David Storey - Saville

On the third Sunday Reagan brought his violin. It was at the invitation of the vicar’s wife, who announced the presence of the instrument at the beginning of the service, Reagan stepping out from behind his chair with the case so that the vicar’s wife could hold it up. The violin itself was like a large shiny nut, reddish brown, lying in a bed of green baize. He had, the previous two weeks, been practising a hymn tune and when the last hymn was announced he went to stand by the piano and took the violin out.

The children watched him in silence. He folded a white handkerchief beneath his chin, bending his head towards it to keep it in place, then sliding in the violin.

Bletchley stared across at him intensely. He had, on the way to Sunday School, kicked the case at one point, saying, ‘The vicar’ll take it off you. They don’t let you have things like that inside.’

‘Mrs Andrews asked me to bring it,’ Reagan said, mentioning the vicar’s wife.

‘She’s not the vicar,’ Bletchley said. ‘In any case, if she doesn’t do what she ’s told he knocks her about.’

Now, however, Bletchley regarded him with a smile. He winced, screwing up his eyes, glanced at Mr Morrison, and winced again, gazing at the roof.

Reagan’s eyes expanded as he played, squinting slightly as he tried to watch the bow crossing the strings, pausing, his body shuddering, his eyes closing whenever his notes failed to correspond with those from the piano, the sound fading when the children, and Bletchley in particular, began to sing.

Bletchley sang with his eyes closed, turned in the direction of the violin, his head raised as if he were addressing Reagan directly.

When they walked home after the service he kicked the case again. ‘You’ll be getting it broken, bringing it out like this,’ he said. ‘In any case, I bet you can’t play the piano.’

‘No,’ Reagan said.

‘My cousin can,’ Bletchley said.

A few days later Colin noticed Bletchley and Reagan playing in the field at the back of the house. Reagan was carrying Bletchley on his back, his thin figure stooped under the load, his head bent almost double. Bletchley was hitting his legs with a stick, saying, ‘Go on, boy! Go on!’ and clicking his tongue. They wandered round a hole, the sides of which had fallen in.

A little later Mr Reagan appeared in his garden. He had just returned from work and was in fact wearing his yellow gloves and his bowler hat, his jacket alone unbuttoned as an indication that he had, at least, arrived home. ‘Hey,’ he shouted, and when Bletchley looked up added, ‘Get off his back.’

‘What?’ Bletchley said.

‘Get off his back,’ Mr Reagan shouted.

Bletchley got down. He stood for a moment gazing across at Mr Reagan.

‘Michael,’ Mr Reagan shouted. ‘Get on his back.’

Reagan had stooped down to rub his legs, inflamed from Bletchley’s stick.

‘Get on his back,’ Mr Reagan shouted.

Bletchley stood still, frozen, his eyes never leaving Mr Reagan as Regan himself grasped his shoulder and tried, unsuccessfully, to climb on his back.

‘Get down,’ Mr Reagan shouted, waving his arm.

‘What?’ Bletchley said.

‘Bend down.’

Bletchley stooped slightly, his eyes still fixed on Mr Reagan, and Reagan himself slowly clawed his way on to Bletchley’s back. Bletchley stood swaying for a moment, his hands clamped behind him on Reagan’s legs.

‘Give him the stick,’ Mr Reagan shouted and when Bletchley did so he shouted again, ‘Start walking.’

Bletchley stumbled, hoisted the weight on his back and, his legs trembling as he struggled to keep his balance, began to walk round in circles.

‘Hit him,’ Mr Reagan said.

Reagan had looked up, his eyes wide and staring as when he had played the violin.

‘Hit him.’

Reagan did so, fanning the stick beneath him at Bletchley’s legs.

‘Ow,’ Bletchley said, screwing up his face.

‘Faster,’ Mr Reagan shouted.

‘I can’t,’ Bletchley said, beginning to cry.

‘Faster. Or I’ll come out there myself.’

Bletchley tried to run, his cheeks trembling, his knees rubbing together.

‘Ow,’ he said each time Mr Reagan called out, his shouts growing louder as he tried to attract the attention of someone in his house.

‘Faster,’ Mr Reagan said, his face inflamed now as when he watched the cricket, his thumbs tucked into his waistcoat pockets. ‘Faster, or I’ll fan you myself.’

Bletchley had fallen.

He gave a loud groan and collapsed on his side, his eyes closed, his mouth open.

He lay moaning for a while, clutching his ankle, Reagan standing over him scratching his head. ‘Oh,’ Bletchley said. ‘I’ve broken my ankle.’

‘I’ll break the other one if I catch you again,’ Mr Reagan said. ‘Get up now, or I’ll lift you myself.’

Bletchley stood up. He groaned again, his eyes closed, his face turned up. ‘I’m going home,’ he said, adding something which Mr Reagan couldn’t hear, glancing round however in case he had been mistaken and with several groans and grimaces limping his way back to his fence, his arms flung out either side to retain his balance.

‘I’ll give you a leathering myself’, Mr Reagan said to Reagan, ‘if I catch you again. If he hits you with a stick hit him back.’

‘Yes, Dad,’ Reagan said.

Bletchley was attempting to lift his legs over the fence farther down the field retaining at the same time all the effects of his injury, his groans and sighs, his tortured expression, limping up his garden to his door. ‘Mam! Mam!’ he shouted as he neared it, ‘Mam!’ almost screaming and, as the door opened, collapsing on the step.

And yet, after that, it was unusual to see Bletchley and Reagan apart. They went to school together each morning, walking at the same slow pace, each wearing an identical satchel in which they carried an apple, a bottle of ink, which often got broken, and a pen. Occasionally their respective mothers stood talking in the street, or passed across the fronts of the houses to one another’s doors. Finally, a little later, the two women began to go to church together, attending the Sunday morning service, occasionally accompanied by Mr Bletchley dressed in a brown suit, and a little later by Bletchley himself and Reagan. Mr Reagan could occasionally be heard shouting to them from the bedroom as they passed the door.

‘They’ve gone to church, Harry,’ he would say, coming across the backs to where his father sat at the back door reading the paper. ‘She has that lad kneeling down every night by the bed.’

‘Kneeling?’ his father said.

‘Praying.’

‘Ah, well,’ his father said. ‘Praying never did any harm.’

‘Nor any good,’ Mr Reagan said. ‘She’s going to make him as silly as she is.’

‘Ah, well,’ his father said again, still gazing at the paper and, in this instance at least, refusing to be disturbed. ‘You can never tell.’

‘That’s what I mean,’ Mr Reagan said. ‘The same happens whether you do or you don’t.’

On Sundays Mr Reagan wore his suit without the jacket, the waistcoat unbuttoned save for the bottom, a stiff collar and around it the tie of his old school. A thin gold chain ran from the top button of his waistcoat to the top pocket on the left hand side. ‘Though it’s fastened to nought but a lump of stone,’ his father said. ‘I know that for a fact.’

Since his disappointment over getting a job at the local pit his regard for Mr Reagan had slightly faded.

‘Oh, Reagan’s all right,’ he’d say. ‘But if he’s got all these complaints why doesn’t he do something about it?’

‘He’s frightened of his wife,’ his mother said. ‘In fact, he’s frightened of women in general.’