The Dear Green Place

by Archie Hind

  In the park there was a broad area where the playing fields were, the goal posts sticking up black against the dazzling expanse of snow which covered the football pitches. They walked over the cleared pathway through the pitches towards the trees, then under the trees they turned along a broad railed path. There beneath the trees there were patches of bareness where the snow had fallen lightly, had thawed and taken on that porous look which half-melted snow has. Some bare patches showed where the grass had been crushed under the weight of the snow. Suspended under the railing at the side of the path were rows of water drops. The path had a slight slope downwards in the direction they were walking and as they went along it Mat pointed out to Helen how the rows of crystal drops were moving down the railings like a little upside down stream. They stood and watched the fanciful display of gaudy lights. As a drop would grow too large its weight would pull it off the railing. It would fall to the rail beneath, causing a delicate coruscation, a tiny spray of fragments to glisten in the pale light, then the whole tinkling cavalcade would move like a diamond abacus down one space to fill up the space the fallen drip had left. When they noticed it happen once they looked up and down the railings on each side of the path and noticed it was happening all the time. A continual procession of trickles and splashes, a mad exuberant game. They stood and laughed at the free show, at the extravagant humour and gaiety of it. It was like a miniature Niagara of splashes and sprays, all a comical variety, the drops jostling and quivering and dancing like children at a treat, a whimsical changing of effect as the drops would fall now here, now there, with a laughable and gay gratuitousness.

  They couldn’t stop laughing. Mat had tears of laughter in his eyes. ‘It’s an experience which was very popular among the romantics,’ he said, still laughing. ‘Kant, I think it was, called it the “dynamic sublime” as it was usually the kind of feeling evoked by raging torrents, tumultuous waves, majestic thunderstorms, lofty mountains, soaring precipices, great denizens of the forest. Well, there you have it. The dynamic sublime. A wee Glesca one. All on a reduced scale.’

  12

  IT WAS A morning in late May. It was cold standing there at the bus stop. The dawn had just come up, a spring dawn, cool, rosy and blue. In spite of the cold Mat had held the collar of his shirt open to allow the fresh breeze which ruffled his hair to blow freely down his neck. There were a few morning stars left, just diminishing into the blue and as Mat had walked to the bus stop through the mucky backyards he heard the inane liquid chattering of a starling coming from some gutter. He had looked up to the sky and felt a joy which the sluggard and lie-a-bed never knows. When he had woken it had still been dark outside, his head had been full of pieces of dream and his body suddenly full of tensions like an alarm clock waiting to go off. He had turned out, nevertheless, to face the dreary routine. Swallow his toad, as he put it to himself. But he had awakened earlier than he had thought and as he made himself tea and toasted bread the day had lit up. Now, standing in the quiet with his face still tingling from the cold wash and shave, the new day was as fresh as butter from a churn and the wind which blew on him felt like a shower bath. Above the roof of a building across the street some gulls were holding a gay regatta, full of salt and dash, their white wings soaring against the maritime blue of the sky. Apart from the occasional gurgling of pigeons there wasn’t a sound. From the multitude of chimneys there came not a wisp of smoke. Nothing disturbed the blithe clear stillness of the morning, except for the faraway sound of the jingling of bottles.

  It was that hour when even the raging insomniac’s inflamed limbs and heated thoughts would be cooling into slumber. All the busy world asleep and only those intent on men’s blessing were awake – the nurse on her vigil over frail men, the milkman bringing the babies their bottles, the lamplighter running upstairs and down, turning off the gas mantles, husbanding his gift of light till nightfall; but the statesmen, accountants, lawyers, executives, businessmen, judges and juries were asleep with their awful forefingers relaxed and dreaming of a kinder life. Early morning, fresh and innocent as a lettuce leaf, with the world settled, provisionally, for peace – a truly lyrical moment.

  When the bus came, Mat shrugged off his mood with a grin. He felt slightly embarrassed by his mood. ‘Specious lyricism,’ he thought. But the cigarette which he lit in the bus, he had to admit, was sweet and fragrant, and sitting there he remembered waking in the night to feel Helen’s relaxed gratified limbs round him.

  The slaughter-house wasn’t very busy. Mat put on his rubber boots but didn’t bother to put on his apron or his kit. At the back of the killing rooms the pens were half empty and Mat sat with Jake and some of the other men, talking. They sat on stacked bales of straw, leaning with their backs against the wall. For a while Mat went off to grind his knives, taking a long time over the job, carefully following the curve of the knives and grinding so that the blades pared down evenly towards the edge without any bumps or ‘belly’. Then he came back and sat on a bale of straw and honed the edges, bringing them up razor sharp. Amidst the sound of the laughing voices was the sound of the slither of steel as the men refreshed their dull blades on a fine stone, and a heavy rasp as they ground out a notch from the side of a cleaver with a piece of rough carborundum. One of the blood boys lay sound asleep taking up a whole bale of straw to himself. Another blood boy brought back steaming cans of black coffee and hot rolls with egg and sausage. Jake had coaxed the boy into going and now he refused to pay him for the errand and the two of them fought with one another, messing up bales of straw, stuffing the wisps of straw down each other’s shirts.

  ‘You didnae offer some o’ yir coffee,’ the boy said.

  ‘You don’t like black coffee.’

  ‘Weel, I didnae get the chance to refuse.’

  Jake laughed. ‘How much did I say I would give you?’

  ‘Five bob.’ The boy exaggerated and everybody laughed.

  ‘Whit? Five bob!’ Jake pounced on the boy, wrestled him down on top of the bale and stuffed a bundle of hay under his jersey. ‘How much?’

  ‘Four and a tanner.’

  Jake stuffed some straw down the side of his wellington boots. ‘How much?’

  ‘Four bob.’

  Jake put some more straw down his neck. ‘How much?’

  ‘Three and six.’

  Jimmy McGuire got up and held the boy’s kicking legs and Jake pulled his belt and stuffed straw down his trousers. ‘How much?’ The boy yelled and kicked and giggled as more and more straw went down into his jeans, ‘Hauf a dollar! Two bob! A shilling! A tanner! Ow! Nothing!’

  After he had picked all the straw from himself they both wrestled weakly for a while then got tired and started a lackadaisical argument. Then Jake threw the money which the boy knew he’d get all along. Mat tested his knives on the hair on the back of his hand and they shaved off the hair as crisply and cleanly as any razor blade, leaving little bald patches among the dark hair of his arms. They ate the rolls and drank the scalding coffee before lighting up cigarettes. Jake got up and decided to walk down to the market and look for his customers.

  ‘If we’ve got any work to do we’d as well finish it and get hame!’

  Nobody answered him as they weren’t keen on starting after lounging about all morning. Mat stretched himself. ‘I’m feeling lazy.’

  While Jake was away Jimmy Aitken came over with his can and his pieces. ‘Had your breakfast yet?’ he asked. looking anxiously at Mat. ‘Aye, fried eggs and fried sausages and rolls.’ He had to laugh at Jimmy’s comical face as he made a dyspeptic grimace and held his stomach lightly with one hand. ‘And black coffee in an auld dirty can,’ Mat said. Jimmy sat down and shook his head. ‘Ugh!’

  They sat together waiting on Jake coming back. Jimmy didn’t talk to Mat but sat grumbling miserably over his sandwiches. ‘A’ that rich feeding. The pâté de foie gras. Ye fairly get fed up wi’ it.’ He was eating liver paste sandwiches.

  ‘Next thing yir big toe’ll a’ swell up.’
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br />   Jimmy grinned suddenly and stuck his leg up on a bale of straw. ‘Ah’ll have to lay off the Aylesbury duck.’

  ‘And the port wine.’

  ‘And the pheasant.’

  ‘It’s like the servant,’ Jimmy said. ‘He came running in tae his master, you know, ruffles at the sleeve, embroidered waistcoat, silk trousers, wig – and he says, “Sire, Sire, the peasants are revolting,” and the master, he’s a big count . . .’

  ‘A whit?’ the blood boy asked.

  Jimmy emptied the wet tea leaves in the bottom of his can at him. ‘Shurrup. Yer spilin’ ma story. A big count I said. Anyway, the count turns round and he says – “Aye, so they are.”’

  ‘Is that the end?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Well, I don’t get it!’

  Jimmy looked at the boy with his black eyebrows raised. Mat said, ‘Well, you see, the servant said that the peasants were revolting you know, out wi’ the old pitchforks. Right? Ye get that bit?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘And the count thought he meant revolting,’ Mat held his nose fastidiously. ‘You see? You get it?’

  ‘Aye. But it’s no’ very funny. And anyway, what’s it got to do wi’ pheasants?’

  ‘Ach!’ Mat flapped his hand at him in disgust.

  ‘Did ye not know how the toffs eat pheasant. They hang them up until the maggots are crawling on them,’ Jimmy said.

  ‘Ah, I see. And they used to hang the peasants tae. And that’s why they were revolting.’

  ‘Don’t say nae mair until you’ve seen your lawyer. He’s getting you all tangled up.’

  ‘Aye, that’s right.’ Jimmy turned to Mat, his palms uppermost, a look of surprised bafflement on his face. He shook his head. ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave . . .’

  Jake had come back during this, listening with his head poked through the doors of the killing room and laughing. ‘That bugger’s a’ tangled up to start wi’ . . .’

  ‘Hullo there, Jake. Anything doing?’

  ‘We’ve four beasts to fell. Then finish.’ He brought his arm, palm downwards across his body. Everybody groaned, but they got up and went through into the killing room to find their knife kits and their aprons.

  The first two beasts were felled and hung up and the second pair down on the floor. Mat was stroking his knife on his steel and taking the last puff of a fag which he had lit between fellings. He bent down and made the first incision in the beast’s head, under the chin. There was a kind of commotion which made him look up. He saw the lorry driver from the market, standing talking to Jake. Part of what the man was saying came to him: ‘I don’t know how badly . . .’ Then he noticed Jake. He had his head down and his hands were scrabbling at the buckle of his belt. He seemed to move urgently, tottering on his feet, turning towards the hooks to hang up his belt and scaling his knives on the floor. When he pulled his apron off the flap came up covering his face but Mat caught a glimpse of it, tense and suddenly white. the lorry driver turned and saw Mat. All he said was, ‘Mat,’ but Mat moved towards him and the urgency of his movement made everyone stop and look up.

  ‘What is it?’ Mat asked. But before the man could answer Jake said, ‘It’s Dad. An accident.’ In the rise and fall of his voice there was a heave of panic, then its sudden control. Mat felt the same movement in himself, a quick reflex of feeling so that he wanted to gasp, then a sudden absence of feeling. As the lorry driver spoke to them Mat felt the continual ebb and flow of panic and numbness.

  ‘It just happened. And I was passing.’ They nodded at him. By this time Mat was himself taking off his kit and apron and feeling the fear ease as he did so. ‘Just on the bend as you pass round the park. The two lorries went into one another. Doug, your old man, was in the passenger seat. The load went through the cabin.’ They had both pulled their pullovers over their bloodied shirts and were putting on their jackets. Mat had left his apron and knife lying on the slaughter-house floor. The lorry driver followed them as they ran down the pass together. Then he shouted. ‘Mat, Jake.’ When they turned he spoke with difficulty, warning them. ‘It looks bad.’

  They didn’t speak but turned and started to trot down the pass. They ran together, then slowed down and started to walk, very fast, then broke out into a run again as if following the rhythm of their panic. Mat felt unreal, his cheeks puffed and slack as if he’d been crying, and everything going on round about seemed a stupid meaningless jumble – the porters, the beef, the little knots of sheep being herded into the penning area, the lorries, vans, drovers, buyers, barrowmen. Some of the men they knew shouted to them, waved cheerily, and Mat felt a strange thrill as he watched Jake wave back to some of them, his arm in a weird, still pose. Then as they passed by carrying their anxiety with them the usual common activities seemed bizarre and cruel as if everything ought to have stopped. He had the sensation as if he was watching himself and Jake as they ran, then walked down the long pass towards the street. He felt life inside himself only in that hard mechanical centre which watches us as we act and feel, and it seemed to watch him as he was being immersed in his panic and grief. It seemed to see them, both himself and Jake, as they were tugged by their fear like a pair of marionettes on strings. This banal reflex life continued to work in him and as they stood at the bus stop his eye kept reading an advertising hoarding on the other side of the street. They didn’t speak but stood right at the edge of the pavement beside the bus sign watching for the bus. Mat looked at Jake and saw only a calm reposed face. A lorry passed, and Jake’s eyes held the lorry in their sight until it passed then flickered back to watch the road. Then his gaze seemed to wander idly about in a mechanical search. Their father had been hurt in an accident, maybe very badly, and everything that was going on seemed extra to that thing. Jake lit a cigarette and carefully crumpled the empty packet and put it into the wastepaper basket attached to the bus sign. Mat heard himself repeat over and over again, ‘Keep the streets tidy.’ He himself was idly kicking his heel against the edge of the pavement and flaking off the blood which had congealed on his boot.

  Again he felt the strings pulling them as the bus came and they got on and paid their fares and sat in absence on the top deck. Mat lit a cigarette and bowed over it, cupping it in his hand and drawing it until it burnt his mouth. When the bus came round the long bend at the park it slowed down as it reached the place where the accident had happened. They caught a glimpse from the top of the bus of the lorries slewed half over on to the pavement, the big yellow crane parked beside them, the dark uniforms of the policemen. The bus slowed down to pass round the twisted lorries and Mat and Jake jumped off and ran over to the police sergeant who was standing beside the smashed-in cabin of one of the lorries. Jake spoke to the sergeant and he took out his notebook and read out their father’s name and address.

  ‘It’s our father,’ Jake said. The police sergeant was calm and composed as he told them that the ambulance had just left. He wasn’t able to say anything about the accident, except that Doug had been getting a lift home from the night shift. There had been four men involved. One of them, one of the drivers, had only been shocked but had gone in the ambulance. The other three had been injured. He couldn’t say anything about the extent of their injuries. They had been severe so far as he understood, a doctor had arrived at the scene almost as soon as it had occurred. Mat looked at the smashed-in cabin, the splintered glass lying over the street, and wondered at the force that could have caused such a wreck. Somehow, as he watched the two constables measuring the street with their tape, he thought that what they were doing was terribly right and fitting. He felt the ease of relief that there was no blood showing in the inside of the cabin, then something tightened in him like a tourniquet and cut off the thought of his father’s spilled blood, so that he was able to feel relief at its not being there without thinking the complementary thought that it might have been.

  ‘It’ll maybe be all right,’ Mat said to Jake. It was the first word they had spoken to one another since bef
ore they had left their work. It wasn’t necessary that their father should be seriously injured. You could have an accident without getting anything worse than a broken leg. It wasn’t necessary – Mat felt the heavy oscillation of hope and despair as he looked again at that ferociously smashed cabin. But they decided what to do. Mat was to go to the infirmary. ‘I’ll go and get Ma,’ Jake said, and Mat wasn’t sure if he meant he’d go for her or to her. The sergeant offered Jake a lift and Jake nodded. But when he went to step inside the low raking police car he stepped back and pointed to his mucky dungarees. Then as Jake helped the policeman to spread a newspaper on the seat Mat watched the piteous common spreading movement of his hands, and he found himself counting the black and white squares on the policeman’s cap.

  The numbness remained with Mat on his journey to the hospital. Later on, he realised that he must have had to change buses to get there, but he never ever remembered doing so. All he remembered of the journey was a collage of shop fronts and windows flying past him as he sat on the top deck of the buses. He was only in the hospital five minutes when he knew that his father was dead. He remembered the face of the young doctor who seemed to have come out of a mist. Mat told him of the accident and the doctor went in through a swinging door into a room full of shiny vessels like tea-urns. There was a murmuring of voices, the young doctor stood in the half open door. He nodded his head saying ‘Yes,’ each time. Then he turned towards Mat and opened the door fully to allow the other doctor to come out and Mat could see in their faces that his father was dead. In the nurse’s face as she stood looking towards the door and fingering the white starched apron that was pinned to her dress, in the decline of the young doctor’s resigned head as he held open the door. The older doctor spoke to Mat. ‘Mr Craig?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mr Craig! Your father was dead when he was brought into the hospital. We think that perhaps he was killed instantly in the accident.’ The doctor broke the news to Mat quickly and cleanly like pulling off a plaster.