The Slaves of Solitude (12 page)

As with his soup, Mr. Thwaites had a vigorous and single-minded technique with his porridge, and nothing was said for a minute or so, during which period there was a good deal of movement and
adjustment of crockery and utensils upon the table. Even here the war had risen to the occasion and achieved its characteristic crowding effect, each guest having been supplied with a separate dish
for butter and a separate bowl for sugar. This, in addition to its inconvenience, created a disagreeable atmosphere of niggardliness and caution, and caused Miss Roach further self-consciousness
and difficulty. For Mr. Thwaites, she was fully aware, had his eye upon every cut she made at her butter and every spoonful she took of her sugar, mutely accusing her, if she took too much too
early in the week, of greed or prodigality, or of parsimoniousness and tenacity if she saved either up for the end of the week and perpetrated the atrocious impropriety of having some left when all
his had gone and consuming it in front of him. There was no pleasing this man.

‘Nice to see the sun again,’ said Mrs. Barratt. ‘It looks as though it might be a nice day.’

Mr. Thwaites, taking this remark, as he took all remarks made in this room, as being addressed to himself, looked over towards the window.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A fine morning, in Troth . . . In veritable Troth – a Beauteous Morning . . .’ And he went on with his porridge.

When Mr. Thwaites started this Troth language it generally meant that he was in a good temper. If only as a symptom of this Miss Roach hoped that it might continue, and it did.

‘And dost thou go forth this bonny morn,’ he said, addressing Mrs. Barratt, ‘into the highways and byways, to pay thy due respects to Good King Sol?’

Mrs. Barratt, familiar, as all in the Rosamund Tea Rooms were, with the Troth language, was able quickly to translate this, and see that Mr. Thwaites was asking her if she was going out for a
walk. As she went for a walk every morning, and as Mr. Thwaites knew this perfectly well, the question was totally meaningless, and was put to Mrs. Barratt solely in order that Mr. Thwaites might
exercise his eccentric and exuberant prose.

‘Well,’ said Mrs. Barratt, ‘as a matter of fact I’ve got to go round and see my doctor at twelve.’

There was a pause as Mr. Thwaites worked out what he could do with this.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘So at the Hour of Noon thou visiteth the Man of Many Medicines – dost thou?’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Barratt. ‘That’s right.’

‘Issuing therefrom, I take it,’ said Mr. Thwaites, ‘with diverse pills and potions, to heal thine ills?’

Mrs. Barratt did not reply to this.

‘As for me,’ said Mr. Thwaites, ‘I betake myself unto the House of a Thousand Volumes – there to acquire a novel, detective, or of other vulgar sort, to beguile the
passing hour.’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Barratt, ‘I want to change my book, too.’

‘And what of my Lady of the Roach?’ asked Mr. Thwaites. ‘How doth
she
disport herself this morning?’

‘I haven’t really made up my mind,’ said Miss Roach, as agreeably as she was able.

‘She goeth, perchance, unto the coffee-house,’ said Mr. Thwaites, ‘there to partake of the noxious brown fluid with her continental friends?’

Ah – here we were, thought Miss Roach. He had to get nasty sooner or later. This was a reference to Vicki Kugelmann, and her habit of having a cup of coffee with her on a Saturday
morning.

‘How do you mean?’ she said, ‘my continental friends?’

‘Why,’ said Mr. Thwaites, ‘dost thou not forgather, of a Saturday morning, with a certain dame of Teutonic origin?’

‘Oh,’ said Miss Roach, ‘you mean Vicki Kugelmann. Yes – I do have coffee with her.’

‘Is that her name?’ said Mr. Thwaites, and here Miss Steele, at her table alone, cut in.

‘Yes. I’ve seen you with her,’ she said. ‘Is it true that she’s coming here?’

‘
What?
’ said Mr. Thwaites, his amazement knocking him back into plain English. ‘Did I hear you say coming here?’

Miss Roach had for some time been wondering when this news was going to break. She herself had had a word about the matter with Mrs. Payne, but had not, for some reason, quite had the courage to
mention it to anyone else. Though actually the whole thing had been arranged independently of her by Vicki Kugelmann and Mrs. Payne, she still felt that, because she was known in the boarding-house
as the friend of the German girl in the town, she was in fact responsible and would have to bear the brunt of any shocked or resentful sentiment amongst the guests which the news might possibly
cause.

Now, bracing herself to face this alone, she found succour from an unexpected source.

‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Barratt, in the most matter-of-fact way. ‘She’s coming in next Wednesday.’

‘
What
?’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘Coming in
here
– coming into the house?’

‘Yes – that’s right,’ said Mrs. Barratt. ‘I know, because she’s coming into my room. I’m going over the way to a room at the back – away from the
noise.’

‘Well,’ said Mr. Thwaites, after a pause, and staring at Miss Roach, ‘this is pretty good. I must say this is pretty good.’

‘What’s pretty good?’ Miss Roach was suddenly defiant. ‘How do you mean, Mr. Thwaites?’

‘Well,
I
should say it is. I should say it’s just about as good as it could be.’

‘Yes, it is good,’ said Miss Steele, sternly, from her table. ‘I think it’ll be very nice to have her.’

‘Oh, so you think it will be nice to have her? What do you think, Mrs. Barratt?’

‘Yes, I think it’ll be nice, too,’ said Mrs. Barratt. ‘I hear she’s very nice.’

‘Well, it’s good to hear your opinions,’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘Personally, it makes me wonder what we’re fighting for, that’s all.’

‘Well,’ said Miss Steele, who was evidently in a combatant mood, and looked as though she might use some History upon Mr. Thwaites at any moment, ‘we’re not fighting
against individuals, are we? We’re fighting against Fascism, aren’t we?’

‘I don’t know about Fascism –’ began Mr. Thwaites, but Miss Steele went on.

‘It’s not as though she’s not lived here the greater part of her life. And if she’s adopted our ways and our country, it’s up to us to give her our protection,
isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know about protection –’ began Mr. Thwaites, but Miss Steele went on.

‘That’s what democracy is, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘It doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t mean that, does it?’

‘Yes, I quite agree,’ said Mrs. Barratt. ‘She
has
lived here nearly all her life, hasn’t she, Miss Roach?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Miss Roach, ‘she has.’

And at this there was a silence as Sheila replaced the plates of porridge with plates which contained a small rasher of bacon set upon a generous pile of watery scrambled American dehydrated
egg.

‘Well, it’s not what
I’m
fighting for, anyway,’ said Mr. Thwaites, at last, giving the impression that his principles had caused him to enter upon the second world
war of his own accord, and that he was a formidable and tireless battler therein.

‘Where’s she going to sit, may I ask?’ he asked a little later, again looking at Miss Roach. ‘Is she going to have a table with you?’

Miss Roach was seeking an answer to this when Mrs. Barratt answered instead.

‘I hope not,’ she said. ‘I hope she’s going to come and sit with us. There’s plenty of room for another.’

‘Yes. I hope so, too,’ said Miss Steele.

This was slightly absurd of Miss Steele, as the table at which Mr. Thwaites, Mrs. Barratt, and Miss Roach sat was not, strictly speaking, Miss Steele’s business at all. It was Miss
Steele’s only way, however, of supporting Miss Roach and again establishing her sentiments on this matter.

It was now clear to Miss Roach that the Rosamund Tea Rooms as a whole, so far from manifesting any symptoms of revulsion against the notion of a German girl appearing in its midst, was willing
to throw out a warm and active welcome – so that Vicki Kugelmann was, in fact, to be treated with less fear and suspicion than any newcomer of the ordinary sort would have had to face, and
was starting from something a good deal better than scratch.

‘Oh – so she’s sitting here, is she?’ said Mr. Thwaites, and no one answered him . . .

‘Well – we shall see,’ said Mr. Thwaites. ‘Sometimes it happens that
two
people can play at that sort of game.’

And on this mystifying yet menacing note he was silent for the rest of the meal.

As usual, Mr. Thwaites being silent, all the rest were silent. Knives and forks clattered on plates. Cups were raised to mouths and were heard being put back gently on to saucers. Chairs
creaked.

3

After breakfast it was Mr. Thwaites’ habit to go up into the Lounge. Here he sat in his chair, put on his spectacles, opened his newspaper, and, if anyone else was
present, intermittently Saw things about what he called his ‘friends’ – saw, for example, that our friends the Russians had retreated in a certain sector, that our friends the
Italians were undergoing bombardment, that Friend Rommel had done this, and that Friend Montgomery had done that, that Friend Churchill was to broadcast next week, that Friend Woolton was further
tampering with ‘the nation’s larder’, that Friend Bevin had issued a fresh decree in regard to man-power, and so on and so forth.

After this, which took about twenty minutes, he left the Lounge and went into his bedroom, in which he was heard walking savagely about for at least half an hour – or at any rate what
seemed at least half an hour to his fellow-boarders. What was he
doing
in there? This mystery, repeated relentlessly each morning, but never clarified, hung like a sullen cloud over the
Rosamund Tea Rooms at this time of day.

When he at last came out the other elderly guests were already setting about their business – the business, that is to say, of those who in fact had no business on this earth save that of
cautiously steering their respective failing bodies along paths free from discomfort and illness in the direction of the final illness which would exterminate them.

4

The relatively active Miss Steele was usually the first off the mark, and after her came Mrs. Barratt.

Miss Steele, who was fond of talking at length to her acquaintances on street corners, in whom street corners actually stimulated loquacity, invariably engineered excuses to go shopping in the
town: while Mrs. Barratt, who disliked shopping and talking, went for a ‘walk’ as an end in itself.

If Mrs. Barratt was not feeling up to the mark she satisfied honour with a short journey which included a stroll in the cemetery behind the neighbouring church; if she was well enough, however,
and if it was warm enough, she made herself take a walk and sit down in Thames Lockdon Park.

Gloomy as both these enforced excursions were, Mrs. Barratt’s soul was saddened less by the cemetery than by the Park. The Park, in fact, was the cemetery – the burial-ground, to
those elderly ones who came slowly limping along its asphalt paths to sit down and stare, of hope, vivacity, enthusiasm, animation – of life, in the positive sense of the word, itself. Where
the cemetery spoke greenly and gracefully of death and antiquity, the Park spoke leaflessly and hideously of life-in-death, or death-in-life, amidst immature municipal surroundings. Though of
small, almost miniature dimensions, and bearing the singular characteristic of running by the side of a river, Thames Lockdon Park closely resembled other parks of its kind all over the country.
Dominated by a small redbrick building, which was seemingly deserted all the year save by the gardener, and devoid of all furniture save the gardener’s brooms, machines, and tools, Thames
Lockdon Park, within its small acreage, contained and enclosed with neat hedges a green bowling-green, a green putting-green, a brown hard tennis-court, a sandy enclosure with swings for children,
and a small recreation-ground for games of all sorts.

Threaded through these were the asphalt paths, bordered in places with grass verges and flower-beds, and ornamented here and there with brand-new trees about ten feet in height. Though much was
thus offered to the public, little, even in the summer, was taken advantage of, and more was forbidden – Cycling, Spitting, walking on the grass, picking flowers, defacing the
Corporation’s property, removing its chairs, using the bowling-green, putting-green, or tennis-court without asking its permission, etc., etc. – these ordinances being proclaimed in
white lettering on green boards here, there, and everywhere, and a reward of forty shillings being in some cases offered to amateur detectives of culprits.

Backed and tolerably comfortable seats, each accommodating five or six persons, were placed at intervals facing the river, and to these Mrs. Barratt – oblivious of putting, bowls, and
tennis, or of the temptation to Cycle, remove or deface – went to sit. Nor was Mrs. Barratt, this morning, alone in the pursuit of this object, the unexpectedly fine and warm day having
brought out several other people of a similar mind, age, and constitution from the boarding-houses of Thames Lockdon, of which there were many.

Nor was this weak, semi-tottering parade of death-in-life in the winter sun taking place in Thames Lockdon alone. Though happening so quietly, and as it were clandestinely: though utterly
unknown to and unsuspected by the busy world of train-takers, office-goers, and workers, it was as much a feature of the English social scene generally as train-taking, office-going, and working.
At eleven o’clock each morning, far and wide over the land – in Parks, in Gardens, on Sea-fronts – in shelters, on seats, in crazy-paved nooks; beneath walls, behind hedges,
facing flowerbeds, these inert and silent sessions were in progress, out of the wind and forgotten by the world.

For the most part without books, newspapers, or knitting; with only the river and those who passed by to watch; in behaviour curiously shy and curiously bold (shy in that they seldom spoke to
each other, bold in that they would not hesitate to squeeze into a vacant place among strangers on a bench), these people would sit together for as much as two hours at a stretch, depart without a
word, and obey, in general, their own peculiar precedents. Certain seats and positions grew, in the course of time, under the sphere of influence of certain individuals or groups, and such rights,
once established, were hardly ever infringed save by newcomers or casuals. In fact, each real veteran had in due course acquired his own place on a particular seat to which it was practically his
privilege to go – this privilege turning into an obligation, of course, when the wind was blowing in an adverse direction.