by George Friel
Mr Alfred turned away from the wall and shouted to the sky the words he had written.
‘Glasgow, ya bass!’
He shouted them so loudly he seemed to want to waken the whole sleeping city and make it listen to him. He nodded and nodded, went back to the wall and ticked off the phrase.
‘Right,’ he said quietly. ‘Next, please.’
He held out his left hand for the next pupil’s jotter, his felt-pen in his right ready for marking.
‘The old scunner,’ said Quinn.
‘He didn’t look the type to me,’ said King. ‘Too old I’d have thought.’
‘That’s the trouble,’ said Quinn. ‘Once it starts, every bloody fool.’
‘Go and get him,’ said King. ‘Before he falls down.’
‘Right,’ said Quinn.
King sat back and waited.
Quinn eased from the car and crossed over. No hurry.
‘Now, now,’ he said. ‘What do you think you’re playing at?’
‘Good evening,’ said Mr Alfred.
‘Now don’t try and be funny,’ said Quinn. ‘Know what time it is?’
‘Oh, I’m not being funny,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘There’s nothing funny about it. That’s my point. It’s not a pantomime joke, not in my opinion.’
‘You should be in your bed, old fella,’ said Quinn. ‘It’s after two.’
‘Indeed?’ said Mr Alfred. ‘I wondered why I couldn’t get a bus.’
‘What are you writing on the wall for?’ said Quinn.
Mr Alfred had no answer. He felt wedged in a cleft. The writing on the wall had been done by someone occupying his body in space and time, someone not identical with himself, someone who had suddenly gone away and left him to answer for what had been done. And while he knew he wasn’t responsible for all this writing on the wall he knew he had to answer for it. He didn’t mind. He was willing to answer for it, if he was pushed. This young policeman could do what he liked with him. Nothing mattered any more. He had done what he was told to do. He remembered an old word cherished in his youth when a dictionary was his bedside book. Ataraxia. The indifference aimed at by the stoics. That was all he felt.
‘Come on,’ said Quinn. ‘You’ve had too much I think.’
He took Mr Alfred by the elbow, led him to the car. Put him in the back seat. But gently.
Settling well back Mr Alfred muttered away.
‘Since that lout defied me. Nothing but. Schools, libraries, parks, railways, buses, cemeteries. Since that day that lump. All vandalised. The child is master. All natural piety gone. Insolence, be thou my courtesy.’
His head lolled. He jolted and came up again.
‘Taught them language. And the profit on it is. Caliban shall be his own master. That blonde bitch Seymour. She should say less. What the inspectors want. Do-it-yourself poetry. Matthew Arnold was an inspector too. What would he say now? Culture and anarchy. Anarchy. Every child a poet, every child a painter.’
He shook his head. He felt sleepy. But he wanted to speak.
‘Insolence, violence,’ he said. ‘It’s the black-ground of those torrible grousing-schemes.’
‘I told you he was drunk,’ said King to Quinn.
Mr Alfred leaned over and tapped Quinn on the shoulder.
‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘you can pick up a lunar probe but you can’t pick up a phone.’
‘You’re right there, pop,’ said Quinn.
King braked at a red light. Mr Alfred fell back on his seat and talked to himself.
‘Standards must be maintained. We must pass on our cultural heritage. The tongue that Shakespeare spoke, that Milton. Though fallen on evil days, on evil days though fallen and evil tongues, in darkness and with dangers compassed round, and solitude.’
‘He’s got an educated voice,’ said King to Quinn.
‘He looks a real scruff to me,’ said Quinn to King.
Mr Alfred was comfortable in the back seat. It was better than any bus. He thought he was being taken home in a taxi. He wondered how much it would cost. He wondered how they knew where he lived.
Quinn half-turned, speaking over his shoulder.
‘What did you want to go and do a daft thing like that for?’
‘Wir mü ssen aussprechen was ist,’ said Mr Alfred.
Quinn shrugged back to King.
‘I told you he was a foreign bastard,’ he said.
‘That’s German,’ said King to Quinn. ‘Maybe he’s a refugee from the Iron Curtain.’
‘Iron curtain my arse,’ said Quinn.
King drove humming along the empty road in the small hours.
Peering through the window Mr Alfred saw the writing on the wall again.
‘This great warm-hearted friendly city,’ he said. ‘The dear green place. The corn is green. How green was my valley. A lot of balls.’
‘What’s that you were saying?’ Quinn turned to ask.
‘That it could so preposterously be stained,’ said Mr Alfred.
Quinn kept turned round.
‘Are you all right, pop?’ he asked. ‘You know, you’re in trouble. Defacing property. Drunk and disorderly. A man your age. You ought to know better.’
‘We all ought to know better,’ said Mr Alfred.
‘Eh?’ said Quinn.
Mr Alfred said nothing.
‘Nothing to say for yourself, eh?’ said Quinn.
Mr Alfred remembered something to say. He said it solemnly.
‘For nothing this wide universe I call, save thou, my Rose, in it thou art my all.’
Quinn turned back to King.
‘Oh Jesus,’ he said.
King took a quick glance over his shoulder.
‘Steady up, old fella,’ he said. ‘Get a hold of yourself.’
Mr Alfred fell asleep.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Sheriff Stairs wasn’t impressed by Mr Alfred. He didn’t like the look of him at all. It was bad enough when irresponsible juveniles went about writing on walls, but it was intolerable when the culprit was a grown man, and above all a man in Mr Alfred’s position. If he was an alcoholic he shouldn’t be teaching. If he was suffering from a nervous breakdown he shouldn’t be teaching. If he was a harebrained eccentric he shouldn’t be teaching.
Mr Alfred had nothing to say. He had a return of his old feeling that he was the man outside somebody else. There was a man there in the dock with his face, answering to his name, but it wasn’t him. It was another man he had been forced to keep company with, a fellow traveller who was getting by on a borrowed birth certificate.
Sheriff Stairs had him remanded for a medical report. The doctor found him sound in wind and limb, but noticed a recent prosthodontia which may have accounted for his pyknophrasia when he was arrested. Heart in good condition, no vd, reflexes, blood count and urine normal, weight about the average for his height and age, a slight presbyopia. He also found evidence of a femoral hernia, and arranged for a surgeon to operate within a fortnight. Until then, he passed him on to Mr Knight, psychiatrist.
Mr Knight was unofficially accompanied by Mr Jubb, a psychiatrist from England. Mr Jubb had published a paper on Some Common Phobias of Metropolitan Man.
He had come north with letters of introduction in search of material for a supplementary paper. He found nothing in Edinburgh to detain him and cut west across country to more fertile ground. Mr Knight grudgingly let him sit in on his interrogation of Mr Alfred. Mr Jubb called it an interesting case. Duly silent, he sat in a corner with a big looseleaf notebook and a ballpoint.
‘Is it because you’re not happy in your work you drink so much?’ said Mr Knight. ‘Don’t you like children?’
‘Not in bulk,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘They frighten me.’
Mr Jubb made a note.
‘You’re out round the pubs every night, aren’t you?’ said Mr Knight.
‘Oh yes, every night practically,’ said Mr Alfred.
‘No matter what the weather?’ said Mr Knight.
; ‘Not in fog,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘I hate fog.’
Mr Jubb made a note.
‘I’m afraid to cross the street then,’ said Mr Alfred.
‘Indeed. I’m afraid to cross the street at any time these days.’
‘You don’t seem to have any social life,’ said Mr Knight. ‘Don’t you like meeting people?’
‘Can’t say I do,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘I don’t take to strangers easily.’
Mr Jubb made a note.
‘You prefer to be alone?’ said Mr Knight.
‘Yes,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘I have a great horror of crowds.’
Mr Jubb made a note.
‘I hate to feel people knocking against me, touching me,’ said Mr Alfred.
Mr Jubb made a note.
‘You’re not afraid of anything happening to you when you wander round like that?’ said Mr Knight.
‘I’ve always had a fear of being robbed,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘But I take care. I’ve got this pocket, you see.’
He showed it. He wanted to prove he was a wise old man.
Mr Jubb made a note.
‘I’ve never been attacked before,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘I was terrified. I thought I was going to die.’
Mr Jubb made a note.
Mr Alfred bit the nail of his index finger. He wasn’t given to biting his nails. But there was a ragged edge annoying him. He had felt it catch on the cloth when he was showing his secret pocket and he tried to bite it off.
Mr Jubb made a note.
‘Not that I should like to live till I’m senile,’ said Mr Alfred.
He smiled. Mr Knight didn’t. Mr Jubb made a note.
‘Did you have much to drink the night you were attacked?’ said Mr Knight.
‘Not much,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘Not really. I’ve had more. Often. Say seven or eight pints and seven or eight whiskies. Maybe more. But then I’m used to it. I remember one night—’
He stopped. He didn’t want to tell too much.
Mr Jubb made a note.
‘You’ve no friends apparently,’ said Mr Knight. ‘But have you no pets? A cat or a dog for example.’
‘Oh no, I can’t stand animals,’ said Mr Alfred.
Mr Jubb made a note.
‘Least of all cats,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘They give me the creeps.’
Mr Jubb made a note.
‘Even insects,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘I loathe spiders.’
He wanted to chat to Mr Knight, to help him. He felt sorry for a man who had to ask all these questions as part of his job, with a supernumerary stuck in a corner listening in. He supposed the stranger in the corner was putting Mr Knight through a test.
Mr Jubb made a note.
‘I gather you’ve been rather upset by new schemes of work in your profession, new methods,’ said Mr Knight. ‘Now why is that?’
‘Well,’ said Mr Alfred, very judicial. ‘All that’s said in their favour is that they’re new. I don’t like that. It’s not a reason.’
Mr Jubb made a note.
Mr Knight turned the pages of Mr Alfred’s dossier.
‘You live in lodgings, I see,’ he said.
‘That’s right,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘On the ground floor. It’s an odd thing that. I’ve always had my digs on the ground floor and I’ve always had my classroom on the ground floor. Just as well. I hate stairs. I don’t mean Sheriff Stairs.’
He smiled to encourage appreciation of his little joke. He got no smile back. Mr Knight in front of him looked past him. Mr Jubb behind him kept his head down and made a note. Mr Alfred was afraid he had said too much and said it too quickly. But he only wanted to let them see he was quite at ease.
‘These new thirtytwo-storey flats,’ he said slowly. ‘I wouldn’t like to live in one of them. I hate heights.’
Mr Jubb made a note.
‘Why don’t you take a holiday abroad?’ said Mr Knight. ‘You told the police you liked foreign cities, but I understand you haven’t been to any of them for years. Why is that? You have a long holiday in the summer.’
‘The trouble is I’ve got lazy,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘All the bother you have travelling, the customs and all that, it puts me off.’
Mr Jubb made a note.
‘But if you like to be alone,’ said Mr Knight, ‘why do you stand in a pub every night? You’re hardly alone there.’
Mr Alfred was getting rattled at the probing. He an¬ swered a bit impatiently and spoke too quickly again.
‘I’m a townsman,’ he said. ‘I’m not keen on the wide open spaces. Mind you, I don’t like to go into a pub and find nobody there. You feel too conspicuous, all that empty space at the bar. Depresses me.’
Mr Jubb made two notes.
‘I like to move about where there’s people,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘But not get mixed up with them. See what I mean?’
He moved his chair away from the radiator behind him. It was too near. He felt it scorching his bottom.
Mr Jubb made a note.
Mr Alfred saw him when he shifted his chair. He guessed there had been notes taken all the time behind his back. The suspicion that the stranger was testing him and not Mr Knight made him angry. He spoke impulsively.
‘It’s all these stupid buggers I’ve got to work with,’ he said. ‘They give me nightmares. You’ve no idea. I hate them all. All these brainless bastards and bloody bitches.’
Mr Jubb was stuck for a moment. He turned to an index page at the back of his looseleaf notebook before he made another note.
Mr Knight sighed. He stopped for coffee. As a matter of courtesy to a guest colleague he had a word with Mr Jubb. Mr Jubb was grave.
‘Do you think it’s safe to let him do his own –’ he paused, looked across at Mr Alfred, whispered to Mr Knight – ‘pogonotomy?’
‘I see no reason why he shouldn’t shave himself,’ said Mr Knight.
‘But this fellow’s not right,’ said Mr Jubb. ‘He’s not right at all. Look at what we’ve found out.’
‘What have we found out?’ said Mr Knight.
‘Children frighten him,’ said Mr Knight. ‘He hates fog, he’s afraid to cross the street, he doesn’t like strangers, he has a horror of crowds, he hates to feel people touching him, he likes to wander off on his own, he has a fear of being robbed, he was afraid of dying, he bites his nails, he wouldn’t like to be senile, he drinks eight pints of beer and eight whiskies, he can’t stand animals, cats give him the creeps, he loathes spiders, he doesn’t like what’s new, he hates climbing stairs, he hates heights, he hates travelling, he speaks too quickly, he’s not keen on wide open spaces but he doesn’t like empty spaces, he can’t stand heat and he hates bees.’
‘So?’ said Mr Knight.
‘Don’t you see?’ said Mr Jubb. ‘I’ve got enough for another paper.’
He read off softly, softly, from his notes.
‘The man’s got pedophobia, homichlophobia, dromophobia, xenophobia, ochlophobia, haphephobia, planomania, kleptophobia, thanatophobia, he’s an onychophagist, he’s got gerontophobia, but notice he has no dysphagia, he’s got zoophobia, gataphobia, arachnophobia, kaino- phobia, climacophobia, acrophobia, hodophobia, he suffers from intermittent tachylogia, he’s got agoraphobia and kenophobia, thermophobia and melissophobia.’
‘Poor soul,’ said Mr Knight. ‘He’s in a bad way.’
‘He’s in a very bad way,’ said Mr Jubb. ‘You could have him committed for care and attention on this evidence.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Mr Alfred went inside for his operation while Sheriff Stairs was still considering sentence. He might have been all right, laughed at Mr Jubb, and got back to work if he hadn’t taken a bad turn towards the end of his convalescence. He wakened early one morning and saw his window welcome the sun and a blue sky outside after many grey mornings. He was glad to be alive. He rose promptly and took off his pyjama-jacket. It was his habit then to put his vest on, take off his pyjama-trousers and put his pants on.
This time he lifted his pants in mi
stake for his vest and put his arms through the legs. He knew at once there was something wrong but he wasn’t sure what. He persisted in his error, trying to achieve a victory of mind over matter by simply willing the pants to become a vest. They didn’t.
A nurse found him reeling and writhing round his bed, his head hooded by his pants, his hands waving blindly through the brief legs. No matter how hard he butted he couldn’t get his head through the crutch of his drawers. He was worried.
The nurse watched him. Hegave up struggling and sat on the edge of his bed, defeated, resigned, waiting for release. He flapped his arms above his hidden head and giggled.
The nurse had met it before. She was quiet and tactful.
She slipped the pants over Mr Alfred’s head, drew the legs away from his arms and put him back into his pyjama-jacket and back into bed. Mr Alfred smiled and nodded. His hair was all tousled from his battle with the cul-de-sac of his drawers. He looked at the nurse with a show of intelligent interest. She tucked him in. His lips moved between his nods and smiles but he didn’t really say anything.
The nurse went out. A doctor came in. Mr Alfred was sitting up, smoothing the turnover of his sheet. He gave the doctor a colleaguing smile.
When he showed more signs of deterioration he was put in a geriatric ward. He had attacks of amnesia and aphasia, but picked up a little now and again. He managed to say please without being able to say what it was he wanted. He could also say thank you when his want was understood and met. Since he wasn’t all that old and beds in the geriatric ward were scarce, he was moved to a mental asylum. It may have been that crack on his skull when he was rolled in a back-close. It may have been a natural decay. He lived on without knowing. When he could speak again he was polite to everybody. He walked round the grounds twice every day, morning and afternoon, weather permitting. His only greeting to any fellow patient he passed was a smile, a bow, and a timid murmur.
‘Turned out nice again today. No sign of children.’
He would look up at the sky like a man afraid of a sudden shower.
He was suspended between heaven and earth in peace and solitude. He forgot everything else he had ever wanted. Granny Lyons came to see him three times a week, and went away crying to herself. She brought him cigarettes at first. But he didn’t use them. He had forgotten about smoking. She stopped bringing them.
