Life Goes On

by Alan Sillitoe

  ‘I must have been abroad at the time.’

  He seemed disappointed. ‘I suppose I deserved it. During the latter part of my time in prison I had Parkhurst Moggerhanger for a cell mate. He was in a very bad way, going off his head in fact, so I looked after him as if he was one of the people in my old folks’ home. I saved his remission. He got better, and came to rely on me. I pulled him through his bad patch and when we were discharged we kept in touch. I had nowhere to go, so I went back to live with my old mother in Halifax, bless her. She’s dead now, Mr Cullen.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘Parkhurst told his father about me, and Mr Moggerhanger, as he then was, took me on as a caretaker for whichever property needed me. He wanted to show his appreciation, and I was thankful for it because I was a finished man, done for and never to rise again, when I came out of prison. And yet, having taken this position, which I did with alacrity – I admit it with tears in my eyes – it seems I’ve only jumped from the frying pan into the fire, because I am an accessory after the fact of things which go on here, so that if there’s ever a proper round-up by the forces of justice – if there is such a thing – I’ll be over the wall and inside again for even longer than last time. That’s why I want you to help me, Mr Cullen.’

  I could have choked. Fortunately I’d finished his delicious breakfast. I had helped Bill Straw by bottling him up in Blaskin’s roofspace, but Bill Straw was a friend of long standing, whereas Matthew Coppice was one only as of last night – if he was one at all. I was never wary of acquiring new friends, which may have been why I had so few real ones. Besides, an open and unafraid disposition such as mine always made people suspicious. There was something about Matthew Coppice, however, that told me not to trust him entirely. Moggerhanger was no fool, and he was certainly capable of setting this drab minion onto me to find out if I had any resentment at having been put away by him ten years ago.

  He set the tray on the floor, and I gave him a cigarette. By my watch it was six o’clock. He spoke so glumly it was hard to imagine he was Moggerhanger’s nark. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘First of all, my answer is an unequivocal yes.’ What had I got to lose by putting him at rest? ‘I always help if I can. It almost goes without saying. But having said that, I’ve got a few comments to make. All right?’

  He nodded.

  ‘The first is that you shouldn’t do anything hasty.’ I laid it on thick, while another level of my mind thought further on the matter. ‘You should bide your time. Criminal actions may be going on all over the place, but how can you be sure? When you ran Forget-me-not Farm they were also going on, but you didn’t know. You made a mistake last time, and you might make one this time. What I mean is: are you the best judge of anyone else’s criminal actions? My second comment concerns Lord Moggerhanger. You tell me that he employed you out of the goodness of his heart. He’s famous for it. He never forgets a grudge and he never forgets a favour. Most millionaires are like that. They have to be. It’s one of the things which keeps them rich. It also keeps them in touch with human nature – and that also keeps them rich. I mean to say, would you like to repay him by reporting him to the police merely on suspicion?’

  He couldn’t look at me directly, which suggested that my arguments were getting at him. ‘You think I’m mad? One part of me suspected Elsie for months, but I laughed it off to myself in the middle of sleepless nights. I did nothing. Now I’ve stumbled onto the main drug and gold smuggling racket in Great Britain and I’m expected to turn a blind eye, am I? Just because Moggerhanger gave me a job when I was down and out? The only reason he took on a fellow like me was that he thought he might one day become a lord, and would need someone he could treat like a dog.’

  I felt sorry for him, which was the worst thing you could do for anybody. ‘You are in a mess.’

  There was as much of a smile on his face as the wrinkles around his eyes were able to muster. ‘So are you. That’s why you’ve got to help me.’

  I thought of Alice Whipplegate’s long slim body sheathed in its nightdress next door. ‘How can I? You’ve got no proof for any of these assertions.’

  ‘I know where to find some. But you’ve got to promise to stand by me when the crunch comes.’

  Dawn was my randiest time. My mother told me I’d been born at six in the morning. I had spoiled her breakfast. ‘I’ll think about it, Matthew, and if I say that, it means I’m halfway there. But can you go to the kitchen and get me a breakfast exactly like the one you brought up for me?’

  He realised what I had in mind, not as slow as I’d thought. ‘Oh ho! I see. Well, yes, OK Mr Cullen.’

  If he was really trying me out he hadn’t got much response, and even Moggerhanger would have to laugh, or at best grin, at the way I was using him as a pawn in the seduction of Mrs Whipplegate. A pony or two in flowers, my arse! Since she had scorned me so wickedly last night, at least in her diary, I was more intent than ever on getting my mutton dagger home, and I mulled on the delicious possibility till Matthew came back.

  ‘There it is.’

  I looked in the coffee pot. Full and steaming. ‘I’ll never forget this. You can rely on me from now on. Go down and have your morning whisky.’

  ‘I had it last night.’

  ‘Have tomorrow’s, then.’

  He threw a definite smile. ‘That’s an idea! Anyway, I’ve got to get Lord Moggerhanger’s breakfast. He has two kippers, a plate of scrambled eggs and eight pieces of toast.’

  ‘Don’t fall into the porridge,’ I said, ‘or you’ll get your nose wet.’

  I had gone too far, as if my flippancy threatened him with another downfall. He lit a cigarette and said, with a hint of despair in his otherwise irredeemable glumness: ‘All my life I’ve been the victim of levity. I hate levity. I expected better from someone like you.’

  He was genuine, or I was no judge of people. From now on I would believe all he told me. ‘You must realise that underneath what you call levity, Matthew, and what to me is only a brash sense of humour, is a seriousness that’s almost as solid as rock.’

  He seemed to appreciate my effort. ‘Thank you, Mr Cullen. I’ll see you later. I must work now.’

  I picked up the tray before the breakfast got cold, not caring whether I made love to Alice or not. In fact I positively didn’t want to and, I was sure, neither would she want me to. On the evidence of her diary, which it had served me right for reading, I was the last person she’d hope to see first thing in the morning, even with a breakfast tray.

  My mind was on higher things as I knocked at her door and went in. She slept on her stomach, her face turned away from the wall and towards me. I opened the curtains. The diary was no longer on the dressing table. I edged bottles and tubes aside and set down the tray. My only thought was to go out, but I couldn’t leave the coffee to get cold. I had to wake her first, so touched her shoulder. ‘What is it? Oh, it’s you. What do you want?’

  It was hard to say what dreams she had been in, but I could only suppose that she regarded me with the same dislike as I had looked on Matthew Coppice an hour ago. ‘I thought you might like breakfast. Hot coffee, orange juice, toast and teacakes.’

  She sat up, not knowing where she was and looking as if I’d gone out of my way to injure her during the sleep from which she had been jerked. Her otherwise sensitive face was creased with distrust as she took in the landscape of the tray. I suppose we’re all funny people the moment we come out of our dreams. ‘What’s this?’

  It was too much. ‘Your bloody breakfast.’

  She stared. ‘Breakfast?’ She held both hands to her small breasts. ‘In bed?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Breakfast in bed!’ She laughed. ‘And served by a man!’

  I gave her the juice and she knocked it back. ‘What’s funny about it?’

  ‘Shall I tell you?’ I poured the coffee and handed it to her. She took a sip while I buttered her toast. ‘I’ve never had breakfast in bed.’
>
  ‘You must be joking.’

  ‘I’m not. No man’s ever made my breakfast.’

  ‘You haven’t lived.’ I had often taken it upstairs to Bridgitte. In fact I’d always made breakfast at home, and felt pain that such a chore was finished. It was the only meal I could cook which didn’t cause ulcers. ‘It’s the least I can do for you. I’m afraid I made a fool of myself yesterday, pestering you and talking all kinds of nonsense. I want us to be friends.’ Thinking of the times I had taken breakfast in bed to Bridgitte, after the children had gone to school, and of the occasions when we’d made love among the crumbs, cornflakes and flecks of scrambled egg, got me at the quick for having thought of being disloyal to Bridgitte with an opinionated diary-writing thin-rapped woman like Alice Whipplegate who, when she had finished eating, reached out for me with tears in her eyes which were caused, I thought, more by being too suddenly ripped out of sleep than by sentimental gratitude at my gesture of getting up especially early to go down to the kitchen and prepare her a delectable breakfast with my own hands. ‘You’re wonderful,’ she said.

  She kissed me, her lips moistened with a smell of coffee and oranges. I was still in my dressing gown, nothing underneath. She must have slept well, because the sheets of her single bed were hardly disturbed, until I slipped between them and felt her relaxed body folding towards mine.

  I was uninterested, yet moved like a snake because I had the biggest early-morning hard-on that I could remember, and I didn’t even finger her but rucked up her shimmy-nightgown after a few salivating kisses, and went straight in without a murmur. I’d had enough of tongue-wagging. So had she. We were a duet of moans. Maybe she thought she was still in her sleep. The one-off atmosphere made it seem like a dream. I lifted myself on my hands and rubbed up close. She came once, and soon, and then I let myself go. When the eddies died away we laughed. I wasn’t trying to compete with Parkhurst by making her come four times.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘A lovely breakfast.’

  I liked her sense of humour. ‘We do our best at this hotel.’ I gave silent thanks to Matthew Coppice. ‘It’s all in the price of the Away Weekend.’

  ‘I was certainly away just then.’

  My old red lobcock flipped out. ‘I must be off. I’ve got two more breakfasts to deliver.’

  She put her arms around me. ‘Do you think you’ll manage?’

  I kissed the lovely shoulder where her nightdress slipped. ‘I have to do my best, or I’ll lose my job. The management has to live up to its advertisements.’

  ‘Doesn’t it wear you out?’

  I stood by her bed. ‘It tends to. But it keeps my weight down.’

  ‘Did you do any breakfasts before you came to see me?’

  ‘You were the first on my list.’

  ‘That’s a relief. It was nice. Doesn’t happen often in my life, I don’t know why.’

  ‘Not even with Parkhurst?’

  She laughed. ‘Caught you! No.’

  I could have killed her, but smiled. ‘What about with your husband?’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘How?’

  She rested her chin in her hands. ‘One evening the police phoned to say he’d wrapped the car, and himself, around a tree. An oak tree, as I remember. Why he added that little detail I don’t know. Maybe he took an interest in such things. When he added as a tailpiece that my husband was dead beyond resurrection my first thought was that I would have to get a job. It was more a decision than a notion and it occurred to me in spite of the shock, there being no better time to make one, since it was more than necessary on getting such news not to fall down dead at the sudden emptiness of life.

  ‘He’d gone out that morning and hadn’t made his usual enquiry as to how well or badly I’d slept, so I waited all day for disturbing news. Such an unusual omission on his part served, I suppose, as a warning that something was on its way. The clouds were low and grey. I looked at the rain from the living room window, and the extent of my thought was in wondering when it would stop.

  ‘I remember every detail of that day. It was rare for my mind to be so empty, and for me to be so inert. The occasional cigarette tasted foul – though I chain-smoked in the hope that the next would be better. It never was. I cooked an omelette for lunch and even that was tasteless. In the afternoon I went into the bathroom and satisfied myself, something I’d never done at such an hour, and rarely did, in any case. I felt hardly any relief afterwards. My breasts were turgid, as they sometimes are before a period. I even wondered whether I was pregnant. Then the phone call came which explained it all.’

  I always kissed a woman when I saw tears under her eyes. What else could you do? ‘Sorry about your tragic life.’

  ‘I’ve never spoken to anyone like this.’

  ‘Because I brought you your breakfast?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ She got out of bed. ‘I’ll use the bathroom first, if you don’t mind. Then I must dress and get to work. Lord Moggerhanger is an early riser.’

  Matthew Coppice had laid out a breakfast in the English style, which was welcome after my continental snack. Moggerhanger, wearing horn-rimmed glasses, read the Financial Times and through the window I saw Chief Inspector Lanthorn striding along the gravel path consuming a cigar. I ate breakfast as if I didn’t know where my next meal was coming from – the very opposite, I supposed, of the way an elderly patient at Forget-me-not Farm must have eaten when confronted by the avaricious phizzog of Elsie Carnack.

  After reading the Daily Mirror I got out a bucket and cloth to swab the car. Moggerhanger had told me to do it and I should have objected since it was not part of my job, but never having been an English workman, demarcation disputes were not in my blood. If they had been I would have said that a skilled driver such as myself should not have to stoop to common cleaning. Neither was it part of my nature to quibble about any kind of work while in the presence of a man who only asked me to do something as a test. Or so I told myself, to save my pride. In any case, at this stage of my rehabilitation with Moggerhanger, I didn’t want the sack.

  In spite of the drizzle I stuck at the work long enough to wash the number plates, clean dead gnats off the windscreen and polish the headlamps. I was about to go back inside when I heard a car turn into the drive. Lanthorn went down the steps to meet it. He had obviously been waiting, and I was curious, so unfolded the leather and began wiping the side windows.

  The Mini-van, recognisable at once by its coat of arms, came to a halt. The wipers stopped, and Eric Alport got out.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ Lanthorn called. ‘You should have got here last night.’

  Alport began filing his nails. ‘The ship was late.’

  ‘Like hell it was. You got caught up in some pansy boozer by the docks. I’m flaming well fed up with it!’

  I’d never seen such contempt on a man’s face as came across Alport’s. He would have stayed silent all day, rain or not, if Lanthorn hadn’t asked: ‘Did you get it, then?’

  He took his time, while picking a crow out of his nose. ‘It’s in the back – you pratt.’

  Lanthorn’s face was only saved from bursting by shouting: ‘I’ll fucking nail you one day, lad.’

  ‘If you do, it’ll be your coffin lid that’s going down.’

  Lanthorn pulled at the handles as if he’d break them off. ‘Where are the keys?’

  They flew through the air. He missed. Alport went on at his filing. It was a wonder he had any nails left. They must have been the pride of whatever club he belonged to. Lanthorn picked up the keys with eyes glittering, and opened the back of the Mini. He put his hands in and touched lovingly whatever was there. ‘Matthew!’ he shouted. ‘Cullen! Come and give a hand.’

  I walked around the Rolls a couple of times before getting there. Matthew carried what looked like a five-pound box of tea, a neat wooden package, well battened on all sides. I took one, and so did Lanthorn, but Alport didn’t de
ign to work. He asked if there was any breakfast in that house of iniquity, because he was starving. I said there probably was, at which he put his nail file into its little leather sheath, buttoned his Carnaby Street Mao-style sugarbag jacket that must have cost every bit of fifty pounds, and went inside.

  The Mini-van was stacked to the gunwales with boxes which I supposed they had wheeled off the ship on a fork-lift truck. When this lot got loose on the streets of Britain everybody would be flying till the end of the century. They were flying already, but this would take the lid off their heads as well. In my time as a criminal we had smuggled gold, which seemed so harmless it was impossible to feel guilty, but now it seemed the gold was of a different sort and much more valuable, weight for weight. Instead of getting at the government’s pocket, it got at the people’s minds by rotting them through and through, which would only end by making it easier for the Moggerhangers of the world to gain more and more power.