New and Collected Stories by Alan; Sillitoe Page B

to be his witnesses as I gasp and stagger up to his winning post so’s he can say: ‘My Borstal gets that cup, you see I win my bet because it pays to be honest and try to gain the prizes I offer to my lads, and they know it, have known it all along. They’ll always be honest now, because I made them so.’ And his pals will think: ‘He trains his lads to live right, after all; he deserves a medal but we’ll get him made a Sir’ – and at this very moment as the birds come back to whistling I can tell myself I’ll never care a sod what any of the chinless spineless In-laws think or say. They’ve seen me and they’re cheering now and loudspeakers set around the field like elephant’s ears are spreading out the big news that I’m well in the lead, and can’t do anything else but stay there. But I’m still thinking of the Outlaw death my dad died, telling the doctors to scat from the house when they wanted him to finish up in hospital (like a bleeding guinea-pig, he raved at them). He got up in bed to throw them out and even followed them down the stairs in his shirt though he was no more than skin and stick. They tried to tell him he’d want some drugs but he didn’t fall for it, and only took the pain-killer that mam and I got from a herb-seller in the next street. It’s not till now that I know what guts he had, and when I went into the room that morning he was lying on his stomach with the clothes thrown back, looking like a skinned rabbit, his grey head resting just on the edge of the bed, and on the floor must have been all the blood he’d had in his body, right from his toe-nails up, for nearly all of the lino and carpet was covered in it, thin and pink.
    And down the drive I went, carrying a heart blocked up like Boulder Dam across my arteries, the nail-bag clamped down tighter and tighter as though in a woodwork vice, yet with my feet like birdwings and arms like talons ready to fly across the field except that I didn’t want to give anybody that much of a show, or win the race by accident. I smell the hot dry day now as I run towards the end, passing a mountain-heap of grass emptied from cans hooked on to the fronts of lawnmowers pushed by my pals; I rip a piece of tree-bark with my fingers and stuff it in my mouth, chewing wood and dust and maybe maggots as I run until I’m nearly sick, yet swallowing what I can of it just the same because a little birdie whistled to me that I’ve got to go on living for at least a bloody sight longer yet but that for six months I’m not going to smell that grass or taste that dusty bark or trot this lovely path. I hate to have to say this but something bloody-well made my cry, and crying is a thing I haven’t bloody-well done since I was a kid of two or three. Because I’m slowing down now for Gunthorpe to catch me up, and I’m doing it in a place just where the drive turns in to the sportsfield – where they can see what I’m doing, especially the governor and his gang from the grandstand, and I’m going so slow I’m almost marking time. Those on the nearest seats haven’t caught on yet to what’s happening and are still cheering like mad ready for when I make that mark, and I keep on wondering when the bleeding hell Gunthorpe behind me is going to nip by on to the field because I can’t hold this up all day, and I think Oh Christ it’s just my rotten luck that Gunthorpe’s dropped out and that I’ll be here for half an hour before the next bloke comes up, but even so, I say, I won’t budge, I won’t go for that last hundred yards if I have to sit down cross-legged on the grass and have the governor and his chinless wonders pick me up and carry me there, which is against their rules so you can bet they’d never do it because they’re not clever enough to break the rules – like I would be in their place – even though