The Changeling

by Robin Jenkins

  The little man, even at rest precariously and painfully balanced, tried not to look undignified, and succeeded only in looking sly, mean, and querulous. He too stank of alcohol.

  ‘It was sich a fine day,’ he whined, ‘we thought we’d pay Tom a visit.’

  ‘That’s right,’ yelped Mrs Curdie. ‘Being a mither yoursel’, Mrs Forbes, ye’ll understaun’ that I’ve been anxious aboot my boy, my son and heir, as you might say. Oh hell, I kent you would be looking after him weel, but a mither’s never at rest in her he’rt till she’s seen for hersel’.’

  Charlie was thinking, ‘What can I say, what am I to do, how do I get rid of them?’

  It was Mary who took charge.

  ‘Yes, I understand, Mrs Curdie,’ she said. ‘But we can’t stand here and be eaten by the midges.’

  Mrs Curdie shrieked at that jest. ‘Aren’t they the wee buggers, hen?’ And she clawed at herself vigorously.

  Mary led the way up to the house. ‘You’ll be feeling like a cup of tea before you go for your steamer?’

  Mrs Curdie winked at the sky; for only it could have withstood the effrontery of such a wink.

  ‘To tell you the Christ’s truth, hen,’ she whispered, ‘we were hoping you could squeeze us in for the night. You can see for yoursel’ that wee Molly’s fair tired oot, and it wad be a shame dragging her a’ the way back to Glesca withoot a night’s rest. And Alec here, poor wee fellow,’ s been craving a’ week to see his brither.’

  Mary was almost shamed into a silence that would have meant consent; just in time, roused by her mother’s nudge and snort, she cried: ‘Oh, I’m afraid that’s impossible, Mrs Curdie. We haven’t got nearly enough room.’

  Mrs Curdie shook her head sportively, as if to say that though the lie was well told, it could hardly deceive so expert a liar as herself.

  ‘Ugh, it’s a mansion, hen,’ she said, with a sly keek at the house.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s far from that. It’s got only three bedrooms.’

  Mrs Curdie counted the whole company; she kept cackling at the easiness of their disposal, if it was left to her.

  Shoogle tugged her. ‘The hut, Queenie,’ he whispered.

  She nodded, as if she had that trump well in mind. ‘There’s a braw hut at the back, hen,’ she said, ‘that wad dae us fine. We took the liberty o’ peeping in the window. There’s a bed in it. That’s a’ we need, just a bed.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s where Tom sleeps.’

  Mrs Curdie brooded. ‘So he’s no’ in the house wi’ the rest o’ ye?’

  ‘No. There wasn’t room.’

  Mrs Curdie nodded, with a sad sneer at that inevitable inhumanity.

  ‘I assure you it’s very comfortable,’ said Mary, who then turned upon her husband and with outraged eyes demanded that he stop grinning like a gomeril and help her to get rid of this bloodsucking witch from slumdom.

  He was grinning so foolishly because it had occurred to him that here was the opportunity for a grand Samaritan gesture: take in these wretched specimens of humanity, feed them, cherish them, sleep them in comfortable beds, while he and his family slept on chairs or floor. Todd, Mr Fisher, and all the rest, would no doubt be smugly amused when they heard that he had been forced to send Tom home after a week, but that amusement would die of excess, when they learned of this prodigious hospitality. But it could not be. What had been proved on Canada Hill, amidst the beauty and grandeur there, was proved again here, in the presence of this unwholesome human rubbish: his heart was of ordinary size, composition, and quality; only if he acted accordingly would he find peace; that it would be the peace of mediocrity could not be helped.

  Therefore he faced up to Mrs Curdie and told her what countless millions would.

  ‘I’m afraid, Mrs Curdie,’ he said, ‘that what my wife says is the case. We’d like to put you up, but it’s just not possible. What we will do, though, after you’ve had some tea, is to see that you get safely on the bus that gets into Dunroth in time for the last steamer. That bus will pass here in under an hour, so we’ve no time to waste.’

  She ogled him. ‘If it was just Shoogle and me,’ she coaxed, ‘we wouldnae mind; but we hae these poor wee souls to consider.’

  ‘Did you consider them when you came here uninvited, at such a late hour, after spending on drink what could have bought you hotel accommodation?’

  That pertinent and comprehensive question was put by Mrs Storrocks.

  ‘Ye’re misunderstaun’in us,’ whined Mrs Curdie. ‘We met some freens in Dunroth. They would hae us in for a drink, just to celebrate meeting them, ye ken. We spent no’ a ha’penny. May I drap deid this very minute, here at your very doorstep, if I’m telling a lee.’

  She seemed to wait, with a glance upward and some anxiety. Shoogle too was anxious. When the moment was past, he said, belching boldly, ‘We hae nae money to spend on drink.’

  ‘Maybe you don’t think it’s wasted, of course,’ said Mrs Storrocks, as she marched into the house.

  Mary hesitated on the threshold. ‘Perhaps you’d rather stay out in the sunshine till the tea’s ready?’

  Mrs Curdie came closer. ‘Ye’re forgetting the midges, hen. They’ve got wee Molly in lumps. And to tell you the truth, as woman to woman, there’s a place I’m bursting to visit. The rest o’ them went up into the wood at the back o’ your hoose, but that’s a thing I just cannae bring myself to dae: it’s no’ ladylike oot o’ doors. Eh?’

  They entered. Mary flung open the door of the sitting-room and cried to Tom, although she couldn’t see him, ‘Tom, will you take your friends in here, and make them comfortable until tea’s ready?’

  Mrs Curdie whispered, ‘I’ll never be comfortable, hen, till ye’ve opened anither door, wi’ a sicht o’ wally.’

  ‘Come with me,’ said Mary. As she ran upstairs she was wondering how she could have the seat disinfected before anybody else used it. ‘Here you are,’ she said.

  Mrs Curdie looked in. ‘It’s braw,’ she said, with a sigh. ‘A body could sit in there wi’ pleasure. Ye should see the place we hae at hame, hen.’

  Mary did not wait to hear about the place at home. In her bedroom she stood before the mirror, with her hands squeezing her face into a mask of horror. Yet she could not keep humour out, and the noise in the room was her own laughter. ‘Poor Charlie,’ she kept saying, ‘poor Charlie.’ The pity was affectionate. If anything else had been needed to prove to him that his bringing of Tom had been a blunder, here it certainly was; and it proved it to her, too. As a consequence she hurried downstairs, able to do what was necessary.

  In the dining-room she found Charlie, Alistair, and Gillian huddled together at the window.

  ‘Where’s my mother?’ she asked.

  ‘In the sitting-room.’

  ‘With them?’

  ‘Yes. She said somebody ought to go in and see nothing was damaged or stolen. She thought it was my duty. Mine!’

  He was astonished and then huffed by his wife’s laughter.

  ‘Cheer up, Charlie,’ she cried. ‘It won’t last for ever. Help me to get the tea ready. What were you looking at out there?’

  ‘Tom,’ replied Alistair. ‘He won’t come in.’

  ‘You be quiet,’ whispered his sister.

  Mary glanced out.

  ‘He’s hiding behind the tree, Mummy,’ said Alistair.

  ‘Why? What’s the matter with him?’

  ‘I know,’ said Gillian.

  ‘Do you, Gillian?’

  ‘Your mother,’ said Charlie to the children, ‘has apparently seen the humour of the situation.’

  ‘And thank heaven I have,’ cried Mary, ‘otherwise I’d be weeping.’ Again she laughed, and felt like taking Charlie’s hands and dancing a step or two with him. The next half hour would be weird and awful, but at the end of it all the visitors, Tom included, would have gone. Then the holiday would begin, and the fun of this evening would be remembered for years.

  ‘Hurry up,’ she cried. �
�We can’t have them missing that bus. You put on the kettle, Charlie. Gillian, you set the table.’

  ‘How many places will I set?’

  ‘Oh, yes, there’s that, isn’t there? We don’t want to have tea with them, do we?’

  Alistair shuddered. ‘No. That boy’s face, it’s all blue scabs!’

  ‘He can’t help that,’ said Gillian sharply.

  ‘It would make me sick.’

  ‘You’re a silly little snob. Do you think your own table manners are perfect?’

  ‘If it’s a bad prune,’ he said indignantly, ‘do you want me to swallow it and die?’

  Aware of the imperfections of her own family, Mary was exhilarated rather than depressed; she loved them all the more. In the kitchen when Charlie, cutting bread, turned to smirk reproach, she laughed so much she had to hold on to him.

  ‘Are you sure you’re not a trifle hysterical, my dear?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m sure I am,’ she replied. ‘But, oh, Charlie, did you ever see such a creature in all your life?’

  ‘Which one?’ His voice was cold and sad.

  ‘The woman!’

  ‘I must warn you, Mary, that if they hear you laughing like that they’ll be encouraged, and will be as hard to shift as limpets.’

  ‘Och, limpets are easy,’ said Alistair. ‘All you need to do is to give them a sudden kick.’

  ‘That’s it,’ cried his mother. ‘We’ll give them tea, and then a sudden kick. They’ll be in the bus before they know it.’

  ‘These limpets are cunning,’ warned Charlie.

  Gillian looked into the kitchen. ‘What about Tom?’ she asked.

  Her mother smiled. ‘Well, what about him?’

  ‘Is he to have tea with them, or with us?’

  ‘With them, of course. As a matter of fact, Charlie, I think it would be a good idea if he went home with them.’

  Reluctantly he nodded.

  ‘So will you go and tell him to get packed?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, Charlie, you. You brought him.’

  ‘I’ll never be forgiven that,’ he cried. ‘I’m busy here. There’s Gillian, she can go and tell him.’

  ‘She certainly won’t. Is he still out in the garden?’

  ‘Yes, Mummy,’ said Gillian.

  ‘You’d think, after what’s happened here, he’d be glad to see his people. To us she’s hideous, but to him she’s his mother.’

  ‘I doubt,’ said Charlie, ‘if she’s half as hideous to us as she is to him.’

  ‘Charlie, that’s a terrible thing to say!’

  ‘Is there anything else you want me to do?’ asked Gillian.

  ‘Yes,’ said her mother. ‘I’d like you to take Alistair out of the way till these people have gone.’

  ‘I want to stay,’ protested Alistair. ‘I’ve got a sore leg.’

  ‘You could go and lie down on your bed for half an hour.’

  ‘I want to stay.’

  ‘Let him stay,’ said his father bitterly. ‘The experience will be educative.’

  ‘May I go myself?’ asked Gillian.

  ‘Of course, if you want to,’ said her mother. ‘Is there anything wrong?’

  ‘No, Mummy.’ What was wrong really was that she felt for the boy hiding behind the tree an understanding and pity, neither of which could be expressed; but it did not seem worthwhile to say so; to anybody, especially to her parents.

  In the hall Gillian met Mrs Curdie admiring the grandfather clock. She had washed her hands with scented soap and sprinkled perfumed talcum powder over her face.

  ‘Whit’s your name, hen?’ she asked.

  ‘Gillian.’

  ‘That’s a nice name, and I can see you’re a nice lassie. I’m sure you and my Tom hae got on weel.’

  Mrs Forbes came into the hall. ‘Oh, there you are, Mrs Curdie,’ she said. ‘Tea’s ready. Gillian, will you go and tell Tom?’

  ‘Where is he?’ asked his mother.

  ‘Out in the garden.’

  Mrs Curdie sighed loudly. ‘He never was one for staying in the hoose much,’ she said. ‘But I thought it would be different wi’ such a braw hoose as this. To tell you the Christ’s truth, hen, he’s my ain son, but I hae never understood him. There are times when he makes me feel I’d get mair consideration frae him if I was a beetle he had accidentally tramped on. For he’s no’ a hardhearted boy: he’s got kind words for stray cats, but nane for his mither. Would it be his brains, d’you think? It’s no’ guid for ye haeing mair than ye can cope wi’.’

  Mary felt moved; at the same time she wished Gillian hadn’t heard. ‘I understand, Mrs Curdie,’ she murmured. ‘I suppose it is a difficult position. Perhaps you’d like to go yourself and fetch him in? I’ll tell the others.’

  Hurrying into the sitting-room, as a refuge from that pudgy, forlorn, silly face, she found Kemp and the boy seated side by side on the sofa, with her mother as vigilant and relentless as a jailer. At her feet, on newspapers, sat the little girl, sleepily holding the flowers.

  Despite the flowers, it was immediately obvious why Molly was seated on newspapers: it was to protect the carpet; she stank worse than ever. The jailer’s resoluteness was all the more praiseworthy.

  ‘Tea’s ready,’ announced Mary. ‘The guests are having theirs first, Mother. They’ve got that bus to catch.’

  ‘I’ve been keeping my eye on the clock, Mary. This child will have to be changed.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They have no change with them.’

  ‘But she can’t travel like that.’

  ‘It seems she can, and does, frequently.’

  ‘Perhaps I can find an old towel that would do.’ Mary made to pick up the infant.

  The little man wriggled off the sofa. ‘Leave her to me, Mrs Forbes,’ he said.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I dae it often. Ther’s naething I like better.’

  He picked up his daughter tenderly.

  ‘I doubt if it’s safe,’ said Mrs Storrocks bluntly. ‘In the first place, are you sober enough?’

  ‘I would never fa’ wi’ wee Molly in my airms,’ he said, with passion. ‘Would I, pet? Even if a bus was to run into me, I wouldnae let you drap.’

  Mrs Storrocks was shocked by that fiasco of affection.

  ‘Maybe you’d better change her in the bathroom,’ said Mary. ‘It’s upstairs, though.’

  ‘I can climb stairs, lady. I earn my living.’

  ‘And I’m going out for some fresh air,’ said Mrs Storrocks.

  Mary was left with the boy with the violet scabs. She began to think that she might not after all get rid of her guests that night. If she didn’t, she would become ill-tempered enough to satisfy even Charlie.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Standing on the steps at the front of the house, Mrs Storrocks saw Mrs Curdie talking to Tom under the beech tree. Gillian stood beside them, near enough for contamination.

  ‘Gillian!’ she shouted.

  Gillian turned, saw her grandmother’s peremptory wave, and slowly came over, pale and trembling.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ demanded her grandmother. ‘Have those riff-raff been pestering you? Hadn’t you the sense to keep back from them?’

  Gillian shook her head; if she had tried to speak, she would have wept; and both speech and tears would have been unintelligible to her grandmother.

  Going out to Tom, Mrs Curdie had needed support; she had sought it from Gillian, seizing the girl’s hand in hers, and dragging her towards Tom. As soon as his mother had begun to speak, in a whining tone of entreaty, he had with his right fist struck the tree several times, deliberately, with all his force, so that his mother had shrieked and blood had spurted from his knuckles, staining the trunk. His mother had tried to stop him, to catch his hand and kiss it, but he had repulsed her, almost knocking her over. She had even offered her own face, no more percipient than the tree, but softer, for him to punch. He had stopped then, and his hand by his side had dri
pped blood on to the grass.

  ‘What are they plotting?’ asked Mrs Storrocks.

  Again Gillian shook her head.

  ‘Don’t let them upset you, Gillian. Towards scruff of that sort make your heart like a stone. Keep your sympathy for those who’ll appreciate it. I hope your father has realised that that boy’s to go home with the rest of them tonight. No, it won’t have occurred to him. You and I, Gillian, are the ones who keep our eyes open. Go in and tell your father; or better still, your mother. It’ll not take two minutes to pack his case.’

  Gillian did not move.

  ‘Gillian, I asked you to go and tell your mother.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Grandma, I can’t.’ And still not weeping, Gillian ran away, round to the back of the house.

  Her grandmother angrily breathed in the scent of roses and tang of seaweed. She could not remember having seen Gillian get a good old-fashioned thrashing. The result was this thrawn disobedient girl with too much wilful nonsense in her head.

  Mrs Curdie and Tom were coming across the lawn towards the house. They did not walk hand-in-hand, like mother and son; she cringed, as if asking a favour from someone far above her in station; and truly his face was hard and aloof, like a young prince’s out of a story-book. By his side his hand hung, bright with blood.

  When she reached Mrs Storrocks, Mrs Curdie gazed up no higher than the gold locket round the pink plump neck.

  ‘There’s sich a thing,’ she snuffled miserably, ‘as being too clever for your ain guid. Whit it is that’s broken his he’rt, I cannae say. Maybe ye’d think it was haeing me for his mither, and poor Shoogle for his faither. But it’s no that, either, for he’s never complained aboot us. You expect a wean to be greedy; but never him. Whit there was for eating, he ate; whit there was for wearing, he wore; whit was missing, he did withoot; and never once did he complain. But a’ the time his he’rt’s been breaking.’

  Mrs Storrocks was astonished and displeased: she had not credited this hag with such eloquent sorrow; and the discovery warned her there might be more. It was not the first time she had found to her indignation that people were more valuable than she had thought, or indeed than they deserved to be.

  The boy, too, wore that look of superiority. In his case it was impertinence to the point of lunacy. Was he not a thief, and had he not been cradled in rags and filth and poverty?