Every Short Story by Alasdair Gray 1951-2012

by Gray, Alasdair

  June is too astonished to scream. She tries to stand which is hard without hands and impossible when Donalda sits on her legs and puts an arm round her neck.

  “Listen!” says Donalda, and her voice is not hard or cruel, “Please believe this, Senga and I make other peoples’ dreams come true but we haven’t begun to help you yet – you’re so locked up in yourself you don’t know what your dreams are. You’re under a spell and we won’t let you go till we’ve broken that spell, because you’re the loveliest thing we’ve ever met. But first, before Senga brings the teacher here …”

  She fastens her mouth on June’s mouth in a kiss which is almost a bite, and for a moment June enjoys a melting delicious weakness like nothing she has known.

  We will return to her later.

  A DISTANT COUSIN OF A QUEEN

  HARRY is a foetus before the sexual scanning of them is practical. She is pulled from her mother’s body through a caesarian section because the mother believes a surgical delivery will ensure her husband’s presence. Just before the operation she is told that a local, not a general, anaesthetic must be used.

  “I felt every bloody thing they did to me down thea,” she tells friends, “It didn’t hurt, but it was loathsome.”

  When Harry is held up in the air her mother says, “Oh God a fucking little gel! For a boy I might have whipped up some maternal instinct but a gel is not on.”

  She weeps passionately and the husband and father pays no attention to Harry, who is also weeping passionately. He pats his wife’s hand and says, “Don’t worry, dia, it isn’t important.”

  Harry’s mother compensates for disliking her daughter by wanting more from Harry’s nurses than they can give. For nearly two years all those who do the job resign or get dismissed before a month passes, often before a week. At last a woman from Greenock is employed. Her voice strikes Harry’s parents as comically coarse and ill-bred but her quietly servile manner is just right, and she can produce Harry anytime looking as clean, pretty and passive as an expensive doll. Harry’s mother wants Harry for coffee mornings, where she introduces her as, “My daughta, of course.”

  Harry sits with a straight back, hands folded in lap, looking hard at whoever is talking. This is usually her mother, but other visitors find the small girl’s close attention disconcerting. When someone asks her genially, “What have you to say for yawself?” Harry looks straight at her mother who tells the visitor, “Let ha off the small talk. Amusing topics are still beyond ha grasp.”

  A week or two later when a handsome military man asks Judy, “What a small people like you being taught nowadays?” she replies in a direct, clear little voice, “Please let me off the small talk. Amusing topics a still beyond my grasp.”

  This reply appears to delight all but Judy’s mother who pretends not to hear, but that day, before giving her back to the nurse she kisses Harry more emphatically.

  The nurse produces this perfect Harry by smacking and nipping her when they are alone together, not because Harry is bad but to stop her from becoming bad.

  “If I hear one word of complaint about you from your mother,” says the nurse, “I’ll do this to you,” and she systematically bruises parts of Harry’s body which are usually hidden by a nappy and rubber knickers. (Harry needs these long after babyhood). Sometimes the nurse says, “If you breathe one word about me to another soul I’ll do this to you,” so Harry learns to choose words carefully and avoid them when possible. By the age of four Harry’s face wears an intense frown as if she is trying to remember the exact shape of something stolen from her. This expression, with slight variations, stays to the end of her life and though she is not aware of it this makes strangers think she despises them. She grows tall, thin and wiry for her age. One day she unthinkingly answers a stinging slap from her nurse with a backhand blow of equal force, the first wicked act of her life. She and the nurse are equally astonished. The nurse has a cane she has often wielded as a threat but never used for a beating. In a mood of great excitement she goes to Harry’s parents and asks for permission to use it. She has never brought them a problem before. They dismiss her and put Harry in a boarding school.

  But a week or two pass before a suitable school is found. Harry is tended by another of her mother’s servants who changes Harry’s nappies and nearly faints when she sees what they hide. She shows it to Harry’s mother who is less moved because she is pitiless.

  “I’m quite pitiless because no-one eva pitied me,” she tells her friends, but she agrees that the blue, black and red mosaic of bruises is an ugly sight.

  “Paw kid,” she tells Harry who is sobbing bitterly at losing the one person in the world she was allowed to depend on, “I knew that woman was too good to be true. Don’t worry. We’ll straighten you out.”

  The boarding school is an elegant little Georgian mansion with large garden, shrubbery and paddock near the city of Bath.

  “Beware of me!” the headmistress tells Harry’s mother happily, “I am a very dangerous liberal, and an atheist to boot. But if one of my little gels shows religious yearnings she is allowed to attend services in the church of ha choice and layta, if she stays firm, may receive instruction. The Ricardos a Jewish, though not awthodox of course. Their daughta is now a nun in Stanbrook Abbey.”

  “Harry might go that way. One of my in-laws is potty that way,” says Harry’s mother carelessly, “Though he is a Buddhist of course. Yaw fees …”

  “No school has higha fees,” says the headmistress swiftly, “Not in Britain anyway. Everything the gels see, use and a taught is of the best quality. I have neva befoa taken moa than twelve pupils but of course Harriet is exceptional. She will not be an unlucky thirteenth. My small numba of gels lets me enshaw nobody suffas or is bullied during what can be a very difficult and highly formative few yias.” “I think most kids a improved by hard knocks in the early yias,” says Harry’s mother, “It toughens them. They learn to look to themselves, not to othas fo what they need, so in layta yias they make othas do tha bidding. That’s my experience.” “Many books expound yaw theory at much greata length,” says the headmistress, nodding and smiling as if she approves of brevity, “But I attended –” the headmistress mentions a more famous boarding school than her own – “It was and is a wondaful place with a wise and dedicated staff, but so big! We all made lots of valuable friends but I know for a fact that some gels had experiences which marked them fo life.”

  “And you emerged unscathed?” says Harry’s mother softly, looking hard at the headmistress. Harry’s mother believes all teachers are pæderasts: why else would they enter so loathsome a calling? She believes everyone but some people she knows belong to the servant class, so finds it hard to be polite to professional women who talk as if they are her equal. But the headmistress has agreed to take Harry so politeness is not now needed. After a pause the headmistress says in a slightly louder voice, “Yes. From what you tell me it is clia Harriet has suffad enough in ha short life. This is the first time I have agreed to take moa than twelve pupils and will certainly be the last, but I’m glad to help a child in Harriet’s difficult position. She cannot help being exceptional.” Still staring hard at the headmistress Harry’s mother’s face settles into the brooding frown which is always on Harry’s face. She has mentioned that Harry still needs nappies, but the bruises are healing so there was no need to tell more. She believes this teacher is only admitting Harry to her school because Harry is related through her father to a European royal family. Harry’s mother finds the connection useful because, as she tells her friends, “It opens doas,” but she hates being reminded of it as she envies and dislikes her husband’s family. She says at last, “I’m glad you think my daughta exceptional. Yaw old school wouldn’t touch ha with a bargepole so hia she is! But I hia the guardians have given you Amanda’s kid so yaw establishment probably instils the main decencies. I’m only sorry you’ve seen fit to admit new money.”

  Amanda’s kid is a millionairess orphan, new money is the daught
er of a popular singer. Speaking clearly and carefully the headmistress says Harry’s mother ought to meet the popular singer one day – he is kind, courteous and highly intelligent. Moreover, she enjoys having one pupil with a Bohemian background because it teaches the others to mingle without lowering themselves. While the last remark is emerging from the headmistress’s mouth she notices with horror that it is meaningless snobbery, that she is groggy with insults from a duchess she believes she is helping.

  “I’ve not been to Bohemia so that sounds nonsense to me,” says Harry’s mother, smiling pleasantly for the first time today and rising slowly to her feet. Not many do this without seeming decrepit. Harry’s mother unfolds her body in a graceful upward flow which seems to leave her taller than before she sat down.

  “Goodbye!” she says, extending a high hand which the headmistress automatically reaches up to touch, “No doubt you do yau useful job betta than most. If my daughta is spoiled by ha very expensive schooling nobody can blame me.”

  The headmistress was once a professional actress but finds she has been manoeuvred into talking and feeling like a caretaker with delusions of grandeur.

  The headmistress was once nearly famous as a juvenile lead in a 1938 production of Dear Octopus. Her love of acting was not strong enough to survive the war so after it three things combine to make her a teacher. She likes small girls, finding it easier to behave like an adult with them than with anyone else. She has rich friends who want someone they know to manage their children. Her parents have left her a family home which she can only maintain by claiming the rates and cost of upkeep as expenses against taxation. Most of the servants live out; she and a housekeeper and a friend she met at drama school are the resident staff. They teach girls between the ages of four and fifteen how to keep clean, to eat, dress, walk and talk nicely, to read, write and count. Visiting tutors introduce them easily and without strain to singing, music, dancing, art, history, the French language, tennis, swimming and ponies – there is an adjacent riding school. None of these pursuits is compulsory but every girl develops a good appetite for two or three of them. No class has more than four pupils and on bright days it is easy for everyone to move outside and continue their lessons on the lawn, in the rose arbour, in the summer house or sunken garden. A few ordinary things are not taught. Each pupil learns to keep her room tidy but it is cleaned by the servants. To the end of her life Harry panics if expected to make a cup of tea or sign a cheque and pass it over a counter in a public building. The school teaches one great falsehood: that the pupils are finer than pupils of all other schools and much finer than people who could never pay fees their own people pay. Apart from that it does more good than harm to children whose parents, for various reasons, hardly exist for them.

  There is a games room, a music room, a library and a lounge with a television set. On light evenings and at weekends the girls usually put on overalls or their oldest frocks and play in the shrubbery, which is really a wood thin in trees but thick in undergrowth. Here, playing mostly in couples, the girls make little nests and dens which they call houses, usually inside elder bushes because these have thickly overlapping outer leaves and a mainly hollow centre. Amanda’s kid, nearly thirteen, has a gang of two or three smaller girls who have built for her a complicated wigwam called The Fortress. It is made of branches, turf, poles, tarpaulin and corrugated iron with a very low tiny door. The shrubbery is out of bounds to the teaching staff because, “It is important that children have freedom to invent private worlds of thea own,” but the headmistress comes to know nearly all that happens in the shrubbery. At least once a fortnight each pupil is invited to a beautifully served dinner for two or a cosy afternoon tea for two. At these the headmistress chats about her problems and asks for advice.

  “I’m worried about little Harriet. I call ha little, you see, to remind myself that she’s only five even though she’s much talla than you, who a a whole yia olda. She seems to have no friends. What does she do in the shrubbery? She’s very fond of it.”

  “Climbs the tree, Efel.”

  “Try to call me Ethel. Which tree?”

  “The conker beoind the ollies,” says Linda, who was called new money by Harry’s mother.

  “The sweet chestnut. Not a bad tree fo a small wiry girl to climb,” says the headmistress thoughtfully, “The boughs and branches a mainly horizontal. Is ha balance good? Does she take risks? Eat a strawberry tart while you recollect what you have seen. Chew it slowly so that you enjoy every crumb befoa replying.”

  Soon after these instructions Linda says, “She climbs very slow and careful. She goes very igh up, crawls out along a branch as far as she can get then just sits. If you wive to er she pretends she can’t see. If you shout er name loud enough she goes back to the middle of the tree and gets onto a branch on the uver side.”

  After a while the headmistress says, “The tree is to Harriet what the piano is to Clara.” Clara is an eleven-year-old who spends all her free time in the music room. “Clara and Harriet a both very lonely gels,” says the headmistress, “But it is now too late to help paw Clara. How can we help paw Harriet, Linda? The other gels avoid ha because she does nothing but frown when they speak to ha. The tyootas a lucky if she ansas them with moa than a monosyllable and so am I. The only thing she does in the gym is stretch haself for ouas on the wallbaas. Thank goodness she likes clay modelling, but it is a solitary art. How can we help ha, Linda?”

  “The troof is, Efel, I’m too miserable to elp anyone,” says Linda, weeping, “I’ll allwise allwise be an applicant.”

  The headmistress cuddles her, strokes her kindly then softly asks, “Is Hjordis still beastly to you?”

  “I run errands for er, bring er all sorts of fings to add to The Fortress and she still won’t let me in. Every week the ole gang examines me but Yordis says I’m still too young and must apply again next week. And the exams get arder and arder! Oh I’ll never never see wot’s inside!”

  “Yaw in daynja of choking,” says the headmistress, “Go to the lavatory and wash yaw face in warm wata, ending with a splash of cold. Then come back and eat this slice of excellent cheesecake. I will then tell you exactly what The Fortress contains, though I have neva entad it in my life.”

  When Linda is calm the headmistress tells her, “The Fortress contains a quite valuable Persian rug, a mirra framed in coppa, a large glazed photograph of Hjordis’s motha with a very handsome man who was ha fatha for a whle and some antique knick-knacks. All these vanished from Hjordis’s bedroom soon after the central chamba of The Fortress was built. That was a yia before you came but they must be thea, apart from a few knick-knacks. She pawned these on a visit to Bath to raise money to purchase Turkish cigarettes. I will not interfia until she turns to marijuana. But the main thing you would discova in The Fortress is Hjordis in a bossia mood than you have eva seen befoa. I know you love Hjordis very much and no wonda! She is lovely, cleva, and very charming when it will get ha something. But when she was very small – much smalla than you, Linda – some terribly sad things happened to ha, things so sad I refuse to talk about them and Hjordis refuses to rememba them. The result of these sad happenings is that beautiful charming Hjordis hates and fias everybody who is not unda ha thumb. She can neva have a friend of ha own age. That is why she needs a gang and why nobody wants to be in it but the twins and you. The gang is a good thing fo the twins. It teaches them to work with a slightly larga group than themselves. And how very important you make them all feel, Linda, meekly following them about, running errands fo them and continually failing the exams they set! Without you the gang would fall apart.”

  Linda understands some but not all of this. She says, “If I stop trying to get in I’ll ave nobody to talk to. The uvers giggle whenever I opens me mouf.”

  “I can hardly blame them for that, Linda. I really think you ought to give me yaw fatha’s record for a while.”

  Linda’s mouth opens wide, her face whitens and she starts to choke. Her voice is like her fat
her’s, who talks and sings in the main dialect of Greater London. His new money has enabled him to buy a new wife and pension off the old one. Linda has been sent to this school to have the main dialect of Greater London rubbed out of her voice, the main dialect of the British rich stamped there instead. This has not yet happened because Linda cannot sleep unless she first plays one of her father’s records, turning the sound low, putting her ear near the speaker and dreaming he sings just to her; dreaming also that he, she and her mother still live in a brick terrace house with two cosy rooms downstairs and two up, a house with a small park near by where she can run and tumble with children whose friendly voices sound like her own. If someone suggests to Linda that she part with the record she starts to suffocate.

  “I apologize!” says the headmistress, flinging her arms up in a gesture of surrender, “I promise not to suggest that again. I will eventually destroy your father’s record because you beg me to and then you can begin to speak the language of Shakespia and Docta Johnson. But Harriet is a lot lonelia than you, Linda, and she neva giggles at how you speak. She neva giggles at anything. If you made friends with ha you would be helping ha, and yawself, and (I confess it) me! I am a selfish businesswoman, Linda. Mine is not a good school, it is a bad school if the cousin of a queen and the daughta of a famous singa are both lonely little gels hia.”

  Linda thinks hard about this, sighs and says wistfully, “I would like that a lot, Efel, but I wouldn’t dare. The troof is, Yordis would do somefing orrible to me if I joined the enemy.”

  “Is Harriet the enemy? I thought I was that,” says the headmistress cheerfully.

  “You are, but there’s two of you since Harry came.”

  “Let us have a glass of lemonade, Linda! I have not had so interesting a conversation fo yias.”