The Red Door

by Iain Crichton Smith

  Lazily she saw the long curved wood lengthen itself into an impossible tongue. And she thought: this is a good moment: this moment is good. She frowned however, slightly reflecting Margaret’s frown.

  ‘Stop writing, children,’ she said, and they stopped writing at once. It was frightening. Margaret returned to her seat. Miss Helen Hope stood tall and fiftyish before the class. She was as slim as a pencil in her dark skirt and jacket, white-brooched at the right breast. Her black shoes shone brightly. She felt completely assured and real inside her spruce contained blackness, and knew what she would say, life sparkled in her eyes, her smooth hair sang about her head.

  ‘Give me,’ she said, ‘an example of a preposition, Mary.’

  ‘Please miss, “at” is an example of a preposition.’

  She had taught them to answer in sentences. It was more secure.

  Mary was thinking ‘at’ is thin and black like the point of a pencil.

  ‘Very good,’ said Miss Helen Hope. ‘Now Margaret, give me an example of a conjunction.’

  She watched Margaret stand up quietly in a space of her own, her face slightly flushed with excitement.

  ‘Please miss, “and” is an example of a conjunction.’ Their eyes momentarily met and then jumped away with mutual embarrassment as if they had been burnt.

  ‘Who are you?’ thought Miss Helen Hope. Margaret thought: – ‘Now she will ask me for an adjective. I am glad to be able to answer her questions. It makes me feel happy all over.’

  Then just as she was preparing herself for the second question a knock came at the door, which after a decent interval was opened. The class stood up, mainly black-pinafored, as Miss Helen Hope turned to the headmaster.

  To his ‘Good-morning’ they sat down, turning again to their books. The headmaster was a small, waistcoated man who crossed the floor with mincing steps. They could hear him talking: – ‘Now about the cards, Miss Hope, do you think we should . . . ?’

  Miss Hope answered his questions quietly and clearly, her face slightly flushed, her eyes sparkling.

  The headmaster thought approvingly, she is a good teacher, and she, knowing that he thought this, was pleased. She also knew that the children knew that he thought this. It was surprising how much they knew.

  He had not been a good teacher himself and he envied Miss Hope for her beautiful crystal control. It appealed to something in him that he could not name.

  ‘I am a child myself,’ Miss Helen Hope thought. ‘I love this quite, clean, sparkling room. I like to see good, clear-varnished desks. I like to see the sunlight on the early morning floor.’ She bowed her head to the master and continued speechlessly: – ‘How glad I am to be able to please him.’ When the headmaster went out she turned again to the class.

  ‘You give me an example of a proper noun, Margaret.’ Margaret again stood up flushed with pleasure and did as she was asked.

  As Miss Hope was on the point of asking her a further question she checked herself abruptly, telling her that she could sit down. The class had grown used to this. Margaret was always asked more than one question.

  They felt uneasy about this but did not understand their uneasiness as they watched their classmate, spectacled and pleased, returning to their teacher the information she had given them. They may have considered that Miss Hope thought Margaret was cleverer than themselves, but they knew that she was not.

  Miss Hope herself didn’t know why she asked her more questions than the others: at least not till that moment when she checked herself.

  Then she knew, and she knew because of what happened in her mind when she was about to ask the question. She had suddenly thought of her own room in her own flat.

  It was a beautiful room. She had a picture of a big greenish armchair sunk deep into a greenish rug, of a white-faced calm clock ticking away on a greenish mantelpiece, of a bookcase filled with paper-backed books, of papers stacked neatly on a varnished table, of silver pans humming with Sunday comfort over a cooker whose small red eye winked out at her.

  She didn’t know why the picture came into her mind at that moment – at least not at first – or why she thought of the tongued letter-box at the end of the hall. Then her mind reared up and reared away again.

  It was because . . . She looked again at Margaret sitting there in her gleaming spectacles looking at her across these feet of sunlit wood as if she knew. She imagined herself at the same desk and Margaret with her composed glasses raising a pointer towards a shining wall atlas.

  ‘Now children, this is England and this is 30 Silver Street.’

  Her yellow pigtails sang seductively in the crisp early morning air.

  She imagined herself sitting snugly at the desk and being asked: – ‘What is an adjective?’

  She stood up: – ‘Please, miss, “green” is an adjective.’

  Margaret and the headmaster nodded approvingly.

  ‘Yes, yes, that is right.’

  ‘Now children,’ she said briskly in her real self, ‘we will do some geography on the wall atlas. Margaret, point out London on the map.’

  Margaret came out again with the same subtle smile and did correctly what she was asked.

  She looked again at Margaret standing there proud and academic. Fractionally a picture of her own flat again entered her mind. This time it was the clock suspended as it were in green air and ticking away quietly for ever.

  ‘Yes, that is good, Margaret. Now point out Alexandria.’

  She knew when she said this that they hadn’t done the Middle East. She felt the class looking at her with an air of polite surprise as if she had done something bad-mannered like entering a room without knocking.

  Margaret didn’t look at her, but hesitated for a long time. She studied the huge shining map, with its beautiful clear reds and yellows, suspended rectangularly from its single silver nail.

  Miss Hope noticed how her left hand clutched momentarily at her dress and how her left shoe dug into the floor. She made as if to point to a place on the map, decided against it, and turned away.

  ‘Please, miss, I don’t know.’

  Miss Hope realised how into her voice had crept a hint of anger, the very slightest shade of rebellion, as if she was searching for a reason for her discomfiture and not being able to find one as yet was releasing her puzzlement in her angry tone.

  ‘Thank you, Margaret,’ she said, ‘it doesn’t matter.’

  But she knew it did matter. It was the beginning of a strange road.

  Why had she done it? As she watched the figure returning to its desk another picture came into her mind. This time it was of another class, a class of boys. It was a cold day in a bitterly cold classroom. She had been working steadily at some marks, she remembered it quite clearly.

  For some reason one of the marks in the column had been in red while the others were in normal blue. She couldn’t understand this. The class was quite small, in fact there weren’t more than twenty. She herself was about thirty years old then.

  She remembered also that the previous night she had been attending a church meeting. The hall had been cold and draughty.

  Suddenly as she looked up nakedly into the classroom out of aching eyes she saw what she had never seen before and what she hoped she would never see again, but of course she would see it again and again.

  Sitting in the very front of the class was a very small boy who wore thick foggy glasses. They were like the bottoms of bottles. In his breast pocket was stuck an orange pencil, blatantly, like a lance, too aggressive for the dull pose of the body. Around him was an aura of dirtiness, a vagueness of mediocrity.

  At that moment she had seen quite clearly what would happen to him, she saw the sort of house in which he would live, the sort of wife he would marry, the sort of children he would breed, mice with glasses.

  She remembered repeating to herself in anguish of the spirit: Pray God that I am wrong. Perhaps he had some gift, some unexpected knowledge, some grace which can save him. She imagined per
haps a love of violins, a dream of oceans.

  And she remembered unrolling a wall atlas, not quite the same as the one she had in that room (it seemed, in recollection, duller, the lettering was smaller, less shiny), and asking him on impulse: ‘George, could you point to Chicago on the map?’

  She didn’t know why she had chosen Chicago. Perhaps it was, in the end, to give him some sort of chance. She imagined that he might be interested in gangsters, guns. He had gone out to the board.

  She still remembered with sudden recoiling pain the stumpy way in which he had stood on his flannelled legs like a kind of adult clown. His fogged glassy eyes had stared at the map with an illusion of intellectuality. Despairingly, in the end, he had pointed into the middle of Russia.

  His glasses, she thought, had looked appealingly at her. His eyes, she wondered, must be vein-twisted under a flat stone. Then knowing he had been wrong, he returned to his seat.

  ‘Thank you, Margaret,’ said Miss Helen Hope, ‘and now, Mary, will you please tell me where . . . ’

  The Hermit

  We were on a touring bus one morning and it stopped at a shed by the side of the road. A hermit lived there. The shed was made of tin and had a long chimney sticking out of it. The ’bus driver, very upright behind the wheel, tooted the horn a few times and then stopped. We were looking out the window at the hut. After the driver had stopped tooting a man came out. He was very thin, and white, bristly hair was seen not only on his head but on on his cheeks as well. His trousers were held up by braces. He was carrying a chanter. He scratched his head and then came over to the ’bus. He stood on the step and said, ‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid I was late getting up.’ He spoke in a sort of educated voice.

  He looked down at the ground and then up again and, laughing a little, said, ‘Would you like if I played you some tunes to speed you on your way?’

  He took out his chanter and blew through it. Then he took out a dirty white handkerchief and wiped it. He played ‘Loch Lomond’ very badly, and put the chanter on a case beside him, a case belonging to one of the passengers.

  ‘This is the day I go for my pension,’ he said, and someone laughed.

  ‘I go down the road there to the Post Office.’ He pointed into the slight mist ahead of us.

  The driver said, ‘He’s been on TV, haven’t you?’

  The hermit scratched his head again, looking down at the floor, and then, looking up again with an alert bright look on his unshaven ravaged face,

  ‘Yes, I was on TV,’ he said.

  ‘What programme were you on?’ someone shouted from the back, greatly daring. It was a woman’s voice.

  ‘It was called “Interesting People”. I was interviewed, I played the chanter.’

  ‘Will you be on again?’ someone asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I may be. Depends if they like me.’

  Everyone laughed, and he grinned impudently.

  ‘I was late getting up,’ he said to the driver.‘ I was washing my clothes last night.’

  ‘You should get married,’ another woman shouted out.

  ‘It’s too late now,’ he said perkily. ‘Would you like to hear another tune? I must play for my money.’

  This time he played ‘Scotland the Brave’. He put the chanter down and said – ‘It’s too early to play.’ He had played it very badly. In fact, his playing was so bad it was embarrassing.

  He handed his cap round. When it came to my turn I debated whether to put threepence or sixpence in. After all, even though he was a hermit, he did play very badly.

  As the cap was being handed round he stood on the steps and said – ‘No, I don’t have a gun. Anyway, there’s nothing here to kill, madam. I get my cheese and bread from down the road, and that’s all I need.’

  When the cap was handed back to him he took out his chanter again and said – ‘I hope it’ll behave better this time. I’ll play you one for the road if my chanter behaves.’ He played ‘I’m no’ awa’ tae bide awa’.’ ‘I’m afraid my chanter is playing up on me today,’ he said, laughing. He got down from the step on to the road. The driver let in the clutch just as the hermit was saying, ‘I hope you have a pleasant day.’ The ’bus picked up speed. I saw him turning away and going into his hut. He didn’t wave or even look back, though some people in the ’bus were waving.

  I didn’t know whether I hoped he got on TV or not. Playing like that he didn’t deserve to.

  I heard a woman behind me saying: ‘Such an educated voice.’

  And another one: ‘Perhaps he’s got a tragedy in his life. He sounded an intelligent sort of man.’

  If I’d had the courage I would have spat on them. Who was he, anyway, making money from us just because he was a hermit? Anyone could be a hermit. It didn’t take courage to be a hermit. It only took despair. Anyway, he was one of the worst instrumentalists I had ever heard. I’d have given the money to Bob Dylan if he’d stood there singing ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’, but not to that faker.

  The Long Happy Life of Murdina the Maid

  And now we arrive at the island of Raws, well known in legend and in song. To this island, rich in peat and some deposits of iron, there came St Murriman, clad in monk’s habit and hairshirt. A great man, he is said to have baptised in his old age a number of seals which he thought to be children as they rolled by the shore in their innocent gambols. (And indeed seals do have a peculiar childlike appearance if you scrutinise them carefully enough.) This island too is famous for the story of the Two Bodachs, one of these stories in which our history is perennially rich. But perhaps the most famous story of all is that of Murdina the Maid. (I speak under correction but I believe that a monograph has been written on this story and that a paper was once delivered on it at a Celtic Congress.)

  Murdina the Maid was born of good-living parents, the father a blacksmith and the mother a herdsgirl. They lived together in harmony for many years till the mother, whose name was Marian (a relation it is said on the distaff side to the MacLennans of Cule), delivered a fine girl. She grew up, as Wordsworth says, in ‘sun and in shower’ till she attained the age of seventeen years. We may think of her as apple-cheeked, dewy-eyed, with sloe-black eyes and a skin as white as the bogcotton. However, matters were not allowed to remain like that.

  This poor innocent girl one night was attending what we call in the vernacular a dance (though different indeed were the dances of those days from the dances of our degenerate time) and there she met a man, let us call him a man for want of a better name, though he was more like a beast in human form. He was a Southron man, and he was addicted to the music of the melodeon, an instrument which in those days provided our people with much innocent amusement.

  We have no record of their dalliance and of his wicked wiles but sufficient to say that he persuaded her to run away with him to Glassgreen, the great metropolis, albeit she went home for her wardrobe (poor as it was) first. One may imagine what such a wardrobe would consist of, two long skirts, a coiffed headdress, two pairs of stockings woven at home, one pair of shoes and one pair of tackety boots, with, of course, some underclothes of the colour pink.

  Compare with this the wardrobe of her seducer which would contain brightly painted ties (all bought in a shop), trousers of an alien style, shirts of a sordid cut, and shoes of a hitherto unseen mode. The man’s name was Horace.

  Thus it was that playing his melodeon and providing her with deceitful music he led her like the Pied Piper to Glassgreen.

  Imagine, however, the consternation of the blacksmith and his spouse. Day after day he would lift his hammer and not even hit the anvil with it. Sunk into depression, his stalwart arms rapidly losing their strength, he sank into an early grave and his wife did not outlive him long. O Murdina, how hapless your expedition to the metropolis! Hapless indeed our lives unless we obey our parents. Where she expected a mansion she was led at last into a small room which contained one bed, a gas cooker, a cupboard and not much more. But the tears sh
e shed that evening were more than compensated for by the dallyings of her lover, whose moustache brushed her mouth as he yawned copiously through the long night.

  So she began to visit dens of iniquity. Psychedelic were her days and drugged her evenings. The water of the earth did not suffice her but she must be stayed by beverages unknown to her parents. Ravaged by music which stole her soul away she would sing in these same dens of iniquity intertwined with her lover. But sorrowful too were her thoughts for her lover had not as much money as would sustain her wicked delights, such as splendid clothes and furniture of a rare ilk. Thus one night when he was sleeping the sleep of the sinful, she stole from his small den taking with her his pocket book, a number of his ties (which she hoped to sell) and a diamond necklace which he said he had got from his mother, long under the sod in his native Donegal.

  With these, she found herself another protector who was in the habit of giving room to a number of girls who had nowhere else to go. Laudable and charitable as this was, we must however acknowledge that his mode of living was not what one would require from a godly man, for he was not above sending these girls out into the cold to hold converse with strangers such as seamen, foreigners, and persons of diverse vices.

  Thus passed her nights and her days, yearning as she said for the innocent pleasures of Raws, with its limpid streams, and its snow-covered bens.

  One night the island came to her as in a vision. She saw it, as it were, clearly delineated on the walls of her luxurious room, and she heard in her ears the sound of its innumerable waves. In the morning she arose, put on her new-bought furs, and set off to find the mode of transport which would take her to her home. In the carriage were many young men who (on hearing of her adventures) were desirous to approach with many friendly overtures and those she was not loathe to deny, only saying that she would bring them to her house. She handed out to them with much magniloquence cards which showed both her own and the name of her house.