Love on the Dole (3 page)

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

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

He searched the faces of the men for one familiar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SAFETY FIRST.

KEEP BETWEEN THE WHITE LINES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Ah know … which foreman?’

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

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

‘Oh, aye, Mr Munter,’ Harry agreed, eagerly.

Ted grunted: ‘Washer name?’

‘Harry Hardcastle, sir.’

‘Six o’clock t’morrer mornin’… . Machine shop, think on …’ He cocked a glance at Harry’s clothes: ‘An see y’ come in a pair overalls. This ain’t a bloody school.’

Harry blushed: ‘Yes, sir,’ he mumbled, meekly.

‘All right. Muck off…. Don’t hang around here. Hey! Here, tek these here papers. Get y’r owld man t’ fill ‘em up. An’ y’ bloody clockin’-on number’s,’ glancing ac a chart: ‘2510. Clock number fourteen. Clock on o’ mornin’ an’ clock off o’ night. Don’t clock at dinner. Think on, now, don’t you go’n make a muck of it like all t’others do, the dense lot o’ bastards,’ jerking his thumb: ‘ ‘Oppit, now, ‘oppit, ‘oppit, ‘oppit’ Confused with excitement, Harry made himself scarce. What luck! He really was engaged. And in so short a space of time! What would the boys have to say to this? He gazed at the papers in his hand. There was the magic word ‘Indentures!’ And they’d given him a number, 2510. There was the hallmark of his engagement Better make a note of it He wrote in on a corner of the indenture.

The man with the badge in his coat again intercepted him. Harry told him of his success: ‘All right clear off, now, until tomorrow,’ the man said, not unkindly: ‘Can’t have y’ hangin’ about here.’

He went outside the gates thrilled, spirits soaring, paused and turned to survey the great place, enthralled as a child in a Christmas toy shop.

The roadway outside the works’ wall was now bleak and deserted save for a few late comers, old and young who were running a race, the other competitors being the time clocks ticking imperturbably on the workshops’ walls. A light railway engine clanked by; a couple of tramcars stood empty, their guards and drivers stealing an illicit smoke. Pavements and setts were littered with a million fag-ends of cigarettes, spent matches, tram tickets, screwed up balls of newspaper and disgusting plashes where sufferers from Manchester catarrh had spat. The yards were almost empty; a hurrying figure here and there.

A hissing plume of steam vapour from the side of one of the tall chimneys; the loud, deep hoarse note sustained much longer this time and accompanied by blasts and shrill pipings from the sirens and whistles of the factories and mills adjacent.

From the great works came a rumbling and a confused muffled banging; air throbbed. Two men with brass brooms came out of the Marlowe yard and commenced to sweep up the litter.

A new day’s toil had begun.

PRICE AND JONSE’S pawnshop stood at one point of a triangle; the other two points were occupied, respectively by a church and a palatial beerhouse, each large, commodious and convenient.

The pawnshop was entered by three doors, the front to the sales department, the side and back to the pledge offices. Three faded gilt balls on an angle iron stood out from the wall, the dents in the balls evidence of their having been used as targets by the youth of the neighbourhood.

For the convenience of policemen and the inconvenience of burglars square peepholes had been cut in the window shutters and the back doors. A gas jet glimmered in the shop all night long and an arrangement had been made with the police whereby a pair of shop ladders should, when the shop was closed, be left directly in front of the safe. A peeping policeman noticing whether the ladders were in their customary place could tell whether all was well within or otherwise.

Mr Price’s idea. Jones was fiction. Gaunt, cleanshaven, thin lipped, Mr Price’s eyes were like those of a fish, glassy, staring: his high cheek-bones, sunken cheeks and sallow complexion, this last as a result of a self-imposed forty-year term of imprisonment in his shop, lent his countenance a death-mask-like appearance especially when, business being slack, he stood, motionless, in the shadowy alcove by the fireplace where fire never burned no matter how cold the day. Nothing could have been more full of life than his skeletonic fingers as they plunged into the heaped money of the cash drawer: as a symphony is to some ears so the jingle of coins were to Mr Price’s. When staring at the rhino he was beatified. He was a high official at one of the local chapels; also, he was a magistrate. And to be sitting on the bench giving some cringing wretch a stern talking to was an occupation which inspired in him the greatest pleasure and appreciation of his public spirit.