The Hireling (21 page)

So he thought about his bank-balance and his heart began to swell with the pride of possession. And then, at the fall of a hat, the warming-up process stopped - stopped almost with a click, like an electric fire when the shilling has done its bit. Surprised, he searched his mind for another shilling; but like a shilling in real life, it wasn’t there.

For what was the use, he asked himself, and asked himself for the first time, what was the use of this increase of personal worth, which the bank-balance so eloquently conveyed, if he couldn’t share it with anyone? Everything was the better for being shared, Lady Franklin had said, everything except Hughie. Hitherto Leadbitter had not wanted to share anything with anyone: to share it was to halve it, to decimate it, to lose it: his one idea had been to keep it to himself. But now he felt that something so owned was unfruitful; as unfruitful, as lacking in true delight, as an unconsummated marriage. It was the difference between drinking alone and drinking in company: it was a difference far greater than that. The ambition to know himself and to be known as a rich man seemed all at once utterly unsatisfying; he could not even realize his wealth, he felt, unless he had someone to realize it with him.

His tired eyes roamed round the room where nothing was his to share, nothing, for he had never hoarded reminders of the past; the past was a dead loss, he looked always to the present and the future. In the past, knife, fork, spoon, razor, comb, lather-brush, tooth-brush, button-stick - these had sufficed him; they could be stolen; but they weren’t meant for sharing. And even now, apart from his clothes, his only personal possessions were in the bathroom across the passage. The bathroom where he felt most at ease, for it was there that he got rid of the accretions of the flesh - got rid of them almost with passion, for, however tired he might be, he was never too tired to take a bath. Not from any physical need, but from a need to find a more personal setting, somewhere that felt like home, to seek the reassurance of sponge and soap, and tooth-brush, he got up, and as he went towards the door his eyes rested on the telephone, his one faithful friend. The telephone wasn’t his, it was hired from the Government. But standing by it was something that was his - the photograph-frame which held his list of bookings. Would she have held a torch for him through all these years? He could but see.

It wasn’t easy to find Clarice’s address; she had changed her address several times since the day when he walked out on her. She had changed her name, too, he discovered; but that didn’t discourage him, for she was already married when they lived together. But he had the car to help him. It wasn’t used to traversing such mean streets as those he now frequented. With its sleek black surface, so highly polished that one could see one’s reflection in it, and its bars of chromium, so dazzling that one could hardly bear to look at them, it was altogether too resplendent for its surroundings, just as Leadbitter, when he descended from it, looked altogether too distinguished and immaculate. A god and his car! While he went to the door to inquire, little boys collected round it; they gaped at it with awe, they touched and even stroked it, and reverently took down its number. When Leadbitter came back they moved far enough away to be out of reach of possible reprisals, but still kept their eyes glued on it.

The day came when Leadbitter did not reappear at once, like a postman who has left a parcel; he stayed inside, his tall figure framed in the doorway, while the car-intoxicated urchins changed their positions to get a better look. This time he came back with a relaxed face and looking younger than his years.

She was out, he had been told; she would be back in half an hour, if he cared to wait. He couldn’t wait, he had to be on a job, but he marked the house in his mind as one that, despite its forbidding exterior, held something precious for him.

For in the last few days he had quite changed his feelings about Clarice. Or rather, he had regained his feelings for her, regained them and others with them that he had not had before. In the past she had been - what? A bedfellow, of course, but what besides? A knife-sharpener, a razor-strop, something to whet his edge on. She had confirmed him in his self-hood, it came to a fine point when she was there. She put his experience into focus; with her, whether in company or alone, he could feel and act with the maximum of self-approval. This often meant doing and saying what she didn’t like, for it was in apartness that he felt at his best. Not expansion but contraction of personality was what he sought: and to achieve it he had to be at odds with the world, and her. But there were limitations to his quarrelsomeness; and sometimes when he knew she expected him to be edgy he would be mild as milk, leaving her looking foolish, defences out and weapons drawn when no one was attacking. ‘Why, what’s the trouble?’ he would ask her, innocently, and be amused by the way she hurriedly reorganized her demeanour to meet the change in his. He liked to keep her guessing, and he liked it when she tried to turn the tables on him, as she sometimes did, when near to tears. A stable relationship was irksome to him; with each encounter, he wanted to begin the whole thing over again -to end in love-making if he felt like it, or if he felt like it, a scene. He would have said, had anyone dared to ask him, and had he deigned to reply, that she preferred it that way; she liked a man to be a man and wear the pants. And he was right, up to a point; but the point came sooner than either of them had foreseen.

To measure himself by the respect he could inspire in other men was Leadbitter’s first principle; he didn’t want the respect of women, few men do. Nor did he want security in the affections, any more than he wanted it in life; he wanted money and prestige, but not security. He did not share the average man of today’s longing for material security, and as far as he understood it he despised it. But Clarice did want security in the affections; she was tired of skirmishing, and when Leadbitter threw down his challenge she accepted it. He hadn’t expected her to accept it, even after he sent back her photograph; she had been so much in love with him. He didn’t believe that women’s words were much indication of what they really felt; it would be for him to decide whether to take her back or not. She’ll get tired of it quicker than I shall, he had thought, she’ll turn up with a face like the back of a bus; and it’ll be no skin off my nose if she doesn’t. But she didn’t tire of it, and any regret he may have felt for her loss, and the blow it gave his pride, was stifled by the resentment that always sprang up in him to meet an injury, fancied or real, and by his recovered sense of independence.

But independence was no longer what he wanted. He wanted something which he didn’t name to himself, for fear of being laughed at by another Leadbitter, looking over his shoulder. It was partly nostalgia for his own world that made him want it, the world whose language he spoke and whose behaviour he understood. His own world was all around him, of course, and he was in daily contact with it; but spiritually and emotionally he had been translated to another, whose language he spoke as a foreigner, and whose air he breathed with difficulty. He had been caught up into it and it had meant a lot to him - he didn’t deny that. Lady Franklin and her hangers-on had given him a lot to think about, and to feel. Hughie and his girl friend - well, one had to laugh. Lady Franklin, she was different: she was a little mad for one thing, which they were not. He didn’t underestimate Lady Franklin’s power over his imagination. She might at any moment come back to occupy it, to trouble it with her gleams and flashes, her unpractical ideas which had such practical results. For Hughie and his bit she was money for jam, but not for him, but not for him, not any longer. For him Lady Franklin was ‘out’. She had passed out of his life, leaving him sick with longing for something that she couldn’t supply. Clarice could supply it, but she couldn’t.

‘Corrupting’, the girl friend had called her, which at the time had made him laugh. Lady Franklin corrupting! Ernestine corrupting! Yet dimly he now saw what they meant; the pattern of his experience with her confirmed it. She was an indulgence, an obsession, a walking day-dream, who offered for reality a fairy-tale version of life. Her gold was not fairy gold, far from it, but it didn’t come through the usual channels, it had to be angled for, not worked for, with many applications of the soft flannel and a lot of blarney on both sides. He would be happier with his own sort, to whom he could speak his mind and with whom he could be himself, not pretending emotions he didn’t feel, in language that had to be edited, and polished like his car. On Clarice he depended for the recovery of this lost self and the cynicism that was his cue to life; yes he depended on her for that; only she could give it to him, only she could show him the way back. He didn’t think of it as dependence, but it was; he didn’t know that he would be offering himself to Clarice instead of taking her, sticking to her like a burr instead of picking her off like a burr, but that was what his new self asked of him.

He called again, and with the same result. Mrs Crowther was out, the woman said who kept the house, looking up at Leadbitter, her eyes wide with curiosity; but she would be back any time now. Would he like to wait? Leadbitter hesitated and said no, he was on a job; but would she leave word that he had called? What name? she asked. Leadbitter told her. It didn’t seem to register, but why should it? ‘Is her old man anywhere about?’ asked Leadbitter casually. ‘He used to be a pal of mine,’ The woman raised her eyebrows. ‘You didn’t know?’ she said. ‘They are living apart,’ ‘Oh,’ said Leadbitter, concealing the relief he felt, ‘that’s bad luck on someone,’ ‘Not on her, if I may say so,’ said the woman. ‘No offence meant if he was a friend of yours, but I think she was well rid of him.’ ‘I’m not being nosy,’ Leadbitter said, ‘but what’s she doing now?’ ‘She’s in the millinery business,’ the woman said. ‘She’s doing pretty well. If you ask me, she’s picking up a packet,’ ‘Glad to hear it,’ Leadbitter said, but for some reason he wasn’t. ‘Pity about her and her husband, though.’ ‘Oh, do you think so?’ said the woman. ‘She doesn’t tell me a great deal, naturally, she isn’t one to talk about her affairs, but from what I hear he wasn’t much good to her,’ ‘No?’ said Leadbitter, and his spirits rose again. ‘I shouldn’t know about that,’ ‘No, he wasn’t,’ said the woman, decisively. ‘I won’t say any more, since he was a friend of yours,’ ‘Oh, not all that a friend,’ said Leadbitter. ‘Pity that she’s on her own, though, a nice-looking woman like that,’ ‘That’s what I say to her,’ the woman said. ‘Mind you, I don’t pry into her affairs. But I’ve said to her more than once, “What you want, dear, is a man to look after you.” ‘ ‘And what did she say?’ Leadbitter asked, with more interest than he meant to show. Watching him closely the woman answered, ‘She said she was through with men.’ ‘Oh, did she?’ said Leadbitter, aware of the woman’s scrutiny. ‘So now we know,’ and he laughed. ‘Yes, that’s what she said,’ the woman repeated. ‘She said, “I’m through with men.”’ ‘A pity,’ said Leadbitter for the third time. ‘And all because of that husband of hers, I suppose.’ ‘I’m not saying anything that she has or hasn’t told me,’ said the woman, ambiguously, ‘but I don’t think it was on account of her husband, no.’ ‘Oh, not on his account?’ ‘No,’ said the woman, ‘I don’t think she ever went much on him. Of course I shouldn’t be telling you this if he wasn’t a friend of yours. I think it was someone else,’ ‘Another man?’ said Leadbitter. The woman pressed her lips together and nodded. ‘Yes. Someone she really liked, but he walked out on her.’ ‘Too bad,’ said Leadbitter. ‘Too bad. What would she say if he walked in again?’ The woman screwed her eyes up. ‘I shouldn’t know,’ she said, ‘I shouldn’t know, I’m not in her confidence. But one thing I do know, he’d have to come in another mind than when he went away. He was a real tartar, by all accounts - of course, she hasn’t told me,’ ‘And yet she was fond of him, you say,’ said Leadbitter, carelessly. ‘Oh yes, what she took from him! Not blows, you know; he never laid a finger on her - she wouldn’t have minded that - but a nasty, cruel tongue.’ Leadbitter was silent and his face grew wooden. ‘Oh well,’ he said at last, ‘perhaps there were faults on both sides. We don’t know, do we? If you don’t mind me saying so, women can be the devil. She might find him different, if she saw him again,’ It’s not for me to say,’ the woman said, ‘but he might try, of course, no harm in trying. If he let her see -‘

‘Yes?’ said Leadbitter. ‘Well, that he knew how to treat a woman. … But why don’t you step in, if you’re interested, and wait for her? She’ll be back any time now,’ ‘I can’t wait,’ said Leadbitter, ‘I’m due on a job. … But what did you say this fellow’s name was?’ ‘I didn’t say,’ the woman said, ‘because I don’t know; she hardly tells me anything.’ ‘I’ve an idea,‘said Leadbitter, ‘who it might be. He’s not a bad sort of fellow, used to get up in the air a bit quick, one time, but he’s toned down now. He’s strolling about spare, now, but he’s done well in business, he’s on the job all right, she might do worse… ,’ ‘Do you want me to tell her this?’ the woman said, with sudden intensity. ‘Well, what do you think? If she’s like you say, wanting somebody -‘ ‘I’m not saying she’s wanting him,’ the woman said. ‘I didn’t say she wanted anybody. I said she needed someone, like all women do. Now if it was somebody like you -‘ She shot a questioning glance at Leadbitter, making him wonder if his secret had leaked out. He didn’t much mind if it had. ‘Well, he is a bit like me,’ he temporized, ‘or was, when I last saw him. Not so good-looking though.’ He laughed and the woman laughed, too. ‘Supposing you told her -‘ he stopped. ‘Yes?’ the woman said. ‘Well, something about letting bygones be bygones, because we all make mistakes sometimes, and there’s a welcome for her, she knows where - from somebody, she knows who - and it won’t be as it used to be, because - oh hell - because the chappie in the case doesn’t feel the same way as he did - and if she’s got the photo - well, to send it along, and then he’ll know that everything’s O.K.’ ‘Stop,’ the woman said, ‘let me get this straight. She’s to send a photo - will she know what photo?’ ‘Yes, she will,’ said Leadbitter impatiently. ‘And where to send it?’ ‘To the same address,’ ‘She may have forgotten it,’ said the woman doubtfully, ‘it was a long time ago,’ ‘Oh, no, she won’t have. Tell her he’s in a bit of a hurry - no, don’t tell her that, tell her to take her time. Tell her he’s got something that he wants to give her, something that she’ll like - no, don’t say that, that sounds corny. Tell her that everything’s the same but not the same, if she can understand that Irish. Tell her he’ll pick her up and everything she’s got - it won’t cost her a penny. Tell her not to worry about anything, it’s all been taken care of. Tell her I hope she’s well. Tell her I’m-‘