The Changeling

by Robin Jenkins

  Yet his hand red with blood was like an emblem of eerie distinction.

  ‘What’s the matter with his hand?’ she asked.

  ‘He banged it against the tree.’

  ‘Why? Has he gone crazy?’

  Then they were joined by Mary who came out, cheerfully, to tell them tea was waiting, and the bus was due in twenty-five minutes.

  ‘He’ll have to go and wash his hand first,’ said her mother.

  ‘We’ve no time to spare for that, Mother.’

  ‘Look at it.’

  He had put it behind his back.

  ‘Show your hand to Mrs Forbes,’ said Mrs Storrocks sternly.

  ‘Let me see it, Tom?’ asked Mary.

  Slowly he showed it. So lacerated and bloody, it made her cry out.

  ‘How on earth—?’

  ‘He banged it, if you please, against the tree,’ said her mother.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Spite, if you ask me; spite and temper.’

  Mary shook her head: that explanation, which put all the blame on the child, was much too simple.

  Charlie came out, determined to be cheerful. He noticed that the Firth was a strange lovely pink colour, and it gave him courage.

  ‘You’ll have to hurry, Mrs Curdie,’ he cried, ‘or that little boy of yours will have cleared all the plates.’

  ‘He’d eat soap,’ she admitted.

  ‘Look at his hand, Charlie,’ whispered Mary.

  When he saw it he glanced in alarm towards the sea. ‘My God, how did this happen?’ he cried.

  ‘Never mind that now,’ said Mary. ‘It’ll have to be washed and disinfected. Will you take him upstairs and do it, Charlie? It’s making me feel sick. It must be terribly painful. He may have to see a doctor. They’ll never catch that bus tonight, I can see that.’

  As he set out disinfectant, cottonwool, bandages, scissors, and adhesive, Charlie’s hands were clumsy with nervousness and guilt. He had already suspected that by bringing Tom to Towellan he had, inexplicably, done the boy more harm than good; now this self-inflicted injury was no doubt the outward sign of that harm. But what dreadful spiritual stress had been responsible he did not know, and did not really want to know. Such knowledge he had not the imagination to acquire, nor the courage and compassion to bear.

  He tried to speak cheerfully. ‘If it’d been Alistair who’d got a hand like this,’ he said, ‘he’d have made a row that could be heard across in Rothesay.’ But even as he uttered that disloyalty his heart was warm with love for his son, whose howling and fuss would have been a clamour for help and sympathy, so much preferable to this inhuman silence and endurance.

  Yet for his own sake he hoped that silence would not be broken. If Tom pleaded, if he wept in pain or penitence or unhappiness, he might weep too, at his own futility.

  The wound was washed with tenderness, disinfected, smeared with soothing ointment, and now was ready for the bandage. The long white strip of cloth reminded Charlie of the cerements of a mummy; and somehow the resemblance did not seem so fantastic when he glanced aside at that small remote indecipherable face.

  ‘I stole Mr Todd’s money,’ said Tom.

  Charlie stopped bandaging. The very sound of the words had disconcerted him too much to grasp their meaning.

  ‘What’s that, Tom?’

  ‘I stole Mr Todd’s money.’

  Charlie tried to laugh. ‘Don’t take everything on yourself, boy,’ he said.

  ‘I took it. I broke into the school.’

  ‘But you denied it so confidently when Mr Todd and Mr Fisher questioned you!’

  Tom smiled: it was the same swift smile with which he had entered Mr Fisher’s room to undergo that questioning. Was it then, after all, a smile of subtlest insolence, of changeling malice?

  ‘I don’t believe it, Tom,’ said Charlie. ‘You’re just piling blame on yourself because you’re unhappy.’

  ‘And I took the half-crowns out of your desk.’

  Only Charlie and the thief knew those half-crowns had been stolen.

  ‘How many were there?’ asked Charlie hoarsely.

  ‘Six.’

  ‘Yes, six.’ Charlie too smiled, in anguish. With what confidence had he undertaken a task so immeasurably beyond his powers! Into what wild dark realms of tragedy had he walked, with his few matches of faith? Instead of Todd’s sarcasm and the amused pity of the others, should have been the roaring of the incensed gods.

  There was an imperative rattling at the door handle, as if, indeed, the messenger at last had come, to summon for retribution; but when the door opened it was Alistair who peeped in.

  ‘Mum says you’ve to go down as quick as you can,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, all right. I’ve just finished.’

  Alistair glanced at the bandage, and then at the strip of Elastoplast on his own knee. He sneered, indicating his opinion that the smaller the covering the greater the courage.

  ‘Tom’s to go, too,’ he added.

  Charlie hurried down, leaving Tom to linger on the stairs.

  When he entered the dining-room he saw at once something serious was amiss. Never had he seen Mary look so disgusted. Her mother stood in the doorway leading to the kitchen, looking outraged, but enjoying it.

  The boy with the scabs was still eating; the little girl was asleep, with a jammy piece of bread at her mouth. The cripple nibbled at a cake, like a cannibal at a piece of rancid flesh. Mrs Curdie was munching and talking.

  ‘Nae wean breaks his haun against a tree for nothing,’ she was saying. When she saw Charlie, she cried: ‘Where’s my Tommy? Whit hae you done wi’ him?’

  ‘As you know, Mrs Curdie, I’ve been bandaging his hand.’

  ‘Charles,’ said his mother-in-law, ‘I think you should be warned that a very nasty insinuation has been made about you. For your own protection I think you should go right out to the hall and telephone for the police.’

  He looked in amazement at Mary. She nodded. ‘I’m afraid so, Charlie,’ she said. ‘Read this.’ She snatched up a scrap of paper from the floor and handed it to him, with as much revulsion as if it was smeared with excrement.

  ‘That was tore frae the paper just last Sunday,’ said Mrs Curdie.

  It was about a schoolmaster found guilty of sexual offences against boys under his care.

  ‘You’ll see he got eighteen months,’ said Mrs Curdie, ‘and of coorse his career’s ruined.’

  ‘Where did this come from?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘They brought it,’ said Mary.

  ‘I’m no’ blaming you, hen,’ whined Mrs Curdie.

  ‘Are you blaming me?’ shouted Charlie.

  ‘No’ exactly blaming you, Mr Forbes. But, ye see, these things happen, and a mither’s got to be carefu’. Then when ye were sae anxious to get rid o’ us, it looked suspeecious. And poor wee Tommy, he’s sae terrible upset aboot something.’

  ‘No damned wonder he’s upset,’ roared Charlie. ‘Will I tell you why? He’s upset because he’s a rotten little lying thief, and he’s been found out.’

  ‘A thief!’ wailed Mrs Curdie. ‘Oh my God, Shoogle, did you hear that? He ca’ed Tommy a thief.’

  ‘I’ve listened to enough,’ said Mrs Storrocks, marching to the door. ‘If you’re not out of here in five minutes, taking your precious son with you, I shall phone for the police. Where is he, Charles?’

  ‘He came down the stairs behind me. Maybe he’s gone outside.’

  ‘Daddy, Daddy!’ It was Alistair shouting, and in he raced, gasping with excitement. ‘Police. The police are coming.’

  Mrs Curdie leered at him. ‘You’re weel-trained, son,’ she said, ‘but ye’ll hae to do better than that to take in Queenie Curdie.’

  Mary looked out of the window. A large car was stopped at the gate. Two policemen stood beside it, and were apparently about to come up to the house.

  ‘They’re at the gate all right,’ she said.

  She and Charlie hurried to the outside door.


  ‘Do you think it’s the Woolworth’s business?’ she whispered.

  ‘No. How can it be? It’ll be some routine inquiry.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  They were joined by Mrs Curdie. ‘Shoogle and me hae agreed,’ she said, sniggering anxiously, ‘that we’ll let the maitter drap. The less we hae to dae with these bastards the better.’ She hurried back into the house.

  There was a sergeant and a constable.

  ‘Mr Forbes?’ asked the sergeant.

  ‘That’s me,’ said Charlie. ‘And this is my wife.’

  The sergeant touched his helmet. ‘I’m Sergeant McBrayne, and this is Constable Rankin. We’re sorry to trouble you. You’re on holiday here?’

  ‘Yes. This is my wife’s cousin’s house, Mrs McDaid.’

  ‘That’s right. Have you a boy called Curdie living with you?’

  ‘So it is him,’ said Mary.

  The sergeant stared at her. ‘Aye, Mrs Forbes, it is.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d better step inside, Sergeant,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Well, if you don’t mind. The midges are bad.’

  As they went into the sitting-room the sergeant saw Alistair in the hall. ‘This isn’t him?’

  ‘No, that’s our son Alistair,’ said Mary.

  ‘Sorry, Mrs Forbes. I should have known. Curdie’s a bit older, isn’t he? Where is he?’

  ‘At the back somewhere,’ said Charlie. ‘Do you want to see him?’

  ‘It’s what we’re here for.’

  Charlie sent Alistair, who raced off, smacking his hip.

  In the sitting-room they sat down, the policemen with their helmets on their knees. Mary sat on the arm of Charlie’s chair.

  ‘Just to get things right, Mr Forbes,’ said the sergeant, ‘I wonder if you’d explain your connection with Curdie.’

  ‘That’s easily done. I’m his teacher. He comes from a slum, and his people are pretty horrible. They’re in the house at the moment pestering us. I was sorry for him, so I brought him here for a holiday with my family.’

  ‘I see. Hasn’t it turned out as well as you’d expected? I mean, you sound a shade disappointed, if you’ll pardon me saying so.’

  ‘It hasn’t turned out well at all,’ said Mary.

  ‘Might I ask why?’

  It was Charlie who answered. ‘I’m afraid we’ve found him sly, secretive, and deceitful, and not the kind of companion we like for our own children.’

  ‘I see. Have you missed anything? I mean, have you reason to believe he’s stolen anything?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’d be on the look-out for that, of course. Being his teacher, you’d know he was on probation?’

  ‘Yes, I knew that.’

  ‘Aye. So his folk are here? That’s handy.’

  ‘Not for us,’ said Charlie grimly. ‘We’ve been trying to get rid of them.’

  The sergeant laughed. ‘What’s keeping him, though? I think you’d better take a look, Geordie.’

  The policeman got up and went out.

  ‘What’s he done, Sergeant, that brings you here?’ asked Charlie. ‘We’ve had him under strict supervision.’

  ‘Have you heard of Chick Mackie and Peerie Whitehouse?’

  ‘Vaguely.’

  ‘Well, we’ve got them in the car at the gate. They’re friends of Curdie’s, I understand.’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘This boy Mackie, he stole a handbag this morning in Dunroth. The silly woman left it lying on the seat beside her, turned her head for a second, and it was gone; and the forty- five pounds that were in it.’

  ‘Forty-five pounds!’ cried Mary and Charlie together.

  ‘Aye, and we haven’t got it back yet. Mackie seems something of an imbecile, but he knows how to hold his tongue.’

  ‘Tom was in Towellan all morning,’ said Mary.

  ‘That’s right. We know Mackie did it on his own, but it seems Curdie’s the master-mind behind the scenes.’

  ‘It doesn’t need much of a master-mind,’ said Charlie, ‘to plan a snatch from a seat in broad daylight.’

  ‘No, that’s right.’

  Then in raced Alistair again. ‘Daddy! Mummy!’ he gasped.

  ‘What is it?’ they cried.

  ‘It’s Tom. He’s run away. He’s disappeared.’

  The sergeant jumped to his feet. ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ he said, and hurried out.

  Alistair looked at his parents, as if he had them at his mercy. ‘And Gillian’s gone with him,’ he suddenly shouted.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The truth was, Tom had gone with Gillian. Seeing the police she had rushed to the hut where he was seated on the bed, with his case open at his feet.

  ‘Hurry,’ she cried, ‘hurry.’

  He thought she meant the bus would be along soon; her agitation of tears was caused by joy at his leaving. But he had not been able to face the prospect of returning with his mother and Alec and Molly, and so he shook his head.

  ‘Yes, you must come,’ she cried. ‘You can’t just sit there and let them catch you.’

  Taking him by the unbandaged hand she pulled him out of the hut, down the garden, and through the gate leading into the wood.

  He thought her intention after all must be to help him, to hide him somewhere until the bus, with the others in it, was gone. So he went willingly, running after her through the shadowy wood, over the steep field in which the whins lay like golden cattle, and beyond the drystone dyke up the hillside where the bracken was thick and higher than their heads.

  ‘We’ll go to the shepherd’s hut,’ she gasped. ‘It’s up the hill a good bit, in a hollow. It’s where the shepherd stays at lambing-time. If we creep through the bracken to the burn we’ll be able to get up without being seen. I’ll go first and make a way. You’ve only got one hand.’

  Though she still shed tears, and spoke through sobs, there was now a brightness about her, like sunshine through rain. The glances she kept casting back were far more defiant than his, and the eagerness with which she burrowed through the tunnel of bracken was in contrast to his own resignation. She was very sure where she was going; the shepherd’s hut for her was a destination; but for him it could only be another place in which to try and solve what could never be solved.

  The burn was nearly dry; to go up its bed was easy, jumping from stone to stone, screened all the time by the birches on both banks.

  Then they heard shouting and whistling.

  ‘You sit and rest,’ said Gillian, and waited till he obeyed.

  Through the branches of a birch she gazed down at the persons gathered at the drystone dyke. Her father was there, with Alistair beside him. Two policemen were leaning against the dyke. Her mother was hurrying across the field of whins. One of the policemen took off his helmet and mopped his brow with his handkerchief. They were all troubled by midges. It was only when she saw them waving handkerchiefs about their faces that she became aware she too was being tormented.

  Alistair whistled, with his fingers in his mouth; it was she who had taught him to whistle like that. Her father shouted. Among the whins her mother stopped to call; and from the tremulousness of that calling Gillian knew she must be weeping. There was no sign of any of Tom’s people. Perhaps they had got away in the bus after all.

  Gillian went back and crouched beside Tom. Some of her resolution was lost.

  ‘Anyway, it’s hopeless,’ she muttered, and bit at her knee.

  He sat so still she could scarcely hear him breathe. A trickle of water, a grasshopper, a faraway curlew, Alistair whistling: these she heard, with poignant clarity, but him she could not hear at all. He might have been dead. Midges crawled up his face, and into his ears and hair, a green insect landed on his knee; but he did not move his hand to chase them away. Blood was seeping through the bandage on his other hand.

  ‘Did you,’ she asked, ‘did you steal those things in Woolworth’s because—because you didn’t
want—to get—too fond of us?’

  Expressed like that, almost angrily as if she was again accusing him, it was very far from saying what was in her heart to say. She felt not only pity and love for him in his terrible predicament, but also complicity with him. There was no way of explaining that.

  Nevertheless he seemed to understand, and smiled with a gratitude she could not bear. She leapt up.

  ‘If we’re going to get to the hut before it’s too dark,’ she said, ‘we’d better hurry.’

  The way led through the deep narrow gorge of the burn, across a wide area of black peat-hags, and over bright green marshes. Once they passed the skull of a sheep.

  ‘They often die in the snow,’ said Gillian.

  At last they arrived in the hollow where the fank and hut were.

  Before she untied the string that fastened the door of the hut Gillian stood listening. Shouts could still be heard. She was sure they were made by her father who was toiling up the hill after them. He knew of this hut; last year he had brought her and Alistair up here on an expedition. When he came he would advise her what to do.

  The hut was very small. In it were a zinc bucket, an old newspaper, many dead flies, a piece of creosoted rope, fragments of fleece, and the broken top of a Thermos flask.

  ‘We’ll wait here,’ said Gillian. ‘You sit down.’ She upturned the bucket for him.

  ‘You sit.’

  ‘No. I might not be staying. I mean, I’ll have to go out and make sure Daddy doesn’t miss us. It’s getting dark. He’s not really got a good sense of direction. So you’d better sit down.’

  He sat down.

  She stood gazing at him. ‘Is your hand sore?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘It must be.’

  There was nothing she could think of to say. Now that she had brought him here she could not see what good it had done. It was impossible for him to stay with her family always, and it seemed to her no less impossible for him to return to Donaldson’s Court with his own family; there was nowhere she could advise him to go.

  ‘I’m sorry I called you a traitor,’ she said. ‘For not speaking to Peerie, I mean.’