A Start in Life (28 page)

‘Is he then? He's always been envious of my job, the fat snake. If he can get it as easy as this, then good luck to him. There's never been anything between me and June.'

‘He tells me no lies,' Moggerhanger said, as if losing my living was no more than a game to him. ‘He kept me informed which is what he's paid to do.'

I felt like going berserk in his contemporary mansion, but turned and went out, wanting to put as much distance as possible between me and Moggerhanger. I didn't think this would be so difficult, but regretted losing my job, though it couldn't be said that my life crumbled because of it. My new suitcase hadn't had time to get more than half filled in the time I'd been there so I carried it with ease towards the bus stop and headed for town, leaving the reddest sunset behind me that I'd seen in years.

Part Four

The fact that I had nowhere to go and no one to see didn't worry me a bit. That is to say, it did worry me, because I was only human, after all, though it didn't put me off doing what I had to do. The only flaw was that I had no idea what I had to do, or even what I wanted to do. But I was on a half-empty bus going east, and at the moment that was enough for me, because if there was one thing I liked doing in life it was watching buildings and people from the safe top deck of a bus, especially after having worked for a few months as a chauffeur, in which I'd been so engrossed in driving a car that it'd been impossible to see a thing. I felt like a king, able to smoke and relax, and touched my pocket to make sure the table lighter was still there. I'd lifted it on my final plunderer's run through Moggerhanger's downstairs hall, and it now weighed heavy and fat in its silver lining, something he'd never see again because I'd pawn it at the first opportunity. It was a lovely piece of work, and I'd had my eyes on it for some time, but now that it was in my pocket I began to wonder whether I'd done the right thing. The arm of Moggerhanger's vengeance might reach a longer way than I imagined. He was the sort who valued even the most trivial of his knick-knacks, and the one that currently nestled in my pocket was a bit more than that. Still, even with Moggerhanger, possession was nine-tenths of the law, and I was after all only following the gist of his jungle commandments which, shuffled up tight into one slick pack, said that you must get anything you want no matter at what cost to others. Maybe he wouldn't miss it till Kenny Dukes was well and truly taken on, and then would blame him for it, slit his throat like the no-good pig he was.

I dropped off the bus in Piccadilly, and stood looking at the lights, but I hadn't the sort of heart that got glad at them. I preferred faces, because they could at least look back, and who knows? I thought, one of them might recognize me at the same time that I recognized it. I walked on into Soho. Not that I was lonely. That would never do, and I'd deny it to my dying breath, but I did wonder again where Bridgitte Appledore had gone, and even cast my mind back to the days of Miss Bolsover and Claudine Forks. I stood by a pub bar with my case at my feet, supping a bitter pint and slewing a sly eye now and again at the women's faces, but bringing no response. Even the men who were with them weren't jealous enough to resent my stares. So I went into another house, and then up a curving alleyway somewhere off the Strand, careful not to get drunk because I wasn't in the mood for that.

One crumby pub was bunged up to the gills, but along the bar was a face I'd seen before, though for some moments I couldn't say where, not knowing whether it was from months or years ago. He was a tall man, dressed in a high-necked sweater and an expensive tweed jacket, the sort of casual gear that must have cost far more than a good suit. His face was, I suppose, sensitive because of the thick lips, putty skin, and pale eyes. He wore a hat, but in spite of this I was struck by the length of his face and head, which did not, however, make him as ugly as it should have done. In observing to this extent what he looked like, it came to me quite quickly that I'd first glimpsed him in the pub where I stopped with June and Bill Straw on my way down from Nottingham, and it was sharp-eyed June who told me he was a writer by the name of Gilbert Blaskin. If I was mistaken in any way, it was only that I remembered him as not being quite so tall as he certainly was now, but I felt no doubt as to who it was because faces are about the only thing I have much memory for, except remembering what's happened to me in the past – which I was able to do from a very early age, as soon as I realized that a certain amount of time had been put behind me in which events had occurred that I could look back on, especially those that in some way joined me to other people.

As I looked at Blaskin's face I went off into a reverie, thinking that the longer I lived the richer became my past, though sometimes things were too hectic for me to find time to reflect on it, and that was bad, for in those moments I usually committed my most foolish actions, for I forgot to think about my past, which was the only thing to tell me who I was and where I was, and why I was where I was. But while I pondered on my past, there was the added and built-in disadvantage that it didn't allow me to consider whatever future might be coming to me. So I never had time to think seriously on what I was about to do, and this was not a good thing in someone as witless and reckless as myself. But thinking so much about the past (not being a philosopher, there never seemed much else worth thinking about) should at least – one would imagine – have guided me in a friendly and wise way to formulate some rules of conduct from which I could benefit. You'd have thought so. Perhaps because I never finally trusted the past, it didn't stand by me to the extent of doing me any good at all.

So I edged nearer to hear what Gilbert Blaskin was saying to the girl who looked on with such respect as every word came out. She was small and thin, with a pale doe-face and glasses, hair shorter than mine and freckles around the bridge of her nose. The author himself had a double brandy at the elbow, his back nonchalantly to the bar.

‘I have an aunt who lives in Knightsbridge,' he said, ‘but I have to forgive her for that. Otherwise she's one of those monstrous people you never wish to meet. She helped me when I was young and struggling, when I lived on letters telling me what rubbish I wrote. I ate at least one a day, plain, and stirred the rest into an omelet. No, she couldn't bear to think of me scrounging. So she helped me, and not long ago I gave her a present to mark the publication of my tenth novel. A little dog, the most disturbed and snappy little brute I could get my hands on, which cost me all of twenty pounds. She loved it, until it started to bark. The trouble was, it didn't like her, and went on barking. It was hysterical. I called on her after a week, and it was still barking, except when it was eating its steak. I told her to have it put to sleep, but she couldn't do that, looked at it lovingly. Then it got more hysterical. It was well behaved as far as house-training went, but this continual barking from her favourite chair was having its effect. She dug out a record of Hitler's speeches, and the ranting of that madman stopped the dog, so that it listened, entranced. After that, whenever it went into a fit of barking she'd put this record on, and right away it was reduced to silent admiration. Of course, where she found that record I'll never know, but I admire her ingenuity.'

The girl, whose eyes seemed to get bigger and bigger throughout the story, reached for her shandy, while Blaskin burst into a great peal of horsey laughter, and pulled back his arm so violently that he knocked his double brandy over. ‘Fuck it,' he said to the girl, wiping the sleeve of his jacket. ‘I'll never forgive you for that.'

‘Let me get you another, Mr Blaskin,' I said. ‘A double brandy and a pint of bitter,' I called. ‘I hope you don't mind, but I'm a great admirer of your books. I've read every one of them. In one way, they actually stopped me going crazy. I lived in a place called Nottingham, and they inspired me into getting away from it, especially that terrific book you wrote about the man who lived up that way and became a writer. I thought that was great. I felt exactly like he did, in some parts. I can't tell you what a lot of good it did me to read it.'

He must have been used to this sort of thing, because he offered me his hand to shake, and said how pleased he was that his work after all was having some effect on people like me. I went on telling him how good his books were, though in fact I'd only read one of them, or tried to, because I couldn't get more than halfway, and had given it to Claudine for a birthday present, which made her see how different I was from other boyfriends, because none of them had given her a book before. She'd read it to the end and thought it was wonderful.

I told him I'd seen him in a pub on the A1 road but had been too shy to talk, and he said he remembered the place, being on his way back from Sheffield where he'd been to give a lecture on the modern novel and its place in society. He'd also spent a week cooped up in his flat with dysentery after the meal he'd eaten at the place I'd seen him in.

‘It's a wonder you didn't get anything worse,' I said, ‘the things they dish out on the roads in this country,' and he said how much better it was to be driving around France in the car, and I said I hadn't had that pleasure yet. He introduced me to his girlfriend, who had lost much of his attention because she idolized him too much to make positive statements of admiration as I did. Her name was Pearl Harby, and I noticed her looking at me with big eyes as well. He didn't explain who she was or what she did, but in the next opening of his brandy-mouth he wanted to know what I was doing in town.

‘I'm a chauffeur,' I said, ‘or was until tonight. I left the job because the bigshot I drove was in such a hurry to get back from the country today that he told me to go over the speed limit through a built-up area. I thought it was dangerous, because kids were coming out of school. A big argument followed, and when we got back I told him I didn't want to stay any more.'

Blaskin laughed: ‘You're brash, and young, otherwise you'd have found some way out of it. What other jobs have you done?'

‘Estate agent, clerk, bouncer at a strip club, garage mechanic, to name a few. I've done most things.'

‘Can you type, dearest?' he asked Pearl Harby.

‘No, Mr Blaskin.'

He turned to me. ‘Can you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good speed?'

‘Any speed.'

He ordered more drinks, all round. ‘I want somebody to type my novel. My secretary walked out on me because I was randy and tried to drag her into bed when she brought me my breakfast this morning. My wife left last week so she can't type it, and the publisher's clamouring at my shoulders. When can you start?'

There could only be one answer to that question: ‘Now.' This pleased him, as it pleased everyone, and when he asked me where I lived I said where my own two feet are touching the ground.

‘You lucky bastard,' he said jovially.

I stiffened: ‘Nobody ever calls me a bastard and gets away with it' – my hand gripping the beer mug to rip him open with.

He laughed: ‘Well, let me be the first. Let's be jolly and gay. I hate serious people. They take to politics and ruin everything.' He dipped down and put his arm round Pearl Harby, dragging her close for a big kiss. I couldn't very well smash the glass into his bald head, so held back till he stood upright again, but by then it was too late. My anger had gone and for the first time in my life I thought what the hell does it matter if someone does call me a bastard? It's only in fun, and they can never know the truth anyway.

Most of the people in the room began moving towards the stairs. ‘We're going up for a poetry reading,' Gilbert said. ‘Come and listen. There may be a fight – you can't tell, once poets get together.'

I pushed down the rest of my beer and joined the crush, making a way through with my suitcase. A girl in front didn't like this at all, for she glazed me with the fire of her blue eyes and tut-tutted sharply. All I could do was smile, and change it to a flat look when her boyfriend swung round to find out whether I was trying to get off with her. Gilbert and Pearl came up the stairs in the gap I made. ‘What do you carry in that case?' he asked.

‘Ashes,' I said. ‘Mother, Father, two brothers, a sister, and four cousins.'

He held me grimly by the shoulder: ‘Listen, you aren't a writer by any chance, are you?'

‘I've got more to do with my life.'

‘And you haven't thought of becoming one?' We were stopped at a small table and had to pay half a crown to get in.

‘Forget it,' I said. He smiled with relief, while I paid all the fares and we passed into a large room with rows of wooden chairs laid out in it.

He leaned across Pearl Harby: ‘There's a big attraction tonight, a working-class poet from Leeds.'

‘You don't say?' I said.

‘Ron Delph. The club invited him to read his poems. It's hard to get poets to read their own work, but we're hoping things will improve.'

‘Does it pay much?' I said.

‘Five pounds, and expenses. Delph won't live in London. He works in a brewery office, and won't leave. Here he is!'

As soon as the name of Delph was mentioned I saw June's face again while she'd told her story, that flash of it in my driving mirror. I was interested to know what he looked like after her information that he was the one who'd jaggered her with a daughter. He stood up front by a table, stared at everybody for a long two minutes. Then he took a bus or train ticket out of his pocket, and read in a loud monotone something like:

‘Freedom is blue

A white scarf in it
:

In the end it is a woman's hair
.

In the end, a flag.'

We enjoyed that, because though it might have been ordinary, he made it sound good. He tore the ticket into quarters, and threw it like confetti towards us. He was tall, had dark flat hair, and looked like a conjuror, because next he took a roll of toilet paper out of a shopping basket, and began undoing it, tearing it off sheet by sheet, and with everyone saying ‘Shit', which he went on to say about a few hundred times.