head to foot with fatigue, she could not sleep. She was unnerved
and full of forebodings. The atmosphere of this vile place brought
home to her more vividly than before the fact that she was helpless
and friendless and had only six shillings between herself and the
streets. Moreover, as the night wore on the house grew noisier and
noisier. The walls were so thin that you could hear everything
that was happening. There were bursts of shrill idiotic laughter,
hoarse male voices singing, a gramophone drawling out limericks,
noisy kisses, strange deathlike groans, and once or twice the
violent rattling of an iron bed. Towards midnight the noises began
to form themselves into a rhythm in Dorothy's brain, and she fell
lightly and unrestfully asleep. She was woken about a minute
later, as it seemed, by her door being flung open, and two dimly
seen female shapes rushed in, tore every scrap of clothing from her
bed except the sheets, and rushed out again. There was a chronic
shortage of blankets at 'Mary's', and the only way of getting
enough of them was to rob somebody else's bed. Hence the term
'smash and grab raiders'.
In the morning, half an hour before opening time, Dorothy went to
the nearest public library to look at the advertisements in the
newspapers. Already a score of vaguely mangy-looking people were
prowling up and down, and the number swelled by ones and twos till
there were no less than sixty. Presently the doors of the library
opened, and in they all surged, racing for a board at the other end
of the reading-room where the 'Situations Vacant' columns from
various newspapers had been cut out and pinned up. And in the wake
of the job-hunters came poor old bundles of rags, men and women
both, who had spent the night in the streets and came to the
library to sleep. They came shambling in behind the others,
flopped down with grunts of relief at the nearest table, and pulled
the nearest periodical towards them; it might be the Free Church
Messenger, it might be the Vegetarian Sentinel--it didn't matter
what it was, but you couldn't stay in the library unless you
pretended to be reading. They opened their papers, and in the same
instant fell asleep, with their chins on their breasts. And the
attendant walked round prodding them in turn like a stoker poking a
succession of fires, and they grunted and woke up as he prodded
them, and then fell asleep again the instant he had passed.
Meanwhile a battle was raging round the advertisement board,
everybody struggling to get to the front. Two young men in blue
overalls came running up behind the others, and one of them put his
head down and fought his way through the crowd as though it had
been a football scrum. In a moment he was at the board. He turned
to his companion: ''Ere we are, Joe--I got it! "Mechanics wanted--
Locke's Garage, Camden Town." C'm on out of it!' He fought his
way out again, and both of them scooted for the door. They were
going to Camden Town as fast as their legs would carry them. And
at this moment, in every public library in London, mechanics out of
work were reading that identical notice and starting on the race
for the job, which in all probability had already been given to
someone who could afford to buy a paper for himself and had seen
the notice at six in the morning.
Dorothy managed to get to the board at last, and made a note of
some of the addresses where 'cook generals' were wanted. There
were plenty to choose from--indeed, half the ladies in London
seemed to be crying out for strong capable general servants. With
a list of twenty addresses in her pocket, and having had a
breakfast of bread and margarine and tea which cost her threepence,
Dorothy set out to look for a job, not unhopefully.
She was too ignorant as yet to know that her chances of finding
work unaided were practically nil; but the next four days gradually
enlightened her. During those four days she applied for eighteen
jobs, and sent written applications for four others. She trudged
enormous distances all through the southern suburbs: Clapham,
Brixton, Dulwich, Penge, Sydenham, Beckenham, Norwood--even as far
as Croydon on one occasion. She was haled into neat suburban
drawing-rooms and interviewed by women of every conceivable type--
large, chubby, bullying women, thin, acid, catty women, alert
frigid women in gold pince-nez, vague rambling women who looked as
though they practised vegetarianism or attended spiritualist
seances. And one and all, fat or thin, chilly or motherly, they
reacted to her in precisely the same way. They simply looked her
over, heard her speak, stared inquisitively, asked her a dozen
embarrassing and impertinent questions, and then turned her down.
Any experienced person could have told her how it would be. In her
circumstances it was not to be expected that anyone would take the
risk of employing her. Her ragged clothes and her lack of
references were against her, and her educated accent, which she did
not know how to disguise, wrecked whatever chances she might have
had. The tramps and cockney hop-pickers had not noticed her
accent, but the suburban housewives noticed it quickly enough, and
it scared them in just the same way as the fact that she had no
luggage had scared the landladies. The moment they had heard her
speak, and spotted her for a gentlewoman, the game was up. She
grew quite used to the startled, mystified look that came over
their faces as soon as she opened her mouth--the prying, feminine
glance from her face to her damaged hands, and from those to the
darns in her skirt. Some of the women asked her outright what a
girl of her class was doing seeking work as a servant. They
sniffed, no doubt, that she had 'been in trouble'--that is, had an
illegitimate baby--and after probing her with their questions they
got rid of her as quickly as possible.
As soon as she had an address to give Dorothy had written to her
father, and when on the third day no answer came, she wrote again,
despairingly this time--it was her fifth letter, and four had gone
unanswered--telling him that she must starve if he did not send her
money at once. There was just time for her to get an answer before
her week at 'Mary's' was up and she was thrown out for not paying
her rent.
Meanwhile, she continued the useless search for work, while her
money dwindled at the rate of a shilling a day--a sum just
sufficient to keep her alive while leaving her chronically hungry.
She had almost given up the hope that her father would do anything
to help her. And strangely enough her first panic had died down,
as she grew hungrier and the chances of getting a job grew remoter,
into a species of miserable apathy. She suffered, but she was not
greatly afraid. The sub-world into which she was descending seemed
less terrible now that it was nearer.
The autumn weather, though fine, was growing colder. Each day the
sun, fighti
ng his losing battle against the winter, struggled a
little later through the mist to dye the house-fronts with pale
aquarelle colours. Dorothy was in the streets all day, or in the
public library, only going back to 'Mary's' to sleep, and then
taking the precaution of dragging her bed across the door. She had
grasped by this time that 'Mary's' was--not actually a brothel, for
there is hardly such a thing in London, but a well-known refuge of
prostitutes. It was for that reason that you paid ten shillings a
week for a kennel not worth five. Old 'Mary' (she was not the
proprietress of the house, merely the manageress) had been a
prostitute herself in her day, and looked it. Living in such a
place damned you even in the eyes of Lambeth Cut. Women sniffed
when you passed them, men took an offensive interest in you. The
Jew on the corner, the owner of Knockout Trousers Ltd, was the
worst of all. He was a solid young man of about thirty, with
bulging red cheeks and curly black hair like astrakhan. For twelve
hours a day he stood on the pavement roaring with brazen lungs that
you couldn't get a cheaper pair of trousers in London, and
obstructing the passers-by. You had only to halt for a fraction of
a second, and he seized you by the arm and bundled you inside the
shop by main force. Once he got you there his manner became
positively threatening. If you said anything disparaging about his
trousers he offered to fight, and weak-minded people bought pairs
of trousers in sheer physical terror. But busy though he was, he
kept a sharp eye open for the 'birds', as he called them; and
Dorothy appeared to fascinate him beyond all other 'birds'. He had
grasped that she was not a prostitute, but living at 'Mary's', she
must--so he reasoned--be on the very verge of becoming one. The
thought made his mouth water. When he saw her coming down the
alley he would post himself at the corner, with his massive chest
well displayed and one black lecherous eye turned inquiringly upon
her ('Are you ready to begin yet?' his eye seemed to be saying),
and, as she passed, give her a discreet pinch on the backside.
On the last morning of her week at 'Mary's', Dorothy went downstairs
and looked, with only a faint flicker of hope, at the slate in the
hallway where the names of people for whom there were letters were
chalked up. There was no letter for 'Ellen Millborough'. That
settled it; there was nothing left to do except to walk out into the
street. It did not occur to her to do as every other woman in the
house would have done--that is, pitch a hard-up tale and try to
cadge another night's lodging rent free. She simply walked out of
the house, and had not even the nerve to tell 'Mary' that she was
going.
She had no plan, absolutely no plan whatever. Except for half an
hour at noon when she went out to spend threepence out of her last
fourpence on bread and margarine and tea, she passed the entire day
in the public library, reading weekly papers. In the morning she
read the Barber's Record, and in the afternoon Cage Birds. They
were the only papers she could get hold of, for there were always
so many idlers in the library that you had to scramble to get hold
of a paper at all. She read them from cover to cover, even the
advertisements. She pored for hours together over such
technicalities as How to strop French Razors, Why the Electric
Hairbrush is Unhygienic, Do Budgies thrive on Rapeseed? It was the
only occupation that she felt equal to. She was in a strange
lethargic state in which it was easier to interest herself in How
to strop French Razors than in her own desperate plight. All fear
had left her. Of the future she was utterly unable to think; even
so far ahead as tonight she could barely see. There was a night in
the streets ahead of her, that was all she knew, and even about
that she only vaguely cared. Meanwhile there were Cage Birds and
the Barber's Record; and they were, strangely, absorbingly
interesting.
At nine o'clock the attendant came round with a long hooked pole
and turned out the gaslights, the library was closed. Dorothy
turned to the left, up the Waterloo Road, towards the river. On
the iron footbridge she halted for a moment. The night wind was
blowing. Deep banks of mist, like dunes, were rising from the
river, and, as the wind caught them, swirling north-eastward across
the town. A swirl of mist enveloped Dorothy, penetrating her thin
clothes and making her shudder with a sudden foretaste of the
night's cold. She walked on and arrived, by the process of
gravitation that draws all roofless people to the same spot, at
Trafalgar Square.
CHAPTER 3
1
[SCENE: Trafalgar Square. Dimly visible through the mist, a dozen
people, Dorothy among them, are grouped about one of the benches
near the north parapet.]
CHARLIE [singing]: 'Ail Mary, 'ail Mary, 'a-il Ma-ary--[Big Ben
strikes ten.]
SNOUTER [mimicking the noise]: Ding dong, ding dong! Shut your
---- noise, can't you? Seven more hours of it on this ---- square
before we get the chance of a setdown and a bit of sleep! Cripes!
MR TALLBOYS [to himself]: Non sum qualis eram boni sub regno
Edwardi! In the days of my innocence, before the Devil carried me
up into a high place and dropped me into the Sunday newspapers--
that is to say when I was Rector of Little Fawley-cum-Dewsbury. . . .
DEAFIE [singing]: With my willy willy, WITH my willy willy--
MRS WAYNE: Ah, dearie, as soon as I set eyes on you I knew as you
was a lady born and bred. You and me've known what it is to come
down in the world, haven't we, dearie? It ain't the same for us as
what it is for some of these others here.
CHARLIE [singing]: 'Ail Mary, 'ail Mary, 'a-il Ma-ary, full of
grace!
MRS BENDIGO: Calls himself a bloody husband, does he? Four pound
a week in Covent Garden and 'is wife doing a starry in the bloody
Square! Husband!
MR TALLBOYS [to himself]: Happy days, happy days! My ivied church
under the sheltering hillside--my red-tiled Rectory slumbering
among Elizabethan yews! My library, my vinery, my cook, house-
parlourmaid and groom-gardener! My cash in the bank, my name in
Crockford! My black suit of irreproachable cut, my collar back to
front, my watered silk cassock in the church precincts. . . .
MRS WAYNE: Of course the one thing I DO thank God for, dearie, is
that my poor dear mother never lived to see this day. Because if
she ever HAD of lived to see the day when her eldest daughter--as
was brought up, mind you, with no expense spared and milk straight
from the cow. . . .
MRS BENDIGO: HUSBAND!
GINGER: Come on, less 'ave a drum of tea while we got the chance.
Last we'll get tonight--coffee shop shuts at 'ar-parse ten.
THE KIKE: Oh Jesus! This bloody cold's gonna kill me! I ain't
got nothing on under my trousers. Oh Je-e-e-EEZE!
CHA
RLIE [singing]: 'Ail Mary, 'ail Mary--
SNOUTER: Fourpence! Fourpence for six ---- hours on the bum! And
that there nosing sod with the wooden leg queering our pitch at
every boozer between Aldgate and the Mile End Road. With 'is ----
wooden leg and 'is war medals as 'e bought in Lambeth Cut!
Bastard!
DEAFIE [singing]: With my willy willy, WITH my willy willy--
MRS BENDIGO: Well, I told the bastard what I thought of 'im,
anyway. 'Call yourself a man?' I says. 'I've seen things like you
kep' in a bottle at the 'orspital,' I says. . . .
MR TALLBOYS [to himself]: Happy days, happy days! Roast beef and
bobbing villagers, and the peace of God that passeth all
understanding! Sunday mornings in my oaken stall, cool flower
scent and frou-frou of surplices mingling in the sweet corpse-laden
air! Summer evenings when the late sun slanted through my study
window--I pensive, boozed with tea, in fragrant wreaths of
Cavendish, thumbing drowsily some half-calf volume--Poetical Works
of William Shenstone, Esq., Percy's Reliques of Ancient English
Poetry, J. Lempriere, D.D., professor of immoral theology . . .
GINGER: Come on, 'oo's for that drum of riddleme-ree? We got the
milk and we got the tea. Question is, 'oo's got any bleeding
sugar?
DOROTHY: This cold, this cold! It seems to go right through you!
Surely it won't be like this all night?
MRS BENDIGO: Oh, cheese it! I 'ate these snivelling tarts.
CHARLIE: Ain't it going to be a proper perisher, too? Look at the
perishing river mist creeping up that there column. Freeze the
fish-hooks off of ole Nelson before morning.
MRS WAYNE: Of course, at the time that I'm speaking of we still
had our little tobacco and sweetstuff business on the corner,
you'll understand. . . .
THE KIKE: Oh Je-e-e-EEZE! Lend's that overcoat of yours, Ginger.
I'm bloody freezing!
SNOUTER: ---- double-crossing bastard! P'raps I won't bash 'is
navel in when I get a 'old of 'im!
CHARLIE: Fortunes o' war, boy, fortunes o' war. Perishing Square
tonight--rumpsteak and kip on feathers tomorrow. What else d'you
expect on perishing Thursday?
MRS BENDIGO: Shove up, Daddy, shove up! Think I want your lousy
old 'ed on my shoulder--me a married woman?
MR TALLBOYS [to himself]: For preaching, chanting, and intoning I
was unrivalled. My Lift up your Hearts' was renowned throughout
the diocese. All styles I could do you, High Church, Low Church,
Broad Church and No Church. Throaty Anglo-Cat Warblings, straight
from the shoulder muscular Anglican, or the adenoidal Low Church
whine in which still lurk the Houyhnhnm-notes of neighing chapel
elders. . . .
DEAFIE [singing]: WITH my willy willy--
GINGER: Take your 'ands off that bleeding overcoat, Kikie. You
don't get no clo'es of mine while you got the chats on you.
CHARLIE [singing]:
As pants the 'art for cooling streams,
When 'eated in the chase--
MRS MCELLIGOT [in her sleep]: Was 'at you, Michael dear?
MRS BENDIGO: It's my belief as the sneaking bastard 'ad another
wife living when 'e married me.
MR TALLBOYS [from the roof of his mouth, stage curate-wise,
reminiscently]: If any of you know cause of just impediment
why these two persons should not be joined together in holy
matrimony . . .
THE KIKE: A pal! A bloody pal! And won't lend his bloody
overcoat!
MRS WAYNE: Well, now as you've mentioned it, I must admit as I
never WAS one to refuse a nice cup of tea. I know that when our
poor dear mother was alive, pot after pot we used to . . .
NOSY WATSON [to himself, angrily]: Sod! . . . Gee'd into it
and then a stretch all round. . . . Never even done the bloody
job. . . . Sod!
DEAFIE [singing]: WITH my willy willy--
MRS MCELLIGOT [half asleep]: DEAR Michael. . . . He was real