churches; he counted one, two, three, four, and stopped. He was scared suppose it was true, suppose Pinkie knew, and it was that mad scheme... what the hell was taking anyone for a ride in the country at this hour, except to a roadhouse, and Pinkie didn't go to roadhouses. He said softly: 'I won't stand for it,' aloud--he was confused, he wished he hadn't drunk all that beer; she was a good kid. He remembered her in the kitchen, going to light the stove. And why not? he thought, staring gloomily out to sea; he was shaken by a sudden sentimental desire which Judy couldn't satisfy; for a paper with your breakfast and warm fires. He began to walk rapidly down the pier towards the turnstiles. There were things he wouldn't stand for.
He knew the Morris wouldn't be on the rank, but all the same he had to go and see for himself. Its absence was like a voice speaking quite plainly in his ear. ' Suppose she kills herself... A pact may be murder, but they don't hang you for it.' He stood there hopelessly, not knowing what to do. Beer clouded his brain; he passed a harassed hand across his face.
He said to the attendant: 'You see that Morris go out?'
'Your friend and his girl took it,' the man said, hobbling between a Talbot and an Austin. One leg was gammy; he moved it with a mechanism worked from his pocket, lurching with an air of enormous strain to pocket sixpence, to say: 'It's a fine night'; he looked worn with the awful labour of the trivial act.
He said: 'They're goin' up to Peacehaven for a drink.
Don't ask me why.' Hand in pocket he pulled the hidden wire and made his unsteady and diagonal way towards a Ford. 'The rain won't hold off long,' his voice came back, and: 'Thank you, sir,' and then again the labour of movement as a Morris Oxford backed in, the pulling at the wire.
Dallow stood there hopelessly at a loss. There were buses.., but everything would be over long before a bus got in. Better to wash his hands of the whole thing ... after all he didn't know--in half an hour he might see the old car coming back past the Aquarium, Pinkie driving and the girl beside him, but he knew very well in his heart that it would never come, not with both of them, that way. The Boy had left too many signs behind him the message at the shooting range, at the car park; he wanted to be followed in good time, in his own time, to fit in with his story. The man came lurching back. He said: 'I thought your friend seemed queer tonight. Sort of lit up.' It was as if he were talking in the witness box, giving the evidence he was meant to give.
Dallow turned hopelessly away... fetch Judy, go home, wait... and there was the woman standing a few feet away. She'd followed him and listened. He said: 'God's sakes, this is your doing. You made him marry her, you made him...'
'Get a car,' she said, 'quick.'
'I've not got the money for a car.'
'I have. You better hurry.'
'There's no cause to hurry/* he said weakly.
'They've just gone for a drink.'
'You know what they've gone for,' she said. 'I don't. But if you want to keep out of this, you'd better get that car.'
The first rain began to blow up the parade as he weakly argued. 'I don't know a thing.'
'That's right,' she said. 'You're just taking me for a drive, that's all.' She burst suddenly out at him: 'Don't be a fool. You better have me for a friend....'
She said: 'You see what's come to Pinkie.'
All the same he didn't hurry. What was the good?
Pinkie had laid this trail. Pinkie thought of everything, they were meant to follow in due course, and find... he hadn't got the imagination to see what they'd find.
The Boy stopped at the head of the stairs and looked down. Two men had come into the lounge; hearty and damp in camel hair coats they shook out their moisture like dogs and were noisy over their drinks. 'Two pints,' they ordered, 'in tankards,' and fell suddenly silent scenting a girl in the lounge. They were upperclass, they'd learned that tankard trick in class hotels; he watched their gambits with hatred from the stairs.
Anything female was better than nothing, even Rose; but he could sense their half-heartedness. She wasn't worth more than a little sidelong swagger, 'I think we touched eighty.'
'I made it eighty-two,'
'She's a good bus.'
'How much did they sting you?'
'A couple of hundred. She's cheap at the price.'
Then they both stopped and took an arrogant look at the girl by the statuette. She wasn't worth bothering about, but if she absolutely fell, without trouble ... one of them said something in a low voice and the other laughed. They took long swills of bitter from the tankards.
Tenderness came up to the very window and looked in. What the hell right had they got to swagger and laugh... if she was good enough for him? He came down the stairs into the hall; they looked up and moued to each other, as much as to say: 'Oh, well, she wasn't really worth the trouble.'
One of them said: 'Drink up. We better get on with the good work. You don't think Zoe'll be out?'
'Oh, no. I said I might drop in.'
'Her friend all right?'
'She's hot.'
'Let's get on then.'
They drained their beer and moved arrogantly to the door, taking a passing look at Rose as they went.
He could hear them laugh outside the door. They were laughing at him. He came a few steps into the lounge--again they were bound in an icy constraint. He had a sudden inclination to throw up the whole thing, to get into the car and drive home, and let her live. It was less a motion of pity than of weariness there was such a hell of a lot to do and think of: there were going to be so many questions to be answered. He could hardly believe in the freedom at the end of it, and even that freedom was to be in a strange place. He said: 'The rain's worse.' She stood there waiting; she couldn't answer; she was breathing hard as if she'd run a long way and she looked old. She was sixteen but this was how she might have looked after years of marriage, of the childbirth and the daily quarrel--they had reached death and it affected them like age.
She said: 'I wrote what you wanted.' She waited for him to take the scrap of paper and write his own message to the coroner, to Daily Express readers, to what one called the world. The other boy came cautiously into the lounge and said: 'You haven't paid.'
While Pinkie found the money, she was visited by an almost overwhelming rebellion she had only to go out, leave him, refuse to play. He couldn't make her kill herself--life wasn't as bad as that. It came like a revelation, as if someone had whispered to her that she was someone, a separate creature not just one flesh with him. She could always escape if he didn't change his mind. Nothing was decided. They could go in the car wherever he wanted them to go; she could take the gun from his hand, and even then at the last moment of all she needn't shoot. Nothing was decided there was always hope.
'That's your tip,' the Boy said. 'I always tip a waiter.' Hate came back. He said: 'You a good Catholic, Piker? Do you go to Mass on Sundays like they tell you?'
Piker said with weak defiance: 'Why not, Pinkie?'
'You're afraid,' the Boy said. 'You're afraid of burning.'
'Who wouldn't be?'
'I'm not.' He looked with loathing into the past a cracked bell ringing, a child weeping under the cane and repeated: 'I'm not afraid.' He said to Rose: 'We'll be going.' He came tentatively across and put a nail against her cheek half caress, half threat and said: 'You'd love me always, wouldn't you?'
'Yes.'
He gave her one more chance: 'You'd always have stuck to me,' and when she nodded her agreement, he began wearily the long course of action which one day would let him be free again.
Outside in the rain the self-starter wouldn't work; he stood with his coat collar turned up and pulled the handle. She wanted to tell him that he mustn't stand there, getting wet, because she'd changed her mind they were going to live, by hook or by crook but she daren't. She pushed hope back to the last possible moment. When they drove off she said: 'Last night ... the night before... you didn't hate me, did you, for what we did?'
He said: u No, I didn't hate you.'
'Even though it was a mortal sin?'
