let you see he knew you realised he was up to something. He sidled over and said, ‘We meet again, Mr Montgomery Pew. Two fishes in the troubled water.’
He sat down beside me. ‘The rumour about me with those who just don’t know,’ he went on, as if aggrieved (and I’d aggrieved him), ‘is that I’m working for the coppers: a nark, like. But do you really think these boys would let me come here if they thought that lie was true?’
‘How should I know?’
‘The Spades trust me, see? They trust the little queer boy because we’re both minorities.’
‘How old are you?’ I asked him.
‘Seventeen.’
‘You’re much too old for your age.’
He sighed and smiled, and looked at me appealingly. ‘I’ve had so hard a life – if you but knew! I was brought up by the Spades – did you know that?’
‘No.’
‘Yes, by them. Fact. I was an orphan, see, and brought up by Mr Obo-King.’
‘Is this true, or are you making it all up?’
‘Why should I lie to you – what’s the advantage? Yes, by Obo-King I was brought up, till I set out on my own.’ He looked sad, and wizened, and resigned. ‘It’s all the same,’ he said, ‘if you don’t believe me. I do odd jobs for Mr Vial and other gentleman, that’s what I do. Make contacts for them that they need among the Spades.’
‘Why bother to tell me?’
He sighed again. ‘You’re suspicious of me – why?’ he said archly. ‘Anyway, I’ll do you one favour, all the same. You’d better be going, because there’s trouble in store tonight for someone.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, you do want to know?’ He rose, assumed a bogus American stance and speech and said, ‘Stick around, man, and you’ll see.’
A complete stranger, wearing a dark-blue suit and spectacles, said, ‘Come now, sir. She wait for you, Miss Barbara. Come now with me.’
I followed him to the next floor, where he opened a door with a polite inclination, and shut it after me. Barbara was sitting by a gas fire, reading a ‘true story’ magazine. ‘Oh, hi,’ she said, finished a paragraph, then went on, ‘Tamberlaine said you want to talk with me.’
‘That’s right, Barbara.’ I sat down too.
‘Do you ever read these things?’ she said, handing me the book. ‘But they don’t know nothing about life as it really is.’
‘They say truth is stranger than fiction, don’t they.’
‘Eh? All I know is, if you’ve been a kid like me in Cardiff, and seen what I seen, there’d be more to tell than you could put in any book. I just haven’t had the life at all. Everyone uses me, white like coloured. If you’re Butetown born, down Tiger Bay, your only hope is show business, or boxing if you’re a boy. But me, I can’t even sing a note straight.’ She got up. ‘Well, shall we get on with it? I don’t want to miss the party.’ She began taking clothes off in an indifferent, casual way. ‘Yes,’ she went on, ‘my only hope is to marry me a GI, and get right out of this. Or maybe a white boy if he has some position, that’s what I want, a position. I’m sick of these hustlers with their easy money! And do you know – I couldn’t tell you who my dad is, even if you asked? Even my mum don’t know, or so she says, can you believe it? Can you imagine? Not even to know who it was created you? Why do you leave your socks on last? It makes you look funny.’
‘The linoleum’s cold.’
Billy Whispers and Ronson Lighter came, without knocking, into the room. ‘Go out now, Barbara,’ said Ronson. ‘We talk to this man alone.’
‘But I’m not dressed.’
‘Dress yourself on the landing, out the door. Go, now.’
I began putting clothes on too, but Ronson Lighter snatched away the essential garments, and sat on them on the bed. ‘Just wait now a minute,’ he said. ‘We want to talk with you.’
‘You’re always pinching things, Ronson Lighter. One day somebody will hit you.’
‘Like you will, perhaps?’
I’d noticed a kettle on the gas fire. I edged nearer.
‘We give these clothes back when you speak us what you know,’ said Billy Whispers.
‘Don’t be so African, Billy. You’re so bloody cunning you’ll fall over yourself.’
With which I grabbed the kettle and flung it at Ronson Lighter. It missed, but drenched him splendidly in scalding steam. He yelled, and held his eyes. Billy Whispers lowered his head and butted me in the stomach,