Growing Up In The West. John Muir

he got to his feet to walk out of the room, all his gloom fell back upon him again. For he was feeling damned unsteady on his pins today, far worse than he could remember ever having felt before; no use trying to hide the fact. Mansie was sitting beside the window. Whatever was Tom up to? Why was he doing that with his legs? Pretending to be drunk, or what? And a purely automatic smile appeared on Mansie’s face; it was so dashed funny, the way Tom made one leg waggle while the other was quite steady! Mansie came to himself: Why, the fellow was far worse than yesterday! And he was about to get to his feet when suddenly Tom turned to Mrs Manson and said: ‘He’s sitting there laughing at me! And I can hardly walk!’ Mansie started from his chair as though it were a place of shame:

      ‘No, no, Tom, I wasn’t laughing! I swear to God I wasn’t.’

      ‘You were. I saw you,’ said Tom sternly. Then, as if that question were settled, he went on: ‘Lend a hand here. I need to go to the water-closet.’

      Mansie put his hand under Tom’s left elbow and helped him across the lobby. Tom’s body felt curiously soft and jointless. They pushed their way clumsily through the narrow door of the water-closet, their feet making a loud scuffling noise on the linoleum. Mansie turned to go. ‘Stop here,’ said Tom, like a master speaking to a servant. Mansie stood leaning against the wall of the narrow little room with his eyes on the floor.

      But when Tom turned round presently Mansie was surprised to see his face all blubbered with tears.

      ‘I’ve wasted my whole life, Mansie,’ he said, and it was as if he had decoyed Mansie here by a childish stratagem for this confession. ‘I’ve made a complete mess of it. And now I’m done for.’ His red unshaven chin quivered like an old woman’s, and with trembling hands he tried to fasten the buttons on the front of his trousers, but then let his arms fall helplessly by his side. Mansie looked over his shoulder at the backs of the houses opposite. He kept his eyes fixed out there, so that some part of him at least might be out of this cell where he was standing with his brother. He answered in a deliberately careless voice: ‘No, no, Tom, that’s all nonsense.’

      But Tom went on steadily as though he were preparing for a long and serious talk, during which even the buttoning of his trousers could wait; though that omission evidently troubled him, for his hands kept wandering to his buttons, but without closing with them. Perhaps what had started him was simply a confused sense that this room was the one in the house best suited for heart to heart masculine confession, for talking freely without any risk of being interrupted by the women; perhaps a vague memory of maudlin confidences to tipsy friends in the privacy of public-house urinals had risen without his knowledge to his mind. At any rate he went on: ‘It’s the God’s truth, Mansie. I know what I’m talking about. I might have gone to the Colonies and made good long ago. Might have had a wife and kids by this time. A home of my own. God, what a mess I’ve made of my life. And now—’ But there, when he seemed to be well set, he broke off with a sob and tried again to fasten the buttons of his trousers, but once more helplessly let his arms fall.

      Unendurable pity rose up in Mansie. ‘Here, Tom,’ he said, and he bent down hastily and fastened the buttons. Then he put his arm under Tom’s; ‘And don’t say you’re done for! Remember we’re going to the specialist on Friday. Dash it, it isn’t your fault that you’re ill! You’ll be all right again soon.’

      Tom dried his tears, and they returned to the kitchen.

      But now Mansie had to hurry away to keep his appointment with Helen. And such a mechanical thing is habit that he did so almost as though he were going to an ordinary assignation. But as he sat in the tramcar, suddenly he felt that something extraordinary must happen. As if that confession in the water-closet, that prison confession, had united him to Tom as they had never been united before, he felt in his own body that Tom was dying, felt death in his own flesh, and it was almost with a dying man’s eyes that he saw Helen now. What did she matter? Tom was a complete wreck; helpless as a child. His younger brother. And she had flung his hair into the sea, and he, Mansie Manson, had looked on and said nothing. What could have come over him? What could have made him do a thing like that? Worse even than smiling at Tom’s helplessness. How could he have done that either? He hadn’t meant to, but how could even his face have smiled? Couldn’t trust even yourself, it seemed. A terrible position for a fellow to have got into between that girl and his brother. Oh well, everything was smashed up now. Tom was dying, and if he died he would be between them all the rest of their lives. Mansie’s heart contracted and seemed to grow very small. They would have to give each other up, never see each other again. It seemed a fortuitous thought, and it was with astonishment that he suddenly saw: that was really how things stood! Oh, why was Tom dying on them like this? But the cry seemed to be dead before it rose; it was a purely hypothetical cry, enveloped in layer after layer of impotence like the struggles of a patient under an anaesthetic. He felt wooden and stupid. What was the use of feeling when everything was smashed to pieces?

      Helen was waiting for him at Eglinton Toll. At the sight of his pale face she hurried forward anxiously and asked: ‘What’s wrong, Mansie? Are you ill?’ He saw the mouth and eyes he had kissed so often and they seemed so natural, so intimate, so inevitable, like a permanent part of his world, that his limbs lost their woodenness, he became again the Mansie who had stepped on to this pavement so often before and looked at that mouth and those eyes, and there seemed no reason why he and Helen should not have their walk as if this were any other evening, no reason why they should not simply go on having their walks indefinitely. But then she asked in the expressionless tone into which she fell whenever she spoke of Tom: ‘Has he had another attack?’ And Mansie’s limbs became wooden again, and he said woodenly: ‘Yes.’ Then he added: ‘I must go back to him at once.’ He had not intended to say this, and he was a little scared at his own words; but suddenly it was all unbearable: the tram ride to Maxwell Park, and the weary walk with Helen through the dark or lamp-lit roads. No, he couldn’t talk about Tom to her if she was to speak in that terrible voice. He would write.

      ‘If he’s ill,’ said Helen, still in the same voice, looking away, ‘of course you must go back to him.’

      Oh, why couldn’t she call him Tom for once! He was his brother, after all!

      ‘I’ll write,’ he said. Then he was silent again. There seemed nothing to say. But then, as if he were remembering a piece of news that he had overlooked, he went on: ‘He’s to see a specialist on Friday.’ Now there was nothing at all left to say, so he said: ‘I think he’s dying.’

      ‘No, no, Mansie, you can’t mean that!’ she cried as though he had tried to wound her.

      ‘I’m almost certain of it,’ he said stubbornly. Was it his fault if Tom was dying?

      ‘But I never thought – I never thought—’ her words died, she looked at him as if for help, and then glanced away.

      People and cars were passing. What was the use of standing here? And to put an end to the unbearable silence he said: ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen after this. I’ll write,’ and without his being able to help it there was a threat now in the words. His heart, as he stood there, seemed to be hardening by a perfectly arbitrary process over which he had no control; he could do nothing but stand and let it grow harder and harder. It seemed a pity for her, certainly; he felt sorry for her, but he could find nothing to say. No use.

      ‘Good night,’ he said. He took her hand, which was cold and nerveless, and let it fall again. It seemed a wanton act of cruelty – his hand was so hard, and hers so soft and defenceless. Well, he hadn’t meant to hurt her. He said again: ‘I’ll write,’ raised his hat and turned away and left her standing at the corner.

      That was over. He felt very tired. He might as well go home.

      TWENTY-ONE

      THEY DESCENDED THE steps before the hospital and walked along the red gravel path towards the cab that was waiting for them. Presently Tom asked without lifting his eyes: ‘What did he say?’

      The specialist’s words were running in Mansie’s head: ‘I can do nothing. It may be a matter of months, possibly of weeks.’ Mansie cleared his throat: ‘He says