by David Storey
It slowed. Wedges of black and orange rock enclosed the track. It was like a room. The thick flakes of snow vanished. The train ran into a tunnel.
For a while he sat in the relative darkness. The train stopped, then restarted. After a while it ran out into a broad, undulating valley.
On a steep hill on the opposite side stood the silhouette of a town, a mass of towers and domes, with a single spire set at its summit.
The land opened out beside the train. Low hillocks swept up to wooded slopes and, beyond, to moorland shot with snow.
Deep troughs appeared by the track, lakes of black water reflecting the colliery heaps and headgears beyond. Terraces of diminutive houses were strewn out across the slopes.
The train crossed a still river, sunk down between dyked fields. A pathway of coiling arches carried it between the first buildings of the town, past warehouses and mills, then across an erratic pattern of roofs and roadways and yards until it ran in under the side of the steep hill and stopped.
The air was cold.
Occasional squalls of snow blew from the hills to the west.
On the lower slopes were laid out vast screes of houses, studded here and there with colliery headgears. Banners of black smoke and white steam were strung against the cloud.
He caught a taxi in the station yard.
It drove down through the town and out along a main road leading towards the distant hills. The large stone houses on either side gave way to brick terraces and these, in turn, to the vast mounds of the brick estates.
At the foot of one of the nearer slopes the taxi turned off between the houses. It passed between rows of depleted lime trees. The houses grew denser, the roads more winding.
He pointed the way out to the driver and when the car stopped he sat for a moment in the back looking up at the house, its brick front and its curtained windows scarcely different from any of its neighbours.
He got out and paid off the driver, and only when someone came along the road did he push open the wooden gate and walk up the path at the side.
At the back of the house an unkempt garden stretched between decaying wooden railings to a field of long grass, stooped now and grey with winter. The houses backed onto it on four sides. On a mound of earth in the centre a group of small children were playing with a dog.
A tiny porch was let into the back of the house. He rubbed his feet on the mat, lifted the sneck on the door and, without knocking, went inside.
He entered a small scullery. Opposite the door, and overlooking the road, was a window, beneath it a washer and, in one corner, a sink. A draining-board, a gas stove and a table took up most of the space. A small pantry occupied the corner by the door. No sound came from the house. On the stove a kettle simmered. From the oven came the smell of cooking. Moisture on the window obscured the view of the road outside.
He opened a door on the right, crossed the narrow hall and entered the larger room beyond.
It was dominated by a black stove set in the wall opposite the door. Two windows overlooked the road and a single one the garden at the rear. A three-piece suite took up almost the whole interior; a sideboard with a bow-shaped front and a highly polished table surrounded by four chairs had been fitted into the spaces between. Standing in the rear window like an ornamental pot stood a television set designed in the shape of a perfect cube.
It was very hot. A large coal fire blazed in the range.
He was about to call out, moving back to the stairs in the hall, when a figure rose from the settee in front of the fire, rubbing its eyes, then drawing on a pair of spectacles.
Small, slightly built, in her sixties, with a smooth, well-preserved face, rather square and heavy, the woman said, ‘Oh, goodness,’ struggling to her feet. ‘It’s you.’
Only slowly did the surprise then the shock seep into her face.
He kissed her on the cheek.
‘Goodness,’ she said, gazing at him. ‘What are you doing here? We were only coming down to see you at the end of the week.’
‘Yes,’ he said. He glanced round him at the room, at the furniture, then looked out through the window at the field. ‘Is my dad at work?’
‘He’s on mornings,’ his mother said. She began to move about the room, lifting papers and clothes from the various chairs. On the table were set out a knife and fork and a plate of bread and butter. They were laid carefully on a table-cloth which had only been half unfolded. ‘He should be home any time now.’
He moved round the furniture, keeping out of her way. ‘Have you just come up?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you want something to eat?’
‘I had something on the train.’
He stood over the large fire, staring down at it, his hands clasped loosely in front of him.
‘Don’t you have an overcoat?’ she said.
‘Ah, yes,’ he said as though he had forgotten.
‘Well.’ She suddenly paused. She gazed across at him with a shy concern, her face flushing. ‘How’s the family?’
‘They’re very well,’ he said.
He rubbed his hands together, then took off his coat. He went to the front window and looked out into the street, at the identical fronts of the houses opposite. Nothing stirred. The road was empty.
‘Kenneth must be walking now,’ she said. ‘It’s what? Nearly a year since we were last down.’ She watched him a moment longer. ‘Are you up here to work?’ she said.
‘Not really,’ he said.
‘Is anything the matter?’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘It’ll wait.’
She glanced quickly at him, then looked away.
‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ he said, smiling. ‘How’s Eileen and Wendy?’
They were his sisters. They lived in the town.
‘They’re all right.’ She added, ‘You haven’t been in touch with them?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘Ah, well,’ she said and folded up a cloth in her hand.
He sat down. Photographs of his sisters’ weddings and his own stood on the mantelpiece.
‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ll have one.’
She went through to the scullery. He heard her lift the meat from the oven. Then she slid the tin back in and closed the door.
After a while she brought in a teapot and put it down in the hearth, by the fire.
‘Are you sure you won’t have anything to eat?’ she said.
‘No,’ he said, ‘really.’
She went to a cupboard set in the wall by the range and took out two cups and saucers.
She set them on the table, then brought a sugar bowl and a jug of milk from the scullery and set them down too. Only then did she pour the tea.
‘Susan will be at school now,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘How’s she liking it?’
‘Very much.’
‘And Cynthia. Won’t she start next year?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
His mother gave him the cup and saucer.
‘I’ve put the sugar in,’ she said. ‘Is that all right?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘And stirred it.’
She stood uncertainly by the hearth, her hands clasped together. ‘Well, I’ll just sit down,’ she said.
She sat opposite him, in an easy chair, looking out past his head to the field beyond.
‘Is the tea all right?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he told her.
For a while they were silent, gazing at the fire.
The only sound now was of the gas burning in thin jets from the coal.
Then, in the distance, a car crossed one
of the roads of the estate.
‘Does Cynthia still have her fits of temper?’
‘On and off,’ he said. ‘It’ll be easier when she’s started school.’
‘Ah, yes.’ She nodded.
‘I’ll go and get a wash,’ he said. ‘Is that all right?’
‘Oh. Yes,’ she said. ‘Are you staying the night?’
‘I’m not sure.’ He rubbed his face.
‘Well, there’s always a bed,’ she said. And as he went to the stairs, she added, ‘I should use the pink towel, you know. It’s clean.’
The stairs ran from the hall directly to the back of the house. A landing doubled back at the top; at the front of the house were two bedrooms, and at the back a tiny room on one side of the stairs and a bathroom on the other.
He shut the bathroom door and stood for a while in the narrow space between the bath and the wall staring at the frosted lower pane of the window. The water, heated from the fire below, was boiling in the cistern.
Finally he ran the hot water into the small basin by the cistern, cooled it, then stood with his hands submerged, staring down. He closed his eyes. Only when the burning had subsided did he move.
He let the water run out then dried his hands. His father’s razor stood on a little shelf above the bowl and beside it a small mirror. A crack ran down the middle. Whichever way he moved the two halves of his face refused to come together. He turned round, holding his hands to his cheeks.
From below came the sound of the back door opening. Then of his mother’s voice. His father invariably came back from work in silence.
When he raised his head he could look out through the clear upper panes of the window. Beyond the field and the backs of the opposite houses, other roofs rose to an arched skyline. Beyond them, to the left, where the estate dipped down, he could see the wooded slopes of the distant hills, flecked with snow.
When he looked the other way he could see, at the head of the estate, the colliery where his father worked.
He went down.
His father was sitting at the table waiting for his meal.
He was smaller than Pasmore, yet with something of the same width of shoulder. Like his mother, he was in his sixties. His hair, however, had retained its natural colour and, with a fringe, was parted and combed back like a boy’s. It gave him an unassuming look.
His eyes now, however, were tired and dark.
‘Well, it’s grand to see you,’ he said, and stood up to shake his hand.
He was in his stockinged feet.
‘We were just about ready to come down and see you.’
‘You still can,’ he said.
‘Aye.’ His father laughed. ‘Well, then,’ he said. ‘And how’s the little lass?’
‘She’s very well,’ he said.
‘See you look after her,’ he said. ‘They don’t grow on trees.’
‘Ah, well,’ his mother said. ‘You’d better have your dinner.’
‘Aye,’ he said, and added, ‘I feel too excited now to eat. I’m getting too old for yon, you know.’ He gestured out towards the pit. ‘Two more years and they’ll have to tip me out.’
He sat down at the table.
He was rather like a boy. The mother brought the dinner through from the scullery, laid out on a plate, and stood by him while he cut the meat.
‘Have you had something to eat?’ he said. ‘You can have half of this, you know.’
‘I’ve had something,’ he said.
‘Ah, yes.’ He glanced up at him.
‘Can I get you another tea?’ his mother said.
‘No thanks,’ he said, and sat down.
His father had eaten a mouthful of food then pushed the plate away.
‘Ah, well, I can’t eat any of that, Mother,’ he said.
‘You’re not leaving it?’ she said.
‘I can’t eat it, that’s all.’ He stood up.
‘Have you had something at work?’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I just can’t eat it. It’ll save. I’ll have it for my supper.’
‘You must have something, though,’ she said.
‘I’ll have some tea,’ he said, and coughed. The phlegm rasped in his throat. ‘I’m full up to my eye-balls wi’ dust,’ he said. He sat down by the fire.
His mother brought him a pot of tea. He took it with one hand and felt for his cigarettes, finally setting the pot down in the hearth. ‘They can’t get the young ’uns to stick it,’ he said. ‘It’s only us old-’uns that keep it going.’ He lit his cigarette with a large lighter. It was made out of a block of metal, something he had fashioned at work. A tongue of flame leapt from it. ‘I’m ever surprised when I get cut that there’s not a pile of dust runs out instead of blood. When we’re gone it’ll all be machines. Press a button and what it took me half a lifetime to do they’ll have done inside a week. Progress. One of my mates was killed last week, wa’nt he, Mother? Down a pit at sixty-two.’
‘It won’t be long,’ he said, ‘before it’s done away with.’
‘Aye,’ he said, and swung his arm out. ‘It’ll all be gone and forgotten. And it won’t matter any more.’ He leaned forward in the chair, his elbows resting on his knees. ‘I must be mad.’
‘You could come out of the pit,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘I could help to keep you. You could get another job.’
‘Why, I’ve got my pride,’ he said. ‘I can’t go giving in.’
Pasmore looked up at his mother. She was standing across the room by the table, one hand leaning down.
‘When you were at school,’ he said, ‘and I was working, at every bit of coal I dug I used to say to myself that’s one bit he won’t have to dig. I could have dug that entire pit out by myself. Making sure, you know, of that.’
‘You shouldn’t put so much into me,’ he said. ‘I mean that. Just for yourself.’
‘Nay,’ he said. ‘Do you know how high it is where I’m working? Thirteen inches.’ He measured out the distance between his hands. ‘If it shifts as much as an inch I’m done for. I can feel it, riding on my back. Why, you’ve got to make it add up to something.’
He waited for him to answer.
Pasmore looked away, at the fire.
He glanced away, then, towards the window. In the field a line of children ran past, shouting.
Odd flakes of snow were swept across the garden.
‘Well, then. What is it?’ his mother said.
‘It’ll come as a shock,’ he said. ‘I don’t really know how to tell you. But I’m not living with Kay any more.’
His mother sat sideways to the table.
It was as if she’d known all along.
His father had looked up at him; then, as if reassured, he turned away. He stared at the fire. ‘Why, then?’ he said after a while. It was as if, ever since he had come into the room, they had been building this defence against him. And now he had trampled straight through.
‘I don’t know why,’ he said. ‘There’s no reason I can put it down to.’ He added, ‘I just couldn’t bear to go on living with her any more.’
His mother shook her head, her eyes wide, startled. ‘She’s such a good person, though,’ she said.
‘I know.’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ she said.
They were silent.
‘Have you told her parents?’ his father said.
‘No. We weren’t going to tell you either,’ he said. ‘Not for a while.’
‘I wish to God you never had,’ his father said.
He got up. He didn’t know where to go. He looked about him.
Then he went to the door and closed it.
His feet sounded on the stairs.
‘I needn’t have told you, I know,’ he said to his mother.
‘But people have quarrels,’ his mother said.
‘I know.’
She had begun to cry. But for the blurring of her eyes her expression didn’t change. She sat stiffly, as if frozen to the chair.
‘How’s poor Kay taken it?’ she said.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘You can imagine.’
‘She didn’t want you to leave?’
‘No.’
‘Is it another woman?’ she said. The demand embarrassed her.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Don’t you love the children, then?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘But they’re yours and Kay’s. You made them. You can’t run off,’ she said.
‘I don’t own them.’
‘But they need you.’
‘I know.’
She waited.
‘Is there another woman?’ she said.
‘No,’ he said, and shook his head.
She covered her face.
He watched the top of her head, the grey, almost whitish hair.
Then he looked back through the window at the field, at the grey grass and the backs of the houses.
After a while the door opened and his father came back in. His eyes were black, startled.
‘Well. It was all for nothing, then,’ he said. His body was stiff. He stared down at his mother, then turned rigidly to the fire. ‘What a waste.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘No?’ His father shook his head. He no longer knew what to do with his feelings. ‘A man that leaves his wife and kiddies. Why, an animal wouldn’t do that.’ Then, after a moment, he said, ‘What do you think we are? Everybody has a responsibility to their children. A king or a road-sweeper. Do you think you’re any different?’