On the Island

by Iain Crichton Smith

  “I know that,” said Mrs Murray, whom he didn’t like either and who was the wife of fat Donald who didn’t do any work but spent his days complaining about his back and showing his injured wrist to anyone who was interested.

  “I know that,” Mrs Murray repeated. “Agnes’s boy.” And her heavy malicious eyes seemed to encompass his without actually looking.

  He sat down in the immense silence inside which there crawled worms of shame which he could feel climbing his legs to his knees and nibbling hotly.

  “And have you any news for us, a ghraidh?” Mrs Macdonald asked, turning her thin beaky face towards him.

  “I haven’t heard anything,” Iain muttered, looking down at his sandals.

  “He hasn’t heard anything,” said Mrs Macdonald to Mrs Murray as if she were deaf and couldn’t hear the answer.

  “Nothing?” said Mrs Murray as if she felt astonished.

  “Would you like a biscuit?” Mrs Macdonald asked him, smiling the sort of smile which she considered suitable for a boy, ingratiating and benevolent.

  “No thank you. I …” And at that moment he nearly asked her for the half-crown before he had settled into his seat, while he was still able to rush out of the house, while Mrs Macdonald was not as yet prepared. But the moment passed and he didn’t ask, and as if he weren’t there at all Mrs Murray said to her friend, apparently continuing an earlier tale:

  “So that’s what she gave him for his tea then, herring and treacle. Did you ever hear the like?”

  “Never,” said Mrs Macdonald. “Never. If she had even given him potatoes. Or scones. But herring and treacle. No wonder the poor man is complaining about his stomach. Who would wonder?”

  “You’re right enough. This is a nice biscuit you have here. Did you get it in the shop?”

  “No, not in the shop. I was up town yesterday.”

  “Did you see anyone?”

  “No. I wasn’t long up. Oh, I’m telling a lie. I was speaking to John Munro. He’s looking very white. Is it TB, do you think?”

  “They say that but we don’t know. He would have been at the doctor,” and she leaned forward, speaking in a whisper as if to make sure that Iain didn’t hear her. “Everyone knows, you understand, but …” And she nodded her head with great significance as did Mrs Macdonald, so that as they moved their heads in unison they looked like two dolls.

  Iain sitting on his chair could hear the clock ticking very loudly. He gazed intently at a picture on the wall which showed two ducks with necks outstretched flying through a pale sky. He gazed and gazed at it as if it were the most interesting picture in the world so that if anyone happened to look at him they would know that he was occupied with every detail of the painting and that he would have no time to answer their questions. He held his breath so that the women wouldn’t even notice that he was there, and pulled his legs towards him, locking them firmly round the legs of the chair. The time for speaking had passed and now he would have to wait till after a while he could decently go.

  “Things are dear in the town,” Mrs Macdonald was now saying. “I saw a hat but I didn’t buy it, it was so dear.”

  “You’re right,” said Mrs Murray, “you’re right. I can’t afford to go myself as you know but I’m sure the hats are dear.” Her voice had a whining self-pitying quality as if she suffered a lot of grief which very few people knew about except herself.

  “It was in Ritchie’s I saw it. A black hat with a veil on it. It was going to cost one pound and two shillings but I didn’t buy it.” She sighed heavily.

  “And the girls in the shops are so rude, they say,” remarked Mrs Murray, “they say that they’re so rude. Some of them from our own village too, mentioning no names,” and she glanced at Iain as if she had said too much.

  Iain was still staring at the painting, diminishing himself to a spot on the chair, to a mote in the room. Why did Mrs Macdonald have money and his mother not? Why did she have ornaments and a beautiful clock? And yet she was uglier than his mother, and he hated her. Why am I here, he thought, why can’t I just go? But he couldn’t bring himself to do so for his body seemed to be made of stone, while at the same time it trembled with shame. In the picture the ducks flew on their undeviating way towards the warmer climates.

  As if she had just remembered him Mrs Macdonald asked, “And how is your mother, a ghraidh?”

  “She’s all right, thank you.”

  “That’s good, that’s good,” said Mrs Macdonald, giving the same meaningful look to Mrs Murray as before.

  “Yes, health is the best thing we have,” Mrs Murray remarked largely. “What are we without our health?”

  “What indeed? We can have money but if we don’t have our health we have nothing.”

  “That’s very true,” sighed Mrs Murray. “You never said a truer word. You could have all the money in the world and if you didn’t have your health you’d have nothing.”

  There was another long silence while the two women stared into the fire and Iain gazed at the painting on the wall.

  “I’ve just heard,” began Mrs Murray, “I’ve just heard …”

  And at that moment, at that very moment, at that moment trembling with nervousness, Iain got to his feet and without doing anything more than muttering, “I’ve got to go,” he made a supreme effort and trudged as if through some substance like porridge or treacle to the door which seemed indeed to be miles away.

  “Thank you for your visit, a ghraidh,” said Mrs Macdonald with her ingratiating smile, “and tell your mother I was asking for her.”

  “And me too,” said Mrs Murray.

  Then he was out in the fresh air, the door shut behind him. Of couse he couldn’t have asked for money while Mrs Murray was there. It would have been all over the village in minutes. Even his mother could see that. Anyone could see that. He looked down at his empty hands and then at the quiet village and finally at his own house where his mother – and Kenneth – would be waiting, expecting him to come home with the money. His mother would be angry, she might even hit him: her rages were terrible because she was poor and had no money and also she was exceedingly proud. Some day he would get money for her, some day he would be rich and give her so much money that she would never need to borrow again. He swore that as if to the red sun that was setting directly ahead of him.

  “You should have waited,” she would say to him, “you should have waited till Mrs Murray left. That’s what you should have done.” But how could he have waited? Mrs Murray might not have left for hours and how could his mother know what it was like to sit in that chair, in silence, having nothing to contribute to the conversation, while the two women talked to each other mysteriously as if he wasn’t there. He would rather starve. He would rather not have bread or tea or soup than do that. He would rather go hungry, though indeed he was hungry at that moment.

  He walked back very slowly, looking down at the ground all the time, now and again stopping to see what was in the ditch and even hoping that by some miracle he would find a half-crown lying on the road. But he knew that such a miracle wouldn’t happen, no miracles ever came his way: they were more likely to happen to Kenneth than to him. He would have to invent a story, that Mrs Macdonald wasn’t in, that’s what he must say. And he knew that if he said it his mother would send him somewhere else, to some other house where people were at home. And at that moment as he gazed across the slightly frosted landscape with the red sun ahead of him it reminded him of the picture with the two ducks, their necks outstretched, flying towards the sun, while below them were the marshes: below them in their turn were Mrs Macdonald and Mrs Murray sitting by the fire eating their biscuits.

  He remembered the last time he had returned empty-handed, the expression on his mother’s face of whiteness and fear, as if she were gazing and not for the first time into a deep terrible pit. So he stood there by the empty ditch, perplexed and afraid, while in the distance he could see the sun, raw and red like a burning coin at the far end of the landscape, h
is heart, as he watched, torn with shame and rage, on that cold empty wintry afternoon.

  16

  THE SMALL GREY-HAIRED precise man walked up the path to the house while Iain’s mother was hanging up sheets on the line in a fresh spring breeze that whipped them about her face. She recognised him through a lash of white as the headmaster of the little village school which she herself had attended long ago under a different and more unpredictably raging predecessor, and which Iain and Kenneth were attending now. He stood smiling on the pathway near the house till she had finished fixing the sheets to the line and then noticing that she was flurried and nervous and trying to dry her hands on her long skirt, he said, “It’s nothing to do with misbehaviour on the part of Iain or Kenneth, Mrs Campbell. Nothing at all. I can assure you of that.”

  His trim head and body assured her of that most surely, but she stood where she was, afraid to ask him in in case he thought her house untidy, and at the same time frightened that he would consider her inhospitable. He finally solved the problem by inviting himself in.

  “Please,” he said and pointed to a chair. She sat down, her hands folded in her lap, and he did the same.

  “As a matter of fact,” he began, “I came about Iain.”

  “What is it about Iain that the headmaster wants to know,” she asked, hoping that he hadn’t noticed the patch on the curtains, or the worn linoleum.

  “Well, as a matter of fact it’s nothing serious. I’ve been watching Iain for some time now. Indeed he studies Latin with me and I’ve noticed that he has a real love of learning. He reads a lot, doesn’t he?”

  “He never takes his head out of a book,” said Mrs Campbell, as if a book were a trough. “He even reads at the peat bank.” The headmaster permitted himself a little smile as at a joke completely understood, for by it Mrs Campbell was implying that to Iain books were more important than the tasks of the day.

  “I can believe that, Mrs Campbell, I can well believe that.” The curtains were astir with the spring breeze, and she thought that surely he must notice now, but all he said was, “It’s fine spring weather we’re having, Mrs Campbell. I saw some lambs today for the first time.” They say that if the first lamb is looking directly towards you you will have good luck, Mrs Campbell thought irrelevantly, as she turned her slightly lowered gaze in the direction of the headmaster in his well-cut precise grey suit and his polished black shoes.

  “To put it in a nutshell, Mrs Campbell, what I would want to happen would be that Iain should attend the big secondary school in the town this autumn. Now before you say anything,” and he raised his white hand, “it won’t cost you anything. He will get a bursary – at least I am almost certain he will – and that will pay for his bus fare. I think that he is” – and he paused impressively – “university material.”

  Her mind tried to grapple with what the headmaster was saying. Material? What material? If only the man could speak Gaelic she would find it easier to understand; but no, he spoke English, though she must admit that his words though mysterious were clearly enunciated.

  “You see,” the headmaster continued, as if he were lecturing, “there are few in this village of whom it can be said that they are university material,” (so it was a favourable thing then, was it?) “and therefore we must strike while the iron is hot. We must take measures in good time.”

  Finally she came to his meaning as a bird circling fearfully finally settles on a branch.

  “Is the headmaster saying that Iain could go to university?”

  “That is precisely what I am saying, Mrs Campbell. In my opinion his grasp, particularly of languages – though he is not so strong on the side of the sciences – is such that I would commit myself to saying that. His quickness in seeing concepts in Latin, his essay and his general knowledge suggest to me that he would make, eventually, a university candidate. Now, Mrs Campbell, the question is do you want him to go to the secondary school? There might be, I can appreciate,” and he coughed slightly, “economic barriers in the way.” And he looked round the room, from the wooden dresser, with the dishes stacked in tiers on it, to the wooden table with the oilcloth cover.

  Mrs Campbell sat stunned in her seat. She had been hoping that in a few years, not very long now, Iain would be able to earn money and she would be forever free of having to borrow a shilling here and a half-crown there: she would be able to go to bed at night knowing where the morrow’s meals would come from, she would be, in short, like all her neighbours.

  “Well, Mrs Campbell?” His voice came to her as if from a far hollow distance, as if he were indeed the evil one tempting her with gifts, placing before her an intolerable choice. For if Iain went to university her days of scrimping would be prolonged, she would be condemned to wear, as far ahead as she could see, even to church, the worn clothes that she already had, there would be no prospect of furniture for the house, she would stare bleakly into a future of continued borrowing, of worry and of toil. And she stayed silent, gazing at a point slightly below the headmaster’s chin, bowed and weary.

  He continued, however. “The fact is, Mrs Campbell, I know that this will mean hardship for you and that he won’t earn money for some years. I can appreciate that side of it but on the other hand if one considers his welfare – his welfare as a whole – then this indubitably is the best thing for him. After all many boys take jobs that lead to nothing.”

  How fine his language, was. How well he could arrange everything. If only she could do the same. Did he who was talking so glibly about money not realise that money meant butter, bread, sugar, fish, meat, and that lack of money meant an empty larder, and sleepless nights? Would his Latin feed an empty belly or put flesh on growing bones? She stared past him into the years that might come, a continuation of the years that had passed. It wasn’t that she thought about Iain’s future, for she knew very well that in university he might go astray, he might forget all about her and his own brother, he might never visit them again, and spend his life among corruption.

  “Mrs Campbell …” She jerked back to reality as he continued, “I do understand the difficulties there will be for you. But I assure you that there will be no problem in the immediate future since as I have said he can pay his bus fares with his bursary. And think also of the honour to the school.”

  So that was what he was thinking about, the honour to the school. He wasn’t thinking of Iain at all, he was thinking of the praise he would receive as one who successfully prepared pupils for the university. Well, Iain was her own flesh and blood and she would show him that she could at least say no if she wished and the “No” came to her lips like meat.

  But before she could say it, he added, “There is no question but that Iain is one of the ablest pupils I have had. His imagination is strong and he should go far. I haven’t spoken to him about this but I am sure that he himself feels that the possibility is there. The boys of the village won’t like it. They never like it when someone leaves them for a higher position and that too is understandable. Still I am sure Iain has enough common sense and tact to take that in his stride. May I therefore take it that you will allow him to go to the secondary school this August?”

  He waited and her head whirled. She found it difficult to say “No” directly to the headmaster, though she would easily have said it to anyone in the village. But she would say it. What right had he, moneyed as he was, to come along to her house and take away from her her only hope of a decent future? How could he know anything about poverty, true real grinding poverty? She would send him back to his school first.

  And then just as she was about to speak, to let her mouth bang down on the words as the mousetrap on the mouse among the flour, she heard as if very faintly two words that he had used and she clutched at them as a sailor might clutch at a log of wood in a stormy sea: “Higher position.” The two words danced enticingly towards her. “Higher position.” They were smiling at her. “The boys of the village won’t like it.” They were happy and smiling and laughing.

/>   “Higher position.” She saw Iain, daringly, as a minister, dressed in his minister’s gown, ascending into the pulpit and he was castigating all the villagers for their lack of charity, he was telling them about the widow and the widow’s mite, he was asking them why they had not, even once, gone to his mother to ask if she needed anything, he was haranguing them for their lack of love. And she imagined their faces twisted with shame and embarrassment as hers had often been, and she herself sitting triumphantly in the front seat looking up at her son, who was transfigured as if by the light of heaven. And she turned her face like iron directly to the headmaster and she said, “Iain shall go to the university.”

  A remarkable woman, thought the headmaster, as he made his way down the path to the main road, and saw between curtains people peering at him. Not many of the villagers would have put love of scholarship, academic prowess, above indigence and poverty. Not many of them would have had that sort of vision.

  So it was that on that spring day he inhaled the fresh invigorating air, and felt within himself the surge and sparkle of salt breezes as he saw the lambs suckling their mothers, the vernal greenness of the grass, and the white road that led back to his own school, where after all his endeavours had not been in vain. So must once the Roman poets have felt at the dawning of their language, alive and happy, setting out past their limiting geographical boundaries into the open sea. So too must Mrs Campbell feel, having made her sacrifice, having transcended her narrow parochial world. And he rejoiced, for he was a good man, and he wanted Iain to do well and on that day he felt virtue and joy all around him as he returned schoolward.

  17

  WITH THE EMPTY jam jar in his hand Iain set out across the moor, in search of blaeberries, his body bent down to the earth. The moor stretched away from the back of the house and rose in a series of braes past the Standing Stones. Kneeling among the heather he gathered the blaeberries and put them in the jar, steadily making his way further and further from the houses while all about him flew little flies with trembling almost transparent wings, and striped wasps buzzed past his nose. Some of the blaeberries he ate, but most he placed in the jar; and while searching for them he found a lark’s abandoned nest, empty of eggs or nestlings, for it was now autumn. When he looked back after a while he found that he had gone over the summit of the brae as a ship goes over the horizon and that he could no longer see the village at all except that he could distinguish trembling stems of greyish-blue smoke ascending into the sky.