by A. J. Cronin
years. But I am only too pleased to see you.’
Off I went again into a fit of laughter. This was going to be
good, so I slewed round, put my feet on the seat and returned the
compliment.
‘You don’t mean that, You’re just being polite. I’m afraid I’m
disturbing You.’
I threw the voice again.
‘It’s quite agreeable to be disturbed. It’s a long night here, all by
Myself.’
I was enjoying this, I wanted it to go on, and it did.
Me: ‘You mean no one looks near You all night?’
The Man: ‘Yes, Father Zobronski looks in occasionally. He has
T.B., you know, and the cough keeps him awake, so he pops in to
have a word with Me.’
Me: ‘That cheers You up?’
The Man: ‘Naturally. But of course I’ll not have him much longer,
he’s booked to go next year.’
Me: ‘He’s being transferred?’
The man: ‘ No, buried. On the 9th of October.’
I had another good laugh at this, but not quite so hearty. Why
the date? This thing seemed to be getting a little out of hand.
Me: ‘That could be a pretty good guess, since he probably has
a large cavity in one lung.’
The Man: ‘In both lungs, doctor.’
Now He was going too far, I had to slow Him down.
Me: ‘Please don’t let us have any of that know-all stuff. While
I have no wish to offend, You are … well … just a bit of stucco
on that wall.’
The Man: ‘How right you are, dear Carroll, and how I wish they hadn’t stuck Me up in this half empty little chapel. Naturally I enjoy the children, and your good self, on the rare occasions when you are here, but as you surmised, it is often extremely lonely and, indeed, unrewarding.’
Me: ‘You’d have preferred one of the larger city churches?’
The Man: ‘Yes, a church where I would come across some of the bigger sinners, not just run-of-the-mill transgressors like you, Dr Carroll.’
Had I said that? Like the date, it had slipped out so easily, quite unpremeditated, and it jarred me. I could barely see Him but I threw a hurt look in His direction.
Me: ‘Forgive me, but need we be so personal. Of course, I know You’ve always had a down on me.’
The Man: ‘How wrong you are, my dear Carroll. When you were young I was quite devoted to you. And I believe you had some slight regard for Me.’
Me: ‘I suppose so.’ He forced it out of me.
The Man: ‘You weren’t afraid to look Me in the eye. You didn’t try to avoid Me as you do now.’
I said nothing. When I started the joke I hadn’t expected it to sour off into a dissection of my character. But as such it continued.
The Man: ‘Indeed, on several occasions I was rather proud of you. You recollect perhaps your admirable behaviour when they put you in gaol for helping that unfortunate girl?’
Had Carroll said that? Of course, you fool. Don’t fancy you’ve started any of that miraculous stuff. You’re lit up with rye vodka and answering yourself back. Nevertheless, it was pretty damn queer and I felt an uncomfortable pricking of my scalp as He went on:
‘But when you started slacking around in your worthy profession instead of practising it with patience and humanity, I began to lose faith in you.’
Me: ‘You kept after me though?’ I had to keep my end up.
The Man: ‘Yes, I seldom give up even with the most hardened cases, and of course, on account of your birth and upbringing, you are a split personality.’
He caught me there – I had to admit it.
Me: ‘Yes.’
The Man: ‘So there was always the chance that your better side might prevail over your worse.’
Me: ‘My worse!’ I sat up. I was beginning to get angry.
The Man: ‘ Oh, I don’t mind your lies, so much, they are often quite amusing. I could even overlook your amorous exploits since, unfortunately, although you are not particularly goodlooking, you have strong sex appeal which makes many women want to sleep with you and those who don’t, like your good Matron, to mother you.’
This was taking me down with a vengeance – when I thought of all my techniques, my efforts to create atmosphere, the records I had bought and played. He was giving me credit for nothing. I was about to bring this up when He interposed suddenly, in a cutting voice.
The Man: ‘The Brahms No. 4 was the most effective, was it not? Softening and soothing. Followed by the Sabre Dance. Wild and exciting! What a clever little sinner you have become, Carroll.’
He was taking my breath away. Was it possible? He … no, it could only be one side of my personality fighting the other. Yet I tried to defend myself against Him.
‘Can’t You give me credit for being in love?’
‘You have not the faintest glimmering of the meaning of that word.’
And He kept pouring it on.
The Man: ‘No, Carroll. What I cannot forgive is your almost total irresponsibility, your lack of charity and pity, your casual indifference towards those whom you have seriously injured.’
The voice – whether His, or mine, I was now too troubled to discern – had lost its calm reasonableness and hardened.
‘It is this, Carroll, that has brought you to the end of your tether, and unless you amend, I warn you, in all gravity, you will be irretrievably lost.’
‘Lost?’
Was it my faint voice, or merely an echo? The terrible conviction had grown in me that if I was, indeed, still the speaker, He was putting the words into my mouth.
‘Yes, lost, Carroll. I will spare you the spiritual implications of that word. But even in its material sense you will be lost. So far, with a good spirit, your natural gaiety, and the remnants of your early training, you have, in your own phrase, got away with it. That won’t continue. Unchecked, with everything permissive, you will inevitably deteriorate. You will become a selfish, indolent, useless drifter, and later, a middle-aged, run-to-seed, used-up Lothario, bored and satiated with your own vices, tortured by memories of wasted opportunities and the knowledge that you are a failure.’
I wanted to answer Him. I tried. I could not. And in the silence that followed, all at once I was afraid. For some time now the Slovene potion had not been holding me up so well and, instead, its more sinister elements were taking their toll of my insides, I felt weak, sick, and helpless. And suddenly I was conscious of the terrible stillness, cut off by the snow outside, and within an isolation, chill and morbid as the tomb. We were totally alone. We? Was I out of my mind? A fresh wave of fear swept over me when the voice said:
‘Are you still listening, Carroll? Have I convinced you? Or shall I go on?’
I had to end this, or it would be the end of me. I forced myself to look towards the Man, and shouted:
‘For God’s sake, stop, if it’s really You. And if it’s me, then shut me up.’
Even before the echoes died, there was a sound, as of the opening of a door, followed by a sharp current of air, and all at once the rushlight went out. The darkness that followed gripped and held me, trapped beyond time and space, in a dimension wholly unearthly and untouchable. I wanted to rise and run in the frantic effort to escape. I could not. My limbs refused to move. Then in that abysmal dark, the silence was broken by slow footsteps, advancing towards me. Frozen with terror, I was back in that nameless street. Nearer, nearer. It was the end of the chase. I tried to cry out but no sound emerged. Deathly sick, I waited for what must come.
A small circle of light shone on my face. Zobronski was bending over me with a little pencil torch.
‘Dr Carroll … you … you are ill.’
‘Watch out,’ I croaked. ‘I’m going to be.’
Violently, I parted company with Slovenia – there was nothing else, I had not eaten since breakfast.
‘I’m sorry,’ I managed to gasp at last. ‘All over your church. I’ll clean it up.’
‘No, no. I’ll do it in the morning. I’m always up long before Mass. But … you must come now and I’ll make you some coffee.’
Coffee – he couldn’t miss the smell of that pure alcohol. I let him take my arm and lead me through the sacristy. I had to be led, my legs seemed not to belong to me. In slow motion we got to his room. As I had been informed, he was poor: a cheap day bed, a wooden table, two hard chairs and a crucifix.
‘Would you like to lie down?’
I shook my head and sat on one of the chairs.
He was still looking at me with inquiring solicitude.
‘You came to shelter.’
I had to tell someone, I was still far from being myself. I gave him it all and ended with a double reiteration.
‘We talked in there, one to the other, like I’m talking to you.’
He simply put his hand on my shoulder and said:
‘First … your coffee.’
He went out. I still felt as if I had just been picked up from the canvas and that I was not yet out of the ring. Zobronski was somewhere next door. I heard a long bout of deep, patient coughing – that’s the big single cavity, I thought: no, from that cough it must be a double. Presently he came back with a bowl of coffee. I thought: they must drink it that way in the Polish seminaries, and it will be the same ersatz coffee. But it surprised me, it was good, and I mumbled this with my thanks.
‘My great luxury,’ he said. ‘A gift from the good Edelmann’s.’
A pause. What would happen to me next?
‘You feel better?’
‘Yes … thank you.’ I even said, ‘ Father.’
Another pause. He sat down on the other chair.
‘My son,’ he said, and went on, slowly, speaking correct, scholarly English. ‘I am not one to decry the miraculous. But the answer to your … your painful experience is very simple. You have just had a dialogue with your own conscience.’ He paused to suppress a cough. ‘It is a fearful and wonderful thing, the Catholic conscience, especially when engendered in us at an early age. You can never escape it. Even the apostates cannot quite lose it, that is why an apostate is always a creature of misery. And tonight when you were …’ he hesitated, ‘over-stimulated, liberated from your usual controls, your conscience took over. Normally it is we who examine our conscience. Tonight it was your conscience that examined you. And judged you.’
I was silent. His explanation seemed logical but he was taking all the drama away from me. No, not quite. I could not bring up the question of that fatal date, the 9th of October, but it helped me to cling to my own view.
‘And now, my son,’ he said with meaning, ‘it is evident that you are troubled. Please do me the honour to tell me.’
I was altogether softened up. I was no longer Carroll, I was a dish rag that had been put through the wringer and hung up, still wet, to dry. Leaning forward with my arms on the table, I told him. There was a lot of it and he heard me in complete silence.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘I will give you absolution.’
‘You want me to kneel?’
‘No, you are still not well, I will kneel beside you.’
I couldn’t stop him. I shut my eyes as he murmured words. I could not laugh this one off and, if it interests you, I did not want to.
He got up, turned away from me and coughed for a couple of minutes – he had been holding it back.
‘Now I am going to telephone your good Matron to bring the car.’
‘She’s no sort of driver,’ I warned him. ‘ Even if she gets down she’ll never get back.’
‘Then I will drive you back.’
He went to telephone. It took some time, perhaps the lines were down. No, now he was talking to the Matron and, although I had lost count of time, she seemed to arrive with surprising promptitude. No words passed between us until we were in the rear seat of the Opel. I wanted to drive, but knew it to be hopeless, I had a splitting headache and was still all over the place. Zobronski insisted on taking the wheel.
‘Oh, how I misjudge you,’ Hulda was crooning down the back of my neck. ‘For so long I sit up awaiting, thinking you are in some bad place in Zürich. And all the time you, so ill, make shelter in the church, and with prayers alzo I hear.’ She put an arm round my shoulders. ‘Now all is besser between us, mein lieber Herr Doktor, and wen I make you soon well, we work always mit grosser Freundschaft.’
Zobronski made it at last although twice he nearly had us in the ditch. Hulda insisted he take the car back to the church. Then, her arm still mothering me, she took me to my room.
‘Some gute hot suppe, lieber Herr Doktor, and then to your warm bed …’
Everything had worked out well for me in the end. She had the maternal instinct, and I could use it. Happy days were here again at the Maybelle.
Chapter Twenty-One
I got out of the weary train, out of the dirty compartment, still stuffed with tunnel smoke from the Central Low Level, and went down the station steps to the sound of music.
Had the town brass band turned out for the occasion? Nothing is so welcoming, or reviving as a rollicking Sousa march. But it was Moody and Sankey that swelled towards me, the Salvation Army lassies with tambourines and a harmonium on wheels making a circle under the damp railway arches while a stray dog, its nose stretched towards heaven, set up a sostenuto accompaniment. The Hallelujahs, I recollected, started early on Saturday afternoons and worked their way down the Vennel, arriving at Market Square around the time the pubs opened. Beyond this group there was no one under the dripping arches but a solitary porter, and no sign of a cab. I eased down my bag and addressed him.
‘Any chance of a taxi?’
Supporting his back against a pillar, he was busy with a fag end, pinched between forefinger and thumb, to extract the last of the nicotine. He expectorated before replying:
‘They’re a’ at the fitba’.’
‘No chance of ringing up Henderson’s?’
‘They’re shut the Setterday afternoon.’
I plucked again at the chords of memory.
‘What about MacLauchlan’s?’
‘It’s a funeral parlor noo.’
‘So, I’ll have to walk.’
‘Ye’ve said it, brother.’
This fraternal greeting, though owing something to percolations from Hollywood, delivered to a sudden tambourine crescendo and lingering canine howl, was at least encouraging. I thanked him politely, picked up my bag and set off. He watched my departure with ill-concealed distrust.
Out in the open it was raining, but by local standards not more than a Scots mist. I had books in the bag which, in consequence, was of no light weight, and I was tired after a long night flight.
Why, I asked myself, was it my beastly destiny to be dragging my luggage into this drab little town where already I observed signs of hideous new construction that must destroy any native character it had once possessed. The old Academy with its fine twin baronial towers of Aberdeen granite had been replaced by an office complex of glass and steel in which a few overtime clerks stirred slowly, like sad sea monsters trapped in an aquarium. And the Georgian pillared Philosophical Club to which my grandfather had belonged no longer graced the dingy street. Instead, rival chain stores displayed glaring signboards that hurt the eye.
If only some kind heart had had the thought to erect one triumphal arch, festooned with streamers and artificial roses, how different would have been my re-entry to this dismal scene. But who was to know of my return? My grandparents, the Bruces, were both gone, decently interred beneath a Celtic cross in the local cemetery. True, there remained Father Francis, and the indestructible Dingwall, but when you have made up your mind to make a crashing fool of yourself, it is wise to delay all disturbing communications. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, and today the evil was of my own making.
I walked a short way farther up the High Street th
en turned sharp left into the quieter Burnside Road, which at least still seemed unchanged. The Carnegie Library remained wrapped in its mantle of Victorian repose and beside it was the same little shop where on a Saturday night, forgetting my allegiance to the royal Bruces, I bought myself a pennyworth of hot chip potatoes. Going this way I must pass the church, but at this hour it would certainly be deserted. Shifting the suitcase to my other arm I followed the curve of the road.
Wrong again, Carroll! As I came into view of St Patrick’s a long line of cars stood in front of the entrance, a large crowd swarming round them. A funeral, probably – perhaps the old Canon had finally disproved the local myth that he was eternal. No, it was a wedding, I could spot the white ribbons on the cars, some already beginning to move away. I hesitated. Turn again Whittington Carroll? Never. Dignity and the right of way forbade it, moreover it was a good bet that I could sneak past unnoticed in the general commotion.
I hastened my steps, but the cars were beating me, taking the turn towards the restaurant we used to call The Swank. The big one, a laundalette, trailing tin cans and the motto Just Married pulled away as I came directly opposite the portico and there, through the gap, so help me, speeding the departing guests, was the Reverend Francis. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him as, with averted head, disguising myself with a crouching attitude, a slight limp, and the used-up air of a travelling bagman selling cheap toiletries to unsuspecting housewives, I tried to get by unobserved.
Useless. He saw me and with a bound, left the balls of his feet and flew, soared across the street.
‘Laurence!’ He embraced me, for a bad moment I feared he might kiss me. He had put on weight, he was plump, and rosy, with a beatific smile, garbed in an immaculate soutane of the best material on which someone had pinned a small rosebud. I used it to ease off his ecstatic greeting.
‘Isn’t that contrary to canon law, Father?’
He blushed. ‘ One of the bridesmaids insisted, Laurence.’
‘The pretty one?’
‘They were all pretty. And of course I’ll take it off before we go in.’
‘Go in?’
‘Naturally, my dear Laurence. Ever since we heard from Father Zobronski that you were coming, the Canon has been parked in the Sisters’ garden, a timetable on his knees, with strict instructions that you are to be brought to him.’
