A Man of his Time. Alan Sillitoe

seen, and washed the shade sufficient to make the glass almost invisible, the only task of their married life performed together.

      Oliver combed his hair at a mirror by the door, the trade name ‘Sandeman Sherry’ blazoned in gold letters along the bottom. To the right was a glass-fronted showcase of Burton’s prize horseshoes, and often when Oliver looked at them he recalled how at fourteen Burton had taken him to a county show near Tollerton: ‘Put your suit on tomorrow,’ he was told. ‘You’ll see a few other blacksmiths where I’m taking you.’

      On their way through the city Burton allowed him half a pint at the Trip to Jerusalem, in a cool room hewn from the sandstone rock of the castle. By the time they’d done the seven miles to Tollerton he wondered whether his father had only asked him along to test his walking prowess, having trouble at times keeping up with the long stride while maintaining his respectful distance behind. But Oliver adjusted his pace and enjoyed a good day of his life, for it was the middle of May, blossom on the trees and birds happy in their heaven, and he thought how much he could love his father if only it had been allowed.

      Burton stood outside the competition marquee, wilful pride preventing him going in to find out who was the winner of the Grand Horseshoe Competition. Oliver wasn’t able to understand his hanging back, but when he came close Burton said, after someone had announced him as the winner, and aware of what was puzzling his son: ‘They can come and talk to me if they want. If you’ve learned nothing else today you’ve learned that a blacksmith never goes up to others in a case like this. Now go to that table and bring me a pint of what they’re dishing out, and get yourself a cup of tea from the tent over there.’

      Oliver watched his father accept the prize and handshake from the Duke of Something-or-other, merely nodding at the grandee’s words, and walking away with the five-pound note in his waistcoat pocket, and the prize horseshoe in his hand.

      Mary Ann lifted the half-finished rug from her knees, gathered the coloured unused clippings into a cotton bag to get everything away from the fire. Idleness was the only sin, Burton knew, and he had never seen her idle for a moment. He felt justified in scorning others who indulged themselves, because he too had never been idle.

      He sat at the large oval table, every muscle aching from his day’s work, though nobody could know and they would never be told, certainly not his sons, because he did his best to make sure they wouldn’t become as tired as himself. Still young, they would strengthen in a year or two, but it was unnecessary even to think such things, though you couldn’t stop what jumped into mind.

      Mary Ann drew a pan of Yorkshire pudding and a sauceboat of gravy from the oven by the side of the grate. ‘Where’s my ale?’ Burton asked.

      She brought a bottle and glass up the few steps of the pantry, one small task of the number necessary to remember, almost without thought. The potatoes she strained, new from the garden, gave off a pleasing smell of mint, as she served slices of roast lamb.

      Burton looked at Oswald. ‘Use a fork with your bread to mop the gravy, not your fingers. You aren’t starving, are you?’

      ‘We’re hungry,’ Oliver said.

      ‘So am I. But it looks bad. When you’ve finished, fetch some water from the well.’

      ‘Do we need it?’

      ‘We always do.’ He turned back to Oswald. ‘Some wood wants chopping, and that’ll be your job.’

      Mary Ann served herself last and, sitting on Burton’s left, saw the darkening bruise on Oliver’s cheek. ‘What happened to you?’

      He smiled, always careful not to upset his mother. When Burton struck, all his strength was in it. ‘I banged into a brick wall.’

      ‘You’d better put some witch-hazel on it.’ She said to Burton: ‘It’s not right, hitting a grown man.’

      ‘He should do his work properly.’

      ‘But he doesn’t deserve that.’

      ‘It won’t happen again,’ Oliver said.

      Burton’s grunt was as profound a statement as could be made at his son’s defiance. Having heard such an expressive monosyllable so many times they always knew what lay behind it, on this occasion wondering if he was about to strike out, but Oliver was ready, and decided he would be from now on.

      The meal went peacefully, Burton eating to live rather than living to eat, knowing that Mary Ann’s cooking was in any case the best. The first to finish, he pulled the door open and called into the yard: ‘Thomas!’

      Thomas was thirteen, none of the children allowed to call him Tom, though they did when Burton wasn’t nearby. Expecting the summons, he stood in the doorway, a swatch of thick fair hair angled towards his eyes, the third son, already up to his father’s shoulders. He had left: school before learning anything because Burton needed him now and again to help in the forge, intending to make a blacksmith out of him as well, though Ivy of the sharp tongue said Thomas was too slow to have qualified in the classroom anyway. From talking to his sisters in the yard, he now stood sullenly by.

      Burton had never known them to do anything as willingly as he’d had to do. ‘Feed the pigs. Edith, help him to get the mash from the outhouse. The stuff that was made today.’

      The eldest daughter, she was a vivacious seventeen-year-old with golden-blonde hair. ‘I was just going out for the evening.’

      ‘Do as I say.’ Seeing them start to obey, he closed the door, but as his back turned Edith gargoyled her face, then went to help Thomas.

      Oliver came from the pantry with a yoke across the back of his neck, and a steel bucket in each hand. ‘When you’ve done that,’ Burton said, as if never to leave him alone, ‘you can get some coal in.’

      Softly whistling, Oliver was happy to be liberated from the pall of his father, and set off along the path between chicken coops and the house wall. Passing the front door, the long garden gave off its smell of dry soil, a scent of fresh flowers, and a tang of rotting potato tops that he would later gather up. Every week he and Thomas, under Burton’s critical eye, lest they slacken on the distance or spill a drop, manoeuvred iron buckets reeking also of creosote from the outhouse to furrows indicated in the garden, and splashed it liberally about, nothing from the house being wasted. The garden gave shining red beetroot, potatoes, onions, carrots, marrows, cucumbers, lettuces and kidney beans, as well as sweet peas and mint, while raspberries, gooseberries and redcurrants made pies, puddings and jam.

      The well up the slope was covered by a triangular wooden roof and, however many times Oliver had laboured to and from to get water he liked the sight of its fairy-tale shape, as depicted in books brought home as an infant from Sunday School. The vision of magical enactments at midnight, or even during daylight, summer or winter, when he wasn’t there, set him cheerfully whistling To be a Farmers Boy, letting the chain that Burton had made rattle the bucket from its roller and hit the water with a satisfying smack, before it sank and began to fill. Turning the handle, he brought up the first overflowing bucket.

      All the others at work, Burton in the kitchen enjoyed his usual pinch of snuff after the evening meal, stood with back to the fire, as contented as could be after the day’s work.

      ‘Don’t I get any money this week?’ Mary Ann said.

      ‘You always have.’ He took cash from his pocket. ‘Take this sovereign.’

      ‘I was hoping for a bit more.’

      ‘Have another five bob, then. Trade’s been good.’

      And that was all, though it was better than usual. She looked at the head of King George on one of the half-crowns, then put the coins into her pocket.

      ‘I’m off to town for a couple of hours.’ He stomped his way up the stairs to change.

      Thomas was half bent over carrying a huge bucket of pig food from the wash house to the sty, Edith following with another, helped by fifteen-year-old Ivy, while Rebecca, Sabina and Emily looked on.