Paul Theroux - The Family Arsenal

‘They don’t treat you special here,’ Araba said. ‘They’re real people.’

But the men were gathering and muttering a little distance from her. In the half-light of the high lamps Mr Gawber saw their faces as shadowy and criminal, and their eyes as thumb-prints of soot over whiskery cheeks. McGravy’s dog continued to howl at them.

Hood said, ‘Your play. Both of you must be making a lot of money.’

‘It’s for a good cause,’ said McGravy. Again she said to Araba, as she had in the Opera Tavern, ‘If only he knew.’

‘Let me guess your sign,’ said Araba. ‘Aries. The Ram. Am I right?’

‘Pisces,’ said Hood. ‘Sorry, sweetheart.’

‘My actor clients are frightfully keen on horoscopes,’ said Mr Gawber. ‘They read their stars in the newspaper and get ever so excited.’

Hood had not taken his eyes from Araba’s. He said, ‘Let me guess your passport number.’

‘How extraordinary,’ said Mr Gawber.

‘It begins with a “Y”. Seven digits. And it’s light blue —’

‘Ah, you’re mistaken,’ said Mr Gawber. ‘Bad luck. British passports are navy blue.’

‘This is an American passport,’ said Hood.

‘That’s enough!’ cried Araba, and seeing her fury in the lamplight the men at the tea stall laughed. She gathered her cape, said goodnight to Mr Gawber and walked away, making her exit between the great stacks of crated fruit.

Lady Arrow got out of the taxi in Deptford High Street, looked around, and felt cheated. Then she walked to assess it, to give it a name. No name occurred to her; she wondered if she had come to the right place. But she had: there were the signs. Deeply cheated, tricked by the map and her imagination. She had wanted to like it and had prepared herself for a complicated river-front slum with the kind of massive mirrored pubs she’d passed on the Old Kent Road; damp side lanes and blackened churches and brick-peaked Victorian schools contained by iron fences and locked gates; with a quaint decrepitude, credibly vicious and with visible remnants of danger, a place where you could believe a poet might have been stabbed.

She had expected something different, not this. It was ugly, it was shabby — but not in any interesting sense. It was, sadly, indescribable. She had wanted to be startled by its grime, and the taxi ride across the vast grey sink of London had been long enough to suggest a real journey to a strange distant place. Deptford was only distant: characterless, without any colour, a dismal intermediate district, neither city nor suburb, boxed in by little shops and little brown terraces — many defaced with slanted obscure slogans — and very dusty. You could become asthmatic here: the air stank of dust and chemicals and the unhelpful sun was the size of an apricot. She looked for the river (she could hear boats farting in water) and saw a green gasworks. Closer, a power station poured out heavy clouds of tumbling smoke that gave the sky an ashy hue. The smoky sky seemed no higher than those square chimneys. If anyone asked she would say Deptford was like the scar tissue of a badly healed wound. She was oppressed by the council estates, cheap towers of public housing draped in washing lines. All those people waiting; she could see many of them balancing on flimsy balconies, staring gravely down at her.

She might have gone back to Hill Street — her disappointment was great enough — but it had been so hard for her to get here! Not only the taxi (the driver first refused to take her that distance — she had to agree to pay an extortionate fare), but the invitation, too. She had telephoned the house five times and either no one answered or else a strange voice demanded to know who she was. ‘Who are you?’ she’d asked in return, and hung up. When, finally, Brodie picked up the phone the girl was evasive, and it was only by Lady Arrow blurting out that she wasn’t in the least interested in getting her pound back — indeed, she’d gladly give her another one if it was needed — that Brodie said to come over and told her the address.

‘Albacore Crescent! I can just imagine it.’

‘It’s on the map. Just get off the train at Deptford.’

‘We’ll have tea somewhere,’ Lady Arrow had said, and now she laughed at the thought of it, seeing nothing in ten minutes of walking but two fish-and-chip shops with steamy windows, and a take-away Chinese restaurant. She was angry for noticing they were filthy: she didn’t like to think of herself as a fastidious person. Here, everywhere she looked, she had to face the limits of her tolerance. And she thought: This is what it means. When people say they’re living in Deptford they mean this, the gasworks, the nasty little shops, these poky houses, the smoke. Really, a pitiful confession.

Across Deptford Broadway to the hill and then into Ship Street, where she saw the entry to Albacore Crescent. She had not wanted to arrive by taxi; she deliberately avoided taking it to the door: she was ashamed. But it would not have mattered — the house was larger than she expected, and all the blinds were drawn. Seeing it, she remembered why she had come. It was more than a glimpse of Brodie at home, how she lived, what she did, whom she saw, a piecing together of the girl’s other life to make a story for herself she hoped she figured in — a way of ordering it, like an artist, so that it could be set aside. She wanted that, but she wanted more: Brodie. At Hill Street she had resented Murf’s hold over her, the companionable glances, the laughter, the assumption that she was his. She wanted to separate her from Murf, break his hold over her and have the girl to herself.

Lady Arrow was not discontented with her life, but she knew it lacked any edge, and it was enclosed — too secure. Other people, living close to the ground, spent more congenial days, like the waiters she envied, whispering intimately to each other in restaurants where she was dining. And sometimes she thought that even the girls she visited in prison had more to challenge and amuse them than she did. The plays she brought them gave her a chance to act with them. She would not be shut out from anyone’s life, and she was surprised that Brodie’s seemed so inaccessible: five phone-calls and what amounted to a bribe to gain entry!

She rang the bell, heard footsteps on the stairs and listened to the snapping of locks, bolts at the top and bottom of the door being shot. Brodie’s pale eager face appeared at a crack.

‘You’re barricaded in!’ said Lady Arrow as she stepped through the door, seeing the locks and bolts and heavy chains.

‘We don’t usually come in this way, said Brodie. ‘We’re supposed to use the back door.’

‘I hope I’m not infringing the rules — but who makes these rules? I say, is that your ice-cream van?’

Brodie was shrugging at the questions. ‘Sort of. It belongs to someone, but they’re not here, see.’ She was vague. In a thin sleeveless shirt, Brodie’s breasts budded at the pockets, and Lady Arrow saw the tattoo, the blue-bird chevron on her white upper arm. Brodie’s trousers were much too large for her; she held them up by the waist to prevent them falling down.

‘Hey, Murf — she’s here!’

Murf put his head through the door and nodded. His head was small and the sun behind his ears lighted them to look like the membranes of kites, one with a gold tail, the swinging ear-ring. He wore a jersey with a chewed collar, a pair of girl’s tight pink slacks, and in his bare feet he clawed at the rug with his toes. He plucked at the slacks that sheathed his legs and pushed at his thighs. Lady Arrow thought of a pet beast, ridiculously costumed.

‘They’re mine,’ said Brodie. ‘Them slacks. I’ve got his on. We decided to wear each other’s clothes today.’