Archibald Cronin - The Stars Look Down

“Why, David, you’re going to be famous at last!” she declared airily; and she did not understand why this remark made David close his lips unhappily and turn away.

Naturally, she took it for granted that David would get “in,” she visualised in advance little tea parties with the wives of his fellow councillors, she saw herself calling upon Mrs. Ramage at the big new Ramage house on the top of Sluice Dene, she felt vaguely that something would come out of all this for their real advancement. There was no money in the Town Council, really, but it might lead to something, she reasoned brightly. She did not understand. She was physically incapable of understanding the motive behind David’s action.

The day of the election arrived. David, in his heart, was dubious of his prospects. His name was a good name in Sleescale, his father had died in the pit, his brother had died in the war and he himself had served at the front for three years. There was a useful romantic flavour — which he despised — in his returning from the war to stand for the Council. But he was untried and inexperienced, and Murchison had a way of extending credit in his shop about election time, a habit of slipping a box of scented soap or a tin of sardines into the baskets of his customers, which was not good for Murchison’s opponent. On the afternoon of that Saturday, as he walked up the town, David met Annie coming down from New Bethel Street School where the polling was taking place. Annie stopped.

“I’ve just been up voting for you,” she said quite simply. “I made sure I’d get finished up in time.”

A real glow came over David at the way Annie said it, at the thought that she had troubled to go up and vote for him.

“Thanks, Annie.”

They stood opposite each other in silence. Annie never had much to say, no confidences, no rapturous certainty in his success, but he could feel her good wishes coming out towards him. He felt suddenly that he had a great deal to say to her. He wanted to console her about Sammy; to ask about her boy; he had an uncontrollable impulse to speak to her about Robert. But the noisy, crowded street deterred him. Instead, he said:

“I’ll never get in.”

“Well,” she said with her faint smile. “You might and you mightn’t, Davey. And there’s nothing like having a shot at it.” Then, nodding in her own style, she went back home to see to her baby.

It struck David after his meeting with Annie how wisely and encouragingly she had summed up his chances. When the results were declared he had beaten Murchison by a bare forty-seven votes. But he was in.

Jenny, a little dashed at the slenderness of the margin, was nevertheless enchanted that David should be elected.

“Didn’t I tell you!” She began to look forward to the first meeting of the new Council with as much sprightliness as if she were the new member herself.

David had hardly the same gaiety. David, with access to minutes and records and agenda, had been inquiring into the petty turmoil of local politics, discovering the usual brew of social, religious and personal interests, the ubiquitous policy of “you do this for me and I’ll do that for you.” Ramage, of course, was the dominant factor. Ramage had run the Council for the last four years. From the start David saw clearly that Ramage was the man he would be up against.

On the evening of November 2nd the new Council met: Ramage in the chair. The others were Harry Ogle, David, the Rev. Enoch Low of Bethel Street Chapel, Strother, head master of the school, Bates the draper, Connolly of the Gas Company and Rutter the clerk. At the start an exchange of bluff greetings took place in the ante-room between Ramage, Bates and Connolly; there was loud laughter and back slapping and jovial small-talk, while the Rev. Low, just out of earshot of the lewder jokes, was deferential to Connolly and obsequious to Ramage. No one took any notice of David and Harry Ogle. But as they moved into the council chamber Ramage gave David one cold look.

“I’m sorry our old friend Murchison isn’t with us,” he remarked in his loud blustering voice. “It don’t seem proper like with a stranger here.”

“Don’t worry, lad,” Harry whispered to David, “you’ll soon get used to his line of gab.”

They sat down and Rutter began to read the minutes of the last meeting of the old Council. He read quickly in a dry, sing-song, uninterested voice, then almost without stopping and in the same voice he announced:

“The first business is the passing of the meat and clothing contracts. I suppose, gentlemen, you wish to regard them as passed.”

“That’s right,” yawned Ramage. He sat back in his chair at the head of the table, his big red face directed towards the ceiling, his hands belted round his enormous paunch.

“Ay, they’re passed,” Bates agreed, twiddling his thumbs and staring hard at the table.

“Passed, gentlemen,” said Rutter and he reached for the minute book.

David interposed quietly.

“Just a minute, please!”

There was a silence, a very odd silence.

“I haven’t seen these contracts,” David remarked in a perfectly calm and reasonable voice.

“You don’t have to see them,” Ramage sneered. “They’re passed by a majority.”

“Oh!” exclaimed David in a tone of surprise. “I wasn’t aware that we had voted.”

Rutter the clerk had turned solemn and uncomfortable, examining the nib of his pen, as if it had made a most surprising blot. He realised that David was looking at him and he had at last to meet that inquiring eye.

“May I see the contracts?” David asked. He knew all about the contracts; he wished merely to delay the entry in the minute book. These contracts were a long-standing scandal in Sleescale. The clothing contract was not important: it related to the supplying of uniforms to the sanitary inspector, health visitor and sundry local officials, and though Bates the draper took a scandalous profit on the transaction the amount involved was not material. But the meat contract was different. The meat contract, which gave Ramage the contract to supply all meat for the local hospital, was an iniquity in the face of God and man. The prices charged were for the best meat: Ramage supplied shin, neck and buff.

David took the meat contract from Rutter’s nervous fingers. David examined the meat contract: the amount was large, the total came to £300. Deliberately he protracted his examination of the blue-grey document, holding up the meeting, feeling their eyes upon him.

“Is this a competitive contract?” he inquired at length.

Unable to hold himself in any longer Ramage leaned forward across the table, his red face malignant with indignation and rage.

“I’ve had that contract for over fifteen years. Have ye any objections?”

David looked across at Ramage: it had come, the first moment, the first test. He felt composed, master of himself. He said coolly:

“I imagine there are a number of people who object.”

“The hell you do!” Ramage flared.

“Mr. Ramage, Mr. Ramage,” bleated the Rev. Low sympathetically. In and out of the Council Low always toadied to Ramage, his pet parishioner, the man who had laid the foundation-stone of the Bethel Street Chapel, the golden calf amongst his thin-fleeced flock. And now he turned to David, peevishly reproving.

“You are new here, Mr. — er — Fenwick. You are a little over-zealous perhaps. You forget that these contracts are advertised for.”

David answered:

“One quarter of an inch stuffed away in the local paper. An advertisement that nobody ever sees.”

“Why should they see it?” Ramage bawled from the end of the table. “And why the hell should you go shovin’ in your neck? The contract’s been mine for fifteen year now. And nobody’s never said a blasted word.”