Saville (63 page)

‘Michael’s there. He’s playing very well, for all that anyone will notice,’ Bletchley said.

‘Oh, we’ll notice it, Belcher,’ Batty said and, digging his elbow against Stringer, laughed.

‘Yeh, we’ll notice it,’ Stringer said.

‘See you sometime, Tongey,’ Batty said, waiting for this to be confirmed before he set off up the street after Stringer’s departing figure.

They sat upstairs on the bus. Bletchley got out his pipe.

‘I don’t think those two will ever come to much good,’ he said.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘They’re different.’

‘Factory fodder. I don’t see what hope they have in their lives. I mean,’ he added, ‘what prospect do they have before them? A dance hall and a bottle of beer.’ He blew out a cloud of smoke. Something about the gesture reminded Colin of Dr Dorman. It was on this same bus, and at the same time on a Saturday evening, that he would ride back to the village after seeing Margaret. He gazed out of the window for a while. ‘I mean, it’s an animal existence when you come down to it. What do you think?’

‘Perhaps it’s all an animal existence,’ he said. He had to raise his voice above the rattle of the bus. Below them passed the dark waters of the river.

‘Oh, I shouldn’t think it’s all an animal existence,’ Bletchley said as if calling now to the rest of the bus. ‘What’s science for, after all? Some men grow out of their environment. Whereas others just seem to sink into it. They make no effort at all, as far as I can see. Take Batty and Stringer. They’re prime examples.’ Another cloud of smoke drifted away from his seat across the rest of the bus. ‘I mean, they’re going to be stuck round here, aren’t they, for the rest of their lives.’

The bus careered on through the darkness. Odd lights showed up from the darkened fields, from isolated farms or rows of terraces set down arbitrarily on the brow of a hill. Groups of people came into the lights below, waiting at the stops, others drifting off from the bus and disappearing in the dark. Farther off, the sky glowed with the lights of distant villages and, behind them, the dull, sombre redness of the town.

‘It’s like Darwin’s origin of the species,’ Bletchley said, sweating freshly in the heat of the bus. ‘Some of the species adapt, others don’t. In effect, when coal is acquired by wholly mechanical means or perhaps isn’t even needed at all, people like Batty and his brothers, and Stringer, won’t have a function. And when the function ceases so does the species, or those parts of it that can’t recognize or create a further function.’

Soon the rattling of the bus grew too loud for Bletchley to make himself heard; he contented himself with digging Colin with his arm at some particular man or woman as they appeared at the top of the stairs or disappeared to the platform, each one evidently some illustration of his thesis, his head nodding significantly as he glanced across.

The darkness finally gave way to the lights of the village; they descended towards it with increasing speed, Bletchley rising and making his way, swaying, to the stairs, where he waited, clutching the rail on either side while the bus negotiated the final corner. He was waiting on the pavement, tapping out his pipe against his heel, by the time Colin came down himself.

They walked through the streets in silence, Bletchley’s shadow flung bulkily before them as they passed beneath the lights. Mr Bletchley at one point came cycling past on an upright bike, with a pannier behind the saddle. Since his demobilization he’d taken a job in a shunting yard adjoining a neighbouring village and frequently worked the same shifts as Colin’s father. Even though Colin nodded to him on this occasion Bletchley himself gave no sign at all, his father cycling on as if he expected none in any case, dismounting slowly when he reached the terrace and, without a backward look, disappearing down the alley at the side.

‘Wasn’t that your father?’ Colin said.

‘He’s working afternoons,’ Bletchley said refusing him even now any acknowledgment at all. ‘He’s doing overtime. I run up one or two bills at the varsity,’ he added. ‘He’s trying to pay them off.’

‘Aren’t you taking a job over the summer?’ Colin said.

‘I thought I might. The trouble is, I’ve got so much work to get through, I don’t think I’ll have the time to take a job. After all,’ he added, ‘there’s nothing else the old man can do. He
can’t do my work for me, can he? And I don’t feel I’m particularly cut out for doing his. It gives him a goal to work towards, a motive, you see, beyond himself.’

He’d re-filled his pipe by the time they reached the house. They stood for a moment by their respective doors, Bletchley lighting his pipe and puffing out, reflectively, several clouds of smoke.

‘Poor old Michael,’ he said, gazing down the street towards Reagan’s door. ‘I think all his troubles you could trace back to that time when he failed his eleven-plus. Do you remember that? He wrote an essay about being a nurse.’ He laughed, his heavy figure shaking as he leant up against the wall. ‘How are things with you, in any case?’ he added, the first time he’d inquired at all about Colin’s activities over the previous two years. ‘Is it a worthwhile undertaking, do you think? I thought of teaching, you know, for a while. But you know what they say about teachers? A man amongst children and a child amongst men.’ He still gazed down, however, towards Reagan’s door. Mr Reagan had appeared beneath a distant lamp, lurching unsteadily from side to side, holding on to the lamp and then, a moment later, to a near-by wall, standing, bowed, his shoulders stooped, then with a final, almost convulsive gesture, moving on towards his door. ‘I better be getting in. I might get another hour’s swotting,’ Bletchley said, his mother a moment later appearing beside him in the door.

‘There you are, Ian,’ she said, smiling at Colin. ‘Have you had a nice evening, love?’

‘We’ve been to Michael’s dance-hall,’ Bletchley said, puffing a cloud of smoke directly in her face. ‘There’s his father out here now, staggering home, it seems, from another. Either that or the Miners’ Institute. I’m sure he wouldn’t know if you could be bothered to ask him.’ He walked into the open door and called inside from the passage, ‘Anything for supper, Mum?’

He could hear her voice and Bletchley’s, followed by the father’s, inside the house after the door had closed.

Down the street itself the Reagans’ door had opened and Mrs Reagan’s thin, almost emaciated figure had appeared. ‘Is that you, Bryan?’ she called to the figure standing stooped above the gutter, and, a few moments later, having received no reply but a
groan, went down the pavement, took his arm beneath her own and guided him in.

‘Reagan?’ Colin’s father said when he mentioned having seen him in the street outside. ‘There’s a wasted talent if ever there was one. He could have got anywhere with a mind like his. He had a sense of style, and taste. And now what is he? Stumbling from one bar to the next. He’ll be lucky if he keeps that job. Despite the years he’s put in, you know. He’s trouble with the pay now almost every week, and he’s been at it, you know, for over thirty years.’

His father went along the backs a little later; they could hear him tapping at the Reagans’ door, then his voice, tentative, light, almost cheery: ‘Anything I can do, then, missis?’ and some fainter, answering voice inside. He came back, frowning in the light. ‘Nay, they want nowt from us,’ he added. ‘He was stretched out there on the kitchen floor, and she bent over him, going through his pockets. I reckon there’s nobody could help them now. That’s what comes, you know, from marriage. Marriage to the wrong person, I’m talking about,’ he went on quickly when his mother looked up. ‘Marry the wrong one and your life is finished. Marry the right one and your life is made.’

He saw her some distance away and didn’t recognize Stafford at first; accustomed perhaps to seeing him in a uniform, he thought it might have been her brother. Then he recognized the build and the fairness of the hair. Stafford was wearing a dark-coloured blazer and flannels: a white handkerchief protruded from his breast pocket.

‘I thought you were still on holiday,’ he said to her when he’d caught them up; aware of his steps they’d both turned, glanced away, aimlessly, then waited for him to draw abreast.

‘I’ve just got back today,’ she said. ‘Neville was in London and drove me up.’

Her face was dark, tanned around the cheeks and brow.

‘I’ve got a forty-eight hour pass,’ Stafford said. ‘I thought I’d
do the girl a favour. I was coming up in any case,’ he added. He gestured to the car which was parked across the road. The whirl of traffic around the city centre hid it a moment later from their view.

It was late evening; lights were coming on across the street. The spire of the cathedral loomed up against the sky.

‘I was hoping you’d ring this evening,’ Margaret said. ‘I was coming through tomorrow. Did you get the card I sent?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘The post is terrible,’ Stafford said. ‘It takes days just to send a letter across town, never mind from France to England. As for the south of England to the north.’ He waved his hand.

‘I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow, then,’ he said.

‘Why not come out to the house?’ she said. ‘We just dropped in for a drink.’ She gestured now to the hotel behind. ‘Or Neville could take on the luggage and we could go on the bus.’

‘For goodness’ sake, just jump in the car. We’ll be there in no time,’ Stafford said. He took her arm and began to guide her through the traffic.

When Colin had crossed to the car himself Stafford had already started the engine. He glanced in at them through the open window.

‘I’ll give you a call tomorrow,’ he said. There was a curious similarity between their two figures, the same delicacy of features, the same light eyes.

‘Just leap in the back, Savvers,’ Stafford said. ‘We’ll be there in a jiffy,’ leaning across to release the catch on the door itself.

‘I’m on my way home,’ he said. ‘But I’ll call you tomorrow,’ he added to Margaret. ‘I’m glad you’re back.’

She turned to gaze woodenly through the windscreen.

‘If you’re sure you don’t want a lift, Savvers,’ Stafford said. ‘I might pop through the village tomorrow. Give the odd knock and see if you’re home.’

The car started forward; Margaret, startled, glanced out at him sharply, wildly, as if, for a moment, she might have cried out.

Then the car swept away in the evening traffic; he could see their two figures silhouetted briefly, then the profile of the car and the other traffic cut them out.

He rang the following morning but Margaret was out. Neither she nor Stafford appeared at the house.

He rang again in the evening. Her father answered the call.

‘Oh, it’s you, Colin,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid Margaret’s out. And so’s her mother. I haven’t seen them today, as a matter of fact. I’ve been standing in, you know, for a friend and I’m only just back. I’ll tell her you called as soon as she’s in.’

He walked back through the village from the telephone booth; it stood, a red-painted box, at the village centre, where the two roads crossed, occupying one corner of the pub yard. Mr Reagan was coming down the street, setting out for his evening’s drinking. He walked slowly, raising his bowler hat with one hand, and saluting him with his cane with the other.

‘And how’s the intellectual?’ he said. ‘My good lady informs me you’re destined for scholastic pursuits. That already there is an institute of a pedagogical nature opening its portals to the enlightened influence of Harry Saville’s eldest son. I shall await the outcome, I might tell you, with the greatest expectations. The
greatest
expectations,’ he added, his eyes moving on now, past Colin, to the doors of the pub. ‘Don’t forget, now, the ones who formed you when you reach your golden age – the ones who’ve been swept beneath the carpet, emptied in the trash cans of the world; the waste that has gone to produce the flower of your intellectual emancipation.’ He replaced his bowler slowly, almost like a runner preparing for a race, judging time and distance, finally waving his stick beside his face and stepping off briskly towards the yard. He gave no further acknowledgment that he’d noticed him at all.

‘Why don’t you go and see her?’ his mother said when he got back home.

‘I suppose I shall,’ he said. In two days’ time he was due to start at the school.

‘When does she start at the university, in any case?’ she said.

‘Not for another three weeks.’ He added, ‘She said she might come through today. There’s still time, I suppose.’ He glanced at the clock.

It was already growing dark outside.

His mother was ironing. She heated the iron by the fire,
stooping to the flames, her glasses reflecting the glow. Her face itself was reddened.

She held the iron with a cloth, dampening her finger on her tongue.

She went back to the table.

The wood creaked. He went to the front door after a while and waited. Perhaps she and Stafford might come in the car.

He walked slowly to the end of the street. A car went by, its engine moaning a moment later as it ascended the hill to the Park.

He stood on the kerb, his hands in his pockets, his feet tapping at the gutter. A dog crossed the road and disappeared between the houses. Bletchley’s father cycled past, dismounted, his head bowed, and went down the alleyway to the backs.

In the distance came the sound of a train drawing out of the station. He went back to the house. She didn’t come.

He rang the following morning. Mrs Dorman answered the phone.

‘Oh, it’s you, Colin,’ she said in much the same manner as her husband had done the previous evening. ‘Margaret’s out at the moment. Would you like me to give her a message?’

‘I just wondered if she were coming through,’ he said. ‘Or whether I should come through to you.’

‘I don’t know her plans, I’m afraid,’ she said very much as if she were answering some inquiry about her husband. ‘She didn’t say she was going through. Would you like to ring again this evening?’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll call again.’

‘She’ll be sorry that she’s missed you. She went into the town to do some shopping. She’s got hardly any of her university things together. And only a few days ago, it seemed, she could hardly think of anything else.’