Injury Time - Beryl Bainbridge [50]
She wasn’t even young enough, she realised when Ginger rolled off her, to feel sorry for herself. It hadn’t mattered that much. He was an ineffectual young man.
He jumped up almost at once and fastened his trousers; he stood smoothing the hair back from his forehead.
‘Everything worked perfect,’ he said. ‘Those mates of mine did everything right, nobody got hurt. We got the bloke at the bank by the short and curlies. The kids went home. They’ll know that by now. We rang up on the dot, like we said – on the bleeding dot.’
‘My son,’ Binny said, ‘wants a motorbike. I shan’t let him have one.’
‘We all left at the same time. Geoff went off down the back of Lemon Street. We weren’t half feeling chuffed. He was meant to come up by the cinema and down past the pet shop. When we couldn’t spot him we went round in circles.’
‘I nearly bought a puppy there,’ said Binny. ‘Alison wanted one. He was lovely – he had a little fat tummy. It’s quite an expense, you know. They have to have injections for ’flu and things.’
‘We were singing in the taxi. Widnes was bouncing up and down like a budgie on a perch.’
Binny sat up and felt with her toes for the discarded tights. ‘Do you know, I passed there one night and there were rats running over the floor. I expect they were drawn by the birdseed. There was one sitting in a cage with a canary. Honestly. The poor thing was turned the other way with its head on its wing, pretending it wasn’t happening.’
‘Get up,’ said Ginger. ‘You go downstairs first. You let out one word and I’ll bust that fat bloke’s nose.’
It wasn’t light but the birds were singing. It was like being in the country. It had been happening for ever, thought Binny, nights passing, dawn coming. All over the city people were lying in bed, either in pairs or alone. In the park, two streets away, grass beaded with dew, health fiends ran in tracksuits along the cinder paths, hurdling squirrels. Organised people had the breakfast table ready laid.
17
It was worse in the morning. More sordid. Harry opened the shutters a fraction and let in daylight. There were plates of congealed food, broken glass, clothing strewn about the room. Even the pink carnations seemed blowsy. Simpson lay like a road casualty under the table; specks of dried blood freckled the knuckles of his outflung hand.
Harry marched them to the bathroom. They stood patiently in the passage awaiting their turn. Binny was concerned that her son’s bicycle was badly damaged.
‘He’ll be so angry,’ she told Edward, fingering the bent spokes of the rear wheel. ‘He loves his bike.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Edward gently. ‘We’ll buy him a new one.’ He looked terrible and appeared to be itching all over. He had run out of tobacco and constantly rummaged in the pockets of his wrinkled suit, hoping for a miracle.
I’ve turned him into an incontinent tramp, thought Binny, regarding his unshaven face, puffy above a shirt collar rusted with Simpson’s blood.
Muriel’s appearance, despite her dishevelled clothes, was wholesome. She had slept longer than any of them and her naturally wavy hair and plump cheeks were an advantage. Her mouth, rubbed free of scarlet lipstick, curved full and rosy.
‘You do look rested,’ said Alma suspiciously. She herself, waxen-faced, eyes curiously exposed without her false lashes, waited corpse-like in her satin dress. Her body, slender in the candle glow, had turned to skin and bone in the morning light.
Widnes stayed in the bathroom while they used the lavatory. He stood facing the yard with his hands over his ears. He hummed a tune. When it was Muriel’s turn she ordered him from the room. He obeyed, lumbering down the passageway with his fair hair sticking up in tufts and his shoulders bowed.
Edward made tea. He helped Simpson to a chair and inspected his wound. He fetched warm water in a porridge bowl and tenderly swabbed the mutilated ear. ‘Does it hurt much?’ he asked.
‘Only when I laugh,’ said Simpson sarcastically. When he kissed Marcia, she had a habit of twining her fingers in his