David Storey - Saville

‘Nay,’ his father said. ‘I s’ll teach him myself.’

‘With a trained teacher in the house?’

‘Is he in the house? And is he trained? He’s never here on an evening, and if he’s trained for ought I’d say it wa’ shouting.’

Yet the argument on this occasion petered out. It was one of many similar arguments that broke out now almost every night, but particularly at week-ends: there was a delicacy about Richard which inspired his mother’s protectiveness and brought out a concern in his father which he had seldom shown before. Colin came home each evening from school as he might to a prison: he dreaded the street, he dreaded the houses, he dreaded the pit; the village was like a hole in the ground. In the winter all he was aware of was its greyness, the soot, the perpetual cloud of smoke, the smell of sulphur, the stench which penetrated to every corner of every room, which infected clothes and, seemingly, the brick and stone: no one could escape it. The village was derelict; it was like a wreck, cast up in the wilderness of the fields and on the shores of that ever-growing heap.

Most evenings, if he could, he delayed coming home at all; he would walk with Callow to his relative’s house, leaving him at the door, at the end of a tiny terrace street, or ride into town on the back of Stephens’s bike. He would walk in the streets, more lost now, amongst such familiar places, than he’d ever been before. There was a wilfulness in his isolation; all the time, despite his longing, he was anchored to the village. On several occasions he walked the twelve miles home, arriving late in the evening or the early hours of the morning, his steps as he approached the village growing increasingly slower, coming over the final rise and gazing down, past the church, at the glow of the pit and the rising eddies of steam and smoke, the bleakness of the lamp-lit streets, and wondering even then, despite the three-hour walk, whether he might not turn round and walk back again. There was nothing to come back to.

‘If you feel so fond of the place why go on living here?’ his father said. ‘Tha mu’n find a room. There must be summat, the money thy earns.’

‘I don’t earn all that much,’ he said.

‘Nay, I don’t know how much you do earn,’ his father would say. ‘But it’s more than I do for doing half as much.’

‘It’s less than you earn.’

‘Not if you reckon it by the hour.’

‘In any case,’ he said, ‘I’ve looked.’

‘Aye,’ his father said, ‘and where would we be? It’s the first chance we’ve had to buy summat good.’

A new three-piece suite, the deposit paid down as a result of his first month’s salary, now occupied the room; a new dining-table had recently followed it; there were plans to put linoleum on the floor. His father was thinking of buying a better wireless. ‘These are things that we deserve,’ he said. ‘We need these things. It’s what we’ve struggled for together.’

‘It’s prostitution,’ Colin said.

His father balked; he gazed at him with a sudden fury.

‘What’s prostitution?’ His two brothers who’d been listening raised their heads; his mother, too, had turned from the fire.

‘Hiring me out.’

‘Hiring who out?’

‘Me out.’

‘You’re not hired out to ought.’

‘It’s supposed to be enlightenment I’ve acquired, not learning how to make a better living.’

‘It’s both. I thought it would have been both,’ his mother said.

‘But how can it be? The one is in conflict with the other. The one’s opposed to the other,’ Colin said.

‘Nay,’ his father said disowningly. ‘This man is a mystery to me.’

And later, when his father had gone to work and his two brothers were in bed, his mother had said, ‘How can it be hiring out? Don’t you want us to have any of these things?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘Don’t you want your brothers to take advantage of the progress you’ve been able to make?’

The light, glistening on her spectacles, concealed her expression.

‘But it’s all shaping us towards an end, it’s propaganda,’ he said. ‘I don’t fancy seeing Richard going through all I’ve gone through. Not to come out of it like this.’

‘Like what? Like what ?’ she said desperately. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘To conditioning more people like himself into doing what he ’s had to do,’ he said.

‘But what he’s doing, what you’ve done, is a privilege,’ she said.

‘To who?’

‘To you.’

‘Nay, it takes our best qualities and turns them into something else.’

‘You’ve changed,’ she said, bitterly, ‘and I suppose I know why.’

‘I don’t see it as a change, I see it more as a realization,’ he said.

‘Nay, you’ve changed. I hate to see it,’ and a moment later she added, ‘I hate to see you taking it out on us.’

‘I’m taking it out on no one,’ he said.

‘What about Steve? What about Richard? What about your father?’

‘I’m doing all I can for you,’ he said.

‘Doing all you can to disillusion us.’

‘Not to disillusion. To make you see.’

‘See? See what?’ She gazed at him bleakly.

That Easter he had given them money to go away on a holiday, his mother and father together; they’d gone for a week. It was the first time they’d been alone together for over twenty years. He stayed at home to look after Steven and Richard.

‘No arguing, and no fighting,’ his father had said. Colin had seen them off at the station, carrying down their case. There’d been a sudden reconciliation between them: he kissed his mother goodbye and shook his father’s hand; it was as if his parents were going off for good.

A few days later he had come home from school to find Steven in the house: he was sitting with a girl in front of the fire; some tea had been made; the pots were on the table; the fire itself was almost out.

‘Well, then, our Colin,’ his brother had said. ‘This is Claire.’

‘What’s she doing here?’ he said.

‘Nay, she’s visiting,’ his brother said. His mood was amiable, unconstrained: he’d been sitting in his shirt-sleeves with his arm laid casually around the girl’s shoulder.

The girl was small and dark: she stood up quickly when he came in the room.

‘Does she realize your mother and father aren’t here?’

‘Nay, I suppose she does,’ his brother said. There was no rancour in his voice: he gazed at the girl with a smile. She had flushed and gone to the table as if to clear it.

‘And does she reckon it’s all right,’ he added, ‘coming here alone?’

‘Nay, she’s not alone,’ his brother said. ‘She’s here with me. I’m here,’ he added, ‘if you hadn’t noticed.’

The girl had laughed; she glanced away.

‘Do her parents know she’s here alone?’

‘Nay, are you going to dot me one, Colin?’ his brother said: he took up a casual pose, as if for a fight.

As it was, since their previous fight, scarcely any mention subsequently had been made of it; to some extent it was as if it had never taken place. Fights in any case frequently occurred in the field or the yards, sometimes between neighbours, sometimes between sons, or sons and fathers; in that sense, he supposed, theirs hadn’t been any different.

‘I just wondered what her parents would think. Her coming here alone.’

‘Nay, they’d suppose she was a bit of a flirt. Which you are, then, aren’t you, Claire?’ his brother said; he ran his hand casually against her cheek.

‘Oh, well, I’d better go,’ the girl had said. She looked round for her coat.

‘Nay, I’m damned if thy’ll leave,’ his brother said. ‘Tha’s only just come. We’ve just had tea.’