David Storey - Saville

Yet he continued to lie back with his head propped on his hand, only reaching forward finally when he heard the sound of a second car. He lifted the sacking again, his head stooping, gazing out. Rain had begun to fall: the surface of the pond had been broken up; there was a splatter of drops across the roof.

‘I suppose we had better go in,’ he said. ‘I thought it might rain but I hoped it wouldn’t.’ He got up slowly, easing himself feet first through the narrow entrance; Colin followed. Rain spattered through the branches overhead, and drummed on the corrugated iron roof. The surface of the pond was ruffled; the geese, however, were swimming up and down.

‘We can make a dash for it. We’ll go in by the kitchen,’ Stafford said. He ran ahead, along the edge of the pond, up the paving stones, hesitating slightly as he reached the door, glancing in before he stepped inside. A third car was coming up the drive; pale faces gazed out from behind the windows. A door had opened at the front of the house: a voice called out.

The sandwiches and cakes had gone from the kitchen; Stafford, after glancing at the empty table, had opened a cupboard door; he opened a second door: inside was a narrow pantry, lit by a single window.

‘Nothing doing,’ he said. ‘We’d better go up.’

He smoothed down his hair, straightened his jacket, then opened one of the doors leading from the room. The sound of several voices came from the other side.

‘If anybody sees you, just nod your head.’

They entered a broad hallway. Bare walls led up to a banistered landing. The front door of the house was standing open: a woman in a blue dress was standing on the steps outside, shielded by the porch, calling to the people who were descending from the car. Through a door leading off the hall came a murmur of voices followed, suddenly, by a burst of laughter. ‘Irene, for God’s sake,’ someone called.

‘That’s mother. She’s having one or two of her women in.’ Stafford mounted the stairs in urgent strides, pausing only as he reached the landing and leaning over the banister, gazing down as the woman in the blue dress came back inside the hall, her voice deep, almost like a man’s, directing the women who’d just arrived. ‘We go along here,’ he added. ‘My bedroom’s at the back.’

They passed an open door through which Colin glimpsed two single beds set side by side. At the end of a narrow passage stood a red-painted door to which a notice had been fastened. Stafford, as he reached the door, had felt inside his pocket and a moment later took out a key. ‘Private. Keep Out’, the notice read, with the initials N. K. S. printed underneath.

Having unlocked the door Stafford stepped inside. The room was narrow and lit by two windows on adjoining walls. The floor, like the floor of the hall below, was bare, the walls unpapered. A single bed stood behind the door; adjacent to it stood a chest of drawers, a cupboard and a desk. The floor in the centre of the room was occupied by several cardboard boxes which, the moment they were inside the room and the door closed and locked again, Stafford began to clear away. ‘Just one or two things,’ he said, pushing some of the boxes beneath the bed and balancing others on top of the drawers, on the cupboard and the desk. A single dark-blue curtain covered each of the windows, one window looking out to the pond and the roofless shelter, the other to the fields adjoining the side of the house.

‘Sit on the bed if you like. Though usually’, Stafford said, ‘I sit on the floor.’

The light pattering of the rain came from the guttering overhead. The sound of voices in the hall had faded. From the driveway, faintly, came the sound of another car.

‘What sort of meetings does your mother have?’ he said.

‘I don’t know,’ Stafford said. ‘They’re always women. They sometimes go on for hours.’ He lay on the floor, reaching out beneath the bed. He stood up a moment later, red-faced from his exertions, an airgun in his hand. ‘We can have pot-shots, with that, if you like. We’ll try the geese. They’re just the distance.’

From a drawer in the desk he took out a box of pellets. He loaded the gun, opened the window, and took careful aim towards the pond. There was a soft phut as he fired the gun but the white, stiff-necked birds continued to swim uninterruptedly up and down.

‘Aim high to allow for distance,’ Stafford said. He loaded the gun for him, then handed it across.

Colin aimed vaguely for the flock of birds, where the cluster of shapes was thickest; the rifle kicked against his cheek and one of the geese stood, suddenly, and flapped its wings.

‘Oh, good shot,’ Stafford said. He re-loaded the gun. ‘Let’s try for Snuffler,’ he added. ‘You can just see him inside the shed.’

The rear of the pig was visible inside the open door of the shelter. Stafford, his arm propped on the window, took careful aim, his hair falling across his brow, his left eye closed; he stood poised against the window for several seconds, motionless, then squeezed the trigger.

‘I say, good shot,’ he said as the rear of the pig disappeared inside the hut to be replaced a moment later by its head. ‘It likes being shot at. It’s like having a tickle.’ He loaded the gun again. ‘Let’s try the geese again,’ he said and, having snapped the barrel to, aimed it once more in the direction of the pond.

A man in a trilby hat appeared a little later on the lawn below; he had evidently dismounted from a bike, for his trousers were clipped at his ankles above a pair of enormous boots. He was tall, with broad shoulders, slightly stooped, with a fringe of grey hair showing beneath the brim of the hat. He wore a sports coat with leather patches on the sleeves, and as he reached the edge of the pond he glanced up suddenly towards the house.

Stafford, who’d been loading the gun, only saw him as he held it to the window, gazing down for a moment surprised to find anyone there at all, lowering the gun and hiding it beneath the sill.

‘Have you been firing that thing, Neville?’ the man called, his voice echoing in the space behind the house.

‘We’ve been firing at the pond, Father,’ Stafford said.

He leaned out of the window to shout his answer.

‘You’ve not been firing at the birds?’ the man had called.

‘No,’ Stafford said, and shook his head.

The man gazed back for a moment at the pond; evidently he’d brought something for the geese to eat for they paddled out of the water and on to the bank. He put his hand down amongst them and examined their feathers.

‘If I find you have I’ll have that gun off you,’ the man had called, staring back finally towards the house.

He went on past the pond, calling for the pig; as he neared the shelter the animal suddenly emerged and ran towards him.

‘That’s the old man,’ Stafford said. ‘He really wanted to be a farmer, you know. If we’d had more money I suppose he would have been.’

He put the gun away beneath the bed, pulling out one of the smaller cardboard boxes and saying, ‘Have you seen this? I’ll take your picture.’

He took out a camera with a concertina-shaped front, holding it to his eye and laughing.

‘There’s not enough light in here. We could go downstairs. You take mine and I’ll take yours.’ He ducked to a mirror fastened to the cupboard and from his jacket pocket took out a comb; he smoothed down his hair, ducking to the mirror once again, then taking out his key and unlocking the door.

The woman in the blue dress was standing in the hall as they came downstairs, talking to several women who were about to leave.

‘Have you seen your father, Neville?’ the woman said and added, ‘This is my son,’ to one of the women at which Stafford bowed his head. ‘My youngest son, I ought to say,’ she said, the woman laughing as she turned to the door. ‘Have you seen him, Neville?’ she asked again.