Titus Awakes

27

Other Places, Other Work

TITUS WAS PUSHED beside Mick into the back of the car. There was no dissent. It must all have happened many times before but they were too old to be saved or indoctrinated. All that could be done was to move them from one place to another until their hearts gave out, their lungs collapsed, their spirits drowned and their eyes closed for the last time, but that was not quite yet.

Desultory voices spoke in the front of the car, until it stopped, then the pantomime recommenced. The clowns were pushed and shoved, and Titus with them. They found themselves in a brightly lit official room. The remnants were marked off and taken away.

‘Your name?’

‘Titus Groan.’

‘Not seen you before – occupation?’

‘Traveller.’

‘Vagrant?’

‘Means of support?’

Titus reached in his pocket and found the few remaining coins, which he put on the counter in front of him.

‘I see. A man of property!’

What was the point of speaking?

‘Take him away.’

He was led into a small room. The key turned in the lock.

He was exhausted and hungry, and too much of each to care for any other sensation. He fell into a thick, dark sleep. When he awakened his limbs ached and he stretched himself with the abandon of a cat. He could not think where he was. He closed his eyes and was startled to hear a voice, which came from above him.

‘Hello,’ it said.

He rubbed his eyes and his face, then tried to trace the sound. Light came from a tiny window above his head, and he began to try to read his surroundings like a map that was unfamiliar to him.

‘Well, hello then,’ it said again.

Titus remembered the events of the previous evening. He found himself on a hard mattress. He saw a barred door and uninviting walls of dun-coloured brick. He put his arm up and it met some iron slats, and as he raised his head, he saw a head leaning down towards him. It had a smile. It had a gingery-white beard. He could take in no more detail but that there was no animosity towards him.

‘Well, well. We’re in the same boat, then. What are you on, then? Drunk and disorderly, that’s me. Funny that. I’m an orderly you know. That’s why I’m drunk. Couldn’t take it. Had to get away for a bit. They’ll let me out now. They know me. Doesn’t happen often. I want to get back, but sometimes I go round the bend, like the lot of them. Anyway, sorry to talk so much. Can I help you? Anyway, what’s your name? What do you do?’

‘Titus.’

‘Titus?’

‘Yes. Titus Groan.’

‘Oh, well – I’m Peregrine Smith. Why are you here?’

‘No reason, really. I just ran into a basement, and I was prodded out of it.’

‘Oh, I know, Mick and his friends. I’ll help you. Do you want a job? That’ll do the job. We want a ward orderly. We want more, as many as we can get. Are you afraid? Had any experience?’

‘I’m not afraid, but it’s difficult to be afraid before I know what to be afraid of.’

‘A man after my own heart. I’ll tell them you’re with me and were merely trying to help the old friends. They’ll just want to make sure someone will speak for you. I’m going back this afternoon. You can come too. They’ll be only too glad to have you. I’ll vouch for you. Breakfast’ll be here soon. You hungry?’

‘I’m hungry – I’m dirty – I’m thirsty.’

‘Well, we’ll have a clean-up and then we’ll get going. There’s the wherewithal here,’ said Peregrine as he let himself down from the bunk above Titus’s head and pointed to the elementary articles of hygiene.

Ablutions and formalities completed, Titus and his newfound protector took their leave of their night’s jailers, and went out into the wide empty streets, where the rough wind was not blowing poetically through a field of corn, but was playfully toying with the sordid litter of an unlovely urban purgatory.

‘First, I suggest a breakfast fit for us, if not the gods. What do you say to that, Titus? Then we can get the coach. It takes us to outside the gates.’

The coach took them through the outskirts of the town, until it came to rather barren heathland.

‘It won’t be long now. If you look over there you’ll see the towers; we get off at the end of the drive. If we’re lucky there may be a staff car we can get a lift in. Otherwise it’s a good old walk.’

Titus looked across the heath and in the distance, partly hidden by trees, he saw gaunt and rather forbidding black towers, which gave him no sense of eagerness to know the place better.

Several people got off the coach at the same time as Titus and Peregrine, who acknowledged them by name. Walking forward a few yards they came to heavy iron gates, which were closed, but at their side was a gate through which they went. A porter’s lodge was on the inside, and a rather surly little wizened man asked for their papers.

Peregrine showed his papers, then motioned to Titus saying that he was coming to help in the wards.

‘Can’t take any responsibility for who you bring here, Smith.’

‘That’s all right, Tom. I’ll answer for him.’

‘If you say so – get on in.’

It was dusk by now, and the huge building in front of them was gradually being lit, which seemed to accentuate rather than diminish its formidable aspect; it was massive, aloof and rich in turrets.

Peregrine and Titus made their way through a large box hedge until they came to a side door, through which Peregrine ushered his companion. A gloomy yellow globe of light overhead did not conceal the archaic and ugly flaking walls of ochre, painted many years earlier.

‘We’ll go to the common room, then I’ll have a word with the super and I’ll fix you up with a room. Do you feel like starting work tomorrow, Titus?’

‘Yes, but I’d like to know a bit about what I’m to do.’

‘Oh, yes, I’ll initiate you – I’m the ward nurse on Ward 12 and I’ll keep an eye on you. Mind you, I can’t say you may not be a bit upset by it all, but I’ve got quite fond of some of them, though there are others – oh, lord, yes. It can be difficult, and they can be . . . you need your patience, and your humour, and your compassion, and your strength, and above all leave your mind alone, or you might find yourself an inmate too.’

Titus found himself in unfamiliar surroundings yet again. He let himself be led into them with his eyes open.