But the world had other ideas. As he felt himself floating off and the atmosphere of the pub stripping away his defences layer by layer, he picked up the conversation of the young women at the next table. Of Patrick, who would be out in another eight months. ‘And never any chance of parole. Mind you, there was never much chance of his giving them any good behaviour.’ Of the different ways in which a coat might be refashioned. Of the longing to be back home, with a job and a husband. Of the bitterness at having been forced by poverty to exchange the empty rolling pastures of Donegal for a flea-bitten bed in Cricklewood which three people used in shifts. Of the offal which could be bought off-ration and disguised as food. And of ‘that little German bastard who’s got the bloody Tommies on the run. Mother preserve him!’
It wasn’t a choice, more an instinct grown mighty with desperation. He had no one else to trust and nowhere else to go. He’d run out of ideas, money and strength. As the piano struck up a new tune and the men in the bar began to sing in deep, sorrowful voices the words of a republican battle hymn, Hencke reached across and touched one of the women on the arm.
‘Excuse me. I’m that little German bastard. Would you help me, please?’
They looked at him in a mixture of astonishment and alarm, unable to utter a word, their world stopped. He wondered what they would do when they recovered – cry out in alarm? – yet in his exhaustion his worries had a distant, almost academic air.
Base reality came flooding back as the door of the pub burst open to reveal eight London policemen, truncheons drawn. They stood blocking the entrance, staring around, while silence and resentment descended between walls which a moment before had been ringing with gaiety. For one interminable moment nothing moved except for the eyes of the policemen as they roved around the pub. Hencke felt his mouth run dry. One of the bobbies was looking straight at him.
She could find no fear in his expression, it was all too sudden for that, but she couldn’t fail to see desperation and defiance. It was a look she knew well. She had seen it in Paddy’s face when the army came for him, and again when the judge had sent him down. She’d seen it in her mother’s face when they told her that her husband wouldn’t be coming home again, ever, not with all those bullets in him. In the depths of Hencke’s steady, dark eyes she could see memories of pain and anger, and she knew about those, too. She had little time for the Germans and their violence, but she had no time at all for the British and she would do almost anything to get her own back. Yet hadn’t she troubles enough without walking into new ones in the pub?
The girl sat wrestling with the contradictions, not knowing if she wanted or would be able to help, until one of the policemen began beating his truncheon up and down in the palm of his hand, slowly thumping out a message of menace and hate. It was a message she knew all too well, and it was enough. She leaned across to two men on a neighbouring table and whispered urgently between their lowered heads. Just a few words, but there was a nod of understanding, the briefest pause, before the two men stood. It was the first sign of any response to the unwanted invasion, and all eyes were upon them. They stood staring at each other, no more than a foot apart when, without exchanging a word, one clenched his fist and struck the other full on the chin, sending him sprawling across a table and knocking glasses everywhere. A neighbour retaliated on behalf of his fallen friend and in an instant a volcano of commotion had erupted in front of Hencke. The pub became filled with a pandemonium of shouts, curses, waving arms, smashing glass, women’s screams and breaking furniture. A jacket ripped, a lip was bloodied. Then the truncheons started flying. Hencke scarcely had time to witness one of the policemen succumbing to an assault by two elderly and determined women armed with heavy handbags before he felt an insistent tugging at his arm. It was the girl.
‘Come on, Adolf. Time we left.’ She clasped his hand and dragged him, stumbling and uncomprehending, towards the rear of the pub. As they passed the bar he heard her shout, ‘Turn off the bloody lights, Harry!’ He ducked as a glass crashed off the panelled wall above his head and shattered into a hundred fragments. Still shaking the shards from his hair, he was dragged through a door and into the women’s toilet, a dim and squalid little place with a cracked and badly stained basin but, to his relief, another door. He found himself in a dark yard surrounded by a looming wall, but piled against the wall forming stepping places were several crates and already the girl was scrambling up. Peering cautiously over the wall, she urged him on. ‘It’s clear!’ she shouted, before disappearing over the other side.
Hencke followed. Behind him the noise of battle inside the pub was beginning to subside; even the most determined of opponents were having trouble sustaining a good fight in total darkness. He threw himself over the wall. His jacket caught on something, there was a tearing sound and he felt a burning sensation across his forearm, but before he knew any more he was in a cobbled back-street with the girl screaming at him to run. He had landed heavily and was winded, and it could be only moments before the police found the back door and were upon them. Stumbling through the puddles of rain, he followed the flapping tail of her raincoat into the night.
They ran until they were both exhausted, through dark streets, avoiding the lights, alert for the sound of pursuit, until they could run no longer. Their lungs rasped from the effort, the rain trickled down their foreheads to mix with the sweat, their energy gone.
‘I think we’ve done it, Adolf,’ she panted, looking up at him through strands of russet hair which had hung in long tresses before the rain turned them into a soaking mat.
‘My name …’ he muttered doggedly between great gulps of air, ‘is not Adolf. It is Hencke. Peter Hencke.’
‘OK, Peter Hencke. Any ideas what we do for an encore?’
She wrapped her raincoat around her, tying the belt tightly. Her efforts served to outline her slender waist and hips, while beneath the clutter of damp clothing her struggle for breath emphasized the shape of her breasts. She was young, less than twenty, he guessed, on the verge of full womanhood, with a handsome oval face and healthy skin which shone translucent in the rain. What the hell was she doing here, he began to wonder, before deciding that he was too weary even to speculate.
As a fresh squall of rain hit them they heard the bells. A jangling alarm began to sound on all sides, approaching, growing louder, bells of warning, bells – so the sudden look of fear on her face told him – of authority. They were near, just around the corner, accompanied by much shouting and noise of commotion. His mind recognized peril, demanded action, but his body was confused with exhaustion; the louder the bells grew, the more distant and infirm his legs seemed to become. Hencke glanced desperately down the street, searching for some source of salvation, but all he could see was the unmistakable sight of a police car rushing through the night towards them. He might have run but it would have served no purpose. He couldn’t outpace a car and, anyway, he was drained, no reserves left. He leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed, waiting for the inevitable.
When he opened his eyes he found himself staring into the face of a policeman who was studying him with great intent. Hencke’s coat was torn to ribbons by his leap over the wall, the burning sensation on his forearm had turned out to be a throbbing pain from a deep cut with blood trickling down his fingertips, and the look on his face told its own story of agony. The policeman was reaching for him.