Ruth Rendell: The Best Man To Die

‘No more for me,’ said the man whose joke Charlie had spoiled. He patted Jack’s shoulder and said good night while the others drank their whisky in an awkward silence.

‘Last orders, gentlemen, please,’ said the barman.

George Carter dipped his hand into his pocket and brought out some small silver. ‘One for the road then, Jack?’

Charlie looked at the little coins. “What’s that? Your missus’s housekeeping?’

George flushed. He wasn’t married; Charlie knew he wasn’t married; knew moreover that his steady had chucked him two weeks before. George had got the deposit ready for a house and made the first down payment on a dining suite. ‘You bastard,’ he said.

Charlie bristled at him, a smart little fighting cock.

‘Nobody calls me a bastard.’

‘Gentlemen, gentlemen,’ said the barman.

‘Yes,’ said the chairman, ‘pack it in. Talk about folks being touchy, Charlie. No wonder they’re touchy when you pick on them the way you do.’ He smiled breezily, struck an orator’s attitude. ‘Now the evening’s drawing to a close, and I reckon we ought to take the opportunity of conveying to Jack here the heartiest good wishes of the Kingsmarkham and District Darts Club. I for one…’

‘We’ll take it as said then, shall we?’ said Charlie. ‘A hearty vote of thanks for the chairman.’ He put another flyer on the counter. As red as George had been, the chairman shrugged and gave Jack a nod which was meaningful and sympathetic but which Jack ignored. Then he went, taking another man with him.

The barman wiped the counter in silence. Charlie Hatton had always been cocky but in the past weeks he’d become insufferable and most of the meetings had broken up like this.

Of the stag party now only Jack, Charlie, George and one other remained. He was a lorry driver like Charlie, his name was Maurice Cullam and until now he had scarcely opened his mouth except to pour alcohol down it. Now, having witnessed the rout and ignominy of his friends, he took his last drink and said:

‘Been seeing much of McCloy lately, Charlie?’

Charlie made no reply and it was Jack who said, ‘Why, have you?’

‘Not me, Jack. I keep my hands clean. Money’s not every thing. I like to sleep quiet in my bed.’

Instead of the expected explosion, Charlie said softly and mildly, ‘Time you did. Time you slept for a change.’

Maurice had five children born in six years. Charlie’s crack could be taken as a compliment and as such, to the relief of George and Jack, Maurice took it. He smiled sheepishly at this tribute to his virility. Considering Maurice’s wife was an exceptionally plain woman, there were a good many ripostes Charlie could have made, ripostes which might have been transparently insulting. Instead he had chosen to flatter.

‘Time, gentlemen,’ said the barman. ‘Here’s wishing you all you wish yourself, Mr Pertwee.’ The barman usually called Jack by his Christian name and Jack knew “Mr Pertwee” was a mark never to be repeated, of the respect due to a bridegroom.

‘Thanks a lot,’ he said, ‘and for a grand evening. I’ll be seeing you.’

‘Let’s be toddling, Jack,’ said Charlie, and he tucked his fat wallet away.

The air was soft and mild and the sky scattered with many stars. Orion rode above them, his belt crossed by a wrack of midsummer cloud.

‘Lovely night,’ said Charlie. ‘Going to be a fine day tomorrow, Jack.’

‘You think?’

‘Happy is the bride that the sun shines on.’ Drink had made George sentimental and he turned his mouth down lugubriously as he remembered his steady and the down payment on the furniture.

‘You have a good cry, mate,’ said Charlie. ‘Nothing like a bit of a weep to make a girl feel better.’

George led the Kingsmarkham group of Morris dancers and in the past Charlie had fripped him when he appeared in his motley suit, his cap and bells. He bit his lip, clenching his fists. Then he shrugged and turned away. ‘Get stuffed,’ he muttered. The others watched him cross the road and make his unsteady way down York Street. Jack raised one hand in a feeble salute.

‘You shouldn’t have said that, Charlie.’

‘Ah, he makes me sick. Let’s have a bit of a sing-song then, shall we?’ He put one arm around Jack’s waist and the other, after a barely discernible pause, around Maurice’s.

‘One of them old music-hall ballads of yours, Charlie.’

They meandered along under the old overhanging house fronts and Jack had to duck his head to avoid cracking it on a lamp in an iron cage. Charlie cleared his throat and sang:

‘Mabel dear, listen here!

There’s robbery in the park.

I sat alone in the Y.M.C.A.,

Singing just like a lark -

There’s no place like ho-ome,

But I couldn’t go home in the dark!’

‘Yoo-hoo!’ yelled Jack in Wild Western imitation, but his voice tailed away as Inspector Burden of Kingsmarkham C.I.D. emerged from Queen Street and approached them across the forecourt of the Olive and Dove. ‘Evening, Mr Burden.’

‘Evening.’ The inspector viewed them with cool distaste. ‘We wouldn’t want you to do anything likely to lead to a breach of the peace, would we?’ He passed on and Charlie Hatton sniggered.

‘Copper,’ he said. ‘I reckon I’ve got more in this pocket than he gets in a month.’

Maurice said stiffly, ‘I’ll say good night then, Jack.’ They had come to the Kingsbrook bridge and the beginning of the footpath to Sewingbury that followed the waters of the river. Maurice lived in Sewingbury, Charlie in one of the new council flats on the far side of the Kingsbrook Road. The footpath was a short cut home for both of them.

‘Wait for Charlie. He’s going your way.’

‘I won’t, thanks. I promised the missus I’d be home by eleven.’ Charlie had turned his back, making it plain he didn’t want Maurice’s company. ‘Powerful stuff, that,’ Maurice said, his face pale in the lamplight. ‘I don’t reckon I should have mixed it.’ He belched and Charlie sniggered. ‘Cheers, Jack, see you in church.’

‘Cheers, mate.’

Maurice vaulted the stile and, by a miracle, landed steadily on his feet. He passed the wooden seats, ducked under the willows, and the last they saw of him was his undulating shadow. Jack and Charlie were alone.

They had drunk a great deal and the night was warm, but on a sudden they were both stone-cold sober. Both of them loved women and in that love as in every emotion they were inarticulate, yet in no impulse of the heart were they so tongue-tied as in this great and pure friendship of theirs.

As with the Greeks, they had found in each other an all-embracing spiritual compatibility. Their women were their pride and treasure, for bed, for hearth and home, for showing off, for their manhood. But without each other their lives would be incomplete, lacking, as it were, the essence and the fuse. They had never heard of the Greeks, unless you counted the man who kept the Acropolis restaurant in Stowerton, and neither could now understand the emotion which held each of them, preserving him in silence and a kind of despair.

If Charlie had been a different man, a cultivated man or effeminate or living in a bygone age when tongues were more freely unloosed, he might now have embraced Jack and told him from a full heart how he entered wholly into his joy and would die for his happiness. And if Jack had been such another he would have thanked Charlie for his unstinted friendship, his generous loans, his hospitality and for bringing him Marilyn Thompson. But Charlie was a sharp little lorry driver and Jack was an electrician. Love was between a man and a woman, love was for marriage, and each would have died before admitting to anything more than that they ‘got on well’ together. They hung over the bridge, dropping stone chippings into the water, and then Charlie said: