Every day in the factory, as each finished artefact fell from his lathe, he wondered what vocation he might otherwise have followed in his life. He could have been a soldier, certainly, perhaps an actor, even a confidence man, not to mention a mechanic that half of himself had become, but he was turning most of all into a thief of broken dreams, or a cat burglar of other people’s lives. Switching off, he tidied up so as to leave the lathe and its surroundings clean for the next morning’s start. The lathe had been the only thing in his life he could go back to, but now he had something else, his spirit floating like a compass needle in alcohol as he reached for his jacket, haversack of sandwich paper and empty flask, and collected his new Raleigh from the cycle shed. He rode away from the factory like a somnambulist, and when he got home washed himself at the kitchen sink and sat down to a silent supper. Afterwards he went upstairs and closed the door to his room. Eight hours of pandering to the mechanical part of himself called for a refuge in which he could fit his daydreams together like the scattered pieces of a Meccano set. Phrase by phrase, he was assembling a version of himself, but not turning into a Bert or a Herbert, rather someone a little of both but unique to neither. Such a way of finding out who he was gradually revealed that no one ever discovered who they were, at least not to the depth and unity he had formerly hoped was possible. The cold emotion felt while writing told him that he was reconstituting himself, whoever he was, by using the people among whom he lived. From Phaeton driving a disintegrating chariot across the sky he was putting the pieces back and fixing them together while the vehicle was still in motion.
A dark cloud, shaped like the top half of South America, drifted across scintillating Ursa Major. While saying a passionate goodnight to Cecilia at the gate of her house he noticed a man smoking a cigar come on to the pavement, and look up and down the road as if wondering what rent he would charge if he owned the houses on it, or as if to make sure that no roughnecks from Radford or the Meadows were swarming up in the darkness with knives between their teeth to take his posh villa to pieces: her father.
Cecilia broke free, and forestalled him. ‘Hello, Dad.’
‘Thought I saw you. Is this your young man?’
Herbert objected to the description, it being a long time since he had thought of himself as young, and in any case he didn’t care to be lumped with any group of the population by such a slob. But for Cecilia’s sake he held out his hand, moodily shaken by a short, compact, bald-headed man who all but ignored him by saying sharply to Cecilia: ‘You’d better get in. It’s late.’
Herbert appreciated the kiss on his cheek, but was annoyed at such obedience from a woman of her age. ‘Good night, then.’
The large front door thumped to. ‘You seem to be courting my daughter.’
Bert opened his packet of Senior Service, and took time to light one. ‘You could say as much.’
‘I hope you’re not stringing her along.’
What kind of world was he living in? ‘If you believe that you’ll believe anything.’
He scuffed the end of his cigar into the pavement. ‘Have you got any long-term plans?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I’m not surprised you don’t know. Future intentions — you know very well what I’m getting at. I’d be interested to hear your views.’
‘So would I. When I have some you’ll be the first to know, after Cecilia, I expect.’
‘That’s straight enough. She deserves well.’
‘I couldn’t agree more.’
‘Make sure she gets it, then.’
Herbert’s supercilious smile was wasted in the dark. If I loved her I’d be polite, because of his age, which is supposed to give him wisdom and knowledge, but who can say he’s wiser or more knowing than I am? He thinks all the advantages on his side give him the right to test my seriousness with Cecilia, but I stopped taking tests when I left the army. He clenched his fists at having been forced into reflection, ready to knock the self-important little tyke down if he said much more. ‘Are you threatening me?’
‘You told her you worked in an office.’ Coming closer, Herbert gave him top marks for guts. ‘But I happen to know you work in a factory.’
‘She’s aware of that.’
‘I don’t think she is.’
‘She should be by now. In any case,’ the full public school accent took him over, ‘it’s none of your business. So if you’ll excuse me, I must be going. I have to get up in the morning and do a day’s work.’
‘If you think I don’t work, you’re wrong.’ Herbert sensed the man relenting towards him, maybe because of the accent, which made him angrier. The pathetic swine wanted a good pasting, but there was no point squandering time. ‘I’m not implying anything, old boy. I’m just trying to tell you, in no uncertain terms, to get off my back.’ It was satisfying to see him walk away so quickly.
It had to be done somewhere, so why not in his room? He led the way step by step, between wallpaper that must have been there since before the Boer War. Likewise the shabby carpet. Cecilia wore the usual mock-thoroughbred expression at muted bruto noises from the backyards, and turned up her shapely nose at the sparse economy of the furnished room, heavy with odours from train and cigarette smoke, and diesel fumes from the buses, not much improved when he closed the window and curtains. A good half of him sympathized with her, which didn’t please him, so he said: ‘If I bump into your old man again I’ll black both his eyes, and break one of his arms.’
She laughed as he closed the door. ‘Oh, darling, you made him hopping mad. I promised faithfully not to see you any more. Don’t be angry, though. He was only trying to look after me. He still thinks I’m a young girl. There are times when I don’t like it, but I know he’ll never grow up and treat me as a woman, and I’m twenty-nine.’
‘Doesn’t it bother you?’
She sat on the bed. ‘I’m used to it. I can always pacify him, and get what I want.’ Does that mean, Herbert wondered, that she thinks she can do the same with me? He undid his belt. ‘Take your clothes off.’
‘You know, I don’t much like doing it here.’
He drew her forward for a kiss, and managed it delicately. ‘It’s just as sweet as anywhere else. I feel such love for you. Come on, sweetheart.’
The encounter reminded her of one they had seen in a French film of before the war, so she loosened her skirt, and lay on the bed. He manoeuvred a warm shoulder out of her blouse, much appreciating that she accepted his squalid digs as an adventurous place for a fuck. His kisses sent her into such rapture that soon it didn’t matter that they weren’t on the brightly lit bed at home. He couldn’t be sure to what extent she had climaxed, because a train whistle sounded at the same time.
‘You keep promising to let me see your typewriter,’ she said, arranging her clothes. ‘But you never do.’
We’ve just made love a couple of feet above it, he wanted to say, having wrapped it in a piece of blanket and shoved it under the bed. Not that he was convinced the machine had been stolen from her office. ‘One of the letters went phut, and it’s away for repair.’
‘Oh, what firm do you use?’
What indeed? ‘I take it to a bloke up the road. He knows all about them. Used to work at Barlock’s.’
‘I really must see it, one day. I can’t wait to read your novel, either, when it’s finished.’
‘Nor can I.’
‘Well, you know what I mean.’ She didn’t want to stay long after making love, as if everyone in the street had their ears fixed against the wall. The French film effect had worn off. The room was cold, its window rattling at every breeze. She wanted to be walked back to where steam pipes were hot to the fingers.