Muriel Spark - The Ballad of Peckham Rye

‘Oh, I would make an excellent informer. I don’t say plain-clothes policeman, exactly, but for gathering information and having no scruples in passing it on you could look farther than me and fare worse.

‘There’s a gang watching out for you,’ Elaine said. ‘So be careful where you go at nights. I shouldn’t go out alone much.’

‘Terrifying, isn’t it? I mean, say this is the street and there’s Trevor over there. And say here’s Collie Gould crossing the road. And young Leslie comes up to me and asks the time and I look at my watch. Then out jumps Trevor with a razor – rip, rip, rip. But Collie whistles loud on his three fingers. Leslie gives me a parting kick where I lie in the gutter and slinks after Trevor away into the black concealing night. Up comes the copper and finds me. The cop takes one look, turns away, and pukes on the pavement. He then with trembling fingers places a whistle to his lips.’

‘Sit down and stop pushing the good furniture about,’ she said.

‘I’ve gone and worked myself up with my blether,’ Dougal said. ‘I feel that frightened.’

‘Leslie was waiting for Mr Willis at five o’clock the day before he went on his holidays. I saw him standing be-hind Mr Willis’s car. So I hung on just to see. And then Mr Willis came out. And then Leslie came forward. And then Leslie said something and Mr. Willis said something. So I walked past. I heard Mr Willis say, “Have you left school?” and Leslie said, “What’s that to you?” and Mr Willis said, “I should want to know a good deal more about you before I took notice of what you say” – or it was something like that, Mr Willis said. And then Mr Willis drove away.

‘Ah well,’ Dougal said, ‘I expect to be leaving here next month. Will you cry when I’m gone?’

‘I’d watch it.’

‘Come on out to the pictures,’ Dougal said, ‘for fine evening though it is I am inclined for a bit of darkness.’ On the way out he picked up a letter postmarked from Grasse. He read it going down the street with Elaine.

Dear Douglas,

We arrived on Saturday night. The weather is perfect and this is quite a pleasant hotel with delightful view. The food is quite good. The people are very pleasant. at least so far! We have had one or two pleasant drives along the coast. Quite frankly, Richard needs a rest. You know yourself how he forces himself and is so conscientious.

Richard is very pleased with the arrangements we came to the other evening. It will be so much better to have someone to support him as there are so many Drovers in the firm now. (I almost think, quite frankly, the firm should be called Drover, Drover, Drover Willis instead of Drover Willis!) I hope you yourself are satisfied with the new arrangements. Richard instructed the accountant before he left about your increase and it will be back-dated from the date of your joining the firm as arranged.

I feel I ought to tell you of an incident which occurred just before we left, although, quite frankly, Richard decided not to mention it to you (in case it put you off!). A young boy in his teens waylaid Richard and told him you were a paid police informer employed apparently to look into the industries of Peckham in case of irregularities. Of course, Richard took no notice, and as I said to Richard, there would hardly be any reason for the police to suspect any criminal activities at Drover Willis’s! Quite frankly, I thought I would tell you this to put you on your guard, as I feel I can talk to you, Douglas, as to a son. You have obviously made one or two enemies in the course of your research. That is always the trouble, they are so ungrateful. Before the war these boys used to be glad of a meal and a night’s shelter, but now quite frankly…

Dougal put away the letter. ‘I am as melancholy a young man as you might meet on a summer’s day,’ he said to Elaine, ‘and it feels quite nice.’

They came out of the pictures at eight o’clock. Nelly Mahone was outside the pub opposite, declaiming, ‘The words of the double-tongued are as if they were harmless, but they reach even to the inner part of the bowels. Praise be to the Lord, who distinguishes our cause and delivers us from the unjust and deceitful man.

Dougal and Elaine crossed the road. As they passed, Nelly spat on the pavement.

MERLE COVERDALE said to Trevor Lomas, ‘I’ve only been helping him out with a few private things. He’s good company and he’s different. I don’t have much of a life.’

‘Only a few private things,’ Trevor said. ‘Only just helping him out.’

‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’

‘Typing out his nark information for him.’

‘Look,’ Merle said, ‘he isn’t anything to do with the police. I don’t know where that story started, but it isn’t true.’

‘What’s this private business you do for him?’

‘No business of yours.

‘We got to carve up that boy one of these days,’ Trevor said. ‘D’you want to get carved alongside of him?’

‘Christ, I’m telling you the truth,’ Merle said. ‘It’s only a story he’s writing for someone he calls Cheese that had to do with Peckham in the old days. You don’t understand Dougal. He’s got no harm in him. He’s just different.’

‘Cheese,’ Trevor said. ‘That’s what you go there every Tuesday and every Friday night to work on.’

‘It’s not real cheese,’ Merle said. ‘Cheese is a person, it isn’t the real name.’

‘You don’t say so,’ Trevor said. ‘And what’s the real name?’

‘I don’t know, Mr Lomas, truly.’

‘You won’t go back there,’ Trevor stated.

‘I’ll have to explain to him, then. He’s just a friend, Mr Lomas.’

‘You don’t see him again. Understand. We got plans for him.’

‘Mr Lomas, you’d better go. Mr Druce will be along soon. I don’t want Mr Druce to find you here.’

‘He knows I’m here.’

‘You never told him of me going to Dougal’s, week-nights?’

‘He knows, I said.’

‘It’s you’s the informer, not Dougal.’

‘Re-member. Any more work you do for him’s going to go against you.’

Trevor trod down the stairs from her flat with the same deliberate march as when he had arrived, and she watched him from her window taking Denmark Hill as if he owned it.

Mr Druce arrived twelve minutes later. He took oil his hat and hung it on the peg in her hall. He followed her into the sitting-room and opened the door of the sideboard. He took out some whisky and poured himself a measure, squirting soda into it.

Merle took up her knitting.

‘Want some?’ he said.

‘I’ll have a glass of red wine. I feel I need something red, to buck me up.

He stooped to get the bottle of wine and, opening a drawer, took out the corkscrew.

‘I just had a visitor,’ she said.

He turned to look at her with the corkscrew pointing from his fist.

‘I daresay you know who it was,’ she said.

‘Certainly I do. I sent him.’

‘My private life’s my private life,’ she said. ‘I’ve never interfered with yours. I’ve never come near Mrs Druce though many’s the time I could have felt like telling her a thing or two.’

He handed over her glass of wine. He looked at the label on the bottle. He sat down and took his shoes off. He put on his slippers. He looked at his watch. Merle switched on the television. Neither looked at it. ‘I’ve been greatly taken in by that Scotch fellow. He’s in the pay of the police and of the board of Meadows Meade. He’s been watching me for close on three months and putting in his reports.’

‘No, you’re wrong there,’ Merle said.

‘And you’ve been in with him this last month.’ He pointed his finger at her throat, nearly touching it.