The Thousand Faces of Night

The old man gave a roar of anger and moved fast around the table. He swung hard with his right fist, but the years were against him. Kennedy blocked the punch with ease. He grabbed the old man by the shirt and started to beat him across the face with the flat of his hand. The girl screamed and ran forward, tearing at Kennedy with her fingers. He pushed her away with such force that she staggered across the room and lost her balance.

A cold rage flared in Marlowe and he moved forward into the room. Kennedy raised his hand to strike the old man again and Marlowe grabbed him by the shoulder and swung him round so that they faced each other. ‘How about trying me?’ he said. ‘I’m a bit nearer your size.’

Kennedy opened his mouth to speak and Marlowe smashed a fist into it. The tremendous force of the blow hurled Kennedy across the table. He gave a terrible groan and pulled himself up from the floor. Marlowe moved quickly around the table and grabbed him by the front of his jacket. ‘You bastard!’ he said. ‘You dirty, lousy bastard.’

And then a mist came before his eyes and it wasn’t Kennedy’s face that he saw before him. It was another face. One that he hated with all his being and he began to beat Kennedy methodically, backwards and forwards across the face, with his right hand.

The girl screamed again, high and clear, ‘No, Marlowe! No – you’ll kill him!’

She was tugging at his arm, pleading frantically with him, and Marlowe stopped. He stood for a moment staring stupidly at Kennedy, fist raised, and then he gently pushed him back against the table.

He was trembling slightly and there was still that slight haze before his eyes, almost as if some of the fog had got into the room. He clenched his fists to try and steady the trembling and noticed that blood was trickling down his left sleeve again.

The girl released her hold on him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I had to stop you. You would have killed him.’

Marlowe nodded slowly and passed a hand across his face. ‘You did right. Sometimes I don’t know when to stop and this rat isn’t worth hanging for.’

He moved suddenly and grabbing Kennedy by the collar, propelled him roughly out of the room and into the hall. He pushed him through the porch and flung him against the van. ‘If you’ve got any sense you’ll get out of here while you’ve got a whole skin,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you just five minutes to gather your wits.’

Kennedy was already fumbling for the handle of the van door as Marlowe turned and went back into the house.

3 (#ulink_13a4424c-44f5-519a-a92c-4b314d4c27f6)

When he went into the room there was no sign of Maria, but her father was busy at the sideboard with a bottle and a couple of glasses. His face split into a wide grin and he walked quickly across and handed Marlowe a glass. ‘Brandy – the best in the house. I feel like a young man again.’

Marlowe swallowed the brandy gratefully and nodded towards the window as the engine of the van roared into life. ‘That’s the last you’ll see of him.’

The old man shrugged and an ugly look came into his eyes. ‘Who knows? Next time I’ll be prepared. I’ll stick a knife into his belly and argue afterwards.’

Maria came into the room, a basin of hot water in one hand and bandages and a towel in the other. She still looked white and shaken, but she managed a smile as she set the bowl down on the table. ‘I’ll have a look at that arm now,’ she said.

Marlowe removed his raincoat and jacket and she gently sponged away congealed blood and pursed her lips. ‘It doesn’t look too good.’ She shook her head and turned to her father. ‘What do you think, Papa?’

Papa Magellan looked carefully at the wound and a sudden light flickered in his eyes. ‘Pretty nasty. How did you say you got it, boy?’

Marlowe shrugged. ‘Ripped it on a spike getting off a truck. I’ve been hitching my way from London.’

The old man nodded. ‘A spike, eh?’ A light smile touched his mouth. ‘I don’t think we need bother the doctor, Maria. Clean it up and bandage it well. It’ll be fine inside a week.’

Maria still looked dubious and Marlowe said, ‘He’s right. You women make a fuss about every little scratch.’ He laughed and fished for a cigarette with his right hand. ‘I walked a hundred and fifty miles in Korea with a bullet in my thigh. I had to. There was no one available to take it out.’

She scowled and quick fury danced in her eyes. ‘All right. We don’t get the doctor. Have it your own way. I hope your arm poisons and falls off.’

He chuckled and she bent her head and went to work. Papa Magellan said, ‘You were in Korea?’ Marlowe nodded and the old man went over to the sideboard and came back with a framed photo. ‘My son, Pedro,’ he said.

The boy smiled stiffly out of the photo, proud and self-conscious of the new uniform. It was the sort of picture every recruit has taken during his first few weeks of basic training. ‘He looks like a good boy,’ Marlowe remarked in a non-committal voice.

Papa Magellan nodded vigorously. ‘He was a fine boy. He was going to go to Agricultural College. Always wanted to be a farmer.’ The old man sighed heavily. ‘He was killed in a patrol action near the Imjin River in 1953.’

Marlowe examined the photo again and wondered if Pedro Magellan had been smiling like that when the bullets smashed into him. But it was no use thinking about that because men in war died in so many different ways. Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but always scared, with fear biting into their faces.

He grunted and handed back the photograph. ‘That was a little after my time. I was captured in the early days when the Chinese took a hand.’

Maria looked up quickly. ‘How long were you a prisoner?’

‘About three years,’ Marlowe told her.

The old man whistled softly. ‘Holy Mother, that’s a long time. You must have had it rough. I hear those Chinese camps were pretty tough.’

Marlowe shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t in a camp. They put me to work in a coal mine in Manchuria.’

Magellan’s eyes narrowed and all humour left his face. ‘I’ve heard a little about those places also.’ There was a short silence and then he grinned and clapped Marlowe on the shoulder. ‘Still, all this is in the past. Maybe it’s a good thing for a man, like going through fire. A sort of purification.’

Marlowe laughed harshly. ‘That sort of purification I can do without.’

As Maria pressed plaster over the loose ends of the bandage she said quietly, ‘Papa has had a little of that kind of fire in his time. He was in the International Brigade in Spain. The Fascists held him in prison for two years.’

The old man shrugged expressively and raised a hand in protest. ‘Why speak of these things? They are dead. Ancient history. We are living in the present. Life is often unpleasant and always unfair. A wise man puts it all down to experience and does the best he can.’

He stood, hands in pockets, smiling at them and Maria said, ‘There, it is finished.’

Marlowe stood up and began to turn down the tattered remnants of his shirt sleeve. ‘I’d better be going,’ he said. ‘What time did you say that bus left?’

A frown replaced the smile on Magellan’s face. ‘Going? Where are you going?’

‘Birmingham,’ Marlowe told him. ‘I’m hoping to get a job there.’

‘So you go to Birmingham tomorrow,’ the old man said. ‘Tonight you stay here. In such weather to refuse shelter to a dog would be a crime. What kind of a man do you think I am? You appear from the fog, save me from a beating, and then expect me to let you disappear just like that?’ He snorted. ‘Maria, run a hot bath for him and I will see if I can find a clean shirt.’

Marlowe hesitated. Every instinct told him to go. To leave now before he became further involved with these people; and he looked at Maria. She smiled and shook her head. ‘It’s no use, Mr Marlowe. When Papa decides on something the only thing to do is agree. It saves time in the long run.’

He looked out of the window at the gloom outside and thought about that bath and a meal and made his decision. ‘I give in,’ he said. ‘Unconditional surrender.’

She smiled and went out of the room. The old man produced a briar pipe and filled it from a worn leather pouch. ‘Maria told me a little about you when you were outside with Kennedy,’ he said. ‘She tells me you’re a truck driver.’

Marlowe shrugged. ‘I have been.’

Magellan puffed patiently at his pipe until it was drawing properly. ‘That slash on your arm,’ he said. ‘How did you say you got it?’

‘From a broken hook in the tailboard of a truck,’ Marlowe told him. ‘Why?’

The old man shrugged. ‘Oh, nothing,’ he said carefully, ‘except that I had a very active youth and I know a knife wound when I see one.’

Marlowe stiffened, anger moving inside him. He clenched a fist and took a step forward and the old man produced a battered silver cigarette case and flicked it open. ‘Have a cigarette, son,’ he said calmly. ‘They soothe the nerves.’

Marlowe sighed deeply and unclenched his fist. ‘Your eyes are too good, Papa. One of these days they’re going to get you into trouble.’

The old man shrugged. ‘I’ve been in trouble before.’ He held out a match in cupped hands. ‘How about you, son?’