Titus Awakes

26

From Riches to Rags

AS HE LEFT the house, Titus thought of returning at once to Ruth. The pull of her warmth and love was almost bitter to him. It denied the strength of the defences he had been building for so long against any skirmishing in the region of his heart. The bastion could fall, and rebuilding would take more courage than he felt he was capable of. He averted his mind from Ruth awaiting him. He averted his mind from Dog. He could not think of the future, or of the past. The present was blank, because that was what he wanted.

Walking away from Mrs Sempleton-Grove’s house Titus let this blankness lead him. He was not really aware of the physical aspect of the streets along which he walked, the people he passed, the light diminishing, the sounds, the constant noise of traffic, a city noise, impersonal but buzzing in his head.

He walked for several hours, still unaware of the changing townscape through which he passed. It was dark by now, and he became conscious of a small hunger. In his pocket there were a few coins left from Herbert’s money and, as he came to from his blankness, he found he was standing outside a derelict house, in a street that offered little of comfort to anyone. It was only dimly lit, but Titus could see the decay of what once must have been a row of superbly proportioned houses, and he thought of his late hostess. The carcasses still had a little flesh on them and the rafters of the roof displayed themselves as cleanly picked as any animal left to the mercy of a vulture.

Toothless windows, and doors ajar on to a murky, dangerous emptiness. It took a little time for a sound to penetrate Titus’s hearing. It was not a pleasant sound, and as he became more conscious of it he distinguished rough voices, which were raised from time to time in violent dispute – blurred, whining, ugly. He was startled by the wrenching open of a door, a shrill voice, and a missile that had accompanied the voice narrowly missing his head and breaking into fragments at his feet. A dark shape followed, tottering up from what must have been the basement of the house, and walking unsteadily along the path that separated the house from the pavement. It drew nearer to Titus, who felt no fear but a certain curiosity.

‘An don’ yer com back wivout it, you dirty bastard . . .’

The figure nearly tripped on the uneven paving stones and put out its hands to steady itself. It touched Titus’s hand, which had involuntarily stretched out to protect whatever or whoever was having so much difficulty in standing upright.

He heard a deep booming ejaculation, like a foghorn in the mist, just as eerie and portentous a sound: ‘Look where yer bleedin’ goin’.’

‘Sorry, I was in the way,’ was all that Titus could think of saying.

‘’Ere, got any money?’

Titus was able to see a little, in the dim street, of what this newfound companion looked like. He was small and thickset. His clothes were layered, one on top of the other, coats and jackets, and tied up with string. There was not quite enough light to see the face under the battered hat.

‘The name’s Mick. If I don’ get back wiv it, they’ll blow me brains out. Wha’s yer name?’

‘Titus.’

‘Blimey. Come on.’

Titus went where he was being pushed. As they walked, each in his different way, one fairly firm, the other cursing whenever he tripped, a stale smell began to envelop Titus, rank and thick, but sickly sweet at the same time. Mick cleared his throat and spat, Titus retched and turned away to ward off the appalling fumes.

‘I know. I stink. That’s why no woman’ll look at me.’

By holding his breath and keeping his mouth closed, Titus avoided the physical result of nausea, but he dared not speak, even if he had wanted to.

They reached the end of the road and came to another, very wide, very deserted and even more decayed and hopeless than the one where this encounter had begun.

Titus felt his hand being grabbed, ‘Give it us.’

He put his hand in his pocket and brought out most of the coins, which he put into Mick’s mittened hand.

‘Stay ’ere.’

Titus stayed. He heard voices, disputing, and the whining, cajoling tones of his friend. Then the door was pushed open and out he came, his pockets bulging and holding to his mouth a huge bottle from which he was draining as much as he could in as little time as possible, spilling what he couldn’t get down on to his outer coverings, to add to his malodour.

They walked back the way they had come, until they reached the house from whose bowels Mick had emerged.

‘Comin’ in?’

‘For a bit,’ answered Titus, as they groped their way down steps, which in earlier times would have led to an ordered world of pots and pans of burnished copper.

Mick gave three taps on a broken window and a low little whistle, then turned to Titus to gesture him to follow. One candle lit a scene, which could be called nothing if not squalid. The smell so thick that Titus felt it was tangible. Two hands grabbed at the pockets of the vagrant’s clothes, and it was luck only that saved the bottles from breaking, as they were pulled unceremoniously towards them, the man with them.

Ugly oaths were shouted, and two figures collapsed on the floor, seemingly all acrimony spent for the time being, as the silence was broken only by the gulps and belches of some need being mercifully satisfied.

In the corner of the once-room was a mound, a stack of newspapers that moved slightly, the paper rattling, but not crisply as an unread one. Nothing in this hole could be crisp, and it was only because of the pig-like grunts coming from under the paper that Titus knew there was something alive there.

The candle allowed a stranger no great glimpse into the secrets it was hiding in all but the small area it lit up, but what Titus could see were the remains of a kitchen dresser, from floor to ceiling, with drawers hanging open and empty spaces where other drawers had been. He could only make out what he thought were one or two broken cups.

Mick had escaped into his own private oblivion. The pile of newspaper on the floor crackled more urgently and a head appeared. The head was covered by some kind of woollen hat, but Titus thought it was a female head and when it spoke the tone was not rough or coarse. There was an elegance of speech in it, which pierced his imagination.

His mind went over the nature of those who had left the organised world for the anarchic; both male and female who belonged nowhere, whose choice was made for myriad reasons. He felt at one with them, despite the squalor and poverty. He recoiled from the stench but understood the freedom the dark basement offered where layers of ordered life were peeled away.

From the not quite crisp crackling of newspapers a thin hand emerged, stretching out for benison. The grimy nails and the blue veins appeared like tributaries, and the cultured voice called for anaesthetic. No help came from the inmates of this dank region; each one was isolated in his own realm. Titus wrenched the bloated bottle from Mick and transferred it to that skinny hand, which grabbed it, and gulped and gulped to drown reality.

Titus took the only candle, to discover for himself the nature of the face behind the hand. He held it close and saw two dead eyes, a fine nose, and lips which, when the bottle had been drained, opened on to the black cavern of teeth, little stumps of broken blackness, like the old tarred wooden posts of a forgotten beach breakwater. What he was looking at had once been a woman. As he decided to leave these remnants, he heard steps descending, and a light flashed across the room with the abruptness of the moon emerging from behind clouds. Suddenly voices broke the silence. The dark humps of humanity were being bundled out of the basement, up the squalid litter-thick steps. Titus felt himself being manhandled, pushed up the steps, out of the gate and into the waiting car.