‘It will be enough. More than enough. But—’
‘No, don’t say but! Say I can come with you! Say I can leave off this life that I hate, and that you will give me a different one.’
‘As my wife, Cat, you would have all of that and more,’ he pleads. Pressing the purse into his hand, Cat draws breath to answer but is cut off.
Shrill whistles pierce the air, and the door from the front room is pulled open with the squeal and crunch of splintering wood. Policemen rush in, blowing their whistles and holding lanterns aloft to light the winners collecting their pay, and the losers tearing up their tickets. They fan out to catch as many as they can, scurrying like beetles in their dark uniforms and helmets. In an instant, every man tries to be far from the bloodied birds, tries to be rid of his ticket if it is worthless, or to be gone with it if it will later be redeemed. There is a surge of bodies towards the back doors, which are hastily thrown open, and the crowd knocks Cat off her feet, carrying her away like a piece of driftwood.
‘Oi!’ George bellows, wading after her.
‘Stop there! Everybody, stop there!’ one of the policemen shouts. With her ribs crushed and bruised, Cat fights to regain her feet. The air is suddenly sweet and clear, and she realises she’s been carried clean out through the doors. Eyes searching, she can see no sign of George amidst the struggling bodies. More whistles are blowing, and the sound of running feet in heavy police boots echoes towards her.
The police have pushed from the front of the building, and cast a net at the back to catch the fleeing gamblers. Cat fights her way to the edge of the mêlée, dodging officers left and right. Suddenly she is barrelled from behind, by a man fleeing with his hat pulled so far over his eyes to avoid recognition that he doesn’t even see her, and cannons her to the ground. The wind is knocked from her lungs, and she stays down for a second, fighting to breathe. Then a voice rises high above the police whistles and the grunts of captured men, loud and incongruous. Cat looks up and sees Albert Canning, approaching through the darkness with a fire in his eyes that seems to light his way. He steps into the pool of light spilling from the pub and there is so little thought, yet so much conviction, suffusing his expression that Cat is chilled by it. In spite of her contempt, and the many weeks she has lived with the vicar, scarcely noticing him, she is suddenly afraid. He wears a smile quite sickly and deranged.
‘Repent! Examine you all the error of your ways! The gravity of your sins! Cast aside these foolish and perilous ways, for they are the path to your downfall, to your destruction, and to the destruction of all that is clean and pure and good in the world!’ the vicar shouts, his voice high and excited, face lit with a zeal so bright that it outshines the electric back room lights. Cat’s heart plunges into her gut, which twists in protest. She coughs, fighting for air, flinching as booted feet thunder past her, near her head and hands and legs. He must not see her. She tries to get up but too soon, and a wave of dizziness forces her back onto the dusty ground. The vicar is walking forwards slowly, one childlike step at a time. He holds aloft a gilt cross fully twelve inches high, which gleams like his eyes. Brandishing it, he inches slowly towards a pair of officers who are wrestling a man to the ground, a man who fights tooth and nail not to be taken down.
‘Leave off me, you filth! I only came down here for a pint!’ the man cries, raggedly.
‘Then what’s this betting slip in your pocket, Keith Berringer, and how come you’ve two weeks’ wages in your purse?’ one of the officers asks. ‘Been saving up for a rainy day, have you?’ he says, and his colleague laughs as rain begins to fall steadily, turning the dust to mud.
‘Repent, my son! Cast off your corrupted ways like an old skin! Be born anew in the love and fear of God!’ the vicar implores, standing as close to the struggling man as is prudent.
‘Christ! You needn’t have brought the bloody church along with you! Haven’t I enough to deal with?’ Keith Berringer complains bitterly.
‘Well, that weren’t our idea,’ one of the officers mutters in distaste, as Albert stands before them, beaming, breathing hard. Still coughing, Cat gets to her knees. She knows it would be better to turn her face away in case his gaze shifts, but she can’t take her eyes from the vicar. If he were to look down, if he were to look to his right, he would see her. Her heartbeat bangs in her temples. She is on all fours like an animal, her fingers sinking into the gritty earth as the rain wets it, her clothes filthy with it. She clenches her teeth but can’t keep another fit of coughing at bay. The spasms in her chest are agonising, and she lets her head droop down, close to the ground. For a second the noises all around recede – the whistles and shouts and stamping feet, the slamming doors and the vicar’s thrumming voice and the laughter of the police – all are lost behind a wall of muffled thumping that storms her ears. Shadows crowd her vision, sparkling with bright motes of light. Do not faint! she commands herself. She can’t be arrested, can’t be seen. Can’t be found lying helpless in the mud.