by Alex Barr
And Gnashing of Teeth
On the wall beside my bed a bright stripe’s growing out of nothing. The curtains don’t quite meet and the sun’s making a thin stick of light across the room. In the light are bits of dust, wool-hairs, pillow-feathers, so many you could spend a year counting, and I’ve only a few minutes, because it must be nearly time for Daddy to get me up for school.
Far away (I can just hear them) are church bells. In next door’s kitchen Mr Driver’s coughing: he hasn’t gone to work, it’s Sunday. Hooray! I can go back to sleep. I can turn to the wall and watch the bright stripe go faint then shine hard again. I can close my eyes and rest because it’s light.
Hours ago when the dark was so black I couldn’t see the curtains, I woke sweating, feeling the top of my head floating off. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. Then miles and miles away I heard a slow motor driving a boat through a huge swamp. The motor was Daddy snoring, chugging Mummy and me towards clear morning water, and I fell asleep again the way I’m falling now …
Ow. That prodding.
“Graham?”
It’s Daddy above me with two small faces in his glasses. Behind each face is a striped pillow: mine. Daddy’s head has an outline, like the silver one on a Silver Lining chocolate box, but golden. His hair sticks flat and shines. I’ve tried to brush mine hard with two brushes the way he does, but it doesn’t work.
Now he’s moved his head and the stripe on the wall’s come back. I don’t like him to be near this wall because of the messes. One’s the torn patch of wallpaper; the other, behind the cupboard, is the one I have to not think about.
He says, “This is a disappointment.”
“Disappointment?”
What does he mean? His forehead’s rough, not smooth like Mummy’s, and folded in a frown.
“Didn’t you promise to be up early and light the fire? And meet the milk-cart at the road end for an extra pint?” But he won’t let me jump out of bed, he’s pushing his legs against it. “Too late now. You’ll just have time to eat breakfast and clean your shoes for church.”
“Oh heck.”
“I beg your pardon?”
I forgot: he hates that expression. He says, “Get up now.”
When he stands straight he’s so tall his head nearly touches the ceiling. The stripes on his blue Sunday suit go up and up: I don’t like that suit, he frightens me in it, watching me dress thinking I’m skinny and weedy and not worth much. I’m looking at his face but my eyes won’t meet his. I failed in my duty. In the war Daddy saw a soldier shot for failing in his duty. He showed me a photo of him, smiling with Daddy and other soldiers, all in caps with two buttons on the front. Miss Rhodes says, “That’ll wipe the smile off your face,” and I know what she means because sometimes, in the early, early morning before it’s properly light, I see the soldier’s face with the smile wiped off by guns.
When I wake in the dark I always look at the curtains to see if it’s many hours till morning. If I can see the pattern I grunt and turn to the wall, glad it can’t be long. But I have to keep my eyes shut: if I don’t the wallpaper starts to crawl with spiteful witches, monsters, dead people’s rotting faces. I picked off a patch of wallpaper near my pillow but it hasn’t helped. I see other creatures in the ragged edges of the patch. Now I lie still trying not to look.
Facing the wall’s better than facing the room where the melting darkness is deep and alive. Shapeless things—eyes, mouths, teeth, without bodies—come changing and throbbing, at me and away and at me again. Sometimes facing the room I’ve stayed stiff for hours, not moving, squeezing my eyelids together, thinking hard. Thinking about eternity.
‘Compared with eternity one life is less than the splash of a stone in water.’ Miss Rhodes made us remember that. Eternity goes on and on, for ever and ever. What would it be like to squeeze my eyelids shut for ever?
Daddy’s shaking me. “Don’t go back to sleep!”
I put on my clean white shirt and prickly short grey trousers, then pull on my long grey socks, but something’s wrong and I feel dizzy. Daddy’s straightening the bedclothes and he’s noticed the wallpaper. My skin’s gone cold. His finger’s bony, with black hairs and thick knuckles, and he’s making it follow the edge of the tear.
“Did you do this?” he asks, looking into my face.
“Well, sort of.”
“Sort of. What does that mean?”
“It was sort of an accident.”
“I see. And how did this ‘accident’ occur?”
I can’t find an answer. It’s like when it’s getting later and later before school and I can’t find my cap. Daddy looks very interested, like Mrs Driver’s cat looking at birds. One day I’ll grow a moustache like his and not be so frightened of him. I wish this was just a bad dream.
I tell him, “I had a nightmare.”
He repeats, “A nightmare,” showing his teeth like he does when he bites a penny. I wish I hadn’t said it. When I used to have nightmares about huge webs and sinking sand, Mummy would come when I cried out and soothe me to sleep. Now I’m at school Daddy makes fun of my crying out and asks, “Don’t you want to grow up?” Of course I do. Maybe I can explain like a grown-up.
“I dreamed this tiger came and I said, ‘Go away, go away,’ doing my hand like this, and when I woke up the wall was all sort of scratched.”
He takes off his glasses and rubs his nose. I don’t like the way his eyelids are wrinkled. His eyes are grey like rainclouds and sunk into his head. They look sad. I feel sad too. I thought the tiger dream would make him understand, but it hasn’t. It happened a long time ago. Now the same bad dream keeps coming. I’m always in the same place, standing on a moor in half dark or maybe mist, the land sloping to the left. There’s always coarse grass I can hardly see, fuzzy clumps of heather, everything fading into speckled nothing. I hear sheep crying and look for them hard, but I never see them.
Daddy puts his glasses back on. “This was deliberate. You used some implement.”
If I ask what an implement is he’ll say I’m changing the subject. I tell him, “I saw faces in the pattern.” I wish my voice didn’t come so shaky. The skin between his eyebrows has gone into folds: the pores are like little strawberry seeds.
“This was wilful destruction.” Saying ‘wilful’ he wrinkles his nose and shows his teeth: it must mean something horrible. I try to look at his face but my eyes still slide away. How long is he going to stand there quiet?
He says, “A little liar.”
Now he’s clumping downstairs and I feel dried up inside. Why couldn’t I really explain? If I hadn’t started with the tiger he might have believed the faces. Why couldn’t I tell him about the moor?
I don’t want any breakfast now. I’m not going to look up from this plate. I’ll just eat my bacon and count the pink roses round the edge, then the thorns on the twisty stems. There’s the telephone. Daddy’s gone to answer it.
Mummy says, “No use looking at me. Your father’s very disappointed in you. Says you told him lies.”
She looks away into the hall, listening to what Daddy’s saying, her head on one side, pulling a lock of her curly hair. Daddy’s voice sounds deep and Sundayish. I think he’s telling the church people what I’ve done.
Mummy looks at me again. “I wash my hands of the whole affair.” She drinks her tea, looking into the distance. This bacon’s got little round bones. It doesn’t seem like part of a pig. Where does the blood go?
In the hall Daddy says, “Ah yes, Matthew Chapter Eight.”
I ask Mummy, “Is that about ‘love your enemies’?”
She can see Daddy through the open door. She looks at him quickly, then at me. “Is what?”
“Matthew Chapter Eight.”
She’s looking into the distance again. “It could be. I’ve no idea.”
“Love your enemies, love your enemies.” (They said that at the Victory Thanksgiving service.)
“Be quiet, Graham.”
I ask, �
��Does Daddy love his enemies?”
She looks right at me. I must remember her face to crayon at school. Her eyes are the easiest: I can use the crayon for the sky. She says, “Pardon?” so I ask again. She screws up her lips. “I’m sure he tries.”
“Even the Germans?”
Daddy’s moved and now I can see a bit of him. His head’s bent over the telephone the way he bends it to pray. I can’t see his face but I think he’s looking at Mummy because she’s flicking her eyes towards him, tugging her hair.
I say, a bit louder, “Even Hitler?”
She looks cross and squirmy. Why can’t she talk to me? She and Daddy hardly ever talk at the table, and all the chewing and swallowing, the knives and plates clicking and ringing, make me feel cross and squirmy.
“Well?”
“That’s a very difficult question, Graham.”
“All right, tell me why Hitler killed the Jews and why the Jews killed Jesus.”
“Graham …”
“And will they all be punished? Will they all go to hell?”
Mummy jumps up with a little gasp and puts the cereal packets away. The phone goes ping and now she’s talking to Daddy, trying to keep her voice quiet. She says, “He’s asking …” then I can’t hear, then, “You’ll have to …” The door’s pulled shut. What are they saying? I’d better drink my tea.
Now it’s time to go and I’m alone with Daddy in the hall, waiting for him to say something, or explode. But he just keeps his lips pressed together and shoves me a bit helping me on with my coat. The hall smells of damp coats, cooking polish, and Daddy’s shaving cream. I feel I’m three again, when he used to lift me and press my face against his. I look up to see if he remembers, but he’s looking somewhere else.
The road to church is downhill: coming back you don’t mind walking uphill because you’re thinking about dinner. Daddy’s met a man he knows and they’re ahead. I’m with Mummy. Who’s she talking to, me or herself?
“They really should cut that tree back. Oh, a magpie, how splendid! There’s a notice in Ramsden’s window. Can you read it, Graham? ‘Under new Management’.” She makes a tutting noise. “Looks as if Jews have bought it.”
She must mean the boy beside that car, and the man trying to unlock the shop door. How does she know they’re Jews? The car’s a Morris Oxford: it can’t be a Jewish car because Mr McDonald’s got one. The man looks cross but the boy’s just whistling, hands in his pockets. Doesn’t he know he’s going to be punished for killing Jesus? I’ll ask Mummy to get him to come to church to ask forgiveness. Or maybe I won’t. She might go squirmy again.
I forgot you can ask God to forgive you. Now I’m skipping along in the sunshine. Better not let Daddy see me. The tops of the garden walls must be hot: if I didn’t have to walk on the outside I’d run my hand along. Each leaf in the privet hedges stands out; each lamp post makes a stripe of shadow; each flagstone winks with shiny stuff. In church I’ll ask God to forgive the lie and the wallpaper, and afterwards ask Daddy the same.
Here we are. This old man handing out hymnbooks looks fierce in his old-fashioned collar. He doesn’t seem to want to give me one. When he does it’s cold, heavy, dark shiny brown. These thick doors are dark brown too, and the black hooks holding them back are like claws.
Inside it’s chilly and smells holy. The organ doesn’t sound cheerful like Sandy McPherson’s on the wireless, just sort of worried. The window tops point to heaven, Miss Rhodes says. If I wanted to rise to heaven I’d be stopped by all those planks and beams. Behind the pulpit is the hymn board: 46, 187 and so on. There’s a fly on the 7. Suppose it set off to walk round the walls till it came back to the board, then set off again. Even if it went round and back a million billion times it wouldn’t use up eternity.
Why’s Daddy got up and gone to the front in the middle of this hymn? Is he going to tell everyone what I’ve done? Oh, he’s going to that table thing, the lectern I think it’s called, and he’s opening the big Bible to read from.
Now we’ve sat down and Daddy’s reading, but it doesn’t sound like him. He keeps stopping and starting in a posh chanting voice like the minister’s. His shiny hair with its dead straight parting goes bigger then smaller as he looks down at the page then up again. Everyone’s listening to what God wrote. I don’t understand it but I’m glad it’s my father reading. His face is like a soldier’s at attention because God’s like a field-marshal only higher. Maybe if he was told ‘at ease’ he’d stop looking stern and smile because he’s proud to be reading.
While we’re eating our roast beef I’ll tell him I’m very, very sorry about the wallpaper. I’ll help him to patch it like those workmen at school. They cut the edges straight with a knife and scraped off the spoilt part. They grumbled about using bits of old roll because of austerity. Daddy and I can grumble the same way as we pull the bed away from the wall, the bed and—
The cupboard! Oh no, no, I’d forgotten about the cupboard. Now we’ve got to stand for another hymn; my legs are shaking and my stomach doesn’t feel as if it’s there. He doesn’t know about the ink behind the cupboard. If there was a piece of wood on the back the ink bottle wouldn’t have slid. It isn’t a proper cupboard, just a small painted box with a door and a flat top to write on. It was a horrible thing to happen at New Year when I was filling my pen to start my new diary. I don’t know what the stain’s like. Each time the thought of it comes I push it back into the dark inside my head.
We’ll drag back the cupboard and there’ll be a long hush. There it’ll be: the stain, like a giant spider, a witch’s hand. What will I say? How can I say I’m sorry now? The minister’s going into the pulpit looking serious, looking over his glasses with sharp eyes. That white V upside down instead of a tie is bands. It never gets dirty because he never does any sins. He’s the only one allowed to step up there closer to God.
He looks down, then up, and says, “My text is Matthew Eight, verse twelve: ‘But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”
He goes on, in that voice that makes me sleepy, but I feel wide awake now wondering what he said. I wish he’d stop talking so I can remember. I’ll have to wait till he says his text again.
“But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness.”
I hoped I’d heard it wrong.
“Now, what does Jesus mean by outer darkness?” He asks the way grown-ups do when they know the answer. I know the answer too. He means the middle of the night when it’s black and still, and your blood swishes louder and louder till the noise fills the room, and you cling to the bed like a sailor to a raft, hoping for morning. Except that in outer darkness there’s no bed, no morning, nothing. Nothing at all.
I wish I was wrong. I wish it didn’t mean that. He’s explaining, but with words I don’t understand.
Daddy’s at the end of the pew. He understands. I wish I could ask him afterwards, “Who deserves to be cast out? Does it mean all the children? Is outer darkness dark all over, or can you see, faint and far away, the light of God and the angels?”
He’s noticed me staring and looks very cross. I look down. Those cracks in the floor are like tiny rivers; that broken match is covered in dust; that flake of hymnbook back is held together by the cloth. If I look and look these things might not go away. Please, God, don’t put the dark instead of them yet.
There’s Mummy’s shoe, smooth and grey with bits cut out over the toes, very different from mine. If I ask Mummy she’ll get worried and keep looking at Daddy. If I bang my head or cut myself she’ll comfort me, but she’s washed her hands of anything to do with lies and sin. Daddy has to deal with those. And I can’t ask him because of my secret, the stain on the wall in black permanent ink.
Cast into outer darkness. It’ll be a hundred times worse than the empty moor. There won’t be grass or the sound of sheep. First God’s voice will thunder, then red eyes will glare while scaly hands push me away. I’ll
rush into nothing. I’ll see horrible faces on skeleton bodies, faces without lips or eyes, like the ones I looked at for hours in that picture magazine before Mummy snatched it away. Then even those will go, and I’ll be alone.
Everyone’s chatting in little groups around the church entrance. Mummy and Daddy are talking to an old lady about her dog. The sun’s so bright people are shading their eyes.
I’m on my own in shadow. I like the sun but I can’t enjoy it now it’s going to be taken away. I close my eyes to try the dark and grind my teeth together. Is that gnashing? I’m not sure, but there’ll be time to find out.
The Smell of Happiness
At the top of the cellar steps, above the door, was the shelf where Arthur kept the jar. Looking up into the dark he’d wait for his eyes to adjust. Then, in the angle where plaster met brown boards, he’d see it. Safely wedged between linseed oil and metal primer, corded with grimy cobwebs.
Sometimes he took it down. The handwriting on the label was so faded he could hardly read it. The jar was from a lab, clear glass, the bakelite top covered by brown paper ingrained with dust. He’d wipe the jar on his sleeve and hold it to the light. It looked empty. Arthur knew it was not.
He tried to inspect it when Vera was reading or sewing. But sometimes the door from the front room opened and he heard her stick, her irregular step.
She said, “Doing a spot of painting?”
They looked at each other with faint smiles.
“Just checking.”
“I’m checking on you. You shouldn’t reach. Don’t want to find you dead on the cellar steps.”
But it was her he found dead. In January, the early hours of a Sunday. He’d asked whether she was coming to bed.
“You go up, I’ll just finish this.”
He woke at three, anxious not finding her beside him. She was still where he’d left her. He took the sewing needle from between her icy fingers.