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PAUL DEVANEY
I am aged 40 and have lived in East London all my life. I currently work for Newham Council.
THE SILENT MAN
It was always on a Thursday evening as I recall. Always raining as we made the journey to my Grandad's newsagent shop; always with that smell of damp that crept through the shop door as we entered, jarring the bell above with a lively discord. It may be a trick of my memory, for it can't rain regularly even in England, and time makes fools of us all, but I believe that my mother was always soaking wet when she returned to collect me later that evening on her way back from the Bingo. Wet and frustrated at her bad luck, vowing never to go again.
"One number, one flaming number! That's how near I was. Never again, bloody waste of good money. Hurry yourself up and get your coat on, it's late."
However, Thursday nights were special for me, alone with my Grandad in the damp cosiness of his newsagents. A proper shop too, you don't see them like that today. Polished wooden counter and matching shelves behind, everything properly labelled and neatly stacked. Modern ones are a disgrace if you ask me, not that anyone seems to nowadays. All plastic stickers and screaming adverts, gaudy and tasteless, ruined by progress is the only way I can regard them. Modern off licences aren't much better, I prefer the traditional ones that were attached to pubs, just like the one that was across the road from my Grandad's shop.
On a Thursday evening, after my mother was well out of sight, it was my special job to cross the road and get his supplies. The shopkeeper knew me by sight and helped me load the bottles into the hold-all, holding the door open as I staggered back proudly, puffing with the exertion.
"There's a good lad, take it out to the back room will you? And remember, not a word to your mother, it's our special secret." My reward was a small bar of chocolate and something far better, a chance to serve behind the counter on my own later on. Around 8 o'clock, after the evening trade had thinned out, after people had put their children to bed and finished their meals, and after Grandad had returned to the back room to "listen to the wireless for a bit" with his bottle opener, that's when the Silent Man would come.
Left alone at the shop counter I always felt very grand indeed. I was allowed to take money for small items, and even trusted to work the cash register for the few customers that came between then and closing time. Occasionally, a boy or girl from my class at school would come in, usually with an adult due to the time of night. These were my favourite moments, as I served them bursting with childish nonchalance, handing over the change with a flourish and a cheery, "Thank you, is there anything else? Come again, won't you?" smirking with pride as they left. But there never seemed to be anyone else in the shop when the Silent Man came.
Was he tall? I rather think so, although I was not much taller than the high counter myself. As for his features, I'm sad to say that sometimes now they are blurred in my memory. Mostly I remember him as having an almost expressionless face, stern as it seemed to me in his unchanging way. His way of coming into the shop never varied. After the opening of the door and the jangling of the bell, the pause in the doorway for a few seconds, surveying the inside. Entering, he would pace around the shop for a few seconds, taking stock of everything we sold, raking the goods with his stony gaze, before approaching the counter.
"Can I help you, mister?!" I would always say, my thin voice made even squeakier by my nervousness. I knew what he wanted, though his routine never varied as I've said.
Above my head, just high enough for me to reach without calling my Grandad for assistance, was a display of what were always referred to as "Smokers' Requisites". The display was an artistic masterpiece of stacking, an assortment of brands, many of them long since disappeared along with the type of shops that sold them. Packets and tins of dark, rich smelling tobacco, even a few cigars and pipes for the few that wanted them. Still wordless, he would point at the same item each time, just to the left of the display, a one-ounce tin of Old Holborn tobacco. Stretching up nervously on tiptoes, terrified lest I ruin the display, I would clasp the tin and hand it over as if it were the most precious box I would ever handle. Telling him the price, my voice would rise "Will there be anything else mister?" Always he would shake his head, always I would babble "Er... anything at all?" Another shake of the head. Taking his change there would be a curt nod, by way of thanks I believe, a jangle of the doorbell and he would be gone.
He never wavered, nor did my curiosity for that matter, with the passage of time. Nor did he ever speak. Who was he? I became almost obsessed to find out more... How on earth could anyone go, for what seemed like an eternity to me, without a word passing their lips? He came to occupy much of my thoughts, and I even found myself wondering about him at school, not that I ever shared him with anyone. How did he manage to come just when the shop was empty, did he keep watch outside?
I decided to ask my Grandad one night about him. "The Silent Man? Oh yes, I've seen him," he said, eyes twinkling over his beer. "At the pictures. Buster Keaton wasn't it?" and hooted with laughter, much to my frustration. This only served to fuel my boyish imagination. That and some of the literature Grandad had on sale. Had he been struck speechless with terror, after some horrific nightmare experience, perhaps after being tortured in the war by fiendish foreigners? Perhaps he was a spy, just like in the comic I read in the shop once, scared to speak in case his accent gave him away, but risking discovery and capture due to his love for traditional English tobacco? This last fevered theory bit the dust when I asked Grandad if there were any secret military installations nearby, or something that a "sabo-tour" (I had found the word in a comic and looked it up in the school library) might want to blow up. I should have known better I suppose. Grandad, busy serving someone had said out of the corner of his mouth, "Maybe, I reckon that lot at the Town Hall could do with being blown up. There's nothing secret about how stupid they are."
Perhaps the poor man was simply dumb, I even considered, but one of our neighbours had a child who was dumb and she still managed to make some sounds. Whatever the reason for his silence, I was determined to find out more and, above all, to make him speak if at all possible.
The next Thursday night couldn't have come soon enough once I'd decided on my terrible plan of action. It seemed like ages until I was once more in the shop, pacing up and down nervously behind the counter, waiting for my Grandad to go to his back room and make his familiar clinking with bottles and opener. Eventually he did just that, and I did it, heart thumping in my ears in case I was caught in action. I almost jumped when I heard the shop bell clang into life, and sighed with relief when it was a regular customer, just later than usual, to collect an evening paper. All quiet again I waited, listening to the soft rain outside and the wireless playing softly in the background, the smell of Grandad's paraffin heater, more acute than I could ever remember it previously. I'd almost thought he wasn't coming, almost believed I'd imagined the whole thing in the first place, and that I should undo everything before my Grandad found out and told my Mother, adding to her fury upon her return. Too late, the doorbell sounded harshly. The familiar footsteps, a familiar pause. Looking up, he was there. Heavy footsteps made their way around the room, almost as loud as my heartbeat. Inevitably, he made his way to the counter and stopped, towering over me. He looked at the display shelf above me, but I could barely bring myself to do so, knowing what he would see or, rather, what he would not...
Was it more imagination, made worse by the quivering of my legs and the burning balloon that had become my bladder? Or did his expression change, just for a mere flicker of a moment, perhaps into one of surprise, as he noted the bare spot on the shelf where his favourite brand usually stood?
"Can I help you?" I heard myself quaver, praying the ground would swallow me up. "Can I get you something else, mister? Er, perhaps if you tell us what other sort you smoke I could see if we've got it in stock? Or, er if we're going to get it in tomorrow? All you've got to do is say what you'd like and I'm sure we can help you..." The carefully rehearsed words slid out in shame and horrific embarrassment as, for a moment, I thought I would explode. The stranger paused to take in my words, then shook his head. "Er are you sure, would you like me to get my Grandad? He'll be able to help you I'm sure." A flick of the head, and was that a look of disgust that followed it? I was never to know. Turning, he left as swiftly as usual. I hovered behind the counter for a second, then ran to the window to see if I could catch a glimpse of him. A smeared figure was striding up the road through the rain streaked pane, I wasn't sure if that was him but, whoever, the image remains with me today... He never came again.
After that, Thursday nights could never be the same for me, and I spent many evenings there hoping for a glimpse of him, dreaming up reasons for his non-appearance. Was he sick and in a sanatorium, made ill by the tobacco I had sold him previously? Had he gone to sea, or just moved? Perhaps he had gone abroad, driven mad by the perpetual rain. Or, returning to my spy theory, maybe he had been caught by the police and imprisoned, although Grandad had told me to my horror that spies were usually shot. I searched the newspapers we sold, those that I could read without too much difficulty, but nothing ever came to light. But worst of all theories was the one that sneaked into my head late one night as I lay trying to sleep in my small, damp bedroom...
The idea came from nowhere, and caused me to sit bolt upright in bed, despite the terror of the gloom about me, and the possibility of seeing those coats hanging behind my door, that always suggested phantom shapes waiting to terrify my open eyes. Was he my father? Could that be it! Sliding out of bed and risking the terror of the trip to the light switch, I flung myself before the piece of mirror on the wall. Try as I might, contort my features as I did, I could find no single trace of similarity between my face and that of the Silent Man.
The next evening I asked my mother, risking her wrath, for it seemed any mention of my absent father put her in the foulest of tempers with me. It was after teatime, as I sat looking at comics on the settee next to her, the carelessly tuned wireless playing soft, scratchy tunes. My mother was painting soldier toys by hand, prior to packing them in small boxes for collection by her employer. She paused in mid-brush and, for a moment, I was not sure whether to move closer awaiting her answer or to run for cover.
"What brand did you say?" Her voice filled with incredulous humour. "What brand did your father smoke?" She laughed, and I feared she'd smudge her work for a second. "Let me think... yes, I know what brand he smoked all right, 'other peoples' they were called, if I remember him rightly, the miserable no-good."
And that was that.
Time dulls the memory and causes small boys to lose interest in most things rapidly, but it was a long time before I stopped blaming myself for his not returning, and I think of it even now. Never look backwards they say, although "they" say a lot of things, and I suppose I never did pay too much attention to advice from others.
Whatever the reason, I found myself going out for a good long walk not too long ago. Well that's what I told myself, makes a change to get out a bit more and I need the exercise at my age. A stroll to nowhere in particular on a pleasant evening, even though the forecast had promised some rain. I wasn't really too surprised when I found myself a few streets from the spot where my Grandfather had had his shop and, well, I had nothing better to do. It had started to rain as I reached the corner where the newsagent was, but I was going in there anyway. Of course, it had changed. The shop was a mass of gaudy colours, plastic advertising stickers and a chaos of drinks and sweets. Shelves full of toys and "adult" magazines held my eyes in disbelief. I was rooted to the spot, eventually aware of a small voice repeating something.
"I said, can I help you, sir?" The voice came from a small Asian child behind the counter nearby, dark deer-like eyes fixed hopefully on me. Well what could I say? It was all too different. What could I say to tell him of the change and the shock it had given me? I said nothing, speechless I was. I left, more quickly than I had entered. Striding up the road I didn't look back, glad to get away. I haven't been back since, there doesn't really seem any point in looking for the past.
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