He hurried away, and the extra decibels of abuse weren’t even muffled by a downburst of rain. The stiff upper lip came in useful, yet he regretted not cursing back even louder. Not to have done so was out of character, or was it? It was always best to give jeeringly better than you got. In the face of injustice you carpet-bombed. If not, you betrayed yourself, and might be sniffed out for who you really were, which might not be altogether a bad thing because then you’d know who you were yourself.
The disturbance brought on hunger, and he sat on a high stool in a milk bar looking at his scarred phizog in the wall mirror while eating a cheese cob. Scarface — no use not liking what he saw. He was lumbered with it. It was totally him, scarred outside and blemished within as well, which he had always known. No hardship living with both as long as he grew to forget them. What’s more the face was worth a smile, being accused in no uncertain terms of fathering a bastard. He finished quickly and, back on the road, cut through to the library, hoping to find a seat in the reference section.
He took down a gazetteer with an atlas at the back, but soon got bored thinking of places he would never see. The woman who had assailed him by the lions needed writing about. The incident wouldn’t leave him alone, so he unscrewed his pen, opened his notebook to find pages not damp from the rain. She wasn’t Eileen, but he made her Eileen so as to see her as more human than the drab with the kid. He wrote until the usher came round at kicking-out time, page after page recording what thoughts she must have had behind the wails of distress. He outlined her appearance, where she lived, and had once worked, and by the time he walked back to his digs she was so real in all dimensions that he no longer needed to feel guilty about her.
Two tall soldiers, buck swaddies bulled up smartly, polished and blancoed and in top fettle, met by the closed door of the Eight Bells. ‘Shame it’s too early for a pint o’ jollop,’ Archie said, adjusting his beret.
‘Time for one or two when we get back. The place’ll be jumping by then.’ Bert led the way up Wheeler Gate and by Slab Square, his scar drumming with an ache that had been with him all day, the world on his back seeming a weight too hard to bear even with a grin. Why such a coal-heavy burden he didn’t know, though it was a fact that the grub at his digs was worse than in the army, that the backyards stank like shit when people boiled their sprouts, and that he’d seen too many stone-age faces walking the town.
Archie fell into step. ‘I didn’t get it in last night. You’ll never believe this, but Janice’s husband — or is she called Janet, I get mixed up sometime — forgot his sandwiches, and the starvo-fuckpig came back for ’em. I just had time to skedaddle out of the front door when we heard the latch go click. Bang went my hearthrug pie. If he’d caught me I’d have slung my boots at him — they were still in my hand. It’s left me with a very nasty ache in my fists.’
He positioned himself in a doorway across the street as arranged, while Herbert, back in the mood of a Thurgarton-Strang, and mind emptied but for the prospect of a justified set-to, went quietly up to his place at the top of the stairs. He was concealed, but able to observe Isaac’s door through the dusty wooden slats of the banister. He sat on the top step, head almost touching the skylight, though he would make no sound getting to his feet when the time came. He felt as if hidden by a fold in the ground, two people in one body, the mutual antagonism producing a high tension of electricity, so much enclosed force that he was able to wait patiently, calmly, and without regard to time.
A bird hit the grimy glass and went like a falling aeroplane across the street to make an emergency landing on the opposite ledge. He smiled when the two men began to climb the stairs, their laughter sufficient to cover the sound of his standing up.
The tall thin man in front wore a raglan overcoat, open to show a three-piece suit. A close-eyed expression of anxiety could look menacing to anyone he wanted to frighten. I’ll call him Dandyman, Herbert decided. ‘It’s time we chucked a few of his things out o’ the winder.’
They didn’t care who heard. ‘I’m game. One bash and the door’s in. The gaffer wain’t pay us if we don’t do it this time.’ Herbert dubbed him as Beer-barrel, middle height and stocky, looking feckless but confident at the job in hand. First across the landing, he sent a solid kick at the door. ‘Come out then, Dad. We know you’re in there.’
‘You’ve no right to come here,’ Isaac called through the door. ‘I pay my rent.’
‘No right!’ They laughed at that. ‘We’ll show you what rights are.’
‘I’ve got a butcher’s knife,’ Isaac shouted, in the voice of a much younger man. ‘The first one through that door gets it in the stomach.’
Herbert almost laughed. Isaac was too peaceable even to think of such a weapon, so his bluff would be no good. The others thought so even more.
‘He’s bluffin’,’ Beer-barrel said, loud enough for Isaac to hear behind his door.
‘You just try. I’ll cut you to pieces.’
Bert, recalling his purpose on being there, clattered down the stairs and shouted in his roughest voice to Isaac, heightened by as much as could be mustered of a sergeant-major’s parade-ground bellow: ‘Yer don’t need to do that. I’ll tek care on ’em.’
He stood two steps above, outlined against the skylight. He was tempted to laugh, but that would mean ruination of the scheme, so kept a sharp rein on Dandy the hard man, fixing them. The beret folded into the shoulder strap of his battledress might have told them he was out for business, as should the long scar turning more livid at his face. ‘Get back to where you come from, and leave him alone. He’s my uncle. We aren’t looking for trouble, but if you don’t clear off I’ll put your arses where yer fuckin’ ’eads should be, and yer’ll never know what kicked ’em,’ a threat heard from one man to another at the factory gate.
‘It’s like that then, is it?’ Dandyman turned to Beer-barrel. ‘Come on, Charlie.’ They turned to go, but it was the oldest ruse in the world. Any actor could spot that retreat wasn’t in their faces. Charlie Beer-barrel turned, and came on like a cannonball in a hurry. Bert’s shining boot caught him full smack at the shoulder, while his fist at the face of Dandyman was dodged. Then Bert had something to avoid but didn’t.
Dandyman came forward, and lightning was only just good enough. There were no rules as in boxing at school. This was behind-the-garden-shed stuff. Fighting dirty, filling the gap between Herbert and Bert, he used his soul’s venom to smash father, mother, schoolmasters, shitbag officers and gaffers, even the old clergyman who had given him money.
Dandyman was no fool, and Herbert felt a blow, staggered, then Dandyman was pulled from behind by gleeful Archie and belly thumped, doubled up and breathless, to the landing below.
‘We know who yer are now.’ Bert drove Beer-barrel with a few aimed punches at the chest to join Dandyman. ‘Cum ’ere again, and yer number’s up. We know where you live, and what pubs yer get pissed in.’
‘I ain’t had enough yet.’ Archie stroked one fist with another, but they gave no reason for him to have more, and his face looked even uglier, a self-defeating expression he could do nothing about. All in all it was still only a scrap rather than a real fight. ‘I’d know ’em anywhere, though. Two ragbags from Sneinton.’