David Storey - Saville

‘Grab him! Grab him!’ his father called.

‘Feet, Edward’s,’ Platt had called, his voice fading at the violence of his father’s cries.

At half-time oranges were brought on to the field.

Platt, who’d brought them on a tray and given them out, took Colin aside once they’d all been eaten.

‘Is that your only jersey, Saville?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘I’ve sent Hopkins over to the groundsman to get another.’ He indicated one of the reserves who was already coming back. ‘For one thing the shirt’s too large, for another the colours of the school have faded.’

‘I haven’t got another,’ he said.

‘Then you’ll have to buy another. If you want to play in the school team you won’t be allowed, I’m afraid, to play in that.’

He moved on, casually, to the other boys.

‘Come on, King Edward’s,’ his father called. ‘Get stuck in this second half.’ His face flushed, his hands fisted, he paced briskly up and down at the side of the pitch.

‘Whose father is that, then?’ Stafford said.

‘I don’t know,’ Harrison said. He shook his head.

‘He wouldn’t shout like that if he had to play.’

‘He wouldn’t shout at all’, Harrison said, ‘if he had any sense.’

The game now was more bewildering than any he’d played in. The other side on the whole were bigger; he found himself lost amidst a morass of arms and legs, his head banged down against the frosted ground, his knees torn, his elbows bruised. Twice he ran with the ball and twice he felt it taken from his hands, his arms wrenched back, his fingers bent, his hands crushed beneath stamping boots.

‘Stafford, hold the ball. Hold the ball, Stafford,’ Platt began to shout.

Yet Stafford, aware of the figures waiting, or rushing up as he took the ball, would pass it away carefully to either side. There was an earnestness in the way he played, as if he were judging which parts of the game he might avoid.

‘Hold it, Stafford. Go through the middle,’ Platt had called.

Colin took the ball; he passed to Stafford. He saw the look of surprise on Stafford’s face, the tensing of the eyes, and saw the quick look round for one of his side. There was no one near. He began to run, slowly, still looking round; he avoided one boy and then another, casual, still slow, almost insolent, waiting for someone to come towards him. No one came; each of the school’s team was hanging back.

He ran to one side; there was an instinct in the team that Stafford should run: he stepped aside, avoiding another boy and then effortlessly, half-pausing, looking for no one now, waited as players from the other team came up, stepping aside, slowly, an inflection of his body sending one group of players one way while he went another.

He crossed the line. Platt and Hepworth and his father threw up their arms. Stafford put down the ball, glanced round, then, the ball beneath his arm, walked back.

‘I’ll kick it,’ he said as Harrison came to take it from him.

The ball was held from the ground; he stepped back a pace, swung his leg and, as the opponents ran up, the ball curved over their heads between the posts.

His hands on his hips, his cheeks white, his eyes blazing, he walked slowly back.

At the end of the game Stafford came up to him as they left the pitch.

‘Don’t pass to me like that again.’

‘There was no one else to pass it to,’ he said.

‘Then do what I do. Bend down, or pretend to be looking the other way.’

His father, he noticed, had walked away. He stood at the gate of the field, by the opening to the ginnel, his face red, his hands pushed deeply into the pockets of his coat. He stamped his feet against the cold.

They went into the showers.

His father was still waiting at the gate as he left the field.

‘We’ve to go into tea with the other team,’ he said.

‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘You enjoy yourself in theer. I’ll wait out here.’

‘Why don’t you come in as well?’ he said. The room occupied the basement of the groundsman’s house. He could see where the games equipment had been pushed to one side: a wooden table had been set in the middle.

‘No, no. You go in. I’ll be all right out here.’ He added ‘Teams and officials in theer, you know.’

Plates of sandwiches and cakes had been set out on the table. At the end of the room, by the door, a broad window looked out to a yard and, beyond the yard, to the field. The goal-posts were visible above a hedge.

Platt came in, followed by Hepworth and two masters from the other school. The other team came in. Stafford, his hair combed, his clipped pens showing in his blazer pocket, sat alone: he glanced up briefly as Hepworth tapped his back, but got up when the first boys began to leave. He picked up his canvas bag from the door and went out to the yard.

When Colin followed he saw his father talking to Stafford at the mouth of the ginnel. He’d evidently stopped him and, gesturing behind him, was talking about the match.

‘Oh, here’s Colin,’ he said. ‘Which way do you go, then, lad?’

‘I’m going to the station,’ Stafford said, looking back at him, surprised.

‘We’ll go down with you. We catch a bus in town,’ his father said.

They walked through the ginnel.

‘Thy’s got a good future there, if you put your back into it,’ his father said.

‘Oh, it’s too rough a game for me, Mr Saville,’ Stafford said.

His father laughed, looking at Stafford in some surprise.

‘Rough? I can’t see there’s much rough about it,’ his father said.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Stafford said. ‘If you’re playing out there you’d think it was rough. Particularly when they kick you instead of the ball.’ A certain neatness had come into his movements; even his voice was clipped, the accent sharp.

His father, intrigued, had glanced across.

‘There are rougher things than that,’ he said. ‘Give me football every time, tha knows.’

‘If there are, then I hope to keep away from them. It seems silly to go seeking roughness,’ Stafford said.

He left them at the opening leading to the station.

‘You go that way, then?’ his father said.

‘If I rush now I might just catch an early train,’ Stafford said. He put out his hand. ‘It’s been nice meeting you, Mr Saville.’ He swung his bag, as he turned, beneath his arm.

‘Well played, then, lad,’ his father said.

He watched him cross the road to the alley.

‘Well, that’s a bright ’un, then,’ his father said. ‘He could have won that match, tha knows, himself.’

Still talking of Stafford, they walked down to the stop.

‘And who was that feller with the jet black hair?’ his father said.

‘Platt,’ he said.

‘He came up to me and asked me who I was waiting for.’

‘What did you tell him?’ Colin said.

‘I said I was waiting for thee.’ He laughed. ‘“Didn’t you hear me cheering?” I said.’

He laughed again.

‘He said I needed a new shirt. If I wanted to go on playing,’ Colin said.

‘And where do we conjure new shirts from?’ his father asked.

On the bus, however, he added, ‘Well, then, I suppose we might,’ and a moment later, ‘I wish he’d mentioned a shirt to me. By God, I’d have shirted Mr Platt all right. I’ve a damn good mind to write him a letter.’

‘I shouldn’t write to him,’ he said.

‘Nay, I mu’n think about it though,’ he said.

Towards the end of that month his mother went away, to hospital, and in the mornings he and Steven went to Mrs Shaw’s for breakfast. His father was working mornings and got home each day in the afternoon. He was there to put Steven to bed at night but would come into Colin’s room each morning at five, whispering, laying the alarm clock beside his bed.