The Broken Chariot (8 page)

‘It's the best place for him,' Mrs Denman said. ‘Poor lad's as white as chalk. He ain't used to it. I wouldn't trust him to keep even a cup of coffee down in that state, nor yo', either,' she said, turning on Archie. ‘So gerrof home and let us look after him.'

Archie laughed – and belched. ‘All right, ma. You don't need to tell me twice.'

Such speech was perfectly clear to understand, and Herbert didn't seem one bit drunk, though realized that the slightest wind would blow him down. All he wanted to know was how much sleeping time there was between the coming collapse and getting back to his lathe. The wall clock wouldn't tell him, one hand moving slowly rightward, while the angle between the two increased until his forehead hit the floor, mocked on his way down by the strident laugh of Bacchus, which seemed to come from himself, though also from those looking on.

‘Ah Beryl,' and Herbert barely heard Frank's words, ‘let's stomp up the wooden hill as well. You can't blame 'im, though. He won't have owt else to celebrate like this again in his lifetime. They'll be no more o' them concentration camps. Worn't it terrible?'

‘Them pictures,' Mrs Denman said.

From his laid-out state in front of the fender Herbert told himself how nice were Mrs Denman's shapely legs – Beryl, as Frank called her, then felt hands under his armpits and knew he had better co-operate in standing so that they could get him to where he most wanted to be.

Archie, as if undecided about switching on his machine, came over and bellowed: ‘How yer feeling after last night then, Bert?'

Herbert's head rang like a month of Sunday mornings, his feet felt shoeless and half buried in broken glass, a band of nails gripped around his waist, and his mouth tasted as if he'd swallowed a tramp's overcoat. ‘Never felt better.'

Archie drew his lips into a smile, and gave him the hundred-year look – as if he had been to the same Understatement College, and considered it a disgrace not to hold himself upright no matter how much booze he had guzzled.

There were moments when Herbert felt that he had always been a workman. Or was he imagining it only in the face of overwhelming reality? It was certainly a soft and easy life compared to his previous existence. A workman lived without heartache as long as his wage packet came comfortably padded on Friday afternoon. Mr Thomas the history teacher used to maunder on about their sufferings, saying how much better it would be if nobody had to slave in ‘dark satanic mills' and live in dismal slums that threatened to strangle the beauties of England with their brick and mortar tentacles. But Herbert liked the glow of homeliness in the streets, the beer-smelling fagstink of friendly pubs, and the mateyness of the blokes at work. He was captivated by the logic of machinery, of how its many parts worked, fascinated by the certainty of construction and the usefulness of its application. By the end of the working day his dream state was dominated by cog wheels, ratchets and pulleys, which reminded him of his mother talking engine terms with his father when the car used to conk out in India.

His expertise at mechanics was widened when Sarah, a large-bosomed blonde who operated a milling machine, turned pale one morning and, overcome by dizziness, was advised by the toolsetter to go home.

‘Must 'ave bin the flu,' Herbert said at tea break.

‘I'll bet it's her monthlies,' was Archie's opinion. ‘Not that it'd put me off. I'd swim through her lovely blood any day.'

Herbert felt disgust at this vivid picture, though was called on to laugh: ‘Ah, I would, as well.'

He was shown how to operate Rachel's machine, and then told to get on with it. It was necessary to stand back and rehearse the motions, having memorized a cinematic picture of his cursory lesson. The first dozen were slow to make, but throughout the afternoon he built up speed, and turned out so many aluminium elbows in the next few days that when Rachel came back her absence on the production line hadn't been missed. ‘If you stay here much longer,' the chargehand said, ‘you'll be doing my job as well.'

Bert knew when he was being flattered. ‘Don't worry, I'll be joining up soon.'

‘Thank God for that,' he laughed, walking away.

Mrs Denman came into his room with a starched and ironed shirt in one hand, and clean underwear in the other. She slotted it neatly into a carrier bag with his folded suit, and stood by the door as if he might forget to take it to the public baths. He was trying to get the grime out of his fingernails. The other lodgers called her ‘Ma', so why not him? ‘Thanks, Ma.'

She stood by the door. ‘I expect you'll be going out tonight?'

On Saturday afternoons he went to the baths and hoped he came back looking different. For a few pennies everybody who needed to could get clean. ‘Ye', I've got a date.'

‘I expected as much.'

He didn't know what she was waiting for. ‘By the lions, at the Council House.'

‘You're a nice lad, Bert.'

He smiled. Never been called that before. He liked it, from her. ‘Don't you reckon Archie is, as well?'

She held his hand, but let it go in a moment. ‘He was made brick by brick, though, and you just grew tall on your own.'

She was in a strange mood. ‘Is Frank calling tonight?'

He wondered what he'd said wrong when she answered: ‘What's that got to do with it?'

‘I just asked.'

‘We might go to't Town Arms for an hour or two.' It was the top of the list for her, as far as pubs went, but he wouldn't be seen in such a place, so dead that everybody stared at you as you went through the door. In any case, he had to meet Eileen. He sorted his money under her gaze, and when he paid his week's board she left him to his lack of thought.

If you stayed longer than fifteen minutes the attendant elbowed the door because more people were waiting, but it was enough time to wash, soap, and steam himself, a sybaritic experience after icy showers at school.

He dropped the bag of old working clothes in his room and went down to pork pie and tomato salad tea which Mrs Denman put before him in silence before going to get in the evening's coal. When she came back he asked: ‘Where's the rest of them?'

‘Gone for the weekend.'

‘Saves yer some work then, don't it, Ma?'

‘Well, I like an hour to myself, though the kitchen floor'll have to be scrubbed. That's one thing I don't much like doing.' She sat opposite with a cup of tea and a cigarette. ‘I told this to Ralph once but he didn't want to know. You see, I was in an orphanage from the age of eleven, and all I remember was scrubbing floors. They set me to do it with a bucket and brush, and I had these long corridors to keep clean. I was so tired I used to do it in my sleep. I must have scrubbed miles before somebody else was put on to help me. I'll never forget the smell of that yellow soap. I scrubbed so much my hands would often be raw.'

‘You've had a hard life, then,' Herbert said.

She smiled. ‘You never know, do you? Maybe not as hard as some, all said and done. But I got out of the orphanage at sixteen, and went to work in a factory. Then I got married. I'm not complaining, though. Don't think that. I'd hate anybody to think I was complaining.'

‘I've had a charmed life,' Herbert said, ‘compared to that.'

‘Well, Bert, all I can say is I hope it stays that way.'

He walked to the middle of town, losing the gloom of Mrs Denman's reminiscences on the way. At the bar of the Eight Bells, which place was like a scene from the Wild West, he called for a pint. Most were soldiers, and shorter than him, so he had a good view of their clamouring. They had no more fighting to do, in Europe at least, unless later among themselves. After his week's stint the ale went down with the alacrity of lemonade in earlier days, and he made his way to the back door. Eileen watched him swaggering mac on arm across Slab Square. ‘I've bin waiting five minutes. Where'd yer get to?'

‘Sorry, duck, I got stuck in a pub door and couldn't get out.'

‘You leery bogger. I might 'ave known. Just because you're on a lathe you think you're the cock o' the walk.' She disliked him being so rough, sensing his different parts, the way he now and again stood at work to drink from his tea mug, or the times he forgot to snap like a dragon at his sandwich. Tonight he was imitating foul Archie Bleasby.

Herbert was amused to note that in the fog of her uncultivated mind she couldn't sort out what mystified her. He jeered, and gave a gentle push. ‘It's better than bein' on viewin', like yo'.'

Her knuckles stung when she jabbed him back, but he knew better than to show it. ‘I'm not on viewing,' she snapped. ‘I work on
inspection
. I use a micrometer to test things. I use a depth gauge.'

He didn't particularly like himself for talking broad Nottingham, but assumed his freedom depended on it. ‘I can't 'elp 'ow I was brought up.'

The July day was fresh, but the headscarf made out of a silk map kept her ears warm. ‘I don't suppose yer can.' She stood tiptoe for a kiss. Her puckered expectant lips were cool, but he kept his there long enough to warm them up, the first kiss given to a girl, and he thought how he would lie to Archie in not admitting it had taken him so long. Eileen couldn't understand how somebody like him seemed embarrassed just because people gawped as they walked by. ‘I don't care who sees us,' she said. ‘Come on, let's have a drink somewhere.'

Her face was nothing special, that little pointed nose, the waxy skin of her full cheeks, and sharp lips, but there was a brightness in her blue-grey eyes missing from those of other girls in the factory. Even Dominic's sister Rachel – always a drifting vision – hadn't such a vivacious shine to her eyes. He gave back Eileen's affectionate smile, and took her arm like a cavalier, as if she had turned into the most desirable girl ever, which, being the only one, she had. He had to imitate the lout, but even so must show good behaviour, sensing that she would take it as a form of respect and thus become more loving and pliable, though he had to ration his sudden consideration in case she suspected he was who he wasn't supposed to be. Her sharp tongue with men in the factory was well known, as if she took it for a dead cert that all they wanted as she walked haughtily by with nose cutting the air was to slide a hand up her shapely legs.

In the Peach Tree he fed her shandies while thinking it wise to keep himself on half-pints. She talked so much that all he had to do was listen, went on about what was showing at the forty-odd picturedromes in the city, indicating an encyclopaedic knowledge of what had been on last week, what was on this, and all the coming attractions of the times ahead that she had information about. He knew of her favourite stars, and what details of their lives she had been able to cull from magazines – all of which he would have considered boring had he not thought the information might bolster his authenticity in the world.

Then she laughed at what the women got talking about at the workbench, and at how they all looked after one another, and what a good lot they were, and how she couldn't stand the women who lived in the same street at home, who were a pack of nosy bone-idle gossipers. He had to look interested, but on the other hand pitied her because she wanted to find herself in a more refined life, and couldn't because she'd never be anything else but common. Getting a word in edgeways he asked if she had ever read a book, and she said no, but her father who was a collier at Wilford Pit changed a few at the library every week, as if that more than made up for her not caring or being able to. ‘Anyway, he's older than me,' she said, knowing his thoughts, ‘so I've got lots of time. What about yo'?'

‘Never read one in my life, and don't suppose I ever shall.' Watching her animated face made him want to hold her close and kiss her again, the music of her brash accent playing while he did. The only question was when and how. Sense told him to be subtle, to woo her slowly so that she wouldn't laugh and tell him to get lost. On the other hand maybe she was thinking him backwards at coming forwards, and wouldn't walk out with him again if he didn't do something. Archie would already think him slow in that he hadn't yet ‘gone all the way'. Before the towels went on at ten he brought her a whisky, and she didn't need daring to get it down. He couldn't wait for the landlord to bawl out time and flicker the lights on and off to clear the place.

They walked with arms locked down Wheeler Gate, back towards The Meadows. On the canal bridge her peppery breath and the smell of female powder made his penis rise, and he embraced her for a kiss. She took off her headscarf, auburn hair falling over her face. ‘I love you,' he said, meeting her lips halfway. ‘You know that, don't you?'

‘Yes,' she whispered, when he put a hand in her blouse to stroke her breasts, and feeling the nipples already responding. ‘I can tell. Let's go down here.'

Steps led from the orange glow of the road to a tow path, the water dim by a facade of warehouses. He was glad she knew the way and, further from the light, she leaned against the wall. He pressed close, and when his hand was as far up as her suspenders she said: ‘'Ave yer got summat to tek care, duck?'

If she became pregnant and he tried to say it wasn't his she would scream so loud and long that everybody would not only know but would find out who he was, and he would be sent back in disgrace to school. All the boys would cheer because he'd put a tart in the family way. Or he wouldn't be sent back to school but would have to marry her, which notion made him screw back a laugh at the scene of his mother and father trying to fathom someone like Eileen.

She thumped his chest. ‘It's nowt to laugh about.'

‘I didn't say it was. I can cope, though.' He had sat on the toilet putting one on for practice, and flushed it away when he couldn't resist shooting into it.