The Broken Chariot

by Alan Sillitoe

  The picture of him, like an ant gone wild, destroying with glee the fence which a farmer had spent so much to erect, disturbed her. It would be wrong. ‘You’d be breaking the law.’

  On his own he would have cut a wide enough gap for a tank to get through. ‘You don’t believe I’m daft enough to do it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Do you know the difference between right and wrong? I sometimes wonder.’

  So did he, feel the guise of Herbert getting away from him, slipping – sloping almost – over the horizon, and too far off ever to be brought back, a dim unreal person set apart, a pair of muddy heels vanishing in the distance. He found it frightening, fragmenting, but the fright coming and going like one of his other selves. It wasn’t always easy to feel convinced that he was who he was supposed to be at the moment. Often it was hard to tell even when he thought he most certainly knew. He came back to Herbert sufficiently to say: ‘I absolutely am aware of the difference between right and wrong. But anyone who does wrong not realizing that he does so is a fool.’

  She thought better of continuing the sort of argument he would never let her win, and to divert him mentioned a burglary they’d had at the office a few nights ago.

  ‘Did they get much?’

  ‘Oh, some stamps. But they took two typewriters, and an adding machine.’

  He looked into the sky, thinking he might have to call Bert back. ‘Nothing’s safe, I suppose. Life’s an ongoing guerrilla war between the rich and the poor.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘we’re not rich, and I’ll bet they’re not poor. So it’s wrong, whatever you say.’

  Nor did he feel it was time for an argument. ‘I suppose you’re right, if I think about it.’

  They ate sandwiches, corned beef for him, and lettuce and cheese for her. He drew her down on to the cape and kissed her, as gently as he hoped would be preferred, lips roaming to her forehead and eyes. She liked it, and put her arms around him in a relaxed way. They lay as if half-asleep and, it seemed to him as well as to her, perfectly harmonized with the smell of warm herbage and the rustling from trees behind.

  ‘I love you.’ He omitted the word ‘duck’, his love only true as far as the scorching desire of his groin. ‘I’ll never forget today,’ he murmured, warm breath caressing her ear. ‘Our lie-down together on the Gotham Hills will stay in my memory forever.’

  ‘I love you as well, but my arm’s going dead.’ He moved, an opportunity to readjust so that his hand could reach her ankle. He stroked the lisle covering between kisses and, crabwise, finger by finger, but in the slowest motion, inched as far as her calf, then let the hand rest awhile. She seemed unaware of his purpose, or at least she said nothing. Perhaps she liked the perspirational closeness, and enjoyed what he was doing, as long as he did it with gentleness and consideration. He assumed she wanted him to go on, so resumed the sly and tactical creep, her skirt ascending with his hand.

  He toyed in the silky cavern at the back of the knee, and felt her passion increase, though perhaps it was only in his own mind. Motionless together on the hillside, like an outcrop of two bizarre rocks, he felt himself close to victory as the sweet and lingering kisses were returned.

  His eyes were fully open before the final advance when, looking beyond her shoulder, he saw an animal fifty yards away, which he at first thought was a large dog, and wondered how the hell it came to be there. A reddish pelt glowed in the reflected sun, its long nose sniffing the breeze for prey. Clean and sturdy, as if fresh out of creation, an elect ruler of all it saw, the still pose seemed fixed forever: a fox.

  For Cecilia to see it would be a unique treat, except that by pointing the scene out he would have to shift his besieging hand, which had gained its position after so much pertinacity. Telling her would make their hillside idyll even more memorable, an unforgettable prelude to the fucking she was going to get, and her gratitude would be everlasting, but he became Bert and Herbert both, and gloried in the fox whose resplendent orange brightness against dull green joined the two parts of him together. They had never been so close, and he took a lesson in the fox’s stillness to say nothing.

  The encroaching hand under her skirt had a mind of its own, even so. Nor was the increasing pressure between his legs any help towards a decision. Under cover of a series of softened kisses his hand went higher, till a stiffened finger touched the rim of her knickers, and felt for a glorious second the texture of hair.

  She moved. ‘Do you want all of Nottinghamshire to see what’s going on?’

  He wouldn’t have cared if Leicestershire and Derbyshire were getting a look in as well. Nobody was visible, as far as he could see, and if some modern chiker had invested in a pair of binoculars to further his foul ends good luck to him – though if he caught anybody doing such a thing he’d pound them to blood and gristle.

  At her movement the fox melted back into the woods, and she would never be aware of what, by his unity with the animal, he had allowed her to miss. He looked at his watch. ‘We’d better go, if we want to be back by dusk.’

  She stood, and held him close, and he knew that the wrench away from loving had been as hard for her as for him. ‘We’ll do it soon, darling. I want it too, but it really wouldn’t be good to start anything here.’

  Pride made him say it didn’t matter, and kiss her tenderly, telling himself that soon had better mean what it implied or he wouldn’t bother wasting much more time on her. Love ought to have some substance, and the wetter the better. His pocket hadn’t been lightened by the weight of a single french letter. Luckily he didn’t have cold rice pudding down his leg, though the tumescence was plain for her to see.

  While reading The Times, clandestinely acquired with the Daily Mirror on his way through town that morning, he was disturbed by Mrs Denman calling that Archie was on his way upstairs. Bert put the newspaper under his pillow, and swung round to undo a packet of cigarettes.

  Archie smiled forlornly, and put a weighty package on the bed. ‘I got this for yer.’ He wore his weekend suit, with collar and tie, though such a smart rig did not take attention from his black eye and scuffed face.

  ‘What ’appened to yo’?’ Bert said.

  He sat on the spare chair, head down as if to hide the worst patches. ‘Got my comeuppance, din’t I?’

  ‘It bleddy looks like it. What ’appened?’

  ‘The other evening it was. Cherie and me was all set for a bit of delicious hearthrug pie when her ’usband comes back to the house with some of his pals. One at the front, but two at the back. I ran straight into the two at the back, the cunning bastards. Then all three set on to me. Some fucker must have shopped us.’

  Bert grinned, the only response being: ‘Shall we go out and get the fuckpigs? Give ’em a real pastin’?’ Such an offer of assistance was all that could be made, after the hastily considered and rejected alternative of taking the mickey out of Archie for his misadventure. The problem was that after taking the mickey out of someone like Archie there wouldn’t be much left to take. Should Archie feel the consequences of such an emptying, which he probably would, being more sensitively acute than many, he might go into a berserker’s fit and take the house to pieces. Mrs Denmah wouldn’t like that. Nor, thought Herbert, would I.

  Yet there was always more to Archie than anyone would suppose. ‘You never know, Bert,’ he said. ‘Maybe one day I’ll get a scar as bad as yourn, then I’ll ’ave all the women I like – maybe even a posh whore will fall for me. Anyway, I’ll get ’em sooner or later.’ He stood to unwrap the parcel. ‘Let ’em stew a bit. It’s the luck o’ the game, anyway.’

  ‘Where did you get this?’ A neat little portable typewriter lay snug in its shining black case. Herbert put it on the table and clipped it open, all keys and tappets shining, a black and red ribbon already installed. He hoped it wasn’t one of those taken from Cecilia’s office, though it was too late to worry about that. In any case, they didn’t use portables in offices.

  ‘Search me! It was just about to fall of
f the back of a lorry, I expect, and somebody – don’t ask me who – caught it in time and stopped it smashing to pieces.’ Archie stroked his battered face. ‘Ain’t she a beauty? I still can’t see why you want one, though.’

  ‘It’s summat to keep me out of mischief. I don’t fancy gerrin beat up like yo’.’ He slotted in a sheet of paper, and ping-ponged his name. Then he did Archie’s, both exquisitely printed. ‘How much do you want for it?’

  ‘They said twenty-five. Is that all right?’

  ‘I shan’t argue.’ He smiled: good to think of his father coughing up for such a potent tool. ‘Can it wait till the weekend? I’ve got a cheque to cash.’

  ‘I suppose so. But no longer, or I’ll have to volunteer for Korea. Them lads want their money quick.’

  ‘I shan’t let you down. It’s worth a fortnight’s wages to me.’ He craved to see some of his handwriting in print, but could not dismiss Archie so soon after he had brought the machine. As consolation he clacked out both names again, and thought how distinguished they looked. He turned to Archie. ‘You’ll have to stop going with married women.’

  ‘Not me,’ he said. ‘I love married women. They know so much. And they’re grateful when you mek ’em cum, especially if they’re married to a numskull, as most of ’em are. Can’t think why. Anyway, let’s go down the road for a pint, and seal the deal. Bruises like these make you thirsty.

  Fourteen

  The wall of the restaurant was mostly glass, making two of everything and everyone, which suited him fine: a double ration of his own face each belonging to the other. One sort was all Thurgarton-Strang, roman-nosed and verging to swarthy, and a cicatrice whose up and down soreness acted like a barometer for his spirit. Then there was the brighter and more accepting version of Bert Gedling, out for fun rather than mischief, and not giving a toss for anyone in the world, not even for himself should he need to fight his way out of a perilous fix.

  How the place with such mirrors had got through the Blitz he would never know, but a surreptitious side-on view of all the Cecilias, whose eyes were preoccupied in other directions to avoid his scar – because it wasn’t a pretty sight tonight, or even at the best of times – showed how tragic her aspect could occasionally be. Maybe he and she were made for each other, though he rather thought not. Her laughter always seemed as much a punctuation device as cursing did with those in the factory, because there was nothing humorous about their glum meal. She seemed sad, and distant in thought. ‘Say something,’ he told her.

  An obliterating glare dissolved, as it should from a carefully brought up young woman. She smiled: ‘I liked your short stories.’

  His thank you came with a sneer, hard to say why.

  ‘They’re typed very well,’ she said. ‘Not a mistake anywhere.’

  He objected to her thinking he’d make a good clerk, or penpusher, but let it pass. ‘I got a book out of the library on how to touch-type.’

  She drank her coffee as if it were brewed from superior acorn dust and, forgetting her determination to make him break silence first: ‘They’re very vivid. But why do you write about people who swear all the time, and do terrible things to one another? I mean, they’re always getting drunk, and being sick all over the place.’

  He pulled himself back from laughing. ‘That’s the way they are. It’s no good playing it down.’

  ‘I think you play it up, though.’

  ‘I appreciate the criticism.’ He didn’t. She could at least say she was entertained, or amused, or had learned something about people she didn’t know. Or she could just say his stories were wonderful, and shut up. ‘I’ll have to check what you say, and then maybe I’ll do better by making things a bit more subtle.’

  ‘There must be other subjects to write about.’ She was encouraged by his attitude. ‘People just don’t drink and fight all the time.’

  She didn’t mention the fucking, of which there was quite a bit, though it must have been in her mind. It was certainly in his, but he wouldn’t bring the matter up in case it delayed him getting such a nice middle-class woman into bed.

  ‘What’s more,’ she went on. She didn’t, presumably, know when to stop. ‘You are not like that.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’

  His table manners and behaviour tonight were impeccable, even to someone who had always found such fault with the clerks who had taken her out that they soon gave her up for a girl who would provide unstinted love and approval. None had come close to the perfection of Herbert at his best. ‘You aren’t, though, are you, darling?’

  Certainly not, but the Bert in him regretted not wearing overalls and having a spanner to brandish. ‘I couldn’t write about such frightful people if I was. Nor would I care to.’ He mimicked a public school accent with sufficient accuracy to stop her suspecting he had at one time used it. Nor did he want her to think he was mocking her accent, of the local but clearly enunciated sort. He was far enough into alien territory to feel irritated and uncomfortable, and to realize he should be on his guard. It was hard enough fitting into one sort of life, and here he was jinking among three.

  His obvious hedging and dodging put a flush into her delicately boned face. ‘You should read more books by Walter Hawksworth. He’s good. You’d learn a lot from him.’ He wondered if she had ever been to bed with Hawksworth, the way she went on. Hawksworth was a good writer, she said. He wrote about those whom any sensible person would want to be like. Even if people in his books happened to do something bad they did such actions later on that they ended up good. Hawksworth didn’t write about those common people who lived all around us, and who didn’t care about the difference between right and wrong. The people all around us, well, you knew how they lived already, in any case, so you didn’t need to read about them.

  She was so delightful it would be easy for him to relinquish the role of Bert Gedling, or enough to give that impression. His defences fell flat when he was only vaguely aware of the rough side of himself and could be mostly a Thurgarton-Strang, a part in the play of his life which seemed to charm her, though he couldn’t really care whether it did or not. He could, after all, be who he liked whenever he liked and behave in any way he cared to, having had a good education and come from the sort of family that she would never know about. He had just spent a good part of his week’s wages paying for their dinner and she hadn’t even had the grace to thank him. She wasn’t always aware of the change in his accent, and whatever was in her mind he could only hope it would snare her into doing all he wanted her to do, though as soon as this looked like coming about – and his villainous faculties, he smiled, would tell him precisely when – he would revert positively to Bert Gedling in the hope that her ant-like restless desire would let him do what he liked no matter who he felt himself to be.

  ‘I’m going slowly through the Everyman Library.’ One of the books Isaac had given him had a full list at the back. ‘I’m on Joseph Conrad at the moment. Lord Jim was terrific. Jim is a ship’s officer who jumps overboard when he thinks the boat’s going down, and leaves all his dago passengers to drown.’

  ‘What an awful thing to do.’

  ‘It makes a marvellous novel though. And he pays for it in the end. You’d like it.’

  ‘He should have stayed on the ship and looked after them, or gone down with it.’

  Maybe he shouldn’t have been on the ship at all, just as Phaeton ought not to have driven his father’s sun chariot across the sky. Look what trouble that caused. Most come to grief when they overreach themselves, though if you don’t overreach yourself you’ll never know what you can do. And if you come a cropper it doesn’t much matter as long as you’re still alive. And if you aren’t still alive your worries are over.

  ‘Then there would have been no moral in the story.’ He reached for her hand: ‘Conrad does rather put old Hawksworth in the shade, though. I think you ought to tackle a bit of grown-up stuff now and again. Maybe you should start with Evelyn Waugh. He’s very good.’

 
She smiled. ‘I do find you difficult to understand.’

  Nor do I always understand you, and I don’t care to, but what does it matter anyway? You only need to understand about someone when you’re writing about them, and if it’s someone you’ve never met that’s even better, because then you can make it up, which comes out just as good if not more truthfully than if you had really bumped into them. ‘It takes a long time to understand a person.’

  ‘You don’t tell me anything about yourself.’

  Her twinge of complaint was difficult to forgive, since not only did he know so little of himself but her pathetic attempt to find out more than he even knew made it seem as if she was starting to nag.

  ‘Let’s go for a walk, my love.’ He manoeuvred her through a crowd at the door waiting for a table. ‘I’ve told you my life-story already.’

  ‘Yes, but it was a very skimpy one.’

  Let her settle for that, and wonder about the inconsistencies, in her old-maidish droning. He held her by the waist as they walked towards Slab Square, her arm over his shoulder being a slight advance up the ladder of affection. The human warmth was good for him. He needed to have a body close to his own, and none could serve better than hers. However he thought of her, he wanted to hear that she liked his writing, but the sparse comments so far could perhaps be put down to the bottle of wine which had tasted like sock-juice, for which he couldn’t altogether blame her. The next hope was for her body, but all he’d had up to now were a few kisses verging on the passionate from him and the hard given from her while saying good night at the gate of where she lived in Mapperley Park. ‘Very skimpy,’ she repeated.

  ‘I’ll write a novel about it one day, so’s you can have a good read. I can’t explain things to you in speech.’ He let Herbert take over again. ‘I find it extraordinarily difficult to say what’s on my mind, probably because I’m so fond of you. The ardent desire I feel for you puts me off. On the other hand, you haven’t told me much about your life.’