The Likes of Us (13 page)

She looked at him long and steadily. ‘I'll never give you away, Arthur,' she said.

‘Gentle Annie,' he said, taking her hand. ‘Sweet little Annie... Why has no man ever married you?'

She coloured faintly. ‘I'm all right. What about you?'

‘Oh me... you know me. Like I said – no ties: no responsibility.'

‘And now you're off again?'

‘Now,' he said, ‘this minute.'

He kissed her lightly on the cheek and released her hand. ‘So long, Annie' he said. ‘Take care of yourself.'

She did not move from the spot as he walked away from her. After a few yards he turned and waved, then turned away again. His steps suddenly became jaunty, and several more yards brought a shrill whistle to his lips. Why, he could not have said. Not to deceive the passers-by, for why should he want to deceive them? Perhaps to deceive himself, then? Certainly not to deceive her, for the one he had never been able to deceive was the one who stood now and watched him go.

The Search for Tommy Flynn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a December evening just three weeks before Christmas after an uneasily mild day that had died in a darkening flush of violet twilight, Christie Wilcox came down into Cressley to look for his long-lost pal, Tommy Flynn.

His mates at the factory said Christie was only elevenpence ha'penny in the shilling, and had been ever since the war; but like the management, they tolerated him, because he was able-bodied and harmless, and for most of the time as near normal as hardly mattered. For most of the time – except on the occasions when this blinding urge came over him, this unswervable obsession to find Tommy Flynn, the pal he had not seen since the night their ship was blown from under them. And then he would leave the little house on Cressley Common where he lived with his widowed mother and go down into the town to search. Sometimes he would stop someone on the street and ask, ‘Have you seen Tommy Flynn?' and the questioned would perhaps mutter something, or just pass by without a word, only a look, leaving Christie standing on the pavement edge, looking after them with helpless stupefied loneliness and dejection on his face and in the droop of his head and shoulders. But mostly he bothered no one, but simply scanned the features of people on the streets and opened the door of every pub he passed, searching the faces in the smoky taprooms and bars. Tommy Flynn had been a great one for pubs.

But he never found him. He never found him because They wouldn't help him. They all knew where Tommy Flynn was but They wouldn't tell Christie. They just looked at him with blank faces, or nodded and grinned and winked at one another, because They knew where Tommy Flynn was all the time, and They wouldn't tell.

Some of Them had tried to tell him that Tommy Flynn was dead; but Christie knew otherwise. He knew that Tommy was alive and waiting for him to find him. Tommy needed him. The last words he had ever said to him were, ‘For Christ's sake get me out of this, Christie!' And Christie had not been able to help. Why, he could not remember. But now he could help. Now he could help Tommy, if only he could find him.

He had walked the mile and a half from his home, letting the lighted buses career past him down the long winding road; and on the edge of town he began to look inside the pubs he passed, sometimes startling the people there by the sudden intensity of his face, all cheekbones and jaw and dark burning eyes, as it appeared briefly in the doorway, then vanished again. And when, after more than two hours, he came to the centre of town, he was, as usual, no further in his search. He stood on a street corner and watched the faces of the people passing by. He even stood lost in contemplation of the suited dummies in the lighted window of a tailor's shop, as though he hoped that one of them might suddenly move and reveal itself as his lost pal. And all the while the yearning, the terrible yearning despair in him grew into an agony, and he muttered hopelessly, over and over again, ‘Tommy, oh, Tommy, I can't find you, Tommy.'

He wandered along a line of people queuing outside a cinema for the last show, looking at every face, his own face burning so oddly that it provoked giggles from one of a pair of girls standing there; and a policeman standing a little way along looked his way, as though expecting that Christie might at any moment whip off his cap and break into an illegal song and dance.

They laughed. They laughed because he could not find Tommy Flynn. Everybody against him: no one to help.

Oh! If only he could find just one who would help him. He stopped and gazed at, without seeing, the ‘stills' in the case on the wall by the cinema entrance, then turned away.

Some time later the dim glow of light from a doorway along an alley took his attention. It occurred to him that this was a pub he had never been in before. A new
place to search. He went down the alley
,
pushed open
the door, and stepped along a short corridor, past the door marked ‘Ladies', and into the single low-ceilinged L-shaped room of the pub. It was quiet, with only a very few people drinking there. Two men stood drinking from pint glasses and talking quietly. The landlord had stepped out for a moment and there was no one behind the bar. One of the two men knew Christie and greeted him.

‘Now then, Christie lad.'

And almost at once he saw that Christie was not himself.

‘Have you seen Tommy Flynn?' Christie asked him.

‘Can't say as I have, lad,' the man said, and his right eyelid fluttered in a wink at his companion, who now turned and looked at Christie also.

‘Tommy Flynn?' the second man said. ‘Name sounds familiar.'

‘You don't know him,' the first man said. ‘He's a pal of Christie's. Isn't he, Christie?'

‘A pal,' Christie said.

‘Well, he hasn't been in here tonight. Has he, Walt?'

‘That's right. We haven't seen him.'

‘How long is it since you've seen him, Christie?'

‘A long time,' Christie mumbled. ‘A long time ago.'

‘Well, I'll tell you what,' the man said: ‘you go on home, and we'll keep an eye open for Tommy Flynn. And if we see him we'll tell him you were looking for him. How's that?'

‘What about a drink afore you go?' the man called Walt said good-naturedly.

‘He doesn't drink, Walt,' the first man said.

‘Don't you smoke, either?' Walt asked.

Christie shook his head. He was beginning to feel confused and he looked from one to the other of them.

‘But I'll bet you're a devil with the women.'

The first man laid a hand on his companion's arm. ‘Easy, Walt.'

‘Oh, I'm on'y kiddin',' Walt said. ‘He doesn't mind, do you, lad? Take a bit o' kid, can't you, eh?'

But the film of incomprehension had come down over Christie's eyes and he just stood and looked at each of them in turn.

‘I've got to go now,' he said in a moment.

‘Aye, that's right, Christie lad. Off you go home; an' if we see Tommy Flynn we'll tell him. Won't we, Walt?'

‘Course we will,' Walt said.

Christie had turned away from them before he remembered about the money, and he wondered if he should tell them so that they could tell Tommy Flynn. Tommy had always been so short of money. He put his hand into his pocket and took out some of the notes. Then, at once, he changed his mind and went out without saying anything.

The two men had already turned back to their glasses and only one person in the bar saw the money in Christie's hand: a middle-aged tart with greying hair dyed a copper red, a thin, heavily powdered face and pendant ear-rings, sitting at a corner table with a tall West Indian, his lean handsome features the colour of milk chocolate, wearing a powder-blue felt hat with the brim turned up all round. As Christie went out she got up, saying something about powdering her nose, and left the bar.

Outside the alley Christie walked away from the pub, then stopped after a few paces, to stand indecisively on the cobbles. Always he came to this same point, the dead end, when there was no sign of Tommy Flynn, and nowhere else to look. He bowed his head and furrowed his brow in thought as his mind wrestled heavily with the problem.

Light sliced across the alley as the door of the pub opened, then banged shut again. The woman paused on the step, looking both ways, before stepping down and clicking across the cobbles to Christie.

He took no notice of her till she spoke at his side.

‘Did you say you were looking for somebody?'

And then Christie's head jerked up and his eyes, level with the woman's, blazed.

‘Tommy Flynn,' he said. ‘I'm looking for Tommy Flynn. Have you seen Tommy Flynn?' he asked with breathless eagerness in his voice.

‘What's he look like?' the woman asked, playing for time.

But Christie only mumbled something she did not catch and then, the light gone from his eyes, ‘I'm looking for Tommy Flynn.'

A man entered the alley from the far end and walked along towards the pub. The woman took one step back into shadow. When the door of the pub had closed behind him the woman said: ‘I know a Tommy Flynn.'

And Christie came alive again as though a current of power had been passed through him.

‘You do? You know Tommy Flynn? Where is he?

Where's Tommy Flynn?' His hand gripped her arm.

‘I think I know where to find him,' the woman said. ‘Only… you'd have to make it worth my trouble like. I mean, I've left my friend an' everythin'…' She stopped, realising that Christie was not taking in what she said. ‘Money, dear,' she said, with a kind of coarse delicacy.

‘Money? I've got money. Lots of money.' He thrust his hand into his pocket and dragged out a fistful of notes. ‘Look – lots of money.'

Startled, the woman covered Christie's hand with her own and looked quickly right and left along the alley.

‘Just keep it in your pocket, dear, for the time being.'

She put her arm through his and turned him towards the mouth of the alley.

‘C'mon, then,' she said. ‘Let's go find Tommy Flynn.'

Once across the lighted thoroughfare beyond the alley the woman led Christie into the gloom of back streets, hurrying him under the sheer dark walls of mills; and he followed with mute eagerness, sometimes doing more than follow as in his excited haste he pulled away so that he was leading, the woman occasionally having to break into a trot to keep pace with him.

‘Not so fast, dear,' she said several times as Christie outpaced her. She was breathless. ‘Take it easy. We've plenty of time.'

And all the while she was thinking how to get the money away from Christie. He was simple, there was no doubt about that. But often simple people were stubborn and stupid and untrusting. She would have taken him into a pub on the pretext of waiting for this Tommy Flynn and got him to drink; only she did not want to be remembered afterwards as having been seen with him. So she led him on, her mind working, until they came to a bridge over the dark river. She pulled at his arm then and turned him onto a path leading down the river bank.

‘This way, dear.'

To the right the river ran between the mills and warehouses of the town; and to the left the footpath led under the bridge and beyond, where the river slid over dam stakes and flowed on through open fields. In the darkness under the bridge the woman stopped and made a pretence of looking at a watch.

‘It's early yet,' she said. ‘Tommy Flynn won't be home yet. Let's wait here a while.'

She kept hold of Christie's arm as she stood with her back to the stonework of the bridge.

‘What d'you want Tommy Flynn for?'

‘He's my pal,' Christie said, stirring restlessly beside her.

‘And haven't you seen him lately?'

‘No... I can't find him. Nobody'll ever tell me where he is... We were on a ship together… an'…' His voice tailed off. Then he said with a groan. ‘I've got to find him. I've got to.'

‘We'll find him,' the woman said, ‘in a little while.' And she looked at Christie in the darkness under the bridge.

For a moment then she stood away from him and fumbled with her clothes. ‘Why don't you an' me have a nice time while we're waiting?' She took him and drew him to her, pressing his hand down between her warm thighs. ‘You like a nice time, don't you?' she said into his ear.

‘What about Tommy?' Christie said. ‘Where is he?'

‘I know where Tommy is,' the woman said, her free hand exploring Christie's pocket, where the money was.

‘Why aren't we going to him, then?'

‘Because he's not at home yet.' The woman kept patience in her voice. ‘I'll tell you when it's time to go.'

The thought had already come to her that he might be dangerous, and she recalled newspaper reports, which she read avidl
y
, of women like herself being found strangled or knifed in lonely places. But there was always an element of risk in a life such as hers, and Christie seemed to her harmless enough. There was, too, the feel of all that money in her fingers, and greed was stronger than any timidity that might have troubled her. So she played for time in the only way she knew how.

‘Why don't you do something?' she said, moving her body against his. ‘You know what to do, don't you? You like it, don't you?'

The feel of her thighs moving soft and warm against his fingers roused momentary excitement in Christie, causing him to giggle suddenly.

‘I know what you want,' he said. ‘You want me to –' and he whispered the obscenity in her ear.

‘That's right,' the woman said. ‘You like it, don't you? You've done it before, haven't you?'

‘Me an' Tommy,' Christie said. ‘We used to go with women. All over the world. All sorts of women.'

‘That's right. You and Tommy.'

‘Tommy,' Christie said, and, his excitement with the woman broken, tore his hand free. ‘Tommy,' he said again, and looked away along the path.

He stepped away from her and her hand, pulling free of his pocket, retained its hold on the notes. She hastily adjusted her clothes as he moved away along the path.

‘Wait a minute,' she said. ‘It's early yet. It's no good going yet.'

‘I'm going now,' Christie said, walking away. ‘I'm going to find Tommy.'

Stepping out of the shadow of the bridge into moonlight, he stopped and threw up his arms, uttering a cry. Beside him now, the woman said, ‘What's wrong?'

‘Tommy,' Christie said, trembling violently. ‘Look, look, look.'

And following the wild fling of his arm the woman saw something dark bobbing in the greasy water by the dam stakes.