Love on the Dole (25 page)

He felt choked, stared back at her, a freezing sensation creeping up his body. He could find no words.

OUTSIDE Marlowe’s engineering works, squatting by the high enclosing wall, standing in groups, hundreds of the employees, smoking, chatting, arguing, whiled away the remaining minutes separating them from one o’clock and a recommencement of work.

Two young men were contending, hotly, on politics. They were surrounded by an audience interested enough to be attentive, of whom, Ted Munter, the would-be bookmaker, was one.

Impatiently, from one, a powerfully built young man: ‘You’re a bloody fool, that’s what you are. Here we are, work-in’ like hell until we’re twenty-one. Then wot happens, eh? They give us the bloody sack an’ don’t care a damn wot becomes of us, the bastards,’ fiercely: ‘Jesus! An’ these here society dames, muck ‘em, spendin’ more on pet dogs ‘n we earn in a year. Aye, an’ then they go on the Riv-bloody-eera when weather changes. By - Christ! Ah’d give ‘em Riveera if Ah’d me way.’

Ted Munter lifted his lip and stared at the speaker through his thick pebble spectacles: ‘Don’t talk so daft,’ he said: ‘Y’d do t’ same if y’ was in their place.’

The young man turned on him savagely: ‘What’s up wi’ you, y’ big fat sod?’ Ted stared, surprised: ‘You keep y’ trap shut,’ the young man continued thickly: ‘Ah’m about fed up wi’ such as you. Ready to crawl in front of anybody as y’ think can do y’ a bit o’ good. Y’ bloody snake. Go on, out of it. An’ go’n report me t’ t’ foreman.’ Ted’s jaw dropped. He held his tongue, though.

The other young man, to whom the powerfully built speaker had addressed his remarks originally, said: ‘Aye, but you ain’t answered me. Ah still say as y’ can’t do without capikle. Ah’m all out for them wi’ the dough as can find us work. Yaah, that talk about socialism’s all rot,’ warmly: ‘You answer me.

Can
y’ do without capikle, eh? Answer that, owld clever devil.’

The powerfully built young man spluttered, impotently, then, on a sudden, broke through the group, stared fiercely up and down the lines of men leaning against the wall. He turned to the other and said: ‘You wait there a minute,’ and strode away.

He confronted Larry Meath standing by the gates smoking a cigarette. Larry grinned at the young man before he opened his mouth: ‘You’ve no need to tell me, Jim,’ he said: ‘I know what you’re going to say,’ throwing the cigarette end away: ‘Well, what mess has that temper of yours got you into this time?’

‘Aw, come on,’ said Jim: ‘It’s them bloody fools again. They’re daft.’ Larry walked with him back to the group, saying: ‘When will you take notice of me, Jim? You …’

‘Oh, Ah know. But them damn fools’d mek anybody get their hair off.’

‘I’ve told you before, Jim,’ replied Larry, quietly: ‘If you’d learn your subject properly, nothing would make you get your hair off.’

They halted by the group: ‘He,’ said Jim, jerking his thumb towards his opponent: ‘He ses y’ can’t do without capikle.’ He glared.

‘Yes, Ah do,’ retorted the other, staring defiantly at Larry.

‘But nobody wants to do without it,’ said Larry, with a disarming smile. ‘All that we say is that it’s wrong if you use it as a means for making profit.’

‘But that’s all rot,’ said the young man: They’ve got t’ mek profit else place’d close down.’

‘Yes. And Marlowe’s are making so little profit nowadays that it’s possible that we’ll all be out of work in a month’s time. But that doesn’t prove that Marlowe’s - or this engineering works - couldn’t carry on simply because shareholders aren’t getting any dividends. The machinery’s still there ready to be used, and all of us are willing to use it, and there’s plenty of raw material in the world, and people want things making. So what’s stopping us all from working full time?’

‘Aye, that’s all right. But who’s goin’ t’ invest their money if they ain’t goin’ t’ get nowt back agen?’

‘Do you know what money is?’ Larry asked, patiently.

‘Ha! Course Ah do.’

‘Then what is it?’

‘It’s. … It’s. … Well, it
is
a daft question. Anybody knows what money is.’

‘He doesn’t know, the gawmless sod,’ said Jim.

‘Be quiet, Jim,’ said Larry. He reached into his overall pocket, extracted a piece of chalk and turned to the wall on which he scrawled the symbol of a sovereign ‘£’.

‘You know what that means,’ he said: ‘Pounds, shillings and pence. The things they give you as wages. Pounds. Those are what millionaires are supposed to possess. Now, when you get your wages you don’t set them on a plate to eat them, do you?’

‘D’y’ hell. Y’ spend ‘em.’

‘What d’ you spend them on?’

‘Well,’ hesitantly: ‘You ought t’ know. Y’ spend ‘em on things y’ want’

‘Then the things you want are the things you go out to work for?’

‘Ah suppose so…. Aye.’

‘In that case you don’t really work for money at all, do you? You work for the things you want.’

‘Aye, if y’ like t’ put it that way.’

‘So money’s no use in itself, is it? You can’t eat it or wear it. If there weren’t any things to buy with your money, it wouldn’t be any use.’

‘If there wusn’t…. But there
is!’

That’s true. But remember, there wouldn’t be if such as you and me - working people - didn’t make them. Would there?’

‘You can’t do without capikle,’ the other persisted, stubbornly.

‘Ach, y’ silly, daft, crackpot,’ cried Jim, furiously: ‘Where’s
y’
blasted brains?’

‘Hush, Jim, hush,’ Larry protested. To the dogged one: ‘Listen, I’ve never once suggested that we
could
do without capital. I’m only trying to show you what it is. You said it was money. You admitted that money was the things everybody wants, didn’t you?’

A non-committal grunt

‘Well, let’s call the things you want “commodities”,’ he turned to the wall to make an addition to the pound sign: ‘commodities’. ‘Remember,’ he said, ‘that the word means anything, everything, that people need. Food, clothing, houses, motor-cars, trips in ships and on railways. Do you understand that?’

Another grunt.

‘Very good,’ Larry continued: ‘Now, you know that there’s only one class of people who provide all these commodities, don’t you? And those people are us. We, you and I and the rest of the working folk. We are the ones who plough the soil and grow food; we make the clothes and the houses and the motor-cars and the ships and trains: and we man the ships and drive the trains. In short, it’s our labour power that makes all and every one of the commodities. You never see a rich man doing any of these things, do you?’

‘Course y’ don’t. They’ve got the capikle, as Ah’ve told him,’ jerking his thumb towards Jim: ‘An’ if you’d got it you wouldn’t g’ t’ work, either.’

‘I wouldn’t have any need to,’ replied Larry, smiling: ‘Because money means commodities and if I’d enough of it I’d have enough commodities. Suppose’ - a smile - ‘Suppose I was a millionaire. My million pounds would only mean that I could buy a million pounds’ worth of commodities. And remember, J wouldn’t have made them,
you
would have done that, you and all the other working folk. You see, then, money means commodities, and commodities are made out of two things.’ He turned to the wall to write: ‘Raw materials plus labour power = commodities. That’s what a rich man’s millions represent: the accumulation of the labour of such as you and I.

‘Raw materials and working people’s labour; combine the two and there you have commodities. Let me make it clearer. Imagine a tree growing in a field. Call the tree “raw material” instead of a “tree”. Now, if somebody - say a millionaire - wanted the tree making into a table, he could pile his million sovereigns in front of it and say: “Change yourself into a table”. But he wouldn’t get his table despite his million pounds. What he would have to do would be to hire working people; a woodman to chop the tree down, a carter to haul it away, a sawyer to saw it up and a joiner to fashion the planks into a table. Then the tree wouldn’t be raw material any more; it would be a commodity because it had had labour power expended on it. Money means commodities and commodities mean raw materials and labour power. So money, really, means the fruit of labour. And if you did without
that -
labour - everybody would starve. And whenever you use the word “capital”, again, remember that it only means raw material and the labour of working people combined, saved, stored up: then you’ll also remember that millionaires are men who possess millions of pounds’ worth of working people’s labour. That is all that money is; your labour, our fathers’ and our fathers’ fathers’ labour. You must ask yourself whether we can do without that. Do you think we can?’

‘Y’ can’t do without capik…’

The remainder was lost in the howl of the hooter.

Ted Munter stared at Larry and the powerfully built Jim as they and the rest chatting and arguing made for the gates. He kept a couple of paces to their rear: ‘Ah’m a big fat sod, am Ah?’ he said to himself: ‘Ah’m a bloody snake, am Ah? Awright. Ah’ll just show you bloody Bolshies what Ah can do for that’

His thoughts wandered; he forgot his grudge against Jim in the pleasing, newly-conceived anticipation of the possible outcome of, say, Larry’s displacement. Blimey, wouldn’t Sam Grundy be tickled. Sam who had sworn like the devil when he, Ted, told him of Sally Hardcastle’s forthcoming marriage to Larry Meath. How he, Ted, gloated, silently, in Sam’s discomfiture. Of course, he hadn’t sufficient influence to procure Larry’s discharge, damn it Blimey, if only such a matter were left to his arbitration! By gad, Ah’d mek Sam Grundy pay. Aye, an’ pay he would if there wus a chance for him t’ get hold o’ that bloody tart. Alas, the most he could do would be to report subversive political activity - the evidence was chalked on the wall - and to hope that this would be remembered when next the staff was depleted, a not distant probability if the newspapers were to be relied on.

Everybody was acquainted with the rumours; only yesterday they had been confirmed by the newspapers. Indeed, Ted had the clipping in his pocket. He already had frightened his wife by reading it aloud to her, and in such inflexions and with such significant glances as though to suggest that the paragraph referred to nobody but himself. One could tempt fate when one’s job, as timekeeper, was more or less secure. He had fetched the clipping to work with the intention of reading it, in condescending tones of sympathy and commiseration, to those whose jobs were not so secure as his own.

And it was very agreeable to visualize an interview this evening with Sam Grundy, when Ted, first telling how he had reported Larry to the proper quarter, winked, slyly, and, without another word, passed the clipping for Sam’s perusal:

Interview today, the manager of Messrs Marlowe’s Ltd explained to our representative the possible consequences of the difficulties placed in the way of trade with Russia by the Government. ‘We have much work for Russia in hand,’ the manager stated, ‘which is being gradually brought to a standstill by the Government’s attitude. Their failure to cooperate with us in this direction will mean that we shall have to discharge a good many of our workpeople. It may even mean the closing down of our machine shops altogether as our order books are practically empty but for our contracts with Russia.’

Ted passed his hand across his mouth and narrowed his eyes. That, surely would be sufficient to induce Sam Grundy to stand him a couple of double Scotch whiskies…

That evening, passing the wall on his way home, Larry smiled to see a bill pasted over his chalkings:

Anyone found chalking on, or otherwise defacing these walls, will be dealt with severely.

By Order

‘Look, Jim,’ he said, to the powerfully built young man accompanying him.

‘Ach,’ Jim responded, with a scowl: ‘Y’know who did that. … The bloody big fat toad.’

LARRY MEATH shrugged his shoulders and stared, moodily, at the sandy floor of the foundry. The foreman, standing by, eyed him with curiosity: ‘Well,’ said the foreman, ‘Well, p’raps this’ll learn y’ t’ keep y’ trap shut for future. Yaach! Y’ve bin a silly devil, Larry,’ spitting: This lousy lot o’ devils here, d’y’ think
they
give a cuss what
y’
say?’ a pause: he added, in changed tones: ‘Ah must say as y’re tekkin’ it different from most c’ t’others. Say what y’ like, things is bad when reg’lars like us get sack. Blimey, wot the ‘ell’s comin’ o’er t’world? It’s fust time this’s happened i’ my recollection,’ another pause: ‘Y’ should have heard Ned Narkey an’ t’others when Ah told ‘em. Ay, ‘n Ned on’y just married. ‘Tain’t s’bad for you, Larry, a single bloke. It’s us married ‘uns wot feels it.’

‘I should have been married next week,’ Larry replied, dully, adding, musingly: ‘I dunno what I’m going to do,’ with sudden impatience: ‘Ach! anybody with a pair of eyes could have seen this coming weeks ago.’

The foreman raised his brows then shook his head: ‘Eh, Ah’m sorry, lad,’ he said, sympathetically: with feeling: ‘But be glad y’ still single,’ indignantly: ‘What a’ we gonna do? Wharram
Ah
gonna do? By the Christ, it was tekkin’ us all our time t’ manage on me wages. But when Ah think o’ the seven of ‘um at home, an’ her ma livin’ wi’ us, all on what they’ll gimme at dole. … Yaaa! an’ the bloody liars at election said everythin’d be apple pie if National Gover’ment went back. Well, where are we?’

Larry clenched his fists and flushed: ‘Where we deserve to be,’ he answered, eyes shining: ‘And let me tell you, Bob, it’s going to be a sight worse yet,’ contemptuously: ‘National Government. Ach! Ha, well, they told us what they’d do if they went back; wage cuts and all the rest. But everybody was too busy with their daft Irish Sweepstakes and all the rest of it It makes y’ want to chuck up the whole sponge. … ‘ He perspired in hopeless impotence of the utter futility of it all. ‘I tell you, Bob, it’s driving me barmy to have to live amongst such idiotic folk. There’s no limit to their daftness: won’t think for themselves, won’t do anything to help themselves and. … Augh! Watch them waken up when they get it in the neck with this Means Test. You’ll hear some squawking then.’ He flung aside the piece of cotton waste on which he had been wiping his hands: ‘But you ‘n me’s got to sufferwi’ the rest….’ He remembered Sally. What was he to do? How could he tell her this? With a final gesture of desperation he turned and made for the time office, leaving the astonished foreman gaping after him.