Love on the Dole (29 page)

‘Did y’ see our Jack, Harry?’

‘Eee, Ah’ll murder ar Albert if he was among ‘urn …’

The babel of voices receded to an incomprehensible jumble in Sally’s ears. For a brief space she stood there dazed, holding Larry’s hat, limply. Then her bosom heaved; her breathing quickened, sharply as she pictured Harry’s story of Larry’s assault. She gazed about her, wildly; her flashing glance fell upon Kate, Ned’s wife, and, in a burst of rage she exclaimed: ‘Ah’ll
murder
that pig-swine of a husband o’ yours if he’s had owt t’ do wi’ it. Ah will, s’help me…. The rats…. The dirty, bloody dogs Ah’ll. … O. …
Get
out o’ my way.’ Sobbing, without returning home for her shawl, she pushed her way through the group and ran off. Kate, shrinking, clasping and unclasping her hands nervously, watched her go.

Mrs Bull grunted: ‘Well, did y’ e’er hear owt like
this?’
to Mrs Hardcastle, who was standing there, whimpering indecisively, not knowing what to do. She was plagued with the thought of Sally’s dinner growing cold and as to whether or no Sally would return in time to be punctual at the mill. Mrs Bull frowned upon her: ‘Well,’ she snapped, ‘What y’ standing there squawkin’ for. Why don’t y’ tek y’ rent book an’ follow that lass o’ thine. Y’ll want it t’ bail Larry out wi’…’

Her advice sent most of the group, whose husbands and sons might, for all they knew, be under arrest at this moment - sent them clattering home for rent books.

One woman stopped half-way across the street and shouted: ‘Do it matter, Mrs Bull, if y’ rent book’s in arrares? Ah ain’t paid ma rent f’ three week … ‘

‘Tike it’n see,’ suggested Mrs Jike, adding, with a chuckle: ‘I iyn’t pide mine this last two months, sow it iyn’t no use tikin’ mine.’

‘An Ah’ll go down f’ seven days afore he gets another penny from me,’ said Mrs Bull: ‘Ah’ve reckoned it up … leastways, Larry Meath reckoned it for me. Forty years Ah’ve lived there an’ paid him five bob a week an’ more, an’ it comes to more’n five ‘undred pounds. Sod ‘im. If Ah’d knowd then what Ah knows now he’d ha’ bin singin’ for his money afore t’ day. Ha, who cares o’ goin’ in chokey? It’ll teach owld Jack Bull what it means t’ have somebody t’ wait on him hand an’ foot like as though he was Lord Mayor’s Fool. P’raps he’ll understand what an easy time men have of it when they’ve got t’ luk after themselves.’

When they had gone, Harry, sighing, turned to Helen. Instantly his spirits withered when he noticed her expression, such a one which told him that he had offended her in some way. She was pouting, staring away from him.

She found herself resenting his spending time on such affairs as this morning’s. What was it to him that he should be mixed up in it? To her way of thinking their own difficulties of the present were serious enough to engage his whole attention. And to get as excited as he had been a few minutes ago, wholly absorbed in the narration of an incident that should never have concerned him, argued that there were some things in which he could forget all about her completely. And this when he knew her condition. She stood there pouting in sulky silence.

‘What’s up, Helen?’ he asked, resentful of her mood:’What’s up wi’ y’! What have Ah done now?’ She turned on her heel and sauntered homewards, slowly, he following looking at her, brows raised. ‘Nothin’,’ she said. Gloomily he thrust his hands into his pockets and stared at the pavement, wondering whether it had occurred to her that he might require a little sympathy. Might he not have been a victim to the police assault? Oughtn’t she to be glad that he had escaped unhurt Blimey, and here he’d been priding himself on his bravery. Oh, girls! they were always different from what you expected: ‘Ah’m goin’ ‘ome,’ be

mumbled, when they paused by her home. She did not answer, went into the house: he trudged across the roadway, miserable.

‘Well,’ said Mrs Bull, gazing at Mrs Nattle, Mrs Jike and Mrs Dorbell, all that remained of the group: ‘Well, that’s
that.
What next, Ah wonder?’

Mrs Dorbell raised a yellow, clawlike hand to her hair and scratched: ‘Thank God,’ she said, crossing herself: Thank God as Ah’m a widder an’ll me fambly’s growd up an’ out o’ my sight Dammura. Not one of ‘urn ever come t’ see me. Yaah! Ah wouldn’t have the worrit of ‘em agen not for a king’s ransom. When they’ve gone y’ can have a nip when y’ like wi’out askin’ anybody’s leave … ‘

‘If y’ve got thrippence, y’ mean,’ said Mrs Jike.

Mrs Dorbell felt in her placket and withdrew her purse, opened it and glanced within. There were many pawntickets there, and there were five halfpennies and a penny.

Threepence for a nip left only a halfpenny. And the egg she required for her dinner would cost a penny. Unless, of course, she could find a cracked one amongst Mr Hulkington’s stock which could be procured half price: ‘Ah don’t see why Ah shouldn’t,’ she said to herself, aloud, picturing herself surreptitiously cracking one of Mr Hulkington’s choicest eggs with the shiny doorkey in her pocket She looked at Mrs Nattle significantly and said: ‘Ah’ll follow y’ down. Ah’ve a bit o’ shoppin’ t’ do.’ The party broke up, Mrs Bull and Mrs Jike following Mrs Nattle to her home, Mrs Dorbell shuffling towards Mr Hulkington’s shop, talking to herself on the way.

THE main corridor of the Esperance Infirmary gave you some idea of the size of the place.

Bare and draughty, as monotonous as a vigil, old folk who come to visit relations are wearied by the walk if necessity obliges them to traverse it from end to end.

Its uncovered concrete floor emphasizes every footfall, throwing up the loud sounds to the dark ceiling where they echo hollowly.

Sometimes a uniformed nurse will appear out of one of the tunnel-like arches set at regular intervals along the corridor, proceed, with a starchy rustling of apron and skirts, to disappear into another tunnel mouth farther removed. Such a transit is a series of contrasts in white and grey: passing the windows she would be a nurse clothed in flashing white, but, in the gloom between, she, but for her echoing footfalls, would be a wraith, mantled eerily.

The tunnel-like arches gave on to flights of worn stone steps leading to higher floors: by their sides, the open doors of the ground floor wards revealed rows and rows of iron beds, some concealed by red screens where a patient was either dead or dying. If he or she were dead they would remain screened until the witching hour, when a couple of porters, pushing a long truck hooded like an American pioneer’s covered wagon, would remove the body to the mortuary.

Next day the occupants of the bed either side that of the one from which the corpse had been removed, would have to accustom themselves to a new arrival, who, oftener than not, had to put up with a running reminiscence, from both sides, of the virtues and manner of death of their predecessor.

At one of the tunnel mouths half-way down the corridor stood a woman dressed in clogs and shawl. Now and then she would peep down the tunnel and into the ward. But she could see no sign of Sally. She fretted and fumed, experiencing pinches of petulance that Sally should have caused her this inconvenience. Why couldn’t she come home? For a day and a night she’d sat by Larry’s bedside. As though her presence here would assist his recovery. Surely she was alive to circumstances at home; should know the havoc the lack of her wages would create in the household exchequer this week-end. Of course, it was natural that she should be distressed on Larry’s account; and even though it
was
a pity the way the police had treated him, yet this excessive devotion on Sally’s part was unnecessary. There was a trained staff here to minister to him; there was no reason why Sally shouldn’t come to spend her evenings here after work. But her present behaviour was indefensible; it was detrimental to her health; human nature couldn’t stand it. Mrs Hardcastle sighed that hers was so self-willed a daughter.

She would gaze, urgently appealing, at each nurse who passed; would find herself on the point of speaking to them, then her courage would ebb and the nurses were gone in a flash.

Finally, her wearied impatience grew stronger than her timidity. She intercepted a rheumy-eyed old man dressed in a suit of hospital blue a couple of sizes too large. He scratched the back of his ear, wrinkled his brow and stared at the floor: ‘Oh,’ he said, looking up: ‘Y’ mean yon lass sittin’ wi’ yon lad wi’ the pu-monia?’ He put out his lips and shook his head, slowly: ‘Ay, aye, oo! Well, lass, if she’s thy dowter she won’t ha’ much longer t’ sit. For yon lad’s dyin’. Ah know. Ah’ve sin ‘em tuk out o’ this ward b’ the score. Bin here eight months Ah have, e’er sin she died, bless her soul. None o’ me childer’d ha’ me so Ah’d t’ come t’ t’ grubber, ‘cause they said Ah’d rheumatics bad. That’s what me childer said, mind y’: though they ne’er thought o’ that afore they got wed an’ when Ah wus fetchin’ me wages home t’ keep ‘em all on. … Ne’er forgive ‘um. … Not one of ‘em e’er comes t’ see me t’ ask me have Ah got a pipe o’ baccy. Three days Ah’ve bin wi’out a puff. They tek y’ pension off y’ when y’ come in here, an’ grub’s pison.’

Mrs Hardcastle felt sorry for him but she wished he would inform Sally of her presence in this cold corridor. Perhaps, if. … She produced her purse in which she knew were a few coppers. She gave a couple to the old man saying: That’s all Ah’ve got Perhaps y’ll be able t’ get a pipe o’ baccy wi’ it,’ adding, as she drew her shawl tightly about her person once again:
‘Would y’
tell me daughter Ah’m here, please, mister?’

He took the coins, and, with an expression of sudden enlightenment, said: ‘Oh, aye, that lass o’ thine. Y’d better come along wi’ me an’ Ah’ll tek y’ to her.’ He shuffled to the door of an ante-room to obtain the sister’s permission. In a moment, Mrs Hardcastle, her shawl shrouding her face, tiptoed after the old man, quaking with nervousness and shame on account of the noise her clogs were making on the ward’s bare boards. She was frightened, too, by the unearthly groans of a man dying unattended in some remote part of the ward; and by the jabberings of another patient recovering from a recently administered anaesthetic. Nobody else seemed to take notice of the noises. In fact, four men were playing cards on the bed next the screen where the old man now stood paused. From the other side of the screen came a low, monotonous mumbling.

The old fellow opened one of the screen’s leaves, then, perceiving Mrs Hardcastle’s hesitation said, with an inclination of the head: ‘Go on. Go in, lass.’ She obeyed.

She stared, shocked, when she saw Larry. The smile she had put on for his benefit faded the instant her gaze fell on him. The red flannel pneumonia jacket he was wearing exaggerated the intense pallor of his face which seemed to have shrunk to nothing: his mouth, lips dry and slightly parted, moved as he murmured, incoherently, deliriously: his laboured breathing, quick and harsh was painful to hear: his eyes, wide open seemed twice their accustomed size, they burned with a wild, haunting light. The pink coverlet outlined his motionless form like something wet and clinging. Sally, sitting on a chair by the bedside holding one of his hands, did not look up when her mother entered; she was dozing, chin sunk on chest

For a while Mrs Hardcastle could not remove her fascinated gaze from Larry. At once she appreciated the futility of her mission. Sally never would be induced to leave. Not that she, Mrs Hardcastle, would wish her to do so now that she had learnt how seriously ill Larry was. They would have to manage, somehow, without Sally’s wages. How they
were
going to manage now that Harry had been refused the dole didn’t bear thinking on. She forgot about it as she stood staring at Larry, an overwhelming sympathy towards him swelling in her heart, a fear treading on sympathy’s heels as to the consequences of this to Sally. Mrs Hardcastle licked her lips.

She became conscious of a dull aching in her legs. There’d be no harm in sitting on the edge of the bed. Carefully she seated herself, thrilled with fear as her movement disturbed Sally, who, catching her breath in a weary sigh, looked up. Mrs Hardcastle fixed her gaze on Larry; she did not wish to meet Sally’s eyes.

Money jingled as the four card players on the next bed threw their halfpenny bets into the kitty: the man recovering from the anaesthetic chuckled, groans came from the dying man in the remote part of the ward.

Sally gently stroked her disengaged hand across Larry’s brow. It was as though he had not seen her hand; his staring eyes did not flicker. He did not murmur now: a crackle crept into his breathing. The two women watched and waited.

‘AH think,’ said Mrs Bull, warmly: ‘Ah think it’s a sin an’ a shame Ah do.’ She turned to her cronies standing in a group about the open door of the house where Larry had lodged. A horse and cart was pulled up by the kerb on and around which hosts of the children of the neighbourhood were playing noisily. Two men were inside the house shifting Larry’s possessions. Sally was standing by the doorstep, a dull stare in her eyes.

‘Ah think it’s a sin an’ a shame Ah do,’ Mrs Bull said, warmly: ‘Huh!’ her immense breasts wobbled like Brobdingnagian blancmanges as she ejaculated: ‘Huh! Five quid, mind y’. On’y five quid for all t’ lad’s belongin’s. Bareface-daylight robbery, that’s what it is.’

‘Sellin’,’ said Mrs Dorbell, wryly: ‘Sellin’ ain’t buyin’. Ah remember that ‘armonium wot belonged t’ that there lodger o’ mine afore he died. He gev eight poun’ ten for it. Ay, an’ it were a nice piece o’ furniture. Though he couldn’t play it an’ allus kep’ it locked so’s nobody else could try. Ne’er played on it wasn’t from comin’ in t’ goin’ out. As good day it went as day it came. Kep’ it dusted ‘issel’, he did an’ wouldn’t let a soul g’ near it. Fifteen an’ a tanner they gev me for it when he wus dead. Fifteen an’ a tanner, mind y’ an’ it ne’er bin played on. Ay, enough t’ mek him turn o’er in his grave, saints preserve ‘im,’ she crossed herself: ‘He were best lodger Ah ever had,’ she sniffed; her dewdrop disappeared from the tip of her beak-like nose and slowly grew again.