Loving, Living, Party Going

by Henry Green

  'Well, Arthur, he's dead,'

  'Yes' said Mr Bridges to Mr Walters.

  'They weren't there when it happened,' said Mr Walters, 'he died all of a sudden with none of his own to hold 'is 'and.'

  'Where was the young chap then? Wastin' up in town?'

  'He took his mother up there, Arthur, to give her a change.'

  'Yes, he's dead,' said Bridges.

  'There was a fine man,' Mr Walters said, loyal to those under him, you knew where you were with him.'

  'Yes,' cried Mr Bridges, 'yes and now we might be like in the desert with a pack of wolves as escort and at night when we lie down scorpions,' he cried, 'poisoned snakes for pillows.'

  'Not so loud Arthur.'

  'I don't care who 'ears me,' shouted Bridges clinging on to mantelpiece. 'I'd like to call 'em all in and say to 'em, we are like a flock that 'as lost its shepherd with the night coming on. I loved that man. Why, I'd 'ave laid down my life for 'im. And now where are we, tell me that? 'Ere, I'll tell you what he'll say. He'll say we're too old for our jobs. That gang in your office up there will be at 'im all the time, and what am I to do, I got nothing put by, if I can't 'old this job I'll have to go on the streets with the wife and die like any dog in a 'ole.'

  'Arthur!' said Mr Walters.

  'Aye,' Bridges was out of himself, 'aye and since I came 'ere I've built this side up stone by stone and made a job of it. Waller, of the O.K., said to me only a week ago standing where you are now, he said you turn out better work here than I've seen in the trade. Now there's a man of experience, mayn't I take part of that on myself? No, it's now as I might be a 'orse or a dog turned off because their old man 'as died, or like an Indian widder woman that is burned beside 'er dead 'usband.'

  'Well, there's other firms.'

  'They wouldn't take us on at our age.'

  Walters quietly said he would work for young Mr Dupret as he had worked for father.

  'And so will I,' Mr Bridges said, abating, 'but you see what's coming to us, 'e's gone out of 'is way to make me a fool before my own men, you'll see,' (rising again) 'he'll bide 'is time till 'e can get us off without a pension, forcing us out of a living. And that's what comes to a man that 'as worked all 'is life for another. My bones in my body they ache all day now but when I've worn 'em out in 'is service 'e'll sell 'em as scrap to the rag and bone. That's 'ow it will be.'

  'You ought to take a day or two off Arthur.' Then Mr Bridges began again at that, saying did he want him to starve right away. Suddenly he covered face in hands, he burst out into sobbing, and Walters sent for brandy.

  Miss Gates went out in afternoon to buy food in shops and now was last sunshine of winter on the streets. She came into high road and trams went by her rocking, roaring sound came from them and sound of their bell like metals. Along line of shops which were on each side of this road women in dark clothes went in and out of them.

  She passed by and black man passed by her. She had in mind to turn back and look at him. But she saw chest of tea in shop window. She stopped by it. She thought of film she had seen which was advertisement of a tea firm, she had seen in it black women that gathered the tea, and how delicate she had thought them and she remembered now, how delicate their arms and hands which did not seem touched by the hard labouring.

  Were tins of pineapple in that shop window and she wondered and languor fell on her like in a mist as when the warm air comes down on cold earth; in images she saw in her heart sun countries, sun, and the infinite ease of warmth.

  'Well, Albert,' said Mr Gates, who came to fetch chaplets, to Mr Milligan storekeeper,' 'ow are you feeling?'

  'Middlin', Joe.'

  'Ah, and the old man's looking ill and all.'

  'What – 'Tis 'im? Ah, 'e came by the other day and I said to myself, I said, that man 'as the shade of death on his face.'

  'I said as much to Jim, when 'e went past. It's a shame there couldn't be a double funeral, the old gaffer and 'im.'

  Mr Milligan laughed.

  'Well, there's double weddings, ain't there,' cried Mr Gates 'and double beds bless my 'eart,' he said, 'all for the enjoyment of mankind, so why shouldn't we see two dirty sods put underground at one go off.'

  'They buried the old gaffer some time back. I don't say I 'ad anything against the man. But it's marvellous the state these worryers get into, I don't reckon I'll be far out when I said Mr Bridges is done for.'

  'Ah, and look at our foreman, Andrew there, 'e takes it 'ome with 'im. I'll wager 'is missus is a good moulder. I'll wager 'er 'as to listen to 'is troubles every night, 'ow this job blowed and that'n run out.'

  'That's right. But, come to look at it, wouldn't Bridges and Tupe be all right in a 'earse together.'

  Mr Gates did not relish this.

  'I'd like 'im dead,' Mr Gates said carelessly. He meant Mr Bridges. He meant to keep off topic of Mr Tupe.

  Milligan said indeed Tupe should be in a grave and Mr Gates asked for chaplets. When Mr Milligan came back he said to mark his words and that would be big changes in this factory soon. Yes, he said, they would see a lot different, whether for better or worse he couldn't say.

  Well, Mr Walters said in his mind, I must try and like the young chap, and he came into Mr Richard's private office.

  'Good morning, Dick.'

  'Good morning' Mr Dupret said cordially. 'I hope you're well.'

  'Pretty well thanks. But it's marvellous what the weather's been doing to people.'

  'Yes, two or three of my friends are down with the 'flu. It's a wonder we're alive, Mr Walters.'

  'Yes, it is that, and I'm worried about Mr Bridges, Dick. He's not as well as he ought to be, not by a long way. Everything seems to have got right on his mind lately. I shouldn't wonder if he didn't have a breakdown one of these days.'

  'A breakdown?'

  'Yes, he's right down on his luck. A good deal of it was your father dying as he did – (as he did? wondered young Mr Dupret) – and then he takes everything to heart very much. I think we ought to send him on a holiday.'

  Mr Dupret said he was sorry to hear that and who would take over if he did go away.

  'Cummings will take over.'

  'What about Tarver, Mr Walters?'

  'Cummings is senior to Tarver, Dick, it wouldn't do to put the younger man over the older one.'

  'Wouldn't it give him a useful experience of running the works. After all, Tarver is our coming man isn't he, Walters?'

  'Well Mr Dupret,' said Mr Walters, rage rising in him, 'I don't know that Tarver's got the all round knowledge necessary for a works manager.'

  'What sort of a man is Cummings?'

  'He's a real good man. He came to us as a lad and has been with us ever since. Mr Bridges has been bringing him on ever since he came here.'

  'Then what sort of age is he?'

  'He'd be round about fifty.'

  'Rather a long time to be bringing along, isn't it Mr Walters?'

  'Engineering isn't learnt in a day.'

  'Well,' Mr Richard said importantly, 'I think I'll go down to the works for a day or two to see how things stand. I'm all for Mr Bridges going for a holiday but I don't quite see my way clear yet about his temporary successor.'

  Hoity toity Mr Walters thought and why wouldn't he give him handle to his name, call a man 'Walters' who was old enough to be his father!

  Mr Dupret picked up a letter.

  'Why haven't these people had delivery yet?'

  'There's been a heap of trouble in the iron foundry over that job, Dick. It's an awkward job, but they've pretty well got it weighed up now since I went down there and saw it.'

  'Damn that iron foundry,' Mr Dupret said.

  'Yes, I've said' that many a time,' said Mr Walters. One sentence, like a bell, knolled in Mr Richard's mind, 'Cummings will take over,' sentence said confidently.

  Lily came to go and meet Bert. She took short cut that was over piece of waste ground.

  Night. Street lamps were lit over where she was going to. She wa
lked across. She had done shopping and men had been fed at evening, now work was done and like as when gulls come and settle on the water so her spirit folded wings, so walked in quietness.

  Night was mauve about her, mauve and cold. She only felt warmer.

  So, wings folded, as the gull takes on motion of the sea, night flowed over her then in her.

  Gathering coat she hugged arms round body and folded in night and buried face in it, in fur of her collar. And so containing it warmness rose in her, drowsed her mind, and came in little ball of warmth top of throat, behind her nose, breathed through her there, till she was drunk, and all of her was dyed in night.

  She came nearer street lamps and then stumbled a little. Looking up she saw them, light sticking out from them, and as she came nearer so night left, excitement effervescing in her she put coat straight, and felt cold. When she stepped into cone of light of this lamp, night was outside and it might not have been night-time.

  She met Bert at corner.

  They kissed. Her warmth and his, their bodies straining against each other, became one warmth. Walking, his arm round her enclosed her warmth and his. So it came from his veins flowing into hers, so they were joined.

  They walked from cone of light into darkness and then again into lamplight, nor, so their feeling lulled them, was light or dark, only their feeling of both of them which was one warmth, infinitely greater.

  Tom Tyler was the life of the house-party. Before dinner he stood on his head; put a pin in the back of a chair and sitting on the chair leaned round it, bending his body into an arc and took the pin out in his mouth. Then when some other man did this, only not so quickly of course, Tom sent for a tumbler and filling this with water he put it on his forehead. He knelt down, he bent his body back in an arc from the knees, and soon was lying flat on his back with not a drop of water spilled, nor had he steadied the tumbler with his hands at any stage in the course of this delicate operation. No one could do it after him, many got soused with water in trying to do it, which only added to the general hilarity.

  Hannah got quite hysterical with excitement.

  Then he put an armchair in the middle of the floor and cushions at a little distance at the back of it, and he took a running leap and dived into the chair, turned a somersault on his head in it and landed with the chair onto the cushions. The chair was broken. That was a very good joke. Then they all played hunt the slipper.

  All this was good clean fun. If anyone touched anyone it brought a bruise.

  So it was all good clean fun. And when they were bored with hunt the slipper they sat in a circle, (Tom Tyler directed all this), and someone, man or woman was put in the middle and kept themselves very stiff and everyone, each one theoretically being for himself, everyone I say tried to push the person in the middle onto one of the others who were sitting. When that happened, amid screams, the person fallen on had to go in the middle. So boys fell across girls and then perhaps took a little time to get up, but it is quite true to say that there was nothing dirty in all this.

  Hannah, for instance, did not even long for Tom to be pushed over her, nor did she even think of it, it' was all – how shall I say, – all was like the clearness of an empty glass, with the transparency of light. Yet not transparent. You look into crystal globe and its round emptiness makes a core in it you can't see through, there is nothing there only the transparency is confused. That was like Hannah Glossop when someone wasn't talking to her, inoculating ideas.

  When she went to dress for dinner she told maid she had never laughed so much in all her life.

  Mr Bridges, on his leave, sat in sitting room of a lodging house at Weston. He was writing letter to Mr Walters. He looked up and onto the sea, grey under dark sky, incessantly moving, spotted with gulls. He had just written: What I won't wear about this place is seeing a big ship go down and then when you're sitting in the same place with nothing to do and not even a dog to speak to you see the same boat come back up again an hour later. There's times I could go loony wondering what it was up to.

  What were they doing at Works, he thought? Young chap would be down there now, and most likely he had only given him the week off so he might play hell with the place while he was away. Some fathers had awkward children by God and to hand the whole show over to them when you were dead, it was like cutting the throat of a whole crowd of people.

  What would Tarver be at?

  Mrs Bridges came in then.

  'She says it's sixpence for a bath!' she said.

  'Sixpence, eh?.' said Mr Bridges. 'You go tell her she's in competition. Tell her I can get a wash for nothing in the sea there and if she don't cut her prices she'll lose the order.'

  'Oh, yes, you bathing in this cold.'

  'You tell her I've bathed every Christmas Day since ever I could swim.'

  'Why it aint November yet and you can't swim, you know you can't.'

  'How'll she know that, eh? If it's going to cost us a tanner for a bath I'll wait till I get back to Brum before I wash the dust off me of this bloody 'ouse.'

  Women, he thought, would you believe it, they'd ruin you. Yes, thought Mrs Bridges, and little he'd think of it if it was for a pint.

  Cummings, he went on in mind, was a good man, he'd taught him all he knew, but he didn't like leaving works with him, not with Tarver and those sharks about. And he couldn't ring up again, he'd rung up twice this morning already. The waiting till you got back, that was the rub of it, was like having your arteries cut and watching the life blood spouting out.

  Richard Dupret came late to that house-party. He arrived in middle of fish course at dinner. He had warned hostess was only train he could come by, having to work late that day in London; but yet, as he passed by open door of dining room to go and dress and saw brilliance of lights there and clash and glitter of women's dresses, and heard their laughing, he had a sickening in stomach.

  Older woman asked hostess who was that young man that was arriving? and she said Richard Dupret.

  'Sylvia Dupret's son?'

  'Yes my dear. It was her husband who died not so very long ago.'

  'Wasn't he very rich?'

  'Yes very. Poor Sylvia it was quite dreadful for her, she was at the Embassy with a party when they telephoned through and Ian Lampson had to break it to her. Of course it wasn't altogether unexpected but the doctors had said he might linger on for months.'

  'Didn't she stay by him at all then?'

  'Oh yes, but she came up for a change.'

  'She oughtn't to have left him, a woman shouldn't do a thing like that Grizel. It looks so bad.'

  'Oh no, it's very unkind when you say a thing like that Katie dear. It was unfortunate I admit but I don't see how she could have helped it. He had been no more alive than a log for months.'

  'Did he regain consciousness before the end?'

  'Dear Katie, I don't know whether he did or not.' And they talked of something else, man sitting between them changed topic of conversation. But that woman thought obviously he had regained consciousness and that Grizel hadn't liked to admit it.

  When our Richard came down, others had finished. The men even had done with the port. He ate alone, nervousness growing in him and served by footman that was anxious to get to his meal, so hurried Mr Dupret through his courses. Why did she have no flowers on table? thought he in interval of nervousness. When he had had glass of port footman announced him into the room where now all houseparty was concentrated. Shutting door behind him footman yawned in the passage and went quickly to supper. Now dinner table lay in empty room like a grave that has dead flowers on it.

  Small hush was as Mr Dupret went to greet hostess. He shook hands with older people. Mary came up and then he was in midst of his contemporaries, was introduced to two or three, and then saw Hannah Glossop.

  Mr Tyler went on with his plan of a game. It was like 'prisoner's base' only played in darkness and Mary, whose house this was, said they would take over the North Wing and turn out all lights, and play there.
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  All younger people went off. Walking with Miss Glossop Mr Dupret had now lost feeling of nervousness.

  After breakfast assembled women in one room, men in another.

  Older man was saying he had only seen woodcock on the ground once, which was by great bit of good fortune as he did not know what made him look in that direction but there it was, on the ground, twenty yards from him. He was saying this to Tom Tyler, who upheld that conversation.

  Mr Dupret thought that was how it was, once he had been going upstairs with Hannah at a dance and chandelier which hung there had trembled as it might be at sound of the band which was beginning to play, so light on that chandelier was beginning to move. What difference is there, thought he, between my chandelier and his woodcock, one or the other moved one of us? And yet how much better if he could be excited at sight of woodcock on the ground for excitement over chandelier was at light moving over it, caused probably by someone stamping on the floor above. The woodcock was on ground by no agency of man, its being there was a natural phenomenon, and he thought his chandelier and how it moved him was a spurious emotion.

  He thought this was a parable. Darkness he thought was merely opportunity for Tyler and Miss Glossop to play a game in, where to him it would be another thing. That seemed centre of it all to him. For in their games they sublimated all passions, all beliefs. That was why Tom Tyler cut him out with Miss Glossop, who did not care to talk. And so he saw these games they were always playing to be charades of the passions. So was there no other way to her heart?

  10

  Leaving house-party Mr Dupret went to Birmingham. When he heard Mr Bridges was already gone on leave he was glad. He did not want to see Mr Bridges. Indeed, now he knew it was not for him but Tom Tyler that Miss Glossop smiled and lilted, heart was out of him.

  So when he came he sent for Mr Cummings and just said he hoped everything was all right. Mr Cummings made no impression on his mind. When he had gone Mr Dupret sat on in office. He thought, and slowly tried to gather up energy inside him. At last he went up into Mr Tarver's office.