A Start in Life

by Alan Sillitoe

  His eyes narrowed. He hated my guts, but wouldn’t at the moment say so: ‘You’re not getting married, by any chance?’

  ‘Never. But I’ve got to have a quiet place I can go to between trips, if I’m not to have a crack-up.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Berkshire,’ I told him. ‘A cottage, but it cost the earth – and a bit of the sky.’

  He chuckled and put down his gun. ‘All right. Four hundred. But you’re off to Athens in the morning.’

  My only thought on the way out was to hope the plane to Greece crashed with me on it so that all my troubles would come to an end. Because was I in trouble? I knew who’d arranged for Arthur Ramage to be caught. It was Claud Moggerhanger, either by an anonymous phone call to London airport, or because he wanted to give his old friend Inspector Lantorn an easy job to do, in the hope that Lantorn would keep his claws off the Moggerhanger operations for a week or two. And who had told Moggerhanger that Ramage went to Lisbon every Friday laced-up with gold? His darling daughter. And which unthinking love-crazed flaptrap had told Polly? Me, not imagining that she’d even take it in, never mind relay it so accurately and with such deadly intent. And why had he done it? Not only to play havoc with Jack Leningrad, because that seemed rather an obvious thing to do, but precisely to warn me to go in head and bollocks with the Moggerhanger conspiracy-takeover, or vanish the same way as Arthur Ramage. It was as plain as the dismal day, that the great intriguer of the age had been caught in a vast and sticky web, with a murdering spider ready to come from each corner and scoop out his guts. All this went through my mind when Stanley broke the news, and I knew that the man in the iron lung would have it in for me as being the only person who could have published Arthur Ramage’s itinerary. Maybe he would kill me on the spot, such was his ugly mood, and for that reason I threw my medieval fit and ranted for a higher wage. It had worked, for the moment. He was almost bound to have me followed or watched from now on. I had to take care even of the air I breathed, and that was no sort of life for me.

  But to abandon everything would mean slipping into oblivion, and that was not part of me. I had come too far through the keyhole of myself to do that. I wanted Polly, in spite of her absolute and rotten treachery. She had been set on to me from the first, and of that I could only be certain. But I wanted Polly more than ever, even because of her treachery, for by that alone I felt we were made for each other, that she had more depth and dimension than I’d ever dreamed of. I had fucked her countless times, and she had now monumentally fucked me, so that while I had made us one flesh, she had made us one spirit, an element of fatal cooperation I had never encountered in anyone else nor was likely to. She seemed so much larger now that I couldn’t have noticed her before, but I knew I was as far from having her – or her having me – as I’d ever been, because even if I threw in everything and worked for Moggerhanger, it would mean little in the end. I thought I was fit enough to live in a jungle, but now I was certainly beginning to doubt my ability to survive in this little corner of it. How could I go off with an easy heart to Athens when I expected any minute that Moggerhanger would think to pick up the phone and stop me?

  I went. And I came back. I could only assume he was giving me more time than I’d expected or even hoped for. The one consolation of this cat-and-mouse game was that my bank balance continued to grow. I paid the cash for Upper Mayhem station, then took the bundle of deeds and a spare set of keys to Nottingham, where I stowed them in my grandmother’s chest. Whatever happened, they would be safely hidden there. Work had slackened off. Maybe there was no more gold left on the island, though this would not stop the Jack Leningrad machinery dead in its oils because they also imported it. As fast as I took it out, others brought it back. Profits were made both ways, and everyone was happy.

  So I had a few days in Nottingham. My mother wouldn’t take time off work, but I was quite happy going around on my own. On a cold windy day I was muffled up in my overcoat, and warmed by a cigar as I walked along Wollaton Road. I’d been away a long time, but none of it was foreign to me. I was born here, and it swam in my blood. All other places were a swamp I had to stop myself sinking into, but here my feet were on solid ground – even though the pavements were uneven and there were often potholes in the roads. With a place like this I didn’t need a mother or father. Say what you like, the place where you were born and brought up is bread and butter for the rest of your life, no matter where you go or what you do. If you deny it, you stamp on your own feelings. If you don’t have it, you can’t see other places with the freshest of eyes. I speak from hindsight, and I speak from youth, and I speak from myth, and the trio will always meet when you’re feeling low and desolate. At such times, if you’re far away you know you can’t go back there, and don’t even want to, but to think of that solid indestructible land soothes your eyes for a few hours.

  I walked along, my thoughts spinning as if in a milk-churn making cheese. Up the hill from the weighing house and Horse Trough and White Horse pub was the railway bridge, and Radford station whose booking hall we used to raid as kids for a handful of timetables to push through letterboxes or scatter in the streets as if they announced the coming of bloody revolution. We’d hide in the timber traps of the goods yard and run from the railwayman who didn’t give a damn whether we got away or not. If I hadn’t been a long time in London I don’t suppose I’d have had all these memories flopping up into my brain like wet fish. Beyond the station was the tobacco warehouse on one side, and the Midland pub on the other, then newer houses and the Crown pub on the corner of Western Boulevard. We used to swim in the old canal on hot days, and once I remember a boy of five falling off the lock gate and hitting the concrete edge fifteen feet below which stopped him going into the water and getting drowned but didn’t prevent him from getting a savage dose of concussion that sent him running after skylarks for the next few years, though he eventually recovered so well that he went to grammar school. And when I was fifteen I remember a mate and I went up the canal one dark night with Connie Ford who sat between us on a lock gate and wanked us till we shot into the moonless dark. I laughed through my cigar smoke. This was the only place where I could feel free of all the Moggerhangers and Leningrads of the world, where sentimentality was realistic, and memory meant safety, and familiarity strength. I coined my happy phrases, not taking much notice as to where I was going but knowing that all these thoughts were false and not worth a farthing.

  I turned up Nuthall Road, and smelt the first undying smell of evening mist coming down from the collieries and Pennines. I caught it so strongly in the nostrils of my heart that it even warmed my penis and made it half stand up. I’d got something very bad, but it didn’t frighten me at all, just made me know I was still prone to it and therefore still alive.

  It softened my soul for when I saw Claudine coming out of the supermarket and putting a basket of groceries on top of a baby sleeping in the pram. She saw me first, but even so I wouldn’t have backed away if I’d been the one to spot her. Her face turned pale, as I’m sure mine did as well. I looked at the baby, about a year old, pink, fat, and peaceful. ‘You might well stare,’ she said, ‘you rotten bastard.’

  I smiled: ‘He looks as if he’ll thrive.’

  ‘It’s a she.’

  I took another look: ‘Are you pleased with her?’

  ‘Of course I am. Alfie is as well.’

  My mouth dropped: ‘Alfie?’

  ‘It’s his. We got married over it. Just in time as well.’

  ‘That lets me out, then. I was on my way to ask you to marry me. I’ve earned a lot of money in London, and I’ve spent the last three months fixing up a house for us both near Huntingborough, a marvellous place in the country that I paid cash for. It’s got a marvellous garden, full of flowers, just the sort I thought you’d like. I even got a job there, as manager of a car-hire firm. But nothing goes right with me. My life’s in ruins. Always was, and always damn-well will be.’

  ‘I hope so,’ sh
e said. ‘You swine. I sincerely hope so. You’re rotten with lies. I hate your guts. Alfie’s worth fifty of you, and I’m glad it’s him I ended up with. At least he loves me and doesn’t only think of himself. As for you, I don’t care how well you’re doing in London, but you’re heading for a fall, and that’s a fact. I should think even that place will get too hot for you before long, if it isn’t already. I expect you’ve only come back here to get out of trouble there, if I know you. Or have you just come out of prison? You can stop looking at her, even if it is your baby. I only hope she’ll grow up with none of your rottenness in her, though thank God I’m pregnant again, and by Alfie this time.’

  I lowered my head, tried to look affectionate: ‘I’m sorry you feel that way. I didn’t mean to make you bitter. I just thought we might be able to get together again. That’s what I came up specially for. I’ve always been in love with you, you know that, and still am, even though you’ve gone and done the dirty on me by getting married to Alfie. It wasn’t my fault if you couldn’t wait.’

  ‘Oh,’ she wailed, ‘how rotten can anybody get?’ She shouted, and women coming by laden with fish-fingers and Miracle Bread stared at us.

  ‘I can get a lot rottener,’ I said, ‘to someone who’s betrayed me.’ I hated saying all this, but couldn’t stop myself, wasn’t even enjoying it, didn’t know why I was doing it, at least not then. She went away sobbing, and even the kid began kicking up a row from under the basket of groceries.

  I walked backwards, watching her go, grieved at what I had done to myself more than to her, because even though I knew how lousy I’d been, and regretted it to my core, she at least had a daughter and her husband. My gall felt as if about to burst. I was sweating, and walked with the wind behind me.

  When Mother came home from work she told me to cheer up. ‘You’re always full of troubles and worries. Can’t you store up that experience till later on in life?’

  I split my face into a smile: ‘Maybe I want to get it over with now.’

  ‘Don’t hurry it. There’s plenty of time.’

  ‘I’m worn out.’

  ‘At your age? Stop feeling sorry for yourself, that’s all I can say.’

  ‘I’m not bloody-well feeling sorry for myself,’ I snapped.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m glad you’re showing a bit of spirit at last. Eat your steak and chips before it gets cold.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry? That’s new, coming from you. Still it’s a start. A thin one though.’

  ‘It’s all I can do at the moment,’ I said with my mouth full. She was reading the newspaper, and I went on eating.

  Albert was working late, couldn’t come out with us, so we got on a thirty-nine and went down town to sit a few hours in Yate’s wine lodge. I put her on to port, while I stuck to brandy. ‘Are you and Albert really going to get married?’

  She laughed: ‘Are you jealous?’

  ‘No, I’m not. I’ve got enough of that on my plate. It’s just that life’s so long.’

  ‘A good job it is,’ she said, ‘or we’d all be dead.’ She looked young enough for any devil’s work, with her perm that had come out well, and her lipstick that drew your eyes to it and away from the few wrinkles at the corners of her temples. ‘I’m not even too old to have another kid,’ she grinned, ‘if I put my mind to it.’

  This remark gave me a funny feeling which, if it came about, and I couldn’t believe it would, showed me with a little brother playing uncle to any newborn bastard I might have of my own. ‘Life’s not only long,’ I said, ‘it’s a stew.’

  ‘As long as it’s tasty, and doesn’t get cold on the hearth. I don’t know, Michael, you’re a funny one. Sometimes I think you’re just like your father – when I remember him.’

  I poured my brandy down, but it tasted like soda water: ‘You told me I never had a father,’ regretting such a stupid phrase when she replied: ‘Who do you think you are, Jesus Christ? I’ll get a cross for you from Littlewoods if you like, or maybe I’ll rent one for three days.’

  ‘Stop joking, can’t you?’

  ‘I’m in that sort of mood. Get me another port, duck.’

  I called the waiter, couldn’t speak till he’d brought the drinks and I’d annihilated my brandy and asked for another. ‘You’ll go corky inside,’ she said. ‘He used to knock them back like that. And he used to buy me port. Funny. The cheeky bastard said he thought all working-class women liked port, and he was right, because I did, anyway. We even came to this place, when there was any booze, and staggered away in the blackout at closing-time. Maybe port’s good for the memory. He was younger than me, though I was young enough, God knows. A young sergeant, though he spoke like an officer. Oh, we had a good time, till he got posted somewhere else. He even wrote me a letter or two, then they stopped after I’d told him I was pregnant. I was so mad I burnt the letters and a photo.’

  I felt white and avid: ‘Why didn’t you ever tell me this before?’

  ‘Didn’t think to, I suppose. You know me: memory like a sieve. He wasn’t what you’d call good-looking, but he was lively, and had an educated way of talking – though he used the most terrible language – awful, mixed it with everything he said.’

  ‘Go on. Go on.’

  ‘Let me get my breath, then. I don’t often talk about old times.’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ I said. ‘Once every twenty years, I suppose.’

  ‘Don’t get like that with me, or I’ll throw this drink up your nose.’

  ‘All right, Ma. Let’s have a good time. It’s a long while since I got drunk.’

  ‘You’re not very like him, though. There’s too much of me in your face. He had the funniest shape of head, and even though he was only twenty he was already going bald. But what a marvellous man he was, because in spite of his flash talk he was very gentle at times, almost shy, and maybe that’s what I liked most about him. He practically lived with me for a month, thought it a great thrill to be in a house like ours, but he’d always come with a bottle of whisky to make himself really at home. We had some good times between us. I could earn good money because of the war, and it was easy to wangle a house of my own, especially with Gilbert’s help. He forged anything. Used to get a bus from his camp and make straight for the house. Sometimes he’d wait for me outside the factory, and I remember how happy this made me, though I never told him so. He’d laugh and say I was sentimental, rubbing it into my face like broken glass, so that I’d get into a paddy and throw pots around if he didn’t stop. He often liked that sort of thing, and just sat there goading me. He was a real devil when he got started, though I was as bad. But we had some times together. It seemed to go on for ages, and now it seems like no time at all. I can’t always remember it, even. He didn’t get drunk, he just got dangerous, though at the sound of a cup smashing he’d smile and be happy again.

  ‘I always missed when I threw things, but he liked the sound. Some people are funny. I used to call him Blasted Blaskin, and this would make him laugh more than anything. I can’t tell you all the things we got up to, you being my son. What are you looking so white for? I thought you could take your drink?’

  I felt the slab of concrete in my stomach lifting up, as if it were suddenly trying to get out of my mouth. ‘I’ve got to get into the air,’ I said, standing. ‘It’s killing in here.’

  ‘You do look bloody pale,’ she said, taking my arm. ‘What’s got into you?’

  The concrete flagstone lifted: ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  ‘Oh, all bloody right then.’

  We went down the stairs and the fresh air pulled me round a bit. She was flummoxed, as if I might be going odd in the head and she had no idea what was expected of her, no cups or glasses being handy to throw at me.

  We walked into Slab Square, the illuminated front of the town hall looking so tall I hoped it was about to fall flat on its face and bury us. That cock-headed tripehound seemed not to have altered in all his waking life, still on a mad car
eer from one dripping slit to another. He threw up his women left and right and centre, and just as quickly others came back to him, flocking towards the same unwholesome fate. He was a bastard right enough, a real travelling trickster if ever there was one, and if my mother’s memory served her right, this sky-licker, this grub who rubbed his prick along the bare earth so that wheat and sunflowers shot up in abundance and gave him a great and lazy life, was my one and only unsuspecting father.

  We made for the Eight Bells, and managed to get a seat: ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I know this bloke you’ve told me about, and from your description of him he hasn’t altered a bit.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ she said. ‘Don’t go on about it or I shall begin to get upset. It’s so long ago, but now you’ve brought it all back I’m getting sentimental. You make me feel as though I’m still in love with him, the rotten swine. I was, for years and years. When I was with another chap I used to make believe he was Gilbert, to try and bring him back to me. Not that it was much good, but it was a game that helped me to bear it. Ah, well, it’s more than twenty years, but it’s only a minute when you lost somebody you thought a lot of. I told myself he’d been sent to Egypt and got killed. I lived with that, till the war was over and I forgot him. But you never forget. For a woman to lose a man she loves is only one bit less than losing a kid.’

  I was almost in tears, not only from shock and brandy, but from realizing what a hard life she’d had, all because of Gilbert Blaskin, and of having me without being married, a fact that didn’t let her forget the man who gave me to her, and at the same time made if difficult if not impossible for her to get somebody else. I thought how the world was a million times harder on women than men. Blaskin had gone his own sweet screwing way, though from what I knew he’d been miserable, except that he hadn’t really suffered in the way my mother had because he’d never had the honour and torment to really fall in love. To bring her back to life I told her a little of what I knew about him, just to give him reality and, if possible, rob him a little in her mind of the sentimental glory she attached to him. ‘I know it was only a dream,’ she said, ‘and that if we’d had much more time together we’d have started to drive each other round the bend and halfway up the bloody zig-zags.’