David Storey - Saville

He’d thought of writing her a letter; he’d looked up her number in a telephone directory, and had set out on two occasions to ring her up, faltering each time when he reached the phone.

Stafford had called one day when he was out shopping, but hadn’t waited until he got back.

‘We seem to go from one thing to another, and each one worse than the one afore,’ his father said one evening, before he set off for work. ‘If it hadn’t have been for this you could have had a job. That’s ten or fifteen pounds we might have had. As it is, you’re fastened up here and you end up earning nought.’

‘I offered to get a job,’ he said.

‘I know you offered,’ his father said. ‘What’s the use of offering if you can’t go out and do it? Steven can offer. Richard can offer. But that doesn’t add up to much, then, does it?’

‘What if I went and got a job?’ he said. ‘What would my mother do on her own in the house?’

‘That’s what I’m saying. However hard we work we end up where we were afore. There’s no point in doing ought. Whatever we do, whatever we say, we end exactly where we wa’ before. I can’t see any point in it. I can’t. Not any more.’

He kicked the table leg. There was something in his father now that was changed from what he’d known before. It was as if some part of him had died: he seemed pinned down; he no longer talked of moving, or changing house. His job was a habit, a kind of bond. He came home on leave like a soldier from a war: his real life, his real worries, were somewhere else, underground, away from them, invisible, even incommunicable. He would talk frustratedly now in front of Colin while his mother, as if sensing herself the cause of it, would get up from her chair, attempt some household task from which, a moment later, he would rescue her, saying, ‘Leave that to Colin, or we’ll have you back inside. You know what the doctor warned. I was a damn fool to let you out.’

‘How can I sit here’, she’d ask him, ‘and listen to this? If I wasn’t poorly none of this would happen.’

‘If it wasn’t you,’ he’d say condemningly, ‘it’d be something else. There’s been a blight on this family, there always has. We’ve tried to build up something. And see now where we end.’ He’d gesture round. ‘We’ve got nought, and no hope as I can see of anything better.’

His mother would cry; she would hold her apron against her eyes, for she wore her apron though she didn’t work, marking out her intention if nothing else. Long after his father had gone to work, or had gone upstairs to sleep, if the argument had broken out in the morning, she would sit in her chair, moaning, sometimes burying her head against her arm, or take Richard to her, and hide her face against his cheek.

She did more work now, however, when his father was out; she would come over to where he was cleaning, or washing-up, and take whatever he was using from him, a scrubbing-brush or a piece of cloth, and say, ‘You can leave that. I can do that now,’ almost bitterly, as if the sight of him working was more than she could stand. ‘You can get the coal,’ she’d tell him, or, ‘Wash the windows,’ or, ‘Get in the washing,’ tasks which, despite this, she’d decided with herself she wouldn’t do. Each afternoon, after lunch, she went to bed, and whenever his father was around she would sink back in her chair as if determined he should see how placidly she was resting.

Yet, the more determined she appeared in getting better, the more frustrated his father grew. He came home each morning now exhausted, his cheeks drawn, his eyes dark, shadowed, his mouth drawn tight; he would plunge into whatever jobs he could find himself, even digging the garden, mending the fence, washing the windows when, perhaps that week, they’d been washed already. He’d given up his allotment; when he couldn’t find anything else to do he’d sink down in a chair himself, sleeping in his clothes, his mouth wide open, snoring, Steven regarding him nervously from across the room, Richard being quietened in case he woke and yet, even when they shook him and told him the time, that he’d only so many hours left to go to bed, he’d refuse to stir, half-opening his eyes, reddened, bleary, and half-snarling with an anger they’d scarcely seen before, ‘Leave me alone. Get off. I can sleep down here,’ his mother calling, ‘Leave him, then, for goodness’ sake. He knows when he’s resting,’ his father, his eyes half-closed, turning his head blindly towards the room, then sinking back, his face blank, like a piece of stone, seemingly half-conscious, watching them despite his snoring. His eyes would gleam beneath his half-shut lids.

One morning, after his father had gone to bed and his mother, silently, had begun some cleaning, sweeping the kitchen, she’d suddenly collapsed. She’d sunk down on a chair, holding her chest, half-reclining at the table, and Colin, startled, had stood there for a while, unable to tell how serious it was, unable to decide what he ought to do. His mother had struggled for a while, as if trying to stand or even, perhaps, intending to continue with her job. Calling to her, he’d stood by the table, waiting for some instruction. Her eyes, distorted, rolled slowly in her head.

‘Dad,’ he’d called. ‘Dad.’

His father was upstairs in bed.

He went to the foot of the stairs and called again; then he heard his mother calling out, almost calmly, ‘Get me a chair, then, Colin,’ and then, more clearly, ‘In the front room, Colin.’

His mother lay with her head against the table, one arm sprawled out, unable to move. For a moment it seemed to him like an affectation; as if, had she so wished it, she could get up quite easily herself. He hadn’t touched her now for years, and could scarcely remember a time when she’d even embraced him.

He took her arm; he tried to lift her. He pulled her to her feet and, her legs dragging, her arms limp, tried to carry her through to the other room. As he turned to the door he saw his father standing there, in his shirt and his underpants, gazing in, bleary-eyed, startled, unable to make sense of what he saw. He thought for a moment he might have leapt across: a look of bewilderment crossed his face; then, as if wakening, with a death-like voice, subdued, he came into the kitchen, calling, ‘Whatever is it, lad? What’s wrong?’

‘Harry,’ his mother said, and called, ‘Harry.’

‘I’m here, my love,’ his father said, taking her then, almost fiercely, roughly, holding her to him.

‘She wanted to go to the other room,’ he said. ‘To lie down on the sofa.’

‘Hold on to me, Ellen,’ his father said, ‘hold on to me, then, my love,’ and, trying to lift her, half-carried her through.

He laid her on the sofa.

‘Light the fire, then, lad,’ he said, and added, as he knelt at the grate, ‘Get a blanket, then, I mu’n get her covered,’ almost to himself, half-calling.

He went upstairs, saw where his father had been sleeping, and took a blanket.

His father was rubbing her feet when he went back down; his mother was lying stiffly the length of the sofa; her legs had begun to tremble and, as he watched, her arms had begun to shake as well. Her jaw vibrated. Her body was gripped in a huge vibration.

‘Sithee, fetch the doctor. Tha mu’n call for him. Tell him it’s urgent,’ his father said. He tucked the blanket round her as if about to go himself. ‘Go on. Take my bike,’ he said. His legs were bare, his shirt unbuttoned; Richard, who’d been playing in the kitchen, had come into the room, standing, leaning up against the door. ‘Mam?’ he began to say, ‘Mam?’ his voice trailing off into a sudden wail.

‘Go on. Don’t wait,’ his father said.

He rode to the doctor’s at the end of the village.