The Changeling

by Robin Jenkins

  Again he got no answer. Tom’s frenzy of anger and impatience grew.

  ‘I’ll loosen it for you, Tom,’ said Peerie. ‘It was me that tied it.’

  But Tom tore up a part of the wall, pulling up pegs and ripping the canvas. Through the opening he slithered on his belly.

  Peerie gawked out after him. ‘Where are you going, Tom?’ he cried. ‘Can I come?’

  Tom was already breaking through the willowherb.

  ‘I’m coming,’ shouted Peerie, and went, all the faster because close behind him Chick came, too.

  Reaching the road Tom ran along it, with the two others in desperate pursuit.

  ‘Tom, Tom, don’t leave me,’ shouted Peerie. ‘You know I’m frightened.’

  Chick just ran, saying nothing.

  Tom halted and let them come up.

  Peerie was as relieved as a dog that had found its master; his hand went about Tom’s body and face, like a tongue. Tom struck it away.

  Chick stood by, like a ghost.

  ‘Where are you going, Tom?’ begged Peerie. ‘Are you just going for a walk? I thought maybe you were going back to these people you were staying wi’.’

  ‘I’m never going back to them.’

  ‘That’s whit I thought, Tom. Are you just oot for a walk?’

  It was only just then that there occurred to Tom a way of relieving the agony of unrest and loneliness that had driven him out.

  ‘I’m going to phone,’ he said.

  ‘Who are you going to phone, Tom?’

  ‘That’s my business.’

  Peerie laughed, as if to signify that he himself had no business at all, but was willing to accept a share in anybody’s.

  ‘If you let me walk to the phone-box and back,’ he said, ‘I’ll no’ say a word the whole way.’

  ‘No.’

  Bats came out of the trees and flew about their heads. Chick shuffled a little nearer to the others. Peerie mumbled that bats’ bites were poisonous; they ate toadstools, which were full of poison.

  Tom set off, running in a resurgence of that anxiety which he knew was as insane as Chick’s fit of fear in the empty house. He was running to phone and yet there was nothing to phone about. The connection between him and the Forbes family was broken, and could never be joined again. He was back where he belonged: the plan he had formed before leaving Glasgow could now be carried out. But he knew it never would be; whatever happened to him, he could not go back to his old life, he had left Donaldson’s Court for ever.

  Peerie trotted close behind, excited to garrulity by the bats. When the gulls wailed out on the darkened sea he thought it was the bats wailing, and began a long whimper to the night itself, for no one else listened, about how he preferred the city with its street lamps and many people; there no grass or trees or flowers grew, out of which came evil poisonous things like bats and toads, snakes and midges.

  A bus approached from Dunroth and they had to stop and press close against the sea-dyke. It rushed past, brightly lit, on its way to Towellan; likely it was the last one there that night. Faces gazed out. A drunk man sang.

  ‘I wish I was in it,’ said Peerie.

  Then, for the sake of friendliness, forgetting how he had already been snubbed several times, he tried to get Tom to talk of these people he had been staying with. He knew their house would be bright and warm and cheerful, and if Tom liked both of them could, in imagination at least, enter it and so escape from this dark, lonely, inhospitable night. Tom stood at the threshold, barring the way; if he wanted he could coax Mrs Forbes to let him take Peerie back with him. Chick would have to sleep in the tent by himself; he couldn’t be trusted to behave in a proper house; he would dirty things, he would steal, he would keek through the key-hole of the lavatory.

  ‘This Mrs Forbes, Tom,’ panted Peerie, ‘is she a big woman?’

  Tom was about to snub him again more fiercely than ever when he felt a desire himself to talk about Mrs Forbes. He knew he should have killed that desire as he had killed the rabbit; but he could not.

  ‘No, she’s no’ very big,’ he said.

  Peerie was delighted with his success. His own mother had died when he was three; now, in describing Mrs Forbes, he was describing her.

  At last Tom said: ‘Why are you talking aboot her, Peerie? She doesnae even know you’re alive.’

  ‘Didn’t you tell her aboot me, Tom?’

  ‘No. She’s got a son of her ain, and his name’s no’ Peerie.’

  ‘Mine isnae really Peerie. It’s George. Whit’s his name, Tom?’

  ‘Alistair.’

  ‘There’s a lassie too, isn’t there? Whit’s her name?’

  ‘Don’t talk aboot her.’

  ‘I was just asking her name, Tom.’

  ‘Don’t. Don’t say anything.’

  They turned a corner and in front of them was the lighted phone-box. Beyond it, across the water, a lighthouse flashed, once, twice. Seconds later it flashed again.

  A young man was in the box, telephoning; his bicycle stood outside. He was laughing as he spoke and listened.

  They sat on the low dyke, with the sea washing on rocks below.

  Peerie was fascinated by the youth in the phone-box.

  ‘Who’s he talking to?’ he whispered. ‘I know. He’s talking to his lass. She’s got fair hair and she works in a big hotel.’ He built up a fantasy about that girl, how she would be busy putting hot- water bags in beds, and how she would have to go in and out of dozens of bedrooms, all with red carpets and red quilts.

  Only the sea answered him, murmuring like a mother to a child garrulous with weariness and fear.

  At last the young man came out. Mounting his bicycle, he pedalled past them. He was whistling.

  For the first time since leaving the tent Chick spoke: ‘He’s got nae lights.’

  Peerie gazed after the cyclist, hoping he came to no harm from car or bat or cliff or policeman.

  Tom made for the kiosk. They hurried after him, hopeful to be allowed in; but he shut the door upon them. They pressed their faces against the glass.

  He took out his money, to find he had only two pennies. Peerie at once took one from his pocket and tapped on the glass with it.

  After a long hesitation Tom opened the door wide enough to take the penny.

  ‘If you’d let me in,’ pleaded Peerie, ‘I wouldnae say a word. I wouldnae even listen if you didnae want me to.’

  Without heeding Tom closed the door again, and began to look up the directory. He knew McDaid was the name of the people who usually lived in the cottage. There was a McDaid with a Towellan number.

  As he dropped the pennies in the box he kept Peerie’s to the last. He grudged even that intrusion, and when he glanced at Peerie’s face, with its nose flattened like an ape’s, it was as if all Donaldson’s Court waited outside.

  It was Mrs Forbes who answered. ‘Towellan 1173,’ she said. ‘Mrs Forbes speaking.’ She sounded tired and unhappy.

  He turned as still as the instrument in his hand; he could not speak; he had gone back to his own country, and had forgotten the language of hers.

  ‘Who is it?’ she asked.

  He tried desperately to remember what could be said.

  ‘Who’s there?’ she asked irritably. ‘Have you got the wrong number?’

  ‘It’s me: Tom Forbes.’ So difficult had been the effort to speak, he did not notice his mistake until he heard her cry, ‘Tom Forbes? Who’s he?’

  His blood turned chill with strangeness. ‘I mean, Tom Curdie,’ he said; but it was really that mythical person, Tom Forbes, he still thought he was.

  Outside Peerie, more than ever like an ape, was grimacing congratulation.

  It was now Mrs Forbes’s turn to be silent. ‘So it’s you, Tom?’ she said at last. ‘Where have you been? Mr Forbes has been in Dunroth looking for you. He’s just got back. He’ll be down in a minute to speak to you.’

  He must have been in the bus that had passed.

  ‘Where a
re you speaking from?’ she asked. ‘Glasgow?’

  ‘No.’

  She sighed with disappointment. ‘I thought you must have, even though you left your case. You had it packed.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why? Did you mean to go home?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mrs Forbes.’

  She was silent again; she did not know his language just as he did not know hers.

  ‘Well, did you win?’ she asked. ‘At the singing.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Here’s Mr Forbes; he’ll talk to you.’

  Forbes, too, sounded weary and depressed. ‘So you’ve turned up?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘What have you been up to? You didn’t sing this afternoon.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘I’ve been in Dunroth looking for you. I saw the man who runs the singing competition. He told me you ran away before it was your turn. Why did you? You made a terrible fuss about getting in to sing, and then when you’re given permission you don’t sing and stay away for hours. You can’t treat people that way, Tom, and expect them to respect and like you.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir.’

  ‘Well, I suppose that’s always something, provided it’s genuine. Where are you speaking from?’

  ‘A telephone-box between Dunroth and Towellan.’

  ‘Were you walking back? Have you spent all your money?’

  Then Tom heard Mrs Forbes speaking to her husband.

  ‘Yes, that’s so, Mary,’ said Forbes. ‘Well, Tom, you can’t stay out all night and sleep in the bracken, so you’ll have to come back, for tonight anyway.’

  Outside the kiosk Peerie was being pestered by Chick who was embracing him.

  Tom was in despair. What would be the good of going back even for one night? That feeling, which he could not control, of being among his own family, would immediately grow again, made more terrifying by the knowledge that Mr and Mrs Forbes, and perhaps Gillian, too, now saw him as a creature like Chick, sent into their home to cause trouble and create unhappiness.

  Mrs Forbes spoke: ‘Did you hear what Mr Forbes said?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Forbes.’

  ‘Then don’t let’s have any more nonsense about it. You can’t stay out and be picked up by the police. You’ve got enough sense to know we’re responsible for you. Are you just trying to worry us by ringing us up and then not telling us what you’re going to do?’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘It looks like it, Tom. What are you going to do?’

  Outside Peerie and Chick were still scuffling. What he could not do, ever, was to go back with them.

  ‘I’ll come,’ he said.

  ‘All right. How long do you think it’ll take you?’

  ‘About half an hour.’

  ‘There will be some supper waiting for you.’ Then she set down the telephone.

  When he stepped out into the road Peerie rushed and seized him.

  ‘Tell Chick he’s to leave me alane,’ he sobbed.

  Tom pulled the frantic hands away. ‘You’ve got to look after yourself, Peerie,’ he said. ‘I’m not going back wi’ you.’

  Peerie’s alarm and astonishment were prodigious. He could not express it in words; his hands scraped about his mouth like an imbecile baby’s; and his big top-shaped head, with its coloured cap, seemed to swell with the pressure of horror in it.

  Chick crept up. ‘We don’t need him, Peerie,’ he chuckled. ‘You and me will get on fine.’

  ‘No, I’m frightened of you, Chick,’ cried Peerie; then he began to shriek as Tom ran off into the dark: ‘Don’t leave me, Tom, I wouldnae hae come if it hadnae been for you. I’ll sleep ootside the door.’

  But he could not go racing after Tom: Chick held him fast.

  Mingled with Peerie’s shrieks were the wailings of a nightbird. Across the sea flashed the lighthouse, and now above the hills rose the moon. As Tom ran he felt that what he was hurrying towards kept receding. When he reached the cottage it would be there, gleaming in the moonlight under the trees, and he would be able to enter it easily, for the door would not be locked; but when he entered, and Mrs and Mrs Forbes were watching him eat his supper, this feeling of unattainableness would become a terror, worse than any ghost that might haunt Chick and Peerie’s tent that night. He would be amidst what he wanted, and yet never be able to obtain it.

  Once, suffocated in mind by that foreboding, he had to stop and lean against the dyke. He could no longer hear Peerie, but the bird still wailed, and somehow both the beam of the lighthouse and the moon in the sky seemed within easy reach. If he wanted he could have stretched out and taken them, as he might a wild rose from a bush. He did not want them; what he wanted was nearer, much nearer, but it could never be had.

  Chapter Sixteen

  After Tom had had supper and gone to bed Mary and Charlie, in purged voices, like strangers talking, had discussed what should be done with him. Before he had gone out of the room Mary had stopped him at the door and asked if he wanted to stay with them for a few days longer or would prefer to go home immediately. After a long pause, during which Mary found herself praying he would not shed tears, he had nodded and said he would like to stay. Had he wept his strangeness, already repelling, would have become unbearable. Luckily he hadn’t. Mary had said they would see.

  ‘Well, Mary,’ said Charlie, ‘it was you who asked him.’

  ‘Do you object?’

  ‘Oh no, no.’

  ‘It’s not for his sake,’ she said. ‘It’s for Gillian’s. I don’t think it would help her if he went tomorrow.’

  ‘You mean, she’s got to be given a chance to make amends?’

  ‘I mean nothing of the kind.’ But she could not have explained what she did mean: between Gillian and this strange boy had grown a relationship which must either be quite dissolved or else made comprehensible before he left them for good. If he were to go tomorrow Gillian might brood for the rest of the holiday; in her own way she too could be unfathomable.

  ‘As you wish, Mary.’ His smile of capitulation had slipped; in a hurry, as visibly and pathetically as an old man his glasses, he set it to rights again. Only then did he dare to look straight at her. ‘So that’s us on an even keel again?’ he asked.

  ‘I hope so. But we’ll see.’

  ‘I suppose,’ he said timidly, ‘Gillian’s at a temperamental age. The mind’s a strange world.’

  She was in no humour for his philosophising, especially in such a defeated tone. ‘It’s after twelve,’ she said. ‘I’m going to bed.’

  ‘But she’s not an invalid,’ he added, in the same tone, but with the slightest hint of rebellion. ‘She’s not ill.’

  She knew what he was hinting at: since Tuesday she had slept with Gillian, he with Alistair. She knew, too, he thought he was being excluded as a punishment, and in his present mood of humility could not protest.

  ‘I thought you believed the troubles of the mind are harder to cure than those of the flesh,’ she said.

  He submitted, with a sigh.

  ‘And we’re going to Rothesay tomorrow afternoon, if it’s dry?’ she asked, at the door.

  ‘Yes, by all means.’

  ‘You don’t sound very keen, Charlie. I thought you never regarded the holiday as complete without at least one pilgrimage to Canada Hill.’

  He winced at her mockery. ‘It’s only a place with a fine viewpoint,’ he murmured.

  ‘You’re learning, Charlie,’ she said, and went.

  He sat for a little while examining those fresh lacerations on his soul. In time no doubt she would again sheathe her claws, as she had done for so many years; but she had used them and would in future not be so reluctant to use them again. Let him nurture another white doe, and out the claws would spring. Indeed, had he not, by a master-stroke of irony, become a white doe himself, confined to the bare small circle of fact, and prevented from speeding through the green forests of imagination and hope and truth?

  Perhaps, he thought, as
he too made for bed, freedom might be gained for a little while on Canada Hill.

  Next morning he volunteered to help Mary in the house so that an early start could be made after dinner.

  ‘But you promised you’d go out in the boat with me, Pop,’ cried Alistair.

  ‘It’s about time,’ said his mother, ‘you stopped calling your father “Pop”. I’ve been waiting to see when he was going to check you himself.’

  ‘I must say,’ said Mrs Storrocks, ‘I’ve been surprised at you, Charles, a teacher of English, allowing such slang.’

  ‘It’s not the name that matters,’ he muttered, ‘it’s the affection or lack of it with which it’s said.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ she cried.

  So it was rubbish, of course. He had heard ‘bugger’ used affectionately.

  ‘Who’ll go out with me, then?’ asked Alistair. ‘You’ll not let me go out by myself.’

  ‘No, we won’t,’ said his mother. ‘Gillian will go with you.’

  Gillian nodded.

  ‘That’s not a very polite answer,’ said her mother sharply.

  ‘Yes, I’ll go, Mummy,’ she said at once, with excessive politeness.

  ‘But she’ll not let me row,’ protested Alistair.

  ‘Yes, she will,’ said his mother. ‘What about you, Tom?’

  He looked at Gillian who stared stonily back. ‘I’ll just go for a walk up the hill,’ he said.

  ‘You’ll do nothing of the kind,’ said Mrs Storrocks.

  ‘I’m dealing with this, Mother,’ said Mary.

  Gillian looked at her mother; she was evidently willing to have Tom with her, but only if asked; she would not offer.

  ‘I don’t want any carry-on,’ said Mary.

  ‘I’m sure if there is,’ snapped Mrs Storrocks, ‘Tom won’t be the cause of it.’

  Mary looked out of the window at the sea. ‘I don’t know if I should let any of you go.’ Then she turned irritably to Charlie. ‘You’re in charge of the boating.’

  ‘The sea’s calm, Mary. The sun’s shining. As your mother said, there will be no danger if there’s no silliness.’

  ‘I didn’t ask for a sermon. So you think they should go?’

  ‘Yes. Gillian’s as good with the oars as I am. In any case,’ he added, raising his head, ‘faith is buoyant.’