The Broken Chariot Read online

  A bird hit the grimy glass and went like a falling aeroplane across the street to make an emergency landing on the opposite ledge. He smiled when the two men began to climb the stairs, their laughter sufficient to cover the sound of his standing up.

  The tall thin man in front wore a raglan overcoat, open to show a three-piece suit. A close-eyed expression of anxiety could look menacing to anyone he wanted to frighten. I’ll call him Dandyman, Herbert decided. ‘It’s time we chucked a few of his things out o’ the winder.’

  They didn’t care who heard. ‘I’m game. One bash and the door’s in. The gaffer wain’t pay us if we don’t do it this time.’ Herbert dubbed him as Beer-barrel, middle height and stocky, looking feckless but confident at the job in hand. First across the landing, he sent a solid kick at the door. ‘Come out then, Dad. We know you’re in there.’

  ‘You’ve no right to come here,’ Isaac called through the door. ‘I pay my rent.’

  ‘No right!’ They laughed at that. ‘We’ll show you what rights are.’

  ‘I’ve got a butcher’s knife,’ Isaac shouted, in the voice of a much younger man. ‘The first one through that door gets it in the stomach.’

  Herbert almost laughed. Isaac was too peaceable even to think of such a weapon, so his bluff would be no good. The others thought so even more.

  ‘He’s bluffin’,’ Beer-barrel said, loud enough for Isaac to hear behind his door.

  ‘You just try. I’ll cut you to pieces.’

  Bert, recalling his purpose on being there, clattered down the stairs and shouted in his roughest voice to Isaac, heightened by as much as could be mustered of a sergeant-major’s parade-ground bellow: ‘Yer don’t need to do that. I’ll tek care on ’em.’

  He stood two steps above, outlined against the skylight. He was tempted to laugh, but that would mean ruination of the scheme, so kept a sharp rein on Dandy the hard man, fixing them. The beret folded into the shoulder strap of his battledress might have told them he was out for business, as should the long scar turning more livid at his face. ‘Get back to where you come from, and leave him alone. He’s my uncle. We aren’t looking for trouble, but if you don’t clear off I’ll put your arses where yer fuckin’ ’eads should be, and yer’ll never know what kicked ’em,’ a threat heard from one man to another at the factory gate.

  ‘It’s like that then, is it?’ Dandyman turned to Beer-barrel. ‘Come on, Charlie.’ They turned to go, but it was the oldest ruse in the world. Any actor could spot that retreat wasn’t in their faces. Charlie Beer-barrel turned, and came on like a cannonball in a hurry. Bert’s shining boot caught him full smack at the shoulder, while his fist at the face of Dandyman was dodged. Then Bert had something to avoid but didn’t.

  Dandyman came forward, and lightning was only just good enough. There were no rules as in boxing at school. This was behind-the-garden-shed stuff. Fighting dirty, filling the gap between Herbert and Bert, he used his soul’s venom to smash father, mother, schoolmasters, shitbag officers and gaffers, even the old clergyman who had given him money.

  Dandyman was no fool, and Herbert felt a blow, staggered, then Dandyman was pulled from behind by gleeful Archie and belly thumped, doubled up and breathless, to the landing below.

  ‘We know who yer are now.’ Bert drove Beer-barrel with a few aimed punches at the chest to join Dandyman. ‘Cum ’ere again, and yer number’s up. We know where you live, and what pubs yer get pissed in.’

  ‘I ain’t had enough yet.’ Archie stroked one fist with another, but they gave no reason for him to have more, and his face looked even uglier, a self-defeating expression he could do nothing about. All in all it was still only a scrap rather than a real fight. ‘I’d know ’em anywhere, though. Two ragbags from Sneinton.’

  Isaac, sensing the fracas was finished, opened his door and came on to the stairs holding a large black-handled two-foot butcher’s knife. ‘I appreciate what you’ve done, but they would have got this if they’d come in and I’d been on my own. Nobody persecutes me and gets away with it.’

  Archie laughed. ‘Nar, Dad, yer can put that away. It’s only fists they appreciate. Next time they’ll gerra real pastin’!’

  ‘Now you know the score,’ Bert told them. ‘So fuck off, and pick on somebody else.’

  Beer-barrel had given up, but Dandyman, an eye bruised and his overcoat torn, was about to say something. He caught sight of Archie’s moiling fist and thought better of it. They weren’t in the game for a fight to the finish.

  Bert and Archie followed them to Slab Square, then turned downwind for the Eight Bells. ‘Are you all right, then?’

  ‘One of ’em got me in the ribs,’ Bert said, ‘but all I need is a drop o’ Shippoe’s oil. Then I’ve got summat to tell yer.’

  When they were seated by their drinks Archie asked what it was. ‘But let me sink this pint, and then I’ll listen.’

  ‘I was standing by the lions the other day and this tart I thought was Eileen started yammering at me. At least I think it was Eileen. I couldn’t be sure. She said one of the kids she’d got with her was mine.’

  Archie leaned back, laughing. ‘Yer’ll have to get used to things like that. It ’appens all the time. If it was Eileen, though, she must a bin having yer on. Our Janet says it was Pete Scrimthorpe who knocked her up. Then Jack Wiley married her. He’s as happy as a pig in shit, Jack is. Thinks the kid’s ’is. Everybody knows except ’im, the dozy bleeder. I expect somebody’ll tell ’im one of these days, and then he’ll cut ’is throat. Or he’ll ’ang issen in the shed to save shittin’ on the carpet.’ He blew smoke rings towards the bar, unable to hold down his merriment. ‘On the other ’and, the kid could be yourn.’

  ‘’Ow do yer mek that out?’ he asked, putting on as near a smirk as he could manage. He wondered what went on in Archie’s mind: only what you heard and what you saw gave any clue. No cunning, subterfuge, or power of ratiocination, that’s what he loved about him. But Archie leaned close. ‘Well, you know them frenchies our Raymond lets me have? A couple of his pals at the cleaning factory got their tarts in the family way, so one day a chap blew one of ’em up, and saw pin-holes all over the place. Nearly killed our poor fucking Raymond. Some wicked bastard must have known what was going on, but fancy playing a trick like that. You was in the army by then, but you might ’ave ’ad one o’ the early models. It’s like that old joke, about a scaffolder putting up some big name, letter by letter at the top of a building. Well, ’e slips, don’t ’e? And falls through the big letter O and gets killed. There was a joke and it ended summat like: “He went as he came, through the ’ole in a letter!” So let’s drink to it, Dad!’

  Bert laughed, to show that such humour was right up his street. The publican looked up at the noise of two local swaddies of the same tribal family on a night out that promised to be very good for trade.

  Eleven

  Drills, milling machines and lathes buggered the hands back to what could only be regarded as normal: calloused, scarred, yet each day becoming more flexible for work. In cap, jacket and overalls he jinked his way along cobbled streets, or swerved around corners on his bike, to gaol himself at his appointed spot and be lost in nobody’s aura but his own, except at tea break and dinner hour. Bashing out energetically on piece rate, his earnings climbed in a few weeks to give a Friday pay packet nicely padded with a dozen pound notes and a few bits of change.

  Sweat was cheap at the price but he worked with dogged contentment, no truck nowadays with the darts or any other team. He could laughingly tell people to all but piss off without fear any more of giving himself away or being thought stand-offish. He was an old hand again.

  In the evening after a wash and his sit-down tea he went upstairs and beamed light on to the mirror. With scrubbed fingernails, a fresh handkerchief and bottle of TCP he cleared whatever blackheads had formed on cheeks and temples from too long standing in an atmosphere of suds and metal dust. The fight against spotted skin was never-ending.

  As a pas
time it amused him to scribble whatever came to mind about people at the work place, easier when feeling clean. He unscrewed his pen and hovered it over lined paper, never able to decide on the exact moment it started to move, nor why. A few pages took on the shape of a story, till he felt like a spy in wartime France collating reports on resistance and the moral state of the inhabitants, certainly fancied himself at this early stage as an observer, perhaps the smaller part of himself, looking on the world from the outside. It was the ideal viewpoint from which to write, and if he didn’t sit down every night or two with his pen the factory existence would become so intolerable he would have to flee from it.

  The effort of staying in a situation he didn’t altogether want (only to avoid one even worse – though he couldn’t imagine what that might be) led him to try thinking clearly in the hope of finding an answer as to why he must ask the question at all. The result was that there were no answers, only thoughts that chased each other around in the same circle. The inner strength of his upbringing sustained him in the way of life he had chosen, so he must resist abandoning the factory for fear of turning into a faceless deadbeat shambling from place to place for the rest of his life. Happy or not, it didn’t matter, as long as he could tolerate the present, live from day to day, become stable and content, and carry on as if working in the factory and living at Mrs Denman’s was half his natural state, the other part putting up with what he had become, looking on it with tolerance and, when necessary, keeping an excess in check.

  Existence was easy when such brooding spared him. At dinnertime he would finish his sandwiches and guzzle off his tea in ten minutes and, if the pavement was dry, spread a Daily Mirror to sit on, and lean against the factory wall with the latest Penguin or Everyman classic. Cap low over his eyes, a posture in no way strange for a workman, he opened the book so as to hold it in one hand, and read till the hooter called him in at two to continue the day’s stint.

  Wood from packing cases splintered in the factory yard was sometimes thrown aside as scrap, so he tied up a bundle and took it home as kindling for Mrs Denman. Another time he humped a load through town for Isaac, and on his way a man asked where he’d got it, wanting to buy some himself, for the air was icy, and fuel of any sort hard to find.

  Isaac wore leather gloves, a trilby hat, and a heavy woollen scarf inside his overcoat. ‘My last lumps o’ coal went yesterday, but it’s not the end of the world, to be without a bit of fire.’

  ‘Gorra chopper?’ Bert split the wood into smaller pieces on the landing. The room was cubby enough to warm quickly, and with cigarettes on the go as well he asked if there’d been any more bother from the landlord’s men.

  ‘I ain’t heard a dicky-bird. Seems you and your friend discouraged them. In fact a woman from the Council was here yesterday, and said there’s a chance of me getting a small flat, with central heating. It might not happen for ten years or so because of the housing list. But I appreciate her giving me something to look forward to.’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  ‘Doesn’t it? I might even be sorry to leave the old den.’

  Bert slung his nub end into the embers, and split more wood for another transitory blaze. ‘I’ve got to scram, or I’ll be late for my tea. Mrs Denman don’t like to be kept waiting with her burnt offerings.’

  ‘Just a moment, then.’ Isaac turned to the bookshelf. ‘Perhaps you’d like to read these. I’ve been meaning to give you them.’

  ‘Dickens?’

  ‘They’ll keep you going for a bit, Our Mutual Friend and Bleak House. Come back if you want any more. I don’t suppose you read such entertaining novels at your posh school.’

  ‘We had Kipling, and Rider Haggard, and all that stuff. Not that I didn’t think they were wonderful, especially Kipling. Hard to remember some of them, but they kept me going at times. We mostly had the classics rammed down our throats, and I’m glad we did.’

  Isaac rummaged further along the shelf. ‘Take this Bible. It’s a Jewish one, without the New Testament, as your sort call it. Stick your nose into it whenever you get the urge. They could write sublimely in King James’s time.’

  He needn’t return the favour of the firewood, but always did in some way, so it would be churlish to say more than: ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘They’re not things I’m short of, as you can see. When I first came here I had a bit of extra cash, so splashed out at the secondhand place down Wheeler Gate.’

  Herbert sat again. His supper could wait. Generosity of spirit, one of Isaac’s built-in virtues, was to be marvelled at. A smile and a mordant few words might be the response if he mentioned it, but Herbert still thought it a miracle that he had been rescued by him that first fateful night in Nottingham. The more time passed the less the event receded, came starkly into focus in fact, distilling juvenile horror and despair at the idea of Isaac having been absent from the pub that evening. ‘How did you come to live in a place like this?’

  His smile was of the wryest, hiding a more bitter response perhaps. Wrong again, Herbert heard:

  ‘Like all long stories it can be told in a few words. My wife died, after twenty years of marvellous devotion, on both sides. It was quite sudden, and when she went I wanted to, as well. But I couldn’t commit the ultimate sin of suicide.’

  Herbert nodded towards the framed photograph on the bookshelf: a placid yet vulnerable face, dark hair drawn back from pale cheeks. Thin lips fixed in a half-smile suggested she endured life rather than lived it. ‘Is that her?’

  Isaac indicated that it was, as if to speak would bring tears. ‘I took to the road. Gave up job, house, family, everything. It was just before the war, and I was on the tramp for two years. I went as far down as any man can, or so I thought. Up in Scotland I was taken into prison for vagrancy, but an elderly chap on the street, who saw me marched off, came to the court and handed in the ten-pound fine, saving me fourteen days in prison. Who he was I’ll never know. He just saw me, and did it. Scottish, Protestant, I suppose, and charitable. Can you beat that? It brought me back to my senses, and I went down to London, to my daughter’s. She wanted me to live with her, and I did for a while, but I couldn’t get on with her husband. When I left she gave me some money, and I ended up in this place. I’ve been here nearly ten years, and don’t think I’ve ever been happier. I like being alone, and I manage with my pension. It’s surprising how little you need living on your own. She sends me a quid or two now and again, for they’re doing quite well. Keeps promising to come up and see me, but I put her off.’

  True, it wasn’t so bad. A lot of people put up with worse. You could call Isaac lucky, living absolutely the way he liked. Herbert thought that if he could afford to give up factory work he would be happy to pass his time reading, or cycling, or walking the town, and writing when he felt like it. Such a dream life would need a few hundred pounds a year to bring off in comfort, however, because Isaac’s near poverty wasn’t at all to his liking.

  His jacket soaked by driving sleet, he held the books close to his chest to keep them dry. Mrs Denman grumbled at the late hour but laid out a supper of warmed-up Spam fritters and fried potatoes. ‘You don’t look after yourself. See how wet through you are.’

  Never speak with food in your mouth. But he was famished, and being Bert he could say so what to manners. ‘It wasn’t raining when I went out.’

  She reached up to the mantelpiece. ‘This came for you today.’

  His mother’s writing, not the first letter asking him to visit them in Norfolk. He knew he should call, but didn’t care to squander a weekend. What would he have to talk to them about, in any case? Everything they would say to him he already knew, or thought he did, and his temper was too short these days to do much listening.

  ‘If I got a letter,’ Mrs Denman said, ‘I’d open it straightaway.’

  He didn’t want to snap back and offend her. ‘I know who it’s from.’

  ‘I dare say you do. Your parents, I suppose, like all the others.’

 
; ‘They want me to go and see them.’

  ‘I’m sure they deserve it. Don’t you want to make ’em happy?’

  ‘I’m not sure I would.’ She was more than right, and her advice softened his feeling of being pestered by their letters, though he hoped she would now keep quiet about it, for if he felt too guilty he might tell her to mind her own business. ‘I will one day.’

  As if knowing his thoughts, she altered tack in any case. ‘You look like a drowned rat. I’ll light the geyser so’s you can have a hot bath and get warm.’

  Splashing in the carbolic steam he wondered where Isaac went for the same luxury. Always clean and dapper, he must use the public baths. He lifted himself out and got dry, putting on two jerseys to face the room. Supper weighed heavily as he closed the door, and drank the mug of tea from Mrs Denman before cold reached its core.

  Flakes spinning down the panes in slow Catherine wheels seemed to have eyes that looked at him, so he drew the blanket-like curtains, and lit a cigarette to warm the end of his nose, or staunch the mucus trying to fall from it. He’d had more colds than he could count since leaving Cyprus. Questions as to what he was doing here only came at such times of reflection, and even though unanswerable he supposed they were necessary for what he wanted to do.

  Bert’s life had to be written about, and that was a fact, but it could only be done when he said bollocks to questions and side-stepped into being Herbert, the query ritually answered on setting himself at the table to begin an inky scrawl across the page. Herbert and Bert were two ends of a magnet, each competing for the iron filings of other people’s misadventures. One end of the horseshoe had to be Bert, but the other was labelled Herbert so as to make the style clear, and in the hard body of the metal they became one, and words meshed craftily to make sense of the story.