The White Father

by Julian Mitchell

  No one talked about the war, and none of them, Shrieve thought, had the look of a naval or military man. Ludo Perkins had been the very image of a brand-new sub-lieutenant in those days, red-cheeked, razor-nicked, his cap rakishly askew. Now he was getting fat, still red-cheeked, but the redness that of heavy lunches and double whiskies, not of salt winds and youth. Stanley White was nearly bald, an angular man with spectacles, rather clerkly, not the slim athlete Shrieve remembered. Trevelyan had always been older than the others, with a trace of handsome greyness at the temples. Now he was completely grey and the skin over his cheekbones, once taut and almost transparent, was relaxed and fleshy. Frank Laughton had been heavily built with short black hair and large red hands which seemed to swallow thick ropes. Now the hands were plump and soft, the short hair was long and brushed straight back, the heaviness had settled in his paunch. They all looked like ordinary businessmen having a night out. They might have come from Bradford or Burnley to visit a trade exhibition, they might have been looking forward to a spot of strip-tease, eh, after dinner, and what the wife doesn’t know the kids won’t suffer for.

  They weren’t from the north, and they didn’t intend to go on to a Soho strip club and they weren’t, tonight, going to be unfaithful to their wives. But they were businessmen, and no one could have doubted it. The talk was of automation and union troubles and the cost of materials, of inefficient foremen and sales managers and the issue of stocks. They came from Ruislip and Pinner, Richmond and Blackheath. None of the old comrades who lived outside London had come. Jumbo was sad, his head shook ponderously and he said he was ashamed for them, but they all knew that if they had lived out of town they wouldn’t have come themselves. They had little enough in common. They had their niches, their wives and children, their cars, they weren’t genuinely interested in what the others were doing. Only professional talk kept them going through the meal, and Jumbo’s rumbling laugh.

  “Jumbo,” said Trevelyan to Shrieve, “is my idea of a walking and talking public warning system. He warns you to get out of the way, and he reminds you how wrong you might have gone.”

  Shrieve considered, then he said, “I suppose there must be a lot like him around.”

  “There are a few,” said Trevelyan. “You hear he’s got himself a job at last?”

  “No. What as?”

  “God knows. Ask him.”

  Jumbo was a place away from Shrieve, and he leaned heartily across Laughton to hear what he was being asked.

  “Yes, yes,” he said, leaning back again. “It’s a most important piece of work. Economic research, you know. Not time and motion study, exactly, but that sort of thing. For the Brachs chain of restaurants. Just the sort of thing for a man like me. A job that really requires intelligence, you know, old boy. It’s a question of cutting down on waste. Really most important work. I dare say the study we produce will be the model for every restaurant in the country in time.”

  “But what do you do exactly?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say, old chap, as I’m sure you understand. But between ourselves, it’s to check where everything goes. It doesn’t all go on to the customer’s plate, you know. Oh, no. By no means. And then there’s the question of what happens to the empties. It’s a most elaborate business, I can tell you.”

  “So it sounds,” said Laughton. “But why is it all so secret?”

  “Ah,” said Jumbo. “One doesn’t like to give away one’s little advantages, does one? Sorry, old chap, I’m just not at liberty to say. But I can assure you it’s going to revolutionise the catering industry.”

  “Since when have you been an economic researcher, Jumbo?” said Perkins. “I never thought that economics would turn out to be your line of business.”

  The others laughed, but Jumbo put on a serious face and said, “I’ve always been particularly interested in business efficiency. People laughed, as you’ve all just laughed, when the first efficiency experts started work. Now there simply aren’t enough of them to go round, the demand’s so strong. It’s a profession I’ve had my eye on for some time.”

  “What about your business with the plates, Jumbo?” said Shrieve.

  “I’d rather you didn’t ask me about that, old chap,” said Jumbo easily. “Don’t want everyone knowing about it.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Shrieve, smiling.

  “That Brachs,” said Laughton, “he seems to shove his nose in everywhere, doesn’t he?”

  “He’s a bloody nuisance,” said White. “Christ, I’m all for people taking a profit, but the sort of speculation he’s been going in for, you won’t be able to afford an office anywhere in London in a few years’ time. Rents are rocketing up.”

  “It’s shocking,” said Laughton. “I don’t know how people can afford to live in London these days.”

  “Now steady on, chaps,” said Jumbo. “You can’t blame the cost of living on a perfectly straightforward businessman like Mr Brachs. He’s a man I admire, and I don’t mind admitting it. He’s got initiative. Real flair for business, that man.”

  “No one denies that,” said Laughton. “It’s just that you get fed up sometimes, seeing the big fellows raking in all the cash. What do they do with it all?”

  “They make pop singers,” said Shrieve.

  “He’s in the clothing business, too,” said White. “We’ve had to give up our line in men’s slacks, it just wasn’t profitable any more, with his cut-price stuff down the road. And it’s such poor quality stuff, too, not that the public seems to care.”

  “People will buy anything cheap and gaudy,” said Laughton. “Try and get them to take a decent article at five per cent more than the trash, and they’ll laugh in your face. I get depressed sometimes, really I do. You just don’t get the same standard of workmanship these days in anything.”

  “Oh, it’s not that bad,” said Trevelyan. “People have lots of money today, they throw it around. No one’s poor any more.”

  “That’s all very well, Skipper,” said Jumbo, “but I don’t like the look of the way things are going, to tell you the truth. We’ll end up like the Americans if we’re not careful, deliberately producing things that won’t last. A little pinch of unemployment wouldn’t do this country any harm at all.”

  “We’re producing things that won’t last already,” said Trevelyan.

  “The American influence has been nothing but disastrous,” said Jumbo authoritatively. “Good, decent standards of British workmanship—and, I’m sorry to say, British honesty—seem to have gone right down the drain.”

  Trevelyan avoided Shrieve’s eye. Then they both burst out laughing.

  “You may think it funny,” said Jumbo, “you may think I’m just parroting what everyone else says, but I tell you, Skipper, this country would be standing a lot higher in the world today if it wasn’t for America.”

  “That’s absolutely true, Jumbo,” said Shrieve gravely. “No one can deny it.”

  They moved on to brandy and cigars, and the atmosphere became soft and pink like the room as cheeks flushed and the conversation mellowed from business to family life.

  “No,” Jumbo was saying, “I’ve never married. Funny you should say that, Jimmy, Hugh and I were talking about it only the other night. I think I’m probably just not the type for marriage.”

  “Two kids, both girls,” said White to Perkins. “What about you? How long have you been married, anyway?”

  “Five years, three children,” said Perkins.

  “That’s going it a bit, isn’t it?”

  “I’m a Catholic now. My wife converted me.”

  “Ah, I see. More to come, then, I expect.”

  “We hope so.”

  “He’s an odd bird, Shrieve, isn’t he?” said White. “Living out there in the middle of Africa with no one for miles around.”

  “He’s an old-fashioned type, he always was, I remember. A bit of an odd man out, don’t you think?”

  “Nice bloke, though. But it’s not a life I’d car
e for myself.”

  “Nor me.”

  “Yes, I thought of staying on,” said Trevelyan. “I expect we all did once or twice. But I was never romantic about the sea, and though I suppose I might have done quite well if I’d gone on, my wife and I talked it over, and we decided against it. And I’m not sorry at all now, to be frank. They’d’ve probably retired me by this time, anyway.”

  “You’re right there, Skipper,” said Jumbo. “It’s been pretty rough on the chaps who’ve been axed. But I wish I’d stayed on, you know. I’m not much of a man for office work. I was always happiest on the bridge.”

  Laughton and Shrieve looked at him in amazement. There had been little life on the bridge of a midget submarine.

  “Yes,” Jumbo went on, “the life on the ocean wave, that was a good life. When I look back on it, I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy the war, you know. It broadened the old horizon a bit, eh?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Laughton. “It was all right in some ways, I suppose, but I wouldn’t go through it again for all the tea in China.”

  “Nor me,” said White. “But it wasn’t so bad, you know. We had quite a bit of fun in our way, didn’t we?”

  “There was more to it than that,” said Trevelyan. “I always felt we were doing a really important job of work. After it was all over I really knew I’d done my bit for my country. I could start doing a bit for myself, then, with a clear conscience.”

  “Looking out for number one, eh, Jimmy?” said Jumbo, nudging Laughton with his elbow. Laughton flinched.

  “It was all right in some ways,” said Ludo Perkins, who was a little tight. “It was all right being a man in uniform. The girls didn’t mind letting their hair down when they thought you might not be coming back.”

  “Yes, they let down their skirts, all right,” said Jumbo, rumbling with laughter.

  “When you never knew what might not happen from one day to the next, you stopped worrying, I found,” said White. “I worry much more now about my business than I ever did during the war about whether or not I was going to come out of it alive.”

  “I worried,” said Shrieve. They all looked at him.

  “Did you, Hugh?” said Trevelyan. “You were always the quiet one.”

  “Poor old Hughie,” said Jumbo, “he used to sit in his cabin and read while we were boozing up, didn’t he? Give the brandy a fair wind, Skipper, would you?”

  “I don’t remember sitting in my cabin much,” said Shrieve. “I seem to recall being drunk night after night.”

  “We certainly all drank far too much,” said Laughton. “I couldn’t take it now, could you?”

  “I wouldn’t even try,” said White. “Navy gin, that was stronger, too, wasn’t it? God, do you remember the day we had a competition to see who could get down the most pink gins before lunch? I was sick for days.”

  “Yes,” said Jumbo, “I remember that day well.” Tears came into his large red-lidded eyes. “It was Merlin Lewis, poor old Merlin, who won. We had to carry him to his cabin, slewed to the scuppers ourselves.”

  “We dropped him on the deck a couple of times,” said White. “He had a terrible gash next morning, when he finally came to.”

  “A noble wound,” said Jumbo. “And three weeks later he was dead.” He raised his glass. “To our dead comrades,” he said solemnly.

  There was an uneasy pause after they had drunk. Jumbo was quite capable of starting on a whole series of embarrassing toasts.

  “Ah,” said Jumbo, shaking his head, the dewlaps wobbling, “we shall not look upon their like again.”

  “Do you know,” said Laughton, “I can’t remember what Merlin Lewis looked like. Was he the short dark one?”

  “No, Merlin was tall with curly brown hair,” said Trevelyan. “George Hardcastle was short and dark.”

  “You should remember, Number One,” said Jumbo reproachfully. “You were our Welfare Officer, weren’t you?”

  “Was I?” said Laughton.

  “No,” said Shrieve. “I was Welfare Officer, because I can remember how often we had to dip into the funds to bail out Jumbo.”

  The others laughed with a certain cruelty. Jumbo said, “Oh come, old fellow, one’s only young once, after all. Which of us didn’t get up to a few shady pranks, eh?”

  “Pranks, Jumbo?” said Perkins, swaying slightly. “You mean you call those terrible things you did pranks?”

  “Oh, I wasn’t so bad,” said Jumbo. He beamed round jovially, as though no one present knew the truth about him.

  “The real thing about those days,” said Laughton, easing himself back in his chair, “was the sense of unity everywhere, wasn’t it? You really felt everyone was in it together. We were a real nation then, we weren’t for ever bickering about politics. There was none of this damned business of trade unions quarrelling amongst themselves, stopping you getting a decent day’s work out of your men. Things really hummed then, didn’t they? Do you remember that feeling of unity?”

  “Oh yes,” said White carelessly, brushing the ash of his cigar against his plate. “No one doubted we were doing the right thing, we all felt the war had to be fought. There was no question about it at all. It was a great time in that way.”

  “It’ll never be like that again in our lifetimes,” said Perkins.

  “Good old Winston,” said White. “I shall never forget those speeches, will you? I used to sit in front of the wireless and feel the tears running down my cheeks, honestly I did.”

  “Never before in the history of mankind have so many done so much for so few,” intoned Jumbo majestically.

  “Oh, Jumbo!” said Shrieve, not knowing whether to laugh. He seemed to be the only one to notice that the quotation was wrong.

  “He’s a poet, Churchill,” said Jumbo. He puffed drunkenly on his cigar. “That’s what he is, a poet.”

  “Things have never been the same since he resigned in 1945,” said Trevelyan, carried along on the wave of emotion.

  “That was ingratitude for you,” said White, shaking his head. “To think that we as a nation could have acted like that. I felt ashamed when the results were announced. Truly ashamed.”

  “It’ll never be like that again,” said Perkins. “Not in our lifetimes. We’ll never know that feeling again.”

  They all nodded sombrely.

  “Oh, come on,” said Shrieve. He didn’t like sentimentality about the war. The war had been a just war, it had been right to fight in it, to be prepared to die, if necessary, for one’s country. But this drunken maundering repelled him. “It’s got to be like that again,” he said. “It would be too awful if the country could only be united to fight a war.”

  “Ah, Hugh, you’ve been away. You don’t know how things have changed,” said Trevelyan. “There’s a bitterness today, and a sort of couldn’t-care-less attitude. No one thinks of anything except feathering his own nest. Things have changed.”

  “Yes,” said White, “they certainly have. Out there in the bush with your niggers, Hugh, you may not notice any difference between one year and the next. But you can take it from me that things have pretty much gone to pot.”

  “Gone to pot,” echoed Laughton, unconsciously patting his stomach.

  “How about a whisky and soda, eh?” said Jumbo. “Just a touch to warm us up for the journey home.”

  There was general agreement and a looking at watches.

  “Time for a quick one,” said Perkins. He touched his temples briefly with the tips of his fingers. “It’s a good thing I didn’t bring the car,” he said. “I don’t think I’d be fit to drive.”

  “Ah,” said Jumbo, “I told you not to, Ludo. You know how these things go, old chap. We don’t want any of you in the ditch on the way back, do we?”

  “Or in the dock for drunken driving,” said White.

  Jumbo looked at him and frowned, displeased by the mention of court. But he decided not to take offence.

  “I think I’ve had enough,” said Trevelyan, refusing the waite
r’s glass. “I’m not as young as I was.”

  “Poor old Skipper, getting a bit of a greybeard, eh?” said Jumbo. He drank deeply from his glass and beckoned to the waiter for another.

  “You know,” said Perkins, “I miss the comradeship, the spirit of the mess, you know.” He was drunker than the others, but they watched him warmly. “It’ll never be like that again. It was a great time. We were all pals, all good pals.” He swayed in his seat. “Never be like that again.”

  “That’s right, Ludo,” said Laughton.

  “Knew where we were, then, all good pals.”

  The smoke of cigars and cigarettes had filled the room, and Shrieve felt the alcohol blurring his vision. Jumbo was slumped on his elbows with his huge head in his hands, his mouth open. Laughton leaned back with his eyes closed. White had loosened his top trouser-buttons.

  “It was a great time,” repeated Perkins.

  Jumbo raised his head and stared at him aggressively. “What d’you say, Ludo?”

  “I say it was a great time. Never be like that again.”

  “Never be like that again,” said Jumbo, nodding ponderously. Then he jerked his head up, his eyes bleary, and said, “Bloody good show.”

  They all took him to mean that the war had been a bloody good show, and paid no attention.

  “Bloody good show,” said Jumbo truculently. “It was bloody awful, the war. I hated every bloody minute of it.”

  “What?” said Laughton, sitting up.

  Jumbo thumped on the table with his fist and said loudly, “It was a bloody horrible time.” Then he slumped forward again, head in hands.

  “Come on, Jumbo,” said Trevelyan, “you know you don’t think that. You’re tight, that’s all.”

  “I’m not tight,” said Jumbo. He raised his head and glared at him. “I can drink any of you under the table.”