So Well Remembered (22 page)

“Then during afternoons, if the weather were fine, she would put the
youngest of us (me, in fact) into a pram and wheel it round a few streets,
sometimes as far as the canal-bank or the Shawgate shops. Towards four she
would be home again, in good time to prepare an evening meal. Then came the
second pleasantest interval—the hour in the rocking-chair with a cup of
tea at her elbow before the children came home from school. While winter dusk
crept across the sky, and until the passing of the lamp-lighter sent a
green-yellow glow through the fanlight over the front door, my mother would
‘save the gas’ by poking the fire to a blaze while she rocked and sang. She
had a nice voice, small in volume but always true on the pitch, and though
most of the tunes she knew were chapel hymns with rather grim words to them,
she sang them somehow gaily and with a lilt, breaking off occasionally into a
popular song of the moment, something half-remembered from the previous
year’s Blackpool holiday, or from summer performances of the Silver Prize
Band in Browdley market-place.

“My earliest recollections, Martin, were of my mother rocking and singing
like that. There was a brass rail that ran along the whole length of the
mantelshelf, and as I first remember it this rail would shine in the
firelight with the shadows darkening all around and my mother’s face growing
fainter and fainter as she swung backwards and forwards; till there was only
the sound of her singing, the creak of the rocking-chair, and the simmer of
the kettle on the fire-bar… Then, all at once, I would wake up to see the
room already gas-lit, with my father standing, huge and unsmiling, in the
doorway.

“I feared my father and loved my mother and that’s about the plain truth
of it. On Sundays he locked up all story-books, picture- books, and even
bricks that spelt out words; but while he was at chapel my mother used to
unlock them with a key of her own and let me play till just before his return
was expected; then she would whisk away the forbidden things with a knowing
glance that finally became a sort of joke between us.

“That is the home I was born in, Martin—not as happy as it might
have been, but not as unhappy either. So I don’t complain of it, but I do
want to make YOURS happier. Which is why I intend soon to begin putting books
in your way, because the more freely and vividly you see things while you are
young, even if you can’t fully understand them, the more actively they will
possess you when you grow up—especially if, in adult life, you have
hard battles to fight and bitter disappointments to face. New worlds, Martin,
are for the young to explore; later one is glad of a new room, or even of a
view from a new window…”

He put aside the fragment then, thinking he would add to it on many
succeeding nights, but he never did; perhaps the rare mood never
recurred.

As the post-war slump deepened and unemployment filled the
street corners
with lounging, workless men, George encountered new opposition to his Mill
Street housing scheme. Many of the cotton mills were closing down completely;
some of them went bankrupt as catastrophically as had Channing’s a generation
before, but without the criminal taint, though the short-lived boom had been
pushed by speculators to limits that were almost criminal.

Among the mills that closed was the one still called Channing’s, though
long operated by another firm; now, when George walked down Mill Street, the
mill loomed up, symbolically as well as actually, at the dead end of the
street. Derelict, like Stoneclough five miles away, it stood for the dead end
of what the Channings themselves had stood for. Still physically intact, with
machines inside that could spin and weave, nobody would buy it or use it,
because nobody wanted what it could do. Yet the illusion that it still had
some real value was preserved; it was regularly taxed and insured; the
Browdley police kept an eye on it, the fire department were ready to quench
the blaze should any lightning or arsonist strike. But neither did, though
lightning had once, when George was a boy, struck the Methodist chapel at the
other end of the street.

The chapel also stood, a little less forlorn than the mill—
derelict, one might say, only six days out of the seven. For Methodism in
Browdley, like the cotton trade, was not what it had been. People could not
afford to give so much to their chapels, nor were there so many Methodists.
George, walking along the street where he was born and which he planned to
rebuild for others to be born in, remembered those early days when both mill
and chapel had flourished, and when his own father, sharing the week between
them in that mystic proportion of six to one, and with his house half-way
between, had served a life-sentence longer though less stigmatized than that
of his boss.

The reason George visited the Mill Street area so often was not a
sentimental one. Indeed, it was concerned with drains rather than dreams; for
the more graphically he could report to the Council how bad the houses were
and what disease-traps they had become, the sooner he hoped to get his scheme
actually started.

He found a powerful ally in Dr. Swift, Browdley’s medical officer, who had
himself issued many warnings. After a long struggle and against the bitter
opposition of a few of the town’s old- established doctors, a system of free
immunization against diphtheria had been set up, enabling parents to have
their children inoculated at a municipal clinic. It was, however, impossible
to make this compulsory, and the whole question became impregnated with
political and even religious prejudices that George deplored and perhaps at
the same time aggravated by his own constant argument that it was not enough
to immunize; the CAUSES of epidemics should be tackled, and the chief was bad
housing. To which the opposition retorted that George was using the health
issue for his own political ends, that Browdley was in no greater danger than
other manufacturing towns, and that though the Mill Street area was somewhat
less salubrious than the rest, what could be done about it when local tax
rates were almost the highest in the country? And since the opposition,
fighting on this tax issue, had won seats at recent Council by-elections,
George found his slum- clearance project losing rather than gaining ground
for the time being.

He often walked with Dr. Swift through the worst of the streets, the
medical officer supplying scientific ammunition for George’s continuing
struggle on the Council. For George would not give in; there was a point,
even though at times it was hard to find, beyond which he would not even
waver or compromise. Indeed, his mere mention of Mill Street had begun to
send a smile or a sigh across the Council Chamber, so well was the subject
now recognized as the bee in George’s bonnet. But he did not mind. “Sooner or
later I’ll wear ‘em down,” he assured Swift, to which the latter replied
grimly: “Better be sooner.”

For it had been a hot summer. Towards the end of September over twenty
diphtheria cases appeared in and around Mill Street, mostly among young
children, of whom five quickly died.

In such an emergency Dr. Swift was given command almost without
restrictions; everything remedial was promptly organized—the
quarantining of families, wholesale inoculations, closing of schools, and so
on. The Council had adjourned for its four weeks’ annual recess; many
councillors were still on holiday. But George, who had the Guardian to look
after and could not afford a holiday, was right on the spot to say ‘I told
you so’ to any former opponents he might meet. They were not so much his
opponents now. They all agreed, in principle, that something would have to be
done about the Mill Street area. And most agreed, in principle, with the
Guardian editorial in which George wrote:

“We must learn our lesson from this tragic visitation. Though the epidemic
has now (according to the latest assurance of our eminent and indefatigable
Medical Officer, Dr. Swift) been checked, we can never again feel secure
until preventable disease has been ABOLISHED AT ITS SOURCE. Let those
citizens who live in the more fortunate parts of Browdley and whose children
have remained unscathed, bear in mind the joint responsibility of us all for
what we allow to happen anywhere in our town, and let them do their share,
and PAY their share, in making Browdley safe for our children’s future.”

The only adverse comment George got about this was from a new Catholic
priest, Father Harry Wendover, of St. Patrick’s, who questioned the phrase
“what we allow to happen in our town”. Having been introduced to George at a
meeting, he immediately buttonholed him with the query: “Isn’t that a bit
arrogant, Mr. Boswell? After all, even if you don’t believe in the hand of
God, you might at least recognize that there are limits to what the hand of
Man can do.”

George noted the newcomer’s tall gaunt frame and deep-socketed eyes, the
strong chin and the cultured accent, and decided that here was a man to be
both respected and tackled. Rumour had already informed him that Wendover was
something of the proud cleric, so George answered, giving as well as taking
measure: “Aye, there are limits, I daresay, but in Browdley we’re still a few
thousand miles away from ‘em. And as for the hand of God, what makes you
think I don’t believe in it?”

Wendover smiled—a rather pleasant smile. “To be frank—just
gossip. That’s all a priest has to go by when he comes to a new place and
wants to find out who’s who.”

“So they gossip about me, do they?” And immediately George was thinking
about Livia and what sort of gossip might still be circulated about her.

“Oh, nothing malicious. In fact, you seem to be extremely popular. But
they also say that you’re not a God-fearing man like your father, that you
don’t often go to church or chapel, and that you’re on good terms with
atheists and agnostics.”

It was all spoken with a twinkle that made it inoffensive and not quite
serious, but George would not have been offended in any case. He was already
too interested in what promised to be an argument.

“Aye,” he answered. “I’m on good terms with anyone who’ll help me make
Browdley better. Romans, Church of England, Methodists, Atheists, Agnostics
—they’re all one to me if they’ll do that.”

“So religion has no place in your better Browdley?”

George appreciated a nicely laid trap, especially when he was in no danger
of falling into it. He smiled as he had so often smiled across the Council
Chamber or a meeting-hall. “Nay—I’d rather ask you if MY better
Browdley has a place in YOUR religion? Because if it hasn’t you’ll not do so
well at St. Patrick’s. I’ve got a lot of supporters there.”

“Is that a threat, Mr. Boswell?”

“No—just a tip. I’ve no hell-fire in my armoury. All I can tell
folks is that diphtheria comes from bad drains, but of course if they’re more
interested in pearly gates that’s their look-out.”

Wendover’s smile broadened. “If I were old-fashioned I’d probably say that
God would punish you for blasphemy. But my conception of God isn’t like that.
I doubt that He’ll find it necessary to strike down you or one of your family
just to prove a point.”

George grunted. He had an idea that Wendover was enjoying the encounter as
much as he was, and already he recognized an agile mind. Agile minds were
useful, and it might be that Wendover would take the progressive side in many
of the town’s controversial issues. George also realized that priests and
parsons had to stand on some ground of their own, not merely on what they
could share with every liberal-minded thinker, politician, or social worker.
All this weighed against his impulse to continue the argument combatively, so
he replied: “I assure you I didn’t intend to be blasphemous, and I hope
you’re right about God. I don’t think I know enough to agree or disagree with
you. So I’m sticking to what I do know something about, and that’s Man. Seems
to me Man could give himself a pretty good time on earth if only he went
about it the right way, but he just won’t. You’d almost think he didn’t WANT
a good time, the way he carries on.” But that looked like the beginning of
another argument, so he shook hands with a final smile and left the priest
wondering.

A few days later Wendover wondered afresh when news spread over the town
that Councillor Boswell’s baby had been stricken. But being honest he did not
exploit the situation. Nor did he actually believe that the hand of God was
in it. He just thought it an extraordinary coincidence, which it was, and
wrote George a note that merely expressed sympathy and hoped the child would
be well again soon. For he liked George.

During those dark days Livia and George hardly spoke,
except when she
asked him to do this or that; and he obeyed her then, blindly as a child
himself.

They hardly spoke because there was simply nothing to say after the one
sharp, inevitable, and rather dreadful argument.

When George came home late after a meeting and found Livia sitting up with
Martin, who was ill and had a temperature, he was concerned, but not unduly
so; and when he guessed that the thought of diphtheria was in her mind, he
told her confidently not to worry, since the boy had been immunized. She just
looked at him then and shook her head.

Over the small tossing body and whilst waiting for the doctor, they
thrashed the matter out.

The fact was that when the free immunization scheme had gone into
operation and he had told her to take Martin to the municipal clinic, she
simply had not done so. And she had lied to him about it afterwards.

He kept pacing up and down the bedroom, trying to grasp the situation. “So
you DIDN’T do it? Oh, Livia, WHY didn’t you? How COULD you not do what I
asked about a thing like that? Did you forget and then tell me a lie to cover
it?… Oh, Livia… Livia…”

She answered: “I didn’t forget, George. I went to the clinic once and saw
the crowd lined up outside. I didn’t want to take Martin to a place like
that.”