In Pursuit of the English

Chapter Six

Winning the case was the beginning of a revolution in that house; in a few weeks everything had changed, and I was looking for somewhere else to live. First: Dan and Flo bought themselves a television set on the hire-purchase to celebrate their victory. At the time this didn’t seem nearly as important as the second event — Dan went up to the War Damage people and made a successful scene; the workmen moved in next week.

‘It’ll be ever so nice to have a telly,’ said Flo. ‘We can all sit and watch in the evenings and have a good time.’

This did not happen; at least, not at first. We had a great inaugural party on the evening the set was installed, with Flo’s best spaghetti and a rich almond cake and beer. It wasn’t a success. Rose had given up a date with Dickie; I wanted to work; and Dan resented every minute he was taken away from his labours on the empty rooms on the first floor. ‘Besides,’ Flo kept saying, with defiant glances at Dan, who scowled every time the boy’s name was mentioned: ‘It’s not the same without Jack, is it?’

From one day to the next, the basement fell silent. The age of the radio was over, no longer was the house filled with the roar of sound — music and voices. The yapping and playing of the half-dozen puppies distracted Flo from her magic box, and she disposed of them. Soon the basement was inhabited by Flo, Aurora, a single sleep-drugged cat, and the television screen. Flo kept coming upstairs to say pathetically to Rose and myself: ‘Why don’t you like it, darling, why don’t you like our lovely telly?’

Rose said: ‘I do like it, but I’ve got better things to think of.’ Rose at that time was oblivious of everything but Dickie, hardly saw her, save in the mornings before she went to work, when she came into my room, to run a wetted finger over her eyebrows, smiling at herself contentedly in the mirror, and to say: ‘That Dickie, he makes me laugh. Do you know what he said last night? He said I’m like eating icecream. That’s when we was in bed. He made me have no clothes on, I could have died blushing, but he just laughed. Well, to think what I was missing so long, I could kick myself. But don’t hold it against me, because I don’t come and talk to you the way we used to have our nice times. I’m still your friend. You wait, when I and Dickie get married, you can come and see me when he’s out and we’ll have a good laugh.’

Flo said to me: ‘Married, she says? Is that what she says? Well, have you told her to get in the family way? And you call yourself her friend? You think men care about lipstick and hair this way and that way — well, she’ll find out.’

This was a reference to the revolution in Rose’s appearance. She had seen a fashion programme on Flo’s television; she brooded about it for some days; then suddenly went off and had her hair cut short and soft, and was wearing light make-up. Her eyebrows were no longer black half-circles; her mouth was its own shape. All this went well with her happiness, and she looked like a girl.

But Flo merely shrugged, and said: ‘We’ll see, you mark my words.’

Meanwhile the house was in chaos. What Flo referred to as ‘The War Damage’ were beginning at the top of the house and working downwards. The roof of the attic had collapsed under a weight of stagnant water, bringing down part of the walls.

‘Lucky I wasn’t in it,’ I said to Dan, but he was in too bad a mood to laugh. His quarrel with Jack was a disaster for him.

The War Damage people were responsible for structural damage, but not for repainting. Soon, they would have rebuilt the attic, and before it could be let, it must be decorated. The work on the old people’s flat was slow. Dan was stilt scraping the layer of filth off the floor, with long steel scrapers. He had poured gallons of boiling water on it; used all kinds of chemical, but the residue had to be taken off by hand. He had not begun on the walls and ceilings, which would have to be stripped right down and resurfaced. The rooms were still crawling with lice.

When the attic was done, the workmen needed to get into Miss Powell’s rooms; and she was angry because Flo had said to her: ‘But it won’t matter, sweetheart: they’re just going to pull down that wall that’s cracked a little, you can stay quite comfortable, if you go out in the days to see friends, the workmen won’t be there at night, and you’ll be ever so happy.’

Bobby Brent had said that if space had not been found for Miss Powell inside a week she would leave. This terrified both Flo and Dan, because relations were bad with Mr Brent for another reason. It had been agreed that Dan would do all the decorations for the night-club; it was now waiting for him.

‘Well,’ said Bobby Brent, when Dan made excuses: ‘If you’re no longer interested in our proposition, then I know what to do.’

Flo wanted to get rid of Mrs Skeffington so as to move Miss Powell down to her rooms. But Rose, who had never had one good word for Mrs Skeffington, told her she should be ashamed even to think of it: ‘You kick her out, Flo, and you can go looking for someone for my room, too.’

‘Ah, my Lord,’ said Flo. ‘what’s come over Rose? Little miss never-say-boo-to-a-goose, and now look at her — she gets herself a man in her bed and she says Do this and Do that.’

‘Besides,’ said Rose to me, winking: ‘Flo doesn’t know it but Mrs Skeffington’ll be going of her own accord any minute.’

‘How do you know.’

‘It stands to reason. Have you heard Rosemary crying at nights?’

‘No. I haven’t, come to think of it.’

‘The way I look at it is this. My lady upstairs knows she’s had that precious husband of hers for good. She’s stopped fretting. Or at least she’s slopped working herself up, and she doesn’t have to fetch and carry for the lazy beast. So she’s not taking it out on Rosemary.’

Rose was right. Mrs Skeffington said that she was going to live with her married sister, because ‘My husband has got a nice engineering job in Canada.’ She said good-bye to us all with pretty formality, shaking us by the hands and saying: ‘It was nice knowing you.’

‘Can you beat it?’ said Rose. ‘There she was, and we holding her hands while she was rolling and screaming with half her inside gone, and now she says: Good-bye, good gracious me, but it was nice knowing you. Some people.’

Dan perfunctorily cleared the Skeffington rooms and invited Miss Powell to move her things down. She said she must ask Mr Ponsonby. That evening there was a terrible row just over my head; with Dan and Bobby Brent shouting each other down, and Flo and Miss Powell sighing and complaining in counterpoint. Dan stamped, swearing, downstairs. Flo waddling after him.

‘Ah, my Lord,’ she was saying, ‘all we ask is, she should move into those lovely big rooms till the Damage has finished in hers. Then she can move back up, and the rent the same.’

‘Rent,’ shouted Dan. ‘rent you say? We’re not going to have money to put food into our mouths, all our tenants leaving because you’re too stupid to live.’

Dan had given up his job with the Gas Board, on grounds of urgent family illness. He spent his days over in the nightclub, and his evenings on his house. The hundreds of pounds he had made on the side during the past two years were already re-invested. He was joint owner, with Bobby Brent, of two slum houses in Notting Hill Gate. But there was little cash coming in. Flo was serving fish and chips and corned beef hash at every meal.

Over my head Bobby Brent was now quarrelling with Miss Powell. I had never heard them quarrel in all the months I had been there. Soon, she came downstairs, tear-stained but soignee in a slim black suit and furs. At the turn of the stairs she hesitated. Then she called up the well of the staircase in her refined voice, now plaintive: ‘Raymond — Raymond?’ No reply from Mr Brent. ‘I shall be staying at the X Hotel, if you want me.’ No reply. She waited a little, then went on down. In a moment I saw her driving away in a taxi. Bobby Brent now entered my room, with dignity. Our relations had formalized themselves into mutual insult. Yet he was always a little wary of me; and I was unable to prevent myself being frightened of him. He knew it.

‘And good riddance,’ he said.

‘It would seem short-sighted to quarrel with Dan, so much satisfactory bread and butter, just because you want to get rid of Miss Powell.’

‘Dan Bolt,’ said he with a heavy sneer. ‘He’s not my class.’

‘But with such a talent for making money!’

‘People never understand a man has to better himself Women never understand that.’

‘Now you can marry the daughter of the Member of Parliament who is a lady.’

‘I could, if I wanted to, but as it happens I can do better.’

‘That’s nice.’

‘Marry, marry, marry. That’s all women ever think of. And why should I get married?’

‘Why indeed?’

‘Raymond Ponsonby,’ he said, ‘has no need of any blasted women.’

‘But how about Bobby Brent?’ I said.

‘I say! You’d better be careful what you say. Just because I have a friend, and come to see her, it needn’t mean more than that. Miss Powell’s a friend of mine, and she needn’t go preventing any banns being called.’

‘Good Lord.’ I said, ‘are you married to her all this time?’

He made an involuntary startled movement, as if to go. He looked at me some time, frowning. Then the impulse to boast bettered him.

‘With a lawyer who knows his way about, you’d be surprised.’

‘No I wouldn’t.’

‘Yes you would if I told you. And I will. I put it this way. You hit the thing on the head, as it happens. Raymond Ponsonby is married, but Robert Brent isn’t.’

‘And Miss Powell?’

He laughed triumphantly. ‘How can she be married to a name that’s not on any registers the law would recognize?’

‘I see.’

Suddenly he went black with anger at the thought of how he’d given himself away. He poked his chin out at me, half-shut his eyes, and said: ‘Blackmail’s a game two could play.’

‘As a matter of interest, how would you blackmail me if you set about it?’

He smiled, considering the thing on its merits. ‘Ah,’ he breathed. ‘Ah!’ He began stalking back and forth across my room, vibrant because of some scheme he had just thought of; or perhaps had had up his sleeve for some time — or perhaps because he was waiting for inspiration.

Looking back, I think I gave it to him, by what I said next.

‘I’ve often wondered,’ he remarked, ‘what you think of me. We could be friends, but you don’t give yourself away. I like that. Yes, I like you for it.’

‘I’ll tell you,’ I said. ‘I think you’re a psychopath and a sadist, but luckily for you, in this society it won’t even be noticed. The sky’s your limit as far as I can see.’

‘I say!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s libel. That’s slander …’ He took a few more turns up and down, his eyes narrowed on some increasingly delightful thought.

‘I say!’ he exclaimed, finally, sitting on the arm of a chair. He offered me a classy cigarette out of a gold cigarette case and said: ‘Have you ever been to the 400 Club?’

‘No, but I’d love to go there with you.’

‘I’ll take you now.’

‘Give me five minutes to change.’ I was wearing a skirt and a sweater.

‘No need. They know me there. And when we’re there I’ll introduce you to a friend of mine. He’ll interest you. There’s a lot of money to be made out of writing best-sellers.’

‘So you keep telling me.’

‘On the other hand, there’s no sense in living in a room like this if you’ve a best-seller in your pocket?’

We looked around my room together. War Damage would have a good deal to do in it. There was a great crack up one wall which widened blackly across the ceiling to end in a great hole through which dust fell lightly day and night. The floorboards were at varying levels. Two big brown rexine chairs, bought by Flo at five bob each at a sale, had strips of pink sticking plaster across the backs where they had split. The suite of fine new utility furniture, wardrobe and dressing-table, for which Flo and Dan would be paying weekly for a year yet, already lacked handles: they had been stuck on originally with glue. The door of the wardrobe had warped and would not shut. The glass in the big french windows which must once, years ago, have opened into a fine tall, cheerful room kept clean by the labours of heaven knows how many housemaids, had cracked and were pasted over with paper.

‘Yes,’ said Bobby Brent thoughtfully. ‘Yes. Well, are you coming? Aren’t you even going to put some lipstick on?’

‘I very likely would, if we were going to the 400 Club.’

‘The trouble with you is, you can’t take a joke.’

On the pavement he hesitated, and said: ‘I tell you what. I’ll take you to the 400 by taxi. I’ll do that for you.’

‘I don’t see why not. You’ve still got the two pounds I gave you.’

‘I say! You’ve had far more than two pounds’ worth of service out of me.’

‘Yes. Tell me, how are you and Colonel Bartowers getting on these days?’

We were now heading West fast in a taxi. Bobby Brent straightened himself, looking every inch an honest soldier.

‘The Colonel and I have a sound working agreement.’

‘Good.’

‘He trusted me. Unlike some I might mention. I made a cool hundred for him only last week. Yes. And would Dan Bolt own two properties, two gold mines at Notting Hill without me? You’ve got to trust people. That’s your trouble. You don’t.’

We got out half a mile beyond Notting Hill, ouside a corner building whose street windows were still boarded up from war damage. But there were lights in the upper windows.

Bobby Brent let me in to a long low room, badly lit, that had Dan’s trestles and working tools standing neatly slacked in one corner. A half-circle bar had been installed, I saw the dim lighting was designed. A dozen wall-lights shed a reddish glow. Bobby Brent turned on a white working light, and the wall-lights became regularly-spaced red spots on arsenic-green surfaces.

‘Is the décor your idea?’

‘Décor! That’s not how it will be. Think I don’t know how to do things?’

He took out a sheaf of poster-sized papers and spread them on the counter. They were all erotic semi-nudes, of an exotic nature.

‘We’re going to have these stencilled on the walls. What do you think?’

‘What sort of clientele do you have in mind?’

‘Take a look out of the door and see for yourself. This’ll be a place people can come at evenings, not too expensive, and plenty of class for their money.’ He pulled a clean sheet of drawing-paper to him and began sketching another nude. ‘See the idea? It’ll be the same as a night-club I saw in Cairo in the war. Now that was a place.’

‘It seems a bit old-fashioned to me.’

‘That’s what you think. Your ideas might be all right for the West End, People who can buy what they like don’t like to have their dirty ideas pushed down their throats. But in a neighbourhood like this, they need to know what they’re getting.’

‘Why, is it going to be a brothel as well?’

‘I say! You’d better be careful you know, That reminds me. You stay here. I’ll telephone my friend. He’ll have an idea or two that’ll interest you, you’ll see.’

I waited for about half an hour. Then Bobby Brent came back with a small ratlike man who introduced himself as Mr Ponsonby’s lawyer, Mr Haigh.

Bobby Brent could not prevent himself from smiling with premonitory triumph.

‘And now,’ I said, ‘let’s have it.’

They exchanged glances. Bobby Brent nodded.

Mr Haigh said; ‘You’re a writer, is that correct?’

‘That is correct.’

‘And you’d like to make some money on the side.’

‘Mr Ponsonby thinks so.’

‘Mr Ponsonby knows his way about. Now. You know about the libel laws?’

‘You tell me.’

‘That’s right, we like someone who’s careful about what they’re getting. But I know my trade. Now. You write a story. You get it printed. Doesn’t matter where. Anywhere will do. And then — bob’s your uncle if you go about it right.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘All right, all right. We’ll start from another angle. Have you had a story published in a magazine lately?’

‘As it happens, yes.’

‘Good. Right. Take a look at Raymond here.’

‘I’m looking.’

‘He’s in your story. How would you describe him?’

‘Tall, dark, handsome.’

‘Not enough.’

‘Sinister.’

‘No, no. It’s the distinguishing marks you have to go for. Take another look — right? He’s got a scar under his jaw.’

‘Bayonet,’ said Bobby Brent, modestly. ‘Commandos. The man next to me — should have stuck the dummy, stuck me instead.’

‘Right. Now. A tall dark handsome man — sinister is not the right note, it’s the wrong touch. With a scar down under his jaw. Now, what does this man do in your story? Right, I’ll tell you. He breaks the law. Doesn’t matter how. Bob’s your uncle. Right?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Raymond here comes to me. A lawyer. Right? I write to the publishers. My client’s been libelled. Easily identifiable. Damages. Settled out of Court. One hundred nicker, just like that — split.’

‘Nice for you.’ I said. ‘But what about me?’

‘Insurance pays. You don’t. The publishers don’t. I’ve made hundreds that way. Hundreds. Always settle out of Court, they do — frightened of Court. The libel laws work against them. Only once went to Court. We lost. Mistake. But what’s one mistake with so much to gain? How about it?’

‘I’m not entirely clear in my mind.’

‘Right. Try again. Take me. How would you describe me — as a writer, mind.’

‘Small, furtive, rodentlike.’

‘Nab, not those fancy words. Look at my face. What do you see? I’ve got a mole. Look. Now, there’s your character for you — a lawyer with a good practice, his office situated so and so, and the name’s important, not Haigh, too close, something like Hay, or Hag — enough to establish malice. And with a mole on his upper cheek, he does something he shouldn’t. It’s in the bag. Not that I want you to use me — it’s too close the knuckle in a manner of speaking. But Raymond here. Or I can find someone, I got three hundred once, split three ways, it’s a hundred nicker each — what’s it cost you — spend an evening scribbling something, good enough to sell. I know three writers — they’ve lived off the libel laws these five years. Right, Now, what do you say?’

‘What immediately strikes me is, I’m surprised you’re interested in such small stakes. Knowing the way Mr Ponsonby operates, what’s even a hundred to him?’

They exchanged another glance.

‘Raymond Ponsonby’s in a class by himself,’ said Mr Haigh. ‘That I grant you. And I’m not saying it would be Mr Ponsonby who’d oblige. I’m not saying that. I was using him and myself as examples. Right?’

‘I’ll think it over,’ I said.

Bobby Brent controlled, with difficulty, a look of pure vicious triumph.

We all shook hands. Mr Haigh departed, hoping he would have the pleasure of my further acquaintance.

We locked up. ‘And now, a taxi,’ I said.

‘You want your pound of flesh, don’t you?’

‘I’m learning.’

I saw him laugh silently.

In the taxi he pulled out a piece of paper. ‘Here’s the contract,’ he said. On it was typed: ‘In pursuance of an arrangement come to this day the………. 1950………. contracts to pay Raymond Ponsonby the sum of £50 or half the proceeds of the damages gained from ………. Publishing Company, as a result of the story written by the said ………. libelling the said Raymond Ponsonby, in terms to be agreed in private treaty between the said ………. and the said Raymond Ponsonby before the story is written by the said ………. such payment to be made within a week of settlement being received from the said publishing company.’

‘You just fill in your name,’ he said casually. ‘Of course it’s a draft. To give you the idea. We knocked it out in Mr Haigh’s office while you were waiting.’

‘The only thing is,’ I remarked, ‘I used to work in a lawyer’s office.’

I heard his breathing change. In the dark of the taxi he laboured to hide the murder on his face.

‘I say!’ he said at last. ‘You should have told me. It’s not fair. That’s taking advantage. You can’t call it anything else.’

‘Well, it’s not bad,’ I conceded. ‘Take quite a lot of people in, that document, I should think.’

‘Now, if you’d done the decent thing and told me you worked for a lawyer, you’d have saved me a lot of trouble, wouldn’t you?’

‘Collusion, wouldn’t it be? Of course, the Law’s different here, but it’s probably collusion for the purposes of hand. And you could have blackmailed me for years and years.’

‘Well, how was I to know you knew about the Law, if you didn’t tell me?’

‘Your trouble is, you haven’t yet learned what people you can double-cross and who you can’t.’

‘Nobody’s using words like that to Andrew MacNamara. You’d better be careful.’ He thought a while. ‘Besides, look at it one way — I was doing you a good turn. After all, there is a lot of money to be made out of the libel law. That’s a fact. Of course that stuff’s not really in my class any longer, but a couple of years back I made a few hundred nicker out of writers.’

‘It all helps.’

‘You’re coming on,’ he said at last, after a long silence. ‘I must say that you — you’re coming along fast. Well, I like that. You might turn out to have a real head for business. We could work together yet, if you just learned to trust me.’

‘It’s a terrible thing, lack of trust between friends.’

‘Yes. And loses money in the long run. Well, Mr Haigh will be disappointed. He’s not been doing too well recently, and he could do with a hand-up. I tell you what. I’ve a proposition. We’ll sign a real document, fair and above board, I don’t want any money for myself, but you and Mr Haigh split between you. I’d like to do him a good turn, and you, too. And that would show you I’m on your side.’

‘I don’t think my head for business is highly enough developed yet.’

‘Not yet, I grant you. But it comes with practice. Mind you, I’ll tell you this, when I first met you. I’d never have believed you’d come on like this, but you just let me know when you’re ready, and I’m your man.’ He left me at the door and took the taxi on, saying: ‘No hard feelings, mind you!’

‘None at all, I assure you.’

‘That’s right.’

I did not see him again: he left the Bolts’ house that night. Dan and Flo were worried about the loss of rent but not, as I thought they should be, about their capital.

Dan said it had all been done through a lawyer. Who chose the lawyer? Bobby Brent, said Dan, but a lawyer is a lawyer, when all is said and done.

Two years later their partnership broke up, in violence. They had filled their two houses with West Indians; but Bobby Brent was making off with more than his share of the rents. Dan got to hear of this, and challenged him, Bobby Brent denied it, Dan lost his temper and assaulted him. Within a few seconds he found himself lying on his back, under the ex-Commando, the ju-jitsu expert; helpless, the knife that he had in his hand pointing at his own throat.

They made a deal, in that position. They would each take one of the houses, Dan would sell out his share in the night-club, now doing nicely, to Bobby Brent. He would say nothing more about the fact he had never been paid for the work he did decorating the place.

Dan lost a good deal of money in this settlement, but not so much that he could not immediately afford to buy a third house for himself.

But this glory was still well in the future; they were occupied now with getting in enough money to keep up the hire-purchase instalments and pay for food.

The campaign against me began when Dan came up to demand a month’s rent in advance. I paid in advance weekly. There was no proof, because we had agreed that rent-books were not necessary between friends. I refused; and Dan stamped out, saying that there were marks on the table that had not been there before, and I was going to have to pay him for the damage.

I told Rose, and she said: ‘They’re cross. They want you to take the rooms on the ground-floor when they’re ready, and I said you wouldn’t want to. They’re charging five pounds a week. You wouldn’t want to pay that, would you? And I said that no one who’d seen that place so filthy and smelly would live in it, no matter how nice Dan does it up.’

‘I wouldn’t be able to.’

‘No. Nor me. They might see that for themselves, but they don’t. Just hang on tight, their tempers’ll improve. Flo’s got a scheme on to get Jack back. He came into my shop yesterday and sent a message. I told Flo, but she daren’t tell Dan. She’s written out an advertisement to lie on the table for Dan to see: Come back. Jack. All is forgiven. But Dan pretends not to see it. Well, they’d better be quick, because Jack’s thinking of going to Australia. He says there’s no room in this country for a lad of enterprise. He can say that, looking at Dan. He makes me laugh, he does really.’

She said ‘he makes me laugh’ in a sad heavy voice I had not heard for some weeks. Three evenings she spent in my room, one after another, saying that she wasn’t going to let Dickie take her for granted. In other words, he was standing her up again. Also she was troubled about her brother, now due out of Borstal. War Damage had finished with the attic, and she wanted him to live there. Flo and Dan refused; they were prepared to let Len sleep where Jack had, in the kitchen, rent-free, provided he helped Dan with the decorating.

‘But it’s not nice,’ said Rose. ‘He’ll want a little comforting and petting after that place, and all he’ll get will be work, work. And no money for it. So what can I do? My mother’s married that fancy man and he’s already started to treat her bad. I could have told her. But she’s got a real weakness for bad ones, the way I told you.’

‘Like someone else I know,’ I said.

She was distressed. ‘Don’t say that,’ she pleaded. ‘Don’t say it. Not yet, any rate. Perhaps things’ll come right. I mean, I know he loves me and that’s what counts, isn’t it?’

‘Perhaps Flo’s right,’ I said.

‘But I couldn’t be happy, knowing I’d got a man that way. It stands to reason, you’d always be thinking — you’d remember you tricked him and you wouldn’t feel good. Mind you, it doesn’t trouble Flo, she’s happy enough.’

‘Not at the moment.’

‘No. But they’ll make it up.’

Downstairs. Flo had been reduced by Dan’s persistent bad temper into a state of permanent near-tears. When he entered the basement he was confronted by Flo and Aurora, sitting in each other’s arms, staring at him in helpless pathos.

He swore and blustered, but Flo replied through Aurora, thus: ‘Ah, my Lord, your daddy’s cross with us, Oar, he doesn’t love us no more, he just wishes we were both dead.’ At which Aurora wept, and Flo with her, genuinely and copiously.

Soon he counter-attacked. He was waking very early these days. He sneaked Aurora out of her bed while Flo slept, and took her into the kitchen. There he built up a great fire, and ate his breakfast with the child on his knee, feeding her bits of fried bread and egg. One morning the builders had blocked the front door with their gear and I had to go out through the basement, Dan forgot his ill-humour with me, and gave me a smile, pushing forward a chair, and setting a cup of tea. There was a great red fire. Aurora sat sleepy and smiling in her white nightgown with her arm round her father’s neck. ‘Look,’ said Dan. ‘she’s eating. She eats for me, if she won’t for her mother.’ He was cheerful and at ease there in his hot kitchen. He cooked more bacon, more egg, for me and for my son, and Aurora ate everything put in front of her.

‘You see?’ he kepi saying, awed by this miracle. ‘It’s just that stupid cow her mother that stops her eating.’

Dan kept this up every day, and when we went up to work in the flat, took the child with him. But it was all too much for Aurora, who spent half the day as Dan’s ally, and the other half as Flo’s. She became silent; all the obedient clown went out of her nature, and she sucked at her bottle hour after hour.

‘No. I don’t love you. I don’t love you, I don’t love,’ she murmured automatically whenever either parent came near her. If she was picked up she went rigid and shrieked.

At this juncture Welfare came again, and insisted on seeing both parents. Dan, who resented Welfare as much as Flo, was prepared to use her in his battle against his wife. He took Aurora to the doctor himself, allowing Flo to go with him.

What they heard subdued the parents into friendship for each other. They were inarticulately miserable. They both deeply loved the child. Yet the doctor said they had ill-treated her to the point where she had a patch on one lung; her teeth were rotten; her bones were rickety. She had to have regular food, fresh air, and the company of other children. If her condition had not improved by the next visit, she would have to be sent to a sanatorium.

Rose discussed all this with me; and went down to the basement to say Aurora should go to a nursery school.

She came back to say: ‘Would you believe it? They say they have no money for nursery schools. I said, it’s your kid, isn’t it? And all that money with Bobby Brent? If it comes to the worst, sell out your share in one of the houses. But, oh no, perish the thought, money before Aurora every time.’

‘But they love that kid.’ I said.

‘Love?’ said Rose. ‘Don’t use that word to me. I’ve heard all I want for the time being.’ She was going out with Dickie again; but all the joy had gone out of it. She had told him he must marry her; and he was replying: ‘What for?’

‘What for? he says. What for? Weil I’m not getting any younger. I say to him. Don’t you want your own home? Don’t you want children? But, oh no, not Dickie Bolt, he just laughs and twists my arm and says Let’s go to bed.’ She leaned forward in her chair, staring into my fire, her hands trembling together in her lap. ‘And what’s sad is, making love isn’t what it was, the way I feel. I’ve gone all cold on him and I can’t help it. And he says: What’s biting you. Rose? Funny, aren’t they — what’s biting you, he says, enjoying himself, and me scared even to think of what’s going to happen. Suppose I don’t never have a kid? I want to have kids bad.’

‘Give him up.’ I said, ‘He’s no good to you.’

‘Oh, don’t say it. I know he isn’t. But I love him and I can’t help myself.’ She sat, staring, silent. Then she said fiercely: ‘And downstairs, that Flo and that Dan — if I had a kid I’d know how to look after it. I know. I’d treat it right and have some sense, not all that shouting and slapping and kissing.’ She wept hopelessly, and would not be comforted.

Downstairs, now that her parents were no longer quarrelling. Aurora began to improve. Flo took her to the Park every afternoon and pushed her on the swings. She was made to go to bed early. She ate badly but better than before.

Meanwhile Jack, against Rose’s advice, chose this moment to present himself truculently one evening, demanding to come home. The parents were concentrated on Aurora and their fright over her. He was told he could come back if he helped Dan. Jack had heard of Dan’s need for him, and demanded union rates for whatever work he did. Dan lost his temper again. Jack went off, and soon we heard he had gone to Australia. It was much later that Flo discovered the fifty pounds nest-egg she kept rolled in an old corset at the back of her cupboard was missing. He had used it to pay his passage.

War Damage had now finished the two top floors. Dan left his work on the ground-floor flat and was painting them. The workmen wanted to come into my room and Rose’s.

The following conversation took place between me and Flo.

‘Well, dear, isn’t it nice, they’re going to pull down one wall of your room and make it all nice, I don’t know what you’re going to do, I’m sure.’

‘What do you suggest?’

‘Pardon, dear?’

‘Am I going to sleep with a wall down?’

‘You can’t sleep in Rose’s room, because she’s moving downstairs to us, it’s no trouble to her, now she and Dickie’s cooled off, she doesn’t need a room to herself. They’re pulling down her wall, too.’

‘Well, and where am I going to work?’

‘You could lake your typewriter to the bathroom, couldn’t you, sweetheart?’

‘I could, but I won’t.’

‘Ah, my Lord, I knew you’d say that.’

‘Tell me, Flo, do you think it’s fair for me to pay you full rent when I can’t even use my room to work in?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Why should I pay you for something I don’t get?’

‘But the blitz wasn’t my fault, dear. Tell me now, is it true you’re looking out for somewhere to live?’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘There’s that flat downstairs, it’s going to be ever so nice.’

‘But not for me.’

‘Because you don’t want to pay what we’ll have to ask when this room is all done up and nice, do you?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll talk to Dan,’ she said, distressed.

Eventually the builders decided not to rebuild the wall but only to patch it up a little.

‘It’ll be ever so nice for you,’ said Flo, ‘They’re nice men and you won’t be so lonely working away by yourself all day.’

This turned out to be true.

At nine o’clock every morning the men knocked on my door and enquired: ‘Ready, miss? Any dirty work before we start?’

They would then descend to the cellar and carry up coal for me. During that time I had my fire roaring all day and night; I hated so much the thought of going down into the black damp cellar down half a dozen flights of stairs that often I would let it go out and get into bed to read instead.

I had them in my room, three of them, for a month. Two were small, pale, underfed little men who should by rights have been plump and applefaced and amiable, but who were too cautious to do anything but smile, tentatively, and then instantly restore their defensive masks; and their foreman, an offhand, good-humouredly arrogant young man who talked for them all. His name was Wally James, and after he had fetched my coal, we all had a cigarette and many cups of tea. About nine-thirty, he would stretch and say: ‘Well, this won’t keep the home fires burning,’ and in the most leisurely way in the world he set out his tools and began to work.

I gave up all attempts at working, for he would say: ‘That’s right, miss, don’t take any notice of me,’ and start to chat about his wife, his children, the state of the world, and the Government; but most particularly the last two, for he had them on his mind. Eventually I pushed my typewriter away, and we brewed tea and talked.

When this foreman was not there, even if he were out of the room for a few minutes, I would find myself thinking of him as a tall and well-built man, even handsome, for this was how nature had intended him to be. The frame of his body, the cage of his skull, were large, generously defined; but at some time in his life he must have been underfed; for the flesh was too light on gaunt bones, his face was haggard, the eyes deep and dark in their sockets. He had a mop of black hair, rough with bits of dust and plaster; his hands were fine and nervous, but calloused; and the great head was supported on a thin, corded neck.

It took him and his mates four days to remove two panes of glass from my french windows and insert new ones. He assessed the work to last that long; it was what he thought he could get away with. I used to watch him and feel homesick; for I come from a country of accomplished idling.

The memory, perhaps, of a black labourer, hoe in hand, commanded to dig over a flower bed … He saunters out, hoe over his shoulder. He lets the hoe fall of its own weight into the soil and rest there, till, with a lazy lift of the shoulders, the hoe rises again, falls … the man stands, thinking. He straightens himself, spits on his hand and fits it lovingly around the sweat-smoothed wood handle. He gazes around him for a long while. A shout of rage comes from the house. He does not shrug, move, make any sign: he is attacked by deafness. Slowly, the hoe rises, falls, rises, falls. No sign from the house. Leaning on the handle he gazes into the distance, thinking of that lost paradise, the tribal village where he might be lounging at that moment, under a tree, watching his women work in the vegetable garden while he drinks beer. Another shout of rage from the house. Again he stiffens, without actually hearing. The hoe seems to rise of its own accord, and lazily falls, rises and falls, so slowly it seems that some invisible force fights against gravity itself, restraining the hoe in its incredibly lazy down-curve to the soil. ‘Can’t you go any faster than that?’ demands the white mistress from the verandah of the house. ‘What do you think I pay your wages for?’ Why? Well, of course, so that I can pay that stupid tax and get back home to my family … this thought is expressed in the sullen set of the shoulders. By the end of the day he has achieved the minimum amount of work.

Wally James, lazily allowing his chisel to slide over the cracked putty that held the cracked glass in place, remarked: ‘When we put the Labour Government in, we thought things would be better for the working people. But the way things would out, what’s the difference?’

‘According to the newspapers …’

‘Now, miss, you won’t hold it against me, but you don’t want to go reading those newspapers now.’ Scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape. ‘This is a real nice window, say what you like.’

‘It will be, when it’s mended. Been cracked ever since I came in.’

‘You don’t say. Well, next time you just let me know. You don’t want to go wasting time with those forms. Takes it out of a person, those forms do.’ He stood back and looked musingly down into the street. ‘Who’d have thought a working man’s Government would get itself all messed up with forms and such.’

‘I don’t see it’s much worse than the last, do you?’

‘I didn’t say worse, couldn’t be worse, could it? But when we put them in, we meant them to be better.’

‘Surely it’s better.’

‘We-ll,’ he grudgingly admitted, ‘you could say it’s better. But take me. I’ve got a wife and two kids. Two kids isn’t a big family. And my wife works mornings. And I earn eight quid a week. We earn eleven quid between us. Sounds a lot, don’t it? And I can’t afford to take the kids for a holiday, not a proper one. What do you think of that now?’ He scraped a little more, and stood back. ‘Working since I was fourteen. I’m thirty-four. And all the real holiday I ever got was the Army. Join the Army and have a nice rest. My old woman gets mad with me when I say that.’ He lit a cigarette and said: ‘How about a nice cup of char? Can you spare it? If not, I’ll bring you a bit of my ration tomorrow.’

Drinking tea, he remarked: ‘We could do that job in half a morning.’

‘Yes?’

‘Easy.’ He smoked peaceably. ‘Don’t see any point in slaving my guts out and getting nothing back. I’m fed up. What’s the sense in everything?’

‘Don’t ask me.’

‘I’m not asking, I’m telling. When I think of what those boys said before we put them in and what they do now. All the same, once they get in, that’s right, isn’t it, mate?’

‘That’s right,’ assented the other two. They listened to their foreman speaking with detached interest, I got the feeling that if he had made a passionate speech about raising production, they would have assented, with equal indifference: ‘That’s right.’

‘Listen to them,’ he said scornfully. ‘That’s right, they say, that’s right. Not an idea in their bloody heads. Do you know what they are? Slaves, that’s what. And like it. Let me tell you. Last week all the men were complaining about the tea in the canteen. It came cold every time, and the food was muck. There they were, grumbling their heads off. I said, All right then, who’s coming with me to complain to the boss. Oh, yes, they were all coming. The whole bleeding lot. So I walked out of the canteen and went to the office, and when I turned around, where were they? Yes, where were you?’ The two men continued to strip paper off the walls, without turning around. ‘Scared. Can’t talk up for themselves. I said to the boss. We’re sick of the food and the tea isn’t fit to drink. He said: Where’s the men, then? Why don’t they complain. Well, the tea’s better, but no thanks to them. No thanks to you two either.’

At five o’clock, they knocked off. Wally refilled my coal-box, swept out my room, dusted it, asked for another cup of tea. We talked until it was time for me to go to the nursery to fetch my son.

‘You might not know it,’ I said, ‘hut outside this country I know newspapers which say the working people here are getting big wages and are better off than the middle class.’

‘Is that so? Well you know better now, don’t you? Yes. I know your sort — no harm meant. I’ve seen the books on your shelves. You’re an intellectual, you are. You mean well. But what this country needs is a strong-man government. Oh, not that Hitler stuff and all that about the Jews. I don’t hold with it. But we’ve got all these blacks coming in, taking the bread out of our mouths. And what the Government gives with one hand and it takes back with the other. Before we know it, we’ll have unemployment again. Oh. I know. Well, I’ve enjoyed our little talk. See you tomorrow, miss, and if you greet us with a cuppa we’ll not say no. And none of your lugging coal up behind my back. Don’t hold with women on that kind of caper. Wouldn’t let my wife carry coal and lug furniture about. No, any dirty work about, you let me know, and I’ll fix it.’

When the paper was stripped off, if could be seen that bombing had loosened the walls so that they stood apart at the angles from half-way up to the ceiling, between a quarter and a half inch. They pasted strips of paper over the cracks, and wallpapered over the whole. The great crack across the ceiling was filled in with putty and papered over. ‘It’s a crying shame,’ said Wally. ‘Such a nice house it must have been once. Well, these swine I’m working for, if they could use old newspapers for building materials and get away with it, they would. Don’t you hold it against me, miss. I know what’s good work and what’s not. Well, it’ll hold together. Hundreds of these houses, you’d be surprised — you’d think they’d fall down if someone gave a shout in the street. But they keep on standing out of sheer force of habit, as far as I can see.’