‘Where is William?’ Prior said, looking at the photograph again.
‘Dartmoor. He took the Home Office scheme. He’s doing “useful work unconnected with the war”.’ She snorted. ‘Breaking stones.’
‘I’m surprised he took it.’
‘You wouldn’t be if you saw him. He’s that thin, you wouldn’t know him.’
‘I had Mike Riordan in my platoon. You remember Mike? I didn’t know him either. Only in his case it was the face that was missing.’
‘It isn’t a competition, Billy.’
‘No. You’re right.’
She touched his sleeve. ‘I wish we were on the same side.’
‘Well, as far as your mam’s concerned we are. You surely don’t think I’m on Spragge’s side?’
Her expression changed. ‘Oh, that man. Do you know, I met him once, just for a couple minutes, and I knew there was something wrong with him.’
‘You didn’t know about the poison?’
‘No, she kept all that from me. I wish she hadn’t, I’d’ve told her she was daft to trust him. And that smirking bastard at the Old Bailey. It was awful, Billy. You’re stood in that dock and you feel guilty, even though you know you haven’t done it. For months afterwards I felt people could look straight through me.’ She stopped. ‘Here, drink your tea. It’ll get cold.’
‘How are you managing?’
‘I survive. Your dad brings me a bit of meat now and then. Don’t look so surprised, Billy.’ A pause. ‘I tell you who’s been good. Mrs Riley. Every time she bakes she brings something round. You know mebbe just half a dozen rock buns, but every bit helps. I’ve nothing to thank the others for, except a few bricks through the window. What gets me you know is the way they used to cut me mam dead in the street, they’d just look through her. But let them be in trouble, or their daughters be in trouble, and there they were, banging on the back door. I says, “You’re a fool, Mam. Why should you risk prison for them?” But it was, “Oh, well, she had to have instruments last time,” or “Poor bairn, she’s only seventeen.” And she’d do it for them. And it all came out at the trial. You know, killing a baby when its mother’s two months gone, that’s a terrible crime. But wait twenty years and blow the same kid’s head off, that’s all right.’
Prior winced, thinking how strange it was that such words should come so easily from her mouth, that she should have so little conception of what memories they conjured up for him.
‘What about Mac? Do you ever see him?’
Her face became guarded. ‘No.’
‘Never?’
‘You know bloody well, Billy, he wouldn’t dare come here.’
Prior sat back in his chair. ‘I know he couldn’t stay away.’ He waited. ‘I thought I heard somebody just now.’
Her eyes went to the scullery door.
‘Walking up and down.’
‘It’s a restless house. You’ve got to remember me mam held seances here. In this room.’
‘You don’t believe in that.’
‘I know me mam wasn’t a fraud. Something happened. Whether it was just the force of people’s need or not, I don’t know, but there used to be nights when this table was shaking. It changes a place. I sit here on me own some nights and I hear footsteps going round and round the table.’
He had a dreadfully clear perception of what her life must be like, alone in this house, with the empty chairs and the boarded-up windows. It didn’t surprise him that she heard footsteps going round the table.
‘Talking of Mac,’ he said, and felt her stiffen. ‘I thought I’d go round and see his mam. I don’t suppose he still sees her, does he?’
‘That’s a good idea, Billy. I’d willingly go, but I doubt if she’d thank me for it. In fact, I doubt if she’d invite me in.’
‘No, she’s a great patriot, Lizzie.’ He was smiling to himself. ‘You know the last time I was home I bumped into her. Well.’ He laughed. ‘Fell over her. You know the alley behind the Rose and Crown? “Just resting,” she says. I got her on her feet and she took one look at the uniform and she says, “Thank God for an honest man.” And out it all came. Apparently on the day war broke out she did seven men for free because they’d just come back from the recruiting office. They said. “And do you know,” she says. “Five of them were still walking round in civvies a year after.” She says she had a go at Wally Smith about it. And he says, “Well they wouldn’t let me in because of me teeth.” And Lizzie says, “What the fuck do they want you to do? Bite the buggers?” ‘
Hettie was looking very uncomfortable. Since she was far from prudish he could only suppose the story of Lizzie and her August 4th burst of generosity was likely to be painful to the person on the other side of the scullery door. He thought of saying, ‘Oh, come on, Mac, stop arsing about,’ but he didn’t dare risk it. Better make his plea first, then leave them alone to talk about it.
‘I’d like to see Mac, Hettie.’
‘So would I,’ she flashed. ‘Fat chance.’
‘No, I mean I really do need to see him. If I’m going to do anything for your mam, I’ve got to talk to him first. He —’
‘He didn’t know anything about it.’
‘No, but he knew Spragge. Spragge was with him the night before he came here. He gave Spragge the address.’
‘Do you think he doesn’t know that? Spragge took in an awful lot of people, Billy. He had letters’
‘I know. I’m not… I’m not blaming Mac. I just want to talk to him. He might remember something that would help. You see, if we could prove Spragge acted as an agent provocateur with somebody else — or even tried to — that would help to discredit his evidence in your mam’s case.’
She glanced at the scullery door. ‘I know somebody who bumps into Mac now and then. I’ll see if I can get a message through.’
‘That’s all I ask.’ He stood up. ‘And now I’d better be off.’
She didn’t try to detain him. At the door he paused and said loudly, ‘I thought I’d go for a walk by the cattle pens. I thought I’d go there now.’
She looked up at him. ‘Goodnight, Billy.’
NINE
It was not quite dusk when Prior reached the cattle pens, empty at this time of the week and therefore unguarded. Mac, if he came at all, would wait till dark, so there was time to kill. He lit a cigarette and strolled up and down, remembering the taste of his first cigarette — given to him by Mac — and the valiant efforts he’d made not to be sick.
He stood for a while, his hands gripping the cold metal of one of the pens. He was recalling a time when he’d been ill — one of the many — and he’d gone out and wandered the streets, not well enough yet to go back to school but bored with being in the house. It had been a hot day, and he was muffled up, a prickly scarf round his neck, a poultice bound to his chest. The heat beat up into his face from the pavements as he dragged himself along, stick-thin, white, bed-bound legs moving in front of him, the smell of Wintergreen rising into his nostrils. The name made him think of pine trees, snow-covered hills and the way the sheets felt when you thrust your hot legs into a cool part, away from the sticky damp.
He heard their hoofs before he saw them and, like everybody else, stopped to watch as the main street filled with cattle being driven to the slaughterhouse. A smell of hot shit. Dust rising all round, getting into his lungs, making him cough and bring up sticky green phlegm. He backed away from the noise and commotion, ran up a back alley between the high dark walls, then realized that, as in a nightmare, a cow was following him, with slithering feet and staring eyes, and men chasing after her. More men came running from the other end of the alley. They cornered her, closing in from both sides, and the terrified animal slipped in her own green shit and fell, and they threw heavy black nets around her and dragged her back to the herd, while all along the alley housewives whose clean washing had been swept aside erupted from their backyards, shouting and waving their arms.