A Pocketful of Rye (23 page)

Useless. He saw me and with a bound, left the balls of his feet and flew, soared across the street.

‘Laurence!' He embraced me, for a bad moment I feared he might kiss me. He had put on weight, he was plump, and rosy, with a beatific smile, garbed in an immaculate soutane of the best material on which someone had pinned a small rosebud. I used it to ease off his ecstatic greeting.

‘Isn't that contrary to canon law, Father?'

He blushed. ‘ One of the bridesmaids insisted, Laurence.'

‘The pretty one?'

‘They were all pretty. And of course I'll take it off before we go in.'

‘Go in?'

‘Naturally, my dear Laurence. Ever since we heard from Father Zobronski that you were coming, the Canon has been parked in the Sisters' garden, a timetable on his knees, with strict instructions that you are to be brought to him.'

Well, it had to come. Better now than later. I let Frank lead me down the side walk of the church towards the convent. He was already removing the rose and transferring it to his side pocket. He would put it in his toothbrush glass in his room.

As we approached the statue of the Virgin above the grotto that marked the entrance to the garden, he murmured:

‘I'll leave you here, dear Laurence. But we'll be seeing lots and lots of you now, thank God.' Then in a stage whisper he hissed: ‘He is blind in one eye and the other is failing. He has to use a high power magnifying glass, but don't, on any account, mention it. It makes him very angry.'

I waited till he had gone then went towards the old, the very old, nearly blind man in the wheeled chair placed in the shelter of an open, cross-latticed summer house. Now I stood before him. Did he see me or merely sense that I was there?

‘Your plane must have arrived on time. You caught the 12.15 Caledonian from the Central Low Level.'

‘Yes, Canon.'

‘My calculations were correct. Always a bad train that. A workman's, isn't it?'

‘Yes, Canon.'

‘What induced you to take that bad midnight flight from Berne? On a DC-3 too?'

Have you ever noticed how old men love to work out journeys they will never take?

‘I took it because it is a dirt-cheap flight.'

‘So you are broke, Carroll.'

‘Stoney, Canon,' and I added: ‘Since you wish to insult me.'

Was there a flicker of a smile over that old, that very old gaunt face? It passed.

‘Well, at all events, you are back, Carroll.'

‘Yes, they'd had enough of me and threw me out.'

‘That is one of your good lies, Carroll. Your strange Polish friend wrote me that you were pressed and pressed again to stay, both by the Matron and the Committee.'

I said nothing.

‘By the way, how is that good father with the strange name?'

‘Ill,' I said, and added, watching him closely. ‘Very. Cavities in both lungs. In fact I'm expecting bad news about him on October 9th.'

No, it meant nothing to him. He merely said:

‘A pity. I should have liked to meet him. Still … that bad night flight …'

He was wandering slightly and seemed to sink into himself for a moment. I tried to lighten the interview.

‘Have you had anything in the way of chess lately?' Adding more loudly to wake him up: ‘ Chess … your reverence.'

He came back.

‘No, my young opponent has not been getting about much lately. By the way, Carroll, they have no idea whatsoever that you are coming and I did not enlighten them.'

I felt good about that and was on the point of thanking him when he added:

‘Not that I wished to save for you the joyful surprise of the returned prodigal. I feared, you see, that at the last minute you might not turn up.'

A pause. I made no comment. He was probably right.

‘Apparently it took you some time to make up your mind. Of course, I gather you yourself were ill. A slight chill?'

I nodded – his ‘slight' was typical and good. He obviously knew I'd had a virus pneumonia, but I went along with him.

‘Due to a sauna I took in the local chapel.'

‘Ahl' he said, but with infinite relish. ‘Doubly cleansing in such an edifice. Then you had to wait for your replacement. Three months, was it not?'

‘Yes,' I said, reflecting that it had also given the good Zobronski lots of time to work on me, dying on his feet, too, without even a whimper.

‘Well, now that you are here, Carroll, now that through the mysterious workings of the Almighty the back door is open for you – forgive me if I bore you by recalling a remark I once thought to be appropriate – now you are going to stay. For presently you will see how much, and by whom, how terribly much you are needed. And if you fail them, and me, you are a lost soul. When I am up there, and may it be soon, I will personally arrange for your non-admission.' He paused, watching me out of the corner of one good eye. ‘Say something, Carroll. Are you with me?'

‘Yes,' I said. What else could I say to this Highland Machiavelli?

‘Good. Then I want you to come here quietly on Friday afternoon, just as before. However, on this occasion you will bring with you that poor troubled woman who will soon be the mother of your second child.'

What a crusher! The roof of the summer house seemed to fall on my head. Yet at the back of my mind I had feared it. Carroll the potent! Carroll the propagator of the faith. I was hooked now, bait, line and sinker. He went on:

‘Father Francis does all the marriages, he loves weddings, and is a great favourite of the ladies, but this one I will do. Are you with me, Carroll? Speak, or for ever be silent and damned.'

‘Yes,' I said.

‘Good. I rejoice that you are, for once, in a notably affirmative mood.' He held out his hand, vaguely in my direction. I took it, full of bones and blue veins.

‘Now leave me. The fat Irish sister whom I detest and who hides my snuff will be coming shortly and I need my lunch. If that's what I may call the pap they give me. God bless you, my very dear Laurence. And remember Friday.'

My suitcase was at the gate. I picked it up and set off. At first my steps were slow and pensive. The recent interview had not, to say the least, exhilarated me. Yet in that affectionate penultimate phrase I found a strange comfort. A group of men passed me hurrying to the football match. Walking with my head down, the bag dragging at my ankles, the ring of their footsteps, on the hard paving ahead, came back to me. With supreme lack of logic I thought, I have become the follower, I am no longer pursued.

Now I was at the corner of Renton Road and as I turned into that familiar by-way my pace insensibly increased. Obscurely, too, my heart was beating faster. In no time at all I was there, in Craig Crescent, opposite the Ennis house, which looked seedier than of old, paint flaking off the shutters, a cracked window in the surgery annex, where a few patients had collected outside. I took it all in, and using that most obnoxious Swiss word, said to myself: ‘Carroll, you've made the
Rundfahrt.'

I drew a deep breath, crossed the road, went up the gravelled weedy path, pushed open the front door and walked straight in.

The sitting-room was on the left, and Dr Ennis was lying there, stretched out on the sofa, asleep, with his mouth open, snoring gently through his nose, his midwifery bag on the floor beside him. Despite the empty glass of his usual reviver he looked all in, his face raddled, unshaven, a little gob of mucus on his bushy moustache. Not a pretty picture, but a human one. At least it was a face I knew I could live with, and with which perhaps, on a slack afternoon, I might go fishing in the Loch.

I turned without disturbing him and went out of the room. At the end of the hall, narrowed by an enormous mahogany hat and coat stand, on which the doctor's hats, of all varieties, sprouted like cabbages, the kitchen door was open. Still holding the suitcase I advanced and stood in the doorway. Neither of them saw me.

She was seated at the low kitchen table, wearing a slate-blue working wrapper, slewed a little sideways to ease the palpable, visible bulge in her middle, one elbow on the table supporting the palm that lay against her slanted cheek, while with the other hand, which held a spoon, she was feeding Daniel from a bowl of broth. He sat close, leaning against her, with a grey shawl round his shoulders. That he'd had another bleeding was evident from his general air of apathy, a lassitude which indeed seemed to encompass and bind them. It was pure Picasso, his best blue period, and it went through me like a knife.

I put down the suitcase, my heart beating heavy in my side. They looked up and saw me. Not a sound came from either but on the child's face there dawned a look of wonder and surprise, and a pale delight. And on hers, unbelieving shock, melting slowly into a slow, single, trickling tear.

I let it last for a long silent moment, a moment for which it seemed I had been waiting all my life. Just for that one silent moment, all the sickening personality that was Carroll dropped off me and I lived a million years of pure, undefiled joy. Then I was Carroll again.

‘I'm back,' I said. A stupid statement of the obvious, but that is what I said.

They had begun to bang on the surgery door – presumably Ennis had been out all night at a case and had skipped the forenoon surgery altogether.

‘I'd like some of that broth later,' I said, adding humbly, over my shoulder, as I turned into the side passage, ‘if there's any left.' After all, I'd had nothing but a rock-hard bun at the Central buffet.

I went down the ten worn steps into the little cubicle that was the consulting room. I put on the not altogether clean white coat that hung on the back of the door, took up Ennis's stethoscope which lay on the small falldown desk, and clipped it behind my ears. Outside, they were now using their boots on the lower panels. I took six paces through the small waiting-room and threw the door open.

‘What the devil do you think you're doing, making all that bloody racket? I'm the new doctor here and I won't have it. Come in quietly or I'll throw your cards back at you.' Dead silence.

They came in quietly.

‘Now, who's first?' I said, sitting down at the desk.

An old gammer of about seventy struggled in – black mutch, tartan plaid, worn but genteel black gloves. As she settled herself, wheezing away, I looked at her in silence, waiting for what must come, knowing her for what she was, a seasoned veteran of the welfare medical service, bursting with arthritis, neuritis and bronchitis, with bunions and a probable varicose ulcer and, from the way she sat, constipation and piles. Could I stand it – the bitter medicine as before? Yes, with Dingwall sitting on my neck, Frank hanging round it, and that little package in the kitchen to be looked after, I would have to stick it out. At least, I would have to try.

First published in 1969 by Heinemann

This edition published 2013 by Bello
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world

www.panmacmillan.co.uk/bello

ISBN 978-1-4472-5286-3 EPUB
ISBN 978-1-4472-5284-9 POD

Copyright © A. J. Cronin, 1969

The right of A. J. Cronin to be identified as the
author of this work has been asserted in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders of the material
reproduced in this book. If any have been inadvertently overlooked, the publisher
will be pleased to make restitution at the earliest opportunity.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise
make available this publication ( or any part of it) in any form, or by any means
(electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise),
without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does
any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The Macmillan Group has no responsibility for the information provided by
any author websites whose address you obtain from this book (‘author websites').
The inclusion of author website addresses in this book does not constitute
an endorsement by or association with us of such sites or the content,
products, advertising or other materials presented on such sites.

This book remains true to the original in every way. Some aspects may appear
out-of-date to modern-day readers. Bello makes no apology for this, as to retrospectively
change any content would be anachronistic and undermine the authenticity of the original.
Bello has no responsibility for the content of the material in this book. The opinions
expressed are those of the author and do not constitute an endorsement by,
or association with, us of the characterization and content.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Visit
www.panmacmillan.com
to read more about all our books
and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and
news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters
so that you're always first to hear about our new releases.