On the Island (8 page)

All the way home she only answered when he spoke and he didn't speak much for he didn't feel the need for speaking. It was as if by climbing down the ladder he had entered deeper and calmer waters than he had known. It was only much later that he felt a great sadness as if by climbing the ladder he had taken away from himself a challenge that would never now be a challenge again. But by that time Pauline was in London, miles and miles away, among her subways and her Madame Tussauds, and she soon faded from his mind altogether, though in later years he would remember her with gratitude and sorrow. In fact, he never saw her again in his whole life.

14

I
T WAS
C
HRISTMAS
Day and there was a light fall of snow on the ground that had drifted there during the night. Having received his present, a toy car which ran along the green linoleum when it was wound up, Iain went outside into the day which was illuminated by a red sun low on the horizon which seemed to cast a reddish shade across the snow. He saw a crow rocking slightly on a fence, and a buzzard wheeling about the reddish sky.

He wasn't going anywhere in particular and it was near a small pool of frozen water that he saw the shoe. It was lying beside the pool and a little snow had drifted over it. For some reason, Iain stopped and flicked the snow away from the shoe, which he held lightly in his hand. It was an old black shoe, wrinkled and laceless, and the heel was almost worn away. Iain held it up against the sun thinking of nothing and now and again examining the leather and wondering whose shoe it had been. It was definitely not a woman's shoe or a girl's shoe and from its size it seemed to be more a man's shoe than a boy's. It had received much use in its time, he thought, for not only was the heel worn away but there were many nails missing from the sole.

He looked all round him but could see nothing else lying on the ground apart from the shoe, which seemed very ancient in comparison with his own. When the pool was unfrozen he would sail his paper boat with its paper sail on it, but now it was iced over and instead of the boat there was this shoe. He turned it over and over in his hand as if he were trying to question it. It reminded him of the soppy compositions that Miss Stilton would make them write on their black slates, “A Day in the Life of a Postage Stamp” or “A Day in the Life of a Penny”. … A Day in the Life of a Shoe. He put his hand inside it and felt a nail or a stud protruding and it made him think of the village cobbler who would sit outside his door in the summer months repairing shoes for the villagers, the hammer in his hand, the nails in his mouth, the light falling on the round bald head which looked exactly like a naked stone. He sucked his finger where the nail had bitten him.

A shoe on Christmas Day. Something in the words stirred his mind as if they were trying to send him a message. But what could the shoe have to do with Christmas, with the parcels that had come down the chimney and lay on the table in the chill bare morning, as over the cold linoleum he himself barefootedly and excitedly moved. What could the shoe have to do with Christmas, with the angels and the stars and the baby, especially with the stars that shone so brightly in the sky as they did above his own village on a winter night. Nothing that he could see. And yet here he was bent down on the chill ground holding this old shoe in his hand reddened by the cold.

His mind as if conscious of the snow and the red light around him roved among pictures: of the Eskimos swathed in their heavy furs making holes in the ice and patiently fishing; of Russians in sleighs racing across the steppes under a low sky; of the wind flapping a flag at the North Pole; of icebergs floating like ghosts across the vast Atlantic Ocean. Those pictures had all come from the green-covered geography book which Miss Stilton had recently given them.

His hand holding the shoe was cold and he laid the shoe down on the frozen pool and watched it as if at any moment it would start to move. But the shoe stayed where it was, frayed, wrinkled, ancient, laceless. Iain thought that he ought to go back to his house and play some more with the red car but he didn't really want to, for he didn't like the car much, though he appreciated the gift. After all, once one had wound it up a few times and let it run across the green linoleum, there was nothing much else that one could expect from it. It would just do the same thing again and again and again, for that was all it could do.

He raised his head and looked at the village which lay absolutely still under the reddish light. The people were warm in their houses but the shoe was out here in the cold day exposed and chill and warped. Why was there only one shoe? It seemed so lonely without its companion. Where then was the other one? One lonely shoe out on the grass beside a frosty pond under the gloomy light. It was, however, as if the light, raw and lowering, were trying to tell him something about the shoe. But that was ridiculous. What could the light tell him? About anything? And why was he kneeling in this ridiculous fashion on the icy ground? If anyone were to see him they would think him stupid. But he didn't get to his feet just the same.

Pictures of Christmas came into his mind, and one in particular of the Virgin Mary bending over Jesus in the manger while the dumb animals looked over her shoulder, as if they were trying to see him. But of course the animals didn't know anything about what was happening and neither apparently did the innkeeper, for he had kept them outside the door of the noisy inn. And that was terrible, especially after they had ridden for such a long distance. On an ass. He saw them quite clearly in the raw light, bowed and dispirited, standing at the door in their long dusty clothes, wearing their dusty sandals.

He knelt there, the shoe in his hand, as if he were listening at a shut door. And as he listened it seemed to him as if the hand containing the shoe began to tremble, not with the cold but with something else, with the message. He looked down at the shoe and both it and his hand were shaking, vibrating. What an extraordinary thing. And yet he wasn't frightened at all, it was rather as if he was overwhelmed with joy. It was as if the whole village began to vibrate, all the houses, all the walls, all the fences, and then he saw the black shoe under a red sky and the shoe itself was turning a shade of red in his hand, while in the distance, once, clearly, he heard the crowing of a cock.

He gazed around him and it was as if he heard music, and as well as that it was as if his body was full of water like the buckets that he would carry home from the well, brimming over. The cottages and landscape had turned into a village such as he imagined might exist in Finland or Russia, and at any moment he expected sleighs to come rushing towards him, bearing old bearded men who were wearing old wrinkled shoes such as he held in his hand. And they all had the face of the Cook or the cobbler. As they approached the village the houses trembled and shook as if in the red water that had appeared in front of them. The water was mounting his body and reaching his head which was warming steadily while the shoe still shook in his hand, more violently than ever.

He gazed directly into the sun as he knelt on the ground, the shoe in his hand, and more clearly he heard the music which was outside and inside him at the same time, and it was very loud as if it were a song of praise that was arising from the reddish-white ground all around him. At the centre of it all was the old shoe, wrinkled and helpless, and yet not ashamed among the music. The shoe, the shoe, his mind or something else that was not his mind kept muttering over and over, it is to do with the shoe. To do with the shoe, to do with the shoe. The shoe is not new, the shoe is old. Bold. Rolled. Scold. Sold. Told. The chains of words hung before him like a long ladder in the cold red raw light.

His body was full to bursting as if some joy was trying to get out, to run and run and then say something, speak. His hand holding the shoe trembled but not so violently as before. He must get home, he must get paper, there was something he should put down lest it should spill. It was something to do with the shoe, the frozen pond, the red sky, sleighs, silent houses, white roads. It was something to do with all that, but what exactly? Shoe, true, blue, flew … The crow rested lightly on the fence, its feathers aflame, the buzzard hovered in the sky, and the black shoe trembled in his hand.

He laid it down on the ground and then he began to run, and he burst into the house and climbed the door into the attic where he kept the paper and pencil with which on wet days he drew his endless drifters and motor boats. It was as if he must hurry before the water spilt, before the buckets were empty. With his pencil in his hand, he gazed out over his territory, through the skylight, his hand ready to race over the paper, not knowing what he was writing, with such speed, never before with such speed, never before with such joy, lest anyone should come, lest Kenneth should come with his barbaric cries.

The red sun stared back at him with its raw eye between the two hills. In its light he wrote, in its cold wintry light.

15

“I
WANT YOU
to go and ask Mrs Macdonald if you can borrow half a crown till I get my pension next Tuesday,” said his mother to Iain one day.

“I don't want to go,” said Iain angrily. “Kenneth can go this time. It's his turn. I went two weeks ago.”

“Not me,” said Kenneth, grinning provocatively.

“Why not you?”

“I don't want to go, that's all. You go.”

“Yes, Iain, you go. Kenneth is no good at these things.” Across her face passed a spasm of what might have been rage or shame.

“Why are we always having to borrow money?” Iain pursued, still angry at the unfairness of Kenneth's refusal.

“Because … It's not your business. You do what you're told.”

Kenneth made faces at him across the table when his mother was not looking and Iain banged down his book.

“Stop that at once and do what you're told,” his mother shouted, her face white with rage, her bluish lips compressed.

“It's unfair,” Iain muttered. “Kenneth never goes. And anyway …”

“Anyway what?”

“We're the only ones who borrow money. Nobody else borrows money. I hate it.”

“There's nothing wrong with borrowing. She will get her money back, never fear. There's not one of them that I can't face. There was a day when I didn't have to do it but I have to do it now. Tell her she will get it back on Tuesday. Now run.”

Iain turned away from his grimacing brother and his inflexible mother, fuming and trembling. If there was one thing he hated above all it was going to someone's house to borrow money. Why were they so poor that they never had any money? He swore that when he grew up he would make sure he was rich and never have to ask anyone for half a crown or even a single penny.

Kicking at the stones on the road, he walked across to Mrs Macdonald's house and hoped above all things that she would be alone so that he could get the half-crown and run back home again to continue reading his book. He wished Kenneth would drop dead: sometimes he hated him with a bitter hatred. He was never asked to do anything, all because his mother said that he, Iain, was better at these things. Well, he wasn't. And anyway why couldn't his mother go herself? She was nearer to Mrs Macdonald's age than he was.

Thinking these thoughts, and bitterly angry and resentful, he arrived at Mrs Macdonald's house and stood there for a while, reluctant to go in, watching the door which seemed inhospitable and was certainly and blankly shut. He didn't like Mrs Macdonald but she had been chosen because his mother had gone the rounds of most of the other people in the village who would be likely to lend her money, and only Mrs Macdonald remained. She was a thin woman in black who crept about the houses and always had a drip from her nose and a habit of calling him “a ghraidh” which he hated because he knew she didn't mean it and it also made him feel like a girl.

He waited, undecided at her door, wishing he could kick it or that he could run away somewhere, anywhere, where people didn't have to borrow money and where there were no Mrs Macdonalds and no Kenneths who got away with doing nothing.

Then gritting his teeth he walked into the house, not knocking on the door, and there she was sitting by the fire but not, to his consternation, alone, for with her was Mrs Murray and they were both drinking tea: or at least they had tea cups and plates on a little stool between them.

Flushed with shame and tongue-tied, he stood at the door of the living room not knowing what to say, for he couldn't bring himself to ask Mrs Macdonald for money while there was another woman with her.

“Come in,” said Mrs Macdonald with surprise, “come in,” and she looked meaningfully at Mrs Murray. “We haven't seen you for a long time. Come in and sit down.”

He pushed his way as if through water to the chair, pretending that he had come to visit, while he felt that even his legs and knees were blushing and that if he looked at them he would see spreading all over them a bright glaring red. He had no idea what to say and wished that the house would fall on all three of them, burying them in rubble and dust.

“This is Agnes's boy,” said Mrs Macdonald to Mrs Murray, as if Mrs Murray didn't know and again he sensed the secret look they gave each other.

“I know that,” said Mrs Murray, whom he didn't like either and who was the wife of fat Donald who didn't do any work but spent his days complaining about his back and showing his injured wrist to anyone who was interested.

“I know that,” Mrs Murray repeated. “Agnes's boy.” And her heavy malicious eyes seemed to encompass his without actually looking.

He sat down in the immense silence inside which there crawled worms of shame which he could feel climbing his legs to his knees and nibbling hotly.

“And have you any news for us, a ghraidh?” Mrs Macdonald asked, turning her thin beaky face towards him.

“I haven't heard anything,” Iain muttered, looking down at his sandals.

“He hasn't heard anything,” said Mrs Macdonald to Mrs Murray as if she were deaf and couldn't hear the answer.

“Nothing?” said Mrs Murray as if she felt astonished.

“Would you like a biscuit?” Mrs Macdonald asked him, smiling the sort of smile which she considered suitable for a boy, ingratiating and benevolent.

“No thank you. I …” And at that moment he nearly asked her for the half-crown before he had settled into his seat, while he was still able to rush out of the house, while Mrs Macdonald was not as yet prepared. But the moment passed and he didn't ask, and as if he weren't there at all Mrs Murray said to her friend, apparently continuing an earlier tale:

“So that's what she gave him for his tea then, herring and treacle. Did you ever hear the like?”

“Never,” said Mrs Macdonald. “Never. If she had even given him potatoes. Or scones. But herring and treacle. No wonder the poor man is complaining about his stomach. Who would wonder?”

“You're right enough. This is a nice biscuit you have here. Did you get it in the shop?”

“No, not in the shop. I was up town yesterday.”

“Did you see anyone?”

“No. I wasn't long up. Oh, I'm telling a lie. I was speaking to John Munro. He's looking very white. Is it TB, do you think?”

“They say that but we don't know. He would have been at the doctor,” and she leaned forward, speaking in a whisper as if to make sure that Iain didn't hear her. “Everyone knows, you understand, but …” And she nodded her head with great significance as did Mrs Macdonald, so that as they moved their heads in unison they looked like two dolls.

Iain sitting on his chair could hear the clock ticking very loudly. He gazed intently at a picture on the wall which showed two ducks with necks outstretched flying through a pale sky. He gazed and gazed at it as if it were the most interesting picture in the world so that if anyone happened to look at him they would know that he was occupied with every detail of the painting and that he would have no time to answer their questions. He held his breath so that the women wouldn't even notice that he was there, and pulled his legs towards him, locking them firmly round the legs of the chair. The time for speaking had passed and now he would have to wait till after a while he could decently go.

“Things are dear in the town,” Mrs Macdonald was now saying. “I saw a hat but I didn't buy it, it was so dear.”

“You're right,” said Mrs Murray, “you're right. I can't afford to go myself as you know but I'm sure the hats are dear.” Her voice had a whining self-pitying quality as if she suffered a lot of grief which very few people knew about except herself.

“It was in Ritchie's I saw it. A black hat with a veil on it. It was going to cost one pound and two shillings but I didn't buy it.” She sighed heavily.

“And the girls in the shops are so rude, they say,” remarked Mrs Murray, “they say that they're so rude. Some of them from our own village too, mentioning no names,” and she glanced at Iain as if she had said too much.

Iain was still staring at the painting, diminishing himself to a spot on the chair, to a mote in the room. Why did Mrs Macdonald have money and his mother not? Why did she have ornaments and a beautiful clock? And yet she was uglier than his mother, and he hated her. Why am I here, he thought, why can't I just go? But he couldn't bring himself to do so for his body seemed to be made of stone, while at the same time it trembled with shame. In the picture the ducks flew on their undeviating way towards the warmer climates.

As if she had just remembered him Mrs Macdonald asked, “And how is your mother, a ghraidh?”

“She's all right, thank you.”

“That's good, that's good,” said Mrs Macdonald, giving the same meaningful look to Mrs Murray as before.

“Yes, health is the best thing we have,” Mrs Murray remarked largely. “What are we without our health?”

“What indeed? We can have money but if we don't have our health we have nothing.”

“That's very true,” sighed Mrs Murray. “You never said a truer word. You could have all the money in the world and if you didn't have your health you'd have nothing.”

There was another long silence while the two women stared into the fire and Iain gazed at the painting on the wall.

“I've just heard,” began Mrs Murray, “I've just heard …”

And at that moment, at that very moment, at that moment trembling with nervousness, Iain got to his feet and without doing anything more than muttering, “I've got to go,” he made a supreme effort and trudged as if through some substance like porridge or treacle to the door which seemed indeed to be miles away.

“Thank you for your visit, a ghraidh,” said Mrs Macdonald with her ingratiating smile, “and tell your mother I was asking for her.”

“And me too,” said Mrs Murray.

Then he was out in the fresh air, the door shut behind him. Of couse he couldn't have asked for money while Mrs Murray was there. It would have been all over the village in minutes. Even his mother could see that. Anyone could see that. He looked down at his empty hands and then at the quiet village and finally at his own house where his mother – and Kenneth – would be waiting, expecting him to come home with the money. His mother would be angry, she might even hit him: her rages were terrible because she was poor and had no money and also she was exceedingly proud. Some day he would get money for her, some day he would be rich and give her so much money that she would never need to borrow again. He swore that as if to the red sun that was setting directly ahead of him.

“You should have waited,” she would say to him, “you should have waited till Mrs Murray left. That's what you should have done.” But how could he have waited? Mrs Murray might not have left for hours and how could his mother know what it was like to sit in that chair, in silence, having nothing to contribute to the conversation, while the two women talked to each other mysteriously as if he wasn't there. He would rather starve. He would rather not have bread or tea or soup than do that. He would rather go hungry, though indeed he was hungry at that moment.

He walked back very slowly, looking down at the ground all the time, now and again stopping to see what was in the ditch and even hoping that by some miracle he would find a half-crown lying on the road. But he knew that such a miracle wouldn't happen, no miracles ever came his way: they were more likely to happen to Kenneth than to him. He would have to invent a story, that Mrs Macdonald wasn't in, that's what he must say. And he knew that if he said it his mother would send him somewhere else, to some other house where people were at home. And at that moment as he gazed across the slightly frosted landscape with the red sun ahead of him it reminded him of the picture with the two ducks, their necks outstretched, flying towards the sun, while below them were the marshes: below them in their turn were Mrs Macdonald and Mrs Murray sitting by the fire eating their biscuits.

He remembered the last time he had returned empty-handed, the expression on his mother's face of whiteness and fear, as if she were gazing and not for the first time into a deep terrible pit. So he stood there by the empty ditch, perplexed and afraid, while in the distance he could see the sun, raw and red like a burning coin at the far end of the landscape, his heart, as he watched, torn with shame and rage, on that cold empty wintry afternoon.