Ben, in the World

‘You’ll see me right, like Ben?’

Now Johnston leaned forward, waving away swathes of cigarette smoke, and spoke to her – she saw clearly enough – from the heart. ‘Look, you and I have gone along together – how long now, Reet? Three years? I haven’t let you down ever – well, have I?’

‘No, you haven’t.’

‘Well then?’

He continued to lean forward, all drunken appeal, desperate, his reddened eyes wet – from the smoke? From tears?

‘It’s such a gamble,’ she said. ‘You’re taking such a chance.’

‘I’ve got to, Reet. If I get away with this, then I’m clear for the rest of my life.’

She lay back again, this time with her two legs straight in front of her, and stared at him, and thought she didn’t know which of them she was more sorry for, Johnston, who she knew had it in him to be better than he was – she knew because this was true of her, too – and who had such a power to impress people, looking as he did like Humphrey Bogart – well, most of the time he did, a little at least, but not now when he was drunk and stupid – or Ben, who was being sent off into such danger, to save Johnston. But when she came to think of it, and she was thinking hard now, she owed more to Johnston than to Ben. She supposed she could say Johnston was her man: she didn’t have another, after all. And it was true, he had been good to her. And what he said was true, that she hated this life and had several times thought of doing herself in. ‘Better do myself in before some sex maniac does it for me.’ She knew she probably wouldn’t last long, anyway. She was unhealthy. Her skin was bad. Her hair when not dyed silver-blonde was a coarse limp black mess: you had only to touch it to know she was sick. When she was not made up, not dressed for the kill, she looked at herself in the glass – and put on her make-up as fast as she could.

Now she thought, Right! Suppose they do catch Ben and send me down, it couldn’t be much worse than this life. And she decided to help Johnston. In every way she could.

And now Johnston took Ben through what would happen at the airport. When he was finished, Rita repeated it all, again and again.

Everything was going to depend on Johnston’s ‘friend’ – ‘I knew him in prison, Reet, he’s all right’ – he would be with Ben at the airport and then on the plane and then go with him into Nice and look after him.

‘And how much are you paying him?’

‘A lot. When you put everything together, and add it all up – clothes for Ben, the luggage, the trip on the aeroplane, the passport

– that was a hundred for a start – and Richard – that’s the contact

– then it all adds up. And there’s the hotel, too. But even so it’s peanuts compared with what there’s in it for us.’

‘Well, don’t spend it before you have it, that’s all.’

‘Look, Reet, I know you think I’m barmy, but it’ll work, you’ll see.’

‘Luck, that’s all,’ said Rita. ‘They have sniffer dogs, they check the luggage.’

‘Sometimes they do. But they aren’t going to bother with a load of tourists going to Nice. And that goes for the French narks too. They’ll be watching planes from Colombia and the East, not a nice little harmless plane from London.’

There was one thing Rita didn’t know. The plan was for three cases: one very big, stuffed with packets of cocaine, with a layer of clothing over it, which would be checked in at the desk; one with Ben’s things in it; and one to take on the plane. When Rita heard that Johnston planned to fill this one too with the deadly packets, possibly heroin, she screamed, she shouted, she even assaulted him, so he had to hold her fists. ‘You know they pick cases to check, just at random, they could easily pick Ben’s take-on case.’ He soothed her and promised her, said he wouldn’t do it, if she was upset about it, but in fact he did not keep this promise: Ben was to go through to the plane and on to it carrying the dangerous case.

‘The whole thing is mad,’ Rita kept saying. ‘And poor Ben – it’s cruel, I think. Just imagine him in prison.’

‘It’s just because he’s so weird that it’s going to work.’

It did work. There was a period while Johnston and Rita could not believe how much things were changing; the difference between their circumstances now, and what was possible to them was too great. Johnston was not so stupid to allow large sums of money to appear in a bank account, but large sums found their way deviously to him over the next few months. He gave Rita enough to buy a restaurant in Brighton, which did well. She could have married, but did not. Sometimes Johnston came to see her, meetings precious to them both, since only they understood how narrowly they had escaped lives of prison and crime.

Johnston had seen on a television programme that it was easy to buy a title and right to land from impoverished (and surely cynical?) aristocrats, for sums that now seemed to him negligible. He did this, became a lord of a manor, but was soon restless and knew he had made a mistake. He did not like doing nothing. He became owner of a very superior car-hire firm, chauffeuring the rich and the famous, mostly around London, and employed the kind of person whom once he would have thought of as far above him. He enjoyed his life, loved his Rolls-Royces and Mercedes, and cultivated respectability. His children, when he got them, went to good private schools. So you could say that this part of our tale had a happy ending.

On the morning of the great gamble Ben was dressed by Rita – Johnston supervising – in a bespoke shirt and a good jacket. Rita was crying, when Johnston put Ben into one of the minicabs, and instructed the driver exactly what to do. The last thing Ben said was, ‘When am I coming home?’ ‘We’ll see,’ said Johnston, and Rita turned away so Ben would not see her guilty face.

He allowed himself to be driven to Heathrow, though he was feeling sick. The driver parked in Short-term Parking, and got a trolley for the bags, a black one, a red one, a blue one. He took Ben to the club-class check-in desk, handed in Ben’s passport, took it back with the boarding pass, and nudged Ben when he was asked if he had forbidden items, and if he had packed the bags himself. Rita had told him over and over again that he must say that yes, he had packed them himself. He remembered, after a hesitation. The check-in girl had taken in ‘Film Actor’ on the passport, and was staring at Ben during her ministrations to his cases and the boarding card. This stare did not discompose Ben, he was so used to it. The driver, a Nigerian, who was being paid a good bit extra, walked with Ben to Fast Track, gave him his carry-on case, the blue one, his passport and the boarding card, and told him, ‘Go through there.’ When Ben hesitated he gave Ben a little push, and stood back to watch him go, so he could report back.

Ben was by himself, and he was terrified, his mind whirling with everything he had to remember. He showed his boarding card to the official, who glanced at it, and stared at him, and went on staring until the next traveller claimed his attention. Now there was a difficult bit. Over and over again Rita and Johnston had told him what to do. Ahead would be a kind of black box, with an opening that had things hanging down. He must go to it and put his case on the shelf there. The case would disappear into the opening, and he must look for the metal arch, close to, go through it when told, and then a man would search him, feel his pockets and down his thighs. Ben had said, ‘What for?’ And they had said, ‘Just to make sure you’re all right.’ The word ‘guns’ would have scared him. This was the part Rita feared most, because she knew how unpredictably Ben reacted to being touched.

Ben saw the machine ahead. It seemed to him frightful, and he wanted to run away. He knew he must go on. There was no one waiting to help him. He stood with his case in his hand, helpless, until a man behind him said, ‘Put it there – look.’ And when Ben did not move he took the case and put it into the machine. This unknown helper went ahead of him to the arch, since Ben hesitated, and so Ben saw what he had to do.

Meanwhile his holdall was moving through the x-ray machine. Under the top layer of clothing, among paper packets of the terrible white powder, were inserted here and there toilet things, scissors, a nail-file, clippers, a razor – all in metal which would show up on the screen. But this was the key moment, when ill-luck might lay its hands on Ben and – unless Ben remembered, when interrogated, never to say Rita’s name or Johnston’s – on them too.

If the girl at the x-ray machine was doing her job, absorbed in it, the official whose job it was to frisk Ben hardly touched him. He was staring at the shoulders, the great chest, thinking, Good God! What is this? Ben was grinning. It was from terror, but what this official saw was the smile of a celebrity used to being recognised – he saw plenty of celebrities. If he had laid his hands closely on Ben he would have found him trembling, sweating, cold – but he waved Ben on. Now Ben had to remember to retrieve his case from the machine’s exit. He did not know that here was his moment of greatest danger: descriptions of what he had to do were not put to him in terms of danger. But luck held: ‘Is this your case, sir?’ was not said to Ben, but to the man coming after him. Ben stood there grinning, and then, understanding at last that this blue case jiggling there beside him was his, remembered instructions, took it up and went on towards… He was in a daze, and a dazzle, feeling sick and cold. This great space with its lights, its crowds, the shops, the colours, so much movement and noise – in any case it would have frightened him, but he knew that he must remember, must remember… He was on the edge of sending out little whimpers of helplessness, but then he saw that just ahead a man behind a desk was waving him on and he must show his passport. It was in his hand. How had it got there? He couldn’t remember… But the official merely glanced at it and back at Ben. What he was thinking was, If he is a film star then I’ve never seen him in anything.

Now Ben was standing well beyond the line of passport desks and he did not know what to do next. He had been told there would be someone there looking out for him, Johnston’s friend, and yes, there he was, a young man was hurrying forward, scared eyes on Ben’s face.

It was at this point that something happened that had not been foreseen. Johnston – had he been watching – would have said, ‘That’s it! I’ve done it!’ Barring some really unfair bad luck he would shortly be the owner of several million pounds sterling.

The young man, Ben’s minder, was – literally – shaking with relief, and from the reaction. He arrived directly in front of Ben, trying to smile, saying hurriedly, ‘I’m Johnston’s friend, I’m Richard.’

Ben said, ‘I’m cold. I want my jersey.’ He put down the holdall, and tried to unzip it, not seeing at first the tiny lock. He said, ‘Where is the key? Why is it locked up?’

Richard Gaston (but he had many names in his life) had arrived in London yesterday on the ferry from Calais, and had spent hours with Johnston being given instructions for this day’s events, and for afterwards, in Nice. He travelled out to Heathrow on the Underground, stood at a distance watching the scene with the minicab driver and Ben at check-in, had gone separately through passport control and customs, with the economy travellers, had waited for Ben to emerge, all the time enlarging his ideas of himself with reflected glory from Johnston, who was so clever. He had had many doubts about this scene, just like Rita, but look, it had succeeded.

And here was Ben, bending down, tugging at the zip, pulling at the lock. It was evident that those hands could tear the holdall apart, if Ben decided to do it that way. Richard imagined those packets scattered everywhere, the security people coming up…

‘I’m cold,’ said Ben.

It was a warm afternoon and Ben already had a jerkin on over his shirt – a very posh shirt, as Richard noted.

‘You can’t be cold,’ was Richard’s injudicious order to Ben. ‘Now, come on. We’ve cut it a bit fine. They’re boarding. Don’t be difficult, now.’

These words had an effect which caused Richard to jump back and away from Ben, who was apparently about to grip him by the arms and then… Ben was seething with rage.

‘I want my jersey!’ shouted Ben. ‘I’ve got to have my jersey!’

Richard was scared, but not numbed by it. He was rallying himself. He had been told that Ben was a bit funny… he had moods… he had to be humoured… he was a bit simple. ‘But he’s all there, so don’t treat him like a dummy.’

These descriptions of Ben, scattered through the hours of discussion with Johnston, seemed to Richard all off the point. Johnston would call this ‘a mood’, would he? Richard was sending nervous glances all around. Was anyone watching? Well, they soon would, if Ben went on shouting.

If that zip broke, if that little lock sprang open…

Richard said, gasping, ‘Listen, Ben, listen, mate. We’re going to miss the plane. You’ll be OK in the plane. They’ll give you a blanket.’

Ben stood up, letting the holdall fall. Richard couldn’t know it, but it was the word ‘blanket’ that reached him. The old woman had used to say, ‘Take this blanket, Ben, wrap yourself up a bit. The heating’s a bit low tonight.’

Richard saw that things had changed: Ben was no longer breathing pure murder. Now, unwittingly, he added to his advantage, ‘Johnston wouldn’t want you to spoil it now. You’ve done good, Ben. You’re right on. You’re a bit of a wonder, Ben.’

It was the word good.

Ben picked up the holdall, went with Richard along the corridors, the moving pavements, to the right places. It had all been nicely judged: they would be in the middle of the crowd of people boarding. At the desk Ben found his passport and boarding card in his hand, put there by this new friend, who had taken them from him, it seemed, while they argued – Ben had let them fall as he wrestled with the zip and the lock – and then on they walked, along and down and around and down, and then there was a door and by it a smiling female, who directed the two to club class. Ben stood helpless in the aisle, and Richard took the case from him and slid it up into the bin, feeling as if he were handling a snake. He had told Johnston that on no account would he touch that case, so that he could tell any interrogator that he knew nothing about it, but now he saw how foolish that had been. Ben was in his seat, the seatbelt was fastened across him, and Richard was about to ask for a blanket, and then explain to Ben about the take-off, the flight – there would be clouds underneath them and then… But Ben had fallen asleep.

What a good thing, thought Richard. What a relief.