A Kestrel for a Knave

  On both sides of this road, and the next, and along all the Roads, Streets, Avenues, Lanes and Crescents of the estate, the houses were of the same design: semi-detached, one block, four front windows to a block, and a central chimney stack. This pattern was occasionally broken by groups of pensioners’ bungalows, tucked into Closes, but built of the same red brick as all the other dwellings.

  At the front of each house was a square of garden, separated from its neighbour by a wire mesh fence, strung between concrete posts. Most of the gardens were uncultivated squares of stamped soil, or overgrown with old vegetation, and many of the fences had been climbed over and burrowed under to such an extent that they had assumed the proportions of saloon doors. Some of the fences had been completely destroyed, leaving only the four concrete posts as useless dividers.

  Dividing the gardens from the pavement was a wall three feet high, built of the same brick as the houses. The top course of bricks had been laid edgeways to form a strong neat finish, but on many of the walls odd bricks had been prised out, leaving a gap like an extracted tooth. One missing brick quickly encouraged another, leading up to a whole series of removals, and at a few houses V shaped sections had been torn away, and the gaps utilized as unofficial paths. These paths all followed a similar pattern, cutting diagonally across the gardens, to converge with the concrete paths at the house corner. The misplaced bricks lay in tumbled heaps in the shadow of the wall bottoms.

  A few of the front walls were protected by a cushion of privet, and the wire divisions fortified by hedges. Between the hedges there was always a little lawn, often fashioned into a complicated design: the corners snipped off, or a triangular, circular, or star-shaped bed cut out of the centre, and in one case two corners had been cut off, and a diagonal strip led across the centre to the other two. Then there was crazy paving, and stone bird baths with stone birds drinking at their rims. There was painted trellis work, and sets of pots made from drainage pipes. There were gnomes and storks and spotted toadstools, all illuminated in unnatural shades, and casting cross-shadows from the street lamps and the squares of lighted windows. These gardens had gates, many did not, and of the ones that did, some were minus one or more of their composite palings.

  Garages were common, and occasionally the corresponding cars were parked at the kerb edges. Between the kerb and the pavement a strip of soil had been laid, and at regular intervals up all the thoroughfares, black iron discs, stuck into the soil, stated, in raised capitals: SEEDED VERGES PLEASE KEEP OFF. Some of the cars were parked with their near side wheels on the verges. Some of the discs had been flattened flush to the soil like gravestones, and everywhere the soil was rutted and shiny with wear. Stuck to it were paper and cigarette packets, half bricks and dog shit, and planted in it, at fifty yard intervals, were saplings surrounded by guards of spiked railings. Few of these trees had been allowed to grow taller than the railings, and most of them were just centre spikes inside the guards. The cylinders of close fitting spikes had however been utilized as waste paper baskets, and bottles and old toys, boxes and bicycle parts had been tossed over their points to rest in tangled shadows round the bases of the trunks.

  Billy passed them all. He passed the houses of Tibbut and MacDowall; the houses of Anderson, the three smokers, and the messenger. He passed some of the houses many times. He passed the recreation ground, dimly lit by the lights and the traffic of the City Road. He passed the school and its deserted fields, the Infant School, and the Primary School, situated at opposite sides of the estate. He passed the betting office and the parade of shops at the end of that street; the fish and chip shop, the Co-op, the butchers, the fruiterers, the hairdressers and the grocers. And identically designed shops on other corners of other streets. All shut, their windows darkened; daytime reference points about the maze of the estate.

  There were few people about; an odd couple, a man, a woman, none of them speaking, all hurrying somewhere heads down. A car went by, tyres swishing on the wet road, a shadow at the wheel. Winking as it turned right further on.

  A shadow rippling across a drawn curtain. A light going on. A light going off. A laugh. A shout. A name. A television on too loud, throwing the dialogue out into the garden. A record, a radio playing; occasional sounds on quiet streets.

  Until finally he came out into the City Road. It was brighter here and the traffic was heavy. The cars shone in the rain, and their tops caught the colours of the street lamps as they passed beneath them, leaving them behind as shimmering columns in the wet asphalt. Billy stood watching the traffic, turning his head left, or right to follow any vehicle that took his fancy. Then he turned right and set off towards the City. He waited for a gap in the traffic, then walked diagonally across the road, making a car poop, and slow down for him, and the driver look out at him as he reached the kerb. He passed Porter’s shop. Hanging on the glass door was the notice, CLOSED EVEN FOR THE SALE OF BRISTOL.

  Houses and shops. Flats above shops. A new public house centred on its own car park. Old public houses, terraced, and at street ends. A garage. A tin chapel. A childrens’ playground, the gates locked, behind the railings the paddling pool still drained from the winter. A row of derelict houses, and next to them, standing back from the road, a derelict cinema. Billy glanced at it as he passed, then stopped, and turned back, and stood before it.

  THE PALACE. The arabesque lettering still visible in the plaster above the doorway. The architecture of the façade of Graeco-Arabian inspiration. The doorway was crescent-shaped, the supposed entrance to a cave, and directly above it the crown of the façade described the same curve. At either side pillars had been superimposed on to the wall, and rose to turrets flanking the crown. The whole façade had been finished in plaster, the pillars fluted, but these, like other areas of the façade were peeling, revealing the same brick foundation. The Forthcoming Attractions board advertised nothing. An expanding gate barred the entrance, but failed to cover the upper curve of the doorway, and in the foyer behind the gate lay half bricks and stones, which had been lobbed over at the boarded doors and paybox.

  Billy slowly crossed the forecourt to the gate. He shook it, and looked round quickly at the rattle it made. He walked to one corner and looked down the side. Behind the façade the rest of the building was a brick oblong. He walked down the side. Near the front a small window had been boarded up. At the back the emergency doors were boarded, and approaching the front again, another barred window, corresponding to the one on the other side. Billy reached up. He could just touch the bottom board; the top one with a jump. He looked around, then scrounged around the building, and behind the row of empty houses for whole bricks, stacking them cross-ways on top of each other, until they were high enough to bring his shoulders level with the window sill. There were two boards across the window. He inched his fingers between them and pulled at the bottom one. It cracked down the centre, opening like a shutter on the nails which held the ends in position, and throwing Billy backwards, dragging a brick down, clatter, with him. He ran down the side at the noise, and looked back from round the corner. The traffic continued to go by. Then a man. More traffic, and a boy.

  He walked back up to the window, reconstructed his platform, and removed the second board, snapping it across the centre like the first one. The window was one foot square, covered by a sheet of zinc gauze. Billy pressed it. There was no glass, and no cross pieces behind. He got down, lifted one of the bricks, and punched a hole straight through the square with it. The catch was easy, and the window opened stiffly back against the broken boards. He stuck his head in. A black square. He found the box of matches in his pocket, struck one, and illuminated the square. But his head couldn’t follow the match far enough in to look round, so he dropped the match and studied the dimensions of the frame.

  Then, right arm through, hooking on to the upper wall inside and pulling his head through; shuffling upwards and sideways to make a space for his left arm. Left arm through, body rotating, head down, stomach pressing into the s
ill. Half-way through, hanging over the sill like a sack of potatoes. Hands on the sink, pulling. Feet in the air, kicking. Hands off the sink, sliding down the sill on his legs, halted by his feet hooking on to the sill. Pushing off the sill, hands on the floor, stomach on the sink, forward roll, shins on the sink, and stand up.

  His breath was loud in the dark. He struck a match. A moment while it flared, then two urinals, a toilet in a doorless cubicle, and the sink without a tap. Two steps up to the door, then the match had to be dropped. He opened the door and struck another. Too dim. He bent and peered about the floor; found a sheet of newspaper, twisted it into a torch, and lit it from a fresh match.

  The foyer: opposite him, at the far side, the corresponding door and balcony stairs. The front doors barred, a bare confectionery counter facing them. Around the walls, empty glass frames, and on both sides of the counter double doors leading into the stalls. Billy approached the doors on his side; two portholes, and between them the same metal disc which split down the centre when the doors were pushed open. He lit another torch and pushed one door, edged inside, and stopped it swinging back with his right hand.

  The air was damp and reeked of cat piss. The two partitions were still in place across the back, but when he stepped between them there was no back row at the other side. There were no rows at all, just bare boards sloping down to the front. Where the carpet had covered the centre aisle the boards were lighter, and Billy slowly followed this path down to the front. Sheets of packing paper littered the floor. A few seat cushions and backs had been thrown into a pile against one wall. His torch illuminated sections of the walls as he passed, the once pastel shades of the stippled emulsion now filthy; the vast oblong designs, oblong within oblong, now barely visible; invisible above the radiator spaces, where the heat had blackened the walls in tall smears. At the front the bare wooden stage, and behind it the brick wall. Billy turned round and walked back up the slope, holding his torch up to the balcony. But it was too far, and the light died away in flickers and shadows. He approached the seats piled against the wall. Their plush covers were ripped, and some of them had their fillings hanging out. Billy kicked one of the cushions, then dragged it up to the back. He shoved it up against the partition and sat on it, his back resting against the wood. The torch burned down. He threw it away and allowed it to burn out at his side.

  Black. The silence ringing, intensified by the faint hum of distant traffic. Billy shivered and pulled his jacket about him, trying to fold his arms inside it, his hands in his armpits finding the warmth there. The warmth there… the warmth of the pictures… the pictures full…. Billy between his dad and another man, tiny between them, down in his seat, his head just showing over the back of his seat. People all round. A bag of sweets down between his thighs. Smoky warmth, cones of smoke caught in the projection beams. Whispering questions up to his dad; his dad leaning down to answer them. Chewing his sweets. Little picture. News, trailers and adverts. Lights going up. Billy sitting up, kneeling up and looking round, waving to a boy he knows. Telling his dad that it’s a boy he knows. An ice cream. An ice cream for his dad. Two tubs. Lights going down, staining the draperies pink, through mauve to purple. Settling down, a full tub, and some sweets still left in his bag. Settling down, warm between his dad and the other man. The Big Picture. The Big Picture. The End. Holding on to his dad’s jacket in the crowd up the aisle and in the foyer. Then walking home, talking, questioning. Down the avenue. Then his dad not talking, not answering questions but hurrying. Billy running to keep up with him. What’s a matter dad? What you running for? Uncle Mick’s car outside. Jud inside it playing at the wheel. Stop here Billy. Jud driving like mad. His dad down the path, Billy after him, catching him through the kitchen door. Light flicking on in the living-room. His mother and Uncle Mick jumping up off the settee, staring and flushed. A trilby on the table. The flesh under his Uncle Mick’s eye splitting as easily as a tangerine. The blood streaming out. Screaming. Shouting. His Uncle Mick standing dabbing at the blood with his fingers, looking at his fingers as though he doesn’t recognise the stuff on them. Jud coming in. Uncle Mick leaving. The trilby still on the table. In bed. The shouting coming up through the boards. Billy crying in the dark. Jud listening. Shouting. Shouting, louder as the hall door is opened, then footsteps up the stairs, in the front bedroom, no shouting. Moving about in there. Footsteps on the landing. Billy running to the door. His dad on the landing with a case. Where you goin’, dad? Go back to bed, Billy. Where you goin’? I’ll not be long. Jud behind him. He’s leavin’ home. He’s not! He’s not! Hey up, who’s tha think thar shouting at? The Pictures. Warm. Full. Smoky. Big Picture. Billy as hero. Billy on the screen. Big Billy. Kes on his arm. Big Kes. Close up. Technicolor. Looking round, looking down on them all, fierce eyed. Audience murmuring, Billy in the audience, looking round at them all, proud. Billy and Kes on Moor Edge, moor stretching away, empty moor. Billy casting Kes off, flying low, one rapid wide circuit, then gaining height, ringing up, hovering and sliding sideways a few yards, then ringing up to her pitch and waiting on while Billy walks forward. Jud breaks from cover, running hard through the heather. Kes sees him and stoops, breathtaking stoop, audience gasps. Too fast! Must be too fast! Picture blurring! No contact. Jud still running. Kes stooping! Fading, no contact, no contact. Back to Billy on the screen. Back to Kes on the screen. Billy proud in the audience. Casting her off again. Ringing up. Perfectly clear. Leisurely hovering, and gaining height. Waiting on, all clear. Jud breaking. Still clear. Faster, breathtaking, blurring, blurring and fading. No contact! No contact!

  Billy jumped up and blundered his way between the partitions, banged through the double doors and felt up the wall for the toilet door. It was lighter in the toilet. The open window made objects just visible. He climbed into the sink, squeezed out of the window feet first, then ran across the forecourt on to the pavement.

  The traffic was still running. A woman on the opposite pavement looked across at him as she walked by. He looked round at the Palace, then turned away from it and shuddered. Somebody walking over his grave.

  It had stopped raining. The clouds were breaking up and stars showed in the spaces between them. Billy stood for a while glancing up and down the City Road, then he started to walk back the way he had come.

  When he arrived home there was no one in. He buried the hawk in the field just behind the shed; went in, and went to bed.

  AFTERWORD

  Over the years I have given readings at literature festivals, in schools and universities and been asked many questions about my work. But the weirdest question ever was in a school in Lincolnshire. I was sitting in the staff room waiting to talk to a class of children – the usual gang of demob-happy fifth-formers, last lesson Friday afternoon – when a teacher sitting next to me said, ‘You know that novel you wrote, A Kestrel for a Knave?’ I nodded. He said, ‘Did you write it on purpose or by accident?’ I didn’t know what to say. I can just about imagine somebody writing a line or two of verse by accident. But a novel! All those words. All those months and sometimes years of hard work. ‘Some accident!’ I should have replied. But before I could say anything, another teacher appeared in the doorway and announced dramatically that, ‘The Gay Gordons record has been stolen from the music room.’ Everybody rushed out of the staff room to find it and I was spared the embarrassment of coming up with a sensible answer.

  Another question I am asked, particularly in the south of England, is how I know so much about the countryside if I come from Barnsley. It’s an ignorant question but understandable, because many people still have a vision of the north filled with ‘dark satanic mills’, mines and factories, and not a blade of grass in sight. When I try to explain that the mining village in which I was born and brought up – just a few miles from Barnsley – was surrounded by woods and fields, I can tell they don’t believe me. Read Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence, I tell them. He brings it off beautifully, that dramatic juxtaposition of industry and nature. In the village where
I lived, the miners walked to work across meadows, with sky larks singing overhead, before crowding into the cage at the pit top and plunging into the darkness.

  Like Billy Casper, the main character in A Kestrel for a Knave, I spent much of my childhood exploring the countryside, but unlike Billy, I was no academic failure. I had passed the eleven-plus and gone on to grammar school. Most of my friends however had failed and gone to the local secondary modern – the model for the school in the novel. A school so tough that some of the boys went dressed in boiler suits and boots because they spent so much time rolling around the floor fighting. Their mothers said they may as well dress for the job, rather than ruin good clothes.

  I used some of the incidents my friends told me about, in A Kestrel for a Knave. For example, the boy who was caned when he took a message to the headmaster, the big brother roaming the corridors seeking vengeance because his younger brother had failed to place his bet on a winning horse, and the boy falling asleep in assembly. These anecdotes – and many more which weren’t included in the novel – were told with great amusement and relish. They may have been funny at the time, but are not so funny in hindsight because those children who had failed the eleven-plus had effectively been told that they were unintelligent and many of them continued to believe it for the rest of their lives.