by MARY HOCKING
Aunt Myra must have been watching, because she drew in her breath in a sharp, disapproving way. But Mr. Wilson seemed better; his lips quivered and he had to press his fist against them to keep back the laughter. The laughter went on for a long time, embarrassingly uncontrolled in a grown-up. Sarah hated him more than ever. If God had called her, she had certainly not heard, and Aunt Myra was cross and would say something when the service was over. Sarah prayed that her uncle would go on and on and on, but he finished a minute short of the quarter-hour.
The congregation sang the last hymn, knelt for the blessing, stood again as the choir filed out singing, as it did each week:
‘For the beauty of the earth,
For the beauty of the skies,
For the love which from our birth,
Over and around us lies’
The procession reached the vestry. The congregation knelt briefly and then began to file towards the door. As they walked down the nave, Aunt Myra whispered:
‘If you’re not careful your face will stay like that one of these days. You looked like a constipated frog.’
By this time, Uncle Ralph was standing at the door with Spencer hovering behind him.
‘Have you telephoned Percy Nicholls?’ Aunt Myra asked.
‘I’ll do it the minute I get in,’ he promised.
He shook hands with Mrs. Plummer and asked after her father.
‘You’ll be too late. He’ll be playing golf,’ Aunt Myra interposed quickly between the going of Mrs. Plummer and the coming of Mrs. Thomas.
‘No, no. Spencer and I will be through our business very quickly.’
Mrs. Thomas joined Aunt Myra. She was wearing one of the hats that everyone except Sarah thought so smart, an inverted flower pot the colour of a geranium.
‘A beautiful sermon of the vicar’s,’ she said. ‘Not that I understood it. But I suppose it’s good for us. I always say to Bill, at least the vicar makes us work hard every Sunday.’
‘I like your hat, Joan,’ Aunt Myra said. ‘But doesn’t it quarrel with that scarf?’
They had reached the path now. Sarah lingered behind them, making her constipated frog face because she did not like Mrs. Thomas who was loud-voiced and ‘good with children’. She dug her toe into the grass at the side of the path and looked at the gravestones; they were very close together, there would not be much room for Joanna Dove. A shadow moved across the grass. Spencer had come out of the church. Aunt Myra was introducing Mr. Wilson to Mrs. Thomas and Spencer was watching them. He looked Mr. Wilson up and down, an odd, knowing expression on his face as though he had just found a clue in a treasure hunt.
‘He’s been staying the other side of London,’ Aunt Myra was saying.
Spencer turned away and spat.
Chapter Three
I
When Ralph eventually telephoned, Percy Nicholls was out playing golf. So the next morning Wilson was interviewed by Brooker at the Labour Exchange.
‘Six months?’ Brooker said, and waited.
Wilson stared at a small patch of damp on the wall behind Brooker; a thin, sarcastic smile twitched his lips.
‘Well?’ Brooker was impatient. ‘I’ll have to know something about it.’
‘I thought they sent you particulars of all that stuff.’
‘I’ve told you, I can’t trace that we’ve had anything.’ And he wasn’t going to spend the morning searching, his tone implied; there were decent men waiting for jobs. ‘What were you charged with?’
‘Grievous bodily harm.’
Brooker made a note on a piece of paper. Wilson tried to force himself to speak again; his tongue was heavy, the words were hard to form, but he managed to say:
‘It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. He . . . he smashed up a café, and I knew the old fellow that ran it . . .’ Now the words were beginning to slither out all too eagerly; he wanted to stop himself talking but he couldn’t. There was no control; he either blurted it all out or he buttoned up completely. And he must talk, mustn’t he? Otherwise he would never get back.
‘He was an Italian and he had put all his money into the café; he worked damned hard. The Teds hadn’t got anything against him, they just liked breaking things, and it made me so angry because no one ever did anything about it. And I knew this chap was leader of the mob, so I went along to see him. He just laughed, and I thought he ought to be taught a lesson, so . . .’
‘And you got six months for that?’
‘There wasn’t any proof he’d ever been in the café, so . . .’
‘I see.’ Brooker had heard that kind of tale before.
‘The police were very decent about it.’ That made Brooker smile. The sweat broke out on Wilson’s forehead; it made him sick to hear himself, but he went on: ‘They thought I was unfortunate because the magistrate . . .’
‘All right, all right,’ Brooker sighed. ‘You’re a good friend of the police. I’ll take your word for it.’
He studied the piece of paper in front of him. Wilson felt the sweat breaking out all over his body, he was beginning to tremble; he clenched his hands and tried to stop the trembling. Brooker looked at him for a moment as though trying to think what should be done with him. The warders had looked at him like that when they finally got tired of him playing up. He had sweated and shaken then and they had waited a long time watching him; those moments of bodily depravity had hurt him more than the mild roughing-up they had finally given him to teach him to play things their way. All his self-respect had seemed to sweat out of him. If he had been more sure of his legs now, he would have stumbled to the door and run out into the road. Eventually, Brooker said:
‘What can you do?’
‘Anything. I’ll do anything.’
‘What was your previous job?’
‘I was in the navy. When I came out my father paid for me to do a course at the London School of Journalism.’ How difficult it was to regulate conversation! Now he was telling this man his life story. He put a brake on his tongue and said: ‘I could do most kinds of clerical work.’
‘It won’t be easy to get you clerical work.’
Brooker wasn’t even going to try; but there was a fascination about the interview. It gave him a sense of power, in a righteous way. They let these youngsters off too lightly nowadays. Let him sweat a little. In a week or so he would be beating someone else up.
‘What else can you do?’
‘Anything.’ There was a flicker of something nasty that had not been stamped out in the young man’s eyes, and his tone became aggressive. ‘I’ve told you. I’ll do anything. I’ll sweep the roads if that’s all I can get.’
He spoke well, Brooker noted. He had had a bad fright, but before that he had not been accustomed to begging much from other people. A public school? Perhaps not, but a good school. Not senior elementary and then thrust out into the world at thirteen to fend for himself as Brooker had been. There hadn’t been any welfare officers hanging around to help him. He picked up his pencil again.
‘Any technical skills?’
‘Not exactly . . .’
‘Ever driven a lorry?’
‘No, but I can drive . . .’
‘Know anything about costing?’
‘No.’
‘You haven’t much to offer, have you?’
Wilson’s mouth tightened. There was a look in his eyes which the warders had come to know well. He would not co-operate any more, Brooker sighed and eased himself out of his chair; he looked at his watch and sighed again.
‘Wait here.’
Wilson sat crouching forward; when the man had gone he moved his hand uneasily across the pit of his stomach. Once in prison when he had had diarrhoea the warder had refused to let him go to the lavatory: the memory seemed to loosen his bowels. Suppose he should lose control of himself now, in front of this dreadful man? He doubled up, digging his elbows into his sides. After a minute or two he heard footsteps approaching. He managed to force himself to sit upright, but he must have looke
d bad because Brooker glanced at him sharply and said:
‘Like a glass of water?’
The olive branch was thrust aside, a hint of the tiger again.
‘I just want a job.’
Brooker shrugged his shoulders and handed across a piece of paper with the name Joshua Kleine written on it and an address.
‘Go along to Mr. Kleine this morning. He may be able to fix you up.’
Wilson took the paper and went to the door. In too much of a hurry even to say thank you, Brooker thought bitterly; but then discharged prisoners were a privileged class.
Wilson was walking very fast when Myra Kimberley met him in the Uxbridge Road some twenty minutes later, but he was not going in the direction of Joshua Kleine’s timber yard. Myra was standing outside the butcher’s shop, her slim figure enveloped in a rather worn beaver lamb, her pointed nose peeping out inquisitively above a thick woollen scarf. She put out a hand and touched his arm.
‘Now where can you be off to in such a hurry? You look as though you were heading for John o’ Groats.’
She was in a good mood, having just emerged victorious from a battle with the butcher, and her tone was gay. Wilson did not respond.
‘The Labour Exchange was a waste of time. It always is a waste of time for discharged prisoners, you know.’
He sounded surly. Myra, however, did not object to rudeness; it was indifference that she could not tolerate. So she kept her good- humour and said:
‘No, I didn’t know. Come and tell me about it. We’ll have coffee together.’
She tucked her arm through his and was surprised to feel his muscles become tense. He is as prickly as a porcupine, she thought. Aloud, she said:
‘You must try to put all this behind you.’
He muttered ‘Jesus!’ under his breath.
‘What a bloody silly thing to say!’ she acknowledged.
He looked shocked, which rather pleased Myra. Lately she had begun to do and say shocking things, but her husband had not reacted. Sometimes she was rather frightened by her inability to make an impact: it was as though she had ceased to exist.
‘You haven’t been in the Labour Exchange all this time,’ she said as they edged their way through a crowd outside the Home and Colonial Stores.
‘I wandered round a bit. But it’s not much fun. Once you have a record you have to walk fast; if you stop to tie a shoelace the cops pick you up for loitering with intent.’
She darted a shrewd look at him. Misfortune does not necessarily equate with innocence and she wondered how much he was to be trusted. For a moment she felt uneasy: the uneasiness added spice to the encounter. They turned into a side road and walked towards a small café just behind a baker’s shop.
‘The coffee is very good here,’ she said encouragingly as his feet began to drag.
The café was half-full; the customers included several young women with children, two old women sitting alone, three young girls; there were no men. Myra led Wilson to a tab e in a corner by the window. He sat down before she was seated and glanced at her quickly, like a child who has deliberately done something naughty. Life during the last six months had made it necessary to demonstrate his independence in childish ways. Myra unwound her scarf and eased her coat off her shoulders. She did this slowly, partly because her hands were cold and partly because it always gave her a luxurious feeling of release to shed heavy clothes. Wilson watched her. She must have been quite a witch in her time, he decided. He turned his head and looked out of the window.
The waitress came and Myra ordered coffee and rolls and butter. She felt quite exhilarated by this break in her dull morning routine. Her companion was not exhilarated. She studied his averted face in amusement. A serious, intense young man who had probably thought rather well of himself until he stepped across that intangible line that divides the lawful from the unlawful. There was some pride still in the eyes, not much humour about the mouth, and a good deal of obstinacy in the line of the jaw. He would have been a difficult prisoner to handle. She did not dislike him for that. In the circumstances she would have been difficult herself; she was not naturally a law-abiding person.
‘Did they beat you up in prison?’ she asked.
‘I think they would say that they had to discipline me.’
He had become wary; it was almost as though he felt a certain solidarity with his tormentors. How strange he is! she thought.
‘Didn’t you complain?’
‘When I was charged with violence?’
‘That’s not the point. We’re supposed to be too civilized to punish prisoners now. We rehabilitate them.’
She was not in the least interested in penal reform and the worn phrases sounded unconvincing on her lips. He looked out of the window, studying some women who were making a hard bargain, with the owner of a fruit stall.
The door of the cafe opened and Mrs. Thomas came in. Damn the woman! Myra thought, and assumed her most aloof expression. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, Mrs. Thomas strode across to her. Wilson made reluctant motions of rising and Mrs. Thomas pushed him back in his seat.
‘It’s no use trying to propitiate me, young man!’ She laughed at his dismayed expression, and explained to Myra: ‘He walked straight past me just beyond the Labour Exchange and gave me a look that would have shrivelled me up if I had been a more sensitive soul.’
The waitress came with coffee and rolls. Mrs. Thomas looked pointedly at the shopping bag on the third chair. Myra made no movement.
‘Well, I won’t interrupt you.’ Mrs. Thomas, whose weapons were blunt, added: ‘It isn’t every day that middle-aged ladies like us find a young man to take us out to coffee.’
She went to a table towards the back of the café from where she observed the couple without taking trouble to disguise her interest. Wilson was looking out of the window again. Myra, who liked conversation, tried to rouse him.
‘You’re not going to brood over your misfortunes, I hope?’ She poured coffee and passed him a cup. ‘You mustn’t start thinking of yourself as a desperate character. You were very unfortunate. The Prison Welfare Officer told my husband all about it. It might have happened to anyone. . . .’
He watched the women who were still arguing with the owner of the fruit stall. Her voice went on. It was like the blurb of a book, he thought; you read it, and then when you began to read the book you found that the story was about something entirely different. He found her version, as unreal as the version which Brooker had built up for himself. Perhaps, on the whole, he preferred Brooker’s cynicism. He felt very lonely.
‘So if you are sensible,’ Myra concluded, ‘this will be behind you in a year.’
He took a buttered roll.
‘Thank you.’
She smiled, and he saw that she was no more convinced of this than he was himself. The deception lay between them as though they shared a secret. It was rather dark in the café; she seemed to sparkle in the dim light and the small, pointed face looked less worn than when he first met her. He saw her again as a young woman; something of the imp about her, maddening at times, but hard to resist.
‘Tell me about your parents,’ she invited. ‘You were at boarding school, weren’t you? Did your parents live abroad?’
‘My mother died when I was eleven. My father is in the Merchant Navy.’
‘You never thought of making the Merchant Navy a career?’
She could see him as an officer, rather enjoying being in command of other men.
‘I was in the Royal Navy for a few years. But I wanted to be . . . to do something different.’
She waited, but he was making no confidences. He turned his head again.
‘There must be something terribly interesting happening at that fruit stall,’ she teased.
‘I like watching people—at a distance.’
He was trying to withdraw from her because he was disturbed by her probing. She was flattered. How near the surface his nerves were! If she went on pressing him, h
e might break down. The thought brought with it an unpleasant realization of power. A little shocked, she said more briskly:
‘Did the Labour Exchange find anything for you?’
To her surprise this comparatively innocent enquiry seemed to unnerve him completely.
‘Well, yes, they did as a matter of fact.’ He was quite voluble now. ‘But I don’t think I shall follow it up. I’ll just give myself a bit of time to get settled and then I’ll find a job. It won’t be difficult, and it would be silly to rush into anything.’
Heavens! What do I do now? she asked herself. Ralph would know; he managed this sort of thing so well. But Ralph was not here. She counted out change and snapped her handbag shut.
‘Of course you must follow up this job.’
‘I think that is my affair,’ he said without conviction.
‘And where will you be living while you are waiting around for the right job to drop into your lap?’
In spite of her sharpness, she felt very sorry for him; but she knew that the only way she could help was to goad him on, hoping that he had enough strength to last the distance. She paid the bill, ignored Mrs. Thomas’s energetic salutations, and hustled him out on to the pavement. They walked in silence to Joshua Kleine’s timber yard and she stayed in the road as he walked through the gates, feeling like a warder watching a prisoner on his way to the punishment block. He did not look round. When at last he disappeared into the dilapidated hut in which old Kleine conducted his office affairs, Myra turned and began to walk slowly home.
As Wilson crossed the yard he tried to steady himself with the thought that at least it would be over soon. That part of himself that could stand aside and watch events as though they were happening to another person told him that this was the worst moment, the moment they all ran away from. It wasn’t much help; after all, he was one of them.