The Flyer (7 page)

He only ever saw her once again. He lessened the chance of it by rarely going into the town, and he changed the route of his run in the morning. He reverted to his studies for solace, and spent long hours in his room reading Homer and Ovid. He ended the academic year with distinction, though he didn’t know what good it would do him. On his way to the station, when he finally left Oundle for the last time, he saw a familiar figure come out of a shop door in the square. His heart leapt when he saw it was Emmaline, but she was with a young man he didn’t recognise. They seemed to know each other well. Then the cart turned the corner and they were lost from sight.

*****

William’s father met William at the station in Brixworth, and they drove home along the narrow lanes between hedgerows thick with rosehip and blackberry bushes, to the plodding clop of the horse’s hooves.

‘Will you take the reins, Will?’ his father asked. He looked unwell again, though he claimed to be alright. ‘I feel tired, that’s all,’ he said.

‘Lean against me and close your eyes if you like,’ William offered.

He had no idea what he was going to do. He supposed he’d help his father at the forge. He’d been thinking about what the doctor had said about there being a need for a local place to mend the motorcars in the district. It wasn’t what he’d envisaged doing with his classical education, but he admitted he was interested in mechanics, and who knew what opportunities there might be if he put his mind to it. The world was changing quickly. He thought he would do better in a town though, perhaps somewhere like Northampton. He decided he’d talk to his father about the idea of them both moving away from Scaldwell, though he’d wait a few weeks and allow things to settle.

Before they reached the village, William stopped the horse because his father had fallen asleep. He was slumped heavily against him and in danger of toppling off the cart. But when he tried to wake him, William realised that his father had died. Gently he laid him down in the back. He looked peaceful. William wiped away the tears that came to his eyes. A feeling of profound loneliness descended over him.

CHAPTER 5

John Reynolds was buried in the churchyard beside his wife’s grave. After the funeral one or two of the mourners approached William to say they were sorry and he thanked them, and then neither they nor he could think of anything else to add. A young woman with hair the colour of straw lingered until the others had all gone.

‘D’you remember me, Will?’ she asked.

For a moment he was at a loss, but then he did. ‘Yes, you’re Sally,’ he said. A vivid memory of that day in the wheat field came back to him, and he thought that if he had moved a moment sooner how different his life might have been.

‘I’m sorry ‘bout yer dad.’

‘Thank you.’ He was grateful to her for staying behind. He asked how she was, and she told him she worked for a farmer and his wife as a housemaid.

‘It’s hard work and I don’t get much time off, but they treat me well.’

‘Would you like to go for a walk?’ he asked, thinking that they could reminisce about when they were young and he could avoid returning to the empty cottage.

‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to get back.’

‘Of course,’ he said, disappointed.

There was an awkward moment, then Sally brightened. ‘I’m gettin’ married next year.’

He congratulated her, though she seemed young. She told him her fiancé worked on a farm at Lamport.

‘Now you’re back again, will you come to the wedding?’

He thanked her, but said he didn’t think he would be staying in Scaldwell. He didn’t belong there anymore, he thought, though he didn’t say that.

‘Good luck then,’ she said.

‘Thanks. Good luck to you too.’

As she left, she looked back and smiled. He almost called out to her, but he didn’t know what he would say, and so he simply watched her go down the path until she was lost from his sight.       

A week later he left the village. He had given up the rented cottage and the forge, and sold most of the contents. The only things he kept were some of his mother’s books and a framed photograph of his parents taken on the day they were married.

He took the train from Brixworth to Northampton, and though he had to be careful with the little money he had, he decided to take a room for the night at the Station Hotel. When he was told the price of a single room was five shillings he almost changed his mind, but it was getting late and he doubted he’d find anywhere much cheaper. That evening he went out to a café for his supper, and later went back to his room and read from the Odyssey. As he turned the well-thumbed pages to follow Odysseus’s trials he thought of Mister Watson, and wondered where he was now. When he felt his eyes drooping he turned off the gas and got into bed. For a long time he lay awake in the dark, wondering where his life would take him.

In the morning, William bought a newspaper and looked in the advertisements for lodgings. He found a place offering clean rooms in a respectable house for thirty shillings, with breakfast and supper included if required. He was alarmed that he couldn’t find anything cheaper, but he supposed if he managed to get a job quickly he wouldn’t have to eat into too much of his limited capital. After paying for his hotel room he had just over eight pounds left. It seemed like a very small amount.

He left his trunk at the hotel and took a cab to the address given in the paper. The house turned out to be an ordinary looking brick villa in a terraced row. When he knocked at the door it was answered by a maid, who showed him into a living room. A few minutes later the woman who owned the house appeared. She was middle aged and thin, with dark hair pulled severely back from her face.

‘Good morning,’ William said. ‘I’ve come about a room.’

She looked him up and down quite openly, but seemed uncertain of him, perhaps because of his age.

‘I usually only let my rooms by the week. I prefer my guests to be long term lodgers really, you see,’ she informed him.  

‘I’m afraid I can’t really say how long I’ll be staying, but I’m happy to pay for a week in advance.’

His offer to pay, coupled with his general manner and appearance seemed to persuade her. ‘Well, I have got one room that’s available. I’ll show you where it is and then you can decide.’

She led the way up the stairs to a room on the top floor, and stood aside to let him see it properly. It was small, furnished with a narrow bed and chest of drawers. A window looked out over the roofs of the houses across the road, and a single bad watercolour hung on one wall. William found it depressing.

‘Your advertisement said your rooms are thirty shillings a week, is that right?’ He wondered if such a small room might be let for a cheaper rate.

‘I provide breakfast and clean sheets once a week for that price,’ she replied firmly.

‘Alright, I’ll take it,’ he decided, thinking that it wouldn’t be for long anyway.

‘If you’d like supper it’s an extra ten shillings a week, which I think you’ll find is very reasonable,’ she told him. ‘If you don’t want it every evening it’s two shillings casual rate, but you have to tell me in the morning.’

William took out his wallet and counted out a week in advance. ‘I might make my own arrangements about supper, if that’s alright,’ he said. ‘Though I’ll take it tonight.’

The woman took his money and put it away in a pocket of her dress, and as they went back down the stairs she told him her name was Mrs Hall. ‘There’s a bathroom downstairs on the next floor. You’ll meet my other gentlemen this evening when they come back from their work.’

‘Thank you.’

He sent the cab back to the hotel for his trunk, and when it arrived the driver helped him carry it up the stairs. Mrs Hall apologised that there was nobody else to help, him but she only employed a cook and a girl for cleaning and serving the evening meal. After he’d unpacked his things, William went out again and caught a tram into the town. He walked along Gold Street looking at the shop windows. The streets were busy with trams and motorbuses, as well as horse drawn carriages and the occasional motorcar, and the pavements were full of people. After Scaldwell, and even Oundle, the town felt thriving and prosperous, and William began to feel more optimistic about his situation. Though he was alone in the world he was well educated and well dressed, and he had a little money in his pocket, enough to get him started in his new life. He decided that he would begin looking for a position straight away. Within a few weeks, he thought, he would be earning a regular income, responsible to nobody but himself. He would find rooms, which he would make comfortable with books and pictures on the wall that were to his taste. No doubt he wouldn’t be able to afford anything very grand to begin with, but it would be his home, and he would make it as pleasant as he could. He resolved to put his recent disappointments and the sorrow of his father’s death behind him and look forward to the future instead.

He still had the paper he’d bought earlier, but when he looked at the section advertising vacant situations he was surprised at how few there were. Though nothing appealed particularly, he was aware that his money wouldn’t last very long and he resolved to take any kind of work to begin with. Once he’d had a chance to settle down he would think about his longer term plans. Most of the advertisements were for manual work in factories or warehouses, but there were some vacancies for office clerks which William thought he might be more suited to. Though all of them seemed to require relevant experience, he was sure that his education - coupled with a willingness to learn - ought to do instead.

At the first place he went to he was told the position had already been filled, and the same thing happened when he arrived at the Northampton Boot Company, where a position as a clerk in the stores was advertised. As he left, William was glad the job had gone. The firm occupied a number of high, dirty brick buildings with a grim and forbidding air about them, and the air smelt unpleasantly of blood and the chemicals used in the tanning works.

The third place he tried was a brewery, where the position of clerk in the purchasing office had been advertised. When he arrived he joined a dozen men lined up in a corridor, all waiting to be interviewed. They were all older than William. He took his place next to a man who was perhaps in his mid to late twenties, who wore a suit that didn’t quite fit him properly, and whose shirt collar was beginning to fray at the edge. All of the men had a similar sort of appearance, and William realised that in the clothes he wore, paid for by his grandfather before he died, he stood out from them. The man in front of him nodded.

‘I ‘aven’t seen you around before.’

‘I only arrived today,’ William said, wondering why the man would expect to have seen him in a town the size of Northampton. The man seemed taken aback by the way William spoke, and afterwards didn’t speak to him again.   

Eventually it was William’s turn to be called into a small, cramped office where a fat, balding man sat behind a desk dictating a letter to a young woman who sat in front of typewriter at a small desk in the corner.

The man paused mid-sentence and looked curiously at William. ‘Are you here about the position then?’

‘Yes, sir. My name is William Reynolds.’

‘What sort of experience have you got?’

‘None really, I’m afraid. I was at Oundle school until recently.’ He was beginning to realise that there were a lot of people looking for work, and that he would have to sell himself to stand out from them, especially given his lack of experience. ‘I passed English and Mathematics with distinction,’ he added thinking that they were both subjects that would be useful in a purchasing office.

‘Did you now?’ The man leant back in his chair and cast an amused look towards the typist. ‘What’s a young man from a school like Oundle doing coming here for a clerk’s position, is what I’d like to know.’

‘I need to work,’ William said. ‘My parents are both dead, so I have to look out for myself. I think I can assure you that if I’m given a chance you’ll find me extremely keen to do my best.’

‘I expect you would be keen. Keen to get on too, I should think. You’d want to better yourself, a well-educated young man like you.’

‘I’d certainly try to ensure that my work was thought well of,’ William agreed.

The man’s attitude abruptly changed. He jabbed a finger in William’s direction. ‘What I want is someone who’s going to work hard and do what’s expected, young man, that’s what I want! Not somebody who thinks they know everything there is to know five minutes after they’ve started!’

The man’s belligerent attitude took William aback. ‘I apologise if I’ve given you the wrong impression,’ he said. ‘I only meant that I’m very willing to learn.’

The man took no notice. ‘I’ve seen that type before, you know. They think they’re a cut above. No respect for those who’ve done their work steadily over the years without giving cause for complaint. It takes time to learn things properly, you see.’

‘Yes, of course,’ William agreed.  

The man pushed a ledger across the desk, open to a page on which there was a column of figures. ‘Let’s see how long it takes you to add them up.’

William ran his finger down the list and gave the answer. The man frowned, and looked at the figures again as if there was something there he’d missed. He didn’t comment on whether or not the answer was right, but waved a hand in dismissal.

‘You’re not what I’m looking for, young man. Not at all. Send the next one in when you go.’ Without another glance at William he went back to the letter he had been dictating, and the young woman’s fingers began clattering over the keys of her typewriter.

That evening William was exhausted by the time he returned to his lodgings. He went upstairs to wash and change, and when he came down found the other lodgers were already seated at the table. He greeted them and took the only remaining seat. There were three men besides himself; two in their early fifties or thereabouts, and another of perhaps thirty five. The older men sat on either side of Mrs Hall, who presided at the head of the table. They nodded vaguely when William was introduced, and afterwards ignored him completely, but the younger man, whose name was Carter, winked at him.

The food, which was plain and not very well cooked, was served by a sullen maid.

‘I hope everybody likes mutton,’ Mrs Hall said in a tone that implied that if they didn’t they ought to.

‘My absolute favourite, Mrs Hall,’ said the man on her left obsequiously. His name was Johnson. ‘You can’t beat a good bit of mutton I say. Completely under-rated it is. You spoil us, you do, and no mistake.’

As the maid served him with a glutinous piece of the fatty grey meat he frowned, however. ‘Now, Maureen, dear, I think I’ll have that piece if you don’t mind.’ He indicated the biggest slice on the platter. ‘I can’t tolerate too much fat with my teeth, you understand. Not that there’s anything wrong with a bit of fat, mind. Very tasty it is.’

‘You’re quite right, Mr Johnson,’ Mrs Hall agreed. ‘There’s some that don’t appreciate mutton, but I always think it’s very flavoursome. The trouble is some people don’t know how much it costs me to put good food on the table, though I try my very best.’ She looked directly at William as she spoke, as if it was to him she was referring.

‘You’re right, Mrs Hall,’ declared the man on her other side, whose name was Hodges. ‘I never heard a truer word spoken, nor by a finer woman than yourself, as I’ve said many a time before and meant it, every word.’

Across the table, Johnson glared at him.

William was the last to be served, by which time all that remained on the plate was a piece of fat with a few slivers of meat attached to it. The vegetables were pale, overcooked cabbage and grey mashed potato. The meal looked worse than anything he’d experienced at school, but he was so hungry he ate it anyway, and listened with fascination to the duel of words between Johnson and Hodges, who both seemed determined to outdo one another in the amount of lavish praise they heaped upon their landlady. To William’s ears not a word of it sounded genuine, but Mrs Hall appeared to regard the flattery both as justified and entirely sincere.