by A. J. Cronin
Out of the soft darkness the moon began to show behind the Ben, then softly it fell upon the waters, streaking the liquid blackness with a constant play of light. We had drifted inshore and there the trees stood darkly still, like plumes raised for the funeral of a god. No, they were simply trees … trees growing in a silent splendid land, bathed in the first twilight of creation.
Suddenly a fish jumped, unseen, in the inky shallows and, in a flash, a new mood was thrust upon us. I saw Gavin dimly, reaching for his rod, heard him whisper: “ There’s one at last.”
I brought the boat gently along the bank, dipping my blades noiselessly. I held my breath as Gavin began to cast, sitting in the stern, motionless, except for the slow rhythmic sweep of his right forearm. Now and then I caught the gleam of the rod, the shimmer of the wet line as it cut the darkness in a silver arc and fell silently, distantly upon the water.
Suddenly there was another splash, louder than the first; and with a start of excitement, I saw Gavin’s rod-tip bend like a drawn bow, felt the quivering vibration of his hands as they clasped the butt. As the reel whirred into the silence, from between his teeth Gavin said: “ Keep us away, Robie. Don’t let him under the boat.”
The fish was now leaping, dashing madly in the liquid blackness, sending up jewels of spray when he broke the surface. Backing from the point of Gavin’s throbbing rod, I did my best to keep him from beneath our keel. There was no need of silence now. My oars splashed as wildly as the splashing fish. As he started each rush I dug my blades frantically.
“Well done,” Gavin panted. “He’s a salmon. And a good one.” A moment later, “Ship the oars.”
The struggle was tearing the arms from his body, yet, though he well knew the thinness of the thread which bound him to the fish, he dared not yield an inch.
Slowly, carefully, he began to wind his reel. The moon picked out his taut figure, his resolute young face, upon which I burningly fixed my eyes, waiting for his next command.
The salmon was rushing less, Gavin was bringing him nearer.
“I see him,” Gavin said in a low, husky voice. “A fresh-run fish. Get the gaff. Under this seat.”
I crouched down and stretched my arm for the gaff, but as I fumblingly leaned over, my foot slipped on the wet thwarts, I fell full length across the seat, skinning my shins, almost upsetting the boat.
Not a word from Gavin, not a single reproach for my clumsiness. Only, when I had recovered myself and the rocking boat was still: “Have you got it?”
“Yes, Gavin.”
A pause. Still quietly, yet with a growing urgency, Gavin whispered: “He’s lightly hooked. I see the fly outside his mouth. We’ll have just one chance with him. Take your gaff, and when I bring him up, don’t stab at him, just slide the point under his gills.”
I took the gaff with a surge of anxiety, kneeling in the well of the boat. Now I saw the salmon, deep, wide and gleaming, of a size which startled me. I had never gaffed so large a fish in my life. Gaffing was a treacherous business. Gavin, who gaffed for his father, had often told me how many salmon had been lost in this last difficult act. I began to shake, my eyes blinked. My ears, too, started their horrible twitch.
The fish was near … nearer . . near enough to touch. I had a rush of panic, a frightful impulse to impale this great slippery creature with my lance. But no, pale as death, shivering with ague, I waited till Gavin turned him over, then I slipped the gaff under his jaw and brought him quietly over the gunwale. Now Gavin crouched beside me. The moon, riding serene and high in the night sky, showed two boys, near to each other, peering in silent rapture at the noble fish, curving and glimmering, in the bottom of the boat.
Yet, gazing at the defeated salmon, I felt, suddenly, a sad constriction of my heart. I thought:
“Gavin and I … One of us must be defeated.”
Chapter Six
Next morning we slept late in our bunks at the fishing bothy, and when Mrs. Glen had given us breakfast Gavin took his father’s hunting knife and in the bright sunshine outside the cottage divided the salmon cleanly in two. The firm pink flesh, with a darker core and a backbone like a pearl button, showed the fish to be in perfect condition.
“We’ll toss,” Gavin said. “That’s the fair way. I’d say there was six pounds in each piece. But the tail-half is the best.”
He spun a sixpence and I guessed right.
Gavin smiled generously. “Remember: Boil for only twenty minutes. It makes grand eating that way.”
We wrapped our pieces in green rushes and placed them in the basket carrier of Gavin’s bicycle. Then we said good-bye to Mrs. Glen and arranged ourselves on the bicycle—Gavin on the pedals, I perched on the “ backstep” of the machine. We took turns in pedalling, dividing our labour as we had divided the fish, all the way to Levenford.
It was the dinner hour when I got to Lomond View. Papa and Mama were seated at the table as I entered the kitchen, aware that I had played truant, yet conscious of my peace offering, this precious half-salmon which would surely “do us,” in Mama’s phrase, for several days at least.
“Where have you been?” Sunk a little in his chair, Papa spoke in the contained, rather bloodless fashion now habitual with him and which seemed to date from that morning, months ago, when with a strange air he refused his boiled egg at breakfast, remarking steadily to Mama: “ I want you to stop giving me ‘kitchen.’ We all eat far too much. The doctors say that heavy meals are bad for you.”
“I told you, Papa,” Mama now interposed. “ Robie’s been up the Loch. He mentioned that he mightn’t be back last night.”
Quickly, I put my bundle on the table. “Look what I’ve brought you. Gavin caught it but I gaffed it.”
Mama parted the green rushes. She exclaimed, in pleased surprise, “Good for you, Robie.”
I drank in her praise, eagerly, hoping also for a word from Papa. He was gazing at the fish, remotely, yet with a curious fascination. He was a man who seldom smiled; as for laughter, it was completely foreign to him; but now a kind of pale gleam lit up his face.
“It’s a nice bit fish.” He paused. “But what would we do with salmon? Far too rich. It would only upset our stomachs.” He added, “Take it down to Donaldson’s this afternoon.”
“Oh, no, Papa.” Mama’s eyes became troubled, and her forehead furrowed. “Let us keep a few slices anyway.”
“Take it all down,” Papa said abstractedly. “Salmon is scarce. It’s fetching three and six a pound—apparently there’s fools that’ll pay such a ransom. Donaldson should give us at least half a crown.”
I stood aghast. Take this lovely salmon, which would enrich our meagre table, and sell it to the fishmonger! Papa could not mean it. But he had already resumed eating and Mama, with a nervous constriction of her lips, was saying to me as she spooned out the potato-bake remaining in the ashet: “Here’s your lunch then, dear. Sit in.”
That afternoon, I carried the fish down to Donaldson’s in the High Street. Miserably, I handed my rush-covered burden to stout, red-faced Mr. Donaldson in his blue-striped apron, white jacket, and black straw hat. I was quite incapable of selling, of driving any bargain; but clearly Papa had “looked in” on his way to the office. Mr. Donaldson placed the salmon without a word on the white enamel scales. Six pounds exactly. Gavin’s true eye had not lied. The big fishmonger, stroking his moustache, looked at me oddly.
“You caught it up the Loch?”
I nodded.
“Did he put up a good fight?”
“Yes.” The memory of last night, the Loch, the moonlight, the comradeship, the splendid struggle, made me lower my eyes.
When Donaldson came back from his till, which was in a little glass-enclosed booth at the back, he said to me: “ Six pounds at half a crown the pound makes fifteen shillings neat. Fifteen pieces of silver, boy. Give it to Mr. Leckie with my compliments.” He stood watching me as I went out of the shop.
Immediately Papa came in that evening I gave him the money, which
had made a heavy lump in my pocket all the afternoon. He nodded and ran it out of his cupped hand into his leather purse: he had a very expert touch with any kind of coins.
During tea he was in an agreeable mood. He told Mama that he had met Mr. Cleghorn on his way home. The Waterworks Superintendent was looking very poorly, quite failed in fact, and it was rumoured he was suffering from a stone in the kidney. There was good reason to believe that, even if this condition did not “carry him off,” his retirement must be only a matter of months.
Papa’s tone was unusually cheerful as he discussed Mr. Cleghorn’s probable demise. As he rose he said: “Come into the parlour, Robert. I want a word with you.”
We sat at the window, by the vase of dried esparto grass, behind the lace curtains in the unused room. Outside the green chestnut boughs were prancing, like mettled horses, in the breeze.
Papa studied me with reflective kindness, his pale lips pursed, the tips of his fingers pressed together.
“You’re getting quite a big lad now, Robert. You’ve done well at school. I’m very satisfied with you.”
I reddened—Papa did not praise me often. He added: “I hope you feel that we have done the right thing by you.”
“Oh, I do, Papa. I’m most grateful for everything.”
“Mr. Reid came into the office to-day with a paper he wanted signed. We had a long talk about your future.” He cleared his throat. “ Have you any views on the subject yourself?”
My heart was full. “Mr. Reid probably told you, Papa, I’d … I’d give anything to study medicine at Winton University.”
Papa seemed to shrink a little, actually to diminish in size. Perhaps he was only settling deeper in his chair. He forced a smile.
“You know we are not made of money, Robert.”
“But Papa … Didn’t Mr. Reid speak to you about the Marshall?”
“He did, Robert.” A spot of colour showed on Papa’s transparent cheek; he looked at me earnestly, as though he were defending me, with indignation, against some deception. “And I told him it was most misguided to have raised your hopes with such a wild idea. Mr. Reid presumes beyond his position, and I don’t like his radical views. Any examination is unpredictable—as Murdoch’s experience showed. And the Marshall! Why, the competition for that Bursary is tremendous. Frankly—without wishing to offend you—I don’t believe you are capable of winning it.”
“But you’ll let me try.” I gulped out the words with sudden anxiety.
The “peaky” look deepened on Papa’s thin face. He glanced away from me, out of the window.
“In your own interests, I can’t, Robert. It would only put all sorts of wrong notions in your head. Even if you did win, I couldn’t afford to let you go another five years without earning a penny piece. A great deal of outlay has been incurred in your behalf. It’s high time you started to pay it back.”
“But, Papa …” I pleaded desperately, then broke off, feeling myself turn white and sick. I wanted to explain that I would pay him back twice over if only he would give me my chance, to tell him that what I lacked in brilliance I would make up in solid work. But I sat crushed and speechless. I knew it would be useless—there was no arguing with Papa. Like most weak men he attached the utmost importance to not changing his mind. There was no rancour in his attitude—he never used me harshly; in fact it was his boast that he had not laid a finger on me in his life. Moved by the strange forces which worked within him, he had actually persuaded himself that he was “ doing this for the best.”
“As a matter of fact,” he went on consolingly, “I saw the head timekeeper about you last week. If you go into the Works this summer you’ll learn your trade before you’re twenty-one. And you’ll be earning good wages all the time, contributing to the upkeep of the household. Under the circumstances isn’t that the most sensible thing you could do?”
I gave an inarticulate murmur. I did not want to go in for engineering, I suspected that I was unfitted for the three years’ apprenticeship in the foundry. Even if he were right, all the reason in the world would not assuage the tearing bitterness in my heart.
Papa stood up. “I’ve no doubt it’s a disappointment.” He sighed and patted me on the shoulder as he left the room. “Beggars can’t be choosers, my boy.”
I remained seated, with bowed head. He had made all arrangements at the Works—that, no doubt, was the news Mama had written Kate the other day. As I thought of my buoyant hopes, my talks with Alison and Gavin, the whole foolish structure I had raised, water ran down the inside of my nose. I groaned.
I wanted to be like Julius Cæsar and Napoleon. But I was still myself.
Chapter Seven
The days dragged on and I was in despair. On Thursday, shortly before the close of the Easter vacation, I was mowing Mrs. Bosomley’s back green—Papa had an arrangement with our neighbour whereby, for a shilling a month, I kept her grass cut and tidy. These minor earnings of mine were not paid to Papa, that would have been undignified, but, since Mrs. Bosomley owned our house as well as her own—the double property had been left her by her husband—Papa kept a careful record and deducted the exact amount every quarter from the cheque he wrote her for rent.
This afternoon, when I had finished and was putting away the machine, she came to the window, beckoned me inside and set before me a slice of cold apple dumpling and a cup of tea.
Drinking her own very strong tea, which she took without sugar, she watched me with an expression of lively disapproval. She had become stouter and more matronly, and her face, with its network of fine veins over the cheekbones, had a sort of battered look, like an old-time boxer’s; but her eye was bright, and her lips had a humorous twist which showed that she was very much alive.
“Robert,” she said at last, “ I’m sorry to tell you that you are getting more and more like a horse.”
“Am I, Mrs. Bosomley?” I stammered dismally.
She nodded. “It’s your face. It grows longer every day. Why in the name of goodness are you such a melancholy boy?”
“I suppose I’m just naturally sad, Mrs. Bosomley.”
“Do you enjoy being miserable?”
“No …” I choked dryly over the dumpling, although it was lusciously damp with fruit. “Not as a general rule, Mrs. Bosomley. But sometimes I’m sad and happy at the same time.”
“Are you sad and happy now?”
“No … I’m afraid I’m just sad.”
Mrs. Bosomley shook her head and lit a cigarette. She smoked so much her fingers were stained with nicotine—that was one of the things which made her different from the more conventional residents of Drumbuck Road. There were all sorts of stories about her but she did not seem to mind public opinion in the slightest. She was original, quick-tempered, kind. Murdoch told me she used to quarrel furiously with her husband and fling dishes at him—Murdoch could hear them through the wall—and the next minute she would be out with him in the garden, calling him pet names, with her arm round his waist.
She reached out abruptly. “Let me read your cup and see if I can’t find something cheerful in it.”
Revolving my empty cup between her fingers, with the cigarette in the corner of her mouth to keep the smoke out of her eyes, she examined the tea leaves at the bottom. She was an excellent cup reader, understood about dreams and the lines of the hand and could tell fortunes with the cards as well.
“Ve … ry interesting. Your aura is green … a delicate shade. You will be most successful in the neighbourhood of fields and woods. But don’t linger there after dark until you are a little older. You are fierce and jealous in your attitude towards the weaker sex. Aha! What’s this? Yes, indeed! You’re going to meet a dark handsome woman with a beautiful figure when you’re twenty-one.” She raised her head. “Doesn’t that buck you up?”
“I’m afraid not, Mrs. Bosomley.”
“She will be of an extremely affectionate disposition … the Spanish type … and crazy about red hair.”
But I me
rely blushed and she put down the cup and began to laugh.
“Oh, my dear boy, you make me ache all over. What is worrying you?”
“Oh, nothing very much, Mrs. Bosomley,” I said dully.
“I can’t drag it out of you.” She collected the tea things and got up. “ Why don’t you talk things over with your grandpa?” A slightly self-conscious note came into her voice—she seemed always to have a high opinion of Grandpa. “In spite of what they say of him, Mr. Gow is a most remarkable man.”
Unfortunately I did not now subscribe to this view. I was fond of Grandpa, but the days when I had run to him with my childish pains were over. Also, I had acquired the faculty of closing, like an oyster, upon a private trouble and of wrestling with it, as that mollusc might strive against its pearly irritant, in stoic solitude. I could not even bring myself to speak to Mama, who looked anxious and unhappy about me—perhaps I realized that anything I could say would only make matters worse.
However, it was apparent that Mrs. Bosomley had “had a word” with Grandpa, for on the following day he took me aside and made me tell him what was wrong.
I shall not readily forget the expression with which he heard me: the pained, bemused wrinkling of his eyes. He was a man of many sins, follies, and evasions, yet he was incapable of petty meanness—he could not understand it. There was a kind of grandeur in his face as he reached out for his hat and stick.
“Come on, boy. We’ll go down and see this Mr. Reid of yours.”
I did not care to be seen with Grandpa in the streets—his little peculiarities increased my own terrible self-consciousness—yet I was too dejected to offer much resistance; and presently, although I was convinced that nothing could come of his intervention, we were on our way, through streets bathed in Saturday afternoon quiet, to Reid’s lodging.
