The Collected Novels Volume Three: Thin-Ice Skater, As It Happened, and Present Times

by David Storey

Overview

Three thought-provoking novels from the Man Booker Prize–winning British novelist of This Sporting Life and “an absorbing writer” (The New Yorker).
 
The son of a coal miner who went on to play professionally in the rugby league, British author David Storey drew heavily on his own background for his debut novel, This Sporting Life, which won the 1960 Macmillan Fiction Award and was made into a film with Richard Harris. “The leading novelist of his generation,” Storey was also a playwright and screenwriter, going on to win the Man Booker Prize for his novel, Saville (The Daily Telegraph). Collected here, Storey’s characters range from a seventeen-year-old compulsive note writer to a seventy-year-old suicidal art historian and a middle-aged sports columnist, but they all share a common trait: a profound questioning of life’s meaning.
 
Thin-Ice Skater: An angst-ridden seventeen-year-old who shares intimate details of his life in the form of memos written to himself, Rick Audlin first goes to live with his much-older film producer half-brother, Gerry, whose second wife, Martha, a former movie star, has been committed to a mental institution. When Gerry has to go abroad, Rick moves in with his long-estranged other half-brother, James, a failed crime novelist, and is seduced by Clare, James’s wife. But Rick begins to realize something else is going on—something that will eventually lead him to a shattering secret in his family.
 
As It Happened: After a failed suicide attempt in front of a moving train, seventy-year-old art historian and professor emeritus Matthew Maddox attends art therapy classes, hoping to find meaning in his life. Although he feels isolated, Maddox does have his champions. Simone, his lover and partner, is returning from an analysts’ conference in Vienna. There is also his former mentor, whose wartime past fascinates Maddox; his older sister, Sarah; and his younger brother, Paul—and Eric Taylor, once his most promising student, now a convicted murderer, in whom Maddox sees echoes of his own life.
 
“A novel packed with argument and written with a close attention to the significance of gesture, the thing seen, the sound heard, the thought apprehended.” —The Scotsman
 
Present Times: Former playwright Frank Attercliffe cowrites a sports column about football and lives with his children in relative peace—until the night his wife, who left him three years ago for a car dealer, returns home and announces she wants to move back in. Just one catch—she wants Frank to move out.
 
“I enjoyed this book for its savagery, its stoically enduring hero, its taut, explosive dialogue.” —The Sunday Telegraph
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781504055031
Publisher:	Open Road Media
Publication date:	07/24/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	1350
Sales rank:	965,077
File size:	14 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

David Storey was born in 1933 in Yorkshire, England, and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art. His novels won many prizes, including the Macmillan Fiction Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and the Man Booker Prize. He also wrote fifteen plays and was a fellow of University College London. Storey passed away in 2017 at the age of eighty-three.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

'I'm going, Martha,' I tell her.

She doesn't stir.

Neither does she move her hand, her habitual gesture – a casual, upward flick – enquiring and dismissive – when registering something of what is going on around her: a demonstration of 'as you were' or, even, conjecturely, 'understood'.

She sits in her room as if she's waited here for hours, expectant (news of a fresh catastrophe outside: a 'crime' demanding her immediate detectorial presence). I've been told already she isn't well, Gerry instructing me on this visit, however, to tell her he'll be away 'for a month'.

In effect, five weeks (when he gives me the dates), coming into my room to inform me, the decision a torment to him (the ice getting thinner all the while, the speed required to keep ahead: one day, I know, the ice will crack: the strangulated cry, the outreaching hand, the desperate face as, caught irrevocably in his own momentum, he disappears – that grace, that dexterity: the 'perfect line' – for good).

An antidote to his anxiety (perplexity: letting go of those he loves), he suggests – surprisingly (the first time he has done so) – I travel with him (to New York, Los Angeles, back to New York). 'Maybe I should involve you in this production. Give you a break from Dover's, this house, a life which – my guess – isn't doing you an awful lot of good. I shan't, for instance, be taking Gavin. He's enough on his hands over here. You could do some useful work.'

'Like what?'

'Discuss the things I come up with.'

'Such as?'

'Money. Since you have no regard for it, detachment – yours – might be a help.'

'Waiting in hotels,' I tell him.

'Hell, no. There'll be a suite. I'd like you with me. All the time.'

A fresh – a novel – unexpected anxiety: an extension, no doubt, of the one he's shown before (via vexatiousness, exasperation, contempt) but this with a new intensity. What, for Christ's sake, is his brother up to?

'I'd hate to leave you on your own, even with Mr and Mrs Hodges. These trips to see Martha appear to be your only consistent social contact. Does she insist you see her?'

'No.'

'Does she tell you things I ought to know?'

'No different to the things she's said before.'

'Does she talk about us?'

I shake my head. 'I don't think she knows who I am. You,' I tell him, 'never come up. I wouldn't, either, if I wasn't there. She often calls me Ronald.'

'Ronald.' He stares at me for several seconds. 'As I say,' he says, 'I'd hate to leave you with Mr and Mrs Hodges.'

'And Martha.'

'And Martha.'

Mrs Hodges is, inimitably, the wife of Mr Hodges, who began his employment as a waiter on the old London, Midland and Scottish Railway: a dining car attendant, acquiring his NCO status during the Second World War in the Western Desert: incidental, this information, I have to confess, but, both by manner and appearance (stocky, barrel-chested, winged moustache), he lends formidable support to Mrs Hodges who is significantly bigger than himself: a Mrs Dover of the Domestic Front, with her own, authoritarian, dismissive flavour. My brother, in my view, was a sucker to hire them (accommodation provided – the basement – a salary to match): at the time he was determined (more than determined – vocationally inclined) to provide a home, a place fit to bring me up in after the life of itineracy which – an exact reflection of Martha's disturbance – he (we) had lived until then. In a sense, I suspect, my brother has never recovered from the war: seconded to the US Navy, he encountered a force of nature (the sea) and a societal enterprise (America) which have absorbed if not overwhelmed him ever since: subsequently, nothing has matched that expansiveness (I guess), not even Martha (though with her he had a try: films – or, rather, filmmaking – having little, if any interest, curiously, in the finished product, nor in the texts from which the films invariably derived: the process is the purpose).

As I say, a digression – but the thought of being the sole focus of Mr and Mrs Hodges' attention is more than my famous lack of resilience (resourcefulness, enterprise) will allow. Sufficient to say, however, that my disinclination to travel with and be in my brother's company all the while is matched by my disinclination to be in the diurnal presence of the domestic duo below: the formalised behaviour of the husband (mentally at attention all the while) and the ritualised dominion of the wife (everything in place, at the proper time – memos excluded, she not sure what to make of them: have they been written, for instance, by Gerry himself? Our writing is indistinguishable at times).

Having made my feelings clear – waiting in hotels, whether a suite or not – Gerry is (surprisingly) disinclined to press his point (what girls I'd have to witness passing through the bedroom, Gerry unable to endure twenty-four hours without a fuck). Five weeks! And me, seven and a half thousand miles, most of the time, from Mrs Dover, orgasmic interludes exclusively by hand. 'What's so different from home?' I might have asked, only, at Dover's, in Hampstead, at home, I catch sight of her every day (Saturdays and Sundays alone excluded).

Thereupon Gerry suggests I stay with one, or a succession, of my friends, or, conversely, one or other of my friends can stay with me.

'What friends?'

'Don't you have any friends?' (Enough bums pass through the house – none, he may have noticed, staying long.)

'None I'd spend five weeks with.'

'One week with each.'

'No, thanks.'

'I hate the thought,' he says, 'of you being on your own.'

'With the Hodges.'

'Fuck the Hodges. The Hodges are all right. When,' he says, 'we're here together.'

'Why not on my own?'

'You need ...' he can't think of the word, 'a different class of person,' amending this, when he sees my look, 'a different type. A peer.'

'I thought you didn't go in for titles.'

'A generational peer.'

His patience, I can see, is running out.

Twenty-four hours later he comes back to the problem.

'Maybe you should go to Jimmy's.'

'Who's Jimmy?'

I'm lying – as usual on these occasions – in bed.

'Our brother.'

Patience still a premium.

'I thought you didn't like him.'

'I didn't say I didn't like him. I said we never got on.'

'Why not?'

'Chemical. Who knows? He pissed all over our father.'

'How?'

'He had no sympathy with his views. When he went bust he offered him no help. Not that I offered him much. At least,' he goes on, 'I listened.'

'What to?'

'Him, for fuck's sake.'

Not sure how obtuse I am.

'Jimmy, on the other hand,' he adds, 'thought he was a cunt.'

'Why?'

'How do I know? He thought he favoured me. As it was, unlike me, Jimmy had a very bad war.'

'How bad?'

'He fucked up early.'

'Early?'

'In France. Surrendered his men to, as it turned out, a smaller German force. Been kicking himself ever since. More than kicking ...'

He waits: how much of this is Richard taking in?

'Did he know Hodges?'

'Why?'

Instantly suspicious.

'In the forces.'

'Hodges was in the desert. It was why I took him on. He hadn't fucked up. Fought at El Alamein and never looked back. Was personally recommended by Montgomery. As for Jimmy. He went off on his own. Up there he lives a very different life to the one we have down here. Nevertheless, he is your brother. Since there are only the three of us, and Martha, I'd say relatives, in our case, are thin on the ground. A pity to have discarded one.'

'I don't know him.'

'Every reason why you should. A wonderful opportunity to make a start. Don't let sentiments stand in the way.' He spreads out his hands. 'He'd be very pleased to have you.'

'You've asked him?'

'Sure.'

'When?'

'An hour ago.' He looks at his £10,000 (ten thousand) watch and adds, 'Two hours ago. The car can take you up.'

'I hate the fucking car. I feel an asshole sitting in the back.'

'Sit in the front.'

'Or the fucking boot. I hate the fucking thing.'

'Why?'

'It's not even earned. It's fucking rented. Apart from that, it looks pretentious.'

'It's the most beautiful machine in the world. A masterpiece of engineering. Eric will get you there in less than four hours.'

Eric is the chauffeur: a slim, obnoxious creep, who's fought in no wars, reveres my brother, thinks Martha has let him down, and despises me likewise. Gerry, where Eric is concerned, is life's generic force: no doubt he sees most of the women Gerry screws – on top of which 'Good old G', as he offensively calls him, gets him autographs from the stars, prefaced by the odious, 'To Eric'.

The cunt.

'I can ask Jimmy to come and fetch you. He probably drives a Morris Ten. Or even rides a bike.'

'I don't know where he lives.'

'Up north.'

'Where up north?'

'How the fuck do I know? Some fucking place. I've never been.'

'But want me to go.'

'You,' he says, 'are a different proposition. On top of which, as I say, you're flesh and blood.'

More is conveyed than I ought to know: he stares at me intensely.

'He could arrange a school up there.'

'No, thanks.'

'You don't want to piss around for five weeks. You need some sort of focus.'

'I can write a book.'

'Schooling, at this stage, is all that counts.'

'Maybe I'm a genius and five weeks with someone you can't stand will turn me on. Make me appreciate what we have down here. What I have, for instance, with you.'

He's not over-fond of derision, either. 'Jimmy, despite his difficulties,' he says, 'maybe because of them, may very well give you a different perspective.'

'On what?'

'Anything you care to mention.'

'Like you.'

'Like me. Or you. All we have down here, as you suggest. I don't say – I've never said – this is the optimum way to live. It happens to be the way I've chosen. I never set out to be a producer.'

'What did you set out to be?'

He thinks back through the Navy and, after that, his career as an actor, and, before all that, to the prospects, which failed to materialise, of working with his father: taking over a textile firm of which, even before the war, Jimmy had washed his hands. 'Basically, all I wanted,' he says, 'was to have a good time. I played a lot of tennis.'

'Tennis?'

'I might have been a pro. Or the equivalent in those days. Tennis was a way – the way, at that time – to fuck a lot of girls. Short skirts, blouses. Sun ...'

'Fucking, would you say, was your principal occupation?'

'Fucking, in those days, was barely understood. It was tied in with marriage, church, propriety. Nowadays it's an industry. Then, at that time – I'm talking of the thirties – to get your hand in a woman's pants required the skill of an engineer allied to that of a union convenor. It became, because it had to be, a way of life. Nowadays fucks hang out on trees. You can pull them down whenever you like.'

He may have gone too far: he looks at me (again) intensely.

'I am speaking as a brother.'

'I see.'

'It's not the sort of talk I'd recommend. You need a more civil parent than the sort that I provide. To be talking to a schoolboy as if he were a man may not do either of us a lot of good. Jimmy is civil. Apart from our misunderstandings – more my fault than his. He has written to me over the years, twice, maybe three times, with suggestions we might meet. I've always brushed him off.'

'Why?'

'I associate him with the past. Parochialism. Small-mindedness. On the other hand, would a small-minded man ask for a reconciliation? I'd say I've' been stuck up. But, then, I never had the time. He's gone his way. I've gone mine.'

'What's his way?'

'He's the manager of an insurance office.'

'Christ.'

'A change from here.'

'Jesus.'

'He never had a child. His wife miscarried. Apart from that ...' He shrugs.

'A pretty fuckless life.'

He doesn't like this, and says, 'Who are we to judge? Look at Martha. At least Jimmy's wife is still around. And, as far as I can tell, he doesn't fuck around like me.'

'I ought to go?'

'For what it's worth.'

The intensity continues.

'If I go,' I tell him, 'I'll make my own way. I don't like being carried by someone else.'

'Is that why you prefer Greenline to see Martha rather than going with Eric and me?' 'Yes.'

'You ought to tell her, incidentally, even if she fails to understand,' he says. 'Maybe somewhere she's aware of all that's going on.'

'You think so?'

'I feel so. Sometimes, out of nowhere, comes that funny fucking look. I've never mentioned it before. Maybe you've seen it, or she only does it with me. But suddenly, when I look away and then look back, I find her looking at me with this funny fucking expression.'

'What's funny?'

'As she looked before. Comprehending. As if all this ... lunacy is a fucking act. A piece of dramaturgical skill. A way to escape from something which, as far as she's concerned, became too much.'

'All these years?'

Incredulous.

'I may be wrong.'

She's rumbled it.

Or not.

'Setting her hair on fire was an act? Coming down to dinner with people we didn't know with nothing on?' I have to prove him wrong.

Mentally, I begin to count the occasions when she's threatened him with a knife.

'She's an actress. Maybe this is her way – her definitive way – as an actress, she chooses to express herself. I stress definitive. This is all-inclusive. An act to end all acts. Even the attempts at suicide.'

'I don't believe it.'

I have an ally in her, at last.

Or not.

'Sure,' he says. 'It may be me.'

Maybe a way, too, of getting me to go: curiosity, for one thing, about another brother: his relationship to his sister-in-law.

Have I agreed to go, or not? I can't remember.

'How do I tell him?'

'Who?'

'Jimmy. Tell him,' I add, 'I'm coming up.'

'I'll give you his work number, his home number. Ring him. He'll be delighted. He's always wanted a reconciliation.'

'Always?'

'I'll call him, after you've talked to him. He'll like it coming from you. You don't remember him?'

'Should I?'

'The last time he saw you you must have been nine. Seven. How many years ago? He was passing through London. He's passed through lots since, but never called.'

'Because of you.'

'I never had the time. I regret that now.'

'He screwed up with the Germans?'

'I had it easy. The Second Fleet. Like living in a city. He was on the front line. The Germans had the advantage. A prisoner of war. Not pleasant. It turned him in on himself. Incredibly aggressive. Faded now. It must have been what got at me. No way in. Hardly spoke. His wife had a hell of a time. What with that and my first marriage. And Ian ...'

His thoughts float on: he hasn't thought this much about anything recently. Maybe I'm the answer. Much of his life – and Martha's, and Jimmy's – is behind him now: incredibly – exhilaratingly – most of mine is ahead. Okay? The right move? Who says? Putting his brother in the hands of an ex-POW who works in a provincial insurance office: exchange high society, he's thinking, for what? Am I putting my kid brother – our kid brother – out to dry? Am I putting our kid brother on the line?

He looks across.

Maybe not such a good move! Only, Richard, the asshole, has taken the bait: what the bait is, why he's taken it, for what purpose, only Richard can decide. Abrother – unlike the current one: extension of flesh, antecedents – extension of the knowledge of where he's come from – with a view, perhaps, of where he might go.

Martha, when I tell her, says nothing: sitting in her room, looking out, from the ground floor, onto the terrace that runs across the back of the house, the windows to which are permanently locked: a privileged room (one of the best in the place: larger than most, its own bathroom as well as dressing room attached: my brother – or Martha – has spared nothing). She has a pencil in her hand – in both hands, for she holds it like a baseball bat, not so much to write with as to fend off (whatever she might be tempted, presumably, to write – too frightening the revelations she has to divulge). Her knuckles crested white – her delicate, sensitive, endearing hands. I love her so much I want, as always, to embrace her, tell her – reassure her – no crime has been committed (no one is involved: no victim, no culprit: none) – submitting to this temptation from time to time in the hope that love is what she's after: unconditional, unparalleled, unrestrained, otherwise undefined. Even my brother's suggestion this is faked makes sense – endearing her to me more: all this to conceal an inexpressible ... what? Pain? Sure. True. Fact. I love my brother's second wife: lasciviousness, if it has been there (which I'd vigorously deny) has been transferred to the corpulent Mrs Dover, a travesty of the figure before me now ...

Is that it?

When I try to take the pencil from her in order to hold her hand – unconditional attachment on her part, too – she resists by grasping hold of it more firmly.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Collected Novels Volume Three"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Open Road Integrated Media, Inc..
Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

THIN-ICE SKATER,
Memo One (1),
Memo Two (2),
Memo Three (3),
Memo Four (4),
Memo Five (5),
Memo Six (6),
Memo Seven (7),
Memo Eight (8),
Memo Nine (9),
Memo Ten (10),
Memo Eleven (11),
Memo Twelve (12),
Memo Thirteen (13),
Memo Fourteen (14),
Memo Fifteen (15),
Memo Sixteen (16),
Memo Seventeen (17),
Memo Eighteen (18),
Memo Nineteen (19),
Memo Twenty (20),
Memo Twenty-One (21),
Memo Twenty-Two (22),
AS IT HAPPENED,
PRESENT TIMES,
A Biography of David Storey,