Saville (45 page)

‘How do you know I’ve got one?’ she said.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I thought you might.’

‘I could meet you tonight,’ she said, slowly, stooping to the gate.

‘Where’s that?’

‘I go to church,’ she said. ‘So does Marion. I could see you after.’

‘What church is it?’

‘St Olaf’s.’

‘How do you get there?’

‘It’s over at Brierley. I go by bus.’

The church, he calculated, was seven miles away. It would mean an hour on the bike, at least.

‘What time does it finish?’ he said.

‘About half-past seven to eight,’ she said.

‘I might see you there,’ he said, and turned away.

‘I’ll walk to the end of the road,’ she called, suddenly, stepping from the gate. She glanced back, awkwardly, towards the farm. ‘They’ll be watching from the house,’ she added.

She walked beside him, swinging her coat. He pushed the bike beside him, at the edge of the road.

Finally, when they reached the bus stop, she glanced back once more towards the farm.

‘I better go back, I suppose,’ she said. Her cheeks were flushed; she glanced towards the houses on the opposite slope as if reluctant to be seen talking by anyone she knew.

‘I might see you at the church,’ he said.

‘I’ll ring Marion,’ she said. ‘She might ring Stafford.’

He turned to the bike.

‘See you,’ she added and waved her arm, yet scarcely glancing as he pedalled off. He looked back from the crest of the hill: she’d already reached the gate and, running, had turned up the track towards the farm.

I’ve looked all over the place,’ his father said, ‘for nearly an hour.’

‘I went to Stafford’s,’ he said.

‘Tha what?’

‘To fetch a book.’ He’d taken it with him, inside his coat; he brought it out now and dropped it on the table. ‘I needed it for my holiday work,’ he said.

His father gazed at the book for several seconds.

‘And thy’s been right over theer?’ he said.

‘I came back’, he said. ‘as fast as I could.’

His father shook his head. He pointed to the door. ‘Thy brother’s been roaring his head off. He sets some store by thy being with him, tha knows.’

‘I went as quick as I could,’ he said.

‘There’s more important things than books.’ He added, ‘Mrs Shaw’s more than enough, you know, with Richard.’

His mother was ill; on the second day of her illness she’d been taken off to hospital. Colin was alone in the house with Steven and Richard when his father was at work. On this occasion, however, cycling over to Audrey’s, he’d left Richard with Mrs Shaw and Steven playing in the field; the kitchen itself was already tidy: he’d washed up the pots before he’d left. The floor, too, he’d swept, and had made the beds; he hadn’t intended being away for longer than an hour.

‘I told Mr Shaw’, he said, ‘when I borrowed his bike.’

‘Well, Mr Shaw isn’t in at present,’ his father said. He stooped to the fire with a lighted match; Steven, who’d been crying on the doorstep, had come inside, sitting on a chair and rubbing his eyes. Richard’s cries, loud and prolonged, came from Mrs Shaw’s next door.

Colin picked up the book; his own name, he realized, was inside the cover. ‘I said, if I was free, I might go over tonight.’

‘Wheer?’ his father said. He swivelled round.

‘Stafford’s.’

‘And what’s so important about Stafford, then?’

‘I said I might go over, if you didn’t need me here,’ he said.

‘I need you here. Don’t you think I need you here?’ his father said.

‘I just though you might be in tonight. It’s some work I wanted to check,’ he said.

‘Well, you can check your work in here,’ he said. He gestured round him at the kitchen; then, attracted by the roaring of the fire, he covered it, briefly, with a sheet of paper.

He stood over it for a while.

‘We don’t ask much of you, any road,’ he added.

‘I’ve helped you in the past,’ he said.

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘After how much asking?’

He took the paper away; the fire roared up.

‘We don’t need all that coal on. Not in summer time,’ he added.

His father went to work that night, Colin saw him off at the door.

‘Think on,’ he told him before he left. ‘Thy’s two young ’uns to look to now. No gallivanting off.’

His father took the front-door key, locking it before he went.

When he’d gone he cooked Steven some supper and put him to bed. Richard was already asleep, fastened in his cot.

He tucked Steven up, read him a story, then waited while he fell asleep. It was nearly eight o’clock.

He went next door to Mrs Shaw’s.

‘I wondered if you could keep an eye on them,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to go over to a friend’s to get a book.’

‘You’ve a lot of books to see to suddenly,’ Mrs Shaw had said.

‘Could I borrow Mr Shaw’s bike again?’ he added.

‘Nay, you better ask him, love,’ she said.

‘I’ll be charging thee mileage on them tyres,’ Mr Shaw had said, calling then from inside the kitchen. ‘First yon farm, and now thy books. Mind how tha go on it,’ he added.

‘Does your father know you’re going?’ Mrs Shaw had said as she followed him to the yard.

‘I said I might be going. I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ he said.

He set off down the yard, Mrs Shaw, the key in her hand, watching him from the step.

It took him nearly an hour to reach the church. It stood at a crossroads, some distance from Brierley village. A large manor house, occupied by soldiers, stood immediately behind it, the church itself and the house enclosed by a low stone wall.

Several soldiers were sitting on the wall. The sun had begun to set. Long shadows spread out from the trees beside the road itself. The church was closed. There was no sign of anyone he knew.

He set off up the road, following the bus route back towards the farm. A car came past him and roared off, leaving a cloud of dust. It was long after nine when he crested the hill above the farm. He freewheeled down the heath and cycled slowly past the gate. There was no sign of movement either in the yard or along the track: the wooden gate itself was closed.

He cycled back, dismounted, and gazed up for a while towards the house.

A bus came over the hill and pulled up at the stop. Two or three people got off, laughing, and set off, waving to the bus, across the heath. The bus came past; pale faces gazed out of the darkening windows.

He leant on the gate, sitting now astride the bike and gazing up directly to the house.

It was growing dark; the sun disappeared beyond a line of hills.

He waited by the gate a little longer then, turning on the battery lights, set off slowly up the rise. He waited at the top again, gazing back towards the farm; then, freewheeling, he set off down the slope the other side.

He thought he saw them, briefly, walking up the road; when he pedalled nearer, however, their three figures turned out to be a man and a woman walking with a child. He set off back, pedalling slowly, drained of all strength as well as feeling.

‘So you went out after all,’ his father said. He’d come into the bedroom to wake him up: Steven’s bed, he saw, was empty; he’d meant to get up early, cook his father’s breakfast, forestalling any inquiry about the night before.

‘I went out for a bit,’ he said.

‘It was nearly three hours from what Mrs Shaw’s just said.’ His eyes were black from where he’d roughly washed; he still had on his pit clothes, his long coat, his cap pushed in his pocket: there was a red line from its neb above his eyes. ‘I find Steven lakin’ with the fire, and Richard crying in his cot. What sort of looking-after is that supposed to be? I can’t turn me back without you slipping off. If you weren’t supposed to be grown up I’d give you a damn good hiding. Your mother ill and me at work, and you go gallivanting off, after you’ve been told you’re needed here.’

‘I have to see about this work,’ he said.

‘Work? What work? You can see about schoolwork some other time,’ he said. ‘There’s another six weeks of holiday yet. Lying on your back i’ bed.’

‘I’d thought of getting a job,’ he said.

‘There’s a job here at present, lad. Looking after thy two brothers. I’m off to the hospital as soon as I’m dressed. And what am I going to think when I’m going, then? That you haven’t two minutes to help us out.’

‘I’ll help you out,’ he said.

‘Aye, help us into a worse hole than we’re already in,’ his father said.

When he went down his father was washing at the sink; Steven was sitting in a chair, watching him then as he began to get ready: his father pulled on his suit trousers, then his waistcoat. Fluffs of soap from his shaving still clung to his ear.

‘You see: he wants to come with me,’ his father said, indicating Steven. ‘I’ve told him children aren’t allowed.’

‘I can wait outside, Dad,’ Steven said.

‘And how shall I know what you’re up to?’ his father said. ‘If you’re like you brother, it might be ought.’

‘I’ll wait,’ Steven said and went to his coat. ‘I’ll wait where you tell me,’ he added, coming back. He tried to pull on his coat, his head thrust down.

‘Nay, tha mu’n stay with Colin,’ his father said. ‘I’ve enough to be worrying about without having something else.’

Steven, pale-faced, staring at his father, began to cry.

‘Nay, tha mu’n cry all tha wants,’ his father said. ‘I’m off on my own. They don’t make rules for nothing,’ he added.

Yet, at the door, he’d glanced back at Steven. Richard had already gone next door.

‘Sithee, I won’t be long,’ he said as he watched Steven bury his head against a chair. ‘I might bring summat back with me, if tha behaves thasen,’ he added. He looked at Colin. ‘That’s both of you I mean. No gallivanting off. Thy get his dinner, and Richard’s. Don’t leave it all to Mrs Shaw. You’ll find it in the cupboard.’

In fact, when his father had gone, he found the potatoes already peeled, standing in a pan. The cabbage had been left, already washed, in a metal colander. Four sausages had been left in the cupboard, with a note pinned on top, ‘For Sunday Dinner’. His father must have got back even earlier than he thought.

He sat with Steven for a while; then he took him out. He called for Richard, sat him in his push-chair, and set off for the Park.

‘Your father was cross,’ Mrs Shaw said. ‘About last night. You don’t want to go off leaving them,’ she added.

‘Yes,’ he said and set off down the yard.

‘Are you all right for your dinner, love?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Nay, if there’s anything I can do,’ she said as she watched them go.

The Park was almost empty; he sat Richard on a swing and pushed him to and fro. The day was bright; the sun came down directly on to the slope of the hill; a faint haze showed here and there across the fields, low down, obscuring at one point the embankment of the railway line running like a rampart towards the distant woods. Corn in one of the nearer fields had recently been cut; men were working at the sheaves and, from farther off, came the dull, grating chatter of a tractor. A huge, ball-shaped cloud of steam rose over the village from the direction of the pit.

There were only children in the Park, except on the upper slope where a man with a scythe was cutting grass. Lorries rattled to and fro on the road beyond; from the colliery itself came the dull panting of the engine and across the foot of the slope he could see the headgear, the spoked wheels invisible, spinning round.

Steven had run off across the slope. Colin sat on the swings for
a while. He pushed himself slowly with the toe of his foot. He imagined, briefly, what it might be like with his mother dead, with his father at work, or, worse, away from home. He watched Richard on the swing with his tiny fisted hands, his lightish hair, his strangely self-absorbed expression as the swing, still swaying, swung up and down.

A train crossed the embankment, travelling slowly beneath a banner of blackish smoke; in the distance other clouds of smoke rose from the faintly visible heaps and chimneys. At the foot of the slope, where it flattened out towards the railway, a group of boys were playing football. Several girls, at the edge of the fishpond, were playing round a pram.

He pushed Richard on the swing, then, for a while, he held him on the rocking-horse. The man with the scythe worked rhythmically across the slope, occasionally calling out as the children disturbed the raked-up piles – or standing, sharpening his scythe and gazing off, abstracted, towards the distant woods.

Three figures had appeared at the top of the hill. Two of them were sat on bikes, the third leaning up against a bike; an arm was raised and, faintly, he heard his name being called.

Stafford, still waving, re-mounted his bike; a moment later he came coasting down the hill, sitting sideways on the cross-bar, his elbows out.

‘We’ve just been down to your house,’ he said, dismounting at the foot of the slope. ‘The woman next door said you might be here.’

Steven had come over; he held his hand.

‘What happened to you last night, then?’ Stafford said.

‘I couldn’t get out,’ he said, and shook his head.

‘We waited at St Olaf’s. Then went on to Marion’s,’ Stafford said. ‘Her father drove us home,’ he added. He gestured behind him to the top of the hill. ‘They’re both here now. We wondered if you could get a bike.’

‘I’ve to look after my brothers today,’ he said.

‘Can’t you dump them somewhere?’ Stafford said.

‘I’ve to cook their dinner as well,’ he said.

‘We’ve got some sandwiches. We thought we’d have a picnic. We could go over to Brierley Woods. We could really have some fun there,’ Stafford said.

‘Colin,’ Steven said and pulled at his arm.

‘I’ve got to look after them though,’ he said.

Behind him Richard, suddenly aware that he was alone, had begun to cry.

‘They’ve come over specially,’ Stafford said, gesturing once more to the slope behind. ‘And Audrey’s pretty keen. It was her idea to come,’ he added.

He glanced back up the slope. Marion was calling: she’d begun to wave her arm.

He went back to the rocking-horse and lifted Richard off. He set him in the pram.