David Storey - Saville

‘I don’t know,’ he said, looking over his shoulder.

‘One pound, three and sixpence,’ his father said, staring at the paper, then crossing the sum out and starting again. ‘There’s a catch in that somewhere. I hope you were watching out.’

‘Now, let’s have the table and get him some tea,’ his mother said.

When the time came for his father to set off for work he hadn’t mended the chain. He went next door to borrow Mr Shaw’s bike and when he came back he said, ‘Don’t move any of those papers. I’ll work it out in the morning.’ The table was covered in calculations, some screwed up. ‘If it’s not thirty yards for number eleven,’ he said, ‘I’m not sure what it can be. I’ll ask Turner. He’ll know.’

When he went up to bed and drew his curtains he saw that it had begun to snow. It drifted down from the darkness in large flakes, driven up against the window. Already a thin layer covered the garden, outlining the declivities of the soil and leaving a dark space by the railings at the far end.

When his father came back in the morning the snow was plastered to his coat and his cap. It fell off in frozen crusts, sizzling in the hearth and melting in little pools on the floor. ‘Now, then,’ he said. ‘Where have you put the sums?’ slapping his hands together in his khaki gloves and rubbing his stockinged feet in the rug. The snow had frozen on his eyebrows and lay in a thin crust around his mouth.

The snow lasted for several days. Only the tips of the fences and the mounds of the air-raid shelters were visible in the yards.

Colin’s father came home the second morning an hour late. Across his back were roped several pieces of timber and two metal rails. ‘See here, I took these off a wagon,’ he said, unfastening the wood in the open door.

The snow was plastered to his boots, which he knocked against the outside wall, and to his trousers as far as his knees. It had been driven up and frozen on to the back of his coat. ‘I’ve pushed that’, he said, ‘through some stuff,’ banging the bike against the wall so that the snow, matted together between the spokes, fell off. The wood had been sawn into even lengths. Holes too had been drilled through the rusty rails. ‘I had Harris joiner it at work,’ he said. ‘It won’t take more than a minute to put together.’

When Colin came home from school at lunch-time a sledge was standing half-completed against the kitchen wall. It was long and flat. In the hearth were the two metal rails and a hammer. One of the rails was bent at one end. ‘He’s been trying to curve those to fît underneath it,’ his mother said, indicating the thin rib of wood where the runner would have to be screwed.

‘I’ve never heard so much swearing,’ his grandfather said. ‘Not in one house, by one man, in one morning. It’s a wonder this place hasn’t turned bright red.’

When he came home at tea-time the sledge was finished. Pieces of wood still lay about the floor, the sledge itself turned upside down, his father polishing the runners. ‘This’ll go,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to keep your eyes skinned I think to catch it.’

Two holes had been burned through the wood at the front. A piece of rope had been knotted through. ‘Have your tea,’ he said, ‘then we’re off.’

His father dressed Steven to take with them, pushing the sledge up and down outside, wearing the rust off the runners. When they set off it left two brown tracks in the snow behind.

‘No, no, you sit on,’ his father said, setting Steven between Colin’s legs. ‘The more weight on we have the better.’

His father looped the rope around his shoulders and strode along in front, stooped forward to their weight, the studs of his pit boots shining underneath, the snow collecting in the insteps then falling off: it crunched beneath the runners, the woodwork rattling over the bumps. It had already begun to grow dark and as they passed the windows his father would call out, tapping on some, saying, ‘Get him out. Get him out. Let him have some fresh air, then, missis.’

When they reached the hill running up to the Park his father added, ‘Nay, Colin, you’ll have to jump off,’ and as they started up the slope, ‘Don’t you want a pull? It’s light as a feather with Steven on.’

In the Park, on the slope of the hill, several figures were silhouetted against the snow and as they got nearer he recognized Batty and Stringer and Stringer’s father. Batty was half-way down the slope pulling up a sledge on the back of which Stringer was sitting, kicking his legs.

‘What’ve you got there, then, Harry?’ Mr Stringer said.

‘This is a toboggan,’ his father said.

‘A toboggan, is it?’ He came across. ‘It’ll not last five minutes,’ Mr Stringer said.

‘It’ll beat anything of thine,’ his father said.

‘Right,’ Mr Stringer said. ‘You’re on.’

In the faint light the flattened snow could be seen curving away between the flower beds and the ornamental pond.

‘Ay go, our Malcolm,’ Mr Stringer said. ‘Hurry up wi’ yon sled’, we’re barn t’have a gamble.’

Mr Stringer was dressed as he always was in a sleeveless shirt with its collar undone. His trousers were tucked into his socks: on his feet were a thin pair of shoes.

‘Are you coming down with me, Colin?’ his father said. He sat on the sledge with Steven between his legs. ‘When I give you a nod,’ he added, ‘give us a shove and when we’ve got going jump on behind.’

Mr Stringer had already sat down on the other sledge. It was slightly higher than his father’s and had a piece of carpet to sit on, wet now, however, and crusted with snow. He began to shout through his cupped hands to the figures below, ‘Ay up. Move over,’ adding, ‘We s’ll have killed somebody afore we’ve done. How much do you want on, then? Half a dollar?’

‘We’ll give it a go first,’ his father said.

‘Right,’ Mr Stringer said. ‘When I say off.’ He shouted down the slope once more, waved his arm, then said, ‘Give us a good shove. Hold on. Are you ready? Right. We’re off!’

They began to shout as they pushed the sledges down the top of the slope. ‘Faster,’ Mr Stringer said. ‘Faster. God damn it, I’ll get off here and push it myself.’ He went off first down the slope, Stringer and Batty jumping on behind.

As their own sledge gathered speed his father shouted, ‘Jump on, Colin. You’ll have us over.’ The distance between them, however, increased.

Colin held on to his father’s neck, his father kicking his legs to one side then the other. ‘Nay, you’ll have us over,’ he shouted, laughing, the sledge, half-way down the slope, plunging suddenly to one side, dipping down into a drift of snow and flinging them off.

His father lay beneath him, kicking up his boots. The front of the sledge was buried in snow. From lower down the slope came Mr Stringer’s shouts followed by his cries as he guided his sledge between the swings.

‘That was short and quick,’ his father said, adding as Steven, his face covered in snow, had begun to cry, ‘A bit of snow won’t hurt you, love.’

‘I want to go home, Dad,’ Steven said.

‘Nay, we’ll have one more go at least,’ his father said.

When Mr Stringer came to the top he said, ‘How much was that, then? Ten bob?

‘Ten nothing,’ his father said. ‘We’ve had no practice.’

‘You’ll need no practice with that,’ Mr Stringer said. ‘You’ll never get it to go, not if you put it on wheels and fasten on a motor.’

‘I’ll ride it down myself,’ his father said. He pushed the sledge to the top of the slope.

‘How much start do you want?’ Mr Stringer said.

‘None,’ his father said. ‘We’ll go together.’