The Ballad of Peckham Rye (2 page)

Humphrey and Dixie were widely discussed throughout the rest of the week. The
reappearance of the bridegroom was told to Collie Gould, aged eighteen, unfit for
National Service, who retold it to the gang at the Elephant; and lastly by mid-morning
break at Meadows Meade the occurrence was known to all on the floor such as Dawn
Waghorn, cone-winder, Annette Wren, trainee-seamer, Elaine Kent, process-controller,
Odette Hill, up-twister, Raymond Lowther, packer, Lucille Potter, gummer; and it was
revealed also to the checking department and many of the stackers, the sorters, and the
Office.

Miss Merle Coverdale, lately head of the typing pool, did not hear of it. Mr Druce,
lately Managing Director, did not hear of it. Neither did Dougal Douglas, the former
Arts man, nor his landlady Miss Belle Frierne who had known all Peckham in her
youth.

But in any case, within a few weeks, everyone forgot the details. The affair is a legend
referred to from time to time in the pubs when the conversation takes a matrimonial
turn. Some say the bridegroom came back repentant and married the girl in the end. Some
say, no, he married another girl, while the bride married the best man. It is wondered
if the bride had been carrying on with the best man for some time past. It is sometimes
told that the bride died of grief and the groom shot himself on the Rye. It is generally
agreed that he answered ‘No’ at his wedding, that he went away alone on his
wedding day and turned up again later.

D
IXIE
had just
become engaged to marry Humphrey when Dougal Douglas joined the firm of Meadows, Meade
& Grindley, manufacturers of nylon textiles, a small but growing concern, as Mr V.
R. Druce described it.

At the interview Mr Druce said to Dougal, ‘We feel the time has come to take on an
Arts man. Industry and the Arts must walk hand in hand.’

Mr Druce had formerly been blond, he was of large build. Dougal, who in the University
Dramatics had taken the part of Rizzio in a play about Mary, Queen of Scots, leaned
forward and put all his energy into his own appearance; he dwelt with a dark glow on Mr
Druce, he raised his right shoulder, which was already highly crooked by nature, and
leaned on his elbow with a becoming twist of the body. Dougal put Mr Druce through the
process of his smile, which was wide and full of white young teeth; he made movements
with the alarming bones of his hands. Mr Druce could not keep his eyes off Dougal, as
Dougal perceived.

‘I feel I’m your man,’ Dougal said. ‘Something told me so when I
woke first thing this morning.’

‘Is that so?’ Mr Druce said. ‘Is that so?’

‘Only a hunch,’ said Dougal. ‘I may be wrong.’

‘Now look,’ said Mr Druce, ‘I must tell you that we feel we have to see
other candidates and can’t come to any decision straight away.’

‘Quite,’ said Dougal.

At the second interview Mr Druce paced the floor, while Dougal sat like a monkey-puzzle
tree, only moving his eyes to follow Mr Druce. ‘You’ll find the world of
Industry a tough one,’ Mr Druce said.

Dougal changed his shape and became a professor. He leaned one elbow over the back of his
chair and reflected kindly upon Mr Druce.

‘We are creating this post,’ said Mr Druce. ‘We already have a
Personnel Manager, Mr Weedin. He needs an assistant. We feel we need a man with vision.
We feel you should come under Weedin. But you should largely work on your own and find
your own level, we feel. Of course you will be under Mr Weedin.’

Dougal leaned forward and became a television interviewer. Mr Druce stopped walking and
looked at him in wonder.

‘Tell me,’ coaxed Dougal, ‘can you give me some rough idea of my
duties?’

‘It’s up to you, entirely up to you. We feel there’s a place for an
Arts man to bring vision into the lives of the workers. Wonderful people. But they need
vision, we feel. Motion study did marvels in the factory. We had a man from Cambridge
advising on motion study. It speeded up our output thirty per cent. Movements required
to do any given task were studied in detail and he worked out the simplest pattern of
movement involving the least loss of energy and time.’

‘The least loss of energy and time!’ Dougal commented.

‘The least loss of energy and time,’ said Mr Druce. ‘All our
workers’ movements are now designed to conserve energy and time in feeding the
line. You’ll see it on the posters all over the factory, “Conserve energy
and time in feeding the line.”’

‘In feeding the line!’ Dougal said.

‘In feeding the line,’ Mr Druce said. ‘As I say, this expert came from
Cambridge. But we felt that a Cambridge man in Personnel wouldn’t do. What we feel
about you is you’ll be in touch with the workers, or rather, as we prefer to say,
our staff; you’ll be in the know, we feel. Of course you’ll find the world
of Industry a tough one.’

Dougal turned sideways in his chair and gazed out of the window at the railway bridge; he
was now a man of vision with a deformed shoulder. ‘The world of Industry,’
said Dougal, ‘throbs with human life. It will be my job to take the pulse of the
people and plumb the industrial depths of Peckham.’

Mr Druce said: ‘Exactly. You have to bridge the gap and hold out a helping hand.
Our absenteeism,’ he said, ‘is a problem.’

‘They must be bored with their jobs,’ said Dougal in a split second of
absent-mindedness.

‘I wouldn’t say bored,’ said Mr Druce. ‘Not bored. Meadows Meade
are building up a sound reputation with regard to their worker-staff. We have a training
scheme, a recreation scheme, and a bonus scheme. We haven’t yet got a pension
scheme, or a marriage scheme, or a burial scheme, but these will come. Comparatively
speaking we are a small concern, I admit, but we are expanding.’

‘I shall have to do research,’ Dougal mused, ‘into their inner lives.
Research into the real Peckham. It will be necessary to discover the spiritual
well-spring, the glorious history of the place, before I am able to offer some
impetus.’

Mr Druce betrayed a little emotion. ‘But no lectures on Art,’ he said,
pulling himself together. ‘We’ve tried them. They didn’t quite come
off. The workers, the staff, don’t like coming back to the building after working
hours. Too many outside attractions. Our aim is to be one happy family.’

‘Industry is by now,’ declared Dougal, ‘a great tradition. Is that not
so? The staff must be made conscious of that tradition.’

‘A great tradition,’ said Mr Druce. ‘That is so, Mr Douglas. I wish you
luck, and I want you to meet Mr Weedin while you’re here.’ He pressed a
button on his desk and, speaking into an instrument, summoned Mr Weedin.

‘Mr Weedin,’ he said to Dougal, ‘is not an Arts man. But he knows his
job inside out. Wonderful people, Personnel staff. If you don’t tread on his toes
you’ll be all right with Personnel. Then of course there’s Welfare.
You’ll have some dealings with Welfare, bound to do. But we feel you must find
your own level and the job is what you make it — Come in, Mr Weedin, and meet Mr
Douglas,
M.A.
, who has just joined us. Mr Douglas has
come from Edinburgh to take charge of human research.’

If you look inexperienced or young and go shopping for food in the by-streets of Peckham
it is as different from shopping in the main streets as it is from shopping in
Kensington or the West End. In the little shops in the Peckham by-streets, the other
customers take a deep interest in what you are buying. They concern themselves lest you
are cheated. Sometimes they ask you questions of a civil nature, such as: Where do you
work? Is it a good position? Where are you stopping? What rent do they take off you? And
according to your answer they may comment that the money you get is good or the rent you
have to pay is wicked, as the case may be. Dougal, who had gone to a small grocer on a
Saturday morning, and asked for a piece of cheese, was aware of a young woman with a
pram, a middle-aged woman, and an old man accumulating behind him. The grocer came to
weigh the cheese.

‘Don’t you give him that,’ said the young woman; ‘it’s
sweating.’

‘Don’t let him give you that, son,’ said the old man.

The grocer removed the piece of cheese from the scales and took up another.

‘You don’t want as much as all that,’ said the older woman. ‘Is
it just for yourself?’

‘Only for me,’ Dougal said.

‘Then you want to ask for two ounces,’ she said. ‘Give him two
ounces,’ she said. ‘You just come from Ireland, son?’

‘No, Scotland,’ said Dougal.

‘Thought he was Irish from his voice,’ commented the old man.

‘Me too,’ said the younger woman. ‘Irish sounds a bit like Scotch like,
to hear it.’

The older woman said, ‘You want to learn some experience, son. Where you
stopping?’

‘I’ve got temporary lodgings in Brixton. I’m looking for a place round
here.’

The grocer forgot his grievances and pointed a finger at Dougal.

‘You want to go to a lady up on the Rye, name of Frierne. She’s got nice
rooms; just suit you. All gentlemen. No ladies, she won’t have.’

‘Who’s she?’ said the young woman. ‘Don’t know
her.’

‘Don’t know Miss Frierne?’ said the old man.

The older woman said, ‘She’s lived up there all her life. Her father left her
the house. Big furniture removers they used to be.’

‘Give me the address,’ said Dougal, ‘and I’ll be much
obliged.’

‘I think she charges,’ said the older woman. ‘You got a good position,
son?’

Dougal leaned on the counter so that his high shoulder heaved higher still. He turned his
lean face to answer. ‘I’ve just started at Meadows, Meade &
Grindley.’

‘I know them,’ said the younger woman. ‘A nice firm. The girl Waghorn
works there.’

‘Miss Frierne’s rooms go as high as thirty, thirty-five shillings,’
remarked the older woman to the grocer.

‘Inclusive heat and light,’ said the grocer.

‘Excuse me,’ said the older woman. ‘She had meters put in the rooms,
that I do know. You can’t do inclusive these days.’

The grocer looked away from the woman with closed eyes and opened them again to address
Dougal.

‘If Miss Frierne has a vacancy you’ll be a lucky chap,’ he said.
‘Mention my name.’

‘What department you in?’ said the old man to
Dougal.

‘The Office,’ said Dougal.

‘The Office don’t get paid much,’ said the man.

‘That depends,’ the grocer said.

‘Good prospects?’ said the older woman to Dougal.

‘Yes, fine,’ Dougal said.

‘Let him go up Miss Frierne’s,’ said the old man.

‘Just out of National Service?’ said the older woman.

‘No, they didn’t pass me.’

‘That would be his deformity,’ commented the old man, pointing at
Dougal’s shoulder.

Dougal nodded and patted his shoulder.

‘You was lucky,’ said the younger woman and laughed a good deal.

‘Could I speak to Miss Fergusson?’ Dougal said.

The voice at the other end of the line said, ‘Hold on. I’ll see if
she’s in.’

Dougal stood in Miss Frierne’s wood-panelled entrance hall, holding on and looking
around him.

At last she came. ‘Jinny,’ Dougal said.

‘Oh, it’s you.’

‘I’ve found a room in Peckham. I can come over and see you if you like. How
—’

‘Listen, I’ve left some milk boiling on the stove. I’ll ring you
back.’

‘Jinny, are you feeling all right? Maria Cheeseman wants me to write her
autobiography.’

‘It will be boiling over. I’ll ring you back.’

‘You don’t know the number.’

But she had rung off.

Dougal left fourpence on the telephone table and went up to his new room at the very top
of Miss Frierne’s house.

He Sat down among his belongings, which were partly in and partly out of his zipper bag.
There was a handsome brass bedstead with a tall railed head along which was gathered a
muslin curtain. It was the type of bed which was becoming fashionable again, but Miss
Frierne did not know this. It was the only item of furniture in the room for which she
had apologized; she had explained it was only temporary and would soon be replaced by a
new single divan. Dougal detected in this little speech a good intention, repeated to
each newcomer, which never came off. He assured her that he liked the brass bed with its
railings and knobs. Could he remove, perhaps, the curtain? Miss Frierne said, no, it
needed the bit of curtain, and before long would be replaced by a single divan. But no,
Dougal said, I like the bed. Miss Frierne smiled to herself that she had found such an
obliging tenant. ‘Really, I do like it,’ Dougal said, ‘more than
anything else in the room.’

The two windows in the room pleased him, looking out on a lot of sky and down to Miss
Frierne’s long lawn and those of her neighbours; beyond them lay the back gardens
belonging to the opposite street of houses, but these were neglected, overgrown and
packed with junk and sheds for motor-bicycles, not neat like Miss Frierne’s and
the row of gardens on the near side, with their borders and sometimes a trellis
bower.

He saw a little door, four feet high, where the attic ceiling met the wall. He opened it,
and found a deep long cupboard using up the remainder of the roof-slope. Having stooped
to enter the cupboard, Dougal found he could almost walk in it. He came out, pleased
with his fairly useless cave, and started putting away his shirts in the dark painted
chest of drawers. He stroked the ceiling, that part of it which sloped down within
reach. Some white powdery distemper came off on his fingers. He went downstairs to
telephone to Jinny. Her number was engaged.

The linoleum in his room was imitation parquetry and shone with polish. Two small
patterned mats and one larger one made islands on the wide floor. Dougal placed a pile
of his clothes on each island, then hauled it over the polished floor to the wardrobe.
He unlocked his typewriter and arranged his belongings, as all his student-life in
Edinburgh Jinny used to do for him. One day in their final year, at Leith docks,
watching the boats, she had said: ‘I must bend over the rails. I’ve got that
indigestion.’ Already, at this first stage in her illness, he had shown no
sympathy. ‘Jinny, everyone will think you’re drunk. Stand up.’ In the
course of her illness she stopped calling him a crooked fellow, and instead became
bitter, calling him sometimes a callous swine or a worm. ‘I hate sickness, not
you,’ he had said. Still, at that time he had forced himself to visit her
sometimes in the Infirmary. He got his degree, and was thought of as frivolous in the
pubs, not being a Nationalist. Jinny’s degree was delayed a year, he meanwhile
spending that year in France and finally London, where he lived in Earls Court and got
through his money waiting for Jinny.