Heart of War (76 page)

‘They wanted to make my Fletcher a corporal,' Willum crowed. ‘He told us in a letter, but he said no.'

Bob grunted again. He didn't know young Fletcher Gorse well, but from what he'd heard he was best at getting the girls on their backs. Still, it must take all sorts to run a war.

Jimmy Blaydon said, ‘You or your missus been to the H.U.S.L. shop, Mr Stratton? My missus says it's wonderful – everything cheap, and beef and veg and fruit and fish all there too … lots of smart girls to serve you … everything wrapped up in a jiffy, in shiny yellow paper with H.U.S.L. on it in red …'

Bob grunted, ‘No.' Jane had talked about going to the H.U.S.L. – it had been Paradine's grocery shop before Hoggin bought Paradine out – but they'd never been. Ethel had, and liked it, said it was very convenient, but she thought the goods were poor quality; and that was enough for Jane. But he'd heard it was full all day, every day. When Ruth had married Hoggin he and Jane had thought it was a toss-up which of them – Ruth or Ethel, marrying that dago waiter – had done the worst for herself. Well, they'd been wrong about Hoggin, might as well admit it.

The whistle blew and the women trooped back into the factory. Bob went to his office and worked on indents and accounts with the secretary until four, when he made one more round of the shops, then got onto his bicycle and
pedalled home to 85 Jervis Street. As he carried his bicycle up the front steps, the door opened and his daughter, Ethel, appeared. She'd worked in the factory for a time, the time when she was very depressed over Fagioletti divorcing her. But she'd stopped working two, three months ago, and stopped being depressed. Fagioletti might be in the Army in France – but he wasn't in the clutches of that other woman. She was looking cheerful now, as she said, ‘Did you have a nice day, Father?'

‘No,' he said. ‘Same's usual.' Too many women, he almost added; but didn't. He went into the back parlour. ‘Where's Mother?' he started to ask, then turned the question into a grunt. His wife was, as he well knew, in Bristol with her sister, who had been taken seriously ill and was expected to die at any moment. Jane had been away three days already.

Ethel said, ‘What would like for your tea, Father?'

He thought and said, ‘A bite of cold meat and bubble-and-squeak, if there's any.'

‘Oh yes, we had cabbage and potatoes with our dinner and I know there's plenty left over. I'll make it.'

Bob went upstairs, washed, came down and waited till Ethel brought him his high tea with the meat, bubble-and-squeak, and a big pot of tea, finishing up with a slice of bread and butter and strawberry jam. That finished, he looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. It read six o'clock. He rose heavily, wiped his mouth with the napkin and said, ‘I'll go down to the shed and work on Victoria a bit – a couple of hours, likely. She's nearly ready for another test.'

Ethel sprang to her feet, ‘Oh, just wait till I take these things down for Ivy to wash up, and I'll come with you.'

Bob grunted and walked down the passage to the back door. He'd been to the shed a couple of times since Jane went to Bristol, and both times Ethel had insisted on coming down with him. She had no interest in machinery – never had had. So why was she so keen now? Had Jane told her to keep an eye on her father? Didn't trust him, in spite of his promises that he'd never put the sign in the window again? Well, that he hadn't … yet. But going down to the wasteland, and watching the girls play hopscotch, and giving one sixpence to take down her drawers – it wasn't the same.

In the shed he set up the motor cycle on its test bed, and began his tests. Ethel arrived before he had started, and sat in
the corner on a stool, knitting khaki socks – for whom, he wondered. They did not speak a word to each other. Bob ran the rubber exhaust extension out through its hole in the wall and started the machine, attaching it to the prony brake. His target was a torque of 32 foot-pounds at 3,500 revolutions per minute. This, translated into brake horsepower, came to 21.32 – theoretically enough to thrust the weight of Victoria, fuelled and ready, plus his own weight, in summer racing clothes, through the air and over the ground at 102 miles per hour.

The engine roared louder as he throttled up. It had no tachometer – couldn't afford the weight – but Bob could estimate the engine revs very accurately. He was now close to 3,000.

He throttled up again. Better hurry, or the friction in the brake at the pulley would be enough to set the blocks on fire. He was hunched in the saddle, crouched forward over the handlebars as though he was in fact racing forward at a hundred miles an hour instead of rocking and roaring on the stand. 3,200 … the counterweights began to rise.

‘Father!' His daughter's voice was a shriek.

Bob throttled back. The counterweights sagged to the floor. He looked at Ethel. She was holding up her hand, shouting ‘Stop!'

He throttled all the way down until the engine sound was no more than a deep mutter in the little shed. Ethel said, ‘There's a telegraph boy outside … Oh dear!' She suddenly slipped off her stool, holding her hand to her heart – ‘Suppose it's from the War Office …'

Bob said, ‘Only one way to find out.' He went to the door and opened it. The telegraph boy handed him a pink envelope and a book – ‘Sign here, please sir.'

Bob said, ‘It's for you, Ethel.'

‘Open it, Father,' she whispered. ‘I couldn't … It might be Niccolo…'

Bob opened the envelope with his thumb nail, found his glasses and put them on. He read aloud: ‘Take room for us Grosvenor Hotel Victoria Arriving late July 31 six days leave Nick Fagioletti Corporal.'

Ethel stood upright, her hands to her cheeks – ‘July 31 … when's that?'

‘Today.'

‘Oh! Oh! He's coming back … and he wants me!'

‘Don't you have no shame, going back to that dago after what he did to you?'

‘He's my husband,' she said simply. ‘
I
always knew he'd come back, after he'd got tired of that woman.'

‘Your mother will be cross with you. She thinks Fagioletti's treated you bad, and there's other fish in the sea for you. It isn't as if you had kids.'

She said, ‘We will now, Father. I
know
we will. He's changed … he's a corporal!'

‘Has been that for months, hasn't he? In the officer's mess, likely, because he's a good waiter.'

She said, ‘I must go, Father … There's a train at 7.43 I can catch easily. I'll run up and pack a bag and then I'll go down to the station on my bicycle. It has a carrier.'

She hurried out and away. Doesn't worry about what I'm going to eat till Jane comes home, Bob thought, grumbling to himself. Leaves me alone in the house with that Ivy, who can only think of when she'll be free to go to the cinema and see Mary Pickford.

He turned back to Victoria, but stopped with one hand on the handlebars. Jane in Bristol, Ethel on her way to London. Neither of them would be back for a few days. He'd take' Victoria up to 3,500 revs tomorrow, or Sunday. Meantime…

He went out of the back gate, and headed for the wasteland where the children of the poorest played among the tin cans and broken bricks and ash and clinker refuse from coal fires.

Next day Bob left the factory at his usual time, bicycled home, ate his high tea, and at a few minutes past six went down to the shed, and set up Victoria; but, before doing that, he opened a drawer in his work bench and took out the picture of the Rowland Ruby, and stuck it in the window facing the lane at the back, the picture visible to the lane, the curtains drawn behind it.

He set up Victoria, connected up the prony brake, led the exhaust hose out through its hole, started the machine, and waited. The engine throbbed slowly and a little unevenly, until she was well warmed up. Then he climbed into the saddle, and began to open up the throttle. He had reached about 2,800 revs when he heard the knock on the door. He waited a moment, feeling a vein in his temple beginning to
pound; then pushed the throttle lever closed. The engine's roar died away, and he slid off, went to the door and opened it.

She was eleven, wearing a torn dress that had once been yellow, black cotton stockings with holes in them, and boy's black shoes two sizes too big for her. Her face was smudged with ash … she was about five feet or five feet one, her face long and thin, the eyes alert and wide set, greenish, her hair long and brown and dirty, hanging to her shoulders on both sides. She'd been playing in the refuse yesterday and he'd told her he'd give her a shilling if she'd come to him, but make sure the picture was in the window before she knocked. She had looked at him with those green eyes wide – she knew, damn her, they all knew – and nodded. Now she held out her hand – long hand, long fingers – ‘Gimme the bob, mister.'

He took a shilling from his trouser pocket and gave it to her, feeling his penis stiffen inside his trousers as he did so. ‘What's your name?' he asked, as she took the coin and dropped it into a pocket at the side of the dress.

‘Ireenie,' she said, and then, ‘My mother's an 'ore.'

He said, ‘Lift up your dress, Irene.' She looked him in the eye a moment, a half smile curling her thin lips, then slowly, lasciviously, raised the hem of the tattered skirt, up past her knees … above the top of the stockings … Bob's breath came faster, one hand caressing his beard, the other fumbling at his fly buttons. The penis sprang out, fully erect, at the instant that the hem of her skirt revealed her plump mount of Venus, the deep dark slit plunging down between her closed thighs.

‘Here,' he said thickly. He sat down on a stool and held out his hands. She came forward, step by step, the hem of the dress hovering just above the rounded top of her slit.

When she was close he put out one hand and touched it, sliding up and down. Not a hair, smooth, a little damp. He smelled his finger and gasped … just like that girl … near sixty years ago. He pulled her toward him but she held back, the strange smile on her face. ‘What you going to do, mister?'

He said, ‘Put it in … this.' He held his penis, and thrust the knob toward her.

She said, ‘Oh, I couldn't do that.'

‘Liar!' he muttered between clenched teeth. He released his penis, found another shilling and gave it to her – ‘Now … you've done this before, haven't you? Don't lie to me.'

She laughed softly, her face six inches from his – ‘'Course I
'ave, mister. Wiv the boys, wen they got any money. With my dad, when mum's got the rags on. Or he says 'e's my dad, but mum ain't sure.'

‘Little bitch,' Bob groaned. He lifted her bodily and lowered her, legs wide parted, onto his penis. It slid easily into her as she clasped him round the back with her legs. He thrust at her, the stool groaning, he groaning with it as the ecstasy rose in his loins. He became blind with desire as his seed started to pump into her, oblivious of the sneering triumphant smile on her face, the low laugh in her throat.

After a few moments she slipped off him and as he sat, gasping, struggling to recover the even rhythm of his breathing, she wiped off her slit with the end of her skirt and said, ‘Make it 'arf a crown, and I'll come any time, Mister. Ta, ta.'

She slipped out and was gone. Bob slowly did up his buttons and heaved a great sigh. Oh God, it was beautiful, with them … she had the slit, but she was not a woman. Why did that Hun Doctor Deerfield ask him whether he liked boys? Of course he liked boys, but not this way. He didn't
like
little girls, come to that – they just drove him mad, and gave him this reward, this mighty sense of power – and, later, the mighty loneliness of guilt.

Victoria sparkled on the test bed, and he thought, There's time. Why not? She's warm already.

He started her again, took off the exhaust extension tube and prepared her for the road. Five minutes later he pushed her out of the back gate, mounted, and rode south. Once out on the Canterbury road he opened the throttle and streaked along under the south face of the Downs at forty miles an hour until, nearing the racing straight, he slowed, stopped, and made himself ready. He tightened the strap of his goggles, fastened all the buttons of his coat, and put on bicycle clips to keep his trousers from flapping in the wind of his passage. Then he climbed back into the saddle, slipped into gear and at once opened the throttle with a long steady pull, until the lever was against the stop. Victoria roared down the long straight, slightly downhill, faster and faster. At the foot, where the level began, the speedometer needle hovered over 98. Stooped low, the wind screaming in his ears, he held the handlebar grips firm against the jerk and bounce transmitted from the road. She was riding steady as a rock…
all the hours of work had paid off … the needle steady on 96 … 96, 97 … his goggles suddenly flew off and the wind hit his eyeballs like blows from icy fists. He flinched, narrowed his eyelids, and held the throttle against the stop … 100. He eased the throttle sharply back and the frantic roar of the engine slowed, quietened.

He drove on, at 20 miles an hour, bursting with elation, struggling to control himself. He'd done 100 miles an hour! Because he'd got the Hun doctor off his back and out of his mind, and done what he had to. A man was a man and must do what he must. The little slut Irene would come whenever he could put the picture in the window, and no one – not even Mr Hunnicutt, the minister at his Wesleyan chapel, could say he was doing
her
any harm. She was what she was, always had been, always would be. No one could change that – least, not for the better. And Victoria, the real lady of steel and aluminium, had done it, even more than the girl, lifting him to ecstasy … 100!

He was going to be Bob Stratton, world motor cycle speed record holder … his face in all the advertisements for the oil and petrol and tyre people … Bob Stratton says … And that little slut's slit whenever he wanted it … and she'd bring him others … take a commission from them for it, of course, but that was her business.