Paid Servant by E. R. Braithwaite Read Free Book Online Page A

daily discovered further evidence of the truth of his remarks. But even so, when I went to the Old Bailey, and took my place with the other jurors, I slipped up rather badly; for I missed much of the initial part of the hearing, so intent was I on watching the prisoner, counsel, judge and fellow-jurymen to discover if they were taking any special notice of my presence among them. Only when it was patently clear that they were all too busy attending to the business in hand did it finally sink into my head that my business in that place was to follow the case closely so that I might fulfil the responsibility I had been summoned to undertake …
    Now this same Don, a little older and more comfortably prosperous, was casually talking about not being involved.
    â€œBut everyone else considers him a coloured child,” I argued. “I suppose that’s the same thing as being Negro. As long as there’s any hint of non-white admixture the label is black.”
    â€œYes, I know,” he answered. “But people who don’t know about us and see the child with us will begin to wonder all kinds of things.”
    â€œIs that important?” But even as I asked it I realized that it was important. They were nice respectable people and they did not want complications. If they adopted a child, it must seem to be their natural offspring, and no questions asked. I couldn’t quarrel with their attitude, but I couldn’t help remembering the old Don. Without realizing it we had both gone very separate ways.
    Audrey saved the situation from becoming awkward by suggesting that we had a drink, and somehow the conversation became diverted to more commonplace things, to everyone’s relief.
    After I left them I could not throw off the feeling of disappointment. Somehow I felt let down, and the feeling persisted although I could see the reasonableness of their position. After all, why should they be more generous than anyone else? I realized that I had been so sure of their agreement that I had taken their refusal rather hard. I was not in a frame of mind to be very helpful to the Benthams, but there was nothing I could do about that. They’d just have to take me as I was.
    Randall Street, Stepney, where the Benthams lived, presented the dreary picture of a long terrace of dilapidated three-storeyed houses, all of them covered with scabs of dirt and flaking paint, and sagging visibly as if impatient of the long overdue demolition gangs. The mixture of twilight and smoky overcast added to the general gloomy depression and untidiness of broken railings which no longer secured any privacy, and large lidless dustbins which squatted beside the littered area-ways, carelessly pregnant among the overflow of rubbish. No lights showed in any of the houses, but the heavy air vibrated with the hum of music escaping from imperfectly sealed windows and doors. Indoors it must be awfully loud.
    This is what English folk often complain about, I thought. They don’t understand it because they haven’t ever felt the need of it. They don’t know that loud music can be needful to the lonely and rejected, an insulation against pressing loneliness, an opiate for the hours and weeks of nowhere to go and no one to talk to. As I approached I could identify the rhythms, the haunting pathos of songs which spring from an urgent need to survive. Frank Sinatra’s “Only the Lonely,” each note reaching deep into the consciousness to find the wordless, immediate response.
    On the steps of No. 58 Randall Street I paused and looked about me. Farther down the street two men, dimly discernible as Negroes, hurried into a building. Maybe only coloured people live in this street, I thought. The blacks move in and the property loses its value, or so the man said. Then the whites move out. Strange how such supposedly devalued property becomes so shockingly expensive whenever the black man tries to rent or purchase. Randall