David Storey - Saville

‘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.’

‘I’ll tell you your trouble,’ his father said when he got back in the house. ‘Nothing to occupy you. And when you do get started you’ll find you’ve hardly anything to do. Teaching, you know,’ he added to his mother, ‘he can do it out of the back of his hand.’

‘It’s you who wanted me to go in for it,’ he said.

‘I wouldn’t want you doing my job,’ his father said. Small and faded, dressed in his underpants and shirt, he sat smoking, half-crouched on his chair, in front of the fire.

‘Why dismiss it, if it’s something you wanted me to do?’ he said.

‘Nay, it is something I wanted you to do,’ his father said again. ‘But it can’t stop me, can it, from saying it’s easy.’

‘But what am I supposed to make of that?’ he said, looking to his mother. She was standing at the sink, stooped, her hands slowly plying in the water, washing pots. ‘The job I end up with you say you despise.’

‘Nay, I don’t despise it,’ his father said, slowly, looking round. ‘There’s only muck attached to my job,’ he added. ‘Muck, and more muck, and sweat, and cursing, the like of which you never heard. We educated you for your job. We got you out of this.’

‘Why dismiss it?’ he said again. ‘What pride can I have in it if it’s something you despise?’