by Wendy Scarfe
Matthew felt as if he were creeping about on the ground in strangled light. Sometimes he even felt that the air was unable to creep in through the closed doors and windows. He felt suffocated, his stomach churning with the effort to breathe. He was frightened of this deathly quiet place where only the thin rasping of pencils on slates or the thickening noise of breathing stirred the silence. He was frightened by Miss Pilkington, the gaunt, middle-aged woman who ruled the seventy little boys and girls regimented by sex on either side of the central aisle. In black shirt and skirt she strode down the aisle and her dangling medals, clipped one to another on her breast, clanked aggressively in time to her march.
It was these medals which filled Matthew with particular terror. Each Monday his teacher demanded of the children their contribution to the war effort. She belonged to the League of Loyal Women of the Empire and for each Monday’s contribution she acquired another clasp to clip to the one before. So far the clasps pinned to her right bosom reached to her waist. She boasted that before the war ended her clasps would reach the floor. Matthew imagined them as a chain following her across the floor, clanking with dismal echoes and sliding like an angular snake in her wake.
Matthew had no money. By turns he begged his mother, Gran and Edward for a penny but they all refused. His mother said that there were no extra pennies in a house without a breadwinner. Gran said that she was Irish and saw no reason why she should contribute to the ego of any woman loyal to the Empire. Edward said that he would give him a penny but not to contribute to the war because it was a capitalist war in which poor people suffered for the rich.
When he asked Edward who the poor people were Edward surprised him by saying: ‘Families like yours and mine. We’re the poor. We’re the little people. We creep around on the ground or pull the chariots while the rich ride.’
‘With feathers and golden helmets.’
‘Probably, Matthew. At one stage anyway. Here take the penny but remember, honour bound, no contribution.’ Matthew nodded. Gravely, he felt the penny, so round and complete, and smiled at Edward, who smiled back. His poverty had represented to him no more than having no money for the contribution, but something of Edward’s ideas made sense to him. Did he not feel that, at school, he crawled around on the ground? Poverty had no permanent dimensions for him but it had very real, clearly defined, temporary ones. He understood little about the war and since it was never explained to him he knew no more about the contribution than that it was collected with terrifying fanaticism in a small wooden money box thrust in front of every child each Monday.
This Monday was like all the others. He had no money except a farthing left from the penny Edward had given him.
‘No donation again, Matthew Donahue?’ He shook his head, fingering the farthing, longing to take it from his pocket, to hold it out victoriously and drop it in the box.
His eyes fixed on the box. He feared to raise them to her face. ‘No contribution for our King, nothing for your country, nothing for our men dying on the fields of Flanders? It’s as well that we don’t depend on boys like you. Subversive boys whose Irish mother and her men friends love the Hun. If all boys were like you, the Kaiser would be striding down this aisle and you would all have to salute him, not the King.
‘Stand up, boy, and show us how you would salute the Kaiser!’
Matthew remained rigid. She fastened her finger and thumb on his ear digging her nails into his flesh and slowly hauled him to his feet. He scrabbled with his hands first on the seat and then on the lid of the desk to take the weight of his body away from his ear, to keep his balance.
‘Salute the Kaiser!’ she screamed at him. ‘Show us all what it would be like!’ And she pushed her face, close to his, where it seemed to expand until it filled all his perception of the world. He felt that like a huge pillow it would engulf and suffocate him.
‘No!’ he shouted. ‘No! No! No!’ He clawed upwards, grabbed one of the medals and raked it down her cheek. She lunged backwards, hand to her bleeding face.
‘No!’ he shouted. ‘I have a farthing. I have.’ He snatched it from his pocket and threw it at the box. ‘I have got a farthing.’
Sobbing he scrambled across his seat into the aisle. Isolated in a field of terrified faces he felt loose, dangling, as unprotected as a scarecrow. He fled, down the aisle between the desks, out the door, along the echoing corridor, through the entrance doors, across the bitumen and into the street.
The world halted him. It was too big, too bright. Images unfolded upon each other like stage sets retreating into endless vistas of illusion. The sun blazed from a pallid sky. He felt like a nocturnal animal emerging mistakenly into the midday glare. He was thirsty. Wandering, he found a hydrant with its bent tin cup chained to it. He rinsed the cup, wiping his wet fingers around the brim, then filled it. The metal, chilled from the water, cooled his hands as he drank, dribbled down his chin onto his shirt. He refilled the cup and drank again. The world came into focus.
A woman in a lemon cambric blouse and a jaunty straw hat walked her baby in a large-wheeled perambulator. A horse pulling a bread cart clomped past. He sniffed the warm, sweet, steamy smell of fresh manure. In his imagination it mingled with the rich yeasty odour of fresh bread. He yearned for the soft innards of a doughy loaf newly made. Gran’s bread was never quite the same as bought. It lasted longer but lacked the initial sweet succulence. With a regretful sigh he replaced the cup.
‘Not at school today? Not playing the truant I hope.’ The tone was jocular but its underlying assumption that Matthew was doing wrong frightened him. The speaker lounged, one hand resting on the hydrant head, so close that Matthew needed to retreat to look up into his face. He wore a suit of cigar brown with matching shoes, white spats and a brown bowler hat. Although most businessmen abroad in the city were formally dressed, this man’s attire seemed particularly heavy, particularly oppressive. His coat was tight buttoned and his stiff white collar manacled his throat. His clothes seemed too tight to contain all of him. Yet he didn’t look hot and for some reason Matthew didn’t expect it of him. In not expecting it he grew even more frightened.
‘I have a message for Gran,’ he lied. ‘Mother’s sick.’
‘Oh, yes, the pretty young widow who has lots of admirers.’
‘Admirers?’
‘Men who visit and … admire.’
‘I don’t know.’ Matthew retreated a little further. He didn’t know all the men who joined parties his mother gave. The man might know her. Was he a friend? He supposed he might be.
‘Edward Kingsley, for instance, a handsome fellow. Wouldn’t he be an admirer?’
‘Edward? He’s Gran’s friend—and mine.’
‘Not Mother’s?’
‘No. Yes … I suppose.’
‘He likes older women perhaps?’ The words fell on him like bird droppings, obscenely sticky. He needed to wipe them away, to restore his sense of cleanliness.
‘He likes Gran. They talk.’
‘Ah, yes, they talk. Of course they would talk. Now what would they talk about?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Don’t know or don’t understand?’ The man laughed, a small laugh. Matthew thought it was probably so small because it couldn’t get up from his stomach through that tight collar. He had a vision of a man hanging by the neck trying to laugh. It would be horrible—very small—just like this.
Edward always laughed from his stomach, a great gust of pleasure that burst upon the air and reverberated like cymbal clashes unrestrained. When he was walking with Edward and Edward laughed, people nearby smiled. Even when he stopped laughing the smile stayed and passersby responded to that with a smile as well.
‘Tell your pretty mother I’ll be visiting again.’ And this time he closed an eyelid at Matthew and held out a penny. The bread cart was only a short distance down the street. A penny would buy that loaf.
‘No, thank you,’ Matthew responded, and backed away. ‘No, thank you.’
T
hen he turned and ran.
Matthew knew he could not go home. There would be too many questions. He didn’t want to tell anyone about the incident. He felt ashamed, not of his behaviour but of what had been done to him. He felt guilty. Not for his own actions but because of his teacher’s violence. He did not know why the anger and malice of others made him feel guilty, but they did. So he would tell no one.
He had many refuges. There was the river with its secret recesses of banks and fallen logs. Or the reed beds where he collected cigarette boxes and their silken cards thrown from the passing trams. There was the roofless, windowless house in the dunes. Sand had half-filled its empty rooms and he could lie there for hours sheltered from the sea winds, basking behind walls open to the shining mask of the sky. He could visit old Peter at Jerusalem. Old Peter never asked questions. Matthew had the impression that he didn’t like people very much. Perhaps he would visit old Peter. He wouldn’t need to mention school or the incident and he wouldn’t feel he was concealing information. Old Peter rarely wanted to know what other people did.
Once Matthew asked him if he read books. ‘As a boy. Now I read a bit about birds and snakes and lizards, especially the ones that live around here.’
‘But do you read about people? Stories?’
‘No. I’m not that interested in people. They’re too egocentric for my liking. Mirror creatures I call them—always regarding themselves. What other creatures in the world go round looking at themselves and wanting to change things to suit their fancies?’
Jerusalem comprised several acres of sandy semi-dune country near the river mouth. There the river seeped into the sea through narrow channels, which wound through reed beds or choked in marshy pools. Coastal ti-tree, tussock grass and succulents hugged the ground, crouched against the southern winds, violent in winter, cool and sharp in summer. They hunched and clung to their little piece of earth, tangling space at ground level, providing refuge for all earth-hugging creatures. Old Peter had bought a piece of this sandy land from the council, hoping to protect the snakes and lizards that inhabited the reed beds and the dunes.
Surrounding Jerusalem was a high boxthorn hedge and although there was a gate Matthew had his own secret entrance low down against the ground; a scooped passageway of hardened earth to wriggle through, while the boxthorn which he had carefully broken away, piece by piece, hooped above.
Sometimes, while wriggling through, he was afraid he might meet a snake. They basked on sandy hummocks or curled in the shade of low scrub. Little change had been made to the natural layout of the land. Seepage from the river provided small green pools where frogs spawned in the weed and where snakes could find a meal. Occasionally a snake could be found unexpectedly, stretched across open ground. On such occasions Matthew felt that he and the snake were equals, both inhabitants of the same piece of earth. He would wait patiently for the snake to slither away from his footsteps, or if the snake did not move he would creep on tip-toe around it, watching keenly to see that it made no sudden move.
He knew they were dangerous. When Gran first came to the house she had killed several snakes. She bent a piece of fence wire until she had a weapon strong and pliable and long enough to protect her and she tackled their unwanted visitors in the house. One day Matthew’s mother had found a snake lying on the hearth, like a cat curled beside the warmth of the range, head resting on the curve of a coil. It had looked peaceful to Matthew but his mother’s shriek had brought Gran running. The snake uncurled itself with one flurried motion but it was too late. Gran’s wire thumped on its back, once, twice, three times and it was dead. Margaret sank into a chair, hand against her heart, eyes closed, lashes limp on her pallid cheeks.
‘My heart,’ she whispered. ‘A drink of water, Matthew.’
He ran to obey, looking anxiously at Gran to urge her into action. But she was calmly picking up the snake on the end of the broom before throwing it outside.
‘Gran,’ he had whispered, tugging her skirt, ‘Mother’s ill.’
Gran glanced at her daughter and patted Matthew’s head. ‘You get her a drink of water, darling, and she’ll be fine.’
‘But her heart, Gran.’
‘As strong as you want to make it, Matthew.’ And she disappeared through the door balancing the slim body of the snake across the broom handle.
Matthew brought the water to his mother, who gulped and opened her eyes. Matthew, standing close, was aware of their grey-green depths and the strange black encircling ring etched in the iris, as if something alive had been painted and outlined on a piece of white china. She smiled and put out her hand to fondle his cheek. ‘My little man,’ she sighed. ‘My little man who looks after me.’ And she languidly adjusted her position in the chair and put up a hand to pat her hair.
Matthew stood awkwardly. He felt that some emotion was required of him, as a boy. Gran did not make him feel a boy, nor did Edward. To them he was Matthew. But his mother singled out that part of him he had not yet grown into. He knew he should say something, but what it was eluded him.
‘Well, are you my little man?’ Her coyness invited him to agree while he longed to deny her possessiveness. He felt sorry for her, guilty that he could not answer some need in her he did not understand. He was afraid to hurt her yet as she leaned toward him and smoothed her cheek against his, something sticky like honey ran through his veins and trapped him.
His eyes widened and he began to shake. If he agreed she might demand things of him he couldn’t give because he didn’t understand. If he denied her she might turn on him and scream. He had heard her scream before; once at a friend who came to play cards. She had accused Auntie Vi of cheating and shouted her out of the house with thrusting hands and vicious starting eyes. Auntie Vi had never visited them again and Mother always referred to her as ‘that bitch Violet’. He waited for the screams but they did not come. Instead she sat up smartly, coyness replaced by anxiety.
‘Heavens, Matthew! Don’t shake like that. I didn’t know that you were so afraid of snakes. What wretched creatures they are. How much we have to endure in this house. Come, sit down.’ And she drew him onto her lap.
‘Gran!’ she shouted. ‘Gran. That wretched snake. Look what a state he’s in.’
And Gran had made him a cup of tea with several spoons of sugar and together they had made him lie down on the old settee in the kitchen covered by a rug. And he had felt a lot better because everything had returned to normal.
But in Jerusalem it never occurred to him that snakes should be killed. He looked for old Peter and found him carrying a cut-down kerosene tin. Peering inside, into what seemed a heaving mass of oil, he could see snakes slithering and slipping over, under and between each other like viscous fluid constantly stirred and erupting. They looked wet but he knew from experience when old Peter had held one for him to touch that their scales were dry like the back of an old man’s hand. He was glad they felt dry. It was a clean feeling and made him like them more. If they had been moist and sticky, leaving snail-like trails on his hand, he might have found them disgusting.
Creatures should contain what they were. They should not leave disgusting evidence of their presence behind them. Things that died and decayed did that. His father was dying. Often he saw his mother or grandmother carrying a covered bowl to the toilet, or heard his father coughing and spitting, choking, coughing, spitting. Snakes did not spit up a ghastly residue from inside them. Even when they shed their skin it lay neatly, clean and dry and perfect where they had left it.
He followed old Peter to a newly fenced area and watched him tip the snakes on the warm sand. They untangled themselves, like the yabbies, their heads making little darting movements and their tongues flicking silver in the sunlight.
‘Why do you call this place Jerusalem?’
‘I don’t. Others do.’
‘But you put the name on the gate.’
‘Why disturb people? Whatever I name it they’ll still call it Jerusalem.’
‘Then wh
y do other people call it Jerusalem?’
‘Probably because Jerusalem is the home of the Jews and they don’t like snakes any more than they like Jews.’
‘Who are the Jews?’
‘A tribe other tribes don’t much care for.’
‘Gran says there are people who hate Edward.’
‘That’d be right. People are always hating someone.’
‘I think it has something to do with politics.’
‘It usually has. The Greeks should be cursed for inventing it.’
‘The Greeks had snakes in their stories, too. Edward read me a story about the Medusa and she had coils of snakes for hair and was beautiful except for the snakes and they made her ugly. Perseus slew her.’
‘He would. Those old legends. Those Gods of Homer were roistering buccaneers who paid you immediately and in kind for wrongdoing.’
‘Do you know about them?’
‘I read a bit once. Personally I call this place “The Garden of the Hesperides”.’
‘But that was where the maidens danced around the tree of golden apples.’
‘They were night and day, weren’t they?’
‘Were they?’
‘Of course. And who appreciates night and day more than my little creatures?’
‘And the golden apples?’
‘Oranges, I suppose.’
‘Yes.’ Matthew was doubtful. ‘It doesn’t seem …’ He hesitated.
‘Right?’
He nodded.
‘Well, it’s as right as Jerusalem and I prefer it.’
Old Peter said nothing more during Matthew’s visit. He only spoke when he felt like it.
When Gran discovered that he was not going to school he had to tell her what had happened. Although he only offered her twigs and leaves and odd bits of grass of the story she pieced the landscape together. When she told him they would need to visit school to see the principal he cried. She hugged him and soothed him but remained firm.