In Mine Own Heart

by Alan Marshall

  When he had taken his place behind the large desk in the traveller’s office, I brought in and introduced the staff members to be questioned, then left them. I was thus able to observe his initial manner towards them, his cold assessing mind drawing conclusions from their appearance.

  He sat in the swivel chair with one elbow on the arm rest, his head slightly lowered. The position of his head demanded an upward look from eyes that were grey and hard.

  It was this calculated gaze that met each employee entering the office. It was a gaze practised and perfected, aimed to disconcert and frighten. It was under the control of an actor who presently, when timing demanded it, would lean forward with text-book questions the answers to which, however varied, were allotted their pigeon-hole interpretations.

  When my turn came to be questioned he was not prepared for me. He was gazing at the table waiting for the entrance of another employee to be introduced.

  ‘There are no more,’ I said. ‘It is my turn now.’

  ‘Oh yes!’ he exclaimed quickly, jerking his thoughts from relaxed introspection to the state of observation the moment demanded.

  ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ I asked him, having previously decided that this question would disconcert him.

  He hesitated. ‘No, not at all.’

  He watched me light the cigarette, drawing conclusions I felt sure were to my detriment.

  ‘Well, what can I do for you?’ I said finally, as if he were a commercial traveller.

  He said crisply, ‘I want to ask you some personal questions to which I expect truthful answers.’

  ‘I suppose there are times when you don’t get truthful answers,’ I observed. ‘It would make it rather difficult.’

  ‘On the contrary it makes it much easier,’ he said sharply. ‘Now your name, please?’

  A large form lay on the table before him. Between lines of printing it bore spaces marked by dotted lines on which with swift pen strokes he wrote his interpretation of my answers.

  Name? Age? Place of birth? Married or single? Parents living or dead? Size of family? Living at home or in a boarding house? Amount paid for board? Weekly wage received? Fares to and from work?—A host of questions that were quickly answered, then the loaded ones.

  The conclusions Professor Boggs had drawn from his studies, following the reasoning of his authorities, demanded a friendly attitude when asking questions the answers to which were regarded as the most revealing. These questions must be clothed with confidences that suggested a similarity of experience so that, comforted by a revelation of kindred reactions, the employee would pour forth his weaknesses without fear of the consequences.

  He smiled at me.

  ‘I suppose, like myself, you divide the week into days, each with a character of its own,’ he said. ‘We like one day more than another. I have always disliked Tuesday for some reason or other. What day do you dislike the most?’

  I had entered this office with the intention of answering every question from the point of view of the perfect clerk but I suddenly felt a revulsion against doing this. Like most office workers I disliked Monday, the beginning of another week bound to an office desk. The perfect clerk, as I imagined him, would probably like returning to work after the weekend at home. To the man in front of me a dislike of Monday meant a dislike of one’s job.

  ‘Monday,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it is the day I return to work after a free weekend.’

  ‘What day do you like the most?’

  ‘Friday.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s pay day.’

  ‘Hm!’ he said. He blotted the form then continued:

  ‘Have you a hobby?’

  ‘Well—yes. Bird watching, I’d say.’

  ‘Bird watching!’ He was surprised. Under what section of the form should this be recorded. What did it signify?

  ‘I’m a racing enthusiast,’ he said after a while. Do you ever attend the races?’

  ‘No.’

  This was satisfactory. Clerks who went to the races regularly were always suspected of gambling and would thus, it was believed by vocational advisers, be tempted to steal money.

  ‘You don’t gamble?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you interested in sport?’

  ‘An average interest, I think.’

  ‘What is your favourite colour?’

  ‘Blue,’ I said, surprised at the question.

  ‘Women always select blue,’ he said, looking up at me with satisfaction as if the statement were a plum of knowledge he had selected from his store for my admiration. It was a question inserted to divert the employee’s concentration on evasion and lull him into feeling that other questions were equally unimportant. It annoyed me.

  ‘Some women,’ I replied firmly. I wanted to contradict him. He was so smug. His observation suggested a man who had built up a reputation on an ability to repeat aphorisms with conviction and I waited for him to continue producing them.

  But his list of questions moved back to their former plan.

  ‘You must have a number of friends throughout the factory?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘You are good friends with some of the workers outside the office?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I suppose you know one or two who would lend you a few shillings till pay day if you were short?’

  ‘I know a number like that but I never need the money. I don’t borrow.’

  ‘Your wages are adequate then?’

  ‘I can live on them without borrowing.’

  He continued questioning me. The questions were calculated to reveal the extent to which I experienced discontent, whether money was important to me, how I spent my spare time, whether I was capable of speaking angrily and sharply to men and women over whom I had control.

  I gave abrupt and short answers to them all, not caring now what impression I made upon him.

  He finished his questioning at last. He placed the completed form in his briefcase and stood up. I also rose.

  ‘Just a minute,’ he said as I moved towards the door.

  I turned and waited to hear what he had to say.

  ‘You know all the staff here very well, don’t you?’

  His manner had changed. He had stepped from his pedestal and was confronting me as an equal. His tone linked us together in mutual knowledge.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just between ourselves, are any of them dishonest, working rackets of their own under the lap? Should any of them go, do you think?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘You couldn’t get a better bunch and what’s more Mr Bodstern knows it. He wants his own opinions verified, that’s all.’

  ‘Good!’ he said.

  Mr Bodstern told me a week later he was quite pleased with the reports on his staff.

  7

  The cost of my room, my meals and the fares to and from work took a large part of my wages. I had little over to buy the things I needed. An opportunity to reduce my expenses suddenly presented itself and I took advantage of it.

  The nightwatchman of the Crown Casket and Joinery Company was an elderly man called Simpson. He was short and stout and had a bad heart. Each morning he left me a report of his night’s activities and it was my duty to check it. The form was a typical Bodstern form with a list of duties divided into sections representing the hours of the night during which they were to receive attention. A tick opposite the duty listed was evidence that it had been performed.

  ‘See gates are locked.’

  ‘Visit office and check safes.’

  ‘Inspect timber yard and back gate.’

  ‘Inspect taps and gas jets.’

  ‘Make a tour of the factory.’

  ‘Empty wastepaper baskets.’

  ‘Replenish boiler fire.’

  The list of duties filled a page. Each morning I examined the form he handed to me to see that no ticks were missing. A blank square beside a duty demande
d I draw Mr Simpson’s attention to the omission. He would then, in my presence, put a tick in the space and I would file the form.

  But he rarely forgot to tick an item. He was a perfect nightwatchman.

  The back of the form was ruled with lines and bore the heading, ‘Comments’. Mr Simpson rarely commented on anything. On those occasions when he felt a comment was necessary it generally recorded some act of his for which he should be commended. It was my duty to commend him but if the act was such that Mr Simpson had shown more than ordinary devotion to his duty I handed the form to Mr Bodstern and he would bestow the required praise upon him.

  The comment: ‘Saw man climbing over back fence. Ran down to stop him but when I reached the fence he had disappeared’, was not of much importance since it was merely a threat to the safety of bulky timber which would be hard to steal, and Mr Simpson was satisfied with my commendation.

  But when he wrote on the back of the form, ‘Heard a man trying to break in office door. Sneaked round side of building and asked him what he was doing. Man ran away. Rang police who recorded incident’, a threat at the heart of the business was suggested—the safes—and I handed the form to Mr Bodstern who then spent an interesting half-hour questioning Mr Simpson, who with gesture and demonstration re-enacted the incident for Mr Bodstern’s benefit.

  Mr Bodstern and Mr Simpson would then walk outside to inspect the door, Mr Bodstern leading the way, and then Mr Simpson would demonstrate the confidence and determination with which he had approached the man from around the corner, the man’s startled raising of the head and his crouching run towards the fence.

  Both Mr Bodstern and Mr Simpson enjoyed these discussions on the sinister attempts of men to interfere with the lawful pattern of trading. Mr Bodstern’s indignation was based on a threat he regarded as a personal one. A man was seeking to take away from him something that was rightfully Mr Bodstern’s and roused a deep anger in him.

  Mr Simpson’s indignation was an acted one aimed to impress his employer with his loyalty and devotion. It gave them both an opportunity to denounce and condemn men to whom they felt superior. It introduced an excitement into their lives. It made them feel an added respect for their honesty. It united them in goodness.

  At the rear of the factory was a small room with an uncovered concrete floor, built as a lean-to against the main building. It contained a gas ring for cooking and a wash basin over which drooped a brass tap, the handle of which was caked with dry Solvol soap froth, grey from the dirt that had covered Mr Simpson’s hands.

  The room was known as ‘Mr Simpson’s Room’. It was his headquarters during the night, the place where he did his ticking. It contained a table and a chair and a low stretcher bearing a flock mattress, three blankets and a quilt of knitted squares so clumsily stitched together that stretched gaps between them revealed the grey blanket underneath.

  Mr Simpson was not supposed to sleep while on duty. The stretcher was to rest upon during the periods between one duty and the next as outlined on the form.

  Some tattered magazines lay on the floor beside the stretcher—True Love Romances, Real Life Stories, Snappy Tales … Mr Simpson was fond of reading.

  Mr Simpson died sitting at the table. His fingers were still curled round his pencil when they found him in the morning. His head between his outflung arms lay heavily on the form he had just completed ticking.

  That week the total wages paid employees was five pounds lower than the week before and I did not have to write Mr Simpson’s name on the little manila envelope into which each Friday I had thrust a five pound note.

  Mr Bodstern now had to decide whether a nightwatchman was really necessary. The factory stock and contents of the office were all insured against theft. Five pounds a week was two hundred and sixty pounds a year represented by files of ticked forms packed away high on the office shelves.

  He discussed it with me and it was then I saw a way of saving money. I offered to live on the premises. I would make a round of the factory twice a night. I would see that the gates were locked and I would unlock them each morning to let in the workmen. I would take over the job of nightwatchman and live in Mr Simpson’s room.

  The idea appealed to Mr Bodstern since it represented economy. He also regarded my offer as evidence that I was becoming absorbed in the life of the company and intended applying myself with more diligence to my work.

  He considered it for a few days then announced that I could move in on the Monday. He supplied me with a torch, three new blankets and a plaid rug for the stretcher. I bought a teapot, a saucepan, half a dozen eggs, a pound of tea, half a pound of butter, a loaf of bread, a plate and a tin pannikin.

  On the day that I shifted my suitcase of clothes, my books, and my papers into Mr Simpson’s room, Mr Bodstern handed me a heavy bunch of keys. He left it to me to find out what locks they fitted.

  That evening, when work was over and I had locked the main gate behind the last workman, I returned to Mr Simpson’s room where I sat and looked at the keys in my hand.

  There was something sinister about those keys, some suggestion of repression. My childhood picture books had often shown men standing at the doors of cells holding keys, men wearing beefeater costumes leading pale prisoners down dark corridors, and they carried keys.

  From amongst the shadowy figures of men that moved in the background of my mind beyond recognition, the men who once had frightened me in books, came the rattle of keys—guard, warder, watchman, tyrant, turnkey … They clutched keys that suppressed, subdued, stifled …

  My keys did not confine men but they shouted a contrary claim by their very appearance.

  I longed for the bush.

  Before going to bed I made a round of the factory. The presence of coffins in the huge dark building disturbed me at first. An irrational fear filled me as I walked through the rooms in which they were stored.

  The torch I carried thrust a white beam glittering with motes through the empty blackness hemmed in by stacked coffins. A circle of light raced over those on the perimeter of the space I occupied, searching for the rats that leapt from one to another or glided smoothly as if on little hidden wheels along the high girders.

  Their squeaks and scutterings penetrated the dark in tiny stabs of sound to which I was so sensitised I flinched at their impact. They seemed to speak of refuse, of decay, of an existence in which human beings could play no part.

  I sat on a coffin resting on the floor and switched off the torch. Now the darkness was complete. Nothing was left but thought, and I sought to control it and guide it along rational channels where fear was seen as a result of false ideas to which I should never subscribe.

  Death was sleep and this was good when one was tired with age. These piled boxes I could not see but which yet projected their presence even through concealing darkness were not symbols of man’s oblivion but points of relay from where the living carried forward the knowledge handed over by the dead.

  Even now I carried with me something of that which once belonged to those who rested in such boxes as these. The song I wished to sing for all to hear was born of their melody. That was the way of it. A new voice, a new vision, a stumbling along the road from one relay point to another, the handing over, the sleep . ..

  I sat there and though I was not happy when I rose to continue my tour of the factory I was not afraid nor did I ever feel fear again in that building.

  Arthur and Paul who sometimes visited me at night were uncomfortable when I led them down through the factory to my room. Paul was usually accompanied by Jean who was superstitious and believed that association with the appurtenances of burials could only serve to encourage her early death. Her attitude roused in me a desire to flaunt my association with them and finally she refused to accompany Paul when he came to see me.

  Arthur was not superstitious but he was worried over the turn my life had taken.

  ‘These coffins,’ he said once, gazing apprehensively around him. ‘They can only do you har
m. The bloke that owns this place has no right to put you here. He’s no friend of yours, you take it from me. He’s out for himself and to hell with you. You’ll never write here. I’ll talk to the bastard.’

  ‘No you won’t,’ I said firmly.

  Since first I met him, Arthur was always wanting to talk to men he imagined treated me badly. When he succeeded, my life suffered a rapid change. Though not a reader and having little faith in writing as a profession, he had a deep-seated faith in me. I think he anticipated some moment of revelation when I would leap, fully equipped, into the writing of books.

  Each evening after work I locked the gates and took the tram into the city where I met Arthur and we went to the café where Florrie Birch worked.

  He was approaching a time of decision with Florrie Birch.

  ‘She’s started talking about “we this” and “we that”,’ he told me one night. ‘Once they start talking like that things are moving.’

  ‘You’re asking for it,’ I said. ‘You’re going right into it with your head down. Before you know where you are you’ll be married.’

  ‘It looks like it,’ he said. ‘The trouble is that Florrie’s a wake-up to me. She doesn’t believe half the lies I tell her. I told her I couldn’t get married on account of me never being able to get on with women. But you can’t pull that stuff on her. I can’t just walk out on her. That would be a bastard of a thing to do. And besides, I love her.’

  8

  Arthur told me of a ‘poet bloke’ he had met in the Public Library who, like himself, sought refuge in the reading room from the frustration of the streets.

  He was broke, Arthur told me, down and out to it with not enough money to buy a decent feed. He had fought in the Great War, had knocked about the bush on his return and was now a victim of the depression which was beginning to fill the city streets and the country roads with unemployed.

  His name was Ted Harrington and he was known as ‘the last of the bush balladists’. Arthur admired him.

  ‘He’s a kindly bloke,’ he told me. ‘He’s got that kind of face. He looks at you as if you’re all right. You know—smiling sort of. You’d never hear him shove the knife into anyone.’