Poor Things

by Alasdair Gray

  FREE TRADE— “Yes, our parliament has defined freedom as our ability to buy as cheap as possible and sell as dear as possible anywhere, with the help of our army and navy. This enables us to cut up countries with famines as readily as a carpenter cuts wood with a saw. Listen carefully, Bell.

  “Indian weavers used to make the finest cotton cloth and muslin in the world, and only British merchants were free to sell it—the French had tried to do that, so we drove them out of India. Then we British learned how to make cloth more cheaply with machinery in our own factories, so we needed raw Indian cotton and Angora wool and could stop anyone else buying Indian cloth. Soon after one of the governors we had given to India reported that the plains of Dacca were littered with the bones of the weavers.

  “Did you know that eight out of ten Irish lived on potatoes? They were peasants whose poor soil grew little else, and money they made by other means went to pay the landlords rent. The landlords were descended from English invaders and conquerors, so they owned the rich soil where corn was grown. Thirty-five years ago a sudden disease killed the potatoes and the peasants started starving. Now, in times of famine people who own big food stocks move it out of the land, because starving people are too poor to pay a good price. The British parliament debated a proposal that we shut the Irish ports until the Irish grain had been eaten by the Irish people. This was voted down because it would interfere with free trade. Instead we sent soldiers to make sure the grain reached the ships. Nearly a million starved to death: a million and a half left the country. Those who reached Britain worked for such low wages that the wages of British workers could be beaten down and our industries make more money than ever. Now go to the stern for a while.”

  He knows that when I can bear no more I run to the end of the ship and lean over the rail so that the wind blows my screams and wails out to sea. This time I looked hard at him and asked if he would have voted against closing the ports if he had been in parliament. I was not going to bite him if he said yes—would have spat in his face. He said quietly, “I would not have dared vote against the proposal had I known I must face you afterwards, Bell.”

  I nearly called him a cunning fiend, but that is how Wedder talks. I swallowed my spit and walked away.

  EMPIRE— “No thickly peopled place has lacked an empire—Persia, Greece, Italy, Mongolia, Arabia, Denmark, Spain and France have had turns. The least warlike and biggest and longest-lasting empire was Chinese. We destroyed it twenty-five years ago because its government would not let us sell opium there. The British empire has grown rapidly, but in another two or three centuries the half-naked descendants of Disraeli and Gladstone may be diving off a broken pier of London Bridge, retrieving coins flung into the Thames by Tibetan tourists who find the sight amusing.”

  SELF GOVERNMENT— I asked if there are any lands of cheerful, prosperous people who govern only themselves.

  “Yes. In Switzerland several small republics with different languages and religions have lived peacefully side by side for centuries, but high mountains divide them from each other and the surrounding nations. To improve the world, Bella, you need only build a high mountain between every town and its nearest neighbour, or chop the continents into many islands of equal size.”

  WORLD IMPROVERS— “Yes, I foresee that despite my teaching, Bell, you are going to become the most modern kind of half-baked optimist, the sort who wants to abolish riches and poverty by sharing out the world’s goods equally.”

  “That is only common sense!” I cried.

  “There are four sects who agree with you, but have different plans to bring it about.

  “The SOCIALISTS want the poor to elect them into parliament, where they plan to tax the surplus of the rich and make laws to give everyone productive work in good conditions, along with good food, housing, education and health care.”

  “A lovely idea!” I cried.

  “Yes. Beautiful. The other world-improvers point out that parliament is an alliance of monarchs, lords, bishops, lawyers, merchants, bankers, brokers, industrialists, military men, landlords and civil servants who run it to protect their wealth AND FOR NO OTHER REASON. Socialists elected into it will therefore be outwitted by these, or bribed, or compromised into nonentity. I agree with this prediction.

  “So the COMMUNISTS are forming a party of folk from every class of society who will patiently work and wait for a day when their country gets into serious financial trouble, then they will overturn it and become the government—for a short time. Having ruled the land until everybody has what they need and are able to keep it, the Communists say they will disband because neither they nor any further government will be needed.”

  “Hooray!” I cried.

  “Yes, hooray. The other world-improvers say that groups who come to power by violence always perpetuate themselves by more of it and become a new tyranny. I agree.

  “The VIOLENT ANARCHISTS or TERRORISTS dislike those who want power as much as those who have it. Since every other class depends on those who work the land, the mines, the factories and transport, they say such workers should keep what they make to themselves—should ignore money and exchange things by barter—should use explosives to frighten off folk who will not join them yet try to boss them.”

  “So they should!” I shouted.

  “I agree. I also agree with those who say the police and army are better terrorists than anyone else. Besides, the middle classes hold the keys to the warehouses of food and fuel, no matter who produces it.

  “So your only hope is among the PACIFISTS or PEACEFUL ANARCHISTS. They say we can only improve the world by improving ourselves and hoping others copy us. This means not fighting anyone, giving away money and either living on the free gifts of others or on the work of our own hands. Buddha, Jesus, and Saint Francis took this path and in this century Prince Kropotkin, Count Leo Tolstoï and an American bachelor farmer-author called Thoreau. The movement attracts a lot of harmless aristocrats and writers. They annoy governments by refusing to pay taxes they think evil—which is most of them, since armies and weapons are what taxes mainly pay for. However, the police only imprison and flog ordinary Pacifists. The admirers of the famous ones keep them out of serious trouble. When you go into politics, Bell, be sure to become a Pacifist Anarchist. People will love you.”

  I wept and cried, “O what can I do?”

  He said, “Let us go to the stem, Bell, and I will tell you.”

  ASTLEY’S SOLUTION— So we leaned over a rail watching the wake of the ship slide foaming backward and out over the slow glossy moonlit waves and he said, “The tearful motherlinesss you feel toward the wretched of this earth is an animal instinct which lacks its proper object. Marry and have children. Marry me. My country estate has a farm on it and a while village—think of the power you will have. Besides caring for my children (who we will not send to public schools) you can bully me into improving the drains and lowering the rents of a whole community. I am offering you the chance to be as happy and good as an intelligent woman can be on this filthy planet.”

  I said, “Your offer does not tempt me, Harry Astley, because I do not love you;19 but it is the most cunning inducement to lead a totally selfish life you could offer a woman. Thank you, but no.”

  “Then please hold my hand for a moment.”

  So I did and I felt for the first time who he really is—a tortured little boy who hates cruelty as much as I do but thinks himself a strong man because he can pretend to like it. He is as poor and desperate as my lost daughter, but only inside. Outside he is perfectly comfortable. Everyone should have a cosy shell round them, a good coat with money in the pockets. I must be a Socialist.

  Misery stopped me thinking about good things, God, so I did not remember you until this morning. I was awakened by a noise like heavy rain and lay imagining how it would freshen the lettuces for Mopsy and Flopsy—how I would soon breakfast on poached eggs and kidneys and kippers while you ate your mash and bubbles—how we would then visit and mend
the sick animals in our hospital. Having basked for many minutes in gladness and peace I opened my eyes and saw Wedderburn’s feet beside me and sunlight between the slats of the shuttered window. I remembered that the rainy noise came from a eucalyptus tree outside the hotel, a tree whose hard glossy leaves rattle and hiss against each other in the wind. But the peaceful gladness did not go away. The memory of you kept horror and weeping out because you are wiser and better than Dr. Hooker and Harry Astley put together. You never said that cruelty to the helpless is good or inevitable or unimportant. One day you will tell me how to change what I cannot yet describe without my words swelling HUGE, vowels vanishing, tears washing ink away.

  Someone rapped on the bedroom door to say they had put a steaming canister of hot water on the floor outside. I had not shaved Wedder since the day we docked in Alexandria, and decided to do it now. Leaping up I swiftly washed and dressed, slipped a towel between his head and pillow and lathered his face all over. This was much easier to do with his head at the bottom of the bed. He neither spoke nor opened his eyes but I knew he was pleased, because he hates shaving himself. As I removed the bristles I reminded him that a ship bound for Glasgow by way of Lisbon and Liverpool was leaving today——that Mr. Astley was travelling on it, and had offered to book a passage for us. Still without opening his eyes Wedder said, “We are going to Paris by way of Marseilles.”

  “But why, Duncan?”

  “Since even a thieving trollop like you refuses to marry me only Paris remains. Take me there. Hand me over to the midinettes20 and the little green fairy then marry who you like—English, American or filthy Russian ha ha ha ha ha.”

  Wedder is a lot cheerier since he decided he is not a fiend and that I probably am. I said, “But Duncan, we cannot afford to stay in Paris. I have only enough money to take us home.”

  This was not true. Your money is still in the lining of my travelling-coat, God, but I felt the kindest way to get rid of Wedder (who hardly ever wants to wed me now) was by returning him to his mother. He said, “Then I must stay in Gibraltar till I have managed to cash the last Consolidated Annuities in my inheritance; and know, woman, you will never again rob or cheat me of a single penny—I shall hold on to the whole amount. Since you care about money you had better abandon me today and return to Britain with your precious Astley.”

  I liked that idea but could not abandon Wedder so far from home. I know nothing about the midinettes and little green fairy, but if they are kind to him he may stop with them in Paris and I will return to Glasgow alone.

  As usual he wanted tea and toast in bed. I went to the dining-room, asked for these to be sent up and breakfasted for the last time with Harry Astley. Did I tell you he is a widower who guessed long ago that I am not married? Over the ham and eggs (this is a British hotel though the staff are Spanish) I saw he was going to propose again, and prevented it by saying I would only marry a world-improver. He sighed, drummed his fingers on the tablecloth then said I should beware of men who talked about improving the world—many used such talk to entrap women of my sort.

  “What sort is that?” I asked, interested. He looked away from me and said coldly, “The brave and kind sort who feel generous to the miserable of every class and country—generous also to the cold, rich and selfish.”

  I nearly melted. I said, “Stand up, Harry.”

  He must have been taught young to obey people because although he looked startled and the dining-room was very busy he stood up at once, straight, like a soldier. I sprang to him, tied his arms to his sides with my own and kissed him until he trembled. Then I whispered, “Good-bye Harry,” and hurried upstairs to my weary old Wedder. He and Harry are much alike, though Harry has stronger nerves. In the passage from the dining-room I looked back at the last possible moment. The foreign guests were staring at me, the British were pretending nothing odd had happened. Harry Astley, obviously British, was concentrating on his breakfast.

  Candle must not be jealous. That was the only kiss Harry got from me, and no talkers will trap Bell Baxter. When I come home, God, you will tell us how to improve the world, then you and me, Candle, will marry and do it.

  17

  Gibraltar to Paris: Wedderburn’s Last Flight

  At last, no Wedder! And my own little room in a narrow street in the heart of beautiful sane Paris! Do you remember bringing me here a long time ago? How we gaped at huge pictures in the Louvre? And ate at little tables under trees in the Tuileries Gardens? And visited Professor Charcot at the Salpêtrière,21 and how hard he tried to hypnotize me? At last I pretended he had done it, because I did not want him to feel silly in front of his huge audience of adoring students. I believe he saw I was pretending—which is why he smiled so wisely and announced that I was the sanest English woman he had ever professionally examined. Let me tell you how I got back here.

  In Gibraltar Wedder made me wait outside the bank while he collected his money. He emerged with the careless swagger I so admired, though I now knew there was not much underneath. On the boat to Marseilles he ordered bottles of wine with our meals. This was new. I drank none because one sip of it makes me giddy, but he said a meal without wine was no meal at all, and pointed out that the French were all drinking it. This ship, unlike the Cut-use-off, was mainly for passengers. In the afternoons and evenings Wedder played cards with men in a corner of the main saloon, and kept at it long after I went to bed. The night before we docked in Marseilles he came back to the cabin whistling and chirping, “My hinny my hen my humming-bird my pretty partridge my Scots blue Bell, you were right in what you once said! Games of skill not games of chance are this man’s mètier.”

  He counted his winnings then got into bed the right way round for the first time in weeks. I was starting to enjoy what he called “our second honeymoon” when he suddenly fell asleep. Not me. I knew what was going to happen and that I could not stop it.

  Instead of going straight to Paris from Marseilles we put up in a hotel recommended by one of the card players on the boat. The same friend introduced him to a café or club or card-school where he played every afternoon and evening while I waited in the hotel drinking cup after cup of chocolate and brooding over Malthus’ On Population. It took Wedder five days to lose all he had. He behaved better over it than I expected, coming to our room in the afternoon and saying, “Here I am at your mercy again, Bell. I hope you have enough to pay the hotel—I’m totally cleaned out. But you prefer me this way.”

  I had no intention of using your money until the last possible moment, God. I packed some essentials into a handbag, smartened myself up, smartened up Wedder, then took him for a stroll to a railway station where we caught an overnight train to Paris. While waiting for it he tried to break away once or twice, begging to return to the hotel to collect a dressing-case with silver-mounted brushes which had belonged to his father. I said, “No, Wedder, you booked that room for us. Be glad the hotel is getting something valuable in return.”

  I was so relieved to get clean away from Marseilles that I slept sound though sitting upright on the wooden bench of a French third-class carriage.

  On reaching Paris I saw Wedder had not slept a wink and was on the verge of collapsing. I dragged him into the crooked streets on the less posh side of the river where hotels were likely to be cheap, but they were not yet open. In a cobbled space where three narrow lanes met I plonked us both down at a café table and said, “Rest here Wedder. I will go to the station where trains leave for Calais and buy tickets. We could be in Glasgow three days from now.”

  “Impossible—it would mean social ruin. We are not man and wife.”

  “Then dear Duncan let us return to Glasgow separately.”

  “Fiend-woman! Demon! Have I not proved that I love and need you? That parting with you would be tearing my heart out by the roots?” et cetera.

  “But you said there were people you wanted to stay with in Paris. Maybe I can arrange that.”

  “What people?”

  “The midinettes and
little green fairy.”

  “Hoist with my own petard ha ha ha ha ha.”22

  When Wedder does not want to explain his funny words he gets out of it by using others. At that moment a waiter making the café ready for customers asked if we wanted anything and Wedder said, “Oon absongth.”

  The waiter went away and brought back a little stemmed glass of what seemed water and a tumbler of more water. Wedder added drops from the tumbler to the small glass then held this up. The liquid in it turned a pretty milky green. “Meet the little green fairy!” he said and swallowed it in a gulp. Then he cried, “Oon otray!” to the waiter, folded his arms on the table top and hid his face in them. At this moment I saw a well-dressed man come out of a nearby doorway with “Hôtel de Notre-Dame” painted on the wall above it.

  “Excuse me, Duncan,” I said and went inside.

  The foyer was so small that a heavy mahogany desk in the middle nearly cut it in two. Folk going in or out had to squeeze round the sides. Behind the desk sat a woman who looked like Queen Victoria but younger and friendlier, a neat plump alert little woman in the black silk gown of a widow.

  “Do you speak English, Madame?” I asked and, “It is me muver tongue, dear,” she answered in a London voice, “and what can I do for you?”

  I told her I had a poor man outside who badly needed rest; that we had not much money and hardly any baggage, so wanted her smallest and cheapest room. She said I had come to the right shop—a cubicle here would cost only twenty francs for the first hour, to be paid in advance, with twenty for each additional hour or fraction of an hour to be paid before either party left. A cubicle had just been vacated and would be ready for use in ten or fifteen minutes—where was my gentleman friend? I said he was drinking green fairies at the café next door. She asked if he was likely to run away. I laughed and said, “No, I only wish he was!”