Muriel Spark - The Ballad of Peckham Rye

‘Peckham. Modes of communication.

Actions more effective than words. Enact everything. Depict

Morality. Functional. Emotional. Puritanical. Classical.

Nelly Mahone. Lightbody Buildings.

Tunnel. Meeting-house Lane Excavations police station yard. Order of St Bridget. Nuns decamped in the night.

Trevor turned the pages.

Entry Parish Register 1658.5 May.

Rose, wife of Wm Hathaway buried

Aged 103, who boare a sonn at the age

of 63.

Trevor said, ‘Definitely a code. Look how he spells “ son”. And this about bearing at the age of sixty-three.’

Collie and Leslie came over to see the book. ‘There’s a clue here,’ Collie said, ‘that we could follow up.’

‘No,’ said Trevor, ‘you don’t say so? Come on, kids, we got to look up Nelly Mahone.’

‘If we’re going to have a row,’ Mavis said, ‘turn on the wireless loud.’

‘We’re not going to have a row,’ said her husband, Arthur Crewe, in a voice trembling with patience. ‘I only ask a plain question, what you mean you can’t ask him where he’s going when he goes out?’

Mavis switched on the wireless to a roar. Then she herself shouted above it.

‘If you want to know where he goes, ask him yourself.’

‘If you can’t ask him how can I ask him?’ Arthur said in competition with the revue on the wireless.

‘What’s it matter where he goes? You can’t keep running about after him like he was a baby. He’s thirteen now.

‘You ought to a kept some control of him. Of course it’s too late now -‘Why didn’t you keep some control -‘

‘How can I be at my work and control the kids same time? If you was -‘There’s no need to swear,’ Mavis said.

‘I didn’t swear. But I bloody well will, and there’s no need to shout.’ He turned off the wireless and silence occurred, bringing a definite aural sensation.

‘Turn on that wireless. If we’re going to have a row I’m not letting the neighbours get to know,’ Mavis said.

‘Leave it be,’ Arthur said, effortful with peace. ‘There’s not going to be any row.’

Dixie came downstairs. ‘What’s all the row?’ she said. ‘Your stepdad’s on about young Leslie. Expects me to ask him where he’s going when he goes out. I say, why don’t he ask if he wants to know. I haven’t got eyes the back of my head, have I?’

‘Sh-sh-sh. Don’t raise your voice,’ Arthur said.

‘He’s afraid to say a word to Leslie,’ Dixie said.

‘That’s just about it,’ said her mother.

‘Who’s afraid?’ Arthur shouted.

‘You are,’ Mavis shouted.

‘I’m not afraid. You’re afraid…‘

‘Keep time,’ said Trevor. ‘All keep in time. It’s psychological.’

And so they all three trod in time up the stone stairs of Lightbody Buildings. Twice, a door opened on a landing, a head looked out, and the door shut quickly again. Trevor and his followers stamped louder as they approached Nelly Mahone’s. Trevor beat like a policeman thrice on her door, and placed his ear to the crack.

There was a shuffling sound, a light switch clicked, then silence.

Trevor beat again.

‘Who is it?’ Nelly said from immediately on the other side of the door.

‘Police agents,’ Trevor said.

The light switch clicked again, and Nelly opened the door a fragment.

Trevor pushed it wide open and walked in, followed by Collie and Leslie.

Leslie said, ‘I’m not stopping in this dirty hole,’ and made to leave.

Trevor caught him by the coat and worked him to a standstill.

‘It’s all clean dirt,’ Nelly said.

‘Sit over there,’ Trevor said to Nelly, pointing to a chair beside the table. She did so.

He sat himself on the edge of the table and pointed to the edge of the bed for Leslie and the lopsided armchair for Collie.

‘We come to talk business,’ Trevor said, ‘concerning a Mr Dougal Douglas.’

‘Never heard of him,’ Nelly said.

‘No?’ Trevor said, folding his arms.

‘Supposed to be police agents, are you? Well, you can be moving off if you don’t want trouble. There’s a gentleman asleep next door. I only got to raise me voice and -‘

Collie and Leslie looked at the wall towards which Nelly pointed.

‘Nark it,’ Trevor said. ‘He’s gone to football this afternoon. Now, about Mr Dougal Douglas-’

‘Never heard of him,’ Nelly said.

Trevor leaned forward slightly towards her and, taking a lock of her long hair in his hand, twitched it sharply.

‘Help! Murder! Police!’ Nelly said.

Trevor put his big hand over her mouth and spoke to her.

‘Listen, Nelly, for your own good. We got money for you.’

Nelly struggled, her yellow eyeballs were big.

‘I get my boys to rough you up if you won’t listen, Nelly. Won’t we, boys?’

‘That’s right,’ Collie said.

‘Won’t we, boys?’ Trevor said, looking at Leslie.

‘Sure,’ said Leslie.

Trevor removed his hand, now wet, from Nelly’s mouth, and wiped it on the side of his trousers. He took a large wallet from his pocket, and flicked through a pile of bank notes.

‘He’s at Miss Frierne’s up the Rye,’ Nelly said. Trevor laid his wallet on the table and folding his arms, looked hard at Nelly.

‘He got a job at Meadows Meade,’ Nelly said.

Trevor waited.

‘He got another job at Drover Willis’s under different name. No harm in him, son.’

Trevor waited.

‘That’s all, son,’ Nelly said.

‘What’s cheese?’ Trevor said.

‘What’s what?’

Trevor pulled her hair, so that she toppled towards him from her chair.

‘I’ll find out more. I only seen him once,’ Nelly said.

‘What he want with you?’

‘Huh?’

‘You heard me.’

Nelly looked at the two others, then back at Trevor. ‘The boys is under age,’ she remarked, and her eyes flicked a little to reveal that her brain was working.

‘I ask you a question,’ Trevor said. ‘What Mr Dougal Douglas come to you for?’

‘About the girl,’ she said.

‘What girl?’

‘He’s after Beauty,’ she said. ‘He want me to find out where she live and that. You better go and see what he’s up to. Probable he’s with her now.’

‘Who’s his gang?’ Trevor inquired, reaching for Nelly’s hair.

She jumped away from him. Leslie’s nerve gave way and he ran to Nelly and hit her on the face.

‘Murder!’ Nelly screamed.

Trevor put his hand over her mouth, and signalled with his eyes to Collie, who went to the door, opened it a little way, listened, then shut it again. Collie then struck Leslie, who backed on to the bed.

Trevor, with his big hand on Nelly’s mouth, whispered softly in her ear,

‘Who’s his gang, Nelly? What’s the code key? Ten quid to you, Nelly.’

She squirmed and he took his moist hand from her mouth. ‘Who’s his gang?’

‘He goes with Miss Coverdale sometimes. He goes with that fair-haired lady controller that’s gone to Drover Willis’s. That’s all I know of his company.’

‘Who are the fellows?’

‘I’ll find out,’ she said, ‘I’ll find out, son. Have a heart.’

‘Who’s Rose Hathaway?’

‘Never heard of her.’

Trevor took Dougal’s rolled-up exercise book from an inside pocket and spreading it out at the page read out the bit about that Rose Hathaway who was buried at a hundred and three. ‘That mean anything to you?’ Trevor said.

‘It sounds all wrong. I’ll ask him.’

‘You won’t. You’ll find out your own way. Not a word we been here, get that?’

‘It’s only his larks. He’s off his nut, son.’

‘Did he by any chance bring Humphrey Place here with him?’