Poor Things

by Alasdair Gray

  Bell Baxter likes meeting new people. Wedder will not eat outside our cabin so last night I tied a clean napkin round my poor man’s neck, settled him with his dinner tray and headed for the dining-saloon. I am now a well-known character on this ship, and passengers who speak English are always placed at my table. This time I had only two. Both had boarded at Odessa. One was a stout, brown-faced American doctor called Doctor Hooker; the other was the obvious Englishman—Mr. Astley! I got very excited. I said, “Do you work for a London firm called Lovel and Co?”

  “I am on the board of directors.”

  “Are you a cousin of Lord Pibroch?”

  “I am.”

  “How wonderful! I am a friend of a great friend of yours, a lovely little Russian gambler who drifts around the German betting-shops in a very poor way—he has even been to jail, but not for anything very nasty. The odd thing is, I do not know his name, but he thinks of you as his best friend because you have been so very good to him.”

  After a long pause Mr. Astley said slowly, “I cannot say I am a friend of the person you describe.”

  He took up his soup-spoon and so did puzzled Bell Baxter. We would have eaten in silence if Doctor Hooker had not cheered me up with stories of his missionary work in China. Just before the meal ended Mr. Astley, thoughtfully stirring his coffee, said, “However, I know the fellow you spoke about. My wife is Russian, the daughter of a Russian general. I once gave some assistance to a servant in her father’s household, a sort of male nurse who looked after the younger children. That was years ago.”

  I said accusingly, “He is a very good wise kind soul! He helped me a lot, and gained nothing by it, and likes all Englishmen because of you!”

  “Ah.”

  I would not have hated him had he said “O!” or “Eh?” but he said “Ah” as if he knew more than everyone else in the world, knew so much that talking was useless. The outchatel called him shy. I think him stupid and cold. I was glad to hurry back to my warm warm Wedder who can be blown up into giving all the solid heat a woman wants. But do not worry, Candle. Your tie-pin still gleams in the lapel of Bell’s travelling-coat.

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  Dr. H. looks glad whenever he sees me, unlike Mr. Astley. He is a doctor of medicine as well as divinity so today I asked him to look in on Wedder who still acts like a sick man, though no longer pale and shivering. I stayed outside the cabin during the consultation, but near enough to hear the kindly, rumbling voice of Dr. H. punctuated by short answers (I suppose) from Wedder, who at last started shouting. When Dr. H. came out he said Wedder’s illness was not physical.

  “We disagreed over the doctrine of the Atonement,” he told me, “and the inevitability of Hell—he thinks me too liberal. But religion is not his main problem. He is using it to distract him from a very painful recent memory he refuses to discuss. Do you know what it is?”

  I told him that the poor man had made a fool of himself in a German betting-shop.

  “If that is all,” said Dr. H., “let hint sulk himself better in his own good time. Treat him with affection, but do not spoil your own lovely bloom by refraining from cheerful social exercise. Do you play chequers? No? Allow me to teach you.”

  He is a gorgeous man.

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  Dear God we are passing once again between the Isles of Greece where burning Byron loved and sang and I am very glad that the breasts of the girls here no longer suckle slaves and I have just had a glorious breakfast at which Dr. H. and Mr. A. argued tremendously and Mr. Astley started it! We were astonished. For the last two days he has eaten with us and said nothing but “Good morning,” “Good afternoon,” “Good evening,” so we were used to chatting as though he did not exist. This morning my American friend was telling me how the smaller Chinese skull made it hard for the Chinese to learn English when: “Did you find it easy to learn Chinese, Dr. Hooker?” asked Mr. Astley.

  “Sir,” said Dr. H., facing round to him, “I did not visit China to learn the language of Confucius and Lao-tsze. For fifteen years I have served a federation of American Bible societies which—with some assistance from our chambers of commerce and the United States government—employed me to teach the natives of Peking the language and faith of the Christian Bible. For this purpose I found the simplest jargon of the poorest coolies (you call it pidgin English) more useful than Mandarin complexities.”

  Mr. Astley said softly, “The Spaniards who first colonized your continent think Latin the language of the Christian faith and Bible.”

  “The brand of religion I preach and try to practise,” said Dr. H., “was preached by Moses and Jesus long before the Roman Emperors took it up and tricked it out in the superfluous pomps of earthly kingship.”

  “Ah.”

  “Mr. Astley sir!” said Dr. H. sternly, “by a simple question and an oblique comment you have drawn from me a confession of faith. Let me ask the same from you. Have you invited Jesus into your heart as your personal saviour? Or are you a Roman Catholic? Or do you support the English State Church whose pope is Queen Victoria?”

  “When I am in England,” said Mr. Astley slowly, “I support the Church of England. It keeps England stable. For the same reason I support the Church of Scotland in Scotland, Hindooism in India, Mahometanism in Egypt. The British Empire would not be governing a quarter of the globe if we opposed the local religions. Had our government made Catholicism the official religion of Ireland it would now easily control that troublesome colony with the help of the popish priests, though of course the Ulstermen would need a corner to themselves.”

  “Mr. Astley, you are worse than an atheist,” said Dr. H. gravely. “An atheist has at least a strong conviction of what he does not believe. You believe in nothing firm or fixed. You are a timeserver—a faithless man.”

  “Not quite faithless,” murmured Mr. Astley. “I am a Malthusiast—I believe in the gospel according to Malthus.”

  “I thought Malthus was a Church of England clergyman with bats in his belfry about expanding populations. Do you tell me he has founded a new religion?”

  “No, a new faith. Religions involve congregations, preachers, prayers, hymns, special buildings or codes or rituals. My brand of Malthusiasm does not.”

  “Your brand, Mr. Astley? Are there many?”

  “Yes. All systems prove their vigour through subdivision: Christianity, for instance.”

  “Touché!” said Dr. H., chuckling. “It is a pleasure to cross swords with you. And now sir, explain your sect of Malthusiasm. Convert me to it!”

  “You are better as you are, Dr. Hooker. My faith offers no comfort to the poor, the sick, the cruelly used and those on the point of death. I have no wish to spread it.”

  “A faith without hope and charity?” cried Dr. H. loudly.

  “Then fling it from you, Mr. Astley, for it has obviously frozen the blood in your veins! Ditch it. Tie a weight to it and fling it overboard. Get a faith which warms the heart, binds you to your fellow men and points us all toward a golden future.”

  “I dislike intoxicating fluids. I prefer the bitter truth.”

  “Mr. Astley, I see you are one of those sad modern souls who think the material world a harsh machine which destroys the feeling hearts and seeing minds who enter it. Think ye, by the bowels of Christ, that ye may be wrong! Our gloriously varied universe could not have sprouted brains and hearts like ours if the Maker of All had not designed them for this planet, designed the planet for them, and all for Himself!”

  “Your vision of the world as a place where God grows human vegetables for his own consumption may appeal to a market gardener, Dr. Hooker,” said Mr. Astley, “but not to me. I am a businessman. Have you a faith, Mrs. Wedderburn?”

  “Is that something to do with God?” I asked, pleased that he had spoken to me.

  “Indeed it is, Mrs. Wedderburn,” cried Doctor H., “for most people, if not for Mr. Astley. Even he is a child of God though he won’t admit it—but you are e
specially so. The faith, hope and charity shining from your clear eyes guarantee it. Pray tell us, Mrs. Wedderburn, how you perceive Our Father Which Art in Heaven.”

  Since my quack with the outchatel in the German park I had not had a chance to talk about the great big ordinary queer things because Wedder finds them a torture. And now these two clever men wanted me to talk about EVERYTHING! Out the words tumbled.

  “All I know about that god,” I said, “is what I was told by my own God—by my guardian, Godwin Baxter. He said god is a handy name for all and everything: your top-hat and dreams Mr. Astley, sky boots Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond bortsch me molten lava time ideas whooping-cough ecstasies of wedded bliss my white rabbit Flopsy AND the hutch she lives in—everything named in every dictionary and book there has ever been and ever could be adds up to god. But the wholly-est bit of god is movement, because it keeps stirring things to make new ones. Movement turns dead dogs into maggots and daisies, and flour butter sugar an egg and a tablespoonful of milk into Abernethy biscuits,18 and spermatozoa and ovaries into fishy little plants growing babyward if we take no care to stop them. And movement causes pain when solid bodies knock into living ones or living ones knock each other, so to stop us getting knocked dead before life wears us out we have generated developed evolved acquired invented matured gained and grown eyes and brains to let us see knocks coming and dodge them. And how beautifully the whole godly clamjamfrie works! I thought of improving the port of Odessa three days ago and could not see where to start. I know things were not always thus. I have read The Last Days of Pompeii and Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Wuthering Heights so know that history is full of nastiness, but history is all past so nowadays nobody is cruel to each other, just stupid sometimes when they get into betting-shops. Punch says only lazy people are out of work so the very poorest must enjoy being poor. They also have the consolation of being comic. I know of course that bad accidents sometimes happen, but life goes on. My parents were killed in a train crash but I cannot remember them so I hardly ever weep. Anyway, they must have been old, so nearly worn out. I have been told I lost a baby somewhere else, but I know my little daughter is being cared for. My guardian looks after sick dogs and cats without being paid so a lost little girl is bound to be safe. What bitter truth were you talking about, Mr. Astley?”

  While I spoke a strange thing happened. Both men were staring at my face hard harder hardest, but Mr. Astley leaned closer and closer as he did so while Dr. H. leaned further and further back. Yet when I stopped speaking Mr. Astley did not reply, and Dr. H. said in a low voice, “My child, have you never read God’s holy Bible?”

  “I am nobody’s child!” I told him sharply, but of course I had then to explain about the amnesia. When I had done it Dr. H. said, “But ch!—Mrs. Wedderburn, your husband seems to be a devout Christian. Has he given you no religious instruction?”

  I told him I could hardly get a word out of poor Wedder since he went biblical. Dr. H. gazed silently at me until Mr. Astley said in a strange voice, “Dr. Hooker, do you intend to instruct Mrs. Wedderburn in the doctrines of original sin and eternal punishment for worldly transgressions?”

  “No sir,” said Dr. Hooker shortly.

  “Mrs. Wedderburn,” said Mr. Astley, “your guardian’s account of the universe is one to which neither of us object. The bitter truth I spoke of is a statistical matter—a detail of political economy. I was joking when I called it a faith — I said that to annoy Dr. Hooker. I am a phlegmatic fellow, so his American exuberance annoyed me. But we are both glad you find the world a good and happy place.”

  “Shake,” said Dr. H. quietly, and held out his hand, and Mr. Astley shook it.

  “I like seeing you two gentlemen friendly,” I told them, “but I feel you are in a conspiracy to hide something from me, and I am going to find out what it is. Shall we take a walk on deck?”

  So I strolled on deck with them. A lovely morning. Now I am going to have lunch in our cabin with my Wedder, followed by an afternoon of cuddles. I wonder what Dr. H. and Mr. A. will talk about over dinner this evening?

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  “What brought you to Odessa, Astley?”

  “Beetroot, Dr. Hooker. My firm refines and sells cane sugar but German beet sugar may cheapen that unless we compete with the German product. But British farmers refuse to grow sugar-beet—they get more for other root crops. To undercut the Germans we need sugar-beet from farmers who work for Asiatic, not European wages, hence my visit to Russia. We also need a port linked to international shipping lanes, hence my visit to Odessa.”

  “So the British Lion is forging trade links with the Russian Bear?”

  “Too early to say, Dr. Hooker. The Russians offer us land and labour to build a sugar refinery on very good terms, but the soil and climate may not be best for sugar-beet. What brought you to Odessa? Does your federation of Bible societies plan to convert the followers of the Russian Orthodox Church?”

  “Nope. Fact is, I have retired from missionary work. I came to China fifteen years ago by the straight Pacific line. I am wending my way home to the Land of the Free by the pleasantest and most roundabout route I can find.”

  “Siam, India, Afghanistan?”

  “Not quite.”

  “The Outer Mongolian and Turkestan or Siberian routes are not exactly pleasure trips either, Dr. Hooker. You must have needed an armed escort for much of the way. Did the United States government pay for that or the American chambers of commerce?”

  “You are a deep and dangerous man, Astley!” said Dr. Hooker, chuckling a bit. “I would rather be up against ten wily oriental warlords than a single Englishman of your stamp. Yes, a few far-seeing American citizens asked me to report on some aspects of central Asia, the world’s largest sink of unclaimed heathendom. Can you blame us? Britain has carved up the rest of the planet. Less than two years ago you grabbed Egypt from the French—and from the Egyptians.”

  “We needed their canal. We paid them for it.”

  “You also shelled Alexandria, our next port of call.”

  “They were arming it against us and we needed their canal.”

  “And now British regiments are fighting the Dervishes in the Sudan.”

  “We cannot tolerate religions which urge the natives to rule themselves. Home rule would disturb trade and our smooth running of the canal.”

  Up piped Bell Baxter: “What are natives, Mr. Astley?”

  I had been keeping quiet, hoping to learn things, but “undercut”, “report on aspects”, “unclaimed heathendom”, “carved up the planet”, “grabbed Egypt”, “home rule”, “disturb trade” made no sense to me. However, “natives” sounded like people.

  “Natives,” said Mr. Astley carefully, “are people who live on the soil where they were born, and do not want to leave it. Not many English can be regarded as natives because we have a romantic preference for other people’s soils, though we are very loyal to our old schools and school friends, our regiments and businesses. Some even feel loyal to the Queen, who is a very selfish old lady.”

  “Are there no British natives?”

  “In Wales, Ireland and Scotland perhaps. In England we still have a class of farmers, farm servants, estate workers et cetera, but the landowners and city dwellers regard them as useful animals, like horses and dogs.”

  “But why are British soldiers fighting Egyptian natives? It makes no sense to me.”

  “I am glad it makes no sense to you, Mrs. Wedderburn. Politics, like filling and emptying cesspools, is filthy work and women should be protected from it. Let us talk of cleaner things, Dr. Hooker.”

  “Halt there, Astley!” said Dr. Hooker sternly. “In the States we have a high regard for the intelligence and education of the fairer sex. In a few words I can tell Mrs. Wedderburn the whole political state of the planet earth, and do so without for one moment wounding her womanly instincts and your patriotic ones. May I proceed?”

  “If Mrs. Wedderburn is interested, and will allow m
e to smoke a cigar with my coffee, I also am interested.” Of course I said “yes” to both of them. Mr. A. then offered his cigar case to Dr. H. who thanked him, selected one, sniffed it, said it was excellent, bit the end off, lit it, then forgot all about it, because his speech was so very interesting.

  “Over breakfast this morning Mrs. Wedderburn spoke of how much better the world is than in the bad old days. She was right, and why? Because the Anglo-Saxon race to which she and I and Mr. Astley belong have begun to control the world, and we are the cleverest and kindliest and most adventurous and most truly Christian and hardest working and most free and democratic people who have ever existed. We should not feel proud of our superior virtues. God arranged it by giving us bigger brains than anyone else, so we find it easier to control our evil animal instincts. This means that compared with the Chinese, Hindoos, Negroes and Amerindians—yes, even compared with the Latins and Semites—we are like teachers in a playground of children who do not want to know that the school exists. Why is it our duty to teach them? I will tell you.

  “When children or childish people are left to themselves the strongest overcome the rest and treat them unkindly. In China judicial torture is a roadside entertainment. Hindoo widows are burned alive beside their husbands’ corpses. Black people eat each other. Arabs and Jews do unmentionable things to the private parts of their infants. The talkative French go in for bloody revolutions, the carefree Italians join murderous secret societies, we all know about the Spanish Inquisition. Even the Germans, who are racially closest to us, have a taste for brutally violent orchestral music and sabre duels. God created the Anglo-Saxon race to stop all that, and we will.

  “But we cannot improve people suddenly, everywhere. The bullying rulers of the inferior races hate to see us replace them, so to teach them sense we have first of all to thrash them. Our rifles and machine-guns and iron-clad warships and superior military discipline ensure that we always do thrash them, but the process takes time. From their headquarters in the tiny island of Britain the Anglo-Saxons have conquered over a quarter of the planet in a little more than two centuries. But west of the Atlantic another, vaster Anglo-Saxon nation is starting to feel its strength and stretch its limbs—the United States! Who can doubt that, before the end of the twentieth century, the United States will dominate the rest of the planet? Do you doubt it, Astley?”