by Sam Lock
‘Come here,’ my father said, stretching out to take hold of me and to draw me close to him. ‘Stealing is wrong!’ he said, with a sudden flash of anger, at the same time slapping me hard upon one of my thighs. ‘Now – do you understand that, or not?’
I could feel the sharp tingle of his slap, and, in spite of being so young, can remember thinking to myself that it was probably going to hurt more in a while, once the initial shock of it had worn off.
‘Do you understand?’ he repeated, hitting me a second time. ‘And tell me – will you? – now, what you have done with the sweets.’
Again I refused to answer.
‘Undo your trousers,’ my father then said. ‘Unbutton them.’
This was the first time that my father had humiliated me in this way, and I recall how deeply shocked I was by it. But I was so in fear of him that I felt I had no choice but to obey, and I recall what a deep sense of shame I then experienced as I responded to his command.
‘Now – push your trousers down,’ he said – at which point I seemed to panic, because I recall that I let out a sharp scream: one of protest, I suppose, or simply one of defiance.
‘Stop that, will you!’ my father shouted at me. ‘If you do things that are wrong, then you must be punished. It is time you learned that.’
I recall that I turned to glare at him, my eyes already wet with tears.
‘Well, this will teach you,’ he said, pushing me savagely across his knee and striking me upon the buttocks.
Again I screamed, and then sprang free of him, pulling my trousers up as I did so and racing into a corner of the room; from where I glared at him a second time.
‘Do not look at me like that, Edwin,’ he said. ‘Just tell me what you have done with the sweets.’
‘They’re in a drawer,’ I announced sullenly, tears now rolling down my cheeks, ‘in my room; beneath some handkerchiefs.’
‘Which drawer?’ he answered sharply.
‘One of the top ones: one of the small ones.’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Go and fetch them; and bring them here – to me.’
Again I glared at him, unable to believe that he was treating me in this way. But I then saw that I had to give in: saw that there was no concern, no kindness, in his eyes, and, because of it, ran obediently out of the room.
Why did my father treat me in that way, I wonder? Why was he so severe – so immediately judgmental? Knowing what I know about him now, was it because of his own unstable character, perhaps? Because beneath that veneer of orderliness and respectability there existed a wildness of spirit that couldn’t easily be tamed? Obviously, it has to be something like that, for if he didn’t rob people – didn’t steal from them, in the way that I occasionally do myself – he certainly lived beyond his means. And also, it seems, to some extent on his wits, in that he had no regular job or form of steady work – no stable means of livelihood.
Whatever, I know that the pain he caused me runs deep, that his bouts of savagery, combined with the general coldness of his behaviour, is not something I care to dwell upon, even now. There must have been reasons for it, of course, but they aren’t ones I can possibly guess at, since they probably lie in his early childhood; but I can’t help thinking that, certainly in this respect, my upbringing could hardly be called a very normal one – if there is such a thing. To have had parents so set at a distance from each other, and to have had a father with such a suppressed but fiery temperament, does at least explain something about myself, and helps, I hope, to define a little of who I am.
IX
It’s Sunday again, and at lunch today Thelma surprised Len and myself by saying that she had grown tired of the part-time job she has as a secretary at a school, and wanted to work full-time. Then she went on to say that what she would most like to do was to manage a restaurant.
I could see that Len was taken aback by Thelma’s announcement.
‘What restaurant?’ he asked, a little sharply, I thought.
‘Oh, a restaurant,’ said Thelma, ‘any restaurant. I’ve been looking at advertisements in the papers, and there are always jobs like that on offer.’
‘But you’ve never wanted to come and work with me, have you? It would have helped at times, you know. So what’s this all about? What’s put this idea into your head?’
‘Well, I thought I’d be good at it,’ Thelma answered, with a quick toss of her head. ‘Don’t you think so, Eddie?’ she said to me. ‘Don’t you think I’d be good at it?’
I didn’t know quite how to reply to this; partly because I could see that Len wasn’t pleased, and I didn’t want to take sides. So I said only that I thought she might, as she is someone who likes people and who gets on with them.
‘Well, there,’ said Thelma, ‘that’s enough of a reason, isn’t it? And I’ve never wanted to work at Battersea because you’re there, Len – that’s why. It’s not always successful, you know, when couples work together.’
Len looked at her, trying to judge, I thought, whether she might be trying to get at him in order to draw him out; which she is inclined to do at times; but then quickly realised that it wasn’t the case: that this was something she’d thought about, had made up her mind about and genuinely wanted to follow.
‘There’s nothing to keep me here, Len, is there?’ she said. ‘We’ve no children – no family. You’re away a lot and come home late; and I’m bored – that’s the main thing. And I don’t think that is healthy, you know … On top of which,’ she went on, ‘I don’t have Eddie’s company so much these days, now that there’s Mark … Do I, pet?’ she said to me, with a smile that I was very glad of, since it was the first time that she had shown any sign of having accepted my new relationship.
‘Well, we’ll have to talk about it,’ said Len. ‘If it’s something you really want to do, we’ll talk about it – go towards it. But it is hard work, you know; and you do have trouble at times from some of the customers.’
‘Oh, I’ll soon sort them out,’ said Thelma, with a laugh and a quick swing of her hips. ‘Now, which of you is going to make the coffee; because I’m not. Will you make it, Eddie dear? It’s so good when you do. Len never makes it strong enough.’
Len looked at her suspiciously, wondering, no doubt, if her tease was going to develop into a more extensive one; but it didn’t. ‘You don’t – do you, darling?’ she added, with a warm, generous laugh; and going across to him, she gave him a quick affectionate kiss. ‘And I make the worst bloody coffee of all three of us, so it’s no use my doing it, is it?’
‘I’ll make it,’ I said, getting up from the table. ‘I’ll make it, Thelma.’ And I left to go into the kitchen, picturing as I went how Thelma might look in charge of a restaurant, employing the sway of her personal charm, which was quite considerable; and being pleased to hear Len say to her, once I had gone, that the last thing he wanted was for her to be bored; that it was no good for either of them; but he spoke, I thought, with a touch of sadness in his voice; perhaps because he sensed that what Thelma really wanted was a family to look after, which was something she’d never had. Anyway, whether Thelma will ever achieve her aim remains to be seen. She might, because she does have a way of getting things done at times. On the other hand, she might not, because she is so often full of plans that do not come off, such as that she and Len should go on a cruise, or on holiday in Jamaica; but they usually end up doing neither, and the only type of break they seem to get is just a few days on the south coast – in Hastings, perhaps, or Brighton.
What a gap there has been since I last wrote in this book. Summer seems not only to have come but to have almost gone as well. For here we are, already close to the end of August, with the nights beginning to lengthen and the evenings at times a little cold. How very varied our climate is, for there can still be an Indian Summer, when, in September or October, the sunshine suddenly returns and the days are hot and golden. Right now, though, it’s definitely a little on the chilly side, and you have to think about wh
at to wear when you go out. Or certainly Mark and I experienced that last week when we went off for a few days – neither of us having had a summer holiday – and slept and lazed in a small guest-house close to the sea – near Aldeburgh, in Suffolk.
‘Don’t you wish we had money?’ Mark asked one night after supper, as we lay on our beds with the window a little open; and with a sweet-smelling breeze passing through it into the room.
‘Money?’ I asked.
‘Yes. So that we wouldn’t have to put up with places like this, that have no bar? Wouldn’t you like it if we could stay at some posh hotel in Venice, perhaps, or Rome?’
‘Not really, Mark. I don’t think I’m cut out for places like that. I don’t think I could cope with them.’
‘Of course you could,’ he replied. ‘Of course you could, Eddie. You deserve something better than this: better than one boiled egg for breakfast.’
‘The breakfasts are quite good,’ I answered. ‘There’s nothing wrong with them. And I quite like the owners – don’t you? They seem decent enough.’
‘I suppose so,’ Mark answered, with a grunt. ‘Come on, then – let’s go for our walk. We’ll see if there’s a pub open somewhere, and have a beer.’
I’ve written this partly to get back into this notebook; which I find can act for me as a kind of lifeline, in that it helps to put order into things; and also to remind myself that I have now known Mark for quite some time – for several months – and that for me to have maintained such a close relationship for that length of time must count as quite an achievement. It’s been mainly due to Mark’s persistence, I have to admit, more than it has been to mine; due to his having had enough patience to put up with me and with my various faults and weaknesses. I have kept thinking that it will end – that I’ll fail him in some way: perhaps by suffering some awful bout of introversion; or that I’ll suddenly give in to my compulsion to steal and perhaps will finally be caught – and, well, punished, which is how I think of it, since that pattern is so ingrained in me. Yet the miracle has been that it hasn’t happened and that we’ve managed to stick together, and have even drawn closer to each other as the days and weeks have gone by.
Perhaps it is the effect of this that has provoked an unusual confrontation of sorts: one that occurred only last night – after we had got back from our Suffolk holiday, and Mark had gone home to his flat and I had been about to go to bed. Perhaps the growing confidence I feel, due to the stability of our friendship, and also (I cannot discount this) to my having confronted my past such a lot during this last year (both outwardly and inwardly), provoked me into an action that I had not thought to take before; one that I took instinctively, without thought or premeditation of any kind – which was to go into my lumber room, as I call it, where the major part of my ‘collection’ is stored, switch on the light (which happens to be just one naked light-bulb that dangles from the ceiling), then lock myself in. Which seems a strange thing for me to have done, considering that I was alone and that it was late at night, and that there was no danger of anyone calling.
Why am I doing this? I remember asking myself, as I stared about the room, and at its stacks of shoe-boxes and old suitcases and the like, in which my trophies are neatly stored. I am doing something I have not really done before or ever felt a real need to do. It is true that I do keep the room locked; and it is true as well that Mark, and Thelma too, for that matter, have asked me several times what I keep in there; to which I have answered ‘Oh, junk, mostly’, or something like that.
‘How big a room is it?’ Mark asked me one day, to which I replied ‘Smallish’, which was rather vague. ‘Big enough to be a bedroom?’ he asked. ‘Oh, no,’ I said; which in fact was a lie, since the room would certainly take a single bed – perhaps even a narrow double one.
‘You can see it if you want to, Mark.’ I had then risked saying; to which he had answered, ‘Oh, I believe you, Eddie. I just thought how useful it would be if you had an extra room, and if we didn’t have to sleep in here’ – meaning in the living room – which fortunately ended our conversation.
However, there I was – alone; locked in with all my things – with all my secrets, as I suppose one might speak of them, since only I know of their existence, and of how, over so many years, they have been added to one by one. What on earth would someone else make of them? I thought, as I opened one of the shoe-boxes and looked at a neat collection of wallets, each with a small label – or card, rather – pushed into it, upon which was written a date, a place and a time. For if I have destroyed all evidence of their owners – such as their addresses and so forth, or, occasionally, a photograph – I have felt it necessary to keep a reminder of exactly where and when each of the objects was stolen. And this applies to everything – not just to the purses and wallets, but also to the books, the watches, and even the occasional article of clothing, which is not something I steal very often. Each of them bears one of these cards, either stuck or pinned on to them; or, in the case of the wallets, just slipped into them.
How on earth did I manage to do it? I found myself asking. And why? Why have I needed to behave in this eccentric, indeed criminal, way? My father was right, I thought. What I have done is wrong. Stealing really is a crime. And yet – well, it seems to be something that I have had to do; that my mind has compelled me to do; and against which, it would appear, I have had no means of defence.
I’ve kept thinking this morning about something that a character says in one of Ivy Compton-Burnett’s novels, which is that she (the character is a woman who has stolen something either to help or please her husband) doesn’t think that all crime is noble, much as she can forgive herself for what she has done. To which she adds, ‘I am not a modern person.’
Well, unlike Dame Ivy’s character, I am not sure that I can really forgive myself for having done what I have done; but I don’t think that all crime is noble, either – or, indeed, that any form of it is: which makes me not a ‘modern’ person also, I suppose. Yet, if I am to be honest, I cannot truly say that I feel remorse. I did what I did. I do what I do – and for years I did it regularly. And there before me, in that room last night, I confronted – I came face to face with – the substance of all my ‘crimes’; all neatly stored in their suitcases and their boxes; all recorded by the small notices that are attached to them. And there, for the moment at least, they will remain.
Will I ever find the strength, the power of will, to dispose of them, I wonder? Will I ever arrive at the point when I can invent some means, some method of interring them, and so of disposing of the evidence of my wrongdoing? Somehow, I doubt it. Even if the improvements that have been taking place of late continue. Even if Mark’s good company and good influence, and his splendid generosity of spirit, help to dispel this obsessive compulsion from which I have always suffered, something tells me that I shall still have to keep – shall still have to guard – my secret hoard of mementoes; that in some peculiar way they act for me as a kind of anchor; as a kind of stabiliser for my life: that, odd though it may seem, the substantiality of their evidence is important to me; that it acts as a kind of repository in my mind, in which such a lot of me is contained and stored away; and that, curious though it may seem, it serves to support and sustain my identity.
Seventeen years ago (why I am now going back again in time I really don’t know) when I was living in Battersea, in Rufus’s flat, and working in Len’s restaurant, I came home late one night to find Charlie stretched out, asleep, I thought, in one of the old armchairs in the living room, with two of Rufus’s dogs curled up at his feet and one of the smaller ones on his lap. And because the night air was cold and one of the french windows was open, I crossed the room to close it.
‘That you, Eddie?’ Charlie muttered, obviously having heard me come in.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ve just got back.’
‘Ah,’ he answered, as if he hadn’t quite registered my words.
‘I’ve closed the window, Charlie. It’s cold.’
‘You’ve what?’
‘I’ve closed the window.’
‘Ah … Lock it, then. The key’s on a nail,’ Charlie muttered, ‘to the right of the window. Lock it, will you? There’s a good lad.’
I found the key and used it.
‘Isn’t Rufus here?’ I asked.
‘No,’ said Charlie, ‘he bloody well isn’t. Go to bed, Eddie. You need your sleep.’
‘Well, aren’t you going to bed, Charlie?’ I said to him. ‘You can’t be comfortable in that chair.’ And to my surprise, this provoked from him a sudden flash of anger. ‘Do as I bloody well tell you, will you!’ he more or less shouted at me, stirring in his chair and rolling his eyes in what I found a disturbing fashion.
‘What you up to, Eddie – eh?’ he then asked, in a very aggressive tone of voice. ‘Why don’t you mind your own bloody business?’
I thought it best not to reply to this and decided to leave the room quietly; but as I made a move to go, one of the dogs woke up, yawned, and pulled itself to its feet; then it came across to me and began brushing its nose against my ankles.
‘Come here,’ Charlie growled at the dog. ‘Get away from him.’
The dog turned and looked at Charlie, as if to question what he had said.
‘Come here, you bastard,’ Charlie repeated, with a touch of wildness in his voice – which made the dog quickly obey and allowed me to sneak out of the room.
There were few lights on in the flat. None in the passage that led to the bedrooms and just one left on in the kitchen, which drew me towards it, half thinking that I could do with a drink before I turned in, and that I could clean my teeth there as well. But before I had reached the kitchen door, Charlie burst out of the living room into the passage, and began shouting at me again.
‘What you fucking well up to, Eddie – eh?’ he asked.
‘I’m going to get a drink, Charlie, and to clean my teeth.’