Cotter's England (32 page)

Eliza became silent, as she spread thick butter and jam on her toast.

Camilla said, "What was this Jago circle?"

Eliza seemed to regret mentioning it.

She began to excuse it, "It was a hungry time then, all ways. It was from the slum to the factory, get married early and back into the slum with your first baby, the only recreation to wheel the baby on the moor on Sunday; and unemployment in the factories, the docks and the mines."

She made an impatient gesture, "George said he wouldn't be caught there; so he got out and I followed him. I came to London where I was like a wild heathen; I knew nothing. But I knew him and I went round the bookshops asking for him. I was lucky. I found him working, out the back packing books, in the third bookshop in Charing Cross Road, I asked in. He came out in a khaki workcoat, we walked out that evening, I got a job and we got married. Neither of us could take a Bridgehead future."

"What was that Jago circle?" persisted Camilla.

Eliza seemed a little angry or embarrassed, "I heard it from Nellie and it was a shame, a man of forty, taking young people, almost children, to corrupt them and say it was culture. Jago is a big name up there; there are a lot of Jagos, and he had family prestige. He had a big room with pictures and rugs and food and drink and cigarettes; and they used to go so eagerly. For Nellie it was the opening up of the world. They hadn't known which way to turn. First they joined the Fascist Party, though George didn't; only the arty youngsters went fascist, because there was what sounded like democratic talk in it, but they were Bedlamites to us. Then Jago told them that was wrong. I don't know what he was, a fringe anarchist, an intellectual anarchist —try anything, it's all human. It's only the State that puts an iron collar of morality to make you work, marry young and have children early and never look over the brick wall of the slum back yard. Find out about life yourself, life's all around you, everything is life, everything is reality. He filled them with rubbish. Don't take old saws for axioms; and don't take axioms for axioms. Prove everything yourself. You're different, you have a different truth. Introspect and find out who you are. Judge nothing till you've tried; and don't judge others. Don't mistake timidity for morality. Everything was invented by man. The tyrant invented the state, the priest invented religion. All tables of law are human and invented by frail fallible humans. One man's vice is another man's virtue. Nell's told me all. They were very much excited about it; but most of them settled down. Not Nellie. And he convinced Nellie she had greatness in her, she needed to obey no little rules. Well, the young people all faced a hard future and wanted something better. They were sick of the dull narrow horizons and the meanness of family life, the pools, work talk, gossip and one good time a year, Race Week on Newcastle Town Moor with the sideshows the only news of outside life: mermaids, dog-headed boys."

"I'd like to go up there. You don't know England in London," said Camilla.

"Aye, but not Bridgehead. You should see Newcastle. It's worth seeing. You see the iron of its ribs and backbone when you first look. The reefs of little houses, the iron-ribbed river. It's a great place, a big city, the capital of an old kingdom. They stand against the Scots, they stand against the southerners and the midlanders: they don't even like their neighbors, the Yorkshire-men; and yet they don't think much of themselves. But Bridgehead or Newcastle, it's the same: they feel nothing great ever came out of there. A canna understand it meself."

Eliza dropped back for a moment into the local talk, as they all dropped back when they began to think deeply of their home place.

"If you can forget for a moment the black coal fog and the black coaly river, Newcastle, too, has beauty. But it despises culture. They never mention it. It's pure grind-and-drudge working class and a very mean middle class with butlers, a small town sort; you don't get anything from them. If we had famous men, you never hear of them. Why I heard from George, in London, that one of us, Thomas Belt, made a famous voyage in Nicaragua; and that's us, we go everywhere. But as for mentioning it in school, they don't care for it; only the bread and butter. You stand under the High Level Bridge in Newcastle and you think, That's beautiful; with all the trained men, the technicians we have, you ought to get great artists out of Bridgehead, all the engineers and the masters of ships and sailors who've seen the world. But no. So there were only three things: get away to London or get away across the North Sea—because news of big doings at that time came to us across the North Sea and it seemed nothing to go to Russia and see; and there's the Baltic and Hanse ports and boats going across the world; and then the other thing was right on the spot, Jago's circle. I suppose it was like a magic carpet, step off the hard street stones into culture. He knew a bit; all twisted, I'd say, from my earthy point of view. Nellie took Tom and Peggy there, as she took them to hear the miners in the cottages talking socialism. Aye, she was a pioneer; she did all she could and she was only a schoolgirl. Then Nellie fell in love with a boy who died; a Jewish boy who was a socialist and played the violin; and she said lovely things about him. "The Jews can play the violin because it expresses suffering and they suffer." Perhaps it's right. And she fell in love with a lot of other things, some bad; though she thought them all good and she wanted to do good. George and I and a lot of others had no talent that way."

"But now George cares for culture."

Eliza excused him, "Well, you see, what put him off, for he heard of it, was the gossip and scandal about the Jago circle. A boy died, not their fault; a girl died, maybe not their fault either; and to Nellie it was great doings; she was wanting life to be like Dostoyevsky and Gorki; and that made it so. I couldn't keep my eyes open at night to study. When the sun goes down, I'm ready for bed. George sat up studying, though his eyes were closing. I used to give him the rough side of my tongue, there fingering his arty books. He got an office job. I don't like to see a fine man, a good organizer that can get the men behind him, going in for papershifting. The first thing I knew after we were married and he got out of jail after a fight with a fascist, was he had a rubber stamp with his initials G.C.—him, who used to have the men hanging on every word when he stood on a crate down at the docks. I know three men became and remained socialists because of George Cook. A'm ashamed of ye, A canna understand it, I said to him, We had terrible rows. And I wasn't right, I was wrong. He was pushing ahead the best he could. He was getting to be a leader of men, waiting to be selected for Parliament. And I couldn't take what you have to do to be that. One of our worst rows, almost the last, was over a boy that dropped down at a meeting. George was organizer and chairman and speaker and the big man down there: and he was very proud he had an M.P. coming. They had a hall and six boys with big flags, the British flag and the red flag, standing round the platform. They were tall flags with heavy poles; George in the middle on the platform at the little pine table. And just as George starts to speak, the front boy on the right, holding the flag, drops down, faints, straight from work and no dinner I expect, a pale fair tall boy. The other boys, knowing George, stand still, and only one bends his head that way; but a couple of men rush forward, George has to interrupt his opening remarks; and as they drag the boy away and he opens his eyes, George rushes to him and shouts at him his duty to the working class. A cudna get over it. A gave him a taste of me tongue. It still makes me see red."

She laughed good-humoredly.

"I was glad to lose him and him me. He's lucky he got Nellie: and being the man he is now, I'm not sure he deserves her."

"We all deserve one another," said Camilla.

"Ah, well, who knows? I don't believe that, that a man deserves his fate. Otherwise, why would we work and worry to change the world?"

She got up, cleared away and started on the ironing. "Today, I'm off. Nellie isn't good at ironing and Mrs. McMahon has enough to do."

Later in the afternoon, Nellie came home from a big political meeting at which she had taken notes. She had a rough, shrewd idea of practical politics, an affection for the leaders and speakers who gave her interviews, a contempt for theory. She sat down at once to sketch out her article. She was chalky-cheeked with shadows in the great northern eye sockets, skin drooping round the great northern beak. But she had a cup of tea, invited Camilla, put up her notes, called merrily, "Well, now, what cheer? Is there a letter from me bonnie lad?"

There had been a note for Gwen McMahon. George thanked her for looking after his things and begged her to write. He was lonely.

Nellie sang out through her cigarette, "Ah, bless the lad; he's a good lad. She'd do anything for us, the pet; and she idolizes George. You know my work, Lize, always away at Scarborough and Blackpool and Aldeburgh and Edinburgh and Bognor and wherever they hold their conferences and all the time George sitting at home here an object of public debate—you know, pet, he was victimized and made the headlines—all that time Gwen McMahon treated him like her own child. There's a real working woman for you, Camilla. Her home life is depressing; a good man but dull; an old man, she gets no joy in love—aye, he's steady, he gives her his pay. Now, where's me own letter? No letter for me? McMahon votes liberal, the poor old sod—but George has changed her vote to Labour—"

She got up and looked about for her own letters. She took her jacket, and skirt off, dragged on her overalls, looking for her letter, found it by the clock. She kissed it, tore it open.

She scanned it, flung it down in a fury, picked it up and thrust it at Camilla and Eliza, "Read it, read it, will ye! I'd give a bushel of his endearments for a pinch of consideration. Goddamn his corny come hither and his long views."

Picking it up again, she read, "Dear, dearest darling, dearest of darlings! I'm glad I got away! I never thought you'd let me go! I took a week off here just to sleep after the last few nights in Lamb Street with you chewing my ear off about the home of the brave. I'm thinking of you every minute, my dear dearest, asleep or awake; but I'm glad I'm not there when you get this billet-doux to hear your old-fashioned remarks. I'm thinking of you, Nellie, when I ought to be getting down to it. It's for you I take the long view, sweetheart. If it doesn't work out here, you never know, I'm
still
not staying home. I'll find a place somewhere or I'll go to the colonies. I talked it over with Bob. This is an experiment. If this isn't it, Bob will go with us somewhere, Canada or Australia. My God, my God, darling—I've spent fifty years of my life like a toad in the hole, eyes up through the mud. What's that gray foggy swamp up yonder? That's the sky, toad love. Do you know that here the shadows are blue; the people are alive and the sun puts its hand on your bones. Send me a note, darling. I'll cable you. Make arrangements for your family; for you'll hear from me I hope. Wives are wanted; but I must dig in first and it may take months. Don't stay up all night every night chewing the rag; and get rid of that—Johnny. You know I can't stand her. Get some sleep. Don't weep over every cynical tramp. It's my home, too. Your sweetheart ever, George."

Eliza exploded. "By gum! What a trio you'll make emigrating! They'll think they're going to shoot a Victor Hugo film."

Nellie stretched her arms over the table and put her head down. But she was not crying, evidently; her head was sideways and smoke came from it; and presently, words, too.

"Bless old Bob. If I can't bring him back, she will. But I've got to have time to digest me blessings."

"Bob's this old woman," said Camilla.

Eliza said, "Bob's an old woman with thick spectacles, a humpback, she's thick, she limps, she has white hair and black eyes surrounded by circles like coal. He's no fool. She'll leave him her half-acre. It's a damn shame, Nellie." She had flushed and ended up very hotly.

Nellie sat up, "Do you think he'd stay here if he had a half-acre? He might. Perhaps she's canny. Ah, pet, it's not as bad as it looks. They're just pals. Wait till you see Bob, Camilla. She's a pet, just a sweet old waif and no humpback intellectually or physically, Lize. She's leading me husband astray from the highest motives. She wants to end her days in the sunshine; and George wants to eat and drink, the bloody gigolo—he's a gigolo now to the powers in Geneva. He could sign himself with truth, Your half-husband George, Remote from the working class."

Eliza burst out laughing, "Eh, Nellie, love—"

"What gets into the men? They lick their lips for the fleshpots. I just had to tick off that damn, pussy-footing, pale pink journalist, Robin Bramble!"

"Eh, Robin Bramble, he's all right; he's a friend of the people-"

"Robin Bramble! Do you know him! He's a first-rate labor journalist," said Camilla.

"He was edging up to me at the meeting making signs and asking me if I was going up north, so he could come along and hide in me skirts; he's afraid of the rabble. And asking me what happened at the housing meeting at Highbury the other day. He had to leave early. What's it to you? I said. Are your silk-stocking parlor pinks behind their Hampstead cottonwool barricades, are they interested in the lives of the humble? Is it a new circulation stunt, using me for a stooge? I know you, mopping and mowing at the left-wingers, afraid the Reds might win before you've got yourself established as the people's champion. Time server, with a foot in as many camps as a bloody centipede. I told him he'd got a lot of closet theory, nicely served up in an ivied quadrangle, when he was young. It's the life the workers lead, not chewed-up paper, not theory, I told him. What's it to them, the history of the British working class, and Jack Cade and the levelers and chartists. Do you think they'd join any of those lots? You've got to go down in the street, I said, and climb the rotting staircase, cluttered with plaster from the ceiling like here, and slipping in the unnameable from the burst waste pipes. Give me a cup of tea, Eliza, pet! That damn dominie Robert Peebles, me editor, says I have to go to classes for three months, to classes on theory! Me! I don't believe in Marxian theory, I said. Can it explain the unknowable? Can it help a working-class mother who has just lost her baby? Can it stop the concentration camps? Can it keep a man in his country? It's too much schooling ye have and too little experience; and that's why I'm the best journalist you've got or can hope to have. I'm from the people."