Gerald Kersh - The Best of Gerald Kersh

‘He always has his own way,’ said the girl called Baby.

‘Skin like cream,’ whispered Tooth, with a snigger. When the girl returned with the beer he leaned across the bar and stroked her arm. ‘This evening?’

‘No, I can’t.’

Tooth grasped her wrist. ‘Yes.’

‘Leave go. People are looking.’

‘I don’t care. I’ll wait for you after eleven.’

‘I shan’t be there. Let go my arm, I tell you. The manager’s coming over.’

‘This evening?’

‘Stop it, you’ll get me the sack.’

‘I don’t care. This evening?’

‘All right, but let go.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

Wainewright saw four red marks on the white skin of her arm as Tooth released her. She rubbed her wrist, and said in a voice which quivered with admiration: ‘You’re too strong.’

‘Eh, George?’ said Tooth, nudging Wainewright and grinning.

‘You must have one more drink with me,’ said Wainewright, emptying his glass with a wry face, ‘and then I must be off…. Excuse me, miss. One more of these, please.’

‘Eh? Eh? What’s that? Oh no, damn it, no, I don’t stand that. You make it two more, Baby. Do you hear what I say?’ Fixing Wainewright with an injured stare, Tooth added: ‘On principle, I don’t stand for that kind of thing.’

‘Very well.’

‘So I should think! No! Fair’s fair! Well, and where are you staying now?’

‘In my aunt’s place still.’

“Hear that, Baby? Looking after his old auntie, eh? His nice rich old auntie. Ha-ha! He knows which side his bread’s buttered, George here. No offence, George. I’m going to look you up in a week or two. I want a nice room, reasonable.’

‘We’re full right up just now, Tooth.’

‘Ah, you old kidder! Isn’t he a kidder, Baby? You’ll find me a room all right. I know.’

And surely enough, a fortnight later Tooth came, and by then Wainewright’s aunt was dead, and there was a room vacant in the solid and respectable old house in Bishop’s Square. So Tooth had come to live with Wainewright. Yes, indeed, he had blustered and browbeaten his way into the grave, as luck ordered the matter; for there Mrs Tooth had found him.

And therefore all Britain was waiting for a Notable Trial and, under rich black headlines, the name of George Wainewright was printed in all the papers, called by the prosecution as witness in the Victoria Scissors Murder.

Mr Wainewright smiled as he entered the ‘Duchess of Douro’: this pub had brought him luck. In this saloon bar he had found power.

The barmaid called Baby was still there. Wainewright stood at the bar and waited. ‘What can I get you?’ she asked.

With a gulp of trepidation Wainewright said. ‘Whisky.’

‘Small or large?’

‘Ah … large, please.’

‘Soda?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Ice?’

‘Please.’

He looked at her. She did not recognise him. He said: ‘You don’t remember me.’

‘I’ve seen you somewhere,’ she said.

‘I was in here some time ago with a friend of yours.’

‘Friend of mine ?’

‘Tooth.’

‘Who?’

‘Tooth. Sid Tooth.’

‘Sid! I didn’t know he was called Tooth. I thought his name was Edwards. He told me his—— Well, anyway …’

‘If you didn’t know his name was Tooth, you don’t know about him, then,’ said Wainewright, gulping his drink in his excitement.

‘Know what?’

‘Victoria Scissors Murder,’ said Wainewright.

‘What’s that? Oh-oh! Tooth! Was that Sid? Really?’

‘Yes, that was Sid. It happened in my house. I’m Mr Wainewright. I’m witness for the prosecution.’

She served another customer: Wainewright admired the play of supple muscles in her arm as she worked the beer engine.

‘Want another one?’ she asked, and Wainewright nodded.

‘Will you have one?’

‘Mustn’t drink on duty,’ she said. ‘So that was Sid! Well.’

‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of sad tidings,’ said Wainewright.

‘Sad tidings? Oh. I didn’t know him very well. We were just sort of acquaintances. Scissors, wasn’t it? Well, I dare say he deserved it.’

Wainewright stared at her. ‘I was in the next room at the time,’ he said.

‘Did you see it?’

‘Not exactly: I heard it.’

‘Oh,’ said the barmaid. ‘Well …’

She seemed to bite off and swallow bitter words. ‘WELL what?’ said Wainewright, with a little giggle.

She looked at him, pausing with a glass in one hand and a duster in the other, and said:

‘That makes one swine less in the world.’

‘I thought you liked him,’ Wainewright said.

‘I don’t like many men.’

‘Oh,’ said Wainewright. ‘Um … ah … oh, Miss,’

‘Yes?’

‘Tooth. Did he … ah …’

‘Did he what?’

‘Oh, nothing.’

‘Yes, he did,’ said the barmaid.

‘Did what?’

‘Nothing,’ She turned away. ‘Excuse me.’

Wainewright wanted to talk to her. ‘May I have another?’ he asked. ‘Do you mind?’

He emptied his third glass. ‘You don’t like me,’ he said.

‘I don’t know you.’

‘Do you want to know me?’

The barmaid called Baby said: ‘Not particularly.’

‘Don’t go,’ said Wainewright.

She sighed. There was something about Wainewright that made her uneasy: she did not like this strange, dead-looking empty-eyed man. ‘Do you want something?’

He nodded.

‘Another double Scotch?’

Wainewright nodded absently. Baby replenished his glass: he looked at it in astonishment, and put down a ten-shilling note.

‘You’ve got some silver,’ she said.

‘I haven’t got anything at all,’ said Wainewright, ‘I’m lonely.’

The barmaid said, in a tone of hostility mixed with pity: ‘Find yourself somebody.’

‘Nobody wants me. I’m lonely.’

‘Well?’

‘I’ve got eight thousand pounds and a house. A big house. Big, big …’ He spread his arms in a large gesture. ‘Twenty years I waited. God, I waited and waited!’

‘What for?’

A buzzer sounded. A voice cried: ‘Order your last drinks please, gentlemen! Order your last drinks!’

‘She was eighty-seven when she died. She was an old woman when I was a boy.’

‘Who was?’

‘Auntie. I waited twenty years.’

‘What for ?’

‘Eight thousand pounds. She left it to me. I’ve got eight thousand pounds and a house. Furnished from top to bottom. Old lease. It brings in seven pounds a week clear.’

He groped in a fog, found himself, and dragged himself up.

‘Pardon me, Miss,’ he said. ‘I ought not to drink.’ He felt ill.

‘That’s all right,’ said the barmaid.

‘Will you excuse me, Miss?’ asked Wainewright.

The girl called Baby was turning away. Something like rage got into his throat and made him shout: ‘You think I’m nobody! You wait!’

A doorman in a grey uniform, a colossus with a persuasive voice, picked him up as a whirlwind picks up a scrap of paper, and led him to the door, murmuring: ‘Now come on, sir, come on. You’ve had it, sir, you’ve had enough sir. Let’s all be friendly. Come on, now.’

‘You think I’m nobody,’ said Mr Wainewright, half crying.

‘I wish there was a million more like you,’ said the doorman, ‘because you’re sensible, that’s what you are. You know when you’ve had enough. If there was more like you, why …’

The swing-door went whup, and Mr Wainewright was in the street.

He thought he heard people laughing behind him in the bar.

‘You’ll see, tomorrow!’ he cried.

The doorman’s voice said: ‘That’s right. Spoken like a man. Here you are, then, sir. Where to?’