by David Storey
His father would describe Mr Reagan’s fights in some detail, and they frequently followed the same pattern. In most instances they took place at the bar of the Institute, and invariably began with some comment on Mr Reagan’s appearance, on the hat he never took off, except at the office, or as he entered his front door, on the yellow gloves which, similarly, he never removed, or on the rolled umbrella which he never opened, even when it rained.
Mr Reagan himself, in fact, would give no indication to begin with that anything untoward had occurred. He would continue whatever it was he was doing, talking, smiling, gazing benevolently around until, at a point determined entirely by himself, he would put his glass down, resting it a moment on the counter as if he suspected very much that, out of his grasp, it might disappear for good, then, with the same gravity, remove first his hat which he would lay beside his glass, then his right glove which he would lay on the hat, then his left which he would lay on the right; then, finally, he would hoist up his cuffs.
‘Would it be you’, he would say, turning slowly to the person in question, ‘who passed a comment upon my appearance a moment ago?’
The man, quite frequently, would look round puzzled, the moment for him, at least, having passed.
‘If so,’ Mr Reagan would say, ‘you’re on the very point of having your teeth pushed down your throat.’
Occasionally the man would deny all knowledge of having made any comment on Mr Reagan’s appearance, or indeed on anything at all.
Other times, however, he might nod his head, smiling, and say, ‘Oh, and who’s going to do that for you?’
‘Why,’ Mr Reagan would say, ‘I have the feller here just ready for the job.’
According to his father, who watched over Mr Reagan’s fights with an almost evangelical passion, Mr Reagan seldom hit his opponents more than once, so fast and so hard was his initial blow. If more were required he provided them, if not he turned with the same casual momentum to the bar, pulled down his cuffs, replaced his gloves, then his hat, tilting it to the angle he favoured best, and picked up his glass. Raising it, he would empty its contents at a single swallow.
His father, when he felt strong enough to go outside, spent much of his time now with Mr Reagan. He would stand at the window at tea-time and wait for him to come down the road from the colliery office, then he would come into the kitchen, wait impatiently for fifteen minutes while Mr Reagan had time to consume his tea and glance at the paper, then go out along the backs, rocking on his rings and swaying on his walking stick, and tap on Mr Reagan’s back window calling, ‘Are you in there, Bryan? Don’t tell me they’ve let you out already?’
Sometimes Mr Reagan would return along the backs with him and putting down a folded newspaper sit on the doorstep, his collar and waistcoat undone, his braces showing at the back when he leaned forward.
His father would argue with him about his work. ‘If I worked the hours you did, and did nought but lick envelopes and fill in forms and count out other people’s money, I’d fall asleep before ever I started.’
‘Ah, well,’ Mr Reagan would say. ‘I know the feeling well. But then, any silly fellow can heave a pick and shovel. It takes a man with brains to sit on his backside all day and get paid for it.’
His father would nod and laugh, looking in at Colin and his mother inside the kitchen as if this were just the answer he wanted them to hear.
‘In any case,’ Mr Reagan would say, ‘you don’t do so much yourself. Two pot legs and a pot arm: it’s a wonder there aren’t more at it.’
‘Aye,’ his father would say, sadly. ‘I’m lying around like any old woman.’
‘Oh, now,’ Mr Reagan would say, ‘I wouldn’t say it was as bad as that.’
Whenever his mother protested Mr Reagan would add, his accent thickening, and bowing his head, ‘Oh, now, Mrs Saville, not counting yourself.’ And then, tipping his head in the direction of his own house he would add, ‘But there are some, you know, who go round flicking dusters all day till you can’t put your foot down without breaking your neck, who dress their lads up like lasses and have them scraping cat-gut all evening till you don’t know where you are from one minute to the next.’
Yet Mr Reagan himself seemed either too indifferent or too lazy to do anything about it. He would sit on the step, or stand by the fence, shouting at the cricketers, the colour of his face slowly thickening, but in the end, his arms swinging loosely, he would turn back to the house. Occasionally he would come out into the yard with a violin and chop it into pieces. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do with it,’ he would shout. ‘And I’ll tell you what I’ll do with him too in a minute.’ Sometimes he would do the same with his son’s clothes, which his wife made specially for him, little suits and bright blouses, standing in the yard ripping them up and stamping on the pieces, his face so red it seemed it would burst.
‘And yet why do I do it?’ he would say to his father. ‘I have to pay for all the damned things in the end.’
Whenever his father asked Mr Reagan about working at the pit he would look up, surprised, and say, ‘Why, you’re better off where you are, Harry. If I told you some of the things that went on there you’d never walk past the place.’
‘Oh,’ his father said. ‘One pit’s much the same as another.’
‘Aye,’ Mr Reagan would say. ‘That’s why I’d stick with what I’d got.’
Perhaps Mr Reagan did put in a word with the management. Yet when his father went to see them, shortly after the pots on his arm and legs had been removed, he came back looking pale and discouraged. Colin saw him walk up the street, his legs straddled slightly as he tried to walk without the stick, and go into the house without as much as glancing in his direction. When he went in his father was sitting at the table, his arms laid out before him, his back stooped.
‘They want you where you are,’ his mother was saying. ‘They know how valuable you are.’
‘Valuable? I’m not valuable. I could be killed tomorrow and there’d be somebody to take my place.’
‘It’s not what you always say,’ she told him.
‘Say?’ he said. ‘What do I say?’
‘How valuable you are. Where you work at the moment.’
‘Aye.’ He nodded his head, not looking up from the table. ‘I have to say that. If I don’t, what am I? Just another piece of muck.’
In the end he went back to his old pit. Even when he could walk without the stick, and had long lost his limp, there was a slowness in his movements as if some part of his life had been arrested.
7
He started Sunday School. He went with a boy called Bletchley who lived in the house next door.
His mother until then had had little relationship with Mrs Bletchley: she was not unlike Mrs Shaw, who lived the other side. Though no brasses hung on her walls, her floors were covered in rugs and carpets, lace curtains hung in the windows, and in the front window stood a plant with flat, green leaves that never flowered or seemed to grow. Mr Bletchley was one of the few men in the terrace who didn’t work at the colliery. He was employed at the station and occasionally when Colin went there he would catch sight of Mr Bletchley carrying a large pole and supervising the shunting of the trucks in the siding, or walking to and fro across the lines. He was a small man, with sallow cheeks, and seldom spoke to anyone at all.
Mrs Bletchley was small too and was always smiling. Her main dealings were with a Mrs McCormack who lived the other side. Mrs McCormack would stand with her broad arms folded, nodding her head whenever Mrs Bletchley called from her step, unable to resist the attentions of the other woman, for whenever Mrs Bletchley failed to come out, on a morning or in the evening, she would go and knock on her door and stand there, still as silent as ever, listening to Mrs Bletchley speak.
The Bletchleys’ son was called Ian. He was fat; his mother made all his clothes. His trousers were of grey flannel and ended just below his knees, which popped out beneath them as he walked. He had little interest in anything and wo
uld stand in the back door sucking his thumb and staring out at the children in the field.
In addition to his fat body he had a very large head, his features were gathered together in a straight line down the centre of his face, folds of fat drawing out the contours disproportionately on either side. His legs too were fat, they were flat at the back and flat at the front, the sides vaguely curved. The skin on the inside of his knees was inflamed: it was at this point that his legs rubbed together and each morning, before he went to school, Mrs Bletchley would rub them with cream.
On alternate Saturday mornings, if the weather were fine, she would set out a wooden chair in the yard and Mr Bletchley would sit on the step while his son sat on the chair and Mrs Bletchley cut his hair, snipping behind his ears with a comb and scissors. He often cried. Colin would hear him crying on a morning, and in the evening, and when he had his hair cut he would often scream, rising in his chair and attempting, unsuccessfully, to kick his mother. ‘You’ve cut me, you’ve cut me,’ he would shout.
‘No, dear,’ Mrs Bletchley would tell him. ‘I don’t think I have.’
‘You have. I can feel it.’
‘I don’t think so, dear. Let me have a look.’
‘I’m not.’
‘I can’t cut it unless I see it.’
‘I’m not letting you cut me any more.’
He would run off into the house, his knees already reddened from their chafing on the chair, Mr Bletchley standing up to let him by and occasionally going to the chair himself.
‘Oh, we’ll give him a minute, dear,’ his wife would say and stand waiting, occasionally sweeping up the bits she had cut into a pile.
‘If he was my lad,’ Colin’s father would say, watching from the step or the window, ‘I’d boot his backside.’
‘Well, you’re not his father,’ his mother said.
‘I would. From morning till night.’
Once, when his father was working in the garden, he had called out to Mrs Bletchley, ‘You’re as daft as a boat-hoss, missis.’
‘What?’ Mrs Bletchley had asked him.
‘You want to clout his backside.’
Mr Bletchley himself had looked away.
‘Oh, well,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to be patient.’
‘Aye,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘But not for long.’
It was his mother’s idea that he should go to church with Bletchley. She had seen him several Sunday afternoons setting off for church, his legs creamed, dressed in a grey-flannel suit and a red-striped tie, and in the evening she had said, ‘Well, whatever you say about Ian, he’s always tidy.’
‘So’s a pig-sty,’ his father said, ‘if it’s never put to use.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘going to church won’t do you any harm.’
‘Who?’ his father said. ‘Him or me?’
‘Colin,’ she said.
They had both glanced at him. Then, just as quickly, they looked away.
‘I don’t want to go,’ he said.
‘No,’ his father said. ‘I suppose not. But then, you don’t want to do a lot of things.’
‘It’ll do you a lot of good,’ his mother said. ‘You could go with Ian. I’ll ask his mother.’
Two Sundays later he set off with Bletchley, in his own best suit, which he had scarcely worn since the birth of Steven.
Bletchley was silent for most of the way. There was the soft rubbing of his legs as he walked, the faint drag of one trouser leg against the other. He breathed heavily the whole time, occasionally snorting down his nose as if it were blocked and walking a little distance ahead as if reluctant to be seen with anyone else. In much the same way he walked in the street with his parents.
When, prior to setting off, Colin had appeared on the doorstep, Bletchley had regarded him with a great deal of surprise, his eyes, buried in folds of fat, gazing out at him with a surly distaste. Only as they neared the church, having passed the colliery and started up the slope, past the Park, towards the upper part of the village, did he turn round and say, panting slightly, ‘You believe in God?’
‘Yes,’ he said, nodding his head.
‘What’s He look like?’ Bletchley said, stopping and gazing at him.
In the Park, little more than a field stretching down at the side of the road, Batty was swinging on one of the swings in the recreation ground, pushing himself to and fro with one foot, and kicking Stringer, who was sitting in the next swing, with the other.
‘Like an old man,’ he said.
Bletchley examined him for a moment and said, ‘Have you seen Him?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘If you don’t believe in God they won’t let you in the door.’
‘Yes,’ he said, and added, ‘Well, I’ll tell them I do.’
‘They send you to see the vicar and he gets it out of you.’
Bletchley watched him a moment longer, then turned and, in much the same silence, continued up the slope.
From the swings Stringer had shouted, ‘Where’re you going?’
‘Church,’ he called.
Stringer nodded, glancing at Batty, but added nothing further.
The Sunday School was split into two groups. The Crusaders, who were eleven and over, sat in the church itself behind a row of banners clipped to the end of the pews, each bearing the emblem of a saint or an apostle: a bird for St Francis and a pair of fish with large eye-balls for St Peter. The Juniors met in the Church Hall, a small stone structure to the rear of the church, which at one time had been a barn. The floor was of bare wood and the walls were unplastered. A large fire at one end kept the place heated and throughout the meeting a small woman with red eyes would shovel on pieces of coke, sending up little puffs of smoke, wiping her eyes then her nose on her handkerchief as if she were crying.
The children sat on small wooden chairs arranged in circles. Each circle was supervised by a teacher, a young man or woman, they themselves overlooked by the vicar’s wife, a small, fat woman, in shape not unlike Bletchley himself, her eyes hidden behind a pair of thick glasses. Their own teacher was a man called Mr Morrison. He was tall and thin, with a long thin neck and a long thin face. On either cheek was a clump of bright red spots. He had a prayer book and a Bible which Bletchley, sitting on his right, held for him, handing them to him whenever they were required, his own face serious and extremely grave. They sang a hymn first under the supervision of the vicar’s wife, then they put their hands together and said several prayers, some of which the children knew by heart. They sang another hymn, then they sat down and Mr Morrison told them a story about a man who went fishing.
The teachers in the other groups were telling stories too, some of the children looking across at Colin, others sitting on their hands, gazing at the walls or ceiling.
In the roof were visible the timbers of the barn, old and gnarled as if they’d beer taken straight off a tree, and here and there pieces of string hung down as if at one time they had held decorations. Periodically one or two of the children went out to the lavatory, coming back to sit down again, folding their arms and staring at the roof. Everyone had on their best suit or dress, and clean shoes.
Bletchley listened carefully to Mr Morrison, his head turned stiffly from his tight collar so that he could watch Mr Morrison’s mouth. Whenever Mr Morrison asked a question Bletchley would put up his hand, and though for a while Mr Morrison might ignore it, despite Bletchley whispering, ‘Sir, sir,’ in his ear, in the end he would turn towards him with a slight nod, his eyes avoiding Bletchley altogether, who, in turn, would lower his arm, coughing slightly, and direct the answer specifically at the circle of faces before him.
When Mr Morrison had finished speaking he glanced at his watch and looked over at the vicar’s wife talking to her group by the fire, then took the Bible from Bletchley, opened it at a piece he had already marked, and handed it back to Bletchley to read.
Bletchley stooped forward to read, resting the Bible on his inflamed knees and following the p
rint with his chubby finger. Whenever he faltered on a word he would bow his head several times in rapid succession then, having got it out, would look up at Mr Morrison with a smile.
Finally, at the end of the room, the vicar’s wife stood up. A last hymn was announced, Bletchley wandering round the group sorting out the pages for those who couldn’t read and stabbing his finger at the number. Mr Morrison stood by his seat blowing his nose, dabbing at the spots on his cheek then looking at his handkerchief to see if they had left a mark.
When the piano began to play Bletchley sang with a loud voice, almost shouting, his head turned conspicuously away from the page to indicate that he knew it by heart. Those who couldn’t read and didn’t know the hymn simply stared at the book, occasionally opening their mouths and making a humming sound in time with the music.
At the end of the hymn a moment was allowed for everyone to put down their books. Bletchley had already closed his before the last verse and had turned, while everyone else was singing, and laid his book on the seat, turning back, still singing, to finish the hymn with his eyes half-closed, gazing vacantly towards the ceiling.
A final prayer was said, the vicar’s wife waiting until everyone had closed their eyes and put their hands together, then a blessing was given and as the woman at the piano began to play a slow tune each child picked up their chair and carried it to the side of the room. Bletchley, with one or two of the older children, had begun to collect the hymn books and the Bibles, the teachers themselves standing together at the end of the room with their backs to the fire, rubbing their hands.
When Colin went out the sun was shining and the wind blowing across the fields towards the church. The children either went and stood in the church porch to wait for their elder brothers and sisters, picking up the piles of confetti dropped there from the weddings the previous day, or ran off down the slope, past the Park, towards the village.