‘I’m sure you’ve got a lovely home to go back to,’ she said, ‘if you want to.’
A decent response, in words of Archie’s calibre, would be humane, but no lightning bolt of emotion came to melt his rigid control. ‘No, Ma, I’m off to live in London,’ was the best he could say.
‘I don’t know why you want to leave here at all.’
‘It’s only that I think my life’s got to change.’
She sighed. ‘It must be marvellous to be young, and hope for summat like that. Are you going to get that book published?’
He hated to see tears in her eyes. ‘If I do you’ll be the first person to get a copy.’ His tone was such as to stop her asking more, because a proper explanation of his departure would take years to write, a job to be set aside for some later date, and from a different person. ‘I’ll be back as often as I can to see you.’ He wasn’t sure how he could. ‘You can rely on that.’
The factory had taught him to waste nothing, a place wherein energy was sweat which you couldn’t afford to lose, where you needed to conserve if your backbone wasn’t sooner or later to melt. Economy of effort had been the order of all days, and time meant money in your pocket to pay for booze, or to treat a woman, and to live as well as you could.
He had learned a lot, the long way and hard, much that was impossible to quantify, though with little awareness of the struggle because he had been young. To slough off the invisible skin of overalls would need long exposure to different qualities of air. Certainly it would take time for his body and the roots of his hair to discard more than a decade of imbibing disinfectant and the atmosphere of iron and steel. From having been a workman for so long he felt a frisson of excitement at the prospect of change.
Nineteen
Not quick enough to count the girders, he worried at losing his speed of perception, a bad sign when heading for London. Thirty years old was over the hump, the highway to decrepitude — if you didn’t watch it. A green and sluggish Trent slurried the past away, not forgetting to take his guilt at deserting Mrs Denman, though he supposed such a feeling to be on the plus side, having admitted it, and left a suitcase to signal he’d be going back. Abandoned as well were oil-soaked overalls, dulled boots, cap and knapsack, for slinging in the dustbin, or handing to any ragman who would take them.
‘I understand how you feel,’ Isaac had said. ‘Fate likes to work its little coincidences. Doesn’t it just? Anyway, she might live longer than you think, or longer than either of us, for that matter.’
‘All the same, I’m a real shit.’ Herbert stacked the books he had borrowed on the table. ‘She’s been absolutely first rate, right from the beginning. You could say she’s made me halfway human.’
A doubting smile formed on Isaac’s thin lips. ‘Send her a copy of the book.’
‘Oh, I shall do that. There’ll be one for you, as well, someone else I don’t like leaving.’
The sentiment was waved aside. ‘You mustn’t worry about that. I’ll live forever. Or until God says so, which has to be the same. Just come back and say hello when you can spare a moment from the fleshpots of London. There’s no place like it in the world. I loved it in my youth. What happy days!’
A first-class seat had never before been indulged in, but his status as a possibly successful writer while standing in the queue brought out the demand — from what part of himself he preferred not to know — for which he got a ‘sir’ with his change. Two suitcases snug on the rack were as heavy as if packed with stones, one more piece of luggage than he had gone with, yet they were mostly books and papers, and hardly equal to the sum-tonnage of experience gained.
Despite strong arms the pull was hard, lugging them into the streets of St Pancras. He crossed at a light on red, and a gravel lorry hogging by splashed his turn-ups. The anonymity of London to bask in buoyed him on to a spring-heeled track, but when rain drummed on his mackintosh he went into the first bed-and-breakfast place and paid fifteen bob for a night in advance. The man spoke Greek to his wife as to which room was empty, and Herbert supposed they were from Cyprus but, because of the present troubles, thought he’d better not tell them of his time there with the army. A subtle smell of olives and resinated wine followed upstairs when the man showed him into a room with immaculate sheets. The curtains wouldn’t keep out much light. Or dull the noise: traffic was continuous. He left his cases and went to find somewhere for lunch.
Three days at the hotel would rush him as much as a week’s board in Nottingham. Real life had jumped him at last, economy with money helping him to become more of a man of the world. In the coffee bar he smoked a cigarette while culling the Evening Standard for advertisements of furnished rooms. A quick move was necessary, even if only to escape the squeals and moans of the middle-aged couple next door, who jumped around at night to make the best of their clandestine tryst. At breakfast the man, obviously from the North, called to Herbert: ‘Do you make model aeroplanes, chum?’
Herbert smiled at such a strange idea. He didn’t.
‘What a shame!’ The man, only trying to be friendly, went back to his plate of kippers. ‘Just wondered if you might.’ His wife (or whatever) a fragile woman, sat with one big blush on her face, avoiding all eyes.
Isaac had mentioned an area of cheap rooms south of the Elephant and Castle. He spread the town plan, pencilled streets on which vacancies were indicated, and found a box on the main road to make phone calls. London air is different, he had been told. Wind never came from where you expected because of so many buildings. Multiple winds, some more subtle than others, brought grit rather than homely smoke, making him feel scruffy instead of plain worn out by work. He came up from the underground and back into the air, a coating on the skin that would wash off at night and leave no trace in the morning.
Mr Glenny the landlord sat outside the address in a Rolls Royce, and came on to the pavement to shake hands. He wore a boiler suit and was hard to place, though Herbert didn’t think such a rig was meant for labouring. His tie and pin were precisely fixed, and gold cufflinks shone from the sleeves of a laundered purple shirt with a white collar. Maybe it was the closest he could get to a de luxe prison garb, which he’d one time been used to. On the other hand a squashed snout suggested experience at prize fighting, while his accent seemed local enough. ‘What’s your line of work?’
Herbert felt he could be as direct as to tell only half a lie. ‘Publisher’s office.’
Glenny didn’t believe him, but because he distrusted everyone it made little difference. ‘Want it long?’
‘As long as I stay.’
‘Have a look, then. You might not like it.’
‘Who else lives here?’
‘Riffraff. But they pay me.’ He pushed the door open against a wedge of letters. ‘They’re all right, though. As I said, you might not want it.’
Meaning it might not be good enough for him. It was. Preference had nothing to do with the matter. Any simple billet that stopped rain splashing on to his head would do, and no fortnight’s rent passed more willingly from his hands. The room was larger than Mrs Denman’s, two windows instead of one looking on to the street. The ghastly shit-coloured wallpaper could be ignored. Compared to Isaac’s cramped accommodation it was a clover field, furnished with a hot plate and small sink, lavatory and bathroom down a few stairs, all for fifty bob a week. A stink of beer and sweat lingered like poison gas from the last labouring occupant, but by keeping both windows open the place soon freshened into the faintest mixture of train smoke, car fumes, and skirting-board dust.