by Melvyn Bragg
Sam ignored him. This was not the time.
In the back room the two other, older sons were sat against the wall, eyes fixed on their father, who was crouched in the corner. Ready to pounce, Sam thought, if their father moved.
‘He’s round the bend,’ one of them said as Sam came in. He was more excited than upset. ‘He thinks we’re all Japs.’
‘He keeps trying to get us,’ said his brother. ‘He’s doolally.’
‘Sam?’
‘Jackie.’
Sam sat down beside him and indicated to the boys to leave. They were reluctant. He looked at Annie, who had followed him in.
‘Out!’ she said. Still they sat. ‘Out! Out!! She laid into them, slapping out at their heads as if they were surly dogs and they moved next door.
‘He should never have gone out,’ she said.
‘They’re all over the spot, Sam. You and me, eh? You and me.’
‘That’s it.’
He handed Jackie two cigarettes. One went behind his right ear, the other was cocked up for a light. Jackie inhaled very deeply and shuddered.
‘It’s no use, Sam.’
‘It’ll be all right.’
‘They’ve got us, man.’
‘What about the doctor? He should know a bit about this sort of thing.’
‘No doctor,’ said Annie. ‘They’ll lock him away. No doctor. Anyways, he won’t come here for nothing.’
‘Maybe he would.’ Sam wanted to be fair and to show that the whole world was not against her. ‘Anyway, that can be managed.’
‘They’ve finished me off,’ said Jackie. ‘They were here. They were in this room.’
‘You just need a bit of time, Jackie.’
Sam stood up and moved over to Annie. She had brought a candle in a saucer and it flared up her unfairly plain face, making it ghostly. In its light her eyes seemed enlarged, velvet black.
‘I’m not having him locked up, Sam. I’ll never get him back again.’
Sam sensed the effort she was making not to let any emotion show.
The boys crowded behind the door, snuffling, hovering.
‘I can look after him,’ she said.
Sam looked around. They had nothing. Jackie had nipped the cigarette and tucked the butt behind his other ear and dropped his head forward onto his arms which rested on his knees. He made a very small and ragged bundle. They had nothing.
A doctor would definitely put him away, Sam saw that. He heard the boys laughing, not making a great effort to conceal it. He saw the short, all but totally impoverished figure of Annie, survivor on scraps and hand-me-downs and favours and pity and little nagging debts and he looked directly at her.
‘They’ll just lock him away,’ she said.
He was on her side. And he knew what she wanted him to do now. Why she had called him back.
‘All Jackie needs is a bit of time,’ he said, raising his voice. ‘We were in a lot of terrible fighting together.’ He heard the silence settle in the next room. ‘Jackie went straight at them.’ The lie ought to have been easy but his mouth was dry. He had never seen Jackie in Burma. Which action could he call up? ‘Straight at a nest of Japanese machine-gunners.’ That was Alan; that was Alan’s story. ‘It was madness but Jackie just went for them. We thought he’d be shot to bits.’ That was all he could manage. ‘There’s a lot of them taken time to get over it. He just needs time.’ He paused: then added clearly and strongly, ‘He was a hero.’
Annie clenched her lips to trap the emotion. She raised a hand, just a little, to indicate her thanks.
‘Hey!’ Sam’s curt syllable, directed at the next room, brought in the boys, all three of whom looked sternly but no longer contemptuously at their father.
‘You’ll have to help your mother until he gets a bit better.’
There was no acknowledgement but there was no resistance. Sam pulled out two half crowns. ‘Get yourselves some fish and chips. And bring some back for your Mam and Dad.’
When they had gone, he said, 111 come tomorrow.’
‘No! No thanks, Sam. I don’t want him seen outside in this state. He’s better just with me. I shouldn’t have weakened.’
The surge of respect he felt for this woman almost overwhelmed him. ‘You just have to send word.’
‘I know. I think he’s asleep,’ said Annie. ‘How he can sleep sat up like that, I’ll never know.’
He left her, gazing down on her husband, guarding him.
When he saw the boys on the street he would go out of his way to be friendly – unusual treatment for them: even among the hard cases in the town they were hard. Now and then he gave them a shilling or pointed them in the way of a bit of work. One of them would leave school soon.
It was time for him to attack his own past. Jackie had helped him. It was time to make a new start.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ellen did not feel easy in the pub. The King’s Arms, mid Saturday night, was bulging. Sam had secured a couple of seats for them earlier on and she was soon in detailed conversation with her neighbour, as she could have been with every person in that saloon bar.
As a child, a girl and a woman, Ellen had known Wigton and been known by it so well and been bound in so tightly that even an afternoon’s trip away would find her heart whole again only at first sight on her return of that beacon of the town, the mock-Venetian tower. The families never seemed to change in character, in location or in attitude. She knew more about many of them than they wanted known or she herself cared to know; as they about her.
There were more women in the bar than usual because of the dance in the Market Hall. Their laughter and the higher pitch of their voices gave the crushed sound a pleasant excitement. Some wore the long dresses they had sported before the war. Others were decked out in a patchwork of styles, making the best, as they admitted, of a bad job with so few clothing coupons. Brown lotion had been rubbed into white legs and in some cases a seam line drawn down the back. Ellen had guarded a pair of stockings since her honeymoon. The darns just tolerable to her, were invisible to Sam.
She kept glancing at him. He stopped to talk on the way to the bar. She was proud of him, a popular man, with that straight army back, strong shoulders filling out his light grey demob suit, copper-coloured hair glistening with a lick of Brylcreem. He always stood out, Ellen thought, but then, she corrected herself, she was bound to think that. No boasting. In the high white gaslight he looked more like his old self again, less strained. Since his return she had worried about the strain but said nothing and tried to understand and given him time.
Ellen had not yet got over how strange it was to see him again. He was quite foreign sometimes, little ways and sayings and gestures changed or gone. Such a new spine of life in him, a life which had scored into him and one which he spoke about so rarely and then either jokingly to Joe or elliptically to her, clamming up if she asked for details. His nightmares were vivid. So much alarm. He always swore he could not remember a thing about them. But he looked more like his old self tonight and she felt her heart relax.
God alone knew what he had done and what had happened to him in that war. The bits she had seen on the newsreels in the Palace Picture House were enough to terrify anyone. Who could know what effect such experiences could have on somebody? Now and then she felt that he had become a complete stranger, not a man she could have loved or married. But these moments passed and she told herself not to be silly.
He was easy, here, with the other men, all crowded together but no trouble. And to women he had always been polite. But she had seen his edge with Mr Kneale and she knew the root of it, how galled he was to have to seek out information which an education ought to have given him. He was bothered about Mr Kneale’s friendship with her, she recognised that too, though she could not take it seriously. It was more serious with Joe, it was upsetting, the rivalry that was developing between father and son. It was not what son and husband should be like.
‘Here we are!’
; Sam looked down on her beaming, open with his feelings for her. Her hair was piled high – Hollywood style he called it – and it fell thickly over her shoulders. The dress was cheap but fitted her well, green with white polka dots, a wide white collar, a slim plastic belt which pincered her small waist. She caught his look for a second only and winced because what it said was too public.
‘I asked for lemonade.’
‘Another port and lemon won’t do you any harm.’
‘I’ll only leave it.’ She frowned at the waste.
‘I’ll polish it off for you.’
Sam was drinking a favourite mix, a pint of ale and porter. He took a serious swallow, tilting back the glass, leaving a thick cream froth of moustache on his upper lip. Ellen tapped her own upper lip. Sam licked off the froth appreciatively, rolling his eyes in pleasure, a pleasure which ran like a current into Ellen and joined them.
‘Let’s off upstairs. It used to be called the cock-loft,’ he said, waving his glass.
‘Sam!’
‘Sorry.’
‘Mrs Fisher’s always kept a decent house,’ said Ellen, stiffly, using the landlady’s indisputable reputation for severity as a way to block off Sam’s line of thought.
‘How would you know?’ He was still beaming. ‘You’re hardly ever in a pub.’
‘Everybody knows Enid Fisher,’ said Ellen and, against her previous intention, she took a sip of her drink. She did not like to go dancing feeling light-headed and it took very little alcohol to make her giddy.
‘Sam! You old son-of-a-gun!’
He turned and his free hand was seized by Johnny Glaister, who had been working down south for a few months. They had been in the Wigton cycling club together.
‘Ellen! She can still put the glamour on, eh, Sam?’
‘Hello, Johnny,’ Ellen said and then she looked around at two of her friends, Marion and Lil, who were two tables away. She did not much care for Johnny. She pointed at her watch. The women stood up instantly, as did Ellen.
‘What’s this?’
‘We’re going on ahead.’ Ellen’s tone was brisk.
‘Minds of their own,’ said Johnny, admiringly. It was a phrase he liked and used a lot. ‘You haven’t finished your drink.’
Ellen picked it up and smiled.
‘Here we go,’ she said, and downed it.
‘Good for you,’ said Sam, softly, and he leaned out to touch her cheek.
‘Don’t blame you, Sam,’ said Johnny, who flirted with them all. Every man’s eyes, Sam thought, flicked towards Ellen as she moved off.
The women pushed their way out of the pub and on to the street, lapping up the air. The four gas lamps were lit around the fountain, not quite illuminating the Acts of Mercy but light enough to attract the lads gathered there, as at the entrance to a cave, to keep a close account of the Saturday-night history of the place. So far, no significant news; Arthur Hall, the policeman, sighted twice; no disturbances, disappointingly, in any of the pubs; Kettler already drunk; Archie given his mother the slip again; and a growing movement towards the old Market Hall now decked out for the dance. Jimmie Tate and his All Stars were about to begin their first session. The women had timed their arrival to a ‘t’. This was the time of the women.
There were some couples there of course. All the Turnbulls, who would have been at the door at eight thirty prompt not to be done out of a penny’s worth of their ticket. And the teetotallers, who felt that at least they were in the action. Lawrence’s bar only sold soft drinks but it was a bar and there were records playing at eight thirty to warm up the place. There were the serious dancers as always, who knew that only at the beginning of the evening would they have the space to show off their full spectrum of skills, scissoring from wall to wall in flash quickstep, getting a real touch of Valentino in the tango, whirling unimpeded in the Viennese waltz.
The Saturday-night dance catered for the old and the new, the foxtrot and the Dashing White Sergeant, the modern waltz and the Canadian Three-step, although the country dances faded as the hall gathered its post-pub harvest. There were the Studholme lads, of course, each one taught by Queenie, their mother, each one, as were almost all the men, smart in a two piece suit, white shirt, tie, gleaming shoes, swooping and gliding across the floor as elegant as dolphins. Putting on the Ritz.
When they arrived, Jimmie Tate and his All Stars were already on the makeshift platform which backed on to the partition shutting off the wet fish market. However hard the floor was scrubbed, the sickly smell of lingering wet fish percolated through the partition and it was widely known to bands that a strong stomach was needed for a Wigton dance. Smoke and drink helped to keep it down.
Ellen and her friends exchanged their coats for a raffle ticket. Ellen went to the Market Hall every Tuesday when it was full of stalls and bargains and men with oiled tongues from as far away as Newcastle parleying their wares with patter it was a joy to hear. In the Market Hall she had been to children’s treats and dog shows, seen plays, listened to brass bands and concert parties, even gone to the local Hunt Balls and Police Balls in her long dress before the war, and turned up at church functions thought too popular to be confined to the church hall. Its transformation for a Saturday-night dance was simply done. Some streamers, a few coloured light bulbs. It was surprising how alluring they made it look.
Ellen began to dance with Lil. This was the time of night when women danced together without feeling like gooseberries. The men would be in from the pub after ten, closing time. It was a very relaxing way to get into the evening and there was room to move, not too much noise so that you could talk, the band saving itself for later. The keen men occasionally gave you a dance which latecoming husbands could never match.
Ellen went for a glass of water after the first dance and sat out the next couple to steady herself. She would be perfectly all right, she told herself, as long as she steadied herself now, early on.
‘Country hicks!’ Sadie pronounced, plumping on the bench beside her. ‘Hicksville! Do you think they’ll be doing all this hick stuff in London tonight, Ellen? Don’t you believe it!’
‘We can’t all live in London.’
‘Give me Ambrose.’ Sadie stood up and swayed a little and looked with unambiguous disgust at the placid formations executing the Palais Glide. Tt’s past, Ellen! Where’s the jitterbugging? We could get jitterbugging in the war on the aerodromes. You can still get it in Carlisle, but Wigton? No chance.’
‘Not everybody likes the same thing.’ Ellen always felt obliged to defend the town, whatever the charges against it, though, secretly, she too would have loved to be dancing to one of the big bands, sixteen or twenty men in tuxedos, a row of saxophones, a beautiful singer in a sparkling long dress and a crooner imitating Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra in the quiet numbers.
Sadie all but threw herself back on the bench. ‘What was your Sam doing playing Cowboys and Indians in the Lonnings with daft Jackie last Monday?’
‘Was he?’
‘They never grow up, do they?’ Sadie said. ‘Men.’
Sam had told her something about Jackie’s circumstances, but Ellen did not pass it on.
‘All Stars?’ Sadie’s glance at the band was contemptuous. ‘Fred’s never been any use on that trumpet since he had all his teeth pulled out in Egypt. And a banjo might be good enough for a kiddies’ Christmas party, but can you imagine Ambrose with a banjo? Dorothy, on that second accordion, that’s just taking advantage of his sister. She can’t manage the buttons and the load of that thing on her chest – it’s a wonder she isn’t as flat as a board.’
‘Dorothy has quite a nice figure,’ said Ellen.
‘No thanks to that accordion.’
A quickstep was announced and with a dramatic sigh Sadie hauled Ellen to her feet and nimbly, skilfully, they swished around the well-sprung floor.
Sam was good enough as a dancer and though Ellen was glad that she had enjoyed being at full stretch with Lil and Sadie and a couple of the Studho
lme lads, she was pleased that there was no show about him. His shoulders were square, the right hand firm on her waist, the left signalling out left with her right arm, her left lightly on his shoulder. He moved steadily and there were no frills.
In their second dance together, a headiness swept into Ellen. This was their life! This was her and Sam. She squeezed his hand. He smiled.
‘Nice to be back?’
‘It is,’ he said. He manoeuvred her towards the edge of the floor where there was more space, quieter.
On the crowded dance floor, surrounded by people who consciously and unconsciously ticked off every move and nuance of the behaviour of those whose lives were literally crammed so close together, Ellen felt that she and Sam were serenely on their own. It was as it had been. A cascade of joy went through her and she smiled as she had not smiled for years. She went closer to him, holding on tighter so that this cascade, this sudden sweeping away of the years, did not drive her wild. And she knew that he felt the same.
She knew that was what she most deeply wanted of Sam. That he feel the same as her and be just the same as he had been. Here, carefully foxtrotting towards the bandstand, she felt for the first time since his return, that he was.
The band played ‘I Can’t Begin To Tell You’ and first Sam and then Ellen mouthed the words to each other until they caught the dreamy chorus building up around them and began to sing aloud, but softly.
Now and then he would catch a voice and strain, strain to hear it. Was it his Daddy’s or his Mammy’s? A door banged. His house? Strain again and wait, motionless in the cold wet bed, overcome by tiredness, holding out, sleep just under the surface but finally unconscious. He did not hear the loud goodnight of Sadie and the door bang and his longed for parents come into the house.
Yet something may have percolated into his small room because soon enough he was half-awake and as if guided by a homing device, on course for the kitchen, down the two flights of stairs, silent as a cat.