He offered to buy her an untainted pudding, an offer that she gracefully accepted. It was the least he could do. Then they began to talk.
“I expect,” she said, “that you will be laughing at me soon.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Everything I do seems to be funny. Not funny peculiar. Funny ha ha. People laugh at me for no apparent reason. I’m serious.” She had a direct manner, but it was accompanied by a shy smile that Harry found charming; she had a round face, but it was a pretty one. “My name is Hilda. That makes you laugh, doesn’t it?”
“No.”
“It should do. Hilda is a stupid name. Everyone in Southend is called Hilda.”
“But they can’t all be as pretty as you.”
“Now that does make me laugh. I don’t suppose you’ve ever been there.”
“Where?”
“Southend.”
“I have, actually. I felt the need for fresh air.”
“Did you find any?”
“No. It just smelled of seafood and candy-floss.”
“That’s it. That’s it.”
“Yet I enjoyed it. I liked the gloom.”
“That’s where I come from.” Then she did laugh. Harry thought that it was a delightful laugh, an innocent laugh. “What’s your name and rank?”
“Harry Hanway. First-class.”
“Where are you from, Harry Hanway?”
“If you seek my monument, look around you.”
“A local yokel?”
“That’s me.”
So Harry and Hilda became friends long before they were ever lovers. Hilda worked in the “typing pool” of a City bank, from which she emerged every evening with stories about her colleagues. She seemed to be in a continual state of amusement at the absurdities of the world, and often began her sentences with “You’ll never guess” or “Don’t laugh, but …” Harry did laugh. He began to write a short weekly column in the Bugle, entitled “Don’t Laugh, But …,” in which he retold some of Hilda’s anecdotes.
“I’m a bit of an orphan, actually,” she had told him. “I was found. On a doctor’s doorstep in Tilbury. Where the docks are.”
“Was your father a sailor?”
“I don’t know. That’s the point. Anyway I was called after a nurse in the hospital. That was before I was taken on.”
“Who by?”
“Mum and Dad. Well, honorary Mum and Dad. That’s why I ended up in Southend, you see. They had an ice-cream van on the front by the pier.”
“One of those ones with a chime? A tinkle?”
“ ‘Singing in the Rain.’ Mum used to serve ices like Chocolate Melody and Vanilla Creamsicle.” She laughed. “The van was the colour of strawberries.” She suddenly had a memory of the strawberry van against the blue sea, its melody sometimes drowned by the sound of the waves. “My favourite was Raspberry Wriggle.”
She lived now in a hostel for single young women, with a strict rule against male visitors. Harry could hardly have brought her to his little room in the Stanton household, with the crucifix above the bed. So they existed on the fringes of lovemaking. They met in the park. They retreated to the back rows of the local cinemas. They were passionate but furtive. What others might have found embarrassing, they considered to be amusing. It was part of the comedy of life.
Whenever she saw love stories on the screen, Hilda wept. “I can’t help myself,” she said. “It’s daft, I grant you that, but there it is. But let’s face it. I’m a girl. And Robert Mitchum is so handsome. He looks like you.” Harry remained dry-eyed, and slightly bored, through the films that Hilda enjoyed.
One late afternoon he had spread the pages of the Morning Chronicle over the grass in the neighbourhood park, so that they might be protected from the damp ground. At the beginning of spring they both enjoyed this part of Camden. Harry was just about to roll on his back when he glimpsed an item in the newspaper. It announced a competition, sponsored by the Morning Chronicle itself, for young writers. The challenge was to complete a profile of a neighbourhood personality. “Now this is interesting,” he remarked to Hilda. “This is just the ticket.”
And then he thought of the Blitz boy, the arsonist whom he had forestalled in the church of Our Lady of Sorrows. He was a fine subject for a pen portrait, connecting the carnage and mayhem of 1944 with his own obsession. The arsonist wanted to live in flame. And, in London, there would always be a time when fire broke out.
Mr. Peabody recalled the case very well. Harry himself had wanted to attend the trial, but the man had pleaded guilty to all charges and had thus dispensed with jury and witnesses. He had also confessed to two other offences of arson, connected with a garage and a gentlemen’s lavatory. He had been sentenced to three years and despatched to Wormwood Scrubs, where he would be subject to regular medical reports. Mr. Peabody consulted the registers and uncovered the name of Simon Sim.
Harry applied for permission to interview Sim, and the prison authorities obliged. He then wrote to Sim, introducing himself once again, and to his surprise received a friendly response. So, on an early summer morning, he arrived at Wormwood Scrubs. The name itself was sinister. What could be worse than a wood full of worms? It had been designed to resemble a fortress, with a wooden gateway between two great towers. Harry’s pace slowed, and he approached the entrance with some hesitation. He had the curious sensation that, once he entered, he would never get out again. He went up to the prison officer on duty, and explained his presence. Doors were opened, and gates were unlocked. He was led into “C” wing, and taken to a small room containing nothing more than a table and three chairs. One chair was at each end of the table, and the third was by the door. The air of the prison smelled of wet paint and stale potatoes mingled.
Simon Sim was accompanied by a warder, who sat by the door. “Wonderful to see you again,” Sim said. “I haven’t been well. But I wanted to talk to you. I know that I know you. Isn’t that peculiar?” Harry did not understand what he meant. “This is a fine place to have a fever, actually.” He looked appreciatively at the grey walls and the barred window. “It calms you down. Helps you to think.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“Over the worst. Just the occasional shake or two.” He fixed his stare upon Harry with the same plaintive force as before, when they had struggled in the church. “May I enquire, I mean, why do you want to see me?”
“I wanted to ask you about the Blitz.”
“Oh that’s an enormous subject. Vast.”
“What was it like?”
“What was it like? Golly, that’s a hard question.” His laughter turned into a cough. “This is what it was like. The glass was raining down. It was raining glass. If you looked up, you would have been blinded. But that was not the worst thing.” His voice was curiously melodious. “I’m glad that you caught me. It would just have gone on.”
“How old were you when you began?”
“Eleven. Twelve. A ripe old age. Terrific noise sometimes. We were out one night, after the sirens had sounded, when the bombs came down on the high street. I saw one girl. Her face was smashed where pebbles had lodged in her cheeks. One man was running down the slope of Hannaford Street, making for the shelter, when a falling bomb got him. I saw his head rolling along like a football.” He paused for a moment. “We were as keen as mustard.” Sim then told him of the bombing of a jam factory, where the dead were found covered in marmalade. He told him of a girl whose back was blown off, so that her kidneys were exposed; she had continued talking as she was taken away. There were other stories that he related with a peaceful and sometimes even blissful expression. Harry wrote down all of them. “I told you,” Sim said, “that I knew you. As soon as you wrote to me, I remembered. Your name is Hanway.” Harry nodded. “I knew your parents. I knew your mother. Lovely lady.” Harry looked at him in alarm. “After the War I worked in the grocer’s on Sutcliffe Street. Do you remember it?”
“It’s still there,” Harry said.
“She used to buy bacon for you. Sometimes one of you boys came with her. She was always cheerful. And now you’re here. Isn’t it curious how things come about? But then, dear me, you found me. I never found you. Isn’t it astonishing?”
“I wanted to ask you,” Harry said, hesitantly, “about the fires.” He glanced at the warder who was clenching and unclenching his hands.
“About my fires? Goodness me, I don’t know. I don’t enquire into my reasons. I don’t like to pry, you see.”
“Do you think there is some connection with the Blitz?”
“I wouldn’t speculate on that. It might just be an amazing coincidence. Coincidences do happen. Your mother bought bacon from me. There’s one. And a fine one. Where is she now, by the way? Your mother?”
“She’s dead,” Harry replied.
“Is she? We used to talk about the terrible shortage of matches. And of flypaper, actually. There wasn’t much of it around. And, goodness me, there were plenty of flies.”
So Harry wrote his profile of Simon Sim. He described his fever; he described his calm and melodious voice. He read it out to Hilda on one Sunday afternoon. They had decided to walk along the river at Chelsea. They liked to look into the windows of the houses there, and imagine occupying those large and opulent rooms. “Do you think we ever shall?” she asked him.
“Oh yes. I should hope so.” And then he added, after a pause, “I intend it. And I will do it.”
They sat down on a bench overlooking the Thames, and Harry took the article out of the pocket of his jacket. Hilda listened intently. When he had finished she put her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. Someone was walking past them. When they had finished their embrace, Harry looked up. He seemed to recognise the figure. He was taking long strides, and his head was bowed. It was Sam. Harry was sure of it. He called out to him. But Sam—if indeed it was Sam—quickened his pace. Then he began to run. He did not look back.
Harry was unsettled by the unexpected sighting of his younger brother. He had not visited his father. He had not heard from his father. Now he believed that Sam had avoided him out of anger, or disappointment, at his sudden departure. Still, Harry was of sanguine temperament. He rarely thought of his family. He put the matter out of his mind.
After he had sent the profile of Simon Sim to the Morning Chronicle, he endured some weeks of suspense. He had told no one, at the Bugle, of his intentions. Tony, however, sensed something in the air. “You’re nervous, Harry,” he said, barely restraining a smile. “Anything up?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Just thought I’d ask.” Then Tony noticed that he read the Morning Chronicle every morning with unusual attention. “Are you thinking of leaving us, Harry?” he asked as soon as he saw that George had entered the room.
“Of course not.”
“As long as you’re sure.”
“Well. I am sure. Thank you for asking, Tony.”
Then on a Saturday morning, three weeks later, the Morning Chronicle printed his profile of Simon Sim. Harry had won the competition. He looked at his name in ten-point type. He could not bear to stand in the street, but walked into a café and ordered a cup of tea. He was nervous, and his hand shook as he held the cup. He thought that he had seen his future. He had tasted ambition. He received a letter the following week, asking him to collect the £25 cheque in person at the offices of the Chronicle. This was his opportunity.
He decided that he would not take Hilda with him. She would laugh, or out of nervousness say something absurd. Harry knew that, to attain his goal of acquiring a job as a reporter on the Chronicle, he would need to remain calm and attentive. He would need to convey an air of seriousness and professionalism. Of course they all knew at the Bugle. George Bradwell had shaken his hand, and expressed the wish that he would remain with them. Aldous had looked grave, and nodded. Tony had never mentioned the subject, and avoided Harry’s eye. Maureen had embraced him, and congratulated him, while her two young men stood up and clapped. The new messenger boy, Percy, had pretended to blow a trumpet. “That’s the bugle,” he said, “of the Bugle.” Percy was a cheerful boy.
In the following week Harry took the 48 bus to Fleet Street. He had passed through it before, but he had never stopped here. He had never been here in earnest. Now he was struck by the pace, and the intensity, of this narrow valley between tall buildings. He found the offices of the Morning Chronicle easily enough; they were based in what seemed to be a new building of plate glass and Portland stone. In the lobby there was a constant stream of people coming in or going out. Harry announced himself to a woman standing behind a large desk and was directed to the office of the deputy editor on the fifth floor. Harry could sense the beating of his heart as he entered the lift. He felt faint. He made his way along a corridor. He glimpsed a large room where several middle-aged men were sitting hunched over their typewriters. Telephones were ringing. A small man in a brown suit was standing by the open door, his hands on his hips. “Where,” Harry asked him, “can I find the deputy editor?”
“You have found him.” His glance was very sharp. “And who are you?”
“Hanway, sir. Harry Hanway. I won the competition.”
“Oh did you?” He was very carefully dressed, with a white handkerchief discreetly visible in the upper pocket of his jacket. His tie was tightly knotted, his cuffs crisp. He was short but he seemed to Harry to be plumped up and perky; he looked like a pigeon about to mate. “Well, young man, I have a cheque somewhere about me.” He was scrutinising him very carefully. “Where do you work?”
“At the Camden Bugle.”
“No! And how’s George?”
“Sir?”
“I started on the Bugle! With George.”
So the connection was made. The deputy editor, John Askew, was immediately impressed by this coincidence. What a tight little world, and a tight little city, this was! He asked Harry if he carried a union card. Harry did. George Bradwell had arranged the matter as soon as Harry had joined the staff of the Bugle. “What a chance this is,” Askew said, almost to himself. “It is too good.” He went into his office and telephoned Bradwell. Bradwell was of course reluctant to part with Harry, but he gladly acknowledged his skills as a reporter. He wanted Harry to succeed where he had failed.
“Arranged, arranged,” Askew said as he joined Harry in the corridor. “Just a word with the editor.” He came back, twenty minutes later, singing “Oh I do like to be beside the seaside.” “You are in,” he said, almost casually. “Now where’s that cheque?”
So in the spring of 1965, at the age of eighteen, Harry Hanway became a reporter for the Morning Chronicle.
III
My life begins
“AT REGINA gravi iamdudum saucia cura.” In his small bedroom, Daniel Hanway was reading the opening of the fourth book of the Aeneid to himself. He repeated the words out loud, savouring the rhythm of the Virgilian dactylic hexameter. Dactylic hexameter. He was pleased that he knew the phrase. No one else in the street would know it. He assimilated his school books easily and readily. He was a natural scholar, and translated Latin with such rapidity that his companions looked at him with suspicion.
Daniel preferred to stay in his room, despite the emptiness of the house. He did not enjoy the emptiness, and preferred the clutter of his books and papers. He kept the curtains closed. He did not like the view of the shabby street, in rain or in sunshine. In sunshine it seemed angular and obdurate, unyielding; it smelled of hot dust and dirt. In rain it seemed mournful and desolate, absorbent, encompassing. When he walked down this street, and the other streets of the council estate, he felt contempt and betrayal.
He kept a diary in which he disclosed the feelings he could not otherwise have expressed. “Today I walked five miles. The further away I got from this place the happier I became. I could actually smile. I don’t belong here. Which is a pretty obvious thing to say. But sometimes I feel like screaming it out loud. I don’t want to be a part of Crystal Street or Camden
Town. I hate it when someone comes up to me in the street. I am a prisoner of war, planning for my escape. The people here are so common. None of them have any manners. God, they sicken me with their boring opinions. What’s the point of them? Well, I hope I can rise above it all.”
He had been given by his father, last Christmas, a gramophone. He had bought a long-playing recording of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. He played it loudly and, with both arms outstretched, he would conduct the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. He twirled around; he jumped up and down; he leapt onto the bed, and conducted from there. He had an image of himself surrounded by triumphant sound, yet somehow the sound seemed to issue from him. He was always at the centre. In his fantasies and ambitions he was always striving ever higher. He sensed something within himself that would not let him rest.
So at school he was quick, nervous, eager. He never stayed still. One teacher compared him to a sparrow that darts its glance in every direction. Sparrow became his nickname. He was now spare and lean. At a younger age he had been slightly plump. He used to slap his cheeks to see if he could diminish them. As soon as he entered the grammar school, however, he grew thin with tension and concentration.
He had two especial friends by the time he had reached the sixth form. Richardson was a boy of quiet and humorous cynicism. He could impersonate everyone, and took great delight in doing so. Palmer was strict, methodical and reticent. They were both attracted by Daniel’s wild energy. They never discussed girls. They discussed ideas. “It’s all so Kafka-esque,” Daniel might say. Or “hell is other people, according to Jean-Paul Sartre.” He described the school itself as “Orwellian.”
He had an hysterical laugh. A word would set him off. One day, in a history lesson, the teacher spoke of “some old cobblers” reading Tom Paine’s Rights of Man. Daniel looked at Richardson, and Richardson looked at Daniel. Richardson snorted, and Daniel was obliged to stuff a dirty handkerchief in his mouth.
Three Brothers Page 3