Beer in the Snooker Club (Serpent's Tail Classics) Page 7

  ‘I am sorry, Ram. It is true. I am patronizing you both. I didn’t imagine you would pay any attention to such things.’ She made me feel cheap again; the second time since I said ‘a rich girl’s gimmick’ the first night we met.

  ‘Why not?’ I asked.

  She hesitated, then said she couldn’t explain why.

  ‘Are you angry?’ she asked.

  I didn’t answer. She took her comb out of her handbag and gave it to me. To comb her hair was becoming a sexual fetish between us.

  It was strange, to me, that being nasty had paid a reward. She loved me that afternoon. Is there anything more wonderful in this world than to possess the woman you love in the afternoon and after a sleep, to bath and dress and go out hand in hand?

  We took the Underground to Aldgate and walked in Commercial Road, looking for the W. W. Jacobs’ people. ‘How can an Egyptian,’ I asked Edna, ‘who loves W. W. Jacobs be refused permission to stay in England?’

  She kissed me and said Font and I had read more books than was good for us.

  Font didn’t return that night. He came at eight o’clock in the morning.

  ‘ ’Allo, ’al1o, ’al1o,’ I said; ‘wot ’ave you been hup to, lad? Ah wouldn’t ’ave thought yer capable ov it.’ Which was a mixture of Cockney and North Country to me. I was pleased that morning. Edna had been passionate at night and I felt she was on the verge of loving me.

  ‘I am an’ all, you know.’

  ‘With Jean?’

  ‘I’m a bit ashamed, Ram.’

  ‘You haven’t raped her, have you?’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t use that word. I mean being offered such hospitality at her father’s and then sleeping with her.’

  ‘Ho ho ho … ha ha ha. You’re nothing but a backward fellah. Edna,’ I shouted across the bathroom, ‘come and listen to this.’

  She came barefoot in her nightdress and jumped into Font’s empty bed.

  ‘What?’

  I told her.

  ‘Sweet Font,’ she said. ‘It is you I should love. You haven’t abused them at all … she did want you?’

  Font blushed.

  Sweet Font.

  The maid suddenly came in and said: ‘Oo, ’xcuse me.’

  ‘Not at all, luv,’ I said. ‘Come in, we’re one short.’

  She went out saying, ‘goings on’, and then said ‘wogs’ which angered Font and Edna but made me burst out laughing.

  ‘You’ve changed, Ram,’ Font said.

  John Dungate had given us a list of things to do about our visas. He had telephoned a friend of his who had something to do with the Home Office.

  When we had left Egypt, it had been to all intents and purposes, for three months only. Why I did what I did just before leaving, I don’t know. I took my school and university certificates and shoved them in the bottom of my suitcase.

  ‘Font,’ I said, ‘by some fluke, I have my certificates here which are going to be very useful today. You don’t, by any chance, have yours here, too?’

  He looked at me for a while in silence.

  ‘Yes, Ram, by a similar fluke, I also have mine here.’

  ‘Font, we are leaving at the end of the three months.’

  ‘Don’t be a hypocrite,’ he said.

  Edna was waiting downstairs. We went to the Home Office – Aliens Department – the first of many humiliating and nasty interviews. If ever we felt we were getting too fond of the English, all we had to do was to go to the Aliens Department and dissipate all our illusions.

  We waited two hours for our turn, and when we finally did reach a polite clerk it was only to explain what we wanted, be given a number, and wait for another hour or so. Coming from Egypt, we couldn’t complain of waiting. It was the expression of the fifty or so people waiting with us which affected us. They were mostly Persians, Irakis, Greeks and Italians. We were not, we felt, in a government department or even a police station; this was an institution, something Kafkaesque in essence, where, for no reason at all, Almighty God waited to penetrate into your brains and desires, prove your inferiority, and shred you to pieces. It was the pleading expression on the faces there which affected us. We spoke to a Greek and to an Iraki. It was the Greek’s third time there in two weeks. He was emigrating to Australia, but his papers hadn’t come through to Australia House yet. They always refused to extend his visa more than a few days at a time and each time he was told not to expect a further extension. ‘I have money,’ he said, ‘what for I cannot stay one month?’ The Iraki was in the London School of Economics. For six months his parents had been sending him fifteen pounds a month instead of thirty. The Home Office considered this inadequate for his needs and was therefore refusing to extend his visa or permit him some part-time job. ‘I have been here three years,’ he said, ‘and have letters from all my professors saying I am an excellent student. But all to no avail.’ I was getting depressed listening to them.

  Our number was called, and we were led to a long corridor lined with many doors. We waited outside one of them.

  ‘Come in,’ someone drawled.

  We went in and said ‘good morning’ to a young man of thirty or so stretched comfortably behind a desk.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘We have a transit visa, and …’

  ‘That’s enough. If you have a transit visa we allow you to stay here for ten days. If you are a day or two late in leaving, it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘I am not going to have any more discussion. Please leave the room.’

  I pulled Font out quickly before he said anything. Outside I told Edna what had happened and we went straight to a pub. Font wanted to leave the country that very day.

  ‘I have a confession to make,’ I told Font. ‘John’s lawyer friend advised against going to the Home Office; he said it was staffed with the rudest people on earth. But I took you there on my own initiative.’

  ‘No, Font,’ Edna said, ‘it was I asked Ram to go to the Home Office.’

  That was true. The evening before I had told Edna we were not to go to the Home Office, but would send our passports by post in which case they would remain there at least three weeks, thus giving us three more weeks in England whether they granted us visas or not. But she begged me to go. ‘It is part of your cherished England, you ought to know it,’ she had said.

  ‘I am glad we came,’ Font said.

  That afternoon, Font and I went to one of the London polytechnics and, with the help of our certificates, enrolled for a full-time course and paid one term’s fee each. We then wrote a polite note to the Under Secretary of State, enclosed our passports and a certificate from the polytechnic, and posted the lot. Four days later we received a chit allowing us to remain in the United Kingdom until the matter had been considered.

  Saturday afternoon we remembered our bus conductress and her Steve. Edna wanted to come with us. For no apparent reason, we decided to pass her as my sister.

  It was sunny and we walked; Edna between Font and myself, holding our arms. Up Park Lane to Marble Arch and on to Kilburn through Edgware Road. I had become a bit ‘loud’ lately, a sort of cocksureness which I loathed to see in others and yet was aware of in myself. I suppose if a young man feels he is loved by a rich and beautiful woman, it isn’t unnatural for him to be a bit arrogant, but my arrogance was not natural. I sincerely believed that if I manifested humility and a loving gratitude to Edna, I would not be loved in return. It is all right for people to pretend that love breeds love, but it is not so. The seed of love is indifference.

  In Kilburn, Edna told us, a lot of Irish people lived. All I thought of when she said Irish was ‘Black and Tan’ which led me to think of boot polish. We could walk for hours, the three of us, without speaking, and then a conversation would spring up effortlessly and die down consumed, naturally and peacefully. Perhaps this was because there was no drama between the three of us. I wondered why, considering I loved Edna, I didn’t sometimes prefer to be alone with her; but I d
on’t think either she or myself ever wished that Font was not with us. It was natural and complete for the three of us to be together. Later, when I started to indulge in ultra-sophisticated literature, I learnt that I had a father-fixation or complex or image or whatever you want to call it, towards Font; that Edna had a mother one towards us both, and that consequently she felt guilty because she didn’t love both of us in the same way. The rubbish Europeans wallow in sometimes. (Although I didn’t think it was rubbish then, but on the contrary was very much impressed.)

  We rang Mrs Ward’s bell. She lived in a basement with her son Steve. It was very cosy in her sitting-room. There was a little fire in the grate, an old radio, and many old carpets and different, comfortable, shabby armchairs concentrated in the fire’s glow, with greasy old books and pictures arranged haphazardly but intimately on bookshelves over the fireplace and on either side of it.

  ‘I’m ever so pleased you came, dears, and it’s ever so nice you brought your sister along. I was telling Steve ’ere you must have forgotten all about me. But ’ere you are and ever so pleased we are you came I’m sure.’

  We had seen many Steves before – hundreds and hundreds of Steves during the war: ginger hair, a prominent, straight nose and bright blue eyes, with freckles on his face. I thought he looked strange in civilian clothes.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said. He took our coats and gave Edna the best armchair and tried to make us comfortable.

  ‘It’s so nice and cosy here,’ Edna said.

  ‘Thank you, dear; I do try and make it homely. There’s nothin’ like a fire at home.’

  I wondered why we hadn’t thought of bringing Mrs Ward flowers. Perhaps there was a subconscious reason for it. I had already started thinking along these lines.

  ‘How long were you in Suez?’ Font asked Steve.

  ‘I was in Aden first, see? Spot of trouble there … soon put a stop to that. Then to Suez for a couple of months; then to Cyprus for a bit of action – nothing much mind you – then back to Suez for four months.’

  ‘Have you finished with the army?’

  ‘I like the life, mind you; makes a man of you. But five years is enough and I’ve got Ma to think of; and I’m going steady like … hope to get married soon.’

  ‘I do ’ope you like a cup-a-tea, dears,’ Mrs Ward said. ‘It’s ever so nice in this cold weather. But Steve said ’ow it’s coffee you drink in these parts and he’s bought some for you.’

  We said we preferred tea, thank you very much, and she told Steve to see if the kettle was boiling.

  ‘Right-o, Ma,’ he said.

  ‘We’ll go an’ ’ave a beer later on,’ she said, winking at us.

  During tea we listened to Steve talking about life in Suez. He came out with such things as: ‘The natives’ll fleece you if you’re not careful,’ and ‘not safe after dark … you know what the wogs are like.’ He was giving us information he considered useful; in fact he was telling us to be careful when there. It never for an instant occurred to him we were the very natives he was talking about. Dirty Arabs and wogs were as much a menace to us as they had been to his beloved regiment. While he spoke, he was most attentive to us, pouring us tea and offering us cakes and lighting our cigarettes.

  His girl friend Shirley came while we were having tea. She was not pretty but attractive in a smart way. Her breasts pointed a tight green pullover and she wore fine stockings and high heels. She, too, said ‘pleased to meet you’ and had a cup of tea with us.

  Edna helped clear the table and, together with Shirley, washed up in the kitchen. Mrs Ward sat comfortably in her armchair, cosy and happy. This world of washing-up and clearing the table hadn’t yet reached Font and me. We thanked Mrs Ward for the tea.

  ‘That’s all right, dears.’

  We all went to the pub, Font with Mrs Ward in front, Steve walking with Edna, and myself with Shirley behind them. In the pub were two men playing chess. One of them talked to Shirley and then asked me whether I played.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. I was eager to leave the others. However ‘sweet’ and ‘nice’ and kind they were, I was getting bored and now that I had started to cleave into two, one half had started telling the other the truth. The chess player was Shirley’s brother, Vincent. He nodded to the others but no more. His partner left the game and I took his place. We started a new game. Half-way through the game we had already drunk three pints of beer each and it was time to speak. Perhaps I have an obsession about drink. I must have such an obsession … I feel people are hindered without drink. I don’t for a moment doubt that without the beer Vincent and I would not have had this urge to speak. If we hadn’t drunk, we might have done no more than play chess, and have parted with only a superficial contact, and all that followed would not have happened.

  We lit cigarettes and ignored the chess for a while. First the preliminaries, like runners warming themselves before a race, trying this shoe and that, taking a pullover off – one skin less before the race: how long had I been in England and how long was I going to remain, and what was his job, and did he like it. This over, we prodded each other deeper. The Egyptians he had met he didn’t like – all they cared for was a good time. He supposed I was ‘pretty well off’ coming all that way for a holiday. Was he sneering? It didn’t matter. My watching half approved of the dialogue as an opening scene. But apart from that, I felt instinctively that he was more real than John Dungate. I knew that with the Dungates I could have said any old stupid thing and they would have pretended interest and would certainly not have sneered. And then suddenly, I became aware that I was judging the English, first as English and then as human beings. Vincent was essentially free from any racial traits. He was neither a ‘Left’ Englishman, nor one who was anti-Left, neither a public-school one, nor an L.C.C. one, neither an Anglo-Indian one nor a ‘living in Spain’ one. He was Vincent Murphy and no more. (He turned out to be the only one amongst all those I met in England who continued to be my friend when I was penniless and in trouble.)

  Edna made me a sign I should join the others. I ignored her. I was beginning to know what I felt like doing, and to do it, even if, as a result, I was rude. And, I thought, the more I did that, the more Edna would be attracted to me.

  ‘No,’ I told Vincent, ‘I’m not well off. As a matter of fact I, personally, am penniless. But I have very rich aunts and uncles and cousins and, anyway, this trip is being paid for by … actually by a very rich Jew, although I don’t think he knows it.’

  ‘You’re well off,’ he said, ‘rich relatives … expensive clothes … you’re well off.’

  ‘So I’m well off, so what?’

  ‘Oh nothing. It’s your move.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m well off; go on from there.’

  He looked at me for a while with what I took to be a condescending smile.

  ‘Most of your people are starving there,’ he said. ‘Ever hear of the fellah?’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘They are half starving. Isn’t is bloody horrible my relatives are wallowing in wealth?’

  ‘It is,’ he sneered.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ I repeated, also sneering. ‘What about you? You haven’t any rich relatives, I suppose?’

  ‘Me? Ha ha, I haven’t got any rich relatives.’

  ‘Haven’t you got any rich relatives? Well, I tell you, you have rich relatives. Some of the richest people on earth are your relatives. All the rich country-house owners and May-fair-flat occupiers are your relatives. All the Rolls-Royce-transported and unlimited expense-account possessors are your relatives. Isn’t it bloody horrible you have so many rich relatives, while half the population in Africa, which you own, is half-starving? Isn’t it bloody horrible that your relatives have so fleeced Jamaica of all it possessed that the people there are half-starving?’ I was warming up and enjoying myself. ‘You are so well informed you know all about the Egyptian fellah, do you? Do you know anything of the natives in Kenya? in Rhodesia? in Aden? And worst of all, perhaps, in South Af
rica? Or are you going to tell me South Africa doesn’t belong to your rich relatives? It does. If your rich relatives weren’t so happy doing business with those filthy rich there, they would have been scared to flog defenceless black women. Don’t you know your rich relatives will send you to South Africa in a second if a few white throats are cut by the natives? But it’s the fellah you’re worried about, is it? He is in his present plight after being ruled by your rich relatives, the Kitcheners and Co. for sixty years. Whatever happens to him now he can’t be worse off than when your rich relatives were looking after his welfare.’

  Half-way through my speech Vincent had started to grin and he was now smiling broadly. Contact had been made.

  ‘Have a brandy,’ he said. He went to the bar and came back with two pints as well as the brandy.

  ‘Misjudged you,’ he said. ‘My mistake.’

  ‘Whatever you do,’ I said, looking at the chess board, ‘I can mate you with my black queen.’

  ‘What?’ he pretended concern. ‘Do you mean to tell me my bishops aren’t protecting my king?’

  ‘They’re too busy finding excuses for your pawns; besides they’re so morally bankrupt in their present position, they’re useless.’

  ‘What about my towers?’

  ‘I’m attacking on the left; your left tower has moved so much to the right, it can’t come into the battle. Your right tower is so smugly content in its square, it’s hardly aware you’re being threatened.’

  ‘And my knights?’

  ‘And your knights,’ I repeated slowly, trying hard to find something to say, ‘are …’ then I noticed they were off the board, ‘not in the battle. This being a moral issue and not one of sheer strength.’

  ‘That’s where you are wrong,’ he said. ‘Watch this.’ He moved a pawn forward which changed the whole situation and I was now threatened.

  ‘Alas,’ I said, ‘yes … the Steve Wards.’ He burst out laughing.

  ‘Have you been talking to that moron?’

  ‘His mother very kindly asked us to tea.’

  ‘Mrs Ward is a sweet old soul,’ he said.