Читать книгу The Middle of the Road - Philip Gibbs - Страница 5

Table of Contents

It was the nurse who told him how to arrange for the child’s burial, and he went round to an undertaker’s in Church Street, Kensington, jostled by smart women, very bright at their morning’s shopping so that he hated them. The undertaker’s clerk was respectful but surprised when Bertram explained his errand.

“It’s not usual, sir, to have a funeral for a still-born infant.”

“What then?” asked Bertram.

The man coughed.

“As a rule we just fetch them away.”

“Damn it!” said Bertram, with astonishing violence, “I want you to arrange a funeral.”

He arranged for an oak coffin with a brass plate, on which the name “Bertram Pollard” was to be inscribed.

Before the little coffin was closed, Bertram carried it into Joyce’s room, according to a wish she had whispered to the nurse. It was like a toy coffin with a doll inside. Joyce’s eyes filled with tears but she turned her head away and did not speak a word.

“My dear! My dear!” said Bertram. Although he had walked with death so long he was distressed beyond all words by this little corpse. His own name on the coffin startled him when he first saw it. It seemed symbolical of something that had died in himself, his spirit of youth; his hope.

“If I were you, I’d get about a bit and see your friends,” said the nurse, as they sat together in the carriage with the coffin on Bertram’s knee.

She was a nice human soul, who had been a nurse in the War and had learnt pity for men.

“Most of my real pals are killed,” said Bertram.

The nurse laughed, not heartlessly but to cheer him up.

“See those who are still alive. It’s no use brooding. Carry on!”

It was the old rallying word of the War. It had some effect on Bertram even now. He straightened up.

“I wish I could get a job, nurse!”

“We want another nice little war,” she answered.

He looked at her sideways.

“Do you mean that?”

She smiled back at him.

“You know you’ve thought so, sometimes! So have I. War’s hell, of course. But there was something about it—”

“It’s the impulse that’s gone,” said Bertram. “There doesn’t seem to be any kind of purpose—”

“Love, life, work,” said the nurse.

Bertram said, “Yes. Yes, of course!” and then, “I can’t get the hang of things, quite. I’m just floundering, aimless. And anyhow, there’s no work for my type. I was all right with machine guns. They’re not wanted now.”

“Men are wanted, and always will be,” said the nurse. “Proper men, like you.”

That cheered him. He said no more until the tiny coffin was lowered into the earth and the nurse and he were on their way back.

“Nurse,” he said, “I’ll get a job if I die for it.”

“Get a job and live for it,” answered the nurse. “Here’s luck!”