The Pure Land (3 page)

She blushed, flustered. ‘I’ll try and get away.’

Her father, a few yards ahead, stopped and turned.

‘Annie! Come on, lass!’

She glanced back over her shoulder, smiled again. Her father met Glover’s eye, gave a curt nod that contrived to be a greeting and a warning, both at once. Glover nodded back. Understood. Then he saw Robertson, leaning against a gravestone, and he couldn’t help it, he laughed out loud.

‘You look like death warmed up!’

The minister had just come out into the churchyard, fixed him again with that hard admonishing gaze.

‘Remember the Sabbath Day, Mister Glover, to keep it holy.’

‘Oh aye, sir,’ he said. ‘I will that.’

The moment would stay with him – young Annie on a summer’s night, simply herself, her elbows leaning on the parapet of the bridge, up on tiptoe as she stared, intent, at some thing downstream. It looked for all the world like a painting.
Young girl at
evening, Brig o’ Balgownie
. She wore a simple white dress and the sun touched her fair hair.

She hadn’t seen him, was unselfconscious, lost in whatever she saw. Then she must have sensed him, heard his footstep on the cobbles, and she turned to him, eyes wide, shooshed him with a finger to her lips. He moved to her side and she pointed down at the river, showed him what she was watching – a heron
standing, angular, on a rock midstream, poised and absolutely still.

‘Isn’t it bonnie?’ she said.

‘It is that,’ he said, touching her arm.

The bird unfurled, spread its grey wings and took off, settled further away at the water’s edge.

‘I don’t have long,’ said Annie. ‘I said I was just away out for a walk. He gave me one of his looks.’

Glover nodded. ‘The kind he gives me every morning!’

He furrowed his forehead, put on her father’s disapproving glower. She laughed, said it was just like the thing. He took her face in his hands and kissed her, tasted her soft warm mouth, the sweetness sheer intoxication. They walked arm in arm down from the bridge and along by the river. The heron flew on again, kept its distance, stayed always just ahead.

Monday morning, the stroke of eight, cutting it fine again, or timing it to perfection, he flung open the outside door, rushed in, nodded briskly at Robertson, headed straight for his desk. But before he could sit down, the door to the inner office opened and George stood there, the look on his face grimmer than ever.

‘Mister Glover. A moment, please.’ He disappeared back inside, left the door open. A summons.

Robertson raised his eyebrows, mimed cutting his throat.

Glover shrugged, affected a casualness, a bravado he didn’t feel. ‘Sounds serious!’

He entered the room, closed the heavy door behind him. George stood with his back to him, framed in the window, looking out at the harbour, at the cargo ships and fishing boats, the hulks under construction in the Hall Russell yard.

‘Sit down,’ said George, turning to face him.

The room smelled of wax polish and tobacco, George’s pipe
smoke gone stale, and behind that the mustiness of old ledgers, dusty paper. Glover felt his throat dry, a sudden anxiety clenching at his innards. There couldn’t be a problem with the job – he worked hard, got on fine with the other clerks. He feared then it might be about Annie.

George’s face was stone, gave nothing away. On the desk in front of him was a long buff-coloured envelope. He pushed it towards Glover.

‘This is addressed to you. It’s from Jardine Mathieson.’

Glover took in air, a quick sharp gasp. He observed himself maintaining formality, reaching forward to pick up the envelope. He read his name, the address of the firm, written in fluid clerical script, the letters even, the lines perfectly spaced. He stared at it, astonished to see the envelope shake in his hand to the thud of his heartbeat, the pulse of the blood in his veins.

‘You’ll have been expecting this,’ said George.

‘Aye, sir.’ He turned the envelope over, read the firm’s name on the back.

Jardine, Mathieson & Co
.

‘I just didn’t …’

The interview had been months ago, in Edinburgh. He thought he’d done well enough, just hadn’t dared hope.

‘For what it’s worth,’ said George, ‘you received a good reference from here.’

‘Aye, sir. Thank you.’

He heard his voice, strange to him. A character in a play. The moment felt ponderous, imbued with a gravity, serious and real. But at the same time he felt distanced from it, watching. The clock ticked on the mantelpiece. Outside, a horsedrawn cart clattered by. A boy shouted and laughed. The seagulls cried. Life went on, living itself.

‘Well?’ said George, impatient.

‘Sir?’

‘For God’s sake, man! Are you going to open it?’

‘Right.’ He gathered himself. ‘Aye.’

George reached across, offering him a bonehandled paperknife, but he’d already worked his thumb under the flap, ripped the envelope open.

The letter was on headed notepaper, gave the address of their head office in Hong Kong.
Dear Mister Glover
. He raced ahead. The tone was clipped and fastidious, businesslike, precise.
Further
to your interview, we have pleasure in offering you a position
.

‘Dear God.’

‘What?’ said George.

‘They’ve offered me the job, sir. In Japan!’

George’s mouth twitched in approximation of a smile, then righted itself again.

‘You’ll have a great deal to think about.’

‘Aye,’ said Glover. But this place, this time, were receding. He was already moving on.

‘Japan!’ said Robertson.

Glover waved the letter. ‘I told you I’d applied for a posting.’

‘But Japan! It’s the ends of the earth!’

‘Folk say that about Aberdeen!’

‘I know, but …’

‘Off the map! Ultima bloody Thule!’

‘But
Japan!
I mean, the folk aren’t like us. They’re barbarians. Lop off your head as quick as look at you.’

‘There’s folk here could turn you to stone wi a look!’

Robertson laughed. ‘Christ, don’t I know it! But you know what I’m saying, Tom.’

‘I know fine.’

Pinned to the main office wall was a faded map of the world, with shipping routes marked on it. Glover took in India and China, and at the furthest edge, Japan.

‘Are ye no feared?’ said Robertson.

Glover still looked at the map, felt a moment the vastness, the distance.

‘Here be dragons!’ he said, then turned to look at Robertson, said more quietly, ‘Of course I’m feared. But that’s no reason not to go.’

‘Sounds a good enough reason to me!’ said Robertson.

‘If I stay here,’ said Glover, ‘my life’s mapped out. Maybe in a few years, if I work really hard, I’ll get George’s job, be running the office, end up as dry and dusty as himself. Christ, man, I want more!’

Robertson nodded, but there was something in his eyes, something unspoken.

‘What about Annie?’ he said at last, and Glover felt it in his guts.

Annie.

His mother had to sit down when he told them about the letter. She tugged the hanky from the cuff of her blouse, dabbed her face with it, wafted the familiar scent of lavender.

‘Japan?’ she said, staring at him, unable to make sense, the word strange in her mouth, like a bad taste.

Martha put a hand on her arm, said nothing.

‘It’s a bit far, is it no?’ said his father, then he took the letter, snapped the paper taut, perused it at arm’s length so he could focus. When he’d read it through, and through again, he cleared his throat, preparatory, intoned with Presbyterian gravitas, ‘Jardine Mathieson.’

He gave the names weight, due deference, like books of the Old Testament.

‘They’re likely the biggest company in the world,’ said Glover.

His father nodded. ‘They’d be paying you good money.’

This was what mattered. Hard currency of the workplace. Prospects. Advancement. A job for life. His father had come as far as he could, worked his way up to his present position, Lieutenant in charge of the Coastguard Station.

‘With a start like this,’ said Glover, ‘there’s no limit.’

‘See the world,’ said his father, unconsciously glancing at the window, the sea beyond.

‘Make my fortune.’

‘Come back a man of substance. Settle down.’

‘But what if he doesn’t?’ said his mother, quiet and grim. ‘What if we never see him again?’

There was silence a moment, a beat, the heavy tick of the clock in the room,
memento mori
, time passing.

‘Ach!’ said Glover, breaking it. ‘You’ll not be rid of me as easy as that!’

‘It’s no joke, Tom!’ said his mother. ‘They’re savages out there. They’re not civilised. Not Christian.’

‘The Lord takes care of His own,’ said his father, and he left another silence. ‘Perhaps the best thing might be to ask Him for His guidance.’

He handed back the letter. The discussion was ended, for now. Glover nodded, said simply, ‘Aye.’

Out in the back garden he breathed deep the night air, tried to clear his head. This place was home, was all he knew. The solid stone house was tied to his father’s job. It was all achingly familiar but now, suddenly, strange. The garden sloped down, overlooked the mouth of the Don, where the river met the North Sea. The waves crashed in, rolled back, endless. The full moon hung in the sky still pale with that halflight, that never quite dark. Above the roar and hush of the sea the cry of an oystercatcher came sharp and clear, pierced him to the core. He heard a step on
the gravel behind him, and Martha was standing there, taking it all in. They stood and watched the sea a while.

‘How soon would you be going?’ she said at last. ‘If you go.’

‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘A few weeks. Maybe a month.’

‘That’s awful soon,’ she said.

‘I know.’ He looked back at the house. The lamp was lit upstairs in his parents’ room.

‘Faither was funny,’ he said, and he copied his father’s gruff voice, his terse Northeast understatement. ‘It’s a bit far, is it no?’

She laughed but it was halfhearted, in spite of herself. He could hear it, the catch in her voice. She didn’t feel like laughing.

He looked up at the window, the lamplight wee and yellow in the gathering dim. ‘They’ll be talking about it maybe.’

‘Or not talking.’

‘Praying for my soul, more like.’

‘They mean well,’ she said. ‘They want what’s best for you. Och, we’ve always known we wouldn’t be able to keep you here, keep you
here
.’ She looked from the house, north along the grey coast, the harsh grudging landscape. ‘But to go so far, so very far away. That’s hard. And God, Tom, they’ll miss you. We all will. More than you know.’

There was nothing he could say to that. The depth of emotion behind it was too great. Glib reassurance would be empty. An easy joke would be crass. There were no words adequate.

No words. The screech of the seabirds. Relentlessness of the waves.

She turned away, wrapped her shawl tighter about her. The moon had disappeared behind a bulk of cloud, turned the night a little darker, colder. She shivered, breathed hard. He heard her sniffle, try to stifle it, saw her wipe her face with her hand.

‘Something in my eye,’ she said.

He took a white handkerchief from his pocket, handed it to her. ‘It’s clean, mind!’

She sobbed out a laugh, through the tears. ‘I should hope so!’

He waited, let her take her time. Her voice was calmer when she asked him, ‘Have you told Annie?’ And he felt it again, that twist in the pit of his stomach, gutting him.

‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘I will.’

‘When?’

‘When I’ve made up my mind.’

‘I thought you already had?’

In her tone, in the way she asked, he heard the half hope that he might not go, even yet.

‘Almost,’ he said. ‘But there’s always the doubt, the not knowing.’

‘Aye,’ she said, quiet again, resigned. Then she looked full at him, her dark eyes wide. ‘The lassie cares for you.’

For a moment he thought she was going to cry again, but she gathered herself. ‘Be kind, Tom. That’s all.’ She gave him back the handkerchief, held his hand a moment in both of hers. ‘I’ll away inside now. I’ll see you in the morning.’

He watched her go, closed his fist round the hanky, still damp. Now he was the one dealing with the welter of emotion. Far out at sea a ship’s light flickered. The mass of cloud silvered at the edges and the moon slid out again, shone pure and clear and cold.

Back in the house, Martha had left the gas lamp lit for him, turned down low. The front room reeked of his father’s last pipe of the day, the thick black Bogie Roll he liked to smoke. The family Bible had been left out, conspicuous, on the scoured oak table in the middle of the room. Glover smiled. That was like the old man. Ask the Lord for His guidance.

The book was old and worn, its cover boards warped, its pages musty from the damp. The page edges were gilt, beginning to fade with years of turning. He’d been amazed at that as a child. Holding a single thin page between finger and thumb,
it was hard to see the sheen at all. But flick the pages, let them cascade, and they shimmered, glistered. Closed, the book was a solid block of gold, encased.

He stood in front of it now, said quietly, ‘Lord, guide my hand.’ And he closed his eyes and opened the book, or let it fall open where it would. And he read. Deuteronomy Chapter 26.

And it shall be, when thou art come in unto the land which the Lord
thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and possessest it, and dwellest
therein
…

Dear God, he knew this passage, read further down the page.

And he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even
a land that floweth with milk and honey
.

In spite of himself, he was shaken, took the words as a sign.

‘A land of milk and honey?’ said Robertson next morning, looking up from behind his desk.

‘Well,’ said Glover, pacing the room, restless with the excitement of it all, ‘silk and tea!’