The Cone-Gatherers. Robin Jenkins

old man grinned at him.

      ‘Thought I recognised your stalwart figure, Duror,’ he chuckled. ‘You’re not frightened, though, strolling along like that in the dark. Country folk these days ought to be supplied with luminous behinds. Been out on the prowl for poachers?’

      ‘Yes, doctor.’

      The doctor smacked his lips. ‘Damned if I blame them,’ he said, ‘with meat as scarce as it is. You know I’m partial to a tender haunch of venison myself. Get in. I’ll take you as far as the gate.’

      Duror hesitated: he was in no mood to suffer the doctor’s inquisitive inanities.

      ‘Put your gun at the back. Hope it’s not loaded. I hate the things. If you’d your dogs with you, damned if I would have stopped. Can’t abide the brutes in a car. My wife used to have one, a brown spaniel; it would keep licking the back of my neck. She said it was only showing its affection. Queer affection, eh, to tickle me into the front of a bus. Get in, man. What are you waiting for?’

      Duror climbed in, placing his gun beside the doctor’s bag on the back seat.

      Soon they were moving on again.

      ‘Is Black still at Laggan?’ asked the doctor.

      ‘Aye.’

      Black was the estate forester. He had been loaned by his mistress to the Timber Control Authorities, who were felling a wood at Laggan. He had had to accept the transfer as a national service. In the spring he would return to superintend the cutting down of his own wood.

      The doctor was smiling slyly.

      ‘So you’re the monarch of the woods?’ he asked.

      Duror said nothing.

      ‘A nice fellow, Tom Black,’ said the doctor, ‘but a shade too severe and upright for comfortable Christian intercourse. I understand he believes that every leaf that falls belongs to his master.’

      ‘So it does.’

      ‘In theory, certainly. But you and I know, as men of the world, that a wide breathing-space must be allowed between theory and practice; otherwise ordinary mortals like us would be suffocated.’

      Duror made no comment.

      ‘Shoot any deer these days?’

      ‘Now and again.’

      The doctor, sniffing hard, was not only in fancy relishing venison; he was also indicating that, in Black’s absence, deer might safely be killed and shared with a friend.

      ‘Wolf it all up at the big house, I suppose?’

      ‘Most of it goes to hospitals.’

      The doctor was surprised; he was even shocked; he whistled. ‘Is that so? Take care of the sick, and let the healthy pine.’ Uneasiness entered his laughter as Duror glanced at him. ‘A joke, Duror,’ he added, ‘clean against all professional ethics. But all the same it is damned scun-nersome, spam, spam, spam, at every meal. One of the pleasures I thought I could look forward to in my old age was that of the palate. They tell me even as a baby in my pram I chose the choicest cherry. Why not? Fine eating’s a civilised pastime, and fine drinking too, of course. God, how scarce good whisky’s become. It’s not to be had for love nor money.’

      ‘I’d have thought a man in your position, doctor, would have a better chance than most any folk.’

      ‘Meaning what?’ The doctor was involuntarily peevish: the quest for whisky and palatable food was real, bitter, and ceaseless.

      ‘Well, you carry life and death in your bag.’

      ‘Ho,’ grunted the old man.

      ‘And you attend butchers and grocers and farmers and publicans.’

      ‘Are you insinuating I use my professional position to extort favours from my patients?’

      Duror smiled at that haughty senile indignation.

      The doctor saw that indignation was a foolish tactic. He began to cackle.

      ‘Damn your impudence, Duror,’ he said. ‘You’re a sleekit one all right. You don’t say much, but you think plenty. Well, however I fare in other directions, and I’m admitting nothing, I never see any venison. I’ve seen it on the hoof all right racing across the hillsides, but it’s a hell of a long time since I smelled it on my plate. How’s Peggy keeping these days?’

      It was an astute question. Peggy was Duror’s wife: for the past twenty years she had lain in bed and grown monstrously obese; her legs were paralysed.

      Duror’s voice was as stripped of emotion as a winter tree.

      ‘As well as can be expected,’ he said.

      ‘Like myself, still eating more than’s good for her, I suppose? Well, God help us, we’ve to take our pleasures where we can; and skimpy pleasures they are today. Your Peggy’s had a raw deal from life, Duror.’

      ‘Aye.’

      The doctor, with professional interest, glanced aside at the lean, smooth, handsome, tight-lipped face. For all its composure he suspected a sort of fanaticism lurking in it. God knew how many inhibitions, repressions, and complexes were twisting and coiling there, like the snakes of damnation. God ought to know, for the human mind and its vicissitudes were more His business than a country doctor’s. Physically Duror was as strong as a bear: a fastidious man too, not any whore would suffice. Well, there used in the palmy days before the war to be a fine selection of maids to choose from in the big house. There were few now: Mars had claimed his nymphs, and paid them well.

      ‘And Mrs Lochie?’

      ‘She never complains.’

      The doctor was surprised by a sudden pang of pity for his companion. In that conventional answer was concealed the kind of stoicism and irony that he admired. Mrs Lochie was Duror’s mother-in-law, who kept house for him and nursed his wife. Behind his back she slandered him to everybody, even, it was said, to passing pedlars. What she said to his face in private could be conjectured. Yes, thought the doctor, poor Duror for all his pretence of self-possession and invulnerability had been fighting his own war for years: there must be deep wounds, though they did not show; and there could not be victory.

      Unaccountably the doctor laughed: annoyed with himself, he had to lie.

      ‘Excuse me, Duror,’ he said. ‘Something old Maggie McHugh of Fernbrae said. I’ve just been having a look at old Rab’s leg; he broke it three weeks ago taking a kick at a thrawn cow. She’s a coarse old tinker, yon one, but refreshing. Anyway, I find her refreshing. What she was for doing to Hitler.’ He laughed again. ‘Well, here we are at the manorial gates.’

      He stopped the car, and Duror, picking up his gun, got out.

      ‘Thanks, doctor,’ he said, touching his cap.

      ‘Don’t mention it. This a Home Guard night?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Well, if you should happen to shoot any deer, be sure to tell it I was asking for it.’

      ‘I’ll do that, doctor.’

      ‘And, Duror –’ The doctor, wishing out of compassion and duty to say something helpful and comforting, found there was nothing he could think of.

      Duror waited.

      ‘We’ve just got to make the best of things, Duror. I know that’s a bloody trite thing to say, and not much help. Good night.’

      ‘Good night, doctor,’ replied Duror, smiling, ‘and thanks again for the lift.’

      As he watched the car move away his smile faded: a profound bleakness took its place.

      ‘Greedy old pig,’ he murmured. ‘So it’s only venison you lack?’

      At his usual easy assured