The Broken Chariot (6 page)

‘That's awfully kind of you.' His speech sounded clumsy even to himself, as if he had landed in a foreign country with an obsolete phrasebook. ‘Very kind I must say.'

‘Kind is a word you don't have any cause to use,' Isaac said with a wry smile. The smell of paraffin, soap and dampness pricked Herbert's nostrils. The old cove was helpful, but as domineering as a teacher, especially when he went on: ‘Maybe I succumbed in a weak moment in asking you to come back here, though I always respond to an attempt at generosity. Unless it was a subtle ruse of yours to treat a stranger to a drink out of your last few bob.' He looked at Herbert, as if holding a new penny up to the light. ‘But I hardly think so, if I'm any judge of character.'

The walls were mainly bookshelves, with a table close up, and two chairs of the sort used in canteens. A second room through an archway, little more than an alcove, contained a bed and a chest of drawers. ‘It wasn't a ruse,' Herbert said, ‘I can tell you.'

‘Sit down, then, and don't be offended – while I get to work.' He filled a kettle and saucepan at a tap on the landing, and Herbert drew out a book to find that half was in a script he hadn't seen before. It wasn't Greek or Hindustani, but whatever it was suggested that Isaac, though only a printer, might be something of a scholar, and not so lowly and simple as he had thought at first. A smaller curtain in a corner covered his larder, and in a few minutes the room was pungent with the smell of frying. He must be lonely though, to do what he was doing so well, cutting spuds into chips for someone he had just met. ‘I've even got a pat of butter for our bread. It's a lucky night. Every man should be able to cook, otherwise he's no man.'

Herbert sat down to the most welcome meal of his life. ‘It's marvellous,' starvation diminishing with every mouthful.

Isaac ate daintily for a man in such accommodation, and Herbert saw the skullcap on his bald head as something to keep off the chill. ‘Which you are too young to feel with your black thatch,' Isaac said, when Herbert politely mentioned it. ‘It may well be marvellous grub, but I'll burn in hell, if there is such a place, for eating a mixture like this. However, necessity knows no bounds, with which I'm sure the sagest rabbis would agree.'

‘Why shouldn't they?'

‘Well, my son, I'm Jewish, and this fat is not what they would call kosher, though I get it when I have to.'

‘Kosher?'

‘Ritually clean, to you.'

Herbert guided a piece of bread around the plate with his fork to mop up the fat. ‘Why shouldn't you eat it?'

‘That – is a very long story. Very long indeed. You'll have to bury yourself in Leviticus to find out.'

Herbert felt himself to be what people meant by intoxicated, and that the beer was responsible. He was also drunk with freedom and food, for on standing up the room seemed to be without walls, and he hoped he wasn't going to faint. After being locked in all his life he belonged nowhere at the moment, no rules or walls surrounding him. Every nerve tingled with a mixture of relief and trepidation, but on the whole it was good, even better than he would ever have thought good to be. Acting out of his own will, Fate had led him to this funny old chap who for one night anyway had given him a place to sleep. What more did he need? He'd never had the chance to bump into such a person before, and all he had heard from his father about his sort was a slighting comment on one who had kept a store in Simla. How strange and wonderful life was! He sat down and said, as if to flatter him for his generosity: ‘I'll bet you have lots of interesting stories to tell.'

Isaac laid the plates in a washing up bowl and set it by the door, in place of a steel helmet which he put on to a pile of books. ‘I used to look a sight in that when I did my firewatching. Yes, I've plenty of stories, and I might tell you one sometime. I won't go into any now though, because as soon as I've done with this cigarette it'll be time for bed.'

They sat as if silence was part of the ritual until Herbert, confident that Isaac was to be trusted, said he found it hard to believe he had left his bloody awful school only that morning.

‘In that case you won't mind sleeping rough.' He took a blanket from a cupboard. ‘Though I've slept rougher in my time, let me tell you. Spread this over you when you get your head down.'

Herbert unpacked his spare trousers, jacket, shirt, underwear, socks and handkerchiefs, complimenting himself on the forethought of bringing so much. He remembered the wet tents he had slept in. ‘I can hardly believe my luck.'

The response was a don't-know-you're-bornlook. ‘There's no such thing.' Isaac called from the alcove where he was changing into pyjamas. ‘Everything's pre-ordained, as you'll find out more and more as you go on.'

Herbert opened his eyes. Sunlight, albeit watery, came into the room. He folded his blanket with cadet neatness and cleared the space, feeling as if the awareness of freedom all through the night had doubled the intensity of his sleep. Waking up penniless gave him no worry at all.

‘Borrow this cap,' Isaac said after breakfast of sugarless tea, bread and jam, ‘for when you go to the Ministry of Labour, otherwise they'll take one look at you and make you a penpusher. You'll earn a lot more in a factory, and mix in better. But watch your accent. Act the silent sort, as far as they'll let you, and get a grasp of the accent as soon as you can. You'll find they're a lot more tolerant in a factory than an office. Another thing is that for a while anyway say yes to whatever you're asked to do. As for your proper name, forget it. Tell 'em at the Labour that you've just left school and your certificate's coming from Ireland where you were evacuated.'

He cleared the table and took out a box of pens and rubbers and inks. ‘Give me your Identity Card.' Herbert looked at it as well, opened before them both. ‘This is one advantage in having been a printer,' Isaac said. ‘I'm going to alter it so that Ernest Bevin himself wouldn't know the difference.'

‘Isn't it a bit criminal? I mean, what if I'm caught out?'

‘You won't be.' Isaac cracked his fingers to make the joints supple. ‘A little innocent forgery to fox the bureaucrats never hurt anyone. We'll make your surname into Gedling, which is a district around here. Bert Gedling you'll be, and a good honest name it sounds. If and when you want to join the army I'll change it back for you.'

Herbert wondered if they still wouldn't smell him a mile off for what he was, while Isaac sipped the rest of his cold tea as delicately as if it had stayed hot and sugar had been magicked into it. ‘Now where's your ration book?'

‘Ration book?'

‘We might as well alter that while we're about it.'

‘I don't have one.'

‘You didn't bring it?'

‘I never thought to. And I could hardly ask them.'

Isaac's shake of the head came from thinking what babies there were in the world. ‘All right. Perhaps it won't matter. They aren't too particular these days. When you've got your employment cards, and they've found you a job, go to the Food Office and ask for a ration book. Tell 'em you lost it. Or just look as if it's your God-given right to have one. They don't let people starve in this country. At least they haven't during the war. So good luck to you, or whatever it is. I'll let you stay here two more nights, in which time you'll have to get digs. The firm you find a job with will lend you a few pounds to tide you over. That's what they do for Irish labourers who come over. And don't look so worried. I'm sure you'll be all right.'

Four

By the end of the day Herbert had employment cards, a ration book, and a job at the Royal Ordnance Factory. The wages clerk in the machine shop arranged a three-pound loan till his first wages came due. On Isaac's advice, he spent six bob on a second-hand pair of overalls hanging outside a pawnshop on the Hockley. His cadet boots would look right on any factory floor, as soon as the shine wore off.

‘I knew you had it in you, after the education you've had. You're obviously from the right kind of family. But from now on, hang on to your money. Don't go throwing it about.' Isaac put the book he'd been reading back on the shelf. ‘Still, it's good of you to bring these fish and chips for our supper, though you didn't need to splash half a week's rations on me. All the same,' he fussed, ‘I do like a bit of sugar.'

Herbert's feet ached from walking the town all day. ‘You did me a wonderfully good turn.'

‘I don't want to hear any more about that, but if you really think so, pay me back by doing a good turn to somebody I don't know. That's what keeps the world a halfway decent place to live in. Now, enough of such platitudes and attitudes, and let's get down to supper.'

Before any money came to him Herbert had, as it were, to work a week for nothing, though his landlady Mrs Denman said she would board him in the meanwhile on condition that he equalized the thirty-five shillings a week out of his four pounds wages the minute it was possible.

‘I've got to be practical,' she said, ‘where young lads like you are concerned,' putting the kettle on the gas to make him a cup of tea. ‘And I am practical, I allus was. If I hadn't been, after my Will died, I shouldn't have been running this place today.'

Herbert thought of her as Practical Penelope, though she was a bit old, being about forty, and he was to drop the nickname after a while because, for a start, she had no Odysseus to wait for, and no time for weaving. Probably no idea how to. Also, a man who was her suitor came to the house every other evening and, as far as Herbert could tell, stayed the night.

Her straight black hair was just short enough to make the face seem broader than necessary, but she had, he thought, a nicely shaped nose. A clean apron of sacking served over her white blouse and dark skirt. He also noticed her patent leather shoes which looked a bit tarty, the way they buttoned up.

‘I do all the work on my own, though' – she pushed her glasses straight – ‘because I never did mind it. Mrs Atkins next door said I should get a man in to help. But no fear, I did have one once, not long after my Will died, and I should have known better because he was an idle devil who only liked being at the bookies or in a pub, so I got rid of him. No more men for me, I said to myself. Well, not like him anyway. I just see Frank when it takes my fancy, and he sees me when it takes his, which suits us both. But as for having a man in the house, not likely.'

Herbert shared a room with her son Ralph, who turned from trimming a flimsy moustache to hold out a friendly enough hand when his mother showed him in. He spoke with little of the local accent, which made Herbert, already noting the cadence, determined to take more of Isaac's advice and say as little as possible until he felt easier using it.

‘Hope you'll be comfortable in the other bed,' Ralph said.

‘I'm sure I shall.'

‘Mother's making all the cash she can.' He was surprised that Herbert had so little to unpack from his scruffy case, and Herbert picked up his embarrassment at having to share a room, which indicated that he had been spoiled. ‘I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't let our beds to night workers while we were out during the day,' Ralph went on. ‘She hopes to get a boarding house at Skegness after the war. Poor mother doesn't realize it might go on forever.'

‘Who lives in the rest of the house?'

‘Four other lodgers.'

‘What do they do?'

Ralph pulled a comb through fair wavy hair. ‘A couple, both men, if you know what I mean. They work in a drawing office, very hush-hush, they tell us, though I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't design bottle tops. The other two come and go at all hours, and I think they dabble in black market, which means we have bacon and butter for our breakfast more often than most, or at least I do.'

His nose turned up even more when Herbert mentioned the factory he was to work at, Ralph saying that
he
went to
business
at the office of the local bus depot – probably counting tickets all day, Herbert thought. Because of flat feet, and no doubt a few more shameful ailments, Ralph hadn't been called up – an even worse fate – though at twenty he was lucky no impediments showed.

Herbert asked about the bathroom, but it wasn't that kind of house. Mrs Denman promised to get one in as soon as the war ended. Meanwhile they could wash at the kitchen sink, and a pot under each bed saved them running down three flights of stairs and across the back yard at night. Two small wardrobes took care of their clothes. Herbert smiled: a hook and a coat hanger on the back of the door would have done for him. There was even a rickety dressing table against the wall to put things on. He'd never felt so well off.

On day three of his escape the noise as he walked into the machine shop at the Royal Ordnance Factory seemed likely to push him straight back on to the road. He shouted his question as to where the chargehand was, and barged courageously along the main gangway towards him. ‘I don't know what job to give yer, but foller me and we'll find one. There's allus summat.'

Motors, dynamos and donkey engines, flapping powerbelts, the screech of steel being cut, and tools sharpening on Carborundum wheels shook his eardrums and made him want to close his eyes. He didn't know how they could talk to each other, never mind exist for more than a few minutes in this vast extension to the forge of Vulcan. Hand signals and grunts sufficed for the carrying on of work, an advantage in that he didn't have much call to open his mouth in a way that would show his posh accent.

Archie Bleasby, a burly six footer of his own age, worked on a lathe, and sat next to him on a box of castings at tea break. ‘What did yer want ter cum and wok on a fuckin' tip like this for?'

The machinery still ran, and Herbert put his ear close as he bit a gap into his potted-meat sandwich, his mouth conveniently full. ‘Munny,' using a pronunciation of
money
heard from Mrs Denman. The reply satisfied Archie, who was also disinclined to waste much breath on chat except: ‘I don't know whether yer've cum to the right place for that, Bert.'