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Authors: Iain Crichton Smith
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really mind, for though their minds lacked the penetration of those of boys—a certain ruthlessness—they compensated by a sensitivity that boys didn’t have. They found
King Lear
not very interesting, which surprised him, but at least they had things to say about the king whom they considered little more than idiotic: nor did they condemn Goneril and Regan as much as he thought they might have done. No, there was no law inscribed on eternal tablets, which stated that one must look after the old, no matter what the latter were like. It all depended really on the individual old person. Certainly the bleak majesty of
King Lear
was very unlike the passive appeal of his own mother, and certainly the transformations and murders and wars belonged to a much earlier more barbaric world, but wasn’t the principle timeless? No, they repeated, there existed no timeless decree by which we could all set our compass, no eternal moral north. And as he looked at them—young, pretty, earnest—he sometimes wondered what would happen to them, which ones would be stranded by the storms of life, and eventually live on the scraps of charity distributed by a family busy with their own concerns.
Even in the school itself he saw reflections of his own predicament. For instance there was a lady teacher who always brought her frail tottering ninety-year-old mother to all the school functions, looked after her with great affection, and in fact devoted her life to her, so that though she remained unmarried, she, in apparent joy, kept alive that old bundle of bones, but perhaps only so that she herself wouldn’t be left alone. It was all very complicated.
Why should Vera object so strongly to that Irish woman? After all, she was an ordinary human being like his own mother.
6
O NE S UNDAY MORNING Tom made a momentous decision. Casting his Sunday papers aside he announced that not only would he take his mother to church but he would also attend the service with her. Vera who had been standing at the cooker turned and looked at him in amazement as if she had been struck to the heart. Because his mother was already waiting to go, gloved and coated, and carrying her bible in her hand, Vera didn’t say anything but he felt that he had somehow wounded her deeply, and for the moment the pathos that surrounded his mother transferred itself to his wife. Then Vera had turned away and continued with her cooking in silence, and he had simply said that they would be back at half past twelve.
“I shall expect you then,” said Vera in an almost muffled voice. At that moment she looked so defenceless and hurt that he nearly went up to her and kissed her but her back, so eloquent of disapproval, discouraged him. He left the
Observer
and the
Sunday Times
as a peace offering for her, unopened, unread. At least, he thought, she should realise what an effort he was making, in going against his own principles in the service of another human being. She should surely thank him for taking his mother off her hands for a whole morning. Surely that should weigh in her judgment. His mother was waiting, trying not to look pleased, as if she had sensed Vera’s disapproval: but he could tell nevertheless that his decision had made her happy. What am I to do, he thought. I’m trying to be fair to both. It’s all very difficult. Human relationships are really impossible. One tug here and there’s an open wound there.
“Wouldn’t you like to come yourself?” he asked Vera.
“No, you go,” she said, in the same remote muffled voice. “I’ll have to do the cooking. You go. I don’t really want to go.”
And so they left. When they had gone Vera looked down dully at the spoon in her hand. What was she expected to do? Was she not doing her best? And now Tom was betraying his own true self by going to church. As she stood there she remembered her mother, flamboyant and theatrical, setting off to her church in Edinburgh, pulling on her red gloves in a flurry of
King Lear
not very interesting, which surprised him, but at least they had things to say about the king whom they considered little more than idiotic: nor did they condemn Goneril and Regan as much as he thought they might have done. No, there was no law inscribed on eternal tablets, which stated that one must look after the old, no matter what the latter were like. It all depended really on the individual old person. Certainly the bleak majesty of
King Lear
was very unlike the passive appeal of his own mother, and certainly the transformations and murders and wars belonged to a much earlier more barbaric world, but wasn’t the principle timeless? No, they repeated, there existed no timeless decree by which we could all set our compass, no eternal moral north. And as he looked at them—young, pretty, earnest—he sometimes wondered what would happen to them, which ones would be stranded by the storms of life, and eventually live on the scraps of charity distributed by a family busy with their own concerns.
Even in the school itself he saw reflections of his own predicament. For instance there was a lady teacher who always brought her frail tottering ninety-year-old mother to all the school functions, looked after her with great affection, and in fact devoted her life to her, so that though she remained unmarried, she, in apparent joy, kept alive that old bundle of bones, but perhaps only so that she herself wouldn’t be left alone. It was all very complicated.
Why should Vera object so strongly to that Irish woman? After all, she was an ordinary human being like his own mother.
6
O NE S UNDAY MORNING Tom made a momentous decision. Casting his Sunday papers aside he announced that not only would he take his mother to church but he would also attend the service with her. Vera who had been standing at the cooker turned and looked at him in amazement as if she had been struck to the heart. Because his mother was already waiting to go, gloved and coated, and carrying her bible in her hand, Vera didn’t say anything but he felt that he had somehow wounded her deeply, and for the moment the pathos that surrounded his mother transferred itself to his wife. Then Vera had turned away and continued with her cooking in silence, and he had simply said that they would be back at half past twelve.
“I shall expect you then,” said Vera in an almost muffled voice. At that moment she looked so defenceless and hurt that he nearly went up to her and kissed her but her back, so eloquent of disapproval, discouraged him. He left the
Observer
and the
Sunday Times
as a peace offering for her, unopened, unread. At least, he thought, she should realise what an effort he was making, in going against his own principles in the service of another human being. She should surely thank him for taking his mother off her hands for a whole morning. Surely that should weigh in her judgment. His mother was waiting, trying not to look pleased, as if she had sensed Vera’s disapproval: but he could tell nevertheless that his decision had made her happy. What am I to do, he thought. I’m trying to be fair to both. It’s all very difficult. Human relationships are really impossible. One tug here and there’s an open wound there.
“Wouldn’t you like to come yourself?” he asked Vera.
“No, you go,” she said, in the same remote muffled voice. “I’ll have to do the cooking. You go. I don’t really want to go.”
And so they left. When they had gone Vera looked down dully at the spoon in her hand. What was she expected to do? Was she not doing her best? And now Tom was betraying his own true self by going to church. As she stood there she remembered her mother, flamboyant and theatrical, setting off to her church in Edinburgh, pulling on her red gloves in a flurry of
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