He Died with His Eyes Open (7 page)

She didn't say anything, but put her wrist over her mouth and started screaming at him from behind it. Grampian darted me hopeless glances, as much as to say: We're both men, old boy!

I took no notice. I leaned against a table covered with bric-a-brac and left him to settle her down if he could. He managed to get her up onto a sofa, dashed out to the kitchen and came back with a damp cloth which he smacked onto her face. She screamed even louder, snatched the towel away and threw it on the floor. Grampian picked it up again and put it back on her face, leaning on her this time to stop her getting up. The table I had settled my bottom against creaked loudly. He heard that all right. 'Not that table, if you please!' he shouted politely above the din. 'It's quite valuable!'

I stood upright, just looking through them, thinking about Staniland. Mrs Staniland eyed me from time to time from under her wet towel. As soon as she realized there was no mileage to be got out of me, she came to her senses surprisingly fast and sat up little the worse for wear.

'I must apologize for that,' said Grampian.

'Apologize?' she shouted. 'You dirty old man!'

'Now, now, Betty! My wife's a very highly strung woman,' he confided to me, aside.

'Now, now, my foot!' snapped Mrs Staniland. 'Our marriage nearly broke up when I found he'd been going with her.
Very
nearly.' Grampian might as well have been in Edinburgh for all the notice she took of him. He went and stood by the door looking sheepish, wringing the towel nervously in his rosy hands.

'Did your brother-in-law know anything about all this?' I asked.

'Pah,' said Mrs Staniland, 'who cares? I shouldn't think so. But I'll tell you this much, Sergeant, do you know how I found out about it?' She stabbed a sharpened finger at him: 'He talked in his sleep.'

'Look here, Betty!' said Grampian. 'Now really—'

'Oh, yes you did!' she shrieked. 'Don't you remember how you used to mumble that she wore nothing but a fur coat and gilt slippers when she came to you? And opened up the coat over your face? And didn't you love it? And didn't you spend a thousand pounds of my money on her, you filthy old goat?' She turned to me and said calmly: 'We sleep in separate rooms now, of course.'

'Was your brother running her?' I asked Grampian.

'No, she did it off her own bat,' he mumbled. 'I'm sure she gave him the money I gave her.' He twisted his fingers till the knuckles snapped: 'She loved him.'

'Love?' shrieked Mrs Staniland. 'Her?'

'Well, she joined him in France with the child, anyway,' I said. 'But what matters to me is, does either of you happen to know where she is now?'

'She's the sort that moves around,' said Mrs Staniland grimly.

'Okay,' I said, 'well, I think that's all. For the moment.'

'What do you mean,' said Mrs Staniland, sitting up straight, 'for the moment?'

'Well, I've got other people to interview, and you never know— a lot more'll come out once we really get digging.'

'Nothing that might redound to our discredit, I hope?' said Grampian anxiously 'I don't think my wife and I could stand it if... I mean, we've told you things between these four walls that...'

'Is it going to get into the papers?' said Mrs Staniland. 'That's what I want to know.'

'I couldn't possibly tell you,' I said coldly. 'I don't know.'

'God, I shall really scream if it does,' said Mrs Staniland.

'Now, now, Betty!'

I squashed the cigarette I had been smoking into one of the eleven silver ashtrays. 'Well, I'll be going,' I said. 'If either of you leaves home, would you notify your local police station, please?'

'Er, quite,' said Grampian. They followed me dumbly with their eyes as I squeezed my way out of the room. As I reached the front door I heard Mrs Staniland saying behind me: 'God damn Charles. God damn him!'

That was one way of talking about the dead.

'As for Margo,' she continued, 'I hope she goes to jail, the little slut!'

Grampian said: 'Now, now, Betty, don't you think you ought to take two of your pills?'

'If you weren't completely impotent, Grampian, I wouldn't need any pills!'

I slammed the front door behind me to indicate that I had gone; when I got out into the street I breathed in a very deep breath, then expelled it right out from the bottom of my lungs.

9

Looking through Staniland's things, I found a postcard in a woman's handwriting. The card bore a faded view of some Italian beach but a British stamp, and was postmarked SW3. It started: 'Let me know, Charles, when you are
truly
sorry. Then perhaps we can talk.'

Sorry? I thought. The man was a walking wound, a mobile case of sorrow. The woman's remark, whoever she was, was not merely inapposite but absurd: to require Staniland to feel regret or remorse for what he was amounted to telling a man with terminal cancer that he looked rather ill.

The card continued: 'It will of course, Charles, only be a talk. There can, as you yourself must quite realize, be no question whatever of a return to the past.' The card was signed with a self-conscious squiggle that reminded me of an ageing virgin trying to shake an impertinent finger out of her knickers.

Staniland had sensibly annotated the card: 'What balls. Any return to the past would be as improbable as it's uninteresting."L" had no past—she tried to use mine instead: a self-satisfied old cow of about my own age who introduced herself to me on the beach at Rimini. She had few ideas unconnected with her money, and I tweaked her nose for it one night after dinner.'

The next thing I got out of the pile was a pasteboard card for a minicab firm called Planet Cars with an address in the shabby part of the West End towards Euston Road. Underneath I read the words: 'High Class Cars, Distance No Object, Theatres, Weddings, All Functions Attended. Also Vans, Trucks to Five Ton & Arties, Helpful Drivers.'

There were three phone numbers at the bottom of the card, and I saw no reason why I shouldn't try one of them.

10

'E ad a wife, you know.'

'Yes, I'd heard.'

'And a kiddie.'

'That's right.'

I was taking my ease today, being invited to relax with the boss of Planet Cars. The office was on the second floor of a dingy building behind Charlotte Street, sandwiched between a Pakistani restaurant called the Allahabad, European and Indian Dishes, and a delicatessen that specialized in tinned mangoes, chillies and ladies' fingers. The bow window we were sitting in peered out at a rather alarming angle onto a public lavatory, kept permanently locked against queers and youths who wanted to give head or shoot up in there. Behind this urinary redoubt was a pub called the Quadrant, in which the Factory took a permanent interest.

Around us, at desks in the room, were three startlingly white girls, two of whom looked adoringly at their boss while the third read the
Standard
and did her nails. Also there was an Irish accountant, the first I had ever seen, doing the drivers' figures with the aid of a computer terminal, and the whole area was sprinkled with bilious green telephones which didn't often ring—if one did try, the call was instantly cut off by the adorers and transferred to the overworked dispatchers' office on the floor below. From that floor I could hear voices drifting up through the thin planks. The day dispatcher groaned on to his underlings about the shortcomings of fucking amateurs, while out of the window I could see the only roller-skater the firm had. It said Planet 209 in black and yellow on his back, and he swept to an easy stop in front of the office with a practised double eight, relinquishing the boot of an SS 100. I watched him take off his skates and make for the stairs, his satchel for documents booming off his muscled buttocks, his swatched blond hair swirling against his hips. 'New set of needles today, Dave,' I heard him call out to someone. 'Twenty bleedin quid!'

'We like to entertain the law,' the boss of Planet was saying to me. 'Oh, yes, we ain't got nothin to fear from the law.' He was a small man whose tailor, having measured him for a little suit, would have charged him the price for a big one. He evidently didn't care about things like that, being more interested in the bottle he was pulling out of his desk drawer. 'Come on, Sarge, just a little one,' he said in a confiding tone. 'Chivas Regal, ha, ha, Chivas Illegal, the lads call it.'

'Well, if it really fell off the back of a truck,' I said, 'it might as well go the distance and on down your throat. Nothing you can do about Newton's third law. But not for me, thanks.'

'Newton's,' he said reflectively. 'Newton's. I worked as a driver for them lot of bastards once. Little firm up by Finsbury Park there, where you throw a left on Seven Sisters Road by the underground, you know the scene.'

I knew it. Although I had asked him not to, he poured some of the nectar into my glass just the same, so I picked it up.

'Well, here's luck,' he said, drinking. He looked at me more closely. 'Funny, you don't look like just any old size-nine turnip to me, you look like you'd got brains. Call me Tony,' he added, 'you might just as well. Tony Creamley's the name. If ever the law fires you, why not come to me for a job; you look as if you'd had some practice with a jamjar, ha, ha.'

'Easy,' I said, 'that kind of joke tires me out rather fast.'

'Oh, yeah,' he said, 'sure, okay. Nothing diabolical intended, Sarge.'

'Nor taken.'

'Luckily,' he said. The phone beside him rang and he answered it, waving an adorer aside and staring absently out of the window at a tramp trying to have a pee unseen on the pavement while chewing philosophically on a dead matchstick. He soon got tired of the voice I could hear quacking into his ear and said: 'No, you want Creamley Cars, darling, that's five oh one double three double four. This is Planet, son.' He listened for about three seconds more with his eyes shut and said: 'Now, don't give me a lot of blag—if you're not happy with your Creamley account, get in touch with their manager, that's what he's paid for. I should know, my boy pays him, sometimes, ha, ha. On your bike, get lost.'

He slapped the phone down, turned to me, and said: 'Some people are born to moan, aren't they, born to moan. Now, Creamley Cars,' he added proudly, 'that's my son's—that's Clive's own outfit. Three Rollers e's got on the strength, three Mercs an a couple of bran-new four-door BMWs. Nice, nice little leasehold in Cannon Street.' He sighed. 'Smart lad, my Clive, bright as you like, 'n idle as a whore on a Monday morning— all he thinks about is goin off to Greece where he's layin this bit of local shirley temple. Yet e's got this sweet little business, pays off better'n any bird and it don't talk back—sweet's a nut, right under his feet, I set im up, I should know. E works the City, see, we works the West End here at Planet. Mind, there was the time he tried to muscle in on me, did Clive. "At least," I says to im dignified, "leave your old dad the bit where Planet got started." No—e thinks e's a ard man.' He shook his head; it wobbled like an oyster on the end of a drunkard's fork. 'Mind, Clive knows what's good for im, which side the old bread's buttered. Don't e, Eileen?' he said, looking over at one of the adoring girls.

'Oh, yes, Mr Creamley,' she glittered, adoring away like mad.

'That's how we operate here at Planet, see?' said Creamley with satisfaction. 'All one happy family, get it?'

'I'll bet!' I said.

'I don't play rough anymore,' he said, sucking his lips. 'No need, see? Not nowadays. Wait till they go into liquidation. Buy em up, don't rough em up, that's my motto. That's why you don't see no firm but Planet round here anymore. Not round here. Mind you—'.

'Mind you,' I said, 'you're talking to a copper.'

'Christ, so I am,' he said, smacking his forehead, 'it's funny, you don't come on like a copper somehow; you must be either a good one or a fucking bad one. Anyway, this boy you're here about, I know him from this snap of yours, that was Planet Two Four.' He took a deep draught of his Scotch and looked reminiscently at the photograph between us. 'I can recognize him, just,' he said, 'but Christ they din't half carve him up.' He exhaled and nodded introspectively several times.

'My time's the taxpayer's,' I remarked, 'so I'm always in a hurry. I don't know who pays you for yours.'

'Oh, that's the punters,' he said. 'I've got all my time, I've won it before I've got up.'

'Bully for you, Tony,' I said. 'Can we get back to Two Four?'

'Oh, sure.' He drew a bead on a French spotlight with his forefinger. 'Not much of a driver, Two Four—always behind with his rent and his drops. Didn't know how to present himself to a customer, neither. Nor the motor. I asked and asked him, went down on my bleedin knees, but e wouldn't even wear a peaked cap and dicky for a wedding. I said to him: Look, you know how it is, Two Four, you gotter say lick your arse, sir, touch the hat, bit of the abdabs, morning madam, fine day, carry your bags, then stick the old hand out for a bit of the dropsy. But no, Two Four wasn't into any of that. We ad some right complaints about Two Four back ere at the office. First off, I recall, e'd got this big old banger rented him, a Renault 16, so e got a few airport jobs—e'd race out to Heathrow, undred mile an hour, frighten the punter half out of is wits. Mind, the geezer always caught is plane—usually with a bit too much time to spare for is liking. E used to leave em gaspin, did Two Four. But e wouldn't chat em up the way you've gotter if you want a good tip. I mean, they're only business cunts and that; they only want to be made to feel they're somethin special while they're on their way out to the plane, don't cost the driver fuck all to feed em a bit. Other way round: the driver scores an the punter thinks, that firm Planet, they've got a bit of class. But no, Two Four'd only talk to the punters who din't wanter talk, and even then it was all about France an such. Yes, we lost a few nice accounts down to Two Four; folks used to ring up an complain to me personally something rotten.'

'A bit eccentric.'

'I don't know what that word means,' said Mr Creamley frankly, 'but anyway, in the death we ad to get rid of him. Busy afternoon it was too, a Friday. This woman come stormin' into the dispatchers looking for Two Four. "Where is he?" she says to Smitty. Threatens him, like. He's only a young lad—Brownie and my head dispatcherine, ugly bird with a
Harper's Bazaar
voice, were off on the river ooze. "Where's who?" says Smitty." Well, you call him Two Four," she says, "but I know im better as my husband." Dreadful state she was in, cryin an er face all in a mess. Pity—she wasn't a bad-lookin tart at that; I'd ave let er ave One Eight and the 220D (though not Three Three an the Roller), all on credit. "E's gone off with some whore," screams this bird, "is little kiddie and I aven't seen im for a week, I've ad no money from im an I'm at my wits' end." "Look," says Smitty, "I've got work to do, I've got four phones ringin here case you can't ear em, missis, an the rest of the mob as fucked off." E was only obeying firm's orders, see? A lot of our drivers don't use their right names—we do all cash here at Planet, an the last thing a driver wants is to work is cogs off an still get done by the Inland Revenue. Also, you get a lot of funny folks come lookin for the drivers, ex-girlfriends, creditors, writ-servers an the like, an some of em don't half tell artful stories. Anyway, come to a rub, Smitty sends for me—I'd bin listenin in over the intercom anyway. I din't really fancy avin to deal with this boiler; I'd bin playin dealer's choice all night up at Whipps Cross. My ead felt like a bladder flattened between two bricks an I'd a mouth like St Paneras Station. So I sent for two of the van drivers (we do a nice van ere at Planet), One Seven One an One Eight Five, they're from Mile End and fairly heavy, an I ad em give er the arries. But not before she'd gone ahead screamin as ow she'd find im, she was is missis an all, an what was e gointer do about supportin the kiddie an all.'