David Storey - Saville

‘Colin came in. We were sitting here. You can ask her parents. She’s on the phone. I have her number.’

‘Nay,’ his father said. ‘I mu’n not drag other people in. Particularly if you’ve been as daft as that. What should I say if he rang her up?’

‘Just ask her what Colin said.’ He gazed now at Colin directly.

‘She must have misheard him,’ his father said. ‘And I don’t agree with you bringing her here, in any case. No matter what you think.’

‘But he’s lied about it,’ Steven said.

‘Nay, you mustn’t have heard properly,’ his father said, stubbornly, and wheeling out his bike.

‘Well, I s’ll never stay here again, in that case,’ Steven said.

‘You will stay,’ his father said. ‘You’ll stay right now.’

‘Nay, I shall never,’ Steven said: he stood over his father, his face flushed. They had never seen him in this mood before.

‘Tha should have clattered his lug for him,’ his father said, suddenly, viciously, and gestured at Colin.

‘I don’t want to fight him,’ Steven said.

‘Nay, but tha mu’n not come complaining to us, then,’ his father said. He pulled on his coat; he shouldered his bag. Having wheeled the bike out to the yard he set his lamps.

‘I s’ll not forgive you,’ Steven said, turning to Colin. ‘Having lied about it, you see, as well.’

‘Tha’ll stay, in any road,’ his father said. ‘I’ll not have you sleeping out at somebody’s house.’

‘I don’t want to stay here any longer,’ Steven said.

‘Nay, tha s’ll have to,’ his father said.

He gazed in at them a moment longer; he was darkened from the holiday; his expression was hidden beneath the neb of his cap: it was, with his smallness, like a child gazing in at the door of the house.

‘Think on,’ he said, gazing in a moment longer, staring at his mother, then, mounting his bike, he rode away.

‘I don’t want to come back to sleep here,’ Steven said. ‘I don’t want to live here with him in the house.’

‘Nay, don’t go on with it,’ his mother said. ‘You’ll have forgotten all about it in the morning.’

‘No, I s’ll never forget it,’ Steven said, quietly, taking off his coat. ‘I s’ll never forget it, Mother. And I s’ll never forget’, he added, ‘you giving in to it.’

‘I haven’t given in to it,’ his mother said.

‘Then ring up the Blakeleys and ask them. They live in the village,’ Steven said.

‘I’ll do no such thing,’ his mother said.

‘No,’ he said. ‘And I know why.’

‘Oh, and why should that be?’ his mother said.

‘You know it’s true. He’s poisoned all of us.’

‘How can you say such a thing?’ his mother said.

‘How can you let him get away with it, Mother?’ Steven said. ‘He’s lied about it and I s’ll never forgive him.’

He went up to his room where Richard was sleeping.

‘ Did you say something to him?’ his mother said as they listened to Steven’s movements above their heads.

‘No,’ he said.

‘You must have said something.’

‘I said he shouldn’t have been in the house,’ he said. ‘Not with a girl alone; not if he respected her.’

‘And that’s all you said to him?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

His mother turned away; there was a strange silence in the house: she stooped to the fire.

‘Perhaps you should have left it to him to decide. If that’s what in fact you said to him,’ she said.

‘Why? What else could I have said to him?’ he asked her.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, and added, ‘But Steven never lies.’

‘Doesn’t he?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘He never needs to.’

‘That’s all you know about it, then.’

‘Why are you so bitter, Colin?’ she said. ‘You were never bitter before. But I suppose I know the reason,’ she added.

‘There is no reason; and it’s not bitterness,’ he said.

‘Isn’t it?’ she said.

She turned to the door.

‘I’m going up,’ she added. ‘If you’re staying down put out the light.’

‘Mother,’ he said, but when she turned to him he added, ‘Shall I kiss you good night?’

‘Good night,’ she said.

He kissed her cheek.

‘Why are things as they are?’ he said.

‘I don’t know what you’re trying to turn everything into,’ she said.

‘I’m trying to be good,’ he said.

‘Are you?’

‘But not goodness as you would know it. Not goodness in inverted commas.’

‘What goodness is in inverted commas?’ she said.

‘Steven’s goodness.’

‘I should leave Steven alone,’ she said. ‘He’s never meant you any harm.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘That’s what I mean. It can’t do him any good at all.’

His mother closed her eyes.

‘I don’t know where I am any more,’ he said. ‘I feel that it’s something new that I’m living, but I don’t understand it any more,’ he added.

‘Oh, I should leave things for a while,’ she said. ‘And leave Steven. I can’t stand these arguments,’ she added. ‘I thought, with a holiday, we’d all have been better.’

He heard her going to bed; he sat by the fire.

A few moments later there was a sound by the stairs.

Steven came in: he was in his pyjamas. He picked up his jacket which was lying on a chair, folded it over his arm and went back to the door.

‘Why did you lie about it, Colin?’ he said.

‘I haven’t lied,’ he said.

Steven gazed in at him a moment longer; it was as if some terrible truth had dawned in him. His eyes widened: they took in the reflected glare of the fire.

‘Why did you come whining, in any case?’ he added.

‘No. I can see. I shouldn’t have come back at all,’ he said.

‘Why, what are you frightened of?’ Colin said.

He gazed directly at his brother who, in his pyjamas, caught in the doorway, appeared now like a little boy.

‘I s’ll leave as soon as I’ve got a job,’ he said. ‘I’ll see about getting one tomorrow.’ He closed the door.

The sound of his feet came slowly from the stairs, then his mother’s voice calling, then the creaking of the bed.

He dreamt of Andrew; he was first older than him, then suddenly younger; he was standing at a window, gazing in; then he was walking away along a road and he ran calling, ‘Andrew, Andrew,’ and when he didn’t turn he called, ‘Steve! Steve!’ and saw the figure’s face: it was, dreamily, abstracted, that of his younger brother.

‘Oh, I have come from a promised land

Which young men love and women can’t stand:

There’s whiskey and money both growing on trees,

And the only policemen come up to your knees.’

The children laughed.

‘Any more, sir?’ a boy had said.

‘Oh, when I am old

And my feet turn cold,

And my thoughts have turned to jelly,

I’ll sit by the fire

And smoke my briar

And tickle my fat old…’

‘Belly!’ the class had said in a single voice.

‘There’s a man in the moon

With a chocolate spoon

And eyeballs made of custard,

When he eats his tea

He sits like me

And peppers his rhubarb with mustard.’

They laughed again, freshly, gazing at him in admiration.

‘Simon Brown was a man with a frown

And eyes as black as charcoal:

He wouldn’t have looked bad

If he hadn’t have had

A mouth in the shape of his… elbow.’

‘Sir!’ the children said. A fresh peal of laughter broke out across the room.

‘Though what I have in mind’, he said, ‘is something far different. I thought if we listened to the music you could write down whatever you felt.’