The Black Halo (58 page)

‘That’s because Torquil is driving them about,’ said one of the widows. ‘He’s a demon driver, did you know that? His wife used to shout at him and she was the only
person he would ever slow down for.’

What did I think of Canada, I asked myself. There were no noises there, no creakings as from an old house. The indifferent level light fell on it. It was like the Garden of Eden uninfected by
history. It was without evil. Smith was still muttering to himself. His wife was smiling.

‘My friend here,’ said my uncle largely, ‘believes in the apes, you know. He thinks that we’re all apes, every one of us.’

The women in their fine dresses and ornaments all laughed. Who could be further from apes than they were?

‘Apes don’t make as good scones as this,’ said my uncle. ‘Do you think apes make scones?’ he asked Smith.

Smith scowled at him. He was looking around the room as if searching for a Bible.

‘But there’s one thing about John here,’ said my uncle, ‘by golly he’s got principles. Yes by golly, he has.’

As the evening progressed we did sing ‘Loch Lomond’,

‘ . . . where me and my true love will never meet again on the bonny banks of Loch Lomond.’

I saw tears in my uncle’s eyes.

‘Mary was from Loch Lomondside,’ said my uncle, ‘but I couldn’t find the house she was brought up in. She was an orphan, you know. Iain and I went there in the car but we
couldn’t find the house.’ There was a silence.

‘The only person he would ever obey was Mary,’ said one of the widows.

‘Gosh, that’s right,’ said my uncle. And then, it seemed quite irrelevantly, ‘When I came here first we used to teach Gaelic to the Red Indians. Out of the Bible. And
they taught us some Indian, but I’ve forgotten the words now. They spoke Gaelic as you would find it in the Old Testament. Of course some men used to marry squaws and take them home to Lewis.
They would smoke pipes, you know.’

Smith was still staring at him resentfully.

At about one in the morning they all left. The night was mild and the women seemed to float about the garden in their dresses. My uncle filled baskets of cherries for them in the bright
moonlight.

‘That’s the same moon as shines over Lewis,’ he said. ‘The moon of the ripening of the barley.’

They were like ghosts in the yellow light, the golden light. I thought of early prospectors prospecting for gold in the Yukon.

‘You mark my words, you’re wrong about that,’ said my uncle to Smith as he pressed a basket of cherries on him. They all drove off to a chorus of farewells from myself and
Donalda.

After they had gone, I looked up Genesis. Smith was right enough. It doesn’t mention the particular fruit.

At the airport my uncle shook us by the hand briefly and turned away and drove off. I knew why he had done that. I imagined him driving to an empty house. Actually I never saw
him again. He died the following year from an embolism. He dropped dead quickly in one of the bathrooms of a big hospital in Vancouver. He firmly believed that he would meet Mary again when he
died.

The plane rose into the sky. Shadows were lying like sheaves of black corn on the Canadian earth which was not ours. It was still the same mild changeless weather. I hoped he wouldn’t look
up the Bible when he arrived home for he prided himself on his knowledge of it, and it was true that he read it from end to end in the course of a year. Even the tribes he memorised. And in the fly
leaf of the big Bible were the names of his family and ancestors, all those who had passed it on to him.

I recalled the men in red helmets working in front of the house. He would drive in carefully. Then he would back into the garage and take off his glasses and walk into the house. Sometimes one
could see grass snakes at the door sleeping in the sun, and Donalda had been quite frightened of them. One day my uncle had hung one of them round his neck like a necklace. ‘You see,’
he said, ‘it’s quite harmless. Sure. Nothing to fear from them at all.’ At that moment the camera in my mind stopped with that image. The snake was round his throat like a green
necklace, a green innocent Canadian ornament.

The student saw Mac an t-Sronaich crouched by the fire at the far end of the cave.

‘Of course,’ said Mac an t-Sronaich, ‘I am going to kill you.’

The student, who studied divinity and who had been on his way across the moor after a long journey, was frightened. Mac an t-Sronaich was wild-looking, had matted hair and a long nose. There had
been stories of the murders he had committed and so far he had not been caught. He moved from cave to cave on the desolate moor and lived, it was said, partly on human and partly on animal flesh.
After being sentenced for a crime on the mainland he had escaped and had sworn eternal enmity against society. The student trembled. He was tall and strong but looked pale.

‘I am going to kill you,’ said Mac an t-Sronaich, ‘because there is nothing else for it. You’ve seen my cave. You will tell others.’

His red gibbering face glared from the smoke. He piled wood on the fire. He looked like a devil which had once haunted the student’s dreams. God knew how he existed.

‘Also I could do with some of your clothes. My own are in rags.’ And he studied the student carefully.

‘I can’t believe it,’ thought the student, ‘I can’t. I have travelled from Edinburgh, from the divinity college there, and here I am on this moor in the grip of a
madman.’

He knew that Mac an t-Sronaich was a madman, though he talked rationally enough. How could one live like this and not be a madman? He knew that if he tried to run Mac an t-Sronaich would outrun
him, at least the way he felt at the moment. And in any case it had been late evening when he had crossed the landscape of rocks and grass. Mac an t-Sronaich’s eyes would be keener than his:
they would find him in the dark.

Mac an t-Sronaich came and sat beside him, his big hooked nose prominent in his red face. The student recoiled from the smell which had something of fish in it, something of sweat, and something
else unnameable. He looked strong as a bull, his flesh peering from among his rags like a moon through clouds. He wished to talk before he killed him. But then lonely men did wish to talk. The
murderer was starved of conversation as he was often of food.

‘Why should I not kill you?’ said Mac an t-Sronaich. ‘Tell me that.’

The student was paralysed with fear. He couldn’t speak. It was like seeing a cat coming home triumphantly with a mouse between its teeth. Mice lived in such a world and so did cats. When
they were eating they always looked around them in case they too were being stalked. The student had never imagined a world like this. To be killed like a mouse. To face that natural brutality.

‘I see you are well-dressed,’ said Mac an t-Sronaich, as if he were taking part in an ordinary conversation. ‘No one has accused you of a crime and condemned you. Do you know
what it is like to live here? The snow, the rain. The search for food. The traps. I have even eaten wild cat. Did you know that? Have you ever seen a wild cat? It’s a terrible
animal.’

The student couldn’t think of a reason why Mac an t-Sronaich couldn’t kill him if he wanted. Mac an t-Sronaich was studying his flesh as if tasting its sweetness in advance. He had
heard of cases where human bodies were hung up like the carcasses of pigs.

‘The Bible,’ he muttered, trembling.

‘The Bible,’ said Mac an t-Sronaich, snorting contemptuously. And he made a sudden grab for the student’s bag. He removed the sandwiches of bread and cheese and began to wolf
them ravenously. He lived on the edge of the world. Sometimes he might approach a village at night and kill a hen or a cockerel. Once he had even managed to drag a dead sheep away into the
darkness. He was the murderer who lived on the circumference of lights and warmth.

The student could actually foresee Mac an t-Sronaich leaping at him. He could feel his hands on his throat, he could smell his stink. His own body flowed like water. He wished more than anything
to be back in the warm room in the college listening to a lecture. The world of glosses, analysis, seemed far away. His books stood up in front of him. The voice of the lecturer droned like a
bee.

Should he get down on his knees to pray for mercy? Should he plead for his life like a slave? And yet some pride made him not do it. What was the origin of that pride? And what was the origin of
the idea that God had betrayed him? He had followed in His footsteps and now here he was in a smoke-filled cave like hell on the edge of a moor. It was crazy. It was beyond reality, logic. And then
on the other hand he had nothing to bribe Mac an t-Sronaich with, no money. He had spent his last money on his journey home. Even now his parents would be waiting for him - his father was also a
minister - in the halo of the lamp. And here he was in this cave face to face with a madman. The light of the fire made disturbing enigmatic patterns on the walls of the cave. An insane gibberish.
And yet Mac an t-Sronaich sounded so reasonable.

‘Don’t think you can run away,’ said Mac an t-Sronaich. ‘I can run very fast. I’ve had to. You are my prey,’ he said. And when he heard the word
“prey” the student again had a clear image of a cat and a mouse. He felt his whole body naked and vulnerable as if his clothes had been peeled from his skin. For this, he thought, I
have followed the teaching of the Lord, for this I have been peaceable, tried to be without sin, though that is not possible, formed myself in His pattern. I have never drunk alcohol, never smoked.
I have remained a virgin till the time for marriage comes. He saw his father’s head bent over the big Bible inscribed with the names of his own father and mother. He himself sat upright in
his pew gazing up at his father every Sunday. The face was bell-cheeked, red, healthy.

‘I see you’re a student,’ said Mac an t-Sronaich at last. ‘You have books in your bag.’

‘Yes, I am,’ said the student, trying to keep his voice under control. He felt that his teeth were chattering in his head. He was aware of his bones, of his flesh, of the blood
pouring through his body. Indeed the place looked like the product of a man’s fever, monstrous, dreamlike. He pinched himself in the stomach to find if it was a dream or reality. It was more
like a dream that he had once had, a dream of a place from which he could not escape, with a white figure confronting him, smiling. And behind the white figure was his bearded father. For some
reason he was dressed in a butcher’s smock.

Let me die, he thought, let my heart give way. I can feel it beating heavily. But I don’t wish to be killed in the smoke and the dark.

‘I’ve thought about things a lot,’ said Mac an t-Sronaich. Incredibly, he was now smoking a pipe. ‘To kill or be killed, that is the rule of the universe. You can see it
everywhere. Sometimes we kill by the mind, sometimes by the body.’ He puffed out chains of smoke which were lost in the half darkness. ‘You live off me with your nice clothes. At one
time I never thought I would kill anyone. The idea would have been abhorrent to me. But I did. For money and food. On this very moor. It didn’t bother me as much as I had expected. Not at
all. After all, what use was the man to the world: there are so many people alive. What use are you? Does it matter whether you live or die? The victory goes to the strong. That’s what your
Christ didn’t understand. He poisoned the world, made us all into pale-faced women.’ And he spat on to the floor. ‘But I am not a woman. I see the deer in the summer-time fighting
each other, locking antlers, and they die like that, locked together. Men attack each other too. I know you are frightened but you needn’t be. It won’t last long, I promise you. And you
have knowledge, you see, you have knowledge of my cave. I can’t let you go away with that. When I killed that first man he evacuated everything in his body. What a stink! But then when you
look at a dead body it is like a log. It has no light in it. You see I’m on the edge of things here. But I hear things. Sometimes at night I listen at windows to the quarrels between husband
and wife, quarrels to the death. I have seen children who are eaten up with desire of possessions. I have heard businessmen (you find businessmen too in villages) making false deals in the
darkness. I have listened outside these cages. It is as if they are inhabited by animals. That’s where I get my entertainment from. I’ve eaten food in their kitchens while they are in
their beds. I’ve crept in and out of their houses. And I have thought to myself, at least I am more honest than they. Do you understand?’

The student didn’t answer. The murderer puffed at his pipe. It was like being at a ceilidh in a village, two men talking together contentedly. Why, the murderer might suddenly burst into
song.

‘And then again,’ the murderer continued, ‘people marry and when they do so they are no longer what they were. They are frightened. They sit by the fire and wonder what will
happen to them when their partner dies. But I have outfaced a wild cat. Have you seen a wild cat?’ The words poured from him in a torrent: his red cheeks glowed in the twilight. ‘A
cornered wild cat. And all I had was my bare hands.’ He pointed at scars on the right one. ‘I killed it as it was standing on end and its teeth were bared. That was an adventure. When
people marry they no longer have adventures. There are the children at first and they have to be protected, and when the children leave there is the fear of loneliness. Have you ever thought that
all we do is based on fear? I fear no one. Not even death itself. I’ve often been close to death here with fever and cold. I’ve seen a rabbit in the mouth of a weasel, which is thin as
a string. I’m not afraid of death. Don’t you be afraid of death either,’ he said, almost gently.

His voice seemed to lull the student. And he thought, Why should I die? This is injustice. I didn’t harm this man. Never. And he felt again the unfairness of the universe. And perhaps it
was then that he forsook his God. In that smoke-filled cave his eyes were stung.

But the implacable Mac an t-Sronaich talked on. It was as if he hadn’t seen a human being for twenty years. He was like Robinson Crusoe who has found a ship with a sailor on it.