The Black Halo

by Iain Crichton Smith

  It was the first time that the student had ever struggled with anyone. The arms of the monstrous murderer were about him, squeezing him, he was losing his breath. And then the most amazing thought came to him. Why, this is like love. This struggle is like love. Murder itself is like love. It is as if the cat is in love with the mouse as it flings the body up in the air, as it devours it, leaving violet-coloured intestines. He struck the arms away from him, and seized Mac an t-Sronaich by the throat with the frenzy of self-preservation. In order to save himself he had to be like Mac an t-Sronaich. He must empty his mind of books, ideas, become naked and pure.

  ‘I shall not be killed,’ he shouted aloud, ‘I shall not be killed. I refuse to be killed.’ And his voice echoed back to him.

  And this extraordinary love that was involved in death almost overwhelmed him. Their legs were locked together but he would not let Mac an t-Sronaich’s throat go. No, that was what he must cling to, the throat of this man who was not so young after all as he had been. Why, he must have been on the edge of that moor for years listening, mocking. He squeezed and squeezed. Mac an t-Sronaich managed to unlock his hands from his throat. He retched for a while and before he could recover himself the student was on him like a wild cat. He kicked him with his heavy boot right in the stomach. Then he jumped on top of him and held him by the throat again.

  ‘I will kill you,’ he shouted, ‘I will kill you.’ Never, never, had he thought he would be like this. Energies of the most astonishing kind flowed through him. Whose were these bell-shaped cheeks glaring up at him? His body was behaving with a logic of its own. Let him stop thinking, leave it all to his body, that was the secret. The long tangled beard thrust at him. He pushed the mouth slowly away from him with his hand.

  This was the devil he had always wanted to kill, the devil that had tormented him, in the summer nights. Here he was in front of him, not abstract but concrete. He kicked again with his boot. Then he ran away into the darkness outside. He trembled in the silence watching the mouth of the cave. But no one came out. Instead he heard an insane laugh, and then a voice.

  ‘Good for you, my friend.’ The voice seemed to echo and echo. Yes, he thought, I will sit and watch the cave mouth till I see a shadow across it. He fumbled around him in the dark and found a big stone. He heard the secret mutterings of the night. I must not fall asleep, he thought, I must not fall asleep. And so he watched the flickering mouth of the cave. But no one came out. Instead he heard snoring as if Mac an t-Sronaich had fallen asleep or perhaps he was just pretending.

  If only I had a wall that I could keep between him and me, he thought, feeling at his torn clothes. He held his breath till eventually the dawn came up red and angry. All night he had stayed awake. Then when the light bloomed he ran as fast as he could across the moor. He knew after a while that Mac an t-Sronaich would never catch him. And yet he kept seeing him, following him at a distance, sometimes on his left, sometimes on his right, sometimes even ahead of him. The mouth was full of broken teeth, he cast a salty smell on the air, there were coils of worms about his body. The fire shone like the fires of hell. Sometimes the moor itself seemed to disappear and he was back in his room at the college or he was at home and his father’s head was bent over the table, bearded and still as if carved from stone. And the voice of Mac an t-Sronaich screamed at him as he ran and ran. And his body was infected with rage and shame. Bestially the dawn glared around him. There were clouds like red hot cinders in the sky. The dew arose around him smokily. There were red flowers like wounds growing from between the stones.

  Oh God, he thought, this world will never be the same again. I shall never return to my college now that I have, like the mouse against the cat, fought in my grey nakedness. He was like a white vulnerable root, which had finally been tugged out of the earth.

  ‘My God,’ he shouted from the bare moor, but no answer came from the sky. His voice hammered against it with a metallic sound. And then in the distance like an echo he seemed to hear the voice of Mac an t-Sronaich. And he saw again the enigmatic whirlings of the smoke in the cave. He knew that Mac an t-Sronaich was not dead and would never die. Even among the fog and lights of gas-lit Glasgow he might meet him. Even in his own house. Even in his own mirror.

  I do not Wish to Leave

  In the thatched house the fire was in the middle of the floor and they sat on benches around it in the smoke. There were six people altogether. This was the ceilidh house in the village, the one where on certain nights there was a gathering to tell stories, sing songs, sometimes play music. This was a tradition in the Highlands in the old days.

  The host was called Squashy. At one time he used to be a shoemaker: now he was retired. He would sit by the wall watching the world go past, for his legs were very bad with arthritis, and he could walk only with the help of two sticks. He had never left the island in his life but he read a fair amount and thought that he knew more than he did. His favourite reading was about Egypt and the pyramids, the burials of the Pharaohs in big tombs which had been prepared by slaves, the murders of servants, the voyage of the king-god across the sky.

  He was not married and lived with his sister. She had been at one time a servant on the mainland in a hotel but she was also rather simple-minded and wore stockings which accordioned down to her ankles. She deferred to her brother even though he had seen less of the world than she had. He treated her with contempt.

  He was in fact speaking at that moment, saying ‘ . . . and do you know that they had mummies in those days. My sister here Mary doesn’t know what a mummy is but the rest of us do, don’t we? They used to take the bodies and make them into mummies, that’s what they did in those days.’

  ‘What did they treat them with, eh?’ asked Cum, who was a big fat man wearing a fisherman’s jersey. He was engaged in building his own house and had been so for years. He had a thin daughter with very thin legs who would meet the boys on Sunday among the corn.

  ‘I don’t know what they treated them with, I wasn’t there, was I?’ said Squashy shortly. ‘But it was something mysterious, you can depend on that.’ He shifted his bottom on the hard wooden seat. ‘They were very clever people and what they put in their heads they put in their feet.’ And he looked significantly at Cum with his small, angry red eyes as if implying, They would have finished your house years ago.

  ‘That’s true, it would have been something mysterious,’ said Shonachan. Shonachan was perhaps forty years old. He came from an odd family who hardly ever left the house. There were seven of them altogether and he was the only gregarious one. The others would sit at windows gazing out on to the road: one in particular was shouted at and laughed at by the local children and he would shake his fist at them from behind the curtains. One sat in a corner of the house endlessly repairing fishing nets as if he were a spider. Shonachan found relief in his visits to the ceilidh house.

  ‘And another thing,’ said Squashy, leaning back against the whitewashed wall, ‘another thing. They buried them deep in tombs so that no one would ever find them. And people tried to rob the tombs but they got lost among the passages and they were never found again.’

  The others thought of this among the swirling smoke of the fire, their faces shining, for all of them believed in ghosts and mysterious events: why, there was supposed to be a ghost at the corner of the road. And also Alastair Macleod had seen a ghost the last time he was home from his work on the mainland and shortly afterwards he had died. Ghosts were not to be taken lightly. The fire shone on their faces and they imagined the false passages and the robbers lost among them.

  ‘That may be true,’ said John Smith consideringly. Curiously enough he had never been given a nickname by the villagers. He was the scribe who used to write their letters for them if they were at all official, and he would show them the letters, and they would all think what a clever man he was. ‘Dear Sirs,’ he would write, ‘thank you for yours of the 21st inst.’ Imagine that, the 21st inst. He had also been to America and he had many sto
ries and had at times picked Squashy up on a number of points. But Squashy was like an eel in a river, difficult to catch.

  ‘That may be true,’ said John Smith. He looked around him with a judicial air. ‘That may be true,’ he repeated. Only he gave the impression that he didn’t believe it.

  ‘Of course it’s true,’ said Squashy, ‘it’s all in the books.’ His books coloured the air around him with a foreign radiance and John Smith stared at him as if saying, ‘Well, for the moment I will let you away with this. Many things happen in this world and I have seen them myself, having been to America, while you haven’t been out of the island.’

  Squashy continued, ‘And another thing. The cat was their god and that’s another thing that you find out. They wouldn’t allow anyone to do anything to a cat.’

  The sixth person, who was called Pat and who was also the local postman, listened carefully. Cats, eh, what was this about cats? Dogs perhaps, but not cats. Nothing had happened so far this night and he was comfortable, almost sleepy. But nevertheless the others were wary of him because of his reputation. Sometimes he thought that they would prefer if he didn’t attend their ceilidhs. But being alone in the house he sometimes felt the need of company and he couldn’t prevent himself from coming. It wasn’t his fault that he was as he was. It was inheritance, it had been in his people. It was a sorrow and a triumph, that’s what it was.

  The cat glared at him from his seat beside the fire.

  Oh, God, let me have peace, he thought, let it not happen tonight.

  ‘The cat,’ said Squashy, ‘that was what they worshipped.’

  ‘Imagine that, the cat,’ said his sister.

  Cum thought, One of these days I’ll finish my house. My wife wants it finished. And yet the other day when I was shifting that big stone I felt a twinge. It’s still there.

  Pat listened. He enjoyed being in this social ring, damned though he was. He loved the glitter of the fire, the voices, the stories. Why, one day he would like to visit those pyramids in the desert.

  ‘There’s a lot we don’t know about right enough,’ said Shonachan. He dreaded going back to the house where the hearth was often cold. He wished they had a housekeeper. And he was smoking far too many cigarettes. One of these days he would have to give them up or they would kill him. Full strength Capstans. In the mornings he coughed and coughed and spat and spat and he fought for breath and his chest ached. But what could he do?

  With regard to yours, thought John Smith, with regard to yours, I have to tell you . . .

  They don’t know, thought Squashy, what my life is like sitting by the wall in the heat or the cold, my hands turning red round the sticks, thinking, thinking . . . Why did this have to happen to me? And this stupid sister of mine as well. That is another cross I have to bear. They don’t know the length of my days and without Egypt where would I be? His little moustache quivered with self-pity.

  And then it happened to Pat, they could all see it happening. He stood up and as if in a dream walked to the door through the smoke which loomed and drifted around him. Just like that it happened. Again. And he was frightened. Oh, he was frightened, but he was also compelled. From that warm circle, that ring of smoke and fire, he went out into the frosty night, for it was freezing heavily and the stars were clearly visible in the sky, twinkling and sparkling.

  And they watched him with fear but they did not try to stop him. It was almost as if his eyes were closed. Then the door shut behind him and they were left alone.

  There was a silence and no one looked at his neighbour. It was as if a dreadful death had fallen over the ceilidh house and they were all suspended in their individuality, like statues of Pharaoh.

  Finally Shonachan spoke, ‘Who is it this time?’ he said. No one answered. All they knew was that it was one of them. And for a moment they felt mortal and cold in front of the fire as if death were at their breasts. Like stony effigies they sat there.

  Pat went out into the night. The stars were twinkling and the ground was hard. He walked as if in a trance. There was no sound to be heard and the earth like an enchanted stone rang under his feet. How brilliant the sky was, so many stars like a huge city, each one answering the other in a brave bright language.

  And then he saw them. They were coming from his left, the men in hard hats walking slowly. And they were carrying a coffin. He waited for them to come. The coffin was open and he could see the face. The funeral party walked slowly: it did not even stop at the stream. The stream was crossed, with the coffin. Pat’s trousers were wet: he could feel the water making them heavy. They made their way towards the cemetery, taking short cuts, and all the time he could see the face in the coffin.

  They laid the coffin down. There was a prayer, and after a while he turned back, walking again through the stream, opened the door of the ceilidh house, and entered. This was his sorrow and his triumph. They were all silent looking at him. They noticed the wet trousers and knew that it happened again. His eyes travelled over them like a light as if he were saying, I know you, I have power over you. But he did not speak and they did not ask any questions. They were vexed in their mortal individualism around the sociable fire. Death had come into the room. Each looked at Pat and thought, Is it me, is it me? But Pat gave no sign. He never did. He never passed his final judgment.

  And the ceilidh broke up and they all went home.

  Pat loved being a postman. He loved bringing letters to people who hadn’t heard from their sons or daughters for years before. What a surprise, what a joy! He would never like to live anywhere else than where he lived. Why, when he was on his rounds, the birds would be singing in the sky, the stones glittered, the sun shone, red and brilliant. No one saw the world as he did carrying his bag around the village. The dew glittered, the trees bore their blossoms, and in the bag were the signs of hope, communications from the whole wide world. And now and again he would stop at a house and have a cup of tea and narrate the gossip that he had picked up. No, he could not live anywhere else. He had been to other villages but this was his favourite. He had never married, so attractive was his work and his life. Apart of course from that other shadow.

  And if he were to marry would he gaze down one morning at the pillow beside his own and see death imprinted on the face of his wife? And perhaps one day he would even see his own face in the coffin. How could one know?

  He walked on. A bare tree was reflected in the loch. In the summer its berries were like open wounds. Oh, how beautiful the day was, even though he carried his mysterious knowledge around with him. And that too was power, was it not? Of a sort. He knew, he knew . . .

  John Smith took the letter from him and thought, I wonder if it’s me. He studied Pat’s face, but it was open and cheerful as usual. It can’t be me then, thought John Smith. Otherwise how could he be so cheerful. Maybe I should propitiate him, ask him in for a cup of tea. On the other hand, he suddenly hated him. Why should he have been given that power? It was wrong, it was unhealthy, and it wasn’t as if he was intelligent. And he glanced at his letter. It was about the croft, he could tell that right away.

  Cum watched him from the roof of the incomplete house where he perched like a cockerel. Maybe I’ll never finish it. That stone is in my breast. I may have injured myself. I may be dying at this very moment. Who knows? But I do know that the others look down on me, I know that. But if I don’t finish this house what will my wife say? He hammered, and made no sign that he had seen Pat. He completely ignored him. He wouldn’t speak to him. You are not going to tell me when I’m going to die, my friend. I have my rights too.

  Shonachan didn’t see him, for he was working away from the village, but Squashy watched him from the wall where he sat like an owl thinking about Egypt. His hands were red and glassy in the cold. Pat waved to him but he made no acknowledgement. You bugger, he thought, you’re like a vulture, you perch on the bones of men. Was it his own bell-like moustached face that Pat had seen in the coffin? Should he shout to Pat and ask him? But he didn�
�t, he had too much pride. After all, what was Pat but an incomer from another village, and there were stories . . . In fact he had been in many villages, that was a fact. He rested on his sticks like a wounded proud Pharaoh.

  It might be me, thought his sister. And to tell the truth she didn’t care. No one knew what it was like living with her brother with his mocking ways. It seemed to the outside world as if he coped well with his ailment but she knew he didn’t. He was always complaining about little things. There wasn’t enough salt in his porridge, not enough sugar in his tea. She wouldn’t be unhappy if suddenly . . .

  And Pat passed on less cheerfully. Something glacial, something frosty, had entered the air. Was it going to happen again as it had happened before? Some cold air was blowing towards him.

  He humped his bag over his shoulder. What a glorious quiet frosty morning, so clear, so calm. Such a holy day. But he knew that face in the coffin and the knowledge was his grief and his pride. Some tried to bribe him, others not. Some had bribed him to tell, if they thought they would inherit money.

  ‘Please tell me, Pat, is it Jim? The old monster. He’s so mean.’ And Pat would remain tight-lipped except that twice, twice only, he had released himself from his burden and the man had died. But was it destiny that had killed him or the revelation? Who could tell? And so Pat was like a crow traversing the countryside.

  No, they will not drive me out, not again. One fine morning, as fine as any he had known, they were waiting for him. Cum, Shonachan, John Smith. The three of them.

  They were standing in front of a gate through which he must pass on his round. They were frowning and hostile.

  He tried to pass but they stood in his way.

  Cum spoke first. ‘Who is it?’ he said.

  Pat said, ‘I can’t tell. I am not supposed to tell. You know that.’

  ‘You had better tell,’ said Shonachan. For a man usually so calm he was aggressive. He wasn’t smoking as many cigarettes as he had done.