5 Slow Courting
I must return to the aftermath of the Halloween dance. Low expectations left Douglas plenty of time to think about Louise. His hope of winning her had been dashed, but the little blind god is not to be foiled so easily and Douglas himself could be very determined when he wanted something. He had the advantage of seeing her every day and of sitting in front of her in Mr Lake’s classes. The slight stiffness in their meetings after the dance soon wore off.
So time passed pleasantly enough and little things convinced Douglas that he still had a chance with her. One was an incident which occurred on one of those favoured days which Edinburgh can experience even in November. Golden sunshine streamed through the high uncurtained windows of Craigton Hall, warming the classrooms and imparting a sheen to the dark old doors and bookcases.
‘Geography of the Roman Empire today,’ Mr Lake announced as he entered. A huge globe, which showed the nations of the world in relief, stood in the corner of his room. The class gathered round and took turns to feel the position of Italy, with the coast of north Africa curving below, as if the pendulum swing of the boot had worn it into a smooth crescent.
Louise seemed to position herself next to Douglas. He caught the scent of her soap in the warm sunshine.
Mr Lake explained how Rome had been a small settlement in the plain of Latium, watered by the river Tiber. He paused for each pupil to feel the depression of the plain on the globe’s surface and the large dot that stood for Rome.
‘Is that it there, Douglas?’ whispered Louise, pointing. Douglas put his hand over Louise’s and found the spot she indicated. An electric thrill shot through him, just as when he took her hand in the dance.
‘Yes, that’s the spot,’ he replied, letting his hand linger on hers. She withdrew it almost immediately. Still, he thought, she did make me touch it in the first place.
* * *
As winter weather set in, pupils were allowed to linger in the classrooms after school, instead of going out on to the drive or playground. This gave Douglas a chance to talk more with Louise. He would circulate among the little knots of chatting friends to linger, as if by chance, at her side. He was often conscious of playing gooseberry when Louise was in conversation with Danny Dangerfield, talking about music they both liked – the Peer Gynt Suite by Grieg, or Tchaikovsky’s second piano concerto. Douglas would throw in the odd remark, intended to impress Louise, but she seemed to have little to say to him. Feeling more than a little jealous, he began to ask his friends if they thought Louise had a boyfriend. He could get no very clear answer.
‘Honestly, I don’t think so,’ said Dick Greenslade, as they sat together one Saturday morning, oiling cricket bats that had not been put away at the close of last season. ‘Moira says she fancies Danny, but there’s no chance there. He’s leaving school after Christmas. So the coast will be clear for you.’
***
Douglas clung to the slight hope Dick had given him. The Christmas holidays came and went. On his return to Craigton Hall, things went on with Louise pretty much as before, except that Danny was no longer around. His departure created a place in the boy’s hostel and Douglas was sent to live there. This meant taking a short walk through the dark, wintry streets of south Edinburgh. He found it difficult at first to walk along the narrow pavements with no cane to protect him. There were a few hard encounters with lampposts and railings but, after a while, he acquired familiarity with the route and learned how to use the uneven pavement slabs under his feet as a track to keep him straight.
It had been his fervent hope that Louise would be promoted to the girls’ hostel. He could then have invited her to walk out with him, although, recalling the Halloween dance, he couldn’t be at all confident she would agree. However, the issue did not arise. The girls’ hostel had room for only one more girl and Moira, being a little older, was preferred over Louise.
This was very disappointing, but fortune soon took a more favourable turn. Louise had been allocated a piano practice in ‘the extensions’: a row of classrooms that had been added on to accommodate the growing roll. It was set apart from the main school building, at the other end of the gym. Consequently, no one ever seemed to visit it after tea until Riddell went round about 9pm to check that all lights were out and doors securely locked.
Douglas did his own practice here for half an hour between 6.30pm and 7pm and this entitled him to remain in the school when the other hostel boys were cleared out by the janitor. He was to have little talent as a performer, but the first scales and exercises offered no challenge and he worked at them diligently.
A few days into the new term, he noticed that someone was practising in the classroom next to his. He stopped his five-finger exercises and listened to this confident player. The piece was the first movement of the Moonlight sonata. It seemed to Douglas that the languid, romantic melody floated over the rippling surface of a lake. Douglas was almost sure the player was Louise and fell into a dream that they were together in a boat, drifting slowly under the moonlight, to land on the silvery beach of a deserted island.
Next day in class, Louise confirmed that she had been the performer and seemed pleased by his sincere compliments. Douglas learned that hers was a double practice, one hour rather than half, to enable her to prepare for the grade seven exam. When his next practice came round, Douglas hung on Louise’s playing long after he should have left off his own. The music was entrancing, as was his mental picture of her hands and feet touching the instrument. At last he could sit still no longer. As if drawn by a silken thread, he slipped from the room and knocked softly on Louise’s door. It yielded to a push.
‘It’s only me, Louise,’ he said, trying hard to prevent the rapid beating of his heart from affecting his voice.
She stopped playing abruptly and said, in a matter-of-fact way, ‘You shouldn’t come into my practice. It’s not allowed.’
‘Oh it’s all right. No one will see us if we keep the light out.’
Louise smiled inwardly at his naivety. It was very strictly against the rules of Craigton Hall to be with anyone in a practice room, far less with one of the opposite sex and the light out. Still, she thought, it might not be so dangerous over here in the extensions. The staff seemed unwilling to leave the main building on winter nights. So she offered no more resistance.
Douglas took a chair and sat down behind her piano stool.
‘I love the way you play the Moonlight,’ he said. ‘Would you play it for me again?’
Playing for him, Louise was somehow aware of his desire, sitting so close behind her. The silence around them intensified the romantic, dreamy music and aroused her senses to Douglas for the first time. At the end of the performance, however, she gave him no sign of her inward state. Instead she playfully criticised his method of practising, which was to go back to the beginning every time he made a mistake.
‘Don’t stop when you get it wrong,’ she said. ‘Just keep going.’
Douglas thought again of the Halloween dance. Was she telling him to persevere, he wondered?
Then she said she must go or the girls’ supervisor would miss her and be suspicious. ‘I’m already five minutes late,’ she said, picking up her music. Douglas agreed and they parted at the door.
* * *
A few evenings later, Louise was sitting alone in the dormitory, reading a romantic novel. It had made her feel randy and frustrated at the same time. What a boring life it had become at school, she thought. Every weekday you got up in the morning and washed. Then you went to breakfast. After that came morning school. Some of that was fine – poetry, music – but history, Latin, ugh! Then there was midday dinner and afternoon school. Then long evenings after tea, when very little happened except Guides on Mondays.
But the really boring – mind-numbingly boring – time was the weekend. She had long ago lost interest in the games of her girlhood. Once she had enjoyed racing on the specially adapted running track. It had wires to separate the lanes and each runner hooked a guiding handle on to their wire before setting off. Even more distant was the climbing frame on the lower green – the ‘jungle jim’ that had stood there long before she came to Craigton Hall, more than ten years since. It had given her the greatest buzz to jump from the top on to the grass. Now, in her mid teens, everything seemed dull and boring. Why were there no teachers around on Saturday mornings to organise something more interesting for them?
At home her sisters would be dressing to go down town with their friends, window shopping in Sauchiehall Street, eyeing up the talent. In the evening they would go dancing in the Palais and walk home afterwards with a boy and lie in on Sunday morning.
You couldn’t lie in on Sundays at Craigton Hall, far less go out dancing. Breakfast was only one hour later and then you got ready for church. The minister would go on about sin and salvation until your bum hurt so much on the hard wooden pew you thought you might never be able to walk again.
Then you formed up in a crocodile and proceeded back to Craigie, where you ate some revolting stew for dinner. After that there would be another crocodile and you went for a walk round Arthur’s Seat, or a tour of the museum in Chambers’ street, where you couldn’t see or touch the exhibits in the glass cases. What a pity, thought Louise, that the hostel had been full. At least she could have got out of this drab dormitory for a change.
The longing aroused by the novel had not subsided. How did you find love like that, she wondered? It was all very well being a heroine in Frenchman’s Creek. A bold seafarer might come and sail you away to adventure and love. Here you couldn’t even spend five minutes in the shrubbery with a boy you fancied without someone hunting you out.
Suddenly, with a cry of exasperation, she snapped her book shut, as though she had made a resolution. Going to the bathroom she washed her hands with scented soap. Then she walked briskly along the corridor and turned downstairs.
It was Tuesday evening, and Louise knew that the library, next to Mr Lake’s classroom, would be full of boys and girls, changing books. A mixed assembly of this kind was unusual at Craigton Hall. It was one of those social institutions that Major Royle had devised for innocent mixing of the sexes. Mr Macgregor was always in attendance and boys and girls could mix and chat on a strictly hands off basis. Young hearts being as they usually are, however, there was always a little flirting going on. Although Mr Macgregor was a blind teacher, he listened very hard for any hint that things might be going too far. Knowing this, the students mostly kept their distance.
Louise entered ‘the library’ (really Mr Macgregor’s classroom), which was crowded. Some 20 pupils stood about in little knots and a babble of conversation filled the place. She joined Dick and Moira, who were talking with Valery Manners. The conversation ran on Radio Luxembourg: what were the best programmes; who were the sexiest announcers?
At any other time, Louise would have joined in enthusiastically. Now she seemed dreamy and detached, dropping only an occasional remark. For once she had no interest in the radio conversation. Secretly she was listening out for Douglas.
She did not have long to wait before hearing his voice across the room.
‘I’d like a new book, Mr Macgregor.’
‘Did you have anything in mind?’
‘Louise Cummings told me The House of Fear is a good read.’
‘Yes, that should help your Braille speed. It’s a real page turner.’
Louise separated from the Radio Luxembourg fans and moved to a group nearer Douglas. Andy Noble and Danielle were laughing about some joke that he had just told. Closer now, Louise listened really hard. She heard Douglas take his book from Mr Macgregor and move to the far side of the room, probably to sit at a desk and read the first few pages.
Louise felt her heart trotting like a racing pony. He was alone over there in the corner. This was her chance.
So as not to draw attention to herself, she joined in the laughter and capering with Andy and Danielle for a while, making sure that Douglas could hear her. As soon as she judged that Mr Macgregor was absorbed in another conversation about a book, she made her move.
Douglas was already focused entirely on the thrilling sound of her laughter, but pretended to be absorbed in his reading. He had followed her every step as she moved closer to him. Could she really be looking for him? When she advanced right up to the desk where he sat, he could doubt no longer.
‘Hello, Douglas,’ she said, smiling. ‘Did I hear you borrowing The House of Fear? That’s a great story. I read it last year.’
For some time they pretended to converse casually about books they had read or intended to read. But neither had books on their mind. The hubbub of voices seemed to wrap around them, making them feel isolated in their own space. Louise drew closer to him as they talked. Her breasts touched him lightly and she did not move back. He put his arm round her waist and drew her closer. Her voice became a husky whisper. The pressure of her body increased against him. Both knew this was very dangerous. Embracing was a very serious breach of school rules and there was a high risk now that they would be caught doing it. Even if Mr Macgregor did not notice their silence and come to split them up, one of the sex police might happen along at any time and see them through the glass panels of the door.
Then a thought struck Douglas. Mr Lake’s classroom next door was empty. It could be reached by a connecting door from the library.
‘Let’s go through to Mr Lake’s,’ he whispered to Louise.
‘No,’ she murmured. ‘It’s not allowed.’
‘Neither is this,’ said Douglas. ‘Do you want to stop?’
‘All right,’ she said freeing herself suddenly, and walking quickly to the connecting door. Douglas followed her and shut the door behind him.
In the silent, darkened classroom, Douglas led Louise across to the teacher’s tall desk that stood at the front. Between this desk and the outer door of the classroom there was a high cupboard, jutting out from the wall. Douglas thought they could stand behind this desk and press close into the corner by the cupboard, so that they would not be seen, either from the window or the door, unless anyone actually walked in and switched on the light. He drew Louise into the corner and put his arms round her. To his surprise, she seemed completely passive now. Her arms hung straight down by her sides and she did not offer her mouth to be kissed. Douglas felt puzzled and a little disappointed. He had seen lovers embrace on the silver screen. During the clinch, the heroine’s long, sensuous hands should press the hero close to her breast and burning lips. But Louise just stood, allowing him to hold her close. She seemed to be waiting, but for what, he wondered?
There was only a short time remaining until the end of the library session. Too soon, as far as Douglas was concerned, the bell rang to summon everyone upstairs.
‘Good night, Louise, he whispered.
‘Good night,’ she whispered back and turned quickly away, leaving the room by the door to the corridor, so as to avoid passing Mr Macgregor in the library. Douglas listened wistfully to her footsteps retreating over the flagstones and vanishing up the girls’ stairs.
* * *
Back in the dormitory, Louise sat once again on the chair by her bed. Her heart was still racing, her breathing fast. She needed to calm down and work out the meaning of what had happened. It was certainly not what she had imagined when she snapped her book shut and went downstairs.
What had she thought would happen? Well, much the same as had happened before, with other boys. They just took what they wanted.
There had been Gordon back home in Glasgow, for instance. She recalled him now with a mixture of fondness and regret. He had been a couple of years older than her when he started making advances. At 12 she was already well developed and her figure had attracted him. One day he stopped her in the park near her home and fumbled with her breasts. She offered no resistance, enjoying the sensation, curious to see where this would lead, and glad that anyone at all was taking an interest in her.
Some days later, Gordon met her in the park and took her into a dense shrub border. Standing in the thick shade, he groped her through her dress.
‘Lie down,’ he commanded.
Louise had little idea of what he wanted or what was going to happen, but she felt excited rather than scared. Before she could obey, however, her mother’s voice called her from the gates of the park. She struggled away from Gordon, smoothing down her dress.
Somewhat to her regret, Gordon had not repeated his advances. But on her return to school that year, she had learnt to think that such behaviour was out of order. The girls’ floor had a new supervisor called Miss Black. She was young and outgoing and the teenage girls liked her. Miss Black formed a club for them and held discussions on ‘personal development’. She taught the girls that they should value themselves. You made yourself cheap if you allowed boys to take just what they wanted. They didn’t respect you for it. You should keep yourself for the man you would marry. Louise felt that Gordon must have thought her cheap, or he would have tried to see her again.
So she held herself aloof from boys at school when they made clumsy approaches. During that year a partial called Roy had invited her into the shrubbery with him. She refused, thinking of Miss Black. A few weeks later, Roy had sent one of his pals to tell her that he was waiting for her in the same place. Again she refused. Roy’s pal had seized her roughly and tried to drag her to Roy by force. She had struggled like a wild cat and managed to break away.
The incident made her furious. Miss Black had been right. Boys like that don’t respect you. From now on she would take good care that no one else should think she was just for the taking. But the need to love and be loved could not be denied. The flame was fed by romantic novels, dormitory confidences and the loneliness she now felt at the absence of Moira and Danny. In these circumstances, Douglas’s stock had risen. She had long found him interesting and, more recently, attractive. Why lose a lover by being over-choosy? So she went to the library, sought Douglas out and gave him the green light.
Douglas’s reaction had astonished her. She had expected directness in Mr Lake’s room. But Douglas had been so restrained. Why hadn’t he gone to work faster? It was so strange. Perhaps he found her unattractive, her breasts too big, for instance?
Louise had been blind from infancy and had never seen screen lovers. She took what came to her quite naturally. She had no idea she was supposed to wrap her arms round her hero and hug him close, letting him kiss her but nothing else. Miss Black had told her what not to do. No one, not even the authors of romantic novels, had clearly told her how to respond when boys made love. So Louise had just stood waiting.
* * *
Douglas was equally puzzled. It did not occur to him that Louise’s behaviour was natural and that his was the product of culture. He had relied on Hollywood for his standards of love making, slow at first, then a little turbulence, finally the passionate clinch.
But what came then? For quite a long time he had no idea. Then his friend, Jack, read to him from a book called Growing Up, which Jack’s parents had given him. According to this, boys were driven by their desire, which they found extremely difficult to restrain. Yet they must hold back, otherwise kissing and hugging would lead straight on to love-making and a baby would result. The book described the sequence in a matter of fact order and then invited the boy to consider the plight of the girl seduced. Girls, the authoress said, were far slower to reach arousal than boys. They felt little desire for sex unless a boy spent a long time kissing and touching them. That was why boys should hold back. If boys restrained themselves girls would feel no desire and no harm would ensue.
Douglas had a touch of chivalry in him, no doubt encouraged by novels. He wanted the love of a girl very much, but felt scared when he thought about it. Everything about it seemed very risky. Hetty Sorrel’s plight had appalled him, when he heard Adam Bede read on Woman’s Hour. It made him resolve that he would never be a seducer. He would never go too far.
So when female desire presented itself in the form of Louise, Douglas did not recognise it and would have been shocked if he had.
* * *
As Douglas’s first year at Craigton Hall advanced, Louise’s love for him grew and he began to acquire something of heroic stature in her mind. She admired his intelligence and courage in confronting his loss of sight and felt flattered when people mentioned his good looks. She was glad, too, that he was popular with his fellows. They admired the enthusiasm he threw into everything he did. Even his lack of football skills was overlooked because he was winning medals for swimming.
And now he was adding another feather to his cap. Miss Black and the girls’ gym teacher, Mrs Peterson, had started an American square-dancing club. ‘Some of these girls need to get their puppy fat off,’ they said. ‘Square dancing will be just the thing. No complicated footwork like Scottish country dancing and the calls help them to remember the figures.’
For two terms, therefore, the senior boys and girls gathered for square dancing in the gym on Wednesday evening. Four sets were formed, mostly by hauling the reluctant boys on to the floor and pairing them with embarrassed girls. The teachers tried to pair one total with one partial but, before they got round to Douglas and Louise, they had paired themselves.
After some weeks, Miss Inkerman, the music teacher, who was usually dry with her pupils, smiled indulgently on Douglas when he arrived for his piano lesson.
‘I hear you and Louise are turning into the best blind dancers in the school, even outshining most of the partials,’ she said.
‘Oh I don’t think I’m that good,’ Douglas said, modestly.
‘That’s not what I hear in the staff dining room. Everybody is talking about your enthusiasm and they love the way Louise is bringing it out. She has, they say, a surer sense of direction than you, and this reinforces your confidence.’
It was true. Douglas had heard Louise run like a hare up the school drive, veering neither to right or left. He hadn’t the nerve or the skill for that, lacking the exceptionally acute hearing of those who have been blind from infancy. Louise could actually hear the echoes of her footsteps as she ran. Every tree, every bush and the gaps between returned a characteristic echo. Having known them from her early childhood, they were as familiar as her own sisters now.
By the end of the school year, Douglas and Louise had been picked to take part in a demonstration set that was to dance for the Edinburgh public in Princes Street Gardens. Peggy Barr came to see the show and was filled with pride at the progress her boy had made in his first year at Craigton Hall.
‘You were great, son,’ she said. ‘So was that partner of yours. Such confidence. Is she really blind?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Louise, I think.’
‘You think! Well that’s rich! You’ve been practising all these dances with her and you hardly know the first thing about her.’
Douglas thought it best if his mother believed that.
* * *
In reality they had grown much closer, for the separation of the Easter holidays had intensified their mutual attraction. Before square dancing every Wednesday, they snatched a brief half hour of love in Mr Lake’s classroom. Trawler or Andy usually kept watch and Douglas taught Louise to wrap her arms round him. She soon warmed to the idea and hugged him close.
Such assignations were dangerous, of course, but there was an underground knowledge among some of the Craigton Hall pupils about the times when it was reasonably safe to meet. Staff were summoned to tea at 6pm by the ‘Boardie bell’. Before they assembled in the Board room, Jimmy Riddell was supposed to go round and lock all the classroom doors, but Mr Lake stayed late to take the Scouts on a Thursday night. On Monday nights there were Guides and, for those two terms, there was square dancing on Wednesdays. On three evenings, therefore, the classrooms had to be left open, as assembly points, until the staff finished tea at 7pm. In fact, the system of control was riddled by contradictions, which the underground resistance exploited cheerfully.
So Douglas and Louise began to meet two or three times a week in the room that had seen their first shy love-making. They stood close together in the friendly corner behind the cupboard. Douglas was slow in his courting. Louise loved to feel him pressed against her, but, mindful of Miss Black, gave no sign of her passionate feelings. She was a little vexed, however, at the slow progress, though she hardly admitted this even to herself. She would never surrender again to invasion, she told herself, but a little skirmishing at the frontiers might be exciting.
In other circumstances slow courting might have fizzled out. But Douglas had no serious competition and his style of wooing had a subtle appeal that grew upon Louise. For the first time in her young life she felt that a boy valued her for herself.
As the summer term advanced, Douglas took her on his knee, sitting on a chair behind Mr Lake’s big desk. At first Louise mostly listened while Douglas talked about his sighted experiences. He painted a graphic picture of his mother’s new council flat at Monkshill. From the sitting-room window, there was a magnificent view of the Fereneze Braes. The long range of hills stretched out like a crouching lion, so green in spring, so brown and shaggy in autumn. He also recounted for her the reading he had done in his father’s large book collection.
‘No wonder you know so much history and things,’ she said.
She was impressed too by his knowledge of current affairs. Mr Barr had shared with his son strong ideas about the Korean war. He said you couldn’t believe all the American propaganda, any more than that of the Communists. Louise sympathised. Her own father was a trade unionist and a strong Labour man. Unusually among Craigton Hall parents, he visited his daughter every Saturday and took her out to a local cafe for a meal, over which they talked sometimes about current affairs.
Sitting on Douglas’s knee, Louise felt warm and impassioned, yet marvellously secure. Douglas sometimes feared he might seduce her unintentionally. But mostly it was just so good being with her that he made no serious passes.
Nevertheless, they drew nearer to each other by imperceptible degrees, like the hands of a clock approaching noon. Douglas would lay his head on her bosom as she reclined on his knee. No Psyche ever cradled the head of Eros more tenderly than Louise cradled his. She loved examining his features, her fingers passing and re-passing over his face, tracing the smooth gulf of skin between his boyish stubble and the inlets of his ear. He tingled all over when her fingertips made a ski run over his forehead, his eyebrows, and then down his nose to his lips, which greeted them with a kiss. For her part, it was simple delight to kiss the hair of the head that drooped upon her, blowing gently through it, stirring it up like corn before a summer breeze.
Thus Louise and Douglas came to know each other better in those days of innocence. Neither saw, nor wished to think, of any future. The past, with all its frustrations, was falling far astern, as they floated blissfully on the ocean of love.
True they were hardly ever alone on these occasions. Other boys and girls drifted in and out, a few on trysts of their own, most in search of some other amusement. But these intrusions did not embarrass them. In the country of the blind, privacy requires no walls. True the partials could see them, more or less, in their corner behind the desk, but love was taken for granted among their friends, as natural as blossom in spring.
Far from regarding their friends as intruders, they welcomed them as useful look-outs for the sex police. One evening, Dick and Moira burst through the connecting door from Mr Macgregor’s room.
‘Here’s Starchy coming,’ Moira gasped. ‘We heard her keys rattling!’ There was not a moment to lose. ‘We can’t go out the corridor way, she’s nearly here.’
‘Quick, the window!’
Both couples darted to the pair of high windows at the back. It took some time to raise the heavy sashes, because Mr Lake had piled Braille books on the sills. As they drew up the windows, they heard Miss Starkey enter Mr Macgregor’s room and make for the connecting door.
‘Out of the window,’ hissed Dick desperately.
They threw themselves out one by one, landing on the soft turf of the lawn, just a few feet below.
‘Scatter, before she comes to close the windows.’
Moira grabbed Louise and ran off left. Dick seized Douglas and made for the right. It took the boys only seconds to vanish through the extensions and out of the grounds by a back gate.
The girls did not escape so easily, as Louise told Douglas next day. She and Moira had found their way blocked by a high wire fence, erected to protect the children against some maintenance works.
‘I couldn’t climb the fence,’ Louise laughed. ‘I had to pull up my skirt to get over!’
‘What would Starchey have thought you were up to if she’d seen that?’ said Douglas, wishing he could have seen it.
They heard later that Miss Starkey had thought someone extremely careless to leave the windows open and gave Riddell a stiff lecture about it.
* * *
This lucky escape emboldened them and they began to meet so frequently that it was only a matter of time before they were caught and brought to book. Fortunately, they were not entwined in one another’s arms behind the desk when Miss Starkey found them. Douglas was standing among a knot of friends, with his arm lightly round Louise’s waist, in full view of the classroom door. Miss Starkey had probably picked up some gossip about them, which was not difficult. She usually rattled her keys when walking along the corridor but, on this occasion, she held them tightly in her hand as she approached, and paused to look through the glass panel of the door.
The sight of the offending arm caused her to draw a sharp intake of breath. Turning the handle quietly she entered on her rubber-soled shoes. Creeping up to Douglas from behind, she roundly boxed his ears. Douglas imagined this to be the over-enthusiastic prank of a schoolfriend and wheeled round to confront his assailant.
‘How dare you,’ Miss Starkey quavered, rage adding to the usual tremulando of her voice. ‘Go to Major Royle’s room tomorrow morning after prayers.’
By this time Douglas had heard more stories of Major Royle’s efforts to constrain boys and girls to talk without touching. Boys who offended came in for harsh treatment. Dick, Louise told him, had been temporarily excluded for ‘indulging in silly calf love’ with Moira, though Moira had said it was wholly innocent.
Next morning, therefore, Douglas stood outside the Major’s door, expecting to be cashiered for conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman. The Major always took some time to emerge after prayers in the dining hall. Douglas heard him give instructions to Jimmy Riddell, then pause to listen to a whispered diatribe from Miss Starkey, which Douglas could not hear.
The stress on Douglas was almost unbearable by the time the Major strode up to his office door.
‘Come in, Barr,’ he ordered. ‘What are you here for?’ he demanded, though he must have known perfectly well.
‘Miss Starkey sent me, sir.’
‘Why did she send you?’
Sick with fear and embarrassment, Douglas paused before saying, ‘I had my arm round Louise Cummings, sir.’
The Major sighed a deep sigh. ‘That is something I cannot allow, Barr. You may think it only innocent fun to fondle a maiden, but those of us who are married know how easy it is to start that sort of thing and how difficult it is to stop. It’s rather like the nuclear chain reaction, you know. Once you start it going, it cannot be arrested.’
He paused to allow this topical reference to sink in. ‘You have a bright future before you, Barr. You are a clever boy and I hope you will stay here long enough to take the school Leaving Certificate and proceed to a professional career, perhaps in physiotherapy. But none of this will be possible if you become an affiliated person. Do you understand me?’
Douglas was not quite sure that he did. The Major could be very pompous, never using plain words if stilted language could be found. At this moment he was very much on his high horse because he would have been very uncomfortable on the ground. Nothing could have induced him to say something as straightforward as, ‘Look, Douglas, if you go on like this with Louise you run the risk of getting her pregnant.’ He was a true son of Victorian Edinburgh. His school regime was as buttoned up as the Victorian patriarchs, whose statues gazed down upon the streets.
And over all brooded the spirit of Sir Walter Scott. The blind school had been built like a baronial mansion, to shelter vulnerable youth from the unclean things that lurked in the back streets of industrial Scotland. Major Royle stood tall to repulse them, but nothing would induce him to name them.
Even if he had called a spade a spade, however, Douglas would not have believed him. He was also a child of Sir Walter, in his own way. He imagined his love for Louise as entirely pure. After all, love on the silver screen always ended with a kiss. Douglas imagined nothing between that and marriage. As the agony aunts in his mother’s magazines had said, the boy should treat the girl with respect and wait for the wedding night. Girls, he believed, had no thought of sex until they were aroused in the act of love. So when the Major went on, ‘You know, Barr, a youth can be seduced by a maiden as easily as a maiden by a youth,’ Douglas wanted to explain, man to man, that he was not like that, he would never go all the way. But how could you share confidences with a man whose words for boys and girls were archaic, even in Sir Walter’s time? He felt as tongue-tied as the older man, and just wanted to get out of the office as quickly as possible. He therefore said, ‘Yes, I understand, sir,’ and Major Royle said he thought there would be no need for any punishment on this occasion, as he felt sure that Barr would not repeat his offence.
Douglas, however, had no intention of bowing to the Major’s diktat. If he was a child of Hollywood, by Walter Scott, he was also a son of ‘Red Clydeside’. Freedom was his dearest prize and resistance to tyranny his highest aspiration. He had learned at his father’s side to love the sons of liberty, from Spartacus to William Wallace.
Douglas did not tell Louise the whole content of the Major’s ‘Dutch uncle’ lecture. He skipped over the chain reaction and the femme fatale stuff, but told her that the head had warned him to stop seeing her.
‘And will you?’ she asked, half fearfully.
‘No fear! Would you want that?’
For answer she put her arms round his neck and held him for a long time. Then she breathed, ‘Oh, Douglas, I couldn’t give you up.’
‘Then we must be very careful. There are only a few weeks left before the summer holidays. Next term you’ll be put up to the hostel and we will be able to go out together. Let’s play a waiting game.’