All men like to think the work they are doing is not in keeping with their talents. They listen readily to suggestions that they are not appreciated and find great comfort in contemplating the life they would lead were they given an opportunity to direct and control and order instead of demonstrating obedience.
As Mr Perks unfolded, for my pleased contemplation, the poverty of opportunity surrounding me and the tragedy of my withering talents, my respect and admiration for his intelligence and understanding grew exceedingly. I concluded I had never known the man.
He continued these friendly discussions at work and after a week I reached the stage where I felt sure Mr Perks sincerely wished to help me get a good job.
‘Leave it to me,’ he said several times as if, even then, he was in the midst of negotiations that would lead to my release and advancement.
As indeed he was. I learnt from his talks with me that he was friends with a shoe manufacturer, a partner in the Modern Shoe Company of Collingwood. This man took no part in the working of the company—he merely acted as a consultant—but left the management to his younger partner, a man of energy and drive who had built the company into an organisation that was making a lot of money.
The accountant of the Modern Shoe Company was leaving and Mr Perks had suggested to his friend that he give me the job. The salary was eight pounds a week.
It was an unbelievable figure, so large that I suspected Mr Perks of lying when he named it. He explained it as a result of huge profits made during the Great War when government contracts for making army boots had been obtained by the company. The salaries the company was then inspired to pay to its executives had been retained.
Mr Perks suggested I give notice to Mr Bodstern immediately, then see his friend, Mr Thomas, a meeting with whom he would arrange, and I would be then put on at the Modern Shoe Company without losing more than a week’s wages.
I did not like the idea. I wanted to see Mr Thomas first. The enormous salary suggested that the job would only be given to a man of more than ordinary ability and I was certainly not that type of man. I regarded myself as a competent bookkeeper but a poor executive. I did not want to give up one job without being sure I had another.
At the conclusion of my argument Mr Perks hesitated, then suddenly made a decision.
‘I’ll ring Thomas now,’ he said. ‘I’ll arrange for you to see him tonight.’
Reginald Thomas lived in Ivanhoe. I was tired when I reached the gate of his home, a huge brick building with a portico beneath which an expensive car was standing. I had had to walk from the station and I stood leaning against the gate post resting while I looked at the garden that was clipped and raked and weeded of all character. No fallen leaves beautified its pathways, no slender grasses leant over them, battalions of flowers stood lined up, row behind row, at attention. I advanced along the drive to the silent tattoo of a kettle-drum.
Mr Reginald Thomas said ‘Ah!’ when I met him in a library into which a grey-haired woman had conducted me.
He was an elderly man and was reading the wrapper he had taken from around a medicine bottle now standing on the table before him. Medicine bottles were huddled together on a shelf near the table.
‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘I’m just reading about this mixture. Excuse me.’ He adjusted his glasses and continued reading. ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘It could be just what I need. I suffer from chest trouble,’ he added in explanation.
I could not think of any observation to make regarding chest trouble.
‘You are Lionel’s friend, are you? He was telling me about you. He says you’re all right.’
He coughed into a handkerchief. ‘I’ve had this wretched cough for over three months.’
He moved his right arm up and down. ‘I get a pain in my right shoulder and I’m certain I’ve discovered the reason for it. I always have the car window open when I’m driving and the wind blows against my right shoulder. It gets cold while the other shoulder remains warm. Then I get congestion on that side. Lionel says you are not satisfied with your job. Is that so?’
‘Well, that is hardly correct,’ I said. ‘I have been satisfied with it but that was because nothing better was offering. That’s how it is. I’m satisfied up to a point but I want to improve myself.’
‘Naturally, naturally!’ he said. ‘Very good too. That’s to your credit. Yes it is.’
He was gazing at the little group of medicine bottles. He suddenly turned to me. ‘Do you suffer from any—er—illness?’
‘No,’ I said then added, since it was what he wanted to know, ‘I got infantile paralysis when I was a kid. That’s why I walk on crutches.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. Anyway … A friend of mine had it. He married. Wonderful wife. She devotes her life to him. Remarkable woman, really. She often comes here. Always happy, smiling .. . Remarkable.’
He straightened himself and changed his tone. ‘Look, as far as I’m concerned you can have the job. But you’ll have to see my partner. Fulsham’s his name—Fred Fulsham. He runs the place. I have to look after myself and I don’t bother about the factory. You’ll have to see him. Now, let me see. When can you see him? Say, tomorrow night. How would that suit you?’
‘That would be fine,’ I said.
‘All right. I’ll ring him tomorrow. Tell him when you see him that as far as I’m concerned you can have the job. No, wait a minute. I’ll tell him that when I ring him. You just call on him. Make it eight o’clock. He lives here in Ivanhoe. I’ll write down his address for you.’
I left his home full of confidence, a confidence that still remained with me when, next morning, I sat at my desk waiting for Mr Perks to appear so that I could tell him all about it.
He had been closeted with Mr Bodstern for most of the morning. I was talking on the phone when he came out and I missed him. I wondered why he didn’t wait to find out how I got on but thought some important job must have been awaiting his supervision down in the factory.
The inter-departmental phone on my desk rang and Mr Bodstern’s secretary, her voice sounding as if coming from an empty church, informed me that Mr Bodstern would like to see me.
Mr Bodstern ignored my presence when I entered his office. He stood before a high desk looking at construction blue-prints which he turned over one after another. But I knew his mind was not upon them. I sensed he was angry and I wondered why.
I was standing to one side of him and I watched his hands turn the big sheets. Anger began to rise in me, a defensive emotion reluctantly stirred into life to protect me from unknown charges I assumed would be unjustified.
When Mr Bodstern considered that the period of waiting had sufficiently impressed me with my unimportance, he turned and said coldly, ‘I have heard from Mr Perks that you are not satisfied with your job here, that you have applied for employment elsewhere. Is that true?’
‘Yes,’ I said, momentarily confused by this unexpected development and quite unable to enlarge on the admission.
‘Then I am compelled to discharge you. I would not, under any consideration whatsoever, have anyone dissatisfied with their job working for me. Your services are no longer required by this company.’
I turned to go. He stayed me by raising his hand.
‘I see you do not intend offering any explanation for your surprising conduct. Do not think for a moment I would blame you leaving my employment for reasons I found acceptable. I can understand a man’s desire for change. But I cannot understand your deceit to achieve it. You have used this company for your own selfish ends while furtively negotiating to desert it. I find such conduct objectionable. I certainly did not expect it from you. It reveals unpleasant aspects of your character I did not know you possessed. You may go. You will collect your pay before you leave tonight. You will be paid up to next Thursday.’
As he spoke anger had been growing and growing within me. But it suddenly dissolved, left me like a sigh. I stood empty of any reaction save a quiescent disgust.
&n
bsp; I wanted to remove myself from involvement in this place. Get away from Bodstern. Forget him.
Was I a prisoner in the dock that I should defend myself against his charges? For what purpose? I was already sentenced. What was my crime? To attempt a defence was to admit the charge was a valid one.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘I’ll leave tonight,’ and I went away.
I did not see Mr Perks that day. After passing through the main office he had disappeared—gone into the city, someone said.
I wanted to know why he told Mr Bodstern I had applied for another job when he was the one that had persuaded me to do this. He would know that I would never reveal this to Mr Bodstern so no harm could come to him through his betrayal.
But it would impress Mr Bodstern with his loyalty. He had got me another job so why not grab some advantage himself by getting in first with the news.
I was not certain I would get the job at the Modern Shoe Company. I still had to be accepted by Mr Frederick Fulsham.
With Mr Thomas the influence on Lionel Perks had helped me. They were friends. I doubted whether Perks had any influence with Fulsham. He hardly knew him.
When I finally knocked at Mr Fulsham’s door that night I was shaking. So much depended on this interview and I was facing him from a position of weakness. I had no job.
Mr Fulsham opened the door. He was a big man seemingly at peace with his existence. His square, unlined face reflected no immediate problem concerned with me. If, at that first meeting, he felt called upon to assess my value as a man or as a potential accountant, he did not show it.
He led me into a living room untidy with children’s toys in which two big armchairs stood brooding before a coal fire and gestured me into one before sinking into the other with that complete release of muscle tension with which some placid men can merge themselves with the object upon which they rest.
‘Here, have a smoke,’ he said offering me a packet.
He was a chain-smoker. The ash tray on the arm of his chair was piled with butts. His heavy smoking and his state of tranquillity obviously springing from contradictory sources, suggested a temperament to which neither supplied the key.
I got the impression he had been a worker and had risen from poverty to the position he now held. This did not mean that he would be sympathetic to my problems nor even that he would understand them. It often meant a more ruthless attitude towards employees and I was not elated by my conclusion that he had once been a worker.
He was a direct man.
‘I’m afraid I have bad news for you,’ he said, still relaxed.
‘Oh! Have you!’ I exclaimed, suddenly afraid. ‘What, don’t I get the job?’
‘No, that’s how it is. I’ve had bad reports about you and I’m not going to take a chance. I’m telling you straightaway. I don’t want you talking away here to me and imagining you’re set.’
The effect of his words upon me came, not in the nature of a blow that struck me down, but as an envelopment of utter cold that left me sitting still in darkness.
I said to him in words I was not directing and for which I could claim no responsibility, such was my detachment, ‘Would you mind telling me what these bad reports were that you heard about me?’
‘No. That’s all right. I’ve got nothing against telling you. The main thing is that you were sacked today, weren’t you, sacked for incompetence?’
‘I was sacked but not for incompetence.’
‘No. Well … That might be so. I don’t know about that. The main thing is that you were sacked, you weren’t wanted. That’s it, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, that’s it. Who told you this anyway?’
I was getting back my pride.
‘Well, there’s no harm in telling you that, I suppose. Just before you turned up I got a ring from Reg Thomas, my partner—the chap you saw last night. You know …’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Lionel Perks is a great friend of his. That’s the fellow who put you on to this job, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right. Well, Reg rang tonight and told me Perks had been in touch with him. He’d just finished talking to him when he rang. Perks was worried over having recommended you to him, he reckons. He told Reg he had been talking to the managing director out there where you’ve been working and that they’d sacked you at a moment’s notice.
‘Perks was told it was for incompetence but he reckoned, so he told Reg, that there was more in it than that. You’d been up to something or other, he thought.
‘Anyway, he told Reg to get in touch with me straight away so that I wouldn’t put you on. He apologised to Reg for recommending you but he said he rather liked you and that he’d got a hell of a shock when he found out you were such a bastard. Here, have another cigarette. Are you comfortable there? The wife’s gone out for the night. I’ll get my daughter to make us a cup of tea in a minute.’
While he was speaking the events leading up to this moment became comprehensible, even though a few minutes before I was sure they presented no mystery to me.
A few minutes ago I regarded each event as a logical development in a plan to establish me as an accountant in the office of the Modern Shoe Company at eight pounds per week. Now I saw these same events as steps to leave me workless.
I stood up and thrust my crutches firmly beneath my armpits. I stood with my back to the fire and I looked down upon Fulsham in his chair and I felt strong. When there is no hope there is no fear.
‘Listen,’ I said, and I leant towards him as I spoke and I delivered each sentence with power for that was how I felt now that there was nothing left upon which to rely but myself. ‘I came here looking for a job. All right … I don’t get it. I’m not squealing about that. Let it slide. I’m leaving in a minute and we’ll never meet again. But before I go I’d like to tell you a story. It’s a true story. I don’t give a damn whether you believe it or not but I want to tell it, that’s all.
‘I want you to hear it so that you will think about it some time. Maybe Thomas will bring Perks along to see you one night and you can tell it to them. Perks would enjoy it. Yes, tell it to Perks one day and watch his face.
‘This is how it goes—this story. It’s about myself. I’m the bloke in it. I got a job at the Crown Casket and Joinery Company. A permanent job it was. The first permanent job I’d ever had. I got three quid a week and I gave them three quid’s work. I worked hard. I worked hard because I was grateful to have a permanent job. I knew what it was to be out of work and I was a good clerk.
‘Then Perks came along.’
I left nothing out of the story. I gave the conversations of Perks, his method of persuasion, the reasons why he wanted me sacked.
I described Bodstern, my last conversation with him, my talk with Thomas. I described myself.
Fulsham listened intently, sitting deep in his chair and gazing at me through the smoke of cigarettes. He made no comment while I was speaking.
‘So there you are,’ I finished at last. ‘I was the mug. I fell for it, hook, line and sinker. It’s an interesting story, isn’t it? Shows you what goes on in this world. Well, I must go. Thanks for listening.’
‘Hold on a bit,’ he said straightening himself in the chair. ‘Don’t go yet. Sit down for a while. We’ll have a cup of tea. I always thought Perks was no good. Never liked him. I’m damned if I know what Thomas sees in him. He’s shifty. I’ve always said he was shifty. You’ve just got to look at his eyes. What you’ve just told me all fits in. I’m glad I heard it. You can have the job. Start on Monday.’
He rose to his feet and stood for a moment listening.
‘I think they must all be in bed. Hold on till I see if I can get some tea.’
As he walked towards the door he murmured as if to himself, ‘They rarely go to bed this early. What’s up with them!’ Then turning he said to me, ‘The trouble in this house is that they never think to get you a cup of tea unless you ask for it.’
10
The Modern Shoe Company was a two-storey, brick building sitting squarely on a Collingwood street corner. No area of grass surrounded it, no yard … It was an upward extension of the asphalt street, the blue-stoned gutter and the pounded roadway.
The building was welded to this earth-covering upon which it stood and through it to other buildings, to other streets, to the city itself.
A hundred factories grew along the streets of the poor surrounding it. They elbowed each other for room in cramped alleys; steam and laden air welled upwards from their breathing windows and doors; their chimneys flung scarves of smoke across the narrow sky.
Above the maps of rust that lay upon the roofs facing the sun, pigeons came down from their flights to rest. They crouched sideways on narrow ledges high above the streets and cooed with thrusting heads.
The side walls that dropped down from the ledges were pierced with the mouths of water pipes from which escaping steam wavered upwards. They trickled greasy stains on to the patches of wall below them or dripped sluggishly on to the roof of some sandwich shop crouched in the space between buildings.
In the early morning the streets that during the night had been quiet and still became alive with people. The tapping of heels penetrated every alley. The people of the factories were hurrying to tend the machines that fed them—clickers, machinists, stuffcutters, lasters …
They came from trains, from trams—streams of people that divided at cross streets, dissolved into doorways. There was a great power in this movement of men and women from homes to work, a promise of momentous achievement. Yet it was their lives they were paying away in these grim buildings, a little bit each day, a constant depletion of all they had to offer—the great strength of them.
They did not talk to each other. There was no time now, no wish to talk in those moments when one’s sorrows were heaviest, when the future was seen as resting precariously on the result of today’s labour, today’s health, today’s control.
In Mine Own Heart Page 9
