Gog

by Andrew Sinclair

  The very permanence of the landscape that ignores the passing of all men on their petty businesses would seem to Gog to involve the same perceptions in all men. As peace steals like an earwig into the sleeping shell of his soul, so he expects it to steal into the souls of the army drivers, looking from their high windows at the green conspiracy of truce about Gog. But perhaps their eyes are boxed in by their artificial cabins, their ears are deaf except to the right running of their motors. Or else there would be an immediate mutiny and all the drivers would flock out and loll on the grass and take time off to watch the Devon hills and tors hump towards the North.

  Yet Gog supposes, although men cannot see the same things in nature because each man reads into a scene his own hopes and despairs, yet some things are common to all men. The common fear of bolts of lightning and hammers of thunder. The common joy at sun on water or buttercups in meadows. And the naming of places by common consent. On Gog’s map taken from the ambulance, he can see marked Mamhead for a mountain peak, Ipplepen for a shepherd’s village, Ugbrooke for a nasty stream, Shillingford for the way over it, Hope’s Nose for a promontory into the sea towards the sunrise, Coffinswell to remind him of the human sunset. Names by Celt, by Anglo-Saxon, by Norman; Dunchideock, Bovey Tracey, Cheriton Fitzpaine giving way to the neighbouring Stockleigh English. Names by races, by spot, by tree, by animal; Jew’s Bridge, Exmouth, Ashcombe, Otterton. All place names agreed mutually by past villagers from the evidence of their eyes and now hallowed by time. Once perhaps, when all men were close to the soil, there was a common sight, now going, going, gone to blindness behind the many layers of brick and metal and glass that men have erected between their eyes and nature.

  Gog reaches Newton Abbot past a cider factory and a ceme­tery, and he enters the somnolent suburban town, all cooped and cosy. Only the crazy-paving fronts of the Grace of God Mackrell’s Almshouses, only the yellow gothic pinnacles of the Victorian Science and Arts Library, are insane enough to jolt the town from its mild monotony. Gog finds a jeweller’s shop open where he hopes to trade in his guineas for pound notes to buy food and appease his bubbling belly. But the quick, ducking jeweller snatches the golden coins and scurries into the back of his shop, making Gog crane over the counter to hear him hissing into the telephone, “Police? Come quick, come quick. A tramp selling me guineas, stolen no doubt.” So Gog runs out of the shop, penniless past the cattle market with its straw stinking of scared beasts, ammoniac with the same terror of hunger and confinement that sends Gog panting towards Exeter.

  The town ends in an old pipe factory of white brick with tall octagonal chimneys that bisect the low mounds of the hills beyond. And as Gog staggers north dizzy with emptiness and fatigue, he sees the insidious yellows of the southland disease the summer greenery like a fever. The leaves are flushed with ochres; streaks of yolk run along the ferns; whitish lichen poxes the bark of trees. The haunches of the hills are tattooed by the harvested fields so that red earth and mustard stubble make patches of contagion on their flanks. Then, on the sudden, the green horns of a hawthorn are moved by two brown spiky branches, and Gog sees a stag gazing shocked at his approach, until it kicks away and thrashes through the thickets.

  As always, the suburbs holding up the joined palms of their high tiled roofs pray at the approach of the city of Exeter. Among them, a few cottages are stranded, yokels with hairy thatches out of place in such a kempt congregation. Ahead lies a goal for Gog’s stumbling steps, the oblong bleached length of a cathedral rising up above surrounding rubble. And this sight is enough to carry Gog forward up the hill over the last two weary miles into the bomb-blasted centre of the city. The cathedral itself seems to have made an unholy pact with Satan for its preservation; no miracle would have been powerful enough to save it among such a surrounding shattering of brick.

  There are few people in the street in this late July afternoon in that lost half hour between the closing of the shops and the opening of the pubs. But in front of the red sandstone ruins of an old Tudor almshouse, Gog comes on a horde of women, shoving and pushing at each other to get closer to some Pied Piper of housewives, whose siren music can make them forget their tired feet and heavy shopping-bags and waiting children, and charm them into scrumming about in front of a ruin. And sure enough, above the pre-war felt hats turned inside-out for that new look, above the frizzed hair done up with wooden pegs and tongs at home, above the knotted cloth scarves bright with blurry flowers, Gog hears the luring notes of the greatest salesmen of them all, Maurice the Supreme Wrangler.

  XXI

  “The very latest,” the voice of Maurice chants. “Supersheer nylons. Stockin’s so thin you can’t find ’em ’cos they’re invisible. The latest fashion in the U.S. And ’ow do I know they’re the latest fashion? I nicked ’em off the legs of Laureen Bacall last night, and that was a sight, I can tell you. Transparent ’ose for ladies. They make your ankles so thin witches’ll nick ’em for broomsticks. You ain’t seen such nice bits of nothin’ even prewar, ’cos they weren’t dreamed up then. No coupons, no rationin’, just a quid a pair, don’t tear me ’ands off, ladies. Yes, I know they cost a bit, but the best always does. And if you knew what I ’ad to pay for ’em, you’d know I was givin’ ’em away. Five pair, that’s a fiver, lady. Put ’em on and the ’ole navy’ll be queuin’ at your door. You can’t get stockin’s like these ’olesale, retail or blackmail, just cash on the nail to yours truly.”

  The dowdy women on the outskirts of the female mob round the stall turn ugly in their frenzy to get near the purveyor of all delight. They kick with their blunt-toed shoes, hack with stacked heels, prod with elbows and the points of umbrellas, swing tatty leather handbags, claw at shoulders, and whine threateningly, “If you don’t mind . . . you’ve had your turn . . . If you were a lady . . . Don’t shove, I was here first.” The discipline of years of waiting in queues is forgotten in a moment at the siren’s song of thin stockings, the last pairs worn out years ago into joined ladders. And Maurice keeps on the pressure, turning up the pitch.

  “Don’t kill me, ladies, I’m doin’ me best. Ta, dear, ’ere’s your change in frillies. I ain’t got nylon only for the legs. Ho no! I got nylon knickers edged with lace, prewar stocks from gay Paree, what our brave boys liberated just to trim your panties. Don’t ’oick my eyes out, ducks, you blind that madam next to you. Fifty bob a pair, the panties, four a tenner. No reductions for quantity, I ’ad to give me ’eart’s blood for each of ’em. Course there may be some of you ladies what don’t care ’ow you look underneath it all. But ’oo knows when ’E won’t be comin’ ’ome just to ’ave a look at you underneath it all? An’ if ’E won’t ever come ’ome again, why, there’s plenty of others comin’ ’ome these days. Or passin’ through, if you don’t fancy ’Im permanent, like. You’ve ripped me sleeve, lady. That pair’ll cost you a fiver. Look, I ain’t a polished nigger, and this ain’t a lynchin’. Easy does it. Don’t pull them knickers out of ’er ’and, dear, they’ll bust. There, I told you. That’ll be twenty-five bob each, as you’ve each got one leg. Don’t tear ’er ’air out, dear, she may be wearin’ a wig. That’s all in knickers, ladies, but I ain’t through yet. There’s slips to come.”

  The mob of women begins to heave and swell as a few triumphant ladies, their hats pulled over their eyes and the buttons ripped off their jackets, come burrowing out of the mass and run away with their purchases cradled in their arms more carefully than a day-old infant. The gaps they make in the crowd are filled quicker than a hole in junket, with tempers rising and arms starting to flail and voices screeching. But the voice of Maurice shouts even higher than the combined din of the bacchantes about him, all clawing at this true Englishman, the Orpheus of all the hucksters in the world.

  “Now, ladies, these ’ere are slips what even ’Er Royal ’Igh-nesses wouldn’t mind slippin’ in. Look at ’em, all the colours of the rainbow. Peach, tangerine, plum, you’ll bloom like an orchard. Put ’em on, and you’ll feel like you came out of a can from Californ
ia, yellow-cling peach ’alves, that’s the ticket. Slip into these, and ’E’ll be apple-pickin’ all night long. Five nicker a slip, and I’ll tell you what I’ll do. For every two slips, I’ll throw in a pair of nylons. Big-’earted Morrie they call me, I’m givin’ ’em away. Ta, lady, you’re into a good thin’. As me favourite readin’ matter, Mister William Shakespeare, says, There’s many a slip ’Twixt the ’ip and the ’ip. And I wouldn’t mind slippin’ in there with you, dearie, why not see me after?”

  Gog watches two tall policemen turn the corner and quicken their pace as they see the frenzy of women bobbing and fighting about the stall. They try to part the women at the back of the crowd politely; but they only get shoved and dug in shins and ribs for their pains. So they draw back and bullock their way in among the women, using shoulder and knee and boot to reach the cause of the riot. Gog sees first the useless scuttle of one blue-black helmet, then of the other, sail over the hats of the crowd. The policemen’s heads just keep above the wrack of ladies’ bonnets askew and clawing fingers; but one copper’s bleeding from a bloody nose and the other’s got a prune swelling up on his right eye. Gog hears Maurice shout, “That’s all, ladies, God bless you,” and then a convulsion shakes the mass of women, a shrill keening rends the heaven as if the body of the dearest of dear departed had departed. And the policemen’s heads go down, as the ladies begin ripping off their uniforms and battering them with brollies and bags in a mayhem of lust disappointed and longing frustrated. And there is a small eddy on the skirts of the maelstrom and Gog sees Maurice’s head emerging between the legs of the women. As Maurice crawls into the clear street between the calves of a large blonde, engaged in slamming her shopping-bag onto the glass cherries of another woman’s bonnet, he looks upwards into the hidden thighs of the blonde and sighs, “Woollen drawers, it fair drives you to chastity.” Then he’s out of the rumpus and scuttling down the street, as fast as his fat legs will carry him, his hands plunged deep into his pockets to hold down the loot. But as he scampers past Gog, Gog reaches out a long arm and brings him up, short and snuffling.

  “You,” Maurice says in horror. And he tries to eel off, but Gog holds him by the arm and whispers, “You better walk with me, friend, or I’ll tell the coppers who you are.”

  “ ’Ow much?” Maurice says, resigned, and pulls out a fiver, which Gog takes with his free hand and puts away in his pocket, thinking of all the meals he can buy now to fill up his hollow belly. “ ’Olesale, retail, and blackmail. I was really talkin’.”

  “I don’t want money,” Gog says.

  “Then give it back.”

  “I want food,” Gog says. “Here.” He pulls Maurice sideways into a convenient Kardomah and plunks him down at a brown table in front of the mirrors and drapes of gentility, where the padded shoulders and thick stripes on Maurice’s blue suit make him look like a thief in a parlour.

  “Something of everything,” Gog says to the waitress, “and pots of tea.” “That means something of nothing,” the waitress replies, going off, “and pots to pay.” Gog turns back to Maurice. “Back to street-selling,” he says. “Last time I saw you, you were dressed like a general and you could have supplied ten armies.”

  “And ’oo ruined me?” Maurice asks furiously. “As if ’e didn’t bleedin’ well know. Left me for dead, you did. Blew a bloody ’ole in me underground ’angar and piled up the works on top of me corpse. I couldn’t get out, could I? I couldn’t ’ardly breathe. So course they find me, the coppers and the lot. Ask me where I got me stuff. And you know me, lofty, I don’t ’ave no bills for nothin’. Anythin’ wrote down can always be used in evidence against you. So they said I’d nicked the stuff, me, ’onest Morrie, the lad you can trust. They even said they found serial numbers on stuff what I’d bought fair and square on the black market. If you ask me, the coppers planted it. Jealous, they were. And they would ’ave sent me down, too, only I did ’ave one paper what me old right ’and man ’ad signed, that Scotch lunk ’ead you met on the moors. And the paper said ’e was the legal owner of some of the stuff, but I ’adn’t signed nothin’.” Maurice chuckles. “So they ’ad to send ’im down and I lost the best friend I ever ’ad. I’d rather they’d ’ave cut me arm off. ’E were a good lad and ’e kept ’is gob shut.”

  “Didn’t he object?” Gog says, snatching a plate of bread and margarine off the waitress’s tray and stuffing the food hand over fist into his mouth, while she sets down the tea-things with a disapproving clatter of china.

  “Object? ’Im? ’E were glad to pay me back after all I’d done for ’im. ’Is last words to me were, When I get out, I’ll do you. What do you think of that? ’E were too overcome with emotion to finish what ’e was saying. What ’e meant was, when ’e gets out, ’e’ll do me another favour.”

  Gog pours out cups of tea for himself and Maurice and goes on wolfing the strawberry jam that tastes of sweet splinters and the mock cream that tastes of shaving soap and the sponge cake that tastes of the absorbent absence of all taste. Maurice watches the ravening Gog with interest.

  “You ain’t ’ungry, are you, lofty?” Maurice says. “You wouldn’t catch me ever goin’ ’ungry. You may ’ave reduced me back to the gutter, you stupid yob, but the gutter’s not a bad place for a pitch. You saw me out there, coinin’ it in faster than the mint. You can’t keep a good man down. Nah. Bet you I’ll be in the ’Ouses of P. by the time you get there. In the Lords, too. Sent there by a grateful people for signal services rendered to ’is country in the line of ’osiery and ’aberdashery.” Maurice laughs and looks at his watch. “Go on, take the last cake in your pocket, lofty, I’ve got a meetin’ with me suppliers. An’ there’s another fiver in it for you, you big lump of brisket, if you ’elp me cart away the gear. I could do with a strong man what keeps ’is mouth shut. And though you’re as thick as a door-knob, you ain’t never blabbed, which is more than I can say for most. So, let’s scarper.”

  Maurice rises and makes for the door. And Gog, swallowing his last cup of tea, makes after him, only to be stopped short by the waitress shoving out her open hand in front of him. Gog gives her his new five pound note, large and white and scripted, and she puts it up against the light, suspicious of forgery. But she sees the metal line embedded in the paper and she has to give Gog back his change, four pounds and fourteen shillings, the seven florins so heavy that they pull down Gog’s hand like small weights. Then Gog’s out of the café after Maurice, who is waiting for him, signalling impatience with slithering eyebrows as black and thin as twin brackets. Maurice leads Gog off at a trot down alleys and byways through the old streets of Exeter. The British natives in their civilian drab and macintoshes grow thin on the streets and the new Trojans dominate with their pink and brown and black faces, always hairless even on the backs of their skulls below their caps. Strange accents sever the hazy air with the twang of bow-strings. The invaders do not walk with either of the gaits of the English, they do not shamble nor clip along straight-backed and heel-digging. They move loosely without slouching, as if floating in a state of alienation from the foreign soil under their boots and from the contamination of the Old World. They are spick and span in mustard or olive uniforms, where the English soldiers lurking on the corners are dowdy and slouching and creased in khaki and green webbing. The foreign sailors from the ships of the New Troy of the New World are likewise scrubbed and shining in white bell-bottomed trousers and tunics purer than the spray, while the limey sailors are crammed into coarse blue uniforms, rough and rolling as the swell. The forces of the two nations do not fraternize; they walk on opposite sides of the street as though it were as wide as an Atlantic; when a brave convoy of men makes the crossing, it plunges into the harbour of a safe pub to berth as quick as possible. So Gog sees the invaders come again to England in their ships to the West Country. They may call themselves allies, but so did Hengist and Horsa and the Saxons, when they had really landed to plunder the wealth and women of Albion, before taking it over.

  Past the
hurrying Gog and Maurice, an old man walks, purposeful and unexplained. He bears a large placard on his chest, which proclaims in red letters the message:

  LONDON IS DOOMED,

  Unless

  The Bishops open JOANNA’S BOX!

  He is handing out leaflets to the uninterested and Gog would dearly like one, but Maurice at that moment pulls him sideways into a pub. Over its door of frosted glass, there swings the sign of a hook-nosed man in a cocked hat with all severity on his face and the legend beneath him, The Duke of Wellington. And under the sign of this fearsome patriot, the Yanks pour in and out past Gog and Maurice, who find themselves in a public bar boiling with beer and roaring with whores, with the invaders packed in ranks round the horseshoe bar of polished oak. And the strange soldiers and sailors pull temptation glossier than apples out of their pockets, nylons and chocolate and cigarettes in shiny packets, perfume and chewing gum and lipsticks in gilt cases, so that the eyes of the women of the town glisten like peeled grapes and they dart forwards their hooked fingers to snatch and they let the troops suck at their lips and feel at their breasts. And Maurice eels into the hubbub and racket, pulling bank notes from his pocket and trading them for the treasures of America, what price Araby? And from every foray, Maurice returns to Gog, loading him with plunder until Gog’s arms seem to be supporting the merchandise of a small department store.

  Then the door of the pub is kicked open and a battalion of native soldiers sweep in, crushing the invaders back against the far end of the room. It’s the Gorblimeys, their flashes green on their shoulders, their berets black as their hearts. Behind them come a covey of camp followers, the loyal tarts of the district, true to home and regiment. And as the Gorblimeys ram in ready for a punch-up to take back The Duke of Wellington, Maurice sees his supply arrangements about to blow up in blood and slaughter. So he leaps onto the bar and begins spieling to keep fists down and hearts up, Maurice the trucemaker and troubadour of commerce. And such is the flow and honey of his tongue that the noise dies down and the soldiers drop their knuckles and their bottles and everyone turns to the tattler on the bar.