Ben, in the World. Doris Lessing

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.