by A. J. Cronin
‘Ye’re wishin’ you were me, ye auld faggot. Ay, I can see from the greedy look about you that you wish this was goin’ into your belly and not mine. Well, take it from me, in case ye don’t know, it’s a great blend o’ whisky, the sugar is just to taste and the water is right because there’s not too much o’t.’ He laughed uproariously at his own wit, causing Nessie to look up with a scared expression, but catching his glance, she immediately lowered hers as he exclaimed:
‘On with the work, ye young limmer! What are ye wastin’ your time for? Am I payin’ you for your education for you to sit gogglin’ at folks when you should be at your books.’ Turning to his mother again, he shook his head solemnly, continuing volubly: ‘I must keep her at it! That’s the only way to correct the touch o’ her mother’s laziness that’s in her. But trust me! I’ll make her a scholar in spite of it. The brains are there.’ He took another pull at his glass and sucked noisily at his pipe.
The old woman returned his glance sourly, dividing her gaze between his flushed face and the whisky in his hand as she remarked:
‘Where is that – where is she gane to-night?’
He stared ather for a moment then guffawed loudly. ‘ Ye mean Nancy, ye auld witch. Has she put a spell on you, too, that you’re feared even to lift her name?’ Then after a pause during which he assumed a leering gravity, he continued: ‘Well, I hardly like to tell ye, but if ye must know she’s awa’ to the Band of Hope meetin’.’
She followed the vehemence of his mirth, as he shook with laughter, with an unsympathetic eye, and replied as tartly as she dared:
‘I don’t see much to laugh about. If she had gone to the Band o’ Hope when she was younger she might have –’ she stopped, feeling his eye upon her, thinking that she had gone too far.
‘Go ahead,’ he gibed; ‘finish what ye were sayin’. Let us all have our characters when you’re about it. There’s no pleasin’ some folk. Ye werena satisfied with Mamma, and now ye’re startin’ to pick holes in my Nancy. I suppose ye think you could keep the house yoursel’ – that maybe ye might get an odd pingle at the bottle that way. Faugh! the last time ye cooked my dinner for me ye nearly poisoned me.’ He considered her amusedly from his elevated position, thinking of how he might best take her down a peg. Suddenly a wildly humorous idea struck him, which, in its sardonic richness, made him slap his thigh delightedly. She was grudging him his drink, was she, eyeing it like a cat would a saucer of cream, gasping for it, ready to lap it up at the first opportunity. She should have it then, she who was so quick to run down other people! by Gad! she should have it. He would make her fou, yes, fou as a whelk. He realised that he had plenty of whisky in the house, that in any case it would take very little to go to the old woman’s head, and as some foretaste of the drollery of his diversion invaded him, he rocked with suppressed hilarity and smote his leg again exuberantly. Losh! but he was a card!
Then all at once he cut off his laughter, composed his features and, narrowing his small eyes slyly, remarked cunningly:
‘Ah! it seems hardly fair o’ me to have spoken to ye like that, woman, I can see it’s put ye right down. You’re lookin’ quite daunted. Here! would ye like a drop speerits to pull ye together?’ Then, as she looked up quickly, suspiciously, he nodded his head largely and continued ‘Ay, I mean it I’m quite serious. What way should I have it an’ no’ you? A way and get yoursel’ a glass.’
Her dull eye lighted with eagerness, but knowing his ironic tongue too well, she still doubted him, was afraid to move for fear a burst of his derisive laughter should disillusion her, and moistening her lips with her tongue she exclaimed, in a tremulous voice:
‘You’re not just makin’ fun o’ me, are ye?’
Again he shook his head, this time negatively, vigorously, and reaching down to the bottle conveniently beside his chair he held it out enticingly before her.
‘Look! Teacher’s Highland Dew. Quick! Away and get yoursel’ a tumbler!’
She started to her feet, eagerly, as though she were beginning a race, and made her way to the scullery, trembling at the thought of her luck, she who had not lipped a drop since the day of the funeral and then only wine, not the real, comforting liquor. She was back, holding out the glass, almost before he had controlled the fresh exacerbation of amusement which her avid, tottering progress had afforded him; but, as he poured her out a generous allowance, he remarked, in a steady, solicitous voice:
‘An old body like yersel needs a drop now and then. See, I’m givin’ you plenty, and don’t take much water with it.’
‘Oh no, James,’ she protested. ‘Don’t give me ower much. You know I’m not fond o’ much o’t – just a wee drappie to keep out the cold.’
At her last words a sudden memory cut across his jocularity like a whip lash, and he snarled at her:
‘Don’t use those words to me! It minds me too much of somebody I’m not exactly fond of. Why do ye speak like a soft and mealy-mouthed hypocrite?’ He glowered at her while she drank her whisky, quickly, for fear he should take it from her, then, urged by a more vindictive spirit he cried out: ‘Come on. Here’s some more. Glass about.’
‘Na! Na!’ she exclaimed mildly. ‘I’ve had enough. It’s warmed me nicely and gie’n my mouth a bit flavour. Thenk ye all the same, but I’ll no’ hae any more.’
‘Ye’ll not say no to me,’ he shouted roughly. ‘What are ye to refuse good spirits? Ye asked for it and you’ll have it, even if I’ve to pour it down your auld thrapple. Hold out your glass; we’ll drink fair.’
Wonderingly she submitted, and when he had given her another liberal helping, she drank it more slowly, appreciatively, smacking her lips and rolling it over her tongue, murmuring between her sips: ‘ It’s the real stuff richt enough. It’s unco’ kind o’ ye, James, to spare me this. I’ve never had so much afore. Troth, I’m not used to it.’ She was silent whilst the liquid in her glass dwindled, then all at once she burst out: ‘It’s got a graund tang on your tongue – has it no? ’Deed it almost makes me feel young again.’ She tittered slightly. ‘I was just thinkin’ –’ she tittered more loudly.
At the sound of her levity he smiled darkly.
‘Yes,’ he drawled, ‘and what were ye thinkin’, auld woman? Tell us so that we can enjoy the joke.’
She snickered the more at his words, and covering her wrinkled face with her knotted hands, abandoned herself to a delicious, inward humour until at last she coyly unveiled one senile, maudlin eye and whispered brokenly:
‘Soap! I was just thinkin’ about soap.’
‘Indeed now, ye were thinkin’ about soap!’ he mimicked. ‘That’s very appropriate. Was it a wash that ye were wantin’? For if that’s the case I can assure ye that it’s high time ye had one.’
‘Na, na,’ she giggled, ‘ it’s no’ that. It just flashed into my heid that the wives used to do in my young days, when they wanted a drop o’ speerits without the guid-man knowin’ about it. They – they wad go to the village grocer’s for their gill and get it marked to the book as soap – Soap!’ She was quite overcome by her enjoyment of this delicious subtlety, and again buried her face in her hands; but she looked up after a moment to add: ‘Not that I ever did a thing like that! No! I was aye respectable and could scrub the house without that kind of cleanser!’
‘That’s right! Blow your own trumpet,’ he sneered. ‘Let us know what a paragon o’ virtue you were. I’m listenin’.’
‘Ay! I did weel in these days,’ she continued reminiscently, losing, in the present fatuity of her mind, all awe of her son, ‘and I had muckle to put up wi’. Your father was as like you are now as twa peas in a pod. The same grand way wi’ him, and as touchy as gunpowder. Many the night he would come in and let fly at me if things werna to his taste. But I stood up to him in a’ his rages! I’m pleased to think on that.’ She paused, her look becoming distant. ‘I can see it like it was yesterday. Man, he was proud, proud as Lucifer.’
‘And had he not reason to be proud?’ he excl
aimed harshly, becoming aware that the drink was not taking her the way he had expected, that she was ceasing to amuse him. ‘ Do ye not know the stock he came from?’
‘Oh, ay, I kenned a’ about that lang syne,’ she tittered spitefully, filled by a heady, rancorous imprudence. ‘He had the airs o’ a duke, wi’ his hand me this and reach me that, and his fine clothes, and his talk o’ his forebears and what his rights were if he but had them. Oh! he was aye splorin’ about his far-back connection wi’ the Wintons – But I often wonder if he believed it hissel’. There’s a’ kinds o’ connections,’ she sniggered, ‘and ’tis my belief that the lang syne connection was on the wrang side o’ the blanket.’
He glared at her, unable to believe his ears, then finding his tongue, he shouted:
‘Silence! Silence, ye auld bitch! Who are you to talk like that about the Brodies? Ye bear the name yersel’ now. How dare ye run it down before me,’ and he grasped the neck of the bottle as though to hurl it at her.
‘Now, now, Jims,’ she drivelled, quite unperturbed, raising one uncertain, protesting hand, ‘ye mustna be unreasonable. I’m not the kind o’ bird that files its ain nest – this is a’ atween the family so to speak – and ye surely know it was a’ gone intill and found out that the whole trouble began lang, lang syne wi’ an under the sky affair between Janet Dreghorn, that was the heid gardener’s daughter, and young Robert Brodie that cam’ to the title mony years after. Na! na, they were never bound by ony tie o’ wedlock.’
‘Shut your blatterin’ mouth,’ he roared at her. ‘If ye don’t I’ll tear the dirty tongue out o’ it. You would sit there and miscall my name like that. What do you think ye are? Ye were lucky my father married you. You – you –’ He stammered, his rage choking him, his face twitching as he looked at her senseless, shrunken features. She was now completely intoxicated, and unconscious equally of his rage and of Nessie’s frightened stare, continued:
‘Lucky!’ she babbled, with a drunken smirk, ‘maybe I was and maybe I wasna, but if ye kenned the ins and outs o’ it all ye might think that ye were lucky yoursel’!’ She broke into peals of shrill laughter, when suddenly, her false teeth, never at any time secure and now dislodged from her palate by her moist exuberance, protruded from between her lips like the teeth of a neighing horse, and impelled by a last uncontrollable spasm of mirth, shot out of her mouth and shattered themselves upon the floor. It was, in a fashion, a fortunate diversion, for otherwise he must certainly have struck her, but now they both gazed at the detached and scattered dentures that lay between them like blanched and scattered almonds, she staring with collapsed, grotesque cheeks and shrunken, unrecognisable visage, he with a muddled amazement.
‘They’re lyin’ before ye like pearls before swine,’ he exclaimed at last. ‘It serves ye right for your blasted impudence.’
‘My guid false teeth!’ she moaned, sobered by her loss yet articulating with difficulty, ‘that I’ve had for forty years! They were that strong, too, with the spring awteen them. What will I do now? I canna eat. I can hardly speak.’
‘That’ll be a good job, then,’ he snarled at her, ‘if it keeps you from gabblin’ with your lyin’ tongue. It serves you right.’
‘They’ll not mend,’ she whined. ‘ Ye maun get me a new set.’ Her forlorn eyes were still fixed upon the floor. ‘I canna just suck at my meat. Ye don’t get the good out o’ it that way. Say you’ll get me another double set, James.’
‘Ye can whistle for that,’ he retorted. ‘ What good would new teeth be to an auld deein’ thing like you? You’re not goin’ to last that much longer. Just look on it as a judgment on ye.’
At his words she began to whimper, wringing her bony hands together, and mumbling incoherently: ‘What a to-do! I’ll never get ower it. What’s to become o’ me that’s had them so lang. It was a’ the fault o’ the speerits. I could aye manage them fine. It’ll mean the end o’ me.’
He regarded her ludicrous, whining figure with a scowl, then, moving his glance, he suddenly observed the drawn face of Nessie watching the scene with a frightened yet fixed attention.
‘What are you playin’ at next?’ he growled at her, his mood changed by his mother’s recent remarks. ‘Can ye not get on with your own work? You’ll get a braw lot done with that glaikit look about you. What’s the matter with ye?’
‘I can’t get on very well with the noise, father,’ she replied timidly, lowering her eyes; ‘it distracts my attention. It’s not easy for me to work when there’s talking.’
‘So that’s it!’ he replied. ‘ Well! there’s plenty of room in the house now. If the kitchen isn’t good enough for you, we’ll put ye in the parlour. You’ll not hear a sound there. Then ye’ll have no excuse for idlin’.’ He got up and, before she could reply, advanced with a slight lurch to the table where he swept her books into one disordered heap; clutching this between his two enormous hands, he turned and stalked off, crying: ‘ Come on. Into the parlour with ye. The best room in the house for my Nessie. You’ll work in peace there, and work hard too. If ye can’t study in the kitchen you’ll gang into the parlour every night.’
Obediently she arose and followed him into the cold, musty room where, after stumbling about in the darkness, he flung her books upon the table and at length succeeded in lighting the gas. The pale light gleamed from its frosted globe upon the chilly, uncovered mahogany table, the empty, unused fireplace, upon all the cold discomfort of the neglected, dust-shrouded chamber and lit up finally the overbearing figure of Brodie and the shrinking form of the child.
‘There you are now,’ he cried largely, his good humour partially restored. ‘Everything’s ready and to your hand. Draw up your chair and begin. Don’t say that I havena helped ye.’ He put two fingers upon the pile of books and spread them widely over the surface of the table, disarranging them still more and losing all her places. ‘See! there’s plenty o’ room for a’ your orders. Can ye not say thank ye!’
‘Thank you, father,’ she murmured submissively.
He watched her with a complacent eye whilst she sat down and bent her thin shoulders in a pretence of study, then he tiptoed with heavy, exaggerated caution from the room, protruding his head round the door as he went out to say:
‘I’ll be back in a minute to see how you’re gettin’ on.’ As he returned to the kitchen he told himself that he had done the right thing by Nessie, that he was the one to make her get on, and in a mood of self-congratulation he sat down again in his chair and in reward poured himself out another glass of whisky. Only then did he become aware of his mother, still sitting motionless, stupid, like a bereaved woman, with a hollow look, as if some power had sucked her empty.
‘Are ye still here?’ he shot at her. ‘You’re far too quiet for one that had such a glib tongue in her head a minute ago. When I didna hear ye I thought ye would be away to sleep off your exertions. Go on – get away now, then. Away ye go, I’m sick of the look o’ ye.’ And as she was slow in moving, he shouted: ‘Quick! out of my sight.’
While he had been in the parlour she had collected the wreckage of her dentures from the floor, and now, clutching these fragments tightly in her hand she faded soberly from the room, her bowed, dejected carriage contrasting sadly with the gay eagerness with which she had rushed for the tumbler towards her own undoing.
Alone and untrammelled in the kitchen, Brodie addressed himself more assiduously to the bottle, washing away the unpleasant memory of her presence and the bitter recollections occasioned by her remarks. He knew, well, that unhappy truth lay in the foundation of her senile yet disconcerting reminiscences, but now, as always he chose to blind himself to their accuracy – a progress never difficult to his obtuse and lumbering mind and one now rendered easier than ever by the liberality of his potations. Soon he had forgotten the entire incident except for the ludicrous remembrance of her sudden and embarrassing edentation, and reclining at ease in his chair, and toping steadily, he mounted into the higher altitudes of intoxication. With the gr
adual elevation of his spirits he began to regret his solitary condition and with an impatient, swinging foot and eager glances at the clock he sought to anticipate the return of Nancy. But it was only nine o’clock, he knew that she would not arrive before ten, and, as the hands moved with a regular and monotonous slowness despite his efforts to expedite their progress, he got up and began to walk about the room. A wild idea of promenading the streets of the town, of bursting in upon the assembly at the club and disconcerting them with a few lurid and well-chosen words presented itself to him, but although he played with the appealing notion, he finally rejected it on the grounds that his Nancy would not approve. He had now lost his morose and gloomy oppression and, striding clumsily within the confines of the kitchen, his hair ruffled, his wrinkled clothes hanging more awkwardly upon him, his hands dangling like inactive flails, he felt he wanted to express the exultation of his mood in some definite and appropriate action. His past was for the moment forgotten and his outlook bounded only by the compass of the next few hours; he was himself again, yet from time to time, when the sound of his steps rang too loudly in his ears, he would pause with a profound concern for his student next door and, admonishing himself with a shake of his head, resume his pacing more silently, with a greater and more exaggerated caution.
