Love on the Dole (4 page)

Young Harry, standing shivering and sniffing on the damp pavement outside the shop, was reflecting, happily, on what had just occurred at home. At first his father had been reluctant in giving his permission. Happily, he had been too weary to give the matter adequate consideration. He had capitulated with: ‘Aw, all right. Ah’m too tired t’ be bothered. Go if y’ want to. But think on, now. … Hark t’ what Ah say. Once them there papers are signed y’ bound f’ seven years. Ah’ve no money t’ buy y’ out Teks us all our time t’ live here.’ It had been as easy as that! And his mother was to come to Price’s, soon, to buy a pair of overalls for him.

With such intoxicating thoughts in mind he stood, hands in pockets, shivering and sniffing by the padlocked gate guarding the porch of the door set there to keep urban courting couples out of the doorway.

Presently he saw Mr Price approaching dressed in the fashion of an explorer Antartctic bound. Mr Price’s blue nose sniffed the raw morning air over the top of a long woollen scarf wrapped twice about his neck; his Homburg hat was pulled low on his head, its brim crooking his ears; his long heavy overcoat reached almost to his ankles but did not conceal the fact of his wearing stout leather leggings; his heavily soled boots made no noise as he crept along carrying umbrella in gloved hand, boots made no noise since he wore goloshes.

He grunted a muffled good morning through the scarf. Harry made answer. Mr Price regarded the boy: ‘Hardcastle,’ he said, magisterially: ‘Hardcastle take the hands out of the pockets.’ Harry blushed, blinked and withdrew the hands: ‘Slovenliness,’ Mr Price continued, gravely: ‘Slovenliness, slovenliness. … Always to be deplored, especially in one so young. Where is the handkerchief? Blow the nose.’

Harry’s desire was to retort, rudely; his indignation, though, robbed him of speech, and the glassy stare in Mr Price’s eyes gave no encouragement. Still he could say something with impunity; this was to be his last day in the pawnbroker’s employ. He said, with stammering impulsiveness: ‘Ah’m leaving here today. … Start at Marlowe’s in morning.’ He quaked, inwardly, as he spoke in spite of the impatience he felt towards himself for so doing.

Mr Price said, as though Harry had not spoken: ‘Hold the umbrella. Over me … over me …’

He felt Price had made a fool of him: he stared at the pawn’ broker, resentfully, remembering the past three years in Price’s employ: memories of the dreary mornings and the interminable evenings when his friends were free as birds whilst he was chained to the desk, crowded to his mind to resolve themselves into a frigid seizure of the spirits, a terrific recollection that made him helpless with incredulity to know that it had been a fact and not a nightmare. That it now belonged to the past was equally incredible. Tomorrow, Marlowe’s! He took a deep breath: henceforward would be one long holiday.

Keys rattled. Mr Price, fetching out an enormous bunch, fitted one to the padlock and opened the gate. The front door was secured, extra to the ordinary lock, by a forged iron hasp and staple and another padlock. Keys rattled again; the door opened. The pungent odour of new sheets, blankets, quilts and what not floated out of the sales department; a revolting stench reminiscent of the unspeakable. Price entered, lit the gases and disappeared to put away his things. Harry removed the shutters, gleefully picturing himself replacing them tonight.

From the backyard came the confused buzz of conversation: through the iron barred windows Harry, if he had wished, could have seen a backyard full of women, their shawls so disposed as to conceal from the elements whatever it was they carried in their arms. They looked like fat, cassocked monks with cowls drawn. They had obtained access to the backyard by one of their number thrusting an arm through one of the peepholes and withdrawing the bolt. Harry cried: ‘Shall I let ‘em in, Mr Price?’ and an exultant voice in his head added, with relish: ‘Last time y’ll say that, Harry.’ He grinned.

Mr Price, wherever he was, made no answer.

Voices from outside, all in wheedling tones:

‘Eh, ‘Arry, lad, open door.’

‘ ‘Arry, we’re perished.’

‘Come on, now, ‘Any, lad. We bin standin’ here hours.’

He glanced at the barred windows to see what he had seen every morning these years past, a crush of unwashed women, hair tumbled, come to raise the wind so that they might have money to spend on food. Though, to him, custom had acquainted him with the notion that they merely had come to pawn things.

He glanced at them, blew into his blue fingers ostentatiously to indicate that he, too, was cold. Next moment, caught unawares, he received the fright of his life from Mr Price, who, creeping up to him, silently, stooped and whispered into his ear: ‘You may let them in, Hardcastle.’

He climbed the counter, went to the back door, and, after shooting the three stout bolts, turned tail, a rowdy, pushing, shoving, squeezing crowd of women hot on his heels. By the time he was on the other side of the counter again the place was full. In the staring gas light, the women, throwing back their shawls from their dishevelled hair revealed faces which, though dissimilar in features, had a similarity of expression common, typical, of all the married women around and about; their badge of marriage, as it were. The vivacity of their virgin days was with their virgin days, gone; a married woman could be distinguished from a single by a glance at her facial expression. Marriage scored on their faces a kind of preoccupied, faded, lack-lustre air as though they were constantly being plagued by some problem. As they were. How to get a shilling, and, when obtained, how to make it do the work of two. Though it was not so much a problem as a whole-time occupation to which no salary was attached, not to mention the sideline of risking life to give children birth and being responsible for their upbringing afterwards.

Simple natures all, prey to romantic notions whose potent toxin was become part of the fabric of their brains.

As virgins they had cherished a solitary dream, the expectation of the climax of their wedding day. Wedding day, when, clad in the appropriate - afterwards utterly useless - finery, they appeared for a glorious moment the cynosure of a crowd of envious females.

For a moment only. It passed to add its little quantity to all their yesterdays.

The finery was discarded for less conspicuous apparel which devoured their identity; they became one of a multitude of insignificant women by a mere change of costume, and the only pleasure that remained was a vicarious living-over again of their magic moment in watching, from the back of a crowded church doorway, the scene enacted by later generations. And the satisfaction, if satisfaction there was, in knowing that the scornful tag ‘left on the sheif, could never be attached to them.

Patronage of Price and Jones, and all that it signified and implied was an aspect of marriage unanticipated in their dreams.

Harry gazed at the women as a soon-to-be-released prisoner might stare at the stones of his prison cell, fixedly, slowly revolving memories of his long incarceration, half doubtful of freedom, rather afraid of it They were the same familiar faces he had seen week after week for years, until they had become as institutions; the same actresses in the same grim play. Week after week, for years. New faces from time to time; young girls, pregnant, wedding rings on their fingers, sometimes squalling babies in their arms; they were rather shy at first; but they became less and less shy, more and more married as weeks went by.

Next Friday or Saturday (he wouldn’t be here then!) they would hand over their wages to Mr Price in return for whatever they had pawned today. And next Monday they would pawn again whatever they had pawned today, paying Mr Price interest on interest until they were so deep in the mire of debts that not only did Mr Price own their and their family’s clothes, but, also, the family income as well. They could not have both at the same time. If they had the family income in their purses then Mr Price had the family raiment and bedding; if they had the family raiment and bedding then Mr Price had the family income. This morning Mr Price had the family income: the women were come to redeem the moneys with the family raiment so that they might pay off their tick account for food which stood against their names in the books of Mr Hulkington, the street corner provision merchant. So it would continue, week after week, a tale, told by an idiot, never to be concluded, until the characters had no further use for pawning or redeeming anything else in this perplexing world.

Harry, staring at them all, said, to himself: ‘Well, Ah’m glad t’ be leavin’ all this,’ repeating, with immense relief: ‘Eeee, glad t’ be gooin’. Phoo, not half!’

Confused clamour resounded in the room; all conversing simultaneously. Harry reached out the box of pins used by Mr Price to secure the identification tickets to the pledges; long, stout pins, instruments of death in Harry’s hands, when, wanting better occupation, he impaled the starving stupefied vermin crawling out of the pledged bundles of clothing.

By this time the counter resembled a cheap-jack’s stall in the market; boots, shoes, clogs, girls’ cheap, gaudy dance frocks, men’s Sunday suits, mixed bundles of bedding, table linen and underclothing done up in cotton print wrappers.

Mrs Dorbell, who had crushed in first, a beshawled ancient.

lugubrious woman, round shouldered, wizened, with a dewdrop at the end of her hooked, prominent nose, pushed a man’s cheap serge suit to the spot where Mr Price stood when doing business. Then she stared, alarmed, into nothingness and clapped her bony hand to her placket as though something had bitten her leg. An expression of consternation appeared on her face, but only for a moment. She coughed, assumed an innocent air and drew the suit back to her side of the counter to stare, fixedly, at an imaginary stain on the lapel. Out of the tail of her eye she glanced this way and that, stealthily withdrew her hand from her placket and quickly slipped into one of the suit’s pockets her old age pension book. She pushed the suit back to its former place, coughed, unconcernedly, turned to her nearest neighbour, a tall, restless-eyed old woman name Mrs Nattle, who had fetched, in a bassinette, nine suits, a dozen frocks, any number of boots and shoes, two wedding rings, three watches and chains, not to mention a couple of barelegged, barefoot children whose mottled legs shivered with the cold whilst their scraggy arms ached with the bundles they carried - Mrs Dorbell, after the manoeuvre with the pension book, turned to Mrs Nattle and said, off hand: ‘It’s a wery cold mornin’ this mornin’, Mrs Nakkle,’ a mournful look then a slow inclination of the head towards the blank wall behind opposite which, across the street stood the public-house: ‘Ah wish
they
wus open,’ Mrs Dorbell said; ‘Could jus’ do wi’ a nip, Ah could. Ne’er slep’ a wink las’ night. Ah didn’t.
Daily Express
is right. Taint bin same since war. Before
that
started things
was
reas’nable. A body could get a drink wi’out hinterference wi’ this ‘ere early closin’ an late openin’. But Ah ne’er did hold wi’ Lloyd George nor wi’ any o’ t’ rest of ‘em neither. Vote for none on ‘em, say I. All same once they get i’ Parli’ment. It’s poor as ‘elps poor
aaaall
world over.’

Mrs Nattle permitted her to finish, staring at her, meanwhile, with suspicion, her lips tightly pursed. Then she leaned towards her and whispered, out of the side of her mouth and very much after the manner of an amateur ventriloquist: 7 seed performance,’ she said, mysteriously, adding, explanatorily: 7 seed y’ slip pension book into pocket,’ she put back her head, raised her brows and stared at Mrs Dorbell accusingly.

Mrs Dorbell opened her mouth and stared back. But Mrs Nattle turned to the two children who had accompanied her. She smiled at them and said: ‘Here, gie me the bungles. … Y’ can go, now. See me when Ah come back an’ Ah’ll gie y’ penny each.’ She relieved them of the bundles and they disappeared, as did the smile from Mrs Nattle’s lips. She addressed herself to Mrs Dorbell once again who was staring at her, stolidly. Making no immediate reference to what she had seen Mrs Nattle remarked: Them there’s two wery obligin’ childer o’ Mrs Cranford’s, Mrs Dorbell. Me round’s gettin’ that there big these times that Ah’ll not be able t’ manage it, soon.’ She looked up to the dirty ceiling waiting for Mrs Dorbell to reintroduce the subject of the pension book.

‘It don’t,’ said Mrs Dorbell, with a significant stare: ‘It don’t do t’ tell everybody
all
y’ know. Still tongue in a wise head. Wise as a sarpint, an’ ‘armless as a dove, as it says i’ Bible, though I haven’t bin t’ church for ‘ears an’ ‘ears. If it’s too far for parson to come t’ see me, it’s too far f me t’ go t’ see him.’ She sniffed: the dewdrop disappeared, but slowly grew again.

Mrs Nattle nodded and announced, loudly: ‘Least said soonest mended, Mrs Dorbell,’ leaning towards her and whispering into her ear: Though Ah ne’er knew he tuk in pension books, bein’ agen law as is printed on book back an’ him bein’ a churchgoer an’ a magistrate,’ putting her head back and continuing so that everyone could hear: Though Ah’m surprised at nowt wot nobody does, be what they may … ‘ whispering: ‘Course, Ah knew it were done a lot during war wi’ ring papers’ (official documents issued to soldiers’ wives during the Great War enabling them to draw their allowances at the post offices). ‘Ah tuk many an’ many an’
many
a one.’

Mrs Dorbell was suddenly bent double by a spasm of coughing; her head went below the counter level as she spat upon the floor. ‘Chest bad agen,’ she said, panting, when she recovered: she added, confidentially: ‘If you was to go to front shop when nobody wus about -
front
shop, mind, business bein’ of a privit’ natur’ - go there an’ hexplain things to him, y’know, that you’ve got a round o’ customers an’ pawn on commission for ‘em as is too high an’ mighty t’ come themselves - Well,’ a wink and a deep breath, ‘Well,
he
knows that if he teks then-pension books i’ pawn they can’t draw their pensions till book is redeemed,’ a nod and a wise look:
‘Y’can
stay in house when y’ can’t afford t’ get y’ clo’es out o’ pawn,’ emphatically: ‘But y’ can’t afford t’ miss y’ ten bob pension for sake of half a crown,’ muttering: ‘Which is wot he lends on pension books.’ Pause. Still keeping her gaze fixed on Mrs Nattle she jerked her head towards the other side of the counter and raised her brows: ‘An’
‘e
knows it, Mrs Nakkle, ‘e knows it. Be ‘e church goer, magistrate or King Dick hissel’, ‘e knows it. An’ he’ll oblige a lady wot asks him privit’ an’ proper when nobody’s about.’