A Son of War

by Melvyn Bragg

  He had come quite close to Joe and the boy drew back.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Your dad been saying things behind my back?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sometimes men have differences of opinion,’ Colin said, staring and as he imagined hypnotising - his new passion - the boy, making absolutely certain that his hunch was right and Ellen would not have allowed Sam to mention the stealing. ‘Me and your dad didn’t see eye to eye. He’ll come round in time.’

  ‘Yes.’ Joe wanted to get away.

  ‘But,’ Colin was suddenly fierce, ‘if he says anything against me to you, to my pal you, and I get to hear, then it’ll be this.’ He jutted forward his clenched right fist. ‘Relation or not relation! That’s who I am.’

  ‘Right.’ The boy was disturbed by the widening-eyed intensity of Colin’s stare. 'I’ll tell him.’

  ‘No,’ said Colin. ‘This is you and me. Just you’ - he pointed -’and me.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Silence! Omerta! Between pals.’

  Joe nodded.

  ‘Swear. You’ll say nothing.’

  Joe found he was reluctant. But he wanted to go. ‘I swear.’

  ‘Now spit.’

  How could he spit with a dry throat? And it was kid’s stuff. But Colin could still intimidate him.

  ‘Spit!’

  Colin came even nearer. Joe sucked hard for saliva and managed a feeble spray of spit, the only discernible bit of which found Colin’s shoe.

  ‘Good,’ said Colin. ‘So we’ll keep the lines open.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Joe was released now. The stare was turned off. He put his left foot on the pedal, scooted for a while and then swung himself on to the bike.

  ‘Joe!’

  He turned.

  ‘Omerta! Between pals.’

  Colin waved.

  ‘They’ve revamped the churchyard very nicely in my view,’ Leonard said, ‘and there’s a couple of seats against the wall that catches the sun about dinner-time. Let’s meet up tomorrow - if it’s a fine day - and have a bit of a chat there.’

  There was sufficient sun.

  ‘It was difficult to find the right place,’ Leonard said. ‘Our house would have been wrong for the job. So would the Blackamoor. I couldn’t walk into any other pub with you - they would make too much of a fuss of you. This isn’t too bad. We can be discreet.’

  They sat side by side on the wooden bench beside St Mary’s, Leonard and Ellen, wholly familiar to anyone who might spot them, taking advantage of the air, looking over the vicar’s newly levelled graveyard, headstones serving as paving stones, only the few ornate tombs left upright, lawn and flower borders dominating now, which ruined or remodelled the ancient cemetery - the town was divided.

  ‘Grace told me about your conversation.’ Leonard lit up after he had delivered the sentence, letting it sink in.

  Ellen felt herself stretch into full attention. That he had said ‘Grace’ and not ‘your aunty Grace’ made the choice of this unusual location even more significant.

  Leonard launched in. ‘Let me say this. Grace has your best interests at heart. I’m sure you’ve never doubted that. And your father was her brother. They were very close. What happened upset her, for years. It still does. Which is to say that there are certain things she just can’t bring herself to say. You can’t think less of her for that.’ He drew heavily on the cigarette. ‘But when she told me about your conversation, I thought, She ought to know. I thought, If she doesn’t know it’ll work in her mind until it becomes something terrible, far far worse than it was. It’ll fester. Anyway, I thought, it’s long past. It’s just part of the stream of life now.’

  So she would be told. She sat very very still.

  ‘There’s a hundred and one ways to dress it up, Ellen, but to get to the point he walked out a week or two before you were born. Grace always wanted to say it was after because she thought that was nicer. It was before you were born.’ He glanced at her and then quickly glanced away. No one was in sight but he dropped his voice,

  ‘It was never a good match for either of them,’ he said, ‘one of those moments of madness that happens but then they were stuck with it. Except it worked itself into your father, it worked itself into him to such an extent that he could not bear to look at the poor woman - and she was bonny, nice, she was a very nice woman, your mother - but he just couldn’t, well, I won’t say he couldn’t stand the sight of her, but that’s how she must have taken it. He couldn’t conceal it. Others do. And he couldn’t live with it. Others have to. Whatever I said was listened to but made no odds. I was sorry for both of them. It was a terrible thing. He tried to be guided by Grace, he thought the world of Grace, but, poor fellow - and I did feel sorry for him even though what he did was a bad and a weak thing - he had a weak side, he knew that himself and he couldn’t see it through. So he bolted.’

  Ellen sucked her upper lip into her mouth and gripped it hard with her teeth and at the same time she nodded, again and again, only it was not only her head but slightly, stiffly even, her body, from the waist, nodding, rocking, easing the stab in her heart. There was a sound, too, a low hum, intermittent, but Leonard caught it and paused.

  No one hailed them. No one passed. The sun warmed the worn sandstone church wall.

  ‘He would send me the odd letter. He was too shamed to write to Grace save for the Christmas card. Then they dropped away. He knew he couldn’t come back.’

  ‘Could he not?’ The words were squeezed out like a gasp.

  ‘No,’ said Leonard, as gently as he could. ‘He’d burnt his boats.’

  'I wish he’d come back,’ Ellen whispered. ‘I wish he had come back.’

  Still she tried to take on the pain. Leonard dared not look at her.

  ‘Well, Ellen. You’ve been a wonderful daughter to me and Grace. You have.’

  ‘Have I?’

  ‘We both say that.’

  ‘Thank you.’ The voice so low, now, the tone so formal.

  She tried to straighten up but she could not, not yet, in a minute or so, did not want to embarrass him.

  ‘But you see,’ she said, and her voice broke completely, ‘he was my father.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Sam went up to Mr Kneale’s quarters at six thirty as arranged. It was only the second time he had been in the comfortable set of rooms the schoolteacher had carved out of the top floor of Grace’s house. The place had seemed very grand on the first visit, the widower had moved in fine furniture that had belonged to his wife and there were, everywhere, objects not seen in any other houses Sam knew. The most striking impression was that it was cluttered, pleasantly so, Sam thought, enviably so, the stacks of books and photographs, several cameras, the little tower of notes on the desk. The drink, well remembered, was the same.

  ‘A little sherry?’

  ‘Gladly.’

  It was poured with care from a heavy decanter.

  ‘Take a seat, Sam. Please.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Your very good health.’ Mr Kneale.

  ‘And to you.’

  Sam quite enjoyed the sherry this time. ‘Mind if I smoke?’

  ‘I brought up an ashtray.’

  ‘The photography still going strong then?’

  ‘A good hobby is a friend for life,’ said Mr Kneale. ‘But I have to confess that this book runs it neck and neck.’ He indicated the pile of notes. ‘War gets you into everything.’

  ‘I’ve come for some advice,’ Sam said, not wanting war, stubbing the cigarette and waving away the last spiral of smoke.

  ‘Well, I hope I can be of service.’

  'It’s about Joe.’

  Mr Kneale was not wholly surprised. He waited.

  ‘I suppose I’m looking for inside information.’ Sam took his time. He had thought it through.

  Mr Kneale nodded.

  'If he was a horse I would be asking what his fo
rm was.’ Sam smiled. Mr Kneale found a surer touch of real friendship in that smile than he had felt throughout his often rather wary relationship with the younger man. ‘Or maybe looking for a tip.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mr Kneale.

  ‘Leonard’s found him an opening after this next year and it’s very good of him. Ellen’s over the moon. Joe seems quite happy. It’s a job for life. Clean work.’

  ‘Leonard says he’ll take to it.’

  ‘Did he? He should know.’ Sam concentrated. What he wanted to say was that over the last months there had beat a stronger and firmer pulse in him about his son. He had begun to sense another possibility of connection.

  ‘I always wanted to stay on at school, you know,’ Sam said. He had not planned on saying that. He rushed on. ‘Same as thousands. We had to leave. That was that. But when I had time on my hands in the war I thought about it. Quite a bit. Joe isn’t placed like me. He could stay on, couldn’t he?’

  ‘There’s provision,’ said Mr Kneale. ‘There is now the opportunity if the parents can afford it.’

  Sam nodded.

  'It’s up to him, mind you,’ Sam said. ‘But it would help to know his form.’

  ‘Well,’ said the schoolteacher, ‘I’ve never brought school into what’s between us, but since you ask, he’s been disappointing over the last year or two on the academic front after a promising start. He’s never been altogether steady. I’m going on gossip from the junior staff who know I know him, and I expect they mean he’s rather too lively, which can be a fault but only in the short term. Lately, though, it’s been a different matter. The way I see it is it’s been a bit like a loss of nerve. I expect you’ve noticed it yourself. Quite marked at times.’

  Sam let nothing show.

  ‘Having said all that, Mr Braddock thinks quite well of him in history. He’s good at English, I’m told. All that reading - it always pays off. If he were to stay on into the sixth form he’d need another subject, preferably Latin, though French might do.’

  ‘He likes maths.’

  ‘You can’t have that mix. It would have to be French or Latin. Geography at a pinch.’

  ‘So?’ Sam looked to Mr Kneale as judge and jury.

  The older man took a little time, both to formulate his answer and to ensure it carried the weight Sam needed.

  ‘If he could settle in himself, then, in my view, and I’ve thought the same since he was a little lad, he’s certainly sixth-form material. I’d go no further at the moment but I would definitely advise you, if he could settle in himself, it would be no loss to keep him on. I’d go further. I’d say he’s a fair bet, Sam. It’s in him. If he was mine I’d encourage him.’

  Sam felt a skin of tension slough off his mind. 'I'm grateful for that.’

  ‘He might take a bit of persuading. As I understand almost all his friends are leaving next year after their exams. Friends are a critical influence.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Another drop?’

  He stood and took up the decanter.

  ‘I will’ Sam looked the schoolteacher square in the eye. ‘I am grateful for that,’ he repeated. ‘Thanks.’ He lifted up his glass.

  The sherry trickled carefully out of the elegant decanter.

  Sam waited, as it turned out, for a few months. He studied Joe without, he was all but sure, the boy noticing the close observation.

  He saw that the boy was nervy. Sometimes when they were carrying up the heavy crates of beer from the cellar he would snap in a sudden temper at some mistake and he could see the boy flinch. But he did not sulk. And he did not walk away.

  As the autumn deepened, it seemed to Sam that Joe was digging in more at the schoolwork. Once or twice Ellen mentioned that he was pleased with himself for some mark or other. Sam did not ask directly. He could not start enquiring where previously he had been at worst indifferent, at best a respecter of the boy’s independence.

  It was difficult to get on terms with him. Talk about sport was good and easy as it always had been. Talk about books became more rare as the boy steamed increasingly into a self-contained world. Occasionally they would discuss politics and Sam enjoyed that most of all. But the boy would withdraw: Sam concluded harshly and sadly that his son did not feel easy spending much time alone with him, feared him or felt stifled.

  A winter afternoon. Ellen had gone to Carlisle with Sadie, to the pictures. He wanted Ellen gone. They ate the tea she had left for them after Joe came back from school. He had done his homework at school that day, he said, not much of it, some maths and a bit of French. He was going to a birthday party in Bolton, a village three miles away. He did not say that the girl he had met at the social a few months ago had invited him. Her party. Her house. After exhaustive consideration he had bought her two nicely wrapped bars of soap and a bottle of bath salts in a box. It was in his saddle-bag. He was sure it was wrong.

  Joe cleared away, washed up. When he came in from the back kitchen, his father had moved to his usual seat in the corner, reading the News Chronicle. Joe checked his watch against the clock. His father was proud of that clock, an ornate mahogany wall clock crested by a rearing horse. Diddler had come by it and the price was very reasonable. It was the only possession Joe could remember Sam being taken by.

  Too soon to set off. She had told him her mother did not want them to be early.

  ‘Let’s have a talk.’ Sam folded the paper and nodded to Joe to sit down on the other side of the table.

  Joe did as he was told with that air of obedience which declared mild opposition. Sam repressed the smile. There was fight in him. It had been planted. It would be there when needed. To prove this point to himself he leaned forward, closer to his son, in what might have been interpreted as an aggressive way. Joe flinched, visibly, but his eyes held steady; Sam saw that and was pleased.

  ‘This job you’re bound for after you finish at school.’

  Joe waited. It was the accepted future, wasn’t it?

  'Is it what you want to do?’

  Again the boy was silent. It did not matter whether he wanted to or not. It had been fixed up and his mother said he was very lucky to get it.

  ‘Have you thought about doing anything else?’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head for emphasis and also to shake away all the fantasy careers and lives he called up from time to time.

  ‘There’ll be your National Service in about three years’ time. That’ll get you out of the town. That’ll be a great experience. If it’s experience you’re looking for.’

  Joe glanced at the clock.

  Sam realised that he was the one doing the flinching now.

  ‘You can stay on at school if you like, you know.’

  ‘Everybody else is leaving. Except Malcolm. He’s doing science. Everybody else.’ Alan was going to work in his father’s shop. They had already decided they would start saving up for a motorbike in week one.

  ‘You don’t have to do what everybody does.’

  Joe did not respond.

  In prospect, Sam had moulded and reshaped what he saw as this crucial conversation many times. It had never guttered out like this.

  ‘I’m told you could be sixth-form material’

  ‘Who said that?’

  ‘Mr Kneale.’

  ‘He would.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He likes us.’

  ‘He meant it.’

  ‘I like Mr Kneale.’

  ‘He could be right.’

  Joe’s nod this time, Sam thought, was indication of something stirring in him.

  He was getting the hang of it, the work was drawing him in, helping him to blank out the rest, it was good to see his marks go up, catching up with people who had passed him years before, overtaking some of them, and the teachers were better with you now you were older, it wasn’t like childish ‘school’. The possibility was beginning to get through to him.

  ‘I would have to do well in O levels.’

  ‘That’s right.’


  ‘Would Uncle Leonard’s job still be there if I didn’t do well enough?’

  ‘I expect so.’

  Joe glanced at the clock yet again. It was almost time to go, he calculated, to be there on time, not early, she had emphasised, don’t be early.

  ‘How much did you think you were going to hold back for yourself after paying your mam for your keep?’

  ‘Twelve and six of fifteen bob.’ Joe’s reply was immediate. He had discussed this many times with Alan.

  ‘I’ll give you fifteen bob.’

  ‘A week?’

  ‘Yes. You’ll have to do more jobs.’

  ‘What?’

  Sam ticked them off. ‘Sweep the front every morning. Chop kindling for the week on Sunday. Carry up on weekdays as well as weekends. Do the men’s lavatories at weekends. Give your mam two hours off behind the bar on Sunday dinner-time. Other bits that come up. You can fit it in.’

  ‘Fifteen bob?’

  ‘Fifteen bob.’

  Joe nodded, heavily. He was being made a fair offer. ‘OK then,’ he said, ‘depending on the results. I’ve got to go now.’

  He was out of the room, his bike ready in the corridor, through the ornate door, into the street, soon urgently pressing the pedals.

  Sam took a minute or two and then checked the fires and went into the bar. He had a few minutes yet before opening time.

  He leaned against the bar and thought of Joe on the bike cutting through the night, feeling and thinking little if anything, he guessed, of what had passed between them. That was how it was, he thought: that was fine.

  Sam saw the boy go. Go where he could not follow. The boy was out there on his own now.

  The man took out a cigarette. Tapped it on the counter. Lit up. Let drift.

  He did not let his fear of the return spoil his time at the party but it was not easy. The prospect of it made him nervous and over-mad and now and then he saw disapproval. But it was a good party. The farmhouse sitting room had two doors, which was great for some of the games. She let him kiss her.

  They all left together. Two or three were picked up by car. The others walked to their homes in the village.

  Joe set off at speed. Once out of the village it was black. The thin beam from his front light was only a little comfort. He swung around the corner and down the first hill and then there was nothing, no dwelling, no light but his. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. He held the party in his mind for as long as he could. And of all things visible and invisible. He thought of what his father had said. When to tell Alan. Staying on. God help me to go faster, please. He had told her. He tried to remember kissing her and up the first hill, a long stretch now with a line of dense tall firs on his left, black on black, a cliff of trees and it was here, as before when he had come back in the dark from her, though he tried to hold, tried, tried to hold out, that the being of him was pulled off, ripped away, vanished, and he was just this thing, not even able to scream.