Listen to the Voice

by Iain Crichton Smith

  ‘What are you talking about?’ she would say to him. ‘What do you mean?’ She didn’t understand clearly what he was saying.

  ‘Well, the world would carry on in the same way as before, wouldn’t it,’ said Murdo. ‘I only hope that Maxwell’s umbrella is struck by lightning one of these days. It might teach him a lesson.’

  Her father was saying, ‘Many people would be happy with the work he’s got. There are people I know who clean the roads, clever people too. And look at the warm dry job he had.’

  He lifted a newspaper and laid it down again. He bought the paper every day but he never read it right through. He would glance at it now and again and then he would put it down.

  ‘You would be as well to leave him,’ said her father.

  She had actually thought of leaving him but she knew that she would never go through with it. It wasn’t that she was frightened to leave him but she really hoped that one morning he would suddenly leap out of bed and say, ‘I’m going back to my work today.’ She was hoping that this would happen. And also she thought that she should be loyal to him so long as he was being attacked by his strange sickness.

  ‘No I won’t leave him,’ she said looking into the fire.

  ‘Well, I hope you know what you’re doing,’ said her father.

  Janet sometimes thought that everything would be all right if Murdo would find himself able to write something instead of staring at that white mountain which obsessed him so much.

  Her father was so large and definite and red in his opinions: she actually thought of his opinions as red and bristly.

  ‘I never thought much of him,’ he said. ‘There was a foolishness in his people. His grandfather was a daft bard. He used to write silly songs.’

  And sometimes her father would pace about the room like a prisoner, his great red hands at his sides.

  He raised his fist and said, ‘What he needs is a good thump. That’s what he needs.’ And his face became a deep red with anger.

  ‘You can make tea for yourself if you like,’ he told Janet and he went to the door and looked out. ‘The weather looks as if it’s going to take a turn for the worse.’ His round red head was like a tomato on top of his stocky body.

  Poor Murdo, she said to herself. What are you going to do? Poor Murdo. And she felt a deep pity for him, in her very womb.

  ‘No I don’t want any tea,’ she said. ‘I have to go home.’

  On the way home, she looked at the white mountain for a long time, but all she saw was the mountain itself. At last she turned her eyes away, for the glitter of the snow was dazzling her.

  What am I going to do? she thought. There’s no money coming into the house and the neighbours are laughing at me.

  But in spite of that there was no one she knew as witty and lively as her own husband.

  If only we had children, she thought. If only there was some money coming into the house I’d be happy enough.

  But a small persistent voice was saying, ‘Would you really? Would you really?’ like a small winter bird with a small black beak.

  ‘Would you? Would you?’ twittered the small bird.

  For every day now as she looked in the mirror she saw herself growing older all the time.

  And Murdo also growing older.

  And the chairs and tables closing in on her.

  Last Will and Testament by Murdo Macrae

  To my beloved wife I leave my shoes and clothes, my pencil and my pen and papers (All my love such as it is).

  To my mother-in-law I leave the newspapers that I’ve been collecting for many years. And my rubber nose.

  To my father-in-law I leave a stone.

  To tell the truth I haven’t much else except for my bicycle and I leave that also to my mother-in-law. And I leave my watch to Maxwell.

  I wish my wife to send the following letter through the post:

  To Whomsoever it may Concern

  If anyone can tell me why we are alive, I will give him two pounds, all my money.

  For in the first place we are created of flesh and lightning.

  And in the fullness of time the flesh and the lightning grow old.

  And also we are working in a world without meaning. Yesterday I looked at an egg and I couldn’t understand why it was in the place where it was.

  Now I should know the reason for its position in space. For that surely is not a mysterious thing. And I could say the same about butter. And salt. And Bovril. Now we have come out of the lightning, in our ragged clothes. And at last we arrived at Maxwell with his umbrella.

  This is the problem that Newton never unravelled.

  We kill each other.

  For no reason at all.

  These thoughts climb my head as if it were a staircase.

  And that is why I am an idiot.

  WE CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT SOME BELIEF.

  I believe in my mother-in-law. She will live forever. She will be knitting in a country unknown to the Greeks. I believe in my mother-in-law and in my father-in-law and also in Mrs Macleod.

  They will all live forever.

  For in their condition they are close to that of the animal.

  They survive on dressers and sideboards.

  Those who approach most closely to the conditions of the animal are the ones most likely to survive.

  And Woolworths.

  Woolworths will live forever.

  Too much intelligence is not good for one.

  Too much of the spirit is not good for the body, but

  the following are good for the body:

  Bovril.

  Sanatogen.

  Butter.

  Crowdie.

  Eggs.

  Water.

  Bread.

  Meat.

  And the sun on a warm day.

  And a girl’s breast,

  and

  a spoonful of honey.

  I am sending you this letter, nameless one, with much happiness and without a stamp.

  Murdo Macrae

  Murdo’s father was dying and Murdo and Janet were watching him. Now and again his father would ask for water so that he could wet his lips and his breath was going faster and faster. Janet was sitting on a chair beside the bed but Murdo was walking up and down restlessly, unceasingly. On a small table beside the bed he saw a letter that had come to his father and had not been opened: it was in a brown envelope and looked official. And the tears came unbidden to his eyes.

  Why didn’t I do more? he was saying to himself all the time. He couldn’t sit down. Outside the window the darkness was falling quickly, and he felt cold. He was shaking as if he had a fever, and his teeth were chattering. Now and again he would look at his father’s thin grey face as the head turned ceaselessly on the pillow.

  Murdo nearly knelt and prayed. He nearly said, ‘Save my father, save my father, and I will do anything You want me to do.’ He thought of earlier days when his father used to tease him or carry him about on his shoulders. He thought of his father as a soldier in the war.

  What did he get out of life? he asked himself. What did he get? Janet amazed him sitting there so serenely on her chair as if she were used to deaths, as if this room were her true element though in fact as far as he knew she had never seen anyone die before.

  A voice was screaming in his head, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’ He knew that his father was dying, but he didn’t know why he should feel so sorry.

  The smell of death was in the room: death was an inevitability of the air.

  In a strange way he had never thought that his father would die though he was old and frail.

  He saw his father’s pipe on the table and the tears again welled to his eyes. He was grinding his teeth together. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ the voice was screaming silently like a voice that might be coming down from the sky, from some bleak planet without light.

  His father’s breath was accelerating all the time as if he were preparing himself: for a journey, as if he were in a hurry to go somewhe
re.

  And Murdo paced restlessly up and down the room. Pictures flashed in front of his eyes.

  His father with a spade, his father at the peat bank, his father reading the paper. And below each picture like an image in a dark pool was the thin grey face.

  The stars, they are so far away, Murdo thought.

  He was thinking of the other houses in the town with their lights, and they did not know what was going on in this room.

  And all the time his body was shaking and shivering as if with the coldness of death itself.

  He put his hand on his father’s brow and it had the chillness of death on it. Like marble.

  Janet rose and went for some more water. Once his father opened his eyes and looked around him but Murdo knew that he wasn’t seeing either of them.

  And his breath was going like an engine, fast, fast.

  Murdo turned away and went to the window. He looked out but he could see nothing in the darkness.

  Is this what we were born for? he was saying to himself over and over. He turned back to his father who was melting away before his eyes like snow.

  He looked out of the window again.

  When he turned round next time he felt a deep silence in the room.

  The breath had ceased its frantic running.

  His father’s head had fallen on one side and the mouth was twisted. Murdo began to cry and he couldn’t stop. He knew that his father was dead. He himself was crying and shivering at the same time.

  He couldn’t stop crying. Janet put her hand on his shoulder and he in turn put his face on her breast like a child, crying.

  There was no sound in the room except his own weeping.

  He rose abruptly and went outside. Through the darkness he could see the white mountain. Like a ghost.

  It frightened him.

  It looked so cold and distant and white.

  Like a ghost staring at him.

  He stayed there for a long time looking at it. He expected no help from it.

  There was no happiness nor warning nor comfort nor sadness in that terrible cold whiteness.

  It was just a mountain that rose in front of him out of the darkness.

  I must climb it, he thought. I must do that now.

  He went into the room again and said to Janet, ‘I’ll be all right now.’ She looked at him with love in her eyes and her face was streaming with tears as if the snow had begun to melt in spring, for her face was so pale and tired and white.

  ‘There are no angels,’ said Murdo. ‘There is only the white mountain.’

  Janet looked at him with wonder.

  ‘I’ll be all right now,’ said Murdo. He knew what he was going to write on white leaves.

  A story about his father. At least one story, while he fought with the white mountain, wrestled with it, and after that if he couldn’t defeat the white mountain he knew also what he would do.

  He picked up his father’s pipe and put it in his pocket.

  Janet was looking from Murdo’s face to his father’s. Something was happening to Murdo but she didn’t know what it was. His face was becoming more settled, white as snow, but at the same time the trembling life and vibrancy were leaving it.

  He was like a tombstone above his father’s body.

  And she felt fear and happiness together.

  For Murdo was growing more and more, minute by minute, like his father and her own father.

  It was as if he was settling down into a huge heaviness.

  But at the same time there was a terrible question in his face, a question without end, without boundary, a question without laughter.

  Murdo took her by the hand and led her out of the house and he showed her the mountain.

  ‘Soon,’ he said, ‘we shall have to climb it.’

  And his face was set as stone.

  And her father-in-law’s face was in front of her as well.

  It glared gauntly out of the middle of the chairs and the table and the dresser.

  That grey question.

  That grey thin shrunken question.

  The Wedding

  IT WAS A FINE blowy sunshiny day as I stood outside the church on the fringe of the small groups who were waiting for the bride to arrive. I didn’t know anybody there, I was just a very distant relative, and I didn’t feel very comfortable in my dark suit, the trousers of which were rather short. There were a lot of young girls from the Highlands (though the wedding was taking place in the city) all dressed in bright summery clothes and many of them wearing corsages of red flowers. Some wore white hats which cast intricate shadows on their faces. They all looked very much at ease in the city and perhaps most of them were working there, in hotels and offices. I heard one of them saying something about a Cortina and another one saying it had been a Ford. They all seemed to know each other and one of them said in her slow soft Highland voice, ‘Do you think Murdina will be wearing her beads today?’ They all laughed. I wondered if some of them were university students.

  The minister who was wearing dark clothes but no gown stood in the doorway chatting to the photographer who was carrying an old-fashioned black camera. They seemed to be savouring the sun as if neither of them was used to it. The doors had been open for some time as I well knew since I had turned up rather early. A number of sightseers were standing outside the railings taking photographs and admiring the young girls who looked fresh and gay in their creamy dresses.

  I looked at the big clock which I could see beyond the church. The bride was late though the groom had already arrived and was talking to his brother. He didn’t look at all nervous. I had an idea that he was an electrician somewhere and his suit didn’t seem to fit him very well. He was a small person with a happy rather uninteresting face, his black hair combed back sleekly and plastered with what was, I imagined, fairly cheap oil.

  After a while the minister told us we could go in if we wanted to, and we entered. There were two young men, one in a lightish suit and another in a dark suit, waiting to direct us to our seats. We were asked which of the two we were related to, the bride or the groom, and seated accordingly, either on the left or the right of the aisle facing the minister. There seemed to be more of the groom’s relatives than there were of the bride’s and I wondered idly whether the whole thing was an exercise in psychological warfare, a primitive pre-marital battle. I sat in my seat and picked up a copy of a church magazine which I leafed through while I waited: it included an attack on Prince Philip for encouraging Sunday sport. In front of me a young girl who appeared to be a foreigner was talking to an older companion in broken English.

  The groom and the best man stood beside each other at the front facing the minister. After a while the bride came in with her bridesmaids, all dressed in blue, and they took their positions to the left of the groom. The bride was wearing a long white dress and looked pale and nervous and almost somnambulant under the white headdress. We all stood up and sang a psalm. Then the minister said that if there was anyone in the church who knew of any impediment to the marriage they should speak out now or forever hold their peace. No one said anything (one wondered if anyone ever stood up and accused either the bride or groom of some terrible crime): and he then spoke the marriage vows, asking the usual questions which were answered inaudibly. He told them to clasp each other by the right hand and murmured something about one flesh. The groom slipped the ring onto the bride’s finger and there was silence in the church for a long time because the event seemed to last interminably. At last the ring was safely fixed and we sang another hymn and the minister read passages appropriate to the occasion, mostly from St Paul. When it was all over we went outside and watched the photographs being taken.

  Now and again the bride’s dress would sway in the breeze and a woman dressed in red would run forward to arrange it properly, or at least to her own satisfaction. The bride stood gazing at the camera with a fixed smile. A little boy in a grey suit was pushed forward to hand the bride a horseshoe after which he ran back to his moth
er, looking as if he was about to cry. The bride and groom stood beside each other facing into the sun. One couldn’t tell what they were thinking of or if they were thinking of anything. I suddenly thought that this must be the greatest day in the bride’s life and that never again would a thing so public, so marvellous, so hallowed, happen to her. She smiled all the time but didn’t speak. Perhaps she was lost in a pure joy of her own. Her mother took her side, and her father. Her mother was a calm, stout, smiling woman who looked at the ground most of the time. Her father twisted his neck about as if he were being chafed by his collar and shifted his feet now and again. His strawy dry hair receded from his lined forehead and his large reddish hands stuck out of his white cuffs.

  Eventually the whole affair was over and people piled into the taxis which would take them to the reception. I didn’t know what to make of it all. It had not quite had that solemnity which I had expected and I felt that I was missing or had missed something important considering that a woman to the right of me in church had been dabbing her eyes with a small flowered handkerchief all through the ceremony. Both bride and groom seemed very ordinary and had not been transfigured in any way. It was like any other wedding one might see in the city, there didn’t seem to be anything Highland about it at all. And the bits of conversation that I had overhead might have been spoken by city people. I heard no Gaelic.

  For some reason I kept thinking of the father, perhaps because he had seemed to be the most uncomfortable of the lot. Everyone else looked so assured as if they had always been doing this or something like this and none of it came as a surprise to them. I got into a taxi with some people and without being spoken to arrived at the hotel which was a very good one, large and roomy, and charging, as I could see from a ticket at the desk, very high prices.

  We picked up either a sherry or whisky as we went in the door and I stood about again. A girl in a white blouse was saying to her friend dressed in creamy jacket and suit, ‘It was in Luigi’s you see and this chap said to me out of the blue, “I like you but I don’t know if I could afford you”.’ She giggled and repeated the story a few times. Her friend said: ‘You meet queer people in Italian restaurants. I was in an Indian restaurant last week with Colin. It doesn’t shut till midnight you know …’ I moved away to where another group of girls was talking and one of them saying: ‘Did you hear the story about the aspirin?’ They gathered closely together and when the story was finished there was much laughter.