David Storey - Saville

‘Are you running in anything on Saturday?’ Colin said.

‘Nothing,’ Stafford said. ‘I’ve got out of it all.’

Calling to some boys he ran off, alertly, towards the ginnel.

Colin watched him go, then turned into the pavilion to find his clothes.

‘That’s more like it, Saville.’

Colin went back to where he’d left his blazer and put it on.

‘You’ve jumped well there, Colin,’ his father said.

The remaining jumpers ran off in turn.

‘Which is your mark?’ his father added, straining between the figures in front to look at the wooden pegs driven in at the edge of the pit.

The masters stooped down; the crowd had drifted off.

‘We mu’n stay and see where you’ve come in,’ his father said.

Gannen had turned.

A boy came past.

‘You’ve come in third, Walters. And you’ve come in second, Saville,’ Gannen said.

‘Second,’ his father said and, almost involuntarily, shook his hand. ‘What else are you racing in?’ he added.

‘The relay,’ he said for a second time, for he’d already explained the events at home.

‘Sithee, then: you mu’n run well in that.’

He went back with his father across the field.

They sat on a bank beneath a hedge. Other events had already begun. Immediately beneath them was the finishing line. Across the centre of the field lay a sprinting track, and to their right, by the pavilion, a high-jump pit.

A master with a loudspeaker announced each event.

‘You mu’n tell me who everybody is,’ his father said.

Colin pointed out Gannen, who, a pencil in his hand and a sheaf of papers, was still standing by the jumping pit; he pointed out Platt, whom his father already knew, and then Hodges in his clerical collar, holding the tape on the running track with Macready.

‘I suppose I know him, an’ all,’ his father said.

Boys in white vests jogged slowly to and fro. Odd groups at irregular intervals, set off around the track. Whistles blew, on a blackboard in the centre of the field numbers were chalked up and rubbed off again.

When the relay was announced he went down to the track. He ran from one corner of the field to the one adjacent to the finish. His team came second.

He went to the pavilion and got changed quickly; when he came out a little later his father was waiting at the gate. They walked together along the ginnel.

‘Where’s that other lad today?’ his father said. ‘The one that doesn’t like trying ought.’

‘He was eliminated earlier on,’ he said.

‘Aye. I mu’n expect he was,’ his father said. ‘As bright as a new pin and twice as sharp.’

When they reached the stop they stood in a queue of shoppers; boys from the school with their parents drifted past.

‘It’s a good school, all right,’ his father said.

‘Why’s that?’

‘You can tell by the way they dress.’ He paused. ‘And the way they organize things,’ he added.

Colin waited.

‘They get the best out of you, I can tell you that.’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Not like where I wuk.’ His father laughed. ‘Where I wuk their number one aim is to put you under.’

The bus drew up. They climbed upstairs. His father sank down in the seat beside him.

‘Thy being at that school means everything to me. Whatever happens, I want you to know that, lad,’ he added.

There were pieces of machinery inside the shed, a work bench, a tyre from the tractor, a number of shovels and spades, a cluster of forks, and, leaning against the wall, the only unspoiled object there, a motor-bike.

‘You’re up bright and early,’ the foreman said. ‘Quarter to eight, I make it.’ He took out a watch from his waistcoat pocket. ‘Got your snap, then, have you?’

‘Did you see the farmer?’ he said.

‘He said I could take you on.’ He added, ‘He’ll be coming down here himself today.’

‘How much do I get?’ he said. He’d been down the previous day to ask for a job.

‘Nay, you mu’n not ask me, old lad.’ He put back his watch. ‘I’m t’on’y foreman here, tha knows. The me’ster’ll tell you that himself.’

Colin sat down on a pile of sacking at the door of the shed. The tractor stood in the rutted yard outside; a binder stood beneath an overhanging roof beyond. The sheds formed a tiny cluster in the middle of the fields, their roofs supported by baulks of timber – so low that when entering even he had to bow his head. Only where the binder stood were the roof beams any higher.

The foreman, having removed his jacket, had gone out to the tractor. He lit a piece of rag, put it in a hole at the front, and began to swing the handle.

Colin got up and went across.

‘Nay, stand back,’ the foreman said. ‘This thing can give a kick when it begins to fire.’

He swung the handle.

‘It takes time to get warmed up, tha knows.’

He swung again.

There was a low sucking sound from inside the engine.

The foreman pulled out the piece of rag, stamped on it, then lit another. He flicked a lighter from his waistcoat pocket, put the blazing rag inside the hole, then quickly swung the handle, swung again, then stepped back sharply as the engine fired.

It puffed up a cloud of smoke from its vertical exhaust; a few moments later, after listening to the engine, he slowed it down and, wiping his hands on a cloth, came back across the yard.

‘Is this a regular job, or just your holidays?’ he said.

‘The holidays.’

‘Tha’s not been lakin’ truant, then?’

‘No.’

‘Here’s Jack,’ he said as a man in overalls rode into the yard. He got off his bike and pushed it to the shed. ‘Yon rabbit’s turned up: the one that came looking for a job,’ the foreman said. He added, ‘Mention work round here and you don’t see many folk for dust.’

The man had a long, thin face, with bony hands and arms; his hair was thin and cropped closely to his head. When he’d put his bike inside the shed he took off his jacket and opened a carrier bag hanging on the handle.

‘I mu’n have me breakfast. I never had time this morning,’ he said.

He took out a sandwich, coming to sit by Colin on the pile of sacks.

The foreman had brought out a scythe from the back of the shed; its blade was wrapped in sacking bound on with lengths of string. He slowly unfastened it, drawing out the blade.

A third man had arrived; he was short, thick-limbed with bowed legs, and older than the other two. He came walking along the path that led off, by a hedge, across the fields. He too wore a cap and carried a small brown bag, fastened with string across his shoulder.

‘Here’s Gordon: better late than never,’ the second man had said. He finished his sandwich and put the remainder inside his carrier bag.

‘We mu’n get yon binder oiled up, afore the me’ster comes down, Jack,’ the foreman said. He placed the blade of the scythe against the sacks and went back once more inside the shed; he came out with the binder’s saw-toothed blade, wrapped, like the scythe had been, in sacking.

‘I see yon young ’un’s come,’ the bow-legged man had said.

He took off his cap and wiped his brow.

‘By God, we mu’n see the corn dry early today.’

He looked from the fields to Colin and back again.

‘It mu’n be too early to go in yet,’ the foreman said. In addition to the binder’s blade he’d brought out a small hand scythe which, sharpening on a stone, he brought over to the sacks.

‘Dost know how to use one of these?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Then I’ve got just the job for thee.’

He led the way across the yard. The tractor, puffing out its smoke, trembled on its massive tyres.