A Field Full of Folk (15 page)

“No,” said Chrissie, “there weren't many.”

“They always wave to me when I am standing at the window, in the morning and at night.” And she paused. “Did you know that Lachlan was going about with other women when he was younger.”

“I didn't know that,” said Chrissie.

“Of course he was. There's a beam in your own eye as well as in your neighbour's,” she added confusedly. “Judge not that ye be not judged.” She poured the water into the teapot while she was speaking, while Chrissie stared down dully at the oilcloth on the table.

“My dear,” she went on, “did you know that there was a man who lived here who tried to kill his wife? He was one of the upper class as you might say, but I've never met any of them yet that I wouldn't look straight in the eye and say to him, your boots, sir, are on the same earth as me.” And her face suddenly flushed and she banged her hand on the table. “And there was another woman here who ran away with her sister's husband. There is no one who doesn't have a secret. I have secrets myself. Did you know that when I was working in the hospital a black man asked me to marry him? Not that I've anything against the blacks for we're all equal in the sight of God but I told him that I wasn't going to India. He made out that he was some kind of prince. But I was too long in the tooth for that.” She poured the tea into the two cups and said, “In a short time it'll all be forgotten, lassie. You remember that. There's not one of us that hasn't got a skeleton in his cupboard. There's David Collins there. When he was young he ran away from the shepherding and his father had to go and drag him back. I can still see him holding Davy by the hair and telling him, ‘You'll watch these sheep if it's the last thing you do.' No, no, there's secrets everywhere. Is the tea hot enough?”

“Yes, Mrs Berry.” How thin and pale the girl looked as if the spirit had gone out of her. Maybe she should have given her some whisky.

“I'll tell you something, Chrissie. You stand up to the whole lot of them. There's not a one of them that's better than yourself. You think of it like that. There's a few I've seen in my time who spent on drink and cigarettes the money that they should have spent on their own children. The cock crows when he's standing among the dung. You remember that. And take your tea.”

Chrissie drank her tea slowly and then when she had finished Mrs Berry said, “What you have to do now is 'phone John. There's the 'phone there. Pull the door shut behind you. He's got the car. He'll come and get you.”

When Chrissie was at the 'phone she sat at the kitchen table staring ahead of her. How much she would herself give to see Angus coming in that door now, saying, “Well, that's enough of these damned potatoes for today.” How much would she not give to see him sitting where that girl had been sitting eating the meat that she had cooked for him. How much for that matter would she not give to be cycling through Edinburgh once more or listening to that matron telling them all off for sneaking in late at night while she herself was meeting someone in the garden. How much would she not give to be on that island again, listening to the first cry of a child, and seeing the mother's face sweaty and yet triumphant. Even yet she had the notebook in which she had taken down her medical notes and sometimes now and again she would glance through it.

Suddenly the door burst open and Chrissie was in the kitchen. “He says it's all right,” she shouted joyfully. “He says it's all right. I can go back.” And she ran and put her arms around Mrs Berry and kissed her. “I'm so happy.” And just as she said this Chrissie felt inside her the little mocking devil who was saying, “This is not a success. This is a failure. You will have to stay here forever.” But nevertheless she felt at home again even though she would have to earn it step by step of the way. How old Mrs Berry was looking. Suddenly her face had looked curdled like milk. “Would you like a hot cup of tea?” said Chrissie. “I'm keeping you from your bed.”

“No, no, lassie,” said Mrs Berry, “you're not keeping me from bed at all. I'll wait till John comes and then he can take you home. You were right to come back. We all make mistakes. Never forget we all have to face up to our mistakes and when you're as old as I am these things don't look so important after all.”

They gazed at each other in the silence, listening for the sound of the car. The light blazed around them with a pitiless glare and on the table lay the two cups. Mrs Berry seemed to be holding herself steady by sheer force of will.
They heard a car and then it passed into the distance. Then another one and it too faded away. And then at last they saw strong lights at the window and they heard the sound of tyres on gravel.

“I'll be seeing you later,” said Mrs Berry. “Don't forget to come in if you feel low.” Chrissie kissed her and then ran out into the corridor and then out through the door. Mrs Berry heard her own door shutting and then a car door banging. After a while she heard the car travelling over the gravel again. She rose from the table, took out her teeth and prepared for bed.

24

“A
PPARENTLY
,”
SAID HIS
wife to the minister, “Kenny Foolish met this Jap on the road the other day and they stood staring at each other. The Jap was trying to find out when the buses went into town and he was speaking in broken English and Kenny Foolish took a fancy to his camera. All Japs seem to have cameras for some reason. Kenny was making signs that he wanted to see the camera and he made a movement towards it. And the Jap thought he was going to attack him. At least that's what Patricia says. It was apparently quite hilarious, Kenny smiling at the Jap and the Jap backing away and Kenny trying to seize the camera. And the Jap was babbling something and Kenny was babbling something else. And eventually the Jap went into the house and told Calum's wife a story about a maniac who was trying to hit him. Meanwhile Kenny was being told by Mr Drummond who happened to be passing that he shouldn't do things like that. Of course Kenny had never seen a Jap before in his life and he called him the Yellow Man. He was quite offended that the Yellow Man shouldn't have let him see what was in the box. Meanwhile it took Calum's wife a long time to explain to the Jap that he hadn't been attacked at all. He kept saying something about the smiling fellow who had tried to hit him.”

“It must have been very amusing,” said the minister.

“Calum's wife says the Jap is very polite. He eats everything that she gives him though she sometimes thinks that he doesn't like it. His wife and child are just as polite and as tiny as he is. Their English, though, isn't very good. He's some sort of engineer, and his name is Nakamura. The wife and child are like dolls, Calum's wife says.”

“Maybe Annie should talk to him. She should ask him about the East. Do you know what she's on about now? I met her and she immediately told me that she was reading an encyclopædia which she saw in the library and it says that there was a sect called the Jains who held that time was divided into immensely long eras and that in each era there were twenty-four perfect beings who appeared on earth. Did I think that these were connected with the twenty-four elders mentioned in Revelations? I nearly told her that it was more probably connected with the number of hours on a twenty-four hour clock. But I didn't say anything. And she sniffed and went away. She thinks I'm a perfect ignoramus.”

“Yes, she's always in the library,” said Mary. “She spends a lot of her time reading.”

While they were talking there was a ring at the doorbell and the minister said, “I wonder who that is at this time of the morning.”

“I'll go and see,” said his wife.

In a short time she came back with Chrissie Murray. The minister immediately rose from his seat and said, “This is a pleasant surprise. How are you?”

“I'm fine,” said the girl. He noticed that she was wearing a longer skirt than usual and that she had got rid of her red boots. Her face was composed and pale. Her hair had been tied at the back into a bun, giving her an almost matronly appearance. His wife was making frantic signs at him behind the girl but he couldn't understand what she was trying to communicate.

“Is there something particular?” he said. “We're so glad to see you again. How is John?”

“John's fine,” said the girl who was standing in an embarrassed manner as if there was something she wished to say but couldn't bring herself to do so. His wife's signals were becoming more and more frantic but he couldn't make out what word she was trying to articulate.

“Good, good,” said the minister. “Mary, why don't we offer Mrs Murray a coffee?”

“No, no, it's too early,” said the girl. “I came because …”

His wife's contortions were now manic in their intensity as if she were some kind of idiot making gestures which were completely unintelligible to him. And then at last he remembered.

“Oh, the …” He stopped himself in time. “Oh, yes, there was something, Mrs Murray. Some boys found a ring near the railway line. They brought it to me and it was thought at the time that it might be yours. You must have mislaid it. Mary once mislaid hers, didn't you, Mary?”

“Yes, I was working in soapy water and it slipped off my finger. It can happen quite easily. I'll go and get it.”

“Would you not like to sit down,” said the minister. How odd it was that the girl should come back, he had never thought that she would. In a strange way he wished that she hadn't. And yet that was certainly not the Christian attitude to take. Even now, embarrassed and pale as she was, there emanated from her a strong sexual power which was quite unforced and almost primitive. Life would be difficult for her for a while, there was no question about that. But how had she been so stupid as not to foresee her own weakness and frailty? His wife came back with the ring which was in a little green box and which rested on cotton wool.

“We kept it safe,” she said cheerfully. “It's perfectly all right. It looks quite expensive too.”

“Yes, it was,” said the girl taking the ring and slipping it on to her finger. “John paid a lot for it.”

For a moment the minister saw in his wife's eye a glint which could only be described as envy, for the girl's ring was far more expensive than her own but it passed as quickly as it had come. The faithful suffer and the unfaithful profit, he thought.

“Everything is all right now?” he said carefully.

“Yes, everything is all right.” He had an instinctive feeling that the girl would start coming to church. He didn't know how he knew this but he was quite convinced of it and the thought troubled him with great sadness.

The girl hesitated as if not quite sure how to go about leaving the room. What was he expected to say to her?

His wife suddenly remarked, “I'm going in your direction to visit Mrs Campbell. Can I give you a lift?”

“That's very kind of you,” said the girl.

“Come on then. I'll get my coat,” said Mary, and the two of them went out together leaving the minister alone.

He stood staring after them for a while, his mind turbulent and excited, and yet deflated. It was as if the weight of the village had settled on his shoulders again, as if he was overwhelmed by it. Why could she not have stayed where she was, have accepted what had happened to her, lived off the chances of the day? And then another voice said to him, “She left her children behind, not to mention her husband. You should be glad the repentant sinner has returned to the fold.”

But he could not be glad, something in him felt melancholy and defeated: there was a smell of sickness and nausea in his mouth. When he heard the car he went to the bathroom and was sick. There was no end to the pain in the world, to the imperfection, to the ridiculousness, to the meaninglessness. How could he be a minister when he considered that the girl's return was a defeat for the human spirit? How could he possibly think in that way when she was so clearly a sinner, one who by her own selfishness had brought this sorrow on herself? And yet that part of him which thought of the human spirit conquering mountain after mountain from the time that man had first moved, hunchbacked and heavy jawed, about the plains and woods of the mornings, was offended. He drank some water and wiped his face and mouth with a towel. He went down on his knees among the alternate white and black squares of the bathroom and prayed. Please help me, O Lord, please help me. I've tried to be Thy servant but I am confused. Give me a sign, O Lord. Speak to me out of this terrible silence. This sterility. While he was praying he remembered Hutton who had asked the undertaker for the ring to be removed from his wife's finger. Had that been love or greed? How could one tell?

O Lord, he went on, I do not understand the human heart. I wish to be Thy servant but I feel nothing.

He rose from the floor, his knees aching and sore. All he could do was endure as those men had once endured the hailstones and the snow, plunging into the battle, knowing there was no final victory, till in the spring there came from the woods the pure clear lonely voice of the cuckoo, its double note.

What was there about Hutton's wife that he was forgetting? Had the finger been broken to get the ring off?

25

T
HE PLACE THEY
had chosen for their picnic was a flat stretch of land near the water though not near enough to be dangerous to the children: and in the distance they could see the mountain ascending into a clear sky, for the weather remained miraculously clear and warm. The ground was dry enough for the adults to sit round the perimeter while the children ran their races. When the minister arrived (for his wife had been there before him) he looked at the scene in front of him. At one end of the field he could see Mary Macarthur beside Annie, while Murdo Macfarlane and David Collins were talking to each other. The Jap was there with his wife, child, and camera, while the German and his wife were sitting on the ground, the husband clad in shorts. Mrs Scott and her husband were standing at the table on which the sandwiches and lemonade were, as also were his own wife, Mrs Campbell, Patricia (Mrs Berry's daughter) and Elizabeth. Christine Murray and her husband were kneeling on the ground hand in hand at a little distance from the others. It was two o'clock in the afternoon and the sun was white in the sky.