Saville (66 page)

Reagan, on his mother’s insistence, gave up his dance band and returned to full-time work as a clerk in an accountant’s office. Occasionally, when Colin passed the house, he could both hear and see Michael giving lessons in the violin to small boys in the front room, but, a few months later, after complaints about his conduct with one of the boys, the lessons stopped altogether. He would be seen, a thin, ghostly figure, walking the streets of the village in a long black coat, a cap pulled down above his eyes, exaggerating if anything the familiar bulbous shape of his head. Occasionally boys followed him, calling names, but on the whole he appeared oblivious of everything around him, scarcely pausing whenever Colin spoke to him, glancing up with haunted eyes, shaking his head or nodding, slowly, to some inquiry, unwilling or unable to speak, his long thin legs carrying him off quickly as if he hadn’t recognized anyone he knew at all. His father too, on occasion, would appear at the door, a gaunt, wasted figure, moving with a slow shuffle, his body partially paralysed along one side.

‘Oh, they’ve had it,’ his father would say. ‘That family’s had a visitation, and no mistake. If trouble doesn’t come in bucket-loads it doesn’t come at all. It’ll be the turn of the missis next. There’ll be something calamitous happen to her.’

Yet Mrs Reagan, in adversity, appeared to blossom. A thin, shadowy figure herself, invariably dressed in pale clothes, with a ghostly pallor to her skin, she could now be seen talking at her door, or on Mrs Shaw’s step, occasionally even on Mrs Bletchley’s, roaming across the yards to disseminate news of her husband’s progress, scarcely mentioning her son at all. It was as if Michael, in a curious way, had never existed: the sound of his violin no longer came from the house, and none of the clothes which, in the past, she had proudly made for him, were ever hung out on the line to dry.

One evening Colin met Michael on the bridge above the station. He was leaning against the parapet, gazing at the line.

‘Are you coming up home?’ he said.

Reagan didn’t answer. His figure, draped in the black coat, the flat cap pulled well down on top of his head, was thrust forward
against the stone, almost like a log, thin and angular, propped up against the wall itself.

‘Are you coming up home?’ he asked again.

Reagan’s features were half hidden beneath the shadow of the cap. His hands were clenched together.

‘Are you coming up home?’ he said again. ‘If you like,’ he added, ‘we could go for a drink.’

‘I don’t drink,’ Reagan said, so quietly that, for a moment, he doubted what he’d heard. ‘I don’t drink, you know,’ he added more clearly.

‘I’m just walking up home,’ Colin said.

‘I’ll walk up with you,’ Reagan said, looking off to where the road ran past the station, disappearing, beyond a row of houses, amongst the fields.

Colin turned towards the village. Reagan, still leaning against the wall, continued to gaze off in the opposite direction.

‘I saw you getting off the train,’ he said again so quietly that he scarcely heard. The train’s faint pounding could still be heard at the far end of the cutting. ‘Have you been into town?’ he added, turning his head to glance at him directly.

His face was lined by tears. He blinked them back, waiting now for Colin to answer.

‘I went to the pictures.’

‘Do you go by yourself?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘What happened to your girl-friend?’

‘She’s gone away.’ He waited.

‘Ian said she’d gone off with Stafford.’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Did you mind her going?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

Reagan regarded him with increasing interest. He pulled down quickly at the peak of the cap and for the first time stepped away from the wall.

‘Where are you teaching?’ he said.

‘Rawcliffe,’ he said. ‘I believe I mentioned it before.’

‘Wasn’t that where your father used to work?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

More than anything now Michael reminded Colin of Mrs
Reagan, the gaunt figure that he’d known before; there was the same almost mechanical earnestness he’d associated with her in the past.

‘Had you thought of moving from the village? Into town, or to some other village perhaps?’

‘I had thought of it,’ he said.

‘I’ve thought of moving,’ Reagan said. ‘I’ve never been happy here, you know.’

He stepped into the road, paused a moment, as if even now he were tempted to walk off in the opposite direction, then turned slowly towards the village.

‘You’ve heard that my father’s been ill?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘I don’t think he’ll ever get out again. Not like he used to in the past.’

‘I see him sometimes,’ Colin said.

‘He tries to get out. His mind wanders. He keeps asking for his hat and gloves.’ He measured his strides slowly, as if, the closer they got to the village, the more determined he was to turn back. ‘He sometimes thinks he’s in the office and keeps on about the wages. He was always arguing about money with the men. He even argues with my mother sometimes. He thinks she’s one of the men, and starts on about the deputies, how they’ve measured off the coal, and that.’

‘I haven’t heard you playing the violin,’ Colin said. ‘Not for some time,’ he added, ‘at least.’

‘No.’ Reagan shook his head. There was a calculated air of absurdity about him now, as if his coat and the cap were some disguise he’d deliberately adopted. He glanced over at Colin and shook his head again. ‘I’ve given it away, you know.’

‘Who to?’ he said.

‘Oh.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. My mother gave it away, as a matter of fact. I’ve given up going to the office, as well. They gave me two weeks’ notice. I should have had a month. The doctor said I needed a rest, so I suppose it’s worked out all right in the end.’

‘Did they ever find out’, he said, ‘who stole the money?’

‘Oh, it was Batty,’ he said. ‘Though naturally I couldn’t tell. Batty and Stringer, and two other men. They’d been at the club,
you see, that night. I always had the takings with me on the Saturday to put in the bank on Monday morning, then I paid out the staff the following week. They’ve closed it down, as a matter of fact. I thought of taking it for classes, you know. In the afternoons, for old-tyme and modern dancing, for children, you know. But the fees I don’t think would have covered the cost. I might start the Saturdays up again when I feel a bit better.’

He’d begun to talk more quickly now, as if Colin wasn’t there, his stride lengthening, his gaze, beneath the peak of his cap, more abstracted. The tears had dried on his face, leaving dark smears on either cheek.

‘Or again, I could always go in for orchestral work. There’s a great demand, at the moment, for orchestral players. So few were trained, you know, during the war. There’s a whole area I could turn to there. It wouldn’t need much adaptation. Even Prendergast recommended that, you know, some years ago. He was quite disappointed in his way that I went in for band work. There seemed more opportunity in that field, of course.’ He paused, stopping in the road. The first houses of the village had appeared; lights glowed from the windows, beyond them the vast, dull glow of the pit itself. ‘The pendulum seems to have swung the other way.’

Colin had paused.

Reagan was undecided which way to turn, his gaze transfixed, abstracted, his hands clenched loosely together. Tears appeared once more on either cheek, his eyes half-hidden beneath the shadow of the cap.

‘I think I might go back to the bridge. I was thinking of something there. I’ve forgotten what it was.’

Yet he remained, as if suspended, in the middle of the road.

‘I’ll go back with you,’ Colin said.

‘There’s no need to,’ Reagan said, speaking so quietly again that he scarcely heard.

‘I don’t mind going back,’ he said.

‘I’d prefer to go on my own,’ he said, his voice acquiring some of the correctness which characterized his conversations at the ballroom.

‘Why not come back home?’ Colin said. ‘You could come in, if you like, and have some tea.’

‘Oh, I never go in people’s houses,’ Reagan said.

‘Why not come up to the house, in any case?’ he said, yet already Reagan had turned and set off back along the road, walking with lengthening strides, quickly, as if he had some appointment to keep which he’d suddenly remembered.

Colin watched him go down the hill; he reached a bend in the road and disappeared, in the gathering gloom, towards the station.

For a moment he thought of following him; then, having set off, turned and went on towards the village.

‘Isn’t your name Saville?’ the taller of the two teachers said. He was a well-built, fair-haired man, scarcely older than Colin himself; he had large, bony features, the cheeks red and bronzed slightly by the sun. The other teacher, an older man by the name of Callow, he’d met when he first arrived: he wore a corduroy coat and flannels and a check shirt, his face pallid and square-featured, his mouth broad and thin – he came forward now and said directly to the taller man, ‘Of course this is Saville. I told you when he came. I’ve never discovered his first name, though.’

‘Colin,’ he said.

They were standing just outside the school where, normally, he waited for Stephens for a lift into the village. Callow also taught English in the school, and though he’d occasionally seen the other, taller man, he’d never discovered his name. Children flooded by on the pavement on either side.

‘This is Gerry Thornton,’ Callow said. ‘He was telling me he knew you the other day, though in what circumstances he never did explain.’

‘Aren’t you a friend of Neville Stafford?’ Thornton said.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Do you ever remember working on Smith’s farm? Oh, years ago now,’ he added. ‘I remember seeing you one morning cutting thistles in one of the fields. Then after that, do you remember three boys with one of those collapsible dinghies playing in that pond when you were stooking?’ He waited, smiling, for Colin to reply. ‘There was Neville, my brother, and myself.’ He laughed simply, watching Colin’s expression. ‘I’m going in the forces in two or three weeks,’ he added. ‘I got deferment and seem to have
been left on the shelf. I thought I’d put in one or two weeks here.’ He gestured round, vaguely, at the school. ‘Not much, but enough to be going on with, I suppose.’

He saw Stephens in the distance, emerging from the school. Colin waved him on, and as Stephens pulled up, the scarf wrapped firmly round his face, he said, ‘I’ll walk down today.’

Stephens shrugged: he glanced at the other two. ‘Do you want a lift?’ he said to Callow, lowering the scarf.

‘Oh, I’ll walk down as well,’ the teacher said, glancing at the pillion seat and adding, ‘Is it safe?’

‘As safe as houses,’ Stephens said. He rode away, quaint and strangely child-like on the large machine.

‘I suppose I should have gone with him,’ he said, watching the abrupt way Stephens drove off.

‘Weren’t you both at school together?’ Callow said.

‘Yes,’ he said. The bike, seemingly riderless from a distance, disappeared beyond the pit.

The three of them walked on down the hill in silence.

‘I suppose you’ve heard about Neville,’ Thornton said as they reached the stop at the bottom; he was taking a bus in the opposite direction and had paused at the side of the road before crossing.

‘No.’ Colin looked across at the fair-haired man: he had the same carelessness, almost the same ‘glamour’, as Stafford himself.

‘He’s got engaged. His mother and father, I believe, are in a hell of a can. He goes up to Oxford, you see, quite shortly. They believe he’s chucking everything away.’

‘But then, that’s just like Stafford,’ Colin said.

‘Is it?’ Thornton looked at him again, freshly, then shook his head. ‘I’ve never known Neville to be careless,’ he said. ‘He’s always seemed a schemer to me,’ and as if this might have sounded too hard, he added, ‘Not a schemer, but doing things by calculation.’

‘Who is this Neville?’ Callow said. He watched the groups of children who passed them in the road: away from the school there was a strange sense of disowning those to whom, in the school, they might have been close. Only one or two children signalled any acknowledgment.

‘Oh, he’s quite a card, really,’ Thornton said, yet casually, as if he knew of no way of communicating his impression of Stafford to the other man. ‘Excels at everything he does.’

‘That doesn’t sound so cardish,’ Callow said. He grimaced at the passing children and looked away.

‘Well, he
has
excelled, I suppose, at most things,’ Thornton said. ‘I don’t know who the girl is. Not someone whom his parents are particularly fond of.’

‘Yes,’ Callow said and might have added something else only he grimaced once more at the passing children and with much the same expression glanced away.

‘Will he give up Oxford?’ Colin said.

‘Oh, I don’t suppose so. Neville gives up most things, but only as a prelude, usually, to his taking them on. He was saying at one time he might stay on in the forces. Had himself marked out as a major by the time he’d finished. I suppose’, Thornton added, reflectively, ‘he’d make a success of it. The thing about Neville, if he puts his mind to it, he can do anything, I reckon.’ He glanced down the road. ‘Well, here’s my bus.’ He waved, ran over and joined the queue of children.

‘I hear you do writing,’ Callow said. His pale face had darkened slightly, as if he’d mentioned something which concerned, or hurt him, very much.

‘Not really. No.’

‘Oh, I heard it,’ he said, casually, yet relieved. ‘Thornton mentioned it.’ He looked round him at the village, the rows of terraces running up the hill, at the dull declivity beneath them, shadowed by the pit. ‘Relieves the gloom.’

‘Do you find it gloomy?’ Colin said.

‘Not really. But then I’m not as hopeful as you.’

‘Hopeful?’ Colin glanced at the other man and laughed.

‘Oh, I’ve had quite a few years. Not just of this,’ He gestured off up the slope to the low, silhouetted profile of the school. ‘One or two others. If you didn’t have something else I think you’d go quite mad.’

‘But then, I thought you were reconciled,’ Colin said. ‘I mean, to teaching here, or to places like it.’