by A. J. Cronin
“My goodness!” exclaimed Robertson with an almost startled look in his eyes. He sat up in his chair. “Is that a fact, doctor?”
“It’s a fact,” Finlay re-affirmed.
“So you see now,” put in Margaret, “you’d better be careful, father, and do as mother says.”
“I wouldn’t have believed it,” gasped Robertson in that same queer tone, staring in front of him like a man distracted.
“Well, maybe you will now.” said Mrs. Robertson in a pleased, justified voice.
As she showed Finlay to the door, she thanked him for having spoken so plainly.
Next morning Robert awoke early after a night which had been singularly troubled.
It was Saturday, a beautiful day. Through the open window the air blew sweetly down from the Winton Hills. He lay quietly in bed with his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
He was faced with the rehearsal of the cantata at the Rechabites’ Hall, where the fifty odd children – big and small, wet and dry nosed, of all sexes, the same whom he taught wearily every day of the week – would be waiting for him to appear with his tuning fork and little pointer.
He rose, dressed, and had his breakfast. Sarah accompanied him to the door to give her parting instructions.
“Now be careful, dear. You’ll come straight back, and you’ll sit in the garden with me this afternoon. Then we’ll both maybe take a bit walk together. There’s a hat in the window we might look at for Margaret.”
Robertson nodded in meek acquiescence, then turned and went down the road, across the Common and towards the Rechabites’ Hall.
But at the end of the Common a strange thing happened. All at once a change came over his face. He lifted his gaze from the ground where it habitually rested, and fixed it upon infinity, as if hypnotised. Instinctively his pace quickened, and, swinging round from the direction of the Rechabites’ Hall, he started off towards Church Street.
In Church Street, with the same queer hypnotic absorption, he entered the bank. Here he drew out the sum of thirty pounds.
When he came out of the bank he turned and walked straight off towards the station. Two people standing about, Dougal Todd, the sign painter, and old Lennox, the butcher, called out to him in greeting, but no recognition came upon his face.
He marched stiffly up the station steps on to the platform and without a trace of hesitation he entered a train which had just drawn up.
In an empty first-class compartment, surrounded by unusual luxury, he sat with impassive face. Presently he took off his hat, the dingy bowler hat which he had worn for some ten years, and laid it on the seat beside him.
He stared out of the window at the flashing panorama of green fields and woods and the opening estuary of the lovely Firth.
Half an hour later the train drew to a stop. It was Craigendoran Pier. He got out of the train and walked straight on the pier as if he meant to walk right off the end of it. Fortunately, however, a steamer lay at the end of the pier. It was the Lord of the Glens, and with complete composure he walked aboard.
A moment later the ropes were cast off, the paddles flashed, and the boat put off. A band broke gaily into music. The breeze blew soft and fresh, the sun shone, and the prow of the steamer was set towards the Kyles of Bute.
Bare-headed, for he had left his hat in the train, the little man paced the deck with his hair blowing in the wind, and some time later he went downstairs and ate a large meal – soup, cold salmon and cucumber, roast beef, pudding, biscuits and cheese. Then he came up, faintly flushed, but still queerly automatic, and began to pace the deck again.
“Tickets, please; tickets, please.” The young purser appeared, and the little man put his hand to his head as though bewildered. He had no ticket.
“Kirn, Dunoon, or Rothesay?” asked the purser, pulling out a book of counterfoils.
“Rothesay.” Mechanically – like that!
The purser wrote out a slip. He looked up casually, then his expression changed –
“Why, it’s Mr. Robertson, isn’t it? I was in your class ten years ago –”
“What,” asked the bare-headed passenger, “in all the world are ye talkin’ about?”
The purser flushed in confusion.
“Sorry,” he said awkwarly. “ My mistake.”
At Rothesay the little man stepped ashore briskly, mechanically, and opposite the pier his eyes took in a large boarding-house decorated with a gilded sign – Cowal Cliff. He went straight in.
“I’d like a nice room,” he said. The manageress looked up cheerfully from behind the little
window.
“Yes,” she said. “Have you booked?”
“No, I’ve just come off the boat.”
“Oh, I see. Your luggage will be along later?”
“Yes.”
“I can give you a nice front room. What name, sir?” She offered
him the pen.
He hesitated. Since he was not Robertson he must be somebody
else. His face clouded, then cleared, as if remembering something. “Walter Scott,” he said, almost to himself. And he wrote it down. When he had been shown to his bedroom and had washed his
face and hands, he went out and strolled along the front.
He went into a draper’s shop, where he bought himself a small
portmanteau, nightshirt, various odds and ends, and finally a
yachting cap.
Perching the yachting cap jauntily on his head, he ordered the
other purchases to be sent up to the Cowal Cliff, and went into
an adjoining tobacconist’s.
In the tobacconist’s, with a strange intentness in his eyes, he
bought himself some cigars – large cigars, cigars each circled by a
beautiful band.
With one of these smoking in the corner of his mouth, the
yachting cap set rakishly on his head, and an expression at once
blank and complacent, he strolled along the promenade, as though
enjoying the sunshine and fresh air.
Although he seemed so curiously detached and hypnotised, it seemed that everything was an entertainment to him.
Towards the end of the promenade he passed a young lady with dark eyes and wind-blown hair tucked under a red tam-o’-shanter. She walked with her hands in the pockets of her short jacket, and there was something soft and roguish and solitary about her.
In the same absent-minded fashion, he swung round and began to stroll behind her. When she stopped to look at a sailing boat which lay close inshore in the bay, he stopped to look at it, too. In the same absent fashion he remarked –
“A bonny boat, isn’t it?”
She agreed.
“And it’s a bonny day,” he said, his voice expressionless and innocent.
Again she agreed, smiling.
“Where are you staying?” he asked.
“At the Cowal Cliff,” she replied.
“Fine!” he said. “I’m there, too. Isn’t it time we were back for tea?”
She burst out laughing.
“Don’t think I didn’t see you at the end of the promenade. You’re a wicked one, picking up decent girls. I saw there was a wicked look about you.”
“Oh, no,” he said, “not at all.”
“Come on,” she teased him, “ I’m waiting for you to say we’ve met before.”
“Maybe we have,” he replied strangely. “ I don’t remember.”
As they walked along towards the boarding-house, she told him about herself.
Her name was Nancy Begg, and she worked in a big store in Sauchiehall Street. She had drawn her holidays a little earlier than usual in the ballot, and she admitted that she had been very lonely since her arrival at the Cowal Cliff. She liked Rothesay better in August.
She seemed to him to be about twenty-seven, and was lively and self-possessed.
“But you haven’t told me anything about yourself,” she said, “What do you do?” Envisaging the yachting cap
, she remarked archly, “ Something to do with the sea, I should think.”
“That’s right,” he said. “A purser on a ship.”
“You can always tell,” she agreed smiling again. “ There’s something – I don’t know what. Something dashing, I think.”
At the high tea they sat next to each other, and he helped her to everything. After tea he said –
“What are you doing this evening?”
“Well, what do you suggest? There’s the entertainers – they’re awful good.”
They went to the entertainers. He took the best front seats, and bought her a box of chocolates. By the time they came out a soft darkness had come down upon the bay. The end of his cigar glowed brightly, and on the way home, in that absent-minded fashion, he slipped his arm round her waist.
“You’re a nice chap, Walter,” she whispered.
The next few days were fine and sunny. The time passed quickly, while Walter and Nancy enjoyed each other’s company. They walked together, took drives together, and a cruise round the Kyles. They even danced together, for, on the eve of her return to Glasgow, as they passed beside the Cowal Hall they saw a placard displayed –
GALA ASSEMBLY TONIGHT. ALL WELCOME
GLOVES OPTIONAL: SLIPPERS ESSENTIAL
Nancy sighed wistfully, hanging on his arm, and asked –
“Do you dance, Walter?”
“I think I might dance,” he said with the odd, non-committal caution with which Nancy was now familier.
He had changed visibly; his shoulders were more erect; he was slightly sunburned; his eye, though still, alas, extremely distant, was bright and daring.
She was to leave by the five o’clock boat, and that afternoon they took a final walk up past the golf course beyond the Skeoch Wood.
Nancy was very silent. Presently she complained that she was tired, and they sat down. They were enclosed by a sea of young bracken, above which the tree trunks and feathery bushes framed a strip of blue sky.
Far away they heard the throb of a streamer going down the Kyles, and then a deep stillness fell.
“You won’t forget me, will you, Walter?” Nancy whispered, afraid to break this quietness.
“I don’t know,” he said queerly. “I’m not very good at remembering.”
At that she gave a little sigh and her arms went round him. Absent-mindedly his went round her.
Then it was time to return for Nancy’s boat. She took Walter’s arm, and in silence walked very close to him.
They had reached the promenade leading to the pier, when suddenly a large and portly figure blocked the way.
“Hello, hello!” he exclaimed in a tone of wonder. “It’s you, Robertson! Well, I’ll be damned!”
“I beg your pardon,” said Walter in a stiff voice, “You’re making a mistake.”
“What!” gasped the other. “ Don’t you know me – Baillie Nichol, of Levenford? Damn it all, Robertson –”
“I beg your pardon,” said Walter again. “My name’s Scott. Kindly let me pass.”
“But hang it all,” protested Nichol. “Hang it all, Robertson, the whole town has been ringing with you. They’ve turned the place upside down looking for you. Every paper –”
“This young lady has to catch her boat,” remarked Walter, and, pushing past the dumbfounded Nichol, he drew Nancy to the pier and towards the boat.
“What was it, Walter?” she asked in astonishment. “How should I know?” he answered. “ I never saw him in my life before.”
The bell on the boat clanged. She gave him a big, hurried hug.
“You’ve got my address,” she said. “You won’t forget me, dear? Please?”
When he returned to Cowal Cliff he had an idea that the manageress looked at him with a strange intentness, but he took no notice.
After tea he went out for a solitary walk along the promenade, and the stars came out and looked at his small figure strolling along with an air of vague triumph. It was impossible to tell what his thoughts might be, but that night he slept dreamlessly.
Next morning he lay late. It was about ten o’clock before he came down briskly, and found the manageress waiting for him in the hall.
“Somebody wants to see you,” she declared with an air of purpose, and took him aside into a little room.
There he stared blankly at Bailie Nichol, accompanied by two women. One of the women was tall, large of bosom and hip, and flat of face. There were tears in her eyes, and her hands trembled. Beside her stood obviously her daughter.
“Now, Robertson,” said Nichol carefully, “ here we are. You’re glad to see us, aren’t you, old fellow?”
“What d’ye mean?” said Walter coldly. “ You are a damned nuisance, sir. And what are these women doing here?”
At this a groan broke from the elder female. She pushed forward and flung her arms round Walter’s neck.
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” she moaned. “ Don’t you remember me, dear? Don’t you know me?”
Stonily, Walter withdrew from her embrace.
“Leave me be, woman. I can’t understand such shameless behaviour.”
With a gesture of his arm, Nichol restrained the elder woman.
“Leave him in the meantime,” he whispered aside. “We’ll get him home. His memory’s gone.”
The object of their sympathy and solicitude, Walter, was escorted with great care on the short journey to Levenford.
He preserved a cold and disgusted dignity when first one woman and then the other sobbed over him. But he made no demur about accompanying them, trotting with docility from boat to train and from train to cab.
“He’s like a man bewitched,” sobbed the middle-aged woman, “My poor Robert.”
When they reached the house at Barloan Toll, a young man was awaiting them.
“Oh, Dr. Finlay, Dr. Finlay!” wailed the woman, “Look at him; it’s just as you said. Oh, what’ll I do? What’ll I do?”
Finlay was very upset as he saw again the face of “wee Robison” with its new, remote expression. He went up to him with quick kindness.
“Come away, man,” he said. “ Just sit down quietly, and we’ll have a little talk. Don’t you know me? You’ve had a breakdown man, and you just want to go very quietly.”
Walter seemed unmoved by this solicitude. He looked round in cold disapproval.
“What are those two women doing there?” he asked. “ Tell them to go away.”
Finlay signed to Mrs. Robertson and Margaret to leave the room, and they went reluctantly, their sobs echoing down the passage.
Finlay and Robertson sat for some time in silence. It seemed to Finlay that Robertson’s expression was changing. Just being in his own house, although he did not recognise it, was smoothing out that expression of tense remoteness. At last Finlay began to speak carefully.
“Now, listen,” he said. “You’ve got to understand, my friend, that you have lost your memory. It’s not serious, but you have completely lost your memory. You will have to wait until it comes back.”
The patient’s face at last showed a look of frank interest.
“Is that a fact?” he said. “And how long does it take?”
“Well,” said Finlay, trying to be reassuring, “ sometimes it comes back quite suddenly, the trouble passes over –”
A slow grin broke over Wee Robison’s face.
“Well, it’s over now!” he said. “So fetch them in!” He fingered an address slip in his waistcoat pocket, and his grin broadened. He dug Finlay slyly in the ribs.
“But, by God, man, it was grand while it lasted!”
7. The Man Who Came Back
One evening in early June as Finlay sat in his surgery there entered a man whom he had never seen before in Levenford. The stranger was perhaps between thirty-five and forty years old, but it was uncertain, for his features, lean, haggard, and jaundiced by tropic suns, wore that look of cheap experience which puts the stamp of age upon the face of youth.
The manner of this y
oung-old man was easy, flashy, almost arrogant. He was dressed in a light suit of ultra sporting cut, carried worn-out yellow gloves and a chipped malacca cane, while his hat, which he had not troubled to remove, lay on the back of his head as if to mask the stains upon its threadbare nap by this extremely rakish tilt.
“Evening, doctor sahib,” remarked the unusual visitor with complete assurance; and without invitation flung himself into the chair beside Finlay’s desk. “Dropped in on you to get acquainted. I’m Hay, Bob Hay, Esq., of the North East India Company. Just back from Bombay to look the old town up again.”
Finlay stared at the queer individual in surprise. No one like this had ever been in his surgery before. Recovering himself he made to put a question, but before he could speak the ubiquitous Hay, tapping his pointed shoe – rather cracked about the uppers, but finely shined for all that – with his malacca cane, resumed his cocksure style.
“Pretty damn funny the old town looks after fifteen years. I can tell you, when a man’s been out East and seen the world, he’s fit to laugh his sides out at a chota spot like this. Ha! Ha! call it the Royal and Ancient burgh. It’s ancient all right. No life, doc, no bright lights, nothing! Damn my liver! I don’t know how I’ll stand it now I’ve come home.”
And with an easy, man of the world laugh, he pulled a cheroot from his waistcoat pocket, and stuck it nonchalently in his mouth.
With level eyes and a growing repugnance, Finlay studied the flashy Hay – Bob Hay, Esquire, as he styled himself – this son of Levenford, returned to his native town after many years abroad. At length he inquired brusquely –
“Seeing that you find it so unsatisfactory, may I ask why you came back?”
Bob Hay laughed, and airily waved his cheroot, which he had ignited by the simple process of borrowing a match from Finlay’s desk and sparking it expertly upon his shoe.
“Reasons of health, doctor sahib! Climate plays the devil with a man’s liver and lights out East. And the life y’know. Dinners, dances, regimental balls. God, doc, when a man’s run after socially – oh, you understand how it is, old man! Had to give it up for a bit and come back. Couple of my pals in Bombay, big specialists out there, good fellows both, advised me to have a little rest and take a trip home.”
