All the other children are asleep. They don’t care one way or the other. People are singing hymns. A few wonder why they are here. Even midsummer is cold at midnight. It starts to drizzle, the sky’s answer, and the wail of tribulation turns into a police siren.
Dogs bark. The coppers are looking for drugs. Little packets are flying into the fires, even aspirin and Beecham’s Powders. A weirdo-nark makes incantations over the green and blue flames. A swivel-eyed biker thumps him. Another hits him with a wheel — 1000 cc BMW. One or two people are dragged off. Seven, actually, after I’ve counted. One person is an elderly novelist who protests that he’s only there for the research. They let him go. He bears an ‘uncanny resemblance’ to Gilbert Blaskin, but I called him Michael Blood. The inspector picks his hat up from the mud and hands it back to him: ‘Don’t be hard on us, sir, we’re only doing our job. Give us a fair write-up.’ The novelist brings out his cigar case to offer him a smoke, and half a dozen syringes, plus a few Moggapills, fall from his pocket. The policeman picks those up as well. He puts them in his own pocket, but refuses the cigar, then moves on to put down a disturbance. Some Hell’s Angels are overturning the soup kitchen.
The Child is taken back to the car, while its parents stand on the luggage rack to get a better view of the Dawn. Rain stops play, and clouds separate to show a rippled sky, grey rags and TB blood, God’s shirt in the morning, or the Devil’s, more like it, at this Pagan Festival.
I go on a bit more, and by three o’clock I’m so clapped out I end the novel with terror biting into thousands of hearts as, from the crossbar of a megalith, an enormous beastlike figure is seen stalking across the fields from the east with a terrorist’s floorcloth around its head, a machine gun in one hand and a whip in the other, shouting that Allah is Great, and vomiting crude oil over the countryside as people run to escape the tide that catches fire.
I stop the book in the middle of a sentence, as a few stoned bikers are revving up for a counter-attack, unable to take in what I’ve typed. That should fuck it up. Then I remember that that’s what Blaskin wants me to do, but I’m too sleepy to care and, stretching out on the couch, fall dead asleep.
Twenty-Two
My mother woke me at eight o’clock with a cup of coffee. ‘Here you are, son.’
She looked smart and fresh in a pair of olive-drab corduroys and one of Blaskin’s shirts. I wondered whether I’d also grow tougher as I got older. ‘Where’s Ettie and Phyllis?’
The place was too quiet for them to be there. She lit a cigarette and gave me a drag, then sat on the end of the couch. ‘You mean those dirty young trollops you brought back last night?’
‘You did all right out of it.’
‘Don’t get grumpy. Your father gave them some money, and we told them to go to Upper Mayhem for a few days. They’ll like it there.’
I jumped. ‘For God’s sake, that’s my secret retreat.’
‘Don’t be mean. You allus was a tight-arse. I don’t suppose they’ll go. Too quiet for ’em.’
‘They aren’t even battered wives, or unmarried mothers.’
‘They’re a bit battered, anyhow,’ she said. ‘I had that Phyllis so often she didn’t know whether she was coming or going by the end.’
‘What a rotten trick.’
‘Go on, she had the time of her life.’ She came closer. ‘You’re a good-looking chap, you know.’
‘You’re not so bad yourself.’
We looked at each other and laughed. She stood up. ‘Well, anyway, it wouldn’t do. You’re more like your dad than you imagine. Don’t ever go bald, that’s all. You’d better get a wash and come to breakfast. I’m making a big pan of scrambled eggs. And don’t say much to Gilbert this morning if you can help it. He’s not feeling too good.’
‘Neither am I.’
‘I know — but he’s your dad. And don’t fucking argue.’
‘I hate swearing,’ I said.
She was getting nasty, and dangerous. ‘You mean in a woman?’
‘In anybody. But don’t cook the eggs yet. I want a shower.’
‘Make it quick, then.’ She kissed me on the lips, and went to minister to Blaskin. I switched on the bathroom tranny and listened to a programme which I thought must be called Mob Rule. Between the whir of the shaver I heard howls and catcalls, jeers and hyena laughter. People in short periods of silence were trying to say something sensible, but others accused them of lying, defaming and vilifying — when anything could be heard at all. As I was fastening my tie the programme came to an end, and I learned that it was called Yesterday in Parliament.
Blaskin forked food into his mouth like a somnambulist. When the doorbell rang he said: ‘If it’s my publisher tell him I’m dead. I was buried secretly by the light of thieves’ candles on Hampstead Heath. He’ll read about it in The Times tomorrow.’ Then he closed his eyes and went on eating breakfast as if he’d live forever.
When the bell rang again a look from my mother told me to get up and answer it. Pindarry stood outside, hat in hand, the feather pointing towards my stomach. ‘Lord Moggerhanger expects you at a gathering tonight, seven o’clock sharp, dress informal.’ He went back into the lift, having left the door open. Arguing was useless. He was only the invitation card. It was the lack of an RSVP that I didn’t like. He was lucky to get back into the lift unscathed.
I laid the morning mail on the table, and sat so quietly that my mother said it was like having two zombies at the trough. Gilbert mumbled that he never became conscious before twelve, unless he had it off immediately on waking up, and then he went back to sleep till one. I’d intended reporting to Moggerhanger that day, whatever the dangers, but his two-fingered summons put my back up, which was never to my advantage, so I made an effort to smile at my mother, and not to dig too obviously at Blaskin’s overhung condition.
She fussed over us, buttering toast and refilling cups when the rim line went a fraction below halfway. She’d had the time of her life yesterday, having been to a party, got drunk, lived through a terrible quarrel with Blaskin, made it up, gone out to dinner, then come back to a night of satisfying love; while all I had done was put the finishing touches to a miserable novel, had half a night’s sleep, and woken up to have Moggerhanger treat me like one of his lowest minions. To make up for it I decided to play the heavy mob, and frighten the guts out of Jeffrey Horlickstone.
When I had asked Maria what work he did, she indicated that he was very high up in advertising. Not only had he and his family tried to work her to death, but Jeffrey had also managed to get her preggers. If Maria had worked as much as she said, it was difficult to imagine when he could have done the deed, but nobody knew better than me that where a will existed, a way soon opened up.
Blaskin, sorting through the mail, slung a letter at me. He was very particular about the post. While he hunted for cheques and incriminating evidence against my mother, in that order, I opened an epistle from Matthew Coppice:
Dear Mr Cullen,
I hope you have not forgotten your promise to help me to bring Lord Moggerhanger to book. I have been doing my part, and the file of evidence I am getting together is growing bigger and bigger. What I am unearthing would astonish you as much as it pleases me. As soon as I think I have enough I will send it to you, and I trust you will do your best to make it strike home. I don’t know how you will do it, considering Lord Moggerhanger’s friendship with Inspector Lanthorn, but you seemed to be a very clever chap, as well as a good citizen, so I know you will find a way. I must tell you, before I sign off, that Wayland Smith the television man came snooping up here to find out about Lord Moggerhanger’s affairs. I wanted to help him, but I knew that that would put me under suspicion. So I shopped him, and that has made them trust me more than ever. I am their golden-haired boy. That was just what I wanted. I think Mr Wayland was taken to Peppercorn Cottage. I don’t enquire too closely because I want to stay in their confidence. You will be hearing from me again soon. Please eat this letter, or I shan’t be alive to send the next, which is growing apace.