Key to the Door (19 page)

Vera took ten of the thirty-eight shillings to the corner shop, to pay for what food they had fetched on strap during the week. Then she went with Brian up Hyson Green, to cheap shops where she could stock up on tins of milk and packets of margarine, sugar and tea and bread, vegetables and sixpennyworth of meat for a stew that night.

Job or no job, there was usually a wireless set in the house. Seaton, after drawing his dole the following week, came in smiling broadly: “I've got a surprise on its way, my owd duck!”

“What? Have you won a thousand?”

“No, nowt like that.”

“What then?”

“A man'll be 'ere in a bit wi' summat yo'll like!”

“And what's that?”

“A brand-new wireless!”

By way of confession he told how, gazing in a shop window on his way back from town, he had spotted a good set that would blow the house apart if turned full on, and that without thinking he had gone in and settled the deposit.

“You know we can't afford to pay for a wireless every week,” Vera shouted, but soon smiled and left off taunting his extravagance, knowing they both had to do such things now and again, otherwise put their heads in a gas-oven, or cut their throats with a sardine tin like poor Mr. Kenny up the street.

They managed the payments for a time, but after a few months of free music and news the set was disconnected and carted back. Then for six bob Seaton bought a wireless that didn't go, though within a few hours of clever intuitive tinkering a powerful pan-mouthed Gracie Fields blared out over the house and yard. Seaton knew nothing of such machines, yet took it to pieces, tightened a nut here and a valve there, until the electrical maze of wires miraculously “went,” and it stayed on the dresser as a monument to luck and ingenuity.

On Sunday afternoon, after a pause of nothing from the wireless, a voice would announce: “Foundations of Music”—a title that intrigued Brian because one of his favourite books at school was
Foundations of History
and somehow he imagined the two same words would generate a similar intensity of interest, but nothing more survived than the title, for his mother would immediately say: “Take
that
off, Harold, for God's sake!” and the knob would be swivelled on to the sugary music of Debroy Summers, or the rackety drive of Henry Hall.

Time and again Vera told herself that she shouldn't be riled by Seaton's moods of animal temper, for it only made things twice as bad. But after the dole money had been spent to the last farthing he would sit by the fire-grate in the small room, head bent low, nothing to say. She would know all he was thinking, that he was cursing his existence, her and the kids, the government, his brothers, her mother and father, anyone and anything that flitted into his mind, and she hated him for letting the lack of a few fags upset them. He looked around the room, from wife to children, and children to mother, until all but Vera went out. Then she would say: “You're lookin' black again, aren't yer? What's up, ain't yer got no fags?”

He glared savagely. “No, and no snap either.” Each tormented mind fed the other in diabolic fashion: “Well,” she said belligerently, “I can't help
that
, can I?”

“Send Brian to borrow a couple o' bob from your mother,” he suggested, a last desperate remedy he knew she wouldn't take up. “I can't”—her voice loud and distressed. “We owe her something from last week.”

“Them skinny boggers wun't lend owt.”

“We wouldn't need to ask 'em if you went out and earned some money,” she said, near to tears at his and her unjust words. He was dimly aware of many answers to this, but could squeeze only a few words of protest from his locked-in despair: “I'd get wok if I could. I've wokked 'arder in my life than anybody's ever wokked.” He remembered his fruitless expedition of yesterday, returning to a scene that had happened time and time again.

“Did you get it?”

“There was too many.”

“It's a bogger, i'n't it?”

He was bitter: “Don't bother. They'll want me soon. I know they will.”

“You all ought to get together,” she said, “and give 'em what for. Mob the bleeders.”

“You can't fight wi' no snap in you. Look at what 'appened to them poor boggers from Wales: got the bleddy hosepipes turned on 'em.”

“They'll suffer for it one day,” she said. “They'll have their lot to come, yo' see.”

“Besides, I give you thirty-eight bob, don't I?” he said now.

“And how far do you think that goes?” was all she could say.

“I don't know what you do wi' it,” was all he could think of.

“Do you think I throw it down the drain?” she screamed, going to the door.

“It wouldn't surprise me.”

“Nowt surprises yo', numbskull.”

She waited for him to spring up and strike, or throw something from where he was. But he sat there.

It went on, stupid, futile, hopeless. Brian listened outside the window, each word worse than a dozen blows from Mr. Jones's fist. “They're rowing,” he said to himself, a knotted heart ready to burst in his mouth. Margaret stood by him: “What are they rowing about?” “Money,” he said.

“Tell me when they stop, wain't yer, our Brian?”

“Wait with me here,” he said, looking through the window, seeing his father still sitting by the grate, shoulders hunched and face white. His mother was at the table reading a newspaper. “They ain't stopped yet,” he told her. They stayed out till dark, then went in hoping that somehow their father would be in a better mood, that their mother had miraculously been and cadged or borrowed, begged or stolen or conjured up out of thin air some cigarettes for him.

One day when a quarrel was imminent Seaton put on his coat and rode down the street on his bike. He returned an hour later on foot, a cigarette between his lips and a carrier-bag of food in each hand. Brian followed him in, saw him put the bags on the table and give Vera a cigarette.

“Where's your bike?”

“I've
got you some food,” he said, proud and fussy.

She smoked the cigarette and laughed: “I'll bet you've sold your bike.”

“I 'ave, my owd duck.”

“Yo' are a bogger,” she said with a smile.

“I'd do owt for yo' though!”

“I know you would. But I don't like it when you're rotten to me.”

He put his arm round her: “I'm never rotten to you, duck. And if I am, I can't 'elp it.”

“You're a piss-ant,” she smiled: “that's what you are.”

“Never mind, Vera,” he said. “My owd duck.”

“How much did you get?”

“Fifteen bob. I sowd it at Jacky Blower's on Alfreton Road.” He'd had it over a year, always working on it, reconditioning a lamp, new brake-blocks he'd been given, a bell he'd found, hours spent cleaning and polishing. She'd never imagined him selling it.

“I went to one shop and they offered me six bob. Six bob! I said: ‘Listen, mate, it ain't pinched,' and walked out after tellin' 'em where they could put their money. I did an' all.”

“I should think you did.” He took off his coat and cap, pulled a chair to the table. Seeing Brian, he stood up again, saying: “Hey up, my owd Brian! How are yer, my lad?”—caught him in his broad muscled arms and threw him to the ceiling.

“Put me down, our dad,” Brian screamed, frightened and laughing at the same time. Seaton lowered him, rubbed his bristled face against his smooth cheek, then let him go. “Come on, Vera, mash the tea. There's sugar and milk and some steak in that bag. If you send Brian out for some bread we can all have summat to eat.” The kettle boiled and Seaton stirred his tea. When Brian wasn't looking he put the hot spoon on his wrist, made him yell from the shock and run out of range. Brian was glad when no one quarrelled, when they were happy, and he could love his father, forget about what he had thought to do when he grew up to be big and tall.

Vera often saw in her children similar rages and moods that she detested in Seaton, diversions of petty misery created between the big one of no fags. When Brian came in from the street she asked him to go out again for a loaf. He slumped in a chair to read a comic. “Wait till I've finished this, our mam.”

“No, go now,” she said, pounding the dolly-ponch into the zinc sud-tub of soaking clothes. “Come on, your dad'll be 'ome soon.”

He didn't answer, glared at the comic but saw nothing more of Chang the Hatchet Man. Vera emptied fresh water into the tub.
“Are
you going,” she demanded, “or aren't yer?”

“Let Margaret go. Or Fred.”

“They aren't 'ere. You go.” He could hold on for a while yet. “Just let me finish reading this comic.”

“If you don't go,” she said, wiping the wet table dry before setting the cloth, “I s'll tell your dad when he comes in.”

“Tell 'im. I don't care.” Having said it, he was afraid, but a knot of stubbornness riveted him, and he was determined not to shift.

When Seaton came in and sat down to a plate of stew he asked for bread. Brian wished he'd gone to the shop, but still didn't move. It's too late now, he told himself, yet knowing there was time to ask his mother casually for fourpence and go out for the load so that his father wouldn't know he'd been cheeky. He stayed where he was.

“There ain't any,” she said. “I asked Brian to go for some ten minutes ago, but he's too interested in his barmy comic to do owt I tell 'im. He's a terror to me sometimes and wain't do a thing.”

Seaton looked up. “Fetch some bread.”

He held his comic, as if courage could be drawn from it. “Wait till I've finished reading, our dad.”

“Get that bread,” Seaton said. “I'm waiting for it.”

“The devil will come for you one of these days, my lad, if you don't do as you're towd,” Vera put in. He dreaded the good hiding he knew he'd get if he didn't move that second, but picked nervously at a cushion.

“Don't let me have to tell you again,” Seaton said.

When Brian didn't move Seaton slid his chair out from the table, strode over to him quickly, and hit him twice across the head. “Tek that, yer little bleeder.”

“Don't hurt his head,” Vera cried. “Leave him now.” He got another for luck. Seaton took a shilling from the shelf, thrust it into his hand, threw him to the door, and bundled him into the street.
“Now
, let's see how quick you can be.”

Brian sobbed on the step for half a minute and, still crying, slouched along the wall towards the corner shop, making fervid plans to kill his father with an axe, if he could get an axe, and as soon as he was strong enough.

To reach the bednight attic, Brian led the three others up through mam-and-dad's room, then climbed a broad ladder to a kind of loft, a procession of shirts and knickers going up there out of sight. Arthur at three was ready to do battle with the rest, and the flying melee of fists and feet that broke out as soon as the makeshift latch had been dropped caused Seaton to open the far-below stairfoot door and bawl: “D'ye 'ear? Let's 'ave less noise or I'll come up and bat yer tabs.” He stood for a few seconds in the electric silence to make sure it continued, then went back to his supper. It was all Arthur's fault, Brian whispered. He'd put his foot into the communal last-Christmas train set as soon as he got into the room. So let's jump into bed, or dad'll come up and posh us.

He spread the sandwich packet and placed the bottle of water on the table, threatening wiry Arthur with his fist as he grabbed at the paper. Margaret held him back, saying: “We'll share it, now,” while Fred looked on from a secure position on the bed. Night was a picnic time, when Vera filled a bottle with water and Seaton sliced bread and dripping, saying: “All right then, I'll cut yer a few slices. Yer must 'ave summat t'eat after you've climbed that wooden 'ill. Come on, Brian-Margaret-Fred-Arthur, it's time you was up that wooden 'ill!”

With each divided portion scoffed, they blew out the candle. “Go to sleep now,” Brian bossed them.

“Tell us a story,” Margaret said.

He'd known they wouldn't sleep unless he did: “What shall I tell you about?”

“Tell about war,” Fred said, his lips breathing from the darkness of bedclothes.

Arthur's sharp feet seemed to attack every leg and backbone at the same time. “Stop it,” Brian called, “or I'll thump you.”

“Thump you back,” Arthur threatened, but kept his feet still. “I'll tell you what,” Brian said, “I'll tell you all a serial story.”

They approved and curled up to listen. Arthur's feet-stabbing subsided, and Brian narrated how three men with machine-guns sat in a cellar that they used as a den, drinking whisky, planning how they would rob a bank. In the middle of the night they came out of their den and drove up the dark street in their big black car, and when they came to the bank they put ten sticks of dynamite under the big doors and stood on the other side of the street while it blew up with a great big bang. And when the smoke had cleared and they could see again they all rushed in through the high doors shooting off their machine-guns. When they got to the strong safes, there was a nightwatchman who said: “Get back or I'll shoot you with this gun under my coat.” But the robbers took no notice on him and shot him stone dead and put more dynamite under the safes. And when this blew up, they went inside and took all the money, millions of pounds. And when they'd put it all into sack-bags they had with them, they ran out of the bank. A man tried to stop 'em getting into their car, and one of the bandits said: “That's the means-test man; let's blow him up.” So they shot him dead. And then another man jumped on 'em, and the boss said: “I know him. It's the schoolboard man. Let him have it.” And they killed him dead as well. So they got into their big car and drove off over Trent Bridge and out of the town into the country at ninety miles an hour. But later they stopped at a caff to have a drink of whisky and something to eat and a detective called Tom Briggs was in the same caff having something to eat with his girl. And as soon as Tom Briggs saw these three men coming into the caff he knew they was robbers and that they'd just robbed a bank because he saw moneybags that they had under their arms. “Stop, yo' lot,” he said, and pulled a gun out that he allus carried, but they had their machine-guns ready and tied him and his girl up, and when they had them tight tied up to chairs, the boss of the robbers said: “We're goin' ter kill 'em now.” And he put some more bullets into his machine-gun and held it to their heads and said: “Is everything ready, boys?” And the other two said: “Yes, let's kill 'em. It's all ready.” So the boss of the robbers said: “All right, I'll shoot 'em now,” and he started to pull the trigger of the machine-gun, and in two seconds they'd be dead. He killed 'em anyway, and then one of the bandits said to the boss: “Look out o' that window and you'll see we're surrounded with fifty coppers. It looks as if we're done for.”