Part 10 (1/2)
Ben? ”He does not know his own strength.” That formula had gone with him through school. How did he control the rages that she knew could overcome him? She was always covertly on the watch for cuts, bruises, wounds. All had them, but nothing very bad.
One morning, she came down the stairs to find Ben eating breakfast with Derek. That time she said nothing, but knew she could expect more. Soon she found six of them at breakfast: she had heard them, very late, creep upstairs and find beds for themselves.
She stood by the table, looked at them bravely, ready to face them out, and said, ”You aren't just to sleep here, any time you feel like it.” They kept their heads down and went on eating.
”I mean it,” she insisted.
Derek said, laughing, intending to sound insolent, ”Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry I'm sure. But we thought you wouldn't mind.”
”I do mind,” she said.
”It's a big house,” said Billy the lout, the one she was most afraid of. He did not look at her, but crammed food into his mouth, and made a noise eating.
”It's not your house,” said Harriet.
”One day we'll take it away from you,” said Elvis, laughing loudly.
”Oh, perhaps you will, yes.”
They all made ”revolutionary” remarks like this, when they remembered.
”Come the revolution, we'll ...” ”We'll kill all the rich s.h.i.+ts and then ...” ”There's one law for the rich, and one for the poor, everybody knows that.” They would say these things amiably, with that air of repletion people use when copying what others do; when they are part of a popular mood or movement.
David came back from work late, these days, and sometimes did not come at all. He stayed with one of the people he worked with. It happened that he arrived early one night and found the gang, nine or ten of them, watching television, with beer cans, cartons of take-away Chinese, papers that had held fish and chips, all over the floor.
He said, ”Clear that mess up.”
They slowly got to their feet and cleared it up. He was a man: the man of the house. Ben cleared up with them.
”That's enough,” said David. ”And now go home, all of you.”
They trailed off, and Ben went with them. Neither Harriet nor David said anything to stop him.
They had not been alone together for some time. Weeks, she thought. He wanted to say something, but was afraid to-afraid of arousing that dangerous anger of his?
”Can't you see what is going to happen?” he finally asked, sitting down with a plate of whatever he could find in the refrigerator.
”You mean, they are going to be here more often?” ”Yes, that's what I mean. Can't you see we should sell this place?”
”Yes, I know we should,” she said quietly, but he mistook her tone.
”For G.o.d's sake, Harriet, what can you be waiting for? It's crazy....”
”The only thing I can think of now is that the children might be pleased we kept it.”
”We have no children, Harriet. Or, rather, I have no children. You have one child.”
She felt that he would not be saying this if he were here more often. She said, ”There is something you aren't seeing, David.”
”And what's that?”
”Ben will leave. They'll all be off, and Ben will go with them.”
He considered this; considered her, his jaws moving slowly as he ate. He looked very tired. He was also looking much older than he was, could easily be taken as sixty, rather than fifty. He was a grey, rather stooped, shadowy man, with a strained look, and a wary glance that expected trouble. This was what he was directing at her now.
”Why? They can come here any time they like, do what they like, help themselves to food.”
”It's not exciting enough for them, that's why. I think they'll just drift off one day to London, or some big town. They went off for five days last week.”
”And Ben will go with them?”
”Ben will go with them.”
”And you won't go after him and bring him back?”
She did not reply. This was unfair, and he must know it; after a moment or two, he said, ”Sorry. I'm so tired I don't know whether I'm coming or going.”
”When he's gone, perhaps we could go and have a holiday together somewhere.”
”Well, perhaps we could.” This sounded as if he might even believe it, hope for it.
Later they lay side by side, not touching, and talked practically about arrangements for visiting Jane at her school. And there was Paul, at his, with a Parents' Visiting Day.
They were alone in the big room where all the children but Ben had been born. Above them the emptiness of the upper floors, and the attic. Downstairs, the empty living-room and kitchen. They had locked the doors. If Ben decided to come home that night, he would have to ring.
She said, ”With Ben gone, we could sell this and buy some sensible house somewhere. Perhaps the children would enjoy coming to visit if he wasn't there.”
No reply: David was asleep.
Soon after that, Ben and the others went off again for some days. She saw them on the television. There was a riot in North London. ”Trouble” had been forecast. They were not among those throwing bricks, lumps of iron, stones, but stood in a group at one side, leering and jeering and shouting encouragement.
Next day they returned, but did not settle down to watching television. They were restless, and went off again. Next morning the news was that a small shop had been broken into, one that had a post-office counter in it. About four hundred pounds had been taken. The shopkeeper had been bound and gagged. The postmistress was beaten up and left unconscious.
At about seven that night they came in. Except for Ben, they were full of excitement and achievement. When they saw her, they exchanged glances, enjoying the secret she did not share. She saw them pull out wads of notes, fingering them, pus.h.i.+ng them back into pockets. If she were the police, she would be suspicious on the strength of their elation, their hectic faces.
Ben was not fevered, like the others. He was as he always was. You could think he had not been part of-whatever it was. But he had been there at the riot, she had seen him.
She tried: ”I saw you lot on the television, you were at the Whitestone Estates.”