Paid Servant (26 page)

“Are you Roddy's Uncle Ricky?”

“Yes.”

“Can you be my Uncle Ricky too?”

“I suppose I could.”

“And Paula's and Mervin's?”

“Yes, and Paula's and Mervin's.”

“But you're black.”

“Wouldn't you like to have a black Uncle Ricky?”

“My daddy says I can't have a black uncle, only Roddy can have a black uncle.”

I let that go. The absent Mr Mays was having a hand in the game, like dummy hand in bridge.

“Will Roddy's daddy take him away?”

“Perhaps.”

“My daddy will take me away very soon.”

“That will be nice.”

“Is Roddy's daddy a make-believe daddy?”

“Daddies are never ‘make-believe'. Make-believe people are in fairy books.”

Roddy was watching carefully and listening hard although he pretended to be busy re-making the parcel of sweets.

“My dolly has lost her leg. Paula calls her dolly ‘Mary Jane'.” And with that she turned away to resume the game from which the whim had diverted her. I left them and went to Matron's office.

“Children can be the cruellest people without intending any harm,” she said, “that's why I always say that truth is a strange concept. Well, he'll have to learn to take the rough with the smooth.”

Now that Roddy's case had progressed so far I was impatient to have it settled; probably I was afraid that because it had moved so smoothly, it was all a prelude to some big disappointment. In the days that followed it required a great deal of effort to keep me from pestering the Chief for news of progress with Middlesex, but the increasing load of cases kept me busy enough to prevent preoccupation with it. In spite of my best intentions I could not consider my attitude to that or most of the other cases truly objective. Upon self-examination I realized that I was consistently breaking what might be called a cardinal rule for Welfare Officers, I was ‘caring' about my cases, becoming too involved with them. One day I discussed this with Jim Baxter.

“I started in much the same way,” he said, “but I've managed to cure myself, at least, up to a point.”

“How did you do that?”

“By coming to a sort of arrangement with myself. As I begin each new case I tell myself that I dislike the people concerned, but that I've got a job to do in helping them. Then it's easy to help them without becoming emotionally involved.”

“Odd,” I said. “I always thought that dislike is as emotional as like.”

“Look, I'm only telling you how I approach the work; you can make up your own mind and decide on your own attitude to it. But remember, you've got to play the game according to the rules, and let's make no mistake about it, chum, this is a kind of game.”

“Heads I win, tails you lose?”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“If we win, somebody loses, and as I see it, the poor blighters who come to us for help can't win, if we are to accept your definition of the game.”

“The thing is not to care.”

“But I thought the prime motive behind our work was the fact that we cared, or were supposed to?”

“Don't preach at me,” Baxter said, “of course one cares, but only in general terms. As soon as the caring becomes particular you're asking for trouble. Let me put it this way. I care for my wife and little girl emotionally, because my life is closely involved with them; I care for these others in a kind of scientific way, because I would like to see each case finally and happily resolved. But I don't let it get to me, inside me I mean. At the beginning of each case I remind myself that I don't know any of the people concerned; when the case is ended I want to be able to forget it quickly, as if it never happened, so I can have my mind free to deal with the next problem.”

“And it works?”

“You're damned right it works,” he laughed.

Perhaps he was right. Perhaps if I remained in the Department as long as he had, I too would discover the trick of arresting my interest just short of caring, or involvement. Perhaps. The trouble was I kept forgetting to limit myself. This fellow Baxter was so sure that he was right. That idea of disliking the people concerned in each new case. I didn't really believe him. One could not create a dislike of people one had never seen, or could one? I had already found myself disliking some people, but only after meeting them. And I found it difficult to be pleasant with people I disliked. Mrs Larkin for instance.

I was alone in the office the Saturday morning when the call came in from the police. A young mother of three small children had had a heart attack and died suddenly. The grief-stricken young husband was in a state of shock and quite unable to do much for the children, two small boys of four and two and a half years, and a new baby; the police had been called by neighbours and their opinion was that we should take the children into the Council's care until the father recovered sufficiently to be able to make plans for them.

Remembering previous experiences, I rang through to County Hall and made arrangements for the children to be received—the boys at a children's home and the baby girl at a residential nursery—then I set out to find the address the police sergeant had given me.

Mr Pridie, the bereaved husband, occupied a small first-floor flat in one of the new London County Council housing projects not far from New Cross railway terminal. I knocked on his door several times without receiving any reply and was thinking of checking with the police station when the door of the apartment next to his was opened by a middle-aged woman. At first she seemed surprised to see me, then her face settled into a stiff, unpleasant mask out of which her pale blue eyes regarded me with cold hostility.

“Good morning, I'm trying to locate Mr Pridie.”

She regarded me for several lengthy moments without replying, then called over her shoulder.

“Joe,” in a sharply penetrating voice. I wondered whether I had knocked on the wrong door by mistake, and quickly looked down at the piece of paper I still held in my hand. No mistake, the address was 47b Ravensmead House, and I had knocked at 47b. The woman had come out of No. 48. Someone replied gruffly behind her and presently she moved aside to allow a tall, heavy-set man to stand beside her. They made an oddly interesting pair. He wore shapeless grey flannel trousers, and a thin, sleeveless summer vest under which his thick, hairy torso bulged unattractively. His heavy face was a web of bluish capillaries, and the thick red nose and the dark pendulous pouches under his eyes added a bizarre touch of dissipation. His eyes, like the woman's, were pale, watery blue, but here the resemblance ended. She was clean without achieving neatness, and there was no warmth in any of her features; she had the look of having been milked deep of every last vestige of humour.

“What's up?” he asked, and I nearly burst out laughing from a mixture of relief and shock. The voice which came out of him was surprisingly high-pitched, as if it had been nestling somewhere high in his chest, ready to slip out at the first chance of release.

“He's asking for Pridie.” Now she folded her arms across the flat chest. I remember thinking to myself, ‘You ought to exchange clothes, you two, he'd fill that jumper a hell of a lot better.'

“What does he want with him?” Although I was standing there close to him, he addressed his question to her.

She looked at me, evidently expecting me to provide the answer, the dislike providing the only thing which came close to animation in her eyes. I suddenly decided to keep my mouth shut and see how far they would carry their ridiculous attitude. After a few minutes of silence she said:

“What do you want with him?”

“I'd like to talk with him. Is he in?”

“What about?”

“It's a private matter.”

“Is he one of them you've been telling me about, who've been coming here to the Pridies?” he asked her. I wondered why he would not ask me.

“I don't know; I don't think I've seen this one before.” As she spoke, her eyes travelled slowly over me, missing nothing.

“You a friend of his?”

“No. I am a Welfare Officer. I am here about his children.”

They exchanged glances. He looked sharply at me, but there was no change in her cold attention.

“Who sent you?”

I was suddenly angry. Who the hell did she think she was putting me through this questionnaire? Now it was my turn.

“Why? Are you related to him?” That seemed to take some of the wind out of her sails.

“Do you know what happened?” he asked me.

“The police reported that his wife died suddenly this morning, so I am here to find out what's happening about the children.” This time I made my voice as authoritative as possible.

“The children are here, with us,” he offered, before she could reply; she turned to glare at him as if annoyed that he should have given me the information.

“And Mr Pridie?”

“He's out, but he said he was coming back soon.”

“May I see the children?”

This time she beat him to it, her attitude pointedly unfriendly. “No. We can't let anyone see them without their father's permission.”

“So what difference does it make?” her husband interposed. “Let him see them if he wants to.”

“Not in my house. No nigger's coming into my house.” The viciousness of the words shocked me, although I was aware from the moment of meeting her that she either disliked me on sight or was antipathetic to people of my skin colour. But her words seemed so unnecessary and unreasonable that a hot reply jumped into my mouth and it was only with very great difficulty that I swallowed it.

“Well, for Christ's sake!” her husband exclaimed. “What the hell's got into you? If the authorities sent him to see the kids what do you have to take on like that for?”

“This is my house and I'm not letting any nigger come inside it,” she replied calmly, evidently pleased with herself and enjoying the thought that she was causing me embarrassment.

Just then footsteps could be heard ascending the stairs from the ground floor, and soon a neatly dressed, dark-skinned young man appeared and walked around us to 47b, a bunch of keys jangling in his hand. He had barely glanced at us.

“There's Pridie,” the man said.

What's in a name? Come to think of it, not much. Yet so often one is predisposed to create a person to suit a name newly heard. Until this moment it had never occurred to me that Mr Pridie was anything but European and English. More than that. It had not occurred to me that Mr Pridie would be anything but white-skinned. In my conversation with the police sergeant nothing had been said to lead me to believe otherwise. But why should I be surprised? Surely this was the very thing I had long been agitating for, yet here it was and my first reaction was surprise. God, without realizing it, I was being conditioned into the very same attitude which I claimed I disliked and which I publicly opposed at every opportunity. I suppose I must have stood there gaping stupidly, because the man spoke again.

“Thought you said you wanted Pridie.”

By this time the young man had gone into the room and closed the door. I knocked. He opened the door and then I saw his face. He looked stunned or drugged, and shook his head quickly as if trying desperately to focus his attention.

“Mr Pridie?”

“Yes, I'm Pridie.”

“I'm a Welfare Officer from … ”

“Come in, come in,” he interrupted, pushing the door wide open and standing aside to let me in. I walked into a small, but comfortable sitting-room, somewhat disarranged, with quite a scattering of children's toys. He casually brushed some of these from a sofa on to the floor, and invited me to sit down.

“Like a drink?” he asked.

“No, thanks, too early in the day for me.”

“You won't mind if I have one?” He went through a door which probably connected with the kitchen, and returned soon afterwards with a glass. I guessed that it contained whisky.

“What were those two telling you?” he asked abruptly.

“Not much. I had just arrived and was inquiring about you. The woman seemed less than friendly.”

“That bitch, I can't figure her out. I guess she hates my guts, yet she was the first to appear when Vi fell down. She's got the children over there.”

“Yes, so her husband told me.”

“She give you a hard time?”

“She tried to, but I've met the type before.”

“Boy, she really hates anything black. Because of her son, I guess. They sent him up for cutting a black fellow at a club in Stepney.”

“I see.”

“Like hell, you see. Boy, if there's one thing that old bag knows how to do it's hate. Funny. She used to meet Vi and me on the stairs or in the street and she'd look straight at us and say, ‘Morning, Mrs Pridie,' then pass on just as if I was invisible or something. I just can't figure her. And she's always buying things for the kids, sweets and things, but she's never so much as said a word to me all the time I've lived here.”

He got up to open a window, then resumed his seat. Then he placed the glass on the floor beside him, clutched his head in his hands and began to sob; dry tearing sobs that seemed to rend the very foundations of his being. I could think of nothing to say to him, nothing adequate, that is.

After a while he got up and went into an adjoining room, but soon returned with a large blue towel slung around his neck.

“Sorry about that,” he said, “but I can't get used to Vi not being here. It's all been so blasted sudden. Yesterday she was sitting right there, fussing with the kids, right there.” He pointed at the sofa.

“You have my sincere sympathy, Mr Pridie.”

“Thank you. It was her heart, you know. While she was having Marie, our last baby, the doctor warned her, and she's been taking it easy. She wasn't sick, or anything. It was about five o'clock this morning. I didn't even know she had got out of bed. Then I heard this noise in the kitchen, you know, things breaking. I rushed in and there she was, all crumpled up on the floor.