Читать книгу The House Opposite - J. Jefferson Farjeon - Страница 7

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Ben did not move for five minutes after the front door slammed and the dream had passed out of it, leaving only the nightmare behind. He wanted to try and work things out, and you could only do that when you kept quite still.

This girl, now, to begin with. What about her? She was a stunner, all right. Do for a queen anywhere, or p’r’aps more a princess like. The kind of girl he’d have liked his little kid to have growed up into, if she’d growed up at all ... Just the same, there was something rum about her. First saying she’d come in to get out of the rain. And, afterwards, it being her house, all the time.

‘Yus, but if it’s ’er ’ouse, wot she wanter come in through the winder for?’ wondered Ben. ‘Don’t they ’ave latch keys?’

There you were, you see! There was something rum about her! You always got a latch key with a house. Suppose it wasn’t her house?

‘Well, if it ain’t ’er ’ouse, it don’t mike no dif’rence,’ Ben retorted to himself. ‘I’ll bet she ain’t a wrong ’un, although I’ve knowed wrong uns afore wot couldn’t ’elp it. Any’ow, there’s ’er pahnd, and ’ere am I, and I’ve took on the job!’

So that was that. Next?

Next, the Indian. What about him? It was quite impossible to formulate any definite theory about him, either, but two points emerged uncomfortably from thought. First, would he come back to find out if Ben had left? Second, was he still here, waiting for Ben to go?

‘Lummy!’ murmured Ben, and decided to try and forget this for a moment or two. You see, when you started thinking about the Indian he got hold of your mind like an octopus and wouldn’t let you think of anything else.

And there were other things to think about. That first chap who had called. What about him? And the funny goings on at No. 29. What about them? And ...

Ben’s eyes began to roam towards the window, and paused at the wooden case with the note still lying on it.

Yes—and the pound. What about that?

And now a wonderful idea dawned in Ben’s mind, as the outcome of all these cogitations. If he was going to dig himself in here for the night, he would have to go out and buy a few things. It might even be a good idea to try and find a Lockhart’s and stoke up. Why not use this occasion to fool the Indian, making him believe that Ben’s temporary departure was a permanent one?

‘Blimy, there’s a clever idea!’ thought Ben, rendered solemn by his own ingenuity. ‘She called me Napoleon—I reckon she was right!’

He worked it all out carefully, just as Napoleon would have done. Say the Indian was away, but returned? He’d find the house empty, and would be satisfied. Say he wasn’t away, but heard Ben leave? Same thing, wasn’t it? Especially if Ben talked a bit to himself, to add a little local colour like?

Yes, that was the plan! Now to put it into operation! He stepped to the packing case, and secured the pound.

‘Gawd—a pahnd!’ he exclaimed suddenly. ‘A ’ole blinkin’ pahnd!’

It was the first time he had fully realised it. Turn that into cheese, and it’d take some carrying!

Yes, but suppose the girl returned, and found him gone? Him and the pound? What’d she think? Ben did not want to risk her bad opinion.

To avoid the risk he fished a scrap of paper from his pocket. It was a nice bit, the best bit he’d got. Only two thumb-marks. Still; she was worth it. From another pocket he fished out a pencil stump. This wasn’t quite so impressive. They give you rotten pencils at the post office. Then, after thinking for a full minute of the best way to convey the idea on paper that he was coming back, he gave the lead a lick and wrote:

‘COMIN BACK.’

He laid the paper on the wooden case, where the pound note had been. If she returned she’d be sure to find it ...

‘Yus, but if the Injun returns, ’e’ll find it, too!’ thought Ben, with a shock.

A bad mark for Napoleon, that! He sweated, to realise how nearly he had cooked his own goose. What a mug he was!

But the next instant he was smiling again. He needn’t waste the paper. He’d use it to cheat the Indian further. He added a word to the message, and now it read:

‘AINT COMIN BACK.’

He chuckled as he read the amended version, and continued to chuckle all the way out to the passage. Then the chuckling stopped abruptly.

‘Yus, but s’pose, arter all, the Injun don’t return, and the gal does?’

He turned and re-entered the room. He tore the paper to little bits, and threw them on the floor. Then he picked all the little bits up, and threw them out of the window. He realised that, after all, he wasn’t quite cut out for a general.

Nevertheless, he did not scrap his entire plan of campaign, and when he reached the passage again and began to descend the stairs he remembered to pretend to be frightened, so that the Indian, if he were watching through any of the cracks, would believe he was being scared out of the house. He did not find the pretence in the least difficult. His first ‘Ah’ of simulated fear was so realistic that it sent him sliding down half a flight. It would have been a full flight but for a turn.

‘Gawd!’ muttered Ben, almost tearfully. ‘I wish I ’ad ’old of the feller wot invented hechoes!’

He rose, and decided that his future demonstrations would be more quiet like. He began to mutter.

‘Well, arter orl, wot’s the good o’ stayin’?’ he asked. ‘It’s a rotten ’ouse, any’ow, and if the Injun wants it, ’e can ’ave it. I’ve ’ad enuff of it. I’m goin’ away, and I ain’t never comin’ back, never, not so long as I live!’

That ought to do it. Still, just to make perfectly certain, he added:

‘I reckon yer wouldn’t git me back ’ere not if King George ’iself was ter come up ter me and ter say, “Ben, won’t yer?” ’

There! If the Indian didn’t believe him after that, he must be a fool!

Satisfied with his effort, Ben reached the front door and opened it cautiously. It was not quite dark yet, but a vague drizzle still filled the air and merged into the indeterminate mist. Not at all pleasant outside. But then it wasn’t at all pleasant inside, either. Life is largely a matter of comparisons, and the outside of No. 29 Jowle Street didn’t have to exert itself seriously to secure the advantage.

Before leaving the doubtful sanctuary of No. 29, Ben looked across the road at No. 26. If anybody had popped out of No. 26 at that moment, he might have popped back into No. 29. No. 26 was already beginning to get upon his nerves and to exert an hypnotic influence over him. His mind was constantly drawn there. He hoped that his body would never be. But, happily, no one popped out at this particular moment, and, closing the door behind him, Ben slipped out into the road.

And now, for a few moments, he became a very different creature from the hesitating Ben we have known. He moved like lightning, having a remarkable ability in that direction when necessity arose. The necessity just now was simply the necessity of getting out of Jowle Street before Jowle Street saw him, as it were. That, and a sudden longing for the company of a cup of tea.

Already Jowle Street lay three streets away. You couldn’t get back there by one move of the chess-board, not even if you were a knight. Ben breathed a little more freely. What about not going back at all? Yes, why go back? With a pound in his pocket to spend, and ...

Ah, but was the pound his to spend if he didn’t go back? There was the catch!

Three more corners; round two of them; and now a light streaked across the road. It came from the window of a shop outside which stood a stout man mechanically exhorting passers-by to purchase bacon before closing-time. ‘Where bacon goes, cheese follers,’ was one of Ben’s guides to existence. Ruth and Naomi were not more inseparable. He veered across to the stout man, and demanded cheddar.

The stout man cut him a slab, and held it out to him.

‘Where’s the piper?’ demanded Ben.

‘You don’t want any paper,’ answered the stout man, with a grin.

‘ ’Ow am I goin’ ter write my letters ter-night?’ retorted Ben. ‘Churchill’s waitin’ ter ’ear from me.’

The stout man laughed. He wasn’t really unkind. He did the cheese up in a beautiful parcel, while Ben counted out his change, to make sure he hadn’t received too many coins.

Along another street was a coffee stall. Ben made a bee-line for this when he spotted it, and life eased out.

‘Cup o’ tea,’ he ordered. ‘Big ’un!’

Then he nearly jumped out of his skin. The Indian was standing next to him.

‘Good evening,’ said the Indian.

Ben gulped. He wasn’t quite ready for the courtesies.

But the Indian betrayed no annoyance over his lack of them. He continued amiably:

‘You are out for a walk?’

Ben recovered himself, and answered:

‘No. I’m surf-ridin’.’

The Indian smiled. So did the coffee stall keeper. The coffee-stall keeper’s smile was ever so much the nicer.

‘Here’s your tea, mate,’ grinned the latter. ‘Want anything to eat with it?’

‘Yus, ’am sandwich,’ replied Ben, ‘and don’t fergit the ’am.’

He drank the tea in one go, and shoved the cup across the counter for replenishment. The Indian watched him, still smiling. The coffee-stall keeper took the cup, and turned away for a moment. Then the Indian bent forward suddenly, bringing his face within six inches of Ben’s. It became magnified, like a close-up. The smile seemed to expand all round him.

‘You are sensible,’ said a voice in the middle of the enormous smile. ‘See that you stay so!’

The coffee stall-keeper turned back with the cup.

‘Well, I’m blowed!’ he exclaimed. ‘Where’s he gone?’

The Indian had vanished.

Ben rubbed his forehead. He felt as though the Indian’s eyes were still upon him, and he wanted to get rid of them. He’d been through some nasty moments in his life; sometimes, indeed, he doubted whether there were any really nasty moments he hadn’t been through; but the moment when the Indian had suddenly advanced his face and become a close-up was one of the very nastiest he could remember ...

‘Rum chaps, them Indians,’ remarked the coffee-stall keeper, breathing on a spoon and polishing it, ‘but I like ’em.’

‘I loves ’em,’ replied Ben.

‘Aunt of mine used to board ’em,’ went on the coffee-stall keeper, ‘and she used to say nicer people she never met. But, of course, you get all kinds.’ He leaned forward, and dropped his voice confidentially. ‘Between you and me, mate,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t much care to sleep in a room next to that one!’

‘That’s right,’ murmured Ben.

‘If he was peckish, like as not he’d slice out your liver and have it for breakfast!’

He burst into guffaws at the joke. Ben did not join in. The coffee stall-keeper looked disappointed, and tried something else.

‘Fancy them findin’ that old man in Bermondsey ’angin’ upside down!’

‘ ’Ere, you’re a little ray o’ sunlight, ain’t yer?’ barked Ben.

He finished his second cup quickly, paid his account, and turned away.

Which direction should he take? Left—towards Jowle Street? Or right—towards peace? Suddenly he fished a coin from his pocket.

‘ ’Eads, it’s Jowle Street,’ he muttered, ‘and tails it ain’t!’

He tossed. The coin came down tails.

‘It ain’t,’ he murmured.

And turned towards Jowle Street.