The Other Passenger

by John Keir Cross

  “I want a ticket for France,” he said. “By Goad, I’ll get they de’ils for killing oor Geordie! . . .”

  My father was the schoolmaster in a little two-teacher school in the country—the dominie, with the school-house thrown in. A terrible house—damp, draughty, with no drains and a big pump in the yard to provide the water supply. We used to have to wrap great lumps of brown felt and straw round the pump in winter so that it shouldn’t get frozen. I used to think it was some sort of live thing when we did that.

  When my father got that school his sister Bertha went to keep house for him. She had a maid to help her, and there was my father stuck away in the country with no woman but Aunt Bertha, so he couldn’t help going after the maid—there wasn’t anything else to do. Anyway, I was the result of that. When my mother became pregnant my father tried to get her out of the way, but he bungled it (as he bungled everything) and my Aunt Bertha found out. There was a scene—my father told me later, before he died, that she gave them both hell—particularly my mother. She had the poor little thing sent to her people and gave her some money, and when I was about two she had me brought up to the school-house. My mother’s people were too poor to object—what the hell did they want me for anyway?—and there I was, with Aunt Bertha pretending to the Minister and anybody that was curious that I was her cousin’s orphan.

  There wasn’t any maid in the house now, and as soon as I was old enough to lift an axe, my Aunt Bertha began. I think I was her revenge—against everything. She kept a strap hanging up beside the mantelpiece—one of my father’s shaving-strops, with an iron buckle on it. She used to hit me with it if I didn’t get the sticks split quickly enough. But that was nothing compared with some of the things she used to do. If I wet the bed she used to make me stand outside in the frost in my nightshirt till she decided it was dry. That was a favourite punishment of hers—making me stand outside in the cold. Sometimes it was so bad I couldn’t close my fist to knock on the door and ask to get in again. Another of her punishments was not to give me anything to eat. She would send me up to bed without anything, and I had to lie under one old blanket and listen to her down below in the yard wrapping up the pump. I hated her. She was a big thin woman, very angular, and she used to wear long woollen drawers like a man in the winter time. We went to Church every Sunday and I could hear her singing beside me in a deep man’s voice, and sometimes the Minister came to tea and she sat in immense dignity with a big cairngorm brooch on her dress and gave him slices of black bun.

  I didn’t see much of my father in those days. He hated Aunt Bertha as much as I did. I remember once, during a meal, she was haranguing him, and suddenly he picked up the oil-lamp and threw it at her. It didn’t hit her, but the lamp got smashed against the wall and there we were in the dark, dead quiet for a minute or two, and then she began again, just where she had stopped. I was terrified. Then I remember the door opening and my father’s silhouette in the frame, and then we could hear him pacing about in the next room, swearing to himself. He used to spend most of the evenings like that—walking backwards and forwards in his study. He drank a lot. Sometimes the footsteps stopped and we heard him muttering, but they would begin again—perhaps, even, he would start singing. You can picture Aunt Bertha and me sitting there and just listening to him all evening, she bolt upright with that great cairngorm at her breast like a huge sore.

  When I was old enough to go to school it was worse. I had to do my jobs in the evening or early morning—no matter what the weather was like, I was out in the yard chopping wood, with an old storm lantern to see by. One of my jobs was to empty the dry-closet, and she used to wait till it was dark before she told me to do that. I used to hate going down to the foot of the garden with my lantern and digging a hole and struggling to lift up the bucket. It was so heavy I had to strain and strain, and when I was about eight one of the boys at school told me about hernia, and I was sick with fear every time, but I strained till I was crying because I was so terrified of her . . .

  Aunt Bertha died when I was eleven. When she was ill my father and I used to sit downstairs, very quiet, but both of us were hoping she would die. And when she did, the moment she did, I felt guilty somehow—for wishing it—as if I had caused it. Then the next day I thought: O God—no more sticks to break! . . . and I began to cry in a silly relief. And then for a time my father and I managed in a sort of way, the two of us, in the school-house, but with his drinking and some other things too in the district, matters had gone too far with the authorities and my father got transferred. It was no sort of promotion—simply a transfer, to a school in Glasgow. We moved about two months after Aunt Bertha’s funeral. I remember helping my father to pack his books. He was most methodical about them—I have often thought how strange that was. They were all classified and catalogued . . . Lord, I can just see him!—standing there peering at some book or other, turning over the pages with his long crooked fingers and his yellow hair falling over in front of his eyes . . .

  But all this is irrelevant—except in that it is these old haunting things that I remember nowadays, and nothing of the good times. Nothing of Margaret, beyond the vague association of something warm and good—ineffable and forlorn, too, like an echo. Oh the facts are there—I remember, detachedly, the facts. But nothing of the essence—no hint at all of that since that devil came on the scene and destroyed every good thing between us.

  The Other Passenger. The man in the Dark . . .

  I remember—it was, most surely, the first time—walking in Bristol. Five years ago. I was booked for a concert and had decided to travel from town the evening before it. The train was two and a half hours late—there was a heavy fog.

  When I got out at last at Temple Mead Station it was to find that no buses were running—no taxis, nothing. I set off to walk to my hotel in Clifton. I can’t begin to describe the weird, muffled quietness. The fog was so thick I couldn’t see the pavement I was walking on. When I reached the City Centre I heard, on all sides, thousands of footsteps. The people were walking home from work—all traffic was stopped.

  There were no voices. Occasionally a woman giggled nervously, but no one spoke—there was something awesome in that impenetrable wall of mist. Only those thousands of muffled footsteps going on determinedly and slowly.

  I groped my way towards the University. And I remember I was thinking—irrelevantly enough, as one does—of the early days: my breakaway from Scotland after the death of my father, my incredible success with scholarships, my first concert. Impossible to connect myself, as I walked there, with the shivering and weeping boy who had knocked so helplessly on the door of that decaying school-house. Impossible to imagine what Aunt Bertha would have thought—she who had forbidden me to touch the old walnut cottage piano in my father’s study till he had interfered growlingly (only for the sake of countering her!) and said I might play if I wanted to—and might even have lessons from Miss Ramsay in the village . . .

  I groped on slowly up the hill. And then I became aware that among all those straggling footsteps there was one pair close to my own—almost in time with my own. I peered into the fog. Whoever it was, he was no more than a foot or so away from me.

  I made some ineffectual remark—some fatuous statement about the fog and the discomfort. There was no reply. I walked on. The footsteps continued.

  And suddenly a curious fear came over me—intangible, but overwhelming and insistent. I reached out my hand. I moved it backwards and forwards. There was no one there—no one at all beside me. Yet all the time—devilishly and rhythmically—the footsteps were going on. And there was, in the yellow mist, a sort of chuckle, and a whisper.

  “Spenser—pianist. John Aubrey Spenser—pianist . . .”

  I stop here for a moment. I read back what I have set down so disjointedly, in such confusion and unwillingness of spirit. What will it convey to a detached reader? Will he have any notion of me?—a picture in his mind? That strikes me as funny—the idea of anyone having a picture of me in hi
s mind. A young man—dark, thin, with narrow temples. It is what they call “a sensitive face.”

  A young man with a slight Scottish accent. A picture in a reader’s mind. When all the time it might be—

  Do you remember, in Peer Gynt, towards the end of the play, there is the famous storm scene? Peer is on board ship, returning home at last from his adventures. He stands on the deck watching the storm. Then suddenly he becomes aware that someone is standing beside him at the rail—a Stranger. Peer had thought himself the only passenger on board, yet now he falls into conversation with this mysterious travelling-companion. The man bargains with Peer for his body if he should die in the storm. In the end, unsatisfied, he leaves Peer—he goes down the companion way. Peer asks the ship’s boy who the Strange Traveller is.

  “There is no other traveller,” says the boy. “You are the only passenger.”

  “But someone was with me a moment ago,” cries Peer. “Who was it that went down the companion way just now?”

  “No one, sir,” says the boy. “Only—the ship’s dog . . .”

  I cannot concentrate. My mind wanders. I cannot assemble my thoughts. If I were anything of a creative artist I would be able to impose an order on all this. Yet can there be order? I am not concerned with creating a work of art—I am putting things down. And I am putting them down as they come into my head—and as simply as I can. I cannot be logical—sequence is only a convention after all: there isn’t any time or scene, character isn’t a progress. What matters isn’t what happens or when it happens, it’s the accumulation of things—bits and pieces, states of mind, a fragment of an eyebrow, five minutes in a tram-car, a pair of shoes that don’t fit, a slap in the face, a kiss, a diseased kidney, disgust at a spittle, a woman’s legs, desire, the smell of onions—all these piled and piled on top of each other and represented in descriptions of odd encounters, conversations, the contents of a room, a recorded memory. What matters isn’t what happens or what is said or even felt—it’s the sense from the whole, the smell of it. That’s why I must simply write as it flows—as if I were talking to you.

  Very well, then: things—the things that surround me as I write.

  My room is large. I keep it dimly lit because of my eyes. To my left, in the corner, is my piano. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever possessed. The firelight gleams on the polish. Open as it is, it is like the Winged Victory. I compare it with the old cottage piano in the school-house—panels of green faded silk and two ornate brass flanges for candles.

  On the wall behind the piano, arranged in steps, is my collection of Blake engravings—the Job series, beautifully reproduced. Over the mantelshelf a portrait of Chopin. On the right-hand wall a caricature of me by my friend Peter Ellacott and a photograph of the de Laszlo portrait of Margaret. Beneath these my books and my music cabinet. For the rest, furniture—some beautiful pieces picked up in the sale rooms. On the little Chippendale table by the fireplace is a small old photo-frame containing a portrait of my mother—her people sent it to my father when she died. The print is faded, the yellow glaze cracked diagonally across at one corner. She was a little, sad-faced girl, with her hair piled up on top. Round her neck there is a locket. Whose portrait, I wonder? Her son, John Aubrey? A lock of his hair?

  The desk I write at is the only thing that has stayed with me through the years. It was my father’s desk—I retained it when his few effects were sold at Glasgow. The greenish leather with which it is topped is scored and worn and ink-stained. Scratched roughly on the wood of one of the drawers—as if done absently as he brooded in his strange way—is his name: Edward Spenser.

  So, then—my room. I have described it—I have mentioned some of the things that are in it. Yet I have not mentioned—I have not dared to mention——

  No. Even now I haven’t the courage. I am too compelled by that damnable smile . . .

  The fog was the first time—the first real time. Then there were other things—small things. Then finally——

  Look: I must be detached. I must set it down without opinion or ornamentation. I must report. I am Spenser—very well then: Spenser and his friend Miller are in an Underground Station. People move on all sides—faces held up for a moment, smiling or agonized, then whisked away into limbo. Noise. A distant distorted voice crying “Stand clear of the gates.” Miller and I arriving breathlessly at the moment a train starts up and moves out. I swear—I am disproportionately irritated by missing the train.

  “The next one doesn’t touch our station,” I say.

  Miller shrugs—damnably imperturbable. He suggests we sit down.

  “If we can,” I grumble. “There’s a devilish crowd.”

  One of the devilish crowd suddenly heaves into me and I swear irritably again.

  Miller: The poor fellow couldn’t help banging into you with that enormous case. You ought to do something about those nerves of yours, Spenser.

  Spenser: I know—I’m sorry. It’s overwork—I’ve been practising too hard. And this confounded weather—rain, rain—all the time it’s rain. There isn’t any end to it.

  Miller: Never mind. We can have a drink at the other end—one of Jameson’s special rye juleps. Think of that and sit down and be patient. There’s room here.

  Spenser: Thanks. Have you a cigarette?

  Miller: I think so . . . There you are—and don’t throw half of it away, the way you usually do these days. These are special.

  Spenser (and I gave a nervous laugh here, I remember): All right—I’ll try not to. God—this crowd! You’d wonder where they all get to go to.

  (A train is heard approaching in the distance.)

  Miller: It’s the rain—people prefer travelling underground when the weather’s bad. One of those things—must be a headache for the Transport Authorities in bad weather.

  Spenser: Here’s a train. I don’t suppose . . . ?—No, ours is the next one.

  (The train draws up. People move in and out of it. There is even more noise as background to our conversation.)

  Miller: You should take a rest, you know, Spenser—get away for a few days.

  Spenser: How can I? You know I have a concert tour coming off. I must practise. It’s all right, Miller—I’ll be all right once I get the Chopin Fantasia into my fingers. And besides—(I break off and draw quickly at the cigarette.)

  Miller: And besides what?

  Spenser: I don’t know. One of two things—queer things. You know—like that night you phoned me—that business down at the Six Bells.

  Miller: Oh I wouldn’t worry about that. It’s the sort of thing that might happen to anyone who was a bit overworked.

  Spenser: I suppose so. All the same it—it worries me. Sometimes I think—oh, never mind.

  Miller: Think what, old chap?

  Spenser: Oh—the blues, the blues. (I hated Miller’s unctuousness—his hearty “old chap.”) I find myself thinking sometimes how easy it would be to—well, shove oneself under a train, for instance.

  Miller: Don’t be a fool, man. Where would that sort of thing get you?

  Spenser (sighing): Nowhere, I suppose. Forget it, Miller. I’m only talking for talking’s sake. I get these periodic bouts of depression—always have done.

  (Shouts: “Stand clear of the doors,” etc.; and bustle.)

  Miller: Besides, what about Margaret? Chaps that are engaged to be married can’t go about chucking themselves under trains. There are responsibilities, you know.

  Spenser: Yes, I know. Forget the whole thing, Miller. The train’s going out—we’re next.

  (The train starts.)

  Miller: You’re just about the queerest chap——

  (It is at this point, if I remember, or in the middle of some such fatuous remark from Miller, that there is a sudden scream from a woman. A pause in the crowd noises, then they start up more busily. The train moves out and away.) What’s that? What’s wrong? . . .

  Spenser: I don’t know—they’re all crowding up to the end of the platform. There’s bee
n an accident or something.

  Miller: I can’t see—confound these people! Don’t shove, damn you! Come on, Spenser—let’s go and see . . .

  (The crowd noises thicken. We push our way through somehow—led on by Miller’s morbid curiosity.)

  Spenser: Miller, wait—it’s . . . if it’s an accident it’s hardly——

  Miller: Oh, come on—don’t be squeamish.

  (We reach the end of the platform. A dishevelled and partly hysterical woman is talking to an official.)

  The Woman: . . . but he did—I tell you he did jump! He was standing here—right beside me. They’re trying to say I’m imagining it all but I know I’m not. He was standing here, just beside me——

  The Official: Who was?

  The Woman: The man. And when the train started he jumped down—on to the line—just as it was entering the tunnel. Oh, it was horrible!

  (Her lip quivers. She begins to weep. She is trembling violently. The official looks puzzled. He appeals to the crowd. No one else has seen anything at all. He looks down at the glistening line. He addresses the woman, he touches her arm and tries to calm her.)

  The Woman (wildly): But I tell you he did jump, he did! He was wearing a raincoat and a soft sort of velvety hat, and he—

  (She breaks off suddenly.)

  The Official: What’s wrong, madam? What are you staring at?

  The Woman: That’s the man—there!—that’s him, in the crowd! That’s the man I saw throwing himself in front of the train.

  (A pause.)

  Miller: Spenser—she’s pointing at you! This is fantastic, man—she’s pointing at you!

  . . . That was four years ago—nine months after my visit to Bristol and the episode in the fog. There had been other things—little things. One of them I have mentioned already, in the conversation between Miller and myself in the previous section: