The White Room Read Free Page B

squeezed her shoulder.
    â€˜Sometimes people have secrets. Things that other people shouldn’t know about. They wouldn’t understand. You know that, don’t you?’
    Monica said nothing.
    â€˜I know you do. Your mam … well, it’s best not to say anything to her about where we’ve been. Understand?’
    Monica said nothing.
    â€˜I know you won’t. You’re a good girl.’ He gave a little laugh. ‘What we’ve got is special, you know that? What we’ve got—’ he looked around quickly ‘—is love. Real love. I know men aren’t supposed to say it, because it sounds sloppy, but I love you, Monica. You’re a special girl.’
    Monica swallowed the hot potato in her mouth.
    â€˜I love you too, Dad,’ she said, her voice a small, caged thing.
    Her father smiled.
    â€˜Good.’
    He squeezed her shoulder again. Monica put more burning food into her mouth.
    They walked home in silence.
    Later and the streets of Newcastle were damp and dark with night and drizzle. Jack didn’t care. He was elated. Those streets seemed transformed in his mind into avenues of possibility. What he had seen and heard in the Royal Arcade had, he felt, changed him.
    He had been nervous about going in, thinking the people there would have all been better read, better educated than him. But he had been welcomed unequivocally. For the most part they were just ordinary working-class men and women, coming along after finishing work or taking time off from household chores. He tried to remember names: Jack Common, Billy Beach. They had talked, even argued quite heatedly, violently, but Jack sensed it was a healthy argument; they were all on the same side.
    Jack had become lost at times trying to follow the conversations and had had just to sit back and accept the incongruity of the situation: in the rarefied and genteel atmosphere of the old Victorian Royal Arcade, shipworkers and bakers talked knowledgeably and at great depth about social justice, equality, politics and the arts. Admittedly, some of the plays and films he had never heard of, but he tried to catch some of the names: The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari was one, Battleship Something or Other was another. He sat there, nodding occasionally, sometimes offering a small opinion when asked. He was asked if he had been in the war. He had nodded, given rudimentary answers, not elaborating. There had been glances at his hair following that, but no questions, none of the staring, the fear he had encountered in Scotswood. These people seemed to know what had happened to him, or at least understood. There, in that company, he began to relax for the first time in months.
    More than that: it was as if windows and doors, long barred and boarded inside himself, had been flung open, allowing him access to inner places he had only suspected existed. He knew what wasn’t right within, where he didn’t belong. Now he felt he was beginning to discover where he did belong.
    Halfway though the evening, Jack Common had stood up and introduced the speaker: Mr Daniel Smith. A small man, about thirty, Jack reckoned, with neat hair and passionate eyes, he had taken the small stage, looked out at his audience and began to speak of his vision. He spoke with clarity, yet without betraying his working-class origins. His voice was that of the working man, of a shared commonalty.
    To Jack, he was revelatory. His vision, Daniel Smith said, was shared – he knew – by everyone in this room. ‘Oh, I know we sometimes argue—’ and here he pointed out certain faces, soliciting laughter among the knowing few ‘—but I know we’re all on the same side really. All of us. Everyone. Because we all share the vision of a new city, a new society. One in which the future isn’t something to fear but something to look forward to. And we look forward to this because it’s something we’ll all work together