The Testament of Gideon Mack

by James Robertson

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked.

  ‘Delighted, works a treat, so grateful for your contribution. Best come back another day when things have quietened down, though, get the full effect. Runs through till Christmas so plenty of time.’

  Somebody I did not know came up to speak to him and I slipped away. I didn’t fancy the jostle and crush of the crowd, so went outside and took a walk up the High Street. By the time I returned people were beginning to leave. I passed through those who were still in the entrance hall drinking wine, and entered the exhibition.

  Winnyford had constructed Echoes pretty much as he’d described it to me months before. There were five concentric circles with plasterboard walls, about eight feet high, fixed to a timber framework, and you worked your way round the corridors that were thus created and came across installations, panels and tableaux representing different aspects of Monimaskit’s long history. The walls themselves were covered in paintings, photographs, extracts from historical documents and transparent cases containing artefacts of the town. At various places there were gaps in the walls through which you stepped to enter the next inner circle. It was not unlike being in a maze: you could only get to some parts of the outer circles by first going deeper in towards the centre, and you came across dead ends too, which obliged you to retrace your steps to the next gap. At each of these dead ends was one of Bill’s installations, and at various points around the circles there were others set in small alcoves or bays. The one based on the conversation in the Luggie between the poacher and the bailie had a full-length mirror at its back, so that it was not until you got quite close, and saw your reflection in an elongated version of the pub, that you realised that the way was blocked. Another dead end was made to look like the outer wall of a house, complete with a small nine-paned window. When you looked through the window you saw the interior of a fisherman’s cottage, which you had seen from the other side only a few minutes before. The journey that Bill had constructed was full of such tricks and double-takes, and I began to see why it had taken him so long to create it.

  And through the whole exhibition echoed a cacophony of words, music and other sounds – bells ringing, hammers hammering, birds singing, wheels rolling over cobbles, young voices reading extracts from the old burgh records. At first all this was noisy and distracting, but again, as you approached each installation, you were able to distinguish the voices and sounds associated with its particular subject reasonably clearly. I wanted to be alone, to hear what the voices had to say. Once again, I found myself having to reassess Bill Winnyford. What was he really telling us, the inhabitants of Monimaskit, about the place we called home?

  I moved on, pondering this, doing my best not to stop and be talked to. Some people wore expressions of distaste, as if Echoes was not what they’d expected – or perhaps entirely what they’d expected. Others seemed to be getting more out of the experience: they looked studious or puzzled or dreamy as they took in scenes depicting Picts, Vikings, William Wallace, wool merchants, fishwives, farmers, soldiers and schoolmistresses. What Catherine Craigie had derided was there too – a scene of some ceremony being performed by druids in front of a menhir which had neither the solidity nor size of my Stone in the woods. Bits of folklore, fragments of history and soundbites from the present mingled in people’s ears as they looked and listened. A boy loudly inquired of his father, ‘Why’s it like this?’ ‘I’m no sure, son,’ the father replied. ‘Maybe if we keep going we’ll find oot.’

  I reached, quite unexpectedly, the centre of the exhibition, a room with four doors leading back into the outer circles, and a bench in the middle. On its walls was a much-enlarged, continuous 360-degree photograph, taken from offshore – one half a panorama of Monimaskit, the other an expanse of grey sea and overcast sky. There was nothing else in the room, and no installed sound. When you sat on the bench the camera’s point of view made you feel as if you were in a boat. It was peaceful, but I stood up again, realising that I had missed the thing I most wished to see.

  I left the central room by the door opposite that by which I had entered, and found myself in a part of the exhibition I had already seen. I returned and tried a third door. The curved passage I went down had nothing in it or on its walls, as if Winnyford had run out of time and left the section uncompleted. But a few feet further on I found what I was looking for – the Reverend Augustus Menteith’s study. I had been on the point of turning back, and wondered how many people had done so, and whether this too was what Winnyford intended – that only the most daring or curious would find Menteith’s den.

  There it was in front of me: the shelves of dusty books, the desk scattered with papers, the leather chair, the coals glowing in the grate, the minister’s spectacles, the minister’s tea and biscuits, the minister’s slippers, and beyond all this a deep-set window through which, I imagined, one could look into the Black Jaws.

  A voice was speaking. It took me a few seconds to recognise it as my own, intoning the passage from Menteith’s book. The effect of the voice and the room together was like waking from a dream and finding myself back in my own manse, or perhaps more like being in a dream itself, for this study, though familiar in some respects, was also quite definitely not mine: the dimensions were wrong, only a few of the books were real (the rest were painted), there was no telephone and no computer. And, standing on a wooden step with her back to me, her hands cupped around her head as she stared through the little window, was Elsie.

  There was nothing to stop you stepping into this odd little half-room, and this was what Elsie had done. She might have been a life-size model of herself, part of the tableau: she might have just stepped in to get a pen, or a book; she might have been looking for me and, finding the study empty, gone to see if she could see me through the window. For a few seconds any of these things might have been true, and I stood still, unwilling to break the slightly disturbing comfort of that scene. Nobody was there but us. My recorded voice was coming to the end of its routine. I heard it saying, ‘whose imagination, perhaps, was as broad as her cottage was narrow’ and the tape fell silent. I cleared my throat quietly and she swung round in surprise.

  ‘Hello, Elsie,’ I said.

  ‘Gideon. I was just thinking about you. Listening to you in fact. This’ – she made a gesture that took in the whole scene – ‘this is uncanny, don’t you think?’

  ‘It’s a little odd. I didn’t know you were here.’

  ‘I was invited. All the library staff were, but none of the others came. They’re either working or can’t be bothered.’

  ‘Is John here?’

  ‘No, he was invited too, through the school, but we didn’t think the girls would be welcome, so he volunteered to stay at home.’

  ‘There are other children here.’

  ‘They’re older. Katie and Claire would have been bored in five minutes and a nuisance in ten. I’ll bring them when it’s quieter.’

  ‘What do you think of it? The whole thing, I mean. Do you like it?’

  ‘I can’t make up my mind. It’s interesting.’

  ‘And this?’

  ‘Like I said, uncanny. It disturbs me, I don’t know why. Anyway, I was just thinking of you. We’ve not seen you for ages. John said Bill Winnyford had got you involved, but I’d no idea how.’

  There were two explanatory panels on the wall of the passage beside me, one giving a brief summary of Augustus Menteith’s life and achievements, the other a physical description of the Black Jaws. Of the legend itself, the only mention was that it could be read in Menteith’s Relicts and Reminiscences.

  ‘You should have a look through this window,’ Elsie said.

  She moved towards me and to one side so that I could get past, and I took the opportunity to kiss her cheek. ‘Nice to see you,’ I said. ‘You too,’ she said. She was wearing a white shirt and stretchy black trousers and black boots of soft leather with neat little heels and was carrying a raincoat over her arm. She looked fabulous. I breathed in he
r perfume as our bodies brushed.

  ‘It’s a wee bit spooky,’ she said.

  I got up on the wooden step, and this seemed to trigger the tape, for a few seconds later my voice began its reading again. The window was about two foot square and surrounded by a rough wooden frame. It was set at an angle, so that you looked down through it rather than straight out. The glass appeared to be slightly warped, distorting the view. I instinctively cupped my hands, just as Elsie had done, in order to block out the light behind me. I was peering down a kind of enclosed chute, which began as the whitewashed sill of the window and became, as it got further away, a rocky, slimy-looking crevasse. At the far end it opened out into a wider space, a cave of some sort lit with an eerie, flickering green light. I strained to see what was going on. There appeared to be two figures down there. One was standing, the other seated, but they were shadowy and indistinct. Tantalised, I found myself stretching forward, out of the fake study, trying to make out more of what was going on in that fake netherworld, but the glass prevented me. My own voice droned its insistent narrative in my ears.

  I came away and returned to Elsie, who was reading the panels.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘that’ll give folk something to think about. It’s quite oppressive.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ she said. ‘In fact I could do with some fresh air.’

  ‘I’ve seen enough,’ I said. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  We made our way back to the museum entrance. It had rained the previous night and the day was grey and uncertain. We stood to one side as people came and went. Elsie took deep breaths.

  ‘Do you want go for a drink, something to eat?’ I asked.

  ‘What time is it? I’ve forgotten my watch.’

  It was just after one. ‘I’ll need to get back soon,’ Elsie said. ‘John’ll be wanting off duty.’ She stood, looking up the street for a moment. ‘Oh what the hell, he can manage a bit longer. I’ve done all the shopping already, everything’s in the boot of the car. Buy me a coffee, then.’

  ‘I’ve got a better idea,’ I said. ‘Come back to the manse and I’ll make you a coffee and a sandwich. I want to show you something.’

  She looked doubtful, worried even. Then she said, ‘All right. I’ll go and fetch the car and drive round.’

  ‘I’ll see you there,’ I said.

  I hurried home, cleared up the breakfast things piled in the sink, and put the kettle on. The air in the manse seemed stale and tired, and I went round opening windows. I was seized by a sudden restless energy: I was building up to something, a declaration or an action of some kind. I found the photographs of Jenny and put them on the kitchen table. Usually I make do with instant coffee, but I got out the cafetière in Elsie’s honour and had just poured in the water when the doorbell rang.

  ‘Come in,’ I shouted, and she let herself in and came through to the kitchen. She stood by the door, nervous and hesitant. ‘Come in,’ I said again. ‘Sit down.’ But she stayed where she was.

  ‘How have you been?’ she said. ‘I don’t know where this year’s gone. I’m feeling guilty that we’ve not seen you, but you haven’t dropped by either. The girls are growing up so fast it’s terrifying. Katie especially. You should come and see them.’

  ‘Aye, or you could bring them to church,’ I said, and then, seeing her face fall, hastily added, ‘I’m joking, Elsie.’

  ‘I would,’ she said, ‘but John won’t hear of it. I wouldn’t come for the religion, you know that, but I think they should see the inside of a church, see what goes on in there, how people behave.’

  ‘The young kids love it,’ I said. ‘They just think it’s a show. They have no inhibitions about it. They have to be taught those.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘maybe we’ll manage one Sunday.’ At last she came into the room properly and sat down at the table, putting her bag at the end. I brought over the coffee and milk, mugs and a plateful of biscuits.

  ‘But they’re fine, are they?’ I said. ‘The girls?’

  ‘They’re great,’ she said. ‘It gets to me sometimes. I love them so much but there’s always this terrible fear something will happen – they’ll be harmed in some way, die in an accident. Maybe it’s because of Jenny, I don’t know, but I fear they’ll be taken away from me before they have time to see the world, to really live, and then I worry that I’ll try to limit their experience because of my fear.’

  ‘All love has fear in it,’ I said. I poured the coffee.

  ‘I suppose so,’ she said. Then she laughed. ‘By the way, Friend’s gone.’

  I didn’t understand her for a second. ‘Friend?’

  ‘Katie’s imaginary pal. The invisible pain in the neck. He’d not been much in evidence for a while and then the other day someone had been drawing on the wall with crayons and then made a bad attempt to rub it off. I stood Katie in front of it and said, I suppose Friend did that, and she looked down at her toes and said, no, Friend’s gone away. Where’s he gone, I said. He’s gone to Spain, she said, and he won’t be coming back, it was me. And then she started crying, and so did I.’

  ‘She’s growing up right enough,’ I said. ‘She’s learning guilt.’

  ‘I know, it’s awful,’ Elsie said.

  ‘You can’t stop it. Anyway, guilt’s a pretty good tool to have in the box. It breeds responsibility.’

  ‘Sometimes you really do sound like a minister,’ she said. ‘When I told John what had happened he said, well, just because he’s gone to Spain doesn’t mean we need to forget him. We can tease her about him when she’s older, he said.’

  ‘Sounds like John,’ I said. ‘How is he?’

  She shrugged. ‘Constantly knackered. Teaching’s wearing him down. The other night he said he was glad Gregor got the principal teacher job and not him, the admin would have killed him by now. That’s the first time he’s ever admitted that.’

  ‘That was ten years ago,’ I said.

  ‘Twelve actually,’ Elsie said. ‘Things simmer away in John for a long time.’

  ‘Like his novel,’ I said.

  ‘Aye, like his novel,’ she said, and again the worry lines formed on her brow.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘My imagination.’ She breathed out heavily. ‘I think he’s having an affair.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said. I assume my face must have looked concerned because I was concerned, but even in that instant, I couldn’t help my heart beating faster, my mind flooding with possibilities.

  ‘I mean, I don’t know,’ she said, ‘I don’t know anything for certain, but some things haven’t been making sense, his behaviour, his schedules at the school, unexpected meetings in the evenings, that kind of thing, and suddenly one day it struck me that if there was a woman involved it would explain it all. But I don’t have any proof. I don’t want any proof.’

  ‘Who do you think the woman is?’ I asked.

  ‘Nancy Croy,’ she said, and her eyes filled with tears. I stood up and began to come round the table to hug her. ‘No, don’t,’ she said. ‘Please, Gideon. I don’t trust myself.’ I felt giddy with excitement at the import of those words. She went on rapidly, ‘I shouldn’t have told you. I can’t afford an emotional collapse just now. Forget I said anything, will you?’

  ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘You have to face the truth, Elsie.’

  ‘The truth is, I’m not going to confront him with it, so I have to get myself through this. He loves the girls too much. If there’s anything going on it’ll end. He won’t lose the girls for Nancy Croy.’

  I sat down again. Our coffees were untouched and growing cold. I asked her how long she thought it had been going on, and she said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t even know if it is going on. But they’re colleagues, they see each other every day, she’s single and interesting and bonnie-looking… Do you think she’s bonnie?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘up to a point. But she doesn’t do anything for me. Plus she’s a kirk elder.’

/>   ‘I thought you got on well.’

  ‘Tolerably. We used to get on better, but she suspects me of infidelity. The religious kind, I mean. Elsie, if John’s having an affair with Nancy he must be insane. She’s got nothing on you.’

  ‘That’s very sweet of you, Gideon. Well, maybe there’s something between them, maybe there isn’t. I know there’s not much between John and me just now. That’s another reason we’ve not seen you, we haven’t seen anyone really, it’s been pretty bloody awful. But I have to believe it will come back. It always has done so far. We’ve had our ups and downs.’

  ‘You’ve been together a long time now,’ I said.

  ‘Twenty-six years,’ she said. ‘And we’ve known Nancy for half of them. I wake up in the night and think, what if it’s been happening all that time? Or since before Katie was born? It took so long for me to get pregnant. Was he having an affair with Nancy then? And he’s lying there beside me dead to the world and I can’t believe there’s anything going on. But there are other times… He works late a lot, and sometimes he says he’s going to drop in on you but I know he hasn’t seen you. I’m a coward, I don’t want to challenge him. I think people can sometimes have flirtatious relationships with work colleagues for years and it never comes to anything. Do you think that’s true?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘It happens all the time.’

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said. ‘You’re thinking about us. And that’s another reason why I don’t want to confront John. Maybe he guessed about that. Maybe he’s known all along. And now it’s his turn.’

  I didn’t want to hear any more about John. I pushed the envelope of photographs towards her.

  ‘Have a look at these,’ I said.

  She wiped her eyes and took the pictures out. I watched her as she looked at them in turn. Her slim fingers slid the top one to the bottom of the pile, slid the next one, and the next. I was mesmerised by the movement of those fingers.