And the Land Lay Still (65 page)

He was brought back to the present by Liz’s voice, raised now against the voice of authority. ‘So what are ye saying? Do ye want him at this school or don’t ye?’

‘Mrs Lennie,’ the rector said, ‘my job is to educate the young people in my charge. If a boy does not wish to be educated, then we have a problem. It is my responsibility to bring this to your attention. Either Charlie smartens up his ideas, or he’d be better off transferring to the Junior Secondary. Although, at this stage …’

He didn’t have to finish the sentence. They knew what he meant: at this stage, it was too late.

Liz said, ‘Ye might hae done something aboot this sooner.’

The rector said, ‘We’ve done our best.’ There was a faint, snide emphasis on the first word. ‘Perhaps somebody else might have more success with him.’

‘Like who?’ Liz said.

‘Well, regrettably National Service is no longer available. But that kind of discipline might suit him.’

‘What, the army?’ Liz said.

‘Or one of the other services, perhaps,’ the rector said.

‘Is that the best ye can come up wi? “We canna educate him so we recommend him for cannon fodder”? Noo I’ve bloody well heard it aw.’

Don got her out of there before she started lashing out.

They talked to Charlie again, in the kitchen, the scene of so many confrontations. One last effort. ‘What’s gaun on at the school? They’re gonnae suspend ye, throw ye oot.’ Liz talked to him. Don talked to him. Together and separately they cajoled, encouraged, threatened. They pleaded with him, appealed to his conscience and his self-interest. He didn’t appear to care. ‘And what’s this aboot plunking off?’ Don said. ‘Making your granny write notes for ye, for God’s sake. Are ye a complete idiot? Where d’ye go? Who d’ye go wi?’ Charlie looked at Don as if he were a caveman. ‘Plunking off? It’s called dogging it.’ Don lost his temper. ‘What does it matter what ye call it? Ye’re aboot tae mess up the best chance in life ye’ll get, ye bloody wee fool!’ Liz said shouting at him like that didn’t help. She said maybe it was the school that was failing Charlie. Don said it hadn’t failed Billy. Look at Billy, away to the university in Glasgow in the autumn. It was Charlie that was failing Charlie. Back and forth, round and round they went, and all the time Charlie watched them as if they were talking about someone else. He stood up to leave them to it.

‘I’m no finished!’ Don roared. ‘Don’t you dare walk oot till I’m finished.’

‘
I’m
finished,’ Charlie said. He headed for the door. Don made as if to stop him, but what was he going to do, wrestle him to the floor?

The door slammed in his face. Liz said, ‘Let him go. There’s nae talking tae him noo.’

She said, ‘He’s no a fool, ye ken. Ye shouldna call him a fool. He’s as clever as Billy.’

She said, ‘And bringing Billy intae it disna help.’

‘Jesus Christ!’ Don shouted. He cursed more these days. It annoyed him how readily the name of somebody he’d no faith in came to his lips. More quietly he said, ‘I just want him tae knuckle doon and dae some work. Behave himsel. Or he’s gonnae end up in trouble.’

‘I ken,’ Liz said. ‘But ye just set each other aff. I’ll speak tae him on my ain.’

But she’d tried that before. They both knew what it was: Charlie was doing what they were doing, what Drumkirk Academy was
doing – ticking off the days till he turned fifteen, and the rector could do his Pontius Pilate imitation. God only knew what Charlie would do after that but it wouldn’t involve education. How was he going to earn money? How was he going to survive? These were questions of unbearable weight in the night. The only person who didn’t seem bothered by them was Charlie.

§

Don said, ‘We’re no keeping ye. We canna afford it. If ye want tae stay under this roof ye’ll need tae get a job.’

Charlie said, ‘Ye don’t have tae keep me. I’ll go where I’m wanted.’

Liz said, ‘We want ye here, son.’

‘No according tae that cunt.’

For a moment all the chains came loose. Don lunged at Charlie and Liz clattered her arm into Don to stop him and she was yelling at Charlie who swung a punch at his father’s face but Don pulled back and the punch landed on Liz’s chest and she fell against the kitchen table and Don caught her as things crashed to the floor. Charlie was ready to come at him again but Don shouted, ‘Back off!’ and covered Liz with his body and Liz screamed, ‘Stop it, baith o ye!’ and everything slid to a halt as suddenly as it had started. Charlie was heaving like a bull. ‘Dinna come near me, all right, dinna fucking come near me,’ the boy roared. Don helped Liz on to a chair. ‘Just fuck off,’ he said over his shoulder. Liz was grimacing, catching her breath, her right hand up over her chest where the blow had landed, but she smacked Don over the head for swearing.

‘That really hurt, Charlie,’ she said.

‘If he hadna had a fucking go at me, it wouldna hae happened.’

‘Stop using that language,’ she said. ‘Ye never learned tae speak like that in this hoose. Ye should be ashamed o yersel.’ And to Don, ‘And so should you. He’s your son.’

‘Aye, and yours too, and he’s just hit ye.’

‘Forget that,’ she said. ‘He didna mean tae.’

‘No, I meant tae hit him,’ Charlie said.

‘Ye’d hae done it the once,’ Don said.

‘That’s
enough
,’ Liz said. ‘Charlie, pack a bag and away tae your granny’s. Ye’re better there till we decide what tae dae wi ye.’

‘Ye don’t need tae decide onything,’ Charlie said. ‘I can fend for masel.’

‘Get used tae it,’ Don said.

‘Not another word, Don,’ Liz snapped. ‘I mean it. If ye say one mair word I’ll walk oot wi him. The two of ye are better off apart.’

There was no arguing with that. Charlie went upstairs. ‘Make us some tea,’ Liz said. Don filled the kettle. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Ower late tae be sorry,’ she said.

She went out of the room, and he heard her talking in low tones with Charlie. He knew she was giving him money. The money she earned up the hill. She gave some of it to Charlie regularly. Nothing to Billy as far as he was aware. He heard the front door open and close.

When she came back she put her hand to her collarbone. ‘That’s sair,’ she said. ‘I hope I havena broken onything.’

‘Liz, if he’s hurt ye –’

But she cut him off. ‘Aye, he’s hurt me.’ She touched her collarbone again. ‘This’ll mend, but.’

He could see she wouldn’t stand for it if he started ranting against Charlie. He pushed her tea towards her. She reached for it, gasped with pain. ‘Dae ye want the doctor?’ he said. ‘Ye must be kidding,’ she said. ‘If it’s still bad in the morning I’ll go roond tae the surgery, say I tripped on the stair or something.’

They heard the front door open and close again. Different footsteps. Billy put his head round the door.

‘I just saw Charlie at the bus stop,’ he said. He saw the look on Liz’s face, felt the tension in the atmosphere. ‘What’s happened?’

‘He’s away tae your granny’s again,’ Liz said. ‘Come in and get a cup of tea, son. Tell me how your day’s been.’

§

One morning Saleem practically thrust the paper into Don’s hand.

‘Look at that!’

Winnie Ewing’s by-election win at Hamilton was all over the front page.

‘Does that not make you proud to be a Scot?’ Saleem said.

Don handed over the money. He shrugged.

‘Oh come on, man!’ Saleem said, in his best Wharryburn accent,
a big grin splitting his face. ‘I tell you, it makes me proud to be a Scot and I’m no even a Scot. They’ve taken us for granted too long, that’s what I say.’

‘Aye, weel, I wouldna deny that, Saleem. I just wouldna hae had ye doon for a Nationalist.’

‘I’m no a Nationalist. But Scotland is a nation, is it no?’

‘Aye.’

‘Well then. The world is full of nations. It’s only natural, isn’t it, to want to join the club?’

Down the years Don heard an echo of Jack Gordon. Apart from the beaming smile Saleem even momentarily looked like Jack Gordon. He said, ‘You remind me of someone. A man that stayed in the village a long time ago. Before your time.’

‘How long ago?’

‘Sixteen, seventeen years.’ He’d never talked to Saleem about Jack. Jack wasn’t mentioned by anybody any more.

‘That was about when we came to England. Note my careful use of the word “England”. It’s not so long.’

‘It seems it. He was a friend o mine. He used tae come oot wi aw that Nationalist stuff.’

‘Well, and if he was your friend why did you not listen to him?’

‘Oh, I did, I did.’ Don smiled. ‘Naebody else did.’

‘So he was a lone voice, was he? A lone piper piping in the misty morning?’

‘Something like that.’

‘And you don’t like the sound of the bagpipes?’

‘I’ve nothing against the bagpipes. I just didna like the tune he was playing.’

‘Down with the British!’

‘Mair or less, aye.’

‘Don, let me tell you what I think. My father was a government clerk when we lived in Delhi. He was an educated man. You could say we did not do badly under British rule. Please note my careful choice of word again. And then you could say that after independence everything went to rat shit for us. Yes, you could say that. We had to move and then we had to move again and it is only in the last few years, here in Wharryburn, that I have stopped moving. I don’t want to go anywhere else. But what am I? I am a shopkeeper. What
did my father, an educated man, become when he came to England? A bloody shopkeeper. I don’t want to be a bloody shopkeeper any more than he did, but it is how he survived, it is how I survive. It is not the desired life, it is not the perfect life but it is a life. It could be worse. We could all have had our throats cut on a train. And yet, in all the troubles my father had, I never once heard him say, “Thank God for the British!” He didn’t say “Down with the British!” either but he knew that it was pointless being nostalgic about the past. I think you are too nostalgic about the past, Don. Does it offend you to hear me say this?’

Don laughed. ‘Nothing you say could offend me, Saleem.’

‘Don’t bet on it. Let me tell you one more thing. I think you had better hurry up here in Scotland or you will be the last ones out of the British Empire and if that is the case, well …’

‘Well what?’

‘Well, you will look pretty bloody stupid.’

§

If Barbara Gordon was like a name from a Scottish ballad, Marjory Taylor was the kind of name he heard on the radio sometimes, in English pop songs. Jennifer Eccles. Angela Jones. Marjory Taylor. But why on earth was she still in his head?

§

Liz and he had a new midweek occupation: watching a BBC sitcom about the Home Guard. They both loved it. There was something comforting about the bank manager, the butcher, the spiv and the stupid boy banding together against a common foe. It was intensely satisfying that the undertaker was a tight-fisted, wild-eyed Scottish doom-merchant called Frazer.
Dad’s Army
was a weekly event that pulled Liz and Don back together when things were strained. It was a half-hour refuge from change. Yet whenever he watched it, or when it was over, Don remembered what Saleem had said, and felt a little guilty.

§

At first, Billy and Barbara were on a journey together. Gradually they would discover that they were on two separate journeys. This
is what happens. People are fellow travellers for a while, for years, perhaps for decades. Later they marvel at the roads they have been on, the people they once were, the distance they went with people whose faces they have almost forgotten.

Billy loved Barbara for her sulky mouth and her cool eyes. He loved her neutral voice, English after her mother’s but Scottish enough so it didn’t stand out. He loved her long, straight black hair, her long legs, her slim waist, her delicate, bulb-like breasts. But more than her body he loved her mind. No one else he knew had her clarity of thought. He who was so uncertain even as he acknowledged the absolute rightness of yet another cause – anti-apartheid, anti-vivisection, pro-abortion – adored her conviction, her ability to get to the point.

She liked his open mind, his willingness to change, his, if she was honest, malleability. They explored and learned together, but always she was one step ahead.

They would always be honest. This was the promise they’d made to one another when they were fifteen, and which they reaffirmed after every crisis, after every blow to their relationship that honesty delivered. All you needed was not love, but honesty. This was what they believed. No more hypocrisy. Nothing must be not revealed.

§

The big window of Saleem’s shop was boarded up.

Don said, ‘What happened?’

Saleem shook his head. ‘It is nothing.’

‘Saleem, somebody’s pit your windae in. That’s no nothing.’

Saleem shrugged. ‘Boys. It was in the night. By the time I got down to the street they were gone.’

‘Did you see them?’

‘No.’ He looked very unhappy.

‘Did ye call the polis?’

‘They were here an hour ago. It’s necessary for the insurance. They wrote down what I told them but I don’t expect any arrests. What use are the police? They have to come from Drumkirk. They will never catch anyone red-handed out here.’

Don considered doing what most others would have done at this point – lamenting the loss of the village bobby – but didn’t bother.
The last village bobby had been a fat lump who couldn’t have caught a cold.

He had a bad feeling. He said, ‘If it was village lads it shouldna be too difficult tae find oot who.’

‘They are not from the village. I heard a car.’

Don glanced at his watch, mindful of the bus coming.

‘A car?’

‘Yes, I think they are from Drumkirk.’

‘What makes ye think that?’

‘Somebody came before. They offered me, you know, protection.’

‘Somebody came intae the shop and threatened ye? Would ye recognise them?’

The door opened and another customer entered. It was clear from Saleem’s look that he didn’t want to continue the conversation.

‘I’m really sorry aboot it,’ Don said. He felt responsible and ashamed. ‘I’ll need tae go. I’ll see ye later.’

‘Thank you, Don.’