The Red Door

by Iain Crichton Smith

  She twisted her fingers on the table and I’m sure she didn’t notice.

  ‘They used to have the most terrible rows at first. He used to blame her for holding him back. He drinks a lot. Families are like that,’ she said, looking out into the street where the large statue of Sir Walter Scott confronted us. ‘They fight each other and kill each other and feed off each other.’

  I told her a little about George.

  ‘That’s different,’ she maintained, ‘that’s honest. My father wasn’t like that. His hatred at the end was a cold hatred. Eventually he wouldn’t speak to my mother at all. It’s strange that. Sometimes I saw him actually grit his teeth. She was one of these defenceless people who invited bullying. But he didn’t bully her. He would simply get drunk and ignore her. Once I saw her pouring tea into his cup. It was late, I remember, and he had just come in. The hot tea spilt over her hand. She didn’t scream and I saw the red coming up on her hand. But he did nothing. He carried on drinking his tea, as if he hadn’t noticed. But I saw that he had noticed, and yet he pretended that he hadn’t.

  ‘When my mother died two years ago I left him. That was all. One afternoon when he was at the office I simply packed a bag and left the house. I left a note. I remember I had difficulty with the key. First of all I locked the door and then I had the key in my hand. So I threw it in through the window and walked away. He didn’t ask for me back. It was as if he was tired of the lot of us. He tried to give me money (it’s very easy to give people money) but I didn’t take it. I had some from my mother. She was saving up in a bank for me. She was all I had you see. Anyway he didn’t really bother about me much. I can imagine him in the morning shaving and sitting down to have his breakfast and getting the car out, but it’s as if I was thinking of a stranger. I have no sympathy for him. I don’t hate him, I have no feeling for him. That’s all.’

  She added, ‘I think that was why I joined the CND.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s something to do with that pressure. Do you think about it like that?’ I didn’t understand. Sometimes I’m quite stupid.

  ‘Well, the pressure builds up and you get a nuclear bomb, that’s all. But I don’t want it to be like that – that would be like my father you see. Something went wrong in his ambitions and the pressure built up. It would have been more honest if he had left my mother. But in his position, you know, that would never do. Like a lawyer I heard of recently. His girl friend wanted to be married in a registry office. But no – not him. He wanted a church wedding: and he’s an atheist too.’ Looking out of the window she suddenly burst out laughing, a pure bell-like laugh. It’s difficult to describe it. It’s not the laugh of innocence. It’s the laugh which has gone beyond pretensions, it’s the pure laugh of comedy which almost for a moment accepts the universe as it is.

  Yet I didn’t laugh like that. I believe these lies and hypocrisies are evil. They are the greatest evil. And they are within the church too. I dream of another church, a more precarious one, and that laughter will be its bell . . .

  I didn’t know what else to say except:

  ‘It’s the same everywhere. Because people refuse to look. They’ve got to protect themselves.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she said. ‘Can I get you a coffee?’

  Instinctively I said ‘No’ (By the way that’s a very funny thing about me which I thought of recently. If anyone asks me a question and I haven’t been listening but I pretend that I have I always say ‘No’; I never say ‘Yes’) because I don’t like women buying anything for men, and because she can’t have much money. Then I changed my mind for some reason and said ‘Yes’.

  For a long time we said nothing and then we went out and walked along the street in the cool of the evening. We said nothing at all. When we parted I simply said ‘Goodnight Fiona’ and she said ‘Goodnight Kenneth’ – she had asked me no questions about myself or my home – and I walked home. That was all. The sky was green above the tram rails.

  When I got home George was not yet in. At ten o’clock he came in slightly drunk. I had never seen him drunk before. I think it’s a bad sign. I managed to keep him from stumbling over anything and from getting himself entangled with one of the stair rails which is slightly loose and got him to bed. He slept almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. His red hair was sweating and his face was white. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.

  This is quite a long letter. I shall write again soon. I hope you are well.

  Goodnight,

  Your loving son,

  KENNETH

  Tonight at seven I put down my books and I thought I’d write to you. I kept finding there was something I ought to explain but I couldn’t think what it was. Then George came in and we played some records. He lay on the bed with his hands behind his head looking up at the ceiling and saying nothing. Sometimes I caught him looking at me as if he wished to say something but he didn’t. (By the way Jean and Jake have announced their engagement. When Jake told us about it he was grinning and there was oil on his face: I thought that was very endearing.) I nearly asked George what was the matter with him but I didn’t. I just sat and listened, or rather at first I wasn’t listening at all. Then it came into my consciousness that this was a woman singing and there was a kind of catch in her voice. It was the Blues – a sort of jazz – and a spiritual. For some strange reason this made me think of our church. I think it must have been the black disc spinning. (All this time George was lying on the bed looking up at the ceiling, perfectly motionless.) Then it struck me. This was the sort of church I wanted. This woman had more faith and more depth and more sheer melody of life than our Minister.

  I remembered an incident which took place at home. You know Mrs McInnes the widow, the one with a son in Australia. I was in her house one night and Mrs MacLeod was there. They were talking about how her son had sent money home by a local sailor and they had never seen it. He must have spent it. This Mrs MacLeod – she’s got a sort of moustache and I remember she was wearing a sort of rabbit collar – she suddenly said:

  ‘He will pay for his sins. There’s one thing I always believe in. People must be made to pay for their sins.’

  I looked at her and there was hate in her face. Her lips were tight. And yet really it had nothing to do with her. She wasn’t even concerned. Listening to that record I thought of that and I realised something which I suppose I must have known for a long time.

  WE ARE A NEW GENERATION. WE ARE DIFFERENT FROM YOU.

  I remember too when you were reminiscing with some of your friends. I didn’t understand you. You told each other your jokes but they had no meaning for me. They were past. They were finished.

  And I think I know why George started drinking. The reason is he is supposed to cure people, but he doesn’t know WHAT FOR. That is why he listens to the music. He wants to find out why he should cure people. That’s all. I watched him. His eyes were open at first and I could see him studying the light bulb. Then slowly they shut but he wasn’t sleeping. It was as if he were really listening. I heard a trumpet, one clear note – a single pure note like water – no, George said it was like a drink of cool milk during fever or after a hangover, the very cold milk you get in cartons from these machines – this single note held perfectly steady – like a guarantee of something – rising out of the wrestlings of the music, out of the sweat of billiard rooms and men with green eyeshades – this single pure note, and then George opened his eyes, and that was all. The record ended then.

  I wanted to tell you that because it’s the thing that’s been troubling me. The pressures are so tremendous. You must try to understand, please. It will be terrible if you don’t try.

  I haven’t had an answer to my last letter yet so this is an extra.

  Your loving son,

  KENNETH

  I am sorry I’m late in answering your letter. The truth is, I’ve been ill but not at all seriously. Strangely enough, it is a recurrence of my asthma which I haven’t fel
t since I was twelve. I was sitting down to my books the other night when it began. I went to bed and felt like a fool.

  I lay in my room in absolute silence for most of the day. It was a strange experience listening to the silence, and watching the leaves swaying slightly against the window. My room is high up and I don’t hear the traffic. In the evening George would come in and sit at my bedside (for company) studying. He has exams soon and he’s working hard. He looks more cheerful now. Jake also came to see me, and appears more responsible. I think Joan must be making him wash the oil from his face. He doesn’t spend so much time with his motor cycle now.

  The landlady left me alone during the daytime. In a way it was a luxurious illness. I felt, not quite alone, but rather at ease for the first time during an illness. I read nothing and would lie there for hours not even thinking but allowing thoughts to flit across my mind like leaves across the window pane. I can’t understand why I should have this asthma now.

  The landlord sometimes came in after he’d been to the pictures. He is fairly tall with a moustache and very white teeth. He told me all about the pictures he had seen. At first I used to laugh at him quietly inside myself but I don’t any more. My new humility almost frightens me. He talked to me about the taxis. Apparently he prefers to drive by night. That’s surprising isn’t it? When he has no film to speak about he says nothing but sits there with his hands between his legs as if he were a guest in my house. Funny, isn’t it? George listens to his stories very seriously which is a new development.

  One morning I was awake watching the dawn come up. Usually in the past I have felt nervous in the early morning, with a hollow in the pit of my stomach. This morning however I felt at ease as if in tune with the day which was coming into being like a poem into a poet’s mind. And I thought: what a miracle light is. What would happen to us if one night we suddenly realised that the thick darkness would last forever, the thick furry darkness. Fiona wrote me a note but did not come to see me.

  I spent four days in bed and when I got up I decided I would not be sick again. I went into the bathroom. The sun was shining on the white bath, and its rays were on the mirror. The diamonds on the floor were very bright and real. After I had shaved and washed my face I felt new. Then I went downstairs for my breakfast: it was like a royal entrance. I loved everybody. Rising from the sick bed is like being reborn. I knew that this love of mine would not last but it did not matter. For that moment it was precious – the stumpy landlady with her vulpine face appeared angelic, her tray silver and her tea wine: her two children could even have sprouted wings: red-haired George was my dearest friend: Jake and Joan were Adam and Eve in the Garden: and there was no evil in the world. (Strangely enough I happened that same evening to overhear the landlady complain about her tiredness caused by her climbing stairs with my food but that did not matter either.)

  No, I believe that people are essentially good. If it is possible to see them like that at all, then that is the way we must see them. (Do I sermonise too much?)

  In the evening George and I went to the cinema. It is an old cinema. Once upon a time one could get in with empty jam jars (presumably lemon curd for the balcony) and during the performance, believe it or not, a man sprayed us all over with disinfectant. It was a western film and I enjoyed it very much. After sickness, how much one enjoys the world, like a dewdrop on a thorn! We had no need to talk to each other.

  Tomorrow I’m going to one of the CND parades with Fiona. It should be interesting.

  I hope you are well. Here the weather is good and I suppose it will be the same at home.

  I mean that: I’m not going to be sick again.

  Your loving son,

  KENNETH

  An extraordinary thing has happened which I must think about. Today Fiona and I went to the CND sit down demonstration. We sat down on the pavement opposite the City Chambers which are next to the Art Gallery. It was all very quiet and companionable somehow, people sitting down in the sunshine eating sandwiches as if they were on holiday. The pavement was quite warm (unusually warm – mind you, I don’t make a practice of sitting on pavements). There were no speeches. The speeches had already been made at Hutton Park. We sat there surrounded by a crowd of people most of whom we had never seen before and would never see again. It is interesting to watch people passing. After a while you only see their legs, some dumpy, some thin, some active, some slow, some old, some young. There were one or two mounted policemen. They look tall on their gleaming horses, and in their leather leggings.

  What does one talk about? We talked about examinations mainly. It was almost weird. I wondered what many of them were doing there. I wondered what I was doing there. Everyone was very orderly and placed sandwich papers in bags or in those wire bins one sees attached to posts. There was one woman beside me: she was dressed entirely in red and reading Woman’s Own. Extraordinary! Then something happened. We were such an orderly crowd with this hum of conversation going on, like a gala, girls in light summery dresses, men in open-neck shirts. There were babies, milk bottles and lemonade bottles.

  Then it happened. One of our group – a student I think – had been pushed towards the middle of the road. It wasn’t his fault. It was simply the pressure of the crowd. A policeman came up to him – one of the ones who had been directing the traffic.

  It’s a funny thing about policemen. Usually you don’t notice them at all. You don’t somehow think of them as people with emotions. They are there to look calm and controlled and placid and that is what they do. That is what they are paid for. They walk in such a deliberate manner as if they have an understanding with time.

  Anyway this policeman came up to him and began to tell him to move back. Now I can understand that some of the policemen must have been harassed. The day was warm – even hot – and there were a lot of people and perhaps they didn’t quite know what to do. Furthermore it can’t be very comfortable for a policeman to walk about in cloth of such thick texture on a hot day. This was quite a young policeman. I looked at his face and in a surprised flash I realised something. This policeman wasn’t being merely tired and harassed, he actually appeared to hate this student. It was in his eyes and also in his teeth which I saw for a moment bared as he hissed out a command. It startled me coming out of that fine day. He pushed the student ahead of him roughly: the student pushed him back (I saw his blue untidy scarf). Then the policeman twisted the student’s arm behind his back, and shouted, upon which another policeman came running up: it was like the natural order being overturned. The student’s face was white with pain: whistles were being sounded: the crowd was milling aimlessly around. I saw some milk spilled on the pavement beside me and bits of glass. Then I saw Fiona pushing her way through the crowd. I could hardly recognise her. Her face was pale and set. I tried to follow her but I lost her. I climbed up on the top steps to see. She went up to the policeman and hit him on the back of the head with her handbag. Then she was seized by another policeman. By this time a black van had driven up. She and the student were bundled inside. The door was locked. The van was driven away.

  I stood there watching. The young policeman faced the crowd. He was almost grinning. I heard him shouting but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. It was as if he hated us. The crowd began to move away until I stood on the steps alone. It wasn’t the steps of the Municipal Chambers at all: it was the steps of the Art Gallery. There are ten: I counted. The young policeman was at the bottom looking up, his legs wide apart, while the crowd drifted away. I looked down at him. There was a book in my hand. My flannel trousers swayed slightly in the breeze. I felt thin, even though I was angry. I nearly threw the book at him but he looked and was stronger than me. He did not seem to be standing on the soles of his feet but rather on his toes. I could see his face under the diced cap. It was of a high red complexion: his shoulders were wide and he had the free composure of the fit. His lips appeared petulant and cruel. He stood as if grinning at me for a while – I had the strangest sensation as if he was
daring me to attack him – then with an arrogance which was entirely unlike that of a policeman he turned and began as if in parody to pace up and down with a slow deliberate tread.

  I left that place and began to walk, not knowing where I was headed for. Eventually I found myself at the iron gates of the university. I walked past the sacrist in his navy-blue uniform with the yellow facings, up the flagged road and into the library. The ivy was very green and grassy, the library very cool. I sat down at a table to rest my feet. In an alcove the logic professor was leaning down close over a book so that his face almost seemed to touch it. I watched him for a while, then suddenly realised that he was asleep. I looked at the dead-white cool busts scattered round the library. I laid my sweating hands on the cool table. I was surrounded by rows and rows of books, but I had no desire to read them. After I had sufficiently rested I got up and went out, carefully closing the door after me. Then I walked down the flagged path. The sacrist was no longer to be seen and the sliding window at the enquiry office was shut. I walked back into town over the rough tarry stones and went home. Then I sat down at the window and thought. Eventually I dipped my pen into the ink and began to write. That is what I could do.

  But I shall have to think.

  Your loving son,

  KENNETH

  Today I went to the courtroom. It was 11 in the morning and I was allowed to enter among the few spectators. I sat down on one of the varnished benches, feeling the hot sun warm on my shoulder. There was a big clock which I could see through the window. The atmosphere in the courtroom was very cool and quiet, as in a church, but on the seat at the front of the adjoining benches sat that policeman, his cap beside him on the seat, his hair brilliant and black and cropped, the back of his neck scrubbed and red. Sometimes he looked round as if he were waiting to arrest one of us but none of us was making a noise. He didn’t seem to recognise me. Why should he?