Poor Things

by Alasdair Gray

  Not since Miss MacTavish fled from my embraces in San Francisco had I heard so many writers mentioned in so few sentences, and I had read none of them! To stop him thinking Bell Baxter a total ignoramus I said Burns was a great Scottish poet who lived before Scott, and Shakespeare and Dickens et cetera were all English; but he could not grasp the difference between Scotland and England, though he is wise about other things. I also said most folk thought novels and poetry were idle pastimes—did he not take them too seriously?

  “People who care nothing for their country’s stories and songs,” he said, “are like people without a past—without a memory—they are half people.”

  Imagine how that made me feel! But perhaps, like Russia, I am making up for lost time.

  This was the stranger who spoke to me in the betting-shop while the rabble fussed around Wedder. He was a neat little man like Candle, but (I find this hard to explain) more humble than Candle, and also more proud. I saw by his clothes that he was poor, and by his face that he was clever. I felt he was a lovable man, though maybe not a quick wedder, and I was delighted. Nobody but Wedderburn had spoken to me since the policeman in Regent’s Park. I said, “Well, you look interesting! What have you to say to me?”

  He brightened at that and also seemed surprised. He said, “But surely you are a great lady—the daughter of an English milord or baron?”

  “Not me. Why think that?”

  “You talk as great ladies in Russia talk. They too say at once what they feel without regard for convention. Since you are that sort I will talk fast, without introducing myself except to say I am an inveterate gambler— a quite unnecessary person who wants to give advice which will cost me nothing but may save you from a terrible loss.”

  This was exciting. I said, “Go on.”

  “The Englishman who has such success, he is your . . .?” He was looking at the fingers of my left hand for a wedding ring. I said, “He and I are wed.”

  This was fooling him slightly because most people think wedding and marriage are the same, but it was easier than complicated explanations. He said, “And your husband has never played roulette before?”

  “Not roulette.”

  “That explains why he played so systematically. His system was the most obvious in the world—all thinking gamblers discover it during their first game and abandon it before the end. But tonight your husband had the best luck in the world, or worst, depending on how it takes him. The pattern of play, by sheer accident, conformed to his childish system again and again! Astonishing! This hardly ever happens, but when it does it usually befalls a beginner who (forgive me, I could not say this to a conventional Englishwoman) is very much in love, and therefore more confident or desperate than usual. Yes, Cupid and cupidity once in a lifetime coincide to flatter us. That happened to me. I won a fortune but lost the woman I loved, and then, of course, the fortune, for the gambling fever entered my blood. It made me what I am—a lost soul—an existence manqué. If you cannot persuade your husband to leave this infernal little town tomorrow he will return to this casino, lose all he has won, then throw everything else away in an effort to recover it. The revenues of the municipality depend exclusively on the casinos, so the banks have the most modern facilities for speedily converting property into cash at iniquitous rates of exchange. I have seen a great princess—a woman of eighty but still sharp-witted and sensible—I have seen her fooled by beginners’ luck into squandering nearly everything but the lives of her servants before she regained her senses.”

  I wanted to kiss that little stranger for the sense he talked and the good he wished to do. Instead I had to sigh and explain that alas my poor man would take no advice from me because he felt weak when he did, strong when he did not. I said, “But he might take advice from another man. Please tell him what you have told me. Here he comes.”

  Wedder, suddenly seeing me talk to a stranger, broke out of the crowd and strode toward us his hair sticking out all ways like the bristles of an over-used scrubbing-brush. His face seemed more blue than white and his eyes were bloodshot. Beside him hurried a servant in the livery of the betting-shop, carrying the winnings in a bag.

  “Duncan,” I said, “please listen to this gentleman. He has something important to tell you.”

  Wedder folded his arms and stood very stiff, staring down at my new friend. The stranger had spoken only a few sentences when Wedderburn said sharply, “Why are you telling me this?”

  “If I see two children who know nothing about express trains picnic on a railway line it is natural to tell them of the danger,” said the stranger, “but if you need a more personal reason, hear this. An English friend (Mr. Astley, of Lovel and Co., a famous London firm) once did me a favour I have never managed to repay. Since I owe the English something I wish to pay them back a little through you.”

  “I am a Scot,” said Wedderburn, looking at me, and I saw something imploring in the look.

  “That need not deter me,” said my new friend. “Mr Astley is a cousin of Lord Pibroch.”

  “We must leave, Bell,” said Wedderburn tonelessly, and I realized he had folded his arms tight to stop himself trembling. Sleeplessness and excitement had so exhausted him that he could hardly hear or see a thing; all his strength and concentration were needed just to keep him standing and sounding sensible. Instead of giving him a row for his rudeness I slid my arm through his and he clutched it.

  “My poor man needs rest now, but I shall remember what you told me. Thanks very much. Good night,” I said.

  As we moved toward the door accompanied by the servant I saw Wedderburn was sleep-walking like I had done.

  In the entrance hall I pinched him awake to learn the name of our hotel. When he got conscious he said he needed a lavatory first and tottered off to it with the servant carrying his winnings, for he would not let those out of his sight. A second later my new friend was beside me again, speaking so fast and quiet that I must tilt an ear toward him.

  “Your husband looks too distraught to count his winnings tonight. Take and keep as much of the money as you can without him knowing. That will not be theft. If he gambles again it will be your only means of leaving this town with dignity.”

  I nodded, shook his hands with both of mine and said I wished I could help him in some way. He blushed rosy-red, smiled, said, “Too late!” bowed and left.

  Soon after Wedder came back looking neater. His face was still the same horrid colour but there was no sign of trembling and tiredness in him now. I knew he had taken one of the anti-lethargy pills and another wedding night was coming up. As he gripped my arm in a masterly way I thought, “How long can the poor soul keep going like this?”

  At the door a very grand looking man said, “Gute Nacht, mein Herr! Your custom tomorrow we shall receive, I furiously hope?”

  “Of course,” said Wedder with a grim smile, “if your gold-mine is not yet exhausted.”

  “Not from me but from your fellow players you have won,” said the man amiably, so I knew he was the head shopkeeper.

  Outside I found that the shop, our hotel, a bank and the railway station were all on the same square, so we had not far to go. On reaching our room Wedder seized the bag from the servant, slammed the door in his face without saying thanks or tipping, ran to our bed (a huge one with a canopy) and emptied the money onto it with a kind of tinkling crash, for some envelopes split open. He flung these envelopes to the floor and began ripping other envelopes and pouring out coins, mad keen to make one big puddle of his gold on the silk bedcover. I realized that, like little Robbie Murdoch with a mud puddle, he would then splash about in it before counting it. This might go on all night. I had to distract him somehow.

  “At this point I will omit two pages,” said Baxter. “They cast strong light into that zone where anatomy and psychology are forms of each other, but your future wife will one day teach you such things in person, so why anticipate them here? In chaste and accurate language Bell tells how, for a few hours, she wooed Wedde
rburn away from his infantile obsession with gold and restored him to a deep and natural slumber on a bearskin hearth-rug. She tells how she removed and hid four hundred friedrichs d’or from the pile on the bed, and how he did not miss these when he awoke and counted the rest into neat heaps. I will continue from there.”

  “Tonight this will be multiplied ten- or a hundredfold,” he said with a gloating smile. I told him he was a fool.

  “Bella!” he cried, “all last night people begged me to stop playing before my luck ran out. I played to the very end and won because I was using REASON—not luck. You, at least, should have faith in me because in the eyes of God you are my lawful wedded wife!”

  “God will let me leave you whenever I choose,” I said, “and I will never set foot in that betting-shop again. I bet you will lose everything if you go in again— everything.”

  “What will you bet?” he asked, with an odd look. I smiled then, because I had a very bright idea. I said—“Give me five hundred of that money. If you come back richer I will return it and marry you. If you lose the rest we will need it to leave this place.”

  He kissed me and wept, saying this was the happiest moment of his life, for now he knew he would have all he could ever want. I wept out of pity for him—what else could I do? Then he gave me the five hundred, we breakfasted and he left. I asked the hotel folk to serve lunch in my room, went back to it and slept.

  How lovely, God, to waken all alone, and bath and dress alone, and eat alone. When we get married, Candle, we must spend some time apart to stop us going stale. In the afternoon I went walking round a park in the middle of the square, hoping to see my new friend, and so I did, in the distance. I waved my parasol. From opposite sides we approached an empty bench and sat on it. He asked delicately, “Did you?”

  I smiled, nodded and said, “How is my man doing?”

  “O, he began early and lost it all in an hour. He staggered us all by his extraordinary coolness. He has since been twice to the bank and four times to the telegraph office—so the rumour goes. Great Britain has the world’s largest and busiest money-market. We expect him to return and lose as much again, or more, in an hour or two.”

  “Let us talk of happier things,” I said. “Do you know any?”

  “Well,” he said with a rueful smile, “we could talk of the radiant future of the human race a century hence when science, trade and fraternal democracy will have abolished disease, war and poverty, and everyone will live in a hygienic apartment block with a free clinic in the basement run by a good German dentist. But I would feel lost in such a future. If God consulted my wishes (and maybe he did) he would make me a disgraced outchatel—an unemployed manservant—a lover of Russia who would rather chat to a brave Scotswoman in a German public park than fight for the renovation of his homeland. This may not be much but it satisfies me, and is better than being a bed bug. Though of course, bed bugs too must have their unique visions of the world.” 17

  So we discussed what people want most, and freedom, the soul, Russian literature, how he hated the Poles because they expected to be treated like gentlemen when they were poorer than he was, and hated the French because they had form without content and sympathized with the Poles, and how he liked the English because of Mr. Astley, and how he had been an outchatel—a tutor to a rich general’s children—and the sad adventures which had made him a gambler. He was so frank and open that I told him a little about my troubles with Wedder. After some thought he said the best I could do with Wedder was take him on a Mediterranean cruise till he was fit to go home. The vessel should not be a passenger ship, but a cargo ship with passenger accommodation.

  “There will be few facilities for gambling on a vessel like that,” he said, “and very little social stimulus. If he needs rest as much as you say, a Russian vessel might be better than an English or . . . Scottish ship, for the curiosity of the other passengers will lead to less gossip.”

  I kissed him good-bye for that advice. I think my kiss cheered him up.

  I shall tell the rest fast. Wedder comes back to hotel penniless, Shakespearean, “To be or not to be”, et cetera. I tell him the five hundred he bet me will let us continue our wedding trip next day, and I will return it to him. Next day he pays the hotel, we go to the station, he buys tickets to Switzerland. Since half an hour till train arrives, he installs me with luggage in the ladies’ waiting-room, saying he will smoke a cigar outside. Of course he dodges straight into the betting-shop for a last quick fling which might just recover everything, and loses everything, then charges back to me raving like Hamlet over Ophelia’s coffin. I see that the only way to quieten him down is to act a little too—“pile on the agony”, as they say in the theatre. I go very frozen-faced and moan in a hollow monotonous voice, “No money? I will get us money.”

  “How? How?”

  “Never ask. Wait here. I will be gone for two hours. We will catch the later train.”

  Out I go, find a pleasant little café and enjoy four lovely cups of chocolate and eight Viennese pastries. Then I go back looking tragic just in time for the train. Our carriage is crowded. I ignore his whispered attempts at conversation by sleeping with my eyes open. For the next four days I say nothing but, “Never ask!” even when he begs to know where he is being taken. My doomed expression and hollow voice cause him exquisite pangs of guilt which keep him busy when the poor fellow is not shaking in every limb and wet with hot or cold perspiration, for he has used up the last of his anti-lethargy pills and has a craving for more. That would be fatal! Luckily he is so ill that he can go nowhere unless I lead him by the arm. He is so dependent that I can leave him for hours in a hotel bedroom while I make arrangements. In a Trieste shipping office I book our passage upon exactly the sort of ship the outchatel recommended. I cannot write its name, for the Russian alphabet is Greek to me, but it sounds like cut use off.

  On our way to the docks down a broad but dismal street (it is raining) he suddenly halts us in front of a tobacconist’s shop and says on a desperate note I have never heard before, “O Bella, tell me the truth! Are we going a long voyage on a ship?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please, Bella!” (and he sinks down on his knees in the streaming gutter) “please give me some money to buy cigars! Please! I am completely out.”

  I see the time has come to drop the tragic mask.

  “You poor sad Wedder,” I say, helping him kindly up, “you shall have all the cigars you want. I can afford them.”

  “Bella,” he whispers, bringing his face close to mine, “I know how you got that money. You sold yourself to that filthy little Russian gambler who tried to seduce you on the night of my glorious victory.”

  “Never ask.”

  “Yes, you did that for me. Why? I am a stinking midden, a reeking dungheap, a quintessence of shit. You are Venus, Magdalene, Minerva and Our Lady of Sorrows rolled into one—how can you bear to touch me?”

  However, four minutes later he looked quite cheerful with a cigar clamped between his gnashers.

  So now you know how the Russian merchant navy brought us to Odessa. We are spending three days here while the boat takes on a cargo of beetroots, in which the region abounds. Wedder is no longer a jealous man. He does not mind me going ashore by myself, though he begs me to come back to him as soon as possible. Since I have at last brought this letter up to date, perhaps I will, today.

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  15

  Odessa to Alexandria: The Missionaries

  I used to think this a very big world, but yesterday something made me doubt it. The morning was fine again. The ship was leaving Odessa at noon. I sat with Wedder in the one place outside our cabin I can persuade him to go, a nook between two ventilators. He was reading a French Bible because all other books in the passengers’ lounge are Russian.
Luckily he knows French so that book and he are now inseparable. He reads some parts again and again, then stares a long time at nothing, frowning and whispering “I see.” I was reading Punch or The London Charivari, an English magazine of art and comedy. The pictures showed many kinds of people. The ugliest and most comical are Scots, Irish, foreign, poor, servants, rich folk who have been poor until very recently, small men, old unmarried women and Socialists. The Socialists are ugliest, very dirty and hairy with weak chins, and seem to spend their time grumbling to other people at street corners.

  “What are Socialists, Duncan?” I asked.

  “Fools who think the world should be improved.”

  “Why? Is something wrong with it?”

  “The Socialists are wrong with it—and my infernal luck.”

  “You told me once that luck is a solemn name for ignorance.”

  “Do not torture me, Bell.”

  He always says that when he wants me to shut my mouth. I watched the gulls circling in a blue sky full of big slow-moving clouds. I saw the huge harbour full of shipping with bright flags and funnels, masts and sails. I looked at the sunlit quay with its cranes, bales, busy brawny dockers and uniformed officers. I wondered how to improve all this, but it looked all right. Then I studied Punch again and wondered why the well-dressed English people in the pictures were handsomer and less comic than anyone else, unless they were newly rich. Noisy shouts and clattering hooves interrupted these thoughts. Three galloping horses brought a peculiar carriage lurching along the quay and were pulled to a halt at the end of our gangway. Out climbed one of the well-dressed, handsome people I had been puzzling over in Punch. As he came aboard past the Russian seamen and officers I nearly laughed aloud—his thin stiff figure, stiff face, glossy top-hat and neat frock-coat looked so comically English.