A Song of Sixpence (28 page)

Annie herself was deservedly popular among the group of Irish expatriates in the district who congregated, usually on Tuesday nights, at a public house kept by one of their number and named, with nationalistic spirit, ‘The Shamrock'. Not infrequently these were festive occasions for me. When Annie had a few extra coins in her purse or when she had backed a winner, since she was not above having threepence or even as much as a shilling on a horse, she would put on a man's cloth cap which she secured carefully with long hatpins and take me first to Bonelli's fish and chip shop for a fried-fish supper, then, although I was sill under the legal age, smuggle me in with her to the snug, of ‘ The Shamrock'. Her entry was invariably greeted with shouts of welcome and when she had ordered a Guinness for herself—she never drank more than one—and a ginger ale for me, there would be cries of ‘Give us a song, Annie.' After an exchange of chaff and without the least self-consciousness she would oblige with ‘The Minstrel Boy' or ‘ Tara's Halls', followed, as an encore, by a great favourite which I think was called ‘The Wearing o' the Green'.

Oh, Paddy dear and did you hear
The news that's goin' round,
The shamrock is forbid by law
To grow on Irish ground.

Then a chorus, in which with tremendous feeling everyone joined:

The dear little shamrock,
The sweet little shamrock,
The dear little, swe-eet little, shamrock of Ireland.

Despite these pleasures, or perhaps because of them, I could not blind myself to the fact that circumstances had reduced me to a submerged level of existence. For all practical purposes I now lived and worked in the slums of Winton. The change was alarming, the locality deadly. Back-to-back tenements surrounded us, interspersed with narrow streets and mean alleys in which one saw exhibited every sign and symptom of poverty and misery—the shawled women, idle men, and worst of all, the ragged, rickety, deformed children. Perpetually noisy, dirty and choked with traffic, Argyle Street seemed to me a running sore. Saturday night on its crowded flaring pavements was saturnalia: drunks rolling around, lying in the gutter, or being frog-marched to the police station, sailors on leave from the docks looking for trouble, factions of the rival football ‘brake' clubs fighting it out with fists and knives after the match, while with a clash of cymbals, a thump of the drum and a blare of brass that heightened the pandemonium, the Salvation Army paraded up and down, pausing from time to time to sing a hymn, preach the terrors of damnation, and pass the tambourine.

In all my daily contacts, human and inhuman, there was nothing to improve or stimulate my mind. When, driven by the afternoon vacuum in my stomach, I slunk into Bonelli's for a penny plate of chips only to be met by a rush of broken English from the back shop: ‘Chipapotata no ready. Green pea ready. You wanna green pea?' I felt bitterly that my star had waned since those days of happiness and promise when Miss Greville, discoursing on the
Orchis maculata
in an ambience of Eton, paused to address me across the impeccable table: ‘Another cutlet, Carroll?'

I knew now that my mother couldn't have had the faintest precognition of what lay in store for me. Those earnest conversations with Leo, while she anxiously studied his sad, pale, plausible face, must have induced in her an entirely false impression of the prospects he could offer me. Yet I could not bring myself to write and reveal the truth. This would alter nothing of my situation, and from her frequent letters, Mother had trouble enough fulfilling her teaching obligations at the school in time to take the train journey to Cardiff to attend her all-important night classes, which, she had confided to me, were proving harder than she had foreseen, with many technicalities she found difficult to understand.

Nevertheless, as I felt myself slipping into a kind of bog, stifled by the prevailing smoke and grime, I tried to brace myself by striving again for that elusive Greek ideal which I had pursued in the past, a physical adequacy which was so far not reflected in my attenuated form. The solitary bath in Leo's establishment served at present as a repository for an accumulation of useless household rubbish, old door handles, bent nails, broken picture frames, bashed cardboard boxes and the like, which Uncle had not allowed to be thrown out; but aided by Annie I cleared away this debris. Although the enamel was chipped and rusted the antique tub held water, and thereafter, every morning when I got up, I did fifteen minutes of bodybuilding exercises, then took a cold dip. In the evenings, which had begun to lengthen, I returned with joy to my old love. It cost only a halfpenny fare to take the yellow tram from Argyle Street to Kelvingrove Park on the western outskirts of the city, but as I often lacked that coin I did not mind walking all the way along Sandimount Street and Western Road, since I was wearing my old gym shoes which made me feel light and full of springiness. At the Park, which extended in a series of tree-lined avenues and curving drives beneath the University, I would pause to gather myself, then begin to run, through the gathering twilight, on the circuit I had mapped out for myself. Except for an odd couple spooning on a bench, few people were about at this time. The sense of freedom and inexplicable delight which I experienced in this swift transit through the cool air, still luminous with the fading sunset, afforded me an escape from all my woes which, as though blown away by the wind of my speed, fluttered and fell behind me.

After I had spent myself I would sit and rest looking up at the University, the old noble building outlined dark and towering against the western sky. The chances that I should ever study there were now depressingly remote, yet when my breath came back, impelled by an ineradicable longing, I climbed the hill and wandered round the precincts. Passing through the deserted cloisters I read the names above the lecture rooms, drawn always to the Department of Biology where, lingering outside the locked door, I sniffed the aromatic odours of carbo-fuchsine and Canada balsam. Then indeed, turning away to return to the city, I felt that I had fallen on evil days and that my life had sunk to a dull and profitless routine.

One afternoon as I walked up Union Street rather slowly, returning from yet another of Leo's commissions, a young man, bareheaded, and of extreme elegance, came out of the Criterion Hotel accompanied by a stylish but rather over-dressed woman somewhat older than himself. I knew him instantly, and as his eye met mine in mutual recognition I instinctively called out ‘Terence.'

He did not appear to hear me. Avoiding my glance, continuing to address his companion in the liveliest manner, he passed me as though I did not exist while, cut and humiliated, I stood staring like a fool. A few paces up the street, opposite the entrance to the hotel grill, an open red Argyle car upholstered in padded red leather was waiting with a chauffeur in attendance. Towards this rich vehicle Terence escorted his lady friend, saw her seated with every sign of solicitude, then after a vivacious and tender farewell, watched her driven off.

As he turned I stirred myself and began to move hurriedly away, confronted suddenly by the recollection of that moment eight years ago when in Terry's company I had repudiated Maggie. Now she was avenged. At that moment, however, a piercing whistle, such as might be used to summon a cabby, made me spin round. Terence was coming towards me in leisurely fashion, handsomer, more charming than ever, not a hair out of place and immaculately got up in striped trousers and a dark jacket, a regular fashion plate. As he looked me up and down I quivered slightly. In the face of such sartorial, mannered perfection it was impossible not to blush for my own inadequacy.

‘Well, well, well. What a long drink of water you've turned into,' Terence said slowly. ‘What are you doing up here, man?'

The total absence of communication that now existed between my mother and Lochbridge had left him in ignorance of our present situation. When I explained he emitted another whistle, but in a low and meditative key.

‘So you're working for that skinflint. I never pass him in the street but I want to spit in his eye. Why didn't you come to me, man? I always liked your mother. A nice little woman. I'd have straightened you both out in no time. No time at all.'

‘Why … what are you in, Terry?'

‘The hotel business. Learning it on the inside; I'm the receptionist here at the Cri.'

Deeply impressed, I looked from Terence to the pillared marble portico and through the wide glassed doors to the vista of rich carpeting and gilt chairs in the foyer beyond. The Criterion was a new hotel with a sophisticated Continental atmosphere, not large but exclusive. In Winton it touched the heights of fashionable opulence.

‘I suppose Leo feeds you well,' Terence said suddenly, examining me sideways with a satiric eye. ‘ Or could you do with a bit of a snack?' Before I could answer he went on, ‘Well, then, you nip round to the back of the building and I'll let you in at the other entrance.'

The service entrance was easily found and Terence, already at the door, admitted me to a long passage which led into the hotel kitchen, an enormous lofty chamber, dazzling the eye with its display of shining metal and gleaming white tiles. A young man in a white apron and puffed cap was reading a newspaper.

‘Tony,' Terence said, ‘ I've just discovered a long-lost starving relative. Can you knock up something for him?'

Tony lowered his newspaper. He did not look particularly pleased.

‘Three o'clock in the afternoon. And me the only one on duty.'

‘That's why we're here.'

When Terence smiled no one could withstand him for long. Tony put down his paper and got up.

‘What does he want?'

‘Something with beef in it. And plenty.'

It was a relief to find the staff dining-room, into which Terence now led me, completely empty. Here, after a surprisingly short interval, Tony brought me a large helping of what looked like stew.

‘That suit you?'

‘Oh yes, thank you.'

As I began to eat Terence took a chair opposite me and lit a cigarette.

‘Heavens, kid,' he said, after a few minutes, ‘you've got a swallow. You must be famished.'

‘Not really, Terry. It's just that this is the most delicious meat I've ever tasted.'

‘It ought to be. It's Boeuf à la Bordelaise. As a matter of fact, my friend, Miss Josey Gilhooley, had some for her lunch today in grill.'

When he said this in so conscious a manner I felt some response was expected of me. I could not well say that she was pretty, since even in my brief glimpse of her I had been struck by the prominence of her nose. So I said:

‘She's very smart, Terry.'

He nodded complacently, with a gratified proprietary air.

‘Was that her car?'

‘Her old man's. Gilhooley the builder. They're rolling. For your own information, kid, and strictly on the q. t., Josey and I are as good as engaged. At least, it's not official yet but she's practically my fiancee.'

‘I always thought you liked Polly Grant,' I said, unthinkingly.

The nearest possible approach to a flush passed over Terence's face, confirming those early rumours of his frequent visits to Ardencaple.

‘That was just a flash in the pan. This is the real thing.' He added after a pause: ‘Don't you ever go out with the girls yourself?'

The idea was so preposterous I merely shook my head.

‘What!' exclaimed Terence, ‘you haven't got a girl yet?'

I felt myself redden. I had no wish to enlighten Terence on my longings in that direction defeated by an abysmal shyness—a state of inner conflict only maintained in balance by the discipline I inflicted on myself.

‘I'm not interested in girls,' I lied, bravely.

‘Then what in God's name do you do with yourself?'

‘I'm kept busy all day,' I said, defensively. ‘And at nights I go out to the Park and run.'

‘You do?' For the first time Terence seemed interested. ‘I remember you were pretty fair.' He seemed to make a joke of this, then considered me thoughtfully. ‘Have you done any serious running—at sports and such like?'

‘Oh, yes, I went out often with the Ardencaple Harriers, and won the under-fourteen steeplechase two years in succession.'

‘You did.' He regarded me even more thoughtfully. ‘One of these nights I might come out and clock you. I still keep up with the track, although I've too much on my mind to go in for it myself.'

‘I remember you telling us how you won the hundred yards at Rockcliff.'

He looked pleased.

‘Sure. I left them like they were standing still. I was the champion there, man, or near enough to it. A pity you never managed to Rockcliff.'

I acquiesced sadly, adding under my breath: ‘I'd still give anything to go.'

‘Well, who knows?' he said encouragingly. ‘It's not too late. There's ways and means. As I mentioned before, I have connections. Gilhooley is a big man. A strong Catholic too and Irish as you make them. Don't give up too easy. Why, speaking off-hand, it just occurs to me that the Bursar there now, a fellow called Phelan … or is it Feeney, was a pal of mine. He took the collar. I might write to him, he'd do anything for me. Or even the Principal, they remember me there, I can tell you.'

Terence's expansive attitude quite lifted me up. My eyes glowed as I murmured my gratitude.

‘Say nothing of it.' He pushed back his chair and got to his feet. ‘I must get back to the reception now. We've some important guests coming in this afternoon. But keep in touch with me. I want to time you on the mile. If it works out it might do you some good. Don't forget now.'

‘I won't, Terry. I'll come to the service door.'

‘That'll be easier for you,' he approved. ‘By the way, did you know that Nora was in town?'