David Storey - Saville

Finally, when the teacher said, ‘There are twenty minutes left. You should now be on question eighteen or nineteen if you are doing them in order,’ a heavy groan came up from the back of the room and a moment later someone else had laughed.

When the papers had been collected they were allowed outside.

‘Do you know what the boy next to me wrote?’, Stafford said. ‘For that question about the man in the desert who walks all the way round the compass?’ He walked beside Colin, his hands in his pockets, kicking his feet against the ground. ‘Where it said “at what point will he have arrived?” he wrote “potty”. I saw it as they collected them up.’

A wind had sprung up since lunch-time and clouds of paper were blown across the yard, drifting up against the wall of the building then swirling round.

‘I’ve run out of ink,’ Stafford said. ‘I’ll have to fill up with this school ink. It rots the rubber.’ He unscrewed the pen to show him. ‘Do you want a sweet?’ he added. ‘They’re to give you energy. I’ve forgotten them until now.’ He ran off across the playground, taking out a piece of paper and standing with a group of boys in the door, comparing answers.

Reagan was standing against the school wall with his satchel still strung round him, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched up against the wind. When Bletchley came across he said, ‘Did you get number seven? Half of them have written rhomboid because they didn’t know what it was.’

‘What was it, then?’ he said.

‘A circle,’ Bletchley said. ‘It’s the only one that hasn’t got a straight line.’ His face was flushed, his eyes watering slightly from the wind. From his satchel, which he carried under his arm, he took out a piece of chocolate. ‘One boy in our room got disqualified,’ he said. ‘He’d written down the answers on a piece of paper to pass to somebody else. Did you hear the shouting?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘That’s him over there.’

Bletchley pointed him out but he couldn’t see him. When they went back in fresh sheets of paper had been given out and the woman behind the desk was smoking a cigarette which, the moment they came in, she put out.

Later, when they came out, Stafford said, ‘Which subject did you write about?’

‘The war,’ he said.

‘I wrote about the pit hooter “blaring out the emergency signal”. I’ve never seen a disaster. Have you?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘What else did you write about?’

‘My favourite hobby.’

‘I wrote about an historical character. King Canute.’

‘Do you know anything about him?’ he said.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not much.’ When they reached the buses standing in the street outside he said, ‘Which one are you on?’ and when he pointed it out he added, ‘I’m on the one behind. I’ll see you. Good luck,’ standing outside however with several boys until Colin had climbed on.

As he sat down Bletchley, who was in the seat behind, leaned over and said, ‘You know what Reagan’s done? In the essay he wrote about the nurse, writing home to her parents,’ continuing to lean forward slightly while he laughed in his ear.

Reagan, who was sitting beside him, his satchel on his knee, smiled slightly, gazing across at him then out at the school and the yard where, in the faint light, several boys were playing football.

‘There are male nurses,’ a boy said who was standing up in his seat behind Bletchley.

‘Male nurses,’ Bletchley said, glancing at Reagan then, falling back in his seat, slapping his knee. He winced then, slightly, drawing down his brows, frowning. His knees were reddened from the wind and he held them apart.

The bus moved out of the village. Gusts of wind swept under the door, swirling the tickets between the seats. It was growing dark and the sky had begun to fade against the mass of fields and trees outside. Inside the bus itself the dull blue lights came on.

Low grey clouds scudded across the sky. Someone at the back of the bus had begun to sing.

When they reached the village Mrs Bletchley was waiting at the bus stop with Mrs Reagan. ‘You’ve been a long time, mister,’ she said to the driver.

‘Nay, missis,’ he said, ‘you can’t drive fast down these lanes,’ lighting a cigarette then and laying his hands on the radiator cap to warm them, stamping his feet in the road.

‘How did you get on, Ian?’ she asked Bletchley, pulling his scarf more tightly round his neck and fastening the top button of his coat. ‘You’ll catch your death of cold. How was it?’

‘Easy,’ he said. ‘Michael wrote a composition about nurses.’

‘About a nurse,’ Reagan said to his mother in case she might complain.

‘Oh, well. That’s very good,’ Mrs Bletchley said. ‘We better get home for a hot meal.’

They walked down the street together, Bletchley getting out one of his examination papers from his satchel and showing the questions to his mother in the dark. She flashed a torch on to the paper, not troubling to read it, but saying, ‘Ian you’ve done very well, I can see.’

Mrs Reagan had taken Reagan’s satchel, holding it in one hand and holding Reagan with the other.

‘You’d think they’d have an easier way than this for sitting the scholarship,’ she said.

‘You would,’ Mrs Bletchley said, clapping Bletchley’s gloved hand between her own to keep it warm.

When they reached their respective front doors they called good night and went in. Colin went round the back assuming that now the day was over the privilege of using the front door had probably expired.

When he went in his father’s bike was standing upside down on a sheet of newspaper in the kitchen, his father kneeling beside it, the chain hanging down from the rear wheel. His grandfather was sitting by the fire asleep.

‘How did you get on?’ his father said, looking up. ‘We were just thinking of coming down to the bus stop to find you.’

‘All right,’ he said.

‘What were the papers like?’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘All right,’ and shrugged.

His father watched him intently for a moment then glanced away. ‘My chain’s broken,’ he said.’ ‘And I’m off to work in an hour. You haven’t seen a spare link, have you, lying on the floor?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘I meant this morning.’

‘No,’ he said, and shook his head.

His father looked around a little longer on the floor, under the cupboards and the table, then stood up. ‘Well, then,’ he said. ‘Let’s see what they’re like.’

He took the papers out of his pocket and put them on the table. Then he took off his coat.

‘Is there any tea?’ he said.

‘There is. There is,’ his father said, stooping over the table and trying to examine the papers without actually touching them with his blackened hands. ‘See,’ he said. ‘Just turn this one over. Thirty-four. That looks right to me.’

His mother came down, calling behind her to Steven, whom she had just put to bed, then closing the door and saying, ‘Well, then, I thought I heard you. How did it go?’ going to the kettle, filling it and putting it on the fire.

‘He’s one or two right here,’ his father said, nodding his head now, almost laughing. By the fire his grandfather opened his eyes, which were red and watery, gazing blankly at the ceiling a moment. Then, groaning, he leaned forward and ran his hand across his face.

‘By,’ he said. ‘You need some coal on that fire, Ellen. It’s freezing,’ looking up to add, ‘Well, then, did you get any of the answers?’

‘What did you get here, then, for number twelve?’ his father said. He brought a piece of paper and his red pencil to the table and, still keeping his greasy hands off the cloth, began to work it out.