by A. J. Cronin
Sam, with an air at once fascinated and bemused, observed the bicycle approach. It came so quick he wondered for a second if he were seeing right. Saturday, the night before, had been a heavy night for Sam, and his brain was still slightly fuddled.
Down-down-down whizzed the tandem.
Peter, with a face frozen to horror, made a last effort to control the machine, collided with the kerb, shot across the road and crashed straight into Sam.
In point of fact, it hit him fair in the backside as he turned to run. There was a desperate roar from Sam, a loud clatter as the pieces of the machine dispersed themselves, followed by a long silence.
Then Retta and Peter picked themselves out of the ditch. They looked at each other incredulously as if to say – It’s impossible; we’re not really alive.
Stupefied, Peter grinned feebly at Retta, and Retta, who felt like fainting, smiled weakly in return. But suddenly they recollected!
What about Sam? Ah, poor Sam lay groaning in the dust. They rushed over to him.
‘Are you hurt?’ cried Peter.
‘I’m dead,’ he moaned. ‘Ye’ve killed me, ye bloody murderers.’
Terrible silence, punctuated by Sam’s groans. Nervously Peter tried to raise the fallen man, who was quite double his weight.
‘Let me be! Let me be!’ Sam roared. ‘You’re tearin’ me to bits.’
Retta went whiter than ever.
‘Get up, Sam, do.’ she implored. She knew him well, having refused him credit the week before.
But Sam wouldn’t get up. The slightest attempt to raise him sent him into the most terrible convulsions, and his big beefy legs seemed now no more able to support him than watery blancmange.
By this time Retta and Peter were at their wits’ end; they saw Sam a mutilated corpse and themselves standing palely in the dock while the Judge sternly assumed the black cap.
However, at this moment help arrived in the shape of Rafferty’s light lorry.
Rafferty, the butter and egg man, to whom Sunday – with early Mass over – was as good as any other day, had been down at Ardfillan collecting eggs. And with his help, Sam was hoisted up amongst the eggs and driven to his house in the Vennel.
A few eggs were smashed in the process, but Peter and Retta didn’t mind; they would pay, they protested passionately. Oh, yes, they would pay; nothing mattered so long as Sam got safely back.
At last Sam was home and in his bed surrounded by his curious progeny, sustained by the shrill lamentations of his wife.
‘The doctor,’ she whined, ‘we’ll need the doctor!’
‘Yes, yes,’ stammered Peter. ‘I’ll fetch the doctor!’
What had he been thinking of? Of course they must have the doctor! He tore down the dirty steps and ran for the nearest doctor like the wind.
At that time Dr Snoddy had not married the wealthy Mrs Innes, nor removed to the salubrious Knoxhill. His premises still stood, quite undistinguished, in the High Street adjacent to the Vennel. And it was Snoddy who came to Sam.
Sam lay on his back with his mouth open and his eyes closed. No martyr suffered more than did Sam during the doctor’s examination.
Indeed, his groans drew a crowd round the house, in the belief that he was once again leathering his wife, though when the truth emerged the sympathy for Sam was enormous.
The doctor, while puzzled, was impressed by Sam’s condition – no bones broken, no internal injuries that he could find, but something seemingly wrong for all that, the patient’s agony was so manifest.
Snoddy was a small, prosy, pompous man with a tremendous sense of his own dignity, and finally, with a great show of knowledge, he made the ominous pronouncement:
‘It’s the spine!’
Sam echoed the words with a hollow groan. And horror thrilled through to Peter’s marrow.
‘Ye understand,’ he whispered, ‘it was us to blame; we take full responsibility. He’s to have everything that’s needed. Nothing’s too good for him! Nothing!’
That was the beginning. Nourishment was necessary for the invalid, good strong nourishment. Nourishment was provided. Stimulant – Peter saw that the brandy was the very best. A proper bed – Retta sent round the bed herself. Towels, linen, saucepans, jellies, tea, nightshirts, sugar, they all flowed gently to the sick man’s home. Later – some tobacco – to soothe the anguished nerves. And a little money too, since Mrs Forrest, tied to Sam’s bedside, could not do her washing as before.
‘Run round with this to Sam’s,’ became the order of the day.
Snoddy of course was calling regular as the clock.
And finally there came the day when, taking Peter aside, he articulated the fatal word ‘paralysis’. Sam’s life was saved, but Sam would never use his legs again.
‘Never!’ Peter faltered. ‘I don’t understand!’
Snoddy laughed his pompous little laugh.
‘Just watch the poor fellow try to walk – then ye’ll understand.’
It was a staggering blow for Peter and Retta. They talked it over late into the night – over and over and over. But there was no way out.
Retta wept a little, and Peter was not far off tears himself, but they had to make up their minds to it; they had done it, they alone must foot the bill, and Sam, of course, Sam, poor soul, his lot was far far worse than theirs.
A bath-chair was bought – Peter sweated when he saw the price – and Sam and his chair assumed their place in Levenford society.
On the level his eldest son, aged fourteen, could wheel him easily enough and ‘down to the emporium’ became a favourite excursion of Sam’s. He would sit outside the shop, basking in the sun, sending in for tobacco, or a pie, or dried prunes, of which he was particularly fond. Now, indeed, there was no talk of refusing him credit. Sam’s credit was unlimited, and he had his weekly dole from Peter as well.
When the nine days’ wonder of the wheeled chair subsided, Levenford forgot. Hardly anyone noticed it when Peter and Retta relinquished the cosy little Barloan house, and moved into the rooms above the shop, when the little girl gave up her music lessons, and the boy suddenly left the academy to earn a wage in Gillespie’s office.
The grey creeping into Peter’s hair and the worried frown deepening on Retta’s brow, evoked little interest and less sympathy.
As Sam himself put it with a pathetic shake of his head: ‘They have their legs, at any rate!’
This was indeed the very phrase which Sam employed to Finlay on that fateful evening on the first July.
It was a fine, bright evening, with the view looking its very best. Finlay stood on the brae, trying to find tranquillity in the sight.
Tonight his surgery had worried him, the day had been troublesome, and his mood, taken altogether, was cantankerous.
At length the soothing quiet of the scene sank into him; he lit his pipe, beginning to feel himself at peace. And then, over the crest of the brae, came Sam in the wheeled chair.
Finlay swore. The history of Sam and Peter had long been known to him, and the sight of the big, bloated fellow, fastened like a parasite on the lean and hungry Lennie, goaded him immeasurably.
He watched them draw near, irritably observing Peter’s physical distress, and, as they reached the summit, he made a caustic comment on the difficulties of propelling inert matter uphill.
‘He canna complain,’ sighed Sam. ‘He has his legs, at any rate.’
And then, instinctively, Finlay looked at Sam’s legs as they lay snugly in the long, wheeled chair. They were, strangely, a remarkably stout pair of legs. Fat, like the rest of Sam, bulging Sam’s blue serge trousers.
Peculiar, thought Finlay, that there should be no atrophy, no wasting of these ineffectual limbs. Most peculiar! He stared and stared at Sam’s legs with a growing penetration, and then, with a terrible intentness, he stared at the unconscious man. My God! he thought all at once. Supposing – supposing all these years—
And suddenly, as he stood beside the wheeled chair on the edge of the br
ae – suddenly with a devilish impulse, he took the flat of his boot and gave the chair a frightful push.
Without a word of warning the chair shot off downhill.
Peter stood gaping at the bolting chair like a man petrified by the repetition of dreadful history; then he let out a nervous scream.
Sam, roaring like a bull, was trying to control the chair. But the chair had no brakes. It careered all over the road, dashed at frantic speed into the hedge, overturned, and shot Sam bang into a bed of nettles. For two seconds Sam was lost to view in the green sea of the stinging nettles; then, miraculously, he arose.
Cursing with rage, he scrambled to his feet and ran up to Finlay.
‘What the hell!’ he shouted, brandishing his fists, ‘what the hell did ye do that for?’
‘To see if ye could walk!’ Finlay shouted back, and hit Sam first.
Peter and Retta have returned to the Barloan house. The wheeled chair is sold, and Sam is back at his old job – supporting the corner of the Fitter’s Arms. But every time Finlay drives past he curses and spits upon the ground.
Pantomime
As a rule, Levenford saw little of the theatre.
At the annual Fair, the Bostons and Roundabouts were usually accompanied by a canvas ‘geggie’, where, in an atmosphere of naphtha smoke and orange peel, you could, for twopence, see ‘The Girl Who Took the Wrong Turning’, or ‘The Murder in the Red Barn’.
At the other pole, of course, stood the Mechanics’ Concerts. There, on Thursday nights during the winter season, a bevy of refined ladies and gentlemen entertained an equally refined audience to songs and readings.
‘Mr Archibald Small will now give—’
Whereupon Mr Archibald Small would advance, blushing, in squeaky boots and a hired evening dress, and sing – ‘Thora! Speak ag-hain tu mee!’
Between these extremes Levenford went dry of drama, and the stern spirit of the Covenanters was appeased.
Imagine then, the commotion when it became known early in December that a pantomime was coming to the Burgh Hall for the week beginning Hogmanay.
Pantomime! For the children of course! Yet it woke a thrill of interest in the austerest heart, and caused a perfect flutter amongst the burgh’s amorous youth.
Even ‘Doggy’ Lindsay, the Provost’s son, allowed his interest in the pantomime to be known – a superior interest, naturally; a rather sophisticated interest – for Doggy was a ‘blood’, the centre of a little coterie of ‘bloods’ who set a dashing fashion in dress and manners in the town.
He was a pasty-faced youngster, was Doggy, with a tendency to pimples, a loud empty laugh, and a tremendous heartiness of style – instanced by a maddening tendency to slap his intimates upon the back and address each boisterously as ‘Old Man!’
‘Brandy and splash, old man?’ That, indeed, was Doggy’s usual greeting, as he stood knowingly within the parlour of the Elephant and Castle. He wore bright shirts, effulgent cuff-links, and, in season, a racy topcoat with huge pockets and a collar that invariably rose up to Doggy’s protruding ears.
He affected manly pipes with terrific curvatures, and rattled a heavy stick as he strode along. His knowledge of women was reputed to be encyclopaedic. And once he had kept a bulldog.
Actually, there was not an ounce of vice in Doggy. He suffered from a rich father, a doting, indulgent mother, and a weak constitution. Add the fatuous desire of the small town masher to be thought the most devilish of rake-hells, and you have Doggy at his worst.
The pantomime arrived, a number five company from Manchester, which had wandered to these northern wilds in the hope of putting Cinderella over on the natives. But the natives had been less amenable than expected.
In Paisley, not bouquets but tomatoes had rained on Samuels’ Touring No. 5, and in Greenock there had been a deluge of ripe eggs. So, by the time Levenford was reached, the morale of the mummers was wilting.
The comedian wore a slightly tarnished look; the chorus had ‘the jumps’; and Mr Samuels was secretly considering urgent business which might call him suddenly back to Manchester.
Two days after the opening night in the Burgh Hall, Finlay met Doggy Lindsay in the High Street.
“Lo, old man!’ cried Doggy.
He rather cultivated Finlay as one versed in the occult mysteries of the body. Doggy’s was a simple mind whose libido expressed itself in yearnings for an illustrated anatomy book.
“Lo, old man! Seen the panto?’
‘No!’ said Finlay. ‘Is it good?’
‘Good!’ Doggy threw back his head and roared with laughter. ‘My God, it’s awful! It’s rotten, it’s terrible, it’s tripe! But for all that, Finlay, old man, it’s a scream!’
He roared again with laughter, and taking Finlay’s arm, demanded:
‘Have ye seen Dandini?’
‘No, no! I tell you I haven’t been near the hall.’
‘Ye must see Dandini, Finlay,’ protested Doggy, with streaming eyes. ‘Before God, ye must see Dandini! She’s it, Finlay. The last word in principal boys. An old cab horse in tights. Ye ken what I mean. Saved from the knacker, and never called me mother. Fifty if she’s a day, dances like a ton of bricks, and a voice ye couldn’t hear below a bowl – oh, heaven save me, but the very thought of her puts me in hysterics.’
He broke off, quite convulsed by merriment; but, mastering himself, he dried his eyes and declared:
‘Ye must see her, old man. ‘Pon my soul, you must. It’s a treat not to be missed. I’ve front row seats for every night of the show. Come along with me tonight. Peter Weir is coming too, and Jackson of the Advertiser!’
Finlay looked at Doggy with mixed feelings; sometimes he liked Doggy quite a lot, sometimes he almost loathed him.
On the tip of his tongue lay a refusal of Doggy’s invitation, but somehow a vague interest, call it curiosity if you wish, got the better of him. He said rather curtly:
‘I might drop in if I have time. Keep a seat for me in any case.’ Then, refusing Doggy’s effusive offer of a ‘brandy and splash’, he strode off to continue his calls.
That night Finlay did ‘drop in’, having first sounded Cameron on the propriety of the act. Cameron, regarding him quizzically, had assented.
‘Away if ye like, and I’ll finish the surgery. Ye’ll be doing no harm if ye keep young Lindsay out of mischief. He’s a brainless loon – but I’ll swear there’s good in him.’
The pantomime had scarcely begun when Finlay slipped into his seat, yet already the audience, composed chiefly of young apprentices from the yard, was giving it ‘the bird’.
It was actually a poorish show, but acute nervousness on the part of the performers made it quite atrocious. And there was, of course, Dandini–Dandini, principal boy the second – Dandini, mirror of fashion, echo of the court, dashing satellite of the Prince!
Finlay looked at his programme; Letty le Brun, she called herself. What a name! And what a woman. She was a big, raddled creature with a wasted figure – a hollow bosomed, gaunt-faced spectre, with splashes of rouge on her cheek-bones and palpable stuffing in her tights.
She walked without spirit, danced in a sort of lethargy. She was not called upon to sing one song. Indeed, when the chorus took up the refrain, she barely moved her lips. Finlay could have sworn she did not sing at all. But her eyes fascinated him – big blue eyes that must once have been beautiful, filled now with a mingled misery and contempt.
Every time she got the laugh, and it was often, those tragic eyes winced in that set and stoic face. It got worse as the show went on; whistling, catcalls, and finally jeers. Doggy was in ecstasy, squeezing Finlay’s arm, rolling about helplessly in his seat.
‘Isn’t she a scream? Isn’t she a turn? Isn’t she the funniest thing since grandma?’ as though she were some new star, and he the impresario who had discovered her.
But Finlay did not smile. Deep down in his being, something sickened as at the sight of a soul’s abasement.
At last, amidst a hurricane
of derisive applause, the final curtain fell. And Finlay could have cried out with relief. But Doggy was not finished – not, he assured them, by a long, long chop.
‘We’ll go round,’ he informed them with a wink, ‘behind the scenes.’
Something more subtle, some richer satire was in store for them than the crude spectacle of a fusilade of eggs.
Finlay made to protest, but they were already on their way – Doggy, Jackson and young Weir. So he followed them along the draughty stone corridors of the Burgh Hall, up a creaky flight of steps, into the dressing-room of Letty le Brun.
It was a communal undressing-room of course, vaguely partitioned, with torn wallpaper and walls that sweated, but most of the company had already departed – glad enough, no doubt, to scramble to their lodgings while they could.
But Letty was there, sitting at a littered table, slowly fastening up her dress.
Closer inspection revealed how ravaged was her figure. She had washed the greasepaint from her face, but two bright spots still stood on her cheek-bones, and there were dark shadows under those big blue eyes.
She inspected them dumbly.
‘Well, boys,’ she said at length, not without a certain dignity, ‘what do you want?’
Doggy stepped forward, with a notable pretence of gallantry – oh, he was a card right enough, was Doggy Lindsay!
‘Miss le Brun,’ said he, almost simpering, ‘we’ve come round to compliment you and to ask if you would honour us by coming out to supper?’
Silence, while behind, young Weir struggled with a guffaw.
‘I can’t come out tonight boys. I’m too tired.’
‘Oh, but Miss le Brun—’ insisted Doggy, ‘a little supper! Surely an actress of your experience wouldn’t be too fatigued.’
She took them all in with that sad and almost tranquil gaze. She knows he’s guying her, thought Finlay with a pang, and she’s taking it like a queen.
‘I might come tomorrow night, if you cared to ask me.’
Doggy beamed.
‘Capital! Capital!’ he gushed, and he named the time and place. Then, covering the ensuing pause in his customary brilliant style, he flashed his gold cigarette-case at her.