Saville by David Storey

stooping down whenever they got off to look under the fold of the shawl.
    ‘He’s a lovely one,’ the woman said. ‘What is he, then, a girl or a boy?’
    ‘A boy,’ his father told them, looking down at the face himself.
    ‘He makes enough row, I suppose, for a lad.’
    ‘Oh, enough’, his father said, ‘to be going on with.’
    When they reached the village his father sprang off the bus,whistling, lifting down the case, calling out to the conductress and looking round.
    As they walked down the street the women came to the doors and his mother stopped, pulling back the shawl from the baby’s face.
    ‘He’s after his dinner,’ the women said. ‘We better not keep him.’
    ‘Aye, another bloody mouth,’ his father said.
    Colin walked behind them to the door, carrying the case, setting it down when they stopped, looking off down the street, still feeling strange at having his best suit on on a week-day.
    At the door his father said, ‘You mu’n never mind the mess,’ putting the key in the lock. ‘Just sit yourself down and I’ll make some tea.’
    He put the kettle on the fire which he had stoked up before they left. On the table he began to get out the pots and the teapot.
    ‘I can’t tell you,’ his mother said. ‘It’s so good to be back.’
    She sat gazing round at the kitchen, her eyes shining, her cheeks still flushed.
    ‘I better get this seen to,’ she said, talking to the baby, making sounds into its face then taking off its shawl. Its legs were tiny and curled up, red like its face from crying. ‘Now then, what do you think to your new home?’ she asked it.
    Its colour deepened and it cried more loudly, its face disappearing in folds and wrinkles. His father had taken it from her while his mother took off her coat. She sat down then by the fire and took the baby back, calling to it, and began to unfasten her dress.
    ‘Here,’ his father said, ‘run down to the shops and fetch us some cigarettes.’
    ‘He doesn’t have to go,’ his mother said.
    ‘Nay,’ he said. ‘I’ve run out and I’m dying for a smoke. You can buy a bar of chocolate for yourself.’
    Colin went out with the half-crown his father had given him clutched in his hand. It was still hot from his father’s pocket.
    It was almost lunch-time. The street was deserted. From the colliery came the soft panting of the winding engine and the voice of a tradesman calling from a cart.
    His shoes squeaked in the silence and in the window of the shop at the next corner he caught a glimpse of his figure, the dark suit, its trousers ending at his knees, his stockings pulled up beneath his knee-caps and folded over, his neatly brushed hair.
    ‘How’s it feel, then, to have a baby in the house?’ the man in the shop had said. He was cutting up a piece of cheese with a wire, his tongue sticking out between his teeth.
    ‘Thy’ll have to teach it a trick or two. How to stand up and brush its hair.’
    ‘Yes,’ he said, taking the cigarettes.
    ‘Nay, have it on me,’ the man said as he made to pay for the chocolate. ‘It’s not every day it happens.’
    He walked back slowly along the street, eating the chocolate, then putting most of it away in his pocket. He wondered if they would want him back so soon and for a while stood on the kerb kicking his shoe in the dust.
    From the school he heard the bell ring for lunch and a moment later, from behind the houses, came the roar of voices of those children who were going home.
    He waited until they crossed the end of the street, running and shouting, then he went on towards his door.
    Mrs Shaw was leaving the house as he entered.
    ‘You must be feeling proud,’ she said. ‘A lad like that in the family.’
    ‘Yes,’ he said.
    His father was in the kitchen, pouring out some tea.
    ‘It’ll make all his waiting seem worthwhile,’ Mrs Shaw said from the door.
    ‘It will that.’ His father nodded.
    She ruffled his hair and said, ‘We’ll miss having you, I can tell you.