A Man of his Time

‘I must be going.’ Sleet blew against his cap. ‘You’d better put your umbrella up. I don’t want you getting your death of cold.’

The picture card was of Nottingham Castle. ‘Must be from a woman,’ George said, before Ernest could snatch it away. ‘I can almost smell the perfume.’

He wondered who had sent it. His parents had no cause to write. They’d have to get someone to do it for them. Leah the shunter’s wife had no call on him, either. She might be able to write but didn’t know where he was. Hard to think who it could be, people had no right to pester him, till the thought shot to mind that it could only be from Mary Ann.

Outside the post office George read his letter from Sarah. ‘She wants me to come home.’

‘Shall you go?’

‘I’ve been thinking about packing it in down here.’

‘It’ll be soon enough for me.’ He wants to see Sarah, Ernest assumed, and give her another child, providing she was still up to it. He put the postcard into his pocket, went on with his walk and forgot about it sufficiently to stop George’s curiosity by saying: ‘I’ve got my life. You’ve got yours. They’re nothing to do with each other.’

He bought a quart of ale, and before going in for supper went to see Owen-the-Bible, whom he had grown to respect if not like. Two months ago Owen had written a ha’penny postcard to Mary Ann showing a Welsh woman in a tall hat, the briefest of missives but in the finest Board School copperplate which Ernest hoped she would think was his.

Owen sat at the table, a plate of bread and cheese and half an onion before him. ‘Now here’s the tall stranger again. You must be wanting something of me.’

Ernest set the bottle by his knife. ‘Drink some of this first.’

Talk cost breath, due to work in the mine which did nobody any good. ‘Is it poison?’

‘No. It would cost more than ale. But you need a brew like this for the dry stuff you’re eating.’

Upending the spout, Owen downed a third, and Ernest showed the postcard. ‘Read me this,’ ready to use a fist should he damage it. ‘All right, take another drop, then read it.’

Owen drank to make his breathing easier. He looked at the picture and turned it over. ‘Do you know that when I go to sleep I don’t close my eyes.’

‘How do you know, if you’re asleep?’

He finished the beer before replying. ‘The others tell me. I sleep as deep as any man, but my eyes stay wide open. All night. What do you think of that, then?’

‘Very rum,’ Ernest conceded. ‘Now read that card.’

Owen’s knife shivered into the table, and stayed upright. ‘It’s excellent Welsh bitter you’ve brought me.’

‘Make as it’s your birthday.’

‘I don’t know when that is. My mother never told me, though I did ask her often enough. But I’m feeling happy from your drink, so this is what the card says. The handwriting is small, but very clear: “Thank you for your postcard. I’m glad you are getting on all right. I am, as well. People ask about you, and now I can tell them. We wonder when you are coming back. A lot of people would like to see you. Mary Ann.” She’s even put the commas right.’

Ernest told himself how pleasing he found Owen’s singsong voice, and knew that in many ways he would regret leaving an area whose people had been so honest and straight.

Minnie passed a cloth package. ‘It’s food for your journey. My sister and I put it together.’

Taking the bundle, he leaned over the wall to see the baby; felt as if leaving home again. ‘He looks healthy,’ noting that the closed eyes gave a stern expression, the features more his than Minnie’s. ‘Pretty, too. What did you christen him?’

‘David Ernest. Does that make you satisfied?’

‘It’ll have to.’ Minute fingers uncurled from the swaddling, reached for him, eyes open to look. ‘What a blue-eyed beauty. He smiled at me.’

‘He has a human soul,’ she said, ‘and a fine name from the Bible. My brother-in-law says he will sing the psalms of King David.’

The pang of wanting to stay with him forever came and went. ‘He’s a marvel.’

‘I’m happy. My life changed after meeting you.’

He was glad for her, though couldn’t say the same for himself. To see a child of his own was miraculous enough, but happiness was for those who didn’t know themselves, and who would be one of them?

A tear came onto her cheek, and he passed a white handkerchief freshly laundered by Mrs Jones. When she had wiped it away, and other tears threatened, he told her to keep it, all he had for her to remember him by. She tucked it into the baby’s clothes. ‘I have everything I want. I’m settled and content. My sister and brother-in-law adore him.’

David’s fingers curled strongly around one of his. ‘I’m sorry to go. And I shall always love you.’

‘We mustn’t linger. People will comment. So go now.’

‘I shan’t forget you both. When I come back I’ll see you and the baby again.’

‘You won’t come back.’ Then she was gone, and he went with a heaviness he didn’t know how to understand, but was more than glad to feel.

‘More pints go into your trap,’ George said, after they had changed trains in Worcester, ‘than words come out. Something in Wales must have struck you dumber than usual. I can’t get a word out of you.’

‘Nor will you.’ George was wrong if he thought anything was worrying him. On the other hand he was right, because the vision of Minnie and David stayed in his mind. Even thinking of Mary Ann wouldn’t drive it away, though the more he thought of her the more vivid her face became, and the more he knew he would have to marry her, settle down and have a family, no woman more suitable, unless somebody had made off with her during his time in Wales.

‘You ought to have been a deaf mute instead of a blacksmith.’ George arranged his tranklements for the third time on the rack. ‘I can just see you with a coffin on your back.’

Ernest took out his clasp knife. ‘You can kiss my backside. Just shut up.’ Opening the cloth bag Minnie had given him, he found a compact meat and potatoe pie, a lump of cheese, an onion, and a loaf of bread.

‘Who made that up for you?’ George asked in wonder.

He cut the pie neatly, and passed the other half across. ‘Put it in your mouth, and don’t ask any more questions.’

FOUR (#ulink_c043e866-9ca0-5168-bfb2-f3fdd8c61cc8)

Young Burton was back – a year away, but time had altered him. Watch and chain looped across his waistcoat with a sovereign attached; a nick of white handkerchief in the lapel pocket like the wingtip of a bird attempting to hide there. Crossing the road so as not to tread in dog or horse droppings, he was aware of looking his best – a flick at the red rose snapped from a bush in the garden. The May evening was warm, but cap and waistcoat were part of his renown as a neat and formal dresser. He would have smiled to know that never again in his life would he appear in more impressive aspect – while in no way believing it.

Saturday night in the taproom was the busiest night of the week, an ant heap turned upside-down in the clamour for pots and jars, so he couldn’t get close enough to Mary Ann and put the question. Back straight and head high, he overlooked everyone in the bar, and saw what he wanted to see. The whiff of home ale dominating the odour of gaslights made it seem as if supping a different brew all last year had been a dream.

Fred the barman drew his tankard, Mary Ann busy at the far end pulling the smooth white-handled pumps with her lovely young arms. Nakedness through the shirt came with a clarity that made his peg stir, and her smile in his direction gave no need to wonder who it was for.

You couldn’t ask a woman to marry you among so much riffraff, so he enjoyed slaking a thirst for home ale built up during the time in Wales, knowing it better to put the question at dinnertime, in the middle of the day, when less people would be around to nudge your elbow and drown private business with their clatter.

A question that had to wait wouldn’t spoil any the less for that, and while he was nodding to those who knew him, or thought they did, or passing a few words with those he considered had a right to acknowledgement, he stayed by the bar to observe Mary Ann at a distance, satisfied by glances which he thought buttered by a smile. He disliked the notion of being back at his father’s forge on Monday and lucky to see sixteen shillings a week counted out of the leather bag for his labour, but it would have to do till something better was found.

In the morning Mary Ann would be chaperoned to church by Mrs Lewin, and if he went he could glimpse her and maybe flash a wink during the sermon or between hymns, but he’d prefer to fry in hell than enter such a place, though when he and Mary Ann were married it would be a forceput, because there was no other way of getting such a woman into bed for life.

She wouldn’t go to church after they were married because there’d be too much caring for him and bringing up a family, such a responsibility on his part as well that he called dilatory Eli for another pint, his last of the evening since he was watching the coins he would surely need for the time when every bun cost tuppence, and a bit more than that with a lot of little buns running about on two legs.

Tomorrow he would work in the garden to please his father, but in any case he liked attending to the rows of beans and peas and potatoes while the church bells rang, knowing he would never jump to their musical summons and join in the prayers and hear the parson spout about what could have nothing to do with him. His mother went once a month but what could you expect from a woman, though there were plenty of men there as well, hypocrites to the bone.

Outside it was almost dark, the windows a protective sheen through which nothing could be seen. If he was to be up at five he would need sleep, though garden work or not he left his bed at that hour every day, always had and always would, not like those who said they couldn’t do without a lie-in on Sunday, not realizing that you would get sleep enough in the cosy box of the grave when the time came, and that if you craved it while still alive you were already more than halfway there.