A Start in Life

by Alan Sillitoe

  A few hours later, with something lurking at my window that looked like morning, I was awake, croaking for a pot of liquid to drink but knowing I’d have to wait till I got clear and found a café. I dressed in two minutes and, taking one last glimpse around the flat, made for the door with my case attached to my hand. I shivered, as if I’d made too many departures in the last few months, and wasn’t sure that I wanted to go. I wasn’t even getting kicked out, but that didn’t seem to matter, for I was moving, and, at this time of the morning, that was that.

  A man standing by the door, about to press the bell, got as big a shock as I did. He was tall, well built, had thinning hair, and wore a pale short mackintosh. I tried to keep my voice down: ‘What do you want?’

  He lisped: ‘Mog wants his flash back.’

  I didn’t know what he meant. ‘You’ve got the wrong house.’

  ‘Moggerhanger sent me. He wants his lighter back.’

  ‘I haven’t got it any more.’

  ‘He wants ’is flash back.’

  ‘I ain’t got the thing,’ and shut the door behind me: ‘Shift out of the way. I’m going down.’

  He bumped me so hard that I dropped my case: ‘Mr Moggerhanger wants ’is flash.’ He took a cut-throat razor from his pocket, opened it, and grinned: ‘He told me to make the sign of the cross if you don’t hand it over.’

  I saw that glint, and took the hint, and bent down to snap open my case, scrabbling under a heap of shirts and dirty underwear. ‘I was going to call in and bring it back today,’ I said, pushing it into his hand. He pressed the fuse, saw the flame, looked at it as if he thought it a pretty sight that he could gaze on all day. After a final grin at its beauty, he blew it out and put it in his pocket, the razor held all the time in his other hand.

  ‘That all right?’ I said, trying to stay calm and smile. He lifted the razor and drew it across my face, without touching flesh. I cried out, but he laughed, kicked my case down the stairs, and walked through the mess.

  I picked up the bits and put them back. On his progress he’d trodden on a tube of toothpaste and squashed it flat, so that a white jet of it had shot across the carpeted stair. A cold sweat was all over me, and my hand trembled so that I could hardly put a necktie back into the case. I knelt to do my work, and thought of going into the flat, to fall asleep and tell myself afterwards, when I got up to a good breakfast and decided to stay, that this had been a mere bad dream. But the door was locked and I had no key, and in any case I would not have done it.

  The longer I sat the better I felt, and I suddenly urged myself to close the case and stand up. In my pocket were cigarettes and matches, and when I found that my feet weren’t yet ready for me, I smoked casually as if resting before my long journey down to the street. It was eight o’clock by my watch, and apart from feeling sick I wanted some breakfast, so with a good heave I was standing at last, ready to descend.

  The air smelled good, smoky and full of petrol, the very stuff of life, as Gilbert Blaskin might have said. People were already going to work, and I wished them luck and a long run as I walked my case towards King’s Road. I found an eating place and stuffed myself back to health and strength on bacon and pancakes and coffee, soon feeling cocky again after my fright from Moggerhanger’s one-man execution squad. Opening my street map I wondered where I was going to live, what four walls, if any, I’d inhabit before the day was out. With two hundred and fifty pounds in the bank I was the king of kings – though not for ever. I thought of walking into a hotel, but would only do that at the last moment, if I couldn’t get anything but a slice of pavement before darkfall. With so few possessions my case wasn’t heavy as I walked towards Victoria, but I didn’t like being seen dragging it around. A man with a case looks like a traveller, or a thief, or someone too innocent to be out on the street. You can’t swagger and feel good with a suitcase. Even if it weighs nothing you’re marked off from the rest of the people into which you should be able to melt for cover if you feel like it.

  So I dropped it in the left-luggage at the station and strode on through streets that hadn’t yet lost their freshness and interest. The market in Soho was out, an abundance of barrows lining the streets, now packed with mid-morning shoppers. I bought a Spanish newspaper, which I couldn’t read, and sat in an Italian place for a cup of black coffee, sipping it down between puffs at a cigar. Whenever I did a bunk or otherwise left anywhere, I always wore my best suit. Why, I don’t know, but it made me feel good when I had nowhere to go. And because it bolstered my spirit at such a time, it was also plain to me that I wasn’t feeling easy in such a state of homelessness, and that I had to get out of it quick. The sensible thing, in view of Moggerhanger’s hostility (I had no way of knowing whether this morning’s threat was only the beginning of it) would be to get out of town for a few weeks, so as to avoid being seen in the area where he owned half the clubs.

  Yet I couldn’t tear myself away, and I’m glad I didn’t, because when I went into an Italian place for lunch (I was hungrier than usual when on the loose) I sat down and saw the back of a head farther up the room belonging to somebody who’d taken a small table all to himself, and it was of a shape that caught a snipe of recognition in me. I waited for him to turn, but he casually faced the other way as if not caring to show his face too openly. Sometimes he seemed on the point of doing so, out of boredom at looking at the wall, which was the only thing in front of him. For a second I saw a little to the side of his face, and his way of moving convinced me that I had seen that turnip-head before. All through the minestrone I plugged my mind in every place to bring back some memory with the label of a name stuck to it I searched all over the place, even going through every film I’d seen in the last ten years in the hope that some far-off face in one might lead me to the actual face I was trying to remember.

  Thinking he’d never turn, I picked up my knife and dropped it, but too many other people were talking and eating around me, and he didn’t hear a thing. There was a rack by his side, on which hung a good-quality light overcoat, a hat, and a cashmere scarf. I looked down to eat when my veal came, but noted that he was ahead in his meal, and that the waiter was taking his coffee. Cigar smoke drifted above his head, which was now bent at the table as if he were reading a newspaper. He called for his bill, and the waiter treated him like a regular client who left good tips. I tried to catch some words, but they were lost. He stood for the waiter to help him on with his coat, and as soon as he half turned my heart jumped at the sight of him.

  When I called his name, not too loud but only so that he would hear me, he looked in my direction as if I’d sworn at him. It was Bill Straw, the knowledgeable glutton who’d come down to London with me from the North. He wore a light grey suit, a silk shirt, and a small-knotted dark tie, and still had the cigar in his teeth. I remembered his face as having been prison-pale and unshaven, but now it was lean and tanned, and full of vigour so that he looked ten years younger. But there was no mistaking old Bill Straw, my erstwhile friend from back on the road.

  He came closer, looked at me with his grey eyes, and smiled: ‘Well, my old flower, I thought you’d been swallowed up. It seems that long ago to me.’

  ‘Centuries,’ I said, shaking the offered hand. ‘Sit down and have some more coffee.’

  ‘I will,’ he answered, ‘If you’ll have a brandy – on me.’

  ‘You don’t look the same any more.’

  ‘I’ll never be like that again,’ he told me. Even his way of speaking had changed. A far-off look came into his eyes: ‘No, you’ll never see me as I was when you picked me up on the Great North Road.’

  ‘Not old Bill Straw,’ I said, too jocularly by half, because he flinched from it.

  ‘You want a bit of smoothing down,’ he said. ‘You’re too rough. And by the way I’m not Bill Straw, so do me a favour and forget that. I’m known as William Hay – to all my acquaintances and to my employers. It’s also written in my passport. I’m a company director by profession. This is just to
get the record straight, though don’t think I’m not still a human being, because I am. I’ve succeeded in doing away with the life I had before coming to London this time. But I don’t forget you, because you helped me. I say,’ he said suddenly, with a bit of old mateyness, ‘you haven’t seen that June on your wanderings, have you?’

  Over a couple of brandies I told him honestly all that had happened since we parted at Hendon on our way in. He was impressed at hearing that I’d actually succeeded in getting on the wrong side of Moggerhanger. ‘I know blokes who have nightmares about that,’ he said. ‘He’s dangerous, so don’t tangle further with him. You’d better take a few hints from me.’

  ‘You’ve done so well by the look of it,’ I said, ‘that it might not be a bad idea.’

  He looked deadpan at this: ‘You are a bit green. Right from when you gave me that lift, and let me con you out of so much grub on the way down. I don’t know how you’ve survived this long. More by luck than experience, from what you’ve told me. But I suppose it’s about time you were taken in hand. You’d better bunk up at my place for a while. I kicked my umpteenth girlfriend out last night, so you can stay there till I get another one. I’ve got a flat over in Battersea. Small and quiet, but it’s convenient. You remember I told you on the A1 that I had a few thousand to collect from a job I’d done bird for? Thought I was lying, didn’t you?’

  He laughed, and lit another Havana. ‘I wasn’t I’ve often told the truth to people who think that with a face like mine I can’t help but lie. An old trick. Well, it was stashed away safely for me, and what’s more it had been piling up interest the years I was in prison. A tidy sum of five thousand three hundred! Couldn’t believe such loyalty from the others. But I’d stood by them, you see, right through everything, and they knew it. So it’s still getting interest for me. Invested in good old British industry by a broker I was put on to, curling in as much as eight per cent. The fact was, I hardly needed to touch it, just three hundred to fit myself out, because I was put on to some very profitable work, just the stuff for the likes of me, because it takes me off the island, to the hot spots of the mainland, and a bit beyond at times. I won’t say too much yet, but I didn’t get this tan potholing in the Pennines. Still, I don’t forget somebody who helped me when I was down and out. Not me, not the new man nor the old. When you picked me up, I don’t know whether you knew it or not, but I was ready to die. I was done for and finished, inside and out, stomach and heart. I felt I was trudging towards the end of the world in that rain, with cars and lorries splashing me up as they went by, the cold eating into me so that I was snatched and perished.’

  He called for more brandy, as if these recollections threatened to swamp his new-found heart. ‘I didn’t do much,’ I said. ‘I just felt sorry to see this bloke, and stopped my rotten old car that I was so proud to be in.’

  ‘You did well though, helping William Hay. That part of me has snuffed it. For ever, I hope.’

  ‘Here’s to you, then,’ I said, sipping the best brandy.

  ‘I’ve got a good job now, Michael. Travelling. I’ve become an experienced traveller in the last few months. I’ve been to the Middle East. I’ve been over the North Pole. I’ve been all over Europe. Mind you, I earn every penny of it. I’ll tell you that for a start. Every bloody penny that gets stashed into my bank is earned by the sweat of my brow. That’s why I have to eat two or three big meals a day. I’ve got to stay strong and full of energy for the work I do, otherwise I might break down, and that’d be no good at all, because then I’d lose my job, and worse. It’s not an easy life, even though I do look well and prosperous. In fact, in some ways it’s the hardest bloody job I’ve ever done, but it pays well.’ He cackled: ‘It pays well, I will say that for it.’

  I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, but I was all avidity to find out. The place was emptying, and he suggested that we go for a stroll. He had to walk five miles every day when he wasn’t working, to keep himself trim for when he was. ‘I have to eat a lot and walk a lot,’ he laughed, as we went out through the door, bowed at by the manager after William had insisted on paying my bill.

  ‘You’re not a bad walker yourself,’ said William, when we had reached the inner circle of Regent’s Park, as if he were putting me through some kind of test. ‘I’ll take it on trust that you’re a good eater.’ I felt we’d come too far already, and didn’t exactly see the point of planing one’s feet off in this way. I wasn’t hungry for praise about my standards of endurance either, so began to think of cutting back to town. ‘What we’ll do,’ he said, ‘is veer towards Baker Street, and go down through Victoria to Battersea, then you can pick up your case before we cross the river.’

  ‘You do this every day?’ I said. Though he kept up a killing rate he didn’t seem the least bit tired or ruffled, could have looked to any passer-by as if he’d just stepped out of a taxi, and was only walking a few hundred yards before getting where he wanted to be.

  ‘You have to look like a gentleman,’ he said, ‘yet be very tough in your fibres. That was dinned into me, during training.’

  ‘What training?’ I asked, a faint regret now at the different standards of our appearance.

  ‘Training. The first week they thought they’d never get me out of my old life. But after that I caught on so quickly that the man in the iron lung was amazed. I always was a slow starter, but that’s what makes me good in the end. There’s many of those chaps (and women, mind you) who’ve latched on with beautiful speed, but often they’re the first to crack. That’s what the Lung says, and I quite believe him. He’s got many a tale to tell, has that pasty-faced bastard.’

  ‘It all sounds Swahili to me. Besides, I’m hungry. We must have done four miles already. Let’s go into the next place for something to eat.’

  He stopped and bent down, lifting the bottom of his left trouser-leg and unclipping his suspenders so that he could roll his sock. Attached to the inside of his ankle was a multi-coloured watchface, a pedometer, I supposed, after he’d spoken. ‘Three and a quarter,’ he said, doing himself up coolly, and carrying on the walk. ‘I wear this just to see that I don’t cheat myself.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ I said, ‘I’m bloody famished. I could still do with an ox-eye on toast.’

  ‘Ah!’ he laughed. ‘Your belly’s groaning for grub already. If you aren’t careful we’ll take you on. There’s allus room for a new hand. But I can’t go into this crummy bar. Let’s find a more decent place lower down. That’s part of my job, too. A gentleman can’t be seen in a pig-bin like that.’

  ‘I’d like to know what you’re up to.’

  ‘I can’t even light a cigar as I walk along. But it’s all good discipline, and that’s healthy for any man, being made to do something that your system kicks against. You’re able to see a lot in life, and what more can you want than that? You might think I’m talking a bit overmuch, but that’s also part of the training. You have to be able to embark on a sea of diverting and intelligible talk at the drop of a hat, because a man who talks is always less suspicious that one who can only look dumb and stand with his trap shut. You’ve got to say the right thing, and say it with confidence. No stammer or foot-shifting, or they’re on to you right away. Those airport bastards don’t think twice about tipping your pockets up if your left eyelid seems a bit out of place.’

  We went into a respectable fodder bar on Wigmore Street, and sat down for a few choice dishes. ‘So you’re a smuggler?’ A plum-coloured flush went down his cheek. ‘You’re worse than the man I took you for.’

  ‘We never use that word where I come from. I’m a company director, a travelling gentleman involved in the export trade.’

  ‘Sorry, William.’

  ‘You’ll have to curb your big mouth, that’s the first thing. Until you do that you’ll get nowhere.’

  ‘Christ,’ I said, making a cut so that the yellow middle of the egg ran all over my toast, ‘everybody I meet makes it his job to teach me something.’
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  William forked into his cake. ‘You were born lucky, in that case. Make sure you take ’em up on it. Otherwise you’re throwing your luck away. I’m no fool, Michael, though I have been, so listen to me, and learn all you can from everybody. You didn’t learn much at school, I suppose. That means you were bright. You were too full of understanding to bother with what they had to tell you. But all that’s behind you now. You got through it without too much bother. They didn’t succeed in training you either for a prison or a factory. But now you’ve got to listen to people who try to teach you something, because they aren’t teachers. They do it out of the goodness of their hearts, as one human to another, and they get nothing out of it. That’s like gold, so for God’s sake don’t scoff at it.’

  I’d never known him so serious. ‘All right, but I still have to pick and choose about what I want to learn.’

  ‘Admitted, but only after you’ve taken it in. Come on, eat up. We’ve got our walk to finish. I know you eat fairly quickly, but you’ll have to do better than that. A slow eater is a slow thinker, and slow thinking wouldn’t be much good to me. Above all, you have to look calm and think quick, otherwise your goose is cooked, whether it’s Christmas or not.’