by James Carnac
I assumed, not unreasonably, that at the forthcoming interview the principal would be invited to act as co-critic with Mr. Pearson in the matter of my drawing, and there was no hope that it would be viewed with an indulgent eye. For it represented Dr. Styles and the treatment was, to say the least, unflattering. It was therefore a pleasant relief when, remaining behind after school, I found that Mr. Pearson was preparing to treat the matter as one between ourselves. He greeted my hang-dog approach in a manner which I can best describe as one of cheery severity.
“You know, you mustn’t do this sort of thing, Carnac,” he said, fishing out the drawing and examining it afresh.
“No, sir,” I agreed.
“Making drawings of Dr. Styles. It’s not the thing at all.”
My forlorn hope that the subject portrayed had not been identified vanished. “No, sir,” I said again.
He grinned. “It’s not at all bad, though. Not at all bad.”
Relieved, I allowed my expression of penitence to relax.
“Have you done much of this?” he asked, holding up the sketch.
“Oh no, sir!” I assured him hastily. Habitually to make libellous drawings of Dr. Styles! Unthinkable!
“I mean, have you done much drawing,” Mr. Pearson explained.
“Oh yes, sir,” I replied.
“Well, if I were you I should stick to it,” he said. “I should like to see some more; I might be able to give you a few hints. Only you mustn’t caricature the Head, you know. I tell you what: make a drawing of me and let me see it. I think we had better burn this.” And as he walked to the stove and thrust my drawing between the bars I realized that Mr. Pearson was not only willing to overlook the enormity but was actually making himself an accessory after the fact.
Although my chief feeling, as I left him, was that I had been dealing with a mild-mannered lunatic, that conversation bore fruit. I see now that had Pearson been of the usual narrow and sycophantic breed of assistant master to which I was accustomed, and had he, in the conventional manner, punished me in the interests of discipline, he would probably have set back the development of my latent talent (if talent is not too strong a word). But he had the knowledge to perceive signs of an ability which I did not suspect myself, and the wit to encourage it in direct opposition to the narrow discipline of the school, and that despite the fact that he was not normally lax on points of order.
I shall always feel grateful to Mr. Pearson, for that interview initiated a course of striving and suddenly developed interest on my part, and criticism and help on his, which, if it did not teach me to draw, at least set me on the path I was later able to pursue. Unfortunately I was soon to be deprived of his encouragement, for at the school prize-giving he volunteered to assist in the concert. He was so ill advised as to entertain the audience of pupils and parents with a humorous imitation of a lady at her dressing-table, and the ability shown damned him quite definitely in the eyes of our principal as a worldling. The actor was, by the nature of his calling, beyond the pale in Dr. Styles’s estimation, and Mr. Pearson’s histrionic competence approached so closely to proficiency in that unholy craft that he was obviously unfitted to preside over innocent, budding youth. He was dismissed.
—
Years afterward I saw Pearson again. He was sitting on a pavement in the West End of London, his back against some railings and a selection of pictures chalked upon boards on either side of him. He was thinner and his hair was white, but I recognized him, though he showed no recollection of me. I was with a—er—lady and had to content myself with depositing in his cap as much money as I could spare in the particular circumstances of the evening. When I sought the same spot on the following day he had gone; nor did I ever see him again.
Chapter 3
The second outstanding event which I associate with Dr. Styles’s school deserves, I feel, the beginning of a new chapter.
I have already referred to the constant references to blood which occurred in the course of our religious teaching. These were, of course, purely symbolic, and made by our principal, they were, I think, no more than expressions of zest for the vindictive form of religion which he favoured. Nevertheless I became accustomed to the familiar usage of the noun and I believe my thoughts turned almost sub-consciously to the attributes of blood.
This seems a suitable place for me to set forth my own feelings on this matter of blood. Most people, I have found, harbour a strange dislike for blood, a dislike so strong that the sight and smell of it as it wells from a wound or a nose is sufficient to engender in them faintness or nausea. Even amongst my school-fellows I had observed this curious phenomenon. Such feelings puzzled me then and always have puzzled me. The colour of blood is very far from unpleasant; it is a fine, rich tint which is viewed without qualms in other objects. A person who shrinks from the sight of blood does not, for example, avoid looking at a bright red shawl. Nor can the smell be held responsible for the feeling of nausea, for the smell is not only rather pleasant than otherwise, but is so faint that only in the presence of large quantities of blood is it perceptible at all. I can only assume that the dislike of blood is really due to some sub-conscious association of blood with the ideas of suffering and death. And on the matter of death I shall expound my views later.
Not only did I not share this popular aversion to blood, but, on the contrary, the sight of it held, for me, a fascination. And I only refer to this feeling for the reason that, I judge from observation, it is not generally shared. In the same way I should only need to mention the satisfaction afforded me by sight if all other persons were blind; and just as, in that case, I should regard the blind as abnormal and not myself, so I do not regard myself as a curiosity for differing from other people in this matter of blood.
I have alluded to the frequent fights which took place after school hours; although not often an active participant, I was always in the forefront of the spectators. It was not so much the “sport” (i.e., exciting brutality) of these encounters which interested me as the prospect—usually fulfillled—of a blood-letting. When one of the antagonists had retired from the encounter with blood streaming from his nostrils, I would stand beside him on the kerb watching with satisfaction the rich red drops splashing into the gutter.
One of the few school-mates who appeared to share my interest was a boy named Johnson whose father, as I soon discovered, kept a pork shop in the neighbourhood. It was one of those shops to which a poor person could repair with a basin for the purchase of hot boiled pork and pease-pudding. This latter delicacy now appears to be almost unprocurable, for shops of the class referred to have disappeared nowadays so far as my observation goes, and the secret of the pudding’s preparation with them—a secret held exclusively, I judge, by professional pork-butchers. At the shop of Johnson’s father one could also purchase hot saveloys and things called faggots, obscurely compounded comestibles of the rissole type.
Dr. Styles, who occasionally manifested flashes of allusive humour, sometimes addressed the boy Johnson as “doctor.” At this witticism we would all dutifully laugh, but our merriment was akin to that of the courtier at the jests of a touchy potentate behind whose throne lurk the shadows of the boiling-vat and the gibbet. We had but the vaguest notion as to who the historical Dr. Johnson had been, though the boy Johnson supposed him to have been a friend of Shakespeare who used to get drunk at the Cock Tavern—wherever that was.
Johnson showed a marked friendliness towards me, and as my way home from school led past his father’s shop, he would occasionally draw me inside, where his jolly-looking, red-faced father would dig a tit-bit from one of the steaming trays over which he presided and offer it to me on a slip of newspaper. Had my mother ever met me returning home munching a piece of faggot or sucking a dob of pease-pudding from a paper, I know she would have been horrified at my “low” behavior; but she never did and I enjoyed these illicit snacks in peace.
One day
Johnson approached me in the playground. “I say, Carnac,” he said; “like to come to tea at my place this afternoon? My father’s killing a pig this evening. Ever seen a pig killed?”
“No,” I replied, with interest.
“It’s rare fun. You should hear it squeal. Don’t they bleed too! Like to come along?”
“I’ll ask at dinner-time if I may,” I told him; for this was during morning play.
When I returned home I put the matter to my mother, who was just bringing in the dinner. “Mother, can I go to tea with Johnson after school?”
“Who is Johnson?” she asked. “What is his father?”
“I think he’s a butcher.”
She placed her tray on the table and looked steadily at me for a few moments. “And is the son of a butcher the only boy you can find to make a friend of?” she enquired. At that moment my father entered the room.
“James wants to go to tea with a butcher’s boy,” she told him.
“Do you mean a butcher’s son or the boy who delivers the meat?” he asked.
“His son. It’s a pity he can’t find some respectable boys to associate with at that school.”
“Well, when I can afford to set up in Harley Street we’ll talk about sending him to Rugby,” said my father.
“If you ever can he’ll be too old for Rugby,” observed my mother, who always took my father’s remarks quite literally.
“As for this boy being the son of a butcher,” my father continued, “he may be none the worse for that.”
“But a butcher!” said my mother.
“Well, what of it?” exclaimed my father irritably. “Let Jim go to tea with his friend. I’ve no patience with this silly snobbery.”
“No, and it’s no wonder you can’t keep your practice together,” complained my mother. “What with—”
I shut my ears to the further conversation and applied myself to my meal. The only point which affected me seemed to have been settled.
“Be sure you get home by eight,” my mother admonished me as I left for afternoon school.
The pig-sticking which I was privileged to see that evening I can recall to this day. As a preliminary I partook of a substantial tea in the company of Johnson, his father, mother and a small sister. I have little recollection of the characteristics of these people; nor can I remember the composition of the meal beyond the fact that it included water-cress, an herb which never appeared on our tea-table at home.
At the conclusion of the meal Mr. Johnson rose briskly from the table and, with a twinkling eye, stated that he would “just fetch the knife,” and left the room. Immediately Johnson’s small sister retired to a sofa at the side of the room and, stuffing up her ears with both hands, buried her face in the cushions.
“She don’t like to hear the pigs being killed,” Johnson remarked indulgently, jerking a thumb towards her as he led the way from the room.
I followed my friend to a yard at the back of the building, where we found Mr. Johnson arrayed in a long overall, the front of which was stained and encrusted with dried blood. He was toying with a long, thin knife of the kind used to carve ham, and looking into an enclosure at the end of the yard from which proceeded a mixture of grunts and squeals.
“Which one are you going to kill, father?” Johnson enquired, ranging himself beside the man.
“Reginald,” replied Mr. Johnson.
“I’m glad it’s to be one of the pink ones,” said his son. “Come and look at them, Carnac.”
I walked to his side and looked into the pen.
“You won’t see pigs like them every day, Carnac,” observed Mr. Johnson.
“No,” I agreed. “They look fine pigs.” In point of fact I had hardly ever before seen a live pig except at a distance. There were some half dozen there and I was surprised to notice that instead of the small, prick ears with which pigs are represented in pictures, these had long, drooping ears like those of a dachshund. But I was too excited to observe any details.
The pigs were moving about the pen, grubbing in the straw, and Mr. Johnson was apparently alert for the approach of the particular animal he had marked out. Suddenly he opened the small gate which he had stealthily unlatched and swiftly grabbed a small pink pig by an ear as it was passing. He dragged it squealing from the pen, kicking-to the gate behind him. The pig twisted its head and beat a kind of scratching tattoo with its legs on the paving of the yard. But with a dexterous movement and a shout of “Stand clear!” Mr. Johnson jerked its head upwards and drove the knife into the front of its throat. There was a spurt of blood almost as though a bladder full had been slit, and the animal, uttering a squealing gurgle, collapsed on to the pavement, where it lay feebly twitching its legs.
“Next time you meet him he’ll be with a lump of pease-pudding,” said Mr. Johnson jocularly, wiping his knife on his filthy overall.
“Come on,” said Johnson to me, leading the way into the house. “You don’t want to see him cleaned out.”
As a matter of fact I did, but politeness to my host prompted me to follow him. As we passed into the parlour I caught sight of his face. His eyes were bright and feverish, but he had gone rather white round the mouth. I began to wonder whether his stomach was as strong as his enthusiasm.
—
That night I dreamed I was in class. Brought out before Dr. Styles was Hawkins—a fat, white, unhealthy-looking boy, far from popular with his school-fellows. He was naked and his tight, fat abdomen glistened. Before him Dr. Styles crouched on his toes, a long, gleaming knife in his hand. He closed one eye and pointed with his knife. Then he retreated a few yards, took a short run but pulled up half-way to his victim and returned to the spot he had left. Then, poising himself on his toes, he leapt forward again. The knife went into Hawkins’s stomach as though into butter. With a dexterous flick of the wrist Dr. Styles ripped the white, bladder-like substance up to the chin. There was a gush of blood and Dr. Styles, wiping the knife on the seat of his trousers, cried: “I’ll teach you to steal my goose berries!” Then I awoke. It was a curious dream but I am not sure I would have called it a nightmare.
—
And if you, O reader, are one of those gentle-stomached persons who dislike even reading about blood, I advise you to go no further with this book. Exchange it for a cheery detective story.
Chapter 4
Soon after my fifteenth birthday my father inherited a considerable sum of money. An aunt of his, whom I had never seen, died, leaving him the bulk of her property.
A letter advised him of the death but contained no intimation of his good fortune, and my father at first hesitated to take a journey across London for the purpose of attending the funeral. Also he did not possess a pair of black trousers, apart from his dress clothes, and was reluctant to buy a pair in which to assist in the burying of an old lady he had not seen for twenty years.
However, my mother pointed out that since he was one of the sole surviving relatives, it would “look very bad” for my father to be absent on the occasion in question. After some discussion he grudgingly agreed to go, subject to the difficulty of the trousers being overcome without too great an expense. Whereupon my mother fetched the dress trousers, and when she had shown by ocular demonstration that the black of these was almost indistinguishable from the black of his frock coat, he gave in. On the morning of the funeral he departed in a thoroughly bad temper. The weather was cold and wet and he would have to walk to Seven Sisters Station. He had refused to buy a pair of black gloves and went out of the house smoking a pipe which, my mother thought, was indecent in the circumstances. Apparently it had not occurred to either of my parents that he might benefit financially by the death.
The mourner returned in a very different mood. It was quite evident that he had been drinking; I was as well able to identify the symptoms in the flushed face and the glazed eye as my mother was by that time. My mother
began to weep when she saw him.
“Where’s your umbrella?” she asked from behind her handkerchief.
“Left it in the train,” said my father. “Damn the umbrella!” I laughed.
“John!” cried my mother. “Before the boy too!”
“Damn the boy!” cried my father jovially, slapping me on the back.
“John!” wailed my mother again. “And you’ve been drinking!”
“Drinking?” said my father. “Me? Nonsense. A drop of grocers’ port at the wedding-breakfast—I mean funeral-breakfast. Nothing more.”
“I don’t believe you,” cried my mother. “And I only hope none of your patients met you on your way home.”
“Cheer up, Mrs. Gummidge,” my father said. “And guess what I have to tell you.”
I think my mother must have had a flash of intuition. She paused and stared at him, her crumpled handkerchief held half-way to her face.
“Aunt Madeleine has left me most of her money!” cried my father.
My mother sat motionless. But her woebegone expression gradually changed to one of delight and satisfaction. Forgotten were my father’s tippling and low behavior; so powerful is even the mention of the word “money.” “How much?” asked my mother, breathlessly.
My father admitted ignorance of the exact sum, but mentioned a probable amount which took my breath away. Then he removed his silk hat, threw it up to the ceiling and endeavoured to kick it as it fell; but he was unequal to the dexterity demanded and reeled against the table, knocking over a jug of water and clutching the table-cloth. My mother began to giggle, and that unusual manifestation on her part was not the least surprising event of the evening. I had never before heard her giggle like that, and stared at her open-mouthed.
Then my father raised himself from the edge of the table and, throwing his arms round my mother, dragged her from her chair and began to caper around the room with her. This boisterous behavior brought my mother back to a sense of reality; she disengaged herself and stood patting her hair and smoothing her crumpled dress, while my father swayed in the centre of the carpet.
