Читать книгу A Man of his Time - Alan Sillitoe - Страница 7

The forge was a small building of neat red brick and slate roof on its own at the end of a lane. A field behind sloped up to a line of trees that marked the track of a railway, lifting beyond to a skyline of villa-type houses.

George, leather-aproned and fire tongs in hand, stood at the door, looked more surprised than welcoming at his brother’s appearance. Willie, the bearded shortarsed striker holding a shoeing hammer, called in a squeaky voice: ‘I could tell it was you a mile off. Master Burton asked me to keep an eye open. You walk just like him, as if you owned the world!’

‘Shut up, you daft old bogger.’ No blacksmith suffered fools gladly.

‘You’ve come, then,’ George said.

Ernest didn’t suffer fools at all, so made no answer. None was needed. Everybody could see that here he was.

‘I’ll shut the place up in a bit,’ George said, ‘then we’ll wet our whistles at the Mason’s Arms. I expect you’re ready for one. I know I am.’

‘What about my tool bag?’

‘Keep it here. It’ll be safe.’

‘Let’s hope so.’

‘You don’t trust anybody, do you?’

No answer was needed to that, either. Not even his brother, if it came to that.

‘Anyway,’ George swung the big doors to, after Ernest had taken the bags inside, ‘there’s plenty of work for both of us. I’ll set you on straightaway in the morning. There’s a chain to make, and a few scythes to sharpen, for a start.’

The bar room was full, men at their pipes and pots before going home, such a gabble Ernest couldn’t pick out a word, a pint sliding down like an eggtimer with the bottom ripped out, which stayed his hunger. ‘You can sleep on the floor tonight,’ George bawled, ‘and tomorrow we’ll fix you up with Mrs Jones. She’ll lodge you for twelve-and-six a week. And her husband’s a miner, so don’t think you can get away with anything. They’re God-fearing people who go to chapel every Sunday.’

‘Can’t we share your room, and I’ll pay half? What do I need one for myself for?’

‘You can for me.’

The floor was better than a bed too short to stretch on. He suffered now and again with twinges of cramp, as did many blacksmiths because of too much sweating, and even large intakes of salt didn’t help. ‘We’ll go, after this,’ George said, on his second jar. ‘I’ve got to save the pence so’s I can send a florin or two back to Sarah. Six young ‘uns are a lot to feed. Did you see ’em before you left?’

‘They were in bed when I called. Except Sarah. She was at the washtub.’ At forty she looked an old woman. No man should leave his wife after they were married. ‘She wondered when you’d be coming home.’

‘I’ll send another money order, then she can stop wondering.’

‘It’s a hard life for her.’

George’s Adam’s apple worked down the last drop of ale. ‘It is for me, as well.’

Nothing more to be said, Ernest followed him to the door. Clouds rushed from somewhere and brought a drift of rain, but the air was fresh and sweet, a few stars showing as they tramped along the rough clinker-covered road, potholed and worn from the traffic of drays and wagons. You had to take care where you put your feet. Ernest filled one of the holes with a long piss. Pictures closed in from the day’s trip and his encounter with Minnie, her forlorn goodlooking features less clear now than those he had left her with, the memory of her warm arms such that cheeky John Thomas chafed at his trousers.

Lights showed faintly from farms and cottages on the hillsides, trains whistling from all directions. Dimly-lamped drovers’ carts trundled towards the red and coppery sky.

‘It’s always busy round here.’ George didn’t find it easy to keep up with Ernest who, descending to a crossroads, noted the post office. A left turn beyond a narrow river took them by another public house into a street of raw houses, and faint odours of iron and sulphur.

George’s room was small but neat, his best suit covered in brown paper on the back of the door, shaving materials laid out on the fireplace shelf before an oval mirror with a brown stain in the middle. Seeing the single bed, Ernest didn’t have to wonder where he would sleep, though unsure that any man could do so with the clink of bottles, shrieks, and breaks into song from next door. ‘Is somebody getting married? Or are they just back from a funeral?’

‘It’s like that often.’ George put a match to the fire laid before setting out for work that morning, and took off his jacket and belt. ‘But you can’t tell ’em to be quiet. They’re Bible-backed Taffies, and like a drink now and again. It’s live and let live around here.’ He took a loaf and two plates from a cupboard on the wall. ‘The bread’s a bit hard, but it’ll have to do. The bacon’s good, though, and there’s a bottle of ale each. A Hebrew pedlar comes from Newport, so I got a couple of penny bloaters. He’s an obliging chap. Anything else you want and he’ll bring it up on his cart.’

They sat on the bed and, with the remains of what their mother had packed, ate fish, meat, and cheese by the light of a candle in front of the mirror. An argument from next door, as if the walls were made of cardboard, caused Ernest to look up. ‘People have got to sleep after their work.’

‘It’s nothing to do with us,’ George told him. ‘Work is what I want to talk to you about. If you’re lucky you’ll earn a guinea a week, maybe more at times. We get farmers’ trade, and the odd thing or two from the pit or railway. If you aren’t lucky you might draw less than a quid, but you’ll be better off than at home. Our work’s got a good reputation, and people know where to come.’

Ernest was willing to work if he could put the odd shilling by for when he got back to Nottingham. ‘Everything’s arranged, then?’

‘As much as I can make it. I’m not God. Anyway, we’d better look to our sleep. We need to be up by five.’

Ernest took the suit from his bag and smoothed out the creases, hanging it behind George’s on the door. The inability to hear his brother’s words may have been no bad thing at times, but was not to be tolerated now.

George noted the direction of his gaze. ‘You might have the key to the door at home, but you don’t have it here, so leave them alone. They’ll be done in an hour. It don’t bother me. I can sleep through anything.’

A man’s head slamming against the party wall was followed by a cascade of cheering. ‘Doesn’t the landlady put in a word?’

‘She daren’t, I think.’

He took off his neckcloth and, before George could tell him not to be such a fool, set off across the landing. His shins caught a large iron bucket which, going by the stink, was for use should anyone feel a call in the night. Punching the door open, he bent slightly to get through.

Such a pack of scruffy dwarfs he had never seen. He with the banged head sat on a box, pressing his temples as if to hold in whatever bit of brain lay between. Another man with uptilted bottle was getting rid of the beer quite nicely, while a third who was lighting his pipe by the fireplace asked what Ernest interpreted to be: ‘What might you want?’

‘I’m from next door.’ He spoke in as reasonable a voice as could be mustered. ‘We’ve got to be up before five, and want to get some sleep.’ He stood a moment, to be sure his message was understood. ‘So I’d be obliged if you’d make less noise.’

Thinking he could safely turn, a bottle hit the lintel by his head with the force of a shotgun. Thanking God they were half-drunk, he faced them again. ‘Any more of that, and I’ll lay you all out.’ He was ready, but no one came for him. ‘All I ask is that you keep a bit quieter.’

‘You’d better sleep in your clothes,’ George said when he closed the door. ‘It gets cold around here, even in May. There’s a bit of blood on your cheek.’

‘It’ll dry.’

‘I’m glad you didn’t have it all your own way.’ George sometimes disliked the sort of person his brother had turned into, who at times seemed reckless and needed watching. He was young, and just didn’t think, though whether he would ever be capable of that he wouldn’t like to prophesy. ‘It’s all right threatening violence but you’ve got to think well beforehand, and not do it out of temper.’

Ernest lay on the floor, a blanket over him, and his folded bag for a pillow. ‘I did think about it, but I think quick.’

George didn’t want to feel responsible for what scrapes Ernest got into in Wales, but knew that brothers must never stop caring for each other.

They traipsed through a deep and ghostly mist between hedgerows. ‘I forgot to tell you,’ George said. ‘I’ve got a chap coming from the village today who’s going to take a photograph of me at the forge. I fancy getting something back to Sarah showing me earning my bread. Otherwise she might think I’m living the life of Riley.’

‘How much will it cost?’

‘Only six-and-a-tanner, because he’s glad to do it for that price. He likes taking photos of blacksmiths. Don’t ask why. He wanted to know if there was a tree outside, and when I told him there wasn’t he looked a bit put out, but then said he’d do it, just the same. He only hopes it won’t rain, in case his camera gets wet.’

A thin man of middle height, a cigarette under his clipped moustache, ash flaking into the greying Vandyke beard, Ashton gaffered them into place like a sergeant-major. Ernest was surprised at the latitude allowed to such a shortarse, till the picture began to compose around George as the star. Then Ashton had to wait till a placid carthorse was brought to be shod, and George took the hoof firmly between his legs. Sleeves rolled up, he was told to look towards the camera, as was everyone in the scene, head tilted uncomfortably to show full face.

Thick hair was combed forward to a line along his forehead, moustache sloping to either side from under the nose. He gripped the hammer a third of the way down the haft, poised to nail on the shoe held with a pair of long pliers by the striker, a small bearded dogsbody George employed by the day. He steadied the horse’s head.

Leaning against the wall was a man with a curving pipe in his mouth, not in working clothes but wearing a collar and tie because the horse belonged to him. Two little pinafored girls on their way to school were collared by Ashton to stand by his side and complete the scene. Ernest and George were the only men not wearing caps.

Ernest didn’t want to be part of it, yet chose not to upset his brother by looking on from the open door, unmistakably himself, a tall thin young man with a well-shaped head whose thatch of short hair made a line halfway down his brow much like his brother’s. He wore a highnecked collarless shirt, a working waist-coat, but no jacket, a self-aware youth who wanted after all to be somewhere in view. He looked towards the camera, speculating on the mechanism when the black cloth went over Ashton’s head.

The photograph came a week later with, printed on the back in an ornate scroll: ‘Ashton of Pontllanfraith, Monmouthshire.’ George was happy with the scene. ‘Do you want a copy?’

‘Not likely.’ Ernest didn’t care for anything to do with the picture, since he wasn’t the gaffer in it, but he would keep it in his memory as something he hadn’t had to pay for.

Rasp in hand, Ernest faced the dray horse’s quarter, the front left hoof between his lower thighs. Willie, a tool bag convenient to his feet, waited to put on the new shoe. Ernest told the horse to keep still, though there was little need with such a quiet animal.

All through youth he had talked more to horses than he did or wanted to to people, not only because horses couldn’t answer back – the worse thing, he reckoned, that either human or animal could do – but because they liked to hear your voice even if you only nattered about the weather. It also calmed those horses that baulked at being pushed between the shafts when the work was finished.

He talked in silence but as if he’d be heard and understood. I’ll do the thing so well you won’t tell whether you’re walking at all, especially as the tracks around here are fit for neither man nor beast.

To get the old shoe off was a job in itself, because you never tear the nails out by force, as I’ve known some blokes do. Raise the clenches carefully and keep them straight, so that you don’t make the holes wider, or injure the hoof, or leave in stubs that make the horse limp, or go lame after a while. A horse who’s had that done to it feels pain just like a person, so it’s harder for other smiths to shoe and the horse might injure them in its distress. You get the job done as quickly as you can or you won’t make any money, but you still have to do everything well.

He rasped down the cusp at the edges, careful not to take off too much, for if you did the hoof would become too thin. Sometimes the horn of the sole was so hard and thick it needed softening with heat, though not in this case, which saved a bit of trouble. A flat iron drawn over the sole and held close for a few moments did no harm, and made it easy for the horse after a little paring here and there.

‘Let’s have the shoe, Willie.’ Some daft ha’porths who were as mean as hell with their pennies arranged for a smith to make so many shoes a year, but they got taken in, because the smith might put heavier shoes on the horse hoping they’d last longer and save him making so many, which wasn’t good for the horse.

An almost perfect fit – nothing could be perfect, however you tried – but he went to work with the file. The cold fitting needed a good eye to get all surfaces flush. He’d made shoes for anything from a pony to a lame Clydesdale, and every hoof was different, as every shoe had to be.

George and his father had taught him that you could always tell if a horse was happy after you had shod it, and if some never were it was the fault of their owners for not treating them right, who think all you need do for a horse is feed it and pat it on the backside now and again, and then it’ll do whatever you want and not need any other looking after, but a horse is a living thing and knows more than you think. As for beasts born with pebbles in their belly, you talk them into keeping still, avoiding wounds in the fleshy parts when putting the shoe on so as not to cause presses or binds. Horn’s thicker at the toenails than elsewhere, so you begin there and work back till you’ve done the seven new nails, guiding the shoe into position by sound and feel, and calculating the angle of each cleat to give a firm hold.

That’s that. Now you won’t have gravel or dirt getting underneath and chafing you to hell and back. The farmer whose horse it was leaned by the wall. ‘You’ve done a good job, I see.’

Ernest ignored the remark. What does he expect, a bad one? He smoked a cigarette, and after the horse had been led away George said: ‘I like to keep that old chap happy. He’s a good stick and a fair customer. I shall want you back inside now though.’

Work never stopped. They were lucky. He placed a length of bar iron in the fire till it took the heat. Skill and instinct were like man and wife, George often said, no one knowing where one ended and the other began. He watched the metal in the fire, and at the right moment swung it to get rid of cinders and loose flakes. With the striker beating time on the anvil to keep him in tune, he manipulated the metal with his hard hammer into the form of a shoe, shaping the heels to a proper slope.

Turning it over, he pressed out the fullering, and began to stamp the nail holes, slightly marking them at first, then with heavier blows driving them well in and finally right through, all at the same heat and no time to lose. The rhythm controlled time itself and, as his father had always said, when you had grasped the notion of timing you were more than halfway to becoming a master of the trade.

George stood at his shoulder. ‘There’ll be a few more to do after this.’ To which there was no reply but to get on with it.

On the way home, calling at the post and money order office for tobacco, Ernest was handed a small envelope which could only come from Minnie. George had picked up the ability to read but Ernest didn’t want him nosing into his business, so had no option but to knock on next door at their lodgings after supper and ask Owen the bottle-thrower for his services, setting a jar of good Welsh bitter on the table. All three men stopped what they were doing. ‘One of you knows your letters, I hear,’ Ernest said.

The man with the battered head stared at the embers between the bars while setting a kettle on, and the pipe-smoker at the table was about to tackle a large round loaf with a carving knife, saying: ‘Read his letter, Owen, then we can drink his beer.’

‘I lost my temper last time,’ Ernest said. ‘I’d had a long day.’ He never apologized, but came close to it now, hoping he would never have to do so again, though knowing that Minnie was worth it.

The room wasn’t clean, but everyone could live as they wanted. Favour for favour, he would do one for them if he could. The man turned from the kettle. ‘I don’t want to read it if it’s bad news, man.’

‘There’s no such thing, as long as your wife and children are safe. And I’ve got neither. So come on, I hear you read the Bible often enough.’

‘Keeps it under the bed so I won’t light my pipe with the pages. They flare up a treat!’

Owen unfolded the note and held it high, as if proud of being able to recite in a singsong half-mocking tone: ‘I shall meet you on my walk in the wooded place near Newbridge, across from the tramway. I stroll there on most days, and pray you will do so as well.’

‘What name?’

‘No name. Only MD,’ Owen said. ‘But I’m sure you know who it is.’

Gratified at Minnie’s sense, Ernest thanked him, and held out a hand for the letter, but without meeting Ernest’s eyes, Owen smiled, and slowly tore the paper into pieces. Ernest had intended putting it into the forge in the morning, so the fool had saved him the trouble.

A man in collar and tie huffed and puffed uphill on his penny-farthing, alighting at the top to look at a sheet of paper to find where in the world he was. Ernest passed, and walked as far as the tramway, coal drays rattling in the opposite direction. Work never stopped, but had to for him, wanting to keep his tryst with Minnie.

He followed a hedge as far as the wood rather than going through the village where his conspicuous figure might be remarked on, not wanting to get her talked about. Sheep stared from a field, ran towards the middle chased by crying lambs. Cornflowers thrived on the windless bank, a flash of rosebay by fully-leafed trees bordering the scrag of woodland. The day was hot and dry, but he didn’t suppose the clouds would stay high for long because the wind was changing.

Last year’s twigs cracked under his boots, and he used all-round vision so as not to miss her, though in an area of such sparse trees she’d easily be seen. A rabbit panicked towards a patch of ferns, and when another followed he picked up a stone, but the thing was too fast. To get a rabbit on the hop was difficult without a shotgun, though you couldn’t use one in a wood for fear of hitting a person. If you did you’d be for Dartmoor or the rope. All the same, a rabbit would make a fine stew when caught and skinned.

She walked through a patch of sunlight on green, in the deepest of mourning still. Coal trucks had to pass before he could cross, so many glimpses of her through the gaps she looked a different woman every time. She took a hand from her muff, which he held for a moment, her fingers more those of a working woman. ‘The day’s warm, but the wind’s got a chill in it,’ he said.

‘I hurried. I was so hoping to see you.’

The same for him, though he didn’t say. ‘I’d been wondering how you were getting on.’ She stood a few feet away, but he went forward to kiss a face no longer pale. She had been eating well, at any rate. ‘They’re looking after you, I see.’

‘I’m very happy there.’

Memories of the train journey reminded him that he was only here for one thing. He gripped her hand, drew her towards denser vegetation. ‘We’ll walk over there for a bit.’

Her eyes half-closed, tears about to run. ‘Ernest, I must tell you. I’m with child.’

‘Are you, then?’ His exclamation indicated that the matter need have little to do with him. ‘You mean it’s mine?’

Her look of entreaty was mixed with some pleasure. ‘We fornicated on the train.’

Such a plain statement brought a flush of wanting that day over again. ‘Does the parson know?’

‘I told my sister, and she informed him.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He told me it was God’s final blessing on me and my husband. He was very happy. We sat around the table and read the Bible so that he could give thanks to the Lord.’

A few moments went by. ‘I suppose it could be your husband’s. It’s as well the parson thinks so.’

Pale eyes fixed him while she crushed an elderberry leaf. ‘It can only be from you.’

He hadn’t thought to send a child into the world just yet, though it was no shock to know that he could do so. It wasn’t a feat for any man, though the story was a good one to tell George, except that it would stay a secret forever. Her eyes and lips formed such a smile that he yearned to get her into bed, and have the delight of ploughing babies into her for the rest of his days. All cares swept away, she would have it in her to give both a lifetime of spending. ‘When it comes we’ll have to talk about what to call him.’

‘What if it’s a girl?’

‘It will be a boy. It’s got to be. Now come with me.’

‘I can’t delay. They’re expecting me for tea.’

‘They’ll keep it on the hob for you.’ He stepped back and took hold of her. ‘I love you. You know that, don’t you?’

She put her arms around his neck with a sweeter passion than he could recall from any woman. ‘We ought to marry, Ernest.’

‘A woman waits for a man to propose. Only I can’t. I’m promised.’ He might or might not be, though going by the glances he had got from Mary Ann he could claim to be. Lying was against his pride, but he wondered whether he would get the warmth from Mary Ann as now came from Minnie Dyslin.

‘If you’re promised, there’s nothing I can say.’

‘It can’t be that bad,’ he said at her tears. ‘What would your parson think of you marrying a blacksmith? I’m a journeyman still, and go everywhere to find work. I never know where I’ll be from one year’s end to the next.’ The space in her would have to be filled by the child.

She pulled him close. ‘See me as often as you can while you’re here. That’s all I ask.’

‘I’ll do that.’ It wouldn’t put him out. ‘You’re the finest woman I’ve known. There’s never been anyone I wanted more.’

She followed his long back into the bracken, noting where he trod. He turned: ‘Come on, Minnie. And don’t lose your muff.’

He sometimes wondered when he would go back to Nottingham, though homesickness was no part of him. Sooner or later he would go because that was what you did after a stint in a strange place. You did what mattered, not what you thought. He would be sorry to leave a girl in Tredegar Town, as well as Minnie, whose child he’d see into the world and get a look at, feeling such curiosity about the matter it was necessary to fix on his work with more than ordinary attention: hammer and tongs weren’t playmates, nor the anvil a silent partner. A blow at the glowing iron with the wrong weight behind might cause a spark and blind you. They mostly went wide, and looked pretty enough in their angles, but the odd little murderous fly, all metal and fire, could stop your sight forever before you even saw it, the one-eyed blacksmith not such a rare bird in the trade.

It didn’t do to think and work at the same time, no matter what pleasant features flashed to mind, best to save it for when the beer was going down your throat, or on your way to Pontllanfraith in the evening.

‘You’ve got something on your mind,’ George said while they were eating their bread and polony in the forge.

Ernest wouldn’t sit outside for his dinner, not wanting strangers to gawp while he ate. Anyway, it was raining. ‘That’s nothing to do with you.’

‘Your head’s full of it. Not that you’ll say much.’

Ernest grunted in the way of their father. ‘Not more than usual I wouldn’t.’ When the boy came back with their beer jug from the Mason’s Arms he fixed him with a gaze. ‘You’ve had a swallow or two out of this.’

The boy was shoeless, stunted and half-starved, barely worth the half-crown a week George paid him for fetching and carrying. He reared at the accusation, an arm over his face to hold off blows, not so rare when he irritated George, who only took him on to have a body for knocking around. ‘I didn’t,’ he cried. ‘I would never do such a thing, Mr Burton.’

He’d be daft if he didn’t. Ernest had always taken a good sup as a child when sent to get ale. He passed the boy a large part of his sandwich, saw it find a good home in his mouth, then drank his share of the pot.

Standing at the door, warm and gentle rain giving a smell he had grown to like, he wondered how much higher Minnie’s belly would be on next seeing her, nobody able to tell what was in his mind, and whoever stared trying to find out would come up against a wall no nosiness could break.

Let George tap all he liked, he’d get no answers, though you had to watch it. The less somebody knew about your business the better for them but most of all for you, the only trouble being that you had no control over what people said about you between themselves.

The weather was too bleak to go in the wood so they stayed outside, such December cold as if blankets of snow were on their way. He wore his suit and light raincoat, since it was Saturday afternoon and he had a young woman to see at Tredegar in the evening.

Close to her confinement, Minnie said that their last meeting had been spoken about in the village, and if one person knew, they all did. Luckily it was a day when she hadn’t cared to be touched in the way he wanted, being too far gone with the baby, but her brother-in-law asked who the man was. ‘So I told him about you.’

Such tongue-wagging was an attack on his inviolability which he could well have done without. Even Leah the shunter’s wife hadn’t blabbed, and maybe he’d got her in the pod as well, though she was a more knowing piece than Minnie, who seemed less familiar with the ways of the world. ‘Couldn’t you have made up another story?’

‘I’m not capable of telling a falsehood,’ she said firmly. ‘All lies are wicked. The Lord never forgives a liar.’

She’d certainly been got at. ‘You told him everything?’

His annoyance was hard to understand. ‘There was no other way.’

She might be a few years older, but age had made her no wiser. ‘I’m surprised he didn’t chuck you on the street.’

‘He’s a Christian man.’

‘One of them, is he?’ – an ironic turn of the lips.

‘He would never do such a thing.’

‘Did he torment you?’

‘He asked, so I had to tell him. He said God would forgive my transgressions, as he hoped God would forgive yours.’

‘That’s cold.’

‘We prayed together. Then he said he would forget what I had told him. And he will. He’s a man of his word.’

He stiffened to his full height. ‘What else did he say?’

‘That I wasn’t to think of marrying you.’

‘Not the right sort for you, I suppose.’

‘He would never say that.’

‘No, but he would think it.’ As far as he was concerned he was too good to be related to a preacher’s family.

‘He said I must stay the rest of my life with him and my sister, who would see that the child had a Christian upbringing, and a good education.’

His laugh was dry, at not too outlandish a notion that the child would get on in a world of hypocrites. ‘He’s got some sense. But I’ll never forget you, Minnie.’

‘Nor I you.’

He kissed her lips in haste, aware that every tree had eyes and ears, not caring to get her into more trouble. ‘What shall we call it?’

She smiled. ‘David, if it’s a boy.’

He’d wanted Ernest, but the choice had to be hers, or her brother-in-law’s. ‘It could well be a boy.’

‘But a girl I’ll call Abigail, though my sister would prefer Martha.’

‘Abigail’s prettier.’

The trees darkened and a mist was forming, bleak country compared to that on the outskirts of Nottingham. ‘I’m happy talking to you,’ she said, ‘even if only for a few minutes.’

‘It’s the same for me, my darling.’ He wondered what she was thinking, and whether there was any good in it for him, but didn’t care because he couldn’t be bothered to find out whether she was saying what she really thought. None of it mattered. You only knew what was in someone’s mind by the words that came from their mouths, and had to be satisfied with that, believing it if you cared to. ‘When the child’s grown up will you tell him how he came to be born?’

‘That will be for me to decide, if the Lord spares me to live that long. Nobody knows the future. When I found out I was going to have a baby I was in despair, but now I’m glad.’

Her stiffening tone made him indifferent to what she would do. All that mattered with women was that you didn’t catch the pox, and that they didn’t get it from you. If they became pregnant it was their lookout, though if that happened to Mary Ann he would marry her and no mistake. You couldn’t do any such thing to a girl who lived across the street, and she was too closely looked after by Mrs Lewin – who seemed to know all the tricks – and he was glad she was, because when he got home, all dressed up and gold jingling in his pockets, he would go into the White Hart and ask her to marry him, before he got into any more scrapes.

‘I shall never forget you,’ she said, which he liked to hear.

‘And I’ll remember you for the rest of my life. When I look over the wall of the parson’s house in a couple of months, perhaps you’ll give me a glance at the child before I go back to Nottingham.’

‘It’s your right,’ she said. ‘I don’t think my brother-in-law will disagree.’

‘I must be going.’ Sleet blew against his cap. ‘You’d better put your umbrella up. I don’t want you getting your death of cold.’

The picture card was of Nottingham Castle. ‘Must be from a woman,’ George said, before Ernest could snatch it away. ‘I can almost smell the perfume.’

He wondered who had sent it. His parents had no cause to write. They’d have to get someone to do it for them. Leah the shunter’s wife had no call on him, either. She might be able to write but didn’t know where he was. Hard to think who it could be, people had no right to pester him, till the thought shot to mind that it could only be from Mary Ann.

Outside the post office George read his letter from Sarah. ‘She wants me to come home.’

‘Shall you go?’

‘I’ve been thinking about packing it in down here.’

‘It’ll be soon enough for me.’ He wants to see Sarah, Ernest assumed, and give her another child, providing she was still up to it. He put the postcard into his pocket, went on with his walk and forgot about it sufficiently to stop George’s curiosity by saying: ‘I’ve got my life. You’ve got yours. They’re nothing to do with each other.’

He bought a quart of ale, and before going in for supper went to see Owen-the-Bible, whom he had grown to respect if not like. Two months ago Owen had written a ha’penny postcard to Mary Ann showing a Welsh woman in a tall hat, the briefest of missives but in the finest Board School copperplate which Ernest hoped she would think was his.

Owen sat at the table, a plate of bread and cheese and half an onion before him. ‘Now here’s the tall stranger again. You must be wanting something of me.’

Ernest set the bottle by his knife. ‘Drink some of this first.’

Talk cost breath, due to work in the mine which did nobody any good. ‘Is it poison?’

‘No. It would cost more than ale. But you need a brew like this for the dry stuff you’re eating.’

Upending the spout, Owen downed a third, and Ernest showed the postcard. ‘Read me this,’ ready to use a fist should he damage it. ‘All right, take another drop, then read it.’

Owen drank to make his breathing easier. He looked at the picture and turned it over. ‘Do you know that when I go to sleep I don’t close my eyes.’

‘How do you know, if you’re asleep?’

He finished the beer before replying. ‘The others tell me. I sleep as deep as any man, but my eyes stay wide open. All night. What do you think of that, then?’

‘Very rum,’ Ernest conceded. ‘Now read that card.’

Owen’s knife shivered into the table, and stayed upright. ‘It’s excellent Welsh bitter you’ve brought me.’

‘Make as it’s your birthday.’

‘I don’t know when that is. My mother never told me, though I did ask her often enough. But I’m feeling happy from your drink, so this is what the card says. The handwriting is small, but very clear: “Thank you for your postcard. I’m glad you are getting on all right. I am, as well. People ask about you, and now I can tell them. We wonder when you are coming back. A lot of people would like to see you. Mary Ann.” She’s even put the commas right.’

Ernest told himself how pleasing he found Owen’s singsong voice, and knew that in many ways he would regret leaving an area whose people had been so honest and straight.

Minnie passed a cloth package. ‘It’s food for your journey. My sister and I put it together.’

Taking the bundle, he leaned over the wall to see the baby; felt as if leaving home again. ‘He looks healthy,’ noting that the closed eyes gave a stern expression, the features more his than Minnie’s. ‘Pretty, too. What did you christen him?’

‘David Ernest. Does that make you satisfied?’

‘It’ll have to.’ Minute fingers uncurled from the swaddling, reached for him, eyes open to look. ‘What a blue-eyed beauty. He smiled at me.’

‘He has a human soul,’ she said, ‘and a fine name from the Bible. My brother-in-law says he will sing the psalms of King David.’

The pang of wanting to stay with him forever came and went. ‘He’s a marvel.’

‘I’m happy. My life changed after meeting you.’

He was glad for her, though couldn’t say the same for himself. To see a child of his own was miraculous enough, but happiness was for those who didn’t know themselves, and who would be one of them?

A tear came onto her cheek, and he passed a white handkerchief freshly laundered by Mrs Jones. When she had wiped it away, and other tears threatened, he told her to keep it, all he had for her to remember him by. She tucked it into the baby’s clothes. ‘I have everything I want. I’m settled and content. My sister and brother-in-law adore him.’

David’s fingers curled strongly around one of his. ‘I’m sorry to go. And I shall always love you.’

‘We mustn’t linger. People will comment. So go now.’

‘I shan’t forget you both. When I come back I’ll see you and the baby again.’

‘You won’t come back.’ Then she was gone, and he went with a heaviness he didn’t know how to understand, but was more than glad to feel.

‘More pints go into your trap,’ George said, after they had changed trains in Worcester, ‘than words come out. Something in Wales must have struck you dumber than usual. I can’t get a word out of you.’

‘Nor will you.’ George was wrong if he thought anything was worrying him. On the other hand he was right, because the vision of Minnie and David stayed in his mind. Even thinking of Mary Ann wouldn’t drive it away, though the more he thought of her the more vivid her face became, and the more he knew he would have to marry her, settle down and have a family, no woman more suitable, unless somebody had made off with her during his time in Wales.

‘You ought to have been a deaf mute instead of a blacksmith.’ George arranged his tranklements for the third time on the rack. ‘I can just see you with a coffin on your back.’

Ernest took out his clasp knife. ‘You can kiss my backside. Just shut up.’ Opening the cloth bag Minnie had given him, he found a compact meat and potatoe pie, a lump of cheese, an onion, and a loaf of bread.

‘Who made that up for you?’ George asked in wonder.

He cut the pie neatly, and passed the other half across. ‘Put it in your mouth, and don’t ask any more questions.’