by H. E. Bates
‘D’ye reckon Silas ain’t coming this year?’
‘I’ll Silas him if he does!’
‘Silas is allus like that there ham. He gets hung up.’
‘Yes,’ my grandmother would say, ‘and that’s what I’d do with him if I had my way.’
But finally, towards dusk, my uncle Silas would arrive, lit up, his hat on the back of his head, his face as red as a laying hen’s, his neck-tie undone, a pink aster as big as a saucer in his buttonhole, his voice bawling like a bull’s to the horse:
‘Whoa! Damn you, stan’ still. Whoa! George, hold this damn nag still a minute. I wanna git out. Whoa! Stop him.’
‘He’s bin a’standin’ still about five minutes, Silas.’
‘Stop him! Whoa. He keeps movin’ on and twitterin’ about. Stop him! Every nation time I try to git out o’ this trap he moves on.’
‘The nag’s as still as a mouse, Silas. You catch hold o’ me. You’ll be all right. That’s it. You catch hold o’ me. That’s it.’
And somehow my uncle Silas would alight, waddling across the farmyard on his half-bandy legs like a man on a ship, in gentle staggers of uncertainty, bawling at the top of his devilish voice:
‘And now we’re here, we are here! Whoops! Steady, lost the leg o’ me drawers.’
And then in the house: ‘Where are y’ Tillie, me old duck! Come on, give us a kiss, that’s it, give us a kiss. What? Th’ old nag lost a shoe. I’ve bin hung up ever s’long. The old nag lost a—’
‘And very lucky you didn’t lose yourself too, I should think!’
‘Ah, come on Tillie, give us a kiss. Silas come all this way and you ain’t goin’ give him a mite of a kiss?’
‘I’d be ashamed of myself!’
‘I am.’
‘Then just sit down quietly somewhere and don’t plague folks and don’t act the jabey. George, you get the ham cut and see that there’s a knife and fork for everybody and enough bread.’
‘After you do that, George, me old beauty, go an’ look in the back o’ the trap—’
‘I recollect I left a few empty bottles under—’
‘He’ll do no such thing, Silas!’
‘God a’mighty, Tillie. God a’mighty Tillie, they’re empty.’
‘Trust you!’
‘Tah! Let ’em all come!’
And finally we would sit down to supper, the big dining table and the many little tables crowded with relatives, my grandfather carrying the ham and beef, my uncle Silas staggering round the table and then from one table to another with bottles of cowslip wine, totting it half over the table cloth, giving an extra stagger of devilry against the ladies, and taking no notice even of my grandmother’s tartest reprimands and bawling at the top of his voice:
‘Let ’em all come!’
‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you shall not come here, Silas, if you can’t behave yourself!’
‘Let ’em all come!’
And bawling constantly, spilling the wine on the floor as he walked, he would get back to his chair at last, only to stagger up again in less than a minute to fill another glass or kiss the lady next to him and show his gall-stone or, worst of all, tell us a story.
‘George, me old beauty, d’ye recollect the time as we cut the buttons off old dad Hustwaite’s trousers? Remember that, George, me old beauty? Cut ’em off while he sat there in The Dragon and then—’
‘By golly, Silas, you do—’
‘Cut some more ham, George, quick. There’s two plates empty.’
‘George cut the buttons off while I played him dominoes—’
‘Some more pickle, Mary Ann?’
And one year, as we sat there eating in the summer half-darkness, the room rich with the smell of ham and beer and the wine my uncle Silas had spilled wherever he went, and all of us except my grandmother laughing over Silas unwrapping his gall-stone and laying it tenderly in its calico again, my grandfather for some reason got up and went out and in less than five minutes was back again, with a scared look on his face.
‘Silas,’ he said, ‘summat’s happened. The pig’s out.’
‘Not the sow, George? The sow ain’t out?’
‘Busted the door down. How the Hanover—’
‘Let me git up. God a’mighty, let me git up.’
Somehow my Uncle Silas staggered to his feet. My grandfather and he were men of utterly opposite character, my grandfather as mild as a heifer, Silas as wild as a young colt, but where pigs were concerned they were equal men. Pigs brought out in them the same tender qualities; they gazed in mutual meditation over sty-rails, they suffered from the same outrage and melancholy when their litters failed or their sows were sick. A sow was sacred to them; litters were lovelier than babies.
And my uncle Silas staggered up as though he were choking.
‘My God, let me git out. Let me git out.’
He pushed back his chair, lurched against the table, made an immense effort to right himself, somehow managed to stagger to the door, and then bawled:
‘George, boy, she ain’t in pig?’
‘Yis!’ We heard the faint voice far across the farmyard in answer.
‘My God!’
The next moment we heard my uncle Silas slither down all the five stone steps of the back door, blaspheming at every step and blaspheming even more as he sat on his backside in the hen-mucked yard outside. In another moment we heard him blaspheming again as he got to his feet, and still again when he found he could not keep them. By that time all the men in the room were standing up and half the women saying ‘Sit down man do, all this fuss about a pig!’ and some of us were already making for the door.
When I arrived on the threshold Silas was still sitting in the yard. He seemed to be trying to straighten his legs. He kept taking hold first of one leg, then another. One minute they were crossed and he was trying to uncross them. A minute later they were uncrossed and he seemed to be trying to cross them again.
He saw me coming down the steps.
‘Git me up!’ he bawled. ‘God a’mighty, me legs are tangled like a lot o’ wool. Git me up!’
I got hold of him by the shoulders and was getting him to his feet, he staggering and slithering like a man on skates and swearing wildly all the time, when suddenly there was a bawl of alarm from across the yard and I saw the sow come round the straw-stack.
‘Silas, stop her, stop her!’ my grandfather shouted. ‘Head her off, Silas!’
‘Git me up, boy, git me up!’
Somehow I managed to get my uncle Silas to his feet as the sow came blundering across the yard. There was something pathetic about her. She was like a creature in anguish. She was snorting and grunting and slobbering with distress and as my uncle Silas advanced to meet her he spread out his arms, as though in tender readiness to embrace her.
‘Goo’ gal, goo’ gal,’ he kept saying. ‘Come on now tig, tig. Goo’ gal. Whoa now!’
Suddenly she saw him. But it was as though she had not seen him. She simply lifted her head and kept straight on. My uncle Silas too kept straight on, muttering all the time in his thick tender voice. ‘Goo’ gal, come on now, tig tig, goo’ gal. Tig!’ And she snorting and slobbering in the gentle anguish of alarm at her predicament.
All at once my Uncle Silas stopped. He held up his arms and began to leap about with a sort of lugubrious excitement, like a man trying to hold up a train. ‘Back, back!’ he kept shouting. ‘Back. Tig back! Tig!’
But the sow kept straight on. She seemed if anything to increase her pace. And suddenly my uncle Silas let out a curious yell of blasphemous astonishment and threw up his hands.
The next moment the sow hit him. She caught him full between the legs and she went on after she had struck him, so that momentarily my uncle Silas was lifted up. For another moment he seemed to ride on the sow’s head, backwards, his squat bow legs flapping like the ears of the sow herself. Then the sow threw him. She gave a sort of nodding toss of her head, as a horse does to a fly, my un
cle Silas falling flat on his back in the yard again, his legs waving, his arms clawing wildly at the sow as she stampeded over and past him, her great teats flapping his face and half-smothering his roars of blasphemous rage.
Then something happened. My uncle let out a yell of extreme triumph. The sow stopped. She seemed to stagger, as Silas himself had done, as though her legs were tangled among themselves, and with my uncle Silas bawling at the top of his voice she gave a sudden sigh and sank on her side.
‘George, boy, I got her, I got her! George, I got her!’
‘Hold her, hold her!’
‘I am holding her! She’s atop on me!’
‘Hold her for God’s sake. Hold her!’
My grandfather came half running across the yard and all the men and half the women out of the house. I ran up too.
My uncle Silas had his arms round the sow’s neck. They were locked in embrace, the sow herself was lying half over on his chest, her great belly flattened out softly over one of his legs, her teats distended, as though she were about to give suck to a litter.
‘I’m holding her, George, I’m holding her.’ He spoke with alternate triumph and tenderness. ‘Goo’ gal, tig, lay still, goo’ gal.’
‘You hold her a minute, Silas, while we git her up.’
‘I’m holding her, George boy, I got her all right.’ There was a look of perfect beatitude on my uncle Silas’s face as he lay there with the pig in his arms, a look of pure intoxicated content. ‘Goo’ gal, tig. I got her, George, boy. Tig, tig. Goo’ gal!’
‘Now Silas—’ my grandfather and four men bent over the sow, seizing her great carcase, in readiness to upheave her – ‘when we lift you let her goo.’
‘I got her, George boy, I got her.’
‘You let her goo when we lift, Silas.’
‘Tig, tig.’
‘Now Silas, now, let goo. Silas, let goo. Dall it, how can we lift her up if you don’t let her goo?’
‘You wanted me to git her and I got her. Thass all right, ain’t it?’
‘Yes, Silas, yes. But we can’t git her up if you don’t let her goo.’
‘She’s all right. Let her alone. Good old gal, tig, tig.’
‘Let goo, Silas, let goo!’
Then the men and my grandfather heaved again, but my uncle Silas’s arms were tight round the sow’s neck and the sow herself lay half over him with blissful content, immovable.
‘Silas, you must let goo! Now then! Silas! Why the ’Anover don’t you let goo! Let goo, Silas, let goo!’
‘Thass all right, George boy, thass—’
At that moment my grandmother came up. She was a small, tart, wiry woman, like a bird, her words were like swift pecks at Silas.
‘Silas, get up. Get up! Silas, I will not have it. Get up!’
‘He won’t let goo,’ my grandfather said. ‘Every time we try to pull the sow off him he won’t let goo.’
‘Oh, won’t he?’
She suddenly seized hold of Silas by the head, just under the neck. From that moment my Uncle Silas lost some of his gaiety and content.
‘Tillie, what y’doing on? Let us alone. Tillie, me old—’
‘If we can’t pull the sow off him we’ll pull him off the sow. Get hold of him.’
‘It’s all right, Tillie. I got her, lemme goo bed with her. I wanna goo bed with her. I wanna—’
‘I’d be ashamed of myself, Silas. Stand up!’
Suddenly my grandmother heaved him by the neck and the men heaved too. The sow gave a grunt and a struggle as my uncle Silas was heaved from beneath her, and in another moment both he and the sow were jerked to their feet, her great teats swinging free and the back buttons of my uncle Silas’s trousers bursting off at the same time like crackers.
‘My God, that’s done it. Hold ’em up, Silas!’
My uncle Silas gave a single wild stagger with his trousers half-falling down, concertina-fashion, before the men caught him and lifted him up and carried him off into the house, his legs windmilling, his wicked devilish voice bawling all over the farmyard above the voices of the shrieking ladies:
‘Let ’em all come!’
It was the last I saw of him that night. In the morning, when I came downstairs, the guests had gone, my grandfather was in the fields, and there was no one about except my grandmother, who sat in the chair by the kitchen window, sewing the buttons on the back of a pair of tweed breeches.
‘Your breakfast’s just in the oven,’ she said.
For ten minutes I went on eating and she went on sewing, neither of us speaking. Then she bit off her cotton and laid the breeches on a chair.
‘When you’ve finished your breakfast you might take them up to him,’ she said. ‘Put them down outside the door.’
After breakfast I took the breeches upstairs. I knocked at my uncle Silas’s door, but no one answered. Then I knocked again, but nothing happened, and finally I opened the door a crack and looked in.
‘Your breeches,’ I said.
My uncle Silas lay submerged by the bed-clothes. I could see nothing of him but his mouse-coloured hair and a single bleary bloodshot eye which squinted over the coverlet at me.
‘Eh?’
‘Your breeches.’
‘Um.’
After that one utterance he was silent. It was indeed all I ever heard him say of his behaviour with the sow, except once, when I reminded him of it over a glass of wine. And then he said:
‘What sow? When was that?’
‘You remember,’ I said. And I told him about it again, laughing as I spoke, telling him how he had caught the sow and held her down and then how the buttons of his breeches had snapped off as we strained to release him.
‘You must have been some buttons short that night,’ I said. ‘Don’t you remember?’
He sat silent for a minute, his glass half-empty in his hand, his lips wet and shining with wine, looking at me with the blandest cocking of his bloodshot eye in an innocent effort of recollection.
At last he shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘There’s some things you can’t remember.’ His hand was on the bottle. ‘Mouthful o’ wine?’
The Landlady
I
Cora Ingram took in lodgers, when there were lodgers to take. Her husband played the cornet, which did not help much. Six weeks, no work.
It was summer. No work, no lodgers. No money, no fun. Cora listened all day for the front door. She knew the raps as a commissionaire knows faces. Insurance-man, sharp and bony. How long could they go on paying? Milkman, knock and open. Drink more milk? Baker, solid and respectful, a nice boy. Trade club, noon Saturdays, just as they were sitting down to dinner, comic, saucy. Rum-tiddley butter-scotch, brown-bread. Walk straight in. How long could they keep it up?
Cora was big, smart: too smart for the street. At forty, she still fancied herself. The street was an arid gully of houses all alike: two long window-pocked walls facing each other, white lips of doorsteps shining, grey lace curtains, grey blistered paintwork, once white. Cora by contrast was like some heavy flower, sulky, full-blown. She had fair thick hair which hung down in one brassy pigtail in the mornings. Her eyes were very small, little dark bone-button eyes that she kept buttoned up, as though trying to disguise her emotions. She smiled much, fetching, a little false, her heavy lips easily shining. She blossomed fleshily at the doorway to answer knocks.
The card in the window was beginning to fade in the sun: the board to yellow, the lettering to grey. Lodgers. Some hopes. In a street like this? Tired of it, she blamed Ingram. Ingram was tired too, but differently, and had no answer. He had worked a consol in a boot factory. The consol is a demon, a killer. At forty-five Ingram was worn out. With his fleshless face and peppery hair and a tired sprout of a moustache, he was tired, body and soul. He played, in the evenings, tired notes on his cornet. ‘You and that damned cornet!’ Cora would shout. ‘Shut it! Shut it for God’s sake afore I bust it. What good does that do?’
Then something happened. A knock
. From the kitchen Cora could detect its difference. It had discretion in it, manners. None of the boniness of the insurance, the sauce of the trade club. Apron off, she blossomed at the doorway.
‘Could I see the lady who lets rooms?’
A young man, about thirty, black hair, and with him a girl, about ten or eleven.
‘I’m the lady,’ Cora said.
‘I’m looking for rooms,’ the man said.
‘You’re looking for rooms. Just for yourself?’
‘No, for the little girl too.’
‘Oh! For the little girl.’ Expressionless, in polite negation, but thinking and meaning: ‘Oh? That’s different.’
The girl stood with still eyes, taking it in. She was dark, a little delicate. The man carried a suit-case. He was delicate himself, but the pale skin had fire under it. He had a way of looking sharply, magnetically about him.
‘If you’ve got rooms perhaps we could look at them,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Cora said. She was hesitating. ‘I don’t know about the girl. I’ve never taken children.’
‘She’s a good girl,’ the man said. ‘She’ll go to school. She could sleep in my room.’
‘Well, come in. Put your suit-case down in the hall.’
So the man put down his suit-case and Cora said ‘Come up’, and they went upstairs, the girl last, to look at the bedroom. The girl took it all in with still eyes, never speaking.
‘This is the room I was thinking of for you,’ Cora said.
The man stared at it; brass bed, marble washstand, grey lino, texts. ‘How much?’ he said.
‘It’s a good room and I could let it any time for thirty shillings.’
‘I can’t do it,’ the man said.
‘That’s with full board.’
‘I couldn’t do it. With the girl on top.’
He stood looking at Cora with his small fascinating eyes dead still, almost supercilious. He looked straight at her, into her small buttoned eyes, in a way that made her feel queer, nettled. He seemed to sting her. The girl stood close up to him, proud. They were an irritating pair, aloof, just that bit different. They looked like accomplices. Ideas flashed on Cora: crime, News of the World, kidnapping, missing from home, abduction. And with them emotions: fear, excitement, affront. Classy folks. She looked at his hands. That was it, classy folks. The hands were white, seemed cut out of paper.
