Childish Things. Robin Jenkins

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ