by David Storey
‘I can’t get out today,’ he said, holding now to the handle of the pram.
‘Are both of them yours, then?’ Marion said, laughing now and bowing her head. Her dark hair was fastened back beneath a ribbon. Audrey, as if reluctant to be seen at all, had wheeled her bike out between the gates.
‘I have to look after my brothers,’ he said and stood for a moment, shaking his head, uncertain whether to follow Audrey.
‘Honestly, we’ll wait for you,’ Stafford said. ‘Haven’t you got a relative, or something, you could leave them with?’
‘No,’ he said. He shook his head.
‘I suppose we better go back, then,’ Stafford said. ‘It was Audrey’s idea,’ he added again.
Marion turned her bike.
‘Honestly, you ought to speak to her, at least,’ she said.
Colin pushed the pram towards the gate. Audrey was at the kerb, getting ready to mount her bike.
‘I can’t come today,’ he said. He added, ‘I came last night. To St Olaf’s, but I got there late. I went over to your place. Stafford said you went to Marion’s.’
‘We went there for a bit,’ she said.
She glanced at Steven; there were holes in his pullover, and the sleeves of the pullover had begun to fray. His stockings had slipped down around his ankles; his nose, with his crying, had begun to run. Only Richard had any neatness; yet he was crying now and shaking the pram.
‘I’ve to look after my brothers today,’ he said, and Stafford called out, ‘We better get going then, my dear.’
‘We don’t want our sandwiches getting cold, then, do we?’ Marion said.
‘I’ll try and come over one evening,’ he said.
‘My mother doesn’t like you coming to the house,’ she said.
She mounted the bike. Stafford and Marion, freewheeling, had started down the hill.
‘She doesn’t think it looks very nice,’ she said.
‘Shall I come to the door?’ he said.
She shook her head.
‘We’ll try some other time,’ she said and, pushing from the kerb, pedalled slowly off, freewheeling finally as she reached the hill.
‘I can’t make you out,’ his father said when he came back in. ‘Here’s your mother ill and you don’t want to help. Anybody would think you don’t want to live here any more.’
He stood silently across the room and didn’t answer.
‘Haven’t you got a tongue in your head?’ his father added.
‘What can I say, in any case?’ he said.
‘Tha can say I’m wrong in feeling what I do. Tha can say any number of things,’ his father said. ‘Here I am: I haven’t had a sleep, and I’m off back to work already. You might say summat about that, for a start.’
‘There’s nothing I can say about it.’ He shrugged.
‘There’s nowt thy wants to say about it,’ his father said. ‘For it’s true.’
His mother was away for three weeks. When she came back, at her own insistence, she could scarcely stand. She’d made his father sign her out. ‘I’m better doing nothing here than doing nothing there,’ she said. ‘Just lying on my back, I might as well be home.’
Yet it was some other person now who’d come to the house. Both of her parents had died the previous Easter. Ever since the funeral she had begun to fade: finally, one morning, while he was at school, she had collapsed in the kitchen; his father had taken her to the hospital the following day. Now, returning, she sat silently about the house all day, and at night, sleeplessly, tossed to and fro on the double bed. He did nearly all the housework now: on Mondays he did the washing, under her supervision, standing aside occasionally, as, groaning, she got up from her chair to show him how to wash a particular shirt or blouse; on Wednesdays he cleaned the house upstairs, washing the bedroom floors, on Fridays the front room, the kitchen and the outside toilet. On Saturdays he did the shopping. While she was still in hospital he’d found an opportunity to cycle over to the farm on three occasions; on none had he seen Audrey, though on the last he’d called at the house. A farm dog, barking at the end of a chain, had greeted his arrival, and the door had been opened by a tall, fair-haired woman with bright red cheeks who’d answered his inquiry as to whether Audrey was in with a shake of her head, calling him back as he turned away and saying, ‘I think she’s too young to have boys calling for her. I’d appreciate it very much if you didn’t cycle up and down in front of the gate.’
He’d thought of writing her a letter; he’d looked up her number in a telephone directory, and had set out on two occasions to ring her up, faltering each time when he reached the phone.
Stafford had called one day when he was out shopping, but hadn’t waited until he got back.
‘We seem to go from one thing to another, and each one worse than the one afore,’ his father said one evening, before he set off for work. ‘If it hadn’t have been for this you could have had a job. That’s ten or fifteen pounds we might have had. As it is, you’re fastened up here and you end up earning nought.’
‘I offered to get a job,’ he said.
‘I know you offered,’ his father said. ‘What’s the use of offering if you can’t go out and do it? Steven can offer. Richard can offer. But that doesn’t add up to much, then, does it?’
‘What if I went and got a job?’ he said. ‘What would my mother do on her own in the house?’
‘That’s what I’m saying. However hard we work we end up where we were afore. There’s no point in doing ought. Whatever we do, whatever we say, we end exactly where we wa’ before. I can’t see any point in it. I can’t. Not any more.’
He kicked the table leg. There was something in his father now that was changed from what he’d known before. It was as if some part of him had died: he seemed pinned down; he no longer talked of moving, or changing house. His job was a habit, a kind of bond. He came home on leave like a soldier from a war: his real life, his real worries, were somewhere else, underground, away from them, invisible, even incommunicable. He would talk frustratedly now in front of Colin while his mother, as if sensing herself the cause of it, would get up from her chair, attempt some household task from which, a moment later, he would rescue her, saying, ‘Leave that to Colin, or we’ll have you back inside. You know what the doctor warned. I was a damn fool to let you out.’
‘How can I sit here’, she’d ask him, ‘and listen to this? If I wasn’t poorly none of this would happen.’
‘If it wasn’t you,’ he’d say condemningly, ‘it’d be something else. There’s been a blight on this family, there always has. We’ve tried to build up something. And see now where we end.’ He’d gesture round. ‘We’ve got nought, and no hope as I can see of anything better.’
His mother would cry; she would hold her apron against her eyes, for she wore her apron though she didn’t work, marking out her intention if nothing else. Long after his father had gone to work, or had gone upstairs to sleep, if the argument had broken out in the morning, she would sit in her chair, moaning, sometimes burying her head against her arm, or take Richard to her, and hide her face against his cheek.
She did more work now, however, when his father was out; she would come over to where he was cleaning, or washing-up, and take whatever he was using from him, a scrubbing-brush or a piece of cloth, and say, ‘You can leave that. I can do that now,’ almost bitterly, as if the sight of him working was more than she could stand. ‘You can get the coal,’ she’d tell him, or, ‘Wash the windows,’ or, ‘Get in the washing,’ tasks which, despite this, she’d decided with herself she wouldn’t do. Each afternoon, after lunch, she went to bed, and whenever his father was around she would sink back in her chair as if determined he should see how placidly she was resting.
Yet, the more determined she appeared in getting better, the more frustrated his father grew. He came home each morning now exhausted, his cheeks drawn, his eyes dark, shadowed, his mouth drawn tight; he would plunge into whatever jobs he could find himself, even
digging the garden, mending the fence, washing the windows when, perhaps that week, they’d been washed already. He’d given up his allotment; when he couldn’t find anything else to do he’d sink down in a chair himself, sleeping in his clothes, his mouth wide open, snoring, Steven regarding him nervously from across the room, Richard being quietened in case he woke and yet, even when they shook him and told him the time, that he’d only so many hours left to go to bed, he’d refuse to stir, half-opening his eyes, reddened, bleary, and half-snarling with an anger they’d scarcely seen before, ‘Leave me alone. Get off. I can sleep down here,’ his mother calling, ‘Leave him, then, for goodness’ sake. He knows when he’s resting,’ his father, his eyes half-closed, turning his head blindly towards the room, then sinking back, his face blank, like a piece of stone, seemingly half-conscious, watching them despite his snoring. His eyes would gleam beneath his half-shut lids.
One morning, after his father had gone to bed and his mother, silently, had begun some cleaning, sweeping the kitchen, she’d suddenly collapsed. She’d sunk down on a chair, holding her chest, half-reclining at the table, and Colin, startled, had stood there for a while, unable to tell how serious it was, unable to decide what he ought to do. His mother had struggled for a while, as if trying to stand or even, perhaps, intending to continue with her job. Calling to her, he’d stood by the table, waiting for some instruction. Her eyes, distorted, rolled slowly in her head.
‘Dad,’ he’d called. ‘Dad.’
His father was upstairs in bed.
He went to the foot of the stairs and called again; then he heard his mother calling out, almost calmly, ‘Get me a chair, then, Colin,’ and then, more clearly, ‘In the front room, Colin.’
His mother lay with her head against the table, one arm sprawled out, unable to move. For a moment it seemed to him like an affectation; as if, had she so wished it, she could get up quite easily herself. He hadn’t touched her now for years, and could scarcely remember a time when she’d even embraced him.
He took her arm; he tried to lift her. He pulled her to her feet and, her legs dragging, her arms limp, tried to carry her through to the other room. As he turned to the door he saw his father standing there, in his shirt and his underpants, gazing in, bleary-eyed, startled, unable to make sense of what he saw. He thought for a moment he might have leapt across: a look of bewilderment crossed his face; then, as if wakening, with a death-like voice, subdued, he came into the kitchen, calling, ‘Whatever is it, lad? What’s wrong?’
‘Harry,’ his mother said, and called, ‘Harry.’
‘I’m here, my love,’ his father said, taking her then, almost fiercely, roughly, holding her to him.
‘She wanted to go to the other room,’ he said. ‘To lie down on the sofa.’
‘Hold on to me, Ellen,’ his father said, ‘hold on to me, then, my love,’ and, trying to lift her, half-carried her through.
He laid her on the sofa.
‘Light the fire, then, lad,’ he said, and added, as he knelt at the grate, ‘Get a blanket, then, I mu’n get her covered,’ almost to himself, half-calling.
He went upstairs, saw where his father had been sleeping, and took a blanket.
His father was rubbing her feet when he went back down; his mother was lying stiffly the length of the sofa; her legs had begun to tremble and, as he watched, her arms had begun to shake as well. Her jaw vibrated. Her body was gripped in a huge vibration.
‘Sithee, fetch the doctor. Tha mu’n call for him. Tell him it’s urgent,’ his father said. He tucked the blanket round her as if about to go himself. ‘Go on. Take my bike,’ he said. His legs were bare, his shirt unbuttoned; Richard, who’d been playing in the kitchen, had come into the room, standing, leaning up against the door. ‘Mam?’ he began to say, ‘Mam?’ his voice trailing off into a sudden wail.
‘Go on. Don’t wait,’ his father said.
He rode to the doctor’s at the end of the village.
His father was dressed when he got back in: he was in the kitchen, drinking tea. Astonished to see him there at all, he said, ‘How is she, then? Is my mother all right?’
‘Aye. She’ll be all right. Is the doctor coming?’ his father said.
‘They said he’d come as soon as he can,’ he said.
‘And how soon’s that going to be? By God, when you want them doctors they’re never there.’
He went through to the other room. His mother was moaning quietly to herself; her glasses had been taken off; her legs were vibrating beneath the blanket. His father came in with his tea. ‘Don’t touch her, then,’ he said. He put the pot down. His hands were trembling. He sat on the arm of the sofa, half-crouching, and began, slowly, to rub his mother’s feet; then, as she began to moan more loudly, he took out her arms from beneath the blanket and rubbed her hands, half-moaning now it seemed himself, his voice harsh, half-startled. ‘Nay, you’ll be all right, then, love. The doctor’s coming. Nay, you’ll be all right, then, love. We’ll just hang on.’
The doctor came an hour later. Colin sat in the kitchen with Richard. He could hear the doctor’s voice with its Scottish accent, then his father’s murmur, then a fainter, inaudible murmur from his mother.
Finally the doctor came out, briskly, screwing back the top of a fountain-pen and clipping it inside his pocket. He went through to the front door, his father following.
The sound of his car, a moment later, came echoing from the street outside.
‘You can fetch that from the chemist,’ his father said, coming in then with a slip of paper.
His mother was in bed when he got back in.
‘I’ve told her she shouldn’t do any work,’ his father said. ‘She’s to do no lifting, and she’s not to come downstairs again, except for the toilet until the doctor’s seen her. You see what happens when you don’t follow instructions.’
Her illness frightened his father: it gave him strength; he buckled to the housework now himself, and came home from work with an eye anxious for any job that hadn’t been done, ironing his own clothes, washing, scrubbing the floor and washing the windows, but with none of his earlier resentment. Now she was fastened upstairs, with the doctor coming every day, and with the threat of the hospital hanging over them once again, an older, more familiar momentum returned to the place: his father knew what he ought to do, and did it, cooking his mother’s meals and carrying them upstairs, sleeping on the sofa now, whistling to himself as he worked in the kitchen, going upstairs to kiss his mother goodbye each evening before he set off for work.
‘You take good care of her,’ he’d tell Colin, coming down, before he left. ‘Ought she wants you get it. And keep Richard quiet when he goes to bed.’
Colin would go in to see her himself before he went to bed; she would be lying back against the pillow, sometimes reading a paper, other times dozing, glancing up, casually, saying, ‘Have you washed, then, love?’ or, ‘Have you locked the doors? Your father’s got his key, then, hasn’t he?’ half-dazed, almost as if he were some other person, leaning forward suddenly to touch his hair, to push back his fringe, inquiringly, as if unsure for a moment who he was.
In the mornings, if his father wasn’t back, he’d take her in a cup of tea, quietly setting it on the chair beside her bed, listening to her breathing, not wakening her or touching the curtains. Then, having got Steven up and Richard, he would tiptoe down the stairs. Sometimes, waking drowsily, she would call to the stairs, ‘Is that you, Colin? What time is it?’ waiting then for him to come back in and adding, ‘Can you draw the curtains, love?’ or, ‘If you’ll hand me the coat I’ll have to go downstairs.’ She crossed the yard on her own to the toilet, white, thin-faced, not glancing up when anyone called so that often Mrs Shaw or Mrs Bletchley watched her from their doors, not speaking, their arms folded. ‘How’s your mother, Colin?’ Mrs Shaw would say and shake her head before he answered. ‘She’s not looking well. She ought to be in hospital,’ she’d tell him.
One Sunday evening, when his fath
er changed shifts, he borrowed his bike and cycled out to St Olaf’s. The service was still on; the soldiers in the old mansion were sitting on the steps below the porch: one or two were playing with a ball between the trees. From several of the ancient, mullioned windows soldiers’ heads were hanging out, their voices calling, echoing in the yard beyond the church.
He rode up and down the road opposite the church until he saw a verger hook back the doors. He waited then beneath a tree; several girls and youths came out, the older people standing in groups around the gate. He saw Audrey and Marion with several other girls he recognized; they stood by the stone wall for a while, in a circle, laughing, glancing over at the groups of boys. Finally one or two boys moved off, slowly; some of the girls began to follow.
Colin waited for a while beneath the tree; then, as the group of youths rounded the corner towards the village he started after them, cycling slowly. Audrey glanced across, then Marion; perhaps they’d expected Stafford as well for they glanced behind him, but seeing the road empty but for the following line of boys, they continued talking to the girls on either side. Colin paused, not knowing any one of them to speak to, then cycled slowly on until the first of the houses came into sight. He got off the bike, took off his cycle clips, and waited for the youths to pass.
Neither Audrey nor Marion paid him any attention; there was a brief glance across from the dark-haired girl, but it was more a gesture directed at the world in general, half-smirking, the eyes narrowed, the eyebrows raised, the mouth pulled wide in the beginning of a smile.
He got on the bike again after the line of pursuing boys had passed, and cycled slowly in their wake. Finally, when they reached a bus stop in the centre of the village they stood in a large group around a wooden seat, still talking and laughing. Occasionally one figure would chase another, a pursuit egged on by the others and ending in screams – a girl pushed back against a hedge, a boy hanging over her, pinning her arms, helpless suddenly, and grinning.