The Last Summer

by Iain Crichton Smith

  But after he had laughed he thought of how this poem must have been written about Janet. For the line “A pine tree shadow across your brow” seemed to represent exactly his image of her. He thought of the wall again and the shadow falling across her brow and himself and Neil and James in their flannels surrounding her like a court. The world of the school magazine, the last year when they were being treated as adults for the first time:

  The power that corrupts, that power to excess

  The beautiful quite naturally possess:

  To them the fathers and the children turn:

  And all who long for their destruction,

  The arrogant and self-insulted, wait

  The looked instruction.

  The book of Gaelic poems fell to the floor and he didn’t bend to pick it up. He forgot for a moment the screen of germs which his imagination had previously pictured by demoniac summons and stared down at the verse as if in a trance. He moved to the second last verse:

  Shall idleness ring then your eyes like the pest?

  O will you unnoticed and mildly like the rest,

  Will you join the lost in their sneering circles,

  Forfeit the beautiful interest and fall

  Where the engaging face is the face of the betrayer,

  And the pang is all?

  What did it all mean? He couldn’t understand it fully but he felt that there was some important meaning there. He fell into a dream of what it was all about while the Latin books lay beside him unread, neglected, and from below he could hear the kettle boiling for the tea.

  19

  ONE DAY HE met Miriam by chance down town during the dinner break and he went up to her on impulse.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “about the In Memoriams.”

  “Oh that’s all right,” she muttered. She was wearing a white blouse and a white pleated skirt and carrying a book under her arm.

  “I didn’t know about your …” He became confused and couldn’t continue. They stood together by the sea wall watching a fisherman patiently mending a net.

  He continued: “I don’t suppose you …”

  To his surprise she was able to talk quite calmly about the whole business.

  “He had cancer,” she said. “At least that’s what the doctor said.”

  “Was he in much pain?”

  “Yes. It went to his kidneys at first. Then they cut one of them off. Then it went to his arm. They amputated it. Then it went to his spine and that was the end.” She stopped and then added: “At the end he said he had lost his faith.”

  Malcolm was surprised at the way she said this. Casually he said:

  “You believe in God then?”

  She had been staring down at the fisherman sitting with the brown net in front of him on the deck and holding the mending needle between his teeth while he picked the net up in folds, and she turned round and said:

  “Of course. Don’t you?”

  Malcolm didn’t say anything.

  “I mean,” she added, “how else can you account for things? The sea the sky the stars …”

  What nonsense it all was. All these people talking about the stars and beautiful sunsets when they had never stopped to look at one in their lives. What was so beautiful about a sunset anyway?

  “Do you read the bible a lot then?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’m not like some,” she said in a flash of what might have been malice.

  “Who are you thinking of?” he inquired vaguely.

  “Well, there are some of the girls who just read the Red Star. I mean in the Hostel.”

  He wondered if she meant Janet. A cormorant dived into the water in front of him and he watched it while out of the corner of his eye he could see her hand resting gently on the wall all in shadow.

  “Such nonsense,” she continued. “It shouldn’t be allowed. I mean there was a story in one of them. It was about this girl stabbing another one with a pair of scissors just because she was in love with the same man. I was horrified.”

  “Did you see your father when he was dead?” he asked without thinking, because he was interested. What happened to the dead? What did they look like? Did they look as they did when they were alive? Could one see any sign in them that they had once been alive?

  “Yes, I did,” she answered. “He hadn’t changed at all. He looked just the same except that he was more peaceful. You know, when he was delirious, he was asking for his mother. I could hear him shouting ‘Mother’ .”

  Malcolm turned on her with amazement, shocked to the core, imagining this man lying on his bed and in the middle of the night calling on his long dead mother. There was something appalling about it.

  “What a terrible thing,” he said and was astonished to see a tear trembling delicately below her eye. He watched it trembling, then rounding to a perfect circle and falling down her face and sparkling a little in the sun. It was such a dear marvellous thing. He had never seen such a tear before, such a perfect round tear.

  She turned away briefly looking back at the town. He followed her gaze to the picture house where it stood with its doors wide open and the trailers in their frames. And he thought, perhaps I’ll be able to take Janet there soon, and as he thought of this the grief which he had just felt turned to inconceivable joy as deep as tears.

  Her face turned to him again and this time it was clear and tearless.

  “I wonder how many nets they have to mend in a year,” he said, looking down at the fisherman in his white thigh-length wellingtons and his blue jersey.

  “I suppose they tear a lot,” she said.

  “Yes, I suppose so. I wonder if he’s content. All he has to do is to go out in his ship and then when he’s got enough fish he’s content.”

  “I suppose so.”

  As they were standing by the wall James came along and Miriam said: “Here he is himself.” And he knew from the tone of her voice that she didn’t like James. James hadn’t noticed them. He was walking along head bent to the ground as if studying some secret script or as if looking for lost examination marks, so humble that he seemed to be uncertain of the very air he breathed. Sometimes Malcolm despised him. His hands were clasped behind his back.

  Suddenly he noticed them and his eyes lit up.

  “Hullo,” he said, his eyes becoming wary again. “I meant to ask you something, Malcolm. I wonder if you could tell me. That history paper in the Bursary Comp. Do you know if there’s anything about the nineteenth century?”

  “Can’t tell you,” said Malcolm, “haven’t seen one yet.”

  “I’ve seen all the others,” said James moodily, “but not a history one. The others aren’t too bad.”

  “Never mind,” said Malcolm, “we’ll go into it blind. I’m sure you’ll win a bursary anyway.” But he didn’t really believe this as he didn’t think James was very clever. How could a person as mouselike as that be clever?

  James blushed, looking sideways at Miriam: “Oh I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve got a chance.”

  “If you swot hard enough,” said Miriam staring hard at him.

  Suddenly James said, “I wanted to tell you something.”

  “What is it?”

  James stopped and looked uneasily at Miriam as if he didn’t want to speak in front of her.

  Realising this she said: “Well, I suppose I’d better be going. And the best of luck with the nineteenth century.”

  “What’s wrong with her anyway?” said James as they watched her crossing the road in her white dress.

  “Oh, her father’s dead. Perhaps it’s that.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “What were you going to tell me?” said Malcolm.

  “It was just—well, I don’t know whether I should tell you—but you should watch out for Ronny Black.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t think he likes you,” said James triumphantly. “I think he will try and do you down.”

  “What makes you think that?”

&nb
sp; “He’s a bad one,” said James. “Do you know what he told me once?” He settled himself against the wall. “He told me once that he had been sitting in his room late at night and he was terribly bored and he thought he’d pick up the phone and ring up Collins. So he picked up the phone and when Collins answered he said: ‘How’s old Horace today?’ and then he repeated that poem, you know the one we had to learn in the English class. ‘They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead’ .”

  “And what did old Collins say?” said Malcolm in an amused tone, screwing his eyes against the hard light.

  “Oh, he nearly went off his head but he didn’t know it was Ronny. Ronny can disguise his voice, you know, he can mimic people. Another thing he told me was that sometimes late at night he would walk along the road and kick at the shop windows and he wouldn’t look up to see if there was a policeman there until after he’d finished. It’s a kind of dare, he said. Do you believe he would do that, Malcolm?” said James earnestly, looking very much the scholar.

  “Oh, he may be pulling your leg.”

  “I don’t know,” said James. “Why should he have picked on me? He’s the son of a lawyer, you know,” he added, “and he can drive, though he’s not allowed to go out by himself. He told me he had once driven through our village in his car and he thought it was like an African kraal. He doesn’t know what the people are like,” said James almost stuttering with indignation.

  “Still that was a rotten thing to do to Collins,” said Malcolm, “he’s not a bad teacher.”

  “Yes, he’s quite good, isn’t he? And, another thing, he told me that he took Janet up to the house some nights and he gave her some sherry and they played records. But she didn’t know any jazz. All she knew were some old Gaelic records—78s.”

  He was squinting humbly at Malcolm through the light. Surely he didn’t know what pain he was causing. Malcolm imagined Ronny and Janet sitting on the rug in front of the fire in the lawyer’s huge house with the records playing and the shadow of the firelight moving over her face and Ronny bending towards her.

  Keeping his face as expressionless as he could make it he said: “Is that so?”

  “Yes, that’s what he said,” said James in a disappointed voice. “He told me she used to read Red Star and he would read it over with her and he’d never read such junk in his life. But she used to lap it up.”

  So Miriam was right. But what difference did it make? Reading Karl Marx, reading the Red Star, what difference did it make? Was it not better to keep herself beautiful than to think herself into wrinkles?

  The fisherman was still mending his net with intent patience.

  “So you think he dislikes me?” he said to James.

  “Yes, but then he dislikes everybody. And you don’t know anything about the history paper? I’d like to know. It’s best to know about these questions.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” James repeated in a perplexed voice. “What do you mean ‘why’? If we know the kind of thing they usually ask, then we can prepare for it. How else will we pass?” His small pale face looked out of the net of shadows.

  “Is that what you think then?” said Malcolm, casually. “Perhaps you’re right. You may be right.”

  “Of course I’m right. Why, I knew a chap and he wrote down all the answers to all the questions for the last ten years. I mean the same question is bound to turn up now and again.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you’re right. The same things do turn up. That’s sure. Tell me,” said Malcolm, “if you won a bursary would you like to have your name in the paper?”

  “What would I want to have my name in the paper for? That’s no use to anybody. I’m not interested in that. I want to be able to have a career.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I think I’d like to be a doctor. Of course history won’t be any use to me as a doctor but I want to take it because it’s one of my best subjects.”

  “Good for you,” said Malcolm. “I mean you’ll make a lot of money as a doctor and it’s a useful career.”

  James eyes flashed gratefully. He was humble again and pleased and obliged to Malcolm. He quite liked Malcolm really though he sometimes thought that he was a bit of a romantic and a favourite with the teachers. Like that woman, their registered teacher when they were in the first year, who had found out that Malcolm was in the reading room and had sent down for him and had gone along to his teacher and explained everything to him and hadn’t even reported Malcolm to the rector. No one would ever have done anything like that for him. But these people were so unfair. They never acted morally at all. One had to be very humble and keep out of the way of the lightning. Someday he would have power of life and death over some of them if he came back here. Why, he might even have that Gaelic teacher as a patient.

  20

  ON THE OPPOSITE side of the river from the village in which Malcolm stayed there was another village and every year, war or no war, there was a football match between the two villages which was taken very seriously indeed. On this particular Saturday a number of sailors home on leave were playing, including Donny, Dell’s brother. Donny was a great favourite of Malcolm’s. He was a tall heavy lad, red-faced and a great singer. In the old days one could hear him singing all over the village as early as the lark rose but as a result of the war he had become much more grim-looking and reticent.

  The match was to be played on the same pitch as Malcolm and Dell had played on, but this time there would be some spectators. Nets had been got from somewhere and had been put up by willing labour, including that of Dell and Colin. The contingent from the other side of the river had hired themselves a large red bus to take them round by road, though in fact all they really had to do was to cross the river and walk through the fields. When their bus drove through the village with scarves waved out of windows and the players already wearing their green jerseys with the white collars, there was a sound of friendly booing from the assembled villagers.

  About six o’clock Colin, Dell and Malcolm crossed the moor together in their football boots, jerseys and white shorts. They were all very nervous though not showing it.

  Dell was saying: “They’ve got a good centre forward. He’s just like a tank. Portsmouth are after him,” he added grimly for this centre was another player home on leave from the Navy.

  Malcolm didn’t say anything. He was almost sick with apprehension as he always was before any game. He felt as if he was about to vomit.

  When they arrived at the pitch they took the football out and played about in front of goal. Their goalkeeper was called Snobby, a tall thin boy whose father owned a shop and who stuttered.

  “H-h-harder,” he shouted, jumping up and down and crouching down, his hands on his knees. He had managed to get a pair of yellow gloves from somewhere, to match his butterscotch-coloured woollen jersey. “H-h-harder,” he shouted, his thin neck moving up and down like a squirrel’s.

  They drove balls at him from the penalty spot and he saved one or two, leaping at one point to touch a ball over the bar and landing on his back.

  A few spectators shouted from the sidelines. One of them, a lame man, had attended every match that had ever been played by any village team. He thought nothing of walking seven miles to do so. He was a cobbler by trade and his greatest pleasure was to repair football boots. All other work he considered inferior and unimportant. He was standing there now leaning on his crutches and shouting: “Practise with your left foot,” to Malcolm but Malcolm ignored him.

  One of their best players was Trig, their right half, a small cultured player who blended into a football game so completely that one never realised that he was the star, so unobtrusive was he. He didn’t speak much: his whole life was football. He didn’t wear shin guards as many of the others did, and he never chewed anything during a game.

  The dressing-room for the other team was the bus and when they came on to the field they were already wearing their football strips. Malcolm’s team wore maroon
strips, the other team green with white collars. As the opposing team from the village of Gurble came on to the field and began to practise in front of goal there was an ironical cheer directed mainly at their centre forward.

  “Hey, Tank, where’s your engine,” shouted a small man with glasses which had been repaired with a piece of adhesive tape.

  The Tank didn’t appear to notice. Then after a while he turned round and bowed. The team had taken their contingent of supporters with them and they stayed up at the goal where they were practising. Malcolm noticed that his brother Colin was very quiet. He clapped him on the shoulder and said: “You just keep sending the ball up to me,” but he wasn’t as confident as he sounded. The defence appeared quite good with Snobby, Colin and Dell, Trig, Donny and another young boy called Tusker, but the forward line was a bit weak apart from the inside right, whose name was Trog and who was a twin of Trig. The other three—excluding Malcolm himself—were rather weak, short on speed and ideas. As Malcolm looked at the opposing team he thought that they seemed to be weightier than his own team, especially the centre forward, who really was built like a tank, with heavy thick legs and a compact body. The defence too was quite tall.

  The referee in his long trousers busily ran on to the field. He whistled and the two teams ran up to the centre. He tossed. Donny called correctly and decided to play with the sun behind him, hoping that in another three-quarters of an hour it would have lost some of its dazzle. The ball was kicked off. A movement developed on the opposing right wing and was lost in a mêlée, the right winger failing to escape with the ball. His name was Sam and he was a cook aboard one of the fishing boats. The ball was thrown in and again the Gurble team, by sheer weight, forced the ball up the centre, trying to get it through to the Tank who was lying back a little. Malcolm thought that Donny was giving him rather a lot of room to move in, especially as the right winger seemed rather fast as well. However, Malcolm realised that Donny would be rather rusty after his months in the Navy and it would take him some time to settle down. The ball came down from his own goal and swung over to the left wing. The left winger—Macmillan, a small player whose father owned the local shop—allowed it to drift over the line.