Saville

by David Storey

  ‘War’s an unpleasant thing,’ Mr Reagan said, ‘even at the best of times.’ He was himself only a year ahead of the latest drafting and would sit at the table when his grandfather had finished, saying, ‘A colliery official like myself is as important to the pit as any miner, perhaps more so. Yet do I get deferment? I do not. Why, only the other day one of the owners came up to me and said, “We shall have to get someone out of retirement to take your place, Reagan, or one of the women out of the offices.” Why, it’s taken years of training to get where I am.’

  ‘Have you ever seen snow?’ his grandfather would ask him.

  ‘Snow?’ Mr Reagan said.

  ‘Marching for days with it up to here.’

  ‘Oh, a biscuit would go very well with it,’ Mr Reagan said whenever his mother put down his cup of tea. ‘That’s very kind of you indeed. Ah, ginger. A favourite.’

  ‘Moscow,’ his grandfather said. ‘Landed at Sebastopol in the Crimea and marched four hundred miles and all the way back again. Wolves? We fought everything. We even fought women.’

  ‘Women?’ Mr Reagan said, sipping his tea.

  ‘They come in at night when you’re asleep, with sticks and shovels, and try and take your food,’ his grandfather said. ‘Why, one woman could take ten men apart in a matter of seconds.’

  ‘I can well believe it,’ Mr Reagan said. ‘If they left wars to women they’d be over in half the time. Perhaps even sooner.’

  ‘When we left we were shelled.’

  Mr Reagan nodded and bit his biscuit.

  ‘Came down on you from every side. The Heights of Sebastopol,’ his grandfather said. ‘We threw everything off the ship that we could and filled the hold full of women and children. Aristocrats. Hundreds of them. When we reached Istanbul they wouldn’t let them out until we’d de-loused them.’

  ‘Istanbul? Now, isn’t that in Turkey?’ Mr Reagan said.

  ‘Filled the holds with disinfectant and they had to swim around for hours. When I came ashore a woman offered me a gold necklace to marry her so that she could come back to England.’

  ‘That sounds a very tempting offer,’ Mr Reagan said, re-crossing his legs.

  ‘They were all at it. You could have anything you wanted,’ his grandfather said. ‘There was nowt they wouldn’t do, given half the chance.’

  ‘Here, Colin,’ his mother would say. ‘Will you take the bucket and fill it up with coal?’

  ‘It won’t do the lad any harm, missis,’ his grandfather said, ‘to hear where his forebears came from.’

  ‘The Irish Revolution’, Mr Reagan said, ‘was very much the same.’

  ‘You fought there, then, Mr Reagan?’ his grandfather said.

  ‘No, no. But I had an uncle who was killed in Belfast.’

  ‘The Black and Tans,’ his grandfather said.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Mr Reagan said, and shook his head.

  If his father came in and found them talking he would say to Mr Reagan, ‘Has my dad told you about the harem in Constantinople?’ and when Mr Reagan said, ‘No, no, I don’t believe he has, Harry, that’s the one thing he hasn’t mentioned,’ and winked at his father, he would add, ‘Show us your leg, Dad,’ and his grandfather would pull up his trouser to reveal a long white scar running the length of his calf. ‘There,’ his father said. ‘The guards caught him one as he was nipping over the wall.’

  ‘On the way out,’ his grandfather said, smiling with his new teeth.

  ‘On his way out, Mr Reagan,’ his father said.

  ‘It’s a miracle I’ve still got a leg at all,’ his grandfather said, laughing, his father getting up then as he choked to tap his back.

  At night he said two prayers that his mother had taught him since starting Sunday School, kneeling by the bed, his head pressed against his hands. ‘God bless Mother, Father and little Steve, and make Colin a good boy. Amen’, and, ‘Lord keep us safe this night, secure from all our fears, may angels guard us while we sleep, till morning light appears.’ Then he said, ‘Please God, let me pass the examination. Amen’, and pressing his head against the blankets repeated it three times before climbing into bed.

  His uncle called at the house. He was small like his father, with the same light-coloured hair and blue eyes and even the same moustache, though he was younger, and would come into the house without knocking, saying, ‘Ellen, and how’s our favourite lass?’

  His mother’s temples reddened and she would turn away to the fire, to the kettle, and put on a pot of tea as if his appearance caused her no surprise at all, saying, ‘Don’t you knock before you come in?’ and he would say, ‘Not when I’m visiting my favourite sister.’

  ‘Sister-in-law,’ she would tell him and he would answer, ‘Well, then, aren’t I going to have a kiss?’

  He had been called up into the Air Force and usually came in his uniform, his cap tucked into the lapel on his shoulder, parking a blue-painted lorry with an R.A.F. insignia on its cabin on a piece of waste ground at the end of the road. When he had kissed his mother on the cheek and hugged her a moment he would stand with his back to the fire clapping his hands together and saying, ‘Well, then, who wants a round?’ shadow-boxing for a while then adding, if no one responded, ‘Aren’t we going to have a cup of tea?’ and then, ‘Here you are, Steven. Here you are, Colin. See what I have in my pocket.’

  He usually brought a bar of chocolate or, failing that, would bring out a coin and press it into their hands saying, ‘Don’t tell your mother where you got it or she’ll want it back’, and adding in a louder voice still, ‘Now, then, make sure she doesn’t hear.’

  When his father came in he was always serious, saying, ‘How are you, Jack?’ shaking his hand before sitting down at the table and perhaps adding, ‘Have they given you a cup of tea?’

  ‘It’s on the boil, Harry,’ he’d tell him, clapping his hands again and looking over at his mother. ‘I wish I was a miner and that’s for sure. Fighting on the Home Front. There’s nothing to beat it.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll swop you any time,’ his father told him. ‘Riding around in a lorry. You never risk ought but a bloody puncture.’

  ‘Don’t worry. The Jerries are over our station every night,’ his uncle said.

  ‘He doesn’t look as though he’s worried, does he, Dad?’ his father said and his grandfather shook his head and added, ‘Have you brought us ought, Jack? What’s in the back of your lorry?’

  They walked down sometimes and looked inside and sometimes his uncle would say, ‘Come on, Colin. Jump up inside,’ and they would sit together in the large seat, smelling of oil and petrol, Steven sitting between Colin’s legs, while his mother would say, ‘Don’t take them far, Jack, I want them back for dinner.’

  ‘Just round the town,’ his uncle would shout over the roar of the engine, which he revved up for some time before they began, attracting the attention of the people in the other houses.

  He drove, always, very fast. They started with a jerk, the tyres squealing, and ended with one. Because he was a small man his uncle’s head was scarcely visible from outside and he would sit on a cushion, occasionally half-standing to see ahead, pulling himself up on the wheel and saying, ‘Now, then, what happens here?’ whenever they came to a bend. If someone got in the way he would shout out, ‘Just look at that. They don’t know how to use a road let alone a vehicle.’

  ‘Mad Jack they used to call him,’ his father said when they got back. ‘And Mad Jack he still is.’

  ‘Mad as a hatter, me,’ his uncle said and if his father had come down from his afternoon sleep before going off on the night shift he would say, ‘Don’t you keep proper hours in this house? I keep coming here hoping to find you at work and my lovely sister-in-law on her own.’

  ‘It’s a good job I do work nights,’ his father would say, sitting down at the table and looking up, blinking his eyes, at his brother.

  For several weeks before the examination Colin had returned to doing his nightly essays and his nightly sums while his fat
her sat across the table correcting them, occasionally, if he had to go to work, leaving them on the sideboard to correct when he came home in the morning. ‘What’s the decimal for three-tenths?’ he said when he came down on a morning. ‘They won’t give you any longer than that. How do you spell hippopotamus?’

  The day before the exams he and the other children who were taking them were given a new pen, a new pencil and a new ruler at school to bring home with them. In the evening Colin had gone to bed early, his mother coming up to tuck in the blankets and his father coming up before he got ready for work. ‘Think of something nice,’ he said, ‘like your holidays, and you’ll soon be asleep. An extra hour’s sleep before midnight is as good as half a dozen next morning.’ And after he had gone out his grandfather came in and said, ‘Are you asleep, lad? Spend this on ought you like,’ putting a coin in his hand. When the door had closed he put on the light and saw that it was half-a-crown.

  He seemed to be awake all night. He heard his father go to work, wheeling his bike out into the yard, calling out to Mrs Shaw as she came out of her door to get some coal. Then, only a few minutes later it seemed, he heard his grandfather climbing into bed and singing as he often did now, ‘Rock of Ages, cleft for me,’ his voice trailing off into a vague murmuring and moaning. Then, later, he heard his mother raking the fire and bolting the back door, coming up the stairs to her room, saying something to Steven, who for that night was sleeping with her, then going back down to bring him a drink. All night he lay awake turning fifths into decimals, decimals of a pound into shillings and pence, spelling circumference, ostrich and those words that his father had made him learn by heart. He was still struggling to convert a fraction of a yard into feet and inches when he felt his mother holding his shoulder and saying, ‘It’s time to get up, Colin. I’ll warm some water for your wash.’ When he went down his clothes were lying over the arm of the chair by the fire, his trousers pressed, his socks just mended, his shoes freshly polished in the hearth. His mother had been up early to iron his shirt and it was stretched on a clothes horse in front of the fire. ‘I cleaned your shoes then you won’t get polish on your hands,’ she said. The bowl of water stood steaming in the sink.

  A little later his father came back from work, wheeling in his bike, the shoulders of his overcoat and the top of his flat cap wet, the wheels of the bike leaving a wet track on the floor. ‘It’s just started,’ he said. ‘Cold enough to snow,’ shaking his coat as he took it off. ‘Have you got a bit of spare paper’, he added, ‘to put in your pocket? It’s just what you’ll need for working things out.’ He washed his hands at the sink, then tore a sheet from the colliery pad and folded it up ready for him to take. ‘Is his ruler and his pen out?’ he asked his mother, and took them down off the mantelpiece to examine the nib, saying, ‘This isn’t very strong. One good bit of writing and it’ll break in two. Haven’t we got one he can take with him, Ellen?’

  ‘They’ll have all that there,’ she said. ‘I should just leave him to get on.’

  ‘Aye, he’ll be all right,’ his father said, standing by the table, rubbing his hand along the back of the chair, gazing down at him, then at his mother, then staring helplessly about the room. ‘Remember what I’ve told you,’ he said. ‘Before you write ought down think. They’ll not go much by somebody who’s always crossing out.’

  When Steven came down his father lifted him up and said, ‘Now, then. Are we going to have another scholar in the house?’ Steven struggling to get down to the table where his bowl of porridge was waiting. ‘If he does his sums as well as he eats we’ll be all right,’ his father added. ‘We’ll none of us have to worry.’

  When his grandfather came down still in his pyjamas he said, ‘Where’s my tea? Nobody brought me up my tea this morning, missis,’ and when his mother said, ‘Oh, we’ve got more important things to think about,’ he looked down at the table and said, ‘Porridge, now that’s going to fill out his brains.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to eat it, Colin?’ his mother asked him.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t feel hungry.’

  ‘You want something. You’ll do nothing with an empty stomach,’ she said.

  ‘It’s nerves,’ his father said. ‘I get the same feeling when I’m going down at night.’

  ‘He can take an apple,’ his mother said, gazing down at him, her hands clasped together. ‘He’ll soon fill up when it’s over.’

  When he was ready he picked up the ruler and the pen and pencil and put the piece of paper in his pocket with the apple his mother gave him in the other. He pulled on his black gabardine raincoat and his cap, and his mother said, ‘Nay, not out of the back. You can go out of the front today.’

  She’d already gone to fetch her coat, saying, ‘I’ll come down to the bus stop with you,’ and he’d said, ‘No, I’d better go on my own.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure,’ she said.

  She held the door open, holding Steven in her arms and saying, ‘Are you going to kiss him for luck, then, Steve?’

  Steven shook his head, kicking his legs against her and turning away, and his father said, ‘Well, good luck, lad. And remember what I’ve told you.’

  ‘Yes,’ Colin said and shook his father’s hand as he held it out, shyly, half-flushing.

  It was still quite dark. The rain fell in a fine drizzle. Farther down the street Mrs Bletchley and Mrs Reagan were walking towards the bus stop with Bletchley and Michael Reagan, the bright orange pens and pencils sticking from their satchels.

  ‘Have you got everything, then?’ his mother said. ‘Your money for your dinner?’

  ‘Yes.’ He didn’t look up.

  ‘Remember last night,’ his grandfather said. ‘There’s more where that came from.’

  When he reached the corner and looked back his mother was still standing in the door. When she waved he waved back, then turned the corner and walked quickly to the stop.

  There was a crowd of children and mothers already there, clustered together in the half-darkness, and one or two men with pit dirt still on their faces. Everywhere there were the bright orange rulers and pens and pencils.

  ‘Have you got a rubber?’ Bletchley said.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘You have to have a rubber.’ Bletchley took one out of his pocket. ‘That’s for rubbing out pencil and that’s for rubbing out ink,’ he said, indicating either end. ‘Got any blotting-paper?’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head.

  Bletchley opened his satchel and took out a sheet folded in two. Reagan had a similar piece in his satchel and an identical rubber. Inside too were a bag of sweets, a bar of chocolate, an orange and an apple, and a bottle of ink.

  ‘Haven’t you got any ink?’ Bletchley said. ‘You won’t be able to write anything, will you?’

  When the bus came, with its shaded lights glowing in the damp road, Bletchley was the first to get on. He kissed his mother, who then stood in the doorway until he had got up the steps. There were twelve children and when they were all on the mothers and the two or three miners stood at the windows, the women on tiptoe, waving. A teacher sat down at the front. The bus started.

  The fine drizzle fell against the panes as the day lightened, and the lights with their blue-painted bulbs were switched off. The hedges on either side were drooped down with damp, the cattle herded together in the corners of the fields. The windows soon steamed up, and after a while, except by rubbing against them, little of the countryside could be seen. Bletchley sat near the front with his satchel on his knees, the inside of his legs still covered in the white cream that hadn’t yet been rubbed off. Reagan, who had sat farther back in the bus, had begun to cry, his thin face screwed up, his forehead a peculiar white, his cheeks crimson.

  The teacher got up finally and came up the gangway to stoop over him, and when they stopped at the next village and another group of children climbed on, their coats wet with rain, the teacher got off and went to fetch Reagan a cup of water from a house. When they se
t off again he sat sobbing in his seat, his chest shuddering with strange, sudden spasms, the air rattling in his throat, his satchel still strapped around his body.

  ‘His dad says he has to pass or he’ll get a good hiding,’ Bletchley said coming up the bus to sit with Colin. ‘If they sec you crying they knock ten marks off. They watch you all the time. Did you know that?’ leaning across to say to Reagan, ‘They’ve probably failed you already, Mic.’

  The school they arrived at was a brick building with tall, green-painted windows and a tarmac yard: it stood beside a row of arches carrying a railway across a shallow cutting, and at the other side of the yard ran a stream full of oil drums, pieces of bedding and mounds of rusted metal.

  Several groups of children were already waiting in the lee of the building, out of the drizzle, each of them clutching the familiar orange pens and rulers. The doors of the school were still closed: numerous muddy footprints marked the lower panels.

  Another bus stopped at the gate and several more children came into the yard, looking vaguely about them, at the school, at the arches across which occasionally an engine hauled a line of trucks, sending clouds of white steam and black smoke billowing into the yard.

  ‘Why did they pick this place?’ Bletchley said and Reagan shook his head.

  ‘Every school’, someone said, ‘takes its turn. Next year it might be yours, then you don’t get an advantage.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call this an advantage,’ Bletchley said. ‘Not even to anyone who lived here.’

  The boy who had spoken had fair hair, cut short and brushed into a neat parting at one side. He wore, too, a clean white shirt and a woollen tie with red and blue stripes. He had a fountain-pen clipped in the top pocket of his blazer and beneath it was the badge of his school, a red rose on a white background with ‘En Dieu Es Tout’ written underneath on a scroll.