Loving, Living, Party Going (39 page)

'Arthur!' said Mr Walters.

'Aye,' Bridges was out of himself, 'aye and since
I came 'ere I've built this side up stone by stone and made a job of it. Waller,
of the O.K., said to me only a week ago standing where you are now, he said
you turn out better work here than I've seen in the trade. Now there's a man
of experience, mayn't I take part of that on myself? No, it's now as I might
be a 'orse or a dog turned off because their old man 'as died, or like an
Indian widder woman that is burned beside 'er dead 'usband.'

'Well, there's other firms.'

'They wouldn't take us on at our age.'

Walters quietly said he would work for young
Mr Dupret as he had worked for father.

'And so will I,' Mr Bridges said, abating, 'but
you see what's coming to us, 'e's gone out of 'is way to make me a fool before
my own men, you'll see,' (rising again) 'he'll bide 'is time till 'e can get
us off without a pension, forcing us out of a living. And that's what comes
to a man that 'as worked all 'is life for another. My bones in my body they
ache all day now but when I've worn 'em out in 'is service 'e'll sell 'em
as scrap to the rag and bone. That's 'ow it will be.'

'You ought to take a day or two off Arthur.'
Then Mr Bridges began again at that, saying did he want him to starve right
away. Suddenly he covered face in hands, he burst out into sobbing, and Walters
sent for brandy.

Miss Gates went out in afternoon to buy food
in shops and now was last sunshine of winter on the streets. She came into
high road and trams went by her rocking, roaring sound came from them and
sound of their bell like metals. Along line of shops which were on each side
of this road women in dark clothes went in and out of them.

She passed by and black man passed by her. She
had in mind to turn back and look at him. But she saw chest of tea in shop
window. She stopped by it. She thought of film she had seen which was advertisement
of a tea firm, she had seen in it black women that gathered the tea, and how
delicate she had thought them and she remembered now, how delicate their arms
and hands which did not seem touched by the hard labouring.

Were tins of pineapple in that shop window and
she wondered and languor fell on her like in a mist as when the warm air comes
down on cold earth; in images she saw in her heart sun countries, sun, and
the infinite ease of warmth.

'Well, Albert,' said Mr Gates, who came to fetch chaplets, to
Mr Milligan storekeeper,' 'ow are you feeling?'

'Middlin', Joe.'

'Ah, and the old man's looking ill and all.'

'What – 'Tis 'im? Ah, 'e came by the other
day and I said to myself, I said, that man 'as the shade of death on his face.'

'I said as much to Jim, when 'e went past. It's
a shame there couldn't be a double funeral, the old gaffer and 'im.'

Mr Milligan laughed.

'Well, there's double weddings, ain't there,'
cried Mr Gates 'and double beds bless my 'eart,' he said, 'all for the enjoyment
of mankind, so why shouldn't we see two dirty sods put underground at one
go off.'

'They buried the old gaffer some time back.
I don't say I 'ad anything against the man. But it's marvellous the state
these worryers get into, I don't reckon I'll be far out when I said Mr Bridges
is done for.'

'Ah, and look at our foreman, Andrew there,
'e takes it 'ome with 'im. I'll wager 'is missus is a good moulder. I'll wager
'er 'as to listen to 'is troubles every night, 'ow this job blowed and that'n
run out.'

'That's right. But, come to look at it, wouldn't
Bridges and Tupe be all right in a 'earse together.'

Mr Gates did not relish this.

'I'd like 'im dead,' Mr Gates said carelessly.
He meant Mr Bridges. He meant to keep off topic of Mr Tupe.

Milligan said indeed Tupe should be in a grave
and Mr Gates asked for chaplets. When Mr Milligan came back he said to mark
his words and that would be big changes in this factory soon. Yes, he said,
they would see a lot different, whether for better or worse he couldn't say.

Well, Mr Walters said in his mind, I must try and like the young
chap, and he came into Mr Richard's private office.

'Good morning, Dick.'

'Good morning' Mr Dupret said cordially. 'I
hope you're well.'

'Pretty well thanks. But it's marvellous what
the weather's been doing to people.'

'Yes, two or three of my friends are down with
the 'flu. It's a wonder we're alive, Mr Walters.'

'Yes, it is that, and I'm worried about Mr Bridges,
Dick. He's not as well as he ought to be, not by a long way. Everything seems
to have got right on his mind lately. I shouldn't wonder if he didn't have
a breakdown one of these days.'

'A breakdown?'

'Yes, he's right down on his luck. A good deal
of it was your father dying as he did – (as he did? wondered young Mr
Dupret) – and then he takes everything to heart very much. I think we
ought to send him on a holiday.'

Mr Dupret said he was sorry to hear that and
who would take over if he did go away.

'Cummings will take over.'

'What about Tarver, Mr Walters?'

'Cummings is senior to Tarver, Dick, it wouldn't
do to put the younger man over the older one.'

'Wouldn't it give him a useful experience of
running the works. After all, Tarver is our coming man isn't he, Walters?'

'Well Mr Dupret,' said Mr Walters, rage rising
in him, 'I don't know that Tarver's got the all round knowledge necessary
for a works manager.'

'What sort of a man is Cummings?'

'He's a real good man. He came to us as a lad
and has been with us ever since. Mr Bridges has been bringing him on ever
since he came here.'

'Then what sort of age is he?'

'He'd be round about fifty.'

'Rather a long time to be bringing along, isn't
it Mr Walters?'

'Engineering isn't learnt in a day.'

'Well,' Mr Richard said importantly, 'I think
I'll go down to the works for a day or two to see how things stand. I'm all
for Mr Bridges going for a holiday but I don't quite see my way clear yet
about his temporary successor.'

Hoity toity Mr Walters thought and why wouldn't
he give him handle to his name, call a man 'Walters' who was old enough to
be his father!

Mr Dupret picked up a letter.

'Why haven't these people had delivery yet?'

'There's been a heap of trouble in the iron
foundry over that job, Dick. It's an awkward job, but they've pretty well
got it weighed up now since I went down there and saw it.'

'Damn that iron foundry,' Mr Dupret said.

'Yes, I've said' that many a time,' said Mr
Walters. One sentence, like a bell, knolled in Mr Richard's mind, 'Cummings
will take over,' sentence said confidently.

Lily came to go and meet Bert. She took short cut that was over
piece of waste ground.

Night. Street lamps were lit over where she
was going to. She walked across. She had done shopping and men had been fed
at evening, now work was done and like as when gulls come and settle on the
water so her spirit folded wings, so walked in quietness.

Night was mauve about her, mauve and cold. She
only felt warmer.

So, wings folded, as the gull takes on motion
of the sea, night flowed over her then in her.

Gathering coat she hugged arms round body and
folded in night and buried face in it, in fur of her collar. And so containing
it warmness rose in her, drowsed her mind, and came in little ball of warmth
top of throat, behind her nose, breathed through her there, till she was drunk,
and all of her was dyed in night.

She came nearer street lamps and then stumbled
a little. Looking up she saw them, light sticking out from them, and as she
came nearer so night left, excitement effervescing in her she put coat straight,
and felt cold. When she stepped into cone of light of this lamp, night was
outside and it might not have been night-time.

She met Bert at corner.

They kissed. Her warmth and his, their bodies
straining against each other, became one warmth. Walking, his arm round her
enclosed her warmth and his. So it came from his veins flowing into hers,
so they were joined.

They walked from cone of light into darkness
and then again into lamplight, nor, so their feeling lulled them, was light
or dark, only their feeling of both of them which was one warmth, infinitely
greater.

Tom Tyler was the life of the house-party. Before dinner he
stood on his head; put a pin in the back of a chair and sitting on the chair
leaned round it, bending his body into an arc and took the pin out in his
mouth. Then when some other man did this, only not so quickly of course, Tom
sent for a tumbler and filling this with water he put it on his forehead.
He knelt down, he bent his body back in an arc from the knees, and soon was
lying flat on his back with not a drop of water spilled, nor had he steadied
the tumbler with his hands at any stage in the course of this delicate operation.
No one could do it after him, many got soused with water in trying to do it,
which only added to the general hilarity.

Hannah got quite hysterical with excitement.

Then he put an armchair in the middle of the
floor and cushions at a little distance at the back of it, and he took a running
leap and dived into the chair, turned a somersault on his head in it and landed
with the chair onto the cushions. The chair was broken. That was a very good
joke. Then they all played hunt the slipper.

All this was good clean fun. If anyone touched
anyone it brought a bruise.

So it was all good clean fun. And when they
were bored with hunt the slipper they sat in a circle, (Tom Tyler directed
all this), and someone, man or woman was put in the middle and kept themselves
very stiff and everyone, each one theoretically being for himself, everyone
I say tried to push the person in the middle onto one of the others who were
sitting. When that happened, amid screams, the person fallen on had to go
in the middle. So boys fell across girls and then perhaps took a little time
to get up, but it is quite true to say that there was nothing dirty in all
this.

Hannah, for instance, did not even long for
Tom to be pushed over her, nor did she even think of it, it' was all –
how shall I say, – all was like the clearness of an empty glass, with
the transparency of light. Yet not transparent. You look into crystal globe
and its round emptiness makes a core in it you can't see through, there is
nothing there only the transparency is confused. That was like Hannah Glossop
when someone wasn't talking to her, inoculating ideas.

When she went to dress for dinner she told maid
she had never laughed so much in all her life.

Mr Bridges, on his leave, sat in sitting room of a lodging house
at Weston. He was writing letter to Mr Walters. He looked up and onto the
sea, grey under dark sky, incessantly moving, spotted with gulls. He had just
written: What I won't wear about this place is seeing a big ship go down and
then when you're sitting in the same place with nothing to do and not even
a dog to speak to you see the same boat come back up again an hour later.
There's times I could go loony wondering what it was up to.

What were they doing at Works, he thought? Young
chap would be down there now, and most likely he had only given him the week
off so he might play hell with the place while he was away. Some fathers had
awkward children by God and to hand the whole show over to them when you were
dead, it was like cutting the throat of a whole crowd of people.

What would Tarver be at?

Mrs Bridges came in then.

'She says it's sixpence for a bath!' she said.

'Sixpence, eh?.' said Mr Bridges. 'You go tell
her she's in competition. Tell her I can get a wash for nothing in the sea
there and if she don't cut her prices she'll lose the order.'

'Oh, yes, you bathing in this cold.'

'You tell her I've bathed every Christmas Day
since ever I could swim.'

'Why it aint November yet and you can't swim,
you know you can't.'

'How'll she know that, eh? If it's going to
cost us a tanner for a bath I'll wait till I get back to Brum before I wash
the dust off me of this bloody 'ouse.'

Women, he thought, would you believe it, they'd
ruin you. Yes, thought Mrs Bridges, and little he'd think of it if it was
for a pint.

Cummings, he went on in mind, was a good man,
he'd taught him all he knew, but he didn't like leaving works with him, not
with Tarver and those sharks about. And he couldn't ring up again, he'd rung
up twice this morning already. The waiting till you got back, that was the
rub of it, was like having your arteries cut and watching the life blood spouting
out.

Richard Dupret came late to that house-party. He arrived in
middle of fish course at dinner. He had warned hostess was only train he could
come by, having to work late that day in London; but yet, as he passed by
open door of dining room to go and dress and saw brilliance of lights there
and clash and glitter of women's dresses, and heard their laughing, he had
a sickening in stomach.

Older woman asked hostess who was that young
man that was arriving? and she said Richard Dupret.

'Sylvia Dupret's son?'

'Yes my dear. It was her husband who died not
so very long ago.'

'Wasn't he very rich?'

'Yes very. Poor Sylvia it was quite dreadful
for her, she was at the Embassy with a party when they telephoned through
and Ian Lampson had to break it to her. Of course it wasn't altogether unexpected
but the doctors had said he might linger on for months.'

'Didn't she stay by him at all then?'

'Oh yes, but she came up for a change.'

'She oughtn't to have left him, a woman shouldn't
do a thing like that Grizel. It looks so bad.'