Beyond this place (22 page)

At this time one of the guests at the hotel was a man named Dunn, a taciturn and rather ill-favoured person, who came regularly to Astbury, bent on luring with small flies the silvery salmon which in the autumn were reputed to run up the river. Dunn, amongst other things, was a student of human nature and between his notably unsuccessful forays against the salmon, he studied Lena.

Although he flattered himself that he could not be impressed, he observed with unspoken admiration her silent, dogged courage, her desire to make the best of a dreadful business, above all the quiet endurance with which her wounded, independent soul suffered the prevailing effusive hysteria. He thought, as he dreamed by the river and exposed the bald patch on his scalp to the sun, that he would like to write a book about Lena, but he was not a writer of books and he feared he would make sad work of it. Still, he had the perception to divine what Lena's bruised spirit was seeking after — to escape utterly, to lose her own identity, away from everyone who had ever known her. Without fuss, he arranged for her to get away to Wortley, to a woman by the name of Hanley, an old friend whom he knew to be reliable.

Dunn was not a rich man and he had a wife and family to support. Nevertheless, the peculiar qualities of his character led him to stand by Lena in her trouble when she had been forgotten

BEYOND THIS PLACE

by all those sweet people who had gushed with the milk of human kindness and run to put cushions behind her back on the front verandah of the hotel.

He arranged for her confinement, which proved difficult and dangerous. The child, born deaf and dumb, was not normal, lived for only a few weeks then mercifully died. But it was months before Lena, prostrated physically and mentally, was able to crawl back to her lodging with Mrs. Hanley.

Dunn did not offer to find Lena a job. Now that the worst was over, he wanted her to get her feet on the ground again. When, finally, she was engaged at the Bonanza Cafeteria he did not tell her it was unsuitable. He merely nodded in approval. And often, on his way to work, he would stop in for a coffee, to view the progress of his protege. Beneath his habitual detachment he watched the situation with interest, the struggle for regeneration taking place in this wounded, stoic soul. It amused Dunn to find that her unfailing remedy for the moods of sadness which so often weighed upon her was hard work.

This was the antidote which she now applied to her present melancholy. When she got home from the store she put on her overall and set to, in noiseless determination, scrubbed and polished the floor, laundered the window curtains, blackleaded the grate and burnished the brasses, worked on her two rooms until they shone.

At the weekend she looked round helplessly: there was nothing more to do, not a speck of dust which she could attach. Restively, she went downstairs to Mrs. Hanley's domain and set to work to bake a cake. Afterwards, she sat in the landlady's parlour, listening to the latest letter from Mrs. Hanley's husband Joe who had sailed from Tampico and was to dock in Tilbury the following Monday. But her attention wandered sadly from the engineer's news.

"What's the matter, Lena?" Mrs. Hanley asked. "You don't seem yourself. You've been overdoing it."

"It's nothing." She forced a smile.

"No, you're a bit off colour. I scarcely feel like leaving you. It's a shame Joe has to stand by the ship for the refit ... all his month's leave too."

BEYOND THIS PLACE

"I'll be all right. And you'll have a nice time in London."

"Well . . . I've always wanted to go. And the company pays our hotel for the whole four weeks. Still . . . promise me you'll take care of yourself."

"I will . . . I'll slack off tomorrow. It's my Saturday off."

But Saturday did not noticeably improve Lena's state. On the next afternoon, when she had seen Mrs. Hanley off at the station, a painful loneliness descended upon her and, strangely, her steps wandered from the path which normally constituted her Sunday outing. With a start of confusion and self-reproach, she found herself at the entrance to the Botanic Gardens.

"Well," she thought, frowning at her weakness, "since I came, I may as well go in. At least it's free today."

She passed through the wide gates and set off along the trim paths in a direction quite opposite to that which she had taken with Paul. For an hour she fought her inclination, but at the end, as she was about to leave, she entered the orangery. Inside the tall ornamental glasshouse as she drew near the slender orange tree which they had viewed together, her heart was beating heavily. Hastily, she pressed her face against a branch, heavy with waxen, perfumed flowers. A single tear, salt and bitter, splashed upon her hand as she turned away.

That night, while she undressed she suddenly caught sight of herself, her unclothed body, in the little mirror on the dresser, the marks of her pregnancy showing clearly, bluish cicatrices, on her white skin. She grew rigid then, sick with self-disgust, without warning she struck herself a hard blow on her scarred cheek.

"Don't be a fool," she whispered to herself. "It's no good . . . ever."

She switched out the light, and closed her eyes tightly in the darkness.

However, all her resolution was insufficient to beat down all of the feeling which swelled within her. It was stronger than she and at last she yielded to it with a shamed surrender. On the following night, immediately she left the store, she went to Paul's lodging in Poole Street and asked if she might see him.

Mrs. Coppin inspected her with narrowed eyes.

"He's gone," she answered shortly.

BEYOND THIS PLACE

Lena's heart missed a beat. But she persevered.

"Where did he go?"

"I've no idea. It may interest you to know that the police came inquiring for him." "I had to keep his suitcase tor the rent," she added.

There was a pause. A thought formed in Lena's mind.

"If I pay you, can I take away his things?"

Mrs. Coppin reflected. The value of the goods she had distrained was slight, she had never expected "to see the colour of her money" from them. In a case like this, one did not ask questions — the opportunity was too good to miss. She made an acid murmur of assent and leaving the door ajar, went back into the house.

Flushed, and with a secret air, Lena took home the battered brown suitcase she had redeemed. It contained only a few worn articles of clothing. She washed and ironed the shirts, darned the socks, sponged the shapeless flannel trousers and pressed them with her hot iron to a fine edge. She even placed a few shillings in the pocket. While she did this she experienced a further alleviation of her feeling, but when everything was neatly folded and restored to the suitcase, she was no better off than before. More and more, she became convinced that some misfortune had overtaken Paul.

Then, at the Bonanza, she had word of him. Next morning, as she went in, Nancy Wilson was relating an incident with great gusto to the others. Everyone was clustered round, even Harris stood near, listening — it was such a tid-bit of news.

"I tell you." Nancy spoke dramatically. "You could have knocked me down with a feather. There I was, going to the pictures with my young man, when I saw him, carrying a billboard. At first I scarcely recognised him he was that changed — thin and shabby, ragged in fact, without an overcoat to his back. 'Wait George, just a minute,' I said to my young man, 'there's somebody I used to know.' And I stood and watched him while he tramped in line with the other dead beats. It was Paul all right. He suddenly caught sight of me across the street and he turned and slunk away."

BEYOND THIS PLACE

A chorus went up from the little audience. Lena felt herself turn weak.

"You ought to have seen him." Nancy rolled her eyes. "He's regular down and out."

"I knew he was no good." Harris concluded the session, with an air of superior knowledge. "I got the tip from the police. Come on now . . . back to your counters."

It was then that the last of Lena's defences broke. She knew her own folly, knew also that she was laying up a store of future misery. Yet she could not help herself. She began, frankly, to search for Paul. Every morning, as she went to work, and every evening when she returned, she chose roundabout ways, combing all the poorer streets of the city, her eyes alert for his dejected figure. In her free time she waited for hours around Leonard Street Station. She tried the other stations too. But he was not there. In all her eager efforts she knew only failure, days and nights of bitter disappointment.

CHAPTER [ I

WHEN Paul moved off from the prosecutor's house, blindly traversing the silent streets, the night was cold and clear, with a biting wind, and a keen touch of frost in the air. Almost overcome by the weakness of reaction, one idea was uppermost in his mind. And when, presently, he reached the canal he drew the gun from his pocket and, with a sob of relief, hurled it far into the oily water. A dull splash echoed in his ears. Numbly he watched the dark circles ebb in the moonlight. Only when the last ripple had gone did he turn away.

At that moment the clock on the Ware steeple struck eleven.

The heavy strokes brought him back more fully to himself and suddenly, through the turmoil of his thoughts and the overpowering lassitude which bore upon him, he realized that he was penniless. He drew up, wondering where he could spend the

BEYOND THIS PLACE

night. Gradually it became apparent that only one course was open to him. He would have to do what Jerry and the others at the lodging house dreaded beyond all else. He had to sleep out. There was a place known as the Arches, the only corner of the city, short of the graveyard, where — by some strange unwritten law — the homeless might "doss out" undisturbed. As Paul slowly resumed his way towards this wretched spot he felt that the last frail bulwark of his respectability was gone. Now, surely, he was beyond the pale.

The Arches lay not far from the canal; two dark cuttings under the span of the Midland Railway Bridge. And when he arrived other unfortunates had already settled themselves for the night. Pulling up his coat collar, he sank down in the chilly shadows with his hands in his pockets and his back against a round iron pillar. It was bitterly cold. Trying to suppress his shivers, Paul drowsed in fitful snatches. Morning came in a grey and sullen haze, with the heavy thunder of an early train upon the bridge above. So cold and cramped he could scarcely rise, Paul got to his feet and stumbled off. In a sick fashion, his stomach ached for food, but he had not even the price of a farthing roll. Instinctively he moved off in the direction of the Lanes Advertising Company then, finding the gates closed, bent his steps towards Leonard Street Railway Station. Here, he hung about the outer approaches all day, roundly abused by the regular porters, and in the end earned ninepence. It was not enough for both supper and a bed. In a nearby workman's cafe he ordered sausage and mash, an ill-cooked, greasy meal which lay like lead on his stomach and gave him a griping pain as, once again, he dragged back to the Arches.

Next morning it was raining hard. He could not face the station again and wandered off through the streets in search of shelter. Already he was filled with lassitude; vet there seemed nowhere in this great city where, without payment, he could sit down. Finally he came upon a billiard saloon and, upstairs in the smoky atmosphere, lit by green-shaded lamps, he found a refuge. But it was only temporary — when he had apathetically watched a few games and gave no sign of playing, the attendant quietly approached him and asked him to leave.

BEYOND THIS PLACE

Out in the street again all he knew was that he had to keep moving, to what destination he did not care.

In the late afternoon he found himself on the tow-path of the branch canal, a dismal, inky channel flanked by factories and pottery kilns. Here a bargee hailed him, and asked him to take the rope while his craft negotiated the hand-operated lock. On the barge was a motherly-looking woman frying bacon and eggs on the open cabin stove. Perhaps she had a shrewd idea of Paul's condition. When he had pulled them clear, before the boat got under way, she handed him a thick bacon sandwich, hot from the pan.

This sign of kindness, the glance of pity that the woman gave him, shook him painfully, and he was taken by a sudden overwhelming desire to abandon everything, to go home, back to a normal life of decent human comfort. But with a trembling lip, he fought the impulse down. He would never give up, never. Rain-drenched, he made his way back to the city and the Arches.

And now there began for Paul a period of such clouded suffering that when, from time to time, the realization of his state broke through the mists into his consciousness it caused him a start of haggard disbelief. Dependent always upon the chance of a casual coin, there were days when he went entirely without food. For brief intervals his memory would fail him, he would wander in a sort of stupor. In this nightmare state in which he moved, he forgot who he was, and when he remembered he had an irrational desire to go up to strangers and explain his identity to them. At other times he saw the people in the street merely as blurred forms and, blundering into someone, would murmur an apology before moving on. Through it all he had the notion — less an illusion than a conviction — that he was being followed and it was always the face of Jupp, the police sergeant, who watched from the shadows, watched and waited, expressionless yet hostile, for the inevitable end. Vaguely, he asked himself why he was not arrested. His clothes were soiled, his boots leaking, he had not shaved for days. His hair, uncut, fell across his collar, his eyes had no expression. He wondered dizzily if it were possible to starve to death in this great and thriving city.

Of course there was charity — and at last, too broken to be

BEYOND THIS PLACE

proud — he came to this last resort. One evening as dusk approached he dragged himself to the eastside corner of the Corn Market. Here, in a small triangular space between the tramway tracks, a plain wheeled wagon stood, a sort of caravan, with a tin chimney and a flapboard, already surrounded by a waiting, destitute throng. At five o'clock exactly, the flapboard was let down, forming a counter and disclosing in the interior of the caravan, a modern kitchen unit. An attendant in a white apron stood behind the counter and as each man advanced he handed him a bowl of soup and a hunk of bread and dripping. When Paul, in his turn, received his portion, the scalding soup flowed into his veins with a reviving glow. He ate the bread and dripping hungrily, then walked silently away.