Saville (33 page)

‘He’s been a right good officer,’ the farmer called, half-hidden in the shadow of the kitchen.

From the footbridge he glanced back at the farm: the farmer himself had appeared at the door.

‘If thy ever wants a job you must come back here again,’ and still stood there, waving, when he reached the road.

‘How much did they pay you?’ Stafford said.

He told him about the farm, and then the prisoners.

‘I don’t do much work during the holidays,’ Stafford said. He added, ‘I was over there, you know, for the day. I know the Thorntons. They live in that house beyond the trees.’

He walked beside him, his canvas bag hitched up beneath his arm. He whistled for a moment between his teeth.

‘Are you playing football this term?’ Colin asked him.

‘I’ve been injured this week.’ Stafford shook his head. ‘I’ll probably come in later. It hasn’t been arranged.’

When they reached the turning to the station, Stafford had added, ‘I’ll come down to the bus stop, if you like. I’ll be catching the later train tonight.’

They walked through the narrow alley and into the town-centre. Crowds of boys were moving down from the direction of the school, joined by groups of uniformed schoolgirls.

Stafford had called across at one point; two girls, on the opposite side of the street, had waved. One girl had called out, pointing back in the direction of the station.

Stafford smiled and shook his head.

‘Look at that,’ he said. He indicated a shop window, catching Colin’s arm. ‘What do you think?’

A wooden plaque of the school’s coat-of-arms was set in the centre of the window, beside it a tray of coloured scarves.

‘Some of those look pretty nifty.’ Stafford leaned to the window, gazing in, his head against the glass.

He moved to the door, holding it open.

An elderly shopkeeper inside had already looked up; he appeared to recognize Stafford for he came out quickly from behind the counter.

‘And what can I do for you?’ he said as Colin followed Stafford in.

‘We’d like to look at the scarves,’ Stafford said. ‘The ones in the window.’ And when the shopkeeper brought them over, sliding the glass panel at the back of the window and lifting them out, Stafford had added, ‘Not the school’s, Mr Wainwright: those civilian ones,’ laughing then at his own expression.

‘The civilian ones,’ the shopkeeper said, beginning to smile himself.

They were made of silk; he spread them on the counter.

‘And have you got your coupons, sir?’ he said.

‘Do you need coupons for one of these, then?’ Stafford said.

‘I’m afraid so.’ The shopkeeper shook his head.

‘What have you got without coupons?’ Stafford said.

‘Well, any number of things,’ the shopkeeper said. ‘Tie-clips, for instance. Do you fancy those? I take it’, he added, ‘it’s for a present.’

‘Yes,’ Stafford said, and glanced across.

A tray of tie-pins was laid before him.

‘What do you think to that one?’ Stafford said.

He picked it out.

It was a silver-coloured tie-pin shaped like a feather. Its image, Colin saw, was that of a quill. A tiny nib was fashioned one end.

‘Do you like it?’

‘Yes,’ he said, impatient now to get to the stop.

‘I’ll take that one, Wainwright,’ Stafford said and from his inside pocket drew out a wallet.

‘That’s rather an expensive one,’ the shopkeeper said.

‘I thought it might be,’ Stafford said.

He laid out the money.

‘Could you wrap it up?’ he said. ‘Decently, I mean. In a sort of box.’

Outside the shop Stafford glanced at his watch and added, ‘Are we late for your bus? What time does it leave?’

‘If I hurry,’ he said.

‘We’ll run for it in that case,’ Stafford said.

They ran through the centre; at one point, for a while, they ran on the road, Stafford dodging the traffic and keeping abreast.

‘Keep running: I’ll keep up,’ he said.

The bus was waiting when they reached the stop.

Stafford stood beside Colin as the queue climbed on.

Then, close to the door, he said, ‘Here you are, then. I hope you can use it.’

He thrust the parcel into Colin’s hand.

‘Go on. Take it. You’ll never get on.’

And when he hesitated he thrust it to his hand again.

‘See you tomorrow,’ Stafford called, already moving off along the pavement.

He saw Stafford’s head, its fair hair conspicuous amongst the crowd, moving swiftly up the hill, back towards the city centre: he watched a moment longer then, as the crowd moved on, the fair-haired figure disappeared.

He opened the parcel when he got back home.

‘That’s beautiful. Wherever did you get that?’ his mother said.

‘It was a present,’ he said, and added, ‘From a friend at school.’

‘It isn’t your birthday yet,’ she said.

‘I know,’ he said. He shook his head.

‘Do they give presents to you, then, like that?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose they do.’

‘Have you bought him one, in that case, then?’ she said.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I suppose I shall.’

‘Well, love,’ she’d added, ‘make sure you do.’

He didn’t see Stafford at school the following day; he went to his classroom at the afternoon bell: everyone had left. He walked down to the station: there was no sign of Stafford on the platform.

On the Monday he only saw Stafford briefly, from a distance, leaving the field at the end of break; he didn’t run after him or call across. The next time they met was on the Tuesday afternoon:
Stafford was coming out of the pavilion, already changed. He waved across, calling, and trotted casually across the field.

He never mentioned the present again. Colin scarcely wore it; he clipped it on to his tie occasionally on Sundays; he went to the Crusaders now in the afternoon, still with Bletchley, and less frequently with Reagan, who, since his failure in the exam, had been often ill.

Bletchley wore a suit on Sundays; over the previous year he had worn his school uniform to church but as it faded it had been replaced by a suit of dark-grey cloth with long trousers and a double-breasted jacket. Both he and Bletchley as well as Reagan were in the same Crusader group; a banner with the device of a fish was clipped to the end of their pew. The vicar took the service: small, portly, with thick-lensed glasses, he spoke with his head inclined towards the ceiling, waiting for each word to echo before he called the next: ‘I …
I
– shall …
shall
– wait …
wait
– here …
here
– for …
for
– si …
si
– lence …
lence
.’ He sang loudly, standing by the pulpit, sometimes disappearing behind the varnished pews to the organ, where, through an angled mirror, he could watch the groups below.

With no Mr Morrison to talk to Bletchley would frequently fall asleep; he would prop his arm on the end of the pew, immediately beneath the banner, and with his head against his hand, his face shielded, he would assume an attitude of rapt attention; in the shadows of the church, and beneath the extended shield of his hand, it was impossible to tell that he wasn’t listening; even when the vicar called for the answer to some question he would put up his hand, slowly, instinctively, half-dazed, having to be roused, cautiously, if he was asked specifically to answer.

Reagan had grown taller over the previous year; he too, in response to Bletchley’s challenge, had taken to wearing long trousers; they emphasized his now almost skeletal figure with its massive, bulbous head. Occasionally he could be seen walking across the backs, his hands in his pockets, glancing in windows and open doors and recoiling abruptly whenever someone called. He had been moved to a private school in the city, and each morning his mother took him to the station to catch the train, waiting for him on the platform of the village station each
evening and walking back up to the village with him, hand in hand.

‘They mu’n be getting married soon,’ his father said whenever he saw them pass the window. ‘Reagan’s not got a look-in where yon lad’s concerned.’

‘It’s because he’s sensitive,’ his mother said. ‘He’s always been sensitive, even as a baby. She’s always had to look after him,’ she added.

‘He’d be less sensitive if he’d had a boot up his backside,’ his father said. ‘I’d de-sensitize him inside a week if I had him in this house.’

‘Oh, we know how sensitive you are,’ his mother would add.

‘Sensitive? I’m sensitive,’ his father said. ‘I’m more sensitive than yon streak o’ whitewash.’

‘Yes: and we know that, Colin, don’t we, love? We know how sensitive your father is,’ she’d tell him.

‘I’m sensitive enough to work in that pit,’ he’d add.

‘Are you?’

‘And give you a decent living.’

‘Do you?’

‘And you can’t get more sensitive’, he’d say, ‘than that.’

Steven had started school. He spent a lot of his time now out of the house, coming in at meal-times. But for the fact that they slept together Colin would scarcely have seen him. His brother had a pale, feather-like existence: built broadly like himself, he floated from one interest to another, running constantly from one demand to another, from one group of boys to another, his laughter frequently, whenever he was excited, filling the backs, a loud, harsh, almost hen-like cackle.

The baby he scarcely noticed. It was almost standing, prematurely, straight-backed, its tiny legs thrust out, its eyes light blue; it had a ferocious, almost obsessive energy; if it wasn’t watched it would crawl out to the yard, and once in the yard would disappear, finding its way to the street, on some occasions to the Battys’ kitchen, on others across the field to the street the other side. His mother would endlessly be endeavouring to restrain it, her cries of vexation ringing round the house while Colin in his room would be trying to do his work, calling down to her in the end, ‘Mother, I can’t work if you go on shouting.’

‘And what am I supposed to do? Talk to it in sign language?’ she’d call from the stairs.

‘I just can’t work with all that noise.’

‘Richard, come here!’ she’d shout, distracted immediately by the child again.

He took it for walks occasionally on Sunday mornings. Sometimes, if he had nothing better to do, Bletchley came with him; they would go to the Park.

‘The Park and nothing else,’ his mother would say. ‘I might be walking out that way and I’ll be popping in to have a look.’

‘You could take him in that case, then,’ he’d say.

‘Harry,’ his mother would call, ‘can you hear the way he talks?’

‘Just hold your tongue when you talk to your mother,’ his father would add.

‘It’s that I feel silly pushing out the pram,’ he said.

‘And you’d feel silly doing some of the things I’ve had to do,’ his father would call, invariably, during these incidents, preoccupied in some other room of the house.

‘Why can’t we just leave him in the yard?’ he would ask his mother.

‘Because he never stays in the yard,’ his mother said. ‘In any case, I would have thought you’d have been proud to take your brother out.’

‘Well, I’m not,’ he said, yet beneath his breath, afraid of the retribution this sentiment might bring.

‘I don’t know why you have to bring him,’ Bletchley would add, kicking the wheels of the pram as they walked along.

Yet, despite his resentment, he and Bletchley and Richard, and sometimes even Steven, continued to go to the Park on Sunday mornings. Groups of other children would be wandering there, girls from Bletchley’s school with whom Bletchley himself exchanged insults and occasionally, whenever he could get near them, blows. It was the prospect of seeing the girls from the school which took them there and which, later, sustained them during the tedious hour and a half of Sunday School; afterwards, freed of the pram, they would wander round the paths of the Park, and occasionally along the tracks that led across the fields beyond, following diminutive, skirted figures who, to Bletchley’s
taunts and jeers, would frequently, turning, call insults of their own: ‘Fatty,’ and ‘Belcher,’ and ‘Who’s your friend, then, Belch? Hasn’t he got his pram?’

Bletchley gave him glowing accounts of his life at school, of episodes in the bushes which surrounded the building, a converted manor, and of even more lurid incidents which took place in the actual rooms. It was a long way from King Edward Grammar, and even farther from the impression he got of Bletchley himself, who, by reputation, was as actively despised at school as he was in the village; he felt a strange loyalty to his friend, his portly figure, and felt drawn to defend him whenever, in Bletchley’s presence, he was ridiculed or attacked.

‘Belcher’s all right,’ he would say to Batty who whenever he saw the gargantuan figure, would immediately run after him shouting, ‘Show us your knee-caps, Belch,’ or, ‘Lend us half your suit.’

‘He’s all right: he’s all right as an advertisement for plum-puddings,’ Batty would tell him, adding on one occasion, ‘Do you want a fight or something? If I want to shout after Belch I bloody shall.’

They’d fought then for half an hour; the fight had drifted from the street: they fought in the yard of a house and then the field. He fought Batty as if he had been preparing for it now for years; he felt calm, preoccupied, self-possessed, hitting Batty strongly, refusing to be bound up in his looping arms. Blood came out on Batty’s face; he was aware of Batty’s brothers coming to the field, and of other figures standing in the yard and along the fences. Reagan’s voice called out: ‘Hit him, hit him harder,’ his waist-coated figure collarless, red-faced, standing by the fence.

Batty finally had pinned him to the floor, beating him about his eyes and mouth: he flung his fists up at the reddened figure but Batty knelt casually above him, out of reach.

‘Go on, go on, our kid,’ his brothers called.

Batty got up. Aware of his brothers’ shouts he paused. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

‘Go on, bash him,’ his brothers called.

Batty turned aside; he glanced back at Colin briefly as he got to his feet, then went on towards his house.