the drayman whose horse it was. ‘I wouldn’t like to work for him.’
The shoeing smith looked towards the noise of hammering. ‘I’m fed up with the way he treats me.’ ‘Pack it in. Go somewhere else.’
‘I’d like to, but you work where you can. And every day there’s more motors on the road.’
‘Yeh, one day horses won’t be needed anymore.’
‘We get enough trade here,’ the shoeing smith said, ‘because Burton makes sure the work’s good. People know where to come. But he’s a hard man to be under.’
‘That’s because of the way he was brought up,’ the carter said. ‘I wouldn’t like to be one of his sons. He must have taken some stick from his own father to make him the man he is.’
‘It was his brother George who put him through the hoops. Or so I heard Burton say the other day when he was telling one of his lads off.’
‘I wonder what Burton was like when he was young?’
‘He never was young, if you ask me.’ The shoeing smith stood erect to rub his pained back. ‘Here you are. That should keep your nag going for a while.’
‘I hope so,’ the drayman said. ‘Two bob a time’s getting a bit expensive.’
Burton had so much sweat on him as he stood in the doorway it looked as if he had dipped his head in the waterbutt. He held a hand over one eye where a spark had chipped the flesh below. ‘If you can find somebody to do it for less go and trade with them. But if you do, God help your horse.’ ‘Times are hard, Burton.’
‘They always were.’ Two of his daughters came along the lane. ‘What do you want?’
Oval-faced Sabina, ten years old, shook her chestnut hair, and flushed at his sour greeting. He knew very well why they were there, because couldn’t he see the billy-cans of tea in her hand? ‘We’ve brought you your dinners.’
‘Put them down there.’
Emily set the snap tins on the bench and stepped back as if he might hit her should she get too close. Eight years old and Burton’s youngest, everyone in the family regarded her as a bit touched, being slow-witted and more unpredictable than the others, with too much willingness in her smile to please whoever she met that she was never allowed out of the house on her own. Mary Ann told Burton that while it was his right to treat the children as he thought they deserved, he was never to strike Emily since, when she misbehaved, she didn’t altogether know what she was doing. He found it easy to do as Mary Ann wished because a mere look was enough to scare Emily. He picked up the cans with no word of thanks. ‘I thought you two were at school?’
‘We’re just going,’ Sabina said.
‘Don’t be late. I’ve told you never to miss any of it. See that you don’t.’ His glare at their backs seemed to force them into the right turning. Inside the forge, his eyes roamed over the tools, materials, state of the fire. He missed nothing, but looked again as if he might have done, ever on the lookout for discrepancy, damage or misplacement. ‘Where’s the hammer you were using?’
Oliver stood. ‘It’s over there.’
‘Where’s there?’
‘On the bench.’
‘Don’t I always tell you to put the tools back in their right place when you’ve finished with them?’
‘I didn’t have time to do it.’ The veins jumped on his father’s temples, and he knew that what was coming couldn’t be avoided, the blow at his head too quick. ‘Don’t answer back,’ Burton said. ‘I don’t want to have to tell you again.’
Oliver balanced the weighty hammer as if to swing in for the kill, but didn’t much relish the vision of his body hanging from a gallows. He had long regretted having the misfortune to be Burton’s firstborn and prime competitor.
‘Put it in its proper place, and be quick about it. How shall I be able to find it if it’s not where I think it is?’
‘There won’t be anymore of that.’ But he did as he was told. ‘I’m telling you now. You aren’t going to hit me again.’
A smile shaped Burton’s lips, much of himself in Oliver from almost too long ago to be remembered, except at moments like this. He admitted that the time had come to stop the punches but, even so, he had made him one of the best young men at the trade, who in a few years would be as good a blacksmith as himself, though all you got for such effort was the insolence of being answered back. ‘I hear a horse coming along the lane, so get outside to see to it. And send Oswald in to me.’
‘We haven’t had our dinners yet.’
He softened a little, which for Oliver was far too late. ‘If you’re thirsty drink some tea from one of the cans. You can eat when things get slack. Never delay a customer longer than you have to. So do it now.’ Hunger could wait. Burton only felt thirst, a fire inside always there to be put out. He wiped sweat from his face with a large red spotted handkerchief, took a scoop of water from a bucket covered by a wooden lid, and carried it outside.
Oliver sat on the stool to get the shoe off, the lame horse’s hoof between his knees. He stroked the horse’s poll, knowing when to keep quiet as Burton held the bucket for it to drink, Oliver thinking you had to be a horse to get any kindness out of Burton.
He walked well ahead of his sons on the mile home, went into the long tunnel which carried railway lines to Ilkeston, the way narrowing between brick walls, a muddy pestilence in days of rain, hardly ever drying in summer weather, and dark enough at all times to make the girls timorous of going through on their way to Woodhouse. Beyond, the sunken lane was resplendent with elderflowers. He moved tall and upright, with the slightly swinging gait of a man on his own.
His sons were careful not to follow too close – Burton would never allow it – and came on in silence, until Oliver said: ‘One of these days I’m going to push his head into the fire.’
‘He’d have yours in first.’
He stroked the bruise on his face. ‘Not if you help me. I’m fed up with it. Ever since I was born I’ve been kicked from arse-hole to breakfasttime by him. As soon as I can, I’m off. I hate the sight of him. He’s always been like that, and always will be. He makes everybody pay for the fact that he’s alive. He’s dead ignorant. He can’t even read and write.’
‘That’s not done him much harm. Anyway, people like him live forever.’
He shredded a leaf of privet with a fingernail. ‘There’s too many of his sort around, and it’s time things changed. When he dies they’ll have to put nine padlocks on hell’s door to keep him out, for fear he’d give the place a bad name.’
Burton left them to close the latched gate, walked up the path and paused to inspect two fat porkers in their sty, poking each with a stick till they squealed through the slush out of range. Satisfied that they were lively enough for his mood, he passed the brick storehouse with its copper inside for boiling the weekly wash, and on by a smaller outbuilding divided between coal store and earth closet by whose wooden holes was a large tin of creosote to splash down and diminish the stench. The yard extended to the lane, and behind the cottage a long garden provided the family with vegetables. The first of three properties, each was brickbuilt and tile-roofed, with three bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and larder leading off, and a parlour. The cottages were well fenced and separated, which suited Burton, who never gave more than a nod to his neighbours. He left the door open, again to be closed by those behind.
The warm living room smelled comfortingly of meat, baking bread, and potatoes steaming on the wood fire. After greeting Mary Ann he washed his hands and face in the pantry. Oswald and Oliver stood not too close to do the same. ‘You’ll need to fill the buckets after you’ve had your dinners.’ He spoke as if to no one in particular, but those who would have to do it knew who was meant.
A