Remedy is None

by William McIlvanney

  At eighteen she was still young enough to be subject frequently to the absolute authority of the moment. Her feelings had not yet fully evolved to that democracy which would establish their peaceful co-existence with each other. A strong emotion could still seize control of her despotically. She was still at that stage of emotional naivete when an alien and impractical ambition might take possession of her for days at a time, like the desire to be a film actress or to marry a millionaire. It was hardly surprising, therefore, that an emotion able to overwhelm characters much less insecure than hers should compel her to discard for a time an identity that often sat but loosely on her. A few minutes ago, they had both been less individuals than representatives of the species, participants in a ritual that glorified body over brain, inhabiting feeling rather than time, kind rather than place. It was only now in the aftermath of calm when she divested the mask and resumed herself that the possibility of self-criticism returned with her surroundings. The room was waiting like an ostler to reharness her to herself, to put the present back between the twin shafts of past and future. It chafed familiarly against her consciousness in the curtains that would have to be washed soon, the fire that would soon be needing more coal, the spot in the carpet where she had spilled ink a long time ago – in the vague shape of an accidental flower now almost worn away, fading memorial to her carelessness. The clock tutted prissily on the mantelpiece and she took its brass-tongued shock to herself, once again feeling that there might be something irreverent in what they were doing. After all, it was only a few weeks since then. She recalled how this same room had rustled with people who shifted their feet and moved their hands awkwardly. Fragments of the scene washed back to mind, thrown up haphazardly, the self-conscious coughing that spread like a nervous contagion, the wetness of eyes, the small, saturated, lace handkerchiefs with which women strove ineffectually to wap the grief that overwhelmed them, the minister’s voice, circling like a whaup above their desolation. Already such random pieces were all that remained of the total melancholy of that occasion. Could it really be forgotten so soon? Not forgotten, but endured. Even so soon it could be endured and lived with. It had to be lived with. Already this room, which then had been no more than the bare crossroads on which their griefs converged, had again resolved itself into home, the centre of a network of practical needs and relationships, and to go on living in it their grief had to become just as practical. Hers had become acclimatized, had adjusted to the practical demands that were made on it. The life which had gone on in this place for so long still had to go on and could only accept death as a temporary lodger, had no room for it as a permanent guest. This was not just the house where her father had died, but the house where he had lived and the house where they were to go on living. With the practical persistence of the furniture that needed to be dusted and the windows that needed to be cleaned and the floors that needed to be swept, the house was already reasserting on her its old familiar identity. It was resuming in her life its customary position, in which her father’s death was no more than a part, and one that was beginning to be seen in perspective. It was true that her grief could still protrude awkwardly into the daily routine at the sight of a pair of her father’s shoes placed neatly under the chair of his upstairs room – to be left until called for – or of one of his ties in the wardrobe, with the knot left in it that was his trademark. But these were temporary problems that she could cope with as they arose. She knew that she was over the worst of it. With patience and persistence, she would besom her sadness into order, find an appropriate place for it like an ornament. In the meantime, how could it be wrong just to kiss and cuddle on a couch? She writhed a little closer.

  ‘Ah suppose Ah’ll have tae be goin’, Elizabeth,’ Harry said, tickling her neck with his breath and making no attempt to move.

  ‘Oh no, Harry.’ Her arms resigned their defensive position as an additional enticement. ‘Wait a wee while yet. Ye can always run for the bus. An athlete like you.’

  ‘It’s all right for you tae talk. It’s no’ you that’ll get the varicose veins.’

  But he stayed where he was, lipping her throat absently like a goldfish. She was glad to prolong the mesmerism of the moment a little longer. The evening ahead of her was a blank once Harry left, and she knew she would just have to doodle it away with some trivial activities. There was nothing in the house that she urgently required to do. The only thing was Charlie’s tea. She had it made and it was being kept warm in the oven. She wondered why he hadn’t come home for it. In a way it had proved to be a blessing. It wouldn’t have been as convenient for Harry if Charlie had been here. That was an accidental connivance with their luck they hadn’t expected. But the immediate advantage was more than outweighed by the long-term implications. This was typical of the way Charlie had been acting lately. She was worried about him. He seemed to have no further interest in university. He had become frighteningly withdrawn. He had spoken barely two consecutive sentences to her since their father died. She knew it was all somehow connected with their father’s death, but whenever she tried to induce Charlie to talk about it, he became angry or completely quiet. It was frightening how close to him anger always seemed to be, following him everywhere like a dog at his heels, ready to snap at the slightest invasion of his privacy. He had become unexpectedly a mystery to her. The familiar brother she had known was lost behind strange broodings and inexplicable bursts of temper that excluded her from his confidence. She had no idea what he did or where he went during the day. She only knew him now by what was reflected in the reactions of others. She knew that he had avoided John for more than a week and that John was anxious to see him to talk to him about going back to university. She knew that he had not once seen Mary since coming down from Glasgow. She hadn’t known what to say when Mary had called at the door earlier in the evening just after Harry had come in. She felt annoyed at not having asked Mary in, but it would have been awkward with Harry there. She still felt embarrassed for Mary as she recalled their conversation on the doorstep. Mary had been near to tears of puzzled humiliation, and out of pity Elizabeth had made a provisional arrangement for her to meet Charlie on Friday night, and she had said she would tell him about it. She didn’t relish Charlie’s reaction, but she had made the arrangement and she would have to do her best to see that he kept to it. As if for luck, she kissed Harry’s cheek. He gnawed her ear in acknowledgement.

  ‘Ah’ll really need tae get away noo,’ he said, coming out of his emotional hibernation.

  His right cheek was red from contact with her shoulder and patterned with her blouse.

  ‘Oh, no. Ye can skip the night school for one night.’

  Her forefinger tobogganed down his nose on to his lips, and she eyed him with provocative petulance.

  ‘Aye. But Ah canny skip the exam.’

  ‘Ye don’t really have to go, do ye?’

  She knew that he did and she had no intention of trying to prevent him from doing so. Their relationship was firmly founded on practical considerations. It was already rather like a houseless marriage that had still to be consummated. They knew the financial preparations that were necessary. They were planning and saving with the acumen of two business enterprises due to be merged at some future date. Summer had been set as the time for their engagement. The following summer was the earliest possible date for their wedding. Meanwhile, life had become for them a sort of extended bottom drawer in which the future was being neatly laid out for their communal use. Attendance at night school was one of Harry’s contributions, an investment that would earn them interest in terms of higher wages for himself. Elizabeth appreciated the advisability of the move. But she couldn’t help teasing him about it now, playing off his allegiance to her future against his desertion of her present, in a jocular excess of that feminine logic which enables a woman to turn any compliment into an inverted insult.

  ‘Ye’re always so anxious to get away. Ah feel quite offended. Sometimes Ah wonder what goes on in that night c
lass. Y’re a wee bit too keen tae get there.’

  Harry rose as delicately as a walrus to the subtle bait.

  ‘Ah, wouldn’t ye like tae know?’

  ‘Confess,’ she said, threatening him with a kiss.

  ‘Well, actually Ah’ve got off ma mark wi’ this wee textbook Ah met. Ye should see her. She’s got a lovely set of diagrams.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Algie Bra. A sexy name, i’nt it? Ah think she’s foreign.’

  ‘If Ah get a hold of her Ah’ll batter her.’

  Love, like a studio audience, is easily amused. But the inspired fatuity of their conversation embarrassed even their indulgence and they transferred their mock dispute to the physical dimension. They wrestled briefly on the couch and then formed a last intense alliance of themselves before Harry would have to go. They became so engrossed that they did not hear the key turning in the outside door and by the time it swung shut, the living-room door was already opening. They struggled up blindly, Charlie’s presence hitting them like the beam of a policeman’s torch, sending their inhibitions scurrying for cover.

  ‘Whit the hell goes on here?’ Charlie said.

  ‘Nothing, nothing,’ Elizabeth said quickly, her hands trying to endorse her mouth by tucking her blouse inside her skirt and making nervous passes at the buttons.

  Harry had stood up awkwardly, looking down and pulling at his suit as if he was getting a fitting for composure.

  ‘Whit dae ye think this is?’ Charlie was looking at Elizabeth, keeping his anger in the family. ‘A bloody kip-shop?’

  ‘Ah’d better be gettin’ down now, Elizabeth,’ Harry said.

  ‘Aye, ye’d better.’ Harry’s voice drew Charlie’s anger like a magnet. ‘While ye still can, Valentino.’

  ‘Who dae ye think you’re speakin’ to?’ Having buttoned in her embarrassment, Elizabeth was ready to entertain other feelings besides shame, and the first one that came along was sheer indignation. ‘The lord of the manor here. What does it have to do wi’ you? You can go when it suits you, Harry. Not before.’

  ‘It’s all right, Elizabeth. Ah’m late as it is.’ Harry picked up the coat that lay across a chair and put it on. He lifted the black attache-case that was his passport to better things. ‘We wereny doin’ anything bad, Charlie.’

  ‘Well, it wis a pretty advanced form of bloody tiddly-winks, then.’

  ‘Never mind excusing yerself to him, Harry,’ Elizabeth said, taking his arm.

  Harry’s lips puckered under the pressure of the anger they were holding in. He shrugged, and Elizabeth saw him to the door.

  As she came back in, her anger hit Charlie from the hall.

  ‘What do ye think ye’re doin’ ? What was all that in aid of? You’ve got no right to speak like that to Harry. There must be something wrong with you.’

  ‘Listen. Ye might gi’e the grass time to grow on ma feyther’s grave before ye start bringin’ yer boy friend into the hoose for wee sessions.’

  ‘That’s a filthy thing to say!’ Elizabeth’s anger gave way to self-pity. ‘Why are ye sayin’ that about me? Boy friends? Ah’ve been goin’ with Harry for a year and a half. Ma feyther knew about him. He thought it was all right. Ah didn’t mean any disrespect to ma feyther. Ah miss him as much as you do. But you’re queer about it. Why are ye bein’ like this? Charlie, there’s something wrong with you. You’re ill, Charlie. You’re ill.’

  Charlie looked at her bitterly, his eyes opaque with anger.

  ‘If you want tae follow in the footsteps of your dear mother, ye can do it some place else. Ye’ll no’ be doin’ it here.’

  It was an insult administered with brutal precision, the more painful because only those closest to her would have known where to hit. The desertion of their mother had scarred them all, but in Elizabeth the wound had gained extra depth because of implications of heredity that could not apply to her brothers. For her it had seemed that the natural sexual instincts that she felt might possibly be the first stirrings of her mother’s shame manifesting itself in her. It had haunted her for a time. She had found it necessary to overcome them, to prove to herself that what she was experiencing was not her mother’s guilt in embryo. It had been a bewildering and lonely time. The terrifying mystery of puberty had entered her body accompanied by her private multitude of vague, half-formed, whispering fears. The only person who could properly have helped her to understand the fearful quickening in her blood was present only as a sinister shadow, a prophetic whisper that had to be disproved. Alone Elizabeth had to try to find her way through a holocaust of conflicting feelings towards the simple state of being ‘good’, that rickety fire-escape down which people evade the complexity of moral problems. By consultation with other girls, by comparison and analysis, she had painstakingly evolved her sexual code, allowing nothing to anyone until she had done so, holding herself in careful isolation until she was ready to come down from her own minute Mount Sinai. The result was a naive formula rigidly adhered to: only with the one she felt she wanted to marry would there be more than kissing, and with him there wouldn’t be much more. The simple North of her home-made compass was virginity until marriage. Perhaps the caution with which she carved each hand-hold into the future was exaggerated, but then she dreaded falling into the past that had claimed her mother. If she let go, she did not know how far there was to fall, and she couldn’t afford to find out. She had merely kept to her simple formula. And it had worked. Harry had fitted into it and with him she had unlearned her suspicions. Gradually she had ceased to associate sex with guilt, enjoyed the limited expression of her feelings, and looked forward to their ultimate fulfilment. Now Charlie deliberately burst the closing tissues of time and reopened the wound. And the fact that his statement was utterly unfair only added salt to her suffering. Injustice only whets insult to a keener edge.

  The noise of their two voices subsided into the single sound of Elizabeth crying. She was islanded in her misery, sitting with her hands covering her eyes as if Charlie wasn’t there. Every so often she invoked her father helplessly. The scene, taking place in the same room, reminded Charlie of the funeral. It was as if one of the mourners had forgotten to go home, did not know that it was over. But he was the one who did not know, refused to accept that it was over. He was the one who wanted more. And was this what he wanted? A girl sobbing in a darkening room by a dying fire. Was this how to see justice done? By taking advantage of his sister’s grief? What nobility of purpose! Charlie felt ashamed of himself. He had seen Elizabeth gradually coming to terms with the loss of her father and he had callously re-activated her grief. What was he trying to do? Her father had died of cancer and her mother of her own indifference, and he couldn’t let her be happy for a little while with her boy friend. His own brutality sickened him. The fear he had felt on that waste lot after Mick had gone assailed him again. Why was he trying to make the victims of what had been happening endure the guilt of it? Why did he find it necessary to distribute the pain of it among other people? Did he want to see the suffering of his father acknowledged in other people, re-enacted in their own suffering? But why in people like Mick and Elizabeth? Because they were available and he could impose himself on them? That was only adding to the injustice. They were innocent bystanders. Then who was not? Who was guilty? Who was he looking for? He felt suddenly very frightened, frightened of himself, of what he might do. He realized how dangerous he was, to himself and to everyone else. He felt growing in himself an uncontrollable and indiscriminate anger that could strike blindly, at any time and in any direction. Elizabeth was right. He was in some sense ill.

  Was it just because his own small certainties were extinguished? The thought of it made him feel unbearably lonely. He was ill, he felt, and bore about him the smell of death, carrying it into their tidy lives. The terror of what might be ehead of him made him long for the small assurances he had lost himself, the security, the certainty of ordinary things. He felt a terrible need for help, for protection from hi
mself in the company of others.

  He crossed to Elizabeth and put his arm round her shoulders.

  ‘Ah’m sorry, Elizabeth,’ he said. ‘Please forgive me. Ah’m sorry.’

  She was hurt beyond the point of recrimination and was grateful even for the sympathy of her assailant. Her head sank against his chest, and in holding her he was not only giving but also taking comfort. It was the solace of mutual sadness, like the courage two children might gain from knowing that each other is afraid. They sat leaning protectively against each other, as pathetic as any babes in the wood, and more pathetic in that their proximity was illusory and each was lost in a private wood. For Elizabeth it was simply the confusion that Charlie had re-created in her world, the fears and doubts that overgrew the simplicity of things, shutting out understanding. Being not of her own invention, it was both as frightening and as easily escaped from as any wood in a fairytale. All it needed was the right reaction from Charlie, the magical resumption of his old identity, and everything would be all right again. If he would only revert to the person he had been before their father’s death, her life could resume its old routes, laid by habit and surfaced with certainty. For Charlie the entanglement was greater, the shadows deeper, and escape seemed much more difficult. The thing that pursued him and from which he had to escape, was himself, and haunted him like his own shadow. He dreaded being trapped by his own anger round every corner.

  They were content just to be still for the moment, damming sadness with their silence. But the ticking of the clock trickled insistently around them, breaching the feeling of security that immobility gave them. A coal, patiently hollowed out by flame, collapsed suddenly in the grate. The noise snapped Elizabeth out of her trance like the fingers of a hypnotist.

  ‘Charlie,’ she said. ‘Charlie. What is it that’s makin’ you like this?’

  The gentleness of Elizabeth’s voice was soothing. The darkness deepening in the room made it as intimate as a confessional and Charlie felt anonymous enough to talk objectively.