Father of the Man (19 page)

“Well, I don’t know.”

“That would show them you’d done something—as much as you were able.”

“The problem is, you see, last night I didn’t make out no report.”

For a minute or two they considered this companionably.

“But you can say you knew the conductor on the InterCity would be doing that,” suggested Roger, finally, “and that you didn’t realize two reports were needed on the same subject.”

“That’s right. And anyhow, what might happen is, you’d get charged twice over, for both nights. And that wouldn’t be fair, would it? I can’t see how anyone could say as that was fair.”

“Thank you for being so nice about it.”

“Well, you’re very welcome, I’m sure.”

But that, for the moment, was where the niceness ran out. The following morning, when Roger got to the station at nearly half-past-six, the conductor who’d been on the London-bound train the previous day was standing vigil by the guard’s van. Twenty-four hours earlier he had sounded easygoing (“Travelling without a ticket, sir? Eh, we can’t have that, you know”) but of course it was his signal which must have set those half-dozen officials waiting at the barrier; and today he no longer sounded in the least easygoing.

“That’s him!”

This, to the much younger, shorter man who stood close to him and who was squat, pug-nosed and could be seen—because he happened to be scratching his head when Roger first noticed him, with his cap pushed over to one side—to have a corn-coloured crew cut.

“Yes, that’s him!”

In just a second the cap was back in place and the wearer of it was now standing close to Roger.

“You, sir. Do you have a ticket to travel on this train?”

“No, I don’t.”

“In that case—off the station!” He grabbed Roger’s upper arm; hard.

Roger tried to shake him off. “It’s okay, you know: the police are going to be waiting for me at St Pancras.”

“Well, they won’t find you then, will they?” The ignominy of this was that he was such a
little
man and yet he was propelling Roger so easily along the platform; not that Roger was putting up any resistance, except for his attempt to get back his arm. “It may come as a surprise to you but we have ideas in this country about people who set out to break the law.”

“We also have ideas in this country about principles of justice.”

“And you can talk about those all you like—after you end up in court!”

“And how will I end up in court, unless the police arrest me?”

“You can sue British Rail. But right now you’re getting off this station! Come on—off this station!”

Up the steps he pushed him; through the booking hall. When they reached the open automatic doors he administered a final shrug of no little violence.

“And I wouldn’t show your face round here again—not if you know what’s good for you!”

Roger felt like saying, “One day, when you’re big enough, you might grow up to be a bouncer.” But he saw three elderly ladies looking at him in perplexity; and since they were different from everyone else who’d been staring, in that their perplexity quickly gave way to a small smile of sympathy, he restrained himself. It wouldn’t, moreover, have been a particularly bright idea.

He thought afterwards that he should have asked these women for their names.

But by then they had crossed the booking hall and were probably on one of the platforms.

Roger caught a bus to Beeston.

There was no chance, of course, of catching up with the train he had just missed but he didn’t want to do that anyway. The bus journey lasted twenty-five minutes. The station at Beeston had the air of a country one from days gone by, yet Beeston was still a part of Nottingham. He could hardly believe the authorities wouldn’t have anticipated this move of his—after all, it seemed so obvious—therefore again it was
The Thirty-Nine Steps
syndrome as he walked through the entrance and over and down towards the London side: heart hammering, raincoat collar pulled up, eyes looking mainly at the ground. (So where were those bravely squared shoulders
now
, that upheld head, that noble chin?) Unfortunately there weren’t many people on the platform—no way to mingle with a crowd—so he sat on a green bench and simply stared at his briefcase, which he’d placed across his lap. When the next InterCity arrived he was back on his feet but supposedly studying a couple of posters as it slowed to a halt…although this again, he realized, was merely an ostrich tactic; he viewed his height once more as a distinct disadvantage. The moment the train had stopped—and not glancing in either direction for heads that might be leaning watchfully out of windows, or for the guard with whistle and flag who might even now be bearing down on him—he hurried to a nearby open door at which a woman was disembarking, with packages and two children. Roger’s hadn’t been a good decision. Although he helped the woman with a suitcase, and with one of the little girls, the ten seconds he had to stand waiting at the door appeared to him interminable.

But as had happened in London last night, once he was actually on board the train, he felt relatively secure.

Secure…with a conductor soon to walk along it? Secure…with the Law about to meet him at the other end?

The conductor this morning was one he hadn’t seen before. The other three passengers at Roger’s table held out their tickets without pausing in their conversation. Roger smiled somewhat wearily at the man, preparatory to launching yet again into his explanation—was there any ticket inspector on this line who still didn’t know of it?—but unexpectedly the conductor simply smiled back, nodded and moved on, evidently under the impression he must have looked at Roger’s ticket earlier.

Roger was about to call him back.

Checked himself.

The barrier at St Pancras was totally unguarded.

He just walked through it and away.

Yet he was over an hour late for work. He’d telephoned before leaving the station—spoken to Rose (“Oh, you’re going to catch it, mister, if there’s any justice left in this world
you’re
going to catch it!”)—but after he’d deposited his mack, umbrella and briefcase in the basement he went back to the ground floor, looked up at the gallery and said, “Mr Cavendish, may I have a word with you?”

“I think perhaps you better had. Pray step up into my office, if you’d be so kind. As a matter of fact I, too, was about to seek the favour of an interview.”

Roger climbed the aged, ladder-like wooden stairs—“the steep-and-narrow,” Mr Cavendish called them, “for those amongst us who have difficulty in going straight”—and worked his way along the cramped balcony until he reached his manager’s desk. On the wall there were many framed cartoons dating back to the time of Rowlandson and Jonas Hanway, and among the items which had to be negotiated during his progress was another large desk, over which Dickensian clerks had no doubt crouched whilst perching on their high stools and attesting by the industrious scratching of their quills to the propinquity of the founder; a cupboard full of receipt books which, though still in use, were so venerable they gave the Temple Bar telephone exchange; and a rack of horn-handled crooks for shepherds, of whom there weren’t a great many left in the vicinity. There was also, lying on the floor, a long carton containing swordsticks (the most magnificent of these boasting a dragon’s head carved, lacily, out of ivory) and an ordinary-seeming black umbrella which likewise concealed a blade, far less impressive but still extremely lethal; these were just for show, on request, since a new law had belatedly prohibited their sale, although the price of the dragon stick, nearly fifteen hundred pounds, had in itself proved quite restrictive—Roger, as so often, caught his ankle on the box. He gave a grimace and saw Rose, who was standing looking up at him expectantly, snigger in partial sympathy. “Yeah, I’ve done that, as well; it really hurts, don’t it?”

When Mr Cavendish spoke to Roger, however, he made no attempt to modulate his voice. “They say little pitchers have large ears; but I don’t think they can have seen what’s happening to Rose’s. Have
you
noticed how her ears have grown since she started to work here—that is, if we can speak of it as work? I’m sure they didn’t make me think of Babar when she first came for interview.”

“Oh, go on with you, Mr Cavendish. You’re just saying that. You know I never try to listen.”

“In that case, Rose, I shudder to imagine where we’d be if you really put some effort into it.” He sent her down to the ladies’ end of the shop, to open up each umbrella on two of the racks and give it a thorough dusting. She protested volubly…but went.

“Now then, Mr Mild. What did you wish to see me about? Being presented with a good alarm clock as your leaving gift?”

The use of surname only further underlined the fact his boss was in a waggish and indulgent mood. He certainly didn’t appear to believe that Roger had lost interest since the previous Monday. The auspices were favourable.

“No,” he said. “I’m having trouble with British Rail.”

Mr Cavendish replied: “And you think that makes you special? Please don’t try to brag. Do you know how long it took me to get home last night?” Home was merely Watford.

Roger listened, expressed sympathy—but was rebuked: “I don’t want sympathy; I want outrage; unqualified outrage!”—and then, hoping for a little of this himself, started to narrate his own story.

Mr Cavendish became less droll.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake! Why didn’t you tell me? I could have given you the money.”

“That’s exactly why I didn’t.”

“Now I feel angry. As you know, I was prepared to make allowances when I thought your lack of punctuality was due to signal failures and the like—”

“I never told you that. Except on Monday. When it was.”

“But if you’re held up tomorrow and the weather’s bad…People who are keen on principles seldom seem to mind how much they inconvenience anyone around them.”

“I don’t think that’s quite fair.” There was a trace of sulkiness in Roger’s tone.

“Which is another thing. I don’t care very much for this streak of arrogance that I’ve begun to see in you lately. And no future employer is going to care very much for it, either.”

“Why is it arrogant to stand up for your rights?”

“I get the feeling you may almost be enjoying yourself. So I wonder if you’re doing it entirely for the proper reasons…” He paused. “Anyway. Listen. I’m giving you the money. No travelling any more without a ticket. How much will you need?”

“I don’t want it.”

“Why not? What good do you think you’re doing? For you or anybody else?”

Roger shrugged.

“I warn you,” said his manager. “If you use that phrase again—‘not fair’—I shall probably want to clobber you.”

And my mother would fully sympathize
. (No, but she wouldn’t really, not at heart, any more than Mr Cavendish himself really meant it.) “If I gave up now it would seem as though they’d beaten me. And talk about anticlimax…all that wasted effort…wasted emotion…Besides which. I’m sorry but I genuinely think that it’s important.”

“Important? Speak to the ghosts of the six people who died in yesterday’s fireball on the motorway; or of all those blacks hacked to pieces in last night’s township massacre; or of the latest policeman who’s just been shot in Northern Ireland. Then speak to his wife and three young children who saw it happen. And afterwards tell me how very important you still believe your own little problem can possibly be.”

“I know. I know. Do you honestly suppose I’m not aware of all of that?”

He turned his back in surly irritation; but—after he’d taken only three steps—returned. “Well, tell me how much they’d say it mattered, all those ghosts and people, even if I did arrive late tomorrow and it did happen to be raining.”

“Oh, go away!” said Mr Cavendish.

Roger went. Providentially, as he arrived at street level, several Americans came through the door and he was able to lead them to look at some of the more expensive merchandise and make a good sale. It took nearly an hour of encouragement and helpfulness—fairly ostentatious helpfulness, Roger knew—that had as much to do with recommending plays and places: even a good fish-and-chip restaurant: as it did with any discussion of walking sticks or umbrellas. When he finally showed these customers out, he was feeling a good deal more satisfied with his morning. Also, it was time for coffee.

“Would you step up here again for a moment, please.”

He sighed. “Oh, Lord—is it really necessary?”

He truly hadn’t meant to respond in this way. Mr Cavendish could well be right about detecting arrogance. But he remembered his mother had once told him, “You’re like me: you can’t say boo to a goose!”, and if recently he had been learning to say boo to a few geese wasn’t that all to the good? Surely not arrogance. Yet answering back might indeed be a sign of arrogance.

“Thank you, you don’t have to address me as Lord. I can see why many would want to but I don’t insist on it…not yet.”

Clearly Mr Cavendish had recovered from his anger. Roger again went up the awkward staircase.

“Following our little altercation of half an hour ago…”

“More like an hour.”

“I purposely offered you that opportunity. I realized that in your new persona you would want to contradict me. I thought we’d get it out of the way quickly and without its doing enormous damage.”

Roger smiled—guardedly.

“It’s lucky,” continued his boss, “that one of us always keeps a cool head and is
never
prone to moodiness in any shape or form. However…Earlier you were so full of why you wanted to see me that you forgot to ask why
I
wanted to see
you
.”

“I thought it was about the same thing.”

“I see: yet
another
of your mistakes…I take it nothing’s changed since yesterday? You’re not fixed up with any job yet?”

“No.”

“In that case if the business pays your travel expenses for the next two months would you consider staying on? You’d be doing us a favour. Christmas is obviously one of our busiest times and—believe it or not—I’m having difficulty in finding a replacement worthy of you. Also it’s not really the best period to be training anybody.”