David Storey - Saville

‘As safe as houses,’ Stephens said. He rode away, quaint and strangely child-like on the large machine.

‘I suppose I should have gone with him,’ he said, watching the abrupt way Stephens drove off.

‘Weren’t you both at school together?’ Callow said.

‘Yes,’ he said. The bike, seemingly riderless from a distance, disappeared beyond the pit.

The three of them walked on down the hill in silence.

‘I suppose you’ve heard about Neville,’ Thornton said as they reached the stop at the bottom; he was taking a bus in the opposite direction and had paused at the side of the road before crossing.

‘No.’ Colin looked across at the fair-haired man: he had the same carelessness, almost the same ‘glamour’, as Stafford himself.

‘He’s got engaged. His mother and father, I believe, are in a hell of a can. He goes up to Oxford, you see, quite shortly. They believe he’s chucking everything away.’

‘But then, that’s just like Stafford,’ Colin said.

‘Is it?’ Thornton looked at him again, freshly, then shook his head. ‘I’ve never known Neville to be careless,’ he said. ‘He’s always seemed a schemer to me,’ and as if this might have sounded too hard, he added, ‘Not a schemer, but doing things by calculation.’

‘Who is this Neville?’ Callow said. He watched the groups of children who passed them in the road: away from the school there was a strange sense of disowning those to whom, in the school, they might have been close. Only one or two children signalled any acknowledgment.

‘Oh, he’s quite a card, really,’ Thornton said, yet casually, as if he knew of no way of communicating his impression of Stafford to the other man. ‘Excels at everything he does.’

‘That doesn’t sound so cardish,’ Callow said. He grimaced at the passing children and looked away.

‘Well, he has excelled, I suppose, at most things,’ Thornton said. ‘I don’t know who the girl is. Not someone whom his parents are particularly fond of.’

‘Yes,’ Callow said and might have added something else only he grimaced once more at the passing children and with much the same expression glanced away.

‘Will he give up Oxford?’ Colin said.

‘Oh, I don’t suppose so. Neville gives up most things, but only as a prelude, usually, to his taking them on. He was saying at one time he might stay on in the forces. Had himself marked out as a major by the time he’d finished. I suppose’, Thornton added, reflectively, ‘he’d make a success of it. The thing about Neville, if he puts his mind to it, he can do anything, I reckon.’ He glanced down the road. ‘Well, here’s my bus.’ He waved, ran over and joined the queue of children.

‘I hear you do writing,’ Callow said. His pale face had darkened slightly, as if he’d mentioned something which concerned, or hurt him, very much.

‘Not really. No.’

‘Oh, I heard it,’ he said, casually, yet relieved. ‘Thornton mentioned it.’ He looked round him at the village, the rows of terraces running up the hill, at the dull declivity beneath them, shadowed by the pit. ‘Relieves the gloom.’

‘Do you find it gloomy?’ Colin said.

‘Not really. But then I’m not as hopeful as you.’

‘Hopeful?’ Colin glanced at the other man and laughed.

‘Oh, I’ve had quite a few years. Not just of this,’ He gestured off up the slope to the low, silhouetted profile of the school. ‘One or two others. If you didn’t have something else I think you’d go quite mad.’

‘But then, I thought you were reconciled,’ Colin said. ‘I mean, to teaching here, or to places like it.’

‘Do you feel reconciled?’ Callow said.

‘No.’

‘I mean,’ Callow said, returning briefly to his earlier, darker look, ‘do you envisage staying here for good?’

He shook his head; something of the bleakness of the place, something of the bleakness of Callow, gripped him: he sensed a disillusionment in Callow which hid some profounder discontent. He couldn’t be sure in that instant what it was.

‘You’re young, you’re hopeful, you’ve got it all before you,’ the older teacher said. He appeared, visibly, to shrink before him: the corduroy coat, even the square-shaped cut of his hair, suggested a hardness, a firmness, even a physical robustness and mental pugnacity which the manner of the man himself denied.

A bus came down towards the stop. Callow flinched as its shadow fell across him.

‘Are you getting on?’ Colin said as he moved up in the queue.

‘No. I walk.’

‘Do you live close by?’

‘I have relations who do. I visit them occasionally.’

It sounded like some excuse he’d made up on the spot; as it was, on an evening, Colin had seldom seen him in the queue.

‘See you tomorrow,’ Callow said and, without any further acknowledgment, moved quickly off.

He saw the corduroy-coated teacher frequently over the next few weeks. Though they never caught the same bus – and he never discovered where he lived, or even if he were married – they often walked down the hill together. The evening after their first encounter, when he was waiting for Stephens by the gate, his friend had cruised up on the motor-bike and, his scarf already lowered, said, ‘I won’t, in future, give you a lift, if you don’t mind.’

‘I was wrong to refuse, I know,’ he said.

‘If there are people who interest you more, and you see me merely as a convenience, clearly there’s no point in my putting myself out,’ he added.

‘It’s entirely up to you,’ he said.

‘I suppose Thornton was talking about Stafford.’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘He told me he was. I mean, I asked him,’ Stephens said. ‘Apparently he’s marrying your former girl.’

‘He didn’t tell me that,’ he said.

‘I made inquiries.’ He revved the engine; a cloud of blue smoke rose steadily between them. ‘I’d have nothing to do with those bastards if I were you.’

‘What bastards?’

‘King Edward bastards. They screwed me up and they’ve screwed up you.’

He said nothing for a moment

‘You can have a lift if you like,’ he said. ‘I’ve had a bad day.’ He leaned down and lowered the foot-rests for him.

Colin got on: they cruised down the hill. When Colin got off Stephens added, ‘I’d give it up, only I’ve nothing else to do.’

‘Why don’t you go abroad?’ he said.

‘Abroad?’ He revved the engine once again, almost as if willing the bike at that moment to take him. ‘Why don’t you?’

‘I’m helping out the family,’ he said.

‘I’m helping out the family,’ Stephens said. ‘But should families pin you down for ever?’

‘I owe them something,’ he said.

‘Oh, debts are never meant to be paid. I owe debts to everybody,’ Stephens said. ‘I’d be a damn fool, and they’d think I’m a damn fool, if I ever attempted to pay them.’

‘Isn’t there such a thing as loyalty?’ he said.

‘To what?’

Stephens waited for an answer.

‘The only loyalty is to oneself,’ he added.

Colin looked away. Farther up the hill he could see Callow and Thornton descending: the taller man had waved.

‘Oh, well, I’ll leave you to your friends,’ Stephens said and without adding anything further drove away.

‘Was he cheesed?’ Thornton said. ‘About last night.’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Apparently Neville’s fiancée was once your friend.’

‘Apparently,’ he said.

‘I suppose I’ll be seeing him soon. The fact is, when I go in, he’s suggested I should join his regiment. I don’t know how easily these things are arranged. If they can be arranged, I’m sure he’ll manage it.’ He waved his hand without adding anything further and ran across the road as his bus appeared.