John Lawton - Riptide

‘Should have called laundry the minute you got in.’

‘The minute I got in all I wanted was a bath. And then you got in.’

‘Awright. Don’t get shirty.’

‘My shirt’s ruined too!’

‘Couldn’t you go out in your uniform?’

‘No, Kitty, that’s the last thing I can do.’

Kitty picked up the phone and asked for Stepney 315.

‘Vera. It’s me. I need you to do something, (pause) No-I’m at Claridge’s. (pause) No, I don’t see that that matters a toss. I’m not calling for an argy-bargy. I need something and I need it now. (pause) Of course I know you’re up to your… (pause) Yes, I’ll be back, (pause) Vera-for Christ’s sake, will you just bloody listen! Calvin has to see the police about Dad. He’s nothing to wear, (pause) No-don’t ask, it’d take too long. Just do it. Get that plain blue suit of Kev’s out of his wardrobe and bring it over, (pause) Well he’s not going to need it now is he? (pause) A clean white shirt an’ all. (pause) Then send Tel! I don’t care as long as somebody does it!’

‘I’ll swing for that silly tart one of these days. I swear I will.’

She turned to him.

‘Tel’ll be over in about half an hour.’

Tel arrived, a cigarette stuck to his bottom lip, a new swagger in his walk. The assumed posture of instant adulthood. The man of the family. He handed the suit to Cal, leant against the tallboy and flicked ash vaguely in the direction of an ashtray.

‘Wotcher sis.’

‘Wot do you think you’re playing at?’

Cal left them to it. Ducked into the bathroom and slipped on the suit. It was a far, far better cut than his old one. It could have been made for him. It had been made for Kevin Stilton. The label over the inside pocket was that of a Savile Row bespoke tailor. Kev and Trev had, literally, spent like sailors. He sat on the edge of the bath, slipped on his shoes and surveyed himself in the looking glass. The suit was perfection. The shoes were clean and buffed-Kitty had had the foresight to stick them outside the door before they turned in for the night. They’d come back gleaming. Gleaming but regulation US Army brown, and about as fitting for this suit as his last. Blue and brown, it would have to do.

When he emerged Tel was no longer smoking, and his left cheek bore the red imprint of Kitty’s hand. The veneer of manhood wiped from his face, a spotty, gawky seventeen-year-old once more.

‘You sure you know where you’re going?’ Kitty asked.

‘Sure. Cab to that pub you and I met in, cross the road and down the alley.’

‘I could come with you.’

‘I’m better on my own.’

She kissed him softly.

‘Good luck.’

Did he need luck? The prospect, the necessity of luck had not occurred to him.

The cab dropped him by the Salisbury in St Martin’s Lane. There were, he thought, no two things more guaranteed to make you glad to be alive than the proximity of sudden death and the dazzling light of a sunny afternoon. He found his way down Goodwin’s Court, an alleyway little wider than a path, to Troy’s front door. He hesitated a moment, wondering what his first words to Troy might be, and then reached for the knocker-rat-tat-tat.

Troy regretted that he had not accepted Kolankiewicz’s offer of a helping hand up to his bedroom on the first floor.

‘No thanks,’ he had said. ‘I think I’ll just lie here for a while. Things to think about.’

Hours later he had awoken, stiff and sore, and mounted the stairs. Searing pain had shot through his side, he had sunk to his knees and felt one of Kolankiewicz’s carefully sewn sutures burst apart. In the morning he awoke to blood on the sheets again. It looked to be about a cupful. So what, he had thought, he lost that much shaving every week. By late afternoon he had changed his shirt twice, slapped on every inch of Elastoplast he could find and staunched the bleeding. All the same he felt weak, and dearly wished he’d put the American off for another day. He was just fiddling hopelessly with the cufflinks on his third shirt when the rat-tat-tat came at the door.

‘I guess it’s time we introduced ourselves,’ the American said. ‘Calvin Cormack, Captain, United States Army.’

He stuck out his hand, a disarming smile upon his face that Troy could not but think was genuine. He did not know why it should surprise him-the openness, the friendliness of most Americans-but it always did.

‘Frederick Troy,’ said Troy. ‘Detective Sergeant, Scotland Yard.’

His cuff flapped as he shook.

‘You having a problem with that?’

Troy did not want to have to explain.

‘Arm’s a bit stiff,’ he said simply-and before he could stop him Cormack reached out and deftly threaded the cufflink, like a father teaching a twelve-year-old boy how to wear his first grown-up clothes.

The yard was flooded in May’s sunshine. Troy beckoned him inside, propped the door open to let some of the light bounce off the wall and into the sitting room. Cormack looked around with what seemed to Troy to be a mixture of bafflement and curiosity-he looked too big for the room, as though his hair would dust the paint from the ceiling, his feet catch every obstacle and those long, long legs never prove capable of bending themselves to sit in any of the chairs. Along with their openness and friendliness went their inordinate size. Cormack plonked himself down in the chair Kitty had sat in only last night, contracted to a human size, pushed his glasses that bit further up his nose and smiled nervously. Human once more, almost Troy-sized.

‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’ Troy asked inevitably.

‘Sure.’

Troy stuck the kettle on. Its whistling would give him an excuse to get up and move when the talk lulled. He could not say why, but he had the feeling that this man and he would find little in common but their common cause and Kitty. And Kitty was you-know-what.

‘Cute,’ Cormack said as Troy sat down. ‘Always loved these little houses.’

Troy found himself staring at Cormack, seeking the man Kitty had described to him: tall, six foot two or thereabouts, skinny, speccy, already losing his hair.at the temples, full in the mouth, wide, fleshy lips-not the handsomest man alive… but comforting. An easy man to be with, a shy, gentle man, restrained, good-mannered and not particularly good between the sheets. An inexperienced lover.

‘And don’t you get so damn cocky. A bit of the other ain’t everything, you know.’

Troy had said nothing. She said she felt safe with this man-enveloped, cared for, snuggled-all words she had used.

‘But do you love him, Kitty?’ he had asked.

‘Wot’s love got to do with it?’

‘So you don’t.’

‘Did I say that? God, you’re nosy when you want to be!’

Troy had said nothing, assumed the conversation was over. Then she said, ‘But I could.’ Then, ‘Stop lookin’ at me!’ Then she threw something at him.

‘Kitty seems to think we have a lot in common.’

Cormack was speaking to him. Troy was miles away. Recollecting in tranquillity.

‘Eh?’

‘I was saying, Kitty seems to think we have a lot in common.’

Kitty had talked about him? To the American? Told him what? That they shared the you-know-what?

‘We do?’

‘Fathers,’ Cormack said simply, and Troy began to get the message.

‘Ah, I see. You’re the son of that chap who makes all the fuss about isolationism.’

‘And you’re the son of the guy who makes all the fuss, period.’

Troy had to smile at this. It was undeniable. His dad had dedicated his life to stirring up trouble.

‘Yes, I suppose I am. But then, I am my father’s son in so many senses. In fact I get on rather well with my father.’