John Hawkes - The Lime Twig

He started to whistle softly and the sound coming from his own lips — he was not often a whistler, a smiler — made the words “barrels of fun” go round in his head. Slowly he unbuttoned his coat and listened. He was standing, he noticed, near a toilet that had no seat, one badly defaced in the row of urinals. Once he had seen a man die on a toilet — from fear — then had found a notice of the death in the papers. “Why are you always reading obituaries?” He remembered that ugly voice. “Who do you expect to find on the lists?” He couldn’t say.

Now he peered ahead at a row of pipes with great brass valves — he had never been able to turn taps beneath a sink, could not bring himself to touch the copper ball, slime-covered, gently breathing, that lay in the bottom of a toilet tank — thinking that it wouldn’t do at all to walk down there.

Then he heard the footsteps. They were none he knew, not those of Lovely, Cowles, or the jockey, who had a light and bitter tread. These were the sounds of a measured step, the left foot heavier than the right, the dragging of shoe nails against the stones. And Banks saw a movement, a mere breaking of shadow, at the end of the tunnel by which he himself had entered. He turned, starting toward the opposite end where the pipes loomed, but there too he saw the flickering of a white hand, fragments of darkness about to become the shape of a man. So he wheeled close against the nearest urinal and clutched at his clothing.

The man was beside him. A man smaller than Banks, humped over, with feet large as boxes and a slate strapped across his chest. The name of a horse was on the slate: Rock Castle .

Banks kept his eyes forward, said nothing. But down the tunnel’s opposite length, climbing from behind the pipes themselves, the shape of the second man became complete. And at his side, in silent metamorphosis, appeared the third. The hanging slate of the first man banged against Banks’ hip, and that of the second — all these carried the little boards, buckles and leather, wood frames splintered, pieces of slate chalk-dusted — caught him on the opposite side under the ribs. And the second man’s nearest rubber, several sizes too large, smacked in the latrine water, moved again and lay beside his own wet shoe. Banks held tightly to his clothes, heard them shuffle, breathe, splash loudly. They were just the three to stand beside him in the Men’s — he knew it was inevitable with the first echo of the footsteps — just the sort to gang up on a lone man underground. But he also knew them for another kind: in the glare above, all along the track’s inner rail, great numbers of these were posted, swiftly chalking, communicating with the crowd. Dressed in rags, lean, fast as birds. These were the men who sat on the rails with knees drawn up and scraps of paper fastened to their lapels, soothsayers with craftiness and eyes that never stopped. Very methodical. For days he had seen them, the jaws unshaved, the looks of intelligence, the slates slung like accordions from the worn-out straps. They were a system—“eunuchs,” Cowles called them, “the mathematicians”—but while clacking within arm’s length of the hoof-cut turf, each one sat in his astrological island, shabby, each figuring for himself with twitching cheek muscles and numbers scratched on the slate. “The bad-luck fellows,” Cowles said of them.

Now Banks knew it to be so. The weight of the hands on the urinal, the thickly rubbered foot, the hat in the band of which was a photograph of a nude woman, the slates — the name Rock Castle was scrawled also on the other two — all this said as much.

And he was helpless now.

The first to come was whispering. Banks glanced quickly and saw a scar hanging down from the eye like a hair, saw spectacles and a loose soft collar partly tom at the seam. He tried to look away, but the man went on with his whispering.

“I’ve got a word for you: Sybilline’s in the Pavilion . Do you understand? Sybilline’s in the Pavilion . …”

Down and back the length of the latrine it was a false and cheerful sound. And behind the spectacles the man had watering eyes, eyes nearly awash in the sockets, and he did not blink. On either side of his nose — bookish — were grains of blood and scratches. When he whispered, the saliva behind his lips, between his teeth, was tinted pink with blood constantly trickling into the throat. The water round the eyes was clear. And his limpid sight, the smile, his whispering, the signs of struggle, the poverty of the cloth, his pink and golden gleam, the slate — these suggested unnatural occupation, the change in character: a man good for certain kinds of hire.

“Don’t move now, Mr. Banks, not a move if you please.”

There was no smile, only the single flaw, the perversion, the staring eyes and all round him the rank gloom, the chill, the burning of the rusty lights.

“It’s three to one now, Banks. Don’t take it into your head to run off in a scare.”

This whisperer was on his right; the second to come stood patiently on his left; Polka-dots — there was a neckerchief round his throat — had moved up close behind him. It was the triangle of his dreams, the situation he dreaded at the sound of sirens. He wanted composure when the whisperer touched his arm, saying, “You won’t dart then. That’s sensible. Why look here, Banks,” smiling again, reaching into a pocket behind the slate, “What do you make of these?” And in his palm, suddenly, he held two small black balls, sovereign-sized in diameter and perfectly round. They appeared soft, made of tar perhaps, and left an oily dark stain on the skin as the man shifted them in his hand. “Ever seen one of these before? Pellet bombs. Quite a charge in them, Banks. Not enormous of course, but good enough to take a foot or a hand or eye without any question. Should you scare, Banks, and be so fancy as to skip on us, I’d throw one at you. And it would bring you to the flagging. But here,” guiding him by the arm, “we don’t need to risk a blasting. You won’t be likely to run if you’re sitting down. Now will you?”

They stopped at the broken toilet and Banks sat on it as best he could. They were standing close to his knees, making wet sounds with their boots and rubbers beside him, and it was worse than the crowds. Even the constable could help, he thought.

“Wait,” he was squatting, staring up, could hardly see their faces, “what do you want?”

And the whisperer: “We could bash your brains,” sucking sharply, feet trampling his own, huddling round him. “But,” more easily, “that’s not it for now. Later perhaps. Larry said to keep an eye on you all right. But Banks,” catching him by the throat, pressing down upon him and smiling, “just take my word for it: Sybilline’s in the Pavilion . She wants you to know, Mr. Banks, she thinks you’ll understand. …”

And these three dropped back with their hands ready, arms hooked out defensively, and like boys flashing in an empty courtyard turned suddenly and — far apart, shoes scraping and slates caught close — raced off swiftly and with terrible clatter in the direction of the swinging doors.

He sat bent over in the quietness he had been looking for. It was a green world and he heard no echoes; they did not toss back any of their pellet bombs after all. He remained there on the piece of battered lavatory equipment for an endless time, and his eyes were half-shut.

SIDNEY SLYTER SAYS

Marlowe’s Pippet Favored by Majority …

Retired Jockey to Ride Rock Castle in the Golden …

Owner Insists that Mystery Horse Will Run …

The wind’s out of Slyter now; the hat’s on the back of Slyter’s head, all right all right. … Anyone got a drink? Anyone got a consoling word? Five pounds for the reader who sends me a bit of helpful information. … Because I took half a day to drive to the Manor House and return (if you know the uncharted moors on a summer day you know how desperately your Slyter drove). Arrived in time for tea — the little black cup you always suspect of being poisoned — and Lady Harvey-Harrow sent down to the empty stables for poor old Crawley. He came after a while, brushing through the cobwebs and removing his cap, and Lady Harvey-Harrow looked at him and said I was a gentleman from the Press. Still looking at him — mind you, not once my way — she asked him whether or not he agreed that the horse was dead, saying that it was her impression that the horse was dead but that if by chance the animal was still alive why those who had carried him off were welcome to such an old and useless horse. “What about it, now,” I said, “dead or alive?” And the old man leaned over and stared hard as he could into Lady Harvey-Harrow’s eyes and said — no more than a whisper — said that he had changed his mind and recollected having seen the horse not a fortnight ago in a shaded and gloomy place beneath the lone oak tree — the lightening tree he said — beside the river separating her Ladyship’s heath from Lord Henry’s land, and he remembered thinking how poorly the horse was looking at the time. I took up my hat and the old woman said she would not pursue the matter and suggested that I do the same. … How’s that for a story to tell an established journalist? So Sidney Slyter’s had it — for the moment — and Mrs. Laval is not in her accustomed room tonight. Unsatisfactory. But I’ll get our men to check the files, that’s what I’ll do. …