His three sons, who also became qualified farriers, did no better, in that Burton demanded the same standards from them that he had lived by himself, though setting them for his sons was one way of not having to follow them as thoroughly as others were expected to, since they were doing it for him. They had to saw logs on the horse by the pigsty and chop them into sticks, fetch buckets of water with a yoke from the well up the slope behind the garden 300 yards away, as well as feed the pigs and clean out the sty. They didn’t take well to this, though the only form of rebellion open to them was a stubborn idleness when orders fell too thick and fast.
On Sunday morning the brass candlesticks and ornaments were lifted from the fireplace shelf and, together with the horseshoes that were unhooked from inside the cabinet, spread over the table to be polished by Burton’s two daughters still with the family. Cleaning the brasses and the table ‘silver’ was made into a ritual because it had to be done, and because nobody liked doing it. Ritual was easier than just plain work, and kept the house to a good standard for the family as well as Burton, though they would have felt happier doing it had he been less tyrannical.
All visible metal had to shine and look presentable for a blacksmith, to be appeased by polish and work. Whenever his married daughters visited the house he would not let them help in this, and neither could the men do it. It was a job solely for the unmarried girls.
Burton believed that, since he worked, everybody should work. He was the one who set me to labouring as a child, whereas my own father had not been able to succeed in it. It offended the sight of Burton’s good eye to see even a child idle, so that from being a spectator of his own tasks in the garden I was soon hauling a barrow, weeding, digging, getting in coal, chopping wood, cleaning out pigeon coops, or darting down the lane on errands.
Work was a virtue, the only one. Even the straight way he stood when at rest proclaimed it. And while the better half of me agreed with him it must have been the other side that led me to become a writer.
6
Rather than write the truth I will work mindlessly in the garden or slump into a fit of sloth that lasts for days, or flee from it in the car as fast as the twisting lanes will allow.
And coming back to it, as one must, I will versify, falsify, elaborate, and boast, but be careful not to tell a significant lie in case someone should indicate how near to the truth it is. For lies are as plain as footprints left on a beach still wet from the sucked-out tide. It is difficult to tell lies if one is facing the truth.
The fear that reaching some form of truth will reduce me to silence is an unbearable thought, but it would only shut my organ-box for a time, for after a while even the most stunning truth no longer shines or intimidates because of the familiarity it has meanwhile gained. One then denies it, and looks for it once more.
It is impossible to find. Vacillation is the blood of life. A mind made up is a dead mind. To decide is to act, and to act is to commit an injustice. To search for truth proves how fickle and disloyal one is, and untrustworthy to the earth. One is a member of the elect, in fact, a spiritual gypsy who must search for truth but be careful not to find it.
At the same time one wants to tell the truth in a single sweep of speech or pen, just as one longed of old to give out a big lie that would flatten all others by its weight and precision, a manoeuvre of the subconscious, perhaps, that might have landed one at the threshold of truth but never did.
The Big Lie consists of a million petty lies, and the Big Truth is made up of countless insignificant truths. All rules coalesce and ring true, and so are not to be trusted. Or maybe the Fat Complete Truth is merely a single unit of these myriad Big Truths, enlarged either by false brooding or grandiose boasting. The Big Lie can also be made out of innumerable small truths, and the most minute truth can grow from a million great lies.
There is no set law of moral divination, no comfort to be offered. Truth and lies do not exist. One may get nearer to truth by approaching it as if there were no such thing, while taking care not to get too close and therefore be dazzled by it. The impossible task is to remove the important coal-burning Truth from the million Big Truths that are so insignificant they are not worth considering. It is a question of continuing a fruitless search that might lead around regions of madness, or staying in the comfort of half-truths with which one has managed well enough so far. Defeat is the only final truth one ever gets, though a search for truth promises the most valuable defeat because it has most to teach.
Since everything is the truth, it becomes a matter of selection, and therefore distortion which, though it might be harmonious, gets to the antithesis of truth. But if there is no such thing as truth, one still has to search for it so as to prove it, and to know that one only hunts what does not exist, otherwise there would be no point in pursuing it. That which is plain before one’s eyes needs no pursuing.
So it is tempting to believe that truth is fiction, yet fiction has nothing to do with the sort of truth I have in mind, since fiction is concerned with disguising the truth to such an extent that it becomes art, and is unrecognizable as the truth because it is even more powerful than the truth, depicting truth as something which it is not.
A frequently employed word soon loses its significance and the word Truth does so more easily than most. The reality of truth, however, retains its meaning, though it is difficult to isolate and define such an illusive reality.
There are as many truths on earth as there are individuals, and there are as many truths in each individual as there are individuals on earth.
7
One of Burton’s grown-up sons who went with him as a blacksmith down the pit would receive an occasional hard thump if he seemed to be slacking on the job, or if some piece of work wasn’t up to a good fit or a high polish.
Burton had no time for the waywardness or irresponsibility of youth, and made it appear, with much success, as if he had never had any himself. Maybe he was jealous of it, or bitter about the fact that he had already lost it.
Memory was not a function to which he gave free play, and so it seemed as if he had none, either for good things or bad. He never mentioned his parents or talked about the ‘good old days’. Like sweat, speech was valuable. The pride of such illiterates often led them to ignore the meaning of what was said, not only between boss and man but between equals. Burton would say something irrelevant in response to a statement, or merely nod, so as to let whoever made it know that he may or may not have taken it in, and that if by any chance he had he would understand it at his leisure. There would be time enough then to decide whether or not to reply. It was formal, high-minded, and mean.
Being literate myself, though connected to several who were not by close and recent ties (my father was never able to read or write), causes me to wonder what mark it has left in me, even if reduced by now to an idiosyncratic quirk which someone on the same intellectual level might see as conceit or selfishness.
To move into the rich kingdoms of literacy in one generation is more complicated than I could have thought when first beginning to read and write. What I consider to be my slowness of perception is perhaps an unconscious though deliberate ploy to retain some of the defensive and often advantageous traits of my antecedents. If some meaningful remark is made, either good for me or otherwise, I do not at the moment I should get the full gist of it. A few minutes might go by before, having chewed it over like an Eskimo his piece of fat in the snow, I accept its full importance and decide to work up a suitable reply.