Friday, now. Two a.m. Just got back. No raids, thank God. When I came into my room I found Ginger, stark naked, sitting bolt upright on the edge of the bed. He didn’t look when I came in. I said hello, but he didn’t hear me, either. Fast asleep with his eyes wide open. He used to share with Prideaux. They took the car away yesterday afternoon—too late for Mathy. He bought it yesterday morning. Found Webster and Reilly packing up his things when I came in after lunch. Webster told me I’d got a new roommate. I’d rather be on my own, but Ginger’s decent enough. It could be worse—Corky or Davy.
It must have been Mathy who went down in flames. Must have been trapped in the cockpit. Burnt alive. Heard his screams over the R/T. We all did. Poor bastard. He’d dreamed about it—woke me up once, yelling and beating the bedclothes, trying to put the fire out. Called it the flames of hell… Jesus. I don’t want to go that way. I could be next. This time tomorrow, I might not be here. It’s possible. Might as well make the most of it while I am.
I told Webster Mathy’d left me his lighter. Don’t know if he believed it, but he gave it to me. Found a photograph of his sister, underneath a pile of shirts, and pocketed it when Webster wasn’t looking. Money, too—thirty bob. Not sure why I took the picture. She’s a nice-looking girl, and I thought it might be useful.
I wonder if Ginger’ll have nightmares like Mathy used to. He’s got the jumps, all right; yesterday he threw a boiled egg at a WAAF waitress because it wasn’t done enough. Hit the target, too. He’s obviously a better shot on the ground than he is in the air. He’s shouting in his sleep, now. I flick Mathy’s lighter and see that his hands are clawing the air as if he’s reaching for the stick, thumb at the ready, then his arms come down and he subsides. I lean over and hold the lighter up to his face: he’s staring ahead with a fixed expression, tears on his cheeks. Doesn’t know I’m here. I wonder if I should push him down flat on the bed, but decide he’s better left as he is.
We flew four sorties yesterday. I haven’t felt that tired since I got concussed. I had a nap at six, but it didn’t do the trick and I woke up with a headache, very restless. I wandered about outside for a bit. Didn’t want to go to the mess, so I decided on a walk. Didn’t fancy going anywhere particular, but I knew that finding a brunette would take the edge off it, at least. By the time I’d got across the airfield there was no doubt in my mind: London again. The same feeling that comes with the scramble klaxon: there is nothing else.
I heard someone calling me as I was walking through the wood, but took no notice. Bloody Gervase. He wanted to know where I was going. I told him to piss off but he wouldn’t, just kept trotting alongside asking stupid questions. I got to the road, saw an army lorry and flagged it down, but when I turned to say goodbye he was climbing in behind me, and I could hardly pitch him back out again.
All the same, I knew I was going to go through with it. I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep to stop him talking. I felt better, knowing I was on my way.
They dropped us near a tube station—east, somewhere. Gervase said to me, ‘Where are we going?’
I said, ‘I’m going into town. I don’t know where you’re going.’
‘I’m coming with you.’
Nothing I could do. He clung to me like a limpet. The thing I’d wanted, first, to be by myself in a crowd of people, I couldn’t have, because he was there. I tried to stay calm in the train and was able to forget he was there for a while, but then he’d say something, and the irritation would begin all over again. We got off the train at Piccadilly. Soho was more lively than last time. Raids some way off, thank God, although I did laugh when I saw one chap running down the street holding a dustbin lid over his head.
I wanted to enjoy myself, but Gervase was still trailing after me like a lamb that’s lost its mother. I said, ‘Will you fuck off?’ but he trailed me into a pub in Greek Street and insisted on buying half a pint for both of us. When we’d finished, I told him to go and find himself a girl. He turned the colour of a tomato, which annoyed me even more. I said, ‘What’s the matter with you? Is it a disease or something? There’s things I need to do, and I don’t want you along.’ He was turning the whole thing into a farce.
There were a few likely-looking brown-haired women in the pub, and a couple came up to us, but I couldn’t talk to them with him hanging about and watching me, and this irritated me even more, because time was getting on. I told Gervase I’d meet him later, and we arranged it, but he still wouldn’t let me alone. Then a dirty-looking man who said he was a poet started pestering us for money. Gervase gave him half a crown, and I slipped off while they were talking.
I didn’t have to go far, just a couple of streets before I saw a torch flashing. A woman stepped towards me and asked me if I’d like to go home with her.
I said, ‘I want to see you, first.’ When she shone the torch at her face I saw the hair was brown. The face and body looked all right as far as I could tell, but I wasn’t concerned with that.
She said, ‘Like me, do you?’
‘I like your hair.’
She said, ‘Well, it’ll be a pound and ten shillings.’
I followed her down the street, and when we got up to the room and I could see her properly, she looked better than the blonde one, not so thin. When she asked my name, I told her it was Gervase. I handed over the money and sat in an armchair while she took her clothes off. She didn’t mind me looking, not like the other one, but she had a bored expression on her face as if I didn’t interest her much. She knelt down and unbuttoned my flies and started to touch me but it wasn’t any good with her looking like that, so I said, ‘Did you hear about the girl who was murdered near here?’
She carried on, not listening properly, and that made me angry because I wanted her to pay attention, so I said, ‘I heard she had a poker stuck up her, inside.’
That brought the head up, all right. ‘What?’
‘That blonde girl. Right round here, it was.’
‘How do you know?’ Now she was listening, all right. I could see the eyes widening, beginning to look more how I wanted.
‘She was strangled, that’s what I read, but I’d say the poker killed her. That’s what did it.’
She stood up, then. ‘How do you know about that?’
‘I told you, it was in the paper. You ought to be more careful. You don’t know who you might meet out there. It could be anyone.’
She turned away and went to the other armchair where she’d put her clothes and I saw she was reaching for something—underwear. I said, ‘What are you doing?’ I stood up, and she started backing away, saying, ‘I don’t like that sort of talk.’ She put on her brassiere and a vest, then she got hold of her handbag from the mantelpiece, and held some money out to me, saying, ‘I’m sorry, dear, but you’ll have to go. You’re making me uncomfortable.’
I said, ‘Come on, don’t be silly, I was making conversation, that’s all. I’ll give you another ten shillings, if you like.’
She sniffed and said, ‘Funny sort of conversation,’ but she took the extra money and put it all back in the bag.
She went and sat on the edge of the bed and fumbled around in her handbag, then pulled out a French letter and held it out to me, but I could see the bored look was on her face again, so I took my trousers off and my shirt because I didn’t want them messed up, and put them on the chair on top of her clothes. Then I picked up one of her stockings. She said, ‘Here, you be careful with that!’
I told her to lie down, but she wouldn’t, just kept telling me to let go of the stocking and saying they cost money and a lot of other stuff like that, and then she jumped up and tried to snatch it from me. That was the last straw—I could see she was going to spoil everything. She was stronger than the other one; she kept pulling at the stocking and shouting, and I had to make her shut up so I hit her, hard, on the face, and she fell back on the bed and twisted onto her side with her hands up, trying to protect herself, but I got on top of her and pulled her head round facing me. The eyes were wide, but not how I wanted. She was angry, and even though I was holding her down she looked at me as if she despised me and did not understand. I couldn’t look at her, so I shut my eyes and she said, ‘Get out,’ and her voice was low and flat, as if she was talking to some ordinary man and she wasn’t scared, and she was ruining it all, and then I thought I’d have to leave and I must have relaxed my grip because I felt her head jerk up and something wet landed on my face—spit—and then I was furious she could do that and speak to me like that, and she was thrashing and screeching and clawing at my arms—and it was Mathy I heard, not her, but Mathy, and I tried to block it out. I shouted ‘You stupid bitch, it wasn’t in the paper,’ and I punched her to make her quiet, and she was quiet after that, and still.
I knew what I was going to do, so I went into the kitchen for a knife and then I saw an instrument on the chair, like tongs, metal tongs. They looked good so I rubbed myself with them and as I did I remembered how I’d seen a woman—must have been Mother—use them to make waves in her hair, so I took them back to the bed as well. It wasn’t a pretty sight. She was lying on her back with her eyes shut and blood coming from the nose. I wanted to give her face a better appearance, and wished I’d brought the compact from the other one, which had powder, but I saw the handbag where she’d dropped it by the bed so I opened it and looked for some cosmetics. There wasn’t powder, only lipstick and a funny little blue bag that I put in my trouser pocket for later. Then I took hold of the lipstick and got on top of her and started to smear it on the mouth. I wanted a lot, but it was hard to get it in the right place, and she started moaning and moving her head, and then it got on her chin and round the mouth, and the blood from her nose was mixed up in it, and it looked a mess.
It took me by surprise when her eyes suddenly opened again and her mouth must have opened, too, because it jogged my hand so the lipstick clicked against her teeth. I could see a red ridge where the tip was squashed against them. Then a scream came up out of her mouth and then another, and I couldn’t bear the sound of it, or the look, the open mouth and teeth; I had to stop it so I jammed the whole lipstick into her mouth and put my hands over it, and I was pressing down hard and she was bucking and retching. I got my knee on one arm, pinning it down, but the other was loose and flailing, trying to reach my face, and I had to keep jerking my head out of the way. I could feel her face bulge underneath my hands and her body wracking and heaving underneath me, the chin slick with vomit where it was coming out between my fingers, making my hands slip. I pressed down as hard as I could, but she kept on jolting and thrashing underneath me and all the chords in her neck were taut, the veins almost bursting at the temples and blood was pounding into her face and the eyes turned pink and wet and the whites burst into bloody threads. Her loose arm flapped weakly and fell back on the bed, her legs stopped jerking and I let go.
I was trembling from the effort but there wasn’t much time and I wanted to push up the brassiere and vest, but I couldn’t with her lying down like that. So I put my hands under her armpits and hitched her into a sitting position, but I didn’t like the look of that, the face was spoiling it, so I pushed her down again. The vomit was sticky between my fingers so I wiped my hands on the vest where it was bunched at the top. Her face was too ugly, so I put a pillow over it and then I was ready to do what I wanted.
I don’t remember much about getting out of the place afterwards. I know I washed myself at the sink and wiped myself with something I picked up from a chair, then got dressed and came away as fast as I could. As soon as I’d finished, I was desperate to get back to the base, same as the other time. Odd, that: before, I can’t wait to get away to do it, and afterwards I can’t wait to be back again. Gervase was waiting for me where we’d arranged. Had to do a fair bit of walking—more than last time—but we got a couple of lifts that took us most of the way. Gervase had stopped talking, thank God. Probably been with a whore and felt ashamed of it—his sort always do. He fell asleep in the lorry, but I was too excited. I’d got the stocking in my pocket, and the little blue case, and I wanted to take them out and look at them, but I couldn’t in case he woke up and started asking questions.
I got back to the room about ten minutes ago and found Ginger sitting up like that. I still wanted the chance to go over it all properly, but I couldn’t enjoy myself with those eyes gleaming at me, so I came back outside. No one was about, and it was very dark and quiet.
I wound the stocking round my hand so it was stretched across my knuckles, and after that it was like re-running a film in my head, faster and faster, especially the end part, the knife and the curling irons I used to finish, and afterwards, when I’d pulled the bedclothes over it and gone across to the big mirror on the wall and stood looking into it so I could see just the reflection of the torso—breasts—the curve with the pillow above, over the face—then I shut my eyes as I had before and there were flashes of the girl in the alley, her blank face behind the stocking, the mouth an O like—that—more—yes—more—yesyesyes—yes…
Funny, remembering it just then, it seemed more real than it did while I was doing it. The excitement’s more afterwards; at the time, it’s just reflex actions, and the concentration on getting it done. Like debriefing, with everyone jabbering away nineteen to the dozen, shouting and laughing—and then they say we don’t remember it right, because if we did the Luftwaffe wouldn’t have a single kite left by now.
It was good looking into the big mirror, too. Better than that small compact thing. I didn’t like having to hit her. Oh, well. I suppose I’d better go back inside and get to bed. Damn tired.