The next question Mortimer tackled was the content of the programme. Did it have to be about food? Would an equivalent amount of some other programme produce the same effect? In order to investigate this, Mortimer (after allowing Toby a week of uninterrupted viewing, during which time his eating rate returned to normal and his mood stabilised) tuned all the television channels to a programme about a group of teenagers who lived in a low-income housing development (the likes of which were nowhere near the sedate Comely Bank). The results of this change in programme content are shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2 Effects of viewing non-food-related TV programme on meal-completion rate (adapted from Skelton: 2016)
The effect of watching the teenage drama was not significantly different from that of watching no television. Though there was a slight reduction in MCT after the initial viewing, this was attributed to expectation on Toby’s part. The other point that deserved explanation was the single occasion when viewing the teenage drama caused a significant reduction in MCT, comparable to that of the Cooking, Non-disrupted condition. Mortimer attributed this to “a scene in a fast-food restaurant involving hamburgers.” Both this, and the trend it contradicted, supported the notion that the presence of food in the programme was the crucial factor in television’s ability to reduce Toby’s rate of eating.
By this point the subject was showing other behavioural changes. In addition to erratic eating behaviour, he showed “signs of insomnia, depression, and a general listlessness.” He was also wetting the bed.
Mortimer waited a month before his next experiment. Not from squeamishness or guilt, but so that his subject’s behaviour could return to “normal.” The purpose of this third experiment was to determine the extent to which watching food-related programmes could reduce the subject’s eating rate. In addition to the usual thirty minutes, Mortimer showed Toby an additional fifteen, thirty, forty-five, or sixty minutes of cooking programmes.
To control for the effects of additional television, Mortimer also showed his subject programmes that contained no food. The effects of these supplementary viewings are shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3 Effects of additional viewing on meal-completion rate (adapted from Skelton: 2016)
Supplemental viewing of food-related programmes significantly increased MCT in all conditions. There was, however, no significant difference between the effects of forty-five and sixty minutes of supplementary viewing on MCT. From this, it was concluded that the limit to which MCT could be increased by exposure to food images lay within this range.
Needless to say, this change in Toby’s eating behaviour greatly pleased his mother. Mortimer could probably have carried out several more experiments before she became suspicious. In his article he put forth many intriguing ideas: that the subject be shown only photographs of food; that the subject be shown video footage of himself eating; that he be shown images and/or footage of those few foods he refused to eat (sweet corn, lamb’s liver, anything pink); that he be “given a nausea-inducing substance before watching the cooking programme” (Skelton: 2016). But he decided not to. After this experiment he went to Italy to live with an elderly woman he met through an Internet-dating site. Perhaps they had a happy year together. Perhaps they held hands so tightly it was as if they were bound. I would like to think so, but then I am something of a romantic when it comes to filling such temporal gaps.
As for the reason for his abrupt departure, there are two possibilities. One is the reason he gave to Toby’s mother: that he was sick of living in Comely Bank and looking after her monstrous son (they did not part on good terms). The other we must infer from a story he told Trudy shortly after the end of his last experiment. It was the third evening in a row that Toby had eaten at almost a normal rate. While he masticated his mother tried to shake off her wonder. “Did anything … different happen today?” she asked in a plaintive voice.
Mortimer did not dignify this with more than a “No.” But a short while later, as he stood at the sink, he said, “It’s just an idea, but—”
“What?” she said, her voice unsteady.
“His cooking programme was longer today. It was some sort of special.”
“And?”
“Well, I think it affects him in some way. It’s like when we had those power cuts and he ate incredibly fast.”
He shrugged and waited a moment, so the thought could fester in her.
“I don’t know how. But I think it makes him less hungry. As if he’s eating the food he sees.”
He reached for a plate and washed it. He slotted it into the rack and turned. Toby sat at the table, head resting on his hands like a dog with its paws.
His mother stood a few steps behind. Instead of looking pleased, her eyes were sunken and her mouth was small. She was turning the tea towel in her hands, twisting the cloth till it was taut. Then she came forward and slipped it round the trunk of her son’s neck.
“So you like the pictures?” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “Delicious.”
She tightened the cloth.
“Does this mean you’re going to be a good boy?”
“I’m a good boy,” he said.
“Are you?” she asked in a tone so weary it spoke of decades spent pushing a boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down. Years of patience, love, and sorrow; time that had been wasted.
5. Mrs. Maclean
THE RESIDENTS OF COMELY BANK were bound in many ways. In addition to the daily rituals—buying a newspaper or a coffee, taking the same bus—that made them familiar with each other, they shared a history that sometimes went back as far as childhood. The school at the end of the street had been educating the boys and girls of Comely Bank since 1885. The original building was two storeys of dark grey stone with high, diagonally muntined windows and a steeply sloping state roof topped with a weathervane. This solid, imposing building remained the school’s heart even when other structures were added. It was here that the children learnt history, maths, and English. It was where they learnt about our galaxy and its planets, how space is busy with stars and comets that burn a trail through the dark.
The old building contained a large, wooden-floored hall where morning assembly was held. This consisted of prayers, school announcements, and the singing of a Christian song. When Mrs. Maclean first started teaching at the school in 1965, there were still few enough pupils for the headmaster to call out their names at assembly to check if they were present. As a child, this made me anxious; if someone did not answer I worried that something terrible might have happened. Sometimes I dreamed that the whole class list was read out and no one answered.
Though my reaction was unusual, I doubt anyone enjoyed morning assembly. This is how one former pupil described it in his memoirs.
We waited in silence, without expectation, for the stalk of the headmistress, Mrs. Maclean, across the stage. In this movement, as in all others—the jerk of her head, the point of her nose—she resembled a raven, though not of the kind described by Poe. There was nothing foreboding or ominous about her, no suggestion she was anything but a grey woman in her grey fifties. Her faith was of a similar colour. She sang the hymns and read the prayers with little trace of fervour. I have no doubt that Mrs. Maclean believed in God. But did He believe in her? She was of so little substance, so scarcely present, that even He, who had created her, might have doubted her existence.
Despite the author’s facetious tone, Mrs. Maclean was one of the pillars of Comely Bank. Not only had she taught at its school for forty-five years (both Alasdair and Mortimer were among her pupils), she was also its longest resident. She had been born in 1936 in a terraced house with a crooked chimney and a privet hedge. Her father worked in a steel factory; her mother was a seamstress. She had an older sister named Susan, and a baby brother named Albert who was killed by a runaway horse. Though this was a terrible tragedy, the 1930s and ’40s were otherwise an excellent time to be a child in Scotland. Her father had regular work, so there were shiny bicycl
es to ride, dollhouses and tea sets to play with, fish and chips on a Friday. As for what happened in those distant countries coloured red in the atlas, whose children did not have dollhouses or train sets, but other, less pleasant products of Empire, this was not a subject that darkened young minds.
After her parents died in the early 1960s, she did not even consider selling the house. It was the only home she’d known, the only one she could imagine. The longest she ever spent away from Comely Bank was a week in 1974, when she took a bus that crawled from town to town till it reached the west coast of Scotland. There she took a boat, and since the weather was fine, she sat out on deck. The water was like glass through which she could look down, down, through the seaweed, to the depths below.
As she neared the Isle of Mull, she must have thought of her sister. They had quarrelled five years previously and had not spoken since. Though their actual words have not been preserved, their substance can be guessed. In a letter Mrs. Maclean accuses her sister of “wanton behaviour” with a man “who was as good as married.” Susan’s answering accusation, which seems to have particularly upset Mrs. Maclean (she refers to it as “inexcusable”), was that she was jealous.
The identity of the “as good as married” man (and what took place between him and Susan) must remain unknown. Neither Susan nor Mrs. Maclean ever used his name. As for why Susan put stones in her pockets then stepped off a cliff, we can only surmise that something went awry. The man must have chosen to stay with the person he was almost married to. What is beyond doubt is how much her sister’s death hurt Mrs. Maclean. If Susan had died in an accident, it would have been painful, the shock compounded by the knowledge that there could be no reconciliation. That Susan had committed suicide was worse, not just for the usual reasons—the feeling of guilt, the sense that one has failed to prevent it—but because Mrs. Maclean was a devout Catholic. She believed, as people used to, that all life was sacred. However much pain a person was in, there could be no excuse for taking one’s own life. It was up to God in the heavens to dispense mercy, Him and no one else. For anyone who chose to end their own lives, there was only hell.
Mrs. Maclean found it hard to live with this belief. She sought solace in work. As a teacher, there is always something to do, whether it be a lesson to prepare, homework to grade, or a student’s failings to consider. During my first few years on the job I slept only four hours during the week. On Saturdays and Sundays I struggled to leave my apartment for anything other than to buy essentials. I certainly never subjected my three rooms to the assault of cleaning that Mrs. Maclean unleashed on her house every Saturday morning. Outside of work, the only person she saw was Mrs. Wallace, whom she called for on her way to church on Sundays. She spent the rest of her time preparing lessons, attending staff meetings, or visiting patients at a local hospice. She did not socialise with colleagues, and she was seldom seen in male company, married or otherwise. Even after she became headmistress in 1986, the increase in status and salary did not alter her habits. She did not take holidays, buy better clothes, or redecorate her house. She did not go to the cinema or theatre. Though respected by most people in Comely Bank, many of them her former students, she did not have friends. Although she was neither cold nor aloof, there was something in her manner that discouraged familiarity—people addressed her as “Mrs. Maclean,” almost never “Eileen.” Hers was not only an emotional distance; even when standing in front of you, she did not seem fully present. She was like a ghost who had come to smile and comment on the weather.
Most thought her reserve was a shield she’d acquired during her years as a teacher, a way of defending herself from the stresses of school life. They thought that, even after retirement, she could not lower her guard.
A glimpse at any of her early letters shows how wrong these people were. Sam found one in an old atlas she donated to his shop.
May 15, 1979
Today I was on playground duty because Mr. Bethune is sick. The sun was warm and there was a breeze, and I thought of when we walked by the river. I stood by the oak tree, half in its shade, while the girls ran round and round, calling out each other’s names, screaming in delighted fear when they thought they were caught. Their voices were shrill and loud, and they did not look at me as they turned in their circles, spinning faster and faster, till their faces blurred and instead of features there were only eyes that stared. And then they seemed like wild things that had been tamed but could at any second revert. The tree trunk pushed into my back. I felt lightheaded, dizzy, as if I were the one who was spinning. I closed my eyes and slowly breathed, and then your hand was in mine. We were walking by the river while birds sang in the trees. At the bridge, we picked up sticks and dropped them into the water. When we went to the other side I saw mine emerge but before I could say “Pooh sticks,” you said, “What is that?” I looked downstream and saw a grey blur that was distant, coming closer, still grey but no longer a smudge; now it was two arches that rose and fell, pushing air down, but slowly, too slowly to keep the bird in flight, and yet it came towards us. We stood and watched, my hand in yours, and then, above the rush of the river, we heard the beat of its wings. The heavy flap of a sheet being shaken. A flag fighting the wind. For a moment, we saw the heron entire: the hooded lids, the pointed beak, the speed and line of it. Then it had moved the air beneath and was fast becoming distant. We watched it dwindle, resume its blur, and then you said, “Eileen,” and put your lips to mine. And although you had kissed me before—after our walk up Arthur’s Seat, and while we sat on the tram—I still think of this as our first time.
Sam had many questions after reading this, not least about the identity of the man. But at that time he knew no more about Mrs. Maclean than anyone else, and although it was a mystery, there were many others. Two years would pass before he saw the remainder of the letters. There were hundreds, the earliest from 1956, the last from 2016. Though they varied in tone and length, all addressed the same person, though never by name. All of them were unsent.
The obvious conclusion was that Mrs. Maclean had been involved in a secret love affair. But if she regularly saw this man, why did she write to him? And if he was often absent, why didn’t she send the letters? There is also the matter of her religious beliefs. It seems unlikely that a woman so outwardly devout could be involved in what to her would seem immoral.
These are not the only mysteries. Apart from the day at the river, there are only six, at most seven, occasions she refers to: a walk on the beach; two trips to the cinema; a drive in the country, then a picnic (though these may have been separate occasions); a rainy afternoon spent playing cards; climbing a nearby hill. In hundreds of letters, written over six decades, she returns to these events. By the mid-1970s, the recollections have ceased to differ in detail; by the 1980s they have become a liturgy.
It is only in her later letters that things become clear. The following is from a letter written when she was seventy-nine. The opening, though apparently plain, is uncharacteristic. Instead of reciting the hallowed event—Our father, who art in heaven, that day we walked on the beach—it begins by describing the weather.
February 12, 2015
A cold morning. The pavements were icy. Although there was grit on the road, they had only done the pavement at the crossing place.
On the surface, this is a legitimate complaint for someone Mrs. Maclean’s age. However, she continues:
I put on my black shoes that had better soles, then went out to buy milk. After ten steps I slipped, but kept my balance, which made me cry out, and then some people turned round. On seeing I was still upright, they smiled and walked on. But I was too shocked to move; I stood and stared at the ground. Not because I was afraid of falling. I could imagine breaking my hip, my leg, the back of my head; me lying there and growing cold, the wail of sirens, too late.
It was not this thought that upset me. On the contrary, the reason I was shocked was because the thought did not upset me at all.
There are many simil
ar entries over the following months. She writes of being unwilling to drive, cross busy roads, or go down steep stairs. She confesses to feeling “impatient,” of “wanting what is due.” The tone of her letters becomes desperate. Finally, she speaks to her priest.
July 25, 2015
After the service, I asked Father Robert to hear my confession. We went in a booth that smelt of polish and needed a new cushion. He asked how long it had been since my last confession. “Six years,” I said, and I am sure he was pleased: He has had to listen to so much about Father McCabe, how kind and holy and patient he was. To hear that I had not confessed to him in his last four years (as I have not confessed to Father Robert in his first two) must have been welcome news. I could see his small head nod behind the screen. Then I heard the steps of a woman in heels—they were distant, from the other end of the church, but even if they had been close, just outside the confessional, it would have made no difference. Who cares what an old woman says?
Father Robert asked what I wished to confess. I said I was tired of waiting. At first, this confused him (impatience not usually being thought a sin). He began to apologise for keeping me waiting, but he stopped when I said that every night I prayed I would not wake up next day. Then he breathed out through his mouth, and perhaps it was a sigh. The wish for death by the old is probably something priests are told to expect. They must be bored and relieved to know what to say.
He said what I had expected, what I had said to myself. “It is not for us to decide. It is only God who can choose because He knows all things. He understands when a person is ready and when they need more time.” Father Robert paused, pleased by his rhetoric. Or the pause was intended for me, so I could appreciate such wisdom.
“You must be patient,” he continued. He managed to say, “God will—” before I cut him off.
“I have been patient for over fifty years. I cannot wait any longer.”
The Casualties Page 4