Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Alan Sillitoe

more gently than before. It did not seem right that a woman should worry overmuch. He wanted all her troubles for himself at that moment. It was easy. He had only to take them and, having no use for them, throw them away.

      ‘What did he say?’

      ‘That he might be down later.’ She spoke with her warm breath against his mouth.

      ‘He allus says that, but he never comes. Besides, he’s on nights, ain’t he?’

      ‘Yes.’ She would not have felt safe had he been ten thousand miles away. It’s only natural though, he thought, putting both arms around her and kissing her tenderly on the mouth.

      ‘Don’t worry, duck, he wain’t come. You’ll be all right wi’ me.’ He pulled up her coat collar and fastened the scarf properly around her neck, then lit two cigarettes, placing one between her lips. They walked up the dark quiet tree-lined lane on their way to the club building. He told her how long he stood there before she came, making a joke of it, saying it was like waiting for a football match to start on the wrong day, saying many wild things to make her laugh. There was a wood on one side of the lane, and after more jokes and kisses, they went into it through a gap in the hedge.

      Arthur prided himself on knowing the wood like the back of his hand. There was a lake in the middle where he used to swim when young. A sawmill on the wood’s flank was set like the camp of an invader that ate slowly into it, though a jungle of trees still remained, that could be put to good use by Arthur on such nights as these.

      He knew he was hurting her, squeezing her wrist as he led her deeper into the wood, but it did not occur to him to relax his hold. Trees and bushes crowding around in the darkness made him melancholy. One minute he thought he was holding her wrist so tightly because he was in a hurry to find a good dry place; then he felt it was because there was something about her and the whole situation that made him want to hurt her, something to do with the way she was deceiving Jack. Even though he, now leading her to a spot that suddenly came into his mind, would soon be enjoying it, he thought: ‘Women are all the same. If they do it to their husbands they would do it to you if you gave them half the chance.’ He trod on a twig that sent a cracking sound circling the osier-lined indistinct banks of dark water below. Brenda gasped as some bush-leaves swept by her face; he had not bothered to warn her.

      The ground was hard and dry. They walked over a hump clear of bushes, the roof of a concealed tunnel burrowed into the earth and strengthened with pit-props, an air-raid shelter for the sawmill men during the war. He now held her hand lightly as she walked behind, considerate and tender again, telling her when to avoid a bush, or a tree-root sticking out of the ground.

      There were no more paths in the wood than the clear and definite lines on Arthur’s palms, and he easily found the dry and enclosed place he had in mind. He took off his overcoat and laid it on the ground. ‘We’s’ll be comfortable ‘ere,’ he said softly.

      Brenda spoke, the first time since entering the wood: ‘Won’t you be cold?’

      Hearing her so solicitous, he could hardly wait for what was to come. He laughed out loud. ‘No fear. This is nothing to what we had to put up with in the army. And I hadn’t got you with me then to keep me warm, duck!’

      She put her arms around him, and allowed him to unbutton her coat. He smelled again the smell of a woman whose excitement at doing something she considered not quite right was but one step from the hasty abandonment of making love. He felt the hardness of the imitation pearl brooch against her blouse, and then the buttons themselves, and they lay down on the spot where he had carefully placed his overcoat. They forgot the cold soil and towering trees, and lost themselves in a warm passion in the comfortable silence of a wood at night, that smelled of primeval vegetation, a wood wherein no one could discover your secrets, or kill the delight that a man and a woman generate between them on an overcoat in the darkness.

      Back on the lane it needed a few hundred yards to reach the club-house, through a tunnel of bent-over trees with the lights of paradise at the other end. Brenda took his arm, and they joked, talked, smoked cigarettes, felt lovable and agreeable towards each other, as though a great deal of care had been lifted from them.

      But Arthur’s gaiety lapsed by the tennis courts, and both became sad, as if they had taken on a happiness that could not be sustained. Brenda walked with head slightly bent, starting when she stepped on a patch of ice. Arthur thought again about Jack, this time with a feeling of irritation that he should be so weak as to allow his wife to go off with other men. It was funny how often you felt guilty at taking weak men’s wives: with the strong men’s you have too much to fear, he reasoned.

      Did Jack know? he wondered. Of course he did. Of course he did not. Yet if he doesn’t know by now he will never know. He must know: no man is that batchy. He must have been told. Arthur had no positive reason for thinking that he knew, yet relied on the accuracy of his total ‘weighings-up’ from meetings with Jack and the reports of Brenda. But you could never be sure. Not that it would matter either way, as long as Jack didn’t object to it. There wasn’t much he could do about it: he would never make a divorce. It would cost too much, one way or another. And no woman is worth making a divorce over.

      He felt that Jack might be trying to find out for sure what was going on, and that perhaps he might already be at the club waiting for Brenda to arrive. The idea grew stronger, surfaced like a definite warning to his lips. Near the last turn of the hedge he said: ‘Look, duck, I’m just going on in front to see if Jack’s at the club. He won’t be there, I suppose, but I’m going to make sure, so wait for me. I won’t be long.’

      She did not argue, but stayed behind, smoking a cigarette he had lit for her. He walked along the gravel drive and in through the gates. He stood by the bottom step, tall enough to look in the windows, trying to see as far as the bar, glad at his good luck that he could see everybody inside, while they could not see him standing there in the darkness. Jack sat by the far window — looking straight at him, as a matter of fact — alone at a table, his hand resting by a half-finished pint. Arthur watched him, feeling a sudden deep interest that would not let him move. He saw a man walk up to Jack, pat him on the back, say something to him in true matey style, and walk away again. Jack shrugged his shoulders, and picked up the glass in a desultory fashion to finish his pint.

      So the bastard had really come at last! Arthur was unable to move. Surprise and curiosity fastened him to the hard soil, his eyes a camera that slowly fitted the picture into his brain. Then he remembered Brenda waiting for him down the lane, and with a sudden movement turned and walked away, feeling sprightly and happy as his blood raced once more and his shoes crunched on the gravel, as if he were just coming away from a long and satisfying pint.

      He found her where he had left her, standing like a shadow among the other shadows of the hedge. He would not have seen her in fact had she not moved slightly to indicate that she was there. He was so happy he would have walked right back to the main road without knowing what he was doing. He turned towards the hedge in a half-circle, as though he was a vehicle being steered by another person.

      ‘I was freezing,’ she said, half morosely, half regretfully, as though she had been blaming him for it and was now sorry. He told her to start walking with him along the lane, back towards the bus stop. ‘Why?’ she wanted to know.

      ‘Because Jack’s in the club.’

      She didn’t seem surprised. ‘Did he see you?’

      ‘Not me,’ he said. She asked what they would do now. ‘You’re going home,’ he said firmly. ‘It’s the best thing to do. I’ll put you on the bus, then go back myself to the club for a drink or two, just to show my face.’

      ‘What if Jack asks where I went tonight?’

      ‘Say you went to your sister’s for an hour, that you had a headache and didn’t feel like going to the club.’

      It was simple and explicit, because he had not thought about it. If he gave things too much thought they did not turn out so well. She understood, and they kissed good night near the end of the lane. She was warm again after the quick walk from the club. ‘I’m sorry it