‘Can’t tell you, Bob. Sorry. It’s a secret between me and Charlie. Let’s say he’s taking an interest in Curdie.’
‘Nothing wrong with that, if it’s an intelligent interest.’
‘I’m afraid it isn’t.’
Bob paused. ‘I suppose, Jack, he’s been at you to put in a word for him?’
‘He has, Bob.’
‘Me, too. But the poor blighter always makes it sound as if it was me that was begging the favour.’
‘That’s Charlie all right.’
‘Has he missed the boat now for good, d’you think?’
‘Well, Bob, could he be entrusted with responsibility?’
‘No, Jack, he couldn’t. By the way, what’s the latest about Walter Biddell?’
And they went on to discuss a fellow headmaster recently outmanoeuvred in a promotion campaign.
Chapter Two
The Forbes suburban sanctuary was one of a scheme of houses as alike and as architecturally interesting as match-boxes. Theirs was fortunate in that in front of it were open fields, across which hills could be seen in the distance. Not far away was a farm complete with midden, so that with a west wind came the smell of dung, pleasing Charlie in certain of his moods, and Mary in none. Within easy strolling distance was a wood with a lover’s walk, where pheasants were sometimes seen; a stream flowed through it, a haunt of wagtails.
Their garden was tiny, which Charlie regretted in theory but welcomed in practice: he was too big in the belly, and too assiduous a planter of exotic hopes, to be zealous in the cultivation of leeks or even gladioli; but he liked to watch Mary plant, weed, mow, and chase neighbours’ cats. Those neighbours themselves were much too close: five other gardens bordered on the Forbeses’, so that on summer evenings it was no place for solitary contemplation.
No flower to Charlie was lovelier than his wife. Small, nicely plump, pink-cheeked, pleasantly smiling, black-haired with streaks of white, neat and assured in all her movements, whether walking along the avenue carrying a shopping basket or dancing a Duke of Perth, she was popular with her neighbours and saw to it that they respected her and her family. Whatever opinions they had about her husband, whatever smiles of good-natured derision he evoked, had to be hidden from her. She knew that those opinions and smiles existed, she even thought they were in some instances justified, and certainly she could not always keep free from annoyance at Charlie; but loyalty, good sense, self- respect, and affection, had so far enabled her to express that annoyance with tact and discretion. Nevertheless she often thought and sometimes said, with a little asperity, that she didn’t have two children, she had three.
As soon as he came home from school that day he noticed that she was rather cross. When he inquired, fondly, she said she felt tired, that was all; she needed a holiday. At the tea table she scolded the children oftener than usual.
It should have been obvious to Charlie that he should have postponed the discussion about Tom Curdie; but even if it had occurred to him he would have rejected it on the grounds that where diplomacy was needed trust could not exist.
After tea, the dishes washed and dried, with Charlie enthusiastically helping, the children out at play again, he suggested a walk in the sunshine, for it had turned out a fine evening. She consented, on conditions: he wasn’t to take her where she would have to cross ploughed fields or clamber over fences or—she laughed as she said this—help to pull him through when he got stuck. That picture of him fast by the belly and behind on barbs was unflattering, but it could be substantiated. The final condition was that he must wear his good flannels and new sports jacket. She herself would wear her new fawn summer coat. In it she looked charming, as he told her; but, as she told herself, she also looked cool, wary, and a shade pugnacious. From her point of view this stroll, like every other stroll in the district, was not merely for fresh air and exercise and the pleasure of birdsong;
it was also for the informing of all neighbours in gardens or behind curtains that the Forbeses were as good as they.
They approached the farm. Mary grumbled as usual about the stench and the dilapidated outhouses that spoiled the appearance of the suburb. In one of those outhouses was kept a huge white bull which had won prizes: it was called Ardlamont Pride. The top part of the door was usually open, so that passers-by could see that massive melancholy head with the ringed nose and tearful eyes. Charlie was always fascinated. He could never pass, even when Mary was with him. Now this evening he went over, leant through the door, patted the great head, and spoke to it caressingly, as another person might have spoken to a kitten.
Mary at all times found the brute disgusting and terrifying. Sometimes she would linger and tease her husband as he admired it, but this evening she walked impatiently away, leaving him, and the Pride, gazing after her with similar expressions of regret.
Lingering had been one mistake; hurrying to make up was another. People she knew and didn’t much like were watching. Although she agreed with him in principle that the tittle-tattle of such neighbours ought not to be heeded, still, being a sensitive woman, it galled her to catch a glimpse, through their eyes, of herself being neglected for a miry brute of a bull, and then being rejoined at an eager taurian gallop.
He arrived panting.
‘There was no need to run, Charlie,’ she said. ‘If you like people laughing at you, I don’t.’
He turned and gazed after those poor clods without imagination who could not endure to see a man in a public place running after his wife in his joy to be by her side.
‘You’ve got something to tell me,’ she said. ‘What is it?’
All along he had suspected that she had had one of her intuitive premonitions. It was not necessarily a bad sign.
Behind them the Pride bellowed.
‘Well, there is something, Mary,’ he confessed, laughing.
‘I knew it the minute you came in tonight.’
She was referring of course to his concentration upon a propitiatory form of words; especially during the dish-drying had he sought it. That it was necessary did not of course belie his proud claim to Mr Fisher that she was very generous, and also that she respected his ideals. Like every other woman of spirit, Mary wished all his words to be a form of wooing.
‘Well?’ she asked.
‘Mary, my dear, you’ve heard me talk about a boy called Tom Curdie?’
‘You talk about so many of your pupils, Charlie, I can’t be expected to remember them all.’
‘He’s special, Mary. A very clever boy, from Donaldson’s Court.’
‘Isn’t he the one on probation for stealing?’
‘That’s him,’ he said eagerly.
‘All right, what about him?’
‘Perhaps I’ve spoken about his strange smile, his indomitable spirit?’
‘Perhaps you have, Charlie.’
He decided to plunge. ‘I made a vow today, Mary, one that I regard as solemn.’
She waited.
‘I vowed to take Tom Curdie with me to Towellan this summer.’
‘With you, Charlie? Are you going by yourself this year?’
‘I meant, of course, with us. Provided you are agreeable.’
‘So I’m to have a say, Charlie?’
‘You always have a say, Mary.’
‘And it’s just as well for you, Charlie.’
He remembered Mr Fisher’s words about good, sensible wives.
‘He’s a thief,’ she said, with indignation.
‘Because of corrupting influences, surely. It’s those influences I hope to save him from. Consider where he lives, Mary. Mr Fisher himself said that if he had a pet tiger he wouldn’t let it go into Donaldson’s Court.’
‘Every child that lives in a slum isn’t a thief. But why has it got to be you, Charlie? There are lots of them on your staff better able to afford it.’
‘Financially, yes.’
‘Didn’t you tell me his mother lives with a man who’s not her husband?’
�
��Yes, but that’s not Tom’s fault.’
‘I don’t care whose fault it is, Charlie. I’ve got to protect my own children. He’ll have seen and heard the most filthy things.’
‘Yes, Mary, he will have.’
‘He’ll not be clean. He’ll have lice. He’ll swear. He’ll lie. He’ll have all kinds of disgusting habits.’
‘No, no,’ he cried. ‘He’s not like that at all.’
‘What did Mr Fisher say?’
He did not answer; his face told her.
‘I thought so, Charlie. And all the other teachers would say the same, not to mention the police.’ She softened her voice. ‘You dream too much about what should be, Charlie; you don’t see what really is.’
His whole being then seemed checked, suffocated, as if its necessary atmosphere was removed. He knew that atmosphere was his wife’s support, approval, and loyalty.
She thought he looked like Alistair when denied some expensive toy.
‘Apart from anything else, Charlie,’ she said, ‘look at the extra
work it’d mean for me. I grumble enough as it is about the holiday just being a change of sinks for me.’
‘I do my share.’
‘You always mean to, I’ll grant you that.’
‘I wash dishes.’ And then he realised that by introducing this pettiness he was yielding victory, not to her, but to that prevailing meanness of spirit which, however unwittingly, she represented then.
‘A thousand women in my place, Charlie, would all give the same answer.’
‘I thought my wife was one in a thousand,’ he said humbly.
She was touched. ‘You’re asking what’s not fair, Charlie.’
‘I need your help, Mary,’ he said desperately.
She understood that he had made this thing far more important to him than he should.
‘Charlie, my mother might be going with us.’
‘I thought she said she wasn’t.’
‘She just said she might not be. As a matter of fact, I think she’ll come.’
‘Well, even if she did there’d still be room for him in the hut.’
‘And a lot more work for me.’
‘I promise I’d do my share.’ He tried to laugh, to speak lightly. ‘If I fail in other things, Mary my dear, at least let me succeed in this.’
She supposed he was referring to his failure to be promoted, and she wondered if this taking of the boy to Towellan wasn’t a last desperate move to attract the favour of councillors.
‘Have you asked him?’ she asked. ‘The boy, I mean.’
‘I couldn’t till I had your consent.’
‘Would he go?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Perhaps he works during the holidays.’
‘It’s possible.’
‘His people would object to losing his wages.’
‘I expect they would.’ He sighed. ‘It would seem that the circumstances of the world are all against my keeping my vow.’
‘Yes, Charlie, I think they are.’
‘So your verdict is: no?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Very well. Shall we say no more about it?’
‘That suits me, Charlie.’
He sighed again, and smiled, and put on his martyr’s face.
No more was said about it until they were in their bedroom. He was peevishly struggling to loose a knot in his shoe-lace, caused by his inefficient bow-tying. She had her back to him.
‘Are you really serious about wanting this boy Curdie to come with us?’ she asked.
He turned round, astonished and disconcerted.
‘So serious, Mary, that my reputation is involved.’
She let the exaggeration pass. ‘Will it really do any good?’ It was a double-edged question, and she looked at him to see if he understood. She thought he did.
‘Yes, Mary, it will, a great deal of good, I’m sure of it.’
‘If we had him for a week, would that do?’
‘I thought, a fortnight.’
‘Any trouble, and he goes home at once?’
‘Certainly. But he won’t give any trouble, Mary; I could swear to that.’
‘All right, we’ll try it.’
He jumped up, one shoe on, one off, and embraced her. ‘Thank you, Mary. I know you’re doing this for my sake, and I’m very grateful.’
‘Don’t let’s talk about it any more tonight, Charlie. I’m tired.’
When Charlie at last slept, after wrestling with qualms, he dreamed. In a green hilly field a boy sat on a huge white bull with his fist full of lice. The bull’s face was like Charlie’s own, but the boy’s could never be seen clearly enough to be identified. In the background, bluer than ever he had seen it in reality, shone the Firth.
Chapter Three
An aesthete, as well as its humanitarian owner, would have been shocked had Mr Fisher’s pet tiger wandered into Donaldson’s Court. There its sleek skin, indigenous to jungle striped with sun and shadow, would have been shamed, and its fastidious paws polluted, by the garbage, filth, and overflow from broken privies. The splendour and beauty of the great beast would have been extinguished. In the same way, of course, it could be and often was objected that the more intricate, more fragile, and diviner beauty of the human body and mind was also shamed and polluted by such surroundings. But the humans had the advantage in that, being domiciled there for generations, they had undergone a debasement that softened the contrast. Newly-born babies in their prams, if washed, looked pathetically alien there; but in a short time, in two years or less, they had begun to acquire the characteristics which would enable them to survive amidst that dirt and savagery, but which naturally detracted a great deal from their original beauty. By manhood or womanhood they were as irretrievably adapted to their environment as the tiger to his. Hence aesthetes, humanitarians, moralists, and politicians, whilst still appreciating the tragedy, had it presented to them in a tolerable manner. Slumdom was hideous; but then the people who lived there were slum-dwellers.
On a wet afternoon two days after Mr Forbes had made his vow, through the pend that led into Donaldson’s Court, walked one of its inhabitants, distinguishable from most by his bright, wary, uncommitted eyes. He was Tom Curdie. In one pocket he had a letter from Forbes addressed to his mother although she could hardly read, and in another an apple lifted from a box outside a fruiterer’s; this was for his brother Alec who had been off school that day through illness.
There was another inhabitant in the pend. An old black cat crouched in a hole against the wall, sheltering from rain and cruelties. It seemed afraid to close its eyes, and kept shivering as if in a nightmare of gigantic rats. It had been kicked out by someone. Soon it would be found dead and its carcase swung by the tail by boys to make girls scream, before being tossed into some dustbin where the scavengers would discover it with oaths of outrage.
Tom went over, squatted, and, heedless of the scabs visible under its fur, stroked it. Suspicious of kindness, it mewed in misery at being too weak to slink away. He did not speak either to reassure or sympathise. Pity was never shown by him, only comradeship. For any creature whom he accepted as his comrade he would lie, steal, or suffer. This old cat was such a comrade. Recognising its hunger, and having only the apple reserved for Alec, he did not know what to do. Then, biting off a piece, he placed it under the cat’s mouth. It mewed and sniffed, but did not eat. He knew that his presence, his human smell threatening treachery and cruelty, put it off. He rose up, therefore, and padded out into the rain. There he looked back. The cat, not much liking apple, was nevertheless eating. He smiled in approval. Never to whine; to accept what came; to wait for better; to take what you could; to let no one, not even yourself, know how near to giving in you were: these were his principles by which he lived, and he honoured them in this old dying cat.
To reach his house, two storeys up, he had to climb a common stair wet with overflow from a privy. A stench of damp, decay, and urine, lay sour and thi
ck on the air. He was passed by an old man, snivelling and squeaking, whose face looked like an apple out of which several bites had been taken. He was nearly blind. It was his custom to swing a blow at any person passing him, and when he missed, as he usually did, he broke into a horrible weeping and struck at himself. He drank methylated spirits and melted boot polish, and was crazy.
Tom easily dodged aside, without laughing, as some did, or swearing, like others. He gazed after the sobbing old man without fear, anger, or disgust. There were many such persons in the Court and the surrounding tenements. He knew them and their vices and despairs. He passed no judgment, but they were not his comrades. They had all long ago given in, and wanted him to give in, too.
It was Alec who opened the door. As soon as he saw Tom he began to whimper. He had a large sore at the side of his mouth, and looked ill.
Apparently not heeding the self-piteous whines of his brother, Tom entered the single-roomed house. No one else was there. His mother, with his half-sister of three, was out visiting; she would be drinking beer and playing cards.
Alec had been alone in the house for three hours; now he followed his brother about, as plaintive and possessive as a kitten.
‘Did you bring me onything?’ he asked. ‘You said you would.’
Tom handed him the apple.
‘I don’t like aipples very much,’ whined Alec.
‘It’s good for you.’
‘There’s a bite oot o’it.’
‘I wanted to see if it was sweet.’
‘Is it sweet?’
‘Aye.’
Alec took a bite. ‘It’s no’ very sweet,’ he grumbled. ‘Did you steal it, Tom?’
‘I took it.’
‘Shoogle says taking’s juist the same as stealing.’
Shoogle was their foster-father. Imposed on him as an infant, the nickname had come to be used even by his mother, and now his three-year-old daughter lisped it. He worked in a rope factory.
‘Shoogle’s feart for you, Tom.’
Alec hee-hee’d at that astonishing fear inspired by his brother who was smaller even than Shoogle and not so strong.
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