MORNING SERIAL
THEY stopped to talk to a policeman. You saw him in uniform pointing up the road, and up the road was the workhouse.
The woman was swollen with a life unborn. God, what a world! A new life to be born to parents with no clothes to their backs, and no place to go. And yet so many have so much. It made you mad, remember? You felt like saying to the wretched couple: “Come with me, and I’ll give you everything I’ve got.” But you couldn’t do that because you had your own troubles to consider. When you weighed up everything, you were not much better off yourself. You had nothing to give. Some day you might be pushing a pram around and looking for a place to sleep, and asking a policeman the way to the workhouse.
Remember how once you planned a holiday? Things we’re going well then. But did you really plan a holiday? What plans could you make? Could you say: “I’m going for a month’s vacation to Blackpool”? Oh, yes, you did say so. Well, there’s no harm in just saying it. You could even say, and prove at the same time, that you had twenty-five pounds saved in the Post Office ready for the holiday. But wait, brother! What if you were taken ill? What if the foundry closed down and you became unemployed? What if you were sacked? What if your wife fell ill, or your child? You weren’t married? Well then, if your mother, or father, or sister, or brother became ill, and depended on you for help? What of your twenty-five pounds then, and your lovely dreamed-of holiday on golden sands, with music, laughter and silken girls? “Oh, you mustn’t think of things like that,” you say. “It’s too depressing.” You said it, brother. Your whole existence is depressing. You have no security. You have no right to plan a vacation: Now, if you were one of the privileged few you would, and could, arrange your future in a more methodical and certain manner. Then you could say: “I’m going to Blackpool for six months,” or you could choose Madeira — “— that’s where they go to chase the sun and pretty ladies. You could even say: “I’m going to reserve a suite” — a suite, mind you, not a single room in a cheap boarding house, two-and- sixpence bed and breakfast.