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Authors: Walter Greenwood

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Them as start wars, Mrs ‘Ardcastle,’ Mrs Bull had replied, emphatically: Them as start wars should be made t’ go’n fight ‘urn. An’ if
Ah’d
owt t’ do wi’ it, fight ‘urn they would. They’d tek no lad o’ mine. Luk at them lot there, boys an’ nowt else.’

The recollection amazed Harry. Why, those soldiers had only been three years older than he. They were men at nineteen, then. Had he been their contemporary he, too, would have been a soldier; a corpse, probably, in some foreign land. He shivered.

Try as he would he could not bring himself to think himself a man. Did he lack some masculine quality which others possessed? Lacking it or no he would be forced into it.

There were some little boys at school at this moment, who, two years from now would be engaged by Marlowe’s. He licked his lips. These newcomers would see him as he had seen Billy Higgs, a man. He blinked and licked his lips again; wanted to go search out these boys to tell them that he wasn’t a man at all, had no intention of being a man: ‘Ah ain’t no man,’ he told them, in his mind: ‘Ah ain’t no man…. D’y’ understand? Ah’ll on’y be eighteen when you start here. D’y’ see? On’y four years older’n you. Aye, an’ y’ll be gettin’ more’n me to spend an’ Ah’ll nearly be out o’ me time,’ to himself: ‘Blimey, kids o’ fourteen gettin’ more’n me to spend when Ah’m eighteen. Blimey, Ah’ll on’y be earnin’ sixteen bob a week then and pay me own insurance.’

Glimmerings of truth began to dawn. A million mysteries slowly unfolded their secrets; what had been tinged with glamour crumbled to stark and fearful reality.

He saw groups of young men lounging at street corners; young men serving their time or not serving their time: the sight was so commonplace that nobody ever noticed it. Why were they lounging there? Why didn’t they go to the picture theatre or some place of amusement? Why didn’t they smarten themselves by wearing their Sunday suit of an evening? He knew why they never went in search of amusement, because they were as he, lacking the necessary money. And the remembrance of rows and rows of Sunday suits at Price and Jones’s told their own tale. The suits belonged to Price: every week-end he hired them out to those who had bought them. And even those who didn’t pawn them daren’t wear them every evening. The clothes had to be made to last a twelvemonth, the procurement of which explained the presence of the Good Samaritan Clothing Club collectors in Hanky Park every Saturday noon. Two shillings a week for fifty-two weeks equals one new suit,
etc.

But there was a point on which he still was puzzled. Take Billy Higgs, a typical example. Never, to Harry’s knowledge, had Billy been inconvenienced by his penury: contrary, Harry had vivid recollections of Billy’s throwing money about prodigally; he saw him oozing complacence and beaming good-naturedly on everybody.

‘How many times?’ he asked himself.

‘Aye,’ he murmured, ‘How many times?’ Once, and once only, when Billy had made that profitable bet.

Slowly the explanation crystallized. Billy’s extraordinary good fortune on that solitary occasion had made him a cynosure;

attention had been focused on him, nothing more. It was so unusual for anyone to have a temporary sufficiency of money that when such good fortune did fall an individual’s way, all the other penurious wretches saw a nimbus of glory glowing round the fortunate one’s head. It was a seven days’ wonder. You remembered them and their luck as you remembered the fire at Harmsworth’s mill. In the ordinary course of events you never looked at Harmsworth’s mill: it was a mill, part of the landscape and nothing more. But when it was blazing people rushed from all parts, and, ever afterwards, the memory of the conflagration stuck. When the fire was extinguished and the damage repaired, things resumed normalcy, nobody raised their eyes to the sooty buildings. The same with Billy Higgs. Nobody looked at him now; the nimbus had faded with the spending of his money. He was now unemployed. Only last night Harry had seen him lounging at the street corner with the rest of the dole birds feeling in his pocket for a fag-end that wasn’t there.

All in the same boat: all hard up; there was a sorry kind of consolation in being one of a crowd.

But he resented the intrusion of the new boys: they had stolen money out of his pocket with their coming. He felt resentful of everybody who was prosperous. Resentful of Sam Grundy, the bookie, of Alderman Grumpole the fat money-lender proprietor of the Good Samaritan Clothing Club, and of Price, J.P., the cadaverous pawnbroker.

Then fears and panic clutched him: he became afraid. Was this what was meant by growing older? And money. A shilling a week was impossible. Cigarettes, pictures and threepence for a bet and - broke until next pay day. Gosh! He
must
find a winner; must be extremely painstaking with his threepenny wagers. His heart contracted to remember that only once in two years had he won, and then only two shillings.

Ah, but he had been careless, then; hadn’t spent time studying form. Then there were the competitions in the newspapers: ‘£500 for First Four in the Derby’. ‘Spot the Ball and win £1,000’. But the prospect of winning here was remote. And, ten to one, if he did succeed in placing the Derby horses correctly, his prize would be like that of the man’s in the next street who had performed, successfully, the difficult prognostication and had received, instead of £500, a letter and a package from the Competition Editor, saying:’… therefore, owing to the huge number of successful competitors, list of which may be had on application plus cost of postage, it has been found impracticable to divide the money prize. Enclosed, however, is a magnificent photogravure plate of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales.’

‘Aw, blimey,’ he muttered: ‘Ah’m fed up, Ah am.’

Where was that feeling of confidence of the future? of the imminence of joys to be?

Where was Helen? He wanted her, urgently; wanted to confess his fears to her attentive and sympathetic ear. He’d take her to Dawney’s Hill tonight where they could talk, confidentially, without fear of interruption. Take her, if she would go… . Suppose she declined. Imagine if she transferred her affections elsewhere!

Oh, Helen, Helen. Only she could assuage this fear of the future that loomed, large and foreboding like a great, dark cloud on the horizon.

CHAPTER 2 - HE IS HAPPY

DAWNEY’S HILL (how it came by that name I cannot say) lies about a half-mile to the west from Hanky Park. It is a huge deposit of sand, a high eminence with a grass-capped brow. In genial weather and when the darkness falls, urban lovers sit out their evenings here kissing and fondling, wisely snatching happiness whilst it is there.

If the heavens have ears they must have listened to millions of promises and plans from the lips of young factory hands scheming as to their futures.

The hill’s popularity as a rendezvous may be accounted for in that there is free access, no pay-boxes, turnstiles or warnings to keep off the grass. At sunset Venus presides. And the dirty grass has provided the nuptial couch for many and many a moment’s ineffable bliss, prelude, sometimes, to premature and hasty marriages. No doubt it will continue so to do for just as long a period as the Two Cities Municipal Authorities take to sell Dawney’s Hill, a cart-load at a time, to any and all speculative builders who find themselves in need of sand.

From its brow, if you sit with your back to the setting sun, the huge, stricken area of the Two Cities sprawls away east, north and south. Like a beleaguered city from which plundering incendiaries have recently withdrawn, a vast curtain of smoke rises as from smouldering ruins. And the tall chimneys standing in clusters like giant ninepins, spouting forth black billowing streamers, write their capricious signatures on the smudgy skies. The same today as in the not-long-ago when old people told tales of cows being called home from where below were once lush meadows; days when the soaring larks beat wings against unspotted skies, and, of a night, gawmless calves, the daft loons, stood gaping at the moon, and, aloft, the stealthy midnight owl sharply eyed the moonlit green below.

By east, north and south sprawls the cities’ area.

The sensible lovers never face it; they look towards the northwest where the prospect is pleasanter. There still are fields, and, where the river twines and turns about a mile distant as the crow flies, its steep northern bank gives hospitality to congregations of trees. Town trees and town fields.

Helen sighed contentedly and gazed at Harry lying supine in the grass by her side.

His attitude towards her this last day or so had changed completely. He seemed to desire her company, her exclusive company; yet she was cautious, distrustful of her optimism. She did not wish to build on the premature hope of its permanency.

There were encouraging signs, though. He was growing older perceptibly; no longer did he seem to hanker for the company of the other boys. Indeed there was a change in the demeanours of them all; they all were more or less subdued. Its cause was not far to seek. Of a Saturday evening nowadays only a ghost of their erstwhile boisterousness remained; no more did they fling money about carelessly. A new generation had taken their places by Hulkington’s, the grocer’s shop; the same in the Saturday picture theatre queues. The younger boys evinced the same habits, the same prodigality; different boys, that was all.

‘It’s rotten, Helen. Kids like that gettin’ more to spend than me. Older y’ grow, more work y’ do an’ less money y’ get t’ spend. ‘Tain’t fair.’

As she sat here with him by her side she recalled his words, turned them over thoughtfully. They pleased her: yet they made her feel very sorry for him. She gazed at him, he was lying staring into the sky, a hand carelessly plucking at a tuft of grass. The more she looked at him the more urgent and warm her love of him seemed to grow, until, at last she could not resist an impulse to confess her feelings. On a sudden she leaned towards him and murmured, with suppressed ardour: ‘Oh, Harry, Ah do love y’… Ah do, really.’

He looked at her, pleased, surprised: ‘D’ y’, Helen?’ he murmured, with a tiny smile.

She glanced this way and that, then, lowering her head, kissed him, hastily, sitting up again immediately afterwards to assure herself that they had not been seen. She saw that the other couples were too preoccupied with their own love affairs to be concerned with those of others.

She gazed at Harry again, a faint tinge of colour in her cheeks.

‘Do it agen, Helen,’ he murmured, his hand closing on hers.

‘Nooo,’ she replied, feeling it to be her womanly duty to deny him: ‘Nooo. Somebody’ll see us.’

‘Oh, go on,’ he urged: ‘Let ‘em. I don’t care.’

‘No… No,’ she said, with finality, as she glanced about her again. Hastily, she pressed her lips to his whilst he placed his disengaged hand about her neck in a protracted embrace. So that when he released her she was flushed, her hair and hat awry. ‘You should ha’ let me go, Harry,’ she protested, straightening her hat and trying to restrain her smiles. His answer was to close his eyes and sigh, contentedly.

As he lay there, a curious sense of luxurious indolence, of brain-laziness stole over him. With Helen by his side he felt safe and secure from what he did not know. Safe and secure; tranquil, lulled into a state of harmonious quiescence, of peace and quiet breathing.

He took a deep, sighing breath. He opened his eyes, reluctantly. Helen, leaning on an elbow was bending over him. They smiled at each other.

‘Are y’ happy, Harry?’ she asked.

He sighed anew: ‘Eee, Ah am,’ he murmured: ‘Just then, when Ah closed my eyes, Ah’d such a lovely feelin’ about me an’ you.’

‘What was it?’

He stared at the sky; tried to find words with which to express himself: ‘Ah dunno,’ he murmured: ‘It was all nice, that’s all. It made me feel sleepy-like.’

She did not answer; stroked his hair whilst her gaze roved over his shabbiness. She discovered that she was profoundly grateful for his present circumstances: tremors of fear disturbed her as she thought on what might have been the consequences had he taken up office work. Suppose, in the place of that soiled mercerized cotton scarf he had worn collar and tie; a nice suit instead of oily overalls; neat shoes instead of hobnailed boots. She never would have dared expose her own shabbiness alongside him, even if he had been agreeable. Perhaps he would have found a different circle of acquaintances; might never have given her a glance. Oh, what rubbish. Might have been was only might have been; precious reality was hers.

She said: ‘Would y’ rather be here wi’ me than wi’ street-corner lads, Harry?’ She gazed at him with steadfast anxiety.

He did not answer, straightaway, stared, unblinkingly into the sky. Her question recalled days that were gone; days when he could anticipate, regularly, the three shillings a week spending money instead of the miserable shilling as at present. What the devil could a fellow do with a shilling? he needed more money now than ever; he wanted to demonstrate his affection for Helen in buying her things: wanted to buy clothes so that he might appear smartly dressed. But - he frowned; some restless part of him writhed, impotently.

His hesitation chilled her; his frown was frightening. Could it be that he still was in doubt regarding his need of her companionship?

‘Would y’?’ she repeated, searching his face apprehensively.

He sat up, made a deprecating pass with his hand and replied: ‘No fear. Ah ain’t goin’ wi’ them no more …’ He did not hear her sigh. She laid her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes as he drew up his knees, clasped them and rested his chin atop, staring at the scene below.

At the foot of the sandfaced hill, at the other side of the un-paved road, is a large railway siding; there are main line tracks atop a high embankment, and engine sheds and more rail lines on the embankment’s farther side. Express passenger trains, bound for Liverpool and the northwest coast resorts roar by periodically. Shunting takes place perpetually: goods engines puff about the network of lines with seeming leisurely aimlessness: detached wagons in motion deceive the eye as to their destination, rumbling between the stationary rows of wagons when one fully expects them to collide, then, colliding, with a crashing of buffers when one expects them to proceed.

BOOK: Love on the Dole
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