Free Brighton Rock by Graham Greene Page A

won’t talk.’
    ‘You’re marrying her, aren’t you?’ Cubitt said. Dallow laughed.
    The Boy’s hands came out of his pockets, the knuckles clenched white. He said, ‘Who told you I was marrying her?’
    ‘Spicer,’ Cubitt said.
    Spicer backed away from the Boy. He said, ‘Listen, Pinkie. I only said as it would make her safe. A wife can’t give evidence. . . ’
    ‘I don’t need to marry a squirt to make her safe. How do we make you safe, Spicer?’ His tongue came out between his teeth, licking the edges of his dry cracked lips. ‘If carving’d do it. . . ’
    ‘It was just a joke,’ Cubitt said. ‘You don’t need to take it so solemn. You want a sense of humour, Pinkie.’
    ‘You think that was funny, eh?’ the Boy said. ‘Me—marrying—that cheap polony.’ He croaked ‘Ha, ha,’ at them. ‘I’ll learn. Come on, Dallow.’
    ‘Wait till morning,’ Cubitt sad. ‘Wait till some of the other boys come in.’
    ‘You milky too?’
    ‘You don’t believe that, Pinkie. But we got to go slow.’
    ‘You with me, Dallow?’ the boy asked.
    ‘I’m with you, Pinkie.’
    ‘Then we’ll be going,’ the Boy sad. He went across to the washstand and opened the little door where the jerry stood. He felt at the back behind the jerry and pulled out a tiny blade, like the blades women shave with, but blunt along one edge and mounted with sticking-plaster. He stuck it under his long thumb-nail, the only nail not bitten close, and drew on his glove. He said, ‘We’ll be back with the sub. in half an hour,’ and led the way bang straight down Frank’s stairs. The cold of his drenching had got under his skin: he came out on to the front a pace ahead of Dallow, his face contorted with ague, a shiver twisting the narrow shoulders. He said over his shoulder to Dallow, ‘We’ll go to Brewer’s. One lesson’ll be enough.’
    ‘What you say, Pinkie,’ Dallow said, plodding after. The rain had stopped: it was low tide and the shallow edge of the sea scraped far out at the rim of the shingle. A clock struck midnight. Dallow suddenly began to laugh.
    ‘What’s got you, Dallow?’
    ‘I was just thinking,’ Dallow said. ‘You’re a grand little geezer, Pinkie. Kite was right to take you on. You go straight for things, Pinkie.’
    ‘You’re all right,’ the Boy said, staring ahead, the ague wringing his face. They passed the Cosmopolitan, the lights on here and there all the way up the tall front to the turrets against the clouded moving sky. In Snow’s when they passed a single light went out. They turned up the Old Steyne. Brewer had a house near the tram lines on the Lewes road almost under the railway viaduct.
    ‘He’s gone to bed,’ Dallow said. Pinkie rang the bell, holding his finger on the switch. Low shuttered shops ran off on either hand, a tram went by with nobody in it, labelled ‘Depot Only’, ringing and swinging down the empty road, the conductor drowsing on a seat inside, the roof gleaming from the storm. Pinkie kept his finger on the bell.
    ‘What made Spicer say that—about me marrying?’ the Boy asked.
    ‘He just thought it’d close her clapper,’ Dallow said.
    ‘She’s not what keeps me awake,’ the Boy said, pressing on the bell. A light went on upstairs, a window creaked up, and a voice called, ‘Who’s that?’
    ‘It’s me,’ the Boy said. ‘Pinkie.’
    ‘What do you want? Why don’t you come around in the morning?’
    ‘I want to talk to you, Brewer.’
    ‘I’ve got nothing to talk about, Pinkie, that can’t wait.’
    ‘You’d better open up, Brewer. You don’t want the mob along here.’
    ‘The old woman’s awful sick, Pinkie. I don’t want any trouble. She’s asleep. She hasn’t slept for three nights.’
    ‘This’ll wake her,’ the Boy said with his finger on the bell. A slow goods train went by across the viaduct, shaking smoke down into the Lewes road.
    ‘Leave off, Pinkie, and I’ll open up.’
    Pinkie shivered as he waited, his