A Scots Quair (98 page)

Norman Cruickshank lay in the hospital and didn't say a word, quiet and unmoving, half of his face had been eaten away by the flame.

Jess would never see Bob again. She thought at his graveside, decent in her black,
Young Erchie's been awful kind to me.
Maybe the furniture me and Bob's bought will do if he's really
serious, like
…. But she mustn't think of that, even with her Trouble, poor Bob that had been so kind and sensible even though he'd once mixed with those dirt, the Reds—

Ellen Johns said, sick, it was horrible, horrible,
but, Ewan,
you know that
that
was a lie. It was sickening of you to suggest
that they let loose the gas deliberately…. Ewan, it's just
cheating, it's not Communism!

Chris had said
But, Ake, why are you leaving me?

He'd tapped out his pipe by the side of the fire,
Just for
what I've said, mistress: I want a change. So I've ta'en on the job
of ship's carpenter, on the Vulture, bound for Newfoundland.
That's all about it
.

She'd said But it wasn't all; what was this stuff about not coming back? And at that the Ake Ogilvie of Segget had awakened, a minute, as he told her why: that he'd never had a minute since his marriage day when he was a free and happy man, aye knowing how she looked on him, thought of him—oh aye, she'd done her best, he knew, it was just that the two of them never should have wed,
You were made for
somebody different from me, God knows who, neither me nor
Colquohoun. But it's been like hell, we just can't mix. Lass, do
you think I haven't seen you shiver over things another woman
would laugh at or like?

She'd said that that was just foolishness, she'd liked him well and had aye done so. And he'd said she looked bonny standing there, trying to be kind. It was more than kindness he'd once hoped to get; and now they'd speak of the soss no more.

And he'd told her his plans, he was off in three days, and he'd maybe write her, had he anything to write about, when he got to Newfoundland or Canada. He thought of crossing over Canada and taking a look at Saskatchewan, plenty of work there for a joiner, he'd heard. Of what money he made he'd let her have half.

Chris had said quiet she wouldn't have that, if they parted she'd no need to live off him, they parted for good and all—if at all.

And Ake had nodded, Ay, that would be best.

So, watching from the doorway as he went this last morning, she minded in pity and smiled at him, kind. He hoisted the case on his shoulder and nodded,
Well, I'll away.
Ta-ta, mistress
.

Her heart was beating high in her breast and her throat felt tight so that hardly she could speak: and all that meant little enough, as she knew. If she tried even now she could keep him by her—who would soon have so few to fall back upon. But he wasn't for her, she for any man, they'd each to gang their own gait.

She'd finished with men or the need for them, no more that gate might open in her heart, in her body and her soul, in welcome and gladness to any man. Quick and quick in the flying months she passed with hasting feet over ways that once had seemed ever-lasting: the need not only for a lover's caresses, but the need for anyone's liking, for care, kind words and safe eyes…. That dreadful storm she'd once visioned stripping her bare was all about her, and she feared it no longer, eager to be naked, alone and unfriended, facing the last realities with a cool, clear wonder, an unhasting desire. Barriers still, but they fell one by one—

She stared from the doorway, standing still, motionless, almost the last sight Ake saw, it twisted his heart and then left it numb. Ay, a strange quean, yon. And not for him. He'd thought that glimmer in her eyes a fire that he himself could blow to a flame; and instead 'twas no more than the shine of a stone.

Ewan at last had been fired from Stoddart's he told to Ellen as they drove from Duncairn in the little car they'd hired for the weekend. Ellen had hired it and sat aside now while Ewan took the wheel and a reckless road through the lorry traffic of Kirrieben in the whistling spatter of December snow. She'd been deep in thought: on the road, on herself, on the week-end that waited them in that inn in Drumtochty. Now she started:
Oh Lord, what'll you do now?

He said he hadn't the ghost of a notion, something or other, and whistled to himself, dark and intent, growing tall, still slim, with the mouth that was losing its lovely curves, growing hard and narrow she suddenly thought: dismissed that thought—he was just Ewan still.

And some time she'd tell him. But not tonight.

For a while Ewan drove without saying more. Topping the Rise the storm had cleared, the snow no more than an inch or so thick scarred with the passing of buses and lorries, a lorry came clanging to meet them, chains on, and once the little car caught on a slide and skidded and galumphed a wiggling moment till Ewan's hands switched it into line again. Up here the full blow of the wind was upon them; behind, down in its hollow, Duncairn was a pelting scurry of flakes, browny white as smoke rose to snow and commingled and presently drew down a veil, capped with darkness in the early sunset, over the whitening miles of grey granite. Forward the country wavered and shook, no solid lines as they held the road, a warm, birring dot, tap-tap the hardened flakes on the shield. Ellen snuggled up closer to Ewan and he reached out a hand and gave her a pat and nodded thanks as she put a cigarette between his lips. She lit it and then said
Goodness,
we're comfy. Wish we'd a car like this of our own
.

He said he'd have to get Selden's job for that: and he doubted if it would be as easy next time! She asked what on earth he was talking about and he steered through a drifting drove of cattle, head down to the storm, drover behind, and didn't answer her for a moment. Then he asked her hadn't she heard the news?—oh no, she hadn't been down to the Communist local for nearly a couple of weeks, lazy thing.
The
point is that Selden's bunked with the funds
.

—
Selden? With the funds of the Party?

—
Every cent, and there was a decent amount. I thought it risky
to have him treasurer, and so did Trease, but he'd got in well with
the
ec
in London. Cleared us out to the very last copper
.

She said the man was a beast, it was filthy; but Εwan had started his whistling again, hardly heeding her, only the road and the car, he said Selden had shown a lot of sense in waiting till the local had a spot of coin. Been sick of unemployment and his wife wasn't well—her that used to be Chris's maid—remember?

—
You speak as though you might do the same
.

He laughed at that, cheerfully,
I'm a Communist
. And fell to his whistling again, but soberly. And when he next spoke there was steel in his voice, the steel of a cold, unimpassioned hate:
I could tell long ago that Selden would rat; you can tell a
rat easily among revolutionists—yeasty sentiment and blah about
Justice. They think they're in politics or a parlour game
.

And what did he himself think it was? But she didn't ask, didn't want to hear more, wanted to forget Duncairn and all in it and that dreadful paper they had made her sign. And Ewan drove as though he owned the road and all the Howe and half of December and had specially arranged the storm effects, the storm coming rolling down from the Mounth and pelting across the grey fields in wan tides, now snow, now sleet, once, curling and foaming, combers of hail. The shrouded farms cowered in by their woods, here and there a ploughman wrapped to the ears went whistling up to the end of a rig, the lapwings flying,
Lost; lost!
their plaint above the wheel and fall of the snow.

Ellen drowsed against Ewan's sleeve, and woke and looked
out, they were past Auchinblae going down into the Glen of Drumtochty, here no snow fell, far in the lift Drumtochty rose with its firs going climbing to the racing clouds. She said
Remember that day there, Ewan?
and told him to be careful, he'd nearly turned the car in a ditch, kissing her, he laughed, he'd remembered as well, something like a shadow went over his face, not from it, and a moment she saw again the shamed hurt boy whom she'd loved, still loved, deeper and madder and worse than ever.

The landlady said God be here, they'd expected no visitors on New Year's Eve, but they both were welcome. If they'd wait a while she'd stir up those sweir meikle bitches the maids and see that a room was set in order. Och, she minded the two of them fine back in May and she'd known another thing though she'd never letten on—that the two of them had been on their honeymoon. Wasn't that true?

Ellen said it was, but the landlady was looking at Ewan, hardly heard, she said he'd take a bit dram with her?—and his good lady too, maybe?

So they sat and had their dram, all three, and the landlady and Ewan were at it in a minute, gossip that somehow left Ellen out, though she didn't know how, she was just as interested in floods and storms and hens and chickens and farm boys as Ewan was (and once a lot more). But as always with the working people everywhere, however she dreamed of justice for them, flamed in anger against their wrongs, something like a wall of glass came down cutting her off from their real beliefs, the meanings in tones and intonation, the secret that made them bearable as individuals. But Ewan had now the soap-box trick of pretending to be all things to all kinds of keelies—That was damn mean and wasn't true, there was no pretence, he was all things—sometimes, frighteningly, it seemed to her that he was the keelies, all of them, himself.

But they were served a warm supper ben in the parlour and sat there thawing in front of a fire, resin-spitting, curling bright amber flames up the wide lum, it whoomed in the blasts of the storm driving night, hunted, down through
Drumtochty. Sometimes the whoom in the lum would still, then roust and ring as though the storm going by beat a great bell in the low of the lift. And Ellen felt happy and content again, sleepy as a cat, a little bit like one: and something a moment touched through to Εwan, a hand from other days, other nights, queerly. He said
You're thinner, you were always
slim, but plump in a way as well that time we climbed the
Barmekin
. She shook her head, she was just the same, only horribly sleepy, was he coming now?

He went to the window and looked out at the storm, solid in front of the inn it went by, speckled in the lights, a great ghost army hastening east, marching in endless line on line, silent and sure; and he thought a minute
Our army's like that,
the great lost legion, nothing to stop it in heaven or hell
; and that thought lit him up a little moment till he closed it away in impatient contempt. Bunk symbolism was a blunted tool.

So he said he'd look in at the bar a minute, and sent Ellen to bed: looked a tired kid. When he got up the stairs in a half-hour or so the house was shaking in every gust, the candle-flame leaped as he opened the door, Ellen lying in bed in silk nightie, pretty thing, drowsy, she said
Hurry, it's
cold
.

But soon it wasn't, the candle out, the lights from the fire lay soft in the room, he said
Warm now?
and she said
That was
fun: remember the first time I said that?
And she laid her head in the hollow of his arm sleeping the New Year in.

The storm was over when they woke next day, breakfast ready and a tramp in the snow to follow, they climbed to the top of Cairn o' Mount, bare ragged and desolate under the snow, no exaltation of the storm left; around them, mist- draped, the jumble of hills. It seemed to Ellen the most desolate place that God ever made, and she hated it.

But Ewan said one could think up here and sat on a stone and filled his pipe, and dusted the stone clear of snow:
Sit
down. I've something to ask you
.

She sat down and cuddled up close to his shoulder and said if the question was if she still loved him, the answer was in the
affirmative, worse luck. And did he know he was, oh damnably thrilling?

He said
Listen, Ellen. About the Party. Why haven't you been
to the meetings of late?

She watched a puff of wind come over the snow, ruffling it like an invisible snake, nearer and nearer, and caught her breath, if it didn't reach them—for a luck, a sign…. It blew a white dust over her hands.

She said quietly as him
Just because I can't, or I'd lose my
job
.

He said
Oh
, and knocked out the pipe and filled it again with the cheap tobacco, his suit was frayed and the coat collar shiny, she saw, sitting away from him: funny she had never noticed these things before….
What's happened, then?

She laughed and caught his shoulder
Ewan! Don't use that
tone to me!
EWAN
!

His face was a stone, a stone-mason's face, carved in a sliver of cold grey granite.
You might as well tell me
.

Suddenly frightened she stared at him, and told him she couldn't do anything else. The Education Authority had got to hear and had put the choice plainly enough. She'd to sign a paper saying she'd take no more part in extremist activities and stop teaching the children—what she'd been teaching them.
Oh, Ewan, I couldn't help it!

—
Does that mean you've left the Party as well as left off
attending its meetings?

And then anger came on her:
Yes, I've left the Party! And it
wasn't only that. I've left because I'm sick of it, full of cheats and
liars, thieves even, look at Selden, there's not one a clean or a
decent person except you and perhaps Jim Trease. And I've left
because I'm sick of being without decent clothes, without the
money I earn myself, pretty things that are mine, that I've worked
for…. Oh, Ewan, you know they're hopeless, these people—the
keelies remember you used to call them?—hopeless and filthy; if
ever there's anything done for them it'll be done from above, not by
losing onself in them…. Oh
, can't
you see?