by Melvyn Bragg
‘I had. But it’s hard to go against his arguments.’
‘Why don’t you do it, then?’
Ellen shook her head. Sam waited.
‘How could I stand up there and ask people to vote for me?’
‘So why don’t you tell him that?’
‘I will. I think he knows. I said I’d make my mind up over the weekend.’
‘But you’ve already made it up.’
‘Don’t be difficult, Sam. It’s bad enough.’
‘I can’t see what’s bad about it.’
‘Sam. Please.’
He nodded and returned to Nineteen Eighty-Four, a book William had brought for Joe to read. But its grip had gone.
‘I was thinking today, at the trails, maybe we should get a car.’
Ellen stood up, yawned again, fully stretching. Sam smiled at the naive baring of herself.
‘What would we do with a car?’
‘We needn’t be so dependent, on buses, on lifts.’
‘I'm off to bed.’
‘You could learn to drive.’
‘Me?’
‘Why not?’
‘I'll fall asleep on the floor if I don’t get to bed.’ She went to the door, paused, sought out his eyes, and said, ‘I think Alfrieda’s starting to get her claws into him.’
‘I'll just finish this chapter.’
‘You’re waiting up for Joe,’ she said.
‘You’re dead on your feet.’
He closed the book. Joe would have nothing to say.
‘Just looking at you’s made me tired,’ he said. ‘Go on up. I’ll join you.’
‘Will you now?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
He was awake before the alarm clock rang but he waited until the pointer crawled up to seven, then killed it instantly. It was The Old Curiosity Shop now and he was uneasily addicted to the evil Quilp. He drew the curtains and looked hard across Market Hill to the Baths, to Highmoor Tower and beyond as if his look alone put them in their place. He scarcely noted the sun, the bright June sky, only a few light white clouds, promise of heat. The large illustrated edition settled comfortably against the reading stand formed by his thighs as he pillowed up against the bedhead, knees bent. Just before seven-thirty he flicked ahead to see where he could sensibly finish. By letting his mind go into the novel he could ward off other thoughts.
Then the bathroom routine. Again unvarying. And while he dressed in his bedroom, his mother prepared the unvarying breakfast. Cornflakes, poached egg on toast, tea. He would have preferred not to talk at all but he felt he could not ask for that: insisting that neither of them wished him good luck, ask how it had gone or made any reference at all to the examinations was enough. The poached egg was overdone, which he liked - you could paste the yolk onto the toast. Ellen tried not to fuss but poured him his tea which she had not done for some time.
He had filled the Parker fountain pen his parents had given him. The spare was the pen from the pen and pencil set bought him by Leonard and Grace when he had passed his eleven plus. Colin’s pen would bring bad luck. The only lucky charm he took was an old tie pin given him by Sam: he put it in his inside pocket. He left the house at eight-fifteen, just got up and left, a gruff ‘cheerio’. Sam came downstairs after the front door had banged.
Joe had decided that he would walk and walk a long way round. He had timed and tested the route on the Saturday but this was the first time he had ever gone to school this way. That felt good. To do something altogether new marked out the occasion. It made it special. It evaded the lulling slide of that several thousand times journey long become automatic. It had to be different. And more: this route meant he had to cross a scarred frontier.
He walked past the old gaol, local sandstone slabs built down into the darkest stretch of the river, misery coming from it even now, decades after it had been abandoned and simply refused to rot away. Along by the river between the cottages of the tenters and the sweet smell from the town gasometer and up the hill which led to the Baths, escorted each side by the sandstone walls. He stopped at the top of the hill. He had timed it so that he could spend an easy five minutes there and he stopped deliberately. Until the previous Saturday when he had done a trial run, he had never in his life dared stop on top of this small hill. Either he had been on his way to the Baths, seen the building across the field and biked down towards it as hotly as someone urgently seeking sanctuary or, coming back, he had seen the light outside the gashouse and made for it as a target of safety. To pause at all on this crest - day or night - would undoubtedly have resulted in an attack of unsustainable terror.
Now he leaned on the wall, looked across Willie Johnston’s field and made himself feel calm. Below him the sandstone swimming baths: ahead of him the auction fields and auction market flanked by the sandstone grammar school and the sandstone church. He rubbed his palm on the sandstone wall. Across to his right was the tall pencil chimney of the factory and beyond that the trim Victorian station, again in that warm local stone. As he walked towards Lowmoor Road he found himself looking out for it. Out of nowhere it had become essential reassurance. He looked across Crozier’s field up towards the exotic Highmoor Bell Tower, but it was the sandstone bulk of the once lordly Georgian mansion which took his eye. It was as if he needed to find and feed on this stone. It was such a subtle colour - so many shades and rusts of brown. He had not really noticed it before. As he came to the corner of Lowmoor Road he felt a lift of his spirits when he saw the sandstone run of weavers’ cottages and the double-fronted sandstone mass of Flosh House, which stood by the town’s third river. What power of distraction or displacement was at work he did not begin to understand but his pace slowed as he passed the sandstone cottages, known to him since his first years at his infant school, cairns which guided him back home.
And when he passed between the National School and the old Nelson School, inevitably constructed in the brown stone which had come from the quarries a few miles away, he felt as if he was being given safe conduct on the final furlong to the school, to the place of examination.
They had been excused morning assembly and as the first exam did not start until nine-thirty, Joe arrived at a school already buried in its closed classrooms. He walked in quietly and went straight to the lavatory, into a cubicle, put the seat down and sat on it. The stone had got him this far.
The truth and the certainty as the boy saw it was that if he failed all these exams the world would fall apart and he was a cast-iron certainty for failure. His life would be ruined. He would be humiliated and have to bear it like the mark of Cain. He could not remember a single fact or date. When he opened his eyes to his mind it was like opening a hive and discovering anarchy among the bees. He had to put his hands on his knees to steady himself and felt the taste of poached egg threaten the back of his throat. It was not just failure. It was the sure knowledge that when he sat down he would not be able to answer one question or write one coherent sentence. He would black out, start to shout aloud, swear, be sent out, somehow explode, collapse … The spring in himself had now been wound so unbearably tightly that instead of releasing it would break him. He closed his eyes the more formally to mutter an apologetic rush of last prayers, but he knew that was no way to use prayers and took deep breaths instead.
It was nine-twenty-three! They had been ordered to be there at nine-twenty. He was out, a fumbled unnecessary pee, merest dab of fingers under tap, down the corridor, nine-twenty-five! They were going in. Brenda caught his eye and smiled a quick tense smile and he smiled back, a rictus. Veronica’s head was bowed, she muttered dates to herself. Arthur looked so calm it resembled a trance. The other three were already over-anxiously early at the desks. Joe put on his specs and unscrewed his pen.
The invigilator handed out neat pads and told them there were extra sheets on his desk should they be needed. The wall clock stood at nine-twenty-eight. He walked between the desks and laid down the examination papers, closed. No one was to touch them until nin
e-thirty. This was the first of nine papers. English History.
Joe was now in an inward scream of panic. He doubted he was even in the room. He must not let that happen.
Nine-thirty.
‘You can begin,’ said the invigilator.
Joe’s fingers did not seem to work properly as he turned the paper over. The questions were in very small print. His eyes immediately gobbled them down and his mind registered nothing. He looked outside for a moment, across to the tennis courts and the old crofts. Then he looked at the questions again. Henry VIII and Thomas More … Elizabeth’s foreign policy… Coke … Laud… the names were like a summons, the names called up what he had been taught, what he had learned. Like tribal chiefs they called up their clans. The connections began to gather and organise for action. He breathed out very heavily. It was almost a sigh.
He could tackle this.
‘So how was he?’ Sam asked, eventually.
‘Very nervous,’ Ellen said. ‘I hardly dared say a word. He looked so white. I wish he wouldn’t clash himself so much.’
Sam sipped at his second cup of tea, then drew on the cigarette.
‘He’s going into battle,’ he said quietly. ‘That’s what it is.’
Rachel’s results came through and they were good.
‘Four As. Two Bs. Just one C.’
‘Chemistry.’ She laughed. ‘I hated Chemistry.’
‘History, Geography, French, English Language - As. You could easily stay on.’
She was pleased. They were walking down to the old quarries which had been worked out some years before and had gradually built up into a tarn, with clumps of islands and marshland around the periphery, ideal for home-lashed rafts and hideaways. Called the Moss, it was nearer than the Flow but with similar advantages. Her results had arrived that Saturday morning. They had agreed that Joe would phone after dinner so that she would have time to sort herself out.
Excitement and restlessness shimmered on her. Although Joe was determined to congratulate her properly and attempt to change her mind about staying on, her unusual heightened state interfered with his purpose as he guided them towards a favoured secluded glade. She was wholly aware of this and made no resistance.
‘They must be among the best results of your year.’
‘I don’t know about that.’ Rachel tried to sound severe. It would not do to boast but she was very pleased.
‘I bet the teachers will say you should stay on.’
Rachel gave her quick, shy nod. But that was enough for the moment. She looked around carefully. It was a bright day, a light grey covering of thin cloud, warm, muggy, some of the farmers were still haymaking after a rainy summer. They were next to Donaldson’s land. The four brothers and their father were building up a larger holding even more successfully than Isaac although, as once or twice he pointed out, they had started from a much bigger base. They monitored and picked over their fields and they were mischievous beggars, Rachel knew that, very keen to flush her out, her and this Wigton dancer always sloping off to a quiet corner.
It was the wrong time of day for it but she was as keen as Joe now. They found their place - cool, thicketed, almost a cave, on one of the tiny islands. They did not break the Saturday rules, not even on this day, but they came close. Joe spun helplessly into a sort of ecstatic trance which took possession of every part of him, mind, body, spirit, and Rachel, he felt, fully met him there.
As they smoked their cigarette, Rachel smiled at the revving of a nearby tractor.
‘We just timed it right,’ she said.
‘What do your dad and mam think?’
‘I think they’re pleased.’ She drew on the cigarette delightedly. ‘I think he’s dumbstruck. He never thought I had any brains. Girls don’t, you know, on farms.’
‘That shows him then.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘I’ll tell him how good these results are.’
‘You can do that until you’re blue in the face,’ Rachel said, smiling still.
‘You could get a better job if you stayed on. You could make more money - would that help?’
‘Joe.’ She stubbed out the cigarette on the turf. ‘I wouldn’t stay on at school for all the tea in China. We’d better move. Those lads are capable of anything.’
She stood up, buttoned up her blouse, adjusted her skirt, slipped on her shoes, clipped back her hair, and led him, head bent low, out of the cave into the bright grey light and by way of a narrow causeway back to land, back to the lane. She waved ironically at the young Donaldson reared high on his tractor who roared up behind them and grinned knowingly down on them as he stood to drive the throbbing machine as hard as he could, clattering past them, forcing them to stand aside.
‘They’re cheeky buggers,’Rachel said. ‘It’ll be all round the village by tea-time.’
Although the village did not begin for a hundred yards or so along the lane, Joe did not put his arm around her. They even walked a yard or so apart.
She led him to the bus shelter where they could sit for everyone to see, happy to be seen by everyone, thus causing no comment.
‘Now look,’ she said, ‘it’s very nice of you to go on about me staying on at school but I’m not going to.’
‘Why not?’
Where did she begin? Joe was still only a boyfriend. Family was always family and the worse the more private. ‘You see the best of it,’ she said.
It was almost said as a complaint. Joe’s ease in their kitchen company, his interest in what they did, his taking for granted they were interested in what he did, meant that they were now much kinder to Rachel and not only when he was there. Isaac looked at him as a tolerated curiosity. The boys enjoyed trying to catch him out. Her mother welcomed the Wigton gossip with which the pub so plentifully supplied him. But that, Rachel wanted to tell him, was not what it was really like. Yet how could she do that without betraying them all and revealing far more than at this stage she wanted to or could?
‘Let’s just say that I want to be independent. I can maybe get a job in a bank in Wigton - they came and told us there were vacancies -and I’ll have my own money and so.’
‘Sounds to me as if you’re forcing yourself.’
‘I’m not! Joe! You like school. I don’t much. You like the work and that. I like the bits when we’re not doing any work. You really liked doing revision, I could tell that. I hated it. If Linda hadn’t been there so that we did it together I wouldn’t have done it at all. Or hardly any. I’m well out of it and that’s the end of it. I’m not arguing about it.’
Joe was silent for a time.
‘What did Linda get?’
‘She did fine. She’s going on to do Domestic Science at Carlisle Tech.’ Rachel laughed. ‘You know what she said? She said, “When you’re like me” - meaning, you know, “When you’re like me you need that bit extra in the assets department!” Isn’t that great? “In the assets department!” She has her eye on Michael Donaldson and she’ll get him, she will, will Linda. She likes farming.’ Rachel looked around at the rich alluvial landscape occupied solely by farms and their cottages. ‘I don’t care if I never see another farm as long as I live.’
‘But you’re not leaving home?’
‘Not yet. We’ll see how it goes. And it’ll be cheap. Now I’m free they’ll have to take into account some of what I do and dock it off my keep. Now if you had a word with Dad about that!’
She saw him go and waved until he disappeared. She would see him again in a few hours. She felt a great relief and peace in herself. They were going to the dance at the County in Carlisle. She felt a regular there, now, knew some of the Carlisle girls, had become friends with those in the Wigton gang too old to know properly before. Even with Brenda, though she was wary of Brenda. She did not always like the way Brenda looked at Joe.
Her mother was the only one in the kitchen. On the middle of the table there were two five-pound notes.
‘One from your father,’ she said, ‘the other
from me.’
Rachel went across and picked up both notes. The relief showed plain in her mother’s face.
‘I didn’t expect this,’ Rachel said. She looked at them. ‘Thank you very much,’ she said, formally.
‘Your dad as well.’
‘I’ll thank him when he comes in,’ she said. ‘I’ll make a point of it.’
‘The S level was quite impressive,’ said Mr. Braddock. It can be quite a tricky paper.’
‘You’ll enjoy English more than History, you know,’ Mr. Tillotson said. ‘Same marks. The way universities teach History is dry as dust. Spend your three years reading great literature, Richardson.’
But there was his loyalty to Mr. Braddock.
‘Oh well, at least you’ll be spared Anglo-Saxon.’
‘I was pleasantly surprised,’ Miss Castle looked on him intently, as if he had somehow pulled a fast one, ‘to be frank, Richardson, I was rather taken aback.’
‘On these results he’ll be entitled to scholarships,’ Mr. Braddock said to Sam. ‘The cost to yourself will be minimal. He’ll have to brush up on his French. They need Latin and one other language.’
‘He said “will be”,’ Sam reported to Mr. Kneale. ‘He seems to think it’s home and dry.’
‘Good odds, anyway, Sam,’ said the old schoolteacher. ‘But Braddock’s aiming rather high.’
‘My dad’ll just not believe it! Staying on for even more schooling,’ Rachel rolled her eyes. ‘I have to be there to see his face when you tell him.’
‘So he will be going away.’ Ellen looked into the fireless grate as if it had delivered an ancient prophecy. ‘We’ll have to start to get used to living without him.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
They flew, that summer, the two of them, they just flew.
She was more free than ever she could have imagined possible.
From the moment Rachel got out of bed in the morning she could at last steer her own course. The swift acceptance of her application for a position in Martin’s Bank in Wigton, the so solid-seeming terms and conditions from day one until the happy pension, with holidays all laid out as inviolable as law, had dissolved the anger which had threatened Isaac at the prospect that she might leave his dominion. It was, too, a very fair wage, he thought, for just standing there and adding up, doing nothing very much, finished by late afternoon. She agreed, which quite pleased him. She would start in mid-September and until then she would rehearse her imminent independence. It was, she told Linda, like having a bubble bath all day and every day. And there was her father’s slightly altered state. He had heard that they had asked her to stay on at school. He saw she had refused. Both impressed him. He yelled at her less often and rarely with fury.
