His youth came out in the crudity of his instruction; he was like a boy playing on an ash heap. "Go on," he said, "take it."
It was amazing how far hope could extend. She thought: I needn't say anything yet. I can take the gun and then throw it out of the car, run away, do something to stop everything. But all the time she felt the steady pressure of his will. His mind was made up.
She took the gun; it was like a treachery. What will he do, she thought, if I don't... shoot? Would he shoot himself alone, without her? Then he would be damned, and she wouldn't have her chance of being damned too, of showing Them they couldn't pick and choose. To go on living for years... you couldn't tell what life would do to you in making you meek, good, repentant. Belief in her mind had the bright clarity of images, of the crib at Christmas; here goodness ended, past the cow and the sheep, and there evil began Herod seeking the child's birthplace from his turreted keep. She wanted to be with Herod if he were there; you could win to the evil side suddenly, in a moment of despair or passion, but through a long life the guardian good drove you remorselessly towards the crib, the "happy death."
He said: "We don't want to wait any longer. Do you want me to do it first?"
"No," she said, "no."
"All right then. You take a walk or better still I'll take a walk an' you stay here. When it's over, I'll come back an' do it too." Again he gave the sense that he was a boy playing a game, a game in which you could talk in the coldest detail of the scalping knife or the bayonet wound and then go home to tea. He said: "It'll be too dark for me to see much,"
He opened the door of the car. She sat motionless with the gun on her lap. Behind them on the main road a car went slowly past towards Peacehaven. He said awkwardly: "You know what to do?" He seemed to think that some motion of tenderness was expected of him. He put out his mouth and kissed her on the cheek; he was afraid of the mouth thoughts travel too easily from lip to lip. He said: "It won't hurt," and began to walk back a little way towards the main road. Hope was stretched now as far as it would go.
The radio had stopped; the motor-bicycle exploded twice in the garage, feet moved on gravel, and on the main road she could hear a car reversing.
If it was a guardian angel speaking to her now, he spoke like a devil he tempted her to virtue like a sin.
To throw away the gun was a betrayal; it would be an act of cowardice; it would mean that she chose never to see him again for ever. Moral maxims dressed in pedantic priestly tones remembered from old sermons, instructions, confessions "you can plead for him at the throne of Grace" came to her like unconvincing insinuations. The evil act was the honest act, the bold and the faithful it was only lack of courage, it seemed to her, that spoke so virtuously. She put the gun up to her ear and put it down again with a feeling of sicknessit was a poor love that was afraid to die.
She hadn't been afraid to commit mortal sin it was death not damnation which was scaring her. Pinkie said it wouldn't hurt. She felt his will moving her hand she could trust him. She put up the gun once more.
A voice called sharply: "Pinkie," and she heard somebody splashing in the puddles. Footsteps ran... she couldn't tell where. It seemed to her that this must be news, that this must make a difference. She couldn't kill herself when this might mean good news. It was as if somewhere in the darkness the will which had governed her hand relaxed, and all the hideous forms of self-preservation came flooding back. It didn't seem real that she had really intended to sit here and press the trigger. "Pinkie," the voice called again, and the splashing steps came nearer. She pulled the car door open and flung the revolver far away from her towards the damp scrub.
In the light from the stained glass she saw Dallow and the woman and a policeman who looked confused as if he didn't quite know what was happening.
Somebody came softly round the car behind her and said: "Where's that gun? Why don't you shoot? Give it me."
She said: "I threw it away."
The others approached cautiously like a deputation.
Pinkie called out suddenly in a breaking childish voice: "You bloody squealer, Dallow."
"Pinkie," Dallow said, "it's no use. They got Drewitt." The policeman looked ill at ease like a stranger at a party.
"Where's that gun?" Pinkie said again. He screamed with hate and fear: "My God, have I got to have a massacre?"
She said: "I threw it away."
She could see his face indistinctly as it leant in over the little dashboard light. It was like a child's, badgered, confused, betrayed--fake years slipped away he was whisked back towards the unhappy playground.
He said: "You little..." he didn't finish the deputation approached, he left her, diving into his pocket for something. "Come on, Dallow," he said, "you bloody squealer," and put his hand up. Then she couldn't tell what happened: glass somewhere broke, he screamed and she saw his face steam. He screamed and screamed, with his hands up to his eyes--he turned and ran--she saw a police baton at his feet and broken glass. He looked half his size, doubled up in appalling agony j it was as if the flames had literally got him and he shrank shrank into a schoolboy flying in panic and pain, scrambling over a fence, running on.
"Stop him," Dallow cried; it wasn't any good; he was at the edge, he was over; they couldn't even hear a splash. It was as if he'd been withdrawn suddenly by a hand out of any existence past or present, whipped away into zero nothing.
"It shows," Ida Arnold said, "you only have to hold on." She emptied her glass of stout and laid it down on Henneky's upturned barrel.
"And Drewitt?" Clarence said.
"How slow you are, you old ghost! I just made that up. I couldn't chase over France for him, and the police you know what police are they always want evidence.*'
"They had Cubitt?"
"Cubitt wouldn't talk when he was sober. And you'd never get him drunk enough to talk to them.
Why, this is slander what I've been telling you. Or it would be slander if he were alive."
"I wonder you don't feel bad about that, Ida."
"Somebody else would have been dead if we hadn't turned up."
"It was her own choice."
But Ida Arnold had an answer to everything. "She didn't understand. She was only a kid. She thought he was in love with her."
"An' what does she think now?"
"Don't ask me. I've done my best. I took her home.
What a girl needs at a time like that is her mother and dad. Anyway she's got me to thank she isn't dead."
"How did you get the policeman to go with you?"
"We told him they'd stolen the car. The poor man didn't know what it was all about, but he acted quick when Pinkie pulled out the vitriol."
"And Phil Corkery?"
"He's talking of Hastings," she said, "next year, but I have a sort of feeling there won't be any postcards for me after this."
"You're a terrible woman, Ida," Clarence said. He sighed deeply and stared into his glass. "Have another?"
"No, thank you, Clarence. I got to be getting home."
"You're a terrible woman," Clarence repeated; he was a little drunk, "but I got to give you credit. You act for the best."
"He's not on my conscience anyway."
"As you say, it was him or her."
"There wasn't any choice," Ida Arnold said. She got up ^ she was like a figurehead of Victory. She nodded to Harry at the bar.
"You've been away, Ida?"
"Just a week or two."
"It doesn't seem so long," Harry said.