The Rescue Man Read online

  ‘They said it could take a week, maybe more, just to clear all the mortuaries.’

  ‘A week?’ cried May. ‘We’ve got his funeral mass in an hour.’

  Baines considered. ‘Where’s the burial?’

  ‘It’s in the cemetery just down the road,’ said George.

  ‘Right then. George, can you get hold of a couple of shovels?’

  ‘I should think so. Why?’

  ‘Because I think I can get you a couple of gravediggers.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. But I’ll also need the telephone number of a Chinese restaurant on Duke Street.’

  * * *

  George had lent him a pair of overalls, and by the time Mike arrived at the cemetery Baines had already made a start on the grave. He smiled when he saw the expression on Mike’s face.

  ‘You’ve got a nerve, la’,’ Mike said. ‘Me ’ead had just hit the pillow when you rang.’

  ‘Mike, I’m in your debt. Honestly. But I couldn’t think of anyone who reveres the ceremony of burial like you do.’

  Mike shook his head, and picked up a shovel. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, and began to dig.

  They worked mainly in silence, their breath frosting in the chill December air, and with the help of a corporation digger who had just finished at another plot they had prepared a reasonably neat hole in time for the arrival of the funeral cortège. Bone-tired, he watched as the undertakers lowered the coffin into the ground while the priest intoned the exequies. He could hear the murmurs of lamentation among the family, but he kept his eyes averted from Dora for fear that he might just crack himself. Sometimes it was harder to face the ordeal of the living than it was to ponder the fate of the dead.

  9

  THERE WAS ANOTHER funeral to attend before the year was out. None of the rescue squad had conceived any friendly feeling towards Rafferty on their short acquaintance, and three of them would have admitted to an intense, if not implacable, dislike of him. But now he was dead, and with the horrific circumstances of his demise still vivid in the memory, his former colleagues had duly assembled at the church on Ullett Road which had been Rafferty’s place of worship. Baines listened to the priest’s eulogy of his late parishioner ‘Dennis’ with astonishment, for he had not expected to hear the morose, suspicious, unamiable man he had known talked of in such sorrowing tones of loss. Orotund phrases – ‘man of deep faith’, ‘beloved father and husband’ and even ‘pillar of the community’ – echoed startlingly around the cold vaulted space, still adorned here and there with baubles from the dismal Christmas just gone. Baines stole a glance at Mavers, seated just along from him on the varnished treacle-brown pew, but if he felt the same surprise his expression betrayed nothing of it. He didn’t dare look at Mike, who he imagined would be less circumspect about the obligation of keeping a straight face.

  The organist wheedled on aimlessly, almost tunelessly, as they carried out the coffin, and the mourners, muffled in their coats and hats, began to edge out of the pews and followed in sombre procession. Nobody had invited them to the wake, so they walked back through the wrecked streets of Toxteth towards the city, a smoking necropolis since the last raid on Christmas Eve. Settled at the corner table of a pub, they brooded in silence for a while, as if cowed by the reverential mood that had tagged along from the church. Bleary sunshine slanted through the frosted glass, and motes of dust shimmered in the slender parallelograms of light. It was Farrell, of course, who finally popped the bubble of solemnity.

  ‘Is it me, or does it feel like the Pope’s just died?’

  Mavers shook his head. ‘Dennis – we hardly knew yer.’

  ‘Oh, and by the way, I was right about ’im bein’ a policeman.’

  ‘A military policeman,’ Baines corrected. ‘I guessed he was in the army, so we could call that one a draw.’

  ‘Did you see his missus?’ asked Mike. ‘Not bad-lookin’, really …’

  ‘Too good for ’im,’ said Farrell. ‘Poor cow, imagine bein’ married to Rafferty all them years. Bet ’e ordered her around like ’e did everyone else – “Right, Mrs R, I’ve just discussed it with the warden. Stand by yer bed and I’ll take down yer – details. We’re gonna proceed wit’ what’s known as a bit of ’ow’s yer father.”’

  They stifled grunts of guilty laughter. Mavers took a deep swig of his pint, then said, ‘Rafferty’s one of them fellers who ’as to be a boss, it’s just the way he is – I mean, was.’

  ‘Yeah, but he was only that way cos there’s other fellers willen to be bossed,’ objected Farrell. ‘I reckon he must have ’ad that priest in his pocket, too, all that guff he talked about ’im. Pillock of the community and what ’ave yer.’

  McGlynn, who had been dreamily preoccupied in one of his long empty silences, perked up at this. ‘Did the priest call Rafferty a pillock?’

  Farrell groaned. ‘God, who woke up Grandma? No, he didn’t, but he should’ve done.’

  Mavers clicked his tongue in mock reproach and turned to Baines. ‘What’s that thing you said the other night, Tommy?’

  ‘De mortuis nil nisi bonum – don’t speak ill of the dead. Though in Rafferty’s case …’

  ‘Listen to the prof and his fancy phrases,’ sneered Farrell.

  ‘It’s Latin, Terry.’

  ‘I know it’s fuckin’ Latin. Caesar adsum jam, Pompey aderat!’

  Baines laughed, oddly tickled that Farrell should remember this doggerel at such a distance from his schooldays.

  ‘He was somebody’s father anyhow,’ Mavers murmured. ‘You see his kids there?’

  ‘What a fuckin’ awful time to be alive,’ said Mike, with sudden feeling. ‘Funerals everywhere, the streets on fire, food and coal rationed – and knowin’ that any minute those fuckers are comin’ back to kill us.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Mavers, and after a pause added, ‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

  Later, when the ale had made them expansive, they began swapping stories – some already of mythic status – about the blood, sweat and tears of heavy rescue. Farrell was shaking his head in frowning disbelief.

  ‘Think about it, la’ – we actually volunteered for this. What does that make us?’

  ‘The stupidest fucks alive!’ said Mike, snorting beer down his nostrils as he laughed.

  McGlynn, himself cackling like a hyena, turned to Farrell.

  ‘Tell ’em about the old woman you dragged out the other week, Terry. None of yous was there.’

  Farrell, who had half adopted McGlynn as his stooge, pretended exasperation. ‘I told you not to mention that, you soft git.’

  ‘Go ’ead, then,’ sighed Mavers, sensing that Farrell was only too pleased to tell it. Farrell took a preparatory swig of ale.

  ‘Yous ’ad all knocked off. I was still with these other lads in a house on Blackstock Street, and we’d taken about three hours to tunnel through the back to this old dear’s bedroom. None of the others were up to it, so I said I’d get her out. Soon as I crawl in, the smell ’its me – fuckin’ terrible it was. The old dear’s been lyin’ there, covered in her own shit. I swear, I was gaggin’ on it – not that she could care.’

  Groans of disgust, mingled with a rising hilarity, had started up around the table as he continued.

  ‘So, I’ve followed basic procedure – tied her hands, put her arms around me neck and now I’m crawling along with her on me back. You know how sometimes they hang on so ’ard they almost strangle yer – not this one, she was light as a bird. But that smell just gets worse, and now I can feel this, like, dampness on me back. I realise – fuck, she’s just shat herself again.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake. What d’you do then?’

  ‘What could I do? Just kept on crawlen. By the time I got us out of there we must have looked like – I dunno wha’ – a shit sandwich!’

  A ragged chorus of guffaws. Baines was caught up in them – it was difficult not to be – but he watched curiously as Farrell
leaned back and enjoyed his audience’s mirth. What Farrell didn’t know was that Baines had been there when he emerged from the wreckage; he had remembered the smell, too. But what had really struck him at the time was Farrell’s extraordinary gentleness as he lifted the old woman from his shoulders and, ignoring the stretcher-bearers, carried her over to the waiting ambulance, murmuring assurances as he did so. At no point had he betrayed a hint of revulsion at this befouled bundle of humanity. Now he had transformed the incident into the stuff of horrid laughter – but what harm could it do? The old woman had been saved by his courage, and she would be none the wiser that her rescuer had finessed the memory into a scurrilous anecdote. Baines had accepted that he more or less disliked the man: Farrell was a brute and a bigot, and he knew they would never properly be friends. Yet he would not forget his gruff gallantry that evening. In the end Farrell, and all of them – Liam, Mike, McGlynn, even poor dead Rafferty – had proved themselves capable of heroism. Perhaps the noblest kind of heroism, because it went unsung.

  The sun was just about to set as they were leaving the pub. It was only half past four, but they knew the blackout would be imposed in an hour, and the world of peace would elide once again into the world of war. The minutes of twilight separating the two worlds cast a melancholy shade over the city, the time when the trees became dark imploring silhouettes against the sky; Baines thought of it as ‘the desperate hour’. By seven o’clock this evening he would be reporting for duty again. Mavers accompanied him on the walk back to Gambier Terrace.

  ‘I’d ask you in for tea,’ said Baines, ‘but all I’ve got is powdered eggs.’

  Mavers smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I should be on me way – the missus’ll wonder where I’ve got to.’

  Just then Baines remembered something, and told Mavers to wait while he dashed up to his flat. He returned a minute later carrying a block wrapped in brown paper, which he handed over.

  ‘It’s for your daughter, just a pad of drawing paper – I know it’s hard to come by at the moment …’

  ‘I can’t take this,’ Mavers said, suddenly shy. It had surprised him.

  ‘Of course you can. It’s … a Christmas present. She’s a better artist than I was at fourteen.’

  Mavers held the parcel for a few silent moments, then looked at Baines.

  ‘Thanks, Tom,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I’ll see you at the depot.’

  ‘Yeah. Ta-ra.’ He walked off, then looked over his shoulder and, almost boyishly, waved goodbye. Baines wondered if he too had fallen prey to the desperate hour, because that small gesture of Mavers’s made him want to cry.

  On New Year’s Day Baines called on Richard and Bella at Slater Street, but there was no answer when he rang the doorbell. He supposed they were visiting Richard’s parents in London. He had not seen Bella since the morning she had received the telegram, and he felt his conscience jolt him for it. True, he’d had the excuse of being on duty almost every night of the last four weeks, and Richard had promised to keep him informed of any news concerning David. But he knew he had been avoiding her, either because he didn’t know what to say or else because he couldn’t bear to see her as unhappy as she was that morning. He had thought more than once of writing to her, but then reasoned that a letter of commiseration would be tantamount to admitting that David was dead. So he fretted, uselessly.

  He returned to his flat and, vaguely stirred by the seasonal call for resolutions, went into his study. It seemed even more sepulchral since the blackout curtains had become a fixture. A pot plant that May had given him some months ago had withered and died. Library books slouched in stacks, their truancy no longer monitored amid more pressing circumstances. Still open on his desk lay a volume of the Eames journals, which at any other time of his life he would have raced through but now could afford to give only the most desultory attention. It was a minor but regrettable side effect of war that he would come home too exhausted to read. He sat down, turned on his desk lamp and began to skim the second volume.

  * * *

  September [1865]

  For some weeks I have been puzzling over the back elevation of Magdalen Chambers. It seemed to me that it was not quite complete – that something was wanting – but what it might be I could not discern. The rear wall is made almost entirely of plate glass, in much the same way as Janus House; so close to it, indeed, I should have been thought to repeat myself, & thus to have failed Ruskin’s architectural precept of ‘saying new & different things’. This morning I happened upon Emily delighting Ellie with the effects of a ‘magic’ lantern, its bulbous spiral encased by slender lead rods. When it had been put aside I snatched the mechanism up & carried it to the study, where I made a number of sketches. I felt myself to be in the grip of a very singular inspiration, & all but cried ‘Eureka!’ – for using the lantern as a model I envisaged a staircase constructed of glass on a narrow spiral frame, cantilevered from the back elevation with thin cast-iron mullions to receive the panels.

  Undecided as to whether this were foolery or not, I rolled up the sketches & hurried with them down to Tithe-barn-street, where Rawlins, mine own familiar, had lately arrived. In a kind of impetuous flurry I explained my notion, & begged him to examine the hastily drawn designs.

  Could such a structure be realised? – Rawlins bent his head over the scrolls & stared hard for some moments, while in my own head I suffered a dizzy oscillation between hope & unease. First he puffed out his cheeks – ‘Damned if it isn’t the queerest thing I ever saw,’ he declared, then paused – ‘It will be a sensation.’ We set about revising the plans this very day.

  3rd October 1865

  The House of Eames flourishes – Emily is with child again, & Cassie is to be married next March. In the evening I ventured out to Mount-street with these glad tidings, & was met at the door by a raw-boned youth I did not recognise. He appeared civil enough, & I proceeded up the stairs to find Frank sitting on the floor with his back to the wall next to a large Negro, both smoking clay pipes from which pungent clouds emanated – the odour was akin to burnt rope – not unpleasant. He greeted me with a wave, & the distant smile of intoxication. The Negro he introduced as Jess, who merely raised his chin in salutation; from Frank’s somewhat slurred talk I gathered that Jess was a prizefighter, that they had known one another from Kingston, & that Frank occupied a managerial position in their partnership. I endeavoured to conceal my astonishment, though after some minutes in the room I perceived that neither of them had the smallest interest in my outward demeanour. Frank offered me his pipe, which I declined – though I was curious to know what strange weed they might be smoking. The youth who admitted me now returned with a sheaf of bills & handed one over – it was a notice of a forthcoming prizefight between ‘The Jamaican Hammer’ (the Negro before me, I presumed) & one ‘Slugger Morrison’. I folded it away, nodded my thanks & left the house – the mystery of Frank’s occupation is resolved, though why he scrupled until now to reveal it I cannot fathom.

  29th October [1865]

  A night to open my eyes. I had wavered these past weeks over the prizefight notice, now tacked on the wall above my desk, & was still in a muddle of indecision about it. I do not care a rap for the sport (if sport it be) yet stirrings of curiosity about the event, & Frank’s part in it, were not to be subdued. When Rawlins happened to catch sight of the bill some days ago & confessed himself a devotee of the pugilist’s art, the matter was decided, & we bent our steps in the direction of a low neighbourhood hard by the docks. I had seen this district by day, when costers & women of all ages throng the streets & sell their wares – baskets of fruit or oysters, cheap trinkets, flowers, or the Devil knows what – while at every ten steps there would be an ale-house or spirit-vault into which women & indeed children might disappear. A dismal sight, though as nothing to the dense, seething crowds at night, lent a terrible aspect under the glare of gas lamps. Those who have lain-a-bed all day now come out & swamp the streets – drunks, beggars, night prowlers, swe
lls, & prostitutes in eager solicitation. From every corner one hears curses, shrieks, bursts of music from an organ grinder, as if orchestrated for some crazed pantomime. Even Rawlins, who has visited New York, seemed taken aback by the roaring tumult. We finally gained the public house at which the fight was to be held, & were met at the door by the same boy who had been at Frank’s lodgings – Jem, by name. On payment of a shilling each we were led through a crowded saloon, its walls hung with sporting prints & glass cases that displayed not stuffed fishes or birds, as is the custom, but dogs. I asked Jem about this repulsive anomaly – he explained that the canines had been champions of another house entertainment, rat-killing, on which men wagered hundreds of pounds in a single evening. Thence we proceeded down a reeking passage into a courtyard, where a ring had been set up and a large crowd, many of them sailors & swells, was milling about, the smell of cigar smoke thick in the air. ‘Mind your pockets, gents,’ said Jem, ‘I’ve seen a few prigs about.’ He left us, & returned shortly afterwards with Frank, in a peacock silk waistcoat such as the Fancy like to wear. He looked rather prosperous. ‘Evening, boys. I hope you’ve got ducats with you – our Jess could make you rich tonight.’ There was in fact a frenzy of betting around us, & men yelled & remonstrated with one another in a spirit of jocular aggression. Rawlins, at least, seemed to be enjoying the scene. A lusty roar went up as the two fighters were led in, & I quailed at the size of the brute ‘our Jess’ was to face – Slugger Morrison was not as tall as Jess, but he did appear twice as wide, & his arms were powerfully muscled. His phiz, I should add, was that of an ogre, & no light of common humanity shone from his eyes. I had heard that these bare-knuckle contests might last as long as a hundred rounds, for the rules allow a man to be knocked down repeatedly & still continue. As soon as the fight began Morrison made a lunge at Jess and caught him a tremendous blow on the side of his face; a long plume of blood spouted from his nose – he staggered back against the ropes & closed. The ogre then advanced upon him & threw his meaty fists at Jess’s head and body – the sound he made recalled the dreadful thock of that falling man I had seen in North John-street. The next few minutes were an agony to witness as Jess took one whip-crack blow after another, blows that seemed to shiver from the top of the head down to the very toes in one’s boots. I noticed that one of the Negro’s eyes had swollen over like a huge bruised plum. My stomach lurched, & I retreated to the tap-room that I might not endure another moment of this sickening exhibition. Even there I could hear from the courtyard the shouts and cries of the spectators, as piercing as a screech-owl, & prayed that Jess might be spared mortal harm from those pitiless hands. I stood at the bar drinking porter for perhaps twenty minutes, until another great roar went up from the vicinity of the yard, & I rushed back through the passage to ascertain the outcome. ‘’e’s done him, ’e’s done him!’ I heard someone shout, & there beheld an astonishing sight – Jess standing in the ring, his face horribly bloodied but his arms held aloft, while his awful antagonist was being carried insensible out of the ring. A ‘knock-out’! Frank, his face bathed in sweat & eyes ablaze like coals, appeared to take a desperate kind of relish in the victory. As a confused throng of corner-men & swells & bookmakers jostled around the ring I noticed Jem, at the side, cut a little caper of delight, & I laughed – possibly with relief. I eventually found Rawlins, & we left the wild revelries to play on. As we retraced our steps through those teeming streets I remarked that it had been a strange night. ‘And a profitable one, too, I should say,’ replied he, producing a wad of grimy bank-notes from his pocket & counting them. ‘Your brother was right – that fighter could make a man rich.’