A Man of his Time. Alan Sillitoe
he wanted to, and had no option but to go into her, and hope she wouldn’t make such a noise as the last time she spent, when they were behind the public house after closing time, and before that when they were upstairs in one of the rooms.
He closed the door carefully. Mary Ann, who had long since lit the lamp, sat by the fire, a sheet of clean sacking over her knees, clippings of various colours but of the same shape on the floor, to be fitted into any pattern that took her fancy. ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’
He held a bunch of watercress. ‘I found this in the wood. Wash it. It can go with my supper.’
‘What were you doing in the wood?’
The black dog was a bit too comfortable before the fire, so he held it around the mouth with his strongest hand, till the animal struggled as if in a fit, its helpless whine filling the room.
‘Leave the poor thing alone.’
He let it go, a hard slap at its ribs. ‘Where is everybody?’
‘In bed, except Oliver.’
He sat at the table. ‘It’s time he was in.’
‘He will be presently.’ She put the rug peg and clippings into a neat roll, got up to set out bread, cheese, and a bottle of ale. ‘I’m off to bed.’
‘And I shan’t be long.’
She stood a moment. ‘I hope you won’t get on to Oliver when he comes in.’
‘He’s late.’
‘I saw him walking down the lane with Alma Waterall.’
He wondered who else she might have seen. ‘When was that?’
‘Two hours since. She’s a Sunday School teacher at Woodhouse.’
He grunted. ‘That’s a fine business.’
‘Somebody’s got to do it.’
He had sent their children to Sunday School, on the one afternoon of the week when he and Mary Ann could have a peaceful couple of hours in bed, because he was usually too exhausted after the normal day’s work. The children came home every year with a prize for good conduct, books only looked at by Oliver. ‘I thought you might have seen them in the wood.’
‘There was nobody there but me.’
‘Wasn’t there?’
‘What would a Sunday School teacher be doing in a place like that? Go to bed, then. I’ll be there soon enough.’
He pushed the empty supper plate aside, no sitting still, every moment something to be done, anything, everything, but anything was better than nothing, than stillness. Stillness was inanition, idleness, death, putting yourself at the mercy of penury, the workhouse, or illness. If you weren’t busy you didn’t know who you were, so George said, but George was dead now, and he’d never known anything, either.
He took off his shirt, and in the pantry lifted a bucket of water fresh from the well, splashed a gallon into a tin bowl and then over him, soaping himself in reflected light from the living room lamp. Up the steps, towelling his neck, he saw Oliver. ‘Where have you been? It’s gone ten o’clock.’
‘Walking, with a girl,’ lips set as if to whistle a lively tune, happy, but standing some distance from his father. Out of the lane into sudden light, he blinked, like Burton in everything but with darker hair, and a mouth softened by resembling Mary Ann’s. He would never grow a moustache to conceal the shape of his upper lip, in case he looked too much like Burton as a young man. ‘I didn’t know the time.’
‘Get yourself a watch. Maybe that’ll tell you when it’s dark. I usually know, because I use my eyes.’
‘I’d get a watch, if you paid me more.’
Burton’s fist was clenched by his side. Such answering back called for a blow, but he knew that if his father had threatened such at that age he would have punched him to the ground. So he hesitated. A fully qualified blacksmith of twenty-three was beyond the stage of being knocked about, and in any case no one knew better than Burton that whatever you did to someone who had just been out tumbling a girl was unlikely to have any effect. Oliver didn’t know how lucky he was to be young. ‘Get up to bed.’
‘Is there any supper?’
‘You heard what I said.’
Not caring to argue, he went. The sweetness of Alma’s caresses would be easy to live on till getting up for breakfast.
Burton walked across the yard to the closet, and wondered as he stood there whether it was true that thin people pissed more than fat people. Back in the kitchen he booted the dog out, and double-locked the door now that everyone was safe in bed.
He took off the apron and reached for his jacket. ‘I’m going out for a while.’
The fire at full heat, Oliver noted a grunt of approval at the work he was doing. ‘Where to?’
‘Mind your own business. You’re in charge.’
Wherever it was, Oliver was glad to see the back of him, and went to striking in the nail holes of the shoe he was making. Oswald came from seeing to a horse, dropped the money in a tin. ‘There ain’t much trade today. If it doesn’t get better we’ll be in Queer Street.’
‘It goes up and down. It always did.’ Oliver dipped the shoe, set it aside, and walked with his brother to the door. ‘Which direction did he go in?’
‘The pub way.’
‘It’s not like him, to go at midday, though when I saw him in the Crown last week he was very thick with that Florence. She was too busy talking to serve anybody else, and Burton didn’t even greet me.’
‘Not that he would.’
‘No, but something’s going on with them.’
‘He met Mam when she was serving behind a bar,’ Oswald said.
‘Yes, and I think she’s regretted it more than once.’ Back in the forge he picked up the horsehoe, held it to the light, and considered it done. ‘In those days barmaids were different. Mother was, anyway. But Florence is married, and if Mam finds out there’ll be ructions. I hope she never does.’
He rolled two cigarettes from Burton’s tobacco tin, and they went outside as if he might pick up the lingering fumes when he came back. ‘He’ll notice some’s missing,’ Oswald said. ‘There’ll be hell to pay.’
‘If he went off in such a hurry as to forget his tobacco he can’t be up to much good. Anyway, he treats me like a dog so I might as well behave like one.’ A mouthful of delicious smoke drifted towards his brother. ‘We’ll enjoy it while we can.’
Emily and Sabina stood in the doorway with the men’s dinners. Oliver set the cans on the bench. ‘Did you see any lions and tigers on the way here?’
Sabina came forward. ‘We saw two, our Oliver, when we crossed the wide road.’
‘And did one of them have blood on its teeth?’
Emily glanced sideways at the ground, as if finding her brother too handsome to look at. ‘It had lovely fur. It was ever so tame, and I stroked it.’
Alma Waterall, watching from across the lane, saw Oliver take a coin from his pocket and close a hand over it, then hold both hands towards Sabina. ‘Which one is the penny in?’
She glanced, and pointed decisively. ‘That one.’
He opened his fist. ‘You little devil! Lucky first time. It’s got His Majesty’s head on it! Now it’s cheeky Emily’s turn. See if you win a prize as well.’
Her face a mockery of adult consideration, she tapped a knuckle and, on her lips going down to weep at the empty palm, Oliver put a hand to his left ear, rubbed at a simulated itch, and brought a penny away