Out of the Blackout (10 page)

‘Teddy drops in here now and again. When he's home on a visit. He's more fond of his beer than I am, is Teddy.' ‘Teddy?'

‘My younger brother. Very sociable type, Teddy.'

Which no doubt accounted for the fact that on his occasional visits to his family he felt the need to go out to a pub. Simon took up his glass, and they made for a chilly little corner. On the small round table there, rings from the morning's drinking could be seen, and a filter stub nestled coyly in the ashtray. Len took the cushioned seat by the wall, and Simon took the chair opposite.

‘It's quiet here too,' continued Len. ‘None of the local riff-raff and coloureds. They go up the road, to the Jolly Beagle. When you've got a job like mine you get enough brawling and shouting, without getting it when you go out for the evening as well.' ‘It's bad on the Underground, is it?'

‘Diabolical. Bloody appalling. Not to mention the petty crime as well. There's no backbone in the country any longer, but you might hope that people still had an ounce of honesty—but no, not on your life. It's not as bad as New York, but it's getting that way, I can tell you. You were lucky, young feller, that you grew up in the country.'

‘I suppose I was.'

‘Not that it was like this then. It's all happened in the last ten or fifteen years. And we all know who's to blame! Where was it you said you grew up, young Simon?'

Simon swallowed, kept his eyes on Len's face, and said:

‘Yeasdon.'

There was not the slightest flicker of a reaction. Not a blink, not a twitching nerve.

‘And where would that be? Up north somewhere?'

‘No, Gloucestershire. Not far from Bristol.'

‘Ah yes. Can't say I know those parts very well. Now Surrey and Sussex I know, because we used to go there for holidays—day trips too, sometimes, because I got free travel on the rail. That was before the war—and after, once or twice. Now and then I used to go further afield—abroad, you know. But that was a big adventure then. Not like now, when all the hoi-polloi go on these package tours. Still, I really ought to be ashamed I don't know my own country better. So you grew up in Yeasdon, did you? And what does your father do?'

‘He was a stockman on one of the local estates. He had an accident, and he really only jobs around the place now.'

‘Well, well: sort of farm labourer, eh? You have gone far and no mistake, young feller. I admire you for it. Too little of that sort of initiative around these days.'

‘I don't know about initiative. I just did reasonably well at school, and the rest seemed to follow.'

‘But there you are, you see: a good brain, and a bit of encouragement in the home—that's what does it. Now I never had encouragement in the home. Not to speak ill of Mother, but she
always wanted us out, earning. Naturally, since she was on her own. Dad died soon after Teddy was born, so Mother has always been head of the family. Until now—now she's failing, like you've seen. Naturally Mother wanted money coming in. I never resented it, but I think Connie did. Could have made a nice little career for herself, if she'd had the education. A real career, I mean—like yours is shaping up to be.' He looked at him intently over his beer glass. ‘Already you're mixing with the nobs.'

‘Mostly with giraffes and seals, actually.'

‘Oh no—like you said, there's all those big boys on the Board. What did you call them? Establishment men. Not to mention the fat boys with the long purses and the crooked noses.'

Simon flinched inwardly at the crudity of his companion. At the same time he was conscious of being watched. Not looked at, but watched.

‘Oh, they're people quite apart, really,' he said, studiedly neutral. ‘They come in once a month, have a day-long meeting and a slap-up lunch, and then we hear what's been decided. We hardly ever get to meet them.'

‘Ah,' said Len, his eyes still on Simon. ‘It's a funny old world, isn't it? Lots of funny people in control, eh?'

Simon shifted uneasily in his chair. The conversation was taking a direction he had hardly envisaged, and one he hardly knew how to cope with politely. Far from being cosy or intimate, the atmosphere seemed to have become fraught with an inexplicable tension. He felt, oddly, as if
he
were being sounded out by
Len
—quite the reverse of what he had intended.

‘At the moment I'm not too much worried about who's in control, just in getting on top of my job,' he said. And then, trying to take over the rudder of the conversation, he added: ‘If I have got anywhere, I put it down to my family. Encouragement in the home counts for an awful lot, as you say. And then having a united family—as your own is . . .”

‘Yes. Quite.' Len's body seemed to lose its tension, as if he were backing away from a perilous leap. ‘You could say Mother kept us together. Teddy fled the nest, in a manner of speaking, first with the war, then getting married not long after. But otherwise we've all mostly muddled along together.'

‘Even when you got married, in your case, I believe?'

‘That's right. Oh—you saw the pictures, did you? The Ma sets great store by them pictures. Very fond memories she has—we both have, of course. Yes, when I got hitched I brought her back to live with Mother. Well—it was the only sensible thing to do, granted the size of the house, and that.'

‘The house you live in now?'

‘No—over Paddington way. I used to work in the ticket office of the station—that was before nationalization, of course. The GWR Station it was then. The house in Paddington was a bit of a barn, and back in the 'thirties no one was buying places like that, so Mother would have been stuck. So naturally we moved in with her.'

‘People say you should never have two women sharing a kitchen.'

Len, for some reason, leaned back in his seat and laughed uproariously, as if Simon had made a witticism.

‘Depends on the ladies—eh, young feller? Well, we had three in our house, at any rate three as soon as war broke out. I won't say there wasn't a spot of argy-bargy now and then, because there was. Connie's got a bit of a temper—not that
she
was often in the kitchen, oh no!—and Mother knows her own mind, or did then. But it was Mary who kept the peace. My Mary. She was a quiet soul, religious you might almost say, but she was a little wonder when it came to smoothing over unpleasantness. It was Mary who kept things on an even keel. I was proud of her, by golly I was!'

There was something deeply unconvincing about Len when he spoke forcefully, like a politician with a prepared brief.

‘You must have been very happy,' said Simon.

‘Oh, we were. Idyllically. I hope when you find yourself a nice young lady that you're half as happy as we were.'

‘I hope so. I didn't do too well first time around.'

Len put his glass down on the table, pushed himself back on his seat, and looked at Simon with concern.

‘Well, strike a light! Don't tell me you've been married.'

‘I'm afraid so. It didn't work out.'

‘Well, I'd never have thought it. How old are you? And divorced!'

‘Separated. We will get divorced. I'm twenty-eight.'

‘Dear me. And that's
not
old. You could knock me down with
a feather. Here's me thinking of you as fresh out in the big wide world, and now it turns out you've been hitched, and not just hitched but separated and all. Well, I am sad. Like I would be if you was my own son. It's the way of the world these days, I suppose. It wasn't like that in my generation, I can tell you. For better or worse, that's what we believed. All I can say is: you try a bit harder next time, son.'

‘Oh, I mean to,' said Simon, flinching at that casual use of the word ‘son'.

‘Take your time. Look about you.' Len was becoming more expansive, as if the role of counsellor to the young was one he relished. ‘The fact is, you're a nice-looking, well-set up young fellow, in a good line of work. There's plenty around would like to get their hands on you for that reason alone. Keep a weather eye out. Take a bit of care. You want to be a bit luckier next time.'

‘That's what my mother says.'

‘And she's dead right. You want to find a nice, quiet girl who'll devote herself to you, body and soul; one who'll be a help in your career.' He made it sound quite deadly. He thinks I should marry someone who's only half alive, thought Simon. ‘Someone who'll work for you, unobtrusive like, in the background. Bring up your kids in the right way, the old-fashioned way. That's what you want. That's what I call a happy marriage.'

‘Like yours,' said Simon.

‘That's right. Like mine. Because Mary was a self-effacing soul, and the better for it. Not that she couldn't stand up for herself if needs be. But there'd be no argument for the sake of argument. Mary knew there was nothing to be gained by that. Even when we married—don't get me wrong, young feller, we were in love, oh my word yes—but there was also her Pa, and my Ma, both strong churchgoers. Baptists, they were—the Ma still is: can't get there often, but the Minister calls. So Mother and Mr Spurling, they thought it would be ideal if we two got married and set up home in Farrow Street (that was where we lived). They thought it all out between them. And Mary was influenced, naturally, because her father was a very fine man—real head of the family, like you had in the old days. So we got married, and you might say that love, in the fullest sense of the word, came later.'

Len seemed somewhat confused as to when love had come, and Simon was not convinced it had come at all. Len, perhaps unused to being listened to so meekly, was now in fine flow, more unbuttoned than Simon had dared to hope. His long, angular body had relaxed from its usual spasmodic tenseness, and the watchful testing of Simon had been forgotten. He sat, relaxed and reminiscent, over his empty glass. Simon nimbly fetched him another, and then said:

‘And of course you had the little boy, didn't you, to bring you close together?'

‘We did. Later on we had him. You saw that picture, did you? Had that taken in the war, when the raids started, thinking you never knew what might happen. How right I was! Now it's my only memento. Though that's not true: I've got my memories. And they're the best mementoes, aren't they?'

Len dabbed at his eyes, and Simon had to repress an involuntary retch of disgust.

‘She looked as if she'd be a very good mother,' he said.

‘Oh, she was. Second to none. It was what she lived for. I just can't describe how happy she was when she realized a little one was on the way. Over the moon she was—in her quiet way, of course. Not demonstrative, because Mother wasn't so happy about having a baby in the house. But Mary'd always been a real little mother to any stray kids around—a sort of auntie to lots of kids at church, taught Sunday School, and that. And when she had her own! Well, you should have seen her starting off my little David learning the alphabet when he was no age at all! She'd sit with him over a picture book with them great big letters, and she'd say them over with him, having him recognizing words. Tiny scrap of a lad, too! It was a picture, I tell you, to see them sitting together in the armchair, going through their kiddies' books. It's one of the last memories I have.'

‘He must have been a . . . bright little boy.'

‘Oh, he was. No question, he was. Couldn't hardly recognize him as my own.' Len gave a self-deprecating smile of the sort that really conceals an immense self-satisfaction. ‘He picked up things that quick, you wouldn't believe. She used to bring him down sometimes to Paddington, when I was on the evening shift, and he'd sit in that ticket office (none of the bigwigs around to object at that time of evening) and he'd watch me
selling the tickets. He picked up the system in no time. Learned all the names of the places people went, kept asking his mother to point them out on the map. Sharp as a knife, my little David.'

‘That's awfully nice,' said Simon, ‘provided they don't know it themselves.'

‘Oh, his mother and I wouldn't have let him get uppitty. Not like those ghastly American children you see on television. Oh no—he was a sweet child, and not at all clever-clever. Everyone fell for him. Of course he looked so nice. His mother kept him spotless, and neat as a new pin. Beautiful little clothes he had, and Mary was that good at mending and patching, like we had to then. There wasn't a smarter little nipper in all Paddington. I sometimes used to watch him and his mother go off together in the morning—he used to pretend he was old enough to go to school, had his little satchel and all—and they'd go off together, him in his little grey trousers and his little blue blazer which his Mum made for him (he was that jealous of others going off dressed up for school every morning, and him not old enough)—and I tell you, just seeing them my heart leapt up with pride. It did. And if there were air raids, and he couldn't trot about like that, he used to go with his Mum down to the shelters, and he used to keep the rest of them in stitches.'

‘There are some kids like that,' said Simon.

‘That's right. He had all those sharp little comments and questions that kids often have, only his were that humorous! We had a dugout shelter for three or four families along Farrow Street, and he used to call it “the burrow”. “Can we go down the burrow?” he'd say, if there hadn't been a raid for some days. And when we were all down there, the neighbours'd say it was better than the radio—better than
Happidrome.
'

‘It was a funny time for a child to grow up in,' said Simon. ‘I don't remember much about it myself, except for the food.'

‘No, well, little David didn't really understand, of course—took it to be normal, if you take my meaning, because he didn't remember anything else. And his mother—my Mary—she used to make a joke of it for him. However worried she was herself, she'd always make a joke of things for him. I wasn't in the ARP then—that was later. I wasn't found fit for the army—spot of chest trouble, you know—but I did my bit on the Home Front later on. But even in those early days she was worried—naturally,
because the stations were prime targets for the bombers. But she never let on to David. Never let him see how worried she was for me. What a woman, eh? A real saint!'