by David Storey
At one point a boy and girl moved off, along a hedged lane adjoining the stop: two or three of the boys called out and, between the slowly shifting figures, he caught a glimpse of Audrey, sitting on the bench, smiling suddenly and shaking her head.
Some time later the group parted and Marion appeared: she was wearing a reddish hat. She wore high heels. She came over to the hedge where he was leaning on the bike and, glancing back at the boys, who, in turn, were gazing across in her direction, said, ‘Audrey’s given me a message. She doesn’t want to see you again. I didn’t want to tell you, but there it is.’ Some comment was made amongst the boys around the stop and a moment later the girls as well as the boys had laughed. Marion, aware of the audience at her back, had shaken her shoulders and tossed her head. ‘Is there anything you want to tell her, then?’
‘I’d like to talk to her,’ he said. ‘If she can drag herself away from those grinning idiots.’
‘Those grinning idiots, as you put it,’ Marion said, ‘are some of my friends.’
‘If she can drag herself away from some of your friends,’ he said, suddenly gratified by the eloquence his feelings had given him.
‘I’m sure she doesn’t want to. But I’ll ask her all the same,’ she said.
She walked back to the watching group. His message was passed loudly through the wall of figures to Audrey sitting on the bench.
Audrey, in a slightly subdued voice, had given an answer back.
Marion, her face pale beneath her bell-shaped hat, called over, ‘She doesn’t want to speak to you, my dear. I said she wouldn’t.’
He picked up a blade of grass from the verge and set it slowly in the corner of his mouth. His hand, he saw, had begun to tremble. His whole body began to shake.
A moment later some of the boys and two of the girls moved off; they disappeared up a road between the houses. A bus appeared at a bend in the road. It rattled down towards the stop.
A man got off; Marion and Audrey, followed by the boys, got on.
He could see them at the rear windows as the bus went past, a hand waving, and behind, a brief glimpse of Audrey’s face, half-smiling. The bus disappeared in a cloud of dust.
He mounted the bike and cycled after it for a while, re-passing the church where soldiers now were sitting along the wall, and turning down the road which, from the amount of dust in the air, he assumed the bus had taken.
After half an hour’s cycling, and passing several stops, he turned in the road, idly, and, freewheeling, started back, re-passing the church once more, the wall outside deserted, and continuing on towards the village; it was almost dark by the time he got back home.
‘And what did Stafford have to say?’ his father said when he went in the kitchen. ‘Not borrowed another book again?’
‘I didn’t go,’ he said, and shook his head. It was the notion of cycling to Stafford’s that he had used to borrow his father’s bike.
‘So where have you been till this time? It’s long past the time tha mu’n be in bed.’
‘I just cycled around,’ he said. ‘I thought I might go to church.’
‘Church?’ his father said.
‘I got there too late,’ he said, and shook his head.
‘And what’s thy doing at church?’ his father said, as if he connected it in some way with his mother.
‘I thought I might go. On Sunday evenings. Instead of the afternoon,’ he said. ‘I’m getting a bit old for Sunday School,’ he added.
‘Nay, tha mu’n do what thy want about church,’ his father said. ‘Tha’s not punctured the bike or ought?’ he added.
‘No,’ he said, and added, ‘I’ll get up and get you some breakfast if you like.’
‘Nay, I don’t eat ought, when I get up,’ his father said. He looked at him uneasily as he crossed over to the stairs. ‘Think on about coming in late,’ he added.
Later, from his room, he heard his father say, ‘I think our Colin’s been courting. He’s come in with as daft a look as I’ve seen on his face,’ the door closing then, his mother’s voice murmuring from the other side.
He heard a faint laugh from his parents’ room, the creaking of their bed; he slowly succumbed to his tiredness, worn out more by cycling than anything else.
19
He started going to church on Sunday evenings with Bletchley and Reagan. Mrs Bletchley and Mrs Reagan, with their respective sons, but without their respective husbands, attended church also on Sunday mornings. In the evenings, however, he and Bletchley and Reagan sat at the back of the north aisle, on the opposite side to the pulpit, and behind a row of girls from Bletchley’s school. They passed messages to and fro, fastened in the pages of a prayer-book, and Bletchley, during the prayers, when the girls knelt forward from the wooden chairs, would frequently take a glove, passing it to Reagan, who, with his eyes closed, red-faced, would put it in his pocket.
Reagan had grown into a pale-cheeked, narrow-faced youth; he had a prominent brow, a long nose, slightly upturned, which dominated his face. His attempt to conceal the extraordinary rearward bulge of his head by allowing his hair to hang down to the nape of his neck was a source of constant irritation to his father. Frequently on an evening, above the strains of the now somewhat larger violin on which Reagan practised, could be heard the shouts echoing across the yards: ‘You think it’s beautiful: I think it makes him look like a cissy. You think he can play a violin: I think it’s like a cat on hot bricks. You think he looks distinguished: I think he looks like a bloody woman,’ or, later, as he came out to the yard, ‘Don’t leave him alone in that house or I’ll have it off him,’ stalking then across the backs to sit with his father in the porch, or moving with an abstracted air towards the foot of his garden where, standing at the fence, he would call to the miners playing cricket in the field, ‘Hit it! Hit it harder,’ his face reddening, his neck on the point of bursting from his collar. ‘Harder, for God’s sake. You’ll never get anywhere with that.’
With Bletchley, Reagan preserved a respectful silence; it was one of Bletchley’s mannerisms, when walking, to pause at some relevant point of his conversation waiting for Reagan to turn his head, to pause and, finally, however much in a hurry he was, to incline his body in his direction, even stepping back a pace or two; Reagan’s face would be set with a wearied look, contemplating not Bletchley but the space above his head. If, as not infrequently happened, Reagan went on walking, unaware of Bletchley’s pause, Bletchley would stand waiting with a patronizing sneer set on his lips until, suddenly aware that he was no longer walking in the company of his friend, Reagan with the same wearied air would walk back down the road to where, with raised eyebrows now, and anxious to continue his narrative, his friend was standing. No word of any sort, during these encounters, passed Reagan’s lips; merely his presence and the expression of studied expectancy were sufficient to fire Bletchley into prolonged descriptions of his life at school, of his father’s exploits in the war, of the achievements of distant relatives, or into an analysis of recent political events.
The war had ended earlier that year. A party had been held in the field at the back of the house; tables of every description had been lifted over the fences and set with variously coloured cloths and miscellaneous plates of food. A gramophone, wound by hand, had been placed on a wooden chair and after the meal was over couples danced in the grass, stumbling over mounds of bricks and bottles, the sounds of their voices echoing between the houses with the dull, almost mournful rhythm of the tune. Children ran wildly between the tables, snatching at the food, gathering in groups to watch the couples, occasionally imitating the dancers’ movements, the miners clearing a space finally beyond the tables where they organized races, wives wheeling husbands in garden barrows, or running three-legged, stumbling, to screams and shouts, hopping, husbands carrying wives and wives, later in the day, attempting to carry husbands. Walking slowly amongst all these rushing bodies, his thumbs hooked in his waistcoat pockets, a fresh white handkerchief projecting from the b
reast-pocket of his suit, his bowler hat on this occasion missing, was Mr Reagan. Occasionally he would step out from the crowd and producing a second white handkerchief from his trouser pocket insist on starting one of the races, examining each of the contestants first as to their positions on the starting line, the legality of their posture, drawing one back, or thrusting another forward, giving a noticeable advantage to those he judged less likely to show up well, and starting them off, to screams and shouts, with something of a gesture. ‘When I drop the handkerchief so – before which I shall say, “Are you ready? Get to your marks,”’ waving the handkerchief with a slow, almost derisory gesture above his head, and withholding the signal until that moment when the cries of complaint had risen to a crescendo. Finally, when he had made sure there was nothing left to eat and that the small supply of liquid refreshment had been consumed, he took over this task completely, even following the competitors across the field, calling advice, or running, if the race were one which allowed only intermittent progress, to the finishing-line and indicating to those he favoured most how they might gain advantage over their nearest rivals, getting in the way, if only accidentally, of those whom he judged to have taken an unfair advantage or those whom he thought were too well endowed in any case.
Flags had been draped from several of the houses, and strings of small, triangular flags had been hung across the streets. On some of the houses placards had been mounted, welcoming home a member of the family from service in the forces, and several figures in uniform, khaki, blue and navy-blue, wandered in a desultory fashion about the field, one soldier, his sleeves rolled, tunic-less, competing in several of the races but finally lying in the grass by one of the fences, his mouth open, apparently asleep.
In the evening small groups of miners sat about the field, chewing grass, or collected in dark knots about the doorways, one or two lifting back the tables across the fences, the women standing in the yards, arms folded, or sorting plates and cups and saucers. An air of lethargy had settled on the place, Mrs Shaw alone, after spending most of her time serving at the tables, stalking from door to door, offering her services for washing-up. Batty and his brothers, who had lingered on the fringe of the activities during the afternoon, now occupied the centre of the field, where, with Stringer’s father and two other men, they tossed coins in a half-hearted fashion, their occasional cries echoing back to the open doors. ‘Nay, Geoff,’ and, ‘Toss again,’ and, ‘I’ve won, I’ve won,’ while several of the smaller children gathered round.
‘They won’t have that again for a long time,’ his father said when he’d finally returned the kitchen table and with Colin’s help lifted it inside the room. ‘That’s exhausted neighbourly hospitality for a year or two, you can be sure of that. Did you see Mrs McCormack complaining that her plates were smashed? And that woman who ate that fruit cake doesn’t even live in the street, you know.’
‘I think they should have it more often,’ his mother said. ‘Not wait for a war to end before people get together. It just shows what you can do when you set your mind to it.’
‘Aye,’ his father said, sinking down beside the table. ‘Why, there’s half of yon colliers too drunk to go to work.’
‘Oh, he’s exaggerating as usual,’ his mother said, turning to Colin. ‘He’s enjoyed himself for once, so he’s anxious not to show it.’
His father, in fact, had taken as prominent a part in the afternoon’s activities as Mr Reagan, only he had done it as a competitor, racing down the field at one point with Mrs Bletchley, their legs strapped together, on another with Mrs Shaw, who, screaming, had bundled his father along as a wheelbarrow, while clutching at his legs. It was perhaps his pleasure at these achievements that he was anxious to disown, for his mother had spent most of the afternoon standing at the tables, serving food, or going to and fro between the kitchens collecting sandwiches and attempting to supervise the children who removed the cakes from the plates as fast as they were laid. Now she stood at the sink, flushed, stacking the wet plates beside her and adding, ‘If you’ve nothing else to do but grumble you could easily dry these up.’
His father took the cloth; he gazed out of the window, wiped a plate, saw someone he recognized in the yard outside and saying, ‘Hold on, I won’t be a minute,’ dropped the cloth and disappeared through the open door.
Some time later they could hear his laughter across the backs, his voice calling out in protest, followed by Mrs McCormack’s, then Mrs Bletchley’s, then by a screech which they finally identified as Mrs Shaw’s.
‘He hasn’t enjoyed himself, it’s easy to see that,’ his mother said. She handed Colin the cloth. ‘One war over and another begun as far as he’s concerned, and someone else to clear the mess.’
His mother had a faded air; ever since he’d known her there’d been some steady diminution of her spirit, first with Steven’s birth, then with Richard’s, now with this, a slow extraction, leaving her, after each interval of illness, weaker, more disenchanted, half-bemused. It was as if her life had flooded out, secretly, without their knowledge, and she some helpless agent, watching this dissolution with a hidden rage, half-apologetic, half-disowning. ‘You didn’t celebrate much, in any case,’ she said. ‘I saw Batty’s lad and that Stringer tucking in. They didn’t lose much opportunity in taking out more than any of them put in.’
‘Oh,’ he said, shrugging. ‘I mainly stayed in here.’
‘You and Ian and Michael Reagan, I expect, are above it all,’ she said.
Yet Bletchley and Reagan had, though taking no part in the activities in the field, played a conspicuous part in the disposal of the food, bringing whole plates back to Bletchley’s kitchen, where, since Mrs Bletchley was busy in the field, they had consumed it unmolested.
‘Do you feel above it all?’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘I suppose I feel apart.’
‘Is that the grammar school’, she said, ‘we shall have to thank for that?’
‘You wanted me to go,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, love. I’m not complaining.’
‘I don’t feel I’m part of anything there, either,’ he said, ‘if it comes to that.’
He took another plate and dried it. His mother, still bowed to the sink, took the kettle from beside her and warmed the water. She ran her hand round the pile of plates still there. Then, raising her head, she washed each one and lifted them out.
‘I suppose that’s a phase you go through.’ She glanced across at him and smiled. ‘Aren’t there other boys like you?’
‘I suppose there are.’
‘Don’t they feel out of it?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘You’ll find you’ll get no more out of life than what you put into it,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose that’s true.’
‘Couldn’t you have joined in today?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he said. He shook his head. ‘I suppose I could. As it was’, he gestured round, ‘I stayed in here.’
His father came back a little later, flushed, bright-eyed, rubbing his hands. ‘Well, that was a day to remember,’ he said as if, by the buoyancy of his spirit, he could make some secret of his activities outside. ‘When you’ve been through something together it makes a party like that seem well worth while,’ gazing in surprise then at the pots piled on the table and adding, ‘What’s this, then, love? Have you gone and dried?’
His life had been fragmented into a third and final part. First there’d been his life in the village, then his life at the school; now there was a more formidable portion of his existence which he’d never, consciously, been aware of before, a self-absorption which took him away from the other two. At school he had begun to sense what it might be like to be in the upper forms, the privileges, the association with that part of the hierarchy which enjoyed all the benefits and suffered few of the abuses. His progress through the school had been echoed by his progress through the age-group football teams. He wo
uld be taking his first external examinations the following summer, and after that came, if he survived, the Sixth Form. He saw little of Stafford; absorbed into the Classics stream and protected now on sports occasions by a covey of admirers, their brief exchanges were marked more by hostility than any awareness of the companionship they had shared before. Colin spent much of his time at the school on his own, working during the summer on a number of farms, though never as far afield as the first. He saw Audrey on several occasions in the town, and Marion, talking to groups of boys in the city centre; apart from a distant acknowledgment, more evident in Marion than Audrey, they too, like Stafford, gave no sign of their past acquaintanceship at all. For a while he went about with the red-nosed Walker, who seemed good at nothing but avoiding work, then with a boy called Berresford who introduced him to his sister, slightly older than himself, with whom occasionally Colin walked down to the bus stop, a little distance from his own, discussing books he had never read and various aspects of the world situation. She was a dark-haired girl with a large Roman nose, and it was, if anything, her lack of any pretensions as to her appearance which drew him to her. One week-end they had arranged to meet in the town and, after going to the pictures, walked for some time in the local Park. For some reason this encounter brought an end to their acquaintance, as if by mutual agreement, and he even found himself drifting away from Berresford, and once again, but for odd encounters with boys like Connors, whom he saw on the bus as well as in school, he found himself left very much to his own devices.
One evening he had been coming home from the local picture-house with Bletchley when they had seen a girl walking ahead of them, dressed in a dark coat and wearing a dark beret who, as they approached, turned and, seeing Bletchley, said, ‘Hello, Ian. What’re you doing around these parts?’
‘I live here, Sheila,’ Bletchley said, apparently disconcerted by this inquiry, for he added in a belligerent, almost leering tone, ‘What’re you doing round here in any case yourself?’