Saville (49 page)

She glanced up, casually, as she had on the previous occasion, as if she’d been aware of his presence for some considerable time; as if even, only moments before, they might have been talking on the bus, removing her beret and shaking out her hair in that instinctive, half-engaging manner, then glancing past him to the row of shops standing opposite the pub in the village street. ‘I was just calling at Benson’s,’ she said. ‘Then going home.’

‘Oh, I’ll go that way as well,’ he said.

‘I shan’t be long,’ she said. ‘I’ve only some medicine to pick up. It’s already made.’

She went inside the shop and stood, a strangely independent figure, behind several others, calling out finally to one of the assistants, stepping to the counter and, after a moment’s conversation, pulling out a purse and setting down some money.

Her face was gaunter than before, the cheeks drawn in. It was like intercepting someone on a journey; as she watched his expression she began to smile herself.

‘Aren’t you keen on school?’ she said.

‘No,’ he said, ‘I suppose. Not really.’

‘Why do you go on with it?’ she said.

‘I suppose I have to.’

‘No one has to do anything, as far as I’m aware,’ she said. She smiled again, casually, looking off along the street to where, at its farthest end, the road divided, one arm leading to the Dell, the other to the station. ‘Where do you live in any case?’ she added as if to distract him from this notion altogether.

‘Next door to Bletchley. Or, conversely,’ he added, ‘Bletchley lives next door to me.’

She nodded, walking along then for a while in silence, laughing as if the thought of this had caught her fancy, then saying, ‘I think people make too much fun of Ian. Just because he’s large. He’s much brighter, you know, than people think.’ She drew her brows together, the eyes narrowing as if she had some specific instance of Bletchley’s unlooked-for qualities in mind.

‘He gets by, I suppose, by being thick-skinned,’ he said, more to provoke her than anything else.

‘Thick skins aren’t very much use when it comes down to it,’ she added.

She added nothing further. They passed the shops with their faintly illuminated panes, the forecourt of a garage, and crossed in front of a row of houses. To their left was the tiny Catholic church with its rectory and, beside it, the converted stone-built house that was occupied by the Conservative and Unionist Club.

‘What do you do in the evenings?’ he said.

‘I usually stay in,’ she said. ‘I’ve a younger sister, and my mother works most evenings. Once or twice a week I go over to a friend at Baildon. Well, my uncle, really. It’s where we used to live.’

‘What does your mother do?’ he said.

‘She works at a pub. The Stavington Arms. Do you know it?’

He shook his head. It was like one woman talking about another.

‘Are you free this evening?’ he said.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I suppose I could be. I could ask the woman next door. She’s looked in once or twice when I’ve had to go out.’ A sudden concern now had taken possession of her features, the eye drawn down, the frown, an almost habitual expression, suddenly returning, the mouth tightening. ‘Where do you want to go?’

‘We could go to the pictures.’

‘I don’t think I’ve got long enough to go there,’ she said.

‘We could go for a walk.’

‘Where do you go for walks round here?’ She glanced across.

‘Wherever you like.’

‘I don’t know round here at all,’ she said.

‘I could show you one or two places, then,’ he said.

‘I shouldn’t come to the house,’ she added. ‘I’ll meet you at the corner. Will seven o’clock, do you think, be any good?’

He watched her walk off down the narrow street: it was comprised of tiny brick terraces whose front doors opened directly on to the pavement. She didn’t look back. At a door half-way down the street she took out a key, pushed against the door then went inside.

She was already waiting at the corner when he arrived. She’d brushed back her hair and fastened it with a ribbon. She wore a dark-green coat which, he suspected, might have been handed down to her by her mother. It ended half-way down her calves, her ankles enclosed by white socks, folded over, and the flat-heeled shoes he thought she’d worn before.

‘I suppose we better not walk back through the village’, she said, ‘in case someone sees me who knows my mother. She’s out, you see. So I can’t be away for long.’

They turned and, their hands in their pockets, walked down to the junction to the south of the village and, after some indecision on his part, turned up towards the Dell.

They passed the gas-lit windows of the Miners’ Institute, the front of the Plaza picture-house, and beyond the last houses started down the slope towards the brooding, mist-shrouded hollow round the gasworks and the sewage pens.

‘Not very nice air round here,’ she said and laughed.

‘Do you have a bike? We could have gone for a ride,’ he said.

‘No,’ she said. She shook her head.

‘I borrow my father’s usually,’ he said. ‘Though he’s not very keen. He uses it for work.’

‘What’s his job?’ she said, casually, looking off now towards the fields the other side.

‘He’s down the pit.’

At the mention of his father her interest had drifted off.

‘Where’s this road lead to, then?’ she said when they reached the foot of the slope and had started up the hill the other side.

‘It goes on for miles,’ he said. ‘Stokeley. Brierley. Monckton.’
He gestured to the slopes of the overgrown colliery to their left. ‘We could go in there if you like,’ he added.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’m not keen on walking on roads, if it comes to that.’

He found a gap in the hedge and held back the branches. He caught a glimpse of her calf, the turn of the white stocking, and the frayed edge at the bottom of her coat.

He led the way between the darkening mounds.

‘Is it wet?’ she said, stooping, feeling the grass.

‘You can sit on my coat.’ He took off his jacket and put it down, standing in his shirt-sleeves, shivering then at the dampness in the air.

The slope faced back towards the village: below them, partly obscured by trees, were the outlines of the sewage pens, the swamp, and beyond the dark profile of the gas container. The lights of the village spread backwards to the final mound of the colliery with its twin head-gears and its faint, whitish stream of smoke. The hill behind it, with the church and manor, was picked out now by a vague, irregular pattern of lights.

He sat beside her.

‘I used to play down there.’ He gestured below. ‘Years ago. We had a hut and kept food and things, and used to build traps for people who attacked us.’

‘And who were they?’ she said. ‘The ones who attacked.’

‘They never came.’

She laughed, leaning back. She unfastened her coat. Underneath she wore a blouse and skirt.

‘We ought to sit on this,’ she said. ‘It’s bigger than yours, and you’ll get less cold.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I feel all right.’

Yet she stood up and took it off, laying it on the ground between them.

‘What’s school like?’ he said.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I suppose I’ll leave in a year. I’ll have to get a job. My mother’s divorced, you see, and my father pays her hardly any money.’

She sat with her knees pulled up, her arms folded, her head nodding forward, abstracted, gazing to the mist and shadows in the Dell below.

‘What happened to your hut?’ she said.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. He gazed down now to the Dell himself. ‘Fell to pieces.’

She straightened, leaning back, supported by one elbow, glancing up. Her face was shadowed, the eyes dark, almost hidden, the mouth drawn in. It was like some other person, unrelated to the one he’d seen before.

He leant down beside her and she, withdrawing her elbow, sank back on the coat.

He felt the thinness of her blouse.

She thrust up her head. Their mouths held soundlessly together.

‘Have you been out with many girls?’ she said, finally, when he drew away.

‘Not really, I suppose,’ he said.

She smiled, her face turned up beneath his arm, only the eyes now, in the darkness, faintly luminous.

‘What makes you ask?’

‘Oh, the way you do things, I suppose,’ she said.

She closed her eyes again and, drawn down by the gesture, her face thrust up to his, he kissed her on the mouth.

Her tongue crept out between his lips.

‘Does that have any effect?’ she said, and added, cautiously, drawing back her head, ‘Down there, I mean.’

Her hand fumbled for a moment by his waist then, coldly, he felt it thrust between his legs.

‘Would you?’ she said, and added, ‘Put your hand on me.’

He felt the smoothness of her thigh, the softness, then the sudden roughness underneath.

He lay transfixed, as if impaled, her tongue thrust fully now between his lips, moaning quietly in her throat, her body rolled gently from side to side.

Some movements in the bushes above them a moment later made her stiffen. She drew back her head.

‘I think there’s someone watching us,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter. We can just lie here, I suppose.’

They lay apart then, gazing up. The movements in the shrubs had stopped.

‘I suppose I ought to go,’ she said. ‘I ought to be getting back in any case,’ she added. ‘I only had an hour, you see.’

‘Shall I see you again?’ he said.

‘Whenever you like. Wednesday’s usually my best night, and Thursdays. That’s usually when I go over to my friend’s.’

‘I could meet you from the bus on the other days,’ he said.

‘Well,’ she said, and added without much enthusiasm, ‘I suppose you could.’

They picked up their coats. She leant back for a moment against his arm. ‘We could always find somewhere else,’ she said and closed her eyes, thrusting up her face to his, moving off finally along the paths that led between the overgrown mounds to the road. A faint shape passed across the slope above them. ‘I suppose you’ll always find someone here,’ she said. ‘It’s so close to the village.’

They reached the road; until they neared the first houses they walked with their arms around each other’s waist, she releasing his as they neared the first of the lights, glancing up then, frowning, as they stepped from the darkness and saying, ‘What do I look like? Do I look all right?’ She’d buttoned her coat and straightened her socks. She waited, smiling, while he turned her round. ‘One or two marks on the back,’ he said.

‘Grass,’ she said.

‘Mud,’ he said.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘it’ll soon brush off.’

She loosened her hair, taking off her ribbon. They passed, blinking, through the light of the cinema entrance, listened to the call from the miners in the Institute door, and reached the corner of her street without, apparently, having been recognized by anyone she knew.

She leant up quickly, kissed his cheek and without adding anything further set off down the street. He waited, watching her pass through the pools of gaslight until, disappearing into a patch of shadow, he finally heard the click as she closed her door.

They went out sometimes twice a week, traversing the fields and copses beyond the manor, lying in the darkness beneath hedges
or in some shrub-enclosed alcove in a wood. On some occasions she would remove her skirt, unfastening her blouse, drawing out her arms then gazing up at him, a vague anonymous whiteness against the darkness of the ground, her hands held out, her head thrust up, releasing her breasts, drawing down his head. ‘No, no further,’ she would say when he moved against her, drawing out her legs, sometimes crying then and turning away, and saying, ‘I’ve seen enough of where that leads to. Honestly, don’t you think I want to?’ running her hands against him, sinking her lips towards him, drawing him to her mouth with moans and sighs.

One evening, coming back with her through the centre of the village, he met his father setting off for work. He’d already passed them in the road, cycling slowly, his father pausing in the darkness, calling, ‘Colin is that you?’ drawing his bike against the kerb, waiting for his answer, looking back towards the girl. ‘Your mother’s wondering where you’ve got to. Do you realize it’s nearly ten o’clock?’ His voice was muted, as if oppressed, like someone calling from beneath a stone.

‘I’m just going back,’ he said and added, ‘I’m just seeing Sheila home.’

‘Well be quick about it,’ his father said, turning to the bike, setting the pedal. ‘It’s too late for somebody your age to be out like this.’

And the following evening, when he got back from school, his father was waiting in the kitchen, Steven and Richard removed, playing in the other room: his mother’s voice came from beyond the door.

‘Well, who is she, then?’ his father said. ‘What’s her name and Where’s she from?’

‘She lives in the village. She’s called Sheila.’ He went to the cupboard in the corner to look for food.

‘And what’s her second name?’ he said.

‘Richmond.’

‘I’ve heard of no Richmond. What street does she live in, then?’ His father sat upright at the table, his hands clenched tightly on his knees.

‘They’ve just arrived here,’ he said and when he mentioned the street his father added, ‘Not down theer? That’s one of the
worst districts in the village. Theer’s some right people live down there.’

‘She can’t help where she lives,’ he said.

‘Well, somebody can,’ he said. ‘What’s her father do, in any case?’ he added.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. He shook his head.

‘And that’s where you’ve been all these nights when you said you’d been out with Ian and Michael Reagan?’

‘Not every night. Some nights I’ve been out with them,’ he said.

‘Aye. About one from what I can make out,’ he said. ‘What’s her mother say to her going off at that time of night?’ he added.

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘They must say summat. They can’t all be as daft as we are,’ his father said.

‘Her parents are divorced, and her mother works, so she’s to spend a lot of the time looking after the house herself.’

‘Good God.’ His father banged his head. ‘Does she work this girl, then, or is she still at school?’