that keeps me sane.’

‘How many members do you have?’

‘That’s a reporter’s question, Susannah. You know better than to ask that.’

‘I love secrets,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘I only wish I had some myself. Perhaps I do!’

‘How did you get into it?’ asked Brodie, holding the dog on her lap and letting him gnaw her wrist.

‘Historical necessity,’ said Araba. ‘It had to happen. You can’t ignore what’s going on around you. You take it for just so long and then something snaps.’

‘I never thought of it that way,’ said Brodie.

‘It can be a very humbling thing to know how much power you really have. I’m not talking about playing around with it, the political protest wank that only makes you feel good — that doesn’t change anything. No, I mean, when you realize that there are thousands, just like you —’

Brodie was shaking her head, laughing softly and stroking the dog.

‘I can see you’re not very impressed,’ said Araba. ‘But I’ll lend you a book if you like.’

‘I read one.’

‘And what did you think of it?’

‘Too long,’ said Brodie.

‘There speaks the voice of innocence — innocence is a form of laziness, isn’t it? The young and their all-purpose comments. I must remember that — it was too long!’

‘It’s probably a fair comment,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘I don’t know. I’m hopelessly out of my depth with political theory.’

Araba said, ‘I’m so sick of the young, I’m so tired of hearing about them and seeing them courted.’ She turned to Brodie and said crossly, ‘You don’t know anything, but if you listen you’ll see you have a part to play.’

‘No,’ said Brodie.

‘You might be surprised,’ said Araba.

Brodie said, ‘I could never play Peter Pan.’

‘Oh, Lord,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘Didn’t I tell you?’

‘It’s not that the book was boring,’ Brodie explained. ‘I liked the pirates. But the flying! I’d freak out on that wire. I’m afraid of heights.’

‘Tell her about the League,’ said Lady Arrow.

‘I don’t want to alarm her,’ said Araba.

‘She won’t be alarmed.’

‘Then she won’t understand.’

‘I’m stupid,’ said Brodie. ‘Right? That’s what you’re saying. I’m stupid — I don’t know nothing.’

Araba blushed slightly and said, ‘We’re mainly Trots, but some are outright anarchists or anarchosyndicalists. Are you with me?’

The dog barked. Brodie giggled and patted him.

‘It’s a grass-roots movement of workers, the only viable alternative to the existing power structure of hacks and exploiters.’ Araba got to her feet. ‘It’s a party committed to action on all fronts.’

‘I like parties,’ said Brodie.

‘She’s really quite passionate,’ said Lady Arrow.

‘Stuff your praise,’ said Araba. ‘We’re not part-timers. And I warn you we’re not joking. Any corrupt government is bound to fail — this one will, and when it does we’ll be there to take over.’

‘Then you’ll be the big shits,’ said Brodie.

‘No,’ said Araba, ‘because then we’ll hand it over to the people.’

‘The word “people” is so bald,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘ “People” — that’s what politicians say. Who are they, the people?’

‘They’re, like, mainly the straights, aren’t they?’ said Brodie. ‘It’s everyone except the freaks.’

‘What a jolly good definition,’ said Lady Arrow.

‘I don’t think you want to hear anymore,’ said Araba.

‘I think Brodie would like you to be specific,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘You’ve been awfully abstract with your people and your grass-roots.’

‘I could scare you with specifics.’

‘Go on, try,’ said Lady Arrow, and she sat forward and took a pinch of snuff.

‘Well, for one thing we haven’t ruled out the possibility of confrontation.’

Brodie said, ‘Hey, what’s this dog’s name again?’

‘I mean direct action,’ said Araba, ignoring Brodie. ‘In a word, Susannah — violence.’

‘Bombs,’ said Lady Arrow.

‘Oh, bombs,’ said Brodie, chucking Poldy under the jaw, making him growl.

‘It frightens you, doesn’t it?’ said Araba.

‘Only if I think about it a little,’ said Brodie. ‘Like these clocks they use are so poky, all done up with sticking-plaster and that, they can blow up when you’re legging them.’

‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ said Araba, but her green eyes were electric and she looked closely at Brodie.

‘I’m telling you straight,’ said Brodie. ‘Sometimes they go wrong. Say the hands get muddled up and they’re touching the screw and you can’t see them. They’re so feeble you can hardly tell when it’s legged anyway. Then you twist the wires over and as soon as they, like, touch, it’s the last act, ain’t it?’

‘What does that mean?’ said Araba.

‘You’ve had it. You’re snuffed. You’re wiped out.’

Lady Arrow stared at her. She had been on the point of taking some more snuff, but she stopped her hand halfway to her nose and held it there, at shoulder level and a little forward, as if resting her hand on an invisible shelf. She said, ‘Have you some experience of these things, my darling?’

‘A little bit,’ said Brodie, and hung her head.

‘It’s considered very fashionable to know a bomber,’ said Araba. ‘A few years ago it was Yorkshiremen. Then it was Africans. Now it’s bombers. Your girlfriends must envy you.’

‘I don’t have no girlfriends.’

‘Well, your gang.’

‘It’s not a gang,’ said Brodie. ‘It’s more a bunch of people. A family, like.’

Lady Arrow said, ‘I’ve met a number of them. They’re quite impressive.’

‘I’m sure,’ said Araba. ‘It sounds a great hoot. After that, our League would strike you as rather dull.’

‘If you’re into bovver,’ said Brodie, ‘it might not be so bad.’

‘I take it you are into bother, as you say?’ said Araba.

‘It’s the only way, ain’t it? You said so yourself — everything’s rotten. It’s a rip-off.’

‘But what’s your programme?’

‘Bovver,’ said Brodie. ‘Just bovver.’

‘She’s a Trot way down,’ said Lady Arrow proudly. ‘A true anarchist.’

‘I doubt very much whether she knows the word.’

‘I don’t,’ said Brodie. ‘It sounds like some creepy church.’

‘You see?’ said Lady Arrow. ‘No theories. It’s as simple as football. I love her directness. You should listen to her, Araba.’

‘You’re welcome to stay,’ said Araba. ‘We’ve got plenty of room.’

‘She can‘t.’

‘If Hood don’t find out, it’s all right,’ said Brodie.

‘No, you’re coming with me,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘We can come back tomorrow. Or better still, Araba might like to visit Hill Street.’

‘Did you say Hood?’ Araba knelt in front of Brodie, who still held the dog on her lap.

‘It’s this bloke,’ said Brodie.

‘You’re going to miss your lesson,’ said Lady Arrow standing up.

Araba looked at her watch and frowned in impatience. ‘Damn,’ she said, ‘I’ve got to go. But tell me something, Brodie —’

Lady Arrow went to the door and called Brodie: she was insistent, demanding in the tone a tired mother might use that Brodie follow her, but the fucking girl wouldn’t move. She said, ‘I’m going,’ but didn’t go. She watched the small girl on the floor answering the actress’s questions. ‘Don’t keep her, my darling,’ said Lady Arrow sharply. ‘She’s learning to fly!’

19

They arrived late at Paddington Cemetery in Kilburn, and walking down the central path between the close rows of tombstones — following Mayo’s instructions — Murf was apologizing to Hood for having caused the delay. At Queen’s Park Station Murf had said, ‘Wait,’ and when the other passengers had gone he took a felt-tipped pen from his pocket and wrote ARSENAL RULE on the wall. He did it purposefully, clinging to the tiles with one hand and making the letters line by line like a child copying his name. He inked them in heavily. Then he walked away and turned to squint at it. He was not satisfied; he wrote it again on the wall next to the door, while Hood watched him with puzzled amusement.

‘I’m really sorry about that,’ Murf was saying in a low voice. His feet scuffed the gravel regretfully. The long black raincoat he had bought to match Hood’s flapped about him, beating like a cape in the wind. ‘I think I made us late.’

Ah fink. He slouched ahead, his coat rising, and he kicked at the path as if blaming himself by punishing his feet. The cemetery was in darkness; the lights shining just above the wall put the whole place in shadow, whitening only the tops of the tombstones so that they were like the peaks of ice chunks frozen in a still black pool. Outside the cemetery the air was soaked pale yellow, like a low cloud of poison, the effect of the sodium street lamps. The sound of their footsteps was deadened by the baffles of the tombs and they could hear their words ring once at the edge of the path and die as the echoes were stifled against the dark marble blocks. A black pool of ice; but when they had crossed it several times Hood saw the cemetery as a walled-in ruin, the sturdy cellar of an ancient toppled building, with the rows of its foundation stones exposed — these broken steeples and cracked posts, and their chains and scabs of moss, pushed up to the path. The ones that caught the light were chalky and pitted like old bones, and the wind groaned through them making the cluttered place seem mournfully empty. This was how the whole of London might look if it was devastated by bombs: miles and miles of shallow moaning cellars.

Hood said — and he was careful not to laugh — ‘Do you always write that?’

The previous night, at the dog track, Murf had stopped running to make the same slogan on the exit gate — a rash afterthought, since they had no way of knowing whether they were being chased by Rutter’s men. Even fleeing, Murf had paused to use his felt-tip! On the platform at Catford Bridge he had explained, ‘If you do it right, it sort of jumps out at you.’

‘Habit,’ Murf said. He gathered his coat against the wind. ‘Couple of years ago I lived up in Penge. Arfa and me. And we had these mates. We called ourselves “the Penge Boys” — boot-boys, like. I was a kid, about fifteen at the time, I was. Yeah, I was had up — threatnen behaviour, utterin menaces — but I got off easy. We just hung out and we used to write stuff on the walls, “Penge Rule”, “Wankers Support Palace”, that kind of shit. Then, you started calling the house a flipping arsenal — remember? When you saw me clocks? “Don’t let no one in this arsenal without permission,” you said. So I got this idea. Let’s start advertising. Arsenal Rule, and that. It’s like I say — it’s a habit.’

In the whole time Hood had known him he had never said so much about himself. Murf was silent for a minute, as if wondering about his own candour, discovering embarrassment.

Finally, Hood said, ‘But won’t people think it’s the football team?’

‘Right,’ said Murf. ‘That’s the funny part.’

‘I get it,’ said Hood, but he was glad it was too dark for Murf to see his face.

‘Like no one knows. You write down Arsenal and everyone thinks it’s the team. Right? Only it ain’t. Right? It’s our secret family, like, and no one has a fucking clue.’ He chuckled. “ ‘Right on,” they’re saying, “Up Arsenal” and they don’t even know they’re supporting us. That’s the best part.’ He showed Hood his shadowy face, his lighted ears, the glint of his ear-ring, then he burped. ‘They don’t know nothing, the wankers.’

Hood said, ‘Some advertising.’

They walked to the upper end of the path and paused for a moment. Nothing moved, and in that enormous tract of shadows there was no sound but the wind tearing at the half-hidden stones and grass. Startled by the silence they turned and headed down the path, as if seeking to be calmed by the muffled crunching of their own footsteps.

Murf said, ‘I hate this boneyard.’

He tramped against the wind, with his small head down and his black coat wrapped around him. He tottered forward, hunched like a deaf bat. And Hood could hear his murmured singing, ‘Boom widdy-widdy, Boom widdy-widdy, boom-boom.’

Hood had not said anything about the night before, but he could see that Murf was glad to have been able to do him the favour. They were friends; now there was no question of it. Before, he had shown his loyalty in unlikely ways. Hood had stuck by him, defended him against Mayo’s sneers, and to show his thanks Murf had redecorated the bathroom. The little deception over the painting — Lady Arrow’s intrusion — had secured their friendship. Murf had tagged along behind him for that; and the fight at the dog track had lifted Murf’s mood and made him candid. Yet Hood wondered how he had gone from being a boot-boy in Penge to a bomber for the Provos. He had no particular belief; he had a crude skill. Hood was amazed that Murf had been able to follow him for an entire day without once showing himself. He was small, but not that small. Tonight Murf was especially grateful. Before they left the house Mayo said that Murf was to stay behind, but Hood insisted he come and said, ‘He’s my secret weapon.’

Now, Hood said, ‘You saved my life, squire.’

‘You mean that punk?’ Murf laughed, a little bark in his throat.

‘I thought you were going to put his lights out.’

‘He was dead scared.’ Murf laughed again. The laughter carried to the tombstones and was flattened into a mirthless snort that thudded at the far wall, as if someone watching from the shadows had choked. Murf said gruffly, ‘I would have cut him and all.’

‘Did you recognize him?’

‘No. I thought you knew him.’ Murf looked to Hood for a reply, but there was none and Murf went on, ‘He scared your chick. I felt sorry for her.’

They had gone to New Cross together in the train, saying nothing. Lorna sat, sniffing with fright into a hanky she held in her fist. Then Murf had gone back to the house, and when they were alone in the street Lorna said, ‘Who are you?’ It sent a chill through him, as it had that first day when she had caught him prowling upstairs. Walking her home he tried to explain — telling her how he had once quarrelled with Rutter, inventing reasons for the pretence of Rutter’s not knowing him. And though she half believed him she was fearful — the casual violence was too great a reminder of her old life. She repeated that Hood was no different from Ron: a thug, a villain, dangerous, putting her at risk. At the door she said, ‘I never want to see you again.’ He didn’t care; he was just playing about, using her. ‘I’m not even pretty,’ she said. ‘But I know what you are — you’re a fucker, just like the rest of them.’

To Murf, kicking at the cemetery path, Hood said, ‘She was upset. She’ll get over it.’

‘She seemed quite nice,’ said Murf, ‘I wouldn’t want to see her messed up.’

‘She’ll be okay.’

‘Those punks,’ said Murf. ‘They’re a bad lot. Hey, you wouldn’t believe it, but punks like that are always pestering the Provos.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They got hardware,’ said Murf. ‘They got connections. Like they know Arabs.’

And Hood thought of Weech’s two trunks of guns; it had been a puzzle, but now he saw that he might solve it like a crossword, adding a dozen names to make a word with their key letters.

Murf looked at the cemetery shapes and sucked at the wind and said, ‘They probably come up here already and left, Sweeney and them. It’s all my fault.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’ Sweeney: another name. He knew nothing, but he was almost relieved to think they might not come. He wondered if he really wanted to see them and commit himself further. Once, when he had acted alone, it had all seemed very simple. His present anxiety was like a fear of crowds, the mob that would sweep him from his own motives. The origin of his doubt was the discovery weeks ago that he had made a passport for that wealthy actress he had taken a dislike to. So they were linked. But there was more: the painting stolen by the rich girl from the titled woman. They were all related! And what of Weech’s arsenal? Was it also part of the family now? He resisted assigning it ownership as he had resisted anything final with Lorna, to preserve some distance and avoid the complicating sympathy of kinship. Yet it was as if by degrees he was waking to the true size of his family and seeing it as so huge and branched it included the enemy. To harm any of them was to harm a part of himself. A family quarrel: if he cut them he bled.

That was how he saw the man slipping through the gate at the far end of Paddington Cemetery, the shadow hurrying along the path. What mad cousin was this who had dragged himself from the past to plead with him?

He said, ‘Heads up, squire.’

Murf moved behind him, whispering, ‘Boom widdy-widdy —’

The man approached and as he stepped close to them he flipped his cigarette away. It glanced against a tombstone and the tip came apart, making a shower of sparks, lighting for seconds a jar of wilted flowers and the dagger of a cross in the ground.

Murf said, ‘Easter —’

‘Stuff your bloody password — what are you doing here, man?’

‘He’s with me,’ said Hood.

‘You’re supposed to be alone. The man turned.’ ‘Hop it, Murf.’

‘Hold the phone, squire.’

‘They won’t like it,’ said the man.

‘That’s tough,’ said Hood. ‘He’s staying.’

‘Then follow me,’ he said. ‘But I ain’t responsible.’

They walked out to Lonsdale Road, where Murf stopped briefly to chalk ARSENAL RULE on the cemetery wall. In the cemetery the man had a threatening voice, a villainous shape. In the street Hood saw him wince; he was uncertain, with thinning hair, a battered jacket. The light removed any suggestion of threat and showed his labourer’s stoop — a careworn limping. He turned to Hood, peering up: small, close-set eyes and a wrinkled nose, a large dented chin and a crooked Irish mouth — then he looked away. He skipped slightly, getting ahead of Hood and Murf and led them down a side street to a pub.

Before they entered he said angrily, ‘I ain’t responsible.’ Then he pushed at the door.

The pub was full of hollering men, most of them red-faced and standing in wreaths of smoke, gesturing with pints of beer. A juke-box played — not music, but a throb that repeated against the floor and shook the windows. Hood was used to strangers’ stares, but here there was an unusual break in the chatter as they crossed the pub; he sensed attention, a sharpening of suspicion — a pause in the darts’ game, heads turning, low mutters — as if they had entered a private club and were intruding on a closely guarded ritual. In a corner of the bar the man said, ‘Wait here,’ then walked away.

Murf said, ‘I think I should split.’

‘Forget it. Let’s hoist a few.’

‘There ain’t time.’

‘They can wait.’

‘It don’t work like that,’ said Murf, trying to make Hood understand. ‘When they say go, you go. It’s like an order. And they don’t want me — I can tell. So I think maybe I’ll just hang out.’

‘I might need you,’ said Hood. ‘What if they pull a fast one on me? You’re my back-up man.’

‘Yeah, but they won’t do that. You’re seeing Sweeney — he’s the chief.’

‘Never trust the top banana, Murf,’ said Hood and he bought two pints of beer.

The limping man returned five minutes later and seeing them with glasses he said, ‘Drink up — we’re going.’ Without waiting he pushed towards the back of the pub. Hood put his half-full glass down. Murf said, ‘You leaving that?’ and gulped it. Arching his back he seemed to pour it straight into his stomach.

Hood thought they were headed for a back room — they were in a passageway stacked with beer crates, then squeezing through a narrow darkened hall. The man kicked a door and they were outside.

‘Hey, sweetheart, you know where you’re going?’

The man muttered. He glared at Murf. He said, ‘I told you, I ain’t responsible.’

Murf said, ‘Boom widdy-widdy.’

The next pub was several streets away, smaller than the first and not so crowded. They entered by the back door and the man, who had grown uneasy in his movements — he had not stopped muttering and his posture had become more cramped — crooked his finger at some stairs. He said, ‘Up there. First on your left.’

On the stairs Hood said, ‘Just like any other cat-house.’

‘I never been here before,’ Murf quacked the words nervously and looked around at the worn staircase.

Hood said, ‘Smile.’

‘Widdy-widdy.’

Hood found the door and knocked. It opened a crack, a man showed his nose and cautious eye, then it swung open and Hood saw the table — another man seated at the far end — the dim bulb and drawn shades. The room was bare and had a musty smell of a decaying carpet. And it was cold. The men — there were only those two — wore winter coats, and the younger one at the door a flat tweed cap. Murf began to cough nervously.

‘Sit down,’ said the man at the door, shutting it and slipping the bolt.

The man at the table smiled. He said, ‘Welcome.’

‘Where are we?’ said Hood.

‘The High Command,’ said the younger man.

Hood looked around: a dart-board, a bottle of whiskey, a broken lamp, a saucer full of cigarette butts. He smiled, then he sat down and said, ‘I hope you don’t have any objection to Murf.’

The man at the table did not reply to that. He sat up, and leaning across the table extended his hand. ‘My name’s Sweeney. I know yours.’

Hood shook his hand. It was a strange clasp, without weight and glancing down Hood saw that the top of Sweeney’s hand was missing and that he held a rounded stump and two small limp fingers, like a monster’s claw.

‘A little accident,’ said Sweeney. He smiled at the knob and tucked it into his sleeve. ‘This is Finn. How about a drop?’

Finn nodded and put the whiskey bottle on the table with four cloudy glasses. He splashed some in each one and handed them out, winking at Murf. Then he touched Hood’s glass with his own and said, ‘The offensive.’

Murf said, ‘The offensive.’

Hood said, ‘Any ice?’

‘No,’ said Finn.

‘My brother Jimmy’s in the States,’ said Sweeney. ‘Boston. Your home-town, right? He’s been there for years. Married an American girl.’

Hood said, ‘That doesn’t make us cousins, does it?’

‘Mayo told me you were temperamental,’ said Sweeney amiably. ‘She told me you had something important to say. I haven’t heard it.’

Sweeney quietly finished his whiskey. He looked about thirty, though he was balding. There was a toughened redness about his face, a raw lined quality in his cheeks that might have been whiskey or the sun. His mouth and eyes were gentle, and he spoke slowly in the strangled accent of Ulster. Hood noticed that he held the glass of whiskey with his mutilated hand, pinching it awkwardly against his chest and lifting it using his two frail fingers, as if exhibiting the damage. He said, ‘I thought we might have a little talk.’

‘Start talking.’

Sweeney went at his own speed. ‘This organization attracts a lot of funny boyos. I mean, unstable, people — mental cases.’ He pronounced the word in the Ulster way, muntal. ‘They belong in hospitals or with kind families, but they come to us and say they want to help.’ He smiled. ‘All they really want to do is plant a bomb somewhere — they don’t care why. They’re looking for victims.’ He nudged his empty glass. ‘It’s made us a little suspicious of volunteers.’

‘What’s that got to do with me?’

‘You’re a volunteer, aren’t you?’

Hood said, ‘I used to think I could help. I gave Mayo a boost with her painting.’

‘To be sure,’ said Sweeney. ‘But an ordinary drunken lay-about from some village in the Republic — or even in England — it’s usually obvious why he wants to join. He’s a bit lost, running away from his wife or his parents. He feels secure with us — we understand that. You’re not in that category.’

‘How do you know?’

‘We know you,’ said Sweeney. ‘We know the important things. Some of the other fellers wanted you over here months ago but I said no. We tried you out on that passport. That was a good job, but I still couldn’t figure you out. What’s the motive? Why does a feller from a good family — Jimmy did a little detective work, you see — why does a feller earning a handsome salary in the American State Department decide to chuck it all and join a bomb factory?’

‘I got turned around. It happens pretty easily in Vietnam.’

Sweeney shrugged. ‘Everything’s easy for you Americans.’

‘You mean it’s not for you?’

‘It ain’t. It’s bloody hard.’ Sweeney turned to the wall to reflect. He said, ‘When I was twelve I had to prove myself. I broke every window on Feakle Street in Derry — hundreds of pounds’ worth of plate glass. My father was delighted. “The Smasher” he called me. Now you,’ he said, pointing at Hood, ‘you were probably a boy scout.’

Hood said, ‘I’ve always been suspicious of people who rap about their childhood. It’s just a cheap way of avoiding blame.’

‘I’m a responsible feller,’ said Sweeney.

Hood thumped the table and cried, ‘You’ve got sitting targets!’

‘That’s how it looks to an outsider, I suppose. If you knew how we operated you wouldn’t say that. This has been a bad summer. Our supplies dried up. I’ll be frank with you — we’ve been burned.’

‘So have I,’ said Hood bitterly.

‘Sorry to hear it. I wish there was something I could do.’

‘You can tell me why I wasn’t contacted sooner.’

‘That bothered you, did it? Well, it’s just as I say. I was wondering what was in it for you. Mister Hood, you were too eager.’

‘So you delayed.’

‘You could say we were waiting for a telephone call.’

‘But you let me do the passport.’

‘That’s another story,’ said Sweeney.

‘I’d like to hear it.’

‘It’s not very interesting,’ said Sweeney dismissively.

Hood laughed. ‘I knew you’d hedge.’

‘Did you now?’

‘But that’s all right. You don’t have to tell me anything.’ He fixed his eyes on Sweeney’s. ‘I can always ask Miss Nightwing.’

Sweeney sighed and looked at the rear of the room where Finn and Murf were sitting in silence. He said, ‘Murf, how would you like a beer?’

‘Widdy,’ said Murf, blinking and bobbing forward. ‘Okay.’

‘Finn, take our friend downstairs and buy him a beer. I’ll see you later.’

‘Heads up, squire.’

When they were gone and the door was bolted again, Sweeney said, ‘Let’s talk about Miss Nightwing.’ He had become genial, a mood Hood took to be a cover for his suspicion. He smiled again and said, ‘Jesus, so you know our Araba, do you?’

‘I met her.’

‘I thought she had more sense than to go yapping about her sordid past,’ said Sweeney. ‘But then I never really understood the girl. It’s like I was telling you. We get a hell of a lot of funny people. I don’t think she’s a nutcase in the usual sense, but she’s certainly unstable.’

‘She didn’t tell me anything,’ said Hood. ‘I just guessed.’

‘You guessed, did you? That’s hard to believe.’

‘I was a consul for six years. Do you think she was the first one to try and pull a fast one on me?’

‘I forgot you’ve had training,’ said Sweeney. ‘It must have upset her. She’s an emotional sort of person. Very interested in the poor and oppressed. She sees them and she cries. That is an admirable thing, but it’s the extent of her political consciousness. I’ll tell you, she was much better at entertaining the troops.’ Sweeney winked broadly. ‘Ah, she was wonderful at that, she was. A real morale-builder.’

‘That’s why you gave her a passport, then.’

‘Not exactly. About five months back, when our American supplies dried up, we needed some contacts on the Continent. Our girl Araba claimed to have a lot of helpful friends. Thanks to you we fixed her up with a passport, and off she went.’

‘With an ass like that she must have made a lot of contacts.’

‘Who knows?’

‘You mean she didn’t come up with the goods?’

‘She wasn’t supposed to take delivery,’ said Sweeney.

‘Who was?’

Sweeney waved his mangled hand carelessly. He said, ‘Agents, agents.’

‘What are we talking about?’ said Hood. ‘Arms? Dynamite? What?’

Sweeney smiled. ‘Oh, cabbages, that sort of thing.’

‘And you got burned.’

‘You’re guessing again,’ Sweeney added wearily. ‘You’ve been talking to Araba too much.’

Hood said, ‘I’m probably wrong, but I would have thought that if Araba made a supply deal for you and it went through, I’d have seen a little action. The big London offensive. But I haven’t seen anything.’ He stared at Sweeney. ‘So I guess she burned you.’

‘You’re probably wrong.’

‘I told Mayo you were delaying. She denied it, but now I understand. Araba welshed on you. That’s what you get for trusting the idle rich.’

‘The rich only have money,’ said Sweeney. ‘But you can see why I was hesitant to take you on. Araba was just an actress, but you were a highly paid diplomat. No one had ever heard of you. All we knew was how much money you earned and where your family lived. Mother of God, I thought, he can’t be serious. So we waited.’

‘I think you’re lying,’ said Hood. ‘You talk about the offensive, Mayo talks about the offensive. But what’s the offensive? It’s a couple of teenagers hustling bombs into luggage lockers. Oh, and I almost forgot about Mayo’s painting. That was a brilliant caper — it really had the art world up in arms, right? What an offensive.’

‘Have you been to Belfast?’

‘No,’ said Hood, and he muttered, ‘Booby-traps, Bibles, monkeys —’

‘You should go,’ said Sweeney. ‘You’d learn something. Ever see a father gunned down in front of his wife and kiddies?’

‘Yes, I have,’ said Hood solemnly.

‘And what did you do about it?’

‘I came here.’

‘Maybe you can see why we’re militant.’

‘I don’t call stealing paintings very militant.’

‘It’s a tactic. It’s better than cutting people’s throats.’ Sweeney looked closely at Hood, then said, ‘If you have other ideas I’d like to hear them.’

‘I’ll write you a letter,’ said Hood.

‘If you’re worried about Araba you can forget it. We expelled her.’

‘For burning you.’

‘It’s no concern of yours. The fact is she was expelled. She’s on her own now.’

‘Competition,’ said Hood.

Sweeney grinned. ‘Actors.’

‘There are a hundred more like her — aristocrats, suckers and middle-class girls with problems. Like Mayo, who takes her bra off and thinks she’s bringing down civilization. She’s just a can of worms. Once, she saw a pretty picture. Then she became a revolutionary and decided to steal it. She’s like the rest of them, a barbarian with taste.’

‘Hold it,’ said Sweeney. ‘Mayo’s my wife.’

Hood said, ‘Then you should keep an eye on her.’

‘I’ve been told that before,’ said Sweeney softly.

They faced each other and Hood saw an acknowledgement in Sweeney’s grey eyes, a recognition bordering on the saddest affinity: they had slept with the same woman. Hood did not feel guilty; he felt ensnared by a sense of shame, and angry that he had been brought so close to this stranger. What did that make him? Another member of the family. And he could see now how it had all gone wrong, why Mayo had kept him away — or perhaps Sweeney himself, out of pride, had avoided bringing him any further into the plot. He could hardly be expected to welcome his wife’s lover.

‘Her name isn’t Mayo. It’s Sandra.’

Hood said, ‘I don’t have much to do with her these days.’

‘I know, but it wouldn’t bother me if you did. A man sleeps with your wife. It hurts at first — that’s pride. But then you realize what he’s putting up with and you almost pity the poor bastard.’ Sweeney laughed and reached for his glass.

‘I’m going,’ said Hood.

Sweeney faced him. He said, ‘You’re going to help us. You’ve got ideas — the offensive is yours, if you want it.’

‘You’re really in a jam, aren’t you?’

‘It’s up to you. I think we can depend on you.’ Sweeney took a sip of his whiskey. ‘I’m getting used to you.’

‘That’s your problem,’ said Hood.

‘Sweeney’s a great bloke,’ said Murf, in the train back to Deptford. ‘He was like a father to me, he was. He taught me everything I know.’

‘Listen, Murf, most fathers don’t teach their kids to make bombs.’

‘Then they’re useless, ain’t they? ’Cause that’s what it’s all about, ain’t it?’ Murf slumped in his seat. ‘They done my old man. Didn’t give him a chance. He’s Irish, so they nobble him.’

Hood looked over and just before Murf turned away he saw the boy’s face crease with grief: he had started to cry. Hood thought: But what have I taught him? He was going to comfort him — they were alone in the compartment — he was moved by the boy’s size, his small crushed face, the ridiculous ear-ring, and that black raincoat he wore in imitation of his own. Then he saw the handle of Murf’s knife and he held back. Suddenly, as if remembering, Murf sprang from his seat, whipped out the felt-tipped pen and wrote on the compartment mirror, ARSENAL RULE.

At Deptford Station Hood said, ‘I’ll see you later.’

‘The pubs are shut,’ said Murf.

‘I’m not going to a pub.’

He left Murf and walked up a side street to Lorna’s where, in front of the house, he watched a crumpled sheet of newspaper dragged by the wind from the gutter to the sidewalk. It rasped against the garden wall, altering its shape, then tumbled into a tree and flapped fiercely. Hood waited a moment, studying the caught thing animated by the wind, and he was about to go when he glanced up and saw the kitchen light burning. He rang the bell and the light went off. There was no sound from the house. He knocked, then poked open the letter-slot and called Lorna’s name. She didn’t answer. He drew out Weech’s key and unlocked the door.

‘Lorna?’

He switched on the light and saw her cowering half-way down the hall, preparing to run upstairs. He almost recoiled at the sight of her, and she seemed not to recognize him — she registered slow fear, the negligent despair of someone wounded or doomed. And she was wounded. Her face was bruised, her blouse torn, and there were scratches on her neck. She watched him with swollen eyes as he rushed forward and took her in his arms. He could feel her frailty, her heart pumping against his chest.

‘What happened?’

‘They was here — oh, God, I thought they got you too.’ She sobbed and then said, ‘I didn’t tell them anything!’

‘Love, love,’ said Hood, and heard the child cry out in an upper room.

20

The face was a success: even the dog barked at her, and McGravy was taken in for a few bewildered seconds. She had spent the morning at the mirror working on her eyes — it was too easy to wear sunglasses, and down there sunglasses in this dreary weather would attract as much attention as a full frontal. The headscarf and plastic boots were her greatest concession, since her first thought was to go as a man. She knew she could bring it off, but how to explain it? A woman, then, but anonymous. The skin had to have a pale crêpy texture and around the eyes a wrinkled suggestion of neglect and premature aging, with dull green mascara on the lids. It took her an hour to get the right crude stripe. She laboured with care for the effect and finally achieved it in exasperation, realizing afterwards that what she wanted most in her make-up that day was a look of hurry. A woman went out in the morning to shop, but no matter how rushed she was she did her eyes. She aimed at the haste and pretty fatigue of the housewife with a few lurid strokes of eye-liner. Instead of lipstick she practised her bite, clamping her jaw a fraction off-centre to convey, in a slightly crooked grin, that her teeth didn’t quite fit. Then she put on her boots and scarf and an old coat, seeing her Poldy had japped in his cowardly dance of aggression, diving at her and swivelling his hind end sideways until he sniffed her and whimpered into silence.

McGravy said, ‘Don’t tell me. Let me guess —’

‘I’m in a rush,’ she said, rummaging in the trunk for the right handbag and selecting one in imitation leather with a broken buckle.

‘Of course, you’re taking the bus — Mother Courage doesn’t take taxis.’

‘I’m not Mother Courage,’ she said. ‘I’m invisible.’

‘Poldy doesn’t think so.’ But the dog had stopped barking. He was circling her cautiously, sniffing at her boots.

‘And I’m not taking the bus,’ she said, fixing her bite and crushing the handbag under her arm. ‘I’m walking.’

She slipped out the back door and hurried down Blackheath Hill to where it dipped at the lights. Then she was only following signs and the map she’d memorized. She had never walked here, and it was odd, for once she plunged down from Blackheath, walking west to Deptford, the light altered — filtered by a haze of smoke it became glaucous — and it was colder and noisy and the air seemed to contain flying solids.

But she had succeeded in her disguise, and the novelty of being invisible cheered her. She celebrated the feeling. There had been a time, before her political conversion, when the thought of going unrecognized would have depressed and angered her. Then, she required to be seen — not for herself, a compliment to her fame, but because she believed from the moment she had become an actress that the role and the person playing it were inseparable. An actress did not become another person in studying a part: the part slumbered in her, the character — not only Alison and Cicely, but Juliet and Cleopatra — was a layer in her personality like a stripe in a cake. Once she had been asked, after a hugely successful Sixties revival of the Osborne play she had taken on tour, how she had done the part so well. She replied, ‘But I am Alison.’ She was Paulina, Lady Macbeth, Blanche Dubois, and all of Ibsen’s heroines. They were aspects of herself, but more than that their words too were hers. Acting for her was a kind of brilliant improvisation; she gave language life, she reinvented a playwright each time she performed. There was nothing she hated more than the proprietorial way a writer or director regarded the text — they wanted to reduce actors to dummies and conceived the theatre as a glorified puppet show (it was this notion, and more, that made her want to ban Punch and Judy shows — her first political gesture).

Acting was liberation. The theatre had shown her what possibilities people had — it was her political education. Everyone acted, but the choice of roles was always limited by social class, so the labourer never knew how he could play a union leader. True freedom, the triumph of political struggle, was this chance for people to choose any role. It was more than a romantic metaphor — she knew it was a fact. That old man, Mister Punch, leaving The Red Lion at the far end of Deptford Bridge did not know how easily he had been cheated; in a fairer world he would have power. That took acting skill, but there were no great actors, there were only free men.

And unseen, part of the thin crowd, she was free today, stamping in her old coat and faded scarf in the High Road, biting to make her face unfamiliar. This was political proof, not simple deceit, but evidence that the woman she was this grey afternoon was unalterable in a capitalist system. Freer, the woman she mimicked would be a heroine. The mimicry was easily mastered, and though once she had neded attention, now, the very absence of it encouraged her. She could be anyone; she was no one; she could walk through walls.

Deptford — especially those angular cranes and chimneys, the low narrow brick houses, the windowless warehouses — reminded her of Rotterdam. She remembered the errand as one of her most demanding roles, though she savoured it with a trace of regret: it had been robbed of completion. In the end it had failed, and yet nothing she had ever done had so satisfied her, no stage part could compare with it. It was all excitement, the smoky jangling train to Harwich, the Channel crossing that night in early summer, and then the brief electric train past the allotments on the canal to the neat station in that cheerless port. Passing through British immigration, looking the officer squarely in the eye, handing over the American passport — all of it was an achievement greater than her Stratford season. And there was that odd business with her cabin in the Koningin Juliana: she had been assigned a four-berth cabin but she had counted on privacy and had seen the rucksacks and stuffed bags of the other travellers and panicked. She hated the thought of being forced to sleep on this little shelf in a cupboard with three others. She had demanded a single cabin. ‘For your sole use,’ the Purser had said, handing her a new coupon in grudging annoyance and suspicion, believing her to be preparing a corner for a pickup. But she had gone back and sat up the whole night in the four-berth cabin with the hitch-hikers, smoking pot and haranguing them about Trotsky, and in the end she never used the expensive single cabin except to wash her face and check her disguise. She saw how the preposterous expense of the two cabins had shown her in safety how she only needed one; and she laughed at the money it was costing her to learn poverty.

Then there was Greenstain — only an Arab would mis-spell his own alias — with large pale eyes and a fish’s lips, who had met her in the warehouse and touched her as he spoke, as if tracing out the words on her arm. His staring made him seem cross-eyed, and his lemon-shaped face, unnaturally smooth, frightened her. He had the infuriating manner that dull leering men occasionally practised on her — repeating what she had said and giving it a salacious twang. ‘What have you got for me?’ she said, and Greenstain wet his lips and replied, ‘What have you got for me?’ Then she said, ‘Show me,’ and he said the same, twisting it to make it the gross appeal in a stupid courtship. He had spit in the corners of his mouth and wouldn’t stop touching her arm. She was afraid, he was scaring her intentionally, and it was much worse than deceiving the immigration officers — even the friendly Dutch ones with their ropes of silver braid — because she was alone with Greenstain in that empty warehouse. He was pretending to be sly and he made her understand, using his pale eyes and greedy mouth, that he could kill her and take the money he knew she was carrying. At last, he led her to a corner of the warehouse and showed her the trunks. He kicked one open and took out a gun and pointed it at her and cackled, working his jaws like a barracuda. She paid — the first of the proceeds from Tea for Three, Greenstain counted the money, then examined each note, making her wait while he checked the bundle for forgeries. He gave her an absurd handwritten receipt with the name of the London agent and took her outside. It was dark; the canal lapped against the quayside. Greenstain belched, then embraced her and she looked up and in panic memorized a word painted on the warehouse, Maatschappij, and wondered how it was pronounced. Grenstain ran his hands down her body and then jumped away. For a moment she thought he might shout. She saw him nod; he broke into gaggling laughter. ‘A girl!’ he cried. ‘You are a girl!’ He pushed her lightly. Uninterested sexually, he became almost kind, and later on the way back to The Hook he pointed out the war-time bunkers and, in a settlement of houses, a still solitary windmill.

Theatre: Rotterdam, the deal with Greenstain, the male disguise. Then, months later, it all went disastrously wrong — no trunks, no arms, excuses from the agent, and silence. Sweeney said, ‘You boobed.’ Nothing was delivered and she was expelled for the failure. She was disappointed, but she had felt safe until that night after the play, when the American had said, ‘Let me guess your passport number.’ She saw how dangerously near she was to being exposed. All the effort, all the lies and then — but she believed it was another lie designed to scare her off — she heard that Weech, the London agent with the trunks, had been killed.

The November darkness enclosed Deptford; she was anyone in the twilight, trudging home. Ahead, half-way down the crescent, she saw the house. She snapped open her handbag and checked her face in the little mirror; she fixed her bite; she walked to the gate and nudged it open with her knee.

Hello, more decay — the place was a shambles. Judging by the decrepit houses he had seen from the top deck of the Number One bus, it was already happening. He got off: the street stank. Perhaps it originated here, the crack that had started the slump, and was eating its way to the City, shrivelling everything in its path. The sewers smelled as if they’d burst, the very bricks looked friable, and where was all that smoke coming from? It raked his eyes and made a fog of the twilight, so dense the weak light made everything small and gave the limpers on the street wraith-like, almost ghostly proportions.

He was fascinated by it. It was as if he was seeing the first evidence of the coming quake, the proof that he had been right all along. And how subtle it was! He had always thought it would be a terrible crash, thunder and lightning, screams, people holding their heads, and great steaming pits appearing all over London; buildings becoming dust and the city slipping sideways. A tremendous seizure, striking at the foundations and buckling the whole ant-hill from its sewers to its ramparts. Food disappearing from the shops and small children chewing their chin-straps and ragged Londoners crowding the streets in panic, breaking his windows on Volta Road and howling at him. Confusion!

No: that was fancy’s need for theatre, the mind’s idle picture, inaccuracy’s enlargement. Catastrophe was like this, it was this — smoke, silence, emptiness and slow decay, an imperceptible leeching that was a strong smell long before it was a calamity. The knotting of the City’s innards into dead hanks, not combustion, but blockage, the slowest cruellest death. And if he had not known in advance that it was going to happen he might have missed it, like an eclipse of the sun on a cloudy day. He might have thought a Cup Final had emptied the streets, and as for the aroma of ruin — that someone had left the lid off his overflowing dustbin or allowed his dog to foul the footpath, nothing more. But he knew the stink and smoke were calamitous, and he felt — as he made his way along the Deptford back streets — like an explorer who, having made his shocking discovery in the strange place, looks for confirmation and realizes that he is the sole witness — he will not be believed. It was an intensification of a feeling he’d had often this year, that he was the only one who knew how the country was dying, who saw its bricks crazing, its fate (as he had just read) written in blood on the station wall, ARSENAL RULE — he understood the warning. The message was everywhere, but it was ignored. He alone saw it and bore it as if it was a sorrowful secret, like the memory of his dead child. They were smiling in the High Road, in the lights from the fish and chip shop, beefy labourers turned to wraiths in fog that was smoke, and banging carelessly into public houses. They didn’t know; ignorance was part of the disease, because the illness would kill them before they understood it was fatal.

He adjusted his bowler hat and swung his briefcase into his free hand, treading an unvarying track, as if at the edge of a precipice. He would be late for his tea, and Norah might be upset. But the fellow didn’t answer his phone and didn’t reply to letters — very naughty — and how else was one to put a flea in his ear? It was a curious address, and he got a further shock when he saw it in the ragged yellow lamplight, for it was how Volta Road would look when the disaster crept further south. He looked up the road into the future.

She had entered the back door with Brodie’s key, and finding no one at home, had gone upstairs to look at her painting. She sat and studied it with gluttonous interest, more than she had ever summoned at home, where most of her father’s collection was stacked against the wall. She had never guessed how valuable the Rogier self-portrait was until it was stolen — the newspapers had given it an extraordinary price. A lovely piece, but awfully cluttered — a very busy painting — and yet the face, the posture, the hands, the bones beneath that flesh: superb. She thought: But I would have stolen a Watteau; and then: Self-portraits always show wounded men and broken promises, not living men but dying men, the poor artist with his nose against a mirror.

She plumped the Indian cushions and lay on the floor. The theft had made a greater claim on her imagination than possession had ever done. And she liked the secrecy of this visit, prowling to the top floor and closing the curtains in the house at the margin of the city — a hideout. It seemed to her as if she was the thief, the knowledgeable accomplice; and this was her prize. Risking her reputation, her great name, she had stolen the painting. She smiled at the wounded Fleming and felt great satisfaction, the sense of being an outlaw. And she toyed with the thought that she was resident here. This was her hidden house, her room, her loot. Here she was safe with all her secrets. The painting shimmered from the closet.

She tapped a spot of snuff on the back of her hand. She raised it to inhale and the doorbell rang. Parting the curtains and peering down she saw a shadowy visitor, a woman, plainly dressed in an old coat and gazing up the street. She considered her snuff, then whistled it up her nose. Again, the bell. But it was her house, her painting. On the way downstairs she thought of moving in, finding a room for Mrs Pount and having stationery printed. She opened the door, delighted to be given a chance to test her ownership.

‘Yes?’

She saw the woman falter.

‘What is it?’

‘Jumble,’ said the woman. ‘I’m collecting for the church sale. It’s on Saturday.’

‘Come in. I’m sure we have something for you.’

Lady Arrow led her through the drawing-room and down the hall to the kitchen, saying, ‘I think it’s such a splendid idea to have jumble sales. Share things out — so many people throw away perfectly lovely toast-racks and napkin rings. I know my friends go all over London in search of good jumble. Here, have a seat. I’ll beaver around upstairs.’

‘Them tea-towels would do me.’

‘A wedding present, I’m afraid,’ said Lady Arrow.

She directed the woman back to the drawing-room and hurried upstairs to a bedroom, the one just off the landing. The bed, a mattress on the floor, was a tangle of sheets and blankets, and there were children’s posters on the wall. She pulled out a drawer: rags. In the bottom drawer she found an assortment of alarm clocks and lengths of wire. She selected a clock and was on her way downstairs when the doorbell rang again.

‘I say, will you see who that is?’ she called, and she thought: What a farce — what a lark! She would move here, Mrs Pount would get used to it. She heard the woman’s footsteps, the door opening, the greetings. She listened on the landing.

‘Yes, can I help you?’ It was the woman’s voice, and for a long moment there was no reply. Then a man’s voice sounded, polite astonishment. But his surprised intake of air, that gasp, had travelled up the stairwell to her.

‘Excuse me, is that you, Miss Nightwing?’

‘Mister Gawber.’

The clock in Lady Arrow’s hand started to tick. She threw it hard against the wall and descended the stairs, swearing under her breath. She found Mr Gawber and Araba in the parlour. They looked up when she entered, and masking his surprise with a smile Mr Gawber stood and gave a jaunty salute. Araba had removed her headscarf and changed her bite; but she said nothing. Lady Arrow thought the actress looked very gloomy and embarrassed.

Finally, Araba said, ‘Let’s apologize and say nothing more. I hate explanations.’

‘Let’s talk about Peter Pan,’ said Lady Arrow.

‘Yes,’ said Mr Gawber. ‘I must say, we’re all looking forward to it. Norah’s terribly keen.’

‘I’ll send you tickets,’ said Araba.

‘Tea?’ said Lady Arrow.

‘I was just leaving,’ said Araba.

‘My tea will be waiting at home,’ said Mr Gawber.

‘I won’t keep you,’ said Lady Arrow.

At the door Araba said, ‘I’ve got just the part for you, Susannah.’

‘Super,’ said Lady Arrow. ‘Now you know where to find me.’ She shut the door triumphantly, waited ten more minutes, and went back to Hill Street.

21

She had said — painfully and barely moving her swollen lips — ‘I don’t want to talk about it now,’ and he kissed her again. Pity or love, it didn’t matter; he saw her wounded and he was aroused, almost passionate. He touched her, felt for her breasts. She sucked air and her ribs lifted his hand. She was hysterical — she screamed; then she was the opposite, numbed and speechless. Her fright trembled away, and when he put her to bed she fell asleep at once. It was the child, Jason, whom he had difficulty in calming, but he dropped off in Hood’s arms. He put him in the cot and went into the other room to lay beside her. Anger kept him awake; he blamed himself for her bruises and claw-marks and he was disturbed by the fear that he could kill them for it — find the bastards and beat them to a pulp.

She had been beaten. He expected her to rebel, but she had no particular anger. She was forlorn, alone; the assault saddened her, like a reminder she was trapped — as if she’d broken her head against her own cage. She didn’t cry — she wasn’t even frightened. The violence that would have terrified another woman only weighted her with bruises and made her frail, brightened her eyes with fever; and lying next to her — it surprised him again — he felt her nakedness heating him, her body hot from her wounds. Now, sleeping, she was a small injured girl; but she burned against him, denying him rest.

In the black hours of the morning — around three — he knew he must roll a pill or stay awake cursing. He felt for his pouch and rolled the opium pill in the dark, then went to the bathroom for a glass of water to wash it down. Standing there in front of the sink he saw his reflection in the mirror and in his eyes those narrow crescents of yellow on the whites, the malarial stain, a mark of Hué. He swallowed the pill and closed his eyes and he was gliding from an inlet on the Perfume River, a rudder-stick crooked under his arm, and in the bow of the boat a Vietnamese girl knelt, the moon shining on her tight flank, her black mane of hair swaying as she worked with the small flame. Then she tossed her hair and smiled and passed him the pipe. It was a perfect memory: his mind had simplified the past, selected from it, and prettied it by making it whole. Twenty nights on the river had become one.

Yet he could not think of the past without embarrassment. It was primitive, mostly error or failure, and though the man in the boat had his name, it was another man, one he had grown to mistrust. So memory itself, that inaccurate glimpse of the past, he avoided or tried to suppress: he hated its futility.

He shut his eyes and saw the future. His mind plunged ahead in time, the landscape altered, his own figure dwindled. The future, always the future — why else would one fight? Memory was retreat. He rehearsed what was in store for him — not a matter of days or a month, but years and more, decades, and then he saw the same solitary man, slightly hunched, white-haired, in fading clothes, treading the dust in some tropical place, making his way in dazzling sunlight. It was what he wished to see. He closed his eyes and saw this old man who had cut himself off and chosen to end his life here, in the simplest way: a man with no country, unknown among strangers, who had rid himself of his family and who, at that distance, had fallen silent and ceased to act. A calm fugitive: he ridiculed the notion of exile — in this world there was no exile for an American.

Hood’s reflections were not memory but this modest vision he hoped was prophecy — as all truth was prophetic — and though at first he felt it was the effect of his drugs (the narcotic flash, the sight of himself in the future walking up and down in Asia), the process became habit. He was older, in a palmy place as dense as Guatemala, never speaking; but the road was always the same, the foliage a deep green and the blurred figures ignored him and passed by, water-carriers, naked children, slow bulls. To live abroad was to create a mythology about yourself, more than a new personality — a liberating fantasy you could believe in, a new world. He could only live in a country where he was willing to die, and it sometimes chilled him to think that he might die here, in this strangely lighted city, on this watery island. He did not want to be known or mourned; he wished only to act and then vanish, to choose his own gravesite. And it troubled him to think that the single reason he was in bed with this woman was that he had killed her husband. But who was that? Who killed him? The murderer was a man he scarcely knew.

In the morning Lorna was groggy. Rather than wake her he gave the child breakfast and took him to school.

‘Are you my daddy now?’ asked Jason, taking Hood’s hand at the end of the road. The faithless child, he thought; he would go with anyone. But Hood couldn’t blame him; the child’s safety lay in this deceit — perhaps he saw it as the only way of crossing the road.

Hood said, ‘Do you want me to be?’

‘No.’ And after a while he added, ‘My real daddy’s coming back.’

Hood held the child’s hand, saying nothing.

‘He’ll duff you up when he comes back. My daddy’s a good fighter.’

Crossing the road, Jason tightened his grip, and he did not release it on the other side. Somehow he knew the terrifying fact without knowing any of the words.

At the school gate a group of mothers stood chatting in an oblong of sunshine. They dropped their voices when Hood approached, and he could see them avoiding meeting his eyes. They were young, several were pretty, and they looked is if they were dressed for more than a trip to the school. Jason yelled and ran to join his friends. Hood noticed how his presence had subdued the group, made the women self-conscious, awkward, with a kind of pedestrian envy and suspicion.

Hood said sharply, ‘Hi, sweetheart!’

They looked away. The teacher came out, an older woman in a smock, fussing with a toy, waving the mothers aside and calling the children by name. Hood was the first to leave. He had gone some distance down the road when he turned and saw them all, staring at him. He knew what they were saying: a new member of the family, her lover — or more likely, the fucker.

He got back to the house to find her up, and now he saw the disorder he had missed the night before — an ashtray tipped over, a smashed lamp, a buckled chairleg, and the carpet littered with glass shards and cigarette butts. Lorna was feebly sweeping the hallway.

‘Have you seen upstairs?’ she said. ‘I told them I didn’t have the key, so they broke down the door of the spare room, where the stuff was. That’s what did it — they saw it was empty. Willy starts screaming at me. The other one — I don’t know his name — he done his nut. He slaps me.’

‘I’ll kill them for this,’ said Hood through his teeth.

‘Leave me out of it. I don’t want trouble.’ She sighed and said bitterly, ‘I thought when Ron copped it I was free. No more fights, no more worrying about the police. I can live, I thought. Then this. The fuckers.’

‘What were they looking for?’

‘How should I know? They asked about you. They got really ugly — who are you? What do you do? Who do you work for? That kind of thing.’

‘And you didn’t tell them anything?’ He was almost incredulous, but he believed, and he was ashamed.

‘Nothing,’ she said; she smiled at the memory of it. ‘Because I knew they were just trying it on, testing me like. I mean, the fuckers know you, so why are they asking all these questions? Play dumb — that’s what Ron used to say — pretend like you don’t even speak English.’ She winced and picked up the broom, and beginning to sweep she said, ‘Well, it didn’t cut no ice. One of them grabs me — twisting me arm — and the other one starts slapping me. And Willy, he’s just standing there whistling out the window.’

‘They’ll be sorry.’ Hood paced the room.

‘I don’t know why I didn’t come out with it and tell them you had all that stuff.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘Because I knew what they’d do. You think I’m stupid? I’m used to this. Me, they’d only slap me around — I wasn’t afraid, I wasn’t even mad. That’s the way they are — and they don’t kill women.’ She stared at him. ‘But they would have killed you.’

‘So you saved my life,’ said Hood.

‘But later, after they left, I thought they might have got you. I was frantic, and I almost cried when I saw you last night.’ She was silent a moment, then she said abruptly, ‘They’ll be back.’

‘Not if I nail them first,’ he said.

‘They’re probably looking for you now,’ she said. ‘Just leave me out of it. They’re the worst fuckers — they’re murderers.’

‘I’ve ruined your life,’ he said, and he wanted her to believe it, to take his word for it without asking him how.

She came over to him and touched his face. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re good. You made me happy. I don’t even know you, but I almost love you.’ She held him and said, ‘Sometimes I think everything you say is a lie. I don’t care about that. If you have to lie to make me happy, go ahead — tell me lies. I don’t want to know the truth if it’s going to spoil everything.’

He was moved by her complete surrender; she knew nothing, and yet without belief she trusted him. They were strangers, joined by a corpse: a dead man’s family. But the pity had been refined; she might not know him, but he knew her, and he feared that it would go further, to the narrowing sympathy that would deny him his future. She had been lost. He found her, but now he saw he could only save her by sacrificing himself; that love was all loss, an early death. Yet he could not help what he had felt when he saw her so badly beaten — passion, or blunter still, a kind of lust at seeing her so wounded. Even now, holding her, feeling her frailty, he was heated, and he wanted to hurry her upstairs and make love to her.

She said, ‘I don’t care what you do to those fuckers. But don’t leave me — please.’

‘Don’t say please.’

‘Last night you called me love,’ she said. ‘Say it again.’

He looked down at her. ‘You say I lie.’

‘I want you to lie!’

He kissed her lightly, but as he started to speak, the doorbell rang.

‘Go upstairs,’ he said. ‘I’ll see to them.’

He got a knife from the kitchen, but on his way to the door he threw it down in disgust. It clattered on the floor and was still spinning as he dragged the door open. He sighed and dropped his arms.

‘Yeah, sorry to bother you,’ said Murf, who was tugging at his ear-ring with one hand and pushing at his other ear. He was nervous; the quack was in his voice. He tried to laugh. ‘I hope you wasn’t on the job.’

‘Come in.’

‘The thing is, she’s back,’ he said, stepping in and smoothing his ears with both hands. It occurred to Hood that this was a variation of the gesture balding men usually made with their hair, the pushing and smoothing. ‘The old girl — that filthy great giant, Brodie’s mate. I was having a kip, see, and I heard her come in. I gets behind the door and she sneaks around like. I didn’t know what to do, so I come over here. You want me to put the wind up?’

‘Where’s Mayo?’

‘Out with Brodie. Either in Kilburn or maybe shopping. I don’t know. They took the van.’

‘Maybe the offensive,’ said Hood, smiling.

‘Not a chance,’ said Murf. ‘Like Mayo told me straight. You’re going to do it now, the English offensive — you’re the guv.’ He grinned and widened his eyes and said, ‘Yeah, arsenal rule!’

‘So the secret’s out.’

‘That’s why I got worried. The old girl might find something and rumble us.’

Hood said suddenly, ‘Murf, remember those guys that jumped me at the dog track?’

‘The villains. Shorty and them.’

‘Who are they?’

‘Never seen them before.’

‘But you can find out. They’re agents — fences.’

‘Arfa might know.’

‘Go ask him,’ said Hood. ‘The guy’s name is Willy Rutter. There are some others, but Rutter’s the one I want. He must live around here. I want to catch him at home.’

‘I’ll smash on Arfa’s door,’ said Murf. ‘But what about the old girl?’ He guffawed and showed his teeth. ‘Maybe she wants me to raise her.’

‘Forget it. Find out about Rutter.’

When Murf had gone, Hood went upstairs and told Lorna who it was. Lorna lay on the bed, stiffly crouched, hugging her stomach; but hearing there was no danger, she stretched and relaxed and said, ‘Sit beside me.’

He sat on the edge of the bed and pushed her hair out of her eyes.

‘Tell me a lie.’

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I love you.’

‘Tell the truth,’ she said impatiently, getting up on one elbow.

He said, ‘I don’t love you.’

She fell back. He thought she was pouting until he realized her lips were swollen that way from a slap. She said, ‘I don’t care if you don’t love me. Anyway, everyone says it, so it’s just another lie. I know you like me, or else why would you stick with me?’ She smiled slowly. ‘And I know something else.’

‘What is it?’ He knew an instant panic.

She said, ‘You’re not a fucker.’

‘But all men are fuckers — that’s what you said.’

‘Not you.’ She drew him down, hugging him and moving her face against his. And as she did he felt his cheeks grow wet, his eyes sting, but it was her tears trickling into his eyes. She was crying softly, and though she tried to control it he could hear the groan in her throat and feel the convulsion; she was sobbing. ‘Don’t leave me,’ she said and held his arms tightly — so tight he felt his wrists tingle and go numb. The girl in her wept, but a woman’s strength held him. ‘Please don’t leave me — please, please, please!’

He thought: Yes, but there is something to do. He was crowded, haunted by the men who had wounded her. The punishment he planned lingered in his mind — that remained, an intrusion between their bodies as obvious as her wounds. The thought prevented him from responding to her plea, but he saw an end to it. He would get them and be finished — discard everything, abandon the house on Albacore Crescent and begin with her. He had enough hope for her, and there was freedom in that hope. Ridding her life of those bastards would rid him of that part of his own past that now seemed a moment of uncontrolled fury, when murdering her husband he had murdered the worst in himself. He embraced her and kissed her and she sobbed, but he felt nothing except an impulse to find Rutter and hammer him. Kill that lurking rival.

She was still pleading, but her mouth was against his neck and he heard nothing.

‘We can’t stay here,’ he said at last. ‘Murf’s coming back.’

Murf arrived an hour later with Arfa Muncie. Seeing Lorna’s bruises, Murf said, ‘Hey, who done you?’ Then he changed the subject, perhaps suspecting that Hood might have beaten her. Muncie looked alarmed; he was silent and eyed Hood carefully as if waiting for a signal to run. But Hood saw how rattled Muncie was (he was picking up Lorna’s china dolls and examining their seals, and testing the firmness of chairs: the junk-dealer’s nervous reflex), and he deliberately put him at his ease, slapped him on the back — Muncie jumped — and said casually, ‘Now where does our friend live?’

‘I can show you,’ said Muncie. ‘I mean, out the window.’

‘So he’s that close?’

‘No, Millwall. But you can see it from here,’ said Muncie, and he explained to Lorna, ‘See, I know these here houses. I do a lot of clearing. I never cleared this one as such, but blimey, some of the old boys around here got some great stuff for me shop. Victoriana like. Frames and that. Mirrors. Leaded windows. I flog them in the West End. That fireplace,’ he went on, hurrying across the room and rapping his knuckles on it in approval. ‘Don’t look like much but you could dismantle it easy. I’d give you a good price and hump it up to the King’s Road. Up there this thing’s a antique. They pay a tenner for a quid’s worth of grotty glassware.’

Lorna shrugged and said, ‘You’re welcome to it. Take the whole fucking lot.’

‘I could give you a estimate,’ said Muncie uneasily. He spoke to Hood. ‘I do valuations.’

‘The great Arfa. He’s a thief,’ said Murf, pronouncing it feef, ‘but he knows his way around. Eh, Arfa?’

‘Yeah. Can we go upstairs? I’ll show you the place.’

Hood said to Lorna, ‘Do you know where Rutter lives now?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘All I have is the fucker’s phone number.’

‘Stay here, honey. We’ll be right down.’

She said, ‘It’s time to pick up Jason. Maybe I’ll see you.’

They climbed the stairs and trooped down the hall to the back room. The broken door sagged on its hinges. Murf said, ‘Someone give that bugger a good kick and all. Think you can flog it, Arfa? It’s a antique. Heh-heh.’

Muncie ignored him. He shuffled to the north window and pointed, saying, ‘He’s over there.’

Through the river haze that hung beyond the funnels of the power station and the cranes, and gave the distant buildings the look of thunderclouds in an old etching, receding into browner air and finally a grey emptiness — any London view was like a view from an island: it might have been the sea way out there, it was so flat and featureless — were more cranes, the towers of a housing estate, slate rooftops and one squat black church steeple. The heavy layer of air pressed the low skyline and made it look as if it had just collapsed and was smouldering. Hood followed Muncie’s finger, from island to island, but that was a ruined island, dead under its own stifling dust, and all the visible brickwork was dark, reddened by dampness and age. Apart from the church steeple there was nothing that held the eye, nothing to seize; and watching, Hood had the illusion of it slipping from focus, sailing away, becoming mists.

‘Millwall,’ said Muncie, tapping the glass.

‘It looks like an island,’ said Hood.

‘It is an island,’ said Murf. ‘Isle of Dogs. I wouldn’t live there for anything.’

‘That’s where Rutter lives,’ said Muncie. ‘I could tell you where his boozer is, but you don’t want to go there. The Swan, up Lime-house.’

‘Diabolical,’ said Murf.

‘It looks like an island,’ said Hood.

Muncie pulled his sleeve across his nose. ‘No,’ he said. He blinked. ‘He might have heard of me.’

‘The great Arfa,’ said Murf, grinning.

‘But he knows Murf,’ said Hood.

‘So he was telling me,’ said Muncie. ‘He was going to slip him a blade. That’s what he said.’

‘I should have stuck him and all,’ said Murf, with a show of bravado. ‘I could have. A real spill. Right in the chops.’ He danced across the room pretending to hold a knife against an invisible throat. ‘Widdy-widdy boom!’ he said, thrusting with his hand. ‘So long, Willy-baby.’

‘Sure,’ said Hood. ‘Look, Muncie, I want you to be our advance man.’

Muncie glanced nervously at Murf. ‘I don’t want to get involved.’

Murf made a face.

‘Anyway, I’m tied up.’

‘The great Arfa,’ said Murf.

‘How would you like him to lean on you?’ Muncie whined.

‘Widdy boom!’ said Murf, flailing his arms, making the stabbing gesture again. He laughed in Muncie’s face.

‘You don’t have to get involved,’ said Hood quietly.

‘What do I do then?’

‘Just find out if he’s at home,’ said Hood. ‘Show us the house. That’s all. We’ll do the rest.’

‘It’s simple — suss it out,’ said Murf. ‘After we take care of the geezer you can go clear out his house. Don’t have to do no estimates. Get some nice stuff. Chairs and shit. Eh, Arfa?’ Murf elbowed him companionably, rocking him sideways, but Muncie’s expression remained solemn. He came to rest, upright again, and frowned with worry.

‘He’s tough is Rutter,’ said Arfa, pronouncing it Ruh-uh. ‘He’s killed blokes and all.’

‘Like who?’ said Murf, mocking. ‘Huh, Arfa?’

Hood said, ‘Anyone we know?’

Muncie’s eyes widened and he pointed to the floor. ‘Yeah,’ he said in a whisper. ‘Downstairs. Her old man!’

22

Shadow and mist mingled to make night in the late afternoon. Hood had said they should wait until it was dark, but darkness was not long in coming that November day. They took a bus to Greenwich, and out of the side window Hood saw the haze thicken by the minute, the dense air brimming in the streets and rising up the flat-fronted houses. Walking to the tunnel entrance — a Victorian brick dome propped at the edge of the embankment — Hood looked across the river. There were not even shadows in Millwall, only a few twinkling lights and one feeble beacon. Here, some trees were fretting by the riverside, but over there — offshore — it was as if the island he had seen earlier had sunk and now, where it had been, stray boats were making distress signals. No church, no cranes, no buildings, not even mist; and though the river shimmered with snakes of light it too was empty.

‘In here,’ said Muncie, and led them past the clanking elevator cage and down the circular stairwell to the tunnel. It was the sort of glazed endless corridor Hood had seen when he was high, a tube of echoing tiles, without doors or windows, stretching away, and ringing with the footsteps of people he could not see. Voices chimed from the walls and his own footsteps gulped. Murf stopped once to write MILLWALL WANK — ARSENAL RULE.

On the far side of the river they emerged from the stairwell and its stink of urine and chalk to a dark muddy garden and a maze of earthworks. Muncie hurried into the road, to Rutter’s; Hood and Murf sat on a bench in the little park. Greenwich, banked with lights, lay across the water, the Royal Naval College rising from the walkway to trees and the turrets of the Observatory, a symmetry of floodlit stone with its lovely proportions reflected intact in the water, crusted with a blaze of lights. To the right were the masts and spars of the Cutty Sark, simulating dead trees, and further over the blacker precincts of Deptford — more islands.

Hood pointed to the Naval College, which the odd light and the falling mist gilded. He said, ‘That’s a beautiful building.’

‘Beautyful,’ said Murf. ‘Go like anything.’

For a moment, Hood thought Murf was agreeing. Then he saw how the building lighted the smile of excitement on Murf’s face — an eagerness to destroy: Murf was imagining blowing it up. Without saying why, Hood began telling Murf about Verloc, as he had once told Lorna — how the ponderous man in the overcoat had tried to blow up the Observatory, how he had blown his young brother-in-law to bits. And as he told it he reflected that the incident had no complexity: the men had the minds of children; and the child, who was wise, was inarticulate, ineffectual. It was a simple tale, a shadowy outrage, a bout of madness. It started, it squawked, it was gone; a story of self-destruction.

Murf listened, and Hood could see the Naval College exploding on his eyes. He tugged his ear-ring and said, ‘Provo?’

‘Verloc?’ said Hood. ‘No.’

‘No wonder he fucked it up.’ Murf sang, keeping the tune in his nose. ‘Arfa’s taking his time.’ He laughed. ‘He’s scared, he is. Thinks he’s going to get rompered.’ Murf sang again, stamping when he said boom, then said, ‘Yeah, I should have stuck the geezer and all.’

‘Look,’ said Hood. A low black boat was going past, almost without sound. It ploughed the water, a creeping shadow with lanterns on its bulkheads, and behind it a laden barge, like a snooping whale. There was a look of funereal stealth about it, and the small voice that carried from the hidden deck muttered, emphasizing the immensity of water. It passed out of sight and then waves began beating the river-wall like an eruption of surf. The backwash made the reflections of the Greenwich lights dance in eddies, like wind through fire, feeding the blaze and making separate flames leap all over the river’s surface.

Murf said, ‘What’s that?’

A crackle, like sticks of dry kindling coming alight. Murf bowed his head to listen, but the sound was familiar to Hood. It was rain, sweeping from the far side of the river, crackling towards them, making the surface flames small and numerous. They heard it clearly before it descended on them a moment later, like the tropical rain that had surrounded Hood with this simulation of burning — a murmur from Vietnam, pattering on leaves before it drenched him, a few warning drops, then a downpour.

‘We’ll have to sit it out,’ said Hood, ‘or Muncie won’t find us.’

‘We’ll get soaked.’ Murf stood up, as if to avoid it, and walking up and down the narrow promenade next to the iron guard rail he beat his hands on his streaming coat and shouted into the storm, ‘Hey Arfa! Let’s go, mate — stop wanking!’

Now Greenwich and all its lights were filtered through the drizzle, and as the rain grew heavier the opposite bank began to recede, losing its contours; the storm wrenched the land away by blending it with the night sky, and it diffused the lights so they matched their spangled reflections in the river.

Filfy wevva, Murf was saying, as he returned to the bench and put his collar up. The two crouched there, like wet roosting crows in their black coats, watching the river’s changing dazzle, saying nothing more. For Hood, the time moved with the pace of the rain, slowly as it dripped and more quickly when the wind sprang up and blew it harder into his face. It gusted as sped the minutes, then it slowed and poured and the time dragged. And it seemed to him as if his life was not made of action, but an absence of it, this waiting at a river’s edge in rain that stopped him and moved the river.

Raising his voice against the wind, Murf said, ‘But I’m glad it’s you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘This fucking offensive. You’re the guv’nor now. I’m dead glad it’s you.’ He screamed impatiently, ‘Arfa!’

Hood said, ‘I’m the guv’nor all right.’

Murf turned his dripping face to Hood’s and with hoarse enthusiasm said, ‘Give it to ’em, son.’

‘One villain at a time,’ said Hood. He heard a muffled cry and splashing feet and saw Muncie running clumsily from the far end of the park. ‘There he is.’

‘The wanker,’ said Murf. He stood up and danced in the downpour. ‘Hey, Arfa!’

Muncie was out of breath, his hair was plastered flat to the top of his head and hung in strings at his ears. He gasped and wiped his face on his sleeve, then said, ‘I seen him go in. But he’s a crafty bastard. He parks his motor up the road and sneaks in by the back way. The house was dark before he come, so he must be alone.’

‘He doesn’t travel alone,’ said Hood.

‘Well, he ain’t travelling, is he?’ said Muncie, backing away slightly as if expecting Hood to hit him for contradicting him.

‘Good thinking,’ said Murf. He laughed loudly. ‘The great Arfa.’

‘Let’s go,’ said Hood.

They crossed the small park and entered the road, walking east, past the abandoned earth works and a high wooden fence marked with Millwall slogans and swaying in the storm. The old church looked only blacker in its windy corner. Up another road, past more temporary fences: but nothing showed above the fences — here there were no buildings, and the streetlights illuminated only the broken cobbles of the road and the holes filling with rainwater. It looked like the newest ruin, knocked sideways and devastated, and not a soul to be seen: a glimpse of the end.

A bus lumbered past, lighted but empty, and pitching in the uneven road. It appeared from the darkness at one turning and entered the darkness beyond the last streetlamp. They walked up the street that ran along the eastern margin of Millwall, and then they saw — on a side street and set back — a terraced row of four bowfronted houses. Somehow, these houses had been spared the destruction that was obvious around them. They stood alone on the derelict road, another island of damp eroded walls in a flat sea of rubble.

‘The one with the light,’ said Muncie. He hunched and indicated the house, concealing his pointing finger with the flap of his jacket, as if afraid of being seen. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Cheers.’

‘Where you going, Arfa?’

‘Out of this filthy rain.’

‘You’re already wet, you silly bastard.’

But Muncie was running, stamping in the puddles. He vanished behind a fence, fleeing in the direction of Greenwich.

‘The great Arfa.’

‘Wait here,’ said Hood. ‘I’m doing this alone.’

‘Let me come wif you.’

‘Sorry. I need you here. If anyone goes in after me, you thump him.’

‘Take this.’ Murf jerked the knife out of his sheath and handed it to Hood. ‘Stick the bugger. Like I should have.’

Hood slipped the knife into his pocket and walked towards the house, feeling safely hidden by the driving rain. He detoured around the lighted front window and ducked down the side entrance to the rear of the house. He climbed a wobbly fence and found himself in a dark back-garden, at the bottom of which was a high wall. A ladder in the weeds tripped him, and he paused and heard a boat’s thudding hoot and the water’s splash, and he smelled the oily air; the river lay just behind the wall, and now — his eyes growing accustomed to the dark — he saw a steel door in the bricks. The entrance was wide enough to take crates from a boat moored on the other side, Rutter’s own quay.

He walked over to the house and tried the door, then raised himself for a look through the window. Locked and black; but he wouldn’t kick the door down, he didn’t want to give Rutter time to respond. He made his way to the front of the house. Ring the bell and wade in, he thought; give him the chance he’d given Lorna. He waited, fingering Murf’s knife. The light burned in the front window, but the curtains were drawn. Holding himself against the house he sidled to the window, and easing himself near he peered through a slit in the curtains. He sipped air and looked again.

In a chair drawn up to an electric fire, and still in his raincoat, was Sweeney. The man sat clutching a drink against his chest with his mutilated hand. He frowned and sat up, finished his drink, then stared into the empty glass. Bastard, thought Hood. He trembled and fought an urge to break in and kill him. Sweeney! But another thought cautioned him, and he slipped away.

‘— Because it wasn’t Rutter,’ Hood was saying on the way back, in the echoing footway tunnel under the river.

‘Bloody Arfa,’ said Murf. He kicked the tunnel floor. ‘But who was it?’

‘Don’t ask me,’ said Hood angrily, his voice ringing on the wall. ‘I don’t know these creeps.’

‘You should have stuck him, just for the hell of it,’ said Murf. He saw Hood’s rage and seemed anxious to calm him.

‘I want to get the right man,’ said Hood.

‘Maybe it was the geezer you seen.’

‘Maybe,’ said Hood. ‘There’s plenty of time.’

‘But where’s Rutter?’

Hood said, ‘That’s the funny part. He’s probably out looking for me.’

‘Eyes front,’ said Murf. ‘It’s Bill.’

A policeman in a helmet and gleaming rain-cape was coming towards them, wheeling his bicycle through the tunnel.

‘Nice old pushbike you got there,’ said Murf, and grinned showing the scowling policeman the stained pegs of his teeth.

23

The house on Albacore Crescent was lighted; its plump stove-shaped front, with the windows’ brightness sloping across the leafless hedge, had never looked safer or more snug, and the glow on the curtain folds gave it a stove’s warm flicker. In the rising curve of the road those bright ledges attracted him; then the instant moved and he remembered he lived there. All the rest of London drifted on the shallow swell of night, hidden places that were only inaccessible-sounding names, like Elmer’s End and the Isle of Dogs; but the house was secure, and the enlarging light gave it a cheerful fortified look in the darkened road.

He had just left Lorna’s with Murf. After his night and day there, in the locked house where she sat like a child baffled by the pain of a nightmare; and after that glimpse of Sweeney at Rutter’s in the bare room of dead air set in a reach of the river — those island prisons — he was astonished to return to his own house, which he had convinced himself was another uncertain island, and find Mayo in an apron cutting vegetables for a stew and Brodie lying in front of the television set — home! It was a cosy picture composed of safety and warmth, the stewpot bubbling on the stove, the television’s blue hum, the gas-fire’s simmering. He had not noticed before how they were protected, and though he could see Lorna’s from his upper window her house was an island as shadowy as Millwall, where she crouched, a castaway with her own wreckage. The last thing she had said to him was, ‘Now I’m going to give the fuckers their money back.’ He couldn’t help her that way anymore. Upstairs, the man in the painting stared, and in another room the small arsenal was stacked; but these were props for another play. Downstairs, a more ordinary drama met his eye. He came in with Murf, and entering like labourers after a long day’s work they shouted, ‘It’s only us!’ Murf looked around and said, ‘Now, where’s me slippers and me pilchards.’

Murf kicked off his wet shoes and sat on the sofa with his legs outstretched. He squinted at the television and tapping his stash began making a joint.

‘Where you been?’ Brodie rolled sideways and screwed up her face for the reply.

‘Hanging out.’ Murf lit the cigarette and inhaled. He passed it to her. ‘Anything on?’

‘Nah.’ She puffed and winced at the smoke.

Hood was at the doorway, smiling at the litle scene: Murf slumped in the chair, sucking at the joint, Brodie on the floor with her chin in her hands, her thin jersey riding up her bony back. It was a zone of complete calm, warmed by the sizzle and smell of the frying meat from the kitchen. Murf and Brodie’s postures gave it a look of slatternly innocence.

‘Have a seat, guv. It’s lovely in here.’

‘I’ve got to talk to Mayo.’

Murf swallowed smoke. He gulped as if stifling a belch, then waved the cigarette at Hood and said, ‘Hit.’

‘Give it to her,’ said Hood. He peered at Brodie. ‘Okay, angel? How’s your tattoo?’

Brodie said, ‘You know what you can do.’

‘Shut up,’ said Murf, digesting more smoke. ‘He’s just trying to be matey.’

Hood left them quarrelling. In the kitchen, Mayo said, ‘I hope you haven’t eaten already. I’m making something special.’ She worked at the counter, cutting carrots and potatoes, and as she spoke she reached over and shook the frying pan of meat cubes.

Hood saw Murf pass the kitchen door, headed for the stairs.

‘Irish stew,’ said Mayo. ‘I make it with beer.’

Hood said, ‘How did you know I’d be here.’

‘This,’ she said. She took a letter from her apron pocket and handed it to him. ‘I knew you’d be back to collect it. It came this afternoon — express. Looks like money.’

‘You should know.’ He glanced at it — the return address was indecipherable (but a London postmark: another from Mr Gawber?) — and stuffed it into his pocket without opening it. He continued to watch Mayo slicing the carrots into discs. The knife was new and there were more, all sizes, in a rack over the counter. He said, ‘A new set of knives.’

‘Cutlery,’ she said, and he wondered if she was correcting him. ‘The old ones were getting dull.’

‘What a cosy place,’ he said.

Mayo grunted and added the meat to the simmering broth.

The kitchen door burst open. Murf came in, laughing crossly, high and angry at the same time, and swinging an alarm clock in his fist. He said, ‘Who’s been fucking with me clocks?’

‘What is it, squire?’ said Hood, putting a hand on his shoulder to quiet him.

‘Me clocks,’ said Murf. ‘I always leave them a certain way, like. But someone’s been messing around — me drawer’s open, like it’s been fucked about. There’s one on the floor, just flung there, and look at this one I found on the stairs. She’s bust.’

Hood took it. The glass was broken, the hands twisted. He rattled it and handed it back to Murf. ‘Too bad, squire.’

‘But who done it that’s what I want to know.’ Murf was panting. He spoke to Mayo. ‘Was it you?’

She laughed and swiped with her vegetable knife. ‘I expect it was Brodie.’

‘Brodie keeps her hands off me hardware.’

‘An intruder,’ said Hood, keeping a grip on Murf, who was making furious leaps at Mayo.

‘He probably forgot where he left it,’ said Mayo. ‘Admit it, Murf — you pig it up there.’

‘I ain’t lying!’ cried Murf. He stepped near to her and shook the clock in her face, making the bell rattle.

‘Don’t you shout at me,’ said Mayo, sternly, her voice dropping into a tone of command. ‘I’ve been cooking since six o’clock while the rest of you have had a little holiday. You’ll want to eat it, too, but a lot of help I get! So don’t come around screaming at me.’ She had been holding the knife at Murf. She turned and whacked at the vegetables, making the cutting-board jump. ‘Go away — I’m busy.’

Murf’s face was pained. He said, ‘I ain’t lying, but she’s laughing at me.’

‘What’s all the noise?’ Brodie hung at the door, scratching the bluebird on her upper arm.

‘Yeah,’ said Murf, ‘and I expect I know who it was that fucked with me clocks. Your mate, the hairy giant.’

‘So what?’

‘So what, she says.’ The clock rattled in Murf’s hand.

Mayo said to Brodie, ‘Was someone here?’

‘Maybe the lady I told you about,’ said Brodie casually.

‘Impossible. How would she get in?’

‘I gave her a key.’

Hood folded his arms and whistled through his teeth.

Seeing hostility in Mayo’s face, and the others’ attention on her, Brodie came awake. ‘Hey, she got a right to be here. Hey, that’s her picture upstairs, ain’t it? Hey —’

‘I stole that picture,’ said Mayo, with an owner’s scream of petulance, as if the picture was being claimed by a stranger.

‘But it don’t belong to you,’ said Brodie.

‘It’s mine,’ said Mayo crisply.

Hood said, ‘So you gave that old bull a key?’

‘She bought it off me,’ said Brodie. ‘Anyway, she’s okay.’

‘She’s okay,’ said Murf, shaking the broken clock at Brodie. ‘That’s why she fucked with me clocks, right?’

‘I can’t cook with you in my way,’ Mayo said.

‘You’re murder,’ said Hood in disgust, and without another word he went into the parlour. He itemized what he owned there, the Chinese objects, the carvings, the silver. Upstairs, he looked through the closets, assessing his belongings, his suit, his stack of clothes, his consular briefcase with the blank passports and the official seal, his Burmese box of drugs. There was little more to do; there was nothing else he owned. He did not look at the painting: he coveted it too much. He went into the spare room, where the televisions were, the appliances, the crates of whiskey and cigarettes, and the two locked trunks with the Dutch words lettered on them. He sat on one and considered opening it, taking a pistol and keeping it. But no — they wanted them all. They’d get them.

He sat for a long time on the arsenal, smelling the stew, hearing the clank of Mayo in the kitchen and Brodie and Murf braying at the television. It was not disorder, it was the routine of any noisy family, an ordinary racket. This was a home, a family arsenal; safety was like remoteness, disturbance was elsewhere. He took the letter out and tore it open. You Are Invited To A Peter Pan Party. He read down the printed sheet, and at the bottom, in a large vain hand was scrawled, Hope you can make it. A.N. And holding the invitation and hearing the clatter downstairs he was reproached again by his safety and pitied Lorna the more. He could stay or go — it didn’t matter. By accident, in this randomly chosen city, he had invented his own struggle. He deserved to fail. It’s up to you, Sweeney had said. Yes, at last; but every delay had saved him, as if inaction itself was, like the surest assault, a celebration of security. At the centre of it all, in an attitude of reflection that was indistinguishable from an attitude of pain, was a mother and child. He was stirred by fear at the thought of them, for he had acted once and only now saw the truth of it — to act was to fail.

Mayo called up the stairs: dinner was ready. She conveyed it in a tone of irritation, and he heard her nagging Brodie and Murf to set the table. He went down and took his place. Brodie banged the soup bowls on the table, Murf poured beer; Mayo carried the stew in a tureen and with a housewife’s disgusted pride, grumpy satisfaction mingled with resentment, ladled it into the bowls. Hood got up and turned off the television. Brodie said, ‘I was watching that.’ Murf said, ‘Watch your gob.’ She reacted obstinately, trying to float the round end of her spoon in the stew. Mayo said, ‘Stop playing with your food!’ There was no more talk; the gas fire sputtered in the wires of the white-hot grate.

Hood said, ‘We’re leaving,’ and before anyone could respond he added, ‘That’s right — we’re all clearing out.’

He ate, the others watched him, and the only sound was from the shelf, where Murf’s clock had begun to tick.

Finally, Mayo said, ‘You’re crazy.’

‘I’m in charge,’ he said, and went on eating.

‘You don’t know what you’re doing,’ said Mayo.

‘He’s the guv,’ said Murf.

‘What about all that stuff upstairs — those televisions, that junk?’

Hood thought: In a moment this wife will scream. He said, ‘We’ll leave those for the next tenant.’

‘I feel crappy,’ said Brodie. She put her spoon down and made a sour face.

‘So look around,’ said Hood. ‘Find anything you consider valuable, anything with writing on it — anything that can be traced to us — and put it in the van. All the rest we’ll leave.’

‘What a dumb idea,’ said Brodie. ‘Hey, where are we supposed to go?’

‘No problem,’ said Hood. ‘You can go to Lady Arrow’s.’

‘The hairy giant,’ said Murf. ‘She’ll eat you for breakfast, sister.’

‘What about me?’ said Mayo.

‘Back to your husband, Sandra.’ Hood was going to say more, but Mayo blushed and stared at her hands.

‘I’m sticking wif you,’ said Murf.

‘What about Muncie?’

‘The great Arfa,’ he said. ‘I’m wif you.’

‘Okay,’ said Hood. ‘Then it’s settled.’

‘And you?’ Mayo faced Hood, her eyes meeting his and then faltering.

Hood said, ‘I’ll think of something.’

Brodie looked around the table, and at the walls, the floor, the ceiling. She said, ‘We’re not going to be here anymore.’

‘It’s a nice place,’ said Murf. ‘You don’t get hassled. You can hang out here.’

Brodie shook her head. ‘It’s kind of sad.’

‘I don’t feel hungry,’ said Murf.

‘I made that especially for you,’ said Mayo, sitting up and raising her voice, ‘and you’re going to eat it.’

‘Let’s not have an argument on our last night,’ said Hood. He picked up his glass of beer and winking at Murf he said, ‘This is it, then. The beginning.’

‘Look at him,’ said Brodie. She scraped her chair back and ran out of the room.

Murf followed her, his arms flapping, and then Mayo said, ‘You’re on your own now. I don’t trust you.’

‘Then start packing,’ said Hood. ‘You’re going home.’

But she refused to pack. She followed him around the house, sulking, and then complaining as he collected his artifacts from the parlour. Upstairs, he filled his suitcase, lining it quickly with his clothes, and she stood next to him, accusingly, not making any move to pack. Hood said nothing. She stamped the floor angrily, as if she was being left behind; and she threatened him, but her anger was pathetic, proof of her helplessness. Because she could not do anything more she raged; she was like a wife at the moment of a divorce she demanded as a rash threat, seeing her mistake and knowing she is lost — too late, too late. She kept her wronged face at him. He ignored her.

‘Go to hell,’ she said, and went to bed with unnecessary noise, punching the pillow and switching off the lights and screaming when he turned them on again. He knew she wanted a scene, something final to seal it, and he had felt — with his back to her — that she wanted to hit him. Now, deprived of argument, she lay in the bed with her head under the blanket. He saw her clearly, as he once had when she had spoken of the painting: a child who was used to getting her own way, as if being a clever daughter was an incurable condition for which the only consolation was the fatherly praise of an attentive lover.

Brodie and Murf were on the stairs, in the back room, calling to each other, banging and slamming. ‘Don’t cry,’ he heard Murf saying; Brodie whimpered; Murf’s coaxing turned to blame — he swore and shouted, ‘Shut up!’

‘Tell them to stop making so much noise,’ Mayo sobbed. She burrowed deeper into the bedclothes.

Later, when he was in bed, there were murmurs from their room, Murf insisting and from Brodie an odd pained cry. Then a muffled kicking and the small strangled howls of the two children making love. It ended with a series of brief despairing thumps, and lying there in that large house Hood believed it was the saddest sound he had ever heard.

The next he knew it was morning, he was being shaken. Mayo stood over him, all teeth and hair, pulling his shoulder and saying, ‘It’s gone — the picture’s gone!’

Across the room his suitcase lay open, the clothes were strewn; his briefcase was unzipped — disorder where he had left a neat pile of his belongings.

‘Who did that?’ he said slowly.

‘I did,’ said Mayo. ‘Well, if you didn’t take it, who did?’

He got out of bed cursing, righted the suitcase and rearranged the clothes. Then he went to the cupboard and saw the empty space where the painting had been, and it was as if a hollow was carved in his stomach. He had been robbed, and on his eye a dim after-image of the loss. Feeling very tired, he sat down on the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands. He said, ‘When did you see it last?’

‘I don’t know.’

He loathed her for saying that. ‘It must have been Brodie’s friend,’ he said. ‘She was here yesterday. And it’s hers.’

‘The bitch,’ said Mayo. She was packing now. She pushed clothes into her suitcase.

He was glad she wouldn’t have the painting, but sorry to think that he might never see the self-portrait again. He tried to picture it, but his imagination simplified it, and all he saw was a nearly expressionless face, a gesture, obscurely lit; already it was gone. He knew he would have to see it for it to speak to him. And it was odd, because in all the estrangements he had known this was the most severe. His spirit had been thieved and in its place was fatigue. He was assailed by another feeling — unexpected — an enormous sense of himself, his own smell and weakness, an absence of light; a brown reminder of mortality. The theft was like a death, and his feeling — that shabby weight of flesh, that futile sigh that did not even have anger’s strength — was close to grief.

‘I knew it,’ said Mayo, with her scream of petulance. ‘As soon as my back is turned —’

‘Dry up,’ said Hood, not looking at her.

She grumbled and finished packing. She had several suitcases, a large cardboard box, and in three tea-chests the dishes, the pots and pans. He had always wondered who the kitchenware belonged to — who owned the towels, the sheets, the blankets? They were in her luggage: all the furnishings were hers. The house was stripped; the furniture that was left looked useless and dirty in the empty house. But it had seemed empty from the moment he saw the painting was missing.

Brodie came downstairs carrying a shopping bag of her belongings and a guitar he had never seen her play. Murf followed with more of Brodie’s things and he and Hood began to load the van. Entering the house for more of Mayo’s boxes he heard her shouting in the kitchen: I’m the one who has to answer for it, not you! And Brodie’s whine: I couldn’t help it. Anyway, it’s hers, ain’t it? It’s not yours. When they came out, breathless from the quarrel, Mayo still blustering and Brodie sheepishly dragging her feet, Hood said, ‘Off you go then, Sandra.’

‘I don’t even know where I’m going,’ said Brodie. ‘I’m going to get anorexia again, for shit sake.’

Mayo took the keys from her handbag. She started for the van, then stopped and walked back to him. He wondered what she was going to do — kiss him, slap him, shout. She was beyond caring about risk. But she said in a controlled voice, ‘Last night you said this is the beginning. Well, you’re wrong — this is the end, but you’re just too cowardly and selfish to admit it.’

‘Don’t you believe that,’ said Hood. Murf had run to the bottom of the crescent. Hood saw him running back, holding a paper bag. He handed it to Brodie: toffees. Brodie started to cry.

‘It’s no big deal that you’re handling this offensive,’ Mayo was saying. ‘There’s no war here. It’s happening in Ulster. If you had any guts you’d go there.’

‘I’m counting on you to do that.’

‘I’m staying in London,’ she said.

‘Then you’ll be hearing from me,’ said Hood. ‘But one last thing — don’t come back here. Stay away from this house.’

She said, ‘You’ll never be happy,’ and started the engine.

They sat side by side, not speaking, mother and daughter, a pair of enemies. The van jerked forward, then disappeared at the turning of the crescent.

Murf said, ‘Now what do we do?’

‘We make the house burglarproof.’

‘Yeah,’ said Murf. ‘Good idea. If you can find the locks.’

Hood said, ‘You’ve got the lock, squire.’

‘Yeah.’ Murf smiled. ‘Nah. I ain’t got a clue.’

Hood said, ‘We’re leaving a bomb behind.’

‘Yeah.’

‘A trip-wire,’ said Murf. Now they were in the spare room, standing among the stacks of crates and televisions, the two large metal trunks. ‘Maybe use that wall-socket there for juice. Beautyful. Go like anything.’

‘You’re the boss.’

‘Or else a battery, self-contained like. But sometimes it’s hard to get a spark.’

‘Just one thing, Murf. Make it a fat one.’

‘About ten pounds should crack it. It’s an old house.’

‘Make it thirty,’ said Hood.

Murf cackled. ‘A thirty-pounder would get this fucking pile to the moon. Yeah, with knobs on.’

‘Let’s get started.’

Murf opened his leather satchel and took out wire, a small transformer, pliers, a spool of tape. Hood indicated the trunks and said he wanted the bomb wired to the lids, so that opening the trunks would detonate it. Murf nodded and set out sacks of powder, one bone-white, the consistency of detergent, the other a fine grey zinc-like dust.

‘This here’s your explosive,’ he said. ‘Safe as anything as long as you don’t pack it too tight and don’t smoke, like.’ He uncoiled the wire. ‘This here’s your trip.’ He took another small object, with a spring, a switch and a tightly wound spool of wire. He handled it and showed Hood. He was obviously enjoying himself and his enjoyment was tinged with an oddly pedantic way of speaking. ‘Explosive? Well, it’s just a word, ain’t it? You can use fertilizer, any shit really. The world, like,’ — was he quoting Sweeney? — ‘it’s explosive right the way through. Now this,’ he said, and smacked his lips, ‘this here’s your mousetrap. Remember that. Mousetrap. Trip. Power supply. Explosive. Put them together and what have you got?’

‘Come on, Murf. Step on it.’

‘You got a circuit,’ said Murf, taking his time. ‘Okay. But there’s a choice. Your trip-wire. String that bitch on the door — they fling it open — ba-boom! Or your mousetrap under that floorboard there — one step and they’re fucking airborne. That’s a beauty — no wires showing — but it’s bloody dangerous to leg. I know a geezer who done himself that way. McDade. His picture was in the paper. The Stickies give him a funeral.’

‘Hurry up.’

‘You mentioned them trunks,’ said Murf. ‘Quite honestly, I could cut some holes in them lids. For wire. They’re unlocked. Fucker lifts them up. Circuit breaks. She sparks, and it’s all over.’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Put the powder under the floor. Get this lino up and jam a charge down there. Beautyful.’

‘Wouldn’t it be quicker if we put the explosive in the closet?’

‘Neighbours,’ said Murf. ‘Fuckers would be up in the sky — fucking astronauts. Kill innocent people. Hey, I’m telling you, the walls are thin in these here terraces. No, put the charges under the floor, then she goes straight up — whoosh!’ He took a small drill from his satchel and made holes in the sides of the trunks, then threaded a wire and joined the lids. ‘No,’ he was saying, ‘can’t kill the neighbours. They never done anything wrong.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Start pulling up the lino, so we can get at the floorboards. But don’t tear the shit. People see lino torn a certain way and they know something’s up.’

Hood worked on the linoleum, peeling it from the sides of the room and rolling it across the floorboards. Murf wired the transformer, then mixed the powder in a plastic bag.

‘This is the way to do it,’ said Murf. ‘Teamwork, no one bothering you. Wire it up, all the apparatus fixed, nice solid charge seated in the floor. Electric detonator. All nailed down. Them incendiaries in carrier bags are dinky little things. But this — this here’s scientific.’

Hood said, ‘Don’t you want to know why we’re doing it?’

Murf didn’t look up. ‘You’re the guv,’ he said. ‘I ain’t asking.’

They were at it for most of the morning. Murf insisted on hiding the transformer in the fireplace, which was sealed with a square of hardboard. Opening it they found it to be full of soot which had fallen from the chimney; it had to be cleaned and the soot disposed of before the transformer could be lodged inside. Murf wouldn’t be hurried. When Hood said they could trail the wires along the wall and cover them with old newspapers, Murf said, ‘That’s just sloppy workmanship,’ and tore up the floorboards to hide the wires. He brought to his peculiar method of destruction the laborious and precise dedication of a builder. Then they were finished, and the room was as it had been — no wires showed.

‘I pity the poor fucker who messes with this baby,’ said Murf. ‘I’m knackered. How about a cup of tea?’

‘Okay,’ said Hood.

‘Hey, where are we going?’

Hood said, ‘Guatemala.’

Murf smiled. He understood the euphemism.

They secured the windows, locked the front door, and in the back entryway Hood was saying, ‘That does it —’

‘Half a tick,’ said Murf. ‘I almost forgot.’ He dug into his paper bag and pulled out a rolled tube of old canvas. ‘The picture,’ he said, handing it to Hood. ‘I nicked it last night. I hope it ain’t too squashed.’

‘Murf!’ Hood held it. He felt rescued, and he wanted to throw his arms around the boy.

Murf saw Hood’s gratitude and he was embarrassed. ‘I knew you liked it,’ he said. ‘And Mayo and that other bitch — they laughed at me.’