Poor Things

by Alasdair Gray

  The news was more terrible than I had feared. Mother was nearly destitute. She could only afford to keep two servants now, Auld Jessy and the cook. With these two I had first discovered the pleasures of love, but they were now long past their best. Auld Jessy had grown so doddery we had meant to send her to the poor-house after Christmas. Cook was now a dipsomaniac. These served mother without pay because nobody else would give them house-room. Less tragic but more poignant was the fact that my frail lovely mother, a lonely widow of forty-six years, could no longer order clothes from London and Edinburgh, but must shop for them herself, in Glasgow. Guilt and rage brought me panting to my feet—mainly rage against Bella, for what had she done with all my money? Without thinking I strode forward down a lane like a corridor, grinding my teeth at the memory of my sufferings in the grip of that gorgeous monster.

  Was it the Hand of God that steered me over that busy bridge then stopped me short before the open door of the great Cathedral? I think it was. I had never entered a Roman Catholic edifice before. What trembling hope drew me into this one?

  I saw receding aisles of mighty pillars like avenues of titanic stone trees upholding an overarching dimness; I heard a glorious blast of Honestly, McCandless, his style is so sickeningly derivative that I will summarize what follows. Duncan Doubleyou has never prayed to God before but decides he’ll have a go because others are doing it here. He drops a centime into a box through a slit in the lid; lights a candle; sticks it on a spike before an altar; kneels down with tight shut eyes and tells The First Mover of All Things that Duncan Doubleyou is evil wicked rotten and wrong mainly because of Bad Bell Baxter, so please send help. Suddenly the world feels brighter. Wedderburn, opening eyes, sees sunlight beaming in on him through stained-glass window behind altar; rays through a heart-shaped crimson pane are casting a bright pink shadow on the bosom of Duncan Doubleyou’s white silk fashionable waistcoat. A personal telegram to Duncan Doubleyou from The Prime Mover? DW’s first reaction is Protestant. He wants to go somewhere private and think it over, a small intimate place with a seat and a lock on the door where he can be safe from interruption. He sees a row of cubicles with ordinary folk going in and out, each door with an indicator saying if vacant or engaged. He bolts himself into a vacancy which of course proves to be a confessional box. If I tell you that the padre behind the grille spoke English, can you guess what happened then, McCandless?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Wedderburn wants to confess all his sins from the age of five (when Auld Jessy taught him masturbation) to half an hour earlier when Bella booked him into what sounded like a brothel. He also wants professional advice on the value of the Sacred Heart telegram just got from God. Priest says all who pray before that shrine get that telegram when the sun shines from a certain direction, and the message is always good if properly read. Priest says he cannot absolve Monsieur Doubleyou of his sins because Monsieur is a heretic or pagan, but if Monsieur Doubleyou will give a five-minute précis of the sins which now so afflict him, priest will give him a straight opinion. Out pours the story. Priest tells Monsieur Doubleyou to marry Bella and go home to his mother or leave Bella and go home to his mother or rot in Hell. Priest advises Monsieur Doubleyou to take instruction in the Catholic Faith when he returns to Glasgow and now Adieu Monsieur, I will pray for your soul. Wedderburn steps into the street where the sunlight shone on me like a benediction, for I felt that a hideous burden had fallen from my shoulders et cetera. In other words, he at last discovers he is sick and tired of Bella. Back to the hotel then! Bella is unpacking in the bedroom. ‘Stop!’ cries Wedderburn, and tells her he must return to Glasgow and WORK, but he cannot take her with him unless she returns as his wife. She says cheerfully, ‘That’s all right Wedder, I want to see a bit more of Paris,’ packs his things into one of the cases and gives him money for the fare home. He says, ‘Is that all?’ She says, ‘It’s all that’s left of your money, but if you need more I’ll give you what God gave me.’ She takes out her sewing-scissors, unstitches the lining of her travelling-coat, removes £500 in Bank of England notes and gives it to him saying, ‘That is to pay for all the fun you gave me. You deserve a lot more, but this is all I have. Still, it’s quite a lot, and God gave it to me because he said something like this would happen with you.’

  “I now return to the letter, McCandless. Wedderburn’s description of how he acted on hearing that I knew of his elopement before it happened is of great clinical interest.”

  As my brain tried at once to grasp and repel the hideous meaning of her words I came to know what madness is. Writhing my head from shoulder to shoulder and mouthing as if biting the air or silently screaming I retreated into a corner and slowly sank to the floor, frantically punching at the space around my head as if boxing with a loathsome and swarming antagonist like huge wasps or carnivorous bats; yet I knew these vermin were not really outside but INSIDE my brain and gnawing, gnawing. They gnaw there still. Bella must have called in her new friend, the manageress, but my madness multiplied these two into a jabbering crowd of dishevelled women of every age and shape, their scanty clothing displaying their sexual charms to the full as they flooded vengefully over me like all the serving-women I have ever seduced. And Bella seemed one of them! With their strong soft limbs they bound my limbs and body as tight as a baby in swaddling bands. They poured brandy down my throat. I grew stupid and passive. Bella took me by cab to the Gare du Nord, bought a ticket, put it in my waistcoat pocket, told me which other pockets held money and passport, placed me and my luggage in a train, and all the time she poured out a maddening stream of soothing chat: “—poor Wedder, poor old lad, I’ve been bad for you, I’ve over-tired you, I bet you are glad to be going home to your mother’s house and a nice long rest, think of the money you will save, but we had some good times together, I don’t regret a moment of it, I’m sure there is not a better athlete and sportsman than Duncan Wedderburn in the whole wide world but do tell God I want the candle soon do you remember our first night in the train?” et cetera, and when the train moved from the station she ran along the platform beside it shouting through the window, “GIVE MY LOVE TO BONNY SCOTLAND!”

  So I know who your niece is now, Mr. Baxter. The Jews called her Eve and Delilah; the Greeks, Helen of Troy; the Romans, Cleopatra; the Christians, Salome. She is the White Daemon who destroys the honour and manhood of the noblest and most virile men in every age. She came to me in the guise of Bella Baxter. To King Louis she was Madame de Maintenon, to Prince Charlie she was Clementina Walkinshaw, to Robert Burns she was Jean Armour et cetera and to General Blessington she was Victoria Hattersley. Does that name make you tremble, Lucifer Baxter? The General’s matrimonial disaster was not noised aloud by the newspapers, but we lawyers have other sources of knowledge, and through these I have penetrated your secret. FOR THE WHITE DAEMON IS IN EVERY AGE AND NATION THE PUPPET AND TOOL OF A VASTER, DARKER DAEMON!!!!! Eve was ruled by the Serpent, Delilah by the Philistine Elders, Madame de Maintenon by Cardinal Thingummy and Bella Baxter by YOU, Godwin Bysshe Baxter, Arch-Fiend and Manipulator of this Age of Material Science! Only in Modern Glasgow—the BABYLON of Material Science—could you have gained wealth, power and respect by carving up human brains, prowling through morgues and haunting the death-beds of the poor. You would have been burned as a warlock for that when Scotland was a Spiritual Nation, GOD-SWINE BOSH BACK-STAIR, BEAST OF THE BOTTOMLESS PIT!!!!!

  You probably do not know you are Antichrist, for none are as deluded as the damned, so the Father of All Lies is condemned to know himself least of all. But you are a scientist. Examine the proofs I will now present coldly and logically, without using a lot of capital letters, except at the start.

  THE COMING OF THE BEAST

  BIBLE PROPHECIES

  MODERN FACTS

  1 The number of the Beast is 666.

  You live at 18 Park Circus, which number is the sum of 6+6+6.

  2 The Beast supports a Woman clothed in scarlet.

  Bella is very
fond of red.

  3 The Beast is called Babylon, because that city ruled the biggest material empire in the ancient world, and persecuted the children of God, the spiritual people of that day. (Note that Protestant fanatics say Rome is the modern Babylon and the headquarters of the Beast, but remember that Roman Catholicism—with all its flaws—is nowadays a wholly spiritual empire.)

  The British Empire is the largest Empire the world has ever known. It is wholly material, being based on industry, trade and military might. It was invented in Glasgow. Here James Watt conceived the steam engines which drive the British rail trains and merchant fleets and battle fleets, and here the best of these locomotives and ships are built. Here Adam Smith invented modern capitalism. Here Sir William Thomson devises the telegraph cables binding the empire together over the ocean floors, also the diesel electric engines of the future.

  4 The Beast (and the Woman he supports) are also called Mystery.

  Chemistry, electricity, anatomy et cetera are Mysteries to nearly everybody— except you!

  5 The Beast is worshipped by all the kings of this earth.

  Though Queen Victoria prefers Edinburgh to Glasgow, Balmoral to the rest of Scotland, the Grand Duke Alexis, son of the Tsar of Russia, called Glasgow “The centre of intelligence of England” in his speech at the launching of the Livadia last year, built for his father at Elder’s shipyard.

  6 The Beast has seven heads—seven bits sticking up. (Protestant fanatics say it must therefore be Roman because Rome is notoriously built upon seven hills.)

  But Glasgow is built on seven hills! Golf Hill, Balmano Brae, Blythswood Hill, Garnet Hill, Partick Hill, Gilmore Hill crowned by the University, Woodlands Hill crowned by Park Circus where you sacrificed me to the Scarlet Whore of Modern Babylon!

  7 The Scarlet Woman on the Beast’s back holds a golden cup full of abominations.

  I do not exactly know what the cup is nowadays because Bella disliked wine and spirits, but if you and I meet and discuss the matter calmly surely we will find something?

  I am horribly lonely. Mother keeps telling me to pull myself together. I long to sit close to her but when I do she fidgets and asks why I do not go out to music-hall, sports-club or other “THINGS” I used to be busy with before my trip abroad. I dread such “THINGS” nowadays. When I was little Auld Jessy cared for me when Mother got the fidgets. So now I pretend to go out for a “night on the town” but skulk round by the backdoor tradesman’s entrance into the kitchen, where I sit tippling with Auld Jessy and the cook. I never drank alcohol in my Casanova days, for a devotee of Venus must abjure Bacchus. It is cold in the kitchen. I have so wasted the Wedderburn fortune that Mother cannot afford to let servants use our coals. Auld Jessy and the cook sleep together for warmth, so I sleep between them. I cannot sleep alone. Come back please warm me Bella.

  Tomorrow I will start a new life by doing three things all at once. I will make Mother rich again by underrating devotion to the science and art of property conveyancing. I will save my Bella from Beastly Baxter by boxing with the Modern Babylon at street corners, in the open forum of Glasgow Green and through letters to the press. I will embrace the only true Catholic faith, make a vow of eternal chastity, and end my days in the peace of a cloister. I need rest. Help me.

  I am Faithfully and Forever,

  Bella’s Outcast Welter Weight

  Bleeding Waistcoat Hearted

  Duncan McNab Wed Wed Wedder

  (Writer to the Signet and Auld Jessy’s Big Tumshie).

  13

  Intermission

  We were silent for a while after Baxter stopped reading. At last I said, “Can we do nothing to save that poor fellow’s sanity?”

  “Nothing,” said Baxter crisply. He had put the sheaf of pages back in an envelope and from a brown paper packet drew out a bulkier sheaf. Holding it carefully on his knees he smiled down at it, gently caressing the topmost page with the tiny delicate tips of his conical thumbs.

  “A letter from Bell?” I asked. He nodded and said, “Why worry about Wedderburn, McCandless? He is a middle-class male in the prime of life with legal training, a secure home and three supportive females. Think of your fiancée, the attractive woman with the three-year-old brain he has left penniless in Paris. Do you not fear for her?”

  “No. With all his advantages Wedderburn is a poor creature. Bell is not.”

  “True. Right. Correct. Exactly. Yes indeed!” cried he in an ecstasy of agreement. I said grimly, “Bell’s use of synonyms seems infectious. Has she many in that letter?”

  He smiled at me like a wise old teacher whose favourite pupil has answered a difficult question and said, “Forgive my excitement, McCandless. You cannot share it because you have never been a parent, have never made something new and splendid. It is wonderful for a creator to see the offspring live, feel and act independently. I read Genesis three years ago and could not understand God’s displeasure when Eve and Adam chose to know good and evil—chose to be Godlike. That should have been his proudest hour.”

  “They deliberately disobeyed him!” I said, forgetting The Origin of Species and speaking with the voice of The Shorter Catechism. “He had given them life and everything they could enjoy, everything on earth, except two forbidden trees. Those were sacred mysteries whose fruit did harm. Nothing but perverse greed made them eat it.”

  Baxter shook his head and said, “Only bad religions depend on mysteries, just as bad governments depend on secret police. Truth, beauty and goodness are not mysterious, they are the commonest, most obvious, most essential facts of life, like sunlight, air and bread. Only folk whose heads are muddled by expensive educations think truth, beauty, goodness are rare private properties. Nature is more liberal. The universe keeps nothing essential from us—it is all present, all gift. God is the universe plus mind. Those who say God, or the universe, or nature is mysterious, are like those who call these things jealous or angry. They are announcing the state of their lonely, muddled minds.”

  “Utter blethers, Baxter!” I cried. “Our whole lives are a struggle with mysteries. Mysteries endanger us, support us, destroy us. Our great scientists have cleared away these mysteries in some directions by deepening them in others. The second law of thermo-dynamics proves the universe will end by turning into cold porridge, but nobody knows how it began, or if it began. Our science stems from Kepler’s discovery of gravitation, but though we can describe how the vastest galaxies and flimsiest gases gravitate we don’t know what gravity is or how it works. Kepler speculated that it was a form of inorganic intelligence. Modern physicists do not even speculate, but hide their ignorance under formulae. We know how species began but cannot create the smallest living cell. You grafted a baby’s brain into a mother’s skull. Very clever. It does not make you an all-knowing god.”

  “I disagree with your language, not your facts, McCandless,” said Baxter with another annoyingly generous smile.

  “Of course no single mind can know more than a fraction of past, present and future existence. But what you call mysteries I call ignorances, and nothing we do not know (whatever we call it) is more holy, sacred and wonderful than the things we know—the things we are! The loving kindness of people is what creates and supports us, keeps our society running and lets us move freely in it.”

  “Lust, fear of hunger and the police also play a part. Read me Bell’s letter.”

  “I will, but let me start by astonishing you. This letter is a diary written over a period of three months. Compare the first page with the last.”

  He handed me two pages.

  They did astonish me, though the first, as I expected, was covered with big capital letters cryptically grouped:

  DR GD I HD N PC T WRT BFR

  W R FLT PN THS BL BL S

  The last page contained forty lines of closely written words, of which a sentence caught my eye:

  Tell my dear Candle that his wedding Bell no longer thinks he must do all she bids.

  “Good for a three-year-ol
d?” asked Baxter.

  “She is still learning,” I said, returning the two pages.

  “Still learning! Still gaining wisdom and aptitude for life while struggling toward what is good in it. This letter justifies me, McCandless. Imagine I am Shakespeare’s old schoolteacher, one who taught him to write. Imagine this letter is a present from my former pupil, the original manuscript of Hamlet in his own hand. The soul who wrote this has soared as far beyond my own soul as my soul soars beyond—”

  He checked himself, looked away from me then said, “—at least beyond Duncan Wedderburn. My Shakespearean analogy is not far-fetched, McCandless. The close-packed sense within her sentences, her puns, her very cadences are Shakespeare’s.”

  “Then read it to me.”

  “At once! It is undated, but obviously begun on shipboard soon after Wedderburn knelt snivelling in a Trieste gutter, or (if you prefer his own vainglorious account of the incident) soused himself in the Grand Canal. Apart from that detail Bella’s letter confirms the main part of his: even confirms one fact which he reported as a hallucination. But her epistle outshines Wedderburn’s as vividly as the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (which contains Christ’s sermon on the mount) outshines the Gospel according to Saint John (which does not). Or have I got that wrong, McCandless? You had the Bible drummed into you at school. Was it Saint Mark or Saint Luke who—”