Cotter's England

by Christina Stead

"Oh, there are such wicked people in the world. Doesn't it show a cruel nature?"

  "I went to see Mrs. Laws," said Aunt Jeanie. "She was always interested in Mary. She had an attack of asthma and, as usual, was spraying."

  "Yes, isn't it an affliction! It spoils the joy of life," said Mrs. Duncan.

  "That sort of thing makes you not want to go on living," said Aunt Jeanie.

  "Yes, it's a cruel thing," said Tom, "I don't know how they get their work done."

  "Oh, I don't think it could be as bad as that," said Peggy naively, "as not to want to go on living. People all want to go on living, don't they? I don't think you should let anything get you down like that, should you? Should you, Tom? After all, it can't be as bad as that? Nothing can be as bad as that, isn't that so, Aunt Jeanie? People shouldn't lose their grip like that. You need a sense of measure, don't you?"

  "Well, it's serious, Peggy. It can be very bad. Look at your Uncle Simon. Mr. Pike's is a very bad case," said the neighbor, Mrs. Duncan.

  "People may suffer a little, but everyone wants to go on living, why if they've got one foot in the grave, they want to go on living: why if you push them right into the grave, they're clinging on with their fingers to the edge. There's no such thing as an invalid giving up the battle for life."

  "Well, but people d—" began one of the aunts. "Well, dear, of course, they fight for life."

  "Aye, we all fight for life. We hang on long after we ought to be thinking about dying," said she, "aye. It's human nature, I know: and to hang on where you're not wanted you've got to be deaf and blind and old and daft, you've got to get a thick skin and hear the voices of the long ago, so you'll blind yourself to reality. Aye, fantasy's a bad thing, it blinds you to reality. And they say the sicknesses you get are what you wish for, that's the latest theory, isn't it, Tom? Aye, that's it. For if you remained normal, you'd have to see how things are, that you're taking up the lives of the young. It's a wonder they don't see what they're doing, wanting to be waited on when they've had their turn. It's like guests who came early and stayed late. It's a sad thing to see an old man trying to edge back when he's being put to the door."

  "Where's Mr. Cook?" Aunt Jeanie said in joking tone.

  "He's out somewhere with a bottle of sherry. He can't stand the house of mourning any more," said Peggy. "And I'm glad he is. As soon as he comes in, he swarms over us all to get to the fireside chair and there he sits for all the world like Pop Cotter himself. No wonder Nellie grovels before him, exactly like Ma Cotter herself. Get me this and do this and hurry my dinner and where's my tea? It was a dark day for this house the day that man crossed the threshold. Nellie gave up a good fifteen-pound-a-week job to please him and now she's down to five pounds a week, he's sick of it and he's wanting to leave her. It's only to be expected when a woman has no sense."

  "Hush, pet, she's your sister and a sister's a sister," said Aunt Jeanie.

  "A sister's a sister. That's funny: a sister's a sister. What are we coming to?"

  "All right, pet: now I'll clear the table," said Aunt Bessie.

  "Better watch her, send Tom out to watch her," giggled Aunt Jeanie, "or she'll eat the rest of the cake. Bessie's always the one to volunteer and then she stops a long time in the kitchen. Send Tom out and he'll bark when he sees her at it."

  "Leave the cake alone, Aunt Bessie," said Peggy; "George'll be in soon and he eats everything in the house."

  Aunt Jeanie sighed, "It's strange sitting here without Mary. The nights she was bad, she'd say, Don't leave me. She'd know who you were then and know he'd gone and she'd beg you not to leave her."

  "You were good and patient with hery Peggy dear," said the neighbor. "You were a real good daughter."

  "We're all very grateful: you did a wonderful job," said Aunt Bessie.

  "Yes, you did; I couldn't have stood it," said Tom.

  "She needs a good holiday now," said Aunt Jeanie. They all became attentive, for that was the anxiety. What was to become of the household? "You couldn't take her down to London, Tom, you and Nellie, for a couple of weeks?"

  "You know I won't hear of London, man, what makes you harp on it?" said Peggy to her. "I can't stand the place. I'm sorry I ever saw it: the south is no good for me."

  Well, they said, but she couldn't live here alone. "I have my plans," said Peggy. "I'm going to surprise you all. You think I'm a poor lass, a bit daft—"

  At their protests she said, as if they'd insulted her, "Please don't yell at me, I'm normal, I'm saner than any of you ever were in your lives; I'm the smart one and you'll come to your senses one of these days. You'll find it out. I'll send you a letter; or you'll see it in the papers."

  "We wouldn't want to do that, Peggy," said Tom.

  "Some funny things get into the papers," said Aunt Bessie laughing, "you wouldn't like to be in one of those items, pet."

  "All right," said Tom, "but you'll have to let us into the secret. We'll have to fix up something before Nellie and I go back. Nellie's got her own troubles and I'm a workingman."

  Uncle Simon had just come downstairs. He was very pale, but he was neatly dressed and shaved. His eyes were red. He greeted them in a weak voice.

  "How are you feeling, Mr. Pike?" said Mrs. Duncan.

  "A took a good bowl of prunes this marnin' and ye knaw it went right through me, did a good job; and now A feel much better. A got a thorough clean out."

  Tom and the women laughed. Peggy said "Ugh!"

  "Well, you're looking better, Uncle Sime," said Tom, "your color has improved."

  "Oh, A'm dyin' slowly. The doctor came and saw me and she said that's about the best way to die. Can ye whistle, Mr. Pike? she said. Then it's all right. That's an old one. A heard me grandfather say it, Can ye whistle? Then you're alive yet. Me grandfather was a big man, he came from a big southern duke's estate. He was steward. He was an educated man."

  "Now stop your silly bragging and blowing, Uncle Sime, don't make yourself ridiculous. You belong to another day and age, man. Dukes are not popular now, man. You'd better not let your relation George Cook hear your boasting about flunkeying for dukes."

  "George Cook!" said Uncle Simon, looking round the circle. He addressed himself to Tom, as one man to another. "It was a black day for this house the day that man crossed our threshold. Her father thought a lot of her, he was proud of her; he took a pride in her doin's. There she was a big earnin' woman and she gave it up to please George Cook. She dropped ten pounds a week, he said; and we could have used it in this house; she could have dropped it into me pocket, he said. Aye, it was a terrible blow to him. He was quite crestfallen. It was a sad day for this house, he said. And now," cried Uncle Simon trembling, "now he's gettin' mixed up with trades unions and foreigners and such things are not good for people. He'll end up in jail, George Cook will, that'll be the end of it; he'll go to jail."

  "Maybe he won't, Uncle Sime," said Tom gently. "He won't be doing any fighting in this job he's landed: it's quite a gentlemanly job." He laughed. The aunts listened carefully.

  "Then he won't be in any danger?" said one of them. "Well, I'll be better pleased when he's out of the country, then Nellie'll stay out of trouble too."

  "I wouldn't bet on Nellie," said Tom tenderly. "Nellie feels she's wasting her time if there isn't trouble in the air."

  "All the young people used to be so happy and contented and lead their young lives without worries and now these foreigners have come in and it's nothin' but trouble," Uncle Simon lamented.

  "What foreigners, Uncle Sime?" teased Tom.

  "Eh," he burst out, baited, "these Bolshe-viks, these Com-mune-ists."

  "Why, you crazy old man, go and sit by your fire and don't trouble us any more," cried Peggy. "And see if you can whistle, for maybe you can't."

  "Ye don't know," he said, looking at her with scornful pity, "what it was like in my day, lass. If A got up before six and warked hard, A liked to do it. A had no complaints: A was that strong; A felt champion. We used to go campin' on the moor
s and go far out towards the Cheviot, and we'd take with us a flitch of bacon and a ham and a side of mutton, a bag of potatoes and a sack of sugar and many other things and we'd do as we pleased and eat all a man can eat. And ye've never seen any such things and ye don't believe in them. A pity ye, lass, because ye think there's nothin' but what ye've seen in your lifetime; and ye've all been starved. Your father was quite right: he was used to his plate of meat. He and A came from another time. And there ye are standin' up for the foreigners who are makin' all the trouble for you. Why, when a man doesn't do his work, they cut down his wages and he can't eat proper. A woman told me A looked twenty years younger; and the doctor says A'm wonderfully young for me age. A had a happy youth; A wasna troubled like ye all are today. A'm sorry for ye."

  "You're young because you do nothing but sleep. I don't call that being alive. It's fit for a baby with its life in front of it, not for a grown adult."

  "Well A was disturbed in the night. A was thinkin' of me poor sister and all the days of her life. She had it hard long before ye knew her, Peggy."

  "All right, man, get along now to your kitchen! Don't be making us cry with your sentimental speeches."

  The aunts spoke with mild reproach to her but their attitude had changed since her mother's death; they no longer treated her as a child. She said, scolding, "And I didn't sleep so well either, I'm not blaming the old man. It's just selfishness and indifference to others, the night scenes those two make, never a thought for others." And while Tom stared unseeing ahead, their questions brought out that she meant Nellie and George: "You'd think someone was holding a strike meeting in the house. It was the same the time father died." The aunts so enlightened did not know which way to look and hastily changed the subject; but Tom said calmly, "Yes, they quarrel too much, it's not healthy in a marriage; but Nellie has got to have her excitement at all costs."

  "I'm not talking about quarreling," said Peggy, "I'm talking about keeping people awake, with domestic scenes in a house like this where you can hear a pin drop in the attic. It's a poorly built house, like all the rest: they give us the worst here in Bridgehead. If this house didn't have a house on each side of it holding it up, it would fold up like a playbook. I'm not talking about quarreling; there's been enough quarreling in this house for it to have deaf ears."

  Tom sat looking frail and young, in every way diminished by the powerful scrum of women which wrangled about him. He felt like a flabby football. When the aunts had gone he talked to Peggy about discussing private matters with them, "Where's your modesty, Peggy?"

  "I'll be modest, if other people are modest; why do they drag us into their private lives? Because they like it to be public. I know Nellie," she said, beginning her singsong, "I know what's going on, man. He's as indifferent as a block of wood and Nellie feels she's doing us a favor giving us a notion of what real life is like; not the life of ghosts in this house which we've all led and you lead too, Tom, for you're not a real man, like the others. I know ye all. Nellie always was an exhibitionist: there's nothing she won't do to be cock o' the walk. I see into ye all, man. Ye never pulled the wool over my eyes, though I had to sit back and pretend to know nothing when ye were all soothsaying."

  "Soothsaying," said Tom puzzled.

  "Eh, what is it, man, than soothsaying?" she said naively. "It's soft talk back and forth, isn't it? Aye,' she's the spitting image of Pop Cotter, Tom, man; don't ye see it? She's unscrupulous, man," she singsonged, "wanting to be the star performer. I see people for what they are. You can't buy me off, man. It's all there in the back of me head. I'm polite and decent to ye, but you don't know, none of ye, what I'm thinking."

  "That's likely, Peggy: that's what thinking is for, to be hidden."

  "Aye, I know, you're a twisted crowd, you'd make a hairpin look straight: the Cotters and the Pikes are a twisted crowd, honeying and hinnying, but I see what they've got in their minds, why it's as clear as day, man, it's selfishness; there's nothing but it."

  But though Tom was patient and Cushie cajoling, neither of them could find out what Peggy had in the back of her mind, and they were obliged to go back to London leaving her with Uncle Simon. She promised to write when she was ready. "You'll have a lot of surprises: I've been waiting on others and now I'm going to change things a bit."

  George went down to London some days before the brother and sister. They left one morning in time for the ten o'clock morning down train and as soon as they had gone Peggy said to Uncle Simon, "Now, I'm going to paint the inside of the house, Uncle Sime, and you'll have to get ready to move your things. Just make a little bundle of what's necessary. I don't know where I'll put you yet. I'm the lady of the house now, Uncle Sime, and you must obey orders."

  "It's not right what you're doin' and it's not right what they did," complained the old man. "They came here twice, those young people, when your father died and when me sister died and they consulted each other and fixed everythin' and signed papers and disposed of everythin' and never asked me advice nor consent."

  "What would they ask a silly old man like you for, with no future? You'll be dead soon, man, what good is your advice? It's no concern of yours what the young do."

  "Your sister Nellie asked me to be good to you, Peggy, because you're good stuff underneath; those were her words. She was always devoted to ye. Why don't ye show it, lass? A'd not bother ye if ye would be a little more like a woman."

  "What do you know of women, you poor old man? Don't talk to me about women; you don't know what the thing is. Do you want me to laugh in your face?" Laughing, hearty, she pushed him out of the way, leaving the dog to jump and tear at his jacket as they went by, and turned back to say, "Now, don't forget your bundle, Uncle Sime, man, or I'll throw your old things out into the street, out of the window and you'll have to go and pick them up and then maybe I won't let you in again."

  The old man, crying, went upstairs and sitting down, getting up, coughing in spasms, he rolled his bedding, his shaving things, his pension papers and pocketbook in a bundle and put his alarm clock in the pocket of his overcoat. Meantime Peggy was whistling away in the kitchen, like a blackbird in full throat. She had a beautiful whistle, a fine musical ear. She was happy. She took down the curtains, emptied out old drawers and cupboards. The sun was shining on the leaves of the sickly tree in the back yard and the dwarfed hollybush. The sparrows were chirping, flying in and out of the roofs with Uncle Simon's crumbs: all through the house was light and cheerful sound. Uncle Simon had climbed to the attic and opened one of the windows. The view was cheerful and even the sound of his alarm clock ticking away in the silence was gay. It reminded him of old days when he had been in the attic, as a younger man. He looked from the window over the rooftops up into the blue spring sky with fast-sailing clouds on a wind streaming in from the coast. The windows of small dark backrooms glittered, birds sat on chimneypots; through a chink of the red roofs, he saw a man on a bike balancing a long ladder on his shoulder, a broom, a pail and a paintpot balancing on that. He loved the attic and would have been glad to live there, but for the bitterness of winter.

  Presently, he heard Peggy and the dog on the stairs. "What are you doing up in the attic, Uncle Sime? Are you counting your money?" When she saw him in the front room, she looked relieved and smiled: she looked round at the bundles. "You've not taken out your money have you, Uncle Sime, have you? Leave it in the toolbox, man. It's safe there. It's in good hands, the hands it's intended for. Why, come on, Uncle Sime, you're not going to get anywhere piling your things up in the attic. It's old days you're thinking of, man. Come on, I'll help you down."

  She took up the bundle of soiled bedclothes, making a face and remarking upon their condition. "A'm not strong enough to wash them proper," said the old man.

  Peggy scolded him, but not very unkindly, as she helped him downstairs with his things, until she got them all into the front hall.

  "Now," she said, "ye can go where you like, man, you're free - as the wind. It's all yours."


  "Where do ye want me to put them, lass?"

  "I don't care: you can send someone for the bedclothes. I'm going to let you have them. You've got to have something with you or no one'll take you in."

  "What do you mean, lass?" he asked turning to her, standing as straight as he could, but his hands hanging to his sides and his face open with fear.

  "Why, get out, Uncle Sime, I don't know where. You've lived long enough to know. You know better than me. Go to the old men's home. You've got your pension. They get along on it and so can you. I'm not bad or cruel. I'm only taking my rights for no one'll give them to me. A young woman doesn't want to be bothered with you, man, don't flatter yourself you're a gay companion."

  "But where can A go?" said Simon Pike frightened.

  "It's good weather, man: I'm not putting you out in a storm, it's spring. Now, don't bother me, Uncle Sime, you've had your time, so get out and let me have the place to myself. I've never had a moment to myself since I was born, with the whole crowd of you round my ears, quarreling and groaning and snatching. Eh, it was agony, man. Don't you realize yourself, what a burden you've been? It's kindness to you to put you out so you must shift for yourself and find your right place. You've got into a rut, Uncle Sime, man. You'll be in your place, you'll be no longer a nuisance, people won't hate ye. You're better off than Mother who's in the churchyard: you're better off than the dead, or you must think so."

  "Where am A to go, a poor old man like me?" cried the aged workman. "You're out of your senses with pride, Peggy. Why, no one will let ye put me out! They'll bring me back again!"

  "Aye, I've got me pride. But you've got none, aren't you ashamed of yourself, a whole lifetime spent in other people's furniture? Now get going, or I'll set the dog on you. I'm only holding him in: he's impatient to get at you."

  "No," he cried. "A'm not goin', ye mad girl. Ye don't know what you're doin'." He resolutely picked up his bundle of clothes and made towards the kitchen.

  She laughed, "I'm crazy you say. Why, man, well, hadn't ye better take to your heels and leave me your toolbox? You don't want me to do something desperate to you, do you? It's all coming to me, isn't it? You'd do better to let me have it now, when I want it. If I'm tormented and worried by the thought of it, when I need it for the house, why I'll hate you, I'll have to get rid of you some way: and isn't this the better way? I'm being kind to you. Now clear out, Uncle Sime, get over to Jeanie's, or where you like, don't bother me. I've work to do."