David Storey - Saville

‘And how’s your school? Are they teaching you to be a professor or what?’ she said. ‘Just look at his cap. And sithee, Ellen, just look at his blazer. Anybody would think he was at a university already.’ She scarcely glanced in his direction, taking note of his appearance out of the corner of her eye, disappearing at one point into the alcove, where he could hear the cover of the bed drawn back, a faint sigh, and a certain grunting and groaning before she re-emerged, a sheet beneath her arm. ‘Are those his books? Just look at his satchel. If our Eric or Gordon were here they’d be green with envy. They hardly see a book from what I can make out from one day to the next.’ She went on talking from the yard outside, taking out the sheet, re-appearing, a bucket in her hand. ‘You’ve scrubbed the floor, then? That’ll save some trouble. I was wondering when I’d get to that. Though they’ll both be left, of course, next year. Be factory fodder for a year then in the forces. You can’t expect much, I suppose. They’ve never put their backs into anything,’ she added.

His mother sat on a chair. At his aunt’s appearance inside the door she’d picked up her coat, about to leave, looking for her bag, then finally sitting down, the bag by her feet, her coat pulled on but still unbuttoned, gazing abstractedly through the uncurtained half of the tiny window. His aunt, unaware of the atmosphere, had pulled back the half-drawn curtain and let in something of the evening light.

‘We better go for the bus,’ his mother said, yet continuing to sit, round-shouldered, on the straight-backed chair. She was turned sideways to the table, her face in profile, one arm on the table, gazing, now the curtain had been drawn, at the fireplace and the fire.

‘Won’t you have some tea before you go, then, Ellen?’ his aunt had said. She didn’t wait for an answer; she didn’t even glance up to ask the question, her broad figure disappearing once again inside the alcove from where a moment later came another, deeper sigh and a further series of grunts and groans.

His mother, startled, had suddenly turned round.

‘Here, I’ll help you, love,’ she said.

She disappeared beyond the curtain, drawing it to behind her. The springs creaked on the double bed and briefly it seemed the bed itself was moved; he could hear the heavy breathing from his aunt, his mother’s fainter gasps, and the interrupted, slower breathing of the two figures on the bed.

‘There, then,’ his aunt said, re-appearing. ‘Though the sooner they take them off the better. Nobody can nurse them properly in a house like this.’

‘Will you be all right on your own?’ his mother said, faintly, coming out from behind the curtain. ‘Would you like us to stay a little longer?’

‘Oh, our Reg and David’ll be dropping in later,’ his aunt had said. ‘You get off now, while you have the chance.’

His mother picked up her bag again; she buttoned up her coat. She looked round, helplessly, at the tiny room, thought of going to the alcove once again, then said, ‘Well, I’ll get off, Madge, if that’s all right’

‘You get off,’ his aunt had said. ‘They’ll be all right. Tough as old boots, you know, are yon.’

His mother nodded; she bowed her head briefly as she reached the door, wiped her eyes with her handkerchief, blew her nose, then, thrusting her handkerchief in her pocket, took Colin’s hand.

‘Well, then, are you ready, love?’ she said.

His aunt appeared to be unaware, however, that either of them were leaving: she was stooping to the fire, still talking, poking hot cinders around the kettle, gasping at the heat, then straightening, looking round. ‘Oh, you’re off, then?’ she said as she saw them at the door. ‘You’ll be calling in when, then, Ellen?’ she added.

‘I’ll come in tomorrow,’ his mother said. ‘It’ll be the morning, when Steven’s gone to school.’

‘And how is Steven?’ his aunt had said as if anxious now to waylay his mother, coming out to the step, wiping her hands on her apron and calling, ‘If you could bring in some tea, love, it’d be a help,’ merely nodding her head at his mother’s answer.

‘She’s so upset, but determined not to show it,’ his mother said, her eyes glistening again as they left the house. ‘She’s always looked after them, you know, and given them money when they were both without. And she’s never had much herself,’ she added.

They walked through the other rows of houses to catch the bus, his mother still talking, not listening to the answers to any of her questions, her hand, however, clenched tightly round his own, and still gripping it when finally, some time later, they reached the bus.

It was growing dark; they sat downstairs. Fields faded off into the shadows either side; once clear of his grandparents’ village; however, his mother grew silent. She sat with her bag on her knee, gazing out, past the driver’s figure, to the faint outline of the road ahead. Only when the village came into sight did she suddenly say, ‘Well, then, I don’t think you’ll ever see them again,’ and added, ‘And neither will I, much more, if God is kind,’ taking his hand again as they left the bus and not releasing it, nor even slackening her grip, until they reached the house.

‘“And in the summer,”’ Mr Platt read aloud, ‘“when bees haunt flowers, and birds the hedges; when scents and blossoms have been distilled into one heady draught for the reeling senses; then doth my heart shake off the winter’s tale of woe and drudgery, and broken pledges, and take on the summer’s glow of health and smiles.”’

He put the examination paper down, looking up over the top of his glasses. His eyes moved slowly along the desks until they came to Stephens’s, then, with a sullen rage, they moved to Colin’s.

‘And what is an examiner supposed to make of this, then, Saville? “Discuss the imagery of the poem below”, and all I can find on your paper is a turgid, unrhythmical and, if I may say so, singularly inept poem of your own construction, entitled…’, he glanced quickly at the sheet again, ‘“Composed in 4uB classroom while gazing out of the window during the Easter examination.”’ He looked round him slowly at the rest of the class. ‘I can see no sign of any discussion, nor can I trace any reference to the poem in question, unless I take your own creation to be a crude and, in this context, I might add, insulting parody of its finer points. Wordsworth wrote poetry, and if he, in some idle moment, and on the margin of his examination paper, had given me his rendering of “I wandered lonely as a cloud”, I wouldn’t, I venture to suggest, have been altogether displeased. Providing he had kept it to the margin; and providing that he’d answered the question put to him in full. People with a minor talent, or, in this instance, no talent whatsoever, would do better to admire their betters, simply, straightforwardly, and without equivocation, rather than attempt to imitate their creations by constructing verses of an unspeakable banality of their own.’ He looked at the sheet again. ‘“C. Saville”. You might as well have written W. Shakespeare for all the good it’s going to do you.’ A murmur of laughter ran faintly round the room. ‘Dost think, Bard Colin, that membership of the rugger team entitlest thou to indulgences of this sort?’

The class broke into laughter.

‘Dost answer, Master Saville? Hearest thou the question, lad?’

‘Yes, sir,’ he said and nodded his head.

‘The eloquent fluctions of his heart are stilled. Sno’ed o’er by the pale cast of thought. Dost think it’s a masterpiece, then, young Saville?’

‘No sir,’ he said. He shook his head.