The Broken Chariot (22 page)

‘You write because you didn't want to perish,' he put into his notebook. ‘Dreams and fantasies hold back spiritual disintegration.' Pegging dreams into the logic of reality was as much a part of him as it must be with others. Everyone working in a factory was afflicted by dead limbs at the end of the day, and the only way to know the extent of this was by working there yourself; impossible to write about it except by turning into one of those people and doing it.

He was split in two, like that great sphere dividing one half from the other in the old nightmare of infancy. Somewhere spinning and dispensing terror, the trail it left provided a light and showed which words to write and what yarn to spin. After a few pages the impulse burned itself out, and all he could do was go down to the warm kitchen and smoke his last cigarette of the day, bent into a calamitous state of exhaustion.

Mrs Denman, her bed-time curlers in, sat by the fading coal to sip her night-owl coffee, as she called it. ‘I don't know what you do in your room all these hours.'

What did she think, in her secret heart? Wank himself to a cinder? ‘I read.'

‘You must be freezing. Why don't you do it down here, or in the parlour with an electric heater?'

He wanted to be in his own four walls, with the door shut, private, often not aware of the cold. She was used to his silence at her questions, thinking him a funny lad, but then, weren't they all at that age, come to that? ‘I'll mek yer a nice mug o' cocoa, so at least you'll go warm to bed.'

You had to say something to show thanks at such concern, whether you believe it or not. ‘I don't know what I'd do without you, Ma!'

‘Ah, well, somebody's got to look after you, since you can't seem to do it yourself, working all day in that factory. Not that I don't know why not. But it's allus bin like that, and allus will be, I suppose.'

He wasn't unhappy, languishing under her platitudes like the helpless booby he knew he was not. It was the role of the common workman to accept it as his due.

‘You should go out more,' she said. ‘Find a nice young woman.'

The response to such concern should be to reach out and squeeze her hand, with the jocular remark: ‘Nar, I've got yo', ain't I, me duck?' – but he could only say: ‘I'll have to see about that.'

‘You ought to go and visit your parents, at least. It's a shame to lose touch. You might need 'em one day. It'd do you good to be away for a weekend, anyway.'

‘'Appen it would,' he said.

Feet up on the range after the day's sweat, just as he'd thought his metamorphosis to a workman was as complete as it could be, he reached for Mrs Denman's
Evening Post
and saw that a public lecture was to be given at the Mechanics Institute by the author W. J. Hawksworth, winner of last year's Windrush Prize. A little gingering of the intellect might improve his perceptions in general, though he was doubtful that such testing would occur. In Cyprus he had taken Hawksworth's
Glebe Farm
from the camp library, telling about a woman who had to run farm and family on her own because her husband had gone off to the war. A third the way through he left it on his bed to go for a shower, and came back to find it nicked, which led him to believe it may have been better than he'd thought, but a few days later the book was back on his bed, and pencilling on the inside cover said: ‘Bloody trash.' Herbert had to agree with this criticism, and didn't go on to finish it. Still, even a mediocre novelist might be amusing to listen to.

Midweek or not, the occasion called for a more than thorough wash and shave at the bathroom sink. He put on his best shirt, cursing the recalcitrant collar studs and cuff-links, which wouldn't go through the holes made too stiff by starch. Buttoning the mackintosh over his best suit he walked up the street and leapt on a trackless into town.

He spotted a chair near the back of the packed hall, on the edge of a row. A youngish woman beside him had dark ringletty hair and a thin face, all that he could see of her before the curtain opened on W. J. Hawksworth sitting at a table on stage. A man to his left talked a few minutes about how good Hawksworth's novels were. So many people loved them because they could see themselves mirrored in the characters he wrote so well about. Not the fucking people I know, Bert said to himself.

Hawksworth twiddled a watch chain across his waistcoat, touched up his grey crinkly hair. The human pen was nervous at least and, glad to hear the last of his introducer, he got up as if it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do.

Herbert noticed that one of his legs was twitching, out of nervousness, or exhaustion, or from too much booze, though perhaps it was to put rhythm into his cadenced and well-rehearsed sentences. Hawksworth went on for nearly an hour about how he had become a novelist, told them how he wrote (he held up his fountain pen), what his first story had been about (himself), explained that he was careful to type all manuscripts neatly (double-spaced with twenty-five lines to a page), and expatiated on how he had sent the first stories out to various magazines (with stamped self-addressed envelopes for their possible return). He then sat down to wait.

The stories came back but, playing ducks and drakes with them (his phrase) he skimmed them out once more on their travels. One was accepted and published. Encouraged by this (and the sum of five pounds) he wrote a novel, and he described the process of doing that as well, detailing the work stage by stage, almost thought by thought until, like a car being bodged to life at a garage by a totally incompetent mechanic listening to ‘Music While You Work' on full blast, he knew it was fit to face the world. Or he hoped so. The book was turned down half a dozen times, but eventually someone had the good sense to see what a talented work it was for a young man of twenty-five, and a lifetime of producing novels began. He went on to talk about the great modern novelists such as Waugh, Forster, Huxley, D. H. Lawrence and Graham Greene, implying that it wasn't necessary to add before such an intelligent and discriminating audience that he was one of them. He's an old ham, Herbert thought. He must have given this talk dozens of times already. The woman by his side was writing notes, and between gales of splintered clapping at the end Herbert asked if she was reporting the lecture for a newspaper.

Her laugh was the kind of merry expressive tune he couldn't remember when he'd heard last. Perhaps she was flattered, but had to say no. ‘I want to remember some of the wonderful things he came out with. I love all his books.'

He was careful to assume the sort of accent a local worthy and not a factory worker would use. ‘My favourite is
Glebe Farm
. I couldn't put it down.'

‘Well, it's good but have you read
Bird of Paradise
?'

‘No.'

‘Or
Life on the Heaviside Layer
?'

He made space for her through the crowd on the institute steps. ‘I've been trying to get that one for months, but it's never on the shelves.'

‘What about
Never Say Never
?' she asked. ‘Have you read that?' She knew them all. ‘He's written a lot. There's
Fires of Love, The Far Side of Heaven, The Lady from Leatherhead
.'

‘I'll get them as soon as I can.'

‘You must. He's so good. Better than J. B. Priestley.'

They walked slowly, crossing the road at the lights. She must have read all twenty. Or was it forty? He agreed that W. J. Hawksworth was a great writer, and would she like to go into a coffee bar where they could talk about him some more? Maybe she was married, but he thought her too special to worry about that. Anyway, he couldn't see a ring.

Her yes encouraged him to think that he interested her. The dragon hiss of jets steamed from behind the counter, and to see her shapely little nose twitching at the reek of bacon cobs told him it was an unusual place for her, which was even more promising. The cream silk scarf at the opening of her white blouse made it hard to gauge the size of her breasts, or even their shape. He also noted her soft suede gloves and leather handbag, as well as her fashionable New Look coat, and stylish shoes. Who, he wondered, did she think she had taken up with?

After his working day, and the effort of absorbing all that might be useful from Hawksworth's chatter, he was happy to let her continue with glistening eyes about novels he would never read while there was still so much good stuff to catch up on. At a convenient break he stretched his hand across the table. ‘I'm Herbert Gedling, by the way.'

She unravelled thin fingers from the coffee mug to brush a ringlet off her cheek. ‘I'm Cecilia Colston. But how did you get that scar?' – as if it was something to pity him for. ‘I'm dying to know.'

‘Cyprus, in the army.'

‘Were you wounded?'

‘A piece of shrapnel got me from a bomb. I looked up too soon.'

She said what a pity, and asked in the same breath where he worked. He told her. ‘In the offices?'

‘If you like.' Let her sort it out. She was puzzled, for he could have sworn she caught a whiff of disinfectant suds. You were never free of it, even after a bath. ‘And where do
you
work?'

‘At Clapton's, the solicitors.'

‘In the office?' Giving no time for an answer he said: ‘I've done some writing of my own. Just bits of things. Stories, a few of them, or near enough.'

‘So that's why you came tonight?'

He nodded.

‘You want to be a writer?'

‘I don't know. I just scribble a bit. A sort of hobby, you might say.'

‘You're too modest.'

‘I don't know about that,' not caring what the penpusher thought. The tightrope of his deception swayed, till he resumed full control. ‘Descriptions of people,' he said when she asked what about. ‘What they do with their lives.'

‘Can I read some?'

‘More coffee? Sometime, maybe.'

She indicated no, brown eyes looking as if to find out more about him than even he could possibly tell. He met her gaze unblinking, knowing that since it wasn't done, not in her terms, to get her under the table and fuck her there and then, as Bert might try, or at least Archie would, he'd have to stare her haughtily down as Herbert, and take the risk of her getting up to walk out. It was evidently the right way to behave, and when she looked down he knew he would have her sooner or later if – as Bert would say – he played his cards right. ‘I'll find some pages to show you.' He remembered Hawksworth's advice. ‘They're not typed yet. I don't have a typewriter.'

‘Well,' she said, ‘you'll have to buy one, won't you?' – as if they grew on trees, all waiting to be plucked as she was plucking down Herbert's heart, nuances he detected with no bother. He'd never thought of becoming a real writer but if by pretending to be one he could get more quickly into her New Look knickers he would take on such a role any day.

Twelve

The train puffed and banged its way along the track out of Norwich. He seemed to have been travelling all day, but it was only a few minutes after noon. Mrs Denman had packed him off with enough food to get him to the South Pole and back. ‘All that way? You'll be hungry. I would be. As soon as the train's over Trent Bridge I have to eat a sandwich.'

Why his parents had cut themselves off in this remote corner of Norfolk he couldn't think. Nottingham was a metropolis, and he felt vulnerable as the line descended the valley of the Yare. More like the
yawn
. He closed the map.

Still, he felt something pleasing in the landscape, as if he'd been here before. Perhaps in another life he had. His mother's lot came from this way, likewise old Uncle Richard at Malvern who gave him the pound notes that paid for his escape from school.

As the train turned northerly he felt human again, more relaxed than in Nottingham. Being on the move was what did it, but he didn't trust such a feeling of wellbeing. He liked it, but something was wrong. The man opposite looked at him too closely. Herbert thought that if he had a knife he would aim the point at his throat. Such a lunatic picture forced his gaze out of the window.

Woods and fields were soothing, though why should he struggle to stay calm? Small motor boats lined the river, and he imagined living on one. Any small cabin would do, equipped with books, some food, and lots of fags. In the evening he would find a snug pub and drink himself into a haze before weaving back to the boat for what sleep he could get.

He didn't know why he was on the train, felt unstable, free-floating in a way he didn't like. The man opposite – stout, rubicund, tie bowing out of a Fair Isle sweater, wearing a hacking jacket, gleaming brown brogues, and with half a whistle on his stupid lips, which might any minute turn menacing – seemed too interested in Herbert's state of mind, which Bert thought was none of his fucking business. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?'

The man smiled, for want of anything else appropriate in such a situation. ‘Looking at you?'

‘Yes, me.'

He had what Herbert supposed was an East Anglican accent. ‘I wasn't.'

‘You were.'

‘I was looking out of the window, since you want to know.' He was being friendly, which made his former attitude insulting. ‘Not much to see, though, is there? It gets even less picturesque soon, depending on your point of view.'

Herbert heard himself, saw his own face from the opposite seat (though not as accurately as in a mirror, and even that couldn't be an exact image) was unable to hold back: ‘You were staring at me.' He was afraid, couldn't stop his useless twaddle, felt sweat on his forehead. The words cartwheeled out, words nevertheless precious because he had to stand by them, back them up loyally though he couldn't think what with.

‘I really wasn't.' It was the man's turn to be afraid, locked in a compartment with no way out except on to the line and break a leg. ‘I never stare at people.'