had sometimes worked. He kept one eye on the rapid movements of his flimsy rake, and the other on a small pile of wood covered with a sack nearby. Bert had promised to be at the tips later, and Brian hoped heâd come soon to get something from the four lorriesâand the convoy of high-sided horsecarts trailing at walking pace behind.
âWhereâs it cominâ from, mate?â Brian asked. Steelpins were popped out and the back ascended slowly. Half a dozen men, waiting for the avalanche of promise, watched the heavy handle being worked by a driver who rarely spoke to the scrapers, as if he were ashamed of being set within the luxurious world of hard labour. Even uncommitting banter was rare, and the scrapers looked on, waiting, never offering to help so as to get the stuff rolling sooner to their feet. âProspect Street, young âun,â the driver answered.
Them old houses. A few bug-eaten laths. Wallpaper, dust, and brick was already streaming down the bank, filling up oil-stained swamp-pools and crushing rusty tins at the bottom. A piece of wall made a splash like a bomb, and that was that. The back was wound up, and the lorry driven off. Brian rubbed pieces of cold water from his ear. Men were scraping systematically at the rammel, though expecting little from those poverty-stricken, condemned, fallen-down rabbit-holes on Prospect Street. Yet you never knew: such exercise in hope may gain a few brass curtain rings, a yard of decayed copper-wire (from which the flex could be burned over the flames), or perhaps a piece of lead piping if it was a lucky day. A man whistled as he worked: speculation ran too high for speech.
Brian, having netted a few spars of wood, rubbed grit from his knees and stood up, gripped by a black, end-of-the-world hopelessness: Please, God, send a good tip, he said to himself. If you do, Iâll say Our Father. âWhatâs up, kid?â Agger called from the top of the bank.
âIâm fed up,â Brian said gloomily.
Men looked around, grinning or laughing. âAre yer âungry?â Brian said no, scraped a few half-bricks to reveal a fair-sized noggin of wood. âSure? Thereâs some bread and jam in my coat pocket if yâare,â Agger said.
âNo, thanks. Iâve got some snap as well.â
âWhat yer fed up for then?â He couldnât answer. Like the old man often said: Think yourself lucky youâve got a crust oâ bread in your fist. Then you can tek that sour look off your clock. But Brian couldnât. âWhat does your dad do?â Agger wanted to know.
âHeâs out oâ workââalready forgetting despair.
Agger laughed. âHeâs got a lot oâ cumpny.â Agger came on the tips every morningâin time for the first loads at nineâpushing an old carriage-pram, an antique enormous model that may once have housed some spoon-fed Victorian baby and been pushed by a well-trimmed maid. There was no rubber on the wheels; all paint had long since blistered from its sides, and a makeshift piece of piping served for a handle. Another valued possession of Aggerâs was a real rake unearthed from a load of brick and tile tippings, an ornate brass-handled tool of the scraperâs trade with which he always expected to pull up some treasure, good reaching under the muck for good, but which he used with relish whether it made him rich or not. Other scrapers envied it: Brian once heard one say: âLendâs your rake five minutes, Agger. Iâll just get some wood for the fire.â The men around stopped talking, and Agger stayed mute: just looked at the manâa faint touch of contempt at such ignorance of the rules of lifeâthough the blank look was forced on to his face mainly because the request was unexpected, and unanswerable if he was to maintain his sharp gipsy-like dignity. The man got up and walked away, beyond the fireâs warmth. âThe
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