SEVEN

‘Is that boy stopping you from working, Maureen?’

‘Yes, Miss Featherstone,’ Maureen said.

She was sitting in the desk beside him: she was short and stocky with coal-black eyes and coal-black hair – the hair cut symmetrically, like the crown of a flat-peaked cap; her cheeks and her lips were cherry red and her teeth were large and white.

‘Come out here.’

Bryan got up.

‘I would have thought,’ Miss Featherstone said as he reached her desk and the two children standing there stepped quickly aside, ‘you would have learned your lesson already.’

‘I wasn’t doing anything,’ he said.

She glanced at Maureen. ‘Was he stopping you from working?’

‘Yes, Miss.’

‘I have warned you before, and I shall not warn you again.’ She raised her desk lid and brought out a wooden ruler. ‘Hold out your hand.’

He held out his hand.

‘Clench it.’

He closed his eyes; he simulated an expression of pain in the hope it might dissuade Miss Featherstone from carrying out her threat: it had never worked in the past and it didn’t work now. He heard her grunt as, having stood up, she brought the ruler down.

The sharp edge rapped across his knuckles.

He winced. His fingers convulsed.

The pain, more sharply, ran into his wrist.

‘Your other hand.’

He held up his other fist.

‘Tighter.’

He heard the silence in the room behind and felt the rap across his knuckles.

‘If I have occasion to call you out again I shall report you directly to Mr Swan.’

His hands beneath his armpits, he returned to his desk.

He glanced at Maureen then, bowed, drew his arms against his chest.

‘I told you you should have looked,’ Maureen said. She ducked her head, and added, ‘Does it hurt?’

‘Is Bryan talking to you again?’ Miss Featherstone said.

‘No, Miss Featherstone,’ Maureen said.

Feet shuffled; a desk lid banged.

‘Do you want to have a look?’

He shook his head.

Miss Featherstone’s voice droned on; sensations other than pain returned to his hands.

Maureen had bowed her head to her desk; her tongue protruded between her teeth.

Bryan rubbed his hands: a broad weal ran across his knuckles. The circulation returned to his fingers and he picked up his pen.

‘Look!’ Maureen said.

Two short-fingered hands with their square-ended nails were holding aside the edge of her knickers.

‘Are you interfering with Maureen, Bryan?’

Miss Featherstone stood up.

The blood pounded in his ears.

‘Come out here.’

He got up from the desk.

‘Would you mind telling me what you are doing?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Don’t lie to me.’ She glanced across the desks. ‘Was he talking to you, Maureen?’

‘No, Miss,’ Maureen said.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, Miss.’

‘He wasn’t speaking?’

‘No, Miss.’

Maureen’s red-cheeked face with its coal-black eyes was poised between the heads of the children in front.

‘If I thought you were I would have taken you down the corridor in an instant.’ Miss Featherstone raised her arm.

Her eyes followed him to the desk and remained fixed on him when, without looking up, he returned to his work.

‘Let me look at yours.’

‘No.’

‘I let you look at mine.’

His head remained bowed, the point of the pen, soaked in ink, pinioned on the page before him.

‘You looked at mine.’

‘I didn’t ask you.’

He heard a ruler slammed down on the teacher’s desk.

‘Is that boy talking?’

‘No, Miss.’ Maureen stood up.

Silence descended on the room again.

‘You may sit down, Maureen.’

‘Yes, Miss.’

Maureen sat down.

Bryan moved to the end of the bench.

A fist, clenched tightly, struck his wrist.

‘I let you look at mine.’

He didn’t answer.

‘Do you want to look at it again?’

He gazed at his nib; he examined the blackness of the ink at the end.

‘Bryan.’

The name, sharply delivered, distracted him.

He turned to see an empurpled mass exposed between the ends of Maureen’s square-nailed fingers.

‘Show me yours.’

A movement at the teacher’s desk and in an instant Maureen’s hands were on the desk: a pen was placed in her mouth.

Miss Featherstone had left her desk and was walking down the aisle.

She glanced over at the desks on either side then, opposite Bryan, she grasped his ear, twisted it, and said, ‘Stand up.’

He let the pen fall.

‘Has he got something under that desk?’

Maureen’s black-capped head disappeared; a moment later it re-emerged.

‘There’s nothing there, Miss Featherstone,’ she said.

‘I shall have you stand at the front, young man.’

He was led from the desk to the corner of the room.

‘Stand up.’

He stood with his back to the class, his ear stinging, gazing at the composition of the wall before him.

He heard Miss Featherstone return to her desk, the banging of Maureen’s lid as she indicated her approval of Miss Featherstone’s action, then the teacher’s voice recommenced as two more children were summoned to have their work examined.

‘Stand straighter. Hands behind your back. I don’t want you leaning forward.’

He straightened his back; from the corner of his eye he could see the edge of the blackboard and, from the other corner, the glass pane in the upper half of the door which, partly obscured by paper, gave access to the corridor.

His legs ached; his knuckles burned.

Before him, vividly, was the image of what he had seen beneath the desk, a vertical incision distorted by the grip of Maureen’s hands.

He shifted his feet.

‘Keep still.’

A figure passed in the corridor outside; its feet echoed: a door closed, reopened, and the feet came back.

Outside the door of the classroom the footsteps paused; the handle was shaken, the glass vibrated: he had to step back to avoid the door and in doing so was brought face to face with Mr Swan: or, rather, he gazed at the button of the headmaster’s jacket.

‘Is this boy in trouble, Miss Featherstone?’

‘He is, Mr Swan.’

A hand came down to indicate the corridor outside.

‘Anyone else?’

‘No, Mr Swan.’

The broad-shouldered figure remianed with its back to the door. After a pause, it turned and came out, closing the door behind it.

The glass rattled.

Without glancing at Bryan, Mr Swan strode off.

Bryan followed, watching the headmaster’s gigantic hands with their thick, square-ended fingers clenching and unclenching, and observed the brief ducking down of the bulbous, close-cropped head as he passed each classroom: at one of the doors the headmaster paused, his features inflamed, waited, gazing in then, as the murmur of voices subsided inside, passed quickly on.

At the door to his study the headmaster paused. ‘Stand by my desk.’ He waited for Bryan to go in before him.

Bryan placed his hands behind his back.

The headmaster sat down; his fists were laid across his blotter.

‘Bryan, is it?’

‘Yes, sir.’

In a glassed-in cabinet to the side of the desk were several books and, fastened on hooks, horizontally, across the back of the cabinet, were several canes, the thinnest at the top, the thickest, bound with cord, at the bottom.

‘Your brother was always in trouble.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Look where he is now.’

‘Yes.’

Mr Swan stood up; his chair creaked: his shirt inside his jacket rustled.

‘He’s in the Seniors, when he might have gone to the Grammar.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Do you know why that happened?’

‘No, sir.’

‘He was fooling around. He failed his exam. He might have made something of himself. Now he’ll make nothing.’

Tears came to Bryan’s eyes; the thought of Alan oppressed him; and the thought of Alan, whom he loved, coming to nothing, oppressed him further: Mr Swan was disparaging someone closer to Bryan than he imagined.

‘Do you want to make nothing of yourself?’

‘No, sir.’

‘You want to make something?’

‘Yes, sir.’ He added, ‘My brother won’t make nothing of himself.’

‘What do you mean?’

Mr Swan’s boots creaked; his shadow loomed across the room.

‘He’ll make something of himself.’

‘In the Seniors he’ll make nothing. He’ll end up with a pick and shovel.’

The thought of Alan, with all his qualities, making nothing of himself was a thought that Bryan couldn’t countenance.

‘He’ll make nothing, because he has made nothing. He even fools about where he is at present.’ He gestured off to the opposite end of the building where, across an asphalt yard, stood the wing occupied by the Seniors. ‘I’ve had reports of his fooling around already.’

He got up from the desk, inserted a key in the glass-panelled door of the cabinet and pulled it back.

‘Why were you in the corner?’

‘Someone was talking.’

‘Was it you?’.

‘No, sir.’

‘Do you always tell lies?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Miss Featherstone would not have called you out unless she was sure.’

He took out a cane, lifting it from the hooks.

‘I don’t like liars. Your brother was a liar.’ He paused; the cabinet door swung to: the keys rattled against the glass. ‘I don’t like people who cry before their punishiment. Your brother never cried. He took his punishment like a man.’

Bryan examined the figure before him; all he saw, distorted, were disparate elements of the face itself, a glaring eye, a massive nose, a red-flecked cheek, a protruding lip.

‘Hold out your hand.’

The tears, redoubled, obscured his view of the room.

‘You’re nothing but a whiner. You get up to mischief, cause trouble, say you never did it, then whine. Do you still say you were doing nothing in Miss Featherstone’s class?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You’re telling lies.’

‘No, sir.’

‘Half the battle is won with liars if they admit they are telling lies.’

‘I’m not, sir.’

‘Hold out your hand.’

He held it up.

‘Higher.’

He felt the fingers of the headmaster flatten his palm.

The cane descended.

He gave a cry.

‘I don’t like cry-babies, either.’

He grasped Bryan’s wrist.

‘What’s this?’

He looked at the back of his hand.

‘Have you been caned by Miss Featherstone already?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And you have come to my room to be caned again?’

He looked at the back of his other hand.

‘Was that a ruler?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I hope,’ the headmaster said, ‘you have learned your lesson.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What did Miss Featherstone call you out for?’

‘She said I was talking.’

‘Were you?’

‘No.’

‘If you weren’t, why should she think you were?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘That is the point at which you begin to tell lies.’

He laid the cane down.

‘I can tell when a boy is lying. I haven’t taught all these years without knowing when someone is not telling the truth.’ He thrust his head towards him. ‘Who sits in the desk beside you?’

‘Maureen.’

‘Does she do any talking?’

‘No.’

He gazed at the button in the centre of the jacket.

Mr Swan reached down and grasped his wrist.

‘Come with me.’

He opened the door and, still holding the wrist, led him back to the classroom.

Miss Featherstone, interrupted in mid-sentence, glanced up from her desk.

‘Go back to your place.’

Bryan walked through the class to his seat.

‘Maureen.’

The figure quivered on the bench beside him.

‘Come to my room. Miss Featherstone, perhaps you would like to come with her.’

Instructions were given to the class, then Maureen, followed by Miss Featherstone, walked quickly to the door.

The clipping of their heels came from the corridor outside.

The door of the classroom had been left ajar.

‘What did he do?’ a figure asked from the desk in front.

‘One on one hand.’

‘Did it hurt?’

‘Not much.’

‘What about Maureen?’

He shook his head.

Some time later Maureen came back; she walked quickly to her desk.

‘What did he say, Maureen?’ someone asked.

‘I haven’t to talk to him,’ she said.

‘Did he hit you?’

She picked up her pen and bowed her head, and didn’t look up when, a few minutes later, Miss Featherstone came in the room and closed the door.

‘I’ll be moving Bryan,’ she said.

She indicated a desk adjacent to her own.

‘If there is any more trouble, you know what the consequences are,’ she added.

In the playground, Maureen said, ‘Why won’t you show me yours if I showed you mine?’

He felt the force of her fist at the back of his neck.

‘Are you arguing again, Maureen?’ the teacher on duty said.

‘No, Miss.’

‘Why don’t you run along and play with the girls?’

‘Yes, Miss.’

Maureen ran off; Bryan stood by the railings: he gazed off to where the fields began, sweeping down towards Spinney Beck.

In the adjoining playground his brother was running along in a crowd of boys; his life was simpler than his own, uncomplicated by anything that had gone before – a facing out of events, encountering each one for the very first time.

He glanced back at Maureen’s figure, attracted by her raucous voice: she was gazing in his direction and shaking her fist.

‘We wondered if you were coming,’ Mrs Spencer said.

The dogs circled the interior behind her and, as Bryan entered, returned to the rug in front of the fire. The smell of baking came from the ovens and on the table, set on a wire mat, stood several loaves of bread. ‘Not puffed?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘It’s a long way on your bike.’ She ran her hand across his head.

‘It’s not too far,’ he said.

‘I think Margaret would find it far enough.’ She called through to the wood-floored room beyond. ‘Your friend has arrived.’ To Bryan, she added, ‘There are some slippers she’s left out.’

He stooped in the door; a pair of woollen slippers had been left at the point where the stone paving of the kitchen gave way to the hall.

‘We thought you were never coming.’

‘I was late coming out of Sunday School,’ he said.

Conscious of his darned stockings, he took his shoes off quickly.

‘You hear that?’ Mrs Spencer called into the hall and, from a door opposite, came the sound of Margaret’s voice. ‘She doesn’t go, though we’ve often asked her.’

The door to the room opened and Margaret appeared; over a blue-checked dress she wore an apron.

Her hair was swept back and secured, as it had been before, in two ribboned plaits.

‘I don’t have to go,’ she said.

‘You don’t have to go,’ Mrs Spencer said. ‘However, if you did, it would give you something to do on Sunday.’

‘I have something to do on Sunday,’ Margaret said.

‘Not much.’

‘All that I want to.’

‘That’s not what she tells me,’ Mrs Spencer said, nodding at Bryan. ‘You should hear her complaints.’ To Margaret, she added, ‘Will you be staying in, or going out?’

‘Staying in.’

Margaret turned back inside the room; she held the door, formally, for Bryan to enter and as her mother called, ‘Tea soon,’ she closed it behind him.

‘She’s always having quarrels.’ She indicated a table which occupied the centre of the room: a fire burned in a yellow-fronted grate. Chairs were set around the table; the firelight glowed from the polished wood.

Across the room, whose floor was relieved by a patterned carpet, two curtained windows looked out to the front of the house; flower beds had been dug and, between the beds, a lawn ran down to a low stone wall: beyond the wall a grassy slope descended to a stream which, below the house, had been dammed to form a pond: geese and ducks swam up and down and hens ran to and fro across the slope above it.

Beyond the stream the ground rose to a wood; cows grazed in a pasture.

The table had been covered by a cloth, one half turned down and covered, in turn, by a sheet of paper. A pair of scissors and a pot of glue were laid beside a grey-papered book.

‘Do you want to cut out?’

‘I don’t mind,’ he said.

He pulled out a chair.

From the kitchen, once more, came the barking of the dogs followed by the slamming of the outer door.

‘She’s always having arguments she can never finish.’

‘Why?’ he said.

‘Because she’s silly.’

He watched her tongue protrude as she applied the scissors to a magazine.

‘Have you always gone to Sunday School?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘I thought it dull.’

She glanced across.

‘You can cut that out if you like,’ she added. ‘Do you go to the pictures much?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘I go every Wednesday. Daddy comes up to town and meets me after school.’

The gruff voice of Mr Spencer could be heard a moment later coming from the kitchen, and shortly after that a door was opened.

‘Have you seen The Ghost Train?’

‘No,’ Bryan said.

‘The Thirty-nine Steps?’

Bryan shook his head.

‘The Love Match?’

He shook his head again.

‘What do you do at night?’

‘Play out.’

‘There’s no one to play with round here.’

She leant back in the chair; its legs creaked: she turned her head to gaze out of the window, past the low stone wall with its wicket gate, to where the ducks quacked, the geese honked and the hens ran up and down. From the left of the grassy slope a pig appeared, its nose to the ground.

‘What school do you go to?’

‘Stainforth.’

‘I go to one in town. St Margaret’s. It’s got my name.’

She pressed down the page.

Bryan handed over his cut-out shape.

‘You haven’t cut it very well.’

‘It slipped.’

‘That’s the only one I have of Ronald Colman.’

‘I can cut out the bit I missed and stick it together.’

‘It won’t look the same.’

She trimmed the edge of the shape herself.

‘Do you like his moustache?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

She laid the photograph flat on her hand, stooped, and kissed the area of it which was characterized principally by the thin moustache. She closed her eyes.

‘I think he’s whoozy.’

‘What are you two doing?’

Bryan looked up to find the figure of Mr Spencer standing in the door: the farmer was wearing a dark-blue suit, the jacket of which was open; on his feet were a pair of slippers.

‘Not kissing these cart ’osses, is she?’ he added to Bryan.

‘I’m loving Ronald Colman, Father,’ Margaret said.

‘I’m glad he doesn’t know about it,’ Mr Spencer said, glancing once again at Bryan. ‘Got you at it, has she?’

‘Bryan hardly ever goes to the pictures,’ Margaret said.

‘He’s got more common sense,’ the farmer said. ‘And has a better way to spend his money.’

‘I don’t ask to go,’ she said.

‘Not half,’ the farmer said. ‘“Aren’t we going to the Regal, Daddy?”’ He mimicked his daughter’s voice.

A flush of colour came to her cheeks and, after laying the photograph down, she began to cut round another figure.

‘She’ll have you as daft as she is,’ the farmer said, coming into the room and gazing over Bryan’s shoulder. ‘How about the cowshed having a scrub?’

‘We’ll leave that to you,’ the daughter said.

‘Anything that involves a bit o’ work.’

‘Haven’t you anything to do?’ she asked.

‘I’d better go and do it,’ the farmer said and clasping Bryan’s shoulder, added, ‘Your bike still ‘o’ding together, is it?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘There’s tea ready,’ he said, ‘in one or two minutes.’

He closed the door.

‘Do you want to cut out Laurel and Hardy?’ Margaret indicated their figures on a page torn from the magazine before her.

‘Do you like them?’ Bryan asked.

‘Not as much as Ronald Colman.’

‘Or Charlie Chaplin.’

‘I don’t like Charlie Chaplin,’ Margaret said.

Bryan cut round the fat figure, had difficulty with the hat, then cut round the thin figure, removing the brim of its bowler and, he noticed, having released it from the paper, the toe of one of its shoes.

‘You’re not very good at it,’ she said, taking it from him.

‘What names are your dogs?’ he said.

‘Roger, Dodger and Sammy.’ She leant forward on the table. ‘My mother doesn’t like them.’

‘Why do you have so many?’

‘You need them,’ she said, ‘on a farm like this.’

Bryan examined her more closely; she was glueing down a shape: her tongue protruded, her eyes expanded: she pressed the shape down with the edge of her hand.

‘Do you believe in God?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘What about the Devil?’

‘Yes.’ He nodded.

‘Have they taught you that at Sunday School?’

‘Yes.’

He gazed out of the window; he gazed beyond the rutting pig and the honking geese to the herd of cows across the stream: it was like gazing out from the walls of a castle.

‘Is God in everything?’

‘Yes.’

‘How about the Devil?’

‘He’s in everything, too.’

The clamour of the geese penetrated to the room and a flutter of wings sent up a column of spray on the pond. The pig, which had been joined by several others, nosed against the wicket gate, then, having pushed against it for several seconds, its bright eyes gleaming, it turned away.

‘There doesn’t seem any point in it.’

‘Why not?’

‘What’s the point, if they’re both in everything, in doing anything? It’s all decided.’

He examined the face beside him more intently: the snub-looking nose, the broad cheeks, the wide mouth, which was framed at either end by tiny dimples, the declivity of the chin, the smoothly drawn-back strands of hair which, framing the skull, ran back to the neatly threaded plaits: he gazed to the view beyond the window and, back from the view, once more, to the room.

‘We’ve been give the freedom of choice,’ he said.

‘Why? Why does there have to be a choice?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘It’s pointless,’ she concluded.

‘Don’t you enjoy cutting out these pictures?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘What about now?’

‘I have done. Until you came and spoilt it.’

He had never contemplated a world in which there wasn’t a presence larger than his own; larger than everything he could see around him. At one time it had been the benevolent spirit which came at Christmas; from that had grown an awareness that nothing was what it seemed – fields led on to other fields, roads to other roads, towns to other towns, countries to other countries, but, finally, the world led on to heaven.

‘Is anything the matter?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘Why are you shaking?’

‘I’m not,’ he said.

‘I’ll put some wood on the fire.’

She got down from the chair; the wood crackled as the flames took hold.

‘It doesn’t give much heat, but it looks as though it should.’

‘Why do you cut out all these pictures if they don’t mean anything?’ he asked.

‘I like them.’

She tapped her hands on the table.

‘Are you two ready?’ came a voice from the kitchen.

The table, when they went through, had been laid with cups and saucers.

‘How’s he been with the scissors?’ Mr Spencer stood with his back to the fire.

‘He cuts off all the edges,’ Margaret said. ‘In addition to which, he shakes all over.’

‘Is anything the matter, Bryan?’ Mrs Spencer said.

‘No,’ he said.

He had, for no reason he could think of, begun to cry.

‘He’s frightened,’ Margaret said. ‘He’s frightened of Daddy.’

‘He’s frightened of no such thing.’ Mrs Spencer placed her arm across his shoulder.

‘Then he must be a cry-baby,’ Margaret said.

‘Are you feeling unwell?’ Mrs Spencer asked him.

‘No,’ Bryan said.

‘Just look at his hands.’

His jaw, too, had begun to vibrate; he clutched his sides and tried to concentrate on the dogs by the fire, on the figure of Mr Spencer standing amongst them, on the flickering shadows, on the gleam of the firelight on the pots and pans.

‘You’d better lie down,’ Mrs Spencer said. She felt his brow. ‘Let’s put him in the front room,’ she added. ‘We’ll lie you down for one or two minutes.’

They crossed the hall; a door, facing the room in which, earlier, he’d been with Margaret, was standing open: a couch was set before a fire.

He was covered by a rug.

A rose-patterned wallpaper covered the walls.

‘Did you feel anything coming on as you cycled over?’ Mrs Spencer asked.

‘No,’ he said.

‘Has Margaret been saying something to upset you?’

‘No.’

From the kitchen came the sound of Margaret’s voice.

‘Perhaps it was the rushing over.’

‘Yes.’

Her hand stretched out to his brow.

‘I’ll get you a powder.’

He gazed, in the afternoon light, at an ochreish-looking print which was suspended on the wall before him: figures ran to and fro across a hill.

He looked to the fire which was shielded by a metal grill; he looked at the ceiling: around a central lampshade ran a plaster-of-Paris relief shaped in flowers. Roses, with cabbage-like petals, formed themselves, on the wallpaper, into vertical lines; soon he was deciphering the crevice of an eye, a brow, the curve of a cheek, a grimacing mouth.

He looked back to the fire.

Mrs Spencer came in.

She gave him a glass of liquid.

‘Lie back and rest,’ she said. ‘It’ll take effect in a minute.’

She resettled his head; apart from his mother he had never been touched by a woman before: he was aware of the pressure of her arm as she supported his back, and the strange delicacy of her fingers.

‘Would you like me to sit by you, Bryan?’

‘I’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘I’ll get up in a minute.’

He felt the pressure on the couch released.

The door closed.

The faces on the wall were spinning round.

He got up from the couch.

He fumbled with the door and went out to the hall; he crossed to the kitchen and, as the door opened, he said, ‘I’m going to be sick.’

All he could think of was the farmer and his daughter sitting there, and, his eyes narrowed, he turned to the hall. His feet caught against the stairs, then, at the top, he was directed along a landing: a door was opened; he stooped above a sink.

Finally, when he raised his head, the dizziness had gone.

He washed his face.

A towel was presented.

‘That feet better?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘You’ve not been tasting Margaret’s paste while you’ve been glueing down those pictures?’ Mrs Spencer laid her arm around his waist.

‘No,’ he said.

Behind him, on the landing, he could hear Mr Spencer say, ‘Perhaps it’s the yard. A few whiffs of that can send you rattling. We’re used to it, tha knows. He isn’t.’

They returned downstairs.

‘No doubt he’ll feel like summat to eat,’ the farmer added, surveying the table.

‘I’d better get back,’ Bryan said.

‘We’ll ask Mr Spencer to run you, there’s no hurry. You sit down,’ Mrs Spencer said. ‘Perhaps you’d like some tea now you’ve fetched things up.’

A cup was placed on the table before him.

‘I’ll be able to go on my bike,’ he said.

‘Oh, we couldn’t let you, love,’ Mrs Spencer said. ‘It’ll only take Mr Spencer ten or twelve minutes.’

It was dark by the time they left; Mr Spencer lifted his bike into the back of the car and Bryan sat in front.

Margaret, after an argument inside the house, squeezed in beside him.

‘It won’t stop you coming again?’ Mrs Spencer said, leaning in the window.

‘No,’ he said.

‘The next time should be better. It won’t be a repeat of the first.’

She waved.

The faint tremor of the car as the engine started ran through his legs; a gate was framed in the glare from the lamps. The car turned: the hump-backed bridge appeared.

Beyond, as the car increased its speed, lay the darkening fields; they passed other vehicles on the road: he glimpsed a wall, a bridge and, finally, the lighted front of the Spinney Moor Hotel.

They turned up the road; by the time he had pointed out the house Mr Spencer had driven past: he reversed the car and lifted out the bike.

A curtain moved.

His father appeared.

‘One wounded soldier,’ Mr Spencer called out.

‘He’s not had an accident?’ His father came down to the gate.

‘He’s fetched up his dinner. He’s given us a fine half hour,’ the farmer added.

Margaret, her hands clenched, gazed up at the house; his mother had appeared and called, ‘Is anything the matter?’

‘A funny tummy,’ the farmer said. ‘He’s better now. All right now?’ he added to Bryan.

Their figures were lit up by the lights from the car. Margaret, her hands still clasped, had climbed inside.

‘I’m sorry it’s turned out like this,’ his father said.

‘No bother, Arthur.’ The farmer closed the door. ‘See you tomorrow.’

‘Are you all right?’ his father asked as the red lights dipped down at the end of the road.

‘I could have cycled back,’ he said.

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘They said they’d bring me.’

‘You could see he wasn’t pleased.’ He turned to the bike. ‘Is anything up with that?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘Do you still feel sick?’ his mother said as they went inside. She added, ‘He must have something. He’s lines like charcoal under his eyes.’

He was put to bed.

He lay there several days.

On the Monday his father brought some eggs. On the Tuesday he brought a cake. On the Wednesday he brought a rabbit, skinned it, cleaned it, and made a soup.

‘I’ve never seen so many inquiries,’ he said to his mother.

The doctor came, suggested flu, changed his mind, and put it down to something Bryan had eaten.

At the weekend Margaret came.

She brought a parcel from her mother.

Sitting in the living-room, her hands on her knees, she gazed at Bryan with her eyes expanded, her brow flushed, her lips compressed. His mother, having introduced her, retreated to the scullery: Alan was out, his father still at work.

‘What do you think made you poorly?’ she said. ‘You don’t look better now,’ she added. ‘Do you think it’s your constitution?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘Perhaps you’re too nervous.’

She clasped her hands, looking at the range, at the walls, at the window. ‘You have to accept things as they are. It doesn’t have to add up to anything, does it?’

Bryan was only aware of the freshness of her figure, of the white socks turned down above the black-strap shoes, of the blue dress uniform of her school, of the brightness of her cheeks and eyes.

‘I wondered if you’d like to go to the pictures.’

‘When?’ he said.

‘Next Wednesday.’

‘Which one?’ he said.

‘The Regal.’

‘All right,’ he said.

‘I’ll pay for the ticket.’

‘It’ll be all right,’ he said.

‘My mother said I had to.’

‘I’ll pay for it,’ he said.

His mother came in and laid a cake on the table.

‘Here you are,’ she said. ‘We can’t let you go without having some tea.’

She brought in three cups; finally, when the table was set, they drew up the chairs.

The cake was cut.

‘I’ve invited Bryan to the cinema,’ Margaret said as she watched his mother pour out the tea.

‘That’ll be a treat.’ She glanced at Bryan.

‘On Wednesday. After school. Will he be able to get up to town by five o’clock?’

‘Oh, he’ll get there, I’m sure,’ his mother said. ‘What time does it finish?’

‘Seven-fifteen.’

‘He should be back before eight. His bedtime is half-past seven.’

‘As early as that?’ Margaret glanced at Bryan then back at his mother.

‘What time do you go to bed?’ his mother asked.

‘As late as ten.’

‘Ten.’ His mother rearranged her plate. ‘Why, we’re in bed ourselves before then,’ she added.

‘Oh, I suppose it’s different with us, Mrs Morley,’ Margaret said.

‘What film is it?’ his mother asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Margaret said. ‘I always go on Wednesdays.’

‘Well,’ his mother said. ‘That is a treat.’

‘I suppose,’ Margaret said when the cake was eaten, ‘I ought to be getting back. Thank you for the tea.’

‘Thank your mother for the cake,’ his mother said.

‘Good-bye,’ the girl said as she mounted her bike.

‘She’s a strange girl,’ his mother said as they watched her cycle off. At the dip in the road she turned and, seeing them still waiting, waved.

On the Wednesday he found her waiting on the marble-coloured steps outside the foyer. She wore a long, dark-blue coat and a beret to which an oval, light-blue badge was attached. Over her shoulder she carried a satchel.

‘I’ve bought the tickets,’ she said. ‘I thought, if you were late, it would save us time.’

The money was hot in his hand and as he held it out she added, ‘Don’t be absurd. You can’t afford to come to a cinema in town. I wouldn’t have invited you if I knew you’d have to pay. I’m not stupid.’

Looping her satchel over her other shoulder she disappeared into the darkness beyond the swing doors.

Bryan followed; he made out the shape of her back silhouetted against the beam of a torch: he slid into a seat.

‘Near enough?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Do you want a sweet?’

He felt a bag pushed by his arm: the paper rustled; he extracted a toffee.

‘This is the end of the film,’ she added. ‘If you don’t want to see what happens don’t look.’

All day he had thought of his ride to the town, of the walk down Southgate from the Bull Ring, of the cinema entrance, of what he should do if she wasn’t there – he’d been told to come home – of what he would see once he was inside the building, a vast, glass-fronted edifice, only recently constructed, and had wondered all day, too, sitting at his desk, if he would be in time and, finally, what the subject of the film might be.

‘Don’t look.’

He glanced beside him to see the eerily illuminated face shielded by a hand: beneath the hand he could see the masticating lips and, below the arm to which the hand was attached, he could see the knees of the light-coloured dress turned sideways in the seat and drawn towards him.

‘You’ll spoil it.’ She covered her eyes again.

A woman screamed.

Bryan gazed about him in the darkness; accustomed to the light from the screen he identified several pallid faces.

The lights came up.

The curtains on the screen were drawn together.

The few figures in the rows about them, banging back the seats, got up.

An usherette moved down the aisle: a spotlight illuminated a tray about her shoulders.

‘Do you want an ice-cream?’

‘No.’ He felt for the money in his pocket and wondered even now how he might, before he left, be able to give it to her.

‘I think I’ll get one,’ she said. ‘Are you sure?’

‘No, thanks.’

He watched her walk off between the seats; she had left her satchel beside him and now she walked with her arms outstretched, half-running down the slope of the aisle, her feet thudding on the carpet: plaits protruded from beneath her beret, a blue-checked ribbon glowing against the darkness of the coat.

Then, coming back, she peeled off the top of the carton, the wooden spoon she’d been given already in her mouth.

Everything about her actions reminded him that all this, for her, was a regular routine: she came back along the row without raising her head, collapsing with a sigh, thudding back the seat, drawing her legs beneath her.

‘Did you see the end?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘It spoils it, knowing she’ll be saved.’

‘Who?’

‘The woman.’

She licked the ice-cream from the wooden spoon. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like a taste?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘Do you want another sweet? You can keep the bag.’

She handed him the sweets; every few moments a changing display of lights passed to and fro across the curtains.

‘Adverts,’ Margaret said, finally, as the lights went down, and added, ‘Can I have another toffee?’

The street was in darkness when they emerged; a queue was standing at the door, curving off into an alleyway at the side of the building.

Margaret, having slung her satchel across one shoulder, and having arranged her beret to her satisfaction, gazed up and down the road.

A horn sounded as a car drew up against the kerb; the face of Mr Spencer stooped to the window.

‘Jump in,’ he said. ‘I’ll take you home.’

‘It’s all right,’ Bryan said. ‘I’ll go on the bus.’

‘Did you have a good time?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘We saw the end first,’ Margaret said, and opened the door.

‘That’s a waste of money,’ the farmer said, and added, ‘Sure about the lift?’ He glanced across at Bryan.

‘I know where the stop is.’

‘Cheerio, then,’ the farmer called.

Margaret nodded through the window.

‘Good-bye,’ she said as the car drew off.

Bryan walked up the road past the lighted shop windows; it was the first time he’d been in the town on his own.

Figures passed him on the pavement and, glancing back at the cinema, he saw the queue filing in.

When the bus came he sat at the front; above him loomed the driver, his face lit up by the glow from the dashboard.

Along the Town Road he saw the cluster of lights across the valley: a pale moon lit up a canopy of cloud.

The bus stopped, the engine rattled, the windows shook, then, once more, it moved into the darkness; people chatted in the seats behind: he gazed in at the house windows on either side, then into the blankness of the distant trees, and, finally, he got up and waited for the bus to stop.

The last people had gone into the Empire cinema at the bottom of Spinney Moor Avenue and the shutters were being placed on the sweet shop at the side: in the foyer the doorman in his long brown coat with gold epaulettes was walking up and down, clapping his white-gloved hands together.

Bryan ran up the avenue and, assuming it was too late to use the back door, knocked on the front.

The key turned; his mother looked out.

‘Had a good time?’

‘I didn’t have to pay,’ he said, smelling the food which had been cooked for his father’s supper.

‘Oh, you shouldn’t have let her pay,’ his mother said, coming into the living-room behind.

His brother was sitting by the fire.

‘She wouldn’t take it.’

‘You should have forced her.’

‘Aye, you should have paid,’ his father said, sitting at the table and gazing at the money as Bryan laid it out. ‘What have you spent?’

‘Bus fare.’

‘Didn’t you buy her any sweets?’

‘She already had some.’

‘If he hasn’t spent it, does that mean I can’t go?’ his brother said. He had already negotiated his own visit at the end of the week.

‘You’ll have to get somebody to invite you,’ his father said. ‘We can’t afford these jaunts into town.’ He laid his hand over the money and drew it to him.

‘That’s mine,’ his mother said, grasping his arm. She took the money and, having counted it, put it in her purse and placed the purse in the sideboard drawer.

‘Did Spencer pick Margaret up?’ his father asked.

‘He offered me a lift,’ he said.

‘You should have taken it.’

‘He’s taken enough from them already,’ his mother said. ‘Now, off to bed the two of you.’

‘Does it mean I can’t go?’ his brother asked again.

‘We shall have to see.’

‘He always has the best of everything,’ Alan said.

‘We didn’t arrange it,’ his mother said.

‘It always comes out that way.’ His brother disappeared to the stairs: his feet pounded on the landing.

‘I don’t suppose it’ll happen too often,’ his father said.

‘No,’ his mother said.

‘Once in a blue moon,’ his father said. ‘I reckon it’s their way for saying sorry about Sunday.’ To Bryan he added, ‘Best not to encourage her. We can’t keep up with people like that.’

‘Oh, he’ll be all right.’ His mother gazed at Bryan who, frowning in the light, had turned to the stairs. ‘We don’t want to discourage her,’ she added. ‘It’s just that we can’t keep up,’ she continued, ‘if we haven’t the money.’

He could still hear her voice when he got upstairs, and when he went in the bedroom his brother’s voice came muffled from the bed. ‘You always get the best.’

‘I didn’t ask to go,’ he said.

‘It always turns out that way.’ His voice was low; only moments before, Bryan thought, he might have been crying. ‘What was the picture like?’ he added.

‘All right,’ he said.

He got into bed and lay on his back.

The interior of the cinema returned – the star-shaped lights, the glow from the screen, the concavity of the ceiling – and the image of the girl, the movement of her arm, the curve of her legs as she tucked them up beside him.