Fear to Tread

by Michael Gilbert

  Fighting down the feeling that he was making his way into a club to which he did not belong, Mr. Wetherall steered a course down the centre gangway and got in behind one of the few empty tables.

  He studied the menu which offered “Egg and chips, sausage and chips, bacon and chips, steak and chips. Or mixed, with or without tomato.”

  That seemed fair enough.

  “Eggs, bacon, sausages and chips,” said Mr. Wetherall to the girl. “No tomato.”

  “And coffee.”

  “Yes – and coffee.”

  “And bread and butter.”

  “All right. And bread and butter.”

  The girl disappeared and Mr. Wetherall took a quick look round the crowded room.

  The proprietor was a fat man, with jowls like a bull-dog, small bloodshot eyes, and a thin fringe of grey hair which lay like a moat round an island of mottled flesh. The customers called him Pop.

  He was serving one section of tables himself, as well as handling the cash register. There was a second girl who operated the tea and coffee urns and served another section of tables. The girl who had taken his order seemed to be just a waitress. The three of them were running the place on their own, though there were no doubt slaves behind the service door slicing countless hundredweights of potatoes, and frying numberless eggs and sausages and rashers of bacon in unfathomable seas of fat.

  It was clearly not a place for people without a talent for hard work.

  When the food arrived it was excellent. Mr. Wetherall added a name to the mental list which all Londoners carry of good and unexpected eating places. The rashers were real thick, pre-war ones with an even division of fat and lean. The butter was real butter.

  At that moment Bill Fisher arrived. It took him a little time to reach the table, because he seemed to know almost everyone in the room.

  “Well, and how are you, Mr. Wetherall? Nice to see you. You’ve got yours, have you? That’s right. You start away. Pop always does you well here. You oughter try his steaks—”

  “Steaks?” said Mr. Wetherall faintly.

  “Steaks it is. And not gee-gee neither. Ah – there’s the girl. And how are things tonight Miss Russell?”

  “The name, Mr. Fisher, is Bessie.”

  “Well, there now. And I thought it might be Jane. You know, Bessie, with a figure like yours you oughter be on the stage.”

  “It’s only the linoleum that keeps me from the boards, Mr. Fisher.”

  “Smart too,” said Mr. Fisher. “Better than Bob Hope. Makes up her own gags. I’ll have the same as this gentleman, Bessie.”

  “It’s a popular place,” ventured Mr. Wetherall.

  “The Railwayman’s Arms, you might call it. Or the Van Drivers’ Home from Home. It’s handy, see. And Pop used to be on the railway. In the old London, Brighton and South Coast. He used to walk in front of the engine with a red flag, didn’t you, Pop?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Fisher. I used to clear the cows off the line. Always glad to see a friend of yours—”

  The last part of the sentence seemed to have a question mark at the end of it.

  “More than a friend,” said Fisher. “This is my old schoolmaster. Many’s the time he’s tanned the hide off me, Pop.”

  “I expect you earned it.”

  “Of course I earned it. I was the worst boy in the school.”

  “Well, any time you pass, Mr. Wetherall, just drop in. I can give you as good to eat here as anywhere up West.”

  “Thank you very much,” said Mr. Wetherall. “I’m sure you can.” If he spoke a little absently – and if he also failed to hear some of the early part of Fisher’s conversation – it may have been because he was trying to work out how Pop had suddenly become aware of his name.

  “—just a paster,” said Fisher.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”

  “He was a label-sticker. Worked in the Forwarding Office.”

  “Who did?”

  “Old Crowdy,” said Fisher patiently. “The chap you were asking about.”

  “And that was at Crossways?”

  “That’s right. All the stuff that comes in goes through the Forwarding Office. The clerks mark it up – Special Delivery, C.O.D., Carriage Forward – whatever it might be. Pasters we call ‘em.”

  “I see,” said Mr. Wetherall. He explained, with some suppressions, the details of Crowdys’ case.

  “Seems a bit of a waste to me,” said Fisher. “If the boy’s got talent, like you said.”

  “He’s over fifteen,” said Mr. Wetherall. “I can’t stop him if he wants to go – or rather, if his father wants to take him.””Dispatch clerk isn’t much of a job. Mind you, it’s cushy. He won’t come to any harm. But he won’t get fat on it, neither. If he’s got a good headpiece he wants to get on to the administrative side. “Like,” Fisher added without any shrinking modesty, “me.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Wetherall. “I was afraid it might be rather a dead end.”

  “Can’t you talk to his old man?”

  “I tried that,” said Mr. Wetherall. He told Fisher something about that.

  “Well, that’s a rum go, if you like,” said Fisher. “Old Harry Crowdy fly off the handle. I’d never have thought it of him. With another chap I’d suggest he might have been tight, but drink don’t take Harry Crowdy that way – it mellows him. That’s the way it is with some people—”

  “Look here,” said Mr. Wetherall – he didn’t mean to say it abruptly, it was just that the thought had come into his mind rather suddenly, “Is there really such a lot of stealing on the railways?”

  Fisher didn’t answer that immediately. When he did there was a noticeable shade or reserve in his voice.

  “There’s quite a bit,” he said.

  Mr. Wetherall realised that some explanation was due. “It’s not just curiosity,” he said. “I lost a food parcel myself last week.”

  “You’re sure it was sent?”

  “That’s what everybody says,” said Mr. Wetherall. “That’s what the police wanted to know. Yes. I am sure. But I couldn’t prove it.”

  “You’ve been to the police, then.”

  “I reported it. They weren’t very enthusiastic.”

  “They wouldn’t be,” said Fisher. He laughed, but he didn’t sound amused. “It’s tricky. If they put a foot wrong on a thing like that they get up against the Union.”

  “Oh,” said Mr. Wetherall. It was a new factor.

  “There’s a lot of pilfering everywhere. Docks, road transport, warehouses. I don’t suppose the railwaymen are worse than anyone else. It’s just that they got special opportunities. A lot of the stuff they handle’s scarce stuff. There’s a market for it, see. And it isn’t like putting it in a warehouse. If it goes from a warehouse you know who’s responsible. On the railway it goes through a lot of hands.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Wetherall. “There are bound to be losses. I can see that. But is it just a lot of casual pilfering, or is it organised?”

  “Sauce,” said a voice.

  A tall man had drifted up, as silently as a snowcloud. Mr. Wetherall got a fleeting impression of a scrubbed red face, close cropped hair, light blue eyes, and a pair of large red hands. One of these hands came over Mr. Wetherall’s shoulder and picked up the sauce bottle from the middle of the table.

  For just a moment longer than was absolutely necessary the newcomer remained there, leaning on the table; he looked at Fisher, who opened his mouth to say something then shut it again.

  Then the man was gone, as suddenly as he had come, threading his way back to a table at the door.

  “Why should he bother to come all the way over here?” said Mr. Wetherall. “There’s plenty of sauce on the other tables.”

  “Oh, he’s a character,” said Fisher shortly. “Guardsman, they call him. Believe he was in the Guards once.” As he spoke, and with great rapidity, he was pushing the last few chips into his mouth. Now he swallowed the remains of his coffee, stood up, said: �
��I’ll settle with Pop next time. I’ve got to run now—” and he was gone.

  Mr. Wetherall sat still. He suddenly felt very much alone.

  Panic is a curious thing. Like the tide advancing over a salt- marsh, it comes by strange channels. One moment it is not there. The next and it is everywhere.

  Suddenly everyone in the room seemed to be talking louder than was necessary. One group at the door, where the Guardsman sat, with his arm half round the man next to him, was particularly noisy.

  Mr. Wetherall looked round. It seemed to him that people were avoiding his eye.

  He forced himself to sit back in his chair and to breathe slowly. It was like being at the top of a precipice. If you sat quite still, after a time confidence returned.

  The girl was serving the table next to him. He called her, and found he had to call twice, because his mouth was dry. She came quite readily.

  “How much?”

  “Egg, bacon, sausages, chips, coffee, bread and butter. That’s four shillings.”

  Mr. Wetherall had two half crowns ready in his pocket and he slipped them to the girl. “Keep the change,” he said, “and tell me is there anywhere here I can telephone?”

  “Through that door.” She pointed to a door in the corner, beyond the service door.

  When the girl had gone Mr. Wetherall picked up his half-empty cup and sipped at the cold coffee. “I shall count to ten,” he said to himself.

  Then he put the cup down, got quickly to his feet, and walked to the door. Beyond it was a passage, dimly lighted. He went along it. At the end the passage turned. To the right were some stairs, going down. On the left was a door clearly an outside door. Mr. Wetherall put his hand to the handle and uttered a prayer, which was answered. The door was not locked. It led out into the car park.

  As he went through it and closed it behind him, he thought he heard footsteps coming along the passage he had just left.

  There was no light at all in the car park. He could make out the shapes of lorries all about him, and he felt his way past the tailboards of two of them, and then along between the side of a third one and the wall. He felt safe in the dark. He stood whilst his breathing steadied, and he wondered if he had been behaving like a fool.

  There was a long, spreading fan of light. Someone had opened the door. Then footsteps on the gravel. It was two men. They came straight out, walked to the front of the lorries and stopped a few paces away from where Mr. Wetherall was standing, squeezed between the outside lorry and the wall.

  “As long as they aren’t going to move this one—” he thought.

  The nearer man was Pop. He recognised his voice, without being able to hear what he said. Then, as the other man moved, his nose picked up a well-known scent. It was Parma Violet. That could mean Prince. Mr. Wetherall hardly felt surprised. If Pop was engaged in buying blackmarket food there was nothing extraordinary in Prince being one of the people selling it to him.

  They were using a torch inside the cab of the next lorry but one. The murmur of voices went on. Then the cab door slammed. Pop said: “Where are you for? The Aldershot Ladies?” And Prince’s voice, quite amiable, saying: “Mind your own bloody business, Pop.” Headlights flicked on, the engine started, the lorry moved forward, swung right, right again and was gone. Pop walked slowly back and slammed the door behind him.

  Mr. Weatherall wasted no more time. A minute later he was in the High Street, walking fast.

  It was nearly eight o’clock. The shops were shut – except for the greengrocers which seemed to observe laws of their own. But there was still plenty of life. The last-house queue was moving into the cinema. The pubs were cheerful splashes of light.

  On impulse Mr. Wetherall stopped at the first pub he came to and went in. It was small, snug and almost empty, and there was a coal fire. He bought himself a brandy and drank it. It tasted all right. He ordered another and took this one to the fire and sat down.

  He had things to think about. If he went home, his wife would talk to him and that would stop him thinking about them. He could not, by any stretch of imagination, talk to her about it. He had discovered that early on in his married life. Although he was very genuinely in love with her, he could not talk to her about things that mattered. Perhaps all married people were like that.

  The figures of Prince and the Guardsman belonged to another place. A separate place. A place which must be kept separate. It was a world in which Pop and Bill Fisher and Sergeant Donovan moved easily. It was their jungle. It had no connection at all with Brinkman Road and the water rate and the butcher’s bill. It must have no connection.

  How on earth had he himself got involved in it. It had started with a food parcel. How absurd to take so much trouble over a food parcel, which might contain anything from dried apricots to blackcurrant syrup.

  Prince, who had come in softly and seated himself at the table, opposite to Mr. Wetherall, nodded his agreement. “Look for yourself,” he said.

  There was the food parcel, open on the table. Mr. Wetherall looked into it. He found himself able to do this without changing his position, merely by elongating his neck. It was an odd sensation. The contents of the parcel were disappointing. Bottles and bottles of blackcurrant syrup.

  A hand fell on his shoulder, and he found himself being shaken roughly.

  “—go an’ fall into the fire,” said a voice.

  “Grmph!” said Mr. Wetherall.

  “Never have let him have that second brandy if I’d known,” said the barmaid. “Respectable-looking party, too.”

  “What do you mean?” said Mr. Wetherall. “Just fell asleep.”

  “You can’t fall asleep in here.”

  “Allow me to explain.”

  “Fresh air’s what you want.”

  Mr. Wetherall found himself in the High Street. He was no longer depressed. His little nap must have done him good. He felt fit and wide awake.

  He decided he would call on the Crowdys.

  By the time he reached the area of the Bricklayers Arms, a little of the warmth of the fire and the brandy was out of him. Nevertheless he persevered. He climbed the steps. The front door was shut this time, but there was a light showing through the fanlight. He knocked. Almost at once, footsteps approached and the door swung open and Mr. Crowdy, in shirt sleeves and slippers, stood blinking out into the night.

  “Oh, it’s Wetherall.”

  No sooner had he spoken than Mr. Wetherall realised two things. The first was that Mr. Crowdy was very drunk. The second was that Bill Fisher had been perfectly correct. Mr. Crowdy was a man whom drink mellowed.

  “Come in, Wetherall. I was hoping you’d call back. Come right in.”

  “I can’t stay—”

  “I was a bit short last time. Come right in here and siddown. A bit put out. I’d like to say I was sorry.”

  “Oh, that’s quite all right,” said Mr. Wetherall. “Well, only just a drop.” He was not a very experienced drinker but be realised that rum and brandy were unlikely to go well together.

  “I was upset. Trouble at work. Plenty of trouble about these days. Don’t have to go out and look for it.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.”

  “Let me tell you something. Take one step off the middle of the road and you’re up to your neck in the muck.”

  Not being quite sure what this new departure was about Mr. Wetherall contented himself with a sympathetic grunt.

  “The truest saying ever spoken. What a tangled web we weave.”

  “When first we practise to deceive,” concluded Mr. Wetherall, with a feeling that he was taking part in some round game.

  “That’s right. Practise to deceive. That’s it.”

  Mr. Crowdy’s great red face was glowing under the conflicting pressures of drink, self-pity and an overmastering desire to confide in somebody. Indeed, there is no telling what he might not have said if Mr. Wetherall had not unfortunately changed the subject by asking:

  “Where’s Peter?”

 
“In bed,” said Mr. Crowdy. “Where-else-woody-be-this- timer-night?”

  “I really meant, why isn’t he coming to school?”

  “Got chicken-pox.”

  “But hasn’t he been going to work with you at the station?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But how can he go to work if he’s got chicken-pox?”

  “It’s not the infectious sort.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Wetherall, doubtfully. “If it isn’t the infectious sort why doesn’t he come to school?”

  “Can’t come to school with chicken-pox. ‘Gainst the law.”

  It occurred to Mr. Wetherall that he was not making much progress. He also recognised, with the inner clarity of a man who doesn’t drink very much that although he was sober, at the moment one more glass of rum was going to finish him.

  He got up, shook hands with Mr. Crowdy and, without being conscious of any precise interval of time, found himself in the street looking up at a policeman.

  “Nice night, officer,” he said affably.

  “Lovely, sir,” said the policeman. “Were you going anywhere?”

  “Going to catch a bus. Have you ever considered, officer, what a prolific word ‘catch’ is?? Catch a bus – catch a mouse – catch a crab”

  “Perhaps I’d better come with you,” said the policeman.

  “Delighted,” said Mr. Wetherall. What a pleasant man! As they walked Mr. Wetherall told him a number of interesting and little known facts about Wellington’s campaigns in the Peninsula. On the bus he went to sleep. The conductor, who knew him by sight, woke him at the right stop.

  When he reached the house he found his wife waiting on the stairs. As soon as she saw him she burst into tears.

  “Now then, Alice,” said Mr. Wetherall sternly. “What’s all this about?”

  “I was so worried.”

  “I’m often late on Wednesday. And you know I was getting my meal out—”

  “It was the man—”

  “What man?”

  “A man telephoned, about an hour ago. He said he hoped you were all right.”

  “What sort of man?”

  “He hadn’t got a very nice voice,” said Mrs. Wetherall. “I asked him who he was and why should he think you weren’t all right. He just laughed.”