‘We’ll paint the lot: doors, roofs, and walls for three hundred quid. You won’t get a better price anywhere.’
The slight creasing of skin around George’s eyes told her that he was considering the offer. So was she. Apart from the fact that they had to do something, it was far better that his brothers should dab over the outside of the workshop than devastate their home. George would be there to watch them, and maybe they’d be able to see how hard his own workmen got stuck in. But what amazed her, when it shouldn’t have, was how they had cunningly driven her and George to discussing exactly what they had wanted to talk about since first coming into the house an hour ago. Perhaps their business wasn’t slack at all, and this was their normal method of drumming up trade.
Bert sensed her thoughts. ‘We did a job like that a month ago for five hundred. We should have got six, but beggars can’t be choosers. We’ll do yourn for three hundred, George, not for profit, but as a favour, just to keep our hands in between jobs, because it’ll only cover the cost of the paint. It don’t look good that your factory’s like a slum. People might wonder why it’s in need of a lick of paint when you’ve got brothers in the decorating trade. They’ll think we’ve fallen out, and say we’re not much of a family if we can’t stick by each other.’
The confidence tricks they had worked on George had only been successful due to the amount of blackmail and general mayhem which had been threatened, though after each stunt she had told herself that she should love them and make allowances, because hadn’t her father said it was their duty to help less fortunate people, since the Bible said so?
But George’s brothers did not seem to fit this condition, especially after they had openly robbed you. To help those who couldn’t help themselves was laudable and necessary, because they might then co-operate so that some good would come; but to subsidize those who continually complained, telling you to shut your trap and mind your own business and that when they wanted your sanctimonious advice they’d bloody well ask for it but in the meantime what the bleeding hell were you doing not suffering under the same irritations that they were forced to complain about – was not feasible. Why, they’d want to know with all moral conviction, should you get away with it when they had to put up with it? It’s all very well you standing there – they’d say – and telling us to get out of difficulties by our own efforts, but in the meantime you’re a lot better off than us, so what the bloody hell are you going to do about it, eh?
To complain was not only their life-blood but as often as not a tactical manoeuvre for getting something they wanted but had no right to. All they could do about an irksome situation was complain, as if that were the only way of tolerating it. They grumbled in the face of adversity, whereas real hardship would never have left them time for complaining. After a general election, when there had been a change of government, she recalled that Alf had said to her: ‘Now let’s see what this bunch of robbing cut-throats do for us. The last lot did bogger-all.’
She asked what he would like them to do.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘they could drop the council house rents for a start, couldn’t they? Then they could tek summat off beer and fags.’
‘What about road tax?’
He had forgotten that. ‘They ought to halve it. It’s a bleeding shame how they never do ote for yer, in’t it?’
She asked what he and his brothers intended doing for them.
‘Well, I suppose yo’ would ask that, wouldn’t yer? It’s all right for yo’ and George.’
‘Why is it? You’ve got a house and a car, just like us.’
‘Ar,’ he said, ‘but you own your house.’
‘We might in twenty years. We’re paying off a mortgage at the moment.’
‘And your car’s new.’
She laughed. ‘It goes wrong just as often as yours.’
Those who didn’t grumble generated sufficient energy to get clear of their difficulties. The best thing was to keep your sense of humour, though she and George had been unable to laugh on being trapped in their sitting-room by his three brothers and realizing there was no way out of giving them some work to do.
Yet George was sensibly horrified at the idea of them being set on to paint his workshop, a situation to be avoided even if they sat in his front room half the night before agreeing to leave. ‘I’ll think about it in the next few days. But I’m sure I’ll come up with something for you to do,’ he said, as if this generous promise would satisfy them.
But it was seen as a weakness, and instead of getting up to go home Bert signalled the others to stay where they were, and then found himself with a further suggestion to make: ‘While we was passing’ – he put the empty cup to his lips for the third time, and paused to spit tea leaves into the ashtray, some of which went on to the rug – ‘I saw that your factory yard was full of ruts. That paving’s in a shocking condition. Must be a proper swamp in winter. If one of your employees broke his ankle on a pot-hole you might have a nice whack of compo to pay. I know you’re insured, but you’d lose your no-claims bonus, and that’d come to a packet with a factory like yourn. Don’t look glum, George. It need never happen. The three of us could repave your yard. Dead easy. We ain’t done that sort of work before, I know, but we was only looking at some blokes the other week laying a car park at some offices in Mansfield. We’d do it a treat. I know a chap who’s got some hardcore. We’d hire a roller. And in no time at all your yard would be smoother than a school playground. That’d be extra from the painting, though, but it would only cost you about two hundred on top. It’s got to be done sooner or later. Next year it’ll cost more. Have it done now, and it’s a bargain.’
Alf and Harry indicated they would like more tea, otherwise they wouldn’t get home, with their throats in the state they were. Pam said she had run out of water, not to mention tea leaves. If they were so dry they had better get to the pub, where they might be in time for a pint before it closed. Beer was the only liquid that would slake such a thirst, she said, providing they tipped enough into themselves for it to slop out of their ears.
Oh she had a way of getting at them, they laughed, but they knew she wasn’t as stiff-necked as they’d heard. She was really a good sort who didn’t mean half of what she said, otherwise their brother George would never have married her.
George also laughed. He then decided that his factory yard was paved well enough to last another five years, except for one or two worn patches.
‘It’s your decision,’ Bert said.
He hoped his fatigue didn’t show. ‘It is.’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ Bert resumed. ‘Let’s have the paths around your house paved, and the inside of the garage. We’d like to try our hand at a little job like that. It’d only cost seventy-five quid. We’ll do the crazy-paving while we’re at it.’
Pam opened the door wide to let smoke disperse. ‘Why don’t you go home?’
Alf’s fragile and injured good nature impressed her so deeply that she wondered what opportunity or congenital condition had been lacking for him not to have become an actor. He lit a cigarette in such a way as to make her feel ashamed of not having offered it herself, and also of not having put it between his lips, and struck the match for him, and patiently held it while he puffed the fag leisurely into life, even though she burned her fingers before dropping the charred remains on to her carpet.
‘There are some people in this world you can’t help,’ he said. ‘You can sit and talk your guts out for nobody’s benefit but their own, and in your own time, which costs as much money as their time does, and they’re the last people to appreciate what you’re trying to do for them. It’s not that we’re begging for money. It’s not that we’re asking you to make work for us, but we want to do summat for you that wants doing. I can’t put it fairer than that.’
George waved a hand for his brother to stop, but Bert interrupted harshly: ‘Trying to tell us summat, then?’
‘I am.’ He sat down at last.
�
�I should think so.’
‘If you’ll give me a chance.’
‘Go on.’
Alf poked Harry. ‘Wake up, and listen to this.’
‘I was going to say that you could paint the workshop after all,’ George said.
No one spoke.
‘I was only saying to myself the other day how run down the place is looking. Wasn’t I, Pam?’
They kept silent.
He looked at them in turn. There were no takers. ‘Pam, my love, why don’t we have another pot of tea between us. I could do with a little refreshment.’
‘Depends on how much you’re offering,’ Bert said.
She felt her stomach turning solid. She was sorry for George, but there was nothing to do except bring in a packet of chocolate biscuits and make the biggest pot of tea they’d ever seen. The situation was not sinister, but simply the way such families worked out their problems.
‘We mentioned three hundred pounds.’ George had come back to life by surrendering to them, but he was also talking business, so didn’t need her pity. None of them did. She was a foreign body that could only jeopardize their decision-making machinery. Blood might be thicker than water, but its jewelled movement ran on the oil of centuries, and she was only a bit of grit temporarily involved. If one of them blew his nose she’d fly out of the window.
‘I wouldn’t call three hundred a fair price,’ Alf said.
‘You wouldn’t?’ George didn’t seem upset that they began arguing about an amount that anyone else might have considered settled.
‘Would you?’ Bert said. They were like an orchestra, she thought, and had to be admired for their perfect harmony and timing, inspired as they seemed to be by a conductor invisible to her.
George grinned more openly than at any time that evening. ‘Happen I wouldn’t. But it’s all you’re going to get.’
They accepted, as if in their rehearsals they had decided that at this point they must. Pam knew they were laughing. So did George, and the three of them knew that he and Pam were well aware of what they were thinking. Yet everyone was happy, especially George, who put a good measure of whisky into each cup. ‘When can you start?’
‘Start? Start what?’ Bert whacked him on the shoulder, and they guffawed until tea splashed into every saucer.
‘I’ll have to tell the lads when to let you in,’ George explained.
‘We’ve got a couple of jobs to finish first,’ Alf told him.
‘Make it as soon as you can, then,’ said George. ‘I just want to know the date, more or less.’
‘And we want the three hundred now,’ Bert said, ‘in cash, so’s we can get the paint. I’ll come up tomorrow to estimate how much it’ll take.’
George looked at her. ‘Get my cheque book. It’s half now, and the rest when the work’s done.’
‘I suppose it’ll have to do,’ they grumbled.
‘And I want you to do a good job. I mean that. No bloody messing on my premises.’
She thought Alf would weep. ‘We can bring you forty references from satisfied customers. When we get stuck in, we’re thorough. Thorough and careful, George. Nobody can beat us at our trade.’
He asked them to sign the receipt that Pam brought with the cheque. ‘You’d think he didn’t trust us,’ Harry winked. ‘Our own rotten brother!’
Their world was run on brotherhood, not fatherhood or motherhood or sisterhood. Everyone was their brother, to work with, to deceive, to bully or to drink with in the pub. Their God must be the biggest brother of all who knew their wiles and weaknesses, and whom they acknowledged as king only because they would never get the better of him. If anybody ever says anything to me about the Brotherhood of Man, Pam thought, I’ll run as far away as I can get.
They signed the receipt, and went far happier than when they arrived. George acted as if he’d brought off one of his best business deals, and Pam didn’t give an opinion. Having always believed that charity began at home, she was unable to dispute it now that she had seen it in operation.
14
She put more coins in the gas meter. Don’t like it here. She hadn’t liked it there, either, and at the moment she didn’t know where she disliked it most, except that she was here, and not there, and that her body had after all decided where it most wanted to be. Having made the second biggest jump of her life there was nothing to do except sit still in the knowledge that nowhere was perfect.
Being in a place which often struck her as worse than what she had left – clamped into a freezing bug-hole of a London bed-sitter and not knowing what she would do when her money had gone – she thought how Bert, Alf and Harry would roll on the pub floor with laughter if they could see her. The intensity of her complaints during twenty years of marriage had been known only to herself, but she had been a complainer nevertheless, and though they had turned in on herself, she was not morally superior to those who made them out loud. She had no doubt been tainted by contact with such a family, and years would need to elapse before its spirit was washed out of her, but at the same time she felt that allowances ought to be made for them, especially now that it seemed she would have to make so many for herself.
Frost enfolded the room, and in spite of a turned-up gas fire she couldn’t get used to the cold. Her bladder ached, but the only decent toilet was at the tube station, which was too far away, and in any case closed. The one downstairs was broken and filthy, and there was no telling who she might meet in the dark.
The enamelled sink in her room was fitted to the wall and stained like a map of places she hoped never to go to, a whitish bowl with a cold tap that brought forth water as if from the Rock itself. Vibrations shook the wall till it was turned off again.
She talked to herself, and to the pipe that shuddered as if about to burst and drown her. She would talk it into silence. There was often nothing to do but talk. At home with no one in the house she had talked to the knives and forks as she polished them in case they became savage and cut her throat, hacked off her limbs and hid her in such secret places that no one would find her, not even herself. So she talked. Her thoughts came out loud, so she imagined she was going mad. Because her arms might become dreadful and violent, she spoke to them as well. On her own, in her own room, it went on hour after hour, and she knew she wasn’t insane otherwise she would stop. She would strike herself dumb. Perhaps she was able to go on talking because she was so happy.
She pushed a rickety chair to the sink and stood on it, turned slowly so as not to overtopple, then crouched and at the same time pulled down her slacks and pants, freeing her bladder of all pressure. Loud-mouthed Jane White who had lived next door told her how, on last year’s motor trip to remote towns of Spain with her husband, she had broken at least half a dozen sinks staying at places that hadn’t got the facilities. She didn’t fancy going along corridors in the dark and looking for the proper place in case she never found her way back, and what would her Ted say then?
Pam hoped the present stance wouldn’t bring the sink down while her behind was on it and she was laughing at Jane White’s tales, causing those ominously sounding pipes behind the wall to flood her into the street. The guffaws of George’s family should they witness her on such a perch would last for the rest of their lives, so thank God they couldn’t see her.
Privacy was a luxury she’d never possessed, a wonderful word that could be said to herself over and over, marvelling that such a simple condition could feel so precious. You didn’t need more than a normal amount of money for the basis of a good life: food, clothes, shelter, and solitude. When you were on your own no one saw you. They didn’t even hear you, unless you talked too loud, and she needn’t bother whether anyone heard or saw her, because it didn’t matter what she said or did.
Being alone, she was out of the land of secrets for ever. You only feared secrets when you lived among people who took either a generous or vicious interest in you. On your own you could make them but didn’t need them. Until now her only secret had been the ev
er-burning desire that led her to this room, indicating as surely as nothing else what an innocent existence she had led.
She stopped talking, and in the silence heard a door bang, and a car change gear as it went along the street. By keeping the gas fire on for long enough the room became warm. Persistence paid off. A carton of broken Christmas crackers lay in a box outside a stationer’s and, acting the born scavenger, she brought them back, trapped one in the cupboard door, and pulled. The thin crack was like breaking the strand with home.
She took off her coat, and cleared rubbish from the floor. Thrift and cleanliness would get her back to reality. She would eat little, live on minimum heating, fit herself into one small room, and make her clothes last for as long as was decent and reasonable. Lacking nothing, she was optimistic, but to be occasionally careworn and frightened only intensified her hours of solitude. She did not need ice-box, television, car, house, wardrobe, garden, tea and dinner services, and a hundred other things that had previously walled her in.
Why had it taken so long to find out? The lowest-paid job would allow her to go on living in this way, sitting in front of the heat when she came home from work, with curtains drawn to keep out cold and the world’s noises. On the Underground an advertisement for traffic wardens offered fifty pounds a week, work she could easily take on. If George’s family came to London in their cars to look for her, or go to the Soho strip-clubs, she would plaster their windscreens with parking fines.
Safe in her room, she recalled a secret of George’s brothers which she didn’t doubt would never worry them. When their mother lay dying they crowded into the front parlour to make their last goodbyes. Alf took a hand out of his mackintosh pocket to wipe away tears, staring at the wall as if his grief would break it down. Bert’s look of bitterness, the closest he could get to panic, suggested he was about to be robbed of the only prize that had ever meant anything. ‘Don’t go, mam,’ he kept saying. ‘Don’t go.’
‘She ain’t going anywhere,’ Harry said, hoping nevertheless that she would not.
Her Victory Page 9