‘Everything looks pretty bright then, doesn’t it?’ my wife asked, pouring coffee. ‘Troubles seem to be over.’ Her manner showed a relief that I guessed to be partly personal. The strain of not telling Mair about Betty’s earlier visit hadn’t been lightly borne.
‘I don’t think I should say that exactly,’ Mair said. ‘Arnulfsen’s forgiven her all right, and she’s trying to make a go of it, quite seriously, I can tell. But they keep being bothered by the crowd she used to be in with before, girls who used to be in the same gang looking her up, and once they even had a lascar trying to force his way in; wanted to renew old acquaintance and got her address from the café, I suppose. There’ve been one or two things like that. And then some of the neighbours have got to hear about Betty’s past and they keep teasing her about it, call out in the street after her. Chapel spirit gone sour, you see. It makes Arnulfsen pretty wild.’
While Jean expressed her indignation, I was wondering fairly hard how I was going to ‘be able to judge’ the Arnulfsens’ flat. Was I in some way committed to a tea party there, or what? An answer couldn’t be long delayed, for Mair was draining her cup and rising. ‘Come along,’ she said to me. ‘We’ve not got too much time.’
‘Time for what, Mair? I’m sorry . . .’
She threw me a momentary leonine glare before dipping to pick up her handbag. When she spoke, it was with an incredulity to which those accustomed to plan for others must often be subject. Since what she had lined up for me was necessitated both by logic and by natural law, how could I conceivably not know what it was? ‘But surely you’re coming along to Betty’s with me? I’m only popping in to see how she is. Then I can drop you at the library by two-fifteen. Cheerio, Jean dear. Thank you for a lovely lunch. We must fix up a coffee date for next week. I’ll give John a ring, if I can manage to pick a time when he’s at the seat of custom.’
Wiggling her eyebrows at me to enjoin silence, Jean went into a vivacious speech which lasted more or less until I was sitting in Mair’s car next to its owner. Opened envelopes, typed lists, printed forms lay about us as at some perfunctory demonstration of bureaucracy at work. Jean continued her facial ballet until we left.
I knew Mair was going to tell me some more, or possibly run over a few familiar but essential points, about what being a social worker was like. She enjoyed getting me on my own and doing this because, it appeared, I was a man and, as such, easy to talk to. Sometimes her husband came into these conversations, but not often, and when he did it was likely to be as a feature of her exposition of what being married to a social worker’s husband was like. I hoped we were going to get the practical today; some of Mair’s case histories were of great anthropological interest, and those that weren’t were still a lot better than the theoretical.
We got the theoretical, but crossed with the autobiographical, which helped a bit. What had first attracted her to the idea of social work? Ah, there were many answers to this conundrum, every one of them demanding careful or at any rate lengthy consideration. Mair had taken a course in psychology, so she knew all about the power impulse and its tendency to be present in those who made a living out of good works. Several of her colleagues were prone to this affliction, and she had even detected it in herself before now. That was where psychological training was so useful: you knew how to examine your own motives and to guard against unworthy ones. With that out of the way, she felt safe in asserting that it was the duty of the mature and responsible elements of the community to do what they could for their less gifted fellows. At one time the more conscientious kind of squire had stood in a similar relation to his tenants, the right-minded employer to his workmen and their families, but the rise of the oligopoly (Mair kept up with Labour Party research pamphlets) had put paid to all that. One of the many all-important tasks of our society was the training of specialists for functions which at one time had been discharged as by-products of other functions. A case very much in point here was provided by the constantly expanding duties of – well, Mair recognized the term social workers, but for her own part she preferred (having once attended a Social Science Summer School in Cardiff) to think of herself and her associates as technicians in paternalism.
When she brought that one out I had the infrequent experience of seeing her face express only a limited satisfaction with what she’d said. We penetrated farther into an uncongenial district. Then Mair added: ‘Actually, John, I’m not altogether happy about that label.’
‘You’re not?’
‘No, I’m not. It’s a scientific term, of course, and so it’s quite accurate in a way, but like all scientific terms it’s incomplete, it doesn’t really say enough, doesn’t go far enough, leaves out a lot. It leaves out the thing that keeps us all going, sees us over the rough patches and stops us losing faith, which is the one thing we can’t afford to do in our job. It’s – well, I can’t think of any better name for it than . . . idealism. You can laugh if you like –’ she turned her profile far enough round to assure me that any such laughter had better remain internal – ‘but that’s what it is. Just a simple, old-fashioned urge to do good, not in a chapel way, naturally, but scientifically, because we know what we’re doing, but that’s the basis of the whole thing, no point in beating about the bush. I know that sort of talk makes you feel uncomfortable, but I believe in—’
Before she could mention calling a spade a spade, a mode of nomenclature she often recommended, I told her that that wasn’t quite it, and went on: ‘This isn’t aimed at you, Mair, but I think doing good to people’s rather a risky thing. You can lay up a lot of trouble, for yourself as well as the people who’re being done good to. And it’s so hard to be sure that the good you’re trying to do really is good, the best thing for that person, and the justification of the whole business is a bit—’
‘I’m in favour of taking risks. There’s far too much playing safe these days, it’s ruining the country, all this stick-in-the-mud attitude. I believe in taking off my coat and getting on with the job.’
‘But, Mair, these are risks that involve other people. You’re deciding what’s best for them and then doing it, just like that. You don’t give them a chance to—’
‘If you’d done as much social work as I have, John, perhaps you’d have some idea of how many people there are in this world who are constitutionally incapable of knowing what’s best for them. They’re like children. You wouldn’t let Eira be the judge of what was best for her, would you? You wouldn’t let her put her hand in the fire to see if it was hot, would you?’
‘No, of course not, but children aren’t—’
‘I know you think social work’s something terribly complicated and difficult. Well, believe me, ninety or ninety-five per cent of the time it couldn’t be simpler, at least making the right decision couldn’t: getting it carried out is something else again, of course, but the actual decision’s a piece of cake, because you’re dealing with complete fools or complete swine or both. You’d think the same after a month in my job, I know you would.’
‘I hope not.’
‘Honestly, John, if people in general thought like you there wouldn’t be any progress at all.’
‘No, there wouldn’t, would there?’
At this fundamental point Mair steered the car to the kerb and stopped it, not, it transpired, in order to fight me but because we’d arrived. Facing us when we got out was a meagre row of shops: a newsagent’s with a lot of advertisements written on postcards, a barber-cum-tobacconist, an outfitter’s whose window stock alone would have outfitted a hundred middle-aged ladies in wool from head to foot, and a place that had no doubt once been a shop in the full sense but was now whitewashed to above eye level. This last establishment had to one side of it a door, recently painted a British Railways brown, and a bell which Mair rang. Then she took me by the arm and drew me a yard or two along the pavement.
I said: ‘What’s this in aid of, then?’ in what was supposed to be a bantering tone. Actually I was only half noticing
; my mind was busy trying to decide what Mair’s ‘you’d think the same after a month in the job’ thing had reminded me of.
‘You don’t want to be in front of the front door of a house like this when they open it.’
‘Oh?’ That was it: the veteran colonial administrator to the just-out-from-England colonial administrator. We’re all a bit prowog when we first get out here, my boy; it’s only natural. Soon wears off, though, you’ll find. ‘Why not?’
‘Well, the door opening makes the draught rush through the house, and the draught carries the bugs with it. You don’t want them to land on you.’
‘You mean really bugs?’ She had my full attention now.
‘You don’t want them to land on you.’
‘Hallo, Mrs Webster, don’t often see you up this way.’
‘Oh, good afternoon, Emrys, how are you?’ Mair turned animatedly towards the new arrival, a young police constable with a long, pale nose. ‘Wife all right?’
‘Well, no, she hasn’t been too grand, actually. They had her back in for three days’ observation the week before last, and the doctor said—’ His voice became indistinguishable, chiefly because he was lowering its pitch, but also because he was removing its source in the direction of the shop that had committed itself so wholeheartedly to the woollen garment. Mair retreated with him, nodding a fair amount. I was still feeling impressed by her bit of know-how about the bugs. Real front-line stuff, that.
‘Yes, who’s here, please?’ This came from the now open front door, at which a small red-haired, red-faced man was standing.
‘My name’s Lewis.’
‘I don’t know you. What you want here?’
I looked along the pavement to where Mair, nodding faster, was standing with her back to me. It must have had all the appearance of a furtive, sidelong, up-to-no-good look. Like a fool, I said: ‘I’m a friend of your wife’s.’ As I said this, I smiled.
‘Get out of here,’ the red-haired man bawled. He wore a red shirt. ‘Get out, you bastard.’
‘Look, it’s all right, there’s no need to—’
‘Get out quick, you bastard.’ For the first time he saw Mair and the policeman, who were now approaching. ‘Mrs Webster, hallo. And you, Officer. Take away this bastard.’
‘Now calm down, Bent, nothing to get excited about. Mr Lewis is with me. He and his wife have been very kind to Betty. He’s come along with me to see how you all are. He’s a friend of mine.’
‘Sorry, Mrs Webster. Sorry, sir, very sorry.’
‘That’s all right, Bent, Mr Lewis doesn’t mind. He knows you didn’t mean anything. You just forget it. Now, can we come in?’
‘Please, yes, come in.’
‘Bye-bye, Emrys, give Maureen my love. Tell her I’ll pop in to see her in a day or two. And don’t you worry. She’s a good strong girl and with the better weather coming she’ll soon pull round, I guarantee.’
‘Thank you very much, Mrs Webster. Goodbye now.’
Before he turned away I caught a glimpse of Emrys’s face and was startled to see on it an expression of relief and gratitude, quite as if he’d just received an important reassurance of some kind. I followed Mair across the threshold, frowning and shaking my head at life’s endless enigma.
Bugs or no bugs, the house revealed itself to me as not too bad. There were loose and cracked floorboards, but none missing, and no damp; the kitchen we penetrated to was dark all right, but it smelt no worse than stale; through its open door I could see a scullery with a row of clean cups hanging above the sink and a dishcloth spread over the taps to dry. One of the twins came into view in that quarter, took in the sight of visitors and doubled away again.
‘Good afternoon, Betty,’ Mair was saying in her hospital-rounds manner. ‘My goodness, you have done well, haven’t you? You really ought to be congratulated. You have made the place look nice.’
She went on like that while I glanced round the place. It did look nice enough as far as it went, but that wasn’t at all far. Most noticeably, there was an absence of the unnecessary things, the ornaments, the photographs and pictures, the postcards on the mantelpiece that every home accumulates. It was as if the moving men had just dumped the furniture down, leaving the small stuff to be unpacked later, only in this case there was nothing to unpack. Curtains perhaps fell into the category of the unnecessary, even, with a small single window like this one, of the excessive. They were of Betty’s favourite lilac shade, and ranks of mauve personages, with sword and fan, periwig and towering hair-do, were doing a minuet on them. At this sight I felt pity stirring. Get back, you brute, I said internally, giving it a mental kick on the snout. Then I felt angry with a whole lot of people, but without much prospect of working out just who.
Mair was nearing her peroration. I looked covertly at Betty. Although no longer tarted up, she hadn’t recovered the quiet, youthful air she’d had when I first saw her. She wore a grey cardigan which seemed designed to accentuate the roundness of her shoulders. The circles under her eyes weren’t the temporary kind. She was staring up at Mair with the sarcastic patience of someone listening to a shaky alibi. Bent Arnulfsen, after standing about uneasily for a time, went out into the scullery and I heard water plunging into a kettle. Still talking, the old moral commando moved to follow him. ‘I just want to have a word with Bent a minute,’ she said, and shut the door behind her.
‘Well, how are things?’ I asked.
Betty glanced at me without friendliness, then away. ‘Okay,’ she muttered, picking at a hole in the cover of her chair.
‘Your husband seems a nice chap.’
‘What you know about it, eh?’
‘I’m only going on how he struck me.’
‘Aw, he’s okay, I suppose. He’s a good boy.’
‘There’s a lot to be said for good boys.’
‘Suppose so.’
‘You seem to have settled down here nicely.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Jean and the children asked to be remembered to you, by the way.’
To shrug both her shoulders would have meant heaving herself up from the chair back, so she made do with just shrugging the uppermost one. It was clear to me that there was nothing left of the cordiality of our last meeting, and no wonder. A man who had seen her when she was free was the last kind of person on earth who should have been allowed to see her now she was tamed. And in any contact not made on terms of equality the speech of one party or the other will fall almost inevitably into the accents and idioms of patronage, as I’d just heard my own speech doing. Severity is actually more respectful. But that wouldn’t do here. Would anything? I said: ‘Do you ever miss the old life?’
‘What you want to know for? What’s it got to do with you?’
‘Nothing. I was only asking.’
‘Well, don’t ask, see? Mind your own bloody business, see? What you want to come here for anyway?’
‘I’m sorry, Betty. I just came to see how you were getting on.’
‘Like old Webster, eh? Well I don’t like people coming along to see how I’m getting on, see? I gets brassed off with it, see?’
As she got up from her chair to make her point more forcibly, the scullery door opened and Mair came back into the room. My sense of relief filled me with shame. Triumph swept over Betty’s face at being about to do what she must have wanted to do for quite a time.
‘Your husband certainly thinks the world of you, Betty,’ Mair led off. ‘He’s been telling me—’
‘Get out, you old cow,’ Betty shouted, blinking fast. ‘I doesn’t want you here, see? I got enough to put up with with the bloody neighbours hanging over the fence and staring in the bloody windows and them buggers upstairs complaining. I got enough without you poking your bloody nose in, see? Just you piss off quick and leave me alone.’
‘Please, my dear, be quiet.’ Bent Arnulfsen had reappeared in the scullery doorway. In one hand he held a brown enamel teapot, in the other the hand of one of the twins. ‘Mrs Webster is kin
d. And this gentleman.’
‘You keep out of this, man. Go on, Webster, what you waiting for? I said get out, didn’t I? Who do you think you are, that’s what I’d like to know – poking your bloody nose in everywhere and telling every bugger what to do. You’re beyond, you are, Webster. Bloody beyond. And as for you—’ At the moment when Betty, who was now crying, turned to me, Mair looked at her wristwatch with a quick movement. ‘Who asked you to come snooping in, that’s what I’d like to know,’ Betty started to say to me, but Mair cut in.
‘I’m afraid we shan’t be able to manage that cup of tea, Bent,’ she said interestedly; ‘I’d no idea the time was getting along like this. I must take Mr Lewis off to his place of work or I shall get into trouble. I’ll be in next week as usual and I’m sure things will have settled down by then. Goodbye, Betty; don’t upset yourself, there’s a good girl. Goodbye, Bent.’
With another look at me, full of accusation, Betty blundered out into the scullery and banged the door. Later I thought how cruel it was that she’d been met by bland preoccupation instead of the distress or anger she’d longed to provoke, that her brave show of defiance must have seemed to her to have misfired. But at the time I only wanted to get out before she came back.
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