The Stars Look Down

by A. J. Cronin

  He felt their scrutiny upon him, and sustained it calmly as, with his chin thrust well out, he walked towards Number 19, which was Joe’s house. Above the doorway of No. 19 was a notice irregularly painted: Agent Flyaway Cycles. Undertaking. Boards kept. David went in.

  Joe and his dad, Charley Gowlan, were at breakfast: a china bowl was on the wooden table full of cold pot pie, a big brown teapot stood beside it, a tin of condensed milk punched open, and a raggedly hacked loaf. The clutter of the table was unbelievable; the whole house—two rooms joined by a perpendicular ladder—was cluttered. Dirt, disorder, food in plenty, a roaring fire, clothes flung everywhere, dishes unwashed, the smell of living, beer, grease, sweat, a dirty blousy comfort.

  “Hulloh, lad, how are ye this mornin’?” Charley Gowlan, with his night-shirt tucked into his trousers, his galluses hanging loose over his fat stomach, his bare feet in carpet slippers, shoved a big bit of meat into his big mouth. He waved the knife in his big red fist and nodded agreeably to David. Charley was always agreeable: never anything but friendly, ay, a matey beggor, Big Charley Gowlan, the check-weigher at the Neptune. Well in with the men; well in with Barras. Willing to turn his hand to anything, from housekeeping—since his wife was dead these three years—back to rabbit dodging or salmon poaching up the Coquet.

  David sat down and watched Joe and Charley eat. They ate with infinite relish: Joe’s young jaws champed methodically, Charley smacked his fat lips as he knifed out the rich jellied gravy from the pot pie. David couldn’t help himself; his teeth watered painfully, a thin trickle of saliva ran into his mouth. Suddenly, when they were nearly done, Charley paused, as at an afterthought, in his knifing at the bowl.

  “Would ye like te scrape the pot, lad?”

  David shook his head: something in him made him refuse. He smiled.

  “I’ve had my breakfast.”

  “Ah, weel. If ye’ve had yor bait.” Charley’s small eyes twinkled slyly in his big red face. He finished the dish. “An’ how does yor feyther take it now we’re like to be beat?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Charley licked his knife and sighed contentedly.

  “A heap o’ trouble it’s been. Aw diddent want it. Heddon diddent want it. There’s none ov us wanted it. Meykin’ trouble ower backskins and a happenny ton raise. Aw said from the start it was no gud.”

  David looked at Charley. Charley was the men’s check-weigher, a lodge official, and well in with Heddon the Union agent from Tynecastle. Charlie knew it wasn’t just the backskins, nor the halfpenny rise. He said thoughtfully:

  “There’s a lot of water in Scupper Flats.”

  “Watter!” Charley smiled: a broad omniscient smile. His work never took him inbye; he checked his tubs upon the surface as they came screeching to the bank. He could afford to be omniscient. “The Paradise always was a wet beggor. Watter’s been there mony a day. An’ Scupper Flats is like to be no worse than the rest o’t. Yor feyther’s not feared ov a drop watter, is he?”

  Conscious of Charley’s slow grin, David sat hard upon his indignation. He said indifferently:

  “He’s worked in it twenty-five years, he oughtn’t to be feared of it.”

  “That’s reet, that’s reet, aw know all aboot it. Stick up for yor dad. If you doan’t then God knows who will. Aw think none the worse ov ye for it. Yor a canny lad.” He belched wind loudly, scliffed over to his seat by the fire, yawned, stretched himself and began to fill his blackened clay.

  Joe and David went out.

  “He don’t have to go in the Paradise!” Joe remarked irreverently the moment the door had banged. “The old beggor, it would do him a power of good to stand in the wet places like I have to.”

  “It isn’t only the wet, Joe,” David persisted. “You know what my dad says.”

  “I know, I know! I’m sick of hearin’ it an’ so are the rest of the lads, Davey. Yor dad has got notions about Scupper Flats. He thinks he knows the whole shoot!”

  David said warmly:

  “He knows a lot, let me tell you. He didn’t start it for fun.”

  Joe said:

  “Naw! But some of the lads did. They was sick of workin’ in water and thought it was fun for to stop. Now they’ve had that much bloddy fun they’d give their navels for to start in again, ay, even if the Flats were roofed with water.”

  “Well! Let them start in again.”

  Joe said sourly:

  “They’re goin’ to start, bet your bloddy life, you wait till the meetin’ at three. But don’t get up on your hind legs. I’m as sick of it as you are. I’m sick of the whole bloddy pit anyhow. I’m goin’ to slip my hook first chance I get. I’m not goin’ to be stuck in this sheugh all my days. I want to get some brass and see a bit of life.”

  David remained silent, troubled and indignant, feeling that life was going all against him. He wanted to get out of the Neptune too—but not Joe’s way. He remembered that occasion when Joe had run away before and been brought back, blubbering, by Roddam, the police sergeant, to be soundly leathered by his father.

  They walked on without speaking, Joe swaggering a little, throwing his weight about, his hands in his pockets. He was a finely built lad, two years older than David, with square shoulders, a straight back, thick curly black hair and small alert brown eyes. Joe was extremely good-looking in a physical way. And Joe knew it. His glance was full of self-assurance, the very tilt of his cap dashing, conceited, aggressive. Presently he resumed:

  “Ye’ve got to have money if you want to have sport. And will you ever make money in the pit? Not on your bloddy soul. Not big money, you won’t. Well, I want to have sport. And I want big money. I’m goin’ places. You’re lucky, you are. You’re goin’ to Tynecassel, maybe. Your dad wants you to go to college, that’s another of his notions, like. But I’ve got to look out for myself. And I’m goin’ to look out for myself. See! That’s how to do it. Get there first or somebody’ll get there afore ye.” He suddenly shut off his bluster and slapped David heartily upon the back. He smiled at him, a genial, affable smile. When Joe chose, none could be more genial, more affable—a geniality which warmed the heart, an affability which radiated from Joe’s handsome brown eyes and revealed him as a prince of good fellows.

  “Come on, now, to the boat, Davey, we’ll set a shoreline, then we’ll row out and see what we can pick up.”

  By this time they had passed down Quay Street and reached the shore. They dropped over the sea wall on to the hard sand below. A high range of dunes matted with coarse grass and salt-stung rushes lay behind them. David liked the dunes. On barfe-Saturdays in the summer, when they had come outbye from the Neptune and his dad had gone with the marrows in his set to split up at the Salutation, David would be amongst the rushes, all alone, listening to the sound of the lark, dropping his book to search for the tiny roaring speck against the bright blue sky. He felt that he would like to lie down there now. His head was giddy again, the thick slice of new bread which he had eaten so ravenously lay like lead in his stomach. But Joe was already at the breakwater.

  They climbed the breakwater and reached the harbour. There, in the slack scummy water, some lads from the Terraces were fishing for coal. With an old pail, knocked full of holes, fixed to a pole, they were dredging for lumps which had fallen off the barges in working times. Deprived of the fortnightly allowance from the pit, they were scraping in the mud for fuel which would otherwise have been forgotten. Joe looked at them with secret contempt. He paused, his legs planted wide apart, hands still bulging in his trouser pockets. He despised them. His cellar was full of good coal pinched off the pit head, he had pinched it himself, the best in the heap. His belly was full of food, good food, Charley, his dad, had looked after that. There was only one way to do it. Take things, go for them, get them, not stand shivering and half-starved, scratching about in the feeble hope that something would take a soft-hearted jump and come tumbling in your bucket.

  “How do, Joe, lad,” Ned Softley, the weak-witted trapp
er in the Paradise, called out, propitiating. His long nose was red, his undersized skimpy frame shuddered spasmodically from cold. He laughed vaguely. “Got a fag, Joe, hinny? Aw’m dyin’ for a smoke.”

  “Curse it, Ned, lad…” Joe’s sympathy was instant and magnificent. “If this isn’t my last!” He pulled a fag from behind his ear, considered it sadly, and lit it with the friendliest regret. But once Ned’s back was turned, Joe grinned. Naturally Joe had a full packet of Woodbines in his pocket. But was Joe going to let Ned know that? Not on your life! Still grinning he turned to David when a shout made him swing round again.

  It was Ned’s shout, a loud protesting wail. He had filled his sack, or near enough, after three hours’ work in the biting wind and had made to shoulder it for home. But Jake Wicks was there before him. Jake, a burly lout of seventeen, had been waiting calmly to appropriate Ned’s coal. He picked up the sack and with a pugnacious stare at the others coolly sauntered down the harbour.

  A roar of laughter went up from the crowd of lads. God, could you beat it! Jake pinching Softley’s duff, walking away with it easy as you like, while Ned screamed and whimpered after him like a lunatic. It was the epitome of humour—Joe’s laugh was louder than any.

  But David did not laugh. His face had turned quite pale.

  “He can’t take that coal,” he muttered. “It’s Softley’s coal. Softley worked for it.”

  “I’d like to see who’d stop him.” Joe choked with his own amusement, “Oh, Gor, look at Softley’s mug, just take a look at it…”

  Young Wicks advanced along the jetty, easily carrying the sack, followed by the weeping Softley and a ragged, derisive crowd.

  “It’s my duff,” Softley kept whimpering, while the tears ran down his cheeks. “Aw mucked for it, aw did, for my mam te hev a fire…”

  David clenched his fists and took a side step right in the path of Wicks. Jake drew up suddenly.

  “Hello,” he said, “what’s like the matter with you?”

  “That’s Ned’s duff you’ve got,” David said from between his teeth. “You can’t take it this way. It’s not fair. It’s not right.”

  “Holy Gee!” Jake said blankly. “And who’ll stop me like?”

  “I will.”

  Everybody stopped laughing. Jake carefully put down the sack.

  “You will?”

  David jerked his head affirmatively. He could not speak now, his whole being was so tense with indignation. He boiled at the injustice of Jake’s action. Wicks was almost a man, he smoked, swore and drank like a man, he was a foot taller and two stones heavier than David. But David didn’t care. Nothing mattered, nothing, except that Wicks should be stopped from victimising Softley.

  Wicks held out his two fists, one on top of the other.

  “Knock down the blocks,” he taunted. It was the traditional invitation to fight.

  David took one look at Jake’s full pimply face surmounted by its bush of tow-coloured hair. Everything was defined and vivid. He could see the blackheads in Jake’s unhealthy skin, a tiny stye coming on his left eyelid. Then like a flash he knocked Jake’s fists down and smashed his right fist hard into Jake’s nose.

  It was a lovely blow. Jake’s nose flattened visibly and spurted a stream of blood. The crowd roared and a thrill of fierce exhilaration shot up David’s spine.

  Jake retreated, shook his head like a dog, then came in wildly, swinging his arms like flails.

  At the same moment someone on the fringe of the crowd gave a warning shout.

  “Look out, lads, here’s Wept comin’.”

  David hesitated, half-turned his head and took Jake’s fist full on his temple. All at once the scene receded mysteriously, he felt giddy, he fancied for an instant he was going down the pit shaft, so sudden was the darkness that rushed upon him, so loud the ringing in his ears. Then he fainted.

  The crowd took one look at David, then scattered hastily. Even Ned Softley hurried away. But he had his coal now.

  Meanwhile Wept came up. He had been walking along the shore, contemplating the thin ebb and flow of the furthest waves upon the sand. Jesus Wept was very fond of the sea. Every year he took ten days out of the Neptune and spent them at Whitley Bay quietly walking up and down the front between boards bearing his favourite text: Jesus wept for the sins of the world. The same text was painted in gold letters outside his little house, which was why, though his own name was Clem Dickery, he was known as Wept or, less commonly, Jesus Wept. Although he was a collier Wept did not live in the Terraces. His wife, Susan Dickery, kept the small homemade mutton pie shop at the end of Lamb Street and the Dickerys lived above the shop. Susan favoured a more violent text. It was: Prepare to meet thy God. She had it printed upon all her paper bags, which gave rise to the saying in Sleescale: Eat Dickery’s pies and prepare to meet thy God. But the pies were very good. David liked the pies. And he liked Clem Dickery. Wept was a quiet little fanatic. And he was at least sincere.

  When David came round, dazedly opening his eyes, Wept was bending over him, slapping the palms of his hands, watching him with a certain melancholy solicitude.

  “I’m right enough, now,” David said, raising himself upon his elbow weakly.

  Wept, with remarkable restraint, made no reference to the fight. Instead he said:

  “When did ye eat food last?”

  “This morning. I had my breakfast.”

  “Can ye stand up?”

  David got to his feet, holding on to Wept’s arm, swaying unsteadily, trying to smile it off.

  Wept looked at him darkly. He always went directly for the truth. He said:

  “Yor weak for want ov food. Come away wi’ me to my house.” Still supporting David he led him slowly over the sands, across the dunes, and into his house in Lamb Street.

  In the kitchen of Wept’s house David sat down by the table. It was in this room that Wept held his “kitchen meetings.” From the walls highly coloured allegories flamed: The Last Trumpet, The Judgment Seat, The Broad and Narrow Paths. A great many angels were in the pictures, upbearing sexless blond figures in spotless garments to the blare of golden trumpets. Light blazed upon the angels. But there was darkness too, wherein, amidst the ruins of Corinthian columns, the beasts of darkness roared, and harried the massed hordes that trembled upon the abyss.

  Hung from the mantelpiece were strings of dried herbs and seaweeds. Wept knew all the simples, gathered them assiduously in their season by the hedgerows and amongst the rocks. He stood by the fire now, brewing some camomile tea in a small marled tea-pot. Finally he poured out a cup and offered it to David. Then without a word he went out of the room.

  David drank the infusion. It was bitter, but aromatic and steaming hot. It warmed him, comforted him and strengthened him, caused him to forget all about the fight, made him feel hungry. At that the door opened and Wept came in again followed by his wife. She was oddly like him, a small neat woman, dressed all in black, quiet, restrained in movement, with that same composed intentness of expression. Without speaking she put a plate before David. On the plate were two new-baked mutton pies. From a little blue enamel jug she poured some hot gravy over each pie.

  “Eat them slow,” she observed calmly. Then she drew back to where her husband stood. They both studied him as, after a moment’s hesitation, he began to eat.

  The pies were delicious, the gravy rich and savoury. He finished the first to the last crumb; then, looking up suddenly, caught their serious eyes still fixed upon him. In a solemn undertone Wept quoted: “I will nourish you and your little ones; and he comforted and spake kindly unto them.”

  David tried to smile his gratitude; but something, the unexpectedness of this kindness he had received, caught him by the throat. He hated it in himself but he could not help it. A terrible rush of feeling came upon him, the memory of what he had been through, of what they had all been through in these last three months. He felt the horror of it: the scrimping, the pawning, the latent bitterness between his parents, his mother’s an
ger, his father’s obstinacy. He was only fourteen. Yesterday he had eaten a turnip taken from Liddle’s Farm. In this rich and beautiful world he had gone like a beast to the field and taken a turnip to appease his hunger.

  He supported his head on his thin hand. A sudden passionate aspiration rose in him to do something… something… something to prevent all this. Something to uplift and heal humanity. He must do it. He would do it A tear dropped from his eye and mingled with the gravy of the mutton pie. Upon the walls the angels blew their trumpets. Shamefaced, David blew his nose.

  THREE

  Half-past one; and lunch at the Law almost over. Sitting up straight, with his bare knees under the white damask and his boots barely touching the deep red Axminster, Arthur continued to importune his father with loving, troubled eyes. The concealed tension in the air, the sense of crisis, dismayed, almost paralysed him. As was always the case in the face of an emotional crisis, his appetite was gone, even the pretence of eating made him sick. He knew that the men were meeting to-day, his father’s men who ought to have been working honestly and faithfully in his father’s pit. He knew that everything hinged upon the meeting, whether the men would go back or this awful strike go on. A little shiver of anxiety went through him at the thought; his eyes burned with loyalty towards his father.

  He was waiting, too, for the invitation to accompany his father to Tynecastle, he had been waiting since ten o’clock that morning when he had heard the order given to Bartley to have the dog-cart ready. But the usual invitation did not come. His father was going to Tynecastle, going to Todd’s, and he, Arthur, was not going with him. It was very hard to bear.

  At the table a certain amount of calm conversation went on, conducted and dominated by his father. During the entire period of the strike this calm conversation had been maintained. Always on quite irrelevant subjects—the Choral Union’s next performance of the Messiah maybe, or how mother’s new medicine was suiting her, or how fresh the flowers on grandma’s grave had kept—and always calm, perfectly calm. Richard Barras was a calm man. Everything he did exhibited inflexible control. He sat at the head of his table, with iron serenity, as though the three months’ strike at his Neptune colliery were the merest quibble. He sat very straight in his big chair—that was why Arthur sat straight too—eating cheese, celery of his own growing and bath oliver biscuits. It was plain food, the whole lunch was plain, Barras would have nothing but the plainest dishes—he liked regularity, too—thin sliced beef, cold ham, a joint of mutton, in their turn. He despised richness and show upon the table. He permitted neither. He ate almost abtractedly, compressing his lips which were narrow, and of a good colour, crunching the celery with his sound teeth. He was not a big man, but he had a fine chest, thick arms and big hands. He conveyed a powerful sense of physical vitality. His complexion was florid, his neck so short and muscular his head seemed sunk in the barrel of his chest. His iron-grey head was closely cut, his cheek-bones prominent, his eyes unusually penetrating and well defined. He had a northern look about him not exactly rugged but solid, hard. A man of firm conviction and sound evangelical belief, a Liberal, a strong Sabbatarian, who held family evening prayers, gave readings from the Scripture which often made Arthur cry, and was not afraid to own that he had written hymns in his youth. There was nothing that Barras was afraid to own. As he sat there, against the yellow varnished background of the large American organ which—from his love of Handel—he had built into the dining-room at a great expense, he radiated his own spiritual integrity. Arthur often felt this radiation. He loved his father. To Arthur his father was absolute, he was like God.