Saville

by David Storey

Gannen sat down heavily, his large figure seemingly pinioned in the chair, his arms spread out over the protruding springs. ‘I didn’t know there were two other Savilles at home,’ he said. ‘More recruits for the First Team,’ he added, glancing at Colin.

  ‘Oh, they’ve plenty of muscle on, if nothing else,’ his father said, flushing now and sitting on an upright chair beside the table.

  His mother made some tea. It was only as Gannen was leaving, however, an hour later, that his father had said, ‘Well, then, Mr Gannen. What do you really think?’

  ‘I think Colin should go to university,’ the master said. He stood in the doorway leading to the street, gazing back into the lighted passage.

  ‘Aye,’ his father said, his look abstracted, as if in fact the master himself weren’t there at all and he was listening to some voice in another room.

  ‘If there’s anything I can do’, Gannen said, ‘just let me know.’ He leant back in the passage to shake his mother’s then his father’s hand.

  ‘I’ll walk down to the stop with you, if you like. I’ll show him the way,’ Colin added to his father.

  ‘If it’s no trouble,’ Gannen said, pausing now on the step outside, and evidently pleased at the thought of having some company. ‘It took me quite a while to find, in any case,’ he added.

  It was already dark. A yellow moon hung over the colliery, outlining the heap against a bank of cloud. They walked in silence for a while. The air was misty. Their feet echoed between the houses.

  ‘Do you think they’ll let you go, then?’ Gannen said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘I realize the difficulties, of course,’ the master said as if, already, he sensed he’d failed. ‘They’ve done well getting you as far as they have,’ he added.

  Other figures, shrouded against the sharpness of the air, passed by them beneath the lamps.

  ‘Ideally, what would you like to be?’ the master said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. He added, ‘A poet.’

  Gannen smiled. A moment later he looked across. ‘And have you written any poetry?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘But some.’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘You don’t look like a poet,’ he said, something of his classroom manner returning. ‘Poets I always thought were rather delicate chaps. At least, the poets I knew always were. I never had much time for them myself.’ Then, as if he suspected he might have been too hard, he added, ‘It seemed to me, and invariably proved to be the case, that it was a stage they went through. Most of them were decent chaps. They soon settled down to teaching, in one form or another, like everyone else.’ He laughed. His voice rang out clearly in the village street. ‘In any case, there’s not much money attached to that. It’s scarcely a profession. What would you do to earn an income?’

  ‘In the end I’d teach,’ he said.

  ‘Do you compose poetry in the rugger scrum?’ he said, pleased with this confession.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘There’s not much time for that.’

  ‘I’ve noticed a certain dilatoriness at times, I must confess,’ the master said, looking up and adding, ‘Oh, this is the stop is it? I wouldn’t have known,’ pointing down the street the way they’d come. ‘I got off down there before, I think.’

  When the bus finally came Gannen put out his hand. ‘I hope you’ll point out the advantages to your parents,’ he said, ‘without mentioning the poetry. I’d just stick to the professional aspects, if I were you,’ not looking back as he stepped aboard the bus, making his way to the front downstairs and sitting in his seat as if he had forgotten about his visit already.

  He played regularly in the First Fifteen that year, represented the school at athletics, and forwent his Easter on the farm to study for the June examinations. It was one of the happiest periods of his life. Even the football he found absorbing, encouraged by the girls who came to watch, Audrey and Marion, and the quiet-faced Margaret, who invariably stood at the edge of their noisy crowd. Even the two afternoons of training he’d begun to enjoy, Gannen instructing the forwards, and Carter, the physical training master, the backs. The forwards played amongst themselves, scrumming with the Second Fifteen, breaking, practising rushes, line-outs, pushing for what seemed hours against the metal scrum-machine, Gannen calling, ‘Lower, lower: back straight: thrusting upwards,’ pushing his muscular arm between the bodies, pressing heads, lifting kicking feet into correct positions, while, from across the field, would come Carter’s cries, Stafford distributing the ball or, later, with one other boy, practising place kicks against the distant posts.

  In the end it had been decided he would try for college. Gannen had never referred to his visit or his talk with his parents again. When he told him his decision he’d nodded, standing on this occasion at his desk and said, ‘I’m glad you’re not giving it up altogether,’ collecting his books and adding, ‘If there’s anything I can do just let me know.’

  He went for an interview. The college was located in a neighbouring town. He travelled there by bus. Miles of furnaces and factories, mills and warehouses, terrace streets and blank walls and advertising signs gave way eventually to a tiny park. At the end of an asphalt drive stood the college buildings, built of brick, a sportsfield stretching away on either side.

  The man who gave the interview seemed surprised he was applying. Small, with black hair combed smoothly back, with dark eyebrows and dark eyes, he sat mask-like behind his desk and said, ‘Frankly, I think you’ll be doing yourself no service coming here. I should stay on another year. Take a degree. We’d welcome you here, but I think in all fairness the work is well below the standard you’re capable of.’ He added, ‘On top of which, of course, there’s National Service. In the end, you know, you’ll only save two years.’

  ‘I’d still like to apply,’ he said.

  ‘I won’t say we’ll not be glad to have you. It’s your own interests, really, I’m thinking of,’ the man had added, writing quickly on the sheet before him.

  Stafford, his head tilted back, allowed the smoke to drain out of his nostrils: his laughter, light, careless, echoed beneath the trees. He wore evening dress, the black bow knotted immaculately beneath his chin, his fair hair almost luminous against the shadows.

  Sitting alone at one of the tables was Margaret. She had on a light-blue dress, her hair fastened beneath a ribbon, and was drinking from a glass which someone had evidently just brought her for a figure was slipping away as he arrived, making directly for Stafford’s group.

  ‘Anyone sitting here?’ Colin said.

  ‘No,’ she said. She had light-coloured hair, thin, the ribbon securing it in a horse-tail at the nape of her neck. Her dress, relieved by a large white collar, was secured at the waist with a belt. Her arms were bare. They both sat for a moment gazing to the animated group across the lawn from which, a moment later, came Marion’s loud peel of laughter.

  ‘Do you come here often?’ he said.

  She smiled. ‘No. Never.’

  ‘What’s tonight’s occasion for?’ he said.

  ‘I was invited,’ she said, ‘like you.’

  ‘Are you leaving this year as well?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m only in the First Year Sixth. Or was. I’ll be in the Second, I suppose, when we start next term.’ She added, ‘You’re leaving, of course. Marion’s told me all about it.’

  She had light, greyish eyes. Her cheeks were thin, slender, the nose upturned, the face itself so delicate he imagined it, in the fading light, to have been moulded from ice: there was a lightness about her that he’d noticed before, when he’d first glimpsed her in the city centre then later waiting in the queue. Apart from one occasion, at a First Team party the previous Christmas, when he’d danced with her, they’d scarcely exchanged a word.

  ‘And where are you going to now you’ve left?’ she said.

  ‘College.’ He shrugged.

  ‘You’re not going in the a
rmy first?’

  ‘I’ve got deferment.’

  ‘Stafford’s staying on another year.’

  ‘Yes.’ He waited. ‘Would you like another drink?’

  ‘I’ve enough with this, I think,’ she said.

  They sat in silence for a while. Odd couples danced slowly, awkwardly, beneath the trees; a fresh tune started on the gramophone. The house stood on the outskirts of the town, looking out across a valley: a tall, brick-built mansion with gabled roofs into which Marion’s parents, who had arranged the party, had recently moved. A lawn at the side of the house and the trees surrounding it had been decked out with lights: Chinese lanterns hung in long rows beneath the branches, swaying in the breeze, white, metal-work tables having been set around the edge of the lawn itself. Marion, wearing an off-the-shoulder gown for the occasion, had greeted him with a kiss when he arrived, affecting surprise that he should have brought a present, although there was a large, unattended pile of them behind, and leaving him quickly, with a quick grasping of his arm, the moment Stafford appeared.

  The sun was setting behind the trees, the light scarcely stronger than the glow from the lanterns.

  ‘Do you want to dance?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  She got up from the table, stooping, and stepped on to the grass, waiting, her arms raised.

  He held her lightly.

  They danced slowly round the edge of the lawn. Fresh peals of laughter came through from Stafford’s group, the smoke from their cigarettes drifting through the pools of light which glowed, almost luminous, against the redness of the setting sun.

  They walked round the garden. A path led down beneath the trees to a smaller lawn, a low stone wall and a terrace flanked by roses. Below them were the lights of the town. The sun now had set completely: the light hung high in the sky to the west. Opposite, silhouetted to the north, was the profile of the town, its domes and towers, and the single steeple. He took her hand and then, when she offered no resistance, rested his arm against her waist.

  From behind them, muted by the garden and by the darkness, came the voices of the others, and the slow, almost mournful rhythm of a dance tune.

  ‘Do you live in the town?’ he said.

  She shook her head. ‘Well, almost in it. About a mile away.’ She gestured off, vaguely, in the direction of the valley. ‘My father’s a doctor. So we tend to go where the work is.’

  ‘I suppose that’s true of everyone,’ he said.

  ‘Is it?’

  She glanced across.

  ‘I suppose it is. Though you’re not always aware of it,’ she added.

  They stood awkwardly for a moment, gazing out across the garden. Close by, beyond the gardens of several other houses, stood the mound of a castle; some distance below it, silhouetted against the sky, was a line of ruins, and a single vast window set in a jagged wall of stone.

  ‘Do you ever go out at all?’ he said. ‘I mean, does anyone ever take you out?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ she said. She laughed. ‘What a question. What if I said no?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Do you know what they call you at the High School?’

  ‘No.’

  He shook his head again.

  ‘Brooder.’

  She laughed, flinging back her head.

  ‘I can’t see why.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose you can.’

  Hopkins’s voice came from behind them.

  ‘This is where you are. I say, what a super view.’ He gazed out blankly across the valley.

  ‘Do you want to dance again?’ Colin asked her.

  ‘If you like,’ she said, and added, ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ turning from his arm and stepping back towards the lawn.

  Stafford had come in a car. It was a vehicle he had learned to drive the previous year, his mother’s. He’d come to school in it. As Colin was leaving, later, he called across, ‘Would you like me to drive you home, old man?’ standing with his arm round Marion at the side of the lawn where, with her parents’ reappearance, she was wishing her guests good night.

  ‘Oh, you’re not going so soon, Nev?’ Marion said.

  Colin looked to Margaret.

  ‘I was seeing Margaret to the bus,’ he said.

  Marion laughed.

  ‘Aren’t you seeing her to the door, Savvers?’ Stafford said, glancing at the dark, stocky couple at Marion’s side as if to point out the vagaries of this peculiar stranger.

  ‘Our stops are side by side,’ he said. ‘If I go now I’ve just time to get the last bus.’

  ‘Oh, we’ll drive Colin home as well, won’t we?’ Stafford said. He bowed to Marion directly.

  It was almost dark. The lights in the windows of the house itself flooded out across the lawn, mingling with those suspended beneath the trees.

  One or two couples still danced on the grass.

  When the car drew up at the front of the house Marion had come out wearing a fur stole. Her parents, after an argument carried out discreetly at the top of the stairs, had been left to dispose of the last of the guests.

  Stafford came over to where Margaret and Colin were waiting on the lawn.

  ‘It seems strange we’ll never meet here again,’ he said. From the gate came the voices of the last guests, and the occasional call. Couples and small groups walked off along the road. ‘All going different ways and that. In twenty years we’ll look back at tonight and wonder where all the different people went. The girls married, with children of their own: almost the same age, perhaps. The boys gone off, as Gannen, or is it Platt, so often says, to the four corners of the earth. It’s very odd.’ He smoked a cigarette quietly, looking off across the empty lawn. ‘It’ll seem then, in a way, that we were never here at all.’

  Marion’s voice called from the front of the house.

  ‘I suppose we better get you home, then, Maggie,’ Stafford said.

  The house was located in a small village of old stone houses which had been encroached upon and finally surrounded by the housing estates of the town. Little of the building was to be seen from the road: a gate in a wall, and a path leading off up a narrow garden to a lighted window.

  He got out of the car and walked with her to the gate.

  ‘How would I get in touch again?’ he said.

  ‘You could telephone,’ she said. ‘The name’s Dorman. We’re in the book.’

  ‘Will you be free in the next week or two?’ he said.

  ‘We’re going away.’ She stood, her face concealed, in the shadow of the wall. On a post at the side of the gate he could see, faintly, in white, ‘Dr R. D. Dorman, M.D.’, on a wooden plaque. ‘For a month. I’ll be staying with a friend.’

  ‘Where’s that?’ he said.

  ‘In France.’

  He waited, kicking his foot against the gate.

  ‘Well, I better say goodnight,’ he said.

  ‘I could still write to you, if you liked,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If you write to me here you could send me your address. They’ll send the letter on.’

  ‘All right,’ he said.

  Stafford hooted in the car behind.

  ‘Thank you for the evening, then,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said and added, her hand on the gate, ‘I enjoyed the evening. I hope you’ll write,’ and set off up the path towards the house.

  When he got back in the car Stafford was sitting with his arm round Marion.

  ‘Where to, old boy?’ he said.

  ‘You could drop me at the bus,’ he said. ‘It could still be there.’

  ‘Oh, we’ll drive the warrior home. We might never see him again, might we, darling?’ Releasing Marion, he started the car.

  The street was in darkness when they arrived. Colin got out of the back seat and stood for a moment by Stafford’s open window. Marion’s pale face stooped over from the other side.

  ‘Is this really where he lives?’ she said.


  ‘Darling, don’t be so offensive,’ Stafford said.

  ‘I’m not being offensive. I’m just being curious,’ Marion said. ‘Last time we came you made me wait at the end of the street.’

  ‘Ignore her. That’s what I do,’ Stafford said, looking up from the darkness of the car. His hand appeared after a moment at the window. ‘Pip, pip, old man.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. He grasped Stafford’s hand and slowly shook it.

  ‘Look in some time.’ He revved the engine.

  ‘Oh, do get started, my darling,’ Marion said.

  ‘Good night, Marion,’ Colin said.

  ‘Good night, my darling,’ Marion said.

  The car moved off; it faltered at the corner, then turned, quickly accelerating towards the village.

  Reagan left school and got a job in an accountant’s office. Of the other boys Colin had known earlier, Batty, after working as a grocer’s assistant, and pedalling a bicycle about the village, delivering orders, had gone down the pit like his brothers before him. Stringer had gone there directly after leaving school.

  Connors, too, had gone down the pit, to be trained, according to his father, as a manager. Mr Morrison had taken over the Sunday School. Sheila he had seen often in the village; a year after he knew her she’d married a miner and had had two children by the time she was nineteen.

  Of all the people that he’d known before, Reagan was the one he saw most often. His job was in the same city, some eighteen miles away, where Colin was at college: he travelled there and back each day by train, and they frequently met each other at the station.

  Over the previous two years Reagan had grown even taller. He was now over six feet, wore suits which were specially made for him by a tailor, and shirts sewn up for him by his mother. On Saturday nights, wearing evening dress, he played in a dance orchestra in town, and on odd evenings gave music lessons to children in the village. Invariably on the train he would sit opposite Colin, his legs crossed, a white handkerchief protruding from his top pocket, and, if he wasn’t memorizing a musical score, or reading an accountant’s journal, would describe to Colin his plans for the immediate as opposed to the distant future. The names of leading celebrities of the entertainment world were mentioned with increasing frequency: one had almost dropped into the Music Saloon Ballroom where he played; another had written to say he intended to do so in the not too distant future; a third had invited him to an audition which, but for last-minute commitments in the office, he would have attended. A bandleader in a distant town, who had connections with the radio, had said he would see what he could do for him, though the fact that he played the violin, and not a trumpet or a saxophone, ‘or even a clarinet’, he had added nostalgically, invariably limited his scope of operation. His eyes, bright when he described these speculations, invariably darkened when the drab streets of the village came into view.