David Storey - Saville

‘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.