by A. J. Cronin
He came into the bedroom and turned up the gas.
Flushed with whisky, praise, triumph, and the sense of his own ineffable skill, he gazed at her as she lay upon the bed; then, still watching her, he leant against the wall, took off his boots, and flung them upon the floor.
He wanted to tell her how wonderful he was, how marvellous was the goal he had scored.
He wanted to repeat the noble, the historic phrase he had coined – that the Rovers would only win over his dead body.
He tried sottishly to articulate the words. But, of course, he got it mixed. What he said was:
‘I’m going – I’m going – to win – over your dead body.’
Then he laughed hilariously.
The Resolution that Went Wrong
Though poets have assured us that man is the master of his fate, and novelists presented us with heroes who, having once set their teeth, grimly pursue their purpose to the bitter end – in reality things don’t happen that way.
Life makes sport even of those gentlemen who so splendidly clench their molars; and, in spite of the poet’s assertion to the contrary, the bloody head is almost always bowed.
It would be pleasant to exhibit Finlay in the best Victorian tradition – a strong and silent youth whose glittering pledges were never unfulfilled. But Finlay was human. Finlay had as much to put up with as you or I. And, often as not, circumstances played spillikins with his most fervent resolutions.
One afternoon, some months after he had come to Levenford, he was sitting in the surgery doing nothing. He was, in fact, quite glad to be doing nothing, for his morning round had been arduous, his lunch heavy and late.
With his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched out, he reclined in his chair feeling the soporific quality of Janet’s suet dumplings steal pleasantly upon his senses.
His eyes had just closed, his head nodded twice, when the surgery bell jangled violently and Charlie Bell barged into the room. Standing on no ceremony, Charlie exclaimed:
‘I’m wanting my mother’s bottle!’
Charlie didn’t say it like that; what he did say was, in the roughest dialect of Levenford, was— ‘Am wan’in ma mither’s bo-all.’
But Charlie’s phonetics defy polite comprehension and must, with infinite regret, be sacrificed to more normal speech.
Finlay started in annoyance, partly at being disturbed, partly because he felt sure he had bolted the side door of the surgery, but most of all because of the rudeness of Charlie Bell.
He answered curtly:
‘The surgery’s shut at this hour.’
‘Then, what way do you leave the door open?’ Charlie retorted irritatingly.
‘Never mind about the door. I’m telling you the surgery’s closed. Call back again this evening.’
‘Call back! Me!’ Charlie jibed contemptuously. ‘I’ll call back twice for nobody.’
Finlay glared at Charlie – a thickset, burly youth of about twenty-five, with terrific shoulders, a pale, hard face, small, derisive eyes, and a close-cropped, brick-red head.
Well back on this bullet sailed a cap – known locally as a hooker – which he had not troubled to remove, and round his short neck a flamboyant red muffler was knotted carelessly.
Charlie’s air was altogether careless; from his earliest days he had never given a damn – not for anyone, had Charlie. As a boy he had played truant, been flogged, and played truant cheerfully once again.
He had rung bells, broken windows, and led a juvenile gang, had frequently been drowned – almost – by bathing out of his depth in the River Leven.
If ever a stranger appeared in the High Street of Levenford, you may be sure Charlie’s voice was the first to raise the ribald yell – ‘Haw! Luk at his hat!’ – or his boots, or his face – as the case might be.
He excelled at every game from football, played with a tin can in the gutter, to fighting – oh! fighting best of all.
Expulsion from school, when it inevitably arrived, was sheer delight. Then Charlie became a rivet-boy in the yard, where he heated rivets and tossed them to the holders-on aloft, not forgetting occasionally to drop one into the jacket of a colleague – a blazing pocket made glorious sport!
That was years ago, of course. Now Charlie was a riveter himself, acknowledged leader of the crowd who hung about Quay Corner, the owner of a whippet bitch called Nellie, a regular lad, known to his intimates as Cha, tougher, harder than the rivets that he battered into the iron hulls of ships.
And now, warming under Finlay’s stare, Cha thrust his head forward pugnaciously.
‘Luk at me! Go on and luk at me! But do ye hear what I’m saying? I’m askin’ ye to make up my mother’s bottle.’
‘It’s made up,’ said Finlay in a hard voice, and made a movement over his shoulder towards the shelf. ‘But you can’t have it now. It’s against our rules. You must call at the proper time.’
‘Is that a fact?’ declared Cha, breathing hard.
‘Yes,’ said Finlay heatedly. ‘It’s a fact. And when you do come again, perhaps you’d mend your manners just a trifle. You might remove your cap, for example—’
‘Holy gee!’ Cha laughed insolently. ‘An’ supposin’ I don’t?’
Finlay got up slowly. He was flaming.
Taking his time, he approached Cha.
‘In that case we might teach you to do it,’ he answered in a voice that trembled with anger.
‘Aw. Shut yer face,’ Cha answered flatly.
He stopped laughing to arrange his blunt features in a belligerent sneer.
‘Do ye think you could teach me anything?’
‘Yes,’ shouted Finlay.
Clenching his fists he rushed in at Cha.
By all the ethics of fiction there should have been a great fight – a magnificent combat in which Finlay, the hero, finally knocked Cha, the villain, for a boundary and six runs.
What actually happened was quite different. One blow was struck – one sad, solitary punch.
Then, two minutes later, Finlay woke up in a sitting position with his back against the wall, dazed and slightly sick, with blood trickling stupidly from the corner of his mouth.
By this time Cha, with his mother’s medicine in his pocket, and his cap more insolently atilt on his ginger head, was striding down the middle of Church Street, whistling a lively air.
Finlay sat where he was for a long time; then, with his head ringing dizzily, he picked himself up. Inside him everything was black and bitter as gall.
He burned at the memory of Cha’s insolence, raged at his own hopeless inadequacy. He was young, strong, thirsting to batter Cha’s ugly face, and yet – he groaned in a perfect agony of humiliation.
As he went to the sink and bathed his face, he set himself doggedly to puzzle the matter out. Cha could box, so much was obvious, while he couldn’t box at all. He had never thought about it even, never come up against a situation like this. And then, like a lamb, he had walked straight into that devilish punch of Cha’s.
Cha! How he hated him – the insolent swine! Something had to be done about it – something must be done about it. He couldn’t lie down under an insult like that.
To this effect he swore a tremendous oath – after which he felt better.
Then he finished drying his face and, knitting his brows, he sat down at the desk to think.
The result of that profound self-communion was to bring together Finlay and Sergeant A. P. Galt.
Archie Galt was ‘at the barracks’. Indeed, the worthy sergeant had been at the barracks, without appearing to grow one hour older, as long as most folks could remember.
A tall ramrod of man with a dried-up face, waxed moustache, tight trousers, and the chest of a prize pigeon, Archie Galt combined the duties of recruiting sergeant and Drill Instructor to the Volunteers.
Fitness was his fetish; he had muscles all over his body, muscles which stood out like billiard balls in the most unexpected places at the word of command.
And he had medals – medals for wrestling, for fencing, for boxing; indeed, rumour had it that in his day Archie had been runner-up in the army heavies.
Whether or not rumour lied is no matter; the fact remained that Archie certainly could box.
That first afternoon in the big, draughty drill hall he hit Finlay hard and plenty – not, mind you, as Cha had hit him, but calm, judicial blows which jolted and rattled and shook and searched everywhere, beautifully tempered blows, any one of which – had the worthy sergeant chosen to let go – would have stretched out Finlay in undignified oblivion.
And at the end of it, Galt pulled off his enormous gloves sadly.
‘It’s nae guid, sir,’ he observed broadly – for Africa, India, and the whole Sudan had not conquered Archie’s Doric. ‘Ye’d better stick to your doctoring. Ye havena the first idea about handlin’ yerself.’
‘I can learn,’ panted Finlay. The sweat streamed down his face; the last punch but one had taken him in the bread-basket and left him gasping. ‘I must learn. I’ve got a reason—’
‘Umph!’ returned Archie, doubtfully twirling the waxed moustache.
‘It’s my first lesson,’ Finlay doggedly persisted, gulping in the air. ‘I’ll stick in. I’ll try hard. I’ll come every day.’
The shadow of a grin broke over Archie’s impassive face, and vanished instantly.
‘Ye’re no’ feared,’ he said noncommittally. ‘And that’s aye something.’
So the campaign began.
Finlay stopped the stroll he usually took of an evening to the Lea Brae. Instead, he came to the Drill Hall, entering quietly by the back way after dark and slipping quickly into a sweater and shorts.
Then he set to with the sergeant, learning the mysteries of the straight left, the cross, the counter, the hook, learning to feint, to use his feet, his head – learning everything the sergeant could teach him.
He took some awful hammerings. The more he learned the harder Archie hit him. He found how soft he was – he – Finlay – who had always prided himself upon his rude health.
He went into terrific training. He rose early, took a run and a cold bath before breakfast. Without a pang he cut out Janet’s delicious pastry from his diet.
Deliberately, wickedly, he set out to make himself hard as nails.
Cameron, of course, sniffed something in the air. His eye, penetrating and caustic, often lingered upon Finlay when he passed a dish at table or came down in the morning with a slight thickening of his ear. But, though once or twice he nearly smiled, he said nothing. Cameron had the gift of silence.
By the end of one month Finlay was boxing well; by the end of three his improvement was really extraordinary. At the end of May he came on with a rush and, one night, having gone six fast three-minute rounds with Archie, he finished up with a terrific wallop to the jaw which rocked the sergeant to his heels.
‘That’s enough to be going on wi’,’ said Archie decisively, as he peeled off his gloves. ‘I’m not taking no hammerin’ from a laddie half my age.’
‘What are you blethering about?’ Finlay demanded, in wonder, with his gloves on his hips.
Archie took a slug at the water bottle, and professionally squirted it from the corner of his mouth. Then he allowed himself the pleasure of a smile.
‘I mean just this, sir. I’ve taught ye all I can.’ He grinned broadly. ‘It’s high time ye found somebody your own age to hit.’
‘Am I any good, then?’
‘Good! Man, ye’re damned good! This last couple of weeks ye’ve come on like a house on fire. But I aye said ye had the makings of a bonny fechter.’
He paused, then, with a sudden curiosity, went on—
‘Now that we’re as guid as I can make ye, maybe ye’d be telling me something. What was that reason ye spoke about, if it’s not too big a question?’
Finlay stood silent for a minute, then he told Archie about Cha. And again that slow grin broke over the sergeant’s rugged face.
‘Bell,’ he declared. ‘I ken him well – the bull-necked rowdy. He’s a slugger if ever there was one. But you’ve got the measure of him now. Ye’ll teach him a lesson he’s long been needin’.’
‘D’you honestly think so, Archie?’
‘Man, I’m sure on it. I’m not sayin’ but what it’ll be a bonny fecht. But as I’m a sodjer I wouldna like to be in Cha Bell’s shoes by the time ye’ve done wi’ him.’
Finlay went home that night with determination in his eye. During those weeks of preparation he had somehow managed to keep the matter out of his mind, but now he knew himself to be fit and ready for the fray, all his black rage against Cha boiled up afresh.
The memory of the scene of the surgery stung him more bitterly. The recollection of the rare occasions when he had subsequently encountered Cha, of Cha’s impudent stare crossing his own studiously detached gaze, of the shout of derisive laughter following him down the street, these burst on him with new violence and goaded him beyond the limit of his endurance.
As he strode up the drive of Arden House he thought wickedly: ‘I’ll make him pay. I’ll take it out of him. Not another day will I wait. I’ve suffered long enough. Now I’m going to get my own back.’
In this mood he entered the hall, and there, oddly enough, on the slate which was hung specifically for this purpose, he found a call written up for Mrs Bell at the little house in Quay Side.
Odd, in a way, but not unusual, for Mrs Bell was something of a hypochondriac, and once a month or thereabouts Finlay was obliged to call and reassure her on the origin of some vague pain or indeterminate symptom.
It suited him down to the ground. He would visit the old woman tomorrow – which was Saturday – prescribe for her, and blandly leave word that Cha was to fetch the medicine from the surgery in the afternoon.
The same circumstances, the same time, the same place – but oh, how different the result! Finlay set his jaw hard. ‘I’ll give him medicine,’ he thought viciously, ‘I’ll give him a dose he won’t forget.’
The next day came, and Finlay made straight for No. 3 Quay Side the moment he was through his morning consultations. It was a lopsided, single-gabled, old-fashioned bit of a house perched right on the river front behind the Elephant and Castle, and it protruded slightly in the rambling row as if the pressure of its neighbours had squeezed it out of shape.
Mrs Bell met him at the door, her fat, round face pulled into an anxious frown.
‘Oh, doctor, doctor,’ she protested. ‘It was last night I wanted ye to come and not this mornin’. What way did ye not come when I sent down word? I’ve been worried fair sick the livelong night.’
‘Don’t you worry now, Mrs Bell,’ he reassured her. ‘We’ll soon put you to rights.’
‘But it’s no’ me,’ she wailed. ‘It’s no’ me at all. It’s Cha!’
Cha. Finlay stared at her with an altered face; then, very thoughtfully, he followed her up the narrow wooden stairs into a little uncarpeted attic room.
There, propped up in a chipped truckle bed, garbed in a not very clean day shirt and the famous muffler, with a sporting newspaper on one side and a packet of Woodbines on the other, was Cha.
He greeted Finlay derisively.
‘What do you want? The rag and bottle man doesn’t call till Tuesday.’
‘Be quiet Cha, now do!’ pleaded Mrs Bell. ‘And show the doctor your arm.’ Turning to Finlay – ‘It was a scratch he got at his work, doctor, the back end of last week. But it started to heal, and, oh, dearlie me, it’s come up something fearful.’
‘My arm’s fine,’ Cha declared rudely. ‘I’m not wantin’ ony make-down doctor to look at it.’
‘Oh, Cha! Oh, Cha!’ groaned Mrs Bell. ‘Will ye not mind that terrible tongue of yours!’
Finlay stood with a stiff face trying to control his temper. At last, in a difficult voice, he said:
‘Suppose you show me the arm.’
‘Aw, what the hell!’ protested Cha. But from beneath the patchwork c
ounterpane he produced the arm, heavily, as though it were made of lead.
Finlay took one look at it, then his eyes widened in surprise. An enormous swelling stretched from wrist to elbow, an angry boggy tumefaction – of the diagnosis there was not the slightest doubt. Cha had acute sellulitis of the arm.
Making his attitude detached, completely professional, Finlay set about his examination. He took Cha’s temperature – Cha’s remark as he stuck the thermometer rakishly in his mouth being:
‘Whit do you take me for – an ostrich?’
But for all Cha’s pretence of coolness his temperature registered 103.5 degrees Fahrenheit.
‘Have you any headache?’
‘Naw,’ Cha lied. ‘And don’t think you’ll present me with one.’
There was a pause; then Finlay looked at Mrs. Bell.
‘I shall have to give him a whiff of chloroform and open up the arm,’ he declared impassively.
‘Not on your life,’ said Cha. ‘There’s no chloroform for me. If you’re going to butcher me at a’, ye can butcher me without it.’
‘But the pain—’
‘Aw! What the hell!’ Cha interposed scornfully. ‘Ye know fine ye’re wantin’ to hurt me. Go ahead and see if you can make me squeal. Now’s the chance to get a little of your own back.’
The blood rushed to Finlay’s face.
‘That’s a lie and you know it. But just you wait. I’ll get you better. Then I’ll teach you a lesson that you won’t forget.’
He swung round abruptly, and, opening his bag, began to prepare his instruments. Cha’s answer was to whistle: ‘The Bluebells of Scotland’ with satiric variations.
Cha didn’t go on whistling, of course – though, no doubt, he would have liked to.
It was a nasty business opening the mass of inflammation without an anaesthetic.
His stocky figure went quite rigid, and his face a dirty grey, as Finlay made two swift, deep incisions, then started to probe for pus.
There was very little pus, a bad sign – merely some dark serous fluid which oozed from the drainage cuts, though Finlay looked at it with almost painful care before he packed the wound with iodoform gauze.