‘Well, Moses was like that. Every man who starts a large movement is like that. Jesus was like that. Moses’ movement was so powerful that though it began as a small drop not even the Pharaoh himself could withstand it. Christ’s movement was so powerful that not even the Romans could withstand it. So don’t think that you can’t bring anything to God’s kingdom. Even Moses was meek at first and unwilling to take on God’s work. Each of you may consider himself as a small drop but you must never forget that a small drop can start a river. Each one of us can add a drop to water the desert and create an oasis here and there.
‘I will tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a man I knew, a dear friend of mine. Well, this incident happened in the First World War. He was a man who didn’t smoke, a respectable Christian. Now one weekend there were no cigarettes in the camp and he was supposed to look after the stores. And this friend of mine was blamed for the shortage because everyone knew he didn’t smoke.
‘But a group of rough soldiers determined that they would kill him for not having provided the cigarettes. Imagine that. Kill him. So one evening they waited for him. My friends, it was a fine evening, a fine summer’s evening, and they waited for him. And what were they carrying? Well, I’ll tell you. They were carrying bayonets. And as he was walking peacefully along the road he was surrounded by this group of soldiers. What could he do? My friends, what would you have done? He did the only thing possible. He prayed. He prayed very hard. Behind him was a hill which was shining in the late sun. Well, my friends, the next moment he found himself on top of this hill and the soldiers below. How do you explain that? My friends, how do you explain that? Only faith can explain that. Only the work of God. My friends, let us pray.
‘Dear Lord, do not let us think that just because we are small drops we are no use to Thee or Thy world. For every great river begins as a small drop. Teach us therefore to realise our own potentialities and our own qualities so that we may bring them as gifts to Thee.
‘And now, Sister Perkins from Greenock will accompany us in the singing of Be Thou My Vision.’ I suddenly realised that the weird contraption was in fact an organ. She began to press the pedals up and down, seated there in her long dress, very upright, while some of the crowd sang and the others drifted away.
When the singing was over the man said, ‘Next week, DV, and weather permitting, I hope to be at the Little Hall on Greenock Street. I shall see you there. If it is wet we will have a change of venue.’
He got down from the box and he and the woman and another man put all the stuff including the box and the organ into a van. I watched them as they drove away.
The crowd queueing outside the hotel was lengthening. And suddenly I knew what the queue was for. On Sundays the hotels didn’t open till half past six for drink, and they were waiting to get in. They were, however, very good-humoured and singing their Glasgow songs. One old woman was dancing what appeared to be a weird Spanish dance at the front of the queue. Now and again she would shout Olé and the others would echo her joyfully. Her grey hair flashed in the setting sun and she would raise her legs high in the air, revealing red drawers. I stood watching her for a long while till eventually the doors opened and they all poured into the bar of the hotel.
The Black and the Red
I arrived here last night at 9 p.m. and I am writing this in my room at the lodgings.
The journey was pleasant. I was in my bunk on the boat – the bunk you ordered for me – but in the early morning – about six – I had an impulse to go on deck. I passed a steward in white as I walked, rather unsteadily, down the corridor in that sort of sick smell one gets on board ship. The morning was chill, with much sea stretching freely away. I felt my hair lifting gently in the breeze, and then saw it – the sun – very red, like a banner rising over Skye. There was no one on the deck except myself. I have never seen anything so beautiful – that sun rising through the mist, very red, very raw.
When we landed at Kyle there was a great screaming of gulls, porters hurrying past with barrows, smell of rolls and butter from the restaurant. My mouth felt foggy somehow. And then I saw my first train. It was long and brown, the colour of mahogany or that kind of reddish-brown shoe polish I sometimes get. I sat down in one of the rather dirty carriages which at the time was empty but later three boys entered. They were of my own age, perhaps, if anything, slightly older.
I discovered that they were students at the University too. They were reading brand-new Penguin crime stories while I had a copy of Homer, which surprised them. They were rather amused at the newness of my case which was on the rack above me. I think they were also amused at my scarf and tie and blazer. They do not seem to appreciate what is being done for them. However they are friendly. One of them – the most interesting – is called George. He is stocky and redhaired and quite irreverent. He studies medicine and calls one of his lecturers The Spinal Cord. It turns out that he is in the same lodgings as me. I like him.
The countryside through which we passed is divided into geometrical sections – for farms – some squares, some rectangles. Sometimes it’s straw-coloured, sometimes lemony yellow, and sometimes green, but very orderly and beautiful, comparing very favourably with the untidy patches at home. It looks very rich and fertile. Nothing of interest happened on the journey except that my companions tried to buy my dinner for me but I refused. They had all been working during the holidays and had plenty of money. One was at the Hydro-Electric, George at the fishing. His father comes from Kyle and is skipper of a fishing boat.
A train seems to move much more slowly than one thinks. I could hear the pounding of the wheels but I was still seeing the same fields. After a while the others curled up and went to sleep. But I didn’t sleep. Sometimes I read Homer to the thunder of the wheels. It’s strange how unprotected people look when they are asleep.
At ten o’clock we entered the station, but before that I could see the lights of a great city. George and I went out together into the confusion. I was going to order a taxi but George would not hear of it. We climbed the steps into the glare of the light and went in search of a bus. After dashing across the street – or rather after I had dashed across the street – we found ourselves at a big cinema – much bigger than the one in T—— with winking lights of different colours, some violet, some purple.
Sitting on the stone pavement with his back against the wall was a beggar, his cap – containing a few pennies – beside him, and he himself staring blankly into space. At that moment I was terrified. I put my hands into my pockets as if to steady myself and would have given him a pound if George hadn’t said:
‘Don’t be a fool. He’s better off than you are. He’s not blind at all.’ But George put a two-shilling piece in his cap: I didn’t give him anything – I don’t like people who lie.
When we arrived at the house the landlady came to the door. She is smallish, plump, with a Roman nose. She is said to be greedy for money but perhaps that is scandal. She looks very inquisitive and it is said that her favourite words are: ‘Youse students with all the money.’ She has a husband who works on the taxis and two children. I saw one of them. He was plump and dressed in white shorts, white socks and a white blouse. He looked at me without speaking, his thumb in his mouth.
Last night, as I was lying in bed watching the lights of cars traverse the walls and the ceiling and listening to the patter of footsteps on the street, I thought I heard someone whistling a Gaelic tune. But it wasn’t a Gaelic tune at all.
Your loving son,
KENNETH
Yesterday was my first day at the University. I travel by bus leaving at 8.30 a.m. The distance is about three miles.
The University – a place of bells and ivy – fronts a rough road, curiously enough in one of the ugliest parts of the city, so that it appears like an oasis. There are many notice boards with green baize and notices all of which I have read. Some of them are announcements of prizes, others of the formation of societies (I doubt whether I shall have ti
me to take part in any of these). There is of course a large library with ladders, and a librarian so tall that she doesn’t need a ladder.
My first lecture was Greek. I climbed the wide stairs, my nostrils quivering to a strange smell. It was in fact the smell of varnish, and I later saw the typical watery waxy yellow. I sat at the back during the lecture – we are studying Sophocles – feeling the sun warm on my neck and watching the shadows of the leaves dancing on my desk. However, I didn’t have time to do that for long.
Our lecturer is a rather small man with a half-open mouth like that of a fish and he seemed to me to be in some vague way untidy. (I don’t know quite what I expected – perhaps a flourish of trumpets and a great man in red robes, but that wasn’t what came.) He kept saying: ‘Now this may be Greek to you, gentlemen . . . ’ Sometimes after saying this he would look out of the window and stand thus as if he had forgotten us. I noticed a curious smile on his face, like water round a stone. He speaks rather slowly – his hands behind his back – and I found it quite easy to write down everything he said. In the shops there is quite a large variety of notebooks and I have bought half-a-dozen, as I foresee much writing. There are thirty students in the class, more men than girls as one would expect. Many of them spend much time taking coffee in the Union and talking intensely. I go to the library. Most of them are far ahead of me at the moment.
There is one thing. For some reason I feel freer here. At home somehow or other I felt constricted. Do you remember how old Angus used to ask me those pointless riddles?
I am sorry to hear about the squabbles in the church. This money-grabbing is distasteful, and black. I think you should go out more.
Please don’t talk about me to people so much. One doesn’t know what might happen.
My second lecture was Latin – here we are doing Catullus and my lecturer is called Ormond. He is different altogether from Mulgrew – the Greek one – Ormond is more like a businessman, with bright fresh cheeks, a successful-looking man who sways back and forward on his heels when he is talking. He looks kind and self-possessed. Curiously enough, he wears a waistcoat, but on him it doesn’t look old-fashioned. He talks quite fast and it takes me all my time to keep up with him.
I haven’t been out at night since I came. Apart from George there are three other lodgers, a lady lecturer at the training college, a young girl who works in a shop, and a man of about twenty-eight who’s very keen on motor-cycles. The landlady doesn’t like him much as his hands are very oily most of the time. However he has the most cheerful face imaginable and he talks in a very quaint slow way except when he’s speaking about motor-cycles.
As for me I work at night sitting by the electric fire. Sometimes the landlady comes in, rather unnecessarily I think, and looks at me as if she were going to say something about working too hard but she doesn’t actually say anything. Once however she did say that I ought to go out more. George says this work and close-sitting by the fire are not good for me, and not profitable for my landlady! He is a very pleasant person, George.
The landlady can’t be so bad after all. She took us in to see TV night before last. It was the first time I had seen TV and she was very surprised by this as also by my answers to her questions on life at home. George however looked more serious.
It is now 10.30 p.m. and I have to translate some Sophocles.
By the way I don’t know whether George drinks or not. I have never seen him drunk if that’s what you mean.
Your loving son,
KENNETH
This afternoon George and I went for a long walk and this in fact is probably the first time that I’ve been out since I came. After leaving the house we turned left down the street with its silvery tram rails. It was a fine warm afternoon and we saw many people strolling, some with dogs. After a while we turned left again towards Hutton Park. At the entrance to this park are great wrought iron gates and flowers of many colours arranged very cleverly to read Welcome. I wondered how this was done but George wouldn’t tell me, and didn’t appear to be interested. He was telling me a story of a visit to the mortuary recently. The body of a young boy of nineteen had been found drowned in the River Lee. In his cigarette case they found a note which read: ‘I am tired of being drained of my blood.’ That was all. Yet he apparently had adoring parents.
This park is near a cemetery which is orderly and has some green glass urns containing paper flowers. It is almost too orderly, like streets.
When we entered the park I saw that it had swings on which children were playing. In other parts of the park fathers were playing football with their sons, teaching them. One of them was showing his little son how to kick a ball, and though he appeared amiable seemed to me to be exasperated. Many of the balls were rainbow-coloured. We also passed a great startling peacock with purplish plumage like a bride’s train. He was superb and alone and, I thought, completely out of place, unable even to fly.
We lay down on the grass (having removed our jackets) in the warm day. For the first time in three weeks I was completely relaxed. I had taken a book with me – about Catullus – but I didn’t read it. I watched small white clouds passing over me and heard birds singing in the trees (for there are many trees in the park). Our white shirts were dazzling in the light. George went for some ice-cream and we ate it and talked.
He doesn’t write home much. ‘After all,’ he says, ‘they know I am here.’ He often gets letters but hardly ever answers them. He told me of his father who seems a good man, not able to spell well, for example ‘colledge’ for ‘college’. I would have been ashamed to admit this: George isn’t. He invited me to their house for part of the holidays. What do you think? He is going with a girl called Fiona. I gather that she is very intelligent, and sometimes he talks as if he were her (at least that’s what I think) about the nuclear bomb. I think we need it. What else have we got? To defend our religion with. He smiled when I said this, clapped me on the knee, and told me to get up. We walked along the bank of the river (it was here that that boy was drowned) and saw a fisherman wearing thigh-length leathers, patiently casting in the middle. I thought for one horrible moment that we might find a body. Later we saw swans. They have a curious blunt blindness when seen close up. After a while I found I had forgotten my book and we went back to the park to collect it. We talked to two little boys. They were both very grave and very polite and told us all about themselves. They were dressed exactly alike in blue tunics and shorts, white shirts and blue ties. They were like echoes of each other. Eventually their nurse or whatever she was came to collect them. She frowned a little and I think they were very sorry to go, for George at any rate has the gift of friendliness. He makes fun of me sometimes – says I’m too serious. And I argue, he says, too self-righteously, especially with that college lecturer. My views on education are absolutely incomprehensible to him. Sometimes he asks me questions about home and confesses himself utterly perplexed. That people should be talked about for being out on a Sunday!
I hope this confusion of the church accounts will be sorted out. I’ve seen it reported even in the newspapers here. That’s what comes of living in a small village.
Don’t think I’m wasting my time. I’m working very hard and I know what has been done for me. I study for about seven hours a day. There is so much to be done. Recently my eye was caught by a book in the library by a man called Camus. It’s very strange but interesting.
I go to church here, but the minister Mr Wood isn’t very impressive. He is a small stout man who seems to me to have nothing to say. The church itself is small and quite pretty and fresh. But it’s his voice that I find peculiar . . . as if he could be thinking of something else when he’s preaching. He is not in his voice. It’s difficult to explain this. The flowers are beautiful, there are fine texts, fresh varnished tables, but he himself – he doesn’t bring these things together. All is forced somehow. I sometimes think we should have more sense of humour. George is very humorous. He kept us in stitches last night composing a romance
between the shopgirl and our cyclist friend – the third in the eternal triangle was the motor bike. Actually however Joan and Jake quite liked it, I think, and apart from their being lodgers (whom I suppose she can easily replace) the landlady’s romantic soul appears to be touched. She seats them together at meals! And one day Jake took Joan to the shop on his motor bike. The trouble is he blushes too easily.
I’ve been invited to Mr Mulgrew’s house and I think I might go on Wednesday. George’s girl friend is coming for dinner soon.
It’s very late – 11.30 – and I must finish – I shall post this at 8.30: there’s a pillar box quite near.
I think I shall sleep better tonight: I feel much fresher.
Please remember that as I say again I know all that you have done for me.
Your loving son,
KENNETH
Last night I called on Mr Mulgrew our Greek lecturer. It was 7.30 when I arrived at the door of his house which lies in a quiet area about five hundred yards past a busy blue crossroads. There were two bells, one a white one set in the stone at the side of the door, and the other a black one set in the middle of the door itself. First, I pressed the white one but sensed by the lack of pressure that it wasn’t working. Then I pressed the black one which also did not appear to be working. Finally I knocked on the door. There was no light in the hall. Then I knocked again more loudly.
I saw a light flash on – rather a dim one – and Mr Mulgrew himself came to the door wearing no jacket, but a blackish pullover and reddish slippers. Eventually he recognised me, his mouth closing as he did so and a light being switched on in his eyes. I have heard that he is very lonely and that he goes to the cinema regularly once a week no matter what the film is and that he prefers to sit in the same seat each time.
The Red Door Page 30