by John Harris
“There’s no need to go, Jess,” Dig said. “It needn’t make no difference.”
“Who is my father?” I asked, and Dig jumped as though the question startled him.
“I dunno, Jess.” He looked away as he spoke, and I felt he wasn’t telling the truth. “It all happened during the war. I was in France at the time. You’d arrived when I came home. I tried to forget all about it. But” – he shrugged, suddenly pathetic and small and drab – “your Ma didn’t seem to want to forget.”
“Would she tell me who it was?”
“I don’t think so.” Dig turned a page of the magazine with a sharp crackle of paper. “She’s never told me. Whoever it was, he made an impression on your Ma. She’s made it a grievance ever since because I wasn’t like him. I don’t think she’ll ever say who it was now.”
I nodded. Suddenly I didn’t care, anyway. After all the years of indifference towards each other, after all the years of coolness between us, Ma and I couldn’t indulge in intimate researches of this sort.
There seemed nothing more to say. We stared at each other for a moment, then I turned away.
“Well, I’ll be off,” I said. Oddly, I could no longer think of Dig as my father. There seemed a great width of loneliness between us already.
“Must you, Jess?” he said. “Must you go?”
“Yes,” I answered shortly. I felt a stranger in the house all at once. There was suddenly no longer any place for me there.
“Can’t I help?” Dig’s voice was unsteady, as though he was blaming himself.
“No. I’ll be all right.” I put on my cap and turned to the door.
As I reached the hall Dig called again.
“Stop a minute,” he said.
“I tried,” he mumbled, and his cringing humility made me want to soothe him like a crying baby. I was bigger than he was. Perhaps that’s what did it. “I’m sorry, Jess. I always regarded you as me own.” He became engrossed in the magazine again, embarrassed. “But there’s still a home for you here if you want one. There’ll always be one.”
The sight of his drooping, unhappy figure almost brought me to the point of turning back. I very nearly dropped the cardboard suit-case on the spot. Then I remembered the printing works and Minnie’s words.
I scowled and gripped the bag tighter.
“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks. I’ll remember that.”
I turned away. I could see Dig had put the magazine down and was following me with his eyes, and I was glad to put the door between us.
Seven
It was late evening by the time I reached the riverside, and the rain was falling heavily. I stood in the doorway of a shabby, down-at-heel shop for a moment, drawing in the scent in the air. It was a strange yet familiar scent, a scent that had always fascinated me. I put down my case on the wet pavement and stared at the shop lights reflected in the glistening streets, and sniffed as I rested my stiff fingers. There seemed a peculiar magic in the air all of a sudden.
Then, at that moment, I knew where I was going, where I’d been heading all my life. In spite of my troubles I grinned with a sudden delight.
A dreary, drenched old Bible-thumper with a dewdrop on the end of his nose, who was shuffling past with a placard bearing the words, “Jesus is Virtue, Sin is Death”, must have caught my grin, for he suddenly shoved a collecting-box at me.
“How about a copper for God, brother?” he said in a hopeless voice.
I pushed a penny into the box – all I could spare – and the old man shuffled off, leaving me still excited. I was on the threshold of something new. There was a violent pulsing of emotion in me, and all the bonds that held me to home dropped away. I felt scourged of all meanness and misery.
“’Ere, move on, there!” A voice jarred me back to the present, and I became aware of the shopkeeper prodding me in the small of the back with a shutter. “Ain’t goin’ to stand there all night, are you?” he queried. “Ain’t you nowhere to go?”
I stared at him for a second, almost too ecstatic to speak, then I hurried off into the darkness, hardly noticing where I was. Eventually, however, the scent that had caught my nostrils seemed stronger again, and I made my way down a dark alley to where I could see the sparkle of light on water.
In the blackness, I collided with a soft body that stank of cheap perfume, and a heavy drawl came out of the shadows.
“Look where you’re goin’, shipmate,” it said.
“Fetch ’im one, Jackie,” said a woman’s voice, and I hurried on down the alley towards the water, flushing with embarrassment in the darkness.
Dropping my case underneath a spluttering gas-lamp, I stared over the river, suddenly filled with a fierce exultation. Above me, the gas-lamp was veiled in a circle of mist as its light caught the slanting rain, and all around me there was the hiss and trickle of water. My shoes were only thin, and my feet were wet, but I never even noticed. Unable to restrain my feelings any longer. I thrust my hands deep in my trousers pocket and laughed out loud.
Away over the water I could see masts and a web of rigging. Almost in front of me was a small freighter with a lanky funnel, placid on the calm river, its lights reflected in glittering diamond points on the oily blackness of the water.
“Ships,” I said out loud. “Ships.”
Then I knew what I’d been wanting more than anything else in the world – more than security, more than Minnie, even – what I’d been reaching out for all through the past. Suddenly the future seemed buoyant with hope, and all the doubts and difficulties that go with youth fell away from me.
“Ships,” I said again.
A grimy little figure in a high bowler hat, who’d stopped to light a pipe nearby, turned as I spoke. “’Course they’re ships,” he said. “What did you think they was, mate? Blue-bells?”
I turned towards him as he blew a few puffs of smoke into the damp air.
“You new ’ere?” I was asked.
“No,” I said with a grin. “Not really.”
“Thinkin’ o’ goin’ to sea, mate?” The little chap’s false teeth were loose and jiggled in his mouth as he spoke.
Even then I hadn’t thought of any such thing. I’d been glad to see the crowded shipping in the river, but I’d still no intention of becoming a sailor. But the little man suddenly put into words what I wanted, what I needed, even.
“Yes,” I said eagerly. “Yes, I am.”
“Then Ernest Nanjizel’s the boy for you,” he said enthusiastically, becoming an agitated, energetic, bustling figure in a second.
He sidled closer and, taking off his bowler, brought out from the hat-band inside a bundle of cards. “’Ere you are,” he said. “Trelawney’s for yer sea-boots and oilskins. Best in the town. Platt’s for yer dungarees. Can’t be beat. And if you feel like spendin’ a bit of cash in a blow-out afore you leave Old England’s shores, try the Anchor Inn. Joe Plant, proprietor. Licensed to sell ale, beer, wines, spirits, cigarettes and tobaccer. Looks after yer like a little baby when you’ve ’ad one too many. Never takes advantage of yer and keeps yer change when yer blotto. An’ me – now me–”
Obviously we were only just coming to the real point in the rigmarole.
“–Ernest Nanjizel! That’s me. Put that in yer card-case.” He shoved a dog-eared card at me, brushing off the fluff and the rain as he did so with a grimy hand.
“What’s the matter? Ain’t you got one?” he said. He stared at me as though it were a crime. “Nemmind, then. Shove it in yer ’at. I always do. Go on,” he urged. “Read it. Ernest Nanjizel. That’s me. Now, where you goin’ to kip for the night? Got a bed laid on? Ernest Nanjizel’s the man to look after you if you ain’t.” He paused just long enough to squint up at me. “’Smatter? Can’t you read? Ain’t you goin’ to look at yer card?”
I was breathless by this time. I’d been too fascinated by his patter to notice the card. I started and squinted at the grubby pasteboard in my hand. By the light of the gas-lamp I read his name, “Ernest Nanj
izel”, then, cryptically, “Agent”.
The card was snatched out of my fingers almost before I’d finished and disappeared once more into Mr Nanjizel’s bowler, which was then slapped back with a thump on to his little bullet head.
“No ’at. Nowhere to put it. Ah, well. Better give it me back. Use it again. Know me now, anyway. Ernest Nanjizel. That’s me. Agent.” His teeth seemed as if they were trying to jump out of his mouth at his briskness. “Now, where you goin’ to kip?”
“I dunno,” I said. This was one of the things that hadn’t occurred to me when I walked out of Dig’s front door.
Off came the bowler again and out of it appeared another card. “’Ere y’are, then,” he said, reading from it. “Beds for men. Threepence a night. Suppers extra. Fee, 14 Bodmin Road. That’s the place for you, young man. Everything laid on. ’Course, if you’re flush we can go to a ’otel. I know just the place.” Another card appeared as though by sleight-of-hand. “Mrs Carey. Apartments. 27a The Parade. Four and six the night. Dhobeying thrown in. Nice woman. Girls, too, if you want ’em.” He clicked his tongue and dug me in the ribs with a bony elbow. “Just the ticket for a matelot.”
“’Ere.” He squinted up at me again. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk. A chap can’t chew the fat in the piddling rain, can ’e? Come on, let’s go an’ ’ave one.”
He picked up my case, felt its weight carefully, thoughtfully clucked his tongue and smiled, then hurried off along the waterfront, with me close behind.
“In ’ere.” He made a sudden right-angled turn just when I was least expecting it and bolted into a courtyard like a rat up a drain. I followed him through a maze of alleyways and dark passages, just managing to keep track of him before he disappeared into an open doorway.
I found myself in a crowded bar, where the low roof shut down on me like a weight, trapping the smoke so that it hung about my head in a thick fog. The floor was sloppy with spilt liquor and more than one of the men in there appeared to be awkward with drink and throwing his weight about. A big man with a beard, who had a buxom woman in high boots tattooed on his arm, was calling for drinks for the house at the top of his voice.
“Come on, landlord,” he was roaring. “Set ’em up! There’s six months’ wages to pay for ’em!”
Nanjizel seemed startled to see me still behind him. “Oh, ’ello,” he said. “Well – er – ’ere we are.” He seemed a bit upset and hurried into more of his patter! “’Ow about a drop of the old rum to warm you up? Nelson’s blood. That’s the stuff for a matelot. Yo ho ho and a bottle of it, eh? Got any money? Good. Well, keep it in yer pocket, son, I’ll pay. Ernest’s the boy to look after you. I know this lot. They’d pinch the gold out yer teeth if you’d let ’em. ’Ere y’are, shove in ’ere and lay alongside the counter.” Using the case with considerable skill he barged his way to the bar and began to thump on it.
“Come on,” he yelled. “Let’s ’ave some service.”
I hardly heard him. I was too excited. Although I’d lived in a seaport town all my life I’d never been in a waterfront bar-room before at that time of night. All I’d seen of them were glimpses through open doorways on warm evenings. I’d seen these men around me before, though – or their doubles – and the women, too, near the docks or outside the mariners’ shops or back-street pubs. When I thought about it, I even remembered seeing Nanjizel on occasions, hanging round the shipping offices. But somehow, in the glare of the lights and with an atmosphere of noisy laughter, they all seemed different – coloured men, Chinee or Englishmen, whether in dungarees or going-ashore rig.
All around me was the evidence of the sea. Ships in bottles and glass cases. Mummified sea-horses, hanging from the low ceiling with stuffed sword-fishes, pickled to a ripe teak colour with tabacco smoke. Brass-bound rum kegs, cutlasses and pictures of windjammers and ships-of-the-line in Good Hope storms or gales round the Horn. The whole shooting match. Curios from all over the world from Singapore to ’Frisco.
In a corner by the door a prostitute was shamelessly haggling over a price with an Asiatic, and a tipsy sailor was telling a long-winded yard of a storm at sea. But I saw no sordidness. Only an atmosphere of excitement that made me think of tropical scents and peacock-blue seas and waving palms such as I’d only read about but had always had vividly in my imagination.
I grinned, unable to hold back my happiness. Then I realised there was more than one shifty-eyed individual around me, and I remembered Nanjizel’s warning. I placed one foot solidly on my suit-case and waited for my drink.
Nanjizel suddenly interrupted my thoughts.
“Just got to go to the necessary,” he said. “Be back in a moment. Don’t move or you’ll lose yer place.” And he melted away, almost from under my elbow. Even as I was searching for him, a jerk at the case under my foot almost threw me on my back. I bent and saw Nanjizel’s ferrety face at the level of my knee, both hands on the bag. His false teeth were even and shining in an awkward grin, as symmetrical as a row of gravestones.
“Just moving yer whatsaname,” he explained. “In me way, sort of. Thought I’d best put it where it was safe. Didn’t know you ’ad yer foot on it.” He grinned foolishly, patted the case and disappeared. Then I became aware of someone addressing me from over the counter.
In a daydream by this time, I stared round at the barman. He was huge, red-faced and with arms as massive as his belly, covered with tattooed anchors and scrolls bearing the word “Mother”.
He was pushing forward two rums. “’Smatter? Don’t you want ’em now?” he said. “You was shouting loud enough a minute ago.”
I indicated the door. “My pal’s paying,” I said. “He’ll be back in a minute.”
“I’ve ’eard that one afore, too,” he said, and he was just going to waltz the drinks away when I stopped him.
“Here, half a tick.” I flushed and fished in my pocket for my money…
Almost before I’d received the change Nanjizel was back, smiling and oily and friendly, his shabby coat shining in the electric light. “’Ello,” he said, staring at the counter in surprise. “Drinks ’ere already? Well, I’ll be bust. An’ me goin’ outside just when they was on their way. Never mind” – he slapped me on the shoulder – “I’ll pay next time.”
Next time, though, he was deep in conversation with the man next to him and couldn’t be drawn away. “’Alf a mo’,” he said over his shoulder. “Won’t be a tick.” In the end, I paid again.
By the time I’d finished the second rum my head was beginning to whirl, and the noise and the bad ventilation and the overheated atmosphere of the smoky room didn’t help to steady it. Dimly, I became conscious of Nanjizel’s voice by my ear.
“Don’t forget,” he was saying. “Whenever you’re ashore in this port, just ask for Ernest Nanjizel. It’s not a ’ard name to remember. I’m the man to get you out of yer difficulties. Everybody knows Ernest Nanjizel. Ask a copper. Ask the mayor. Ask the parson. They’ll all tell you the same. Go to Ernest Nanjizel.”
“Yes, Mr Nanjizel,” I said. I was worried by this time by the way his face had started to grow blurred in patches and swing up and down. “I will. I’ll remember.”
“And look after yerself,” he impressed on me. “Don’t waste yer cash when you go ashore. Don’t get drunk. Drink and the Devil had done for the rest, as the sayin’ goes. Don’t spend yer wages on idle things. Always think of my advice. Ask for me any time you’re in the town. Only too pleased to ’elp. And keep away from the girls. They don’t do it for love, y’know,” he urged. “They only want yer ackers. And, by God, they’re sharp, too. If you want a nice young lady, see me. I’ll put you right. Feather in ’er ’at and plush drawers.”
“Righto, Mr Nanjizel.” I said, focusing my eyes with difficulty by now.
“Women,” he said. He wagged his head and clucked his tongue disgustedly. “Keep off of ’em. No good. Bad lots. Tarts,” he ended, “they ’ave you so you don’t know whether you’re comin’ or goin’, I know. I be
en married four times.” He was getting a bit noisy himself by this time, too.
Another rum was added to the first two, together with two more for a couple of shifty-looking chaps who were introduced as Nanjizel’s pals. Nanjizel drew closer again.
“’Course,” he said, “I can always put you on to a place or two if you’re interested. ’Ere.” He fished in his bowler hat and fetched out his cards again before replacing it over his wispy hair.
He flipped through the pasteboards like a whist player, and selected one or two. “’Ere’s a nice one,” he said. “‘Mademoiselle Dupont. Guide to Marseilles. Pleasant Company. Intimacy.’ See that?” he said. “‘Intimacy.’ That’s the stuff, eh?”
He dug me in the ribs with a bony elbow again and cackled. It was a low, lecherous sort of chuckle. I stared at him, mystified and bewildered. I must have been young then.
“’Ere’s another,” he went on and passed the grubby card over to me.
“Visit the Café Matsala,” I read. “For Soft Lights. Liqueurs and Wines. Lovely Girls.”
“’Amburg, that one,” he said. “All right. I know. Been there. Ernest’s the boy for fun.”
Almost before I’d read the dancing words he’d whipped the card from my fingers and, stuffing it back into his hat, he began to offer me the addresses of half the bawdy-houses from Gibraltar to Suez.
“They all know Ernest Nanjizel,” he said. “All of ’em. I been around. I know the ins and outs. I know all that goes on. Everything that opens and shuts. Let’s ’ave another drink.” He thumped the bar. “Your turn to pay, I think.”
I tried to object but the words wouldn’t come. My tongue seemed stiff and clumsy and Nanjizel interrupted me. “I paid for the last one,” he said severely, as if I were trying to pull a fast one. “Don’t you remember?”
I could have sworn he hadn’t, but I was too dizzy by this time to know what was happening. I fished in my pocket for my money. Nanjizel seemed to scoop his teeth to a place of safety in his cheek with his tongue and stared at me anxiously as I fumbled.
