for Tom had been having a great many headaches lately. But when Tom began to rock his head from side to side, still holding it tightly clenched in his hands, and emitting a long quivering sigh that ended in a loud groan, Mansie became alarmed; he laid down the paper on the table and half raised himself from his chair. Should he speak to the fellow? This looked serious! Why had his mother and Jean gone out this evening of all evenings? Perhaps he should really speak to him? For Tom’s rocking had grown faster now, it went on and on as if he couldn’t stop, as if he actually didn’t know what he was doing. And Mansie was on the very point of opening his mouth – this couldn’t go on! – when Tom turned an unrecognisable face to him, a bloodshot face over which some dreadful change had come, so that it looked like somebody else’s, and gasped: ‘Get a doctor, for God’s sake!’
‘I’ll get one at once!’ Mansie burst out, almost taking the words out of Tom’s mouth. He should have spoken before! ‘I’ll get one at once … What’s the matter? … Wouldn’t you feel better lying down?’
‘No, no!’ groaned Tom, and as if speech had released something he beat his head against the wall and burst out: ‘I don’t know what it can be! I don’t know what it can be!’ He turned a blind face to Mansie, and Mansie saw with terror that in his wide open eyes the eyeballs were rolling round and round like wheels that had flown off their axles.
‘Don’t do that, Tom!’ he cried. Good God, what could it be? ‘Let me help you across to the bed.’ He put his arms under Tom’s armpits, pulled him up, stumbled with him over to the bed and carefully lowered him, laying his head on the pillow. He looked back before he rushed out; Tom was lying still.
At the second attempt he found a young doctor who was willing to accompany him. When they entered the kitchen Mrs Manson and Jean were standing by the bed still wearing their hats and coats.
‘What has happened, Mansie?’ said Mrs Manson. Her face was white and she looked at him reproachfully. The doctor went forward to the bed. Mansie told what had happened, and involuntarily added: ‘I don’t know what it can be.’ It sounded almost like an exculpation, but for what?
While she was listening Mrs Manson kept her eyes fixed on the doctor. The doctor was bent over Tom as if engaged on some secret and sinister task, bent so low that they could not see what he was doing, could see nothing but Tom’s crumpled blue trousers and grey stockinged feet.
At last the doctor straightened himself and turned round.
‘I think I can give him a powder that will ease the pain,’ he said, and he turned to Mansie: ‘You’d better come back with me for it.’
‘What is it, doctor?’ asked Mrs Manson.
‘To be honest, Mrs Manson, I can’t say yet. I’ll have to give him a second examination tomorrow. No need for worry meantime. The powder will put him to sleep.’ And the doctor made resolutely for the door.
Outside he turned to Mansie. ‘I’ll tell you what I would like,’ he began in quite a different tone. ‘I would like your brother to go into the Western Infirmary for observation for a week or two.’
Mansie’s heart sank. The infirmary! Could it be as bad as that?
‘Will you try to persuade your mother that it’s the best thing to do? He’ll be well looked after and quite comfortable.’
Mansie promised with a sinking heart. After a pause the doctor asked: ‘What sort of life has your brother led?’
A queer question to ask a fellow! Mansie replied: ‘He’s an engineer by trade.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant. I’ve a definite reason for asking, and you can help me by being perfectly frank. Did he go about with women a lot?’
Mansie’s face grew red. He looked at the people passing as though he were afraid they had heard.
‘No. He had a girl once, but they haven’t been keeping company for some time now.’ Why had he said that? A stupid thing to say!
But the doctor still persisted. What was he getting at? ‘Can you tell me whether he ever went with – er – loose women?’ then as if taking a plunge, ‘with prostitutes?’
‘My brother would never do such a thing!’ Mansie burst out. These doctors! Bad as the nurses, the way they spoke about things. But he felt relieved; if the doctor connected Tom’s headache with that he was quite off the track.
There was silence again, and then the doctor asked, as if casually; ‘I noticed a slight scar on his head. How was that caused?’
As if it had been waiting for this question Mansie’s heart stopped. If it should turn out to be that fall from the tramcar this might be serious, by gum! He told the doctor what had happened. But the doctor merely said: ‘Well, all that I can do at present is to give him a powder. But make it clear to your mother that he should go into hospital for observation.’
When Mansie returned Tom was already feeling a little better; he took the powder obediently and was soon asleep. Standing by the bedside Mrs Manson turned to Mansie and said gravely: ‘I’m afraid this is a serious matter, Mansie.’ Why did she look at him like that again? What had he done? Still it was good, in a way, that she should take it seriously; it would make the doctor’s suggestion less of a shock. And after standing out for a time she agreed at last to Tom’s going into the Western Infirmary.
A week later Tom was taken there, and a suspended calm, the calm that follows an inconclusive crisis, descended on the house. Tom was in good and secure hands, Mansie reflected; that was one comfort at any rate. But when one evening, while they were alone in the kitchen, Jean turned to him and said: ‘Mansie, what if it’s a tumour on the brain?’ he burst out angrily, ‘Don’t talk such nonsense!’ It was indecent to say such things. He got up abruptly, stuck on his hat, and left the house.
FOURTEEN
AFTER LEAVING THE office Mansie parted from Gibson, saying: ‘I’m going along to the Reformers’ Bookstall.’ He would put off the journey for a little while at least. But instead of making for the bookstall he wandered down Hope Street. It was deserted, for all the law offices were already closed. A belated message-boy, a sheaf of blue envelopes in one hand, hurried past him with the anxious look of one who has fallen so far behind in a race that he has lost all his companions. Mansie’s own anxiety stirred somewhere, threatened to awaken, then sank again.
He walked on in the chasm of shadow between the tall buildings; but when he came to the corner of West George Street he stepped into a level drive of light; the roofs and smokeless chimney-pots glittered, and looking down the hill he saw a yellow tramcar floating past amid a hurrying crowd of men and girls in bright dresses. And anxiety came over him again. He would have to take that tramcar some time; he couldn’t put it off indefinitely! Nevertheless he continued on his way, went into the Central Station and stood at the bookstall, his head half-turned to look at the crowds hurrying to their separate platforms. They seemed all to be flying to one point, like filings drawn by an enormous magnet. After the morning dispersion which had scattered them to their distant outposts, evening was gathering them together again, and on the faces that passed him there was a look: ‘We are coming.’ Yes, it was all very well for them. He thought of Tom and stood staring at a book on the stall which he had noticed there months before, and its persistent futile presence filled him with discouragement. ‘You and me,’ it seemed to be saying.
He bought an evening paper and walked out through the side entrance, crossed Union Street, climbed on to the open top of a yellow tramcar,
