Gloves - Part two

Did this old crone, who would have felt quite at home in Calvin's Geneva, guess that I nurtured rebellious instincts? I must have seemed so diaphanous to her who had suffered the death of three children from diptheria and two more through war, who had celebrated the Relief of Mafeking in 1899 and had travelled all over Canada before the First War in search of relatives exiled by the Highland Clearances. I'm certain now that she knew I'd thrown away the gloves and maybe if she had had the strength she'd have taken me into the bedroom and whipped me there and then. But it might have been merely a warning and maybe, if that was the case, I should have heeded it because I've been careless all my life, losing things, people and oppertunities either through laziness and inattention or else through subtler forms of deprecation.

There are certain matters in my description of my aunt's living room which I underplayed and some which I left out. For example, I minimized the matter of the orphans, whereas in fact they were to play a large part in my childhood fantasies later on, and I didn't mention the piano or the painting that hung above the side board or, when it comes to it, the ceiling painted dark blue and studded with silver stars.

Let's start with the painting; it thoroughly matched the context in which it found itself - it was dark and gloomy. The only thing bright about it was the heavy gilt frame in which it found itself. Maybe it had been hung there to act as a reminder of my grandmother's roots because in the foreground there were sheep standing by a loch and beyond this a chain of dark mountains ominously outlined against a a morbid sky. Perhaps I loved this heavily varnished painting just because it reflected a grief that I had to keep hidden even from myself. As for the piano, it stood by the window and its casing of cherry wood was always highly polished. Once, only once, did I dare to open the lid and with innocent fingers bang out a chord so dissonant that my aunt and mother shrieked their disapproval. Never ever - they said - do that again; and I didn't.

The orphanage was a different matter entirely; but how can I explain this fascination except by saying that my aunt's response had excited me with notions of freedom. Even though I loved my father I knew I would have been just as happy if I had had the company of other children and the adults had been mere salaried caretakers. This may seem strange but not so odd when you consider that all the people I have mentioned so far, and who are now long dead, were only my relatives through adoption. I was being inexorably remoulded and the deepest part of me was instinctively repelled by their efforts.

These old shoes are therefore a faint echo of that earlier rebellion.