A Start in Life

by Alan Sillitoe

  ‘Still,’ I said, taking her hand, ‘you had your dream.’

  She drew it away, as if I were Blaskin: ‘You can say that, I suppose.’

  ‘You should see him now. He don’t look up to much.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ she said.

  ‘You do,’ I told her.

  She got angry: ‘Pack it in. When are you going back?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I’d go tonight, but the last train’s gone.

  ‘When are you marrying Albert?’

  ‘In six weeks,’ she said, as if I’d changed the subject.

  ‘Don’t you think you ought to marry Gilbert Blaskin instead?’ I asked, and she laughed so long and loud that people in the pub began looking at her and wondering what was going on between us, as if we’d cracked some dirty joke about them all.

  I took a lunchtime train that punched its way south through the steel fallopian tube of Trent Bridge. Cows stood in fields under the sousing rain, stock-still as if they were actually made of rain and wanted to grow bigger from it. I’d had no breakfast so went to the dining-car for a meal, shaken so much to bits on the way that I was almost not hungry by the time I got there.

  I thought of the worry and trouble waiting for me when I got to London, but when food started to slide in, no worry seemed too difficult to sort out, and my chopfallen state soon left me. The train was so fast it seemed to gallop, swaying soup over the lip of the plate, so that it was difficult holding a newspaper at the same time. I looked to see if anyone of my name had died or got married, or was to be remembered in gratitude for having given their glorious lives in any of the world wars, or whether any he or she was getting engaged or had had a nice new legitimate baby between them. But there was no sign, so I stared at the houses or motorcars for sale, and saw nothing to suit my exigent tastes.

  When I smoked a cigar no one stared at me and thought I shouldn’t be smoking it, as they might a couple of years ago, and when I paid my bill the cashier wasn’t surprised at the five-bob tip I left for the waiter. Then I looked at the news part of the paper to see if Ron Cottapilly or Paul Pindarry, those ganglions of Jack Leningrad Limited, had been nabbed at the customs in the last twenty-four hours. They had not, though if I had my way it wouldn’t be long now, because as soon as I got to St Pancras I went into a box and got through to Moggerhanger.

  ‘Who is it?’ he said. I told him I’d thought over his proposition. He laughed: ‘I knew you wouldn’t come up in a hurry, Michael, for which I always admire a man, but when you left it so late I thought you’d had an accident, like getting caught or something. It struck me as unlikely, but you never know in your sort of game. I hear they did have rather a nasty jolt in your firm, didn’t they? Man called Ramage. Fate strikes pretty hefty blows from time to time, I must say. It was all I could do not to send a message of condolence to the Iron Lung. But I never do anything in bad taste. I’m not that sort of person. What have you decided, then?’

  I’d worked myself to a sweat of rage while listening to his two-faced banter: ‘I’m joining you,’ I said, ‘and that’s straight. I’ll go on working for Leningrad, and I’ll phone you any time I’ve got information. Or I’ll phone Polly, it’s just the same, I realize. In any case I’m only doing it for our future happiness. Do you understand?’

  His voice sounded right in my ear, as if he was no farther than the next telephone box. I looked nervously that way, but it was empty. ‘If you’re to work for me,’ he said, ‘you’ll have to alter that tone of voice. I’m old-fashioned, I am. If you talk in that voice it’s obvious who you’re working for, and since we don’t want anybody to know, you’ll have to moderate it a bit, won’t you, Michael? I expect you to understand that, just as I’m to understand that you’re doing it for Polly’s future happiness – as well as your own. Are we on the same wavelength, or not? Tell me that, and the deal’s on.’

  ‘It’s on,’ I said, trying not to breathe hard or curse. ‘I phone you. You don’t phone me. It’ll work best that way.’

  ‘I’ll tell you how we’ll do it, Michael,’ he said, as if I hadn’t spoken, ‘phone me whenever you know anything. I’ll never try to contact you – unless you find a note under your plate at that Italian restaurant where you eat. Old Tonio’s in my good books there, and I sometimes let him help me.’

  ‘That sounds all right.’ I was going to say goodbye, but the line went dead, meaning he’d hung up on me. Moggerhanger never said goodbye in case it brought him bad luck. He looked upon it as an unnecessary waste of breath.

  My next move was to call on Blaskin with the idea of getting him to marry my mother before she could throw herself away on that worthless Albert. I didn’t care whether I stayed a bastard or not – I’d be one of those till my left foot was tipped into a soily grave – but I wanted Blaskin to make an honest woman of my mother. He’d had his own runner-bean way too long, and it was time one of his sins came home to roost, namely me, because I was beginning to see how serious it was that he’d rampaged through the world, and God knows how many innocent women, without anybody having lifted a finger against him. I took the Underground to Sloane Square, then walked a couple of corners to the block of flats where he lived. It was his divine luck that he wasn’t in, so after ten minutes’ ruminative smoke outside his door, I walked over the river and home.

  I saw William sitting on the settee when I went into the living-room, listlessly thumbing through the Evening Standard. Beside him were two suitcases. ‘Get away from me, you treacherous bleeder,’ he said, when I went up with a big smile of welcome to shake his hand.

  ‘What?’ I yelled back.

  He stood up, half a grin. ‘Don’t take it so bad. It’ll happen to you some day. Not by me, though. Never by me.’

  ‘What sort of a swamp am I in?’ I said, pouring two drinks. ‘I’ve never betrayed anyone. You were hooked by working for Moggerhanger. The Leningrad group of British Industries found out, and you got pulled in.’

  He took the whisky: ‘I’ve been all this time with the corsairs, boy, in a Moslem slave-hole, and I’m out of the habit of taking raw booze.’ But he drank it as if it were Jaffa Juice: ‘If what you say is true, and you may be right, then they’ll be on to you next, because I recruited you.’

  I was sweating again. ‘You got pulled in because the Beirut cops wanted Moggerhanger’s ransom,’ I said, fishing for any old explanation.

  He laughed bitterly. ‘You can take your pick, that’s all I’m saying. But I’m back now, thanks to Claud. I’ve called for my things. I’m off, Michael, on the run again. The Leningrad lot don’t know I’m back. When they do they’ll nail me. I know they will. To tell you the truth I don’t know where to go. They’ll get Cottapilly and Pindarry on to me, and they’re like Dobermann Pinschers. They’ll tear me to pieces. Moggerhanger won’t hide me. He laughed on the phone just now when I reported in, and told me to steer clear. I’ve got a taxi coming in twenty minutes to get me to a railway station. Don’t even know which one yet.’

  ‘Make it King’s Cross,’ I said, ‘and stop worrying. I’ve got just the place for you.’ I told him how I’d bought the railway station: ‘It’s in the middle of nowhere. Nobody’ll trace you. You’ll have to buy a bed and table, that’s all, but you’ll be safe as houses and as right as rain. Stay as long as you like. I hope to be up myself in a month. Are you all right for money?’

  ‘That’s no problem,’ he said. ‘But you’re a real comrade, Michael. I shan’t forget this. I’m really in the shit this time, because the man in the iron lung is bound to smell a rat once he knows I’m back.’

  ‘He’ll never know.’

  ‘That’s what you think. His snoops already know I left Beirut. Moggerhanger’s man got me to the plane without ’em knowing, but they’ll start looking for me by tomorrow, though I’m sure nobody tailed me here.’

  ‘When they know you’re back without reporting to them, they’re going to suspect me more than ever. It’s a very awkward moment.’

  ‘I’m a
fraid it is, lad,’ he said, looking at me with those sad eyes that at times permeated his whole spirit. Without his briefcase and smart clothes, his good haircut and stylish hat, and after his time in the sink-hole, he looked very subdued, already hunted and dodging from hedge to hedge. ‘Why don’t you come to the station with me?’ he said. ‘I’ve got a couple of revolvers and some ammo. Two’s better than one when you’re on the run. We could hold ’em off a treat if ever they find us. Believe me, it’ll be the wisest thing in the end.’

  I saw the sense of it: ‘Can’t. I’ve got too many things to wind up here. I’ll see you in a month, though.’

  ‘I hope so,’ he said, as the doorbell rang. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  I managed a smile, and helped him with his luggage: ‘I shan’t.’

  I was sorry to see him go. He took some of my courage, though I kept enough of it to phone headquarters in a very jocular mood, to which Stanley reacted beautifully. I wanted to put my foot down as a brake and stop things tilting along so fast, but that would only draw unnecessary suspicion on me, so I had to learn to roll with it, and look out for myself as I went along. The tell-tale bead of sweat could be my ruin, a stray hair in my nose, a shoelace about to come undone. I had to be careful not to lose too much weight in case anyone should imagine I was afraid of the thin ice under me.

  Stanley said it was business as usual. I was to be on a plane the day after tomorrow, late afternoon, so as to give Pindarry and Cottapilly time to get off first to Switzerland. After that there’d be a week’s rest. I said I’d get there at three o’clock, but Stanley told me to make it an early lunch that day, and get to headquarters at two for loading. ‘I’m ready for anything,’ I said. ‘The firm seems to be looking up these days.’

  ‘Our clients have confidence in us,’ he said with a laugh, and hung up in the middle of another.

  At seven I walked over the river and made for the Blaskin pad. Pearl opened the door, and showed no surprise on her small face, made even smaller by short hair that came in a fringe over her forehead, so that she looked more like some TV river-bank animal than ever.

  Gilbert looked at me: ‘What the hell do you want? I thought you were stuck for ever in that city of sin, Nottingham. Didn’t I last see you dropping off the train there? Not that I remember much. I was so drunk.’ He wore a plum-coloured dressing-gown and had a cigarette in his wide mouth. He had no hair to go grey on his pink bald head, so his face had taken over that role. ‘Sit down and get some alcohol.’

  ‘You don’t look good,’ I told him, throwing down my coat. Pearl curled up on the rug at his feet, and I thought she was going to take off his carpet slippers and start kissing his toes. But she merely nestled her cheek on them.

  ‘I’ve had a few upsets,’ he admitted, his head right back and canon-mouths of smoke going up at the ceiling.

  ‘June?’

  ‘Right,’ he laughed. ‘She couldn’t take it, I suppose, so she ran off with that phoney poet called Ron Delph. That’s one way to get rid of her.’

  ‘Poor, poor Gilbert,’ said Pearl. ‘He hadn’t eaten for days, and he was lying near the gas stove when I found him, trying to turn the taps on, drunk and crying.’

  He jerked forward, and lifted her face sharply with his feet: ‘That’s your sorry tale, you lying bitch. Don’t re-write my history, you Kremlin-faced pug, or I’ll throw you out of that window and down into the dustbins.’

  ‘Naughty Gilbert,’ she said, looking as if she were about to cry. ‘You’re such a novelist, my love.’

  ‘To hell with that,’ he said. ‘You are, not me, with your sycophantic thesis. Those that live by the novel shall die by the fucking novel, you trollop. Remember that, or your life won’t be worth living.’

  ‘Does this go on all the time?’ I asked, hoping to stop them.

  ‘Only when you’re here, or somebody else is.’

  He smiled: ‘We’re like two lovebirds in a cage when we’re on our own, aren’t we, pet?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, her cheek back on his foot.

  ‘She’s trying to drive me crazy,’ he said, ‘but I’ll get her first.’

  ‘I’m glad to see you so happy,’ I said. ‘How’s The History of Carnage?’

  ‘Bloody. I’d only done fifty pages when I cut my finger slicing a lemon. So I threw it aside. I’m back on the novel now. It’s going very well, the best thing I can remember doing, in fact. Thank God I got rid of that whore June. She went on to Ron Delph, the Concrete Poet. Too much sand in him, I expect. God’s a bloody awful builder.’

  ‘She had a kid by him when she was eighteen,’ I said. ‘Maybe they’ll get married now.’

  He walked to the door and back again: ‘She never told me whose kid it was. Never mind, one more down the chute.’

  ‘Don’t get depressed about it,’ said Pearl soothingly.

  He poured half a pint of whisky and held it up to the light: ‘Piss. But hot piss. If I drink whisky, I’m just plain randy – and it doesn’t take long to get it over with, does it Pearl Barley? Go and make us some black coffee for Christ’s sake. When I drink vodka I get brutal, and take my pleasure that way, so I can’t say whether it’s enjoyed by both parties because it depends who I’m with. Best of all is when I drink champagne, because then it goes on for hours.’ He gulped his whisky. Pearl shook her head and went to make coffee. ‘You know what, Michael?’

  ‘What?’ I said, watching him.

  ‘I should have been born without a penis. Not only would I have been a happy man, but there’d have been lots of happier women in the world as well. As soon as the doctor pulled me out of my mother he should have told the nurse to chop off my cock. It’s not fair to man or beast. It’s the curse of mankind, sex. If a man goes with a woman ten years older than himself he’s humping his mother. If he goes with a girl younger than himself he’s raping his daughter. If he pansies after a young man he’s buggering his son. If he keeps pets he’s a bit of a sod. If he gets off with an older man he’s being bummed by his father. Hallelujah! If he gets a woman of the same age he’s perverse because he’s normal. The only answer is to be indiscriminate, hump into what hole you can get and as the mood takes you.’

  He fell silent, but I knew it wouldn’t be for long, so I asked him if he’d ever been in love. His bald head wrinkled. ‘Love? Way back in the swampy mists of time, I vaguely remember it. Adolescent infatuation. There was nothing between that and a lifelong attack of satyriasis which is still going on only because I can’t stop breathing.’

  ‘Or boasting,’ I couldn’t help saying.

  He looked hard at me. ‘Don’t be impertinent, sonny boy.’

  ‘You were in Nottingham during the war, weren’t you?’ I said.

  ‘Stop me drinking, Michael.’

  ‘Why the hell should I?’

  He sent his glass splintering against the wall. ‘I’ll stop myself. What mercy can one expect from the hungry generation? I was the hungry generation twenty years ago, and I haven’t stopped being hungry. The trouble is that I don’t see why I should. But another hungry generation is coming up on me, and I don’t like it.’

  ‘You’ll have to,’ I grinned.

  He flopped back in the chair, but I could see he was a man of great strength: ‘The hungry generations tread you down all right. That’s what keeping up with the young is – allowing them to trample on you with impunity. If you get weak about it and try to keep up with the young, you only succeed in doing their job for them by trampling yourself down. To keep up with the young is a refusal to grow old, but by doing that you let them eat you up. If Pearl weren’t so busy sweating over her hot stove she’d write down that priceless aphorism. The thing is, Michael, I was everywhere during the war, except where I could pull a trigger. But I was in Nottingham – the soldier’s kiss from which he got the clap. We used to fight to get posted there. Nottingham was the Rose of England. I suppose it still is, what?’

  Pearl came in and set a tray on the floor by Gilbert’s feet.
‘Don’t you remember anything pure and virtuous about it?’

  ‘I’m tired of masochistic women,’ he said, ‘but that’s the only sort I attract. When I get the other kind we fight on equal terms all the time, and then we part.’

  ‘Have you had many children?’ I asked.

  ‘None that I know of. It would have been jolly to have two or three, then I could have ruined their lives as well. I could hate myself even more. I don’t think there’s anybody in the world hates himself as much as I do. That being the case what else could I have done in life but write novels? I’ve got to pass it on to somebody, and who else but the great inert mass of the British public? A few thousand of them, anyway, but that’s better than nothing. I hate myself so much I don’t even have a personality – just a novel in my heart and a cock in my hand. Pearl’s writing all this down while the coffee gets cold. Get up you tripehound and pour me some.’ He clutched his forehead. ‘Oh, God, she’s even writing that down before she does it.’

  She poured it so quickly that grounds slopped into the saucer. I thought that if life was made too hot for me by the Jack Leningrad gang I could always go into hiding again here, providing I was able to stand the stream of Blaskin’s mediocre self-pitying commentaries. It frightened me that I was his son, though I was heartened by the fact that he didn’t yet know that he was my father. I was beginning to think that marrying off my mother to a beaten-down old prick like this would be the worst favour I could do her. Coffee spilled on his dressing-gown, and at the same time I felt sorry for him, because his easy ways had got him nowhere, and there seemed nothing more terrible to me at my particular time of life. I realized how possible it was that if I did want to hide here he wouldn’t let me do so, whether or not he knew me to be his son, though I was tempted to try it out, just to see how finally rotten he was.