Реймонд Маршалл - The Paw in the Bottle

He flicked away a speck of dust on his black overcoat. The gesture was unconscious, but revealed he had at last made up his mind. He could now think of something else besides Wesley, and the speck of dust had caught his eyes as his mind was released from its problem. Although he had been living in ratty little hotels with only a change of clothing he still managed to maintain his finicky elegance, and each morning he lowered his shivering body into a cold bath. His misfortunes had not undermined that traditional habit.

He finished his whisky and walked a little unsteadily across the bar to order another. A girl in a red hat and a dirty mackintosh caught his eye and smiled. She was tall, big-hipped and robust, and for a moment Benton’s mind wavered and he felt a flicker of desire run through him. Then he noticed her grimy hands and a line of dirt round her neck and a faint sour smell that came from her hair as he stood close to her, and he inwardly shivered to think that such a creature could raise in him even for a moment a feeling of desire.

He returned to his table and sat down again, and drank half the whisky, setting the glass carefully on one of the wet rings. He took a cigarette from his case.

‘I’ll have one if you can spare it,’ the girl in the red hat said, coming over to him.

He rose to his feet. A gentleman, his father had told him, behaved like a gentleman even to a whore.

‘I’m afraid you are wasting your time,’ he said in his pale voice. ‘Please excuse me.’

‘I’m in no hurry, cheri. I’ll give you a good time. You can stay an hour if you like.’

Again he felt a flicker of desire like pain run through him, and he thought of Blanche. He was alone now; he didn’t have to keep faith with anyone except himself. He looked again at the girl, appraising her with his pale, lonely eyes and was again horrified with himself for even contemplating going with her.

‘I’m afraid not,’ he said, still courteous. ‘You must excuse me.’

‘You look sort of fed up. I’d make you forget.’

‘I’m afraid not.’ His grimacing smile came and went.

‘Well, buy me a drink. You wouldn’t begrudge me a drink, would you?’

He fingered his loose change in his pocket. He did begrudge her the drink. He needed every penny now, but he felt on him the jeering eyes of three men who were standing at the bar and he was afraid she would make a scene.

‘I’m in a hurry. Here, buy one on me. I really must be going.’

She looked at the half-crown he held out to her and her full lips curled scornfully.

‘You can stick that on the wall. If you didn’t want me why did you make faces at me? Oh, hop it, you mean little rat.’

He left the bar hurriedly, the jeering laughter of the men following him. It was only when he got into the fresh night air that he realized he was drunk and he had to walk carefully. As it was he lurched against an old woman who was walking towards Charing Cross station. She was very old and bent and shabby and she thudded against the wall from the impact of his shoulder.

He stared at her in stupefied horror, raising his hat and muttering apologies. He had never knocked into a woman in his life. A gentleman, no matter how drunk, didn’t fall against a woman. He was crimson with shame.

He saw her old eyes were full of weak rage as she said: ‘You’re drunk, that’s wot you are. Tight as a bloody lord.’

He was fumbling in his pocket for the half-crown that had already been scorned when the old woman recovered her balance and shuffled on, leaving him to gaze after her, a pale spark of anger flaming up in him like the first twinge of tooth-ache. And as he walked to the Strand he muttered to himself, his head down, his shoulders hunched, a bitter, angry figure to interest the curious eyes of the people who passed him.

Wesley! He wouldn’t wait any longer. He couldn’t go on like this. First he must settle with Wesley, then his mind could grapple with his own problems; but so long as Wesley occupied his thoughts he would never get himself in hand.

He quickened his pace. In the distance Big Ben struck nine o’clock. The Strand was still crowded. The crowds were coming out of the Tivoli and he could hear their shuffling feet and their cheerful voices behind him. He cut across Trafalgar Square and stopped suddenly by one of the fountains.

There were three watchmen at the factory, he was thinking. He knew their routine well. They had supper together at eleven o’clock. He had once caught them at it. It was against the rules, and although they had been warned he knew they continued to meet at eleven. For half an hour the research laboratory was unguarded. He still had the key. It shouldn’t be difficult.

His shadow lay across the dark water of the fountain and he stared at it, his mind groping back into the past. He remembered for no reason at all the first time he met Blanche, and recaptured the feeling that had come over him as he looked into her wide, blue eyes. That was something that would never happen again; a precious moment, not valued then, but treasured now. He had nothing to look forward to, only memories to look back on; memories and revenge.

He set off quickly towards Pall Mall, passing his club with a furtive glance at the lighted windows. He would have liked to have gone in for a drink and a last look round, but his courage quailed at the thought of meeting the hall porter, an aged man who knew every member by name, knew what their businesses were and how much money they had. He did pause to look through the window of the smoking-room. The big arm-chairs standing in pairs about the room, the soft lighting, the vast Adam’s ceiling, the two fireplaces in which great logs cheerfully blazed, the sedate movements of the old waiter as he carried a tray of drinks to a group of members sitting hunched up in a circle round one of the fires formed a picture that he took away with him: a poisoned barb in his mind.

That room had been a part of his life a week or so ago. Wesley had taken it from him. There was a feverish look in his eyes as he ran into the road, waving his arms at a taxi that had just set down a fare and was pulling slowly away from the kerb.

At first the driver was unwilling to go out as far as Northholt, but when Benton thrust a pound note into his hand he grumblingly agreed.

Benton stared out of the window as the taxi rattled and banged along Bayswater Road. There was a light, airy feeling inside his head and his mouth was dry. He wanted another drink, and as the taxi passed Shepherd’s Bush underground he leaned forward and told the driver to stop at the next public house.

He bought the driver a pint of beer while he swallowed greedily two double whiskies. The driver, a thick-set, elderly man, drank the beer grudgingly. Benton could see from his surly expression he had taken a dislike to him. But Benton was used to that. Neither of them said anything except the customary, ‘Good health,’ and neither of them meant it.

It was now a few minutes to ten o’clock. Plenty of time, Benton thought and he paid for the drinks and went back with the driver to the taxi.

As the taxi passed Wood Green underground station, Benton suddenly recollected coming this way to the Kensal Green crematorium for Blanche’s funeral. He hadn’t gone into the little chapel. Wesley had been the only mourner and he hadn’t been able to bring himself to share his grief with Wesley. There had been a big crowd of morbid sightseers and he had mingled with them, nursing his grief as a man nurses a mortal pain. And when everyone had left he had gone to the grave and laid on it a bunch of violets. He had derived a little comfort and happiness to know that his were the only flowers on the wet, raised earth.

He stopped the taxi a quarter of a mile from the factory and without looking at the driver walked rapidly into the darkness. The broad two-way road was still busy with home-going traffic and he kept to the grass verge, his head bent against the blinding headlights of the oncoming cars.