She lowered her sewing into her lap and said eagerly, “You’ve been wonderful.”
“I brought these boys up. They need improving, you reckon.”
She stood up and took an envelope from the mantelpiece. She drew a piece of paper out of it. “I only want —” Her voice failed. Then a jag of desperation spurred her on again. “Look at his character. I only want him to get a good position. Not pushing a barrow.”
Shonny was gazing at them over the mug held in both his hands. “I like pushing the barrow.”
“Pushing the barrow like a street arab,” Mrs Peach said with the courage of grief.
Dido was frowning: “Thought you wanted ’im.”
“I can get a boy for half-a-crown a week. I did before Shonny left school. I shall miss him —” Again the pleading tone came into her voice. “But I want to see him well placed.”
“Your daughter Ada’s so stuck-up she don’t want to know you. You want Shonny to go the same way?”
Mrs Peach said, “Ada’s done well for herself.”
Shonny repeated desperately, “I like pushing the barrow.”
“What’s wrong with me?” Dido demanded. “I never wanted for a job. Always brought you home wages. Always ’ad a good suit, money in me pocket. Reckon ’e can do better than me, do you?”
“It says here he was a good reader,” she pleaded. “You know he’s clever. He ought to be in an office.”
Shonny said, “I don’t want to be in an office.”
“He won’t have two farthings to rub together in an office,” Dido said. “Stuck-up and stony broke. Is that what you want? I was a good reader too. Called me bright when I was at school they did. I left when I was twelve.” He turned on Shonny. “You’re lucky, you are, school till fourteen.”
“I don’t want to be in an office,” Shonny said. “I want to be like you.”
“Let him be a man,” Dido said to his mother. “Like me. Don’t you reckon I’m good enough?”
“You’re the best son in the world.”
He could not stop. “But I’m not good enough.”
“I never said that,” she cried. “He’s not like you. You were always hard—”
Dido remembered himself at the age of twelve, small and puny, facing bigger boys with terror in his heart and his fists up to defend his right to a job. Misery tore him but he could not speak. “— you were always hard,” she cried. “He can’t look after himself like you. He’s a child —”
Shonny shouted, “I’m not.”
“Shut up!” Dido shouted at him. He turned back to his mother and the words stopped in his throat. A tear was crawling down from the corner of her left eye. She dashed it guiltily away with the back of her hand and met his stare with a look of distress and defiance.
He frowned in wonderment at this new revelation of her. He said, tired and resigned, “What do you want?”
“I want to ask the minister to look out for a place for Shonny.”
Shonny said, “I don’t want —”
“I told you to shut up,” Dido snapped. He paused for a moment, then said to his mother, “All right. Do what you like.” He saw Shonny’s stare of consternation, picked up the book and thrust it at him. “And you, read this book.”
“What for?”
“Because your mother says so. In this house you do what your mother says. And don’t ’ang around ’ere all the morning. You’re not workin’ in an office yet.”
He walked out without another word to either of them.
He strode hard in the cold morning, driven on by all his griefs, to which was added a new one, a childish smart of grievance against his mother. All these years his mother had not understood or valued him. She thought she had and he had thought so, but they had both been wrong. She thought he was hard, perhaps she even thought he was like his father. That was what created the deepest bitterness in him — the suspicion that his mother thought him to be his hated father’s son, who had taken to fighting naturally instead of in terror and continual reluctance but also in dogged determination even as a puny little shrimp of twelve that he and his family would not be among those who starved.
Yet even if in ascribing such a thought to his mother he had been driven into misunderstanding her still more, there might have been truth in the thought that there was in him something of his father. Perhaps his anger against the thought concealed a fear of it. If he had taken to fighting reluctantly he had not been reluctant long. He had always wanted only to inherit his mother’s gentility. Yet the fight to maintain it had promoted in him the growth of that savage element which exists at least as a seed in every man; and now it was always straining beneath the surface of his life, always to be sternly repressed. And the more he repressed it the more it became an inner violence that drove him on. Was this the paradox in him — that he was the son of a hated, violent father trying to be the son of a loved, gentle mother?
He was as his mother had brought him up. He was in truth superior in all his ways to those among whom he lived. He was proud, clean, chaste and honest. He despised meanness, greed and servility. He had a vague sense that he was fit for something better without having the faintest idea what it might be. And inside him although he denied it there existed a nature only too like that of his brutal father.
Opposing forces nullify each other. If Dido could fight, dominate and lead, yet not have the strength to resist circumstances, perhaps it was because his will and judgement were paralysed by the push of opposing inner tides, so that he was powerless to do anything but drift on the larger tide of events.
He did not think as he strode along Vallance Road. He was driven by a pressure of emotions which he discharged by expending energy. For those who have powerful emotions but locked tongues violence can be the simplest means of expression.
Yet self-absorbed though he was he came all alert in a second; shutters snapped down on his mood; he had stopped and his mind was clear, all his faculties turned outwards and as ready as the parts of a machine that only awaits the touch of a button. Standing on the edge of the opposite pavement a little ahead was Harry Murchison.
Harry was looking each way. It was impossible to say whether he had seen Dido or whether he was merely waiting for a break in the traffic to cross the road. Dido started forward in a slow relaxed stroll. Harry was crossing the road.
The coolness that always came upon Dido in danger precluded any heat of rage; yet he felt suddenly happy at danger, at the prospect of a fight. It was a release for the tumult of violent resentments in him. It seemed a solution.
Harry stepped on to the pavement in front of him and without looking his way walked straight into the door of a pub. Dido continued at his easy stroll. He wondered if Harry was waiting to spring out from behind the door.
Nearer to Dido was another entrance to the pub. He veered towards it and stepped quickly in. He was in the public bar and he could see across the counters to the saloon bar. Both bars were crowded and Dido easily remained unnoticeable; but he quickly picked out Harry in the saloon bar, sitting at a small table deep in talk with another man, an elderly man enormously fat known about the neighbourhood as Albert, who sat leaning forward on a walking stick.
Satisfied, Dido left the pub. Harry vanished from his mind at once as he resumed his walk.
A new suspicion had come to him. He walked like a machine and did not notice his surroundings but over the rooftops the riverside cranes and funnels came nearer. It dawned on him that he had not given way to his mother about Shonny simply for her sake. He recalled how in that moment when he had frowned at her a quick calculation had taken place in his mind. It had been unbidden, it was not the way he had ever thought before. In that moment he had thought how much better it would appear to that girl, that Grace Matthews, if his young brother had a respectable job in an office, how much nearer to the picture that he had given of himself as a man of business. It was ridiculous. It was like the new clothes he had bought. He was doing things, changing the life of his fa
mily, dressing himself up like a sissy, for a girl he didn’t even have the courage to see. If he went on like this he might never see her again. He descended the cobbled slope of Tower Hill towards Thames Street more angry, despairing and perplexed than ever.
He was crossing Thames Street towards the strong smell of the Fish Market when he stopped again. For a moment he did not understand why he had stopped; until his mind took in what his eyes were looking at — a horse. It was as if he and the horse were looking at each other. The horse strained towards him, between the shafts of a cart which it could hardly move. The horse’s eyes stood out like great glassy marbles and there was in these eyes such a wild glare of misery that he stared back, fascinated by this creature which displayed back to him what he felt.
A mound of black cinders of astonishing height filled the cart, like a slagheap on wheels. The cart creaked, the horse’s hooves clashed and slipped on the cobbles, and the wheels barely moved. The carter was a cold-purpled face peering out of a long hood of sacking.
Dido stepped forward and seized the traces and the weary horse stopped at once, at the blessed, restraining tug. The carter’s face came up. From the mouth came a surprised, protesting, “’Ere!”
He toiled down from his perch. Dido waited, fists clenched. Once again the happy clarity came upon him. He needed a fight as a man might need a woman. The carter puffed towards him. People were approaching from the pavement. The carter was a bent old man and there was a sag of disappointment inside Dido. He wanted to fight a giant, not a poor, asthmatic old man. Besides, there were people gathered round now, dockers, loafers, and their comments made a gruff clamour of indignation. He could not fight, even if he had a fit adversary, with a crowd on his side. He would rather have fought alone against an army.
The carter, answering the protests of the crowd, wheezed, “I ca’n’ ’elp it. Can’ ’elp it. ’E’s a race-’orse.”
Someone echoed, “Race-’orse?”
That was what had first clutched at Dido’s attention; the fine legs of the creature, the graceful contours of neck and haunches that made the visible ridge of ribs all the more pitiful, the three long, raw wounds, bleeding under the harness.
The carter pulled the leathers away. The horse’s withers were still twitching, “’E’s a race-’orse. Never won a race. They grudged ’im ’is feed. No good for racing, not fit for this work neither. I ca’n’ ’elp it if they put a race-’orse to me cart.”
There was no fight to be had here. The sad, long muzzle of the horse, with its great nostrils pleading, was close to Dido’s shoulder. He said, “At least you can walk him.”
“Walk?”
“’E’s got enough weight to pull without yours.”
The carter looked at Dido and the hostile group. He said, “’E’s a race-’orse. ’E’s got a tender skin. Chafes easy. They ought ter give ’im a rest.”
Dido said, “A bullet.”
The carter said, in self-pity, “I dunno.” He took the reins at the horse’s head and, on foot, led his charge away.
The bystanders gathered round Dido, for the five minutes of self-righteous interchange that always follow such an incident. Dido ignored them, looking after the horse. He said, speaking to himself, “A bullet. That’s what that poor nag wants. A bullet.”
As if he could not see or hear the others he walked away.
Later he found himself on the platform of the District Underground Electric Railway at Liverpool Street. He was haunted by the horse. A racehorse. No good for the track. No good for pulling a cart. Didn’t fit in anywhere. It needed a bullet to put it out of its misery.
It was not as if he liked the girl; that skinny thing with her pale, sad face, hardly a word to say for herself. He didn’t want anything dirty out of her. That never came into his mind. He could do without that kind of thing. It was a mystery what dragged him — dragged him, that was the word, like a chain on a winch, to want to go after her.
He walked to the end of a platform and watched a train come in. A noise of doors, footsteps, porters shouting. He was not man enough to leave her alone. He was not man enough to face her. He was sick of himself.
If he could manage no better than this he deserved to do himself in. He watched the train pull out and the thought took shape: a man who wasn’t a man might as well do himself in. Anyone could go on putting things off. If he had not done something about her by this time tomorrow it would serve him right to come back to this station and chuck himself under a train.
It was not the release of suicide that he considered. It was the punishment of a coward. He had no right to go on if he was a coward. He left the station.
The ultimatum was perhaps not a serious one for he was no coward and he had no intention of dying. In any case, he accosted Grace outside the teashop that evening and walked to the hostel with her.
A little before nine o’clock the same evening Harry Murchison was strolling in the neighbourhood of Victoria Park. Around the park are a number of broad roads lined by large houses. It was in one of these turnings that Harry was taking his evening walk. He liked this area. There was money in it. Some of the big houses were coming down in the world, already divided up into apartments, but there was still many a house occupied by a single family, with half a dozen servants all in neat white caps and black uniforms, and some of them with their own motor-cars.
It was not every boss who wanted to live out in the suburbs. Some still fancied living in the East End where they made their pile. They had their posh houses, real mansions some of them were, and their gardens, and the park across the road was as good as Hyde Park any day, and they didn’t have to sit in a crowded train every night before they got to their own firesides. Sensible geezers. Harry approved of money; particularly if it was within reach.
He was respectably dressed. No one would turn round and look at him as an oddity in these parts. Nine o’clock was a good hour. It was dark. Most were indoors eating, but it wasn’t like after midnight. Harry was not fool enough to make himself conspicuous when the streets were deserted and people peered out of windows at the step of a prowler, or suspicious policemen flashed their lamps in the faces of solitary walkers.
This was the street Albert had told him about, and here was the house. There were lights in the windows of other houses behind the thick drawn curtains but this one was dark. In the front windows glimmered the white of closed folding floor-to-ceiling shutters.
He did not loiter. He strolled on at a steady pace. There was a gravel drive in front of the house and a coach-house on one side of it. Motor-garage, now, most likely. On the other side, a wall with a door in it leading to the tradesman’s entrance and back garden.
He went on to the end of the road and turned the corner. A long blank wall ran away from him. That was the length of the back gardens. Across a road was the park, which meant that there were no back windows from which neighbours might look down by chance and notice the slight noise or shadowy movement of intruders.
That was enough. Home now. People who walked up and down in a street were noticed. He had time in hand, and would walk this way again, a good many times.
Chapter Ten
It was six o’clock the following evening; mother was up in her room sorting linen. Chas and Shonny were at the kitchen table finishing a meal of bacon, fried bread and tea. They heard Dido’s rapid footsteps coming downstairs.
He came in. He was wearing his overcoat. In his hand he had his trilby and a brush. He went to the mirror and started to brush his collar, then the hat. The boys took no notice at first until Chas, glancing at the floor, said, “Bli!”
Dido put the brush down and was painstakingly setting the hat on his head. Chas said, “Patent leather. Since when you wear shoes?”
Without turning, Dido said, “Easy on the feet.”
“I should cocoa. What about some for us?”
Dido turned towards them. “In good time.”
“’Ere!” Chas rose, reached out and touched Dido’s shirtfron
t with a fingertip. “Poplin.”
“That’s right.”
“Proper knut.”
Shonny said, “Where you goin’, Dido?”
“Aren’t you two off to the pictures?”
Chas, “Plenty o’ time.”
Dido dug into a side pocket, brought out silver coins and put them on the table. “All right. My treat. Off you go.”
Shonny said, “Ta.”
Chas, “Ta. No ’urry, Dide.”
“Go on. Get off. Treat yourself to a drink on the way.”
“Ta.” Shonny contined to stare. “What y’all ponced up for, Dide?”
“Go on. Skedaddle. Don’t hang round your mother all the evening.”
Chas, again, “Bli!”
The boys went out, looking enquiry at each other. When the street door had banged behind them Dido took from the crockery cupboard a tea-mug and the bottle of whisky he had confiscated at Christmas. He poured until the mug was more than half full. He put the bottle away, then drank steadily until the mug was empty. He put it in the dirty-water bowl and went out.
At ten o’clock Grace and Dido came out of the Standard Music Hall. The Standard stood near the corner of Great Eastern Street and the evening before, when Dido had intercepted Grace as she came out of the teashop, it had not been difficult to steer her on a short detour past it, to stop as if by chance to look at the bill, and to suggest going there tomorrow. Grace had never been able to bring her mind to steady thought about this man. She waited for things to happen. Her blurted acceptance was part reflex, part a pang of pleasure at being asked out.
Both keyed up beforehand, they had both felt comfortingly relaxed during the show. The balconies, the gilt, the crowded audience, the lights, the warmth, the laughter, mellowed them. Grace had seldom been to the halls. Dido went sometimes, but never before with the pleasure he felt tonight. For both the enjoyment was heightened by its novelty. In the intermission he bought a port-and-lemon for her and a Guinness for himself.
King Dido Page 14
