The Stars Look Down (56 page)

“Yes.” Laura went over to Stanley. From her face the strain was almost unsupportable.

“Would you like to come upstairs now?” she said.

But Stanley answered, no. He hadn’t much interest in Laura. In fact he seemed in some queer way to resent Laura’s interest in him. He kept looking round the lounge. His eyes were curious, and there was a curious undercurrent in his eyes. They seemed darker, his eyes, with a film of darkness, and below the film the undercurrent played. When the undercurrent played near the surface Stanley’s face came nearest to emotion. It was difficult to make out the emotion for it came to the surface so suddenly and darted so suddenly away. But it was a horrible emotion. It was fear, no particular fear, simply fear. Stanley was not afraid of anything. He was just afraid. He finished looking round the lounge. He remarked:

“We had a good journey.”

“Fine, fine!”

“Except for the noise.”

“The noise, Stanley?”

“The wheels. In the tunnels.”

What the hell, thought Joe.

“I got—”

“That’s right,” Joe said quickly. The gong sounded softly. “Come on and have your lunch. He’ll feel better when he’s had his lunch, won’t he, Mrs. Millington? Nothing like a spot of lunch for pulling a man together.”

“I’ve got to lie down after lunch,” Stanley said. “That’s one of the things the doctors told me. They made me promise before I came away.”

They went in to lunch. Laura paused pointedly in the doorway of the dining-room.

“Haven’t you got to be at the works?” she asked him in a flat voice, not looking at Joe.

“Not a bit of it,” said Joe heartily. “Things are going grand there.”

“I think perhaps Stanley would rather you left him now?”

A flutter of irritation came over Stanley.

“No, no. Let Joe stop on.”

A short silence; Joe smiled genially; Laura moved reluctantly away. They sat down to lunch.

When he had finished his soup, to show he had not forgotten his instructions, Stanley remarked again to Joe:

“I’ve got to lie down after lunch, that’s one of the things they told me. And when I get up I’ve got to do my knitting.”

Joe’s mouth fell open—it’s not funny, he thought, O God, no, it’s not funny. In an awed voice he said:

“Your knitting?”

Laura made a movement of pain, as though to interpose. But Mr. Stanley went on, explaining himself; he seemed happiest when explaining himself:

“My knitting helps the head. In the hospital I learned to do my knitting after I got buried by the shell.”

Joe removed his eyes hurriedly from Stanley’s face. Knitting, he thought… knitting. He thought back. He kind of remembered Stanley, and Mr. Stanley’s remarks in this same room a year before. The topping fellow who wanted a smack at the Fritzes, don’t you know, for St. George and England, the full-blooded Briton who wished he’d joined the Flying Corps… great adventure, what? Very lights, Public Schools Battalion, number nines…
our
Mr. Stanley, who thought war simply
marvellous
. Christ, thought Joe, I wonder what he thinks about it now; and all of a sudden Joe wanted to laugh.

But at that moment Stanley very nearly began to cry.

“I can’t,” he whimpered, “I can’t.”

Laura intervened in a low voice, bending forward:

“What’s wrong, dear?”

Stanley’s face twitched under its frozen mask.

“I can’t close the mustard-pot.” He was trying to close the mustard-pot and he could not do it. He was beginning to shake all over because he could not close the mustard-pot.

Joe jumped up.

“Here,” he said, “let me do it for you.” He shifted the spoon so that the lid of the mustard-pot could close and
while he was about it he took his napkin and wiped the gravy off Stanley’s chin. Then he sat down.

All at once Laura seemed to give way. She rose abruptly. In a shaking voice she excused herself.

“I must see to something.” With her head averted she went out.

Silence for a few minutes while Joe turned things over carefully in his mind. At length he said:

“You know it’s great to see you back, Stan, old man. We’re making a lot of money at the works these days. Last month was marvellous.”

Stanley said, yes.

“That Dobbie fellow we have in the office isn’t worth a damn though, Stanley. Seein’ you’re back now we ought to get rid of him.”

Stanley said, yes.

“In fact I was thinkin’ myself I could give him his notice at the end of this month. Does that seem to be all right with you, Stanley?”

Stanley said, yes. Then Stanley got up from the table very stiff and sudden, although Joe had not nearly finished his dessert. He said:

“I’ve got to go to bed.”

“Certainly, Stan, old man,” Joe agreed blandly. “You’ll do whatever you like.” In an access of helpfulness Joe jumped up and took Stanley’s arm. Laura was waiting at the foot of the stairs, a small damp handkerchief clenched tightly in her hand. She made to take Stanley’s arm but Joe was not to be dispossessed. And Stanley himself appeared to lean on Joe, to depend upon him. He said peevishly:

“Leave me, Laura.” Joe helped him upstairs to his room and helped him to undress.

Stanley stripped sheer skin and bone. Stripped, Stanley was less like a mechanical man, and more like a mechanical corpse. He seemed ready for his bed but before he got into bed he went through a quiet little ritual. He got down and looked under the bed then he got up and looked under the pillows. He looked inside the two cupboards and behind the curtains of both windows. Then he climbed into bed. He lay flat upon his back with his hands and legs stretched out straight. His dead, wide-open eyes stared towards the ceiling. Joe tiptoed from the room.

In the lounge at the foot of the stairs Laura was waiting on Joe with red and swollen eyes. She faced him determinedly,
biting her lower lip that way he knew so well.

“I’ve just one thing to say.” She spoke with difficulty, her breast rising and falling quickly. “And that’s to ask you to keep away from this house.”

“Now, don’t, Laura,” he remonstrated mildly. “You’re in a spot of trouble with Stan and you want all the help you can get.”

“You call it help!”

“Why not?” he reasoned soothingly. “There’s nobody more upset than me, nobody in all the world, but we’ve got to discuss things.” He shook his head sensibly. “Stanley’s finished as far as the front is concerned. I’m thinking about the works…”

“You would,” she said bitterly.

“I mean,” he threw out his hand with the air of a man who has been wronged. “Oh, damn it all, Laura, give us some credit. I want to help you both. I want to get Stanley down to the works, interest him in things again, give him all the hand I can.”

“If I didn’t know you I’d think you meant it.”

“But I do mean it. After all, we’ve got to help one another over this. Honest to God, Laura. I’ll do what I can.”

There was a silence, her swollen eyes remained fixed upon his face; her breath came quicker, agonised.

“I don’t believe you’ll do anything,” she choked. “And I hate you for what you’ve done… almost as much as I hate myself.” She spun round and walked rapidly out of the lounge.

He remained where he was, caressing his chin gently with his hand; then he smiled into himself and left the house. He came back next morning, though, bustling in about eleven to keep his promise to take Stanley to the works. Laura had gone out but Stanley was up and dressed, seated upon the edge of a chair in the lounge playing the gramophone to himself. The gramophone was all right, of course, but the music, the music Stanley was playing, set Joe’s teeth on edge. Joe protested:

“Why don’t you play something lively, Stanley? Something out of the Bing Boys, what?”

“I like this,” Stanley said, putting the same record on again. “It’s the only one I like. I’ve been playing it all morning.”

Puzzled, Joe endured the record once more. The combination of the record and Stanley listening to the record was
horrible. Then Joe walked over and looked at it.
Marche Funèbre
, Chopin. Joe swung round.

“Holy smoke, Stanley, what d’you want with this stuff? Come on now, brace up, I’ve got the car at the door and we’re all set. We’re going down to the works.”

They drove quietly to the works and went straight into the melting-shop. Joe had arranged it beforehand. All the Union Jacks were hung and a big banner, which Joe had raked out of an old locker, stretched across the shop—W
ELCOME
. When Stanley walked into the shop with Joe everybody stopped work and gave him a rousing cheer. A great many women were in the shop now, Joe found them much cheaper and quicker than the older men, and these women cheered wildly. Stanley faced the cheering women, the women in the overalls, the women who were making shrapnel bullets for the shells. He looked as if he did not quite know what to do before all these women, he seemed more than ever to belong to nowhere. In an undertone Joe suggested:

“Say something, Stanley, say anything you like.” And he held up his hand for silence.

Mr. Stanley faced the women. He said:

“I got buried by a shell. I’ve been in hospital.”

There was another cheer and under cover of the cheer Joe prompted swiftly:

“Say you’re glad the output is going up and you hope they’ll keep on working like they’re doing.”

Mr. Stanley repeated in a high voice:

“I’m glad the output is going up and I hope you’ll keep on working like you’re doing.”

Another cheer, a loud long cheer. Then Joe took the matter in hand. He raised his hand again for silence. He thrust his hat well back on his head, put his thumb in his arm-hole and beamed on them. He said:

“You’re all delighted to see Mr. Stanley and so am I. Mr. Stanley isn’t going to talk about what he’s done so I’ll do a little of the talking instead. I’m not going to say much because you’ve got work to do for your country, work that must be done, and you can’t knock off to listen to anybody; but I’m going to say this: I’m going to say to his face here that we’re proud of Mr. Stanley. I’m proud to be associated with him in business and I know you’re proud to work for him. We’ve been making plans, Mr. Stanley and me, and he says he hopes you’ll all continue to do your bit here just
the same as he’s done his bit in France. You’ve got to work, you understand, work like hell to keep the output up. Now that’s all, but before you go back to work I want us all to sing the National Anthem and then lift the roof off with a cheer for Mr. Stanley.”

A silence fell, then—very feelingly, because of the women’s voices—they sang
God Save the King
. It was extremely moving, there were tears in Joe’s eyes.

When they had asked God to save their king they cheered Mr. Stanley, they cheered Joe, they cheered mostly everybody. Then in a mood of almost religious fervour they went back to the shrapnel, the Mills bomb and the eighteen-pounder shells.

Joe and Stanley started along the corridor towards the office. But they did not get very far. Half-way down the passage there stood an enormous shell. Joe had not made that shell although Joe would greatly have liked to make such a shell as that. The shell was a present to Joe from John Rutley, old Rutley of Yarrow, who sat with him on the Munitions Committee. Rutley’s had an enormous plant and turned out enormous shells and Joe was extremely proud of that beautiful seventeen-inch shell which indicated many things, not the least being that John Rutley was, so to speak, a friend of Joe’s. The shell had been mounted by Joe upon a fine polished wood base and now it stood, shining and gigantic, pointing its snout heavenwards in a kind of silent ecstasy.

It was the shell which stopped Stanley. He stared at the big shining shell with those frozen eyes.

Joe clapped the snout of the shell affectionately.

“She’s a beauty, eh? I call her Katie!”

Mr. Stanley did not speak but the dark light played and played beneath the film upon his eyes.

“I wish we were making the big stuff,” Joe remarked. “There’s a hell of a lot of money in big stuff too. Oh well, come on in the office now. I’ve got Morgan and Dobbie there and we’re going to talk to them.”

But Mr. Stanley did not come on, he could not get past the shell. He stared and stared at the shell. It was a shell like this which had blown him up. His soul shrank and shuddered before that shell.

“Come on, man,” Joe said impatiently. “Don’t you know they’re waiting on you?”

“I want to go home.” His voice sounded very odd and he began to drag himself backwards stiffly from the shell.

Christ, thought Joe, he’s at it again. He took Stanley’s arm to help him past the shell. But Stanley could not get past the shell. The skin of his forehead twitched, and in his eyes the buried agony of fear came leaping, leaping underneath the film. He gasped:

“Let me go. I want to go home.”

“You’re all right, Stanley,” Joe said. “Take it easy, now, you’re all right. It won’t bite you, it isn’t even filled. Be sensible, Stanley, man.”

But Stanley could not be sensible. All Stanley’s splendid sense had got blown out of Stanley by a shell like this in France. Stanley’s whole face was twitching now, a rapid twitching, and the fear behind his eyes was horrible to see.

“I’ve got to go home.” Hardly able to say it now. Under the dead cold face worked an unbelievable agony and excitement.

Joe gave a groan of resignation.

“All right, then, you’ll go home, Stanley. Don’t make a song about it.” Joe didn’t want a scene at the works, good God, not when everything had gone off so well. Still holding Stanley’s arm Joe walked Stanley very nicely down the shop. Joe’s smile indicated that everything was perfectly in order. Mr. Stanley was not quite fit yet, just out of hospital you see, oh yes, just that!

The car drove off to Hilltop with Stanley sitting upright on the back seat, and Joe, with a last friendly, reassuring smile, returned to his own office. He shut himself in his office and lit a cigar. He smoked the cigar thoughtfully. It was a good cigar, but Joe did not think about the cigar. He thought about Stanley.

There was no doubt about it, Stanley was washed out. The minute he had clapped eyes on Stanley at the station he had seen it; this shell-shock was a bigger thing than he had ever imagined. Stanley was going to be months and months before he got back to normal. If he ever did get back. In the meantime Joe would have to take Millington’s in hand more than ever. And that was hardly fair on Joe unless Joe got a little more out of Millington’s than he had been getting. Hardly fair. Joe carefully inspected the glowing end of his cigar, calculating shrewdly. About two thousand a year he was pulling down at the moment, all in, as Jim Mawson would have put it. But that was nothing, nothing at all. There was the future to think about. And God, what a chance this was to consolidate his future, to get in, big, oh, bigger
than ever. Joe sighed ever so gently. There would have to be some sort of readjustment… that was the word… in Millington’s. Yes, that was it, that was the exact idea.