Gerald Seymour - The Contract

Pierce drawled through his story, acting out the parts with his eyes and his hands. '… he liked the Grammar School boys best, reckoned he stood a better chance of buggering them, because they weren't part of the scene at Trinity, they'd be frightened of getting packed off home. He was a cheeky old turnip. One chap came along to read an essay when he'd a late date afterwards at the Nurses' Home, he was smothered in after shave and talc. The old fellow went quite bananas, hardly gave the lad time to get his script out of the bag.. '

Maeve O'Connor shot through the right breast, stone dead. Johnny heaving his guts into the hedge. Why a girl, for the love of God? The corporal whimpering like a badger with a leg in a gin trap. The tongueless journey in the Land- Rover to Keady police station. The telephone message from Brigade headquarters; say nothing, sign nothing, name and rank and nothing more. The arrival of the Army Legal Service officer, and the men from Special Investigation Branch and the

faces of contempt and disapproval and Johnny not shaved for three days and needing a hot meal and a clean bed.

Smithson shook his shoulders in laughter as he talked. '… for a pound of sausages you could find a biddy who would actually chuck her old man out of bed and send him to sit downstairs to wait till you'd finished.

And when you came down the stairs then he'd thank you for coming and say that he hoped you'd call again. Bloody marvellous time we had

…'

The girl's cousin had found the cache. A combat jacket, a black beret, a Luger pistol, a packet of industrial detonators. Found it when out with the farm dog that had sniffed at the hole. Reported it, and a Catholic too.

Done his duty as a citizen. And the family had talked of it inside their home and Maeve O'Connor had heard the chat when she'd gone to her Auntie for supper, and she was a child and she was curious and no one had thought it necessary to warn the family to stay clear. Maeve O'Connor with a pale and pretty face and freckles and a smear of terror, shot and killed because Johnny Donoghue hadn't challenged, had believed he was fighting a war, had thought a teenage shadow was his enemy. On trial for murder, facing the full majesty of the law, with a life sentence to serve if the case went against him. j

They don't care, these people. Charles Mawby and Henry Carter and Adrian Pierce and Harry Smithson, they don't give a shit. There's a job to be done in Germany, and Johnny's the one they want for it.

'You're very quiet, Johnny,' boomed Mawby.

'Don't expect him to compete with Harry,' said Carter.

'You'll have one for the stairs?' Mawby surged forward with the bottle.

'Just one more, a small one. Then it'll be my bedtime.'

'Quite right.' Mawby was filling Johnny's glass. 'A dose o Pierce and Smithson does more damage than a litre of this poison.'

They all laughed and Johnny with them. He had the righ to join them, hadn't he? He was on the team, integral to it And in the morning the work would start.

In his darkened bedroom Willi heard the feet on the stair case, and the voices that drifted through his door. He curle‹ under his sheet and blankets to find warmth.

The changes in the household had not been explained t(him. Carter had merely said that new men would meet hin in the morning, bringing new questions, that he must answe them as best he could. Perhaps in the morning he would ask again when Lizzie and he would be reunited. But he asked that each day and the answer was always vague and no one would give him a definite date. Why did they want to know of his father?

Why was his father the only subject that Carter had discussed for two days? What was their interest in an old man? The noise had died in the house, but the climb to bed by the company from below had wakened Willi, left his mind clear and alert. Sleep would come hard for him now.

He dressed fast, fingers fumbling with the buttons of his tunic. Frantic and quick and hurrying because he had looked at his watch and dived from the bed. And she had been faster, drawing on her pants and fastening her skirt, thrust- ing a sweater over her head, ignoring her tumbled hair.

'They'll kill me if I miss the train,' he muttered as if from her he might find relief from the punishment.

'Keep your feet still,' Jutte snapped, knotting his boot laces, catching the contagion of his fear.

Ulf Becker turned towards the bed, dishevelled and disturbed, creased and used. 'Will they come back?'

'Not till tomorrow, I told you. I'd do it later.'

'I'll get extra duties for a month.'

The girl grabbed at her small handbag. Together they fllung themselves through the front door, Ulf stumbling with the weight of his canvas issue grip bag. Running down the stairs because it was always too long to wait for the lift, running and hoping that they met no one, running into the night air and feeling the draught of the wind catch at their laces.

Hand in hand on the pavement and then the girl's hesitation, she pulling one way, he another.

'We should take the U-Bahn to Alexander Platz, then the S-Bahn.. '

'We don't have time, we have to run to the S-Bahn.' Ulf's anger rose as the cool of the evening sobered him.

'It is quicker to go to Schilling Strasse and the U-Bahn.'

'We have to go direct to the S-Bahn.' Ulf shouting his argument and using his strength till the girl allowed herself to be pulled. Ulf sprinting and the bag handle cutting at his palm, its bulk banging against his knee.

Jutte beside him with the long and sleek stride. Where did the girl find the speed? Where did she find it after what she had done to him on her mother's bed? Down Lichtenberge Strasse, past the great edifices of the blocks of flats, past the blank windows, past the drawn curtains, past the emptied play grounds with the children's apparatus. Feet hammering on the pavement, echoing and raucous. Down to Holzmark Strasse. No one on the street to impede them, cars only distant and no hazard. Running across the road where there were pedestrian crossing lights, running on the pavements. Heaving chests and her breasts bouncing in the movement, his hand aching at the weight of the bag.

Into the station of Jannowitzbrucke. Change hands. Diving down the wide staircase. Ulf bringing from his pocket a handful of coins, Jutte scratching in her purse. Two twenty-pfennig coins into the machine.

More stairs and corridors that carried the heavy, uncleansed tunnel odour. What betting that the first would be on the Kopenick and Erkner line, not the Schoneweide track? The platform deserted. Only the two young people to make their own company. The tall boy in the uniform of the Border Guard of the National Volks Armee, the grey cloth fitting him well, the trousers hanging true to their creases, the sharp green of the epaulette and wrist ribbon. The clean-faced girl, athletic and slender, who hung on his arm and gazed up at his face and whose fair hair was long and loose and casual. Both pouring huge, heaving breaths into the cold night air.

Ulf looked again at his watch.

'Don't do it,' she said.

'Perhaps there is still a chance…'

'Perhaps…'

The train sounded its approach, deep in the black well of the tunnel, taunting them with the slowness of its approach. Coming slowly, coming at its appointed speed.

'Is there a chance?'

'Perhaps…' Her breathing had subsided and her breastsl were still and the nipples pushing at the wool of her sweater and the boy wanted nothing more than to bury his face against her and feel her warmth and the gentle scent of her body. ' I think it is not possible. But we will try, lover, we will try to send you back to Weferlingen.' She laughed lightly.

The train came slowly, steadily into the station. No one leaving, only the young couple joining. A stop of a few seconds and the doors were closing on them. Alone in the carriage with the wooden slat walls and the advertisements for mouth rinses and savings policies, into the tunnel darkness, the strangling tunnel, rocking and swaying. Jutte sat very close to her boy. Thigh to thigh, her hand linked under his arm and resting on his knee, her head at his shoulder. Out from the tunnel and into the night.