Shannon's Way

by A. J. Cronin

  When morning came I rose stiffly. While dressing I burst the knitted sweater that I wore underneath my jacket, an old garment I had kept all through the war and to which I had become attached. Annoyed, I cut myself while shaving. After a cup of tea I smoked a cigarette; then set out for the University.

  It was a fine, crisp morning, everyone seemed in the best of spirits. I passed a group of girls with shawls round their heads, laughing and chattering, on their way to work at the Gilmore Laundry. The corner tobacconist was polishing his shop window.

  My mood was still hard and bitter, yet the nearer I drew to the Pathology buildings the more my nervousness increased; for alas! to display myself to advantage in a crisis was a feat beyond my powers. When I entered the laboratory and saw that the entire staff was present, I felt that I was pale.

  Everyone was watching me. I went to my bench, opened all the drawers and began to empty them of my books and papers. At this, Professor Usher approached me.

  “Clearing the decks for action, Shannon?” His manner was brisk, as though my submission were understood. “When you’re ready, I’d like to discuss our scheme of work.”

  I took a quick breath, striving to keep my voice even.

  “I can’t undertake that work. I’m leaving the Department this morning.”

  Complete silence. I had certainly achieved a sensation, yet it brought me no satisfaction. I felt a dry smarting behind my eyes. Usher was frowning in a provoked fashion. I saw he had not expected this.

  “Don’t you realize what it means, if you give up your fellowship at a moment’s notice?”

  “I’ve considered all that.”

  “The Senate will undoubtedly put a black mark against your name. You’ll never get another opportunity.”

  “I’ll have to take my chance.”

  Why was I mumbling? I wanted to be calm and cold, especially since the perplexed annoyance had now left his face and he was considering me with an expression of open dislike.

  “Very well, Shannon,” he said severely. “ You are acting with extreme stupidity. But if you persist, I can’t stop you. I simply wash my hands of the whole affair. Your blood is on your own head.”

  He shrugged his shoulders and, turning towards his office, left me to gather up the remainder of my notes. When the pile was complete, I lifted it in both arms, at the same time darting a glance round the laboratory. Lomax, with his usual half-smile, sat examining his finger nails, while Smith, his back to me, was attending to the cages with apparent indifference. Only Spence showed evidence of concern, and, as I passed his bench, he said, under his breath:

  “Anything I can do, let me know.”

  This, at least, was some slight tribute to my passing. I nodded to Spence, then raised my head, but, as I went through the swing doors, my edifice of books became unbalanced, and despite my efforts, shot from my arms all over the outer corridor. I had to go down upon my knees in the dark passage and grope about for my belongings.

  Outside, with the cool air striking upon my heated face, I felt oddly lost to be going home in the middle of the forenoon, an emotion intensified when I almost stumbled over a pail of soapy water in the dark hall of Rothesay. The house had a strange feel about it and an even fustier smell.

  I went upstairs, washed my hands from habit, sat down at my table and stared at the dingy wallpaper. What was I to do? Before I could answer that question the door opened and Miss Ailie, carrying a broom and dust pan, wearing an old wrapper and her list slippers, came into my room. She started slightly at the unexpected sight of me.

  “Why, Rob, what’s the matter? You’re not sick?”

  I shook my head, while she considered me with anxious kindness.

  “Then why aren’t you at the University?”

  I hesitated for a moment, then blurted out the truth.

  “I’ve chucked my job, Miss Ailie.”

  She did not press for more information, but looked at me quietly, for a long time, with a beautiful expression, which was almost tender. Blowing the wisp of hair out of her faded blue eyes, she said:

  “Well, never mind, Rob. You’ll get another.”

  There was a pause; then, as though wishing to distract me from my own misfortune, she added:

  “It never rains but it pours. Miss Law left us this morning. Quite unexpected. Such a nice lass too. She’s going back to work for her examination at home.”

  I received this information in silence; yet, under Miss Ailie’s guileless gaze, my face, already downcast, reddened guiltily.

  “Tut, tut,” she declared. “ This’ll never do.”

  Without further comment she left the room, returning presently with a glass of buttermilk and a slice of sponge cake. How she had spirited these precious things out of the kitchen, under the sharp eyes of her sister, I could not imagine. She sat down and with open satisfaction watched me as, unwilling to offend her, I consumed them. Food was Miss Ailie’s remedy for most ills, a belief easy to understand in that household.

  “There!” she exclaimed, when I had finished. No more than that single word. But what a wealth of feeling she put into it! And what heart her kindness put into me!

  Now the outlook looked less bad. Slowly, like a sun swimming out of grey mist, a resolution grew within my troubled breast. I would continue my work independently—yes, somehow, somewhere, alone, I would bring it, successfully, to completion. Why not? Others had worked under almost insuperable difficulties. I clenched my fist and banged the table hard.… By heavens, I would do it. I’d get a job somewhere, now … at once … and go on.

  Chapter Nine

  With my belief in myself restored, I went out confidently enough, setting my course towards the Northern Infirmary, which lay quite near, on the left bank of the Eldon, within sight of the University Tower. Clearly, my best course—although it might be construed as a “ step down”—was to take an appointment as house physician in one of the large city hospitals where I should have at least definite, if restricted, facilities for continuing my research. And I selected the Northern, not only because of its convenience and high reputation, but because I knew the Registrar, George Cox.

  The entrance to a metropolitan hospital is apt to be a confusing place, but with the indifference of familiarity I went past the intimidating army of white-clad porters, attendants, and nurses, through a series of tiled corridors, and into the Registrar’s office, where I sat down beside Cox’s desk and watched him for a few minutes as, amongst the papers which encumbered him, he rapidly signed a batch of diet sheets.

  “Cox,” I said, when he had finished, “I’d like to join the staff.”

  Returning my gaze, he grinned heartily, then lit a cigarette. He was a stocky, solidly muscled figure, about thirty-two, with a flat, ugly, good-natured face, a cropped blond moustache, and a coarse, ruddy, greasy skin, full of enlarged pores. He was enormously strong—in fact, he seemed to exude a careless vitality—and the many liberties which he took with himself, from chain smoking to, in his own phrase, “stopping out on the tiles,” made not the slightest inroads upon his constitution. Devoted to athletics, he had as a medical student represented the University at every known game and, loth to sever a connection in which he had happily broken practically all the bones in his body, he had dropped breezily into this administrative position in the College teaching hospital.

  He answered me at last, with heavy humour. “The Superintendent isn’t quite ready to retire yet. When he is I’ll let you know.”

  “I’m not joking,” I said quickly. “ I really want to come in as a house physician.”

  He was so surprised he found it difficult to dispose of his smile.

  “What’s happened to the fellowship?”

  “That passed away suddenly … this morning.”

  Cox shifted in his chair, carefully flicked his cigarette ash to the floor.

  “It’s unfortunate, Shannon. We haven’t a single vacancy. You see, we just made our appointments for the next six months, and all the intern
s look depressingly healthy.”

  There was a pause, filled by the rattle of a typewriter through the glass partition. I could see that this good fellow was uncomfortable, almost uneasy, that a person of my attainments should be chasing round, at short notice, for a junior’s job. Yet I knew his answer to be absolutely honest.

  “That’s all right, Cox. I’ll try the Alexandra.”

  “Yes, do,” he said eagerly. “ Shall I ring them for you?”

  “Thanks all the same,” I said, getting up. “ But I’ll go over myself.”

  I did go over to the Alexandra Infirmary. I went to the Great Eastern, the King George, the Royal Free; I made in fact, with increasing chagrin, an exhaustive and fruitless tour of all the city hospitals. The possibility of failing in my quest had never entered my head. I had forgotten that during the war years, to meet the national emergency, the medical curriculum had been so shortened and speeded up that hundreds of young men and women were roughly machined into shape, then disgorged, diploma in hand, off the assembly line, as it were, into the open market. As a result, the profession had become thoroughly overcrowded, and I was now merely one of the crowd.

  This fact was borne in upon me even more sharply during the next few days, when, like a candidate for the dole, I presented myself, in line, at the Winton medical agency. There were no available hospital appointments. I might purchase a general practice for a mere three thousand pounds. I might also, if I wished, secure a fortnight’s “ locum” in the remote island of Skye, but while I debated the desirability of such a stop-gap, the opportunity was snatched from under my nose by the pale, bespectacled youngster behind me. At the end of the week I was constrained, shamefully, to seek out the elder Miss Dearie in her little cubbyhole office under the stairs.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Beth. I can’t pay you this week. I’m flat broke.”

  She reared herself, in the shadows, like a pallid boa-constrictor, and fixing upon me a suffering and reproachful eye, with her most prayerful, most ladylike expression, replied:

  “I had guessed as much, Doctor … not being without a certain experience … to my sorrow. Naturally, our rules in such contingencies are strict. But you are an old client of this establishment. You may remain.”

  As I left her sanctum I felt, with gratitude, that Miss Beth had shown much forbearance towards me. But alas! it was not her nature to display this virtue long, and as my days passed in unsuccessful seeking, she turned up increasingly at table the whites of her eyes, with many mournful and martyred sighs, viewing me from time to time with a saintly resignation as though I were piling faggots round her at the stake, and turning the conversation pointedly to such disconcerting topics as the cost of electric light and the rising price of meat. I noticed also that my portions tended, progressively, with almost mathematical precision, to diminish. Finally, rather than be made to feel a cadger, I began to absent myself altogether from the evening meal, relying upon the hunk of bread and cheese, which Miss Ailie smuggled to my room, to blunt the edge of my hunger.

  At the end of the month, although I had dodged Miss Beth as much as possible, I felt in my bones that the crisis was not distant, that presently, in fact, I should find myself upon the pavement, outside Rothesay, with no other lodging than the sky. Then, one Saturday, from the sanctuary of my room, I was called to the telephone by Miss Ailie. Spence’s voice came to me over the line.

  “Have you fixed up yet, Shannon?” While I hesitated, ashamed to confess my defeat, he went on. “If you haven’t, I’ve just heard of a vacancy at the Dalnair Cottage Hospital. It’s a small place, for infectious fevers, and Haines, the doctor there, is leaving rather unexpectedly. Do you remember Haines? Always seemed half asleep. He says there isn’t a lot of work. You’d have plenty of spare time. I thought it might interest you … especially as it’s down Levenford way … in, your part of the country.”

  While I began to thank him he rang off, and I hung up the receiver, thinking what a good friend Spence was, in his quiet and unobtrusive way. I had not heard a word from Lomax. I must get this job at all costs, and as Dalnair was near Levenford, I knew instinctively how I must do it. It was time for me to pocket the last vestiges of my pride.

  Back in my room, with much heart-burning, I composed a letter to the one man upon whom I knew I could depend. I borrowed a stamp from Miss Ailie and posted this letter in the hall mail-box. Then, as twilight began to fall, I shrouded my microscope in its green baize cover and carried it across the Park to Hillier’s, the pawnshop behind the University, which catered especially for impecunious and bankrupt students. Here, I pledged my instrument for eight pounds, fifteen shillings. It was a Leitz and probably worth twenty guineas, but I was no good at haggling, and took the money without protest.

  Ignoring the long-haired young clerk behind the counter whose pencil, protruding from an ear, intensified his general air of sharpness, and who, having driven a hard bargain by deprecating, one by one, the qualities of my microscope, was now disposed to discourse, agreeably, upon the weather, I placed seven pounds, four weeks’ rent, in an envelope to give to Miss Beth. Five shillings, the price of a return railway ticket to Levenford, I stowed securely in my top waistcoat pocket. This left a balance of thirty shillings which, as a wave of recollection of my month’s privations, my stinted meals, my crusts of bread and rinds of cheese, swept over me, I resolved recklessly to spend, immediately, on a dinner, at the neighbouring Rob Roy Tavern, a noted restaurant, patronized by the University faculty, which offered a native cuisine of the highest excellence.

  Then, as I came out of Hillier’s, and, already licking my lips, began the ascent of the back avenue—little more than a flagged pathway—which wound up between the sycamore trees towards that summit upon which the University stood, I suddenly discerned a solitary female figure approaching, weighted slightly to one side by her text-books, descending the path towards the tramway terminus slowly, with a peculiar air of reverie and sadness which, since I immediately recognized the young woman as Miss Jean Law, caused me a sharp stab of discomfort. Since her head was drooping, her gaze downcast, she did not see me for some seconds; but when about twenty paces distant, as though forewarned by all her instincts of a disturbing presence, an uncongenial protoplasm, she lifted her clouded eyes—which instantly encountered mine.

  She started, quite distinctly faltered, then resumed her way, while her face, which seemed apathetic, smudged in places by her day’s work, also smaller and more strained than I had ever known it, turned white as her father’s flour. She wanted to look away, but she could not, and her dark eyes, compelled against their will, remained upon me, haunted and frightened, almost as though guilty of a sin, while she approached. Now we were level with each other, and so close that the scent of Windsor soap struck upon my nostrils. What was happening to me? At that instant of near contact a sudden palpitating surge gathered and broke within my breast. Then she had passed me stiffly, head rigid in the air, and was immediately beyond my field of vision.

  I did not glance behind me, yet the sight of that wan and solitary figure had stirred and upset me beyond belief. Why had I not spoken to her? It would have been so easy, at this moment, with money in my pocket, to make a graceful atonement and ask her to share my meal. Disconsolate, stung by my stupidity, I at last swung round. But she was gone, vanished in the soft dusk swiftly gathering beneath the budding sycamores. I let out a very bad word.

  And then … I cannot explain my next action, which I regretted immediately I had performed it, nor can I attempt to defend what is so clearly indefensible, yet, since I am sworn to truth, I must shamefully record the facts.

  As I went uphill, through the narrow old streets behind the University, continuing to heap abuse upon myself, I came upon the Church of the Nativity, which in my early student days I had visited every day and where, still, despite the irregularity of my life and the damaging conflicts of my mind, I attended Mass; where, indeed, borne by the irrevocable instinct in my bones, I came occasionally, on a wa
ve of tenderness, to make, in the dimness, an act of reparation, a promise of amendment—an outpouring of the heart from which I arose, comforted.

  Now, caught by an irresistible impulse, rather as one is seized by a garrotter from behind, I drew up, blinked, then hurried automatically into the little church filled with the sweet smell of incense, candle-wax, and damp. There, at the door, hastily, as though committing a crime, I stuffed my three crisp ten-shilling notes into the padlocked iron box marked in grey letters ST. VINCENT DE PAUL, and without even looking at the altar, stalked out.

  “There!” I prayed without satisfaction to whatever saints observed me. “Do without your dinner, you blasted fool!”

  Chapter Ten

  Next afternoon, at two o’clock, I arrived in Levenford. Often I had promised myself a sentimental pilgrimage to this Clydeside borough where I had grown up, where the grey façade of the Academy, the grassy stretch of Common with its little iron bandstand, the elephantine outline of the “Castle Rock” seen through the tall stacks of the Shipyards, with the distant view of Ben Lomond beyond, seemed impregnated with memories of these tender years. Yet, somehow, I had not found the occasion for this indulgence—time had severed so many of the ties which bound me to the town. And now, as I walked up the High Street towards the office of Duncan McKellar, my thoughts fixed on the approaching interview which I had sought, I was conscious of a prosaic drabness, rather than of any romantic quality, in my surroundings. The town seemed small and dirty, its inhabitants depressingly ordinary in appearance, and the once imposing solicitor’s office, crouching opposite a sadly diminished Borough Hall, badly in need of a coat of paint.