My Autobiography

the floor, scattering gold and silver coins in all directions. The effect was surrealistic. No one moved. The landlady sat glum, but I caught her roving eye following a golden sovereign rolling to a far corner under a chair; my eye also followed it. Still no one moved, so I thought I had better start picking it up; the landlady and the others followed suit, picking up the rest of the money, careful to make their actions overt before Father’s menacing eyes.
One Saturday, after school, I came home to find no one there. Sydney, as usual, was away all day playing football and the landlady said Louise and her son had been out since early morning. At first I was relieved, for it meant that I did not have to scrub floors and clean knives. I waited until long after lunch-time, then began to get anxious. Perhaps they had deserted me. As the afternoon wore on, I began to miss them. What had happened? The room looked grim and unyielding and its emptiness frightened me. I also began to get hungry, so I looked in the larder, but no food was there. I could stand the gaping emptiness no longer, so in desolation I went out, spending the afternoon visiting nearby market places. I wandered through Lambeth Walk and the Cat, looking hungrily into cook-shop windows at the tantalizing steaming roast joints of beef and pork, and the golden-brown potatoes soaked in gravy. For hours I watched the quacks selling their wares. The distraction soothed me and for a while I forgot my plight and hunger.
When I returned, it was night; I knocked at the door, but no one answered. Everyone was out. Wearily I walked to the corner of Kennington Cross and sat on the kerb near the house to keep an eye on it in case someone returned. I was tired and miserable, and wondered where Sydney was. It was approaching midnight and Kennington Cross was deserted but for one or two stragglers. All the lights of the shops began going out except those of the chemist and the public houses, then I felt wretched.
Suddenly there was music. Rapturous! It came from the vestibule of the White Hart corner pub, and resounded brilliantly in the empty square. The tune was The Honeysuckle and the Bee, played with radiant virtuosity on a harmonium and clarinet. I had never been conscious of melody before, but this one was beautiful and lyrical, so blithe and gay, so warm and reassuring. I forgot my despair and crossed the road to where the musicians were. The harmonium-player was blind, with scarred sockets where the eyes had been; and a besotted, embittered face played the clarinet.
It was all over too soon and their exit left the night even sadder. Weak and tired, I crossed the road towards the house, not caring whether anyone came home or not. All I wanted was to get to bed. Then dimly I saw someone going up the garden path towards the house. It was Louise – and her little son running ahead of her. I was shocked to see that she was limping exaggeratedly and leaning extremely to one side. At first I thought she had been in an accident and had hurt her leg, then I realized she was very drunk. I had never seen a lopsided drunk before. In her condition I thought it best to keep out of her way, so I waited until she had let herself in. A few moments later the landlady came home and I went in with her. As I crept up the darkened stairs, hoping to get to bed unnoticed, Louise staggered out on to the landing.
‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’ she said. ‘This is not your home.’
I stood motionless.
‘You’re not sleeping here tonight. I’ve had enough of all of you; get out! You and your brother! Let your father take care of you.’
Without hesitation, I turned and went downstairs and out of the house. I was no longer tired; I had got my second wind. I had heard that Father patronized the Queen’s Head pub in the Prince’s Road, about half a mile away, so I made my way in that direction, hoping to find him there. But soon I saw his shadowy figure coming towards me, outlined against the street-lamp.
‘She won’t let me in,’ I whimpered, ‘and I think she’s been drinking.’
As we walked towards the house he also staggered. ‘I’m not sober myself,’ he said.
I tried to reassure him that he was.
‘No, I’m drunk,’ he muttered, remorsefully.
He opened the door of the sitting-room and stood there silent and menacing, looking at Louise. She was standing by the fireplace, holding on to the mantelpiece, swaying.
‘Why didn’t you let him in?’ he said.
She looked at him bewildered, then mumbled: ‘You too can go to hell – all of you!’
Suddenly he picked up a heavy clothes-brush from the sideboard and like a flash threw it violently, the back of it hitting her flat on the side of her face. Her eyes closed, then she collapsed unconscious with a thud to the floor as though she welcomed oblivion.
I was shocked at Father’s action; such violence made me lose respect for him. As to what happened afterwards, my memory is vague. I believe Sydney came in later and Father saw us both to bed, then left the house.
I learned that Father and Louise had quarrelled that morning because he had left her to spend the day with his brother, Spencer Chaplin, who owned several public houses round and about Lambeth. Being sensitive of her position, Louise disliked visiting the Spencer Chaplins, so Father went alone, and as a revenge Louise spent the day elsewhere.
She loved Father. Even though very young I could see it in her glance the night she stood by the fireplace, bewildered and hurt by his neglect. And I am sure he loved her. I saw many occasions of it. There were times when he