Читать книгу A Man of his Time - Alan Sillitoe - Страница 12

Burton was glad to see so few in the Crown, not more than a couple of men who had left their wagons by the kerb. Florence was distracted. Well, she would be. She always was. There was only one thing that could bring her back into herself, but by the look of her he could tell she was wondering whether or not she’d had enough of him.

He was halfway through the pint he allowed himself at midday. ‘Is it your husband you’re frightened of?’

‘It’s not that so much. He might murder me, but apart from that I don’t think he’d care one way or the other. The thing is, he’s leaving his job, and we’ll have to live in Chesterfield.’

‘What does he want to go to a place like that for?’

She might be daft enough to think her husband didn’t care, but he surmised otherwise. Yet you could never be sure of anything. She might be using the assumption that he did know what they were up to because she was fed up and wanted to pack the business in with him, though if her husband did know then maybe he wanted to get out of it because he couldn’t stand and fight like a man for a woman worth fighting for. Let him try, though he wouldn’t like Mary Ann to hear of it.

‘His brother’s in business at Chesterfield,’ she went on.

‘Get him to stay here.’

‘I don’t know as I can,’ her tone implying she might not want to. ‘He’s set on it, anyway.’

He leaned closer, a hand on hers. ‘I’m sure you can if you want to. He sounds the sort who will listen.’

The glitter of desire came into her brown eyes. ‘Is that what you’d like?’

He was irritated by her emotional scheming. It wasn’t up to him to make up his mind. She must come to him, and if she didn’t she wasn’t worth having. ‘It only matters if you want it to.’

She was looking beyond him, and he saw Mary Ann’s reflection in the mirror, between liquor bottles on the shelf. Uneasy at the apparition he turned back to Florence, as if to go on talking would prove innocence. ‘Don’t let her bother you.’

‘Who is she?’

‘Some woman or other. I’d be sorry to lose you. I think a lot of you.’

‘You ought to show it a bit more.’

‘I don’t often see you, in that way. But I always want to. Life is hard for everybody. We’ll have to see what can be done.’

Mary Ann had witnessed all she needed. Pale, blood pulsing in every vein, she pulled at his arm. ‘I was told you weren’t at work, but I knew where to find you.’

He pushed her away, to finish his drink. Dignity was the dearest thing in the world, and he was shaken that she had come into the pub and dared to make a fuss. Florence realized who she was, and stood away with shame and sorrow at what she had become part of, and at what she felt to be her fault. Burton had courted her for weeks before she gave in, though she too had wanted him. And now this. She should have known it would happen.

The few drinkers looked on, as Mary Ann went for him. Nobody had tackled Burton in that way before, and it was extraordinary to witness. ‘You’ve got eight kids to keep,’ she said, ‘and you’re doing it on me with her.’

Words were wrenched out of him. ‘We were talking.’

‘I don’t believe it. You think I’m a fool? I know what’s going on.’ She seemed about to strike him. ‘Come back to your work. No wonder you give me hardly enough to keep the house going, carrying on with a trollop like that.’ She took a piece of paper from her pocket, held it before his face so as to give him time to recognize their marriage lines, and threw it in two pieces on the bar. ‘That’s what I think of you!’

He flushed with shame and rage. ‘Go home.’

‘Only if you come with me.’

As a master blacksmith and man of the house, philanderer and favoured customer at the pub, something had to be done to counter this violation of his dignity, and in such a way that it would never happen again. Such an affront had never been dreamed of, and caused a ripple at the temples fit to burst his head. He gripped her arm and walked her to the door. ‘Get off home,’ and pushed her into the street.

In the silence he dared whoever looked on to deny that what he had done was anything but just. None could. They would have done the same. Or the worst of them would. He wasn’t finished with Florence. ‘Don’t worry about that little set-to. We’ll meet in the woods tomorrow evening.’

She handed him the two halves of the marriage certificate. ‘You’d better have this, and see if you can put it together again.’

‘That’s cold.’ But he took it.

‘I shan’t see you anymore.’

‘Don’t say that. Wait for me. I’ll be back.’ A few strides took him outside.

‘His poor bloody wife’s going to cop it now,’ one of the carters laughed.

‘Well, she could have hammered him in the house instead of showing him up in public.’

The closer to home the less was he able to think, and the faster he walked. No need to think at all, everything spoiled between him and Florence. Rage carried him through Woodhouse, under the railway bridge and up the lane, not caring to avoid puddles from yesterday’s downpour. He passed his neighbour Harold Ollington, who wondered at not receiving the usual nod. Even God, had Burton recognized Him, would have got no greeting, pushed out of mind by the force of such catastrophic events. It wasn’t so much that she had shown him up in a pub as that she’d had the gall to do something like that in the first place. As his wife she had lost all respect, flaunted intolerance of him as his own master when away from the house as well as in it. His boot hit the gate.

Mary Ann pegged out a line of clothes fresh from the copper. Work for the household must go on, but tears went down with drops from the sheets. What she had done to Burton served him right, though she’d be damned for her Irish temper. Emily had seen him in the field talking to that wicked woman, then he had stayed so late in the wood, and today she hadn’t found him at work when he should have been, and had caught him in the public house talking to the barmaid in such a way it was plain what had been going on.

She felt only anger and wild resentment that he had betrayed her who had brought up their eight children on short money over so many years; nor did she suppose it was the first time he had done such a thing, which caused more tears to flow as she thrust wooden pegs onto cotton or cloth.

She heard nothing, then Burton pulled her around to face him. Dead grey eyes fixed her, then black and orange sparks exploded at a blow impossible to avoid. ‘Don’t ever interfere with anything I do, ever again. Never. Do you understand? Keep out of my business.’ Ignoring her scream, he fixed her in readiness for another across the mouth.

A third blow was held back. One was enough, and he had given two. Never lose control. He immediately knew he had done wrong, shouldn’t have given even the first, because she was his wife and not a child or animal to be kept in order. George would never have done the same to Sarah. She caught him out once, though hadn’t dared tackle him in public. George had done nothing more than laugh in her face, because fair was fair, he told Ernest, who was now sorry he hadn’t recalled the incident on his way up the lane. He pushed Mary Ann aside, and slammed the door into the house.

Annie Ollington looked over the fence at the commotion, and hurried around by the front gate. She sat Mary Ann on a log. ‘Oh, what a terrible thing! Look what a mess he’s made of your mouth. But you’ll be all right in a bit, duck.’ She wiped her cheeks with a handkerchief, shook it square, and saw smears of red. ‘Does he do this often?’

‘He’s never hit me before. I wish I could die.’

‘Don’t talk like that. But if he does it again you ought to set your lads onto him. I never thought Burton would do a thing like this. And he thinks himself such a gentleman! If anybody treated me like this I’d take the carving knife to their guts.’ She put an arm around her. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it, though I know a lot of it goes on.’

Burton came with a bowl of water and a cloth. ‘What do you want?’

‘Can’t you see? I’m trying to help. What did you hit her like that for?’

‘It’s none of your business. Clear off, and don’t come here again.’ A hand jerked, as if to throw the water should she move any closer. ‘She’ll be all right.’

‘Not with a beast like you she won’t.’

‘Have less of your lip.’

In answering back she was more brave than she knew.

‘You’d better go,’ Mary Ann said.

She saw the glint in Burton’s eyes, and went quickly down the path. He dabbed at Mary Ann’s face. ‘I was only talking to the barmaid, passing the time. I’d had a heavy morning at work, and thought I’d go to the Crown for a drink. There was no need to show me up in front of everybody.’

If that’s all he had been doing why was he so enraged? He couldn’t get out of it like that. ‘Whatever you were up to God will pay you out for hitting me.’

‘God? And where does He live? What job does He do? Does He get good money while He’s at it? Hold still, and let me see to you.’

‘There is a God, though, and He’ll have it in for you.’

‘Not if I know it.’

‘You shouldn’t have hit me.’

He helped her to stand. ‘I wish I could undo it. Come into the house.’

Nowhere else to go, she had made no better home for him and all of them, and because he was her husband she let him guide her to a chair by the fire. The world had turned in a way she’d never imagined. To say she had loved him was unnecessary. He was the main factor of her life and she would never complain, had made her bed and must lie on it. She got up, hoping her face would pain less if she busied herself.

A huge horned gramophone stood on the round mahogany table in the parlour, as if to bellow condemnation at what he had done. He pushed it aside on sitting down. The room was Mary Ann’s creation, and she cleaned it every week, though rarely had company to show it off. She sometimes enjoyed its comforting solitude, and did her sewing there.

On a smaller table lay a neatly boxed set of dominoes, while a series of whatnot shelves fixed to a corner of the room held pottery pieces from seaside or Matock. The bookcase was filled with prizes brought from Sunday School, which he had sent the children to hoping they would get knowledge into their heads that had never entered his. They might also be taught to behave, so that Burton wouldn’t have to do it – as he once heard sharp-tongued Ivy remark to her sisters, not knowing he was near.

Mary Ann cared for the books, liked the idea of several a year coming into the house, and noted with pleasure how the shelves slowly filled. Only Oliver took interest in them, but she supposed that was encouragement enough. She had been with Burton on Alfreton Road and saw the glass-fronted case in Jacky Pownall’s junk yard, standing in the drizzle by a stack of bedsteads, the perfect piece of furniture for storing books, instead of them staying heaped on the table, so she robbed him of a week’s drink to pay for it, and got him to push it the mile or so home on a rented handcart.

It stood for a week in the warm kitchen to dry, and he took several evenings with rag, scraper and turpentine to remove the sickly green paint, then cleaned and polished to reveal the splendour of original wood.

The picture on the wall over the fireplace, a wedding present from George, was of a youth handing a bunch of flowers to a young girl, the couplet underneath an avowal of love that Burton knew well but didn’t care to repeat at the moment. He sat with a hand over his eyes, as if they were paining him, or would be if he thought more about what he had done, aware that what was done could never be undone.

In a cupboard facing the fireplace was his bottle of whisky, rarely broached, but he went to it and poured a small glass, noticing that the level had gone down from when he had last taken a nip, wondering whether any of the children had been helping themselves.

Things couldn’t be worse. He was losing Florence, and had been angry enough to hit Mary Ann, having always said he would never knock any woman about. But none had ever given him cause to, and when your blood boiled there was little to stop you doing it – though there ought to have been. It was no use saying he wouldn’t do it again. It was already done. The only way to make amends, if they could ever be made, was to let time go by, but that wasn’t good enough. Thoughts went in a circle, till the only way to get out of their grip – nothing at the moment could make up for what he had done – was to be certain that Florence no longer wanted him.

He poured a larger dram. If Florence wanted to go on with him nothing should stand in her way, and since he wanted to go on with her he couldn’t imagine she wouldn’t want to.

He put the glass of whisky before Mary Ann. ‘Try some of this. It might help a bit.’

‘Nothing will.’ But she sipped, not averse to the taste. ‘What would you do to me if you caught me doing the same thing?’

‘Kill the man, and you as well – except I wasn’t doing anything I shouldn’t.’

She thought it better to stay quiet. He stood at the door. ‘Where are you going?’

‘To see how those two idlers are getting on at the forge.’ She had never questioned him before. As for telling a lie, what could you do when you didn’t want to tell the truth? You never lied because you wanted to, he would always rather not, but only when people drove you to it, and to save them from worry. She should have had more sense than to ask, and if she doesn’t believe me that’s her lookout. Never tell anybody what they don’t need to know.

He pondered the matter, but on reaching the main road his thoughts were only of Florence. Few women meant what they said. Getting her to keep on 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 Burton had gone.’

‘You finished ours on me a few days ago,’ Oliver said. ‘It’s like being in a war, living in this house.’

‘It helped a bit. She came with some Collis Browne’s as well but I told her I wasn’t a baby who’d got colic. She said it might buck me up, and it did for a while. At least I’ve got a good neighbour.’

‘I’ll make sure he never lives this down,’ Oliver said.

Edith took knives and forks from the drawer. ‘You’ve seen what that old fucker’s done?’

‘Don’t swear like that,’ Mary Ann said, ‘or I’ll make you wash your mouth out with soap. I won’t have that sort of talk in this house.’

‘I can’t help it. He wants blinding, except that it would be too good for him.’

‘And don’t talk like that about your father, or God will pay you out as well.’

‘If He paid me out for saying anything against Burton there wouldn’t be any God.’

‘It won’t change him,’ Oliver said. ‘I can’t think what will. He won’t even alter after he’s dead and gone.’

Edith laughed. ‘Somebody ought to kill him. That’s what he deserves.’

‘He’s not worth hanging for,’ Oswald said.

‘Let’s get on with supper,’ Mary Ann told them, as if only eating would stop such talk. ‘He’ll be in directly, and if it’s not ready there’ll be hell to pay.’

‘Make it as hot as you can,’ Edith said, ‘and chuck it in his face.’

‘Now stop,’ Mary Ann said angrily. ‘You can give me some help. Crack the eggs for the pudding and beat them in the big yellow bowl.’ Her face pained, and two of her teeth were loose, alarming because she had always feared for her looks, but such murderous words from the children inclined her to take Burton’s side.