The Death of William Posters

The Death of William Posters Read Free Page A

Book: The Death of William Posters Read Free
Author: Alan Sillitoe
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tomorrow by his caucus of unions. According to the D. Worker Sir William maintained that he wanted a minimum wage of twenty pounds a week for all workers, as well as a communist government of six hundred and forty deputies to be chosen by him and sent to the House of Commons. Great cheers from all the workers’.
    â€˜Don’t call me Sir William, lads. I shit on the Sir. Call me Bill – Bill Posters as I was born and bred.’ Comrade Posters, party boss, in his cloth cap and big topcoat as he inspects blast furnaces and power stations. ‘Good old Bill. We’ve got what we want now.’ Until an aeroplane flying over one day, sky-writes high up in the blue: ‘No you haven’t. BILL POSTERS WILL BE PROSECUTED .’
    Mostly the people who gave Frank lifts were happy to do so. One man was not, and said, when they were well into the wolds beyond Louth: ‘Don’t you sometimes feel ashamed, to be begging lifts like this?’
    There’d been no smile when the man stopped to pick him up, nothing but a slit-mouth asking where he wanted to go. He wore a belted mac, and cap, was pale at the face and kept his steel-blue eyes angled towards the road. ‘To get where I’m going,’ Frank replied, ‘it would be cheaper by bus. I only hitchhike to give miserable bastards like you a break from yourself. Stop this car and put me down.’
    The man smiled. ‘Well, now look here, I didn’t mean to be offensive, you know. I asked a question because I don’t see much point in sitting quiet for the next ten miles.’
    â€˜If you don’t pull up I’ll grab that wheel and swing you into the ditch as well.’
    The car stopped quickly. He reached for his pack and got out, not a word said, happy to have weight again on his moving legs. He gave lifts to hundreds of people, even those who didn’t look as if they wanted one. On the last day before leaving, anything to get out of town, warm sunshine dazzling through the spotless windscreen, he sped along a straight, narrow lane that ran two flat miles across open wasteground, had a yen to take his car off and crash the fence, subside into the ditch and grind up onto wider spaces. But what was beyond them except what he could see now? – the Trent, the power-station and, over the river, hills forming a hazy blackening cloudbank?
    Driving towards a rooftop sea of newly built houses increased his worm-eaten discontent. Fields and woods bordered the sluggish river, a live, cloud-reflecting limb held under by a smart new bridge. Beyond the estate he turned to the main road, and, seeing a soldier and kitbag planted hopefully for a lift, drew up to find out where to. ‘Loughborough, sir,’ came the obliging answer.
    â€˜Sling your sack in,’ Frank said, opening a packet of twenty, fresh and newly shining like Alfonso’s teeth: ‘Fag?’ He was about twenty – short haircut and come-to-bed eyes for a female ape – sallow-faced and ill at ease as he drew the door to. ‘Slam it, mate, or you’ll roll out, then you won’t be worth much as a soldier.’
    â€˜I’m in a good regiment,’ the soldier said, stammering slightly. Frank lit up before driving off. ‘On leave?’
    â€˜Yes, sir.’
    â€˜Don’t call me sir. It makes my ulcers jump. Call me Frank. I might have a car, but I’m still one of the mob.’ Deep angry creases formed on the soldier’s forehead, as if he wondered: ‘Who does he think he is, telling me not to call him sir?’
    â€˜How long you got?’ – a few bob a day, and kept on call with nothing to do but read Flash Gordon comics.
    â€˜Seven days, sir. I’m a bit fed up. I’m married, and don’t see much of my wife. This is the first bit of leave I’ve had in months.’ Frank pitied him, stepped on the accelerator to get him back sooner to his hearthrug pie. ‘You know what you ought

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