Cotter's England (33 page)

Camilla said, "Robert Peebles is a first-rate journalist, he's brave and energetic and he isn't fooled by British socialism; he knows his theory through and through. I know him from my father."

Eliza gave Nellie a cup of tea, while assenting to what Camilla said. Nellie took a big gulp and a big puff and said, "All right, loves! I respect you for your principles; but when you're down in the blood and muck, you've got to feel with them that never read a bloody book in their lives and don't know the name of Robert Peebles, nor what I write, to our shame. What is the good of theory? It's not good for you, Lize; you've got the Bridgehead gray in your lungs; you need sun and air and a rest. It's good for George to climb with. Theory is to climb up into the fresh air above the working class. You can be running your extramural forums from now to kingdom come, but it's they who must fight for themselves and you too, without theory. I don't mean you Eliza love, I mean them. It makes me wonder if they're not all playing games, the men. There they sit in their swivel chairs and swop book talk and elbow each other for a seat on the council and only take an interest in an evicted family if they've got a photographer with them. Not one word of their theory can put a roof over that family's heads. There are evicted families living in halfway houses, council barracks, crying for their father, for the other half. Will ye come and say, Here's no father, but here's a good hunk of socialist theory to cheer ye up? This'll put meat in your stone broth. I don't understand you, Eliza, and you a working woman. Wage rises are got with strikes, I said to him. They've got to go out like bloody pirates with a knife between their gap teeth to get anything; and they get it and ye sit there and applaud, the self-satisfied pack of you, leading the working class on your bottoms."

Eliza brought her another cup of tea, laughing, "And what did he say, the poor man?"

"If it's Robert Peebles you mean, he told me I had to show up for the class on theory. A sobsister he called me. Me!"

"And Robin Bramble?"

"Aye, there's the rub. My article was thrown out by Peebles. His is going in on the front page."

Eliza considered, "That's not bad, to get the housing meeting on the front page."

"That's not the way to look at it, pet. It's not a subject for the helping hand brigade. And anyway it's only for the early run. They'll grab it out. And me own boss. The paper's a bloody mess, I told him. With captions and subheads like a damn cough medicine advert. It's degrading the workers. It's a damn wish-washy holier-than-thou Sunday School paper. Where's the meat, where's the drink? If a worker buys your sheet, I said, it's out of pity. He has to spend another fourpence to get a decent sheet with the news he wants. I said, Leave socialist theory on the shelf and take a look in at the men at dinnertime in the yard."

"But Nellie, to organize the trades-union movement, to organize a state, to take over the State, to run a Labour Government, you have to know what you're doing. You've got to have theory," said Camilla.

"When it comes, it comes by itself; the men know what to do. I'd know what to do. And Robin Bramble and Robert Peebles would not know what to do; they'd be off on a trip to the continent, hiding from the rabble and importing a load of foreign theory. You can't teach socialism, Camilla; it comes to you. It comes to one, not to another; it comes by mysterious ways. It is the way; but you can't point it out to another."

Eliza and Camilla burst out laughing.

Nellie said solemnly, "You know if you've got it in you, that's all."

She took a gulp of tea, stuffed her cigarette back into her mouth, began to cough, got up and hung herself over the sofa, head down, as usual, nonchalantly gasping, "Excuse me!"

She seemed to be suffocating. After coughing and choking up the phlegm, as she said, for some minutes, she came back to the table and sat down, saying weakly, "It's me bronchitis! It's the fighting takes it out of you. But I've got to do it. I hate to see them going round with gummed-up eyes. It's me duty."

"Do you always quarrel with your editor?" asked Camilla.

Nellie said mournfully, "It's those on top who don't know. When you sit in the sun, the sun blinds you. People look like blue and white phantoms. You forget."

Tom had begun…

T
OM
HAD
begun his job in Blackstone when another job came up, better paid. He had started on the first uneasy days in his Blackstone job, was not happy but was feeling his way; and he was by nature a sticker. He went for his interview to St. Faith, a village near Norwich, borrowing a car from the Blackstone company, but though he saw he would be accepted, he could not make up his mind to break. He had found out that he was wanted at Blackstone to replace an elderly engineer who had got into trouble through debt; and he had made up his mind to support that old engineer and keep him on in the factory. At the same time, every day, he saw to it that he was making a stronger impression on the men. He was a good calculator; but he had thought up a trick to help him; he had a slide-rule attached to his sleeve so that he could consult it without anyone observing it. He passed for a mathematical wizard, among the locals; and he had had a bit of luck the first day, fixing a machine; so that already he was looked at, when he passed; and the girls were giggling to get his attention.

Still, he was in need of money. He had to make a decision. He came to London to see it all from a distance and to talk to women. The Saturday evening he came down, he took Eliza to a pub until late; and the next morning he telephoned one of his friends, Frida, to whom he had written. They would go for a drive and he would talk to her about his future. Frida, who worked on the files in a London clinic, and Charles her husband, who did film documentaries, were friends of George. Once they had been very enthusiastic about Nellie too; but he sensed a cooling-off. Nellie explained that they were bourgeois, living partly off unearned income and they cared only for suburban comfort. She had been deceived in them. On the other hand, Frida seemed angry with Nellie.

She had said to him, "I decided never to see her again."

"Surely that shows a weakness in yourself, an unsureness," said Tom.

"No. I have no time for a person who pretends loving friendship and has an ulterior motive. Love between women is unnatural."

Tom said cautiously, "Oh, of course, love between women is unnatural. One hasn't sympathy for unnatural feelings."

The break pleased him, though; he himself never interfered in Nellie's affairs; he respected her passions, her mistakes; it meant more to her than to him.

Frida led a quiet life when Charlie was away, as he was now, doing work on an undersea project in the Mediterranean.

She was a fair woman and this July morning had on a thin green wool suit with white silk blouse and was ready when he got there; and he was there earlier than he said. It was a cloudless, delicately sparkling day. Tom showed her places he had showed Marion, the manor houses, orchards, sunken villages, ruined monasteries, the roadsides where they had stopped, the fertile Lincolnshire lands, the high banks which might overflow.

"I used to get eggs here for Marion—on the way back, I'll show you a famous village—I always carry a pocket full of pennies, so that I can telephone anywhere—here we got off in a field and rested when Marion was ill—do you know the story of the Pedlar?"

He told her the wonderful story of his love and misery; and artlessly, as if with a woman he had known and loved for years, he gave all the details of his life and passion to her, though she was only an acquaintance; everything from his boyhood. They had time: it was a long summer's day.

"The reason Nellie feels this guilt is that Mother tried to make us feel guilty; and blamed Nellie because Nellie led us. I expect she was jealous. When we came home, Mother pried and questioned. She never went out. She got it all out of us. And if we didn't tell enough, she'd send us to bed and say she didn't love us. It hurt us terribly. We'd be there, in different rooms, calling out in childish voices; Mother, don't you love me? And we'd be crying. We believed her. She'd say, No, I don't love you, I don't trust you. You lie to me. I won't love you till you tell the truth. We'd be begging and calling out, in little voices, like birds, Mother, don't you love me? No, you don't love me. Yes, I do, Mother, yes, I do. And I do, too, Mother. She could keep it up for hours hovering about, not letting us see her. She enjoyed it. She had no other life in that house but what she made herself. And Nellie believes everything. We all cried and felt guilty; but Nellie never grew out of it."

They passed through a village.

He said, "Let's stop here. I'll take that second job, it's near here; and we'll stay here the rest of our lives."

"I'll think about it."

They laughed, an eager, excited, thrilling laugh. He looked round at her with a gay, cunning smile. She looked at him when he was watching the road, surprised. He had a boyish, reddened face.

She said, "Nellie telephoned me last night, very coaxing, and said to remember you were heartbroken. You did tell her after all, that you were seeing me."

He said arrogantly, "Nellie only thinks she knows me."

It was a clear sunset, a large sun, pure gold in a sky clear from horizon to horizon. On the way home he began to talk quickly about all sorts of things that interested her; but when she mentioned places she had seen with Charlie, he frowned. He was suggesting, teasing, pausing, "—she seemed interested, but I didn't care for her, perhaps I made a mistake, but—a Polish girl told me once that she could teach me something, perhaps I should have, but it was at the factory and—there is a Spanish girl down near Bob's—I taught her something about music and—"

He could take one of two jobs, he said; a woman was necessary; the woman might decide the job; but if only one could know beforehand, an impossible thing—how fateful it all was. He went on, all these glittering little tempting figures, the girls and himself, his pointed bright face looking round at her, neatly worked into the illuminated life he was showing her. She kept studying the dry little face, pondering his assurance.

They reached her home and went into a sitting room at the back of the house on the ground floor. French doors looked into a tangled back yard, old vines, old trees. She listened to his prattle, smiling with tenderness; such a very quick, very transparent game; but he was gentle and good. He had taken off his jacket and sat in rolled shirt-sleeves, showing his muscular arms. He moved about a bit and then sat in a chair brought up close to her, looking at her with mock piteous eyes. She thought of her contented married life, this lonely man, the distraught sister, that she did not care about lovers, that he was what Charlie called "a lamplight lover," the visitor and talker and non-doer; but he was a puzzle to her.

"You're not like other women!"

"Why not?"

"Other women ask me what I do."

It turned out he meant about love; he called it passion.

"I don't care, Tom; it's not my affair."

He turned aside restlessly and hurt, "No, it's not your affair."

He began to talk mournfully about the new job. He didn't know. Should he give up the whole idea? What was her advice? He was lost: he'd take any advice.

"I am used to taking advice from a woman. I like to do what they say. They give the best advice. They're unselfish."

They talked about it for a while, but he continued disappointed, gloomy.

He remarked, "But you don't care what I do. It isn't your affair."

She laughed, "Well, tell me, Tom, what you do."

He was pleased and said nothing.

"Well, tell me who are these kind women, landladies, schoolgirls, Kensington afternoon women, artists—"

He listened with a shining face, contemplating all these possibilities. She ended impatiently with grotesque things. He was shocked, "No; nothing like that."

After a while, he said softly and sweetly, that he had looked for love with two or three women the last few days but it had not come off; he felt cold. No one understood him.

She said, "Yes, there is something funny about you. Part is very, very cold, stone cold. I keep feeling the stone cold. That's very unusual in a man. Generally, you can feel heat, like an oven."

She looked to see if she had offended him. No; he was pleased. It was as if he had been waiting for those words.

"Yes, part of me is very, very cold."

He looked brightly at her, a demure look came on his face, "I must be warmed!"

He took her arms, bent his head and hid it in her breasts.

He said, "Yes, that is it."

She was taken by the childlike behavior and reassured him, "I understand. I knew all the time."

He was pleased at that, too. He lifted his head a little to say, "What shall I do then?"

"It's the fault of the women."

He rested his head on her breast again, looking up at her. Then he said, suddenly, "But you don't love me; you're not jealous."

"Yes, I am. I'll poison all those women."

"Would you? Would you really do that for me?"

He was delighted, as if it were all true. He was not quite at ease till he had discussed all sorts of details with her, as if they were lovers.

"In the morning I am full of passion: why is that? I am two men; one doesn't fit the other. Do you want to see me as I am? I don't mind. I'd like that."

There was a long mirror between the two windows. He took off the blue shirt and tie which went with his eyes, he took off everything and with a serious expression, stood in front of the mirror for her to look at him. He was two men, as he said. One was a man all silver in the silvery light, an old man, thin and bony though straight, a wasted hungered man, with the expression of one delivered from hope. The other was a gold man, skin and hair youthful, red lips and a hopeful smile. She stood behind him and they both stood looking thoughtfully into the mirror. But he had meant, a strong man and a frail man; a stone man and a flesh man. "Yes, I see," she said.