Ruth Rendell - A Demon in My View

“You’re not married, are you?”

“Oh no, I’m not married,” said Winston. “Let’s go, shall we?”

Going out, they met Brian Kotowsky coming in.

“You look thirsty,” said Brian. “Me, I’m always thirsty. How about going across the road and seeing if we can find an oasis?”

There was no way of getting rid of him. He trotted along beside them, talking peevishly of Jonathan Dean, whom, he said, he hadn’t seen since the other man moved away. This was because Jonathan and Vesta disliked each other. Brian was positive Jonathan had phoned, but Vesta had always taken the calls and refused to tell him out of spite. They walked through the mews which smelt of gunpowder and entered the Waterlily just before nine o’clock.

In another public house, the Grand Duke, in a distant part of Kenbourne, Arthur sat alone at a table, drinking brandy. A small brandy with a splash of soda. When first he had set out on this nocturnal walk he had been terrified—of himself. But gradually that fear had been conquered by the interest of the streets, by the changes which had come to them, by the squalid glitter of them, by the lonely places at which alley mouths and mews arches and paths leading to little yards hinted like whispers in the dark. He hadn’t forgotten, in twenty years, the geography of this place where he had been born. And how many of the warrens, the labyrinths of lanes twisting across lanes, still remained behind new, soaring façades! The air was smoky, acrid with the stench of fireworks, but now, at half-past nine, there were few people about. It excited Arthur to find himself, during that long walk, often the only pedestrian in some wide, empty space, lividly lighted, swept by car lights, yet sprawled over with shadows and bordered with caverns and passages penetrating the high frowning walls.

The pattern, twice before experienced, was repeating itself without his volition. On both those previous occasions he had walked aimlessly or with an unadmitted aim; on both he had entered a pub; on both ordered brandy because brandy was the one alcoholic drink he knew. Auntie Gracie had always kept some in the house for medicinal purposes. Sipping his brandy, feeling the unaccustomed warmth of it move in his body, he began to think of the next repetition in the pattern.…

12

————

There were strangers in the Waterlily, men with North Country accents wearing green and yellow striped football scarves. Brian Kotowsky struck up acquaintance with one of them, a fat, meaty-faced man called Potter, and that would have suited Anthony very well, enabling him to discuss houses and house-buying with Winston, but Brian kept calling him “Tony, old man” and trying hard to include him in the conversation with Potter. Before Helen’s tuition, Anthony wouldn’t have noticed the way greenish-ginger hairs grew out of Potter’s ears and nostrils, nor perhaps been able to define Potter’s smell, a mixture of onions, sweat, whisky, and menthol. But he would have known Potter was very drunk. Potter had one arm round Brian’s shoulders and, having listened to the saga of Jonathan Dean’s defection and Vesta’s knack of losing her husband all his friends, he said:

“Rude to him, was she?” He had a flat West Riding accent. “And he were rude to her? Pickin’ on her like? Ay, I get the picture.”

“You’ve got one of her kind yourself, have you?”

“Not me, lad. I never made mistake of putting my head in the noose. But I’ve kept my eyes open. When a woman’s rude to a man and he’s rude to her, it means but one thing. He fancies her and she fancies him.”

“You have to be joking,” said Brian.

“Not me, lad. You mark my words, you haven’t set eyes on him because him and your missus is out somewhere now being rude.” And Potter gave a great drunken guffaw.

“I’m going,” said Anthony. “I’m fed up with this place.” He got to his feet and glanced at Winston who replaced the specifications in their envelopes.

They turned into the mews and were very soon aware that Brian and Potter were following close behind them. It was a little after ten.

“This is going to be splendid,” said Winston in his cool, precise way. “They’ll be drinking and rioting next door to me half the night.”

But as it happened, Potter was unable to make the stairs. He sat down on the bottom step and began to sing a bawdy agricultural ballad about giving some farmer’s daughter the works of his threshing machine. Anthony had noticed that Li-li wasn’t in and that all the upstairs lights were off. That meant Arthur Johnson must already be in bed. Sound asleep too, he hoped.

“You’d better get him out of here,” he said to Brian. “He’s your friend.”

“Friend? I never saw him before in my life, Tony old man.” Brian had brought a half-bottle of vodka back with him from the off-licence and this he raised to his lips, drinking it neat. “Where am I supposed to put him? Out in the street? He comes from Leeds.”

“Then he can go back there. On the next train out of King’s Cross.”

Brian looked helplessly at Potter, who was humming now and conducting an imaginary orchestra. “He doesn’t want to go back there. He’s come down for tomorrow’s match.”

“What Goddamned match?” said Anthony, who rarely swore. “What the hell are you on about?” He knew nothing of football and cared less.

“Leeds versus Kenbourne Kingmakers.” Brian waved his bottle at Anthony. “Want some Russian rotgut? O.K., be like that. I’d never have brought him here if I’d known he was that pissed. I suppose we couldn’t put him in your …?”

“No,” said Anthony, but as he was about to add something rude and to the point, Potter staggered to his feet and waved his arms, swivelling his head about.

“He wants the lavatory,” said Winston. He took Potter’s arm and propelled him down the passage. Anthony unlocked the door of Room 2 and, without waiting to be asked, Brian followed him in and sat down on the bed. He was flushed and truculent.

“I didn’t like what he was insinuating about Vesta.”

“He doesn’t know her,” Anthony said. “What’s the use of listening to stupid generalisations about behaviour? They’re always wrong.”

“You’re a real pal, Tony, the best pal a man ever had.”

The lavatory flush went, and Winston came in with Potter who looked pale and smelt even worse than in the pub. Potter sat down in the fireside chair and lay back with his mouth open. Outside a rocket going off made them all jump except Potter, who began to snore.

“Give him half an hour,” said Winston, “then we’ll get some black coffee into him. In my ambulance-driving days I saw a lot of them like that.”

“You’ve crowded a lot into your life,” said Anthony. “Greek, accountancy, a bit of medical training. You’ll be telling me you’re a lawyer next.”

“Well, I did read for the bar but I was never called,” said Winston, and, taking Ruch’s Psychology and Life from the bedside table, he was soon immersed in it.

“I didn’t like what he said about my wife,” said Brian. The vodka bottle was half empty. He glared at Potter and gave one of his shoulders a savage shake. Potter sat up, groaned, and staggered off once more to the lavatory. “He shouldn’t have said that about Jonathan. Jonathan’s the best friend I ever had.”

Winston looked at him severely over the top of his book. “Make some coffee,” he snapped. “Get on with it. You need it as much as he does.”

Brian obeyed, whimpering like a little dog. He put the kettle on while Anthony got out coffee and sugar. Feeling suddenly tired, Anthony sat on the floor because there wasn’t anywhere else to sit, and closed his eyes. The last thing he noticed before he fell into a doze was that Brian was crying, the tears trickling down his sagging red cheeks.