Life Goes On

by Alan Sillitoe

  Streaks of pink cloud crossed the sky, blue on the ground and hazy above. It felt good to be alive, the sort of morning that was kind to a hangover as I strode along with my umbrella towards the bus that would take me to the station. I bought a Times, and a train came within five minutes. Judging by my state of mind, my middle name was Havoc, no matter how many decisions had been made. To know what to do, and come out of chaos with advantage, seemed impossible. Whatever I did would be wrong, so I was bound to do the worst. My mother would say, not without pride, that it was the Irish in me, but I didn’t think so. When your back is to the wall you at least turn round and give it a push in case it magically falls and you are free. All in all, I felt reckless, certainly in no mood for taking the safest option.

  Wearing what I was wearing, I could not go into the maelstrom on anything less than a first class ticket. Bridgitte’s announcement that she had a boyfriend and was leaving me for good, made the knives inside turn even more quickly than when I recalled Moggerhanger’s dirty trick in sending me to Canada with a load of printed matter which, whatever else was stamped on them, contained my death warrant. Whereas he had wanted to wipe me out physically, Bridgitte, from motives of self-preservation which nobody but me could understand better, was out to destroy me in spirit.

  I had always prided myself on never giving in. In leaps of optimism, I was spring-heeled Jack, though today I thought that if I got with alacrity out of the dumps I might land somewhere even worse. People in second class, when I went for a stroll, glanced at me from behind the fortifications of their faces. I looked back from mine. They saw a berk from the first class going through for a walk, and I saw people with expressions put there by too much looking at television, that I had fought to wipe off my own face since birth.

  A few miles of walking would get my confidence back. I strode through the City, by the Bank of England and St Paul’s tube station, over Holborn Viaduct and down Fetter Lane into Fleet Street, and west via the Strand towards St Martin’s Lane. The more I walked the less inclined I was to go into Moggerhanger’s den and get chopped into little cubes of meat. London made me cheerful. So much traffic and so many people continually passed that no threat seemed serious anymore. I had accumulated a few thousand pounds since I started working again for Moggerhanger and what a pity, I mused, that I should disappear into the Thames or prison before I could spend it.

  I went into one of those new-style eating places with plastic sawdust on the floor and plain wooden tables called The Trough, where the menu was chalked on a board and you could get a wedge of quiche, a lettuce leaf, a slab of damp brown bread and a cup of acorn coffee that wouldn’t send a tse-tse fly to sleep, for five pounds. I sat for half an hour while I read The Times and watched people coming and going.

  A girl came in and, instead of sitting at a table, she went behind the counter and through a door. She came back wearing a grainsack apron, as befitted a waitress in such a dump, and I saw by her reflection in the mirror that she was that same Ettie from the café on the Great North Road with whom I’d had a romantic attachment on my way down from Peppercorn Cottage. That’s London, I thought, wondering whether I should do a bunk before she spotted me. There was no time to make a decision. She came up to me, and the flush of recognition disappeared under her blond roots. ‘Michael!’

  ‘I wondered if you’d know me. I was going to get in touch with you at The Palm Oiled Cat or whatever it was called, but whenever I went north you were on the other side of the central reservation, and we always came down a different way. Or I had my employer in the car and wasn’t allowed to stop.’ So much fundamental shifting about had recently happened that no leap of my imagination would take me back to the sort of person I’d pretended to be in order to broach that broom cupboard. ‘I would have looked you up sooner,’ I went on, ‘only I had to go to America for a week. I thought about you all the time I was in New York, though.’

  Her little mouth got straighter and straighter. ‘I hate rotten liars.’

  ‘So do I. The worst liar I ever knew was my father. The next worst liar was my mother. They made life hell.’

  ‘Oh, fuck off.’ She went behind the counter. The trouble with working-class girls, I told myself, is that they always say what they think. I picked up the newspaper and tried to figure out an anagram in the crossword. Ten minutes later she was back. ‘Do you want me to chuck this boiling soup over you, or are you going to stop pestering me and get out?’

  I wasn’t one of her sort, who would respond to such a request by pushing the boiling soup into her lovely, sensual face. I fingered the remaining corner of my mouldy bread and killed a weevil that dropped onto the quiche which I hadn’t had the courage to tackle in case I got bilharzia. ‘I’ll go when I’ve finished my lunch, or whatever you call it.’

  She delivered the soup to the next table and went back to the counter. There was a cashier at one end and – behind the vats of cornmush and gritcakes and wholemeal onion patties and Brussels Sprout paste and melted cheese dips and nut rissoles and codliver oil salad dressing – were two other women, one of whom I fancied very much. She was a mature thirty-five-year-old clandestinely eating a beef sandwich as if she had only taken a job at such a place in order to drive the customers mad, because lengths of meat and fat were hanging from between the bread like living organisms soon to be devoured. She was full-bodied, and had dark ringlety hair, and her high cheekbones were highly flushed as if they’d been too near the fire. Ettie, who was in tears, had presumably complained of my offending presence, as I knew she must if I sat there long enough, so that when the woman had finished her sandwich and poured a cup of strong black coffee out of a hip flask – which being too hot could grow cooler while she was dealing with me – she came swaying beautifully between the tables of satisfied customers, and said: ‘You’d better clear off. You’ve been annoying one of our waitresses.’

  I looked up. ‘I was waiting to have a word with you, as a matter of fact. I’ve been here for luncheon on at least five occasions recently, but it’s only been due to you, not to that foul-mouthed little chit. You’ve been under observation.’

  ‘What the hell are you on about?’

  ‘Your name is Phyllis,’ I said. ‘You are approximately thirty years of age, and one of your parents comes from Ireland. And you’re divorced.’

  My sharp ears had heard her greeting to Ettie on the way in, and I put the rest together from all sorts of clues. I could also have said she had two kids and lived in Camden Town, but didn’t want to overdo it, or spoil the picture.

  ‘How do you know all that?’

  ‘It’d take too long to explain. There’s a new restaurant opened not far from here called Raddisher’s. Used to be The Shin of Beef. You probably know it. I own it. To be honest, what food I’ve ordered here wouldn’t be enough to energise an ant, so I’m thinking of sloping off for a porterhouse platter at the aforementioned place. I might have a barrel of Burgundy to wash it down. Would you care to join me?’

  I saw by her eyes, and the slight turn of her lips, that she’d had quite a bit to put up with in life, but because it had been mostly from blokes like me it was still only blokes like me who could deal with her and hope to get anywhere. The expression around her brown eyes was so subtle and active that her whole life seemed to pass in front of them before her hostility finally went and she said: ‘I’m working till three thirty.’

  ‘I’ll meet you at seven thirty tonight, for dinner.’

  My speedy response pushed her back into the trenches, and her lovely eyes clouded over. ‘What did you do to Ettie?’

  I yawned. ‘I’m afraid it’s what I didn’t do. That’s always my trouble. She worked at a service station, as you know, which wasn’t far from my estate in Cambridgeshire, where I breed racehorses. I couldn’t take her there because of my wife. I know I’m soft-hearted, I must be, because my mother’s Irish, but I don’t like making women unhappy, and I stick to that rule so firmly that unfortunately I occasionally end up hurtin
g someone, or making myself even more unhappy because of it. But if I had taken her home with me the chances were that my wife – and it hurts me to say so, but it’s the truth, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t – well, she would have got Ettie into bed before I could. My wife’s like that. Even our five kids look askance at her now and again when she’s with other women. I’m pretty broad-minded myself, because when she’s got tired of some of these women, I have to comfort them, and then I have my innings, you might say. But I didn’t want to subject Ettie to her baleful influence. I wouldn’t wish that kind of thing on any woman.’

  She wanted to go away, but couldn’t. She was horrified, which was promising. She was fascinated, which was dangerous – for her. But I was tired of it and wanted to end matters.

  Good woman that she was, she wrung her hands together, and looked across at the bar, where Ettie stood as if wanting a news bulletin from the negotiating table. What it was all about I didn’t know, and I craved the certainties of an encounter with Moggerhanger.

  ‘When I took my secretary home to do some work, the result was the same,’ I went on. ‘I hired a male secretary, and took him home, but she had him in bed as well before midnight. I was at my wits’ end, but finally decided that I was the only one who’d be safe when I went into that house, simply because she despised me so much.’

  ‘Don’t listen to him,’ Ettie shouted. ‘He’ll tell you anything. He’s a fucking liar.’ Half the happy eaters looked closer at their gritcake and vintage carrot juice, while the rest stared across at her. She rushed over to me, her little bill pad swinging. ‘He sent his pal up to The Palm Oiled Cat to tell me he wanted to borrow ten pounds because he was down the road with a puncture. He said he would come tomorrow to pay me back, with love and kisses. But he never did. And now look at him, dressed to the fucking nines and denying everything.’

  I pushed the chair over in my haste to stand up. ‘What did you say, you lying little tart? What pal? I don’t have any pal.’

  She turned to Phyllis. ‘You see? I suppose he ponces off a lot of women like that. And I said I was in love with him. I can’t believe it. He said he was in love with me, as well.’

  ‘Men do,’ Phyllis said.

  I don’t suppose I’d ever been much closer to mental agony than I was while standing there. Or I had, but I’d forgotten the other times. ‘What was this chap like? Was he a blind man? Did he have a dog?’

  These questions inflamed her even more. She jeered. ‘You see? He’s trying to get out of it.’

  Phyllis had the most honest face I’d ever seen that still had a trace of human feeling in it, and I wanted to make love to her there and then, but knew I had very little chance. ‘They all do,’ she said. ‘Wild horses wouldn’t drag the truth out of them. It’s enough to break your heart.’

  ‘If any of these knives were sharp enough, I’d cut his’n out.’

  Blessing my luck that I hadn’t met up with her in some Cellar Carvery, I took a ten pound note from my wallet to pay her back. ‘If you can’t tell me who it is, it’s not fair.’

  ‘Fair?’ she said. ‘You use that word? That’s what that panda bastard said. He kept using the word fair. I said I hadn’t got ten pounds, but he said it wasn’t fair of me to hold it back while my boyfriend wanted it to get out of a jam. I borrowed it from the cashbox till I got paid that night. I gave it to him. And after I got my wages and went to put the tenner back in the till the boss saw me and threw me out. I had to hitch-hike to London, and nearly got raped twice on the way.’

  ‘You see what you’ve done?’ Phyllis put an arm around her shoulder when she went back to crying.

  He must have committed the crime on his way north, the night after I’d given him twenty pounds. I had always thought I was rotten, but it didn’t make me feel good to have evidence that some people were worse. ‘Here, take this. I always repay my debts, even if somebody else has done the borrowing. But I never was on the Al with a puncture, and I certainly didn’t send Ronald Delphick to you for a loan.’

  ‘You didn’t?’ Ettie put the note in her pocket.

  ‘No, and I’m sorry, even though it wasn’t my fault. I’ll be responsible for what I do myself, but not for others taking my name in vain. But as a way to kiss and make up, I invite you both out to dinner at Raddisher’s. We’ll eat rare beef and drink red wine, and after dessert I’ll smoke a Monte Cristo cigar to get myself out of the cellar of depression that the inhumanity of man to woman has put me in. Is it a deal?’

  Ettie laughed. So did Phyllis, who said: ‘I don’t think Banning the Bomb would be any good for somebody like you.’

  ‘There’s only one thing: when I next set eyes on Ron Delphick the Panda Poet I’ll thump him. No I won’t. You can’t take the incorrigible to task, a poet least of all. In the meantime I have to get out of this Nutcracker Palace, so I’ll meet you at the Covent Garden tube station at seven thirty.’

  Before either could object I kissed them on the lips and left, allowing at least half the clientele to get back to demolishing nutburgers which to me looked like objects I’d rather not mention.

  A taxi nearly ran me over near Charing Cross, but it wasn’t the driver’s fault. I can never wait for space between the motors before getting over the road, but dodge the London traffic like a pigeon in a kind of roulette which keeps me fit and alert until one day the big wheels will no doubt trundle over me. But after my encounter with Ettie and Phyllis in The Trough I felt able to tackle Blaskin with my usual filial impiousness. I also wanted to put a couple of finishing chapters to the shit-novel, and he reminded me of it as soon as I opened the door:

  ‘How can I live if you don’t get my books in on time?’

  ‘It might help if you wrote one now and again.’ I dropped my bag and coat on the floor. ‘Is there anything to eat? I’ve just been thrown out of a vegetarian restaurant.’

  ‘Who threw you in? By the way, your mother got back this morning. After the postcard arrived to say she was arriving, she knocked at the door. I was in bed with Mrs Drudge, so it wasn’t a very felicitous homecoming, though I should have known she would come without warning, because the card had no stamp on it. My heart sank so low when I saw it I’ll need a bathyscaphe to go down and bring it back. Or a drink. Have another.’

  ‘I’d love one.’

  ‘I at least hoped she’d get back too late for the cocktail party being given this evening to celebrate the publication of my twenty-fifth book. Now I’ll have to take her. You’re welcome too. Maybe it’s not a bad idea to play the family man now and again. I’ll know what I’m talking about when I plunge into a loving and horrific family saga.’

  He opened the fridge for a jar of rollmops, a packet of Californian radishes, an Italian salami and a melon from Israel. German shepherd bread came out of a drawer. ‘Pity Mrs Drudge has gone, otherwise she could slice it for us. I always cut my finger. Be a good chap, Michael.’

  I hacked off a few pieces, then got to work on the shit-novel, to bring some relaxation into my hectic life. I pumped out page after page. The lover of Tinderbox Cottage now had the husband and wife prisoner at Peppercorn Cottage, and he proceeded to tell them his life story – in justification for his bizarre behaviour – which included three murders for which he’d not so far been apprehended, though the worst atrocity was when he’d held a red admiral butterfly captive in a cellar and forced it to listen to similar confessions before pulling its wings off and then setting it free. I got three and a half pages but of that. The tension was mounting because, his shotgun being double-barrelled, no one knew whether or not he was going to make it five murders. I was almost sweating myself. Then the police surrounded the place and there was a siege, in which every nettle and blade of grass was an accessory after the fact.

  At one stage they heard a scuffle and thought he was coming out to give himself up, but it was only a couple of rats fighting over a piece of bread. To keep the shotgun-lover calm, a policeman began to tell his life story through the door, about how
he’d been underprivileged and poor, how he’d studied at home, but mostly at night school, and worked himself up the educational ladder as far as nine O levels and then joined the police force because he wanted that sense of belonging that you only got in the army or with the lads in blue. And he wasn’t disappointed. He’d do the same again, because life was worth living, no matter who you were, though a rise in pay would never be unwelcome, because he’d got a wife and two kids. On the other hand, he also had a Vauxhall Viva and a nice flat in a police block and perhaps (fumbling for his wallet), ‘you’d like to see a photo of my two kids taken at Morecambe last year …?’

  This drivel continued for ten more pages, because the policeman had a lot to say about catching burglars and punching skinheads (with which no reader can disagree) or chasing terrorists when they landed from the Middle East at London Airport.

  I could end the book any time because there were two hundred pages on the table, but I went on and on. One policeman, having pissed into the nearby stream, suggested to his superior officer that they withdraw from the vicinity and send a gunboat. He is commended for his sense of humour, then told to go back to the mobile canteen for an extra mug of tea and a Mars Bar.

  I went into the mind of the man with the shotgun, who told his prisoners about how he believed in God, otherwise he wouldn’t be so ready to kill them, would he? He felt a great loneliness at the middle of himself. He dreamed of falling through it, and woke up screaming. It was a hole he could only fill with a holocaust. God is love, not emptiness.

  ‘Yes, sir, but you ought to put that shotgun down, you know.’ The policeman perspired under the searchlights. His wallet was sopping. The argument about God went on. Everyone was waiting. It was on television. The woman hostage began to have a baby. More arc lights were brought up. A chopper hovered overhead. The Japanese television rights were sold. When a camera lens came through the window the husband and lover joined forces and attacked it with hammers because the fees weren’t high enough. They tied a message to a rat and sent it to their agent waiting up the hill with a lump of cheese. But, unknown to any of them, a third, fourth and fifth camera took a film of their religious and human objections to having the world pry on them at this fraught time. They decided to brook no encroachment on the universal theme of the birth of a New Man but, dear reader, it availed them not – believe you me. Thomas à Becket was killed when a tip-up juggernaut shed its load of words.