The Changeling

by Robin Jenkins

  ‘Will I read a comic to you?’ asked Tom.

  Alec agreed eagerly; he could not read himself well enough to enjoy it.

  They sat side-by-side on a chair whose stuffing and springs were visible. Soon Alec was laughing as his brother read about the antics of the characters in the comic. But Tom’s own mind was only partly on what he was reading. He was also wondering what Forbes’s true reason was for so strange an invitation. The teacher had spoken about good food, fresh air, and scenery; he had said they would do Tom good, physically and morally. Tom had understood very well what he had meant, but he could not see what Forbes hoped to get out of it. He knew that Forbes was supposed to be conceited and rather stupid, and that other teachers laughed at him behind his back. Was this invitation then just an act of conceit and stupidity? Or was Forbes really trying to be kind?

  Once before Tom had been befriended by a teacher. It was in the Primary. Miss McIntosh, who was always bothering him with kindness, one day brought clothes for him; they had belonged to her young brother. Tom had accepted them, but he had taken them straight after school to a junkshop where the man had given him ninepence for them. Next morning, when Miss McIntosh had whispered why he was not wearing them, he had announced, loudly so that all the class would hear, what he had done with them. He had expected her to strike him with her hand or the strap; indeed, he had wanted her to. Instead she had just stood and stared at him, with tears in her eyes. She had not reported him to Mr Black the headmaster. He had been nine then. Even now he could not forgive her for her pity. She had come nearest to coaxing him to give in.

  Forbes was different: he could be laughed at. Besides, it was more likely that Forbes was offering to take him just to show off, to prove that he was better than the other teachers who would never think of taking with them a boy from Donaldson’s Court. From many things Forbes had said in class, and from overhearing remarks passed by other teachers, Tom knew that the fat English master was conceited about his championing of people oppressed, such as slaves, boy chimney sweeps, women in mines, foxes hunted by hounds, boys severely strapped, and children living in slums. He would hold up a lesson to display his indignation at those oppressions. It was always an opportunity for some boys to read comics under their desks, or do next day’s Latin exercise, or just doze. One of the commonest charges against Forbes by his pupils was that he wasted such a lot of time.

  Tom knew very well that the majority of children were far more fortunate than he, but he had never envied them. Envy, like pity, was not in his creed. What he hoped to do or to become was apart altogether from what others did or became. To have been envious would have been to become involved and so weakened. His success, if ever it came, must owe nothing to anyone.

  So far he had preserved this lonely independence. Not even Alec, or Peerie Whitehouse and Chick Mackie, the two members of his gang, had been allowed to violate it. Shame made no breach in him: he had none, neither for himself nor for others. For instance, he knew that the mothers of the other boys in his class wore hats and silk stockings and did not get drunk. His own mother, on the contrary, wore her hair lank and lousy about her ears and sometimes over her eyes. Usually her legs were bare, mottled with dirt and varicose veins. She was fat like Forbes, with her belly swollen and her breasts shrunken, so that when she stripped to the waist to wash at the sink she did not look like a woman at all. When she spoke she slavered, so that every three or four words she had to suck in and swallow. Several of her teeth were missing, making those oral noises of fatuous sorrow and mirth all the louder. She often made foolish jokes and wept silly tears, especially when drunk; then she would lament the early days of her marriage before her two sons were born, and before fat, like a curse from heaven, had fallen upon her, driving away her man who had disliked fat, even on ham.

  Such was his mother, but Tom was not ashamed of her; neither was he fond or proud. She was a phenomenon he had known since birth. All he owed her was life, a gift shared by lice and rats. If she gave him an order which he thought foolish, inconvenient, or unnecessary, he would ignore it; as he would any appeal which it did not suit him to answer. She might wheedle, threaten, or cry she was going to commit suicide, it made no difference. Since the age of five he had pleased himself.

  As for her bedmate, Shoogle Kemp, he was of no account.

  That left Molly his half-sister, who was the only creature Tom feared; not because of her vicious little nails which could cause suppurating scratches, or her shrieking rages, but because she had once been a chuckling baby whom he had liked to push about in a battered pram.

  He was diverted from these thoughts by Alec tugging peevishly at his arm.

  ‘You’re no’ reading, Tom. Whit’s up?’

  ‘I was thinking.’

  ‘Whit aboot, Tom?’

  It was then that the idea came into Tom’s mind. Merely to go with Forbes to Towellan would be purposeless. Why not then take Alec with him, and Peerie and Chick? They could sleep in the gang’s tent. No shopkeeper there would know them. There would be farms with henhouses, fields with potatoes, the sea with fish. It would pay Forbes back.

  But some money would be needed.

  ~

  Tea that evening was a typical meal. Mrs Curdie was almost drunk, and since her lover objected to her anticipating him in that condition she had to cringe with penitence. Molly, who had toothache, screamed at everybody and emptied her mug of tea over Alec, who pretended to have been scalded and howled. Shoogle, with sleeves rolled up, revealing puny tattoo’d forearms, ignored all the hubbub to concentrate on giving as many passionately bitter reasons as he could for rejecting the melted potted head which Queenie, with tipsy economy, had bought cheap.

  A lull came. Molly had fallen asleep on the floor. It appeared she had already been dosed with whisky to allay the ache.

  ‘One of the teachers,’ said Tom, ‘wants to take me with him on his holidays.’

  His mother was furtively eating the potted head that Shoogle had refused. She looked up, with astonishment in her bloodshot eyes giving way to surmise, horror, and calculation.

  ‘God, did you hear that, Shoogle?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m no’ deaf.’

  ‘But whit’s the idea?’ She made faces intended to indicate abominations for which there were names. ‘D’you think that’s it?’

  ‘I’ve read that it’s worse among educated men,’ he said. ‘Actors and lawyers and teachers and even ministers, they’re all at it.’

  ‘Especially ministers,’ she agreed. ‘You read aboot them every Sunday in the News of the World.’

  Then she turned to Tom who had watched her every ogle, smirk, leer, and gesture.

  ‘Wha is he?’ she asked.

  ‘Mr Forbes.’

  ‘Aye, but whit’s he like? Does he use scent on his hankies?’

  ‘That would prove nothing,’ said Shoogle. ‘I used to put scent on mine.’

  She forgot the wickedness of the world then to gawk at him in love and wonder. ‘Did ye, Shoogle?’

  He disregarded her to address Tom.

  ‘This man, Forbes, does he ever ask boys to wait after four?’

  Tom nodded. He knew what was being hinted at.

  ‘I mean,’ whispered Shoogle, after a pause in which his shrivelled face, for all its work-dirt and unshavenness, looked as vindictively wise as a High Court Judge’s, ‘does he ask single boys?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you credit it?’ cried Mrs Curdie. ‘Right under the heidie’s nose! We send oor weans to school to be educated and that’s whit we get. In my day teachers had whiskers and bowler hats. It was wee lassies they were after then; that was bad enough, but it was mair natural.’ She put her hand at her mouth and whispered behind it. ‘Whit d’you think, Shoogle? Would this fellow pay onything to keep oor mooths shut?’

  ‘That would be blackmail, Queenie. D’you want two years in jail?’

  ‘Naebody would ken.’

  Suddenly he banged his fist on the table.


  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ she beseeched, ‘don’t wake up Molly.’

  ‘I don’t care if I woke up the deid. Listen to me, Queenie.’

  ‘I’m listening, Shoogle.’

  ‘We’ve got a problem to consider. This place we live in, whit is it? I’ll tell you. It’s a dump, a bluidy rotten dump.’

  ‘There’s worse, Shoogle. We havenae got rats chewing at oor lugs during the night.’

  ‘Are we human beings or beasts?’

  She sighed. ‘They say it takes five quid a week to feed a greyhound.’

  ‘I’ve lived here a’ my days,’ went on Shoogle. ‘I’m a product. Look at me, for God’s sake, a product.’ He looked down at his legs. ‘When I was a wee boy, younger than Alec there, a man had me up on a platform at a political meeting. That’s whit he christened me then: a product.’

  ‘He had nae right to dae sich a thing.’

  ‘He’s deid noo,’ said Shoogle, ‘but before he dee’d he had a job worth three thousand pounds a year.’

  ‘Feather your ain nest, it’s the same everywhere, Shoogle.’

  ‘So we’ve got to be careful, Queenie. This man Forbes might be a genuine Christian.’

  ‘I thought they were extinct, like giraffes.’

  ‘Giraffes are no’ extinct.’

  ‘Weel, they should be, wi’ necks like lamp-posts.’

  She sniggered at her own jokes, but he did not respond. Seriousness was, in her opinion, his greatest handicap; it crippled him worse than his twisted legs.

  ‘If Forbes is doing this for Tom because he’s a Christian,’ said Shoogle, ‘then there’s nae problem. But if it’s for the ither reason, there is a problem.’

  She was shocked. ‘You’re no suggesting you’d let him go, if … ?’

  ‘I’m saying there’s a problem. Whit we’ve got to do is to balance the harm that might come to the boy if he goes wi’ Forbes, against the harm that’ll come to him if like you and me he never gets away frae this kind of life. He’s got brains. Every teacher he’s had has said so. Given a chance he micht get oot and do weel. But who’s to gie him that chance, Queenie? No’ you or me, for we’re no’ able. There’s nae candidate but this fellow Forbes.’

  She turned towards her son who had been listening inscrutably.

  ‘This one’ll please himself,’ she whined.

  ‘I’ve to get your permission,’ said Tom.

  ‘You’re my ain son. I can mind the very hour you were born. But I ken less aboot you now than I did then. You’ve got nae fondness for me, I ken that. You’ve got nae respect and nae pity. When did I ever see a ha’penny o’ the money you get at the dairy? Why should me and Shoogle worry aboot you? You’ll gang to hell in your ain way. Let Forbes tak’ you. He’ll be sorry. You’re one that’ll never pay if the price doesnae suit you.’

  He chose that moment to say: ‘Mrs Forbes is going, and they’ve got two children.’

  His mother’s reaction was not anger at being deceived, or relief at having her fears dispelled, but rather solicitude at Shoogle’s peculiar disappointment. She was trying to console him when Molly woke up and began to scream for attention.

  Chapter Four

  In school June was a good month for money. Class photographs had to be paid for, at half a crown each. Mr Forbes, for example, as form-master of A Boys, had to collect over a period of days more than four pounds. But Mr Todd, as treasurer for the Sports, received in small change more than any other teacher. Accordingly, one day towards the end of June he found himself encumbered with a canvas bag containing about five pounds in pennies, threepences, and sixpences. It was bulky and heavy. To take it home was unthinkable: not only would the pocket of his new suit be permanently misshaped, but his principle of never confusing duty with leisure would be betrayed. During the last period that day, while IA boys were busy at sums, he grumbled to Mr Duncan.

  They tried to remember to speak in whispers.

  ‘Give it to Bud,’ suggested Duncan.

  ‘Have you ever tried,’ muttered Todd, ‘giving Bud money to keep for you after banking hours? The bugger says it’s against his union’s regulations.’

  Bud was the school janitor.

  ‘Give it to the boss then.’

  ‘Why the hell should I? I’m as capable of looking after it as he is; more capable, I should hope.’

  ‘All right then, keep it in your desk. It’ll be safe enough for one night.’

  ‘Look who’s in the second row over there.’

  Duncan looked and saw Tom Curdie, apparently engrossed in his work which involved sums much larger than five pounds.

  ‘Charlie’s darling,’ he whispered.

  It was now known that Forbes was taking Curdie to Towellan.

  ‘Whom I trust that far,’ said Todd, and he portioned off on his finger an area that would have cramped a flea. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the little bastard was sitting there listening to every word.’ Suddenly he let out a roar. ‘Curdie, bring your jotter here.’

  Tom seemed startled at being disturbed in his trance of arithmetic. ‘Me, sir?’

  ‘There’s only one Curdie, isn’t there?’

  He came out, carrying his jotter, which was dirty and crumpled. Having no bag or case, all his books had to be carried under his jacket.

  ‘Filth!’ roared Todd. ‘Am I supposed to handle that? Drop it on the desk and then keep your distance.’

  Tom dropped his jotter on the desk and stood aside. Many in the class laughed. He neither blushed nor sulked.

  ‘Brazen as a brass monkey,’ growled Todd.

  Duncan nodded; he felt sorry for the boy, but didn’t think it worth while to say so.

  To get out his book containing the answers Todd had to open the drawer in which the money-bag lay. He tried to smother it under other papers.

  The first ten sums were correct.

  ‘All right,’ said Todd. ‘Take it and get back to your seat.’ Waiting till the boy had returned, he whispered: ‘Better to make sure. You never know what’s in that one’s head.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Duncan.

  ‘A pity,’ admitted Todd grudgingly. ‘One of the best heads in the school.’

  ~

  Had they been able to study Tom’s plans they would have found no reason to lower their estimate of his intelligence. Before leaving the classroom he had arranged how he would re-enter it late that night. The locked door would cause him no trouble. If he knocked a little hole in the glass he could put in his hand and unfasten the bolt that kept the whole door and part of the wall from sliding open. He would come alone. His two confederates, Peerie and Chick, being backward at lessons, attended another school. Therefore they wouldn’t know their way about in the dark, and unfamiliarity meant clumsiness, which meant noise. Besides, the joy of having a school at his mercy might set Chick off upon some pranks of revenge, such as scribbling dirty words or drawings on blackboards. He and Peerie might afterwards boast, and boasting more than anything else broke vows of silence.

  All that evening Tom acted so normally and calmly that nobody could have suspected he was about to embark upon the most daring and ambitious theft of his career. His mother and Shoogle having gone out, he had to wash Molly and put her to bed. Her toothache made her more cantankerous than ever, so that he had to stand beside her cot, holding her hand and humming a song about a baby stolen by fairies in the Highlands. After she was asleep he sat by the fire reading a comic in a low voice to Alec, until the latter was too drowsy to listen and had to be put to bed. Then he was able to write out the two hundred lines that Miss Strang had given him: ‘Hygiene is not a luxury’. At one point, during the writing of the one hundred and eightieth line, his smile faded, and he sat for minutes staring at the tap as it dripped into the rusty sink. As he resumed writing his smile returned.

  Before his parents returned, about eleven o’clock, he himself was in bed, where Alec was already sound asleep. They were drunk and amorous, she giggling to him to wait till they were in
bed, he huffish and embittered at such patience. After the scuffles on the rag-rug under the hissing gas, they at last crawled into their bed, where there were more scuffles, giggles, groans, and heavings. All this time Tom lay in an aseptic indifference: dogs, cats, rats, sparrows, flies, human beings; he had seen them all at their copulations, and whether these were shameful or ugly or sordid or just comical, as other boys argued, he was not concerned enough to say.

  At last the room was quiet save for his mother’s snores and Molly’s snuffles. Rising, he put on his jacket and sandshoes, and left the house. The stairs were dark for all the stairhead gasmantles were broken, but he slipped down confident as a ghost. At one place he had to step over a body sobbing and moaning in desolation and abandonment. But that was not where he was to haunt, so he glided past without even wondering who the outcast was.

  To reach the school one lighted main street had to be crossed, where policemen patrolled. He crossed amidst the shadows, and soon was slinking down the side street, from which it was safest to enter the school. Climbing over the railings into the playground was easy, but somehow crossing the playground turned out to be difficult in a way he had never anticipated. There was no physical obstacle; on the contrary, it was the complete emptiness and stillness that disturbed him. That afternoon the playground had been thronged with hundreds of shouting, happy boys. Now in spite of himself he saw them again, and was moved. It certainly wasn’t because he was going to take the money they had paid for their photographs and sports fees; and it wasn’t because they were his schoolmates, sharing the same classrooms and using the same books. He could not say why it was, but as he gazed at the still playground and remembered the boisterous crowd which had filled it, that inexplicable emotion touched him for a minute, so much so, that when he reached the grating which had to be scaled to gain the upper verandah where Todd’s room was, he was astonished and dismayed to find his arms and legs without strength or willingness to climb. He waited by the grating, holding on to its bars like a prisoner, as he subdued that treacherous weakness. Not to give in had been his pride, his faith, his sustenance, and so far it had not failed him. Now for no reason, just because the playground was empty as it was bound to be at half-past one in the morning, he was in danger of surrendering. It must be Forbes’s fault. Ever since accepting the invitation to Towellan he had not felt safe; Forbes had been pestering him with kindness.