Paid Servant (4 page)

I felt sure that after one look at Roddy they'd be ready to eat out of his hand; he'd certainly set that quiet, refined household ablaze, so to speak. They won't be able to resist him, I thought. I had the feeling that this case would soon be settled and everybody happy; maybe Miss Coney was right after all—a coloured family seemed to be the answer.

Just before noon I went downstairs to make an inquiry in one of the ground-floor offices. As I passed the telephone operator's cubicle she called to me, “Someone's been trying to reach you all morning, Mr Braithwaite. A lady.”

I retraced my steps and went over to her; she never missed, not once. Sometimes I'd deliberately try to alter my stride, or even walk on tip-toes, but just as I thought I'd made it, that low, clear voice would reach out to me: “Hello, Mr Braithwaite.”

Now I rested a shoulder against the side of her booth and watched the way in which her slim, beautifully-kept fingers moved delicately among the criss-cross of cords or manipulated the switch-keys, unerringly controlling the intricate system. Her head, with its mass of brown, wavy hair was tilted slightly to one side, as if attuned to other sounds besides the unending stream of calls. Her face was plain, with no specially distinguishing feature, except her mouth, which seemed always on the edge of laughter.

“Did the caller leave any message, Miss Felden?”

She felt for the narrow ribbon of paper which hung from the little Braille typewriter on a small table beside her; her fingers quickly traversed the impressed surface and she replied: “No, she'll call again.” On her face was a half-mischievous smile, as if she thoroughly enjoyed the short demonstration of the closed mystery between her fingers and the strip of paper.

“Okay, I'll be in my office if she calls again. Got held up at Mile End this morning.”

“Gosh, that's awful. Never mind, you're here.” The sweetness of smiles was always in her voice, and somehow I could never quite become accustomed to her blindness, or the suggestion of helplessness which the word invoked. Her general air of assurance and independence was so natural that, whenever in conversation with her, I had the feeling that she had just closed her eyes the better to concentrate on some elusive point, or to listen to some faint sound, and that presently she'd open them again, wide.

“See you later.”

I went back to my office. About half an hour later the call came through.

“Mr Braithwaite?”

“Yes, Braithwaite speaking.”

“Oh, thank Heaven.” There was relief in the voice, relief and a certain husky, lilting inflexion which is distinctly characteristic of the speech of persons from the English-speaking Caribbean territories.

“You don't know me, my name is Bentham, Mrs Bentham. I got your name and telephone number from a friend, and I would very much like to see you about a personal matter.”

“Certainly, Mrs Bentham. When could you come to the office?”

“Oh, I wouldn't like to see you at your office,” she said, “you see it's family matters, and my friend said you'd come to see us at home. Me and my husband.”

“I'm sorry, Mrs Bentham, but I have rather a long list of cases to deal with just now, and I couldn't possibly call at your home today.”

“I didn't mean for you to come today,” she replied quickly, “my husband and I are both at work during the day, but we'd be in after seven this evening. We'll both be in and it's very important.”

“I can't promise to see you this evening, Mrs Bentham, as I am already engaged … ” I began, when she interrupted.

“My friend said you're a West Indian, and we're from the West Indies too, and it's really very important.”

“But could you give me some idea what it is about?” I asked, slightly irritated with her for bringing in the ‘West Indian' thing like an identity tag. Did she think it necessary to use that kind of pressure? “Maybe if it's a matter of advice … ”

“I wouldn't like to discuss it over the phone,” she remarked.

There was in her voice a hint of disappointment at my seeming failure to respond to her mention of my West Indian nationality.

“It's a family matter and my friend said you would help us. It's very important and we don't know anyone else to ask for advice.”

“Couldn't it wait until sometime tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow might be too late,” she replied.

This was not the first of such appeals made to me. Many West Indians now knew of my connection with the Welfare Department and assumed that I would be ready to help at any time they might need me. If I claimed to be too busy or tired it was taken as evidence of snootiness or pride or a disinclination to help them.

“May I have your address, Mrs Bentham?” Probably I might be able to work it in somehow after seeing Don and Audrey. Probably. If it was too much out of the way she'd just damned well have to wait until tomorrow. They lived in Stepney, right across London from Finchley, but on the way to my home in Ilford.

“I can drop in for about half an hour, Mrs Bentham, around 9.30 this evening. I'm afraid I cannot make it any earlier.”

Damn it! Why did I have to make excuses for myself?

“Oh, good. Thank you, Mr Braithwaite, we'll see you then.” She hung up.

So once again it had happened, and in spite of the Area Supervisor's recent observations and thinly veiled warnings, I could not see that I had any other choice. Besides, what I did in my own time was surely my business—or was it?

The previous Thursday the Area Chief had called me to her office.

“Sit down, please. I've been studying your reports,” she began without preamble, “and it seems to me that you are doing too much.”

On the desk before her was a batch of documents with which I had been dealing, and near them two letters addressed to me, but opened. I looked at the letters, then again at her, feeling the annoyance mushrooming inside me. From as early as I can remember I've been opposed to anyone opening my letters. My mother had taught me that letters were personal things, and that to open and read someone else's letters constituted an invasion of privacy. I still think so.

“First of all,” she continued, picking up the letters, “I've just read these letters addressed to you. Our policy here is to open all letters addressed to officers, and with good reason. Very often in the past we found that important communications were sometimes personally addressed to officers, and because an officer may have been ill or on leave, the communication remained unattended for days or even weeks. We cannot afford to have that happen and advise all members of staff against having any private letters sent to them at this office. I'm telling you this so you will understand why these letters have been opened.

“From what I've read in them it seems to me that, apart from your official duties, you are making yourself privately available to people in your capacity of a Welfare Officer. I would like to suggest that anyone who requires that kind of service from you should apply through the official channels, either through this office, or through any of the other area offices with which you liaise. From the files it is evident that you have as much as you can be expected to cope with officially, and if you are allowed to overwork yourself, your usefulness to the Department will be adversely affected.”

Her manner was smooth, unhurried, and very reasonable. But I was still smarting from the sight of the opened letters.

“You've been with the Department a good time now and your results are very satisfactory. It is clear that you are able to get close to your people in a way that your colleagues could not do, or shall we say, have not yet been able to do. This is very useful to the Department, and was one of the chief reasons for your appointment. You can only be fully effective if you husband your strength, especially as you do not have a car. So, in future, if you get requests for help of any sort, I must insist that you direct them to be made officially.”

I watched her, as each word separately and distinctly stepped out the short distance between us. The flow of words ceased and the mouth was held compressed in a thin, straight line. Into my head popped a ridiculous idea. What would happen if I said, ‘Yes, Sir!'?

“I hope, Mr Braithwaite, that I have made the situation quite clear?”

“Not quite,” I replied, still feeling the needle of irritation. “I can understand the necessity for opening letters addressed to officers who are either on leave or ill; but to open them when those officers are on duty indicates a lack of trust in them. If the letters in any way relate to their assignments they should be considered both qualified and able to deal with them; and if they happen to be personal they can be of interest to no one but the people to whom they are addressed.”

I paused, but she made no comment and so I continued: “I was seconded here from the Department of Education because it was believed that my own experiences in Britain, and my activities among many of the new immigrants, would contribute to a better understanding of the problems presented by the rapid increase of immigrants into Britain. Obviously, in the circumstances I am bound to receive communications from time to time, and I prefer to deal with them myself. If, arising from those communications, I need advice, help or direction, I would gladly seek it from you or anyone else qualified to give it, but I cannot view the opening of my letters as indicative of trust in my abilities or judgement.”

Again I paused, but she sat cool, even detached, regarding me from a distance of miles. The irritation was growing inside me.

“I do not agree with your second point about my off-duty hours. That is my own time, and I'm free to use my own time as I see fit. I never encourage people to seek me out when I am off duty, but I made myself available to help others long before I joined this Department, and I could not retreat from that position merely because I'm now called a Welfare Officer. It was because of the things I learned through being available to people in that way that I'm now able to be of use to the Welfare Department.”

“That's all very well,” she said, “but your people must not be allowed to get the idea that you are on tap to them twenty-four hours a day.”

The ‘your people' bit got under my skin. I'd been hearing it long before I became a Welfare Officer, but it seemed more meaningless when used by my colleagues whose training and daily work brought them into close contact with persons from many parts of the world. Many of them, in spite of their training, or perhaps because of its limitations, still saw non-white people as a group, readily identified as blacks or coloureds. I am a Negro, and I was expected to understand anything and everything relative to dark-skinned people. Very often one of them would say, “I had a case today, one of your people,” and I would discover that the person was either Asian or African, often in language and custom far removed from my own Caribbean background.

“The people who seek me out are both black and white,” I answered with some asperity, “and I'm more concerned with my usefulness to them than with identifying colours or labels.”

“You've said nothing to disprove my point.” She spoke in the same measured tone, but with a flicker of a smile. “You have no formal training in this field, and there is the real danger of using yourself up through over-enthusiasm. Anyway, I would like you to bear in mind the things I have said, and I am sure there will be no need for disagreement.”

That was last week, yet here I was again. Whoever Mrs Bentham was, she did not want to go anywhere near the Area Office. Maybe someone, the same friend, had warned her off. I did not share the view that as a black Welfare Officer I was specially useful in dealing with black people. I was not the least bit concerned with being a black Welfare Officer, and it annoyed me whenever some official mention was made of my appointment, stressing the fact that I was a Negro and therefore, by insinuation, specially qualified to understand the problems of Negroes or coloureds. I believed that any person in difficulty needed help, but most of all he needed to be helped to help himself, so that he could be quickly free from the obligations attendant on help received. The colour of the helping hand was quite unimportant, or should be accepted as unimportant.­

My colleagues and I were all paid servants, that is, we were all paid to serve those who needed to be helped and if we were willing, ready and able to serve them well, then as superficial a thing as the colour of our skin mattered not at all, or very little to those whom we served. It seemed to me that the only reason why I had had some little success so far was because I very deliberately placed myself in the position of servant, instead of insisting on being the ‘officer', the extension of Departmental authority. My own criterion of my usefulness as a servant lay in the speed with which each new ‘case' became independent of both myself and the Department, and was able to manage its own affairs. It could come about not through being ‘black', but through trying to understand in each case just where the breakdown in personal confidence occurred, and working hard to restore it, and this applied equally to English, African, Asian, West Indian or anyone else with whom I dealt.

I believed then, and still believe, that there was never any special need in Britain for black Welfare Officers, any more than there is a special need for black judges, bank clerks, fishermen or policemen, or doctors. The urgent need is for a re-orientation of welfare workers in terms of the work they do and the people they serve. They must begin by understanding that British society is irrevocably mixed, and they must expect to serve anyone who comes to them, giving the same courteous, patient, helpful service in each case, for the best of possible reasons, because they are paid to do it. They must be taught the essential psychology of service, the better to bear the failures, frustrations and disappointments which must surely come, and they must be taught about gratitude, or the absence of it, especially from people whose confidence they helped to restore, whose consciousness of dignity they helped to re-­establish.