David Storey - Saville

At the end of each street Saville rested; at one point he lit a cigarette but soon abandoned it. Occasionally, as they passed the houses, they saw people stirring, curtains being drawn, fires lit; one or two people came to the doors.

‘Off away, then, Harry?’

‘Aye, Saville said. ‘I think for good.’

‘Weight thy’s carrying tha mu’n be a month in travelling.’

‘A month I should think’, Saville said, ‘at least.’

A milkman came down the street with a horse and cart; he brought the jugs from each of the doorsteps to the back of the cart and ladled the milk out from the shiny, oval can. At the back of the cart hung a row of scoops, some with long handles, some like metal jugs.

He called and waved.

‘I could do with that this morning,’ Saville said.

He gestured at the cart.

‘How far are you going?’ the milkman said.

‘Down to the station.’

‘I’ll give you a lift,’ he said, ‘if you like.’

His wife wasn’t certain; she looked at the cans of milk; there was scarcely any room inside.

‘Thy mu’n take the cases,’ Saville said. ‘We can easy walk.’

‘I’ll take you all, old lad,’ the milkman said. ‘I won’t be a jiffy.’

He wore a black bowler hat and brown smock; they waited while he finished at the doors.

‘Off to the coast, then, are you?’ he asked them as he came back down the street.

‘That’s where we’re off,’ Saville said, looking at the boy.

‘First time, is it?’ the milkman said.

‘That’s right. First time.’

‘I wish I wa’ going with you.’

The milkman had red cheeks; his eyes, light blue, gazed out at them from under the brim of his hat.

‘Jump in,’ he said. ‘I’ll load your cases.’

His wife climbed up first, holding on to the flat, curved spar that served as a mudguard. She stood on one side, Saville on the other.

The boy, when the milkman lifted him in last, stood at the front, where the reins came into the cart over a metal bar.

The two cases, finally, were set in the middle, up-ended between the tall cans of milk.

‘Now, then,’ he said. ‘We’ll see if she can shift us.’

He took the reins, clicked his tongue, and the brown horse, darker even than the milkman’s smock, started forward.

‘Not too good weather yet,’ the milkman said. He gestured overhead.

‘It’ll start to brighten,’ Saville said. ‘I’ve not known one day it’s shone the day we left.’

‘Start black: end bright. Best way to go about it,’ the milkman said.

The horse clattered through the village. The cart, like a see-saw, swayed to and fro.

‘They mu’n be wondering where I’ve got to.’ The milkman gestured back. ‘Usually on time, tha knows, within a couple of minutes.’

‘It was good of you to bother,’ Saville said.

‘Nay, I wish I wa’ coming with you. What’s a hoss for if it can’t be used?’

Colin clung to the metal bar in front; it was looped and curved: the reins came through a narrow eyelet. His head was scarcely higher than the horse’s back.

Saville saw the way the boy’s legs had tensed, the whiteness of his knuckles as he clutched the bar. He glanced over at his wife. She was standing sideways, pale-faced, her eyes wide, half-startled, clutching to the wooden rail with one hand and to the side of the cart with the other; she had on a hat the same colour as her coat, reddish brown, brimless, sweeping down below her ears.

The last of the houses gave way to fields; Saville could smell the freshness of the air. A lark was singing: he could see its dark speck against the cloud. Behind them the colliery chimney filtered out a stream of smoke, thin, blackish; there were sheep in one of the fields, and cattle. In another, by itself, stood a horse. He pointed it out, calling to the boy.

Colin nodded. He stood by the milkman’s much larger figure, looking round, not releasing the metal rail, his head twisted: Saville could see the redness of his cheeks, the same sombre, startled look that had overcome him as he was lifted in the cart.

‘Thy mu’n say goodbye to them, tha knows,’ he said. ‘Tell ’em we’re off on holiday.’

The milkman laughed.

‘They’ll have seen nothing as strange,’ he added to his wife. ‘Off on holiday on the back of a milkman’s cart.’

The road dipped down to the station; the single track divided and went off in two deep cuttings across the fields.

The milkman turned the cart into the station yard; he got down first, helping Mrs Saville then the boy, then taking the cases as Saville held them out.

Saville got down himself. He dusted his coat.

‘That’s been very good of you,’ his wife had said.

‘Aye, it’s helped us a lot. I don’t know how long it’d have taken me to carry that lot.’ Saville gestured back the way they’d come. ‘We’d be still up yonder, I should think, for one thing; and for another, my arms might have easily dropped off after all that carrying.’ He glanced over at the boy: he was gazing at the horse, then at the cart.

‘Well, I wish you a good holiday, then,’ the milkman said. He climbed into the cart and took the reins. ‘Get back to me round afore they’ve noticed.’

‘It’s been very good of you,’ his wife had said again.

They watched him turn the cart: he waved; the horse trotted out to the road then disappeared across the bridge.

‘Well, that was a damn good turn. I suppose we shall have to wait though. It’s put us thirty minutes early,’ Saville said.

He took the cases over to the booking-hall. There was no one there. The bare wooden floor was dusty.

A planked walk took them through to a metal bridge: as they crossed over it they could see the rails below. A flight of stone steps, steep and narrow, took them down to the platform the other side.

He set the two cases down by a wooden seat.

‘I’ll go back up’, he said, ‘and get the tickets.’

Looking back from the booking-hall, he could see his wife and the boy standing by the cases; after one or two moments his wife sat down. The boy wandered over to the edge of the platform; he gazed down at the single track, looked up briefly towards the booking-hall, then turned and crossed the platform.

A goods train came slowly through the station; the bridge for a moment was hidden by smoke. The station itself had vanished; when the smoke had cleared his wife and the boy were standing at the edge of the platform watching the row of wagons pass.

The booking-clerk came through from an office at the rear: Saville paid for the tickets and, having re-crossed the bridge, went down the narrow steps and joined them.

The town had been built in the angle of a shallow bay. To the north, overlooking the houses, stood a ruined castle. It had been built on a peninsula of ochreish-looking rock which swung round, like a long arm, above the red-tiled roofs of the town itself; all that remained of the castle was a long, sprawling wall, and the dismembered section of a large, square-shaped keep. Around the foot of the headland formed by this peninsula ran a wide road, below which the sea boiled and frothed; even in calm weather it came up against the wall below the road in a heavy swell, following its sharply curved contour round to the shelter of the harbour on one side and to a broader, somewhat deeper bay to the north.

When the tide was out there were wide, sandy beaches. The house where they were staying lay to the south of the castle, near the harbour; from the upper windows they could see into the bay: they could see the white, glistening pleasure-boats as they churned in and out on their trips along the coast, and the fishing-smacks that lay in droves against the harbour wall, one fastened to another, and the crowds of people on the beach itself.