A Man of his Time. Alan Sillitoe

books in the portmanteau were too precious to be trusted to the road. Her grief was tempered by an air of tenderness in a compartment growing smaller by the minute, a loosening in her, as if she didn’t know where she was, or what she was doing or, what was better, wasn’t able to know – like the effect of a tot of whisky.

      He felt as if alone with a woman in a meadow on a warm spring day, knowing there was only one thing to do before dusk came on. The unexpected sense of levity and opportunity was more than welcome, though he wondered whether it was only in him, at the same time sure a good measure came from her, pious as a dormouse or not.

      He held her cold hands to give comfort, as a man should, his as ever hot, large compared to hers, a sheltering stove she couldn’t refuse. ‘What about your children?’

      ‘There aren’t any, which I suppose has turned out for the best, though I’m sorry the Good Lord didn’t bless me with some.’

      Her husband’s spunk had been no good. ‘Was he a great age?’

      ‘He was twenty years older, a good and upright man.’

      He would be, at that age. ‘I’m sure he was.’ Breath and body heat thickened the air between them. If this goes on we’ll need to be prised apart with a chisel. Time to get going, though not sure how she would take it. Moving to her side was a better place to console, seeing as how she needed him, but the goodness of his heart brought on more weeping, which wasn’t the ticket at all.

      A passenger looked in for a seat but, unwilling to intrude on mutual and private grief, stepped down. A chink in the blind showed the train steaming along a valley, its whistle permitting them to do what they would, his only hope that no one else would try to get into the carriage.

      He secured the blinds, and put his lips to her warm forehead. Hers were moist with a kiss no man could resist, or care what was behind it. A hand around her neck, the other at her well-covered bosom, he took in the rich clean odour of hair, yet held back from going like a bull at a gate, the urge to be fast a sure sign that you must go slowly.

      She turned away, but a kiss at the nape of the neck always got them on the melt, Bible books in the portmanteau no defence for a woman’s flesh whose gander was up. A sudden leaning forward told him she knew it was too late to hold back, though any sign and he would have stepped up and asked her pardon. Men were rightly prosecuted for bothering women in trains, and the treadmill wasn’t for him.

      A sudden jerk and she crushed herself to him, saying softly: ‘Oh, do take me, then.’

      Not to accept her would be unmanly. He lifted her, a free hand drawing his raincoat from the rack to lay on the seat, using all his strength to let her down as if onto a bed of feathers. Clothed arms rustled around his neck, till the seat vibrated under her, carmine features contrasting with the black of mourning as she held out her arms.

      No more waiting, he bundled up the complication of skirts, and she drew him through smells of lavender and sweat to the greed of that vital place. All control was given up as if only now able to allow it after her husband’s death. He held back to match her eagerness but she was determined not to let him (which couldn’t be held against her) and spent more quickly even than Leah.

      An hour ago they hadn’t known each other, but she must have been half in death for it, the stars fixed that he would be the one to be drawn by her so completely. Glad that she had reason to be pleased with taking him as much as he had taken her, he was also amazed at a coupling of so few words, when with others he’d used many in his persuasions, Nottingham girls brazenly expecting them so as to save, he supposed, what they thought of as their modesty.

      Her smile could only be for the ironic twist to his lips while she went back to her status of bereaved woman. The handkerchief that had dried her tears was used to wipe between her legs, as he stood away to fix his buttons. She held out her hand when he moved to put the soiled handkerchief into his bag of tools, demanding it for her reticule, then arranged her dress and sat down. He fetched out a clean one, blessing his mother who had ironed it so well. He looked into her eyes to let her know she deserved more than had been given. Flicking up the blind he was surprised that the world was still the same, yet thinking that if this was travelling by train he wouldn’t mind doing a bit more.

      She shaded her eyes as if daylight was too much for them. ‘We’re close to Pontypool.’

      Needing to smoke, he took out a packet of Robins, lit one, and dropped the spent match on the floor. He moved to touch her, at the flush knew she wanted him to, but there was only time for a press of hands. ‘I’ll see you walking the street at Newbridge, if I can get out a bit from my work.’

      ‘My sister’s husband is a Methodist minister, which is why I came third-class. The Good Lord doesn’t like waste.’

      ‘They’ll keep you locked up, I shouldn’t wonder.’

      She arranged her mantle. ‘I’m a widow, so I can walk out on my own.’

      ‘I shall look for you.’ I could marry her, if I wanted the bother of courting, take an armful of blooms to meet her in-laws, and make them think I’m somebody I’m not. ‘What’s your name?’

      She tied the strings of her bonnet. ‘I’m Mrs Dyslin.’

      That wasn’t good enough. ‘And who’s she when she’s at table?’

      ‘Minnie.’

      A pretty name. He had given his already, but didn’t want her to forget. ‘I’m Ernest Burton, blacksmith. My brother has a forge near Tredegar Junction.’

      ‘That’s close to my sister’s.’

      ‘So I might see you.’

      She sat as if never wanting to leave. ‘I feel better than I did an hour ago.’

      ‘I’m glad. And I’m sorry for your loss, but you’ve got to go on living, whatever happens, that’s all I know.’ He was surprised at offering so many words of consolation. Well, he could talk when he wanted to.

      ‘You’re a young man.’

      ‘I’m twenty-one, and that’s not young. Not in my line it isn’t.’ She must be a few years older, but it wasn’t right to ask a woman’s age. Not that it mattered, as long as you gave her what she wanted.

      ‘I’m going to be the housekeeper at my sister’s, because she’s ailing much of the time. That’s all I can do with my life from now on, though there is a small annuity in my name. My sister has been married ten years, and has four children. Two are young, so I can teach them their letters, make myself useful in whatever way I can. Frank, he’s the minister, will be grateful if I arrange everything to do with the household, I know, which will help me forget my troubles.’

      Maybe she’d have a child after what they had done, people thinking that the last act of a dutiful husband had been to lie with her, the timing more or less right. His smile brought one back, a rose opening under the warmth of summer, happiness that would need concealing once she got to where she was going.

      The train squeaked alongside the platform at Pontypool Road station, and he reached for her bag, noting how much livelier and more attractive she was after what they had done, back in the world of the much desired where he hoped she would stay, because a woman can look beautiful at any age as long as loving spunk is pumped into her which goes straight to the eyes and makes them glitter with the come-on of a peahen everybody likes to see. There’s only one way to please a woman, and if another woman guesses what it is, I’ll please her as well. Minnie’s brother-in-law expects her to look sad in her black, so I hope he doesn’t wonder what she’s been up to.

      He set their bags on the platform, held a hand for her to step down. George would twit him half to death if he could see him acting the cavalier.

      ‘The platform’s over there,’ she said on seeing him hesitate. ‘The notice says so.’

      ‘Ah, so it does.’ He kept a footstep behind, something against his habit, since