In the public school grounds above the sea the girls trooped solemnly out to hockey: stout goal-keepers padded like armadillos; captains discussing tactics with their lieutenants; junior girls running amok in the bright day. Beyond the aristocratic turf, through the wrought-iron main gates they could see the plebeian procession, those whom the buses wouldn’t hold, plodding up the down, kicking up the dust, eating buns out of paper bags. The buses took the long way round through Kemp Town, but up the steep hill came the crammed taxicabs—a seat for anyone at ninepence a time—a Packard for the members’ enclosure, old Morrises, strange high cars with family parties, keeping the road after twenty years. It was as if the whole road moved upwards like an Underground staircase in the dusty sunlight, a creaking, shouting, jostling crowd of cars moving with it. The junior girls took to their heels like ponies racing on the turf, feeling the excitement going on outside, as if this were a day on which life for many people reached a kind of climax. The odds on Black Boy had shortened, nothing could ever make life quite the same after that rash bet of a fiver on Merry Monarch. A scarlet racing model, a tiny rakish car which carried about it the atmosphere of innumerable roadhouses, of totsies gathered round swimming pools, of furtive encounters in by-lanes off the Great North Road, wormed through the traffic with incredible dexterity. The sun caught it: it winked as far as the dining-hall windows of the girls’ school. It was crammed tight: a woman sat on a man’s knee, and another man clung on the running board as it swayed and hooted and cut in and out uphill towards the downs. The woman was singing, her voice faint and disjointed through the horns, something traditional about brides and bouquets, something which went with Guinness and oysters and the old Leicester Lounge, something out of place in the little bright racing car. Upon the top of the down the words blew back along the dusty road to meet an ancient Morris rocking and receding in their wake at forty miles an hour, with flapping hood, bent fender and discoloured windscreen.
The words came through the flap, flap, flap of the old hood to the Boy’s ears. He sat beside Spicer who drove the car. Brides and bouquets: and he thought of Rose with sullen disgust. He couldn’t get the suggestion of Spicer out of his mind; it was like an invisible power working against him: Spicer’s stupidity, the photograph on the pier, that woman—who the hell was she?—asking questions. . . If he married her, of course, it wouldn’t be for long: only as a last resort to close her mouth and give him time. He didn’t want that relationship with anyone: the double bed, the intimacy, it sickened him like the idea of age. He crouched in the corner away from where the ticking pierced the seat, vibrating up and down in bitter virginity. To marry—it was like ordure on the hands.
‘Where’s Dallow and Cubitt?’ Spicer asked.
‘I didn’t want them here today,’ the Boy said. ‘We’ve got something to do today the mob are better out of.’ Like a cruel child who hides the dividers behind him, he put his hand with spurious affection on Spicer’s arm. ‘I don’t mind telling you. I’m going to make it up with Colleoni. I wouldn’t trust them. They are violent. You and I, we’ll handle it properly between us.’
‘I’m all for peace,’ Spicer said. ‘I always have been.’
The Boy grinned through the broken windscreen at the long disorder of cars. ‘That’s what I’m going to arrange,’ he said.
‘A peace that lasts,’ Spicer said.
‘No one’s going to break this peace,’ the Boy said. The faint singing died in the dust and the bright sun: a final bride, a final bouquet, a word which sounded like ‘wreath’. ‘How do you set about getting married?’ the Boy unwillingly asked. ‘If you’ve got to in a hurry?’
‘Not so easy for you,’ Spicer said. ‘There’s your age.’ He ground the old gears as they climbed a final spur towards the white enclosure on the chalky soil, the gipsy vans. ‘I’d have to think about it.’
‘Think quick,’ the Boy said. ‘You don’t forget you’re clearing out tonight.’
‘That’s right,’ Spicer said. Departure made him a little sentimental. ‘The eight-ten. You ought to see that pub. You’d be welcome. Nottingham’s a fine town. It’ll be good to rest up there a while. The air’s fine, and you couldn’t ask for a better bitter than you get at the “Blue Anchor”.’ He grinned. ‘I forgot you didn’t drink.’
‘Have a good time,’ the Boy said.
‘You’ll be always welcome, Pinkie.’
They rolled the old car up into the park and got out. The Boy passed his arm through Spicer’s. Life was good walking outside the white sun-drenched wall, past the loud-speaker vans, the man who believed in a second coming, towards the finest of all sensations, the infliction of pain. ‘You’re a fine fellow, Spicer,’ the Boy said, squeezing his arm, and Spicer began to tell him in a low friendly confiding way all about the ‘Blue Anchor’. ‘It’s not a tied house,’ he said, ‘they’ve a reputation. I’ve always thought when I’d made enough money I’d go in with my friend. He still wants me to. I nearly went when they killed Kite.’
‘You get scared easy, don’t you?’ the Boy said. The loud-speakers on the vans advised them whom to put their money with, and gipsy children chased a rabbit with cries across the trampled chalk. They went down into the tunnel under the course and came up into the light and the short grey grass sloping down by the bungalow houses to the sea. Old bookies’ tickets rotted into the chalk: ‘Barker for the Odds’, a smug smiling nonconformist face printed in yellow: ‘Don’t Worry I Pay’, and old tote tickets among the stunted plantains. They went through the wire fence into the half-crown enclosure. ‘Have a glass of beer, Spicer,’ the Boy said, pressing him on.
‘Why, that’s good of you, Pinkie. I wouldn’t mind a glass,’ and while Spicer drank it by the wooden trestles, the Boy looked down the line of bookies. There was Barker and Macpherson and George Beale (‘The Old Firm’) and Bob Tavell of Clapton, all the familiar faces, full of blarney and fake good humour. The first two races had been run: there were long queues at the tote windows. The sun lit the white Tattersall stand across the course, and a few horses cantered by to the start. ‘There goes General Burgoyne,’ a man said, ‘he’s restless,’ starting off to Bob Tavell’s stand to cover his bet. The bookies rubbed out and altered the odds as the horses went by, their hoofs padding like boxing gloves on the turf.
‘You going to take a plunge?’ Spicer asked, finishing his Bass, blowing a little gaseous malted breath towards the bookies.
‘I don’t bet,’ the Boy said.
‘It’s the last chance for me,’ Spicer said, ‘in good old Brighton. I wouldn’t mind risking a couple of nicker. Not more. I’m saving my cash for Nottingham.’
‘Go on,’ the Boy said, ‘have a good time while you can.’
They walked down the row of bookies towards Brewer’s stand; there were a lot of men about. ‘He’s doing good business,’ Spicer said. ‘Did you see the Merry Monarch? He’s going up,’ and while he spoke, all down the line the bookies rubbed out the old sixteen to one odds. ‘Ten’s,’ Spicer said.
‘Have a good time while you’re here,’ the Boy said.
‘Might as well patronize the old firm,’ Spicer said, detaching his arm and walking across to Tate’s stand. The Boy smiled. It was as easy as shelling peas. ‘Memento Mori,’ Spicer said, coming away card in hand. ‘That’s a funny name to give a horse. Five to one, a place. What does Memento Mori mean?’
‘It’s foreign,’ the Boy said. ‘Black Boy’s shortening.’
‘I wish I’d covered myself on Black Boy,’ Spicer said. ‘There was a woman down there says she’s backed Black Boy for a pony. It sounds crazy to me. But think if he wins,’ Spicer said. ‘My God, what wouldn’t I do with two hundred and fifty pounds? I’d take a share in the “Blue Anchor” straight away. You wouldn’t see me back here,’ he added, staring round at the brilliant sky, the dust over the course, the torn betting cards and the short grass towards the dark sea beneath the down.
‘Black Boy won’t win,’ the Boy said. ‘Who was it put
the pony on?’
‘Some polony or other. She was over there at the bar. Why don’t you have a fiver on Black Boy? Have a bet for once to celebrate?’
‘Celebrate what?’ the Boy asked quickly.
‘I forgot,’ Spicer said. ‘This holiday’s perked me up, so’s I think everyone’s got something to celebrate.’
‘If I did want to celebrate,’ the Boy said, ‘it wouldn’t be with Black Boy. Why, that used to be Fred’s favourite. Said he’d be a Derby winner yet. I wouldn’t call that a lucky horse,’ but he couldn’t help watching him canter up by the rails: a little too fresh, a little too restless. A man on top of the half-crown stand tic-tacked to Bob Tavell of Clapton and a tiny Jew, who was studying the ten shilling enclosure through binoculars, suddenly began to saw the air, to attract the attention of the Old Firm. ‘There,’ the Boy said, ‘what did I tell you? Black Boy’s going out again.’
‘Hundred to eight, Black Boy, hundred to eight,’ George Beale’s representative called, and ‘They’re off,’ somebody said. People pressed out from the refreshment booth towards the rails carrying glasses of Bass and currant buns. Barker, Macpherson, Bob Travell, all wiped the odds from their boards, but the Old Firm remained game to the last: ‘Hundred to six Black Boy’: while the little Jew made masonic passes from the top of the stand. The horses came by in a bunch, with a sharp sound like splintering wood, and were gone. ‘General Burgoyne,’ somebody said, and somebody said: ‘Merry Monarch.’ The beer drinkers went back to the trestle boards and had another glass, and the bookies put up the runners in the four o’clock and began to chalk a few odds.
‘There,’ the Boy said, ‘what did I tell you? Fred never knew a good horse from a bad one. That crazy polony’s dropped a pony. It’s not her lucky day. Why’—but the silence, the inaction after a race is run and before the results go up, had a daunting quality. The queues waited outside the totes. Everything on the course was suddenly still, waiting for a signal to begin again; in the silence you could hear a horse whinny all the way across from the weighing-in. A sense of uneasiness gripped the Boy in the quiet and the brightness. The soured false age, the concentrated and limited experience of the Brighton slum drained out of him. He wished he had Cubitt there and Dallow. There was too much to tackle by himself at seventeen. It wasn’t only Spicer. He had started something on Whit Monday which had no end. Death wasn’t an end; the censer swung and the priest raised the Host, and the loud-speaker intoned the winners: ‘Black Boy. Memento Mori. General Burgoyne.’
‘By God,’ Spicer said, ‘I’ve won. Memento Mori for a place,’ and remembering what the Boy had said, ‘And she’s won too. A pony. What a break. Now what about Black Boy?’ Pinkie was silent. He told himself: Fred’s horse. If I was one of those crazy geezers who touch wood, throw salt, won’t go under ladders, I might be scared to—
Spicer plucked at him. ‘I’ve won Pinkie. A tenner. What do you know about that?’
—to go on with what he’d planned with care. Somewhere from farther down the enclosure he heard a laugh, a female laugh, mellow and confident, perhaps the polony who’d put a pony on Fred’s horse. He turned on Spicer with secret venom, cruelty straightening his body like lust.
‘Yes,’ he said, putting his arm round Spicer’s shoulder, ‘you’d better collect now.’
They moved together towards Tate’s stand. A young man with oiled hair stood on a wooden step paying out money. Tate himself was away in the ten shilling enclosure, but they both knew Samuel. Spicer called out to him quite jovially as he advanced, ‘Well, Sammy, now the pay-off.’
Samuel watched them, Spicer and the Boy, come across the shallow threadbare turf, arm-in-arm like very old friends. Half a dozen men collected and stood round, waiting, the last creditor slipped away, they waited in silence, a little man holding an account book put out a tip of tongue and licked a sore lip.
‘You’re in luck, Spicer,’ the Boy said, squeezing his arm. ‘Have a good time with your tenner.’
‘You aren’t saying good-bye yet, are you?’ Spicer asked.
‘I’m not waiting for the four-thirty. I won’t be seeing you again.’
‘What about Colleoni?’ Spicer said. ‘Aren’t you and I. . . ?’ The horses cantered by for another start; the odds were going up; the crowd moved in towards the tote and left them a clear lane. At the end of the lane the little group waited.
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ the Boy said. ‘I’ll see Colleoni at his hotel. You get your money.’ A hatless tout delayed them: ‘A tip for the next race. Only a shilling. I’ve tipped two winners today.’ His toes showed through his shoes. ‘Tip yourself off,’ the Boy said. Spicer didn’t like good-byes: he was a sentimental soul: he shifted on his corn-sore foot. ‘Why,’ he said, looking down the lane to the fence, ‘Tate’s lot haven’t written up the odds yet.’
‘Tate always was slow. Slow in paying out, too. Better get your money.’ He urged him nearer, his hand on Spicer’s elbow.
‘There’s not anything wrong, is there?’ Spicer asked. He looked at the waiting men: they stared through him.
‘Well, this is good-bye,’ the Boy said.
‘You remember the address,’ Spicer said. ‘The “Blue Anchor”, you remember, Union Street. Send me any news. I don’t suppose there’ll be any for me to send.’
The Boy put his hand up as if to pat Spicer on the back and let it fall again: the group of men stood in a bunch waiting. ‘Maybe—’ the Boy said: he looked round: there wasn’t any end to what he had begun. A passion of cruelty stirred in his belly. He put up his hand again and patted Spicer on the back. ‘Good luck to you,’ he said in a high broken adolescent voice and patted him again.
The men with one accord came round them. He heard Spicer scream, ‘Pinkie,’ and saw him fall: a boot with heavy nails was lifted, and then he felt pain run like blood down his own neck.
The surprise at first was far worse than the pain (a nettle could sting as badly). ‘You fools,’ he said, ‘it’s not me, it’s him you want,’ and turned and saw the faces ringing him all round. They grinned back at him: every man had his razor out: and he remembered for the first time Colleoni laughing up the telephone wire. The crowd had scattered at the first sign of trouble; he heard Spicer call out, ‘Pinkie. For Christ’s sake’; an obscure struggle reached its climax out of his sight. He had other things to watch: the long cut-throat razors which the sun caught slanting low down over the downs from Shoreham. He put his hand to his pocket to get his blade, and the man immediately facing him leant across and slashed his knuckles. Pain happened to him, and he was filled with horror and astonishment as if one of the bullied brats at school had stabbed first with the dividers.
They made no attempt to come in and finish him. He sobbed at them, ‘I’ll get Colleoni for this.’ He shouted ‘Spicer’ twice before he remembered that Spicer couldn’t answer. The mob were enjoying themselves, just as he had always enjoyed himself. One of them leant forward to cut his cheek, and when he put up his hand to shield himself they slashed his knuckles again. He began to weep, as the four-thirty went by in a drumbeat of hooves beyond the rail.
Then somebody from the stand shouted ‘Bogies’ and they all moved together, coming quickly at him in a bunch. Somebody kicked him on the thigh, he clutched a razor in his hand and was cut to the bone. Then they scattered as the police ran up the edge of the course, slow in their heavy boots, and he broke through them. A few followed him, out of the wire gate and straight down the side of the Down towards the houses and the sea. He wept as he ran, lame in one leg from the kick, he even tried to pray. You could be saved between the stirrup and the ground, but you couldn’t be saved if you didn’t repent and he hadn’t time, scrambling down the chalk down, to feel the least remorse. He ran awkwardly, tripping, bleeding down his face and from both hands.
Only two men followed him now, and they followed him for the fun of it, shooing him as they might shoo a cat. He reached the first houses in the bottom, but there was no one about. The races ha
d emptied every house: nothing but crazy paving and little lawns, stained-glass doors and a lawn mower abandoned on a gravel path. He didn’t dare to take refuge in a house; while he rang and waited they would reach him. He had his razor blade out now, but he had never yet used it on an armed enemy. He had to hide, but he left a track of blood along the road.
The two men were out of breath; they had wasted it on laughter, and he had young lungs. He gained on them; he wrapped his hand in a handkerchief and held his head back so that the blood ran down his clothes. He turned a corner and was into an empty garage before they had reached it. There he stood in the dusky interior with his razor out, trying to repent. He thought ‘Spicer’, ‘Fred’, but his thoughts would carry him no further than the corner where his pursuers might reappear: he discovered that he hadn’t the energy to repent.
And when a long while later the danger seemed to be over, and there was a long dusk on his hands, it wasn’t eternity he thought about but his own humiliation. He had wept, begged, run: Dallow and Cubitt would hear of it. What would happen to Kite’s mob now? He tried to think of Spicer, but the world held him. He couldn’t order his thoughts. He stood with weak knees against the concrete wall with the blade advanced and watched the corner. A few people passed, the faintest sound of music bit, like an abscess, into his brain from the Palace Pier, the lights came out in the neat barren bourgeois road.
The garage had never been used for a garage; it had become a kind of potting shed. Little green shoots crept, like caterpillars, out of shallow boxes of earth: a spade, a rusty lawn mower, and all the junk the owner had no room for in the tiny house: an old rocking horse, a pram which had been converted into a wheelbarrow, a pile of ancient records—‘Alexander’s Rag Time Band’, ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’, ‘If You Were the Only Girl’; they lay with the trowels, what was left of the crazy paving, a doll with one glass eye and a dress soiled with mould. He took it all in with quick glances, his razor blade ready, the blood clotting on his neck, dripping from his hand, where the handkerchief had slipped. Whatever jackdaw owned this house would have that much added to his possessions—the little drying stain on the concrete floor.