The Stories of William Sansom

by William Sansom

  Then I saw for the last time that tall blue képi—higher than the rest of the crowd but caught in it, laughing and fighting and struggling as he was borne along, as now he receded from me, dragged away, drowned it seemed in the moving swelling devouring sea, the sea of hats, caps, fezzes, hands, arms, faces….

  I walked back to the bar. There on the floor half beneath the wicker table lay the little robins, ruffled, deflated, their skinny eyelids closed tight, their short beaks shut, and all around like bright puffs of dust the small feathers.

  Gliding Gulls and Going People

  TWO girls in high shorts, thin plump thighs redly raw in the blue cold; a blood-filled man in black broadcloth, his big stomach carrying him like a sail along; a queer-eyed girl in a transparent white mackintosh; an old gentleman and an old lady eyeing each other, strangers yet; a young man, curly-haired and hard-fleshed, whose frank grey eyes bristled with sneaking contempt; two wives in soldier-peaked hats, navy and nigger, cheery and cake-loving; a small lean man in blue serge and a woolly chequered cap whose friends and family, at his expense, flowed round him only to exclaim and demand.

  Such were some of the six hundred lined up raggedly along the quayside waiting for several strolling ample officers to give them permission to embark. Already the gulls, thick and dark as snowflakes above, gliding and hovering and always crying, had showered them over with confetti and streamers of white—so that in all their darkish throng they looked like wedding guests come to a white funeral.

  The driven smell of kippering smoke blew in gusts from sheds about. Red lead of funnels shone orange against the metal-grey water, corrugated tin sheds stepped like large mauve flamingoes on their thin pile-legs, tarred black sheds nudged blue-washed weatherboards of a chandler’s, barrels and buckets and drum and feeding-carts spent oil and oil, everywhere oil—these salt things with a huddled rigging of masts made up the quay of Mallaig, mainland port on the Sound of Sleat opposite Skye. A place of high rubber boots, of seaman’s wool, of oilskins against the fresh wind and the white bright light. And all those people walked straight off the train and from the hotels along the quay to board this excursion steamer to the sea-loch Scavaig and the dark monstrous Cuillins.

  Although their greatest wish was for a refreshing cup of tea, the navy and the nigger hats remained for some minutes in dumb confabulation on the departing glories of those weird mountains above the Kyle of Lochalsh. Leaning over the rail, while the ship throbbed below and the gulls questioned the air about, their ample bodies almost touched. In speechless approbation they regarded those mountains, some black, some lizard-green as shafts of sun spotlighted them from the indigo anger of clouds above. A wild improbable mass, sun-green and rock-black abstraction, nothing here of the human world, across the metal water huge and towering as a threat from old Norse gods—for even here in Scotland there was the feeling of being on top of the world, on a barren place uncongenial to man.

  Little of Scotland, much of cold Viking ferocity. Yet—those two in their dear pleasure saw Scottish hills, they saw what on a hundred calendars had been dreamed and painted for them. Though none were to be seen—stags stood about in cosy might, and there was heather for these two, everywhere surely a purple mass of heather, ‘a veritable blaze of colour’, warm paintbox purple. And where now the sun shone sickly green, was there not a golden glow? Gold touching russet? Winking on crofter’s cottage, neat-thatched, washed clean white? Of course one had to admit it was very wild, had one not? But then one expected wildness from these dear Scottish hills, homely hills so glenny and good.

  So despite the fresh wind the two ladies stood and surveyed their calendar imposition. A smile for each other, a knowing nod, and once more they turned to the scene and their eyes became distant—pleased, pleased that they had come and that what they expected was there, most content and kindly in the dream picture made by their eyes upon the real scene. Then, as if enough was as good as a feast, they turned to each other and sighed—and one, simply and from the generosity of her heart, said the first thing that came to her: ‘How I wish Ellen were here, she would have enjoyed it so.’

  The other sighed, ‘Yes’; and then together they turned to the companion-way and a cup of good warming tea, eager now to discuss the interesting topic of Ellen.

  But they were not the only two on deck—as they staggered along, as laughing they clutched each other and in their thick coats clutched the companion-way, they passed in between that hard-eyed young man and on the other side of the doorway the girl in the pale mackintosh: and further on stood those two girls in such high cold shorts.

  The young man saw nothing of the great receding mountains, nor did he see Mallaig grown small like a doll’s town under its confetti of gulls—he saw nothing but the girls. And those eyes under their short lids, bitter and ambitious, lustful, swivelled warily between the two grouped and the one sitting. Where was the better chance? Those two with their legs bare nearly to their bottoms—they looked something, Two out together on the spree, hikers probably, they had wool caps and oilskin jackets and bloody great boots with spikes. Their legs looked funny all bare from boot to bum—still they were legs, young legs and soft if indeed cold. Fine place to choose for a spree though, and there was your youth movements for you, giving girls outlandish ideas like coming to this iceberg, and outlandish was the word. Still, two together was always something, two chances in one, and each would vie with the other for his attentions, they would smile the larger and give great willing looks. Till he chose one, and then the other would mope, and that was always the worst of two—it became three’s no company. Still. And yet—that other in the natty mack sitting alone, she might want company on any account, and he’d be well in nice and easy. A bit snooty? But the snooty ones turned out often enough the best, they knew what they wanted. And there she was settled, not reading, nothing but looking out at that bloody cold sea. She looked lonely enough. Still. He knew better than to go straight up. Might get a back-hander, the old one-two. Perhaps a gentle enquiry: ‘Excuse me, miss—I see you have a map there, would I be right in thinking those the Cuillins? They aren’t? Why, it must be a pleasure to know as much as you, it’s difficult being a stranger in these parts.’ And all that. Or drop his gloves at her feet? Or simply lurch across her, as if the ship had done it—that often brought a laugh.

  He put a match between his teeth, and ground those small in-growers viciously into the wood. Pretending to look at none of them he walked stiff-legged over to the rail and placed himself exactly between them. He wrinkled up his short forehead into deep horizontal furrows—those that looked casual, as though he were emptying a full mind the better to perceive new things—and gazed blindly out to sea. So he stood for minutes, and the gulls glided and swooped around. Sometimes these hung on the air at the speed of the ship, and turned their faces inward, curious, looking him in the eye. The bare girls in oilskins were throwing them bread-chunks from a screw of coloured comic. They laughed and their screams came down on the wind, and though they were so near those screams sounded like an echo. The gulls adroitly caught the pieces in mid-air—at which always the girls burst into fresh screams. So it was very easy for the young man first to smile amiably and then fully to burst laughing with them as one particular gull missed its piece.

  But the girls acted strangely. Together, with no sign between them, motivated like twin puppets, they stared straight at him: their eyes blanked up: they were looking through him: then as if they had never seen him they both turned to gaze slowly out to sea. Their two faces plainly said: ‘There is no one on the ship but us, but her and me,’ And oh bored, bored the young man too looked out to sea—the match snapped in his teeth, snapped at this trick he knew so well, snapped that two such oilskinned bums should prink themselves into such importance. He said softly to himself, spitting out the match: ‘Sod that then.’

  A minute later he turned casually the other way, taking a quick squint at the girl sitting there still alone in her white gummy mackintosh. Taking a
breath he moved away from the rail, walked across to the companion-way door just by her side, seemed there to trip, to stagger, to drop his gloves and all he had and lurch all over her.

  *

  Meanwhile that fat man in black was nowhere to be seen. But on the way from their warming cup of tea the two matrons passed very near where he was, they glimpsed through a glass porthole into a small wooden room and saw there a mass of black already it seemed asleep.

  They saw his bulged black waistcoat jutted into the little wood flap-table, they saw the empty beer-bottles and the little wicked whisky glasses like chessmen on that board, they saw his hands pouched with blood resting sideways and almost on their backs palms upward in sleep. ‘Is he ill, then?’ they thought. Then worried by this they agreed he must be all right—though what he came on such a trip for just to sit inside and drink it was difficult for their lives to think. There he sat, his red chin lurched deeply down on his black waistcoat top, his large black hat overshadowing like poet or priest. And there, after they had passed on their way to the ladies’ lounge, he continued to sit; a figure framed by the inquisitive porthole, more of a round picture hung on the wall than a person inside who at some time, impossibly, might move.

  The lean-faced little father from Liverpool remained on deck. He and all his family sat huddled in chairs behind the funnel, all nestled and rugged like wealthy emigrants. Father tough and lean-faced beneath his checked cap nodded a superior approbation of the air—he had blown some money on this trip, he was going to enjoy it, he was in command—and he smoked his cigarette from an arm held bent with muscle, holding it between finger and thumb and with little finger curled out in showful ease. He turned to Mother and pointed sternly with this superior hand:

  —See, Ma? Muck there, the Isle o’ Muck.

  Mother turned to the horizon, where she saw far away a shapeless piece of rock. She nodded, pleased and satisfied:

  —Muck it is? Well.

  Father peered at her from beneath his great peak, together their eyes gravely conspired. They both nodded, satisfied. They had experienced the Isle of Muck, Muck could be crossed off, it was there still, nobody had been tricked. And instantly was forgotten—Father was back at the sports page and Mother began at her brood:

  —Alfie, stop touching, it’s the Captain’s. Clarie, make Alfie leave the bleedin’ funnel be.

  *

  The ship churned on into the sullen sea, great bullying iron pushing into cold waters of mineral green. To starboard now was a corner of Skye, to port there came slowly harsh Eigg and thunderous Rum. But that cold-eyed young man saw nothing of those coming islands he might have come to see, he sat to starboard with his plastic girl. He had succeeded. Whether or not she knew it was a dodge scarcely mattered. If she had known, then at least it acted like an excuse. She was simply willing to speak and sit with him. And from then on there began the fearful old tragedy—innocence enchanted by vice.

  His tight face unscrewed into a hung-open sham of courtesy, his forehead creased up in horizontal humble enquiry, he asked:

  — Excuse me, Miss—I see you have a map there, would I be right in thinking those the Cuillins?

  Her face brightened, she became alive not in pleasure at expressing what she knew but simply in talking to that man:

  — No, not here, they’re further up. See right up there where we’re going. But you can’t see the tops, the tops are in cloud.

  — Indeed? Why, it must be a real pleasure to know as much as you, it’s difficult being a stranger in these parts.

  — Oh, I’m not a stranger. I’ve lived here all my life. Over in Mallaig.

  — Now, that’s interesting that’s interesting. Lived in these parts all your life, have you? Have you, now.

  — Well I think all my life. You see—

  — What’s that, think? Think?

  — You see—

  — Come off it, you’re pulling my leg, you can’t tell me you don’t know where you’ve been all your life, a smart girl like you. Telling me you don’t know who you are next.

  — That’s it, I don’t really.

  — Uh?

  — Of course I know I’m me. But who me is I couldn’t ever be sure.

  — Ho?

  — I’m a changeling.

  — Wassat? Wassat?

  — They say I’m a changeling.

  She stared at him waiting, her deep dark eyes moist between the collars of her plastic mack, against her halo hood of water-white. In those eyes there lay a slight cast. But that young man saw no eyes, he was looking at her lips, hoping like hell nothing more like what he had heard would come. Somehow the boot had got on the wrong foot, he should have been doing the talking and now she had gummed up the works with this fancy stuff. What the hell was a changeling, anyway? He furrowed up his brow in perplexed sympathy, coughed, then remembered—it was the old doorstep dodge. He cooed:

  — Orphan, eh? Poor kid, no mum nor dad. Doesn’t seem to’ve done you a packet of harm though. Not by the look of you. Foundling, eh?

  — No. Changeling.

  — Ah, you mean foundling. Foundling’s what you mean.

  — No, changeling. They say when you’re a baby someone comes and changes you with another baby. I’ve been sort of queer all my life. That’s why mum and my sisters say I was changed. The fairies come and changed me, I’m like a fairy, see?

  — Fairies? Come off it.

  — I am, I really am.

  — Oho.

  She’s nuts, he thought. A nice balls-up—fairies. He edged a bit away from her. Then a slow, rich, gluey smile stretched his mouth. His eyes stared still hard scheming. This wasn’t so bad after all? If she was nuts, she might be that much easier? You sometimes got round a soft-head easier.

  He got towards her:

  — I get you. That’s interesting what you say, real interesting. Tell you what, you and me’s going to have one. Drop of nice port wine, eh?

  — Well …

  — Come on, do you handsome a parky day like this.

  — Well, I’d not say no to a cup of tea now …

  — Cupper tea? That what fairies drink?

  — Now you mustn’t laugh …

  — Whatever you say, princess. Lead the way.

  Now chuckling together, he falsely and she in real delight, they rose and staggered off against the wind to the companion-way. For one moment, before going down, they paused—she pointed to where a gull stood high and solitary on the summit of the after flag-pole. It stood with the careful genius birds have for showing up statues. Other gulls wheeled and swooped round, but that one stood stiffly still and careful. The girl tittered:

  — I wonder what he’s thinking up there.

  He looked quickly up, then shrugged—eyes already on the companion-way and action:

  — Ask me. Just ask me.

  *

  That man in black in the wooden bar with a grunt woke up. He looked startled, turned to the empty bench beside him and said:

  — What’s time? We there?

  Receiving no answer he looked with suspicion round the rest of that bare wooden cabin, saw his empty whisky glasses in front and again grunted. It was a final grunt. Stretching his huge stomach more, he put both hands in pockets at the same time, drew out with one hand a red silk handkerchief and with the other a small black book, blew his nose and commenced to read at the same time. Once a dark shape flashed winging by the porthole. He brushed it away from his page like a fly, but never looked up. The engine throbbed with his silence.

  *

  The engine throbbed, the boat shuddered, and now that Liverpool father was up and standing by the rail with a pink-faced scrubbed old gentleman. Perhaps his silk white hair made this old man look so clean—or perhaps it was the little old lady who fitted so neatly near his arm. She wore a straggled tippet round her throat, from this her live little face came like a small round vegetable. From time to time, as the three talked, these two looked at each other with twinkling affection. The Liverpo
ol man was saying:

  — Turbines, steam turbines, that’s what they are. And I’m telling you. I’m telling you—it won’t be long before you’ll be seeing Diesels along this line. Diesels, you’ll see.

  He was looking with small fury at the old man. His checked peak thrust forward, the lines deep in his cheeks dragging his mouth down in scorn. But it was the scorn of approval; scorning all other times, astonished by this world of plenty that rained Diesels. The old man nodded:

  — Times are changing. It’s a turn of speed they’re after.

  The old lady smiled up at him:

  — That’s it.

  The checked cap nodded emphasis. Then the old gentleman went on:

  — But us’ll have in mind the old paddlers, won’t us, madam? Foof foof foofle foof—that’s the stuff to give ’em!

  He churned wide with his hands, turning them round like paddle-wheels. The old lady pressed her small face backwards with laughter. The man with the cap relaxed, and again in approval nodded:

  — Ay, they did their turn rightly and no one’s goin’ to say a word agin’ ’em.

  Creeping up nearer on the starboard came Eigg and Rum, queer masses of rock and mountain riding the sea aloof and insolent as battleships. Unique shapes—Eigg low like half a huge whale of grey stone cut open and exposing its great scar of ribbed blubber: Rum lowering behind, mountainous and jagged, black against the silver sunlight like a giant tooth extracted and roots upmost planted in the sea. People looked, and looked away consumed with their own affairs. The gulls flew round and round, pacing the ship, swooping up and down, planing no one knew how or where or why, on a voyage instinctive but unaware. Their piping over the cold green sea came and then was lost on the wind.