Читать книгу A Man of his Time - Alan Sillitoe - Страница 6

George had drilled in the procedure to get to the Great Western depot on Foregate Street. ‘You should be able to keep everything in your noddle and find the way, but be careful not to get drunk on Lea and Perrins Sauce! If you do, and you’re lost, don’t be too proud to ask. I know what you’re like. You’re a stuck-up young bogger. People enjoy it if you ask directions. Gives ’em a chance to do a good turn. So if you aren’t sure, open your haybox.’

Every landmark stood out as clear as the items of steel his father sent him to get from the wholesale merchants as a boy, and woe betide him if he came back with measurements that didn’t tally. He scoffed at George doubting his ability to keep all instructions in mind. George said that Ernest, being so tall, found it hard to see the ground when walking, yet always avoided treading in horse and dog muck. ‘I can’t think how you do it.’ Ernest did, had trained himself to notice what was everywhere with little or no swivel of the eyes.

After the church his usual striding walk carried him up Shrub Hill, across the canal, and forking left into a road called Lowesmoor. No station was hard to find, coal in the nose and smoke above the sheds, always a flow of traffic towards it, shunting noises to pull you the right way, a jumble of carriages and carts on getting there. The smile wasn’t entirely hidden by his moustache: George didn’t know everything, was a bit of an old man at times, too set at forty in the path of their father, something to pity him for.

His throat was as dry as the day, so he ordered a fourpenny pint in the crowded taproom of the Star Hotel, an elbow at ninety degrees so as not to be put off his drink by a nudge from the dinnertime riff-raff who, he supposed, were common labourers from some building job. Near enough to the wall clock, he took out his watch and reminded himself not to be late for the half-past two to Pontypool. The taste of his ale was swill compared to the Nottingham stuff, but he pushed his tankard forward for refilling, which would last him until Wales, where George had promised a very fine bitter – though we’ll see how right he is.

He settled himself into a window seat looking left, as know-all George had advised. When a woman who was sixty if she was a day pushed into the crowded carriage carrying a large basket with a lid, he stood to put it on the rack for her. ‘Are you going far?’

The train was crossing the Severn. ‘Only to Ledbury.’

The poor drab looked worn out, a bonnet lopsided on her grey hair. Must have been in Worcester selling her wares, for the basket was almost empty. ‘How far’s that?’

‘About forty minutes.’ A toothless smile told him she must live on gristle and baby food. ‘I’ve done it twice a week for the last twenty years, my son.’

‘Take my seat, then.’ Nobody else looked like getting up, as if she was beneath them because of whisky on her breath. ‘I’ve got legs to stand on,’ bending his head only to see more fields.

The train stopped at what looked like the side of a mountain, heavy cloud almost hiding big houses on the lower slopes. Trees and bushes shrouded a summit half-hidden by rainy mist, scenery reminding him of Derbyshire. The air was close, though he only ever sweated in the forge, where it ran off you like drink.

Most of the people got out, and a tunnel later the sky was blue. He seemed to have been travelling days instead of hours, Lenton far behind, glad to be away from working under the grudging eye of a father never satisfied with anything he did, though what Master Blacksmith would be?

Nothing to think about, he fancied another drink sooner than expected. Travelling put salt in your windpipe, and then he was diverted by a youngish woman in all-mourning black getting on at Hereford. He couldn’t show breeding by giving up his seat, because the carriage was empty, but the leather portmanteau he lifted onto the rack for her strained his arms as if filled with lead. Observing it, she told him it contained her devotional books.

Bibles and hymnals, it serves me right, but I couldn’t let her break such pretty little hands – rewarded in any case by the lift and fall of her bosom as she settled herself.

She didn’t thank him, not strictly needed, a good sign because if he talked to her later she might recall her lapse of courtesy and make it easier for him than otherwise. He took in everything without seeming to stare.

She wore a mantle and muffs, pale lips sighing as she took off her bonnet and laid it on her knees. The lifted veil showed a face so porcelain-fine he knew he wouldn’t deny himself a word or two later. Auburn hair, roping down her back to contrast with deep mourning, recalled Mary Ann’s at home, though he saw good reason to put her out of mind for a while.

Boots buttoned to the hem of her skirt shone black like his own, but a maid hadn’t buffed them up or she wouldn’t have been on the same class of train. She absorbed the landscape as if to draw out colour that might lighten her blackest of garbs. One hand lapped over the other didn’t hide her wedding ring, yet he thought it time to divert her from whatever tragedy soaked her through and through, and who better than himself to give such a service?

With the flicker of a smile he said: ‘I started out from Nottingham this morning’ – a remark which could bring no response, as he well knew, but you had to begin somewhere, though she didn’t even turn her head from a family of sheep on the hillside. Words he hadn’t used that day welled up for spending, could now let her know that someone in the world had worse troubles than her own. ‘A couple of miles before we got to Derby a chap threw himself out of the train.’

She was as much disturbed at being spoken to as by his shocking revelation. ‘Oh dear!’

‘It nearly made me late for the change to Worcester.’ Time to keep quiet, even if she said no more, and look at birds on telegraph wires, blocked by a cutting. He wondered what the label on her portmanteau said, but the wheels of her curiosity turned sooner: ‘Why did he commit such a terrible act?’

George had given an imitation of the Welsh lilt one night after a few pints in the White Hart. ‘Now you have me. I can’t think why. He was sitting next to me one minute, then the handle rattled and out he went. He was too quick for anybody to save.’

Her mouth showed small white teeth. ‘What a terrible sin,’ she repeated.

He wanted to hear more from her, so went on: ‘He wore a good suit, so it wasn’t poverty or debt that drove him to it, though you can’t always tell. Perhaps he’d got himself up specially this morning knowing what he was going to do. Some people only do a thing like that when they’re smartly dressed, as if they like to look formal as they float into hell. Or maybe he thought to do himself in only at that moment.’

‘But why?’ Not much colour came into her cheek, but it was a start. ‘My goodness, why?’

He wondered whether he hadn’t overdone it, though her question called for an answer. ‘Perhaps something in the newspaper upset him. Just before he jumped he’d been reading one, and when he went out it was still in his hand, as if he might want to finish what was in it when he got to where he thought he was going. You can never tell much about a chap like that.’

Her lips parted again, as if a smile was somewhere in her after all, though it was far too early. ‘Was the poor man dead?’

‘He could have been. He wasn’t moving when he was on the ground among the nettles.’ He liked the nettles part, amazed at what his lips came out with when he got going. ‘But just as the train was starting two constables lifted him on a cart and took him away to the infirmary. Unless the morgue was the place they had in mind.’

It was wrong to tell lies, but a plain tale to console was something else, and he waited for more words from her, though if they didn’t come it would be no loss to him. George always said there was a time to speak and a time to keep quiet, and you should always know when. If you let others speak it saved you bothering, and you might get to know something. Only talk when you knew what you wanted to say before opening your mouth. Then close it when you’d finished. On the other hand words could be like tadpoles. You might have them by the tail but they often slipped out.

Land rose mountainously to either side, the train spindling a river whose name he didn’t know, fields and rivers much the same everywhere. The lovely woman was so shy he forgot, his intention not to speak till she did. In any case he wondered about the wedding ring. ‘Are you travelling far, miss?’

She stared numbly. ‘I’m a married woman.’ A young and handsome man was only trying to be kind. ‘Not very far. I shall be alighting at Newbridge.’

George had mentioned it as two stops before his, so she would need his help at Pontypool on changing to the Swansea line. ‘My name’s Ernest Burton,’ he said, now that the waters of her speech had been broken. ‘But call me plain Burton. Everybody does. I’m going a bit beyond Newbridge, where my brother has a smithy. He tells me it’s a dirty little hole, though good for business.’

‘You could say the same about most settlements in the coalfields.’ She flushed, as if not sure her judgement was reasonable.

‘You’re in black, I see.’ Hardly possible not to, but what could you say? Her ability to speak seemed an accomplishment, so he had to come out with something. ‘You have my condolences,’ hoping that whatever happened had been long enough ago.

‘Thank you.’ Tears shone like pearls on her pale cheeks, and the ironed handkerchief from his pocket was there before she could pull hers from the muff, which she accepted as one was entitled to do in the land of mourning, so that if nothing else happened he’d kiss the memory of her cheeks on soft cotton as long as the imprint lasted.

‘My husband died three weeks ago.’ She looked towards the luggage rack, as if his image might appear by Ernest’s shoulder or as if, he thought, his body might be in the portmanteau.

Killed by a horse? Sunk with delirium tremens? Bludgeoned to death by a footpad? Got consumption and coughed himself to death? Suffered a growth? Had a seizure? He tried to guess. ‘That’s a terrible thing to have happened.’

The young man was as if sent by Our Lord to comfort her. ‘He was an engineer at a coalmine in Staffordshire.’

‘Such places are dangerous. I’ve never been down one.’

Another dab at her left eye. ‘I wish my husband hadn’t. It took all day to find his body under the coal, but the undertaker did a beautiful job.’

And so he should. Every man must know his trade. One of them would already be working on the chap who had jumped from the train near Derby – if it had happened – which he was about to mention but was glad he didn’t, because she said: ‘I’m going to live with my sister. My other possessions will go on by carrier.’

Church books in the portmanteau were too precious to be trusted to the road. Her grief was tempered by an air of tenderness in a compartment growing smaller by the minute, a loosening in her, as if she didn’t know where she was, or what she was doing or, what was better, wasn’t able to know – like the effect of a tot of whisky.

He felt as if alone with a woman in a meadow on a warm spring day, knowing there was only one thing to do before dusk came on. The unexpected sense of levity and opportunity was more than welcome, though he wondered whether it was only in him, at the same time sure a good measure came from her, pious as a dormouse or not.

He held her cold hands to give comfort, as a man should, his as ever hot, large compared to hers, a sheltering stove she couldn’t refuse. ‘What about your children?’

‘There aren’t any, which I suppose has turned out for the best, though I’m sorry the Good Lord didn’t bless me with some.’

Her husband’s spunk had been no good. ‘Was he a great age?’

‘He was twenty years older, a good and upright man.’

He would be, at that age. ‘I’m sure he was.’ Breath and body heat thickened the air between them. If this goes on we’ll need to be prised apart with a chisel. Time to get going, though not sure how she would take it. Moving to her side was a better place to console, seeing as how she needed him, but the goodness of his heart brought on more weeping, which wasn’t the ticket at all.

A passenger looked in for a seat but, unwilling to intrude on mutual and private grief, stepped down. A chink in the blind showed the train steaming along a valley, its whistle permitting them to do what they would, his only hope that no one else would try to get into the carriage.

He secured the blinds, and put his lips to her warm forehead. Hers were moist with a kiss no man could resist, or care what was behind it. A hand around her neck, the other at her well-covered bosom, he took in the rich clean odour of hair, yet held back from going like a bull at a gate, the urge to be fast a sure sign that you must go slowly.

She turned away, but a kiss at the nape of the neck always got them on the melt, Bible books in the portmanteau no defence for a woman’s flesh whose gander was up. A sudden leaning forward told him she knew it was too late to hold back, though any sign and he would have stepped up and asked her pardon. Men were rightly prosecuted for bothering women in trains, and the treadmill wasn’t for him.

A sudden jerk and she crushed herself to him, saying softly: ‘Oh, do take me, then.’

Not to accept her would be unmanly. He lifted her, a free hand drawing his raincoat from the rack to lay on the seat, using all his strength to let her down as if onto a bed of feathers. Clothed arms rustled around his neck, till the seat vibrated under her, carmine features contrasting with the black of mourning as she held out her arms.

No more waiting, he bundled up the complication of skirts, and she drew him through smells of lavender and sweat to the greed of that vital place. All control was given up as if only now able to allow it after her husband’s death. He held back to match her eagerness but she was determined not to let him (which couldn’t be held against her) and spent more quickly even than Leah.

An hour ago they hadn’t known each other, but she must have been half in death for it, the stars fixed that he would be the one to be drawn by her so completely. Glad that she had reason to be pleased with taking him as much as he had taken her, he was also amazed at a coupling of so few words, when with others he’d used many in his persuasions, Nottingham girls brazenly expecting them so as to save, he supposed, what they thought of as their modesty.

Her smile could only be for the ironic twist to his lips while she went back to her status of bereaved woman. The handkerchief that had dried her tears was used to wipe between her legs, as he stood away to fix his buttons. She held out her hand when he moved to put the soiled handkerchief into his bag of tools, demanding it for her reticule, then arranged her dress and sat down. He fetched out a clean one, blessing his mother who had ironed it so well. He looked into her eyes to let her know she deserved more than had been given. Flicking up the blind he was surprised that the world was still the same, yet thinking that if this was travelling by train he wouldn’t mind doing a bit more.

She shaded her eyes as if daylight was too much for them. ‘We’re close to Pontypool.’

Needing to smoke, he took out a packet of Robins, lit one, and dropped the spent match on the floor. He moved to touch her, at the flush knew she wanted him to, but there was only time for a press of hands. ‘I’ll see you walking the street at Newbridge, if I can get out a bit from my work.’

‘My sister’s husband is a Methodist minister, which is why I came third-class. The Good Lord doesn’t like waste.’

‘They’ll keep you locked up, I shouldn’t wonder.’

She arranged her mantle. ‘I’m a widow, so I can walk out on my own.’

‘I shall look for you.’ I could marry her, if I wanted the bother of courting, take an armful of blooms to meet her in-laws, and make them think I’m somebody I’m not. ‘What’s your name?’

She tied the strings of her bonnet. ‘I’m Mrs Dyslin.’

That wasn’t good enough. ‘And who’s she when she’s at table?’

‘Minnie.’

A pretty name. He had given his already, but didn’t want her to forget. ‘I’m Ernest Burton, blacksmith. My brother has a forge near Tredegar Junction.’

‘That’s close to my sister’s.’

‘So I might see you.’

She sat as if never wanting to leave. ‘I feel better than I did an hour ago.’

‘I’m glad. And I’m sorry for your loss, but you’ve got to go on living, whatever happens, that’s all I know.’ He was surprised at offering so many words of consolation. Well, he could talk when he wanted to.

‘You’re a young man.’

‘I’m twenty-one, and that’s not young. Not in my line it isn’t.’ She must be a few years older, but it wasn’t right to ask a woman’s age. Not that it mattered, as long as you gave her what she wanted.

‘I’m going to be the housekeeper at my sister’s, because she’s ailing much of the time. That’s all I can do with my life from now on, though there is a small annuity in my name. My sister has been married ten years, and has four children. Two are young, so I can teach them their letters, make myself useful in whatever way I can. Frank, he’s the minister, will be grateful if I arrange everything to do with the household, I know, which will help me forget my troubles.’

Maybe she’d have a child after what they had done, people thinking that the last act of a dutiful husband had been to lie with her, the timing more or less right. His smile brought one back, a rose opening under the warmth of summer, happiness that would need concealing once she got to where she was going.

The train squeaked alongside the platform at Pontypool Road station, and he reached for her bag, noting how much livelier and more attractive she was after what they had done, back in the world of the much desired where he hoped she would stay, because a woman can look beautiful at any age as long as loving spunk is pumped into her which goes straight to the eyes and makes them glitter with the come-on of a peahen everybody likes to see. There’s only one way to please a woman, and if another woman guesses what it is, I’ll please her as well. Minnie’s brother-in-law expects her to look sad in her black, so I hope he doesn’t wonder what she’s been up to.

He set their bags on the platform, held a hand for her to step down. George would twit him half to death if he could see him acting the cavalier.

‘The platform’s over there,’ she said on seeing him hesitate. ‘The notice says so.’

‘Ah, so it does.’ He kept a footstep behind, something against his habit, since a woman’s place was to walk after the man. When the train set off she was blawting again. Her husband had died three weeks ago, and she was crying because things would seem strange at her sister’s, till she got used to it. Women often cried for less, so he spared another handkerchief to mop the salty waters, feeling in some way responsible for her.

Two long pools flashed by, furnaces and collieries scattered over the valley. A train puffed and billied up a hillside among scarves of smoke. ‘At least you’ve got a sister to go to, and you’ll be all right once you get there. A family is all a person needs.’

She stopped crying. ‘It’s not that.’

He leaned forward to touch her warm cheek. ‘If her husband gets on to you, and makes your life miserable, I’ll have a word with him.’ He showed his fist, hard and worn with work. ‘I’ll look after you.’

She was shocked. Didn’t all women want protection from bullies? ‘It’s not that,’ she said. ‘It’s that I would like to see you again sometime.’

‘And so you shall.’ He was gratified, though not sure it would be possible because George would have him slaving all the hours God sent. ‘Write your address so that I shall know where to find you.’

She took a silver pencil and small pad of paper from her reticule.

‘And if you want to find me, send a note to the post office at Pontllanfraith,’ where George called for his letters. ‘That’ll find me.’

He slipped the note into his lapel pocket, looked at woods to either side of the track. ‘It’ll be the second stop after this,’ she said. ‘My brother-in-law told me in his letter that he would meet me with his pony and trap.’

The departure kiss was as if they were married, or at any rate as if he ought to marry her, though he scoffed at the notion. Her embrace was so passionate because of the loss of her husband, and maybe even of him. It could not be prolonged, though the look of tenderness pleased him. ‘I’ll put your bag on the platform.’

His tall figure leaned from the carriage window watching the brother-in-law greet her with uplifted hat, a slender middle-aged man whose smile was nowhere close to his face, a Stephen Meagrim in a Bible-black garb almost as deep as her own.

Glad to be by himself, he sat opposite a man and woman who fixed him as if knowing he couldn’t be of the area. The man was probably a farmer, and the bedraggled woman one you might see on a winter’s day trudging towards the workhouse. But they smiled, and wished him good afternoon.

Another cutting of green and shale, and the train stopped. The first thought as he stepped down was to slake the windpipe, but he must let George know he had arrived. He looked north, east, south and west and along the lane wondering where the forge could be, feeling more alone than he liked now that Minnie had gone. Seeing a ragged man covered in coal dust, as if he had just crawled out of the earth, he asked the way to the forge.

Teeth showed white when he smiled, Ernest barely understanding the singsong response, but waving hands gave the direction, and he walked towards houses on the main road.

The sky was cloudless, air sweet, a sun still high enough to warm the ripening hedges, a couple of larks arguing as if their wings were lips. It was good to be alive and on his own in a foreign country. Coal smoke tangled faintly at a change of wind as he put down his bags to light a cigarette. He would have plenty of work from now on, knowing George.