The Serpent

by Neil M. Gunn

  As he sat there in the darkness Tom’s thought worked in a curious way. This logic about God did not really touch his mind. His mind was in the place beyond argument where it apprehended in a stillness the forces that moved before words were born. And there he saw that what moved his father was not Tom’s disbelief in God although that was the visible power his father used. What moved him was something more terrible and penetrating than that. Grey and ancient and destroying.

  The clearness of his apprehension quietened him, and, crossing to the hay-stall, he stepped over the partition-oards and lay down. His head drooped towards his drawn-up knees and, curled there, with the clean hay-scent in his nostrils, he let his mind go in a tired craving for sleep. His mind roamed in a disembodied way, and if it lost consciousness it seemed to him that it did not, but was awake in many strange places, known to him but distant, yet near as clear places seen with the eye.

  His eye went up the hillside behind the croft, seeing through the darkness as in a dim light. Janet was coming along the hillside, not stumbling, but walking upright and quickly, yet not to outward appearance in a hurry, because she was coming to him secretly.

  When he arose and went to the hollow, however, she was not there. It was now so dark that it was like the dead of night. She would be afraid to come along the hillside alone; it was too dark for her feet. The full moon would rise late.

  He waited, and wandered over the hillside, and presently came to the corner of the field where the footpath ran down towards her back door.

  Stealthily he went along this path and, rounding the henhouses, saw the light in the small kitchen window. Other houses were at hand, and he listened for a long time before approaching the window on tiptoe.

  At first there was complete silence, then he caught quick feet that could only be Janet’s. From a little distance, he heard her mother’s voice in a harsh, querulous, summoning cry. Janet went away and after a time came back. Just inside the back door, he heard water being poured from a jug into a kettle, the clank of the lid, and in a moment the kettle being hung over the fire. Janet went away and came back again. There was plainly none in the house except these two.

  He felt he was intruding and exposing Janet, but he could not leave. You did not like anyone coming in on you at the wrong moment, least of all, perhaps, the one you loved. He had better go. He retreated to the corner of the henhouse, but stayed there. Clearly Janet’s mother slept in ‘the room’, Janet herself in the kitchen. In every cottage there was a boxed-in kitchen bed where the mother or parents slept, but now Janet’s mother was in ‘the room’. She would be safer there. Janet herself, sleeping in the kitchen bed, would be mistress of the house should anyone call.

  It was the first time he had ever thought of Janet in the intimacy of her night arrangements. His mind did not think of her in any prying way, but responsibly. She went into bed, as he went himself, and took her trouble with her. But a deep tenderness came upon him. And perhaps because his mind had been working so strangely that night, it saw her going into bed in her long nightdress, and in a moment he had called her to the door and comforted her, and her body was soft and her hair fell about his face as it had done more than once.

  He knew he could not leave now, and listened until his throat went dry. But despite this new excitement that came so intimately upon him, he stood there for a long time by the stone wall of the henhouse with the patience of a Red Indian. Then he went back to the window.

  When at last he was satisfied that her mother had passed beyond troubling anyone, he waited until he heard Janet move. With his finger-tips he beat four soft notes on the window-pane. He knew she heard by the very nature of the silence, so he repeated the notes, and, under his breath, his mouth to the glass, called, ‘Janet’.

  The silence now so startled him that he looked swiftly around at the night. But at last there was movement, the quiet closing of a door, feet stirring in the little back porch, a slow, careful opening of the outside door. He stood before her. ‘Janet. It’s me.’

  She groped outward a pace and drew the door behind her, but not so that it would make a sound. She could not see him. He touched her, caught her arm.

  ‘Oh, Tom,’ she whispered, ‘go away, go away at once!’ Her manner was agitated and intense.

  But he put his arms round her and drew her to him, murmuring it was all right. She struggled against his arms like one caught in a trap. Her body was soft and strong and slithered in his grip. She had an overcoat on.

  But he could not let her go, could not be defeated, could not walk away with the bitter feeling that his intrusion had been worse than futile. So he tried to soothe her, fighting her strength. She brought her right elbow against his chest and her forearm, extending upward, laid a firm repelling palm on his mouth. At the same time she seemed to stand still and listen. He listened with her. There was no movement. No sound.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he murmured calmly. ‘No need to be frightened.’ He brought down her arm firmly.

  ‘Oh, Tom, go away,’ she whispered, and then she collapsed against him, her face in the hollow between his neck and shoulder.

  He knew there was no desire for love-making in her now, only the need for protection, the need to let go and forget. And sweet it was to surround her with assurance, and caress her, holding her to him. Her hair had the smell of sleep, and this brought her very near to him, beyond all artifice, and he kissed her hair and breathed in her living human body. She had given way completely, like one fallen asleep, and standing there, utterly still, his senses wide awake and listening as it were a little beyond him, alert in a subtle triumph against the night and all life’s circumstance, he had a man’s deep tenderness for her in her trouble, held quietly in strength.

  This strange suspension of her being, which had more than once irked him and touched him with a finger of panic, now did not disturb him, and he listened for her, aware as he listened that in her mother might be a cunning stealth. But he was equal to all chances of the night, and when she stirred and began to push away from him, he spoke in a soft friendly voice.

  In a moment he saw that whereas she would have fled from ardency, from this smiling friendliness, this cool care of her, she could not go away.

  ‘Don’t be frightened of anything in the world, Janet. I’ll always come to you. I’ll always save you.’ His voice was gentle and eager.

  But now that she was fully awake again, she began to be uneasy.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come,’ she breathed. ‘You must never come again.’

  ‘Aren’t you glad I came?’

  ‘Yes.’ But she was disturbed, and suddenly her body went rigid as if she had heard a sound. With extraordinary force she pushed down his arms, and together they listened.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he whispered.

  But she could not quite come back to him. All the same when she said quickly, ‘I must go now,’ she brought her mouth near his ear and it was the living Janet who spoke.

  ‘Don’t go yet for a little while,’ he pleaded.

  ‘I must go.’ Her voice was nearer him than ever, and lingering. Her breath was on his cheek.

  He let her arms pass through his hands. She withdrew herself slowly, looking at him, and though he could not see her face, he knew now there was a smile on it.

  As she backed into the door, he started forward impulsively, meaning to ask her to stay yet a little, but as his out-thrust hand passed beyond her coat, which must have fallen open at the neck, it landed full against her soft breast and the nipple pressed against his palm through the thin soft stuff that covered it, and his half formed words died away.

  She drew her coat over her breast as she got into the door, and in a long moment she seemed to lean out towards him, though she was standing upright. ‘Good-night,’ she whispered, and slowly the door closed.

  He turned away at once, but half-way up the path he stopped, and then came back to the henhouse wall.

  He stayed there until he saw her light go out.
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  This meeting with Janet and the words his father had used about worshipping God had a decisive effect upon him in the days that followed. Hitherto he had always been dogged by uneasiness when he missed evening worship too often and too obviously. Now he said to himself: ‘That’s finished.’ It was a relief to have the situation made thus definite. His nature firmed up and grew hard and objective. Immediately the ploughing was over and there was nothing for a time to be done about the croft, he started building. Dovetailing the planks and nailing them to the cross-beams and uprights was a simple job, and soon his shop was completely enclosed except for the door and a long front window. He moved all his gear from the barn and established himself in the new building.

  Now his light at night and the cheerful hammering could be seen and heard from the road, and he had more callers than ever before. There was a brightness about the new white wood which reflected the light and quickened the spirit. No need for him to repel unfriendly or stupid lads. The others saw to that. ‘No room for any more,’ and Andie would shut the door and lock it. Tom would not have liked anyone to think he was inhospitable. The others knew this, and were delighted to take the blame. The new shop, with a blind on the window, became like a club, and soon the old arguments were in full swing.

  There was one dark lad, Alec Wilson, about Tom’s own age, who preferred a good-going argument even to a dance. There was more fun in it, he affirmed. In starting an argument, he was full of sly resource, would wink and smile secretly to those near him when about to set two combatants going. But as often as not he got caught up into the argument himself, unable to resist it, and then his voice was as high and heated as any. He would go miles to get two men arguing at each other. More excitement than in a fight, he said. In playing reels and strathspeys on the fiddle, his bowing was lively, his notes crisp, for he had the flashing spirit of the music in him. Normally he was sensible and good-natured, and willing to do anyone a good turn.

  But Tom developed a tactic even against Alec. It was in its method the tactic Tim had employed against himself, but whereas in Glasgow they had all got used in some measure to metaphysical argument, here in the Glen the terms of the argument could not yet be accepted as intellectual counters, could not yet be readily separated from the forces they represented. God was more than a word: God was still God, and all the more so because vaguely apprehended.

  The Bible was the happy hunting ground. ‘Name one single case where the Bible is wrong. Name it!’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean by wrong,’ answered Tom, drawing his pencil across a board against his folded three-foot-rule. ‘Let us say it’s obscure or not clear.’

  ‘Ah, that’s just because you don’t understand it. There’re many things in the Bible difficult to understand. Everyone knows that. That’s different.’

  ‘Perhaps you can help us to understand?’ said Tom with a friendly glint.

  ‘I might,’ answered Alec. ‘You never know! Name your case first.’

  Tom took up the saw. ‘God created Adam and Eve. Then Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel. These were all the people on the earth at that time, according to the account in Genesis, weren’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then Cain killed Abel. And the Bible says Cain went into the land of Nod and took unto himself a wife. Where did she come from?’

  This simple difficulty they had never pictured, and it now struck them with much astonishment. There was something so neat about the difficulty that their eyes shone. It was like a statement of some wild unholy humour, yet, by the devil, there it was!

  ‘I don’t remember – exactly – what it says,’ began Alec.

  ‘You go home and read your Bible,’ said Tom, and they all smiled, but with the restless gleam in their eyes.

  Discussions like these stuck in their minds and travelled with them. On Sunday in church Alec cunningly read the account of the creation in Genesis during the sermon. To a couple of friends on the way home he admitted that Tom was right. It was really like an unholy joke, and they glanced to right and left so that no-one would see them smiling.

  Some of these biblical difficulties Alec kept in his sleeve as ammunition, and when he had an opportunity with older men, who were not religiously solemn, he would ‘have them on’. Often he was surprised how a man with a tongue as ribald as Andie’s would turn on him angrily. Then Alec delighted in using Tom’s manner. ‘I’m only wanting to know. If you can’t tell me, it’s all right.’

  Eyes would stray towards Tom while he was sitting in church.

  But largely Tom was unaware then of what was happening, for the arguments were to him old ones and pretty simple or primitive. Moreover his own mind was taking on a firmer definition because of the relationship in which he stood to his father. In his private time, he could say what he thought. Than the truth there could be nothing more important, more final, in this life, either with God or man. That being so, let it stand. He would not go out of his way to hurt anyone with truth, but neither would he deny it.

  A dour, almost sullen, spirit which occasionally came upon him while working about the croft, particularly when he saw his father walking slowly or standing staring at the fields, would get completely dissipated in the shop at night. It was a pleasure to his whole body to make things, drawers that slid out and in smoothly, shelves and racks, small wall-cupboards with locks. There was an exactitude in measurement that worked like magic. All his books were now securely locked away from prying eyes. An instinct warned him against showing them to his friends, though it had been difficult often to refrain from handing one to Alec and saying, ‘Take that home and read it.’

  Meantime Janet’s trouble was also on his mind. And when next they met she seemed to him to look paler, with dark eyes large and tragic, though when she smiled her beauty touched him profoundly. That was a curious thing – the effect of responsibility she always had upon him. It produced in him a feeling of strength and tenderness, so that he would not have hurt her or forced himself upon her for the world, not even when all her body seemed compliant and lost in that small still trance.

  She wondered, she said rather shyly, if he had been upset. She sat with her arms round her knees. ‘She’s all right now.’

  ‘Does she often have these turns?’

  ‘No. About once a month or so. But they terrify me. She says the most awful things. I couldn’t tell you.’

  ‘You know you can tell me anything, Janet. But don’t tell me yet – if you would rather not.’

  ‘It’s about Father. She says the most awful things.’ Her voice choked abruptly. ‘I was fond of Father.’

  ‘Yes,’ he answered compassionately. ‘No wonder. He was, I think, the most generous man I ever knew.’

  ‘Oh, Tom,’ she called, and turned to him, and began weeping in harsh abrupt gulps. He soothed her as best he could, and spoke tenderly against the gulp in his own throat. That was the first time he ever used a real term of endearment to her. ‘Janet, Janet, my own love,’ he whispered, ‘don’t you cry.’

  She began to tell him then of some of the real trouble she had with her mother, slowly at first, wiping her nose, sniffing back and swallowing. The small physical mannerisms of her distress curiously moved him, setting her apart from him in the still chill darkness of the night.

  She knew when her mother was going on one of her bouts. She got restless and cross and wondered, she said, why she was living at all. She would be despondent and silent, yet the least thing would make her flare up. She would snap Janet’s head off for nothing. Then without any warning to Janet, she would be gone from the house and away on the bus. At first she used to say she had to see her father in the town. But now she did not say anything. It was no good pleading with her mother. At first Janet had tried hard, had threatened to leave her, to tell the minister what she was doing, but that only made her mother worse. When she was opposed, she became violent. She would nag Janet into speaking against her, so that she could become violent. When she was roused,
she was full of force and went about in her rage like a mad woman, saying the most terrible things, and doing things, too, that Janet would be ashamed to mention, and breaking things. She hated the whole place, she said, she hated her own family. They had all deceived her. ‘She said that – that Donald, my brother, was not born before his time, and that – that father –’

  She could not go on. The shame of it was too much to remember. And Tom said nothing. He sat quietly beside her, staring before him, cooled in a bitter forlorn way by this revelation of the fruits of passion.

  ‘Oh, she hates my father, she hates the memory of him,’ Janet said, with a sudden energy. ‘She hates all men. If she had found you that night at the door …’ Her body shuddered.

  She wiped her eyes. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you all this. But I have no-one to tell. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry, Janet. You must never be sorry that you told me. Never. Do you hear? Do you understand, Janet my own one?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He caressed her, but there was no response in her body. When she spoke again, however, her voice was more natural and calm. He asked her how long the turn lasted.

  ‘At first it was one night, and then she kept to her bed in an awful condition next day, moaning as if she was ill and dying. But now she has a second night. Then she gets all right, and will go to the shop and speak to the neighbours and be all right. I sometimes wonder if anyone suspects. I don’t know, but I don’t think so.’

  ‘I certainly never heard a whisper about it. And you know how things can go round. You can take it it’s absolutely dead certain no-one knows.’

  She went on talking as if she had hardly heard him. ‘Sometimes, too, I have been sorry for her. She’s not always in the same rage. And one night – there’s always a short time, in the beginning, when she can be in a fine mood, all alive and sweet like a girl – one night, when she was in that mood, she told me about her life when she was a girl. She loved her mother and hated her father. She said he was cruel and a bully and ill-treated her mother. She told me of the fine times her mother and herself would be having when they were by themselves. And she sang to me a little song that her mother used to sing, a fairy song about the mountains and the glens. Oh, I cannot tell you how much it affected me. It was like something in a world far away and lovely. I broke down and cried as if my heart would break.’