A Field Full of Folk (12 page)

“They say they have found metals in Egypt that the scientists don't know anything about,” said Sandy.

“Most people here read only the Reader's Digest,” said Annie dismissively. “They do not make enough use of the library in the town. There are more things in heaven and earth than we know about. Sandy, your potatoes were poor, the last lot I got. They were very wet and some of them were green. Where did you get them from?”

“The usual. I don't understand why they should be like that.”

“I am okay,” said Morag remembering the last letter she got: “It's not as bad as people say. I'll be getting some leave at Christmas.” How could Annie know anything about children since she hadn't had any children of her own? She was too selfish for that. And how could Sandy know either? You had to be a mother to feel the things that she felt, to remember the things that she remembered. Of course they disobeyed you and you had quarrels but they were still your own flesh and blood.

“Is he sending you money?” said Annie. “You make sure that he sends you money. The officers can deal with that. Otherwise he'll spend all his money on cigarettes and drink. The young people of today don't care about anyone but themselves. Why are we getting so many strikes if that isn't right? We're heading for the Apocalypse. Look at the rate of inflation we're having, and the wars all over the globe. I think that's all, Sandy. And make sure that you add it up right.”

Certainly, thought Morag, when George had that job in the garage he wouldn't give her any money and they had a lot of arguments about it. When I was your age, she had said, I gave all my money to my parents. Who do you think is paying for your food, and if you were in lodgings you wouldn't leave your room in that condition.

“I'll tidy my room when I go to the army,” he had told her, so impudent and quick.

“You wait,” she had told him, “you wait till you are in the army. You'll find it's not all that you think it is. And another thing, you should get as many certificates as you can from the school. You never know when they'll come in handy. You should be studying.”

“I don't like school,” he had said and turned on the television again. She was tired of that television though they could only afford a black and white.

“That will be one pound eighty-five,” said Sandy to her. She took out her purse and counted the money into him hand. What was he doing in Ireland anyway? She had warned him about it. But he would come in and say; “There's a programme about the Army tonight, mum.” And then at Christmas he had come in drunk. Of course it wasn't serious but you had to watch them all the time.

She handed over two pounds and waited till she got her change.

“You tell him I was asking for him,” said Annie magisterially. “Tell him to turn away from Christianity and look towards the East. Look what they did to Christ, they crucified him. But they didn't crucify the Buddha and even if they had he would have gone into a state of Nirvana and he wouldn't have felt anything. That's the great advantage of Nirvana. Look at what they're saying about the silicon chip. They think they know everything. But what is the silicon chip? Nothing. There are millions of unemployed people in India and they worship the cow. But they have their own reasons for that. Which reminds me, Mrs Berry hasn't sold her calf yet. I was telling her that she should. They're not worth what you pay for them in feeding stuff.”

“You're right enough,” said Sandy. “Feeding stuff is very expensive these days.”

Morag Bheag prepared to leave. Nothing that Annie had said had made her worry less about George. Every morning at seven o'clock she put on the news to hear what was happening in Ireland.

“Now,” said Annie, “I will tell you about David Collins' cat. Three things will happen. These things always come in threes. You mark my words. The same thing happened when I lost the sheep. Angus Berry was the next to go and after that it was Elizabeth's mother. If you study the Eastern religions you don't think about things like that. You're indifferent to these things.”

“We should all sit under trees,” Morag Bheag thought laughingly to herself. “Just like dogs.” There were plenty of trees around the village. Maybe Annie should sit under one eating yoghourt.

She said cheerio and left the shop looking small and dispirited.

“That woman,” said Annie, “worries too much. There is no use in that. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. I hear the minister's wife's planning an open air party, the day of the Sunday School picnic. I shall certainly be there.”

“I'm afraid,” said Sandy diplomatically, “that I don't know anything about that. Anyway I can't leave the shop.”

“Huh,” said Annie. “Remember this, Sandy, you can't take it with you. There are no pockets in a shroud, as the saying goes.”

And she left the shop walking with her usual slanted urgent gait as if she were heading into a high wind. Sandy looked after her affectionately. One thing you could say for her, she was a good crack.

19

K
ENNY
F
OOLISH SAT
in front of the house, his head bent over a piece of wood which he was carving into the semblance of a duck, just like the one Mrs Berry had. Alisdair and Hugh approached him coming from opposite directions. He smiled at them radiantly but didn't speak.

“Did you see the Jap?” said Hugh. “There's a Jap in our house.” And he pressed an imaginary trigger making the sound of a machine-gun. There was a programme on TV about them. They had attacked Pearl Harbor.

“The 'planes were lying on the ground,” said Alisdair. “They were cheats.” Kenny Foolish didn't say anything. The duck grew more clearly under his hand. He was chewing a piece of grass which hung from the side of his mouth. The sun was warm on his hands and on his face. He was happy. He saw the brown train chugging gently along the track.

The two boys gazed tenderly at the duck. Everyone knew that Kenny wasn't all there of course. They should keep away from him, their parents had said. Kenny Foolish raised his head from the duck and smiled. He smelt the roses and the rank grass and he felt the knife in his hand. There was a contented hum around him.

“They starved the prisoners of war,” said Alisdair. “The little girl eats chocolates. She's very small.”

Kenny Foolish looked ahead of him and saw the water sparkling in the sun. The duck's head took shape. He liked the warmth and the humming. He liked the flowers some of which were like small yellow suns.

“My mum said David Collins' cat went to heaven,” said Hugh.

“That's right,” said Alisdair. “He's with God in heaven.”

“Why do you think he's in heaven, Kenny?” said Hugh. “Do you think God has mice?”

Kenny smiled his radiant smile. The head wasn't right. It was too … he couldn't think what it was too.

“I think,” said Alisdair, “that God wanted the cat for himself. Maybe Mr Collins should get a dog now.”

The completed duck lay in Kenny's hand. It was wooden and perfectly shaped. The two boys looked at it and in turn touched it. It seemed as if it was ready to fly. Kenny watched them and the duck and he was happy. The knife in his hand glittered like a fish from the river.

The heat of the sun was on the back of his hand.

20

T
HE
R
EVEREND
P
ETER
M
URCHISON
and Mr Scott sat in the latter's living-room while the two ladies were in the kitchen.

“Would you care for a sherry?” said Mr Scott, opening a cupboard above which there was a painting of what appeared to be a green fawn in a wood.

“I wouldn't say no,” said the minister.

After the meal he felt full and almost in a mood for confession.

“What would you say,” he said, “about a person, a Christian, who had lost his or her faith?”

“Are you talking about Annie?” said Mr Scott, smiling. “I hear she's gone all Eastern.”

“No, I wasn't thinking of her,” said the minister slowly, glancing at the obligatory television set, the long red curtains, the bookcase.

“Is there someone else then?” said Scott, placing a glass of sherry on a small table in front of the minister.

“There is,” said the minister decisively. Scott looked at him keenly, then turned away and sat on the sofa.

“I don't know what to do,” said the minister. “This man used to believe implicitly in God. His whole life radiated from that belief, and now he no longer has any.”

“And why did he lose his belief,” said Mr Scott, gazing at him with sharp shrewd eyes.

“He doesn't know, that's the whole point of the story,” said the minister slowly. He doesn't know. Do you think faith can come and go?”

“It's not for me to say,” said Scott. “I can't say that I've ever had that sort of belief. My whole life hasn't been run on belief. Of course I believe but I have never examined my belief. Belief for me fits the facts.”

“Yes, this man thought that too,” said the minister reflectively. “But now he doesn't believe that that is the case. He says that his life is like a continual tiredness. In the beginning he would set out in the morning as if he were a missionary. Now everything feels heavy and old. What do you think of that?”

“Well,” said Scott, “when I came to this village at first I felt the same. I was sure I had made a mistake. There were so many people that I didn't know, and at first they wouldn't have anything to do with us. I felt they resented us.”

“But you don't feel like that now,” said the minister, leaning forward eagerly. “I mean you have done a lot of good work here. You and your wife are on so many committees. Surely you don't feel like that now.”

Scott put his glass down slowly on the table and said, “It's difficult to tell. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I feel as if I'm in the wrong place. I don't seem to fit, to mesh with my surroundings. It's very difficult to explain. Then the day passes and I'm all right again. There is something missing that I regret. Can you understand that? It's as if I'd left a part of myself behind. The only reason that we came here to live permanently was because we used to come on holiday here and we liked the place. But being on holiday in a place and living in it are two different things.”

“Yes, I can see that,” said the minister with the same eagerness. “It's as if the repetitiveness of the world gets us down. I wonder sometimes whether too much examination of the world is good for one.” He sipped his sherry. “It's as if we …” He stopped and continued again. “Some people accept the work of the seasons and the day and do not wish to see beyond that.” His voiced trailed off.

“I think I see what you are getting at,” said Mr Scott. “I used to feel the same about the bank. And yet routine is surely our salvation. Surely?”

“I quite see that,” said the minister, his face pale and intent. “I quite see it. It's only that I feel we should get a bonus of grace now and again, like interest in the bank. You see, I'm an intellectual being. It's in my nature. Yet the significance of the world as it says in the Bible can be revealed even to little children. The mind has nothing to do with it. Christ entered the world vertically from above but the horizontal world is our province. I can understand that. He entered history and transformed it. The thing about Him is His continual radiance and freshness. It must have been a place like this that he came to: his language surprises us by its radiance. How can we tap his power at its source, its simplicity? I feel as if the answer is all very simple, like drinking water, like seeing a stone in its uncorrupted nature without the shine of human beings on it. Prayer, I've prayed.” He had given up all pretence now and was talking as if the putative man who had lost his faith was in fact himself, as indeed he was.

“To live well and with simplicity, how difficult it is.”

“Yes,” said Scott slowly, looking at him with compassion. “Yes, there ought to be a way of living like that. And yet, aren't you romanticising? Aren't you idealising the children?”

“Oh, I know that,” said the minister impatiently. “I have children of my own. They were jealous of each other. They fought each other all the time. They were not innocent. And yet they had the capacity to surprise. Do you see? They had the capacity to see the world in a new way. Listen, some time ago I was reading about Einstein. What happened to him? He had no facts other than those which were already provided. But he looked at them as if they were new. So instead of saying a train leaves a station at forty miles an hour he says that the station leaves the train at forty miles an hour. And both are right. Yet only he had the childlike mind to see it. I look out every day from my window at the rails. They are heading somewhere, the train is constrained by them. The question is how to get off the rails and remain true
and loyal and faithful and astonished. If there is one woman in the village I admire it is Mrs Berry. She has strength. Where does she get it from? She is never afraid and the world never becomes stale for her. Do you understand what I'm saying?” He wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief.

“I think so,” said Scott. “When I retired from my work I felt the same. I felt disoriented. I would wander about the house like a ghost, picking something up and then putting it down again. That was why I left England, I know that now. I wanted as it were a second chance. It must have been as you say. The world needed a second chance, and got it through Christ.”

“Yes, yes,” said the minister with the same glowing eagerness. “That is what I'm talking about, a second chance. You know the way you are typing something and you are using carbon and it seems wrinkled and old and used. You want to throw it away. It's as if we want to throw the first life away and have a new one. How did you cope?” he asked abruptly.