Love on the Dole (24 page)

It became tedious to hear the old men repeating, time and time again: ‘Luk at yonder,’ indicative of the steam-navvy: ‘Begob, there used t’ be a gang o’ hundred men every fifty yards. But luk at that bloody thing. Eats the bloody work. Blimey, we’ll ne’er get work while them things’re bein’ used.’ Those who listened grunted and watched the scoop of the steam-navvy biting away tons of earth and tearing up ancient tree boles as though they were weeds.

Sometimes a band of unemployed mill girls would saunter by, exchange banter with the four young men and depart shrieking with laughter as Tom Hare made a suggestive gesture at them with his fingers after they had declined his invitation to join them on the grass.

He spat on to the grass when the girls had gone: ‘Yaaa,’ he said: They’re all the same. When y’ve got nowt they don’t want y’. That whore of a Maggie Elves, her as’d go wi’ anybody for a tanner, tole me as she wasn’t a blackleg when Ah asked her for a bit for nowt. Blimey, they must be in a bloody union, all on ‘em.’

‘Christ,’ muttered Sam Hardie, the long armed, stocky, muscular young fellow, ‘Christ,’ he said, gazing after the party of girls: ‘Ah wisht Ah’d yon fat ‘un i’ bed for hafe an hour.’

Tom Hare showed his decayed teeth in a grimace: ‘Wait ‘ntil Ah get a job,’ he muttered, narrowing his eyes: ‘Fust week’s pay Ah get Ah’ll be after fust old tail (prostitute) Ah see,’ fervently: ‘Gor, Ah wish they’d ha’ tuk me in th’army. Ned Narkey ses it’s the life. Nowt t’ worry about an’ a fresh tart when e’er y’ feel like it. It’s all right for them fellers as is married on dole. They can tek their wives t’ bed in th’ afternoon. Blimey, n’wonder some on ‘em don’t want work.’

Jack Lindsay grinned: Then why don’t y’ get wed?’

Tom grunted and told him not to be daft.

Jack grinned anew: They’re all doing it. Tarts go out t’ work nowadays while th’ owld man stops at home,’ he glanced at Tom, eyes twinkling: ‘Just suit thee, Tom. Bed, baccy and a woman all t’ y’self,’ to Harry: ‘What about you, Harry. Your kid and Larry Meath’s goin’ off. When’re you?’

Harry smiled: ‘When Nelson gets his eye back, Ah suppose,’ he answered, with forced facetiousness: he added, quietly: ‘We’d ha’ done it long ago if Ah’d found a job. An’ Larry Meath an’ our kid ain’t so sure. He told me things is gone worse at Marlowe’s. Aw, Ah’m sick o’ havin’ nowt i’ me pocket.’

‘You ain’t th’ ony one,’ said Sam Hardie, ‘An’ what about this here Means Test as Larry Meath was spoutin’ about. Ses they’re gonna knock us all off dole. Ah’ve filled my bloody form in, anyway. By Christ, if it’s true wot he ses we’ll be bloody well fed up then. Ah can see me father keepin’ me when Ah’m bringin’ nowt home. Ah don’t think. Bad enough as it is. Blast him.’

‘Yaah, it’s all rot wot Larry Meath ses,’ said Tom: They daren’t do it. There’d be a revolution.’

Bill Simmons glanced at them furtively, then said: Ted up wi’ havin’ nowt, eh? Huh! So was I … until. … ‘ He put his hand into his pocket and withdrew a large box of cigarettes. He grinned, winked secretively and offered the box to his companions: ‘Tek one,’ he said, ‘Plenty more where them come from.’ They accepted, regarding him interrogatively: ‘Where d’y’ get ‘em?’ Tom Hare asked.

‘Wouldn’t y’ like t’ know, eh?’ replied Bill, evasively.

A pause; they lit their cigarettes. An embarrassing silence fell. Bill shifted, uneasily, glanced at them and laughed, forcedly: ‘Oh,’ he said, with an attempt at bravado: ‘Ah’ll let y’ in on it’; with a trace of petulance and plaintiveness: ‘Sick

Ah am o’ pickin’ tab ends up,’ warmly: ‘Damn well sick o’ havin’ nowt i’ me pocket. Blast everybody. Ah don’t care …’

‘But where d’y’ get ‘em from,’ Tom Hare interrupted, greedily: ‘Blimey, tell us, will y’?’ already he was visualizing a week-end spree on the proceeds of a sale of the stolen goods.

‘You come wi’ me tomorrow night an’ Ah’ll show y7 pause: ‘Ah y’ game?’

‘Norrarf,’ Tom answered, warmly: to Jack Lindsay: ‘A’ you?’

Jack made a wry face: ‘Naa. Ah don’t want t’ g’ t’ jail.’

To Harry’s relief Sam Hardie also declined. He, Harry, had no palate for such an adventure and was glad to be able to ally himself to Jack and Sam in their refusals.

‘Aw,’ said Tom, with a grimace: ‘Y’ make me sick,’ then to Bill, eagerly: ‘Can’t we go now, Bill. … Carm on; ne’er heed them.’

‘Don’t be a bloody fool,’ Bill answered, testily, glaring at the others defiantly: ‘Y’ve got t’ wait till the place closes. T’morrow night, Ah said. Wait y’ sweat.’

The incident engendered an atmosphere of unease. They rose and made towards home, five down at heel young men trudging along in silence.

Harry was viewing the evening’s prospect. It would be the same old thing. A meagre tea, a swill under the tap then a mouch round the streets in Helen’s company. Revolting. Where was the magic of her presence? the joy of yesterday? She was changed; her company was depressing. Or was it his fault; was he the cause of her indifference? The idea that his lack of money might be partly responsible for her change of heart made him hate her and filled his heart with an overflowing self-pity. Next, he supposed, she’d be telling him that she had found somebody else. That was maddening. ‘Ah’ll jump in t’ cut if she does.’

Gloomily he recalled past happiness; compared it with his present experiences. The contrast was glaring. Suspicion whispered: ‘Y’d got money then, Harry.’ Days gone by when her eyes searched his with great anxiety; when her lips were constantly asking for his avowals of affection. Poignant! Nothing so exquisite nowadays.

They had nothing to discuss save their own misery. And experience had taught him that to discuss this was to play with fire, to invite a quarrel.

‘Ne’er heed, Helen. We’ll be all right when Ah get a job.’

Bitterly: ‘Aye… .
When.’

Blimey, what could a fellow say to that? Oh, for a fist full of money and a regular job. Oh, for a hole to crawl into so that he might relieve himself in bitter tears.

What the hell use was there in discussing homes, marriage? It was nauseating in its mockery. Reality, imperturbable, sickening, forbidding, rose to his mind’s eye and jeered at him, making him feel an incompetent fool.

They were drifting lower and lower. One could feel it

What a travesty of romantic love this their present courtship. If his present circumstances were to be a subject of a movie play this would be the opportunity for him to rescue, from some sort of danger, the only child of a wealthy man who rewarded his heroism with money and a good job. Oh, what was he thinking about?

He shuddered, inwardly, as his mind switched back to the contemplation of what would happen this evening, when, clad in his eternal shabbiness he would meet her, clad in
her
eternal shabbiness. There would be that question in her eyes: ‘Have you found a job yet?’

‘Aw. Have Ah bloody hell as like,’ he cried, aloud, in desperation.

Jack Lindsay, walking by his side, himself in a brown study, looked at him and said: ‘Eh?’

‘Nowt,’ Harry answered, without looking at him: ‘Ah was talkin’ t’ meself.’

That question: ‘Have you found a job yet?’ It raised its presence between them like a barrier.

He found himself half in agreement with Tom Hare: ‘When y’ve got nowt they don’t want y’.’ That seemed to sum up the situation. Money, the thing that stood between them. With it, they could marry; lacking it. … Oh, there were no demonstrations of affection, no embraces, no loving, now. Blimey, a fellow couldn’t help feeling that way. Was it likely that a fellow would permit all the miserable plaguings of sexual impulse if it could be helped? And discussion of the subject was taboo: ‘Oh, all you men think about is
that!’

Interminable walks round and round the streets in silence, both brooding. Sometimes he would warm to remembrances of when, under such circumstances as now, they would gravitate towards Dawney’s Hill to love. That had been quite recently, too. Strange that it should have ceased. He recalled the last occasion when they had sat there; recalled the incident which had, as it were, severed the present from the past, which had inaugurated the present tension. They had been sitting on the hill when one of those fearful sensations of desperate loneliness assailed him, when all his woes had risen up personified into a single, monstrous pessimism. He had turned to her as for protection; had put his arm about her.

The touch of his hand interrupted her brooding thoughts. She, meditating resentfully on her own impotence against the frustration of all her dreams, was caught on the crest of a wave of discontentment She had frowned as one irked, had made the shadow of a movement away from him: ‘Don’t,’ she said, pettishly, translating out of the gesture of affection something of suspicious significance.

He stiffened, affronted, transfixed. It had been so unexpected. Could it be that -? He hadn’t meant -. Rudely awakened he had been too shocked to speak. Mechanically he had withdrawn his arm and had stared over the lamplit townscape overwhelmed with mortification.

Until then there had been rare compensating moments when they had cast aside all their troubles and had lost themselves in love. How precious they seemed now that they were gone. But now -. It seemed as though they were entering a new and altogether antagonistic phase of life. Suspicion whispered to him; filled him with frantic fears with its dreadful insinuations. Suppose her change towards him was as a consequence of her having met some other fellow! He remembered millions of small instances of her coolness to him in confirmation of the doubt. Terrifying.

Oh, he didn’t want to see her; it was obnoxious, sickening, to imagine one of those sulky walks round the streets each holding their tongues, brooding, lest words should invite the ever imminent quarrel. And now that this suspicion was in his heart extreme caution would be necessary. He felt he would die if he had to hear his dismissal from her lips.

Blimey, if on’y Ah could get a job. His heart warmed to the thought of how different everything would be. His spirits writhed; he asked himself, in desperation, whether it was possible for things to be worse. For a while he toyed with the idea of what would happen, say, were he to be denied the dole altogether under this ‘Means Test’ which Larry Meath had been warning everybody about before the election. Larry had said that if something called the ‘National Government’ went back they would remove many people from the dole altogether. Well, this here National Government had gone back and the bloody swines had already cut the dole from seventeen bob to fifteen. Aw, what the hell does it all matter, anyway. His dull brain refused, listlessly, to care what happened next ‘Let ‘um tek me dole away altogether. What’s fifteen bob. Ah see none of it As soon as Ah draw it Ah’ve t’ tip it up.’

Money! For a brief instant he was appalled by its significance and potency. Its influence on his life was immense. Why, it was everything! He was
as
he was simply because he had no money. He could reason no further than an uneasy dissatisfaction of the mind which told him that something was wickedly wrong in such a state of affairs.

Mill and factory sirens roused him. Five-thirty. He looked about him; he was alone. His companions, after their usual wont, had drifted their several ways without a word; or they may have said: ‘S’long,’ and he had not heard them. He turned into Hanky Park, tried to make himself unnoticeable to the eyes of the passing girls by pulling the neb of his cap down and by walking close to the wall. Better hurry or he would meet Helen. And it was daylight; bad enough having to meet her in the dark; even
that
couldn’t altogether hide one’s shabbiness.

He saw her standing at the corner of North Street She was alone. Her gaze was fixed in his direction. He pushed his cap upward, blushed as his heart rose, apprehensively. What was

the matter now? She had never waited there before.

Ah, yes, he knew it. It was the worst Her coolness towards him had been proof. She had transferred her affections to some other fellow and now was waiting to tell him, Harry, that she did not wish to have anything more to do with him. It, obviously, must be this. What had he to offer her? They were both growing older and he had no signs of a livelihood. He marvelled that she should have tolerated him so long.

He felt dazed, limp, disembodied, horribly isolated; he could not think; wanted to run away to hide in a hole; wanted to be spared that awful humiliation of hearing the words fall from her lips. Never before had he known how deep was his love of her; never before had she appeared so shining and desirable; never before had he known the utter littleness of himself. And only a moment gone he had been wondering whether it was possible for his circumstances to be worsened; had been telling himself that nothing mattered, anyway!

He approached her and stood in front of her, eyes staring, fascinated.

Extreme nervousness dominated her, a kind of suppressed hysteria; her cheeks were flushed and her eyes red-rimmed; she had been weeping. Neither spoke for a while, then, with an effort, Harry, raising his brows, whispered ‘What’s up, Helen?’

On a sudden she clutched his arm, replying, fixing him with a terrified stare: ‘Ah knew it’d happen. … Ah knew it’d happen.’

He eyed her, blankly: ‘Eh?’ he said.

‘We should ne’er ha’ done it … Ah’ve bin feard for a fortnight … Ah went t’ t’ doctor at dinner time. … He told me. … Ah’m, - y’know.’

His mouth opened; he swallowed hard, and blinked.

Fearfully she gripped his arm tighter and said, in low, scared, tones: ‘What shall we do, Harry…?’