Injury Time - Beryl Bainbridge [36]
‘He’s awfully sweet,’ Alma said into Binny’s ear. ‘You shouldn’t be so cross with him, darling. It’s quite natural to go to the chemist.’
Ginger and Harry entered the room. Edward caught himself nodding. It was like growing familiar with people on the television – actors, celebrities – and then seeing them on the tube or in a restaurant. One imagined one knew them socially.
Harry was holding his hands distastefully in front of him. ‘It’s bloody disgusting up there, missus,’ he said. ‘Don’t you believe in cleaning?’ He went to the sink and turned the tap full on.
Despite his rudeness Binny wondered if she should offer to make a cup of tea. It wouldn’t be a fawning gesture – more of a cooperative one, in line with Edward’s suggestion.
Ginger murmured something into the woman’s ear. She put the gun down on the draining board and attempted to pull herself upright.
‘You’re breaking my heart,’ cried Ginger. ‘Stop playing silly buggers.’
Kicking off her high-heeled shoes and wincing with pain, the woman succeeded in standing.
‘What about them?’ asked Harry.
‘Christ,’ Ginger said. ‘They’re all past it. We’ve landed in an old people’s club.’ He looked scornfully at the group around the table. ‘Stay exactly where you are,’ he told them, ‘and you won’t get hurt.’ He followed Harry and the woman into the hall and shut the door.
‘Of course, it’s dark,’ observed Alma, after a moment’s silence. ‘And I’ve got this dreadful coat on.’ She struggled with the toggles at the front. ‘What on earth possessed you to wrap me in this thing, darling?’
‘You’d been sick over everything else,’ Binny said. She was trying to hold in her stomach muscles. She had never pretended to be younger than she was. There was hardly any grey in her hair and sometimes in the warm weather, in a summery outfit, people remarked how juvenile she looked. She glanced at Muriel. She was somewhat thick about the waist and her make-up was elderly – powdered cheeks and pencilled brows – but she wasn’t decrepit by any means. Ginger was probably referring to Simpson and Edward, with their beer bellies and their old men’s suits.
‘I’m frantic to spend a penny,’ said Edward. He squirmed in his seat and the rickety chair swayed under him. He remembered a newspaper report he’d read about people being locked up in a vault for several days. The article hadn’t spelt it out in so many words, but reading between the lines it was obvious everyone peed into a communal bucket. Some men, he realised, rather went for that sort of carry on – women squatting, tinkling into chamber pots and so forth. He himself grew faint with nausea at the prospect.
‘We ought,’ said Simpson, looking directly at Edward, ‘to be thinking of a way out of this mess. Just in case your cooperation theory doesn’t work. I’d like to have an alternative plan up my sleeve.’
‘I never suggested total cooperation—’
‘It’s true,’ said Binny loyally. ‘He did mention firmness as well.’
‘I don’t altogether care for being firm,’ said Simpson. ‘Not when I’m under armed guard. What I propose is that we try to create some kind of diversion and then one of us should make a break for it.’
Edward stared at him appalled. ‘I don’t really see what good that would do. It would have to be me or you and that would leave the women with very little protection.’
‘Any minute,’ said Simpson, stabbing the tablecloth with his finger, ‘they could start separating us. Taking away our sense of unity. You upstairs, Binny in the bathroom, the rest of us scattered elsewhere, bound and gagged.’
‘Do stop it,’ protested Edward. ‘Can’t you see you’re alarming the girls?’
‘What sort of diversion?’ asked Alma with interest. She was thinking of a film she’d seen in which prisoners of war gave a concert party while under the stage a tunnel was being dug.
‘There’s a back door,’ Binny said helpfully. ‘It leads into the garden.’
‘It’s quite impossible,’ cried Edward.