David Storey - Saville

‘“Aut vincere aut mori”,’ he read.

‘Sithee, he must have thought a lot to give you that,’ his father said, gazing at the chain. ‘He was a fine sport, was Bryan. In a better world than this he’d have had a grander life.’

‘So would we all,’ his mother said.

‘Nay,’ his father said. ‘But him especially. He could spot a poet. He had an eye. And he always stood up for his opinions.’

‘Yes, he was a grand neighbour, I suppose,’ his mother said, getting out her handkerchief to wipe her eyes.

Two weeks later Mrs Reagan was taken ill herself. She went away to hospital; his mother went to visit her. Mrs Reagan however had already left the hospital and had been taken into a mental institution.

‘I can’t understand it, she was standing in that door a few days ago,’ his father said, more shocked by this than he had been by Reagan’s death. ‘I talked to her in the street a day or two after. Why, I even went to the funeral with her. She was as right as rain I thought after that.’

‘Nay, but she idolized him,’ his mother said. ‘She put him on a pedestal and thought he could do no wrong.’

‘Well, there’s no danger of that happening in this house,’ his father said. ‘No danger of that, I should say, at all.’

For a few days Michael wasn’t seen by anyone; then, one evening, the lights were on in all the rooms: a car stood at the door. The sound of music and laughter came from the house.

The following afternoon, with the curtains still drawn, three men emerged; they stood in the tiny garden, blinking in the sun, then finally climbed over the fence and sat in the field. A little later, white-faced, as if he’d just wakened, Michael joined them; he climbed over the fence with some difficulty and, to the three men’s laughter, stumbled in the grass the other side.

‘Nay, they look a dissolute lot,’ his mother said. ‘Poor Michael. His mother would go mad if she was here to see it.’

‘She has gone mad,’ his father said, standing at the door and gazing out with interest at the noisy group: they were wrestling with one another and Michael, his white arms visible, was endeavouring to join in.

The men came again the following week-end; occasionally, too, they came odd weekdays. Sometimes a fourth figure, a woman, joined them. The Shaws complained about the noise: Michael, in his shirt-sleeves, holding a bottle, the laughing group behind him, stood in the yard struggling to apologize.

On odd evenings other groups of two or three men, and occasionally the woman, re-appeared: Michael went away for over a fortnight. Stories came back of him being glimpsed in neighbouring towns, once of being arrested.

Nevertheless, when he finally re-appeared, he was dressed in a suit; he wore a trilby hat; a scarf was knotted loosely round his neck.

‘I think his mother must have left him summat,’ his father said. ‘Some sort of inheritance she’s scraped together. He’s got his hands on it, I think, a bit too soon. Do you think I ought to go and talk to him?’

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

‘Nay, I owe it to Bryan. He was a good friend to me,’ his father said. And one evening, when he knew Michael was in, he went across.

He came back an hour later.

‘Dost know, I don’t think I’ve ever been in their house,’ he said. ‘And now I have been I wish I hadn’t.’

He sat pale-faced, half-trembling, beside the fire.

‘He’s sold every stick of furniture,’ his father added. ‘There’s nothing in that house but a chair and a bed. He must have taken it out at night. “Nay, Michael,” I said, “dost think your mother’s going to like all this?” Do you know what he said? “My mother’ll never see it again.” I said, “Even if she isn’t, and I hope she is, she’d scarce like to think of you living here like this.” “I like living here like this,” he said. “You don’t have to worry.” Don’t have to worry!’ His father shook his head. ‘“Nay, Michael,” I told him, “we worry about you because we knew your father, and we’ve known you”, I told him, “nearly all your life.” “Oh, I can take care of myself, Mr Saville,” he said. “It’s the first time, after all, I’ve had the chance.”’ His father wiped his eyes. ‘You know how his mother kept that house: cleaner even than Mrs Bletchley’s. Cleaner even than Mrs Shaw’s.’

‘Well, this house has never been dirty,’ his mother said.

‘Not dirty, but it’s always been lived in,’ his father said.

‘Well this house is as clean as anyone ’s,’ his mother said.

‘But not morbidly clean, now is it?’ his father said, distressed to have to argue with his mother like this.

‘Well, I’m sorry to hear he’s made such a mess of it,’ his mother said, yet grieved that her own efforts in this direction had gone uncohsidered.

‘Nay, I damn well wish I’d never gone,’ his father said. ‘I should have kept my nose clean out of it.’

Colin met Reagan one evening in the street; he was wearing not only a suit, but a spotted bow-tie, and he carried a cane: his trilby hat was missing. His hair, which was longer now than it had ever been, fell down in a single greased swathe at the back of his neck.

‘Hi, Colin,’ he said, waving the cane casually and having crossed the street to greet him. A smell of scent came from his figure. His eyes were dark; they glared at him with a peculiar intensity; his forehead shone, his cheeks were sallow; a tooth was missing from the front of his mouth. ‘How have you been?’ he added. ‘I hear you’ve finished teaching.’

‘Not quite,’ he said.

‘Come into town one night and have a drink.’

‘Where do you usually go?’ he said.

‘Oh, any amount of spots. Not the Assembly Rooms, I can tell you that.’ He tapped the cane casually against his foot: there was some absurd parody evident in his dress, some grotesque misappliance of his father’s fastidiousness and style.

‘Are you working at present?’ he said.

‘Oh, I have one or two things,’ he said. ‘I’ve joined a band, on a wholly voluntary basis. I don’t do much.’

‘How do you make a living?’ he said.

‘Oh,’ Michael said airily, ‘there are ways and means,’ and, as he moved off towards his darkened house, he added, ‘Remember now: I’ll hold you to that drink.’

It was in fact several evenings later that he met him again; they were both converging on the city centre. Michael had evidently been upstairs on the bus, and must have been already there when he’d got on himself in the village.

‘I say,’ Reagan said, ‘are you up here for the night?’

‘I’m meeting a friend,’ he said, and indicated the hunched shape of Stephens waiting by a shop.

Michael took one look at Stephens and glanced away. ‘Well, see you,’ he said casually and raised his hand. He carried no cane; he was dressed in a raincoat with a turned-up collar, his head looking even larger than usual beneath his trilby hat. ‘Do you see Belcher these days?’ he added.

‘No,’ he said.

‘Maybe one day we should get together.’ Yet he was already moving across the road and some other remark he made was lost.

‘Who was that remarkable-looking object?’ Stephens said.

‘A friend.’

‘He looks like an attenuated version of Humphrey Bogart,’ Stephens added from his own diminutive height and still gazing with amazement at the disappearing figure which, even from a distance, was conspicuous amongst the evening crowds. ‘What does he do?’

‘Nothing at present.’

‘Good God,’ he said. ‘Another like you.’

‘Oh, I’ve still got one or two weeks,’ he said.

‘Freewheeling, though. Freewheeling,’ Stephens said.