'It's fantastic to think for a moment that Father murdered Mother!' said Mary. 'Such things don't happen.'
'Yes, they do. Read the papers.' 'Not our sort of people.'
'Murder is no snob, Polly. Then there's Micky. Something's eating him all right. He's a queer, bitter lad. Tina seems in the clear, unworried, unaffected. But she's a little poker face if ever there was one. Then there's poor old Kirsty –'
A faint animation came into Mary's face. 'Now that might be a solution!' 'Kirsty?'
'Yes. After all, she's a foreigner. And I believe she's had very bad headaches the last year or two… It seems much more likely that she should have done it than any of us.'
'Poor devil,' said Philip. 'Don't you see that that's just what she is saying to herself? That we'll all agree together that she's the one? For convenience. Because she's not a member of the family. Didn't you see tonight that she was worried stiff? And she's in the same position as Hester. What can she say or do? Say to us all: 'I did not kill my friend and employer'? What weight can that statement carry? It's worse hell for her, perhaps, than for anyone else. Because she's alone. She'll be going over in her mind every word she's ever said, every angry look she ever gave your mother — thinking that it will be remembered against her. Helpless to prove her innocence.'
'I wish you'd calm down, Phil. After all, what can we do about it?'
'Only try to find out the truth.'
'But how is that possible?'
'There might be ways. I'd rather like to try.'
Mary looked uneasy.
'What sort of ways?'
'Oh, saying things — watching how people reset — one could think up things –' he paused, his mind working — 'things that would mean something to a guilty person, but not to an innocent one 'Again he was silent, turning ideas over in his mind. He looked up and said: 'Don't you want to help the innocent, Mary?'
'No.'
The word came out explosively. She came over to him and knelt by his chair. 'I don't want you to mix yourself up in all this, Phil. Don't start saying things and laying traps. Leave it all alone. Oh, for God's sake, leave it alone!'
Philip's eyebrows rose.
'We-ell,' he said. And he laid a hand on the smooth golden head.
Michael Argyle lay sleepless, staring into darkness.
His mind went round and round like a squirrel in a cage, going over the past. Why couldn't he leave it behind him? Why did he have to drag the past with him all through his life? What did it all matter anyway? Why did he have to remember so clearly the cheerful room in the London slum, and he 'our Micky.'
The casual exciting atmosphere! Fun in the streets! Ganging up on other boys! His mother with her bright golden head (cheap rinse, he thought, in his adult wisdom), her sudden furies when she would turn and lambast him (gin, of course!) and the wild gaiety she had when she was in a good mood. Lovely suppers offish and chips, and she'd sing songs — sentimental ballads. Sometimes they'd go to the pictures. There were always the Uncles, of course — that's what he always had to call them. His own dad had walked out before he could remember him… But his mother wouldn't stand for the Uncle of the day laying a hand on him. 'You leave our Micky alone,' she'd say.
And then there had come the excitement of the war. Expecting Hitler's bombers — abortive sirens. Moaning Minnies. Going down into the Tubes and spending the nights there. The fun of it! The whole street was there with their sandwiches and their bottles of pop. And trains rushing through practically all night. That had been life, that had! In the thick of things!
And then he'd come down here — to the country. A dead and alive place where nothing ever happened!
'You'll come back, love, when it's all over,' his mother had said, but lightly as though it wasn't really true. She hadn't seemed to care about his going. And why didn't she come too? Lots of the kids in the street had been evacuated with their Mums. But his mother hadn't wanted to go. She was going to the North (with the current Uncle, Uncle Harry!) to work in munitions.
He must have known then, in spite of her affectionate farewell. She didn't really care… Gin, he thought, that was all she cared for, gin and the Uncles…
And he'd been here, captured, a prisoner, eating tasteless, unfamiliar meals; going to bed, incredibly, at six o'clock, after a silly supper of milk and biscuits (milk and biscuits!), lying awake, crying, his head pushed down under the blankets, crying for Mom and home.
It was that woman! She'd got him and she wouldn't let him go. A lot of sloppy talk. Always making him play silly games. Wanting something from him. Something that he was determined not to give. Never mind. He'd wait. He'd be patient! And one day — one glorious day, he'd go home. Home to the streets, and the boys, and the glorious red buses and the tube, and fish and chips, and the traffic and the area cats — his mind went longingly over the catalogue of delights. He must wait. The war couldn't go on forever. Here he was stuck in this silly place with bombs falling all over London and half London on fire — coo! What a blaze it must make, and people being killed and houses crashing down.
He saw it in his mind all in glorious Technicolor.
Never mind. When the war was over he'd go back to Mom. She'd be surprised to see how he'd grown.
In the darkness Micky Argyle expelled his breath in a long hiss.
The war was over. They'd licked Hitler and Mussolini. Some of the children were going back. Soon, now…
And then she had come back from London and had said that he was going to stay at Sunny Point and be her own little boy…
He had said: 'Where's my Mom? Did a bomb get her?'
If she had been killed by a bomb — well, that would be not too bad. It happened to boys' mothers.
But Mrs. Argyle said 'No,' she hadn't been killed. But she had some rather difficult work to do and couldn't look after a child very well — that sort of thing, anyway; soft soap, meaning nothing… His Mom didn't love him, didn't want him back — he'd got to stay here, for ever…
He'd sneaked round after that, trying to overhear conversations, and at last he did hear something, just a fragment between Mrs. Argyle and her husband. 'Only too pleased to get rid of him — absolutely indifferent and something about a hundred pounds. So then he knew — his mother had sold him for a hundred pounds…'
The humiliation — the pain — he'd never got over it… And she had bought him! He saw her, vaguely, as embodied power, someone against whom he, in his puny strength, was helpless. But he'd grow up, he'd be strong one day, a man. And then he'd kill her…
He felt better once he'd made that resolution.
Later, when he went away to school, things were not so bad. But he hated the holidays — because of her. Arranging everything, planning, giving him all sorts of presents. Looking puzzled, because he was so undemonstrative. He hated being kissed by her… And later still, he'd taken a pleasure in thwarting her silly plans for him. Going into a bank! An oil company. Not he. He'd go and find work for himself.
It was when he was at the university that he'd tried to trace his mother. She'd been dead for some years, he discovered — in a car crash with a man who'd been driving roaring drunk…
So why not forget it all? Why not just have a good time and get on with life? He didn't know why not.
And now — what was going to happen now? She was dead, wasn't she? Thinking she'd bought him for a miserable hundred pounds. Thinking she could buy anything — houses and cars — and children, since she hadn't any of her own. Thinking she was God Almighty!
Well, she wasn't. Just a crack on the head with a poker and she was a corpse like any other corpse! (like the golden haired corpse in a car smash on the Great North Road …)
She was dead, wasn't she? Why worry?
What was the matter with him? Was it — that he couldn't hate her any more because she was dead?
So that was Death…
He felt lost without his hatred — lost and afraid.
