Paul Theroux - The Family Arsenal

‘I’m not much to look at. My tits don’t stick out. That’s what Ron used to say.’

‘They’re not supposed to stick out.’ Hood licked the pellet and put it in her mouth. He lingered at it, making it a sexual suggestion, this transfer from his mouth to hers.

She held the pellet against her cheek like a gum-ball. ‘Hey, when I’m asleep, don’t touch me, okay? Just don’t touch me.’

‘All right, Mrs Weech,’ he said.

‘And don’t call me that.’ Her name was Lorna, but Hood never said it. It sounded too much like forlorn, alone.

She slept, and he was aroused. He lay his head on her stomach and waited until she woke.

The drug restored her, gave her rest, removed suspicion from her mind, and yet she said she still never slept at night. She told Hood how she lay awake on her bed, sometimes going downstairs in the dark and washing all the floors in the hope of tiring herself so she could sleep: and he imagined her pounding her mop in the hall or standing alone in her small kitchen before the black window. He wondered if by killing her husband he had inflicted a fatal wound on her memory. But it was not that at all, not the guilty feeling of bewildered resentment that kept her awake. The two locked rooms worried her. She speculated on what they contained — burglars’ loot, forbidden things, a whole cupboard of snatched purses, parcels she’d seen her husband sneak in with, boxes he’d dragged upstairs, danger. Weech had been secretive: his thievery was a mystery to her, but all the more sinister for that. She was afraid it would be discovered by the police and she would be thrown into prison and the child taken away from her. She knew nothing of trials; arrest meant years of solitary confinement in a cage, helping police with their inquiries. She pleaded with Hood to help her.

He told her not to worry. He said, ‘I know where we can stash it.’

‘But the rooms are locked.’

‘So we’ll unlock them.’

‘There’s no keys. Ron was robbed!’

‘We’ll unlock them with a crowbar.’

He did not dare use the keys he’d taken from Weech’s pocket. The wallet, the money: he had been too ashamed to think of a lie, a pretext for giving them back to her. He unscrewed the plates from the locks and burst the mechanisms with a hammer. The bolts flew. He kicked open the door to the first room.

‘Oh, God, what do we do with all this clobber?’ The sight of the stack of new televisions, the radios, the crates of cigarettes and whisky alarmed her. She saw a reason for her worry. She stomped the floor and swore and belched with fear. She was less frightened by the two steel trunks in the second room: Hood didn’t open them. She said, ‘It’s probably clothes.’

‘This is going to take some doing,’ said Hood. ‘It’s a lot to shift. But where did it all come from?’

‘You know — you’re one of them.’

‘I almost forgot,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to get a truck. I’ll need help.’

The ice-cream van with its faded signs SUPERTONY and MIND THAT CHILD had been parked in Albacore Crescent since the night Mayo had come back with the painting. Every day — it was one of his family chores — Murf started it up to charge the battery, because it was so seldom driven. Hood went to the house.

He found Murf with a small nervous man he had never seen before. Seeing Hood the man shuffled his feet and coughed. He wore buckled sandals and torn socks and a greasy necktie; his breast pocket bulged with pens. He had been smoking with Murf, and Hood saw the man drop a marijuana roach behind him and find it with his heel and crush it into the floor.

‘Who’s your friend?’

‘This here’s Arfa,’ said Murf. ‘Arfa Muncie.’

‘Start talking, Muncie.’

‘Go ahead.’ Murf sniggered. ‘The great Arfa.’

Muncie started, then coughed and cleared his throat. He looked terrified. ‘Me? I run the second-hand shop down the road. Victoriana. You must have seen the sign.’

‘The only sign I see is “Palace Are Wankers”,’ said Hood.

‘I’m a Chelsea supporter,’ said Muncie. ‘Him, he’s for Arsenal.’

‘Arsenal rule,’ said Murf, and winked at Hood.

‘Cut the shit,’ said Hood. ‘What do you want?’

‘Arfa wants to buy that picture,’ said Murf.

‘What picture?’

‘The, um, poxy one upstairs.’

‘I’ll give you a tenner for it,’ said Muncie eagerly. ‘Too bad it don’t have a frame. Ones with them gold frames fetch up to twenty-five. More sometimes. Depends if they’re chipped.’

‘It’s not for sale,’ said Hood.

‘Give you another ten bob,’ said Muncie. ‘Okay, fifteen.’

‘You’re going to give me a case of worms if you keep that up.’

‘He was just asking,’ said Murf, seeing Hood’s face darken.

‘Get out,’ said Hood to Muncie. Muncie backed to the door and left. Hood turned to Murf. ‘You really have your head up your ass.’

‘Leave me alone.’

‘Sorry, I’ve got a job for you, sport.’

Hood explained what he wanted Murf to do. Murf refused. But Hood had a threat: he would tell Mayo that Murf was planning to sell her painting to his friend Muncie for ten pounds. Murf agreed and sulked until nightfall. In darkness they went to Lorna’s house and loaded the ice-cream van. Five trips were necessary, but Murf was interested, panting, the weight of the cases making him bow-legged as he tramped back and forth. ‘There’s more and all,’ he kept saying. ‘It’s fucking diabolical.’ Diabowicoo : he meant it; it was the first hint he’d had that Hood was mixed up in something unlawful. Until then, he had been antagonized by Hood’s mocking abuse; he suspected him of being an intruder. Hood jeered at him and he never had a reply. But he was impressed by the amount of loot and looked upon Hood with a new respect, an admiration for what this secret transfer of goods meant. Hood had talked tough, and now Murf believed he was tough. He grinned at all the television sets and strained and swore as he helped heave the metal trunks. ‘Diabolical. I wish Arfa could see this stuff. He’d shit.’

They carried it to the top of the house on Albacore Crescent and filled one of the unused middle rooms. The harvest of another impulse; Hood thought: I’m in it up to my neck.

‘I know where it come from,’ said Murf. ‘Fell off the back of a lorry, right?’

Weech’s phrase. Hood said, ‘Never mind.’

‘Who’s the bird?’

‘Which one?’

‘At the house, where we got all this stuff. I seen her mooching around upstairs.’ Murf licked his lips. ‘She’s got your nose open?’

Hood grabbed the front of Murf’s shirt and marched him backward against the wall. ‘There’s no bird,’ he said. ‘You didn’t see one, did you?’

‘Yes, no,’ said Murf. He gagged. ‘Hey, leave off!’

‘You didn’t see a house.’ He twisted Murf’s collar, choking him.

‘I can’t breeve!’ Murf’s eyes bugged out, his ear-ring danced.

‘Did you?’ said Hood softly.

‘Okay, okay,’ said Murf, and Hood let go.

‘You’re murder,’ said Hood. Murf rubbed his throat and looked uneasily at Hood, who said, ‘You’ve got a lot to learn.’

‘I won’t say nothing.’

‘Keep your friend Muncie out of here and your trap shut. You’ll be all right, but if I see you’ — he snatched at Murfs ear, but the boy ducked — ‘if I see you messing around again and shooting your mouth off, I’ll go ape-shit. And if I go ape-shit, pal, you’re in trouble.’

‘I’m knackered,’ said Murf. ‘Hey, want to turn on with me? Here, I’ll make you one.’ He fumbled with his cigarette papers and took out his stash.

‘Produce it.’

They squatted in the dimly lit hallway. Murf nudged him and said, ‘Muncie’s a fence, but nothing like this. Credible. Hey, I meet all these geezers and I think they’re posh, and they’re really villains. This old girl the other day and now you.’ He laughed at the thought of it and showed Hood the cigarette; he smiled in friendship moving his lips apart to reveal his stained tooth-pegs. ‘This all right?’