All around him were the scarred peat banks, dry and black, with here and there flaky peats that had been left lying and not taken to the houses. To his right he could see the houses of the neighbouring village which curved round one edge of the moor. About him was an immense silence and he could see no one at all moving anywhere near him. For a moment he thought of returning lest he should get lost in the spaces of the moor, but some daring instinct, some sense of adventure, was urging him onwards from the houses anchored to their familiar earth. It was as if he was Columbus setting off into a new world with inadequate maps, charts that showed only dimly and tentatively unknown seas and unknown islands.
The jar was steadily filling and in his absorption it was only now and again that he looked about him. He could no longer see any houses, for he seemed to have climbed another brae. He couldn’t even see the Standing Stones. He was in a landscape of broken peat banks, stones and earth, while above him now and again black birds flew, their wings lazily outspread. Steadily he made his way forward, bearing his jar, slightly nervous, slightly excited, seeing no sign of people or of animals. How alone he was, how quiet the world. It was as if he had dropped into a hollow of the earth, isolated from thought and action. And yet some power was drawing him on, ever forward into the desolate landscape, wishing to know the end of it; or would it perhaps go on forever as it seemed to him that it might. Above him was the blue hollow of the sky, limitless, towering, empty but for a few straying birds. He gazed down at his hands, stained red with the berries, and rubbed them among the gnarled heather.
On and on, a small figure in the vast landscape, he went, half kneeling, and searching, sometimes having to jump down from peat banks as he traversed them. The ground was in many places soggy and moist, and at times his shoes sank into it as into a marsh, but mostly he moved among the tangle of heather which was dry and springy.
A voice inside was telling him, “You should go back. You don’t know how long you’ve been away because you have no watch. What if you got lost here and no one ever found you? Your body might rot among these peat banks forever.” But another voice was saying, “You’ve never been as far as this before. Keep on going. You might find something that you’ve never seen before.”
And at that instant as he raised his aching back he found himself to his astonishment facing the sea. He had somehow reached the end of the moor and was standing on a promontory and there below him, it seemed for miles, was the ocean. It was a different sea from the one he knew, it looked as if no human eye before his had gazed on it. This sea had no houses near it, no boats, it seemed to have nothing at all to do with him or any other human being, it stretched as far as the eye could see in a dark endless blue. And as he looked down, trembling and amazed, he saw ducks flying far below him above the surface of the water, and, yes, surely in the distance a liner sailing slowly past. What waters, what a sea, multitudinous, glittering, like the open page of an immense blue book so that one could imagine oneself studying it, scrutinising it for its fish.
It appalled him and it exhilarated him. If he fell down there he would be ages falling, he thought, and drew back from the promontory, for his head for heights was not good. The jam jar in his hand, he stared downwards. That sea, where did it end? It seemed as if it went on forever, dancing and happy in the rays of the sun, immeasurably deep, immeasurably dangerous. All around him flew the seagulls but these were not the scavengers that followed the plough, these were the true real seagulls of a different race from the others, seagulls of the ocean, very pure, very white, with cold beady eyes staring at him as if he were an intruder into their domain.
He looked rapturously downward as if towards a treasure that had been given to him alone, an explorer of the dangerous blue waters, and as he did so he heard above him a constant humming much louder than that of an insect. When he stared upwards he saw an aeroplane moving slowly along, its wings glittering, its engine loud in the silence. He imagined the pilot sitting in his seat gazing down through his goggles at the ocean and felt for a moment a spasm of vertigo which made him draw further back.
Glancing from plane to sea and back to plane again he was overwhelmed by a sense of largeness and space such as he had never felt before. It was as if in face of the two extended blues reflecting each other the Cook, Mrs Macdonald, Mrs Murray, his mother, Kenneth, Speedy, Daial and the rest of them had disappeared from the earth, as if the whole village no longer existed, as if he had found himself in a freedom that he could hardly endure. For there was nothing here that was human, anchored to the earth, there were only stones and water and ducks and seagulls and that one aeroplane in which sat the pilot, among the clouds: he couldn’t even see any sea shells for he did not dare to peer over the precipitous edge of the cliff.
He gazed down at the jam jar in his hand, at his jersey which had begun to shiver in the strong breeze blowing towards him from the sea; he looked up at the aeroplane travelling through the blue sky and then he turned away from them all and began to run into the moor where the peat banks were, where the wiry heather was growing, beyond which the village lay, with its familiar ditches and its canisters and its old shoes, and from which he could see the sea that was known to him, with the green island in the middle.
He had run for a long distance before he stopped and began to walk more decorously, only to find that in his race he had spilt many but not all of the blaeberries. When he ate the remainder they seemed to have a bitter chilly taste which he had not felt before, a sour exciting tang which made him squirm with an exquisite agonised pleasure, which scoured and cleaned his whole body.
18
“I’VE COMBED MY hair already,” said Iain.
“Well, it doesn’t look combed. Come here and I’ll comb it for you properly.”
Iain submitted himself to his mother’s hands.
“And another thing. What about your shoes? Have you polished them?”
“I polished them last night.”
“Let me see them. Yes, they’ll do. And where’s your bag?”
“I’ve got it.”
Kenneth was still lying in bed for he was only going to the village school and didn’t have to leave till later; Iain however had to catch the bus at quarter past eight for the journey to the town school. It was the 20th of August and this was going to be his first day at his new school.
He left his mother and went over to the window through which he would eventually see the red bus breasting the brae.
His mother said, “And make sure that you’re polite and good mannered. Do what your teachers tell you. And look after yourself in the town. Keep away from the traffic.”
“All right, Mother.”
“And don’t get in with bad boys. Remember that the town boys are different from the village boys. Some of them smoke and swear. Don’t you learn to do that or you’ll have me to answer to. Are you hearing me?”
“Yes, Mother.”
Why was the bus not coming? Trembling and feverish with anticipation he waited.
“And another thing. I’m making a great sacrifice for you. I hope you’ll remember that. And do well at your lessons.”
It was as if she was never going to see him again and yet he would be home again that same evening at five o’clock or so.
“Sit quietly in the bus and don’t play about. And no standing on the steps of the bus as I’ve seen other boys doing. Wait till the bus stops.”
“Yes, Mother.”
And Kenneth still slept open-mouthed and snoring in the bed which the two of them shared. Or at least he had been doing so when Iain had left it early on that bright and fragile autumn morning.
“Come here and I’ll put your tie straight.” He went over to her obediently, squirming in her hands as if afraid that she would take it into her head to kiss him, but all she did was to pat him on the head silently.
He turned back to the window and saw the bus breasting the brae. He shouted “Here’s the bus, mother,” and then he was running with his school bag over
his shoulder to the door, hearing faintly as he passed Kenneth saying, “Good luck then.” In his brown suit he ran down the path to the plank and waited there till the bus finally came. He forgot to wave to his mother who was standing at the window watching him climb the steps.
When finally the bus had started again and moved forward carrying her small son to the town she turned back to the kitchen and after a while told Kenneth roughly that it was time for him to be getting up. Today, she thought, she would do a big washing to keep her mind occupied, and after that there would be the ironing. The day would eventually pass, somehow.
“Hurry up,” she shouted to Kenneth. “Are you going to lie there all day?”
As the bus was almost full the only seat Iain could find was one beside an oldish man who, he presumed, was from the next village, as he didn’t know him. He sat in silence as the bus sped on, now and again stopping for passengers who were going to their daily work in the town; and he thought with trepidation of the day ahead of him.
Suddenly he heard a voice from beside him saying, “Are you going to the school then?”
He turned and saw a face with large black eyebrows and a very red nose.
“Yes,” he answered shyly.
“It won’t be for long now, I can tell you. It won’t be for long. We will be at war soon, did you know that? According to the wireless we’ll be at war. It was saying that on the wireless this morning.” And the man nodded his head with great satisfaction. “Bombs and guns and aeroplanes, that’s what we’ll be having. Same as in the last war, only worse. Chamberlain didn’t manage it after all.”
Iain remained silent as he didn’t know what to say. But the man didn’t seem to require that Iain should speak.
“It was the trenches in the last war, but it won’t be trenches in this one. It will be tanks and aeroplanes. Look what they did already in Spain. You look at it for a minute and study it but they don’t teach you that in school, do they? And the boys from the villages will be off to the Navy as before, and who will look after them when they come home? They told them after the last war, Homes for Heroes, that’s what they said. But they didn’t give them Homes for Heroes, did they?” And his eyes glittered with malice and anger. “Did they now? I’m telling you they didn’t.”
A woman who was sitting in the seat behind patted the man on the shoulder and said, “Leave him alone, Rob. He’s just a young boy.”
“And what were they but young boys, eh? Tell me that. They were all young boys. Huh,” and he turned away from Iain, muttering unintelligibly to himself.
“Don’t you listen to him,” said the woman to Iain. “If it comes, it comes. You’re too young to be worrying about things like that. You should be ashamed of yourself, Rob.”
“All right, all right, it was just that I was in that school myself. Anyway, boy, if Macleod is still there tell him I was asking for him. Tell him Rob MacMillan was asking for him. He’ll remember me. I used to be good at arithmetic. You tell him that. Rob MacMillan.”
And he finally turned away leaving Iain alone, though now and again he would mutter to himself, and Iain thought that he could hear in the middle of the tirade swear-words as if the man was accusing himself of some strange wrong or sin that he had committed years ago, hating himself, bringing himself to an imaginary judgement.
When however the bus finally reached town the man suddenly shook him by the hand and said, “Good luck then, boy. And remember what I told you. Rob MacMillan is the name. You tell Macleod that Rob MacMillan was asking for him.” But as Iain stepped off the bus it was as if, because of the man’s words and strange behaviour, he could hear above him the hum of enemy planes and see his friends from the village setting off into a war whose meaning he could not possibly understand.
There were hundreds of them in the big hall: Iain had never seen so many boys together in the one place in his whole life. Teachers in black gowns passed up and down the aisles, looking like buzzards, wings folded. Suddenly to the lectern far ahead of him there strode a very small man whom Iain could hardly make out even by craning his neck. The small man stood behind the lectern staring unmovingly ahead of him, and the noise gradually diminished till there could only be heard the man’s voice.
“This is your first day in school,” said the small man in a distinct confident voice. “You will have difficulty in finding your way about at first but you’ll learn as one has to learn everything in life eventually. You will be expected to be obedient and above all you will be expected to work hard. Remember, hard work is the greatest delight in life. You won’t know that now but you will, you will. That’s all I have to say for the moment. Good luck to you all.”
The small man left the lectern and the talking began again till silenced by another, this time taller, man, who climbed the steps and told them that now they would be divided into their classes. They were to listen very carefully, for he would not repeat what he had said.
Iain, like the other boys around him, listened carefully.
It seemed to him as if all the boys in the island were gathered there.
At the interval he was standing alone in the playground when an older boy came over to him, and said, “Have you got a meek?” Iain who didn’t know what a meek was looked at him in astonishment.
“A meek, a meek,” the boy repeated. “You’re not another of them. Do you not know what a meek is?”
“No,” said Iain who was beginning to get a little frightened.
“A meek is a halfpenny.”
“I haven’t got any money,” said Iain.
Later Iain saw some of the older boys tossing halfpennies in the air and concealing them, when they descended, on the backs of their hands, after which they would guess which sides – heads or tails – had come down: and as a result of this one or other of the two competitors would claim both coins. Meeks: so that was what they were called. Maybe some day he would learn the language of the town boys.
At lunch time he went to the house of his aunt who was staying by herself in the town, and who measured out little pats of butter on to slices of very thin bread, while she poked about at a primus stove in the half-darkness of the room. Half-blind, she would now and then clap him on the shoulder calling him a clever boy and a credit to his family, and especially to his dead father whose only surviving sister she was. A bird in a cage gazed down at him dispassionately, its head cocked on one side, while Iain ate his lukewarm pie.
“And how is your mother?” she would ask him at intervals as if she had forgotten the answer he had given her before.
“Fine,” he would answer and she would say, “That’s good, that’s good,” poking about short-sightedly with a knife or a fork.
“I don’t suppose you will remember your father,” she said to him at one point. “He was a fine man and he would have been very proud of you.”
And she would offer him another slice of him bread with butter on it. The room was very dark, its curtains half drawn, and there was a smell of grease and floor polish. Iain could hear the sound of traffic as it passed the house which jutted out on to the road with its low windows and its whitewashed wall.
When he had finished his food he left the house and ran all the way down to the quay where the motor boats and the drifters were lying, resting on their reflections. He walked up and down it, wishing that he could go for a sail on one of the boats, and now and again seeing a boy in wellingtons and thick white stockings swinging up the iron ladder from the depths of a drifter.
The castle in its green cloud of trees enticed him but he didn’t go that day. “I am free,” he thought.” I can go anywhere I like except that I have to return to school at half-past one.” A road which he had not yet travelled curved past the last shop that he could see, following the flow of the river which was the only barrier between himself and the castle. He imagined that the river was swarming with trout and salmon and that across it were bridges which he would eventually cross. One day he would certainly walk among the woods which surrounded
the castle, for he had never been among trees before. Nor had he ever been near a castle before, and he didn’t know whether this one was inhabited or not, though it looked new with its white towers and white walls.
“ ‘Insula, insulam, insulae, insulae, insula,’ ” chanted the fierce-looking man with the red almost vertical brush of hair above the intensely white face. And the class chorused the words after him.
“ ‘Insulae – of an island or to an island’, depending on whether it is the genitive or the dative you are using,” said the fierce-looking man, poking with a pointer at a small hesitant boy whose name Iain did not as yet know. “Remember, boy, this is the language of the second greatest race the world has ever seen. Do you know the name of the first one?”
“The British, sir,” said the boy who sat beside Iain and whose hand had shot into the air like a spring bursting from a box.
“Rubbish, boy. The British invented the steamship and the Davy lamp and no doubt the lavatory pan” – and here an extraordinary expression, compound half of mirth and distaste, crossed his face – “but they did not invent the mind. Anyone else, anyone else?” The words were shooting out of the man’s mouth like bullets and his pointer thrust here and there like a sword or a spear as if he were indulging in some sort of esoteric warfare.
“The mind, the mind, boy, who invented the mind?” and the teacher poked at a fat boy who looked as if he were to cry.
On the Island Page 10