Her Victory

by Alan Sillitoe

  He hoped it was true, he said. He could think of nothing better, leaned across to hold her and say he was sorry there was no one else in the compartment to hear the good news. He loved her, he said.

  ‘At least we can kiss in peace.’ If I’m pregnant, she thought, you should take me home. Ought that not to be his first consideration? If he could not get himself to take her home, at least he might say that he would like to. Was he daft, dead, or made of iron? He was unaware of the problem. They were light years apart. She had invented a reason for returning to England, but he hadn’t fallen for it. All the same, it seemed she was pregnant, and she was glad they couldn’t turn round and go back the way they had come.

  At dinner they shared a table with the fair-haired young man who had translated the Spaniards’ talk. His name was Aubrey, and he was going to Italy on a three months’ tour, he said. In the autumn he would work in his father’s car insurance firm. Next year he’d marry, get a house in Boreham Wood, and travel to town every day. Yes, he was looking forward to it. Whatever happened, however trivial, was an adventure. He was philosophical: there was no such thing as an ordinary life. Dullness was in the heart of the beholder. England was a wonderful country, but he liked being on the Continent, as well. When he had a family he would buy a caravan and go touring. He ordered his dinner in excellent French, and called for a bottle of wine, saying he couldn’t sleep on a train unless he was half sloshed. Tom, agreeing it was the best thing, asked for champagne.

  ‘Celebration?’ He looked at Pam.

  ‘Not particularly,’ Tom said. ‘I have a liking for it.’

  Pam was surprised at her appetite. Something to throw up in the morning. For a train meal it was good. Tom insisted that Aubrey share their bottle. They drank to themselves and to each other, to every letter in the alphabet, never to meet again. Tom was, Pam thought, used to such encounters, which is why he’ll never let me go. The idea frightened her, but it was a fear that came out of love. There was no firmer treaty. With both parties willing, what hope of parting?

  Perhaps they were too unlike ever to part. Similar people repel each other, like brother and sister, and generate negative energy, whereas different people attract, and create a good – or at least positive – flow between them. She couldn’t think of a better reason why they were still together, and felt so relaxed that she didn’t want to. Maybe it was the drink, the sacred wine affecting the spine and brain.

  Tom told Aubrey about his life at sea, and ordered another bottle. ‘An average of one each isn’t excessive,’ he said, but Pam drank little, and felt tipsy enough on that. They stayed till all others had gone, and the staff were impatient. They shook hands and exchanged addresses. Tom said he and Pam were touring around, with no definite itinerary. Maybe we’ll collide at the same night-spot in the next week or two. Aubrey staggered, and apologized for being drunk. ‘That second brandy,’ he admitted, ‘did for me.’ Pam thought him a nice, English sort of person.

  Tom guided her along the swaying train. She confessed that she too felt pissed, but he laughed and said he would let her sleep it off tonight. The attendant had put down their beds, and they undressed in the small space. Naked, he reached out to kiss her. She still had her pants on, and wondered: What if I start in the night? A packet of tampons was under her pillow.

  The train swayed at a hundred miles an hour, then stopped at a station, voices shouting up and down the line, white lights shining through slits in the blind. The carriages juddered, started to move, stopped, then rolled almost without noise so that her brain felt as if it had a steel ratchet fixed there for the whole train to go through. She slept, and did not sleep. It was impossible to say what was sleep and what wasn’t.

  The attendant was to waken them at six, but she was dressed by half-past five, unable to get into even the shallowest layer of rest. Tom slept on the top bunk. Her bladder seemed about to burst. There was daylight behind the blinds, but she didn’t want to lift them and wake him. Her breath was vinous and foul.

  She came back and cleaned her teeth, then went along the corridor to the door-window. Other people were awake. Aubrey whistled to himself, and didn’t notice her when he passed in his pyjamas. She flattened against the wall to let him by. The sky was clear. The train stopped, showed station buildings of beige walls and red roofs, and luminous vegetation. There was the overwhelming sound of birds. We’ll wake up in Lombardy, Tom had said. A package tour to Rimini had been nothing like this. She smiled with pleasure at travelling with a lover, instead of a husband who had always despised himself for liking her.

  The wayside station was nondescript, yet exotic. If they stayed in the nearest village what would their life be like? Couldn’t imagine. An elderly man who stood on the platform some way from other people wore a grey suit, a panama hat, a flowered shirt and smart tie, and held a briefcase. He crossed the line to their train, but a station official called roughly that this was not the right one and that the train to Milan would be in soon. Or so she assumed. The man took the brusque words with dignity, and went back to where he had first stood. She wondered where he could be going at six on Sunday morning.

  She let up the blinds. Tom’s voice was half-way between a growl and a moan. ‘Oh my God, where am I?’

  ‘You may well ask,’ she said. ‘But I’m not surprised you don’t know.’

  He looked down, and reached for her stomach. ‘Is it true?’

  ‘I hope so, though I don’t think I’d hope so with anyone else but you.’

  He let himself down from the bunk. ‘What a stupendous thing to happen!’

  He didn’t know what he was in for, but she let him say it, because he had never been into that area of life. ‘Wait and see,’ she said with a smile.

  She went out to make room while he dressed. He was there to look after her. She’d be safe with him, he said. But she felt bloody sick. What else could he say? She wanted to be by herself, get on to land and traipse across country she had never seen, walking and thinking, then walking but not thinking, to enjoy the flowers and trees, and watch the slowly changing view hour by hour and day by day, stopping when she liked, wandering like a mad woman between Alps and Lowlands, burned by sun and saturated by rain, but always alone, and when the first pains struck she would either live or die till she could be no more alone.

  The train ran south through the shabby outskirts of Milan. He stood at the door with the overnight case between his feet. Red scrawl marks on walls were passed too quickly to be read. Hoardings and advertisements exhorted them to buy cars, sewing-machines, typewriters, essential goods and gewgaws that would save them time from the labours of life which, though they might not know what to do when they had saved such time, must nevertheless be saved. She thought of the labour-saving gadgets in her own long-gone house, and reflected that time thus conserved had in fact been all too often time lost in dreaming of what she would do with time saved if she had been really free. And now that she was, it didn’t matter any more.

  They were given vouchers to get breakfast at the station restaurant. At half-past six the air was already hot as they walked with other passengers to the main hall. The restaurant was barred from within and picketed without by a line of waiters offering leaflets to explain their complaints. They were good-natured, even regretful at the inconvenience, and none of the travellers seemed particularly thwarted by their strike.

  ‘We’ll find a place to eat on the motorway,’ Tom said.

  Some people walked to a kiosk on the pavement which was doing a trade in coffee and a sort of cake-bread. Tom elbowed his way forward. ‘Hit the capitalist system in one place,’ he observed, ‘and somebody else steps in to take advantage. It’s very resilient.’

  She stood by the railway buffers while he went along the catwalk and got into the car. He came off and circled the yard, then stopped to rearrange luggage and bring a packet of maps to the glove box.

  7

  She was amused at his punctilious fastening of the safety belt. Did he expect to
escape if the car turned into a ball of flame? He was sensible to take precautions. As a man he no doubt wanted to live for ever, but for herself – the next car coming either had her name on it or it hadn’t. If it did, her worries were over; if it didn’t, they were yet to come.

  A grey flower passed, or a black flower pounced. Air heated her elbow at the open window. ‘Keep your arm in that position for half an hour,’ he warned, ‘and it’ll be cooked three layers down.’

  She drew it in. Learn step by step and brick by brick. ‘Where do we go?’

  ‘Back.’

  ‘I’m never going back.’

  He smiled. ‘But gradually. Home again.’

  I have no home. ‘Why change our plans?’

  He pointed out roads as if he had been on them before. He hadn’t. But the map was clear, and coloured, although signposts were more visible from her passenger seat. On the motorway insane drivers at their steering wheels were set to overtake, or die if they couldn’t. She had a near view of their faces. They had stumbled on to a Sunday morning hippodrome to rehearse the national sport for the bigger mayhem of midweek. She was beset by roars, revs, hooting, smoke and eye-bludgeoning from different shapes and colours of metal motor-cars that went by like rockets. Yet the faces of the drivers seemed remarkably relaxed.

  ‘I had a lovely scheme cooked up,’ he said, ‘to roam the Balkans for a couple of months, then go to Greece and visit one or two of the islands. But it’s got to be altered now.’

  She hated being responsible for any disappointment. The land was flat, with too much haze to see the mountains which, indicated on the map, lay north and south.

  ‘Your earth-shaking news from last night makes that prospect seem about as exciting as a fishing trip to the Sago Sea. You can’t expect me to carry on as if it didn’t mean anything.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘Go to a nice quiet town on the coast for a few days,’ he said, ‘then wend our way north. It’ll be holiday enough.’

  He didn’t have to remind her that they were in Italy, but the word had a loving and homely sound when he did. She wanted to get to a town so that she would really know where they were, instead of being encased in a metal shell and taken somewhere not exactly against her will but in a direction which up to a few hours ago had not seemed possible. She fastened her safety belt, and saw the faint smile. He wanted to please her. His will had changed to hers. He thinks that at forty I’m more fragile than a young woman, which is ridiculous. Being the first time for him made him young again, and apprehensive. She laughed to herself, felt fewer years pressing her down. She wanted to please him. ‘We don’t need to run back so soon. I feel fine. There’s plenty of time before I have to take care.’

  He stared at the road, intent on keeping them alive but locked in his purpose of covering distance by nightfall. She saw, side-glancing, that he was not only fearful of the road but was fleeing as if before demons, on his way to a place where he thought safety lay. Demons would be waiting for him there also. They had driven him out and would beckon him in, the same with her. She read it clearly in his features, that they were leaving a point on the earth like refugees, and felt that her own soul was built into the same escape plan. She was as much the power of their progress to wherever it was to be, as he was the mechanism of hers. They were set on a combined course towards what both had wanted since the beginning, yet neither knew what it was. She touched his wrist gently.

  ‘There’ll be plenty of time for roaming, afterwards,’ he said. ‘We can always put the baby in the car and take off, spend a few years on the road before he or she has to go to school.’

  She was blocking his escape route, turning him back by her revelation. If they stayed somewhere long enough she would take a specimen of her water and get her pregnancy confirmed. She was sure, but wanted to be certain. She wanted it to be female, yet was glad there was no way of knowing. It was sufficient for the moment that she had caused him to change plans. Perhaps he was happy that her condition had made him want to, because he was now part of her more than he could ever have been before. If he had not said anything, she would have gone wherever he wanted, though the pride that would insist may have been no more than supine behaviour. Something more important than either of them tampered with his decisions. She resented the interference for her own sake, but not for his. For him it was the appearance of a storm in mid-ocean, an inconvenience to be circumvented. He would alter course. He knew a routine for dealing with it. That part of his temperament she could never affect – just as there was much about her that he couldn’t change.

  She could have told him she was pregnant before leaving England, but such an early switchback of his aims wouldn’t have had the significance of the alteration he was making now. She had left telling him, to see whether or not he would do so. It had to mean something, and he had passed the test – her test. Maybe he was scorching with resentment, and she would never know how hard the decision had been for him. But his happiness was obvious. She didn’t know whether to be glad that he wasn’t angry. Now that she had told him, and he wasn’t, had she really wanted him to cosset her as a fragile girl? She could only accept that for the moment she had. The tune would be called by her, or not at all, though perhaps it was just as well that the situation was bigger than either of them.

  South of Milan the speedometer read nearly a hundred. The southern hills were showing themselves out of the haze. ‘We’ll take off in a bit.’ But she wasn’t afraid.

  ‘Over those mountains we’ll get to the Mediterranean.’ He slowed down. ‘There’s a long way to go yet.’

  He parked in a picnic place under trees, and topped up the radiator with cool water from a tap. He refilled the supply in his container, and washed dead insects from the windscreen. The air was humid. Birds and butterflies flitted over a meadow. A few families at benches ate an early lunch. Tom took off tie and jacket, and rolled his sleeves. There was food she had bought in Arras: rye bread, pâté, hard-boiled eggs, salt and spring onions from an icebag, and some congealed cake. He took a small stove from the car, boiled water and made tea, putting lemon and sugar-lumps into two mugs.

  She laughed. ‘You should have brought a table and chairs.’

  It was close to midday. ‘I could take a sight on the sun with the sextant.’

  ‘Have fun. Where are we?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Italy.’ Her mouth was full. ‘Wonderful!’

  He nodded. ‘No place like it – to hear such news. It didn’t really sink in in France.’

  Steam from the tea smelled of citrus, and mingled with her sweat. She leaned against the car, void of speculation. The sky was blue. She undid two buttons of her blouse. The intense heat cut her feeling of exhaustion. She wanted to describe everything aloud in case it vanished, but to pull words from her mind would be a negation of life in this idyllic place.

  A British car, luggage topped with plastic ripped by the slipstream, was full of kids and coloured buckets. He passed all but the sportiest vehicles. At such a rate it was possible to see the fuel gauge sliding to zero. The straight road crossed the plain of Lombardy, a hundred kilometres flowing while she leaned her head and dozed. She awoke, startled but not alarmed at her dream of rainy streets. They stopped for petrol, black coffee, and to use the toilet.

  The wide road curved into the hills. Milky white ribs of cloud looked like the pale x-ray plates of a ghost. There were grey outcrops, and chestnut trees near farmhouses. He drove to make distance, and to get away from the pull of the place he had set out from – before having to get back to it, as if circling the calm exterior of the storm while gathering courage to steer into the middle. She also felt that life wasn’t like this, and she was sure that he also knew. He looked haggard about the eyes, with a tenseness at the mouth she had not noticed before, though when driving by cliff-like menacing lorries his features softened.

  ‘I dreamed of your aunt last night,’ she said.

  ‘What about?’


  ‘I don’t know. I just saw her. She was trying to tell me something. She was screaming, and upset. So was I. A bit frightened, I think. She was in the flat, in the bedroom. Funnily enough, I couldn’t tell what she was saying, but it was more than just trying to get me out of the place.’

  ‘I suppose one could figure it out,’ he said, ‘though I’d rather forget it.’

  ‘So would I. It was only a dream. I’d forgotten it until now.’ She searched for a Kleenex to wipe her face. ‘After a night on the train, and all day on the road, I’m going to need a bath.’

  ‘We’ll find a hotel on the coast.’ He pushed in the cigarette lighter at the dashboard. ‘I’ve pencilled places on the map where there’ll be accommodation.’

  The road descended towards the signposted smoke of Genoa. ‘I can smell the sea already.’ He was joyful at the prospect.

  It was easier to love a happy man. He must have been marking the map last night while I was asleep, using a pen-torch in his upper bunk to change routes from those he had intended. In the cardboard box she had seen tourist pamphlets on Greece and Israel.

  He tuned in to her thoughts. ‘“Thalassa” is the only Greek word I know. Hard to forget, if you’ve read the Anabasis. One of the masters made us read Xenophon’s piece at school, but I’ve read it again since. I actually liked it, even though I was forced into it.’

  She felt ignorant. ‘I don’t know it.’

  ‘There are so many books.’

  But she would read.

  He told the ‘March of the Ten Thousand’, of the struggle of Xenophon and his Greeks through the snows of Anatolia towards the benign sea that would take them home, a tale that whittled away the kilometres till the pale Mediterranean came into view for them also. Travelling was still his life. Being on the move meant nothing to him. He was taking care of everything as if it signified little to her. But it did. She was out of her element, a child again, wanting to be away from the car and in control of her own movements. It was hard to know what you wanted till you hadn’t got it, especially when you didn’t know whether or not you already had what you wanted. Equally hard to know what you wanted when you were in love, and even harder to know anything at all when you were pregnant. But what she wanted was what she had, and what she had was more than she’d ever had in her life, and because she had all she wanted at the moment she didn’t doubt that there was far more to come – as much as she ever would want, in fact. A disturbing lack of doubt told her it might never be enough, whatever it was, and made her wonder at this stage if everyone had to settle for far less than they perceived it was possible to have.