by David Storey
Usually he was shy and wouldn’t be moved, standing by the father’s side and gazing up at the other men with a slight frown, his brows knitted, his eyes dark and listening.
‘Here, do you want half-a-crown, then, Colin?’ they’d ask him and laugh when he refused to put his hand out. ‘He’ll not be bought off,’ they told Saville. ‘A dark horse. We’d better all watch out.’
He took the boy for walks like he’d taken Andrew, sometimes carrying him on his back, but more often walking. He sometimes took him out of the village, to the north and east, beyond the farm fields, to where the road led down towards the river. Its water was dark, its surface flecked by wads of foam and broken up here and there by clumps of timber. Barges passed bearing bales of wool, red and orange, blue and yellow, the bright colours glowing out against the darkness of the bank. There was a coal-slip farther up where the lorries from the colliery tipped their loads, the black dust sliding down the shute into the holds of the barges waiting in the stream below. A small tug with a red funnel pulled each of the barges off, a long slow train that swung from bank to bank, the men calling at the rudders, the bright funnel visible miles away, across the fields, unsupported, and belching out black clouds of smoke.
He bought another dog when the first dog died, and in the evenings, before he went to work, he would take it and the boy with him to the old colliery site at the farthest end of the village. He’d come here often before, on his own, and now he would lie in the grass and watch the boy digging with a stick, or following the dog about aimlessly, calling after it, ‘Billy! Billy!’ falling down, then coming back to tell him it had gone.
‘Nay, it’ll soon come back,’ he said. ‘It knows where its dinner comes from. Just you see,’ laughing when the dog reappeared, its snout muddied from digging at the holes. ‘You’ll see, one of these days it’ll catch us both a rabbit.’
It was as if, looking back, Andrew’s death and the boy’s birth were part of the same event, the paying off of a debt, the receipt of a sudden, bewitching recompense. As time passed he never quite got used to it, sensing in his wife an almost mystical interpretation of what had happened, as if she saw the two boys as elements of the same being, Andrew the transgressed, the new boy a figure of atonement: the same element and spirit was in them both, like a rod put in the fire and brought out cleansed and glistening. Almost for these reasons he would attack the boy, half-joking, afraid of him being moulded, afraid of the way he cancelled the first child out. He would fight him on their walks, at the colliery site, rolling on his back while the boy grappled with his arms and legs, aroused, half-laughing, the dog barking at their heels. ‘Nay, you s’ll half-kill me,’ he said panting, the boy moving round, out of reach, his arms extended, before he made another attack. He would laugh at the boy’s strength and the strange ferocity that drove him. ‘Nay, half a chance,’ he’d tell him, rolling off, the dog barking, the boy jumping at his legs, bouncing on him, up and down, laughing. He came to a strange life the moment he was roused, so that at times it was as if Andrew were there again, calling out and shouting, the mood passing into that even stranger silence when, walking back, he’d glance down to see the face quite still and calm, the dark eyes abstracted, solemn, shadowed by a frown.
3
The summer after the boy had started school they went away on holiday.
Colin had never seen the sea before; Saville had told him, during the weeks before they left, about its blueness, its size; about the sand, the gulls, the boats; about light-houses, even about smugglers. He’d heard about a lodging from a man at work; his wife had written; they’d sent a deposit. The day they left he got up early to find the boy already in the kitchen, cleaning his shoes, his clothes laid out on a chair by the empty grate, the two suitcases which they’d packed the night before already standing by the door.
‘You’re up early,’ he said. ‘Do you think they’ve got the train out yet? Yon engine, I think’ll be having its breakfast.’
The boy had scarcely smiled; already there was that dull, almost sombre earnestness about him, melancholic, contained, as if it were some battle they were about to fight.
‘Could you do mine up as well?’ the father asked him.
Saville got his own shoes out, then got the breakfast, his wife still making the beds upstairs.
Later, when they set off, the boy had tried to lift the cases.
‘Nay, you’ll not shift those,’ the father said. From the moment the boy had finished the shoes he’d been finding jobs, clearing the grate, emptying the ashes, helping to finish the washing-up, following his mother round as she inspected all the rooms, turning off the gas, checking the taps, making sure the window catches had been fastened tightly. They bolted and locked the back door then carried the cases to the front. Saville had set them in the garden, the patch of ground between the front door and the gate, and as he locked the door and tested it, and looked up at the windows, the boy had lifted first one case then the other then, finally, gasping, had put them down.
‘Better let me carry those,’ Saville said. He’d laughed. He gave his wife the key. ‘Though I don’t know why we’re locking up. There’s nought in there to pinch.’
Even then, with nothing to do but follow them, the boy’s mood had scarcely changed; he held his mother’s hand, looking over at his father, waiting impatiently, half-turned, while Saville rested, or switched the cases, trying one in one hand then the other.
‘We’ve enough in here for a couple of months,’ he told her. ‘I mu’n have got a handcart if I’d known they were as heavy as this.’
It was still early. The streets were empty; the sky overhead was dark and grey. Earlier, looking out of the window, he’d said, ‘Sithee, when it sees we’re off on holiday, it’ll start to brighten.’ Yet, though they were now in the street and moving down, slowly, towards the station, it showed no sign of changing: if anything, the clouds had thickened.
‘I should say no more about the weather,’ his wife had said. ‘The more you talk about the sun the less we’ll see.’
‘Don’t worry. When it sees us on our way it’ll start to brighten.’ He glanced over at the boy. ‘It likes to see people enjoying themselves,’ he added.
At the end of each street Saville rested; at one point he lit a cigarette but soon abandoned it. Occasionally, as they passed the houses, they saw people stirring, curtains being drawn, fires lit; one or two people came to the doors.
‘Off away, then, Harry?’
‘Aye, Saville said. ‘I think for good.’
‘Weight thy’s carrying tha mu’n be a month in travelling.’
‘A month I should think’, Saville said, ‘at least.’
A milkman came down the street with a horse and cart; he brought the jugs from each of the doorsteps to the back of the cart and ladled the milk out from the shiny, oval can. At the back of the cart hung a row of scoops, some with long handles, some like metal jugs.
He called and waved.
‘I could do with that this morning,’ Saville said.
He gestured at the cart.
‘How far are you going?’ the milkman said.
‘Down to the station.’
‘I’ll give you a lift,’ he said, ‘if you like.’
His wife wasn’t certain; she looked at the cans of milk; there was scarcely any room inside.
‘Thy mu’n take the cases,’ Saville said. ‘We can easy walk.’
‘I’ll take you all, old lad,’ the milkman said. ‘I won’t be a jiffy.’
He wore a black bowler hat and brown smock; they waited while he finished at the doors.
‘Off to the coast, then, are you?’ he asked them as he came back down the street.
‘That’s where we’re off,’ Saville said, looking at the boy.
‘First time, is it?’ the milkman said.
‘That’s right. First time.’
‘I wish I wa’ going with you.’
The milkman had red cheeks; his eyes, light blue, gazed out a
t them from under the brim of his hat.
‘Jump in,’ he said. ‘I’ll load your cases.’
His wife climbed up first, holding on to the flat, curved spar that served as a mudguard. She stood on one side, Saville on the other.
The boy, when the milkman lifted him in last, stood at the front, where the reins came into the cart over a metal bar.
The two cases, finally, were set in the middle, up-ended between the tall cans of milk.
‘Now, then,’ he said. ‘We’ll see if she can shift us.’
He took the reins, clicked his tongue, and the brown horse, darker even than the milkman’s smock, started forward.
‘Not too good weather yet,’ the milkman said. He gestured overhead.
‘It’ll start to brighten,’ Saville said. ‘I’ve not known one day it’s shone the day we left.’
‘Start black: end bright. Best way to go about it,’ the milkman said.
The horse clattered through the village. The cart, like a see-saw, swayed to and fro.
‘They mu’n be wondering where I’ve got to.’ The milkman gestured back. ‘Usually on time, tha knows, within a couple of minutes.’
‘It was good of you to bother,’ Saville said.
‘Nay, I wish I wa’ coming with you. What’s a hoss for if it can’t be used?’
Colin clung to the metal bar in front; it was looped and curved: the reins came through a narrow eyelet. His head was scarcely higher than the horse’s back.
Saville saw the way the boy’s legs had tensed, the whiteness of his knuckles as he clutched the bar. He glanced over at his wife. She was standing sideways, pale-faced, her eyes wide, half-startled, clutching to the wooden rail with one hand and to the side of the cart with the other; she had on a hat the same colour as her coat, reddish brown, brimless, sweeping down below her ears.
The last of the houses gave way to fields; Saville could smell the freshness of the air. A lark was singing: he could see its dark speck against the cloud. Behind them the colliery chimney filtered out a stream of smoke, thin, blackish; there were sheep in one of the fields, and cattle. In another, by itself, stood a horse. He pointed it out, calling to the boy.
Colin nodded. He stood by the milkman’s much larger figure, looking round, not releasing the metal rail, his head twisted: Saville could see the redness of his cheeks, the same sombre, startled look that had overcome him as he was lifted in the cart.
‘Thy mu’n say goodbye to them, tha knows,’ he said. ‘Tell ’em we’re off on holiday.’
The milkman laughed.
‘They’ll have seen nothing as strange,’ he added to his wife. ‘Off on holiday on the back of a milkman’s cart.’
The road dipped down to the station; the single track divided and went off in two deep cuttings across the fields.
The milkman turned the cart into the station yard; he got down first, helping Mrs Saville then the boy, then taking the cases as Saville held them out.
Saville got down himself. He dusted his coat.
‘That’s been very good of you,’ his wife had said.
‘Aye, it’s helped us a lot. I don’t know how long it’d have taken me to carry that lot.’ Saville gestured back the way they’d come. ‘We’d be still up yonder, I should think, for one thing; and for another, my arms might have easily dropped off after all that carrying.’ He glanced over at the boy: he was gazing at the horse, then at the cart.
‘Well, I wish you a good holiday, then,’ the milkman said. He climbed into the cart and took the reins. ‘Get back to me round afore they’ve noticed.’
‘It’s been very good of you,’ his wife had said again.
They watched him turn the cart: he waved; the horse trotted out to the road then disappeared across the bridge.
‘Well, that was a damn good turn. I suppose we shall have to wait though. It’s put us thirty minutes early,’ Saville said.
He took the cases over to the booking-hall. There was no one there. The bare wooden floor was dusty.
A planked walk took them through to a metal bridge: as they crossed over it they could see the rails below. A flight of stone steps, steep and narrow, took them down to the platform the other side.
He set the two cases down by a wooden seat.
‘I’ll go back up’, he said, ‘and get the tickets.’
Looking back from the booking-hall, he could see his wife and the boy standing by the cases; after one or two moments his wife sat down. The boy wandered over to the edge of the platform; he gazed down at the single track, looked up briefly towards the booking-hall, then turned and crossed the platform.
A goods train came slowly through the station; the bridge for a moment was hidden by smoke. The station itself had vanished; when the smoke had cleared his wife and the boy were standing at the edge of the platform watching the row of wagons pass.
The booking-clerk came through from an office at the rear: Saville paid for the tickets and, having re-crossed the bridge, went down the narrow steps and joined them.
The town had been built in the angle of a shallow bay. To the north, overlooking the houses, stood a ruined castle. It had been built on a peninsula of ochreish-looking rock which swung round, like a long arm, above the red-tiled roofs of the town itself; all that remained of the castle was a long, sprawling wall, and the dismembered section of a large, square-shaped keep. Around the foot of the headland formed by this peninsula ran a wide road, below which the sea boiled and frothed; even in calm weather it came up against the wall below the road in a heavy swell, following its sharply curved contour round to the shelter of the harbour on one side and to a broader, somewhat deeper bay to the north.
When the tide was out there were wide, sandy beaches. The house where they were staying lay to the south of the castle, near the harbour; from the upper windows they could see into the bay: they could see the white, glistening pleasure-boats as they churned in and out on their trips along the coast, and the fishing-smacks that lay in droves against the harbour wall, one fastened to another, and the crowds of people on the beach itself.
Saville had worked two weeks’ overtime for his two weeks’ holiday; instead of an eight-hour shift each day he’d worked sixteen hours, coming home exhausted to snatch a few hours’ sleep. He still felt the tiredness now, an emptiness, as if his limbs and his mind had been hollowed out: it was a hulk that he took down to the beach each morning; it was a hulk that was slowly filled with the smell of the sea, with the smell of the fish on the harbour quay, of the sand. Even the sun, once they’d got there, had begun to shine. He felt a new life opening out before him, full of change; it was inconceivable to him now that he’d ever work beneath the ground again.
He watched the boy; he would sit with his wife, in deck-chairs, the boy digging at their feet, immersed in the sand, wading in the sea, bringing his bucket back, afraid at times of the waves which, away from the protection of the harbour, crashed up against the beach.
There were donkeys on the sand; a man came round each morning and gave a Punch and Judy Show; there was a roundabout cranked by hand. They went on one of the pleasure-boats; it was like setting out to sea, clearing the headland, turning along the coast – the town now, with its castle, little more than a cluster of rocks at the water’s edge, the tall cliffs beyond like the shallow bank at the edge of a lake.
There was an orchestra aboard; a man in a sailor’s hat sang songs. The boy watched it all with wonder. There was a sudden alertness about him: when he got up on a morning Saville always found him waiting, sitting in the narrow hall downstairs where, beneath a hat-stand, his bucket and spade were kept – gazing through to the dining-room, anxious for his breakfast, or already at the door, the spade in his hand, ready to be off.
‘Nay, you mu’n hold on for some of us old ’uns,’ he told him. They would go down to the harbour before his wife was up; the trawlers would come in, unloading fish, seagulls drifting over in vast clouds above their decks, screeching, swooping to the water. The boy, in wat
ching, would grow quite still: it was like some cupboard door that had suddenly been opened, a curtain drawn aside to reveal things he’d never encountered or ever imagined could exist before. On the beach, the first morning, the boy had gazed at the sea, abstracted, half in fear, reluctant to go near it, watching it fold over in waves against the shore, the white spume, the suction of the water against the sand; and had finally gone down with Saville, holding tightly to his hand, gasping as he felt his bare foot against the cold, stepping back, laughing, half-amazed, as he saw the children splashing through the waves. Its vastness had amazed him, the lightness, the buoyancy of the boats, the hugeness of the cliffs that towered above it.
Then, almost overnight, the mystery had vanished; he would dig at the sand with scarcely a look towards the sea, gouging out a hole, building a castle wall, building turrets, Saville stooping to the hole beside him, the boy running off to the water’s edge, collecting water in his bucket, running back undisturbed, the waves pounding beyond him.
Yet, as though within himself, Saville sensed a new life spreading through the boy, slow, half-thoughtful, confusing, drawing him to the vastness of the sea, as if, in some strange way, their life in the past had been cancelled out, the smallness, the tiny house, the tower of the colliery belching out its smoke and steam. Now there was nothing to contain them: they could grow as large and be as unpredictable as they liked, eat what they wanted, sleep only when they were tired, stand in the sea, dig the beach, ride on donkeys, sail on the water. There was nothing now to hold them back: they were free at last.
His wife too, he noticed, had something of the boy’s nature; he’d never seen her out of the context of the home before. Now, seeing them together in a fresh place, without any associations, he saw how alike they were, the slowness, the heaviness, the strange, scarcely imagined inner life they both possessed, so that at times it was as if, casually, they shared the same expression, the same mood, the same slow look, the same transformation from a dull, brooding, almost melancholic awareness to a lighter, brighter, more accessible, scarcely conscious expectancy and alertness. He would see her laughing along the beach, running with the boy, or holding his hand as they stepped across the waves, running back from the larger ones, screaming, the boy and she joined in a way he knew he could never share himself. His own approaches to the boy were always sharp and heavy, sideways, almost ponderous, speculative, afraid that the boy himself might not react; he entrusted his loneliness to the boy, looking to him to give him something of a link beyond himself. The blackness of the mine had always brought him back; now, with the sea, he felt them all advancing, in lightness, almost gentle.