Childish Things

by Robin Jenkins

  CHILDISH THINGS

  ROBIN JENKINS has been hailed as ‘the greatest living fiction-writer in Scotland’ (The Scotsman, 2000). Born in 1912, his first novel was published in 1951; nearly thirty works of fiction have followed, many of which have been graced with literary awards and remained in print for decades.

  “If you love the novel, if you are interested in books that are human and wise, not slick and cynical, then treat yourself this year to some Robin Jenkins . . . he is simply wonderful.”

  Andrew Marr, The Good Book Guide

  “Robin Jenkins is approaching his 90th birthday. He has written more than 25 novels, and his latest [Childish Things] is as lively as his first – an astonishing achievement at his age . . . Jenkins happily lampoons racism, religion, avarice and celebrity in America [and] laces his themes of greed and selfishness with plenty of lascivious goings-on. For all the humour, this is also a thoughtful novel, and a wry look at ‘what a mess folk make of their lives’.”

  The Times, London

  “Gregor’s American adventure, in which he finds his doppelgänger in the shape of the aged former movie star, Linda Birkenberger, sets him in a comic world of Californian consumer Calvinism in which the elect are manifested by their astronomical bank balances or their perfectly sculpted busts. Jenkins pokes amiable fun at American absurdities as a means of drawing out Scottish contradictions . . . a spry comedy like Childish Things may seem slight, yet it reaches deep into the Scottish psyche.”

  Times Literary Supplement

  “Beautifully combines sympathy and humour.”

  Sunday Post

  “[There is] wisdom and humanity in this wonderful comic novel . . . Jenkins is impeccably insightful, and the comedy deliciously black.”

  The Scotsman

  “Robin Jenkins debunks the theory that old people don’t have fun, let alone sex, and humanises the ageing process. McLeod is a charming old duffer who is skilled at three things – women, golf and lies. When he meets a rich but vulgar American actress . . . he comes face-to-face with his own faults, failings and lies . . . Childish Things is a witty, ironic, intelligent and charming novel.”

  Punch

  “Jenkins is still funny, still readable, and his portrayal of old age . . . is warm, funny and perceptive.”

  Big Issue

  “This subtle novel addresses the issues – sex, money, religion, power – that do not change as generations come and go. But it is also a gentle satire on America and Scotland, old age and youth, Calvinism and consumerism. Jenkins’s prose still shines.”

  The Times

  “This book is a perfect example of my belief that there are some wonderful novels out there . . . This is a lovely book, I owe my recommendee many many pints.”

  The Crack

  “Like all the great masters, his skill is lightly worn, his sentences singing with what he does not say . . . in his 90th year, [he is] the great old man of Scottish letters.”

  The Times

  “Written by the light of sunset, this is a novel that illuminates more broadly and with more penetration than a hundred works hacked out under a more youthful glare. Robin Jenkins deals effectively with issues of class, inequality, the bourgeois socialism of the Scottish nation and the psychological origins of the misuse of untrammelled power that lie behind the Yankee empire. He does this by deploying the novelist’s traditional crafts of fine characterisation, delicate observation, a raucous sense of satire and an awareness of present-day political and social realities that will shame many a younger writer.”

  Scotland on Sunday

  “Jenkins looks at poor, inadequate humanity with compassion. He is a satirist with a heart . . . We are lucky to have a novelist of such balance, wisdom, humanity and wit. He is a national asset.”

  Sunday Herald

  First published in Great Britain

  in 2001 by Canongate Books Ltd.

  This edition published in 2002.

  This digital edition first published by Canongate in 2011

  Copyright © Robin Jenkins 2001

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

  ISBN 1 84195 228 1

  eISBN 9780857863768

  www.canongate.tv

  In memory of my mother

  By the Same Author

  So Gaily Sings the Lark (Glasgow, Maclellan, 1951)

  Happy for the Child (London, Lehmann, 1953)

  The Thistle and the Grail (London, Macdonald, 1954; Polygon 1994)

  The Cone-Gatherers

  (London, Macdonald, 1955; New York, Taplinger, 1981)

  Guests of War (London, Macdonald, 1956)

  The Missionaries (London, Macdonald, 1957)

  The Changeling

  (London, Macdonald, 1958; Edinburgh, Canongate Classic, 1989)

  Love is a Fervent Fire (London, Macdonald, 1959)

  Some Kind of Grace (London, Macdonald, 1960)

  Dust on the Paw

  (London, Macdonald, and New York, Putnam, 1961)

  The Tiger of Gold (London, Macdonald, 1962)

  A Love of Innocence (London, Cape, 1963)

  The Sardana Dancers (London, Cape, 1964)

  A Very Scotch Affair (London, Gollancz, 1968)

  The Holy Tree (London, Gollancz, 1969)

  The Expatriates (London, Gollancz, 1971)

  A Toast to the Lord (London, Gollancz, 1972)

  A Far Cry from Bowmore and Other Stories (London, Gollancz, 1973)

  A Figure of Fun (London, Gollancz, 1974)

  A Would-Be Saint

  (London, Gollancz, 1978; New York, Taplinger, 1980)

  Fergus Lamont

  (Edinburgh, Canongate, and New York, Taplinger, 1979; Canongate Classic, 1990)

  The Awakening of George Darroch (Edinburgh, Harris, 1985)

  Just Duffy (Edinburgh, Canongate, 1988; Canongate Classic, 1995)

  Poverty Castle (Nairn, Balnain, 1991)

  Willie Hogg (Edinburgh, Polygon, 1993)

  Leila (Edinburgh, Polygon, 1995)

  Lunderston Tales (Edinburgh, Polygon, 1996)

  Matthew and Sheila (Edinburgh, Polygon, 1998)

  Poor Angus (Edinburgh, Canongate, 2000)

  Contents

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part Two

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Part Three

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  PART ONE

  ‘When I became a man I put away childish things’

  1

  Let’s admit it, in all our activities, golf and war, politics and religion, there is an element of childishness. Truly adult persons are as rare as saints. There was only one at the grave that sunny September afternoon: the woman in the coffin, my Kate, dead from cancer,
bravely and humorously endured.

  Take the minister, the Rev. Dugald Abercrombie, white-haired and gaunt, with an involuntary girn in his voice. After half a century of having his exhortations politely disregarded, he could not help sounding disappointed and a little resentful. His joints were inflamed and painful with rheumatism. He had lost his own wife eight years ago. He thought he had deserved better, like a child that had always done what it was told. God, the Father, had let him down.

  There was Kate’s brother, Hector of the doleful countenance. Fifty or so years ago, he had gone to prison rather than be sent to war. No man ever knows exactly his own motives, but surely Hector – absurd name for a pacifist – must have been deceiving himself when he had declared, unavailingly as it turned out, that, by refusing to kill the persecutors of the Jews, he had been benefiting all humanity. Nowadays he lived alone with a horde of cats and kept a second-hand bookshop that seldom had customers. Looked at in one way, his qualms were noble, but looked at in another way, childish. Really, as I had once pointed out to him, he had spent his life in a puerile huff. Even Kate, most loving of sisters, had been impatient with him at times. He was missing her, though. Those tears were genuine. I loved him for them.

  There was Henry Sneddon, who had vowed never to speak to Hector, in this life or in any other life there might be.

  I had often rebuked him for what I called his unsoldierly lack of generosity. So had his wife Helen, most forgiving and least embittered of women. He was greatly dependent on her. At present, there she was, holding him up, though, at 78 she was a year older. Once, with great tenderness, she wiped his face, of slavers I thought, uncharitably, but it could have been tears; he too had been fond of Kate. No doubt Helen had arranged for him to use the minister’s private toilet in the kirk, if need be. Poor fellow, he claimed that his incontinence was the result of his having taken part in the Normandy landings 40 years ago.

  There was Susan Cramond, in her £1000 fur coat. A wealthy widow only a few weeks from her 70th birthday, she did cycling exercises, dieted, swallowed vitamins by the handful, consulted astrologers, wintered in the Bahamas, and bribed God with large donations to the church, all to fend off the old skinny fellow with the sharpened scythe. From the other side of the grave, she was gazing at me, in childish appeal. Would I, please, would anyone, save poor Susan? She had, I may say, a reputation in the town for being hard of head and heart. Could it be that she was afraid of hell, though outside the graveyard she’d scornfully tell you she didn’t believe in it?

  There were the Tullochs, Millie and Bill, she gazing up at him with cowlike meekness, he ignoring her as he so often did; he was usually punishing her for God knew what. At 55 or so, they were a good deal younger than the rest of us. Millie was present because Kate had been kind to her, Bill because he made a hobby of attending funerals, not because he wanted to share people’s grief but because he enjoyed it. I didn’t like him, even though I sometimes played golf with him.

  Millie had a small doll-like face, with voice to match, thin and rather shrill. She had also, disconcertingly, one of the roundest, most enticing dowps I had ever seen. She showed it off to its best advantage by wearing her skirts and trousers too tight. Some thought she was being naive and guileless; others, including me, weren’t so sure.

  There were my daughters, Madge and Jean, quietly weeping. They loved me and I loved them but now and then they gave me sad, reproachful looks. They thought that I had not appreciated their mother as I should. It was true and it broke my heart. But who is ever valued as he or she deserves? We leave that to God, whether we believe in Him or not.

  Present also were Alec Riddick, one-time Sheriff; Angus McVey, ex-lawyer; Archie McBain, retired civil engineer; and Jimmy McDowall, quantity surveyor, also retired: all septuagenarians and citizens of substance. They, with Henry if his bowels allowed, met with me every Tuesday morning in Murchison’s tearoom in the main street, where we discussed the affairs of the world, often with, I have to confess, childish clamour. We had done it for years. It was an institution in the town. Outnumbered, for they were all Tories, I kept my end up with much wit and a little sophistry. At Armistice time they wore their medals. I could not, for in my case it would have been showing off. I had won the Military Medal and could claim to be a hero.

  Then there was myself, Gregor McLeod, 72 years of age. What was it Kate had said, with affection, but also with her elusive irony that so often had me searching? ‘But, Gregor, how could you teach primary schoolchildren for forty years and not acquire some of their characteristics?’ She was right, of course. My pride in my collection of books, my red Mercedes with the black leather upholstery, my Ping golf clubs, and my wardrobe of expensive blazers and tweed suits was akin to that of a small boy in his comics, his bicycle, and his Rangers strip. In my favour I could claim that I knew my faults, as a shepherd knows his sheep, and rounded them up from time to time to dip them in the disinfectant of self-criticism.

  As the handfuls of earth were dropping on the coffin, I was in tears. ‘Dear Kate,’ I murmured. If the minister was right and the dead – so he had seemed to say – shared God’s knowledge and therefore knew everything, then Kate heard and saw me. I imagined her smiling. She had had the loveliest of smiles. She had it when she was 24, at the time of our marriage, and she still had it when she had died, 46 years later.

  Crows cawed overhead, but not in derision.

  2

  After the funeral, Madge and Jean sought me out in my study, where, to tell the truth, I was looking at photographs of Kate. They wanted to know my plans for the future. They had promised their mother that they would look after me.

  Kate must have been much amused.

  Madge, aged 45, was tall and fair, like her mother in appearance. She had an honours degree in Economics. Her views were right-wing. She had met her American husband Frank in London, where they were both working, she at the Treasury and he at the British branch of his Californian bank. They had a son and a daughter. Madge had acquired a transatlantic drawl.

  ‘Dad, Madge and I would like to know what you intend doing,’ said Jean, her eyes still red from weeping. ‘We know that you think you can look after yourself. Perhaps you can now but soon you’ll not be able to.’

  ‘We don’t think you should stay on in this house,’ said Madge. ‘It’s too big. You’d feel lonely. You’d be haunted by memories of Mom. You’d be happier in a small flat downtown.’

  ‘You wouldn’t need a car if you lived there,’ said Jean. ‘You could walk to anywhere you wanted. You could take a taxi to the golf club, But in any case you’ll soon have to think about giving up golf.’

  It was time to torpedo this well-meaning but mistaken solicitude.

  ‘I’m thinking of going to India,’ I said.

  ‘India!’ they cried, aghast.

  ‘Where the Taj Mahal is.’

  That magnificent monument to a beloved wife.

  ‘To one of those ashrams?’ said Jean.

  ‘Yes, Jean, to an ashram.’

  ‘Are you serious, Dad?’ asked Madge.

  Well, was I? I had good reason to be serious. I had just lost the woman I had been married to for 46 years. In an ashram, where humility was encouraged, I might be better able to cope with my grief.

  ‘I’ve read about them,’ said Jean. ‘Frauds, many of them. Always on the look-out for gullible old fools who’ll give them all their money.’

  ‘Thanks very much, Jean,’ I said.

  ‘But, Dad, you’ve never been religious. You used to grumble when Mum let us go to the Sunday school.’

  ‘I was young then and prejudiced.’

  Madge then spoke, or rather, made an announcement. ‘If you feel the need for the comfort that religion can give, you do not have to go as far as India to find it.’

  Jean, sly besom, then hit on what she considered an incontestable argument. ‘You’d have to shave off your hair and your moustache.’

  She knew I would never sacrifice my abundant, wavy
, snow-white locks and moustache to match for all the gurus in India.

  Madge had another announcement to make. ‘You may like to know,’ she said, haughtily, ‘that Frank and I recently gave ourselves to Jesus.’

  I was horrified but not surprised. I had met the minister of their local church in San Diego: a fat, bald, evangelical clown, who kept crying, ‘Hosannah!’

  Jean took the news coolly. ‘That’s your privilege, Madge,’ she said.

  Just then, Frank, straightening his black bow tie, came into the study to say in his soft voice that the taxi to take him and Madge to the airport was at the door. He had already shaken my hand, soulfully, at least eight times in the past three days, but he did it again.

  ‘I hope Madge has told you, Dad,’ he said, ‘that you will be very welcome in San Diego if ever you should choose to pay us a visit.’

  ‘Robert and I will always be glad to see you in Edinburgh,’ said Jean.

  ‘They often ask about you at the Country Club,’ said Frank. ‘Don’t they, Madge?’

  Madge did not answer.

  ‘Mrs Birkenberger – you remember her, Dad? – asked me just the other day when you were coming back.’

  ‘Didn’t she used to be the actress, Linda Blossom, in black-and-white films?’ said Jean. ‘Married and divorced four times.’

  ‘Five’ said Madge.

  ‘But she’s very very rich’, said Frank, fervently. ‘Our bank handles a lot of her affairs. She owns the land on which the Country Club is situated.’

  ‘And she thinks it gives her a right to behave disgracefully,’ said Madge.

  I well remembered the redoubtable Mrs Birkenberger. As Linda Blossom, she had been an internationally famed beauty. I had met her at the Poinsettia Country Club. Impressed by my graceful golf swing, and by my ducal demeanour, she had invited, or rather, commanded me to play a few holes with her. I had enjoyed it, though she had played very badly and used language unfit for a golf course. ‘Fuck it!’ she had cried after every duffed shot, and there had been many. Afterwards, members had whispered congratulations into my ears. I had been in a cage with a lioness of unreliable temper and had emerged unscathed. She was small and stout, with her face heavily made up and her hair dyed jet black. She had laughed often and randily. It was rumoured that she hired young athletes to pleasure her in bed. I hadn’t been attracted to her sexually, thinking her too old and uncouth, but I had had Kate to be faithful to and keep me in line. It could be different now. If, after a lifetime of sleazy amours, the lady was looking for a mature gentleman, cultured, handsome, witty, knowledgable, and (fingers crossed) an able enough lover, given the right encouragement, why shouldn’t I toss my Panama into the ring?