by David Storey
‘No,’ he said.
‘Don’t you think your mother and me haven’t had hard times?’
‘I know you have.’
‘And yet we’ve come through. We’ve had to. You can’t go smashing it all up.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Aren’t you?’ his father said. ‘Just look around.’ After a moment he added, ‘I’ll tell you. If it’s come to this then there’s nothing you haven’t ruined.’
He went out, leaving the door open. His feet mounted slowly up the stairs.
His mother stood up. She began to clear the table.
She scarcely seemed to move. When he went into the scullery she was standing at the sink, her hands clutching at the edge.
‘Perhaps you can try and explain it,’ he said. ‘To my father.’
‘Explain what? There’s nothing to explain.’
‘I think there is.’
‘You don’t know, Colin. You don’t know,’ she said. ‘You don’t know what you’ve done.’
She sobbed over the sink, her head bowed, turned away.
‘You owe things to people,’ she said. ‘You do. You can’t go shrugging them off.’
‘I’m not doing that,’ he said.
‘Well, I don’t understand it,’ she said. ‘None of us do. You can’t go expecting us to.’
‘No.’ He moved round the tiny space, looking at the bare walls. Moisture ran down in little streams over the paint. ‘It’s better that I told you, though,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’
He went through to the room and got his coat.
He’d reached the back door, opening it, before she said, ‘Where are you going?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I might walk over to Eileen’s.’
‘Are you going to stay tonight?’
‘I’ll see,’ he said. ‘There’s a train I could get back this evening.’
She looked up at him a moment, but whatever she had intended to say she changed her mind.
‘All right,’ she said. She turned back to the sink.
‘Well, then, I’ll see you,’ he said and went out, closing the door.
Eight
He walked up through the estate. Once, as he passed a gap between the houses, he looked back and saw the roof of his parents’ house huddled amongst the roofs of all the others some distance below. As he walked the wind increased, bringing with it small, hard flakes of snow like hail. He held his coat against him, folding his arms.
Soon he came out at the top of the estate. The rows of houses ended at a road running along the summit of the ridge. On the opposite side were a stone church and a large, one-storeyed brick school. On either side of the church and the school, spreading along the ridge to the north and dipping abruptly and steeply to the south, was a row of semi-detached houses with bow windows and small, arched porchways. Beyond, the broad flank of the hill swept across farmland to a second range of hills, the intervening ground broken up by marshy copses and, further off, by the odd, curving crescents of private houses, standing amongst patches of bare trees. To his right, at the northern apex of the ridge, stood the colliery with its twin headgears and its solitary chimney. A black column of smoke swirled over the roofs of the estate below.
He crossed the road and entered one of the front gardens. A driveway of broken paving stones ran down one side, between it and the next house, and in the garden itself the same sort of stone had been used to make a diamond-shaped footpath. In the central patch of soil stood a birdbath, and on either side a stone dwarf painted in bright colours, one sitting on a toadstool, the other playing a flute. They stood with their backs to the house, facing the road and, beyond, the first houses of the estate. In the triangular areas of soil which completed the shape of the garden were planted several rose bushes cut down to within a few inches of the ground. Over everything lay a thin coating of soot.
On either side of the door were set small leaded windows of frosted glass. The central pane was tinted red. Through them, after he had rung the bell, a figure could be seen approaching.
A tall, well-built woman of forty opened the door. She had a square, jowled face and dark eyes which immediately lit up when she recognized him standing in the porch.
‘Well, what’s this?’ she said. ‘Have we won the pools?’
She put out her arms, calling out and, rather shyly, they embraced.
‘Well, what a surprise,’ she said. ‘We’d have had the flags out if we’d known you were coming.’
‘Perhaps, then, it’s just as well,’ he said.
She laughed and put her arm in his.
‘Nay, we’ll go in here, love,’ she said, shutting the front door and leading him into the room which overlooked the road. ‘The back’s all in a mess. I’ve been cleaning out my cupboards.’
The room was occupied by a heavy three-piece suite in brown leather, and a sideboard, set against the back wall. The three chairs faced the empty fireplace which, like the porch outside, was designed as a small archway. It was set out slightly from the wall in a surround of yellow tiles. The mantelpiece above was occupied by a clock with the hands fixed at ten minutes to two and several family photographs which had overflowed from the sideboard. Here the central ornament was a bowl of plaster fruit.
‘We could have had a fire lit and everything if we’d have known you were coming,’ his sister said. She left the door open as if at any moment they might have to go out, coming to sit on an arm of a chair. ‘Well, and what’s London like these days?’ she said.
‘A bit warmer.’
‘You can say that again. We’ve been going to have snow for three weeks, yet it’s never shown up. Not properly. It’ll get warmer when it does. How’s Kay and the family?’
‘They’re very well.’
‘We had a card at Christmas. Since then, not a word.’
‘I’d love a cup of tea.’
‘Ah, well, you can come in the back,’ she said, ‘if you promise not to look.’ She stood up, a little flushed at the effort. ‘Is Kay with you, then?’ she said.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m probably going back tonight.’
‘Ah, well, if we can’t be popular we’d better be kind.’
She stood aside and let him into the hallway. It was divided into two, half given over to the stairs and the remaining passage going through to the narrow kitchen and the back door. He turned to his right into the back room.
It formed an exact square, in contrast to the slightly rectangular room at the front. Three easy chairs with wooden arms stood round a blazing coal fire. A dining-room table and chairs and a studio couch occupied most of the remaining space. It was not unlike his parents’ house which he’d just left.
He took off his raincoat and sat down close to the fire. The window at the rear looked out onto a ploughed field. A yellow lorry with red lettering was moving slowly across it, trailing a cloud of white dust; drifting towards the house, the dust had settled on the wooden garage and on the greenhouse beyond, and on the recently-dug clods of earth in the garden. A thin film of it lay over the window itself.
His sister had gone into the kitchen and he heard the pop of the gas as she put on the kettle. When she came in she closed the door and began to tidy up several mounds of clothing lying neatly folded on the chairs.
‘Well, that’s better,’ she said.
‘It’s fine,’ he said.
‘My dad fetches us up a bag of coal now and again, so we have no trouble keeping warm. And Jack’s got a mate at school whose father’s a timber merchant. We get lots of old logs to break up and burn.’
‘How are the boys?’ he said.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘They’re fine. They’ll be off to college soon and I won’t see them again. How is it, you think, that men have all the brains?’
She crashed down in a chair, brushing back her hair.
‘Have you been to Wendy’s, then?’ she said.
‘No,’ he said, and shook his head.
‘Oh, big changes on up there and no mistake,’ she said, then added, ‘That’ll be the kettle. How do you like it? Strong?’
She continued talking from the kitchen: her husband, her sister, her children. A great deal was inaudible through the wall. He gazed out at the fields and the lorry which was now descending the slope, spraying out its cloud of lime.
‘They’ve been told not to do it while it’s blowing,’ she said when she came back in, carrying a tray. ‘Just look at it on the window. Jack doesn’t mind: he digs the garden before they come. We get fertilized for nothing.’
She laughed, handing him his cup.
‘Have you seen our mam?’ she said.
‘I’ve just come from there,’ he said. ‘They’re upset.’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘but what’s that?’
‘Kay and I have broken up,’ he said. ‘I thought it best to tell them.’ He added, ‘Well, to tell you as well. It’s better than a letter.’
‘Yes,’ she said. She gazed at him, alarmed. ‘Well,’ she said, and put her own cup down on the floor. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
She held her hand against her face. ‘My mother and dad were coming down to see you.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They were.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. She stood up. ‘I like Kay a lot. This is a bit of a shock.’
She too gazed towards the window.
For the moment the lorry had vanished. The moaning of its engine came from the bottom of the field.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ she said.
‘I don’t think so.’ He added, ‘You could see my mother and dad when I’ve gone.’
‘Oh, I’ll do that.’ She shrugged. Then she half-laughed. ‘It chops right under you, does that. That’s given me quite a shock.’ She added, ‘You better not do that too often.’
‘No,’ he said.
‘I always felt something would happen.’
‘Yes?’ he said.
‘The way my dad sent you out, as his private army.’
He didn’t answer.
‘But still. He didn’t have much else.’ She added, ‘It seems none of us did, either.’
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
She sat down at the table, turned away.
Though still smiling he saw she was crying.
‘You know, I’d have slain ninety-nine out of a hundred girls you brought home. Kay was the only exception I can think of.’
The door at the back of the house slammed and someone came in coughing. Feet were stamped and hands clapped together.
‘Here’s Jack. I don’t know what he can offer. He’s about as illuminating as a spark on a wet night.’
Her husband was a tall, slender man with fair hair and blue eyes and thin, bony features. His eyes lit up, nervously, when he recognized Pasmore.
‘Why, Colin,’ he said. ‘This is a surprise.’
He looked around then, rather like a stranger, for a place in which to deposit a pile of books beneath his arm.
‘Here, give them to me,’ his wife said, getting up from the table. ‘If he puts his mind to one thing he can never fix it on anything else. It’s a kind of mental short-sightedness.’
‘Oh, she’s in one of those moods,’ he said, smiling and shaking Pasmore’s hand. ‘Well,’ he added, ‘how long are you up for?’
‘He’s just got here, Jack,’ his wife said. ‘Don’t go asking him how soon he’s leaving.’
Her husband raised his eyebrows and sat down.
‘I’ve got a free period, that’s why I’m back so early,’ he said. ‘But if you like I’ll go back and come in again. I know where I’m not wanted.’
‘Colin’s come up with some bad news,’ his wife said.
‘Oh.’ He glanced up at her to read her mood.
‘He and Kay have split up,’ she said.
His look slowly returned to Pasmore.
‘Is that right, then?’ he said.
‘Yes.’ He nodded.
‘Well, I’m sorry to hear that.’ He gazed at Pasmore intently. Then he glanced down at his hands. ‘It’s permanent?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think so.’
‘And you’ll get a divorce?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about the children?’
‘Well.’ He shrugged. ‘They’ll go to Kay.’
‘Yes,’ he said.
He looked away.
‘Don’t you think he’s being very foolish, Jack?’ his sister said.
He didn’t reply for a moment. He gazed intently at the fire.
Then, without raising his eyes, he said, ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘What?’
‘It’s no good being married against your will.’
‘What about the other people?’
‘You don’t get married for other people.’
‘Even children?’ She seemed less shocked than frightened.
‘If he doesn’t love Kay that’s the end.’
‘God,’ she said. ‘And they say it’s women who are sentimental.’
‘I wouldn’t say it was sentiment,’ he said.
‘And that’s the principle you believe in?’
‘I wouldn’t say it’s a principle, either. I’m talking about Colin.’ He added after a moment, ‘As you know, I like Kay a lot.’
‘You must be mad,’ his wife said. ‘Both of you. Would you do the same with me and the children?’
‘Why?’ he said. She was standing behind him, looking down at his fair hair. He didn’t turn round.
‘Well, you know why. If you encourage it in one you can encourage it in another.’
‘I’m not Colin.’
‘And if you grow bored?’
‘Colin hasn’t grown bored.’
‘If it went sour, then!’ She had begun to shout.
‘It hasn’t gone sour,’ he said, ‘so don’t be so bloody stupid.’
She rubbed her face then said, ‘Well, I’ll get you some tea.’
Yet she seemed in some odd way contented.
Later the two boys came home from school. They were taller than either of their parents and considerably broader. They wore dark, navy-blue caps with red tassels and dark, navy-blue blazers with a red binding round the seams. They greeted Pasmore deferentially, shaking hands then retiring to the door. The room suddenly seemed too small to accommodate its five occupants. His sister, with all her men around her, seemed suddenly larger and more imposing.
A little later he made some excuse and left.
They came out to the porch to see him off.
‘Will you be seeing Wendy?’ his sister said.
‘I think so,’ he said.
It was growing dark. From the field at the back of the house came the moaning of the lorry. Lights had sprung up in the valley and along the road. A stream of traffic was moving out from the town.
‘I still can’t believe it,’ she said.
She’d walked out to the gate with him, holding his arm.
She looked up at him as if, even now, he might easily change his mind.
‘Well, then,’ he said. ‘I’d better be off.’
Jack and the boys still stood in the porch.
The two boys stood motionless, like soldiers.
‘Well, look after yourself, Colin,’ she said.
He kissed her.
She watched him walk off down the road.
After a cer
tain distance he glanced back. She was still standing at the gate, her arms folded against the cold. Beyond her the lighted porch was empty.
He waved and continued down the road.
He caught a bus into the town.
For a while he walked about the streets, gazing in at the shop windows. He had a meal. He sat for some time in a cinema.
When it was quite late he set off to walk back to the estate.
The house was in darkness when he arrived. His mother got up to let him in.
She hadn’t been asleep. He could hear his father turning in their bed.
‘Did you see Eileen?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he said.
She watched him take off his coat.
‘And Wendy?’
He shook his head. ‘I might see her tomorrow.’
‘We thought you’d gone back,’ she said.
‘No,’ he said.
‘In any case, your bed’s ready,’ she told him.
He had the small room at the back of the house. There was a hot water bottle in the bed. An electric heater had been left on to take away the damp.
‘Is everything all right?’ she said, standing in the door.
‘Fine,’ he said.
‘Well, then. I’ll say good-night.’
He heard his father’s voice as she went back to their bed.
He didn’t sleep.
In the night he heard his father get up and go to work. There was the sound of his heavy breathing. Then, in the kitchen, he heard him retching.
His mother got up. Their voices whispered in the room below.
Finally he heard the door shut and his father’s boots clacked out as he walked off across the estate.
Very slowly they faded. His mother came past his room and went back to bed. For a long time he heard her turning on the mattress.
In the morning there was a kind of blackness in the house. From the bedroom he looked out over the massed roofs of the estate to the thin edge of moorland in the distance. There the snow had settled: it was lightly outlined against the sky.