‘This is Carter,’ said the headmaster, ‘and he is always complaining.’
In a corner by himself there sat another man whose face twitched continually.
‘That’s Harris,’ said Dubbins, ‘his nerves are bad.’
‘Now,’ he said, ‘if you wish to stay with the rest you can do so. All you require is a seat. You will be able to get any books you like from the library, and read them and comment on them. Little discussions are held regularly. What’s that? Ah, another of our storms.’
Mr Trill could hear what seemed like hail beating against the window, and beyond it the howling of the dogs. Beyond both of these there was the weird distorted cry of many voices.
‘What is that noise?’ he asked.
‘It is the hail,’ said Dubbins.
‘And beyond that?’
‘That will be the cry of the dogs.’
‘And beyond that again?’
‘I do not hear anything.’
Dubbins’s bland composed face, turned towards him, seemed closed and distant.
‘Am I to leave you here then?’ he asked. ‘We feel that we should all be together and that we should look after our own kind.’
Mr Trill looked down at the classics which were lying on the table and they seemed to him to be surrounded by storm and wind, shaking in the hail which beat on them. Otherwise there was silence in the room and all the other occupants, retired into the world of their books, appeared to have already forgotten about him.
‘What did you say my choices were?’ he asked.
‘To stay here or go back to your life and teach there or go out into the place from which you came.’
‘Are there no other choices?’
‘There is one other, but no one has taken it so far.’
‘And what is that?’
‘To go back to life but not as a teacher. We allow this, but it is not a choice that we like anyone to take. That is why I did not mention it.’
‘Why don’t you like it to be taken?’
‘We think of it as an admission of failure.’
‘Failure?’
‘We feel that it is an admission that what we are doing is not considered important.’
‘I see.’
The man in the corner twitched uncontrollably.
Mr Trill looked down at a copy of Homer, then turned the pages idly. In the margin of the book there were pencilled comments. One said, ‘Ironical?’ Another said, ‘An example of synecdoche?’ A third one said, ‘The hexameter as narrative technique.’
Suddenly as he was speaking an excited voice shouted, ‘I have found it. I have correctly dated the Georgics.’
Heads turned towards the speaker simultaneously. One man said, ‘The fool. Who does he think he is? That has already been done by Malonivitz.’ Another said, ‘I shall have to rebut whatever he says.’
The headmaster gazed smilingly at Mr Trill and said, ‘See? Nothing but excitement.’
Mr Trill felt as if he was going to be sick. Even though the headmaster heard nothing he himself was hearing beyond the hail and the baying of the dogs the voices of many men shrieking in pain, cursing, tormented.
His mother stood at the door.
‘Put that woman out at once,’ shrieked Carter. ‘She has no right to be here.’
But his mother stood stolidly there.
‘This is outrageous,’ shouted Carter. ‘What is this place coming to? Nothing but deterioration day after day. Standards failing, texts inadequate, and now we have women. I shall, I shall . . . ’ But foaming at the mouth he subsided for he could not finish the sentence.
Mr Trill thought of an army of synecdoches meeting an army of metonymies on a battlefield where vivid green and blue scarves waved. Ah, the billowing bronze of my unlived life! The wind that drives the similes before it.
But his mother had gone. She had lived among the little piercing needles of the day, stung, stinging.
‘I shall go back,’ he heard himself saying.
‘To Hades?’ said Dubbins.
‘No, to the world in which I once lived. I shall return as something else.’ There was a universal sigh of horror all over the room.
‘As something else?’ they sighed.
‘Yes,’ said Mr Trill.
‘Are you sure?’ said Dubbins.
‘Quite sure,’ said Mr Trill, ‘if it is possible, that is.’
‘But no one before has asked that he go back as someone else.’
‘In that case I shall be unique,’ said Mr Trill and he felt an odd pleasure.
‘I shall go back without shield.’
‘Without shield?’ They all gazed at each other as if he had said something incomprehensible.
‘That is so,’ said Mr Trill. ‘Naked and without shield. I shall watch the wheelbarrows.’
‘What is he talking about?’ they asked.
‘The wheelbarrow and the stone,’ said Mr Trill. ‘With rain on it, perhaps sunshine. The train that travels through the day. The man who collects the tickets in his dirty blue jacket. The drunk in the restaurant. The Chinaman who dreams of Hong Kong. The lorry driver, the builder, the carpenter with the ruler in his breast pocket. The docker who heaves the cargo to the quay. The cloud that has lost its way, and to which the child points. The bin man who lifts the grooved ash can on to his shoulders. The lady standing at the corner with the neon light on her handbag. To all these things I pray, to the rain that falls, the sun that shines. To the temporary I give my allegiance.’
Suddenly there was no room there at all and Mr Trill found himself standing at a windy corner in a vast city selling newspapers.
‘Evening News,’ he was shouting. ‘Evening News.’ A man with a rolled umbrella took a paper, threw money on the ledge and then slanted quickly away into the lights of the city.
‘Evening News,’ Mr Trill shouted. ‘Terrible murder, terrible rape. Read about it in the Evening News.’
Men and women passed through the yellow lights. Mr Trill clapped his hands together in the cold. In the distance the high windows burned like stars and it seemed that they were all on fire, twinkling and guttering.
‘Evening News,’ shouted Mr Trill in a sudden access of joy, ready to dance up and down on the pavement. ‘Read about the murder, the rape, the embezzling, the incest. Read about the rescue, the gift, the offer. Evening News, read all about it.’
Around him the lights winked and shivered. His boots were yellow in the light, he crowed like a cock, his bronze claws sunk in the pavement.
from
SELECTED STORIES
By their Fruits
My Canadian uncle told me, ‘Today we are going to see John Smith. I’ll tell you a story about him. When he was nineteen years old, and coming to Canada, the minister met him and he said to him (you see, John had been working at the Glasgow shipyards before that) the minister said to him, “And I hear you’ve been working on a Sunday,” and John said to him, “I hear you work on a Sunday yourself.” So when John was leaving to come to Canada the minister wouldn’t speak to him. Imagine that. He was nineteen years old, the minister didn’t know whether he would ever see him again. Now the fact is that John has never been to church since he came to Canada.’
My uncle was eighty-six years old. He had been allowed to drive, I think, during the duration of our holiday with him, and he took full advantage of the concession.
‘They said to me,’ he told us, ‘you keep out of Vancouver, you can drive around your home area, old timer. Drive around White Rock.’
Every morning he took the white Plymouth from the garage, put on his glasses carefully and set off with us for a drive of hundreds of miles, perhaps to Hell’s Gate or Fraser River. His wife was dead: in the garden he had planted a velvety red rose in remembrance of her, and he watered it devoutly every day.
Once in Vancouver we came to a red light which we drove through, while a woman who was permitted to cross in her car stared at him, her mouth opening and shutting like that of a fish.
‘These women drivers,’ he said contemptuously, as he drove negligently onwards.
Every summer he took the plane home to Lewis. ‘What I do,’ he said, ‘I leave this lamp on so that people think I am here.’ One summer Donalda and I searched Loch Lomondside for the house in which his wife had been born but we couldn’t find it.
‘She was an orphan, you know, and the way we met was like this. She went to London on service and decided she would emigrate to Australia, but then changed her mind when she saw an advertisement showing British Columbia and its fruit. I was going to Australia myself with another fellow, but he dropped out so I emigrated to Canada instead. One night at a Scottish Evening in Vancouver I saw her coming in the door wearing a yellow dress. I knew at that moment that that was the girl for me, so I asked her for a dance, and that was how it happened.’
He fixed his eye on the road. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘you can drive a few miles over the limit. You’re allowed to do that.’ His big craggy face was tanned like a Red Indian’s. It was like an image you would see on a totem pole.
John Smith lived in a house which was not as luxurious as my uncle’s. He had a limp, and immediately my uncle came in he began to banter with him.
‘Here he is,’ he said to his wife, ‘the Widows’ Delight.’ My uncle smiled.
‘Listen,’ he said to me, after he had introduced me. ‘This fellow believes that we come from monkeys,’ and he smiled again largely and slightly contemptuously.
‘That’s true enough,’ said Smith, stretching his leg out on the sofa where he was sitting. His wife said nothing but watched the two of them. She was a large woman with a flat white face.
‘It may be true of you,’ said my uncle, ‘but it’s not true of me. I’m not descended from a monkey, that’s for sure. No, sir. You’ll be saying next that we have tails.’
‘That’s right,’ said Smith, ‘if you read the books you’ll see that we have the remains of tails. And I’ll tell you something else, what use is your appendix to you, tell me that.’
‘My appendix,’ said my uncle, ‘what are you talking about? What’s my appendix got to do with it?’ And he winked at me in a conspiratorial manner as if to say, Listen to that hogwash.
‘It’s like this,’ said Smith, who was a small intense man. ‘Your appendix is no use to you. It’s part of what you were as an ape. That’s what the books tell you. You could lose your appendix and nothing would happen to you. You don’t need it. That’s been proved.’ His wife smiled at Donalda and at me as if to say, They go on like this all the time but below it all they like each other.
‘A lot of baloney,’ said my uncle, ‘that’s what it is, a lot of baloney. When did you ever see a man turning into a monkey?’
‘It’s the other way round,’ said Smith tolerantly. ‘Anyway the time involved is too great. Millions of years, millions and millions of years.’
‘Baloney,’ said my uncle again. ‘You read too many books, that’s what’s wrong with you. You’d be better looking after your garden. His garden is a mess,’ he said, turning to me. ‘Never seen anything like it. All he does is read and read.’
‘And all you do is grow cherries and give them to widows,’ said Smith chortling. ‘Did you know that,’ he said to me, ‘he’s surrounded by widows. They come from everywhere: they’re like the bees. And he grows cherries and gives them baskets of them. Did you see the contraption he’s got to keep the crows away from the cherry trees?’ And he laughed.
Donalda and I looked at each other. My uncle had a wire which he strung out through the window of the kitchen and on it hung a lot of cans and a big hat and when he saw any crows approaching he pulled at the wire and the cans set up a jangling noise.
‘They’re like the Free Church ministers, them crows,’ said Smith, ‘you can’t keep them away from the cherries.’
My uncle once told us a story. ‘When I came here first I used to drive a cab and I used to take a lot of them ministers around to conferences. And, do you know, they never invited me into any of their houses once? They would leave me sitting in the cab to freeze. That’s right enough.’
‘All that baloney about monkeys,’ said my uncle again. ‘That’s because he’s got hair on his chest. Mind you, he does look a bit like a monkey,’ he said to me judiciously.
Smith got angry. ‘You’re an ignorant man,’ he said. ‘Just because you were on the Fire Brigade you think you know everything. Do you know what he reads?’ he said to me. ‘He reads the Fishing News and the Scottish Magazine. He never read a book in his life. You wouldn’t understand Darwin,’ he said to my uncle, ‘not in a million years.’
‘And who’s Darwin when he’s at home?’ said my uncle.
‘Darwin?’ Smith spluttered. ‘Darwin is the man who wrote The Origin of Species. You’re really ignorant. If you kept away from the widows you would know these things.’
‘Do you think the widows are descended from the apes?’ said my uncle innocently.
‘Of course they are, and so are you.’ Smith was dancing up and down with rage in spite of his limp.
‘I never heard such hogwash,’ said my uncle. ‘Tell me something then. Do you swing from the trees in your garden instead of digging?’ And he went off into a roar of laughter.
‘Oh, what’s the use of talking to you,’ said Smith, ‘no use at all. You’re ignorant.’
And so the debate went on, though deep down we could see there was a real affection between the two men. When we were going home in the car my uncle would suddenly burst into a roar of laughter and say, ‘Descended from the apes. Do you think Smith looks like an ape? Eh?’ And he would laugh again. ‘Mind you, where he comes from on the island they could be apes. Sure.’ And he laughed delightedly again.
He was really rather boyish. He was always saying ‘By golly’, in a tone of wonder.
‘Did you know,’ he told us once, ‘there’s a woman here who comes from the island and her son-in-law is an ambassador. If you go to their house you’ll find that the children have a room of their own with a billiard table and a television and everything else. And she sits there and makes scones as we used to do in the old days. You’d think she was back in Lewis. And when the kids come in, she says, “How much money did you spend today? Did you buy Seven Up?” And if they spent more than they should have, she gives them hell. And I once saw a millionaire in her house. Sure. He was walking along the corridor with a towel round him, he had been for a bathe, and that was all he was wearing. “That’s a millionaire,” she said to me. “That fellow?” I said. “Yes, that’s right,” she said. And he looked just like you or me. He said “Hi” to me as he passed. And there was water dripping all over the floor and all he was wearing was a towel.’
He had bought himself a cine camera and the last time he had been home to the islands he had taken some photographs. He showed us them one night and we saw figures of old women in black, churches, rocks, peat cutters, all flashing past at what seemed a hundred miles an hour. ‘There’s something dang wrong with that camera,’ he muttered. Donalda and I could hardly keep from laughing.
All the time we stayed with him - which was three weeks - he wouldn’t let us pay for anything. ‘I won’t be long for this world,’ he would say, ‘so I might as well spend my money.’ And we fed on salmon and cherries and the best of steaks. And sometimes we would sit out in the garden wearing green peaked caps and watching the crows as they hovered around the cherry trees.
‘When my wife was taken to hospital,’ he said, ‘I went to the doctor and I said to him, “No drugs. No drugs,” I said to him. We never had a quarrel in our lives, do you know that? She was a great gardener. When we went out fishing on Sunday she would say, “Stop the car,” and I would stop, though I drove very fast in them days, and it was a little flower she had seen at the side of the road.’ He smiled nostalgically.
‘This is my country now, you understand. I go back to the old country, but it’s not the same. I’ve been to see the people who grew up
with me, but they’re all in the cemeteries. Sure. There was a schoolmaster we had and he used to go into a rage and whip us on the bare legs with a belt. Girls and boys, it was the same to him. But there’s no one left now. Canada is my country now.’ And he would look out the window at the men in red helmets who were repairing the road in front of his house.
The days were monotonously sunny. There was no sign of rain or storm. It was like being in the Garden of Eden, guiltless and without questions.
The night before we left many of the widows visited him, as did Smith and his wife. The widows brought scones, cakes, and buns, and made the coffee while he sat in the middle of the living-room like a king on a throne.
One widow said, ‘You know what Torquil here said to my husband when he was building our house. He said to him, “I used to go duck shooting here when I came here first. It was a swamp.” ’
‘And so it was,’ said Torquil, laughing.
‘He used to tell us, “The men here die young. The women live for ever. What they do is sell their houses and then they buy apartments in Vancouver.”’
Another of the widows said to me, ‘I saw one of your Highland singers on the TV. He had lovely knees.’ All the other widows laughed. ‘Lovely knees,’ she repeated. And then she asked me if I knew the words of ‘Loch Lomond’.
‘Iain doesn’t like that song,’ said my uncle, largely. ‘The fact is he despises them songs.’ They gazed at me in wonderment. ‘Iain doesn’t like Burns either. But I’ll tell you something about Burns. They say he had a lot of illegitimate children, but that was a lie put out by the Catholics.’ He spoke with amazing confidence, and I saw Smith looking at him.
‘I went home to Lewis,’ said one of the women. ‘The shop girls were very rude. I couldn’t believe it.’
‘Is that right?’ said my uncle.
‘As true as I’m sitting here,’ said the woman.
Another one said, ‘You’ve got lovely cherries this year.’
The Black Halo Page 44