Cotter's England (15 page)

He had had ambitions too, running on the muddy winter fields against the sooty sky, with the team in blue and yellow against some team in gold and black or scarlet and sky: noticeable, with his red cheeks and glittering fair hair. He had hopes that though he was a little man and a Pike, he'd play national football because he was tough and relentless: he never gave up. Women had begun to have the strangest effect on him, not as with other boys as far as he could see. Women began to love him. It was a surprise and a release from the back-kitchen world and the aunts. They never thought well of men in the Pike family; and men, in Bridgehead, were just regarded as work horses. He did not know, in his heart, quite why it was that women's eyes followed him. "I do nothing," he said to himself; "and I give them very little." He often wondered about it with a faint sinking of the heart. Suppose this mysterious charm were to desert him? Of course, it would some day and probably very soon. He must get himself fixed with a woman he could live with for the rest of his life. It had startled him to hear that Uncle Simon had once had a French friend. On the empty day which would bring him nearer to Uncle Simon, make him like him, he was afraid he would not be able to see his way any more.

They had had too many privations as children and adolescents. He was skinny, feebler than he showed now; and he had never done anything he had meant to do. For one thing, as a boy, he had admired Carlyle, they all had; and he had thought of writing something in that vein. But now at night, when he came from the works, he could often hardly keep his head up. And the food the landladies provided for the men! He laughed at the idea his sisters had of him. They were Bridgehead women in that. Nellie imagining him always in the lap of some woman; a roué, a cheat. What else would a man do? Not think and meditate of course! He chuckled out loud. And Peggy seeing him as a sort of unemployable. At his last job he had had three hundred men under him. He gave it up to nurse Marion, to be with her every minute of the last days of her life. How could he explain that to the women at home? Besides, they didn't care. Their only idea was to see his pay envelope on Friday.

Well, poor Peggy. She had gone earnestly with them to the miners' cottages when they were young, to learn socialism there from one or two; she had stood in the freezing cold and sold newspapers with them. And when she grew a bit, she had laughed with men and fallen in love with a man who couldn't or wouldn't divorce his wife; and she had lost touch through sorrow and they had shut her up. She thought she was imprisoned for something she had done. At one time, she fancied it was a political crime and the police had got her. Pop Cotter had really sent one of his pals in the police to bring them home. At another time, it was a contagious disease she had she thought —that came from talk among the aunts of the consequences of Pop Cotter's endless gallantries. And then, that when she opened her mouth filthy creatures dropped out of it; and that was Nellie, the way she made us confess, even things we hadn't done at all, but that sounded good and rich to her. "Confession, pets, is good for the soul: it purges; introspection is what distinguishes us from the animals." Sometimes Peggy thought she had threatened someone's life. Perhaps she had. "Poor Peggy! But I have to have all my humanity back of me to make me say it."

And he thought of Nellie, guilty, guilty as she said; and really guilty towards Peggy and himself as he knew her to be, seducing children to love; out of her great vanity wanting to be the only one to show them love; so that no one again could take them from her; but not calling it perversion, calling it knowledge, the true way. "I can lead, I know," she said. He knew she meant no real harm. She did not understand; and his love forgave her: "the softest tough girlie I ever met," as he said to her; and a most unscrupulous woman, as Pop Cotter was a most unscrupulous man; anything to be the center of everything and hog the limelight. Nellie, though, being a woman, and being so loving, was forgivable.

On his way home, he thought of Uncle Simon and bought some light ale at a beer shop. He preferred the dark himself and got one of those too, though he knew he would hear the uncle's lecture about caramelized beer. "A warked in a brewery when A was a lad and A had me fill of it. A lot of the men lost their jobs through drunkenness and so A took me lesson." But Simon would take a glass for his cough and he might even give Peggy a glass: she loved it and it was forbidden to her.

Tom did not pick out his gate at first, because at the gate there was a bareheaded woman of the dumpy pale Bridgehead type, black hair pulled back and strong eyebrows, talking to a workman about fifty, with cap and jacket on, no overcoat, leaning on the gate. But he saw it was Peggy. She said hurriedly, "It's the painter; I thought we'd have the kitchen painted cream, it's that grimy. He could start while you're here. Uncle Sime won't let him in."

"And get me to pay for it," thought Tom immediately, nodding curtly to the painter, a thin somewhat bent, cheeky looking man. He said, "You'll get cold, Peggy," and went in. Tom the dog was inside the door and began to bark and leap at Tom when he went in. "Shut up, you dope," he shouted angrily so that Peggy turned round and quieted him. He thought, "They all think I'm another Uncle Sime: well, I'm not." Peggy was embarrassed. Why? Was she offering the man too much, so that he'd come soon to the house and chat with her? He turned and called, "Peggy!"

"All right, all right, for God's sake," but she came in, glad to be vexed. He smiled and offered her a glass of beer, at which she became gay, "Eh, it's a gala day: you'd think it was Race Week."

Simon looked up with his spectacles on his nose. "Mind the linoleum! I'll fix it right away. The dog was tearin' at it. There's another terrible air accident here. Flying's against nature: man is not a bord. Bords know how. Ye'll see, they'll give it oop. Will ye have some tea?" Tom offered his beer, but the old man said, "Thank ye, no, no, better not: I used to like it though,"

The dog ran into the kitchen and harassed Simon and presently the mother came in, peering and said, "Oh, I thought Mother was here: I'm always doing that."

"No wonder you can't see, Mother, in the fog and filthy air."

"A large proportion of the soot is the result of incomplete combustion due to inefficient stoking," said Uncle Simon.

"And antiquated methods," said Tom.

"What are they using this opencast for," said Uncle Simon referring to the articles featuring local opencast mining. "It's for the papers. There's no use in it. They send it down south where people don't know and find they've got a bit of earth coated with a bit of coal dust when they bargained for coal. Ye couldn't sell that in Bridgehead."

"We just pipe it out of the air," said Tom. Uncle Simon began to cough such a wrenching cough that he had to get up and stand bowed over the sink.

"It's killin' me," he said to Tom between gasps; "it's the raw climate."

"The window's very dirty, Simon," said the old woman; "you old miser, why don't you let the window cleaner in?"

"Because your daughter has no sense," gasped the old man; "the silly girl was makin' a date with the windowman, that's all. A can tell ye now because ye'll forget it. A can't tell it to the silly women, or they'll fly screechin' down me neck. Peggy can do no wrong because the poor lass was unfortunate. But that's no way to treat her. It would send a steady man out of his wits to be treated like a pet dog. It's treated like a grown woman she should be and told of her responsibilities." He came back and began to toast some bread for his sister. "She hasn't eaten anythin' today. A found out she threw her chicken in the fire when me back was turned. It's no good wastin' your money on them." The dog flew at him and he waved the toasting fork feebly.

The mother said, "I can't make out where they are: it's not like them to go out without their tea and without saying goodbye."

"Sit down, Mother," said Tom, closing the door to the hall.

"But we mustn't close them out, the way they have got, they'll feel they're not welcome."

"It's those that died in the attic, Lily and Mother," said Uncle Simon.

They had not sat there long before she got up and began to search in the drawers. She found paper and string and going to the silver drawer, took things out and wrapped them. Simon told her to quit wrapping things. "You're not goin' anywhere; and if ye were, ye couldn't take the whole house with ye in little parcels."

"Don't be meddling where you're not wanted," she said brightly; and winked at Tom. "He never was—" she tapped her forehead: "No one at home: house to let, apply within, no one went out and no one went in." She laughed greatly at this witticism. The dog felt the discouragement of Simon and began barking at him.

Mary Cotter sat down and said it was a black day for that house the day Nellie brought that dog home. Simon told the story of Nellie's finding him running barking about the railway station. She took him to the police station, put in adverts; interviewed people. "The farther they went, the warse it got and George Cook lost all patience; he is not a patient man."

"No," said Tom.

"And the end of it was, no one would have the dog; they had to keep him."

"That's not the way Nellie tells it," said Tom laughing: "according to her, it was a frail little starved waif and a puir stray. Probably the cruel mother of some probable waif, some puir lad of ten, had refused to pay the dog license; and she brought it home thinking that the puir lad of ten was crying his eyes out because of his hard-hearted mother and soft-hearted dog. On the other hand, probably it was because it was year's end and not money enough in the house, perhaps a drinking father or a strike or an industrial accident, or a widow altogether, so that with licenses at hand, they had both, with sighs and tears, to loose him on the street."

"Aye," said Simon, offended, "she may say it one way and A say it the way it happened. Perhaps she doesn't remember with trailing that dog from South Shields to Chester-le-Street to find its owner. Its owner was an invalid who didn't want it and said Nellie could have it. It began by being very spoiled."

Mrs. Cotter said it was not that dog. They argued the point for a while, when she remembered suddenly, and pointing to the dog, said to her brother, "Take him to the door and lose him, no matter what she says. You can't suffer any more than you do now."

"A'm not so sure of that," said the old man. "A don't know where the end of me sufferin's will be. Ye spoil that girl, Mary; ye're her mother but ye give in to her too much. You must know how to handle weak heads."

"Don't you say that word in this house, Simon."

"Aye, aye, A mustn't say a true word in this house: the house wud fall down. But ye can see me beaten and starved, woman, and A'm here for ye alone. Where's your feelin' of flesh and blood?"

"Now it's coming out of the old man," she said pertly, "the vanity and the arrogance. It's funny to see a little man like that so cocky."

"What's the matter with a little man if he's strong?" said Simon. "If A'm not a royal, A've got the right to live, if A'm a good worker, or was—or was."

"I gave up reading the comic papers, when I saw half the jokes were about little men," said Tom. "You can tell a Bridgehead man anywhere in England, he's so wasted and small; he may be strong but he's pitifully wasted and undersize. Now in England the classes are divided by inches. When they're laughing at us little men, they're laughing at the starveling. The seamy side of wit is cruelty."

"Ah, well, A wudna complain if A was somewhere else," said Uncle Simon tranquilly, "we all get on when the gel's not here. We get along champion."

"Would you chase my own daughter out of the house?" said Mrs. Cotter. "Shame on you, Simon."

"Shame on me, shame on me, I hear no other thanks for all A've done. It's funny, that's what it is, it's funny."

Tom said he was going to get cigarettes and took a walk. As soon as he left the house, the strong sea air, though heavy with smoke, cleared his brain. He forgot them and began to bowl along as before. "I like to breathe, I like bread, I can get along anywhere," he said to himself, "I just like to live. I'm easy living."

When he came back, the aunts were there and began to badger him about getting a job. As he could not explain to them that he had given up a good job to nurse Marion, he began gradually to forget why he had not a job and discussed jobs with them. "I'll get a job any day I like. I can pick and choose. War or peace, I've got work. I tried already. But I'm not staying in Bridgehead. I'll get to another town; and no more country. I'd end up chewing a grass stalk with one foot behind the other."

"Aye, but your duty is here, lad."

He saw one of the aunts home and when he came in, Peggy was worrying about Uncle Simon's cough keeping them awake and giving him a sleeping pill. Tom hung about the house and while he was getting something out of his overcoat on the hall stand, he thought he saw a head dodge around the stairhead, but took no notice. He felt a real insomnia on him and went into the front room to see if there was one of Aunt Lily's old books he had not read and he started glancing through
Old Mortality.
The others were going to bed, soft footfalls up and down, doors opening and shutting. When he opened the door of the front room and came out, he saw the house dark, except in the kitchen, where Uncle Simon was fidgeting, looking over his shoulders and going through a bunch of keys on a large keyring. Again he thought he saw a head dodge round the post at the landing; but he hadn't slept well for a long time: he wouldn't swear to anything.

He said he'd make some tea, get a sandwich and he'd sit up all night.

"Will ye sit up all night?" asked Simon earnestly, in a low tone.

"I might."

"Then ye can watch the gel. She's put paraffin in the backroom fire, so that it will burn for hours. A looked through the keyhole. There's a terrible white flame in the grate and the chimney'll be on fire, if we can't get in. See there!" The sooty brick wall of the next house was rosy at the top where flame from the chimney lit it. "She's taken the door key and hidden it somewhere." They went out into the freezing back yard to look, but Peggy had first closed the back-room curtains. Out of the chimney into the thick air came fire and sparks, the shadows of the chimneypot hopped on the shed roof. They tried the window but it had been fastened. "I'll get it from her," said Tom. But as he went upstairs, he heard the key turned: she had locked herself, her mother and the dog into the bedroom, which was directly over the back room. There she could hear the fire roaring in the chimney and chuckle at her naughtiness. "You'd better come up too," said Tom to Simon, at the bottom of the stairs. "If we make a fuss, then she'll feel she's had her fun and she'll give up the key."