The Cone-Gatherers. Robin Jenkins

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       CHAPTER TWO

      Duror had walked about a quarter of a mile along the road when a motor car, with masked headlights, overtook and passed him, hooting peevishly. It drew up a short way in front, with two apologetic and welcoming toots of its horn. When he came nearer he recognised it as Dr Matheson’s car, and wished he had waited in the wood a half-hour longer.

      The old man grinned at him.

      ‘Thought I recognised your stalwart figure, Duror,’ he chuckled. ‘You’re not frightened, though, strolling along like that in the dark. Country folk these days ought to be supplied with luminous behinds. Been out on the prowl for poachers?’

      ‘Yes, doctor.’

      The doctor smacked his lips. ‘Damned if I blame them,’ he said, ‘with meat as scarce as it is. You know I’m partial to a tender haunch of venison myself. Get in. I’ll take you as far as the gate.’

      Duror hesitated: he was in no mood to suffer the doctor’s inquisitive inanities.

      ‘Put your gun at the back. Hope it’s not loaded. I hate the things. If you’d your dogs with you, damned if I would have stopped. Can’t abide the brutes in a car. My wife used to have one, a brown spaniel; it would keep licking the back of my neck. She said it was only showing its affection. Queer affection, eh, to tickle me into the front of a bus. Get in, man. What are you waiting for?’

      Duror climbed in, placing his gun beside the doctor’s bag on the back seat.

      Soon they were moving on again.

      ‘Is Black still at Laggan?’ asked the doctor.

      ‘Aye.’

      Black was the estate forester. He had been loaned by his mistress to the Timber Control Authorities, who were felling a wood at Laggan. He had had to accept the transfer as a national service. In the spring he would return to superintend the cutting down of his own wood.

      The doctor was smiling slyly.

      ‘So you’re the monarch of the woods?’ he asked.

      Duror said nothing.

      ‘A nice fellow, Tom Black,’ said the doctor, ‘but a shade too severe and upright for comfortable Christian intercourse. I understand he believes that every leaf that falls belongs to his master.’

      ‘So it does.’

      ‘In theory, certainly. But you and I know, as men of the world, that a wide breathing-space must be allowed between theory and practice; otherwise ordinary mortals like us would be suffocated.’

      Duror made no comment.

      ‘Shoot any deer these days?’

      ‘Now and again.’

      The doctor, sniffing hard, was not only in fancy relishing venison; he was also indicating that, in Black’s absence, deer might safely be killed and shared with a friend.

      ‘Wolf it all up at the big house, I suppose?’

      ‘Most of it goes to hospitals.’

      The doctor was surprised; he was even shocked; he whistled. ‘Is that so? Take care of the sick, and let the healthy pine.’ Uneasiness entered his laughter as Duror glanced at him. ‘A joke, Duror,’ he added, ‘clean against all professional ethics. But all the same it is damned scun-nersome, spam, spam, spam, at every meal. One of the pleasures I thought I could look forward to in my old age was that of the palate. They tell me even as a baby in my pram I chose the choicest cherry. Why not? Fine eating’s a civilised pastime, and fine drinking too, of course. God, how scarce good whisky’s become. It’s not to be had for love nor money.’

      ‘I’d have thought a man in your position, doctor, would have a better chance than most any folk.’

      ‘Meaning what?’ The doctor was involuntarily peevish: the quest for whisky and palatable food was real, bitter, and ceaseless.

      ‘Well, you carry life and death in your bag.’

      ‘Ho,’ grunted the old man.

      ‘And you attend butchers and grocers and farmers and publicans.’

      ‘Are you insinuating I use my professional position to extort favours from my patients?’

      Duror smiled at that haughty senile indignation.

      The doctor saw that indignation was a foolish tactic. He began to cackle.

      ‘Damn your impudence, Duror,’ he said. ‘You’re a sleekit one all right. You don’t say much, but you think plenty. Well, however I fare in other directions, and I’m admitting nothing, I never see any venison. I’ve seen it on the hoof all right racing across the hillsides, but it’s a hell of a long time since I smelled it on my plate. How’s Peggy keeping these days?’

      It was an astute question. Peggy was Duror’s wife: for the past twenty years she had lain in bed and grown monstrously obese; her legs were paralysed.

      Duror’s voice was as stripped of emotion as a winter tree.

      ‘As well as can be expected,’ he said.

      ‘Like myself, still eating more than’s good for her, I suppose? Well, God help us, we’ve to take our pleasures where we can; and skimpy pleasures they are today. Your Peggy’s had a raw deal from life, Duror.’

      ‘Aye.’