When Pinkie and Rose return to Brighton, she spots Spicer's photograph in the kiosk window and recognizes him as the man that left the card. Pinkie's warnings have not worked. As far as she is concerned, he is on her side. She is a liability for what she knows and she is a liability for what she represents. Is there no escape?
Ida needs money for her investigation. She has staked all her money on 'Black Boy', a tip given to her just after the disappearance of Hale. She goes to the races, confident in her superstitious mind that Black Boy will win, a victory of right over wrong, a victory of vengeance. Pinkie goes also. The races are his battleground but the lines have not been drawn. On this occasion, Spicer is the enemy. '[Pinkie] couldn't get the suggestion of Spicer out of his mind; it was like an invisible power working against him: Spicer's stupidity, the photograph on the pier, that woman - who the hell was she? - asking questions... ' (100). Pinkie sees two liabilities: the girl and Spicer. Spicer has damned himself with his anxiety. His nervousness has betrayed Pinkie's confidence in him. Pinkie goes with him alone to the races. Cubbitt and Dallow are left behind. '"I didn't want them here today," the Boy said. "We've got something to do today that the mob are better out of. I'm going to make up with Colleoni. I wouldn't trust them." (101). In fact, it is Spicer that he doesn't trust and he has arranged for Colleoni's mob to kill him at the races. With school- boy cruelty, he gives Spicer a drink and offers him the chance to leave Brighton. Spicer endorses his trust, happily dreaming of his pub in Nottingham. He lays a bet on 'Memento Mori' which comes in second to 'Black Boy'. Spicer goes to collect his winnings and with a Judas-like friendly pat on the back , Pinkie betrays him to Colleoni's men.
Pinkie's plan backfires. Just as he betrays Spicer's trust, so does Colleoni betray his trust and the mob turn on the betrayer as well as the betrayed. He is cut and kicked but manages to run away, limping and bleeding. As he lies in a garage, hiding from his pursuers, he does not think of his salvation but of his humiliation. At first his pride is empty - he cannot bring himself to repent but only because it was his habit to resist - but as he nears the town and the knowledge that he will not die, he regains his youthful arrogance. 'On day - one day - he limped along the sand with his bleeding hand hidden, a young dictator. He was head of Kite's gang, this was temporary defeat.' (109).
He does not go home. He must clean himself up before Cubbitt and Dallow see him. He goes to Snow's where Rose washes the blood from his cuts and the dirt from his clothes. They hear Ida's raucous laughter in the restaurant. Rose is scared but not as scared as Pinkie is of Rose. He must conciliate her to keep her quiet about the identity of the man that left the card and the conciliation that she requires is love or at least the outward signs of love. He is disgusted even by the thought of kissing her and when she tells him that he is her first boyfriend his distaste turns to hate. She is not the girlfriend that a powerful man would have - he is her first boyfriend, the first ever to want her. '... he'd robbed nobody, he had no rival, no one else would look at her... ' (112). She, on the other hand, is happy to be with him, despite her Catholic upbringing and his shady background. She finds more comfort in him, a fellow Catholic - even one so irreligious as him - than in the pagan Ida with her worldly notions of right and wrong:
'"What does she know about us?... she doesn't know what a mortal sin is... Right and Wrong. That's what she talks about... Right and Wrong. As if she knew." She whispered with contempt, "Oh, she won't burn. She couldn't burn if she tried." She might have been discussing a damp Catherine wheel... "I'd rather burn with you than be like Her." Her immature voice stumbled on the word, "She's ignorant."' (113- 114).
Pinkie has got rid of one liability - Spicer - but with his death, the stakes are raised. It becomes even more important to keep Rose quiet. It is with dread - a dread of 'Saturday night movements' - that he decides to marry her for, as his wife, she cannot be called to give evidence against him in court. He tells Cubbitt who bellows with laughter at the news.
'The Boy sat silent, watching Cubbitt, listening to his laughter as if were the world's contempt... "You dog, you," Cubbitt said. "You're a young one at the game" The game: What did people mean by 'the game'? He knew everything in theory, nothing in practice; he was only old with the knowledge of other people's lusts, those of strangers who wrote their desires on the walls in public lavatories. He knew the moves, he'd never played the game.' (116).
He calls his lawyer Prewitt for advice. Both he and Rose are underage but if there was a legal loophole, Prewitt would know what it was. Prewitt comes and gives him advice. Indeed there is a way around it. "We'll see our young friend spliced yet." (119). Whilst Prewitt hunts in the soap-dish for his consultation fee, Pinkie finds Spicer, as alive as ever, packing his case to leave for Nottingham. "I got away... " he says. 'His words wilted out like a line of seaweed, along the edge of the Boy's silence, indifference and purpose." (120).
Ida, also, is driven with resolute purpose: "I'm going to work on that kid every hour of the day until I get something," she says, referring, of course, to Rose. 'She rose formidably and moved across the restaurant, moving formidably like a warship going into action' and, of course, 'a warship on the right side' (120, my italics). She pursues Rose to her bedroom above the restaurant. Rose wedges the door shut but Ida breaks in with her single-minded philosophy, 'When you were life-saving you must never hesitate, so they taught you, to stun the one you rescued' (122). Once inside the room she unleashes the broadsides of 'Right and Wrong': "I'm your friend... but don't you understand - he's wicked... You're young... romantic. I was like you once. You'll grow out of it. All you need is experience." Rose is as defiant as Pinkie in his interview with Colleoni:
'"You don't know a thing... I don't care"... The Nelson Place eyes stared back at her without understanding. Driven to her hole the small animal peered out at the bright and breezy world; in the hole were murder, copulation, extreme poverty, fidelity and the love and fear of God, but the small animal had not the knowledge to deny that only in the glare and open world outside was something which people called experience.' (122- 123)
Pinkie is more successful in his purpose. 'The Boy looked down at the body, spread-eagled like Prometheus, at the bottom of Frank's stairs. (123). Spicer is dead, finally. Pinkie makes it look like an accident, that the banister broke and he fell to his death. He also succeeds in manipulating Prewitt to support him. It would not look good, after all, if a respectable lawyer were present, fishing for money in a soap-dish, at the scene of a murder. Pinkie goes out to find Rose. His resolution has hardened with the murder of Spicer. He goes to Snow's and finds Rose and Ida at war. Ida is still delivering her broadsides of Righteousness and Rose is defiantly staying in her hole. Just as Pinkie was on alien territory when he met Colleoni in The Cosmopolitan, the arrival of Pinkie puts Ida on foreign ground. Pinkie and Rose representing the spiritual world - of Good and Evil - unite against the prophetess of worldly 'Right and Wrong'. 'She was good, [Pinkie had] discovered that, and he was damned: they were made for each other... .Good and evil lived in the same country, spoke the same language', a country to which Ida was foreign, a country in which she was 'nothing' (126-7). Ida leaves, her mission unfulfilled. Pinkie leaves a little later, engaged to Rose, his mission fulfilled.
Pinkie, Dallow and Cubbitt go to the Queen of Hearts, the 'best road-house this side of London' (131). They meet the late Spicer's woman. Pinkie seduces her - or, more accurately, she seduces Pinkie - but he fails to consummate their encounter. It is not that he feels any pang of guilt in sleeping with her (you get the feeling that this, in fact, compels him) but rather that he is scared. He is scared in his inexperience, like a small animal in a hole peering out at the 'glare and open world outside... that people called experience'. His fear drives him to turn against his plan to marry Rose. When they return, she is there but when he tells her that their marriage is off, she surprises him with her shrewdness. She has a newspaper in her hand. It contains the story of Spicer's death and on the front page is the photograph taken of him on the sea front. '"Do you think," she said, "I ought to take this - " she held out the paper to him - "to the police?"' (138). The marriage is back on. Pinkie goes to Nelson Place, back to the nightmare territory of his childhood, to ask her father's permission to marry her. He grants it, after a certain amount of negotiation. She is sold for fifteen guineas. In contrast to the poverty of Nelson Place, Ida is enjoying the fruits of her gamble on Black Boy with a chocolate éclair and a suite at The Cosmopolitan.
Pinkie returns from Nelson Place to find Cubbitt and Dallow in his room. They have bought him presents to celebrate his betrothal: a tiny doll's commode in the shape of a radio set labelled 'The smallest A.1. two-valve receiving set in the world' and a mustard-pot shaped like a lavatory seat with the legend ' For me and my girl' (149). These gifts and Cubbitt's slightly drunken gentle teasing enrage Pinkie. 'It was like a return of all the horror he had ever felt, the hideous loneliness of innocence.' (149). In his rage, Pinkie says, "By God, I'll treat like I treated Spicer." (149). It takes a while for Cubbitt to understand what he means but, despite Dallow's attempts to hide the true meaning of what Pinkie has just said, Cubbitt realizes the truth behind Spicer's death. He is frightened and leaves. At that moment, Ida is comfortable in the luxurious surroundings of The Cosmopolitan after a 'bit of fun with a disciple of hers called Phil Corkery. He offers her 'a penny for your thoughts'. '"I was just thinking," Ida said, "that what we really need now is one of Pinkie's men. Somebody scared or angry. They must get scared some time. We've only got to wait." (151)
She does not have long to wait. Cubbitt goes to The Cosmopolitan to ask Colleoni for work with his mob but is refused. Ida overhears Cubbitt mention the name 'Pinkie' (it is lucky for the purposes of the plot that he doesn't refer to his erstwhile employer by his surname, Brown). Hearing this and with her characteristic motherly charm that seems to attract despairing men, Ida invites the disconsolate Cubbitt to join her for a drink. He accepts and she discovers, in him, a witness to the truth about Hale and, from him, Pinkie's plan to marry Rose. This most recent news stirs her into action:
'She said slowly, "The little fool... to marry him... why, there's no knowing what he'll do." A kind of righteous mirth moved her to add with excitement, "We got to save her, Phil."' (163)
She is too late. Their marriage is not exactly a romantic occasion. Pinkie is plagued with anxiety. He fears his innocence, his inexperience. He describes the registry office, '... there was a smell of disinfectant. The walls were tiled like a public lavatory.' (167) but there is no writing of 'strangers who wrote their desires on the walls...' (116). There is not even a reminder of the theory of the 'game' that he has never played and that he fears so much. His sense of inadequacy is heightened when he takes Rose to The Cosmopolitan as a grandiose gesture of the power that he dreamed to possess and is refused service. They continue to walk along the sea-front. Among the tourist amusements is a machine that records a short message onto a gramophone record, where tourists pay sixpence to record their memento of their holiday in Brighton. Rose persuades Pinkie to record a message for her. He grudgingly agrees and regards her as he thinks what he should say:
'He saw her as a stranger: a shabby child from Nelson Place, and he was shaken by an appalling resentment. He put in sixpence, and, speaking in a low voice for fear it might carry beyond the box, he gave his message to be graven on vulcanite: "God damn you, you little bitch, why can't you go home for ever and let me be?" he heard the needle scratch and the record whirr: then a click and silence.'
'Carrying the black disc he came out to her. "Here," he said, "take it. I put something on it - loving."'
'She took it from him carefully, carried it like something to be defended from the crowd.' (177)
The record represents, perhaps, the most fitting summary of their relationship: Of her trust and goodness, of his resentment and constraint, of her power. It is his powerlessness - his inability to repent - that makes him cry:
'... the Boy began to weep... the music went on - it was like a vision of release to an imprisoned man. He felt constriction and saw - hopelessly out of reach - a limitless freedom: no fear, no hatred, no envy. It was as if he were dead and were remembering the effect of a good confession, the words of absolution: but being dead it was a memory only - he couldn't experience contrition - the ribs of his body were like steel bands which held him down to eternal unrepentance.' (179)
They return home and with 'a sad brutal now-or-never embrace' consummate their marriage. 'It seemed to him more like death than when Hale or Spicer had died' but, 'He had an odd sense of triumph: he had graduated in the last human shame' (181). He has little time to dwell on such thoughts but it is with a sense of pride regained that he goes to see who is ringing the front door bell. He finds Cubbitt. With his old pride, he turns him away, unhurt by Cubbitt's accusation, 'you're scared of a girl. Sylvie (Spicer's woman) told me' (184). His feelings of inadequacy may be sated but he still feels constrained. He wakes up and leaves the house for air. Walking along Montpellier Road he sees an old woman crouching in an alleyway:
'It was like the sight of damnation. Then he heard the whisper, "Blessed art thou among women," saw the grey fingers fumbling at the beads. This was not one of the damned: he watched with horrified fascination: this was one of the saved.'
Part Seven, the conclusion of the book is not complicated as far as plot is concerned. Rose tries to settle in with Pinkie, revelling in her new status. Just as Pinkie was fascinated by the sight of the old woman who is 'one of the saved', she also finds herself in a foreign world, one that she cannot fully comprehend. Her fascination, walking with childlike innocence in the 'country of mortal sin' is not tainted with horror but rather with a sort of worldly glory. It is not until Ida warns her that she ought to take 'precautions' that she contemplates the possibility of becoming pregnant by Pinkie:
'... That had never entered her mind; and the thought of what she might have let herself in for came like a sense of glory. A child... and that child would have a child... it was like raising an army of friends for Pinkie. If They damned him and her, they'd have to deal with them, too. There was no end to what the two of them had done last night on the bed: it was an eternal act.' (200)
The idea of a child strikes Pinkie in a completely different way. He does not think of raising an army of friends but rather the progression of life, 'It sort of comes that way', no escape from his father's fate.
Ida visits Rose and the same battle of Right and Wrong against Good and Evil is played out once again. Rose talks about "Confession, Repentance... There's things you don't know... " and Ida counters, "That's just religion... I know one thing you don't. I know the difference between Right and Wrong." (198-9). 'Rose didn't answer; the woman was quite right: the two words meant nothing to her. Their taste was extinguished by stronger foods - Good and Evil.' (199). Rose does not wilt. She is devoted to Pinkie. But she does not tell him, when he returns, that Ida has been to visit. He knows anyway for he sees her leaving the house and he becomes suspicious of Rose. He suspects that she might have talked. When she does confess, he knows instinctively that she is telling the truth but, despite Dallow's protests, he cannot help planning to kill her. He feels as if the murder of Hale has set him upon a path that he cannot help but follow.
Pinkie and Dallow know that Cubbitt has talked to Ida. They suspect that he might lead them to Prewitt, the only witness to the murder of Spicer. Pinkie visits Prewitt and gives him money to get on the next boat to Boulogne. He takes the opportunity both to 'unburden himself' to Pinkie, revealing the pent up misery of a man who married beneath himself, etc. and the opportunity to escape from the hell that he sees around him. During his speech, he refers to Faustus, who asks Mephistopheles where Hell is. Mephistopheles answers, "Why, this is Hell, nor are we out of it" (210). The words lodge in Pinkie's mind. He returns home, looks around him and thins to himself that if this is hell, then it is not so bad. But then he goes to his bedroom, no longer his bedroom but Rose's also. This is hell, a torment that he cannot endure. The driving motive for his attempted murder of Rose is that he cannot face a future like Prewitt's: 'It was life getting at you... ' (220)
Colleoni writes, offering him £300 to clear out of the protection racket and leave Brighton. It is the escape that Spicer was looking for; it is a break that appeals to Dallow. But it is no escape for Pinkie. He does not wish to leave Brighton. He thinks gloomily, "We change, don't we? It's as you say. We got to see the world... After all I took to drink, didn't I? I can take to other things.' (220) But that is precisely what he doesn't want to do and that is why he wants to get rid of Rose, the symbol of change and progress in his life. He sits celebrating Prewitt's departure with Rose, Dallow and Judy. Dallow is talking as Spicer once did, of setting up a pub together somewhere away from Brighton. His escape is planned and so, too, is Pinkie's. He sees Ida at a nearby table: '... How she hung on. Like a ferret he'd seen once on the Down, among the chalky holes, fastened to a hare's throat. All the same this hare escaped. He had no cause to fear her now.' (224). He takes Rose alone for a ride into the country. With his customary forethought to an alibi, he stops at the shooting gallery, asks the time and shoots deliberately off-centre: 'He thought, "Something had agitated him, the witness said." (225). "Dona nobis pacem", he murmurs as they drive out of Brighton. His plan is to convince her to enter a suicide pact with him.
Meanwhile, Ida lies to Dallow: that Prewitt was arrested on the quay before he embarked for Boulogne. Dallow suddenly realizes what Pinkie had in mind when he took Rose for a ride into the country and follows him. They arrive to find Rose alone in the car with a gun that Pinkie has given her with all the necessary instructions. She hears them call for Pinkie and is frightened but her fright does not compel her to pull the trigger: 'It was as if somewhere in the darkness the will which governed her hand relaxed, and all the hideous forces of self-preservation came flooding back.' (242). Instead, she throws the gun away. Dallow tells Pinkie that Prewitt has been caught. He asks Rose for the gun but she has thrown it away. He fishes in his pocket for the bottle of vitriol that he always carries. Whether he intended to use it on himself or on Dallow is not entirely clear but the contents end up splashing over his face. Stumbling in agony he walks over the edge of the cliff:
'"Stop him," Dallow cried: it wasn't any good: he was at the edge, he was over: they couldn't even hear a splash. It was as if he'd been withdrawn suddenly by a hand out of existence - past or present, whipped away into zero - nothing.' (243)
Ida is avenged. The stickler for righteousness is satisfied. The board was right: 'SUIKILLEYE she thought. I know what that means now. The Board had foreseen it all - Sui, its own word for the scream, the agony, the leap' (245). Rose is not satisfied. She wished that she had killed herself. She goes to confession and the priest consoles her,
' "You cannot conceive, my child, nor can I or anyone the... appalling... strangeness of the mercy of God... We must hope and pray... ".
'She said with sad conviction, "He's damned. He knew what he was about. He was a Catholic too."
'He said gently, "Corruptio optimi est pessima"
' "Yes, father?"
' "I mean - a Catholic is more capable of evil than anyone else. I think perhaps - because we believe in Him - we are more in touch with the devil than other people. But we must hope", he said mechanically, "hope and pray." (246).
This formula does not satisfy her, "I want to hope... but I don't know how". It is not until she asks him what she should do if she is pregnant by him that she sees a way forward, a light that gives her some direction:
'He said, "With your simplicity and his force... Make him a saint - to pray for his father."
'A sudden feeling of immense gratitude broke through the pain - it was as if she had been given the sight a long way off of life going on again.' (247)
The thought of Pinkie alive in his child gives her hope, and she remembers the record that he gave her on their wedding night. The priest had said, "If he loved you, surely, that shows there was some good... " (246). She walks to his house to fetch the record, a message from him, 'something loving', a message that could be played to his child, proof that, even now that he is dead, he is not gone: 'She walked rapidly in the thin June sunlight towards the worst horror all:
"God damn you, you little bitch, why can't you go home for ever and let me be?"