A Man of his Time. Alan Sillitoe

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СКАЧАТЬ ‘Dad killed you, poor little thing. I’d like one of these for a cat!’

      ‘Stop your blawting.’ He rolled a cigarette, and descended into the cool pantry to tie the two back legs with a piece of twine, and put a pan under its head to catch blood. He took a slab of smoked bacon from its hook, and a large round loaf out of the panchion, and laid them on the kitchen table. ‘Mary Ann, cut me something to eat.’

      By afternoon the hay field was flat and sweet-smelling, men and horses gone, crows daggering their beaks among the stalks. He scythed around the edges not reached by the combine harvester. The girls would husk and boil it in the outhouse copper, to mix with whatever else there was for the pigs.

      He advanced with a wide swing of the arms through each uneven path. Nothing escaped the gleaning blade sharpened with a stick of carborundum to as fine an edge as the razor he shaved with. From a gap in the hedge Emily watched the stern reaper she had always known him to be in her dreams, till she could bear the spectacle no longer and stood behind the nearest bush to hide.

      Florence opened the gate and crossed a corner of the field. He worked rhythmically, as if never to stop, forward to the privet then back to sweep what had not been in his track, thoughtless endeavour fuelled by the slow advance of his feet till the job was done. He noted her parasol, light gloves, and anxious smile. ‘What are you doing, so far out of your way?’

      ‘I get fed up being in that pub all day. They let me out for a walk.’

      He laid down the scythe. ‘That was good of them.’

      ‘One of the customers said Farmer Taylor was haymaking so I thought I might see you.’

      ‘I’m glad you did.’

      She smelled his sweat, and he took in the scent of fresh lavender when she came into his arms. ‘Careful what you do,’ he said. ‘There might be somebody about.’

      She stood away. ‘I love you.’

      There was no answer to that. His look would tell any fine woman that he wanted her, and if they fell in with it, as they sometimes did, they must know what they were doing. If they didn’t, and as time went on there was something about it they didn’t like, it was nothing to do with him. ‘Go across the Cherry Orchard, and I’ll see you by Robin’s Wood. Take the back lane.’

      ‘Don’t be long, my love. I haven’t got much time.’

      You won’t need it, he thought, the way I feel. Emily on the other side of the hedge picked at a cornflower as Burton strode to the house. ‘There’s some wheat to collect around the field,’ he told Mary Ann. ‘Get the girls to husk it. They know what to do.’

      ‘I’ll do it myself, as soon as I’ve cleaned these pans.’

      ‘Don’t leave it too long, in case there’s rain. What did Taylor give you for cooking the men’s dinner?’

      ‘Half-a-crown.’

      ‘He’s a mean sort.’

      ‘He paid for the bacon and bread.’

      ‘So he should. I’m going back into the field for a bit.’

      ‘Is Emily out there?’

      ‘Not as I know.’

      ‘That’s where she said she’d be. Tell her to come in. I don’t want her wandering near the railway line.’

      ‘I’ll see she don’t.’

      In the garden he pushed her towards the house. ‘Your mother wants you.’

      He followed the concealed way by the far edge of the cornfield, along a track overgrown with nettles and brambles, but in spring a bridle lane of Queen Anne’s Lace. At the uneven expanse of the Cherry Orchard he wondered whether cherries had ever grown there, but didn’t know, for it was now a large patch of scrubland, too open for what he had in mind, hoping not to be seen, taking care to cross only a corner. You were never alone, and he wished for the shotgun to frighten away the birds he felt were watching him.

      Avoiding the worst humps and hollows, the features of Minnie Dyslin came to mind from so many years ago. How many, he didn’t care to reckon, but he’d been twenty-one and in his heyday, yet at forty-eight he didn’t feel much older than when Minnie told him she was having his child. He wondered what the boy was doing and what he looked like. At twenty-five he would be older than Oliver, and Minnie more than fifty. He didn’t know why he should think of her after so many years.

      Florence was just inside the wood, because she didn’t want to be seen either. He pointed to the parasol. ‘Fold that thing up.’

      She followed. ‘Perhaps there are children about.’

      ‘There aren’t. I’d have heard them. Or seen them. We’ll be all right.’ Through the glade a streamlet flowed. As a boy he had filled his belly with its clear water. He helped her across, preventing the branches of a bush from springing in her face. In a space of greensward he drew her close for a kiss. ‘Here’s a place.’ When this way with his gun, out for plump wood pigeons or collared doves, he had imagined leading a woman to it. ‘Only the birds will see us.’

      She clasped him. ‘I don’t know why I keep on seeing you.’

      ‘If you don’t, I don’t. Why should you know?’

      ‘I love you,’ she said. ‘That’s the trouble.’

      ‘You have to know what you want, and if you get it, then there isn’t any trouble.’

      ‘I had to see you.’

      ‘I’m glad you did. Let’s lie here.’

      ‘There’s no one else in my life.’

      A poor life, if she believed so. No one was in her life except her husband, and no one in his but Mary Ann. That’s the way of the world. Why he was here he didn’t know and didn’t want to know, you just did what you could when you had the chance, and all he knew was that he wanted to, and had no option but to go into her, and hope she wouldn’t make such a noise as the last time she spent, when they were behind the public house after closing time, and before that when they were upstairs in one of the rooms.

      He closed the door carefully. Mary Ann, who had long since lit the lamp, sat by the fire, a sheet of clean sacking over her knees, clippings of various colours but of the same shape on the floor, to be fitted into any pattern that took her fancy. ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’

      He held a bunch of watercress. ‘I found this in the wood. Wash it. It can go with my supper.’

      ‘What were you doing in the wood?’

      The black dog was a bit too comfortable before the fire, so he held it around the mouth with his strongest hand, till the animal struggled as if in a fit, its helpless whine filling the room.

      ‘Leave the poor thing alone.’

      He let it go, a hard slap at its ribs. ‘Where is everybody?’

      ‘In bed, except Oliver.’

      He СКАЧАТЬ