The Key of the Chest (28 page)

‘Take it easy,' said Michael to Charlie.

Mr. Gwynn, finding the earth moving like the sea, swayed slightly and cast his eyes over the watching faces.

Charlie disengaged his arm. ‘I'm all right,' he said. His lips were bloodless and his eyes like glass. Then he walked away from Michael, going slowly and with great care like a drunk man.

For a moment, Michael could not move. No one moved. Charlie turned away from Ros Lodge, taking the shore road towards Sgeir. A figure came through the watchers and began following Charlie at a little distance. It was Dougald, his brother. The path curved round the plantation wall and in a little while they had passed from sight.

The following afternoon, in bright sunshine, several men were lounging about the joiner's shop. The joiner was handling planks and hissing thoughtfully as he hirpled around.

‘It's very good of him,' said Norman, for Erchie had brought the news that if the carpenter got ready what was necessary to mend Charlie's boat, the
Stormy Petrel
would run him down and tow the completed job home.

‘Yes, Mr. Sandeman seems all right,' agreed Kenneth. ‘I think we might get a lot out of him if we went about it the right way.'

There was a smile at that.

‘All the same,' said Kenneth, ‘that's the way to look at it. I hope I won't be grey before I see an engine in each of your boats.'

They laughed then.

‘Did he give you tally-ho?' William asked Erchie.

‘He said something right enough,' admitted Erchie, who was sixty-five, with hair showing grey under his cap, a rather long nose, and a tired friendly face. ‘Yes, he said something.' He looked a trifle embarrassed and they waited for him with complete attention. ‘I didn't know what to answer. Sure as death, boys, I didn't know what to say. He asked me what he should pay you for having come to their rescue.'

William was the first to break the silence. A chuckling note or two came from deep in his throat. ‘There you are!' he said to Kenneth. ‘Right first time!'

‘Why not?' Kenneth answered him in a challenging voice. ‘It's the law of the sea that you get paid in such a case. It's salvage.'

Norman was looking at Erchie. ‘What did you say to him?' he asked quietly.

‘To tell the truth, Norman, I did not know what to say, and the words came out of me without thinking, and I said you were not the kind of men to expect to be paid for saving anyone's life, not at sea.'

Norman nodded. ‘Nor anywhere else, I hope.'

‘Man, Erchie,' said William, enjoying the situation, ‘couldn't you have thought of a bottle of whisky for the New Year itself? Or two bottles – for Angus is only a boy and he didn't do much whatever.'

Angus grinned. ‘I'll be remembering that when I come round with my bottle at the New Year to your house, William.'

‘So long as you come round with the bottle,' said William. ‘What do you say, Smeorach?'

‘Och well, a present like that is maybe different. A decent man would like to give some little thing, and it would be a poor heart that couldn't help him by taking it,' replied Smeorach.

‘He's smelling the drop already!' declared William, looking sadly at the others.

‘As long as you smell no worse, William,' retorted Smeorach, ‘you can blow your nose anywhere.'

They laughed.

‘All the same, Mr. Sandeman is right,' contended Kenneth. ‘You saved his boat. He realizes that he should pay something for salvage.'

‘No,' said Norman. ‘We did what any men would do. For myself, I would feel shame to be offered anything. Besides, wasn't it out to look for Charlie, one of ourselves, he went?'

‘I had forgotten that,' said Kenneth.

Everyone glanced at Kenneth and chuckled. Norman had fairly caught him that time!

‘I hear the girl Flora is coming on fine,' Smeorach remarked.

‘She's a well-built girl, with a good frame to her,' said Norman.

They fell silent.

‘You wouldn't think of taking a walk out to see Charlie to-night, Norman?' asked Kenneth.

‘I did think about it. But he mightn't thank me.'

‘He looked a pretty sick man,' said William.

‘When you're like that, you don't always want to be bothered, maybe,' suggested Smeorach.

‘That is so,' Norman agreed.

They shifted restlessly on their feet.

Presently Erchie left. He had a talk with John-the-roadman and one or two others. There was only one topic of conversation along that coast. Sarah and Betsy and a hundred girls like them could think of nothing else. Boys were thrilled by the daring rescue of the
Stormy Petrel
, and fences had to be taken in a flying leap, even as the hero Angus had leapt from one boat to another in mid ocean. But about the finest bit of the story was when Angus found the hidden tin of petrol. That capped everything. Oh, that was good! Think of them going to their doom with that tin there! And then in leaps Angus… and his eye finds the hidden tin. Like magic!

It was growing dark as Erchie saw a boy coming along the road towards him, clearly pursued by many fears or devils. It was young Hamish and Erchie stopped him.

But Hamish could not speak. The blood had been drawn from his face to keep his legs going.

‘What's that you've got?' asked Erchie and his eyes were searching.

‘He gave it to me!' gulped Hamish. ‘He did!'

‘Who?'

‘Mr. Sandeman.'

‘I won't take it from you. Let me see it… Ay, it's his best trout rod.' Erchie shoved back the smooth cork handle into its canvas case. ‘It's a beautiful rod. Did he give you the reel for it?'

‘Yes,' said Hamish, reluctantly producing it and handing it over, his eyes jumping from Erchie's hands to his face. ‘He gave it to me himself.' When Erchie tested the reel's action, its lovely crying sound was too much for Hamish and his hand came out fearfully for it. Erchie smiled and Hamish instantly pocketed the reel.

‘What a pity you didn't get a fly or two to complete you,' said Erchie.

Hamish looked up from under his eyelids.

Erchie put a friendly hand on his head. Then Hamish produced the fly book. He had not yet had time to look at it properly himself, and as the pages turned over Erchie began to name the flies.

Hamish's excitement was like a flame in a wind. Grouse and claret, teal and green, march brown, zulu – the names were legendary sounds. He did not hear them properly. He could not hear anything properly, because he could not yet believe what had happened to him. In a malign moment these marvels might vanish. The fly book, for example, fell out of his hands, but he pounced on it instantly and closed it up. It had an attached brown elastic band that tried to outwit his fumbling fingers. But it gave in with a tight
flip!
that was a sound in itself.

‘There's no need for you to hurt yourself running,' said Erchie in a kindly voice. ‘They're your own now.'

‘Yes. He gave them to me himself. I never asked him, I never spoke a word.'

‘You thanked him, I hope?'

Hamish stared at Erchie. He obviously didn't remember. He looked distressed.

‘Why did he give them to you?' asked Erchie.

‘I don't know,' said Hamish. ‘He never said.' His distress grew. ‘I'll be going now, it's getting late.'

‘He gave them to you because you helped him. They're your own, and not the richest man in the world has better. Take great care of them.'

‘I'll do that.'

‘Good night, then.'

‘Good night.'

Hamish walked off, but presently, when Erchie looked over his shoulder, he was running like a hare.

He can't contain himself, thought Erchie, and his old eyes smiled far back through time.

After dinner, he went to report. The soft-voiced maid, Ina, after drawing from him such new news as he had gathered, knocked and announced him.

Michael got up abruptly. ‘Come in. Sit down.' He poured a large neat whisky and handed it to Erchie.

Erchie thanked him, and though he did not say
slàinte
! he looked at each of them and gave a perceptible nod of courteous acknowledgment.

Mr. Gwynn bowed.

‘Well?' demanded Michael.

‘It's just as I said, sir. They wouldn't think of taking money.'

Michael gave him a sidelong satiric look, then smiled, not without amusement. ‘Too proud are they?'

‘It's not that, sir. There's many nowadays that would take the money however it came. But Norman and William, they have the old feeling in them.'

‘What old feeling?'

Erchie looked troubled. ‘It's difficult to explain.'

‘You think I wouldn't understand it?'

‘It's just the old custom,' said Erchie, with a subtle lack of any expression.

‘Did you see Norman?'

‘Yes. He was there.'

‘What did he say?'

‘He said he would feel shame to be offered anything.'

‘Was he offended?'

‘Oh no. They know it was out of kindness you meant it. They were not offended because William began making a joke about it.'

‘Indeed! What sort of joke?'

Erchie hesitated. ‘I shouldn't have mentioned it.'

‘I shan't give you away.'

‘Och, it was just a joke, but William said, “Now if he had thought of sending us a bottle of whisky for the New Year!”'

Mr. Gwynn laughed.

‘You think,' said Michael drily, ‘that if I sent them a case of whisky for the New Year, they wouldn't take it amiss?'

Erchie lifted his glass and looked at it. ‘If you sent a small letter with it in your own hand, they would be very happy.' He drained the glass.

‘Have another drop,' said Michael.

Erchie protested but Michael ignored him.

‘Slàinte,' said Mr. Gwynn.

‘Slàinte mhath,' responded Erchie.

They both drank.

‘About to-morrow?' asked Michael.

‘The joiner will be ready, but they don't think the weather will be in it.'

‘They weren't offended again?'

‘No, sir,' said Erchie. ‘They thought it very good of you.'

‘Very nice of them.'

Erchie did not appear to catch the dry tone, but Mr.

Gwynn saw something harden in him. Then Erchie said mildly, ‘They just saw you, sir, like one of themselves, doing what you could to save Charlie.'

‘Have a cigar,' said Mr. Gwynn.

‘No, thank you, sir, I'll just be going now, if that's all.'

Mr. Gwynn made him take the cigar and Erchie got up.

Mr. Gwynn was smiling to him, and Erchie, by way of pleasant parting words, said,‘I met the boy Hamish running. I thought he had a ghost after him.'

Mr. Gwynn's face lit up. ‘What was it?'

‘The presents he got. He was running as hard as his legs could carry him, or maybe a little harder.'

‘Was he frightened someonemight steal them from him?'

‘I'm thinking he was just frightened they would vanish.'

Mr. Gwynn laughed merrily, his eyes on Erchie, on the lined face with its slow deep humour.

‘Will they be offended?' inquired Michael, from his satiric mood.

‘No, sir,' answered Erchie without looking at him. ‘On the contrary, they will think very highly of you for it.' Then he went, without hurry, giving them a respectful good night.

‘And here endeth the first lesson in manners, I suppose,' said Michael.

Mr. Gwynn threw him a look but said nothing.

Michael walked out of the room. Listening, Mr. Gwynn heard the click of the electric switches in the gallery.

What had been haunting him, haunting them both, these last few days, thought Mr. Gwynn, even while his ears listened, was this mystery of the individual personality.

It had taken a body of its own, on the cliff, on the sea, the
three men bearing down on them in the
Venture
, Angus in his leap, Flora, and Charlie walking calmly on the arm of Death.

Figures, individual figures, on the land, on the face of the sea.

The individual human being, the one whole being.

Michael's feet were moving about the floor, empty sounds. Thudding about the floor.

Back into the primitive?… no, back into themselves. That was the search. For oneness. Searching, with paint, for the primitive where wholeness began, but finally here, on the sea, in the leap, with death as life's shadow, under the sun, against the gale, the body whole and singular, with warmth in it, for one other, for others, for all. Man's strangely tragic story, so full of wonder and light.

The footsteps stopped.

Michael was, in fact, now contemplating his gallery of the local human comedy, with the strangled foreign seaman hung in the middle, ‘on the line', against the light-coloured wall.

To his right, Charlie. God, he had forgotten to ask Erchie about Charlie! Probably he had now thrown himself over a cliff to join his strangled brother! Calm, there; rising above his boat. Calm.

To the dead man's left, Flora. There she uprose, with the earth about her, the earth and the far sky, meeting in her quiet smile, the wandering and vagrancy of mankind, caught and stilled here. Beautiful, in an inalienable beauty of the spirit. Innocent of self-horror at the core. Without death.

The looming policeman. Michael stared long at him, at the notebook, the pencil.

Dougald, the mythical human monster. Gwynn's primitive! Almost transparent, so that you see things through him. Or is it that he interpenetrates all? A master question!

The minister – looking into the lens, the lens now of the human eye – with a polite social smile.

Gwynn's concentrated upward look from where he sat on the grass, all gesture shed and grace. Raw. Lifting beyond the wound. The skin of his face was naked.

The doctor, in profile – he did not know
that
one had been taken! – looking from the extreme left across his local comedy.

From nowhere Michael's mind was hit by a swift lash. A couple of strides, and he flung his gallery into darkness. He went out and along the shore, disturbing sea-birds that screeched shrilly, and from his throat harshly he answered them, crying ‘Simulacra! Simulacra!' An intense feeling of exhilaration began to well up in him.