The Likes of Us (7 page)

‘Oh, Eva, Eva.'

‘I'm sorry,' she said; ‘but it just makes me boil.'

‘Look,' her mother said. ‘Just look in that album on the table and you'll see your father as he was.'

Eva moved to the table and opened the cover of the album. ‘I don't remember seeing this before.'

‘I might have shown it to you when you were little. I haven't had it out meself for years. It was that old-time dance music on the wireless that made me remember it. It started me thinkin' back…'

Eva pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. ‘He wasn't bad-looking as a young man…'

‘A little wiry dandy of a man, he was,' Mrs Scurridge said. ‘Honest, hardworking, full of fun. I was twenty-two when I met him and I'd hardly spoken to a man except to pass the time of day. I'd never been out to work because your grandfather wanted me at home to look after the house. It was stifling in your grandfather's house because there wasn't any joy or life. It was all God. God, God, God, from morning till night. Not a God of joy and love, but your grandfather's God. A God of commandments. Thou shalt not. Your grandfather was a man with God in his mouth and ice in his heart. I once heard somebody say that about him and I never forgot it. He had a saying for every occasion. “Gamblers never win” was one I keep remembering now. “They might seem to do”, he used to say, “but be sure their sin will find them in the end”. A stiff, unbending man, he was. I never in my life saw him soften at anything.

‘The only time your father came to call on me your grandfather turned him off the step because he wasn't suitable. He came from a poor family and his father had been in prison for assaulting his employer. If there was anything your grandfather couldn't abide it was a work-man who answered back. He had half a dozen of his own and he ruled them with a rod of iron. Jobs weren't so easily come by in those days, so they didn't dare to complain. I took to meeting your father in secret whenever I could slip out of the house. It was the happiest time of my whole life. He brought sunshine and laughter into my life and I'd have gone to the ends of the earth with him...

‘We were married in a registry office when we knew you were on the way. Your grandfather had done with me by that time. We were never married at all in his eyes – just living in sin because of the sin that brought you into the world. We didn't mind, though. We were very happy for a while…'

‘But what changed him?' Eva asked. ‘What made him like he is now?'

‘All kinds of things help to change a man. Bad luck, weakness of character. When your grandfather had the stroke that finished him your father was out of work. We were struggling to make ends meet. All your grandfather's money went to the chapel and various other worthy causes. We didn't get a penny. He went to his grave without forgiving me, and your father never forgave him. He grew bitter. They were bitter years for a lot of people. He saw nothing in front of him but a life of slaving in the pits and nothing at the end of that but broken health or p'raps a quick end underground. So he began to crave for easy money. He wanted to get rich quick without working for it. It was like a demon that got into him, ruling his life. Nothing else mattered. Everything else could go to the wall. Now it's too late. He'll never change again now. But I made my vows, Eva. I said for better or for worse and you can't believe in principles when it's easy and forget 'em when it's hard. I chose my life and I can't run away from it now…'

Suddenly overcome, Eva fell down beside her mother's chair, grasping her roughened hand and pressing it to her face in the rush of emotion that swept over her.

‘Oh, Mother, Mother; come away with me. Come away tonight. Leave it all an' have done with it. I'll make it right with Eric. He's a good man; he'll understand.'

Mrs Scurridge gently withdrew her hand and touched her daughter's head. ‘No, love. I thank you for what you've said; but my place is with your father as long as he needs me.'

 

Carried along in the crowds that swarmed from the greyhound stadium, but alone, was Scurridge, richer tonight by six pounds. But it give him little joy. He knew that next week or the week after he would lose it again and probably more as well. His ultimate aim was not centred here; these small prizes were of only momentary satisfaction to him and it was only the constant urgings of the demon, the irresistible pull of something for nothing, which brought him here week after week. He turned right at the opening of the lane and walked along the pavement with his slouch-shouldered gait, chin sunk into the collar of his overcoat, hands deep in pockets, a dead cigarette butt between his lips. His pale eyes were brimming with tears, his thin features pinched and drawn in the biting wind which scoured the streets, turning the slush on the pavements and in the gutters to ice. He still dressed as he had in the lean thirties, in shabby overcoat and dirty tweed cap, with a silk muffler knotted round his neck to hide lack of collar and tie. The new prosperity had left no mark on Scurridge.

He was making for the Railway Tavern, one of his customary Saturday-night haunts, and as he neared the pub he heard himself hailed with joviality and beery good-cheer by two men approaching from the opposite direction.

‘Fred! E
y
, Fred!'

He stopped, recognising the men. He nodded curtly as they drew near. ‘How do, Charlie. Do, Willy.'

They were better dressed than Scurridge though they were, like him, colliers – coal-face workers: the men who earned the big money, the elite of the pit. The one called Charlie, the taller of the two, came to a halt with his arm thrown across the shoulders of his companion.

‘Here's old Fred, Willy,' he said. ‘Ye know old Fred, don't you, Willy?'

Willy said Aye; he knew Fred.

‘I should bloody well an' think you do,' Charlie said. ‘Everybody knows Fred. The life an' soul of the party, Fred is. Here every Sat'day night; an' every other night in t'week he's at some other pub. Except when he's at t'Dogs. When he in't in a pub he's at t'Dogs, an' when he in't at t'Dogs he's in a pub. An' when he in't at either, Willy – where d'you think he is then, eh?'

Willy said he didn't know.

‘He's down t'bloody pit wi' t'rest on us!' Charlie said.

Wheezy laughter doubled Charlie up, the weight of his arm bearing Willy down with him. Willy extricated himself and carefully straightened his hat. Scurridge, at this moment, made as if to enter the pub, but Charlie, recovering abruptly, reached out and took his arm.

‘Know what's wrong wi' Fred, Willy?' he said, throwing his free arm back across Willy's shoulders. ‘Well, I'll tell you. He's got a secret sorrer, Fred has. That's what he's got – a secret sorrer. An' d'you know what his secret sorrer is, Willy?'

Willy said no.

‘No, ye don't,' Charlie said triumphantly. ‘An' no bugger else does neither. He keeps it to himself, like he keeps everythin' else.'

Feeling he was being got at, and not liking it, Scurridge tried to free his arm: but Charlie held on with all the persistence of the uninhibitedly drunk.

‘Oh, come on now, don't be like that, Fred. I'm on'y havin' a bit o' fun. I allus thought you'd a sense o' yumour. I like a feller with i sense o' yumour.'

‘Come on inside,' Scurridge said. ‘Come on an' have a pint.'

‘Now yer talkin', Fred lad,' Charlie said. ‘Now yer bloody well an' talkin'!'

They followed Scurridge up the stone steps and into the passage, where he would have gone into the taproom but for the pressure of Charlie's hand on his back. ‘In 'ere's best,' Charlie said. ‘Let's go where there's a bit o' bloody life.' He pushed open the door of the concert room. Beyond the fug of tobacco smoke, there could be seen a comedian on the low stage, a plump man in a tight brown suit and red tie. He was telling the audience of the time he had taken his girlfriend to London and some laughter broke from the people seated there as he reached the risqué punchline of the story. ‘Over there,' Charlie said, pushing Scurridge and Willy towards an empty table. As they sat down the waiter turned from serving a party nearby and Charlie looked expectantly at Scurridge.

‘What yer drinkin?' Scurridge said.

‘Bitter,' Charlie said.

‘Bitter,' Willy said.

Scurridge nodded. ‘Bitter.'

‘Pints?' the waiter said.

‘Pints,' Charlie said.

The waiter went away and Charlie said, ‘Had any luck tonight, Fred?'

‘I can't grumble,' Scurridge said.

Charlie gave Willy a nudge. ‘Hear that, Willy? He might ha' won fifty quid tonight, but he's not sayin' owt. He tells you what he wants you to know, Fred does, an' no more.

‘He does right,' Willy said.

‘O' course he does, Willy. I'm not blamin' him. Us colliers, we all talk too much, tell everybody us business. Everybody knows how much we earn. They can all weigh us up. But they can't weigh Fred up. He keeps his mouth shut. He's the sort o' feller 'at puts a little cross on his football pools coupon – y'know, no publicity if you win. Wha, he might be a bloody millionaire already, for all we know, Willy.'

‘Talk some sense,' Scurridge said. ‘Think I'd be sweatin' me guts out every day like I am if I'd enough brass to chuck it?'

‘I don't know, Fred. Some fellers I've heard tell of keep on workin' as a hobby-like.'

‘A fine bloody hobby.'

The waiter put the drinks on the table and Scurridge paid him. Charlie lifted his glass and drank deeply, saying first, ‘Your continued good
'
ealth, Fred me lad.'

Scurridge and Willy drank in silence.

‘Well,' said Charlie, putting the half-empty glass back on the table and wiping his lips with the back of his hand, ‘Is'll be able to tell me mates summat now.'

‘Tell 'em what?' Scurridge asked.

'At I've had a pint wi' Fred Scurridge. They'll never bloody believe me.'

This continued reference to his supposed meanness angered Scurridge and he flushed. ‘You've got yer bloody ale, haven't yer?' he said. ‘Well, you'd better sup it an' enjoy it,
'
cos you won't get any more off me.'

‘I know that, Fred,' said Charlie, in great good humour,
'
an' I am enjoying it. I can't remember when I enjoyed a pint as much.'

Scurridge turned his head and looked sulkily round the room. The entertainer had come to the end of his patter and now, accompanied by an elderly man on the upright piano, was singing a ballad in a hard, unmusical pseudo-Irish tenor voice. Scurridge scowled in distaste. The noise irritated him. He hated music in pubs, preferring a quiet atmosphere of darts and male conversation as a background to his drinking. He lifted his glass, looking over its rim at Charlie who was slumped against Willy now, relating some anecdote of the morning's work. Scurridge emptied the glass and Charlie looked up as he scraped back his chair.

‘Not goin', are yer, Fred? Aren't you havin' one wi' me?'

‘I'm off next door where it's quiet,' Scurridge said.

‘Well, just as yer like, Fred. So long, lad. Be seein' yer!'

Relieved at being free of them so easily, Scurridge went out and across the passage into the taproom. The landlord himself was in attendance there and seeing Scurridge walk through the room to the far end of the bar, he drew a pint of bitter without being asked for it and placed the glass in front of Scurridge. ‘Cold out?' Scurridge nodded. ‘Perishin''. ‘He pulled himself up onto a stool, ignoring the men standing near him and the noise coming faintly from the concert room. Close behind him, where he sat, four men he knew, colliers like himself, were gathered round a table, talking as the dominoes clicked, talking as all colliers talk, of work...

‘So when he comes down on t'face, I says, “I reckon there'll be a bit extra in this week-end for all this watter we're workin' in?” An' he says, “Watter! Yer don't know what it is to work in watter!” “An' what do yer think this is seepin' ovver me clog tops, then,” I says: “bloody pale ale?”'

Scurridge shut his ears to their talk. He never willingly thought of the pit once he was out of it; and he hated every moment he spent down there in the dark, toiling like an animal. That was what you were, in animal, grubbing your livelihood out of the earth's bowels. He could feel the years beginning to tell on him now. He was getting to an age when most men turned their back on contract working and took an easier job. But he could not bear to let the money go. While there was good money to be earned, he would earn it. Until the day when he could say good-bye to it all...

He drank greedily, in deep swallows, and the level in his glass lowered rapidly. When he set it down empty the landlord came along and silently refilled it, again without needing to be asked. Then with the full glass beside him Scurridge prepared to check his football pool forecasts. He put on his spectacles and taking out a copy of the sports final, laid it on the bar, folded at the results of the day's matches. Beside the newspaper he put the copy coupon on which his forecasts were recorded, and with a stub of pencil in his fingers he began to check his entries. If was a long and involved procedure, for Scurridge's forecasts were laid out according to a system evolved by him over the years. They spread right across the coupon, occupying many lines, and could only be checked by constant reference to the master plan, which was recorded on two scraps of paper which he carried in a dirty envelope in an inner pocket. Consequently the glass at his elbow had been quietly refilled again before he came near to the end of his check and a gradual intensification of his concentration began to betray in him the presence of growing excitement. And then the movements of the pencil ceased altogether and Scurridge became very still. The noises of the taproom seemed to recede, leaving him alone and very quiet, so that he became conscious of his own heartbeats.