by David Storey
The arena was emptying, the last knots of people round the marquees breaking up. The trade tents were deserted, and already the machinery and displays were being removed. Creeping down the valley was a steady stream of single line traffic; and from the village vans and trucks had begun to edge amongst the stalls for loading up. On the track over the moors small groups of figures were moving slowly against the sky, balloons and kites floating like bright leaves in their wake. Climbing up the track out of the valley rode a thin line of mounted figures, disappearing round the rock scar, then emerging close to the castle.
‘A couple of hours and they’ll have all the cars and stuff out,’ Tolson said. ‘I’m surprised you coming up here. I’ve enjoyed myself down yonder.’ His face was flushed under his deep sunburn, his thick chest and arms burned by the heat. A singlet hung loosely over his trousers, and its whiteness gave his skin and his features, his black hair, a negroid look.
Leonard stood up, half-smiling. ‘You won’t let me down?’ he said. ‘Will you?’
‘What do you mean?’ Tolson had already backed slightly away.
‘You know well enough.’
‘Why should I let you down?’
The blood had rushed to Leonard’s face. He put his hands on Tolson’s shoulders, and for a moment stood quite still feeling the hot skin beneath his fingers, and staring into his face. Then he leaned forward and kissed his arm, opening his mouth over Tolson’s biceps. With an almost ferocious energy, he pulled Tolson against him, running his hands over his body. ‘Let me feel you,’ he said, half-laughing, pulling Tolson against him. He pressed his hand between Tolson’s legs, and the larger man stumbled back, catching his heels against the rock. But Leonard pursued him.
‘Come on,’ said Tolson, ‘We’ll go down and see about the tents.’
But, laughing, Leonard ran at him, throwing himself forward and clutching Tolson’s legs so that they both fell on the grass. For a moment, pinioned by Tolson’s arms, Leonard didn’t move. Then twisting to free his arm he ran his hand up again between Tolson’s thighs, pressing himself forward as Tolson tried to drag himself away. Almost simultaneously he was flung back with great violence and Tolson stood up.
‘Leave me alone!’ he shouted.
The line of horsemen was now quite near, and there was the sound of a child talking anxiously and soothingly to an animal.
Tolson had turned away. He walked into the shadow, then paused for Leonard to catch him up. He was laughing still, and breathless, but Tolson only glanced at him and strode down the slope more rapidly, so that Leonard had to run to keep up.
Along the crescent of the hills shallow arcs of plumed cloud burned round the sun, crimson and yellow, sealing the dale with shadows, and a great keel of shadow crept along the river. Shooting up into the deep overhead blueness red fangs of cloud broke from the horizon, the sharp, slow loops fading and reappearing, vicious and searing over the fused purple of the moor. They groped ferociously eastwards where the sky darkened and melted into the seeping hollow-mist down the valley. The castle was broken now by shadow.
The land had begun to eat into the sun; the showfield was darkening and almost deserted. A few people loitered between the mounds of paper and refuse, and dogs from the village hurried from place to place followed by boys searching amongst the rubbish. A lone woman took her horse over the jumps in the arena, reining it in at the far end and leaping her way back, the leather creaking in the still air with the animal’s panting. A thin breeze dragged straw and paper over the ground, releasing them to flap against the hardened mud. By his tent Wetherby was talking to three women in head-scarves and jodhpurs who, as they listened, tapped the backs of their thighs with leather whips.
The two men worked hard, taking down all the small trade tents and pulling up the stakes with a chain. By the time they had lowered Wetherby’s office-tent he had disappeared, driving off in his car with two of the women.
Tolson stooped down to the stakes of the next tent. A coolness had drifted up from the river. The slopes above the valley turned black, a hard blue-black that brought them tumbling into the dale, each weight of shadow crumbling on the next, fold after fold from the sombre ridge. Above it settled the sun, a half-drugged eye over the rim of the moor, as if with its own weight it might push the earth down. The blackness swayed a moment, the land shuddered with its colour and haze, and the crimson bulb sank. Red flanges of mist and cloud studded the falling sky. The ground suddenly darkened.
Tolson looked up, poised, then rubbed his shoulders at the quick chilling of the air. A moment later he said, ‘We’ll leave the latrines. I reckon they’ll stand till tomorrow.’ He hooked down the canvas like toy balloons.
At the gate Enid stood and watched them.
She walked closer. The two men worked in rhythm, folding the tent walling.
‘Aren’t you taking all those big tents down as well?’ she said.
Tolson looked up at her. For a while he didn’t answer. Then he said, ‘It’ll take five or six men to get them down.’ He stared up at the looming canvas.
‘When will they fetch them down, then?’
‘Tomorrow. They’ll all be here tomorrow.’
‘Are you looking forward to going back?’ She glanced from Tolson to Leonard, as though pleased at her reception. ‘I don’t think your friend is.’
Tolson smiled at Leonard’s faintly tensed figure.
‘What’s your name, then?’ she asked.
‘Vic,’ Tolson said when it seemed Leonard might answer. He held out the canvas to Leonard, nodding at the girl, then bending down.
They worked instinctively together, folding the length of tent wall on the ground, drawing it up and laying it neatly seam on seam.
For a while the girl watched, then she bent down to collect the stakes, and after they’d packed the walling and the roof in the hessian bags, Tolson showed her how to lay the stakes and rolled guy-lines on top.
They laced up the heavy bags, and she walked and ran behind them as they hurried with the heavy, bulging sacks to the large marquee to stack. She tried to lift one, planting her feet astride it, her arms dragged down by the weight.
‘You’ll do yourself an hurt,’ Tolson said. ‘They weigh more than ninety pounds.’ He put one on his shoulder to laugh at her.
‘Where did you get your muscles from?’ she asked him.
‘Bread and fat. Isn’t that right?’ He looked at Leonard a moment, then back at the girl. ‘Though thy’s got a couple of muscles that can beat any two of mine.’
Engines roared in the next field as the last machines were drawn out. A few people stood talking among the cattle-pens and in the lane. But in the showground the three of them were alone.
Tolson rubbed his hands on his thighs and shivered with the chill in the air. ‘There’s not much else we can do,’ he said, scarcely glancing at Leonard. ‘I reckon we can call it a day and see if we can find ought.’
He picked up his hammer and walked across to the beer tent. The girl ran after him. When Leonard reached the door Tolson was cracking the hammer head against the empty barrels. The tent was dark, the canvas old and heavily stained. He knocked through the refuse and crates, suddenly impatient, pushing them over. He made a path through to the opposite entrance. All round the bar were pools of metal caps.
Tolson walked frustratedly through this deserted palace, from one debris-filled hall to another, each with its separate smell of oil, of food, of animals and birds, of people. Everything had gone.
His hand was clutched round the neck of the hammer, the steel head gleaming like an irregular extension of his arm. The girl trailed behind him, running to keep up, darting about the gloom of the interiors.
Leonard followed more slowly, occasionally glimpsing through some gap in the canvas the flickering shape of the girl, then the heavier, impetuous shadow of Tolson. When he eventually found them the girl was soberly watching Tolson as he turned over the tables in the Domestic tent, swinging his hammer down on piles of cr
acked plates. The pot shrapnel shot against the tent wall, dull and searing the canvas.
‘Shall we go round smashing them all down?’ she said.
‘No.’ The idea surprised him. He glanced round at the litter of tables and trestles and folding chairs, then began to stack them neatly against the tent-poles.
He seemed quite numb. His hammer stood upright beside him. The girl had planted her feet on the hammer head and, her hands gripping the shaft between her legs, she swayed backwards and forwards, rocking on the wooden pendulum. Leonard watched her in silence, his mouth slightly parted, as though with the first impact of shock.
‘Are you going anywhere on your bike tonight?’ she said to Tolson. ‘Give us a ride on it.’
Tolson suddenly pulled the hammer from under her feet. She fell back laughing against the wall of the tent and for a moment sprawled there, upright, struggling to regain her balance. Then she darted out after Tolson, running after him, thrusting her arm in his and skipping along beside him. Her hair suddenly fell down over her shoulders.
‘Take care. Now just be careful,’ he said, holding her off his sunburned skin.
‘Will you take us a ride?’
‘I’ll think about it.’ He glanced awkwardly at Leonard who followed slowly behind. ‘We’re going to get something to eat.’
‘I’ll cook for you, if you like. If you’ll give us a ride. I’m good at cooking. I am, honest.’
‘Ah … I’ll see about that.’
Tolson started the Primus. Leonard stood beside him as though drained of all strength and interest. The girl prepared the meal.
Later, while they ate, she went down to the river with the pan. They said nothing as she walked away across the deserted showground. They were crouched quite close together, silent, Tolson occasionally eating. She returned slowly up the field, walking stiffly, with the pan held carefully before her in both hands, and stopping intermittently, laughing, as it splashed her legs. She put the pan on the stove and stooped down, waiting for it to boil. She seemed lost in her task, oblivious. Tolson stood up. He rubbed his shoulders. ‘It’s getting cold.’ He looked round for something to put on.
The girl poured out the tea, stirred it, and stood back. ‘There, will you take us a ride now?’ She stood licking the spoon, watching Tolson.
‘It’s too dark.’
‘It’ll be all right. It will.’
‘How am I going to see?’
‘You’ve got lights on your bike.’ She was looking at it inside the gloom of the tent. Tolson watched her as he drank his tea. His look followed her carefully in anticipation as she moved about in front of the tent.
‘Go on. Just a short ride.’
‘I’ll take you just round the field,’ he told her.
‘Shall I pull it out for you, Vic?’
He moved forward. ‘No. Tha’ll never.’ He went across to the tent-flap but she was already inside.
‘Get on outside,’ Leonard heard him say. ‘I’ll fetch it out.’
She was holding onto the bike as he wheeled it out. He leaned over the machine possessively, feeling the engine. He switched on the petrol and stepped over the bike, shaking it violently from side to side. Leonard held his cup in both hands, watching.
The engine roar sprang into the valley, louder now in the stillness, crisp and staccato. The thudding boomed in the place. As the bike shuddered the girl climbed on, her legs white against his dark mass and her thin arms like rods of the machine itself. She sat clutched to him while he beamed the headlight.
They moved away towards the tents and the noise became a continuous echo. The beam of light, stiff and angular, trembled and jarred in the dimness, splaying out then exploding in a wide ring on the canvas. It disappeared, then suddenly burst out between the blankness of the marquees.
In the small square caravan near the trade tents the old watchman had come to the top of his steps: Leonard could see his silhouette bowed against the cream paint and the lamp-lit interior. It was darkening, the sky had lost its colour and a white tongue of moon probed the cloud mists. At the fringe of the sky the light drew out clouds, hanging now like phosphorescent dew, fat globules, round and bursting in the distance with an orange sheen. Under the dying sky and the murderous line of rocks the engine slowly circled the field. They swept past, a sudden huge and swift shape, the engine stuttering over the ruts and the headlamp shuddering, both of them pressed together.
The shape reached the flat stretch at the side of the field and the light suddenly moved in a fast stream: it ran smoothly and quickly. On the level platform down to the river it all came to quick life. For a moment. Then it suddenly jolted, the beam writhed and twisted as if caught in a snare, shuddered, and the engine cut back quickly and stopped.
The beam of light stood silent by the river. Tolson’s voice came distantly in the still air. Then the headlight was swung from side to side, loosely, as the bike was pulled backwards, edging it out of the mud. It stood still. For a while Leonard heard nothing.
The engine was re-started quietly, muffled and oddly subdued. The dark shape circuited the field. Tolson held the bike preciously as it ran up to the tent, the chain purring over the cogs. He stood up, rigid, as the girl climbed off. The light from the lamp exaggerated the texture of the grass: it grew like shining metal nails.
‘We were nearly in the river,’ Tolson said. His voice was quiet in the silence after the engine, vaguely disappointed. They seemed tired and past talking.
‘Can you drive it?’ the girl asked Leonard.
‘No.’
She fingered the handlebar and the instruments mounted round the lamp. Tolson turned the bike away from her. Footsteps crunched in the lane from the village. A voice shouted her name, thick and demanding.
‘Enid! Are ye there?’
‘Who is it?’ Tolson asked her. ‘Is it your father?’
The man shouted again.
‘It’s our Alan.’
They listened to the silence in the lane, staring at the pale outline of each other’s faces.
‘I better go,’ she said.
‘I’ll go with you,’ Leonard suddenly told her. ‘To the gate. You’ll find your way from there.’
They both looked at him.
The man’s voice shouted from somewhere at the side of the field, from the low shadows of the trees. He waited. Then his steps sounded as though they were coming into the showground. Yet they crunched persistently in the road and slowly faded towards the houses.
‘Come on,’ Leonard said.
The girl glanced at Tolson. He didn’t move. She turned towards the gate and Leonard began to walk beside her. She called back to Tolson softly. He stood silently by the bike. The dew struck their faces as they walked. The air was filled with the dank evening smell of grasses. She moved slowly beside Leonard, then stood in the ruts at the entrance to the field, waiting.
‘What will your father say?’ he asked her.
She rubbed her feet in the ashes and glanced into the darkness of the lane. ‘He’s dead. That’s our Alan. My brother.’
‘Do you want me to come any further with you?’
‘No.’
‘Good night, then.’
She stood looking into his face a moment. Then she ran off quickly up the lane.
‘We’ll go up to the pub,’ Tolson said when Leonard got back. He had already wheeled the bike into the tent, and he scarcely looked up. He seemed stooped slightly, pained.
The pub was almost empty. They didn’t talk. Leonard stood under a pale, orange light: it was like a weight on his slim figure, heavy and distorting. It was late. They scarcely drank. The night-watchman sat by himself, an old bearded figure, stooped over a table. His fingers were splayed out anciently either side on the bare wooden surface. Tolson bought him a drink, and after a while they walked back to the field together. The old man invited them into his small caravan and, at Tolson’s insistence, they began to play cards. In the corner of the van was chained a large black dog.
They crouched closely round the table, an oil lamp burning over their heads. The old man was in shadow, only his curled thumbs and the arthritic bulbs of his knuckles visible as he flicked out the cards. A bird screeched over the moorland. The sound throbbed in the hut. The pool of light laid itself carefully over their three figures, the old man’s eyes staring out like coals from the shadow, his hands fidgeting. The cards, dropping crisply, clicked on the plain deal table.
Tolson played on restlessly, smoking. The old man hardly looked up, watching Tolson’s fingers, each like a muscle, laying the cards down thin as wafers. He gazed at their casual strength and then, at the last moment, glanced up at Tolson’s face. He stared back at the cards, suddenly blind to them.
Eventually he stood up, unhooked another lamp out of the darkness and lit it. The new light doubled on his cracked features and laid back the shadows to the corner of the van, illuminating the huge dog. Its teeth were like white rivets set in its metal head. It didn’t move. Their figures trailed giant shadows.
They went out. The old man leashed the dog and followed them. Leonard coughed, clutching his chest a second, as he climbed down the steps. The air was ragingly fresh. It was dark, the moon hidden. Far away on one of the ridges was a single speck of light; and the screaming, still, of a bird up on the moor.
The old man walked behind them, his lamp swinging low, throwing the weight of their shadows forward, lighting up the hardened ruts and the quilting of the ground. Once he tripped over a guy and stumbled. He said nothing. The lamp rattled, then he came on. The dog itself made no sound.
The tents were luminous, pale cliffs around the field, glowing as the light fell on them as if the canvas absorbed it, contained it. Stars glistened in the torn patches between the clouds. When they got nearer the tent Leonard called to the old man and they left him. He gave no answer. His lamp swung away slowly towards his van, outlining the moving shape of the dog. In the sudden blackness Leonard walked close to Tolson. He walked softly, tensed to the coldness, and touching Tolson with his arm, his shoulder, and then his hand. Their feet crunched in the ash ruts.