Saville (43 page)

‘That’s Douglas, one of my brothers,’ Stafford said. ‘He’s home from college. John’s here, too. He’s home on leave.’

‘How many brothers do you have?’ he said.

‘Four,’ he said. ‘I’m the youngest, you see, by about eight years.’

He pulled back the door to the pantry, looked inside, then crossed over to the door through which the other figure had disappeared.

‘Mother? Is there anything in to eat?’ he called, waiting for an answer then shaking his head. ‘She’s probably gone out. She often does at this time if she can get a life’ He called again, waited, then came back in the kitchen. ‘We could boil an egg. Are you keen on eggs?’ Yet he stood indecisively by the window, gazing out to the back of the house where his father had once again re-appeared from the shed, a clump of hay above his head, walking over to the roofless pen.

‘How many pigs do you have?’ Colin said.

‘There’s Porky,’ Stafford said. ‘And there’s a sow with six or seven young ones. I’ve never counted them. It might be more.’

The figure Colin had glimpsed earlier, through a rear window of the house, came in and seeing only Stafford and himself immediately went back out.

‘That’s John,’ Stafford said, fingering the table moodily, then suddenly looking up and adding, ‘I say, come on up. I’ve something
in my room.’ He picked up the camera he’d left on the table and stepped out to the hall.

The house was silent. The door to the room where the women had been was standing open; the figure with the book was sitting there, in front of the fire, eating the piece of bread and drinking from the pot ‘Can you close the door?’ he called as they crossed the hall.

Stafford pulled it to. The front door opened as they reached the stairs and another tall, awkwardly built figure appeared taking off a peaked Air Force hat and hanging it on a peg, laughing, then calling to the drive from where a moment later came a shout, followed immediately by a burst of women’s laughter.

‘Is mother in, Nev?’ the figure called, shouting briefly to the drive again, then glancing over half-heartedly towards the stairs. The man was dressed in an Air Force uniform, belted at the waist; a pair of wings was fastened to the breast pocket of the jacket.

‘I think she’s out,’ Stafford said, and added, ‘I say, are you home on leave or what?’

Two women and a second man appeared in the door behind and, without answering, the uniformed figure led them off into the room across the hall; the door was closed. A second burst of laughter followed by someone calling a single name came a moment later from the other side.

‘That’s Geoff,’ Stafford said, gazing at the door as if half-tempted to step inside. ‘I bet the old man doesn’t know he’s back. Though he might have sent a telegram,’ he added.

They went on up the stairs. Stafford took out his key. He unlocked the door and they went inside. From below, faintly, came another shout then, suddenly, the blaring of a dance tune. After a further shout the tune had faded, followed by a faint murmur from the head of the stairs.

Stafford closed the door; he stood the camera on the desk and from one of its drawers took out a piece of wood to which were fastened several instruments and wires, and attached to the edge of which were a pair of earphones.

‘I’ll tune it,’ he said. ‘You can have a listen.’

Stafford manoeuvred a piece of wire against a glass-like piece
of rock, scratching its surface with the end of the wire and adjusting the earphones on Colin’s head.

A faint voice came through the phones, crackling, fading away then coming louder. It was replaced finally by a piece of music.

Stafford sat by the window, gazing out, picking up the earphones whenever he had his turn and holding only one of them against his ear, his eyes fixed below him on the brick-built pen. ‘I’ll get you one made up, if you like,’ he said. ‘You can keep it under your bed and listen to it at night. When the crystal wears out you can get another.’

At one point he got up and went to the door, listening to the sounds that came from the stairs, glancing back at the room and adding, ‘I bet they don’t know that Geoffrey’s back. He keeps coming home on leave and not telling them where he’s stationed,’ leaning by the door, one hand clasped to it, a leg thrust out, as if waiting for some call to join them. ‘Let’s see if I can tune it to anything else,’ he said finally, leaving the door wide open and sitting at the window gazing out, dreamily, towards the garden.

Later, when the sounds of laughter and shouting came more loudly from the stairs, Stafford had got up and gone to the landing. He’d hung over the banister, gazing down, regarding the figures now who’d gathered in the hall, two men in uniform, three women in coats and headscarves, and the two other brothers, the one with the book, the other with the paper: they were pulling on coats and caps, only the brother with the newspaper evidently remaining, standing in the door and waving as the sound of a car engine revving came from the drive outside.

Finally Stafford came back in the room; he sat on the bed.

‘Do you want this?’ he said, examining the set. ‘I can easily get another.’

‘I can build one of my own,’ he said.

‘It takes ages to build. Why not have this one?’ Stafford said. ‘I’ll put it in a box. You can take it home.’

He hunted in the cupboard, then beneath the bed. Finally he emptied a cardboard box on to the floor and slotted the piece of wood containing the crystal set inside. The earphones he folded in on top.

‘I’d much rather you kept it,’ Colin said.

‘I hardly use it,’ Stafford said. ‘I’ll be getting a real one, in
any case, at Christmas. Then I won’t need this’, he added, ‘at all.’

He left the house at seven o’clock. A meal was being laid in the room across the hall, a smell of roast meat and vegetables coming from the kitchen. The brothers, the two men in uniform and the three women had now returned. A bottle of wine was standing on the table, while from an adjoining room across the hall, where Mr and Mrs Stafford, the brother in uniform and several of the other figures were now gathered, came the sound of a cork being drawn from a bottle, of glasses clinking, and, as Stafford followed him out to the porch, a burst of laughter was ended abruptly by his mother calling from the door.

‘You’re not going out again, young man?’ she said, the faces in the room peering out from beyond her shoulder.

‘It’s young Neville,’ someone said and laughed.

‘I was going to the station,’ Stafford said.

‘It’s dinner in a few minutes,’ Mrs Stafford said. ‘There’s no rushing out to stations.’

Stafford shrugged. He glanced at Colin.

‘You know the way to the station, I take it?’ Mrs Stafford said, glancing at Colin across the hall.

‘Yes,’ he said. He nodded.

‘It’s better that Neville doesn’t rush off, otherwise it’ll be hours before we get him back. He’s such a terrible wanderer,’ she said. ‘Think on,’ she added to Stafford and disappeared.

Stafford shrugged again. He stood in the porch, his hands in his pockets. The sound of a dance tune came, brokenly, from inside the house. A car was parked in the drive outside and, as Colin set off towards the gate, a second one turned in from the road and splashed its way through the pools of water.

‘See you,’ Stafford said, and raised his arm.

‘See you,’ he called and, the box beneath his arm, went on towards the road.

A different porter was on the platform when he arrived at the station; the train when it drew in was almost empty. He sat in a carriage by himself, gazing out at the darkening fields, glancing finally at the box itself and running his finger over the smooth black boss of Stafford’s earphones. At one point he lifted them out and put them on, scratching the crystal with the wire inside
the box, turned the dial, heard nothing but a crackling and, seeing a station approaching and figures on the platform, took them off. He sat nursing the box on his knee until he reached the village, then ran all the way to the house. His father was out when he arrived, his mother at the sink, scarcely glancing round as he came in the door. He went up to his room, where Steven was sleeping, and in the darkness, as if listening to another world, or to some glimmer of the one he’d left, tinkered with the crystal, searching for a sound.

They sat upstairs in a small, moon-shaped circle from the back of which you could see into the stalls. Boys in front threw down pieces of paper and occasionally matches, usherettes coming between the seats to flash a torch or call out ineffectually along the rows.

Audrey and Marion sat together, with Stafford on one side and Colin on the other. At one point, near the beginning of the picture, Stafford had leant his arm around the back of Marion’s seat and, a little later, placed his hand beneath her arm. Audrey sat rigidly beside Colin. His elbow, which he’d left on the arm of the seat, was touching hers; his knee, which he’d turned towards her, had caught against hers, briefly, before one of them, his or hers, he couldn’t be sure, had been drawn away.

The picture droned on, flanked by curtains. At the end the lights came on and Stafford withdrawing his arm, brought out a cigarette case from his inside pocket.

‘Do you fancy a smoke?’ he said casually, leaning across and offering one to Colin.

‘No thanks,’ he said and shook his head.

‘Marion, darling?’ Stafford said.

‘Thank you, darling,’ Marion said.

‘Audrey, darling?’

‘No thank you, Neville.’

They sat in silence for a while. People went in and out to the sweet stall in the foyer. Faintly, through an open door, came the
sound of traffic; a glimmer of daylight showed beneath a tasselled curtain.

Stafford lit Marion’s cigarette with a lighter and then lit his own. They blew out clouds of smoke past Audrey’s face. Their cigarettes alight, Stafford replaced his arm on the back of Marion’s seat.

‘I don’t think much of the picture,’ Marion said.

‘Same here,’ Stafford said. He stroked Marion’s hair casually, almost absent-minded, gazing down to the heads below.

‘What’s the second one called?’ Marion said.

‘I don’t know,’ Stafford said. He shook his head, the cigarette slipped in between his lips. Marion held hers between her fingers stiffly, her hand held up against her face, her lips pouting, her head erect.

‘Fancy anything to eat, Smithers?’ Stafford said.

‘No thanks,’ Audrey said and shook her head. Her elbow, now the lights were on, had been lowered slowly against her side.

‘Can I get you anything?’ Colin said.

‘No thanks,’ she said again.

‘Get you anything, Colin?’ Stafford said.

‘No thanks,’ he said.

Stafford looked round at the other couples; there were one or two other boys from the school, and one or two girls from the girls’ school sitting in pairs. Most of them Colin scarcely knew; he sat gazing steadily at the folds of the heavy curtain, and the heads, mainly of children, visible in the stalls below.

Stafford had called out to several boys in the rows in front, and one of them came back to lean over the adjoining seats and to take a cigarette.

‘Hello, darling,’ Marion said.

‘Hello, Marion,’ the boy had said, stooping to Stafford’s lighter then puffing out, briskly, a massive cloud of smoke.

‘Isn’t Shirley with you today?’ she said.

‘I’m with Eileen today, my dear,’ he said, winking at Stafford who immediately laughed.

‘I’d be careful with her, my darling,’ Marion said, puffing slowly at her cigarette. She held it to her mouth as if she were kissing the palm of her hand. As the two boys laughed she crossed
her legs and Stafford, who was glancing down, placed his hand across her knee. ‘None of that, my dear,’ she added and leaving the cigarette between her lips carefully withdrew it.

The lights went out. The second film began: Marion sank lower in her seat. When Colin glanced across he saw their heads seemingly locked together, their cigarettes glowing as they held them out.

He moved his arm against Audrey’s but otherwise gazed vacantly before him at the screen.

Later, outside, Stafford said, ‘Fancy a walk, or a cup of tea?’

‘Can you get tea at this time?’ Marion said.

‘There’s a place in the market I sometimes go to,’ Stafford said. He put his arm around Marion’s waist, but as she straightened her coat she lifted it away.

‘Honestly, if we’re seen in the streets, we’ll never hear the end of it. Not from Miss Wilkinson, at least,’ she said. ‘There’s going to be a school rule that we can’t even talk to boys in school uniform. Isn’t that true?’ She turned to Audrey.

They walked in pairs, Stafford and Marion in front, the dark-haired girl frequently turning round to pass some comment. They talked mainly about girls at the school, and boys they’d heard about in conversations.

‘They take a groundsheet and go out to Bratley Woods. Honestly, if anyone saw them, they’d be expelled.’

‘I’ve got a groundsheet,’ Stafford said.

‘You’re not getting
me
to share it,’ Marion said. ‘Honestly, give them half an inch and they want a mile.’

They reached the market; numerous canvas-covered stalls were set out in rows in front of an ancient, brick-built market-hall. Arched entrances led to the gas-illuminated stalls inside. At each corner of the square stood a tiny shop, the windows of which had been drawn up: at one of them women were serving tea. One or two buns were for sale inside.

‘What’s it to be, then, ladies?’ Stafford said, and added, ‘No, no, on me, old man,’ when Colin began feeling in his pockets. He had no more money anyway, only the torn half of his return ticket.

They stood by the stall, drinking the tea and eating buns.

‘How’re we fixed for next Saturday, ladies?’ Stafford said. He stood in the centre of the footpath to drink his tea so that people passing had to step into the road.

‘We’re fixed very well, aren’t we, Audrey?’ Marion said. ‘I don’t know about you and Colin, though,’ she added, laughing then, her cup standing in its saucer on the counter.

‘Heart-breakers, these two, Colin,’ Stafford said.

‘We just don’t choose anyone to go out with, do we, Audrey?’ Marion said.