by David Storey
The boy stood up, put his foot in the raisins, and fell down. He began to cry, picked himself up and ran to him, his arms spread out.
He lifted him up and set him at the table. He gave him a knife and a piece of bread which he began to cut up into tiny, crumbled pieces.
The youngest girl walked stiff-legged towards him. ‘I’m wet,’ she said. But when he attempted to take off her pyjamas she cried out, ‘No, no. I want them wet.’
‘You’ll catch cold,’ he said.
‘No, no.’ Yet, despite her resistance, he began to dress her.
He gave them the presents. They quietened. ‘Shall we go to school?’ he said.
‘I don’t want to go to school,’ the youngest girl had said.
‘We might buy some chocolate, then,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ she said, groaning.
‘Can I have some?’ the other girl said.
When he’d put on their coats he took the boy upstairs and laid him in his cot. He gave him a bottle.
No sound came from Kay’s bedroom.
As he took the girls to the front door, however, she appeared on the stairs. Her face was inflamed, her eyes streaming.
‘I’m taking them to school,’ he said.
‘You don’t have to,’ she said. ‘I’ll only have to fetch them back in a couple of hours.’
‘I’ll take them,’ he said. From the door he glanced across at the women and the prams in the centre of the square.
‘Are you coming at the weekend?’ she said.
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘I’d like to know.’
‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘I probably will.’
‘On Sunday?’
‘Yes, all right,’ he said.
Without looking back he closed the door.
He didn’t go at the weekend.
He didn’t know why. The thought of her sickened him: the distress, the demands.
He went a few days later instead, at much the same time as before, in the morning.
The house was in disorder. It even smelt. One of the children opened the door. When he went in he found Kay still in bed. She was crying. She lay turned away from the door, her figure scarcely discernible beneath the blankets. The children, bored, played in their room. Occasionally they came to the door, glanced in, then wandered back.
‘I’m sorry about the weekend,’ he said.
She didn’t answer.
He went down and got the children ready for school. As before, he put the boy in his cot.
When he left, there was no sound from upstairs. He called out, but there was no answer.
He went out, banging the door.
The school the eldest child attended was only a few streets away. Quite often, when he was teaching, he would drop her off on the way to college, taking the younger girl to the nursery round the corner.
Here, in a prefabricated hut in the grounds of a chapel, two elderly women supervised a group of forty children.
He tried to continue with this habit. These were the only times now that he left the flat. On odd mornings, unannounced, he would drop in at the house and collect the children. Sometimes Kay was in bed, sometimes, distracted, she would be wandering round the house.
‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked him.
‘I’m trying to help out.’
‘Why don’t you come at the time we arrange?’
‘Isn’t this more useful?’
She shook her head. She frightened him. At times she scarcely seemed able to stand. It enraged him.
‘How is your girl-friend?’ she asked him.
‘She’s very well,’ he said.
‘I suppose her children are looked after by someone.’
‘I suppose they are,’ he said.
He felt frustrated. Even in the flat her distress pursued him. He couldn’t rest.
One morning, after delivering the youngest girl at the nursery, he bumped into Newsome.
He scarcely knew him but for odd encounters in the street: a tall, slim man with thick, fair hair and a rather disjointed look, a little hapless.
‘Good God,’ Newsome said. ‘See who it is.’ And added, ‘I’ll be with you. Hang on a second.’
He dragged a small child behind him in either hand.
When he reappeared, without the children, he said, ‘Come on home. Have a cup of something. We were only talking about you as I left.’
He made some excuse.
‘For five minutes,’ Newsome said.
They began to walk back in the direction of the square.
‘How are things?’ he asked him.
‘Oh,’ Pasmore said. ‘Much the same.’
The street where Newsome lived was a cul-de-sac, two terraces of Victorian bay-fronted houses ending in a builder’s yard. Beyond, rose the roofs of a factory. Some of the houses had been renovated with white, stuccoed fronts; the majority, however, retained their original façade of brick and painted surrounds, crumbling and in some instances decaying altogether. One house had collapsed; the sky was visible through its windows.
‘We needn’t stay long,’ Newsome said. ‘I’ll give you a lift. I’m off to work in a couple of seconds.’
He led the way to one of the renovated fronts. They climbed down a narrow flight of stone steps to the basement of the house. The interior was expensively, even tastefully furnished. At a round table in the centre of the room, reading a book, sat Marjorie.
She was in bare feet.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘What a surprise.’
‘Found him at the school,’ Newsome said. ‘Delivering his bairn.’
‘Could you see to the fire?’ she said. ‘I can’t get a spark.’
Newsome knelt down by a pile of coal in the grate.
Against the walls were stacked piles of paintings. Several were hanging up, some of figures in a room; others, apparently more recent, were abstract, the shapes rather like those a tailor might draw before he cut out a suit.
‘Have you seen Kay recently?’ Marjorie said.
‘I have,’ he said. ‘Yes.’
‘How is she?’ she added after a moment.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Very much the same.’
‘I hope you didn’t mind me ringing.’
‘No,’ he said, and shook his head.
‘Bill,’ she said. ‘Get Colin a cup.’
Newsome got up and retreated to the end of the room.
‘Smokeless fuel,’ she said, looking at the fire. ‘Flameless and heatless as well, if you ask me.’
For a while they talked at the table. At the far end of the room Newsome made coffee on a stove. He brought it on a tray then returned to the fire, poking it, then, underneath the coal, sticking in pieces of candle.
He set them alight.
As Marjorie was speaking a door at the end of the room had slowly opened.
A moment later a man appeared.
He was very fat.
A beard, not yet fully grown, covered his chin. It was black, like his receding hair. His eyes too were dark.
His skin, in contrast, was extremely white, his features enormous. A dressing-gown, beneath which he appeared to be naked, was held together by a piece of string.
‘Norman,’ Marjorie said. She turned.
The man, however, remained standing in the door. He had a slight cast in one eye and as a result held his head to one side, gazing at Pasmore across the bridge of his nose.
‘Colin, this is Norman Fowler,’ Marjorie said, and added, ‘Would you like some coffee, Norm?’
The man smiled but didn’t answer. His teeth were very large and white.
‘Bill, get Norm a cup,’ Marjorie said
and Newsome got up once more from beside the fire.
‘The coffee’s on the stove, Norm,’ he said and turning to Pasmore added, ‘Well, I’m off. Do you want a lift?’
He got up from the table. His coffee was still untouched.
‘Are you coming in, Norman?’ Marjorie said.
The man was still standing in the door.
Then, as they turned towards him, he smiled again and, his head still averted, advanced slowly into the room.
As he walked the string on his dressing-gown came apart.
‘You’re not popping back to see Kay?’ Marjorie said.
‘I don’t think so,’ he said.
‘How is Kay?’
It was the fat man who had asked. He had now reached the table in the centre of the room and stood with his hands thrust down into the pockets of his dressing-gown.
‘Norman was with me when we met Kay recently,’ Marjorie said.
The fat man nodded and smiled.
‘She’s very well,’ Pasmore said. He added to Marjorie, ‘I’ll see you. Thanks for the coffee,’ setting down the cup.
‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘Come again.’
‘Are you going?’ the man had said.
Despite all the signs of their departure he seemed surprised, as if in effect he had understood nothing of what was going on in the room.
‘We’re leaving, Norman,’ Newsome said. He had pulled on his coat. ‘I’m going to work. What are you going to do?’
‘Oh, I suppose I’ll do some work,’ he said. He watched Newsome intently.
‘Well, goodbye, then,’ Pasmore said and followed Newsome to the door.
‘Come to the studio,’ Newsome said once they were outside.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I haven’t much time.’
‘I won’t keep you long.’
He led the way to a shooting-brake parked down the street. It too was full of paintings.
They drove along in silence.
The journey scarcely took a minute. They turned several corners and the car pulled up by a deserted house.
Newsome led the way round the side and unlocked a door.
The studio was fashioned from a conservatory attached to the side of the building.
Compared to Newsome’s own house, the interior was relatively bare. One or two examples of his more recent, abstract work leant against a wall. On the floor, where presumably he did his painting, lay a large canvas. In the centre was a single speck of red paint, put there perhaps by a brush, or a finger, or perhaps dropped there by accident, it was difficult to tell.
‘Not very busy,’ Pasmore said.
‘No.’
Newsome had taken off his coat. He stood looking down at the large canvas, his hands in his pockets.
‘For the past few months I’ve been on with this,’ he said.
Pasmore stared at the single speck. It looked like a drop of blood.
Newsome glanced up at him. ‘What do you think of Fowler, then?’
‘He looks like Captain Kidd,’ he said.
‘I suppose he does, really.’
‘Is he living with you?’
Newsome nodded. He gazed down once more at the canvas.
‘What is he, then?’ he said.
‘What?’
Newsome looked up.
‘What does he do for a living?’
Newsome shrugged. ‘All sorts.’ After a moment he added, ‘He’s made me a small fortune, in one way and another. He sells pictures, and the like.’
Pasmore glanced round at the white interior. The sole illumination came from the panes of glass in the roof above his head.
‘He’s living with us at the present.’
‘Ah, yes,’ he said.
His look reverted to the empty canvas.
‘What have you been up to the last few months?’ Newsome said. ‘Kay says you have some sort of fellowship.’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re working?’
‘Yes.’
‘Lucky.’
They were silent for a while.
‘What’s held you up?’ Pasmore said eventually. ‘Things at home?’
‘At home?’ Newsome seemed surprised, even startled. ‘Oh, at home,’ he said. ‘No.’ He laughed slightly, still unsure. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘To paint anything, I suppose, you need a sense of space that, at one level, you can presume is secure. And yet, these days, what is there that can promise that? All I’ve got is a single blob of paint: I’m beginning to feel that beyond that it’s become more or less impossible to go. Anyone who does, you know, I can only see as the most arrogant sort of ass.’
Pasmore gazed at him quite blankly.
Then, as if aware of his look, Newsome glanced up and added, ‘Well, it’s not your problem, old man. Nevertheless, it’s a bit of a stink. What does one believe in, do you think?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, flushing.
‘I suppose, come to that, I could sell this for a few hundred. Or Norman could. It’s one sort of statement,’ he said, ‘and no doubt as relevant as any other.’
They were silent again. Somewhere below the house a train thundered through the ground.
The room shook slightly.
‘You haven’t come up, then,’ Newsome said, ‘with any solution?’
‘Solution?’
‘Answer.’
He shook his head.
‘It’s amazing, isn’t it,’ he said, ‘how quickly everything drops to bits.’
He moved down to the end of the studio and returned carrying a small painting.
He propped it against the wall, a domestic interior. A woman, perhaps Marjorie, was seated at a table, feeding a baby from a bowl. Beyond her was strewn the bric-à-brac of a kitchen. The picture was painted in bold, heavy strokes and bright, aggressive colours.
‘Only ten years ago,’ Newsome said, ‘I could do that. It’s incredible, isn’t it?’
For a moment they gazed at the picture in silence. Then he said, ‘Look, I’ll have to be going. I’m sorry I can’t stay longer.’
‘That’s all right,’ Newsome said. Yet he glanced up, it seemed, in some alarm. ‘It was good of you to come in any case. I’ll drive you home.’
‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I can catch a bus at the end of the road.’
‘Sure?’
He nodded.
‘Come again,’ Newsome said. ‘Any time.’
He walked home.
When he reached the flat he lay down on the bed.
The end had come, he was sure. He no longer knew which way to turn.
He held his head.
The fact was, he no longer knew where he was. He had nothing. As far as he was concerned he might as well be dead.
Seven
He stopped calling at the house.
He spent nearly all his time on the bed, watching the shadows moving on the ceiling, reflections from the street below.
One morning he received a letter forwarded from his home.
When he rang Kay he said, ‘What’s the meaning of this? The letter is addressed to you.’
‘Nevertheless,’ she said, ‘it’s from your parents. I don’t want them coming here, that’s all.’
‘Have you told them?’ he said. For some reason he assumed she had.
‘No,’ she said. ‘They’re just coming in the normal course of things. I don’t want them here. Not with things as they are.’
‘Write and tell them,’ he said. ‘I mean, that it’ll be inconvenient at the moment.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I can.’
He thought, then, that she might be crying. He
waited.
‘You’ll have to ask them,’ she said, ‘not to come.’
‘All right,’ he said.
‘Can I rely on that?’ she asked him.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Are you going to write to them?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
For a while they were silent. Then, quite distinctly, he heard her sobs.
‘Aren’t you coming any more?’ she said. ‘To see the children.’
‘I don’t think so. Not at the moment,’ he said.
‘Perhaps you ought to go and see them,’ she said, and added, ‘Your parents.’
‘What about?’
‘To try and reassure them.’
‘Will that do any good?’ He was surprised at the strength of his feeling.
‘I think it would.’
‘Well, I’ll think about it,’ he said.
It was a kind of blackmail.
‘I see no point in going,’ he said.
‘No,’ she told him.
Yet, the next day, he took the train.
He wasn’t sure of his motives. He felt relieved. He sat and waited.
It was very cold.
The journey took three hours. To break the tedium he went into the restaurant car and ordered a meal. It was the first meal he had had for several days. He drank some wine. He felt happy.
The sky darkened.
It began to snow. Thick, white flakes filtered down.
The train ran out onto a plain of red soil. A broad river and the towers of a power station appeared to the east. The clouds thickened. The snow collected against the windows, settled, then, melting, was driven off.
Trees, like squat spiders, slid out of the wilderness of waste that began to open up on either side. Rows of factories and chimneys covered the horizon. It was like moving into a cavern. A dark and massive gloom settled round the train.