A Start in Life

by Alan Sillitoe

  June congratulated me: ‘You’ll be all right working here.’

  ‘I’d better take the job, then,’ I laughed. ‘It’ll be somewhere to leave my parcel.’

  ‘I wondered whose it was,’ she said.

  ‘It’s my luggage. I’ve got to find a room by tonight.’

  She gave me her address: ‘If you can’t find one, you can at least sleep on the floor – under the gas stove in the kitchen it’ll have to be.’

  ‘You’re very kind,’ I said, not too keen on such accommodation. I’d never been brought as low as that before.

  ‘One good turn deserves another,’ she said, biting me in half. The manager’s name was Paul Dent, and I told him I’d start at two the next day if that was all right by him. He said it was, so after hanging around another half-hour, I got out on the street, feeling a free man because I’d left my parcel down in the club. All the same, I didn’t like the idea of having to work for a living, because that wasn’t what I’d come to London for, though there seemed nothing else for it at the moment. Almanack Jack wasn’t the only one who believed in fucking up the system. He might have been right down in it as far as his neck, but I intended to earn a living out of it as well if I could. In his confused brain he was still so chuffed at having made the bloody and ragged break from his former life (and who could say that it wasn’t a pack of lies he’d told me?) that he couldn’t see like I could that all he’d succeeded in doing was cutting his own throat, so that he was already more than halfway back there.

  I met my delicious Bridgitte at the place and time of our telephone choice. We sat in the pub, she at tomato juice and me with a brown ale, and I saw that tears were about to drip from those luscious blue eyes that shone with a prick-stiffening mixture of depravity and innocence. ‘You must tell me,’ I said, when she didn’t want to. ‘After all, I’ve confided in you entirely. All the intimate secrets and scandals of my family. If Mother knew, she’d go pig-crazy. But she doesn’t,’ I laughed. ‘So drink up, my butter-love, and have another dose of that intoxicating fomentation.’

  ‘It’s nothing, really.’ She smiled. ‘The doctor’s wife went away for a couple of days, and last night Smog came into my bed. He sometimes does, for warmth, and when he’s asleep I put him back in his own. But before I could do so, the doctor walked into my room, and pulled the clothes right back off me. He thought I was alone, and I don’t know exactly what he wanted to do. But he got a shock to see Smog curled up against me with his thumb in his mouth. He was full of anger, and dragged Smog up in the air like an animal and carried him to his own bed. Smog was screaming all night, but I couldn’t go out to him because I know the doctor would have got me, so I had to stay behind my locked door with Smog crying and the doctor playing his bongo music. I think he is more insane than his patients. This morning at breakfast he told me if I didn’t mend my ways I would have to leave. So I think I must start to look for another job. But I will see if anything happens tonight. If it does I shall go from there.’

  ‘When’s his wife coming back?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe she left him.’

  ‘Is he going out tonight?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Otherwise I would have stayed in. He’s writing in his study.’

  ‘I’ll go back with you, and get into the flat. I’ll stay in your room and protect you. I know that sort of person. You can’t trust him. He’ll rape you and cut you up. You’re in England now. There’s a long tradition of that sort of thing. You remember I told you about my brother Alf? Well, he had a psychiatrist at one time who used to come to the Hall. Got quite friendly with the family in fact, and was liked by everyone, especially my mother, so that he became almost a resident headshrinker. One night he made a vicious attack on a sixteen-year-old cousin who’d come to stay with us. Fortunately, the gamekeeper saw him and raised the alarm. But it was a close call for her. You’ve got to expect it. They’ve all got a touch of the Rasputin in them. Otherwise they’re nice people. I’ve got nothing against them at all. You’ve just got to be on your guard if you’re a simple girl staying in their house. So it’d be best if I stayed with you.’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘It may be that his wife will be back tomorrow, and then there will be no more danger. But if you get in all right, how will you get out?’

  ‘We’ll cross that barbed wire when we come to it. The main thing is to see you right. Nothing else matters. I was supposed to see Mother later on, but it’s not too important. She’ll be at the solicitors’ till quite late because they’re old friends, but I needn’t be there if I don’t want to be. In fact I think she’d rather I wasn’t, but she was too polite to say so. The trouble with her is that she’s shouting fiercely at me one day, and the next she’s so tactful and considerate. It’s difficult, but I suppose we all have others’ foibles to put up with.’

  She touched my wrist: ‘I love you.’

  ‘That makes me very happy,’ I said. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’

  At half past ten we went up in the lift to the flat. I took off my shoes, and followed her inside. She walked along the corridor to her room. All the lights were on, and I highstepped after her. She closed the door. We’d made it. The excitement of getting secretly in with the doctor only a few doors away in his study made us turn spontaneously to each other with relief, and we made love there and then on her single but firm bed, a bit of a bang that got us both into a sweat, even though we stripped to our ribs. I lay back smoking while Bridgitte went to let Dr Anderson know she was in, her intention being to cover a large food tray for us in the kitchen, and bring it back. I lay with my knees drawn up, a Dutch newspaper opened on them like a lectern, trying to read the swaddled and complicated words. Even backwards they didn’t make sense, so I took a pencil and fiddled with anagrams, till I’d worn out three fags and realized that my sweetheart had been gone too long for my good, and possibly for hers. So I slipped on shoes and opened the door, seeing the lighted corridor and nobody in it. There were pictures along the wall, of a Scottish castle wrapped in a muffler of mist, then one of a tall façade of Glasgow slums on washday, then a picture of an English cottage. At the front door I bumped into a hat-stand and made such a clatter that in two flips I was back at Bridgitte’s room. ‘What do you want?’ said a little voice I knew so well.

  ‘Don’t you ever sleep, you little bleeder?’

  ‘I don’t bleed,’ Smog said. A door snapped open, so I pulled him inside. ‘I want a cigarette as well,’ he said, scratching himself.

  ‘You can’t smoke. You’re not seven yet.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Waiting for Bridgitte.’

  ‘I expect she’s sitting on Daddy’s knee,’ he said, innocently.

  ‘Does she often do that?’

  ‘Only when he pulls her on.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, relieved, ‘does he pull her on often?’

  ‘Only when Mummy isn’t here. She doesn’t like it. That’s why she’s gone away. I think she’s gone into hospital to get a divorce.’

  ‘Is there anything you don’t hear and see?’

  ‘Not much,’ he said.

  ‘You know, Smog, I think I like you.’

  ‘I like you,’ he said.

  ‘So will you go to bed now? Bridgitte will be cross if she finds you here.’

  ‘Are you going to dance tonight?’

  ‘Your daddy wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘That’s because he can’t dance.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ said I, ‘give us a kiss and go back to your room.’

  He sat beside me on the bed. ‘It’s so boring there. I like to smell smoke. But not cigars. They make me choke.’

  ‘Go and see where Bridgitte is.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘Daddy will see me. He said he’d destroy me if he saw me out of bed, but he was only being funny.’

  ‘Wait here till I come back then. Don’t move an inch.’

  I went out along the corridor, looking into every open door. Bridgitte s
tood by the kitchen stove waiting for coffee to boil. I went by without her seeing me. The next room was lined with books, and a man sat writing at a desk. He had a round, pale, irritable face, with a bald head and a small moustache. Wearing a bow-tie and no jacket, he looked sober and studious, as if set for an all-night stint. By his arm was a tray with teapot and cup on it. I was about to move when he looked up and saw me: ‘Who the hell are you?’

  ‘Just passing by.’

  ‘Well bloody-well pass out or I’ll call the police.’

  ‘I’m Bridgitte’s boyfriend.’

  ‘Oh, are you? Well I suppose that’s different. You’d better say goodnight then and be on your way.’

  ‘Is it in order,’ I said, ‘if I finish my cup of coffee in the kitchen?’

  ‘Do what the hell you like. Only close my door. I’m busy.’

  I shut it, and went back to Bridgitte’s room. ‘You shouldn’t wander around,’ she said. ‘The doctor might see you.’

  ‘Never. I walk too quietly.’ There was salami and cheese, pickles and jam, black bread and coffee, as well as a cigar she’d brought out of the living-room. Smog joined us in the feast: ‘Are you going to get married?’

  ‘We are married,’ I said. Bridgitte blushed, as she might always have done in front of Smog, but didn’t.

  ‘You aren’t,’ he said. ‘But you make babies, though.’

  I lit my cigar. ‘Let me know when you’ve finished, then we can tuck you up nicely in a coal scuttle. Not this one, either. Go on, get down.’ He grumbled, so I sat him on my knee till Bridgitte had done with her supper.

  She came back from putting him to sleep: ‘I don’t think there’s going to be any big peril from the doctor tonight, so you can go to your mother if you wish.’ This wasn’t much to my liking, for it meant kipping down in June’s flat under a perfumed gas stove.

  ‘No. I’ll stay. You never know. I took a peep at him just now, and he seemed in a very agitated state. Unless of course you don’t mind taking a chance on being all alone with that brain butcher.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘Please! You can stay.’

  Paul Dent was right. Life at the stripperama wasn’t all whisky and kickshins. I went at two in the afternoon, and left about one the next morning, with a couple of hours off about tea-time. There was no saying how long I’d stick it, possibly as long as I didn’t get used to it. There was an occasional punch-up, which was the part I liked least. Not that I was afraid, though any sane person might have been. I just didn’t fancy ploughing like a charge of lightning into some stupid bastard who was either so insane or drunk that he could also get fleeced for ten quid because of non-existent damages. Yet that’s what some of them wanted when they came into the place, a punch in the gob, a knee in the groin, and then the added jolt of paying actual money for the underground pleasure they’d gone through. In that way they didn’t lose on the deal. Their next move after leaving the club was to go to a prostitute and have the job finished off. I made up my mind to quit as soon as something equally aimless came along.

  After a while I stayed with Bridgitte all night again, and told her the sort of work I was doing. The doctor had gone out, to see his mistress, and Smog was sleeping soundly after an exhausting day at school, and five tantrums since teatime. ‘I parted company with my mother today,’ I said, lighting up a Havana, ‘and I feel good about it. I’ve given up everything, my fortune and all connexion with the family. She wanted me to sign papers but I flung them in her face. I couldn’t ponce on the working class for ever, live off land and property. For, my one and only heart, it just wouldn’t do. Of course, Mother was furious, because it went against everything she stood for. It was unprecedented. No one had ever done it so blithely before. Even poor Alfred had gone mad rather than do a thing like that. She threw that in my face as well. It was hell while it lasted, but I stood my ground. The upshot of all this is that I’m suddenly without a roof over my head, without money. But luckily I got work this afternoon helping out at an entertainment club that an old friend of mine is running. It isn’t much, and it’s long hours, but I’ll be able to keep my independence and that’s all that matters to me now. In actual fact I know I could get a couple of thousand a year off Mother whenever I liked, with no strings attached what-so-absolutely, but even that I don’t want to dirty myself with.’

  I was beginning to feel that Bridgitte must be a bit mentally deficient because she believed everything I said, until it occurred to me that perhaps I was a good liar. But I was only a good liar to her, and maybe this meant that we had fallen just a little in love for them to be so effective. It was that feeling of trust we had in each other that made the lies I told so unimportant.

  I went to the club every day, but got more time off the longer I worked there, and this bettering of my conditions made me less keen to give the job up, though I was still determined to. The other bouncer was Kenny Dukes, who’d been a middleweight boxer in his younger days. But now he was gone to fat and viciousness, with pink skin and half-bald fair hair, smelling of scent and immaculately dressed. The girls who worked there were afraid of him, though he had an air of gentleness, almost tenderness, about him. I could imagine he kept canaries, reared them with great love, but only for the pleasure of breaking their necks when he was in a temper about something he thought the world was trying to do to him. Then he could have a good cry and feel a new man after it. June said he was afraid of nobody but Claud Moggerhanger, but then, she added, everyone was afraid of him, though she personally didn’t know why because he was always charming and courteous as far as she was concerned.

  ‘He was the man who tried to run my car into the wall when I was coming into London,’ I said. We sat in a pub when some of our time-off coincided, both of us with a brandy.

  She laughed. ‘I know. I knew it then, but didn’t say anything. He was only trying to run you off the road as a bit of a joke because he saw me in the car.’

  ‘Christ,’ I gasped, ‘what’s he to you?’

  ‘He’s my boyfriend.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m not afraid of him, I’ll tell you that. If I see him on the road again and I’m in a good-sized car I’ll try to do the same to him.’

  ‘It was his idea of a bit of fun,’ she said. ‘Honestly. Anyway, he’s the man you’re working for now. He’s a good person, even though he has got a bit of a name in this area.’ Since he was her boyfriend I couldn’t say much more against him, so I shut my trap on that topic.

  ‘You remember Bill Straw?’ she asked. I nodded. ‘Well, when we left you a broken man at Hendon, he came to the Tube with me, and insisted on seeing me back to my flat in Camden Town. I told him not to, but he wouldn’t take no as a warning, and when we got there, Claud was already waiting, sitting inside. Bill tried to kiss me at the door, and when I told him not to be so stupid he pushed his way in. Claud stood up and came towards him. Bill’s face turned into a whited sepulchre when he recognized him. He stood gaping, still holding my valise that he’d kindly carried for me. Claud took out a couple of half-crowns and gave them to him as if he was a porter, then pushed him gently through the door so that he fell on his back. I haven’t seen him since.’

  I couldn’t help but reflect that it served that Bill Straw bastard right, after he had so gleefully left me in the lurch with my ruined car. ‘I expect he’ll turn up,’ I said. ‘He was hoping to lay his hands on a few thousands in ready cash when he got here.’

  ‘I hope he doesn’t show his eyes when Claud’s around,’ she said. ‘He’s very possessive. He might even get upset if he saw me in here with you, but not so much because he knows about me getting that lift in your car. He doesn’t like me to have any other boyfriends, though he doesn’t care how many girlfriends I have. In fact I think he actually gets a kick out of it, the bloody Turk!’

  Talk of the devil, and a few days later Claud Moggerhanger came into the club to see that all was going well. He saw me standing at the door, and recognized me, I’m sure, from the hard stare
he gave. I met it, and sent it back. Ten minutes later the manager tapped me on the elbow to say that Mr Moggerhanger wanted to see me. ‘What for?’ I asked, sharp of voice.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said on the way down: ‘Maybe he’s got work for you.’

  ‘I’ve already got some.’

  ‘You’d better be on your best behaviour,’ he said, so pale and serious that I laughed.

  Moggerhanger filled the cubby-office, and you could tell he owned it. ‘I remember you, Michael. Do you remember me?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I got a good look at you.’

  ‘Well, Michael, we’d better get our relationship all correct and right from the very beginning. I think I can trust you. At least Mr Dent tells me I should be able to. Also, as I already know, you’re a good hand at driving a car. I’m going to let you into something personal: my doctor says that my ulcer is playing up, and though I enjoy driving, he advises me to get a chauffeur. I’m offering you that job – providing you’ve got a licence and haven’t any convictions.’

  I was going to tell him he needn’t worry about that, but he lifted a hand full of rings and said: ‘Shut up and listen to me. First of all, you call me sir. OK? Then you have a room at my house in Ealing. Right? Then you get the same pay as you’re getting here. Agreed?’ I’d had no time to say anything, but I did get a brief nod in now and again. ‘If you consider this in the nature of a promotion,’ he said, ‘we’ll get on fine. I don’t ask much, except superlative driving and absolute loyalty. That means no talking. See all, hear all, and say nowt. A loose lip means a cut lip. I only let the silent sort of chap close to me. Understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good,’ he nodded. ‘A lad like you might go a long way.’ And that was that. I’d become the personal chauffeur to the biggest and richest racketeer in town.

  Mr Moggerhanger fixed me up with an attic room at his big house in Ealing. My quarters, as he called them, were a room with a sloping ceiling against which I continually bumped my head, unless I went around doubled up like a collier. There were a few oddments and throwouts of furniture spaced about, which were enough for me. The floor was bare boards, covered with jagged splashes of white paint where some maniac had decorated the walls and let flip with it everywhere.