David Storey - Saville

‘Yes, sir.’

‘It’s a master’s privilege to make judgments on your conduct, Saville. Not only is it his privilege, but it’s also, in Mr Hodges’s case, his particular duty. Not only is he a master with great experience, but with a great deal of feeling and sympathy for boys your age. If this is his judgment, then his judgment is correct; it’s one I trust. I take a very dim view of boys who, when they get themselves into trouble, see no other resort but to complain to their parents, who come to the school with a wholly distorted view of the entire affair.’

‘I asked my father not to come here, sir.’ He gazed past the thinly featured face to the field below.

‘He says you’ve had trouble with your homework, Saville.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘If at the end of an hour and a half it’s not completed, it’s better to make a note in your book to this effect and report your difficulties to the appropriate master – not stay up so late that you’re too tired in the morning to catch your bus.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He glanced down at the desk. ‘I’m sorry this has happened so early in your career in the school. Mr Hodges, to make his own feelings quite clear, has offered to erase the two records from your book and has suggested I issue you with a new one. I’m afraid, despite his recommendation, that that is something I won’t and can’t allow. The record book is there for all to see, and is the most important document you’ll carry though the school. I hope from the incident you’ll learn a useful lesson: that the masters and the mistresses are here not to punish you for misdemeanours, but to instruct and guide, and, whenever in their view it is necessary, to reprimand. I hope you’ll learn from this to trust their judgment. I’d like you to report to me at the end of the term, with your record book complete, and we’ll see, from looking at it, precisely where you stand.’

He went out to the office. A grey-haired secretary with a red, sunburnt face was working at a desk; she glanced up, smiling, and said, ‘Was there any message?’

‘No.’ He shook his head.

‘That’ll be all, then, Saville,’ she said.

He went through to the corridor, then, since the bell marking the end of break hadn’t sounded, down to the field.

He stood by the wooden fence. He looked up at the headmaster’s window. The school’s coat-of-arms with its motto, which he hadn’t noticed while he was in the room, was set in the middle of the diamond-shaped panes in coloured glass.

His father, when he got home that evening, had been subdued.

‘I’ll give you that he’s fair,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you that. And Hodges. I spoke to both of them,’ he added.

It was the first time he’d seen his father back down from something he believed.

‘They said it wouldn’t influence them in any way. I mean, about your work,’ he added.

‘At least it’s over and settled,’ his mother said.

‘Aye, it’s cleared the air,’ his father said. ‘Though tha mu’n never miss that bus again,’ he added.

In the second week, at football, Stafford appeared. Saville had spoken to him occasionally in the field at the back of the school, and had walked down with him one afternoon into town, parting at the narrow opening which, he’d discovered earlier, led down towards the station. On the Thursday afternoon Stafford was standing on the pitch when Colin arrived for football, his hands on his hips, apparently unconcerned by all the activity going on around. He dug his heel against the grass, glancing round at the other pitches, then smoothing down his hair with slow, almost conscious gestures as if anxious to move away to something less demanding.

He played amongst the backs. He had a slender, almost delicate physique; he stood around a great deal, his arms folded, chewing grass, always anxious to talk to the other players, sometimes picking up stones or clods of earth from the pitch and throwing them off on either side. He ran with the ball; he moved so slowly that it seemed impossible then that he wouldn’t be caught; he slipped away, half-gliding, turning slowly, almost lethargically between the outstretched arms, avoiding one group of figures and then another and finally, when he appeared to be bored by the ease with which he eluded his opponents, he threw the ball away to another boy, who was immediately tackled.

‘More effort, Stafford. More effort,’ Platt said. He wrote on his list and nodded to Hepworth.

In all, thirty boys had been left in the game; occasionally they changed sides, swapping jerseys. The rest of the boys had been sent away. The remainder, on the whole, were in the third year, some in the second; Stafford, Colin himself and two other boys were all that remained from the first.

At half-time they were called in a loose circle in the centre of the pitch.

‘Now all you boys’, Platt said, ‘will come here every Tuesday and Thursday. You’ll form the nucleus of our Under 13 Team. Is that understood, then, Stafford?’

Stafford, after joining in the circle, had laid down in the grass. He lay with his head in his hands, gazing at the sky. His eyes, when Colin glanced over, appeared to be closed.

At Platt’s inquiry he raised his head.

‘Yes, sir,’ he said.

‘That’s not going to be too inconvenient for you, Stafford?’ Platt had said.

‘No, sir.’ Stafford sat up slowly, pushing his hand across his head. ‘I was feeling tired.’

‘That’s all right, Stafford,’ Platt had said.

As he continued talking to the boys Platt moved slowly round the circle, gesturing, calling names, offering advice, outlining the team’s plans for the coming season, ending up finally only a few inches from where Stafford was sitting. ‘Harrison will be captain,’ he said, indicating a large, bulky boy with fattish legs and hair almost as fair as Stafford’s. ‘This will be his third year in the team and I want you to listen to any advice he has to give.’ He half-lifted Stafford with one hand as he got to his feet. ‘You’ll go on Harrison’s side, Stafford. And I want more effort in this second half.’

At one point in the middle of the game Stafford got the ball almost directly in front of where Colin was standing; he went to him, intending to drag him down. He saw the half-awareness in Stafford’s eyes, the strange flexing of his back as he moved aside and a moment later when it seemed he had no way to go, Stafford moved past him, casually, his figure tensing to meet those moving up behind. He ran to one side of the pitch, slipped past two boys, avoiding a third, then, to Platt’s and Hepworth’s shouts, put the ball down between the posts.

He walked back slowly, his cheeks flushed, his eyes gleaming, as if he’d been driven to something he hadn’t wished to do.

‘Stafford, you might have gone straighter,’ Platt had said. ‘Straight down the middle is the quickest way.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Stafford said. He stood with his hands on his hips. The redness of his cheeks had scarcely faded.

Finally, a few moments later, when the kick had been taken, the whistle went.

Stafford had already left the pitch; he jogged off slowly. As Colin changed he saw him coming back from the senior pavilion where he’d had a shower; later, setting off down the ginnel, he heard someone coming up behind him and, turning, saw Stafford smiling now and waving.

‘Platt’s a bit of a stickler,’ he said. ‘What do you think?’

‘He doesn’t seem to miss much, I suppose,’ Colin told him.

Stafford’s hair was neatly combed; he hadn’t, as yet, put on his cap.

‘Where were you last week?’ Colin asked him.

‘I played at Spion Kop. They sent me up here.’

There was no sense of achievement or even pride in Stafford; more, it was an inconvenience he was stressing, something which, in the near future, he intended to set right.