The Serpent (16 page)

Did she ever venture on such talk with her husband? Probably she did, but in a different way, keeping Tom out of it, until perhaps at the very end when she might
introduce in an off-hand manner the approach to Tom over the wedding present, to see how he would take it, covering any lack of response by getting to her feet and doing something. That they talked together, Tom knew, but the talk grew less and less, and certainly before the summer was at its height, it dwindled into little more than occasional fleshless words.

The processes by which the father withdrew into himself were slow but cumulative. It was remarkable how Tom and his mother got used to this. Sometimes they would talk to each other, not only about their own crofting work but about a neighbour's, as if he were not present. Yet even such talk was meant in some measure for him, so that he could listen to it and know what was going on without being directly involved. When it came to selling a calf, the same method was employed. ‘If we're going to sell the calf at all,' said Tom, ‘we should send him to the sale on Thursday.' ‘We'll
have
to sell the calf,' replied his mother. Then they waited. The meal continued. ‘Is Norman putting his to the sale?' his mother asked at last. ‘Yes, they're all going,' Tom answered. The father remained silent. Nothing more to be said.

The father's silence could sit in your stomach like an undigested ball. It even affected your attitude to the calf. You were less kindly to the brute, less inclined to curb its antics with good nature. After all, it had been produced to make money, you thought. But a bad taste was left in your mouth, and if the price was better than had been expected, the old pleasure, the pleasure of the countryman in a good sale, was not as it had been.

However, all that one could get used to. One could even get used to the feeling which assailed one now and then, horribly, that the father was conscious of the effect his silence made on their hearts and used this silence in a deliberate way. At times Tom had his piercing intuition of his father's mood towards them, an extraordinary feeling of certainty, particularly when he looked up in an expressionless way and stared at the window, or cleared his throat, or – most expressive of all – simply sighed, not to them, as it were, but to himself. The sigh was not all soft breath, there was a sad firmness in it as if the throat were pliant bone.

Yet this did not destroy all respect for his father and so help to free him. These were still mannerisms, outward manifestations, a remaining jealousy, a worldly ruthlessness – behind which was a power Tom felt rather than comprehended, a mystery of austere unfathomable power. He could feel his father's presence when it was not there.

Neighbours, men of his own age, had practically ceased now to call on him. He no longer smiled to them. He had little to say and his words held no human or worldly warmth.

‘To tell the truth, boy,' said honest Sandy to Tom, ‘I don't know whether he would like to see me or not.'

It was very difficult for Tom. ‘Sometimes, when he's a bit down – he's like that,' was all he could answer.

From a sharp look at Tom, Sandy glanced away. ‘It's a sore trouble and takes the heart out of a man. I'm in a bit of a hurry today, as it happens, so perhaps you'll tell him I was asking for him?'

‘You could take a walk down and see him.'

‘Not today. I haven't the time, truly …'

But every other week William from Bulbreac called and stayed with him for two hours. Both the mother and Tom took care to be out of the house then, and Tom deliberately dodged William afterwards. If the afternoon was very quiet you could hear William reading or praying almost from the shop door.

Once the minister, holding his hat on in a high wind, came suddenly upon Tom at the corner of the shop. ‘Yes, you have a fine place here, oh a fine place. Yes. And I hear you are doing well?' He shook hands.

‘Yes, quite well, thank you,' answered Tom, making no effort, however, to show the minister into the shop. His modest expression implied that the minister could have no interest in it.

‘And how is your father?'

‘Just about the same.'

‘Ah. Poor man. He has had a hard time and bears his trouble well. I hope he is an example to you?'

Tom smiled modestly.

The wind was troublesome and though the minister's strong eyes were on Tom, he was blown backward a yard, holding to his hat. Tom did not follow him into the shelter of the wall, but stood where he was politely, and as it was not the ideal moment for further cross-examination, the minister, saying he hoped he would see Tom presently, went down to the house.

It was no doubt an invitation to Tom to appear and join in family worship, but Tom could elect to look upon the occasion as a visit to the sick. He went to church on Sunday. That was enough for them. When at last the minister reappeared the shop was locked and Tom was gone.

‘There was no need to wait for me,' Tom answered his mother later. ‘You could have told the minister I had business to do.'

‘That's what I told him,' said his mother a little sadly.

But, over all, Tom had the measure of the situation, because he worked the croft and now openly had his shop and little business. His father never came near the shop. There was no interference. His father's indifference was such that the shop might not have existed. That suited Tom very well. He wished for no more.

And he was working hard and slept for six or seven hours like a boulder. He had no desire to linger in bed when he awoke. He leapt at once. His mother did not waken him. She would have let him lie. On Sunday he lay in bed until he thought his mother was never going to move, until he could hardly bear the bed-clothes any longer.

But there was real keenness, a triumphing quality, in his work. By the beginning of July the two second-hand safety bicycles had arrived from Glasgow, and in the evenings the space between his shop and the road was besieged by boys and young men. Once he did say to a group of boys, ‘Look here, don't be making such a row. My father is not very well.' It quietened them, but only for a short time.

In the long bright nights, it was impossible to have a meeting with Janet in the hollow or anywhere in the open, without risk of being seen. His shop was open, too, until ten o'clock.
Yet though he could not have her alone, she was with him, not only in what he did, not only in the present moment, but, far more vividly, in the future. The time ahead was bright with her. They were together in that near future, which he was building for them both. They had endless time inside its walls, the walls of its house, where the face was Janet's face and the eyes Janet's eyes, and the strong, soft, swaying body Janet's body. Sometimes he saw her face quite vividly in a room that was not full of daylight but dimmed a little as in a dream. The room was a cottage kitchen and her face was dimmed a trifle, too, but in such a way that its living colour was heightened. It was full of life and turned away or flashed away from him in a gay humour.

Once or twice he met her in the village and spoke to her for a few moments. In these moments their lives were brought over the dead days into the living present. ‘No chance of seeing you?' ‘Tina and myself are going out on Thursday night –' ‘I'll wait for you at the back. Don't go in the front door.' ‘But I mightn't –' ‘Never mind. I'll be there.' Their faces had not lost the innocuous neighbourly smile and they parted at once in a neighbourly way. If Tom's heart was beating too thickly he tended to hiss vaguely to himself in unconcern. For a few minutes he had to be careful lest a quiver in his voice betray him to anyone who had seen them talking together.

These snatched moments had an intensity of their own, all the greater because in the summer nights someone might be moving about at any hour and it never got black dark. After one of these short meetings by the henhouse wall near her back door, where they could hardly even whisper, he stole away up into the hills, his whole body full of suppressed singing and an invigorating mirth. There was defiance in it and a secret glory. This mood was rather rare at that time, because the whole circumstances of his life tended to breed a sense of responsibility and youthful purpose, a humourless solemnity. He was no longer the ‘watcher': he was the doer, the builder, in the teeth of difficulties that should never have beset him.

But when moments had to be stolen from rushing time, when they dare hardly whisper lest prowling feet discover
them, when, beset by this imminence of danger, Janet in the wild snatched moment let herself go in a quiescent rapture, so that they stood lost, or overbalanced to lean against the wall and draw their rapture still more closely to them – when that happened – after that happened – the hills were friendly to his silent singing.

And then it came.

It was an evening in the beginning of August. The nights were already closing in and before ten o'clock it was quite dark in their hollow. He had not spoken to her, had not even seen her, for over a fortnight, until the previous afternoon. In a careless but swift moment she had made the appointment herself. Probably she had some special news about her mother. Yet there had been something pleasant and exciting in her manner and the fact that she so naturally needed to see him pleased him more than he might admit to himself. The trouble she had with her mother had never impressed him very much. As a danger or difficulty from which he could deliver Janet, it might be deplored but not without a certain underlying pleasure for the deliverer. In the degree to which it brought out her dependence on him, it strengthened his assurance of her. He certainly had never consciously wasted a moment's sympathy on her mother.

When he had gone back to the shop that previous afternoon, Donald Munro, the minister's son, was there, home from college for the summer vacation. Donald was obviously pleased to see Tom and called to him in the friendliest way as Tom approached. ‘By Jove,' he called, ‘you've been fairly doing it!'

They shook hands and Tom was warmed and delighted with the meeting. Donald was taller than Tom, dark, with an athletic grace in the easy sway of the slim body as he laughed. There was nothing of the clerical or ministerial about this young man, bubbling over with good spirits. His eyes were brown, with tiny black flecks, and had the strong penetrating quality of his father's. His eyebrows were dark and defined in a noticeable, attractive way. When he liked, he saw what he looked at, making sure of it. And when he smiled slowly he was really very good-looking.

Though he was friendly as the boy Tom had gone to
school with, capable at any moment of remembering an old ploy, the college air was still about him, about his clothes and his collar, the air and the manner of the college student, with its elusive distinction.

Coming from his short encounter with Janet, Tom was slightly elevated by this meeting, even in some way flattered. Donald looked at the bicycle critically, got onto the saddle with Tom's help, gripped the handlebars, and, pressing down a pedal as his muscles tensed, nearly knocked Tom over. There was a shouting scramble and Donald in a moment became thoughtful.

‘Here,' he said suddenly, ‘I'm going to learn this thing. I could then ride into the town and back?'

‘Yes,' said Tom, smiling. ‘Threepence the half-hour.'

‘But I might want it for two or three hours. I have some – some college friends in the town. I should like to see them.' His face slightly darkened.

‘Well – they're for hire,' said Tom frankly, with a laugh. ‘The other one is out on hire just now.'

‘But, dash it, I haven't a sou,' said Donald. ‘Couldn't we – but, here, let's have a shot at it.' Full of energy and eagerness he led the way to the road. Tom ran beside him, holding the saddle. ‘Let the thing go!' shouted Donald recklessly. But Tom held to the saddle, knowing that however long Donald might keep going he would have to come off in the ditch or the hedge.

‘I'll raise the wind somehow,' said Donald as he departed. And Tom knew that, somehow, he would.

Tom was in a happy mood and all expectation when he met Janet. She had the carefree managing manner which gave in to him and kept him off, which enchanted by tantalising him, which reserved to her her own personality in a delightful playing or play-acting. It was a form of teasing him and yet being sensible that he could not exhaust, could not get enough of. They chattered and laughed, and remembered every now and then to subdue their voices.

Tom told her amusing stories about the clocks, about Taruv and how the Braelones went one up, about the lads who were learning to ride the bicycle. The feeling of responsibility and dogged purpose that had been enclosing
him like a clamp was released and his spirits rose into freedom. ‘I'm making money, too, hand over fist!' It was really laughable – and a way of covering his pride and hope in the telling.

‘You're not the only one,' she said with a teasing sidelong look.

‘How the only one?'

He glanced at her quickly, waiting.

‘I've got a situation,' she said.

‘You haven't?'

At his undernote of dismay, she laughed, controlling her voice into a gurgle. ‘Yes, I've got a situation.'

‘Janet! You're not going away?'

She did not answer, regarding him in that distant quizzical way, with the smile about to break, which he could never get used to.

‘Would you be sorry if I went?'

But he could not play, could not pretend to think the matter over. He could not speak.

‘No, I'm not going away,' she said.

And now he could not even feel relieved.

‘Where?' he asked.

‘Well, I'll tell you,' she said, giving way to his curious mood. ‘This morning the minister called at our house. Miss Williamina, the housekeeper, has taken ill. It appears she has had some sort of small shock and will have to stay in her bed and then take it easy for a long time. They have no-one to do anything for them, and he asked Mother if I could be spared for a month or so until they saw how things were going to go. And Mother said I could certainly, and the minister said he was delighted to hear that and it was a relief to him. Miss Williamina would be able to watch over everything from her bed and tell me what to do. If the illness was likely to be prolonged, proper arrangements could be made later. So there you are!'