Chapter Eleven
Thus began and ended Janet’s social life, apart from a brief excursion on Hogmanay, when at Vera’s insistence Hector took Janet and Francis first-footing. They were to visit a widower who lived in the nearest coastal village. “He’s always been so kind to us, and taken such an interest in the children, and with his wife dead only two months ago he’ll be dreadfully lonely. I doubt if he knows many people around there. They never went out.” It was thrilling to step out of doors just after midnight into the first new day of a new year. The stars were brilliant, the heavens luminous and expectant. They paused on the way to watch the northern lights. Their eerie flickering was a portent. All will be well and all manner of things will be well.
They parked near the church and walked down the narrow street to Mr. Neville’s cottage by the breakwater. Their footsteps echoed in the frosty air. Old people came hopefully to their doors as they passed, and retreated in disappointment. Through lighted windows Janet glimpsed tables laid out with black buns and trays of glasses and whisky, and anxious faces peering out into the darkness. She could not bear it. Where were the heartless young? She clenched her hands and prayed with all her might that each house would have at least one visitor, one traveller bearing memories of love and loyalty and the irredeemable unquenchable past.
Clutching their pieces of coal, they knocked on Mr. Neville’s door. It was whisked open. Hector stepped carefully, left foot first, over the threshold. A genial hubbub greeted them. The lonely widower was not alone. Holding on to the wall with one hand, he came to greet them, lurching and weaving but none the less dignified. Hector set his coal carefully on the fire and joined the throng around the table. Francis followed him. Janet stood still, overwhelmed with shyness. She did not know what to do. The moon spread a dazzle of silver on the sea; she wanted to go to the window and watch it but she dared not move. She was still holding her piece of coal; she could not put it on the fire. Someone thrust a glass of whisky into her hand and before she could say “No, thank you” moved on. The little room was very hot and full of noisy people. Slowly and carefully, trying to make no sound, she put down her glass and her coal and took off her heavy coat. Then she picked up the coal again, and the glass also, so as not to seem rude or ungrateful. She prayed to the moon that someone might come and talk to her, release her from this tranced immobility. The moon gave her a leery look and sidled behind a cloud. A moment or two later it relented and reappeared; but Janet thought its expression malign. Perhaps she was mistaken, for here was a man standing at her elbow with every sign of convivial goodwill. “I know you,” he was saying. “I met you long ago, when your family lived at the manse. You were just a wee thing then; you won’t remember. Your grandfather was always very good to me.” He gulped his whisky. Janet smiled encouragingly; she was still speechless, but she was beginning to feel less estranged. “Aye,” he said, “a long time past. And now you’re grown up.” He stared at her from unfocused eyes. “Indeed so. Quite the young lady.” Suddenly he was pinching her left bosom with a hand which had no fingers, only a row of wizened purple stumps. As suddenly, his hand dropped, he turned on his heel and walked away. Janet stood there. Again, she did not know what to do. Nothing she had read, nothing she had been taught, nothing in her life had prepared her for this. If she kept very still perhaps it would turn out that it had not happened; or perhaps she would cease to exist. She stood motionless, but her offending bosom rose and fell. She must not breathe. She held her breath. Now she was truly motionless. She fainted.
March was mild that year, and the snow melted earlier than anyone could remember. The gentlest of winds stirred the wild cherry blossom against a soft blue sky. Daffodils and snowdrops bloomed together. Janet’s jackdaw was behaving strangely. He would climb into her pocket and peer up at her, twisting his head in a beckoning manner, his eye bright with meaning. She became worried and searched for a jackdaw book. In Konrad Lorenz’s wonderful King Solomon’s Ring she found the explanation. He wished to lure her into her pocket, and there they would build a nest together. He had chosen her as his mate, his true and everlasting love, for jackdaws are monogamous. How strange that the creature who offered her all this should be a bird. How strange for him that she should be a human. What a merry little joke for the gods. She felt honoured and glorified, but she was glad when summer began and the nesting season was over. One day as Claws paced along the roof of 8, Belitha Villas, he spoke. “Never mind,” he said. Janet was overjoyed; but surely he meant to say “Nevermore.” “Nevermore, Claws,” she said. “Nevermore.” “Never mind,” he repeated, and this time he sounded like Francis.
“I thought it was a more useful expression,” said Francis. “But I’ve been teaching him to say ‘Nevermore’ for almost a year.” “Well, I’ve been teaching him to say ‘Never mind’ for about three weeks. I think we may draw certain conclusions about our respective teaching methods. I also think that Poe’s poem would have been a lot more fun if the Raven said ‘Never mind’ and I shall be emending any copies which come my way.” Janet glanced anxiously at her guano-encrusted bookcase. “Don’t worry. I’ve sorted yours out already.”
Janet’s last summer term at St. Uncumba’s passed swiftly, as examination terms always do. She completed her A levels and attempted maths O level for the fifth time. There was a total eclipse of the sun on the day the A levels ended. The girls believed it was a cosmic confirmation of their new adult lives; they sat out on the grass in the ghostly light and vowed that come what may they would meet together in seventeen years’ time, when the next total eclipse was due. There followed a period of elegiac lazing; the blue skies and the blue sea shimmered with the poignancy of farewell. The staff invited girls to tea, plied them with cakes, and revealed themselves as warm, witty human beings. Everyone suddenly liked everyone else. Cynthia and Janet, buoyed by the happy knowledge that they need never speak to each other again, wept and embraced at the prospect of their separation.
Just before the end of term Miss Wilson, who taught Latin, took Janet to a classical-verse-speaking competition at Glasgow University. Janet recited the passage from the Georgics which described Orpheus’ final loss of Eurydice. She was nervous beforehand and shook uncontrollably when she was on the stage. She spoke her lines overemphatically so that they seemed to be a harangue rather than a lamentation. Her teeth chattered in the pauses. Mortified, she sat with bowed head beside kind, comforting Miss Wilson and listened to the other speakers, many of whom were even worse than she. People sniffed and coughed and shuffled. There were too many entries. The air grew heavy with apathy. Janet longed for tea. Then suddenly there was absolute silence; the atmosphere was electric. Janet sat bolt upright, her spine tingling, her heart leaping. A boy was speaking Greek, Hector’s farewell to Andromache. Mournful and tender, cruel and foreboding, beyond all else noble, the beautiful voice rose finally to the tolling invocation of the gods and died away. People jumped to their feet, applauding wildly. Janet still sat, transfixed, staring at the boy’s dark face. She had fallen in love.
It is said that those who are visited by a vision are not to be envied, for they are thereafter haunted. So it was with Janet. She learned the passage of Homer by heart and nightly repeated it to herself, trying to conjure up the boy’s voice. She knew his name, for of course he had won the competition. She discovered that he had a cousin in her year at St. Uncumba’s. In the genial atmosphere of the end of term she persuaded this cousin to give her a photograph of him. She also found out his address and wrote to him — a simple, objective sort of letter expressing her admiration for his recitation and her hope that one day they might meet to discuss classical matters. He did not reply.