A Start in Life

by Alan Sillitoe

  ‘The more you know me the more you’ll hear about my family, because families are like iron in this country, very important, worse luck. I’ve been wanting to kick mine off like a salty boot for as long as I started to dream, but it’s no use. In any case what’s the point? When I’m twenty-one in three months’ time I’m going to get a quarter of a million in sterling cash, and a tax-free income of fifteen thousand pounds a year. So it’s hard to let that slip out of my hands. Not that it would worry me if I never got it, because I’m quite capable of being independent and earning my own living. In fact I’m seriously considering giving my money, when it’s due to me, to the Charitable Organization Inching Towards Unspeakable Suffering – otherwise known by its initials as – well, anyway, it’s such a scorching brain problem with me, my dear, that its intensity sometimes threatens to trouble my studies. However, I imagine people do have worse worries, though I can’t visualize what they are, because this certainly seems real enough to me.’

  I spoke such as this, and more, not in a swift, manic, lynx-eyed way, but slowly and mellowly, as if throwing it off in a familiar drift, casually, blowing out nasal cigarette smoke and sipping my coffee. I told her my name was Richard Arbuthnot Thompson, but that I was called Michael by my friends, when they hadn’t cause to use my initials, but within an hour she was tearful and wringing her hands over my dreadful dilemma of whether or not I should accept my share of the family fortune and be imprisoned within it for life, or whether I should be poor, independent, and territorially unsung. I knew which side she’d come down on in the end, if we knew each other that long, but I let her get all deliciously upset over my nonexistent problem because it drew us together like liquid dynamite. In two hours, and a different café, we were gazing into each other’s eyes while our cigarettes burned low and our vile coffee got cold. I said that in case I did repudiate the family coffers I was already practising the holy art of self-abnegation, and though I’d be delighted if she’d eat with me, it had to be in Joe Lyons at no more than five bob a head.

  So we had lunch, and I told her how much it meant to me, having found someone who actually had the greatness of mind to understand my problem and not laugh at it. Then we went into the National Gallery (free) so that I could show her what pictures were fakes, because the real ones existed in the northern wing of Nondescript Hall, which was the name of my family and ancestral home. The more I posed at being noble, the more noble I felt, and it occurred to me that you are what you tell yourself you are, not what other people tell you that you are. You’ve only got to insist loud enough, and the clouds open to let in the sort of sunshine you’ve always been looking for.

  Later that afternoon my new-found girlfriend, whose name I made out to be Bridgitte Appledore, said she had to go to the house she was working at because a night of baby-sitting had been arranged. Such had been my all-day gabble that she’d told me nothing about herself, but I hoped that would come later when I’d got more of a toe-hold into her confidence.

  She worked for a doctor and his wife, who lived in a big place near the BBC. When they’d gone out she came down and let me in, and up I went by lift to the fourth floor.

  I’d not been into such a flat before. It was so rich it didn’t even smell rich, but was full of good furniture and paintings, books and carpets. Bridgitte told me to sit in the living-room while she put a few finishing touches to the little boy of six who still crowed from his bed. I poured a cut of the doctor’s whisky and relaxed on the long deep settee, half listening to the inane story being read to the kid, who interrupted every phrase. I spied a box of Romeo and Juliet Havanas, and lit one – a far cry from a common Whiff – with a heavy effective lighter which had a solid base of pure silver. I was tempted to put it in my pocket, but for the time being resisted it, not knowing Bridgitte well enough to betray her. She might give me away if I nicked something so early on. But I was boasting to myself in even entertaining the idea of making off with such a thing, because I wouldn’t know where to sell it without getting caught. In any case I never had been and never would be a thief because I considered that there were better methods of making your way in the world than stooping to that. I just contented myself by taking half a dozen more cigars.

  She came in from the kid’s room, hot-fer-dommering in Dutch that little Crispin had jumped out of bed and shat on the floor just to annoy her. He did it almost every night and she’d found no way to stop him. She’d told the doctor and his wife but they’d laughed and said it was only his cute little way and that he’d grow out of it soon. Meanwhile she had to be patient with him. There wasn’t much else she could do because the job was easy, the pay high, and the flat in the middle of London. She came back from the kitchen with a bowl of water and a bundle of cloths, a cigarette in her mouth to stop herself being sick at the mess. ‘Is he still awake?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, yes. He likes to look at me cleaning it up.’

  ‘Let him wait,’ I said, ‘for a few minutes. Sit down and finish your smoke. Let him go to sleep before you clean it up. If he misses the show he might not bother again.’

  ‘You’re so clever, Mr Thompson,’ she said, but halfway through her cigarette Crispin called: ‘Come to me, Bridgitte. My room smells awfully. I can’t go to sleep until it’s clean.’

  ‘Ignore him,’ I said, pouring her some whisky.

  ‘I don’t drink,’

  ‘Try it. It’s good for wiping that up.’

  ‘Perhaps you are right.’ She took a little, but made a painface over it. Then she swallowed more, and finished off the glass. I poured her another.

  ‘Come in here,’ Crispin shouted. ‘If you don’t wipe my shit up, I’ll do it again.’

  ‘Go to sleep, you little—’ I shouted.

  ‘If you don’t come and clean it I’ll tell Mummy and Daddy there’s a man in the flat, then they’ll send you away, Bridgitte.’

  I went in to look at him, an angel standing up gripping the bedrail, a long white nightshirt covering down to his feet. He had a thin, well-formed face and ginger hair. I went back to the living-room. ‘They call him Smog,’ said Bridgitte. ‘On the night he was expected they couldn’t get his mother to the hospital because it was smoggy, so he was born in the ambulance car on the way there.’

  He began to cry. ‘Come and wipe my shit up. Please. I’m tired.’

  ‘You don’t live here,’ he said, when I walked into his room. ‘Are you a burglar?’

  ‘No, I’m a plumber. I’ve come to fix your windpipe.’

  ‘What’s a windpipe?’

  I noted where he’d done his mess. ‘You’re a very intelligent child,’ I said. ‘Very clever indeed to do it down there.’ Girding my stomach I got on hands and knees and put my face close to it. ‘What’s this in it?’ I asked, in a pleasant voice. ‘Oh dear! It’s full of half-crowns. My God, it is, and all.’

  He leapt off his bed and knelt by my side. ‘Where? Where?’

  ‘There,’ I said, ‘can’t you see ’em?’ His face went close and I gave it a push so that he fell right into it. Bridgitte came running in at his scream. ‘You’ve got a bit on your face!’ I said to him. ‘What a thing to do to yourself. Bridgitte, get him into the bathroom and clean him up. He won’t do it again. Will you, Smog?’

  ‘You fool,’ she said.

  I sat down for another drink, and in ten minutes she came in to say that Smog was fast and peacefully asleep. ‘He’ll not do it any more in such a hurry,’ I said. ‘You see if I’m not right.’

  ‘If he tells his parents,’ she said, half a smile coming back to her, ‘I won’t be here to see whether he does or not.’

  ‘Plenty of other jobs. Perhaps Mother could find a place for you at Nondescript Hall. I have a brother who needs looking after just as much as Smog, and more or less in the same way – from time to time. He’s ten years older than me and his name is Alfred. Had a nervous crisis at twenty-one because he couldn’t face inheriting so much money either. It’s the disease of our generation. Slashed his wri
sts, took fifty Aspros, and put his head in the gas oven, but the cook found him and snatched the pillow away because she couldn’t bear to see it getting dusty on the floor because she used it when sitting down for her tea or elevenses. So Alfred woke up with a gurgle, and then she saw the blood and called my mother, who gave her a minute’s notice on the spot and phoned the family doctor, who brought Alf round and kept the whole thing quiet. Alf has the constitution of an ox, like most of our family. Tough as nails, all of ’em, except me – and it’s one crisis after another with people like that.

  ‘I had tuberculosis at sixteen, and it took a year or two to get over it. Now I’ve got this question of conscience coming up, and I don’t know what to do about it. But let’s not get stuck too much on my troubles. I’m sure you’ll be as right as rain now with Smog. You can come up with me to the Hall if you get the sack. We’ll tell Mother we’re engaged to be married if you like. It won’t make her very happy, but she’ll have to take note of you. I’ll also introduce you to Alfred. When he’s lucid he’s the most charming fellow in the world. Spends most of his time rowing around our own lake and fishing in it. He catches so much that Mother’s thinking of opening a canning factory for him – tinned pike and salted minnows from the Dukeries. Good for the export trade – go all over the place.’

  Her large round blue eyes were turned full on so that I continued jabbering till they dimmed a bit, then I reached over, and kissed her. I was surprised that she glued her lips on to me. From that moment the wagons rolled. We wriggled around that opulent sofa, shedding our clothes like mad animals their skins. We fell on to the floor, and when I was well into her juice-tunnel, the telephone shattered my erection as if it had been made of glass. But she wasn’t put off by it, and I managed to stay in her and set myself going again. She reached for the phone with one hand, and held my shoulder tight with the other. ‘Hello?’ she said, over my grunts. ‘Yes, it is. Dr. Anderson is out. Do you want to leave a message? You phone in the morning? All right. I’ll tell him.’ Then she began to gobble me up inside, and dropped the telephone as she fell back.

  Later we sat in the kitchen to eat cornflakes and jam, then bacon and eggs. I was lucky to be in such a well-provided household. I pulled her up from the food, dancing belly to belly and back to back to Dr Anderson’s hystereo music in the living-room. She was out of breath and laughing, then stood rigid when Smog appeared at the door, looking at us with tired but curious eyes. ‘Can I do it?’ he said.

  ‘Go back to bed,’ said Bridgitte sternly. ‘You’ll catch cold.’

  ‘He wants a bit of fun just like the rest of us, don’t you, Smog?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘All right, get that shimmy off,’ I told him, ‘and we’ll all dance together.’ In spite of his dirty habits, and I hoped he was cured of at least one, he was a good sport, and hop-trotted between us both to Dr Anderson’s unique collection of bongo tunes. Then he sat high on my shoulders, licking a spoonful of honey while I slid around to his shouting and laughs.

  ‘Will you come tomorrow, because I like you?’ he said, when we’d got him on the high stool in the kitchen eating scrambled egg. ‘I like dancing, and music, and midnight feeds.’

  ‘If you’re a good lad to Bridgitte, I’ll come here often.’

  ‘If you don’t, I’ll tell Mummy and Daddy.’

  ‘It’s not midnight,’ I said, ‘but you’d better go to bed or your parents will be back, and if they catch us, it’s out in the street for all of us.’

  He made a face as if to cry: ‘Even me?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘but we’d look after you. You’d come with me and Bridgitte.’ He laughed, and said he hoped his parents would catch us in that case, but Bridgitte slipped his nightshirt on and carried him against her bare breasts to his room. When she came back the party was over, so we got dressed and cleared up the mess. Exchanging telephone numbers, soft murmurs of undying love, we finally let each other go.

  The manager at the hotel started to trust me, so that instead of paying my bill every three days, it was all right now if I left it for as long as a week. He was thin and pink-faced, and what was left of his fair hair was also thin – the sort of a man who would have been melancholy and sad if he hadn’t gone into the sort of job where his living depended on him being bright and cheery. He called me Mr Cresswell, and seemed mystified by by comings and goings. One night at the bar I bought him a double brandy and gave him a Havana cigar I’d lifted from Bridgitte’s place, and from that point on we were as friendly as his job would allow him to get. I didn’t tell him anything about myself, saying I was down on business for my family, which involved a bit of research at Somerset House. This impressed him, so he left it at that, giving me a wink now and again to hope that things were going well, as if we were in some secret together, or he thought I might be coming up for a lump sum in a will. It was hard to say what he thought, for it seemed to me that the less words passing between us the better, and the more nudges, hints, and winks, the closer I’d get to winning his confidence.

  Dr Anderson led a busy social life, and I was able to see Bridgitte nearly every night. In our carefree rapture we humped around on the matrimonial bed, though it needed all our stern persuasion to stop Smog joining in. As long as we promised to let him come in the kitchen afterwards he didn’t mind, happy to lay on his bed playing with bricks and rockets. But once he strayed out and stood in the doorway while I had my arse in the air, and later I had to tell him what we’d been doing. Bridgitte turned away laughing as I explained about playing at love – which was what grown-ups often do. He wanted to know if Mummy and Daddy did it too, and I said I expect they did now and again, because it’s also a way of making babies. Then I had to tell him how babies were made, and he took to me for this, sitting affectionately on my knee while he thought up other intelligent but embarrassing questions. When he finally did go back to his room he went to sleep happy. Bridgitte hadn’t done any wiping-up work since I’d rubbed his nose in it, and whenever I saw him now there was something about his earnest, unprotected face that made me feel sorry for him. I wanted him to grow quickly to be eight years of age, safe out of this vulnerable age. I knew he was all right in the way he lived, but nevertheless I was impatient and wanted to be sure, to see him suddenly older, with his face maybe cruder and tougher against the world, his body more stalwart.

  There were only a few pounds left in my pocket, so I had to get out of the hotel. I owed a bill of about ten days, though this put me in some danger because I had nowhere near enough funds to pay if the manager should demand it. As far as I could make out he never slept, which maybe was why he was so thin. Even when I came in at midnight or later he’d be sitting behind the desk, and whenever I got up early in the morning he was sure to look in through the dining-room door while I was having breakfast. The idea of getting out unseen with a bulging suitcase seemed impossible.

  The day I chose for my lift-off was very cold. I sat at breakfast with the Scandinavian journalist, and wondered how I would be able to say goodbye to him without betraying my intended flit. This was out of the question, so I just made polite inquiries about the article he was writing on sex and vice in London. The work itself didn’t seem to be going well, but he was nowhere near so melancholy as he had been at first, because he had become totally immersed in the subject itself. He preferred to live, he said, rather than write. It was cheap in London, but he was sending home for money till he had exhausted his subject, or until the subject had exhausted him. He’d been a different man of late because he now consumed the whole of his breakfast and, on occasion, had even tried to encroach on mine. The more his cheeks sank, the more he stooped when walking, the more he ate, the happier he felt. I asked what place he found so convivial in London that he liked so much, and he told me about The Golden Frog, so I said I might see him there some night. ‘I’ll buy you a girl,’ he said, a wide thin-lipped smile as he reached out for a piece of my toast. ‘Myself, I sometimes have two girls. Better.’
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  ‘I always thought you were a bit of a Turk,’ I said.

  In my room I stripped off and started to put my luggage on. There were three sets of clean underwear, which padded me fairly well so that I’d at least save another shilling if the gas ran out. Then there were my three best shirts, which was awkward, for I could barely fasten the buttons of the top one. Luckily, walking such distances over the last month, not to mention my antics with mistress Bridgitte, had thinned me down a bit, so it wasn’t as bad as it might have been. It was more difficult to get on two pairs of trousers. The first I fastened into my two layers of sock, and drew the second over them. The zips didn’t quite come up to the top, and when I tried to stand up from sitting on the bed I fell back again. Sweat was pouring off me, and it all seemed doomed to fail because once I got in the fresh air, if I ever did, I would be sure to get triple pneumonia. I pulled myself up by the bedrail and felt my face puffed out like a red balloon. Then I almost wept, because my shoes had still to be put on, and I’d have to sit down again for that. But I pulled the chair over and jerked my foot on it. This was by way of an experiment, to see whether it could actually be done, and when I saw that it could, I slid my foot down again. As the shoes were on the floor I let myself subside gradually to them, holding the bedrail and bedleg to stop a bump on to the threadbare carpet.

  So far so good. I smiled at the achievement, reaching for a shoe. That was easy, but the next step was to get at the foot, when my arms and legs were encased in wood. The shoes were several paces away, so I rolled on my side and crawled, till I held them triumphantly in my hands. This, I thought, pondering on how to get them on, is real life, a test of ingenuity that one might be asked to do at any time in the future. It’s as well to get it over with, to suffer the experience once. The first time is always the hardest, I’ve no doubt of that. I could too easily have given the whole thing up, gone out in one set of clothes and abandoned the rest, but with tears of effort and frustration I was knotted in the stomach with the obstinacy to get one shoe on at least. I could always hobble to the Tube station. I smiled with relief. I would get the other one on as well.