The Other Passenger

by John Keir Cross

  A policeman saw her.

  “Hey,” he shouted, “what are you doing?”

  He started to run towards her, still shouting. But Lily did not hear him. He was on another planet.

  Liebestraum

  “Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat . . .

  “So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag a Shunammite, and brought her to the king.

  “And the damsel was very fair, and cherished the king, and ministered to him: but the king knew her not . . .”

  This story is about a man named Mackenzie, a sanitary inspector­.

  Mackenzie lived in a small town in Lanarkshire in Scotland, with his wife Bella, who was two years older than he was. He was small and undistinguished, with dirty grey skin and thin wiry hair. He had a small moustache, wore dark-coloured clothes and striped shirts, a bowler hat on working days and a cloth cap on Saturday afternoons and Sundays.

  Mackenzie’s house was number twelve of a row of houses that were all exactly alike. It was small and of black brick, there was a little plot of sooty grass at the front and a yard, or “green,” at the back. Inside there were four rooms, two downstairs and two upstairs. The downstairs rooms were: the kitchen or living room, which had a sink and a small range for cooking, and the parlour, which was chilly and musty because it was seldom used.

  Mackenzie married when he was twenty-seven. For eleven years he lived with Bella neither happily nor unhappily—they simply lived, going to the pictures once a week, sitting on either side of the range the other nights. There were no children—Bella had said even before they were married that she did not want any children.

  Eleven years after the wedding Mackenzie discovered that Bella was fond of another man. She was seeing him in secret and, in the phrase of the district, “carrying on with him.”

  Mackenzie was not profoundly disturbed—he was not fond enough of Bella for that. He was, more than anything, disconcerted: he did not quite know what to do. He wondered: Should he go away and leave Bella and the other man to their own devices? Should he go on and turn a blind eye? Should he strike a firm attitude and have a scene?

  In the end he decided to go on and turn a blind eye. After all, he had his job. The only thing was that he found himself, to a certain extent, in a humiliating position. He felt himself in the way, he had an urge to go out, to stay away from home so that Bella could have a certain amount of freedom. She knew that he was aware of her liaison and he could feel her adopting an uncompromising attitude. So, in his discomfort, there was nothing for it but the pub in the evenings.

  The situation became a routine. The neighbours knew, but after a time they accepted things and no more jokes or protests were made. Everything was smooth and a part of life. Bella cooked for Mackenzie, she washed and mended his clothes. He went to work, to a football match on Saturday afternoons, to the band in the park on Sunday evenings.

  For two years things went on like this and then there was a sudden change. Hamilton, the man that Bella was in love with, was killed in a colliery accident. Mackenzie got the news one midday when he was going home for a meal. He entered the kitchen with some diffidence. Bella had plainly been crying, but she put his beef and potatoes before him without ado. He ate in silence for some minutes, then he said:

  “I’ve just heard about Robert, Bella. I’m richt sorry.”

  She put a plate of sago pudding on the table and then suddenly ran out of the room. He heard the door of the parlour opening and shutting and then a low rhythmic sobbing. He did not know what to do. He ate the sago slowly, then he got up and took a step towards the parlour. But he stopped before he reached the door and stood for a moment in doubt, picking his nose absent-mindedly. The sobbing stopped after a time and he stood poised on the balls of his feet, listening for some movement. After about three minutes he got fidgety and tiptoed through the hall, picked up his hat and went out, closing the door behind him with exaggerated caution.

  After the death of Hamilton, a change took place in Mackenzie’s relations with Bella. In some strange way he felt himself, as it were, superior to her. The feeling was never crystallized, it was only a vague sense of remoteness. Having formed the pub habit he kept it up, so that Bella was left alone in the evenings. Nowadays she was limp and patient—resigned. She got up and made Mackenzie’s breakfast, she washed his clothes and had his boots repaired. At night she lay beside him in bed, staring for long periods into the darkness while he snored dully.

  About a year passed and Bella was taken ill with pneumonia and died suddenly. Mackenzie was dazed. Bella’s sister, a Mrs. Murdoch, appeared in the house and took control. The sanitary inspector found himself in black, he found himself in a car following the hearse, he found himself by the graveside listening to the earth falling heavily on the hollow coffin. Then he was alone.

  He decided to give up the house and go into lodgings. So there was a sale to dispose of the few bits of furniture in the parlour and the bedrooms and Mackenzie moved to a room in a tenement flat a few streets away. His landlady, Mrs. Lawrence, had just lost her husband and was expecting her son, who was in the army, to be transferred to the Far East. So she made Mackenzie very comfortable, she occupied her mind in devising good meals for him, in working out little details which he hardly as much as noticed. But he contented Mrs. Lawrence very well as a lodger: to her there was something distinguished about a sanitary inspector.

  Mackenzie at this time was forty-one. There were grey streaks in his hair and moustache, he had taken to wearing spectacles. He was very unobtrusive. When he was at the pub he sat in a corner with an evening paper, at his lodgings he kept to his room. He felt a vague urge towards some sort of edification and bought himself books with titles like: Things Everyone Should Know, Can You Speak Correctly? and so on. These he read most studiously, making notes in a careful copperplate style. Thus:

  “The word kinetic may be defined as ‘of, producing or depending upon motion.’ Steam possesses kinetic energy or motion, since it can be used to work machinery.”

  “Cut-glass was invented by Caspar Lehmann, jewel cutter to Rudolph II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.”

  “Grass is green because nature has found that this is the colour best suited to its mode of existence.”

  One day, when Mackenzie went to his lodgings for tea (he had his meals with Mrs. Lawrence), he found that there was a visitor. This was a girl of fifteen or sixteen, very pretty and graceful, with fair hair and large glistening eyes. Mrs. Lawrence introduced her as Jessie Dean, explaining that she was the daughter of an old school friend of hers. The girl smiled and blushed a little. Mackenzie made some remarks about the weather and concentrated on the scrambled eggs that Mrs. Lawrence had put before him.

  Throughout the meal Jessie talked vivaciously to Mrs. Lawrence. Mackenzie found himself listening intently, though he knew none of the people she was talking about. He stared across the table at her, at her smooth skin, the small pink tip of her ear, her white teeth as she smiled. When he had finished eating he rose, said good-night to Jessie and went down to the pub. In his corner there he kept on seeing her young fresh face in his mind’s eye.

  “Jessie,” he said to himself thoughtfully. “Jessie . . . Jessie Dean . . .”

  About a week later Mrs. Lawrence asked him if he would like a ticket for Iolanthe, which her church choral society was presenting at the town hall the following night.

  “You remember Jessie Dean that was here last week?” she said. “She’s in it, you know—in the chorus, of course. She has a grand voice.”

  Mackenzie bought a ticket. He sat beside Mrs. Lawrence in the hall. The opera bored him, he did not quite know what it was all about. All he did was wait for the entry of the chorus and then keep his eyes fixed on Jessie. She was very pretty, dressed all in white, with a sparkling circlet round her bright hair.

  When he got home he sat abstractedly sipping the tea that Mrs
. Lawrence made.

  “I do hope you enjoyed it, Mr. Mackenzie,” said the landlady. “Did you notice Jessie? My, she is pretty.”

  “What?” said Mackenzie, looking up. “Oh yes. Yes—it was fine.”

  In his room he took out a writing pad and began to write in his meticulous copperplate.

  “My dear Miss Dean——”

  Then, after a long reflection, he decided that the “my” should go, and began again on another sheet of paper.

  “Dear Miss Dean,—It may seem strange to you to get an unexpected letter like this from someone you have only just met once, and indeed it is very bold of me to be writing it.”

  He paused, gnawing the end of his pen. Then he went on:

  “I went to the Town Hall to-night with Mrs. Lawrence and I really must say that I enjoyed it very much. I am not very ‘musical,’ in fact I have never been to a concert before, but I must say—”

  He hesitated. What must he say? He saw that he had used the phrase before, in the previous sentence, and sought feverishly through his memories of Can You Speak Correctly? for some solution. But he could think of nothing. He tore up the letter angrily, undressed and got into bed.

  There, in the darkness, he gave himself up to despair. He was forty-one—forty-two in three months’ time. He was small, his face was sallow and ugly, he wore thick spectacles, he was a widower. When he had been married his wife had been unfaithful to him . . . Then he had a vision of Jessie in her white fairy costume, her face flushed with excitement as she sang. He fell asleep after he had heard a church clock strike three.

  The following Sunday, when he came in at tea-time, Jessie was sitting with Mrs. Lawrence. He felt himself going hot round the collar. Jessie smiled at him warmly.

  “I was telling Jessie you were at the concert, Mr. Mackenzie,” said Mrs. Lawrence. “She says they’re doing The Gondoliers next and she might have a part.”

  “That’s fine,” said Mr. Mackenzie awkwardly, sitting down at the table. He did not know what to say. He did not want to say anything, he only wanted to look at Jessie.

  After the meal he postponed his departure for the pub. He asked for another cup of tea and sipped it slowly as an excuse for staying on.

  “Jessie and I were thinking of taking a turn along to the park,” said Mrs. Lawrence genially, as a hint to him to finish his tea. He grew hot around the collar again.

  “I thought of going along there myself,” he lied. “I’d like fine to come with you, if you don’t object.”

  They said they’d be delighted. In the park Mackenzie walked self-consciously beside the two women. Mrs. Lawrence and Jessie kept smiling to acquaintances and every time they did so Mackenzie touched his cap. He imagined, as they passed groups of people, that they were staring after them—there was a small shrinking sensation in his back. All the time he was embarrassed, he kept searching for something to say to Jessie. Once, as they edged past some people on a narrow path, she touched him. A sudden thrill passed through his whole body. The band was playing the overture to The Barber of Seville: he thought he had never heard anything so gay in his life before.

  “Do you like music, Mr. Mackenzie?” asked Jessie.

  “Oh yes. I’m not really very musical, you know, but I must say——” He hesitated. “Oh yes. I like it very much.”

  Mrs. Lawrence invited Jessie back for another cup of tea. “It’s all right,” she said, “it’s still early. And besides, Mr. Mackenzie can see you home.”

  Mackenzie felt himself choking with delight. All his feeling seemed to be centred in one small hot pulsing sensation in his chest. As he walked with Jessie through the dusky streets to her home on the outskirts of the town he felt himself growing more confident. Perhaps it was the dark, perhaps it was the fact that they were alone.

  At any rate, he succeeded in making conversation. He learned that Jessie’s father was dead, that her mother was an invalid. They lived on a small pension Mrs. Dean got from her husband’s old employers and the wage that Jessie earned as a filing clerk at the town offices. She had been working there ever since she had left school at fourteen, two years before.

  “I don’t expect you manage to get out a lot,” said Mackenzie boldly.

  “Not very often,” she confessed.

  “Do you like the pictures?”

  “Oh yes.”

  Mackenzie’s heart was beating. At last he said:

  “I was wondering—would you like to go to the pictures with me one night this week?”

  “Well——” She hesitated. They were standing at the close mouth of the tenement where she lived.

  “Say—to-morrow night?” he went on hurriedly.

  “I couldn’t come to-morrow night. I’ve got a practice of the society.”

  “Well, Tuesday?”

  She shook her head slowly.

  “I don’t like leaving mother,” she said. “You see——”

  He nodded. He was humble. Yes, of course. He was forty-two.

  “But I could manage Wednesday, though—if you made it the first house. Mrs. Lawrence is coming to see mother on Wednesday. I’m sure it would be all right.”

  He walked to his lodgings with his head up. He wanted to do something spectacular, absurd—to leap up and swing on the crossbar of a lamppost. In his room he hummed softly to himself as he undressed. What could he do? Something different—to mark an occasion, as it were. Something that would elevate him from his routine.

  There was a copy of the local paper on the chest-of-drawers. His eye fell on an advertisement. “Mr. Fred King announces that he is enrolling pupils for the Mandoline and the Banjo for the next quarter.” That was it, decided Mackenzie. He would learn to play the mandoline. Jessie was musical. In his mind’s eye he saw himself playing a selection from Iolanthe to Jessie, her mother and Mrs. Lawrence.

  He cut out the advertisement carefully and put it in his pocket­book. Then he went to bed, curled himself up with his hands between his knees and fell asleep immediately.

  They went to the pictures on the Wednesday. Mackenzie sat staring at the screen, aware only of the young creature beside him. The emotions of the characters in the film seemed thin and false compared with what he himself was experiencing. He wanted desperately to touch Jessie—simply to touch her. It would have been sufficient if their arms could have met on the rest between their seats. But somehow he could not bring himself to make any movement; he sat quite still—even controlling his breathing. When the lights went up between the films he turned with an awkward, tentative smile. She smiled back at him warmly.

  “I liked that picture fine,” she whispered, and he experienced an immense glow of satisfaction, as if he had made the film himself and she were praising him. He had bought some sweets for her and he put his hand gingerly into his pocket for them, but for some obscure reason he hesitated to pass them over. What could he say?—without seeming clumsy? “Here’s some sweeties for you, Jessie . . .”? “Here—I bought you these . . .”? No. He decided to wait till the lights went down. But when the lights did go down he still did not withdraw his hand from his pocket.

  When the show was over they walked towards her home, he silent and restrained, she talking animatedly about her favourite film stars, about people in the choral society and so on. He was amazed before such vitality. It seemed to him that he had not lived before at all. His life with Bella had been a shadow existence. Their way to Jessie’s home led them past the house where he had spent his fourteen years of married life, and it seemed to him that he was meeting a ghost or hearing a far-off dismal echo. There, in the light of the street lamp, was the gate he had opened and closed so many times, the bleak little plot of grass, the shadowy porch with (and he saw it clearly in his mind’s eye) its blistered paint, its knocker in the form of a devil’s-head, its small brass plaque engraved MACKENZIE. Now there would be a different name, of course, there would be different furniture, different curtains. Someone else would be sitting before the range, some other woman would be standin
g in Bella’s place by the sink. And yet he had a strange sense that if he walked up the path and knocked at the door, Bella would come and answer it—and beyond her, in the kitchen, he would see Mackenzie, the sanitary inspector, reading the evening paper.

  They reached Jessie’s home. He was going to raise his hat, say good night and walk off quietly when she made the suggestion he had been half-expecting and even dreading a little.

  “Aren’t ye coming in to see my mother, Mr. Mackenzie? Mrs. Lawrence’ll be there and she’ll be expecting you to see her home.”

  They climbed the stairs to the first floor of the tenement and she led him into a small cosy kitchen. Mrs. Lawrence and Mrs. Dean were sitting with tea-cups on their laps. Mrs. Dean was a thin, shrunken woman, wrapped in an enormous grey shawl. Her eyes were pale and set very deep, she wore a small knitted skullcap because (as she explained to Mackenzie later) she suffered from violent headaches.

  When Jessie introduced Mackenzie to her she smiled wanly and offered him a thin hand.

  “It was very good of you to take Jessie to the pictures, Mr. Mackenzie,” she said. “Now you must sit down for a while and have a cup of tea.”

  Mackenzie sat down, mumbling something. Mrs. Lawrence and Mrs. Dean went on with their conversation and Jessie turned over the pages of the People’s Friend. He sat silently with his knees together, balancing his tea-cup. As Jessie bent over the paper her hair fell before her face and he had an almost uncontrollable urge to lean forwards and run his fingers through the beautiful fair waves. And then he had a glimpse of himself in a wall-mirror. There was a mark round his brow from the rim of his bowler hat, his tie was awry, his skin seemed rough and sickly. He was suddenly self-conscious and spilt some of his tea on his trousers.

  He walked home with Mrs. Lawrence. She was voluble—he heard her voice going on and on as they went through the deserted streets.

  “My, but Jessie’s a pretty lass,” she said as they neared home.