A Son of War

by Melvyn Bragg

  ‘It won’t do any good. Not in that mood.’

  ‘What do you want, Ellen?’

  ‘We can’t even manage a holiday together. Not even a couple of days.’

  ‘Who would look after this place?’

  ‘Others manage. You’ve taken him to Morecambe for two days, I traipse off to Butlin’s.’

  ‘You like it. You both like it.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I like it well enough. But that isn’t the point, Sam, is it?’

  ‘He’s lucky to get a holiday. What set this off?’

  ‘This place doesn’t suit a family, Sam.’

  ‘He likes it. He can bring his pals in to play darts when we’re closed. They meet up in the kitchen and play around in the stables. It has a lot of interest, a pub.’

  ‘For you maybe. It jars on him.’

  ‘It jars on you, you mean. That hasn’t gone away.’

  'I haven’t complained.’

  ‘You don’t need to.’

  ‘We only meet when we’re worn out, Sam. We see each other when everybody else has drained off every bit of life there is in us.’

  'It’ll get better. You always have to work hard building up a business.’

  'It’s built up.’

  ‘You have to watch it all the time.’

  'I think,’ Ellen spoke with particular care, ‘that it’s a way to make a living together but not live together. Not really together.’

  Sam closed the book.

  ‘What do you think everybody else does? Jack or Alfreida and Frank or Grace and Leonard for that matter or most of them. What do they do?’

  ‘They sit down together across a fire. They listen to the wireless like we used to. They go for walks like we used to. They go to the pictures together not in single file, and holidays, even if it’s only a couple of days, and Saturday afternoon and Sundays off.’

  ‘Granted. But what do they really do? Does this all make them more interested in each other? Does this make them more interested in life? I can’t see it on their faces. I can’t see it in their eyes, Ellen. As often as not I can see boredom, even desperation, but most times just a putting up with it.’

  ‘What’s wrong with putting up with it?’

  ‘Because - because you’re on a lead, you’re on a leash.’

  ‘We’re on a leash. Opening hours, getting ready, waiting on, waiting on everybody who turns up, having to be cheerful whatever you feel like, not being able to be quiet or a bit down, we’re at everybody’s beck and call, aren’t we, Sam? Isn’t that a leash?’

  ‘Is that the way you see it?’

  There was hurt in his question and she did not want to hurt him more but driven, this rare time, and not knowing why.

  ‘Yes it is,’ and added, but as an obvious sop, ‘mostly.’

  'It all comes back to Colin, doesn’t it?’ Bitterness, for the first time, no more than a touch, but marked.

  ‘You’re so uneasy with him.’

  'I’ll tell you something, Ellen. Now listen. Quite simple. I try my level best with Colin. In fact, if there is such a thing, I try better than my best because of you. That’s all I want to say about Colin. And as for the rest, I think you’re just romantic about other people’s lives. We have company on our doorstep. We have talk every night. We have a bit of money to spare now. The work’s hard but what work isn’t? At least we get the direct benefit. And nobody bosses us about.’

  ‘You used to be romantic. You used to talk about wanting night classes and trying to be a village schoolteacher. You were the romantic one, Sam, not me.’

  ‘Well, that had to pass.’

  ‘Maybe Joe’ll do some of that for you.’

  ‘You live your own life.’

  ‘He’s a good reader.’ And the piano, she wanted to say, but she had said enough.

  ‘He’ll have to make a better fist of it than he’s doing at the moment,’ Sam said.

  Ellen experienced a shadow of recognition, a dark presence inside Sam’s words, brushing against her awareness of her son, disturbing her. ‘What do you mean?’

  He’s running scared, Sam wanted to say. I can see it plain. The boy is scared. Sam had seen it enough times. And what followed fear was unpredictable save that it was bad, a lessening.

  ‘Has he told you something’s wrong?’

  ‘He’s said nothing.’

  Sam’s smile, which was a smile of recognition for the boy’s silence, reassured Ellen sufficiently for her thoughts to revert to Colin and Sadie. It had got under her skin. She had relied on Sadie and liked her a very great deal. And Colin? He was skittish about their father but she wanted to know - how dare she ask it? - had their father been like him? Was he their father’s son?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Joe was surprised when Sam said he would like to come to the baths with him on the Saturday afternoon and watch him in the speed trials. They went the short way, past the old jail, over the narrow bridge, by the Tenters cottages, up the small hill and down again to the sandstone baths, a pleasant easy route in daylight made more pleasant by Sam telling him some funny stories about the war, especially about the mules, stories he used to tell years ago to get the boy to sleep.

  He did well in the trials. It was good, sprinting up and down the pool, especially the crawl, freestyle, throwing out his arms as far as they would go, stretching it seemed to snapping point, palming the water down to his groin and then a rapid recovery while the other arm machined its way through the water and the legs powered steadily, the ankles slackening to free the feet to a churning paddle, the face half emerged on the right just before the down stroke to snatch a breath hissed out under the surface, the feeling of water rippling over the skin and faster, driving out all thought, all feelings, all imagination, just the will to win, to beat the rest.

  For those seconds he was wholly healed. In competition he was freed from the plague of himself. To compete meant you could never feel you were alone. In competition you were in constant company. It meant you always had to look to someone else. Competition gave the outside of you a clear purpose. Nobody could ask questions, not even you, that was the great beauty of it. You were what you did and you did it just as hard as you could which made you stronger. And it could carry over. Especially when you won. The glow of it could warm and light you through hours, even through a day.

  His dad had a word or two with the trainer while Joe did the usual business with the Brylcreem. Everybody told him his dad could get on with anybody. His aunty Ruth had told him his dad was a very popular man. Joe rather cringed at that, sorely aware of unpopularity, of a compulsion to be the organiser, otherwise no one, he was convinced, would play with him. This apprehension of his unpopularity had grown since his beating by Og. But his dad just chatted away, scratched the back of his head in that way he had, smoking, as usual.

  ‘He says you have the makings.’

  Joe was pleased: that the trainer had said it, that he had said it to his dad and that his dad thought to repeat it to him. He smiled, to himself.

  ‘Your last time was near the club under-fourteen record. Less than a second away.’ Sam sounded genuinely impressed.

  They were walking back the longer way because Sam wanted to go into the town. The wind was still high as it had been for the past fortnight, there were already pools of flood water in any flat field, and the little beck beside them fumed like a mill race, but Joe felt warm and calm and as steady as he had been for many weeks.

  ‘So everything OK, then?’

  The tone was false. Joe’s sympathies, which had been reaching out in fullness, withdrew like a threatened snail’s horns. ‘Yes,’ he answered, sad that the good moments had been so few.

  ‘Nothing on your mind, then?’ Sam was aware of his clumsiness but he had little finesse with his son in matters tangled by fear, which he saw, and cowardice, which he scented. He laboured on. ‘Nobody getting at you?’

  Had anybody told him? Joe only committed himself to a shake of the head.

 
‘Nothing bothering you at all?’

  Did Colin count? And not confessing he had not made it as a server? ‘No,’ he muttered, not looking at his father.

  So, Sam concluded, he was right. ‘Like swimming better than boxing now?’

  Had he seen the ruined gloves?

  ‘You gave those gloves what for.’

  But he laughed when he said it.

  They passed by Vinegar Hill.

  ‘I still like boxing,’ said Joe. But he did not specify whether it was doing it or watching it and the latter was certainly true, which absolved his answer from falsehood. ‘Swimming’s easier than boxing.’

  ‘Always stick at what you find easy,’ Sam said. 'If you find it easy the odds are you’ve got a bit of a talent for it. But, then, I thought you had a bit of a talent for boxing.’

  Joe was not up to a response.

  They were at the end of Proctor’s Row, which ran parallel with the churchyard. At the empty corner of the High Street, Sam stopped. Joe was forced to do the same.

  ‘Joe?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Look at me, Joe.’

  The boy, whose eyes had been scanning the ground, levered up his face slowly as he dared until his eyes met the blue stare of his father, almost a hard look, almost the look that could freeze him.

  ‘So there is nothing bothering you?’

  ‘No.’ The word was almost a gasp.

  ‘You’re telling the truth?’

  What could he say? Oh, what could be say? How could he possibly begin to describe what was happening, how did he know how to describe it, what on earth would it sound like, it made no sense, it was outside answers to questions, so what could he say?

  'I am,’ he lied.

  ‘You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Joe? Look at me, Joe.’

  The boy tried to hold his father’s hard look. He was frightened to the marrow. Don’t back down had been drummed into him. We don’t back down. There was a prickling sensation over his scalp as, for what cannot have been more than mere seconds, he fought to hold the look.

  ‘You wouldn’t lie.’

  ‘No, Dad.’

  He so much wanted to tell him. Whatever it was. Just something about it. About in bed, that thing in the corner. On the bike on his own when he was in the country and that awful feeling would sheet over him, the boy wanted to let out some of the pressure of the pain, but how could such things be told, they were not to be talked about, they were so deep inside that words could not reach them, and even if they could what authority could they possibly have? In that moment the boy yearned for an understanding beyond both of them but it was not there and the only course open was to lie.

  He knew his father saw through it.

  ‘There’s never any shame,’ Sam said, ‘in admitting you’re in trouble. It sometimes helps to admit it. I’ve known that myself, both ways. I’ve admitted things to a friend and somebody’s admitted things to me.’

  Only three people passed by. Each was given a cheery greeting by Sam in a tone quite at odds with the urgency of his speech to Joe. Anybody watching the two of them from a window would have thought the man was giving the boy a telling-off.

  Joe wanted to run away. Just to run.

  ‘So: last time. Anything up?’

  The boy could hold that gaze no longer and his head dropped. But there was no giving in. This time he shook his head, all he could manage. Another lie. It screamed through his head. Three. He waited for the punishment.

  ‘And then there’s times,’ he heard above him, ‘when you have to keep things in. I know about that as well.’

  It was meant as comfort but the boy was beyond that.

  They walked back through the town, down the High Street, past the Fountain where the men smoked and spat, down King Street towards Market Hill and the Blackamoor, father and son, getting to be as big as you, Sam, see you later on, Sam, could they not all see that he was a liar? Was it not as clear as glass? A liar as well as a coward, afraid even step in step with his father of the dark night, God could see right through him, he was transparent, could see every bad weak part of him, what have we done to deserve this weather, Sam? almost shoulder to shoulder but so far apart.

  On the steps of the Blackamoor, as Sam fished out his keys, he said, ‘You know what the referee tells the boxers when he pulls them away from each other after clinching for too long?’

  Joe shook his head.

  ‘Box on.’ Sam smiled. ‘That’s what he says. “Box on.”' And he opened the door.

  Joe nodded and attempted a smile. He went into the pub, reluctantly. Box on.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  He walked to school the most obvious way, up King Street past the shops. On this October morning just before half-term, potato-picking week, which would, he hoped, line his pockets, his mind was a nesting place for Ivanhoe. He had seen the film the previous night at the Palace. Alan had gone with him on the two complimentary tickets the Blackamoor received for putting up the weekly poster. Alan had not been as impressed as he was. He was not convinced by the fighting. Joe had been utterly swallowed up, as blessedly often at the pictures.

  His satchel was slung over one shoulder. He was in no hurry. The buses bringing the children from outlying towns and villages had not yet swung on to Market Hill where they stopped to let off the public before moving up to the grammar school. It was another grey day but not threatening. That night the full gang were to come round to the Blackamoor and he had worked out which games would be played, which teams, which competitions. His dad had agreed they could use the Singing Room - generally empty on weekdays - if the kitchen became busy. He had bartered six packets of crisps.

  He caught sight of himself in Johnston’s window, the blind still down, the boot and shoe shop not open until nine a.m.

  As if a bolt had been sharply slid back in a door, he went out of himself. That which he saw was without what was him. He was transfixed by this stranded figure for some moments, and then a noise, a greeting, some sound moved him on.

  The walking collected him.

  He turned left at the Fountain, by Middleham’s the butcher, and took care not to glance in the windows. Windows. Windows right up the High Street. Huge windows for Aird’s, the ironmonger and plumber, and Redmayne’s, the tailor. He averted his eyes. But towards the end of the street, just before the church, approaching the corner sweet shop, some impulse made him decide to turn to the pane of glass. He kept walking, briskly now, and turned to glance, like a salute, as they did in the Scouts almost at the identical spot when the march for Remembrance Sunday swung into St Mary’s.

  Nothing happened.

  There was literally a spring in his step the rest of the way. He felt it and then exaggerated it, making it like the walk of Monsieur Hulot in the film the French teacher had shown them, a walk that mocked fear, a celebratory springing walk, the walk of a victor. He was, once more, Ivanhoe.

  It did not take too long for lessons to agitate and depress him. He was beginning to lose his place in the class, losing his confidence. Cheekiness was a desperate remedy. His mimicking of the teachers was another escape. The teachers turned it back on him in humiliation. Expulsion from the classroom or one hundred lines to be done overnight. 'I must not make a nuisance of myself in class.’

  After dinner in the canteen he ducked the usual game of touch rugby and went hunting for Annie Fleming. She had waved at him the previous day in the afternoon break, and talked to the two girls arm in arm with her and waved again.

  The playing-fields covered a big spread but he knew them intimately, not only from school but from times of illegal entry with the gang in the holidays. She was around the big old house, part of which was where the headmaster lived. She was with the usual group, which made it easier.

  He asked them if they had seen Ivanhoe. Nobody had. He started to tell them the story. Annie knew that she alone was the true audience and she played up better than he could have hoped. She was wearing the green mackintosh but the
shape of her was still well visible. When she looked rather alarmed he piled on the drama.

  Og hit him on the back of the head with a knuckle blow that raised an instant lump.

  ‘Geoffrey!’ Annie’s voice was strident. ‘Don’t you dare do that again!’

  Joe turned to see Og, smiling rather foolishly at the rare utterance of his Christian name. No great distance away, the squad of 3L loitered under the large beech tree, waiting on events.

  ‘Don’t talk to her, pal,’ Og said. ‘See?’

  He brandished his knuckles. Joe swayed but he did not run. In front of Annie he could not run or he could not run for reasons unknown but he stood.

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ Annie came across to the two of them. ‘I’m not having you two fighting over me. He was just telling us about a picture.’

  The soapy smile Og offered was damning evidence of his feelings and Annie’s glow no less proof of hers.

  ‘His cock would fit in a biro.’

  ‘Geoffrey!’ Annie almost screamed - but with something of pleasure, Joe recognised, as the blazing blush swept from his private parts to his forehead.

  He tried to hide his little white worm as best he could. When they changed for gym or for games in the dressing room he performed sophisticated physical contortions to hide the disgrace. Showers were avoided unless whipped in by the games master but that was rare, the man liked to wander away as soon as the exercise was done. Others’ might be seen to be white worm-like too but no wee-wee, no number one, no cock if he could brave that inappropriate word, was as white or wormy as his. Joe knew that as he knew there was a God. Og’s, Geoffrey’s, business was always on full display. It paraded up and down between the pegs. It was weighed in his hand. It was embellished with crinkly black hairs. It made a royal progress through the dressing room as an object of awe. It crushed Joe. That it crushed others too he neither knew nor cared, Og’s cosh seemed targeted on him alone.

  One boy, Davies, undressed and dressed under a mackintosh -whatever the weather - but Joe knew that would be fatal for him. Davies could get away with it. He was weird.

  ‘See?’ said Og. ‘He can’t deny it.’