Saville (71 page)

‘Nay,’ his father said. ‘I mu’n not drag other people in. Particularly if you’ve been as daft as that. What should I say if he rang her up?’

‘Just ask her what Colin said.’ He gazed now at Colin directly.

‘She must have misheard him,’ his father said. ‘And I don’t agree with you bringing her here, in any case. No matter what you think.’

‘But he’s lied about it,’ Steven said.

‘Nay, you mustn’t have heard properly,’ his father said, stubbornly, and wheeling out his bike.

‘Well, I s’ll never stay here again, in that case,’ Steven said.

‘You will stay,’ his father said. ‘You’ll stay right now.’

‘Nay, I shall never,’ Steven said: he stood over his father, his face flushed. They had never seen him in this mood before.

‘Tha should have clattered his lug for him,’ his father said, suddenly, viciously, and gestured at Colin.

‘I don’t want to fight him,’ Steven said.

‘Nay, but tha mu’n not come complaining to us, then,’ his father said. He pulled on his coat; he shouldered his bag. Having wheeled the bike out to the yard he set his lamps.

‘I s’ll not forgive you,’ Steven said, turning to Colin. ‘Having lied about it, you see, as well.’

‘Tha’ll stay, in any road,’ his father said. ‘I’ll not have you sleeping out at somebody’s house.’

‘I don’t want to stay here any longer,’ Steven said.

‘Nay, tha s’ll have to,’ his father said.

He gazed in at them a moment longer; he was darkened from the holiday; his expression was hidden beneath the neb of his cap: it was, with his smallness, like a child gazing in at the door of the house.

‘Think on,’ he said, gazing in a moment longer, staring at his mother, then, mounting his bike, he rode away.

‘I don’t want to come back to sleep here,’ Steven said. ‘I don’t want to live here with him in the house.’

‘Nay, don’t go on with it,’ his mother said. ‘You’ll have forgotten all about it in the morning.’

‘No, I s’ll never forget it,’ Steven said, quietly, taking off his coat. ‘I s’ll never forget it, Mother. And I s’ll never forget’, he added, ‘you giving in to it.’

‘I haven’t given in to it,’ his mother said.

‘Then ring up the Blakeleys and ask them. They live in the village,’ Steven said.

‘I’ll do no such thing,’ his mother said.

‘No,’ he said. ‘And I know why.’

‘Oh, and why should that be?’ his mother said.

‘You know it’s true. He’s poisoned all of us.’

‘How can you
say
such a thing?’ his mother said.

‘How can you let him get away with it, Mother?’ Steven said. ‘He’s lied about it and I s’ll never forgive him.’

He went up to his room where Richard was sleeping.

‘
Did
you say something to him?’ his mother said as they listened to Steven’s movements above their heads.

‘No,’ he said.

‘You must have said something.’

‘I said he shouldn’t have been in the house,’ he said. ‘Not with a girl alone; not if he respected her.’

‘And that’s all you said to him?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

His mother turned away; there was a strange silence in the house: she stooped to the fire.

‘Perhaps you should have left it to him to decide. If that’s what in fact you said to him,’ she said.

‘Why? What else could I have said to him?’ he asked her.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, and added, ‘But Steven never lies.’

‘Doesn’t he?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘He never needs to.’

‘That’s all
you
know about it, then.’

‘Why are you so bitter, Colin?’ she said. ‘You were never bitter before. But I suppose I know the reason,’ she added.

‘There is no reason; and it’s not bitterness,’ he said.

‘Isn’t it?’ she said.

She turned to the door.

‘I’m going up,’ she added. ‘If you’re staying down put out the light.’

‘Mother,’ he said, but when she turned to him he added, ‘Shall I kiss you good night?’

‘Good night,’ she said.

He kissed her cheek.

‘Why are things as they are?’ he said.

‘I don’t know what you’re trying to turn everything into,’ she said.

‘I’m trying to be good,’ he said.

‘Are you?’

‘But not goodness as you would know it. Not goodness in inverted commas.’

‘What goodness is in inverted commas?’ she said.

‘Steven’s goodness.’

‘I should leave Steven alone,’ she said. ‘He’s never meant you any harm.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘That’s what I mean. It can’t do him any good at all.’

His mother closed her eyes.

‘I don’t know where I am any more,’ he said. ‘I feel that it’s something new that I’m living, but I don’t understand it any more,’ he added.

‘Oh, I should leave things for a while,’ she said. ‘And leave Steven. I can’t stand these arguments,’ she added. ‘I thought, with a holiday, we’d all have been better.’

He heard her going to bed; he sat by the fire.

A few moments later there was a sound by the stairs.

Steven came in: he was in his pyjamas. He picked up his jacket which was lying on a chair, folded it over his arm and went back to the door.

‘Why did you lie about it, Colin?’ he said.

‘I haven’t lied,’ he said.

Steven gazed in at him a moment longer; it was as if some terrible truth had dawned in him. His eyes widened: they took in the reflected glare of the fire.

‘Why did you come whining, in any case?’ he added.

‘No. I can see. I shouldn’t have come back at all,’ he said.

‘Why, what are you frightened of?’ Colin said.

He gazed directly at his brother who, in his pyjamas, caught in the doorway, appeared now like a little boy.

‘I s’ll leave as soon as I’ve got a job,’ he said. ‘I’ll see about getting one tomorrow.’ He closed the door.

The sound of his feet came slowly from the stairs, then his mother’s voice calling, then the creaking of the bed.

He dreamt of Andrew; he was first older than him, then suddenly younger; he was standing at a window, gazing in; then he was walking away along a road and he ran calling, ‘Andrew, Andrew,’ and when he didn’t turn he called, ‘Steve! Steve!’ and saw the figure’s face: it was, dreamily, abstracted, that of his younger brother.

‘Oh, I have come from a promised land
Which young men love and women can’t stand:
There’s whiskey and money both growing on trees,
And the only policemen come up to your knees.’

The children laughed.

‘Any more, sir?’ a boy had said.

‘Oh, when I am old
And my feet turn cold,
And my thoughts have turned to jelly,
I’ll sit by the fire
And smoke my briar
And tickle my fat old …’

‘Belly!’ the class had said in a single voice.

‘There’s a man in the moon
With a chocolate spoon
And eyeballs made of custard,
When he eats his tea
He sits like me
And peppers his rhubarb with mustard.’

They laughed again, freshly, gazing at him in admiration.

‘Simon Brown was a man with a frown
And eyes as black as charcoal:
He wouldn’t have looked bad
If he hadn’t have had
A mouth in the shape of his … elbow.’

‘Sir!’ the children said. A fresh peal of laughter broke out across the room.

‘Though what I have in mind’, he said, ‘is something far different. I thought if we listened to the music you could write down whatever you felt.’

He turned on the gramophone.

The class was silent: a faint murmur of voices came from adjoining rooms.

The children gazed, abstracted, towards the front of the room as the music began.

A few moments later the door opened and Corcoran came in.

‘What’s this?’ he said.

‘English,’ he said.

‘It sounds more like music to me.’ The headmaster indicated the gramophone placed on the desk. ‘And what sort of music is it?’ he added.

‘Jazz.’

‘Jazz? What’s jazz? What’s jazz’, he said, ‘got to do with music?’

‘They’re writing down’, he said, ‘their various feelings appertaining to the music.’

‘What feelings?’ the headmaster said. His stocky figure swelled with indignation; his eyes protruded; a redness crept up from his neck across his cheeks; as Colin watched the colour deepened: veins stood out on the top of his head.

‘I don’t know what feelings they are until they express them,’ he said. ‘Neither do they, I assume,’ he added.

The headmaster turned his head to the blackboard so that his voice couldn’t be heard by the children, who were gazing at him now in fascination. ‘I’m not having this in my school: this is a place of education, of enlightenment, not an institution dedicated to the propagation of half-baked drivel.’

‘Perhaps you’d like to see their essays,’ he said.

‘I’d like to see nothing from this room until that noise has stopped,’ the headmaster said.

‘I’m not turning it off,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘If you want it off you’ll have to turn it off yourself. I want the children to see you do it.’

The headmaster’s eyes were dark; the pupils were entirely surrounded by white; light patches showed on either cheek: it was as if the blood had abandoned his face. He gazed at Colin with a sudden, malevolent fascination.

‘I’d like to see you in my room at the end of the lesson.’

‘All right,’ he said, ‘if I can fit it in.’

‘You’ll fit it in, all right,’ he said. ‘I’ll send Mr Dewsbury to take your lesson.’

‘I believe he’s otherwise occupied.’

‘Is he? Then I’ll send a prefect.’

‘They can’t keep control of a class, I’m afraid,’ he added.

‘Come to my room at break,’ the headmaster said.

‘All right,’ he said.

‘And I want that music off.’

‘You’ll have to turn it off.’

‘I want it off.’ The headmaster went directly to the door and closed it behind him.

Some time later the squat, broad-shouldered, bald-headed figure returned along the corridor; Colin turned the music a little louder.

He glimpsed the reddening of the already empurpled headmaster’s face, saw the brief falter outside the classroom door then the sudden upsurge of energy as, with a stumble, he hurried on.

When he went into Corcoran’s study later in the day the headmaster was seated behind his desk, intent seemingly on a pile of papers.

Colin sat down in a chair and waited.

‘Did I ask you to sit down?’ the headmaster said without raising his head.

‘No,’ he said. ‘But since you’re rude enough not to acknowledge me I’ll be rude enough to go on sitting.’

‘See here,’ the headmaster said, rising to his feet and coming round the desk. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you, Saville, but this sort of behaviour won’t do you or your future any good.’

‘You’ll have to leave me to be the judge of that,’ he said.

‘I’ll do no such bloody thing,’ the headmaster said. ‘
I
’ll be the judge of that. It’s
me
who runs this school, not you.’

‘And it’s me who teaches in it, unfortunately,’ he added. ‘I object to you or anyone else coming into my lesson, without permission, and attempting to disrupt it.’

‘I can come and go when and wherever I please,’ the headmaster said.

‘Not in my lesson, you can’t,’ he said. ‘Nor in anyone else’s, if you had any respect for the staff.’

‘What staff?’

‘Your staff.’

‘You call this a staff? Half of them couldn’t teach a bag of toffee. Half of them’, he added, ‘couldn’t
cobble my shoes
.’

‘With you standing over them I’m surprised they would even try,’ he said.

‘See here,’ the headmaster said again but stood gazing down at him in some perplexity. ‘I’m in charge round here,’ he added after several seconds.

‘If you’ve any comments to make on how I teach you’ve plenty of opportunity to make them away from the lesson. What
authority do I have with the children if you come waltzing in whenever you please?’

‘I didn’t waltz in. I walked.’

‘I thought, on the whole,’ he said, ‘you came in more or less in time to the music.’

‘See here,’ the headmaster said again, and stood gazing at him once more in consternation.

‘There’s nothing wrong in playing music. I prefer to approach them from all directions.’

‘There’s only one direction to approach them from. I
know
: I’ve taught here for over thirty years.’ He swung out the toe of his laced-up boot. ‘On the end of that: that’s the direction I approach these rough-necks from.’

‘I disagree.’

‘Nay, tha’s not above giving them a wallop: I’ve seen you do it myself,’ he added.

Colin waited.

‘What would the Inspector say if he came in a classroom and found you playing that?’

‘I’m not particularly interested in what he would say.’

‘I can
tell
you what he would say,’ he said. ‘And what he would say to me,’ he added.

‘Are you frightened of him?’ he said.

‘I’m frightened of nobody,’ the headmaster said and returned swiftly to his desk. ‘N-o-b-o-d-y: nobody.’ He picked up a pen and gazed down, disconcerted, at the pile of papers.

‘I intend to go on using music,’ he said. ‘Of any kind. If you don’t wish to support me you’ll have to fire me.’

‘See here, Saville.’ He gazed at him once more across the desk. Then he added, ‘Have you had your coffee?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Even that’s not very good round here. I’ve been in schools where the girls brewed a coffee which made a playtime well worth having. Our girls, I don’t think, could cook an egg.’

‘Maybe you should leave and I should take over here,’ he said. ‘I’m not that concerned about the coffee.’

‘And neither am I,’ the headmaster said. ‘What I’m concerned with is running a practical and efficient educational institution, and all this airy-fairy nonsense, all this dissolute and
promiscuous-making music, has got no part in it at all, either for me, or anyone else,’ he added.

He waited once again; he crossed his legs.

‘See here, it’s my opinion you’re a very good teacher,’ the headmaster said. ‘You’re arrogant and rude, but that’s your youth: a few years of what I’ve been through and you’ll have those edges knocked off. I can tell you that for nothing. A few more years, like some of us have been through, you’ll toe the line and allow experience to speak instead of ignorance and good intentions. We all had good intentions:
I
had good intentions; Mr Dewsbury and Mrs Wallsake had good intentions; unfortunately good intentions don’t butter parsnips, they don’t redden beetroots and they don’t sweeten swedes; the only things that do are practical measures to ensure that they know what four and four add up to and what happens to the water when they boil a kettle. After all,’ he added, ‘where are most of these children off to? When they leave here the majority’ll go into factories that don’t go down the pit: they’ll work on the roads, they’ll dig holes and clear out ditches; the girls’ll do nought but work in a mill, get married and have children: children
we
’ll be expected to do summat with. So where’s the music come into that? They can listen to music when they get home at night: that’s about all they do do, some of them. All thy wants to teach them is how to read a rent book, add up the week’s wages, and write a letter of application if they want a job. Apart from that, they’ll not thank you, neither will their parents, for teaching them something that doesn’t come through on the bread-and-butter line. The bread-and-butter line is the only line of advancement these people understand.’