The Merry Muse
ERIC LINKIATER
Contents
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I
Bifurcated, faintly pink, and silver furred, the massive body lay, contented and relaxed in green, pine-scented water, while a complacent mind shuffled and dealt its happy memories of the day before. A stag on the high forest, in a golden-brown landscape heaving its great hills to a flaunting sky — mare’s tails and the dazzle of the sun — and three hours later, in her bedroom at the lodge, the gratifying compliance of a handsome young woman who was less than half his age. In time, moreover, for a whisky and soda before the others came down. Then cocktails and an hour of easy talk, a good dinner — grouse, and a Romanée Conti ‘47, the ‘27 port — a rubber of bridge, and the long drive back to Edinburgh, sleeping in his new Daimler behind Thomson’s square shoulders.
A satisfying day for a man of sixty — and the vision slid from his mind of Paula’s gay dishevelment and her pillow-whispering to make room for a more deeply sentimental picture of himself standing by the branching head of the stag he had killed so cleanly. It had been a long, patient, lung-straining stalk under the warm September sun, and before the shot, behind the crest of the ridge that hid him from the stag, a hundred yards away, he had lain panting like an old hound, drenched from head to foot in bog-water and sweat; then dried his hands and wiped his brow, crept a yard closer, took aim and fired.
It lay beside a granite boulder, its nose in a patch of soft green moss. Its dark, enormous eye, wide-open, still unclouded, reflected a mild bewilderment. A fly settled on its glassy surface and indignantly — for he was a man of sentiment as well as a man of business — he flicked it away with his handkerchief. In three days’ stalking this was his third stag, and the best of them, a ten-pointer: the best of the season, so far. Neither of the others at the lodge had done so well, though they could give him twenty years and more.
It was early in the day, but he had had exercise enough. The stalker whistled for his gillie, and gralloched the dead stag. It smelt sweet in the mountain air, and the white fat of summer clung like cream in the cavern of its body. ‘He’s not been running much after the hinds,’ said the stalker.
The gillie came with the pony, and by five o’clock they were back at the lodge. He had a bath, and was walking to his bedroom when he saw Paula at the door of hers. He stopped to boast of his luck; she kept him to complain of hers. ‘Come and read this letter,’ she said, and went to her dressing-table. He closed the door and followed her.
‘And now,’ she said, ‘I’ve no compunction. None whatever.’
No compunction and no reluctance. Neither resistance nor reserve — and if her sudden surrender were dictated, not by love’s incautious impulse but by her vicious determination to take revenge on a husband as unscrupulous and stubborn as herself, that was no reason for complaint. He had been a match for her, as he had been for the stag. At sixty: rising sixty-one.
He passed his hands admiringly over the silver fur on his broad chest. (He had, in his time, played Rugby football for Scotland.) He lifted, for approval, his left leg from the green water, and considered, with respect, its swelling calf. The thigh, it was true, was a little slack and soft, the knee looked puffed and flabby; but the calf was taut, the ankle trim, and the short, broad foot with its high instep was the foot of a young man still. ‘And that goes for more than feet,’ he thought complacently.
His spirit was not always confident, nor his temper serene, but in his eupeptic moods he had a weakness for surveying himself and his achievements as if he were rehearsing an interview with some invisible official, some anonymous judge, from whom proudly he was claiming some unspecified privilege. Perhaps only the privilege of life for another day; perhaps social honour and public recognition of his virtue. — Softly, in his cooling bath, he began the familiar recital:
‘Maxwell Arbuthnot, a Bachelor of Arts of Oxford University, a Bachelor of Laws of Edinburgh University, a Writer to Her Majesty’s Signet, a member of the Queen’s Bodyguard for Scotland (The Royal Company of Archers), a Deputy Lieutenant for the County of Midlothian. Chairman of the Lothian Steam Navigation Company, a Director of the Forth and Clyde Union Bank, a Director of Musselburgh Tube Mills Ltd, Director of the Highland Slate and Tile Corporation Ltd. Formerly a Governor of the Associated Hospitals of Midlothian, a Governor of Corstorphine College, a Governor of the Portobello Home for Juvenile Delinquents. A man, as you will perceive, who has devoted much of his time to public affairs, and who in his private life has created for himself and his family a situation of sufficient comfort and some dignity, and a name that is neither without honour nor a gratifying circumference of his friends’ affection. In all this achievement he has received, from his own relations, perhaps less help and encouragement than he might have anticipated. But let that pass …’
Maxwell Arbuthnot sneezed. His bath was growing cold, and a small clock on the wall told him it was five to nine. He stood up, impatiently, and stepping out too quickly tripped on the side of the tub, but broke his fall on strong arms, instinctively braced against the shock. But the fall had shaken him, and one of his knees was sore. He crouched ungainly on the floor, and when he stood he was trembling slightly, and his ruddy face had paled. Shivering, he began to dry himself, but from a looking-glass his pallor showed like an intimation of mortality and he remembered his sixty years, not now with pride, but with glum acknowledgment that he had spent three-score of his allowance. When a man fell, at his age, he could break his bones. The neck of the femur might snap like a dry stick, and then, though a surgeon could peg it, there would be weeks in plaster and his friends saying, ‘That’s the penalty of carrying too much weight. He’ll never be the same again, poor Max. No more stalking for him, no more partridge-shooting, no more golf at Muirfield!’
Self-pity darkened the memory of his fine yesterday, but he dressed with his usual care. His fine figure and his formidably handsome, weather-hued face demanded that respect; and as he vigorously brushed his thick white hair he saw, with comfort, that the years which were making his bones more brittle had given him a mantle of benignity that he — perhaps alone — recognized as truly expressive of his character. When he went downstairs he had regained his colour and much of his equanimity.
He paused at the dining-room door — his hand out to open it —halted by his wife’s voice rising to a peal of indignation. ‘They’ve gone mad! Mad as a hatter,’ she was saying. She had become, in late years, much inclined to indignation, and almost certainly her voice was growing louder. That, she explained, was because he was getting deaf; but a more likely reason, he thought, was her recent addiction to jazz, a form of music that he found detestable. He admitted, however, that no one could talk, and listen simultaneously to jazz-records, without talking very loudly; and he excused her present fondness for jungle tonalities, the rhythms of Skid Row and Blues shouters, as a symptom of her change-of-life. She was ten years younger than he.
He opened the door, and gathered at the far end of the table saw a group of three people in a disarray of the morning’s newspapers. His wife in the middle, a tall, untidy woman with a dominating nose and pendant yellow earrings; their daughter Jane, a pretty girl in a green jersey and a red tartan skirt; and her husband Simon Telfer, now commanding his regiment at Redford Barracks. Jane got up as he came in, kissed him lightly as she passed, and went to the sideboard to pour his coffee.
‘Who’s gone mad now?’ he asked.
‘All of us, I sometimes think! But especially the Government and those people in t
he War Office. Do you know where Simon’s going? Not to Malaya, as they pretend, but to New Brabant! What can tanks do in a country like that?’
‘And what can I do?’ asked Jane from the sideboard. ‘They won’t let me go there.’
‘We mustn’t jump to conclusions,’ said Telfer. ‘I’m really very sorry I said anything about it.’
‘I didn’t jump to your conclusion,’ said Mrs Arbuthnot, ‘I jumped to my own. It’s all here in the papers, and I can read for myself.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘This revolution in Namua; or New Brabant, next door to it. They’ve murdered the Resident, a man named Morland, and the place is full of Communist volunteers, so-called. There’s a state of emergency, and Australia wants us to send troops.’
‘Why Australia? What’s she got to do with it?’
‘In the terms of Pacific strategy,’ said Telfer, ‘Australia’s extended defence line runs along the north shore of Namur and New Brabant.’
Max Arbuthnot, grumbling, picked up a newspaper and ill-temperedly began to read. There was nothing new, no quality of real surprise — not nowadays — in opening the morning paper to find that some distant, hitherto little regarded part of the world had broken its thin crust of peace and order, and was erupting flame and confusion that somehow threatened all its neighbours, and their neighbours’ neighbours too. Nothing new in that. But why should it happen to-day, when he had a better story to tell? The story of his good stag, so patiently stalked and cleanly killed on the bare brow of a mountain in Lochaber. He had begun, while he was dressing, to compose a proper introduction to the tale. A modest, humorous introduction, in which he would say something of the two younger men at the lodge — so much younger — and then, after a careful description of the stalk and a satisfying demonstration of his superior skill, he could conclude, with modesty still veiling his triumph, ‘Not bad for a man of sixty, eh?’
But now he had lost their attention. They were thinking, not of him and what he had been doing, but of Simon Telfer and his regiment, that was under orders for foreign service. Officially, a tour of duty in Malaya. But Singapore was on the road to New Brabant and if the trouble on its border were serious, New Brabant might in truth be his destination. One of the more excitable newspapers declared that ten thousand Communist volunteers had invaded the western part of the island and were infiltrating into Namua.
‘Who counted them?’ he demanded. ‘And where did they come from? I don’t believe a word of it. It’s a newspaper stunt. Sensationalism; nothing more.’
‘They murdered that poor man Morland,’ said Mrs Arbuthnot. “That’s something more.’
‘I daresay he deserved it. Many people do.’
Max Arbuthnot helped himself lavishly to bacon and eggs, and sat down. ‘Damn New Brabant!’ he said. ‘What’s been happening in Edinburgh while I was away? Where’s the Scotsman?’
Hastily refolding it, Jane brought him the Scotsman, and foreign affairs having been rudely brushed aside, Mrs Arbuthnot was reminded that her husband had been away from home for three days.
‘Did you enjoy yourself?’ she asked. ‘Did you catch anything?’
‘I wasn’t fishing, I was stalking!’ ‘Yes, dear. I know you were.’
‘Then why do you ask if I caught anything? You can’t catch a stag! You can shoot one — if you’re lucky.’
‘That’s what I want to know. Were you?’
‘I shot two on the first day. I wasn’t out on the second, and on the third I got a big one, with a good head; a ten-pointer, about twelve stone.’
But now Max Arbuthnot’s voice was cold, his manner terse. He had lost all desire to tell his fine story as it deserved to be told — as he had hoped to tell it — for his moment had gone and the minds of his audience were on far-off things. Jane, indeed, made little affectionate noises that pretended an interest in what he had done, and congratulation on it; but she was standing behind her husband’s chair, her arms round his neck and her chin resting on his head; and who had the primacy of her interest was clear enough. Mrs Arbuthnot sat down again, and spreading a piece of toast with bitter marmalade, ate it with noisy determination, as if she feared that aggressive Communists would snatch it from her before she finished.
Telfer asked, politely, if the stalking had been difficult, if the weather had been good, and if big stags were still scarce; and Max Arbuthnot replied civilly, but without encouraging further questions. He turned, as soon as he decently could, to the back page of the Scotsman to read the column which he customarily read at breakfast-time. This was the column that announced recent Births, Marriages, and Deaths in Scotland.
It was the summary of death in which he found the most interest and took his chief pleasure of a morning; for he had a crowd of acquaintances, and rarely a day passed without there being a familiar name in the catalogue of the lately deceased. Of a man who had manifestly lived too long — some dilatory octogenarian — he might observe, ‘They’ve been waiting for him to go. That’ll be a relief to them.’ Or, a little grudgingly, ‘God knows how he lasted so long. Drank like a fish when he was my age. Had his prostate out, too. Must have been tougher than I thought.’ — For the middle-aged, who had died untimely, he showed small sympathy, and would say, ‘A poor creature, I knew he’d never stay the course. I remember his father.’ Or else: ‘With a wife like his, I daresay it was a happy release. Some break your heart, some break your spirit, and she was a spirit-breaker. Well, he asked for it, poor chap.’ — But it was the death of a contemporary that roused in him the deepest feeling, and that, nearly always, was a sense of triumph which he hardly troubled to conceal.
‘Listen to this!’ he would exclaim. ‘Peter Malcolm — you know who I mean? I was playing golf with him at Muirfield only a couple of weeks ago — well, he’s dead! And only fifty-eight. He beat me on the last green — and now I’ve beaten him! By God, I have. Well, poor old Peter. I never thought he’d go so soon. Suddenly, too. Thrombosis, I suppose. He took a lot of money off me at Muirfield, one way or another. But he won’t take any more!’
Or, in a rather different vein: ‘“In a nursing home, on the 14th, Andrew James, beloved husband of Isobel” — that he never was! Not for the last twenty years, anyway. She couldn’t bear the sight of him. And how old d’you think he was? — No, younger than that. Only sixty-three. He looked a lot more, didn’t he? Drank too much, of course, and I told him so. A man with his blood-pressure ought to have taken care of himself. But he wouldn’t listen to reason. Never did. Wouldn’t even listen to me! He might have been alive to-day if he had. Well, that’s another Christmas card you won’t have to send. You don’t want to send one to her, do you? — Oh, they’re getting fewer every year. Fewer every year.’
Then he would walk up and down his long dining-room, as if withdrawn from the world into a noble sorrow; but presently, facing the window, would pull himself up, square his shoulders, and raise his head to a bold posture of defiance, as if to say, ‘Strike where you will! We who are left abide your stroke, and do not fear it.’ Then, sometimes, he would walk from the room, saying no more, but with high thoughts implicit in his carriage. Sometimes, however, he would declare, in a firm voice, rising to his conclusion, ‘They leave us the greater burden, those who go too soon. But we can carry it. Yes, by God, we can!’
This morning, however, he read to the foot of the column without finding anything of interest. But the last item elicited a shout of anger and surprise.
‘Charlie Youghal’s dead! Why didn’t you tell me? Didn’t you know? Here he is … ’
‘You mean your sister’s husband?’
‘Uncle Charlie?’ asked Jane.
‘Who else would I mean? Here he is, with all his ridiculous string of names. Jean-Marie Charles August Youghal, so you half think it’s a woman to begin with — and a proper old woman he was too. And look at this! He died the day before yesterday, and no announcement till this morning. That fool of a sister of mine’s late again. Why didn�
��t she tell me, and let me make the arrangements?’
‘You haven’t been on speaking terms with her for the last fifteen years,’ said Mrs Arbuthnot.
‘What’s that got to do with it? If he’s dead — and I suppose he is! All her life she’s exaggerated everything, but she’d hardly make an overstatement of this sort. Not in public.’
‘Don’t be a fool, Max,’ said Mrs Arbuthnot, with proper asperity. ‘If the Scotsman says he’s dead, then he is dead. And if poor Jessie didn’t write and tell you, it’s because you swindled her out of that picture, and she’s never forgiven you.’
‘I did not swindle her out of that picture!’
‘Then you swindled her out of half of it.’ ‘That is an absolute and monstrous perversion of the truth!’
‘It’s what she believes and so does Annie. And that’s why she didn’t write to you. And I don’t suppose she wants you at the funeral … ’
‘He’s going to be cremated.’
‘Then I don’t suppose she wants you there, either. What woman would, who remembers the way you always treated him?’
‘At a time like this she ought to let bygones be bygones. That’s what I’m going to do, whether she likes it or not! Do you think I’m going to sit here, doing nothing, and leave my own sister in the lurch? There’s no one there to look after her: not in Peebles. I can’t think why she ever went to live there.’
‘I daresay there are lawyers in Peebles — and probably a lawyer is looking after her.’
‘Some damned nincompoop who’ll rob her of everything poor old Charlie left. I don’t suppose he had the gumption even to make a will. Not that he’d much to leave, in any case. He’s more or less been living on Jessie for the last twenty years.’
‘You won’t effect a reconciliation by saying that sort of thing,’ said Mrs Arbuthnot. ‘Now listen to me, Max. The best thing you can do is to send her a telegram, send flowers to the funeral, and write to her as sympathetically as you can. But do nothing else unless she answers your letter.’
The Merry Muse Page 1
