David Storey - Saville

‘Go on,’ Batty said. ‘And thee an’ all.’

Colin got up from the chair.

‘And don’t come again. I’ve telled you now.’

Stringer laughed; he lifted the gun again and aimed it vaguely at Colin’s head.

He went outside; Stafford, the switch in his hand, was flicking at the mud around the hut; he glanced up at its roof, its metal chimney, and called to Batty, ‘It’s quite a good place you’ve got, you know.’

‘We mu’n keep it that way an’ all, then,’ Batty said. He stood in the doorway of the hut, the barrel of the air-gun poking out behind.

‘It’s a bit of a dump really,’ Stafford said as they came away. ‘What a terrible pong.’ He held out his arms, throwing the stick away, to keep his balance as they crossed the swamp. ‘I don’t know how they stand it. What a dump.’

Something clipped through the leaves above Colin’s head.

‘I suppose you don’t notice it after you’ve been here a while. I suppose you get used to it,’ he said. He led the way, holding back the bushes until Stafford caught him up.

They reached the road.

Stafford glanced up towards the village.

‘I ought to be getting back,’ he said. He scraped off the mud at the side of the road. ‘Honestly, what a pong.’

‘I suppose it’s a good place to build a den, though,’ Colin said.

Stafford shrugged.

‘When you come to our place I’ll show you mine. You don’t have to wade through all that mud.’

They walked up the road towards the village. The light, showing in odd patches of the sky, had begun to fade. Far away, across the plain, rain had begun to fall, a vague blurring in the sky that sloped at an angle towards the fields.

‘What time have you to be back home, then?’ Colin said.

‘Depends. They don’t usually mind if I’m late, though,’ Stafford said.

He scraped his shoes against the road, occasionally crossing to the verges and wiping the mud off against the grass.

‘Honestly, it really sticks on. You can’t get rid of it,’ he added.

A thin shower of rain began to fall; they began to run. Bletchley was standing at the door of Reagan’s house.

‘Hey, where’ve you been? You should have stayed with us,’ he said. Reagan, in his shirt-sleeves, was standing in the door. ‘We’re off back later, you know, tonight.’

‘Where?’ Stafford said. He raised his head.

Bletchley flicked his head as if he didn’t care to say the word. He glanced behind him at the passage, past Reagan’s figure, to the kitchen at the other end.

‘The Park. Do you want to come?’ He called out louder, ‘We might go up to church as well.’

Colin waited; Stafford had paused, uncertain; then, slowly, he came to the door.

‘I better be getting back, I suppose,’ he said.

The kitchen had been cleared when they went inside; his father was listening to the wireless. Stafford’s bike had been wheeled inside: it leant with his father’s against the sideboard. Steven was playing on the floor in front of the fire.

‘We brought your bike in. We thought it looked like rain,’ his father said.

‘Oh, there’s no need for that, Mr Saville,’ Stafford said. ‘It’s quite used, you know, to getting wet.’

He took out his clips, stooped down, and put them on.

‘You’re off now, then, Neville?’ his father said.

‘I think I’d better, Mr Saville,’ Stafford said.

He looked for his gloves which he’d left behind.

‘Gloves, gloves,’ his father said, opening a drawer and taking them out. ‘I put them in here, you see, in case one of this lot picked them up. You can’t keep ought in this house, tha knows, for long.’

He went to the stairs.

‘Ellen! Ellen. Neville’s leaving, then,’ he said.

‘I won’t be a minute,’ his mother called, faintly, half-whispering, from overhead.

‘She’s putting the baby to bed,’ his father said.

He took the bike from Stafford and wheeled it out.

‘Out of the front today,’ he said when Stafford, initially, had turned it to the yard.

He wheeled it down the passage, opened the front door, stooping, then half-carried it to the street beyond.

Stafford, his jacket fastened, his collar up, with one glove on and the other in his hand, followed him down the passage, turning then, his hand out, as his mother appeared at the foot of the stairs.

‘Goodbye, Mrs Saville. And thank you so much for giving me tea,’ he said.

‘It’s been a pleasure having you. I hope you’ll come again,’ his mother said.

‘Next time I might try the train, then,’ Stafford said.

‘A Saturday might be better,’ his mother said.

Steven followed them out to the street. Stafford mounted his bike. The thin rain now had strengthened.

‘Sithee: you’ll need your lights on soon,’ his father said.

Bletchley, still standing in Reagan’s door, had waved. Reagan appeared beside him after a moment, their two strangely contrasted figures pressed together.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then,’ Stafford said and, stooping to the low handlebars, pushed off from the kerb.

Steven ran after him, waving, pausing finally some distance down the street and watching Stafford as he pedalled out of sight.

His mother had turned back inside the door; his father waited while Steven came back in.

‘Did yon enjoy himself?’ he said.

‘I think so,’ Colin said. ‘I can’t see why he shouldn’t.’

‘He’ll not be used, I suppose, to the likes of us.’

‘I can’t see why not,’ he said and shook his head.

‘I never knew he was a Stafford, then.’

‘Are they that more important, then?’ he said.

‘Nay, they’re the biggest family, tha knows, round here. You can ask your mother: her father worked for them. Years ago: afore we married.’

‘Oh, they’re an important family all right,’ his mother said. ‘Though I don’t suppose he’ll want to come down here again.’

‘I don’t see why not,’ he said.

‘Nay, lad: thy’s a lot to learn,’ his father said. ‘Though I like him well enough, mysen.’

He got his books and went upstairs.

He could hear them talking, as he worked, in the room below, his father’s voice half-wearied, slow, getting on his clothes for work, his mother’s querulous, half-complaining. He only went down, finally, when Steven came up to go to bed.

Miss Woodson sharpened her pencil slowly. The wastepaper basket into which she fed the shavings stood immediately by the fire, itself now a mass of smoking coke. No one in the classroom stirred; they watched the small, sharp blade of the penknife, which she’d removed moments before from her large black handbag, cut into the now sharply pointed piece of wood and waited while the last thin shaving had floated down into the large straw orifice below.

‘Two-thirds, expressed as a decimal, is what?’

Stephens, the boy with the misshapen back, had raised his hand. It was a speculative gesture: Miss Woodson, inevitably, would ask one of those whose hands were lowered.

‘Two-thirds expressed as a decimal.’

The large black eyes came up; the black, bushy eyebrows were slowly raised. The spectacles were hitched up, slowly, on to the broad, projecting platform of Miss Woodson’s nose.

Walker’s hand went up; the hands of almost the entire class, in a communal gesture, were raised as well.

‘I’m glad to see so many hands.’

The small, silvery-coloured blade was folded; the ivory-handled penknife was returned to the large black bag.

‘Two-thirds.’

The bag, having been placed on the desk top, was lowered on to the floor beside it. Miss Woodson’s figure, small, compact, surmounted by a crest of jet-black hair, sank down into the round-backed chair behind the desk itself.