yourself be carried off into a rage, be on guard.
He did everything as she would have wanted. Then he went to a little shop and bought bread for her – the pale yeasty smell always made him feel a little nauseous – and some meat for himself, and, too, a tin of cat food. All this he did successfully, and let himself back in, and put on his clean clothes. It was mid-morning.
Mrs Biggs was sitting at the table, her hand at her side.
‘Make me a cup of tea, Ben.’
He did so.
‘And give the cat something.’
He opened the tin he had bought for the cat, and watched it crouch down to eat.
‘You’re a good boy, Ben,’ she said, and tears came into his eyes and she heard him give a sort of bark, which meant he wanted to say thank you to her, expressing his love and gratitude for those words, but he had never heard them, except from her. She almost put out her hand to stroke him as if he were a dog, but he was not a dog, not of that tribe.
She drank her tea, asked for some toast, and lay down again. She slept, the cat by her. There was Ben, in his clean clothes, full of energy and something like happiness because of that loving ‘You’re a good boy.’ He did not want to sleep, but lay on his futon and dozed, hoping she would wake, but she slept all night, and woke in the morning early. Again she asked for this and that, tea, an apple, food for the cat in its saucer. The neighbour came in, saw Ben there, carrying cups and plates into the kitchen, and was pleased for she had defended Ben to the other people on the landing, or who had seen him on the stairs. Now she could say that Ben was looking after Mrs Biggs.
There was a little conference by the bed. The old woman not wanting to get up was a new thing, which the neighbour understood very well, but who was going to look after her? Mrs Biggs asked her to get her pension, for she felt too poorly and – she was apologetic – empty the cat’s dirt box. Both women understood that Ben could not do this: the mere idea of it – impossible. Even though the cat’s fur was quiet, and she no longer sat with her eyes fixed on Ben. When the neighbour returned with Mrs Biggs’ pension she laid the money on the table, and said, looking at Ben: ‘That’s not enough for more than her and the cat.’
‘He’s been using his money to buy me things,’ said the old woman, but they all knew what the situation was.
‘That’s all right then,’ said the neighbour, and went off to spread the news that the yeti was looking after Mrs Biggs as if he were her son.
And so that time went, a happy time, the best in Ben’s whole life, looking after the old woman, even taking her clothes and her bedclothes to the launderette, cooking up dishes from frozen to feed her – but he usually finished them, for she ate so little. But it could not last, because all this time the money was going, going, and he soon had none left. If he wanted to stay there, with Mrs Biggs and the cat, then he would have to get more money and he did not know how. The neighbour, bringing in the pension money, carefully did not look at Ben, and he knew it was a criticism. The old woman did not criticise him, but lay and dozed, or sat and dozed, her hand so often pressing on her heart, saying, ‘Ben, we could both do with a cup of tea, I am sure.’
He was hungry, for he was trying to eat as little as he could. It could not go on. He told her he was going to see about a job, and saw her sad little smile. ‘Be careful, Ben,’ she said. And Ben left: he had no home in this world.
He walked along a street – rather, his feet were taking him up this street, past theatres and eating places – and he was on the side he usually avoided, crossing over before he came to a certain forbidden pavement. This time he did not cross over. He stood outside the theatre which frightened him when it was noisy and full of people, and stood on an empty pavement looking across at a little street where there was a doorway. This was a forbidden place. It was morning, and the cars that worked from the cubbyhole in the wall that called itself Super Universal Cabs were not there yet. They came in from early afternoon onwards. The man who organised these cabs, standing outside his cubbyhole, saying, ‘Take them to Camberwell… Swiss Cottage… Notting Hill… ’ was not there. This man was what Ben feared. It was he who had said, ‘Fuck off and don’t come back.’ His name was Johnston and he was Rita’s friend.
Some weeks ago, before Mrs Biggs had found him in the supermarket, he had been walking up this pavement, as usual alert for trouble, when he saw a woman in that doorway – that one, next to Super Universal Cabs. She had smiled at him. He followed the smile, went up narrow stairs behind her, and found himself in a room that he knew was poor and ugly, because he was contrasting it with what he remembered of his home, when he still had one, with his mother. The woman, though she was really a girl, for her make-up and big bruised-looking eyes made her look older, stood facing him, her hand on her belt, ready to take it off. She said, ‘How long?’
Ben had no idea what she meant, but stood with his teeth bared – this was his scared grin, not the friendly one – and did not reply.
‘Ten pounds for a blow job, forty for the whole hog.’
‘I don’t have any money,’ said Ben.
She came over, and put her hands down into his pockets, one on either side, more out of exasperation because of the preposterousness of this customer, than expectation, and at this Ben’s sexual nature, which he kept down, like all his other impermissible hungers, leaped up, and he gripped her by her shoulders, turned her around and, holding her fast, bent her so that she had to put her hands on the bed for support. He tugged up her skirt with one hand, pulled down her knickers, and took her from behind, short, sharp and violent. He had his teeth in her neck, and as he came he let out a grunting bark, like nothing she had ever heard before. He let her go, and she straightened up, flinging her pale hair off her face and stood looking at his face, then down at his thighs, the hairy thighs. She was not exactly unfamiliar with such hairiness – she had jested with Johnston that some of the men that came to her were like chimpanzees – but it was as if she were trying to find out from those strong furry legs just why this customer was so different. That query, that inspection, not hostile, had something in it that made him again grasp her, bend her over and begin again. He was starved for sex, had been hungry for it a long time, and just as if he had not so recently finished his first bout, his teeth went into her neck and she heard the triumphant grunting bark.
‘Just a minute,’ she said. ‘Just wait a minute.’
She pushed him so that he sat on the bed, and she sat on a chair opposite him. She needed time. This experience – a rape, that was what it amounted to – ought to be making her feel angry, and full of the contempt that she usually felt for her customers, but she had been thrilled by that double rape, the great powerful hands gripping her shoulders, the teeth in her neck, and, above all, the grunt like a roar. She was sitting feeling where his teeth had bitten, but could not find an abrasion. She took out a tiny mirror from her bag, and craned her neck to see – no, the skin was not broken, but it was bruised, and there would be questions from Johnston.
What Ben wanted was to lie on that narrow bed, beside her, and go to sleep. He was thinking hard. When he was the leader of the gang of boys, the bad boys that everyone was afraid of, there had been girls, and one liked him. She had tried to change him saying, ‘But Ben, let’s try it this way, turn round, it’s not nice what you do, it’s like animals.’ And he had indeed tried, but could not do what she wanted, for when he was face to face with her the raging angry need to possess and dominate was silent. It came to this – that if they were to do it, then it had to be his way, and soon she resented and even hated him for it. After some attempts she would
