A Man of his Time. Alan Sillitoe

      ‘Shall you go and get them for me, after you’ve finished your work this evening?’

      He pushed his half-finished ale aside, having sensed what was coming. ‘I’ll do it now.’

      Her delight convinced him he had said the right thing. She took a florin from her pinafore as if, he thought – and he was to think so for the rest of his life – she’d had it there all the time and knew what he would offer. ‘You don’t have to go this minute.’

      ‘That’s true.’

      She tore out the pattern so that he could show it and make no mistake, and wrote down the size she wanted. ‘It’s at that big millinery shop on Exchange Walk. You can’t miss it.’

      He put her coin in a pocket that held no money of his. ‘I’ll be back when I can. If you’re not at the bar I’ll ask Mrs Lewin for you.’

      He could walk the couple of miles into town and back, but the less time taken the higher he might go in her esteem, so he caught the first train, and if the shopkeeper looked down his nose at working clothes he could jump up his rear end, because he loved Mary Ann, and by God he would have her, and go through fire and flood to do this little errand. Even if she said no to him again he wouldn’t stop thinking about her, and never stop asking either. He felt a letch at seeing any pretty woman, but it was more than that with Mary Ann, and he only knew that after their marriage she would adorn him as much as he would dignify her.

      It was a quick ten minutes from the station to Exchange Walk, between St Peter’s church and Old Market Square. He had to wait while a woman was being served, but it didn’t seem too long on thinking about married life with Mary Ann. The sallow assistant climbed three steps of a wooden ladder and took the white cotton gloves from behind glass. She laid them into paper, and he paid at the till with two one-shilling pieces from his own money, and put the farthing change into his pocket.

      On Lister Gate he knelt to retie a bootlace, and standing up saw Leah in his way, too close for his liking. ‘Don’t you know me?’ A basket overarm, her hair was untidy, and she wore rouge. ‘Why haven’t you been to see me?’ she smiled. ‘It’s over a year, and I’ve been hoping all the time that you would.’

      He knew her, such a handsome woman it was easy to see why he’d had a fling, but you never answered anyone who accosted you on the street. Yet he wondered why he had meddled with someone who did it on her husband and had the cheek to greet him with people going by.

      ‘What do you want?’ he had to say.

      ‘What do I want?’ she cried. ‘How can you ask me what I want?’

      He ought to have been pleasant, even promised to see her again, but with Mary Ann’s face before him such a response was less than reasonable. ‘Is your husband still shunting then? I haven’t seen him hurrying to work lately.’

      ‘What a rotten thing to say,’ she hissed. ‘After what we’ve done together, this is how you treat me.’

      ‘Get away from me.’

      ‘Don’t you want to see me anymore?’

      He pushed her aside. ‘God will pay you out.’ If only she hadn’t shouted. He wanted to turn back and knock her down, which was what she deserved. A slut with no pride. Tackling him on the street was the last thing she should have done. It was true enough that he’d had his way with her, but so had she with him. It was over a year ago, all fair and square, and now she pestered him, people beginning to stare, though what could you expect from a woman like that?

      He wondered what the world was coming to, as the train jangled out of the station, though with Mary Ann back in mind and the vital package in his large hands he became calmer. The Castle glared less severely from its rock now that his errand was done. Then it was gone, leaving Mary Ann’s face so present in the glass that Lenton station was being called.

      She looked as fresh and tempting as when he had left an hour ago. If his father ranted at his staying out so long from work he would tell the old so-and-so what to do with himself. He laid the packet on the bar, with the florin given to pay for it in the centre.

      ‘Are they in there?’

      ‘They were when I last saw the young woman pack them up. Nobody’s tampered with them since.’

      ‘What’s that florin for?’

      ‘Put it back in your pinafore.’

      She looked at the Queen’s image in her palm, then held up the gloves so clean and neat and, above all, fashionable. ‘Thank you, Ernest.’

      ‘You’ll look a treat in them when you’re dressed up.’

      ‘I don’t know what to say.’

      ‘You haven’t got to say anything. I did it because my heart wanted to.’ After a moment’s silence: ‘I’m putting the same old question.’

      A blush covered her face as the folded gloves went back into their paper, aware of the words he wanted to hear. ‘What sort of question?’

      ‘Shall you marry me?’ To ask before requesting a pint of ale showed how strong his mind was on the matter. The world spun before her, as if she would faint, though she reached across with a smile and touched his hand.

      ‘I will.’

      His forename on the certificate was spelled as ‘Earnest’, in the script of an elderly absent-minded man who had stood to write it. Ernest signified his agreement to the event by the mark of a cross, as did his father Thomas, both down as ‘blacksmiths’, on 25 January 1889, while Mary Ann’s father, Charles Tokins, was described as ‘engineer’.

      The bride’s signature was fair and steady, as was Emma Lewin’s as witness, who on that occasion consented to go into the Holy Trinity Church of the Parish of Lenton and see her friend and servant through the formality of marriage. She gave twenty pounds towards a trousseau, and allowed the saloon of her public house to be used for the reception, generosity Mary Ann remembered for the rest of her life.

      The saloon was filled with the relations of both families, and with friends of Ernest’s father who, thinking of trade, felt justified in inviting some of his customers after paying so much towards the celebrations.

      Ernest stood beside his bride, a single whisky to last the evening, not caring to drink more, because tonight would be the most important of his life, not the day that had seen the knot tied in church, but what was to come in their cottage across the road, where a room had been prepared for them before setting off for Matlock in the morning.

      Fully turned-up gas mantles gave a whitened aspect to the room – or as much as tobacco allowed – every face and figure clear, which Ernest liked because the only god he halfway respected was that of fire and illumination. He allowed Mary Ann to hold his hand surreptitiously, while observing the mob gathered at their splicing. She said she had been in love with him from the moment he first walked into the pub, that she had never loved any other man, nor ever would.

      Her father Charles Tokins had come from St Neots on the train. Tall and soundly built, and looking young for his age, with a well-shaped black beard, he had started work in an iron foundry as a boy. The family had left County Mayo in the 1840s to escape hunger and destitution caused, Mary Ann said – and Ernest saw no reason to disbelieve her – by the wickedness of the government in London.

      Ernest went through the crowd, to hear what Tokins was saying to his father. ‘I’d had enough of getting myself dirty working in the foundry, so I rented a workshop to repair penny-farthings and tricycles. I’d had a tricycle a few years, and knew others who had them. There’s plenty of flat land around where we live, but the roads aren’t in good repair, and a lot of people don’t know how to look after their machines. When one breaks down they can’t get it mended properly, so not only do I do it, but I’ve started buying and selling as well. I get new ones at a fair discount from the manufacturers at Coventry, and do enough trade to keep us quite nicely. We prosper, in other words.’