They were similar in everything, except for their eyes, until those of the second, on suddenly taking the decision to weigh him up, became less expressionless, perhaps noting some extra detail of Burton and the surroundings outside. Its way of looking at things was more inquisitive than that of the other, not by too much, but added strength might make it more formidable.
He stood to one side, out of their sight, took the breakfast of a bacon sandwich from his pocket, and ate it in a few large bites, not much in bulk, but you didn’t want to clutter the stomach with such a job on hand. Parker came back. ‘What do you think?’
‘There’s no hurry.’ He pointed over the gate. ‘I’ll begin with the one nearest the wall. In a few minutes you can sling a rope and haul him out.’
A couple of stable boys, and an aproned man who looked like a gardener, stood along the facing wall. There would be an audience. There usually was, always somebody to gawp. If he ringed bulls on stage at the Empire he would make a fortune, except that if one got loose in such a place all the toffs and idlers would have to run for their lives. His smile, barely recognized as such by those waiting for the show to begin, showed him to be in no hurry. Impatience, otherwise fear, had killed many a man, and he wasn’t going to be one of them. The sandwich gone, he smoked a cigarette, then hung his jacket on a hook inside an empty stable. ‘I’m ready when you are.’
Parker called two men with ropes. Another couple carried a smoking brazier, and a selection of thin sharp pokers.
‘Not that one, you fool.’ The thick rope had spiralled the wrong bull. He waited by the door. ‘Get it right this time.’ He supposed the increase of onlookers along the wall would applaud if he flexed his muscles like a boxer. The day was bright and dry, so no chance of slipping on his backside and getting ripped up out of carelessness. That’s something they wouldn’t see, however much they might like it as part of the show. He kept his sight on the door, and indicated that Parker move the audience to a safer place.
The bull walked out, as if on its own sweet way to the greenest of pastures. Taking time, it seemed invincible, nothing in the world to do it harm. At Burton’s approach the bull went towards the arch, as he knew it had to because there was no other option. Two men pulled it to a halt by the length of rope. A head of fresh dandelion grew from the wall nearest Burton, which he calmly took out with his fingers, removing the blemish on an otherwise clean surface. Hooves clattered on the cobbles, and he waited till the bull turned.
To approach such a beast head-on was asking for trouble and so, repeating to himself the eternal rule that he must take his time, he walked towards it obliquely, and stared into eyes that unusual happenings had robbed of opaqueness. They were flat ovals, losing colour as well, their intensity not certain anymore, nor their idea as to what was happening. You had to watch them even more carefully. The bull moved away, then came straight at him. His fingertips touched a horn as it clobbered by. It wouldn’t be easy, because none ever were.
Ropes held it against the wall, though the position wasn’t too secure. ‘Let it go again,’ he said quietly, not wanting to give much time for it to make up its mind. A shake of the rope, and Burton moved to where he sensed it would go, pleased to hear the second bull banging itself around the stable as if riled at missing the excitement. ‘Another jerk of the rope.’
They complied, and the animal ran to Burton, as if he wasn’t there, or as if he were a stone post. He struck the back of the neck with the full force of his hand, and during the time in which it couldn’t know whether it was coming or going, grasped both horns and fought it to a stop.
They watched in silence. Holding the horns took all his strength. The young bull resisted. Nothing like this had happened to it before, a fresh experience, totally unsettling, but it had to struggle, and Burton knew that if he didn’t win at this stage the bull would begin to fight. Then there’d be hell to pay, or worse.
I’ve got your measure, or he hoped he had. Droplets of sweat fell onto his shirt. The eyes of the bull, visible from side-on, spun in all directions. He forced one way, then the other, subtle but strong alterations of will, all the pressure he had. He was wrestling for Oliver, whose face came to him, not from the photograph on the wall but from full reality as he had known him in life, the man who had been done to death by a mindless animal, and now his father, he who was not mindless, was pressing down, down, down, down, trying to save him as he would have had he been in that field or on that lane near Hungerford. Down, down, down with all his force. He hadn’t been there, and couldn’t help him now, but he would beat this one, and its mate as well, if it broke his back and took half his life – or all of it – he didn’t care because he wouldn’t need to.
Minutes of stalemate seemed to go by, seconds really, though he wasn’t counting, couldn’t afford to, then in a split second which left all time behind, he aimed a boot at one of its legs, a painful blow, a bolt coming from nowhere, and threw it down.
Fore and aft legs were tied with leather thongs, but he stayed alert, noting the ripple of muscles and volcanic snorting as it fought to rise. The brazier was brought side-on. ‘Not too close, or you’ll scorch my backside.’ While a youth worked the bellows an iron stool was put under the animal’s head.
Burton looked from full height, not caring much for what must now be done. He never did, but he had to do it. Serves you right for being born a bull, though Ivy was right, it was a cruel trade. She had no doubt got the phrase from Mary Ann, but animals were made to serve man, and if anybody doesn’t think so let them go without meat. Ivy’s got too much to say for herself. It’s what bulls get done to them – and he stared into the animal’s half-defeated eyes – but it’ll soon be over, and when you try to look back on it you’ll have a job to remember. Such words must have been in his father’s mind as well, or probably not. They were a lot harder in those days, though everybody thinks that, the older they get, so maybe they were only as hard as I am now.
The thin poker, handed to him from the coals, was examined to make sure the colour was right, a shade down from white. He noted two black-uniformed maids among the gawpers, white ribbons flowing from their caps, and while in no way distracted from his work – dangerous if you were daft enough to let that happen – he appreciated their comeliness. They looked at him as if, should he take the liberty of asking (he would certainly do that) they might agree to go out walking.
They fled as he forced the burning rod through the bull’s nose, but he hoped one would be back before long with his platter of whatever the kitchen could provide, thinking he’d be lucky to get a piece of bread and cheese at this place.
The shriek of the animal, as if cast into the fires of hell, alerted the second bull to what might be in store. Hammering at the half-gate with its hooves, no one knew or cared whether it was desperate to come out and help its brother, or wanted to make a run for it to avoid the same fate.
The smell of smoke and flesh made him hungry for his dinner. When the wound had healed in a few weeks a ring would be threaded through, so that it could be led docilely anywhere. He stepped aside, and looked at his watch. ‘Let the other go in ten minutes.’ A ringmaster at the game, his word was not to be disputed. ‘When it comes out, it can run about a bit.’
The first animal was let up, two legs released, but hauled with difficulty, fighting against the dread of its torment going on, into a separate stable. It was no work of Burton’s to help. He was only here to ring bulls. ‘Make sure the top and bottom gates are locked.’
Try as they might, they couldn’t get the other out. Half an hour went by before they could, which seemed a good sign to Burton. Resistance and indecision now would make it easier to quell. Half a dozen pulled and sweated at the ropes, Burton wary as they forced it into daylight like a deadweight. It came back to life, yet didn’t run around and waste energy, used its animal intelligence more knowingly than the first. Burton worked long before he considered it to be under his control, yet thought it an easier job than the other, when
he had it on the ground.
He felt as if he had already done a day’s work, but took the trouble to keep any sign from his face. Not that tiredness could be allowed to bother him, because he still had to be at the forge for the rest of the day, even if only to make sure those two dozy idiots were getting on with what they’d been told to do. Meanwhile, where was that hot-bottomed maid with something to eat?
He was given the pound note by Parker. ‘His lordship sent you this. He was looking from the window with his opera glasses, and said you’d done a very good job.’
‘And what did her ladyship say?’
‘She wasn’t there.’
‘Too tender-hearted, I expect.’
‘She’s in the greenhouse, cutting the day’s flowers.’
‘Best place for her.’ Payment was a slip of green paper instead of the solid sovereign of a few years back, the government having called in the gold. Paper was much inferior, because it didn’t jingle like good metal in the pocket, and could turn to pulp if soaked by the rain.
The bulls were bellowing as if the end of the world might be coming up, wanting to batter the doors off their hinges and leap out for vengeance, not knowing that their troubles were over. The maid was back in the stable yard, Burton glad his jacket was on and already buttoned. Taking the glass of whisky, he drank it straight down, wondering what abundance of hair was hiding under her cap. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Millie.’ Her blue eyes sparkled as she looked up at him. ‘But her ladyship calls me Jane.’
‘That’s a cheek.’
She looked over her shoulder. ‘Aren’t them bulls making a noise?’
He smiled. ‘So would you, if you’d just had a hot iron through your jaw.’
‘It’s wicked.’
‘Lots of things are.’
She shuddered. ‘Anyway, I don’t mind working at this place. I get eighteen quid a year. And it’s a situation. I get well looked after.’
‘I’ll bet you do. But if I was you I’d take a job in the gun factory, and earn two pounds a week.’
‘Well, I won’t. I’m better off here. It’s all found, and I don’t have to worry about anything. As long as I do what I’m told.’
‘Don’t you want people to call you by your proper name?’
‘Why should I care? I know I’m me, don’t I?’
‘I’d care,’ he said. ‘At the gun factory they’d call you what you were christened, and if you worked there I could meet you in the Market Square now and again. I’d take you to the Trip to Jerusalem, or the Royal Children, or the Eight Bells, or the Rose of England or’ – he was enjoying himself after such exertion – ‘to the Peach Tree. I’m sure you’ve heard of all those places.’
‘So that’s your game? I might have known. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘When is your day off?’ He stroked his moustache. ‘I only ask because you’re a very beautiful young woman. I mean it.’ Try to say something nobody’s had the gall to say to her before. ‘I fell in love as soon as I saw you looking at me while I was working. “I hope she’s the one who brings me my snap,” I said to myself. “I’ll go home and hang myself if it’s somebody else, because I don’t think I’ll be able to live without another sight of her.” Come into town on Saturday night, and we’ll have a tripe supper at Pepper’s, and go to the Empire afterwards.’
She listened with flushed cheeks, mouth slightly open (a good sign) a hand at her bosom as if to hold every word captive, or maybe to prevent her heart flying away. ‘You know I can’t.’
‘You can do anything, if you want to.’
Freckles on cheeks and forehead looked like sparks of hell that had bedded there and only half gone out. ‘Now you’re tormenting me.’
‘That’s the last thing I’d do to a girl like you. I’ll walk you around the corner, to say goodbye. Then you can go into the Hall and get on with your skivvying.’ Taking her hand, he was surprised that the fingers curled so warmly into his.
Parker, having made sure the stable doors were locked, said to the man next to him: ‘Just look at that, Burton going off with one of the maids. I hope nobody cops her. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘What do you expect from a blacksmith who rings bulls? They’re a law unto themselves.’
‘Yes, but it’s a bit much. What if his lordship sees them?’
‘I expect he’d laugh his head off.’
Burton had thought of bringing Thomas, to show him the technique of the job, in case he was ever called on to do it, but was glad he hadn’t, drawing Millie into a coign of the wall for a kiss, her bosom firm behind the rustle of her clothes.
‘It’s not when you look at me brazen,’ she said, ‘but it’s you looking at me so sly that gives me a frizz.’
Sly be damned, he’d never imagined such a bonus on setting out that morning. If he had hoped for it, and wasted much thought in imagining it, as sure as hell it wouldn’t have turned up so nicely. Only a Nottingham girl appreciated a man who ringed bulls, though when his smile was buried in her warm neck he wondered whether his birthday had anything to do with it. ‘I do love you, you know.’ Since Oliver’s death there were times when Mary Ann couldn’t bear to be touched in such a way, and he was never one to bother a woman who didn’t want him.
‘And I love you,’ she said. ‘You’re so strong. The way you did those bulls gave me a frizz as well. But do be quick.’
Leaning on the wall presented a good view of the greensward falling away behind the Hall, so he would see anyone who came into the open, not wanting to get such a pleasant and obliging girl into trouble. As for whoever saw him and made objection, they could take his presence or leave it, and ring their own bulls, knowing they wouldn’t get anyone else from the area to do it so well or so cheaply. He opened his trousers, and lifted her skirts deftly, then drew her onto him as if she was a toy come to life, and worked them together till she cried out and all that was in him poured into her.
A jerk of the head at her crucial moment threw her cap off, a mass of fair ringlets falling about her cheeks, the sun shining through as, barely finished with her pleasure, she coiled it rapidly back into place and fixed the cap on. She straightened her skirts. ‘Oh, that was good. What a dirty devil you are! I loved it.’
‘If you meet me again you can have some more.’
‘I don’t think I’ll be able to. The trouble is, they watch us like hawks.’
‘They didn’t that time.’ He stroked her face. ‘Never mind though, my pretty love. It’s my birthday today, and you couldn’t have given me a better present.’
‘Many happy returns, then.’ She blushed, as he had often noticed them do, after being seen to rather than before, when he was too busy to realize and they were so eager to get it.
During the discreet buttoning-up he watched her go into a small side entrance, at which he turned back for the stables, to eat the food she had brought him.
TWENTY-TWO
A workman touched his cap to Lydia and stood so that she could take the seat and put three-year-old Oliver on her knees. She kept the shopping bag with its flask of tea, bottle of Dandelion and Burdock, and sandwiches safe from the rattling sway of the tram. As good as stifled by sour breath and tobacco smoke, Oliver looked with wide-open eyes at men and women going on afternoon shift at the gun factory, Lydia thinking that if he was happy so was she.
The tram almost emptied at the factory stop, and went on to its terminus by the river. ‘We’re going over a big bridge, and since you’ve been a good lad I’ll let you look at the water. It’s deep and wide, and flows as fast as a motor car.’
She walked at his dawdling gait, gave a ha’penny for her toll, the keeper seeing a child who could go free. A cart went by, and at hoofbeats Oliver stared at the horse, till she urged him further onto the bridge, a grip at his vibrant body as he was lifted to watch a boat rowed by two soldiers slide from under the arch. He looked into the sky with steady and knowing interest: ‘Crowds.’
‘Clouds.’
She took him down. ‘Now walk.’
‘Where’s Mam?’
‘She’ll come later. She won’t be long. Look at the big river again. It’s the biggest in the world, and flows right down to the sea, where I expect you’ll go one day.’ She traipsed him through Wilford village. Alma was being talked to by a board of inspectors about her teaching post, which Oliver wouldn’t understand, so she turned his attention back to the grey velvet sweep of the Trent.
Through a gate, and over Fairham Brook by a footbridge, was a space of dry land between the two watercourses. Cattle dotted meadows on the far side. ‘You can play on the grass,’ she said. ‘Only don’t go near the water.’
‘Isn’t water good?’
‘If you drink it, but not if you drown in it. You must learn to swim first.’ She called him close for half a cup of Dandelion and Burdock, which he couldn’t finish so she drank the satisfying fizz herself.
A stalk of grass between his lips, he imitated a man on the tram with a cigarette, talked indecipherable words in the rhythm of counting lace bundles before wheeling them back to the factory. She laughed. ‘You are a funny lad. I’d like to know who your father is, though don’t suppose I ever shall. But he can’t have been all that bad.’
The more words the more he would feel cared for. No baby talk allowed. He was intelligent, but words would make him more so, Alma said. Words were what mattered, they agreed. Speech was paramount. What was in the mind must come to your lips. People might look at you gone-out in talking plainly to a child, but let them.
She and Alma went at it like a couple of sparrows in spring, chattering on every topic as they worked. Oliver put in his contribution, asked questions that were always answered, which only increased his curiosity. She wondered whether his father had talked all the time at that age.
‘Come away from the water. It likes to suck little boys under and eat them for its dinner. You can only go close when you’re grown up.’
A Man of his Time Page 27
