by Dave Wallis
“My mum must be out getting some stuff or working at the Area Disposal Records place,” said Kathy. “We’ve still got a few packets of tea. I’ll make some.” She went through to the kitchen and on the stove found a note. She knew what it was as soon as she took in that her mother had used a proper envelope and not just scribbled it on the inside of a cereal box or on a piece of wrapping paper.
She stood and read it while the kettle hummed and rattled, as it had done when she was a child and her mother a young woman.
“Dear Kathy,
Well, I certainly never thought I would be writing you this letter. Even after your father did it I kept thinking oh well I’ve seen worse times, and I thought, well, she’s only got me now.
Now I see that you don’t need me anymore and, Kathy, I’m so tired, you don’t know how tired and I hope you never do.
I did think of going to one of those Alf Neighbour Help Centres but the nearest one to us is in Kitchener Street and that Mrs. Robbins has got herself a job there filing and making the tea just like she did in the Food Office when I was carrying you years ago and I don’t want her knowing my business. Then, I thought he was a good man and out to help people, I mean he writes in the papers and leads those prayers on the telly and that, but you told me what he was like so I didn’t bother. In some ways Kathy you make me feel you’re older than I am and that’s another reason I can’t be bothered to go on. I know you’ll be able to manage.
I’ve been saving up tinned stuff and there’s a lot in my bedroom cupboard as well as in the larder and there’s some money your father didn’t even know about in the broken tea-pot at the back of the dresser. I’m going away to do it so you won’t have the fuss, dear. My only regret is that I won’t see my grandchildren, but maybe you won’t have any. I mean the way things are going I don’t blame any girl for not. Another thing I wanted to tell you was that it went ever so easy and lovely having you, not like with Henry. I really enjoyed it and if there was any pain, well I’ve forgotten it.
I know you will get over it soon dearest. I’ve got one of those Easyway pills from a friend of your father’s who knows someone who can get them on the black market so I won’t feel anything. Goodbye Kathy, your old mum. P.S. remember about the money and the food. I wouldn’t do it, really, if I wasn’t just so sick and tired of it all.”
She went on making the tea and talking to the others and only later showed them the letter. “Get yourself a place of your own,” said Ernie. “We’ll help.”
“Yes,” said Charlie. “Only make you morbid now, hanging around here and if the Control Board get on to it they might put you in one of those orphanages.”
Kathy said, “Thanks very much all the same.” She was thinking, “He doesn’t say, ‘Get a place with me.’ ”
It came to her that she was now on her own, as she had so often longed to be, and that it wasn’t a bit like she’d imagined.
“Let’s get the tins, then, and I’ll pack my clothes and we’ll go and find a place,” she said.
“Breakfast first,” said Ernie. “It’s nearly one o’clock.”
4
“Let’s face it, Alf,” said his editor. “You and your crappy Help Centres are what the P.M. himself described as, ‘one of the true unifying and hopeful forces in the country.’ He came out with this, Alf, in front of the Archbishop and the C.O. Control Board and the lot of them. I don’t think they liked it. Now, the thing is, Alf, they want to meet you.”
From long habit the two restless and energetic men paced about the room passing and re-passing as actors controlled by an over-ambitious director. Both missed the noise of traffic which had once lapped at the high windows. Petrol imports had now ceased and remaining stocks were in the hands of the Control Board.
“What are the figures?” asked Alf Neighbour.
“That’s what I’m getting at, Alf,” said his editor and paused looking down at the litter-thick unswept tunnel of Fleet Street far below. “There’s been so much covering up and so many civil servants have done it without bothering to send in their returns first that they don’t know any longer just what is happening. We tipped over the edge here months ago if you want to know.”
“What do you mean ‘over the edge’? All this mixing with Bishops and politicians is making you go cryptic.”
“What I mean is, Alf, that setting aside distribution difficulties, and we’ve had all the official co-operation we can use because of your Help Centre Bulletin stuff, setting that aside . . . well, Alf, more readers have been doing it than there are new ones buying us. It only has to go a bit longer the same way and there won’t be a paper.”
“You’re tired. That time’s a long way off. Now listen, here’s how I want this meeting with the P.M. done. This is what you do. Get one of our boys waiting outside with a photographer. Out I come and joke about ‘hoist with me own petard’ – whatever the hell that means. Then I say, ‘Now I know how the people I’ve chased must’ve felt. No, I’ve promised the Prime Minister not to make a statement yet. This meeting was top secret but if it had to come out I’m proud it was one of our reporters who’s got the story. . . . How are you, Charlie? Been waiting outside long? Feet hurt? I sympathise’ said the paper’s own most famous contributor with a twinkle in his friendly but penetrating eye. That sort of thing.”
“Too much Alf. They’ll never stomach it.”
“Nothing’s too much these days. You don’t know half of what goes on in my Help Centres. Never bothered to tell you as it don’t make a story. Well, I’ll tell you now. Some of them even get down and pray to me, ‘Alf, Alf save us’ and all that sort of thing.”
“Better not tell the Archbishop that one.”
“He knows.”
Alf’s black jag with its Control Board priority yellow sticker on the windscreen ploughed through a sighing mass of litter. From time to time bulldozers manned by the Emergency Services scraped a channel down the main roads and enormous bonfires were lit in the squares and sidestreets.
Whitehall, of course, was kept clear. Alf crunched over the last of the foot-deep matting of ice-cream cartons, newsprint and empty cigarette packets carpeting the Strand and accelerated round the Square. Some small religious group was holding a service, watched by three policemen. “None of us have done it,” boasted a voice through a cracked loudspeaker, “The Lord hath hearkened unto his servants, hearken now unto the voice of the Lord. . . .” He slewed the car round into the top of a deserted Whitehall and stopped outside the block of buildings now taken over by the Control Board and the Ministry of Public Relations who were working together under terms laid down by the National Mental Health, Suicide Discouragement and Prevention Acts, as thrice amended.
He was plainly expected and two Control Board Police stepped forward and escorted him to the doorway. The huge hall, hung with portraits of forgotten ministers, smelt of old pickled panelling and new paint. Half finished partitions of hardboard boxed off odd cubicles out of the marble flagged floor-space. Though the place was unknown its atmosphere was still familiar to Alf. “Same here as everywhere,” he thought, “not certain if they’re coming or going.” By this he meant that it was no longer possible, anywhere, to sense whether all these makeshift arrangements denoted an institution in the course of construction or of demolition.
The meeting turned out to be of surviving king-pins from the world of mass-media, three popular sporting heroes, two top telly personalities, editors and higher civil servants. They were roughly the crowd just one step above Alf Neighbour in the old days and he thought, “Big stuff at last and it only happens when the whole country’s going to pot anyway. That’s life for you.”
The chairman introduced himself and took Alf by the arm and introduced him to the men, every now and then he said, “Have you met?” either to Alf or to two other people and Alf spotted that all this crowd met regularly at clubs and dinner-parties and that this formality on the part of his host was merely a tactful gesture. There was sherry
and biscuits, of a type which had even vanished from the black market, on a sideboard. After a time they sat around a large leather-topped table. Alf’s face was emptily watchful, like a gambler’s. His hands were folded and motionless on the table but underneath it, out of sight, he kept crossing and re-crossing his ankles and tapping one toe on the ground.
The chairman was explaining, “. . . and so the Minister thought an ad hoc little body such as this might well be useful in advising, unofficially, the PR section of the C.B. and indirectly the Minister himself. Our powers would be entirely advisory, of course, as to ways and means of stopping the rot, ‘reversing the trend’ as our departmental jargon has it. . . .” Alf was faintly aware that a part of all this performance was for his benefit. All these men met and were on first name terms and were only an invisible rank below those who ran the top. He was a newcomer whom they needed.
“In return,” the chairman was explaining, “I have the authority of my chief to make available to you any relevant information whether scheduled or not. If you’ll bear with me while I give you a few figures . . . ?” The faintest chilling in the atmosphere, though hardly one hair of a single eyebrow had twitched, indicated that this intended compliment could also mean a reflection on the efficacy of the private sources of information of each of them.
The chairman rushed on, “. . . and, if it doesn’t bore you too much, some fresh figures, journalists, theatrical and television directors, film artists and thespians of all three sexes and of the subdivisions thereof, have gained rapidly in recent months over traditional leading categories. As you are all no doubt only too well aware,” (‘He’s defrosting it a bit’, thought Alf.) “Servants of the Patents Office, members of all branches of the teaching profession and dentists continue to lead as was the case with the figures for 1939, 1949 and 1959. The peak period used to be the decade from 45 to 55 years of age and this peak has been steadily moving downwards. Not to mince words; not only have many, many more people been doing it but they’ve been doing it younger and younger. However, the proportion of very young people shows as less since, rather remarkably, the absolute figures have remained the same. . . .” He continued to give details of the breakdown by trades and professions and concluded by saying, “It is becoming increasingly difficult to come by reliable figures since so many members of the Control Board, despite the recent generous increase in salaries, have been resigning after a few weeks of service.”
After a slight pause a round-faced man of fifty, whom Alf knew to be managing director of the remaining independent T.V. channel said, “It’s going to be helpful that so few teen-agers have done it. Really, I think that’s the pointer to the whole of the campaign. Youth teen-age couple dancing, ‘Live with a zing, ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling’ . . . poster repeats of themes and so on. Make life sexy, I mean let’s face it, it is, after all, and make death old-fashioned.”
Various men spoke, all to the point and with an intelligent brevity, the Chairman gave Alf an opening and he said, “I’ve been wondering, listening to you all, if all of us haven’t spent too much thought studying those who’ve done it and trying to find out why and if it wouldn’t be better to study those who’ve not done it and find out what keeps them going. I’ve had some stuff analysed by the office, questionnaires from my Help Centres.” He handed around some documents. It was agreed that Alf’s Help Centres should have even more quasi-official backing.
“This might be the moment to mention one more thing,” said the chairman. “The figures for those belonging, actively, to some organisation, like church, tennis-club, dinghy racing squadrons, seem slightly lower. Of course they go away by themselves to do it and it’s not always easy for the Control Board men to prove membership. We’ve built up this tentative theory from an examination of the proportion of membership cards and correspondence of all kinds found on bodies and comparing this with an estimated national average.”
“Let’s show teen-agers as members of all these things, I mean bowling-clubs and so on,” said the round-faced man.
“That’s just the point; they don’t join them,” said somebody else.
The plan which emerged was to draw people more closely around any groups, social, sporting or religious and to plug the youth angle. Alf was asked to prepare a report on the relationship of young people to his Help Centres.
Talking and chattering the members of the committee passed down the marble hallway and out into the silent city.
As had been planned with his editor two hours before, a reporter from Alf’s paper was waiting in the street. A flash-bulb flared, and two men of the Control Police stepped forward.
“All right, it’s all right, officer,” said Alf Neighbour. “One of our own boys, too. If it had to leak I’m proud that it’s our reporter who’s got the story.” He went on with the prepared speech but not even the policemen seemed to be listening. The young reporter stood looking at him without responding or helping to build up the agreed act at all. There was even something in his manner which annoyed Alf. It was all in the way of business wasn’t it? If he felt like that about it, so superior, let him get another job, sweeping the streets for example. “What’s the matter, Charlie? Feet hurt? I sympathise. . . .” He reached his car and stooped to unlock the door. The young reporter turned and walked away. One of the policemen said, “Do you know him well, sir?” Alf shrugged. “He’s got the look of one of them that’s going to do it very soon, that’s all. We get to know in our job. We see such a lot of it. I just thought if you knew him perhaps you might give him a lift now and have a word with him.”
“Don’t worry officer, thanks, thank you. No time now.” Alf slid into the driving seat. “He don’t seem to be a very good reporter in any case.”
Back at the office routine stuff was coming in. Alf went to see his editor. “How’d it go, Alf?” He told him who was there. His editor nodded and from time to time gave Alf thumb-nail sketches of a handful of others who might have been there. “They all seemed to know each other just like all the top boys do,” said Alf. His editor nodded again. “It works the same way,” he said.
“They’re not slow,” said Alf.
“They wouldn’t be where they are if they were.”
“How many of the real topside have done it?”
“There’s a few gaps. Being in that sort of club makes life too interesting.”
“That reminds me,” said Alf. “We ought to do something to strengthen togetherness.”
“We do, there’s the Help Centres.”
“More than that, any sort of groupings. How about some features on the ways people get together?”
“Blimey, Alf! ‘Clubs and Societies’, like a school magazine.”
“Yes,” said Alf, “just like,” and went to his own office. Here one of his own personal copy-tasters munched at his meal of tape and telegrams. “Anything?” said Alf.
“Something new, maybe, here. First I’ve heard of them doing it in batches, together. Here’s a whole parish council finished their meeting early at some tin-pot fishing village in the Humber estuary and gone and drowned themselves. We use it? Grimsby Clarion man says they’ve got pictures, wives weeping on the shore, empty council chamber and all that. Should I get them?” He handed Alf a slip of paper.
“Let me think a minute,” said Alf.
“Not like you to think,” murmured his copy-taster and went back to his work.
5
Alf Neighbour searched his files for details of cases he had investigated before the Crisis had been admitted. He was looking for any involving teen-agers. A memory of an evening near some café with a pretty kid who didn’t want her picture taken . . . what was the name of the soo-soo who’d just done it? (The diminutive “soo-soo”, for “suicider” had been coined by a public relations firm taken over early by the Control Board, as part of a deglamourising campaign and had caught on, but quite failed to stop the trend.)
Thus he came across the name “Oliver” – teac
her, 53. Window, at work. Contact, Tellen Local London Press, and a further note, pencilled above Tellen, “Done it too. Kids report” and a phone number and two addresses.
“Why can’t you just have a big rally of teen-agers?” asked his assistant. “They’d all flock to meet you, then you could talk with them afterwards and arrange a debate.”
“You don’t understand. They’d never talk natural like that, I really want to know what they’re thinking and how they can help if at all.”
An incredible thing happened and, as he said the word “really” Alf looked embarrassed. “Didn’t think it was possible,” thought his assistant and watched his chief scurrying out of the office wrapping a dirty suede overcoat around himself as he went. All dry-cleaning shops had closed. Too many chemical workers making white spirit had done it.
Two Disposal trucks lurched down what had once been the wrong side of the road and Alf leaned out of the window, after a quick swerve, and swore at the drivers. Then the roads were empty all the way out to the suburb. His car bumped and bounced over lumpy piles of sodden litter. Refuse collection had stopped about the same time as street sweeping and every now and then a few figures stood around bonfires on the pavement and the air was full of the sour smell of burning garbage. He recognised the district now and the corner by the tube station where a stooge from the local rag, wearing a tyrolean hat, had once met him. There was a coffee-bar near and Alf drew into the curb and went in. It was empty except for a tall West Indian girl behind the counter. She brought him a coffee and he tried to get her going a bit. “Many youngsters in here, later?”
“Too many,” she said.
“Ever hear of any of them mention a Mr. Oliver, or a Mr. Tellen, or perhaps, me, Mr. Neighbour, Alf Neighbour?” The expected excited response failed to appear.
“They not calling anybody ‘mister’,” said the girl.
