David Storey - Saville

‘Nay, they’ll come up like two beauties,’ his father said.

‘And look at his mouth,’ his mother cried.

‘He’ll not be speaking tomorrow either.’ His father laughed. ‘See nowt, and say nowt: we mu’n have a bit o’ peace at last.’

Yet later he’d added, before he went to work, stooping to his boots to pull them on, ‘You must go under his guard when you’ve somebody big. Take my word for it, I ought to know. Hitting up you can hit much stronger.’

He got up in his work clothes and, despite his pit boots, began to dance around. ‘Left, left, then right. One, two, then bring it over. If you’d have taken a bit more notice you’d have been all right.’

He was still talking about the fight when he went to work, pedalling off slowly across the yard.

‘All wind,’ his mother said. ‘Don’t take any notice of your father in your fights.’

He heard his father’s voice then his mother’s, then Steven’s feet as he ran through the passage. A moment later, as if antagonized by the commotion, the baby began to cry.

He went through to his parents’ bedroom and looked down at the street. A red-painted bicycle with white mudguards was propped against the fence; it had a dynamo and electric lights, its handlebars curved down with rubber grips.

He heard his father’s strange, half-strangled tone in the passage below, then his mother’s almost formal accompanying tone, then, in response to some remark or gesture on their visitor’s part, a sudden burst of laughter.

‘Come in. Come in, lad,’ his father said and almost at the same moment he had added, calling, ‘Colin. There’s someone here to see you, then.’

When he went downstairs his father was standing awkwardly in front of the fire, smiling, his mother by the table, her hands clenched together, Steven by a chair uncertain now whether he might sit down; the baby was crawling across the floor, pacified for the moment by a piece of bread.

Stafford appeared to be unaware that anything unusual had occurred; he lay stretched out in a chair, pulling off a pair of gloves then, casually, raising one leg and removing a cycle clip that held his trousers.

‘It was farther than I thought,’ he said. ‘I missed the bus so I came on the bike. I looked up the trains: there’s not one through till after tea, and not one back until late tonight.’ He showed no curiosity in the room, or its inhabitants; it might have been a place he’d been coming into regularly for several years. Having removed his clips he dropped them on the table, his gloves beside them, and began to unfasten the buttons of his jacket. ‘You’ve some terrible hills round here,’ he added. ‘If I hadn’t a three-speed I couldn’t have managed.’

‘Oh, you need a bit of muscle to live round here,’ his father said. ‘None of your three-speed namby-pambies in a place like this.’

‘I can see that. I s’ll have to get into training,’ Stafford said, thickening his accent then and smiling.

The baby, suddenly conscious of his strangeness, stood up by a chair and began to cry.

‘Now, then. Now, then,’ his mother said, lifting it quickly. ‘It’s only a young man who’s come to see you. We don’t need any more of that, then, do we?’

‘And this is Steven, Colin’s brother,’ his father said.

Stafford nodded; he scarcely glanced in Steven’s direction, loosening his jacket then smoothing down his hair.

‘Would you like a cup o’ tea, or summat?’ his father said.

‘I wouldn’t mind. Or just a drink of water,’ Stafford said.

He looked up at Colin for the first time since he’d come into the room.

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’ve got here, then.’

‘Oh, it’ll be tea, don’t worry,’ his father said. ‘You’re not coming here to sup us watter.’

‘Water,’ his mother said.

‘Water. Watter,’ his father said. ‘Dost think when you’re thirsty it makes any difference?’

They went out a little later to show Stafford round the village. ‘He won’t have seen a place like this afore,’ his father said. ‘You know, where people work.’

‘Oh, it’s not all that different from where I live,’ Stafford said. At his father’s insistence he’d got up to wheel his bike through to the yard behind.

‘And where’s that, then?’ his father said.

‘It’s over at Spennymoor,’ Stafford said.

‘Oh, I know that well.’ His father laughed. ‘They have that big mill theer. What’s its name?’

‘Stafford’s. My family own it,’ Stafford said.

His father’s face had paled. He looked as if, at that moment, he might have fallen down.

‘Oh, thy’s that Stafford,’ his father said, glancing quickly at his mother.

Now, as they moved away from the house, Stafford had clapped his hands.

‘That gave your father a shock,’ he said. ‘Didn’t he know, do you think, or did he put it on?’

‘I shouldn’t think he knew,’ he said and shook his head.

‘People are funny about things like that. Money, I mean. As if it matters.’

‘I suppose if they haven’t got any’, he said, ‘it probably does.’

‘What difference does money make?’ Stafford said. He gazed over for a moment then shook his head. They were walking along the backs, Colin’s habitual path to get to the street outside. When he didn’t answer Stafford glanced about him, freshly; he gazed in at the open doors, at the dark, fire-lit kitchens. ‘If you have less money you have fewer worries,’ he added, as if quoting something he’d heard before.

They came to the street.

‘What would you like to see?’ he said.

‘What do you usually do on Sundays?’ Stafford said.

‘Go to Sunday School.’ He gestured off, vaguely, in the direction of the church.

‘No, honestly?’ Stafford said. He gazed off, with fresh curiosity, along the street. ‘I suppose it’s too late to go,’ he added.

‘We could go to the Park, if you like,’ he said.

Stafford looked round him at the houses. ‘Have you always lived here, or did you live somewhere else?’ he said.

‘I’ve always lived here,’ he said.

‘I come through the station on my way to school, but you can’t see up to the village,’ he said as if he’d wondered at the curiosity of this on his journeys through.

They reached the centre of the village and turned up the hill towards the Park.

Stringer and Batty were coming down the road, Batty with a stick which he flicked in the bushes on either side. When he saw Colin approaching he called to Stringer, who, without his gun, picked up a stone which he weighed, reflectively, in either hand.

‘Who’s your friend, Tongey?’ Batty said.

‘He’s from our school,’ he said, and added, ‘This is Lolly, and that’s Stringer,’ Stafford, his hands in his pockets, nodding, about to go on up the road.

‘Who says tha mu’n go up theer, then?’ Stringer said.

‘Up where?’ Stafford said and shook his head.

‘Up theer,’ Stringer said, suddenly dismayed by Stafford’s accent.

‘I don’t see that anyone mu’n say I have to go up theer or not, then,’ Stafford said, imitating Stringer’s accent.

‘Thy mu’n want thy nose knocking in, then?’ Stringer said. He put up his fist in Stafford’s face.

‘I’ mu’n not want anything knocking in, then,’ Stafford said, his voice faltering for a moment as he regarded Stringer’s fist.

‘Tha mu’n feel this, then,’ Stringer said, ‘if thy goes up theer. Nobody goes up theer without permission.’

‘Have we got permission, Colin?’ Stafford said. He looked half-alarmed at Batty, then, almost reluctantly, glanced at Colin.

Stringer, turning his attention now to Colin, raised his fist again, waving it to and fro in front of his face.