A Man of his Time

by Alan Sillitoe

  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.’

  FOUR

  Young Burton was back – a year away, but time had altered him. Watch and chain looped across his waistcoat with a sovereign attached; a nick of white handkerchief in the lapel pocket like the wingtip of a bird attempting to hide there. Crossing the road so as not to tread in dog or horse droppings, he was aware of looking his best – a flick at the red rose snapped from a bush in the garden. The May evening was warm, but cap and waistcoat were part of his renown as a neat and formal dresser. He would have smiled to know that never again in his life would he appear in more impressive aspect – while in no way believing it.

  Saturday night in the taproom was the busiest night of the week, an ant heap turned upside-down in the clamour for pots and jars, so he couldn’t get close enough to Mary Ann and put the question. Back straight and head high, he overlooked everyone in the bar, and saw what he wanted to see. The whiff of home ale dominating the odour of gaslights made it seem as if supping a different brew all last year had been a dream.

  Fred the barman drew his tankard, Mary Ann busy at the far end pulling the smooth white-handled pumps with her lovely young arms. Nakedness through the shirt came with a clarity that made his peg stir, and her smile in his direction gave no need to wonder who it was for.

  You couldn’t ask a woman to marry you among so much riffraff, so he enjoyed slaking a thirst for home ale built up during the time in Wales, knowing it better to put the question at dinnertime, in the middle of the day, when less people would be around to nudge your elbow and drown private business with their clatter.

  A question that had to wait wouldn’t spoil any the less for that, and while he was nodding to those who knew him, or thought they did, or passing a few words with those he considered had a right to acknowledgement, he stayed by the bar to observe Mary Ann at a distance, satisfied by glances which he thought buttered by a smile. He disliked the notion of being back at his father’s forge on Monday and lucky to see sixteen shillings a week counted out of the leather bag for his labour, but it would have to do till something better was found.

  In the morning Mary Ann would be chaperoned to church by Mrs Lewin, and if he went he could glimpse her and maybe flash a wink during the sermon or between hymns, but he’d prefer to fry in hell than enter such a place, though when he and Mary Ann were married it would be a forceput, because there was no other way of getting such a woman into bed for life.

  She wouldn’t go to church after they were married because there’d be too much caring for him and bringing up a family, such a responsibility on his part as well that he called dilatory Eli for another pint, his last of the evening since he was watching the coins he would surely need for the time when every bun cost tuppence, and a bit more than that with a lot of little buns running about on two legs.

  Tomorrow he would work in the garden to please his father, but in any case he liked attending to the rows of beans and peas and potatoes while the church bells rang, knowing he would never jump to their musical summons and join in the prayers and hear the parson spout about what could have nothing to do with him. His mother went once a month but what could you expect from a woman, though there were plenty of men there as well, hypocrites to the bone.

  Outside it was almost dark, the windows a protective sheen through which nothing could be seen. If he was to be up at five he would need sleep, though garden work or not he left his bed at that hour every day, always had and always would, not like those who said they couldn’t do without a lie-in on Sunday, not realizing that you would get sleep enough in the cosy box of the grave when the time came, and that if you craved it while still alive you were already more than halfway there.

  He had asked her twice, and at twenty-one she ought to know her own mind. ‘I’m happy here,’ she said. ‘It’s a good situation, and I don’t know what Mrs Lewin would do without me.’

  ‘It’s me I want you to marry, not Mrs Lewin.’

  ‘I know, and if I marry anybody it will be you.’

  Such uncertainty wasn’t good enough. He only wanted a plain yes. ‘I’ve chosen you.’

  ‘I can tell you have. But you can’t choose me like you would a horse, or a piece of iron you work with.’

  ‘I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘You haven’t said you love me yet.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be talking to you like this if I didn’t.’

  ‘But you’ve got to say it.’

  ‘I’m saying it now. I’ve never loved anybody but you, so you can give me a yes as soon as you like.’

  Mrs Lewin came into the bar; Ernest was attracted by the high forehead, dark hair pulled back, the interesting mould of her lips, and middling bust under a striped shirt fastened at the neck with a brooch of amber. He wouldn’t have minded sliding into her, widow or not, though she must be nearing forty. Her luscious brown eyes looked at them. ‘Mary Ann, I’d like you to go to the kitchen and make some bread – that is, if Mr Burton will allow you.’

  The ‘mister’ and her smile softened his annoyance, and he wondered whether he wouldn’t do better with her, except she wouldn’t have him in a million years, and he didn’t fancy running a pub.

  ‘I still can’t make up my mind,’ Mary Ann told him.

  ‘Let me know when you can, then,’ he said off-handedly, and noted the lift of Emma Lewin’s eyebrows before walking away, telling himself she can think what she likes, as well.

  ‘He’s a bit of a devil,’ she said to Mary Ann as he closed the door. ‘But I suppose every woman likes a devil.’

  A state of uncertainty wasn’t for him. He’d never lived like that, and didn’t see why he should. When the hammer hit the anvil it always bounced up for another blow. He wanted her, and would have her, so the only solution was to go on asking, though he let a fortnight go by in case she thought him in too much of a hurry.

  She haunted his waking dreams, which could be dangerous in his sort of work. Auburn hair flowed over naked shoulders, her eyes enchanting him, a lovely young woman in season, with
outstretched arms and saying come to me, there’s no other man I want. Her face would shock its way before his eyes, taunting with a prospect to last a lifetime.

  He left his pie and hot tea at the forge, hungry only for what had to be done. George and his father wouldn’t mind. They would eat the lot. There were fewer people in the pub at midday, though had it been packed he wouldn’t have cared. The usual greetings were followed by a call for ale, not so much to swamp his thirst as to see the working of her arms, which would be better employed in a house they’d one day live in. He was at a disadvantage in his smithing clothes, but couldn’t help that. She must take him as she found him. Her finger traced the small print of a newspaper. ‘I’ve come to ask you again,’ he said, not waiting for her to look up.

  She glanced from the advertisement sketch. ‘I still don’t know.’

  Her tone sent a spark of hope, the uncertain smile telling him that a favourable decision might be close, so he ought not to be sharp with her, better to stand quietly and give her space to think, the opportunity to make up her mind, and talk, even if only to ask something. He stayed away from the bar, never one to put his elbows on the wood.

  She showed him the illustration. ‘I’ve been looking at these gloves. They’d go halfway up my arm, and look very fine.’

  He admired their style, having an eye for clothes that went smartly on himself, but also those which adorned a woman. ‘Why don’t you get them?’

  ‘I’d like to, but it’s three weeks till my day off, and I only saw them in the paper today. They’re on sale at a shop in town, for one-and-eleven-pence three-farthings.’

  ‘That’s not a sight.’

  ‘I know, so they might be sold out in three weeks.’

  ‘I shouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘Shall you go and get them for me, after you’ve finished your work this evening?’

  He pushed his half-finished ale aside, having sensed what was coming. ‘I’ll do it now.’

  Her delight convinced him he had said the right thing. She took a florin from her pinafore as if, he thought – and he was to think so for the rest of his life – she’d had it there all the time and knew what he would offer. ‘You don’t have to go this minute.’