England's Lane (44 page)

“Ah … and there was I so sincerely believing this joyous and quite sparkling morning to be replete with goodness—though I do see now that I was quite thoroughly wrong about that …”

“Right. Let me in!”

“ … for now we would appear to have your very good self as something by way of a supplementary benefit. What bounty. And how may I assist you, Mr. Stammer …?”

“Don't you try to keep me out, you …!”

“As you may see, my dear fellow—the door is quite open.”

“Yeh well—right. Right, you …! And don't you start up with your bloody ‘dear fellow' on me, you bloody …! You know what you are …? You're a right bloody …! …”

“You are regarding me in a highly pugnacious manner, Mr. Stammer. Excuse me—I'll just shut the door behind you, if I may. Hardly need prying eyes, I think. Now from what little you have hitherto uttered, I am gathering that in some or other manner I have grievously displeased you. Should eventually you ever care to elaborate, then of course I should be more than delighted to, er …”

“Stop! Pack all that in! Had just about enough. You stop all of that! You and all these bloody other people—talking like you's the King of fucking England—and you ain't! You ain't! You's nothing! Same as what I am. But I reckon—what I reckon is, I'm better! See? Better than you! Because I don't go twisting about. And I would've left you to it, if that's what Mill wanted—would've gone with it, you bastard! But nah! Ain't enough for you, were it? Ay?
You got to go and …
beat
her, the poor little gel …! She only little! I ain't never lifted my hand to no woman! Not never once in my bloody life. Let alone another man's wife, you …!”

“Do not approach further, Mr. Stammer, I urge you—and please unclench your two little fists, else I fear I shall be compelled to strike you down. I have not the least idea what you are talking about. In this I am sincere. I too, Mr. Stammer, maintain an inviolate rule where violence toward women is concerned: I never indulge in it, and have nothing but the most base contempt for any who does. With the exception, quite naturally, of the odd little harmless bit of horseplay, you know …”

“
Horse
play …? What you fucking on about …?”

“Oh—you know. Surely you do. Erotic diversion. Titillation, yes …? Damn good spanking, sort of thing. You are English, aren't you? Surely at least you must have heard of it …? No but then of course, I doubt whether you attended that sort of school …”

“I don't know what you on about! You disgusting! I ought to bloody
kill
you, you bastard …!”

“Why?”

“Ay? Ay …?
Why
 …?!”

“Mm. Why do you feel you should? I am receiving the impression that your dear wife Milly—please, Mr. Stammer, do I pray you allow me to finish—that your dear wife Milly has been attacked by a person unknown. Certainly not I. And I am distressed to hear it. I should never wish nor visit upon her the slightest harm. Do you believe me, Mr. Stammer? I sincerely hope that you do … you anyway appear to be modifying your behavior. You have slightly quieted, at least …”

“You denying it …?”

“Oh dear. I rather hoped by now that possibly we might have established that. Yes, Mr. Stammer: I am denying it.”

“You never clock her round the eye …? Belt her in the stomach?”

“Certainly not. Who could have perpetrated such an outrage? I cannot imagine who might be capable of such a thing.”

“Don't you try all that! Don't you do all that la-di-da baloney on me! Just talk to me straight: you saying you never done it. Right?”

“Oh dear God Almighty …”

“All right—all right, then: leave all that out of it, for the minute. And what … you saying what …? You telling me that you and Mill … you and Mill … you never gone and done the dirty on me …?”

“How very colorful your phraseology can be, Mr. Stammer, once eventually you manage to utter any words at all. If I understand you correctly, you are asking me now whether I deny having consorted with your wife. Well no—I do not deny it in the least degree. Certainly we have enjoyed congress, Milly and myself, though I fear I am behaving very much less than gallantly by making any such disclosure. You already do appear, however, to be apprised of the truth of it. Though I may say by way of an addendum that we have not encountered for quite some while, and never—and really I must forcibly reiterate this point, even at the risk of appearing tedious—never have I subjected her to physical abuse of any description whatever. Are you, er … feeling quite all right, Mr. Stammer …? You seem somehow pale … shaking, rather … trembling, yes. May I fetch you a glass of water? Something stronger, conceivably—despite the early hour. I have no brandy, I fear, though possibly I might be able to run to just a little soupçon of Benedictine …”

“My Mill … my Mill … so she really been and gone and done it …”

“Mm, I rather fear so. But brace up, old chap. It's all quite over and done with, you know.”

“Ay? What you saying? What you saying now? You mean … what you mean? She chuck you over? She ain't going to go with you? That what you saying?”

“Go with me?! Great heavens, no! What a thought. No no—there's simply no question at all of any such thing, and of course there never was. Indeed, Mr. Stammer, you may well be encouraged when I inform you that come the new year, I shall in fact be leaving this place—leaving England's Lane. Oh yes. Closing the shop. Selling up. Whereupon my family and myself will be very pleased finally to be moving on. New decade, new beginning. I imagine this intelligence will hardly distress you. You might yourself, you know, do rather worse than to adopt a somewhat similar approach, yes? New decade, new beginning …? Has a ring to it, don't you think?”

“You's off, you say …? Leaving the Lane? What—whole bang shoot? That Amanda and all?”

“Why naturally, Mr. Stammer. What a thing to say. I am hardly likely, I think, to abandon my daughter to fend for herself as a street urchin. She will be sorry, I daresay, to be forced to withdraw from the company of your boy—Paul, is it …? Yes, Paul. Though I am guessing that such parting will not cause either one of us to shed too many tears. Am I correct in this surmise, Mr. Stammer?”

“Ay …? Oh yeh … yeh. Blimey … I don't know what to think. Can't think. Don't know what to think. Broken man, I am … broken man …”

“Oh nonsense, my dear fellow. You'll rebound. People do. For they must, you see …”

“I dunno. I dunno. I don't got nothing straight in my mind. Can't think proper no more. Still and all, though … just looking at you … me being here … fair turn my stomach, it do. I should … you know what I should do …? Ay? You know what I should do …? I should bloody knock your fucking block off …!”

“Well … I suppose I feel honor bound to encourage you to try, should you believe that such extreme action will in some small way serve to release a degree of your aggravation … soothe your furrowed brow … however I feel it only fair to warn you that should you determine to resort to fisticuffs, I shall resist and retaliate with all means at my disposal. And I do fear that from such a contest as that, Mr. Stammer, you would inevitably be destined, I think, to sorrowfully emerge as considerably the more injured party. In that I could, not to put too fine a point on it, snap you in half with the fingers of one hand. As I believe you are aware. But, having said all of that, if still you feel that you must … well, Mr. Stammer, then you must, of course …”

My mind … I telling you … my mind, I just all in a tizz. Ain't had no kip—ain't had a shave. Feeling right rough. Ain't even got all of the doings out on to the pavement yet. Cyril ain't had his seed … And all these words what he giving me, this sod of a bastard … I ain't even sure what I got to be thinking about now. But it's Mill, got to be—that's all I cares about. I got my Mill, then I don't mind nothing. But him … just look at him … ponced-up bloody bastard. Wants taking down a peg. Yeh. Blimey … he fucking big, though. It right what he say: kill me, he could—don't even have to try. So I reckon I sling my hook. Get out of here. Can't do no good. Can I? What's done is done. Yeh—so that's what I got to do: get out of here. Stands to reason. Yeh it do … so I don't know why—don't bleeding go and ask me why—but I just gone up to the bastard, ain't I? Took one hell of a swing at him, and I got him right on the bloody jaw, look. His head, it jerk right back, it do—yeh, but he ain't going over, no not him. I don't follow it up. I don't follow it through. I'm just stood here. My hand, it feel like I broke it. He looking at me. He looking at me something terrible. Oh Gawd—I'm for it now. Can't run though, can I? I should cocoa. Not going to run. Can't
run. No point hitting the bastard again though. He made of bloody iron. So I just got to take it, I reckon. Just got to stay stood here—wait till he get to me. Then I gets smashed to bloody bits.

“Mr. Stammer … I do so thank you for calling. Sharing your views. And now I do quite earnestly and solemnly urge you just to turn around, and then walk out of here, please. While still you are able so to do.”

Because oh great heavens just look at him, won't you? This small and quite perfectly pathetic little oik, shuddering before me. Some slight show of bravado in the set of his shoulders, though still does he visibly quiver—and within each of his eyes there is sparking and alive the bright white pinpoint of absolute fear, just as in that of a snorting pig that senses the approach of a knife to its throat. And then behind that, a milky opacity—the quite dull glaze of acceptance of the soon to be here and grim inevitability: this I have witnessed so often in the slow eyes of a heifer, when first she is scenting the tang of an abattoir. There is no sense in slaughter, however—no, nor even retribution. For I am not a brute. I have wronged the man. He has struck me. Honor would appear, then, to have been crudely satisfied.

“Please, Mr. Stammer, I should be so very much obliged to you were you to do me the politeness of lingering no longer. There is, I do assure you, a limit to the breadth of my forbearance.”

In a tizz—I'm in a tizz …! Don't know what I'm about. Can't think, that's the trouble—I just can't think proper. All what're on my mind are my Mill. Yeh. That all I know. Yeh. So that's what I got to do, then—right? Get back to her. Yeh. See what the doctor done. See how she feel. See she all right. Get out the sight of this bloody great bastard, yeh … before he bloody well kill me … that's what I got to do … and then get back to my Mill. On account of she my wife, ain't she? Yeh. That's right: she my wife.

And how many times since I gone over it in my mind …? It's like now I were like … I don't know—two people, sort of style. Like my head, it never got round to telling my feet what it was I were up to. Because I'd flew at him, hadn't I? Yeh—I'd flew at him. And I were going to get out of there—all set, honest I were: I were on my way. Turned around, didn't I? Reaching out for the door knob, I were—think I even gone and said goodbye to the bastard. Next thing—I'd flew at him, and my hands, they's about his neck on account of all I wants is to throttle the fucking sod. And then I were thinking Christ Al-fucking Mighty—he smell of perfume, the bleeding ponce …! Yeh and next minute I weren't thinking nothing on account of he pick me up like I's a bit of I don't know what and he throw me hard, right up against the bloody wall. My back and my head, they was bleeding killing me, I can tell you—my hands is useless, and I weren't even seeing straight no more. Then his great bloody fist—it slamming me right in the face and there blood all over, look, and I were feeling all bloated up and numb and yet I got all these terrible pains just bloody everywhere about me, and then I sees him pull back his bloody fist again and all I do is I just shuts my eyes—and when it come … yeh, when it come … it were like I were hit by a fucking train. My brain all rattling inside of me and my mouth is all gone like rubber and I hits the ground like I been heaved over and off of a mountain. Don't know how long I were down there. Next thing is water poured on to me—and I looks up, kind of, but I can't hardly see. And then I do … I sees him, yeh I sees him a bit—just standing there, he is, quite the thing: he straightening up his tie. He look fresh as paint. He look like he on his way to Buckingham bleeding Palace. And me … I got what I asked for, didn't I? My face, it do feel a funny shape—it don't even feel like my face no more. Lying here … my clothes is torn,
reckon my nose is broke, and I shaking like I's made of paper. What it is is … I smashed to bloody bits.

Tried to creep into the house quiet, like. I'd just sort of crawled my way out of the Barton bastard's yard—just standing there he were, bold as you want, and he holding the door open for me for all the world like he that—what's his name …? Yeh that Jeeves, is it, or something. Like he were going to be doling out to me a top hat and a pair of white fucking gloves. We never said nothing. Didn't meet no one in the Lane, which were a blessing—Gawd alone know what I look like. It still were so bleeding early … yeh but I got to get the shop open soon, ain't I? Yeh—business is business, and I ain't never late. So what I done is, I come in the back—take the cover off of Cyril's cage, say hello like, poke him through a little bit of millet, and then I goes up the stairs, soft as I can. My face … I can't tell you. I looks in the mirror in the bathroom there, and blimey—I just can't tell you. I get a bit of water on it—and it do sting, and no mistake—and then I bungs on a squeeze of that Savlon—and yeh, all right, it look a bit better, feel a bit better. I touches my conk … and nah, don't reckon it are broke now. Big and bleeding red, though—and yeh, give me gyp all right. My eye—where he got me right square on the second doings—that more or less closed down. Going blue on the skin around it there, look—bit of sort of yellow and all: blimey—this rate, I'll be bleeding looking like Cyril. Then I hears Mill—Mill, she knocking about somewhere. Pauly—yeh, he will of gone off by now, pick up Anthony for his school … yeh so that's all right, then—he well out the road. But it's Mill I got to cope with now. Don't know where I can rightly start with it. Yeh well—no time to think: I turns round and she standing there, ain't she?