Poor Angus

by Robin Jenkins

  For his part, Angus was thinking, amidst his cloud of flies, that her ploy might be to have an affair with him. After all, he would be a big improvement on her golf-crazy bully of a husband. His objection to any affair was that it might not be so easily ended as in Basah. There, where contracts might or might not be renewed, everything from membership of the yacht club to possession of a mistress had been necessarily temporary. Even his love for Fidelia had been a commitment with a foreseeable end. Either he or she or perhaps both of them would have to leave one day and return to their respective native country. In the event it had been he. As far as he knew, she was still in Basah and they would never see each other again. But if he entered upon an affair with Janet, say, there would be no such inevitable limit imposed by circumstances. Beautiful though she was, he would one day grow tired of her, but when he suggested, in a civilised manner, that it was time for her to go, she might rudely refuse. Much safer to let her return unblemished to her Douglas.

  In half an hour or so, their shoes yellow with pollen, they reached the 200-feet-high cliffs and gazed out at the blue Atlantic. Though he exulted like Xenophon, Angus did not venture too near the edge, for, besides having a poor head for heights, he trusted neither the turf undermined by puffins nor his companion’s sanity. Crazy people, he reflected, threw themselves over; half-crazy ones pushed others over.

  Like a madwoman indeed, Janet was screaming about cliffs in Skye twice as high as these. ‘We used to climb them gathering gulls’ eggs.’

  ‘Liar,’ he muttered, childish in return.

  Far below was a small bay all the more alluring because inaccessible. Breakers as big as houses fell in leisurely order on white sand: the sound, a roar like cannon, came seconds later. Off-shore were rocks on which cormorants sat and from which spray rose shot with rainbow colours. It was the sort of secret place where a selkie, or seal woman, of Gaelic legend might come ashore. She would be safe there, for though there was a possible route of descent, which he had discovered on previous visits, only a madman would attempt it. Studying it through binoculars, he had concluded, as he did now, that with unremitting effort and care, and at the cost of a few bruises and cuts and many frights, that slope of scree at the top, those slabs of stone, green and slippery with slime, and that long fissure, could all be descended, for none was quite vertical and there were tufts of heather and thrift and knobs of rock to hold on to, and plenty of ledges to rest a foot on. Nevertheless a stumble or slip that on flat ground might cause a jarred ankle could mean here a precipitate downward plunge, with bones broken, blood spilled, and in all likelihood life extinguished.

  ‘Give me the binoculars,’ cried Janet. ‘I think I see a way down.’ She scanned the cliff. ‘Yes, there is. Look.’

  ‘I’ve already looked.’

  ‘We could get down there, couldn’t we? It’s never as steep as it looks.’

  ‘Famous last words.’

  They had to shout because of the din made by the seabirds flying about in their thousands.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be marvellous to walk on those sands?’ she cried.

  ‘It’s just as marvellous walking on sands that you don’t have to risk your life to reach.’ But he didn’t really believe that.

  ‘If Douglas was here he’d tackle it like a shot. He’s afraid of nothing.’

  Angus was reinforced in his wish never to meet the bumptious, unimaginative Douglas.

  ‘Are you coming?’ she asked.

  ‘I certainly am not.’

  ‘Then I’ll go alone.’

  He felt sorrier for himself than for her. If she was killed he would be blamed. They would say that he had known her to be of unsound mind and yet he had brought her to this dangerous place.

  She had already begun, sliding down the scree on her backside.

  Judging from their concerted screams, the birds seemed to share Angus’s opinion of her recklessness.

  He did not want to watch but felt obliged to: if she met with disaster, at least he could share it to the extent that he saw it. Lying on his stomach, he looked through the binoculars.

  Her light blue jeans and white blouse were already smeared with green slime. She was on her bottom a good part of the time but in steeper places she had to face the cliff, like a rock climber, and feel with her foot for a ledge. Two or three times she slipped and only stopped herself by grabbing at some vegetation. Once she let out a scream. Halfway down she rested a while, as if trying to decide whether to keep going or turn back. She kept going. It began to seem that if her luck held she would make it; but she had still to get back up, a harder and riskier task.

  At long last, after 35 minutes, she was safely down. He envied her as she walked across the sand. The magic of the place was hers. Perhaps no other human being had walked there in the past one hundred years. It was more marvellous than walking on the moon. There the imagination would have been stifled by the nothingness, but down on those remote sands she was in the midst of many enchantments. The birds were now screaming congratulations. Angus himself murmured: ‘Well done.’

  She undressed, throwing her clothes about the sand. Then she raced into the sea, disappearing in a welter of bright water. Had the selkie gone back to her own kind? No, there she was again, glistening with wet.

  He noticed what she did not seem to be aware of, that her clothes were in danger of being reached by one of the long tongues of the sea. Worse still, she herself could be cut off.

  He shouted a warning but the birds’ incessant screaming and the sea’s roar drowned it.

  If it had been Nell Ballantyne dancing about down there, even Nell as she had been eight years ago, she would have looked fat and clumsy by comparison. Fidelia, as graceful but less agile, would not have enticed his imagination so much. She would not have looked at home down there, beside that cold sea. She was a creature of the warm south. Flodday would never have suited her.

  Aware now of the sea’s approach, Janet was putting on her clothes. He shivered in sympathy for they must be soaked. He should be climbing down to meet her and give her help, for she would be stiff with cold and therefore more likely to fall. He stayed where he was, with the excuse that he would be more of a hindrance. Was it necessary for an artist to be courageous as a man? If it was, he might as well give up painting. But would Rembrandt, at the age of 43, have scaled that cliff?

  It took her nearly an hour to reach the top. He half expected her to brush aside his hand held out but no, she took it, gratefully, and also his flask of whisky, though she said, with chittering teeth, that she detested whisky.

  ‘Let’s find a warm hollow,’ she said, ‘where I can take off my clothes.’

  They did not have far to go to find a cosy hollow, like a nest, lined with feathers, wool, grass, and violets. Janet at once took off her clothes and wrung them out. She handed Angus her jeans to do. Then, with sheep’s pellets sticking to her white bottom, she stood up and spread out her garments to dry.

  ‘Have you got anything I could dry myself with?’ she asked.

  In his knapsack he had a woollen cap. He gave it to her.

  She dried herself all over. ‘I expect, as a painter, you’ll have seen lots of women with their clothes off?’

  He nodded.

  ‘That’s all right, then. I’m going to sunbathe for a while. I feel tired. You can go for a stroll if you like.’

  ‘I think I’ll take a rest too.’

  ‘Do you still want me to model for you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I’ll do it if you’ll do something for me in return.’

  ‘What, for instance?’

  ‘Make love to me.’

  He had opened his eyes but now he shut them again. Never had he felt less lustful.

  ‘What about Douglas?’ he jeered.

  ‘It would be for his sake that I would be doing it.’

  Suddenly aware of another danger, he opened his eyes and looked up.

  Glaring down, with a copper ring through his nose and a wh
ite cloud sitting on his head was Charlie the bull, swishing his tail, which could have been to swipe away flies, and pawing the ground, which could have been to stamp on ants, but both activities seemed more likely to indicate resentment at finding a favourite nook usurped. He did not roar but his grunts were just as intimidating. A black-and-white cow appeared at his side, licking his sharny rump.

  ‘Look out!’ cried Angus.

  Janet opened her eyes. ‘What’s the matter?’

  From where she lay she could not see Charlie’s virile tuft but his ring and bloodshot eyes were enough. Showing no faith in her own dictum that a bull with a cow was not dangerous, she gathered up her clothing and fled.

  Angus had previously been introduced as it were to Charlie by the farmer and had even patted the brute’s massive head. ‘A peaceable beast, Mr McAllister, so long as you leave his coos alane.’ Mr McCandlish had chuckled; he put nothing past a man who had heathen statues in his house. ‘It’s all right, Charlie,’ said Angus, in a soothing but shaky voice. Charlie glowered, snorted, and seemed minded to charge. Instead he turned away and began tearing up grass, not because he was enraged but because he had resumed grazing.

  Picking up binoculars and knapsack, Angus made off after Janet, but not in panic. Seldom had he felt more fearless. Metaphorically speaking, he could have climbed a cliff ten times as high or faced a hundred fierce bulls. He had had an inspiration for a painting.

  8

  From about 200 yards away Janet, clothed again, could see a car outside the house, parked beside Angus’s. It was David’s. He must have come to take her back. She hoped Mary wasn’t with him, or Mr McPherson. Thanks to Charlie the bull she would be able to say with truth and therefore with conviction that she had not sinned with McAllister. She would also be able to say with equal truth that she had no intention of doing so. She still had faith in her theory of therapeutic shock in regard to Douglas but she would have to find some other way of administering it. Having McAllister make love to her, she now realised, would have given her a shock by no means therapeutic. She could, of course, pretend it had happened. Only Angus would be hurt by the lie, but only if he knew and she certainly wouldn’t tell him. Douglas though, as a consequence of his shock, might go rushing out to Ardnave and give Angus a hammering. Well, perhaps Angus deserved one for the way he had treated Nell and Fidelia and other women too.

  She waited till Angus made up on her, puffing and panting, but in a curious state of exaltation. His eyes glittered as if he had just gained something wonderful and not lost it. Though she had never made love to any man but Douglas, she had attracted many lecherous glances at golf-club dos and more than once had had her bottom squeezed. She might not be as sexy as Fidelia or as cuddlesome as Nell but she was not repulsive either. Angus therefore ought not to be looking so pleased. Could it be that he was looking forward to doing in his bed what he had just missed doing in the grassy hollow? No, that wasn’t the kind of smile he had.

  ‘David’s come for me,’ she said. ‘Look, that’s his car.’

  He grabbed her arm but with no sexual intent. His mind was on something loftier.

  ‘You mustn’t go back,’ he cried. ‘You promised to pose for me. I’ve had an idea for painting. I need you for it.’

  ‘Probably all Kildonan’s talking about me.’

  ‘What does that matter? It’ll be the biggest and most ambitious painting I’ve ever done. I know I can bring it off. It’s what I’ve been waiting for. Tell McNaught you can’t go back. Not till Wednesday. Tell him you’ll go back on Wednesday.’

  Well, perhaps her staying in Angus’s house for three nights unchaperoned would be enough to give Douglas his salutary shock. Besides, she would want to be at Ardnave when Fidelia and the little girl arrived.

  ‘All right, I’ll stay till Wednesday, at least. But let me speak to David.’

  Approaching the house she skipped and danced in a way that she hoped David would associate with his daughters Jean and Agnes and therefore with carefree innocence. But the face with which he confronted her was gloomy as Jeremiah’s.

  Angus gave him a nod and then hurried into the house.

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’ muttered David, suspiciously.

  ‘I think he wants to start a painting. He’s had an inspiration.’

  ‘I just hope his inspiration had nothing to do with you.’

  ‘I think it had to do with a bull called Charlie.’

  ‘Why is your hair wet, and why are your jeans so dirty?’

  ‘I was climbing a cliff. Don’t worry, David, Mr McAllister and I have done nothing wrong.’

  ‘Would you swear by Sgurr Alasdair?’

  That was a secret oath of childhood: a guarantee of truth.

  ‘I swear by Sgurr Alasdair.’

  David’s gloom hardly decreased. ‘I believe you, but nobody else will. Douglas won’t.’

  ‘I don’t want Douglas to believe me. I want him to think I’ve misbehaved with Angus. He’s got to be given a jolt. He’s got to be made understand that there are more important things than golf.’

  ‘That’s nonsense, Janet. He’s more likely to assault McAllister.’

  ‘Well, that would be all right. McAllister deserves it. Not because of anything he did to me, but because of what he did to other women. I suppose Mary’s telephoned Douglas?’

  ‘She tried but he wasn’t at home.’

  ‘He’d be out looking for comfort from one of his lady-friends.’

  ‘She’s going to try again this evening. I’m afraid she’ll tell him about Mr McAllister. So he’ll probably arrive on tomorrow’s plane.’

  ‘No, he won’t. He won’t believe her. He’ll just laugh. What a joke, his Janet doing what he’s often done himself. His Janet’s not that kind of woman. She was too well brought up. Her parents have been members of the Free Kirk all their lives. That’s what he’ll tell himself. He’ll not come tomorrow. He’ll wait till Saturday and bring his golf clubs.’

  ‘But there’s no need for you to stay here till then. Mary said I’d to bring you back with me.’

  ‘Mr McAllister’s expecting guests. He wants me to help him receive them.’

  ‘What guests? Do you know them?’

  ‘People he knew in that place abroad: Basah. A woman and her daughter.’

  ‘Isn’t the woman’s husband coming too?’

  ‘No. Well, I think you should be getting back, David. Mary will be getting anxious. Give my regards to her and the girls.’

  ‘All right, but I don’t like it.’ He went off to his car with a last sigh.

  She went into the house and found Angus in his studio, hard at work. He hardly noticed her coming in or standing by his side. He seemed to be planning the picture. She made out the outlines of a bull and a woman. There were also cliffs, clouds, and birds, roughly sketched but recognisable.

  ‘David’s gone,’ she said.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I think I can stay till Saturday.’

  ‘There’s no need. I should be finished with you by Wednesday.’

  She could have kicked him. ‘All the same I’ll stay till Saturday. I’d like to meet your visitors.’

  He grunted.

  ‘I expect Douglas will come on Saturday.’

  Another grunt.

  ‘Well, if I’m in the way I might as well go and make the tea.’

  ‘Do that.’

  ‘What’s in the larder?’

  ‘Look and see.’

  She should have been annoyed with him and yet she wasn’t. He was doing what he wanted to do more than anything else in the world. She envied him therefore but, what surprised her, she pitied him too.

  She had to come three times and tell him tea was ready. He gobbled down his scrambled eggs and toast like a dog and grunted when she spoke to him. The moment he was finished he rushed back to his studio.

  What if, she thought, after all this devotion, concentration, and rudeness, the picture produced was a failure? She herself woul
dn’t be able to tell, but he would. It must be dreadful to have to tell yourself that a painting which at the start you thought was going to be a work of genius was after all no better than dozens of others you had done.

  About nine o’clock she looked in and asked if he had noticed the beautiful sunset. The loch was blood-red. She was going out to have a good look at it. Would he like to come?

  He shook his head. Yet he wasn’t working. Just thinking. She hadn’t realised that a painter might have to think long and hard about a painting, like an author writing a book.

  When she came in, driven from the glory in the sky by midges – her immunity seemed to have lapsed – Angus was in the living-room squatting on the red divan, silent and meditative, as if imitating Buddha, except that he was drinking Flodday Mist. She sat on the green divan, cross-legged, as if imitating him.

  That meant, in the shadowy room, three Buddhas. The head of the one standing was touched with red from the dying sun: so was the blowpipe. She still had a feeling that something terrible was going to happen in this room, but it seemed so peaceful now and so well guarded that she thought her psychic powers must have deceived her. It would not be the first time.

  ‘This picture,’ she said, ‘what’s it going to be about?’

  ‘You’ll see when it’s finished.’

  ‘I’m not so sure about that. Douglas and I once went to an exhibition of Modern Art and we didn’t understand a single one of the pictures.’