As soon as she stood up she saw them. In the middle distance over the damp green land there was a wasted, scattered area against a line of forgotten buildings. Other people were there, some standing, some still lying flummoxed on the floor, some sitting in a close huddle. For a moment she felt the squeeze of fear and a reflex urged her to hide again; but she was too pleased and too weary, and she had an inkling that nothing mattered anyway, her own thoughts or life itself. She started to move towards them. How bad at walking she was. They seemed to be people of the fifth and second kinds, which was encouraging in its way.
As she limped into the slow range of their sight, one of them turned and seemed to eye her coolly, without surprise. Even at this distance their faces gave off a glow of distemper, suggesting rapid changeability beneath the skin. She was getting nearer. They did not turn to confront her although some knew she was coming.
‘Mary had a little lamb,’ one of them was saying in a mechanical voice not directed at her,’—its face was white as snow…’
She came nearer. They could harm her now if they liked. But nothing had happened yet, and it occurred to her exhaustedly that she could probably walk among them as she pleased (for what it was worth), that indeed she was condemned to move among the living without exciting any notice at all.
Then one of them turned and said, ‘Come on, who are you?’
‘Mary,’ she lied quickly.
‘I’m Modo. That’s Rosie.’
‘Neville,’ another said.
‘Hopdance,’ said the fourth.
‘Come on then, come in the warmth.’
With nonchalance, with relief, they included her among themselves. She sat on their square grill, beneath which a vast subterranean machine thrashed itself rhythmically for their heat.
‘Here, wet your whistle, Mary. Keep the cold out,’ said Neville, handing her a shiny brown bottle. She tasted its spit and fizz before Rosie claimed it.
Neville went on, to no one in particular, ‘Twenty-two years of age, I was one of the top six travellers for Littlewoods. My own car, the lot. They wanted to do a, an article on me in the papers. But I said—no, I don’t want no publicity.’
‘No, you don’t want no publicity,’ agreed Rosie sternly.
‘You can keep your publicity, mate. That’s what I told them.’
‘Publicity … ? Hah!’ said Hopdance, then shook his head, as if that settled publicity’s fate once and for all.
She resolved to be on the lookout for publicity. It was obviously a very bad thing if it was to be so vigilantly shunned even here… She peered at them through their hot breath. Their skin was numb and luminous, but all their eyes were ice. I’m one of them, she thought, and perhaps I always have been. And as she looked from face to face, sensing the varieties of damage which each wore, she guessed that there were probably only two kinds of people. There were only two kinds of people: it was just that all kinds of things could happen to them.
• • •
Correct: but only as far as it goes. (I generally find I’ve got some explaining to do, particularly during the early stages.) These people are tramps, after all.
You know the kind of people I mean. The reason they are tramps is that they have no money. The reason they have no money is that they won’t sell anything, which is what nearly everyone else does. You sell something, don’t you, I’m sure? I know I do. Why don’t they? Tramps just don’t want to sell what other people sell—they just don’t want to sell their time.
Selling time, time sold: that’s the business we’re all in. We sell our time, but they keep theirs, but they don’t get any money, but they think about money all the time. It’s an odd way of going about things, being a tramp. Tramps like it, though. Being a tramp is increasingly popular, statistics show. There are more and more tramps doing without money all the time.
I’m obliged to deal with these sort of people fairly frequently. In a sense it’s inevitable in my line of work. I’d far rather not, of course: they’re always wasting my time. I’d avoid them if I were you. You’re much better off that way.
• • •
‘I know what you are, Mary,’ said Neville, leaning forward to tap her warningly on the thigh. ‘You’re simple.’
Mary nodded in agreement.
‘See?’ he said.
It was true. She knew little, and what little she knew she would have to keep to herself. She would have to learn fast, and other people would have to show her how.
‘Aren’t you a beauty though,’ he added slowly. ‘Here, isn’t she a beauty though, eh?’
Mary hoped he was wrong about this… But the accusation clearly wasn’t a very serious one; the man’s hostility gave out, and he turned away, raising the bottle to his lips. It wasn’t too bad here, Mary thought, though she was quite curious about how long it would go on.
‘Right, come on love, you’re coming with me. On your feet, girl.’
Mary looked up expectantly. It was someone of the third kind—a girl, she thought, one of me. Mary had noticed her before, out on the edge of the other people there, hanging back with a certain sense of her own ex-clusiveness and drama. She was big, one of the biggest people Mary had ever seen. Her numberless hair was a violent red, trailing from her head in distracted spirals; and her eyes were ice.
Without protest Mary was helped to her feet. As she straightened up, Neville made a cunning but enfeebled lunge towards her. The big girl thumped her great fist down on the back of his neck and then kicked him skilfully, so that he barked his forehead on the metal grill.
‘You leave her alone, Neville, you dirty little sod! Ooh, I know you, mate. Yeah, that’s right! She needs a good friend to look after her, that’s what she needs.’
Neville murmured grumblingly as he curled up away from them.
‘What? What? You want to watch it, mate, or I’ll kick your bloody head off. All right? All right? … Come on, my love. Let’s get away from this lot. Scum of the earth, they are—the pits. I mean, some people. Where’s the consideration? I mean, where is it?’
With her shoulders working, the big girl marched Mary off towards the pale line of forgotten buildings. As soon as they turned the second corner she halted and looked Mary carefully up and down.
‘My name’s Sharon. What’s yours?’
‘Mary,’ said Mary.
Sharon looked into Mary’s eyes. She frowned. Her broad face seemed to carry an extra layer of flesh, a puffy afterthought grafted on to her natural features. It was a layer of delay; there was a sense of missed time about everything one would get from that face, thought Mary. Something skipped a beat between the face and any feelings that might prompt it.
‘Phew, girl. Someone’s done you over, haven’t they?’ She laughed harshly, and started to straighten Mary’s clothes. ‘We all do it though, don’t we? Isn’t it a scream? I mean, I like that every now and then myself, providing they’re all nice boys of course, and it’s just for fun.’ She lifted an erect forefinger. ‘I won’t be peed on though. I just won’t stand for it,’ she added with considerable hauteur. ‘I will not be peed on!’ She brushed dirt from Mary’s shoulder. ‘Mm, they could have put you somewhere after though, couldn’t they? I mean, a couple of quid for a nice little hotel or something. But you know what men are like? It’s silly that we love them so much, isn’t it really?’
Mary was ready to agree. Sharon was flouncing on, however, and she followed. Mary was getting worse at walking all the time. She attributed this fact to the knot of mighty pain that had wedged itself somewhere in the plinth of her back. What a pain, what a grabby pain. It hurt her, too, because of its wayward naturalness, its suspended familiarity; it was a simple and unworrying pain, she felt. But it hurt. That was the trouble with pain; it wouldn’t really bother you much if it weren’t so painful sometimes.
‘This is where I stay when I’m down this way,’ said Sharon, leading her past a series of metal traps, behind one or two of which she could see old cars sleeping. ‘Not that I’m down here too often, mind you.’
They moved past the flat walls of an empty cave. There was a brackish smell of wetness and age, and a richer smell that was man-made and attacked the juices of the jaw. Someone smothered in clothes looked up sheepishly from the ground. Near him a toppled bottle creaked gently on its axis.