David Storey - Saville

In the end it had been decided he would try for college. Gannen had never referred to his visit or his talk with his parents again. When he told him his decision he’d nodded, standing on this occasion at his desk and said, ‘I’m glad you’re not giving it up altogether,’ collecting his books and adding, ‘If there’s anything I can do just let me know.’

He went for an interview. The college was located in a neighbouring town. He travelled there by bus. Miles of furnaces and factories, mills and warehouses, terrace streets and blank walls and advertising signs gave way eventually to a tiny park. At the end of an asphalt drive stood the college buildings, built of brick, a sportsfield stretching away on either side.

The man who gave the interview seemed surprised he was applying. Small, with black hair combed smoothly back, with dark eyebrows and dark eyes, he sat mask-like behind his desk and said, ‘Frankly, I think you’ll be doing yourself no service coming here. I should stay on another year. Take a degree. We’d welcome you here, but I think in all fairness the work is well below the standard you’re capable of.’ He added, ‘On top of which, of course, there’s National Service. In the end, you know, you’ll only save two years.’

‘I’d still like to apply,’ he said.

‘I won’t say we’ll not be glad to have you. It’s your own interests, really, I’m thinking of,’ the man had added, writing quickly on the sheet before him.

Stafford, his head tilted back, allowed the smoke to drain out of his nostrils: his laughter, light, careless, echoed beneath the trees. He wore evening dress, the black bow knotted immaculately beneath his chin, his fair hair almost luminous against the shadows.

Sitting alone at one of the tables was Margaret. She had on a light-blue dress, her hair fastened beneath a ribbon, and was drinking from a glass which someone had evidently just brought her for a figure was slipping away as he arrived, making directly for Stafford’s group.

‘Anyone sitting here?’ Colin said.

‘No,’ she said. She had light-coloured hair, thin, the ribbon securing it in a horse-tail at the nape of her neck. Her dress, relieved by a large white collar, was secured at the waist with a belt. Her arms were bare. They both sat for a moment gazing to the animated group across the lawn from which, a moment later, came Marion’s loud peel of laughter.

‘Do you come here often?’ he said.

She smiled. ‘No. Never.’

‘What’s tonight’s occasion for?’ he said.

‘I was invited,’ she said, ‘like you.’

‘Are you leaving this year as well?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m only in the First Year Sixth. Or was. I’ll be in the Second, I suppose, when we start next term.’ She added, ‘You’re leaving, of course. Marion’s told me all about it.’

She had light, greyish eyes. Her cheeks were thin, slender, the nose upturned, the face itself so delicate he imagined it, in the fading light, to have been moulded from ice: there was a lightness about her that he’d noticed before, when he’d first glimpsed her in the city centre then later waiting in the queue. Apart from one occasion, at a First Team party the previous Christmas, when he’d danced with her, they’d scarcely exchanged a word.

‘And where are you going to now you’ve left?’ she said.

‘College.’ He shrugged.

‘You’re not going in the army first?’

‘I’ve got deferment.’

‘Stafford’s staying on another year.’

‘Yes.’ He waited. ‘Would you like another drink?’

‘I’ve enough with this, I think,’ she said.

They sat in silence for a while. Odd couples danced slowly, awkwardly, beneath the trees; a fresh tune started on the gramophone. The house stood on the outskirts of the town, looking out across a valley: a tall, brick-built mansion with gabled roofs into which Marion’s parents, who had arranged the party, had recently moved. A lawn at the side of the house and the trees surrounding it had been decked out with lights: Chinese lanterns hung in long rows beneath the branches, swaying in the breeze, white, metal-work tables having been set around the edge of the lawn itself. Marion, wearing an off-the-shoulder gown for the occasion, had greeted him with a kiss when he arrived, affecting surprise that he should have brought a present, although there was a large, unattended pile of them behind, and leaving him quickly, with a quick grasping of his arm, the moment Stafford appeared.

The sun was setting behind the trees, the light scarcely stronger than the glow from the lanterns.

‘Do you want to dance?’ he said.

‘I don’t mind.’

She got up from the table, stooping, and stepped on to the grass, waiting, her arms raised.

He held her lightly.

They danced slowly round the edge of the lawn. Fresh peals of laughter came through from Stafford’s group, the smoke from their cigarettes drifting through the pools of light which glowed, almost luminous, against the redness of the setting sun.

They walked round the garden. A path led down beneath the trees to a smaller lawn, a low stone wall and a terrace flanked by roses. Below them were the lights of the town. The sun now had set completely: the light hung high in the sky to the west. Opposite, silhouetted to the north, was the profile of the town, its domes and towers, and the single steeple. He took her hand and then, when she offered no resistance, rested his arm against her waist.

From behind them, muted by the garden and by the darkness, came the voices of the others, and the slow, almost mournful rhythm of a dance tune.

‘Do you live in the town?’ he said.

She shook her head. ‘Well, almost in it. About a mile away.’ She gestured off, vaguely, in the direction of the valley. ‘My father’s a doctor. So we tend to go where the work is.’

‘I suppose that’s true of everyone,’ he said.

‘Is it?’

She glanced across.

‘I suppose it is. Though you’re not always aware of it,’ she added.

They stood awkwardly for a moment, gazing out across the garden. Close by, beyond the gardens of several other houses, stood the mound of a castle; some distance below it, silhouetted against the sky, was a line of ruins, and a single vast window set in a jagged wall of stone.

‘Do you ever go out at all?’ he said. ‘I mean, does anyone ever take you out?’

‘Sometimes,’ she said. She laughed. ‘What a question. What if I said no?’

He shook his head.

‘Do you know what they call you at the High School?’

‘No.’

He shook his head again.

‘Brooder.’

She laughed, flinging back her head.

‘I can’t see why.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose you can.’

Hopkins’s voice came from behind them.

‘This is where you are. I say, what a super view.’ He gazed out blankly across the valley.

‘Do you want to dance again?’ Colin asked her.

‘If you like,’ she said, and added, ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ turning from his arm and stepping back towards the lawn.

Stafford had come in a car. It was a vehicle he had learned to drive the previous year, his mother’s. He’d come to school in it. As Colin was leaving, later, he called across, ‘Would you like me to drive you home, old man?’ standing with his arm round Marion at the side of the lawn where, with her parents’ reappearance, she was wishing her guests good night.

‘Oh, you’re not going so soon, Nev?’ Marion said.

Colin looked to Margaret.

‘I was seeing Margaret to the bus,’ he said.

Marion laughed.

‘Aren’t you seeing her to the door, Savvers?’ Stafford said, glancing at the dark, stocky couple at Marion’s side as if to point out the vagaries of this peculiar stranger.