A Man of his Time

by Alan Sillitoe

  ‘I’m going, if you talk like that.’

  ‘No, don’t. I want to rag you some more.’

  ‘I can’t stay. I’ve got to see that the others set the table properly.’

  ‘Well, don’t forget to bring my book. I want something to read after finishing work.’

  ‘Aren’t you coming back to live at home?’

  He stood up tall and straight – like his father. ‘Not even if Burton came and pleaded with me on bended knees.’

  ‘But you will if Mam asks you?’

  ‘I might. But I’ll never work for him again.’

  She went through the bushes towards the canal with the basket on her arm, and he laughed about the bag of pepper. A big comely girl like Edith should be able to knock any man senseless who bothered her, but the trouble was that women didn’t often know the strength they had, and those who did were afraid to use it as they should.

  Few tables were taken in the yard of the Admiral Rodney at Wollaton village. The day was too fresh, though perfect for Burton, who liked a breeze after the stink of burning coals and searing metal all week. He drank with more pleasure in such weather.

  A well-dressed man with a friendly smile paused at their table. ‘Good morning, Burton.’

  He gave a nod that only someone unfamiliar with his ways would find offensive. ‘Who was that?’ Mary Ann wanted to know.

  ‘Some damned fool.’

  ‘I don’t suppose there’s anybody around here who doesn’t know you, but he seemed pleasant enough.’

  ‘He brings his horses to be shod, and complains when I charge two bob. They’re all cripples, the way he uses them.’

  ‘He won’t bring them anymore if you treat him that way.’

  ‘He can please himself. You’ll be getting drunk,’ he said, at her modest sip, ‘if you go on gobbling it up like that.’

  ‘It’s nice, but I could never take much.’ The small glass was still almost full. ‘I used to see people getting tipsy all the time when I was in service.’

  ‘I wasn’t one of them.’

  ‘I know, but I like to keep a clear head when I’m thinking about Oliver.’

  He snorted. ‘He’s got too much to say for himself.’

  ‘All young men have. I expect you did when you was a youth.’

  ‘Not to my own father. It was more than I dared do.’

  ‘Oliver was concerned about me. You can’t blame him for that.’

  ‘I look after you,’ he said, ‘not him.’

  She thought that even he might take such a statement with a pinch of salt – which accounted for the few moments of silence. ‘I wish you’d let him come back home. He’s sleeping on planks at the sawmill.’

  ‘I’ve slept on worse.’

  ‘I miss him, though.’

  ‘I expect you do.’

  Morgan came through the gate, and stood as if for a talk, spruce and affable in a bowler hat, a sovereign and some farrier regalia dangling from his waistcoat. Burton hadn’t seen him since Sabina had danced on the table. ‘Hey up, Burton! Things all right?’

  ‘So you can see.’

  ‘Can I get you and your missis a jar?’

  ‘We’ve got them already.’

  ‘I’ll see you, then.’

  Burton watched him stride to the pub back door. ‘Another damned fool.’

  ‘I ought to have been introduced to him properly,’ Mary Ann complained.

  ‘You don’t want to know him. He talks too much for his own good.’ He finished his drink. ‘I suppose I am missing Oliver’s cheek. You’d better knock that jollop back, or we’ll be here all day.’

  She needed no telling. He was relenting, and it was about time. The house was a miserable place without Oliver. Even Burton would agree, though never say so. ‘If we walk back along the canal we pass the sawmill.’

  ‘What are you in such a hurry for?’ He drew her chair away. ‘A button’s loose from your glove. You’d better take it off or you’ll lose it.’

  They followed the wall-lined road bordering Wollaton Park, away from the village. Mary Ann walked her few paces behind, at times almost catching up, which he wouldn’t like. Clouds flowing low from the west put the wind at their backs. She all but clipped his heels. ‘I don’t know why you’re in such a hurry,’ he said. ‘The dinner won’t get cold. You’ll be running me down if you’re not careful.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll come home?’

  ‘He will if I tell him.’

  Having a child away from the house was like a brick missing from the wall and letting the weather in, she’d heard her grandmother say. ‘I’m sure he will, then,’ and she smiled, happier than for many a day.

  They turned up a lane through the wood, till sawmill sheds were visible, a deep lock of the canal at their backs. ‘Oliver!’ he shouted, then turned to Mary Ann. ‘You go home, and leave this to me.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Make sure dinner’s on the table in half an hour.’

  The arrangement was good enough, and she would happily face the darkness of the railway tunnel now that Oliver was coming back. ‘Don’t be late, though, or the pudding will go flat.’

  He would be on time whenever he arrived, late or not. He stopped on seeing Oliver talking to a young woman. ‘Did you hear, when I called you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You can come home.’

  Oliver let go of her hand. ‘I’m not working for you.’

  ‘Please yourself.’ Mindful of his shining boots, he avoided the higher mounds of sawdust. ‘Who’s the young lady?’

  In her early twenties, he guessed, perhaps a little older than Oliver. He noted the blue eyes, fair hair done into a bun, and the palest of skin, a straight line of jaw from ear to a well-rounded chin when she turned to him. Perfect teeth as she smiled at Oliver’s reaction to the erect well-dressed man who could only be his father.

  Her plain white shirt had a narrow collar, no brooch to adorn, and the sun throwing a haze over her face created such a vision that Burton wondered how it was he hadn’t seen such an unusual girl in the district before, as if she was a throwback to a very good family, amused in thinking she was far too good for his son.

  ‘This is Alma Waterall,’ and to her Oliver said: ‘Burton, my father.’

  Burton nodded – he never shook hands – but the gesture teamed with an uncommon stare, used fully, knowing its effect on an uncommon woman. His grey eyes looked – though not for too long – as they always did in order to test, and to optimistically ensnare any woman who took his fancy. He recalled turning such a gaze on Minnie Dyslin, and Mary Ann, and Florence, and not a few in between, an appraisal without seeming to be in any way entranced, yet long enough to take in a woman as yet uncontaminated by a world she might come to know if she responded to him – which she would do, he thought, if there was anything special about her.

  She imagined she knew more than she did, on giving a stern and knowing look, trying to take in what sort of a man he was, yet not quite able to. Hard to tell what was in her mind. Such curiosity would get her nowhere. She didn’t even know what to look for, but if she did satisfy her enquiring mood the responsibility for what ensued would be entirely her own.

  He smiled, a mere flick of the lips before turning to Oliver. ‘You’re wasting your time working at this place. Come back to me, and you’ll soon be the best blacksmith in the trade.’

  Oliver knew he was so already, and had no further need of his father’s slave-driving tuition. Burton waited long enough for an answer to know that none would be forthcoming, aware that his eldest and favourite son was as proud as himself, which wasn’t much for either to be pleased about. ‘Your mother’s got your dinner on the table.’

  ‘I’ve eaten already.’

  He knew they’d been feeding him behind his back. ‘I’d have been glad to eat ten dinners at your age. Anyway, you heard what I said. Your mother wants you to come home.’

  Watching him go back in the direction of the canal, Oliver knew that an invitation of equ
al welcome would never have come from Burton, so there had been no use expecting it. He drew Alma close for a kiss, and wondered why her embrace was more ardent than he’d so far had that day.

  ‘So he was your father?’

  They stood apart. ‘Yes, more’s the pity.’

  ‘What’s his Christian name?’

  The bitter laugh widened her eyes with surprise. ‘Christian? Him? His name’s Ernest, but we never use it. We call him Burton. Even our mother does, except I suppose when they’re on their own.’

  ‘He doesn’t say much.’

  ‘His fists talk a lot.’

  ‘He dresses smartly. I wish my father did. He drinks more alcohol than he should, which causes trouble at home. I tried to get him to sign the pledge and join a temperance society but he just laughed. When Mother shouts at him for not working hard enough he starts crying, and then hits her. I don’t think he can be all there. And he looks even more awful when he’s supposed to be dressed up.’

  ‘Let’s not talk about them. It’s you I want, all of you.’ He kissed her again. ‘There’s a warm place in one of the sheds. Nobody will see us.’

  Impossible to know what thoughts curdled behind her blank stare. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Don’t you want to?’

  She turned from him, did and didn’t, would and wouldn’t, only not now, but felt enough heat in herself to give in, a confusion making her blush. ‘Will you walk me home?’

  ‘I would, except they’re waiting for the return of the Prodigal Son. I’ll take you as far as the road, then meet you at the school this afternoon. We can go for a walk, when you’ve finished drumming God into the poor little devils.’

  He came back and rolled his belongings into a blanket, tied the ends, draped the bundle around his shoulder, and followed his father’s footsteps through the bushes with the same high-headed walk.

  Burton enjoyed seeing neat girls in their Sunday best, noted how lively they were at Oliver’s return, and Oliver’s happiness at being among them. Mary Ann served Yorkshire pudding to begin, crisp at the edge and light in the middle, succulent to lips and tongue, a trickle of rich gravy from the sauceboat. The plates were afterwards laden with broad beans, slices of marrow, small boiled onions and potatoes fresh from the garden. Burton’s long knife flashed along the steel for carving the leg of pork from their home-reared pig. He laid out portions in his usual silence, Oliver receiving two instead of one. ‘Who was that girl you were with?’

  In spite of his previous meal, he ate with appetite. ‘Someone from Woodhouse.’

  ‘She looks a rum wench.’

  He wondered why Burton must push his nose into everything. ‘I like her.’

  ‘I’m sure you do.’

  ‘I met her three months ago.’

  ‘She’s lovely.’ Edith, as always, took her favourite brother’s part. ‘I saw her when I took his dinner to the sawmill.’ She put a hand to her lips not so much out of fear as to mock herself. Rebecca and Ivy laughed, while Burton thought that Mary Ann was too soft-hearted. ‘Well,’ Edith went on, ‘he needs a hot dinner every day when he’s courting.’

  Emily sang out: ‘I saw Dad courting.’

  She dropped her fork at Burton’s stare but, close to tears, turned too Mary Ann. ‘Mam, what’s courting?’

  ‘It’s what two people do before they get married.’

  ‘What does her father do?’ Burton wanted to know.

  ‘He’s a jobbing builder,’ Oliver told him.

  ‘That’s a poor trade.’

  ‘Before that he was a soldier.’

  ‘That’s the worst trade of the lot.’ He looked around the table. ‘Now be quiet, all of you, and get on with your dinners.’

  NINE

  Oliver felt more himself among the comforting odours of the house, a mixture of lamp oil, pumice stone, carbolic soap, of baking bread and cooking, and the lavender Mary Ann sprinkled between newly ironed clothes. Camping out had been a treat, but the civilized embrace of the family house was unbeatable, in spite of Burton.

  The flagstoned scullery was cold to the feet when he took off his clothes for a sluice-and-soap all over from one of the buckets. Underwear went into the washing basket, and he put on fresh with a clean shirt. The tang of his brothers’ sweat in the bedroom was more noticable after nights among the wood planks and clean air coming through the slats of the shed.

  He put on his brown suit, and polished his boots to a shine that might have been mistaken for Burton’s, assuming the good habits of his father but, he hoped, none of the worst.

  The silver watch bought from a man at the mill for five bob adorned his waistcoat, a pleasure to have when asked in the street what time it was. Such an object gave status, he thought, combing his hair at the downstairs mirror.

  The sunken lane was bordered by pink willow herb, in hedgerows overlapped with plates of white elderflower. He pressed a berry between his fingers, the smell mixing with mellow high summer. Life indeed was better than yesterday.

  Woodhouse was a settlement of three short cul-de-sacs ending at the railway embankment, and the first turning beyond the bridge brought a forlorn lifting and falling moan of song from the Sunday School that reminded him of childhood. Inside the door, arms folded, he didn’t much believe in the religion but enjoyed the stories.

  He knew many of the variously dressed children, from the respectable to those who lived in squalid poverty. The buttons of Albert Dawes’ cardigan were done up unevenly, and he looked as if he had fallen into the canal and, battered about the head for the trouble he had given, been hung on the clothesline to dry. The Warrener lad of twelve in his lop-sided Eton collar (though he was well-shod) was kicking at Bessie Atkin’s ankles, who wore a white pinafore and a blue ribbon in her long hair, till a look from Alma drew his boot away.

  Aaron Beaseley’s tongue showed beyond his lips, but his jacket and waistcoat were tidily fastened, though his ironed collar was askew. Alice Smith’s mauve frock matched her face, as if she was still locked in a frightening dream from last night. The same mixture of children was found in every school, and Oliver felt pity whether they were well-dressed or not, at the mere fact of them being children. He recalled that he and his brothers and sisters had always been well enough dressed and shod, never knowing how Mary Ann had managed on the money Burton gave her.

  Alma’s head over the book, and the sound of her voice, told him that she at any rate believed, and demanded it from her listeners. ‘Charlie, stop that fidgeting, and pay attention. “And He said, Take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac … and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I shall tell thee of.” Abraham was told to sacrifice his firstborn, as proof that he loved and feared God. Bertha Abbis, pay attention to what I’m reading. But when “Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son” – in other words, just as he was about to kill him (Oliver noticed the silence at this lift of the tale) the Angel of the Lord came and said (now she acted the words, and he was amused) “Lay not thine hand upon the lad.’”

  She expanded her arms till they became wings, assumed a more sombre tone, at which the floors shivered, and windows rattled fit to shatter, the skylight grew dim with a shadow of overflying smoke, and she waited for the trembling of the earth to settle, for the heavy goods train not many yards behind the room to pass, before going back to her recitation. ‘“Neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.’”

  She paused for comment, which came soon enough from ragged Charlie, whose elder brother, Oliver knew, was named Isaac. ‘Please miss, why did God want the father to kill his son Isaac?’

  Oliver had often thought to ask why a man could contemplate, even to please God, the murder of his long-awaited
and only son. He imagined the reply playing in her head like sparks, till she said: ‘Because there is no greater proof of love than for someone to kill his firstborn son, the son he adores most in the world, a son who is most precious to him.’ She smiled at Oliver in the hope that he approved of her response. ‘Bertha, whatever are you crying about?’

  The girl lowered her head, shuffled in her seat, words hardly audible. ‘Why did Abraham have to kill the poor little ram, miss?’

  Alma smiled. ‘I’ll talk about that next week. You can all go home, but don’t make too much noise as you go up the street.’ A few moments, and the room was cleared. ‘I’m glad you could come. Is everything all right at home now?’

  ‘For a while I expect it will be. You never know what might blow up with someone like Burton.’

  She locked the door, put the key in her pocket. ‘You’ll have to do what he tells you, then, and be a good son.’ He didn’t think he had ever been anything else, that it was Burton who should be a better father.

  She took his arm as they walked away from the hall. ‘He seems a just and upright person to me.’

  ‘I’d rather not go into his so-called virtues.’ They walked by the limekilns bordering the canal and on towards the main road leading into town. ‘Let’s talk of something else.’

  Hard to know what to talk about, coming from a family of few words, though he had never found any shortage with his sisters. With Alma also it was a matter of ‘still waters run deep’, except when before her catechism class. Maybe the waters ran too deep for him as well, but the more packed into your head to say the harder it was to get out words that made sense, or didn’t make you sound a fool.

  The rise of the road was too steep for speech, both being quick walkers – as she had to be to keep up with him – so you waited for the descent to chat on things that didn’t matter. In the Market Square he suggested an excursion to Misk Hill.

  ‘It’s a long way,’ she said.

  ‘Not if we catch a threepenny tram to Bulwell, and walk from there.’

  ‘It’s too late in the day, but let’s go next week. I’ll get a replacement for the Bible class.’