A Man of his Time

by Alan Sillitoe

  Burton took a quick pace away.

  ‘I asked why you hit our mother?’

  A blow sent Oliver to one side, and before he could recover his stance Burton had gone into the house. ‘That’s a fine thing.’ Oliver turned to Oswald and Thomas. ‘I thought you were going to help me.’

  ‘It would only cause more ructions,’ Oswald said, ‘and upset Mam even more.’

  ‘No it won’t. He’s got to pay for what he did. He just can’t do a thing like that.’

  Burton put a hand over Mary Ann’s shoulders, and held the small white box open before her. ‘That won’t make up for it,’ she said. ‘Though it might be a start.’ She placed it in her pocket, and hoped that her sons, having seen the gesture, wouldn’t now make a fuss about what had been done.

  They sat down to eat. Edith, knowing that things hadn’t gone well in the yard, winked at Oliver, as a hint that he should say something to Burton again. Knowing he needed encouragement, she sent a further signal.

  Though only halfway finished he laid the cutlery across his plate. ‘Burton, I want an explanation as to why you hit our mother like that.’

  Ivy trembled, and looked away, while Rebecca’s features showed only loathing. Emily and Sabina grinned, as if not caring what the tension was about. Oswald and Thomas stayed silent and fearful.

  ‘Stop it,’ Mary Ann said, ‘and finish your dinner. It was my fault as much as his. I shouldn’t have shamed him in the pub like that.’

  ‘I don’t care what you did. I expect he asked for it. There must have been something behind whatever you said.’

  Burton ate, everyone knowing he wouldn’t for long. His exertion of more control than they had ever known reduced them to terror. The veins at his temples twitched at Mary Ann saying she had shamed him. He was incapable of shame, and had struck her because she had done what no woman should. She had forgotten her place.

  ‘I’m waiting for an answer,’ Oliver said.

  ‘Just eat your meal.’ Mary Ann had little hope that he would, at times just as stubborn a man as his father. ‘It’s got nothing to do with you.’

  ‘I want to hear what he’s got to say for himself.’ He turned to Burton again. ‘You’re a bloody savage.’

  Burton, who never swore, and didn’t like to hear it from his children, went on cutting at what meat remained on his plate. You couldn’t sit down to your food in this family and say a word without starting an argument. ‘You know the answer you’ll get if you don’t close your lips?’

  ‘It won’t happen again,’ Mary Ann said.

  ‘I’ll see that it doesn’t.’ Oliver thought he had said enough, that honour was satisfied, so looked again at his plate. He had told his brothers he would tax Burton, and he had, and felt happy about it, was even proud to have gone as far as to let Burton know that he couldn’t hit their mother and not be told off about it. Beyond that, Burton was immovable, nothing more to be said or done.

  Burton was nagged by the reflection that if there was one thing worse than a wife not knowing her place it was having a son with no firm understanding of his. Unable to tolerate any confusion in the matter, and not seeing why he should, after a day in which nothing had gone as he would have liked, he stood, and launched his fist across the table with such speed that it struck Oliver full on the chest, seemingly before he saw it coming, and sent him sprawling with chair and plate across the floor.

  If there was one nightmare in Mary Ann’s life worse than any other it was that of violence breaking out in the family. ‘Why did you do that?’ she cried at Burton, already on her way to help Oliver, but he was on his feet, gesturing her to one side.

  Burton, a piece of meat back on his fork, wanted only to finish the meal, before soothing himself with work in the garden. He was therefore not so intent on avoiding a blow that, had it properly landed, would have been at least equal to the one he had given. Adept at dodging sparks of coal and steel from the crucible of the forge, there was no one more alert than a blacksmith, but he had been slow, which realization enraged him even more.

  Oliver, both hands up to defend himself, was terrified at what he had dared to do. He was mesmerized by Burton standing slowly up in so unusual a way that Oliver wondered whether he wasn’t going to come forward and forgive him, as if the weird smile never seen before meant that Burton might only tell him to sit down and finish eating.

  He ran to save his life, for in two strides Burton reached the pantry door and picked up the sharp-bladed woodsman’s axe. Mary Ann saw Burton about to commit murder, as Oliver pulled at the latch to get out, in despair that the others sat like statues, who would not help to pull their father down.

  Burton stood at the door like an executioner, but Oliver’s equally long legs had taken him quickly down the yard and onto the lane, leaving the gate wide open in his hurry, not caring who would have to close it.

  Burton would not demean himself by chasing his son onto a public bridleway, so came back to lean the axe in its usual place. He sat to finish his meal. ‘That’s the end of him. He never comes into this house again, or works for me anymore.’

  ‘Don’t say such a terrible thing,’ Mary Ann cried out.

  ‘Never again does he sleep in this house.’ He turned to Oswald. ‘Who are you staring at? Do you want to go as well?’

  He didn’t. No one did. Where would they go? The hardest thing to do was find a haven from tyranny, though Edith didn’t doubt she would do so one day, as she lifted Oliver’s jacket from the door. Burton’s mouth was open to call her back, to threaten if she didn’t obey, but he stayed quiet, as if something in him halfway approved of what she intended.

  She ran along the lane, afraid Oliver would be lost to them forever if she didn’t catch up. He was liked by his sisters as well as loved by them, and she couldn’t bear the thought of him having nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat, or going away without his jacket.

  He walked disconsolately along the embowered track, a lost and lonely place she would never go to on her own. ‘Oliver! Wait for me.’ From behind he might have been mistaken for Burton, with the high proud walk she had often noticed. She caught up with him, and sat on the bank. ‘Where shall you go?’

  He was hungry still, full of grief and anger, and shame at having run away. ‘I heard they needed a blacksmith to look after the horses at Brown’s sawmills. I’m going there.’

  ‘Where shall you sleep tonight?’

  ‘In one of their sheds. I don’t care. It’ll be dry and warm. I shan’t be near him at least.’

  ‘Have you got any money?’

  He picked a twig and shredded it. ‘I’ll earn some. If they set me on they’ll lend me ten bob to get by. I can never go back home.’

  ‘You’ll break Mam’s heart if you don’t.’

  ‘I can’t help that. Burton will kill me if I poke my face in the house. Or I’ll kill him. Either way, murder will be done, and it’ll be his fault. He’s never liked me.’

  ‘Yes he has. You’re his favourite, but he just doesn’t know how to treat you. I know what he’s like. It’s the same with the rest of us.’

  ‘I’d like to think so, but I can’t.’ She felt he was going to cry, but he went on: ‘You lot will have to look after Mother, since I can’t be there anymore. I thought Oswald and Thomas were going to help, but they didn’t.’

  ‘They’re cowards.’ She took a shilling from her pocket. ‘Here, have this.’

  ‘I can’t take your money.’

  ‘Go on, you can get a pint at the Rodney. And you can buy some bread and butter. It’s not my last, honest.’

  ‘I’ll pay you back soon.’

  ‘And don’t worry about Mam.’ She took his hand. ‘She’ll feel a lot better when I tell her I’ve seen you, though I shan’t say anything to Burton, even if he starts to worry.’

  His laugh was bitter. ‘He won’t do that. But thanks for bringing my coat.’ He brushed the grass from his trousers. ‘I must be off. Mr Brown will still be there, and I’m sure he’ll hav
e some work for me.’

  ‘Give my love to Alma then, when you see her. She’s lovely.’

  ‘We’re meeting tomorrow, and now I have a coat to put on.’ He kissed her. ‘At least I’ve got a good sister.’

  She watched him turn a bend in the lane, then ran back to the house.

  EIGHT

  All metal in a blacksmith’s house had to shine, and the females were told to make sure it did, so Ivy, Rebecca and Edith gathered on Sunday morning for the ritual of polishing. Heaps of cutlery, prize horseshoes, and brass ornaments from the parlour shelves lay by their hands, tins of Brasso and silver polish in the middle of the table.

  ‘I bumped into Tommy Jackson on his way home from work the other day.’ Edith picked a rag from the heap, and fell silent when Burton came into the room.

  Ivy wouldn’t be put off. ‘Tommy’s at the bike factory, isn’t he?’

  Burton looked on. In the early days, before having so many children, he sat at the table on Sunday morning cleaning horseshoes and ornaments himself, but with so many daughters, and so much to be polished, there were other things to do with his time. Mary Ann recalled how, in his shirtsleeves, he had never been happier, glistening the metal and rocking Oliver’s cradle with a stockinged foot. Glamorous Emma Lewin, who had never trusted him to be good to Mary Ann, called one morning to see them, Burton so happy at her visit he promised a special horseshoe to hang in the pub, sent by a boy before the week was out. How much water had gone under the bridge since then! Too often the liquid flowing through had been muddy enough, but she could not stop loving him more than she feared him.

  ‘Tommy Jackson dresses very smart,’ Edith said. ‘I saw him walking along the street yesterday, and he winked at me.’

  Burton laced his boots by the fireplace, grunting in disapproval at such talk.

  ‘He asked me to go a walk along the canal. “No fear,” I told him, “you might chuck me in.” “No,” he said, straight back, just like that, the cheeky devil: “It’s you as might chuck me in. You’re as big as I am.”’

  Geraniums by the open window seemed to shake at their laughter. ‘He’s ever so nice,’ Rebecca said. ‘I once saw him with a flower in his buttonhole.’

  Burton looked at the girls’ work, picked a spoon from the table, and turned it over, handing it to Edith. ‘Do that one again.’

  ‘Isn’t it clean enough?’

  ‘You heard. The rag’s not black. You do it till there’s black on the rag. Then you give it a final polish. How many times do I have to tell you? I want it to shine so’s I can see myself to shave in it.’ He examined a horseshoe closely. ‘Whose is this? It’s good, but it’s not mine.’

  ‘Oliver made it.’

  He threw it onto the settle. ‘Give it back to him if you see him. Me and your mother’s going to the Admiral Rodney for an hour. When you’ve got everything clean and shining put them back in their right places. Make sure they’re straight. And don’t get polish on the table. It leaves a stain.’

  ‘I’ll try not to.’

  ‘There’s a spot there. Rub it off.’

  Mary Ann wore her best jacket with gold embroidery along the wide lapels and around the pronounced cuffs at the wrists. Four buttons on the left kept the garment open to show a white highnecked blouse, fastened at the waist with two short ribbons. A long matching skirt went almost down to boots laced up with a buttonhook, such a rigout crowned with a flamboyant hat of golden feathers to make her seem taller and more stately.

  Burton, who liked to be seen with her at such times, recalled how stylish she had been when he courted her twenty-five years ago. She pulled on her shining leather gloves, and picked up a small neatly rolled umbrella. ‘You two cook the dinner,’ she said to Ivy and Rebecca. ‘You know where everything is.’

  ‘We should, by now,’ Ivy said.

  ‘Don’t answer your mother back,’ he said, ‘or you’ll feel my fist.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to.’ The answering back was aimed at him, which he well knew.

  ‘Thomas can get the beans and potatoes out of the garden,’ Mary Ann said, ‘and Oswald is to keep the fire going.’

  Burton turned to Ivy. ‘What do you call that?’

  A small pot of Colman’s mustard lay before her. ‘It’s for your dinner.’

  ‘I know it is. I’m not blind. But do you know what it looks like?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘It looks as if a canary’s done its mess. Put a lot more in. I like it hot. You should know by now.’ He turned to Mary Ann. ‘I’ll wait in the yard.’

  When the door closed behind him, fearing Burton’s renowned ability to hear through walls, she said in a low voice to Edith: ‘When you take Oliver’s dinner don’t idle along the way, or it’ll get cold.’

  Only girls in the house, Edith held the pot of mustard at arm’s length, to imitate the way Burton stood to drink his ale, and with a gargoyle face drew it to her mouth. She hawked up what phlegm was in her chest, regretting it should be so little, and unloaded it into the mustard. The others did the same, and Ivy stirred it vigorously in, to the laughter of them all.

  Mary Ann walked the customary few paces behind him down the lane. Halfway to the railway tunnel he sensed she no longer followed. ‘Are you coming, or aren’t you?’

  She poked the tip of her umbrella at a pothole. ‘I want you to ask Oliver to come home.’

  He looked askance, but had been expecting her request. ‘I’ll be damned if I will.’

  ‘I shan’t come to the pub then.’

  If he did walk on she might not follow, a stubbornness about her that even he at times could make head nor tail of. It was understandable that she wanted Oliver back. So did he, half-smiling at the thought that if there was one thing worse than having an argumentative son in the house it was having him out of it so that he could no longer be got at. ‘I’ll think about it.’ For the moment that had to be good enough, and he left her to come after him.

  A few paces later she stopped again.

  ‘What is it this time?’

  ‘I don’t like walking under that dark tunnel on my own.’

  A full smile and, ever willing to be gallant before a woman’s weakness, he held out his arm. ‘When we get to the Rodney I’ll buy you a glass of port.’

  Edith walked between machinery and large sheds, and hogsbacks of pristine sawdust on which she and her sisters had romped as children. Seasoning trunks were laid on trestles by neat pyramids of cut planks. Oliver stopped whistling on seeing her. Collarless shirt open at the neck, he looked even more happy and relaxed at getting a basket of the best dinner he could imagine. Mary Ann, away from the eye of Burton, had also slipped in some groceries. Edith spread the cloth on the smooth flat of a tree stump, and laid out the meal as if for Burton himself.

  ‘That’s a good sister.’

  ‘What do you do for your breakfast?’

  He picked up the shining cutlery, cut into vegetables and potatoes. ‘I’ve got a packet of tea in the hut, and fetch milk from Mrs Baker near Robin’s Wood. She gave me a slice of smoked bacon and two eggs yesterday, and wouldn’t take any money.’

  He was popular and handsome, and she was glad to help as well. ‘What about water to wash in?’

  ‘There’s a pump near the house.’

  ‘And when you want to go to the lavatory?’ she asked mischievously.

  ‘I dig a hole among the bushes with a trowel. But how’s Mother getting on? I hope she’s all right.’

  ‘She is, but she wants you to come home.’

  ‘What does Burton say about that?’

  ‘He hasn’t said anything, but everybody sees how he misses getting on at you.’

  He passed her a piece of pork on his fork. ‘I’ll bet he does. I like it very much here. I don’t have to pay my board, so I’m all right for money, and living like Robinson Crusoe suits me a treat.’

  It was a disappointment that he could be so adaptable, because if there was one thing she and the others missed at
home it was not having a brother they could joke and laugh with. ‘Where do you sleep?’

  ‘In that long hut, on the planks at the far end. I’m as warm as toast. Mrs Brown gave me some old blankets.’

  ‘You’ll be cold in winter.’

  ‘I’ll get lodgings by then.’

  ‘Can you afford to?’

  ‘I’m saving up. I’m earning a pound a week, which is more than I ever got from Burton. I mend machines, and shoe the horses. I feel a new man not having him ordering me around with never a thank you for all I do. He isn’t going to knock me about anymore.’ He pulled the basket forward and searched under the cloth. ‘Did you bring that book?’

  She had forgotten. ‘I couldn’t find it.’

  ‘You’d forget your head if it was loose. Don’t you remember? It’s called Famous Engineers. It’s on the top shelf in the middle of the bookcase. You can read, can’t you?’

  ‘You know I can. I’ll bring it tomorrow. I can’t do it this afternoon.’

  ‘I suppose you’re too busy going after the lads. Who’s your young man now?’

  ‘Mind your own business,’ she flushed.

  ‘Let me guess.’ He danced around her. ‘Oh I know: it’s Tommy Jackson. I used to be at school with him. He once threw an apple at Miss Soames, and got the strap for it. Hey, what’s that paper bag in your hand?’

  She held it close to her chest. ‘It’s pepper.’

  ‘Pepper? You don’t put pepper on blackberries, and you know I don’t like it on my dinner. What’s it for?’

  ‘It’s lonely walking along that lane,’ she said, embarrassed to admit her fears. ‘Nobody ever goes there, not even in daytime, and I get frightened. If a man jumps out from the hedge I can chuck pepper in his eyes and blind him. Then I’d run like hell!’

  He laughed. ‘Who put a daft idea like that into your head?’

  ‘Mother said her grandma used to do it when they lived in Ireland.’

  ‘Poor old Mam! She’s frightened of her own shadow. I can’t think who’d jump out of the bushes on an ugly thing like you. He’d run a mile as soon as he saw your face.’