David Storey - Saville

They got out at the bus stop and the driver stayed behind the wheel. They had to get the case out themselves; Colin held the door for his mother.

‘We ought to have paid it,’ she said. ‘This once.’

‘I would have done,’ he said. ‘I didn’t like him, that’s all. I’m damned if I’m going to pay all that to somebody like him. I’ll walk back if you like and get another.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘We’ll get the bus.’

She held the baby to her, occasionally looking down into its face, shielded by a fold of the shawl.

‘We should have had that ambulance,’ his father said. ‘I pay all that every week into the Hospital Fund and we can’t even get an ambulance.’

‘Oh, you don’t know,’ his mother said. ‘I’ve been looking forward to the ride.’

In the bus he sat behind his mother and father, his mother’s case in the locker by the door.

Occasionally they turned round to glance at him. ‘Are you all right?’ his father said.

He nodded, his hands clenched in his pockets.

‘You ask Mrs Shaw: he’s been a good lad while you’ve been away,’ he said.

The other passengers in the bus turned round to smile, stooping down whenever they got off to look under the fold of the shawl.

‘He’s a lovely one,’ the woman said. ‘What is he, then, a girl or a boy?’

‘A boy,’ his father told them, looking down at the face himself.

‘He makes enough row, I suppose, for a lad.’

‘Oh, enough’, his father said, ‘to be going on with.’

When they reached the village his father sprang off the bus, whistling, lifting down the case, calling out to the conductress and looking round.

As they walked down the street the women came to the doors and his mother stopped, pulling back the shawl from the baby’s face.

‘He’s after his dinner,’ the women said. ‘We better not keep him.’

‘Aye, another bloody mouth,’ his father said.

Colin walked behind them to the door, carrying the case, setting it down when they stopped, looking off down the street, still feeling strange at having his best suit on on a week-day.

At the door his father said, ‘You mu’n never mind the mess,’ putting the key in the lock. ‘Just sit yourself down and I’ll make some tea.’

He put the kettle on the fire which he had stoked up before they left. On the table he began to get out the pots and the teapot.

‘I can’t tell you,’ his mother said. ‘It’s so good to be back.’

She sat gazing round at the kitchen, her eyes shining, her cheeks still flushed.

‘I better get this seen to,’ she said, talking to the baby, making sounds into its face then taking off its shawl. Its legs were tiny and curled up, red like its face from crying. ‘Now then, what do you think to your new home?’ she asked it.

Its colour deepened and it cried more loudly, its face disappearing in folds and wrinkles. His father had taken it from her while his mother took off her coat. She sat down then by the fire and took the baby back, calling to it, and began to unfasten her dress.

‘Here,’ his father said, ‘run down to the shops and fetch us some cigarettes.’

‘He doesn’t have to go,’ his mother said.

‘Nay,’ he said. ‘I’ve run out and I’m dying for a smoke. You can buy a bar of chocolate for yourself.’

Colin went out with the half-crown his father had given him clutched in his hand. It was still hot from his father’s pocket.

It was almost lunch-time. The street was deserted. From the colliery came the soft panting of the winding engine and the voice of a tradesman calling from a cart.

His shoes squeaked in the silence and in the window of the shop at the next corner he caught a glimpse of his figure, the dark suit, its trousers ending at his knees, his stockings pulled up beneath his knee-caps and folded over, his neatly brushed hair.

‘How’s it feel, then, to have a baby in the house?’ the man in the shop had said. He was cutting up a piece of cheese with a wire, his tongue sticking out between his teeth.

‘Thy’ll have to teach it a trick or two. How to stand up and brush its hair.’

‘Yes,’ he said, taking the cigarettes.

‘Nay, have it on me,’ the man said as he made to pay for the chocolate. ‘It’s not every day it happens.’

He walked back slowly along the street, eating the chocolate, then putting most of it away in his pocket. He wondered if they would want him back so soon and for a while stood on the kerb kicking his shoe in the dust.

From the school he heard the bell ring for lunch and a moment later, from behind the houses, came the roar of voices of those children who were going home.

He waited until they crossed the end of the street, running and shouting, then he went on towards his door.

Mrs Shaw was leaving the house as he entered.

‘You must be feeling proud,’ she said. ‘A lad like that in the family.’

‘Yes,’ he said.

His father was in the kitchen, pouring out some tea.

‘It’ll make all his waiting seem worthwhile,’ Mrs Shaw said from the door.

‘It will that.’ His father nodded.

She ruffled his hair and said, ‘We’ll miss having you, I can tell you. It’s been like having one of your own.’

‘Aye,’ his father said. ‘We’re very grateful to you.’

‘What with the garden dug and him cleaning my brasses.’

His father nodded, laughing.

‘He can get stuck into our garden now,’ he said. ‘These last few weeks it’s gone to ruin.’

‘Ah, well,’ she said. ‘You’re all back now, thank God, and a re-united family.’

‘Aye,’ his father said. ‘We’ve a lot to thank Him for.’

When Mrs Shaw had gone his father put one of the cups of tea on a saucer with a biscuit and went to the stairs.

‘I’ll just take this up,’ he said. ‘Then we’ll see what we have for dinner.’

‘Is my mother coming down?’ he said.

‘Aye,’ his father said. ‘When she’s finished.’

He sat in the kitchen, gazing out at the overgrown garden and the shelter. Overhead he heard his father’s steps then his voice followed by his mother’s.

At the colliery a buzzer sounded.

He put the cigarettes on the table. At the end of the garden, between it and the back yards of the next street, was a narrow field. It opened out on one side on to farm fields and at the other was enclosed by the converging houses. Several children were playing, waiting for their dinners, jumping in and out of a hole.

When he went out he shouted to them, trying to avoid the patches of clay and soil either side of the path.

‘Hey,’ he said from the fence. ‘We’ve got a baby.’

‘What’s that?’ they said.

He indicated the house behind.

‘What is it?’ they said.

‘A boy.’

They jumped back into the hole, disappearing a moment then suddenly climbing out, running off down the field then back again, their arms stretched out. Every now and again they made a stuttering noise in their throats.

He stood watching them for a while, holding the railings.

Then, his hands in his pockets, he turned back to the house.

Across the yards a woman was hanging out washing. She stood on her toes, reaching up to the line.

‘Is you mother back?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ he said and nodded.

‘What colour’s its eyes?’

‘Blue,’ he said.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘Just like his father’s.’

When he went in his father was stoking up the fire.

‘Now, then, let’s see about some dinner,’ he said, stooping down and setting the pans against the flames.

The boys he played with were slightly older than himself. Some of them already wore long flannels. Their leader, when he wasn’t in hospital or didn’t feel too tired to come out, was a boy called Batty. He was very tall and had bright red hair. It was because of his height that he was always having trouble with his feet. They stuck out sideways and when he ran his legs were flicked out sideways too, his knees knocking against one another and causing him such discomfort that usually when he was out playing he spent most of his time calling to the others, ‘Hey, come on. Let’s walk.’ He was sometimes called Walkie-Talkie, other times Lolly, though usually Batty seemed to do.