Returning to Stone.

All that late winter and spring I rode the bus in the early afternoons down the ugly London road, noticing the queues at the eel-and-pie-shop, the students by the college, the blacks at the street corners. Then I would get off the bus, turn left, and walk through quieter streets, where the open space was desolate. In the porches of the council estates I only saw children, playing together in small knots. No one walked in the little park, with its dark verdant tunnel under the overhead railway line. The river was somewhere nearby, but access to it seemed to be barred, as it often was in those reaches of London where no one had yet thought of pleasure-walkways or shopping-malls.

I didn't have far to walk to the squat dark-brick Edwardian building that was my goal, and I wasn't often unhappy. For human company, undemanding pastimes, and even a small economic profit awaited me.

I was an unemployed single man of thirty-three, well-educated and of a passive temperament. I had spent ten years doing jobs I didn't enjoy, and now I was quite content to be on the dole. I had discovered that you can live in London on very little, if you have cheap accommodation and simple tastes.

I got up late, and ate my lunches at art arts centre. Three evenings a week I worked in a bookshop, getting paid in cash. The shop was open until ten, and often friends would arrive at that hour to take me to a pub. When I got home, I read into the night. At that time, I remember, I had become interested in the literature of late nineteenth-century France, and was reading Huysmans' A rebours and the Contes cruels of Villiers de l'Isle-Adam.

The months were turning quite nicely into years, and nothing disturbed my almost Buddhist serenity except the six-monthly interviews with Restart, the government agency "designed to assist people who have been unemployed for some time".

At one of these interviews, the official tired of my suggestions that I intended to start my own business and said I should join a Jobclub. These were groups of unemployed people who met in a room, under a supervisor, to try and find a job. They were provided with everything they needed: phone, writing-paper, stamps, photocopier. They only had to attend daily for three weeks; then it became optional. And they met in the afternoons.

So I said yes, and did that unremarkable journey for the first time on a frosty afternoon in January.

"And where have you been?" a middle-aged man standing at a counter asked me as I walked in. He had bushy eyebrows and a purplish face.

"I'm not late, am I?" I said. "The form I was given said it started at half-past two. I mean, I know it's going on for three now. But, you see, the first day I didn't know how long it took to get here."

"The Jobclub starts at two," he said loudly. "At two. Now, come over here and give me your name. The others are waiting to start."

I gave him my details, and sat down at a table where six or seven other people were already assembled. The man with bushy eyebrows busied himself meantime with writing something on a wall-chart.

A heavily-painted woman with hennaed hair turned to me. "My form said half-past two as well," she said. "I'm really beginning to wish I hadn't come. You see, I suffer from claustrophobia. I mean, this room is just about all right, but I couldn't exist in a lot of offices."

"No, I'm sure you couldn't," I said.

The man with bushy eyebrows gave two coughs. "Right," he said, "we'll start. I don't know where the others are. There were supposed to be fifteen of you here today. But we can't wait for them. Our business is urgent. Now first, I want you all to look at that sign over there."

We looked at where his finger was pointing. A large notice overhead said YOUR GOAL IS TEN JOB-LEADS PER DAY.

"That notice," he went on, "means what it says. We want you to aim for ten job-leads every day. Of course, you may not achieve ten every day. Some days it may only be five. Others two. It's the aiming that's important."

My alarm subsided. In those days, we were all so familiar with the notion that it doesn't matter what you achieve, as long as you try, or appear to try.

"Excuse me, sir," said the woman with hennaed hair. "I've got to be very careful what job-leads I work on. I suffer from claustrophobia. I've got my doctor's certificate here."

"All special problems will be dealt with later," he said. "We've got an officer from social security who comes in to deal with them on Thursdays. At present, we're just getting the general principles straight. Now, I'm Lancelot Pearson, and it's my job to help you find a job. Remember that, and we'll get on very well."

Two teenage boys, one black and one white, were sitting in a corner. "Fuck this, man," said the white boy.

The black boy took out a Walkman and began connecting it. "Can we have no music, please," said Lancelot.

The boy took no notice of him, and the instrument was soon chattering away. Lancelot did not attempt to restrain him further, but went on, "As I said, we're here to find a job. It'll be quite rewarding, mind you. You want to get a job, and we can provide everything here that you need to get one. Paper, pens ..."

Suddenly a small man with longish sandy-coloured hair, wearing a green woolly hat, was standing in the doorway, his eyes fixed downward into a sandy beard. "Excuse me," he mumbled. "Is this the Jobclub?"

"Certainly it is!" said Lancelot. His voice had become very loud again, and much more jovial. "Come in. All welcome!"

The bearded man came forward. He was of indeterminate age, anything from thirty-five to fifty-five. If he had been a little more unkempt you might have taken him for a tramp. He had a strange, shuffling walk, so that it seemed almost an accident that he reached a seat, which was next to mine.

Lancelot resumed his thread. He would give us a course of training during the first two weeks, but there would be plenty of time for our own private job-searches. We would be our own masters, but would get help when we needed it. As he talked, I was privately nursing a slight resentment that I had been rebuked for being late while the sandy-haired man had been welcomed, so to speak, with open arms. But I was later to learn that Lancelot preserved his authority by being friendly and tyrannical at random.

He concluded by saying that our first task was to produce our CVs. Curriculum Vitae was Latin, he said, but there was no need to bother our heads about that. He handed out samples of a model CV and forms on which to produce our own.

"I've already got a CV," I said. "It's perfectly adequate."

"Well, bring it in tomorrow," said Lancelot. "Those who've already got CVs, bring them in tomorrow. The rest, start writing them now. Right, there's tea and coffee in the kitchen. It's over there." He pointed vaguely.

The sandy-haired man, another man and I went in the direction he had seemed to indicate, but we didn't find the kitchen. The building was used for other socially-useful purposes, and we ran into a mothers' and toddlers' group descending from an upper floor. They didn't know where it was either. I addressed a comment to the sandy-haired man about the kitchen being very elusive, but he didn't answer. After a while, we returned to the Jobclub room, from which Lancelot had disappeared.

"The kitchen's over there," said the woman with claustrophobia, pointing to a nearby alcove. "It's wonderful, isn't it? They pretend they're going to find you a job, and they don't even know where their own kitchen is."

"Never mind," I said. "I'll make you some tea."

"Oh, that's nice of you, love. Actually, could I have coffee?"

When we had our drinks, the question arose, since I didn't intend to write a CV, of what I was to do. But a friend of mine had recently finished writing his novel, and proposed giving it to me in batches to photocopy at the Jobclub. I had the first hundred pages today.

Unfortunately the photocopier was leaving black smudges on every second copy it made. At this rate, reproducing Charles's novel was going to be a lengthy business. I had only done about four pages when Lancelot returned and gathered us around the table for our first training session.

This consisted mainly of a talk and various graphs illustrating how many efforts it took an average person to find a job. There were also prompt-sheets suggesting things we might have done, such as climbed Ben Nevis or joined a local society, and a form on which to fill in things we were good at and jobs we'd always wanted to do.

He also gave us hints about job-hunting. He told the story of one person who'd been to the Jobclub, who was very interested in tropical fish but had always worked as a driver. Then he saw an advertisement in his local pet-shop. He didn't get the job, but it had made him realise he could work in a pet-shop if the opportunity ever arose again.

After the training, Lancelot gave us travel expenses forms. I decided to claim a pound a day. Then I got him to help me eliminate the smudges on the photocopier. After much effort he seemed to succeed, and I went on until I had photocopied about sixty pages.

Then it was time to go home. The Jobclub officially finished at five, but Lancelot began shooing us away at twenty-to. Because it was winter, it was already dark. I was expected at the bookshop at seven, and reckoned I just had time to go home for a quick bite before setting out.

I turned up the collar of my coat and hurried away. I enjoyed the sensation of walking quickly through the frosty streets. The bus came immediately, and I began to look forward to being in my flat, if only briefly, and to being myself there.

So I began the routine of travelling to the Jobclub, which I did for almost six months, although more and more infrequently, from January to June of that year, the year I was thirty-three.

The Jobclub had a shifting population. On the second day, the two teenage boys walked out and were not seen again. On the Thursday an officer from social security came to interview the woman with claustrophobia, who likewise did not return.

But other people turned up intermittently, some of whom were apparently regulars. A talkative woman in her fifties called Lesley came some days. She had apparently gained and then lost a large number of jobs in a short time, but no one could stand talking to her for long enough to find out why this was.

A middle-aged black barrister came often. Like most of us, he had spent years in a complex process of achieving nothing much. After attending many schools, colleges and institutes, he had been called to the Bar when past forty, but now could not get a place in Chambers. I discovered all this because I typed out a neat version of his CV for him, something I also did for a middle-aged Vietnamese who spoke almost no English. I liked making these little gestures.

A youngish man with a moustache, and eyes like those of an intelligent dog, came one day in two. His name was Clive, and his boat was always just on the verge of coming in. He was waiting for an exotic form of training, which the authorities were constantly postponing.

"If the only thing stopping you getting a job is training, the only thing stopping you training is you," he quoted once bitterly. "Honestly, what a joke. I've got a good mind to write to somebody about this."

"Yes, go on, you write," I said.

"I could write to Thatcher herself," he went on. "That would be showing initiative."

"Yes, it would. Why not?"

"Yes, but you'd only get an official letter back saying, Mrs Thatcher has received your letter and noted its contents with interest. That bitch doesn't care. She's chucked us all on the scrap-heap."

"Yes, I suppose she has."

"Well, we're not here to serve her purposes. We're only here if we want to be."

"Oh, I agree. The last thing we're here for is to serve the bitch."

"I'm here to save heat and light. D'you want a coffee?"

Life at the Jobclub was not pressurised. Lancelot spelt words for us when we asked him, often incorrectly, and fought a losing battle with the photocopier. He was often on the phone, but his wife, who was apparently a basket-case, rang most days. Then he would often get us to tell her he was out. It wasn't always untrue, in fact, for Lancelot had many mysterious errands.

Most of us took time off the Jobclub with interviews or medical appointments, but one person who attended almost every day was the sandy-haired sharply-bearded man who had arrived late on the first day. His name was Dennis. He was very silent, and tended to repel approaches brusquely, spending his time typing letters slowly or mumbling on the phone to employers. I was always gentle and polite with him when I enquired, for instance, whether he wanted to use the typewriter before me.

At first he treated me much as he did the others, but about the beginning of the third week he began to open out. One day he sidled up to me as I was typing a letter, and it seemed clear that he was prepared for a conversation.

"Well, Dennis," I said, "how are you finding the Jobclub? Is it useful for you?"

"I don't know if it's useful," he said, mumbling as usual, and with his eyes turning away from my face as he spoke. "I've made quite a number of contacts with employers. But I've not had any responses yet."

I looked at him and thought: you'll never get a job. I said, "I suppose it's very difficult for all of us. We've just got to keep on trying."

"What's your line of work, then?" he asked.

"Well, first I trained as a teacher," I said. "But I never taught. Then I worked on a magazine. And now I'm unemployed. What about you?"

He hesitated, and mumbled even more. "Once I was a commercial artist. I did that for a long time. But then I became ill."

I looked at him, and wondered how many years had passed in this manner. I said, "What was your illness?"

"Oh, it's a complex illness," he said. "The doctors, even they don't know what it is. Sometimes I wonder what it is myself."

"One's health problems can be very mysterious, I suppose."

"Sometimes I think it's living in London that does it to me. Sometimes ... I think I want to go home. My mother lives in Staffordshire. In Stone. I'm thinking of going there. I've got a flat in London. A council flat. But I want to give it up and go home."

"Oh, you mustn't do that," I said, astonished. "If you've managed to get a council flat in London, it would be very foolish to give it up."

"I tried to give it up," he went on. "I arranged with a man to move my things. He said he would move them. But then he backed out at the last moment. He was a man you couldn't trust. And so I couldn't move."

"You really mustn't give up a council flat in London," I insisted again.

"I will give it up," he said. "When I can find a man to move my things. Then I'll go back to Stone ... I've got to write a letter now."

He moved away from me quickly, as if determined to bring his string of confidences to a definite end. I could tell he felt shaken at having told me so much so quickly.

After that he continued to hold these strange little conversations with me, always bringing them to an abrupt end. But I was glad Dennis talked to me, and glad too that each time he prolonged our conversations a little longer before his swift retreat.

Once, towards the end of the third week, I went into the toilets and heard someone crying, dry loud sobs, inside the cubicle. Dennis was out of the Jobclub room at the time, and I believe it was he who was so distressed. But I will never be sure. I went out quickly, without washing my hands.

Our third week came to an end. I told Lancelot I would not attend every day now but pop in once or twice or week. He insisted violently that our commitment was to come into the Jobclub every day until we found a job. I stood my ground, however, and he collapsed. I kept my promise over the next two months, during which winter turned into a watery spring, Lesley nattered, Clive philosophised, and Dennis did not as yet return to Stone.

It was early April, and suddenly Dennis stopped attending the Jobclub. It was of course possible that he had finally gone home, but the frightening thought struck me that we might never know what had happened to him. I raised the subject with Lancelot once, but he simply said, "That man's rubbish." This was the indifference and even brutality which made up one side of what I was realising was a complex character.

The weather entered a sudden warm spell in late April. One bright Sunday afternoon, feeling at a loose end, I went for a walk, through streets which were as peaceful as London streets ever are, just the odd blast of rap and the overhead train.

I came to a dusty common, which had a tea-pavilion at its centre, and decided to have some tea. I had been there for perhaps three minutes when I looked up and saw--Dennis. His beard had grown and he looked very dirty. Now you really would have taken him for a tramp. He hesitated for a moment when he saw me, and a smile of recognition played over his features.

"Oh, hello, Dennis," I said warmly. "Come and join me."

He began his shuffling walk towards me. He had a cup of tea in his hand, which was shaking slightly; as he sat down, the cup spilled, and he wiped the mess with a filthy handkerchief.

"That's better," he said, putting the handkerchief away. "I was hoping I would see you."

This puzzled me a little. It could hardly have been expected that we would meet; really, it was quite a coincidence. "Yes, well," I said, "I didn't know if I would see you again. You haven't been to the Jobclub for quite a time."

"No," he said, "I couldn't go there. There were things I had to do."

"What things were they?"

"Oh, things that had to be dealt with," he said, not looking at me again, and stirring his tea with his spoon.

"Oh, well," I said, "I suppose you can't go to the Jobclub if you're busy. I must admit I'm getting a bit busy for it myself."

"I needed to find a trustworthy person," he said rather deliberately. "To help me move my things."

"Oh," I said, "are you still thinking of moving to Stone?"

"I would like to go. I could find work there."

"Are you sure it would be easier to find work there? After all, London's a big place. I would have thought there were more opportunities here."

"It's impossible in London," he said. "I can't find anyone here. There it's different. But I'm not sure if I can go there. Things are very difficult. And I've been ill."

"Yes ..." His problems seemed so great, and at the same time so impenetrable, that it was almost an impertinence to offer advice.

"Actually," he said, "it was about that that I wanted to see you."

"Oh, yes ..."

"Well, you know that I've given up my flat?"

"Oh, have you?"

"Yes. But, you see, now I think that I can't move to Stone, I was wondering actually ... I know you've got a spare room in your flat. I was wondering if I could move in with you?"

He looked down into his tea-cup. I swallowed slightly. This was a very unexpected request to come from someone I really didn't know. Instinct told me that I must refuse immediately.

"Well, you know," I said, "I think that might be a bit difficult. I'm not sure that would be possible, to be honest."

"It would help me if I could share with you," he said.

I understood that he was appealing to my feelings, to my sense of pity, and even responsibility, for him. The alternative to his living with me might well be that he became homeless. But everything within me revolted against taking in such an obvious problem case. I'm sorry.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry, but I just can't do that."

"I was hoping you wouldn't react that way," he said.

"I'm sorry. Really I am. It's a question of space."

"I have to go," he said. "I have things to do."

He went away without giving me time to say anything more, and without finishing his tea. It was the sort of abrupt and troubling end to which he had brought all our conversations, and the last conversation we had.

During the next few weeks I too dropped out of the Jobclub. I quite enjoyed it but the trouble was, it wasn't useful for me. If I had been an aspirant writer like my friend Charles, I could have spent hours photocopying my works and dispatching them in bulky parcels. But without such ambition it was boring simply to collect stamps, steal writing paper and call people like Teresa in Aberdeen. And increasingly often, too, I felt depressed to be in a place where everyone spoke so eloquently of failure.

It was late June, and I hadn't been to the Jobclub for about three weeks. It was a Tuesday evening, after nine o'clock. This was one of the two evenings I didn't go to the bookshop, and I was lying in bed, dozing. Suddenly the phone rang in the sitting-room.

I sprang up naked to answer it. It was getting dark, but the sitting-room curtains were not drawn, and the room was shadowy.

"Hello," I said, trying to throw off the bewilderment of sleep.

"And top of the morning to you."

"Excuse me," I said. "Who is this?"

"Don't you know who I am?"

"No, I'm afraid I don't."

"It's Lancelot. Lance from the Jobclub. You haven't honoured us with your presence for some time."

I felt rather alarmed. Lancelot had never rung me before. "No, I couldn't come," I said. "I've been concentrating on applying from home. I find it easier."

"No doubt you do," he said. "We've quite missed you, though. Quite hurt we felt."

I really didn't like Lancelot in this playful mood. "Sorry, Lance," I said crisply.

"Well, joking over," he went on, "I've rung to tell you that our Jobclub is closing. This Thursday is the last day. They're rationalising all the Jobclubs, and from now on they're only going to run them in the mornings. I've got the address of one near you that you can attend if you want."

"Oh, good."

There was a silence. Then, mainly to cover myself I think, I said, "This Thursday's the last day, is it, Lancelot? Maybe I'll come in then. It'll be good to go there just one more time."

"That's nice of you. It'll be quite a gathering of the clans. Everyone coming back to say goodbye."

"It sounds rather nice," I said. "But what are you going to do now, Lancelot, if the Jobclub is closing?"

"Oh, I've been elevated, old boy. They've appointed me to run all the Jobclubs in quite a large area of the West Midlands."

"Oh, Lancelot, how fantastic!"

"Thanking you, sir," he said. "See you on Thursday then."

"On Thursday then." But he had already hung up.

And so I did the familiar bus:ride and walk, for the last time.

The Jobclub, when I got there rather late, was quiet. The "gathering of the clans" forecast by Lancelot had failed to materialise Clive was not there, and nor was the talkative woman Lesley. But the black lawyer had come, and the sad Vietnamese, facing our incomprehension stoically, after the sufferings of his native land.

There was also one entirely new person, or, at least, I had never seen him before. He was a tall young black man, handsome in a short-haired conventional way. Lancelot sent someone out to buy a packet of biscuits as a final gesture of celebration, and the young man handed them round, pressing a second biscuit on me when I took only one.

"You got to eat, man," he said. "How 'would I be successful in business if I didn't eat?"

"Are you successful in business?"

"I'm going to be. I'm going to be very successful. I'm only here for a little while. Then I'm going to start. And then, whoopee!"

"What is your business going to be?"

"Management computer consultancy. I've got it all set up. I've got an office already and a typist in there. Say, d'you want to see something?"

"I don't mind."

"Come over here. I'll show you something that'll really impress you."

He led me over to a table and picked up a large book. "These are clients," he announced. "Every one a client." He turned the pages. "You see, more clients ... And, on this page, more clients." Sweat was breaking out on his forehead.

I looked at the book. As far as I could see, it was an ordinary telephone directory listing business numbers. I said, "That's one hell of a lot of clients. You're very lucky."

"Every one a client," he repeated.

I detached myself from him, and went about my own business. I felt quite sentimental as I stole a wad of writing paper for the last time.

At the very end, we filed past Lancelot to say goodbye. "Thank you very much for all your help, Lancelot," I said.

"It was a pleasure, my boy. We do everything we can to help our customers. And they do everything they can. They try every way they know. They spare no efforts. Only they somehow never find ally jobs!" And he gave me a large wink.

"That's OK, Lancelot. Your help was useful, even if I didn't find a job."

When I got out into the warm afternoon, I found the young black man on the pavement. "Are you going this way?" he asked me.

"Yes, I am."

We walked along together. "What's your name?" I asked.

"Joshua."

He did not reciprocate by asking me mine. I suppose it didn't occur to him to do so.

"When do you start your business?" I enquired.

"Very soon. I can hardly wait, man. I'm going to make so much money. I'll be a millionaire in two years' time."

"Oh, that is good."

I wasn't paying much attention to him. For I was thinking about Dennis. I often wondered what had become of him, as it happened. Why, though? Our conversations had always been brief; I had never found out his address or surname; the fragmentary things he had told me were all I knew about him. And all I would know presumably, now that he had vanished, and the only possible link between us was severed.

Joshua and I came to the main road, and a bus was coming which would do for us both. We boarded, and sat down next to each other. Some way down the road, quite near my stop, we came to a litter-strewn paved area with park-benches, used mainly by tramps and junkies. It was rush-hour, and the bus inched slowly past this spot.

I looked out of the window. Only one figure was on the park-benches today. His head was slumped down, and he was probably unconscious. He was small and sandy-haired. Suddenly the thought struck me that this person was Dennis. It looked as if it might be, but how could I be sure?

The bus carried us on. For a moment I considered getting off to investigate. But I stayed in my seat, and a few seconds later realised that Joshua was talking to me. "Sorry," I said. "I just didn't hear you. Come again."

"You were miles away, man. I was asking you, why don't you do something like what I'm doing? You know, make money? Come with me, man, and be a millionaire!"

"What a good idea."

We came to my stop, and I said goodbye to him with my usual politeness. Then I walked quickly towards my flat. I was telling myself that I couldn't have done anything different about Dennis. No one would have done anything different. I reached my front door and turned the key that led into the peace and safety of my home.