by David Storey
The lines cross and curve in every direction. From down the track comes the slow heaving pant of the goods hauling up the valley. The noise echoes, and sounds closer, in the ground mist seeping from the valley bottoms. It’s some place I’ve never been in before. My foot touches a rail and immediately I’m aware of a slow vibration. I have to stop. The sleepers stretch both ways.
I hear a slight whispering behind me, and turning round see this big yellow watery eye. ‘What the hell’re you doing?’ I ask it. It hisses, then suddenly jars and spurts towards me. For a second the thing shoots away, grumbling and straining, then it quivers, and comes back to its previous course. The line trembles and quakes. It shudders. Below the watery eye come two bursts of steam. I stumble around in the clinkers between the sleepers.
The eye swings away. I feel a fine spray of water as it spits at me, the heat of its huge black body; for a second I’m lit up by a yellow-red glare, then I’m cool again, and in darkness. The red eye this time disappears into the mist.
I stumble over a lot of rails somebody’s just put down. There’s the noise of cattle somewhere the other side of the yard. I hear voices and see lamps swinging. Ahead, brakes jar on a wagon, then stutter as a line of low black shapes slide past, rocking and clinking like complaining pigs in procession. I smell for a second the wet coal, the animal grease. I stop to have a last swig from the bottle. A man walks past, swinging a lamp and not seeing me. But he stops when he hears me make a clumsy dash over the last lines and scramble down through the ashes, over the wall, and into the street. Now that I look back I can see the red, orange, and green lights of the signals and the low glow from the shunters’ brazier. I haven’t met my dad.
There’s still a taxi on the all-night rank, and around half-past three I’m in Fairfax Street, which is like a tomb. Mrs Hammond let me have the front door key since I said I’d be in late. Before I go in I unlock the car and take her present out of the back seat. It’s heavy. I wrap the paper round it carefully, then slam the car door. But no lights come on. The car is the only thing standing in that long brick alley.
On the table in the kitchen are three cups and saucers, and on the plates the crumbs from the Christmas cake—to show me accidentally she’s had visitors. In the fireplace is a saucer of milk and another plate with the Christmas cake almost intact.
She must have been waiting for me—probably she left her bedroom door ajar so’s not to miss me coming in. I hear her coming downstairs and I shove the parcel behind the settee. I take the toys out of the carrier as she comes in.
‘It’s late,’ she whispers. ‘Have you only just got back?’ She’s come down in her bare feet, a coat over her dressing-gown. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’ve had a bloody awful night, if that’s what you mean … I see you’ve had a visitor.’
‘Two,’ she says, pleased. ‘Nobody you know.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘Don’t get so hoity. Just because you don’t know everybody in my life.’ She’s like a girl. Her eyes sparkle with ready excitement and her secret. ‘It was Eric’s sister and her husband.’
‘I never knew he had one.’
‘There! I knew you’d be like this about it. Well, he has. Emma … Compton. They’d heard about you.’ She rubs her hands together as though they’ve given her a big thrill by coming. ‘Playing football and that. They wanted to know what you were like. Her husband goes to watch you play. And here. …’ She giggles and picks up a card lying on the mantelpiece. ‘Here—just look at this and tell me what you think.’
It’s a photograph, already a bit yellow, of three girls, arms round each other, laughing as if the camera’s the biggest joke they’ve ever seen. They’re in overalls—wartime overalls—and their hair is covered up by scarves.
‘Is that you!’ I can’t stop my surprise. She’s there, the middle of the three, leaning back slightly, the sun on her face and mouth, her feelings unlocked and running free. A girl’s face, unmarked and spontaneous.
‘That’s Emma on the right—it was before I met Eric. She introduced us.’
‘What were you doing? Where’s this. …’
‘During the war. We worked at the ordnance place at Moyston. Making bombs. You should have seen us!’ Her face is still lit up like a kid’s. ‘We used to have to get up at six, and get on a special train in town. It went all over the place picking people up before it got to Moyston. All women! We had some times! You can just see some of the buildings at the back there—camouflaged. We were even bombed once, during the day. With Emma coming it brought it all back. …’
‘You weren’t married then.’
‘No.’ Her look slows and darkens. ‘I had some chaps. … We had some good fun together.’
‘When were you married?’
She hasn’t been looking at me. She’s been flashing her bright look around the room, shyly, remembering. But now she’s dampened and she turns back to me.
‘After the war.’
‘You were a bit late, weren’t you?’
‘I had my dad to look after. That kept me at home a lot. I suppose that’s one of the reasons I enjoyed going to work at Moyston so much.’
‘You married, then, when your dad died?’
She shakes her head, and looks doubtful. ‘No, I left him. I couldn’t stand it … I was getting on. He seemed to think I should stay there for … well, I don’t know how long. So we had a bust-up, and I left him to marry Eric. I’ve never seen him since—and I don’t suppose I ever shall. The last time I heard he’d been moved to some almshouses or something … God!’ Her girl’s face vanishes and she stares at me in horrified amazement. ‘You’ve no front teeth!’
‘It’s not that bad,’ I tell her. I put the photo down and go to the sink and look in the mirror. ‘I haven’t dared look till now … I don’t look too good, do I? I’ve grown ten years. What d’you reckon?’
‘I wondered why you spoke funny—with that sort of lisp. I thought you’d been drinking.’ She shivers with cold and begins to be worried.
‘What’s the saucer of milk and the cake in the hearth for?’
‘Santa Claus. The milk’s for his reindeer. And don’t laugh. Because Lynda says he’s always glad to have it on a cold night and he’ll leave extra presents for the kind thought.’
‘Well, I haven’t brought the deer tonight, but I appreciate the thought.’ I drink some of the milk. It tastes putrid after beer, burning cold. The mice’ve been at the cake. She watches me put it down and says, ‘Have you been fighting?’
‘No. I got them broken, and the dentist pulled the bits out. Six bits. Five guineas. I’ve picked the wrong bloody job.’
She examines my face seriously a minute. ‘It spoils your looks.’
‘I’ve been told.’
‘By a girl?’
‘What other kind worries over me?’
She’s quiet as she tries to reconstruct my evening.
‘You went to Weaver’s after all then?’
‘Yes.’
‘You look ill. You shouldn’t have been out tonight. It said on the wireless after the news that you went off the field but came on again after a few minutes. I didn’t think it was serious. … If you catch cold in your gums you’ll know about it.’
‘I’ve been told that an’ all.’
‘By another girl? … It doesn’t seem to put them off very much.’
‘I’m not complaining. … What shall I do with these toys?’
‘I’ll take them with me, and put them in the stockings.’
‘I’ve got your present here as well. Do you want it now?’
She glances quickly round the room. ‘Where is it? … No, don’t spoil it now.’
I put the light out and we go upstairs. ‘Christ, I’d ne’er have guessed you’d made bombs.’ She laughs, and when we reach the landing I ask her, ‘Why don�
�t you come to bed with me? It’ll be cold, and I need looking after. Tha knows mother alus goes to bed with Santa.’
She holds the door handle of her room, then rubs the paint.
‘All right,’ she says. ‘But just for Christmas, mind.’
Part Two
1
I took my lunch into the stockyard overlooking the river, and sat on the concrete embankment. A barge shuffled low through the dark brown water, throwing up a foam like dead beer. Its wash roared on the pebbles below. The bargee fastened the long handle of the rudder to a loop of rope, and slung a bucket into the wake. He let it drag in the current, then hauled it up, and tipped it along the narrow walk by the hold. He went back to the rudder and tensed it as the barge began to swing.
It was a habit I’d picked up with the New Year, having my dinner in the stockyard. Usually a few others from the shops and the labs came out and sat amongst the steel and pig iron, or played soccer in a space cleared near the yard office. Those of the older ones who hadn’t been with the firm long ate their snap and just watched the brown glide of the river sewer as if it was the only familiar thing in sight. But today it was cold and blustery, the spume was being blown into the air off the top of the sluice opposite, and the smell of the works hung low. As far as I could see I was the only one out.
I was surprised to see Weaver threading his way through the rows of metal joists. He was on top of me before he’d time to recognize me.
‘Hello … Arthur!’ he said, automatically.
It was the first time I’d seen him since Christmas Eve. I was relieved to hear him still call me Arthur.
‘Do you come out here often to eat?’ he said, surprised into conversation.
‘Only recently. When it’s fine.’
‘The works’ canteen not good enough for you?’ His blue eyes glinted as he dared himself to smile.
‘I’m economizing,’ I told him pointedly. ‘You never know what’s around the corner.’
His smile, only half there, vanished. He dusted the concrete decisively with a cupped hand, eased his trousers at the knee, and motioned me to sit down with him. It was something like his old concern.
‘I’d been meaning to have a chat with you, Arthur,’ he said, and looked down to see if his suit touched my overalls. ‘After that rather terrible display … by Slomer. At Christmas. I suppose we’ve all felt a little estranged. He’s not really a person to entertain socially. But putting that aside—I’m willing to forget the wretched business, if that’s any consolation to you.’
‘I’d be glad to forget it.’
He smiled again, seriously. ‘I’ll take it then we’ve patched up any ill feeling there was between us?’
He waited steadily for me to confirm it, then brought his hand round the front of his suit. We shook as vigorously as we could sitting down.
‘How’re your teeth?’ he asked. ‘Riley showed me the bill we had for them. Quite expensive. I hope they fit all right.’
I smiled for him, and he examined them critically.
‘They certainly look all right.’
‘People say I look younger,’ I told him.
‘Do they, Arthur?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Well … I’ve never thought you looked really old. So any rejuvenating effect is perhaps beyond me. I will say they’re not recognizable—as false, I mean.’
He made a circle in the metal dust with his toe cap. Then pulled a line right through it. ‘There was another thing.’ he said. ‘Going back to that not very happy occasion. Perhaps you didn’t hear, but the police are trying to find who it was lifted some jewellery from my wife’s bedroom that night. Nearly four hundred pounds’ worth.’
‘I hadn’t heard.’
‘I mentioned it in case they ask you—purely as routine—so you won’t feel annoyed. You’ve heard nothing about it?’
‘Not a thing. … What part of the night was it taken?’
‘I’m not sure—we didn’t actually discover anything missing until the following morning, Christmas morning, when Mrs Weaver was about to go to church.’
‘I’m sorry about it,’ I told him unconvincingly.
I realized my attitude to Weaver was rapidly becoming like the way I now thought of Johnson: a withered limb of my ambition. I began to despise Weaver for being so simple, for having his money, his jewellery, his house used by other people. His enemies, in his eyes, were just those people who wouldn’t let him be kind to them. ‘I want to help everybody’ was his motto. It immediately made everybody suspicious: he seemed too good to be true.
‘What annoys me most’, he was saying, ‘isn’t the stuff itself going, but the fact that somebody who came to the party must have taken it. You remember what Slomer said about my lack of faith and all that—just how much faith are you supposed to have? They can’t be content with taking half the slates off your roof, and breaking things up generally, but they take property away as well. I ask you, Arthur, how are you supposed to treat these people? If you treat them like dogs, the way they treat you, someone of the calibre of Slomer complains you’re not human, and if you treat them like people they run all over you.’
‘It was me who took your slates off,’ I said. ‘I’d be glad to pay for the damage. I reckon I ought to have told you earlier.’
‘I’m glad you’ve told me, Arthur, because I knew about that myself. The police had the idea the thief forced entry that way, though why they should think anyone needed to force entry that night, God knows. It was old George who explained what had happened—you got fastened in the room, he said.’
I listened carefully while he explained how he was going to overlook the damn fool thing, and how we ought to forget the entire business from beginning to end. He didn’t sound well. When I insisted on paying for the tiles he didn’t argue. He mentioned the fact that George Wade came back at two in the morning to look for his dog.
‘And did he find it?’ I asked him.
‘No. Johnson discovered it the next morning when he came to clear up the garden … it was like a battlefield. If that dog had died it’d have been the last straw for me. As it was the thing was on its last legs when Johnson found it. You know how attached it is to old George. Still … it did look funny when Maurice let it go like that. Trust Maurice. He’s all action. That boy has never had a thought in his head.’
Another coal barge passed us low in the water, on its way to the power station. The chug of its engine was now the only sound on the river. It pushed the water aside as if it was only a rubber sheet, rippling in thick heavy folds, then collapsing. There were two white gulls swaying over the brown foam.
‘You hadn’t met Slomer before?’ he said casually, suggestive.
‘No.’
He seemed—you know. …’ He fingered his chin, much like a masculine woman might. ‘Very familiar with you, in the way he spoke. I wondered if you hadn’t met him some other time.’
He was looking across the river at the different coloured wool bales, yellow, red, blue, stacked and overflowing from their big wooden trolleys. ‘What do you think of Slomer, Arthur?’ He smiled, but his serious expression didn’t change.
‘He sounded pretty clever … I wasn’t sure.’
‘You don’t like him?’
‘I don’t suppose he wants you to like him. Maybe he’s been hurt into being like that.’
‘If he has, then he certainly tries to entertain himself with it.’ He rubbed his upper lip with that well-kept forefinger of his. ‘I found it odd’, he said, ‘the way he took to you.’
‘I thought he was taking it out of me. I felt like some big rubber dummy stuck up there for him to poke.’
‘Did you, Arthur,’ he said, relieved, almost smiling.
‘But you don’t believe that,’ I said.
‘Let me put it this way, Arthur. There’ve been times whe
n, I’ll admit, I’ve tried to put a spoke in your wheel—often for your own good, as I saw it, like last November. You might think I had a personal grudge for doing that … well, it’s very possible something of that sort swayed my judgement. But each time I suggested putting McEwan in your place I was voted down. I was, if you like, persuaded to change my attitude. And you were having a bad patch then. More often than not that persuasion came from Slomer. Not from him personally, you’ll understand. But all the same from him, from people we all know represent his views on the committee. Now, in my position, what would you be tempted to think?’
‘I see what you mean,’ I said, and watched the slight shaking of his hands. ‘But I still think I’ve played myself into the team all along.’
‘Ah, I’m not saying you haven’t.’ He held his right hand up, his fingers splayed out like cards. ‘Not saying you haven’t, at all. I’m not blaming you, Arthur. Don’t get me wrong. I was merely pointing out to you the writing on the wall.’
I immediately thought of Ed Philips, and the writing on his wall. I couldn’t remember exactly what it was.
‘What you mean’, I said, ‘is that you thought you had some ownership over me, as far as that committee was concerned, and you don’t like it being taken away.’
He didn’t answer. He hadn’t perhaps expected it as plain as this, and it pushed him back on his heels.
‘Are you trying to tell me you’ve carried me or something?’
‘You know you’ve been carried,’ he said bitterly. ‘I liked you, Arthur, once. It was my back and nobody else’s. Right from the beginning.’
‘And you think I’m taking myself away.’ I was angry with him, angry that he should allow me to talk to him like this, that he should take all this trouble to expose himself, offer to make up as friends, and, now that he thought Slomer was taking me over, remind me of how much I owed him, and how keen he’d been to give it. Like all effeminate men, he over-emphasized everything. Both Weaver and Slomer seemed worn-out schemes to me: Weaver, maybe through his good nature, was being taken over by other people; Slomer was struggling to keep his religion, his organization, intact. They both seemed due to fall off the branch, and the committee would then take over.