The Paua Tower (23 page)

Roland tried to concentrate, focusing his gaze on the stark white skin of Eleanor’s neck and the curls frizzed around her face like a heap of crisp bacon rashers. He must think of the play and stop thinking about Amélie, he really must. Amélie was behind him, standing in the doorway of the drawing room waiting for her cue. Roland could smell her perfume, which was an almost constant torment for him. After she’d been in the car he’d smell it for days and it made him desperate. He thought of the biblical quote about the wind blowing where it listeth — terribly profane, blasphemous he supposed, but nowadays any sense of what was sacred and what profane was utterly jumbled in his mind.

‘No, Vicar, no,’ said Mrs Hildred, coming down the few stairs into the hall, letting her fringed, embroidered shawl drag on the floor behind her. ‘I just don’t think it’s your night — maybe it’s worry about that dear little wife at home. Let’s take a break. I’ll get Lizzy to bring in some tea.’

Roland stood holding a teacup and listening to Des Syme, a small cube-shaped man in a dark brown suit, talk about the various estimates he’d got for repairing the St Peter’s organ. Mr Syme played the part of the café owner in
Tea for Two.

‘McLaughlin’s, they’re the ones to go with,’ said Mr Syme, pulling down the front of his waistcoat. ‘Not the cheapest or the dearest, just the best.’

‘Sounds all right to me,’ said Roland, watching Amélie light a cigarette in an ivory holder. She was wearing a dark red dress drawn tightly across the hips. Roland wondered if she had on one of those new American rubber girdles he’d read about, rather than the usual cotton and bone corset. The thought was exciting. ‘The vestry …’ he said vaguely.

‘The vestry,’ said Mr Syme, scratching his ear, ‘don’t have the foggiest about organs, as you well know. Take it from me, Vicar, if you and I press for McLaughlin’s the vestry will support us.’

‘Good, good,’ said Roland, following Amélie with his eyes.
‘And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d better see if Mrs Baldwin wants another cup of tea.’

‘You are distracted tonight, Roland.’ Amélie tapped her
cigarette
into the waist-high brass cigarette stand.

‘I am.’ Roland looked at Amélie’s hand extending from her red cuff and longed to circle her wrists with his fingers.

‘Pourquoi?’ said Amélie.

‘By you,’ said Roland, not intending to say it and feeling himself blush.

Amélie raised her eyebrows and smiled. Simultaneously, Mrs Hildred clapped her hands. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she said, as if she were making an announcement to hundreds of people, ‘my husband has just telephoned from town. It seems there are crowds moving about the streets on account of this unemployed march. Nothing to be alarmed about, of course, but he suggests it might be wise if we curtailed our rehearsal and you went home.’

T
he dining room at the bank house was unofficially a male preserve. It was the room where Jack Baldwin read the paper, did the crossword, had his mahogany bureau with the pull-down flap, and kept his school rowing cups. Jack’s painting of a Sopwith Camel hung over the fireplace, above the inlaid wooden clock presented to him from his bank colleagues on the occasion of his marriage, alongside the pair of Belleek jugs he’d inherited from his mother. It was also the room where Tad did his homework (when he wasn’t reading comics), fiddled about with his crystal set, and kept a stash of uneaten crusts on a ledge hidden under the table.

Amélie had already left the house for the rehearsal and Jack was sitting at the dining-room fire reading the newspaper. Tad, who was supposed to be doing his long-division sums, was inking in the Os on the cover of his exercise book, feeling aggrieved that
his father had forbidden him to go out to watch the unemployed march through the town.

‘But why, Dad?’ said Tad for the second or third time.

‘I’ve told you,’ said Jack wearily. ‘It could be nasty. I don’t want you out there on the street getting your head knocked in.’

‘But Mum’s gone out. Why didn’t you stop her?’ said Tad, seeing ink on his thumb and wiping it on his school pants.

‘Your Mum’s a grown-up,’ said Jack, folding the paper. ‘It’s up to her to decide what she does.’

‘Don’t you care if she gets knocked on the head?’ asked Tad.

‘Really, son, you’re just being provocative. Of course I care, but your mother’s with Mr Crawford. They’ve gone in a car and they’re heading out to the Hildreds’, not into the town.’

‘Mum’s always going out with Mr Crawford.’ Tad put his face close to the exercise book so he could fill in a very small O with greater accuracy. ‘Has she got a crush on him or something?’

‘That’s quite enough,’ said Jack. ‘Time you were in bed. Books away and up you go.’

Grateful to be freed from homework, or rather the pretence of it, Tad crammed his books into his satchel. ‘Can I get some cocoa?’ he said from the doorway.

‘Provided you’re quick,’ said Jack, taking the fountain pen out of his breast pocket ready for the crossword. He looked at the black and white squares of the puzzle and thought of what Tad had said about Amélie and the vicar. It was absurd, unthinkable really, yet they certainly saw a lot of each other these days. But then again, that’s what happened if you were both in a play. Jack thought of how he’d suspected something a few months back between his wife and Jim Maguire and obviously been wrong about that. Wasn’t good to be suspicious and jealous, he thought. It could eat you up, make you bitter.

But the idea of Amélie and Crawford lingered in his mind, putting him off the clues, so Jack put the newspaper aside. He felt tired — not the ordinary, run-of-the-mill tiredness he felt every
day, but a worse, dragging feeling in his limbs. It was his damaged lungs that were doing it. If he could have just a few proper breaths of good clear air he’d no doubt feel better but that was impossible. Just have to live with it, the doctors told him. Nothing to be done, the air sacs in his lungs damaged beyond recovery.

Deciding to go to bed, Jack stood up and caught sight of his reflection in the wall mirror. How ill and haggard he looked. He was not yet fifty but his face belonged to a much older man, his eyes withdrawn into his skin, his cheeks sagging on the bones. Jack looked away as he pulled the firescreen over the grate.

‘My God,’ said Vic as they came out of the side door of the cinema into the darkness of Marlborough Avenue. The street was surging with men running forward, throwing anything they could lay their hands on and running back. Everyone seemed to be shouting and from the main street came the sound of breaking glass. Vic saw the big figure of Tiny Mulcock in the mêlée and grabbed his coat.

‘What the hell’s happened?’ Vic asked.

‘The crowd’s huge — they tried to get into the meeting and the police stopped them,’ panted Tiny, his face red and damp.

‘It wasn’t the police,’ said Vic. ‘The doors had to be shut — there were too many people in there.’

‘Buggered if I know what went on,’ said Tiny, ‘but someone spat at a cop and then one of the Walsh boys started smashing shop windows and everyone’s gone berserk. It’s fucking awful; the Specials are clobbering everyone.’

‘We need to get down there,’ said Vic.

‘What for?’ said Tiny. ‘Unless you want your block knocked off.’

‘He’s right.’ Sam Langdon looked about in panic.

‘Something needs to be done,’ said Armstrong.

Vic nodded. ‘If this keeps up, people’ll get killed.’

‘Things look way out of control already,’ said Langdon. ‘Can’t see anyone stopping it now.’

‘We’re going to have a bloody good try,’ insisted Vic, pushing his hand through his hair.

With Gilchrist and Armstrong he shouldered his way through the moving throng to the corner of the main street.

‘Can’t see anything except police-horses’ bums from here,’ said Gilchrist.

‘The fire escape,’ said Vic, looking at the side of the cinema. ‘If we can reach the bottom of that we could make it to the veranda.’ The three of them looked at the extendable metal ladder, which dangled from the building, tantalisingly beyond their reach.

‘Too high,’ said Armstrong, who was still holding the chair he had grabbed in the cinema.

‘The rubbish bins over there — we could use them,’ said Vic.

They dragged the bins together and piled them on the chair to make a precarious tower against the side of the building. Helped by the others, Vic climbed to the top, then reached up, his hands grazing the metal of the ladder’s bottom rung. Suddenly the crowd was pushed back, knocking the structure from under him and he was thrown to the ground. He got to his feet, brushing down his grazed hands and tried again. The bins creaked and swayed.

‘Watch it!’ Armstrong shouted.

Vic caught the rung and pulled himself up just as the top container collapsed. Once on the ladder he was able to push down the extension for the others to climb.

Behind the façade of the cinema Vic could see the main street, a confusion of soft hats, caps and berets swirled under the
streetlights
. There was a wild, explosive feeling in the night, as if all the pent-up rage, the years of humiliation, the lack of food, proper wages and a decent job had goaded men beyond endurance. Despair and frustration were cresting and breaking over the town like a gigantic wave.

In front of the cinema the Specials in their tin hats and police in helmets pressed forward in a ragged line, endeavouring to
disperse the crowd by driving them back down the street. Vic could see that the people in front were trapped as the throng behind surged forward. The Specials were swinging their long hardwood batons as if they were drum majors heading some
extraordinary
band. Heads were being thumped seemingly at random. Over the uproar Vic could hear the deadly thwack and shouts of pain as men dropped back and vanished into the swaying fray. He could hear the high whinny of the police horses as they were forced against the crowd. He saw a large woman in a dark cardigan kicked by a horse’s hoof. Screaming, she stumbled backwards and disappeared. A rubbish bin flew overhead, breaking the window of Gillmans the drapery with a cataclysmic smash. A man in a long overcoat was being shoved into a police van. Vic thought it was one of the Nicholson brothers from Punawai but it was hard to be sure. On the footpath, boys with shanghais were weaving about peppering glass with stones; individual fights were erupting in shop doorways and alleyways. In the vacant section next to the Adelphi, men were ripping apart the paling fence to provide weapons and protection. There was a yawning, tearing sound as each slat broke. A youth in a checked jacket pitched forward out of the crowd, stumbling perhaps over a foot or a kerbstone; Vic saw a Special raise his baton and beat the young man about the head and shoulders until he fell. The fire engines arrived at the corner of Waterloo Street and the firemen start unrolling hoses. Were they planning to turn them on the crowd?

Armstrong was on the veranda roof calling for calm, though without a megaphone his voice was lost in the uproar.

Vic, who was sheltering with Gilchrist behind the façade at the side, saw two Specials look up at the cinema and make for the fire escape.

‘Run, Armstrong!’ Vic yelled as he and Gilchrist dodged past the Otway leader along the top of the corrugated iron veranda. ‘They’re after us!’

Vic slithered down a drainpipe outside Pearsons’ with
Gilchrist behind him; Armstrong had disappeared but Vic didn’t know if he had escaped.

‘This is a disaster — people are going to get killed,’ Vic gasped as the crowd pushed him and Gilchrist against an old hitching post outside the shop.

‘Could be real bloodbath, just what the bosses want,’ shouted Gilchrist above the din.

‘Got an idea,’ said Vic.

‘What’d you say?’ said Gilchrist.

‘We could turn the streetlights and electricity off. If those bloody Specials were in the dark, they’d find it harder to belt people up,’ said Vic.

‘Could you do it?’ mouthed Gilchrist.

‘Think so,’ said Vic, beginning to struggle against the crowd. ‘Have to go to the substation on Trafalgar Street. You coming?’

‘Course,’ said Gilchrist, following him.

The men jostled their way along together. They were clouted by elbows and shoulders as the crowd pressed against them like a shouting, shuffling wall. All around was the smell of old clothes and human sweat. The mass of people carried the two friends forward, then just as suddenly fell back, and on the return movement Gilchrist vanished. There was no time to look about so Vic pushed on alone. It was difficult manoeuvring among the solid wedge of bodies — men wearing war medals on tatty coats, young men in unravelling jerseys under old suit jackets, and occasionally a woman, propelled Vic back towards the cinema.

Alongside Davidsons’ grocery were a corrugated iron fence and an alleyway that came out in Trafalgar Street close to the electricity substation. Vic shoved and heaved his way out of the crowd into the shortcut. He knew he had to hurry before things got even worse and someone was killed. It was darker than on the main street but as he ran down the lane Vic could make out a group of people around an elevated door. It looked as if the side entrance to the shop had been smashed and a young man in torn trousers
was on some steps leading to the broken opening. He was pulling what looked like bags of flour and sugar through the aperture and throwing them down. A man in his shirtsleeves was packing them into a homemade pushcart while other people were carrying the sacks away.

‘The Specials, they’re coming!’ someone shouted. The youth jumped to the ground and everyone scattered. The man with the loaded cart pulled it behind him, but as he did so a wheel broke free. There was confusion as the exit to Trafalgar Street was momentarily blocked. Vic leapt for the fence, hoping to escape. His hands gripped the top of the barrier and as they did so he heard the sound of hurrying feet and felt a crack across the side of his head like a cannon exploding in his ear. A flurry of shapes, garish leaves harried by a hurricane, rose before his vision and Vic’s fingers uncurled from the fence as he tumbled to the ground.

Vic felt as if a wedge had been cut off his head by a bacon slicer, and one of his eyes was difficult to open. He’d no idea how long he’d been lying on top of the pile of cardboard boxes but he doubted it was for long. The lane was empty, except for the
overturned
handcart spewing the looted sacks, but there was still the noise of mayhem in the main street. Vic pulled himself up, holding onto the fence supports. When he put his hand to his face he could feel it damp: he supposed it was blood. Forcing himself to his feet, he went unsteadily down the lane. When he turned into Trafalgar Street he could hear sounds of hitting and agonised cries coming from an abandoned building near the corner.

The Nell Gwyn Crystallised Fruit Works had boarded-up windows and doorways covered by rusted metal gates, most of which were torn adrift and flapped in the street. The noise was coming from the main entrance. Head blazing with pain, Vic ran towards the old building, where a streetlight illuminated the factory doorway. Looking in he saw a familiar figure in a Specials tin hat with a baton, beating the head and shoulders of a man
struggling on the ground. The dark moustache and ample girth were unmistakable: it was Jim Maguire. At his feet was Gilchrist, arms around his head and his face covered in blood like a dark mask.

Maybe there was a split-second when Vic thought of what Maguire had done to Stella, he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that when he drew back his fist and hit Maguire on the jaw, it was like a train charging at a mountain. Maguire, caught off guard, stumbled and clutched at the loose metal gate as it swung behind him. His tin hat tumbled off and he fell across the doorway, hitting the back of his head on the edge of the concrete step with a cracking thump.

‘Are you all right?’ said Vic, putting his hand out to Gilchrist, who was endeavouring to stand.

‘No, I’m fucking not.’ Gilchrist’s voice was indistinct. ‘Think my shoulder’s broken.’

‘What happened?’ said Vic.

‘Got caught up with looters, lost my glasses, can see bugger all without them. Hid here ’cause the Specials were after me. That bastard you’ve just decked followed me in.’ Gilchrist tried to pull himself to his feet, his hands clutching the doorframe.

‘I seem to have laid him out cold.’ Vic peered at the prone Maguire.

‘Bloody good job if you killed him,’ said Gilchrist, wiping his face with his jacket sleeve.

The substation on Trafalgar Street was a wooden structure built high off the pavement. It had no windows and a pair of narrow doors that were always locked. Vic, who had passed the building numerous times, thought of the locks as he ran, and hoped he’d be able to break them. He’d left Gilchrist sitting in the gutter beside the supine Maguire and promised he’d be back as soon as the job was done. Grabbing Maguire’s baton, he’d headed off.