“I never go out.”
“No-one’s stoppin’ you?”
“Not a brass farden in me pocket? ’Ow can I?”
“What you in need of? A new suit? Get you anything you want.”
“You took three sovereign off me.”
Dido gave him a hard look and a warning silence. Then; “Tell me what you want. I’ll get it.”
“I’m nineteen. You don’t buy things for a feller my age. Dide — it’s in me pocket I want it. Money in me pocket.”
“I seen what you do with money. That night.”
“Don’t keep on. An’ it was my money. Well it wasn’t yours, was it? You took it off me. You never give it back to no-one.”
“Rotten ol’ slag. I nigh pulled you off her.”
“No you never. I wasn’t gonna do nothing. It was my money. Dide — there’s this feller at work. ’E’s a nice respectable chap. ’E’s like my mate. ’E’s always askin’ why we don’ go out of an evening together. ’E’s engaged. ’E’s a very respectable chap. An’ ’e’s got a corkin’ sister. She’d come out for the foursome. ’E says ’e wants ’er to meet a nice feller.”
The disdain in Dido’s look made Chas’s heart sink. Dido said, “All these years. All these years I’ve told you. In one ear out the other. Nothin’ between to stop it.”
Chas pleaded, “’E’s a nice feller.”
“You ’ave to work with them. Don’t ’ave nothing to do with ’em. I’ve told you. Never lowered meself. All the time I worked.”
“But this Bert is a very respectable chap.”
“Wharf labourer.”
“So am I.”
“You’re a cut above them.”
“You always said meet a nice girl. Where am I gonna meet a nice girl? You won’t let me.”
“Go up the chapel. There’s a young men’s club.”
“What?” Chas yelped it. He was dumbfounded. That pen-pushing lot of cocoa-drinkers with their celluloid collars handing round the prayer-books? Dido had never had time for them. He had never made a suggestion like this to his brothers. What had got into Dido?
“Nice class o’ people. You wanna think o’ your sister-in-law. My wife’s a lady you know. You wanna think who you bring ’ome.”
Yes, that was it! Grief and anger fumed up together in Chas. He would never have a chance, never. He would spend his days going to and from work, toiling with no more hope than the horses who pulled the canal barges. He could hardly ever afford to go for a drink with the fellows in the dinner break. He couldn’t have a mate. A nice girl wasn’t good enough for Dido, didn’t suit his brother’s new ideas. Oh, it was no good. He was done for. Dished. Anything he tried he could expect the kibosh on it. He might as well tie a stone round his neck and jump in the canal.
He had no more spirit to argue. He sighed, stood up and they walked home in silence.
Grace was already in bed. Dido unfastened his tie at the mirror. He felt pleased with himself. That boy would have gone down the pan years ago without a brother to look after him. Chas and Shonny the pair of them should thank their stars they had a brother. He would have to see that Chas started minding his ways. Put a good suit on Chas and he could look any of that chapel lot in the eyes. There was none that had a better home. Time enough for him to think of girls. He hadn’t wiped the mother’s milk off his mouth yet. When he did he could bring home the proper type of young lady. It was a nice thought, a young lady like that and Grace. They would be company for each other. It all went with the thought of the new home, a decent flat in a decent district. Chas could bring his young lady there, all in good time. Dido went to bed stirred by his good secrets.
He had not lit the gas. It was a clear white night of early summer and even with the curtains closed there was enough light in the room for every object in it to be visible. He could see Grace lying on her back, looking at the ceiling with mild and empty eyes. He settled his limbs and closed his eyes for sleep. He heard her voice. “Didy— ”
He opened his eyes. She had turned his way and was looking down at him, supported on an elbow. He grunted a question but she only repeated, “Didy,” and waited.
Then she sighed as if tired and settled down and she uttered a long, private, going-to-sleep noise; and sank down; but she did so still turned his way, so that her weight was half upon him. Her hair was in his face.
He pushed an arm underneath her and levered her weight and she came on top of him. He felt the brush of her lashes as her eyes closed and her breathing was regular as if she was trying to sleep but she was wide awake all right. In fact because her belly was starting to swell she supported herself on her forearms; but she started to press the lower part of her body upon his under the blankets, unobtrusively but regularly, yet as if she had no idea what was happening. He felt himself get hard. She puzzled him and although he was getting hard he lay still, to find out. Then she began to wriggle, just the lower part of her raised up and her hands moving under the blankets. He let one of his hands move cautiously and the side of it touched her bare warm flank. She had wriggled up her nightdress. For some reason he made himself lie inert and wait. She waited, too. When he did not move her hand brushed lightly over the top of his thighs and now his wild suspicion began to find confirmation. Her fingers pried, in the most absent-minded way, and took him, yes, guided him. It was incredible, somehow it was a laugh; all the time the sly little piece was breathing as if she was asleep with her eyes closed. This beat the band.
He had never felt so strange all over doing this, tickled until it was enough to drive a fellow mad; and they had never before gone on so long and slow. Usually it was over before you could say “Harry Tate”. And her breathing got deeper and longer, until her chest was heaving up and down, and there under the blankets where something was happening on its own that they both pretended they didn’t know about, she gripped him harder and harder, rose up and down more fiercely. She began to turn her face quickly to one side and the other as if she was having hysterics in her sleep. Her cheek came down against his chin. She was blazing hot and damp. She was breathing like sobs and she started to make noises. He finished but it didn’t stop her. She was making these shuddery breathing noises and then all of a sudden she slumped on his chest. She was soft and loose as a sack now and so still she might have been a corpse, except that she was breathing long and slow, and warm.
They lay for a long time like that, she apparently asleep, he in a mingled state of astonishment and satisfaction. After all she was his wife. It was a rum business, being married, but he liked to feel he had a wife and he couldn’t say why but at this moment he really felt he had a wife. She muttered, “Oh, well,” in the most ordinary way and slipped away from him. She lay next to him. She raised herself up on her elbow and once again she looked down at him. He could see her eyes gleaming in the faint white light. She said once more, “Didy —”
He didn’t know what to say. He felt so married, that was it, married at this moment, that he wanted to tell her everything, all about his real life that she didn’t know about, and his plans. A wife should share his plans. But a shutter of caution came down. It didn’t do. It didn’t do at all. All in good time. He was doing things so as to keep her respect. Her eyes gleamed down at him and he couldn’t think of anything to say except, “Restless?” He touched her cheek. The damp had gone cold.
“No. I can always sleep. You know me.”
“Me too.”
“Good night.”
“Good night.”
He stuck to his new plan. He had promised his mother and he was a man of his word. She must have been astonished at the ease with which he had given in to her for he had been master in the house since boyhood. He left the shopkeepers alone and looked for work.
Partly he was moved by genuine filial piety. Overbearing he had always been, stern as a father in the house, but he had always longed for his mother’s approval. Inside he wasn’t much different from the little boy who had stood up to his father. Then he had ha
ted his father and had wanted only to show his mother that he was the opposite of that beast, her good dependable boy. And this was what he still wanted, always. Her everlasting praises were meat and drink to him. Her cry, “It’s not like you. It’s like your father,” her appeal, her talk of feeling disgraced by him, the implied withdrawal of her admiration — these had been enough to make him promise.
Yet he had only promised so readily because his own thoughts, far cooler calculations, were already moving in the same direction. On that Sunday morning in the shop he had faced Mr Merry calmly enough — mockingly, almost. But the interview had left him appalled. Dido was a law-abiding man. Until twelve months ago he had, like his mother, held as an article of faith that one’s existence should not even be noticed by the police. The fight with Ginger had been fated. He still could not question its rightness. But since then his life had not been his own. He could see from the outside, as it were, all that was happening, and the self that stood outside was incredulous.
Behind his calm he feared a conflict with the law. He did not want this duel with Mr Merry to go on. He only wanted the man to forget him. Until Keogh had been sent away Dido had been conscious only of the need to fight, to survive. As in all his previous life it looked as if he must fight and fight until it was his turn to go down. And then the reprieve — he had already felt the shock of it when his mother spoke to him. She had spoken his own longing back to him, given shape to his thoughts. He was not held back by pride. He had no compunction about clearing out before Keogh returned. Let those who wished call it running away. He wouldn’t be here to listen.
It was no easy matter to find work. He was determined to take only a responsible position that would show him in a good light to Grace. Luckily he had a few pounds in hand. He had obtained from the manager at the wharf a reference which stated that Dido Peach could read, write, keep tally, manage men and be trusted with money.
He had imagined that his smart presence, his good suit and the testimonial would be easy passports to a good job — foreman, checker, overseer, something of that sort — but everywhere he went there was an ante-room full of competitors, most of them men who looked as if they had come down from an even higher station in life. He tramped London for one week after another, dog-tired, swallowing snubs, often kept waiting uselessly for hours, fighting off discouragement, his carelessly saved funds dwindling.
After a month, when he was at the end of his tether, he saw an advertisement in the East London Advertiser. A dairy in Clapton wanted roundsmen. The phrase that drew his eye was “promotion for smart men”.
The dairy looked a goodish size. A wide entrance — on the high wooden gates now opened could be read the two halves of the inscription: D. Owen. Cowkeeper. — opened into a large yard around which were cowhouses, stables and a glass cubby of an office. Mr Owen was small, with a bald, fringed head. There was still a faint Welsh lilt in his voice. He greeted Dido civilly; that was a change from most of the others; and asked about previous experience.
Dido said, “No, sir. But I can ’andle a horse. I’m good with figures an’ I can turn my hand to anything.”
“You look a smart man —” Mr Owen eyed Dido in his good suit. “The ladies like that. We’ll try you in the yard. No use wasting your time if you can’t take a float out. Is it, man?”
As they walked out, Owen said, “It’s four rounds a day. In between you look after your horse, clean your churn out and wash your cans. It’s not a job for idlers, you know.”
Dido began, “It says in the advert about promotion —”
“One thing at a time, man,” Mr Owen said cheerfully. “Take this float round the yard.”
Dido did so. When he stepped down, Mr Owen said, “I can see you can be trusted with horseflesh. You can start Monday. You’ll draw a straw hat and two aprons, five shillings deposit, returnable when you leave. Not for a long time we hope. I pay ten shillings a week and sixpence in the pound commission. You can count on twenty-five shillings if you work hard.”
Dido said, “My young brother gets twenty-one bob carrying timber. He’s only nineteen.”
“Ah, well,” Owen said equably, “If you think you can better yourself, I mustn’t stop you. Only it’s the prospects we offer, see?”
“That’s what I wanted to ask about,” Dido said. “In the advert. It says, promotion.”
“Ah, yes, well,” Owen said, “you see, I’ve been in this game since I was a boy. Started from the bottom I did. I’ve worked up a nice business, you can see that. Forty-two years I’ve been at it, and shall I tell you? This whole place depends on me. From dawn till dark I have to be here if I want to see things right. I’m getting a little tired, Mr Peach. You can understand that.”
“Lookin’ for a manager, are you, sir?”
“In a manner of speaking, exactly. Not that I want to pack up, mind. Too young for my grave I am. What I want is a man I can trust so I can take it easy a bit more. You got it exactly, a manager.”
“That’s the post I want, sir. You’ll not be disappointed.”
“I’ve been disappointed in others, Mr Peach.”
“You try me, Mr Owen.”
“Steady, steady.” Owen made a little song of the two words. “I’m not one for buying pigs in pokes. You must show what you’re made of on the milk round, Mr Peach.”
“I’ll do that providing it’s understood.”
“Probation, Mr Peach. Show what you’re made of.”
“What would you pay a manager?”
“Oh, depends what the man is worth. Talk about that later.”
“I’d like to know.”
“Oh, two pound ten, for a good man. Of course if he put up business he wouldn’t be unrewarded.”
“A bonus you mean?”
“The men have commission. I would certainly encourage the manager, Mr Peach. Monday, then? Terms as agreed. Tips at Christmas, of course.”
“I won’t be on the round till Christmas, Mr Owen. If you can’t sum me up in a few weeks you never will. It’s manager I’m after.”
“I like an ambitious man,” sang Mr Owen.
Chapter Nineteen
For the next eight weeks Dido worked as a milk roundsman. He rose at half-past three every morning and walked to work. He was able to return by train at the end of his thirteen-and-a-half-hour day but he was never home before seven in the evening. He wore his good suit every day. He wore it to preserve face in front of those people in the street who saw him come home each evening. (No one saw him set out in the darkness.) He wore it to remind Mr Owen that he was a manager-designate. Above all he wore it to impress Grace; for he had told her that he had put a bit of money into another small business over Dalston way, rags it was like the shop here, and he went across every day to keep an eye on the other chap. He did not talk to her much, for he had little more than eight hours of his own in the twenty-four and he slumped into bed dog-tired each night; but although he did not want te tell her lies, he had started the story and he had to keep it going. He had also told her that they must economise now with a baby coming. This did not seem to put her out. She was getting on in her time and did not go out much. Besides, she was a good wife. Ever since that night he felt more that she was a good wife. He did not know what to make of the episode, and with him dog-tired every night she had been considerate enough to leave him alone since then, but the memory set up a complacent feeling in him.
He was getting on famously at the job. In a good suit, striped apron and straw boater hat he was popular among the women on his round, in the little streets of pretty cottages and red-brick terraced houses that ran toward the River Lea. Whether tweenies or housewives, they liked his smartness and civility, although some preferred a cheerier type of milkman. He was punctual, attentive and rapid. He was able to pick up extra trade and push up his commission until now he was taking home sometimes well over thirty shillings a week. Some weeks he was able to put away a half-sovereign towards his savings. He enjoyed riding on the step of his floa
t, reins in hand and he enjoyed working up trade. He kept busy between rounds polishing the brass on his float and churns and horse’s harness till it sparkled. Mr Owen often stopped to nod approval or pass a civil word, but he had not yet said anything about the managership. Dido decided he must give the man a nudge soon. He was keeping an eye open in the neat streets of Clapton for a pair of respectable rooms. With a fiver in hand he could move but he had not much time. Keogh would be out by the end of the month.
Once he had the managership he wouldn’t look back. With a wife like Grace behind him he would earn well over that two pounds ten. He had already looked round the yard and thought of a number of ideas for improvements, which of course he kept to himself until the job was his. Not that he would stay long at the dairy. It would only be the first step on the road to better things.
Merry and Weldon came out of Blakers’ shop. Once again the tobacconist had refused to speak. Merry knew well enough that Dido had been taking money for months from the shopkeepers. Now that he had lost patience with Dido he wanted to collect enough evidence to arrest Dido on a charge of demanding money with menaces. But he was faced with a phalanx of closed mouths. The tradesmen all reasoned, as Blakers had just done openly to him, that it was a case of Dido or Keogh, and if they squealed to the police they would incur such odium that whoever survived to oppress them would treat them badly, even if they had secured his rival’s downfall. To Mr Merry’s assurances that the police would protect them they replied with open laughter.
“The funny thing is,” Merry said, “they all swear blind they’re not paying anyone now.”
“They would.”
“I believe them. Truth or lie, I can always smell it.”
“What do you make of it then?”
“Don’t see him about these days.”
“See him of an evening. Comes home dressed like a bloody poxdoctor’s clerk.”
“Where is he all day? Up to some mischief, eh?”
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