Saville (70 page)

Most evenings, if he could, he delayed coming home at all; he would walk with Callow to his relative’s house, leaving him at the door, at the end of a tiny terrace street, or ride into town on the back of Stephens’s bike. He would walk in the streets, more lost now, amongst such familiar places, than he’d ever been before. There was a wilfulness in his isolation; all the time, despite his longing, he was anchored to the village. On several occasions he walked the twelve miles home, arriving late in the evening or the early hours of the morning, his steps as he approached the village growing increasingly slower, coming over the final rise and gazing down, past the church, at the glow of the pit and the rising eddies of steam and smoke, the bleakness of the lamp-lit streets, and wondering even then, despite the three-hour walk, whether he might not turn round and walk back again. There was nothing to come back to.

‘If you feel so fond of the place why go on living here?’ his father said. ‘Tha mu’n find a room. There must be summat, the money thy earns.’

‘I don’t earn all that much,’ he said.

‘Nay, I don’t know how much you do earn,’ his father would say. ‘But it’s more than I do for doing half as much.’

‘It’s less than you earn.’

‘Not if you reckon it by the hour.’

‘In any case,’ he said, ‘I’ve looked.’

‘Aye,’ his father said, ‘and where would we be? It’s the first chance we’ve had to buy summat good.’

A new three-piece suite, the deposit paid down as a result of his first month’s salary, now occupied the room; a new dining-table had recently followed it; there were plans to put linoleum on the floor. His father was thinking of buying a better wireless. ‘These are things that we deserve,’ he said. ‘We need these things. It’s what we’ve struggled for together.’

‘It’s prostitution,’ Colin said.

His father balked; he gazed at him with a sudden fury.

‘What’s prostitution?’ His two brothers who’d been listening raised their heads; his mother, too, had turned from the fire.

‘Hiring me out.’

‘Hiring who out?’

‘Me out.’

‘You’re not hired out to ought.’

‘It’s supposed to be enlightenment I’ve acquired, not learning how to make a better living.’

‘It’s both. I thought it would have been both,’ his mother said.

‘But how can it be? The one is in conflict with the other. The one’s
opposed
to the other,’ Colin said.

‘Nay,’ his father said disowningly. ‘This man is a
mystery
to me.’

And later, when his father had gone to work and his two brothers were in bed, his mother had said, ‘How can it be hiring out? Don’t you want us to have any of these things?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘Don’t you want your brothers to take advantage of the progress you’ve been able to make?’

The light, glistening on her spectacles, concealed her expression.

‘But it’s all shaping us towards an end, it’s propaganda,’ he said. ‘I don’t fancy seeing Richard going through all I’ve gone through. Not to come out of it like this.’

‘Like what? Like
what
?’ she said desperately. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘To conditioning more people like himself into doing what
he
’s had to do,’ he said.

‘But what he’s doing, what you’ve done, is a privilege,’ she said.

‘To who?’

‘To you.’

‘Nay, it takes our best qualities and turns them into something else.’

‘You’ve changed,’ she said, bitterly, ‘and I suppose I know why.’

‘I don’t see it as a change, I see it more as a realization,’ he said.

‘Nay, you’ve changed. I hate to see it,’ and a moment later she added, ‘I hate to see you taking it out on us.’

‘I’m taking it out on no one,’ he said.

‘What about Steve? What about Richard? What about your father?’

‘I’m doing all I can for you,’ he said.

‘Doing all you can to disillusion us.’

‘Not to disillusion. To make you see.’

‘See? See what?’ She gazed at him bleakly.

That Easter he had given them money to go away on a holiday, his mother and father together; they’d gone for a week. It was the first time they’d been alone together for over twenty years. He stayed at home to look after Steven and Richard.

‘No arguing, and no fighting,’ his father had said. Colin had seen them off at the station, carrying down their case. There’d been a sudden reconciliation between them: he kissed his mother goodbye and shook his father’s hand; it was as if his parents were going off for good.

A few days later he had come home from school to find Steven in the house: he was sitting with a girl in front of the fire; some tea had been made; the pots were on the table; the fire itself was almost out.

‘Well, then, our Colin,’ his brother had said. ‘This is Claire.’

‘What’s she doing here?’ he said.

‘Nay, she’s visiting,’ his brother said. His mood was amiable, unconstrained: he’d been sitting in his shirt-sleeves with his arm laid casually around the girl’s shoulder.

The girl was small and dark: she stood up quickly when he came in the room.

‘Does she realize your mother and father aren’t here?’

‘Nay, I suppose she does,’ his brother said. There was no rancour in his voice: he gazed at the girl with a smile. She had flushed and gone to the table as if to clear it.

‘And does she reckon it’s all right,’ he added, ‘coming here alone?’

‘Nay, she’s not alone,’ his brother said. ‘She’s here with me. I’m here,’ he added, ‘if you hadn’t noticed.’

The girl had laughed; she glanced away.

‘Do her parents know she’s here alone?’

‘Nay, are you going to dot me one, Colin?’ his brother said: he took up a casual pose, as if for a fight.

As it was, since their previous fight, scarcely any mention subsequently had been made of it; to some extent it was as if it had never taken place. Fights in any case frequently occurred in the field or the yards, sometimes between neighbours, sometimes between sons, or sons and fathers; in that sense, he supposed, theirs hadn’t been any different.

‘I just wondered what her parents would think. Her coming here alone.’

‘Nay, they’d suppose she was a bit of a flirt. Which you are, then, aren’t you, Claire?’ his brother said; he ran his hand casually against her cheek.

‘Oh, well, I’d better go,’ the girl had said. She looked round for her coat.

‘Nay, I’m damned if thy’ll leave,’ his brother said. ‘Tha’s only just come. We’ve just had tea.’

‘Oh, but I’d better go,’ she said. She had a refined voice: she came from a better home.

‘I suppose you realize what you’re doing,’ Colin said.

‘Doing?’ His brother watched him with a smile.

Yet it was to the girl directly that Colin spoke.

‘I suppose you realize this would kill my mother.’

‘Kill her?’ Steven said.

‘I suppose’, he said, ‘you’ve put her up to it.’

‘You’re mad. Whatever’s got into you,’ his brother said.

Colin stood over the girl; he saw her now through a haze of blood.

‘Do you know what his mother would think if she came in now?’

‘What would she think?’ The girl trembled; her face, plaintive, wide-eyed, looked up at his.

‘She’d think you were trying to destroy her,’ he said.

‘Destroy her?’ His brother’s voice came from behind his back; then, urgently, he heard his brother say, ‘Take no notice of him, love,’ and thought then for a moment his brother’s shadow fell upon him.

‘It’d destroy her to see Steven here like this.’

‘But whatever’s the matter?’ the girl had said, gazing past him, appealing to Steven behind his back.

‘You’d better go. You’re trying to kill her. I know you’re killing her,’ he said.

‘Whatever’s the matter?’ the girl had said again, appealing once more to his brother.

‘Nay, we’re going,’ Steven said. He’d already pulled on a coat; his face was flushed. ‘Nay, we’re going,’ he said again, taking the girl’s arm. ‘And I s’ll not come back.’

‘You will come back,’ he said.

‘I shall not,’ Steven said and, drawing the girl out with him, closed the door.

He could hear their steps across the yard.

He stood for a moment inside the door; finally he opened it.

The air was fresh: it was as if he’d come out from inside a furnace; even the smell of the pit revived him; he stood there for a while, his legs trembling, gazing at the field.

It was only when Richard came in from playing that he felt any different: he stood at the table and got his tea.

‘What is it?’ she said.

He’d recoiled, broken, rising from the bed.

‘Why, what is it?’ she said again.

Her breasts were thrust up above the sheet.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I should be going.’

Yet the thing that had driven him back had been her face; as he stooped towards her he saw lying there not the face of another woman but that of his mother, so clear and unmistakable, her features so deeply set, lit then by her smile, that he drew away, pushed back. Only slowly did the broadness of Elizabeth’s features re-appear.

‘Why? What is it?’ She drew herself up. ‘You needn’t go for hours.’

‘I ought to go,’ he said.

‘But the bus doesn’t go for ages yet.’

He stood by the bed, gazing to the curtained window. A bus went by in the road outside.

‘Is it the bed?’

He shook his head.

‘We can go to mine, if you like,’ she added.

‘No,’ he said.

‘They won’t be coming in for hours.’

‘Won’t they know you’ve slept in it?’ he said.

‘No,’ she said, yet as if she were familiar with using her sister’s bed and had done it frequently before. ‘Let’s go to my room, then,’ she added. ‘It’s bound to be different.’

He began to get dressed; she watched him now without speaking at all.

Finally, she said, ‘Has anything happened?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘I feel something has happened Colin,’ she said. ‘I wish you’d tell me.’ After a moment, she added, ‘Is it Phil?’

‘Why Phil?’

‘That you feel you’ve compromised yourself with him.’

‘Perhaps you feel that,’ he said.

‘No,’ she said, and added, ‘You’re the first person I’ve slept with since my husband.’

She began to cry. She turned her face against the pillow.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I think it’s, me.’ He sat on the bed. He might then at that moment have lain beside her.

‘You shouldn’t have come to me in this way,’ she said.

Her voice was buried against the pillow.

‘It’s too much,’ she added. ‘I want you to go.’

Yet he stood by her, helplessly, gazing down.

‘I don’t know what it is,’ he said.

‘I want you go to.’ Her voice moaned up at him; he was afraid to touch her. ‘What is it? Why have I done this?’ he thought.

‘Please go.’ She lay quite still, her head turned from him. There was nothing he could do at all.

He closed the door; as he went down the stairs he anticipated her calling him back; yet he knew he had inflicted a defeat, so carelessly, that the thought of what had occurred bemused him entirely.

Outside, in the drive, he looked up at the bedroom window: the curtains were still, there was no sign of life at all.

He walked through the Park; when he reached the town he rang her number. There was no reply.

He got on the bus and went back home.

‘I never accused her of anything,’ he said.

His brother gazed at him astounded.

The previous night he had brought Steven back. Having heard he was staying at a friend’s house across the village, he had waited in the road and had seen Steven in the distance talking to the girl then, later, as he approached his friend’s door had caught his arm.

‘You’re coming back home,’ he told him. ‘My mother’s come back and she’s out of her mind that you’re not at home.’

Yet, strangely, his mother had been careless of the fact that Steven was staying at a friend’s. Now she stood gazing at Steven in the door: he had come in suddenly and said, as his father got ready for work, ‘I left home, Mother, because of Colin.’

‘Why because of Colin?’ His mother had gazed at him half-smiling, unconcerned.

‘He threatened the girl I brought.’

‘What girl?’

‘Claire,’he said.

‘How did he threaten her?’

‘He accused her of wanting to kill you, Mother.’

His mother glanced at him in some surprise: her face had flushed. His father looked up, intensely, from fastening his boots.

‘I don’t understand,’ his mother said.

‘It’s a lie,’ Colin said. ‘I never accused her of anything.’

Steven gazed at him in disbelief; his sturdy, open face had darkened.

‘Why, he did,’ he said. ‘You can ask her mother. I had to take her home, she was so upset.’

‘But why on earth should he say she wanted to kill me?’ his mother said.

‘I never said such a thing at all,’ he said.

‘But this is wrong, Mother,’ Steven said. ‘He said it here. I heard him. It’s why I haven’t been home these last two nights.’

‘I thought you’d been staying with Jimmy,’ his mother said.

‘I have,’he said.

‘Well.’ His mother gazed at Colin in disbelief; her face was reddened from the sun: it had an openness, a sudden candour. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘What’s going on. It can’t be true. He’d never say that.’

There were tears now in Steven’s eyes.

‘But it
is
true, Mother,’ he said. ‘Ask him. Ask him to be honest.’

‘I am being honest. I never said such a thing,’ he said.

‘But he’s
lying
, Mother,’ Steven said. ‘He’s lying now as he lied to the girl.’

His mother looked at him in terror; there was some conflict between them she couldn’t recognize.

His father had risen.

‘Why did you bring her here?’ his father said to Steven.

‘Why shouldn’t I bring her here?’ he said.

‘You’re too young to bring girls into the house,’ he said. ‘Particularly on your own.’

‘
Were
you on your own?’ his mother said.

‘Colin came in. We were sitting here. You can ask her parents. She’s on the phone. I have her number.’