Muriel said she’d done a first aid course at the Institute, two or three years ago. ‘I only did it to get out of the house,’ she explained. ‘Then later I used it as an excuse.’
‘I don’t much like going out of the house,’ said Binny. ‘I do sometimes when Edward takes me to dinner, but not otherwise.’ She wondered if this was the moment to ask Muriel what she thought of Helen. She didn’t think the two women were terribly friendly – Muriel hadn’t once mentioned Helen during dinner – though perhaps she was just being tactful. Binny longed to hear that Helen was overweight or common or needed to wear a wig. ‘I didn’t mean to interfere in their marriage,’ she said. ‘If he hadn’t come to dinner she would never have known. I’d have given him up in the end.’
‘The third week,’ Muriel said, laying the strips of cotton in neat rows upon the green table, ‘we stopped sitting in front of the blackboard and did practical work. A man had fallen off a ladder and we attended to him.’
‘I’d have run the other way,’ admitted Binny. ‘I couldn’t have gone near him.’
‘He hadn’t really fallen off a ladder,’ Muriel said. ‘There were possible internal injuries and multiple fractures on both legs—’
‘Good Heavens.’
‘I was given his right leg. I put on splints. The following week he treated me for burns. We met secretly for twelve months.’
After a moment’s silence, Binny asked: ‘What happened? Did Simpson find out?’
‘We wanted somewhere to go. Once we went into a field, but it wasn’t very satisfactory. I asked a woman friend of mine if we could use her house one afternoon. We’d been at school together. She’d met X and she said he was a fine man – we could have the house any time we wanted. We were always good chums at school. She even offered to have a key cut for me. Her husband was dead, you see, and she went out to work.’
‘What a nice woman,’ said Binny. She sensed some tragedy was about to be disclosed.
‘When I told X he was delighted. It was Thursday and I’d been to the hairdresser. It rained and rained. We’d decided beforehand that it would be more exciting if I arrived first and waited for him like a wife . . . I’d let him in. It would be more like our own home—’
‘Actually,’ objected Binny, ‘he’d have his key if it was home.’ She could have bitten her tongue for putting her thoughts into words. Muriel had closed her eyes and was gripping the edge of the table.
She said: ‘I waited for hours. He didn’t come. I never heard from him again.’
Binny picked up the rags of cotton and wound them round her wrist; they weren’t long enough to bind anybody’s chest. ‘Perhaps he was run over,’ she said finally. She prayed he had been. How Muriel had suffered – waiting at a window for the kiss of life and recalling, while listening for the sound of Mr X’s footsteps squelching up the path, those nursing nights they’d swabbed and cleaned and tended imaginary wounds.
‘I wore this dress,’ said Muriel.
Binny looked out into the street and saw a large crowd gathered behind a barrier on the corner; she almost waved. A television camera, angled on the roof of a van, was pointing directly at the house. She hoped the eggshells wouldn’t show up in the bedraggled hedge. As she watched, craning for a glimpse of Lucy or Gregory, a door opened in the flats opposite. Draped in a travelling rug, Mrs Papastavrou advanced to the balcony railings. One long high-pitched wail echoed along the street before several policemen leapt from other doorways and hustled her inside.
She’s made a mistake, thought Binny. It can’t be half-past six.
Behind her, the injured woman groaned. Leaving Muriel lost in nightmares at the table, Binny took a pillow to the divan; she was bending down to slip it into place when the woman groaned again, and uncurling herself from that foetal position against the wall lay flat on her back in the bed. She was a man.
20
T
hey didn’t see the house or the street on television after all. Something had gone wrong with the set.
‘You do have trouble with your plugs, pet,’ said Alma, disappointed. She was hoping that Frank might have been interviewed and that he would have said what a wonderful wife and mother she was. It wasn’t very likely, but then appearing on television did peculiar things to people.
Edward was brought from the bathroom at seven o’clock. He couldn’t help remembering the night before when they’d eaten bread and cheese by candlelight. Binny said it was today, but he found it hard to believe. He had gone twelve hours without tobacco and was feeling both edgy and depressed. Simpson told him that his name hadn’t actually been mentioned on the radio, but he’d been referred to as a prominent accountant.
‘They mentioned Simpson’s name,’ Alma told him. ‘They’d appealed for any information, and a woman came forward and said he’d telephoned her earlier in the evening.’ She beamed at Simpson proudly; she felt he was something of a celebrity.
‘It’s all nonsense,’ Simpson said wearily. ‘They get everything wrong.’ He didn’t know why he was bothering to deny it – they could have said he was a notorious mass-murderer and Muriel wouldn’t have noticed.
Ginger informed them that they were moving out before midnight. He’d taken a suitcase from the upstairs room and now sat with it firmly gripped between his knees. ‘Everybody hold on,’ he said. ‘And do as you’re told.’
‘Moving out?’ asked Edward, bewildered. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Not you, Fatso,’ said Ginger. ‘Us and one of the women. Maybe two of them.’
Edward didn’t believe him; they were obviously bluffing. ‘I haven’t written my letter,’ he told Simpson.
‘When we go,’ Ginger said. ‘You and Curly Tops here will help Geoff into the cab. We’ll follow with the women.’
‘Geoff?’ said Edward. He noticed there was a packet of American cigarettes in the top pocket of Ginger’s leather jacket. He was too proud to ask for one.
‘That suitcase,’ whispered Simpson. ‘They must have stolen things from various parts of the house.’
‘There’s nothing worth stealing,’ Edward said.
He roamed the kitchen, searching feverishly in the cupboard and the fridge for something to eat. The sausages had disappeared. He could make little sense of Binny’s ramblings about the man upstairs being a woman. There were three potatoes in the vegetable rack, but he knew that if he cooked them they’d have to be shared out.
‘She isn’t a woman,’ said Binny. ‘She’s a man. She’s got hairs on her chest. Why don’t you listen?’
‘I’m so damned hungry,’ he complained miserably. ‘Can’t you think where you put that pudding you lost?’
‘It’s in a carrier bag,’ said Binny. ‘That’s all I know.’ She stared at him accusingly. ‘You’re not worried about them taking me with them, are you? You couldn’t care less.’
‘They’re not going anywhere,’ said Edward distractedly. ‘Why don’t you have a store cupboard?’
‘She was in the bank this afternoon. Yesterday. She smiled at me and I just knew there was something odd. She was looking me up and down like a man.’
‘Out of my way,’ said Edward. Binny was holding on to his arm and hampering his search. ‘Please stop getting under my feet.’
She let go of him and stepped backwards to the sink.
‘Don’t,’ he pleaded, irritated by her pathetic expression. ‘Please forgive me. I’m so hungry.’ He put his arms round her and patted her back. Over her bowed head his eyes restlessly sought the carrier bag.
Binny said: ‘You promised we’d be together. Did you mean it?’
‘Well,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I may have spoken out of turn. One does, you know.’
‘Does one?’ she said contemptuously. Still, she remained in his embrace. ‘I thought you didn’t care about the roses . . . you just wanted me.’
‘I do, I do,’ he murmured inadequately. ‘But not at this moment. I really can’t think of anything, feeling the way I do.’ He propped her against the sink and peered in the corner beside the fridge. ‘It’s all right for you,’ he grumbled. ‘You’re not used to four-course lunches every day.’ He was disgusted to see small insects crawling in the cracks between the floorboards and the wall. ‘You really should clean this up. It’s dreadfully unhygienic.’ He was shifting the fridge on its base, eager to uncover some verminous nest. He saw a plastic bag wedged against the skirting board. ‘I’ve found it,’ he cried delightedly. He was astonished at the weight of the pudding. Parting the handles, he lifted out the silver balls. He set them on the window ledge. ‘I thought you meant a pie,’ he said. He could have wept with disappointment.
‘All you think about,’ said Binny, ‘is your stomach or your roses. Or your precious wife. Nothing else matters. You don’t know how the other half lives.’
He frowned. ‘I never said she was precious. Certainly not in your hearing.’
‘I’ve been raped,’ said Binny.
He found he was smiling; he couldn’t help it.
‘By him,’ Binny said. She looked in the direction of the other room.
He saw Simpson slumped in the armchair with the absurd bow on his head.
‘You’re disgusting,’ she said. ‘You think it’s a joke.’
He moved to hold her, to comfort her.
‘Don’t come near me,’ she warned. ‘I don’t know how I ever let you touch me. I’d need gloves to come near you.’
Troubled, he tried to concentrate. He stared at the silver-coated apples on the window sill; he was dazzled by sunlight. His father’s hand, hidden in a leather glove, was raised to strike. Muldoon had split on him. He was a disgrace . . . not fit to mix with decent folk . . . I’m ashamed . . . I shan’t forgive you . . . The lovely shining badge skittered across a polished table. The field stretched green and sweet-smelling to the boundary line. That rotter Jonas, clothed in white, stood in the slips shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun . . .
Taking up an apple from the ledge, Edward rubbed it along his groin and, raising his arm, bowled from the shoulder at Simpson’s head.
He missed. The apple smashed against the shutters, the silver paper unravelled and the fruit slid downwards, slimy on the woodwork. It plopped on to the carpet.
21
A
t ten o’clock Ginger ordered Edward and Simpson to help Geoff downstairs. Muriel said it would be far better if one of them carried him slung against their back like a baby in a shawl. That way it wouldn’t hurt him so much.
‘I can’t do anything of that nature,’ said Simpson curtly. ‘I’d fall.’ He didn’t relish the injured woman clutching his throbbing ear. Let Freeman do it. The damn fool seemed to have enough surplus energy – hurling things about the room in that irresponsible way when they were going to be released at any moment. His aim was ludicrous.
Edward experienced great difficulty in helping the woman down the stairs and into the hall. He couldn’t think of her as a man. He didn’t like to grasp her under the armpits in case he touched her breasts. When he dumped her on the floor by the front door he averted his eyes from her exposed thigh. He had dreams of telling Simpson to take his account elsewhere, and then of writing anonymously to the Inland Revenue accusing him of tax evasion.
The gunmen found a ladies’ razor in the bathroom and shaved themselves. Clothes brushed and hair freshly combed, they waited for the police to knock at the door.
‘It’s all nonsense,’ Edward confided to Alma. ‘They can’t possibly have arranged it.’
‘They did, pet,’ said Alma. ‘When you were in the bathroom. They used the telephone.’ She’d asked Ginger twice who he intended to take with him, but he’d refused to answer. She wouldn’t have minded being chosen; she was quite certain they’d be stopped by road blocks once they reached the open road. She wondered if her message about the alarm clock had got through. If it hadn’t, it was possible that Frank and Victor were still fast asleep. If she went as a travelling hostage it would give them more time to wake up, and then none of her ordeal would be wasted. ‘Doesn’t he look as if he’s going on his holidays?’ she said, beaming at Ginger, spruce in his chair, Binny’s suitcase safe between his knees.
22
S
ome minutes after eleven o’clock, Ginger flung the shutters wide; the broken window let in the night air. They heard vehicles, voices in the street. The women rose in agitation and touched their tousled hair, smoothed their dresses.
‘This is how it’s going to be,’ said Ginger. ‘And I don’t want no mistakes.’ He stood Harry and Widnes shoulder to shoulder in the centre of the room. He placed Edward in front of them, facing outwards. He told Simpson and the women to form a circle round the three in the middle.
‘Ring-a-ring-o’-roses,’ he shouted. ‘Link up.’
Simpson was appalled to find he was holding hands with Ginger. He tried to move places, but the gunman held his fingers in a vice.
‘Not so close,’ Ginger ordered. ‘Spread yourselves out.’
‘Why are we guarding Teddy, pet?’ asked Alma.
‘He’s me,’ said Ginger. ‘He’s standing in for me, isn’t he? Right. We move down the hall like this and then on to the step. Nobody lets go. Anybody gets clever and I’ll blow their head off. It doesn’t matter now – there’s a whole bloody army out there. We get to the car—’
‘Holding hands?’ said Edward. ‘Who’s going to open the door?’
‘When we reach the car, you and him’ – Ginger stabbed his finger at Simpson and Edward – ‘you stay in the road and keep Harry in the middle. Then you go back into the house and get Geoff out of the bathroom.’
‘I can’t remember all this,’ said Edward testily. ‘I’ve had very little sleep.’
‘Listen,’ Ginger said. ‘You and him don’t get into—’
A voice, magnified nasally by a loud speaker, called from the street:
‘Attention. Attention. Proceed to car, registration number OBY 439N, cream Cortina, stationed in middle of road. Engine running, rear left-hand door open. Repeat, proceed to car—’
For an instant nobody moved. Then Ginger, breaking the chain of hands, went into the passage. ‘I’m warning you,’ he shouted. ‘Keep still.’