The Search (15 page)

“Nice girl that but ambitious. She was too ambitious for me. She was always going on about bettering herself. I got sick of it at the end. Hey, do you remember that time we were in the wood and I shouted to you from behind a tree and you panicked because you thought you were lost? Of course you had no sense of direction. And that other time I tore up your lecture notes. Do you remember that?”

“I remember,” said Trevor, without trying to correct his interpretation of the incident in the wood.

“The things I've seen since I left you,” Norman continued. “You wouldn't believe half of them. That fellow Douglas, by the way, nearly ended up in prison. One night they caught him walking along the street with a brick in his hand. He was going to break into a shop or a warehouse or something. But they let him off for lack of evidence. He was a smooth talker, right enough.”

“It was he who had the brick?”

“Yes, but I'll tell you something else about Sheila. I knew she was going with other people when I was in the Army. A mate of mine told me about her. But she's a nice girl. I nearly sent you a present from Australia but I didn't have any money. I never had any money. I used to live in dosshouses, you know. Then one night I said to myself, ‘This has got to stop', and I put myself into the hospital, and I've never looked back since. Tell me something. What did mother die of?”

“Heart,” said Trevor. “She was living with us.”

“That was very good of you to take her in, and it makes me feel ashamed. But the thing was, with me it was always come-day go-day. You know that. Do you remember the night there was thunder and lightning? My mother nearly had a fit and I was cycling home from Arrochar? It was one in the morning when I got home.”

“Yes, she was walking up and down in her dressing gown all night.”

“I can imagine. Well, those were the good old days. I think of them a lot. I had a record player at one time but I never listen to records now except when we visit Mary and Teddy. I bet you were surprised when that fellow phoned you. Many's the time I helped him out. One night when he didn't have any money I took him to my digs. It was an old woman who was the landlady. She had been a matron in the First World War and had tons of medals. Nice old lady that.”

While Norman was talking Trevor was looking about the room, and noticed for the first time that there were hardly any ornaments, and only the bare minimum of furniture. He couldn't understand why Jean had married his brother. And then for some reason he remembered himself and Norman carrying upstairs into their council flat a wardrobe which
their mother had bought in Grants. They were puffing and panting and Norman was saying, “This wardrobe is far too heavy. One of these days I'll have furniture and it will be much lighter than this.” He saw again the window on the first floor landing and the clothes hanging out on the line and it seemed to him that his heart was breaking with the pity of it all. He saw some of his own socks and some of Norman's swaying in the wind on the clothes-line on a spring day. The contrast between the greenness of home and the drought of Australia came to him like a blow under the heart.

“I have a patch of vegetables at the back,” said Norman. “I do quite a bit of digging. Do you remember when we moved into that council house? It was me who planted the flowers. I was very keen on flowers, only the Irish dug them up again. You didn't want to have anything to do with the garden: and you didn't want to tackle the Irish but I went to the house of one of them, big fellow he was, and I said he had better cut it out. He was very nice and gave me a cup of tea. The things that come back to you. He was a big fellow and he was standing at the sink shaving at the time, in his singlet. He could have cut me in half: O'Reilly his name was, I think. And then there was the time when the people below were playing their radiogram till all hours. The police wouldn't do anything about it and they were bothering us all the time so I went down and sorted them. All these things come back to you. Sometimes when I can't sleep — I don't sleep so well since I gave up the drink — I lie in my bed thinking and all sorts of things come back to me. There was the time at your wedding before I left and you came up to me with tears in your eyes and you said, ‘I'm sorry, Norman.' You said that over and over and you could hardly stand on your feet. And I kept saying, ‘It's all right, it's all right.' And you went on and on, ‘It's not all right at all. It's far from all right. Are you sure you don't mind?' you kept saying. And I was laughing because I'd never seen you so drunk before. It's strange how you remember these things.”

All the time that Norman was speaking Trevor felt sleepy and almost as if he were dreaming.

Suddenly he said, “Do you have a phone here?”

“A phone? No, we don't have the phone.”

“Oh?”

“But there's a phone box down the road if you want.”

“No, it's all right.”

“If it was anything urgent?”

“No, it isn't urgent,” said Trevor, trying to control his voice. “It's not at all urgent.” He felt as if he were about to scream, a loud howl against reality.

And so they talked about this and that till the time came for him to go to bed. Jean, of course, was sleeping at the hospital.

“We have a small room,” said Norman. “I suppose you could call it a guest room,” he added wryly. And he showed Trevor into a tiny room whose wardrobe was overflowing with clothes.

“I can never manage to shut the door of this wardrobe properly,” he said. “One of these days I'll get round to it. I hope you'll sleep all right. If you hear anyone moving about at night it'll be me. I make cups of coffee for myself.”

“That's all right,” said Trevor, and Norman looked at him affectionately as if he couldn't believe that he was there. When Norman had left the room Trevor undressed slowly, seeing through the window a large, round, white moon swimming in the blue of the sky. He imagined it shining above the tenements of Glasgow creating out of that poverty and blackness a spurious brilliance of its own. Soon he would have to leave, and take the plane home and he found that he was already looking forward to the journey.

Everything had come full circle, his brother was safe, he was not buried in a wilderness underneath an alien moon. And Trevor felt such piercing sorrow because of it. And yet why should he feel sorrow? Why should he not feel happy that his brother was living under a roof, with a job, and married? He couldn't understand what was wrong with him.

As Norman had warned him, he heard movements in the middle of the night, footsteps and the running of water. On the table he found a letter which said that Norman was late with his subscription for the
Scottish Field
. After an hour or so he fell asleep.

When he woke the sun was shining through the flimsy curtains and he felt happy to be leaving, as if he had successfully completed a necessary duty. Over breakfast the two of them didn't speak much. When they had finished Trevor said, “Well, I'd better be moving off.”

“I suppose so,” said Norman. “You'll excuse me if I don't go to the bus with you.”

They stared at each other for a long time as if across the waste of the years and then Trevor was walking away from the house with his case in his hand. He climbed on to the bus, thought of Glasgow, and was happy. He didn't wish to have anything more to do with the tangle of the past: it was as if he had been purified of it. And yet without his willing it a picture came into his mind of the two of them in the wood. Was it his brother who had hidden, or was it himself? He couldn't remember. More than anything in the world he wished to phone Sheila, hear her voice across the miles that separated them. It was as if an iron cloak of responsibility had settled on him, as if he could apply to himself the word “husband” which somehow he had not been able to do before. A woman standing in front of a house threw a basin of water across her lawn and in its full transparent curve he saw a wasteful, vulnerable beauty and recklessness that overwhelmed him with thoughts which were both heavy and joyful at the same time.

“I'm going home,” he thought, “I'm going home.”

Twenty-Two

T
HAT NIGHT WHEN
Jean came home from work she was very angry.

“I'm afraid I didn't like your brother much,” she said between pursed lips. “He was examining the house as if he didn't think much of it. I saw him trying to see if there were any ornaments.”

“Not Trevor,” said Norman defensively. “Not Trevor. All he's interested in is books.”

“Don't you believe it. He didn't say much, did he? He was weighing everything up. You shouldn't have gone on so much about your drink problem. You come out with everything like a child.”

“He had to know. I couldn't offer him a drink, could I?”

“He didn't need a drink. And what about that Sheila you were going with? I noticed you didn't say anything about her. He was always the favoured one, you said. If he ever came here you would tell him so, you said. But you're as weak as water. He was laughing at you all the time, with all your talk of that doctor who had told you that you were doing a good job as a groundsman. What do you think people like your brother think of groundsmen? Anyone would think you ran the hospital, the way you were talking. What would a college lecturer think of a groundsman? You're always so open.”

Norman thought: This was the way Sheila used to go on, accusing him of lack of ambition.

“You're probably right,” he said, “but then he's my brother after all.”

“What sort of brother is he? He never sent you money when you needed it. He could have. He's got a big salary. Why couldn't he have sent you money?”

“I'm happy now,” said Norman pacifically.

“That's what you say. If you're so happy why can't you sleep at nights? And it was me who had to propose to you. You don't care about me at all, making me a laughing stock in front of all these people. Did he say anything about the room?”

“No. He said that he had a good sleep.”

“And I don't suppose you locked the door so that he couldn't see all those old clothes in the wardrobe. I don't understand you. Anyway it's nothing to do with me. He's your brother.”

“Yes,” said Norman firmly. “He's my brother.” And he left the room and went outside and began furiously to clip the hedge. After a while Jean came out, looked at him, and then went over and put her arms around his neck.

“I'm a bitch, isn't that what you're thinking?”

“No,” said Norman, “I'm thinking how lucky I am.”

Twenty-Three

T
REVOR HEARD THE
voice of the stewardess telling them to fasten their safety belts. In a short while they would be landing at Glasgow Airport. But all around them at the moment was a map of clouds, like mound upon mound of snow. But at least it was better than that solid wall of heat that had met them at Colombo so that he had to fan himself with the magazine he was reading. The Italian woman who had moved continually in front of the screen while the film was being shown, who had taken her child on perpetual visits to the lavatory, and talked to it so loudly that the commentary could not be heard, was asleep, her mouth open. He looked out of the window and far below he could see green fields and threads of rivers. The houses and cars were like toys in a miniature kingdom. How strange it was that he should ache so much for home, for its emerald greenness and its crowded, rainswept tenements. The plane shuddered to a halt and he was walking along the passageway with his case. The stewardess standing at the door, said “Thank you, sir.”

“Thank you,” he said automatically. He waited at the revolving ring of cases and then strode along the green corridor which said
NOTHING TO DECLARE
. He didn't see Sheila and Carol at first and then he did. And then they were all clasped in each other's arms and walking out into the rain which was falling on Glasgow Airport.

“Shall I tell her?” he wondered as they sat close together in the taxi.

She was staring at him with a hurt, wondering look but she didn't speak. This time it will begin again, he thought, but it will be different. Carol was stretching out her hands for the koala bear that he was holding. Its open, laughing face with the small beady eyes was smiling at her. Its button nose made it seem cuddly and affectionate. Her hands were held out greedily and impatiently for it. He smiled at his wife.

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Trevor Griersor, a Scottish university lecturer, is spending a term in Canberra, lecturing on Scottish authors. One day a stranger phones, with garbled news of Trevor's brother Norman who vanished in Australia many years before, and has since, according to the caller, become an alcoholic and been in trouble with the police.

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An End to Autumn

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Iain Crichton Smith's vivid evocation is loosely based on memories of his own childhood on Lewis. There are so many discoveries to be made, along the shore and on the moor. Crossing a field under snow has its perils; exploring an empty cottage has its imaginative terrors; you might be humiliated by a village woman when your mother has sent you to a neighbour to borrow half-a-crown until her pension comes through: or playing along the shore with Pauline, a visitor from London with her wider knowledge of the world, you might find your own certainties called into question. There is poverty and richness; and eventually the war casts its shadows across your world.

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