The Furnished Room

by Laura Del-Rivo

  I’m Hooked. He was hooked all right, and could not get down from the music any more than a coat can get down from a coat-hook.

  The thin cigarette rolled and lit, he inhaled, and said aloud: ‘Don’t despair. I’ll get some money.’

  Money, Must get some money. Money.

  He heard footsteps mounting the stairs. By the tread, and the heavy, righteous breathing, he knew it was his landlady. He supposed she was coming to demand the overdue rent, did not move, in case a floorboard creaked. Only his head continued to jerk to the beat. His eyes were clenched, and his face set in the rigid expression of jazz-prayer.

  The landlady knocked at the door.

  Beckett heard all her movements, and at the same time kept touch with the rhythm which was fainter now, a tenuous thread.

  She knocked again, louder, and demanded: ‘Mr Beckett!’

  He opened dead-staring gangster eyes, watching the door. Just let her come in, the old cow, the old bitch! he thought. Just let her come in, and I’ll slaughter her. Smoke from his cigarette tendrilled up his drooping hand.

  Outside the door, she breathed heavily. Boards creaked. She was obviously doing something. Finally a piece of paper appeared under the door. Beckett waited until her footsteps had receded, then he picked up the note.

  Dear Mr Beckett,

  If you do not pay me the rent you owe me before Tomorrow Tuesday, I will call in the Police.

  Yours faithfully,

  Mrs Ackley.

  Beckett refolded the paper tightly. Then, thinking, he tapped it against his palm. He decided that he was pleased on the whole. The woman had forced the issue; he would have to leave this place. He was glad, because now his fight for money would start from zero, which seemed to present more challenges and possibilities.

  In the evening he dismantled the room, separating his belongings from the litter. His clothes, clean and dirty together, were bundled in the wardrobe drawer in an octopus tangle of sleeves and socks. He removed the drawer and tipped the contents bodily into his suitcase. A canvas grip contained all his papers, notebooks, journals, and a pair of old plimsolls.

  The larder was empty except for a sticky cough linctus bottle, a restaurant’s salt and pepper, an empty Batchelors peas tin, and a comic birthday-card somebody had sent him last year.

  His books ranged from heavyweights to slim paperbacks. They were arranged along the window-ledge, with the surplus ones stacked on the floor beneath the window. Some of his books had been borrowed by friends and never returned. On the other hand, he had acquired books in this manner himself. Some bore the labels of public libraries or LCC evening classes; one was rubber-stamped ‘Mission to Seamen”.

  ‘So many damn books!’ He filled a pillow-case with them, stuffed others in his raincoat pockets, and piled the remainder into the china bowl with its pattern of roses.

  The work of dismantling and packing took him two hours. He chucked the litter on to the tin tray under the gas ring. Then stood with shoulders hunched, fingers snapping, feet apart like a Chicago gunman’s, surveying the ring of gunned-down objects around him.

  ‘So much bloody gear! How on earth did I collect so much bloody gear?’

  It had seemed to him that he lived simply with few possessions, but when it came to moving, he found he was loaded with cumbersome objects.

  He got on with the work. During the packing he made the following remarks, at intervals:

  ‘Christ Jesus… .’

  (Singing) ‘I can’t live without ya,

  Nights, I dream about ya —’

  ‘Now where did I put...’

  At midnight he crept down the stairs carrying the suitcase and grip.

  He knew so well the compound odours of minestrone soup, bedsitter loneliness, public lavatories, and dusty polish that impregnated the orange blooms of the wallpaper. He knew the beige linoleum route to the front door; and the sameness of the light through the fanlight, always afternoon light even when it was morning. The same unclaimed mail was on the hall table; the Vernons Pools envelope, the detergent coupons, the religious tract headed AWAKE!, the Bournemouth postcard addressed to a tenant long left.

  All these things were the chemicals of evocation. It seemed strange that he was leaving them for good. He carried his cases to Gash’s house, and rapped on the window.

  When the old man admitted him, Beckett said: ‘Can I leave my gear at your place? I’ve got to do a moonlight flit because I can’t pay the rent.’

  ‘Yes, certainly you can. But I’m sorry to hear —’

  Beckett interrupted like gunfire: ‘There’s some more stuff, which I’ll have to make another journey for. Rather a lot in all, I’m afraid. Do you mind?’

  ‘I don’t mind how much there is. I’ll be delighted to look after it for you. But I’m sorry to hear you’re in financial troubles. You’ve helped me by giving me money and food in the past, and I feel most upset that I can’t repay you. Believe me, I’d pay your rent for you if I could.’

  Beckett snapped with impatience and honesty: ‘No, no, it doesn’t matter to me about leaving the room. It’s of no importance whether I’ve got somewhere to live or not.’

  ‘Have you anywhere to stay?’

  ‘No, no, but it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘You would be welcome to stay with me. We could halve the blankets.’

  ‘No, really.’ Then Beckett, under the old man’s calm gaze, became aware of his own tension. His nerves and tiredness were making him irritable, so that Gash’s kindly questions seemed as irritant as mosquitoes.

  Gash said: ‘It’s difficult to live in England without a home, an address. For one thing there is the climate. For another, our society lacks the tradition of charity to mendicants and recognition of the value of contemplatives.’

  ‘I’m not a contemplative,’ Beckett snapped. He added: ‘I’ll bring the rest of my things. It’s very kind of you to let me keep them here.’

  He made a second journey. He had knotted the ankles of his denim jeans to form a kitbag, and had stuffed things into it. A frying-pan handle and a tail of damp towel protruded from the top. His other arm hugged the china bowl of books. A paperback on witchcraft, with a cover depicting witches dancing against the full moon, threatened to slide off the pile.

  On his third journey he brought the radio and a large saucepan containing shoe-brush and polish, a roll of insulating tape, Vick Inhaler, constipation pills, a threaded needle stuck in the torn-off flap of a Weights packet, one grey nylon sock, a screwdriver, and the alarm clock ticking on its back.

  The fourth journey was his last. He had left all his gear with Gash, keeping only his suèdette jacket with his sponge-bag in the pocket. He felt enormously relieved that he had managed his exodus without waking the landlady.

  He walked the streets. He felt, simultaneously, exhaustion and vitality. It was as if his brain and body had been sliced in two down the centre and each half was inhabited by a different being. The right half was vital, the left half was exhausted. The sensation of physical division was strange.

  He had the cotton-wool awareness and exposed nerves of a hangover. He could either collapse into the parting waves of sleep or riproar to manic action. The combination of physical exhaustion and nervous tension made him stumble with weariness, and yet contain the potentiality of meeting any challenge, to dance or to walk frenetically at a second’s notice.

  He slumped along, then suddenly uttered an inward scream and started to leap, flailing his arms. Alone and manic he exhilarated in the empty streets and in the knife cold that sliced him.

  Without luggage or property, he had the freedom of the night. He contained the stars, but they were still in the sky. The stars were in him, but also above him and around him.

  He passed a house that had a rose garden. He stepped over the wall and stole a red rose. The smell of the flower was pleasant, making him feel happy, as if some friend had given him a garden.

  As Beckett leapt and gloried along the streets, he felt wonder at
the rows of sleeping people inside their boxes. He seized a stone to hurl at a window. His arm was back, ready to fling the stone which would awaken a sleeper to co-experience his joy. Then his stance slackened and his mouth opened in silent laughter. Soon he was laughing aloud, sharing his enormous complicity with the heavens. The stone dropped from his hand.

  He went on down the street. He said: ‘God, I’m so tired!’

  At the railway station it was still artificial day. Officials, snack-machines, and timetables operated.

  Travellers, weighted with luggage and anxiety, hurried to their reserved sleepers. Their footsteps in the half-empty station rang metallic like footsteps in a prison.

  Lovers parted with kisses and magazines. There were groups of Servicemen. Along the benches rows of shabby men and women sat like refugees.

  A gang of teenagers, with shaggy heads, sloppy pullovers, and tight jeans, were off on a rave by milk train to the seaside. Two of the boys carried guitars, and a girl was drinking beer from a bottle. Beckett half-expected to see Ilsa among them but she was not there. He went into the waiting-room, which was often used as a doss-house by the homeless. He sank down on to the green leatherette bench. In the seaside poster, a girl in a white swim suit laughed: ‘Have the holiday of your life!’ into a caption balloon.

  The poster made him realize the degree of his dissociation from normal life. He could hardly believe in the millions of respectable people who worked in factories, offices, or shops for fifty weeks of the year, and then dutifully entrained for the seaside for the remaining two.

  He felt as dissociated as a Martian. He looked round the waiting-room to see if there were any other Martians.

  The three soldiers were healthy lads in uniform and were genuine travellers.

  The two men opposite were engaged in an intimate argument. The elder wore a navy duffel coat and a Paisley cravat. He had a hollowed, intelligent face, like a woman novelist. He had womanish skin and womanish, close-set eyes. He was saying: ‘But surely... one ought to take into account, don’t you think... a man of Adrian’s temperament...’

  His companion, a curly-haired lad with the physique of a wrestler, merely grunted.

  ‘I...I mean, if one is a reasonable, adult human being...’

  ‘Well, I’m dead choked about it. So lay off me, will you!’

  The older man gestured humorous resignation with his cigarette-holder.

  In the corner sat a small man of unkempt appearance. His fat, unshaven jaws were like a tramp’s. One of his eyes had only a white, and was half closed. His good eye stared malevolently round, and he muttered: ‘Bloody lot of no-goods. Look at you, layabouts. When did you last have your shoes repaired? And you, you over there? And you? No self respect, or you wouldn’t be here. And do you know why you’re all a lot of stinking layabouts? Because you’re shy of work, I’ll tell you. Wouldn’t do an honest day’s work to save your lives.’

  An Italianate youth lay full length on the bench, with his narrow, blue-black head supported on his clasped hands. He was sharply dressed in a vee-neck pullover, tight jeans, and shoes with pointed toes. He had the tough, cynical expression of one who intends to get rich quick, and doesn’t mind doing a bit of laying about and hanging around in the meantime.

  One man was asleep, clasping a brown-paper parcel. Beckett knew him by sight from Mick’s Café. He was middle-aged, dressed like a bank manager with a homburg hat. Only his mad, sad eyes, and the, tautness of the skin over his cheekbones, showed that he was a gentle tramp.

  Beckett was unable to relax. He drummed his feet on the floor. His eyes were sore and tiredness was a permanent frown between his brows. He furiously twiddled the stem of the rose. Then he gave an exasperated sigh, laid the rose on the bench beside him, and strummed on his knees instead.

  The seaside poster irritated him. He would have liked to smash its glass. Everybody and everything irritated him. The one-eyed man was still muttering. ‘When did you last have your shoes repaired? I’ve asked many people that, and I’m asking you. No, you can’t answer, because you’re shy of work. Haven’t got any self respect.’

  The three soldiers were trying to shove each other off the bench, guffawing and uttering inarticulate half-sentences. One exclaimed: ‘Let’s give ’em the regimental song of the Fird Foot ’n’ Marf….’

  A hand gripped Beckett’s shoulder. ‘Joe!’

  He looked up to see Dyce standing over him.

  ‘Come on,’ Dyce said, ‘let’s get out of here.’

  Beckett jumped up and followed Dyce out.

  Dyce inserted coins into the Auto-Snack, jabbing the red button. ‘I’m getting a ham sandwich. And for you?’

  The thought of food nauseated Beckett, tightening his stomach. ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘I’ll get two packets, anyway. I’ve been to an awful dance. It’s like playing tennis, dancing with some of those hefty hearty deb girls. Still, they provide some decent food and drink, and you get to know people.’

  Dyce gave him the cellophane-wrapped sandwiches.

  ‘Hang on to these, will you?’ He slapped his pockets. ‘I came here for cigarettes. Run clean out. Now where the hell is the —’

  ‘Machine over there.’

  ‘Fine.’ Dyce strode forward, saying: ‘Yes, I passed the waiting-room and happened to see you in there. What on earth were you doing? Not travelling anywhere, are you?’

  The cigarettes bought, they started for Dyce’s car, which was parked outside.

  ‘I lost my room. I’m broke. I had to stay somewhere.’

  Dyce stopped, and gave him a hard, long look, like a recruiting officer assessing men for physical fitness and psychological stability. Finally he said: ‘You look a wreck, man. Your nerves are all gone to pieces. I’ve never seen anyone degenerate as quickly as you have.’

  ‘That’s not so. I’m stronger than you think. There’s a core of hardness inside me, a hard core inside me,’

  Under the influence of the pills, Beckett’s words were like an express train. ‘Some things do not touch me, they are nothing to do with me. For instance, if I have a job, it is nothing to do with me. If I owe rent, it is nothing to do with me. If I stole five pounds, it would be nothing to do with me. For me, the only sins, the only things I feel moral about, are the things which soften my centre. For instance, laziness, boredom, wasting my time in trivialities, I regard as sins.’

  Dyce opened the car doors. They got in and sat talking in the parked car. ‘How did you get in such a state, anyway?’

  Beckett’s express-train mind was now racing in another direction. ‘My mother is very ill. She is going to die, they think. I want to take her to Lourdes. You know, the shrine there.’ He started off about autosuggestion, a fusillade of words dealt with miracles and faith healers. He had once known a hypnotist who had cured a woman of asthma, but it had been useless because the woman had later developed cancer. The hypnotist had refused to practise any more, because he said he could only change the physical symptoms, not root out the psychological cause.

  ‘Then why fool around at a useless shrine? You know that sort of twaddle helps nobody except the local hoteliers and relic-sellers.’

  Beckett put his rose in the glove-rack on top of the AA books. ‘Only ex-Catholics can attack the Church. From people like you it is merely ridiculous, because you have no conception of the greatness of the structure you are attacking. I mean —’

  Dyce cut him short. ‘Not another spate of words, please.’

  ‘Well, give me a cigarette.’

  Dyce did not answer. Then, very deliberately, he peeled the cellophane from the new packet, transferred the cigarettes to his case, and held the case in front of Beckett without looking at him.

  Beckett fumbled out a cigarette. When it was lit, he inhaled greedily, relaxing in the comfortable seat.

  Dyce was wearing a dark, well-tailored suit. His body, hard and commando-fit, emanated vitality that

  was almost tangible, like heat from a radiator. Becke
tt felt shabby and sick by contrast. The contrast was symbolized in the two packets of ham sandwiches, which Dyce had casually bought and neglected to eat. Beckett, to whom every penny was important, could not comprehend this casual treatment of food and money.

  Dyce said: ‘It’s idiotic, this sleeping in waiting-rooms. To start with, the police do a nightly check there. If you aren’t a bona-fide traveller with a ticket they want your name and address and your reason for being there. And, secondly, if you are really set on this crazy scheme of —’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Perhaps it isn’t such a crazy scheme after all, taking your mother on holiday. No, on second thoughts, I think it’s a good idea, old boy.’

  ‘Do you? I don’t.’

  ‘Now look here. I know the way it works out, all this sleeping rough and the rest of it. Seen it too many times. And it’s bad. While you’re sleeping rough and looking like a tramp, you can’t get a job. And if you don’t have a job, you can’t pay for a room and so have to sleep rough. It’s a vicious circle.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ Beckett leant across and pressed the hooter, which uttered a two-note war-cry.

  Dyce frowned. ‘If I were an employer, I certainly wouldn’t hire you. Not only on your appearance, but on your past record. I’d want a man who was smart, keen, a hard worker. And when I received your references...’

  Dyce held imaginary papers between finger and thumb, ‘I’d find that your previous employers had described you as unreliable, uninterested, habitually late, and forever taking days off under the pretence of illness.’ He made the gesture of dropping the references into a waste-paper basket. ‘No, I certainly wouldn’t employ you. And nor would anyone else. You’re going to find it very difficult to get another job.’

  ‘I don’t want another job.’