“That’s because I try never to tell her. She says she’s worried, but it’s only so she can keep her claws on me. I want to be free. I don’t want people worrying about me. It’s painful to be incessantly worried about. It’s nothing short of vengeful persecution.”
“In that case why are you going back to her, as you are now? Or so I assume.”
“It’s not my fault. She brings it on herself. She never stops trying to drag me back to Moggerhanger’s. I stayed in a bed and breakfast last night, and couldn’t sleep because she kept floating in my dreams, worrying me, telling me to come back to her as soon as possible. I had no intention of doing so, but after hurrying through my breakfast, I knew I had to, without knowing why. I stood by the roadside signalling for a lift, but no one would stop, and because she was still calling me urgently I walked to the station and caught the train.”
“Very sensible,” I said.
“It might well be,” he conceded. “But I noticed a full moon last night. Is that why you’re looking at me?”
His assumptions wearied me. The journey had started off well, and now I was lumbered with him. “If you say I’m looking at you again I’ll get the window open and do my level best to boot you out of the train.”
He looked alarmed. “Did my wife tell you to do that?”
“Mrs Blemish? Why should she? I haven’t seen her lately.”
I didn’t like his smile: “I suppose she persuaded you to commit an act of violence against me, because she knows I’m going to murder her as soon as I see her.”
I was intrigued. “How can she know that?”
“Not telling,” he said childishly.
“Is it because of the full moon?”
“You see, you were looking at me.”
“If I was I was only trying to decide which of your eyes to black. I rather fancy the left one.” Being so fundamentally barmy he drove everyone else in that direction. “But if you touch a hair of Mrs Blemish’s head not only will I give you a good hiding but so will Lord Moggerhanger. And when he’s finished he’ll hand whatever’s left of you to Kenny Dukes so that he can have a bit of fun as well. Just leave Mrs Blemish alone. Is that clear?”
He wiped an eye, as if hoping a tear would come out, and soon. “Life is so unjust.”
“It always is,” I agreed, “but I’m going to telephone Alice Whipplegate from Liverpool Street, and tell her that if she hears one sharp word between you and Mrs Blemish she’s to inform Lord Moggerhanger. Not only that, but I’ll fly to Ealing like Batman, take out my twelve-inch jackknife on the way, and deliberately do you in when I get there.”
“But my wife’s always getting at me.” A tear did come to his eye, but he seemed unaware. “It’s victimisation.”
“When a woman gets at a man,” I said sternly, “he always deserves it. Nobody knows that better than me. You have to be a man and put up with it, and if you can’t, then it’s time you grew up.”
“You’re being exceptionally harsh with me. I only want to take her to task.”
“Don’t. She’s the most noble and long suffering woman I know, while you, whether you’re off your bonce or not, are the most aggravating, callous, pig ignorant and self-centred person I’ve ever met, except Dismal.”
He was more interested in knowing about a possible rival than putting up with a further demolition of his character. “And who might Dismal be?”
“A dog, so I excuse him, because he can’t know any different. In any case, he’s also loyal, which makes up for everything. He’s also affectionate, at times, and that’s worth even more. He’s very proud, and never violent unless threatened, or unless he sees I’m in trouble. In other words, he’s a gentleman in canine form, which is why we’re two of a kind. There’s no side to either of us, so you’d do well to take a leaf out of his book.”
He gave a halfway normal smile, and I didn’t know whether to be pleased at the spectacle or jump off the train and run for my life, though the tragically boyish twist to his lips suggested he wanted in spite of everything to make the great leap forward into a state of tolerance for his wife. Perhaps he was trying to discard tormenting memories of Hell’s boarding school he’d been to as a boy. I’d heard anecdotes about such places from the blokes at the advertising agency, which made accounts of Approved Schools and Borstals from my pals in childhood and youth sound like trips to Pleasure Island in Pinocchio.
“I won’t hit her, then.” His mouth went back to its ordinary forlorn state. “I’ll just have a few words.”
“Don’t do that, either. One thing can lead to another. And then to somewhere else. And the next thing you know the judge is putting on his black cap before sending you off to be hanged by the neck until you’re dead. Just say hello to her, and keep quiet afterwards, then things will go well, and she’ll make a fuss of you, and feed you cakes straight out of the oven, and stroke your hair, and tell you she loves you and can’t live without you, and that you’re never to go away from her again.”
He stood abruptly, mouth wide open with horror. “I’d kill myself if that was the case. You’re tormenting me. I must get out of your sight. I have to go to you know where.”
I drew in my knees to let him by, his unblinking eyes looking straight ahead, so I knew he wouldn’t come back. When he didn’t I assumed he’d found a way of jumping off the train, babies and loonies made of rubber and always landing harmlessly on the hardest gravel. He was nowhere visible on the building site of Liverpool Street station, so I wasn’t able to give him the final caution with regard to his wife.
Since Blaskin disliked receiving visitors unannounced I phoned from the Underground. “Are you at home today?”
“Michael, my boy, I’m a lot more than here.” He sounded so maniacally cheerful I hoped something was wrong. “Your sister is here, as well, and we’re having a cup of coffee together.”
“Sister?” Was everyone I knew going insane? Blaskin didn’t often realise whether he was or not, being locked in the dense forest of some novel or other. “I haven’t got a sister.”
He rattled on. “I’m glad you got in touch first, because if you had stumbled in here without doing so you might have died from shock, and no father, not even me, would want to go to the funeral of his only begotten son. It gives me the greatest pleasure to inform you that your lovely and most delightful sister has come to pay her old roué of a father a more than acceptable social call, so if you’re in the way of wanting to be introduced, do come and join us. Perhaps you’ll cheer up Mabel Drudge, who is crying her socks off in the kitchen at this unexpected development in my personal life.”
“You’re trying to fuck me up again.”
“Michael, I wish you wouldn’t swear like one of the other ranks. Your sister wouldn’t be much impressed on hearing it. So curb your guttersnipe language when you meet her.”
My instinct was to get straight back to Upper Mayhem, where at least Clegg and Dismal weren’t off their trollies. But my sister? Blaskin rattled on about a sister I couldn’t possibly have, as if feminism had penetrated to his spinal cord at last — which I knew to be impossible. If his rigmarole had to do with the plot of his novel it was a swamp I didn’t care to slop across. It must be another twist in his personal devilry, which led him to string people up and watch them dance.
But my sister? He’d never sprung anything like that before, though the fertility of his invention was as rich as Nile mud, in which snakes and crocodiles thrashed about. If there was a sister in the offing, and it wasn’t merely the workings of his malicious mind, I had little to worry about, and in any case my curiosity would soon be satisfied.