O Caledonia

Janet rang the doorbell, was admitted and directed along the hallway towards Lila’s ground-floor room. A few people wandered about, looking normal if a trifle abstracted. A tall young man came towards her, smiling cordially. Janet smiled graciously back, making it clear that she was not one to be prejudiced against the deranged. As he drew level with her he suddenly bared his teeth and snarled. Janet’s kindly smile disintegrated, her heart thumped. She hurried along the corridor, tightly clutching her parcel. She wished now that she had not worn her new petticoat; it seemed to alarm people; they recoiled and stared after her as she went crackling by. Lila occupied Room 24. In the middle of the corridor outside her door a mountainous and ancient woman was moored in an armchair. Her flesh lapped over the sides; her manifold chins bristled like St. Uncumba’s. One of her eyeballs was rolled upwards so that only the white showed; the other swivelled sharply towards Janet. “Fit like, hen?” she inquired. “I’m very well, thank you,” responded Janet, banging on Lila’s door and simultaneously opening it. Lila lay in bed staring at the ceiling. “Hallo, Lila, I’ve come to see you,” Janet announced. “Oh,” said Lila. “Hallo,” she added. There was silence, broken by a series of squawks from the corridor, beyond the closed door. Janet tried to think of something to say. “How are you, Lila? Do you like it here?” “It’s all right really,” said Lila, still looking at the ceiling. “I’m just very tired. In fact I must go to sleep now.” She closed her eyes. The room was very small and white, the bed was white, Lila wore a white garment like a grocer’s overall, but back to front. There was no furniture, apart from a chest of drawers. Beyond the uncurtained window a great stretch of bleached grass ran down to the cliff edge. At least the sea was out of sight. A clothesline festooned with dusters and dishcloths flapped and flopped at the empty sky. Janet felt silly, standing there with her parcel. She wondered whether she could sit on the chest of drawers. Lila looked strange and small, asleep in the white bed, as though nothing had ever happened to her, she had never been anywhere, as though all her existence had contracted to this point and would proceed no further. The door burst open. In rushed a beak-faced little woman with stubbly hair like a collaborateuse.

She wore a child’s black velvet party frock, undone down the back and exposing a sweep of yellowed flesh. Janet looked at her with distaste, then was smitten with sudden pain by the innocent moulding of her spine. Her legs and feet were bare, and mottled with cold. “Gie us a fag,” she cried. “Come on, Lila, gie us a fag.” “I think she’s asleep,” ventured Janet. “Och, rubbish.” She shook open a drawer and seized a packet of Craven A. She stared at Janet; her eye fell on the parcel. “Fit’s in yon? Ye’ve brought us a giftie; awfy guid. Gie us.” She snatched the package and ripped it open. “Knickers, knickers, knickers. Knickers, knickers, knickers. These are for me; ye see I’ve nane.” She pirouetted, lifting her skirt. She spoke the truth. Janet averted her eyes, appalled. Nudity had no part to play in her life. “Please do have them, if they’re any use to you,” she began. “Oh, Lady Bountiful, oh, how too too kind.” Beakface was mimicking Janet’s voice; then she resumed her own. “I’ll have them whether you like it or no.

Milksop!

” she yelled and ran from the room. Janet heard her negotiate her way around the wheezing armchair woman. “And haud yer wheesht, ye muckle great sumph.”