David Storey - Saville

His father was dressed when he got back in: he was in the kitchen, drinking tea. Astonished to see him there at all, he said, ‘How is she, then? Is my mother all right?’

‘Aye. She’ll be all right. Is the doctor coming?’ his father said.

‘They said he’d come as soon as he can,’ he said.

‘And how soon’s that going to be? By God, when you want them doctors they’re never there.’

He went through to the other room. His mother was moaning quietly to herself; her glasses had been taken off; her legs were vibrating beneath the blanket. His father came in with his tea. ‘Don’t touch her, then,’ he said. He put the pot down. His hands were trembling. He sat on the arm of the sofa, half-crouching, and began, slowly, to rub his mother’s feet; then, as she began to moan more loudly, he took out her arms from beneath the blanket and rubbed her hands, half-moaning now it seemed himself, his voice harsh, half-startled. ‘Nay, you’ll be all right, then, love. The doctor’s coming. Nay, you’ll be all right, then, love. We’ll just hang on.’

The doctor came an hour later. Colin sat in the kitchen with Richard. He could hear the doctor’s voice with its Scottish accent, then his father’s murmur, then a fainter, inaudible murmur from his mother.

Finally the doctor came out, briskly, screwing back the top of a fountain-pen and clipping it inside his pocket. He went through to the front door, his father following.

The sound of his car, a moment later, came echoing from the street outside.

‘You can fetch that from the chemist,’ his father said, coming in then with a slip of paper.

His mother was in bed when he got back in.

‘I’ve told her she shouldn’t do any work,’ his father said. ‘She’s to do no lifting, and she’s not to come downstairs again, except for the toilet until the doctor’s seen her. You see what happens when you don’t follow instructions.’

Her illness frightened his father: it gave him strength; he buckled to the housework now himself, and came home from work with an eye anxious for any job that hadn’t been done, ironing his own clothes, washing, scrubbing the floor and washing the windows, but with none of his earlier resentment. Now she was fastened upstairs, with the doctor coming every day, and with the threat of the hospital hanging over them once again, an older, more familiar momentum returned to the place: his father knew what he ought to do, and did it, cooking his mother’s meals and carrying them upstairs, sleeping on the sofa now, whistling to himself as he worked in the kitchen, going upstairs to kiss his mother goodbye each evening before he set off for work.

‘You take good care of her,’ he’d tell Colin, coming down, before he left. ‘Ought she wants you get it. And keep Richard quiet when he goes to bed.’

Colin would go in to see her himself before he went to bed; she would be lying back against the pillow, sometimes reading a paper, other times dozing, glancing up, casually, saying, ‘Have you washed, then, love?’ or, ‘Have you locked the doors? Your father’s got his key, then, hasn’t he?’ half-dazed, almost as if he were some other person, leaning forward suddenly to touch his hair, to push back his fringe, inquiringly, as if unsure for a moment who he was.

In the mornings, if his father wasn’t back, he’d take her in a cup of tea, quietly setting it on the chair beside her bed, listening to her breathing, not wakening her or touching the curtains. Then, having got Steven up and Richard, he would tiptoe down the stairs. Sometimes, waking drowsily, she would call to the stairs, ‘Is that you, Colin? What time is it?’ waiting then for him to come back in and adding, ‘Can you draw the curtains, love?’ or, ‘If you’ll hand me the coat I’ll have to go downstairs.’ She crossed the yard on her own to the toilet, white, thin-faced, not glancing up when anyone called so that often Mrs Shaw or Mrs Bletchley watched her from their doors, not speaking, their arms folded. ‘How’s your mother, Colin?’ Mrs Shaw would say and shake her head before he answered. ‘She’s not looking well. She ought to be in hospital,’ she’d tell him.

One Sunday evening, when his father changed shifts, he borrowed his bike and cycled out to St Olaf’s. The service was still on; the soldiers in the old mansion were sitting on the steps below the porch: one or two were playing with a ball between the trees. From several of the ancient, mullioned windows soldiers’ heads were hanging out, their voices calling, echoing in the yard beyond the church.

He rode up and down the road opposite the church until he saw a verger hook back the doors. He waited then beneath a tree; several girls and youths came out, the older people standing in groups around the gate. He saw Audrey and Marion with several other girls he recognized; they stood by the stone wall for a while, in a circle, laughing, glancing over at the groups of boys. Finally one or two boys moved off, slowly; some of the girls began to follow.

Colin waited for a while beneath the tree; then, as the group of youths rounded the corner towards the village he started after them, cycling slowly. Audrey glanced across, then Marion; perhaps they’d expected Stafford as well for they glanced behind him, but seeing the road empty but for the following line of boys, they continued talking to the girls on either side. Colin paused, not knowing any one of them to speak to, then cycled slowly on until the first of the houses came into sight. He got off the bike, took off his cycle clips, and waited for the youths to pass.

Neither Audrey nor Marion paid him any attention; there was a brief glance across from the dark-haired girl, but it was more a gesture directed at the world in general, half-smirking, the eyes narrowed, the eyebrows raised, the mouth pulled wide in the beginning of a smile.

He got on the bike again after the line of pursuing boys had passed, and cycled slowly in their wake. Finally, when they reached a bus stop in the centre of the village they stood in a large group around a wooden seat, still talking and laughing. Occasionally one figure would chase another, a pursuit egged on by the others and ending in screams – a girl pushed back against a hedge, a boy hanging over her, pinning her arms, helpless suddenly, and grinning.

At one point a boy and girl moved off, along a hedged lane adjoining the stop: two or three of the boys called out and, between the slowly shifting figures, he caught a glimpse of Audrey, sitting on the bench, smiling suddenly and shaking her head.

Some time later the group parted and Marion appeared: she was wearing a reddish hat. She wore high heels. She came over to the hedge where he was leaning on the bike and, glancing back at the boys, who, in turn, were gazing across in her direction, said, ‘Audrey’s given me a message. She doesn’t want to see you again. I didn’t want to tell you, but there it is.’ Some comment was made amongst the boys around the stop and a moment later the girls as well as the boys had laughed. Marion, aware of the audience at her back, had shaken her shoulders and tossed her head. ‘Is there anything you want to tell her, then?’

‘I’d like to talk to her,’ he said. ‘If she can drag herself away from those grinning idiots.’

‘Those grinning idiots, as you put it,’ Marion said, ‘are some of my friends.’

‘If she can drag herself away from some of your friends,’ he said, suddenly gratified by the eloquence his feelings had given him.

‘I’m sure she doesn’t want to. But I’ll ask her all the same,’ she said.

She walked back to the watching group. His message was passed loudly through the wall of figures to Audrey sitting on the bench.

Audrey, in a slightly subdued voice, had given an answer back.