Saville

by David Storey

  From a drawer in the desk he took out a box of pellets. He loaded the gun, opened the window, and took careful aim towards the pond. There was a soft phut as he fired the gun but the white, stiff-necked birds continued to swim uninterruptedly up and down.

  ‘Aim high to allow for distance,’ Stafford said. He loaded the gun for him, then handed it across.

  Colin aimed vaguely for the flock of birds, where the cluster of shapes was thickest; the rifle kicked against his cheek and one of the geese stood, suddenly, and flapped its wings.

  ‘Oh, good shot,’ Stafford said. He re-loaded the gun. ‘Let’s try for Snuffler,’ he added. ‘You can just see him inside the shed.’

  The rear of the pig was visible inside the open door of the shelter. Stafford, his arm propped on the window, took careful aim, his hair falling across his brow, his left eye closed; he stood poised against the window for several seconds, motionless, then squeezed the trigger.

  ‘I say, good shot,’ he said as the rear of the pig disappeared inside the hut to be replaced a moment later by its head. ‘It likes being shot at. It’s like having a tickle.’ He loaded the gun again. ‘Let’s try the geese again,’ he said and, having snapped the barrel to, aimed it once more in the direction of the pond.

  A man in a trilby hat appeared a little later on the lawn below; he had evidently dismounted from a bike, for his trousers were clipped at his ankles above a pair of enormous boots. He was tall, with broad shoulders, slightly stooped, with a fringe of grey hair showing beneath the brim of the hat. He wore a sports coat with leather patches on the sleeves, and as he reached the edge of the pond he glanced up suddenly towards the house.

  Stafford, who’d been loading the gun, only saw him as he held it to the window, gazing down for a moment surprised to find anyone there at all, lowering the gun and hiding it beneath the sill.

  ‘Have you been firing that thing, Neville?’ the man called, his voice echoing in the space behind the house.

  ‘We’ve been firing at the pond, Father,’ Stafford said.

  He leaned out of the window to shout his answer.

  ‘You’ve not been firing at the birds?’ the man had called.

  ‘No,’ Stafford said, and shook his head.

  The man gazed back for a moment at the pond; evidently he’d brought something for the geese to eat for they paddled out of the water and on to the bank. He put his hand down amongst them and examined their feathers.

  ‘If I find you have I’ll have that gun off you,’ the man had called, staring back finally towards the house.

  He went on past the pond, calling for the pig; as he neared the shelter the animal suddenly emerged and ran towards him.

  ‘That’s the old man,’ Stafford said. ‘He really wanted to be a farmer, you know. If we’d had more money I suppose he would have been.’

  He put the gun away beneath the bed, pulling out one of the smaller cardboard boxes and saying, ‘Have you seen this? I’ll take your picture.’

  He took out a camera with a concertina-shaped front, holding it to his eye and laughing.

  ‘There’s not enough light in here. We could go downstairs. You take mine and I’ll take yours.’ He ducked to a mirror fastened to the cupboard and from his jacket pocket took out a comb; he smoothed down his hair, ducking to the mirror once again, then taking out his key and unlocking the door.

  The woman in the blue dress was standing in the hall as they came downstairs, talking to several women who were about to leave.

  ‘Have you seen your father, Neville?’ the woman said and added, ‘This is my son,’ to one of the women at which Stafford bowed his head. ‘My youngest son, I ought to say,’ she said, the woman laughing as she turned to the door. ‘Have you seen him, Neville?’ she asked again.

  ‘He’s out at the back, Mother,’ Stafford said, raising his voice as if he were speaking to the other woman as well as his mother.

  ‘Oh well, I’ll catch him when he comes back in,’ Mrs Stafford said, glancing at Colin then and smiling. ‘Is this the friend who was coming?’

  ‘We were just going out to take a photograph,’ Stafford said already moving off towards the kitchen.

  ‘Try and keep out of the mud,’ his mother said. ‘There might be some tea for you when you come back in.’ She’d already moved out to the porch and called back over her shoulder, Stafford himself already in the kitchen. The table, as before, was bare.

  Outside, a larger bike than Stafford’s had been leant against the wall, its rear wheel half-enclosed by a canvas hood, a large black canvas bag hanging down behind the saddle.

  The rain had stopped. A faint wind was blowing. Stafford, after glancing towards the brick-built shelter, moved off across the back of the house.

  ‘We can go on this side,’ he said. ‘There’ll be more light.’

  They passed a pair of windows that opened to the lawn; inside a tiny, square-shaped room a man in a dark suit was reading a paper. He glanced up at the sound of their steps, saw Stafford, and immediately looked back to his paper again.

  Several bushes had been planted on the opposite side of the house. A wooden fence, against which a hedge had recently been planted, divided the garden from a field of corn: a green haze showed up across the furrows.

  Stafford handed him the camera; he showed him the eye-piece and the small chromium lever he had to press.

  ‘Get it in the middle,’ Stafford said.

  He leant against the fence, half-smiling, smoothing down his hair at one point and calling, ‘Haven’t you got it? Come on, I can’t keep smiling here for ever.’

  He smiled again, his head, with its almost delicate features, angled to one side. Beyond him, in one of the side windows of the house, several women were gazing out. A car was parked outside the door.

  Colin pressed the lever and handed back the camera.

  ‘I’ll take one of you, then,’ Stafford said.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’m not really bothered.’

  ‘No, I’ll take one,’ Stafford said. ‘Perhaps somebody’ll come out and take us both together.’

  He looked round vaguely for a suitable spot.

  ‘I’ll try and get you with the house,’ he said.

  He gazed into the camera for several seconds, swinging it round.

  ‘To your left,’ he called, and then, ‘More this way. Come a bit nearer,’ and then, finally, ‘Try to smile. Honestly, you look like murder.’

  The camera clicked and Stafford lowered it, examining it for a while then winding on the film.

  ‘How about taking old Porky? We could get the old man as well,’ he said.

  Several women had come out to the porch; the figure of Mrs Stafford appeared beyond them. She was a tall, angular woman, with something of the same proportions as her husband, grey-haired, her features thin, the nose pronounced. She glanced across absent-mindedly as they reached the drive, then turned to the women as they stepped down to the car.

  At the back of the house Mr Stafford was carrying a clump of hay on a fork, disappearing into the roofless structure where the hay was still visible above the wall.

  The geese had gone back to the pond, some idling in the water, others feeding along the bank. Their heads erect, they moved off as Stafford passed them, his father re-appearing, gazing across, the fork in his hand, the trilby hat pushed to the back of his head.

  ‘What are you up to?’ he said, staring at the camera then turning away to a shed at the back of the pen before Stafford could answer.

  ‘We wondered if you’d take our photograph,’ Stafford said, smoothing down his hair and glancing over at Colin.

  ‘Oh, I’m busy,’ Mr Stafford said, disappearing inside the shed then re-emerging a moment later with another clump of straw. ‘If you want something to do you can clean out the sty.’

  ‘You only have to click it,’ Stafford said, following him across and showing him the camera.

  ‘Has your mother finished her party yet?’ he said, glancing up t
owards the house.

  ‘They’re just leaving,’ Stafford said, and held out the camera.

  ‘Don’t come pestering. Do something useful or keep out of the way,’ Mr Stafford said. He hoisted the straw above his head, walking briskly over to the roofless building.

  His features were large, his nose long, his eyes pale blue and shielded by heavy brows. His mouth, as he glanced across, was drawn back in irritation.

  ‘Isn’t Douglas in? Or John?’ he added. ‘Ask one of them. They’ve nothing else to do.’

  Stafford, with a shrug, had turned aside.

  ‘Perhaps my mother’ll do it,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter. Shall we see if there’s anything to eat?’ he added.

  They went back to the house.

  ‘His brothers have all the money. From the mills, I mean. I suppose if he had more of it we’d have a farm.’ He shrugged again. ‘Though I suppose we have enough,’ he added.

  A tall, thick-chested man was stooping over the table when they went back in the kitchen. Fair-haired, with heavy features, he glanced round as he heard them in the door, then turned back to the table where he was buttering a piece of bread. He was perhaps in his early twenties; a book, opened, was pressed up beneath his arm.

  ‘Is there anything left for us, Dougie?’ Stafford said and the man had shaken his head, putting the bread between his teeth, then catching hold of the book and a pot of tea and crossing to the door. He murmured impatiently around the bread, nodding at the door, wildly, and Stafford stepped across and opened it.

  ‘That’s Douglas, one of my brothers,’ Stafford said. ‘He’s home from college. John’s here, too. He’s home on leave.’

  ‘How many brothers do you have?’ he said.

  ‘Four,’ he said. ‘I’m the youngest, you see, by about eight years.’

  He pulled back the door to the pantry, looked inside, then crossed over to the door through which the other figure had disappeared.

  ‘Mother? Is there anything in to eat?’ he called, waiting for an answer then shaking his head. ‘She’s probably gone out. She often does at this time if she can get a life’ He called again, waited, then came back in the kitchen. ‘We could boil an egg. Are you keen on eggs?’ Yet he stood indecisively by the window, gazing out to the back of the house where his father had once again re-appeared from the shed, a clump of hay above his head, walking over to the roofless pen.

  ‘How many pigs do you have?’ Colin said.

  ‘There’s Porky,’ Stafford said. ‘And there’s a sow with six or seven young ones. I’ve never counted them. It might be more.’

  The figure Colin had glimpsed earlier, through a rear window of the house, came in and seeing only Stafford and himself immediately went back out.

  ‘That’s John,’ Stafford said, fingering the table moodily, then suddenly looking up and adding, ‘I say, come on up. I’ve something in my room.’ He picked up the camera he’d left on the table and stepped out to the hall.

  The house was silent. The door to the room where the women had been was standing open; the figure with the book was sitting there, in front of the fire, eating the piece of bread and drinking from the pot ‘Can you close the door?’ he called as they crossed the hall.

  Stafford pulled it to. The front door opened as they reached the stairs and another tall, awkwardly built figure appeared taking off a peaked Air Force hat and hanging it on a peg, laughing, then calling to the drive from where a moment later came a shout, followed immediately by a burst of women’s laughter.

  ‘Is mother in, Nev?’ the figure called, shouting briefly to the drive again, then glancing over half-heartedly towards the stairs. The man was dressed in an Air Force uniform, belted at the waist; a pair of wings was fastened to the breast pocket of the jacket.

  ‘I think she’s out,’ Stafford said, and added, ‘I say, are you home on leave or what?’

  Two women and a second man appeared in the door behind and, without answering, the uniformed figure led them off into the room across the hall; the door was closed. A second burst of laughter followed by someone calling a single name came a moment later from the other side.

  ‘That’s Geoff,’ Stafford said, gazing at the door as if half-tempted to step inside. ‘I bet the old man doesn’t know he’s back. Though he might have sent a telegram,’ he added.

  They went on up the stairs. Stafford took out his key. He unlocked the door and they went inside. From below, faintly, came another shout then, suddenly, the blaring of a dance tune. After a further shout the tune had faded, followed by a faint murmur from the head of the stairs.

  Stafford closed the door; he stood the camera on the desk and from one of its drawers took out a piece of wood to which were fastened several instruments and wires, and attached to the edge of which were a pair of earphones.

  ‘I’ll tune it,’ he said. ‘You can have a listen.’

  Stafford manoeuvred a piece of wire against a glass-like piece of rock, scratching its surface with the end of the wire and adjusting the earphones on Colin’s head.

  A faint voice came through the phones, crackling, fading away then coming louder. It was replaced finally by a piece of music.

  Stafford sat by the window, gazing out, picking up the earphones whenever he had his turn and holding only one of them against his ear, his eyes fixed below him on the brick-built pen. ‘I’ll get you one made up, if you like,’ he said. ‘You can keep it under your bed and listen to it at night. When the crystal wears out you can get another.’

  At one point he got up and went to the door, listening to the sounds that came from the stairs, glancing back at the room and adding, ‘I bet they don’t know that Geoffrey’s back. He keeps coming home on leave and not telling them where he’s stationed,’ leaning by the door, one hand clasped to it, a leg thrust out, as if waiting for some call to join them. ‘Let’s see if I can tune it to anything else,’ he said finally, leaving the door wide open and sitting at the window gazing out, dreamily, towards the garden.

  Later, when the sounds of laughter and shouting came more loudly from the stairs, Stafford had got up and gone to the landing. He’d hung over the banister, gazing down, regarding the figures now who’d gathered in the hall, two men in uniform, three women in coats and headscarves, and the two other brothers, the one with the book, the other with the paper: they were pulling on coats and caps, only the brother with the newspaper evidently remaining, standing in the door and waving as the sound of a car engine revving came from the drive outside.

  Finally Stafford came back in the room; he sat on the bed.

  ‘Do you want this?’ he said, examining the set. ‘I can easily get another.’

  ‘I can build one of my own,’ he said.

  ‘It takes ages to build. Why not have this one?’ Stafford said. ‘I’ll put it in a box. You can take it home.’

  He hunted in the cupboard, then beneath the bed. Finally he emptied a cardboard box on to the floor and slotted the piece of wood containing the crystal set inside. The earphones he folded in on top.

  ‘I’d much rather you kept it,’ Colin said.

  ‘I hardly use it,’ Stafford said. ‘I’ll be getting a real one, in any case, at Christmas. Then I won’t need this’, he added, ‘at all.’

  He left the house at seven o’clock. A meal was being laid in the room across the hall, a smell of roast meat and vegetables coming from the kitchen. The brothers, the two men in uniform and the three women had now returned. A bottle of wine was standing on the table, while from an adjoining room across the hall, where Mr and Mrs Stafford, the brother in uniform and several of the other figures were now gathered, came the sound of a cork being drawn from a bottle, of glasses clinking, and, as Stafford followed him out to the porch, a burst of laughter was ended abruptly by his mother calling from the door.

  ‘You’re not going out again, young man?’ she said, the faces in the room peering out from beyond her shoulder.

  ‘It’s young Neville,’ someone said and laughed.r />
  ‘I was going to the station,’ Stafford said.

  ‘It’s dinner in a few minutes,’ Mrs Stafford said. ‘There’s no rushing out to stations.’

  Stafford shrugged. He glanced at Colin.

  ‘You know the way to the station, I take it?’ Mrs Stafford said, glancing at Colin across the hall.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. He nodded.

  ‘It’s better that Neville doesn’t rush off, otherwise it’ll be hours before we get him back. He’s such a terrible wanderer,’ she said. ‘Think on,’ she added to Stafford and disappeared.

  Stafford shrugged again. He stood in the porch, his hands in his pockets. The sound of a dance tune came, brokenly, from inside the house. A car was parked in the drive outside and, as Colin set off towards the gate, a second one turned in from the road and splashed its way through the pools of water.

  ‘See you,’ Stafford said, and raised his arm.

  ‘See you,’ he called and, the box beneath his arm, went on towards the road.

  A different porter was on the platform when he arrived at the station; the train when it drew in was almost empty. He sat in a carriage by himself, gazing out at the darkening fields, glancing finally at the box itself and running his finger over the smooth black boss of Stafford’s earphones. At one point he lifted them out and put them on, scratching the crystal with the wire inside the box, turned the dial, heard nothing but a crackling and, seeing a station approaching and figures on the platform, took them off. He sat nursing the box on his knee until he reached the village, then ran all the way to the house. His father was out when he arrived, his mother at the sink, scarcely glancing round as he came in the door. He went up to his room, where Steven was sleeping, and in the darkness, as if listening to another world, or to some glimmer of the one he’d left, tinkered with the crystal, searching for a sound.

  18

  They sat upstairs in a small, moon-shaped circle from the back of which you could see into the stalls. Boys in front threw down pieces of paper and occasionally matches, usherettes coming between the seats to flash a torch or call out ineffectually along the rows.