Snowstop

by Alan Sillitoe

  He’s going again. Alfred’s face reddened when Enid – the little bag – laughed. I shan’t be able to relax till I get him there, if ever I do. If I could get my hands on that bloody maniac in the loft I’d gladly squeeze the life out of him.

  ‘I’ve been happy all my life,’ Percy said, ‘even when I was unhappy! I’ve had work I was interested in, a good and loyal wife, fine kids, and a roof over my head. So why shouldn’t I be over the rainbow, eh?’ he asked Garry, who came in and stood by the fire to light a cigarette.

  ‘I’ll only be over the rainbow when we’ve got that prick-squeak down from upstairs. It’s marvellous what can happen when you come out for a spin. One minute you’re free, and the next you’re stuck in a place like this and might be blown to bits. When I was twenty everything I did was because I wanted to live, and now that I’m thirty I do it because I don’t want to die.’

  Keith felt as near happiness as he had any right to be. Various solutions drifted in and out of his mind, but it was hard to avoid the notion that, whatever happened, he couldn’t allow himself the luxury of thought.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Daniel, squatting simian-like between two beams and not caring that his persecutors registered every move on the radar screen of their feeble minds, told himself that he nevertheless had them at his mercy. All my life I’ve wanted to have a say as to whether people should live or die, but only in order to do them good because that would allow me to call it a victory. Now I have achieved it, but at the sacrifice of my own life, so what kind of a victory is that?

  One had to make a choice between good and evil, whatever power you had, any middle way a paralysis of the moral sense. If your opponents considered you evil you could deceive them by simulating good, then engulf them in an evil demise when they weren’t expecting it. You opened yourself to certain defeat when you allowed people to pride themselves on being good by assuming you to be evil.

  Sun Tzu said it was a mistake to attack at the strongest point, that the weaker party should create uproar in the east so as to strike unexpectedly from the west. Such homespun maxims of senseless violence were only relevant when you believed that your cause was just, but if evil was with the weak (as it was now with him) then the ploy was false, and you became paralysed. Revolutionary cracker mottoes were coined for those without the intelligence and moral subtlety to ponder on the finer strands of good and evil, and needed their convictions reinforcing by slogans fit only for simple minds.

  He had set out on his journey to take a load of high explosives from one point to another, an automaton who nevertheless felt the joy of being evil, which he could not give up because to do so would empty him of any reason for having been born.

  Cold tears fell on his wrist, and he fastened the buttons of his jacket. Stop thinking, wait for the fearful bang and split-second flash of oblivion. Would it be evil, to let it happen to them all? Some could live another fifty years, but what was that compared to eternity? There might be so much suffering in those fifty years that a painless death now would be a blessing. Blind chance had brought them together, but ‘blind chance’ was only another name for God who was testing his servant Daniel with one last problem.

  Knives of cold came against him from the shrieking blizzard. The vast attic was his inheritance. Life was good because God said so, and so had his mother. She had given him his name because there were three men in the Bible who had found favour in God’s eyes: Noah, Job and Daniel, and she had made him promise that he would try all his life to be like one of them. During his nightly prayers, impossible not to say yes to his mother, an obstinate inner voice out of his childish self said: ‘I won’t do as she says. I won’t’ – words spoken without gladness but enabling him to hold on to the unique spirit he had inherited. Having been born, he could have given no other response, and the memory distressed him more than the freezing isolation of his attic.

  To be physically destroyed would deliver him from turmoil, but to die before solving his dilemma would damn him for ever. Even if there was no place beyond life, those who were left behind would judge him. You did evil because the world would not extend its love to you, but that was because you had no love in you for the world, and so could only go through life consumed and consoled by evil.

  Knowing yourself rarely brought the good that was supposed to inspire a change for the better. He lit a cigarette and, letting the match drop, watched its flame shrink, as Lucifer’s mark abandoned him. The pain of displaying his iniquity lessened the terror of waiting.

  She felt angry at the sudden recall of Stanley’s disapproving expression. He would hardly credit her with the power of bringing the blizzard on herself, but his features might imply that with a little attention to the met. office and a scrutiny of the AA Route Atlas she could have diverted to east or west of hilly features and cut in towards the airport.

  He didn’t belong in a place like this, and she objected to thinking about him. Why must he follow her everywhere? She certainly hoped she wasn’t wherever he was at this moment, but not being interested in where he was by no means meant that he wasn’t interested in where she was.

  She contrasted the breast-like mounds of bluish snow beyond the window to the scene of springtime at their place in France. Buying the house had been her idea, because Stanley would have liked a chalet on the English coast. He had never said so strongly enough to stop her getting one in France, but did nothing ever after except try to disillusion her about all things French, not knowing that since she had never allowed herself to become sufficiently disillusioned by him to do anything about it, he hadn’t a hope of disillusioning her about the house in France. We aren’t as happy together as out of stupid pride we lead family and friends to believe.

  ‘Your paradise’ as he scathingly called it, was some way from a village, but he always complained about what to her were acceptable everyday sounds, even when they were sitting at the garden table with a bottle of wine and a dish of olives in the evening. If it wasn’t traffic it was an occasional aeroplane, or the faint clash of knives and forks from the villa down the road, or the harmless tinkle of their radio. And then some brainless dog that couldn’t tolerate the silence would begin to howl.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake stop whinging all the time,’ she said on a superb day last year, putting him in a foul mood for a week, though he did stop complaining, which she was glad of, because out of all his faults (though she had hers, too) that was the one she could sooner or later divorce him for.

  She had been brought up not to fuss, as no doubt had her parents. Whoever had reared Daniel must have instilled the same virtue into him, for she could not imagine him complaining either. If they were free of the blizzard and this ghastly hotel she would take him clandestinely to France, so that after a few days in the house and under her tender care he would become (as would they both) amiable and easy-going, different people to what they were now.

  She had got to know Daniel more in a few hours than she had Stanley in twenty years, and ought to tell him that no man had to turn himself into a self-aggrandizing liar to prove that he loved her. She needn’t have succumbed into believing that what he had said was true, and certainly should not have blabbed to the others in a ridiculous fit of weakness. A terrorist with a van of high explosives! She wondered how she could undo the damage, while he (she was sure) sat in the attic laughing so much at her gullibility that he was getting stomach cramps, which pain could nevertheless be seen as an accolade for his gift of storytelling, a wonderful parlour-game kind of yarn made up solely for her who like a fool had retailed it to everyone else.

  And look at them, in earnest conference as to what they should do, either frightened out of their paltry little lives or enjoying the situation in such a way that they would hardly notice the rest of the night go by. No longer bored, their existence has a purpose as they go for lights and ladders, saying what they will do to Daniel when they get hold of him. The men treat it like a war film, the only lack being a few extras coming and going
in German helmets. She could see the plot turning into something very nasty indeed, so it seemed only right to try and make up for her gaffe, and save Daniel from their wrath.

  ‘You’re so full of shit,’ Garry said, ‘it even comes out of your mouth.’

  ‘Well,’ Parsons laughed, ‘shit fertilizes, don’t it? And it brings forth plants. I expect it says that in the Bible somewhere. I’ve always believed everybody’s got a right to work, and I’ll always say so.’

  Garry spread his legs, and made another neat roll-up. Keith liked their chaffing, otherwise how could you know what people thought? You couldn’t get such raw material from television, though maybe those who wrote for it went out to pubs and sat over their pints of lager with a tape recorder strapped to their legs. Or maybe the Japanese had invented one that fitted into an earring.

  ‘When I wanted work,’ Garry said, ‘I found it.’

  In spite of Garry’s foul language and adolescent passion for motorbikes, Parsons suspected him to be halfway intelligent. ‘There are only so many jobs to go round, though.’

  ‘I don’t know about that. I’ve done everything. I delivered papers when I was a kid. Then I tried snow shifting, and tidying people’s gardens. Anything to get money in my pocket. When I left school I worked in a radio shop for a year, so I even mend the odd wireless now and again. Then I went down the pit to get more money, but I packed it in after six months because I didn’t like being a cave dweller. I did lorry driver’s mate, pirate taxi driver, brickie’s labourer – everything I could. Then I cottoned on to the plumbing racket, a real cowboy till I got to know how to do it well. Now I’m good, and everybody knows me. I found it didn’t need much more time to do a good job than a bad ’un, so I undercut the cowboys on the make. But I’ve never been on the dole, and hope I never will. My brother was on it for a month, no fault of his. He said that whenever he went to collect his money he couldn’t find anywhere to park. When he got talking in the queue he found they sat watching the bloody telly all week.’

  ‘Are you saying those poor buggers out of work shouldn’t have a car to get around in,’ Parsons said, ‘or a TV to watch? People have got higher expectations these days. Blokes like you think everybody ought to live by the law of the jungle.’

  ‘It’s the only law that gets things done, as far as I can see. If thousands of unemployed were out shifting snow for their dole money we wouldn’t be holed up in The Cheapjack Hotel, with some bloody looney who’s gone and parked his bombed-up van outside.’

  Fred set a tray of coffee and sandwiches between him and Parsons. ‘It’s not as cheap as you might find, if you took a room like any other guest.’

  ‘I like value for money, monkey-brain, and hotel rooms don’t come under that category. We take tents, and camp in a field. We pay the farmer a couple of quid, except when he lets us off for nothing, then we trade with him for eggs and fruit.’

  Keith listened to the storm between their words, heard it whether he would or not, talk mixing with the blatant howl from outside. He thought of Daniel not yet found, the terrorists’ delivery boy who didn’t know how much of their prisoner he was.

  ‘Last year,’ Garry said, ‘we went to Spain, and stopped in a little inn. They’re cheaper over there. Well, the plumbing in the toilets was all shot, and we couldn’t stand the stink, so I fixed it. The man wouldn’t let us pay the bill. When we arrived, though, with GB plates back and front, he didn’t want to have us. Next year we might go to Yugoslavia. There’s nowt like a bit of travelling, though we behave ourselves overseas because we can’t speak the lingo, and don’t want to get good old England a bad name. Anyway’ – he drained off his pint, and turned back to Fred, who no longer saw anything unusual in sitting among the guests to drink his own coffee – ‘when are you going to ask everybody to settle their bills? The balloon might go up any minute, and even a half-p piece will be in twenty bits.’

  That’s one way out, because how can I face the lads when they ask me where the money’s gone? ‘Touch a penny of that dough, for liquorice allsorts or fizzy lemonade – or even cream buns – and don’t come back here again.’ Jack Montgomery’s joke was laughed at by everybody in the meeting, Parsons included, who liked a hee-haw as much as the next man, though there would be no such jollity when he got back, so he might just as well make the best of his time in Fullstop Alley and get senseless. ‘Another bottle of champagne, Fred.’

  ‘He thinks God takes care of sots and kids,’ Percy said, ‘but I wouldn’t bank on it. God only looks after those who think summat of themselves. You can get blindo in your own house, but to booze yourself into a wet cabbage when we’re all in such dire peril, well, I reckon the Almighty wouldn’t countenance a worm like you. If He did He’d be no God.’ His fist waved, and Parsons’ head subsided under the onslaught. ‘Look at him. He knows who I mean. Only the lowest of the low don’t care whether he lives or dies.’

  ‘Everybody’s entitled to do what they like with their lives,’ Jenny said, thinking what an awful old bore he was.

  Her remark stirred up more of Percy’s venom. ‘Nobody can backslide into not wanting to keep on keeping on, not even me, and I’m the eldest here by a long shot.’

  ‘Now stop it, Father. Don’t overexcite yourself.’

  ‘Overexcite myself be damned.’ He was off again. They looked on, wanting to stop him but unable to do anything about it short of, Keith thought, killing him, though if he went on much longer that was precisely what he would get up and do. ‘I’m just showing a bit of responsibility, which seems to be seriously lacking in this snowbound den. I’ll bet he’s got a wife and children, though I expect they hate his guts, and think him the biggest ninny in the world, and wish he wouldn’t come back whenever he goes out of the house. Still, he ought to stay sober and help the rest of us.’

  The old man’s breath was grinding for renewal, and Sally thought his problem might be over sooner than most, though it was a pity he was using Parsons to commit suicide. The total attention he demanded made it difficult to get the conversation back to Daniel who, she knew, was thinking of her in his cold attic, and wanting to be comforted in his loneliness.

  Percy lay back, head sculptured against the armchair, face drained of life, a noise out of his mouth like fingernails scraping along zinc. Keith thought he was becoming a nuisance, because you couldn’t tell who he would begin to demoralize next, and his death wouldn’t be much loss. In any case, if they had to run into the snow he wouldn’t live, so he might do well to snuff it in relative comfort.

  Parsons found no joy in drinking the champagne. The first wash into his mouth could have been Dandelion and Burdock for all he knew, though Sally said it tasted fine when he pushed a glass disconsolately across. Alfred unlooped his father’s tie and pulled the collar apart, the old man’s eyes blue like the flame out of an acetylene welding torch, which he flashed again on Parsons. ‘God gave you life, and only God can take it away, and you’re seeking refuge in the product of the heathen Bacchus. He won’t help you, no matter how much you might think so.’

  Parsons became more himself as the champagne took effect. ‘Mind your own business. It’s got bugger-all to do with you. Nor with God, either, as far as I’m concerned.’

  A touch of pride had coloured Alfred’s overweight face at his father’s renewed tirade, and he placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him getting up. ‘He used to do a bit of preaching at the chapel, but the young ’uns didn’t take to him, when there was anybody there at all. He was a bit too straight for them.’

  Parsons should have known he’d been a bloody old Bible thumper. Nevertheless, he had betrayed a sacred trust of the union, which was the nearest to God he himself would ever get, and spent a few hundred quid of the money which a benefactor had insisted should be collected in cash. Now that he had done it he could only tell them he was sorry, though mea bloody culpa would cut little ice.

  Wayne came in from sentry duty looking petulant after his inactivity in the half dark, furthest away as if
, Sally thought, to have a good view and decide who he should be unpleasant to next.

  Parsons’ bottle had been more than half emptied by Jenny and her biker pal pledging their love, so he asked for another, thinking he might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb. If he had to sell up his furniture to pay the Union back, what was another chair more or less? At least it wasn’t something that would see the wife out.

  ‘He’s even brazen enough to laugh at what he’s doing.’

  ‘Have a drink yourself,’ Lance called. ‘You’ve had some pot already, Dad. Chase it down with a tot of bubbly.’

  ‘Don’t encourage him,’ Alfred said. ‘It’s not right.’

  ‘He’s over twenty-one, ain’t he?’

  Wayne was bored, as well as tired and cold. ‘A hundred and twenty-one, if you ask me.’

  Halfway out of his chair, Percy smiled at the joke. ‘I can still give you young ’uns a run for your money.’

  ‘Let’s have a trot round the room, then,’ Lance said. ‘It might warm all of us up.’

  ‘Leave him alone,’ Alfred said.

  Percy reached for the glass which Lance pushed across. ‘I can take care of myself.’

  ‘Like a cat in a sack in a river,’ Wayne laughed.

  ‘He’s a good old sport,’ Lance said. ‘He should have two pension books at his age. I’d vote for it.’

  Before Alfred got to him, Wayne leapt over a chair and knocked him back along the floor. ‘You were going to hit my mate, weren’t you? That’s naughty. It’s not on.’

  ‘Sit down,’ Jenny said to Lance.

  ‘You young bastards!’ Alfred called. ‘I’ll have you for that.’

  Keith prevented a second hit as Wayne went forward again. ‘Leave him alone. Save it till we’re out of here. If you feel like it then, it’s up to you.’

  Wayne hadn’t done halfway towards enough. If you thought something was enough you were weakening, and you did yourself no good at all. Alfred was used to bossing people around, but if he couldn’t take a friendly bit of chaff about his own father he should stay in his bungalow with his dogs, and make sure the fire extinguishers worked, in case there was a nasty accident one dark night.