Her Victory

by Alan Sillitoe

  Alf’s terror was buried so deep that he became scathing towards whoever threatened to prise it loose: ‘You’ll frighten her to death, you silly bleeder!’ he called across to Bert.

  Up to this point they had felt themselves to be young and indestructible, but now saw that at least part of their world must sooner or later come to an end, and that so must their own. Betty and Maureen, afraid to stay in the parlour, were making tea and cutting bread in the kitchen to feed their kids.

  Maud’s eyes opened. Pam wiped the sweat with a paper towel, and wondered how much she saw while babbling the names of her sons as if they might do something for her. They had taken her teeth in case she choked on them. Pam’s mother had died, and her father the year before. She held Maud’s cold hand, and felt her own tears start when the old woman stared. Within the bush of grey hair her face seemed to be receding.

  The others hung back. Should they come near, Maud might take them with her. Their hearts would go black and they would die. Superstitious horror pushed them away. But she wanted them to approach, though only Pam could hear her say so. George grasped his mother’s hand, but his brothers were terrified that such grief would tear their stomachs to shreds should they let it catch hold. They could no more get close to her than they could to a house on fire.

  She tried to raise herself, still muttering their names, as if the appearance of her sons and daughters would prevent her slipping into that endless tunnel of darkness which she felt was opening behind. They could do nothing. She knew them as too much like her long-vanished husband who had always been the worst of men to her. They took after him in even the smallest part, she had told Pam. The last gesture to remind them of what she had once been was a brief smile.

  It was a movement of the lips that quickly passed, and which no one else saw. But the smile, if such it was, almost crushed Pam’s heart with the intensity of its bitter irony, and the emptiness of expectation which was felt almost as a relief compared to the disappointments she had suffered. The two flows of expression merged to become the last grimace of a dying woman who had let the male predators so often drag her down that she had lost all spiritual contact with normal morality. With that smile she had regained it, but at what a price. She lay back on the bank of pillows, her hand in Pam’s becoming colder as she closed her eyes.

  Yet Pam willed her not to let life slip away. She had tried the same with her father, but to no effect, though just in case dying could be prevented she was again impelled to fix a similar concentrated strength of body and soul to keep Maud from death if only by a few minutes. She spoke, but in silence, pleading with Maud not to leave them in desolation. Maybe her father had had an extra hour of peace and was eternally happy with it, unless he had been too clouded in mind to know, which must be the state of all the dead, if they were in any state at all. And now she kept Maud alive, or seemed to, for her eyes opened, though it was hard to say how much she saw. Perhaps she wouldn’t die as long as Pam begged her with an intense love, tears being part of her prayers.

  Someone kicked at an ankle, and she turned at the eruption of a private quarrel or resurrected grudge, to see Bert put a brass candlestick from the sideboard into his overcoat pocket.

  Alf jabbed his foot out. ‘That’s mine. I wanted that.’ Not getting it, he reached to the shelf for a trivial seaside souvenir and a heavy metal ashtray.

  ‘You grab-ailing bastards.’ Harry opened a drawer, clutched a box of cutlery under his coat. She now knew why they wore overcoats and mackintoshes on a warm spring day. They couldn’t trust each other to share Maud’s bits and pieces in a civilized manner. She wanted to scream at them to stop their looting, but she would alarm Maud whose hand stirred at the noise.

  The brothers’ wives and sisters, hearing the signals, came from the kitchen with plastic bags. They tried to be quiet (she had to say that for them) but they couldn’t refrain from the occasional shove and cry over a choice piece. On the other side of his mother’s bed George was undecided as to whether or not he should take something to remember her by. As if, she thought, one needed objects to recall a person. But George was, to his credit, as transfixed by their movements as she was, and knew that he would be pushed aside as being the youngest who deserved the least if he made any such move. Because their mother was dying they were in a mood to manhandle him in a manner which would be speedy and vicious, due to the risk of one of their number snatching something on the sly should the process be too prolonged. And they would have said: ‘What do yo’ want ote for, greedy bleeder? Yer’ve made a bigger pile than we’ll ever make, no matter how hard we wok. So fuck off, and let us tek everything.’

  She kept hold of Maud’s hand, telling her to rest and be in peace. She wanted a miracle, that she would wake up healed and asking for a bite to eat. The eyes were open, looking at familiar objects being taken out of the room.

  ‘She’s still living, can’t you see?’ Nobody heard, and Maud cried through her, but Pam would say no more, willed into silence because words lost their value as Maud closed her eyes for the last time, perhaps glad to be rid of them. Pam kissed her, and put her hands under the blanket, feeling even colder and smaller than the corpse, as if there was no fire left to draw breath that struggled at her diaphragm. ‘Let’s go home,’ she said to George.

  ‘Soon,’ he answered, choking with loss.

  One daughter said she was going to tell a woman up the street to come and lay her mother out, but she returned in triumph with a death certificate from the doctor so that she could claim the burial allowance. The three elder brothers leaned against each other roaring with grief, and shed tears that scalded so much they evaporated almost as soon as they appeared. Bert, embracing Harry to soothe the anguish they both undoubtedly suffered, felt into his brother’s capacious pockets so as to pick out a coveted object, but Harry noticed the sly hand and told him to eff-off, pushing him away so that a real fight began which Alf and George finally stopped.

  It was like the Royal Family in a Shakespeare play, Pam thought, but this was a contest that any self-respecting people would keep secret, though she knew they would joke and laugh about how they had gone for each other over a few bits and bobs, and how at least they had stopped George and his woman from getting their avaricious hands on what didn’t belong to them. They were in it together, and ended the day with the stuff more or less shared between them, though George got nothing, because they had fought for what was theirs, just as they preferred to struggle for whatever else they may well have deserved. Any shame they felt would only keep them closer together, and what hate they had manifested towards each other had been merely an emotional device to stop the family breaking up at a time of crisis.

  15

  By closing her eyes she could look inwards to as much space as she would ever need. She was a window in a wall built by herself, and sat for hours with closed eyes yet stayed awake, knowing that somewhere beyond limitless areas God existed, a universe He had provided for her to look into so that she could have peace.

  The longer she kept her eyes closed the less she was disturbed by sounds. She heard but did not flinch. The world was benign because she had found a place that was entirely her own. She could not be attacked by memories that she did not want.

  The peace remained when she opened her eyes. She looked into the mirror whose own spaces showed memories that would not destroy her. She had once walked into a chapel and heard a man preaching. A piece of paper given at the door said his text would be from the Book of Isaiah.

  His words created space, and his voice filled it. She had gone in not out of the rain but from under a clear blue sky. His words chased away anguish and gave her peace. She had first read such words at school, but hadn’t been able to properly comprehend. The most intense sensation lasted only as long as the preacher’s words, but they gave proportion and order to what had existed in chaos. His speaking fitted the austerity of walls and windows. His voice held back the cold, and protected each person in their different space. By his word
s she knew what her soul craved:

  ‘For ye shall go out with joy,

  And be led forth with peace;

  The mountains and the hills

  Shall break forth before you into singing,

  And all the trees of the field

  Shall clap their hands.

  Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress,

  And instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle;

  And it shall be to the LORD for a memorial,

  For an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.’

  Without such words space had no meaning. The words brought a beauty without which life was pointless. And after the beauty came silence (even for the score of people present) and without the possibility of silence God had no meaning.

  The man who read, younger than she, stood by the simple table, tall and pale, his dark suit not well-fitting. What little hair he had was lank. His blue eyes glistened as he went through chosen verses for the day. He spoke them from memory, and extemporized his commentaries, looking slowly from one side of the hall to the other as if searching his words out from among the people present, but pausing on his sweep at deliberately irregular intervals so that most might at some time believe he looked especially at them.

  She supposed that he worked in an office during the week, and wondered whether he had a wife. If he had children did he love them and make them happy? Did he tell jokes and make them laugh? Did he make them feel good to be alive? There was no way of knowing. He was a speaker of words, a man of fervent beliefs which he wanted to pass on to all who would listen, so that the beauty of the universe grew as he spoke:

  ‘We all sooner or later find the road that has been chosen. No twilight stars shall darken when we come to that forked road. Sorrow is not hidden from the eyes, nor is joy. Infants see the light, and so shall the small and the great when life is bitter in the soul, for God does not condemn those for ever on whom he has placed his mark. He gives our eyes the vision to see into our own hearts and the hearts of others. We are unique in God’s sight, and no woman or man shall perish from the earth and have no name in the street. Though terrors on every side make us afraid, and we fear to be driven from light into dark, belief in God will show us the way, for it says that fear of the Lord is wisdom, and that to depart from evil is understanding.’

  The space, she felt, was within, no matter where you were. She listened without turmoil, stood with other people yet was alone, feeling a balm that she had craved all her life. She may have known some peace as a child, but if so had not regained it till now, when tranquillity had come simply by walking in from the street. She had heard of women wanting to be together, away from men, but she didn’t care to be with women any more than with men at the moment. In her void of silence she needed to be a long time in her own space before knowing whether she wanted to be with anyone else. She was drawn back into his voice, and among his words:

  ‘God,’ he said with fervour, ‘loves Israel, and all who go through the day and the night with her. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy and condemn Israel, and the chief singer with his stringed instrument in turn forsakes them. Among the tribes of Israel God has made known that which shall surely be. Job, Daniel and Noah shall in their goodness and wisdom reign, while those who rise against Israel shall be overthrown, but if the world come to peace and to God it shall prosper mightily. And I will multiply men upon all the House of Israel: and the cities shall be inhabited, and the wastes shall be builded. It will endure for ever. They shall build houses therein, and plant vineyards; yea, they shall dwell with confidence, when I have executed judgements on those that despise them; and they shall know that I am the Lord their God. Israel rejoices, and mankind is glad that the Lord liveth and brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them. And I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their father. Behold I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set my standard to the people. And they shall bring their sons in their arms, and their daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. The abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. For the Lord will have mercy and yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to Elpis Israel, the vow God gave to the Gentiles as a gift and an example, and to the Sons of Jacob as a Promised Land. But before what we seek is delivered unto us we shall be tested with tribulations without number, as the Jewish people were sorely tried before they came into their Inheritance.’

  Her limbs were numb, but she willed him to go on for ever so that she would not have to cast herself out into the street. The sky might blacken and the day pour water, but the words were balm on her soul, the voice ointment. At the door she bought a tract of his sermons for a few pence, and had the limp book now in London. She remembered walking into the sunshine, and seeing no name on the white and blue poster at the door. He was the man with no evils whom she was afraid to wait for and talk to, the man with God in his eyes, peace in his presence and the Bible on his lips, whose appearance and voice had given her a feeling of space and poignant freedom that she had not experienced before, but which she must one day come back to.

  She could not listen for ever, because he did not speak forever. She went out. She could only walk. She walked the three miles home, elated from the words poured like wine into her, and repeated with every step. Her legs ached and her feet were sore, but being worn out enabled her to look at the reality of the streets and people again, so that by the time she reached home the preacher’s words had faded to a place in her mind where they would not dominate her spirit beyond endurance, but which helped her to remember them.

  George asked where she got to every week. She said she went walking. She called on Eunice Dobson who lived in the Park. They had coffee and talked for an hour about old times at the ticket office. Then she walked back. He thought it a good idea, said it was healthy to use her feet now and again. He was sorry he couldn’t go, but was too busy with paperwork.

  She stepped into fresh air on her way into town. Better to walk than go in the car, as George had suggested. She only drove often enough not to forget how to do it, otherwise he took the wheel, nervous that she might scratch the precious paintwork or scrape the bumper. The protection which the enclosing car-frame gave against the outside world had the disadvantage that it cut her off so decisively from other people.

  The fact that she had thoughtlessly told a lie gnawed at her. She felt defiled and threatened on realizing that no one had as much power over you as those who made you lie. Though there was only herself to blame, she knew that George had meant to attack her by asking so pointedly where she went. It was impossible to walk out freely in a world where every experience had to be shared as one might have to divide a bone with another dog.

  The Sunday morning street was empty, breakfast-smelling houses standing back from the pavement. Their bricks were dark and comfortable from having been lived behind for more than one generation, compared to the ten-year pebble-dash boxes on her street. They were permanent and untouchable, and inside she imagined a richer atmosphere than that which nurtured her, who felt she was dying under the weight of a single lie. When she ran screaming across the street a paperboy came around the corner on his bike, and cursed as he swerved, calling out: ‘Fucking old bitch!’ while pedalling away.

  Her father’s Bible was in her bag. She had read it in her schooldays and now, frightened, took it out to hold. Her father’s and her mother’s names were written inside the cover. She had inscribed hers on the opposite page when she was seven. She stood by a lamp-post and looked at the signatures of joint ownership, until she was calm. Then she walked over a railway bridge and to the main road.

  The cemetery was to her right as
she went up the hill, a sky of grey cloud with no space between, a mild wind blowing into her face. A bus went along the wide road, a car overtaking, and she felt sweat under her arms from the heat of walking. She stopped by the railings because a blister was beginning at her heel, though the lie she had told burned even more.

  A man at the wheel of a shining station-wagon turned down his window. ‘Are you lost, duck?’

  He stopped by the kerb. ‘Do you want a lift somewhere?’

  He looked at her through wire-framed glasses, seeming about fifty, with fair hair swept back over his broad head, wearing a sports jacket, cardigan and tie tucked brashly in. She liked his easy smile, and the hand that rested on the window. The click of indicators sounded, and he had left the engine running. ‘I’ll take you wherever you want. My wife’s away for a week, and I’m footloose and fancy free!’

  ‘I’m going to chapel,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll give you a lift, then.’

  ‘No thanks. It’s only just over the hill.’

  ‘What do you want to go to chapel for, anyway? You’ll do a lot better coming with me.’

  She fastened her coat, ready to walk. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Can’t? Can’t? Do you hear that? She can’t!’ He appealed as if he had someone else in the car, which he hadn’t. ‘What reason is that?’

  She took two steps forward, tempted by a madness that felt wonderfully sane, to get in and put herself beyond the deadly woodenness of life that weighed her down. There would be no crawling back to the self she would leave behind. He opened the door: ‘Come on, then, why don’t you? We’ll be in Matlock in forty minutes, or Skeggy in a couple of hours. It’s still early, so the roads’ll be clear.’

  For such people everything worked. The devil’s arrangements were always to be relied on. There was a glint of something worse than victory in his eyes, which she could hardly blame him for, considering her hesitation. The car radio caterwauled brainless music to help in his enticement. ‘You aren’t coming then?’