Pat Barker - The Eye in the Door

He needed to see Spragge, but the address on the file, as he discovered standing on a gritty, windswept pavement in Whitechapel, was out of date. The bloodless girl who peered up at him from the basement, a grizzling baby in her arms, said she’d lived there a year and no, she didn’t know where the previous tenant had gone. The landlady might, though.

The landlady, traced to the snug bar of the local pub, confirmed the name had been Spragge. She didn’t know where he was now. Did he know this was the very pub Mary Kelly had been drinking in the night the Ripper killed her? She’d known Mary Kelly as well as she knew her own sister, heart in one place, liver in another, intestines draped all over the floor, in that very chair –

He bought her a port and lemon and left her to her memories. Odd, he thought, that the fascination with the Ripper and his miserable five victims should persist, when half of Europe was at it.

He was losing more time. Not in huge chunks, but frequently, perhaps four or five times a day. In the evenings, unless he was seeing Rivers, he stayed at home. He knew the flat was bad for him, both physically and mentally, but he was afraid to venture out because it seemed to give him more scope. Nonsense, of course. He could and did go out, though sometimes the only sign was the smell of fresh air on Prior’s skin.

One morning Lode sent for him.

‘I just thought I’d share the good news,’ Lode said. ‘Since there isn’t much of it these days. They’ve caught MacDowell.’

Prior was knocked sick by the shock, but he managed to keep his face expressionless. ‘Oh? When?’

‘A few days ago. In Liverpool. Charles Greaves’s house. They got Greaves too.’

‘Hmm. Well, that is progress.’

‘Good news, isn’t it?’

Prior nodded.

‘You know,’ Lode said, watching him narrowly, ‘I used to think I understood you. I used to think I had you taped.’ He waited. ‘Ah, well. Back to work.’

Prior wondered why Lode’s endless patting and petting of his moustache should ever have struck him as a sign of vulnerability. It didn’t seem so now.

The nights were bad. He was still taking sleeping draughts, sometimes repeating the dose when the first one failed to work. Rivers strenuously advised him against it, but he ignored the advice. He had to sleep.

That evening, fast asleep after the second draught, he was awakened by a knocking on the door. The bromide clung to him like glue. Even when he managed to get out of bed, he felt physically sick. For a moment, as he pulled on his breeches and shirt, he thought he might actually be sick. The knocking went on, then stopped.

Presumably whoever it was had got tired and gone away. Prior was about to fall back into bed when he remembered he’d left the door open. Of all the bloody stupid things to do. But it was the only way of getting some air into the place.

It was no use, he’d have to go and close it.

The passage was full of the smell of rotting cabbage. The area round the bins had not been cleaned, in spite of Mrs Rollaston’s promise. Prior stumbled along, hitching up his braces as he went.

The door was open. He looked out. The sky was not the normal blue of a summer evening, but brownish, like caught butter. He went back inside and closed the door.

He was walking past the door of the living-room when he heard a movement.

Slowly, he pushed the half-open door wide. Spragge was sitting, stolidly, in the armchair, thick fingers relaxed on his splayed thighs. He looked up with a sheepish, rather silly expression on his face. Sheepish, but obstinate. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘What do you want to see me about?’

‘Do you always walk into people’s houses uninvited?’

‘I thought I heard you say come in.’ He didn’t bother to make the lie convincing. ‘I knew you must be in because the door was open. You want to watch that. You could get burgled.’ A glance round the room pointed out that there was nothing worth taking.

Prior was angry. Not because Spragge had walked in uninvited; it was deeper, less rational than that. He was angry because of the way Spragge’s fingers curled on his thighs, innocent-looking fingers, the waxy pink of very cheap sausages.

‘I’ll get up and knock again if you like,’ Spragge said, pulling a comical face.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Prior said, sitting down. ‘What do you want?’

‘What do you want?’

Prior looked blank.

‘You’re the one who’s been chasing me.’

Spragge was drunk. Oh, he hid it well. There was just the merest hint of over-precision in his speech, a kind of truculence bubbling beneath the surface.

‘What about a drink?’ Prior suggested.

‘Yeh, all right.’

Prior needed time to think, to work out how he was going to approach Spragge. He went into the kitchen where he kept the whisky. The trouble was he detested Spragge to the point where the necessary manipulation became distasteful. You didn’t manipulate people like Spragge. You squashed them.

He poured a jug of water and, in the sudden silence after he’d turned off the tap, heard a movement, furtive, it seemed to him, in the next room. Rapidly, he crossed to the door.

Spragge was removing Sarah’s letter from underneath the ornament on the mantelpiece. No, not removing it. Putting it back .

‘Have you read that?’ Prior burst into the room. He was remembering how explicit Sarah’s references to their love-making had been. ‘Have you read it?’

Spragge swallowed hard. ‘It’s the job.’

‘You shouldn’t’ve done that.’

‘Aw, for God’s sake,’ Spragge said. ‘Do you think she’d mind? I saw her in the Palm House, she virtually had your dick out.’

Prior grasped Spragge lightly by the forearms and butted him in the face, his head coming into satisfying, cartilage-crunching contact with Spragge’s nose. Spragge tried to pull away, then slumped forward, spouting blood, snorting, putting up an ineffectual shaking hand to stop the flow.

Prior tried to make him stand up, like a child trying to make a toy work. Spragge staggered backwards and fell against the standard lamp, which crashed over and landed on top of him. He lay there, holding his spread fingers over his shattered nose, trying to speak, and gurgling instead.

Disgusted, with himself as much as Spragge, Prior went into the kitchen, wrung out a tea-towel in cold water, came back, and handed it to Spragge. ‘Here, put this over it.’

Wincing, tears streaming down his face, Spragge dabbed at his face with the wet cloth. ‘Broken,’ he managed to say. He gestured vaguely at the towel, which was drenched in blood. Prior took it away and brought another.’ He looked at the roll of fat above Spragge’s trousers and contemplated landing a boot in his kidneys. But you couldn’t, the man was pathetic. He threw the tea-towel at Spragge and sat down in the nearest chair, shaking with rage, unappeased. He wanted to fight . Instead of that he was farting about with tea-towels like Florence fucking Nightingale.

After a while Spragge started to cry. Prior stared at him with awed disgust and thought, my God, I’m not taking this. ‘Come on,’ he said, grabbing Spragge by the sleeve. ‘ Out .’

‘Can’t walk.’

‘I’ll get you a taxi.’

Prior struggled into his boots and puttees, then returned to the living-room and dragged Spragge to his feet. Spragge lurched and stumbled to the door, half of his own volition, half dragged there by Prior. Bastard , Prior thought, pushing him up the steps, but the anger was ebbing now, leaving him lonely.

They staggered down the street, Spragge leaning heavily on Prior. Like two drunks. ‘Do you realize how much trouble I’d get into if I was seen like this?’ Prior asked.