A Man of his Time

by Alan Sillitoe

  If that’s all he had been doing why was he so enraged? He couldn’t get out of it like that. ‘Whatever you were up to God will pay you out for hitting me.’

  ‘God? And where does He live? What job does He do? Does He get good money while He’s at it? Hold still, and let me see to you.’

  ‘There is a God, though, and He’ll have it in for you.’

  ‘Not if I know it.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have hit me.’

  He helped her to stand. ‘I wish I could undo it. Come into the house.’

  Nowhere else to go, she had made no better home for him and all of them, and because he was her husband she let him guide her to a chair by the fire. The world had turned in a way she’d never imagined. To say she had loved him was unnecessary. He was the main factor of her life and she would never complain, had made her bed and must lie on it. She got up, hoping her face would pain less if she busied herself.

  A huge horned gramophone stood on the round mahogany table in the parlour, as if to bellow condemnation at what he had done. He pushed it aside on sitting down. The room was Mary Ann’s creation, and she cleaned it every week, though rarely had company to show it off. She sometimes enjoyed its comforting solitude, and did her sewing there.

  On a smaller table lay a neatly boxed set of dominoes, while a series of whatnot shelves fixed to a corner of the room held pottery pieces from seaside or Matock. The bookcase was filled with prizes brought from Sunday School, which he had sent the children to hoping they would get knowledge into their heads that had never entered his. They might also be taught to behave, so that Burton wouldn’t have to do it – as he once heard sharp-tongued Ivy remark to her sisters, not knowing he was near.

  Mary Ann cared for the books, liked the idea of several a year coming into the house, and noted with pleasure how the shelves slowly filled. Only Oliver took interest in them, but she supposed that was encouragement enough. She had been with Burton on Alfreton Road and saw the glass-fronted case in Jacky Pownall’s junk yard, standing in the drizzle by a stack of bedsteads, the perfect piece of furniture for storing books, instead of them staying heaped on the table, so she robbed him of a week’s drink to pay for it, and got him to push it the mile or so home on a rented handcart.

  It stood for a week in the warm kitchen to dry, and he took several evenings with rag, scraper and turpentine to remove the sickly green paint, then cleaned and polished to reveal the splendour of original wood.

  The picture on the wall over the fireplace, a wedding present from George, was of a youth handing a bunch of flowers to a young girl, the couplet underneath an avowal of love that Burton knew well but didn’t care to repeat at the moment. He sat with a hand over his eyes, as if they were paining him, or would be if he thought more about what he had done, aware that what was done could never be undone.

  In a cupboard facing the fireplace was his bottle of whisky, rarely broached, but he went to it and poured a small glass, noticing that the level had gone down from when he had last taken a nip, wondering whether any of the children had been helping themselves.

  Things couldn’t be worse. He was losing Florence, and had been angry enough to hit Mary Ann, having always said he would never knock any woman about. But none had ever given him cause to, and when your blood boiled there was little to stop you doing it – though there ought to have been. It was no use saying he wouldn’t do it again. It was already done. The only way to make amends, if they could ever be made, was to let time go by, but that wasn’t good enough. Thoughts went in a circle, till the only way to get out of their grip – nothing at the moment could make up for what he had done – was to be certain that Florence no longer wanted him.

  He poured a larger dram. If Florence wanted to go on with him nothing should stand in her way, and since he wanted to go on with her he couldn’t imagine she wouldn’t want to.

  He put the glass of whisky before Mary Ann. ‘Try some of this. It might help a bit.’

  ‘Nothing will.’ But she sipped, not averse to the taste. ‘What would you do to me if you caught me doing the same thing?’

  ‘Kill the man, and you as well – except I wasn’t doing anything I shouldn’t.’

  She thought it better to stay quiet. He stood at the door. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To see how those two idlers are getting on at the forge.’ She had never questioned him before. As for telling a lie, what could you do when you didn’t want to tell the truth? You never lied because you wanted to, he would always rather not, but only when people drove you to it, and to save them from worry. She should have had more sense than to ask, and if she doesn’t believe me that’s her lookout. Never tell anybody what they don’t need to know.

  He pondered the matter, but on reaching the main road his thoughts were only of Florence. Few women meant what they said. Getting her to keep on with him was as important to his pride as the need to use her body.

  Eli took his time serving other customers, before coming to ask what he wanted.

  ‘Where’s Florence?’

  ‘Gone. Packed her job in. Walked out just after you did. And she won’t be coming back, she said.’

  Burton’s head tilted with disappointment, and indignation. ‘That was a foolish thing to do.’

  ‘You lost us a good wench,’ Eli said. ‘There’s some things a woman won’t put up with.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with you. I’ll have a pint.’ The first mouthful tasted as if pumped out of the Trent, but he drank nevertheless, deciding never to go into the place again.

  Tears fell into the mist of lavender, whose smell reminded her of early days at home when her mother and grandmother scented clothes and underwear in the same way. She was blinded with regret at ever having delivered herself into the hands of Burton. Emma Lewin had told her more than once that she ought not to.

  She wondered if Burton had at one time found the florin she was looking for, and spent it on ale, or used it to treat some fancywoman – that holy florin she had vowed to keep till death.

  The underwear drawer was her domain, so he would never have done such a thing, though if the thought occurred to him in the future he wouldn’t find it. In any case he didn’t know she still had that keepsake coin passed over the bar at the White Hart for buying her pair of gloves. She had those as well, though neither tokens could any more mean what they had.

  The coin was wrapped in the same scrap of newspaper given him to go and buy the gloves, held firmly as if it might come alive and try to escape. She went up the slope to the well from which all water came for the house, moved the wooden lid aside and saw the glint at the bottom. She would throw the florin in, and say goodbye to her love for Burton, chuck herself into oblivion after it, water soothing her wounded face while she died, a reward of that peace and rest she seemed never to have had since marrying, and which she now thought she deserved.

  She sat so still on the parapet that a thrush alighted and looked at her. You’re free, she said. You have a hard life, but at least you don’t think, or suffer misery fit to shred your insides. Its tail shook as if in greeting, then it lifted and flew at the twitch of her fingers.

  Opening her hand, the florin tilted on her palm. She held it awhile, in two minds whether to let it drop. She wouldn’t unless, taking on a life of its own, the decision was made for her. She levelled her hand. A chill wind increased the ache on her face, and she wanted the warmth of the house.

  On going through the door the florin was still in her hand, and she looked at the elderly head of Queen Victoria who for better or worse had lost her husband early. Then the superstitious worry came, as if the Queen was sending a message from the grave, that if she had dropped the florin in the well something dreadful would have happened to Burton. She didn’t want that, so the only thing was to return the coin to its hiding-place among the sweetness of lavender.

  He made his way over the hill and into town, in the hope that the effort of walking would still his regret at what had been done, though
nothing ever would. In a jeweller’s window at Chapel Bar he saw a display of Galway claddach rings, and remembered that Mary Ann had admired them for as long as he had known her, but had given up hope of getting one. The price of twenty shillings dug into the reserve he kept should anything happen to her or the children, and the cost of having her mouth mended would also take some money.

  The ring in his pocket, he bought twopennorth of tram ride along Castle Boulevard to Lenton. He recalled that nearly a hundred years ago ten people were killed and as many injured when a barge moored off Canal Street carrying a ton of gunpowder exploded. It was being held for pits in Derbyshire, but on being carried from the boat to the warehouse left a trail along the towpath. A man who saw it thought he would have a lark – as the damned fool must have told himself – and threw a hot coal down. He never knew what happened, his troubles gone in a flash, though he took nine others with him and ruined half the quayside.

  Some men are like that, nothing in their heads but mischief, though on the top deck of the clanking tram he wondered whether it was worth going home. A beneficial explosion would nicely settle him, yet he wouldn’t want anyone’s company on the ride into hell.

  On the other hand he could call at the forge, collect sufficient tools, and go back to being a journeyman-blacksmith as in his younger days when he had worked for George in Wales, those carefree times of knowing Minnie Dyslin and the girls of Tredegar. If Minnie was still there he would call and see the son she’d had. Perhaps she was married again, and had as many by now as Mary Ann. He could think of no better thing for her, and hoped she was happy.

  Easy to understand why George had taken himself off to earn his living in Wales for a year or two, and left Sarah with the children. Having a forge of your own brought the bother of keeping it going, not to mention a home with a wife and eight children around your neck. A journeyman’s pay might not be as much as a settled blacksmith’s, but at least you had no responsibilities.

  He let the tram carry him, because the world wasn’t yours to do as you pleased with, as he had always known. The world owned you, though you had a fight to stop it doing you in. Storm clouds were everywhere, now and again a patch of blue to give you a bit of fun – until you put your foot in it and made a mistake. Then you got to thinking it was time to be off, yet knew you couldn’t go. He was married to Mary Ann, and that was that. It was a harder road than the prayer book said, a bond that anchored him to solid concrete. Though Mary Ann would be pleased at getting the ring, he hardly expected the gesture to make any difference.

  He went to the forge for an hour’s work before the day ended. ‘The old man’s quieter than usual,’ Oliver said to Oswald as he was seeing to a horse. ‘I wonder why?’

  ‘When he’s like that we should keep out of his way.’

  Burton sent them home first, and closed the place himself.

  The table hadn’t been set for the evening meal, ash dim at the bars, gloom so thick you could cut it with a knife but, Oliver thought, you couldn’t eat it, and they were hungry. They wanted food, but something had happened, as if news had come that someone had died. Neither son had ever seen Mary Ann sitting by the cooling fire as if turned to stone. The house could die for all she seemed aware of it. ‘What’s gone wrong?’

  She turned her head. ‘Ask Burton.’

  Thomas stayed by the door, fearing to come close but calling: ‘Where’s our supper?’

  Her voice wasn’t right. ‘I’ll get it in a bit.’

  ‘You’re crying,’ Oliver said.

  Her mouth was bruised and twisted. ‘Can’t you see?’

  Oswald cried out. ‘How did you do that?’

  ‘I caught Burton in the Crown talking to a woman. I lost my temper, and showed him up in front of everybody.’

  ‘Temper be damned.’ Oliver’s anguish brought more tears. ‘Look at her. You don’t do that to a woman, not for anything.’

  She went to and from the pantry with none of her usual quickness while Oliver, weary after the day’s work and wanting a meal, poked ash from the grate and put sticks on embers that still had heat. Thomas used the bellows, set larger wood and then coal to bring the fire to a state for cooking.

  ‘Don’t say anything to Burton,’ she said. ‘It’s best if the whole thing blows over.’

  ‘Somebody’s got to.’ Oliver didn’t relish the role, knowing how it would end. ‘We can’t let him behave like that.’

  ‘Go upstairs,’ she told Thomas, ‘and get Edith and Rebecca to come down and help me with the dinner.’

  ‘Did you put anything on your face?’ Oswald asked.

  ‘Annie came with some witch-hazel after Burton had gone.’

  ‘You finished ours on me a few days ago,’ Oliver said. ‘It’s like being in a war, living in this house.’

  ‘It helped a bit. She came with some Collis Browne’s as well but I told her I wasn’t a baby who’d got colic. She said it might buck me up, and it did for a while. At least I’ve got a good neighbour.’

  ‘I’ll make sure he never lives this down,’ Oliver said.

  Edith took knives and forks from the drawer. ‘You’ve seen what that old fucker’s done?’

  ‘Don’t swear like that,’ Mary Ann said, ‘or I’ll make you wash your mouth out with soap. I won’t have that sort of talk in this house.’

  ‘I can’t help it. He wants blinding, except that it would be too good for him.’

  ‘And don’t talk like that about your father, or God will pay you out as well.’

  ‘If He paid me out for saying anything against Burton there wouldn’t be any God.’

  ‘It won’t change him,’ Oliver said. ‘I can’t think what will. He won’t even alter after he’s dead and gone.’

  Edith laughed. ‘Somebody ought to kill him. That’s what he deserves.’

  ‘He’s not worth hanging for,’ Oswald said.

  ‘Let’s get on with supper,’ Mary Ann told them, as if only eating would stop such talk. ‘He’ll be in directly, and if it’s not ready there’ll be hell to pay.’

  ‘Make it as hot as you can,’ Edith said, ‘and chuck it in his face.’

  ‘Now stop,’ Mary Ann said angrily. ‘You can give me some help. Crack the eggs for the pudding and beat them in the big yellow bowl.’ Her face pained, and two of her teeth were loose, alarming because she had always feared for her looks, but such murderous words from the children inclined her to take Burton’s side.

  She didn’t like the notion that he had sowed the wind and would reap the whirlwind, not from her children anyway. He behaved as he did because it was his nature, and he didn’t know any better, not realizing that do as you would be done by was the only way to live. If there was one thing worse than what he had done it was to have the children set against him with so much hatred. No woman deserves what she’d had, but no man deserves that, either. She had, after all, enraged him by doing the worst possible thing, humiliating him before other men, when she ought to have tackled him at home. She regretted her loss of temper, but it was too late to say so. He had never hit her before, and never would again.

  Oliver nodded to his brothers. ‘Let’s go in the yard and get this muck off our faces.’

  The fully leaved beech tree on the mellow August evening gave shade and shelter to both sides of the fence. Oliver took two bowls from under the worn rickety table and filled them from a bucket. Drawing off their shirts, they lathered themselves with pleasant-smelling White Windsor soap and, after much swilling and towelling, fetched clean shirts and trousers from the house. Thomas, the last to dress, went along the yard to get wood for the fire and, from the gate, signalled that Burton was on his way.

  It would be an evil deed to strike your own father, and the intention troubled and frightened Oliver. Knowing that something had to be done, he regretted being the chosen one to do it. ‘I rely on you two to give me a hand.’

  Burton came from under the bridge in his usual smith-alone way, on up the lane towards home, back straight and loo
king only in front, as if nothing was visible for a thousand miles, therefore too far off to be bothered by. Victim though master of his thoughts, he was weary at wondering whether there would be any advantage in going to Florence’s house and calling her out to talk, because a job left: undone was a bad one, and he wanted to see the matter through. Then he decided that he wouldn’t chase her. It wasn’t worth it, was beneath his dignity, whether or not there was any hope of carrying on with her again. Let her come to him if she wanted, but he knew she wouldn’t, a strong-minded woman never going back on her word.

  A young man coming down the lane made no move to step aside, and when they collided Burton sent him staggering against the bank.

  ‘Watch what you’re doing, can’t you?’ the youth cried.

  Burton knew him as someone from Woodhouse, and considered giving him as good a hiding as he deserved. A tall robust lad, he had broken his parents’ hearts, so he’d heard, because they hadn’t had the sense to bring him up properly. Well-muscled and able to work, he spent what time he could at the boozer, though he was barely eighteen. At least none of the girls in the family, nor his sons for that matter, would have anything to do with an idler who went poaching and was often in trouble with the police.

  Doddoe sensed what was coming, and moved deftly from Burton’s way, walking quickly and calling: ‘You think you own the fucking world!’

  Too near the house to bother, Burton was only anxious in some small way to mollify Mary Ann with the gift in his pocket.

  Oliver stepped from the washhouse door, and placed himself in Burton’s way as if having something to say about work at the forge, though fear increased when his father stopped to listen: ‘What is it?’

  ‘Why did you hit our mother like that?’

  Burton disliked being pulled out of his world, except in his own time and when he cared for it, so he was merely startled. ‘Eh?’

  Oliver, legs shaking, called to his brothers standing by the pigsty: ‘Back me up, then.’