The Broken Chariot

by Alan Sillitoe

  At his first television interview she thought he’d scored about seventy per cent, which was good, she added, though it might have been better. The producer, Arthur Hornbeam, said everything was marvellous, but he would, wouldn’t he? All the same, he seemed happy with it, and went on to wonder whether Mr Gedling would consider writing plays for the medium. ‘Someone like you would be paid top rate. The time’s just about right for that kind of stuff.’

  He drained his paper cup of cheap whisky, and threw it into the bin. ‘I’ll think about it.’

  ‘But can you go on churning out the same old thing?’ Deborah asked, as they lay in bed.

  ‘Standing on my head, I should think.’

  He wasn’t so sure, didn’t care to deal only with the rough and tumble of low life for the rest of his days. After a few further books from the dustbin of his experience he would scribble about more worldly happenings, expand his imagination, alter the scenery, and become a real novelist, as everyone would expect him to do. Still, it wasn’t yet time to disillusion Deborah about his ability to suck at the cow’s teat forever, in case she let something drop to Humphries.

  Waking in the morning, care had to be taken not to let his accent slide too far into the public school twang. ‘I’ll tell you another thing, luv, it’s a lot better writin’ books than it is sweatin’ blood all week in a factory.’

  ‘I’m sure it is, Herbert. You don’t mind the Herbert bit, do you?’

  ‘Call me what you like. Loves yer, don’t I?’

  ‘And I love you. More coffee?’

  ‘Another thing is, I reckon it’s time I did a bunk from my hole and corner billet near the Elephant. It’s too far on the wrong side of the river.’ People who assumed he was already a millionaire might wonder where he really came from if he stayed in such a squalid area.

  She adjusted a fold of breast inside her brassiere, and reached for a pair of clean pants. ‘Why not lease a flat for a few years in Belsize Park? That way you can commute between here and there.’

  She used her London expertise, and looked at the Roy Brooks column in the Sunday papers. After a couple of weeks she found a place. ‘They want three hundred and fifty a year, as well as five hundred for carpets and curtains. I went there this morning, and it’s fine. Let’s see it, before someone else makes an offer.’

  A woeful Bert tone came up in Herbert’s throat on hearing such sums spoken of so lightly. ‘Eight ’undred and fifty quid’s as much as I used to earn in a year,’ but Herbert, who knew the price to be realistic if not reasonable, choked back more of the same on seeing the flat. ‘I’ll have it.’

  Deborah led the helpless booby into Heals to buy the basic amount of utilitarian furniture that would fit with the newly painted walls. Selfridge’s was for pots, pans, cutlery and provisions. Cheques fluttered away like leaves from an autumn tree, a day’s shopping to suck out all energy. At lunch in the White Elephant neither could say much, though a surreptitious holding of hands and the warm touch of knees seemed to deepen their attachment, as if exhaustion was a more potent fuse than any talk about love.

  The time was right to reveal himself as Thurgarton-Strang, yet he hesitated. The chariot was clicking along smoothly at the moment. ‘You’ve got to tell her sooner or later,’ Bert said. ‘No use putting it off.’

  ‘Tell her what?’ – as if he didn’t know.

  ‘That ye’re not me, and never was.’

  ‘I’ll do it in my own good time.’

  ‘There’s no such thing. And when you do she won’t like it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Bert laughed. ‘Well, she likes me better than you. I know for a fact she won’t want to see the back of me.’

  ‘I doubt that’s the case,’ he said huffily.

  ‘Oh, don’t yer? You wait. It’s me she fell for, not you. Yer can’t deny it. You’ll find out when you tell ’er.’

  ‘It’s got to be done, though,’ Herbert sighed.

  Bert changed his tone. ‘Ye’re not going to leave me, are yer?’

  ‘Afraid I’ll have to.’

  ‘Well, I shan’t cry about it. Good luck to yer, is all I can say.’

  ‘You’ve been a good sport, Bert. I’ll never forget you.’

  ‘You wain’t be half the man you was before.’

  ‘Oh, I think I will. In any case I won’t need to be.’

  ‘You’d better do it now. I would if I was you.’

  Deborah, from looking at two women waiting for a table, turned back to her coffee. ‘I’d like to know what profound thoughts I’ve disturbed you from, darling.’

  ‘Oh, I was only thinking how much I loved you.’

  ‘What a simple uncomplicated mind you have.’

  ‘That’s how I am.’

  ‘I know. And I love you, too.’

  The Other Side of the Tracks had been in Humphries’ office a week and Herbert went to see him. ‘Well, what do you think?’

  ‘We’ll do it in the autumn.’ He reached for a box: ‘Cigar, Bert?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘I read it on the train, going home the other night, after Dominic had finished with it.’

  Herbert lit a cigarette. ‘You must have read it as quickly as you can turn the pages.’

  ‘Almost.’ He cut his cigar. ‘I think Dominic wants to suggest a few alterations.’

  The stack of typescript lay on his desk, next to a new effort by Walter Hawksworth, and Herbert put a hand over his own. ‘I’ll buy a cross from an ex-service stores and crucify anybody who touches a word of this. You can come to the party if you like. There’ll be champagne, not fucking red vinegar. I’ll invite all the reviewers. Calvary won’t be a patch on it, especially if I nail up two publishers as well.’

  Humphries laughed. ‘There’s no need to go to such expense. The book’s marvellous. It might even get a Book Society Recommendation, and do better than Royal Ordnance.’ He didn’t want the bloody fool taking his novel to another firm, after all they’d done for him.

  ‘What about the advance, then?’

  ‘Oh that? Well, we’ll up it a bit this time.’ He spun the fine gold chain till the watch hit his finger. ‘We’ll do you proud, in fact. What do you say to five hundred?’

  Bert picked up the typescript. ‘I’d better show it somewhere else – unless you make it a thousand.’

  ‘A thousand?’

  ‘Seems reasonable to me,’ he said in a tone which suggested to Humphries that he wasn’t a bad mimic. ‘And keep Dominic’s hands off it, or I’ll give him a good hiding.’

  ‘Now look here, Bert, you just can’t talk like that.’

  He laid the typescript on a bookcase by the door, and flopped into an armchair, pushing out his legs. Deborah had Roneoed a letter which Humphries had written to Reginald Stone the paperback publisher, giving reasons for expecting a larger advance than the one offered.

  ‘It’s uncanny. He’s writing about the workers in just the way we’ve always thought in our secret hearts they should be written about. We could barely have hoped for it, but now it’s here. Of course, some strait-laced old vicars and JPs in certain places will complain about the obscene way it’s done, and tell us that the “lower orders” shouldn’t be written about at all, since it will give them ideas above their station, but Mr Gedling has given the working classes, whatever else one says, a genuine portrait of themselves, as well as a voice. All we have to do, as time goes on – if he doesn’t do it himself, of course – is to steer him into our mouth instead of his mouth, a little more like Walter Hawksworth, if you see my drift. If we can do that we’ll have real bestsellers on our hands, not retailing in tens of thousands but by the million. Meanwhile the joy of it is, he’s absolutely one of them, and how he came to write novels I’ll never know, because he’s quite uneducated. But he certainly deserves what money he can get, and the wealthier he becomes, and the sooner he gets to depend on it, and is able to settle into a respectable life, the better it will be for everybody. So I think it’
s just as much in your interest as it is in mine that you see if you can’t double your offer. You won’t lose by it, I assure you.’

  After several readings blind rage at the conspiratorial twist of Humphries’ mind made him sweat more than he’d ever done in the factory. Veins on his temples jumped as he tried to stay nonchalant, barely able to resist saying he knew about the letter. Obtuse clodhopper Bert had made him blind to such insulting views of his talent and intentions. He would go his own way whatever they thought or felt, even though he had as yet no clear notion as to what that way would be. It wasn’t surprising that Dominic had itched to get his doctoring maulers on the typescript. Herbert would read the proofs word by word, to detect any clandestine tampering. ‘I don’t mind sitting here all day, till I hear your last word on what you’re going to pay me for an advance.’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ Humphries’ tone was no longer patronizing, ‘we’ll make it a thousand pounds. I only hope your royalties will run to it.’

  ‘It’s your problem if they don’t. But I think I’d better find an agent.’ Some good firms had written to offer their services. ‘If I’d got one already they’d have screwed even more out of you.’ He stood up and held out his hand. ‘I’ll ’ave that cigar now, if you don’t mind.’

  The flat was set up and finished, a home in which he relished being alone. He stood in the large study-sitting room, looking around as if in a dream, amazed at all that had happened in a short space of twelve months. The flat belonged to him for the forever of five years, by when he would have a bigger place to fall into a trance about, maybe even a house. Change was no problem, for didn’t he get used to being a factory worker straight out of school? The staging post of a furnished room at the Elephant and Castle was easy to forget. He felt he was becoming a lover of comfort, and neither knew nor cared from what part of himself such maturity came. On the other hand he knew that not much was certain in life. Prosperity could any moment be snatched out of his hands by malignant fate. It was as well to be prepared, or at least not to be too surprised by the unwanted and unexpected. The picture of Phoebus Apollo, framed in thin black wood, hung on the wall above his writing table, and the hardworn copy of Caged Birds was available in the bedroom drawer.

  Archie jumped from the carriage and strode along the platform. ‘Hey up, fuck-face!’

  ‘I’m glad you could make it,’ Bert said, a handshake and then an embrace.

  ‘I towd ’em I ’ad a bad back, and would be in bed for the day. The gaffer gen me a leery look, but since I’ve never ’ad a day off before in my life he couldn’t very well say owt. Anyway, I’d a gen ’im a mouthful, if ’e ’ad.’

  It was a tonic to hear the old accent from someone born and bred to it, yet disturbing to know how much of his own had already gone down the chute. ‘The day’s yourn, Archie, so what do you want to do with it?’

  Archie gripped his arm by the ticket barrier. ‘I wouldn’t mind a black and tan at Dirty Dick’s.’

  ‘You still like the owd titty-bottle, eh? They wain’t be open for a couple of hours, so we’ll go to my place first.’ A start had to be made on letting Archie see his altered style of living. Walking together into the Underground, Herbert wondered whether they could be taken for two workmen down for a day in the Smoke to see the sights. Though sartorially on a par in that Archie had donned his best suit, and Herbert wore his one for everyday, some difference between them must be obvious. He hoped so, but at the same time cared not to think about it. The connection had been false from the beginning, but he felt a brotherly responsibility for Archie, and nothing but gladness at having set the meeting up. ‘How old is the baby now?’

  ‘Three months, give or take an hour or two. He’s a beauty, but the little boggerlugs screams his guts out from the colic, or if he don’t get his own way. It teks all Josie’s strength to pick ’im up. He’ll soon be bigger than she is.’

  ‘So when are you having another?’

  ‘Give ’er a break, though I wouldn’t mind. I don’t want too many, or I’ll run out of beer money.’ The train rattled through Euston and Camden Town. ‘I only know the middle of London from when I was in the army, but I don’t think I’d like to live down ’ere.’

  ‘I’m not sure I like it all that much, either,’ Herbert said. ‘I’ve got used to it, though.’ Somewhere in the countryside might be more civilized, but he didn’t feel ready for it yet.

  ‘I suppose you ’ave. But you know, Bert, when you was in the factory and one of us, I allus knew you were up to summat and wouldn’t stay forever. I couldn’t be sure what it was, but you was different, and that was a fact. You used to try and hide it, but not from me you couldn’t. I got the first clue when you wanted that typewriter.’

  Herbert put a hand on his shoulder. ‘And I knew you knew, but there was nothing I could tell you at the time.’

  ‘I expect you thought it’d put you off your stroke. I’d ’ave called you a bleddy liar, anyway.’

  Herbert laughed. ‘Come on, we get out here.’

  He looked on his bijou garden flat as the height of fine accommodation in crowded expensive London. Whatever family he came from, he had never expected such light and space for his own exclusive use. Archie’s almost unnoticeable look around brought nothing like: what a marvellous place, you’ve really dropped into it you lucky dog, how much does it cost a day? He behaved, or so Herbert liked to think, in the same way as Bert would in a similar situation if Archie had won the pools.

  Archie picked up The Times Literary Supplement. ‘What the fuck’s this newspaper?’

  He had meant to stow it away. ‘It’s all about books. Let’s have some coffee, shall we?’

  ‘Yeh, I was up at six this morning. A lot of the blokes at work read your book,’ he went on when Herbert came back from the kitchen.

  Herbert stopped halfway in pouring the coffee. ‘Did they like it?’

  ‘Mostly. But one or two said you was giving them a bad name, about knocking on with other women. I towd the sanctimonious bastards to ’ave more sense. It worn’t about them at all, I said. You’d made it all up. But they wouldn’t believe me. They swore they kept recognizing themselves. I thought when I saw you I’d tell you, so’s we could have a good laugh about it.’

  Herbert wondered why he had never been able to match the fluency of Archie’s lingo, whereas the screed at his desk came out with no trouble. Being on guard during speech could explain it, but not near as convincingly as that the language had never belonged to him. Reality couldn’t finally exist independent of birthright. ‘I suppose I’d better wear glasses and a false beard if I come up for a visit,’ he said when they stopped laughing, ‘or I’ll get duffed up.’

  ‘Nah! But don’t yer mean when you come to hear more o’ them lovely stories?’

  ‘There is that, as well.’

  ‘Yer did mek most of ’em up, though, didn’t yer?’ he winked. ‘If ever you want any more, just let me know. They grow on trees where I come from.’

  After a session at Dirty Dick’s, and a meal upstairs, they traipsed back to Liverpool Street and got on the Underground for Tower Hill, quiet for the most part since neither by now had much else to say. Archie wanted to see the Crown Jewels and the Chamber of Horrors, and Herbert was glad to go, because he would never see such things otherwise. A boat to Charing Cross pier set them on a walk through Trafalgar Square to Piccadilly, which gave enough to talk about, Herbert telling Archie the story of his life.

  They swing-doored into the Hyde Park Hotel, agreeing that enough had been done of London to last a long time. A thin young man at the piano tinkled out ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’. ‘We can get a hearty tea here.’

  ‘I’m ready for it.’ Archie sat on a short sofa by one of the side tables, which gave a view of the ‘talent’ walking through to the rooms of the hotel. Niches to either side were filled with mirrors, in one a gigantic spray of orange and purple flowers. By the far wall square glass-topped tables were placed as if for writing at, each white sphe
re bulb making little impression because the salon was lit whiter from overhead than day outside.

  Two dowager-looking women at the next table talked about their daughters who were soon to be married. Archie finished gazing. ‘Do you have your tea here a lot?’

  Herbert laughed. ‘I’ve been a couple of times before, once with my girlfriend.’

  ‘You dirty dog! When are you going to marry her?’

  He signalled the waiter. ‘Well, I’m thinking about asking her.’

  ‘On’y thinkin’? Do it. Join the club. You’ll never regret it.’ He leaned across: ‘Does she know all about what yer towd me just now?’

  ‘I think she suspects. Some of it.’ It was his problem, and nobody else’s, certainly not Archie’s. ‘I like this place. Thought you’d like to see it, and get away from the crowds on the street.’

  ‘As long as they mash a good pot of tea.’

  ‘I think they do.’

  ‘You’d better tell her, though. There shouldn’t be any secrets between man and wife.’

  ‘I know.’

  Archie looked again at the mirrors and upholstery, at the orange globe lamps on expanding wooden tripods, and up at the flatly arched ceiling with yellow and orange panes of glass in the centre. ‘Who pays the bloke at the jo-anna?’

  Assailed by ‘Tea For Two’, Herbert speculated as to whether his parents had come here after seeing him off to boarding school. ‘The hotel, I suppose.’

  ‘He’s good, not like some of the ivory bashers up in Nottingham. I like the old tunes, though. They mek me think of the days before the war,’ he nudged, ‘when we was clambed half to death.’ A waiter in coat tails took their order for two full teas. ‘Looks like he’s got a ramrod up his arse.’