“England
This syphilitic isle
This seat of majesty
This lump of excrement.”
“As long as you don’t include Nottingham in that,” Brian said. “You haughty bastard.”
“Patriotism,” Baker sneered.
“If you think I’m patriotic,” Brian said, “you’ve got another thought coming. I’m hungry. Let’s go down and see if we can’t snatch summat to eat.”
CHAPTER 28
His mother had written to let Brian know that Merton’s collection of prize horseshoes was to be divided among the family, and that she had put one by for when he came back. “You can nail it up on your door as soon as you and Pauline get a council house,” she added. The horseshoe again set him thinking of the picture in his grandmother’s parlour, of the girl holding a bunch of flowers and saying to the youth by her side: “If you love me as I love you, nothing can ever part us two”—which, pleasurably brooding on his living with Pauline, was how he felt about her. On the last day of his embarkation leave they had walked beyond Strelley Church, lingered between Cossal and Kimberley, wherein one part of the earth had been ripped open, and the humps and hollows they had often made love in while courting were scraped to the grey bones of a lunar landscape. To the left of undiscovered coal was a grey-pencilled wood surrounded by black upturned soil, and scattered beyond, a patrol of trees silhouetted their branches like half-opened fans. From behind came the thud of engines and the sigh of slave-driven cranes, while at their feet were dark up-ended rows of rich loam, heavy and wet, yet light on some crests where the loam had dried in the wind, miniature mountain-ranges still flecked with snow, a whiteness reminding him, in the clear cool air, of the milk of babies — and the fact that they had to walk back home so that Pauline could feed Bernard.
He shivered to think of it, and as the last notes of an unnecessary message from Saigon died away, he thought of the death of his grandfather. He heard about it from his mother and aunts, how Merton one morning took a stick and walked past the Cherry Orchard to see whether there was still anything left of the wheatfield and Serpent Wood. It was an uncertain spring, clouds hurriedly dividing the empire of the sky after a fine start to the morning, a biting wind worrying grass and hedge-leaves already clumsy with rain that had pelted down in the night. The hollow tree in which Brian had often played now lay across a ditch, with branches scattered around, to be collected as firewood by kids from nearby prefabs. The navvies had been laid off because of bad weather, and the trackway of a projected road was deserted, odd planks to one side seesawing over cement bags, heaps of rammel pointing to grey sky. Even in such weather, it was good to walk and smell fresh wind that had come over the fields from Trowel and Bramcote — though these deserted trenches and half-built houses made the land look a battlefield up for GOC’s inspection: a wilderness. By the wood a fine rain began spitting on the leaves, so with a snort of contempt he turned back, walking along puddle-holed footpaths as fresh gusts rammed the bare trees, easing up only to let down heavier drops of rain. “Didn’t expect this bleddy lot,” he muttered, stooping as he walked, coat collar pulled up, though his shoulders and legs were already wet.
He stamped into the house, was enveloped in a comforting and familiar smell of steam pudding and sausages bursting their skins in the oven pan. “Where yer bin?” Mary cried, seeing his hair and face soaked. “You’ll get yer death o’ code, going out in such weather.” She poked at the coal-fire: “Come on, get out o’ them trousers and ’ave a warm.”
He hung his jacket by the door and loosened his braces: “Don’t bloody-well fuss. I only went to see the new road they’re pushing through. I wun’t a gone if I’d a known it’d a pissed like this.” He stripped to his vest and rubbed head and arms vigorously. “I’ll get yer a cup o’ tea wi’ a drop o’ whisky in it,” she said. “That’ll set you up, if I know yer.”
After dinner he went to bed and slept till tea-time; but came down feeling heavy and still anchored to an unfamiliar exhaustion.
“Gorrout tasty?” he asked from the fire, sneezing into his great spotted handkerchief. He ate chicken legs and broth, but stayed listless well into the evening.
“I don’t know,” she said. “You shun’t a gone out in that rain.” Lydia was home for tea: “Let me get you some Aspros, dad. It wain’t tek a minute, from Warrener’s.”
“Shut your rattle,” he said to them, and trod his way slowly up the creaking stairs to bed.
“He’s a nasty-tempered owd bogger,” Lydia said. “I don’t think anybody in this house has ever had a civil word from him.”
“And no more you bleddy-well will, either,” Merton said, suddenly back for his boots. “If yer’ve got owt to say, you want to tell it to my face.” He stood tall and erect by the mantelshelf, his face swarthy and well-lined, his head a bristle of white hairs. “People are only trying to be good to you,” Lydia spoke out, knowing herself to be in the right.
“I’ll bring you a drink up soon,” Mary said, “and some Aspros.”
“Ah, all right then,” he said, and went up. Sleep didn’t come easily. He tossed and sweated and grumbled all night and in the morning, when he couldn’t get out of bed, felt angry and ashamed, unable to remember when he had last been pinned there by illness. Years ago, as a girl, Vera remembered him sleeping awkwardly on two chairs before the fire when he was ill, so uncomfortable that the minute he was able to get up he would do so, stagger out to feed the pigs or get in some coal, breaking himself back into life. Illness was cowardice and weakness, and no man ever let it drive him to bed if he had any guts about him. But here he was gutless and without strength, and grieving that everyone witnessed it. When Mary said she thought he should have a doctor, his answer was: “What do I want a bleddy doctor for?”
“Because you aren’t well. You know you’re not.”
He leaned up: “If you bring a doctor up them stairs, I’ll chuck ’im out o’ that winder if it takes all my strength.” George came back from work at the cycle factory: “What’s all this then, dad? Don’t you think it’s about time you got better?” Merton thought so. “We’ll get a doctor to you then,” George said. “Do as you bleddy-well like,” Merton grunted, pulled back into sleep.