Ben, in the World

A man came to him, sat down, and asked if he was looking for work. This was how Ben found himself on the farm. He went with Matthew Grindly because he knew that from now on any member of the two gangs seeing him would summon his mates, and he would be beaten up again.

The farm was well away from any main road, down an overgrown and muddy lane. It was neglected, and so was the house, which was large, and bits of it were shut off where the roof leaked too badly. This farm had been left twenty years before by their father to Mary Grindly, Matthew Grindly, and Ted Grindly. A farm, but no money. They were pretty well self-sufficient, living off their animals, fruit trees, the vegetable garden. What fields there were – one after another they had been sold off to neighbouring farmers – grew fodder. Once a month, Mary and Matthew – now Mary and Ben – walked into the village three miles off to buy groceries, and liquor for Ted. They walked because their car was rusting in a yard.

When money was needed for food, electricity, rates, Mary said to Matthew, ‘Take that beast to market and get what you can for it.’ But bills were ignored for months at a time, and often not paid at all.

This disgraceful place tended to be forgotten by everyone: the locals were part ashamed because of it, and part sorry for the Grindlys. It was known that ‘the boys’ – but they were getting old now – were not far off feeble-minded. They were illiterate, too. Mary had expected to marry, but it had come to nothing. It was she who ran the farm. She told her brothers what to do: mend that fence… clean out that byre… take the sheep for shearing… plant the vegetables. She was at them all day and bitter because she had to be. Then it was Matthew who was doing all the work: Ted was drinking himself to death quietly in his room. He was no trouble, but he couldn’t work. Matthew was getting arthritic, and he had chest problems, and soon the hard work was beyond him too. He fed the chickens and looked after the vegetables, but that was about it.

Ben was given a room, with poor furniture in it – very different from the pleasant rooms he had been brought up in. He could eat as much as he wanted. He worked from daylight to dark, every day. He did know that he did most of the work, but not that without him the farm would collapse. This farm, or anything like it, would soon become impossible, when the European Commission issued its diktats, and its spy-eyes circled for ever overhead. The place was a scandal, and a waste of good land. People came tramping along the lane and through the farmyard, hoping to buy it – the telephone had been cut off, for non-payment – and they would be met by Mary, an angry old woman, who told them to go away, and slammed the door in their face.

When on the neighbouring farms they were asked about the Grindlys, people tended to equivocate, siding with them against officialdom and the curious. If they lost the farm, what would happen to those poor derelicts, Ted and Matthew? They would find themselves in a Home, that’s what. And Mary? No, let the poor things live out their time. And they had that chap there who’d come from somewhere, no one knew where, a kind of yeti he looked like, but he did the work well enough.

Once, when Ben had gone with Mary to the village to carry groceries back, he was stopped by a man who said to him, ‘You’re with the Grindlys, they say. Are they doing right by you?’

‘What do you want?’ asked Ben.

‘What are they paying you? Not much if I know the Grindlys. I’ll make it worth your while to come to me. I’m Tom Wandsworth… ’ – he repeated the name, and then again, ‘… and anyone around here will tell you how to get to my farm. Think about it.’

‘What did he say?’ Mary asked, and Ben told her.

Ben had never been given a pay-book, and terms and conditions of work had not been mentioned. Mary had given him a couple of quid when they went to the village so he could buy toothpaste, that kind of thing. She was impressed that he cared about his personal cleanliness, and liked his clothes neat.

Now she said, ‘I’m keeping your wages for you, Ben. You know that.’

How could he know? This was the first time he had heard about it. Mary believed that he was stupid, like her brothers, but now saw trouble loom.

‘You don’t want to leave us, Ben,’ she said. ‘You’d not do better with anyone else. I’ve got a good little bit of money put aside for you. You can have it any time.’

She pointed to a high-up drawer in her room. Then she fetched a chair, made him stand on it, and held the back steady. There were rolls of notes in the drawer. To Ben it seemed more money than he had imagined possible.

‘Is that mine?’ he asked.

‘Half of it is yours,’ said Mary.

And when he had gone out of the room, she hid it somewhere else.

It was Mary he did not want to leave, though he was fond of the cow and enjoyed the antics of the pigs. He thought Mary was good to him. She mended his clothes, bought him a new thick jersey for the winter, and gave him plenty of meat to eat. She was never cross with him, as she was with her brothers.

He had a life the others did not guess at. They all went to bed early, with nothing to occupy their minds, and no television: Ted was usually drunk and snoring by nine or ten, and Mary listened to the news on the radio, and went to her room afterwards. Ben slid out over the sill of his window when the house was quiet, and went about the fields and woods, alone and free – himself. He would catch and eat little animals, or a bird. He crouched behind a bush for hours to watch fox cubs playing. He sat with his back against a tree trunk and listened to the owls. Or he stood by the cow with his arm around her neck, nuzzling his face into her; and the warmth that came into him from her, and the hot sweet blasts of her breath on his arms and legs when she turned her head to sniff at him meant the safety of kindness. Or he stood leaning on a fence post staring up at the night sky, and on clear nights he sang a little grunting song to the stars, or he danced around, lifting his feet and stamping. Once old Mary thought she heard a noise that needed investigation, went to a window, and caught a glimpse of Ben, and crept down in the dark to watch and listen. It really did make her scalp prickle and her flesh go cold. But why should she care what he did for fun? Without him the animals would be unfed, the cows would stay unmilked, the pigs would have to live in their dirt. Mary Grindly was curious about Ben, but not much. She had had too much trouble in her life to care about other people. Ben’s coming to the farm she saw as God’s kindness to her.

Then Ted fell down some steps when drunk, and died. Surely Matthew should have been next, the half-crippled coughing man, but it was Mary who had a heart attack. Officials of all kinds suddenly became curious, and one of them, demanding to see accounts, asked Ben questions about himself. Ben was going to say something about the money owed to him, but his instincts shouted at him, Danger – and he ran away.

He picked apples on a cider farm, and then he picked raspberries. The other pickers were Poles, mostly students, flown in by a contractor of labour, jolly young people determined to have a good time in spite of the long hours they had to work. Ben was silent and watchful, on his guard. There were caravans to sleep in, but he hated that closeness, and the bad air, and when he had finished eating with them, at night, listening to their songs and their jokes and their laughter, he took a sleeping bag into a wood.

When the picking was finished he had a good bit of money, and he was happy, because he knew that it was having no money that made him helpless. One of the singing and joking young people stole his money from his jacket that was hanging above him on a bush where he lay asleep. Ben made himself go back to the farm, thinking of all that money in the drawer, and half of it belonging to him, but the house was locked, the animals were gone, and there were already nettles growing close up around the house. He did not care about Matthew, who had scarcely spoken to him except for unkind remarks such as when the old dog died – ‘We don’t need another dog, we’ve got Ben.’

He went home to find his mother but she had moved again. He had to use his wits to find where she was. A house, but nothing like the one he thought of as home. He could not make himself go in, because he saw Paul there, and the rage that was his enemy nearly overcame him.

So he took the old, old road to London, rich London, where surely there must be a little something for him too. There he did find work, was cheated again, lost heart, and Ellen Briggs found him starving in a supermarket.

On the dark pavement outside Mimosa House there seemed to be no one about, but Ben knew how at night a shadow could lengthen and become an enemy, and, turning a corner, he nearly ran into a drunk who was lurching about and swearing and muttering. Ben swerved past and ran across empty streets, not bothering about lights. Not until he reached Richmond did he begin using the crossings, telling himself, Go on green, Stop on red. There were people about now, quite a lot. On he went, following instincts that worked well if he didn’t confuse them with maps and directions, and then he was in a high street and he was hungry. He went into a cafe that said ‘Breakfast All Day’, and, as always in a new place, looked hard at faces for that surprised stare that might turn out to be dangerous. But it was too early for people to be noticing much. He was careful to eat his breakfast slowly and attentively, and left the cafe feeling pleased with himself. Off he went again, and by midday was crossing fields with the sun spreading warmth everywhere. Then he was in a wood. A thrush was riffling about in last year’s leaves. He caught it easily, had its feathers off, and ate it in a couple of crunches. The mate came to investigate. The two birds and their hot blood stayed a craving that was always with him and then he went on, fast, though not running because he knew that brought people after him. In a service station he bought a bottle of water and came out of the shop to see a motorbike roaring to a stop. Ben went to it, pulled by his love for the shining, bright, powerful machine. He stood grinning – his little smile of pleasure. The youth on the machine suppressed any doubts he might have had about this odd-looking bearded man, because he recognized a compatriot in his country, a lover like himself, and he said, ‘Watch it a minute,’ and went into the shop. When he came out Ben was stroking the handlebars, with a look on his face that compelled this young man who normally would let no one so much as touch his machine, to say, ‘Get on, then.’ And Ben leaped up and off they went.

‘Where are you going?’

‘This way,’ Ben shouted into the wind.

The great machine growled and roared and bounded along, they were whisking through the traffic, and Ben was roaring too: it sounded like a song, a shout of triumph, and the youth driving, hearing all this exultation just behind him, laughed and yelled too, and then began singing a real song, which Ben did not know, though he joined in.

Now there was a little town. There the motorbike turned sharply left, and in a moment had left streets behind for country, but Ben was shouting, ‘Put me down, I’m going wrong.’

The youth yelled, ‘Why didn’t you say?’ and turned the machine in a dangerous swoop in front of cars and lorries, and they sped back to the town centre. ‘Here?’ yelled the youth, and Ben shouted, ‘Yes.’

He was on the pavement in the middle of the town, and the bike was speeding away, and the youth was giving him the thumbs-up.

Ben set his face to where he knew he must go and walked on, thinking of the motorbike, and his teeth were showing white in his beard, from happiness. They had covered a good distance. Ben would reach where he would have to be hours before he had thought; and in fact he was walking into the road he knew so well by mid-afternoon. There was the house, the big wonderful house, with the garden all around it and there… He was looking at windows that had bars on them, and at once a cold but vigorous anger was taking hold of him. Bars: the bars had been for him. He had stood up there shaking those bars with both of his strong fists, and they had not given way at all; only where the bars were set into the walls were bits of paint flaking from all his shaking, showing how little use his strength was. But the anger he felt now was being driven away by a stronger need, pulling him towards the house. His mother, he wanted to see his mother. Because of the kindness of that old lady, he had remembered that other kindness, and understood that that was what it had been: she, like the old lady, had not hurt him, she had come to rescue him from that place… And out of the front door came small children, running. He did not know them, and thought, Of course, they’ve moved. His mother wouldn’t be here now. He turned away from the house, his home, and began walking this way and that through the streets, like a dog nosing for a scent, but it was not a scent he was after; he had actually seen the other house, the one the family had moved to… but wait, there had been another house, after that, and it was the address of that house his mother had put on the big card. It was that house he was moving towards, but it was not what he needed. He had never been to the house where they lived now. He had no way of finding it: he did not have in his mind a pattern of streets, smells, bushes, gates. What now? A desperation like a howl made his chest hurt, and then he thought, Wait, the park, that’s where she’ll be. And he went to the little park where he had played so often with his brothers and sisters. Or rather, where he had watched them play, because they complained he was rough. When he played it had been by himself, or with his mother.

There was a bench he knew well. His mother loved that park, and that bench, and she would sometimes sit there all afternoon. But the bench was empty. Ben understood one thing, that if he walked about a place for too long people would start noticing him. He did walk about for as long as he dared, glancing into people’s faces for ‘the look’, and then sat on a bench from where he could see the bench, which he thought of as his mother’s. He waited. He was hungry again. He left the park to find the little cafe he had used with his gang of mates, the gang he had bossed and led, but the cafe had gone. He bought a meat sandwich from a machine, and returned to the park, and there he saw her, he saw his mother, sitting with a book in her hand. Her shadow lay across grass almost to where he stood. He was repeating in his mind all the things he must ask her, her new address, his exact age, his birth date, did she have his birth certificate? A loving happiness was filling him like sunlight, and then, ready with his questions, ready to greet her, he saw coming towards her across the park grass – Paul; it was Paul, the brother he had hated so terribly that thoughts of killing him once and for ever had filled hours of his childhood. There he was, a tall, rather weedy young man, with long arms and bony hands, and his eyes – but Ben knew those eyes without having to see them: large, hazy blue eyes. Paul was smiling at his mother. She patted the bench beside her and Paul sat down, and the mother took Paul’s hand and held it. A rage so terrible that Ben’s eyes darkened and seemed to bleed was shaking him. He wanted to push him down and… There was one thing he knew, and he knew it very well, because of so many bad things… There were certain feelings he had that were not allowed. Until this rage, this hate, left him alone he could not go anywhere near his mother, near his brother, Paul. But the feelings were getting worse, he could hardly breathe, and through a red glare he watched his mother and that tormentor, that impostor who had always stood between him and his mother, get up and walk away together. Ben followed, but at a good distance. His rage now was being used up by a determination not to be seen. He did not crouch: that was for forests or woods, and he stood upright and walked quietly, well behind the two he followed. Then, there was a house, a rather bigger one than the one they had moved into first, in a garden, and he saw them open a gate, let it swing back, and go together into the house.

Ben was working things out. The house his mother had moved into away from the big house was small. He remembered her saying, ‘Big enough for me and Paul.’ Which he had understood as But not big enough for you too. If she had moved again, and to a bigger house, then that meant the others were there? Or some of them? He knew that they were all grown-up, but what he remembered was the family growing – children growing. In his mind was that other house, crammed with children, and with people. There wouldn’t be room for a lot of people in this house… He had to simmer down, become calm, lose the need to kill: he walked off around the block, came back, walked about some more, returned, and the front of this new house seemed as blank as an unfriendly face. Then he saw his father walk fast along the pavement. He could have seen Ben by raising his eyes, but he was frowning, preoccupied, and did not look up. Ben knew he could not loiter there for much longer. People noticed, they were always on the watch, even when you thought you saw only blank walls and windows, there were eyes when you did not expect them. He walked around the block again and this time saw Luke going into the house. With him was a small child: the idea that Luke was a father was too much to take in. He was thinking that the family were here, together – his family. He could go in and say, Here I am. And then? He knew they had split up because of him, they quarrelled about him. Only his mother had stood by him. She had come to that place where they kept hoses of freezing water coming at him and had taken him home… But the others had wanted him to stay there, wanted him dead.

It was getting dark. The street lights were out. Friendly night was here. But at night you did not linger too long on a pavement outside a house. He walked past the house, whose lights softly shone at him, Come in, and walked back again. He could hear the sounds that meant television. He could go in and sit down and watch the TV with them. And as he thought this he clearly saw how Paul would scream that he could not stay in the same room with him, he saw his father’s cold face that always seemed to be turned away from him, Ben. Suppose he just went in and said to his mother, ‘Please give me my birth certificate. Just give it to me and I’ll go away.’ But the rage was pumping up inside him, because all he could see was Paul, who hated him so much. The anger was making his fingers twist and curl; the need to be around that thin neck that would break and crack…

He walked away from his family, left it for ever, and the pain he felt cooled his anger. He felt wet damping his beard, and then running through it on his chin. He was so hungry again. He must be careful: night people were different from in the day. Better not risk sitting down at a table… He went to a McDonald’s, bought a fat juicy lump of meat, threw away the salad and the bun, and ate quickly as he walked. Then he was out of the town, and his face was set for London, for the old woman. He had four pounds left and it was not likely he would have luck again with a motorbike. He was so sad, so lonely, but the dark was his home, night was his place, and people did not look at you so dangerously at night – not, that is, if you weren’t in the same room with them. Now he was on a country road, and the sky over him was blurred and soft with stars that had thin cloud running across them. Near him was a little clump of trees, not a wood, but enough to shelter him. He found a bush, settled himself in it, and slept. Once he woke to hear a hedgehog puffing and snuffling near his feet. He could catch it as he sat. What stopped him was not the fear of the prickles in his palms, but a knowledge of prickles on his tongue: you could not bite into a hedgehog as you would a bird. He woke with the first cool breath of dawn. No birds: this was only a thin straggle of trees, and he could see that the houses began quite soon, he could hear traffic. He would reach his part of London about midday. Ahead were hours of his careful, wary walking – and his stomach, oh his stomach, how it begged for food. His hunger hurt and threatened him. It was not an easy hunger: the thin taste of bread or a bun could not satisfy it. It was a need for meat, and he smelled the rawness of blood, the reek of it: yet this hunger was dangerous to him. Sometimes, when he had gone into a butcher’s shop, pulled there by the smell, his body had seemed to engorge with wanting, and his arms stretched out of their own accord towards the meat. Once he had grabbed up a handful of chops, and stood gnawing them, the butcher’s back being turned, and then the sounds of crunching had made the man whip around – but Ben had run, run – and after that he did not go into these shops. Now he was thinking as he walked of how he could get his hands on meat without spending the four pounds.

His feet were taking him to – he stood outside the tall wire of a building site, looking down into the scene of piled wet earth, machines, men in hard hats. He had worked there for some days, taken on because of those shoulders and arms that could support girders and beams needing two or three men to lift them. The others had stood watching as he shoved and shouldered and lifted. He had wanted to join with them, their jokes, their talk, but did not know how to. He had never understood, for example, why the way he spoke was funnier than the way they did. Their eyes when they looked at him had been grave, wary. At the end of a week, pay day. These were all men working illegally for one reason or another, and they were paid less than half the union rate. But Ben had earned enough money to take to the old woman, and she had been pleased with him. Two more weeks… and a new man had arrived on the job and from the first he had needled Ben, taunted him, grunted and growled. Ben had not at first known that these were meant to be his sounds, nor had he at once understood when the man had pushed and jostled him, once dangerously, when Ben was standing high, streets far below, his feet straddled from beam to beam over space. The foreman had sharply intervened, but after that Ben had kept an eye on this youth, a grinning, careless, show-off redhead, and had tried to keep out of his way. Another week. The money had been paid out inside a little shelter the men used for moments of rest, or when it was raining too badly. He and the redhead had been last in the line to be paid, and this was how his enemy had planned it, for when Ben’s envelope was put into his hand, the young man had grabbed it from him and run off, grunting and scratching himself and crouching low and bounding up, and then again: Ben had known this was meant to be a monkey. He had visited the zoo, moving from cage to cage looking at beasts whose names he had been called, ape, baboon, pig-man, pongo, yeti. There was no yeti in the zoo, nor a pongo either, and he had wondered about them, for he knew he was looking for something like himself.

He had looked helplessly at the foreman, hoping he would protect him, and had seen him grinning, and had seen on the faces of the men standing about, their envelopes in their hands, that look, that grin. He had known he would not get help from them. He had worked a full week for nothing. He had been so full of murder that he had had to walk away from it, and had heard the foreman call after him, ‘If you’re here on Monday, there’ll be something for you.’ Meaning, not money, but work for those great shoulders of his that had saved them, the others, so much effort. And he was back on Monday, at first looking down into the site, hands on the wire, as if he had been inside it and not out, as if it were a cage, and down there were the men he had worked with, but the redhead had not been there. That was because he had grabbed Ben’s money and was afraid to come back. Ben had worked that week slowly, carefully, watching faces, watching eyes, moving out of their way, or positioning himself to take the big weights that were easy for him and not for them. And then, at the end of the week in his envelope had been half the money that was due him. He knew that was half what proper builders got, real workmen, who were not working illegally; but that half was now half again. The foreman had stared him out. It was not the usual foreman, who was sick: this man had come the day before yesterday off another job, to fill in. The men had stood around, watching, their faces kept expressionless. They had been expecting him to complain, make a fuss, even start a fight; they had had their eyes on his big arms and fists. But Ben knew better: he would get the worst of it. He had looked carefully around, from face to face, and had seen them waiting, and had seen, too, that one at least was sorry for him. This man had said something in a low voice to the new foreman, who had simply turned his back and walked away – with the money due to Ben in his own pocket.