Caught, Back, Concluding

by Henry Green

  By his faltering replies he now knew, as far as he was concerned, that there was more to this war and his part in it than the latest change in his way of life. In his dirt, his tiredness, the way the light hurt his eyes and he could not look, in all these he thought he recognised that he was now a labourer, he thought he had grasped the fact that, from now on, dressed like this, and that was why roadmen called him mate, he was one of the thousand million that toiled and spun.

  He told them he was too far gone in dirt to dirty their bathroom and added, by instinct, that he would send up his officer in charge. He said it with malice towards them, because he thought they would despise Pye, and with the idea that, by putting them Pye’s way he might do himself a bit of good with the Skipper.

  He could not help remarking on the flowers as he went out, ‘Daffodils in September?’ he asked, malicious, taking them to be perhaps from Greece. Prudence explained that Ilse made artificial flowers out of sardine tins.

  Back at the station he sought Pye out. ‘There’s a couple of cows up in number ten Smith Street,’ he said and winked. ‘They want advice about sandbags.’

  ‘Is there?’ said Pye, and went straight up.

  Piper left the station one evening before the war. As he came out with the others, and they were calling to each other, ‘Will you have one before you go?’ he left, crying his goodnights, which were seldom answered. He could not afford a round. The others, so much younger, were not sorry to see his back. Those Firemen Instructors, more of his age, and who went with the rest because they were going to be treated without having to buy a drink themselves, ignored him as a broken old man. He called, ‘Goodnight Mr Jones, goodnight Mr Pye, goodnight all.’ He was forgotten before they turned in to that light, sweet smell of mild and bitter which spread out over the lighted street.

  Long, bony, knees bent, he tramped home in boots back to one of those two-roomed flats there used to be behind the houses of the rich about the West End, blocks of which the staircases, set outside the walls, zig-zag up to two doors on each landing. He had rented one at the top but, when mother’s leg got bad, his landlord, to save her, let him move down to ground level. It was one of the few true stories he told. This evening, as on every other, he repeated to himself, soft but out loud, ‘Yus, we’ll see what mother ’as for us this night, maybe a bit of that pie, we’ll see what mother’s got this evenin’.’

  He had three steps to get down, shutting the front door behind him as he came, with one hand in the letter flap. There was not much light. The sour washing was out between him and the one white bulb. Because she could not shut the door behind her when she came back Mrs Piper never went outside alone these days. Bitter by nature, she was more so now by a handrail she had been promised by which she hoped to come unaided down this little flight. Or she kidded herself that this was how it was. A son by a previous marriage of the old man’s had bought her one. It lay aside complete. She did not trust him or it. She thought he wanted her somewhere else, the rotten sod. The rail looked too light to her. Another thing she knew, she dare not leave Piper to fix it.

  He said, still the other side of that washing, ‘Well, mother, it’s your old man.’ She called from her corner in behind, ‘If you’re ’ungry you’ll needs must go out to get some.’

  He stood, dismayed. Then, with no anger, he said, ‘All right, old woman,’ climbed two steps, and, his weight on the handle, sawing the back of his free hand across his mouth, he went up and out.

  As he shut the door the washing swayed slightly. She said, quiet, to the youngest by her youngest sister, ‘That’s right Alf, you ’ave that last bit of pie, seein’ ’e did not insist.’

  Outside, street lighting, shop displays, electric signs made Piper’s heavens dull pink, the houses brown, only their upper floors and gables were shrouded in that half dark which is night over a town in times of peace.

  As he went under a street lamp with its yellow pride of light there stood a guardsman, by the coffee stall painted the same colour as his scarlet coat. Many smells were about Piper at this cross roads, from the fishmonger’s, closed now, but with a stack of boxes piled outside drenched in kipper, from the local each time someone came in or out and the swing doors fanned a sickly waft outside, from the fish and chip round a corner that, when frying, as now, spread high over this street, and, last of all, boiling water in the urns extruded steam on to the laden air, creating a comfort in which these various smells were marshalled, and so damped down that they could not be lifted on the warmth a little way toward the high, chill, faint stars. Fat George, motionless, as much part of his stall as three chromium urns, one of which was crowned by two fat earthenware teapots, and with shelves of coloured tins at his back, looked as though he and his stall might be a musical box put up stage in an opera, the smells the violins brought all together into a main movement above which this instrument, this dwarfed plaything for eating, stridently, it was so coloured, dominated the strings in a major key, the well-fed eunuch.

  Standing up against the counter, and she was so frail in dark clothes she seemed part of the shadow, he saw Mary Howells, the old friend, a char.

  ‘Well, if it ain’t me old sparrer,’ she said in a low, sibilant voice, in dramatic amusement despite she was played out. ‘What then,’ she went on, ‘wouldn’t she even make you a fresh pot of you and me,’ referring to what was generally known, that Mrs Piper would hardly lift a finger, not even to put on a kettle.

  ‘’Er leg’s been troublesome on account of the weather.’

  ‘Yus,’ she said, ‘yus, an’ I wish I ’ad that leg but then I ’ain’t, so there you are. You bin to your fire practice?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘An’ at your age. Who’s ever ’eard.’

  He also was tired. He let this pass. He said:

  ‘What’s George’s tea this evenin’?’

  ‘The usual,’ she said, ‘’ow ’e does it I don’t know, an’ if you was to ask me why I allers come back I wouldn’t be able to tell yer. More like water ’e’s done the kippers in of the mornin’,’ she said, but, in a manner even older than his years, Piper was watching a short, fat, fair girl, whose hair fell in one long yellow curl down her bare head. After a violent effort he remembered he had seen her not above an hour ago.

  ‘Excuse me miss,’ he said, and, afraid that he was going to ask for money, this girl stopped only because he was plumb in her light.

  ‘I just seen you at the station, now isn’t that right, this night’s my day for goin’.’

  ‘Why yes,’ Hilly said, relieved, ‘Are you training too?’

  ‘Yus,’ he said. ‘Yus,’ he went on, ‘if this ’ere war talk comes to anythink it will be my fifth campaign.’

  ‘Your fifth campaign?’ She wondered at his use of words. ‘Yus,’ he said. Then he was at a loss, had no more to say. But once she saw it was not a question of money, of which she had none or she would have been glad to give, and because she was a person to bring out whatever she might have on her mind, she asked whether he had heard the latest, ‘That it’s supposed to make us shy when we come into the watchroom to learn about the old fire alarm system and there are men in there, so, those that aren’t on duty are to be turned out, isn’t it too silly?’

  ‘Yes, well there you are then,’ he replied, not having followed. ‘Yus, I thought I recognised yer when I seen yer comin’. One of the WAFS I knew you was after a minute.’

  ‘Well thanks,’ she said. ‘I say I’m in a rush, I must simply fly. Goodnight,’ she called, thinking you meet all sorts and kinds.

  More than any younger recruit Piper should have been able to foresee their sleeping all together, the men and women in the Service, rolled each in his or her deep mystery within a blanket, on any cellar floor near the substation, asleep, yet groaning and calling out, fighting last night’s fires before they were called out to those shortly to be started up above, below the already busy sky.

  ‘Goodnight, goodnight, I must simply . . .’ Mary echoed, t
hen said, ‘Oh well, I never.’

  ‘I thought I knew ’er soon as I set eyes on ’er eyes. Knows one of the Chiefs or something.’

  ‘Take my word. You’re too old for it.’

  ‘Well, they’ll ’ave a use for me yet.’ He sawed a forefinger to and fro across his mouth. ‘It’s buckshee, it don’t cost nothing to volunteer. You would do wuss yerself.’

  ‘What,’ she cried, ‘me in trousers.’

  ‘It’s right the girls do wear uniform trousies, but you got to consider there won’t be no more floors to scrub, much.’

  ‘Ah, there’ll always be them things. I ’aven’t ’ad twenty years on ’em for nothink. I’m not worryin’. I can always get me a job of work with a bucket.’

  There was a long silence. Then she said,

  ‘What would I ’ave to do, Arthur, on top of wearin’ the things?’

  ‘Keep the occurrience book.’

  ‘God ’elp us, what’s that?’

  ‘Where they write the telephone messages down.’

  ‘Oh no, not me, not much. Why, once at the Royal College, you know where I’ve worked these fifteen years, they said, “Mary, Miss Hofford, an’ she was a nice girl you was glad to oblige, Miss O we called her’s deaf today or I forget what, an’ would you mind answering the telephone through the mornin’,” I expect it was a cold she ’ad. Oh dear, never no more again. I don’t seem ever to get used to that instrument. Oh no, I couldn’t.’

  ‘Well then, there’s the kitchen.’

  ‘What, me cook for a ’undred? Oh my Gawd.’

  Arthur Piper stood, enveloping the saucer from below in one huge fist, the thick cup in his other hand too white, too breakable for fingers like his own, as he sucked at the tea, and then sucked at his teeth.

  Leaving Piper, Hilly went on past an Underground which was blaring out light, sending a hot breath stale from the bowels in steady wind. At every step, each time one of the high heels she wore touched ground, her hair shook from the crown of her head right down the long curl to where it turned, at a cost of twenty-five shillings each month, over her shoulders. While on her way thus, it so happened she ran into Richard. He was confused with office tiredness, sapped by pints.

  ‘In such a rush,’ she said, and disliked, but accepted the smell of beer about him. ‘I’ve got to have a smoke test.’

  ‘Do they give you those? Whatever for?’

  ‘Well Ginger, you know Ginger Garton, one of the Chiefs, rather a friend of mine as a matter of fact, he says when the fun starts, if it ever does, and we go underground in the watchroom, that it might be rather useful really.’

  ‘Yes I see,’ he said, and had no idea of it. He was not to know what real smoke was like for another eighteen months. He told her he had just come from the Rose and Crown, outside the station, and which was the place he had first met her. He said Pye was there this instant minute, declaiming against capitalists. He added, ‘It’s sheer provocation.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘and thanks for telling me. I’ll steer clear. Anyway I haven’t time. Have you heard the latest?’ She told him about the watchroom having to be cleared when girls came in.

  He replied he knew everyone in the Brigade was mad.

  They said goodnight. As he walked away he thought the women would cause endless trouble. He was right. But then he would not admit there could be a war, that all this fuss would ever come to anything. It was play acting. He felt he had been a fool to join. But if a war did begin then these girls would be a sort of harem for the officer in charge, and, if they were not all wiped out in raids at the start, then the women would get their teeth into the organisation. Which might make Hilly useful, if she knew one of the Chiefs like she said. He wondered if she went to bed. Perhaps he had better take her out one evening. These inconclusive gin and its were coming so expensive.

  It was on a morning twelve months later. Just three weeks after mobilisation Piper was having a cup of tea in the poky kitchen of that Mayfair mansion into which they had moved the day before from the gas-proofed basement. Their cook, in full WAFS uniform including trousers, was Mary Howells, who had never cooked for anyone except her late husband and her two daughters.

  ‘It’s Brid,’ she was saying, ‘my youngest.’ She twisted a corner of the apron in her fingers. ‘I don’t seem able to keep ’er out of me mind. I don’t know what to think. The ’usband’s a rotter, a real rotter, but ever since she ’ad the baby you’d think it’d got worse, not better. She ’ad a terrible time ’aving it, really, but as I said to ’er in the ’ospital, I says, “you take a pull on yerself. Come through this all right and you’ll find it’ll make a world of difference,” I says. “I know things ain’t been easy,” I says, and she said to me, “Not a word against Ted, mum,” and I said “I’m not speaking of ’im, God forbid, me girl, I’m not one to come between ’usband and wife, no,” I says, “I was meaning the dreadful pangs of labour what every woman is ’eir to, and what can follow it,” I says, “Illness,” I says, “weakness,” I says, “loss of blood,” I says, “blood to the ’ead,” I says to ’er, Arthur, and that there is what I’m a’scared of for ’er. She writes ever such funny letters to me, really.’

  Pye had been glad to have Piper’s offer and Mary had been signed on as third cook without, so great was the hurry and shortage, one enquiry as to whether she could even do boiled eggs. She would keep saying, ‘fancy me in this lot,’ but she was happy. The college was evacuated. The cracks in each floor she had come to know as friend or foe were filling with dust until such time as the place should be taken over by soldiers. But she had insisted on seven days in which to go up north to see Brid, and now she was sorry.

  ‘Pore little mite,’ she said of the baby, ‘it did make my ’eart bleed, Arthur, and ’er so awkward with it, ’ardly a glance would she give. An’ as for the ’usband, I won’t call ’im me son-in-law, why, as I said to ’im, I says, “I’ll report you, me lad, yus, for cruelty, that’s what Ted,” I said. It makes me ’eart drop when I remember the way ’e be’aves, ’is own flesh and blood too. There’s ’usbands knock their wives about but there, a girl makes ’er own bed an’ she must needs lie on it, but to treat a baby so, that can’t fend for itself, then that’s what I call cowardly. With Brid in the state she is after ’avin’ the child, it’s neglect, that’s what it is, proper wicked. You understand, it’s what ’e doesn’t do.’

  ‘They was ever so kind at the ’ospital,’ she went on, in full flood, while Piper, not listening, entirely empty headed, sucked at his teeth. He found his way down to the kitchen whenever the other duty cook was out. Mary saw to him. When she could she gave him a little extra. But she had to be careful of her job. As she said ‘It’s not as though I’d ’ad much training, ever, leastways not at this game.’ She also said of her cooking that, ‘You’ll never ’ear the lads complain, they’re satisfied with what I give, they’re good lads.’ Nevertheless she would not touch the range. All she could do was to prepare the simpler foods and vegetables. Added to this she was very nervous, almost prophetically so, as it turned out, of an automatic domestic boiler that worked on a thermostat. The moment the water inside went below a certain temperature the gas burners turned on by themselves. Mary used to drive the orderlies for the day crazy, she was so continually asking them to have a look. But before ever she began to voice fears about Bridget her limitations had depressed the cooks. Hilly, for lack of anyone else, had taken on the job of mess manager, so she had to listen.

  ‘I’ll never understand Mr Pye, reelly I shan’t ever,’ the fair cook, Eileen, was telling Hilly later that day. Of the same age they sat side by side on the dresser, smoking, ‘I know I’ll never like that man. Why, he came into my kitchen only the other afternoon and ’e ’ad the impudence to tell me his potatoes wasn’t cooked. Now you know as well as I do, that Mary can’t get through the work with the trouble she’s got. I was late putting those potatoes in I know, but then I was late getting them. As sure as I’m sitting here they were reel nice
. Of course they’re not the quality potatoes I have been used to cook with,’ (‘No, of course,’ from Hilly), ‘but they were reel nice when they were done. None of the men complained.’

  ‘He’ll be all right,’ Hilly said. ‘He talks so much he lets his plate get cold and then imagines things. The men say he’s not supposed to have had a hot meal since he’s been a fireman.’ She went on, ‘What it would be to be his wife.’ ‘You’re telling me,’ from Eileen, and then Hilly again. ‘But it’s rather awful about Mrs Howell’s grand-daughter, I wonder what it is?’ ‘By what I can make out it’s the daughter. Funny that what comes out of quite another bit of you should go up there. She’s a loony I rather fancy. Oh dear, who’d be a woman. Talk of the devil,’ said Eileen, and both jumped to the floor as Pye came in.

  ‘Now is there anything you want,’ he asked, saying nothing about cigarettes in the morning, ‘I can get you anything from the Stores, like pots and pans, good morning I should ’ave begun by saying, because I know, and as some won’t bother to realise, that no woman can cook without the wherewithal, the utensils of ’er trade . . .’ and so on. Eileen said to herself she would scream if he did not go in another moment. But he was still talking after fifteen minutes. Neither girl realised he was trying to make out that perhaps his spuds had been raw yesterday because the cooks had not been issued with a steamer.

  ‘And Mrs ’Owells,’ he said at last without having directly mentioned those potatoes, ‘is she all right? Of course I couldn’t leave one cook and you, Hilly, to do the work and besides we’re supposed to have three cooks with the number of men at this substation, so I was lucky to find one, in fact old Dodger, the Super, he came to hear of it and when ’e was on the telephone not long ago he said, “I hear you are engaging cooks now, Pye,” ’e said, “make sure they are good ones,” and make good little pies I thought he was going to tack on,’ both girls laughed, ‘but ’e didn’t. Queer his getting to know, when you come to weigh it up, but then you never can be sure what these men will ’ear next, they can’t be so occupied if they’ve got time to pick up things of that kind, can they? Still ’e sounded sort of pleased. So I can’t complain. How’s she shaping?’ he asked, just as Hilly became sure he must have forgotten his own question.