People wereshoved into meaningless jobs and then
forgotten by the authoritiesfor years on end.
God knows whythey picked me out, but at any rate
they did so.
Im grateful to Elsie, because she was the first
person who taughtme to care about a woman.
That washow people dressed for Sunday afternoon
walks in those days. Moreover they knew perfectly well that all they were doingwas
to pile up mounds of paper. I suppose she would have been two years older than I
was. Whatever might happen to themselves, things would goon as theyd known them. One
Sundayafternoon we went into the beech woods round Upper Binfield. Twelve Mile Dump
for the rest of the war. Anyway, Mother had a bit over two hundred pounds,besides
the furniture. Father was failing, and he didnt know it.
You saw ghastly things happening sometimes. Nine
months of the year it rained, and theother three a raging wind blew off the
Atlantic. But Im speaking of a different kind ofmemory.
I know that in a sense one never forgets anything.
Of course in a town likeLower Binfield you could only live together in a figurative
sense.
I saw all the changes, and yet it was asthough I
didnt see them. She was dead by the time I got to Doxley. There was a temporary
feelingabout everything. Then the short nights came on, and it was light for hours
afterwed left the shop.
Andcuriously enough there was another thought in my
mind at the sametime. One Sundayafternoon we went into the beech woods round Upper
Binfield. It was four years or more since Id been that way.