The Sweet-Shop Owner

by Graham Swift

  That was the day before the school sports. I was the favourite for the mile. I’d won it the year before and equalled the school record, and I was seldom beaten in house matches. I was sixteen, not athletic-looking, but I had strong legs and stamina. I was hopeless at schoolwork but I had this one talent for distance running. I’d win again they said – and even the history master had to concede (the class laughed) as he caught me gazing out of the window – ‘All right, Chapman, you’ll have your moment tomorrow, but would you mind telling us now why Thomas Cromwell was executed?’

  He moved on past the school gates, put the briefcase down, paused again, held his left side, waited.

  34

  ‘Right, let’s be having you!’

  The voice of Mr Hill, the games master – veteran of Great War drill halls and still apt to let his sergeant’s voice rap and chafe them as if they were troops departing for the front – rang out over the track. His black starter’s pistol lay on the grass and he strode now up and down in front of them, his stop-watch dangling from his neck, calling out their names, which he knew perfectly well, and ticking them off on his list, as if, at this moment of action, it were all the more necessary to keep precise records.

  ‘Right, up to the line when I tell you.’

  In front of them the black cinder track, already churned and pitted by the afternoon’s events, stretched away to the finishing line and the judge’s table, then curved to the left. The mile; the culminating event of the day. Ahead, beyond the hawthorn hedge and the cricket sight-screens, the playing fields. On the inside, the high jump and long jump pits; on the outside, the spectators. Boys in blue uniforms; exhorting parents. To the left, across the track, the elm trees and wooden fence marking the school boundary. Tops of the houses in Woodruff Road beyond; the spire of St Stephen’s.

  A fresh wind stirred the branches of the elm trees and the sun sailed out and then was shuttered again behind swift clouds. The day was bright, but colder than one expected for late March, and the watching parents stamped their feet and rubbed gloved hands, partly from chilliness and partly to prove their heartiness as spectators.

  ‘He’s the one to watch.’

  Thompson was speaking to him as they waited, jogging and limbering behind the starting line. He was nodding towards a tall, muscular boy, built like a sprinter rather than a distance runner, with dark hair and clean features, whose face, at that moment, looked tense and severe.

  ‘He’s won the 440. If he wins this he’ll get the Victor Ludorum, as well as the Mile Cup.’

  ‘If we let him win.’

  He smiled; and for the first time heard his voice sound as if he were playing a part.

  Thompson grinned. Thompson was captain of his house, a senior prefect and one of the honoured of the school. He would stand by the track one day, vigorously shouting-on his own son.

  ‘You’ll let me take up the running at first as usual?’ he said, deferring graciously. The parting in his sandy hair was clean and straight, even now at the end of a day’s athletics.

  ‘Why? Won’t you try yourself? This isn’t a house match.’

  Thompson shook his head protestingly. His duties were to his house, the school, to fair play and credit where due. There was nothing he wouldn’t sacrifice for these things.

  ‘No. It’s your race.’

  They paced to and fro, loosening their limbs, waiting for the judge’s signal and Mr Hill’s command. They wore white shorts and singlets and, since they were finalists in a major event, had black numbers on white cards fixed to their backs. He watched them flexing and drawing breath. There were signs of strain, of apprehension on the waiting faces, mixed with odd looks of pride and earnestness, as if they were thinking, only this moment matters, only the race counts. They paused, communing with themselves, summoning their strength, glancing down at their bodies and up again, as if looking into mirrors.

  And he felt none of this – not any more. He stood on the grass at the track-side, bending and stretching his legs mechanically, as if he, the favourite, were not really a participant, as if the race about to be run were already decided. For wasn’t it? He looked beyond Thompson at the dark-haired boy, whose face with its clean, grave expression suddenly turned with a look of hostility.

  ‘Take your marks!’

  Mr Hill’s voice rasped and the crowd at the track-side quietened distinctly, like a theatre audience when the lights go down. He took his place on the line, between Thompson and Cox. He was expected to win. From out of the crowd he heard his own name, carried shrilly on the wind: ‘Chapmaaan …’ He had won the 880, beating that same dark-haired boy into third place, and he was famous in the school, if for nothing else, for the mile. ‘Chapmaan …’ He was expected to win, but the crowd would like a battle. People liked battles.

  ‘Wait for it then.’

  Mr Hill walked pompously across in front of them, in-specting the ranks, waving his pistol in his right hand as if about to carry out an execution.

  Black cinders, with the white lanes marked ahead. March, 1931. Four-thirty, by the school clock-tower. Most of them would be leaving that summer.

  The sun came out from behind a cloud, shining into their faces, gilding their expectant brows and jutting chins, making tiny specks in the cinders sparkle in front of them.

  Now!

  A mile. Five and a third laps of the black track. Plenty of time. Time to think as well as act; time to watch as well as take part. That was the beauty of distance running. A send-off cheer from the crowd; the blur of faces by the finishing line; and by the time they had rounded the first bend a pace and a pattern had emerged. The dark-haired boy, wearing number three, in the lead: to be expected. Holloway chasing him, then Thompson, making his sacrifice; then Peters, Cox, with his number card already coming loose, and himself, without having consciously planned it, tucked in in mid-field. Hawthorn hedge on the right; sound of breathing and scuffed cinders; and their own shadows, in the sun, suddenly swinging round from behind them and appearing on their left.

  To be expected – number three in front. Valiantly to the fore. A fierce pace. Never mind. Stick to the mid-field. Settle back, watch.

  Boundary fence and Woodruff Road on the right. Shouts of the crowd sounding thin over this side of the track. Round the bend towards the starting line. This is the point at which you realize what it entails, running a mile. Legs already tired, breath short; and over four laps to go. Never mind. The end of the second lap’s worse. Third and fourth laps hardest of all. But somewhere in the middle you find a second strength. The pains in the calves, the ache in the chest are only signs that the body is working. A machine.

  He felt it now, thudding beneath him like a motor, bearing him up as if he were being carried by something that wasn’t part of him.

  Keep your eye on the landmarks as you round the bends: St Stephen’s spire, into the back straight; the clock-tower, into the home straight. That’s the trick of it. ‘Not paying attention again Chapman!’ But, didn’t he see, that was precisely what he was doing? Looking at things that were fixed while you moved yourself. That was how you endured.

  They came out of the back straight and round the bend towards the third lap. The number three had a good three yards’ lead and had only slackened pace slightly. Holloway followed, shoulders rolling a little. Thompson clung gamely onto Holloway – he had enough perhaps for another lap. Cox had edged forward into fourth place and Peters slipped back; so that in the front running there were three distinct divisions, about nine yards spanning them all. The sun shone again as they entered the home straight and he saw Peters dropping back, red-faced and curly-headed, at his right shoulder, screwing up his eyes exasperatedly.

  Past the winning post, round the first bend, the shadows on the grass swivelling round mockingly in front of them. Barely half the race run, but already – you can sense it – they are getting lost in their struggles. A grimness setting in. They don’t notice the wails of the crowd or the encouragement of the figures clustered r
ound the winning post and the judge’s desk – sports masters, house monitors in blazers and flannels, Mr Hill, bending over the track, waving what seems a threatening fist as they approach; the clock-tower, the spire. Don’t they see, the secret is not to think of the race? But they notice only the endless dark circuit of the track. A grimness. The crowd senses it. The cheering changes tone. They like a battle.

  Winning post for the third time. He ought to move up now, not let the gap open. Cox was in second place; Holloway struggling; Thompson falling back, spent at last. Peters had pressed ahead again, and he could hear a determined breathing – it was Price perhaps, or Skinner – close behind him. Move up now. It was expected.

  ‘Chapmaaan …’

  He pressed his toes down harder and stretched his pace. The machine adjusts: the power is there. He moved up past Peters and alongside Thompson who turned, as he passed, a haggard, sweaty face, proud of having done his bit, performed his duty, and fell back. Then he settled in behind Holloway.

  A surge of noise from the crowd. The back straight. Holloway was a heavy lumberer; stamina, but no finish. Cox would try, and Peters, behind, might have something left. But his eyes were on the black number three, holding its position perhaps four yards ahead.

  How brave, how solitary. The eternal athlete, the eternal champion, running into his future.

  He picked up the briefcase and walked on slowly past the war memorial.

  Into the top bend. The sun was out, tinselling the grass, shining on the straining bodies in front of him. He looked at the black numbers on the white singlets, 3, 4, 8, all careering on, and suddenly felt that he wanted to laugh.

  He kicked his legs into another spurt, passed Holloway and moved beside Cox as they entered the home straight. The crowd yelled – the last lap about to begin – wrapping them in a tunnel of fervour. They love this. This is the stuff of which stories are told. He could hear them saying, when the race was over: ‘The way Chapman moved up’, ‘The way Cox fought back’; spreading the legend. And they themselves, the competitors, in the changing room afterwards, flushed with the drama: heroes.

  He overtook Cox, who held on, gasping, behind him. Past the jumping pits. Past the trestle table, set back from the track – next to the loud-speaker apparatus and the judge’s desk – on which were laid out the trophies. Cups, shields, glinting in the sun. A glimpse of the prizes to be won. Then the bell, at the finishing line, ferociously clanged; Mr Hill’s bugle of a mouth; a confusion of yelled names. Chapman had poised himself. To be expected. Keep up the performance.

  The hawthorn hedge; back of the sight-screens. For the last time. The figure two yards in front had given a back-ward glance as they left the bell behind, and the face, appearing for an instant over the shoulder, was taut with determination. He looked at the tensed torso – the shoulders, still steady, the sleek black hair. How innocent it seemed. A better body than his, the kind of body that would wear well and look good in photographs and always seem in its prime. Whereas his own body (they laughed at him in class) had a sort of unyouthful clownishness about it. The sun went in. He drew closer to the unyielding leader. He winced suddenly. Then he was past. Only the black track ahead: fence, spire of St Stephen’s.

  What had he done? Excitement in the crowd. He had passed the leader on the bottom bend with still most of the lap to go – not, as usual, on the last bend. Begun his final spurt early. That was unexpected.

  He ran down the back straight. He thought: why was Thomas Cromwell executed?

  Round the top bend. Pain in the chest. To be expected. The crowd in uproar. They saw he hadn’t shaken off his rival: the former leader was catching up again. He knew it.

  School clock-tower. The minute hand had moved only that little. The race is decided. It’s over as soon as it starts. They think it’s a battle but it’s only a performance. They think it’s action but it’s only a pattern. You move and keep your eyes on what is fixed. And if you win it blinds you. You think, ‘This moment is mine.’ It’s yours, like the silver cup they give you with your name on it (‘Mile Champion, 1931’), but you forget it’s only a performance, and it’s the moment that captures you. Down the straight. The last time. If you win, you lose. The crowd is screaming. There will be the victory ceremony, the trophies, proud smiles, grandiloquent words on the loud-speaker. Virtus et Fortitudo. After the excitement, the crowd will go away, light cigarettes, buy evening papers.

  The dark-haired boy was perhaps only a yard behind. Hold him off a little longer. But let him have his moment. Let him think it’s the real thing.

  The jumping pits, the trophy stand. For the last time. The tape stretched out ahead. Heads arching in over the finishing line. A photographer for the school magazine, with a boater, squatting on the track beyond the tape.

  The dark-haired boy’s name was Harrison. Jack Harrison. He had a younger brother who was captain of cricket. He would be leaving in the summer. His parents were there, amongst the crowd, smartly dressed in tweeds, the father imposing, the mother pale-skinned, chestnut-haired. And she might have been there, the sister, Irene.

  They would be shouting now, the mother and father, the father bellowing himself hoarse (would he remember him later – ‘Chapman’?) as they urged their son to take the lead once more. There would be cries of delight as they watched him breast the finishing tape; frenzied clapping and self-important smiles as they watched him walk up to take the 440 Trophy, the Mile Cup, the Victor Ludorum. The father would light a cigar. Honour to the family. Rejoicing in the home that night.

  There he was, at his shoulder, in the outer lane. Brow wet, chin jutting. He could force him back, if he wanted to, run faster. The power was there. Thirty yards to go. Neck and neck. Sun in their eyes. Twenty, fifteen.

  All right. Now.

  35

  You were standing in the hallway with the front door open. I had seen the car parked outside as I drove up Leigh Drive. The blue Mini – his Mini; the boot open and already packed with boxes, clothes on hangers, polythene bags, jumble. You didn’t know I was there. You must have been upstairs when I pulled up on the drive. And you weren’t expecting me. It was only five on a sunny evening in May. You didn’t know I had this pain in my chest, attacks of breathlessness, and that that afternoon I’d shut the shop early. Otherwise, you chose your moment well.

  I got out of the car, walked over to the Mini, then in at the front gate. There were tulips out by the front path. You were standing at the foot of the stairs, sideways on, adjusting your grip on a loaded cardboard box. It was one of the cardboard boxes in which goods used to arrive at the shop. You raised it up from beneath with your knee. You hadn’t seen me and weren’t expecting me. When people aren’t expecting to be seen they look their truest. How innocent you looked. You were wearing jeans and a white blouse, and the way you shifted the box with your leg was so determined, so absorbed. Then, as you turned, you looked up and saw me. Your eyes hardened, as if a childish prank had turned suddenly into a crime. But before that they flickered: a moment of fear, of precariousness, as if, if I’d made a sudden move, you might have toppled.

  ‘Father.’

  ‘Dorry.’

  My eyes took their photograph of that moment. Your face framed in the doorway; half turned; your profile caught in the mirror behind. You looked trapped. In the box you were carrying I saw the edge of the little wooden chest – polished walnut with a brass catch – in which Irene had kept her jewels. You didn’t have a key. You must have known where I put them – in the drawer of the bureau.

  ‘Dorry, what are you doing?’

  You clung to the cardboard box as if I’d have wrenched it from you.

  ‘I’m taking the last of my things.’

  ‘Those are her things.’

  ‘Were. They’re mine now.’

  I stood on the porch steps, my keys in my hand. You had occupied the house and were forbidding me entrance. There was a pain in my chest like a metal bar, which you weren’t aware of. We stood like that, for what s
eemed an infinity. I thought: I can see what ought to happen, what should happen; but it won’t, it will turn the other way. If you hadn’t been holding that box I would have stepped forward to embrace you.

  ‘Dorry, let’s talk.’

  ‘No. Not now.’

  Your voice was exasperated rather than defiant. I noticed another cardboard box at the foot of the stairs with one of her fur stoles inside, just visible beneath a sheet of brown paper. I remembered when she bought it.

  ‘Dorry, we ought to talk. We can settle this.’

  You shook your head. The box was getting heavy in your hands, but you clung to it like a defence.

  ‘Will you let me take this to the car?’

  There were a score of phrases ready to hand – ‘Now listen here my girl … You’ve no right … Take those things back this minute’ – but I said nothing. I thought: I’m not going to fight; if there is no fight then no one wins.

  I said, ‘Dorry, what are you doing?’

  The weight of the box was beginning to threaten your pose. You raised it again with your knee. There was a moment when it seemed your act of daring might end in comic catastrophe – necklaces strewn over the stairs, emeralds and pearls over the hall carpet. But you steadied yourself, propping the box against the stair-post.

  I stepped inside. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?’