T think we’re in a corner of Hades,’ said Billy as he copied out the umpteenth con-card.
‘And Fiddler is chief Hell’s Angel in this section, thinking up fresh tortures for us every day,’ said Cliff Fernley.
‘Nothing - but nothing - could be worse than that creeping-check torture he had us on for three weeks.’
‘Don’t you be so sure about that, Hoppy. He’s got a vivid imagination.’
‘Anyway, here’s a stupendous piece of news for you. A really great piece of news. That con-card I’ve just filled in was the very last.’
‘You really mean it? The very last?’
‘The very, very last. The thirty thousandth. A bloke called Zechariah Zuckerman.’
‘I can’t believe it. We ought to celebrate it in some way. Any ideas?’
‘Well, those whom God would destroy he first sends mad.’
‘So?’
‘See that large bottle of Waterman’s ink we’ve been dipping into for the last three months?’
‘The one with all the pellets of paper, dead flies, et cetera?’
‘The very one.’
‘Well?’
‘I’ll give you half a crown if you drink it,’ said Billy, laying down a shiny new coin.
‘Hoppy, you must think I’m mad!’
He paused and looked from bottle to coin like a spectator at a tennis match.
‘Half a crown, you say?’
‘He who hesitates is lost,’ said Billy.
‘Right on! Carpe diem!’ he cried, then seized the bottle, took a long draught of the blue goo and ran out to the toilets.
He came back after a couple of minutes displaying a set of azure-coloured teeth and gums.
‘Half a crown if you don’t mind, Hoppy.’
‘With pleasure,’ said Billy. ‘Worth every penny. But why so blue, Cliff? Why so down in the mouth?’
He had begun to croon ‘Where the Blue of the Night’ when Fiddler sidled up.
‘I’ve told you two before. No singing on the job,’ he growled. ‘Get on with your copying.’
‘Finished, Mr Fiddler,’ said Billy brightly.
‘What - all thirty thousand?’
‘Yep - all thirty thousand.’
‘In alphabetical order?’
‘In strict alphabetical order!’
‘Then your next job is to check that all the con-cards agree exactly in sequence and in details with all the files in the stock-room.’
‘But that means sixty thousand items in total. That’ll take ages and ages,’ whined Cliff, grimacing and showing his pearly blues. ‘That’s a double creeping check!’
OUR KID
‘More like a double-cross/ said Billy. ‘No use wailing about it! Let’s get on with it!’
‘What a bloody rotten life it is, Cliff,’ Billy said when Fiddler had gone. ‘I live in a block of flats that I’m sure are worse than the Gorbals, I’ve got this bleeding lousy job under the Marquis de Sade, and I’ve blown it with my girlfriend.’
‘Oh, things aren’t so bad,’ said Cliff. ‘We can always get pissed on a Friday night. There’s that to look forward to.’
‘You mean a trip to Never-Never Land. Nah. What’s the use? That doesn’t solve anything. But Cliff, fancy having to do this job for the rest of our lives!’
‘You’re a miserable get, Hoppy.’
‘You’ve room to talk. You’re the one that’s blue. Anyway, what I’m suffering from is divine discontent.’
‘You mean you’re depressed?’
‘No, more than that. I just can’t see the point of it all. Why we’re here on this planet, I mean. A philosopher was once asked, “What’s the best Fate that can befall a man?” and he answered, “First, not to have been born, and failing that, to die early.” ’
‘I know why we’re here,’ said Cliff.
‘Why?’
‘We’re here because we’re here because we’re here. There is no reason. We’re just accidents of nature. The whole universe is an accident - a series of meaningless coincidences. God’s sick joke.’
‘At least you believe in a God.’
As they got down to the tedious task, on a sudden whim Billy raised his eyes to heaven as he’d seen Christ do in Pictures of the Garden of Gethsemane, fingered the rosary beads in his pocket and called out in an anguished voice:
‘Is there anyone up there listening? Then hearken to me, oh God and all ye angels and saints. If you will send down a Jacob’s ladder and haul me out of this bottomless pit. I’ll believe in you for ever more. Let me do something better with my life.’
‘And what about me?’ complained Cliff.
‘You pray to your own God and get your own bloody ladder!’
‘Have a good day, son?’ Mam asked when he got home that night.
‘Don’t ask!’ he said. ‘Good day? At the Inland Revenue? I should be so lucky! The only thing interesting that happened today was my friend drank a bottle of ink.’
‘Well, wouldn’t you think they’d give you coffee or tea - growing lads like you. You must have a very funny canteen, that’s all I can say. Oh, there’s a letter up there for you,’ she said, pointing to the mantelpiece.
‘Letter? For me? Who do I know that can write? It’s probably a demand for money.’
He took it to read in the bedroom in case it was from Adele, threatening to come back to him or recommending a sex manual. He slit open the envelope and read:
Dear Hoppy,
How’s it going in the world of commerce? Here at school, things continue much as they did in your day: Oscar still thinking up witticisms for our amusement; Baldy still as deaf as a post; Edie Dunn still on the verge of a nervous breakdown;
Oily continues with his dictionary of obscene words and has now reached the letter ‘P’ and I leave it to your imagination to think of the words he’s found; the smokers’ club is still smoking itself
to death, mainly on Park Drive since our Yankee bonanza came to an end.
The point of this letter, Hoppy, is to tell you that we, the smokers, are all applying for places at a teacher training college in Chelsea, London. The college is opening up again after being closed since 1939 and has been used as a mortuary during the war. So if we get in, they’ll simply be exchanging one set of corpses for another. Why not take a day off and come to see us? We still smoke in the alley at dinner times.
Your old shoe-shine pal,
Robin.
‘Who was the letter from, son?’ Mam asked as they settled down to their evening tea.
‘That wasn’t a letter, Mam. It was a ladder from my friend Jacob.’
‘Sometimes I think that income-tax job has driven you barmy, our Billy.’
Billy took a day’s leave to visit his old chums at school.
‘Gosh, it’s good to be back amongst you normal, sane people after some of the characters I’ve been rubbing shoulders with,’ said Billy as they walked down Smokers’ Alley.
‘Us normal, sane people? Are you trying to insult us, Hoppy?’ exclaimed Oscar.
‘I mean it’s great to be back in the old smokers’ club alley. I notice there’s been no let-up in the shagging down here, judging by the number of bags left lying about.’
‘I suspect they’re all left by one man,’ said Titch. ‘A latter-day Bluebeard who’s trying to break some kind of record.’
‘Yes,’ said Robin, ‘he probably goes into the chemist’s and says, “Gimme a gross o’ Durex - the usual week’s supply.” ’
‘Perhaps it’s President Paul Kruger with our Edie Dunn,’ ventured Nobby.
‘No banana-flavoured bags yet?’ asked Billy.
‘We don’t really know,’ said Robin. ‘No one’s willing to stoop so low as to sample one. You’re welcome to try, Hoppy, if you like.’
‘No thanks,’ replied Billy. ‘Peaches were more my fruit. Remember Blackpool?’
‘What about your sex life?’ asked Oily. ‘Still a virgin?’
‘Yes and no,’ replied Billy. ‘It was all set up for me. I was invited, had an admission ticket, but when it came to getting through the doorway - wellj it wasn’t as easy as you think.’
The smokers’ club was all ears for its street-wise, street- hardened member.
‘These are all very penetrating observations,’ said Oscar.
‘Not easy, Hoppy?’ asked Nobby. ‘I’ve never had any problems. What went wrong?’
‘The lady tending the door failed to show me the way in. I think that she thought that my old man could see in the dark.’
‘Perhaps she thought it was a carrot,’ said Oily.
‘Or perhaps she thought it had a lighted bulb on the end,’ said Oscar, ‘rather like a miner’s lamp.’
‘What you needed,’ said Robin, ‘was foreplay.’
‘Surely that’s when you’re teeing off on the golf course,’ said Pottsy.
‘Not quite,’ said Oscar. ‘Foreplay is when you’re having it off on the golf course.’
‘Did you know,’ asked Oily, ‘that according to the Kama
Sutra there are sixty-four ways of having it off?’
‘I wouldn’t mind trying any one of them,’ said Pottsy. ‘But I don’t seem to be able to attract the girls to get them to do it.’
‘Experiments have proved,’ said Oily, ‘that if you can get your tongue down a girl’s ear, she’s yours for the asking.’
‘I’ve read,’ said Robin, ‘that there is a little spot on the base of a girl’s spine that when stroked or touched sends her wild with desire.’
‘Not what I heard,’ said Titch. ‘I’ve been told on good authority that if you can only get to fondle a girl’s left breast, she’ll do anything.’
‘Just the left?’ asked Billy. ‘Not the right?’
‘I’m only saying that’s what I heard,’ protested Titch.
‘I would have thought that a girl’s breasts were apolitical,’ said Oscar. ‘Are you claiming, Titch, that the breasts have political affiliations?’
‘Why not?’ said Titch. ‘Maybe socialist girls respond to left-breast titillation and Tory girls to the right.’
‘The next thing you’ll be claiming,’ said Oscar, ‘is that a girl’s left nipple is red and her right blue.’
‘The nearest I’ve ever come to a girl’s bosom,’ said Pottsy, ‘was when I saw my big sister’s breasts as she came out of the bath. I nearly died of shock.’
‘A case of “See nipples and die”,’ said Oscar.
‘I’ve never actually been out with a girl,’ said Pottsy, ‘so how do I get to touch a girl’s breast so that she can’t resist me?’ .
‘Try some of those blue-rinse ladies in your dad’s Conservative club,’ suggested Robin. ‘Try their right breasts. I think they call them blue tits.’
‘You lot are still as crazy as ever,’ said Billy.
‘We often envy you, though, Hoppy - leaving school
and getting yourself a job,’ said Robin. ‘How’s that going, by the way?’
‘Leaving school when I did was the biggest mistake of my life,’ said Billy.
‘But you were going to be a journalist on a newspaper,’ said Oscar. ‘What happened?’
‘The first job, at the Manchester Guardian , was a calamity, but the second, the one I’m doing now at the Inland Revenue, is a disaster.’
‘You’re doing work and getting paid for it,’ said Nobby, ‘which is more than any of us is doing, surely?’
‘I’m like one of those hamsters you see on a treadmill. Working like the clappers but going around in circles getting nowhere. If I don’t get off the treadmill soon, I feel I shall go like one of those bags we’ve been talking about - bananas.’
‘Sounds bad, Hoppy,’ said Robin. ‘Perhaps I wrote to you just in time - before you blew a fuse.’
‘You certainly did, Robin. Now what about this college you’re all applying for? What’s the score?’
‘We don’t know too much about it, Hoppy,’ said Robin. ‘It made a sudden late decision to open its doors - which explains why it still has places.’
‘The course is for two years initially,’ said Oscar, ‘but it’s possible to go on to do London University degrees if you are bright enough and opt for a couple of extra years.’
‘You lot will all have Higher School Cert - Subsid - by summer, whereas I’ve got only plain School Cert,’ said Billy.
‘But in nine subjects,’ said Robin. ‘And experience in commerce. I’m sure you’ll get in, Hoppy. It’d be really great if the whole lot of us went together. Imagine it! The smokers’ club in London - the bright lights, the theatres, the cinemas, the West End!’
‘And we might even try to fit in some study too, if we can find the time/ said Titch.
‘Surely all that’s going to cost a packet. What about grants and things?’
‘Tuition and boarding are covered by the Government - and Manchester may award a grant of twenty pounds a year provided you agree to teach for them when you’ve finished. And that’s it!’ said Oily.
‘So we’re looking at about two pounds a week for books, train fares, personal spends, et cetera,’ said Billy.
‘At least,’ said Nobby. ‘My dad worked it out at about two hundred pounds or so for the whole course over two years.’
‘Then I’m just crying for the moon,’ said Billy. ‘My dad earns around five pounds a week. I don’t see where we’ll get two hundred pounds out of that.’
‘But you won’t need the whole amount all in one go,’ said Robin. ‘That’s over a long period. About thirty shillings to two pounds a week should keep us going. And remember, we can always get jobs during the holidays.’
‘If we can find jobs,’ said Oily.
‘It’ll do no harm to apply, Hoppy,’ said Robin. ‘As for the money problem, why not cross that bridge when you come to it?’
‘At this moment, Robin, I can’t see any answer. Somehow I think I’ve had my chips. But it’s my one and only hope - so I’ll apply anyway, as a last desperate measure in case, as Mr Micawber put it, something turns up.’
Three weeks after submitting his application, Billy received an invitation to attend for interview at the Manchester Damian College office. The principal of the London college, Mr Michael Roberts, had agreed to make
himself available for informal discussion and the answering of any questions that candidates might have.
‘Please sit down,’ Mr Roberts said. ‘I’ll just check your name first, if you don’t mind, to make sure I’m talking to the right person. You are Mr William Hopkins?’
‘Yes, sir. That’s correct.’
‘You have a name with poetic associations, did you know that?’
‘Yes, sir. Gerard Manley.’
‘Not related in any way, are you?’
‘No, sir, I’m afraid not.’
‘Have you read any of his stuff?’
‘Yes, sir. I’ve read most of his poems, including his most famous - “Pied Beauty”.
‘Good. Which one impressed you most?’
‘I liked “Pied Beauty”, of course, and also “Spring and Fall”.’
‘Yes. How does that last one go again?’
‘ Margaret , are you grieving ,
Over Goldengrove unleaving?’
‘You like reading, do you?’
‘Very much, sir.’
‘What are you reading at present?’
‘I have two books going, sir. I’m reading Somerset Maugham’s Razor’s Edge and wrestling with Plato’s Republic .’
‘Excellent. And how are you finding our dear friend Plato and his teacher, Socrates?’
‘Most interesting, sir. Though I think that Socrates often asks his students questions and then shoots their answers down in flames.’
Michael Roberts laughed.
‘Quite true. He seems to enjoy letting them flounder a bit before he destroys their argument. Can you remember any of the arguments of his students?’
‘A few, sir, though I’m only a little way into the work. There’s Polemarchus, who argues that justice is rendering to every man what is due to him; there’s Thrasymachus, who claims that “might is right” and that the just man always comes off worse than the unjust man.’
‘Do you agree with that?’
‘Oh, no, sir. The argument is like that of the Nazis we’ve fought the war against. It also reminded me of a little rhyme in the book of comic verse you’ve edited.’
‘Oh, you’ve looked at my book, have you? Which rhyme did you have in mind?’
‘The one by Lord Bowen, the one that goes:
‘The rain, it raineth every day Upon the just and unjust fella But more upon the just, because The unjust hath the just's umbrella .’
‘Oh, very, very good,’ he said, laughing and slapping the desk.
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Billy, laughing with him.
‘Yes. Very good,’ he continued. ‘Now, on your form I see you’ve been working for the last year. What made you leave school before the sixth form?’
‘I hoped to be a writer, sir, and wanted to get some experience on a newspaper.’
‘Well, newspapers don’t come any better than the Manchester Guardian. Why did you leave after only three months?’
‘I wasn’t getting anywhere, sir. I realised that I needed better qualifications.’
\
‘Yes, I see. And now you feel you’d like to be a teacher?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Why is that? Why do you want to become a teacher?’
‘I feel that I may have something to offer, sir. I have had some experience teaching and entertaining my young nephews, and I’ve always found great satisfaction when I see they’ve understood something I’ve taught them or enjoyed a story I’ve told them.’
‘But there’s more to education than mere entertainment, Mr Hopkins. What do you think we should be teaching in school?’
‘The basic skills to start with, and then how to live fully and morally, and how to cope with life’s problems.’
‘Good answer. But what sort of people do you think our schools should be turning out?’
‘If we are to believe Plato and Socrates, sir, good citizens.’
‘Yes, but that begs the question: what do you mean by a good citizen?’
‘One who respects the laws of God and the laws of the state.’
‘That’s all very well. But how are we to teach them all those things?’
Billy was stumped and felt he was getting out of his depth. Then he had a sudden flash of inspiration.
‘Why, sir, that’s precisely why I want to come to your college! To find out!’
‘Oh, good answer!’ exclaimed Mr Roberts, slapping the desk again. ‘Good answer! Well, thank you, Mr Hopkins, for a most interesting discussion. We’ll let you know the results in the next fortnight, when we’ve finished all our interviewing.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Billy as he left.
Outside the office, the smokers’ club members were waiting.
‘How did you get on in there, Hoppy?’ asked Robin.
‘Couldn’t have gone better. I’m sure he’ll offer me a place.’
‘Fantastic!’ said Robin. ‘London, open up dem golden gates, ’cos here we come!’
The following Sunday, there occurred a family gathering. Steve and Pauline came round with their kids for tea and to receive a report of the interview. Sergeant Barry Healey was home on a weekend pass, and so seven adults and two children gathered round the table for high tea. Mam opened a tin of West’s middle-cut salmon, there was the usual tossed salad, and the inevitable pineapple chunks.
‘I’ve been saving these two tins since before the war,’ Mam said.
‘What are we celebrating, Mam?’ asked Billy.
‘The end o’ the war with Germany, of course, and I alius said to meself that I’d open these two tins when the lights went on again.’
‘This is just like the old days,’ said Polly.
‘Not quite,’ said Flo. ‘Our Jim is missing and the two lads are still in the forces.’
‘But surely they’ll be home soon - now that Hitler’s killed himself,’ said Mam.
‘You’ve never said truer words than them, Kate,’ said Dad. ‘It won’t be long before the whole lot’s over and we’ve got that bastard Churchill out of the Gover’ment. He’s all right when it comes to fighting wars, but he’s not the man to lead us in peacetime. There was one thing, though, I was sorry to hear.’
‘What was that, Mr Hopkins?’ asked Steve.
‘They’re going to try that Lord Haw-Haw for treason -
probably hang him. They’d be better giving him a job on ITMA with Tommy Handley.’
‘That’s true, Mr Hopkins,’ said Barry, chuckling. ‘He gave us all a good laugh during the war. But the war’s not over yet. We’ve still got Japan to beat.’
‘You’re right there, Barry,’ Dad said. ‘We’ve just got that Mickie Doo fella to finish off and then we can really start celebrating. But I tell you. I’m more worried about him than I was about Hitler. I hope they don’t send our two lads to fight him, that’s all. They could be out in them jungles forever.’
‘You’re right about that, Mr Hopkins,’ said Barry. ‘The Japs are ready to fight to the very last man. They even consider it a great honour to die for their country.’
‘That’s right,’ said Steve. ‘They believe that if they die for their country they will be given a very high place amongst their ancestors in heaven.’
‘I only hope that when I get to heaven, we don’t have to mix with a lot o’ bloody foreigners,’ said Dad.
‘And who said you’re going to heaven? More like the other place for you,’ said Mam.
‘He thinks there’s a colour bar in heaven,’ said Billy. ‘All the blacks and coloured in one place, and all the yellow folk in another. And God is an Englishman.’
‘No, He’s not,’ said Mam. ‘He’s an Englishwoman.’
‘I read the other day,’ said Dad, ‘that some of them Jap snipers can stay up in the trees in the jungle for weeks, living off rats and anything else they can find. It’ll take a bloody miracle to get them to surrender.’
‘Let’s stop talking about war,’ said Mam. ‘Let’s change the subject, for God’s sake.’
‘How did the interview go, Billy?’ asked Steve eagerly. ‘Did you remember what I told you about not being too clever? About throwing the ball back into their court
if the questions got too rough?’
‘I did exactly as you advised, Steve, and the interview went like a dream. Almost as if someone else was answering the questions. I’m sure they’ll offer me a place.’
‘They can offer you a bloody place if they like,’ said Dad. ‘But you’re not going and that’s bloody final.’
‘What’s the problem?’ asked Steve.
‘Money!’ said Dad. ‘That’s the bloody problem. He may have got away with it going to that Damian College, but this is different. This is bloody big money.’
‘How big is big, Mr Hopkins?’ asked Steve.
‘About two quid a week for two years. That’s nearly half my weekly wage,’ Dad said. ‘And that’s not counting that we’ll have lost his wage as well.’
‘If you stopped drinking,’ said Mam, ‘we could afford it. You’re too fond of the bevy, that’s what you are.’
‘I’ve not even been accepted yet,’ said Billy. ‘So we may be talking about something that’s not going to happen.’
‘It sounds to me as if you’re in,’ said Barry, ‘from what you’ve told us.’
‘Look,’ said Steve, ‘Pauline and I have talked it over and we’re willing to contribute ten shillings a week towards his expenses. Will that make any difference?’
‘And Barry and I have talked it over and all,’ said Flo. ‘And we’re willing to give ten bob a week as well.’
‘There you are, Ma,’ said Steve. ‘What do you say to that? Can you raise a pound a week to send your youngest to college in London?’
‘Of course we bloody well can,’ she said. ‘His lordship here’ll just have to sup a few pints less, that’s all.’
‘I used to be bloody master in this house before the war,’ said Dad. ‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to when women start telling a working fella what to do.’
‘Then it’s settled,’ said Mam. ‘He’s going to college and there’s an end to it.’
‘I think you lot are the best family anyone could ever hope for,’ said Billy. ‘When I go to college I’ll try to be a credit to you all, and I’ll never, never forget the sacrifices you’re making.’
‘You can have the job of looking after us all when we’re old and decrepit,’ said Polly.