The Man Who Wanted to Smell Books

by Elspeth Davie

  The others agreed they were not gods, and folded their elbows more comfortably along the counter.

  ‘In the end of the day – what’s left of your house anyway?’ said Joe. ‘Black walls and a heap of rubble. One or two memories might go on, though, might pass down through the years – happenings in the house, things that came and went.’

  ‘Naturally,’ said Duncan, shifting his elbows again.

  ‘Things?’ said Jim Paton. ‘Like what?’

  ‘All kinds of things,’ said Joe. ‘Coming and going. Swans – could be swans.’ The others, on either side of him, turned their heads to stare. Jim gave a guffaw.

  ‘Well, we’ve had a mixture coming and going in our house over the years – dogs, cats, canaries, even a hamster, God help it, when the kids were small, but swans! Now where do swans come in?’

  Though Joe was dealing with questions all day long and every day, there were always some – nearer the bone or heart – he was slower or even downright unwilling to answer. Smiling, stubbornly silent, he wandered off again to stare out at the cloud of dust which was now spreading to merge with the smoke from factory chimneys and with the colder fog from the great sea-river further out.

  Lines

  AS CHILDREN WE were afraid of this woman. Often she was in the park for half the evening, sitting at the bottom of a steep flight of steps leading down into the lake. The park – untended and usually deserted – had once been the small estate of a house fallen to ruin. Long ago it had been pillaged for its stones and lead. Piles of stone blocks and frames of windows filled its courtyard, and in rooms where there was still a wall, tall weeds grew with the birds and trellises of ancient wallpapers.

  At that age we had a zest for certain fears. There was the pale young man in red pyjamas who’d stood one night amongst the trees and lamps of the hospital grounds, bent backwards like a hoop to stare at stars behind his head. We feared and admired the strangeness of this pose. It didn’t have to be people. It could have been the pit at the unlighted end of town where dead cars had been dumped along with an uneasy heap of tyres that writhed and glistened on windy nights. It could be anything, in fact – anything to spike the blandness that our elders had provided to quell irrational fears. Of course we took their comfort thankfully when we needed it. Often, however, we suspected their version of certain incidents and characters was too smooth, too fluent to be true.

  A few years later the woman was still coming to the park from time to time. But it was different now. The end of school was still a good way off, but it was in sight. We were beginning to look ahead and we had a lot on our minds. The ambitious began to brace themselves. Others grew smooth, in their turn, and listless. The restless ones got ready to drop from sight as soon as they left the gates. As to the woman, our fascination in her had been much reduced. And the fear was non-existent, though she looked harder than she did in earlier days – the frown more deeply drawn, the mouth bitter. By this time we had learnt a few facts to add to the scraps and rumours of her life.

  Long before she came to this part of the country and while still a young woman she had been for a short time in prison. It was believed there had been a child’s death in the case, though probably not her own – and whether it involved negligence, mania or cruelty was not known. For some time afterwards she was held in care. Then she was on her own. This was the trouble. This was her huge grievance for years to come. She believed – whether with truth or not – that everyone now moved away from her as rapidly and in as straight a line as it was possible to go. At one time she had described this particular movement to anyone who would listen – turning on her heel and shooting her arms out in all directions to show the fearful speed with which they had gone, as though she herself were the baleful centre from which all lines fled off.

  Sometimes the woman would be away for a while, but she always returned to the lake. It was a secluded spot. Amongst the trees on the slope above the water were two white marble statues. One was a nymph who had glanced aside while stooping to wash her foot in a dried-up bowl. A few yards away was a young huntsman wearing a fillet of bronze laurel leaves which over the years had stained his nose and his chin bright green. It seemed to us that these two beautiful persons looked at one another with anxiety – the girl who tried in vain to wash her greying foot and the youth whose laurels and carefree gesture could never make up for the anguish of green acne. The young boys and girls of our group who came here to meet one another on certain evenings knew all these anxieties themselves, no matter how they were disguised by arguments or scuffings or the great show of scornful indifference that separated us. Yet we didn’t come only to see one another. For reasons not clear to us we also came to see the woman. We had mixed feelings. We came from curiosity, from long-kept habit. Sometimes we came as if supporting her in her isolation. Or we came determined to discover, by staring at the straight back, where exactly the streak of cruelty might be seen. We’d no doubt that it must be there – though perhaps long-hidden – there in the strong hands or the sharp elbow bent back to throw crusts to the water-birds as though aiming darts. Sometimes the forward jerk of her head would bring a loop of hair from under her cap onto her shoulder. As girls who’d never had a covering on our heads we discussed the significance of a bright red beret always worn slightly askew. A sign of one-time elegance?

  ‘But you know, don’t you, that the slightest tilt of anything on the head means dissipation and a lot more?’ said Clara who, though the youngest of us, already wore a braid on top of her head smooth as the plaited crust on a white loaf. ‘And when I say anything on the head I mean anything. Do you remember the first History book they ever gave us? Those tilted crowns on the kings and queens – the wicked ones, I mean? It was meant to help you remember the Good from the Bad. And just in case you didn’t get the message they made the worst ones cross-eyed as well.’

  ‘No, I don’t remember that,’ I said.

  ‘Oh yes, of course you must! And some archbishops were naturals for crooked mitres, and a pope or two of course. I’d never trust the slightest tilt now, not even on a halo.’ Poor Clara didn’t keep her resolution. She made an unhappy marriage to a man permanently on the tilt with drink and soon began to let her lovely hair fall uncombed to her shoulders as though she’d neither will nor energy to keep it up.

  The woman must have known we were all there behind her amongst the trees but she hardly ever looked round. Nowadays her main business was with the various birds of the pond. They literally made tracks for her when she appeared – converging from all sides of the lake and leaving the long, criss-crossing V-lines in their wake. I thought it strange to see the scores of lines approach whenever she lifted her arm, having known of the bitter account she’d given of all those other human lines that had moved away from her during her life. Here the order of things was reversed. Of course she also had the birds in the trees behind, waiting to swoop down when the commotion on the water was over. Sometimes a huge crow landed on the steps and stalked furtively about, ready to make a grab for any bits and pieces that fell from her bag. At the far end of the lake there were also two swans that waited for long enough before joining the squabbling ducks on the other side. Then they would swim languidly across, hardly deigning to bend the neck as they came up to the crusts, or even, at the last minute, ignoring them while instead they turned aside to preen their wings.

  One evening, however, the distant swans turned at once towards the woman when she came down. They took a long time coming over but the lines they drew on the water were as straight and parallel as a double rule. One boy in our crowd – a powerful trouble-maker – happened to be leaning against the marble girl, one foot on the plinth, an arm around her leg. As the swans swam up the woman suddenly turned and raked him with an unbelievably scornful and vindictive glance, at the same time managing to look triumphant as if asserting that she could draw this living white sculpture towards her simply by lifting her arm. Though we were used to every look and gesture the woman made, this
particular one – aimed directly at him – fairly knocked this boy, Johnson, off his perch. There was something about the look that got him on the raw. It made him mad. In any case he was a spiteful youth known for his bullying way with the younger boys and his knowing sneer for any girl who came near. It was a couple of days later, on a Saturday, that he came down, grinning, through the trees with an armful of toy ducks and swans. Who knows where he got them? He was the kind who would have swiped them from the prams and baths of babies if he’d got the chance. He might have picked them from a counter or from a market stall. They were all sizes including one ugly monster of a duck, for it was the time when shops were grabbing on to the idea that Big was Beautiful and highly lucrative. This particular bird, he explained, he’d got from his married sister a discarded dented duck already supplanted by a bigger.

  But there was worse to come. Johnson stepped back amongst the trees to collect a large holdall from which he drew a doll – one of those huge, coquettish dolls with blonde curls that can be made to represent any female image from infant to adult woman. This one, in spite of brilliantly-painted lips and curled black lashes, was wearing a baby jacket and frilled skirt. The boy carried her down carefully to the water’s edge, then took her by her leg and hurled her as far as he could throw. She landed amongst a circle of plastic ducks and floated there on her back, her plump elbows bent and her eyes staring at the sky. We would have been hard put to describe our feelings as we watched this object. The girls expressed anger and disgust. Some of the boys round Johnson laughed and cheered. But not for long. It was the sense of shame that came uppermost – the unexpected shame of confronting, out of the blue, the memory of something we’d once excitedly discussed – a cruel killing or a drowning, some violent, unspecified act which had lodged in the mind and which we knew in our heart of hearts we’d be reluctant to give up.

  ‘That’ll show her! That’ll give her something to think about – bloody, fucking murderess!’ yelped Johnson, stamping and swaggering about amongst the trees. He was not a large boy but he suddenly seemed hefty enough to take on a prize-fighter – bulging from his tight trousers as though they’d shrunk to bursting.

  Our shame and confusion deepened so much so that when one of the girls murmured: ‘Still the fact remains…’ the rest of us drew near to have our consciences relieved. All except Rachel who at once said, ‘What fact?’

  ‘I mean the fact remains that she did – must have, whatever it was – done something black.’

  ‘There was never a fact. It was all hearsay from the start.’

  ‘Some of it was hearsay. But prison was a fact. Do women go to jail for nothing? No, it’s hard to get into prison if you’re a woman. They’re only too thankful to let you out again. So the crime must have been bad. A child was in it. A child – what else!’ We drew back again, each to her tree – ungainly, guilty dryads, preferring never to be released from wood or leaf into the occupations of grown women – mothers or murderesses.

  We were still around this spot when the woman arrived. She came down as usual through the trees looking neither to right nor left, but seeming to show in her face, as she often did, a kind of grim satisfaction in her audience. We watched her as she went on to the bank and down the steps whose bottom ledge at this time of year was lapped by a weedy brown water, scummed with layers of autumn flies. She sat down, gathering her skirts from the damp, and made ready to open her bag of bread. She raised her head and her hand stopped on the clasp. There was stillness all through the trees as the woman glanced around at the plastic ducks among the rest. Then we saw her look further. She looked out to where a pink, precocious child was floating. The coarse yellow curls had collected straws and leaves. Over the forehead was a small white duck feather, curled like a débutante’s plume. The woman stood up. She turned and began to climb quickly towards us. Just as quickly we moved back to other trees. We’d no doubt we were in danger. Even the bragging Johnson who stood out in the open looked a lot smaller in our eyes. But the woman never glanced at us. She was absorbed in the ground, searching intently among the stones and rock fragments that lay around. She took her time in picking them up – weighing some in her hand, impatiently discarding others, even giving one or two a little toss to size them up, before dropping them in her bag. All this was done with such relentless concentration we were in two minds whether to stay or run.

  ‘Well, I’m off then! Come on – unless you want your heads bashed in!’ said Sylvia who’d nevertheless had the benefit of a full-grown oak while some of us had a sapling.

  ‘Too late for that,’ I said. ‘Besides she’s going back. The rocks aren’t meant for us.’ By this time the woman was indeed moving down to the water. She let the heavy bag fall on the steps – the crash of stone on marble being somewhat softened by the bread. She bent, took out a stone from the bag and hurled it at a plastic duck. She hurled another and another. She went for each target with such hell-bent aim that not a live duck was touched. They swam some little distance towards the centre and waited, gently rocking, their tails to the bank.

  The stoning went on faster and harder. Some of the shots came so hard that two or three of the alien ducks disappeared completely under water, coming up again dented and twisted into peculiar shapes more like small coat-hangers than birds. The luckier ducks and swans were floating on their sides. Others had let in water and were tilted head-down as if drinking, or bobbing about with tails down, beaks pecking at the sky. The huge, discarded duck from Johnson’s sister had died a second death and lay crushed amongst reeds under the bank. No plastic interloper was left intact.

  At last there was an interval. It had turned into one of those silent autumn evenings where nothing moves. The marble statues which at first had seemed the only static objects in the park were now only one part of all carved and sculpted things. A wooden woman stood on the steps and a frieze of frightened figures watched behind the trees. I know now it was not only due to the time of year or day. It had mostly to do with waiting. We had been waiting ever since we knew this woman, for one word or sign to confirm for us – once and for all – her innocence or guilt. Out there, maintained in the space between real and unreal, a plastic child was floating.

  The woman bent and took a large stone from her bag and with one arm high above her head she hurled it down. It struck its target with a crack and the doll twirled once on the water. Its arms were stretched to the bank. We shrank at the sight. She struck a second time. The yellow head ducked and reappeared slightly askew on its neck. She struck again and the doll jumped. It floated out a short distance and the calm, incurious ducks made way for it.

  I remember how we came together gradually from our trees and made our way up towards a stretch of ground a long way from the water. There, our backs to a strip of rusted railings, we sat down – a dozen of us. We formed a council now or perhaps it was a jury. We believed the trial concerned the possible cruelty of this woman and the question was whether we had seen this or not. ‘Are you trying to prove some awful past act out of a petty one today?’ said one of the girls. ‘And there was never a question of battering a cat or dog or any other creature, let alone a child.’

  ‘There’s always been the talk of drowning though, amongst all the rest.’

  ‘This drowned thing happens to be a doll.’

  ‘The toughness of the woman!’ exclaimed one of the boys. ‘That she could go on pitching stones like that – bloody great rocks!’

  Johnson had flung himself full-length on the ground, exhausted by an orgy of vengeance and the race to the top. He had nothing to say.

  As for the rest of us, our muted talk went on for a while. Now was the time to write this woman off as human or inhuman – and move on ourselves, as almost adults, our peace of mind intact. It didn’t happen like that. For one thing various people had reversed the rôles and opinions that were expected of them. We were changing. We were divided. Some of us came to the conclusion that there had been no strong evidence against her at any time, neith
er in the past nor since. This evening had proved nothing. There was no cruelty in it. Others believed that she had been guilty of the greatest crime, that she was a cruel person and always would be. Clara, the exponent of tilted headgear, had taken up another position, if it could be called that. She was unable to make up her mind. She was not to be questioned. She was not to be bullied. She sat contemplating the lake and its further bank which was gradually turning a deeper blue. Her face looked drawn and shadowed as though maturing rapidly with the ending of the day, and such was the silent droop of her mouth that it was almost possible to guess how she might look in twenty years or so.

  It was the woman who made the last move, so to speak. Perhaps she had the last say too, though she didn’t open her mouth. It was late and one by one we got to our feet, brushing the leaves and twigs from our legs. As we got up the woman sat down. We turned and began moving slowly towards the place where the ground levelled off into an overgrown drive leading to the main gate. Two or three of us stopped before we reached this place and looked back through a clearing in the trees. The woman was sitting on the steps with her bag beside her. She had used the stones. Now she took out the bread. Slowly, with long, persuasive gestures she began to throw the bits out onto the water. The light was fading and the sounds with it, but there was a sheen on the surface of the lake and gradually we saw the long V-lines appear as the black and grey ducks came up. We watched these lines cross and re-cross, more coming from behind – and all converging at the spot where a shower of crusts was falling, to disappear like snow around the gobbling beaks.

  There must have been plenty of bread still in the bag but after a time, getting nothing more from her, the ducks drifted off. The woman sat motionless, looking in front of her. We studied her back for the last time before moving on. Given our feelings that afternoon I daresay it struck most of us that we wouldn’t want to see much more of her. As a matter of fact we’d seldom seen her face and never exchanged a word. It was her back we’d watched and judged. You could say we were analysts of backs and arms.