I'm All Right Jack

by Alan Hackney

  I’M ALL RIGHT JACK

  ALAN HACKNEY

  Contents

  Title Page

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  About the Author

  Copyright

  CHAPTER 1

  THE HOT sun beat down on Sunnyglades Nature Camp, and Stanley Windrush gulped at the gates. Whenever he came to see his father it seemed to be hot. Had it only been cooler he could have got away with it, but in weather like this he knew beforehand, with a sinking heart, that Mr Habakkuk in the reception room would insist on his being naked like everyone else.

  “I don’t think your father’s in his cabin,” said Mr Habakkuk. “He’s in the grounds somewhere. Let me know if you can’t find him.”

  Stanley heard this news with a sinking heart. To scour the woods for his father meant, as he well knew, a long agonizing hobble through the pine needles. His town shoes would only have added to his indignity, and he could never remember sandals.

  Cringing distractedly along the paths he began to beat the woods. Twice he turned back at warning notices: DANGER! Beyond this point you can be seen from the road. He was making his way towards a murmur of voices when a loud and alarming rattling froze him. A snake! Then an exclamation of “Double three!” and a peep over a low bush confirmed that it was only a drooping family group playing ludo.

  “Excuse me,” said Stanley, bowing an exit. The man rose, and put on very thick steel-rimmed spectacles to watch him go.

  He found his naked father at last, mushrooming near the lake with a little chip basket.

  “Seen any amanitopsis vaginata?” his father called out as he approached. “Oh, it’s you, Stanley. How are you? Any trouble with your trains? I’m looking for grisettes.”

  “Oh, I’m very well,” said Stanley uneasily. His father’s remarks unsettled him with their apparently medical or perhaps Parisian flavour, but it became clear he was speaking of fungi.

  “Several of us picking today,” observed his father. “Including that fellow Greenblatt.” He indicated another pinky-white, middle-aged figure peering about under shrubs on the far side of the lake. “Extraordinary how insincere some people are. We have the simple life here, as you know, with us all plain to behold. Yet the fellow wears a beard. Sheer ostentation. I suppose when everybody’s been converted to The Way it’ll be about the only form of ostentation left. H’m. I say, look at this!” he cried suddenly, plucking what appeared to be a small human skull from a tuft of damp grass. “Lycoperdon giganteum! Very fine specimen.”

  Stanley looked dubious.

  “Giant puff-ball,” said his father shortly, and thrust it into his basket with the other fungi, slightly nettled at his son’s lack of enthusiasm.

  Later, outside Mr Windrush’s hut, they set to work peeling for cooking.

  “And what are you thinking of doing now?” his father asked casually.

  This was not an easy question to answer. Thinking of an answer had taxed Stanley’s capacities through most of his last term at the university. What with the long interlude of his Army service and one thing and another, it seemed to him at times that he had been at Oxford, on and off, for most of his life. Stanley had, in fact, fallen for Oxford’s notorious illusion of timelessness, and was now alarmed to realize that after this vacation he would not be going back. With his Third Class in the Final Honours School of English slung on his shoulder he must now strike out unassisted along what the chaplain at school used to call Life’s Highway.

  “Lots of young fellows seem to be going in for the Foreign Office,” said his father. “Quite a shortage of recruits of the right sort. Seems to be a lot easier than it was in my day.

  “I suppose the usual thing is to stay at home for a bit and look round, but you never seem keen to stay here very long somehow. You’re wrong, of course. It’s the only place a gentleman can stay these days. However, please don’t let me stand in your way. You know, your mother always used to put a sixpence in with mushrooms, but it’s all nonsense. No fungus ever turned a sixpence black, poisonous or not. Would you get the tomatoes? They’re inside, in a bowl covered with Health And Efficiency.”

  Inside the hut there was a minimum of basic furniture, indeed hardly enough horizontal surfaces to support the objects that had accumulated to bear witness to Mr Windrush’s multitudinous interests. Some of the more solid of the objects were usefully employed as paperweights, for he tended to keep the windows open day and night. Parts of his abandoned manuscript on the history of the English Music Hall were thus pinned down, as were pages of his current manuscript ‘The Uncluttered Spirit’, an assessment of the contribution of nudity to culture through the ages—a project started some years before as a thank-offering, but now largely abandoned through lack of evidence. Mr Windrush was a sensible man in his eccentricities and would never hesitate from mere pride to lay aside anything that became unpromising. Thus, his maritime rug-wool sweater hung ready to hand behind the door for when the sun went in. If it became chillier, he put shorts on as well.

  Stanley came out with the tomatoes to find his father cutting the big puff-ball into half-inch slices.

  “You know,” said Mr Windrush, “these Socialists talk about the Foreign Office being one of the last outposts of privilege. At least, they used to. Personally I’m all for any of these last outposts. Why not have a shot at that? You might do well in it.”

  “I do know some people going in for it,” admitted Stanley. “Two or three chaps with Firsts, and a lot of Roman Catholics. They get in all right. Then send them to Paris or Rio.”

  “Well, you once did a course in Japanese, didn’t you?” said his father. “That’s almost as good. They’ll probably send you to the Canary Islands. I should put in an application right away.”

  *

  Stanley was rushed to hospital the next day, and spent a fortnight recovering from the effects of his father’s fungus casserole. He was pleased to receive a letter from him during the final stages of his recovery.

  My dear Stanley,

  I really must apologize for the delay in writing to you. I was, of course, informed by the hospital authorities of your condition and they assured me verbally that although you were then on the danger list you were in the most capable hands, which relieved me a great deal.

  It is curious to note that I personally suffered no ill-effects and I can only put down your indisposition to the accidental inclusion of some amanita phalloides, a variety often noted for its fatal effect. My survival I must chiefly ascribe to robustness induced by more natural living conditions, but I do not wish to preach.

  You may be interested to hear that Greenblatt (the man I pointed out to you with the beard) died in the evening shortly after you left. At the inquest, which I attended, the coroner saw fit to make what was to my mind a most timid and misleading warning statement on the dangers of eating anything but the cultivated field mushroom (Psalliota campestris). Nonsense, of course. I am enclosing Ramsbottom’s ‘Edible Fungi’ for you. It is quite a good elementary work and may while away some of your time.

  The last ten days have been pretty full, what with the funeral and the annual conference of Natural Union, which was held here this year. We have our excitements, you see.

  Let
me know how your Foreign Office application is going. Mr Habakkuk’s nephew is with the Fiji Police, incidentally, and often sends back interesting evidence on the effects of clothing a barbarous people.

  My best wishes for your recovery.

  Your affectionate,

  Father

  The day after this there came application forms and duplicated sheets of information about appointments in the Senior Branch of the Foreign Service.

  There seemed to Stanley to be more ways than one of entering and he began a diligent search through the papers for the easiest. Every second person he had met at Oxford had at one time or other tried to get into the Foreign Service or the Administrative Class of the Home Civil Service. From time to time batches of them used to go for a highly-strung weekend to a house in rural Surrey where the Civil Service Commissioners ran for some years a series of country-house parties. Some candidates went rather plaintively dressed for the future part in black jackets and pinstripes, others in tweeds as academic as they were non-country, with pastel woollen ties. Many went simply in order to stay at a country house, in an era of high taxation that made such a visit something to be snatched at, like a dish before it went off the menu.

  All, when they got there, found themselves shown into Nissen huts in the grounds, and the whole business like an intellectual War Office Selection Board, the institution from which this expensive project had, in fact, developed. It was useful to have read economics and to be familiar with Planning. Some had irrelevantly christened the thing ‘Dr Edith’s Summerschool’.

  All this, however, Stanley now found to his relief, had been abandoned in favour of a day in London, or a rather difficult examination, or ‘in exceptional cases’, they said, an appearance before a board without a preliminary interview.

  There was a good deal in the sheets of information about ‘analysing reports from foreign countries’ and the Foreign Service officer abroad ‘playing an active part in the affairs of the local British community, who will frequently look to him for a lead’, home leave from unhealthy posts, and women candidates being required to be unmarried or widows, but of more interest was an enclosure about certain posts where there was particular need of candidates with a knowledge of Oriental languages. Stanley calculated that he might, for once, be welcomed with open arms.

  So Stanley filled in his form, and in due course a card noting this was filed among a thousand W’s in the Records Branch of the Civil Service Commission in Burlington Gardens.

  *

  “Civil Service Commission,” said Stanley to the taxi-driver.

  Candidates for interview were asked to be a quarter of an hour early, but Stanley disliked waiting about and had allocated most of this quarter-hour to the taxi ride from Victoria. As they waited in dense traffic at Hyde Park Corner he realized the foolishness of this.

  “You in any particular hurry, mate?” asked the driver through his glass slide. He could see Stanley in his mirror, shifting anxiously about and craning round to look at public clocks.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact I’m going to be terribly late,” said Stanley.

  “So’s every other bugger, by the look of it,” pointed out the driver. “Gibback dair!” He humped the vehicle a foot obliquely forward as a car tried to nose into his lane.

  “I think I’d better …” began Stanley desperately, leaning forward, but a sudden spurt heaved him back into his seat.

  “Can’t you possibly go some other way?” asked Stanley, as they began to edge at less than walking pace along Piccadilly.

  “You want a helicopter, you do,” said the driver. “Whynchoo say so?”

  An old man with sandwich boards was shuffling along in the gutter beside them, neck and neck. Sometimes he would even draw ahead. PREPARE TO MEET YOUR JUDGEMENT said the boards. THE LORD’S WALKING WITNESS.

  “Could you tell me the exact time?” asked Stanley of him as he came by.

  “Now is the time for repentance,” intoned the old man. “It is writ clear for all to read.” He offered a pamphlet.

  Were all those hours spent skulking, clothed, in his father’s hut, mugging up current affairs, to be wasted? Surely he should leap out and run?

  The sandwich man was drawing well ahead of them now, handing out pamphlets opposite the Ritz. Stanley reached for the door handle, but the taxi suddenly plunged forward, coming to a stop outside the Royal Academy. A tight immovable column of vehicles stretched ahead of them to the Circus.

  Stanley jumped out and paid the driver.

  “Suit yourself, mate,” said the driver. “It’s only just round the block. Why don’t you nip straight through the Academy? It’s the same building, only the other side.”

  The Lord’s Walking Witness, who now stood in the gutter beside the taxi, handed Stanley another leaflet.

  “Thank you,” said Stanley, speeding away.

  “Prepare for the Universal Judgement,” intoned the sandwich man to the taxi-driver, offering a pamphlet. “Here you are, mate. Do yourself a bit of good.”

  *

  In a fever, Stanley ran through the courtyard of the Academy and in through the front doors.

  “Ticket, sir?”

  There was an exhibition on. Agonized, Stanley calculated the time for rushing out again and round the block. It was quicker to press on through the building. In tremendous haste he bought a ticket, was let in, and began an irrationally fast walk, winding his way through viewers towards the rear of the building. He found the great bronze doors, yanked one of them open, and arrived, significantly through the back door, to try for his Civil Service career.

  “Mr Windrush?” said a messenger. “We’ve been on the lookout for you. Upstairs for your Board, please.”

  Up the marble stairs on the first floor, a group of young men sat waiting with the composure of death on them. They looked at Stanley, who straightened his clothing while the messenger went in to announce him.

  “Go in now, sir,” said the messenger, and then followed him in to call loudly: “Mr Windrush.”

  Stanley sank exhausted into the candidate’s chair.

  “Mr Windrush?”

  This must be the First Commissioner, across the room at the farthest point from Stanley of a great horseshoe table. There were eight, or perhaps nine, including two women.

  “Yes, sir, good morning,” said Stanley, shifting on his chair. There was a little table in front of him, and a notice propped up on it. It said, tersely: SPEAK UP.

  “I beg your pardon?” said the First Commissioner.

  “Good morning, sir,” said Stanley, a little too loudly so that it echoed.

  “M’m, good morning,” the Chairman repeated in an indifferent tone, looking through his papers.

  None of the Board looked at all enthusiastic at having been kept waiting.

  “Now,” began the Chairman, and at the word all the interviewers bent forward to their duplicated files, for all the world as if starting a game of housey-housey.

  “Full name Stanley Clive Oliver Windrush British by birth,” read the Chairman rapidly, “Father Charles Wind-rush occupation independent means and your mother is deceased.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  All the Board looked up briefly as if to check that Stanley was still with them.

  Stanley wondered if ‘Sir’ would really do to include the women, and flashed the two of them a nervous smile. One of them nodded a little severely and the other did not react at all.

  “You were at Spaniels School I see,” the Chairman went on, “and then at Apocalypse College, Oxford.”

  Stanley changed his position, trying to slither unobtrusively more upright.

  “Then you went into the Army and you did a Japanese course. Then you went back to Oxford and in due course finished your time there, and you got a Third in English.”

  Put like that it sounded much like aimless wandering. Stanley wondered if he could think of some remark to make it all sound more impressive. He couldn’t.

  “Er, yes,” he said.
/>
  The Board all looked at him.

  “Can you tell us, Mr Windrush, something of what you have been doing since then?”

  “Yes,” said Stanley, with a show of confidence, “I can. It hasn’t been very long, of course, but I haven’t been idle. I’ve been at—home, with my father, reading up a good deal on the world situation, though I’ve spent some time in hospital.”

  “Hospital? An illness?”

  “Oh no, no,” said Stanley, “I mean yes, of course, but not a real illness. You see I’d been eating some edible fungi.”

  “I see,” said the Chairman, without warmth.

  “Inedible fungi, by the sound of it, eh?” said a gentleman on the right wing of the board, smirking.

  “Oh Lord, no, edible, sir,” said Stanley, “but some inedible got accidentally mixed with them.”

  There was a short silence at this point, and the gentleman on the right wing looked displeased to have his remark corrected.

  “You’ve been reading up on the world situation, Mr Windrush,” continued the Chairman with faint distaste for the phrase. “The American Presidential Election looks interesting, doesn’t it?”

  “Oh, I do agree, it does,” said Stanley.

  “What strike you as being some of its more interesting features, Mr Windrush?”

  “Well,” Stanley paused as if to give this weighty thought, but found it difficult to keep the pose.

  “Our situation here in relation to their situation there,” he improvised. “That’s very vital. We all know what a shortage of dollars means, don’t we? If it results in a shortage of dollars it will be very serious for us.”

  “Mr Windrush,” said the Chairman, “Perhaps if you were to explain how the Presidential Election might result in a dollar shortage …?”

  “That’s one of the difficult things to see in this situation,” said Stanley. “The two don’t seem at first sight to be connected, but …” But what? “Let me put it this way,” he plunged on. “If this country is short of dollars we can’t buy from America, and we must buy from somewhere else.”