Life Goes On by Alan Sillitoe Read Free Book Online Page A

let you down – most of ’em.’
    â€˜If you shove all your platitudes up your arse,’ I said, ‘you’ll grow into an oak tree. Get on with your lies.’
    He scratched his nose. ‘After that, it was easy. I didn’t get a train to Wales, or the Cotswolds – if trains run in them places anymore. Nor did I hitch as far out of London as I could get. Not your cunning old Bill he didn’t, as that fiendish psychologist would tell them I had when they woke him up next morning. I got into London unspotted, and went to my flat to get money I’d stashed away for emergencies, and a case of things to tide me over. Then I rented a little fleapit room in Somers Town, thinking it better to be in the eye of the storm than on the periphery where an unexpected hurricane can blow up at any minute. That’s bad for the nerves, and I don’t like things playing on my nerves, especially when it’s not necessary. We used to call it the indirect approach, Michael, remember? Nowadays it’s known as lateral thinking. When I was a kid it was plain common sense. So then I wrote to you, and put an advert in The Times and here we are. And that’s my story. Now you can see what a fiendish three-cornered fix I’m in.’

Three
    I didn’t believe a word of it. The only fact I got from such a rigmarole was that Dr Anderson the psychologist was in the pay of Moggerhanger and the Green Toe Gang. That rang true enough, because he was the brother of the ex-husband of my wife Bridgitte, the father of Smog, and both Andersons were as villainous and devious as they come. The present Anderson was obviously selling information from one gang to the other.
    It didn’t surprise me but, true or not, Bill seemed relieved that the story was off his chest and that he had found someone to listen to whom the information would be as deadly to know about as it was to himself. To me he was like the plague, and always had been, a carrier of downfall and death. Everything that had gone wrong in my life had been due to him, yet why had I answered his summons to London? He was brother, uncle and childhood pal rolled into one, and with me till the end of my life. It is only fair to record that a lot of the good things that happened had been due to him as well. ‘I’m thinking,’ I said, seeing the question on his lips.
    â€˜You’d better be.’
    â€˜I know you’re in trouble. I believe it now, but don’t you ever learn?’
    â€˜Learn?’ He almost jumped off his chair. ‘Learn?’ he repeated, as if it was a new word he liked the sound of. ‘Michael, I learn all the time. Every minute of my life, I learn. I go to sleep at night asking: “What have I learned today?” And I wake up in the morning wondering: “What can I learn?” But the sad fact is that I’d need six lives to learn enough to do myself any good. I could learn everything there is to learn and still get stabbed in the fifth rib down by that little fact I’ve left out.’
    â€˜But why someone like me, who can’t help you in the least? The logic is absolutely beyond me.’
    He drained his empty cup for the third time. ‘You may not believe this, but the reason is, I’ve got nobody else. Nobody I can trust, I mean.’
    I almost wept with pity. ‘I’ve been out of circulation for ten years, living a domestic though far from peaceful life at my railway station, so I can’t possibly be any help.’
    He grasped my hands. ‘You can, you can, Michael.’
    â€˜All I’ve done is wash up, play with kids, make do-it-yourself repairs on the waiting room, ticket office and station master’s quarters now and again, and a bit of planting in the garden. I’m out of condition, as flabby as a baby seal.’
    He put on his sulky look, knowing I was as fit as a flying pike. ‘If there’s one thing I remember about you it was