Agnes Owens (21 page)

A
fter fifteen years I could scarcely credit my eyes when I saw McIntyre again. I had come to the meeting because I was lonely. It would pass a little time and I would at least be warm. The issue would be boring, but members were always welcome. McIntyre looked older than the fifteen years warranted. I hoped the same did not apply to me. I thought I did not look my age though in the mirror the sight of criss-cross lines round my eyes made me wonder. His hair was now sparse and his once ruddy complexion had a jaded look, but his gaze was as direct as ever.

‘How are you keeping?' he asked.

Tonelessly I replied, ‘Fine – and you?' but inwardly I felt an upsurge of pleasure at this chance encounter, wishing at the same time I had applied my make-up more carefully. After an awkward pause we drifted into the hall along with the others. It was the usual number of desultory figures waiting for the curtain to rise on the evening's business. He sat down at the table beside another shabby, younger man, and the six from our branch, including myself, sat opposite. The branch secretary spoke at some length on the matter of pay rises. I dreaded the moment for questions because I never had the courage to ask any, but I wanted to prove to McIntyre that I was still the same political enthusiast of old, though why, I don't know. We had gone our separate ways long since. Before any questions could be asked he had taken over.

‘Five years ago,' he informed us in his slightly nasal voice, ‘we were as poorly paid as yourselves, but we fought the management tooth and nail. We resisted their threats. We stuck together, and while I'm not boasting I am pleased to say we are one of the
highest paid factories in the district. Don't give up. Don't be swayed and don't be intimidated. You will win in the long run. Yours is the power. Yours is the glory.' He continued in this vein. I had heard it all before, but it still sounded authentic. Often it held good. Often, but not always. Fifteen years before he had been saying much the same.

‘Let there be no increase in the rents. It is up to us, the people. We shall fight. We shall resist. We shall harass.' And so we had.

My sister and I along with seven hundred or so council tenants had marched with McIntyre at our head to the Town Hall. We chanted ‘No increase in rents' until we were hoarse. It must have been difficult for the councillors inside to carry on with their business, which, McIntyre informed us, was the implementation of the new Rent Act. To us at that time it seemed the thin end of the wedge, calling for drastic measures.

The faces of the councillors peered anxiously out of the Town Hall windows while we all booed loudly. McIntyre turned to us, holding up his hands for silence. We quietened down, but not before Walter Johnson, normally an inoffensive simpleton, in the heat of the moment flung a full can of beer at Colonel Martin's car. This caused a large dent and some of the crowd were splashed. The Colonel was one of the few able councillors, but had no time for the tenant, so irrespective of the Rent Act we couldn't stand him. Still, we thought it was going a bit far flinging cans of beer around.

McIntyre looked angry. ‘I suggest the person who threw that can return home or I will call an end to this demonstration. There must be no violence.'

He took it for granted that outside his commands we had no will of our own – which we hadn't, so we moved away from Walter, leaving him in a lonely circle. He shuffled about with a downcast face then finally slouched away from our midst.

A messenger emerged from the building in the shape of Daniel Smith, the town's well-known benefactor, who was always getting
mentioned in the papers for his donations to natives in Moly Pololy or Chitinbanana. This charity cut no ice with us. We believed it should begin at home. McIntyre and Smith withdrew from our earshot. You could have heard a pin drop as we tried to listen, but apart from the nodding and shaking of their heads nothing could be gleaned. Then Smith retreated hurriedly and McIntyre conveyed the message. ‘I think we've got them worried. I am informed they are going to discuss all the implications of the Rent Act and will tell me first thing in the morning what the result is. I am confident they are impressed by the wishes of you, the people. So my friends, I would ask you to return home and await the verdict, which I think will be favourable.'

We all cheered and broke up in good spirits.

In the morning the headlines of the local paper read, ‘
RENT ACT GOES THROUGH, DESPITE DEMONSTRATION BY TENANTS
'. My sister, one of our revolutionary committee, was very angry.

‘Who does that McIntyre think he is, trying to fool us last night that there would be no increases?' Though McIntyre was the leader of our movement she had never liked him. I was disappointed too, but more on his behalf, rather than because we would have to pay a few shillings extra on the rent.

‘Well, he tried,' I said. ‘It's no reflection on him. He did his best.'

‘Thanks to him my husband is not speaking to me. He is fed up with my gallivanting to all those tenant meetings.'

‘That's not McIntyre's fault.'

‘You are infatuated with the man, and always have been.'

I didn't answer. Infatuated was not the correct word, though I had never met anyone like him before. He spoke of little else but how to change the world for the benefit of the people – when his eyes would light up with a passion which would probably never be inspired by me or any other woman.

The first time I had had any contact with him was at a meeting my sister and I attended more out of boredom than anything else. He spoke against the council and the careless manner in
which they spent the ratepayers' money. I admired his style and thought he had guts. Previously I had assumed the councillors were a bunch of well-meaning citizens, but he opened my eyes. On the way out I was close behind him wondering if I dare make any kind of an approach. Suddenly I was pushed against him with the surge of the crowd. He placed his hand on my shoulder to steady me and smiled. I wanted to say something intelligent, but before I could, he looked beyond me to someone he recognised. It seemed he was always looking beyond me.

‘You won't get me to come to any more of his stupid meetings,' my sister stated. She was wrong. Curiosity always got the better of her. Our next meeting was very much reduced in numbers, but the hardy few of us left apparently had another part to play. It was then I got the impression that McIntyre had forgotten that the Rent Act had gone through, because he ignored this point and carried on to tell us of the next stage of his campaign.

‘As you know,' he said, ‘Saturday is the opening of the new Town Hall. We must be there to demonstrate how we feel about this colossal waste of money and get as many people as we can to turn up. I'll do some organising and you can do the same – get banners and slogans ready. We will meet outside the cinema. Maybe', he added dreamily, ‘I could get a band going – I've got contacts.'

My sister was doubtful. ‘We haven't much time. It's a lot of work. There's hardly any of us left –'

McIntyre smiled at her sweetly, ‘Of course you can do it.'

‘We'll try,' I said.

‘That's right my dear,' he said, patting my hand. ‘I know you both will try.'

On Saturday at the proposed time my sister and I along with her kids set off, giggling nervously, and carrying our banners self-consciously. But when we reached the busiest part of the town without meeting any other demonstrators, our faces became frozen
with doubt, and we let the kids carry the banners. Eventually they were trailed along the ground until the brave slogan of ‘No Rent Increases' became unrecognisable with dirt. Outside the new Town Hall, as perfect as a doll's house, we spied another committee member, Curly MacFadyen, the worse for drink, but no sign of McIntyre or any kind of band. We peered through the glass door and saw that the official opening had begun. My sister looked at me bitterly. Always a woman of quick decisions, though, she opened the door. We barged in, right in the middle of a speech by an elegant lady in a floppy hat. She broke off immediately she saw us. The kids rushed in ahead of us perhaps thinking they were going to the Saturday film matinee, and Curly, bringing up the rear, fell on his back on the slippery polished floor. This should have been funny but no one laughed. The local bigwigs and officials were transfixed in horror behind draped tables. Then an official came to life and moved in front of the floppy-hat lady perhaps anticipating violence but we merely chanted in quavering voices, ‘Justice for the tenants – down with the rent increase.' For good measure the kids aimed their banners at the table and upset an arrangement of flowers. With crimson faces we caught hold of them and marched them out by the scruff of the neck. Then we had to go back and get Curly who was punching soundlessly at the glass door. And still there was no sign of McIntyre.

‘Don't ever mention that man's name to me again,' said my sister through clenched teeth.

She never forgave him. He explained to me later he had come to the Town Hall, but we were gone. Apparently we had been too early. Whether it was true or not I still admired and loved him, but it was like banging my head against a brick wall. It was only the cause he loved – any kind of cause, or excuse for one. No matter how often I accompanied him to drab halls where dedicated men and women gathered together to fight against injustice, or supposed injustice, I could sense he just tolerated me. Eventually I gave up and drifted out of town. I had affairs
with other men but they always came to nothing. I think McIntyre had ruined me. He gave me an inferiority complex from which I never recovered.

The meeting finished inconclusively, as usual, with an optimistic call from McIntyre to keep going. He was hurrying out of the hall with the shabby young man, the latest disciple no doubt, when I caught up with him like a body that runs on when the head has been chopped off. I touched his arm. He turned – expressionless.

‘Still carrying on with the good fight?' I questioned foolishly.

He looked at me as if I was a troublesome heckler then, after a moment's pause, asked, ‘Would you like a drink?'

I had not the will-power to refuse. ‘All right.'

He turned to the shabby young man. ‘I'll see you later John,' he said with such contrasting warmth I could have wept. The young man shrugged and nodded towards me with a flickering glance of calculated understanding. Inside the lounge I clutched my glass of gin while McIntyre sipped his beer. He stared at me encouragingly. ‘You were saying?'

‘Saying?' I strove to remember. ‘Oh yes – I asked you if you were still carrying on with the battle.'

‘What else is there?'

That was true. He had that at least. I had nothing. Spitefully I said, ‘Some people are betrayed in the battle.'

He raised his eyebrows. ‘I never betrayed you. You betrayed yourself.'

‘It may have seemed like that to you, but you didn't really care what I did.' My face flushed. I knew I was talking out of turn. I laughed to prove it didn't matter. ‘It's all in the past anyway. I was definitely one cause you lost.'

‘Sometimes I lose, sometimes I win, but I must keep trying,' he said loftily, as if he was God.

‘And old man river he just keeps rolling along,' I replied.

He looked at me with dislike. I knew I had to get away.

‘I really must be going. I've made arrangements –'

‘I understand,' he said. He finished his beer. I swallowed my gin, and we walked out together. It was ironic but before he left me he said, ‘Don't blame yourself too much.'

I wanted to shout after him, ‘Your feet still smell.' I had noticed that. McIntyre might be a great man but he never understood that from many people's point of view smelly feet are worse than capitalism. Only to me had it been a comforting fault.

I returned to my shabby flat which was not very presentable, but then there was no one to see it but myself. After fetching a bottle of cheap wine from the cupboard, I settled down as comfortably as I could in front of the one-bar electric fire, holding my glass high as though drinking a toast.

‘W
e don't shoot prisoners on a Sunday.'

I looked at César, suspecting a joke, but his face was straight.

‘Only horses then?' My remark was flippant, under the circumstances, but I was tired of his arguments, his excuses, and most of all, his smell.

‘Not even horses.' He added ‘Señor' within a bubble of laughter. I stared at the floor of the cell and wished he would vanish, like the cockroach I saw slide into a crack in the stone, but I was obliged to respect his last wish to talk to me. In a flash he became serious.

‘Here, we recognise Sunday as God's day.'

‘And how many have you killed, even if not on Sundays, including the priests?'

‘How many have you?' He clasped me by the shoulder. I flinched. It was just like him to try to establish old bonds. ‘Besides,' he added, ‘it was them or us.'

‘And the priests, was it them or us?'

‘Before the treaty it was them, now after the treaty it is us.' He added, ‘Or at least me.'

He angered me, even now, with his one-track mind.

‘Besides,' he said, ‘priests are only men, and they must learn to die quickly too, otherwise they lose sight of God.'

‘A Sunday is as good a day as any to learn to die quickly.' My voice shook with strain and exhaustion. I hoped he wouldn't mistake it for weakness. ‘I don't give a damn about the day or
the time, so long as the sentence is carried out in the name of retribution and justice for the village. Understand?'

‘Yes – Señor.'

‘Don't start calling me Señor at this late date.'

‘Yes, Josetti.'

‘My gringo name is Joseph.' There was a stench of sweat between us which could not be solely attributed to César.