Love on the Dole Read online

  Sally said, after she had washed herself: ‘What’s up wi’ you this morning? Why are y’ rushin’ wi’ y’ breakfast; y’ve plenty o’ time.’

  She would say that. ‘You mind y’r own business,’ he muttered.

  She smiled as she glanced at his rolled-up sleeves: ‘Old Samson,’ she said, with a provocative laugh: ‘All muscle.’

  He flushed hotly: this was her favourite trick, deriding his miserable muscles when she couldn’t think of anything else to say; had been ever since once she had surprised him, stripped to the waist, standing in front of the small mirror over the slopstone endeavouring to emulate the posture of a notorious wrestler whose picture had lain propped against a jug on the table: it had been, for him, a most embarrassing moment. ‘You leave my arms alone,’ he snapped. He raised his brows accusingly: ‘You watch yourself. Ah saw y’ talkin’ t’ Ned Narkey, last night. What time did he let y’ come in, eh? That’s what Ah’d like t’ know. If pa hears about -‘

  Her eyes blazed; the smile faded: ‘You mind your own business,’ contemptuously, and with a curl of the lip: ‘Choir boy! Ha!’

  ‘Now, children. Now children. Cant y’ ever agree? Like cat an’ dog, y’ are. Ne’er seen a pair like y’,’ said Mrs Hardcastle, wearily: ‘Get y’ breakfasts an’ let y’ food stop y’ mouths. Come on, Sal. Y’ll be quartered’ (fined a quarter hour’s wage for im-punctuality).

  Harry mumbled something, resentful of Sal’s allusion to his being a chorister. She seemed to delight in provoking him. Oh, this kind of thing took all the pleasure out of the idea. He rose from the table sulkily, put on his jacket, celluloid Eton collar and stud bow, picked up his cap and sauntered to the door.

  ‘Where y’ goin’ now?’ asked Sally.

  ‘Aw. … Questions agen. … There’n back t’ see how far it is …’ With a gesture of impatience he stamped out of the house into the wet street

  Doors were opening and slamming. Men, women, boys and girls were turning out to work.

  The lamplighter was on his rounds extinguishing street lamps. The rain was ceasing.

  CHAPTER 3 - LOOKING FOR IT

  DAYLIGHT waxed stronger.

  Women wearing shawls so disposed as to conceal from sight and to shelter from the elements whatever it was they carried in their arms, passed him now and again. They looked, in profile, like fat cassocked monks with cowls drawn. He knew what it was they carried and whither they were bound. He paid no attention to them, proceeding, via by-streets, to fall in with a great procession of heavily booted men all wearing overalls and all marching in the same direction.

  The drizzle had ceased by the time he reached the main thoroughfare.

  Red and cream electric tramcars rattled by; alongside raced bicycles, municipal buses, privately owned charabancs crowded with men, the atmospheres within the vehicles opaque with tobacco smoke.

  Tobacco smoke, blue and grey. It rose from the marching men like sweat vapour from distressed horses, hung in the still air or swirled, gracefully, in the draught of passers-by. Over all, the air resounded with the ringing rhythmic beat of hobnailed boots.

  It fired Harry’s imagination. A tremulous elation fluttered his heart; then a despondence stole across his spirits when he remembered that he was but a trespasser. He had no real right to be here with these men. A spiteful voice in his brain whispered that he was doomed to clerking, reminded him that, even now, he wore the uniform of offices, Eton collar, stud bow and those abominable knickerbockers. He felt ashamed of himself, slunk along by the walls trying to make himself inconspicuous. All these men and boys wore overalls; they weren’t clerks, they were Men, engaged in men’s work. Sullen obstinacy mingled with rebellious desperation stirred in his heart. They ain’t getting me clerking,’ he muttered.

  He found himself listening to the beat of the men’s feet again; an entrancing tune, inspiring, eloquent of the great engineering works where this army of men were employed. Reverently he murmured its name: ‘Marlowe’s.’ Marlowe’s, a household word throughout the universe of commerce; textiles, coal, engineering, shipping and home trade; a finger in the pie of them all.

  And there, majestic, impressive, was the enormous engineering plant itself; there, in those vast works, the thousands of human pygmies moved in the close confines of their allotted sphere, each performing his particular task, an infinitesimal part of a pre-ordained whole, a necessary cog in the great organization.

  He stared at it, unblinkingly. He had seen it before, often enough, but not in the light of the present as something in which he wished to be absorbed. Awe glowed in his intent eyes.

  Three huge chimneys challenged the lowering sky; three banners of thick black smoke gushed forth from their parapets, swirling, billowing, expanding as they drifted, with ‘unperturbed pace’ to merge, imperceptibly into the dirty sky. A double row of six smaller chimneys thrust up their steel muzzles like cannon trained on air raiders. Tongues of flame shot up, fiery sprites, kicking their flaming skirts about for a second then diving again as instantly as they had appeared. An orange glare reflected dully on the wet slates of the foundry.

  The colossal building itself sprawled sooty and grimy over a tremendous acreage enclosed within a high brick wall. Within was laid out in streets numbered in the American manner, ‘First Street’, and so on to ‘Forty-First Street’.

  Railway lines, like shiny snail tracks, trailed all over the place. Presently, men would come out of their small cabins to stand at junctions with red flags in their hands, waving on or holding up the light locomotives which pulled the railway traffic about the company’s premises. At present, though, all within was quiet. The industrial city’s streets lay as in a midnight silence. Deserted save for the solitary figure of a night watchman slowly traversing Tenth Street; a slow-moving speck hemmed in on both sides by the towering steel and glass facades of the riveting and machine shops. In a moment this silence would be shattered.

  Shattered by the influx of the vast concourse of men congregated outside the walls. Before six o’clock the twelve thousand of them would pass through the gates. They crammed the wide thoroughfare, a black mass of restlessness; crammed, saving a strip of roadway kept clear for the frequently arriving, bell-clanging tramcars full of more overalled men. The air stank of oily clothes, reeked with it and tobacco smoke, and buzzed with conversation to do, mostly, with week-end sport.

  How easily, negligently, these men wore their supreme importance; how infinitely, ineffably superior these gods of the machine and forge were to mere pushers of pens! Occasionally, as he pushed through the crush gazing at the faces of the men, he was filled with misgiving to remember his great temerity in presuming to aspire to their status. Could it be possible that those in authority would give Harry Hardcastle a job? No, no, it was too much to expect; those expectations, desires, which would give one great happiness rarely materialized. His courage ebbed; the thought of the likelihood of returning home disappointed, of going back to Price and Jones’s, was maddening. He wouldn’t do it; he’d run away first; he’d - Oh, they must take him on here; must, must, must.

  Of course they’d take him on. They’d engaged the other boys, Tom Hare, Sam Hardie, Bill Simmons and Jack Lindsay. He pushed onwards towards the gates, an expression of desperate resolve and intense determination on his face. He kept a wary eye open for a chance meeting with the four boys with whom he associated of an evening at the street corner. He almost bumped into them but managed to withdraw and disappear into the crush; they were too preoccupied in consuming a cigarette which they were taking turns in puffing. He didn’t want them to see him; they were too discouraging; chaffed him, with unmerciful derision, concerning his occupation at the pawnshop. Nor was there anything remained for Harry but to grin in a sickly, apologetic manner. Wasn’t their contempt justifiable when their romantic work was compared with his own? Look what Marlowe’s had done for them in three months’ time! Three months ago they had been at school, marbles in their pocket. They and he now were poles removed. T
hey talked, intimately and authoritatively in terms of magic; entrancing names such as ‘machine shop’, ‘foundry’, ‘riveting shop’ slipped from their tongues with spellbinding ease. They were men already; their speech and swagger made him outcast, filled him with gnawing envy. But think on it in a few moments, perhaps, he would be as they, an engineer in embryo!

  Again he faltered. Where was application to be made? The place was so vast; he might wander through it all day without finding the person who had to do with engaging the apprentices. Indeed, he might not even be permitted entry. And he’d to be at Price and Jones’s by six-thirty. He dared not prejudice his employment there until he was sure of occupation here. He heard the chains of the desk clanking behind him.

  If only he could find someone who would introduce him to the right quarter. He would have to hurry; in a few moments this crowd would be gone.

  He searched the faces of the men for one familiar.

  There was Ned Narkey, a huge fellow with the physique of a Mongolian wrestler. But he wouldn’t, couldn’t ask Ned. There was something about the beefy hulking brute that repelled one; though Harry admired his strength; according to the boys Ned could lift a girder that four ordinary men couldn’t move. But he wasn’t a nice fellow; there was a foul side to his tongue, and there were tattoos on his arms of naked females which he could make perform the most suggestive postures by contracting his muscles. For this reason Harry glowered whenever he saw Sally speaking with him. Though he kept his dislike of Ned a secret; the boys would have laughed him out of countenance had they ever discovered it. Ned was popular with them; he’d had his picture in the paper when he won the medal during the war. And he’d a pocket full of money, what remained of the gratuity they had given him when he had been demobilized. No, no, he couldn’t ask Ned; couldn’t risk humiliation in front of all these men. Ned might be kindly disposed, then, again, he mightn’t; and, as today was Monday and Ned probably not recovered from his week-end carousal, the latter mood would be likeliest.

  Nearer the gates Harry glimpsed Larry Meath reading a newspaper and leaning against the wall. Larry Meath! Harry’s heart leapt and his eyes glowed with eagerness. He’d understand; he was that kind. His quality of studiousness and reserve elevated him to a plane beyond that of ordinary folk; he seemed out of place in his lodgings in North Street. He wasn’t for drinking, gambling, swearing or brawling. Though if you went to the library to look at the illustrated papers or to watch the old geysers playing dominoes, you sometimes saw Larry at one of the tables absorbed in some book or other that looked as dry as the desert. And argue! Hear him, when during election times, you and the rest of the boys went to the committee rooms to see whether there were any bilk to distribute or any lamps to hold; hear him then! he could talk fifty to the dozen. Yes, he’d a reputation for cleverness: his face attracted you, too; lean, a gentle expression and a soft kindliness, a frank steadfastness in his eyes that invited confidence. People were always going to No. 21 with their troubles: ‘Ah’ve had a summons for me rent, Larry. Could y’ go for me? Ah’m feared t’ death. Eeee, y’ don’t know what a relief it’d be if on’y y’d …’ or if somebody had an official form to fill in they, demoralized by the questions set forth and distressed at the thought of having to take up pen and ink would come, nervous and stare eyed to ask his assistance, going home, beaming and relieved, with the completed paper clasped in their hands. Just the man to help Harry. Besides, he was sure to have some influence in the works since he was a cut above the ordinary engineer: he it was who assisted in maintaining the efficiency of the plant, saw to the overhaul of the gigantic crane that Ned Narkey drove; at least, so said the boys who spoke respectfully of Larry Meath’s status.

  He was about to approach Larry when he paused within arm’s length and turned sidewise, alarmed, a sudden remembrance occurring to him that Larry’s kindliness might take an unexpected turn. Yes! Remember when Jack Lindsay asked Larry to introduce him to Marlowe’s? Larry warned him against it: told him that it was a waste of time serving an apprenticeship to engineering. Harry tried to edge away from Larry, but the crowd, growing denser about him prevented movement. He hoped, fervently, that Larry would not see him. He was putting his paper away now; out of the tail of his eye Harry could see Larry’s gaze fixed on him. He ran a finger round his collar, fiddled, nervously, with his stud bow and pretended an absorbed interest in the activities of two gatekeepers come to stand on the inside of the great gates ready to fling them back at the appropriate time. He could feel Larry’s gaze.

  Larry, slowly stuffing his newspaper into his pocket regarded the boy sympathetically, thoughtfully. A thin, down-at-heel child dressed in a worse-for-wear knickerbocker suit, a celluloid Eton collar, yellowing, fiddling nervously with his stud bow.

  Another recruit to this twelve thousand strong army of men who, all, at one time had come, eagerly, to some such place as this on a similar errand. Larry too. All had been young Harrys then. They now were old, disenchanted Harrys; families dependent on their irregular and insufficient wages; no respite to the damnable eternal struggling. Discontented and wondering why they were discontented; each keeping his discontent in his own bosom as though it were a guilty secret; each putting on a mask of unconcern, accepting his neighbour’s mask as his true expression, and, often, expressing inarticulate revolt in drunkenness, in making desperate, futile efforts to relieve their poverty in gambling hazards they could ill afford.

  Sam Grundy, the gross street-corner bookmaker, Alderman Ezekiah Grumpole, the money-lender proprietor of the Good Samaritan Clothing Club. Price, the pawnbroker, each an institution that had grown up out of a people’s discontent Sam Grundy promised sudden wealth as a prize, deeper poverty as a penalty; the other two, Grumpole and Price, represented temporary relief at the expense of further entanglement. A trinity, the outward visible sign of an inward spiritual discontent; safety valves through which the excess of impending change could escape, vitiate and dissipate itself.

  He regarded the boy thoughtfully; a thin, down-at-heel child fiddling nervously with his stud bow.

  A man next Harry glanced at his watch and said to his mate: ‘She’ll blow any second, now.’ Harry licked his lips and wiped his clammy palms on his breeches’ backside. His face was flushed, brain in a whirl. What was he going to do? What…

  Suddenly, from the side of one of the tall chimneys appeared a plume of steam vapour instantly followed by the deep, loud, hoarse note of a siren. The warning signal telling the men that only five minutes separated them from the time to commence work. The great gates slid back. In concert the vast assembly seethed about the opening and spilled into the enormous rail-lined pattered streets and yards, spreading in all directions like an army of ants in panic.

  Swept forward by the irresistible current, bewildered, apprehensive, it was only a matter of seconds before he found himself in the machine shop.

  Rows of lathes, milling and drilling machines; overhead a maze of motionless countershafts, driving belts crossed and connected to the pulleys of the machinery below. Odour of oil everywhere; floor black with it. Yet there was no litter, no accumulation of dirt; the tidiness amazed Harry. Between the rows of machinery, white lines, painted on the concrete floor, had legends painted, also in white.

  SAFETY FIRST.

  KEEP BETWEEN THE WHITE LINES

  Boards here and there suspended in conspicuous positions, said: ‘Don’t Run’. At various points men formed into queues from whence came the quick, repetitive ‘ping-ping-ping’ of bells. The men clocking on and swearing dreadfully if anybody fumbled a time-card which they had to take out of one rack, slip it into a slot in the time-recorder, depress a lever and restore the card to its appropriate place in another rack on the other side of the clock.

  He stood there gazing about him, hypnotized by all he saw. His heart rose to think that, at this time tomorrow morning, he, too, might be punching a time-card!

  ‘Hey, what the hell’re you doin’ here?’ the rough voice of a tall ma
n wearing a badge of authority in the lapel of his coat. The countershafts began to turn; men were divesting themselves of their coats and hanging them on long racks that would shoot up to the ceiling the moment six o’clock blew. Harry licked his lips, swallowed hard and stammered: ‘Ah - Ah -‘ Oh, what should he say? ‘Ah - Ah - Oh, Ah’ve bin sent here for a job an’ Ah don’t know where the place is.’ Would the man believe?

  ‘You want time office,’ replied the man: There t’is, o’er there. See Ted Munter. Come on, now, get out o’ here.’

  Ted Munter! Ted Munter who lived in the next street to North Street! Why, everybody knew him. What luck.

  Ted, a semi-bald, pot-bellied individual with thick pebble steel-rimmed spectacles on his nose, said, surlily, as Harry knocked, timidly, on the open inquiry window of the time office: ‘Wot the ‘ell d’you want?’

  ‘Please, Mr Munter,’ replied Harry: ‘Ah’ve bin sent here for a job.’

  ‘Oo sent y’?’ snapped Ted, peering at Harry.

  Harry blinked. He drew a bow at a venture: ‘Foreman, Mr Munter.’

  ‘Ah know … which foreman?’

  ‘Ah dunno his name… . He just tole me t’ come here an’ ask f you. He was a tall man.’

  Ted narrowed his eyes and contorted his mouth: ‘Ah know oo it was,’ said Ted, staring hard at Harry and making him feel extremely uncomfortable. Then, as Ted continued, Harry realized that Ted was not talking to him but through him to some foreman or other in the works with whom he, Ted, was at loggerheads: ‘Ah know oo it was. ‘Ee thinks ee’s t’ have all t’ new lads as come here, the yellow-bellied rat. Yaah! Ah’ll show him,’ glaring at Harry. ‘Y’ go in machine shop, d’y’ hear? Ah’m boss o’ this office an Ah sends ‘em where Ah think fit … D’y’ understand?’