Separate tracks, p.10
Separate Tracks, page 10
“OK.”
What do you want? She couldn’t think of anything else, but knew she must not say that. You can get rid of him easily, though. Just say the house is full. Say friends are staying. She stared at him curiously. He had seemed so important. What a hideous, off-balance time that had been. “My missionary phase,” she was calling it now, to friends. It made some funny stories, the horrors perpetrated by the kids. She was shivering. He was definitely there. He looked ill. He was dirty. The rim of the collar of his grey shirt shone with greasy dirt. His hands were grimy and one of his yellow-grey bare toes poked out of his filthy sneakers. Like something that’s crawled out from underground, his pallor and dirt showed horribly strange here. Her eyes were accustomed to glossy health and well-being.
“What. . . Where have you come from?”
“London.”
“Oh. Have you got a job there?”
He shook his head.
“Where are you living?”
“Hostel. I left.” She looked at him. “There were lots of drunks. Lots of dossers.”
London. A young homeless boy in London. TV documentary fodder. Dread gathered in her stomach. What do you want. “You left?” He nodded. “Have you got any money, Orph?”
He shook his head.
“How did you get here?”
“Hitched. Got a lift with a lorry up to the roundabout. Walked it from there.” What do you want. She knew, of course, all along. But the horror of the prospect increased with every second. If he moved in—would they ever get rid of him? He couldn’t move in. It would be awful—it would be ridiculous, here.
He didn’t say anything. She saw he was still holding his plastic bag, and she realized suddenly that those must be his things. “Is that your clothes?”
He nodded.
Her brain was shocked into silence. All his worldly goods. In a yellow plastic carrier bag with “Wilson’s Shoes” on it. She noted how the top of the bag was wound twice around hs hand, because the slit for the handle had ripped. “I—what are you thinking of doing?” Knowing it was a cruel question.
There was a short silence. “Dunno.”
The kettle was boiling. Thankfully she busied herself with cups and coffee. “Are you hung—” She bit the question back and put a loaf and butter and honey on the table. “Help yourself. I’m just taking Alison hers.”
Alison jumped up when she saw her coming. “Who the hell is it? Are you all right?”
“Listen.” Emma crouched on the grass, her back to the house, hand on Alison’s shoulder. “Tell me what to do. He’s from that kids’ home where I worked.”
“Has he run away?”
“No, he’s allowed to leave. He’s sixteen. He—he hasn’t got anywhere to stay.”
“He wants to stay?” Emma nodded. It was unthinkable. “Well, I suppose it’s OK. There’s the spare room.”
“Yeah.”
“But—” Alison hesitated. “What does he do?”
“Nothing.”
“What’s he living on?”
“Nothing.”
“But Emma—what’s going to happen to him?”
Emma shrugged. “Well, I suppose he’ll have to stay. For a bit—unless you mind?”
“Yes, yes of course—” Alison spoke quickly, and Emma disliked her for the first time since school.
“Yes. For a bit. We’ll have to sort something out.” Emma stood up. “I just thought I’d better ask you.”
“Yes, it’s fine by me.” Alison’s face was unhappy.
Emma went back into the kitchen feeling morally superior. He was eating bread and honey. “Would you like to stay for a bit then?”
He nodded without looking at her.
She waited for him to thank her or look up, but he didn’t. “Well. So what’ve you done since you left the home?”
“Went to London. Charing Cross. Went with this bloke to sign on.”
Sign on. Of course. “You must sign on here, mustn’t you? Tomorrow.”
He nodded.
She finished her coffee. She didn’t know what to say. She had never spoken to him so much in her life before. It was fantastic—terrible. What was going to happen? “Do they know where you are?”
“Who?”
“The people—the hostel—the—” What a stupid question. Nobody cared where he was. Nobody wanted to know where he was. She shook her head. “There’s a spare room. I’ll show you.” She hesitated. “D’you want a bath?” and didn’t give him time to reply. “I’ve got a clean towel in my room.”
Chapter 21
The spare room contained a bed and a chest of drawers with a mirror. The window looked over the back garden. Next to the chest of drawers was an old fireplace, the grate had been blocked off with hardboard. The mantelpiece above it was narrow, embellished with a cast-iron fleur de lys at either end. The walls and ceiling were white, and the floor was covered in green patterned lino.
Orph sat in the middle of the bed, his plastic bag still clutched in his hand. Then he got up and went to the door. There was a bolt on it, of the type that is commonly fitted in bathrooms and toilets. He leaned against the door to make it flush with the jamb and drew the bolt home. Then he turned the key in the lock. He put the plastic bag on top of the chest of drawers and went to the window. The back garden was overgrown and wild, it was a narrow oblong strip bordered by neighbouring houses’ oblong strips. The girls had gone in, but their things were still lying on a trampled patch of grass. The window was dusty and there was a streak of dried bird shit on the lower pane. He turned and lay down on the bed, fully stretched, facing the white ceiling.
The house belonged to Emma and Alison. The air was thick with their cosy presences, their telephone calls, their endless cups of coffee. Outside the sun spilled yellow as melted butter over the sticky pears, the fullblown blowsy roses. Orph lay, white faced in his empty white room. Winter was coming. Soon the yellows and reds would go. There would be only white light and grey light, purified. Around his still room, their voices and movements murmured and lapped, tides rising and falling, but not intruding.
Chapter 22
Next morning Orph got up at ten. There was no one in the kitchen. He poured himself a cup of lukewarm tea from a teapot and ate a slice of bread and jam.
Alison appeared. “Hello.” Orph nodded. “What’re you doing today?” she asked brightly.
Orph swallowed his mouthful. “Gotta sign on.”
“Oh, yes. D’you know where it is?”
He shook his head.
Alison laughed. “Neither do I actually. Let’s have a look in the phone book.” She flicked through the book a couple of times, then started to look under S. “ ‘Social Security: see Health and Social Security, Dept of’. Ah. H. He—” Orph watched impassively as she ran her finger up and down the columns. “Here. ‘Local Social Security Offices, Pensions, National Insurance’. . . Is this the one, d’you think?” She looked at him hesitantly.
He shrugged.
“Well, what else could—Unemployment? Would it be under U?” She turned the pages again. There was no entry for “Unemployment” “They don’t like to make it easy for you do they? What about Employment—Department of Employment, d’you think?” More rustling of pages, then she read out triumphantly, “ ‘Employment, Department of, . . . Unemployment Benefit Offices’. . . That’s it, isn’t it?” She glanced on down the entries and checked herself. “Oh, there’s a list of those Job Centre places. Are you supposed to go there first to try and find a job?”
Orph looked blank.
“When you went before—you know, those orange shops with all jobs on little postcards—?”
Orph shook his head.
She began to write an address on the back of an envelope. “It’s a very long road, this—and I’m not sure which end 432 is. But anyway, it starts in the centre of town.” She gave him directions and put the paper in his hand.
Orph set off in the direction Alison had indicated. The sun was shining brightly. He walked past terraces of houses similar to that he had just left, with unkempt, luxuriant gardens. The sound of a piano floated through an open window. There was little traffic. He walked through the centre of town and came to the road Alison had named. It was wide and busy, bordered with department stores and expensive furniture shops. As he went on along the street the windows of the shops became less sparkling, the goods less attractive. Secondhand gas cookers, carpet bargains tightly rolled with their knock-down prices scrawled on the underside. A DIY shop. An Indian shop, the dark window crammed with green bananas, chillies and mysterious aged cartons, their colours faded. Now the street was bordered simply by a blank wall, the shops were finished. Eventually Orph passed factory gates. There was no sign of life within. He went on.
He walked a mile and a half down the road before he reached the building. It was at the far end of another row of dingy shops. Inside it was crowded. Queues snaked around the room. There was a notice above the desk at the front of each queue: “Surnames A–D”, “Surnames E–I”, and so on. Orph joined the end of the A–Ds. Most people were standing in silence. A woman in a private interview booth could be heard shouting something about her husband. The windows were small and high up. A fluorescent light above the counter was flickering very fast, like blinking. Imperceptibly the queue inched forward. The man in front of him sniffed persistently and a drip trembled on the end of his bony nose, half sniffled back in on every inhalation. The people behind the desks were pale and weary, writing abstractedly or riffling through documents and letters while the claimants talked to the tops of their bowed heads. As they were finished with, most people hesitated, looking around the room as if seeking permission to leave. Then they hurried to the door, faces down, papers clutched in their hands. Orph stared at a notice on the green shiny wall. It said, “YOU ARE REQUIRED TO ATTEND THIS OFFICE AT THE TIME SHOWN ON YOUR ATTENDANCE CARD. THIS HELPS US TO GIVE YOU PERSONAL AND PROMPT ATTENTION.” A telephone was ringing insistently. In the end it stopped without anyone answering it. Two lads in the M–R queue were arguing in low voices about a job. Odd words rang out loudly among the silent shuffling and sniffling. They looked around aggressively, as if to threaten anyone who listened to them.
When Orph got to the front he couldn’t remember the address of the office where he’d signed on in London. The interviewer gave him a form to fill in and told him to go to the DHSS to claim supplementary benefit. He told him how to get there. It was another dingy concrete-slab building further down the road. Orph queued again, was interviewed again, and told to return with evidence of his address and rent. He retraced his steps into town.
Once in the centre of town, he turned off his route and wandered towards the market along the main shopping street. He walked slowly, hands in pockets, gazing unselectively around. The street was crowded, people in a hurry pushed and muttered as they were held up behind him. At the market he stepped out of the thoroughfare and stood on the cobbled corner a while staring at the seething mass of people around the stalls.
A small unsteady figure materialized from between two stalls and approached Orph familiarly. “Eh, mate! Spare a fag?” The man’s face was wizened and wrinkled as an old apple, the brown skin shiny between the black creases that scored it. He moved ingratiatingly close to Orph, gesturing with a claw-like hand; skinny fingers protruded from a fingerless glove.
Orph stared at him.
“A tanner for a cup o’ tea? C’mon mate, do us a favour.” He bared his teeth in a grin that finished as a racking cough. His breath stank of sherry. “Do the same for you one day, eh mate, eh?”
With a violent gesture Orph pushed him away. The man’s jaw dropped open and he staggered backwards, tottered and overbalanced to sprawl on the ground. Orph turned and hurried away.
The man shrieked furiously after him—“You fucker, you bloody fucker fuck you—” but his abuses were quickly smothered in a spasm of coughing which kept him hunched on the ground for minutes. When he had finished he clambered cautiously up, clinging to a lamp-post for support. He stared in the direction Orph had gone, shaking his head. “Bloody fucker. You bloody fucker. Bloody fucker.” Nobody took any notice. Still muttering, he turned and hobbled back into the market place.
Orph watched the black and white TV in the untidy sitting room from the time the children’s programmes came on until close down. Emma asked him how he had got on with the social security people. She did not know what to do about the rent. After some discussion it was decided that she should type a letter stating that she was letting a room to Anthony Childs for £5 a week. “They don’t need to know it’s subletting. No one’s going to ask. And it’s not going to be for long anyway. . .” Who was she trying to kid? she wondered.
Chapter 23
His arrival made very little difference to the lives of Emma and Alison. If he was in he either watched TV or stayed in his room. He was never in the way. He rarely spoke. It was easy to forget he was there.
When he woke up in the mornings he lay and listened. Emma got up about eight. She wandered backwards and forwards between the bathroom and her room, sometimes she flushed the toilet two or three times. She dropped bits of cottonwool into it—Orph had seen them floating around, it was difficult to flush them away. One floorboard in the landing creaked outside her room. When she was in the kitchen she turned the radio on and arbitrary snippets of news reached Orph’s ears. A gunman today held three . . . warned that if wages continue to rise . . . met the president for talks . . . oil prices . . . fifteen killed and six . . . the scale of this disaster . . . an estimated two and a half million people. . . Emma’s departure was signalled by a few moments of silence, in between the radio going off and the front door slamming behind her.
If the sun was out, it was shining full in Orph’s window by now. There were cotton curtains, white with a faded floral print, the light came bleached through them. It came in slantwise from the left at about 7.30 and moved quickly over to shine full in and make a barred rectangle of white light in the middle of the floor. By 10.30 it had moved on, and the room was not directly lit. Orph lay quite still, facing the curtained window. When Emma had gone, he got up and had a piece of bread and jam, or beans if there were any. There were usually dishes in the sink from the previous night. He balanced his dirty plate and mug on top of them. No one ever asked him to wash up or cook—the other two took it in turns. They bought the food as well. He gave Emma £5 a week and at lunchtimes he bought himself pie and chips from the shop by the pub.
The house was quiet all day. Alison usually got up later, after nine. If he wasn’t out, he was in his room so he didn’t see her. Sometimes one of them would come back for lunch, but it was rare. They came home at four or five, sometimes with friends and bags of books with food or wine in as well. Other times they simply came back to get ready to go out again, and he ate beans again for tea.
When their friends came round they always stayed in the kitchen, clustered around the table with coffee mugs and ash trays. The room was crowded and smoky and always the debris of one meal mingled with the preparations for the next. The people who came in the evenings were all similar, aged between eighteen and twenty, dressed in clothes that were either practical or bizarre; jeans and sweater, or anything ranging from the wares of Indian stalls to drooping second-hand dresses to gaudy Peruvian knitwear and pink boilersuits. There was a quality of intensity which they shared, whether it was expressed in rushed, over-articulate bursts of conversation or in drawn out silences and meaningful exhalations of smoke. There were speech rhythms and a vocabulary that they shared, full of “deadlines” and “seminars” and “tutors”, a vocabulary that changed subtly over the weeks as the similar/different faces crystallized into a specific few, mainly brought home by Alison, who favoured words like “exploitation”, “class structure” and “capitalism”.
Alison’s boyfriend was Phil, the leader of the “exploitation” crowd. He was tall, wore a large black overcoat, and introduced Newcastle Brown (which he drank from the can) into the household. He talked loudly, and said “fucking” a lot. Emma’s, after she had gone through a batch none of whom lasted longer than a week, was David. He appeared infrequently. He was blonde and stocky, with broad shoulders and gold-rimmed spectacles, and maintained an ironic silence in company. He appeared older than the others and unusually well dressed in wool cloth trousers instead of jeans. He brought a bottle of whisky when he came for supper.
Orph watched television in the evenings. The only time they came in there was to watch the news or a late night film. Usually he had the front room to himself. He sat on the floor, back resting against the solid padded arm of the aged chair, much as he had sat at Mrs G.’s leaning against the sofa. Newscasters and the introducers of children’s programmes and quizzes greeted him familiarly with more welcoming smiles than were ever to be seen on faces in the kitchen, and programme followed programme in scheduled order. From cartoons through to close down the civilized world unfolded itself to Orph. In domestic dramas the torridity of suburban passions were exposed; in variety shows, the legs and breasts of beautiful girls. Mid-evening cop series unleashed hygienic violence and black and white morals, while late night films wandered into the realms of soft porn and intricate murders. Occasionally rare wild animals or buildings of great historical value materialized on the screen; these were replaced at other times by monsters from outer space or newsreel of bombs falling, anthropological expeditions among little-known Himalayan villages or competitions in which people jumped over hurdles wearing outsize boots and carrying trays of eggs. The talk in the kitchen offered much less variety, and was not half so friendly.
Everyone went to bed late. If Alison’s boyfriend stayed the night they made noises in her room, quite loud. Emma’s didn’t stay, and though they went up to her room before he went home, they didn’t make any noise. On certain nights, like Saturday, they tended to be out and come in very late or not at all. Once or twice Alison and Emma coming in late together would find Orph watching the midnight movie and make a cup of cocoa for him as well and sit and giggle together around the end of the film. Excitement and the glitter of their evening encased them in a blind bubble, so that they laughed and flirted at Orph as brightly as the dancing girls on telly, and told him confidentially that the party they had been to was dreadful and pathetic.
