A Man of his Time. Alan Sillitoe
with him was as important to his pride as the need to use her body.
Eli took his time serving other customers, before coming to ask what he wanted.
‘Where’s Florence?’
‘Gone. Packed her job in. Walked out just after you did. And she won’t be coming back, she said.’
Burton’s head tilted with disappointment, and indignation. ‘That was a foolish thing to do.’
‘You lost us a good wench,’ Eli said. ‘There’s some things a woman won’t put up with.’
‘It’s nothing to do with you. I’ll have a pint.’ The first mouthful tasted as if pumped out of the Trent, but he drank nevertheless, deciding never to go into the place again.
Tears fell into the mist of lavender, whose smell reminded her of early days at home when her mother and grandmother scented clothes and underwear in the same way. She was blinded with regret at ever having delivered herself into the hands of Burton. Emma Lewin had told her more than once that she ought not to.
She wondered if Burton had at one time found the florin she was looking for, and spent it on ale, or used it to treat some fancywoman – that holy florin she had vowed to keep till death.
The underwear drawer was her domain, so he would never have done such a thing, though if the thought occurred to him in the future he wouldn’t find it. In any case he didn’t know she still had that keepsake coin passed over the bar at the White Hart for buying her pair of gloves. She had those as well, though neither tokens could any more mean what they had.
The coin was wrapped in the same scrap of newspaper given him to go and buy the gloves, held firmly as if it might come alive and try to escape. She went up the slope to the well from which all water came for the house, moved the wooden lid aside and saw the glint at the bottom. She would throw the florin in, and say goodbye to her love for Burton, chuck herself into oblivion after it, water soothing her wounded face while she died, a reward of that peace and rest she seemed never to have had since marrying, and which she now thought she deserved.
She sat so still on the parapet that a thrush alighted and looked at her. You’re free, she said. You have a hard life, but at least you don’t think, or suffer misery fit to shred your insides. Its tail shook as if in greeting, then it lifted and flew at the twitch of her fingers.
Opening her hand, the florin tilted on her palm. She held it awhile, in two minds whether to let it drop. She wouldn’t unless, taking on a life of its own, the decision was made for her. She levelled her hand. A chill wind increased the ache on her face, and she wanted the warmth of the house.
On going through the door the florin was still in her hand, and she looked at the elderly head of Queen Victoria who for better or worse had lost her husband early. Then the superstitious worry came, as if the Queen was sending a message from the grave, that if she had dropped the florin in the well something dreadful would have happened to Burton. She didn’t want that, so the only thing was to return the coin to its hiding-place among the sweetness of lavender.
He made his way over the hill and into town, in the hope that the effort of walking would still his regret at what had been done, though nothing ever would. In a jeweller’s window at Chapel Bar he saw a display of Galway claddach rings, and remembered that Mary Ann had admired them for as long as he had known her, but had given up hope of getting one. The price of twenty shillings dug into the reserve he kept should anything happen to her or the children, and the cost of having her mouth mended would also take some money.
The ring in his pocket, he bought twopennorth of tram ride along Castle Boulevard to Lenton. He recalled that nearly a hundred years ago ten people were killed and as many injured when a barge moored off Canal Street carrying a ton of gunpowder exploded. It was being held for pits in Derbyshire, but on being carried from the boat to the warehouse left a trail along the towpath. A man who saw it thought he would have a lark – as the damned fool must have told himself – and threw a hot coal down. He never knew what happened, his troubles gone in a flash, though he took nine others with him and ruined half the quayside.
Some men are like that, nothing in their heads but mischief, though on the top deck of the clanking tram he wondered whether it was worth going home. A beneficial explosion would nicely settle him, yet he wouldn’t want anyone’s company on the ride into hell.
On the other hand he could call at the forge, collect sufficient tools, and go back to being a journeyman-blacksmith as in his younger days when he had worked for George in Wales, those carefree times of knowing Minnie Dyslin and the girls of Tredegar. If Minnie was still there he would call and see the son she’d had. Perhaps she was married again, and had as many by now as Mary Ann. He could think of no better thing for her, and hoped she was happy.
Easy to understand why George had taken himself off to earn his living in Wales for a year or two, and left Sarah with the children. Having a forge of your own brought the bother of keeping it going, not to mention a home with a wife and eight children around your neck. A journeyman’s pay might not be as much as a settled blacksmith’s, but at least you had no responsibilities.
He let the tram carry him, because the world wasn’t yours to do as you pleased with, as he had always known. The world owned you, though you had a fight to stop it doing you in. Storm clouds were everywhere, now and again a patch of blue to give you a bit of fun – until you put your foot in it and made a mistake. Then you got to thinking it was time to be off, yet knew you couldn’t go. He was married to Mary Ann, and that was that. It was a harder road than the prayer book said, a bond that anchored him to solid concrete. Though Mary Ann would be pleased at getting the ring, he hardly expected the gesture to make any difference.
He went to the forge for an hour’s work before the day ended. ‘The old man’s quieter than usual,’ Oliver said to Oswald as he was seeing to a horse. ‘I wonder why?’
‘When he’s like that we should keep out of his way.’
Burton sent them home first, and closed the place himself.
The table hadn’t been set for the evening meal, ash dim at the bars, gloom so thick you could cut it with a knife but, Oliver thought, you couldn’t eat it, and they were hungry. They wanted food, but something had happened, as if news had come that someone had died. Neither son had ever seen Mary Ann sitting by the cooling fire as if turned to stone. The house could die for all she seemed aware of it. ‘What’s gone wrong?’
She turned her head. ‘Ask Burton.’
Thomas stayed by the door, fearing to come close but calling: ‘Where’s our supper?’
Her voice wasn’t right. ‘I’ll get it in a bit.’
‘You’re crying,’ Oliver said.
Her mouth was bruised and twisted. ‘Can’t you see?’
Oswald cried out. ‘How did you do that?’
‘I caught Burton in the Crown talking to a woman. I lost my temper, and showed him up in front of everybody.’
‘Temper be damned.’ Oliver’s anguish brought more tears. ‘Look at her. You don’t do that to a woman, not for anything.’
She went to and from the pantry with none of her usual quickness while Oliver, weary after the day’s work and wanting a meal, poked ash from the grate and put sticks on embers that still had heat. Thomas used the bellows, set larger wood and then coal to bring the fire to a state for cooking.
‘Don’t say anything to Burton,’ she said. ‘It’s best if the whole thing blows over.’
‘Somebody’s got to.’ Oliver didn’t relish the role, knowing how it would end. ‘We can’t let him behave like that.’
‘Go upstairs,’ she told Thomas, ‘and get Edith and Rebecca to come down and help me with the dinner.’
‘Did you put anything on your face?’ Oswald asked.
‘Annie came with some witch-hazel after