Saville (40 page)

His mother sat on a chair. At his aunt’s appearance inside the door she’d picked up her coat, about to leave, looking for her bag, then finally sitting down, the bag by her feet, her coat pulled on but still unbuttoned, gazing abstractedly through the uncurtained half of the tiny window. His aunt, unaware of the atmosphere, had pulled back the half-drawn curtain and let in something of the evening light.

‘We better go for the bus,’ his mother said, yet continuing to sit, round-shouldered, on the straight-backed chair. She was turned sideways to the table, her face in profile, one arm on the table, gazing, now the curtain had been drawn, at the fireplace and the fire.

‘Won’t you have some tea before you go, then, Ellen?’ his aunt had said. She didn’t wait for an answer; she didn’t even glance up to ask the question, her broad figure disappearing once again inside the alcove from where a moment later came another, deeper sigh and a further series of grunts and groans.

His mother, startled, had suddenly turned round.

‘Here, I’ll help you, love,’ she said.

She disappeared beyond the curtain, drawing it to behind her. The springs creaked on the double bed and briefly it seemed the bed itself was moved; he could hear the heavy breathing from his aunt, his mother’s fainter gasps, and the interrupted, slower breathing of the two figures on the bed.

‘There, then,’ his aunt said, re-appearing. ‘Though the sooner they take them off the better. Nobody can nurse them properly in a house like this.’

‘Will you be all right on your own?’ his mother said, faintly, coming out from behind the curtain. ‘Would you like us to stay a little longer?’

‘Oh, our Reg and David’ll be dropping in later,’ his aunt had said. ‘You get off now, while you have the chance.’

His mother picked up her bag again; she buttoned up her coat. She looked round, helplessly, at the tiny room, thought of going to the alcove once again, then said, ‘Well, I’ll get off, Madge, if that’s all right’

‘You get off,’ his aunt had said. ‘They’ll be all right. Tough as old boots, you know, are yon.’

His mother nodded; she bowed her head briefly as she reached the door, wiped her eyes with her handkerchief, blew her nose, then, thrusting her handkerchief in her pocket, took Colin’s hand.

‘Well, then, are you ready, love?’ she said.

His aunt appeared to be unaware, however, that either of them were leaving: she was stooping to the fire, still talking, poking hot cinders around the kettle, gasping at the heat, then straightening,
looking round. ‘Oh, you’re off, then?’ she said as she saw them at the door. ‘You’ll be calling in when, then, Ellen?’ she added.

‘I’ll come in tomorrow,’ his mother said. ‘It’ll be the morning, when Steven’s gone to school.’

‘And how is Steven?’ his aunt had said as if anxious now to waylay his mother, coming out to the step, wiping her hands on her apron and calling, ‘If you could bring in some tea, love, it’d be a help,’ merely nodding her head at his mother’s answer.

‘She’s so upset, but determined not to show it,’ his mother said, her eyes glistening again as they left the house. ‘She’s always looked after them, you know, and given them money when they were both without. And she’s never had much herself,’ she added.

They walked through the other rows of houses to catch the bus, his mother still talking, not listening to the answers to any of her questions, her hand, however, clenched tightly round his own, and still gripping it when finally, some time later, they reached the bus.

It was growing dark; they sat downstairs. Fields faded off into the shadows either side; once clear of his grandparents’ village; however, his mother grew silent. She sat with her bag on her knee, gazing out, past the driver’s figure, to the faint outline of the road ahead. Only when the village came into sight did she suddenly say, ‘Well, then, I don’t think you’ll ever see them again,’ and added, ‘And neither will I, much more, if God is kind,’ taking his hand again as they left the bus and not releasing it, nor even slackening her grip, until they reached the house.

‘“And in the summer,”’ Mr Platt read aloud, ‘“when bees haunt flowers, and birds the hedges; when scents and blossoms have been distilled into one heady draught for the reeling senses; then doth my heart shake off the winter’s tale of woe and drudgery, and broken pledges, and take on the summer’s glow of health and smiles.”’

He put the examination paper down, looking up over the top of his glasses. His eyes moved slowly along the desks until they came to Stephens’s, then, with a sullen rage, they moved to Colin’s.

‘And what is an examiner supposed to make of this, then, Saville? “Discuss the imagery of the poem below”, and all I can find on your paper is a turgid, unrhythmical and, if I may say so, singularly inept poem of your own construction, entitled …’, he glanced quickly at the sheet again, ‘“Composed in 4uB classroom while gazing out of the window during the Easter examination.”’ He looked round him slowly at the rest of the class. ‘I can see no sign of any discussion, nor can I trace any reference to the poem in question, unless I take your own creation to be a crude and, in this context, I might add, insulting parody of its finer points. Wordsworth wrote poetry, and if he, in some idle moment, and on the margin of his examination paper, had given me his rendering of “I wandered lonely as a cloud”, I wouldn’t, I venture to suggest, have been altogether displeased. Providing he had kept it to the margin; and providing that he’d answered the question put to him in full. People with a minor talent, or, in this instance, no talent whatsoever, would do better to admire their betters, simply, straightforwardly, and without equivocation, rather than attempt to imitate their creations by
constructing verses of an unspeakable banality of their own.’ He looked at the sheet again. ‘“C. Saville”. You might as well have written W. Shakespeare for all the good it’s going to do you.’ A murmur of laughter ran faintly round the room. ‘Dost think, Bard Colin, that membership of the rugger team entitlest thou to indulgences of this sort?’

The class broke into laughter.

‘Dost answer, Master Saville? Hearest thou the question, lad?’

‘Yes, sir,’ he said and nodded his head.

‘The eloquent fluctions of his heart are stilled. Sno’ed o’er by the pale cast of thought. Dost think it’s a masterpiece, then, young Saville?’

‘No sir,’ he said. He shook his head.

‘May’st we, thy humble admirers, scattered round, take this, thy creation, as a suitable text on which to vent our appreciation, then?’

‘Yes, sir,’ he said. He nodded his head.

‘“And in the summer,”’ he read again, ‘“when bees haunt flowers.” Do bees haunt flowers in summer, Walker?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Walker said, then added, ‘No, sir.’

‘They might invade flowers. They might pollinate flowers, Walker. They might enter flowers, Stephens. They might visit flowers. They might hover over flowers or descend towards them; I sincerely doubt that bees could be said, in all their stinging reality, actually to
haunt
.’ He replaced his glasses, glanced at the paper, and, reading once again, added, ‘“When scents and blossoms have been distilled into one heady draught for the reeling senses.” My goodness, Bard Colin, you’ll have the breweries after thee if they hear on this. Whence brew’st thou this heady concoction, lad, and more important, hast thou a licence?’

The boys leaned back in their desks to laugh; several at the front turned round; those adjacent to him glanced across, while the expressions of those behind he could readily imagine.

The windows of the room were open; the feet of figures passing in the drive had paused and, from the top of the stone retaining wall, small, inverted heads peered down.

‘“The winter’s tale of woe and drudgery, and broken
pledges.” Dare’st we assume, Bard Colin, a broken heart? Dare’st we assume some dalliance with the opposite sex from which thou emergest a little wiser?’ He glanced round at the class again, adjusted his glasses and, peering down at the sheet, he added, ‘“A summer’s glow of health and smiles.” Indeed, now, we’ve something here to look forward to. That dark and rather sombre expression, habitually worn by our deep-feeling friend, is, if I read his promise rightly, going to be lightened over the summer months by a brighter complexion and even, he actually threatens us,
with a smile
.’

The laughter, suddenly, had broken out again; other, larger heads peered down from the top of the window; one or two boys had banged their desks.

Mr Platt put down the paper.

‘As you see, Saville, when I give the papers out, your mark is considerably lower than it might have been had you answered the question with a reasonable degree of modesty and care, not to mention’, he added, ‘with some intelligence.’

He began to give the papers out. They were passed from hand to hand across the desks, or, if the boys were sufficiently near, handed impatiently across a ducking row of heads.

‘Patterson, Jackson, Swale, Bembridge, Berresford, Clarke … Saville.’

The paper was handed back along the row of desks; at each one it was glanced at, briefly examined, then, with a ducking motion, handed on.

‘Rothery, Gill, Fenchurch, Madely, Kent.’

A faint murmur had erupted round the room; the papers were examined, turned over, examined again. He saw his own mark, the red line drawn down the page at the side of the poem, the corrections made to the other questions, then he put the paper down and folded his arms.

Mr Platt had waited for several seconds; the last of the papers gone he sat down behind the desk, tapping his teeth, thoughtfully, with a piece of chalk. ‘Some of us may be bad poets, but even more of you’, he added, ‘are chronic spellers.’

Colin pressed his arms in against his chest; other phrases were read out from other papers, figures standing uncertainly then sinking down; words were scrawled across the blackboard.

‘Coming back to you,’ Platt said, and added, calling, ‘Art ’ware I’m talking to thee, lad?’

A burst of laughter rose quickly from the class.

‘How spellst thou comprehensive, Bard?’

He stood up, mechanically, to a second burst of laughter; he heard the question repeated and began to spell it slowly, getting lost finally in the middle of the word, and sitting down when Platt had called, ‘Gill Gill, as a mere mathematician, can you spell it for him?’

The letters came down, quickly, from the back of the class.

‘Dost yon muse visit thee, then, Bard; in class, I mean, as well as out?’

He got up slowly from his seat again.

‘For homework, Bard, wouldst thou answer the question thou refrainest from answering in the examination, and bring it to me for marking tomorrow morn. Hast thou that clear within thine head?’

‘Yes,’ he said, and added, ‘Sir.’

‘Not in rhymed couplets, blank verse, or any variation of the same, I would ask thee, Bard. But in simple English prose for which thou wast requested in the first place, lad.’

‘Yes,’ he said again and, after waiting to see if any other demand were forthcoming, sank down in his seat again.

‘Methinks I hear the bell, summoning me to my morning cup of coffee, lads.’ Platt raised a small, thick hand to one of his ears as the bell clanged out, distantly, in the corridor above. ‘Methinks it summoneth thee to break, and Saville in particular to some clandestine meeting with his muse, perchance in the cloisters, lads, or, verily, in the field itself. Dost hear, then, Bard? Or has the light of common day, the everyday demands of English Lit., driven it to some dark and dingy hole from which thou and thou alone willst rescueth it?’

Colin got up from his desk as the other boys rose. The laughter, which had died down earlier, had risen again.

‘Inclineth thine ear to what thy masters tell thee, lad,’ Platt said as, his books beneath his arm, he moved over to the door. ‘Remembereth they liveth many more years than thou, and no doubt strove mightily in their youth to emulate the Bard. Nevertheless, they end up, twenty years later, behind a classroom desk
which, Fate being all-provident, they might have arrived at quicker if they hadn’t have wasted their time writing imitations the like of which we have heard today. Verily, verily …’ He held up his hand, stopping the crowd of boys inside the door. ‘Thy master hath spoken, lads: pin back thy lug-holes, then, and hear.’

Colin wandered out to the cloisters, got his bottle of milk, and stood against the wall; masters passed through, either singly or in groups, to the dining-room where they had their coffee. Gannen went past, his gown pulled tightly round his waist, Miss Woodson, short-sighted, tugging at her glasses, Hodges, stroking down his hair which stood up in two white fangs at the back.

‘They always pick on somebody,’ Stephens said. His back stooping more pronouncedly as he drank from his bottle, he came to stand beside him at the wall.

‘I suppose if they don’t, there’s not much left to teach,’ he said, finishing his milk and moving to the crates. ‘I suppose it makes it entertaining.’

‘Entertaining for some,’ Stephens said and left his milk unfinished. He followed him out to the field. Figures ran past and for a moment dragged Stephens with them. ‘I thought it sounded pretty good, in any case,’ he added as he caught him up. ‘Better than anything Platt could do.’

‘Yes,’ he said, standing at the edge of one of the spaces cleared for a football match. Figures in shirt-sleeves darted to and fro between the piled-up jackets.

‘Have you written any more, then?’ Stephens said.

‘No,’ he said and shook his head.

‘I suppose he gave you a low mark as well,’ he added.

‘Pretty low,’ he said.

‘Would you like to buy a fountain-pen? I can let you have one cheap, then,’ Stephens said.

He drew open his jacket and showed him the tops of several pens clipped to his inside pocket.

‘They’re worth two or three pounds in a shop,’ he said.

‘Where did you get them from?’ he said.

‘In town,’ Stephens said. ‘I’ll let you have this big ’un, if you like,’ he added. ‘You can write any number of poems with that.’

‘I’ve already got a pen,’ he said.