John Braine - Room at the Top

"You damned idiot, what did you do it for? You knew you'd be found out."

"I don't know," he said tearfully. I did, though. His elementary school pals would be earning five or six pounds a week while he had only two. He'd been trying to keep up with the Joneses, the poor little devil.

"Stop snivelling," I said. "You're in a mess, and crying isn't going to help you one little bit. Have you got that fifteen shillings?"

He shook his head. "No. I'm very sorry, Mr. Lampton, I won't ever do it again, I swear. Please don't tell on me, please."

I took a ten-shilling note and two half crowns from my pocket and put them in the cashbox.

His face brightened a little. "You're not going to tell on me, Mr. Lampton?"

"What the bloody hell do you think I'm doing this for?"

He grabbed my hand and started shaking it. "Thank you, sir, thank you. I'll pay back every penny, I swear I will - "

"No," I said. Fifteen shilling was to him as impossible a sum to find as fifteen hundred. "No, you fool. Just don't do it again, that's all. I'll fix it this time; but if ever I catch you again, even if it's only a ha'penny, then you go to Mr. Hoylake straightaway. Now get out and wash your face."

After he'd gone I wondered if I hadn't gone soft in the head. I had in a sense compounded a felony, and if he were to steal anything again it would go hard with me. But I couldn't have done otherwise; I could remember the time when I was desperately in need of fifteen shillings myself, watching the Dufton yobs peacocking it in new suits and their wallets stuffed with notes, when I scarcely had the price of a Woodbine. And perhaps, I thought superstitiously, if I were merciful with Raymond, Brown would be merciful with me.

The Leddersford Conservative Club was a large Italianate building in the centre of the city. The stone had been a light biscuit colour originally - sometimes I wonder if all nineteenth-century architects weren't a bit wrong in the head - and a hundred years of smoke had given it an unhealthy mottled appearance. The carpet inside the foyer was plum-coloured and ankle-deep, the furniture was heavy and dark and Victorian, and everything that could be polished, right down to the stair rods, gave off a bright glow. It smelled of cigars and whisky and sirloin, and over it hung a brutally heavy quiet. There were a great many pictures of Conservative notabilities: they shared a sort of mean sagacity of expression, with watchful eyes and mouths like spring traps, clamped hard on the thick juicy steak of success.

I felt a cold excitement. This was the place where the money grew. A lot of rich people patronised expensive hotels and roadhouses and restaurants too; but you could never be really sure of their grade, because you needed only the price of a drink or a meal and a collar and tie to be admitted. The Leddersford Conservative Club, with its ten-guinea annual subscription plus incidentals (Put me down for a hundred, Tom, if the Party doesn't get it, the Inland Revenue will), was for rich men only. Here was the place where decisions were taken, deals made between soup and sweet; here was the place where the right word or smile or gesture could transport one into a higher grade overnight. Here was the centre of the country I'd so long tried to conquer; here magic worked, here the smelly swineherd became the prince who wore a clean shirt every day.

I gave my name to the commissionaire. "Mr. Lampton? Yes, sir, Mr. Brown has a luncheon appointment with you. He's been unavoidably delayed, but he asked you to wait in the bar." He looked at me a trifle doubtfully; not having had time to change, I was wearing my light grey suit and brown shoes, my former Sunday best. The shoes were still good but much too heavy for the suit, and the suit was too tight and too short in the jacket. Third-rate tailors always make clothes too small. I saw or fancied that I saw, a look of contempt in the comniissionaire's eye, so I put back the shilling I was going to give him into my pocket. (It was fortunate that I did; afterwards I found out that you never tip club servants.)

The bar was crowded with businessmen slaving to help the export drive. An attempt had been made to modernise it; the carpet was a glaring zigzag of blue and green and yellow, and the bar was topped with some kind of plastic and faced with what appeared to be black glass. There wasn't any sign that it was the stamping ground reserved for the higher grades, unless you counted the picture of Churchill above the bar - a picture which you could find in most pubs anyway. And by no means all of them spoke Standard English. Ledderford's main manufacture is textiles, and most of its ruling class receive their higher education at the Technical College, where to some extent they're forced to rub shoulders with the common people and consequently pick up some traces of a Northern accent. What marked the users of the bar as being rich was their size. In Dufton or even Warley, I was thought of as being a big man; but here there were at least two dozen men as big as I, and two dozen more who were both taller and broader. And one of them, standing near me, was at least six foot four and as broad-shouldered as a gorilla - it would be genuine bone and muscle too, there'd be no padding in that suit. He could have broken my back across his knee without putting himself out of breath and doubtless would have done if he'd been given half a chance, to judge from the way he was scowling at me. Then the scowl changed into a social smile, and I saw that it was Jack Wales.

"How are you, old man?"

"Very fit," I said. "Had a good holiday in Dorset. You seem to be bursting with health, I must say."

"Been to Majorca. Cambridge seems a bit damp and chill after it. I'm just returning there - I made a flying visit to Warley. Papa's rather off-colour. Works too hard."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said, wondering maliciously whether it was gout, prostate trouble, or high blood pressure that was making Wales Senior ill.

"He's all right now," he said. He smiled at me. "My father puts in a sixteen-hour day, you know. Drink, old man?"

"Whisky."

"Have a double. Then you don't have to catch the waiter's eye twice."

"You shouldn't have any trouble that way."

"Whatsay? Oh, see what you mean. My height's a curse, actually. Can't get away with anything ... What brings you here anyway? Thought you were a red-hot Labour man. Seen the light, eh?" He gave one of his hearty false laughs.

"I'm meeting Mr. Brown."

"Susan's father?"

"Uh-uh."

"Nice chap. Don't let him overpower you, though. Stick out for the highest figure the traffic will bear - I suppose it's a job you're discussing?"

"Could be," I said. There wasn't anything else that I could say.

"You're cagey," he said. "Wise man." He looked at the gold watch that seemed effeminately small on his huge hairy wrist. "Well, I must push off." He finished his whisky.

"Another?"

"No thanks, old man. In any case, you can't buy one; club rule." He clicked his finger at the waiter. "Double whisky for Mr. Lampton, Henry." He gave the waiter a note, and shovelled the change into his pocket without bothering to count it. "Goodbye for now, Joe."

"Goodbye, Jack." Three double whiskies would add up to fifteen shillings, the lack of which had nearly condemned poor snivelling little Raymond to the equivalent of a life in the galleys. Not that I enjoyed the whisky any the less.

I saw Brown enter the room. He came straight over to me.

"Seem to have made yourself at home, young man. Think I'll have one of those whiskies while there's still some left." He crooked his finger and the waiter glided over to him.

"I'm very annoyed with you, young man," he said. He had very heavy black eyebrows and in conjunction with his grey hair and red face they were a little alarming; compressed over his deep-set eyes the effect was that of a hanging judge, a jolly old bon viveur sentencing some poor devil of a labourer or a clerk to death by dislocation of the neck as an aperitif to a good dinnah with a bottle of the best - the very best, waitah - port.