Choice of Straws

by Braithwaite, E. R. ;

  The swallows nest together,

  Together in the eaves,

  Waiting for the falling

  The falling of the leaves.

  They know the time is coming

  The time when they must flee

  Away to brighter sunshine

  Far, far across the sea.

  At the bottom of the slope a slow glow-worm of a train splashed light on the coarse grass and shallow bushes, then was gone, lazily chased by its own irregular echo. That blonde. The way that gold tooth glittered in the back of her wide, wet mouth.

  ‘Now tell me some more about your mother being sorry.’ I jumped. I hadn’t heard her come into the room. She was wearing those little nylon things like socks without tops, just big enough to cover her toes and heels. Still dressed as when she’d come home, grey skirt and a long-sleeved white shirt with a little round collar like a small boy’s. She came up to where I stood and leaned her back against the window, arms folded across her chest, her face still tight and angry.

  ‘It’s true, like I was telling your mother earlier on. She’s not been really herself since Dave went, and gets worked up about the least thing.’

  ‘Now isn’t that touching? Aren’t you forgetting something? I lost a brother at about the same time and my mother lost a son, her only son, but we don’t use that as an excuse for insulting people.’ The words were clear and deliberate, as if she’d been thinking them over a long time.

  ‘Look, Michelle, I understand how you feel, but I know she’s … ’

  ‘You do? You understand? Really?’ She tilted her head backward and laughed, the light reflecting sharply on those eyes as she looked towards the ceiling as if begging God to bear witness to the load of rubbish I was saying. The laugh wasn’t nice. Just like Sandra that time, stirring up the anger in me.

  ‘What the heck’s so ruddy funny?’ I asked her.

  ‘Not funny, Mr Bennett,’ she replied, ‘not funny at all. Only clever. Very clever of you to understand how I feel. Who’s been telling you? Your mother?’

  The corners of her mouth pulled down, making it look ugly for a moment. I didn’t want to quarrel with her. If she wouldn’t believe me then to hell with it. I didn’t want to hear any more talk about my Mum.

  ‘What I want to know is, why?’ Her voice had changed suddenly, became softer, as if she was talking more to herself than to me. ‘She answered the telephone and I asked if I might speak to you. She said you were not in at the moment, quite friendly, and was there any message? As friendly as ever until I told her who I was. What has she against me? What have I done to her?’ Her whole face was soft and appealing, her lower lip trembling a little.

  ‘Look, I told you … ’

  ‘Don’t tell me, Mr Bennett. I understand. Believe me. I understand. I heard it in your mother’s voice. I know exactly what she meant.’ All I could do was stand there and look at her and want desperately to hold her and say I didn’t give a ruddy damn what Mum or anybody said. Then again her face changed, hardened.

  ‘Did she think I was chasing you? Was that it? A nigger, chasing her blue-eyed son?’

  ‘I’m not blue-eyed.’ I tried to make a little joke.

  ‘I don’t give a damn what colour they are.’ In spite of herself she smiled, then wearily she added, ‘Look, why don’t you go home and set your mother’s fears at rest. Explain to her that the reason I telephoned had nothing to do with you actually.’

  ‘What was it about then?’

  ‘Nothing important. In any case it no longer matters.’

  ‘I’d still like to know.’

  ‘I’m tired,’ she said, and sat down, folding her legs under her. I sat opposite.

  ‘Why did you phone?’ I asked her again.

  ‘If you must know, I told Mummy about the people I met at Ruth’s, and we thought it might be a good idea for me to invite some of them over here as I’ve a birthday coming up soon. I telephoned you to talk to you about getting in touch with them.’

  ‘Okay, I can tell you now.’

  ‘I’ve told you it’s no longer important. Those few kind words from your mother changed my mind for me.’

  ‘Look, you don’t have to worry about my Mum. Who did you think of inviting?’

  ‘Can’t you understand, or am I not making myself clear? I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided not to bother.’ Her voice had become hard once more. Curled up in that chair with her arms still folded and the skirt tight against her, showing her off, smooth and round. What was it that Dave had written in his book? Something about there was never anything wrong with clothes, only the people inside them, put the right person in the right clothes and everything was okay, even rags were okay on a dirty beggar, but a tie looked silly on the man behind the plough. Something like that, but the way he wrote it down it sounded okay. Michelle was fine in her clothes. Or without. She’d look good even in her skin.

  Never forget that time there was this day trip from the works to Henley. By coach. A Saturday it was, and they’d fixed up a cricket match with some other works club up there. Dave and me were in the cricket team so we went, the coach full with lots of the men’s wives and kids. And every now and then the coach would stop, always at a pub. The first stop Dave and me got down with the others and had a shandy. But afterwards we’d walk around to stretch our legs while the rest of them crowded into the pub laughing and singing their heads off, the kids hanging around the doors or peeping in the windows at them. Some places we passed had this notice up about not wanting coach parties, then you should have heard them carry on, calling the pub people sods and stuck-up bastards and some of them with young kids listening. Near Reading I think it was, a couple of the kids were sick, so the coach stopped by the side of some fields while their parents tidied them up and fetched some dust to clean the floor.

  Dave and me walked down the road a bit to get away from the sour sick smell and coming back we could see these women stooping in a line by the hedge easing themselves. Back in the bus they began laughing and scratching themselves saying the driver was a clot for stopping the bus right beside the nettles. This fat woman, the backs of her legs were streaky white with ugly reddish patches from the nettles, and a fine network of blue veins like how a cabbage leaf looks after the worms have eaten off all the green stuff. I saw it and nudged Dave. He took one look and said that what she needed was a whole new skin. Now I was wondering how Michelle’s leg would look. Nice, I’d bet, even with nettle blisters.

  ‘If I really wanted to do something I wouldn’t let anything anybody’s mother said put me off,’ I told her.

  ‘It’s not just what your mother said. After all, she’s not the only bigoted person in the world. I’ve met others. It’s what she implied.’

  ‘Look, can’t we just forget about my Mum?’ I was getting fed up with all the ruddy argument. ‘I told you it’s nothing personal against you, no matter what she said on the phone. It’s just that our Dave was sort of her favourite and she took it hard about his getting killed.’

  She leaned forward, the look on her face as if she hated me, ‘And I suppose she blames my brother and me for what happened, does she?’ her voice rising. ‘Well, you listen to me. Bill was a good driver. A damned good driver. He liked going fast but he could drive and he was always careful. Even my father used to say Bill was good. So I know that whatever happened that night wasn’t his fault.’ Her lips trembled. ‘What he should have done was leave your brother wherever he was and let him either walk home or try somebody else, but Bill couldn’t bear to see anyone stranded on the road. Especially at night. We’d tell him, Mummy and I, but he’d still do it. Well, you see what he got for being kind? And on top of that your mother blames him. Tell me, Mr Bennett, if it had been you or your brother driving, would either of you have stopped to give Bill a lift? Would you?’

  I couldn’t answer that. Not truthfully. The
n a thought came into my head and the words were coming out, ‘Now I would. Since knowing you I would.’

  ‘Isn’t that nice! But Bill didn’t even know your brother. I’m sure of it. He was too decent, too kind. It doesn’t pay to be kind. Not with you people. You’re so damned sure and arrogant inside your white skin that you think you can say and do just as you damned well please. Any stupid half literate fool can be as rude and unpleasant … ’

  That set me off. ‘Look, Michelle, if you mean my Mum, then that’s enough. She’s not stupid nor illiterate. I told you she didn’t mean it on the phone, but if you don’t want to believe me, okay, suit yourself.’

  ‘Don’t shout at me, Mr Bennett.’ Making me feel shut out, like a stranger.

  ‘I’m not shouting, only telling you. All right, so my Mum upset you. Well, I came and apologized, didn’t I? She didn’t send me. So, did you have to say that about my skin? What do I have to do, change it or something? You know what, right now you’re carrying on just like my Mum, only you’re saying white this and white that, but it’s just the same. Would it be okay if I was black? Like that fellow Ron? Would that be okay with you?’

  I stood up. Better to clear off before I said things I’d be sorry for.

  ‘Who on earth is Ron?’ Then you could see her face remembering, and she said ‘Oh!’ looking at me with her mouth open.

  ‘He rang me tonight, trying to find out your phone number,’ I told her.

  ‘Oh, did he? And did you give it to him?’ Smiling through her eyes.

  ‘Why should I? How would he like it if I started asking him for Hilary’s phone number?’

  ‘And who is Hilary? Or shouldn’t I ask?’

  ‘His girl. The blonde with the long hair. You must remember her at the party.’

  The smile died in her eyes. She leaned back in her chair, those big eyes as if they were looking right through me, and in the same voice as when she’d told Mum she was born here, she said, ‘I think we’d better get something quite clear, here and now. I’m not your girl. Understand? Not yours, not anyone’s. I went out with you because you asked me and I wanted to. But, don’t get any ideas about me. I’m not your girl.’

  ‘Because I’m white, isn’t it?’ I was all choked up at the way she was talking to me as if I was a stranger.

  ‘If you want to put it that way you can please yourself. That’s up to you. You’re all alike. You take a girl out once or twice and then behave as if you own her. Well, I’m sorry, but you don’t own me. And I wasn’t thinking about your colour. I didn’t go out with you because of your white skin, so don’t you try to put words into my mouth. But, just the same, if you’d been coloured do you think your mother would have called me a … a Spade bitch.’

  I felt as if all the stuffing had been drained out of me. I wouldn’t have dreamed that Mum even knew words like that. And to say them to Michelle. Why? Then I thought of the way she’d been carrying on these past days. Jesus God. I felt embarrassed, ashamed.

  ‘I’m sorry, Michelle,’ I told her, ‘I didn’t know Mum said that to you.’

  ‘Then why did you come to apologize?’ I could see the tears filling her eyes. ‘Look, why don’t you just go away and leave me alone?’

  ‘So now I suppose you hate me, just because of what Mum said.’

  A tear ran down the side of her nose and into the corner of her mouth. She turned away, looking through the window, her lips trembling so I couldn’t bear to watch. I said cheerio but she didn’t answer. Outside I ran all the way up those steps, making myself go right to the top, cursing my mother all the way, hating her, with my chest near to bursting, wanting to get home, to tell her.

  At the top I sat down to catch my breath, hating her so much I was crying. My own mother saying that. My own bloody mother.

  Chapter

  Twenty

  I WAS RUNNING DOWN the slope to Leigh station, when I bumped into a man. I apologized.

  ‘Jack Bennett, isn’t it?’ he said, and right away I recognized the voice, then him, and for no reason I suddenly felt scared. I said hello. It was Baldy.

  ‘I’d like to have a little chat with you,’ he said. I didn’t wait, kept on to the ticket office. Don’t know why, but the idea came into my head that meeting was no accident, he was following me. He stood aside while I got my ticket, then came along as I headed for the platform.

  ‘How’s everything?’ he wanted to know.

  I said everything was fine.

  ‘Visiting friends around here?’

  From the way he said it I guessed he knew where I’d been, but was up to his usual game, I didn’t answer.

  ‘Friendly with the Spencers?’

  I said that I’d got to know them and dropped in sometimes to say hello if I was in the neighbourhood. He switched to asking how were my Mum and Dad, and the job, and how was the drawing getting on, but I knew he wasn’t really interested in hearing about that.

  ‘She’s very nice,’ he suddenly said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The young one, Miss Spencer.’

  I kept my mouth shut, waiting to hear what was coming next.

  ‘People like her and her mother, when you get to know them, you hardly think of their colour,’ he said.

  Nothing from me. I was wondering if he’d followed me all the way from home, if they were following me wherever I went.

  ‘Pity about the doctor, though,’ his voice trying to be friendly. ‘Hell of a thing to happen to you when you’re trying to do someone a good turn. Was something of a cricketer too, I hear. Pity.’

  Still I said nothing.

  ‘Life’s funny, when you come to think of it. I mean to say, why should it have happened to him, of all the people driving along that road? Why not somebody else? Like Fate, don’t you agree? Makes you wonder. I always say people are like straws in the wind. All of us. Things happen this way or that and there’s not much we can do to change anything. Cigarette?’

  He handed me one sticking out of a pack, then held his lighter for me, his hand huge and strong under the flickering flame. I told myself to take it easy, keep my mouth shut and not let him see I was frightened. He lit his own and blew a long streamer of smoke into the darkness.

  ‘Funny about twins.’ He sounded like he was smiling. ‘They might look alike and all that, but I’ve got the feeling that inside they’re different, like everyone else. One might be nice, easy going, while the other might be a real bugger. To be expected, I suppose. Natural balance if you like. Take you and your brother. From what they say at the works, he was a bit aggressive, wasn’t he? Quick with his tongue, and his fists too.’

  I felt like telling him to shut up about Dave, but decided to keep quiet. The train shouldn’t be long. Perhaps you could get arrested for telling a detective to bugger off and leave you alone.

  ‘Talking about Fate, the night porter at the hospital said Dr Spencer nearly didn’t use his car that night. Had trouble getting it started. Battery low or something. Then just when he’d decided to leave it there and go home by train he gave it one more try and it started. See what I mean? One could say that if he hadn’t made that last attempt to start it, he’d be alive this minute. Quite a thought, eh? The way I see it, if you boys had stayed at home that night at least three more people would be alive in the world today.’

  I heard it. Every word. And nearly choked on the smoke. So he thought he’d catch me on that one, the stupid bastard. He’d have to try again. Let him shoot his mouth off to the breeze. To ruddy hell with him.

  ‘Dr Spencer was merely what you might call a pawn on the chessboard of Fate. Expendable. I mean, if he’d left the hospital a few minutes sooner or later, everything might have been different for him. The other is more understandable. Been happening quite a bit lately. Not only in London, but wherever those Spades live. Birmingham, Nottingham, Bradford. We hear about it, you know. We�
�ve got our ways. If you see how some of them live, not much better than animals, it’s not surprising that some people have it in for them. The way we hear it, they wait until they catch one by himself, usually at night, and give him a bashing. Nothing serious you know, more like letting off steam.’

  His saying the word Spade started me up again, thinking about Mum, seeing how her face must have twisted up when she said that to Michelle.

  ‘So far nobody’s taken much notice. Even the Spades haven’t made much fuss. But this time it’s different. Knocking somebody about with your fists is one thing. But a weapon. That’s a different matter. By the way, which one was the older? Him or you?’

  ‘Me, by three hours,’ I replied, without even thinking.

  ‘Guessed as much. As I was saying, we can’t let people get away with murder, whoever it is gets killed. And those who help us could make it easy for themselves. Meant to call around and see your Dad, but you can tell him for me we had a report from Leman Street. The knife we found at the accident, which you identified as belonging to your brother, could be the same knife which was used to kill the coloured fellow Thomas in Stepney. Fits the wounds. Now they’re testing for blood type. Amazing what those C.I.D. boys can do these days, even though that knife’s been through the fire.’

  I felt cold hearing him talk like that, confident, as if he really knew all about it, but was in no hurry. The cigarette end burned my fingers and I threw it on to the rails. The burst of sparks when it hit the ground was like a tiny firework. The headlights from the train shone some distance along the track. I’d wait until I saw a compartment full of people, then climb in, unless he stopped me. But if he was sure of anything he wouldn’t be talking like that, giving me messages to my Dad. Anyway, with other people in the compartment he’d have to stop talking. I didn’t want to hear any more about it. I didn’t murder anybody. Dave was dead, and I didn’t go out that night.