by David Storey
‘You don’t sound really bothered.’
‘I don’t think I am.’ He fingered a spot on his forehead, inflaming it with his nervous fingers.
‘You don’t want to let yourself go … just because you’re like this. You’ve got to take trouble with yourself.’
‘It’s nice to hear somebody cares.’ But he was no longer pleased.
‘We’re going away next week-end. My brother’s getting married. She’s Welsh … and we’re all going down to Cardiff.’
‘Yes. I heard something about that. Your brother, you know, is really a reasonable man. He came up to me the other day and said he was sorry about what had happened. Do you realize, he’s the only person who’s actually commiserated.’
‘I suppose it’s like him, in a way. He’s like that … once he knows he’s on top and can patronize.’
‘Has he been getting at you or something?’
‘No.’
‘He’ll be different when he gets married.’
‘I don’t think. We’re going down on Friday afternoon, and coming back Sunday. They’re getting married in a Registry Office, so it won’t be very splendid.’
‘You should have quite a party when you meet. The Thorpes and the …’
‘Morrises.’
‘Well, you couldn’t get two much commoner than that.’
The programme changed to light music. Howarth looked perfectly at home. He leaned his head back and draped his arms grotesquely over the sides. It was a conscious relaxation, disguising his loss and indecision.
‘How have your children taken it – Brian and Sheila?’
‘Sheila cried a bit. Partly because she thought I wanted her to. I told them I was going away but that I’d come to see them now and again … I don’t know. I keep expecting somebody, or something, to come along and tell me I’ve done right, that it’s all right.’
‘I only wish you hadn’t suddenly run off like that … on that Wednesday. That was the worst part: leaving me like that. Just running off, as if you were running away, as if you didn’t care a bit how I felt.’
‘It’s been something I’ve had to do on my own. I wasn’t going to have you mixed up in it at all.’
‘What did your wife say?’
‘Joyce? She was frightened, I reckon, more than anything else. So was I. I couldn’t believe that it was true, that I was really doing what I said I was. But she was relieved in her peculiar way, as well. I’ve always avoided threatening her with leaving, or anything of that sort. Yet it was still there. Perhaps she was more relieved than anything.’
‘Really … you’ll expect me to share the blame, in the end. Won’t you?’ I resented the quick way he could sum up his wife: his knowledge of her was arrogant. He had this arrogance towards me, unknown to himself.
‘You sound hardened to it all already,’ he said, distrustful. ‘Almost unscrupulous, if I didn’t know you better.’
‘I’ve come to see some things differently.…’
‘And you’re so complacent about it too. You still have that working class complacency, in spite of yourself. You’ll never admit to being wrong.’
‘And you do.’
‘I’ve been tamed just that bit. I’m even sentimental about the working class, so I always treat them suspiciously. Like your brother – he’s got the split feelings of the class he’s left behind. On the one hand extremely sentimental and on the other incorrigibly hard.’
‘And you’re not like that.’
‘With me the hardness is a bit blunted. The sort of work I’ve been doing – it’s made me too soft. It’s one of the reasons my marriage is a failure.’
‘So in a way you resent my brother.’
‘Yes.’ His eyes dulled, as if suddenly tired. ‘He’s got a purpose in life. I’ve just got nothing.’
Even now his sudden changes of mood could surprise me. They seemed to have no underlying pattern, no reason – unless it was a deep and virtually implacable pessimism. His fair hair and complexion gave his moodiness a clownlike helplessness, uncomplaining and unrealized. It gave him the superficial characteristics of someone who could not be approached.
‘Why did you give in your notice?’ I asked him. ‘There was no need to do that.’
He stared at me, then leaned over lazily and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. He lit my cigarette for me, and dropped the packet and the matches loudly on the floor. ‘Do you still respect me for what I’ve done?’
‘I respect it, if I don’t admire it.’
‘I wondered.’ He was half-satisfied. He smoked seriously for a few minutes.
‘Why did you give in your notice?’
‘I’ve a vague idea of going away.’
‘And starting afresh?’
‘If I can.’ He looked at me, wanting to laugh.
‘Doesn’t the job you’ve got now mean much to you?’
‘No. But I’m not blaming that for anything. They’re charming people and all that. But teaching art, and worst of all teaching art to people who couldn’t get into a university – you can’t sink much lower than that, can you? Not even if you try.’
‘You’re not going to give yourself much chance.’
He stood up and gave me a wondering look. I couldn’t catch the depth and the real meaning of it. ‘I’ve got you. Haven’t I?’ he said.
As the train roared across the raw, desolated plain of buildings towards Manchester, my mind was slowly made up. The desolation was endless, extending beyond the denuded escarpments of rubbish dumps to the concertina ridges of the factories and the short stern ligaments of streets: it was a pleasant desolation, with an unsuspected warmth. A heat that increased as my determination grew.
Michael and my father sat opposite, both quiet and alien in their best suits. Gwen had gone on ahead two days before to soothe her parents. If anything, Michael resented us accompanying him. It diminished in an amusing way the independence of his marriage-intention. My mother sat beside me, small and precise, nursing her silence with the strangeness of travelling. It was the first time that she’d come west in a train, or even left the county. Lancashire, in spite of its industrial similarity, was less secure, less intimate. Its greyness was everlasting, an unending battle.
My father was ready to be amused, and ready to be found amusing. He liked seeing Michael in this nervous situation, and was warm to him. He smiled at all of us in turn, and kept a conversation going between himself, Michael, and me. In his best suit and with his red, scrupulously shaved face, he looked inescapably a man of intimate good humour; a figure of reliability. He wanted to draw my mother from her silence and its foreboding of a strained, argumentative week-end.
I had to leave them. They were unsuspecting. When I told them, between changing trains at Manchester, that I was going back, they were more hurt than I had anticipated. My father was suddenly quiet and indifferent, and my mother frightened. She wanted my support over the week-end even more than my father’s. She hated any disrespect for her feelings.
‘We’ve got our tickets and everything, Margaret,’ she said quietly, suddenly small and lost in the station’s immensity. ‘What with our Alec not being able to get away, and now you …’
‘I’m not doing it to be awkward,’ I tried to explain. ‘But I’ve made up my mind.’
She was close to tears, her eyes wide and inwardly blazing. I’d derided her family pride. We’d set off that morning pleased to be together, warm and big in the family union, and dominant. Now the whole thing was empty. ‘I don’t know what Gwen’ll think …’ she said. Michael stared at me bitterly, although he must have partly understood. ‘Aren’t you feeling well or something?’ my mother persisted. ‘We needn’t rush to change trains. We’ve half an hour or so. We can get a cup of tea.’
‘No, Mum. I’m going back.’
Her eyes were wide with tears. She’d sensed my feeling, but wouldn’t recognize it. ‘You might have said something before we all left,’ she said.
‘What do you want
to prove by it?’ Michael said. He was angry, and resentfully jealous.
‘I’d like to come to your wedding. And I wanted to. But I can’t carry on with it, that’s all. I don’t want to argue about it.’
‘How does she mean: carry on with it?’ Michael said.
‘Nay, you’ve got to tell us summat.’ My father rubbed his face.
‘I don’t mind you going back,’ Michael decided. ‘But you want to give my mother some sort of explanation.’
‘You just accepted that I’d come.’ I was almost in tears at my mother’s distress, angered at her. ‘You took it for granted – you never asked me. It makes it all so petty arguing about it like this. And that’s what you’re trying to do, Michael. I’m going back, and that’s an end of it.’
‘What’s got into the lass?’ my father said shyly.
My mother stared fiercely at me. Michael said something, but neither of us heard. My father answered close to my ear, but his head was turned away towards the barrier. ‘Still, we mu’nt grumble. It’ll be a bit more stuff to sup and eat.’
My mother trembled at his will to soothe us. ‘Why are you going home, Margaret?’ she asked quietly.
I shook my head, looking at her. ‘I’ve a feeling you’ve planned this all along,’ she decided.
‘I haven’t planned it, Mother.’ I struggled to impress her with my seriousness. But I felt that her suggestion was true, that I’d deliberately deceived her. ‘It’s awful of you to say so.’
She listened disbelievingly. ‘Now she’s going to get on her old self-righteous pinnacle,’ Michael said. ‘Come on, Dad. We’ll go for a drink while these two argue it out. We’ll be on platform three waiting for you.’
She wiped her eyes when they were gone, and she lost her intensity. ‘There’s nothing else for me to say, Mum. I’ll see you on to your train, then I’ll catch the next one back home. I’m really sorry.’ I examined her distress, but I was afraid to touch her. ‘It’s just unfortunate that I’ve chosen a time like this. But I can’t help it.’
‘It’s not fair on us, Margaret. Michael was looking forward to having you there as his sister. It’s not going to be a big wedding or ought. You might’ve just put your pride in your pocket for once. It’s not much to ask of you.’
‘I’ve always been pushing my pride away.’
‘Have you,’ she said with quiet scorn. It was unlike her. She was pained and surprised at the extent of her upset.
‘I know it seems meaningless me acting like this,’ I told her, ‘but it’s the only way I’ve got left. Can’t you see my side of it a bit?’
‘I don’t think you’re being honest with yourself,’ she said, white with dread.
‘Why?’
‘Aren’t you a bit jealous of Gwen? But I don’t mind,’ she added quickly. ‘It’s only natural, isn’t it? But you shouldn’t let a thing like that take a hold on you. You ought to come just to show them you’re as good as they are, any day.’
‘I thought you might have understood,’ I told her.
She was silent, afraid to go any further with the suspicion she might have had. She stared distractedly at me, then swung away. I walked hurriedly beside her towards the platform. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ I asked her as we passed a stall.
She shook her head. But she followed me when I went to order two teas. She stood and waited beside me, almost as if she’d suddenly forgotten me. But she disliked eating or drinking in public, and she didn’t drink her tea.
She waited beside me while I drank mine, and I took her full cup back. We waited for the men by the ticket barrier. The train was in. ‘You’ll bring me some cake back?’ I said.
‘Yes. We’ll bring you some.’
‘Shouldn’t you get something to read? It’ll be late before you get into Cardiff.’
She shook her head. ‘No. I don’t like reading on trains.’
We watched the other passengers filing through the barrier. ‘Has she changed her mind, then?’ my father said cheerfully when he came up.
‘No. It’s all right. We’ll leave her here,’ my mother said, lifeless.
I held out my hand and shook hands with Michael. ‘Good luck and best wishes. And give my love to Gwen.’
‘Yes. Thanks,’ he said, and they joined the queue through the barrier.
I wanted to be with them. I waved to them and waited until they’d climbed into the train before I went away. I walked across the forecourt of the station: it was deserted now. Then I could hear their train pulling out.
6
He’d been expecting me. His surprise hardly lasted a breath, then he sat down, after standing up at my entry. ‘Why, what’s all this?’ he said. The room was tidier and he looked as if he’d been asleep, and dozing. He was in his shirt sleeves. ‘Is the wedding off or something?’
‘I left them at Manchester and came back.’
He looked at me carefully. For a moment we were both aware of some sort of intrusion, then I sat down and took my hat off. ‘What have you been doing with yourself this evening,’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘I’ve been on my own.’
There was an air of independence about him, as if an evening’s solitude had fortuitously produced it. I mistook it for resentment at first, and felt like going. But he suddenly stood up, almost dutifully, and came to sit on the broad wooden arm of my chair. ‘I’m glad you came back,’ he said. He was stretched across the back of the chair, and I leant against him.
‘I couldn’t have gone off like that. Not now. It meant a nasty argument. But I can’t tell you how relieved I am.’
‘I think I know.’
‘Coming back in the train I felt really exhilarated.’
‘It must be like leaving your wife,’ he said lightly, and laughed. ‘Now you know how it feels.’
He was assured and still patient; all this had been expected. He leaned over and turned my head with his fingers so that I could see him. His head rested against my cheek. He watched me closely as he lowered his head, and we kissed each other with our eyes open, watching one another, drinking our looks in. ‘I’m glad you came,’ he said.
He felt my breasts reassuringly, then my shoulders. ‘What would you have done over the week-end if I hadn’t been here?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. I was wondering what I could do with you away.’
‘I don’t believe you at all. You’re too independent to worry about a thing like that.’
‘Am I? It shows how much you know.’ His hands searched my body and I turned up to him, needing him. ‘I’m never sure it is you until I can feel you like this,’ he said.
‘Aren’t I cold and unfeeling?’
‘But this is you. At times you’re just not there. And then it’s not you.’
‘Let’s go out of here.’
‘Don’t you like it?’
‘I don’t like seeing you here. It makes me feel you’re in a kind of prison. It’s as though you’ve been put here.’
‘Where do you want to go?’
‘Let’s go up home.’
‘Your place – at Upton?’
‘Yes.’
He thought about it, then said, ‘On one condition.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You let me pay your bus fare.’
The house was empty and strange. Its emptiness seemed right. I had to realize that it wasn’t my house, no longer really my home. Its familiarity was worn and insipid. It was a stranger’s house. There was nothing about it that belonged to me now. ‘Don’t put the light on,’ he said.
‘Why not?’ We stood in the living-room, a faint street light glowing in through the curtains.
‘Let me take your coat off.’
He unbuttoned my coat slowly, kissing me, then slid it off my shoulders and embraced me. ‘It’s cold,’ he said.
‘There’s no fire.’
‘There’s no need.’
I rested in his arms while he unfastened my dress. I was terrified of hurting him; he was lifel
ess in his touch. His mouth was in my hair, bringing it to life with a prickling sensitivity. Then his hands stroked my back, feeling my clothes; then my breasts were free.
We trembled against one another, breathless and searching. ‘Let me take my dress off.’
‘No.’
‘Please.’
‘Stand still and let me.’
He felt down round my thighs and pulled the dress up, and turned me against him. ‘Lie down. Lie down, Margaret.’ He was quivering and pleading. I took his hands. ‘Not down here.’
I was exultant that he followed me, that I could lead him. I held his hand as he followed up the stairs. The house was in darkness with the light faint, coming in through the curtains.
It was such a tiny room: when he came in he filled it. ‘This is my bedroom. It’s at the back.’ For a moment we stood and said nothing. Then I lay on the bed and waited for him.
He looked down at me in the pale light, silhouetted against the curtains. Then he began to undress.
I touched him as he undressed. His legs, his back, feeling his body when he came to the bed.
He knelt by the bed feeling me.
‘Margaret,’ he said quietly, so that I raised myself to him. My hands gripped the soft skin of his scars. His back was patched with them. Their softness collapsed beneath my fingers, penetrating him. But he didn’t feel it. He took my clothes off slowly, needing to excite me, until we were seething.
His body was warm against mine. We lay still and the furnace seemed to accumulate between us. Then we were burning. He moved his body slowly, then his hands, until I was completely surrounded by him. He held me hard to ease the trembling. Then in a moment he rolled me on my back, folding his arms round my thighs, and lay deeply between my legs.
He was slow, full of a strange consideration. Even when it was over he was still searching and demanding. The weight and feel of his body was still on mine. He collapsed beside me, one arm in my hair, the other across my breasts. I’d felt no climax: his satiation had been enough. I felt full of him, loved with him in me. His identity had gone. We were together.
He slept briefly, bound to me for warmth, then he was suddenly awake. He got off the bed and stood up. He began to feel for his clothes.