by David Storey
There was something so familiar in the sudden tone and accent that Leonard turned to stare at him in astonishment. It was a voice he had known and heard so many times before that he could only shake his head in bewilderment. Despite its familiarity, its identity eluded him.
‘You’ve got to understand,’ Blakeley said. ‘All this … I’ve never had an education. I don’t really know how to express these things. Not in a way that you’d understand and sympathise with, I mean.’
‘You’d better let me go,’ Leonard said almost inaudibly.
‘You see. You think it’s an act, don’t you? That I’m trying to mislead you. Isn’t that it? You think it’s some peculiar game of deception.’
‘No, it doesn’t matter,’ Leonard said, pulling more fiercely now and grasping Blakeley’s fingers to prise them from his arm. He stared at the older man in complete confusion. A motorbike had started somewhere down the road. Leonard stiffened, his head twisting violently round.
Blakeley suddenly released him and stood dejectedly aside. ‘Ah well. Perhaps it’s just as Tolson intended it should be.’
‘Did you know that he’d followed us? To your house. And now here.’
‘No. But then what does it matter?’ He didn’t even look round.
‘I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this,’ Leonard said, still staring at Blakeley intensely as though he expected the shape of another person entirely to appear there. The motorbike engine was being revved, heavily and slowly.
‘I think you do,’ Blakeley said. ‘But you’re just refusing to see. This is Vic’s attempt to say to me, “Keep off!”’
‘Keep off? Keep off what?’
‘Him. For me to keep off him.’ Blakeley appeared to turn away slightly with a vague gesture of despair. ‘Well, that and showing you off. Both things together.’
‘I shall have to go.’ Leonard shook his head wildly. ‘This … it’s just some sort of impersonation. I shall have to go.’
He immediately hurried away. He didn’t look round. He heard no other sound from Blakeley and assumed that the older man was watching him out of sight. He walked more quickly. As he passed a side road he heard a motor-bike retreating from the opposite end. It sounded lighter than Tolson’s. He couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t the effect of the steep rise of the estate. He broke into a run. It was only as he pushed his way round the darkened Place that he let out a cry of frustration as he realised that he had left his raincoat at Blakeley’s house.
16
With his handkerchief Shaw wiped the metal dust from his file and put the thin slip of metal back into his boiler suit pocket. As he blew his nose he was flung to one side, the truck swinging abruptly round the sharply curved drive. He crouched down against the tailboard, gripping it tightly in square, chapped hands, and stared out at the fir trees rising stiffly from the mist.
As the hills split apart and they drew into the hollow Leonard pulled himself up and was the first man to drop down onto the gravel. The tent sagged with the dampness, the ropes slack from a week’s neglect. The canvas itself was darker. The stone house, merging into the mist and the darker shape of the trees, was larger and silent. The house dominated the hollow. The marquee seemed shrivelled and sunken.
Shaw climbed slowly down and stood by the truck rolling a cigarette while he watched Ewbank back out of the driving seat and walk alertly across to the tent. The contractor looked in. Then he took off his shallow trilby and stroked his thin remnant of hair, running the exhausted strands slowly between finger and thumb. Shaw scarcely noticed his change of mood: he glanced uneasily at Leonard. Tolson hadn’t arrived at the yard that morning.
The men went to look at the tent. The muslin lining had been ripped down: it lay like a torn film over the upturned chairs and debris. Round the perimeter lay empty bottles glowing like fragments of ice, broken, split, some half full of liquid. At the door Ewbank was standing with his arm raised as if both to acknowledge the event that had taken place inside and to prevent anyone from entering.
‘It’s all right,’ he said and stepped forward. Glass crunched beneath his feet. ‘It’s all right. Just nobody come in.’ His tall, black figure stood for several minutes gazing vacantly, almost disinterestedly, at the wrecked interior.
The men stood at the entrance in silence. They started smoking. The hollow was very quiet. A bird sang from the summit of one of the conical hills. Ewbank emerged from the tent, put on his hat and disappeared round the corner of the house.
Shaw hadn’t moved from the side of the truck. He stood watching Leonard, a strange, half-apologetic smile contorting his face. He looked as if he were in the middle of a conversation. Three dogs suddenly ran round the corner of the house.
Ewbank reappeared with the middle-aged gentleman in the check coat. He had a yellow scarf tucked inside his collar. Three leads hung from the fingers of his left hand. His right was thrust into his trouser pocket. It was he rather than Ewbank who led the way to the tent door. They both looked inside in silence.
‘Take a look for yourself,’ Ewbank said eventually. The man nodded, gazing reflectively at the interior. ‘When we left it, sir, it was laid out well … beautifully. It was extremely beautiful.’
‘I know,’ the man said. He watched the dogs running inside the tent, plunging through the muslin as though it were waves. ‘But you know how these things are. We had nearly four hundred people here. It was a wedding.’ He smiled at Ewbank as though this were an explanation they both could appreciate.
‘Did you say four hundred people or four hundred pigs?’ the contractor said. He stammered slightly, flushing.
The man turned to him again, half-smiling. ‘Ah, yes.… It looks that way, doesn’t it? Drake!… Drake!’
Ewbank jumped, trembling slightly. But the man was calling the dog. It stood, one leg uplifted, in the opposite corner of the tent.
‘You’ll let me know what the damage amounts to,’ the man said.
‘It’s not that,’ Ewbank almost cried out. ‘I mean, I don’t know. It looked so lovely.’
‘It did. That’s true.’
‘And just look at the place, sir. You can’t think that a human being could have stepped inside it.’ Ewbank seemed bewildered, betrayed; this was the kind of man he could have respected and trusted above all others. ‘Why, even if my own men had the use of the tent they could never have done this to it,’ he said, trying to find words for his disappointment.
The man whistled at the dogs and they ran to him immediately, scattering the muslin and several soiled napkins as they sprang for the opening.
‘I hope they haven’t cut their feet, there’s a lot of broken glass about,’ he said. ‘I ought to have thought.’ He touched Ewbank’s shoulder genially as the dogs tugged at his legs. ‘If you want me, I’ll be available most of the day.’ He seemed genuinely surprised when Ewbank swung round without answering. Then he moved off with the dogs towards the house.
‘The man’s mad. He’s fucking insane. He never heard a word I said,’ Ewbank told the men nearest him. He was flushed, his hands pushed down in the pockets of his coat. He gazed bitterly at the ground, then up at the men as silently they began to drift into the work.
At first Leonard worked slowly. Beside him, Shaw strained to reach the hooks, lifting them off the roof and dropping the canvas round his feet where it was trampled as he struggled with the next piece. Gradually Leonard increased his pace. The canvas dropped like a serpent on the grass outside the tent, Shaw panting at its restless head. Beyond them the men had lifted the torn skin of muslin and laid bare the dislocated structure of the dance floor: sections of it had been dislodged and upturned. Ewbank watched as though it were a body borne up from an accident.
Shaw trembled with his work, reaching up on the toes of his stubby boots to unhook the heavy canvas. He tugged, almost dragged it down with the descending weight of his body. At his shoulder Leonard pressed him on faster. The old man’s face grew tense, with a redness tinged by the whit
e glow from the canvas itself. His breathing drummed in the hollow eaves of the tent. Yet he worked for a while with an unnatural persistence, deliberately resisting the pressure beside him.
Then he moaned quietly and leaned forward. He held himself up, his hands spread like claws on the canvas.
The men crashed the chairs into a loose pile outside the tent. Ewbank, seeing Shaw collapse and Leonard bending over him, went across.
‘Is he all right?’ he said.
Shaw was coughing, but he stood up at the sound of Ewbank’s voice. It was a vaguely military gesture, his fists thrust down at his sides. His eyes were closed and watering.
‘Go and sit down, Shaw,’ Ewbank said. ‘Go on. Get a chair off the pile.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Shaw stood stiffly at attention for a moment, then, his eyes opening slightly, he walked slowly across the tent. Without looking at Leonard, Ewbank returned to his position in the centre of the tent.
Leonard worked alone. The walling was heavy. Occasionally he glanced up to where Shaw was sitting. He had opened a chair only a few feet from where Ewbank was standing, and was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, rolling a cigarette.
When he looked up again Ewbank was only a few yards away. He was stooping down at the edge of the flooring and, glancing round to see if he was observed, he began to conceal something under several pieces of paper. When, sometime later, Leonard stood over the place taking down the walling he moved the paper to one side with his foot. Beneath were four unopened bottles of champagne, side by side.
The debris inside the tent was cleared, the walling folded and bagged, and the first line of flooring lifted. At lunch time Ewbank sat in the cab of the truck by himself, but once the men had settled down on chairs in the drive he got out again and wandered absent-mindedly through the tent. The men watched him in silence. He reached his hiding place, casually bent down and lifted the paper aside. He felt more determinedly between the battens. Then he pulled out an empty bottle, then a second, broken one. He kicked them away with a private sort of savagery.
The men had burst out laughing. Ewbank stared down the length of the tent to where they sprawled in the drive.
‘Ay up, Sammy,’ Pilkington called. ‘Have you lost something?’
Ewbank turned away and continued his indifferent progress through the tent.
‘Are you looking for these?’ Pilkington called.
Ewbank looked up again to see Pilkington holding a champagne bottle in one hand and indicating three more by his feet.
Ewbank walked slowly over to the men. ‘Why, what have you got there?’ he said.
‘Ah, now. What would you think it is?’ Pilkington said. ‘Go on. Have a guess. It begins with s-h.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘Radcliffe here saw you hiding them away.’
‘Oh.’ Ewbank glanced round at the smiling men. ‘And who moved them?’
‘Old Radcliffe. He knew you’d want to share it all round. Share and share alike, the Ewbank motto. Come on, Sammy, a fair cop.’
‘Ah, well.’ Ewbank stared at Leonard. He was sitting to one side, blushing slightly, his face peculiarly open and vulnerable. ‘The famous Radcliffe humour, then.’ He continued staring at the younger man until Leonard turned away.
‘He’s off his leash now Tolson’s away,’ Pilkington said.
‘I’ll get my cup,’ Ewbank said.
The men watched Pilkington pull out the cork with his teeth. He struggled with it for a while, then Ewbank, returning with his china cup, said, ‘There’s a wire catch at the side that’ll release the cork.’ But it suddenly came away in Pilkington’s grimacing mouth.
‘Christ,’ Pilkington said. He blew out his cheeks. The neck of the bottle smoked between his thick hands.
‘They were all four just laid there,’ Ewbank said. ‘They must have been hidden by one of his so-called guests.’
‘That’ll be it,’ one of the men said. ‘These rich pricks aren’t above snaffling a bit when it comes their way.’
‘Christ.’ Pilkington stroked his mouth. A trickle of blood had appeared at one corner. Ewbank took the bottle from him and poured out the first cupful, raising it slowly to his mouth and sipping. His trilby was tipped to the back of his head as if recently he had been travelling at high speed; his small, reddened eyes were furtively self-absorbed.
‘Well, Sammy?’ Pilkington said. ‘It’s not vinegar after all, is it?’ He held his hands now either side of his mouth.
The contractor smiled leniently, then replenished his cup. The men suddenly laughed and held out a row of broken mugs. Ewbank went slowly along, filling them. Shaw raised his cup immediately and swallowed it like water.
‘Aren’t you having any, Radcliffe?’ Ewbank said.
Leonard shook his head. He’d begun to eat his sandwiches and they lay in a neat pile in his lap.
‘Do you mean you don’t wish to take advantage of your own generosity?’ Ewbank said. He glanced at the men: the bottle was raised towards Leonard as if the contractor intended pouring it whether there were a cup there or not. Several drops fell onto Leonard’s sandwiches. ‘Come on. Have some. There’s plenty.’
Leonard moved his legs aside. ‘It’s all right. I don’t want any.’
‘I don’t mind a bit of humour at my expense,’ Ewbank said.
‘Ah, leave him, Sammy,’ one of the men said. Ewbank had become threatening, the bottle thrust out before him.
‘I think he should have a share,’ Ewbank insisted. ‘After all, he found it, as it were.’
‘Ah, come off him,’ Pilkington said. He started opening the second bottle, twisting the wire this time.
‘Why did you go to the trouble of finding the bottles, then, if you didn’t want a share?’ Ewbank said. Leonard had blushed more deeply, rubbing his hand briefly against his forehead.
‘He thought it was a joke, that’s all, Sammy,’ Pilkington said. ‘It was just his bit of fun. Leave the sod alone and get some of this down you.’
‘Oh, so that was it.’ Ewbank laughed. ‘A bit of fun.’ He laughed again. The trilby fell from the back of his head. He appeared not to notice. ‘Oh, I thought it was something personal at first.’ He looked at Pilkington and the two men suddenly laughed together.
‘Come on, Sammy. Let’s get this bubbly down before the old lad comes out of the house.’
They turned away, Ewbank stepping on his hat, then stooping down, still laughing, to pick it up. Yet a moment later he glanced back at Leonard, apparently dissatisfied and with a wilder look of frustration.
The men grew noisier. As they started eating their dinners, and Shaw searched for his bag, one of them called out, ‘By the way, Shaw, I didn’t think you’d need your sandwiches today. What with the drink and one thing and another. So I threw them in the bushes yonder. I hope you don’t mind.’
Someone had started laughing.
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake not again,’ Pilkington said. ‘Here – have one of mine, Shaw, till these buggers grow up.’
Shaw sat holding his cup tightly against his chest.
‘I hope you don’t mind, Shaw,’ the man said again.
‘No. Why should I?’
Shaw had stood up. Then he suddenly threw his mug away. It clattered bouncing over the gravel of the drive; then, just as it came to rest, it broke. The men laughed again, diverted from the overlooking presence of the house. Pilkington also stood up. He twisted the wire cap off the last bottle and the cork exploded. The wine flowed down his hands as the men hurried towards him. Shaw walked away, into the tent.
‘Oh, now, not too much in my cup,’ Ewbank said, his hand on the bottle as Pilkington poured it out. ‘Just fill it to the brim and no further.’
He sat down on the nearest chair, holding the cup unsteadily in both hands. He sipped clumsily from the flooded lip, glancing up at the house. Leonard, seated some distance away, intercepted his look. Beyond him an elderly woman was standing at a tall ground floor window. She looked
out at the men, then upwards. It had suddenly begun to rain.
It took the men some time to pull one another over the tailboard. They staggered from their chairs laughing, their mouths hanging open to the sky as the rain increased. For a while Ewbank helped them to climb into the back of the truck, then he went round unsteadily to the cab and climbed in. The four bottles lay discarded amongst the tumbled chairs.
‘I’m sorry,’ Pilkington said as Leonard climbed in. ‘I’ll have to get out again and get shut of some.’
He fell out of the back. For a time he lay on the gravel moaning quietly. When Leonard dropped down to help him, he suddenly stood up with a loud burst of laughter. ‘I knew you’d give us a hand in the end!’ He staggered away and crashed into the bushes. ‘I knew you were a good sort. That you’d get down and give us a hand. A good sort. A really good sort is Leonard.’
Yet he was only gone several seconds: he suddenly reappeared from amongst the shrubberies, walking with unusually long strides as if he were just completing a march. His red hair was plastered like a wound to the broad width of his scalp.
‘Radcliffe! There’s old Shaw out there. The other side of the tent. Crying.’ He stared in at the dazed faces of the men. They began to laugh again, stubbornly. ‘No, though, he’s bent down on his knees, crying like a baby. You have a look.’ A man put his head out from the truck, felt the weight of rain, and withdrew.
Leonard stared out at the rain. He was cold: it gave his face a pinched, apprehensive look. His body was jarred as Pilkington thrust his way in past him.
‘You have a look at Shaw,’ Pilkington said. ‘Just have a look.’
The men laughed more deeply, falling further back into the truck to accommodate Pilkington’s huge body. The vehicle swayed clumsily on its springs, squeaking. From the house a dog had suddenly started barking.