David Storey - Saville

‘Oh, I don’t think things are as black as that,’ he said.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I suppose they aren’t. Not really.’

She came to the house that afternoon. At first he thought she must have come on the bus, then he realized that none could have come to the village from the direction of the town for at least the past half hour, and imagined then she must have been dropped off at the end of the street by Stafford.

His mother, after offering to make a cup of tea, went out of the kitchen, closing the door.

Margaret sat at the table, the bunch of flowers she’d brought before her, her coat folded on a chair. Colin finally took the kettle from the fire, assuming his mother wasn’t coming back, and made some tea.

She scarcely drank it, the cup before her, talking lightly now about her holiday, the French coast, the crossing to Dieppe, the friend’s house she’d stayed at.

He found a jug for the flowers and put them in.

‘Is Stafford still about?’ he said as he set the flowers back on the table.

‘I think he went back yesterday,’ she said.

‘How did you get here?’ he said.

‘I came on the bus.’ She glanced across, fingering the cup. ‘I walked around for a bit as a matter of fact.’

‘In the village?’

‘I went up near the church.’

He stood at the table, gazing down at her slight figure, the thin features tanned with the sun, the delicate hands as they traced a pattern now on the edge of the cup.

‘Would you like to go for a walk?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ll get my coat.’

He went through to the passage. His mother was sitting in the room at the front, upright, her shoulders straight, gazing out to the street, the light reflecting from her glasses.

‘We’re just going out for a walk,’ he said.

‘All right,’ she said, distantly now, suddenly remote.

‘I’ve made some tea.’

‘All right,’ she said again.

‘Will you be all right on your own for a bit?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You go out, love.’

Margaret was waiting in the door. They walked across the backs.

‘People really are poor here, aren’t they?’ she said, looking in the open doors.

Only when seeing it with her eyes did he notice the broken doors, the blackened inside walls, the smears of grease and dirt around the switches, the latches, the bare tracts of earth and ash, the crumbling brickwork, the rusted drains and pipes. Periodically, in the past, attempts had been made to renovate the houses, areas of new brick had been inserted, new mortar, a concrete path laid down; in a matter of weeks the soot and smoke had absorbed them within the texture of the old.

‘It’s good of you to be able to come at all,’ he said. He took her hand; they went down the alleyway to the street outside.

They walked in silence then, turning along the road that led past the Dell, past the deserted colliery on the slope the other side, then crossing the railway in its cutting. The station was visible at its farthest end.

Behind them, smoke swirled down from the colliery, filtering out in a broad, thin cloud across the fields. The day was grey, the sky heavy.

They turned along a path that led from the road to a tract of woodland. It stretched away to their right, the ground slowly rising, the foot of the slope marked by a broad declivity in the bed of which lay a shallow lake. Odd pine trees grew from the sandy shore, one end of the lake blocked by a stone parapet, its other petering out into marsh and swamp. Cattle stood knee deep along the edge of the water.

They walked along the stone parapet which formed a wall. Shoals of tiny fish weaved amongst the strands of weed and debris floating on the surface. Beyond, the path led up towards the wood.

A fire was burning in a clearing. A thin trail of blue smoke drifted off from a pile of blackened wood. A log, half-hollowed out by an axe, lay beside it.

Colin crouched by the fire. He blew the embers. Soon flames licked up amongst the pieces of wood.

Margaret sat on the log. She gazed off, vacantly, between the trees. The thin, light-grey patch of water showed up between the branches. From some way off, in the cutting, came the panting of an engine and somewhere, closer, at the top of the wood, the barking of a dog.

‘Will you be seeing Stafford again?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she said. She still gazed off towards the lake.

He put fresh pieces of wood on the fire.

‘Is he still going overseas?’ he said.

‘He doesn’t think so now.’

‘Even then, I suppose it’ll be difficult seeing him,’ he said.

‘I suppose it might be.’ She waited, looking down towards the fire. ‘He might get a posting near to the university.’

‘I suppose that would solve the problem, then.’

‘Yes,’ she said, gazing now directly at the flames. They flicked up around the pieces of wood, fresh smoke trailing off amongst the trees.

He got up slowly and for a moment stood gazing down at the fire himself.

‘I’m sorry it’s happened like this,’ she said.

‘You can’t help these things happening,’ he said.

‘No,’ she said, and added, ‘I wouldn’t have believed it though, before.’

‘If you go back now you’ll be in time for the bus,’ he said.

She got up from the log.

They walked separately between the trees.

‘Did you write to Stafford while you were away?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she said, then added, ‘first of all he wrote to me.’

‘I suppose I ought to write to him as well,’ he said.

‘I don’t think’, she said, ‘there’s any need.’ She added, ‘He didn’t even want me to come today.’

‘Why not?’ he said.

They’d come to the edge of the wood; the path stretched away, past the lake, to the tall hedges lining the road leading to the village.

‘He thought I might change my mind. Seeing you again, I mean.’

‘He doesn’t know you very well,’ he said.

‘No. Perhaps he doesn’t.’

‘Do your parents know about it, then?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘In a way I suppose they do. They said for you to come out, to the house, I mean. If you ever felt like it. They’d like to see you.’

He walked ahead. He held back the branches when they reached the road so she could climb the fence.

‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have come,’ she said.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you did.’

They walked back slowly through the village.

‘It’ll all seem strange, now you won’t be coming again.’ He gestured round. ‘As if the heart’s been taken out of it.’

‘I think I should have written, after all,’ she said.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t have borne it if you hadn’t come.’

He waited with her for the bus. She watched his face. When the bus finally came he saw her on to it then walked away, turning finally at the last moment to see it leave. He wasn’t sure which was her face at the windows, but he waved, slowly, as it drew out of the village, and went on waiting after it had disappeared, anticipating seeing her coming back, along the road, having got off at the stop beyond.

No one came down the road, however, and after waiting by the pub yard for some time he set off back towards the house.

His mother was in the kitchen with his two brothers when he got back in. Some tea was being set out on the table, the flowers still there in the jug, the plates and the cups arranged around it. A place had been set for Margaret and himself.

He went up to his room.

His mother came up after a little while. She held a cup in a saucer, very much like the one he had brought up to her earlier in the afternoon.

She stood in the doorway of the narrow room, gazing down, blindly, to where he lay on the bed.