David Nobbs

The Itinerant Lodger

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

About the Author

Praise

Other Books by David Nobbs

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

A FEELING OF NERVOUS EXCITEMENT CREPT SHYLY over Wilson, and he rubbed his hands together. Here he was, at this very moment in time and space, old Wilson himself, standing in a bus queue in this exciting great city, waiting to be swept off to his new destination—38, Trebisall Avenue. Here he was, at last, after all these wasted years. It seemed too good to be true, and he took the letter from his pocket and read it for the third time, to make sure.

“Dear Mr Box 221/F2” it ran. “Having regard to your advertisement of third inst. late night final, I am pleased to be able to inform you that I am in possession of accommodation just such as you require. It is a nice, spacious bed-sitting room, affording a pleasant vista over my cosy little garden, with use of same. Heating is by gas fire and the furnishings are tasteful. All meals are provided, and I know how to cater for men. You will find no unnecessary restrictions here and will be very happy. If your arrival should be by train, the 91 bus leaves straight opposite (East exit). Ask for Pantons, and I am on left. The charge of four pounds per week is inclusive of meals, laundry and lighting—but not heat—and I hope to hear that this is to your satisfaction. I remain Mrs Pollard, etc.”

Yes, it was to his satisfaction all right, he thought, putting the letter back in his pocket. There would be peace and quiet here. Here he would be able to work, overlooking the garden. Already he felt certain that this city would provide the inspiration that had been lacking. Here at last was the land of opportunity, the new land in which it would be possible for him to discover the universal panacea for all mankind.

He had come far that day, over the hills. Already it was late afternoon, and there still remained the bus ride. Dusk would be falling—dusk, that exciting, nerve-racking season of the day—as he was shown into that vacant room where his life’s work was to begin. He picked up his suitcase impatiently, hoping to encourage the bus company by his example. It was all he had brought, that suitcase, and it contained everything that was his in the world. It was a case of medium size, with a floral lining. A plastic bag, joined to the inside of the case by buttons, served as a container for his washing things. It was a fine case, and he had packed it with a determined attempt at neatness, although there was nothing neat about the way in which the pyjamas were wrapped round the railway sandwich that he had not eaten, or about the green stains which were smeared over the book that he had not read. His toothpaste had fallen from the plastic bag during the journey, and there were green stains too upon his shirts, his three shirts, and upon the quarto sheets, on which as yet there were no poems.

At last the 91 arrived. He sat in the front seat upstairs, in order not to miss Pantons when it came, and also because he always did sit in the front seat upstairs, if it was empty. If there was so much as one person seated there he gave it a wide berth, but if it was empty he sat there, and it was empty now.

The streets were enclosed in the light from shop fronts and warmed by the bustle of the crowds as the gloom and mist of late afternoon thickened. On the left the land fell away towards the river and the canal, and beyond the river, beside the railway, the slender chimneys of the factories could still be seen against the fading sky. From time to time a molten splash of flame would roar from a chimney and send sparks of drama far over the valley. Wilson liked this, and he liked also the land on the right, where grimy cul-de-sacs lined the steep slopes of the hill, and the snow was edged by globules of soot. Above the streets rose the flinty, messy summit of the hill, scarred by open-cast mining and pocked with sunken air-raid shelters, as though the city had gone bald from shock. Wilson was becoming increasingly nervous, as he had known he would, and although he noted all this precisely it made no conscious impression on him.

Soon the moment of arrival would come. It was useless to tell himself that he was merely arriving at lodgings—and unknown lodgings at that. He was arriving at the beginning of life itself, and the dryness of his throat grew feverishly tight. He wished that the dusk could enfold him and the cheerful crowds could swallow him up.

He sat rigidly in his seat, wanting and ceasing to want, not wanting and ceasing not to want. Pantons was alongside before he noticed it, and by the time he had struggled to the top of the stairs, where the nearest bell was situated, the bus had carried him past Trebisall Avenue, past Ashton Road, and, did he but know it, almost to Tuffley Corner.

It was much colder in these residential streets, but despite the cold Wilson walked slowly through the fading light. Soon, all too soon, he found Trebisall Avenue. Somewhere up there was number 38, and somewhere in number 38 was Mrs Pollard, who had answered his advertisement. She had Italic handwriting.

He paused at the door of number 38, delaying his knock. He was near to panic now. Then, without being aware of it, he had knocked. There was the sound of slow footsteps, and heavy breathing. A face flattened itself against the frosted glass, and the door was slowly opened. Mrs Pollard stood before him.

“You’ll be Mr Barnes,” she said.

Chapter 2

THE HOUSE WAS FILLED WITH THE AURA OF IMPENDING stew. Mrs Pollard led Barnes to his room and pointed out the sofa which it would be his task to convert into a bed each night.

“I hope you’ll be comfortable,” she said. “It makes all the difference when you’re away from home, whether you’re comfortable. Not that there’ll be any need for you to feel away from home in this house. There’s an hour left in the fire, so you’ll be all right for a bit.”

“Thank you, Mrs Pollard.”

“You’ll be hungry after your long journey. I’ve a meal on for you. Stew.”

“Thank you. That’ll be nice.”

“Yes. You’d as well to let me know if you don’t like it. Not that I approve of fads, but there it is, if you don’t like it you’d as well to let me know. We’re very partial to stews in this house.”

“We?”

“The old man upstairs. Not that he eats.”

There was a brief silence. Then, uneasily, Mrs Pollard asked him: “Will you take your dinner in with me, Mr Barnes, or would you rather have it in here?”

“In here would be very nice, thank you,” he replied, glancing mechanically round the room.

“As you wish,” she said, and she closed the door behind her.

Barnes lit the fire with one of his seven remaining matches. Then suddenly he felt that a spell of breathing was about to assail him. He lay back on the sofa, in the manner that he had found most suitable, and awaited it. Quite soon it came. Wave after wave of breathing flooded him, and sent all his thoughts to his brain, where they jostled for the best positions. It was useless to attempt to pick any of them out. There was nothing for it but to lie there and wait for them to stop.

Soon it was all over, and he went to the window. It was dark, and the lights of the houses were patterned all over the hills. His thoughts were settling down now, and as he stood there, gazing into the darkness, he thought of his life to date. An education, that was all it had been. Cambridge and Winchester. Fine names. The Pay Corps. A fine regiment. And then, after Cambridge, the hard school of life. A brief spell on the newspaper, serving the interests of Droitwich and its environs. A short while detecting earthquakes. A stint in the kitchens, specialising in savouries and nougat. A variety of little jobs, of odds and ends of one kind and another, all performed with varying degrees of utter incompetence. It had all been nothing but a preparation. Now, in this great city, Barnes, thirty-nine, of no fixed abode, would discover the purpose of existence. Here, in this bed-sitting room, the humiliations and trials of the past would serve their purpose. He knew it. Already much of his nervousness had passed away, for the arrival had been smoother than he had dared to hope.

He was still by the window when Mrs Pollard returned with the silver casserole—a prize for lupins. Proudly she placed it on the table, and then she removed the lid, with its valued inscription in the best Latin that money could buy.

“I’ve brought you your dinner,” she said, and he came over from the window and took his position behind it. He felt suddenly hungry, and he ate, as always, with frenzied, uncritical zeal. He was well liked wherever he ate. Mrs Pollard sat opposite, presiding over him intently, and the long, heavy silence was broken only by the steady munch of his eating. As the meal drew to a close, and the eating ceased to occupy all his attention, he began to wish that she was not in the room with him. He felt that it was not the done thing, in the early stages of a landlady-lodger relationship, and he felt doubly glad that he had not chosen to eat in her room.

His nervousness had returned, and he felt a shock when Mrs Pollard asked him how he had found the stew.

“Very good,” he said hastily.

“Say if it’s not,” she said. “We may as well get things straight from the start.”

“No,” he assured her. “I meant it.”

Silence fell again, heavier even than before. This time there was no eating to disturb it, and at length, with a great effort, Mrs Pollard spoke.

“Would you like some coffee?” she inquired. “Or some tea?”

“Coffee would be very nice, thank you.”

“I’ll fetch you some coffee.”

Over coffee they talked a little.

“You’re familiar with these parts?” she asked.

“I’ve not been here before, no.”

“We were new to it too.”

“We?”

“Pollard. He was Birmingham and I’m Hornchurch.”

Why didn’t she go, now, back to Hornchurch, or at least to her kitchen, where a landlady belongs? He longed for her to go.

“What part do you come from?” she asked at length.

“London and Margate and Evesham and Barnstaple and the Isle of Wight.”

“Well, I never. And it’s the Isle of Wight you’ve come from now, is it? Quite a change for you, this must be.”

“No. I’ve come from Birmingham.”

“Oh. Like Pollard.” There was another pause, broken once more by Mrs Pollard. “You had a good job in Birmingham, I suppose?”

“I was a teacher.”

“Oh. Very nice.”

“I taught scripture and games.”

“And now you’re going to be a teacher here too.”

“No. No, I’m starting afresh. I’m going to be a writer.”

“Oh. Very nice. What sort of thing will you write, if it isn’t a rude question?”

It wasn’t a rude question, and so he felt that he ought to reply. “Poems,” he said, somewhat surlily.

“A poem is a lovely thing.”

“Yes.”

An impasse! Mrs Pollard made no attempt to get round it. She sensed that further inquiries might not be welcome yet, and for this he was grateful. He was also grateful to her for making no reference to the rent.

“I’ll go and put the kettle on for your bottle,” she said. “You want to feel well-aired after a long journey.”

While she was gone Barnes fetched from his suitcase a sheet of blank quarto writing paper. On it he wrote: “Poem, by Barnes,” and then he placed it in the middle of his table, where it would await him in the morning.

“I’ll show you how to make your bed,” Mrs Pollard said on her return, and he followed her to the sofa. She lifted the back of the sofa to its full extent, and then she brought the seat forward and at the same time lowered it, to reveal, where previously there had been only a sofa, a bed. She then pursued the reverse process, taking care to lift the under-bar so that the springs wouldn’t catch and be torn to ribbons. She then asked Barnes to demonstrate, just for her peace of mind. He proved a most unresponsive pupil, and it was several minutes before she felt that she could safely leave him. To him these minutes were as charged with the torture of practical anguish as those dreadful hours that he had spent making and remaking his bed pack, in the Pay Corps, long ago, during his formative years. He was in no doubt, at moments like these—and there were many such—that one of the primary causes of his arrested development had been the diversity and complexity of the sleeping arrangements that he had been required to master. There was a certain hammock, in particular, that he would never quite forget.

“Well,” said Mrs Pollard at last, “there it is. That’s the best I can do for you.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s not a bad bed, really. Pollard won it in a newspaper. He arranged ten hardy annuals in the order in which he would like to be given them for Christmas. We used to sleep in it. I suppose it has a sentimental value for me. It’s really quite a good bed. Big, too. Big enough for two, wouldn’t you say?”

But Barnes did not tell her what he would have said. He was polite enough to wait until she had returned with his stone hot water bottle, and then, when she had finally left the room, he fainted.

Chapter 3

THE MORNING WAS CRISP AND WHITE, IDEAL FOR shaving. Barnes had slept well, as he always did after fainting, and as he shaved he felt in excellent form. The quarto sheets were waiting for him, the water was hot, and soon his work would begin. He could hear Mrs Pollard going about her morning tasks in another part of the house, and for a moment he felt uneasy. He hoped that she wasn’t going to make demands on him. Then he dismissed the thought and turned to more important things.

When he had shaved he dressed and when he had dressed he raised the main part of his bed and slid it back towards the head, to reveal, where previously there had been only a bed, a sofa. Then Mrs Pollard brought him his breakfast. She asked him how he was, how he had slept, what were his plans, but they had little conversation, and he hardly minded her presence. He ate fast, for he was intoxicated by the infinite possibilities that were whirring about in his head. He had never before felt as strong as he did at this moment.

At last the breakfast things were cleared, and he was alone. He seated himself at the table and gazed proudly round the room. There was the sofa, the piano, the table, the easy chair and the hard chair. He noted with delight the Scottish glen above the piano, the Dresden hyenas on the mantelpiece, the tapestried axioms above the sofa, the two ivory ospreys, between which there were as yet no books, and the old polished range in the middle of which, like a neon cat, his absurdly small gas fire sat hissing. During the night there had been virtually no vacant floor space even to put his shoes and socks in, and even now, when the bed had become a sofa, the room was small. And although there was a window behind the sofa, affording a pleasant vista over Mrs Pollard’s cosy little garden, it afforded very little light, the cosiness being caused by high walls and surrounding houses. Yet despite all this he looked around him with joy. Here was the haven that he had sought, in which he could distil the experience of a long and lonely life. Here was something that was his, and yet did not belong to him, and would not clutter him up.

The sheet of quarto writing paper lay on the table where he had left it. Beside it was his HB pencil, and beside the pencil lay his souvenir rubber, on which the letters “ME TO MA” suggested a filial devotion that circumstance had, in fact, denied him. Originally the rubber had read “WELCOME TO MARGATE.”

He picked up his pencil. It was a moment to savour, and he was still savouring it an hour and a half later when Mrs Pollard brought him his coffee. Then, after his coffee, he began to write.

For the next ten days he sat at the table, free. He ate egg and bacon for breakfast, stews for lunch and cold meats for supper, and between meals he wrote. Every now and then he would add a word to the collection that he was gathering in front of him, and every now and then he would discard a sheet of paper into the waste paper basket. Every now and then Mrs Pollard would take the waste paper basket to the dustbin, and twice a week the dustman, who had no knowledge of poetry, would empty the bin into a lorry. So there was no chance of the dustman bursting in and exclaiming: “I can’t accept this. It isn’t rubbish. It’s a masterpiece.” No, once it was gone it was gone. And each time he arrived at the end of a sheet it was gone, gone for ever. For nothing that he wrote seemed good enough to keep.

Often he would sit for many minutes without writing. It was not so much that he could not think of a word. That, with the dictionary to help him, presented no problem. It was rather that he found it impossible to decide which word to choose, of all those that were available to him in such abundance. His hopes were so high, his possibilities so infinite, that each actual word crushed him with its puniness. The moment a word was conveyed to paper, it seemed ridiculous. Why, he would ask himself, should he start with that? Or finish with it, for that matter? So that he was for ever adding words at both ends, until the original word had become lost in a welter of qualifications and preambles, and had to be discarded. And once it was discarded the whole structure around it collapsed, and it was necessary to begin again.

But how? He tried several methods. He tried selecting at random the first word of each line, and then working forwards, or selecting the last word, and working backwards. He tried writing the first word of the first line, the second word of the second line, the third word of the third line, and so on, and then going back and filling in the gaps, just as he had done with his impots at prep school. He tried writing down words which he knew to be conducive of poetic inspiration, words like “spring” and “autumn” and “corpses” and “e’er” and “o’er”. All to no avail. As those ten long days passed, the moments when he wrote no words grew longer, and longer, and longer.

And all the while Mrs Pollard was finding excuses to visit his room. She would leave things there and have to return for them. She would think she heard the shilling finish in his fire. She would bring him a cup of tea and an assortment of sweet biscuits. Each time she came she seemed to hover over him, and each time, had there been a train to his thought, she would have broken it.

Finally, towards dusk on the tenth day, when he had not added a word for many hours, she remarked: “Still working, then?”

“Er, yes.” He was annoyed at the interruption, although it interrupted nothing.

“You’ll get round shoulders. Still, it’s none of my business.”

“No.”

“I’ve never really been creative myself.” She had taken the fact that he had replied as an invitation, and had seated herself on the sofa, setting off a series of twangings and screechings that irritated Barnes beyond measure. “I’ve never really had anything to say,” she continued. “But you….” she paused, and for the first time for ten days Barnes looked at her as if she existed.

“I?”

“You have something to say.”

“And how am I going to say it?”

“In your poems.”

“I’ve written no poems.”

“You said you were writing poems. I was led to believe that you were writing poems. I don’t expect my tenants to lock themselves away for days on end, not speaking to me, and not even a couplet to show for it.”

“I tried.”

With astonishing speed a soft maternity enveloped Mrs Pollard. “You’re new to this business, aren’t you?” she asked.

He blushed and fidgeted awkwardly. “Yes,” he admitted.

“You aren’t really a poet at all.”

“No.”

“As if I minded. You could have told me.”

“I didn’t know.”

“No offence, I hope. Some of my best friends haven’t been poets. But I said to myself when you mentioned it: ‘That one a poet? H’m. I wonder.’”

Barnes replied quite mechanically to her maternity. All the verse had gone out of him. Of infinite possibilities he no longer had the slightest inkling. He was a boy again, and he could think of nothing to say to this new mother of his.

“Perhaps you’ll think of something later on,” said Mrs Pollard. “Some blank verse, or a nice hexameter. There’s no harm in keeping on trying.”

“I’m just not a poet.”

“You mustn’t say things like that. Faint heart never won fair lady.”

His faint heart fluttered like a moth with thrombosis, and he lowered his eyes.

“I’ll make you a stew,” she said, as if it was a thought that had just occurred to her for the first time and had opened up visions far in excess of those she had ever imagined. “Perhaps that’ll cheer you up.”

“Thank you.”

“You do like my stews, don’t you? You aren’t tired of them?”

“Not at all, no.”

“You aren’t just saying that?”

“No, I—it would be very nice.”

Left to himself, he made a final great effort to concentrate on his work. It was no use giving up. What would Chaucer’s friends have said if he’d packed the whole thing up just before Strood? The possibilities were even more infinite than he had imagined. Well, he must be that much more determined. It was a challenge, and he must rise to it. Perhaps he had been trying in the wrong way. Perhaps there had been something over-deliberate in his approach. Well, he must try a more open method, make himself more receptive, allow his thoughts and images freedom to form in their own good time. He decided to make his mind go a complete blank. This it did instantly, and it was still a complete blank when Mrs Pollard returned.

“I wondered if you’d like a little garlic?” she inquired coyly.

“Yes, that would be very nice.”

“Only some do and some don’t.”

Garlic. No garlic. Could she really think he cared?

“You’ve done nothing yet, then?”

“Not yet.”

“Never mind. Keep trying. It’s a fine thing, poetry. It’s not anything about the house, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not because you’re not happy here?”

“Oh no. No.”

“I hope you’ll be happy. Mr Veal has never complained.”

“Mr Veal?”

“The old man upstairs.”

“Oh.”

“With garlic, then.”

He resumed his creative activities. Nothing happened. The possibilities became so infinite, and the infinite stretched so far, that it seemed as if it might burst into a million fragments. Instead it receded. Far into the distance, with infinite slowness, it slid. He had no power to follow it, and a flat despair came upon him. For a while he was aware of nothing at all, but then odours of stew began to impinge themselves on his misery. He realised that he was hungry.

The odours came from the kitchen, and were constantly changing in the strangest ways. Where was Mrs Pollard? Why did she not bring him his stew? A simple comfort would have been most welcome. He had had comforts in his time. Miss Potter, Mrs McManus of Barnstaple, Mrs Egham, Mrs McManus of Newport (I.O.W.) and Mrs Bell, they all had seen to that. And now there was Mrs Pollard. She was mothering him, and trying to make him happy in a thousand little ways. Her hair was growing white, and she wanted to make him happy. And yet he wondered. What lay behind it? Maternal instincts he had seen, but were there others? He waited and waited, and his uneasiness grew.

Chapter 4

NOT SINCE MR JENNINGS HAD MRS POLLARD FELT SO much concern over a stew. She wanted to make Barnes a stew that he would never forget, a stew that would help him to overcome his worries and inspire him to write his poems. She opened the door of the fridge and gazed at the frosted wonderland inside. She went to the cupboard and peered at the rows of smiling edibles that stood in its dark, spicy depths. And she realised that for the first time in her life she was at a loss where to begin.

In desperation she consulted Thorneycroft’s Thought For Food and started to read Chapter One: “Your Guest Arrives”. She had never before sought the advice of the great culinary philosopher and gastrophile, but then she had never before been at a loss. In the past her stews had just happened. One minute they had not been there and the next minute, hey presto, there they had been.

The most important thing to consider, in choosing a menu, was the nature of the person who would eat the food. However carefully prepared, however exquisitely cooked, however delightfully presented a meal might be, it could not be a complete success unless it was served to the right person, said Thorneycroft, and Mrs Pollard believed him. But although he gave examples of kinds of people—the ascetic scholar was one, and the young executive was another—none of them were remotely like Barnes. What kind of a person could he possibly be? She turned to the chapter on stews, but to no purpose. Each recipe was absolutely delicious, of that she had no doubt, but which of them was right for her Barnsey?

In the end she had to abandon the book—a Christmas present—and return to her shelves. But it was no use. She was quite incapable of deciding which ingredients to use, and eventually, with a sudden despairing decision she relinquished control of her faculties and flung into the casserole the first objects that came to hand—some capers, an onion, some stewing beef, a sprig of tarragon, a lobster, some plums, and a sheet of gelatine. Onto all that she poured some stock.

While these ingredients were settling down she went to Barnes’ room and asked him about the garlic, and then, after she had returned and added the garlic, she tasted the stew. It was displeasing. She fetched from the larder a bay leaf, some more stewing beef, a bottle of sherry, another onion, and some carrots. She put a spoonful of sherry and the carrots into the stew, tasted it again, and grimaced. It still displeased her, though not so strongly as before.

At first she was not unhappy. She was performing a heroic holding action, and it occupied all her energies. But when she had tried every imaginable combination of ingredients, and the stew had still not become more than a pathetic shadow of the feast on which she had set her heart, she grew very depressed. She went to see Veal, as was her custom when things became too much for her.

She climbed slowly the dark, narrow, creaking staircase. She was panting and having great difficulty in breathing and before she entered his room she waited for it to die down.

Veal was asleep, and Mrs Pollard sat quietly for a few minutes on a wooden chair at the side of his bed. Then, when she felt calmer, she adjusted his sheets and tidied the bottom of his bed, making sure that the blankets were properly tucked in. She brushed his shoes, wound up his alarm clock, made certain that his suitcases were arranged in inverse order of size, and then stood at the bottom of the bed and looked down on him where he slept. She stood there for a few moments, and then she realised with a shock that she had been thinking of other things—of Barnes, of the stew, and of how she could make things easier for him in a thousand little ways.

She hastened downstairs and began once more to taste the stew. She did so with horror. She had hoped that in the interim it might have matured, or that, returning to it after a breather, she would find that her fears had been exaggerated. But it seemed, if anything, even less tasty than before. It was very far from being the ideal stew after which she had hankered.

She realised now, when it was too late, that the success of a stew depends not so much on the nature of the ingredients as upon their relationships among themselves, one to another. The sweetest carrot tastes bitter inside a camembert. At first the introduction of ingredients into the casserole had improved the stew, but only at first. She had introduced too many, far too many, so that it had become a struggle for survival down there in the cauldron. It would be difficult to state the exact moment at which the stew had ceased to improve, and had begun to deteriorate. Very likely it was with the introduction of the lobster. Anyway Mrs Pollard became certain that, could she but remove the lobster, the dish would become, if not ideal, at least edible. The lobster, however, had disintegrated, as lobsters will, given the slightest encouragement, and had permeated the stew to such an extent that not only was there nothing which could be said to be the lobster, but there was nothing that could be said not to be.

The only thing for it was to remove from the wreckage those objects which she judged most likely to be completely distasteful, and which were still sufficiently whole to be distinguishable—the sprig of tarragon, for instance. After removing each object she tasted the remainder and to her delighted surprise it began to grow more and more edible. With increasing excitement she removed objects and with increasing relish she tasted what was left. Really, it was almost delicious. She removed something which looked suspiciously like a burnt carrot, and ate another spoonful. She decided that it was perfect. At last! She had done it, and she could have cried for joy.

It was at this moment that she discovered that not a morsel of stew remained. She had just eaten the last spoonful.

Chapter 5

FOR A FEW MOMENTS HER HAND QUIVERED ON THE knob of his door, but she exerted no pressure, and the handle did not turn. Her stomach felt hollow. Her hands were weak. Once or twice she wavered, as if she was plucking up her courage and determining to walk boldly into his room and tell him the terrible news, but in reality she already knew that she would not.

She walked slowly through the kitchen, past the dying fire and the deserted knitting basket, and crept up the narrow staircase. Up there, separated from Veal by a thin and peeling wall, she lay wakeful. In the distance a steel bar was being hammered upon her forehead, and nearer at hand, a long while later, she heard a jangled squeak, as Barnes converted his sofa into a bed.

For he had noticed suddenly that the fire had gone out. He stood up, stretched painfully, and creaked into the kitchen. All round the range stood pots and pans and tins, and there, in the centre, was the empty, unwashed casserole. It was most strange.

Hunger was biting into him, and furtively he found some bread and ate three slices, dry. After that there was no point in staying up, so he cleaned his teeth, undressed, placed his clothes untidily over the back of his wooden chair, tightened the cord of his pyjamas, converted his sofa into a bed, and crept into it. The moon rose in a sky that was cold and hard and empty at last of snow. The trees drooped under the weight of the snow that had fallen, and there was no movement anywhere. He drifted towards sleep without reaching it, and he settled down for a long vigil, gazing at the ceiling till his eyes smarted, remembering the nights when it had thundered and he had longed to lie warm and crumpled beside whatever mother he had at the time. In this way he came near to the warmth of sleep, and then suddenly he was awake again, and there it was inside him, happiness. It forced him out of bed and sent him scampering to the window.

The moon was falling over the bare top of a hill, and light fingers of cloud were stretching wakefully across the sky. A grey light was beginning to spread from the east, and from the earth a thin steam was rising and dying as it rose. Mists began to gather and the sky turned slowly orange. Here and there a bird sang in surprise at finding itself alive on such a morning, after the storm.

The morning! In the morning he would start to discover the purpose of existence. It was not here, in this dingy room. It was not inside himself. It was not to be found through the rarefied isolation of artistic creation, even if what he had produced had been art. He realised that now. It was out there on the sides of the hills, where people lived, and in the factories, where they worked. He must work, feel himself useful, and embark upon a voyage of discovery. In the morning he would find himself a job. In the morning he would thrill to the vibrant excitement of human activity. In the morning he would become a new man, Fletcher.

Meanwhile he closed the curtain and went back to bed, and fell, like Mrs Pollard, into a kind of sleep.

Chapter 6

FLETCHER EMERGED THREE HOURS LATER IN A MANNER that astounded Mrs Pollard. His face, taking cheerfulness almost to the point of no return, carried all before it in a manner that she had not seen from him before. In her embarrassment she assumed that he would mention the events of the previous evening, but he made no reference to them. Rather he announced his intention of taking a short walk before breakfast. This could have knocked Mrs Pollard over with a feather. Judge then of her shock when she saw him leap down the steps in one bound and set off in the general direction of the Midland Station at a pronounced trot, rubbing his hands eagerly together.

She couldn’t understand it, and she didn’t like it. He had never taken a walk at any time, let alone before breakfast, and he had certainly never rubbed his hands together when she was looking. However, there was no time to worry about that. She must make him his breakfast. Stew.

It was not the usual thing for breakfast, but she felt that there would be no peace between them until she had redeemed herself. She decided, having learnt from her mistake, to aim at something simple, and she chose from her larder onions, potatoes, carrots, stewing beef and haricot beans. Onto these she poured a generous proportion of stock. Next she secured to the floor, at a yard’s distance from the casserole, a wooden chair, and she then sat on it. She began to stir the stew. This she did with an enormous spoon. It really was enormous, for a spoon. One would have been excused had one mistaken it for a dredging bucket. This spoon, this great spoon, had once belonged to Builth Evans, of the Merioneth Axe Murders, and had become a valuable family heirloom. Mrs Pollard, who was descended from the Evanses on her grandmother’s side, was extremely proud of the spoon, and had made a will bequeathing it to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, should it survive her. It was over four feet long and had at its head a curious double joint, characteristic of the best Welsh domestic spoons. The purpose of this joint was to allow the spoon to lie in the vertical while the handle was in the horizontal position, and vice versa. When the handle of the spoon was wiggled, the wiggle communicated itself, via the joint, to the spoon, thus setting up a cross-wiggle. The result was a stir only slightly inferior to that obtainable with any other spoon.

Mrs Pollard believed that by thus employing the spoon she was making it useful, and that it was therefore a boon to her, in that it was of use. Wearisome and clumsy though her efforts were, she firmly believed that she was using a labour-saving device.

Fletcher, in the meantime, was advancing by leaps and bounds, as he grappled with the problems involved in discovering a new city. His nervous excitement led him on a prodigious walk, up and down the hills, through parks, past quaint old pubs and great modern stores, the dreams of master hacks. On all sides stretched streets of square brick houses, appealing or appalling, according to one’s spelling. Eventually, at the end of one of these streets, he came upon a vista. Below him lay the valley and the factories, and on the other side of the valley a belt of derelict open spaces and car parks threaded its way into the centre of the city and petered out among a mass of printing presses, garages and canteen windows. Beyond them, on the right, rose the towers and spires of the principal buildings.

Fletcher stopped walking and leant against the wall, looking out over this new land. The city was given over, in the main, to heavy industry. A hundred years ago, he mused, it had been little more than a collection of villages, each with its own peculiar customs and institutions. Now it housed, he estimated, some half a million souls, several of them taxi-drivers, others lawyers, journalists, smelters and so on, down through the whole gamut of human activity. There was not much here, he judged, to attract the tourist, but there was a thriving air of activity which would no doubt compensate for the lack of historical interest and beauty. The inhabitants, he felt sure, retained the traditions of independence and individuality which their manly life had given their forefathers.

It was to be his domain! In this great city lay his life’s work. He strode on, past the Salvation Dining Rooms, the Midland Station, the Hippodrome Cinema, the Telegraph and Chronicle Building and the Temperance Launderette. He passed the imposing façade of the Neo-Gothic Town Hall, on whose well-kept lawns summer time crowds enjoyed, in son et lumière, the dramatised history of the Chamber of Commerce. He passed the sandstone and soot cathedral and the Northern Productivity Pavilion, and the whole bustle of the early-morning life of the city fired his imagination. He drank in the atmosphere as if he could not have enough of it. It was a beautiful morning. Quite soon it would snow, but at this moment the sun, high above the slate roofs, was shining on the upturned faces of the buses. The city was full of noise. The market was situated on the hill. The politicians were driven in the big, black cars. The pencil was in the pocket of the publican. The tourist was purchasing a tin of luncheon meat. The street trader was displaying many kinds of produce. The townsfolk were travelling to work. See, the merchant has raised his glass and is drinking. Why, the newsvendor is selling those journals with ease.

So the city went about its business, and Fletcher watched. This was the promised land, and it seemed natural that a military ceremony should take place and martial music should sweep him into battle. He was not certain of the purpose of the parade, nor did he know the identity of the elderly lady who stood in the uniform of a field marshal on the dais, but he stood near her and watched the troops march past. Contingent after contingent swept by in perfect step. The sun shone on the green berets of the Third Battalion the Queen’s Own Mexborough Fusiliers and glinted off the campaign medals on the chests of the Old Comrades and the veterans of Ladysmith. There was cheering from the crowds as the military bands played and swept Fletcher towards his duty. There was so much that must be saved. As he marched he saw the world waiting to be saved. Africa, Asia, America, Europe. Mountains, rivers and forests. Rivers running through the forests. Mountains emerging out of the forests. Fletcher running through the forests. Fletcher emerging out of the forests. Fletcher at the summit, on the raised dais. Fletcher, the universal panacea for all mankind.

The bands stopped. The ceremony was over. He must get a job, and he set off down the hill and bought a copy of the Telegraph and Chronicle.

Chapter 7

TELEPHONISTS REQUIRED. APPLY IN WRITING TO Deputy Superintendant of Communications, Northern Lead Tubes Ltd., stating age, experience and details of National Automatic Dial Proficiency Tests passed.

Museum attendants wanted. Apply Box 80.

Are you an enthusiastic, ambitious and healthy university graduate, with an alert mind, a penchant for new gimmicks, a driving licence, and a solid grounding in the container production industry, who welcomes innovations, believes in expansion, can mix with industrial leaders, speaks Flemish, has advanced views on lid design and would be prepared to share bathroom with radiator mechanic? If so, apply Personnel Manager, the Conical Canister Corporation.

Applications are invited from those qualified to fill the post of CHIEF ENTOMOLOGIST at Badi El Swami Agricultural Research Centre, in the Republic of the Sudan. The selected officer would be expected to unify existing research on insect migration, and must have first-hand knowledge of tropical spiders and modern methods of aerial spray. Starting salary £1,750.

Spoon roughers and insiders, throstlers and large ingot men required. Apply British Watkinson Dessert Spoons and Sons.

Bus conductors required by City Corporation. Apply Ledge Street Garage.

Fletcher felt depressed after reading this list. It was not much use knowing that British Watkinson Dessert Spoons and Sons required spoon roughers and insiders, throstlers and large ingot men, unless you were a spoon rougher and insider, a throstler, or a large ingot man. But if you were any of these you would almost certainly have a job already, and so it was with every other one of the vacancies on the list. They demanded that you were already what they offered that you should become, and Fletcher, whose life consisted so largely of wanting to be what he was not, felt at a distinct disadvantage.

The only thing to do, he decided, was to apply for those jobs where the gap between their requirements and his capabilities seemed least. Obviously there was no chance of his becoming a Chief Entomologist, and he had never passed any Automatic Dial Proficiency Tests. He might have been designed as the direct opposite of what was required by the Conical Canister Corporation, and as for British Watkinson Dessert Spoons, he did not even know the meaning of most of the words in their advertisement.

No, it would have to be either a museum attendant or a bus conductor. It hardly mattered which, really. It was the fact of working, the fact of being of service, of fulfilling a function in the bustling city world, that mattered. Yet the fact that a decision is unimportant does not make it any easier to reach, and he was relieved when Mrs Pollard spoke.

“Not found much?” she asked.

“No. It seems to be either a bus conductor or a museum attendant.”

“I don’t know why you don’t go back to teaching.”

“I wasn’t very successful as a teacher.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

“I couldn’t cope.”

“What a shame.”

“So it seems to be either a bus conductor or a museum attendant.”

“Very bad for the health, these museums. It’s one thing to look round them and another thing to actually live there.”

“Yes.”

“I knew a man who worked in one. He caught Egyptology disease. He was very well preserved, for his years, but as dead as they come. It’s his wife I’m sorry for. You never know how you might end up, if one of those places got a hold over you.”

“Yes.”

“Of course there are the treasures. You can’t say that about a bus.”

“No.”

“You don’t get the exhibits on a bus. Or the coins. It’s just pennies, threepences and sixpences there. No variety. But then again you never know where you are with it in these museums. Roman coins, Saxon coins, everything.”

“Yes.”

“I mean you could go for the museums if you wanted to.”

“Yes.”

“But you know where you are on the buses. I’d choose the buses, if I were you.”

Chapter 8

THE INTERVIEW RAISED NO PROBLEMS AT ALL, MUCH to his surprise, and he formed the impression that it was easy to become a bus conductor, much easier than it was not to. The next morning he reported for training, and in common with about twenty-five other “new boys” he saw a series of films demonstrating the right and wrong ways of preventing dogs from sitting downstairs, ejecting spitters, recognising Irish coins and asking for the correct change without giving offence. Within two days he had been assigned to his route—the 92, from Woodlands to Pratts Lane Corner, via City—and had learned the fares between every fare stage on the route, in both directions.

On his first day of full duty he presented himself at the Ledge Street Garage at 5.27 a.m. It was a cold, windy morning, with flurries of tiny snowflakes. He was introduced to his driver, 3802 Driver Foster, a surly man who didn’t even wave to the other drivers on his route, and then he entered the bus. He felt acutely conscious of himself in this strange uniform and wished only that the bus would open and swallow him up. When he was younger he had assumed that his nervousness would abate as he grew older. Now, when he was older, he found that his inexperience in each new job seemed even more noticeable and ludicrous, and he felt more nervous than ever.

Driver Foster started his engine with a cold ruthlessness that served only to mock his fears, and the great vehicle nosed slowly out of the garage and set off down the open road. At first there were only a few early-morning workers on the bus, but gradually it filled up with rush hour crowds and Fletcher’s nervousness began to abate. He began to feel that joy which always came to him while working. He was in on the great struggle, helping. There was an orderly routine about his work which provided him with a sense of comfort and security. The duties were onerous enough to give him a constant sense of his usefulness without being so onerous as to induce nervous prostration. Up there in the grim loneliness of his cab Driver Foster treated each day as a battle, giving and asking no quarter and regarding it as a major defeat if he was forced to give way at a pedestrian crossing, especially to women with prams. In the crowded sociability of the lower and upper saloons, however, life was more than a battle. It was a crusade. Fletcher had suddenly realised that human life consists of a never-ending struggle to be in the right place at the right time. Each busload that he carried on the 92 route became, to his romantic imagination, a vital contribution towards ending that struggle. One day, if he worked hard, there would come a time of magic equilibrium, when everyone was already where he wanted to be.

And how hard he worked! What crowds he carried! He found it impossible to turn people away from his bus, when there was this great struggle to be won. He wanted to serve everyone, without distinction of class, creed, race or time of arrival. He believed in the freedom of the individual, pending the arrival of the purpose of existence.

Fletcher was thorough rather than swift. He found it difficult to collect all the fares even under normal conditions, and when his bus was particularly full he found it impossible. The rush hour crowds soon learnt that there was a distinct possibility of a free ride, and Fletcher’s bus began to grow fuller still. Even more free rides were to be had, and even greater crowds were attracted. Soon the Inspector heard tales of the strange bus on route 92. He decided to inspect it.

The Inspector was a tall, tightly knit man, like an old walking stick, with grim caustic eyes set deep into his grizzle. Born to inspect, he had not been slow to do so. But he had never felt his sense of vocation so strongly as he did that cold windy morning, as he stood in front of the Pike House, waiting.

The Inspector signalled Fletcher’s bus to a halt, and when he had boarded it—no easy matter, this, for the platform was crowded with passengers, he looked around for Fletcher. In vain. There was not a Fletcher to be seen. He noticed that none of the people who were thronging the corridor and stairs had any tickets, and the harsh gleam of inspection lit up his eyes. His face narrowed until it became as long as it had been broad, his eyes became slits and his lean nose was raised and thrust forward. He was a hound which had found the scent, and he would have bayed, had it been possible to do so with dignity.

“Where is the conductor?” he asked in a crisp, dry, thinly-sliced, unbuttered voice. A few heads turned slowly towards him and he repeated: “Where is the conductor?” There was something terrible about the man’s inflexibility.

Nobody actually answered, but he formed the impression that Fletcher was upstairs. It was obviously impossible for him to climb the stairs, packed as they were with travellers, so he clung desperately to the platform while he worked out how to deal with the problem. He was aware that for a majority of the passengers, including most of the younger ones and the old age pensioners, the crowding was a small price to pay for the pleasure of a free ride. He was aware, too, of a deep public resentment of his calling. People always took his presence on the bus as a personal affront to their integrity. He would have to tread warily, and, deeply though it pained him to let so much as a single two-penny juvenile fare be evaded, he realised that only when the bus was emptier would he be able to take any effective action. He judged that it would be impolitic to turn anyone off the bus, but that he could safely refuse to allow anyone else on without inflaming public prejudice.

By the time they reached the Goldplank Asylum and City Abattoir, living conditions had become tolerable again, and the Inspector was able to make his way upstairs. There he found Fletcher, looking stunned and exhausted by his work.

If Fletcher had looked stunned before, he was knocked flat when he saw the Inspector. He had an infinite capacity for being stunned.

“What is the meaning of this?” asked the Inspector. “Why was the bus so crowded? Why were so many fares uncollected?”

Fletcher, who was bending over to give an old lady her change, stood petrified in that position for a few moments. He felt as powerless, attempting to explain himself to this man, as a romantic lover might feel in trying to describe his emotions to a second row forward. But he knew that he must try, and slowly he rose to his full height, like an Indian rope trick. He looked the Inspector straight in the eyes and said: “I—er—that is.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t see why I should refuse people admission to this bus. They want to travel. I…”

“You what?”

“I have the means to enable them to travel.”

“Oh, nice. Very nice. Very nice.” The Inspector, suddenly leaning forward as if he was barely restraining himself from lifting Fletcher off the ground by his neck, barked: “Why don’t you organise a running buffet into the bargain? Eh?”

“The passengers seemed happy enough,” said Fletcher.

“What have they got to do with it?”

“I tried to give them what they needed.”

The bus swung round into Riddings Close, and a cry of dismay rose from a thin-lipped man in a trilby.

“Why are we going down Riddings Close?” he wailed. “This is an 87, isn’t it?”

“No,” said the Inspector with relish, like an old spinster producing one last spade which nobody thought she’d got. “It’s a 92.”

“83,” cried an old lady. “It says an 83.”

“80.”

“72.”

“I thought it was a 75,” volunteered a confectioner.

The Inspector immediately stopped the bus, his whole frame quivering with excitement. He used so little energy up in the rest of his life that he had a great surplus of intensity waiting in reserve for situations such as this. He got out of the bus and went round to the front.

The board indicated a 65, bound for Huggenthorpe! This was clearly false. The 65 went to Stoneytown Bridge, unless it was turned round at Sodge Moor Top. The Huggenthorpe bus was a 67, and in any case Huggenthorpe was in the opposite direction, beyond Market Edge. He stormed back to the bus in a carefully calculated fit of uncontrollable temper and confronted Fletcher, who was standing on the platform in great distress.

“Well?” said the Inspector, and waited patiently for a reply. Time was on his side.

“I don’t understand it.”

“Well I certainly don’t.” The Inspector led the way upstairs, and he immediately noticed that the four front seats were empty. Four youths, he remembered with the facility born of long experience, had been sitting there like a display of barrack room brooms. The back of the indicator board—one of the old type that are adjusted from upstairs—was open. He turned towards Fletcher.

“You left the indicator board unlocked. That’s what’s happened. Those four youths have changed the board between each stop. You see what happens when you let too many people on a bus.”

The public, their free journeys forgotten, turned on the man whom they held responsible. Ugly mutterings arose, and the Inspector, his triumph complete, felt able to protect his conductor from their threats.

When he had quietened the passengers the Inspector made a brief inquiry and found that only ten of the passengers were bound for stops on the 92 route. Routes on which passengers believed themselves to be travelling included the 87, 83, 80, 77, 75, 72, 68 and 65.

His inquiry over, the Inspector apologised to the passengers and told them that their tickets would be valid for the return journey to the City, where they could catch their proper buses. He informed the passengers who wanted the 92 route that they would have to wait for the next bus, as Fletcher had developed a defect and was being taken out of service. They grunted, as if to imply that it was not his fault, and then, casting ugly glances at Fletcher, they stepped out into the snow.

The Inspector went round to the cab and spoke to Driver Foster. “Why did you do nothing about all this, Foster?” he asked.

“All what, sir?” asked Driver Foster.

“All this overcrowding on the bus,” said the Inspector.

“I obey the bells, sir. Two rings, and I start. One ring, and I stop. Three rings, bus running to full capacity. And I’ve never once had three rings. Two, one, but not three. I’ve never once had the bell that indicated to me: ‘Bus running to full capacity.’ So there’s never been any reason for me to bother with overcrowding.”

“Drive us back to the garage, Foster,” said the Inspector.

Fletcher and the Inspector sat side by side in the empty bus as they drove to the garage. Only a few sweet papers and cigarette ends bore witness to the fact that the bus had ever served a useful purpose in society—or ever would again.

“I’m taking you to see the Chief Inspector, Fletcher,” said the Inspector.

“Yes, sir.”

“Why can’t you be more like Foster?” the Inspector asked sadly.

Fletcher could think of no reply.

Chapter 9

“THIS IS AN ODD BUSINESS, FLETCHER,” SAID CHIEF Inspector Wilkins, and even as he spoke Fletcher felt that this was a man to whom he would be able to talk.

“I wanted to serve,” he said.

“There’s nothing wrong in that, though it has never appealed to me,” said the Inspector. “But who did you want to serve?”

“Everyone.”

“That explains why there were 215 people on your bus, does it?”

“Well, sir, I don’t see why I should refuse anyone admission.”

“The bus might become overcrowded. Didn’t that occur to you?” Fletcher was silent, and the Chief Inspector continued: “Injuries might have occurred. Fire might have broken out in those crowded conditions. Didn’t you think of that?” Ninety-nine Chief Inspectors out of a hundred would have confined themselves to the regulations and attempted to have Fletcher certified. Chief Inspector Wilkins—although he had never let anyone suspect it, especially his wife, to whom he was happily married—was the hundredth man in any gathering.

“I don’t see who I could refuse to admit?”

“You are supposed to allow five standing.”

“But which five? If one five, why not another?” There was a brief pause. The Chief Inspector, man in a hundred though he was, felt justified in being taken aback. “Why not ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, sir?”

“Or four hundred and twenty-five, Fletcher. You have to stop somewhere. There isn’t room for everybody. We stop at five.”

“But you still have to decide which five, sir.”

“You should allow the first five on. It’s only fair.”

“I’m afraid I can’t agree with you, sir,” said Fletcher. He was frightened of saying this, but there could be no stopping, now that he had taken the plunge.

“No?”

“It seems very unfair to penalise the second five for the fact that there are already five people on the bus. The first five are entirely to blame for that.”

There was a pause, which the Chief Inspector broke very lamely. “It is necessary to have rules sometimes, you know,” he said.

Fletcher said nothing. He was not convinced, nor was Chief Inspector Wilkins.

“I’m going to tell you something,” said the Chief Inspector. “I have never myself regarded buses as being for the use of the public. I don’t think it’s hard-heartedness, although as I told you the idea of service has never appealed to me. I think I like the public tolerably well, on the whole. I wish them well, generally speaking. But I have never been able to accept, in my heart of hearts, that buses are functional. I love them. I love them for themselves. You understand what I mean?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I love my wife, I suppose, but I love buses more. Hilda’s a very good woman, in her way, and we get on well, but you couldn’t love her for herself. I love her for her meals, her children, the home she runs. Take all that away and our marriage would collapse. But buses are different. I’d like to drive them around empty. I like their elegant, gently sloping fronts and their comforting square radiators. I—well, I love them. It’s monstrous that they should be used to carry people to cemeteries and supermarkets. Monstrous. Quite, quite monstrous.” Chief Inspector Wilkins recovered himself and resumed in a more conversational, less emotional manner. “I once wrote a paper arguing that the public were a penance paid by all bus people for the original sin implicit in the erection of the first bus stop. That sort of thing doesn’t go down too well in Omnibus Mansions. My attitude to buses is oriental. I admire their purity, their serenity, their detachment. Press the self starter and all that is lost.” He smiled at Fletcher. “I’ve kept all this to myself for twenty years, and now I’ve told you, so you see you have achieved something,” he said. Fletcher smiled back, shyly, and the Chief Inspector continued. “Yes, Fletcher, I was forced to admit, for the purpose of my life on earth, that buses have a function. If I’d told anyone what I’ve told you, I’d have been certified. One has to be careful, Fletcher, and that goes for you too, you know. So, please, go away, get another job, and be careful.” The Chief Inspector stood up and held out his hand. “I’ve spoken to you as a man. Now I appeal to you as a Chief Inspector. You’re fired. You’ll get a week’s pay in lieu of notice.”

Fletcher felt immeasurably betrayed. He had told this man of his opinions openly and without hesitation, and that was a miracle. He had listened to a confidence without embarrassment, and that was a miracle too. And then he had been sacked. As he went out into the late morning he felt a broken man. The sky was the colour of slush, and the wind was cold, and there was one week’s pay in his pocket, as he tacked through the cold, grey nothing.

Chapter 10

“WHAT I ALWAYS SAY,” SAID MRS POLLARD, “IS THAT if a man can’t face these setbacks with a smile he isn’t a man.”

Fletcher faced this setback with a thin, wan smile. Mrs Pollard, who had seen little of him during the past fortnight, what with his shift work and everything, had been surprised to see him back so early, but she had not been nearly so surprised when he told her that he had lost his job. She had given the impression that she had known all along that he wasn’t the man for bus conducting. There was something, she let it be felt, too intelligent about him. It was not that he had told her anything about his schemes, but she had not failed to notice his studious and distant manner in the evenings. There had been nothing she could do. It had been man’s work, and Mrs Pollard had been a landlady far too long to interfere with that. She knew that she must wait until the moment came for her to swing into action, and that when the moment did finally come she must swing with all her might.

“I’ll have a nice bowl of stew ready for you in a jiffy,” she said. “Pollard always used to say there’s nothing like a nice hot stew to cheer a man when he’s down. Warm the stomach and you warm the heart.”

While Mrs Pollard was making the stew, Fletcher sat before his table, as motionless as possible, patiently awaiting the upsurge of some new emotion. Very soon he found himself in a silent world. He rolled the silence smoothly round his brain. It was a silence that might never end. It was his own silence, his great eternity, in which he might sit whenever he wanted, in his usual chair. Whenever the mood took him, whenever he felt unusually battered and bruised, he could return to it and find himself sitting there. As a point of reference it had few equals, but as a refuge it had a draw-back. It could be—and invariably was—interrupted. Perhaps he would never know what had interrupted it, and he would slide gently out of the silence. He would hear all the noises of the world as if they were far away, but coming closer, and he would begin to feel, faintly at first, like the light from the distant opening of a tunnel, his hunger. And then it would get nearer and nearer until he was suddenly out again in the sunlight, fully exposed to all his needs and fears.

On this occasion he did know what had interrupted it. It was Mrs Pollard, coming in to tell him: “It’s about the stew. It’s not coming along too well.”

“What?”

“It’s about the stew. It’s not coming along too well.”

“Oh, dear.”

“There are things in it that I wouldn’t advise. You know how it is. I thought it was going to be one kind of stew and then I realised that it was going to be a completely different sort. And now it’s got stuck at the awkward stage, and I don’t quite know what to do.” She paused, and then, when nothing happened, she went on: “I wondered if you’d come and have a look. It takes a man to understand these things.”

A ruse, to secure him to her boudoir! Well, why not go? It would be nice to sit by her fire. These coal ranges were quite delightful, and there was no time to lose. Soon they would be making it into a smokeless zone. Go then. Blossom forth. Old smokeless Fletcher, thirty-nine, of no fixed coal fire, be off with you.

But after all he had only known her for a matter of a few weeks. And it might be that she really did want his advice on the stew. A fine fool he’d look, in that case. What advice could he possibly give?

On the other hand if it was just to give some advice, well, there was no harm in that. Wise old Fletcher, what advice you could give if you put your mind to it!

No. She would make demands on him. He would be drawn in, closer and closer. He would become a part of her hearth, and of her life. He had not had time to think much of Mrs Pollard since his work had begun, but now there was time and as he thought about her his uneasiness returned. He wanted to be away from her, safe and free, out of the house, out of her reach, out on the open road, far from the open fire.

And yet to accept an invitation to advise her on a stew could hardly be said to commit him to anything. There would be no question of intimacy. A curt piece of advice, an ingredient or two suggested, and ta-ta for now. It would be churlish to refuse, and besides, it would suggest that he had read into the invitation more than was there.

So he decided that he would go. He thought he would rise from his chair, but he didn’t. He thought that perhaps if he applied an absence of pressure to his buttocks and raised the top of his head towards the ceiling, he might stand up. But it was not to be, and for about forty minutes he remained seated. Mrs Pollard left long before the end.

And then, just when he had given up all hope, he was on his feet. He was at the door, opening it. He was in the corridor, and once there he had either to walk down it or to return to his room, which seemed foolish. So he walked down it, and knocked on the kitchen door.

“Come in,” said Mrs Pollard. She was standing over the casserole, and she smiled when she saw him. “I thought you were never coming,” she said.

Stiff with self-consciousness, Fletcher walked over to the bubbling, aromatic cauldron and gazed into its depths. “It looks very good,” he said.

“But it isn’t finished.”

“I’m hungry.”

“It needs improving.”

“No. It’s all right.”

“It would have been such a lovely stew,” said Mrs Pollard, with an air of grumpy wistfulness more suited to a schoolgirl.

“I know.” For a moment their eyes met, but Fletcher quickly lowered his and the moment was gone. His heart was beating fast and he was on the verge of panicking.

“I’ll get my table ready,” he said, and he walked towards the door.

“Won’t you have it in here, then?”

“No, I—really.” He left the room as slowly as he dared, and rushed to his room. His hands were shaking.

Mrs Pollard followed with the stew, and to his annoyance she once again remained in his room.

“You aren’t happy, are you?” she asked with startling suddenness.

“Well, I’ve just lost my job.”

“There are plenty more.”

“I had hopes. Little hopes, you know. It’s always a shock when they come to nothing.”

“If there’s anything I can do…”

“No. That’s all right. It’s very kind of you. I just need a bit of quiet, that’s all.”

“What you need is another job. It’s no use moping.”

“Not yet. A bit of quiet makes a new man of me. I’ll just stay here for a while, being quiet, if you don’t mind. Nothing serious, you know. Just a week or two.”

“Well, you know best, I suppose. Though there are some that don’t. Some of you bachelors. If you ask me you ought to be out and about a bit, even if it’s only the pictures. It’s not right for a grown man like you to just sit there.”

“I shan’t be just sitting. I’d rather call it a period of recreation.”

“You call it what you like, and I’ll listen. Well, I’ll leave you in peace, then, if you’ve finished your meal.”

Don’t go. Don’t leave me alone. Don’t fluster me. Go.

“Yes,” said Fletcher.

“I’ll be off and see to Mr Veal.” She walked slowly to the door with the casserole. “Anyway,” she said awkwardly, “you’ll know where to find me, if you want me. And don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Left to himself, Fletcher found that he was thinking of Veal. He wondered why he never saw the man, and he felt jealous. Why were they never allowed to meet? What did Mrs Pollard do on her visits to him?

It was only when he caught sight of himself in the hexagonal glass mirror which hung above the mantelshelf that he managed to forget these questions. The mirror had cut-glass borders, and in the borders he could see a thousand faces, long, short and twisted, faces with five mouths and four chins, square mouths and round mouths and oval mouths and some with no mouths at all, all staring back at him with looks of grotesque horror.

He stood up, and placed himself in front of the mirror, with his eyes shut. All he had to do was to open those eyes of his and gaze straight into the centre of the mirror. He began to lower the pressure on his lids, and the black became tinged with red. Open them! He felt his brain giving out the order. He could feel an opening of his eyes travelling slowly from his brain towards his eyes, but before it could reach them a hasty command was issued to them to remain shut. A series of commands followed, and each time he could feel the command to remain shut catching up with the command to open. He was blind.

And then his eyes were open, as if they had never been shut. They were gazing at the centre of the mirror, and the face that met them was his own. The cheeks were pale and rather hollow, he had not shaved well, his hair was receding, there were a few blackheads on his nose, and in the centre of his chin there was one white-headed pimple.

There were signs of approaching age in the lines on his face. Soon he would be too old to be mothered, as in the past he had been mothered by all those mothers of his. All of them, all except one, they had all been mothering him. Just one there had been who had not been mothering him, who had threatened him with something more than that. It had been fifteen years ago, when he was Lewis. He’d been fifteen years younger then.

He sat down again. Separated from him only by two doors sat Mrs Pollard with her memories, and with her expectations. The logs glowed. Now she rose and bent over the fire, her outline illuminated for nobody to see by the sudden jumping of the flames she had disturbed as she heaped the wood. Then she sat again, with her knitting and her thoughts. What did she think of? What could she possibly knit? She threatened him, there could be no escaping the fact. She wanted him to be more than a son. How desirable all those past years seemed to Fletcher, with all those mothers. He began again to think about his mothers, and of that night, long ago, when he was Lewis.

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