David Storey - Saville

‘It was just a thought,’ he said. ‘If my dad got to hear that’d be the end of it.’

The lights had come on: faint yellowish pools of gaslight illuminated the pavement and the walls of the houses. A mist had risen in the hollows round the colliery, and had drifted out now across the nearest streets. Their feet echoed in the gathering darkness. At Reagan’s door a stream of light illuminated the figure of his mother, as angular though not as tall as Reagan himself. Michael almost stopped altogether the moment he saw her, and might even, if she hadn’t called, have crossed over the street.

‘Is that you?’

‘We got lost, Mother,’ he said, stepping into the light, his manner, the whole droop of his figure, reminding Colin of the night during the war when they had come home from sitting the exam.

‘That’s all right,’ his mother said, adding, ‘Is that you Colin, love?’ stepping down from the door itself and feeling Reagan’s clothes. ‘You haven’t got damp, then, have you?’

‘No,’ Reagan said. ‘We’ve been walking nearly all the time.’

‘Would you like to come in, Colin?’ Mrs Reagan said. ‘I’ve something in the oven ready for Michael, but we could easily split it up. I don’t like him eating too much late at night.’

‘Is that that cat-gut scraper?’ a voice roared suddenly from inside the house, a vast shadow for a moment darkening the doorway before the figure of Mr Reagan himself appeared. Recognizing Colin, however, his tone and manner changed abruptly. ‘You two lads got back from your adventures, have you? His mother’s been wondering where he’s got to, cooking and uncooking, trying to keep his supper hot. We haven’t been able to eat till he got back. We never knew he’d be this long.’

‘Oh, we’ve had a good day,’ Reagan said allowing a certain sense of relief to show. ‘We got lost coming back. That’s why we took so long. We got a lift, you know, in a lorry.’

‘A lorry?’ his mother said, clutching his sleeve again.

‘A man called Jack Hopcroft asked us to remember him to you,’ Reagan said.

‘Hopcroft? Hopcroft?’ Mr Reagan said, stroking his chin and glancing at his wife then Reagan as if to see how relevant this might be. ‘Hopcroft.’ Evidently no sign of recognition was visible in son or mother and Mr Reagan added, ‘Well, we can get in now and have our supper,’ Colin moving on towards his door.

‘And how did it go?’ his father said, looking up as he entered as if he had only gone out a moment before.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘We came back in the end in the cab of a lorry.’

‘Oh, Bryan’ll appreciate it,’ his father said, as if he hadn’t heard this piece of news at all.

The results of the examination came in the post. He’d done neither worse nor better than had been expected; though his relatively low mark for English surprised his mother. ‘I thought that was your best subject, love.’

‘Easiest, I suppose,’ he said.

‘That’s all the grounding I gave him,’ his father said. ‘Though why he can’t come out with it in an examination I’ve no idea.’

‘I never feel like it. It all seems pointless when you’re examined,’ he said. ‘“Give examples of the use of nature in Wordsworth’s poetry”,’ he added. ‘Is that what you read poems for, to give examples?’

‘When you can see a damn good job at the end of it you’d be surprised’, his father said, ‘at the number of examples I could give. And I’ve never read a book,’ he added. ‘If you were wukking down a pit you’d soon think up summat, don’t you worry.’

‘Well, he’s not working down a pit,’ his mother said.

‘He’s not at the moment,’ his father said. ‘But at the rate he’s going he very soon will.’

‘Well, I don’t think there’s much truth in that,’ she said.

‘Well there’s truth in that there’s somebody working down yon pit, and to keep him in luxury while he does learn one or two examples. That’s the point of it all,’ he added to Colin.

It was arranged he would stay on and go into the Sixth Form. He worked on a farm again that summer, rising early, arriving back each evening late, harvesting the fields where he’d worked before, with the two prisoners of war, earning enough money finally to buy a bike, cycling out to Stafford’s one evening, but not finding him at home. He was bronzed and fit by the time he returned to school the following September.

His grandfather had fallen ill that winter. Unknown to his father he had been living in a home run by a local council in a town some distance away. He went with his father one weekend to see him. They travelled there by train, across the unfamiliar flat-land to the east, towards the coast. The town stood at the mouth of an estuary: cranes, and the indications of docks and a port were visible above the roofs of the plain brick houses. They travelled to the home by bus; it stood on the outskirts of the town, a grey brick structure of some antiquity to which several prefabricated huts had been added. His grandfather’s dormitory was at the top of the building, a bare, barrack-like interior lined on either side with metal beds. His grandfather and one other man were the sole occupants, though a few moments after they’d entered, following a nurse, several other men came in and sat on the ends of their beds, bowed, smoking, talking aimlessly amongst themselves.

His grandfather appeared to be asleep, much aged now since Colin had last seen him. His large, hooked nose stood up like a bony armature from the cavernous hollows around his eyes, his cheeks drawn in, his mouth toothless. Colin felt the shock go through his father.

‘Dad?’ he said and the nurse who had come in with them had added, ‘Mr Saville? There’s someone here to see you, love,’ his grandfather’s light eyes slowly opening, gazing up steadily for a while before him then slowly turning to look at the nurse and, with increasing confusion, at his father and Colin himself.

‘Dad?’his father said. ‘How are you?’

‘Oh, I’m all right,’ his grandfather said as if his father had been in the room with him for some considerable time, then adding, ‘Harry, is it you?’

‘We came to see you’, his father said, ‘as soon as we heard.’

‘Who’s this, then?’ he said, looking up confusedly at Colin.

‘It’s thy grandson. Dost remember him?’ his father said.

‘Colin,’ his grandfather said, yet with no certainty, looking back towards the nurse.

‘Why didn’t you tell us where you were living?’ his father said.

‘Nay, I didn’t want to trouble anybody.’

‘Nay, Dad, we’d have looked after you,’ his father said.

‘Oh, I’m looked after well enough in here.’

‘You’d be looked after better, you know, at home.’

‘Oh, I’m well enough here, don’t worry,’ his grandfather said and added, ‘And where’s our Jack, then? Is he with you?’

‘Oh, he’ll be coming in a day or two,’ his father said.

‘I thought he might have been with you.’ His grandfather closed his eyes.

‘I shouldn’t tire him too much, Mr Saville,’ the nurse had said and, calling to one or two of the other men in the room, went out.

His father found a chair. For a while Colin stood by the bed, gazing down, his father sitting, staring at his grandfather’s head. The bag of food he’d brought for him he’d left, on the nurse’s instructions, at the desk downstairs.

‘Well, he doesn’t look too good,’ his father said and his grandfather, as if prompted by the voice, opened his eyes again.

‘Are you still here?’ he said.

Colin found another chair. He sat for a while on the opposite side, then his father, his face strained, his eyes reddened, looked up and said, ‘You can wait outside, if you like, Colin. It’s not much fun, you know, in here.’