Chapter 5

On Friday morning I realized that I’d made no plans at all, no arrangements with anybody, that the rest of my life was mine to do with entirely as I pleased; and it was like floating in space, forlorn. My only attachment to the world was Cathie’s note to lend her my book, but after the fiasco the morning before I didn’t want to get there before about half past seven in the evening. I thought that in the present circustances I’d better let Mike seek me out – I knew he would, sooner or later – rather than push myself on him; and I could see the present situation lasting quite a while. So it was obviously time to find myself some new niches.

I thought around my acquaintances, which of them I’d like to go and see. The crowd that shared the house in Anglesey Terrace, over in Shipton: Tony, Steve and Angie. I thought they’d get on my nerves. Pleasant enough, but empty-headed, and so serious about everything. Funny, how I lump them together. They must all be different, but they all seem the same to me. I wonder what they think of each other? Maybe each of them secretly thinks the other two are empty-headed and over-serious but plays the game just to keep the peace. I found the idea hilarious, and wanted to share the joke. But it would have to wait until I saw Mike. I didn’t know anyone else well enough to be sure how they’d take it, or what they thought of the people in question; and it could scarcely be told without the bona fide characters. God, if it’s true, what a terrible vicious circle to be stuck in.

Actually, it’s not even true. Tony might be a bit of a bore, but he’s not empty-headed. Even if he does take himself a bit too seriously.

Chris. I didn’t really know her much; she hadn’t been around very long. Seemed to be an intelligent lass, very self-possessed and independent. I wasn’t sure whether maybe she had a job – I couldn’t imagine why else she’d come to Burnfield – but if so, it certainly wasn’t nine-to-five; I’d seen her at all sorts of odd places and times. Nearly always on her own. I couldn’t really imagine getting very friendly with her – I couldn’t imagine anyone getting very friendly with her – but I had a feeling she’d be a good person to be on good terms with. And I had an opening gambit: I wanted to look at a library ticket, and I knew she’d got one. I also had the feeling she’d understand my reason for wanting to look.

But I didn’t know her exact address, only that she lived somewhere up behind the station; and I couldn’t think who would know her address.

Charlie and Linda. Hadn’t seen them for ages. Somehow they were a very exclusive couple, seemed to spend all their time together and not have much time for anyone else. Not having bumped into them in town for ages, I wondered if maybe they’d left Burnfield. The idea of going round and seeing if they were still there somehow didn’t inspire me.

Terry and Dave. Couples again. A bit less exclusive, more inclined to involve one; but in the last few months I’d spent most of my time with Mike and Jill and June, and when I’d last seen Terry she’d almost snubbed me. I’d thought maybe they thought I’d deserted them, and perhaps I had. For livelier company. Interminable games of Monopoly, Scrabble or cards didn’t inspire me much either.

And then all my old mates from Ripley’s. Great folks to work with, nice to bump into in a pub or the street every now and then, but somehow not people to go visiting. Such a different perspective on life I’d almost nothing to talk to them about, except old times at work. And most of them seemed to have found jobs again somehow, or joined the Armed Forces, and wouldn’t be around during the day on a Friday.

I realized what a poor selection I’d got, or it seemed poor to me at the time. I wondered whether I was being arrogant having such a poor opinion of most of my friends, and then wondered what sort of opinion they had of me. It probably wasn’t any better. Bookish and stand-offish.

By the time I’d come to no conclusion at all about who to visit, or even whether to visit anyone, I’d quite automatically had my breakfast, performed my ablutions and dressed. But then my routine expired, and I still had the day to fill.

I wondered about trying to get to know some completely new people, and then wondered how to do that. Somehow that’s something that just seems to happen from time to time. One changes one’s haunts for some totally different reason, or someone moves into one’s haunts from outside. It didn’t seem to be possible to change my haunts specifically to look for new people, there had to be some other reason, or I’d notice the feeling of being an outsider, and get put off before I’d become accepted. Or perhaps if one goes somewhere simply to look for people, the obvious loneliness and aimlessness itself makes one unattractive.

I could feel another depression beginning, so I picked up the SF I hadn’t read yet, and Geothermal Energy, and set off, just anywhere. At the end of the terrace, I realized I didn’t know whether I’d be back at the flat before going to the Britannia in the evening, so I went back for the book for Cathie. That’s the third time in three days. Losing my marbles. Or maybe I was always like this.

I walked up Rose Lane, over the old cutting, through the stile and up the path to the top of Rose Hill, and sat down on the big old stump in the middle of the little group of trees on the top. The wind was less than it had been in the last few days, but it was still chilly up there. There were a few clouds, but it looked likely to remain dry all day.

I stayed up there for a couple of hours, reading desultorily and gazing out over Burnfield. I could see the little cemetery above Raikeley, but the village itself was hidden behind South Hill, not much lower than where I was. On each side of South Hill the canal curved into view, and then disappeared into the industrial estate just south of Burnfield in one direction, and behind the shoulder of land overlooking the paper mill in the other. I could see the quarry, much nearer, with machinery moving in it, and the old line running in a long curve along the edge of it. I was almost in line with the embankment and the viaduct, and the track bed just seemed to set off into space across the narrow valley, a straight, horizontal line independent of the ground contours. Then, much further away still, the ground rose up behind it, still heading straight away from me in its heather-lined cutting. But it curved out of sight at the last moment, and I couldn’t see the tunnel mouth. I wondered whether the tunnel was bricked up, or whether one could walk through it; I’d never been there.

Burnfield itself was mainly roofs. International House and the tower blocks on Pasture Road stood up like obelisks. The new road climbed out of the valley beyond Shipton on its monstrous embankment, hill-sized but bowling-green smooth, and then disappeared into a cutting of similar magnitude and featurelessness beyond the station.

I’d not been up early, but having read till so late the previous evening, I still felt very tired, and in the middle of the afternoon I went back to the flat for a siesta. There wasn’t any mail. Timothy was just going out as I arrived. He nodded at me silently, and I wished him a good afternoon, but he didn’t reply. No telling where he was going, or what he was going to do. How he filled his time was always a mystery to me.

After dozing on the sofa for a while, I decided that maybe a couple of games of something wouldn’t be so bad, that I could do with some company, whoever’s it might be, and that anyway maybe Terry and Dave might have some new friends it might be worth meeting. And that it wouldn’t be an unreasonable route to their place to go through the maze of old streets behind the station, and maybe bump into Chris.

In the fields above the tunnel mouth, some workmen were installing a barbed-wire entanglement between the old fence and a new one right on the edge of the masonry. I asked one of them what was going on.

‘Electrifying the line. They care more about young hoodlums than they do about train drivers. Some ruffian hangs a brick on a wire in front of a train, kills the driver, that’s just one of those things. Now he might kill himself, that’s something else altogether.’

I nearly began to argue that more innocent trespassers might be put at risk by the wires, and that in the past the amount of money needed to screen every bridge on the railway might have saved more lives spent elsewhere, while the only lives in question were one or two drivers a year, who anyway knew that risk as one small one among many when they took the job. But I decided that it was probably an emotional issue among railwaymen, that he undoubtedly knew more about the statistics than I did; and while my idea might well be right, I could scarcely expect to convince the man and there was no point in having a row. Instead I asked him how often drivers were killed that way, what the voltage of the lines was, and if it was switched on all the time or only when a train was due.

‘You don’t half ask a lot of questions! The voltage is twenty-five thousand, but I don’t know the answer to the others. A driver was put in hospital at Marsden a couple of weeks ago though.’

‘Where’s Marsden?’

‘Just west of Huddersfield. Watch out for that roll of wire!’

I didn’t bump into Chris, and Terry and Dave were out. I was beginning to get cold, but it wasn’t time to go to the Britannia yet. I thought that maybe Smith’s would be a good place to go for a while, look at some books, get warm. I didn’t have to worry about the temptation to buy them any more: any I fancied, I’d ask for at the library. But I didn’t want to go to the library for a day or two yet.

I bought a pen and a notebook in Smith’s to write down titles; I’d sorted out my reading for months. Every time I looked up, there was a well-dressed man reading somewhere in the same aisle as me; it eventually registered that he was the store detective, and that he thought I was intending to steal something. His professional appearance and his aimless behaviour didn’t match at all. I almost laughed at his transparency: if it was so obvious to me, anyone to whom it mattered would have spotted him straight away; but I stopped myself in time. And then I thought that it would have been fine to laugh anyway, but I couldn’t laugh to order; it would have sounded false.

Then Smith’s shut and I was out on the street again. I wandered aimlessly for a bit, beginning to feel hungry but not wanting to go to the Britannia just yet, and wanting to eat there rather than anywhere else. In the end I compromised and went into Katie’s for a cup of tea and a bit of apple pie, and sat there for a while reading. I lost track of time rather and it was half past eight before I eventually made it to the Britannia. Cathie was serving, but there were quite a few people in the café.

‘Hello love. Just a tea, is it?’

‘No, I’ll have sausage and beans, love, please. And a bit of bread. And a tea, of course.’

‘That’s four eighty please. How are you, anyway?’

‘Not so bad. I owe you for a tea and a bit of cake the other day, you know.’

‘Really? Forget it then. Here’s your tea. I’ll bring your meal when it’s ready.’

‘Thanks. I’ve brought that book.’

‘Oh – thanks. I’d forgotten about that.’

Funny, how a casual remark quite obviously without any hidden meaning can sting. But she took the book anyway, and after she’d brought me my meal she sat down behind the counter and was reading it. The café remained quite busy all the remainder of the evening, though, and while I read quite a lot, Cathie can’t have read very much, and there certainly wasn’t any opportunity for us to chat. But we exchanged smiles and glances from time to time, and I felt a comradely warmth from her; and I didn’t have the self-consciousness of the previous occasion. But the place was still quite full at ten o’clock, so I decided not to stay and bump into Mr Jordan.

‘See you.’

‘See you love.’

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