Love on the Dole

by Walter Greenwood

  She hardly breathed fearing lest Hardcastle should change his mind and walk away without fulfilling his promise of a moment agone. It had needed all her powers of supplication and persuasion to overcome his resistance, though she sensed a powerful ally in his ill-concealed shame and remorse. All yesterday, on every possible occasion, she had begged him to go to repair the breach between himself and Sally: ‘Oh, Harry, Ah don’t know how y’ can do it. There’s no wrong in lass: she’s on’y young and self-willed…. She’s y’ daughter and she’s alone. What’ll become of her, lad?’

  ‘Ach, leave me be. Ah’m sick o’ hearin’ y’. She can go no lower than she is now.’ He looked away, uncomfortably.

  ‘For shame, Harry Hardcastle…. For shame.’

  ‘She made her own bed; she mun lie on it.’

  ‘Aye, y’ said that about our Harry.’

  ‘Aw, leave me be, woman, can’t y’. Leave me be.’

  He had gone to bed out of way of her tongue. But he could not escape his own thoughts. She, lying by his side, sleepless, silent, translated his restless tossing and turning as the manifestations of his inward strife. Then she had dozed off. Sleep evaded him. He stared into the darkness, weary. ‘She’s made her own bed….’ ‘Aye, y’ said that about our Harry.’

  It occurred to him that his arbitrary utterance had the quality of a boomerang; the propensity to return to that point from whence it had been thrown. A voice reminded him that, in turning out first Harry, and now Sally, he, too, had ‘made his bed’ and must be prepared to ‘lie in it’. He found his bed-making most uncomfortable; found himself, economically, up against a blank wall. This week-end would see no money whatsoever coming into the house, unless Mrs Hardcastle succeeded in procuring such work as Mrs Cranford found herself obliged to do. The thought was paralysing: a murderous hate of his own impotence made him squirm. What an utter, complete fool he had made of himself in denying the staring, glaring truth of Sally’s accusations. Did he really wish her to live such a life as her mother had lived; such a life as was in store for young Harry and his wife? No! he answered himself, emphatically, No! One long succession of dreary, monotonous years, toiling, moiling, with a pauper or near-pauper funeral and the end of it. Then why had he struck her? why had he been indignant that she should choose - what to him had been - a disgraceful way out? What disgrace was there in it? Who made it a disgrace? People’s tongues. What business could it be of theirs? None. In what way could Sally’s affairs affect them? No way. She was as free to arrange an illicit contract as they were a licit. Furthermore, she had chosen the former already. Again, she was no longer a child; she was a woman. He had not the slightest authority now to interfere with her. She was independent. Nay, financially, he and his wife were her dependents. It had been her earnings that had kept the home going.

  Once begun he found a million excuses for her and a million condemnations of himself. He found ease; oil was poured on his perturbed spirits. He sighed, relieved, promising that he would permit his wife to persuade him into a reconciliation with Sally in the morning. Try as he would he could not overcome his stubbornness in taking the initiative unaided.

  And now he found himself outside Mrs Bull’s front door, quaking inwardly with indecision and fear lest Sally should rebuff him. He licked his dry lips, raised his hand and knocked, softly.

  Mrs Bull answered the door: ‘ ‘Allo,’ she said: ‘Ah wondered when y’d be comin’.’

  ‘Is Sal in?’

  ‘Aye, come thee in, lad,’ he followed her: ‘Sit y’ down,’ she said, indicating the couch, below whose seat rail could be seen an elliptical curve of hessian where the springs had collapsed. As she waddled to the room at the back, Mrs Bull announced, loudly: ‘Hey, Sal, lass. Here’s thi’ dad.’

  He heard the creaking of a chair in the other room. Sally appeared. He dropped his gaze, shamefaced after a glance at her swollen lip. Staring at the floor he mumbled, in a hesitant monotone: ‘Ah’ve come t’ say Ah’m sorry, lass. Ah must ha’ lost me temper … ‘

  His abjectness touched her. She felt the effort this apology must have cost him. Her heart expanded; she felt near to tears. But she smiled: That’s all right, Dad. Ah guess y’ weren’t the only one t’ lose y’ temper,’ pause; she added, still smiling: ‘Ah’ve a surprise for y’. … Ah think Ah’ve got y’ a job … ‘

  He looked up quickly: ‘Eh?’ he said, incredulously.

  ‘Yes,’ she answered, then she interrupted herself, as, out of the tail of her eye and through the open door, she saw Harry passing on the other side of the street. She called his name. He paused, arrested, peered across the street and approached, slowly, wondering. ‘Come in, Harry,’ she said. He stared to see his father sitting there; had heard of the quarrel, plus a few enlargements, of Mrs Dorbell. The present situation electrified him; he felt as one who finds that he has strayed into the middle of no-man’s-land. He smiled forcedly at Sally; avoided looking at his father.

  He blinked as he heard his father repeat: ‘A job, did y’ say, Sal?’

  He gaped when Sally, opening her handbag, fetched out a couple of letters, passed one to his father and one to him, saying: ‘Y’ve t’ tek these t’ th’ East City Bus offices, and give ‘em t’ Mr Moreland. There’ll be a job each for y’. … But remember, say nowt t’ nobody how y’ got it. An’ give the letters to nobody else than Mr Moreland.’

  They took the letters, awed; they exchanged glances of perplexed surmise. Harry found his tongue: ‘Bus offices, Sal? They don’t want nobody there, though. There’s a big notice stuck up there, warnin’ y’ off…. “No vacancies”, it ses.’ He stared at her blankly and licked his lips.

  ‘Aye?’ she answered: ‘Well, tek those letters as Ah’ve told y’, then see. Here,’ she passed her father some small change: ‘This’ll get y’ a few smokes each.’

  Harry remembered Sam Grundy. He remembered Helen. What would she say to this? A smile grew on his lips and broadened: ‘Oh, ta, Sal, ta … ‘ to his father, whom he had sworn never to acknowledge again: ‘Say, Dad, can y’ imagine wot Helen’ll say? Gosh!’ knocking his cap upwards: ‘Ah dunno. … Oh,’ eagerly: Oh, come on, Dad, let’s go…’

  Hardcastle, still holding his letter in his hand, followed his son outside. There was a far-away, childlike stare in his eyes; his brain retarded, bewildered.

  Sally watched them go, torn between conflicting emotions, a fugitive response to their pleasure, then a blank, forlorn sense of utter loneliness which made her feel as one apart, a trespasser, unable to share in that happiness of which she had been the cause. She roused herself, shook off the creeping hand of introspection and went into the room at the back to escape from herself in talking to Mrs Bull.

  Love on the Dole 3

  Friday afternoon, the same week.

  A knot of neighbours standing outside the home of Mrs Nattle, regarded, pensively, the front door of Mrs Hardcastle’s home from which a taxi had just driven away.

  ‘High-ho,’ sighed Mrs Jike: ‘I wouldn’t turn me nowse up at a fortnight’s holidiy where she’s gorn. Strike me pink, I wouldn’t!’

  ‘She’s a hinterferin’ young ‘ussy, that’s what she is,’ snapped Mrs Dorbell, angrily: ‘It’s her doin’s as’s got me lodgers t’ tek th’ empty house at top o’ street. Aye, an’ him just startin’ work when he’d ha’ done me a bit o’ good. Me,’ indignantly: ‘Me, mind y’, as got him pay from workhouse an’ a parcel o’ clouts from t’ Mission. Yah! That’s thanks y’ get.’

  ‘Hold y’ noise, hold y’ noise,’ snapped Mrs Bull; the lass has done best thing she could. “Get away,” ses me to her: “Get away from these here owld bitches, ‘cause no matter what y’ do, they’ll find summat t’ say agen y’,”’ loudly: ‘Luk at her across street; that pal o’ thine, Mrs Jike. Too religious t’ live - her an’ her spirits,’ she nodded towards Mrs Alfred Scodger, the spiritualist mission’s lady performer upon the trombone, who stood upon her doorstep, her back as straight as a poker, her arms as tightly folded as her
lips were compressed, her clean, starched apron rustling in the bitter March wind.

  Mrs Scodger closed her eyes and retorted: The carryings on o’ some folks wot could be named ain’t fit for the ears o’ respectable folk,’ opening her eyes: ‘An Ah’m surprised at you, Mrs Jike. Ah’m surprised!’

  ‘It don’t tek much t’ surprise some folk,’ Mrs Bull retorted. She turned, waddled down the street and into the Hardcastle home.

  She found Mrs Hardcastle in tears. Helen, nursing her baby, was sitting in the rocker chair watching her, sympathetically. ‘ ‘Allo, more tears,’ said Mrs Bull, flopping down. She gazed at Mrs Hardcastle with disapproval, then said, impatiently: ‘Aw, ne’er in all me life did Ah see such a one as thee for shrikeing. Lord, what ails thee now?’

  ‘What’ll become of her. Oh, what’ll become of her?’ Mrs Hardcastle wailed.

  ‘Yah, ain’t that just way o’ the world, eh? Her dowter gets a sekklement made on her then her ma wonders what gonna become of her. Yah, y’ don’t deserve nowt, y’ don’t. Why don’t y’ ask what’s gunna become o’ all of us wot’s left i’ Hanky Park?’ sighing: ‘Ah dunno; some folks don’t know when they are well off,’ pause: ‘She’ll tek no hurt. She ain’t the kind. She’d ha’ bin a sight worse off hangin’ about here doin’ nowt but thinkin’. If y’ want t’ know, it was me as ‘inted t’ Sam Grundy that she’d tek no hurt if she went away for a while. Three or four months at that there place o’ his in Wales, wi’ all nice weather i’ front of her - Why, woman, she’ll be new-made-o’er-agen. Allus she wants is summat t’ mek her forget. Everlastin’ thinkin’ about that Larry Meath, an’ livin’ here right opposite place where he used t’ live. … It’s more’n flesh an’ blood can stand. Use y’ head, woman, use y’ head.’ She enlarged upon the theme relating her own experiences regarding her bereavement of her first husband. ‘Ah’d ha’ gone barmy if Ah hadn’t tuk a job i’ service up i’ the country. Bein’ away tuk me right out o’ meself an’ got me out o’ me sorrer twice as quick.’

  Mrs Hardcastle sniffed: There’s t’other thing,’ she whimpered: ‘Her an’ Mr Grundy. Ah don’t like it. … It’s — It’s. … We’ve allus bin respectable. An’ now neighbours ‘re all talking.’

  ‘Lerrem talk. While they’re talkin’ about you, they’re leavin’ other folks be.’ She gazed at Mrs Hardcastle, critically: ‘Y’know,’ she said: ‘Ah do believe y’ thinkin’ more about y’self than about yon lass. Yah, do y’ understand y’r own daughter? A bellyful o’ trouble she’s had, aye, a proper bellyful. Her pa comes out o’ work; then the bloke she’s set on marryin’ dies. She’s workin’ at mill an’ all her money’s goin’ t’ keep your house goin’. Yaa. Y’ve bin tekkin’ too much for granted, like a few more Ah know. Y’ want t’ forget y’self for a bit an’ try t’ understand how t’ young ‘uns must feel about all these here goin’s on i’ t’ world t’day. Every cent they earn bein’ tuk in keepin’ their owld folks an’ any o’ t’ family as is out o’ work. World ain’t wot it used t’ be when we wus young, an’ don’t forget it, neither. Let me tell y’ this: if she’d ‘ad much more of it Ah’m certain that she’d ha’ done wot yon poor soul i’ next street did yesterday … cut his throat an’ jumped out o’ bedroom window when he got letter from Guardians sayin’ he’d got t’ give five bob a week to his wife’s people wot come under Means Test. Five bob a week, poor soul, an’ he couldn’t keep his own, proper. Yes, Ah could see it i’ your Sal’s face all right; moonin’ about like a lost soul; sittin’, night after night on this here couch gawpin’ at nowt. … It all come out night as y’ ‘usbant landed her one, now didn’t it, now? Wot she said was only wot she’d bin tbinkin’ e’er sin’ Larry kicked bucket,’ a deep breath: ‘Aye, she’s had a bellyful all right. An’ she’d ha’ gone melancholy mad if it’d ha’ lasted much longer. An’ it’s glad y’ ought t’ be, all o’ y’, that chance come for her t’ get away from it all. Bless the lass, she’s seen none o’ you go short.’

  Helen sighed: ‘If it hadn’t bin for her, Mrs Bull, Ah don’t know what me’n Harry would ha’ done. …’ With restrained excitement: ‘We’ve got th’ ‘ouse at top o’ the street An’ we’re goin’, t’night, t’ see about gettin’ the furniture on the weekly (the instalment plan). Y’see,. Ah’m startin’ work agen soon so we’ll be able t’ pay money off quicker. An’ Ah’ll want somebody t’ luk after baby. … Y’ve bin so good. … Ah wondered, like. … Ah’d pay y’ if y’d see to her durin’ day for me. … Would…?’

  ‘Aye, lass, she’ll be all right wi’ me.’ She gazed at Helen, steadfastly, ‘An’ if y’ tek my advice, lass, y’ll mek this one y’ last One’s too many sometimes where workin’ folk’re concerned. ‘Tain’t fair t’ you an’ ‘tain’t fair t’ t’ child. Luk at Mrs Cranford. One reg’lar every year, an’ half of ‘em dead. An’ Kate Narkey shapin’ same way. Yah, them two fellers ought t’ be casterated.’

  Helen shifted uncomfortably, glanced at the clock then said, in genuine alarm: ‘Ooo, luk at time. … Harry’s tea’ll ne’er be ready when he comes,’ smiling at her mother-in-law and Mrs Bull: ‘Ah’ll have t’ be goin’. He’ll be home in a minute,’ rising and arranging the baby’s shawl: ‘Ay, Ah bet he’s excited - drawin’ his first week’s wages t’day. G’night, Mrs Hardcastle. G’night, Mrs Bull….’ She went out, hurrying to Mrs Dorbell’s, a set smile on her lips.

  A young man strode down Hankinson Street, beaming, full of self-confidence. His right hand, thrust deep into the pocket of his trousers, clutched a small envelope containing a week’s pay. The seal of the envelope was unbroken. To open it was Helen’s privilege. Oh, to see her face when he placed it into her hands! ‘Blimey, an’ think of it, though! T’night Ah’ll ha’ some money o’ me own t’ do what Ah like wi’! Blimey, though! Blimey!’

  Harry, in his exuberance, lengthened his stride. Then, suddenly, his pace slackened as he caught sight of a solitary figure standing on the corner of North Street. The smile died on his lips.

  Jack Lindsay.

  He was standing there as motionless as a statue, cap neb pulled over his eyes, gaze fixed on pavement, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched, the bitter wind blowing his thin trousers tightly against his legs. Waste paper and dust blew about him in spirals, the papers making harsh sounds as they slid on the pavement.

  No influential person to pull strings on his behalf; no wages for him tonight; no planning for the morrow. He was an anonymous unit of an army of three millions for whom there was no tomorrow.

  Harry faltered, licked his lips then stole away, guiltily, down a back entry unable to summon the nerve to face his friend.

  5.30 AM.

  A drizzle was falling.

  Ned Narkey, on his beat, paused under the street lamp at the corner of North Street. Its staring beams lit the million globules of fine rain powdering his cape. A cat, sitting on the doorstep of Mr Hulkington’s, the grocer’s shop, blinked at Ned, rose, tail in air, and pushed its body against Ned’s legs.

  ‘Gaaa-cher bloody thing,’ he muttered, and lifted it a couple of yards with his boot. Then he glanced up and down Hankinson Street, afterwards footing it quietly to his house to rouse his wife. The idea of her lying abed whilst he was exposed to the raw elements annoyed him. Anyway, he would be finished work in a half hour; she should be up and preparing against his return. … Aye, and that blasted Sal Hardcastle and Sam Grundy. Damn ‘em both! Sam had worked his cards prettily. Yaaa! What y’ can do when y’ve got money!…

  A man wearing clogs and carrying a long pole tipped with a bunch of wires came clattering into North Street. His back was bent, beard untrimmed, rusty black bowler hat tipped over his eyes. He stopped at No. 17, raised his pole and laid the wires against the window, rattling them loudly against the panes. A voice responded. Joe moved on to Mrs Dorbell’s, where he repeated the performance. ‘Come thee on, lass,’ he said, when Helen’s voice acknowledged the summons: ‘Come thee on, lass. Hafe past five, Monday mornin’ an’ pourin’ o’ rain.’ He shoulde
red his pole and clattered out of the street. Those who were unemployed slumbered on.

  Silence.

  Lights began to appear in some of the lower windows of the houses.

  The grocer’s shop at the street corner blazed forth electrically. Occasionally, women, wearing shawls so disposed as to conceal from the elements whatever it was they carried in their arms, passed, ghostlike, the street comer. In the gloom they looked like fat cassocked monks with cowls drawn.

  In Mrs Dorbell’s house, Helen came downstairs, ‘Ah-ah-ing’ sleepily. She groped on the tiny kitchen’s mantelpiece for the matches, struck one and lit the gas. The glare hurt her eyes; she blinked, stifled a yawn, scratched her head with one hand whilst she stretched with the other. She shivered and shrugged. It was cold. She stooped, raked out the grate and stuffed it with paper, picked up the shovel and trudged to the backyard, pausing by the stairs to shout: ‘Come on, Harry, lad. Five an’ twenty t’ six, Monday mornin’ an’ pourin’ o’ rain.’

  She unbolted the door and went to the corner where the coal was stored. Other people in neighbouring backyards were shovelling coal, the gratings of the shovels rasped harshly in the still air of early morning.

  The melancholy hoot of a ship’s siren sounded from the Salford Docks…

  Table of Contents

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER 1

  HANKY PARK

  CHAPTER 2

  GETTING UP

  CHAPTER 3

  LOOKING FOR IT

  CHAPTER 4

  PRICE AND JONES’S

  CHAPTER 5

  GIRLS MAKE HIM SICK

  CHAPTER 6

  OVERALLS