Fault in the Structure

He himself had tried one kind of unskilled employment after another, disliking each a little more than the last. He particularly objected to his present job although it brought in a little more money than any of the others he had tried. The work necessitated the wearing of overalls and sometimes breaking the nails of his so far fastidiously-kept hands. It also brought back unwelcome memories of his autocratic wife who, as time went on, had become more and more authoritative and exacting and (what in his opinion was worse) more and more inclined to hang on tightly to the purse-strings.

One of the economies on which she had insisted was that small adjustments, tunings and running repairs to the family car should be made cheaply at home instead of expensively at a garage. Osbert had attempted to rebel against this, but his bid for independence was soon quashed. In the course of the years, therefore, he had become a reasonably competent mechanic and when the time came for a show-down between himself and his son, he was in the employment of a garage proprietor who specialised in tarting up and reconditioning used cars and selling them at a reasonable profit.

One of the perquisites of this particular employment was that there were opportunities for the mechanic to go joy-riding in the repaired cars. When he did so he imagined himself to be the owner and the car a brand-new and expensive model. During the school holidays, he occasionally took Alfrist with him on these jaunts, but there was little fellow-feeling between them. Alfrist despised his father and when it became clear at the beginning of the summer vacation that, instead of joining the privileged Sixth Form to sit his A levels, he really was to be put out to work, he renewed his protests.

‘I want to go to University,’ he said. ‘You’ve only got to keep me another two years, father. I’ll get a student grant after that. Why can’t I stay on?’

‘Money. Do you realise what your clothes cost, let alone your food?’

‘Mr Churt says I’m a cert for my A levels. I got nine Os, father.’

‘Yes, I know you did and they ought to stand you in good stead. You could get a very decent job in a bank, I shouldn’t wonder. You wouldn’t want your poor old dad to go on keeping you for another five or six years, would you? Even with a grant you’d cost me a lot of money.’

‘I’m your son and I reckon it’s your job to see me through. Look, dad, I’m not a cretin. I get jolly good marks all the time at school. I’m worth being given my chance.’

‘If your mother had lived, everything would have been different, you see,’ said Osbert, with the resentment he always felt when he thought about his wife.

‘Well, she didn’t live, so now it’s up to you,’ said the youth realising, however, that he was fighting a losing battle.

‘I can’t manage it, son. My health isn’t good. Never has been. It’s time you took on some responsibility. What would you do if I pegged out as, with my heart condition and the sort of work I do, I easily might?’

This argument carried no weight with his unsentimental son, who treated it with the contempt he felt it deserved by saying:

‘Oh, if anything happened to you, I should go and live with my grandfather in America, I suppose.’

The school term ended in mid-July and, as had been the case for several years, Alfrist found himself at a loose end with six or seven weeks of summer holiday to get through as best he might. He had no friends with whom to spend his time. He was still only tolerated at school, not liked. There were no holiday outings for him, either, except an occasional drive with his father when Osbert was trying out one of the reconditioned cars.

He might have found himself temporary employment, as many of the other lads did, but he felt that this would be playing into his father’s hands. He also decided that the kind of job he could get was far beneath his notice, for, with his mother’s obstinacy and pertinacity, he had inherited her wealthy-woman’s snobbishness. In the hotels in a neighbouring seaside town there were vacancies for temporary waiters, kitchen hands and porters, but Alfrist did not think for a moment of applying for any of them.

The consequence was that he was restless and bored. He spent a certain amount of his time in the reading and reference rooms of the local public library, but also, less admirably, he became adept at shoplifting, first because he wanted sweets or fruit which he had no money to buy; then just for the thrill of seeing what he could get away with and still escape detection. Later, because he found that in the Saturday street-market it was possible to dispose of stolen goods without being asked too many questions about how he had come into possession of them, he became more daring, but knew he was living dangerously.

Sometimes he really did think of writing to his American grandfather; sometimes he thought of his father’s question: What would you do if I pegged out? Sometimes he thought of both at the same time. On the last Wednesday of the holiday, when they were out for one of their infrequent spins in a recently reconditioned car, he made his last appeal to Osbert.

‘You do mean to let me go back to school and take my A levels, don’t you, father?’

‘Sorry, old man. Shouldn’t really have let you idle away these last six weeks,’ said Osbert. ‘You might have been settled in a nice little billet by now. Pity it didn’t occur to me sooner. I’m so much accustomed to your long school holidays that I never thought of putting you to work. Well, you’ve had your fun, so the best thing now is for you to turn up at school the first day of term and ask your headmaster for a reference. That’s another thing I’ve only just remembered. We ought to have seen to it before you left.’

‘If I go back they’ll expect me to stay, so why jolly well can’t I?’ demanded the boy.

‘There’s no question of it, son. I’ve told you that I simply can’t afford to keep you on at school any longer. I’m surprised you don’t want to pull your weight to keep our home going. It’s not a very manly attitude, is it?’

‘I’d be able to pull a much heavier weight if I got my A levels and my degree,’ said Alfrist sullenly.

‘That’s enough! We’d better be getting back to the garage now,’ said Osbert. ‘I’ve got a customer coming to look over this car at six.’

‘When you’ve turned her, let me drive a little, Dad. You know I can handle a car,’ said Alfrist, changing his sullen tone to one of conciliation and pleading.

‘Public road. You’re under age,’ objected his father.

‘There’s never much traffic along here. Anyway, couldn’t we go back by way of the fenced lane? That’s always empty and there are never any police about.’

‘We can go that way if you like,’ said his father, relieved by the change of tone, ‘and, if there’s nobody about, I