Every Man for Himself - Beryl Bainbridge [41]
He paused again, but I looked at him steadily enough. By the matter of fact way in which he catalogued such dreadful details I was more than ever convinced he must be a lawyer.
‘Two months later the landlord and his wife were arraigned on a charge of murder and Mellor found guilty of putting arsenic, obtained from the soaking of fly-papers, into the Valentine’s meat-juice his wife had so assiduously spooned into their lodger. He was hanged at Pentonville. As your name had featured in the trial, though only in one sentence in one London newspaper, enquiries were set in motion to find you.’
I gathered he had finished, for he looked at me expectantly. Noticing my shoe lace was undone, I bent to tie it.
‘A fortunate turn of events,’ he said. ‘Don’t you agree?’
I uttered not a word. He urged me to take a sip of the whisky but I shook my head; my thoughts were jumbled enough. Now that he had spewed out all he knew he appeared irritated by my silence. He yawned, took out his watch and expressed surprise at the time. ‘I’ll leave you now,’ he said, ‘perhaps we shall meet at dinner,’ and strode to the door. Opening it, he hesitated, then turned to look at me. He said, ‘We are like lambs in the field, cropping the grass under the eye of the butcher who chooses first one then another to meet his requirements. On our good days we have no thought for the tribulations fate may have in store for us – sickness, mutilation, loss of reason, death—’
‘What did I look like when I was five years old?’ I interrupted. ‘Was I small for my age?’
‘Average. Your head was shaved to discourage lice.’
‘What did I say? Did I mention my mother?’
‘You asked after Miss Barrow and a toy horse she had given you.’
‘I have no recollection of the horse,’ I said, but the door was already closing behind him.
Some men shy away from society when life deals an underhand blow. That’s not my way; I need people to restore my spirits and could scarcely wait to join the others for dinner. In Scurra’s company it was necessary to contemplate the exquisite darkness of the world, and though not melancholy by nature I had been touched by shadows. It wasn’t that he’d been overly brutal in his summary of my past – he had, after all, omitted to mention that my mother mouldered in a public grave – rather that he’d been less than sensitive in regard to my infant self. It wouldn’t have cost him much to invent a gleam of intelligence in the baby-blue eyes beneath the shaven scalp.
I was in my dressing-gown preparing to bathe when the steward knocked at the door. In my haste to get rid of him I was foolishly quick in pardoning him for not securing the porthole earlier. He took advantage and loitered over his task. Glancing at me curiously he remarked that an infusion of cold tea was very good for swellings. I jumped to the conclusion that my eyes were puffy and spun him a yarn about an unaccompanied dog having run off with my newspaper. ‘I ran the full length of the ship in pursuit,’ I said. ‘The wind made my eyes water.’
‘Possibly the dog was a retriever, sir,’ he replied. Taking my evening clothes from the wardrobe he laid them out on the bed. ‘Certain winds,’ he continued, ‘are considered to have a detrimental effect on both man and beast. Under their influence the most peaceful of men have been known to lose control and act in an uncharacteristically energetic way. It happened to me once on the Mediterranean run. By inclination I’m what one might call timid, yet come the mistral I set about the ship’s doctor with a poker and laid him out cold, and all because I took a sudden dislike to the way he sprinkled sugar on his pudding.’ Here, he was about to empty the pockets of my day coat when I remembered the note to Wallis and shouted out for him to leave things alone, at which he pursed his lips, put the whisky tumblers on to a tray and flounced from the room.
I realised what he’d been raving about when I caught sight of myself in the glass. Obviously