Childish Things. Robin Jenkins

that?

      ‘As for the fucking side, we’re both long past it.’

      In the turmoil of emotions aroused in me, resentment surged to the top. How dare she imply that I was a eunuch, libbed by age?

      ‘What about it, Gregor?’

      ‘You’ve taken my breath away, Susan.’

      ‘Imagine, outside the window, not the dreich wintry Firth, but the South Atlantic. Sunshine. Blue skies. Flying fish. Tomorrow Cape Town. No whimpers, please, about oppressed blacks.’

      ‘Not even a sigh or two of righteous indignation?’

      She laughed. ‘All right. A sigh or two. It wouldn’t be you, Gregor, if you weren’t allowed a dollop of humbug.’

      Chrissie had called me a fraud. What they all meant, without knowing it, was that, having been born into the most dishonest, the most hypocritical century in the history of mankind, I had had to cultivate enough guile to preserve my self-respect.

      ‘We haven’t a great deal of time left, Gregor. Let’s enjoy it together. I’m sure Kate wouldn’t mind. She wasn’t one to let death have the last word.’

      Surely, if death had anything, it had the last word? But would Kate mind, wherever she was? She had always been wary of Susan.

      ‘What would your children say, Susan?’

      She had two sons and a daughter, all married. She was a grandmother several times over. In fact she was a great-grandmother.

      ‘It wouldn’t matter a damn what they said. Would you let your daughters stand in your way?’

      I had already made it clear to Jean that I wouldn’t.

      ‘We wouldn’t get married. No need for such nonsense. When we come back, you’d go on living in your place, I’d go on living here; but we’d meet more often.’

      I would have dearly liked to live in her house. I coveted it. It had been built more than 100 years ago by a wealthy Glasgow merchant, and no expense had been spared, including the employment of an architect who had loved beautiful things. Everything in the house was a pleasure to see and use. Even the door knobs were things of beauty, made of porcelain with coloured pictures of elegant ladies and gentlemen in 18th-century dress. The woodwork was mahogany, the ceilings high and splendidly corniced. The staircase was palatial. In the three bathrooms, the lavatory pans were adorned with paintings of flowers. Hence, they were known as the rose lavatory, the daffodil lavatory, and the thistle lavatory, respectively.

      It wasn’t I, Gregor McLeod, retired headmaster, who had a great longing to live in that magnificent house. It was the small boy I had been, more than 60 years ago.

      ‘On this cruise, Susan,’ I said, ‘would there be one or two cabins?’

      She laughed. ‘One would be a lot cheaper.’

      Yes, but a lot less private. Being shut up with Susan would have its travails. Flying fish seen through the porthole would be small compensation.

      ‘Well, Gregor, what do you say?’

      ‘Would you mind, Susan, if I took a little time to think it over? I could give you my answer from California.’

      ‘Please yourself. I won’t see you again before you leave. I’m off to Perth tomorrow to spend a few days with my daughter Elizabeth.’

      She gave me her cheek to kiss and then she telephoned for a taxi for me. I was too drunk to walk, she said.

      She didn’t wait for the taxi to come but excused herself and went up the grand staircase to bed.

      I was much relieved that I wasn’t going up with her.

      The taxi-driver, it turned out, had once been a pupil of mine. He helped me into the taxi.

      ‘Remember, Mr McLeod,’ he said cheerfully, ‘every Friday morning you used to give the whole school a lecture on the evils of strong drink.’

       8

      I was to fly off from Prestwick Airport on Saturday morning. On Thursday evening, I had a telephone call from Millie Tulloch. I hardly recognised her voice: it was still a little girl’s, but not as before an ill-done-to self-pitying little girl; on the contrary, a haughty sly little girl. Pathos had suited her, haughtiness and slyness did not.

      ‘Good evening, Gregor. Have you heard? About me and Tulloch? Of course you have. You were all discussing me at Susan’s, weren’t you?’

      Her friend Morag McVey must have told her.

      ‘We were all sympathising with you, Millie.’

      ‘You needn’t have bothered. I don’t need anyone’s sympathy. Except yours, Gregor. Yes, definitely, you’re excepted.’

      She giggled. It wasn’t, though, like all her previous giggles, nervous and silly. This giggle had ominous purpose in it. What was that purpose?

      ‘So you’re off on Saturday?’

      ‘Yes, Millie.’

      ‘I hope you weren’t sneaking off without saying goodbye?’

      ‘Certainly not. I was just about to ring you when you rang me.’

      ‘It’s not the same, is it, talking on the telephone? I want you to come here and talk to me. I’ve got something very important to say to you.’

      I was wary. ‘I’ve not got much time left, Millie.’

      ‘You’ve got tonight. I want you to come now.’

      All I could think to say was ‘But it’s pouring rain.’

      ‘Are you trying to insult me, Gregor? But I know it’s not the rain you’re afraid of. It’s Tulloch, isn’t it? Well, you needn’t be. He’s not here. He’ll never be here again.’

      ‘So it’s finished between you and him?’

      ‘Absolutely finished. I’m getting a divorce as soon as I can.’

      ‘How long have you been married, Millie?’

      ‘Thirty-four years.’

      ‘Isn’t it sad when a marriage of that length of time ends so miserably?’

      ‘What’s miserable about it? It’s not a bit sad. I’ll expect you in half an hour. Have you eaten?’

      ‘No.’

      I should have lied and said yes. Millie was not a good cook.

      ‘Good. Then you can eat with me.’

      Half an hour later, with rain slotting on my umbrella, as I was walking along the avenue to Millie’s, I made a discovery. The prospect of being alone with her and so seeing at long last that delicious rump, perhaps in naked pulchritude, did not delight me. I was like a child who, having longed for a toy in a shop window, found, when it was in his hands, that much of its magic had disappeared.

      The alacrity with which the door opened alarmed me. She seized my arm and dragged me in. This was not the timid little Millie I had known; this was a rapacious little Millie that I had never seen before. She was wearing a pink jumper and skin-tight pants that were yellow with black stripes: imitation ocelot, she was to tell me later.

      To show her an example of calmness, I shook my umbrella, folded it, and placed it in the stand. Then I took off hat and raincoat and hung them up.

      Impatiently she grabbed my hand. ‘We’ll go through to the kitchen, Gregor. It’s cosier there.’

      In the kitchen, a most untidy place, there was an unpleasant smell. It came from a pot on the cooker.

      ‘What are you cooking, Millie?’ I asked.

      ‘Goulash. I’m good at goulash.’