The therapist could not believe that, so asked about my religion. I told him my mother had been a Catholic expelled from her local chapel when she married a Protestant, though my dad was not a church-going Protestant. His religion was money-making. To do so he congregated eagerly with Freemasons and Jesuits, Orangemen and Knights of Saint Columba. In Newton Mearns my wife attended a local Episcopalian Church, unlike me, though I had been friendly with her minister or vicar or whatever he was called: a decent man and one of the few Newton Mearns lot who still visited us. Like many non-religious folk I had a loose faith in a kind of God who was benign rather than punitive. I assumed God had the difficult job of managing the universe in ways that could not satisfy everybody. After all, He had made millions of microbes and insects that could only thrive by killing millions of bigger animals and we had given Him no good reason to prefer people to other forms of life. I was being deliberately provocative when I said that. Small signs had led me to think this soul-doctor, despite his Freudian jargon, was a Believer, though probably in a Jewish, Catholic or Protestant God rather than a Hindu or Mahomedan one.
“I have read,” (I added) “that even in our cleanest buildings the carpets and the upholstery contain whole nations of wee beasts fed by the protein from old, discarded skin. I must have more than doubled the population of such beasties in my house. Their delight in the nourishment my eczema showers on them may compensate God for the pain it gives my wife.”
With an effort my soul-healer kept his temper and said that many neurotic self-justifers made gods in their own image, but mine was the nastiest he had encountered. I disagreed, saying mine was a harmless image — nobody would kill or strike another in defence of it.
“But arguing about God,” I told him, “is as futile as arguing with God. Let us agree that his mercy and justice are beyond any understanding. Goodbye and good luck.”
That was a week ago and I’m not going back to him, though I feel our little chats did me good.
This morning I dreamed of wakening and lying naked on top of the bed, unable to move even a finger because my whole skin had stiffened into a hard rigid sheath. With a mighty effort I at last heaved myself up, feeling a delicious pang as the sheath cracked all over. Looking down I saw myself clad in a mosaic of parchment patches that began to move apart as their edges curled upward making them easy to pluck off. And what lay beneath was not raw cuticle but clean healthy skin. I awoke and found this was not so, but now believe that one day my skin will heal as unexpectedly as it diseased. Meanwhile my wee house-renovation firm, even without my controlling hand, is doing very well.
It will soon be quite a big firm again, thank God.
MISS KINCAID’S AUTUMN
WHEN LOCAL NICKNAMES were common I grew up in a place we called The Long Town, a name not printed on maps or railway timetables. It had council houses where coal miners lived, a high street of properties rented by our shopkeepers and tradesmen, and several mansions and bungalows owned by so few professional folk that everyone in the town knew them. Conversations about local affairs usually mentioned Big Tam Kincaid the Free Kirk Minister, also his son Big Sam, schoolteacher and Labour councillor. I knew both by sight, the first as a gaunt striding figure in the streets, the second as a stout one crossing the school playground. I was never Big Sam’s pupil but often heard his voice booming from an adjacent classroom. Joe Kincaid, a second son, was of usual height but in the merchant navy so hardly ever seen. Almost as invisible were Poor Mrs Kincaid and a daughter, Wee Chrissie, who were only mentioned in women’s conversations. When I asked why Mrs Kincaid was Poor my mother said, “Her men need a lot of her attention.”
I left The Long Town for university when television aerials had sprouted on most rooftops and the cinema had become a bingo hall. A job and a marriage kept me away from it but I often returned to visit my parents so saw the town change like the rest of Scotland. The railway and colliery closed. Cars and unemployment increased. Council houses took on a slummier look. At the edge of the town arose an estate of private houses, each with a garden and garage facing a circular drive. To discourage outsiders, it had only one way in, no through road and no shops, but it brought little extra business to the high street. The owners were commuters who mostly shopped in Glasgow or Edinburgh, where they worked. The wee shops of my childhood (baker, grocer, draper, sweet shop, newsagent, cobbler, clock mender) became mini-markets or shut forever.
I also heard that Poor Mrs Kincaid died, leaving Wee Chrissie as housekeeper. Big Sam became a headmaster, married one of his staff and brought her to live in the Free Kirk manse where his father was now a bedridden invalid. Soon after the wedding Sam’s wife left him and a stroke paralysed his legs, events so close together that gossip differed on which came first. Though confined to a wheelchair Big Sam fought bravely to keep his jobs as headmaster and local councillor. Having many sympathisers he succeeded for a while, but misfortunes had destroyed the joviality that had made his bullying ways bearable. Former colleagues joined with enemies and forced him to resign from both jobs. These colleagues had been his only friends; he now regarded them as traitors. Then his father died, leaving Sam alone with Wee Chrissie in the former manse. I asked if she had no friends. “I never hear of Miss Kincaid having visitors,” said my mother in a way that showed the nickname was not now appropriate, “though nobody dislikes her.”
I got divorced and between jobs lived with my parents for a whole summer. Single women visiting Long Town pubs were looked at with grave suspicion. I dislike bingo so joined an evening class on modern Scots literature held in the public library. The lecturer was an enthusiast who tried hard to hide a conviction that the best things about his subject had been his meetings with the authors who wrote it. When he failed to do so I sensed that a straight-faced woman beside me was trembling. I glanced at her sideways. She gave me a smile that showed she was holding in tremendous laughter. I smiled back.
We left the library together, fell into conversation and I was surprised to learn she was Chrissie Kincaid, whom I had always imagined a poor wee timorous beastie. This woman was as tall as most of us who don’t wear high heeled shoes. She was quiet and self-contained but keenly observant, with highly independent and broadminded views. Our parental homes lay in the same direction so I invited her back for tea. She sighed and said, “Alas, no. I regret my early training but it has made it impossible for me — a Kincaid! — to accept hospitality I cannot return.”
“Then return it. I’ll take tea in your house any day.”
“No you won’t.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t tell you because Kincaids never explain family matters to outsiders. Nor can we meet in a pub because female Kincaids don’t drink alcohol in public. Nor can we meet in a tearoom or café because The Long Town hasn’t one nowadays. But I hope you and I have another talk after the next evening class.”
Curiosity drove me to see her sooner. I had offered to lend a book. Two days later I took it to the former manse, a solid grey stately Victorian building with a tall monkey puzzle tree on the lawn. A brass bell handle, pulled, made a distant dolorous clanging somewhere inside. Two minutes later Miss Kincaid opened the door and looked at me with raised eyebrows. I gave her the book and was saying something about it when a great voice from behind her said, “No whispering! No secrets from me, Chrissie! Bring your friend in.”