A Field Full of Folk (7 page)

“It's like this,” said Murdo, “the church wasn't meant for dancing in. Where does it say that in the Bible, eh? You tell me that.”

The minister stared down at the doodle that he had been pencilling on his note-pad. It seemed to show two angels fighting each other and they had narrow heads like vipers. On the other hand it might just be a pair of birds. The Bible of course could be used to justify anything. In the past he had thought that that was not possible, that he knew the final meaning of all the passages. But what could be made of a saying like, “To them that hath shall be given”, or “In my father's house are many mansions”? In what heaven would they sit together round a table such as this holding a committee meeting?

“It certainly doesn't say that in the Bible,” said Scott gazing mildly at the minister as if he expected him to make a comment. The minister ignored the look and continued the doodle.

“That's what I am saying,” said Murdo triumphantly. “We have to make a stand somewhere.”

In the old days if a complaint was made about a postman a form was filled in and if there were no more complaints that year the complaint was scrubbed. But now a postman could put his letters through the wrong letterbox and nothing was done about it. The younger generation didn't care what they did with letters or anything. He for one wasn't giving in to them.

“It doesn't say in the Bible that churches should have church halls,” said Macrae slowly. Drummond smiled affably but didn't say anything.

“It's high time we put our foot down,” said Murdo angrily. “They think they can get everything they want. Who put them up to this? What did we have when we were growing up? Did we have church halls for dancing? But now they want everything. And who is going to clean it up when they finish, that's another thing I'd like to know.”

“I think the janitor might do that,” said Scott smoothly. “He's not against it. He's got children of his own.”

“And why wouldn't they clean it up themselves?” said Murdo.

“But I thought you were against giving them the hall.” Those bloody English, thought Murdo, smooth as oil they are. What's his business here anyway? What right has he to speak?

“The way I see it is like this,” said Murdo. “What do they do for the old folk? They're very good at asking but not giving. They expect money just to run a message.”

“Oh, I don't think you could say that they don't do anything,” said the minister. “The Girl Guides have a party for the Old Age Pensioners. They're not bad children.”

“Not bad children? Why are they tapping the windows of the old people's houses at night then? And why are they hanging about the street corners?”

“That's the whole point,” said Scott. “It's because they have nowhere to go that they do that.”

“It's the devil's work,” said Murdo, “that's what I say. They smoke and they drink, some of them. And I'll tell you, I've seen one of them …” He stopped suddenly, for the person he was thinking of was Scott's own eldest daughter who had been sent home from a private school because of some scandal.

“What about the school then?” said Macrae slowly. “Why can't we use the school?”

“The school's being used for other things,” said Drummond abruptly.

“I can see it all,” said Murdo. “You give them this and then they'll ask for something else. They'll want the church itself next. And how many of them go to the Sunday School?”

“I have a class of forty,” said the minister without looking up from his note-pad.

“And there's another thing.” He stopped. He didn't like putting his wife's proposition next. He felt tired and drained. Well, was it right or wrong to give them the church hall? The fact was that he wasn't sure. Everyone was turning to him for advice as if all the details of dances and church were imprinted in the Bible engraved in letters of stone. The Jews didn't have dances and church halls: that race, at the time the Bible was made, belonged after all to a small section of humanity at a certain stage of development but how could he explain that to the villagers? They would think he was a Communist, all of them except Scott. He was no rabbi equipped with principles from which all deductions easily flowed. For him to speak to them on equal terms they would have to read all the theology that he had himself read, to have suffered what he had suffered.

Of course Murdo was a fundamentalist, as his mother had been. She had even objected when he had given out those little envelopes to put the collection in. They didn't know what demands were made on him all the time from Edinburgh. Did they think about the boat people, the children with large hollow eyes and shrunken bellies in Cambodia, the ships with their cargoes of death? He blinked and his hand trembled. What had this little squabble to do with anything real? He felt himself falling and rising on a nameless grey sea, landing on a strange shore without a name or documents, the brine on his face and body, the yellow-faced guards waiting with their guns poised to blast himself and his companions out to sea again. Anger rose in him like bile. He felt as if he was going to be sick. He steadied himself and took a deep breath and waited it out.

“The thing is,” said Scott suavely, “what we have to decide as I see it is, ‘was the Sabbath made for man or man for the Sabbath?' “ The minister knew what he was getting at but he doubted if the others did.

Poor Murdo was trying to speak again, his face reddening. The minister could understand his point of view: Murdo didn't like the lack of conscientiousness to be found among the young, the fact that they wouldn't take the letters down to the fields rather than hand them over to relatives. But that sort of conscientiousness was surely excessive. He tried to remember what church Murdo's father had gone to but couldn't.

“What we have to decide,” said Drummond, “is whether they will look after the hall. That in my opinion is a good part of the question.”

Of course that isn't the question, thought the minister, regarding Drummond's burnished face, and silver hair so beautifully waved. That wasn't a theological question, that was only a question of tidiness. The boy and girl who had come to ask him about the hall had been sensible and polite. One in fact was Macrae's daughter and the other Charles Gowan, a widow's son. Their case was quite clear, they felt that they were being deprived of entertainment while the village hall was being repaired.

“I think,” he said, putting down his pencil, “that we should put the issue to a vote.” The vote was always the easy way out. It only confirmed whether a majority was present for a particular point of view, it didn't guarantee whether that point of view was right.

“Who,” he asked, “wants them to have the hall?”

As he expected, both Scott and Macrae put their hands up.

“That leaves it to me,” he said. At that moment he thought it might have been much better if he had twenty-four elders as it stated in Revelations, according to Annie. What would she have decided with the wisdom of the East behind her? He smiled wryly and then said, “My casting vote is against giving it to them.” Drummond gazed at him with approval while the other two said nothing. It amazed him that he should have done what he had done. When he had said that his was the decisive vote he had no idea what he was going to do. The decision had been made for him at a deeper level than he had himself understood, the Covenanters were still hiding in the brakes of his mind, their voices still spoke through him. It was as if without his knowing it there were voices speaking inside him, voices which without the benefit of a committee had come to a predestined conclusion as if he himself did not exist, as if he were simply a vessel. His face flushed and he would have almost wanted his decision all over again, for like twin railway lines it pointed to a future converging at the horizon in one fixed choice. He looked at the four men, astounded. Had the world begun from tiny drifting molecules so that this committee should be held in this particular room in this particular village? Had Judas been programmed to do as he had done, as Annie had suggested? And why should he, when imminent death should have given him largeness of vision, have denied the hall to the children? But no, in spite of approaching death, there was a heritage to maintain, a gift that flowed through him.

And now it was all over. Scott and Macrae wouldn't hold it against him, he knew that. On the other hand, did he want allies like Drummond and Macfarlane, those echoes of the fundamentalist platitudes?

He knew instinctively that his wife would be against him, for she was on the side of the young. She would have won Murdo and Drummond over to her side: he didn't have the sensitivity or the bonhomie for dealing with people. He rose from the table wishing above all things that he could sit by his fireside and read a book. But, no, he couldn't do that. The real world was always where one was, the kingdom of heaven was at hand. In all decisions great or small the kingdom of heaven was at hand. His stomach felt distended and poisoned. At any moment he was going to be sick.

Murdo waited behind for him as if he wished to be congratulated on the stand he had taken but the minister didn't wish to speak to him. Was Murdo right? Was the Apocalypse near, the wild white horses raging like billows. Were the signs of Sodom and Gomorrah misdirected letters and tappings on windows at night?

“Well, so that's that, Murdo,” was all he said as he went out into the sunshine where the gravestones leaned against each other in the slanting light. He saw Mrs Berry bending down, placing a bunch of flowers on her husband's grave. How long since he had died now? Twelve years? Fourteen? And then there was Morag Bheag. He would have to enquire about her son. Mrs Berry straightened and waved to him. Her daughter waited in her yellow car.

The grey gravestones reminded him of the Covenanters, of their determination to worship as they wished. The words stood up in front of his eyes as if engraved on stone:

He had hardly thought that he knew the words so well. The yellow car, a bright bubble in the day, drew away. The land stretched in front of him, the houses, the gardens, the rivers, the mountain. On such a mountain, but perhaps less green, the tablets had been handed down from a cloud of smoke.

Let me know You again, he prayed, let me hear You speak again. Speak to me out of the fire, the committee meeting, out of the grass at my feet. But, as he looked, the smoke from the different chimneys seemed to twist in different directions like snakes. Where were the martyrs now? In Ireland perhaps where the assassin gunned down the man with the rosary or the fanatic sprayed the policeman with bullets. And in this little place so serene and flowery what could he do? He watched Murdo as he made his way down the brae. He would be happy tonight, the decision would make his day for him. But had he himself made the right decision? He didn't know. Had he really made a decision at all or had he simply responded to the programmed voice of his ancestors, severe and plain, that had spoken through him?

11

“W
HAT HAPPENED THEN
?” said his wife as the minister came into the manse.

“They're not getting it,” he said abruptly.

“Oh? Who decided that?”

“I did.”

She was silent for a moment and then said, “Did you mention the picnic, the outing I was suggesting?”

“Not yet.”

“I think it would be very nice since the weather is so good,” she added enthusiastically. “I see them all in a field as in Biblical times eating their food and drinking their lemonade and the children running their races. The old people must certainly be there. Not just the parents. If necessary we shall provide sandwiches. What do you think?”

“I think it's a good idea.”

“Especially,” she said, “as the weather is so good and no sign of a break in it. They say that there will be a second crop of fruit. I heard that on the radio. In England, anyway.”

“As in 1955,” he said.

“1955?”

“It was the same sort of summer. It was the year we came here.”

“So it was.”

He remembered it very well. It was the year he had left the city and had accepted the charge where he now was. He hadn't believed a place could be so beautiful. He had walked about in a daze of happiness. Why, the very stones seemed to be shining as in a Revelation of their own. One morning he had seen a fawn feeding at the side of the manse, its delicate face twitching. The two of them had gazed at each other as if across an earth that was touched with annunciation. Even the stained glass windows had sparkled with their pictures of shepherds with staffs, the Christ figure holding out its empty hands, pale and bearded.

“Don't you remember?” he said.

“Yes, I remember.”

In those days he had lived as in Nazareth or in Bethlehem. On Easter Sunday when he saw all the women in church with their new hats it was as if his heart turned over with pain and pleasure. Mrs Cameron, the organist, filled the stone building with music and it was only afterwards that he had been disturbed by the small mirror which she had in front of her. She tidied her hair at it before beginning to play.

“I wonder if Bach did that,” he had thought rapturously.

His two boys would come home in the evening in their football boots and muddy jerseys and he himself as if enchanted would read his commentaries and prepare his sermons in a continual trilling of birds.

He suddenly grasped his wife's hand and they stood there in the living room in the autumn twilight. Soon the moon would rise, startlingly brilliant, and the millions of stars would come out as if engraved on the sky.