Innocents

... the falling of tears,
and a measure of sliding sand
from under the feet of the years.
(Swinburne)

‘Now,’ said Miss Baird as the collection was being taken, ‘Is there a birthday this week?’

A hand shot up and a ripple of relief crossed the Primary Sunday School. Jamie's birthday meant a treat. It meant too they could sing 'Comes a Birthday' - much nicer than 'Here we come with Gladness,' the standard offertory hymn.

On Miss Baird's nod, Mrs Veitch at the harmonium heaved herself into a curious rolling motion, swaying sideways with each shove on the pedals, like an ill-balanced steam locomotive viewed head-on. There was scuffling of feet and scraping of chairs, then, in piping Lanarkshire voices, the singing began.

'Comes a birthday once again,
'Happy day, oh happy day,
'Through the sunshine, through the rain,
'God has brought us on the way.'

All eyes were on Jamie as the second verse started. It was time for him to collect his sweets. Iron tradition required the birthday child, however shy, to march to the front, where Miss Baird solemnly counted out one boiled butterscotch for each year. The other children received a sweet each later. On weeks when there was no birthday, no-one got any.

'Father, let the new year be
'Bright and holy, sweet and true...’

A few steps, and he was up by the lectern, clutching five bonbons. Thirty pairs of eyes smiled at him; proudly he acknowledged their glance. After all, it wasn't every day the minister's son was five! At the organ, Mrs Veitch swayed on, skirt hitched up so her knees could work the swells unhindered. She too smiled, a kindly grin that creased her pleasant, silly face.

'Keep, oh keep us close to Thee
‘Day by day our whole life through.'

The hymn over, an expectant hush fell. 'Now,' said Miss Baird, 'Jamie will say the Birthday Words for us.’

This too was tradition. On birthday weeks, the child had to recite, with more or less prompting, a rote of grim platitudes drawn up by Kirk elders 150 years previously.

I will serve the Lord my God all the days of my youth.
Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord.
J.O.Y - Jesus first, Others next, Yourself last.’

Jamie finished his recitation, and looked round the still cheerful faces. Robin Crozier was smiling – Robin Crozier, the prettiest boy in the Sunday School, with his freckly grin, who opened and shut his thighs like frenzied bellows when he wanted the toilet but was too shy to ask.

Robin Crozier was smiling.

****** ******* *******

At Euston, a copy of the Glasgow Herald has been left on the train. He takes and glances through it to ease the tedium of commuting. In the ‘Deaths’ column he reads:

'Suddenly but peacefully, Crozier, Robin Grieve, dear husband of Christine, and father of Cheryl and Shane. No flowers please, donations to British Heart Foundation.'

He had picked it up for sentiment's sake, being a Southerner now, with neither intent nor wish to live in Scotland again. Still, he takes the paper home. A tune buzzes in his head throughout the journey. It stays with him as he drives from the station, and persists whilst he unwraps his sandwich from the fridge and fills the teapot. What is that tune, why should it haunt him now?

The recollection, when it comes, drops like silver through incense.

'Comes a birthday once again
'Happy day, oh happy day.’

He dives to the drawer where, in a stout bag, his mother's hymn-book is preserved among other mementoes. The contents tumble out - gloves, a wedding invitation, birthday cards for his 40th when, years back, he had given his very last party. Robin Crozier had sent a card then.

He turns eagerly to the index, but the hymn is not there. He calculates the tune’s metre and consults the metrical index, humming each first line till the melody is found. It is called Innocents.

He can still play, though not so well as once. At the piano, he laughs and sways sideways, just as Mrs Veitch used to. Time rewinds, and the piano becomes a harmonium – he pumps imaginary pedals, hitches an invisible skirt to press non-existent knee-swells. Pity there’s no butterscotch in the house, but at his age sweets bring middle-age spread, and he has quite enough of that already.

He sings the remembered lines a few times, then recalls that these words were not in the index. What verses have they set in this hymnal? His eyes wander to the text below the music staves.

‘Life is earnest, passing by,’
‘Death is earnest, drawing nigh.’

The music crashes in discord, stalls in a cry. Robin Crozier, ah Robin Crozier! Younger than himself, yet already gone. Miss Baird, too, and Mrs Veitch; it is all more than sixty years ago; they too are surely dead. Dead, all dead. Awareness of mortality sears him like early chill in autumn. He tries the tune again, but the new words have made it insufferable as tinnitus, while tears fill his eyes.

The moment passes. Evening sunlight quivers hesitantly on the piano’s dusty surface like a child unsure of its welcome. Slowly his heart warms. He is alive, he has been spared, things are not so bad. After all, only last week he managed to pick up a 19-year old lad, even though he did have to pay him. Whistling, he puts the hymn-book back in its drawer, turns on the TV and begins his meal. But even as the newscaster’s bright voice makes him smile at his brief silliness, the image persists of sand falling in a glass, stealthily, in sly trickles, steadily away.


	[Jim Scott] [A Boy A Book A Story] [Darkness] [Pat from Lancashire] [The Quaker Oats Man] [A Matter of Conscience] [Picnic] [Incident at a Railway Station] [Cauld Comfort Kail] [Moral Uplift] [The Soldier] [Madonna] [Hero of the Revolution] [The Messenger] [Tramlines] [Innocents] [Unlucky Dip]