Muriel Spark - The Ballad of Peckham Rye

Dougal touched the bump like a connoisseur. ‘You supposed to be the Devil, then?’ Humphrey asked.

‘No, oh, no, I’m only supposed to be one of the wicked spirits that wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Have you mended those beams in the roof yet, that go Creak-oop?’

‘I have,’ Humphrey said, ‘Dixie refuses to come any more.’

‘WHAT strikes me as remarkable,’ Dougal said, ‘is how he manages to get in so much outside his school hours.’

Nelly Mahone nodded, trod out her cigarette end, and looked at the packet of cigarettes which Dougal had placed on the table.

‘Help yourself,’ Dougal said, and he lit the cigarette for her.

‘Ta,’ said Nelly. She looked round her room. ‘It’s all clean dirt,’ she said.

‘You would think,’ Dougal said, ‘his parents would have some control over him.’

Nelly inhaled gratefully. ‘Up the Elephant, that’s where they all go. What was name?’

‘Leslie Crewe. Thirteen years of age. The father’s manager of Beverly Hills Outfitters at Brixton.’

‘Where they live?’

‘Twelve Rye Grove.’

Nelly nodded. ‘How much you paid him?’

‘A pound the first time, thirty bob the second time. But now he’s asking five quid a week flat.’

Nelly whispered, ‘Then there’s a gang behind him, surely. Can’t you give up one of the jobs for a month or two?’

‘I don’t see why I should,’ Dougal said, ‘just to please a thirteen-year-old blackmailer.’

Nelly made signs with her hands and moved her mouth soundlessly, and swung her eyes to the wall between her room and the next, to show that the walls had ears.

‘A thirteen-year-old blackmailer,’ Dougal. said, more softly. But Nelly did not like the word blackmailer at all; she placed her old fish-smelling hand over Dougal’s mouth, and whispered in his ear – her grey long hair falling against his nose – ‘A lousy fellow next door,’ she said. ‘A slob that wouldn’t do a day’s work if you paid him gold. So guard your mouth.’ She released Dougal and started to draw the curtains.

‘And here’s me,’ Dougal said, ‘willing to do three, four, five men’s jobs, and I get blackmailed on grounds of false pretences.’

She ran with her long low dipping strides to his side and gave him a hard poke in the back. She returned to her window, which was as opaque as sackcloth and not really distinguishable from the curtain she pulled across it. On the floorboards were a few strips of very worn-out matting of a similar colour. The bed in the corner was much of the same hue, lumpy and lopsided. ‘But I’m charmed to see you, all the same,’ Nelly said for the third time, ‘and will you have a cup of tea?’

Dougal said, no thanks, for the third time.

Nelly scratched her head, and raising her voice, declared, ‘Praise be to God, who rewards those who meditate the truths he has proposed for their intelligence.’

‘It seems to me,’ Dougal said, ‘that my course in life has much support from the Scriptures.’

‘Never,’ Nelly said, shaking her thin body out of its ecstasy and taking a cigarette out of Dougal’s packet.

‘Consider the story of Moses in the bulrushes. That was a crafty trick. The mother got her baby back and all expenses paid into the bargain. And consider the parable of the Unjust Steward. Do you know the parable of -‘

‘Stop,’ Nelly said, with her hand on her old blouse. ‘I get that excited by Holy Scripture I’m afraid to get my old lung trouble back.’

‘Were you born in Peckham?’ Dougal said.

‘No, Galway. I don’t remember it though. I was a girl in Peckham.’

‘Where did you work?’

‘Shoe factory I started life. Will you have a cup of tea?’

Dougal took out ten shillings.

‘It’s not enough,’ Nelly said.

Dougal made it a pound.

‘If I got to follow them fellows round between here and the Elephant you just think of the fares alone,’ Nelly said. ‘I’ll need more than that to go along with.’

‘Two quid, then,’ Dougal said. ‘And more next week.’

‘All right,’ she said.

‘Otherwise it’s going to be cheaper to pay Leslie.’

‘No it isn’t,’ she said. ‘They go on and on wanting more and more. I hope you’ll remember me nice if I get some way to stop their gobs.’

‘Ten quid,’ said Dougal.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘But suppose one of your bosses finds out in the meantime? After all, rival firms is like to get nasty.’

‘Tell me,’ Dougal said, ‘how old are you?’

‘I should say I was sixty-four. Have a cup of tea.’ She looked round the room. ‘It’s all clean dirt.’

‘Tell me,’ Dougal said, ‘what it was like to work in the shoe factory.’

She told him all of her life in the shoe factory till it was time for her to go out on her rounds proclaiming. Dougal followed her down the sour dark winding stairs of Lightbody Buildings, and they parted company in the passage, he going out before her.

‘Good night, Nelly.’

‘Good night, Mr Doubtless.’

‘Where’s Mr Douglas?’ said Mr Weedin.

‘Haven’t seen him for a week,’ Merle Coverdale replied.

‘Would you like me to ring him up at home and see if he’s all right?’

‘Yes, do that,’ Mr Weedin said. ‘No, don’t. Yes, I don’t see why not. No, perhaps, though, we’d -‘

Merle Coverdale stood tapping her pencil on her notebook, watching Mr Weedin’s hands shuffling among the papers on his desk.

‘I’d better ask Mr Druce,’ Mr Weedin said. ‘He probably knows where Mr Douglas is.’

‘He doesn’t,’ Merle said…

‘Doesn’t he?’

‘No, he doesn’t.’

‘Wait till tomorrow. See if he comes in tomorrow.’

‘Are you feeling all right, Mr Weedin?’

‘Who? Me? I’m all right.’

Merle went in to Mr Druce. ‘Dougal hasn’t been near the place for a week.’

‘Leave him alone. The boy’s doing good work.’ She returned to Mr Weedin and stood in his open door with an exaggerated simper. ‘We are to leave him alone. The boy’s doing good work.’

‘Come in and shut the door,’ said Mr Weedin. She shut the door and approached his desk. ‘I’m not much of a believer,’ Mr Weedin said, quivering his hands across the papers before him. ‘But there’s something Mr Douglas told me that’s on my mind.’ He craned upward to look through the glass panels on all sides of his room.

‘They’re all out at tea-break,’ Merle said.

Mr Weedin dropped his head on his hands. ‘It may surprise you,’ he said, ‘coming from me. But it’s my belief that Dougal Douglas is a diabolical agent, if not in fact the Devil.’

‘Mr Weedin,’ said Miss Coverdale.

‘Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Yes, yes, you’re thinking I’m going wrong up here.’ He pointed to his right temple and screwed it with his finger. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘that Douglas himself showed me bumps on his head where he had horns removed by plastic surgery?’

‘Don’t get excited, Mr Weedin. Don’t shout. The girls are coming up from the canteen.’

‘I felt those bumps with these very hands. Have you looked, have you ever properly looked at his eyes? That shoulder -‘

‘Keep calm, Mr Weedin, you aren’t getting yourself anywhere, you know.’

Mr Weedin pointed with a shaking arm in the direction of the managing director’s office. ‘He’s bewitched,’ he said.

Merle took tiny steps backward and got herself out of the door. She went in to Mr Druce again.

‘Mr Weedin will be wanting a holiday,’ she said.

Mr Druce lifted his paper-knife, toyed with it in his hand, pointed it at Merle, and put it down. ‘What did you say?’ he said.