They entered a very large room with four windows of excellent proportions which reached from floor to ceiling. This room was also full of furniture of great beauty and rarity.
The husky voice spoke again and at first Titus couldn’t make out where it came from. At the far end of the room was an enormous painted screen, which almost made another room, and Titus traced the voice to behind the screen.
Herbert led him over, then said, ‘I’ve brought Titus Groan to see you,’ and gently pushed Titus behind the screen.
Propped up on an ornate chaise longue, shaped rather like a royal barge, was Mrs Sempleton-Grove, with her feet crossed.
Titus saw a woman whose beauty seemed to be draining away almost by the minute. He thought she was about seventy years old, with bright yellow hair dragged back into a ponytail and little curls arranged with disorder on her forehead, and drifting like gossamer around her ears. Black eyelashes of an inordinate length and thickness fluttered as she lifted her eyes (which were of a surprisingly pale blue) to Titus. She didn’t speak, but gestured to him to sit on a frail gold chair that stood at the end of the chaise longue. She took no notice whatsoever of Herbert, who, with all personality dead as the bee when its sting has gone, drifted out of the room as silently as a priest reading his breviary. Titus sat without speaking and looked at his hostess more closely. She was dressed most inappropriately in what looked like a little girl’s pink blouse with big puffed sleeves and incongruously she picked up a large pair of knitting needles and began to knit with what Titus could only think was more show than expertise.
‘Well . . . I’m in love, you see,’ said Mrs Sempleton-Grove, or that is what Titus thought had been said, for her voice was husky and slurred, as though from drugs or drink.
‘Ring the bell, Titus.’
Titus looked around for a bell and found one at the side of the marble mantelpiece. He walked to the other end of the room and pushed the bell. He heard no sound, but his quick perception obviously satisfied Mrs Sempleton-Grove, for she made no remark as he regained his frail golden chair.
‘Oh, do give me my reticule,’ she said, pointing to a large oblong bag of gros point, which lay by her feet at the end of the chaise longue. As he handed it to her she let fall her ponytail, and her rather sparse hair drifted untidily around her face, not adding to the youthfulness that was being so desperately nurtured. She sought in her reticule and after a few moments of objects being stirred round and round as though they were ingredients of a stew, she brought forth a small hairbrush, a large comb, blue ribbon and a silver hand mirror.
Titus watched, as he had watched other women of all ages and degrees of beauty. Mrs Sempleton-Grove brushed her lacklustre hair and pulled it into two bunches on either side of her face, and round each bunch she tied a blue ribbon, which might have been entrancing on a small girl.
As she finished, the door opened and a trolley appeared, rattling cups and plates. Henry manoeuvred it with evident distaste, rather as some men might on having to steer a pram containing their offspring reluctantly past their erstwhile drinking companions.
‘Don’t say thank you, then,’ he said, as he left the trolley, becalmed, by Titus’s side, and with a pout went to the door. Before closing it completely he put his head round the corner and stuck his tongue out.
‘Do pour the tea, Titus, and I’ll have some of that chocolate cake, and can you bring that cushion and put it behind my back too.’
Titus did all these things. It didn’t worry him in the least. Spoiled women were usually rapacious in their demands, particularly if they wanted something in return.
She didn’t suggest he should have some tea, or cake, but sat silently sipping and eating her own.
‘Herbert tells me you might sit for me.’ At least that is how Titus interpreted the rather blurred sentence addressed to him.
He really couldn’t be bothered to say yes or no, or why or when, so he stayed silent, which did not discomfort Mrs Sempleton-Grove at all.
‘After tea, I will show you my paintings.’
Titus had not known his hostess for more than half an hour but he was already managing to translate her muffled rather inconsequential conversation into intelligibility.
‘Thank you, Titus,’ she said as she handed him her cup and plate, which he took and replaced on the trolley. She held her hand out to him to help her off her chaise longue, then stood a little shakily by his side. As she turned, he noticed that her blouse, at the back, did not meet where the buttons should be, but was held together by one safety pin attached to another, until they met at the opposite edge where the buttonholes were, rather like a hastily constructed bridge. She was of moderate height, and as she walked further into the room Titus saw that she had the slim legs of a girl.
She went out of the large drawing room and walked along the corridor to another door. Titus followed her, assuming that that was to be his role.
The room they entered was very different from the elegant drawing room. It had the trappings of comfort: a thick carpet, warmth, and all the ease of a dilettante studio, compared to the working-living studio of Ruth’s. Magnificent easels and equipment, Titus imagined, for the many media an artist might turn to, and all of finest quality. On the walls were framed paintings, leaving little space between. Titus knew very little about painting, but enough to realise that the paintings on the walls were slight.
‘I’m a bad painter. Yes, I know you think so too. But I love painting, Titus. You are blaming me for having all these things, while real painters can’t afford them. Don’t judge me too soon. Even if I’d been poor, I’d have been a bad painter, but at least I’m a bad painter on good materials, and I know a good painter when I see one. Herbert is worse than I am, but he has to paint to live, so there you are. I’ll show you his murals in a minute.’
Titus realised there was very little need for him to speak, or even to listen, but despite any preconceived notion he might have formed of Mrs Sempleton-Grove as a rich spoiled woman, he felt it was wrong to do so. There was a kindness in her, and he felt he had little enough to be proud of in his own behaviour towards people to start judging others.
She led Titus out of her painting room up a small flight of stairs and into a room that in earlier days might have housed servants. Even so, its proportions were elegant, but what had been made of it was less so. The background colour was white, and the murals that enclosed the room, and made it rather claustrophobic, were crudely painted. Mainly figurative, and depicting men, all young, all handsome in their different way. Titus recognised Henry in some of them, in various dancing postures.
‘Herbert thinks this is what I want, you know, Titus. He’s done some drawings of you – that’s why I wanted to meet you. He can get a likeness, but he’s crude. Only it was because I thought you looked like a man that I wanted to see you. The only men I see now aren’t. The trouble is I can see myself as I really am, and it doesn’t make getting through the day any easier. I know I make myself into a freak. I’m trying to stay young, and the more I do, the more ludicrous I look, but I won’t give up. Once, when I went into a room, everyone looked at me, but it wasn’t to laugh. Every day was an adventure. I had an ulterior motive in getting Herbert to bring you here, but having met you, I know just how wrong I was. Whoever you are, you wouldn’t rise to my bait. I’m surrounded by Henrys. They come and they go, and they take all they can while they can. Not that I’m easy. I can make life hell for them and they don’t stay long, just long enough for us to hate each other, despise each other, then another Henry comes. How would you feel about staying for a little while? You won’t have to do anything of any sort.’
‘I’m not really someone who stays anywhere long, you know,’ said Titus, almost the first sentence he had spoken since coming to Mrs Sempleton-Grove’s.
‘My dear Titus, I had already realised that. That’s what makes you so attractive. All the same, won’t you let me do a painting of you? Apart from everything else it will make Henry so annoyed. He mu
st fancy you himself. I know he put his tongue out at me when he left the room. He always does, and he thinks I don’t know. There have been so many Henrys. He’ll go when he’s got all he thinks he can get out of me. The trouble is I know it all, but they’re the only kind of people who’ll put up with me. I don’t like being alone. It makes me think too much. Even if I’d been ten or twenty years younger, I couldn’t have seduced you. When I was a girl a middle-aged man said he loved me for what I would become, and now I’m awaiting a young man who will fall in love with me for what I was!’
Titus remained silent.
‘You beast. I won’t say goodbye, then.’
26
From Riches to Rags
As he left the house, Titus thought of returning at once to Ruth. The pull of her warmth and love was almost bitter to him. It denied the strength of the defences he had been building for so long against any skirmishing in the region of his heart. The bastion could fall, and rebuilding would take more courage than he felt he was capable of. He averted his mind from Ruth awaiting him. He averted his mind from Dog. He could not think of the future, or of the past. The present was blank, because that was what he wanted.
Walking away from Mrs Sempleton-Grove’s house Titus let this blankness lead him. He was not really aware of the physical aspect of the streets along which he walked, the people he passed, the light diminishing, the sounds, the constant noise of traffic, a city noise, impersonal but buzzing in his head.
He walked for several hours, still unaware of the changing townscape through which he passed. It was dark by now, and he became conscious of a small hunger. In his pocket there were a few coins left from Herbert’s money and, as he came to from his blankness, he found he was standing outside a derelict house, in a street that offered little of comfort to anyone. It was only dimly lit, but Titus could see the decay of what once must have been a row of superbly proportioned houses, and he thought of his late hostess. The carcasses still had a little flesh on them and the rafters of the roof displayed themselves as cleanly picked as any animal left to the mercy of a vulture.
Toothless windows, and doors ajar on to a murky, dangerous emptiness. It took a little time for a sound to penetrate Titus’s hearing. It was not a pleasant sound, and as he became more conscious of it he distinguished rough voices, which were raised from time to time in violent dispute – blurred, whining, ugly. He was startled by the wrenching open of a door, a shrill voice, and a missile that had accompanied the voice narrowly missing his head and breaking into fragments at his feet. A dark shape followed, tottering up from what must have been the basement of the house, and walking unsteadily along the path that separated the house from the pavement. It drew nearer to Titus, who felt no fear but a certain curiosity.
‘An don’ yer com back wivout it, you dirty bastard . . .’
The figure nearly tripped on the uneven paving stones and put out its hands to steady itself. It touched Titus’s hand, which had involuntarily stretched out to protect whatever or whoever was having so much difficulty in standing upright.
He heard a deep booming ejaculation, like a foghorn in the mist, just as eerie and portentous a sound: ‘Look where yer bleedin’ goin’.’
‘Sorry, I was in the way,’ was all that Titus could think of saying.
‘’Ere, got any money?’
Titus was able to see a little, in the dim street, of what this newfound companion looked like. He was small and thickset. His clothes were layered, one on top of the other, coats and jackets, and tied up with string. There was not quite enough light to see the face under the battered hat.
‘The name’s Mick. If I don’ get back wiv it, they’ll blow me brains out. Wha’s yer name?’
‘Titus.’
‘Blimey. Come on.’
Titus went where he was being pushed. As they walked, each in his different way, one fairly firm, the other cursing whenever he tripped, a stale smell began to envelop Titus, rank and thick, but sickly sweet at the same time. Mick cleared his throat and spat, Titus retched and turned away to ward off the appalling fumes.
‘I know. I stink. That’s why no woman’ll look at me.’
By holding his breath and keeping his mouth closed, Titus avoided the physical result of nausea, but he dared not speak, even if he had wanted to.
They reached the end of the road and came to another, very wide, very deserted and even more decayed and hopeless than the one where this encounter had begun.
Titus felt his hand being grabbed, ‘Give it us.’
He put his hand in his pocket and brought out most of the coins, which he put into Mick’s mittened hand.
‘Stay ’ere.’
Titus stayed. He heard voices, disputing, and the whining, cajoling tones of his friend. Then the door was pushed open and out he came, his pockets bulging and holding to his mouth a huge bottle from which he was draining as much as he could in as little time as possible, spilling what he couldn’t get down on to his outer coverings, to add to his malodour.
They walked back the way they had come, until they reached the house from whose bowels Mick had emerged.
‘Comin’ in?’
‘For a bit,’ answered Titus, as they groped their way down steps, which in earlier times would have led to an ordered world of pots and pans of burnished copper.
Mick gave three taps on a broken window and a low little whistle, then turned to Titus to gesture him to follow. One candle lit a scene, which could be called nothing if not squalid. The smell so thick that Titus felt it was tangible. Two hands grabbed at the pockets of the vagrant’s clothes, and it was luck only that saved the bottles from breaking, as they were pulled unceremoniously towards them, the man with them.
Ugly oaths were shouted, and two figures collapsed on the floor, seemingly all acrimony spent for the time being, as the silence was broken only by the gulps and belches of some need being mercifully satisfied.
In the corner of the once-room was a mound, a stack of newspapers that moved slightly, the paper rattling, but not crisply as an unread one. Nothing in this hole could be crisp, and it was only because of the pig-like grunts coming from under the paper that Titus knew there was something alive there.
The candle allowed a stranger no great glimpse into the secrets it was hiding in all but the small area it lit up, but what Titus could see were the remains of a kitchen dresser, from floor to ceiling, with drawers hanging open and empty spaces where other drawers had been. He could only make out what he thought were one or two broken cups.
Mick had escaped into his own private oblivion. The pile of newspaper on the floor crackled more urgently and a head appeared. The head was covered by some kind of woollen hat, but Titus thought it was a female head and when it spoke the tone was not rough or coarse. There was an elegance of speech in it, which pierced his imagination.
His mind went over the nature of those who had left the organised world for the anarchic; both male and female who belonged nowhere, whose choice was made for myriad reasons. He felt at one with them, despite the squalor and poverty. He recoiled from the stench but understood the freedom the dark basement offered where layers of ordered life were peeled away.
From the not quite crisp crackling of newspapers a thin hand emerged, stretching out for benison. The grimy nails and the blue veins appeared like tributaries, and the cultured voice called for anaesthetic. No help came from the inmates of this dank region; each one was isolated in his own realm. Titus wrenched the bloated bottle from Mick and transferred it to that skinny hand, which grabbed it, and gulped and gulped to drown reality.
Titus took the only candle, to discover for himself the nature of the face behind the hand. He held it close and saw two dead eyes, a fine nose, and lips which, when the bottle had been drained, opened on to the black cavern of teeth, little stumps of broken blackness, like the old tarred wooden posts of a forgotten beach breakwater. What he was looking at had once been a woman. As he decided to leave these remnants, he heard steps descending, an
d a light flashed across the room with the abruptness of the moon emerging from behind clouds. Suddenly voices broke the silence. The dark humps of humanity were being bundled out of the basement, up the squalid litter-thick steps. Titus felt himself being manhandled, pushed up the steps, out of the gate and into the waiting car.
27
Other Places, Other Work
Titus was pushed beside Mick into the back of the car. There was no dissent. It must all have happened many times before but they were too old to be saved or indoctrinated. All that could be done was to move them from one place to another until their hearts gave out, their lungs collapsed, their spirits drowned and their eyes closed for the last time, but that was not quite yet.
Desultory voices spoke in the front of the car, until it stopped, then the pantomime recommenced. The clowns were pushed and shoved, and Titus with them. They found themselves in a brightly lit official room. The remnants were marked off and taken away.
‘Your name?’
‘Titus Groan.’
‘Not seen you before – occupation?’
‘Traveller.’
‘Vagrant?’
‘Means of support?’
Titus reached in his pocket and found the few remaining coins, which he put on the counter in front of him.
‘I see. A man of property!’
What was the point of speaking?
‘Take him away.’
He was led into a small room. The key turned in the lock.
He was exhausted and hungry, and too much of each to care for any other sensation. He fell into a thick, dark sleep. When he awakened his limbs ached and he stretched himself with the abandon of a cat. He could not think where he was. He closed his eyes and was startled to hear a voice, which came from above him.
‘Hello,’ it said.
He rubbed his eyes and his face, then tried to trace the sound. Light came from a tiny window above his head, and he began to try to read his surroundings like a map that was unfamiliar to him.