The Red Door

by Iain Crichton Smith

  Our hearts would be in our boots as we took the bolt out of the rifle and the CO would squint down the barrel to see if there was any grease. Mine was all right, but a moment later I heard a terrifying scream from the CO as if he had been mortally wounded. I couldn’t even turn my head.

  ‘Take this man’s name. His rifle’s dirty.’ And the sergeant major passed it down to the corporal who put the name in the notebook. The CO proceeded on his tour round the room poking distastefully here and there with his stick, and staring at people’s faces to see if they had shaved properly. I remember thinking it was rather like the way farmers prod cattle to see if they are fat and healthy enough. On one occasion he even got the sergeant major to tell someone to raise his feet to see if all the nails in the soles of his boots were still present and correct. Then he went on to the next hut, his retinue behind him.

  And the corporal came up to Lecky, his face contorted with rage, and, punching him in the chest with his finger, said, ‘You perverted motherless b—— , you piece of camel’s dung, do you know what you’ve done? You’ve gone and stopped the weekend leave for this platoon. That’s what you’ve done. And don’t any of you public school wallahs write to your MPs about it either. As for you, Lecky, you’re up before the CO in the morning, and I hope he throws the book at you. I sincerely hope he gives you guard duty for eighteen years.’

  Now this was the first weekend we were going to have since we had entered the camp five weeks before. We hadn’t been beyond the barracks and the square all that time. Blancoing, polishing, marching, eating, sleeping, waking at half past six in the morning, often shaving in cold water – that had been the pattern of our days. We hadn’t even seen the town: we hadn’t been to a café or a cinema. All that time we hadn’t seen a civilian except for the ones working in the Naafi. So, of course, you can guess how we felt. I wasn’t myself desperate. I wasn’t particularly interested in girls (though later on when I was in hospital I got in tow with a nurse). I didn’t drink. All I wanted was to get that ten weeks over. But I also wanted to put on my clean uniform just for once, and walk by myself, without being shouted at, down the anonymous streets of some town and see people even if I didn’t talk to them. I would have been happy just to look in the shop windows, to stroll in the cool evening air, to board a bus, anything at all to get out of that hut.

  There were two Glasgow boys there, and they went up to Lecky when the corporal had left and said to him, ‘You stupid c——, what do you think you’ve done?’ or words to that effect. They were practically insane with rage. For the past weeks all they had talked about was this weekend and the bints they would get off with, the dance they would go to, and so on. In fact, I think that if either of them had had a knife they would have run him through with it. And all this time Lecky sat on his bed petrified as if he had been shell-shocked. He was so shell-shocked that he didn’t even answer. He didn’t even cry. I had heard him crying once in the middle of the night. But there was nothing I could do. What could anyone do? I must say that I felt these Glasgow boys were going too far and I turned away, feeling uncomfortable.

  Lecky was trying to pull a piece of rag through his rifle in order to clean it. One of the Glasgow boys took the rag from him (Lecky surrendered it quite meekly as if he didn’t know what was happening, and indeed, I don’t think he did know), rubbed it on the floor and then pulled it through the rifle again. The other tumbled Lecky’s bed on to the floor, upsetting everything in it. (All this time the chubby-cheeked boy was reading Firbank.)

  ‘You’d best keep in tonight,’ the Glasgow boy said. ‘If I get you outside . . . ’ and he made a motion of cutting Lecky’s throat. Lecky sat on the floor looking up at him, deadly pale, his adam’s apple going up and down in his throat.

  ‘And no help for this bastard from any of you, anymore,’ said the Glasgow boy, turning on us threateningly. The boxer, I remember, grinned amiably like a big dog. I think even he was afraid of the Glasgow boys, but I don’t know. He was pretty hefty too, and the corporal spoke more softly to him than to any of the rest of us.

  So Lecky went up next morning and got another three weeks of jankers, and on top of that he had trouble from the Glasgow boys as well. I would have said something to them, but what would I have gained? They would just have started on me. The sergeant was a placid family man and he left everything to the corporal. The sergeant was pretty nice really: a nice stout man who was very good at handing out the parcels any of us got and making sure that he got a signature. It was funny how Lecky never wrote any letters.

  So the time came for our passing-out parade, to be inspected by a brigadier, one of those officers with a monocle, and a red cap, and a shooting stick. Of course, our own CO would be there as well.

  I remember that morning well. It was a beautiful autumn morning, almost melancholy and very still. We were up very early, at about half past five, and I can still recall going out to the door of the hut and standing there regarding the dim deserted square. I am not a fanciful person but, as I stood there, I felt almost as if it were waiting for us, for the drama that we could provide, and that without us it was without meaning. It had taken much from us – perhaps our youth – but it had given us much too. I felt both happy and sad at the same time, sad because I had come to the end of something, and happy because I would be leaving that place shortly.

  I don’t know if the others felt the sadness, but they certainly felt the happiness. They were skylarking about, throwing water at each other from the wash-basins and singing at the tops of their voices. The ablutions appeared on that day to be a well-known and almost beloved place though I could remember shaving there in the coldest of water, in front of the cracked mirror. Today, however, it was different. In a few hours we would be standing on the square, then we would be marching to the sound of the bagpipes.

  And after that we would all leave – all, that is, except Lecky. We were even sorry to be leaving the corporal, who had become more and more genial as the weeks passed, who condescended to be human and would almost speak to us on equal terms. He had even been known to pass round his cigarettes and to offer a drink in the local pub. Perhaps after all he had to be tough; one must always remember the kind of people with whom he often had to deal. For instance, there was one recruit who was in his fourth year of National Service; every chance he got he went over the wall and the MPs had to chase him all over the north of England. That’s just stupidity, of course. You can’t beat the army, you should resign yourself. Rebellion won’t get you anywhere. I believe he had a rough time in the guardroom every time they got him back, but he was indomitable. You almost had to admire him in a way.

  Anyway, I found myself standing beside Lecky at the wash basin. I could see his thin face reflected in the mirror beside my own. There was no happiness in it, and one could not call what one saw sadness: it was more like apathy, utter absence of feeling of any kind. I saw him put his hand in his shaving bag, look again, then become panicky. He turned everything out on to the ledge but he couldn’t find what he was looking for. I looked straight into the mirror where my face appeared cracked and webbed. He turned to me.

  ‘Have you a razor blade?’ he said. To the other side of him I saw the two Glasgow boys grinning at me. One of them drew an imaginary razor across his throat, a gesture which in spite of his smile I interpreted as a threat.

  I knew what would happen to Lecky if he turned up on parade unshaven. I looked down at my razor and remembered that I had some more in my bag. I looked at the grinning boys and knew that they had taken Lecky’s blade.

  I said to him, ‘Sorry I’ve only got the one blade, the one in the razor.’ After all, one must be clean. It would be a disgusting thing to lend anyone else one’s razor blade: why, he might catch a disease. It is quite easy to do that. There’s one thing about the army: it teaches you to be clean. I was never so fit and clean in my life as during that period I spent in the army.

  I turned away from the grinning Glasgow boys and looked steadily into the m
irror, leaning forward to see beyond the cracks as if that were possible. I shaved very carefully, because this was an important day, cutting the stubble away with ease under the rich white lather, the white towel wrapped round my neck.

  I should like to describe that parade in detail, but I can’t now exactly capture my feelings. I began very clumsily, not quite in tune with the music of the pipes, but, as the day warmed, and as the colours became clearer, and as the sun shone on our boots and our badges, and as I saw the brigadier standing on the saluting platform, and as my body grew to know itself apart from me, I had the extraordinary experience of becoming part of a consciousness that was greater than myself, of entering a mysterious harmony. Never before or since did I feel like that, did I experience that kinship which exists between those who have become expert at the one thing and are able to execute a precise function as one person. It was like a mystical experience: I cannot hope to describe it now. Perhaps one had to be young and fit and proud to experience it. One had perhaps to feel that life was ahead of one, with its many possibilities. Today I think of Sheila and a childless marriage and a solicitor’s little office. Perhaps, for once in my life, I sensed the possible harmony of the universe. Perhaps it is only once we sense it. Not even in sex have I felt that unity. It was as if I had fallen in love with harmony and as if I was grateful to the army for giving me that experience. And after all, at the age I was at then, it is easy to believe in music: I could have sworn that all those men were good because they marched so expertly to the bagpipes, and that anyone who was out of step was bad, and that it would be intolerable for the harmony to be spoilt. I began to understand the corporal, and to be sorry for those who had never experienced the feeling that I was then experiencing.

  At that moment all was forgotten, the angry words, the barbaric barrack room, the eternal spit and polish, the heartbreak of those nights when I had lain sleeplessly in bed watching the moonlight turn the floor to yellow and hearing the infinitely melancholy sound of the Last Post. All was forgiven because of the exact emotion I felt then, that pride that I had come through, that I was one with the others, that I was not a misfit.

  When the parade was over, I ran into the barrack room with the others. There was no one in the room except Lecky who was lying on his bed. I went over to him, thinking he was ill. He had shot himself by putting the rifle in his mouth and pulling the trigger. The green coverlet on the bed was completely red and blood was dripping on to the scrubbed wooden floor. I ran outside and was violently sick. Looking back now I think it was the training that did it. I didn’t want to be sick on that clean floor.

  Of course, there was an inquiry but nothing came of it. No one wrote to his MP or to the press after all, not even the public schoolboys. There was even a certain sympathy for the corporal: after all, he had his career to make and there were many worse than him. The two public schoolboys became officers: one in the Infantry and the other in education. I never saw them again. Perhaps the corporal is a sergeant major now. Anyway, it was a long time ago but it was the first death I had ever seen.

  The sheriff leaned down and spoke briefly to the two youths after they had been found guilty. He adjusted his hearing aid slightly though he had nothing to listen for. He said,

  ‘If I may express a personal opinion I should like to say that I think the jury were right in finding you guilty. There are too many of you people around these days, who think you can break the law with impunity and who believe in a cult of violence. In sentencing you I should like to add something which I have often thought and I hope that people in high places will listen. In my opinion, this country made a great mistake when it abolished National Service. If it were in existence at this date perhaps you would not be here now. You would have been disciplined and taught to be clean and tidy. You would have had to cut your hair and to walk properly instead of slouching about insolently as you do. You would not have been allowed to be idle and drunk. I am glad to be able to give you the maximum sentence I can. I see no reason to be lenient.’

  The two of them looked at him with insolence still. I was quite happy to see the sheriff giving them a stiff sentence. After all, the victim must be protected too: there is too much of this molly-coddling. I hate court work: I would far rather be in my little office working on land settlements or discussing the finer points of wills.

  It was a fine summer’s day as I left the court. There was no shadow anywhere, all fresh and new, just as I like to see this town.

  The Exiles

  She had left the Highlands many years before and was now living in a council flat (in a butterscotch-coloured block) in the Lowlands. Originally, when she had first moved, she had come to a tenement in the noisy warm centre of the town, not much better than a slum in fact, but the tenement had been pulled down in a general drive to modernise the whole area. The council scheme was itself supposed to be very modern with its nice bright colour, its little handkerchiefs of lawns, its wide windows. The block swarmed with children of all shapes and sizes, all ages and colours of clothes. There were prams in practically all the hallways, and men in dungarees streamed home at five. Then they would all watch TV (she could see the blue light behind the curtains like the sky of a strange planet), drink beer, or shake the flimsy walls with music from their radiograms. On Saturdays they would go to the football matches – the team was a Second Division one – or they would mow the lawn in their shirtsleeves. The gardens were well kept on the whole, with roses growing here and there; in general, though, it was easier to lay down grass, and one would see, lying on the grass, an occasional abandoned tricycle.

  The walls of the council houses were scribbled over by the children who ran in and out of the closes playing and shouting and quarrelling. Apart from the graffiti, the council houses would have been all right, she thought, but the children wouldn’t leave anything alone, and they were never looked after by their mothers who stood talking endlessly at bus stops, bought sweets for the family when they ought to buy sustaining food, and went about with scarves on their heads.

  She herself was seventy years old. She didn’t go out much now. For one thing, there was the stair which was steep and narrow and not meant for an old person at all. For another, there weren’t many places she could go to. Of course, for a young person there were plenty of places, the cinema, the dance-hall, the skating rink and so on. But not for her. She did sometimes attend the church though she disapproved of it: the minister was a bit too radical, leaving too many things in the hands of women, and there was too much of this catering for young people with societies and groups. That wasn’t the job of the church. In any case, it should be left in the hands of the men.

  She didn’t go to church very often in the winter. The fact was that it would be lonely coming home at night up that road with all these hooligans about. They would stab you as soon as look at you. You could see them hanging about at windows waiting to burgle the shops: a lot of that went on. She herself often put a chain on the door and wouldn’t open it till she found out who was behind it. Not that very many people called except the rent man, the insurance man (she was paying an insurance of two shillings a week, which would bury her when she passed on), the milkman, and, occasionally, the postman. She would get an airmail letter now and again from her sister in Canada telling her all about her daughters who were being married off one after the other. There were six, including Marian the eldest. Her sister would send her photographs of the weddings showing coarse-looking, winking Americans sitting around a table with a white cloth and loaded with drinks of all kinds, the bride standing there with the knife in her hand as she prepared to cut the multi-storey cake. The men looked like boxers and were always laughing.

  In any case, it wasn’t easy for her to get down the stair now. Perhaps it would have been better if she had never come to the Lowlands, but then it was her son who had taken her out, and the house had been sold, and then he had got married and she was left alone. And it was pretty grim. Not that she idealised the Highlands eith
er, don’t think that. People there would talk behind your back and let you down in all sorts of ways, and you couldn’t tell what they were thinking half the time. Out here they left you alone, perhaps too much alone. So far she hadn’t had any serious illness, which was lucky as she didn’t get on well with the neighbours who were young women of about thirty, all with platoons of children who looked like pieces of dirt, with thumbs in their mouths.

  Most days she sat at the wide window watching the street below her. Off to the right, she could see the main road down which the great red buses careered at such terrifying speed, rocking from side to side. They would hardly stop for you. One of those days she would fall as she was boarding one. The conductors pressed the bell before you were hardly on, and the conductresses were even worse, very impudent if you said anything to them.

  Down below on the road she could see the children playing. She couldn’t say that she was very fond of children after what had happened with her son: leaving her like that after what she had done for him. Not that some of the children weren’t nice. They would come to the door in their stiff staring masks at Hallowe’en, and she would give pennies to the politest amongst them. They were much more forward than the children at home and they had no nervousness. They would stand there and sing their songs, take their pennies and run downstairs again. Late at night, in summer, the boys and girls would be going past the houses singing and shouting; half drunk, she shouldn’t wonder. And their language. You could hear every word as plain as could be. And there were no policemen where they were. Not that the housing scheme she was in was the worst. There was another one where none of the tenants could do anything to their gardens because the others would tear them all up. You got some people these days!