“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 bawclass="underline" “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.