The Syme Papers (55 page)

‘The Maryland Chapter are a godless people,’ he droned between
thick mouthfuls. ‘The Deacon at Somerville, between the two of us,
Tom, never darkened his wife’s bed
… If I
were a different man,
a
word in someone’s ear, but it’s ever the way, the grasping inherit
the …’ He was just the man
to prick Sam’s anger in
another mood.
And he talked on, while the night pressed in around us and the
lamplight smeared in the heavy air like fat. Sam kept his peace,
though each minute Tom and I expected an eruption. I feared Sam’s
disposition
–
his spirits hung drained and limp
in
that humid
obscurity. Perhaps Jeb had his reasons for bitterness, but bitter he
was, as rank as meat that has been hung too long.

Sam was to give a lecture that very night. Jeb had arranged for
‘the wizard’, as he called him, to speak in his little church. A large
bill on the tall front doors announced the coming of ‘the great
Baltimore Geonomist!’ I suspected the worst. The great geonomist
had barely spoken all evening, was in a niggardly temper that
granted nobody a thing. Even if he were in a fine monumental flow
of spirits, I little doubted that Jeb’s flock would turn at best a deaf
ear. At worst, he would have to make his way through a jungle of
hard-fibred small-town prejudices and superstitions. There lay my
true fear, for, if anything, Sam was in a hacking mood. I did not like
to think of him wasting his energy and fury, knees bent in the mud,
to pull up such hard, useless roots, probably with so little
success. I feared we had the squalor of Middletown
to do again.

Perkins, I soon saw, held a very different squalor. The small
wooden church was filled with Perkins, Perkins was nowhere if not
there, packed tight in that small, high space. The heavy air pressed
low the hive of noise: the shuffle of feet on dusty wood, the call
for someone’s child, the familiar voices of a school hall. It was an
occasion. Young girls wore frocks a few years more grown than
themselves and kept their hands to their sides and smoothed their
fronts, in such an easily broken stiffness that my heart went out to
them. Farmers wore their Sunday bests complete with cravats,
under dirty, work-easy coats; took their ladies by their arms.
Grandfathers sat stiff and proper and straight like the girls; and
upset easily, unbent like them too. A few of the younger men
grouped together, stuck their long legs under the pews in front,
preparing to uphold the town’s church and dignity if they were ever
questioned. They sat low in their seats, shoulder to shoulder, and
glanced at the local girls.
I
feared them the most. This was too
much
of an occasion: there were to be no deaf ears turned that night. Syme
rose up to speak.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, fellow scientists, and
brothers
of the
Church,’ he said with a sly look. Instantly my heart lightened. ‘I come
to speak to you today with no uncertain purpose.’ It was a signal to us
that tonight he was not in earnest, that tonight was free and would
not be reckoned. ‘The ground is splitting, gentlemen, splitting
beneath our feet. Can you not hear the yawning maw of Hell?’

And we did hear it, a terrible cracking at the joint of things, as
though a great dog had sunk its teeth into a great bone. ‘You have
come, no doubt, to hear a madman preach empty bubbles at ye; and
indeed I have, for so slight is the shell beneath our feet that the fury
of the Lord can shatter it with the touch of His finger’s tip. Listen to
this fury and have ye doubted? Listen to this vengeance, children,
and have ye sinned? Are we not bubbles clustered upon a bubble,
and shall a breath destroy us?’

He preached Doomsday in good earnest now, a child’s Doomsday
filled with an ark of creatures: huge subterranean eagles with wings
as big as trees; massive thundering elephants, rearing tusks of heav
enly gold moulded into trumpets; giant mice that scratch and paw 
and poke the earth above them, dislodging loose falls, little more
than ash and moss to them, earthquakes and maelstroms to us. Each
word solemn and sincere, each gesture of his hand heavy and impas
sioned, and on he talked and spoke not a word of truth.

The cool air grew suddenly sharp as crystal, and my heart leapt,
and the rain fell, doom, pounding on the high sloped roofs, till we
could scarce believe that outside those four walls there was any air
to breathe. Oh the joy of that rain, as it thundered and blasted like
Sam’s giant elephants. The little church felt tight as a ship sur
rounded by seas, falling seas. They pounded and pounded at us to
get in, and Syme bellowed on. He held us spellbound, as delicately
poised as the air before the rains came, and rose to a shout to be
heard. ‘He shall tear down the walls and embankments we have set
against him, batter our barricades
–
shall we not lie
as Jonah
lay
in
the ribs of the whale, shall we not cry out in the hollow of His Heart
–
for
mercy and for faith?
’

Goodness knows what it all meant. But Perkins sat stunned. No
one knew what to think or say. The rain fell so loud that we half-
doubted our ears. The very thought of raising a voice of protest
against such combined torrents seemed an impiety. We sat as
solemn as old ladies in a bawdy-house. Sam walked calmly through
the congregation, through that noise as thick as walls, and with half
a raised eyebrow summoned Tom and me to follow. Which we did,
gravely, out of the tall wooden door into the unbreathable rain. We
raised our coat collars, hunched over together and hooted with a
laughter that the wind snatched and the rain drowned. Syme put a
wet arm around each of our wet necks and in such a companionable
convoy we staggered to
Jeb’s barn,
flung open the door and flung
ourselves laughing on a pile
of damp
hay.
Jeb must have been dumb
founded.

We lay catching our breath happily for some time. I was at that
pitch of nervous happiness when my love will go out to any man
ner of thing, so that I scarcely know it when it comes back. Tom
said through thick breaths, ‘You should not have done that, Sam,’
and laughed.

I came in
too
quick, ‘No, that was unwise,’
laughing too.

Sam did not answer, but I could feel joy crowding against him
like applause for having carried it off. I heard Tom’s voice through
the grey, cold air. ‘They believed every word.’

‘Yes,’ I chorused. ‘That is, they thought
you
believed every
word.’

‘Now was that not worth a little mockery, a touch of
Symmesonia,
perhaps?’ Sam asked, knowing our answer.

Sam was content where he was, did not feel the urge for Jeb’s
spare bed, was happy to sleep among the dogs. The night stretched
out before us like a summer day; none of us wanted to sleep. We
wanted to talk. Our joy is a country of one, I said. But there is
another joy, a traveller’s joy, as keen as the first, keener perhaps. I
am not a Godly man, but who at such times can doubt that our first
thought is love, our first desire understanding, for others and our
selves, a passion shared equally without begrudging? To have stum
bled on such a night when Sam was among the company seemed to
me as rare a piece of good luck, as undeserved, as seeing a comet or a
king pass by.

It was the first time Sam spoke of his family to me
–
or, rather, in
my presence. No, to me, for did I not measure the times his voice
sought me and not Tom? No matter, there was enough and to spare
that night. ‘That was a piece of my father’s chicanery,’ he said. ‘I
inherited that much.
Symmesonia
revisited.’

Tom opened the door to see by. The bright rain fell hard as stones
outside. He stuck his face out, upturned, screwed it against the rain
as it spattered him. His tongue squirmed out between tight lips,
searching for water. He had not a thought for us. Then he came back
in and closed the heavy door. The barn was black again, and the
snuffling horses seemed suddenly to advance upon our ears. ‘You
inherited much more,’ Tom said, ‘and you know it.’

‘What else, Tom?’ Sam was contented with this talk, leaned back.

‘You have a father not a mother tongue.’

‘Only when I wish. Tonight could have been one of his flights. I
hope we have no cause to regret it.’

Then, as young men will, we began to speak of our fathers.

‘Sam never regrets a thing,
he
says,’
Tom began. ‘But he does, 
you know, Phidy, remember that. You regret university, that is,
leaving it so soon.’

‘I
had my reasons,’ Sam said.

‘Of course,
there are always reasons,’
Tom mocked, pressing his
lips together. A minute passed and he began again. ‘Edward used to
shower his daughter with gifts. Bubbles, he called her, name fit for a
cat, don’t you think, not a girl? You don’t like it much either, Sam.
He wouldn’t have her being petted.’

‘All those silly presents,’ Sam cut in, with fresh irritation, ‘bring
ing home something, sugar cane or gypsy rings, cheap things, you
know, but they added up. To nothing, I said. I didn’t like the girl
being spoiled, when Mother hadn’t a stitch to do her justice, gaunt
thing that she was. Said so, too, brave boy, when I was fifteen. I
WILL NOT HAVE YOU MAKE A POODLE OF MY SISTER.
Funny way to say it, sure, but when Mother could barely move at
night, what with stiffness and hunger, too. Would you credit it,
poor thing? Wouldn’t eat. For her to see Bubbles
petted over and bound with ribbons
–
it does the heart no good to
think of it. She hated me for it, that’s the thing. Anne hated me for
it. “POODLE OF MY SISTER,” I shouted, “WHEN YOU MAKE
A BEAR OF MOTHER.” Pater turned his head like a
shying horse; wouldn’t answer, stood there, head turned. I was in a
towering rage.’

‘What set it off?’

‘A wedding dress. Pretty white lace
–
the bride died of consump
tion and her young man didn’t want to look at it. Almost gave it
away and Pater brought it home for Bubbles. Much too big, of
course, then. She looked like someone snowed her in and was begin
ning to melt, the child. But wasn’t it the darling of her heart? And
Mother poking through her skin to look lovely and all you ever saw
were bones. Not a new stitch to wear in a dozen years, not since
Bubbles came out. Who beamed pleased as punch at the gift, while I
worked into a towering rage. Then she froze in a corner and Father’s
head dipped and turned like a horse’s, and Mother went purple,
didn’t say a word, didn’t forgive me, either. Till later, but that’s
another story.’

‘What happened then?’

‘I went to university …’

‘Where you belong,’
Tom cut
in.

Sam ignored him. ‘Father got
worse
–
began to
get about town.
There was nobody left to put the fear in him. Until Bubbles stum
bles
over him one day
in flagrante –
the vicar’s wife, as it happens.
Didn’t that break her heart? She wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t eat for a
week, holed up in her room, until I came home and talked her out of
it, and when she stepped forth, in a plain dress, her hair poked out
cut short and her neck shone bare. She never wore his finery again.
Sea change.’

‘Your mother blamed you
…
’
Tom broke the silence.

‘“YOU BROUGHT THIS ON,” she said. God knows how;
and
she hated to see Bubbles petted regardless. Still, it was a shock to see
the poor girl
–
cut
back to the quick.’

‘Best thing for her, if you ask me,’ Tom said. ‘Married the butcher,
fine man, honest, loving man.’

‘Pater raised her above her expectations. But then, he was only
born for riches and never had any.’

‘You never returned to university?’ I asked.

‘Couldn’t bear to. Never took a degree. Went into the army
–
Benedict Smythe, old family friend, as they say, paid the commis
sion. But that’s another story, bitter too. To spite my father, is the
long and the short of it. And it did, I believe, at that.’

The noise of one bell tolling the half-hour made its way through
the thick air, and Sam stopped talking. We now heard the runnels,
streams and rivers the rain had made. They ran down the barn walls
in a throaty burble, into a soapy swelling pool, clanking like heavy
things. None of us wanted to sleep. We seemed to stand on tiptoe,
anxious to speak 
–
‘May
I, may
I?’
–
but too
polite, good-inten
tioned, to proceed, until the silence grew and gave us a spreading
sense of the night outside. What could have put us in such childish
spirits, that grown men should feel the need to recount the stories of
their boyhood and their fathers? Our bed among the horses, like a
child’s summer quarters? Sam’s great irreverence of the evening,
that slipped through cracks in the conversation like rain through the 
loose roof with little squirts of reminded pleasure? The great drum
ming noise? The sudden chill, which made us huddle in ourselves,
solemn and respectful? Respectful of what
–
of the chance?