David Storey - Saville

A train crossed the embankment, travelling slowly beneath a banner of blackish smoke; in the distance other clouds of smoke rose from the faintly visible heaps and chimneys. At the foot of the slope, where it flattened out towards the railway, a group of boys were playing football. Several girls, at the edge of the fishpond, were playing round a pram.

He pushed Richard on the swing, then, for a while, he held him on the rocking-horse. The man with the scythe worked rhythmically across the slope, occasionally calling out as the children disturbed the raked-up piles – or standing, sharpening his scythe and gazing off, abstracted, towards the distant woods.

Three figures had appeared at the top of the hill. Two of them were sat on bikes, the third leaning up against a bike; an arm was raised and, faintly, he heard his name being called.

Stafford, still waving, re-mounted his bike; a moment later he came coasting down the hill, sitting sideways on the cross-bar, his elbows out.

‘We’ve just been down to your house,’ he said, dismounting at the foot of the slope. ‘The woman next door said you might be here.’

Steven had come over; he held his hand.

‘What happened to you last night, then?’ Stafford said.

‘I couldn’t get out,’ he said, and shook his head.

‘We waited at St Olaf’s. Then went on to Marion’s,’ Stafford said. ‘Her father drove us home,’ he added. He gestured behind him to the top of the hill. ‘They’re both here now. We wondered if you could get a bike.’

‘I’ve to look after my brothers today,’ he said.

‘Can’t you dump them somewhere?’ Stafford said.

‘I’ve to cook their dinner as well,’ he said.

‘We’ve got some sandwiches. We thought we’d have a picnic. We could go over to Brierley Woods. We could really have some fun there,’ Stafford said.

‘Colin,’ Steven said and pulled at his arm.

‘I’ve got to look after them though,’ he said.

Behind him Richard, suddenly aware that he was alone, had begun to cry.

‘They’ve come over specially,’ Stafford said, gesturing once more to the slope behind. ‘And Audrey’s pretty keen. It was her idea to come,’ he added.

He glanced back up the slope. Marion was calling: she’d begun to wave her arm.

He went back to the rocking-horse and lifted Richard off. He set him in the pram.

‘Honestly; do you have to look after them?’ Stafford said.

‘My mother’s in hospital,’ he said.

‘What’s matter with her?’ Stafford said, looking at his bike, then pulling strands of straw from between the spokes.

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘You could leave them with this woman,’ Stafford said. ‘Couldn’t she look after them for a day?’

He shook his head. He glanced over at the slope again. He could hear his name being called. Marion’s arm was raised again; Audrey, her slim figure stooping to her bike, stood some distance farther back, almost at the gate.

He pushed the pram towards the slope. Stafford cycled back along the path, standing finally to force the pedals.

The keeper, sitting in his wooden hut, had whistled, waving a stick, wildly, up and down. Stafford got off; he waited for Colin to catch him up.

‘She’s really keen for you to come. It’ll not be much fun with just the three of us,’ he added.

Stephen held on to the pram as he pushed it up. Audrey, as if dismayed, had already turned her bike towards the gate.

‘Honestly, who’s playing Daddies today, then?’ Marion said when he reached the top. She looked at Richard’s tear-streaked face and then at Steven: he too, as if sensing danger, had begun to cry.

‘I can’t get out today,’ he said, holding now to the handle of the pram.

‘Are both of them yours, then?’ Marion said, laughing now and bowing her head. Her dark hair was fastened back beneath a ribbon. Audrey, as if reluctant to be seen at all, had wheeled her bike out between the gates.

‘I have to look after my brothers,’ he said and stood for a moment, shaking his head, uncertain whether to follow Audrey.

‘Honestly, we’ll wait for you,’ Stafford said. ‘Haven’t you got a relative, or something, you could leave them with?’

‘No,’ he said. He shook his head.

‘I suppose we better go back, then,’ Stafford said. ‘It was Audrey’s idea,’ he added again.

Marion turned her bike.

‘Honestly, you ought to speak to her, at least,’ she said.

Colin pushed the pram towards the gate. Audrey was at the kerb, getting ready to mount her bike.

‘I can’t come today,’ he said. He added, ‘I came last night. To St Olaf’s, but I got there late. I went over to your place. Stafford said you went to Marion’s.’

‘We went there for a bit,’ she said.

She glanced at Steven; there were holes in his pullover, and the sleeves of the pullover had begun to fray. His stockings had slipped down around his ankles; his nose, with his crying, had begun to run. Only Richard had any neatness; yet he was crying now and shaking the pram.

‘I’ve to look after my brothers today,’ he said, and Stafford called out, ‘We better get going then, my dear.’

‘We don’t want our sandwiches getting cold, then, do we?’ Marion said.

‘I’ll try and come over one evening,’ he said.

‘My mother doesn’t like you coming to the house,’ she said.

She mounted the bike. Stafford and Marion, freewheeling, had started down the hill.

‘She doesn’t think it looks very nice,’ she said.

‘Shall I come to the door?’ he said.

She shook her head.

‘We’ll try some other time,’ she said and, pushing from the kerb, pedalled slowly off, freewheeling finally as she reached the hill.

‘I can’t make you out,’ his father said when he came back in. ‘Here’s your mother ill and you don’t want to help. Anybody would think you don’t want to live here any more.’

He stood silently across the room and didn’t answer.

‘Haven’t you got a tongue in your head?’ his father added.

‘What can I say, in any case?’ he said.

‘Tha can say I’m wrong in feeling what I do. Tha can say any number of things,’ his father said. ‘Here I am: I haven’t had a sleep, and I’m off back to work already. You might say summat about that, for a start.’

‘There’s nothing I can say about it.’ He shrugged.

‘There’s nowt thy wants to say about it,’ his father said. ‘For it’s true.’

His mother was away for three weeks. When she came back, at her own insistence, she could scarcely stand. She’d made his father sign her out. ‘I’m better doing nothing here than doing nothing there,’ she said. ‘Just lying on my back, I might as well be home.’

Yet it was some other person now who’d come to the house. Both of her parents had died the previous Easter. Ever since the funeral she had begun to fade: finally, one morning, while he was at school, she had collapsed in the kitchen; his father had taken her to the hospital the following day. Now, returning, she sat silently about the house all day, and at night, sleeplessly, tossed to and fro on the double bed. He did nearly all the housework now: on Mondays he did the washing, under her supervision, standing aside occasionally, as, groaning, she got up from her chair to show him how to wash a particular shirt or blouse; on Wednesdays he cleaned the house upstairs, washing the bedroom floors, on Fridays the front room, the kitchen and the outside toilet. On Saturdays he did the shopping. While she was still in hospital he’d found an opportunity to cycle over to the farm on three occasions; on none had he seen Audrey, though on the last he’d called at the house. A farm dog, barking at the end of a chain, had greeted his arrival, and the door had been opened by a tall, fair-haired woman with bright red cheeks who’d answered his inquiry as to whether Audrey was in with a shake of her head, calling him back as he turned away and saying, ‘I think she’s too young to have boys calling for her. I’d appreciate it very much if you didn’t cycle up and down in front of the gate.’