Present Times

by David Storey

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Keith blinked in the yellow light.

  ‘What about?’ Attercliffe asked.

  ‘Your life,’ he said, and added, ‘It’s almost over.’

  ‘There are all sorts of things I could turn to,’ Attercliffe said.

  ‘Mum says you’ll never get another job.’

  ‘Hopefully,’ he said, ‘or in despair?’

  ‘She’s mad about the will. She says you’ve done it on purpose. She got into such a fit that Cathy rang the doctor. She told her you’d done it so we can’t stay on in the house. “To spite me,” she said. “He’s thrown it away on purpose.” There was quite a racket.’

  ‘Like here.’

  ‘Or worse.’

  His fair hair glistened in the light, his features reminiscent of Sheila’s, without their look – their maniacal look, Attercliffe reflected – of energised introspection.

  ‘If you can’t get a job on a paper, what else are you trained to do?’ he asked.

  ‘I could take over a football team.’

  ‘Since you haven’t before, they’d hardly let you now.’

  ‘Go into television.’

  ‘You’ve always despised it.’

  ‘How about the radio?’

  ‘Seriously,’ he said.

  ‘Are you worried?’

  ‘I wonder, before I go into the sixth form, if I ought to give up school.’

  ‘Do you want to give it up?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d be unemployed.’

  ‘In that case you’d better stay on,’ Attercliffe said.

  ‘Mum says your money from the paper will only last another year. She’s talking,’ he went on, ‘of getting a job.’

  ‘She’ll have to.’

  ‘Though she isn’t trained for anything either.’

  ‘I shouldn’t let it worry you, Keith,’ Attercliffe said, and added, ‘I’ll keep us all together, even if,’ he concluded, ‘we have to be split in half.’

  Keith laughed, got off the bed and, calling ‘Good night,’ went back to his room.

  At some hour in the morning Lorna came in; she stood by Attercliffe’s bed, a thin, wraith-like figure in her nightgown, while he, wakened by the opening of the door, watched her in the light switched on from the landing.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Anything the matter?’

  ‘I can’t find the toilet.’

  ‘I’ll show you.’

  He got out of bed, took her hand, and led her to the door which, in a narrow passage, adjoined the kitchen.

  ‘You can come in if you like,’ she said.

  ‘You can manage on your own, I’m sure,’ he said.

  ‘I’d like you to,’ she told him.

  Climbing on to the seat her gaze remained fixed on his figure in the door: her eyes, dark with sleep, followed his expression, and still followed him when, having pulled the chain, she returned with him to the bedroom.

  ‘Shall I have a drink?’

  ‘I’d wait till the morning,’ Attercliffe said.

  ‘I didn’t know where I was.’

  ‘Safe and sound.’ He picked her up.

  ‘Can you put me into bed?’

  He carried her to the cupboard-like space and placed her under the covers.

  ‘You’ll leave the door open? It was closed before,’ she said.

  ‘That,’ he said, tucking her in, ‘was because I thought the noise might wake you.’

  ‘I don’t mind the noise,’ she said.

  He caressed her head until she fell asleep and then, leaving the door ajar, returned to his room.

  Within seconds – or so it seemed – he was fast asleep himself.

  16

  It was the sound of the typewriter that brought Mr Wilkins up; he knocked on the door not with his hand but a spanner (denting the paintwork, Attercliffe noticed, when he drew the door back), and said, ‘That tapping is bringing down the plaster.’

  ‘I’ll put something under the typewriter,’ Attercliffe said.

  ‘I hear you’re on the Post.’

  ‘Was,’ Attercliffe said.

  ‘Me an’ all,’ he said. ‘I’m poking around wi’ nought to do.’

  In shirt-sleeves, unbuttoned, and wearing a pair of crumpled trousers, his bare feet thrust into a pair of tartan slippers, he looked past Attercliffe into the room.

  ‘B’in trying to mend the plumbing.’ He indicated the spanner. ‘The wife goes out to work and leaves me wi’ the kiddies.’

  ‘Come in and have some tea,’ Attercliffe said.

  ‘Nay,’ he ducked his balding head, ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

  He coughed, cleared his throat, rubbed his slippers on the doormat and, fastening one shirt-sleeve and then the other, came inside.

  ‘After another job?’

  ‘I’m not,’ Attercliffe said.

  ‘Same here,’ he said. ‘I’ve given up trying.’

  ‘How many children have you got?’ Attercliffe asked.

  ‘Five,’ he said. ‘Three mine. Two my daughter’s.’

  ‘Is she married?’ he asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘She keeps on trying.’

  He made Mr Wilkins a cup of tea; a small man, he sat on the edge of an easy chair while Attercliffe sat back in the other.

  ‘Weren’t you a footballer?’

  ‘Some time ago,’ Attercliffe said.

  ‘I used to go to the City.’ He tapped his slippered feet at the carpet. ‘Those were the days when it was still a sport. Nowadays it’s all drugs and money.’ He set his tea on the arm of the chair, tapped each foot again, in turn, rubbed his hand across his head, and added, ‘I’ve been on the Council list for over five years and we’re still in this hole, paying rent. I could have bought this place twice o’er. I never had enough salary to afford a mortgage. I’ve had five years in the poverty trap. I reckon I’ll dee of hunger.’

  ‘Do you want a biscuit?’ Attercliffe asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind.’

  Attercliffe brought a packet out: his visitor took two and ate them together.

  ‘Fallen on hard times,’ he said.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘If you’re not on hard times you wouldn’t end up,’ he said, ‘in a place like this. I know the face of a man,’ he went on, ‘who’s on the way down. I’ve looked at my own for long enough.’

  ‘What job did you have?’ Attercliffe asked.

  ‘The Post Office.’ He sipped the tea, chewed the last of the biscuits, picked the crumbs from his shirt, between thumb and finger, popping each one into a mouth from which several teeth were missing, and added, ‘I was in the telephone department. I had a van. Off on your own. I wa’re often finished by ten, and back i’ bed by eleven.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Unions,’ he said and, discovering another crumb, popped it into his mouth. ‘But for the union I’d still be in a job.’ He crossed his ankles: pale, thickly-veined skin was revealed between the bottom of his trousers and the top of his slippers. ‘Some days I’d nip to the races. Most of the time,’ he added, ‘I went fishing.’

  ‘In your van.’

  ‘I had to take the van.’ He laughed. ‘They weren’t keen on you coming back afore five, even though you had only enough work, when you set off in the morning, to last, at the most, for two or three hours. Sometimes,’ he added, ‘I’d pick up the wife. We’ve been all over this county. One or two nice spots round here, particularly,’ he continued, ‘when everybody’s working.’

  He laughed, the spanner laid beside his feet.

  ‘Do you realise,’ he went on, ‘that this is the most unionised nation in the industrialised world, and that not only are we the most unionised but we’re the most politicised unionised nation in the industrialised world and that, despite that, the working classes are worse off for pay and living conditions than in any other industrialised country? I’m out of a job because I had no work to do, and the reason I had no work to do was that the unions s
aid there had to be two men for my job, and four men for another, when one man could have done both in half an hour. I wa’ made redundant because the cost of doing the job wa’ so high that it wa’ hardly worth ought to anybody for me to do it. Leadswingers United wa’ the team I laked for, managed by the unions, owned by the unions, ruined by the unions.’

  He finished his tea, searched for more crumbs on the front of his shirt, found one, popped it into his mouth, and added, ‘The unions look after their own interests. In any controversy they take the short-term view: keep the men on, up the wages. Both things are a guarantee that in the long run there’ll be no more jobs to go to. The first priority for any union, if it’s genuinely interested in the welfare of the people it represents, is the productivity of the organisation its members work for. Other than that it’s organising a public charity. Any union official worth his salt has got to look at a country in which union representation is higher than in any other comparable industrialised state, where union representation is more politicised than in any other comparable industrialised state, and he’s got to explain to himself why, when this is so, the living conditions of the people he represents are amongst the lowest of all the industrialised nations. I’m talking about the technologically-industrialised nations, not the ones that exploit their labour by paying bloody nought.’

  He rubbed his feet at the carpet.

  ‘The working classes of this country would never look back again if, tomorrow morning, the unions went out of business. I’m an example of unionised labour. I’ve been out of work for eighteen months and, as far as I can see, I’ll never get a job again. I’m only your age,’ he concluded. ‘Forty-five.’

  ‘I’m forty-seven,’ Attercliffe said.

  ‘You look much younger. I’ve had o’er a year wi’ nought to do. It ages you,’ he continued, ‘quicker than ought. The wife, for instance, works in a shop. My daughter works in another. I have the dole, and we pay rent through the nose, supplemented by the council. In two or three months we’ll be out on the street.’

  ‘I’d have thought,’ Attercliffe said, ‘you’d have had a council flat.’

  ‘The one they offered us wasn’t fit to live in. The official who showed us round said, “This place isn’t fit for human habitation, Mr Wilkins.” Fourteen floors up. Lifts broken, as often as not. The slob society.’ He gestured round. ‘Give it a year,’ he went on, ‘you’ll see what it’s like. No more tapping in here. You’ll be too despondent to do any work. Thirty years of active life and bugger all to do.’

  ‘I can’t see,’ Attercliffe said, ‘how the unions are to blame.’

  ‘Inhibition of management. Reduced investment. Low productivity. Over-manning. They’re all the consequence of unions acting upon the right of veto. If I’ve had nought else to do these last few months at least I’ve had the time to study why it happened. Remove the unions and this country could become the most productive land on earth. For the working classes. Those are the ones I have an interest in. Harness incentive, with no union restrictions, productivity leaps, profits rise, employment goes up, and the sky’s the limit.’

  ‘Do you want another biscuit?’ Attercliffe asked.

  His visitor took two again, placing one on top of the other. ‘What’s it like being down with the scrubbers? Scrubbers United, tha knows, round here.’

  ‘I haven’t had much time to think,’ Attercliffe said.

  ‘You’re separated from your wife, I gather.’

  ‘I’m getting divorced,’ he said.

  ‘First sensible thing you’ve done since you last kicked a football. If I had my head screwed on I’d do the same. Persuaded by the wife to move in here. You take more money than you’ve ever had afore, think you’ll get another job, and start to spend. The slave mentality.’ He tapped his head. ‘They knock the fetters off and the first thing you do is run o’er a cliff.’

  He got up, went over to the typewriter, set on a table beneath the window, looked out to the back of the house – old, domestic gardens gone to ruin – and said, ‘What’re you writing?’

  ‘A play.’

  ‘For the telly?’

  ‘The theatre.’

  ‘Get it on the box. Write a series. I wa’ reading in the paper how much a man gets for writing a load of crap that comes out once a week and which I could’ve written myself if I’d had the inclination.’

  ‘Why don’t you?’ Attercliffe asked.

  ‘You’ll see.’ He tapped his head. ‘Gi’e it one or two months. After that the penny drops.’

  When his visitor had gone Attercliffe sat for a while, the typewriter before him, gazing out at the garden; from below came the tapping of the spanner against a communal part of the plumbing.

  He began his typing again.

  ‘There’s nothing I like so much as being alone,’ he read. ‘Being on your own is the one thing in life I value the most. There are so few chances nowadays for enjoying the privilege – for a privilege I count it – while those who are merely lonely see being alone as something to avoid.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound,’ Attercliffe said, ‘like your cup of tea.’

  ‘Being alone?’ she asked.

  ‘Enjoying the privilege.’ He turned the page. ‘I’ve never seen you alone,’ he added.

  Catherine wore her uniform, a grey skirt and purple jumper, having called in at the flat on her way home from school. It was a habit she had fallen into over the previous two weeks and on this, her third visit, she had brought one of her essays with her for Attercliffe to ‘go through’.

  ‘Write an essay on solitude is what she said, and solitude is what I’ve given her.’ She lay back on the bed. ‘What a crumby hole. How long are you staying?’

  ‘Curiously,’ Attercliffe said, ‘I’m beginning to like it. I’ve never had so much time to be alone. I could write this essay for you.’

  ‘I’ve often been alone,’ she said.

  ‘When?’

  ‘You don’t know everything about me.’

  ‘It’s true.’ He added, ‘What with all the noise. Your school. Benjie. My work. Your mother.’

  Her lower lip was puckered.

  ‘You’ve never taken much interest in how I really feel. Only,’ she said, ‘in how you think I ought to.’

  ‘The two might be complementary,’ Attercliffe said.

  ‘I’ve never really felt a child,’ she said. ‘I’ve always felt grownup. Young people,’ she went on, ‘are more mature than older people give them credit for.’

  ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘how do you explain your relationship with Benjie?’

  Having thrust out her legs along the bed she waved each foot, in turn, from side to side. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘did you marry Mum?’

  ‘Because I loved her,’ Attercliffe said.

  ‘Where did you meet her?’

  ‘At a dance. The celebration of the centenary of the paper. I was, in those days, looking for a job.’

  ‘What did you like about her?’ his daughter asked.

  ‘I felt there was an anarchic woman,’ Attercliffe said, ‘waiting to be let out.’

  She laughed, gestured round, and said, ‘It’s a terrible hole to end up in.’

  ‘It’s only a billet,’ Attercliffe said.

  ‘Tomorrow you move.’ She rested her head on her knees. ‘Mum doesn’t know what she wants.’

  ‘The first thing she wanted was to get herself a home. The second was to get me out of it. Her final stratagem,’ he went on, ‘is to get you on her side.’

  ‘We don’t take sides. We see you,’ she said, ‘as separate people.’

  ‘Marriage,’ Attercliffe said, ‘was the making of your mother. She was quite something at that dance.’

  ‘Sleeping Beauty.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘You’re spending too much time on your own,’ she said. ‘And with that awful Mr Wilkins.’

  ‘You haven’t told me,’ Attercliffe said, ‘what it is you see in Benjie.’

  �
�Life. Magic. Effervescence. His mother’s different from anyone I know. She never hides her feelings. She says anything that comes into her head and the only effect it has on me is to make me feel alive in a way I don’t feel with any other person.’

  ‘It’s no use running after spontaneity,’ Attercliffe said, ‘if your own gifts lead you on to something else.’

  ‘The disillusionment of Mum coming back has left you stranded, Dad.’ She got up from the bed.

  The essay lay on the floor by Attercliffe’s feet; she returned it to her school-bag, went to the door, came back, searching for her shoes, and added, ‘It’s like playing matches in front of a crowd. Something Benjie and his mother would never do. A self-conscious spectacle performed to certain rules. The spontaneity has been sifted out. It’s so prescribed.’

  She found her shoes and put them on.

  ‘You only insist on what you want. You’re too dogmatic. In addition to which,’ she said, ‘you’re on the other side.’

  ‘What other side?’

  ‘The whole of society is based on a handful of people who exercise their power while the rest,’ she went on, ‘have to work like slaves.’

  ‘You talk of Benjie without looking where you might be leading him,’ Attercliffe said.

  ‘You led Mummy to freedom. According to you.’

  ‘By the time I met your mother I’d had every limb in my body broken. I was a veteran. Whatever Benjie is, he is also, objectively, a thief. What you’re converting him into in your imagination isn’t necessarily something better but an endorsement of the way he is.’

  Having put on her shoes she picked up her bag.

  Attercliffe asked, ‘Are you going because we’ve quarrelled, or because you haven’t any more time?’

  ‘I’m going,’ she said, ‘because I have to.’

  ‘Will you come at the weekend?’

  ‘If I have the time.’

  He followed her out to the landing and, though he went downstairs, she was already out of the front door by the time he reached the hall.

  ‘Why do you always have to go on at her?’ Sheila said.

  ‘It’s more,’ Attercliffe said, ‘the other way around.’