My Autobiography (11 page)

The doctor wrote out a paper; besides other things it said she was suffering from malnutrition, which the doctor explained to me, saying that she was undernourished.

‘She’ll be better off and get proper food there,’ said the landlady by way of comforting me.

She helped to gather up Mother’s clothes and to dress her
Mother obeyed like a child; she was so weak, her will seemed to have deserted her. As we left the house, the neighbours and children were gathered at the front gate, looking on with awe.

The infirmary was about a mile away. As we ambled along Mother staggered like a drunken woman from weakness, veerign from side to side as I supported her. The stark, afternoon sun seemed to ruthlessly expose our misery. People who passed us must have thought Mother was drunk, but to me they were like phantoms in a dream. She never spoke, but seemed to know where we were going and to be anxious to get there. On the way I tried to reassure her, and she smiled, too weak to talk.

When at last we arrived at the infirmary a young doctor took her in charge. After reading the note, he said kindly: ‘All right, Mrs Chaplin, come this way.’

She submitted obediently. But as the nurses started to lead her away she turned suddenly with a painful realization that she was leaving me behind.

‘See you tomorrow,’ I said, feigning cheerfulness.

They led her away looking anxiously back at me. When she had gone, the doctor turned. ‘And what will become of you, young man?’

Having had enough of workhouse schools, I replied politely: ‘Oh, I’ll be living with my aunt.’

As I walked from the hospital towards home, I could feel only a numbing sadness. Yet I was relieved, for I knew that Mother would be better off in the hospital than sitting alone in that dark room with nothing to eat. But that heart-breaking look as they led her away I shall never forget. I thought of all her endearing ways, her gaiety, her sweetness and affection; of that weary little figure that used to come down the streets looking tired and preoccupied until she saw me charging towards her; how she would change immediately and become all smiling as I looked eagerly inside the paper bag she carried for those little niceties that she always brought home for Sydney and me. Even that morning she had saved some candy – had offered it to me while I wept in her lap.

I did not go straight home, I could not. I turned in the direction of the Newington Butts market and looked in shop windows until late afternoon. When I returned to the garret it looked reproachfully empty.
On a chair was a wash-tub, half-filled with water. Two of my shirts and a chemise were soaking in it. I began to investigate; there was no food in the cupboard except a small half-filled package of tea. On the mantelpiece was her purse, in which I found three halfpence, some keys and several pawn tickets. On the corner of the table was the candy she had offered me. Then I broke down and wept again.

Emotionally exhausted, I slept soundly that night. In the morning I awoke to a haunting emptiness in the room; the sun streaming in on the floor seemed to heighten Mother’s absence. Later the landlady came up and said that I could stay on there until she let the room and that if I needed food I had only to ask for it. I thanked her and told her that Sydney would pay all our debts when he returned. But I was too shy to ask for food.

I did not go to see Mother the next day as promised. I could not; it would have been too upsetting. But the landlady saw the doctor, who said that she had already been transferred to Cane Hill asylum. This melancholy news relieved my conscience, for Cane Hill was twenty miles away and I had no means of getting there. Sydney would soon return and then we could see her together. For the first few days I neither saw nor spoke to anyone I knew.

I would steal out in the early morning and stay out all day; I always managed to get food somewhere – besides, missing a meal was no hardship. One morning the landlady caught me creeping downstairs and asked if I had had my breakfast. I shook my head. ‘Then come on,’ she said in her gruff way.

I kept away from the McCarthys because I did not want them to know about Mother. Like a fugitive, I kept out of everyone’s way.

*

It was one week since Mother had gone away, and I had settled into a precarious habit of living which I neither lamented nor enjoyed. My major concern was the landlady, for if Sydney did not return, sooner or later she would have to report me to the parish authorities and I would be sent again to Hanwell Schools. Thus I avoided her presence, even sleeping out occasionally.

I fell in with some wood-choppers who worked in a mews at the back of Kennington Road, derelict-looking men who worked
hard in a darkened shed and spoke softly in undertones, sawing and chopping wood all day, making it into halfpenny bundles. I would hang about the open door and watch them. They would take a block of wood a foot square and chop it into inch slices and put these slices together and chop them into sticks. They chopped wood so rapidly that it fascinated me and made the job seem attractive. Very soon I was helping them. They bought their lumber from demolition contractors, and would cart it to their shed, stack it up, which took at least a day, then saw the wood one day and chop the next. On Friday and Saturday they would sell the firewood. But the selling of it did not interest me; it was more clubby working together in the shed.

They were affable, quiet men in their late thirties, but looked and acted much older. The boss (as we called him) had a diabetic red nose and no upper teeth except one fang. Yet there was a gentle sweetness about his face. He had a ridiculous grin that exposed prodigiously his one tooth. When short of an extra teacup he would pick up an empty milk-tin, rinse it and, grinning, say: ‘How’s this for one?’ The other man, though agreeable, was quiet, sallow-faced, thick-lipped and talked slowly. Around one o’clock the boss would look up at me: ‘Have yer ever tasted Welsh rarebit made of cheese rinds?’

‘We’ve had it many times,’ I replied.

Then with a chortle and a grin he would give me twopence, and I would go to Ashe’s, the tea grocers on the corner, who liked me and always gave me a lot for my money, and buy a pennyworth of cheese rinds and a pennyworth of bread. After washing and scraping the cheese we would add water and a little salt and pepper. Sometimes the boss would throw in a piece of bacon fat and a sliced onion, which together with a can of hot tea made a very appetizing meal.

Although I never asked for money, at the end of the week the boss gave me sixpence, which was a pleasant surprise.

Joe, the sallow-faced one, suffered from fits and the boss would burn brown paper under his nose to bring him to. Sometimes he would foam at the mouth and bite his tongue, and when he recovered would look pathetic and ashamed.

The wood-choppers worked from seven in the morning until seven at night, sometimes later, and I always felt sad when they
locked up the shed and went home. One night the boss decided to treat us to a twopenny gallery seat at the South London Music Hall. Joe and I were already washed and cleaned up, waiting for the boss. I was thrilled because Fred Karno’s comedy
Early Birds
(the company I joined years later) was playing there that week. Joe was leaning against the wall of the mews and I was standing opposite him, enthusiastic and excited, when suddenly he let out a roar and slid down sideways against the wall in one of his fits. The anticipation had been too much. The boss wanted to stay and look after him, but Joe insisted that the two of us go without him and that he would be all right in the morning.

The threat of school was an ogre that never left me. Once in a while the wood-choppers would question me about it. They became a little uneasy when the holidays were over, so I would stay away from them until four-thirty, when school was let out. But it was a long, lonely day in the glare of incriminating streets, waiting until four-thirty to get back to my shadow retreat and the wood-choppers.

While I was creeping up to bed one night the landlady called me. She had been sitting up waiting. She was all excited and handed me a telegram. It read: ‘Will arrive ten o’clock tomorrow morning at Waterloo Station. Love, Sydney.’

I was not an imposing sight to greet him at the station. My clothes were dirty and torn, my shoes yawned and the lining of my cap showed like a woman’s dropping underskirt; and what face-washing I did was at the wood-choppers’ tap, because it saved me having to carry a pail of water up three flights of stairs and pass the landlady’s kitchen. When I met Sydney the shades of night were in my ears and around my neck.

Looking me over, he said: ‘What’s happened?’

I did not break the news too gently. ‘Mother went insane and we had to send her to the infirmary.’

His face clouded, but he checked himself. ‘Where are you living?’

‘The same place, Pownall Terrace.’

He turned away to look after his baggage. I notice he looked pale and gaunt. He ordered a brougham and the porters piled his luggage on top of it – amongst other things a crate of bananas!

‘Is that ours?’ I asked eagerly.

He nodded. ‘They’re too green; we’ll have to wait a day or so before we can eat them.’

On the way home he began asking questions about Mother. I was too excited to give him a coherent account, but he got snatches. Then he told me he had been left behind in a hospital in Cape Town for medical treatment and that on the return trip he had made twenty pounds, money he looked forward to giving Mother. He had made it from the soldiers, organizing sweepstakes and lotteries.

He told me of his plans. He intended giving up the sea and becoming an actor. He figured that the money would keep us for twenty weeks, in which time he would seek work in the theatre.

Our arrival in a cab with a crate of bananas impressed both the neighbours and the landlady. She told Sydney about Mother, but did not go into harrowing details.

The same day Sydney went shopping and outfitted me with new clothes, and that night, all dressed up, we sat in the stalls of the South London Music Hall. During the performance Sydney kept repeating: ‘Just think what tonight would have meant to Mother.’

That week we went to Cane Hill to see her. As we sat in the visiting room, the ordeal of waiting became almost unbearable. I remember the keys turning and Mother walking in. She looked pale and her lips were blue, and, although she recognized us, it was without enthusiasm; her old ebullience had gone. She was accompanied by a nurse, an innocuous, glib woman, who stood and wanted to talk. ‘It’s a pity you came at such a time,’ she said, ‘for we’re not quite ourselves today, are we, dear?’

Mother politely glanced at her and half smiled as though waiting for her to leave.

‘You must come again when we’re a little more up to the mark,’ added the nurse.

Eventually she went, and we were left alone. Although Sydney tried to cheer Mother up, telling her of his good fortune and the money he had made and his reason for having been away so long, she just sat listening and nodding, looking vague and preoccupied. I told her that she would soon get well. ‘Of course,’ she
said dolefully, ‘if only you had given me a cup of tea that afternoon, I would have been all right.’

The doctor told Sydney afterwards that her mind was undoubtedly impaired by malnutrition, and that she required proper medical treatment, and that although she had lucid moments, it would be months before she completely recovered. But for days I was haunted by her remark: ‘If only you had given me a cup of tea I would have been all right.’

J
OSEPH
C
ONRAD
wrote to a friend to this effect: that life made him feel like a cornered blind rat waiting to be clubbed. This simile could well describe the appalling circumstances of us all; nevertheless, some of us are struck with good luck, and that is what happened to me.

I had been newsvendor, printer, toy-maker, glass-blower, doctor’s boy etc., but during these occupational digressions, like Sydney, I never lost sight of my ultimate aim to become an actor. So between jobs I would polish my shoes, brush my clothes, put on a clean collar and make periodical calls at Blackmore’s theatrical agency in Bedford Street off the Strand. I did this until the state of my clothes forbade any further visits.

The first time I went there, the office was adorned with immaculately dressed Thespians of both sexes, standing about talking grandiloquently to each other. With trepidation I stood in a far corner near the door, painfully shy, trying to conceal my weatherworn suit and shoes slightly budding at the toes. From the inner office a young clerk sporadically appeared and like a reaper would cut through the Thespian hauteur with the laconic remark: ‘Nothing for you – or you – or you’ – and the office would clear like the emptying of a church. On one occasion I was left standing alone! When the clerk saw me he stopped abruptly. ‘What do you want?’

I felt like Oliver Twist asking for more. ‘Have you any boys’ parts?’ I gulped.

‘Have you registered?’

I shook my head.

To my surprise he ushered me into the adjoining office and took my name and address and all particulars, saying that if anything
came up he would let me know. I left with a pleasant sense of having performed a duty, but also rather thankful that nothing had come of it.

And now one month after Sydney’s return I received a postcard. It read: ‘Would you call at Blackmore’s agency, Bedford Street, Strand?’

In my new suit I was ushered into the very presence of Mr Blackmore himself, who was all smiles and amiability. Mr Blackmore, whom I had imagined to be all-mighty and scrutinizing, was most kindly and gave me a note to deliver to Mr C. E. Hamilton at the offices of Charles Frohman.

Mr Hamilton read it and was amused and surprised to see how small I was. Of course I lied about my age, telling him I was fourteen – I was twelve and a half. He explained that I was to play Billie, the page-boy in
Sherlock Holmes
, for a tour of forty weeks which was to start in the autumn.

‘In the meantime,’ said Mr Hamilton, ‘there is an exceptionally good boy’s part in a new play
Jim, the Romance of a Cockney
, written by Mr H. A. Saintsbury, the gentleman who is to play the title role in
Sherlock Holmes
on the forthcoming tour.’
Jim
would be produced in Kingston for a trial engagement, prior to the tour of
Holmes
. The salary was two pounds ten shillings a week, the same as I would get for
Sherlock Holmes
.