by David Storey
‘Walker?’
Walker’s hand, judiciously, had been lowered to a less conspicuous place behind his desk; nevertheless, his red nose, if nothing else, had caught Miss Woodson’s attention.
‘I don’t know, Miss,’ he said and shook his head.
‘Walker doesn’t know. I wonder,’ she added, ‘if the same is true …’, she paused, ‘of everyone else.’
‘Miss, Miss!’ nearly all the boys had said.
‘Saville.’
‘Nought point six, six’, he said, ‘recurring.’
‘Now, then,’ she said. ‘I hope we all heard that.’ The thick-framed glasses were slowly lowered. ‘Walker?’
‘Nought point six, six recurring,’ Walker said.
The arms were lowered.
‘And what would one-third be, expressed as a decimal, Walker?’
‘Point three, three recurring,’ Walker said.
‘And if I asked you to give me two-thirds of one pound, Walker, how much would you give me?’
‘Two-thirds, Miss?’ he said. His eyes expanded; the redness around his nose had deepened. A sudden agitated movement took place beneath his desk.
‘Two-thirds, Walker,’ Miss Woodson said.
‘Two-thirds of one pound would be …’ Walker said, his fingers entwined, working frantically together. ‘Two-thirds …’
‘Stephens.’
‘Yes, Miss?’
‘Don’t “Yes, Miss” me. Two-thirds of one pound, Stephens, in shillings and pence.’
Stephens’s head had begun to shake; a look of terror lit his features; even his hair had begun to tremble, his habitual stoop suddenly pronounced as if he intended to hide beneath the desk.
‘Miss, Miss,’ two or three boys had said.
Again, with a communal, self-protective gesture, nearly every hand in the class was raised.
‘Two-thirds of one pound, Stephens.’
Stephens’s eyes wandered slowly from Miss Woodson’s gaze to the door behind; from there they drifted helplessly across the wall until, half-way down the side of the class they came to the low, rectangular-shaped window which looked out to the basement wall of the drive. All that was visible, beyond the wire-netting shielding the window, was the ancient, eroded stonework of the wall itself.
‘Twelve shillings, roughly, Miss,’ he said.
‘Twelve shillings roughly, Stephens,’ Miss Woodson said. Her lips slid back; two rows of large, uneven teeth were suddenly revealed. ‘If twelve shillings represent two-thirds of a pound, what does the remainder represent?’ she said.
‘Miss, Miss,’ several boys had said.
‘Eight shillings, Miss Woodson,’ Stephens said.
His lips, too, had begun to tremble. Tears welled up around his eyes.
‘Represents, Stephens. Represents. If twelve shillings represents two-thirds, what does the remainder represent?’
‘One-third, Miss.’
‘And one-third, by your reckoning, is equivalent to eight shillings, Stephens. And that being so, what would three-thirds represent?’
‘Miss I’ several boys had said.
‘Twenty-four shillings,’ Stephens said.
‘And how many shillings are there in one pound, Stephens?’
‘Twenty shillings, Miss,’ he said.
‘How many shillings and pence are represented by two-thirds of a pound, then, Walker?’
‘Me, Miss?’ Walker said.
‘Don’t “Me, Miss?” me, Walker. Am I talking to the wall?’ she said. ‘Out with an answer before I thrash you.’
She got up slowly from the desk; she came down the aisle between the desks, gazing towards the window at the end of the room; it opened out directly to the field; a small, black dog crossed between the brick-built shelters.
‘I don’t know, Miss,’ Walker said.
‘Out to the front, Walker,’ Miss Woodson said.
Walker got up; his head held slightly to one side, he stepped carefully between Miss Woodson and his desk.
‘Stand facing the blackboard, Walker,’ Miss Woodson said.
He stood with his hands behind him, his legs astride.
‘Pick up the piece of chalk before you.’
Walker picked up the chalk from a wooden tray beneath the board.
‘Write down one pound on the blackboard, Walker.’
Walker wrote one pound, reaching over.
‘Now divide one pound, Walker,’ Miss Woodson said, ‘by three. Do it clearly. We all want to see your ignorance,’ she added.
‘Three into one won’t go, Miss,’ Walker said. He stood with his hand half-poised, the stick of white chalk clenched tightly in it.
‘Oh, dear. And what shall we do now, then, Walker?’ Miss Woodson said.
She’d taken up a position at the back of the room, gazing down to Walker and the blackboard at the opposite end.
‘Change it into shillings, Miss Woodson,’ Walker said.
‘Let’s see the machinations of your brilliant logic, Walker. Twenty shillings divided into three,’ she said.
‘Threes into twenty go six,’ Walker said. ‘With two left over.’
‘Two what, Walker? Legs, arms, feet?’
‘Shillings, Miss.’
‘And what do we divide those by, Walker?’ Miss Woodson said.
‘Change them into pence and divide by three, Miss,’ Walker said.
‘And the answer, according to this mathematical genius, then, is what?’
‘Eightpence, Miss.’
‘So, one-third of one pound is how much, Walker?’
‘Six shillings and eightpence, Miss Woodson,’ Walker said.
‘Go back to your desk, genius,’ Miss Woodson said.
She came slowly down the room again.
‘I want to see no hand down when I ask you this. Two-thirds of one pound is what, then, class?’
Everyone’s hand except Stephens went quickly up.
‘Two-thirds of one pound is what, then, Stephens?’
He was writing quickly, with his finger, on the top of the desk.
‘Are you washing that desk, Stephens?’ Miss Woodson said. ‘Or endeavouring in some way to improve its surface?’
‘No, Miss,’ Stephens said and shook his head.
Several boys had quickly laughed.
‘I shan’t give you another second, Stephens. Two-thirds of one pound: answer quick.’
‘Sixteen shillings and eightpence, Miss.’
Miss Woodson took off her glasses. With a sudden, uncharacteristic violence, she struck the desk with the flat of her hand. ‘What was that answer, Stephens?’ she said, gazing now into Stephens’s eyes.
The dark-haired boy had shaken his head. It was as if the two figures were preoccupied in some private conversation, stooped together, Stephens bowed, Miss Woodson bending, scarcely inches now between them.
‘Two-thirds of one pound is what, then, Stephens?’
‘I don’t know, Miss,’ Stephens said and once again he shook his head. His voice had faded off into a moan; he buried his head between his hands, banging it down against the desk.
For a moment Miss Woodson gazed down on to Stephens’s hair; then, with something of a groan herself, an ecstatic, choking wail, she slowly straightened.
‘What boy in this room does not know what two-thirds of one pound is?’ she said.
Every hand was raised.
‘Two-thirds of one pound,’ she said again, almost chanting out the phrase.
‘Miss ! Miss !’ nearly everyone had said.
‘Well, Walker?’
‘Thirteen shillings and fourpence, Miss,’ he said.
‘Thirteen and fourpence,’ Miss Woodson said. ‘And what decimal of a pound is that?’
‘Nought point six, six recurring, Miss,’ he said.
‘And what decimal is six shillings and eightpence, then?’
‘Nought point three, three recurring,’ Walker said.
‘What is it, now, class, all together?’
‘Nought point
three, three recurring,’ the class had said.
‘And what fraction of a pound is nought point three, three recurring, then?’
‘One-third of a pound, Miss Woodson,’ the class had said.
She sank down in her chair again. Stephens, his head between his hands, moaned quietly against his desk, his back, misshapen, thrust up, reproachtully, towards the class.
‘Does anyone know of an opening as a kitchen maid?’ Miss Woodson said.
‘Left, left. Left,’ Carter said. ‘Left, boy. Left. Left. Right up then, boy, against your cheek. You’re leaving yourself wide open.’
He crossed over with his right into Colin’s face.
‘Higher, higher. Up against your chin, boy,’ Carter said.
Having raised his glove to his chin he felt an even harder blow against his ribs; though not much taller than himself, Carter appeared, suddenly, to have acquired a longer reach: he felt a left from Carter against his face, another right beneath his ribs, and the next moment his back was against the rope and the room, or that aspect of it which he could see from a horizontal position, was revolving slowly above his head.
‘On your feet, Saville,’ Carter said. ‘You’re not hurt yet.’
Cold water was splashed down on to the top of his head; other figures, farther off, were dancing up and down, white-vested, with the large, brown-coloured, bulbous gloves at the ends of their arms. The gym-master half-lifted him beneath the rope then called over another boy and ducked back into the ring.
He sat on a bench at the side of the ring and waited for his turn again.
Carter wore the red trousers of a track-suit; on top he wore a vest. He was a small, almost daintily featured man, with doll-like eyes and a tiny nose; his hair was long and brushed smoothly back across his head, the end flapping up each time he swung a blow.
He was boxing with one of the senior boys, his left hand held straight out.
‘Don’t wait when you come in, Thompson,’ Carter said. ‘Come in with your left and, if you’re going to do nothing else, step out. Don’t hang around to see what’s going to happen.’
He demonstrated Thompson’s move again.
‘Let’s have young Saville in again,’ he said. ‘He can show you how not to do it, if nothing else.’
Colin climbed in beneath the rope.
He kneaded each glove against his palm. The master, having called the senior boys across, wiped his neck and arms on a towel; he wiped his face and chest. Finally he hung the towel across the rope: it ran round, a single strand, along the tops of the padded posts.
‘Watch my counter, Saville. It might come up; it might go down – I might counter with my left if it comes to that. Don’t do what Thompson does: bang one in then hang around.’
Colin took up his guard. Carter crouched down; he raised his head each time he intended to throw an instructional blow, but now, his forehead furrowed, he gazed keenly at him across his gloves: it was like fighting an ape, or a grizzled monkey, the thin face thrust menacingly down.
Colin struck out with his left hand and moved away; he struck out with his left again, both times failing even to make contact with Carter’s bobbing head. Each time he put out his hand that tiny head had slipped away; he put out his right, missed, then once again, measuring the distance, put out the left: something of a smile crossed Carter’s face.
Colin moved forward; he had some vague notion of keeping so close that, no matter how quickly Carter moved, he could muffle the blow. From one corner of the ring he drove him to another; from there he drove him to the next; he threw his left out continuously now, feeling it at one point crack comfortably against the master’s face, saw, briefly, his look of consternation, then, his own head bowed, his right hand tucked up against his cheek, bore in with his shoulder, releasing his right as he came in close. With his left he banged at Carter’s head. He stepped back, measured the distance to the master’s chin, pulled back his right and felt, almost simultaneously, a sharp, needle-like pain in the middle of his chest. A flicker of colour shot across his eyes; for a moment he wasn’t aware of anything at all, a vague redness, then a blueness, and a moment later he was gazing up at the metal, rivet-studded beams that crossed the ceiling.
‘The first rule of boxing’, Carter said, ‘is never to lose your head.’
Voices echoed from across the gym; there was the familiar rattle of the punch-bag against a metal frame. One or two figures outside the ring were leaping up and down. Perhaps, after all, they thought he’d slipped.
He got slowly to his feet. He felt a towel thrust into his hand, smelt its odour of dust and sweat and, when he finally looked up, saw Carter in the ring with one of the senior boys, parrying blows, calling, then parrying again.
‘You can get changed, then, Saville,’ the master said, casually, calling across his shoulder almost at the same moment as he spoke to the other boy.
He hung the towel on the rope, crossed the gym, and went into the changing-room beyond. A single light, shielded by wire-netting, shone down on the dusty floor.
Carter came in as he finished changing. The towel now he’d hung around his neck, his jet-black hair brushed freshly back: it lay like a textureless lacquer across the top of his head.
‘There’s no point in trying to get one over on me,’ he said. ‘I’m here to teach. I’m not paid to be, and I’ve no intention of becoming, a punch-bag. Do I make my meaning clear?’
‘Yes,’ he said, and added, ‘Sir.’
‘You can brawl all you want in the field outside; you can brawl all you want, if it comes to that, at home. When you step inside that ring it’s with the purpose of learning something, not much, but a little bit about boxing. Do I make my meaning clear?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘If you fancy coming again I’d be glad to see you. If not, no hard feelings.’ He put out his hand.
After a moment’s hesitation Colin took it.
As he was leaving he glanced through the sliding doors into the interior of the gym; sunlight, diffused by the frosted glass, fell in a broad panel across the floor. Dancing in and out of the shadows were the white-vested figures of the senior boys, ducking, weaving, their breathing staccato, irregular, following him out to the gymnasium door.
It was early evening. The first offices had begun to empty, a thin trickle of figures moving down the narrow streets towards the city centre; there were odd groups of girls in the winter uniform of dark-blue skirts and white blouses, the dark-blue coats hanging almost to their ankles: now, instead of the straw hats, they wore berets. Groups of older boys from the school had joined them; they stood on the pavements around the city centre, in front of the windows of the large hotel, leaning against the walls, one leg hitched up, or feet astride, hands in pockets, their caps pushed carelessly to the backs of their heads.
The bus was full. He sat upstairs. The windows, all closed, had begun to steam up. Fields flew past; figures rose; others came up the narrow stairs beside him. When he reached the village he could scarcely stand.
The air was cold. The sun had gone. He walked through the narrow streets with a strange feeling of physical suspension.
‘The war’ll be over before another year is out. Don’t have any doubts of that,’ his father said.
He sat with Mr Reagan in the porch, their backs to the kitchen, the afternoon shadows spread out before them.
They’d sat there for an hour, Mr Reagan’s voice drifting in, faintly, to where Colin sat at the kitchen table; occasionally Mr Reagan glanced back to make some remark, half-laughing, nodding his head: ‘There’s an object lesson to us all: there’s a boy who’s not going to be fastened up for long. There’s a boy with prospects, Harry,’ his father laughing and glancing in, half-serious, to watch him at his work. ‘Go in the front room if you want to concentrate,’ he told him and Colin, glancing up, had shaken his head, reluctant at times like this, when his mother was out, as on this occasion, visiting her parents, to lock himself up in some room of the house.
‘Once it is over you’ll see things change,’ Mr Reagan said. ‘There’ll be none of this living like paupers, fastened up beneath a stone, scratting a living like a rat in a hole.’
‘Nay, I suppose things won’t change much,’ his father said, glancing into the kitchen once again, at the worn coverings on the floor, at the dilapidated furniture. ‘Things were hard enough afore the war, I don’t think they’ll get much easier after.’
A certain quietness had come over his father during the previous year; he no longer read the newspapers as avidly as before, nor silenced the family so vehemently to hear each bulletin on the wireless. It was as if some issue with which he was passionately concerned had been decided, and he was now looking round for other things to fight; as if the emotions which engaged him when he read a paper, or listened on the wireless to the account of a battle, of miles advanced, of enemy equipment taken, were looking for some other exploit, some other turmoil, to focus on. His main part-time duty now was that of warden; the house was the principal fire-point for the street: a pump, brass-coloured and with a wooden handle, was stored with a length of narrow hosepipe in the cupboard beneath the stairs. A large, decaying house, adjacent to the colliery yard, had been taken over as an air-raid post, two rooms made habitable, and groups of men worked shifts, making tea, sleeping there, or leaning up against the walls outside, smoking and gazing vacantly to the colliery yard, keeping a lookout whenever the sirens went. There were few raids now on the surrounding towns; one night two planes had bombed the town and Colin on his way to school the following morning had seen from the bus window a house with its outside walls peeled off standing amidst a pile of rubble.
‘There’ll be no more unemployment,’ Mr Reagan said. ‘It’ll not be like the last time. Officers selling laces: no jobs to go to, and no homes to go to, too.’
His braces showed whenever he leaned forward; he’d come without his jacket but on top of his waistcoat had put on a knitted cardigan. Small loops were attached to each end of the braces, the tops of his underpants showing underneath.
‘I can’t see as there’ll be much difference,’ his father said. ‘Those that had the money afore have still got it, and those that haven’t it are still without.’
‘Oh, there’ll be a big shake-up when this is over,’ Mr Reagan said. He was smoking a pipe, a recent acquisition, and the smell of it drifted into the back of the room. The films of smoke, like gossamer, hung in the air outside the door. ‘There’s been too many killed, and too many countries affected for it to be the same as it was before.’