The Stars Look Down (6 page)

They swarmed round the door, beat it down, burst into the shop. Most of them were drunk and all of them had not seen proper food for weeks. Tally Brown seized a ham and shoved it under his arm; old Reedy grabbed at some tins of fruit; Slogger, his maudlin sympathy for Will Kinch’s Alice completely forgotten, knocked in the bung of a barrel of beer. Some women from the Quay, attracted by the noise, pressed in behind the men and began in a panic to snatch at anything: pickles, sauce, soap, it didn’t matter so long as it
was something, they were too terrified to look, they simply snatched feverishly and thrust what they took below their shawls. The street lamp outside threw a cold clear light upon them.

It was Joe Gowlan who thought of the till, Joe had no use for the grub—like his dad he was too well fed—but Joe could use that till.

Falling on his hands and knees he squirmed between the legs of the pushing men, crawled round behind the counter, and found the cash drawer. Unlocked! Gloating over old Murchison’s carelessness, Joe slipped his hand into the smooth bowl, his fingers clutched at the silver in the bowl, a good round fistful, and slid it easily into his pocket. Then, rising to his feet, he darted through the door and took to his heels.

As Joe came out of the shop Robert entered it. At least, he stood on the threshold, the uneasiness upon his face turning slowly to dismay.

“What are ye doing, lads?” His tone was pleading: the pathos of this misdirected violence hurt him. “Ye’ll get in trouble ower this.”

Nobody took the slightest notice of him. He raised his voice.

“Stop it, ye fools. Can’t ye see it’s the worst thing ye could do? Nobody’ll have any pity on us now. Stop. I tell ye, stop.”

No one stopped.

A spasm came over Robert’s face. He made to push into the crowd, but just then a sound behind caused him to swing round full in the lamplight. The police: Roddam from the Quay-side beat and the new sergeant from the station.

“Fenwick!” Roddam shouted instantly in recognition and laid his hands on Robert.

At that shout a louder shout went up from those inside:

“The cops! Get out, lads, it’s the cops.” And an avalanche of living, inextricably mingled forms disgorged itself through the door. Roddam and the sergeant made no attempt to stop the avalanche. They stood rather stupidly and let it go past them; then, still holding Robert, Roddam entered the shop.

“Here’s another, sergeant,” Roddam said in sudden exultation.

Amongst the desolation of the looted shop, swaying helplessly astride the beer barrel, sat Slogger Leeming. He held to the bung-hole with one blissful finger. He was blind to the world.

The sergeant looked at Slogger, the shop, then at Robert.

“This is serious,” he said in a hard, official voice. “You’re Fenwick. The man who started the strike.”

Robert returned his look steadily. Robert said:

“I did nothing.”

The sergeant said:

“Of course you did nothing.”

Robert opened his lips to explain; saw suddenly the hopelessness of it all. He said nothing. He submitted. He was taken with the Slogger to the cells.

Five days later, at four o’clock in the afternoon, Joe Gowlan strolled easily along the Scottswood Road of Tynecastle, making scrutiny of those windows which displayed the card
APARTMENTS
. Tynecastle, that keen bustling city of the North, full of movement and clamour and brisk grey colour, echoing to the clang of trams, the clatter of feet, the beat of ship-yard hammers, had engulfed Joe graciously. Joe’s eyes had always been turned towards Tynecastle—it was only eighteen miles from his native town—as a place of possibilities and adventure. Joe looked well, a bright-complexioned, curly-haired young man with his boots dazzlingly brushed and a cheerful air of knowing his way about. But for all his shiny look Joe was broke. Since he had run away from home, the two pounds in silver, stolen from Murchison’s till, had been pleasantly dissipated in a style more sophisticated than Joe’s untarnished aspect might have suggested. Joe had seen the gallery of the Empire Music Hall, the inside of Lowe’s bar, and other places. Joe had bought beer, cigarettes and the most captivating blue postcards. And now, his last sixpence honourably spent in a wash, a brush and a shine, Joe was looking for a decent lodging.

Down the Scottswood Road he went, past the wide iron pens of the cattle-market, past the Duke of Cumberland, past Plummer Street and Elswick East Terrace. The day was dull but dry, the streets pulsed pleasantly, on the railway lower down an incoming train whistled importantly, and was answered by the deep chord of a steamer’s siren as she warped out in the Tyne below. Joe had a stimulating sense
of life around him and within him he felt the world like a great big football at his feet and lustily prepared to boot it.

Beyond Plummer Street Joe paused outside a house which bore the sign,
Lodging House: Good Beds: Men Only
. He contemplated the house thoughtfully but, with a faint negation of his curly head, sauntered on. A moment later a girl, walking quickly in the same direction, came abreast of him and then passed by. Joe’s eyes glistened; his whole body stiffened. She was a neat little piece right enough, small feet and ankles, trim waist, smart hips, and her head in the air like a queen. His gaze lingered enviously, followed her as she crossed the road, skipped up the steps and briskly let herself into 117
A
Scottswood Road. Fascinated, Joe stopped and moistened his lips which had gone rather dry. In the window of 117
A
Scottswood Road was a card which said
APARTMENTS
. “By gum!” Joe said. He buttoned up his jacket and, crossing without hesitation, he rang the bell.

It was she who came to the door, made, by the removal of her hat, suddenly more intimate to him. She was even nicer than he had thought: about sixteen, maybe, with a small nose, clear grey eyes and a waxen complexion into which her recent walk had whipped a fresh colour. Her ears were very small and close to the side of her head. Her mouth was the nicest though, he told himself. It was a big mouth, not deeply red, but very soft with an entrancing little membrane to the upper lip.

“Well,” she asked sharply.

Joe smiled at her modestly, lowered his eyes, took off his cap and twisted it in his hands. No one could register homely virtue better than Joe: he did it to perfection.

“Excuse me, miss, but I was lookin’ for lodgings.”

She did not smile back at him; her lip curled, she considered him distastefully. Jenny Sunley did not like her mother to keep lodgers: not even the single lodger whom the spare top back accommodated. She thought it low, and “lowness” was to Jenny the unpardonable sin.

She smoothed her blouse, put her hands upon her neat shiny belt, and said with a certain arrogance:

“I suppose you better come in.”

Stepping reverently he followed her into the narrow passage, and was conscious instantly of the smell and sound of pigeons. Coo-coo, coo-coo, coo-coo! He looked up. No pigeons were visible, but on the half landing the bathroom door stood open revealing a small string of washing: long
black stockings and several white garments. Hers, thought Joe delightedly, swiftly; but he masked his eyes before she had time to blush. She did blush though, for that neglected door, and her tone was suddenly shrewish as, with a toss of her head, she declared:

“It’s in
here
if you want to know. The back room!”

He went after her, entering “the back room,” a small blowsy much-lived-in apartment, full of old bits of horse-hair furniture, penny magazines, presents from Whitley Bay and bags of pigeon meal. Two blue chequer homers sat solemnly on the mantelpiece. Beside the hot fire, rocking herself gently in a squeaky chair, reading
Home Chat
, sat an indolent, untidy woman, with big eyes and a lot of hair piled up on the top of her head.

“Here, ma, it’s somebody about the room.” And flinging herself haughtily upon the broken-springed sofa, Jenny picked up a battered magazine and took, most conspicuously, no further interest in the matter.

Mrs. Sunley went on with her rocking comfortably. Only the crack of doom would have stopped Ada Sunley making herself comfortable. She was always making herself comfortable: taking off a shoe, or easing her stays, or having a little baking soda to break the wind, or a cup of tea, or a little sit down, or a look at a paper till the kettle boiled. Ada was a fat, friendly, dreamy slattern. Occasionally she nagged her husband, but mostly she was easy-going. She had been in service in her “young days,” a “good family,” she always insisted. She was romantic, she liked to look at the new moon; and superstitious, she never wore green, walked under a ladder or spilled salt without throwing it over her left shoulder; she adored a good novelette, especially the kind where the dark quiet one “got him” in the end. She wanted to be rich, she was always going in for competitions, limericks chiefly, and hoping to win a lot of money. But Ada’s limericks were hopeless. She often had remarkable ideas, Ma’s brain waves, they were called, amongst the family: to repaper a room or cover the sofa in a nice pink plush, or re-enamel the bath, or retire to the country, or start a hotel, or a ribbon shop, or even to write “a story”—she was sure she had the
gift
. But none of Ada’s ideas ever came to fruit. Ada never got far from her rocker. Alf, her husband, frequently said to her mildly: “My Gawd, Ada, you’re barmy!”

“Oh,” she said now. “I thought it was the club-man.” Pause. “So you’re looking for a room?”

“Yes, mam.”

“We only take one young man.” When she met people for the first time, Ada always tried to put on a faint air, but it soon slipped off. “Our last gentleman left a week ago. Should you require part board as well?”

“Yes, mam, if it wouldn’t trouble you.”

“You should have to sit down with the family. We’re six in family here. Me, my husband, Jenny there, who’s out all day at Slattery’s, Phyllis, Clarice and Sally, my youngest.” She paused, considered him more shrewdly: “Who are you, by the bye? And where are you from?”

Joe’s eyes fell humbly, but a wave of panic swept him. He had come in for a bit of a lark really, a kind of try-on just for fun, but now he knew he must get in, he simply
must
. She was a plum, that Jenny, she really was a plum, she had him simply gasping. But what the hell was he going to say? Strings of sympathetic lies flashed through his head and were instantly rejected. Where was his luggage, his money to pay in advance? Hell! He sweated. He despaired. Suddenly the inspiration came, nothing better surely than the truth, ah, that was it—he glowed inside—the truth, not the whole truth, of course, but something like the truth. He flung up his head and faced her. He said with conscious honesty:

“I could tell a pack of lies to you, mam, but I’d rather tell you the truth. I’ve run away from home.”

“Well I never!”

The magazine was lowered, and this time the rocking did stop: Mrs. Sunley and Jenny both stared at him with a new interest. Romance in the best tradition had flown into the frowsy room.

Joe said:

“I had a terrible time, I couldn’t bear it no longer. My mother died, my father used to leather me till I could hardly stand. We had a strike an’ all at wor pit. I diddent… I diddent have enough to eat.” Manly emotion glistened in Joe’s eyes as he went on… oh, it was glorious… glorious… he had them eating out of his hand!

“So your mother died?” Ada breathed.

Joe nodded dumbly—the last convention was fulfilled.

Ada let her big balmy eyes travel over his brushed and combed handsomeness with a rising sympathy. He’s had a hard enough time, poor young man, she reflected, and that good-looking too, with his bright brown eyes and curly hair. But curly hair don’t pay the rent, no indeed it don’t, with
Sally’s music to think of…. Ada started to rock again. For all her sluttish indolence Ada Sunley was no fool. She took herself in hand.

“Look here,” she declared in a matter-of-fact tone, “you can’t come to us on pity. You’ve got to have a shop, a regular shop. Now, my Alf said to-day they was taking on at Millington-Yarrow’s, the foundry in Yarrow, you understand, Platt Lane way. Try there! If you’re lucky, come back. If you’re unlucky, do the other thing.”

“Yes, mam.”

Joe held his chastened probity till he was out of the house, then in his exultation he bounded across the street.

“Here, you with the face!” He grabbed a passing message boy by the collar. “Tell us the road to Millington’s Foundry or I’ll break your blasted neck!”

He almost ran to Yarrow, and it was a long, long way. He presented himself at the Foundry. He lied nobly, obscenely, and showed his sweating muscle to the foreman. His luck held, they were in urgent need of hands, he was taken on, as puddler’s assistant, at twenty-five shillings a week. After the pit it was riches. And there was Jenny, Jenny, Jenny…

He came back to Scottswood Road in easy stages, holding himself in, telling himself he must be careful, do nothing in a hurry, work it up slow. But triumph rose gloating through the thin veneer of caution as he came into the back room once more.

The whole family sat there, had just finished tea. Ada lounged at the top of the table and next to her sat Jenny. Then came the three younger girls: Phyllis, cast in the image of her mother, blonde, languid, and thirteen years of age, Clarice, dark, leggy and eleven and a half, with a beautiful scarlet ribbon, removed from a chocolate box of Jenny’s, in her hair, and finally Sally, a queer thing of ten, with Jenny’s big mouth, hostile black eyes and a self-possessed stare. At the end of the table was Alfred, husband of Ada, father of the four girls and head of the house, an insignificant pasty-faced man with drooping shoulders and a sparse ginger moustache. He had also a crick in his neck, no collar and watery eyes. Alf was a house-painter, a house-painter who swallowed a fair amount of white lead in the process of slabbing it upon Tynecastle house fronts. The lead gave him his pallid face, sundry pains in his “stummick” and that faint blue line which could be made out along the edge of Alf’s gums. The crick in his neck, however, came not from painting
but from pigeons. Alf was a fancier, his passion was pigeons, blue and red chequers, homers, lovely prize homers. And flighting his homers, watching them fly the empyrean blue, had gradually brought Alf’s neck to this singular obliquity.