Small Island (44 page)

So that was how I found myself once more in Calcutta. Vultures still sat like scrawny hunch-backed hags looking down from the rooftops. They watched me as I walked along. Silly, but their gaze was so keen I imagined they recognised me from the last time I was here. The carnage they gorged on then was now all cleared away. Of course. The piles of putrefying rubbish – the pecked and gnawed bodies of the dead – all gone. But still those ugly beasts seemed to be dallying patiently for some next time. Picked up my blues from the holding centre. Only bit of kit I had left. The forage cap made me look like an old man. One of those coves from the Home Guard, playing soldiers. Trousers were roomy, jacket a little big. Left them there years before, you see, when I was a stouter man.

It was in the
maidan
I saw him walking. Johnny Pierpoint – Spike to his asinine friends. Wouldn’t have believed it could be him. Too carefree. Sauntering. A skip in his step. But he stopped me. Hand on my arm. Held me back. To a trusting eye, he was pleased to see me.

‘Well, well, well, Pop. You still here? I’d have thought they’d have got you on a boat before this. What you been up to?’

Nothing for it. Had to tell him I was on my way to Bombay.

‘What you doing in Cal then?’ he said. Then stopped my answer with, ‘Don’t tell me. You’ve finally taken my advice. Eh, Pop? Come to get some bint here? See if you can’t learn a few things to show that wife of yours before you get home?’

I was speechless. The scoundrel should have been locked away not standing in this sweltering city insulting me with ‘I can recommend a few. Not down Free School Street, though. Let me give you an address. They’ll see you’re all right. All very clean. Very young. Pretty. You know.’

‘No, thank you,’ I told him.

‘Pop, do yourself a favour. Your gentlemen’s friend really does need a decent outing. It’s withering away in there.’

The scurrilous blighter! He should have been in prison and I told him so.

‘Prison! Why? What are you talking about?’ he said.

‘For all that business.’

‘What? Showing a lady a good time?’

‘Good God, man, can you think of nothing else?’

‘I can, but I don’t like to.’ He started laughing. His eye winking rapidly as a faulty bulb. Pushed a piece of paper into my hand. When I didn’t take it he stuffed it into my pocket. Patted it twice, saying, ‘Trust me, you won’t regret it. You ask your chum, Maxi.’

‘What’s Maxi got to do with it?’

‘He didn’t regret it. Came back a few times for more.’

‘Rubbish!’ I told him.

‘Don’t take my word, ask him.’

‘Maxi’s dead,’ I said. That wiped his smug face clean.

‘Dead!’

‘Died in a
basha
fire. Him and seven others.’

‘Jesus. Bad business. Dead. How did that happen?’

‘It was your fault,’ I told him.

He looked at me, dumb as a coolie. Mouth agape. Eyes popping. Who would blink first, me or him? ‘Come again?’ he finally said.

‘I said it was your fault. The fire. The fire that killed them was because of you.’

‘I hardly knew him. I hadn’t seen him since Cal.’ He frowned, his dark eyebrows meeting in a hooded V over his eyes. I almost felt sorry for him. A lot to carry. A lot to bear – the death of eight men. Then his mouth flickered into a grin. Slowly revealing two front teeth. Stained with nicotine they looked to be made of wood. ‘I’ve been nowhere near your unit for ages. What are you going on about now, Pop?’

‘They wanted to get you off the charge. They had a meeting in the
basha
. It got burned down with them in it.’

‘What charge?’

‘That business.’

‘What business?’

‘Disobeying an order.’

‘Oh, that! Didn’t you lot hear? They dropped all those charges after a couple of days. I got posted with another unit. The CO couldn’t be bothered with it. Said the war had been over for too long. Me and Geordie. We should all have been home anyway, he said. I’d got a good record. He just gave us a bit of a warning. Discipline, blah, blah, blah. That sort of thing. I promised to be a good boy from now on and he forgot about it.’ He told his story like I’d be pleased for him. The man was an idiot. ‘But it’s bad about Maxi,’ he said.

‘He was a decent man,’ I said.

‘Yeah, but he knew how to enjoy himself.’ He leered again. As ever, commanded to by his loins.

‘Oh, for God’s sake! Have you no decency? Men died trying to save your skin.’

‘Look, Pop. They were your unit, I know. You’re upset. Who wouldn’t be? But it’s got nothing to do with me.’

‘Nothing to do with you? It’s got everything to do with you and your sort.’

He stared at me for some time, wondering how to respond. Looked over my shoulder. Bit his lip. Down to his feet. Back to my face. ‘Fuck off, Pop.’ He turned his back to me. Took two steps away. Then stopped, turned on his heel to face me again. ‘Come to think of it, didn’t a little birdie tell me something about you? Weren’t you in trouble? Weren’t you in the clink?’

I felt no need to answer him. Adopted a parade-ground stance. Head up. Chest out.

‘You were, weren’t you? What was it for? Being a miserable bastard? Being the most useless erk on your unit?’

I grabbed him round the throat. Got my whole hand over his Adam’s apple. Felt my nails in his skin. But he pushed me off – younger man, you see. He started walking away. I chased after him. I’d never meaningfully punched anyone in my life but, by God, I was ready to try. He dodged me as I whacked at air. Lost my balance. The fool was laughing at me. I came at him again. He lifted up one gangly arm and rammed it on my forehead. Long as an ape’s, his arm – my punches could get nowhere near him. He had me struggling, ineffectual, like a dunce with a bully. Whacking the air between us. Passers-by looked amused. Thought these two servicemen must be having some high jinks. But he had a tiger by the tail. I lunged at him when he dropped his hold. But he grabbed me. Spinning my arm up round my back. Thought he would rip it from my shoulder. Mouth next to my ear he spat into it, ‘God, Pop, you’re just a laughing-stock, you know that? Everyone says it. Maxi was the only one who could stomach you. Go and get yourself fucked properly, Pop. Show that poor wife of yours that you did something useful while you were out here.’

She hardly spoke any English. Just a few words learned by rote from other men who’d passed through.

‘Tommy. You are liking me, nice clean girl?’

I told her to shut up.

She lay back on the bed. Rested on her elbows. Examined me while I unbuttoned my trousers. ‘Turn away,’ I told her. Said it twice. Silly girl only smiled. Obviously never heard those words come from a Tommy’s lips before. Carried on eyeing me. Batting her eyelids sleepy slow. I turned my back to her.

‘How you are liking it, Tommy?’ she asked.

‘Doggy,’ I said, over my shoulder.

She came up behind me, started wiping her hands down my back. Hadn’t a clue what I meant. ‘Doggy,’ I said again. She brushed a hand over my chest. I watched her tiny brown fingers pushing down over my nipple. Threw her off as I turned round. ‘Doggy. On your hands and knees.’

She frowned.

‘Like this.’ I showed her how just like Spike had for me. Eventually she wriggled up the bed on all fours. The cheeks of her bottom curving tight as a doped kite. Sleek as marble. Breasts dangling like a cow’s udder. She looked back cursorily to see if she’d got it right. My erection was fierce. I got on the bed behind her. On my knees, I grabbed her where I could. Rammed her in one. She cried out. Something. Tommy. Something. ‘Shut up,’ I told her. And she started wiggling side to side like a blasted dancer in a bazaar. ‘Stay still,’ I shouted.

She was panting, ‘Aah, aah.’ And writhing the way her Tommies usually enjoyed it.

Nothing for it, I grabbed her hair into a bunch. Held it firm in my fist to keep the wriggling whore still as I thrust at her. Riding her hard – just as I had been promised.

Didn’t take long. Yelled out (I admit). Ejaculation was a blessed release, like lowering myself into a cool bath. Leaning back, closing my eyes, breathless. A few moments of peace before I realised I still had her hair wrapped tight in my fist. Her head, wrenched back, was baring its teeth in a rictal gape. I soon let go and she quickly pulled herself away from me. Got up from the bed. Jumped out of my reach. And only then did I see that she was nothing but a girl. Surely no more than fifteen. No younger. Fourteen or even twelve. A small girl. Hadn’t noticed before. Just took in a whore’s room. The coloured lights, the trinkets on the walls, the overpowering smell of jasmine. The breathy whispered, ‘Hello, Tommy.’ Her scanty robe, bare breasts, naked behind. And my pathetic need of it all. But now the fear in her black eyes – harmless as a baby’s – was denouncing me as depraved. What was I doing?

What would Queenie think of her husband now? Trousers round my ankles in a brothel, defiling someone’s daughter. ‘Is this what the war’s done for you?’ she’d say. This war hadn’t made me a hero. It had brought me to my knees.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I told the girl. She didn’t understand. I put out my hand to her. ‘I’m so terribly sorry.’ But she cringed, fearful. She was covering her body as best she could – with her arms, her hands. ‘Never done this sort of thing before. I’ve no idea what came over me.’ She was feeling for her robe, obviously too scared of me to let me out of her gaze. ‘Please forgive me.’ As I moved again, the merest shift off my knees to sit on the bed, she took a startled breath. ‘I won’t touch you,’ I told her. She cringed lower to the ground like a cornered animal. ‘I’m an Englishman,’ I explained. ‘In the RAF. Back home I was a bank clerk. It’s a very responsible position. I’m a married man, you see. An Englishman . . . me English-man . . .’ But I felt like a beast. It was then, as if from nowhere, a sob fierce as a child’s rose in me. I gulped for air. Mouth open – a long, breathless pause ended with the release of an anguished howl. Great spasms convulsed through me. My hands trembled. I covered my face. Gasped for more breath, which came in short bursts of pitiable whimpering.

She came and stood before me. Her face softening back to a girlish sweetness. I doubt she’d ever seen a Tommy cry. She put her hand out to touch my cheek. To wipe a tear. The tenderness of it stung. Shocking as a bolt from a current. ‘Terribly sorry,’ I said again, my breath coming in puffing gasps. I wiped my face as best I could. She patted my arm. Her hand no bigger than a monkey’s paw. And she said, ‘Johnny. Johnny. No cry, Johnny.’

It was the name that did it. Not the thought that Johnny Pierpoint had probably been through earlier. It was the way she said the name. It gave me the jitters. Like the Japs calling to me and Maxi, ‘Johnny, help me, Johnny.’ It soon pulled me together. ‘Don’t call me that, my name’s not Johnny,’ I told her, which sent her stepping smartly back away from me once more.

Nothing for it, I just threw the money at the wretched whore, then left.

Forty-five

Bernard

Nothing to do on the sea journey back home. Hundreds of servicemen wandered aimless on the decks. What a change from the adventure of the journey out. Frigates circling. Lifeboat drill every day. U-boat watch. Chaps up on the deck in twos, staring at the sea in case of something odd. Not a clue what we were looking for, most of us having only ever been familiar with boating ponds. But now, returning, mine was not the only dull-eyed gaze that drifted to the horizon as I thought of home. Could I go back to the bank after what I’d experienced? Silly, I know, but I thought of the Wellington bomber. Thirty-six thousand five hundred pounds of metal, Perspex and cloth. Wings that spanned eighty-six feet. Nose to tail in sixty-four. Two engines and room for six crew on board. Bolts as big as my fist on some parts. Propellers that dwarfed me. Wheels wider than an arm span. When she flew, her massive propellers spun so fast they were invisible. She would edge along the ground until thirty-six thousand five hundred pounds of metal, Perspex and cloth lifted into the air as light as a handkerchief. What could compare with that sight for me now? My old bicycle with its dicky chain that I used to fix and fuss over in the backyard? A bus? Tiny miniature creature. A tube train? You could step into a tube train with one hop. You didn’t have to climb up seventeen dizzying feet just to get into it. A car? A lorry? Now, all puny as tin toys.

I slept in a lifeboat under the stars. Not in a hammock below the water-line with hundreds of others. Shoving and pushing for space. Arguments. Shocking language. Endless talk of women – Johnny-Pierpoint-style: what they could and would do to them once they got home. I gave my cigarettes to an old sweat who worked the ship. In return he knocked on the lifeboat before the decks were swabbed. Warned me out before I was caught or washed overboard. Swarthy fellow. Came from Argentina. Didn’t speak English. Conducted the whole transaction with gestures and mime.

Just as on that ship out years before, two days in, everyone got seasick. A wretched nausea. Head like a sponge. Stomach in my boots. Constant dull tang of salt on my lips. Nowhere to fix my sight. Giddy. Praying for just one settled moment. A minute to stand firm. But nothing stayed still. Least of all the grub in my belly. The old sweat laughed. Slapped me on the back and used his tattoos to insult me. Pointed to something on his left arm – a badly drawn bird of some sort. I got the idea. Couldn’t blame him: all day vomiting over the rails of the ship I was a pitiful sight.

Thought nothing of it at first. Too sick to worry. A bite, perhaps, from some rogue mosquito. Could feel it under my fingers as I urinated. Just a small lump. But the next day it was considerably bigger. I borrowed a torch from a chap. Needed to get a clear look. But I could only get the worthless torch to blink on and off. Under this stroboscope in the gloom of the lifeboat it appeared not much smaller than a halfpenny. I convinced myself it was the flashing light that gave it that dimension. In the light of day, locked secure behind a toilet door, the enormous throbbing sore had produced a hat of pus. I felt it pop like a grape in my pants as I sat down in front of another meal of sausage and potato. It was ringed with a blue line clear as if drawn with a pencil. I vomited twice. Once when I saw its seeping pus matted into my pubic hair. And the next time as I wrapped the sore in a bandage. It was unbearably itchy and clammy inside this wrapping. And useless – a small spot of yellow brown muck had soon stained it through. When I eventually unwrapped it, the bandage clung like paper to a sticky toffee. I bit the leather of my belt to stop me yelling out. Nothing for it. I had to face it. I knew what this angry pustule on my penis was.