Knowing why Harry had knocked over the ashtray, Pam came back quickly, and hoped George at least was happy to see her. She scooped up the mess and laid the pan in the hearth till later. ‘There’s nothing we can do for you. The house won’t need painting for another three years.’
George’s left hand twitched. ‘She’s right. Not as far as I can see, either.’
She imagined the three brothers setting up ladders and scaffolding, part of an army of occupation that would mark the house by leaving its quiet dun-coloured intimacy a complete ruin. They would move from room to room mixing paints, stubbing out their cigarettes, and leaving a litter of beer tins and pie wrappings. In sheltering from the rain they would tread their plaster-covered boots on her carpets, and use her kitchen to fry their dinners and make tea.
George’s picture showed them taking clothes from his wardrobe and searching pockets for anything they could slip into theirs, knowing he wouldn’t say anything in case a fight started that he was unable to finish. The word must have been passed around town that they didn’t take care in their work, which was why they had few jobs. He saw them dabbing their thin and doctored paint over the woodwork, and swinging planks and ladders so that door panels got split and panes of glass shattered. They would lark about and fall out of windows, holding him responsible because they knew he was insured, and would get sufficient compensation to stay six months in bed at a private clinic while their families lived in luxury on the strength of what extra compo they would receive after taking skinflint George to court. It was a watertight plan. They wouldn’t fail to prise more money out of him and get their own back for wrongs he couldn’t imagine having done to them.
He was businesslike. ‘Ring me tomorrow, and I’ll let you know if I have any ideas.’
‘I don’t think you know how bad things really are,’ Alf said, seeming remarkably fit and lively, she thought, compared to a few minutes ago. ‘I can’t put it into words. My voice croaks when I try to tell people, and it ain’t only because I want some tea – though I wouldn’t mind another bucketful. It’s good tea, duck!’ he said to her with a smile and a wink.
‘I’m dying o’ thirst, as well,’ Bert said.
She didn’t respond, not yet willing to be their slave.
George cleared his throat. ‘I’d be quite happy to put you in the way of earning a few hundred if I could, so that you’d be able to pay back what you owe me from before. If you’d like to decorate the house inside and out for that tidy little sum, then that’s all right by me.’ He turned to Pam. ‘I’d like some more tea myself, love, if you wouldn’t mind.’
‘That ain’t what we mean.’ The veins stood out on Bert’s temples.
Harry tore a patch from his overalls at the knee and put it into his jacket pocket. ‘You’re too fucking clever,’ he said to George. ‘That’s your trouble.’
‘All of us could do with some tea, and that’s a fact.’ Alf didn’t want to be seen hanging back in the common effort. He looked pale again, deprived, as if he’d had no sustenance for a week. They ate plenty of food, she knew, but it was cheap and rotten, though neither she nor George had any doubt of their strength and tenacity. ‘But we also want the right to work,’ Alf added, after a knowing look from Bert.
Pam washed cups and waited for the kettle to boil. Alf’s description of George as having been hatched rather than born revealed that he was disliked far more by his brothers than he ever could be by her. They lacked the sense to realize that whatever they said behind George’s back was bound to reach him before a few days were out. Or perhaps they knew it, but didn’t care. Their opinions, being totally unconsidered, had to be put into hurtful words at the soonest possible moment, which proved to her that words weren’t important to them, since they had no sense of control.
Because they didn’t think before they spoke, and distrusted anyone who did, their views on themselves and others, and on anything at all, could never alter. They had always treated George as if he had left them in the lurch by becoming a toffee-nosed bleeder who wouldn’t give them two ha’pennies for a penny. On the other hand they could be pleasant enough when it suited their purpose.
Alf, between jobs, once came on a friendly call, hoping they would send him away with a few pounds in his pocket. While drinking his tea he informed her and George what his brothers thought of them (after he had taken the money) though she knew (and so did George) that he would tell the others later what mean bleeders they were for not giving him even a cup of tea at a time when he was on his uppers.
The silent room was thick with cigarette smoke, and she didn’t suppose she had missed much more than her imagination supplied. She opened the window. ‘I thought you’d have sorted yourselves out by now.’
‘It ain’t so easy,’ Bert said.
Her headache was so intense she thought her period was about to start, though there wasn’t much chance while they were in the house. Not even George said thanks when he took his tea. ‘Some people have to go to work tomorrow,’ she said.
‘The lucky ones do,’ Harry said glumly.
Bert pretended to scrape something from the end of his nose, then made a vicious flicking motion across the room towards George, who half closed his eyes as if expecting a fist to follow. ‘So you’ll see us go down the chute,’ he said scathingly, ‘before lifting a finger?’
Pam noted that it was nearly ten, and that if George didn’t get to bed by half-past he would be tired and upset in the morning. ‘There’s nothing I can do,’ he told them. ‘If there was I’d do it, but there isn’t. And that’s the cold truth.’
Harry held out his cup, and sighed.
‘Why do you always come to us when you’re stuck?’ She was so angry she even poured him more tea.
‘There’s no one else,’ Alf said.
Which was true, and she was filled with guilt and pity, but how they used the fact to hold her and George over a slow fire! Even so, it was impossible to send them away without help, which they very well knew, and she was hoping for an idea that would be acceptable to all when Bert turned to George with one that must have been in their minds from the beginning. ‘I passed your factory the other day.’
This did not sound plausible, since it was in a cul-de-sac, and little more than a glorified brick shed backing on to a canal.
‘And it seemed to me – didn’t it, Alf? Our Alf was with me, because we’d just took a load o’ rammel on Dunkirk tips – that your factory wanted painting. That wall looks terrible. It’s the worst bit o’ wall on the street.’
‘It’ll do for a while,’ George said mildly.
‘We’ll paint the lot: doors, roofs, and walls for three hundred quid. You won’t get a better price anywhere.’
The slight creasing of skin around George’s eyes told her that he was considering the offer. So was she. Apart from the fact that they had to do something, it was far better that his brothers should dab over the outside of the workshop than devastate their home. George would be there to watch them, and maybe they’d be able to see how hard his own workmen got stuck in. But what amazed her, when it shouldn’t have, was how they had cunningly driven her and George to discussing exactly what they had wanted to talk about since first coming into the house an hour ago. Perhaps their business wasn’t slack at all, and this was their normal method of drumming up trade.
Bert sensed her thoughts. ‘We did a job like that a month ago for five hundred. We should have got six, but beggars can’t be choosers. We’ll do yourn for three hundred, George, not for profit, but as a favour, just to keep our hands in between jobs, because it’ll only cover the cost of the paint. It don’t look good that your factory’s like a slum. People might wonder why it’s in need of a lick of paint when you’ve got brothers in the decorating trade. They’ll think we’ve fallen out, and say we’re not much of a family if we can’t stick by each other.’